Is Kellyanne Conway the real first lady of President Trump's administration? That's the suggestion of a lengthy new profile of the silver-tongued White House counselor in Monday's edition of New York.
"In the time I spent observing her and talking to her over the past several weeks," Olivia Nuzzi writes of Conway, "her mood rarely seemed anything other than elated — perhaps because of how many people she encountered, wherever she went in Washington, who greeted her like a hometown hero." Even when Conway failed, Nuzzi observes, when she was caught in misstatements or falsehoods that would sink other political careers, Conway only became more central to the Trump team:
Her notoriety seemed only to help her standing with the president, who has kept her as a trusted adviser and the White House's most recognizable avatar on the outside. By March, she was less a pollster, campaign manager, or communications guru and more what the press expected Ivanka Trump would become in the absence of Melania Trump, who remains in New York with her young son, Barron — a pervasive female double of the president, an extension of his will and much more fiendishly committed to her boss than anyone else working on his behalf. Fewer than 50 days into the new administration, Conway had become almost inseparable from the public's idea of the Trump White House. That is, the functional first lady of the United States. [New York]
Read the full profile here.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Political cartoons for November 18Cartoons Tuesday’s political cartoons include MTG's marching band, AI data centers, Trump's fat cat friends, and more
-
What a rising gold price says about the global economyThe Explainer Institutions, central banks and speculators drive record surge amid ‘loss of trust’ in bond markets and US dollar
-
‘Laughing stock’: Anthony Joshua’s £140m bout with Jake PaulTalking Point Boxing fans have expressed concerns the YouTuber may not survive the fight with British heavyweight
-
Ecuador rejects push to allow US military basesSpeed Read Voters rejected a repeal of a constitutional ban on US and other foreign military bases in the country
-
Trump pivots on Epstein vote amid GOP defectionsSpeed Read The president said House Republicans should vote on a forced release of the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files
-
Trump DOJ sues to block California redistrictingSpeed Read California’s new congressional map was drawn by Democrats to flip Republican-held House seats
-
GOP retreats from shutdown deal payout provisionSpeed Read Senators are distancing themselves from a controversial provision in the new government funding package
-
Catholic bishops rebuke Trump on immigrationSpeed Read ‘We feel compelled’ to ‘raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity,’ the bishops said
-
House releases Epstein emails referencing TrumpSpeed Read The emails suggest Trump knew more about Epstein’s sex trafficking of underage women than he has claimed
-
Newsom slams Trump’s climate denial at COP30speed read Trump, who has called climate change a ‘hoax,’ declined to send any officials to this week’s summit
-
UK, Colombia halt intel to US over boat attacksSpeed Read Both countries have suspended intelligence sharing with the US over the bombing of civilian boats suspected of drug smuggling
