Michael Cohen, executive vice president at the Trump Organization and a special counsel to Donald Trump, on Wednesday appeared on CNN, clearly hoping to convince viewers that everything is just peachy at the former reality TV star’s presidential campaign.
Anchor Brianna Keilar wasn’t having it. For 30 awkward seconds, she made Cohen squirm as he questioned whether Trump’s campaign has actually been crashing in the polls over the past few weeks.
Here’s the exchange:
BK: You say it’s not a shakeup, but you guys are down.
MC: Says who?
BK: Polls. Most of them. All of them.
MC: Says who?
BK: Polls. I just told you. I answered your question.
MC: OK. Which polls?
BK: All of them.
MC: OK.
Keilar wasn’t exaggerating. Trump hasn’t led a nationwide general election poll since July 24, according to tracking by HuffPost Pollster. He’s currently down in some key battleground states ― and the undeniably disastrous trend has continued over the past few weeks, as Trump has ignited a series of controversies, beginning with his attacks on the Gold Star family of a Muslim American war hero.
On Wednesday, Trump seemingly made an effort at damage control with a staff shakeup that brought on Steve Bannon, former executive chairman of conservative website Breitbart News, to help run his campaign.
Cohen told CNN that this wasn’t a sign of trouble, however. And in typical Trumpian fashion, he said only the dishonest media was judging it as such.
“These terms are not indicative of what’s going on at the campaign,” he said. “All that Mr. Trump has done is he has added to the existing group of winners that he has hired for the campaign.”
It was a busy day for Keilar, who earlier in the afternoon was introduced to the term “turd tornado.”
Later in the evening, Cohen sent out a tweet accusing Keilar and CNN of inaccurate reporting.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.