Kellyanne Conway's Daughter Tweaks Fourth of July Message After Backlash

Claudia Conway, daughter of Donald Trump's former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, has tweaked a Twitter post she shared about refusing to celebrate the Fourth of July following a backlash.

On Tuesday, the 18-year-old reposted a video of herself on Twitter, which showed her standing in a group of sign-bearing protesters as she told an interviewer that she would not "buy into July 4th propaganda. You know, Land of the Free—we're not free."

"Why should we be celebrating independence when not all of us have independence? And that's why all of us are out here fighting for our reproductive rights, challenging the overturn of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court," she added.

Backing up her original caption, in which she stated that she would "NOT be celebrating" Independence Day, Claudia Conway wrote on Tuesday: "Bringing this back because freedom is limited in our country today!"

Some Republican-led states have either limited or banned abortion since the Supreme Court ruling in June 2022 in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case that reversed Roe v. Wade. That 1973 landmark decision had given women the federal constitutional right to have abortions.

The Dobbs v. Jackson case stated that the authority to regulate abortion policies should be "returned to the people and their elected representatives." Overturning Roe allowed some states to enact their so-called "trigger laws," which granted them the right to issue and regulate their own abortion policies and laws.

Claudia Conway's post was met with a flood of responses from supporters and detractors, and sparked a debate about her stance.

The outspoken teen appears to have since deleted her Tuesday morning caption, replacing it with one later that evening that read: "New year, same s***—bringing this back."

In response to Claudia Conway's post, one Twitter user accused her of disrespecting U.S. military veterans. They wrote: "Happy 4th of July to our beautiful Christian country. To those bratty American cry babies who think they get to not celebrate the 4th of July 'because they're not free'... In the most free nation in the world, You disrespect Vets & those who were KIA [killed in action] for your freedom."

"No one's disrespecting veterans," Claudia Conway tweeted back. "I have the utmost respect for our veterans, which is why we observe Veterans and Military Families Month, Military Appreciation Month, Memorial Day, etc.

"Independence Day marks the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, freeing the colonies from Great Britain. In today's day, the Fourth of July has been commercialized and projects the idea that those in America are 'free,' when factually, many Americans are not.

"If America is a free country where freedom of religion (first amendment) is available to all, how are you going to call it a 'Christian' country? You're contradicting yourself.

"Multiple truths can exist at once that don't have to do with each other," she ended her lengthy response. "Goodnight."

With some states enacting and proposing their own restrictions and bans on abortion, Claudia Conway in May lashed out at Trump after the former president took credit for the landmark upheaval in a post shared on his Truth Social platform.

Along with her father, George Conway, the outspoken teen, who recently launched a modeling page on Playboy's website, has been a vocal critic of Trump over the years.

In March, when Claudia Conway made a return to Twitter following an extended absence, she shared a link to a video project that she had participated in "alongside other activists during the summer following the Uvalde [Texas, school] shooting and the [overturning] of Roe v. Wade."

In the Coming of Rage clip, the influencer was part of a group of Generation Z activists who expressed similar sentiments about the general conservative stance against abortion and limiting gun rights. May 2022's Uvalde school shooting in Texas saw 21 people killed; Roe v. Wade was overturned the following month.

On June 29, Claudia Conway leveled another round of criticism at the Supreme Court following its ruling on affirmative action. That day, the SCOTUS struck down affirmative-action admissions policies in colleges across the nation.

The ruling has been both celebrated and decried by opposing political sides. There have also been criticisms that legacy admissions—or the admission of a student based on their familial relationship to an alumni member—remain untouched. Critics have argued continuing legacy admissions while striking down affirmative action will lead to an even wider gap between the privileged and everyone else.

Claudia Conway wrote: "The SCOTUS ruling today is a disgrace, in my opinion. These are institutions that formerly discriminated against POC [People of Color] and now that BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] are getting the spots in higher education that they deserve (and have deserved for generations before them), it is stripped away?"

"Your son Aidan's spot at Harvard was not 'taken' by a BIPOC applicant. Enough," she added. "If affirmative action is somehow 'unlawful,' then why are legacies still a thing? Wealth/geographic factors? Make it make sense."

While the Supreme Court's ruling has faced criticism, a recent poll shows it may be a popular decision. A bare majority of Americans (52 percent) approved of the decision to overturn affirmative action, preferring merit-based admissions processes instead. This was according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted between June 30 and July 1, 2023, by Ipsos, based on a nationally representative probability sample of 937 U.S. adults.

It's a strikingly different picture from last year's Roe v. Wade verdict, when polls showed the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the decades-long protection of abortion rights ran contrary to the opinion of most Americans.