What was Kellyanne Conway doing?

| 1:28 am EDT August 24, 2020
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

When the news broke on Sunday night that Kellyanne Conway was resigning from the Trump White House, it wasn’t particularly surprising. Her teenage daughter had just tweeted the night before that she was seeking emancipation, and the whole family situation seemed to be imploding. The whole thing seems ugly; we hope things turn out okay for the kid.

But regardless of the reason for Kellyanne Conway’s sudden resignation, the task remains in trying to assess the impact that this will have on Donald Trump’s failing White House and beleaguered campaign. That’s where things get tricky. Kellyanne is one of the very few senior advisers who were with the the Trump White House from day one and lasted this long (most of the others are Trump family members). Yet in trying to assess what Trump will lose by not having her around, it’s not clear that she was actually doing anything to begin with.

Early on, Kellyanne seemed to have at least one clear job duty. She would go on TV and tell wall to wall lies, leaving interviewers befuddled about where to even start, and leaving viewers confused as what the story even was to begin with. But as time went on, perhaps if only because interviewers became less afraid to mow her down, she gradually became far less effective at this. Recently, Trump seemed to be occasionally sending her on TV as a last resort, knowing she’d flail and humiliate herself, and take a bit of focus away from his own humiliation that day.

So what was Kellyanne Conway even doing in Donald Trump’s White House? Why was she even still around? Was this just a matter of Trump wanting to keep a familiar face around, amid nonstop personnel chaos? Did she know enough dirt to make her un-firable? We don’t suppose we’ll be writing about her again after today, unless she unexpectedly enters the election fray again. But it’s a reminder of how profoundly dysfunctional and deranged this White House is that a longtime senior adviser just resigned, and we still don’t have any idea what her job was supposed to have been to begin with.