White House counselor Kellyanne Conway was scorched by the press when she coined the now-infamous “alternative facts” phrase last year, but two new books revisiting that moment are offering her something of a defense.
Immediately following President Trump’s inauguration, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer memorably took to the podium to dispute official numbers that showed far fewer people had attended that ceremony compared to former President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Sunday, moderator Chuck Todd challenged Conway to defend Spicer’s assertion that Trump’s inauguration crowd was larger than it really was.
Why had Trump “asked the White House press secretary to come out in front of the podium for the first time and utter a falsehood? Why did he do that?” Todd asked.
“Don’t be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck,” Conway replied. “You’re saying it’s a falsehood and they’re giving — Sean Spicer, our press secretary gave alternative facts.”
“Look, alternative facts are not facts,” said Todd. “They’re falsehoods.”
That moment was replayed on cable news, mocked on late-night talk shows, and ripped by political commentators.
New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg called it “chilling.”
Veteran journalist Dan Rather said the phrase was “Orwellian.”
“If I needed ‘alternative facts,’ like, I would go to a Ouija board,” MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said.
Journalist Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury, however, says Kelly was merely stating that there might be additional data that was being overlooked to bolster the White House’s view of the inauguration crowd.
“The next day Kellyanne Conway, her aggressive posture during the campaign turning more and more to petulance and self-pity, asserted the president’s right to claim ‘alternative facts,’” Wolff wrote, recalling the “Meet the Press” exchange. “As it happened, Conway meant to say ‘alternative information,’ which at least would imply there might be a additional data. But as uttered, it certainly sounded like the new administration was claiming the right to recast reality.”
Fox News host Howard Kurtz, a longtime media reporter, made a similar claim in his new book Media Madness, another insider account of the White House.
Conway “had meant equally accurate explanations, like ‘two plus two equals four’ and ‘three plus one equals four,’ but it quickly became journalistic shorthand for White House exaggerations and falsehoods,” Kurtz wrote in his book, according to a review of it published Sunday by the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan.
In her review, Sullivan did not buy Kurtz’s explanation.
“Of course, no one had an ‘equally accurate explanation’ to offer,” she wrote. “Trump’s aides were just trying to defend the indefensible, which turns out to be something that provides full-time employment in the current administration.”
Sullivan had also written on Wolff’s book but did not pick up on his explanation of Conway’s “alternative facts” quote.
