Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway attempted to do damage control over the weekend in response to Donald Trump's threat to invite alleged Bill Clinton mistress Gennifer Flowers to Monday night's debate.
After Trump learned that billionaire Mark Cuban would be attending the first presidential debate of the general election, the Republican nominee lashed out at Hillary Clinton on Twitter by suggesting he would invite Flowers.
"If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him!" he wrote.
For her part, Flowers had said that she would accept the invitation.
But during an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday, Conway attempted to walk back Trump's tweet.
"I cannot confirm that," Conway said. "And I can't believe how easily baited the Clinton campaign was. Basically, Mr. Trump was saying, look, if Mark Cuban is going to send out these texts that say the 'Humbling at Hofstra' and this is his big downfall, then Mr. Trump is putting them on notice that we can certainly invite guests that may get into the head of Hillary Clinton."
"But we have not invited her formally and we don't expect her to be there as a guest of the Trump campaign," she remarked, adding the assertion that Clinton's campaign had "exercised poor judgement" by responding to Trump's threat to invite Flowers.
Conway's argument seemed to flummox Tapper.
"You think that what's odd is Clinton campaign's reaction to Donald Trump tweeting about somebody that her husband had an affair with decades ago, not the fact that Donald Trump tweeted something about someone that the nominee's husband had an affair with decades ago," Tapper stammered.
"It seems odd that they would give it life and breath," Conway opined. "You just said three times in a row that Gov. Clinton had an affair with her. I didn't say it but now a lot of Americans know who Gennifer Flowers was."
"You say he only counter punches," Tapper pointed out. "That's kind of like the mythology of the Trump campaign. But the truth is he attacks people on their own all the time."
