"I understood Michael Cohen very well.
Turned out he wasn't a very good lawyer, frankly."
'Fox & Friends' is typically known as being a safe space for
President Donald Trump — who is a regular viewer of the Fox News
morning show — but in an interview conducted at the
White House on Wednesday, Trump got a little pushback. Kind of.
During the interview which aired Thursday morning,
co-host Ainsley Earhardt pressed Trump, albeit rather lightly,
about his former attorney and "fixer" Michael Cohen who pled
guilty to eight financial crimes on Tuesday. Cohen's offences
included tax evasion and bank fraud as well committing
campaign violations by coordinating pay-offs to silence women
who claimed to have had sexual relationships with his former boss.
Earhardt asked Trump, "Did you direct him to make
these payments? Did you know about the payments?"
She asked Trump to explain Cohen's actions, which he did
by saying that he "made a good deal" for himself
and took the opportunity to "flip" and reduce a lesser sentence.
"Because he makes a better deal when he uses me, like everybody else."
He continued, "People make up stories...In all fairness to him,
most people are going to do that. It's called 'flipping',
and it almost ought to be illegal...They make up things,
and now they go from 10 years to they're a national hero."
Earhardt also set the stage for Trump to attack Jeff Sessions
when she told him that "a lot of people are frustrated"
with the Attorney General's Justice Department.
"I put an Arttorney General that never took control
of the Justice Department, Jeff Sessions.
Never took control of the Justice Department."
The interview then moved to the topic of Paul Manafort
who was also found guilty on Tuesday of eight financial crimes.
"I have great respect for what he's done in terms of what he's gone through."
Earhardt asked the president whether he's considering
pardoning Manafort and also asked him about
a potential Democratic effort in Congress to impeach him.
Back in the 'Fox & Friends' studio after the sit down was aired,
Earhardt framed the rationale for the interview in a positive light for the president.
Speaking to her co-hosts, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade,
who have both interviewed the president in the last few months,
Earhardt enthused,"I was so grateful that he sat down with us
after such a crazy news day, so we could hear his side of the story."
Asked about his war on the press, Trump said the media is not the
"enemy of the people." But, he said that 80 percent of the media is "fake news."
To read more on this story, head to THR.com.
For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Lyndsey Rodrigues.
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