"It ended up that the No. 1 story (Sunday) was Hillary Clinton falling in front of that van and, ultimately, her pneumonia diagnosis," Kellyanne Conway said Monday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "The No. 1 story yesterday should have been 9/11."
Conway declined to speculate about Clinton's health, but she praised her boss' "energy and stamina" and then changed the subject to her describing many Trump supporters as a "basket of deplorables."
"She feels so comfortable to tell a bunch of, you know, monied fat cats on Wall Street what she really thinks of people," Conway said. "I think one of the most candid moments for Hillary Clinton came Friday night, when she actually -- we got her true feelings about what she thinks about tens of millions of Americans. That is so personally offensive to me -- I grew up with laborers."
She suggested Clinton had intentionally insulted military service members who back Trump or county fair attendees who wait in line to meet him, and that led to a testy exchange with co-host Mika Brzezinski.
The "Morning Joe" co-host said Clinton was referring specifically to Trump supporters who support a Muslim ban or express racist or misogynist views that violate fundamental American values.
"Then why did she apologize?" Conway asked.
Brzezinski said Clinton expressed regret for her choice of words and for describing half of Trump voters as worthy of condemnation.
"We're still waiting to hear your candidate say that he thinks the president was born in this country," Brzezinski said. "There is a long list of things he has said that he has not apologized for that really are deplorable. How do you confront that and then find yourself able to call out Hillary Clinton on something that she actually has apologized for, when your candidate is not accountable for anything he says -- not one thing?"
Brzezinski slammed Trump for claiming on Sept. 11 weekend that Clinton could shoot someone in the heart and not be prosecuted, and she asked Conway if that type of language was acceptable.
"He was using it as an example of what she could get away with by the media, and that's probably true given the fact that, again, she treats the media like second-class citizens," Conway said. "Everything that he has said has been vetted and talked about on this show and elsewhere, probably hundreds of thousands of times."
She then continued her attack on Clinton for pointing out the hateful views expressed by many Trump supporters.
"What's not okay is for Hillary Clinton to malign the character and the intention of millions of people, Mika, and then pretend she's apologizing by repeating the same criticisms," Conway said. "She couldn't have just said, 'I'm sorry if I offended anyone,' or, to coin a phrase in North Carolina last month, 'I regret causing personal pain.'"
"She didn't say that," Conway continued. "She said, 'I shouldn't have said half.' She's quibbling with the numbers. She's not apologizing to hard-working Americans for calling them all these terrible insults, and you know what? The problem for Hillary Clinton is, when you see her in her own words, when you see her yesterday and when you see her on Friday night, in front of the people at (the) Cipriani (Club) who were laughing, and shame on them, as well, by the way, who were laughing -- they think it's so funny -- when you see her and she can't go back and blame the vast right-wing conspiracy, that's Hillary Clinton."
Conway claimed to be working for "a very brilliant man," and Brzezinski drolly dissented.
"It seems like a lot of what Donald Trump says is not based on knowledge," Brzezinski said. "Does your candidate have the knowledge to be president?"
Conway insisted he did, and Brzezinski pressed her for specific details about what Trump knows about Russia.
"He knows enough to know that, when he's president, we're not going to get pushed around," Conway said.
