President Donald Trump's loose-lipped interview on Thursday's Fox & Friends was a "surreal" moment in U.S. politics, according to Anderson Cooper. The CNN host likened Trump's phone call on the conservative talk show to "a crazy person on a park bench with an onion tied to his belt, just mumbling incoherently."
The comparison was embedded within a question Cooper posed to guest Alan Dershowitz, a libertarian lawyer and academic, during Thursday evening's iteration of Anderson Cooper 360.
The two were talking about the specter of Trump pardoning his embattled lawyer, Michael Cohen, who paid $130,000 to an adult film star who allegedly had an affair with the president. "From what I see," Trump said of his lawyer on Fox & Friends, "he did absolutely nothing wrong."
Dershowitz implied that it wasn't wise to read too much into the president's words regarding a potential pardon.
"How do you ever interpret statements made by Donald Trump?" Dershowitz asked. "Obviously he made a vague general statement intended to convey different points to different people."
Cooper blasted that rationalization.
"Don't you think that it's kind of surreal that we are in a place now, as a country, where we're like, 'Oh, don't listen to the president?'" Cooper said. "Like, he's a crazy person on a park bench with an onion tied to his belt, just mumbling incoherently. You're saying, essentially, 'Don't listen to him, don't pay attention to the words that come out of his mouth, because they have no meaning.'"
Dershowitz concluded that the president was "entitled to express views" but conceded that Trump had a habit of espousing "conflicting messages."
"I wish, as an American citizen, that he wouldn't speak in this way," Dershowitz said. "And if I were his lawyer, which I am not, I would advise him not to speak in this way."
Trump's phone appearance on Fox & Friends turned heads Thursday morning. The conversation spanned a number of topics, including Melania Trump's birthday, the president's notorious ire toward fired FBI Director James Comey, the political musings of Kanye West and embattled attorney Cohen.
Trump, of course, also issued glowing praise about his administration.
"I've accomplished, with all of this going on, more than any president in the first year in our history, and even the enemies and the haters admit that," he said, without providing support for his claim. "Nobody's done what we've done, what I've done."
