‘What’s Your Ethnicity?!’: Kellyanne Conway Snaps at Reporter for Asking About Trump’s Racist Tweets

Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway had a near meltdown during a press gaggle with White House reporters on Tuesday, demanding that a reporter reveal his ethnicity when he pressed her to clarify something she said earlier about the racist tweets Trump aimed at four Democratic congresswomen this weekend.

One of those tweets had referred to the four women coming from countries “whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe,” then followed up by suggesting they “go back” to those “crime infested places.” Since then, Trump and his team have been trying to claim he had no racist intent when he invoked a classic racist trope against four women of color, three of whom were born in America and the fourth of whom has been an American citizen for 30 years.

Kellyanne Conway just asked reporter @AndrewFeinberg “what’s your ethnicity” after he asked about Trump’s attack on Democratic congresswomen to “go back” to where they came from pic.twitter.com/dEdzxtycUN

— TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) July 16, 2019

On Tuesday, Andrew Feinberg of Breakfast Media asked Conway which countries the president had been telling the four women of color to return to if he did not mean their “supposed countries of origin.”

Conway responded by asking, “What’s your ethnicity?”

Feinberg wanted to know why that information was relevant as Conway noted that her ancestors are from Ireland and Italy. “Because he said ‘originally from,'” she added.

Trump’s tweets said nothing about where the congresswomen’s ancestors were originally from, but where the women themselves were originally from.

Feinberg kept pushing, which led to what he himself later called a “particularly bizarre” soliloquy from Conway:

“He’s tired. A lot of us are sick and tired in this country of America coming last to people who swore an oath of office. Sick and tired of our military being denigrated. Sick and tired of the customs and border protection people I was with who are overwhelmingly Hispanic, by the way, in McAllen, Texas. Sick and tired of them…being criticized, being doxed by a bunch of Hollywood D-listers who have nothing to do but sit on their ass on Twitter all day…”

How many conservative shibboleths did Conway manage to invoke in this one rant while completely avoiding the question Feinberg asked?

• Unnamed “people” whose loyalty is to other countries first and America last? Check.
• Those same people not venerating the military at all times? Check.
• Implying liberals are the real racists because they are denigrating Hispanic people serving law enforcement? Check.
• Implying that people who live in Hollywood are unpatriotic and lazy while the real patriots are serving their country? Check.

Trying to bully and intimidate reporters is one form of press relations. Really it’s the only form this White House can practice.

Conway’s question to Feinberg remains both unanswered and completely irrelevant.

Watch the video in the embedded tweet above, via Bloomberg.