Stephanie Ruhle talked about a story in this morning's Wall Street Journal, reporting that presidential fixer Michael Cohen paid a tech company to rig online polls before the presidential election.

"One was about the president's popularity in terms of running. And the other, a CNBC poll aimed at showing the president to be a bigger business guy than he was. He also paid this technology expert to create a Twitter profile, Women For Cohen. I want to show how the bio for this profile -- women who love and support Michael Cohen, strong, pit bull, sex symbol, no-nonsense, business-oriented oriented and ready to make a difference," she said.

There was much merriment over the Women For Cohen project. Elise Jordan called it "a Tinder profile for Cohen."

"That's even the nonsense portion of it. We're talking about poll rigging. Michael Cohen has responded and put out a tweet saying, "As for the Wall Street Journal article on poll rigging, what I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of Donald Trump. I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn't deserve it.' What do you make of this?" Ruehl asked.

"Poll rigging! That's astonishing. It's also in keeping with the narrative being built publicly about Russians rigging the election that's established by the national security team in the government," attorney Kim Wehle said.

"But two, number two, that the Trump team was part of that. People talk about collusion, say that collusion was not a crime. That true, but it would matter for purposes of impeachment. We know by mistake that Manafort was feeding data to the Russians. Very specific data. So think about this: We want to have African American voters in Ohio not vote for Clinton. So let's send this to the Russians, have them focus on these people and put stuff in their computers and their feed so they don't vote, right?

"in addition, the president's lawyer coming out and saying he was rigging, also taking steps to rig poll data. If this were a TV Afterschool Special, we'd turn it off because it would seem so insane it could never happen. I think on February 7, when Michael Cohen comes out and tells his story and weaves all this stuff together in a way that makes sense to people, 'This is what I did and this is why,' I think the public consciousness or unconsciousness about whether this matters could shift. Because it's going to make sense on a human level, what this man's story was."

They didn't mention it in the segment, but look who recommended the tech company: Jerry Falwell.

Cohen hired a tech firm to rig online polls in Trump’s favor and was reimbursed by Trump. The firm was referred to him by Jerry Falwell after Trump spoke at Liberty University. https://t.co/U6gloHs7nN — 🗽 (@Anthony) January 17, 2019

The firm Cohen hired is owned by the chief information officer at Liberty University in Virginia, where Jerry Falwell Jr., an evangelical leader, serves as President — 🗽 (@Anthony) January 17, 2019

And look, Cohen stiffed the guy, which is why he went to the WSJ:

"Gauger said he believed he was due $50,000...but Cohen reportedly handed him 'a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that Mr. Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial-arts fighter.'" https://t.co/gOKaLYALR1 — Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 17, 2019

It sure looks like Liberty University must do a little poll-rigging of their own. Good to know!