Donald Trump has often been accused of acting inappropriately towards women. He's even made some strange remarks about his own daughters, Ivanka and Tiffany. It doesn't stop there for the former president.
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One of his closest allies, who has now turned into one of his fiercest foes, previously accused the billionaire of making an untoward statement about his daughter.
Donald Trump's comments about Samantha Cohen
In 2020, he published a book entitled Disloyal: A Memoir, in which he detailed an encounter he had with the former president back in 2012, and it involved his then 15-year-old daughter.
The two men had been talking at Donald Trump's property in Bedminster, New Jersey, when the politician noticed Michael Cohen's daughter, Samantha, walking towards them. He did not know she was his friend's daughter, and allegedly told his friend, between two wolf-whistles:
Look at that piece of a**. I would love some of that.
Michael Cohen then informed Donald Trump that he was talking about his daughter, which did not seem to disturb the politician. Indeed, he allegedly answered:
That’s your daughter? When did she get so hot?
The future president then asked her for a kiss on the cheek, before warning her he would be dating one of her friends in a few years.
When asked about the incident, Samantha Cohen explained she had learned not to care about men's inappropriate behaviour towards her, but she was shocked by how Donald Trump spoke to her father, telling CNN:
What stood out to me in that moment was he said to my dad, ‘Well, there is no way that she got her looks from you. Thank God you married a beautiful woman.’
And I was desensitized to men making creepy comments about me, but I was not desensitized to someone blatantly insulting and degrading my father in front of me, someone who I looked up to and loved very much, and that was very upsetting to me.
Since he cut ties with the former president, Michael Cohen has taken every chance he could get to speak publicly about Donald Trump's problematic behaviour. But how did the two former friends become such bitter enemies?
Donald Trump and Michael Cohen: From friends to foes
Michael Cohen had been Donald Trump's close friend and lawyer for years before things turned sour between the two men. Michael Cohen, born and raised in Long Island and the son of a Holocaust survivor, started working for Donald Trump in 2006. Back in 2011, the loyal lawyer had told ABC News:
If somebody does something Mr Trump doesn’t like … If you do something wrong, I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished.
That loyalty was short-lived. As per The Guardian, the relationship allegedly took a turn for the worse when Trump was elected President in 2016 and did not offer Cohen a role in administration.
When the FBI started investigating if Trump had any connection to the Russian interference in the 2016 elections, in 2018, Cohen's offices were raided and he lost his job with his long-time ally. Following this, he plead guilty to several offences including campaign, tax, and bank fraud charges. He admitted to paying Stormy Daniels $130,000 to stay silent about her affair with Trump at the height of the election campaign in 2016.
He also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about pursuing Trump's project to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen was given a three-year prison sentence which ended in 2021 and since his release he has been a vehement critic of Trump.
In 2023, he told CNN:
If you want to get to Donald, the way to do it is through his bank book. It’s not by saying he’s a narcissistic sociopath or that he’s definitely not 6’3” and he’s not 215 pounds. You go after the wallet.
He was also key witness during the hush-money trial, in which Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business record.
Read more:
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Sources used:
The Guardian: From loyal Trump lawyer to his mortal enemy: who is Michael Cohen?
The Hill: Cohen says judge’s ruling puts Trump out of business in New York
CNN: Michael Cohen’s daughter says she was taken aback by Trump’s behavior toward her father
Vanity Fair: “He Had a Twisted Umbilical Cord to Trump”: Michael Cohen’s Daughter Reflects On His Time With the President, and Becoming Trumpworld “Collateral Damage”
