Fox News host Tucker Carlson played parts of an alleged 2018 conversation between CNN host Chris Cuomo and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen on a Wednesday night “Tucker Carlson Tonight” segment.
The recording, obtained exclusively by “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” reportedly featured Cuomo prepping Cohen for an upcoming CNN appearance, “guidance” Cohen asked for “as a friend more than anything.”
“Chris Cuomo was happy to oblige,” Carlson said after describing CNN as a “scripted drama written for the benefit of the Democratic Party” earlier in the segment.
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Cohen was concerned about questions he’d get “about the payments he made to Stormy Daniels,” Carlson said, and so “wanted Chris Cuomo to tell him what to say.”
“On TV, Cuomo might have launched into a lecture about how it’s wrong to send money to strippers,” Carlson said. “But in private, he skipped that lecture.”
The Fox News host went on to quote and play several reported exchanges between Cohen and Cuomo discussing how to strategically answer questions the former Trump attorney would receive about Stormy Daniels and even anticipate questions he would need to answer.
“But it’s not clear that Cohen understood what he was saying,” Carlson said. “On the tape, some of Michael Cohen’s responses to Chris Cuomo seem disjointed. Others sound like he’s grunting. Perhaps to make it easier for Cohen to follow, Chris Cuomo began acting out both sides of the exchange: he acted out the news anchor’s question, and then he acted out Cohen’s scripted response to that question. The conversation devolved into a kind of one-man play, with Chris Cuomo as the performer, and Michael Cohen as the audience.”
“Sometimes when you watch a political show on television, you’ll notice that the dialogue seems unnatural, almost like parts of it have been scripted,” Carlson continued after playing another segment. “Well at CNN, that is literally what you’re seeing. Scripted conversation. What you just heard was the writers’ meeting before the show.”
The Fox News host ended the segment by playing a clip of Cuomo reportedly telling Cohen he wanted to “make sure” he didn’t get indicted. (RELATED: ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ Exclusive: Jeff Zucker, Michael Cohen Reportedly Recorded Discussing Potential CNN Show For Trump)
“Chris Cuomo offers that help to Michael Cohen unsolicited,” Carlson said. “And honestly it’s a lot more than most news anchors would do for a guest, we can tell you first hand. Did Chris Cuomo call his brother, the governor of New York on behalf of Michael Cohen? We don’t know the answer to that. We do know that whatever Chris Cuomo did, it didn’t work. In the end, Michael Cohen went to prison anyway. But Chris Cuomo did try. Even back then, Cuomo understood that Michael Cohen could be useful some day. And indeed, Michael Cohen definitely has been useful. Tonight, two months before the election, Michael Cohen is appearing CNN in primetime, to make the case against Donald Trump. In other words, in the end, it all paid off.”