President Donald Trump's coterie of high-profile White House aides and advisors is more of a reality TV show than an administration and Kellyanne Conway is its reluctant female lead, according to a Wednesday morning article at Politico.com.
“This is nothing I ever sought or expected,” Conway told the website in a phone interview on her way to board Air Force One. “It’s not as if I said to my children, ‘Mommy is running for governor, or starring in a new film, so attention will intensify and the unhappy people with poison keyboards will get nastier.’”
Conway, Press Secretary Sean Spicer, former Breitbart.com CEO Steve Bannon and the president's daughter and son-in-law are all larger-than-life characters in what Politico said is the president's newest reality show.
"The 'Apprentice' star-turned-president has created a reality show in the White House, with Americans eating up storylines of who is rising, who is fading and who is screwing up. It’s the opposite of how 'no drama Obama' dictated the tone and tenor of the West Wing," wrote Annie Karni and Tara Palmeri.
Republican strategist Rick Wilson, a fierce critic of Pres. Trump, said, "His minions become ancillary stars of the Real Housewives of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Donald Trump’s ego is this singularity, which draws everything into it. The demand for constant attention and media coverage has led people to focus on the minions in the same way.”
Conway has been a lightning rod for controversy since her days as a Trump 2016 campaign surrogate. She was installed as campaign manager last August by wealthy ultraconservative GOP mega-donors Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah.
Some TV networks threatened to no longer have Conway as a guest because of her tendency to stray wildly not only from the truth, but at points in the Trump administration's chaotic run so far, she and the president have appeared to be working from different talking points.
She coined the term "alternative facts" to defend Spicer's lies about the president's Inauguration Day crowd sizes and later invented a terrorist attack that didn't happen, the "Bowling Green Massacre."
Still, Conway told Politico, she takes it all in stride for the sake of the job.
“When people see me and they think of President Trump and it’s a positive connection, it makes me happy,” she said of the spotlight. “It makes the president even more accessible with the public.”
