Donald Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway admonished a man who shouted “Jew-S-A!” at reporters at a Trump rally Saturday night and said she would have had him removed if she had seen it.
Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday whether she would call the man’s conduct “deplorable,” Conway said: “Yes, I would. His conduct is completely unacceptable and does not reflect our campaign or our candidate.”
The word “deplorable” recalled Hillary Clinton’s comment at a private fundraiser that half of Trump’s supporters fit into what she called a “basket of deplorables.” After criticism, Clinton later said she should not have said “half” of his backers were deplorable.
The man’s chant came while the rest of the crowd was chanting “U-S-A!” Video of the man’s anti-Semitic shouting had gone viral Saturday night.
“That man’s conduct was deplorable, and had I been there, I would have asked security to remove him immediately. Clearly, he doesn’t speak for the campaign or the candidate, and what he had to say was disgusting,” Conway said.
She pushed back against Tapper’s questions about Trump’s refusal to issue direct condemnations of some supporters’ bigoted comments.
“Yes, he has. He has done that,” Conway said. “And let me just repeat on his behalf that that’s the way his campaign feels. … Don’t besmirch the good name of the tens of thousands, the millions of Trump supporters.”