Michael Cohen last night described Donald Trump as a ‘mob boss’ after the president hinted he had more embarrassing tapes about his disgraced former attorney.
Cohen claimed the recordings being played by Tucker Carlson were given to the Fox News host by the Trump Organization and the president’s son Donald Jr.
The tapes have revealed conversations between Cohen and CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, in which Cuomo discusses and denies sexual allegations against him, and with the network’s president Jeff Zucker.
Trump yesterday took aim at Cohen and claimed there were ‘many more tapes of him with “Fredo” and other media scum reporters’, using his disparaging nickname for Cuomo.
Speaking to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Cohen responded by telling the president that ‘you can’t damage me any more’.
Michael Cohen (pictured) last night described Donald Trump as a ‘mob boss’ after the president hinted he had more embarrassing tapes about his former attorney
Cohen, who is promoting his book Disloyal, said in the interview: ‘Many of these recordings that you’re going to hear on other stations have been given to that station and to the moderator by the Trump Organization and Don Jr and others.
‘Look at the way that they behave, he behaves exactly the way that I described him: He’s a mob boss.
‘If you cross him, you’re going to get it and he’s going to inflict as much pain and as much damage as he possibly can.
‘The problem is you can’t damage me any more… what do you think that you’re going to do with your ridiculous tweets?’
Cohen, 54, worked closely with Trump for years before turning against him, most publicly by giving evidence at last year’s impeachment hearings.
He was jailed for three years for illegal payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who both claim to have had affairs with Trump – which the president denies.
Fox News earlier this month obtained audio tapes of Cohen and CNN’s Chris Cuomo
Trump went after his former lawyer on Twitter Tuesday morning
Daniels was paid $130,000 shortly before the 2016 election in a non-disclosure agreement to keep her allegations quiet.
Cohen claims that he made to Daniels, which was ruled an illegal use of campaign funds, was ordered and reimbursed by Trump himself.
Cohen is promoting a tell-all memoir
The lawyer also pleaded guilty to tax evasion and lying to Congress, saying he had covered up his boss’s ‘dirty deeds’.
Cohen was released to home confinement in May given the risks of catching Covid-19 in prison, but then was briefly imprisoned again in June.
A federal judge last then ruled Cohen had been subjected to retaliation for planning to publish his book, and ordered him released again.
Trump claimed in his latest Twitter outburst that Cohen ‘may be going back to jail for an even longer time’, citing ‘additional lies to Congress’.
The president did not provide any evidence for this.
Trump has called Cohen ‘a rat,’ and a liar, and Cohen said he faced repeated death threats from Trump supporters.
Cohen said that the only people with tapes of his conversation with Cuomo were himself, the president, the Trump Organization and the Department of Justice.
He accused ‘Trump and his cronies’ of releasing the tapes ‘to discredit me and my book’, which is being released only weeks before the November 3 election.
Trump (pictured) yesterday took aim at Cohen and claimed there were ‘many more tapes of him with Fredo and other media scum reporters’, using his disparaging nickname for Cuomo
In the conversation, Cuomo tells Cohen that ‘the media is not your friend’ as he discusses alleged attempts to make sexual misconduct claims against him, which he denies.
‘Do you know how many f***ing phone calls I’ve gotten from ABC, who say that reporters are calling and lying about things they heard about me, to try and get stories about me when I was at ABC,’ said Cuomo, who used to work at ABC.
‘It’s a problem,’ says Cohen, to which Cuomo blasts back: ‘I always told you, the media is not your friend.’
Cuomo has not commented on the tape. The CNN reporter and his brother Andrew, the governor of New York, are favorite targets of the president along with CNN more generally.
Trump called for him to be fired after the tape emerged, using the nickname ‘Fredo’ in a reference to the Godfather series.
Carlson has since broadcast another tape of an exchange between Cohen and CNN chief Jeff Zucker shortly before a GOP primary debate in 2016.
Zucker told Cohen that ‘you cannot be elected president of the United States without CNN’.
The conversation then changed to post-election plans, with the CNN head offering a ‘weekly’ show with Trump.