Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer turned nemesis, defended his decision to interview the president on his podcast Thursday, saying the two men had forgiven each other.
In a lengthy Substack post titled “The Impossible Reunion,” Cohen said he has been bombarded with angry responses since the news broke of his planned interview with a man he admitted to calling a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain.”
“How can two men who spent years in a very public war, who hurled verbal missiles across an enormous legal and political canyon, ever sit down together again?” Cohen wrote. “The answer is actually much simpler than people want it to be. We forgave.”
MS NOW was first to report Wednesday that Cohen would record an interview with Trump on Thursday to air on his radio show later that night.
Cohen worked as Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer for more than a decade, and during that time, he was seen as an unwaveringly loyal employee.
Their relationship ruptured in 2018 when Cohen pleaded guilty to federal crimes, saying he broke the law at Trump’s direction. In 2024, Cohen was a star witness in Trump’s New York hush money trial. His testimony led to Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts — the first time a former U.S. president was criminally convicted at trial.
The two men appeared to begin mending bridges last year. The New York Times reported that they met briefly at Trump’s Bedminster golf club last summer. He told Politico this week that he has met privately with Trump three times and they have since reconciled.
In his explanation for the Thursday interview, Cohen suggested that he and Trump shared a connection they couldn’t deny. The country, he wrote, turned their relationship into “a political blood sport.”
“But underneath all of that remained something neither of us could completely erase: history.” he added. “Fifteen years doesn’t simply vanish because the relationship becomes toxic. The memories don’t disappear. The good times don’t cease to have existed because the bad times came afterward.”
Cohen did not address a potential pardon from Trump in his Substack post. When asked about seeking clemency from the president, he told Politico, “We’ll see. Will I make that request down the road? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.”
The post Michael Cohen addresses backlash over his Trump interview: ‘We forgave’ appeared first on MS NOW.
