NEW YORK — White House adviser Kellyanne Conway says she meant no disrespect in asking a reporter to reveal his ethnicity.
Her question came during an informal press gathering Tuesday when reporter Andrew Feinberg asked her about President Trump’s tweets regarding freshmen Democratic congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar. Feinberg wondered what countries Trump was referring to when he suggested the American politicians should return to their countries of origin.
Conway replied, “What’s your ethnicity?”
Here's @KellyannePolls asking a Jewish reporter "what's your ethnicity?" while trying to defend comments the president made asking women of color who serve in Congress to leave the country pic.twitter.com/d77pf6qnS7
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 16, 2019
After a brief pause, Feinberg asked why that was relevant to his question.
Conway, who said she is of Italian and Irish descent, tweeted later that she was trying to make the point that “We are all from somewhere else ‘originally.’”
This was meant with no disrespect.
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) July 16, 2019
We are all from somewhere else “originally”. I asked the question to answer the question and volunteered my own ethnicity: Italian and Irish.
Like many, I am proud of my ethnicity, love the USA & grateful to God to be an American ?? https://t.co/OvBALIO6WP
Feinberg works for the technology publication Breakfast Media.
JUST NOW: I asked @KellyannePolls, who’d just said @realDonaldTrump was not telling Omar/Tlaib/Pressley/AOC to go back to Somalia/Gaza/Puerto Rico/etc, which countries he was referring to.
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) July 16, 2019
She responded by asking me where my ancestors came from, thereby confirming what he meant
