Kellyanne Conway's Daughter Lashes Out at Tucker Carlson

Kellyanne Conway's daughter, Claudia Conway, has lashed out at Fox News host Tucker Carlson over his focus on Audrey Hale being transgender following Monday's school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Three nine-year-old children and three adults died after Hale entered private Christian elementary school The Covenant School armed with two assault-style rifles and a handgun and opened fire.

Kellyanne Conway's daughter slams Tucker Carlson
Kellyanne Conway on January 30, 2020, in Washington, D.C., and Tucker Carlson on November 17, 2022, in Hollywood, Florida. Conway's daughter, Caludia Conway, has lashed out at Carlson for his focus on Nashville school shooter... NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images;/Jason Koerner/Getty Images

TV personality Carlson reacted to the tragedy by warning viewers on Tuesday that the "trans movement is targeting Christians" because they are "its natural enemy."

Carlson, 53, argued that transgenderism is getting "militant and possibly dangerous" and claimed that the movement's alleged anger is targeted "specifically at traditional Christians." He then added that his "fears [of the trans community] were confirmed" on Monday with Hale's shooting rampage.

Hale, who police confirmed was female at birth, but used he/him pronouns, was killed by police at the scene. Authorities said they found a manifesto, but the shooter's motives aren't yet known.

Carlson argued that the manifesto is being hidden to conceal an "obvious and undeniable" targeting of Christians. However, police believe that Hale, a former student at the school, targeted the institute because of some form of personal resentment.

Claudia Conway, 18, spoke out against Carlson's focus on Hale's gender identity as she shared a series of Twitter posts on the matter on Thursday.

She wrote: "Who the f*** cares how someone identifies when THEY'VE SHOT UP AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL like why are we focused on the wrong things??? Our children are being shot down in school and Tucker Carlson wants to blame transgender people??????? What????"

The teen, whose mother served as a senior White House counselor to former President Donald Trump and is currently a Fox News contributor, went on to state that there are more pressing issues regarding the tragedy to focus on.

"You're not going to like this but the topics of conversation circulating SHOULD NOT revolve around the shooter's identity but rather how the shooter so easily acquired weapons that left 9-year-olds breathless," she tweeted.

"No one is arguing the mental status of the shooter, however it's not right to immediately attribute those mental maladies to being transgender considering the statistics we have for mass shooters in America," she continued.

After sharing a link to the Instagram page of an organization she started working with following last year's school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Claudia Conway shared another statement.

"Drag queens aren't killing our children," read the post. "Curriculum including black history isn't killing our children. LGBTQ+ media isn't killing our children. Guns are."

Despite Carlson's take, which has been echoed by a number of conservative commentators, trans people actually face high rates of violence and discrimination in U.S. society and across the world, several studies and polls show.

According to data from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data and the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, LGBT people are more than twice as likely to be victims of gun violence than their cisgender and straight peers.

Looking back at the hundreds of mass shootings that have occurred in the U.S. in recent years, the vast majority of shooters have been cisgender, straight, white men. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization that advocates gun control, there have been more than 300 mass shootings in the U.S. since 2009. The number of perpetrators who identify as non-binary or trans is less than 1 percent.

Claudia Conway, who came out as gay last year, previously made headlines for publicly lambasting her mother during her stint as a senior counselor to Trump. The outspoken teen's father, George Conway, is also a vocal critic of Trump.

After it was announced in March that her parents were divorcing, Claudia Conway hit out that people "hatefully commenting on another woman's marriage are either divorced, will be single forever, or haven't met their husband's secretary yet."

The erstwhile American Idol contestant's relationship with her parents has improved immensely, after indications that she wasn't getting along with them.

Claudia Conway announced on Twitter in August 2020 that she was "officially pushing for emancipation" from her parents. She later revealed in a TikTok post in the summer of 2021 that she was on good terms with her mother.

"I know a lot of people are confused about my situation, but I am happy and I'm safe, and my relationship with my mom is actually really good right now," Conway said.

"She's getting the guidance she needs, I got the guidance I needed, we got the guidance we needed together. And it's all about breaking that cycle. So, we are living proof that you can break that cycle."

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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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