Kellyanne Conway appeared on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning to discuss the pending vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, as the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed to delay the decision for a week so the FBI can conduct an investigation into the sexual assault allegations against President Trump’s pick. It was during her conversation with Jake Tapper that Conway made the shocking personal revelation that she herself is also a victim of sexual assault.
“I feel very empathetic, frankly, for victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and rape,” she says in the following clip, before clearing her throat and adding, “I’m a victim of sexual assault.”
.@KellyannePolls to @jaketapper: “I’m a victim of sexual assault.” #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/ZQcmnFIicQ
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) September 30, 2018
“I don’t expect Judge Kavanaugh or Jake Tapper or Jeff Flake or anybody to be held responsible for that,” she continued. “You have to be responsible for your own conduct.”
She went on to say that comparisons of Kavanaugh to recently convicted sexual predator Bill Cosby were a “disgrace,” and that they should have been flagged by the network. Conway then brought up the investigation into Bill Clinton and called it a “hypocrisy” compared to what the Senate Judiciary Committee is putting Kavanaugh through.
When Tapper had a chance to process what Conway had just revealed and interject, he remarked that he had never heard her talk about something personal. “I’ve just had it. I’ve had it with it all being the same,” she said in reference to what she said are politically motivated accusations.
Tapper made the point that Conway works for a president who has also had sexual assault allegations made against him, and that he’s said on a number of occasions that all the women are lying.
“Don’t conflate that with this, and certainly don’t conflate that with what happened to me,” she argued, adding, “Let’s not always bring Trump into everything that happens in this universe, that’s mistake No. 1.”
She finished her argument by saying that victims of sexual assault should be heard and perpetrators held accountable—which is exactly what’s happening in the case of Kavanaugh—but that she feels cases are treated differently according to the accused’s politics.
As usual, it’s difficult to make heads or tails of the point Conway is attempting to make, but her stunning revelation is likely to be the subject of headlines for weeks to come.
