Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway criticized the White House Correspondents’ Association’s statement distancing itself from comedienne Michelle Wolf during an exclusive Monday interview with The Daily Caller.
Wolf delivered a controversial monologue Saturday night at the WHCA’s annual dinner, which critics have claimed was personally nasty to Conway and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
WHCA President Margaret Talev said in a Sunday statement that the dinner “was meant to offer a unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press while honoring civility, great reporting and scholarship winners, not to divide people. Unfortunately, [Wolf’s] monologue was not in the spirit of that mission.”
Conway criticized Talev’s statement Monday saying “It was late, and it was generic,” yet she noted that “both events on Saturday were great for the President,” referencing his decision to skip the dinner and hold a rally in Michigan instead.
“The WHCA elevated an individual and the discourse that came with that at the same time this President is elevating Mike Pompeo to Secretary of State, and Korea is on the verge of ending decades of war,” she told TheDC. “So we win.”
Conway launched into blistering criticism of the press corps writ large saying the dinner “proved the point that so many Americans have when they look at the mainstream media, that too many people are not there to get the story but to get the President.”
“The press corps that covers that the Trump White House should just admit that he’s great for business, they should acknowledged their speaking fees have increased, their name identification has increased, they have agents, they pose for magazine spreads. The President is probably right that they would probably shrivel up if he wasn’t the President.”
In Conway’s mind, the most “regrettable” part about Wolf’s performance was that it overshadowed the night’s scholarship winners.
“They took them from behind the curtain, briefly said something, and that was it,” the White House adviser explained. “Anybody who says that purpose of the dinner, that’s the centerpiece, that’s been proven untrue.”
Conway brushed off Wolf’s specific targeting of herself and Sanders saying “this is just another day at the office for Sarah and me, we’re attacked like that continuously, and I know the media know that because they all live on twitter.”
She added that “those that dish it out literally can’t take it. There is no evidence that members of the press corps could stand in mine or Sarah’s shoes, take the kind of criticism and invective and personal insults that are hurled at us. If you think our children don’t see that, you’re sadly mistaken.”
She observed how in the fallout from the evening, media members were “really shivving each other trying to distance themselves from individual members in the WHCA. They’re blaming the President of the association, they’re blaming the board, they’re blaming everyone on the dais.”
“It’s fascinating for me to watch,” she remarked. “You have proven yourself to have very little capacity to any of us, and that’s ironic because in the Trump White House, our sins live forever.”
