George Conway is offering his take on President Donald Trump’s Twitter attacks, explaining what he believes is the real reason behind the president’s actions.
Conway penned an op-ed in The Washington Post published on Wednesday, where he highlighted the types of occurrences that seem to trigger the president’s “ire” — any report that paints him in a seemingly negative light.
From The New York Times report in April that detailed Trump routine watching news segments to the latest The Lincoln Project ad that led to a series of late-night tweets from the president, Conway argues that negative reports keep the president “awake at night.”
Conway blasted Trump, suggesting he is “obsessed about how he’s covered in the news” and slammed the president for “attacking journalists” and others amid the coronavirus pandemic. He also suggested the “blame for the government’s failures in responding to COVID-19 right” belongs to Trump.
“It may strike you as deranged that a sitting president facing a pandemic has busied himself attacking journalists, political opponents, television news hosts, and late-night comedians,” Conway said, adding, “Even deriding a former president who merely called for empathy and unity in response to the virus.”
He went on to note the president’s alleged focus on ratings, saying, Trump “bragged about his supposed Facebook ranking in the middle of a virus task-force briefing, asserted that millions would have died were it not for him, boasted that ‘the ‘Ratings’ of my News Conferences, etc.’ were driving ‘the Lamestream Media . . . CRAZY,’ and floated bogus miracle cures, including suggesting that scientists consider injecting humans with household disinfectants such as Clorox.”
The attorney claims the reason Trump is so bothered by the reports is due to “narcissism.” In the piece, Conway also noted Trump’s characteristics that, he says, seem to align with the higher end of the narcissistic spectrum.
“Extreme narcissists exaggerate their achievements and talents, and so Trump has spent his life building up a false image of himself — not just for others, but for himself, to protect his deeply fragile ego.”
Despite Trump’s efforts to defend himself and the work of his administration, Conway believes the president “knows the truth.”
“For deep in his psyche he knows the truth,” Conway said. “Because he fears being revealed as a fake or deranged, he’ll call others fake or deranged. Because he fears losing, he’ll call them losers instead.”
Conway’s latest op-ed comes amid his ongoing clash with Trump. On Monday when The Lincoln Project’s latest ad was released, Conway and Trump exchanged barbs on Twitter, as previously reported on IJR.