Appearing on Fox News personality Sean Hannity’s program Thursday, Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to President Trump, pushed back against those expressing a belief that newly minted White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci had crossed a line with his comments to the New Yorker about White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and, especially, top Trump strategist Steve Bannon. Scaramucci, Conway said, is at times given to “colorful language” and is “passionate about the president” to the extent that he might at times allow that trait to “get the best of him.”

Then came the pivot, a redirectional technique of which Conway has been called a master:

“ ‘Let me know when any of my colleagues in the West Wing call half of the country deplorable and irredeemable. Then, we’ll talk.’ ” — Kellyanne Conway

She was referring, of course, to Hillary Clinton, who infamously said last September that half of then-candidate Donald Trump’s supporters — not, as Conway alleged, half of the country — could be placed “into what I call the basket of deplorables” for the sins of racism, sexism, homophobia and Islamophobia —”you name it.”

At the time, Trump tweeted that he thought the remarks would cost Clinton “at the Polls.”

Key Words:Clinton puts half of Trump supporters into ‘basket of deplorables’