WASHINGTON – Attorney George Conway, whose wife Kellyanne Conway works as a counselor to President Donald Trump, said in a Washington Post op-ed on Monday that he had no more doubt: the president is a racist.

George Conway, who initially supported Trump but has become one of the president's fiercest critics since he took office, said that despite his problems with Trump he had held off judging him to be a bigot. But after Trump's tweets Sunday telling a group of minority Democratic congresswomen – three of whom were born in the U.S. – to "go back" to the countries they "originally came from" he could no longer avoid the conclusion.

"No, I thought, President Trump was boorish, dim-witted, inarticulate, incoherent, narcissistic and insensitive. He’s a pathetic bully but an equal-opportunity bully – in his uniquely crass and crude manner, he’ll attack anyone he thinks is critical of him. No matter how much I found him ultimately unfit, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt about being a racist," George Conway said.

"But Sunday left no doubt. Naivete, resentment and outright racism, roiled in a toxic mix, have given us a racist president."

He said Trump's comments about Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan were "racist to the core."

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"It doesn’t matter what these representatives are for or against – and there’s plenty to criticize them for – it’s beyond the bounds of human decency. For anyone, not least a president," wrote George Conway, a Republican.

His wife, one of the president's longest-serving presidential aides, responded that she doesn't share the same view.

"I totally disagree," Kellyanne Conway said in a Fox News interview Tuesday when asked about her husband's assertion that the president is a racist.

"I work with this president, I know him," she said. "I know his heart, I know his actions, I know how much he has helped people of color. And I go by what people do, not what other people say about them."

She said that thanks to Trump "people are no longer languishing in prison" and "fewer people are getting addicted to drugs." And she said the economy under Trump is lifting up "people of all backgrounds, all races, both genders."

The White House counselor cautioned that the attempts to paint Trump as a racist could backfire against his critics.

"People are analogizing a red hat to a swastika. Is that where we are now? Have at it everybody, but keep the cameras and the microphones on, because Americans should see who they are," she said.

She appeared to bristle at the question about her husband and said, "respectfully, I'm not going to run around pointing out everybody's disagreements with the people in their lives, I sure could. I can point out people's disagreements with their former spouses, their current spouses and partners, their future spouses and partners, but I won't do that."

George Conway sharply criticized Republican politicians who have not condemned Trump's remarks.

"They’re silent not because they agree with Trump. Surely they know better," he said. Rather they have "inured themselves to his wild statements," don’t "want to give succor to their political enemies" and "fear his wrath."

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He said Trump's remarks reminded him of a boyhood incident when he witnessed a woman in a supermarket parking lot tell his mother, who was an immigrant from the Philippines, to "go back to your country."

But "Trump is not some random, embittered person in a parking lot," George Conway said. "He’s the president of the United States. By virtue of his office, he speaks for the country. What’s at stake now is more important than judges or tax cuts or regulations or any policy issue of the day. What’s at stake are the nation’s ideals, its very soul."

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