Michael Cohen’s long and winding relationship with his former boss, President Trump, is poised to take another unexpected turn Thursday when the man he testified against in two separate trials calls into his radio show.
Cohen told CBS News that he is set to interview the president on his program, confirming a report from MS NOW.
“This is the first public conversation between the president and myself in eight years,” said Cohen. “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 Mr. Trump’s “fixer,” his right-hand man, intimately involved in the Trump Organization’s dealmaking and Mr. Trump’s private matters.
“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 Mr. Trump’s first years in the White House, as scrutiny mounted over a $130,000 payment Cohen made on Mr. Trump’s behalf to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 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 harsh criticism of Mr. 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 testified against Mr. Trump in his civil and criminal trials in New York, helping to get Mr. Trump convicted of 34 felony counts of falsification of business records tied to the Daniels matter.
But Cohen appears to have had a change of heart this year, writing in his Substack newsletter in January that he “felt pressured and coerced” by prosecutors to testify against Mr. Trump.
The rift between them may be on the mend.
“I reached out to the White House, reached out to the president, and he kindly agreed,” Cohen said, referring to his radio invitation.
Cohen said the call is being recorded Thursday morning, and will air in parts on that evening and Sunday on his radio show “When You Know, You Know… with Michael Cohen” on New York’s 770am WABC station.
