Donald Trump was interviewed by Harris Faulkner on Fox News this afternoon, and things started off hot when Trump was asked about hush money payments from Michael Cohen and the National Enquirer to women claiming affairs with Trump.
Shortly after Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in prison for violating campaign finance law under his boss’ orders, it was revealed that National Enquirer parent company American Media Inc. (AMI) admitted to federal prosecutors that it had paid off a woman to keep quiet about an affair at the direction of Trump. Despite the findings of the Southern District of New York and the evidence against Trump’s claims of non-involvement, the president showed Faulkner a bunch of print-outs of reports supposedly exonerating him.
“I don’t think that even paid any money to that tabloid,” Trump said.
“Nobody except for me would be looked at like this.” Trump grumbled. “What about Congress?…They don’t talk about campaign finance anything. Have you ever heard about campaign finance laws? Have they listed that on the campaign finance sheets? No.”
Trump continued to argue that his scheme with Cohen was not a campaign finance violation, and he eventually made a false equivalence between his situation and that of Barack Obama’s campaign error from 2008. This false equivalence was advanced by numerous pro-Trump media figures recently – including Fox & Friends – in defense of the president
WATCH:
Trump to @HARRISFAULKNER [1] on being implicated in felonies: Crimes aren’t crimes pic.twitter.com/6puzl2H3aQ [2]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 13, 2018 [3]
Twitter quickly called Trump out:
I cannot tolerate how rude he is, talking over her, blabbing on and on, not even *hearing* her-he just thinks if he says it out loud it’s truth.
— Annette Dez (@annettedez1) December 13, 2018 [4]
The guy is panicking solid…. And I have the biggest smile on my face…. ????
— JohnM (@JohnMolsonEX) December 13, 2018 [5]
He is floundering and @HARRISFAULKNER [1] is just being an air head. " oh I interviewed him." As if that is proof what he says is correct. She is an idiot interviewing an idiot.
— DJDan (@DJDan888) December 13, 2018 [6]
"Have you ever heard of campaign finance laws?"
Says the man who recently pardoned another @GOP [7] trumpsist who got a felony conviction for breaking campaign finance laws.— ⚛ Ben Schaefer ⚛ (@BenSchaefer5) December 13, 2018 [8]