Kellyanne conway, bestselling author, political strategist for decades you have been upholsterer to our politicalpr leaders, our corpore leaders, nonprofits. Ig you have been in the limelight, in the spotlight, but all of the sudden you decided to write a book. What prompted you to tell your story . Guest and you miss something in my bio, big fan of Donna Brazile. Thank you for anything the jerk this is my memoir which seems odd at 55 because god willing i decades of life left but people are always interested in the story behind the story. They say what you come from . Did you grow up in a political household was your father political . What was it like . What inspires you and how do children to sell the stuff on tv . What was done entrepreneur like . What was a like to work in the white house were President Trump as woman . I try to answer all that and i felt ironic as someone who spoke age of Donna Brazile millions of words public. I felt the people were speaking on behalf of of me or at me or about me and not really knowing me and or i speak on behalf of of the people including a president and the white house and in nation. So it truly my turn. In some instances to set the record straight, in others truly just pull thee curtain back not just on the Trump White House because this is not a tell on an bore most like so many of these other books. This is really my story. In some ways its a unique stort about the past thing raised by single mom and a house of all Italian Catholic women going all the way to the white house, being a working mom of four schoolage children but in other ways its really anry everyday story, its every girl and woman story in his country because it does show still if you have faithg come if you listen to people around you, if youre willing to say yes, and except to know, as your career unfolds, if you put family first and you allow Everything Else to unfold around that, and you get a little lucky as i have all along, great things can happen. Host so you were raised as a jersey girl, southern new jersey between philadelphia, atlantic city. Ii believe atco . Guest atco very good. As you mentioned catholic family with italian irish italian roots that your mother, diane, was a very special, was a very special woman i should say. Your needs she supported you she was a working mom. But there was a early on in the book you talked about that moment when your mother caught you saying a couple of bad words and she walked in and she put that big gold cross and she had managed you. What was it like to grow up not just what a single mom, but also growing in a family with with your aunts and your grandmother. I mean, what was that like donna thankfully my mother is still with us diane she lives with us and shes a great everyday present force in the life of our four children, which is amazing. You know, my mother was a original forgotten woman and i think President Trump talked about many years later. She was forgotten by feminism forgotten by her husband left at the age of 26. No child support. No alimony for us and she just dusted herself off like so Many American women have and figured it out went back to work never thought she would with her high school diploma. Wanted to be a stayathome. Mom of six or seven. Im an only child so her best laid plans to work out so she figured out another way and she really devoted her life to never remarried, never having other children and in making me the center of her life. We thought it would be best for both of us to move back to the Old Homestead with her mother and her mothers underage sisters so these four adult women andone child and you turn the pyramid upside down one woman and four children now. So my mother and devoted her life to me gave me a great example of what it means to be committed, to be loyal and to have faith, family and freedom. I dont remember her ever having a political conversation that i recall. If she voted it was her duty to her constitutional right. She just missed theability to vote for president john f. Kennedy. I just missed voting for president Ronald Reagan but i knew they were kinspired by this handsome young camelot catholic president , tragically taken from us too young but the other three with my best friend michelle who was visiting, we were fresh from high school and it wasnt that i said afew bad words, it was that ive violated one of the 10 commandments , i took gods name in vain and she came around the corner with a gold crucifix of her neck with this needle and pot of gravy. What did you say . I dont odknow, what did i say. Out of her mouth this wonderfully gentlewoman with the gold crucifix shining out of my mothers mouth were f bombs. Dont you ever take gods name in vain again. It tells an awful lot about i think in some ways how progressive the women who raised me were ironically. They talked about abortion, adultery. Theytalked about inflation. They talked about geverything you can imagine except politics and because the matriarch of our extended family my grandmother implement lived in that house, that swinging screen door at a flotilla of constant traffic of people who knew if they had a problem, or just needed a warm mealare an open ear , they can come there and do exactly that so i grew up i think that george is often told me the world is like your focus agroup and i think it started right there around that wooden table where i would sit underneath and listen to adultconversation. That was going out literally around the country and listening to people night after night around larger wooden tables like this in focus groups and learning to appreciate the essential wisdom of americans and they were all just republicans or conservatives. I was deeply interested in what everybody had to say. What motivates them, their stories, their frustrations, their aspirations and you know as well as i do the essential wisdom of americans is often lost on people in this town in washington dc and we put them in charge of representingtheir states , their congressional districts. Theyve been doing a pretty solid job. They thought this through again and again and we should be listening more to them was a small town. I think you lift off the highway which i was interested in knowing a little bit more about so i had to google your town but as i got deep into the first couple of chapters about your t childhood and growing up in that environment i learned something i didnt know aboutd you that you picked blueberries. I packed blueberries in a packing shed. I packed them which meant there were 12 plates integrate and we would take out each point, put a piece of cellophane, a form to smash it down and a rubber band and i was as fast as i had ever been because we were told the faster you work the more money you get paid but the pay was . 16 the great so . 16 for 12 pints packed and then by the time i left eight summers later don it was . 25. Only made a few thousand dollars back in the day ages 12 to 19 packing blueberries and that was what everybody came to outsource the machines, machines do that work now to grow up and have a summer job as a teenager where you have to show up and be ready to go by 8 am, worked until four or 5 pm, an hour late for lunch with your friends and family members to appreciate the value of clean work, punctuality, work ethic , pride in your work. Youre not just there for the money, youre therebecause youre making a difference for someone somehow. I credit that Blueberry Farm for an Early Education on what it means to be a hard worker. Plus i grew up around Small Businesses. My aunt and uncle had a roadside Farmers Market in front of my house and then it expanded into italian Food Specialties because they would be people who came to buy a crate of blueberriesor a bucket of peaches. They say what do i smell . You just need fresh ravioli and people would encourage it and thats america. Let me take my skill set and expand that into a commercially profitable business i grew up around Small Business owners and entrepreneurs. My mom took a job that allowed her to be with me, pick me up after school and i credit her or day after day showing me the value of work. Of hard work and an honest days wages for an honest days work and thats really the backbone of this country. So you kelly and would discover there was life outside of n. Southern new jersey and you decided to come to washington dc to attend trinity college. Tell us about that ilexperience itand that drive down and that first moment that you arrived here. What wmade you decide that dc. Was the place to be . My parents did not go to college, fairly typical of someone my age and stage in that area and my mother drove me down here herself and it was hard for her to leave her only child in washington dc. Im sure she cried the whole way home, thank you molly for allowing me tospread my wings. I wanted to be in washington dc. I wanted to be a car rideaway from home. I had been accepted at Boston College and it was the year e anafter doug flutie won the heisman trophy. We went to see Boston College, lovely campus, but i really wanted to be in washington dc. I felt early on i had been bitten by the Political Blog and i think a lot ofthat had to do with meeting Ronald Reagan very briefly. I read that and i said wait a minute. You are excited about Geraldine Ferraro until you met Ronald Reagan. I was in the. Theres the summer of 1984, youll remember it well and this is the republicanand Democratic National conventions are going on. Party out of power and i was so enthralled with Geraldine Ferraro but there she is just like the women who raised me. She was a congresswoman from queens, the nominee tapped her and she started to give her primetime speech and accept that nomination as the first woman ever on a Major Party Ticket and i listened to her and i thought she was a great message or what the message ghdidnt grant me the way president reagans message gripped me. Peace and tstrength, calling out communism. I think he just had a very joyful way of communicating freemarket capitalism, of communicating why its important to invest in military strength and why its important going back to and honest days wait for an honest days work. You are attracted to his message or you are attracted to thefact that you had a sense that he could lead, what was it . It was a big suites at election cycle and obviously he won every state including been tomorrows new york and the District Of Columbia but i got to meet him because at l that time president ial candidates for new jersey were competitive. Ronald reagan went into new jersey cand this cocaptain of the field hockey team, i got to meet him. It was only a brief encounter but you know how that goes and youre hooked and i know you know that because hes been a consultant or the advisor for so many strong leaders in your party across this country and i know now you mentor so many young people so youve seen it on both sides and we have to remind ourselves theres those choice encounters can be so incredibly important to people and it was to me. Before we get into candidates and theres so much in your book ive learned about not just the Republican Party but also o some of the individuals that you consulted with. It was a very wellbalanced book in terms of telling us about not justyour journey but also the journey of the republicandeparty and i want to go back to that moment. You live in an area with the democrats , were probably raised being catholic in new jersey with a lot of democrats. So then Ronald Reagan you said Something Else. A lot of other democrats saw that but at the time you were not registered to vote. I miss voting for Ronald Reagan by 2 and a half months ig. Because you were going january 20. On inauguration day. I i was 17 for his reelection. The first words in my entire book, heres the deal now that you know her by any imaginable metric i should y have been a democrat and a liberal and probably a man hater too. My uncles, my cousins and extended family members all these great male role models in my life who stepped in and stepped up for me, they pretty much were all members of the private trade. Carpenters and welders and iron workers and who would graduate high school but there they went to work right away and have had those jobs for decades, being able to support themselves and their families and these wonderful people so they tend towards the democratic party. I was an Italian Catholic at thattime, not to overgeneralize they had an affinity to the democratic party. Obviously john kennedy and it was the height of feminism. Rowe versus wade so i talk about that and Ronald Reagan not unlike many people in my generation inspired me with an optimistic message and i also felt it wasnt scornful towards other people. He was inclusive in his work and i grew up in a house r where my and maurice god rest her soul, shes mymothers oldest sister. Didnt ever go to college and a big mentor in my life died and suddenly its a huge loss for our family but she had packed so much life in and i told my kids heres a woman you never met her and always ready forthe next adventure. Always off key giaiming and dancing with gusto the way you should, with abandon but she was very progressive. She was in eighth Grade Public School math teacher and she had run the Family Business and got mad at the George Herbert walker Bush Campaign and at him in 1992 for saying that bill clinton was a draft dodger. She said if that were my nephew i would help him out of that. I believe she was prochoice. She is sort of a feminine icon in a way and shes very sivocal yet i had, she would bring friends over of all backgrounds and all affiliations and looking back wouldnt you know that people felt comfortable to be in my house and nobody felt the need to say and im this and im back. They all felt comfortable and welcome. I loved growing up that way because i tell young people now, theyre worried about not being able to say who they are. That goes for right left and center in many spaces. God has made no man or woman can ever cancel. You hold your head high and be who you are and you be proudof that and make sure you letyour light so shine and never let anybody dim or diminished your light. I didnt ellearned in any book or political conversation. Your family and such a wonderful role models but more importantly they were your friends. I got to know your family by reading the way you guys would drive a few hours down it to washington dc. It just reminded me of my mi family, there was something catholic about us that you always had to make your own and which is and bring your own food so the people in the grnext town didnt cook as well and i think my mother would have loved your mother and your grandmother i want to talk about, youre in washington dc. Youre clearly becoming more and more interested in politics or public service. But it wasnt until you went to law school and graduated that you really got into poland. You met bill clinton, neil. You got into the business but i cant kept reading and reading and it was all men. When i finally got to washington dc i had all the guys, they were all women. They would say what was it like for you on the republican side and the only woman in the room especially at age , just starting a career. Were you ever discouraged, p did you want to end up and walk out . I read in the book you were very patient but im sure there were some days you just wanted to walk out. Theres no question about that and there were many days that men in the room would have preferred i walk out and thats why youcant. If you know youre still who you are and you got something to add to the conversation and to the consideration to the analysis then you do that. I learned early on that i had some gifts and insights that others did not not just because im a woman but because i was listening to women and there i was as an unmarried, nonmother. As many women are confused to be in this country. I got married and had my first children and 47. I said there were two rolling around in their. But thats the growing percentage of women in this country to. The point is because i learned to listen to women specifically, i was able to draw on that in these different conversations and tables that only included men and i started to do that and because so many of those men and the new boys network for excluding me from being to pitch certain business at the Republican National committee k or in this company or that company, it forced me to go band find work elsewhere so i had major clients like Martha Stewart or majorleague baseball or American Express at the time. And that allowed me to listen notjust to what likely voters were saying but to what all of america was doing. How are you making your decisions on how you spend your time, how you spend your money. Are you sure what youre doing in the weekend, are you going to a skid sporting event, are you as an older woman who doesnt have children of her own. I guarantee you a woman like that because you and i have been there are suing the heck out of otherpeople. Ekids, giving them money, giving them guidance and mentorship and life lessons so i learned to not put people in these needs graphic political boxes either. So sure, we can all sliced and diced the electorate by gender, race, age, by socioeconomic status. But thats not the beginning or the end of the story for any of us. You met let people tell hayou who they are and what motivates them and you learn to appreciate so sure, there were many times but cnn talked me out of the wilderness and gave me a tv contract and it transform