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Kellyanne Conway is taking aim at the New York Times and one of its former reporters, Taylor Lorenz, over a 2020 fiasco that highlighted social media posts made by her then-15-year-old daughter, Claudia Conway.
Conway, who served as senior counselor to former President Trump during his tenure in the White House, writes in her new book, “Here’s the Deal,” that she was first made aware of the reporting on her daughter when a Yahoo! News reporter contacted her via text message and asked whether she was “following” the coverage of Claudia’s TikTok videos.
Kellyanne Conway speaks during an event on education at the America First Policy Institute on January 28, 2022 in Washington, DC.
(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Conway acknowledged in her book that Claudia was free to form her own opinions and said she encouraged her to do so while growing up. She also recognized that people grew to know who she was simply because of her family’s position in the public spotlight.
“People noticed her once camera shy and now twice bitten by Twitter father, in one of her TikToks and realized who she was,” Conway wrote of her daughter. “Among them was a thirty-five-year-old internet culture and technology ‘reporter’ from the New York Times named Miss Taylor Lorenz, who has blue blood and thin skin.”
Further describing Lorenz, Conway said that when her “tactics or veracity are challenged or the slightest bit of her own foul medicine is placed on her lips, she screams sexism, sends up a distress call to the Times mother ship, and retreats.”
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Conway soon discovered that the New York Times had allowed Lorenz to web together progressive, anti-Trump TikTok videos into a Twitter thread that gave leeway, according to Conway, to anyone who wanted to “paw through the daily details of my teenage daughter’s life and whatever thoughts and emotions might have passed through her active mind.”
Claudia Conway participates in the American Idol competition
(Eric McCandless via Getty Images)
After Lorenz reported on Claudia’s videos and social media posts, Conway said Claudia started receiving “viral” feedback from other TikTok users that made her an “overnight sensation.”
Conway said she felt immediate “terror for Claudia’s safety” after finding out about the work Lorenz had done. “Instant fame brings instant chaos as I well know,” Conway wrote.
Conway said in the book that she informed her husband, George Conway, an attorney and political activist, who seemed indifferent about the situation.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked his wife before hanging up the phone. Conway, who wrote that she did not get much sleep the night she was made aware of the situation, said she made several attempts to contact her husband soon after, but she could not reach him. “He would not answer another call or take any of my desperate texts,” she wrote.
In this Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017 photo, President-elect Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, center, accompanied by her husband, George.
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
After learning about the sensation her daughter had received over the TikTok videos, Conway said she learned that Lorenz had reached out to her daughter and questioned her about the videos. At one point, Conway wrote, Lorenz told her daughter that if she didn’t feel “comfortable” with the situation then she could provide her parents with Lorenz’s phone number.
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Eventually, Conway was able to contact an array of Times editors regarding the situation. Conway said some editors defended Lorenz, but those in higher positions finally got back with her and told her that no more stories would be written about the videos. According to Conway, it was too late and the “damage is done.”
Conway said her daughter did not want to remove the posts from her account and stated in the book that other media outlets began to reach out to her daughter.
Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz.
(MSNBC)
“Once the Times opened the door, other media outlets blew right through their own internal protocols – assuming they had any – to get to Claudia, DMing our fifteen-year-old child and flooding her with interview requests and promises of other goodies.”
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Conway said her daughter “has expressed regret for some of the things she said and did online” and noted that she received more coverage than Hunter Biden, 52, in 2020.
“My underage daughter became news, but not Joe Biden’s dirtbag adult son,” Conway wrote.
Earlier this year, Lorenz, now a reporter for the Washington Post, made headlines after she doxxed the individual behind the Libs of TikTok account.
Conway’s new book hit shelves Tuesday.
