National Post (National Edition)
Trump savages spouse of top aide
WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump on Wednesday escalated his feud with the husband of White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway, calling him a “wack job” and “husband from hell.”
Trump’s broadside against George Conway, a conservative lawyer and frequent critic of the president, began early Wednesday on Twitter as Trump responded for a second day in a row to Conway’s suggestions that his mental health is deteriorating.
“George Conway, often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway by those who know him, is VERY jealous of his wife’s success & angry that I, with her help, didn’t give him the job he so desperately wanted,” Trump wrote. “I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!”
Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, Trump said “Kellyanne is a wonderful woman. He’s doing a tremendous disservice to a wife and family.”
George Conway responded less than 20 minutes after Trump’s morning tweet.
“You seem determined to prove my point. Good for you!” he wrote on Twitter, adding :“# Narcissistic personality disorder .”
In a subsequent tweet directed at Trump, he added: “You. Are. Nuts.”
Kellyanne Conway defended Trump during an interview with Politico on Wednesday, calling him a “counterpuncher.”
“You think he shouldn’t respond when somebody, a nonmedical professional, accuses him of having a mental disorder?” Conway said, according to the publication. “You think he should just take that sitting down?”
George Conway has pushed back on several of Trump’s assertions, including the notion that Trump decided not to give him a job.
Conway said Tuesday that he opted against working in the Justice Department after Trump offered him a position heading the civil division because he watched Trump attack the department’s leaders and then fire James Comey as FBI director in May 2017.
On Wednesday, Conway shared a letter he wrote to Trump, dated May 31, 2017, in which he thanked Trump for selecting him for the job but said he was backing out.
“I have reluctantly concluded, however, that for me and my family, this is not the right time for me to leave the private sector and take on a new role in the federal government,” Conway wrote.