Michael Cohen, former President Trump’s former fixer, criticized Trump on Friday after his former boss was convicted in a hush-money case.
“I want peace,” Cohen told host Nicole Wallace on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” on Friday. “You can’t have peace when Donald Trump is around, because one of the things he talks about in many of his books is this: The general theme is, if you hit him and he thinks he’s getting hit, he hits you 10 times harder. “We have to fight back.”
“That person should hurt you 10 times more,” the former lawyer said. And as long as we both exist on this planet at the same time, he will constantly try to hurt me and I will never be a punching bag for Donald Trump or anyone else.”
Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a felony after a New York jury on Thursday found him guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records and allegedly falsifying payments to an adult film star early in his 2016 campaign to conceal a crime. . He was rumored to have had an affair in the past, but denied this.
Immediately after the verdict was read, the former president criticized the trial and Judge Juan Mercan, calling it a “manipulation” and a “disgrace.”
Cohen was considered a key witness in the trial and became the center of the case. The charges Trump faced were related to a refund to porn actress Stormy Daniels, who paid Cohen $130,000 to keep her quiet about an incident that occurred in the early 2000s.
When Wallace asked how he was doing, Cohen responded, “I’m just holding on.”
“I enjoyed watching the press conference today and wondered if the gag order was actually in effect. Because once again, Donald violated. He doesn’t care about the law, he doesn’t care about the law. Anything but getting angry, like a child getting angry.” Cohen said, appearing to refer to Friday’s press conference following Trump’s conviction.
The former president was granted an expanded speech restraining order that barred him from making public statements to witnesses, prosecutors, court staff or the judge’s family, which was upheld after appeal. Merchan has already fined Trump more than $9,000 for social media posts and campaign attacks that he ruled violated the terms of the order.
