Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen criticized the presidential debate moderators and President Biden for avoiding talking about former President Trump’s conviction.
Cohen joined MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Saturday to discuss Biden’s performance. He argued that Biden should have come out immediately talking about Trump’s guilty verdict.
“In this debate, he allowed Donald to get very comfortable. In fact, they didn’t talk about the 34 criminal convictions until minute 45 of the 90-minute debate,” Cohen said. “I would have, right out of the rip, I would have come straight out and I would have started to talk about his criminal convictions.”
The former president made history in May when he became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime. A jury found him guilty of all 34 felony counts against him in his hush money case, where Cohen was a key witness.
Cohen, a former ally of Trump’s, has since separated from the former president and backed Biden’s reelection efforts. He argued that Biden should have began talking about the COVID-19 pandemic, Roe v. Wade, climate change “and everything in between” to throw Trump off his game.
Biden should have said “you will not hear a single truth during this entire debate and I want you to remember that when he’s answering these questions,” Cohen said.
The former Trump attorney said Biden should have said he is running against a “twice impeached, four time indicted criminal” who has bankrupted his company multiple times.
“It’s also not just … what you say, it’s also how you say it,” Cohen said. “There’s a specific way that you have to say things to Donald Trump in order to get under his skin. And that’s what Joe Biden needed to do.”
Largely, Biden’s poor performance stole the show. His tired demeanor sent Democrats into panic mode and there have been calls for him to step aside so the party can find someone new to take on Trump.
Despite calls for him to drop out, many are still backing the president and his mission for reelection. Cohen is one of them. He acknowledged that Biden may just have been tired since the debate started at 9 p.m.
“While Trump, during the day of the debate, was contemplating on what he was going to eat for breakfast, or you know, which golf course he wanted to play golf at that day, Joe Biden was stilling running the country and he was tired,” Cohen said, later adding, “maybe they should have given him some downtime, because right now, as you know, the world is a little chaotic and he is still the CEO of the United States of America.”