Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to former President Donald Trump, has a new memoir, “Here’s the Deal,” which releases on Tuesday.
The book, which has been largely under wraps, focuses on what she thinks about politics, media, her time in Washington and her personal life. Here is some of what she had to say about her husband, Jared Kushner and Melania and Ivanka Trump.
On George Conway
She wrote about feeling stuck between her boss, Trump, and George Conway, Trump’s fierce critic.
“On one side was my marriage and my husband. On the other was my job and my boss. George was mixing the two of them in a highly combustible manner,” she wrote, referring to “his daily deluge of insults-by-tweet against my boss — or, as he put it sometimes, ‘the people in the White House,’” according to an excerpt published in People magazine.
“Don’t assume that the things he says and does are part of a rational plan or strategy, because they seldom are,” George Conway wrote, in one instance of him criticizing Trump on Twitter. “Consider them as a product of his pathologies, and they make perfect sense.”
“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,” Trump wrote on Twitter in 2019, per The Washington Post. “I barely know him.”
On Jared Kushner
She reserved her sharpest criticism for Jared Kushner, whom she calls “shrewd and calculating,” according to excerpts of the book published in The Washington Post.
“There was no subject he considered beyond his expertise. Criminal justice reform. Middle East peace. The southern and northern borders. Veterans and opioids. Big Tech and small business,” she wrote.
“If Martian attacks had come across the radar, he would have happily added them to his ever-bulging portfolio,” she added.
“He’d have made sure you knew he’d exiled the Martians to Uranus and insisted he did not care who got credit for it. He misread the Constitution in one crucial respect, thinking that all power not given to the federal government was reserved to him.”
On Melania and Ivanka Trump
Kellyanne Conway shares anecdotes of finding support from other women while working in the White House — Ivanka and Melania Trump, the former President’s daughter and former first lady, specifically.
“On occasion I’d come to her for big decisions regarding her father, and she’d consult with me about how to handle this or that. Ivanka offered empathy and an ear,” she said, per the excerpt published in People.
“Ivanka and I certainly had one thing in common now: Both Jared and George were often referred to as ‘husband of ...’” Conway said.
In one instance, the former president was venting to his wife about George Conway and his series of hateful tweets against him.
“Melania’s calm voice piped in immediately as my mouth closed and my eyes widened,” she wrote. “‘Donald,’ she said, ‘this is not her fault. And she is a big girl. Strong and confident.’”
“Melania wasn’t done. ‘We don’t control our husbands — and you don’t control us!’”