Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney who turned star witness against Donald Trump in two New York prosecutions, has landed a Sunday radio hosting gig at 770 WABC, and he got there, he says, with a recommendation from the president himself.
The show launches July 12. Cohen will fill the Sunday slot vacated by former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is taking the summer off. WABC owner John Catsimatidis, a major Trump supporter, told the New York Post he cleared the hire with the White House before making it official.
That detail alone tells you how far the ground has shifted. The man who arranged pre-election hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who flipped on his longtime boss and testified against him in both a civil fraud case and a criminal prosecution, now claims Trump gave him "a glowing recommendation" and called him the next Rush Limbaugh.
Catsimatidis did not leave the decision to chance. He described the vetting in blunt terms:
"I checked with the White House and they had no objection. I understand everything is fine."
Whether the White House issued any formal statement beyond that characterization remains unclear. Cohen, for his part, declined to comment on any recent conversations with Trump. But the implication is plain enough: the president's orbit raised no red flag, and Catsimatidis moved forward.
Cohen told the Post the gig felt "completely liberating" and would give him an "unfiltered pipeline to the people." He claimed he would bring 1.5 million followers from his podcasts, YouTube channel, and Substack to the new platform.
The most striking element of Cohen's public reappearance is the tone. On Catsimatidis's own "Cats Roundtable" program Sunday, Cohen sounded less like a disgruntled cooperating witness and more like a pragmatic Trump defender.
"The American people voted for him to be President of the United States. Every single president comes to the Oval Office with their own agenda. Donald Trump is entitled to his own agenda. If you didn't like it, if you didn't want it, then maybe you should've gotten out and voted. But you didn't. Seventy-nine million people... voted for the man, and so allow him to fulfill his agenda."
That is not the language of a man still nursing a grudge. Cohen went further, describing Trump's use of executive authority in terms that would not sound out of place on a conservative talk show, which is, of course, exactly where he now sits.
"What Donald Trump is doing is he's... using executive power in a way that is unique... He's willing to do something that no other politician has ever done before. He's using his power and he's pressing it to the line, stepping over the line, just to see each day how much further that he can advance his executive powers so that he can actually effectuate his agenda in the way that he believes is beneficial to the American people."
Cohen also reflected on his years inside Trump's operation, casting himself as a candid adviser rather than a yes-man. "When I used to work for him, God knows how many hours every single day, I was known as one of the people who was willing to tell him maybe not what he wants to hear," he said. "He would accept that, and he would either use it or discard it. It's his prerogative."
The Trump family's own experience with the New York legal system, including the 34-count felony conviction, provides useful backdrop for understanding why Cohen's reversal carries weight.
Cohen's shift did not begin on a radio mic. It started on his Substack in January, when he published a post accusing New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of coercing his testimony against Trump.
"I felt compelled and coerced to deliver what they were seeking. Letitia James and Alvin Bragg may not share the same office or political calendar, but they share the same playbook."
That is a serious allegation from the prosecution's own star witness. Cohen had admitted arranging the hush-money payments during Trump's 2016 White House bid. He then became the central cooperating figure in both the civil fraud case brought by James and the criminal case brought by Bragg. For him to now say he was pressured to "deliver what they were seeking" raises obvious questions about the integrity of both proceedings.
Neither James nor Bragg has responded publicly to Cohen's accusation, at least not in any statement captured here. The claim remains Cohen's alone, unverified, uncontested in the public record, but sitting in plain view.
Trump has consistently denied the affairs with both Daniels and McDougal. The broader saga around these prosecutions has generated no shortage of dramatic revelations over the past several years.
Cohen framed his new platform in populist terms. He told the Post he plans to speak for what he called the "Tired Majority", people fed up with partisan noise.
"I love it. Radio is intimate, it's just my voice going straight into your car or your headphones. You can't fake it here; listeners can smell BS from a mile away. And believe me, after everything I've been through, I know exactly what BS smells like, and I'm here to call it out every single day."
He also said he would focus on "accountability" and use his "insider knowledge to pull back the curtain and set the record straight." Whether that means holding Washington accountable, holding prosecutors accountable, or simply building an audience remains to be seen.
Catsimatidis indicated the Sunday slot may only be the beginning. He told the Post that Cohen wants a regular five-day show and that he would "probably" give it to him. No timeline for that expansion was provided.
The broader political calendar is already heating up, with Trump announcing a first-ever Republican midterm convention in Dallas, signaling the kind of party-building energy that rewards media allies.
Several things remain unresolved. Cohen claims Trump recommended him for the gig, but Trump has not confirmed that publicly. Cohen declined to discuss recent communications with the president. The White House's lack of objection, as relayed by Catsimatidis, is not the same as an endorsement, though in Washington, the absence of a veto often functions as one.
There is also the question of permanence. Cohen is filling a summer vacancy left by Cuomo. Whether he holds the slot beyond the summer depends on ratings, audience response, and Catsimatidis's business judgment.
And then there is the credibility question that will follow Cohen wherever he goes. He is a convicted felon who flipped on his client, testified under oath against him, and now says he was coerced into doing so. The Trump orbit has weathered its own share of bombshells, but few figures in modern political life have reversed course as sharply as Cohen has in the span of a few months.
What makes this episode worth watching is not Cohen's radio career. It is what his reversal says about the prosecutions that relied on him. If the star witness in two of the most politically charged cases in recent memory now says he was pressured to deliver a predetermined result, that is not a media curiosity. It is a problem for the prosecutors who built their cases on his word.
James and Bragg spent years and enormous public resources pursuing Trump through the courts. Cohen was their linchpin. His January Substack post did not merely express regret, it accused two elected law enforcement officials of running a shared "playbook" designed to extract testimony to order.
That accusation has not been investigated. It has not been formally rebutted. It has simply been absorbed into the background noise of a political culture that has grown numb to reversals.
Cohen may or may not become the next Rush Limbaugh. But if even half of what he now claims about James and Bragg is true, the real accountability he owes the public has nothing to do with a radio microphone, and everything to do with a witness stand.
