Kellyanne Conway Couch Incident Update: Rep. Cedric Richmond Apologizes For Sexist Sofa Joke

After making a joke on White House adviser Kellyanne Conway last week at a media dinner, who stirred a controversy for her picture showing her kneeling on a sofa in the Oval Office while taking a picture of a group gathered there, Rep. Cedric L. Richmond apologized Sunday for the joke, the Washington Post reported. Sen. Tim Scott, an American politician and the junior United States Senator for South Carolina, joked about Conway sitting on the sofa by linking that sofa to former President Bill Clinton's scandal with Monica Lewinsky in the late 1990s, saying "a whole lot worse” had occurred on the couch, according to the Post.

In response to Scott's joke, Richmond, who represents Louisiana's second Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives, had said, "Tim, you kind of opened the door. I really just want to know what was going on there, because, you know, I won’t tell anybody. And you can just explain to me that circumstance — because she really looked kind of familiar in that position there. Don’t answer — and I don’t want you to refer back to the 1990s.”

On March 2, LAGOP Vice-Chair Beryl Amedee, National Committeewoman Lenar Whitney and President of the Louisiana Federation of Republican Women, Gena Gore, had issued a statement in response to Cedric's: "Yesterday, Congressman Cedric Richmond made a deeply offensive remark regarding Kellyanne Conway, and he owes her a sincere and prompt apology. Using inappropriate sexual innuendos to demean women is sexism at its worst. Given that March is Women’s History Month, Congressman Richmond’s remarks about the first woman to successfully manage a US presidential campaign are especially disgusting. We’d hope that Governor John Bel Edwards and LA Democrat Chairwoman Karen Carter Peterson will join us in demanding Congressman Richmond apologize immediately."

After receiving criticism for his sexist overtones in the remark he made for Conway, Richmond issued a statement to her: "After a discussion with people I know and trust, I understand the way my remarks have been received by many,” Richmond said in a statement. “I have consistently been a champion for women and women’s issues, and because of that the last thing I would want to ever do is utter words that would hurt or demean them. I apologize to Kellyanne Conway and everyone who has found my comments to be offensive," the Post reported.

Among the supporters of Conway, Chelsea Clinton came to her defense last week.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, refused to comment on the remark made by Richmond. In an interview with the CNN, she said: "Well, I wasn't at the dinner. I'm just finding out about this." She said, "You all are criticizing Cedric for something he said in the course of the evening, and he maybe should be criticized for that; I just don't know the particulars. But I do, every day, marvel at the fact that somebody who said the gross and crude things that President Trump said — he wouldn't even be allowed in a frat house, and he's in the White House," she said.