Trolling Trump, Joe Walsh Tries to Recruit George Conway for Nascent Challenge

Walsh met on Thursday with Conway, a prominent conservative lawyer who is married to Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to Trump and one of his longest-serving aides. During the hourslong conversation, the two discussed strategy going forward, according to two people familiar with the conversation, and Walsh asked Conway if he would join his nascent campaign in a formal role.

Conway, who has gained a large following on Twitter for his increasingly virulent critiques of Trump and his mental state but who has never worked on a political campaign, told Walsh he would think about it but did not commit to anything, the two people said.

Walsh, a former representative from Illinois, has virtually no chance of wresting the Republican presidential nomination away from Trump, whose poll numbers with Republicans remain consistently in the high 80s.

But as a former supporter and media-trained radio show host attacking him from the right, he has an opportunity to rattle Trump with his television criticisms and with audacious moves like trying to work with Conway, whose denunciations have personally enraged the president and his family members.

In recent days, for instance, Trump has engaged with Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted 11 days as White House communications director and has since turned against his former boss and encouraged other Republicans to take a stand against him.

“I think Walsh’s plan to attack Trump for his dishonesty, amorality, instability and incompetence is absolutely the right approach, and I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Conway said in an interview, though he declined to say whether he would formally join the campaign.

Conway has been criticizing his wife’s boss for more than a year, after having supported him during the 2016 campaign, when Kellyanne Conway worked as Trump’s campaign manager. Now, with a reelection campaign at hand, Republicans like George Conway, who view Trump as a threat to democracy and the rule of law, are facing a new reality: Rather than just hurling criticisms at Trump from the sidelines, they now have the option to support or work for a primary challenger, or a Democrat, to help defeat him.

It’s still not clear if Conway will leave his more comfortable perch as an armchair critic to help Walsh, whose own history of calling President Barack Obama a Muslim and a “traitor” have made even some of his followers uncomfortable, even those who are encouraging him to challenge Trump.

In March, when Conway raised new questions about the president’s mental health and said he was a “malignant narcissist” suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, the president took the bait, responding on Twitter by calling him a “stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!”

Trump’s son Eric and his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, have also singled out Conway online for criticism. Trump and his close aides have spent less time focused on Conway in recent months, aides said, tuning him out as his criticisms have continued unabated.

This month, Conway criticized Trump’s staff on Twitter, writing: “I love how these people who work for a rapist have no compunction about making accusations of abuse by someone who criticizes the rapist.”

Trump’s reelection campaign has dismissed Walsh’s bid as a “certain failure” and declined to comment on its interest in Conway.

On the same day that Conway was meeting with Walsh, Kellyanne Conway headlined a “Women for Trump” event in Tampa, Florida, which drew hundreds of female supporters.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.