An interview between CNN’s Chris Cuomo and Donald Trump’s campaign manager turned testy Friday morning as the host paused their discussion to make sure he wasn’t being accused of running defense for Hillary Clinton.
Cuomo pressed GOP pollster and Trump campaign chief Kellyanne Conway Friday on the Republican candidate’s evolving positions on the invasion of Iraq.
Trump once said he thought the invasion was a good idea, but he maintains now that he was always against it.
For Conway, the entire story is a non-issue.
“If CNN and anybody else thinks that this campaign is going to come down to what Donald Trump said in ten words or less to Howard Stern 14 years ago, you’re mistaken” she began.
“No,” Cuomo declared solemnly. “It’s about the truth-telling.”
Conway continued, saying, “I know everybody is getting very nervous. The polls are tightening, we see the stories last night that Hillary Clinton is going to shift her strategy, find her voice yet again, 30 years of this, she’s going to stop talking about Donald Trump, start talking about herself. Really?”
Cuomo paused their discussion briefly to go back to a point that Conway made earlier, and pressed the Trump campaign manager on whether she accused him of flacking for the Clinton campaign.
“Kellyanne,” the CNN host said, “let me ask you something, just so that we’re clear. Are you suggesting that I’m asking you hard questions about Trump because I’m worried that Hillary Clinton is going to lose?”
Conway outright denied the suggestion, and said, “No. Not you.”
“Okay,” Cuomo responded, adding, “because given what the campaign has done in the past, where it takes me out of context, I want to make sure we’re clear about where you’re coming from in.”
The CNN anchor claimed in July that he had been “blacklisted” by the Trump campaign. Cuomo said at the time that he was supposedly placed on the GOP nominee’s naughty list for the way he conducted interviews.
“One of the misconceptions is the media gives him a pass. That is not true,” Cuomo said. “I’m blacklisted by Donald Trump and his whole campaign. They won’t come on because of how we conduct our interviews.”
