As former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway confronted the spectacle of her anti-Trump husband, George Conway, publicly attacking her boss and his administration, she found she was not as alone in the White House as she often felt.
Conway’s memoir, “Here’s the Deal,” was published on Tuesday. In an excerpt in the New York Post, she described the complications of having her husband attack former President Donald Trump when she was one of Trump’s key advisers.
In the book, she said that “for the first time since George and I had gotten serious, I was looking at the possibility that the man who had always had my back might one day stab me in it.”
Conway wrote about a 2018 dinner at the home of Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner.
“Despite the regular practice of Jared ignoring me or icing me out,” she wrote, Conway hoped the invitation “could only be a positive one.”
However, George Conway said little during the dinner, she wrote, and in the aftermath of the gathering, he began firing off anti-Trump tweets with a vengeance.
An excerpt published by People described what came next.
“I DID GET some much-needed female support inside the White House, including from a colleague who happened to be the president’s daughter,” Conway wrote.
“Ivanka and I had a cordial relationship in the White House, though never as tight as we’d been during the 2016 campaign,” she said.
“Our work didn’t require daily contact, but we stepped in and stepped up together in the foxhole, sometimes as the only foxes in there. 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.”
Conway wrote that Ivanka Trump told her, “I am in a family of Democrats. I get it,” referring to some of the Kushners.
“In that moment, Ivanka was incredibly kind and supportive, reiterating that she knew how warmly her father and their entire family felt about me,” she wrote.
“A week after that conversation, and based on my stated openness to the idea, Ivanka came into my office (which was next to hers) and handed me a Post-it note. It had the names of two local doctors who specialized in couples therapy,” Conway said.
“I noticed she had avoided putting that in a text or an email. I appreciated the information and her thoughtfulness and wanted to pursue it. After I showed George the names, he rejected one and said a half-hearted ‘okay’ to the other while looking at his phone. We never went,” she wrote.
Conway said another Trump was on her side as she recalled a scene in which the president was talking by phone with first lady Melania Trump and expressing his anger at George Conway.
“Melania’s calm voice piped in immediately as my mouth closed and my eyes widened. ‘Donald,’ she said, ‘this is not her fault. And she is a big girl. Strong and confident,’” another excerpt said.
“Melania wasn’t done. ‘We don’t control our husbands — and you don’t control us!’” Conway wrote.
“Trump couldn’t argue with that,” she said. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I felt awkward and embarrassed that the president of the United States and the First Lady had to spend even a minute on this and yet felt relieved and protected from what was becoming an armful of harmful.”
Conway also wrote about a July 2019 confrontation with her husband, according to the Post.
“You abandoned me for Twitter and she’s not even hot,” she said she told her husband then.
Conway wrote that her marriage might be in jeopardy, according to People.
“George and I may not survive,” she said.
