Trump Hits ‘Stone-Cold Loser’ George Conway Over Virus Ad

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump lashed out at a group of Republicans seeking to defeat him in November, including the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.

Trump's outburst came in response to a new video released by the Lincoln Project, a super PAC launched by disaffected Republicans including George Conway. The video, titled “Mourning in America,” bashes the president's coronavirus response efforts, saying he made the U.S. “weaker and sicker and poorer.”

Trump told reporters that Kellyanne Conway, one of his longest-serving advisers, “must have done a big number on” George Conway, whom he called a “stone-cold loser.” Trump also referred to George Conway as “moonface” in a three-tweet outburst early Tuesday.

“George Conway, you take a look at him, just take a look at that guy, the man's a stone-cold loser,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before departing for Arizona. “So they should not call it the Lincoln Project, it's not fair to Abraham Lincoln, a great president. They should call it the losers project.”

The group's minute-long spot paints a dark picture of a country fighting a pandemic under Trump's leadership. Its title is a play on former President Ronald Reagan's famous 1984 campaign advertisement, “Morning in America.”

“Today, more than 60,000 Americans have died from a deadly virus Donald Trump ignored,” the narrator reads, later asking, “If we have another four years like this, will there even be an America?”

The group spent $60,000 for the ad to air on MSNBC, CNN and Fox News in the Washington market over a two-day period, according to Reed Galen, an adviser to the Lincoln Project.The spot aired on Tucker Carlson's Fox News program, which Trump is known to watch, on Monday night.

George Conway suggested that the group may release more anti-Trump material soon.

“If he didn't like this one, he's really not going to like what we've got coming for him soon and in the fall,” Conway teased in a tweet. “Frankly, this wasn't the one we thought would set him off. Those poll numbers must be truly awful.”

The coronavirus has damaged Trump's re-election campaign, as the president faces mounting criticism of his handling of the pandemic. Trump's approval rating fell to 43%, according to a new Monmouth University poll, and 42% of Americans say Trump has done a good job responding to the pandemic.

Kellyanne Conway spoke to reporters earlier Tuesday at the White House, but she was not asked about the president's remarks about her husband, nor did she address them.

Trump rattled off a list of achievements from his three-plus years in office, including a number of confirmed federal judges, tax cuts and reduced regulations -- all conservative calling cards.

”With all of that, I guess they don't like me. But let me just tell you, these are losers from day one,” Trump said.

The Lincoln Project includes such Republican Trump critics as John Weaver, who advised former Ohio Governor John Kasich during his 2016 presidential bid, former John McCain adviser Steve Schmidt and Republican ad-maker Rick Wilson.

On Twitter, Trump called them “a group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me, a political first timer, 4 years ago” and said they are “doing everything possible to get even for all of their many failures.”

RINO is an acronym for Republicans In Name Only.