Funding for To the Contrary provided by He's like a vast majority of other Americans, and all the polls count Donald Trump as one of them, who just sees that these folks can't get the job done.

We are suffering.

This week, Kellyanne Conway, senior counselor to President Trump.

♪♪♪ Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbé.

Welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

This week, we are speaking with the first woman to run a successful winning presidential campaign and who went on to be senior counselor to President Trump.

Kellyanne Conway was one of the preeminent pollsters on what women think and want.

She also has been a regular panelist on To the Contrary, for as I recall, it was about From The mid 1990s until you signed on with the Cruz PAC.

Pretty much.

That's right.

Very happy to be a regular panelist, on To the Contrary.

And congratulations on your 31st year Bonnie.

It's truly remarkable.

It's it's something else, I'll tell you that.

You said the road for Donald Trump is open for him in 2024.

He should run against Joe Biden and he'll win.

If he does run, will you go back to work for him and will he ask you to work for him because he said some not not not so nice things about you recently on social media that something to the effect of he would have fired you you said that that you told him essentially the the data weren't there for him to win.

I actually think if he wants to be president again, the way to do that is not to look back at 2020, but to just do their rematch.

Cage basher Joe Biden.

That's the cleanest, clearest path you want to be president, have a rematch with the guy who's flailing Will he take it?

Will it will he do?

I know he'd like to.

I know he'd like to if not planning to.

Bonnie, because he sees unfinished business in this country.

And he's like a vast majority of other Americans.

And all the polls count.

Donald Trump is one of them who just sees that these folks can't get the job done.

We are suffering.

The ABC News poll just came out 27% approval rating on gas prices, 28% approval rating for Biden on inflation.

That's ABC, Washington Post couldn't do enough to help him win.

So it's bad all his polling numbers are down all over town for Joe Biden.

So for Trump, if he just says here's the rematch and if he owns if he just says things like he didn't like my tweets or you don't like this, that the other the folks, the things that you care about, I was the guy who delivered them for you.

That's a good, clear path for him.

And he'll have to make that decision over time.

He'll make his own announcements.

And then for me, whatever my best and highest use, this is what I'll do.

I always put my family first, which is why when George and I made a decision as a couple and as a family, when their kids were younger, he moved to Washington, bought a substantial house, changed their lives completely.

I did that with my kids in mind.

I did that.

We did that as a family.

So I would have to revisit that.

You have always made women, in terms of policies, your front and center.

Your polling company made you, made your name, made your, you know, fortune or whatever.

Polling mainly for women's magazines on women's products, etc., etc.. What's the biggest thing you've done for women?

Well, first of all.

I hope that my job in the White House and as a public servant helped many women.

So I worked in an administration that, especially pre-COVID, was able to rebuild an economy that worked for many Americans, a record low unemployment among women, record labor force participation by women.

And I believe that it was an economy that worked for three different groups of women the job creators, the job seekers and the job holders.

And that last group, Bonnie, is really the one that I think most politicians right, left and center don't pay enough attention to.

They're always talking about the job creators and building a business.

And I think that's wonderful.

You and I have done exactly that.

But that's a very small percentage of American women.

Then you have fortunately less than 10% or 5% at this point of women seeking, you know, looking for jobs also who are unemployed.

But the vast majority of American households, many of which the increasing number which are being led by women, are the job holders.

And they're saying to themselves, when did the job no longer become enough?

So I think the deregulation, the energy independence, the economic stimulation, the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, frankly, also, I think I worked for I know I worked in a White House that, whether people wish to believe it or not, here's a fact.

It was a great place for women.

working women and working mothers.

I write in my new book, Here's the Deal, my memoir that I looked up in a meeting one morning at 8:20 a.m.

Call it a Tuesday.

And I noticed in that meeting of about 11 or 12 principals that five of us, all of whom had the highest rank in the White House, assistant to the President, were all working moms.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mercedes Schlapp, Ivanka Trump, Brooke Rollins and me.

Between us, we have 19 children, 12 daughters and seven sons.

At that time, they were ages 2 to 16.

And sure, you've had many women over the years on your show, even many sponsors who say we are family friendly in our corporation.

Yessiree, just look at our handbook pages 568 to 574 and we'll show how family friendly we are.

But in the Trump White House, it truly was.

I never asked for special privileges of working mom, but I felt very protected, very supported, and I felt very empowered as a working mom.

And you you talk in the book a lot about how he really didn't treat you any differently than he treated the other the male staffers.

Did that surprise you at all, given his reputation, given the Hollywood access tape, etc., etc.?

It didn't surprise me, but I can understand why it surprises others, particularly if they just buy into cherry picked caricatures or this comment or that comment.

I guess it didn't surprise me, Bonnie, that Donald Trump had empowered and equipped me to succeed first as campaign manager.

And yes, we were successful and the first successful woman to manage a presidential campaign.

But he's actually the first Republican to ever even put a woman in that position, a Democrats have done it three times Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry.

But Donald Trump is the first Republican to do that, which is pretty remarkable.

But if you look at his history, if you look at how he has conducted his business, he has routinely and traditionally elevated and empowered women to positions of power in the Trump Organization on the Trump hit TV show The Apprentice, and then again in his campaign and certainly in his White House and his cabinet.

Somebody once said that Donald Trump, he enjoys the company, both men and women.

He listens carefully to the briefings being put forth by male and female staffers.

But he confides in the women, and that actually has some resonance and some truth, a great truth to it.

I do also say in the book that speaking of women around Donald Trump, that he he confide in us.

He consulted us.

I certainly was senior counsel to the president in every sense of the term, but he reserved his fear for one person and that was Melania Trump.

She's the original counsel to the president.

She's the person that he would consult with routinely on a number of matters.

And she's got a great savvy sense for the way things are being covered or being perceived.

Give me a hint, because I kind of don't understand it.

Well, that's his wife.

Why in the world was Bill Clinton listening to Hillary Clinton about about health care?

She was she was a product of Yale.

What whatever you want to say about Hillary's strengths and weaknesses as a political adviser.

He had a great education and she had she was a partner in a law firm.

The Rose Law firm.

And look it up, everyone.

You'll have a real field day look to see who went to jail over that.

But getting back to the question yeah, well her husband was the President, so as first lady, she had to her program Be Best and I think when first lady Michelle Obama said, Let's Move and, told us all to do jumping jacks and she planted the garden and everybody applauded that and said, terrific.

I don't think that child obesity rates went down very much, but I never denigrated it.

That was her platform, main piece of her platform.

And this first lady, Melania Trump, had Be Best where she tackled the opioid crisis and cyberbullying and other just sort of healthy living for for children and then teens.

And, you know, frankly, Bonnie, the President, First Lady, worked on the public policy issue of opioids and the drug crisis together.

And I was a staffer who supported that at the highest levels.

And the drug overdose came came down.

Those are just the facts.

They went down for the first time in 30 years.

Not to belabor the point, but President Trump did many great things for all Americans, even those who say they don't like him and didn't vote for him.

Either time you have to be the president for all Americans.

And frankly, I'm very happy with where I was listened to.

Even when the president and I disagreed on a policy issue.

I know he heard me.

And even if he went in different direction, I was fine with that because I'm there to give the advice to to to lay it out to practically to help properly brief a president and the vice president.

And then their names are on the ballot.

So they are the ones who should absolutely make the decisions.

You raised the question of African-Americans departing the Biden administration.

you talked in the book about working with Bannon and several other high level staffers who were incredible, all men, incredible backstabbers, going behind your back, denigrating you to the president.

And you you basically called it, for lack of a better cliche, a den of thieves.

How did it feel to work with a crew like that?

They use curse words all the time in my in my 20 plus years of of of having you on the show.

I never heard you curse.

You're an eloquent speaker.

You don't have to stoop to that.

The guys were f this, f that.

How did that make you feel?

Sad for the country because the president asked us to work together as a team and we did during the campaign.

But something changed when he won.

And I think it changed for the people who weren't expecting him to win and they all of a sudden had to take credit for that.

I take credit for the woman, which is silly, since I have a living, breathing video catalog of what I thought every single day and what our strategy was.

They don't.

They were probably still asleep when I was on TV talking every morning about why we're going back to Wisconsin and why we're pulling out of Nevada a little bit and focusing more resources in Pennsylvania and Michigan, for example.

I was quiet transparent and strategic about it, on a daily basis.

But I also look, I also say in the book that I was raised by very strong women, houseful of women for Italian Catholic women, adult women, raising me in littl South Jersey Bonnie, so I was accustomed to man-handling jealous little boys And I tried to do that, but I don't understand why.

And I don't understand it in the Biden White House.

I didn't understand the Trump White House.

I think there's plenty to do.

This country has so many needs that there are there's plenty for everybody to do without getting in each other's way or competing for space and place.

And there, too, I have to I have to credit President Trump, because he did not allow those guys to dismiss and denigrate me and castigate me the way they wanted to.

And that started when I first got there.

But guess what?

They really didn't last.

Very few of them lasted.

I watched them come in.

I watched them go out.

You sure did.

And you get a lot of credit for, you get a lot of credit for lasting as long as you did in an administration where you you earlier talked about departures from the Biden administration, but no administration has ever been such a revolving door, as was the Trump administration.

Did it ever feel like chaos to you in there?

Well, we used to hear that word a lot.

And I think chaos and crisis is now what I see everywhere in this America.

Infants can't get, they can't get formula to eat.

They, we, are paying way too much of the gas pump and the grocery store.

There's obviously chaos in Ukraine since Putin invaded after Donald Trump left office and Biden got in there.

There's chaos with a nuclear capable Iran.

Salivating, looking at our best friend in the region, Israel.

There's there's chaos at the southern border.

I mean, there's chaos and crisis everywhere we turn.

And very little response.

I think ten of the scariest words I read every Friday are quote, the president and the vice president have nothing on the weekend schedules.

How can that be?

Why is that?

And so what I think was unfortunate is that while we were trying to work, what we're trying to deliver on these promises and suss out what could be done when with the Congress, when the Republicans were in charge the first two years, Bonnie, and then the Democrats were in charge the next two years trying to work with governors, trying to meet the needs of a global pandemic that no one saw coming and on and on.

All that while we're doing it with the amidst the investigations and the subpoenas and Russia collusion for three years, we had a hear about that two and a half to three years, we had a hear about something nobody ever found to have changed an election.

Where are the apologies?

How does how do the taxpayers get $45 million back?

How did they get two and a half to three years back?

And yet we kept pushing that boulder up the hill every single day.

But I think the work is just too important to give in to the caricatures or the hate or what strangers think of you.

You said the work was too important.

Is that what got you through as the longest serving or one of the few longest serving high level officials in the Trump administration?

Yes, because I certainly gave up a ton of privacy and time and money, millions and millions of dollars to work in the White House.

You don't do these jobs for the money.

You actually don't do the jobs to go run toward the gold mine of life changing money, which I had stared at long and hard, Bonnie, after the 2016 election.

Lots of contracts, lots of offers really into the eight figures at that point.

But I'm glad I took the job because I learned at the age of 50 how meaningful, consequential public service can be.

And I tell young people routinely, you ask me if you can fit in public service or nonprofit work at some point in your career, do it, do it.

It doesn't have to be forever, but just do it because the work is its own reward.

Yes, this is an amazing country filled with beautiful people who have fabulous ideas about how to course correct, about how to make policies better and stronger and work for more Americans.

And I think the gift of my career, Bonnie, which, you know, because I've been on your show for 25 years or more, I think a gift in my political, my my professional career.

Bonnie has been to go out and literally talk to thousands and thousands and thousands of Americans in focus groups, looking at the data in the polling night after night, day after day, how is it playing in Peoria?

What do they love?

I'm the one who got on the plane to go go figure it out and ask them.

There's essential wisdom in people.

And I really do wish are elected officials of all political of all political stripes would listen more to the people.

I mean, I think they're talking at them and talking for them more than they're listening to them.

And that really helped in 2016 to win that election against the queen bee herself.

Hillary Clinton, with a majority of female voters against every odd and every press flip in every poll.

And it certainly helped to keep me focused on my work.

I like to say I wasn't being paid to read about myself in the White House.

When I got out of the White House, I started reading some stuff.

People said, it's very shocking.

But, you know, as I tell, I tell people.

And it's hurtful, right?

It's hurtful.

Sure, I guess.

Yes, it's hurtful.

You talked about reaction to you.

Did you get a lot of negative feedback when you were out there explaining away the Hollywood access tape where he says women like to be grabbed by their private parts, beginning with a P and says all these pretty terrible things about, you know, that makes you think that he doesn't think much of women.

And you were his representative.

I remember seeing you on every show, every day for months at a time.

That was an October surprise when it was leaked to the media.

But how did you feel about that?

Well, I said how I felt and I'll repeat it here.

I said that.

I said, like Melania Trump said, Mike Pence said, and Donald Trump himself said when he apologized, he said, I don't recognize those words, but obviously I said them and they're they're horrible.

And I don't mean them.

I don't feel that way about women.

So he apologized right away, which is saying something in today's political culture.

And I said the same thing I write in the book, Bonnie First time I've ever talked about it, a private conversation Mr. Trump and I had in the corner of the elevator bank coming off the 24th floor, really on, so Access Hollywood was late on Friday, October 7th So this is Saturday, October 8th going into Sunday, October 9th.

And we're going to turn right back around and go to the second debate and Saint Louis and the president excuse me Mr. Trump and seen all these headlines and all these runs on the TV saying they're going to force them off the ballot, they're going to embarrass him and expel him out of the race.

They're going to replace him and he actually can they doing that?

And I said, No, they can't do that.

I said, it's too late to print new ballots.

And, you know, nobody you're not a quitter.

I know he's not a quitter.

His wife had put out a statement that day I helped write it.

Vice president put out, Governor Pence put out a statement that day that he, he and Karen Pence sent me and I handed to Donald Trump.

So it was a very heady day.

And I said, you know, you said it on the tape, but Bill Clinton did it and his wife stood by him.

Hillary stood by him for decades.

And if somehow we fall apart.

We're going to, we're going to hand the whole damn thing to Hillary Clinton.

We're not doing that.

And, you know, fortunately for me, I had my person at that time, George Conway, my husband of many, many years, who was insistent that I stay in that race, who was insistent I take my shot and be that campaign manager.

Didn't just urge me, but almost insisted that I take my shot.

As they say in Hamilton, don't throw away your shot.

And and I did.

And, you know, people say, Bonnie, without Kellyanne Conway in 2016, I don't think Donald Trump would have gotten elected president.

That's debatable.

How is that debatable?

You won, that office for him.

Your polling, your being, his representative when he was under fire about women's issues.

You did all that.

Well, I appreciate that.

I mean, I was a staffer.

I appreciate that, Bonnie.

I do.

And I appreciate you saying it when I'm sure that he didn't get your vote.

So I very much appreciate you saying that woman to him.

You don't know that is true.

That's true.

Or if you do and that's your right.

But I guess back to this, I mean, people should know that George and I have a lot in common, not least of which is we both accepted very big jobs in the Donald Trump administration.

He just changed his mind.

It's America, you can do that.

But I certainly never would have moved an entire family to Washington, D.C. and taken a job at that level had we not done it as a family or as a couple committed and rowing in the same direction.

But, you know I also I think that Donald Trump did something very important in that final debate.

October 19, 2016.

That's maybe back in the news now Bonnie something we've talked about, on To the Contrary, so many times over the decades, he turned to Hillary Clinton in response to a pretty predictable question by Chris Wallace, the moderator, about abortion.

And Hillary did her usual woman's right to choose thing, thinking, I've got this all to myself and you know, Mr. Trump turned to her and said, you know, you're the extremist on abortion.

You would rip that baby out of his mother's womb an hour before it's born.

And people went, Oh, and I thought, wow, I never heard all these pro-life stalwarts talk that way.

So unafraid to call out what they see as extremism.

So now pro-choice doesn't include partial birth abortion.

Later, abortion does include sex selection abortion does it include abortion?

Long after nonpartisan doctors say a baby can feel pain.

So I think where religion and morality did not help everybody decide one way or the other, pro-life or pro-choice, science and medicine have stepped in.

And it was Donald Trump improbably, Bonnie, who for this Manhattan male billionaire for whom most of his adult life had been pro-choice, became the most pro-life president in U.S. history.

And I think that, too, is just the power of transformative thinking.

We all change our minds on big things.

You talk a lot in the book about your husband.

You talk about, you know, racing to the hospital with him when you are about to have a baby.

You have a lot of fond memories you seem to have before the Trump, before you working for Trump and Trump turning so far to the right.

Your husband supported him.

But I think when he saw what he was spawning with, you know, with the people believing conspiracy theories and your husband turned against Trump.

And you have said on in other interviews that I've seen, when you're talking about your book, Here's the Deal.

You have said that you're not wearing wedding bands.

Towards the end of the book, you say democracy will survive.

George and Kellyanne Conway, may not.

Here's what we do share.

We share four children, 21 years of marriage, a lifetime of fabulous memories, which is why I talk so lovingly nostalgically about George in most of the book and tell all those great, funny stories about our courtship, about the kids.

You know, we we're a later in life parents, which, of course, is a growing trend, I know, in this country.

But and so I always want and I thank him at the end of the book, the second to the last paragraph where I think my children, because they're the most important for people in my life, I thank him for his love bringing me to marriage and motherhood.

But I also say, Bonnie, what I'll say to you and your viewers, I'll never understand what happened, because George's vows are not to Donald Trump or any president or political party.

Who cares?

Who cares that George is one of 81 million people who voted against Donald Trump?

Whoop-de-doo I said, what would you care about is that I never had the courtesy for him to reveal ahead of time that he's dropping an op-ed tomorrow in The Washington Post and The New York Times against my boss or against the people who work at the White House.

I'm the one dealing with the kids homework and teenage traumas and dramas and doing the dishes and picking up after the dogs.

Well, he's in the corner of his office, polishing off, you know, the next Lincoln Project ad.

So at the very, very least, and all the haters out there should agree at the very least, I was I was owed the courtesy of advance notice and transparency.

It caused a huge rift with you and your husband, whether you divorce over it, who knows?

But even the rift that it has caused, was it worth it?

Because you're you always put family first.

Yep.

You should ask him that because he's the one spending his time.

He has sent over 100,000 tweets.

So you should ask him that question.

Okay.

Last question.

Do you miss do you miss it?

I missed public service.

I do.

I miss being able to have as I saw being one because I was very humble about it.

And you should be in these jobs.

I really miss by being one tiny little molecule in an ocean of effort.

If I if I had my way and I'm trying to work on this as I can, if I had my way, I'd spend an awful lot more of my day, my time on the drug crisis.

That is something I really just it just gripped me.

And when there's so much to do, whether it's law enforcement interdiction, treatment or recovery prevention, education, there's so much to do.

Fentanyl is the number one killer right now of 18 to 44 year olds in this country.

You think about that more than cocaine, more than accidents, more than suicides.

More than mass?

Yes, it's yes, correct.

And it's it's fentanyl and it's everywhere.

I mean, literally, every state is a border state now.

It's in every nook and cranny in our country.

And I would love to commit more of my time to that and trying to find a way to do that.

Okay.

Well, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Bonnie.

Please come back on the show sometime.

We do miss it.

I appreciate it.

Take care.

That's it for this edition.

Let's keep talking on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and visit our PBS's website, which is pbs.org slash to the contrary and whether you agree or think to the contrary.

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