The usually staid set of CNN’s “New Day” took a fiery turn on Tuesday as co-host Chris Cuomo welcomed former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to the set.
In a lengthy and often testy debate, the two sparred about the extent and relevance of Team Trump’s Russia ties during the 2016 campaign. Specifically, the discussion focused on the extent of involvement of Russian-connected Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos and how much Lewandowski personally knew about their activities.
“You said there were no contacts,” said Cuomo. “There are now many contacts and you are part of it, in terms of a chain of communications, so do you have a new recollection of what contacts were made with your campaign that were involved with Russian interference?”
“Let me be as clear as I can be,” Lewandowski shot back. “I have never to the best of my knowledge ever communicated with anybody who is a Russian, a Russian agent, a Russian supporter, or somebody who is with the Russian government in any form … maybe you’re a Russian agent.”
Cuomo cited the now extensive connections that are known to have existed between both Page and Papadopoulos and Russians.
“You said you had no contact and nobody had contact and we know that’s not true,” Cuomo shot back. “You knew about it and they were making conatacts with Russians trying to help the Trump campaign. And they were meeting with people who had some odd associations of their own and you said it never happened and it did.”
With news yesterday that Donald Trump Jr. has corresponded via Twitter with WikiLeaks, the broader Russia invesigation took another step closer to the president’s inner circle and raised additional questions both about the extent of involvement between the campaign and Russian operatives and who would have had knowledge of such activities.
Watch above.