We are not physically together. He is under home confinement orders from the federal bureau of prisons and will remain so for the duration of his sentence. Joining us now for the interview, im very pleased to say, is Michael Cohen, Donald Trumps onetime personal attorney and the author of this new book, which is already at the top of the charts. Its called disloyal, a memoir. I read it cover to cover. I did not intend to, but i started at the beginning and didnt put it down till it was over. Mr. Cohen, thank you for agreeing to do this. I know you have a lot of choices. Thank you for being here. Thank you, rachel. Thank you for having me. Let me start by asking, how are you doing . Youre back at home. Youre under home confinement. You had a strange circumstance where you were out on furlough and put back in otisville and then a judge intervened so youre back at home. Its got to have been a real whipsaw. Yeah, this has been some ordeal. Some people have said im the First Political prisoner in my own country based upon failing to sign over my constitutional rights. And i really do have to thank the lawyer who did a brilliant job in the order to show kaus and judge hellerstein, whose opinion could not have been more accurate by calling the actions retaliatory. I mean the department of justice remanded me back to prison while i was sitting in a waiting room, expecting to get an answer as to why the first paragraph that they gave to me was so vie lative of anyones First Amendment rights. Next thing i know theres three marshals standing hundred me. Mr. Cohen, stand up and face the wall. Not only did they handcuff me, which was completely unnecessary anyway, im not a risk. I scored the lowest on possible, you know, numbers when it comes to the bop. But they shackled me as well. I mean this was really this was a rough experience. Wow. In terms of your life now and what your life is like under home confinement and releasing this book, i know there are multiple ongoing investigations that seem to have been triggered by or that intersect with the testimony that youve given, you know, investigations by the new York State Attorney general and the manhattan district attorney, potentially some federal investigations out of the u. S. Attorneys offices in eastern and Southern Districts in new york. And i know you cant talk about ongoing live investigations, but are you in an ongoing way working with any investigators or providing testimony or is that still part of your life, or is that something thats in the past . So youre right, its im not im not permitted to discuss them other than to say that there are ongoing investigations into all of the actions that everybody has heard about for so long, including the Supreme Court case that now exists in order to obtain mr. Trump and the Trump Organizations tax returns. You write in the book that you didnt have access in detail to trump taxes, but we know that you had access to financial documents from the Trump Organization because you testified about it in great detail, in poet detail in front of congress in terms of basically what you described of as sort of tax fraud or insurance fraud, potentially bank fraud or efforts at that by the Trump Organization as the president routinely inflated or deflated the value of his assets depending on who was asking. If cy vance or other investigators do get access to the kind of financial records that you testified about, what do you expect . Do you think that that is stuff thats all going to be beyond the statute of limitations . Do you think that will be stuff that poses a threat to the president now . I think it poses a tremendous threat to the president , which is of course why he elected not to release his tax returns. Other than that, again, they are ongoing investigations, and its probably best if i dont discuss any of the terms. I hear you. Or any impressions that theyve put before me. Let me ask you about the Campaign Finance charges which you pled guilty to. The thing that i have never understood, and i have pursued this story as hard as ive pursued anything in the trump era, and nobodys been able to explain this to me. Why were you the only one charged . You write in great detail about sort of coming up with this plan to cover up the payment, which was an illegal payment, with Allen Weisselberg. Weve seen the checks that you provided to congress, including at least one signed by one of the president s sons. Its clear that the Trump Organization was used to sort of launder that repayment. Its clear that ami and david pecker were involved in strands of this scheme. Why is Michael Cohen the only person who was charged . Because they elected to make me into the scapegoat. I did what i did. I took responsibility for it, but mr. Trump, Allen Weisselberg you know, just to correct you for a second there, rachel. It wasnt just don juniors signature that was on some of the checks. The president s signature was on two of the checks. Mmhmm. At the very dwibeginning, wh i provided to congress as part of the open house testimony. Why im the only one, it doesnt make sense as i stated. I was acting at the direction of and for the benefit of mr. Trump, and how i became the im not the one who had the affair. He did. Im not the i am the dummy who paid 130,000 to keep it quiet. But this was my conversation with mr. Trump, with Allen Weisselberg, and others, and i did it in order to protect him. And i guess the thankyou that i got from my loyal boss was Michael Cohen should, as i once said, take a bullet for him and lose everything, lose my freedom, my company, my law license, my familys happiness, everything. To me, im with you. I dont understand it. The president is at least, though, named as individual1 by prosecutors, and you in your allocution made very clear what you just made here in terms of the fact that this was directed by him, for his benefit, and you were acting out his wishes, and so hes therefore the most culpable person. You make a point as almost the very last thing you say in the book, which i wanted to ask you about because i think it may relate to this. The president is named as individual1. You went to prison for those felonies. Hes clearly the person who directed the commission of those felonies. But you say at the very end of the book that the president and attorney general william barr ousted the u. S. Attorney in the Southern District of new york and tried to install effectively the president s golfing buddy as the new u. S. Attorney there because the president , in your view, wanted to arrange for himself to be indicted while hes still in office because that would give him the opportunity to pardon himself after he lost the election. I just wanted to make sure that i understand the point that youre making there, just ask you to elaborate on that a little bit because im not sure i understand. My theory is that if he loses, theres still the time between the election and the time that the next president would take office. And in during that time, my suspicion is that he will resign as president. He will allow mike pence to take over, and he will then go ahead and have mike pence pardon him, and its a very lets just say its a very nixon type of event, and it was probably discussed between roger stone and President Trump at some point, that this is certainly one way to avoid any potential prison time. I suppose if he was going to do Something Like that, he could arrange for the type of pardon that nixon in fact got, where nixon hadnt been charged with anything. It was a prospective pardon that he basically arranged from ford so as to make sure that hed never be indicted after he left office. I suppose that same sort of arrangement could apply there even if he wasnt, in fact, charged. Though we have to remember that it doesnt apply to state charges, nor does it apply to the charges that will be brought by cy vances office. Yeah. Let me ask you, michael, about something that you describe in detail, which is also something that i sort of spent a long time chasing, which is this unusual story. This is page 249 of your book, chapter 12, which has got a lot of great stuff in it. And you talk about im glad you enjoyed it. I was like, ooh, 12, this is my jam. This is the part for me. So you write that the president effectively sort of flipped a house in palm beach. You describe it as an architectural nightmare, which i found effective. But he made a profit on that in excess of 50 million. And what you write about in chapter 12 is that the president told you that although the person who bought that house from him for this 50 millionplus profit was a russian fertilizer billionaire, the president told you that he believed the actual money was putins. Quote, the oligarchs are just fronts for putin, trump told me. He puts them into wealth to invest his money. Thats all they are doing, visiting putins money. Then you say in your words, trump was convinced the real buyer of that house was Vladimir Putin. Was he speaking seriously and literally there . Did he actually think that putin had arranged this 50 million windfall for him . Well, i i dont know what he was thinking. I can only tell you, which i did in the book. I can recount the conversation. He believes that all of the russian oligarchs are basically pawns of Vladimir Putin. He controls all of them. I guess very much to the same extent that Mohammed Bin Salman had the ability within which to lock up all of his relatives and other members of the royal family for money, right . Trump is keen on this power and whether its Mohammed Bin Salman, the kim jonguns, the maduros. Its the power that hes so involved with and so in search of that this is exactly what he believes. He believes that putin controls all of russia and all of its wealth, and anything like the purchase of this home had to have been through or with the permission of Vladimir Putin. And he you elaborate on that idea some when you talk about what you think was trumps sort of orientation toward putin and russia during the campaign. You say, when trump lost the election he expected to lose the election, he wanted to do all he could to enable him to be able to borrow money from people in putins circle, and that meant sucking up to the russians. A lorge part of the posturing and praising toward putin was a way to keep the Trump Organizations options open with the russian leader. So he was explicit with you about this, or you were discerning this in terms of what you thought was behind his behavior . No. This is whats behind his behavior. Donald trump, again, theyre looking for to do a project in russia for many, many years, even prior to my joining the Trump Organization in 2007. Hes fixated on the wealth of Vladimir Putin and all of the opportunities that come with it. You have to remember and ive said this many times, and ive said it under oath to the house and the senate as well as my open testimony. Donald trump never thought he was going to win this election. He actually didnt want to win this election. This was supposed to be and its how he started it the greatest political infomercial in the history of politics. So if you take that line and you and you add to it the trump tower moscow project, youll understand that this was a branding deal. Thats all that the president ial campaign started out as. This was a branding opportunity in order to expand worldwide. The trump theres only one problem. Theres only one problem. He won. Oops. The way you described the trump tower moscow project is grander than i had previously understood. 120 floors. The free penthouse for putin. Luxury condos. Is that not a brilliant idea by the way . If you want to raise the price per square foot, you give to probably the richest man in the world and certainly the most powerful in russia the penthouse apartment. So what does that do to the Square Footage of everything underneath it . It makes it enormously expensive because hell tell all the other oligarchs buy it, or theyll just want to buy it on their own. So its a brilliant move. Its just its just not if youre running for president. When you communicated with the kremlin, i know you describe you had one long conversation after trying to sort of move this along by getting in touch directly with the russian government about the project. Was that part of the idea for trump tower moscow conveyed to the russian government . Did you talk to the kremlin about the prospect of giving president putin a free penthouse apartment . You know, i had a long conversation with the young lady who was an assistant. I dont remember all of the questions, and i dont remember how in depth regarding the project, and it was not the first and only conversation that i had with the kremlin. You know, one of the questions that was asked of me was how did you get the kremlins number . And i said, i googled it. And while we were sitting in the scif, they actually googled it, and, yeah, the kremlins phone number comes up. And so i asked if i can speak with the secretary or the executive assistant for president putin. They asked me why. And the first time i wanted to invite him to trump tower to have a hamburger with mr. Trump while they were here for unga, the United Nations general aassembly. And he wasnt going to meet with obama. So i figured why not have the two of them meet . Again, it was a publicity stunt that mr. Trump had asked me to do for him. Around the planning about that potential project, did you ever get to the point where financing for the project was discussed . Were russian banks or russian no. Russian state connected entities going to finance it . No. That was one of the problems. I had three very specific rules when i was looking at deals. The first is i had to determine that they either owned or controlled a piece of property that the Trump Organization would be willing to build on. We never got past prong number one, so there was never discussion with anybody about the financing of this project. There was never a piece of property to put it on, so you didnt know how big the property could be, let alone, you know, how much it would cost. Were Trump Properties, you know, condos and apartments and the like were those, to your knowledge, from your time at the Trump Organization, used for Money Laundering purposes by organized crime figures or by foreign nationals . Did the Trump Organization do Due Diligence on that . Theres been a lot of public reporting that some Trump Properties were quite effective as largescale Money Laundering mechanisms. Yeah, im not aware of any of that. I never i never saw that. I mean there was one allegation. I was the treasurer of several of the Trump Properties where i owned apartments in. Thats really where i started. I bought them as investments prior to working for trump. And like, for example, in the building that i live, which is a trump building, i think we had one russian family. And over at trump world tower, the same thing. Theres a small percentage of the building thats russian. I think what they were probably referring to was trump toronto that had russian money behind it as well as trump soho that had russian money behind it. But to my knowledge, there was no Money Laundering scheme. Let me ask you about Something Else that came as a total surprise to me in the book, something i didnt see coming and im not quite sure what to make of it. Its a little awkward because i am a cable news host and its about cable news. But you write in some detail about a primetime host at the Fox News Channel speaking by phone with the president. You say the call was on your cell phone and you put it on speaker so the president can have this conversation, but youre there and its on your phone. No, rachel. I just connected the two calls together. Oh, i thought this one was on speaker on your phone. Let me quote it. You quote the host saying, mr. Trump, i cant come out publicly to endorse you at this time. It would destroy my credibility as it relates to you, but i want you to know i am today and have always been behind you. I speak to michael on a daily basis. Anything he has asked me to do that benefits you, i have done. I know that every Cable News Network is different and journalism is viewed differently by different people, but that seems like a crazy thing for somebody in the News Business to pledge to a political candidate. What was going on there . They were hundred him. They were look, mr. Trumps ratings were through the roof during the campaign, and everybody wanted a piece of him. And so, you know, what do they do . They promised him the world. They pulled a trump on trump. Whatever it is that he was looking for, whatever it is that he wanted, they were prepared to give it to him so long as they could get an exclusive, that they could get a weekly interview, you know, that he would make phone calls in to them in order to discuss what hes doing and give them access behind the you know, the blue ropes. The other twist in this part of the book is that this fox host who called the president and sort of pledged this secret loyalty to him, this secret im behind you all the way although i cant say so publicly, this is also somebody with whom you had an ongoing relationship. He had confided into you about some legal matters and some business interests and also things that were going wrong in his marriage and worries about a divorce. I mean was that a factor here . Was he saying this to the president in front of you is also giving you sort of assurances all these things that you know about me, dont worry, im going to be good. So let me tell you the story on this one. All right. Without naming the name. Im sure your viewers are smart, and i think they already figured out who it is. He was as Corey Lewandowski would put it, he was in a timeout because there was allegations that he was really for ted cruz. And when mr. Trump got word of this, he went apoplectic, and he basically refused to speak to him. He wanted nothing to do with him. He was incredibly, incredibly cruel to him the one time that they spoke, and it was my job to fix it. And i did that, at which point in time he explained that despite the fact that he happens to know ted cruz and he likes ted cruz, his loyalty was to donald trump. He is the one who he would want to see win in 2016, and anything that he can do behind the scenes to help, he would do it. And that was enough to convince mr. Trump in order to take him out of the penalty box and to put him back in his good grace. And you dont think any of that dynamic had anything to do with your independent relationship with that host and you doing some basically consulting and confidant sort of work with him . No. The confidant stuff had nothing to do with it. It was really his own need and desire as a host in order to ensure that mr. Trump would come on his shows as well as having the access to the candidate who was rising in the polls, who was really the he was the medias sort of interest at the time not matter the guy would go for a rally. They would cover it beginning to end, and he wanted to be a part of it. It was for his personal needs as a talk show host. Speaking of personal needs as a talk show host, this is now obviously becoming a slightly awkward conversation, but theres more of it ahead with Michael Cohen right after this. For america. Its 5g ultra wideband, and its already available in parts of select cities. Like los angeles. And in new york city. 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Do you know if senator cruz knows that donald trump approved that personally and made that happen personally . He does now. You also say that the enquirer, one after another, did hit pieces on all of President Trumps primary rivals. Was the president involved in okaying all of those stories too . Let me say this, and i want to be clear to you and the viewers and everybody. Nothing happens without mr. Trumps approval at the Trump Organization. To the same extent, nothing happens without President Trumps approval. He micromanages everything, especially and including things that he doesnt know anything about. But he was getting the National Enquirer to run all of those stories one after another on all the other republican primary candidates . He was involved in all of those . Sure. So as each as each candidate was moving up, lets say marco rubio. David pecker would reach out to me, and he would give me a list of things that he was intending to do in order to squash ted cruzs or marco rubios rise. Whoever was rising in the polls, thats who became the person that we needed to knock out of the race. With marco rubio, you may remember, there was photos of him in a swimming pool, that he had a drug problem, and all sorts of all sorts of other well call them salacious rulermors. And every time that they would be provided to me by david pecker, i would immediately take them into mr. Trumps office. We would sit down. We would talk about it. He would approve it, and then i would contact david. Next thing you know, two days later on the front cover, marco rubio has a drug problem. That is a Remarkable Campaign contribution to the donald trump for president campaign. At least legally, you think that might have been seen that way. It could certainly be seen, and i hate to say theres other stations right now that are doing the same thing. Theyre becoming staterun television as well as newspapers that, you know, if donald trump sneezed, its the greatest sneeze in the history of the world. And, you know, frontpage news story, breaking news. Let me ask you about another sort of surprise appearance in your book. Its the appearance of don mcgahn of all people, who of course has had a very unusual time in the spotlight as President Trumps white House Counsel and as somebody who is a fulsome cooperator with the Mueller Investigation even while he was serving in the white house. You write about arranging for a portrait of President Trump to be purchased at auction basically by a fake buyer. It was actually paid for out of funds from the Trump Foundation. Thats part of what led the Trump Foundation to getting shut down by the new York Attorney general. But you report, and i didnt know this before, that one of President Trumps primary rivals also filed a complaint about this, reported this to the fec as a potential Campaign Finance violation and that don mcgahn, in his current role at the fec, is the one who quashed it . Thats my understanding, yeah. It was don mcgahn who had the final vote, and thats where it got quashed. It was it was a very funny story. I hope you liked it. He was afraid. He was afraid that either no one would buy it or would go for just a few dollars, and i get called into the office as i did 50 times a day. You know, michael, you know, theres an Auction Going on in the hamptons. So im like, oh, thats fabulous. You want me to go there and buy you something . Yeah. Its a sixfoot picture of me. Im like, okay. You know, what are we going to do with it . He says, well, we have to get the highest price of anybody by a multiple. And so i know enough people who are significantly wealthy and friends also of mr. Trumps, and i reached out to one in particular, who is a great guy. And sai he said, listen, im not hanging this in my apartment. I said, i dont think mr. Trump wants you to, but hell pay you back. Why he took it from the foundation, thats simply because hes cheap. He didnt want it to come from his own money even though he believes the Foundation Money is his money as well. It was a ridiculous scenario in terms of even getting the money back. But we did, and he took it from the foundation, and that ended up resulting in the closure of the Foundation Based upon their failure to follow the guidelines. With that not becoming something that advanced at the fec as a potential enforcement matter, do you think that don mcgahns role at the fec in quashing that is part of the reason why he was given the white House Counsels job . Was that a thankyou or a payback . Is it any more the pay back the thank you by mark meadows becoming chief of staff or, you know, any of the other individuals who are now, you know, out there cheering the trump cheer, and at the end of the day, you know, he believes that this shows a sense of loyalty, and therefore he could bring them in. And it was very much the same its the same thing. Donald trump is an enigma, all right . It takes a while, which is what i tried to express in the book. By reading the stories and reading the statements that i make and putting it all together, you get a real, true understanding of whats going on inside of his head a little better than just listening to the things that he says on television. Of course another way to put that is watch what he does, not just what he says. Michael cohen is my guest tonight. We will be right back with more after this. Is tech and yoult when were on our way. 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And you state pretty emphatically that you think the president is prochoice, that hes proabortion rights and that his antiabortion no, no, no. I know that for a fact. How do you know that for a fact . Because weve talked about it for years. He is he is he is not prolife. He is prochoice. Do you know if he has ever either paid for abortions or demanded somebody get one . I never did that, and i was never involved in any scenario like that with him. Okay. Im going to ask you about one other subject that is sensitive, but its in the news, and its one of the few things thats happened recently enough that your book isnt up to the minute up to date on it. Otherwise the book is written right i mean i can tell you were editing right up until the very end. But theres this account of you and jerry and Becki Falwell where you described your legitimate with them and your warm friendship with them and how close to feel to them. But theres also a description that you helped them get a favor for their young daughter who wanted to get vip tickets to a Justin Bieber concert, and that was a great favor you were able to provide to them. And you knew that would come back to the benefit of mr. Trump at some point in the future. And then you describe a problem that they had, that they came to you with, where there were nude photos effectively of mrs. Falwell, and they were afraid they were going to become public. And you intervened to essentially make sure that those didnt become public. The way you describe it, though, they were you describe them as having been Jerry Falwell told you that he and his wife were friendly with this young man who worked as a pool attendant in miami. Since then in the last couple of weeks, the falwells have come out and said it was a sexual affair with this young man. And that puts a different cast as to whether or not he was blackmailing them. Can you give us any insight into what happens there give the falwells have gone public with what happened on the other side of it . Sure. So my story that i tell actually doesnt even involve this gentleman, granda, the one whos known as the pool boy. It actually dealt with a different gentleman by the name of fernandez, who was, to my knowledge, best friends or very Close Friends with granda. And thats how fernandez got a hold of the photos. I never spoke to fernandez. I only dealt with his lawyer, which is something that is a theme throughout the entire book. They make it seem as though i threatened him or i threatened stormy daniels, or i threatened this one. I never threatened stormy daniels. I never spoke to stormy daniels. Ive only spoken to her lawyer, keith davidson, and the same with fernandez. I never spoke to him. I spoke to his lawyer, and i said, what youre doing is tantamount to extortion, and if it doesnt stop, youre going to force the falwells to go to the fbi. Theyre going to have to report this. And then youre going to end up with a knock on the door and in serious trouble. So i want a commitment from you that if you have the photos, that theyre going to be destroyed. And he agreed, and they allegedly were destroyed, and thats why theyve never surfaced. And when you described that as a favor that you would eventually call in not for your own benefit but for the benefit of mr. Trump and to his campaign, the implication there is the way you called in that favor, having helped out the falwells in that way, is they paid it back by endorsing mr. Trump at a really important time in the primaries. I didnt have to rachel, i didnt have to use that as a chit, so to speak, with the falwells. The falwells i spoke to them no less than two hours ago today. I spaek to them on a regular basis. They communicate with me while i was in prison, and they were the last person i saw before i s selfsurrendered. So i didnt need to use that as a chit. All i needed to do was to ask them, and they would have done they would have done it anyway because i asked. There was no implication theyd be at risk in some way with your knowledge of those photos, that the endorsement may have been something that they felt that they had to do in order to protect themselves. No. No. Now, on this point, i should mention that today reuters put this same question to Jerry Falwell jr. He too denied that there was any quid pro quo, that there was any threat, implicit or otherwise, from Michael Cohen that led to his endorsement of trump during the 2016 primary. Weve got more with Michael Cohen ahead, including what he says are the roots of President Trumps deep disdain and disrespect for former president barack obama. Thats ahead. , Little Things can become your big moment. Thats why theres otezla. Otezla is not an injection or a cream. Its a pill that treats differently. 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And its about the birtherism thing, about what you describe as his obsession with president obama and his sort of almost desperate need to undercut president obama in some way. And you said in the book that the president didnt necessarily actually believe that president obama was born in a foreign country, but he liked the effect that it had for him to advance this theory. On page 114 of the book, you said he liked doing things like that. Quote, the more divisive the better because it would arouse strong feelings for those who took his side. I think a lot of us have seen how hes tried to pit people against each other whenever he can. Why does that redound to his advantage . How does that work in his favor . Donald trump is like a cult leader, and hes very stalinistic in the fact that he repeats things over and over and over again with the theory that if you continuously say the same thing over and over, people will start to believe it, you know. And, you know, i talk about a lot of these sort of proclivities and the things that he thinks and how he thinks. If you look at just the books that have come out recently, mary trumps book, Stephanie Winston wolkoffs book, my book, its kind of like the trifecta of truth. We all seem to be pointing to the same thing. He is devoid of empathy. He doesnt care what he says. He doesnt care who gets hurt so long as he wins. And when he saw that his poll numbers and his popularity and the number of times that hes gracing the front cover of a newspaper is increasing, he just added onto it. All of a sudden he was sending people to hawaii to go check. Thats a lie. He never sent anybody anywhere, right . He just said it, and everybody sort of bought into it. Of course donald trump sent somebody. Hes rich, right . Who wouldnt send somebody if you want to prove your point . Well, donald trump didnt do it because he didnt want to spend the money, and he didnt believe it. You know, his hatred for barack obama is plain and simple. Hes black. He went to harvard law. He graduated the top of his class. Hes, you know, incredibly articulate, and hes all the things that donald trump wants to be, right . And he just cant handle it. So what do i do if you cant handle it and youre donald trump . You attack it, the psasame way attacks my credibility all of the time. All of a sudden ive become a convicted liar . Who did i lie for . I lied at the benefit of and at the direction of donald j. Trump. Like your first question when we started, why am i the one who is taking all of the, you know, responsibility . I took my own responsibility, but now its time for him and his sons and Allen Weisselberg and all of the other people that were involved, its time for them to now face, you know, the consequences. It shouldnt just be me. When you say that you were directed to lie to congress by him, were there people who conveyed that message to you directly . Are there people who were involved in basically getting you to lie to congress or telling you to lie to congress, who should also be held accountable for that . Well, all those names have already come out, so the answer to that is emphatically yes. They changed the document. It was all part of a joint defense agreement. You know, many of these recordings that youre going to hear on other stations have been given to that station and to the moderator by the Trump Organization and don junior and others. I mean look at the way that they behave. He behaves exactly the way that i described him. Hes like a mob boss. If you cross him, youre going to get it, and hes going to inflict as much pain and as much damage as he possibly can. The problem is you cant you cant damage me anymore as i write in my prologue. You know, im broken broken. I mean to be away from my family for what . To lose my law license, my business, finances, my familys happiness, you know, what do you think that youre going to do with your ridiculous tweets . And by the way, you know, in his tweet of today, as i pointed out, he doesnt even spell properly. You know,liar. If youre going to call me something, at least have the decency to spell it right. Over time, do you feel like his sentience has declined . What youre describe in terms of his spelling, the way he speaks, the way he sometimes has trouble with words. Has that changed over time . Is he the same person when he speaks now that you recognize in your time working with him all these years . Hes not the same person that i knew going back years ago. He was always gruff. He was always a certain way. But the power that he now has has gone to his head. He wants to be an autocrat. He wants to be the president of this country for life. He wants to be just like putin, just like kim jongun, just like maduro. He wants to be just like Mohammed Bin Salman. He craves this. He doesnt want to run for president , and thats why he says, well, what about 12 more years, 12 more years . Hes not joking. Understand donald trump doesnt have a sense of humor. He doesnt laugh. He doesnt tell jokes. He doesnt have a sense of humor. He means when he says it, and its my book is intended to really open the eyes of the 38 , the base of his, that no matter what donald trump does, its acceptable to them. And he doesnt care, and they dont care. And he wasnt joking again when he said that he can kill someone on fifth avenue and get away with it. He means it. Okay. Just ahead, i have one last question for Michael Cohen, which is about his corroboration of reporting about President Trump that has reportedly put the white house in a bit of a panic for a solid week now. Michael cohen is in a unique position to potentially be able to corroborate that reporting. Im going to ask him about that when we come back. 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I feel like the one thing that has broken through a little bit, at least this year, about that empathy deficit that youre talking about is the reporting that started in the atlantic this week thats been backed up by a bunch of other news organizations that he said terrible things about veterans ask particularly about people who have been wounded or killed in action for this country, that theyre stupid and theyre suckers and theyre losers. Can you corroborate any of that . Has he talked about potential his avoiding service in vietnam or anything else about veterans or his potential for serving in ways that make sense to you . Rachel, corroborate it . I said it 18 months ago before the House Oversight committee. Everything that youre seeing now is sort of a preview to this really horror film that we have going on now called the trump presidency. And to those that dont believe this, the sequel to it, 2020 horror, is going to be even worse than the 2016 one. I said it. He literally had his father go to a podiatrist to claim that he had bone spurs in his feet. He doesnt even remember which bone spur which foot he had the bone spur in. Thats impossible. Ive had surgery. I had a bone spur in my left shoulder. If i was 110 years old, id still remember where the scar is. Id still remember that i had it in my left shoulder. How do you forget Something Like that . I mean its nonsensical. Plus i was tasked by him and i talk about it in order to tamp down all of the media, all of the friends that i have in media, to tamp down the deferment because he did not want it to defract frtract from claims that he is proveteran and he is the veterans hope for america and for them, and thats why they should all vote for him. Mary trump said that it was sort of family lore that don junior would be disowned if he signed up for the military, that there was worry that he was going to sign up for the military and maybe he voiced that he was going to, and President Trump told him hed be cut out of his inheritance if he did so. Did you ever hear anything about that . I havent heard on that one, but i can tell you and i talk about it quite frequently throughout the book the relationship between father and son is a very, very cutting relationship. Its at times it was very hard to even be in the room. Trump used to say that he has the worst judgment of anyone that hes ever met, and i actually interceded on many occasions on behalf of don both in his personal life as well as his Business Life to protect him from his fathers wrath. You also say that you sometimes felt like you were being treated like one of the trump children in the way that he was belittling you and the way he would try to cut your legs out from under you, essentially for his own amusement. For his amusement, and thats why i was able to accept it. I figured, you know, if hes capable of doing it to his children and thats not just don junior. That was ivanka and eric and tiffany. You know, he did the same to them. So i figured, well, at least im in good company. Michael cohen, its a remarkable book. Its called disloyal, a memoir, the true story of the former personal attorney to the president donald j. Trump. I know you have every choice in the world in order where to go talk about this. Like i said, all the guys at otisville, tony meatballs of the worlds, we all loved sitting there and watching you. We used to argue and fight over the children. Msnbc, Rachel Maddow has to be on. Well, im going to send all the meatballs Rachel Maddow show mugs just because you said that. Those meatballs were great. Then we had big dave the enforcer. Nobody touched that television. Thank you, michael. Good luck to you. Thank you, rachel. Pleasure. Michael cohens new book, which is called disloyal is out as of today. We did reach out to the white house. They told us Michael Cohens book is fiction, and that he lied to congress and has lost all credibility. I would point out in response that thats exactly what Michael Cohens book is all about, and the person he blames for his own demise and all of ours is his longtime boss, President Trump. Thanks for being with us tonight. First look is up next. Joy reid and John Heilemann are going to lead off our discussion with rachels interview with Michael Cohen. Well be joined later in that discussion by former federal prosecutor Daniel Goldman, who questioned Michael Cohen under oath for a couple of days when Daniel Goldman served as special counsel to the house intelligence committee. Daniel goldman will analyze the legal aspects of what Michael Cohen had to say tonight and offer his assessment of Michael Cohens credibility based on his own interactions with Michael Cohen as an underoath witness. And later in the hour, we will be joined by former secretary of state john kerry, who is a decorated combat veteran of the vietnam war. We will