Donald Trump's aide Michael Cohen said that the Republican nominee knows about the “African American problem” in the US. 
 
 The interview blunder came shortly after the news broke that Mr Trump’s campaign staff had undergone a major shake-up to win back favour in the polls. 
 
 "It is certainly an issue - the African American problem in this country," Mr Cohen said on CNN, referring to Mr Trump’s law and order speech in Milwaukee following the killing of black man 23-year-old Sylville Smith and ensuing riots. 
 
 "What I meant to say is the problem that exists in the African American community," Mr Cohen later clarified. 
 
 He added that Mr Trump was “colourblind”, but was aware of the racial tensions in the US. 
 
 In an awkward exchange, Mr Trump’s special counsel was asked about the Republican nominee's low ratings in the polls. 
 
 "Says who?" Mr Cohen fired back. 
 
 "Polls. Most of them. All of them?" replied anchor Brianna Keilar. 
 
 "Says who?" he asked again. 
 
 "Polls. I just told you. I just answered your question." 
 
 "Says who?" Donald Trump aide Michael Cohen questions polls that show the businessman trailing Hillary Clinton https://t.co/Ri6l5akJEC — CNN (@CNN) August 17, 2016 
 
 "Ok. Which polls?" he asked. 
 
 "All of them." 
 
 The interview has done little to assure Trump voters that his campaign is back on track after suffering low ratings versus Hillary Clinton in swing states like Virginia. 
 
 Three months before the election, Mr Trump has added two officials to oversee the campaign including Breitbart News executive chairman, Steve Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway, now campaign manager. 
 
 Former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was only appointed in April, will remain chairman. 
 
 Roger Ailes, the fired head of Fox News, will also act as a Trump adviser. 
 
 The shake-up comes just a few months after Mr Trump dismissed Corey Lewandowski, who is now a political commentator on CNN. ||||| Donald Trump’s attack dog attorney, Michael Cohen, had a major bone to pick with CNN’s Brianna Keilar on her program Wednesday afternoon. In typical lawyer fashion, Cohen had an issue with semantics. He was upset with how the media was characterizing the shake up which resulted in Trump appointing new campaign leaders. Cohen insisted that the “change up” was not, in fact, “a shake up.” Earlier today, Trump’s campaign announced Stephen Bannon, the head of Breitbart News, would become Trump’s campaign chief executive, and Kellyanne Conway would take over as the campaign manager. During the segment, Keilar pushed back saying the campaign was “down.” Cohen pushed back: “says who?” Keilar replied “polls.” And things, well, got pretty awkward. 
 
 Watch below (tensions really start right off the top and around 5:20): 
 
 Michael Cohen is Executive Vice President and Special Counsel to Donald J. Trump. He has been notoriously aggressive defending Trump against media, threatening to sue multiple organizations over stories (including this one). Interestingly, he was a registered Democrat who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. ||||| Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's lawyer, repeatedly asked CNN "says who?" when an anchor said Trump was down. | Getty Trump lawyer on polls showing him losing: 'Says who?' 
 
 Asked about Donald Trump’s decision to hire a pair of new senior campaign officials amid his growing polling deficit, the Manhattan billionaire’s attorney’s incredulous response was “says who?” 
 
 In an interview on Wednesday afternoon, substitute CNN host Brianna Keilar asked Trump Organization Executive Vice President Michael Cohen about the hiring of campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and CEO Stephen Bannon, widely perceived as a shakeup intended to remedy the Republican nominee’s struggling campaign. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Cohen balked at the idea that the hires constituted any kind of shakeup and interrupted Keilar in the middle of a follow-up question when she said, “You say it is not a shakeup but you guys are down.” 
 
 “Says who?” said Cohen, whose job description also includes serving as Trump’s special counsel. 
 
 “Polls. Most of them. All of them?” an incredulous Keilar responded, sounding surprised that Cohen would refuse to even acknowledge the notion that Trump’s campaign had fallen behind that of Hillary Clinton. 
 
 “Says who?” Cohen asked again, to which Keilar replied, “Polls. I just told you. I answered your question.” 
 
 Unsatisfied, Cohen followed up: “OK, which polls?” 
 
 “All of them,” the CNN host said. 
 
 “OK,” Cohen said. “And your question is?” 
 
 With the back-and-forth finished, Keilar asked what the hiring of Conway and Bannon signified if not a campaign shakeup. 
 
 “I think bringing on someone like Kellyanne Conway was a great move, and it was something, personally, I would have liked to see happen earlier,” Cohen said. “But the campaign wasn’t ready for it. Now they are. I think she is a brilliant individual. I think that she understands the data that’s coming in.” ||||| Twitter responds #SaysWho to Trump’s lawyer’s ‘Says who?' 
 
 On Twitter, the question of the day is #SaysWho? 
 
 The trend started after CNN's Brianna Keilar interviewed Trump Organization lawyer Michael Cohen about the hiring of campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and CEO Stephen Bannon. The following ensued when Cohen questioned exactly who claimed Trump is down in the polls. 
 
 When asked about being down in the race, Trump adviser replies, "Says who?"https://t.co/HO9wqbdDWRhttps://t.co/C2UzSDdUo4 — The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) August 17, 2016 
 
 Keilar: "You say it’s not a shake-up, but you guys are down —" 
 
 Cohen: "Says who? Says who?" 
 
 Keilar: "Polls. Most of them. All of them?" 
 
 Cohen: "Says who?" 
 
 Keilar: "Polls. I just told you. I answered your question." 
 
 Cohen: "Okay. Which polls?" 
 
 Keilar: "All of them." 
 
 *walks up to Michael Cohen's door* 
 
 
 
 "Knock knock." 
 
 "Who's there?" 
 
 "Says." 
 
 "Says who?" 
 
 "THE POLLS. ALL OF THEM." — (((Danielle))) (@abradacabla) August 17, 2016 
 
 Actually, it's "says whom" — Simon Owens (@simonowens) August 17, 2016 
 
 Polls — Alex Bedder (@itgetsbedder) August 17, 2016 
 
 "Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time." 
 
 "Says who?" 
 
 "Polls. Most of them. All of them." — Alp Ozcelik (@alplicable) August 17, 2016 
 
 Hillary Clinton is ahead in most polls, most recently according to Quinnipiac University polls out Wednesday, she leads by double-digits in Virginia and Colorado and also edges Trump in Iowa. 
 
 But Trump is winning at least one poll on Wednesday, A Monmouth University poll of Indiana found he was ahead of Clinton by 11 points in the state, 47%-36%. Trump’s running mate is the state's governor, Mike Pence, and Indiana generally votes Republican (though it did support Barack Obama in 2008). Bonus Trump-led poll: the Iowa State Fair corn poll. 
 
 The exchange on CNN ended with Cohen's statement on Trump's campaign changes: “I think bringing on someone like Kellyanne Conway was a great move, and it was something, personally, I would have liked to see happen earlier,” he said. “But the campaign wasn’t ready for it. Now they are. I think she is a brilliant individual. I think that she understands the data that’s coming in.” 
 
 Twitter users are now spamming Cohen, replying “Says who?” in response to all his tweets. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2bCOp8l ||||| Rudy Giuliani said on Wednesday evening that President Donald Trump reimbursed his personal lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment Cohen had made to the porn actress Stormy Daniels, contradicting the president’s account of what he knew of the arrangement to keep her silent about an affair she says she had with Trump. 
 
 “I’m giving you a fact that you don’t know,” Giuliani, the former New York mayor who recently joined the president’s legal team, told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “It’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violation. They funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it.” 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 That seemed to contradict Trump’s public statements on the payment, which has become a subject of a criminal investigation into Cohen, whose residences and office were raided by the FBI last month. 
 
 Speaking to reporters on Air Force One in early April, Trump replied, “No,” when asked, “Did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?” 
 
 The details of the payment, and whether and when Trump knew about it, have important legal implications. A payment intended to protect his campaign from political damage could be a violation of campaign finance law. As a candidate, Trump was permitted to spend an unlimited amount of his own funds on his campaign, but such sums should have been reported to the Federal Election Commission. 
 
 Cohen has also insisted that he used his own money and was not reimbursed for the payment by the Trump campaign or the Trump Organization. Cohen has never publicly said whether Trump paid him back for the money shelled out to Daniels. 
 
 In his Fox interview, Giuliani went on to say that Trump “didn’t know about the specifics about it, as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangements.” The former prosecutor and mayor indicated that Trump reimbursed Cohen through a series of payments of about $35,000, with some extra funds added to cover taxes and perhaps other services rendered. Reports indicated Cohen may have been paid as much as $460,000. 
 
 Giuliani’s emphasis that the payment did not involve campaign funds seemed to be an attempt to preserve the legal argument that the money was paid for personal reasons unrelated to the campaign. 
 
 Trump’s statement last month that he did not know about the payment is likely to be closely scrutinized by investigators, although neither the reporter asking the question nor Trump clarified just when he learned about the payment. Prosecutors sometimes cite false public statements as part of an attempt to obstruct justice by confusing investigators. 
 
 In a separate interview later Wednesday, Giuliani insisted his disclosure about Trump’s reimbursement of Cohen was no gaffe and that it was discussed with Trump in advance. 
 
 “He was well-aware that at some point when I saw the opportunity, I was going to get this over with,” Giuliani told The Washington Post, adding that he discussed the issue with the president “probably 4 or 5 days ago.” The former U.S. attorney said he didn’t think he was at risk of being fired over his comments. 
 
 “No! No! No! I'’ not going to get fired,” Giuliani told the Post. “But if I do, I do. It wouldn’t be the first time it ever happened. But I don’t think so, no.” 
 
 Giuliani's comments suggested that federal prosecutors in New York who are investigating Cohen are likely already aware of the repayment from Trump, and that Trump’s involvement was likely to become public at some point, anyway. 
 
 Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, filed a lawsuit earlier this year against Trump and Cohen over a hush agreement that she argues is not binding because Trump never signed it. The president has denied having an affair with Daniels. 
 
 Daniels on Monday filed another lawsuit against Trump accusing him of defamation for an April 19 Twitter posting in which he suggested that she had fabricated a story about being threatened in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011 by a man who told her: “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.” 
 
 “I am absolutely speechless at this revelation,” Michael Avenatti, Daniels’ lawyer, said in a phone interview late Wednesday on MSNBC. “I hope that your viewers, and I hope that the American people, upon hearing this and watching that clip, they should be outraged.” 
 
 Avenatti went on to say that Americans “deserve to be told the truth by your president and the people that stand at the podium at the White House … briefing press conference.” 
 
 “The American people have been lied to about this agreement, about the $130,000, about the reimbursement, and this is consistent about what we have been saying now for months, that was ultimately going to be proven and ultimately going to come out,” he said. “We just didn’t know that Rudy Giuliani was going to go on the Sean Hannity show and admit it on national television.” 
 
 Trump critics said Giuliani’s acknowledgment of the president’s role put the president in further legal jeopardy. 
 
 “Rudy Giuliani tonight put President Trump in legal peril for ‘knowing and willful’ violations of campaign finance law,” said Paul Ryan of Common Cause, a group which filed formal complaints about the episode with the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department. “Giuliani seemingly thought he was doing President Trump a favor — but instead made Trump’s legal problems much, much worse. ... Trump’s own lawyer has now handed the DOJ evidence that President Trump committed criminal violations of federal law.” 
 
 Giuliani also said, after being asked by Hannity to clarify, that the “money that was paid by his lawyer, the president reimbursed that over the period of several months.” 
 
 Hannity pressed Giuliani, saying that Cohen said he paid the money on his own without being asked. 
 
 “I don't know,” Giuliani replied. “I haven’t investigated that, no reason to dispute that, no reason to dispute his recollection.” 
 
 Revelations about Daniels and Trump’s involvement was not the only thing Giuliani revealed Wednesday evening to Hannity. 
 
 In the same wide-ranging interview, Giuliani also railed at length against the federal investigation into Russian election influence, which has focused in part on whether Trump himself might have colluded with the Kremlin or sought to obstruct justice after the investigation was launched. 
 
 “This is a completely tainted investigation,” Giuliani told Hannity. 
 
 He also delivered harsh attacks on former FBI Director James Comey, who, he said, he believed to be the “core” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the president. Trump fired Comey in May 2017, an act that many experts say could be interpreted as an effort to obstruct justice. 
 
 “I know James Comey. I know the president. Sorry, Jim, you’re a liar, a disgraceful liar,” Giuliani said. “Every FBI agent in America has their head down because of you.” 
 
 Giuliani repeatedly said he intended to be “objective” toward his approach to Mueller’s request for an interview with Trump. He said that he probably wouldn’t under today’s circumstances, but that he hadn’t totally closed his mind to it. But he peppered his remarks with bruising attacks on the special counsel’s investigation. 
 
 “You can’t possibly not feel as a citizen of the world that [the president’s] negotiations with North Korea are much more significant than this totally garbage investigation,” he said, calling the process “an outrageous miscarriage of justice.” 
 
 Kyle Cheney contributed to this report. 
 
 
 
 CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct which organization Paul Ryan works with. ||||| Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, leaves federal court after his sentencing in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for an array... (Associated Press) 
 
 Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, leaves federal court after his sentencing in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for an array of crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to two women that he says was done at... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — Abandoned by two of his most powerful protectors, President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that he did not violate campaign finance laws and that the liability for hush-money payments to two women alleging affairs with him rests with his former fixer, Michael Cohen. 
 
 Both Cohen and American Media Inc., the company that owns the National Enquirer tabloid, now say they made hush-money payments to a porn actress and a Playboy Playmate for the purpose of helping Trump's 2016 White House bid, a campaign finance violation. Trump, in recent months, has gone from denying knowledge of any payments to saying they would have been private transactions that weren't illegal. He offered yet another explanation Thursday. 
 
 "I never directed him to do anything wrong," Trump said of Cohen in an interview with Fox News. "Whatever he did, he did on his own." 
 
 Federal prosecutors say the payments were made at Trump's direction. The president, reiterating his claim that he is victim of an overzealous investigation, also argued that any payments were unrelated to his presidential campaign and thus not a violation of federal law. 
 
 "Nobody except for me would be looked at like this," Trump said. 
 
 Trump tweeted earlier Thursday that Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges "in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence." The president claimed the charges were "unrelated to me." 
 
 "In retrospect, I made a mistake" in hiring Cohen, Trump told Fox News. "I hire usually good people." 
 
 Although prosecutors have implicated Trump in a crime, they haven't directly accused him of one, and it's not clear that they could bring charges against a sitting president even if they want to because of Justice Department protocol. 
 
 Nonetheless, Trump's changing explanations have clouded the public understanding of what occurred and are running head-on into facts agreed to by prosecutors, AMI and Cohen, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other crimes and was sentenced on Wednesday . 
 
 "You now have a second defendant or group of defendants saying that these payments were made for the primary purpose of influencing the election, and that it was done in coordination with Trump and his campaign," said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine. 
 
 Trump's first explanation of the payment that would eventually help lead Cohen to a three-year prison sentence came at 35,000 feet (10,700 meters) over West Virginia. 
 
 Returning to Washington on Air Force One on April 6, Trump for the first time answered questions about the reports of $130,000 in hush-money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels, issuing a blanket denial to reporters while saying they would "have to ask Michael Cohen." 
 
 Three days later, the FBI raided Cohen's office, seizing records on topics including the payment to Daniels. Furious, Trump called the raid a "disgrace" and said the FBI "broke into" his lawyer's office. He also tweeted that "Attorney-client privilege is dead!" 
 
 The raid was overseen by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and arose from a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian election interference and potential coordination with the Trump campaign. In May, Trump and his attorneys began saying Cohen received a monthly retainer from which he made payments for nondisclosure agreements like the one with Daniels. In a series of tweets, Trump said that those agreements are "very common among celebrities and people of wealth" and that "this was a private agreement." 
 
 People familiar with the investigation say Cohen secretly recorded Trump discussing a potential payment for former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal two months before the election. On the tape, Cohen is heard saying that he needed to start a company "for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David," a possible reference to David Pecker, Trump's friend and president of AMI. 
 
 When Cohen began to discuss financing, Trump interrupted him and asked, "What financing?" 
 
 "We'll have to pay," Cohen responded. 
 
 Prosecutors announced Wednesday that AMI acknowledged making one of those payments "in concert" with the Trump campaign to protect him from a story that could have hurt his candidacy. The company avoided prosecution under a deal with prosecutors. 
 
 In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other charges, saying he and Trump arranged the payment of hush money to Daniels and McDougal to influence the election. That next day, Trump argued that making the payments wasn't a crime and that the matter was a civil dispute, then took a swipe at his former employee. 
 
 "If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen!" he tweeted. 
 
 Earlier this week, Trump compared his situation to one involving President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. The Federal Election Commission, which typically handles smaller campaign finance violations when the actions aren't willful and with civil penalties that are typically fines, docked the Obama campaign $375,000 for regulatory civil violations. The fines stemmed from the campaign's failure to report a batch of contributions, totaling nearly $1.9 million, on time in the final days of the campaign. 
 
 But legal analysts said the accusations against Trump could amount to a felony because they revolve around an alleged conspiracy to conceal payments from campaign contribution reports — and from voters. It's unclear what federal prosecutors in New York will decide to do if they conclude that there is evidence that Trump himself committed a crime. 
 
 The Justice Department, in opinions issued by its Office of Legal Counsel, has said a sitting president cannot be indicted because a criminal case would interfere with the duties of the commander in chief. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, and with Mueller's office, would presumably be bound by that legal guidance unless the Justice Department were to nullify the opinions. 
 
 For the payments themselves to be a crime rather than a civil infraction, prosecutors would need to show that Trump knew that what he was doing was wrong when he directed Cohen to pay the women and that he did so with the goal of benefiting his campaign. 
 
 Trump has not yet laid out a detailed defense, though he could conceivably argue that the payments were made not for the purposes of advancing his campaign but rather to prevent sex stories from emerging that would be personally humiliating to him and harm his marriage. 
 
 That argument was advanced by former Sen. John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat, in a similar campaign finance case that went to trial. But that may be tougher for Trump than it was for Edwards given the proximity of the president's payment to the election — timing that, on its face, suggests a link between the money and his political ambitions. 
 
 Still, the cases aren't always easy, as proved by the 2012 trial of Edwards. Jurors acquitted Edwards on one charge of accepting illegal campaign contributions but couldn't reach a verdict on the five remaining counts, including conspiracy and making false statements. Prosecutors elected not to retry Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004 and a candidate for president in 2004 and 2008. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Tucker at http://twitter.com/@etuckerAP
– Donald Trump's lawyer has apparently decided that it's his turn to make the gaffes. In an interview with CNN Wednesday, notoriously combative Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen interrupted host Brianna Keilar when she said that the campaign was "down," Politico reports. "Says who?" he asked. "Polls. Most of them. All of them?" she replied. "Says who?" Cohen asked again. When she repeated it was polls, he responded, "OK, which polls?” and Keilar said: “All of them." USA Today reports that Twitter users were quick to mock Cohen and are now replying "Says who?" to all his tweets. Cohen, in what Law Newz calls "typical lawyer fashion," also took issue with Trump's overhaul of campaign staff being called a "shake-up," insisting it was actually a "change-up." Cohen also raised eyebrows when he told Kielar that Trump knows about "the African-American problem in this country," the Independent reports. "What I meant to say is the problem that exists in the African-American community," he later said. (Michael Moore says he "knows for a fact" that Trump never really wanted to be president.)