Trump spokesman Michael Cohen bit off a little more than he could chew during an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo this Friday, when he attempted to defend the GOP nominee’s walking back of remarks he made claiming President Obama is “the founder of ISIS.”
[Scroll down for video]
Cuomo: “So your boss, Donald Trump, tweets this morning and says, ‘I’m watching the show and you guys are missing my sarcasm. That when I say founder of ISIS, President Obama, I’m being sarcastic.’ But he has spent the last couple of days insisting that he is not being sarcastic. Bill O’Reilly, Hugh Hewitt, giving him opportunities to say exactly that… He goes, ‘No, no, no, they’re the founder.’ So what are we supposed to believe when he says something…”
Cohen: “I think the best thing is if Mr. Trump called in, had the conversation with you himself.”
Cuomo: “Anytime, anytime, the offer is open.”
Cohen: “I mean there’s nobody better to answer Mr. Trump than Mr. Trump. But Mr. Trump has…”
Cuomo: “The question is, should people have doubts about whether or not you can take him at his word?”
Cohen: “Well I think you do take him at his word, for everything.”
Cuomo: “But that’s how we got into this situation…”
Cohen: “Again, but what you’re doing — I watched your show yesterday with [former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani]. What he was talking about is how the mainstream media wants to pick on every single word. Again, I think Mr. Trump will answer this question better than anybody else. And I think it should be left for him to answer.”
Cuomo: “We’ll talk. I know you want to talk about the Clinton emails. But just to make a point…”
Cohen: “I’ll tell you what I would really like to talk about is her economic — well, I should say her failing economic conversation yesterday.”
Cuomo then explains that the media’s insistence on getting Trump to clarify his remarks is not a sign of unfair scrutiny, but simply normal scrutiny a politician would receive if he/she made inaccurate or inflammatory remarks.
Cohen: “But we’re talking about when someone says that they short circuited, that’s about themselves, right? Mr. Trump was claiming that President Obama and Secretary Clinton are the founders of ISIS. What he’s referring to, and he’s talked about it so many times, is of course the fact that ISIS grew and grew out of control and is now a threat to our national security, to our families.”
Cuomo: “But he muddied it by insisting, and he muddied it before that, to be honest with you. At the town hall, he blamed [George W. Bush] for ISIS. In 2007, he said to [Wolf Blitzer], ‘We should get out of Iraq right now,’ which is now a strategy that he’s criticizing in President Obama. So he’s been all over the place on this.”
Cohen: “Well I’m not so sure. I think he’s been very very consistent.”
At this point, Cohen declared that he didn’t believe Trump said his words in the way Cuomo recounted.
Cuomo: “You want to see it? 2007 with Wolf, here it is.”
Watch the full exchange below:
My segment this morning (that appears to have ignited a Twitter storm) on @CNN @NewDay with (friend) @ChrisCuomo https://t.co/9JlbIJXPXo
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) August 12, 2016
Leave a Reply