Trump blustered, blamed, and distracted, but what didn’t do was offer a defense of his crimes committed with Michael Cohen during his Fox and Friends interview.
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Trump was asked if he would fire Jeff Sessions, and he answered, “As I said I wanted to stay uninvolved but when everybody sees what’s going on in the Justice Department, now put justice in quotes, it’s a very bad day, Jeff Sessions rescued himself which he shouldn’t have done or should have told me, even enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself and you wouldn’t have put him in. He took the job and then he said I’m going recuse myself. I said what kind of a man is this, and by the way, he was on the campaign, you know, the only reason I gave him the job because I felt loyalty, he was an original supporter, he was on the campaign, he knows that there was no collusion. And what’s come out of Manafort, no collusion, what’s come out of Michael Cohen, no collusion. This is stuff that they got. How about with Michael Cohen, they raid his office at 6:00 o’clock in the morning and how about with Manafort, they raid his home at like 5:00 in the morning even on the weekend and his wife is in bed, and they go in with guns, this isn’t Al Capone.”
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Trump’s Fox and Friends Interview Was A Disaster On Multiple Fronts
When a president is comparing himself to a notorious American gangster, it is not a good look. When a president is using that comparison as his defense, it is a massive problem. Notice that Trump doesn’t say I didn’t do this. What Trump said was that they didn’t find anything. The interview also was a disaster on the Michael Cohen front as Trump described his relationship with Cohen as, “Well, he was a lawyer for me for one of many, you know, they always say the lawyer, and then they like to add the fixer. I don’t know if he was a fixer. I don’t know where that term came from. But, he has been a lawyer for me. Didn’t do big deals, did small deals. Not somebody that was with me that much.”
Michael Cohen had an office in Trump Tower, near Donald Trump, so no one should buy Trump’s song and dance about the two of them not being close.
Trump intentionally tried to steer the conversation toward Russia and collusion. He wouldn’t talk about his payoffs to women he had affairs with beyond trying to minimize them as campaign finance violations.
Trump did more damage to himself by talking. He looked, sounded, and acted guilty.
If Donald Trump continues to talk, he is going to end up out of office and in prison.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
