Bob Woodward’s Rage might be getting all of the attention in the political book world right now, but estranged Trump fixer Michael Cohen attempted to wrest back some of the spotlight on Monday when he brought his own book tour to The View.
The author of Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump tried his best to ingratiate himself to the five co-hosts, explaining, “The whole purpose of the book was really to open up people’s eyes so that they understand the individual that’s asking them to vote for him in November.”
Less than shockingly, Meghan McCain was deeply dubious of his intentions. “You were a trusted adviser and close confidant of President Trump, and there’s a really long habit on this show where people who have worked with the Trump administration closely all of a sudden switch gears after doing all his bidding and then atone for the sins of working for President Trump,” she said. “You own up to being a liar, a cheater, and a thug for President Trump.”
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“Now that you are switching sides and switching narratives and you’re now telling me that Trump’s a bad dude, why should I believe that?” she asked. “Because I don’t easily swallow my initial instincts on people, and a liar is a liar is a liar is a liar. So why aren’t you lying now?”
When Cohen attempted to flatter McCain by calling her father, John McCain, a “great hero,” she stopped him to say, “That doesn’t get that far with me. With a lot of people who say things like that, with all due respect, he said that before he was the nominee. And again, I understand, but I knew who President Trump was from day one. It doesn’t take your book to tell me differently.”
“And your question is what, Meghan?” an increasingly exasperated Cohen asked when she was done.
“My question is, what made you change your tune other than money?” she asked. “And why should I believe you because you’re an admitted liar?”
Cohen explained that his lies were “at the direction of and for the benefit for” Trump and as a self-described lifelong Democrat, he pushed back on the notion that he was “switching sides.” As for why he spent so many years doing Trump’s “bidding,” he said he was suffering from a form of Stockholm Syndrome—or, as he called it later, “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“My need to please him, very much like 30 percent of the population right now, was greater than my ability to control my own moral compass,” he continued. “But what really made me change my mind the most is I started watching day-to-day the things that he’s doing, and the behavior that he’s exhibiting that's dividing this country in such a way that I cannot support this type of behavior any longer, and it has nothing to do with money.”
