Melania Trump said 'we don't control our husbands' after Kellyanne Conway's husband continued to rip Donald Trump on Twitter, book says
As former President Donald Trump and George Conway waged war on Twitter, their wives had each other's backs.
In her new book "Here's the Deal: A Memoir," Trump's former senior counselor Kellyanne Conway described how Melania Trump once defended her to Trump as he fumed over the feud.
"'This guy is nasty. He won't stop," Trump was telling his wife on the phone, according to Kellyanne Conway who could hear the conversation. "And it's our Kellyanne. She's my top person. She knows a lot, too! What are we going to do?'"
Trump, at the time, looked "perturbed" and was sitting in the White House dining room with his back to the windows and "a jar of Starbursts and a muted TV in front of him," Conway wrote.
Conway quoted the former first lady's "calm" response: "'Donald,'" she said, 'this is not her fault. And she is a big girl. Strong and confident.'"
Then she added, according to Conway, "'We don't control our husbands—and you don't control us'!"
Conway wrote that she felt "awkward and embarrassed" that they "had to spend even a minute on this and yet felt relieved and protected from what was becoming an armful of harmful."
She wrote at length in her book about her frustrations with George Conway, a conservative lawyer who was instrumental in President Bill Clinton's impeachment, and his increasingly hostile views of Trump and his administration.
Conway accused her husband of "cheating by tweeting" and lamented having to choose between the two men in her life. In the book's afterword, she wrote, "George and I may not survive."
"Apparently I can't compete with the tweet," she added. "Or ninety thousand of them. And why would I even try? She has no personality and she's not even hot. I can't imagine relying upon the odd opaque online world for comfort, friendship, or validation."
As first lady, Trump chose to focus much of her policy efforts on an anti-cyberbullying initiative called "Be Best."
Many critics pointed out the odd juxtaposition of the first lady speaking out on the topic while her husband, the president, delighted in attacking people on Twitter.
"I am well aware that people are skeptical of me discussing this topic," Melania Trump said in 2018. "I have been criticized for my commitment to tackling this issue and I know that will continue. But it will not stop me from doing what I know is right."
