The Unexpected Trump That Tried To Save George And Kellyanne Conway's Marriage

It would be hard to find a couple who so publicly differed on their opinions of Donald Trump than George and Kellyanne Conway. On the one hand, Kellyanne had a close relationship with Trump. She worked as his campaign manager in 2016 and then as a senior counselor to the president after the election. On the other hand, George, a conservative lawyer, became a very outspoken critic of Trump. For a time, he was even on the advisory board for The Lincoln Project, a political action committee, which worked to prevent Trump's re-election.

It may not have come as a huge surprise, then, when the Conway marriage came to an end. The couple released a joint statement on Twitter on March 4, 2023, which read in part: "We are in the final stages of an amicable divorce. We married more than two decades ago, cherish the many happy years (and four corgis) we've shared, and above all else, our four incredible children, who remain the heartbeat of our family and our top priority." But before their split, one surprising member of the Trump family tried hard to help keep them together — Ivanka Trump.

Kellyanne Conway's memoir, "Here's the Deal," came out in 2022, and in it, she writes about her time working in The White House and the hardships she faced in her marriage to George Conway, particularly when he so frequently and publicly critiqued Donald Trump's performance as president. At one point, Kellyanne spoke with Ivanka Trump, who was both the president's daughter and working in The White House as an advisor, about the challenges she was experiencing, per People. 

Ivanka lent her a sympathetic ear, telling Kellyanne how much she was supported by the Trump family, and provided her with some specific help: "Based on my stated openness to the idea, Ivanka came into my office (which was next to hers) and handed me a Post-it note. It had the names of two local doctors who specialized in couples therapy."

Kellyanne noted how important it was that Ivanka delivered the specialist recommendations via Post-It instead of by phone or email. But, apparently, when Kellyanne showed George the names of potential therapists, he was noncommittal, and ultimately nothing came of it. Clearly, the marriage didn't get better either. 

Donald Trump definitely noticed George Conway's comments about him, and the former president's reaction was decidedly different than his daughter's. Trump wrote on Twitter in 2019: "George Conway, often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway by those who know him, is VERY jealous of his wife's success & angry that I, with her help, didn't give him the job he so desperately wanted. I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!"

Kellyanne didn't say much about her husband's Trump critiques while she was working at The White House, but she spoke out more in the years after she left. It sounds like from Kellyanne's perspective, her husband's vocal disdain for Trump should have been kept separate from their relationship. "On one side was my marriage and my husband. On the other was my job and my boss. George was mixing the two of them in a highly combustible manner," she wrote. 

The former senior White House advisor added, "I was able to keep these things separate and in perspective. George should have, too, but it seemed the flood of reaction and attention he was receiving was magnetic and irresistible." In a CNN interview about her book, before their public divorce announcement, Kellyanne spoke about how things had changed between them, and that she "wanted the husband and the father of my children as I'd always had him."