Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to President Donald Trump who some have speculated could become Chief of Staff, is at war with the Washington Examiner.
Conway was interviewed by one of the publication’s reporters, Caitlin Yilek, in what, Conway said, was supposed to be an off the record chat.
But Yilek denied that, saying that Conway threatened her and that somehow made the conversation not off the record.
Kellyanne Conway disparagingly told me it was improper to write about her husband and threatened to investigate my personal life in a conversation she thought was off the record. It wasn’t. washingtonexaminer.com/news/powerful-…
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“Kellyanne Conway disparagingly told me it was improper to write about her husband and threatened to investigate my personal life in a conversation she thought was off the record. It wasn’t,” Yilek said with a link to the story.
“Other than it looks to me like there’s no original reporting here, you just read Twitter and other people’s stuff, which I guess is why you don’t pick up the phone when people call from the White House because, if it’s not on Twitter or it’s not on cable TV, it’s not real,” she said.
“Respectfully, of course, it’s just lazy to talk about somebody’s Twitter feed. Do you talk about other people’s spouses in your pieces, because I’ve been looking around, I haven’t learned a single thing from any of your pieces, and I’m just wondering if you routinely talk about people’s spouses?” she said. “Why is it relevant here? George’s position is what?”
“Let me tell you something, from a powerful woman. Don’t pull the crap where you’re trying to undercut another woman based on who she’s married to.
“He gets his power through me, if you haven’t noticed. Not the other way around,” Conway said.
But Yilek responded by saying she was just doing her job and doing “what my editor told me to do.”
“Are you an expert on my marriage? Are you an expert on my job? Are you an expert on the way this White House works? Are you an expert on Twitter?” Conway said.
“I mean, what exactly are you an expert on that would qualify you to say, to characterize the way I feel?” she said.
But it was the last comment by Conway, that came at the end of the call, that Yilek took as a direct threat to her.
“So, listen, if you’re going to cover my personal life, if you’re going to cover my personal life, then we’re welcome to do the same around here,” she said.
“If it has nothing to do with my job, which it doesn’t, that’s obvious, then we’re either going to expect you to cover everybody’s personal life or we’re going to start covering them over here.”
After the Examiner published the transcript and the audio of the phone call Conway went on the attack against the publication again.
The false tweet below makes my point about how dangerous it is to characterize someone else’s intentions, feelings, or state of mind, even if it’s for clicks and kicks. twitter.com/hausofcait/sta…
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“The false tweet below makes my point about how dangerous it is to characterize someone else’s intentions, feelings, or state of mind, even if it’s for clicks and kicks,” Conway said.
“What I said on that call I’ve said publicly on-the-record before, including on TV, in speeches, in driveway gaggles with reporters,” she said in a statement.
“I did NOT indicate the call was off-the-record, but the reporter certainly thought it was. Toward the end of the call, she asks if I’d like to put something ‘on the record.’”
“I’ve inquired publicly previously why and when some reporting has been reduced to palace intrigue, or some threadbare combination of reading Twitter, repeating TV and cutting and pasting someone else’s story,” she said.
“Why is it oriented toward ‘getting the person’ rather than ‘getting the story’? That seems more to get something off the chest of the writer than into the mind of the reader,” she said.
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