President Donald Trump clearly knows TV. He demonstrated it Thursday by calling in and taking over Fox & Friends for about 30 minutes.
Via the broadcast waves, he once again sucked all of the air out of living rooms across the nation. He got the attention he craves - even to his own legal detriment. Every time this guy opens his mouth, he proves how precarious our country is under his clueless shadow.
Rambling from subject to subject, Trump confirmed to "Fox and Friends" that Michael Cohen "represented" him in the Stormy Daniels case: "Michael would represent me, and represent me on some things," Trump said. "He represents me - like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me."
Daniels is the porn star to whom Cohen paid $130,000 just before the 2016 election to keep quiet about her alleged affair with the president. On Wednesday, Cohen filed court papers indicating he would assert his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination about his involvement in that hush money deal. And just three weeks ago (yes, it does seem more like a year) Cohen's office, residence and hotel room were raided by the FBI. Various electronic devices and documents were seized. Cohen is said to be under investigation for alleged campaign finance violations, bank fraud and wire fraud.
Cohen already acknowledged having "facilitated" the Daniels payment, but Trump has said he didn't know about it.
It may seem obvious that Cohen was acting on Trump's behalf - given that Daniels was making allegations against Trump, and Cohen worked for Trump. But now on Fox & Friends Trump acknowledged this action was taken in Cohen's capacity as his attorney.
The $64,000 question, of course, is about the campaign finance violation allegation. Trump still hasn't denied that he had a fund for Cohen to draw from to reimburse himself for the payment. And where did that fund come from?
The other stunning admission the president made on Fox & Friends was that he stayed overnight in Moscow during the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant. That came up in Trump's rant about "leaker" and "liar" James Comey, the FBI director Trump fired over "the Russia thing" - Trump's own words in another erstwhile TV appearance on NBC last year.
Thursday's admission was probably more deliberate. Comey wrote in two separate contemporaneous memos made after conversations with Trump while Comey was still FBI director (and feeling pressured by the president to drop the Micheal Flynn investigation) that Trump claimed he did not spend the night in Moscow. Trump denied staying there as a way to defend himself against the Steele dossier's allegation that he was videotaped in a hotel room watching Russian prostitutes urinate on themselves. Comey wrote and has said that Trump was consumed with disproving the dossier's allegation.
Trump clearly is trying now to discredit that Comey assertion. After all, lying to the FBI is a crime, and several people indicted in the Mueller probe already have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Flight records have now shown Trump's plane landed on Friday and took off very early Sunday morning, meaning he spent at least one night there. And his long-time bodyguard told Congress they spent the night. Now Trump must assert that Comey's memos were wrong in the first place.
Ooh la la! Trump should get himself on TV every day. Maybe it would help us get our country back sooner.