Kellyanne Conway: Microwaves Can Be Used As Spy Cameras

Kellyanne Conway, a senior counselor to the president, is trying to tamp down criticism this week after she raised eyebrows over the weekend when she brought up "microwaves that can turn into cameras" in an interview. The comments came in response to a question about President Trump's claims that President Obama spied on Trump Tower.

Asked about Trump's allegations about the former president in an interview for the Bergen Record on Sunday, Conway said, "There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets. Any number of different ways. Microwaves that turn into cameras, etc."

Naturally, this led to headlines such as this one from the Independent: "Kellyanne Conway suggests Barack Obama could have spied on Donald Trump through a microwave." On her Twitter page, Conway retweeted this story with the hashtag "Fakenewsalert."

And in an interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN Monday morning, Conway tried to backtrack on her interview comments.

"I was answering a question about surveillance techniques generally," Conway told Cuomo. "That screaming headline doesn't even reach the quote and the content accurately."

But Cuomo pointed out that Conway was specifically answering a question about Trump Tower being spied on and in the context of Trump's claims that it was Obama who directed the surveillance.

"You may have answered the question generally, but you were asked specifically," Cuomo said.

"Chris, I'm not Inspector Gadget," Conway replied. "I don't believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign."

She continued: "I'm not in the job of having evidence."

Trump, who claimed to have "found out" about Obama's surveillance of him over a week ago, has not provided evidence of this claim and has instead asked for Congress to investigate it.

Part of the confusion around Conway's comments here has to be attributed to the spokeswoman's own habit of not directly answering questions. As a spokeswoman, her job frequently requires her to get around tough questions, and her distinctive technique for handling these situations is to simply not answer the question at all. Since she decided not to answer the initial question about Obama's supposed involvement in wiretapping Trump Tower, she now finds it disingenuous of reporters to put her answer in the context of that question.

However, she overstepped in her interview with Cuomo. As the interview video and transcripts clearly show, her response in the Bergen Record interview was clearly a reply to a question about Trump Tower and Trump's allegations, not about surveillance generally.

On Twitter Monday morning, Trump sent out a tweet that may have been directed to the media's incredulous reaction to Conway's statement.

"It is amazing how rude much of the media is to my very hard working representatives," he wrote. "Be nice, you will do much better!"

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