U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday called the husband of one of his top aides, Kellyanne Conway, “a total loser” after lawyer and Trump critic George Conway suggested that Trump is increasingly mentally impaired.
George Conway is without qualifications in psychology.
But on Sunday, as Trump vented his wrath at a variety of targets in a hail of Twitter comments, Conway cited the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to claim that the president embodies “a grandiose sense of self-importance,” is “pre-occupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance” and shows signs of “irritability and aggressiveness.”
“His condition is getting worse,” said Conway, a Republican attorney who was considered for the job of solicitor general by the Trump administration but withdrew from consideration.
His wife, a fixture on U.S. news shows defending Trump and by now accustomed to her husband’s months of taunts against the president, dismissed his armchair assessment of Trump’s mental stability.
“No, I don’t share those concerns,” she said Monday.
But the feud between George Conway and the president escalated Tuesday when Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said on Twitter that Trump “turned down Mr. Kellyanne Conway for a job he desperately wanted. He barely worked @TheJusticeDept and was either fired/quit, didn’t want the scrutiny?”
He added, “Now he hurts his wife because he is jealous of her success,” claiming that Trump “doesn’t even know him!” The couple, however, has attended black tie events together at the White House.
Trump retweeted Parscale’s disparaging assessment of George Conway, saying, “A total loser!”
Within minutes of Trump’s comment, George Conway replied, “Congratulations! You just guaranteed that millions of more people are going to learn about narcissistic personality disorder and malignant narcissism! Great job!”
The president’s doctor, after examining Trump last month, said he is healthy although overweight.
“I am happy to announce the president of the United States is in very good health and I anticipate he will remain so for the duration of his presidency, and beyond,” White House doctor Sean Conley said.
George Conway helped co-found Checks and Balances, a group of conservative and libertarian lawyers who have attacked Trump for the way he has handled legal and political situations during his 26-month presidency.
After earlier attacks on him, Trump called him “Mr. Kellyanne Conway” and said, “He’s just trying to get publicity for himself.”
But Trump’s assessment of his key aide’s spouse was once decidedly more favorable.
The Washington Post published a 2006 letter, a decade before Trump ran for the presidency, in which Trump, then a real estate mogul, praised George Conway for his work representing him in a dispute with tenants at his Trump World Tower condominium in New York.
“I want to thank you for your wonderful assistance in ridding Trump World Tower of some very bad people,” Trump wrote Conway. “What I was most impressed with was how quickly you were able to comprehend a very bad situation.”
Conway, 55, and Kellyanne Conway, 52, married in 2001 and have four children together.
Conway told one interviewer last year that he knows his wife does not appreciate his barbed comments about her boss, the president.
“But I’ve told her, I don’t like the administration, so it’s even,” he said.
