Trump campaign manager squabbles with Anderson Cooper over polls

Donald Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway stole a play from the GOP nominee’s playbook Tuesday night, labeling Hillary Clinton “the magic 46” for her inability to climb higher in the polls despite an array of advantages.

But given Trump’s own struggles in the polls, the nickname didn’t quite stick for CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.


“I think Hillary Clinton's been depressing Democratic turnout. My goodness. Why is this woman at 46 percent?” Conway said. “She's like the magic 46. She's 46 in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. She’s 46 percent in a lot of these swing states.”

“She’s ahead of your candidate, though,” Cooper interjected.

“Well, Anderson, she's running as the first female president who has a sitting president and first lady, much more popular than she'll ever be,” Conway replied before Cooper interrupted again to point out that “your candidate is below 40 percent.”

“Is that a question?” Conway asked, to which Cooper responded, “Well, you're saying 46 percent is bad, but 37 percent is worse.”

“Right, yes, one needs not be a pollster to know that,” she said, regaining her rhetorical footing. “I'm asking you, I'm completely perplexed by somebody who has most of the mainstream media for her, well, all the mainstream media, most of the media for her. She’s got a sitting president, a sitting first lady far more popular than she'll ever hope to be, a former president also her husband, a sitting vice president. She’s got a thousand people working in Brooklyn. She has all these states locked up and she can't crack 50 percent and stay there. So we know we can do it.”

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that Conway cited as evidence of Clinton’s struggles was published Monday, showing Trump trailing the former secretary of state by 11 points, 46 percent to 35 percent. The poll was conducted last weekend after the release of a video clip in which Trump was heard making vulgar remarks about women but before Sunday night’s presidential debate.

The tape's publication Friday prompted a wave of Republicans to flee from Trump, with some withdrawing their endorsement and others calling on him to leave the race altogether for the good of the party. Trump has flatly refused to even consider dropping out and instead has ramped up his attacks, celebrating on Tuesday that “It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.”

Said Conway: “We're communicating directly with voters. For those members of Congress that endorse us, terrific. For those that don't, we're still winning voters in their state. For everyone that doesn't want to endorse Donald Trump or doesn't even want to support him, he should realize he actually has a connection to his voters. We welcome all Republican endorsements, no question. We'd be happy to have that. We'd be happy to have more fair treatment in the media. But I'm not going to find unicorns on my doorstep tomorrow, either. So in the meantime, we're just going to continue to go with him as a master communicator and connector directly to the voters.”