Less than 24 hours after former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski admitted that he has “no obligation to be honest to the media” while being caught lying red-handed, CNN brought on the pugnacious Trump loyalist for an interview that predictably went sideways.
Appearing on CNN’s New Day on Wednesday morning, Lewandowski and anchor Alisyn Camerota spent a frustrating and headache-inducing 16 minutes going round and round over his contentious and combative testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. The lengthy CNN segment, in fact, basically came across like a microcosm of Tuesday’s hearing—lots of deflection, insults, contradiction, and condescension.
For instance, Camerota began the interview by asking Lewandowski about his tactic of stonewalling or just straight-up refusing to answer questions from House Democrats during his testimony, prompting the possible Senate hopeful of doing the same exact thing to her.
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“You just mischaracterized saying I didn’t answer the majority of questions,” Lewandowski complained at one point. “You and I both know that’s not an accurate statement. You and I both know I answered the majority of their questions.”
This prompted a mini-argument between the two over whether or not Lewandowski invoking executive privilege during the hearing was the same as refusing to answer a question. This was merely the beginning of the insufferability.
Later on, Lewandowski—a one-time CNN political commentator—used a Trumpian line to mischaracterize the findings of the Mueller Report, claiming the report was “very clear” that there “was no collusion, there was no obstruction.”
“That’s not what the Mueller Report said, Corey!” Camerota shouted back, adding: “Did you read the Mueller Report?”
Lewandowski admitted he “never did,” prompting Camerota to ask how he even knows what is in the report. The Trump operative, however, decided to flip it back to the CNN anchor, asking her whether she read the 400-plus page report.
“There were 10 different examples of obstruction in there,” she accurately said, causing Lewandowski to claim his former colleague was lying and being “disingenuous.”
She went on to air a graphic that showed the 10 different instances of Trump’s attempted obstruction of the Russian investigation laid out in the report, including Lewandowski’s own attempts to get then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse his recusal and stymie the probe.
“All of the examples that any regular citizen would have been charged and convicted of if they were not a sitting U.S. president,” Camerota noted. “You know that part, right?”
“I don’t know that to be true,” Lewandowski dismissively replied.
Camerota, eventually, swung it back around to Lewandowski’s confession that he lies to the press, asking him if he only feels an obligation to tell the truth under oath. Lewandowski’s answer was to invoke former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who is now a CNN contributor.
“You and your network continue to use him as a contributor who has been lying under oath,” he sneered. “So if you’re going to hold me to a standard, hold your same employees and contributors to that same standard.”
Naturally, the conversation went nowhere. As Lewandowski kept trying to make it about McCabe, Camerota attempted to get him to admit that he lies to the media, prompting his to ask: “Are you a journalist, or are you a talking head?”
“You’re listening with your mouth,” Camerota snapped back.
