Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

‘Says Who?’ Lawyer Michael Cohen Insists Donald Trump Rocking the Black Vote — Despite 1% Polls

Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen became an instant viral internet sensation with his bizarre appearance on CNN in which he awkwardly responded ‘says who?’ to a reporter’s question about the Republican candidate’s woeful poll numbers.

Now Cohen is striking back by claiming that the Donald’s standing with black leaders shows the pollsters are missing big chunks of support for the mogul.

“When they say that Donald Trump has a 1 percent favorability amongst the African-American community, I know from my own interactions that that number is absolutely and unequivocally inaccurate,” Cohen told Yahoo News. “I speak on a weekly basis to more than 100 African-American Evangelical preachers who are all committed to ensuring Donald Trump becomes the next president of the United States.”

Polls have repeatedly shown Trump with negligible support among black voters and some polls show Hillary Clinton outpacing President Obama’s near-unanimous support in the community.

Cohen, a lawyer for the Trump organization, went viral for all the wrong reasons after the cringe-worthy kerfuffle with Brianna Keilar.

When the anchor stated that Trump’s numbers were down Cohen replied, “Says who?”

“Polls,” she said. “Most of them. All of them.”

A long pause ensued.

“Says who?”

“Polls. I just told you. I answered your question.”

“Which polls?”

“All of them.”

As of Wednesday, the New York Times reports that Hillary Clinton has an 87% chance of winning the presidency. The latest NBC News SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll has Clinton leading Trump by 9 points-50% to 41%.

In the interview with Yahoo, Cohen bragged about “unraveling” Keilar and claimed he “controlled the interview.”

“I was shocked at the length of the silence as she stumbled to think of an answer,” said Cohen. “And when she did come up with an answer, it was so generic it could have applied to anything.”

Asked for comment, Keilar requested Yahoo News “just embed the video.”

Watch the discomfort in all its entirety below:

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.