A lawyer for Donald Trump wrote a letter to the Onion, a satirical news website, more than four years ago to complain that an “absolutely disgusting piece” about the businessman be taken down.
The mock article in question, back from January 2013, shows Trump as the author. It’s headline is: “When You’re Feeling Low, Just Remember I’ll Be Dead in About 15 or 20 Years.”
New York Magazine reports that Michael Cohen, then a special counsel for the Trump Organization, demanded the Onion take the piece down or face legal action. Cohen is no longer affiliated with the Trump organization, working as President Trump’s personal attorney.
“Let me begin,” Cohen wrote in the letter, “by stating the obvious … that the commentary was not written by Mr. Trump. Secondly, the article is an absolutely disgusting piece that lacks any place in journalism; even in your Onion. I am hereby demanding that you immediately remove this disgraceful piece from your website and issue an apology to Mr. Trump.”
In the piece, the fake Trump personality envisions a number of ways he could die, including a “slow, excruciating kidney failure,” “a massive heart attack while I’m delivering a speech to investors,” Alzheimers or “a vicious form of cancer that at first appears to be responding well to chemotherapy but then takes a rapid and inescapable turn for the worse.”
“In the not-very-distant future I will die and then be gone from the world for all eternity. You may even get to watch me in a casket on national television being lowered into the ground, never to be seen again. I bet you’re smiling just thinking about that,” the piece reads.
The Onion’s editor-in-chief, Cole Bolton, said the site “never apologized,” and noted that the article is still online.
The Onion continued to feature stories from faux Trump. Three published during the 2016 campaign, including one from August 2016 titled: “I Spend Every Waking Moment Holding This Fragile Facade Of A Person Together, And I’ll Do The Same For America.”
Bolton added that at the Onion, “We’ve always thought of him as a horrendous buffoon, an objectionable person.”
