Michael Cohen recorded a roughly 40-minute phone interview with Donald Trump that will air Thursday on Cohen’s WABC program — their first public conversation since their split more than eight years ago. The break began after Cohen’s Aug. 21, 2018 guilty plea in a hush-money case; Cohen served time and testified against Trump. The two have quietly met in recent months at Trump’s Bedminster golf course as their feud softened, and Cohen frames the broadcast as an attempt to confront years of betrayal and anger.
From 'Rat' to Radio: Trump and Michael Cohen's First Public Conversation in Years
This 2016 photo shows Donald Trump with Michael Cohen during a campaign stop at the New Spirit Revival Center church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. - Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/File
Michael Cohen — once Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and self-described “pit bull” — will broadcast a taped phone interview with the former president on his WABC program Thursday evening. Cohen told CNN the recorded conversation lasted about 40 minutes; it will be the pair’s first open discussion since their professional and personal split more than eight years ago.
The rupture dates to Aug. 21, 2018, when Cohen pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to eight counts tied to a payment scheme intended to silence women who alleged affairs with Trump during the 2016 campaign. Cohen’s plea implicated Trump and set off years of legal and personal fallout for both men. Cohen served time in prison and later testified for prosecutors in Trump’s New York criminal case.
In 2024, Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to alleged hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels; Trump has denied the allegation, received no jail time for that conviction, and has appealed. Cohen, who said he would once take a bullet for Trump, was publicly denounced by the former president as a “rat” and a liar after the split. Cohen has said he felt abandoned by Trump and his associates and later published two memoirs, Disloyal and Revenge, describing the fallout.
In recent years the feud has softened. Cohen says the thaw began when a "White House friend and an insider" delivered an unexpected text conveying Trump’s empathy for what Cohen described as the legal and personal ordeal he had endured. Cohen told listeners he thanked the intermediary, expressed a desire to end the long feud, and was surprised when the president replied almost immediately, agreeing that they should meet.
According to a person familiar with the matter, the two men have met privately over the past year at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. The upcoming radio conversation caps a behind-the-scenes rapprochement that had been unfolding away from public view.
"After years of betrayal, heartbreak, fury, and silence, two men who once stood together against the world face the impossible question: Can forgiveness resurrect what hatred destroyed?" Cohen wrote on social media previewing the interview.
This interview will offer the first public window into whether the men can bridge the personal and political wounds that followed Cohen’s guilty plea and subsequent cooperation with prosecutors. CNN’s Kara Scannell contributed to this report.
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