Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, has blasted journliast Anderson Cooper’s eye roll during a CNN interview with her last week as “possibly sexist” and “definitely Trumpist” — by which she apparently means anti-Donald Trump.
The eye action occurred as a testy Conway confusingly attempted to explain Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey among the shifting sands of White House reasons.
Conway said in a Sunday interview on Fox News that Cooper’s reaction was indicative of the kind of dismissive, “presumptively negative” news coverage aimed at the Trump administration. It “doesn’t help the body politic” as the media strives to “go viral” even while having “nothing else to say,” Conway added. She complained about “all the blather and having to hear all the nonsense and the negativity and the falsities” from the media.
Cooper was also slammed for the eye roll with a startling homophobic tweet last week by actor James Woods, who attributed the CNN anchor’s reaction to a “butt plug dislodg[ing] during a newscast.”
Cooper seemed during most of his 13-minute interview with Conway to be making a concerted effort to keep a straight face, but in response to a few points Conway tried to make he tilted his head quizzically, raised his eyebrows — and in a look that quickly went viral, rolled his eyes.
That occurred just after Cooper pointed out Trump’s contradictions when he praised Comey for bringing up Hillary Clinton’s emails — again — two weeks before the election — then claimed to be firing him for the exact same reason (though Trump later conceded the Russian investigation was a factor in his decision).
Cooper rolled his eyes after Conway completely avoided addressing the contradiction. “Thanks for the trip down memory lane,” Conway said, pointing out that Trump won the election.
Cooper asked whether this means “campaign Trump” simply doesn’t exist anymore: “Candidate Donald Trump, that’s a fictional character we are no longer allowed to refer to? We can only refer to the Donald Trump who exists today?”
Conway mysteriously responded: “Anderson, I’ll ignore how unkind that is.” He responded with a puzzled shake of his head.
But it was the eye roll that resounded with people. CNN’s Chris Cillizza wrote an “eyeroll is us” story about Cooper’s reaction. Cillizza said Trump representatives’ response to most questions is “don’t relitigate the past” and “did we mention Trump won the 2016 election?” He said the answers “don’t pass the smell test” and that Cooper’s reaction was legit.
“Saturday Night Live” paid tribute to the eye roll — with a little extra English — in a skit featuring Alec Baldwin’s Trump being interviewed by Michael Che playing NBC News’ Lester Holt.