Is it something that should be legislatively fought? And now that we have a government that functions that way, this president is taking the reins and doing that-operating, in part, that way.”Ĭheck out more from this issue and find your next story to read. “Not that it’s a contest.” When I told her I recalled Republicans depicting Obama’s executive orders as Constitution-defying, dictatorial abuses of power, she replied, “Well, I don’t know that I would have said that.” And then came a blast of her signature verbal fog: “But the difference is that-it depends on the issue. Winning, Conway contended, was exactly what Trump was doing as president-just look at the number of executive actions he’d already signed. “Winning may not be everything,” she said, leaning forward over her paper cup of hot cocoa and giving a wink of one mascara-clotted blue eye. But she’d understood something about the electorate that others had missed, and now here she was: perhaps the most powerful woman in America, a senior counselor to the president of the United States, a member of Donald Trump’s core team of top advisers. Just a year ago, she was a knockabout GOP pollster and talking head, a casino worker’s daughter who’s never quite shaken her South Jersey accent. We were sitting in her spacious office in the West Wing of the White House, less than a week after the inauguration.
Listen to the audio version of this article: Feature stories, read aloud: download the Audm app for your iPhone.Ĭonway flashed a wicked grin.