CNN regulars can normally be expected to applaud any criticism of President Trump, regardless of the source. So it was surprising to hear David Gregory, on this morning's New Day, criticize George Conway for his anti-Trump tweets.
Conway is, of course, the lawyer husband of senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. George has long been disgorging a steady stream of Twitter attacks on Trump. He got himself into the anti-Trump hit parade over the weekend for tweets suggesting that the President has "Antisocial Personality Disorder," and is "getting worse." As if he's a psychologist now?
Asked to comment on the situation, Gregory made these unexpected remarks:
DAVID GREGORY: I think George Conway's making mischief. He clearly doesn't like the President.
JOHN BERMAN: [laughs] You think? How did you get the impression?
GREGORY: [facetiously] Only if you read the tweets over time, you come to that conclusion.
I actually don't think it's appropriate what he's doing. I think if you have a spouse who's in public service in that way, you ought to keep it to yourself. But I think people will try to read into it. And I think it's been suggested, does he know more than other people know? Perhaps. I think he's an opponent of the President who's using his forum, making it uncomfortable for his wife. They submitted to a Washington Post profile. So, they're kind of hiding in plain sight. So, I don't know how far it goes other than the obvious melodrama of a senior adviser's spouse being so public about all of this.
Why would Gregory take this unexpected tack? After all, most people at CNN absolutely revel in the Trump crowd's misery and back-stabbing, especially if someone is pushing the notion that Trump is mentally unfit for office.
A clue could come from his observation that George—a lawyer—is "making it uncomfortable for his wife." Guess who else has a lawyer spouse? Yup: David Gregory, in the person of Beth Ann Wilkinson, who recently made the TV rounds as a lawyer defending then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Could Gregory be imagining how horrible it would be for him if Beth took to Twitter to accuse David's boss, CNN president Jeff Zucker, of being mentally ill?
