Conway: Obama Could Shut Down Trump Feud If He Loved 'The Country Enough'

By Julia Manchester

PHILADELPHIA (CNN) - Senior Trump transition adviser Kellyanne Conway said Friday that President Barack Obama should should end his administration's public feud with President-elect Donald Trump over the intelligence community's assertion of Russia's election meddling -- out of patriotism.

"If you want to shut this down and you actually love the country enough to have the peaceful transition in our great democracy between the Obama administration and the Trump administration, there are a couple people in pretty prominent positions, one is named Obama, one is named Hillary Clinton, since his people are trying to fight over her election still, they could shut this down," Conway told Fox News.

The hacking allegations have increased tensions between the incoming and outgoing administrations. Conway's comments come a day after White House press secretary Josh Earnest ramped up his post-election criticism of Trump, saying it was obvious to Republicans that Russia meddled in the election to increase the GOP's chances of winning.

"It's just a fact -- you all have it on tape -- that the Republican nominee for president was encouraging Russia to hack his opponent because he believed that that would help his campaign," Earnest said.

A senior administration official disputed that the White House was publicly fighting with Trump but defended its responses as both factual and appropriate.

The President is expected to address the Russian hacking allegations during his final planned news conference of the year from the White House on Friday at 2 p.m. ET.

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