It was the eye roll seen ‘round the world.
After a clip of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper lifting his eyes skyward at Kellyanne Conway went viral last week, the White House counselor on Sunday called the move “possibly sexist.”
Conway’s comments came after Cooper interviewed her Wednesday about the firing of FBI Director James Comey. After showing several clips of Donald Trump praising Comey while on the campaign trail, Cooper said, “So now your White House is saying that what he [Comey] did was wrong, but previously, as a candidate, Trump said it was the right thing.”
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Conway responded, “You’re conflating two things that don’t belong together. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, and I was on your show often last fall saying we were going to win Michigan and how we were going to do it, so that was fun.”
At that point, Cooper gave a noticeable eye roll as Conway continued, “But here’s what happened today. Today — not in the campaign — in the White House, the president of the United States —”
Cooper then interrupted her, asking, “So that person doesn’t exist anymore? Candidate Donald Trump, that’s a fictional character we no longer are allowed to refer to? We can now only refer to the Donald Trump who exists today?”
“Anderson, I’ll ignore how unkind that is,” Conway responded. “All I’ll say is, as president of the United States, he needs confidence in his FBI director, and he doesn’t have it.”
The contention between the two was so noticeable, the clip went viral on social media, and several publications wrote about the interaction.
Appearing on Fox News’ “MediaBuzz” show Sunday morning, host Howard Kurtz asked Conway what she thought of Cooper’s move.
Conway dismissed the act, and then railed against media coverage of Trump and his White House, implying that the CNN anchor might have intentionally shown his frustration in order to get attention.
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“A lot of folks want things to go viral,” Conway said. ”They think it’s the job of the news media, which it’s not, of course.”
She also expressed frustration for having to “sit through [clips of] President Trump, then candidate Trump, on the stump in many different places, praising Jim Comey.”
“I turned it around, as I often do, and I said, ‘Thanks for the trip down memory lane, we loved winning Michigan,’ and of course he rolled his eyes,” Conway said.
She then called Anderson’s eye roll “possibly sexist, definitely what I call ‘Trumpist,’ which is, many people who go on TV are treated like house guests, and then we go on TV, and we’re not.”
Conway then continued to rail against how the media treats Trump and his spokespeople.
“The suspicion and the derision just generally towards this White House. . . and the quest to go viral, the quest to say to somebody when there’s nothing else to say, quote, ‘That makes no sense,’ or, ‘You must be lying,’ it really doesn’t help democracy and it doesn’t help the body politic, because people are looking for the news.”
She continued, “The idea that people are so presumptively negative toward so much going on — it’s frankly often why you see people on this network only for long periods of time. Because, you know, we’re faced with people with the same pained look, the furrowed brow, the curled lip, anytime someone tries to say something, including the president.”
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