Kellyanne Conway is a dependable source of thoroughly laundered information about the events of the day, and her chat with CNN's Jake Tapper today was no exception. Conway tried to take Tapper through a few spin cycles, but none achieved the velocity of the final exchange. In a meeting with a group of sheriffs who support his policies this morning—one in which he offered, maybe-jokingly, to destroy the career of one of their enemies—President Trump declared the national murder rate is currently the highest it's been in 47 years.

This is completely false, as a number of outlets, and Tapper, made clear:

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Kellyanne Conway on Trump’s false claim that the US murder rate is highest in 47 years https://t.co/Vhi5kCDd8v https://t.co/rUlKjNqwgh — CNN (@CNN) February 7, 2017

There was a modest spike in violent crime between 2014 and 2015, but levels are still way below where they were in the '80s and '90s:

How, then, could Conway defend the president's statement? As Tapper soon learned—and registered with the patented Tapper Look™—she could not and would not. Instead, she went with the same line the Trump camp offered when they were peddling the falsehood that 3 million undocumented immigrants voted in the last election: that the president has his own super secret information, and it's tremendously accurate, but you can't see it, OK?

(The implication here is that Conway hasn't seen it either.)

Conway then pivoted, less artfully than usual, to a long monologue about how well Trump got along with the sheriffs he met with today and how the administration is going to work with law enforcement to bring down crime. That's great, and it also has nothing to do with the fact that the president is continually spreading falsehoods about violent chaos on our streets.

Conway's move isn't a defense. It's barely even a dodge. The same thing happened when Tapper challenged her on the president's claim that the news media doesn't cover terrorist attacks, a self-evidently absurd falsehood:

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

.@jaketapper to Kellyanne Conway: Saying that we don't cover terrorism is just false. It’s offensive. https://t.co/z792GDX8Bg — CNN (@CNN) February 7, 2017

And in her non-defense of Trump's refusal to speak publicly about the right-wing extremist terror attack in Quebec last month:

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

.@jaketapper to Kellyanne Conway: Why hasn't the President offered his sympathy to our neighbors in the North? https://t.co/YoJ9OYk7d1 — CNN (@CNN) February 7, 2017

None of what Conway said was a defense of the president's position, because she is never really sure what the president's position is—or will be 10 minutes from now. None of his surrogates know. He might tweet tomorrow that the murder rate is the highest it's been since the Civil War. He might say there were 10 million illegal votes.

The real question is, if Conway is not speaking on behalf of the president and Trump might just as easily contradict what she says in words and action, what is the purpose of having Conway on TV? As it is, she's just sitting there spinning—or creating falsehoods of her own.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io