Kellyanne Conway stepped in to cover Sean Hannity on Fox News this week, speaking with Senator John N. Kennedy about allegations made against political candidate Graham Platner.
Kellyanne Conway was criticized by viewers (Image: X/@hemantmehta)
Fox News viewers criticized host Kellyanne Conway as she discussed the sexual assault allegation against Graham Platner.
Platner, 41, is facing calls to drop out of the race to become Maine’s next senator after a woman he dated accused him of sexual assault. Platner categorically denied the accusation, calling it “categorically false.” Speaking on Fox News Channel’s Hannity on Tuesday, July 7, Conway called Platner a “predator,” but viewers noted that President Donald Trump has also faced a number of allegations of sexual assault, all of which he denies.
Conway, who was filling in for regular host Sean Hannity, was joined on Fox News by Senator John N. Kennedy. He was angry: “This guy is just, he’s a predator. He’s a predator. And you don’t want him anywhere near power.” The president also spoke out about the allegations against Platner.
Conway responded to her guest: “These allegations of abuse and assault, disparaging our military, calling them fat and deserving of death,” he told one of our service members, “and the Nazi tattoo, it just goes on and on and it never seems to be enough for your Democratic colleagues to dump this guy.”
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She argued that this shows: “Democrats don’t believe all women, they throw that aside when you talk about a swing state.” The TV presenter added: “You are not talking about morality here, you are talking about being chosen. They’re not counting victims of Graham Platner’s abuse, they’re counting votes.”
X ran a clip from a Fox News program and viewers admitted they thought Conway was talking about Trump. “Kellyanne describes Trump perfectly but can’t connect the two dots,” one person suggested.
Another asked: “I think they’re talking about Donald Trump?” while a third person repeated: “I thought they were talking about the orange pig.” User One X commented: “Funny how y’all care about these accusations now…Trump got a pass though, huh?”
They discussed the charges against Graham Platner (Image: X/@hemantmehta)
Someone else admitted that they thought “the most outrageous thing about this conversation is that they are not talking about Trump.” A sixth person commented: “Oh yeah, kind of like Trump. No, not like Trump, but just like him, except he was elected president by MAGA people, just like these two.”
More than two dozen women have accused the 80-year-old of predatory and inappropriate behavior towards them, although he has vehemently denied the allegations. Trump also caused controversy in September 2005 when he was caught on camera saying, “I don’t even wait, and when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Many have suggested that this appears to be Trump’s encouragement of sexual assault. Trump apologized for his comments when the tape was made public in 2016. The recording was used as evidence during one of the trials against E. Gene Carroll in October 2022.
Carroll initially struggled to build a case against Trump over his presidential immunity, but she then filed a defamation lawsuit against him after he called her a “liar” over her New York Magazine article about an alleged attack on her. After a trial in 2023, a jury found that Trump was responsible for sexually assaulting Carroll and defaming her by falsely denying it, which affected her reputation.