Cohen says Trump sowing doubt about debate part of ‘same old playbook’

Michael Cohen, former President Trump’s ex-fixer, said Tuesday that the GOP nominee has been drawing from the “same old playbook” by raising questions publicly about whether he will participate in the presidential debates.

“This is not new,” Cohen said in a CNN interview, responding to Trump’s recent comments about his potential debate participation.

“Donald’s been playing the same old play from the same old playbook going back to 2015. He wants the debate to go the way he wants the debate to go,” he continued.

Questions have swirled in recent days over whether the ABC News presidential debate will take place as planned, as the campaigns revisit the rules that were set before President Biden was replaced atop the Democratic ticket.

Trump and his allies have also been bashing ABC News, host of the debate in question, labeling the outlet “fake” and suggesting the deck was stacked against him. He has been pushing for a debate hosted by Fox News.

Cohen said Trump is attacking ABC News because he “wants to control all the levers.”

“Now, with Fox News, he can do that,” Cohen said. “With CNN, he cannot do that. With ABC, NBC, CBS, et cetera, he cannot do that.”

“So, of course, he’s going to claim that there’s a bias against him,” Cohen said. “None of it is true. It’s all a figment of his imagination, which is getting more and more weird each and every day.”

Cohen predicted Trump would show up regardless of the host network because he wouldn’t want to yield the stage to Vice President Harris, who would then have more of a platform to attack her Republican opponent.

“But he’s going to end up showing up, despite all of the nonsense because he knows what Kamala Harris is going to do to him if he doesn’t show up,” he said. “She will just put a cardboard cutout of him in the spot and she will talk to him as if he’s there.”

Cohen, for years, was the former president’s fixer and personal lawyer. He turned on his boss and served a three-year sentence after pleading guilty to federal campaign finance and other crimes. He maintains that he committed some of the crimes at Trump’s direction and testified to that effect as the star witness in Trump’s New York criminal case, which returned a guilty verdict.

In response to Cohen’s remarks, a Trump spokesperson referred The Hill to a social media post, in which Trump said he reached an agreement to debate Harris on ABC News. In the post, Trump referred to the outlet as “ABC FAKE NEWS, by far the nastiest and most unfair newscaster in the business.”