every successful presidential campaign has an architect. for donald trump, it was campaign manager kellyanne conway, now a special adviser to the trump transition team. ms. conway discussed the campaign and mr. trump<u+2019>s new challenges with gerald seib, washington bureau chief of the wall street journal. edited excerpts follow. mr. seib: what was the message from voters on election night? ms. conway: that there is more of them than us. everything that donald trump said about the populist uprising, and people really just wanting fairness and an opportunity and a voice, ended up being true. we can talk about it being an anti-elitist election. that has some merit. but at its very core, people were talking about security. security from terrorism, national security, health-care security, economic security. donald trump was going to states like pennsylvania and new hampshire and ohio talking about opioid use. that<u+2019>s a kind of insecurity that was fairly new to our communities. people were also talking about everyday affordability. i<u+2019>ve been a vocal and longtime critic of republican politicians who run around talking about job creation. about 7% of the country are job creators or fancy themselves as entrepreneurs. there<u+2019>s another 7% that are the job seekers, the unemployed. but the vast majority of households are neither job creators nor job seekers. they are job holders. and donald trump gave voice to the job holders, the people in this country who say, <u+201c>gosh, when my grandfather had a job or your grandfather had a job, it was enough to support the whole family. we have two, three jobs in the household. and we<u+2019>re white knuckled at the end of each month.<u+201d> people were also talking about fairness. i think hillary clinton <u+2019>s campaign was about equality. and we cherish equality. it<u+2019>s enshrined in our constitution and our other laws. but most people were talking about fairness, which is different. fairness is about equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes. and when you listen to people closely, what really undergirded their views toward education reform, immigration policy and tax reform, when they<u+2019>re talking about letting syrian refugees in by 550%, they<u+2019>re really talking about what is fair. donald trump put issues on the map that no one was giving voice to, like trade and illegal immigration. but he articulated it through an economic lens, so that we were no longer only asking, what is fair to the illegal immigrant? all of a sudden, we were asking, what<u+2019>s fair to the american worker? what<u+2019>s fair to ask employers to do? mr. seib: he tapped into an anger in the country, and it produced a somewhat divisive campaign<u+2014>an angry campaign. what can be done now to heal those divisions? ms. conway: really, many of them [the voters] were legitimately fearful and legitimately frustrated that they can<u+2019>t pay the bills, that they just can<u+2019>t get ahead. there<u+2019>s nothing else they can do. they have a job. they live a good life. they pay their taxes. they pay their dues. they play by the rules. and yet, they always feel like they<u+2019>re in the quicksand of everyday affordability. president-elect trump said when he was elected, <u+201c>i will be the president of all americans, even those who did not support me.<u+201d> he<u+2019>s expressed regret for any pain he<u+2019>s caused, particularly if it was done with words. and he did not intend to do that. mr. seib: does president-elect trump feel a need to reach out to the country in a more formal way to try to bring people together? before the inauguration, the obvious point at which this traditionally occurs? ms. conway: it has been discussed. and i think you see early signs of it. he and mrs. trump coming here to washington less than 36 hours after being elected to meet with president obama and first lady michelle obama was so incredibly important. i think that<u+2019>s the earliest and best and brightest sign that you have about president-elect donald trump wanting to address the entire country as one. mr. seib: does he work with republicans in congress? ms. conway: he<u+2019>s been very clear about his 100-day plan. anybody can pull it up and you can see what he<u+2019>s talking about. it<u+2019>s very specific. he<u+2019>s already off to a very good start of working with house speaker paul ryan. i<u+2019>ve witnessed some of those calls. he had a great meeting here last week, as did vice president-elect mike pence, with speaker ryan. and they go way back. they<u+2019>ll have to find a way to knit together what was already being worked on and could never really be signed into law, because they had a democratic president in president obama. but the excuse of divided government is over. americans gave a republican president a republican house and a republican senate and majority republican governors, 69 of the 99 state legislative chambers. if they [democrats] lose one or two more, they<u+2019>re lower than the threshold that you need to defeat a constitutional amendment. mr. seib: what would you say to the ceos in this room as they try to figure out what the trump version of the republican party stands for on the issues that concern them? ms. conway: he doesn<u+2019>t say all trade deals are bad. he<u+2019>s made very clear he believes nafta was a bad deal for the american worker. he doesn<u+2019>t say he won<u+2019>t have trade deals. he just is pointing out that some of them have not worked for the people they were intended to benefit. in his 100-day plan, he wants china to be declared a currency manipulator. having said that, he spoke with the leader of china today. it was fine. but in any event, he<u+2019>s made very clear that washington has wanted, for 30 years at least, somebody who owes nothing to anybody in washington to come here and just clean out the rot from the inside out. mr. seib: when you campaign pledging to drain the swamp, and then you arrive at the swamp, how can you work with the swamp? ms. conway: you can. a, he<u+2019>s not part of the swamp. but b, no one got rich off of his campaign, trust me. write to reports@wsj.com
the message at the core of trump<u+2019>s election - wsj
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