Michael Avenatti Challenges Kellyanne Conway To Debate Trump's Cases 'Anytime, Any Network'

Lawyer Michael Avenatti challenged Donald Trump's counselor Kellyanne Conway for a "real discussion about the facts and the legal issues about the cases" against the president. Avenatti's statement on Twitter came just hours after Conway appeared in an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo, Thursday night where she defended the president over the so-called "hush agreement" he had with adult film star Stormy Daniels.

"Kellyanne: Let’s appear together and we can have a real discussion about the facts and the legal issues in the cases. Two GW law grads. One on one. Anytime, any network. Even Fox. You name it. What could possibly go wrong? Don’t dodge it. Do it," Avenatti wrote on Twitter.

On Thursday night, Conway began attacking Cuomo's account of Trump's history of lying about the hush money payments during the 2016 campaign to women who say they had affairs with the president. Trump has previously denied that any money from his 2016 presidential campaign was used to buy Daniels' silence, and says that the affair never happened.

When Conway was pressed during the interview about some obvious lies made by Trump, including the fact that he told reporters in April 2018 that he didn't know about the $130,000 payment to Daniels, she began offering unsensible excuses.

"That was April!" she said. "The president said in April on Air Force One... they said, 'Did you know about the payments?' He said 'no.' I asked the president, 'What did you mean by that?' Because by April of 2018, the whole world knew, based on the Stormy Daniels revelation, so the whole world knew. ... So he wasn't talking about what he knew in April."

"So why did he lie?" Cuomo said.

"He did not lie! He's talking about when the payment was made," she said.

Daniels claimed that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. In 2011, a man allegedly approached the adult film star in a Las Vegas parking lot and threatened her after she had agreed to talk about her experience with Trump in an interview. In January, the Wall Street Journal published an article claiming Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, made a $130,000 payment to Daniels in October 2016, one month before the election, to remain quite about the affair.

In a statement to the Journal at the time, Cohen denied the payment, calling the allegations "outlandish," and said they'd been "consistently denied by all parties" for years. But in February he announced he had in fact paid Daniels the money.

On May 3, the president admitted that Cohen had paid off Daniels and was reimbursed. Earlier, his legal aide Rudy Giuliani had said in a TV interview that the money was Trump's personal cash.

Meanwhile, CNN’s Don Lemon raised questioned about Cuomo's decision to take out the time to interview Conway if all she planned on doing was lying. Lemon called out Conway for being “dismissive,” and for doing a disservice to the American people. He also said that the only thing Conway and other Trump supporters plan to do is serve as a distraction to the president's lies.