Former President Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, slammed the president on Friday after his former boss was convicted in a hush-money case.
“I want peace,” Cohen told host Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC’s “Deadline: The White House” on Friday. “You can’t have peace with Donald Trump, because one of the things he talks about in a lot of his books, and it’s a common theme, is that if you hit him and he feels like he’s being hit, he’s going to have to hit back 10 times harder.”
“He needs to hurt you ten times harder,” the former lawyer continued, “and as long as we both exist on this earth at the same time, he’s always going to try to hurt me, and I’m never going to be Donald Trump’s punching bag or anybody’s.”
Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a crime on Thursday after a New York jury found him guilty on all 34 charges of falsifying business records related to payments he made to a porn actress early in the 2016 election to cover up allegations of past affairs that Trump denies.
Immediately after the verdict was read, the former president slammed the trial and Judge Juan Merchan, calling it “unjust” and “shameful.”
Cohen is widely seen as the trial’s star witness and plays a central role in the case. Trump is accused of paying Cohen $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair that took place in the early 2000s.
When Wallace asked him how he was doing, Cohen replied, “I’m doing great.”
“I had a chance to watch the press conference today and I found myself wondering if that gag order is actually still in effect, because Donald has once again broken the law. He doesn’t care about the law, he just cares about nothing except venting his frustrations like a petulant child,” Cohen said, appearing to refer to Trump’s post-conviction press conference on Friday.
Former President Trump was subject to an expanded gag order banning him from speaking publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court officials or the families of judges, but the order remained in place after an appeal. Marchan has already fined Trump more than $9,000 for social media posts and attacks on his campaign that violated the order.
