WASHINGTON — White House adviser Kellyanne Conway announced late Sunday night that she’s leaving the White House at the end of the month to take care of family issues.
Conway tweeted a statement of the announcement, which was first reported by the Washington Post.
“I am deeply grateful to the President for his honor, and to the First Lady, the Vice President and Mrs. Pence, my colleagues in the White House and the Administration, and the countless people who supported my work,” Conway wrote in a statement.
Conway’s husband, lawyer George Conway, also announced he would withdraw from the Lincoln Project — a Republican PAC intended to prevent the reelection of Trump. Both cited they would address family issues. He said he would also step back from Twitter, a platform that has helped make him famous in anti-Trump social media.
So I’m withdrawing from @ProjectLincoln to devote more time to family matters. And I’ll be taking a Twitter hiatus. Needless to say, I continue to support the Lincoln Project and its mission. Passionately.
The Conways have four children. Their daughter Claudia Conway has publicly opposed Trump — and encouraged her thousands of followers on social media to vote for Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president. Earlier Sunday, the 15-year-old announced on Twitter she would “take a mental health break from social media.”
Kellyanne Conway referred to her children in her announcement.
“This is completely my choice and my voice,” Conway wrote. “In time, I will announce future plans. For now, and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama.”
Kellyanne and George Conway’s divergent politics have been a public fascination for most of Trump’s time in the White House. Just earlier Sunday in a Twitter thread, George Conway questioned how anyone could work for Trump.
To everyone who works in the White House—and I mean everyone—do you not feel a tinge of shame at absurd responses like this? What is it that you are all afraid of? https://t.co/WXobTc3zHG
“We disagree about plenty but we are united on what matters most: the kids,” Kellyanne Conway said in her Sunday statement.
Conway had been scheduled to speak Wednesday at the Republican National Convention, and it was not immediately clear Sunday night if she would keep that speaking role.
Conway is one of Trump’s longest-serving political aides, and one of the very few people remaining with him in the White House from his 2016 presidential campaign. Conway, a longtime Republican pollster, was Trump’s final campaign manager of that race and is the first woman to have run a winning presidential campaign.
Before coming to the White House, Conway owned and operated the Polling Company, a prominent polling firm that she sold to CRC Public Relations in 2017.
After the campaign, Conway joined the White House as Trump’s counselor and top adviser. She was a fixture on TV throughout Trump’s first term, relentlessly defending the president and the administration. Whenever the White House was under fire, Conway was a frequent guest on cable news shows playing defense, while often being accused of perpetuating falsehoods coming from the administration.
She also led the White House’s response to the country’s opioid epidemic.
Conway herself faced a handful of controversies, including citing a nonexistent “Bowling Green massacre” to defend Trump’s refugee ban and committing a potential ethics violation when she encouraged people to go buy Ivanka Trump’s products after Nordstrom announced it had dropped the clothing brand.
Her defining moment as Trump’s adviser, though, may have come at the very outset of the president’s administration.
Just two days after Trump’s inauguration, which then–press secretary Sean Spicer falsely insisted featured the largest audience for a presidential inauguration, Conway defended Spicer, saying he was merely offering “alternative facts.”