Former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway encouraged top media outlets to refrain from covering Vice President Kamala Harris’ rallies if she continues to duck questions from reporters.
The Trump campaign has begun needling Harris for taking few on-the-record questions from reporters since her ascension and Conway, 57, argued she does so because the media is going easy on her.
“I would say this to the mainstream media: Kamala Harris is ignoring you because she thinks she already has you,” she told Fox News on Thursday. “She thinks the mainstream media is already in her thrall, in her corner.”
“They should challenge that by not covering her rallies. Don’t set up your camera next time. If she’s not going to answer your questions, don’t give her the service of covering her rallies.”
Harris, 59, has not done a formal interview or press conference since President Biden, 81, dropped out. She has taken a few off-the-record questions in recent days, but her campaign has not allowed any answers to be reported.
Conway, who is a Fox News contributor and hosts a show on the network’s streaming platform, commended GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance, 40, for his attempted tarmac confrontation Wednesday when he spoke to Harris’ press pool outside Air Force Two in Wisconsin.
“What Vance did yesterday was brilliant, just spontaneously crossing the tarmac, crisscrossing over, and forcing the press to cover him,” she said.
Underpinning Conway’s acclaim of Vance is a recent report from the Bulwark that a handful of Trump allies were skeptical that she has been badmouthing him and leaking to the press.
“The person who’s having the best week is JD Vance. I think he’s really hitting his stride as No. 2. The role of No. 2 is really to reflect the policy prescriptions of the ticket and to really push back a little bit as the attack dog on the other side,” she contended earlier.
Vance has been taking questions from reporters during his swings through battleground states in a bid to juxtapose Harris. Former President Donald Trump, 78, scheduled a press conference in Mar-a-Lago on Thursday.
Conway called Trump’s planned press conference a “very smart” move.
The Harris-Walz campaign shrugged off Trump’s attempt to throw shade, accusing him of starving for attention.
“Donald Trump craves media attention, he’s not getting it, and so he is throwing tantrums online and today at his country club for the media,” Harris-Walz 2024 Spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement.
“The self-obsessed, convicted felon is incensed he’s not in the spotlight as Vice President Harris and Governor Walz barnstorm the nation talking about their vision for an America of opportunity and security,” he added.
Conway, who managed Trump’s 2016 campaign and served as a senior counselor to him during his first term, recently registered as a lobbyist for Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, per filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Pinchuk’s foundation had donated about $150,000 to a Trump charitable foundation in 2015, according to disclosures.
Conway met with Trump in New Jersey last week.
On Monday, Trump had a discussion about Ukraine with streamer Adin Ross in which he conveyed sympathy for the plights of the beleaguered nation.
“When you look at all of the death and all of the destruction, even of their culture, because those cities are wiped to the ground,” he said. “Outside of Kyiv, most of those cities are wiped down to the ground. And it’s so sad.”
