Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway Monday said she's worried that he won't be treated fairly by the media following his first presidential one-on-one debate, and that there are already headlines "written" as "conclusions in search of evidence."
"This weekend was spent by editorial writers and people on Twitter and elsewhere really just trying to undercut Donald Trump before the debate," Conway told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, complaining that there are many in Hillary Clinton's campaign who are "putting the burden on the media to prop up Hillary Clinton and pregame the debate."
And that means, Conway said, the Clinton campaign is "worried about her debating skills," agreeing with a comment from show host Joe Scarborough that "it's almost like they don't think Hillary Clinton is strong enough to do it on her own."
She also denied comments from some political experts who say Clinton will do better than Trump Monday night because of her years in the political world and because of her participation in nearly three dozen other debates in the past.
"There's no connection that we can see between her debate performances and any type of major lift in the polls thereafter, and I think they know that over in Brooklyn," Conway told the program.
She said the campaign is also concerned that Clinton will live up to a criticism voiced by then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008, when he said she would do anything to win an election.
"If she ends up saying to him, 'That's just not true, you're distorting my record, you're being mean to a woman,' people will say, 'He was mean to a woman,' and the headlines will scream and Twitter will blow up, even if it's not true," Conway said.
"That would be my concern . . . that she's going to try to interrupt him and confuse the people watching in such a way that he was somehow rude to a woman and he somehow lied on the stage."
Meanwhile, Conway, who praised Trump on Sunday as being the "Babe Ruth" of debaters, told the program that he's a "natural debater," and in her 28 years in politics, she sees Trump as a candidate with "gifts and skills that sometimes escape typical politicians, because his mind isn't poisoned by all this stuff."
Also, she said he "takes his job very seriously" and has a firm grasp on the issues. He also "certainly has a plan' on defeating ISIS, and she has heard it, and he'll expand on it in the debate if he is asked.
"People are just amazed that Hillary Clinton would put on her campaign website what her plan to defeat ISIS is," said Conway. "Is it that ISIS can't read that plan? Since 2003, ISIS and its predecessors have been responsible for about 80,000 deaths, and we know that — I'm sorry, 33,000 deaths.
"Eighty percent of them have occurred in just the last three years under ISIS. People know the birth and growth of ISIS have occurred on President [Barack] Obama's watch, if not Secretary Clinton's watch."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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