On Wednesday night, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, will appear on CNN in an interview to promote his new book, “Disloyal.” And Tucker Carlson spent a portion of his Tuesday night show trashing the interview in advance. Tucker was upset because CNN head Jeff Zucker was on friendly terms with Cohen early in the 2016 election cycle.
Tucker had plenty of fury to dole out during the segment, which came late in Tuesday’s episode. Touting “exclusive audio” of a phone call between Zucker and Cohen from March of 2016, Carlson went off.
“Disgraced felon lawyer Michael Cohen has a new book out. It’s an election year quickie that he probably hasn’t even read it. It attacks Donald Trump. Someone should ask him: have you read it? Quick, what’s chapter three about? No one will ask him that, of course. The media naturally has swung into formation of promote it,” Carlson complained.
“CNN’s leading the charge. Tomorrow night, Michael Cohen is on CNN for a much-hyped prime-time interview. You can imagine how many tough questions he’s going to get on CNN — probably not too many. For Michael Cohen, CNN is like a second home, he’s got a lot of close friends over there.”
Carlson did not discuss during this segment the fact that Sean Hannity, the Fox News host whose show airs immediately after Tucker’s, was secretly a legal client of Cohen’s. Nor did he mention the Hannity referred to Cohen in 2017 as “a personal friend of mine, long before this election ever started” — a disclosure that came while Hannity was interviewing Cohen on his radio show.
Nonetheless, Carlson wants you to know that Cohen’s interview on CNN will be tainted because Cohen had a prior relationship with someone who is involved with the interview.
“Jeff Zucker and Michael Cohen have long been personal friends, at least the extent that narcissists have the capacity for personal friendship. Their relationship tells you a lot about how things actually work in media and in politics,” Tucker went on.
“Case in point: on March 10th, 2016 — that was the day of the final Republican primary debate — Cohen called Jeff Zucker on his cell phone. CNN was hosting the debate that night in Miami, and Cohen, who was working for Donald Trump at the time, wanted to check in about it.”
On bit of the audio presented — which you can hear for yourself in the video embedded in this article — that Tucker honed in on was when Zucker said this:
“I’m very conscious of not putting too much in email, as you’re a lawyer, as you understand. And as fond as I am of the boss, he also has a tendency like, you know, if I call him or I email him he then is capable of going out in his next rally and saying that we just talked. And I can’t have that, if you know what I’m saying.”
“Yeah, we know what you’re saying, Jeff Zucker. You’re saying that secretly, when you think no one is watching, you are more than happy to play all sides. You can brag about how powerful you are, the big time network honcho kingmaker, the man who decides who’s president!” Tucker mocked.
“Like all tiny insecure people, you will mix flattery with your swagger. Along the way you refer to Donald Trump as ‘the boss’ even when he’s not on the call. You’re happy to do that. What you don’t want is anyone in your tiny self-righteous left-wing rich person world to know that you’re doing it.”
You can watch the whole bit in the video embedded in this article.