Former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway defended her president’s legacy Friday night, telling HBO Real Time host Bill Maher: “You can’t deny that many people are better off.”
“Well, they are not better off now,” replied Maher. “Many of them are dead.”
Johns Hopkins University estimated the number of deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. at 391,789 on Saturday, with 3,258 deaths on Friday and a number of cases of 23.5 million.
Also on Friday, Joe Biden labeled the Trump administration’s vaccine launch as “a grim failure”.
Conway insisted that “the real disappointment for people like me is that the last two months, say from November 6 to January 6, were not spent mainly talking about achievements, reviewing achievements. He built the biggest economy we had ”.
Maher replied that the US economy was “practically built” when Trump succeeded Barack Obama. He did not mention Covid’s catastrophic economic impact and sloppy response. The unemployment rate in the United States is 6.7%, with new claims skyrocketing.
Conway’s reference to January 6 was revealing. That was the day that Trump told his supporters in the White House to “fight like hell” to reverse his electoral defeat, which he did not admit and which he unreasonably claims was the result of electoral fraud.
A mob broke into the United States Capitol, resulting in five deaths – one from a police officer who faced the attackers, another from a riot shot by the police – several arrests, fear of further attacks and reports that some of them looted the federal government headquarters with the intention of capturing lawmakers and killing them.
Trump ended up saying he repudiated the violence, but he was nevertheless accused in the House of Representatives for inciting the attack. He is expected to leave the White House on Wednesday, when Biden will take office, but will still face a Senate trial. Mike Lindell, chief executive of My Pillow and informal adviser to Trump, was seen at the White House on Friday carrying notes that appeared to defend the enforcement of martial law.
Conway is a former Republican operative whose curriculum now includes five years as an adviser to the only twice-accused president, an obstinate defender who found infamy claiming that Trump was selling “alternative facts” and for blaming refugees for a terrorist attack, the “Bowling Green massacre. “, This never happened.
She left the White House in August, saying she wanted to spend more time with a family divided by Trump – her husband is attorney George Conway, one of the founders of the Lincoln anti-Trump Project, while her daughter Claudia made her name with criticisms of the president on the social networks. Conway campaigned for Trump in November and for Republican candidates in two second rounds of the Senate in Georgia in January – disputes that Democrats won, thus taking control of the chamber.
Conway told Maher that the Capitol rebellion was “horrible, inexcusable, shameful” and said “justice must be done”. She added: “The past week has been an ordinary one. There is no place for violence and vandalism. I wish the president had talked to people earlier to get them out.
“I managed to speak to him. I said to the person next to them, ‘Please add my name to the chorus of people who just say,’ You have to tell them to go. I don’t know what they are doing, why they are there, but tell them to leave ”.
Maher asked if Conway “would admit that the reason they were there is because he never granted the election.” She told Maher that she acknowledged Trump’s defeat “a long time ago.” In fact, she did so on December 4, a month after election day and long after the dispute was called to Biden.
“I think these murders and looters insult, not represent, the Trump movement,” insisted Conway, adding that Trump represented “the forgotten man and woman” and saying, “74 million people are not a base – it’s a large percentage of parents “.
More than 81 million voted for Biden, who also won the electoral college 306-232, a result that Trump said was an overwhelming victory when he went in his favor over Hillary Clinton.
Maher pressed Conway over Trump’s lies and insults, reading a list of barbs that Trump threw at him and a list of things that kindergarten students don’t know how to do – lie, intimidate, brag, mock the handicapped – which Trump did in his position of power.
Conway dodged such volleys with ease, saying she was proud to have been a woman with an active voice in White House political debates.
Conway and Maher have a history, from their days presenting Politically Incorrect to ABC. Writing for the Daily Beast on Friday, Marlow Stern said the comedian “could have done a better job of keeping his feet on the fire”.