July 16, 2019

“What’s Your Ethnicity?” Kellyanne Conway Defends Trump With Shocking Question to Reporter

“My ancestors are from Ireland and Italy,” she added in the stunning exchange.

Oliver Contreras/AP

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More than two days after President Donald Trump published a thread of incendiary and racist tweets telling four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to the “crime-infested” “countries” “from which they came,” the president has repeatedly declined to specify exactly which countries he was suggesting the freshmen Democrats return to.

The target of his tweets—Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar—are all American citizens. Only Omar was born outside of the country.

But on Tuesday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway appeared to inadvertently answer the very question Trump has deliberately avoided.

“If the president was not telling these four congresswomen to return to their supposed countries of origin, to which countries was he referring?” reporter Andrew Feinberg of Beltway Breakfast asked during a gaggle.

“What your ethnicity?” Conway asked.

The moment clearly shocked Feinberg. “Uh, why is that relevant?” he asked in return.

“Because I’m asking you a question,” Conway shot back. “My ancestors are from Ireland and Italy.”

By highlighting her own ancestors’ purported countries of origin, Conway appeared to confirm Trump’s intentions. She continued by issuing a full-throated defense of Trump and his racist tweets and demands that the four congresswomen, who have all been sharply critical of his administration, leave the U.S. if they were unhappy.

Conway’s remarks came as her husband, George Conway, a prominent conservative lawyer and vocal Trump critic, published a searing Washington Post op-ed labeling Trump a “racist president.”

As her comments circulated on social media, Conway claimed that her question was not intended to disrespect Feinberg. “Like many, I am proud of my ethnicity,” she tweeted.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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