White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Monday morning that former FBI Director James Comey changed the outcome of the 2016 election with his announcement about Hillary Clinton’s emails.
“This guy swung an election,” Conway said to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “He thought the wrong person would win.”
She tried to walk the comment back in a later appearance on CNN, telling Chris Cuomo that Clinton was already set to lose the election and that Comey’s announcement had no bearing on her doomed campaign.
“I saw Jim Comey last night and I said: ‘this guy swung an election?’ I don’t think so,” she said. She continued to push back against Cuomo’s assertion that Comey’s announcement hurt Clinton’s chances.
“She hurt herself; she was never at 50 percent,” she said. “Show me the swing states where she was above 50 percent on October 20 before Comey came out … It had nothing to do with Comey.”
Shortly after her lap on the morning shows, Conway told the Daily Beast that she was being “tongue-in-cheek” during her comments on ABC. “I rolled my eyes and said really, this guy swung an election? It was sarcastic,” she reportedly said.
Watch the ABC interview below:
Comey “Swung the Election”
Pretty misleading headline here…Josh?
Careful, she is just trying to get the D’s riled up again to be against Comey (and it was not Russian interference)
"Oh, what a give-away ! Own goal ! Own goal ! "
She told the truth the first time, but then she realized her boss can’t handle the truth, so she had to walk it back. Either that or clean out her desk before the inevitable tweet.
The election was extremely close. Any number of things could have and probably did swing it, so you can say Comey swung the election, and so did Russian interference without being wrong making either assertion.
TPM–Don’t encourage KAC by putting her name in your publication.