A Trump Aide's Response to His Baffling CNN Interview Is Even More Bewildering than the Interview Itself

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | August 18, 2016 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | August 18, 2016 |

If you checked Facebook or Twitter any time in the late afternoon or evening yesterday, it’s likely you saw the hilariously awkward exchange between CNN anchor Brianna Keilar and Trump attorney Michael Cohen. If you have not seen it, it’s a profoundly amusing 30 seconds that’s impossible not to rewatch multiple times.

Did Michael Cohen watch The Big Lebowski before going on CNN today?https://t.co/InypeNJek0

— CAFE (@cafedotcom) August 18, 2016

Cohen, naturally, got ripped to shreds on Twitter for the exchange.

As a reminder for people who like to say Trump will hire "the best people": Michael Cohen is his lawyer.

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) August 18, 2016

.@MichaelCohen212 just want to make sure you realise you're a world-wide laughing stock. "Says who" will be your only legacy.

— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) August 18, 2016

I bet it would be really easy to beat Michael Cohen at Guess Who?

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) August 18, 2016

Congratulations @MichaelCohen212. Rare double-play: You have a fool for a client, and @RealDonaldTrump has a fool for an attorney.

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) August 18, 2016

Michael Cohen, Trump Org's EVP, looks like he's been dead inside his entire life.

— ko @ FlameCon! (@dogunderwater) August 17, 2016

Cohen, by the way, is the Trump lawyer who said that “you cannot rape your spouse.” Clearly, Cohen also has difficulty with reality. He doesn’t think that Trump is losing, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Likewise, he thought he got the best of that exchange with Brianna Keilar.

In a conversation with Yahoo News shortly after the conversation aired, Michael Cohen, an executive vice president and attorney at the Trump Organization, said he believed he “controlled the interview” with Brianna Keilar.

“I think I unraveled her,” Cohen boasted.

“I was shocked at the length of the silence as she stumbled to think of an answer,” Cohen said. “And when she did come up with an answer, it was so generic it could have applied to anything.”

My favorite part of that Yahoo News story, however, was Keilar’s response:

During one of the commercial breaks, she sent Yahoo News a response to his review of the interview.

“Can you just embed the video in your story? My reaction is that people can watch and decide for themselves,” Keilar said.

Did Michael Cohen watch The Big Lebowski before going on CNN today?https://t.co/InypeNJek0

— CAFE (@cafedotcom) August 18, 2016

Lost in the awkward exchange, however, was another gaffe that Michael Cohen made during the interview. While his boss is trying to court African-American voters (of which he has only the support of one percent), Cohen had this to say in reference to Trump’s law and order speech in Milwaukee, where riots ensued after the killing of Sylville Smith.

“It is certainly an issue - the African American problem in this country.”