'I need to take a shower,' Kellyanne Conway allegedly said after defending Trump

Kellyanne Conway is a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump. Photo / AP

TV show hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski dished the dirt today about counsellor to the US president Kellyanne Conway, claiming that she used to complain privately about representing a man she did not always believe in.

"This is a woman, by the way, who came on our show during the campaign and would shill for Trump in extensive fashion, and then she would get off the air, the camera would be turned off, the microphone would be taken off, and she would say, 'Blech. I need to take a shower,' because she disliked her candidate so much," Brzezinski said on his MSNBC Morning Joe show.

Scarborough chimed in to say that Conway also said that "this is just, like, my summer in Europe. This is like my vacay - I'm just doing it for the money. I'll be off this soon."

"I don't know that she ever said, 'I'm doing this for the money', but she said, 'this is just my summer vacation, my summer in Europe'. And, basically, 'I'm just gonna get through this'."

Conway, a pollster by trade, started the 2016 election cycle working for a super PAC that supported Senator Ted Cruz.

After Cruz dropped out, she joined the Trump campaign on July 1 and became campaign manager the following month.

Given that Trump was not Conway's first pick - and given the nastiness he displayed towards the candidate who was her first pick (not to mention the candidate's wife) - it is not surprising that Conway would gripe about Trump when the cameras were off.

It is also possible that her feelings have changed since then, that Trump was an acquired taste.

Still, Scarborough and Brzezinski's account adds to existing evidence that the people who speak for Trump don't always believe what they are asked to say on his behalf.

‘Morning Joe’ Hosts: Conway Said She Needed A Shower After Defending Trump https://t.co/EdOg9Cbotd via @TPM

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 15, 2017

In March, I chronicled the way that Vice-President Mike Pence, White House press secretary Sean Spicer and deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders seem to distance themselves from certain claims but volunteer their agreement with others.

In briefings, for example, Spicer has offered his own supportive thoughts on a Republican healthcare bill, Trump's nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and the President's hard line on illegal immigration. However, he held at arm's length Trump's charge that President Barack Obama tapped the phones in Trump Tower.

"My job is to represent the President and to talk about what he's doing and what he wants," Spicer said at a March 7 briefing. "I'm not here to speak for myself. I'm here to speak for the President of the United States and our government."

Trump puts a premium on loyalty and on appearances. The Morning Joe anecdote about Conway is a double whammy. It creates the appearance that Conway is not (or, at least, was not) completely loyal to Trump.