Kellyanne Conway thanked the hosts of The View for Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election, and said that the questions they posed to Kamala Harris laid bare the problems inherent in the vice president's campaign.
The ABC morning talk show emerged as a key pro-Harris outlet during the election, its hosts frequently criticizing Trump and inviting both the vice president and her running mate, Tim Walz, on to discuss their bid for the White House.
Conway, who served as Trump's campaign manager during his first run for the White House, and as a senior counselor to the president during his administration, said that Harris' appearance had hurt her campaign.
"I'd like to thank the ladies of the View," Conway said. "I think they helped Donald Trump." Turning to the Fox News camera, Conway added: "Thank you very much for asking Kamala Harris simple easy questions that she couldn't answer."
During her Oct. 8 appearance on the show, co-host Sunny Hostin asked Harris whether there was anything she would have done differently than President Joe Biden during the past four years, to which the vice president responded: "There is not a thing that comes to mind."
While Harris later added that she would break from Biden by appointing a Republican to her hypothetical cabinet, her answer was widely decried as a misstep given Americans' negative opinions of the economy, hardline stances on immigration and the president's ailing approval ratings.
Ohio Senator and vice presidential candidate JD Vance jumped on the answer during a mid-October event in Pennsylvania, telling rallygoers that "nothing comes to mind" should become the slogan for the Harris-Walz campaign.
In a late October interview with Politico, Trump campaign manager Jason Miller said that Harris' answer to Hostin's question was the moment that "killed" her campaign.
"I think this Kamala Harris strategy of going out and doing a whole bunch of media has really backfired," Miller told the interviewer. "I mean, who would have thought Sunny Hostin from The View really killed Kamala Harris' candidacy? But you could make the case that Sunny did that."
Peter Loge, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, said that it would have been difficult for Harris to "break" from Biden in the way that some suggested could have benefited her campaign.
"Harris could not fully break from Biden, she is the sitting vice president, and no one would have believed her if she had," Loge told Newsweek. "That Republicans won up and down the ballot indicates that this wasn't a Biden or Harris thing, it was a throw-the-bums-out thing."
"Most Americans, most of the time, just want things to work. They want to be ale to afford gas and groceries, they want to feel safe and for their kids to learn at school," Loge added. "A lot of Americans think things aren't working, so they fired the politicians in charge and replaced them with a new batch."
Conway went on to speculate on the reaction of The View's hosts to Trump's victory.
"They're probably just going to insult Americans for making this choice, and call us misinformed and misaligned and worse, deplorable, irredeemable, garbage, you name it," Conway told Fox.
During the Wednesday morning episode of The View, which aired after Conway's Fox appearance, co-host Joy Behar said of the election: "My opinion is the system worked. We live in a Democracy. People spoke. This is what people wanted."
"I vehemently disagree with the decision that Americans made. But I feel very, very hopeful that we have a democratic system in this country," Behar continued. "We should value it. We should love it. We should protest, if the situation arises that we need to protest, which I'm sure it will."
ABC News declined to comment on Conway's statements when contacted by Newsweek.
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