Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:42 pm
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway suggested during an interview on Fox News that if President Obama loved his country more, he wouldn’t be investigating potential Russian election interference.
Video of Trump Senior Transition Advisor Kellyanne Conway on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom:
https://youtu.be/3b-5tWTBpd0
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Conway responded to the White House’s suggestion that Trump knew about the Russian hacks before election day by saying, “If you want to shut this down and you actually love the country enough to have the peaceful transition in our great democracy between the Obama administration and the Trump administration, there are a couple people in pretty prominent positions, one is named Obama, one is named Hillary Clinton, since his people are trying to fight over her election still, they could shut this down.
Conway made an extremely dubious connection between patriotism and those who want an investigation into the potential role that Russian interference played in the presidential election. Suggesting that Donald Trump knew about the hacks before election day is not the same as to claim that Trump collaborated with the Russians to win the election.
The argument can be made that the patriotic step to take when questions arise about the role of a foreign actor in the US election process is to investigate what happened. Conway pointed to President Obama and Hillary Clinton as potentially unpatriotic, but what about the Republican Senators who are also calling for an investigation. Are veterans like Sens. John McCain (AZ) and Lindsey Graham (SC) also unpatriotic because they too want an investigation?
President Obama loves the United States of America, and the claim that he doesn’t is a conservative distraction technique that has gotten past the point of tiresome. Donald Trump and his transition team should be supporting an investigation. One would think that a president-elect would be appalled at the possibility of Russian election interferance.
Trump and his team’s consistent deflection and defense of Russia on the election interference issue suggests that there is something deeper happening.
It isn’t Barack Obama’s patriotism that needs to be questioned. The American people and members of Congress need to ask themselves why Donald Trump refuses to support an investigation into potential Russian election meddling, but the attempted blaming of Obama isn’t fooling anyone.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
