Kellyanne Conway: 'Difficult to Pass Up' Senior Level Administration Post

Kellyanne Conway had many options open to her after helping lead President-elect Donald Trump's winning campaign, but she said Thursday it would have been "difficult" to pass up the opportunity to serve at a senior level in his administration.

"I did weigh a number of different factors," Conway told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "I think when you have this opportunity it's an honor, but it's also very humbling, the responsibility of serving at a senior level.

"It's difficult to pass that up. I very much respect the rest of the senior team you have seen in action already."

Conway had said Tuesday she was planning a move to Washington, D.C., with her husband and four children to work in the "political superstructure" while advising Trump.

At that point, Conway said she would either stay outside the White House or would accept a West Wing position "right next to the president," but either way she would be advising him as she has been for several months, first as his campaign manager and then as senior adviser to his transition team.

Conway had already turned down the position of press secretary, and Trump made public his decision on her continuing role public with a press release Thursday.

"Kellyanne Conway has been a trusted adviser and strategist who played a crucial role in my victory," he said in the announcement. "She is a tireless and tenacious advocate of my agenda and has amazing insights on how to effectively communicate our message. I am pleased that she will be part of my senior team in the West Wing."

Conway, as the mother of four young children, said she knows the West Wing will be "very family friendly," as she has often seen Trump with his own children and grandchildren, and has known most of them for years. She told Fox News her children are excited about making the move.

Meanwhile, Conway was the first woman to help lead a winning presidential campaign, and when she was asked if there was disappointment in a "double standard" that would have resulted in her achievements being covered more in the media if Trump was a Democrat, she admitted there was some.

"I don't want him treated differently," Conway said. "My name thing is not about glory for me. I have had plenty of it. The thing is that Donald Trump be treated the way presidents should be treated. You get people to realize this is a country we share.

"I know it's a divided country, but he won. That's the thing I would wish for more than anything else. The prestige, glory, we all feel it."

And even though Conway helped manage Trump's victory, "there's no substitute for a quality candidate," she said. "We found it out with Donald Trump. There's no substitute. It made all of the difference."

Moving forward, Trump is facing many challenges, including how he will deal with Islamic terrorism, and Conway said he has made it "very clear that we need better vetting policies in these countries that train, harbor and export terrorists."

"He is trying to get back to where we were before ISIS became more powerful, which has happened in the last couple of years," Conway said. "You first have to be willing to name it, to defeat it."

Trump also met with Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg on Wednesday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida concerning costs for the next Air Force One fleet, and the CEO is now saying he can bring in the project at much less than had been expected.

"This is the Donald Trump effect very plain and simple," Conway said. "He wants that particular project to be a classic Trump project which is ahead of schedule and under budget. I talked to him about it privately.

"He talked about it publicly. He says, 'Look, we want people to make money. We want them to earn what's there, and we want a quality product.'"

Trump is adapting quickly to his new job, Conway said.

"You can see the enormity of it," she said. "He is ready to be president. It is not just being presidential. It is being a leader and somebody he surrounds himself with people he can trust.

"His Cabinet is very conservative, an election of serious men and women, and he also is adapting to the intelligence briefings where he is the one receiving them. He is the one receiving the presidential daily briefing."

Conway also appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America," where she said Trump's transition team is "way ahead of schedule" and about to announce his press secretary and more.

"This will be a traditional White House in the sense that you will have a great deal of press availability on a daily basis and have a president who continues to be engaged with the press," she commented.