Story highlights
Donald Trump adviser Michael Cohen sparked a backlash after he said marital rape wasn't illegal
The Trump campaign repeatedly said Cohen did not speak for the presidential candidate
On Wednesday, he spoke to CNN's "New Day," his first televised interview after making the remarks
Michael Cohen is back on the airwaves playing up his boss Donald Trump’s presidential campaign just one week after saying marital rape was legal and threatening to ruin a reporter’s life.
The top adviser to the brash billionaire and Republican frontrunner appeared Wednesday on CNN in his first TV appearance since he said “you cannot rape your spouse” in the Daily Beast, comments for which he later apologized and calling the remarks “inarticulate.”
“I said things out of anger and I apologized and moved on,” Cohen, a Trump Organization executive vice president and special counsel to Trump, said Wednesday on CNN’s “New Day.” “In all fairness, who hasn’t said something or done something that they regret simply trying to protect somebody that they care about.”
Cohen has not apologized for telling the Daily Beast reporter asking about a rape accusation against Trump to “tread very f—ing lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f—ing disgusting.”
While the Trump campaign last week distanced itself from Cohen, with campaign manager Corey Lewandowski insisting that Cohen “is a corporate employee and is not affiliated in the campaign in any way,” Cohen returned to CNN on Wednesday just as much the campaign surrogate as ever before.
“He’s speaking for himself. He’s not speaking for me, obviously,” Trump himself told CNN last week after the remarks, vowing to stick by his aide.
Cohen talked up Trump’s appeal to voters and set him up in stark contrast to the politicians Trump will debate Thursday in the first Republican presidential debate.
“They’ll say whatever they can to try to demean him. It’s not working. He’s leading by double digits,” Cohen told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday.
He even gave some insight into Trump’s debate strategy, saying the candidate would not attack others unless he gets attacked.
“You’re not going to see that from Donald Trump unless he gets attacked,” Cohen said. “You attack Donald Trump, he’s going to come out twice as hard against them.”