President Donald Trump’s interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” which aired Sunday, represented “reason 3,642 why the American people wanted him” instead of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Monday on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”
“It was fantastic interview,” Conway said, pointing to the “media barrage” Trump has received both before and during his presidency.
“It’s part of why he got elected. And when you contrast this interview this weekend to the woman who he beat, her interview this weekend, you are reminded yet again reason 3,642 why the American people wanted him — a different type of leadership,” she continued. “He doesn’t back down.”
Conway referred to Clinton’s controversial interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” in which she insisted that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, “absolutely” should not have resigned over his Oval Office affair with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Even in light of the #MeToo movement, Clinton insisted that it wasn’t “an abuse of power” because Lewinsky “was an adult” at the time of the affair.
Related: ’60 Minutes’ Tried to Nail Donald Trump and Fed Right into His ‘Dishonest Media’ Claims
Trump’s interview on “60 Minutes” with Lesley Stahl (above right) covered a wide range of topics and grew tense in some parts. In particular, “Fox & Friends” asked Conway to react to a portion of the interview in which Stahl confronted Trump over his “love” for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
Stahl asked Trump about a quote from a recent rally in which he said of Kim, “And then we fell in love, okay. No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters. And they’re great letters. We fell in love.”
“I wanna read you his résumé, okay? He presides over a cruel kingdom of repression, gulags, starvation, reports that he had his half-brother assassinated, slave labor, public executions. This is a guy you love?” Stahl asked Trump.
The president replied, “Sure. I know all these things. I mean, I’m not a baby. I know these things.”
“I know, but why do you love that guy?” she pressed.
Trump replied, “I get along with him, OK?”
“But you love him,” Stahl insisted.
Trump said, “OK. That’s just a figure of speech.”
“No, it’s like an embrace,” she said.
Trump said, “Let it be whatever it is to get the job done.”
Stahl warned that Kim is “a bad guy.”
“We’ve got just the longest economic streak in modern history, if not ever — 4.2 million jobs created, all this deregulation.”
But Trump remained firm, saying, “Let it be whatever it is. I get along with him really well. I have a good energy with him. I have a good chemistry with him. Look at the horrible threats that were made. No more threats.”
Conway argued that Trump “was very respectful in the ’60 Minutes’ interview.”
“But at the same time he made clear he doesn’t make pledges to the media, to the press. He makes pledges to the people. And one of those pledges was to come here and improve the economy. And we’ve got just the longest economic streak in modern history, if not ever — 4.2 million jobs created, all this deregulation,” she said.
“When it comes to Stahl’s questions about Kim, I love the president’s comment, because don’t forget this president’s leadership has brought three Americans home from North Korea. Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo was there last weekend negotiating further steps toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. That helps everyone,” Conway added.
“Thank you, President Trump.”
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