--- title: Donald Trump Lawyer's CNN Interview Is Definition of Awkward description: CNN's Brianna Keilar and Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen had a bewildering back-and-forth that produced a very awkward moment canonical: https://time.com/4457280/donald-trump-lawyer-cnn-awkward-interview/ author: Julia Zorthian article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-18T14:55:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:03:58.761Z article:section: Politics og:title: This Interview With Donald Trump's Lawyer Is the Definition of Awkward og:description: It's impossible to look away og:url: https://time.com/4457280/donald-trump-lawyer-cnn-awkward-interview/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc0fc816182694d9/6988a2cf656a3f82cdbccc87/cnn-trump-campaign.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: cnn-trump-campaign og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Interview With Donald Trump's Lawyer Is the Definition of Awkward twitter:description: It's impossible to look away twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc0fc816182694d9/6988a2cf656a3f82cdbccc87/cnn-trump-campaign.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Interview With Donald Trump's Lawyer Is the Definition of Awkward  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Aug 18, 2016 2:55 PM UTC  CNN  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Aug 18, 2016 2:55 PM UTC CNN’s Brianna Keilar and Donald [Trump attorney Michael Cohen](http://time.com/3974560/donald-trump-rape-ivana-michael-cohen/) had [a bewildering back-and-forth](http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/08/17/michael-cohen-donald-trump-poll-number-brianna-keilar-sot-tsr.cnn) that produced one of the most awkward moments of the 2016 campaign so far. In an uncommonly uncomfortable video, Keilar challenged Cohen about one of Trump’s favorite things: polls. When Keiler notes that Trump is trailing Hillary Clinton in the general election, Cohen asks her, “Says who?” Keiler seems taken aback, but answers: “Polls. Most of them? All of them.” Further miscommunication follows; prepare yourself for 26 seconds of silence and repetition until both participants are left staring into the camera in disbelief at the other’s response. The video quickly went viral on social media with the hashtag #SaysWho. The Washington _Post_ [characterized the interaction perfectly](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/17/what-its-like-to-report-on-2016-in-37-torturous-hilarious-seconds/) as “What it’s like to report on 2016.” And for those who want to know what to believe, here are current polling results from [Real Clear Politics](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general%5Felection%5Ftrump%5Fvs%5Fclinton-5491.html). \[[_CNN_](http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/08/17/michael-cohen-donald-trump-poll-number-brianna-keilar-sot-tsr.cnn)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4457280/donald-trump-lawyer-cnn-awkward-interview/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4457280/donald-trump-lawyer-cnn-awkward-interview/"},"headline":"This Interview With Donald Trump's Lawyer Is the Definition of Awkward","datePublished":"2016-08-18T14:55:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:03:58.761Z","description":"It's impossible to look away","url":"https://time.com/4457280/donald-trump-lawyer-cnn-awkward-interview/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election topic","Television","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc0fc816182694d9/6988a2cf656a3f82cdbccc87/cnn-trump-campaign.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julia Zorthian","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc0fc816182694d9/6988a2cf656a3f82cdbccc87/cnn-trump-campaign.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"cnn-trump-campaign","caption":"","creditText":"CNN","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4457280/donald-trump-lawyer-cnn-awkward-interview/","name":"This Interview With Donald Trump's Lawyer Is the Definition of Awkward"}}]}] ```