Conway: Dems trying to humiliate Cabinet picks

Kellyanne Conway, incoming counselor to Donald Trump, on Wednesday accused Democrats of “humiliating and trying to embarrass” the president-elect’s Cabinet nominees and called their rapid-fire questioning of Betsy DeVos, his pick for education secretary, “reprehensible.”

“This idea of humiliating and trying to embarrass qualified men and women who just wish to serve this nation is reprehensible,” Conway told Fox News on Wednesday morning. “Not one child who needs a better education benefited from any of those incendiary questions yesterday. But, of course, Mrs. DeVos held herself with the grace and elegance that we know her to have.”


On Tuesday, Democrats on the Senate education committee grilled DeVos, a prominent donor to Michigan Republicans and longtime advocate for charter schools and school vouchers.

Each committee member had only five minutes to question her, so several Democrats asked a series of pointed questions in quick succession. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a liberal independent now in the Democratic leadership, asked her if she would have been nominated to the Cabinet were she not a billionaire; Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut tried to get her to agree that guns have no place in schools. Her response, that a school in Wyoming might need a gun to fend off “grizzlies,” has since played on repeat on cable news.

Conway similarly dismissed the controversy surrounding Rep. Tom Price, the Health and Human Services secretary nominee now facing scrutiny because of his past investments. While in Congress, Price traded health care stocks, and news broke this week that he bought shares in a medical device company shortly before introducing legislation from which that company would benefit. Trump’s team disputes the report, saying Price was not directly involved in the stock purchase.

“This is another example of just trying to embarrass and humiliate an otherwise eminently qualified nominee,” Conway said.