On June 5, 2017, Kelian Conway was in the East Room of the White House when Sean Spicer approached her.
Did you know about that? Spicer asked. He pulled out his phone. Twitter was open. There was a tweet on the screen written by her husband, George.
“That’s not possible,” Conway said, she recalled in her Threshold Editions, published today. George doesn’t tweet.
Seconds later, Conway realized that George had indeed tweeted, but also struck a blow against her boss, President Donald Trump, for tweets that would complicate matters for the Attorney General’s Office, which was trying to defend his travel ban on certain Muslim countries. .
“These tweets may make some people feel better, but they will certainly not help OSG get 5 votes in SCOTUS, which is actually important. Sad, “George wrote.
The couple married in 1998 and have four children together: twins Claudia and George IV, Charlotte and Vanessa. Courtesy of Kelian Conway
As Conway tried unsuccessfully to call and send a message to George, questions began to swirl in her head: Why had George done this? Why hadn’t he mentioned it to her in advance? “And,” she writes, “was this tweet really posted by my husband, George Conway, who loves Trump and wears a MAGA hat?”
“For the first time since George and I became serious, I looked at the possibility that the man who always held my back might one day stab me.
Kelian Conway, in his new memoir “Here’s the Deal”
The couple, who married in 1998 and have four children: twins Claudia and George IV, Charlotte and Vanessa, have always had a strong relationship, she said. Her husband, George, a lawyer and conservative political activist, was usually quiet and reserved, she wrote.
“But for the first time since George and I became serious, I looked at the possibility that the man who always held my back might one day drive me into it,” she wrote.
Shortly after George’s storm against Trump on Twitter, Ivanka Trump handed Conway a Post-It note with “the names of two local doctors who specialize in couples therapy.” Getty Images
Conway, who became the first woman in American politics to run a successful presidential campaign when Trump won in 2016 and was later appointed senior adviser to the president, writes steadily about marriage, motherhood and the forefront of one of the most -colorful administrations in the history of the United States.
After his first tweet, which cursed Trump in 2017, George’s next posts were mostly harmless. Then, in the spring of 2018, George and Conway were invited to dinner at the home of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, with whom she had a tense relationship.
“Despite Jared’s regular practice of ignoring or freezing me,” Conway said the dinner invitation “could only be positive.”
George is a lawyer and conservative political activist who was usually quiet and reserved, Conway writes. Getty Images
Over dinner, they discussed “urgent legislative action, midterm elections and the upcoming presidential election” in 2020, while her husband, George, remained silent and shrugged when asked for his opinion from time to time, she wrote.
A week after dinner, George appeared on Twitter – and never stopped.
Kelian Conway’s new book, Here’s the Deal: Memoirs.
He called Trump’s idea of pardoning two former aides “amazing” and agreed with a reporter’s observation that White House officials speaking on behalf of the president were in a difficult position because Trump said so often and does something else.
“So true,” he wrote in an already deleted post. “It’s absurd. That’s why people are pushing the door to be his communications director.”
Former White House spokeswoman Sean Spicer first approached Kelian Conway about her husband’s tweets. AFP via Getty Images
“Oh, no, I thought, here we go again,” Conway wrote of his reaction to his storm of tweets. Although she often asked George why he was crazy about Twitter, he just didn’t answer.
Shortly afterwards, Ivanka Trump handed Conway a Post-It note with “the names of two local doctors specializing in couples therapy.”
“I noticed that she avoided putting this in text or email. “I appreciated the information and its attentiveness and I wanted to continue it,” Conway wrote. “After I showed George the names, he rejected one and said half-heartedly to the other as he looked at his phone. We never went. “
Then, on July 3, 2019, they were at their home on the beach on the coast of Jersey, when she turned to her husband and told him calmly what he thought.
Kelian and George Conway were married at a major Catholic ceremony in Philadelphia, but her time at the White House has put irreversible strain on their marriage, she wrote. Courtesy of Kelian Conway
“You are the only person in this world with whom I made a vow on the altar in the Basilica of St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Philadelphia before God and our loved ones and five priests,” she recalled. “You are the only person in this world for whom I gave birth to four children.”
George looked dizzy, but she went on to say that he was the only person who had to make a choice. “You can see me mostly as my wife of 18 years and the mother of my four children, or you can see me mostly as a senior adviser to President Donald Trump. When you wake up every morning, you have to decide how you see me. “
“George,” she added, “how do you see me?”
She writes that Conway shouted without eye contact: “You are ruining and embarrassing this family.”
Conway replied, “Did I embarrass this family? You left me for Twitter, and she’s not even hot.
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