Fox & Friends scrambles to react to the Cohen-Trump tape, insisting “they're not talking about anything illegal”

Brian Kilmeade: “Can you imagine this, Ainsley? You're paying somebody to represent you ...  thinking it's your friend and he feels as though he's got to tape you.”

From the July 25 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

Video file

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): This is the tape that the president lashed out on Twitter about I think on Saturday where he said it was probably illegal what Mr. Cohen had done. Big question is, and I heard somebody on the television last night say that Mr. Cohen could be in trouble if the president was on the phone in, for instance, Florida, a two-party state, because both parties had to know that he was being taped. New York, not a problem. But, nonetheless it, does raise the question, why was Mr. Cohen taping his client?

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Well, and whatever you tell your attorney is supposed to be protected, right? Most of the time? I thought all the time it was, but I'm learning maybe that's not the case. Maybe you can get special -- in special circumstances those tapes can be released. But, yeah, why is he recording it, and why was it released? I thought anything you tell --

DOOCY: Well, Rudy [Giuliani] did allow it to be released. That was their strategy. 

BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Which is unbeliev-- And they say that it doesn't make them look bad. I just don't -- if you don't want -- if you don't have to have this released, why would you release it? There are eleven more tapes, we understand. Michael Cohen, is he going to flip on the president? Is there anything to flip on? Are they going to look to unwind every business transaction he's done that Michael Cohen may or may not know about? And just to think that you have a situation where you talk to an attorney, who's supposed to be your friend, who you are paying. And if he is in Donald Trump's office, which it sounds to me like it is, because I don't think Donald Trump does a lot of visiting with Michael Cohen office, I wouldn't think. So, because -- and you hear the whole tape, you hear him covering a whole bunch of different things until it gets to Michael Cohen, right? He wants a Diet Coke in the middle of it.

EARHARDT: He doesn't -- he doesn't want his divorce with Ivana [Trump] released.  

KILMEADE: So, listen to this, can you imagine this, Ainsley? You're paying somebody to represent you and no matter whether it's a traffic violation or if it's a divorce --

EARHARDT: Thinking it's your friend. 

KILMEADE: Thinking it's your friend and he feels as though he's got to tape you. And I just wonder, the way it cuts off abruptly, I wonder if they have the rest and they're waiting to he see what the Trump side does next. 

EARHARDT: Well, is this part of a deal that Michael Cohen is working on? “I'll release this if you let me off on other things?” 

KILMEADE: I don't know who Michael Cohen is talking to. Is he somehow communicating to the [United States District Court for the] Southern District of New York?

DOOCY: There were twelve tapes that were seized. 

EARHARDT: That were confiscated. Yeah.

DOOCY: Exactly. And apparently the president is only heard on one. Nonetheless, when you look at all of it, they're discussing things that are unseemly. But here's the thing, Alan Dershowitz says they're not talking about anything illegal.

Related:

CNN: Exclusive: CNN obtains secret Trump-Cohen tape

Previously:

Fox & Friends worries about federal raid of Michael Cohen: What if Trump's tax returns were seized?

Sean Hannity on Michael Cohen: “I was not a client of his, although I did ask him a legal question on – we used to talk, privately”

Fox & Friends hardly mentions Russian oligarch’s payments to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen