CNN Anchor Battles Paul Manafort During Heated Exchange Over Trump Campaign's ‘Pattern’ of Lying

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo accused Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort of lying and making excuses about Melania Trump's convention speech during a heated interview Wednesday.

Manafort has consistently denied allegations that Mrs. Trump plagiarized a portion of her Monday evening speech, which was notably similar to part of the speech Michelle Obama delivered at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

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During the interview, Cuomo listed what he sees as two major issues with the Trump campaign.

"The first is, a big part of the case I'm hearing here at the convention for why Donald Trump needs to be president is that Hillary Clinton can't be trusted, that she doesn't level with the American people, which is another way of saying, 'She lies,'" the CNN veteran explained.

He then noted the second issue he perceives with the campaign, which is that "when faced with something that you did wrong, you just deny it, no matter whether it's true or not."

Cuomo offered examples of controversies surrounding Trump's campaign, such as the time the GOP nominee mocked a disabled New York Times employee, the anti-Clinton ad Trump retweeted that contained what many believed was a Star of David and the speculation surrounding the Washington Post report about a mysterious Trump publicist named "John Miller."

"There's a pattern of denying the obvious," Cuomo continued. "What happens when you're running the government of the United States and you don't want to deal with what happens then? That's the concern. That's why I don't understand why you won't just own this little thing and move on."

Image source: CNN

Manafort told Cuomo that it's time to "move on" from the Melania speech controversy and focus on the nominee's campaign.

“But I can’t move on, because you keep lying about it, so I can’t move on from it,” Cuomo shot back. “Because I have to talk about what is true.”

Manafort replied, “Chris, I’m not lying about anything.”

Cuomo continued to press the campaign manager, asking him to give a "yes or no" answer to whether or not Melania Trump plagiarized the first lady's speech.

But Manafort didn't waiver from his initial argument: “As far as we’re concerned, there are similar words that were used, we’ve said that, but the feelings of those words and the commonality of those words do not create a situation which we feel we have to agree with you.”

Watch:

Paul Manafort on Melania Trump’s speech: “I’m not lying about anything” https://t.co/vtjrBMldNh https://t.co/tmJTlW7mwJ

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 20, 2016