RIAS Zoom Talks open 2021 with large group of alumni for Michael Cohen

More than 100 RIAS Berlin Commission alumni and friends of RIAS took part in a riveting hour-long conversation with Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney and self-described “fixer”.

In a conversation organized and moderated by Adam Reiss of NBC, Cohen described in great detail his long and close relationship with Trump before he pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations and other crimes. He is currently on house arrest after being sentenced to a three-year sentence.

Here and also on youtube is the full interview:

Cohen said he also predicted that there would be turmoil surrounding any transition from Trump to another president. He also talked about being on house arrest and how that he had to stay inside his apartment in New York for 22 hours a day.

“There are a lot of people who take jabs at me and say ‘Ah you worked with him for a decade and a half you did his dirty deeds for him you helped to promote him’,” Cohen said. “Yes I did. yes I acted in ways that, if I could go back in time I would have (done differently). Did we play hardball with contractors? Sure we did, sure we stiffed contractors and sure we bullied people into getting what we wanted….. Donald Trump has become the worst version of himself imaginable. He is living in an alternate universe. The scariest part of it all is that 70 million people voted for him.”

Cohen said Trump believes he won the November 3, 2020 and cannot fathom how it was possible to win seven million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016 yet not win. “He truly believes that he won the election,” Cohen said. “He has a fragile ego and he truly believes that he won this election and it was stolen from him.”

RIAS alumni Allison Walker did this story on the RIAS zoom talk for her local station in Dayton, Ohio. Cohen said that Trump was enjoying the turmoil and would continue blowing a “dog whistle” to his ‘Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters. “Donald Trump speaks in code,” he said. “He will say this inauguration is a ‘shame to our democracy’, ‘they’re taking away your right’ and ‘your vote and not listening to the will of the American people’.”

Cohen said thanks to tighter security precautions the chaos that happened on January 6 in Washington DC would not be repeated on January 20 at the inauguration of President Joe Biden.

Cohen said that Trump tends not to think more than five minutes ahead of time and wasted a golden opportunity to rebuild infrastructure in the United States at the start of his term.

Cohen also talked about his book “Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump” about his time working for Trump as well as his new podcast called Mea Culpa

As part of the on-going efforts to connect alumni in the United States and Germany, the RIAS Zoom talks will continue on a near-weekly basis in 2021. We hope that you can join us in these enlightening discussions designed to broaden horizons and keep the spirit of RIAS alive through the Covid-19 crisis.