Yahoo Movies Kellyanne Conway's Daughter Became an Anti-Trump TikTok Star
Editor's note: This article was originally published on July 2 after Claudia Conway had reportedly given multiple interviews with her father's permission. George Conway later tweeted that he and wife Kellyanne Conway, a White House aide, didn't want their daughter talking to the press. George had humorously interacted with his daughter's popular Twitter account as well, but on Monday Claudia tweeted that her parents wanted her to delete her social media. The original article is below.
Kellyanne Conway's teen daughter told Insider in a June 30 article that she "respectfully declined" her mom's request to delete a number of viral anti-Donald Trump videos she posted on TikTok, gaining hundreds of thousands of views (and headlines) in the process.
Though she's been posting off and on since 2015, 15-year-old Claudia Conway only found herself in the spotlight in late June after people began sharing clips from her TikTok on Twitter — revealing another political divide within the Conway family.
Mom Kellyanne, 53, is counselor to the president and his former campaign manager.
But Claudia's dad and Kellyanne's husband, 56-year-old attorney George T. Conway III, regularly assails Trump online and helped found a conservative political group aimed at defeating him.
The teen — who according to Insider was interviewed with the permission of her dad, who was also present — described herself as "100-percent leftist and liberal" and detailed why she declined her mom's request to delete her videos.
"I'm not going to because I think I have a right to my own freedom of speech. If she works for Trump, she works for Trump," Claudia told Insider, adding, "My dad thinks it's awesome that I'm speaking for myself and expressing my views."
In a June 30 interview with USA Today, Claudia said: "I know a lot of my friends are so informed and I think they wouldn't be if it weren't for social media, which is why I think using one's platform for good and for the education of others is so, so important, especially in our day."
“Thank you for all the love on my videos but just please no hate to my mom or my dad, they’re both amazing people and I love them so much,” Claudia said in a recent TikTok. “No hate to either of them, it’s just me and my views.”
(Kellyanne did not comment to PEOPLE; George did not return an email seeking comment.)
Claudia's TikTok account surged quickly after people on social media called attention to it. As of mid-July, it has more than 210,000 followers. Many of her videos have tens or hundreds of thousands of views.
The posts mix the usual teen TikTok content — memes, dances, time with friends — with political opinions that began appearing more frequently this summer.
“Why do people hate on Trump supporters, like can’t we just respect everyone’s opinions? SIKE nah block me pls and then educate yourself,” Claudia posted in one video.
"i love trump, but replace ‘love’ with ‘think that we should extinguish,' " she wrote in another.
Stefani Reynolds/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Kellyanne Conway
In other clips, the Conways' daughter shares her progressive views on social issues including race and gender and she has repeatedly urged her followers to focus on police misconduct and the fatal shooting of black Kentucky EMT Breonna Taylor.
"We do get into arguments a lot — I'm not going to lie," Claudia told Insider in late June. "My mom is my best friend, but we do fight all the time over politics and I'm always shut down by my entire family."
She reiterated during that interview: "I love my parents. They are the most generous, most well-educated people I have ever met. I look up to them and want nothing but success and good fortune for them. They are my parents and that trumps all — no pun intended."
"A lot of people have been telling me that I'm disrespecting my mother by doing this — I'm not at all," Claudia told USA Today. "I want nothing but love for her because she is an amazing person."
On her TikTok, she has reportedly shared some sharper-sounding opinions.
In a live question-and-answer session in June, according to one reporter, she addressed Kellyanne's work for the president: "It's called internalized misogyny. That is facts."
She also said, "I really actually do not like Pence at all, sorry," and had this take on her parents' marriage despite their differing beliefs: "'Do your parents get along?' Uh, I guess."
Claudia's dad has long criticized the president on Twitter and has written at length about his belief that the president has a personality disorder. In April, George endorsed Trump's rival Joe Biden for president.
Last year, he tweeted about Trump: “You need to have the Secret Service take you back to the hospital, this time to the psych ward.”
The president has fired back as well, in March 2019 dismissing George as "a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell." ("Waiting for @realDonaldTrump to also call me a 'loser from hell,' " Claudia wrote in a since-deleted tweet.)
RELATED: Trump Aide Kellyanne Conway's Husband Endorses Joe Biden in 2020 Presidential Race
From left: Kellyanne Conway and George T. Conway III in January 2017
Of Trump's criticism of her husband, Kellyanne told Politico last year: “[The president] left it alone for months out of respect for me. But you think he shouldn’t respond when somebody, a non-medical professional accuses him of having a mental disorder? You think he should just take that sitting down?”
“I feel there’s a part of him that thinks I chose Donald Trump over him. Which is ridiculous,” Kellyanne told The Washington Post of her husband in 2018. “One is my work and one is my marriage.”
Their unusual marital tensions were spoofed by Saturday Night Live in December.
Now daughter Claudia has her own anti-Trump fame: After a New York Times reporter tweeted out screenshots and clips from her page, she immediately noticed the increase in attention to her account, she told Insider.
"I literally woke up to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views of people cheering me on and saying they stan me and all this stuff," she said. "It's just so beautiful for me, and I think that's the beauty of this generation."
Claudia added that TikTok is "a huge platform, especially for Gen Z kids," and said she's thinking ahead about how to translate her activism into a career.
"I think that's what I want to do when I'm older, like social justice activism," she said. "I know my mom always told me: If you believe it, go stand for it."
