Fresh off an interview with “Fox and Friends” on the White House lawn on Wednesday morning, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway doubled down on President Donald Trump’s defense that he simply misspoke when he said “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia that interfered in the 2016 election.
When asked why it took the White House so long to clarify if Trump’s comments — that made it appear as though he publicly supported Putin’s denial of election meddling — had actually just been slip of the tongue, Conway essentially repeated Trump’s own defense on Tuesday.
“The President went back and looked at the transcript and said ‘I was saying wouldn’t, not would’ — a double negative,” she said.
She also said Trump “stands with the intelligence community.”
“He has said that he knows Russia meddled in the election, but many of you promised collusion and that it impacted votes and it swung an entire election result and you have no evidence of that which, I guess is why you’ve moved on,” she said. “Also I think very important to note is the range of issues that President Putin and President Trump discussed.”
On Tuesday Trump made a rare self-correction in front of the media, which was reportedly pushed by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and said “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t or why it wouldn’t be Russia.’”
