During an interview on “Anderson Cooper 360°” Tuesday night, Rick Santorum denied that President Donald Trump had surrounded himself with criminals, but Anderson Cooper wasn’t having it.
The CNN host took the former GOP senator from Pennsylvania to task after he claimed it was “a little bit too much” to say Trump had “surrounded himself with convicted criminals.”
Earlier in the day, Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted on eight charges, including five counts of tax fraud. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, also entered into a plea deal, pleading guilty to bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance violations.
“Well, they were (criminals) because they had already broken the law,” Cooper said. “They were criminals. They were unconvicted criminals.”
Santorum said Cooper was “making the assumption” that Trump “would have known that they were doing criminal activity, which of course, he did not.” To which Cooper replied, “unless he was engaged in criminal activity and that’s the reason he had so many around him ― like his attorney.”
Check out the exchange above.
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