President Donald Trump appeared to have mended his relationship with his former close aide and personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, in an unusually friendly interview that was announced mid-week and aired throughout Sunday.
The US president and Cohen discussed a wide range of topics, from Trump’s proposed ballroom for the White House and the course of the economy during his second presidential term, to what he calls the “instrumentalization” of institutions and the judiciary, which, according to him, is destroying America.
This is the first time Trump and Cohen have spoken publicly since the Stormy Daniels payoff trial, in which the president’s former lawyer was a key prosecution witness. The trial resulted in Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The two have traded bitter attacks in recent years, accusing each other of wrongdoing. Cohen has previously called Trump a “fraudster” and a “predator,” while Trump has called his once-trusted aide a “nail.”
On Sunday, however, the picture was completely different. They had a friendly conversation, with Cohen repeatedly calling Trump “the boss” and even openly discussing why so many people in the United States have such a strong dislike for the American president.
The conversation also focused on Cohen’s role in the Stormy Daniels trial. Trump blamed New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, claiming they pressured his former lawyer to testify against him.
“They threatened you with everything if you didn’t turn against Trump and you pulled it back. I wouldn’t even be talking to you right now if you hadn’t ,” Trump told Cohen.
Last week, when CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Cohen if he still stood by his previous testimony that Trump had ordered him to commit crimes, he dodged the question.
” I will not discuss what I have said in the past, what I have testified under oath ,” he replied, adding that “what I said was said and that remains my position.”
Cohen also revealed to CNN that he had applied for a presidential pardon from the Trump White House after the Biden administration rejected his request.
This year, Trump’s former lawyer wrote on an online platform that he felt he was “pressured and coerced” by prosecutors to testify against the current president.
Cohen was sent to prison during Trump’s first term after paying Stormy Daniels $130,000 to stop her from speaking publicly about her alleged affair with Trump.
In 2018, he pleaded guilty to eight charges related to, among other things, tax fraud and campaign finance violations.
When Tapper asked him last week whether he still considered Trump “a racist, a fraud and a liar,” Cohen refused to answer, reiterating that he was now focused on the future, not the past.
“How is it possible for the two of us to sit down together again? The answer is that we have forgiven each other,” Cohen said, clarifying, however, that he has not forgotten anything that happened, but chooses to use “the courage to stop letting yesterday define tomorrow.”Top Channel