Trump and Michael Cohen Have a Rare Friendly Exchange at a Political Low Point
President Donald Trump had an unexpectedly warm public reunion Thursday with Michael Cohen, his former fixer turned key witness whose testimony helped secure Trump’s 2024 conviction in the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial.
Cohen, who is seeking a pardon, interviewed Trump on his New York radio program, addressing him as “boss” and delivering a six-minute monologue on friendship and forgiveness before the conversation began.
The two men have a fraught history. In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison and served more than a year for arranging a $130,000 hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, along with other offenses including tax fraud and lying to Congress. Trump was later convicted in 2024 on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal the payment, with Cohen’s testimony playing a central role in the case. Trump, who denies the encounter with Daniels, is appealing the conviction. His attorney during the trial, Todd Blanche — now the US attorney general — had at one point labeled Cohen the “greatest liar of all time” in court.
Reflecting on their turbulent relationship, Cohen asked how two men who spent years locked in bitter public and legal battles could ever end up in the same room again, answering simply: “We forgave.”
Trump, speaking from the White House as he looks to shore up political support ahead of the November midterms, greeted his former attorney of 15 years warmly, saying, “Hello Michael. How are you, Michael?” He added that he respected Cohen for recanting his earlier statements.
Cohen aired excerpts from a pre-recorded interview touching on familiar Trump themes, including immigration policy and his skepticism of unfavorable polling. Additional portions of the interview are set to air Sunday. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The friendly exchange comes as legal questions around the hush-money case remain unresolved. After Trump’s re-election, a federal appeals court directed the Manhattan judge overseeing the case to reassess how the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling on presidential immunity might affect the New York proceedings.
Cohen closed out the interview segment on a lighter note, singing a line from Peaches & Herb’s 1978 hit: “Reunited, and it feels so good…”
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