Michael Cohen Says Relationship With Trump Has Improved After Unexpected Text

Michael Cohen said he and President Donald Trump have buried the hatchet.

Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer testified against the president during his trial involving a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Trump, who called Cohen a “liar” at the time, pleaded not guilty to the charges of falsifying business records and denied having an affair with Daniels.

Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison over charges connected to that incident, including campaign finance violations.

But Cohen said on 77 WABC’s “Cats & Cosby” show that the two men began to reconcile about half a year ago. He told CNN on Monday that the current state of their relationship is “cordial and growing.”

It started with an unexpected text from someone Cohen described as a “White House friend and an insider,” who relayed a message from the president, Cohen said on the radio show. He declined to name the insider but said the person “expressed to me the president’s genuine empathy for the hell that I was being dragged through, yet again, and I deeply appreciated that text.”

“I thanked him, expressed my sincere hope that this long exhausting feud between the two of us could finally end, and what was, I found, even more interesting, is that he replied almost immediately, agreeing that it was actually time for us to meet,” Cohen said, adding he was “very surprised” by the text.

That meeting does not appear to have happened yet. When asked by CNN whether it had occurred, Cohen said he would ask Trump’s permission and hopes “to return to the White House for a one-on-one visit in the next few weeks.”

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment on Cohen’s account of the relationship.

Cohen said he later wrote in a text message, “We both knew the cost of this war,” adding that the exchange marked a turning point between the two men.

He also described facing what he called a “media onslaught” from the political left and said he believes Trump understood that experience.

Cohen said the outreach came after he published a January post on Substack in which he claimed he “felt pressured and coerced” by New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to provide testimony that would help build legal cases against Trump.

According to Cohen, the message from the intermediary arrived sometime after that post was published.