She's Kellyanne Conway, pollster, GOP activist, and President Donald Trump's former campaign
manager-turned-counselor.
But how much do you really know about her?
Here's the truth about Kellyanne Conway.
Way before President Trump and the White House, Conway worked in a much different field, as
in, literally a field.
At the age of 12, she received a special farmworker permit to pursue a job in hand-packing up
to 300 crates per day of blueberries at a farm outside of Atlantic City, New Jersey.
By 1987, she was so skilled at packing blueberries that she entered into a blueberry speed-packing
contest, which she managed to win, in true political fashion, after a recount.
She was also runner-up at a "Blueberry Queen" beauty pageant.
Apparently, Conway has always been ambitious.
The White House counselor's mom, Diane Fitzpatrick, backed this up when she described her daughter's
response to daycare at age 3.
Fitzpatrick recalled to The Press of Atlantic City,
"She went one week and said, 'I'm not going back.
All they do is play all day.'"
The secret to Conway's determination might have something to do with her temperament,
as her childhood friend described to the outlet, saying,
"She doesn't have a stress level.
I have never seen her to feel stressed, personally or professionally.
She is always someone you can count on."
It's safe to say the political aide essentially needs to keep her cool 24/7 in the current
political climate, so it's a good thing she's immune to stress.
Some people reportedly call Conway the "Trump whisperer," according to The New Yorker, which
is interesting considering she hasn't completely succeeded in getting the president to back
down from his controversial statements and Twitter rants.
But it's possible she was successful in softening his image with women in the weeks leading
up to the election.
According to the Washington Post, exit polls show that 61 percent of white women with no
college degree voted for the real-estate mogul over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in
the 2016 presidential election.
So how does she manage to control Trump?
Child psychology, of course.
As parents of young children know, it's usually more effective to offer kids choices than
try to tell them what to do.
Conway illustrated that point to The Washington Post with an anecdote about her daughter wanting
to wear turquoise instead of blue on Memorial Day, and the publication said she uses the
same methods to communicate with Trump, which are:
"Never command.
That could insult him.
Always make suggestions, backed with information in 10-second soundbites."
Conway and her husband, George Conway, have reportedly been involved in lawsuits and other
attacks directed at Bill and Hillary Clinton for decades.
Kellyanne, for instance, has attacked the Clintons as a conservative commentator on
TV shows for years.
As for George, according to The New York Times, he unofficially worked on Paula Jones' sexual
misconduct case against President Clinton and even participated in "a practice argument"
with Jones' legal team, which argued before the Supreme Court that a sitting president
could still face a civil lawsuit while in office.
The court agreed, paving the way for the infamous Jones trial to go forward.
That trial subsequently gave us the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the eventual impeachment
proceeding.
Ironically, the precedent set by that legal decision means that Trump can now be taken
to court for any of the dozens of pending lawsuits he's faced since taking office.
Still, Kellyanne denies any further obsession with Hillary.
"We don't care about her.
Nobody here talks about her.
Hey Chris, nobody here talks about Hillary Clinton, I promise you."
Kellyanne Conway reportedly met Donald Trump in 2006 when she was a resident of Trump World
Tower in Manhattan.
She even served on the condominium board, and told The Washington Post,
"[Trump] seemed surprisingly hands-on, showing up at meetings to hear the residents' concerns."
Trump and Conway stayed in touch, and Trump reportedly called his new pal occasionally
to ask her opinion on various issues.
Obviously, that relationship continued to deepen, with the two even spending time together
outside of work.
Then, in early December 2016, president-elect Trump and Conway attended a costume party
on Long Island.
While Trump didn't wear a costume, he was spotted posing with the mom of two, who was
dressed as Superwoman.
Although some people might view this friendship as sweet, there are other people who think
Conway goes too far in protecting her boss and pal.
Case in point: Conway's husband, George, despises Trump and has reportedly been telling people
his wife is in a "cult," as Vanity Fair reported.
To put it mildly, George Conway and his wife's boss, President Trump, do not get along.
George even went on the Skullduggery podcast in November 2018 to implicate Trump for ruining
the Republican party, stating,
"I don't feel comfortable being a Republican anymore.
I think the Republican Party has become something of a personality cult."
"This assertion that the President is truthful is beyond belief."
Then in October 2019, he published a scathing op-ed in The Atlantic against the president,
titled, "Unfit for Office."
Of course, Trump isn't a fan of the lawyer's jabs.
In March 2019, Trump tweeted,
"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.
I barely know him but just take a look, a stone-cold LOSER & husband from hell!"
"He's a whack job, there's no question about it, but I really don't know him."
The bitterness between Trump and George has supposedly put a strain on Kellyanne's marriage,
and a source told Vanity Fair,
"It's not going to get better until she's cast out of the cult."
George has since formed a super PAC against Trump's reelection bid, and Kellyanne is still
loyal to her employer.
When President Trump originally approached Kellyanne about a position in his campaign
in March 2015, she reportedly turned him down and opted to work for a super PAC on behalf
of then-Republican presidential candidate and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
During her time there, the PAC launched attack ads against Trump, including one that supposedly
claimed Donald Trump supported universal health care, as Politifact noted.
Conway also bashed Trump directly on CNN in February 2016.
"He says he's for the little guy, but he's actually built a lot of his businesses on
the backs of the little guy."
And in another interview, she wished for Trump to be more "transparent" with his elusive
tax returns.
"It's completely transparent, Donald Trump's tax returns aren't, I'd like to see those
be transparent."
After Cruz's Republican primary bid fell apart, Conway came aboard as an adviser for Trump
in July 2016, eventually replacing Paul Manafort as Trump's campaign manager.
That was because Manafort was sidelined over allegations of secret payments from pro-Russian
groups in the Ukraine, according to the Washington Post.
There have been many unflattering portrayals of Conway throughout the years, especially
where it concerns her supposed duplicity.
Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski brought this to the public's attention in May 2017,
accusing the White House counselor of playing two sides while trying to promote then-candidate
Donald Trump on her show.
According to the Washington Post, Brzezinski claimed at the time,
"She would get off the air, the camera would be turned off, the microphone would be taken
off, and she would say 'Blech, I need to take a shower,' because she disliked her candidate
so much."
"We know for a fact she tries to book herself on this show, I won't do it because I don't
believe in fake news or information that is not true."
Author Cliff Sims, who published Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White
House in January 2019, echoed a similar sentiment about Conway in his book.
After observing the commentator during his behind the scenes time in the White House,
he wrote,
"Kellyanne was playing a double game, putting a foot in both worlds, telling Trump and his
supporters on Fox one thing, while bad-­mouthing them to the 'main­stream' media in private...It
became hard to look long at her without getting the sense that she was a cartoon villain brought
to life."
According to author Michael Wolff's January 2018 book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump
White House, few folks on the Trump campaign, including President Trump, thought he was
actually going to win.
Wolff claimed that on election day 2016, Conway allegedly spent the day making calls to her
political allies, blaming what she believed to be an impending loss on former White House
Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and planning ahead for a potential future job in cable
news.
Wolff wrote,
"[Conway] briefed some of the television producers and anchors with whom she'd built strong relationships,
and with whom, actively interviewing in the last few weeks, she was hoping to land a permanent
on-air job after the election."
Whether or not this is true, it's important to note Wolff wasn't afraid to ask Conway
the tough questions right to her face.
In April 2017, they engaged in a public discussion held at the Newseum, where Wolff essentially
told Conway that the media viewed her as an adversary.
"I'm gonna tell you, when they say democracy dies in darkness, you're the darkness."
"I'm not the darkness."
President Trump isn't the first controversial politician Conway has dealt with.
In 2012, she was working for the campaign of Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, who essentially
screwed up his political aspirations when he made an uninformed comment about human
biology, specifically pregnancy, to KTVI.
"If it's a legitimate assault, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing
down."
Akin's statement drew outrage for a variety of reasons.
But Conway, at the time a consultant for the Akin campaign, defended him with an uncomfortable
metaphor.
In an interview with the conservative Family Research Council, Conway predicted that Akin
would be able to weather the controversy, comparing his resolve to that of embattled
cult leader David Koresh.
She said,
"The first day or two where it was like the Waco with the David Koresh situation where
they're trying to smoke him out with the SWAT teams and the helicopters and the bad Nancy
Sinatra records.
Then here comes day two and you realize the guy's not coming out of the bunker.
Listen, Todd has shown his principle to the voters."
Akin lost in a landslide.
One of the more complicated sides to Conway is her relationship with feminism.
When asked if she'd call herself a feminist at an event in February 2017, for instance,
she told Business Insider,
"Its difficult for me to call myself a feminist in the classic sense because it seems to be
very anti-male and it certainly is very pro-abortion in this context.
And I'm neither anti-male or pro-abortion, so."
What's curious about Conway's statement is she grew up in an arguably feminist household.
She was raised by a single mom, her grandmother, and two aunts, one of which runs a catering
business in New Jersey.
Despite the strong women in her background, however, Conway continues to ruffle feathers
with her questionable comments about women versus men.
When asked about the secret to her success in breaking through to a male-dominated field
in a male-dominated party, Conway told Time,
"My comfort level came in learning how to think like a man and to behave like a lady."
Even before entering the national conversation as a political figure, Conway had a way of
getting herself in the spotlight, sometimes literally.
Around the time of President Trump's inauguration, a video was unearthed showing Conway delivering
a stand-up comedy set that concluded with an a cappella song.
The routine was reportedly recorded at "D.C's Funniest Celebrity Charity Event" in November
1998, and in the footage, Conway riffs on the news personalities and current events
of the day.
She's still the same fearless public speaker who is clearly comfortable in front of the
camera, no matter the reception, and that probably won't change anytime soon.
Because as Conway noted in a March 2019 interview with CNN, she's a fierce competitor when it
comes to verbal sparring.
Speaking about her rise to the top, she said,
"I realized, that if anybody was trying to throw logs in my path, they couldn't get past
me speaking directly, one-on-one."
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