White House counselor Kellyanne Conway responded to an author's claim she has been the Trump administration's primary purveyor of leaked information by seemingly implying that former White House strategist Steve Bannon was the one leaking information to the press.
Appearing on "Fox & Friends" on Monday, Conway addressed comments by Ronald Kessler, author of a new book on the Trump administration, who claimed that "Conway is the number one leaker" while promoting his book on CNN on Sunday. Conway noted that she was "very happy that there's a lot less leaking in the White House now then there was," before appearing to put the blame for leaks on Bannon without mentioning the former Breitbart chief by name.
"We learned a long time ago around here that people who say, 'Enemy of the people, opposition party, fake news, biased media,' they can talk in the media all day long because nobody would suspect them," Conway said. "I'm a very public face here. What I think is out there."
Bannon called the media the "opposition party" just days after Donald Trump took office last year in an interview with the New York Times.
"The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile," Bannon said. "The media here is the opposition party. They don't understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States."
Both Conway and Bannon were reportedly given top spots in the Trump presidential campaign after being championed by Republican megadonors and Trump backers Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah.
Kessler is not the first author to write a book about the Trump White House and declare someone within the administration to be a top leaker. Author Michael Wolff, author of Fire and Fury, called the president himself the White House's "biggest leaker" in an interview with MSNBC in January.
"Many of the leaks that he would come out and rail against started because [Trump] gets on the phone at night with his coterie of friends and billionaires, and motor-mouths," Wolff said. "Then they call other people to say, 'Oh my God, this is what he said.' And then those people call other people. And suddenly you have leaked... This is all Donald Trump."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Josh Keefe covers money in politics for Newsweek. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, International Business ... Read more
