On Thursday’s episode of the Rachel Maddow Show, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and soon-to-be White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, failed miserably to defend the president-elect’s new proposal that the United States expand its nuclear arsenal.
Conway alternated between playing dumb about U.S. nuclear policy and pretending that Trump never proposed the nuclear expansion in the first place.
Video of the heated back-and-forth:
Maddow: The president making policy happens whenever the president speaks on a national security matter. https://t.co/Dd7sd2TZnc
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) December 23, 2016
Conway repeatedly tried to pivot back to a general discussion about how Trump wants to keep America safe, but Maddow clearly wasn’t having it.
When the MSNBC host pushed her on the danger of a nuclear arms race, Conway folded like a cheap tent and called Maddow “unfair” for saying that Trump proposed to expand U.S. nukes.
But in a tweet earlier in the day, Trump did just that:
The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016
Maddow also slammed the door shut on Conway’s attempt to dismiss the president-elect’s comments as a meaningless tweet and not an actual policy proposal: “The president making policy happens whenever the president speaks on a national security matter.”
There’s no question that Conway is a gifted spin doctor, but she was clearly unable to put a positive spin on Trump’s latest outrageous comment.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.