CNN’s Dana Bash Defends Asking ‘Completely Legitimate Question’ to Kellyanne Conway

CNN’s Dana Bash is defending her question to Kellyanne Conway about her husband’s Trump-critical tweets.

Conway was surprised by the question, telling Bash it’s interesting CNN would “go there” and saying it was “meant to harass and embarrass.”

Bash spoke to The Daily Beast and admitted she was surprised by how the White House counselor responded:

I thought then and I think now that it was a completely legitimate question that can and should be asked to somebody who is the counselor to the president out there defending and explaining his positions and what goes on inside the White House. Her husband, who is a prominent Republican lawyer pretty regularly retweets or tweets criticism of the administration in which she works. I thought it was a legitimate question and I still do.

As for the comments Conway made about CNN, Bash said, “I didn’t know how to take it really. And I didn’t know what she was talking about at all. And I still don’t.”

Conway said yesterday after the interview she’s “long admired” Bash, which she said “makes this harder to comprehend.”

Bash told The Daily Beast, “I have a lot of respect for her and have for a long time. She came up as a female Republican pollster. That is like being the ultimate woman in a man’s world. And you know, she got a Republican president across the finish line against all odds. She deserves her due for that. But she also, especially as somebody who now works for in the White House and goes out to talk about the president’s policies, is subject to questions like the one I asked her for that very reason.”

You can read the full interview here.

[image via screengrab]

— —

Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!