From ‘predator’ to ‘conman’: how Michael Cohen has described Trump | Donald Trump

Donald Trump has given a radio interview to none other than Michael Cohen, his former longtime personal fixer turned fierce critic, after an apparent reconciliation set the stage for their first public conversation in eight years.

Cohen once had such a tight relationship with the US president that he described himself back in the day as his “attack dog with a law license”, but later became the star witness in Trump’s 2024 criminal trial over his hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in an effort to interfere with the 2016 election.

Their exchange, recorded on Thursday and broadcast on 77WABC, amounted to an extraordinary twist in the pair’s relationship.

In an excerpt of the interview released on Thursday, Cohen referred to Trump as “boss” and the president praised his former lawyer for having “recanted everything you said”. The full interview will air on Sunday.

In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison on charges related to hush-money payments on Trump’s behalf to help conceal the affair with Daniels, including campaign finance violations, tax evasion and bank fraud, as well as lying to Congress. He spent more than a year behind bars and the rest of his sentence in home confinement. He was also disbarred in New York. He later started a podcast and wrote books devoted to fierce criticism of Trump.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Cohen said he had applied for a pardon from Trump after an initial request for clemency was denied by Joe Biden.

Cohen’s tune changed shortly after Trump returned to office, stating publicly in January last year that he had felt “pressured and coerced” by federal prosecutors during the hush-money trial.

Here is Cohen, in his own words, on Trump through the years:

I ‘would take a bullet’ for Trump

“I’m the guy who stops the leaks. I’m the guy who protects the president and the family. I’m the guy who would take a bullet for the president,” Cohen told Vanity Fair in September 2017, recounting a time when former Trump White House official Steve Bannon had accused him of leaking to a reporter during the campaign.

‘A path of darkness’

A year later, Cohen described his loyalty to Trump as misplaced, saying in a statement at his December 2018 sentencing: “My weakness can be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump, a blind loyalty that led me to choose a path of darkness.”

He went on: “I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen I deeply admired. I know now, in fact, there is little to be admired.”

Cohen added: “I take full responsibility for each act that I pled guilty to, the personal ones to me and those involving the president of the United States of America … It was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.”

‘He is a conman’

Then, in an explosive testimony before the US House oversight committee in February 2019, Cohen began his opening statement: “The last time I appeared before Congress, I came to protect Mr Trump. Today, I am here to tell the truth about Mr Trump.”

He went on: “I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr Trump’s illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience. I am ashamed because I know what Mr Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat.”

Cohen also suggested that the US could face an existential peril as a constitutional democracy, predicting: “Given my experience working for Mr Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”

In his closing remarks, he added: “My loyalty to Mr Trump cost me everything … and I will not sit back, say nothing and allow him to do the same to the country.”

‘The real man’

In his 2020 tell-all about Trump and the 2016 election, Disloyal, Cohen said: “I knew him better than even his family did because I bore witness to the real man … a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a conman.”

‘I want this man to go down’

In October 2022, Cohen described watching footage of the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack as “a heartbreak”. He went on to warn that Trump “does not want to be president of the United States – he wants to be an autocrat, supreme leader, dictator”.

In an episode of Cohen’s podcast in 2023, he thanked the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, for bringing charges against Trump. “I truly fucking hope that this man ends up in prison,” Cohen said. He said that it would not bring back the time he spent in prison, but added: “You better believe I want this man to go down and rot inside for what he did to my family.”

Testifying in 2024, Cohen was asked during a fiery cross-examination whether he had referred to Trump as a “boorish cartoon misogynist” and a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain” on his podcast, Mea Culpa.

“Sounds like something I would say,” he quipped from the stand, with Trump seated nearby in the Manhattan courtroom.

‘I violated my moral compass’

In May 2024, Cohen reflected on his years working for Trump, telling the hush-money trial: “I regret doing things for him that I should not have. To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he asked me to do, I violated my moral compass. And I suffered the penalty – as has my family.”

In his 2022 book, Revenge, Cohen explored how Trump weaponized the Department of Justice in his first administration to target political opponents and critics for his own benefit.

He revisited those warnings in July 2024, saying: “Don’t discount what he’s telling you. He’s already foreshadowing what he intends to do. And when you say: ‘That’s not possible. He won’t do it. He can’t do it’ – he’s already done it to me. It was a practice run.”

‘The fight doesn’t have to last forever’

Then came the about-face. In a Substack post on Thursday, Cohen confirmed reports that Trump would appear on his radio show, writing: “People keep asking me the same question: How is this possible? … The answer is actually much simpler than people want it to be. We forgave … Forgiveness doesn’t require amnesia. It requires the courage to stop allowing yesterday to dictate tomorrow.”

He went on: “Sometimes the most extraordinary act of courage isn’t winning the fight. It’s deciding the fight doesn’t have to last forever. And sometimes, after everything has burned down, forgiveness is the only thing capable of building something again. This evening, you’ll hear whether we can.”