Michael Cohen, the former lawyer and one-time adversary of US President Donald Trump, has revealed that the pair have made amends. Trump featured on Cohen's radio programme "When You Know...You Know," scheduled to broadcast on Sunday, August 23. Trump's appearance signals a public reconciliation with the individual who gave evidence against him both in the courtroom and before Congress.
Background of the feud
Cohen spent years branding the US leader a "racist," a "predator" and a "fraud" after he entered a guilty plea and implicated Trump in misconduct in 2018. He also assisted prosecutors in Trump's conviction on 34 felony charges in 2024.
In an excerpt from the interview released on Thursday, August 20, Cohen addressed Trump as "boss" and "sir" and reflected on their previous close relationship. "Boss, you remember when I was by your side? I literally used to analyze the polls," Cohen remarked during a 15-minute segment of the interview broadcast Thursday evening on his WABC-77 radio programme. "Maybe what we should do is then have a press conference and literally put out all of the accomplishments," Cohen proposed.
Trump's comments on the reconciliation
In the excerpt, Trump stated: "They weaponised you, like nobody's ever been weaponised, like few have been... they weaponised you, they weaponised a lot of people and I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said and that's a big thing that you did."
News of the interview has brought to the surface reports of Cohen requesting a pardon. Cohen informed CNN that before Trump assumed office, he had submitted a pardon application with predecessor Joe Biden. The pardon was rejected. Cohen said he submitted the identical application, containing the same documentation, to Trump but is yet to receive confirmation that the application has been acknowledged.
Cohen's reflections on the relationship
Cohen served as the US president's personal lawyer but went on to become the key witness in a historic hush money trial, which led to the first-ever criminal conviction of a former president. Cohen himself received a three-year prison sentence in 2018 on charges connected to hush money payments designed to help cover up Trump's affair with an adult star.
Cohen also said in a substack post: "Eight years of silence. Hundreds of thousands of headlines. Fifteen years of history fractured in an instant, and somehow, against almost every expectation, here we are." Cohen said questions have been raised about how the two men could reconcile. "The answer is actually much simpler than people want it to be. We forgave," he said. "Donald Trump and I spent roughly fifteen years in the trenches together. We built relationships, shared victories, endured setbacks and pursued a path that ultimately reached the highest office on Earth. Then everything exploded. The friendship fractured. Trust disappeared. The relationship became ammunition. The world watched as two people who had once been extraordinarily close became combatants in one of the most public political implosions imaginable." Cohen said that 15 years cannot simply disappear because a "relationship becomes toxic" and that memories endure regardless. "Loyalty doesn't mean pretending someone never hurt you. Forgiveness doesn't mean surrendering your principles. Reconciliation doesn't mean rewriting history," he said.
