President Trump sat down with his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen for a 40-minute radio interview, their first public conversation in nearly a decade, and both men aimed their sharpest criticism at CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times.
The interview, which aired Thursday on Cohen's 77 WABC radio program, marked a reconciliation that would have seemed unthinkable even a year ago. Cohen once served as the star witness in the Manhattan district attorney's hush money case that produced 34 felony convictions against Trump in 2024. He also testified in a civil fraud trial. Now, Cohen calls Trump "boss" again and says he felt "pressured and coerced" by prosecutors to build cases against the president.
The two men spent much of their airtime dissecting what they described as a pattern of dishonesty in mainstream media coverage of Trump, a theme that has defined Trump's public life for a decade but now carries a different weight coming from the man who once stood as the prosecution's most important witness against him.
Cohen steered the conversation back to a 2016 CNN appearance with host Brianna Keilar that became an internet sensation. During that segment, Keilar told Cohen that Trump was "underwater in the polls." Cohen's two-word reply, "says who", became a worldwide meme.
Fox News Digital reported that Cohen recounted the exchange during Thursday's interview and recalled what Trump told him the morning after:
"F--- them. You're stronger than them. We've got this."
Cohen then pivoted to a broader indictment of the networks that covered Trump's favorability numbers during and after that era:
"Now, the funny thing is that CNN never apologized. They never retracted anything, and, now, years later, CNN, MS NOW, the other left-leaning outlets, they're doing the exact same thing, constantly talking about you being underwater with favorability numbers."
Fox News Digital reached out to CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times for comment. None responded immediately.
Trump used the interview to frame Cohen's years-long break with him as something done to Cohen, not by him. He told his former lawyer that media outlets had turned him into a tool against the Trump presidency.
"And then they weaponized you like nobody's ever been weaponized, like few have been."
Cohen responded: "Well, maybe just you and me, sir."
Trump agreed, and then acknowledged Cohen's decision to walk back prior statements against him:
"Well, yeah, me too, but mine was at a level that nobody's ever seen before, but they weaponized you. They weaponized a lot of people. And I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said. That's a big thing that you did."
That recantation is the hinge on which the entire reconciliation turns. Cohen had been one of Trump's harshest public critics for years. He testified under oath in proceedings that resulted in felony convictions. But he has since claimed, in a Substack post titled "The Impossible Reunion" and in other public statements, that prosecutors pressured him into providing testimony tailored to secure convictions.
The backstory is extraordinary by any political standard. Cohen spent roughly a decade as Trump's personal attorney and self-described fixer, once telling reporters he would "take a bullet" for Trump. He later reversed course entirely, cooperating with federal and state prosecutors in multiple investigations.
Cohen served prison time after admitting to concealing $4 million in income from the IRS and lying to a bank to secure a $500,000 loan, the New York Post reported. He became the central witness in the Manhattan district attorney's hush money prosecution, the case that handed Trump 34 felony counts in 2024.
Now Cohen has flipped again. He has publicly adopted Trump's "witch hunt" framing of the prosecutions and says he plans to contact the Justice Department about a formal pardon application. During Thursday's interview, he addressed Trump directly as "boss."
"Boss, you remember when I was by your side? I literally used to analyze the polls."
Cohen also wrote on his Substack that he and Trump had "forgiven" each other. Breitbart noted that Cohen framed the reunion in direct terms: "To the many people asking, How is this possible? the answer is that we forgave."
Beyond the personal reconciliation, Trump used the platform to broaden his critique of the press. He singled out The New York Times and the polling industry in the same breath:
"The polls are crooked. So the reporters that, you know, are crooked, many of them. You have some great ones too. But for the most part... when you read The New York Times, it's so dishonest."
He added that declining credibility was catching up with legacy outlets:
"When you read these things, and they're not doing well. Look, the reason they're not doing well is because they've lost a lot of credibility."
Trump also offered a qualifier, noting that not every journalist deserved the criticism. "Now you do have great journalists. You do have great reporters also. Many people are very good, very, very good. I could name them, but by naming them, I'll leave some out."
The most consequential element of the reunion is not the personal warmth between the two men. It is Cohen's claim, now repeated across multiple platforms, that he was coerced by prosecutors into shaping testimony against Trump.
In his Substack post, Cohen wrote that he "felt pressured and coerced to only provide information and testimony that would satisfy the government's desire to build the cases against and secure a judgment and convictions against President Trump." He named Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James specifically, AP News reported.
Those claims, if substantiated, would cast serious doubt on the integrity of two of the highest-profile legal proceedings ever brought against a sitting or former president. Cohen has not, as of the interview, provided documentary evidence to support the coercion allegation. But his willingness to make the claim publicly, and Trump's willingness to sit across from him and accept it, signals that both men see a shared interest in discrediting the prosecutions.
Cohen told Fox News Digital that the full conversation ran 40 minutes and will air in two parts. The second installment is scheduled for his Sunday program, "When You Know You Know." The content of that segment has not been disclosed.
Cohen also wrote about the reunion in his Substack post, which he titled "The Impossible Reunion," describing it as the first time the two men had spoken publicly in nearly a decade.
Whatever one makes of Cohen's credibility, and reasonable people have grounds for skepticism in every direction, the interview lays bare something the mainstream press would rather not confront: its own star witness now says he was a weapon, not a truth-teller, and the man he was aimed at is the one who welcomed him back.
