Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen said he wishes he would have smacked President Trump in the face for making comments about his daughter.
During an interview on ABC’s The View, Cohen, who is on a media tour for his new tell-all memoir Disloyal, discussed alleged remarks Trump made about his then-15-year-old daughter several years ago. Cohen, who claimed he initially let Trump’s remarks slide, said he wishes he had “smacked” Trump in return but did not because he was used to letting Trump “be Trump.”
“Michael, say it right now on the air what you would have liked to have said to him that day. Say it now!” co-host Joy Behar said.
“Well, I wouldn’t have liked to have said it. I would have liked to have smacked him across the side of the head. You know, I never would have allowed anybody to speak to or about my daughter in such a disrespectful way. And I did just because, you know, as so many people would say, “Let Trump be Trump,” and that’s the problem,” Cohen responded.
Cohen claimed that Trump made predatory remarks about his daughter in 2012, when she was 15. “Look at that piece of ass. I would love some of that,” Cohen claims Trump said. Upon informing Trump that was his daughter, the billionaire businessman responded, “That’s your daughter?” When did she get so hot?” Cohen wrote that Trump also asked his daughter for a kiss on the cheek and warned her that he would be dating one of her friends in a few years.
Samantha Cohen, now in her 20s, reflected on those comments in an interview with Vanity Fair that was published last week.
“There are so many creepy men, and it was hardly the first comment like that I’d heard. It was almost meaningless to me at the moment because I’d heard them before. If you can hit on a 15-year-old, I am pretty sure there is something wrong with you, and when you allow someone with that little integrity to be in the most powerful office, that sets the tone for the rest of the country’s culture,” she said.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed that Michael Cohen’s book is full of “lies,” taking aim at Cohen’s credibility by invoking his criminal record. “Michael Cohen is a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer who lied to Congress. He has lost all credibility, and it’s unsurprising to see his latest attempt to profit off of lies,” McEnany said in a statement.
Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in federal prison in December 2018, is serving the rest of his sentence in home confinement. He was briefly sent back to prison in July following his original release in May due to concerns related to the coronavirus.
Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about a planned Trump Tower project in Moscow as well as charges of tax fraud, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations for hush money payments to two women during the 2016 campaign who claimed to have had affairs with the president. Trump has denied those relationships.
