Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer turned fierce critic, will air an episode of his podcast on Monday featuring an interview with Stormy Daniels, the woman he once tried to silence on behalf of his former boss.
“A Storm’s a coming, baby,” Ms Daniels said on Twitter on Wednesday. “(And not the fun way).”
“The truth ALWAYS comes out. I had faith,” she added.
Cohen, who now hosts a podcast, Mea Culpa, about the Trump orbit and Washington politics, promised in a press release the conversation would be a “no holds barred, tell-all interview,” and said it will “mark the first time the two have interacted and Cohen and Daniels are now on the same side of the Trump coin.”
In 2018, news of the hush money payment went public, triggering a legal flurry between Cohen, Daniels, and Trump. Cohen, who once said he’d “take a bullet” for Mr Trump, initially denied the then-candidate directed him to make the hush money payment of $130,000. Daniels, despite signing a non-disclosure agreement attached to the payment, sought to speak publicly about the affair, so Cohen sought a restraining order to stop her, and Daniels in turn sued Cohen, before making the media rounds on shows like 60 Minutes to talk about what happened anyway.
Eventually, in addition to going before federal court and saying it was the president’s money, Cohen testified before Congress that Mr Trump directed him to lie about the allegations and assisted the Mueller investigation.
In 2018, Mr Trump acknowledged that he paid off Ms Daniels, but said it didn’t involve campaign funds, and in August of 2020 a California court ordered him to pay more than $44,000 for Ms Daniels’s legal fees as part of her suit seeking to cancel the hush money agreement.
Trump finds out about Ruth Bader Ginsburg death after finishing two-hour rally: ‘She just died? Wow’
Donald Trump was unaware Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died, ending a two-hour campaign rally and then telling reporters: “She just died? Wow.”
The president had been speaking at a campaign event in Bemidji, Minnesota, during which he spoke of the power invested in a president by their role of selecting justices to the top court.
“That’s why the Supreme Court is so important — the next president will get one, two, three, or four Supreme Court Justices. I had two,” he said.
As it was, footage from the event showed somebody yelling out that Ginsburg had died but Trump did not seem to notice.
Joe Biden reacts to the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“She just died? Wow. I didn’t know that. She led an amazing life,” he later told reporters on Air Force One.
“What else can you say? She was an amazing woman, whether you agree or not. She was an amazing woman who led an amazing life.”
Her death set of an immediate jockeying and dispute over who should select her repayment, Mr Trump or the winner of the November election.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said he was ready to bring a vote immediately.
Yet Joe Biden said given how little time was left in Mr Trump’s term, the only fair way forward would be to leave it until after the election — something Republicans insisted in 2016 when Barack Obama was seeking to pick a replacement for Antonin Scalia, but the GOP refused to even have a hearing.
