Kellyanne Conway appeared on CNN on Monday morning and denounced the politicization of tragedy by everyone except her boss, President Donald Trump.

Much of Trump’s political rise and presidential rhetoric has been thanks to one thing: exploiting tragedy to divide America. From fear-mongering about Muslims in order to push a religious test for travelers to scapegoating immigrants for most of the nation’s ills, Trump’s Twitter feed and speeches take any tragedy that he believes fits his political narrative and use it, even when doing so runs explicitly counter to the wishes of victims’ families.

But now that Trump’s own violent rhetoric and his dalliances with anti-Semitism have been under renewed scrutiny following last week’s assassination attempts on his political opponents and Saturday’s mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, his administration suddenly is very concerned that tragedies not be politicized.

Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016

Conway, Trump’s White House counselor and 2016 campaign manager, told CNN’s New Day that since Trump had (finally) issued a clear denunciation of anti-Semitism, it was unacceptable for politicians and the media to point fingers at her boss.


“I don’t like when the politicians are pointing fingers, when the media immediate[ly] start the blame game and others start the blame game, for a very simple reason.” she said. “We’re disrespecting the victims and we’re disrespecting the opportunity to instruct everybody as to why this happened.”

After neo-Nazis and white supremacists violently attacked protesters last year in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump infamously proclaimed that there were “very fine people on both sides.” And since these two tragedies, Trump has already blamed the victims in Pittsburgh for not having enough guns and complained that the bombing attempts had distracted from his political messaging.