Kellyanne Conway on Trump: 'I didn't say I endorsed his attacks'
Conway said she endorses "the president's right to fight back."
— -- Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway in an interview said she supports President Trump's "right to fight back," but wouldn't firmly say whether she stands by his "attacks" on Twitter against MSNBC's "Morning Joe" hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.
"The president normally does not draw first blood. He is a counter-puncher," Conway told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos today on "Good Morning America."
"I endorse the president’s right to fight back when he is being mercilessly attacked and when the airwaves are filled with raw sewage about him and his fitness for office," she said.
Conway was pressed further on whether she endorses Trump's tweets Thursday referring to what he called the "poorly rated" news show hosts as "low I.Q. Crazy Mika" and "Psycho Joe." Trump also tweeted that he refused Brzezinski and Scarborough's requests to join him while at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, saying Brzezinski was "bleeding badly" from a facelift.
"I didn’t say I endorsed his attacks; I never said that," Conway said on "GMA" this morning. "What I said was I endorse his ability to fight back when he is attacked."
First lady Melania Trump is standing by her husband's tweets. In a statement to ABC News on Thursday, the first lady's spokesperson Stephanie Grisham said: "As the first lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder."
In the interview on "GMA" this morning, Conway accused the press of covering attacks against Trump's "physical and mental states on national television every day" rather than "connecting Americans with information they need" about health care and other policy reform.
"Bottom line, I endorse his ability to connect on social media with Americans and I endorse, as the first lady has said, him firing back when he is being mercilessly attacked," Conway said. "The good I hope comes out of this is that we change the conversation; that respect for the office of the president and its current occupant are intact and that we have a full conversation on policy."