We are joined now by Kellyanne Conway, has a new best-selling book out, Here’s the Deal. Look forward to checking it out.
Kellyanne, we’ll talk about the book here in a sec, but I’m sure you have seen that Beto O’Rourke just confronted the governor of Texas. If you haven’t seen, that just happened during a press conference as he was addressing the governor of Texas, the school shooting, the latest details, everything else.
You’re in communications. How in the world is Beto making the decision that he should storm a press conference giving us the latest details on a shooting that’s less than 24 hours, to make that story about himself? I mean, you’re in comms. What’s your reaction to a decision like that?
CONWAY: Clay and Buck, thanks for having me today. What a tragedy in Uvalde, Texas. Of course we’re praying for the lost angels.
Beto O’Rourke is a complete clown, and he’s everything that’s wrong with our current political system and has been for the better part of a decade. Here’s a guy who stood up today, knew that cameras were rolling, knew it was a live event, and must have forgotten what the content and the subject matter was, which is the governor and other officials, which doesn’t include Beto O’Rourke since he lost the Senate and left the Congress, briefing people on the facts of what’s happening. And they’re very tough to hear.
And instead he goes and get what politicians want, fellas, earned media. Well, the way to get earned media is not insinuate yourself into a factual press conference and the grief that so many families feel. And I’m very happy that the mayor of the town went after him. I’m very happy that — that Mr. McLaughlin, the mayor, who called him a, quote, “sick son-of-a-bitch” to his face, he deserved that.
But he also probably got what he wanted, which was his 15 seconds of fame. “I really told them…” He didn’t tell them anything. That was a sugar high for him. And let me just quickly review with you Beto O’Rourke. Here’s a guy who ran for Senate in 2019, he ran for Senate unsuccessfully in ’18, he ran for president of the United States in ’19, he ran — and is running for governor in ’22. His kids are 15, 13, 11. I guess he has his wife raising them because he’s a professional politician and he’s not even good at it. He’s a recidivist political candidate.
Second point. We all had to watch his root canal, we all had to see him on a skateboard, frying up a vegan burger, whatever was he was doing. It was so disgusting. And guess who rejected it? Democratic voters.
I write in my book that people like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, you know what they all have in common? They got zero, zero electoral votes in the Democratic presidential primary in 2020. Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris actually dropped out in the fall of 2019 before the calendar even turned to 2020. Got zero electoral votes.
Yet Vanity Fair put him on the cover. I call it the Vanity Project. You know the edition of Vanity Fair that featured Beto O’Rourke, “I was born to run, born to do this.” He got zero electoral votes from the Democrats.
Why in the world should the rest of us get stuck with him? But I think he is doing exactly what I said yesterday on The Five to beg everybody not to do, which is to politicize this tragedy. But he can’t help himself, and I think he is the worst example of it.
BUCK: You know, Kellyanne, it’s Buck, and he’s not the only one who I think stepped out of line and politicized it. It came from the very top as well. You know, Biden last night in a speech, he had an opportunity to bring everybody together, but instead he called out the gun lobby and then said this.
BIDEN: I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage. I spent my career as a senator and a vice president working to pass common sense gun laws that can and won’t prevent every tragedy, but we know they work.
BUCK: Can I just ask you, Kellyanne, why do they have to keep this common sense gun law talking point going? Why doesn’t Biden or whomever just say what it is they think that needs to be done?
CONWAY: Oh, because then we would hold him to account. He’s a guy with tremendous authority and no accountability. The public sees that, obviously. His poll numbers are all the way down around town.
He had a tremendous opportunity to be healer-in-chief, to show what he had promised to do on Inauguration Day a year and a half ago, gentlemen, which is unify the country, be bipartisan. The most bipartisan his party has been in the last year and a half was getting Republican Senators to impeach Donald Trump. That is the most bipartisan action and something I write about in my new book, Here’s the Deal.
Let me tell you something about Joe Biden. The way he speaks, including last night, about this tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, sounds like somebody who has not been in Washington, D.C., in positions of power in elective office that we’ve paid for for 50 years.
He sounds like a political outsider. He sounds like somebody who comes to town and says, “You know what? Everybody has failed in this town to get this done. I’m coming in as a political outsider.” He is the Loch Ness monster of the swamp. We all know that.
And I think the only, only value that we would have in having after back-to-back Obama and Trump as president, people are a little bit more political outsider, obviously, the only value we would have he fails at completely, which is working across the aisle, building consensus, and at moments like last night, being nonpolitical, trying to say, hey, this is why we passed this law or that law.
But he sounds like someone who — by the way, he was the vice president when the tragedy at Sandy Hook and Newtown happened. I remember President Obama saying he was never so angry in his life, you know, he was brought to tears. But this guy sounds like somebody who hasn’t been in a position of control. He’s done absolutely nothing but talk for 50 years. And we paid for it, and we’re paying a price today.
I was very disappointed. I don’t want anybody stepping on the bodies of these lost angels, these fallen angels for political purposes; but people can’t help themselves.
Look how reactive the Democratic Party is right now. They have an old, angry white guy as the leader of the party. They have a vice president who can’t put a sentence together, laughs at the most inopportune times. Please keep her far away from this, tragedy, please.
And so what do they do? They react to everything. There’s a leak at the Supreme Court. Now abortion is the biggest issue going into the fall. There’s a school shooting. God forbid. Murdered babies, babies murdered, single-digit ages murdered. And now he’s gonna spend the rest of the however long doing this, he and the Democrats in the Senate.
So it’s very disappointing, but it’s predictable, and I fear that for people like Joe Biden, politics comes first. It is his native tongue. It is his natural habitat. It’s his comfortable place. And the country doesn’t need it.
CLAY: Kellyanne’s book’s Here’s the Deal. We had the results come out last night in Georgia, Alabama, and also in Arkansas as well as the supplementary race in Texas. Big question for you here that shifts to the political arena. Do you think we’re gonna see a rematch? You know Donald Trump really well. You know Joe Biden based on the campaign that just happened. Do you think it’s going to be Trump v. Biden in 2024, a little over two years from now?
CONWAY: It could be. And you have more and more voters saying that they wouldn’t mind that for a very simple reason: They can compare the apples to oranges.
You know, Buck and Clay, for years people would say, we’re Americans, we’re hopeful, we’re optimistic, we’ll always get better. Look at all the things we’ve overcome in this country. But now people are actually saying something a little bit different.
They’re saying, not that it will be better, but that it was better not that long ago. And they want to get back to that. And of course the rematch would be exactly that.
I think Trump lost, in large part, Biden became president, in large part, because he wasn’t Trump. I think Trump can get in there and have the double — you know, the double messaging of “I’m not Biden, he’s been a disaster, and, by the way, I’m the guy who delivered all of these wonderful accomplishments that you all enjoy that are gone now that have been unraveled not really through ideology but through spite.
Energy independence, Putin not in Ukraine, Iran not salivating over Israel as a nuclear capable country, trade deals that were recalibrated, manufacturing base, obviously inflation and immigration more in control, border security. People feel like life is increasingly insecure and unaffordable, rising crime in the states, drug overdoses, everywhere we look there’s so much pain and hurt. And that pain and hurt will motivate an electorate to do something differently.
So I am struck by pretty much all of the candidates except one or two so far in these Republican primaries where we had record turnout, record enthusiasm across the board. They’ve all run as America First candidates. They’re all running on the agenda really with the exception of Matt Dolan in Ohio, maybe one other. So they’re all running on these attributes and these accomplishments that are limited government and free market.
And I predict that, you know, President Trump, of course, would be the frontrunner if he runs, and lots of people won’t run if he does. And then if he decides not to run, I think whoever it is needs to pick up that America First mantle and understand there are 74 million Americans who voted for Trump-Pence in 2020, a record number by far for any sitting president. Where will they go? Who are they?
And these Biden voters who did it out of convenience, they’re already leaving him. Look at the polls. Don’t tell me that people in the polls, independents, 18- to 39-year-olds, suburban women who have really gone down. They’ve lost trust, they’ve lost confidence in the confidence of Joe Biden so quickly, so precipitously. Don’t tell me that, no, they’re gonna go back to Biden because why? Because you want more of this? People can’t wait. I think many people are actually looking past Biden already. You see the Democrat Party is. And it’s really for his policy failings. They don’t do anything — well, nothing we can see.
The vice president herself has lost 13 senior staffers. Think about that. These are dream jobs to work for the first female vice president of color. She’s turned it into a nightmare for many of these people.
And I think the Democratic Party has big problems, for all the talk and hand-wringing about the effect of President Trump’s endorsem*nts and is he the leader of the party, I think we’re talking about the wrong party. Of course he’s leader of the party. Look at the Democratic Party.
You’ve Kurt Schroeder in Oregon endorsed by Joe Biden, gentlemen, loses miserably by double digits to a Bernie Sanders or AOC or Elizabeth Warren or all of the above-endorsed candidate. And that’s happening. John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, Democratic Senate nominee, Tim Ryan in Ohio, Democratic Senate nominee, they’re basically telling Biden, lose my number. Stacey Abrams never seems to be available and in the state when Joe Biden comes to town.
They’re saying, please forget my name, lose my number. They don’t want the president of the United States, the leader of their party, to campaign with them or for them. And that tells you all you need to know about the modern Democratic Party. It’s cracking up.
They’re endorsing — and some of these radical socialists are winning. They’re trying to push out Henry Cuellar, the remaining pro-life Democrat legislator in Washington, D.C. I grew up in the Democrat Party. I’ve lots of Democrats in my family. The Democrat Party had plenty of pro-lifers, plenty of Blue Dog Democrats, Boll Weevil Democrats who talked about limited government and lower taxes and fewer regulations. Where are they now? You can’t find a single pro-life Democrat in Washington, D.C. Henry Cuellar is the last one. They got rid of Dan Lipinski, Illinois, a year ago because they are extremist on that issue and so many others.
So I think you’re witnessing a real crackup, a real identity crisis in the Democratic Party in terms of who they are, what ideology to hew closely to, and have 25 or so Democrats who ran in 2020, let’s not forget that the party that says they’re about the future and youth and energy, they ended up with an old white guy as their standard bearer. And people should not forget it.
CLAY: Kellyanne Conway, fantastic stuff. The book is Here’s the Deal. It is a best-seller. Encourage you to go check it out. Appreciate the time.
CONWAY: Thank you for having me, gentlemen. All the best. Take care.
