‘How did they not know, Corey?’ CNN’s Chris Cuomo hammers Lewandowski’s excuses for White House ‘chaos’

Formerstrategist Corey Lewandowski didn’t fare well against CNN’s Chris Cuomo in a discussion about what White House officials knew about Rob Porter’s history of violence.

President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager dismissed reports that special counsel Robert Mueller is asking everyone on the campaign to preserve documents. According to Lewandowski, it’s just part of the process and they’ve done everything to cooperate. He said that he knows he never had anything to do with Russians and furthermore hit his fellow colleague, saying if they did conspire they should go to jail.

Lewandowski hit the staffers from the White House leaking to the press that it was full of “chaos,” and said that they should quit. He said that he knows he never had anything to do with Russians, but he said anyone who did conspire with the Kremlin should go to jail.

He brushed aside the idea that staffers knew Porter’s security clearance was being held up due to his history of violence.

“How did they not know, Corey?” Cuomo asked. “But think about it, if you were there, you know, you worked on the campaign. You know about accountability at the top. The FBI knew this. You knew they were delivering information to the counsel’s office. It’s not like somebody with traffic tickets.”

Lewandowski admitted that someone had to have known and that it should be revealed when they knew and why they didn’t act.He predicted that chief of staff John Kelly, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump would stay on the White House staff. Further, he doesn’t care about Kushner’s problems with clearance and thinks the senior aide should have access to whatever he needs to establish Middle East peace.

He tried to promote Trump’s recent decision on tariffs as part of the president’s campaign promises, but Cuomo wasn’t having it.

“Right, but how’s he fulfilling the promise with tariffs?” Cuomo asked. “You want to cut new trade deals, go ahead. But a tariff is not a deal. It opens you up to retaliation. We’ve never seen it work in the past. Now he’s going at Canada and Mexico. No one is saying his goal is a bad idea to have more jobs, they’re saying that this method is a good method.”

He named Lewandowski’s book “Let Trump be Trump,” but noted that it seems people only believe that when it’s something good for everyone else.