WASHINGTON — (CNN) A top aide for Donald Trump said Tuesday that the billionaire businessman’s fighting style is “equal opportunity.”
During an interview on with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “New Day,” Michael Cohen laid out in simple terms the rules of engagement for the Trump campaign, “Don’t throw the punch unless you’re prepared to get hit back.”
Cohen, who serves as special counsel to the GOP front-runner, defended Trump’s decision to raise scandals from former President Bill Clinton’s past as part of his attacks on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. And he rebutted charges of sexism from the Clinton campaign in response to the attacks, arguing that Trump “is equal opportunity when it comes to hitting back.”
“I don’t believe Donald Trump has said anything negative about women that he wouldn’t say if it was a male,” Cohen insisted.
Cohen framed the back and forth between Trump and Clinton as part of the scorched earth, eye-for-an-eye political strategy that is all too familiar to Jeb Bush and Rand Paul, former targets of the business mogul’s withering criticism.
Later, when Cuomo pressed Cohen on the apparent inconsistency of Trump attacking the Clintons now, when he defended them during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Cohen said that Trump was simply acting in his capacity then as a friend of the Clintons. “He’s a loyal guy. It didn’t matter to him what the issue was with Monica Lewinsky,” Cohen pushed back.
“He’s friends with everybody! Everybody gets along with Trump, believe it or not.”
“Until he isn’t,” Cuomo replied.
Cohen responded, “Until they do something wrong to him.”
Trump has said in the past that he’s dismissed the Monica Lewinsky scandal as “unimportant” because he was working to maintain his business “obligation” by keeping a friendship with the Clintons.
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