Conway: No one can take a joke in Washington

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said Washington is “humorless.”

“No one can take a joke either, that is definitely true, humorless Washington,” Conway said Friday when asked about her comment that microwaves can be used for surveillance.


Conway was attending the National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit when she joked that she no longer eats ice cream out of the container because she is worried about it going viral because “somebody’s watching.”

Jim Geraghty, a National Review senior political correspondent, asked “is the microwave watching?” to which Conway said no one in Washington can take a joke.

Conway’s comment on microwave surveillance led White House press secretary Sean Spicer to say microwaves are “not a sound way of surveilling someone.” He said Conway’s comment was made “in jest.” However, Conway’s tone and delivery suggested otherwise.

“There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of different ways — microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera,” Conway had said during an interview with the Bergen County Record.

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Geraghty followed up, saying when Conway made the comment he wondered if she knew something he didn’t.

“I know plenty that others don’t, but that’s OK, that’s my job,” she said. “And the president certainly knows a heck of a lot more than any of us know, which is the way it is meant to be.”

Conway’s apparent reference to President Donald Trump’s accusation that former President Barack Obama wiretapped him in Trump Tower led to an audible groan from the audience.