President Trump’s ex-lawyer, who flipped on his longtime client in the Stormy Daniels hush-money scandal, is now back in the fold of celebrity he always secretly coveted.
Michael Cohen confirmed Wednesday that Trump will appear on his podcast Thursday, a stunning reversal of fortunes.
Cohen told Graham Cates of CBS News that he is set to interview the president on his program, confirming a report from MS NOW, formerly MSNBC.
“This is the first public conversation between the president and myself in eight years,” Cohen said. “You know, there have been private conversations that have, of course, been reported. But this is the first public conversation.”
Cohen spent more than a decade as Trump’s “fixer,” his right-hand man, intimately involved in Trump’s business and personal life.
“I was a permanent fixture in his office, most specifically the far-right red velvet chair,” Cohen said Wednesday.
But the relationship fell apart during Trump’s first years in the White House, as scrutiny mounted over a $130,000 payment Cohen made on Trump’s behalf to adult film star Daniels before the 2016 election.
Cohen pleaded guilty eight years ago to financial and campaign finance crimes and lying to Congress, and spent more than a year in prison.
He later built a podcast and book career devoted to harshly criticizing Trump.
“I truly f**king hope that this man ends up in prison,” Cohen said at one point. “You better believe I want this man to go down and rot inside for what he did to my family.”
Cohen had expected a White House job for his alleged longtime loyalty to Trump.
But the disgraced lawyer never itemized exactly what Trump “did to my family.”
Cohen testified against Trump in his civil and criminal trials in New York, helping to get his ex-buddy convicted of 34 felony counts of falsification of business records tied to Daniels.
But Cohen appears to have had a change of heart this year, writing earlier this year in his Substack newsletter he “felt pressured and coerced” by prosecutors to testify against Mr. Trump.
The rift between them may be on the mend.
