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Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump
11 hours, 50 minutes
This book almost didn’t see the light of day as government officials tried to bar its publication.
The Inside Story of the Real President Trump, by His Former Attorney And Personal Advisor—The Man Who Helped Get Him Into the Oval Office
Once Donald Trump’s fiercest surrogate, closest confidant, and staunchest defender, Michael Cohen knows where the skeletons are buried.
This is the most devastating business and political horror story of the century. As Trump’s lawyer and “fixer,� Cohen not only witnessed firsthand, but was also an active participant in the inner workings of Trump’s business empire, political campaign, and presidential administration.
This is a story that you have not read in newspapers, or on social media, or watched on television. These are accounts that only someone who worked for Trump around the clock for over a decade—not a few months or even a couple of years—could know. Cohen describes Trump’s racist rants against President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Black and Hispanic people in general, as well as the cruelty, humiliation, and abuse he leveled at family and staff. Whether he’s exposing the fact that Trump engaged in tax fraud by inflating his wealth or election fraud by rigging polls, or outing Trump’s Neanderthal views towards women or his hush-money payments to clandestine lovers, Cohen pulls no punches.
He show’s Trump’s relentless willingness to lie, exaggerate, mislead, or manipulate. Trump emerges as a man without a soul—a man who courts evangelicals and then trashes them, panders to the common man, but then rips offsmall business owners, a con-man who will do or say absolutely anything to win, regardless of the cost to his family, his associates, or his country.
At the heart of Disloyal, we see how Cohen came under the spell of his charismatic Boss and, as a result, lost all sense of his moral compass.
The real real Donald Trump who permeates these pages—the racist, sexist, homophobic, lying, cheating President—will be discussed, written about, and analyzed for years to come.
This book almost didn’t see the light of day as government officials tried to bar its publication.
The Inside Story of the Real President Trump, by His Former Attorney And Personal Advisor—The Man Who Helped Get Him Into the Oval Office
Once Donald Trump’s fiercest surrogate, closest confidant, and staunchest defender, Michael Cohen knows where the skeletons are buried.
This is the most devastating business and political horror story of the century. As Trump’s lawyer and “fixer,� Cohen not only witnessed firsthand, but was also an active participant in the inner workings of Trump’s business empire, political campaign, and presidential administration.
This is a story that you have not read in newspapers, or on social media, or watched on television. These are accounts that only someone who worked for Trump around the clock for over a decade—not a few months or even a couple of years—could know. Cohen describes Trump’s racist rants against President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Black and Hispanic people in general, as well as the cruelty, humiliation, and abuse he leveled at family and staff. Whether he’s exposing the fact that Trump engaged in tax fraud by inflating his wealth or election fraud by rigging polls, or outing Trump’s Neanderthal views towards women or his hush-money payments to clandestine lovers, Cohen pulls no punches.
He show’s Trump’s relentless willingness to lie, exaggerate, mislead, or manipulate. Trump emerges as a man without a soul—a man who courts evangelicals and then trashes them, panders to the common man, but then rips offsmall business owners, a con-man who will do or say absolutely anything to win, regardless of the cost to his family, his associates, or his country.
At the heart of Disloyal, we see how Cohen came under the spell of his charismatic Boss and, as a result, lost all sense of his moral compass.
The real real Donald Trump who permeates these pages—the racist, sexist, homophobic, lying, cheating President—will be discussed, written about, and analyzed for years to come.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2020
7,510 people are currently reading
7,224 people want to read
About the author
Michael Cohen
6books66followersMichael Cohen is an American attorney and businessman. He acted as Special Counsel to President Donald J. Trump from 2017-2018 and as Executive VP for the Trump Organization before then. Cohen lives in New York City with his wife and two children.
(source: Amazon)
(source: Amazon)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,756 reviews
January 19, 2022
I made some jokes along the way to help get me through this book but it's time to get serious. I really, really didn't like it. I selected my highlights carefully so those who are interested can save their money, not give it to this amoral creep, and get a good feel for the terrain. I'm sorry I gave Michael Cohen my money. I'm glad this wasn't on the NY Times bestseller list this week.
He recounts with open enthusiasm, pride and even glee his years as Trump's "fixer," the essential role he played in ruining many lives on Trump's behalf. He's not remorseful or repentant; he's saying so to sell books. He was not involved in any way but one (more on that later) in Trump's run in the primaries or the general, or in any capacity before or after Trump was inaugurated. He was excluded from the transition team and then Trump's government and I sensed he really wanted to be. It was more convenient for Trump to keep him on the outside. And when he decided to tell the truth, Trump called and promised to help him and his fixer never heard from him again.
One thing that's gotten a lot of attention pre-publication, as if Cohen has revelations to disclose, is the incident in Russia mentioned in the Steele dossier where Trump allegedly was involved in golden showers with Putin's prostitutes The best Cohen can do to tie himself to anything political, since he was excluded, is tell an anecdote about two Russian oligarchs connected to Putin taking them to a fancy strip club in Las Vegas where golden showers are part of the entertainment. That's a ridiculous leap and I minded it.
The more I read this book the harder it became to read. Sometimes when I'm frustrated I crack wise. That's the reason my snarky comments appeared here: in order to help get me through it. I have read other books on Trump and I have some here I have yet to read. I won't. I'm done. This book so dispirited me I don't want to read another word about Trump, not in any book, not ones I already own or even Woodward's.
As I read on increasingly I doubted the sincerity of Cohen's constantly stated remorse and his motives for writing this: to relive his glory days with Trump and to make money, which he worships as much as the man he always did and here still refers to as The Boss. There are things included in here and I hope well represented in my highlights that I can't interpret any other way. It's as if he's looking back at their Greatest Hits. He's a guy who is sorry he got caught.
There are details of how he enabled Trump to destroy many lives. With no irony he mentions how a long list of people, including union members, got stiffed in Atlantic City. Trump lives to take other people's money and inflict misery. It's obvious reading this Trump is not just a malignant narcissist, he's also a sadist. Now I'm convinced Cohen is too. You can almost feel him rubbing his hands together with delight as he recounts horrible stories of lying, cheating, stealing. threatening, blackmailing and ruining tons of people.
I tried to keep my Kindle notes short and representative. As I read on my object became to stop people from enriching Cohen through the purchase of his book. Cohen recounts how Trump swindled the widow and son of a crony -- because Trump has no friends and never has, not even in his school days, not even one -- out of a lot of money. And did it with glee, and Cohen clearly is looking back with pride that he was Trump's confidante:
"So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to build a wall.� “A wall?� I asked. “For what reason?� “I’m going to build a wall right in front of the house,� Trump said. “I’m going to put up a twenty-foot concrete wall with Trump Winery painted every twenty feet in massive letters. Can you imagine waking up in Kluge’s mansion and looking out the (expletive) bedroom window and all you see is a concrete wall with my name on it?� Trump laughed. “Now, there’s a real (expletive) selling point,� he said.
[note: he also let the grass grow on the huge amount of property on the estate, another of his dirty tricks; creating unsightliness that discouraged buyers and thus lowered the price more and more.]
"...Trump bought the house for $6.7 million, making the total purchase price for the entire estate less than $13 million, when the asking price had been more than $100 million...
"What a deal,� Trump said to me. “I just stole the property."
So now he's doing it to the country. Here it happens over and over because this is how Trump has lived his life and Michael Cohen, despite his protestations to the contrary, has clearly enjoyed carrying out the schemes to cheat powerless individuals and huge corporations. Threats are constant. Blackmail is implied. The long story is told of how he purchased the cheapest quality paint there is for the renovation of a large, expensive property in Miami to resell. He's done that before too. Here in the end the contractor was stiffed, the small business owner whose company did the work painting was put out of business and using a combination of threats, coercion and implied blackmail Cohen manipulated manufacturer Benjamin Moore into refunding all of the money for the paint. There were contracts, signatures, it was in writing multiple times and Benjamin Moore knew it, had the proof. But in Trumpworld everything can be gotten around to make a buck or gain power or just for the sport of it and Michael Cohen enjoys telling this story too much.
I've long thought Trump is blackmailing certain Republicans who carry his water. Now having read this, knowing it's another one of his usual tactics, I'm certain of it.
So I first updated my progress by writing "I need a waterproof copy to read in a continuous shower."
Then I progressed to "I need to bathe in Purell."
And after finishing, which got more and more difficult, I wrote "spending night in decontamination chamber" because that's what I wished I could do, figuratively.
I was very glad to close the book but it's made me feel soiled from being in the company of Cohen and Trump to whom everyone, not just military, is a sucker and loser. Even the government he now controls. He said this of the IRS after receiving a refund he cheated to get: “Can you believe how (expletive) stupid the IRS is?� Trump asked. “Who would give me a refund of ten (expletive) million dollars? They are so stupid!�
This is not how I wish I'd spent my time. Maybe you're gone already; I can't blame you.
There's a dollop of unintentional irony like this, which is what Michael Cohen said when he first got the call from Stormy Daniels's lawyer:
“Are you referring to the Stormy Daniels who’s a porn star?� “Yes,� he said. “Do you know her work?� Her “work," I thought? “No, I just Googled her,� I said. “Are you kidding?� I said. “Do you know that Mr. Trump is a germaphobe?
And this:
"If he ever got caught cheating and Melania threatened to leave him, Trump told me, he wouldn’t be upset or hurt at the loss...The relationship was just another deal, plain and simple. “I can always get another wife,� Trump told me."
And during the Republican primaries when Cohen reassures Trump:
“Hannity is on your side,� I said. “He just can’t show it. He can’t seem partial...�
Although all humor was gone when I got to the part where Cohen goes into detail about something yuge Cohen carried out on Trump's behalf that helped Trump get far in the field of Republican primary candidates when no one believed he could: They cheated. They cheated on two important polls on-line polls. And who did this for Trump via Cohen? The head of IT at Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Liberty University. He manipulated the data; the book details how. For the first poll, before Trump began doing well, the guy from Liberty placed him in fifth so it wouldn't look suspicious. The next time Trump was doing better so he put him on top. There isn't a single page of this book that doesn't discuss despicable deeds, lying and cheating and disgraceful treatment of women.
And here was where I reached a point where it was very hard to go on, it so disgusts me. Cohen's family was in Bedminster at the club and:
“Look at that piece of ass,� Trump said. “I would love some of that.� I looked over and stopped cold. My fifteen-year-old daughter.
"Trump turned to me, now surprised. 'That’s your daughter? When did she get so hot?'"
�'When did you get such a beautiful figure?' Trump asked Samantha. 'You’re really grown up.'
"She wanted me to quit working for Trump."
I saw her interviewed this morning discussing a magazine article written by a friend of hers where Samantha, now grown, tried to walk some of this back, not denying it but downplaying it while admitting on live television Trump has a taste for minors. We knew that courtesy of Jeffrey Epstein and the 13-year-old's lawsuit. But Cohen? For a father to stand there and allow that from his boss, to be so obsequious that he's enabling the sexual harassment of his only daughter, was a bridge too far for me. I don't know what his point was in including it in the book and I think he abused his daughter a second time by doing so. It made me feel sick and as I type this I feel sick again and also very, very angry at Michael Cohen.
That's Michael Cohen in "Disloyal": a brutal, amoral, bully who worships Trump, who will stop at nothing to get Trump's way, who is so enamored of him and his job as fixer that he stood by silently while Trump abused and humiliated his precious daughter. There is so much in the book about his remorse. I didn't feel any on his part: none. I felt like he was reliving his former wonderful life. It's all in the highlights.
He was, of course, arrested and given information coming out now about the state of incarcerated inmates in America and given there are still children in cages this too is sickening. Cohen very much minded that Trump never spoke to him again after promising to fix everything for his fixer. What decent people will mind is his bragging, what else can you call it?, about his special treatment by the FBI during his arrest:
“FBI, Mr. Cohen,� one of them said. “Please open the door.�
“It’s okay,� the lead agent said. “Everything is fine.�
He thanked the agents for waiting until his son left for school to raid the apartment. With the state of incarceration in America today it is galling to read about this over several pages.
Rather than writing this to express his sorriness and warn America about Trump, which is what he claims, it seems like revenge porn by a man (apologies to men) who is clearly only sorry he was caught, Trump hung him out to dry and so he did time in "prison camp." Yes, that's what it is actually called, a Federal prison camp. This one is located in a beautiful part of New York. And this is how he got there:
"On May 6, 2019, I took a friend’s car upstate to Otisville Federal Satellite Camp, in the Catskill Mountains near the Hudson River. As I arrived at the winding road leading to the mountaintop camp...It was like I was Al Capone, or El Chapo, not a corporate attorney railroaded into prison."
Over and over he whines about prison camp. This is even more galling in the larger context of America's criminal injustice system, which is horrible. At one point Cohen complains about having to paint walls there and my stomach did a somersault when I put that together with Trump building a wall to cheat the widow and son of a crony which perhaps foreshadowed his chants at rallies of "Build that wall!" And then more, until finishing felt oppressive:
"I wasn’t afraid, as it turned out, as the people who processed me were very professional and decent...The camp is all white-collar crime, with accountants, doctors, lawyers, bankers, and Wall Street tycoons all mixed in together...There was a tennis court painted on the parking lot, and my eating seat was next to Michael Sorrentino—the “Situation� from The Jersey Shore."
And now I was losing it. Then this:
"A lot of the guards disliked me intensely, because they were big Trump supporters, and they followed his words when he attacked me on TV and Twitter, giving them license to be unusually cruel to me...they’d kick my door; they wouldn’t let me get hot water from the machine for my coffee."
I'm sorry I read his book and sorry I contributed to his profiting from it. He alleges he's ashamed and repentant throughout but it's clear he's really only sorry he got caught, sorry he's not part of Trump's authoritarian government and sorry he had to spend one year in prison camp. He's not a bit sorry for the rest as he promotes the book from his apartment in Trump Park Avenue.
He recounts with open enthusiasm, pride and even glee his years as Trump's "fixer," the essential role he played in ruining many lives on Trump's behalf. He's not remorseful or repentant; he's saying so to sell books. He was not involved in any way but one (more on that later) in Trump's run in the primaries or the general, or in any capacity before or after Trump was inaugurated. He was excluded from the transition team and then Trump's government and I sensed he really wanted to be. It was more convenient for Trump to keep him on the outside. And when he decided to tell the truth, Trump called and promised to help him and his fixer never heard from him again.
One thing that's gotten a lot of attention pre-publication, as if Cohen has revelations to disclose, is the incident in Russia mentioned in the Steele dossier where Trump allegedly was involved in golden showers with Putin's prostitutes The best Cohen can do to tie himself to anything political, since he was excluded, is tell an anecdote about two Russian oligarchs connected to Putin taking them to a fancy strip club in Las Vegas where golden showers are part of the entertainment. That's a ridiculous leap and I minded it.
The more I read this book the harder it became to read. Sometimes when I'm frustrated I crack wise. That's the reason my snarky comments appeared here: in order to help get me through it. I have read other books on Trump and I have some here I have yet to read. I won't. I'm done. This book so dispirited me I don't want to read another word about Trump, not in any book, not ones I already own or even Woodward's.
As I read on increasingly I doubted the sincerity of Cohen's constantly stated remorse and his motives for writing this: to relive his glory days with Trump and to make money, which he worships as much as the man he always did and here still refers to as The Boss. There are things included in here and I hope well represented in my highlights that I can't interpret any other way. It's as if he's looking back at their Greatest Hits. He's a guy who is sorry he got caught.
There are details of how he enabled Trump to destroy many lives. With no irony he mentions how a long list of people, including union members, got stiffed in Atlantic City. Trump lives to take other people's money and inflict misery. It's obvious reading this Trump is not just a malignant narcissist, he's also a sadist. Now I'm convinced Cohen is too. You can almost feel him rubbing his hands together with delight as he recounts horrible stories of lying, cheating, stealing. threatening, blackmailing and ruining tons of people.
I tried to keep my Kindle notes short and representative. As I read on my object became to stop people from enriching Cohen through the purchase of his book. Cohen recounts how Trump swindled the widow and son of a crony -- because Trump has no friends and never has, not even in his school days, not even one -- out of a lot of money. And did it with glee, and Cohen clearly is looking back with pride that he was Trump's confidante:
"So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to build a wall.� “A wall?� I asked. “For what reason?� “I’m going to build a wall right in front of the house,� Trump said. “I’m going to put up a twenty-foot concrete wall with Trump Winery painted every twenty feet in massive letters. Can you imagine waking up in Kluge’s mansion and looking out the (expletive) bedroom window and all you see is a concrete wall with my name on it?� Trump laughed. “Now, there’s a real (expletive) selling point,� he said.
[note: he also let the grass grow on the huge amount of property on the estate, another of his dirty tricks; creating unsightliness that discouraged buyers and thus lowered the price more and more.]
"...Trump bought the house for $6.7 million, making the total purchase price for the entire estate less than $13 million, when the asking price had been more than $100 million...
"What a deal,� Trump said to me. “I just stole the property."
So now he's doing it to the country. Here it happens over and over because this is how Trump has lived his life and Michael Cohen, despite his protestations to the contrary, has clearly enjoyed carrying out the schemes to cheat powerless individuals and huge corporations. Threats are constant. Blackmail is implied. The long story is told of how he purchased the cheapest quality paint there is for the renovation of a large, expensive property in Miami to resell. He's done that before too. Here in the end the contractor was stiffed, the small business owner whose company did the work painting was put out of business and using a combination of threats, coercion and implied blackmail Cohen manipulated manufacturer Benjamin Moore into refunding all of the money for the paint. There were contracts, signatures, it was in writing multiple times and Benjamin Moore knew it, had the proof. But in Trumpworld everything can be gotten around to make a buck or gain power or just for the sport of it and Michael Cohen enjoys telling this story too much.
I've long thought Trump is blackmailing certain Republicans who carry his water. Now having read this, knowing it's another one of his usual tactics, I'm certain of it.
So I first updated my progress by writing "I need a waterproof copy to read in a continuous shower."
Then I progressed to "I need to bathe in Purell."
And after finishing, which got more and more difficult, I wrote "spending night in decontamination chamber" because that's what I wished I could do, figuratively.
I was very glad to close the book but it's made me feel soiled from being in the company of Cohen and Trump to whom everyone, not just military, is a sucker and loser. Even the government he now controls. He said this of the IRS after receiving a refund he cheated to get: “Can you believe how (expletive) stupid the IRS is?� Trump asked. “Who would give me a refund of ten (expletive) million dollars? They are so stupid!�
This is not how I wish I'd spent my time. Maybe you're gone already; I can't blame you.
There's a dollop of unintentional irony like this, which is what Michael Cohen said when he first got the call from Stormy Daniels's lawyer:
“Are you referring to the Stormy Daniels who’s a porn star?� “Yes,� he said. “Do you know her work?� Her “work," I thought? “No, I just Googled her,� I said. “Are you kidding?� I said. “Do you know that Mr. Trump is a germaphobe?
And this:
"If he ever got caught cheating and Melania threatened to leave him, Trump told me, he wouldn’t be upset or hurt at the loss...The relationship was just another deal, plain and simple. “I can always get another wife,� Trump told me."
And during the Republican primaries when Cohen reassures Trump:
“Hannity is on your side,� I said. “He just can’t show it. He can’t seem partial...�
Although all humor was gone when I got to the part where Cohen goes into detail about something yuge Cohen carried out on Trump's behalf that helped Trump get far in the field of Republican primary candidates when no one believed he could: They cheated. They cheated on two important polls on-line polls. And who did this for Trump via Cohen? The head of IT at Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Liberty University. He manipulated the data; the book details how. For the first poll, before Trump began doing well, the guy from Liberty placed him in fifth so it wouldn't look suspicious. The next time Trump was doing better so he put him on top. There isn't a single page of this book that doesn't discuss despicable deeds, lying and cheating and disgraceful treatment of women.
And here was where I reached a point where it was very hard to go on, it so disgusts me. Cohen's family was in Bedminster at the club and:
“Look at that piece of ass,� Trump said. “I would love some of that.� I looked over and stopped cold. My fifteen-year-old daughter.
"Trump turned to me, now surprised. 'That’s your daughter? When did she get so hot?'"
�'When did you get such a beautiful figure?' Trump asked Samantha. 'You’re really grown up.'
"She wanted me to quit working for Trump."
I saw her interviewed this morning discussing a magazine article written by a friend of hers where Samantha, now grown, tried to walk some of this back, not denying it but downplaying it while admitting on live television Trump has a taste for minors. We knew that courtesy of Jeffrey Epstein and the 13-year-old's lawsuit. But Cohen? For a father to stand there and allow that from his boss, to be so obsequious that he's enabling the sexual harassment of his only daughter, was a bridge too far for me. I don't know what his point was in including it in the book and I think he abused his daughter a second time by doing so. It made me feel sick and as I type this I feel sick again and also very, very angry at Michael Cohen.
That's Michael Cohen in "Disloyal": a brutal, amoral, bully who worships Trump, who will stop at nothing to get Trump's way, who is so enamored of him and his job as fixer that he stood by silently while Trump abused and humiliated his precious daughter. There is so much in the book about his remorse. I didn't feel any on his part: none. I felt like he was reliving his former wonderful life. It's all in the highlights.
He was, of course, arrested and given information coming out now about the state of incarcerated inmates in America and given there are still children in cages this too is sickening. Cohen very much minded that Trump never spoke to him again after promising to fix everything for his fixer. What decent people will mind is his bragging, what else can you call it?, about his special treatment by the FBI during his arrest:
“FBI, Mr. Cohen,� one of them said. “Please open the door.�
“It’s okay,� the lead agent said. “Everything is fine.�
He thanked the agents for waiting until his son left for school to raid the apartment. With the state of incarceration in America today it is galling to read about this over several pages.
Rather than writing this to express his sorriness and warn America about Trump, which is what he claims, it seems like revenge porn by a man (apologies to men) who is clearly only sorry he was caught, Trump hung him out to dry and so he did time in "prison camp." Yes, that's what it is actually called, a Federal prison camp. This one is located in a beautiful part of New York. And this is how he got there:
"On May 6, 2019, I took a friend’s car upstate to Otisville Federal Satellite Camp, in the Catskill Mountains near the Hudson River. As I arrived at the winding road leading to the mountaintop camp...It was like I was Al Capone, or El Chapo, not a corporate attorney railroaded into prison."
Over and over he whines about prison camp. This is even more galling in the larger context of America's criminal injustice system, which is horrible. At one point Cohen complains about having to paint walls there and my stomach did a somersault when I put that together with Trump building a wall to cheat the widow and son of a crony which perhaps foreshadowed his chants at rallies of "Build that wall!" And then more, until finishing felt oppressive:
"I wasn’t afraid, as it turned out, as the people who processed me were very professional and decent...The camp is all white-collar crime, with accountants, doctors, lawyers, bankers, and Wall Street tycoons all mixed in together...There was a tennis court painted on the parking lot, and my eating seat was next to Michael Sorrentino—the “Situation� from The Jersey Shore."
And now I was losing it. Then this:
"A lot of the guards disliked me intensely, because they were big Trump supporters, and they followed his words when he attacked me on TV and Twitter, giving them license to be unusually cruel to me...they’d kick my door; they wouldn’t let me get hot water from the machine for my coffee."
I'm sorry I read his book and sorry I contributed to his profiting from it. He alleges he's ashamed and repentant throughout but it's clear he's really only sorry he got caught, sorry he's not part of Trump's authoritarian government and sorry he had to spend one year in prison camp. He's not a bit sorry for the rest as he promotes the book from his apartment in Trump Park Avenue.
January 31, 2021
Best to consumed in combination with Bob Woodward´s Rage, 2 books that don´t just describe the immense self satirizing power politics has reached, but also and more importantly open up the question of to what ridiculous theater once living democracies have been transformed.
The only difference is, that while Woodward´s work is a fact based and proofed one, Cohen has pretty good reasons to dislike the Trump administration, although luxurious 5 star prisons for rich people might not be that bad, so he maybe might exaggerate a bit, and thereby be the only one who knows to which extent it really happened exactly as described. Politics is a snakepit full of special puff adders that let one´s soul rot away over decades, while it degenerates and mutates, until just an empty shell is left, and it´s not as if he wouldn´t have had the chance to not participate in activities he might deem risky himself, especially as a lawyer.
But most of it might be true, not just because it perfectly fits to anything one can see, hear, read, or just intuitively and subjectively feel about Trump´s personality, but because this is how the dysfunctional governmental system works. From Chomsky
/book/show/1...
to Crouch
/book/show/1...
and many, many others, detailed description of how democracy works in nonfiction or wikis
there is no other logical result than different grades of Trump in all governments of the world, from the smiling, sexy, seemingly friendly politicians to the ones who don´t give anything anymore, because they know that their audience is just there for the agitation and hate speech, not logic and reasoning.
Trump is a product of the satire of a dead, destroyed democracy, because people with conscience and morality won´t if they are not the smiling snake oil salesmen, secretly help destroying social justice, peace, and nature while their empty rhetoric drivel mesmerizes their audiences, or, in the case of populists, just keep ranting, hating, trolling,� with any sexist, racist, evil,... ideas their voters seem to appreciate so much.
It really takes much, it´s an unbelievable negative achievement, to willingly and mischievously keep the population easy victims to any kind of demagogue by destroying the educational system, providing ridiculous, anachronistic teaching methods and content, and thereby building the new, biggest empires of delusion, where truly everyone from the voter to the president is at the same level and a travesty of equality laughs about the ruins of a once functioning state.
It´s no wonder that, when consumerism, cruelty, alpha predator style behavior including all evil isms and mobbing as an icing on the hate cake, is what a society promotes and rewards, people will try to live up to the expectations and become the creatures parliament, people, and market want them to be. It´s not their fault, they had no chance, at a certain point humans are unable to change their personality and ideology and what is just happening is the logical result of an extremely clever, long planned, already decades ongoing project of making dark comedy real life called neoliberalism. There is no substantial difference between South Park and reality anymore, the postmodernism destruction of anything that once was holy doesn´t take place by people suddenly enlightening with spontaneous human intelligence combustion, it goes backward by re stone aging and degeneration.
But just as Rage made me think about the strange, anachronistic personality cult itself, Disloyal let´s one ask how many shadow governments, states inside the state, secret conspiracies with reptilian alien overlords, etc. there might be. Not just the regularly freshly elected sockpuppet representative figures, but more the big business and old money interests in the background.
I find it extremely entertaining and ironic that after, as my inspiration and muse George Carlin used to say, our government and democracy has been sold a long time ago, the lobbyist are so good at optimizing the reduction of costs that they just want control over the, for their company, important parts of politics and don´t care about the rest, which leads to the lunacy of no funding and interest in education, infrastructure, nature, social justice, etc.. It took me a while to understand that, a conglomerate, a world market leader, an international megacorporation doesn´t invest in uninteresting aspects of any state and that´s where the politicians and ideologies are still having power.
That´s freaking scary, I am strongly promoting even much more and stronger influence of lobbyist on any aspect of democratic decision making, maybe some more billions and trillions as incentives and subsidies to make sure that just competent masters of manipulations are the true rulers of Earth, not narcissistic and superficial egomaniacs.
I´ve added the next passage with the links to my review of Rage too, so you might have already seen it.
To be fair, I deem all, except of the Scandinavian countries, Swiss, and the Netherlands, industrial northern democracies the same messes, just with different grades of suffering and pain for the citizens. Social evolution has stagnated and lead to a dead, ridiculous democratic system, completely controlled by lobbyism, not to be taken seriously anymore, leading to a situation where comedy shows and websites such as
The daily show with Trevor Noah
The onion
The late show with Stephen Colbert
etc.
bring more depth, insight, and truth than all education in schools, newspapers, news networks, and, lol, the representatives themselves. If it wouldn´t be so sad, destroy the planet, and harm so many innocent people, especially in the Southern hemisphere, the laughs wouldn´t be that bitter.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
History of madness
Establishing the lunacy using
The lenses it will be seen with
I´ve, in other reviews, said before that I wanted to avoid soft humanities such as politics, economics, homeopathy whose inventor was totally nuts too, etc., but I just couldn´t resist, sorry for that, relapse is my second name after procrastination.
The only difference is, that while Woodward´s work is a fact based and proofed one, Cohen has pretty good reasons to dislike the Trump administration, although luxurious 5 star prisons for rich people might not be that bad, so he maybe might exaggerate a bit, and thereby be the only one who knows to which extent it really happened exactly as described. Politics is a snakepit full of special puff adders that let one´s soul rot away over decades, while it degenerates and mutates, until just an empty shell is left, and it´s not as if he wouldn´t have had the chance to not participate in activities he might deem risky himself, especially as a lawyer.
But most of it might be true, not just because it perfectly fits to anything one can see, hear, read, or just intuitively and subjectively feel about Trump´s personality, but because this is how the dysfunctional governmental system works. From Chomsky
/book/show/1...
to Crouch
/book/show/1...
and many, many others, detailed description of how democracy works in nonfiction or wikis
there is no other logical result than different grades of Trump in all governments of the world, from the smiling, sexy, seemingly friendly politicians to the ones who don´t give anything anymore, because they know that their audience is just there for the agitation and hate speech, not logic and reasoning.
Trump is a product of the satire of a dead, destroyed democracy, because people with conscience and morality won´t if they are not the smiling snake oil salesmen, secretly help destroying social justice, peace, and nature while their empty rhetoric drivel mesmerizes their audiences, or, in the case of populists, just keep ranting, hating, trolling,� with any sexist, racist, evil,... ideas their voters seem to appreciate so much.
It really takes much, it´s an unbelievable negative achievement, to willingly and mischievously keep the population easy victims to any kind of demagogue by destroying the educational system, providing ridiculous, anachronistic teaching methods and content, and thereby building the new, biggest empires of delusion, where truly everyone from the voter to the president is at the same level and a travesty of equality laughs about the ruins of a once functioning state.
It´s no wonder that, when consumerism, cruelty, alpha predator style behavior including all evil isms and mobbing as an icing on the hate cake, is what a society promotes and rewards, people will try to live up to the expectations and become the creatures parliament, people, and market want them to be. It´s not their fault, they had no chance, at a certain point humans are unable to change their personality and ideology and what is just happening is the logical result of an extremely clever, long planned, already decades ongoing project of making dark comedy real life called neoliberalism. There is no substantial difference between South Park and reality anymore, the postmodernism destruction of anything that once was holy doesn´t take place by people suddenly enlightening with spontaneous human intelligence combustion, it goes backward by re stone aging and degeneration.
But just as Rage made me think about the strange, anachronistic personality cult itself, Disloyal let´s one ask how many shadow governments, states inside the state, secret conspiracies with reptilian alien overlords, etc. there might be. Not just the regularly freshly elected sockpuppet representative figures, but more the big business and old money interests in the background.
I find it extremely entertaining and ironic that after, as my inspiration and muse George Carlin used to say, our government and democracy has been sold a long time ago, the lobbyist are so good at optimizing the reduction of costs that they just want control over the, for their company, important parts of politics and don´t care about the rest, which leads to the lunacy of no funding and interest in education, infrastructure, nature, social justice, etc.. It took me a while to understand that, a conglomerate, a world market leader, an international megacorporation doesn´t invest in uninteresting aspects of any state and that´s where the politicians and ideologies are still having power.
That´s freaking scary, I am strongly promoting even much more and stronger influence of lobbyist on any aspect of democratic decision making, maybe some more billions and trillions as incentives and subsidies to make sure that just competent masters of manipulations are the true rulers of Earth, not narcissistic and superficial egomaniacs.
I´ve added the next passage with the links to my review of Rage too, so you might have already seen it.
To be fair, I deem all, except of the Scandinavian countries, Swiss, and the Netherlands, industrial northern democracies the same messes, just with different grades of suffering and pain for the citizens. Social evolution has stagnated and lead to a dead, ridiculous democratic system, completely controlled by lobbyism, not to be taken seriously anymore, leading to a situation where comedy shows and websites such as
The daily show with Trevor Noah
The onion
The late show with Stephen Colbert
etc.
bring more depth, insight, and truth than all education in schools, newspapers, news networks, and, lol, the representatives themselves. If it wouldn´t be so sad, destroy the planet, and harm so many innocent people, especially in the Southern hemisphere, the laughs wouldn´t be that bitter.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
History of madness
Establishing the lunacy using
The lenses it will be seen with
I´ve, in other reviews, said before that I wanted to avoid soft humanities such as politics, economics, homeopathy whose inventor was totally nuts too, etc., but I just couldn´t resist, sorry for that, relapse is my second name after procrastination.
September 17, 2020
Audiobook...read by Robert Petkoff
Michael Cohen says he got his Phd in sleaze.....( a little chuckle from me)....
So.... we know going into this book that Michael Cohen may be an unreliable character....I mean this book was written from white collar prison.
But.....I believed every trashy thing he said about Trump.
I’m reminded that first and foremost- Michael Cohen’s book is a ‘memoir�......a ‘tell-all-he-knows� book about Trump- but still a memoir.
Michael shared many of the things we’ve heard before - or have experienced ourselves - about Trump:
... That truth doesn’t matter�.only power and money does.
...Trump only cares about conversation centered around him.
...Never apologize and never ever admit to weakness. .....
...and
....Many other dishonest cruel, corrupt, narcissistic, self-serving characteristics of Trump...
Moral and ethical: we already know Trump is not.
But....I admit, I found this book interesting. I did learn a few new things...
...Family background of Michael Cohen:
....the Jewish ( culturally Jewish), family he grew up in. His father was a Holocaust survivor. He had two sisters and a brother. His self proclaimed outgoing personally as a kid - his education- his marriage and two kids....
...Michael Cohen’s confession - from sleaze-ball to fixer...to trying to warn the American people - that clearly President Trump will try anything to win the election in November ( God, I hope not)
...Most interesting was learning more about Trump’s infatuation with Putin....the wealthiest man in the world.
“If you think about it, Putin controls 25% of the Russian economy... imagine controlling 25% of the wealth of a country. Wouldn’t that be fucking amazing?�
And last - but not least....the biggest informative -surprise for me was learning about Cohen’s affiliation with the mob....as a teenager!!!
I understand I shouldn’t ‘like� Michael Cohen....
But...he has a likable personality ....and he definitely sounds believable.
Even when Michael Cohen ‘knew� he was part of the lies and corruption...[The Martial Artist of Hiding Trump’s infidelity, etc.], it felt good ( like a drug) ....for him to be part of the Trump powerful inner circle. Didn’t matter if Trump was a manipulator - Cohen was willing to be manipulated. He was driven with desire to please the cheating bully, predator, pompous fraud, and liar.
Michael also admitted how entertaining it was for him to be part of the Trump clan.
He was a reciprocate of the winks and grins....and he liked it.
Michael knew he was “shoveling shit, but he enjoyed being part of the show.
Until....the joke was on him....
Michael lost everything�
so had nothing to lose by telling the truth. ....
is the way I see things anyway.
Not sure if this is Michael Cohen’s way of atonement- but he did expose his wrongdoings openly.
THE MOST IMPORTANT MESSAGE...
this cannot be said enough...
Trump should NOT be reelected. He needs to go to jail!
Michael Cohen says he got his Phd in sleaze.....( a little chuckle from me)....
So.... we know going into this book that Michael Cohen may be an unreliable character....I mean this book was written from white collar prison.
But.....I believed every trashy thing he said about Trump.
I’m reminded that first and foremost- Michael Cohen’s book is a ‘memoir�......a ‘tell-all-he-knows� book about Trump- but still a memoir.
Michael shared many of the things we’ve heard before - or have experienced ourselves - about Trump:
... That truth doesn’t matter�.only power and money does.
...Trump only cares about conversation centered around him.
...Never apologize and never ever admit to weakness. .....
...and
....Many other dishonest cruel, corrupt, narcissistic, self-serving characteristics of Trump...
Moral and ethical: we already know Trump is not.
But....I admit, I found this book interesting. I did learn a few new things...
...Family background of Michael Cohen:
....the Jewish ( culturally Jewish), family he grew up in. His father was a Holocaust survivor. He had two sisters and a brother. His self proclaimed outgoing personally as a kid - his education- his marriage and two kids....
...Michael Cohen’s confession - from sleaze-ball to fixer...to trying to warn the American people - that clearly President Trump will try anything to win the election in November ( God, I hope not)
...Most interesting was learning more about Trump’s infatuation with Putin....the wealthiest man in the world.
“If you think about it, Putin controls 25% of the Russian economy... imagine controlling 25% of the wealth of a country. Wouldn’t that be fucking amazing?�
And last - but not least....the biggest informative -surprise for me was learning about Cohen’s affiliation with the mob....as a teenager!!!
I understand I shouldn’t ‘like� Michael Cohen....
But...he has a likable personality ....and he definitely sounds believable.
Even when Michael Cohen ‘knew� he was part of the lies and corruption...[The Martial Artist of Hiding Trump’s infidelity, etc.], it felt good ( like a drug) ....for him to be part of the Trump powerful inner circle. Didn’t matter if Trump was a manipulator - Cohen was willing to be manipulated. He was driven with desire to please the cheating bully, predator, pompous fraud, and liar.
Michael also admitted how entertaining it was for him to be part of the Trump clan.
He was a reciprocate of the winks and grins....and he liked it.
Michael knew he was “shoveling shit, but he enjoyed being part of the show.
Until....the joke was on him....
Michael lost everything�
so had nothing to lose by telling the truth. ....
is the way I see things anyway.
Not sure if this is Michael Cohen’s way of atonement- but he did expose his wrongdoings openly.
THE MOST IMPORTANT MESSAGE...
this cannot be said enough...
Trump should NOT be reelected. He needs to go to jail!
November 21, 2020
There are reasons why there has never been an intimate portrait of Donald Trump, the man. In part, it’s because he has a million acquaintances, pals, and hangers on, but no real friends. He has no one he trusts to keep his secrets. For ten years, he certainly had me, and I was always there for him, and look what happened to me. I urge you to really consider that fact: Trump has no true friends. He has lived his entire life avoiding and evading taking responsibility for his actions. He crushed or cheated all who stood in his way, but I know where the skeletons are buried because I was the one who buried them.There have been many books written about Donald J. Trump. Most deal in tracking down his many criminal acts. Some offer a look at how he operates as president. Some look into his life as a real estate mogul. Some look into his relationships with foreign nations, Russia most particularly. There are many books that look into his significance as a prime example of a world-wide flowering of authoritarianism. But few people can offer the sort of close-up, long-term, personal account of the man like Michael Cohen can. (The only other being Mary Trump, in her book Too Much and Never Enough)
Michael Cohen and you-know-who - image from The Atlantic
Cohen offers a history of how he was brought into Trump’s circle, how exciting it was to be working for The Donald, engaging in all sorts of trickery, underhandedness, and brutality. That this appealed to Cohen, and proved to be work at which he excelled, says a lot about him. Cohen accepts that he has done many bad things, and does not let himself off the hook for his actions. His early life, pre-Trump is interesting and offers an early manifestation of the not-so-nice guy he would become, being attracted to gangsters, their lifestyle, their power, their code, their violence. It was one of the things that attracted him to Trump, whom he describe as a mobster don.
He didn’t need me to be a lawyer when he was in the right. He needed a lawyer for when he was in the wrong: when he was trying to go around the law, or offer a twisted or tortured interpretation to an agreement that could be used to screw the other side.Cohen blackmailed a tenant who was holding up work on a Trump property, promising to make the guy’s son’s life a living hell if he did not play ball. He tells of sundry women Trump had harassed or had sex with, arranging to make accusations go away, for a price, working hand in glove with David Pecker, publisher of the National Inquirer, to catch and kill many of these tales. He took care of rigging a vote CNBC was conducting to determine the most important twenty-five business people alive. He sued Benjamin Moore for the poor quality of paint used in the Doral resort, when it was Donald who had gone out of his way to buy the cheapest crap they sold.
One of the more interesting tidbits was how Donny Junior hated the business, and having to deal with his father. He would rather be raising cattle and hunting buffalo. But his father beat him into submission just as Donald’s father, Fred, had beaten him into the sort of person he thought worthy of being his son. (A monster like pop) Other family observations were on Ivanka having daddy’s sociopathic disregard for everyone, and how Tiffany is mostly kept out of the family loop because she is not considered pretty enough to be an asset.
I expect that you have heard or seen most of the juicy bits from this book. It very successfully portrays a monster of a human being, a creature out of mythology, so corrupt, so self-centered, so delusional as to be barely human. A caricature of a mob boss, although one with some particular gifts. He has a nose for the jugular, taking advantage of anyone he can in order to stuff more money into his pockets. Cohen tells how Trump screwed a wealthy woman who had hit hard times, by taking her $100 million property for $13 million and convincing her that he was doing her a favor. Any who have watched Trump knows that has no loyalty to anyone. He will throw anyone under the bus, will hide behind lawyers and doting yes-men, all the while denying all responsibility for his lifetime of crime.
Among the revelations is Trump’s contempt for the religious sorts who had been asked to a meeting in Trump Tower. After they left, having all laid hands on him together,
“Can you believe that bullshit?� Trump said, with incredulity, referring to the ritual and the evangelicals. “Can you believe people believe that bullshit?He lets us know that Melania knows who she married, and declines to hear any information about Donald’s philanderings, that he regularly uses his financial muscle to aim nuclear-powered lawyers at any he seeks to exploit, leaving them unable to defend themselves against his thievery, the cost of defense lawyers being much greater than the cost of just walking away. He lets us know that the Trump trio of children, Ivanka, Junior, and Eric are just as monstrous when it comes to exploiting anyone with less power, with less ability to stand up to their bullying. Trump’s racism comes through loud and clear, with his visceral hatred of Obama a prime manifestation of this, even before the infamous .
He describes a world in which Trump has surrounded himself with such a band of toadies, that there is no one left who will dare to speak truth to him. This only reinforces his megalomania and narcissism. He was always, but is now even moreso, a “boy in a bubble.� No criticism or negative news comes in, only his own thoughts, rants, and tweets go out.
Cohen makes a case that there really was no real collusion between Trump and the Russians, making a point of saying that he was not much involved in most of those connections, saying that what Trump saw in Putin was incredible wealth, something he wanted for himself.
Ask yourself this question: What does Trump most admire and worship? The answer is money. Now ask yourself, who is the richest man in the world? “Putin is the richest man in the world by a multiple,� Trump often told me. “In fact, if you think about it, Putin controls twenty five percent of the Russian economy, including every major business, like Gazprom. Imagine controlling twenty five percent of the wealth of a country. Wouldn’t that be fucking amazing?�He adds that Putin and Trump’s mutual hatred of Hilary Clinton gave them, common purpose, without requiring coordination. Frankly, I take this with a grain of salt. There may have been other parties more involved in that end of things in Trumplandia, but it seems to me that Cohen would have at least had some sense of what was up. Also, there is no mention in the book of the mysterious server, present in Trump Tower, that connected Trump to a Russian bank, and which was removed once it became known that it was a target of investigative journalists and possibly the FBI. Really? Cohen, knew nothing of this? Possible, I suppose, but it seems unlikely. So, if you are interested in intel re the Trump-Russia connection, this is not the best place to look.
But the most important piece of analysis Cohen offers is the following:
If you want to understand how Donald J. Trump became president, you have to grasp the essential fact that by far the most important element wasn’t nationalism, or populism or racism, or religion, or the rise of white supremacy, or strongman authoritarianism. It wasn’t Russia, or lying, or James Comey, though all those forces were hugely influential. It wasn’t Hilary Clinton…No, the biggest influence by far—by a country mile—was the media. Donald Trump’s presidency is a product of the free press…I mean free as unpaid for. Rallies broadcast live, tweets, press conferences, idiotic interviews, 24-7 wall-to-wall coverage, all without spending a penny. The free press gave America Trump. Right, left, moderate, tabloid, broadsheet, television, radio, Internet, Facebook—that is who elected Trump and who might well elect him again.He is amazed at how gullible the mainstream media has been and continues to be, allowing Trump to suck them in every time with BS of diverse sorts, truth-free more often than not, just to keep his name and his face in the news. Earned media Trump calls it, but mostly it is a con-artist taking advantage of a mark.
We know that those dedicated to the preservation of the cult of Trump have done their screaming about how Michael Cohen is a convicted liar and that nothing he says can be believed. It was my take that most of the material here is on the up-and-up. Cohen has testified significantly with Congress, has worked with prosecutors in New York and DC, has plenty of legal reasons not to be promoting untruths. He presents himself with a contrite persona, which I take to be true. We have no reason to disbelieve his compelling tales of growing up impressed by mobsters, and can understand, from that, the appeal of someone like Trump. He describes many of the crimes he committed while working for the future president and accepts responsibility for his actions. The one exception being that he contends that he pled guilty to tax fraud not because he believed himself actually guilty, but because if he didn’t the prosecutors would start going after his wife. He makes it clear he was guilty of plenty more.
Underneath all the layers of delusion and wishful thinking and willful ignorance and stupidity, I was like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, lusting after the power that would come from possessing The White House--"my precious�--and I was more than willing to lie, cheat, and bully to win.True believers in Trump will not even read this book, just presuming that it is a pack of lies, or fearing it might be true, but being unwilling to challenge their Trump/Truth barriers. For the rest of us it is yet another illuminating piece in the puzzle that is Donald Trump. It shows how one might be drawn in to the 24/7 craziness. And shows, from a place of professional intimacy, just what an awful human being, and danger to the nation and the world Trump is, all to satisfy his insatiable greed and ego. Cohen has stated in interviews that Trump is above nothing when it comes to the election, including starting a war to distract, or seek to delay election day. He is already very publicly trying to suppress the vote and is making it clear that he will seek to have hundreds of thousand, maybe millions of legitimate votes thrown out on legal technicalities. There are plenty of reasons to fear Donald Trump. Michael Cohen has given us more. Disloyal is an entertaining read even if you are not interested in politics, but really you should be interested in politics if you value your freedoms, if you value your democracy, if you value your life. Disloyal offers a look at the man behind the curtain. He is not a wonderful wizard.
Review posted � October 30, 2020
Date Published � September 8, 2020
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s , and pages
Interviews
-----NBC News � with - video 5:19
-----Vanity Fair � with by Emily Jane Fox
-----Rollingstone - by Peter Wade
-----MSNBC - - by Rachel Maddow
----- MSNBC - - by Rachel Maddow
Items of Interest
-----Politico.com -
-----C-Span - - with separate tabs for areas of interest
-----The New Yorker - by Dexter Filkins
September 6, 2020
“There was no way I was going to let this black fag win" [Trump said] (p. 106).
A local bookstore sold me a copy of Cohen’s book yesterday, a few days before its release, and I stayed up all night reading it. Cohen recounts how the evangelicals� choice for president cheated on his wife, hit on pageant contestants (“maybe we can catch a few of them in the back getting dressed,� p. 172), and watched live sex shows where a handicapped man wearing a “cock sock� sung God Bless America while a 300-pound woman “wearing a postage stamp-sized American flag bikini � began to grind on the man’s outsized penis, stroking and caressing it� (p. 180). Trump delighted in it all: “Now that guy is packing a missile � this freak can really sing� (p. 180). He recounts how he saw Trump sexually harass women: “I did see him corner pretty women in his office and forcibly kiss them as they recoiled� (p. 176). Trump even called Cohen’s 15-year-old daughter a “piece of ass� (p. 182), told her to kiss him, and asked “when did you get such a beautiful figure?� (p. 183).
Cohen reveals Trump’s “unhinged Archie Bunker racism� (p. 106), as if it wasn’t already clear. Noting that Trump said “South Africa was once a beautiful country twenty, thirty years ago � Mandela fucked the whole country up. Now it’s a shithole. Fuck Mandela� (p. 107). Talking about Obama, Trump said “the only reason he got into fucking Harvard Law School and Columbia was fucking affirmative action � Fuck him� (pp. 109-110). Trump asked “Tell me one country run by a black person that isn’t a shithole� (p. 107).
In painstaking detail, but with excellent writing and perfect clarity, Cohen documents how he became obsessed with and addicted to Trump�“I was like a junkie, mainlining the excitement� (p. 101); “I was like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings� (p. 105)—and the many immoral and illegal things he did for Trump. He outlines how Trump conned and exploited him from the outset, even though he was a loyal servant. Trump started their relationship with a lie, never offered to pay Cohen for his early work, and declined to pay for his first recorded ~$100,000 bill (“Invoice? � You want to get fired on your first day?,� p. 52). Despite all of this, Cohen literally got in a physical fist fight for Trump. Cohen also explains how others are making all the same mistakes, dedicating “our consciousness and consciences to him� p. 166). For example, he discuss how “Rudy Giuliani [is] committing harakiri for Trump� (p. 154).
Cohen documents Trump’s horrible judgment (e.g., he was touting the real estate market “only days before the global economy crashed,� p. 38). Cohen documents Trump’s horrible treatment of ordinary people, either refusing to pay them, or only paying “twenty percent of the invoice� (p. 168). Cohen documents Trump’s horrible treatment of his supposed “friends”—for example, conning Patricia Kluge and essentially disinheriting her son. In Cohen’s words, “A ‘friend� approaching Trump for assistance in a time of need was making a mistake of epic proportions� (p. 146). Cohen documents Trump’s utter dishonesty—for example, he outlines how Trump fabricated his Hawaii investigation into Obama’s birth on the spot. Cohen even spends an entire paragraph describing how much effort Trump goes through to do his hair�“Hair Force One� (p. 177).
The book is outstanding: revealing, depressing, important. The Appendices provide supporting documents. Probably the best insider book on Trump that will ever be published.
A local bookstore sold me a copy of Cohen’s book yesterday, a few days before its release, and I stayed up all night reading it. Cohen recounts how the evangelicals� choice for president cheated on his wife, hit on pageant contestants (“maybe we can catch a few of them in the back getting dressed,� p. 172), and watched live sex shows where a handicapped man wearing a “cock sock� sung God Bless America while a 300-pound woman “wearing a postage stamp-sized American flag bikini � began to grind on the man’s outsized penis, stroking and caressing it� (p. 180). Trump delighted in it all: “Now that guy is packing a missile � this freak can really sing� (p. 180). He recounts how he saw Trump sexually harass women: “I did see him corner pretty women in his office and forcibly kiss them as they recoiled� (p. 176). Trump even called Cohen’s 15-year-old daughter a “piece of ass� (p. 182), told her to kiss him, and asked “when did you get such a beautiful figure?� (p. 183).
Cohen reveals Trump’s “unhinged Archie Bunker racism� (p. 106), as if it wasn’t already clear. Noting that Trump said “South Africa was once a beautiful country twenty, thirty years ago � Mandela fucked the whole country up. Now it’s a shithole. Fuck Mandela� (p. 107). Talking about Obama, Trump said “the only reason he got into fucking Harvard Law School and Columbia was fucking affirmative action � Fuck him� (pp. 109-110). Trump asked “Tell me one country run by a black person that isn’t a shithole� (p. 107).
In painstaking detail, but with excellent writing and perfect clarity, Cohen documents how he became obsessed with and addicted to Trump�“I was like a junkie, mainlining the excitement� (p. 101); “I was like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings� (p. 105)—and the many immoral and illegal things he did for Trump. He outlines how Trump conned and exploited him from the outset, even though he was a loyal servant. Trump started their relationship with a lie, never offered to pay Cohen for his early work, and declined to pay for his first recorded ~$100,000 bill (“Invoice? � You want to get fired on your first day?,� p. 52). Despite all of this, Cohen literally got in a physical fist fight for Trump. Cohen also explains how others are making all the same mistakes, dedicating “our consciousness and consciences to him� p. 166). For example, he discuss how “Rudy Giuliani [is] committing harakiri for Trump� (p. 154).
Cohen documents Trump’s horrible judgment (e.g., he was touting the real estate market “only days before the global economy crashed,� p. 38). Cohen documents Trump’s horrible treatment of ordinary people, either refusing to pay them, or only paying “twenty percent of the invoice� (p. 168). Cohen documents Trump’s horrible treatment of his supposed “friends”—for example, conning Patricia Kluge and essentially disinheriting her son. In Cohen’s words, “A ‘friend� approaching Trump for assistance in a time of need was making a mistake of epic proportions� (p. 146). Cohen documents Trump’s utter dishonesty—for example, he outlines how Trump fabricated his Hawaii investigation into Obama’s birth on the spot. Cohen even spends an entire paragraph describing how much effort Trump goes through to do his hair�“Hair Force One� (p. 177).
The book is outstanding: revealing, depressing, important. The Appendices provide supporting documents. Probably the best insider book on Trump that will ever be published.
September 11, 2020
Audio - 5 ++++ Stars
Book - 5+++++ Stars
I appreciate that Michael Cohen wrote this book, and confirmed that dt is a criminal and has always been a criminal. He's a mob boss not a president.
Although I appreciate the book, I don't feel the least bit sorry for the author, no matter how much he apologizes or expresses regret. It would take many lifetimes to make up for his part in encouraging and enabling dt's wrong doings. Because let's face it, he's apologizing because he got caught and dt threw him under the bus.
Book - 5+++++ Stars
I appreciate that Michael Cohen wrote this book, and confirmed that dt is a criminal and has always been a criminal. He's a mob boss not a president.
Although I appreciate the book, I don't feel the least bit sorry for the author, no matter how much he apologizes or expresses regret. It would take many lifetimes to make up for his part in encouraging and enabling dt's wrong doings. Because let's face it, he's apologizing because he got caught and dt threw him under the bus.
September 15, 2020
I believe this to be a credible and worthy read. I found particularly interesting Mr. Cohen's early days when he worked during his summer break at his Uncle's where he came into contact with bonified mob individuals. He just chose the wrong mob.
September 25, 2020
I can't figure out how to rate this book. I rate Michael Cohen about 1.5 stars as a human being, but I'm grateful for the insider information revealed in the book. I'll have to cogitate on this for a bit.
Watch this space...
September 12, 2020
Is this Cohen's redemption?
Disloyal by Michael Cohen was an explosive and noteworthy tell-all that needed to be told! After all, "The attraction was the action: the game, the deals, the thrill of the chase."
Racist:
"But, as a rule, Trump expressed low opinions of all black folks, from music to culture and politics. Africa was a hell-hole, he believed, and Nelson Mandela, to use but one example, was an object of contempt for Trump."
"Although I never heard Trump use the N-word in my time spent with him, there were many times that he made racist comments. What he said in private was far worse than what he uttered in public. As an example: in September 2008, we were in Chicago for the “topping off� ceremony for The Trump International Hotel and Tower. Bill Rancic, who had won the first season of The Apprentice four years before, had been put in charge of the project. Trump reminisced to me about Rancic, who had been in a head-to-head with another contestant, Kwame Jackson. Kwame was not only a nice guy, but also a brilliant Harvard MBA graduate. Trump was explaining his back-and-forth about not picking Kwame.
“There was no way I was going to let this black fag win,� he said to me."
Favorite child, Ivanka:
"When he wanted a particular businessman to do his biddings, he would often have me send Ivanka to take the meeting with a married man who the Boss figured would be susceptible to her charms."
“They can’t think straight when they’re around her,� Trump told me of deploying his elder daughter to deploy her looks with lustful men twice her age. “They can’t keep their eyes off her.�
So as I thought, Trump has absolutely no moral compass and it took his ex-fixer and felon, Michael Cohen to tell us all about 45's skeleton hanging in his sordid closet!
Faux Obama:
"I thought I’d seen the worst of Trump then, but when Obama won the Nobel Prize, Trump went ballistic, as if the universe were playing some kind of trick on him to drive him out of his mind. It was almost like he was hearing voices, the way he ranted and raved about the idiotic Obama and how he was beloved by so many Americans. Trump mocked the way Obama talked, walked, even appeared, as if acting presidential was just that: an act. The shtick you see him pull at his rallies, when he mocks the idea of being “presidential� and says how easy it is to pretend to be a serious leader, walking like a robot and marching around like a fool and a phony, was first performed for yours truly in Trump’s office while I sat quietly listening to him go on and on and on about Obama and caricature his mannerisms. We even hired a Faux-Bama, or fake Obama, to record a video where Trump ritualistically belittled the first black president and then fired him, a kind of fantasy fulfillment that it was hard to imagine any adult would spend serious money living out—until he did the functional equivalent in the real world."
But all in all, “Trump is jealous of Obama because he's black, smart, articulate and he went to Harvard. He's everything Trump wants to be"
"Disloyal" is Cohen's accounts on that vile POS in the WH... 45th POTUS, the faked tanned, Donald J. Trump!
RECOMMENDED READ
5 ALARMINGly vile person named Donald J. Trump stars!
Disloyal by Michael Cohen was an explosive and noteworthy tell-all that needed to be told! After all, "The attraction was the action: the game, the deals, the thrill of the chase."
Racist:
"But, as a rule, Trump expressed low opinions of all black folks, from music to culture and politics. Africa was a hell-hole, he believed, and Nelson Mandela, to use but one example, was an object of contempt for Trump."
"Although I never heard Trump use the N-word in my time spent with him, there were many times that he made racist comments. What he said in private was far worse than what he uttered in public. As an example: in September 2008, we were in Chicago for the “topping off� ceremony for The Trump International Hotel and Tower. Bill Rancic, who had won the first season of The Apprentice four years before, had been put in charge of the project. Trump reminisced to me about Rancic, who had been in a head-to-head with another contestant, Kwame Jackson. Kwame was not only a nice guy, but also a brilliant Harvard MBA graduate. Trump was explaining his back-and-forth about not picking Kwame.
“There was no way I was going to let this black fag win,� he said to me."
Favorite child, Ivanka:
"When he wanted a particular businessman to do his biddings, he would often have me send Ivanka to take the meeting with a married man who the Boss figured would be susceptible to her charms."
“They can’t think straight when they’re around her,� Trump told me of deploying his elder daughter to deploy her looks with lustful men twice her age. “They can’t keep their eyes off her.�
So as I thought, Trump has absolutely no moral compass and it took his ex-fixer and felon, Michael Cohen to tell us all about 45's skeleton hanging in his sordid closet!
Faux Obama:
"I thought I’d seen the worst of Trump then, but when Obama won the Nobel Prize, Trump went ballistic, as if the universe were playing some kind of trick on him to drive him out of his mind. It was almost like he was hearing voices, the way he ranted and raved about the idiotic Obama and how he was beloved by so many Americans. Trump mocked the way Obama talked, walked, even appeared, as if acting presidential was just that: an act. The shtick you see him pull at his rallies, when he mocks the idea of being “presidential� and says how easy it is to pretend to be a serious leader, walking like a robot and marching around like a fool and a phony, was first performed for yours truly in Trump’s office while I sat quietly listening to him go on and on and on about Obama and caricature his mannerisms. We even hired a Faux-Bama, or fake Obama, to record a video where Trump ritualistically belittled the first black president and then fired him, a kind of fantasy fulfillment that it was hard to imagine any adult would spend serious money living out—until he did the functional equivalent in the real world."
But all in all, “Trump is jealous of Obama because he's black, smart, articulate and he went to Harvard. He's everything Trump wants to be"
"Disloyal" is Cohen's accounts on that vile POS in the WH... 45th POTUS, the faked tanned, Donald J. Trump!
RECOMMENDED READ
5 ALARMINGly vile person named Donald J. Trump stars!
October 11, 2020
For some reason I am unable to rate this book as a 4 star read which it is.
The My Rating option is not allowing me to click on the number of stars I want to give it. I have no idea if anyone else is having this issue but I'm really ticked off because I want my rating to be counted in the ratio.
Anyway, an unpleasant read for a horrific situation we find ourselves in. Kudos to Cohen for telling the ugly truth. He doesn't defend himself and he's exposing what we can already see but with more complete picture, horrid as it is.
4 stars. 4. STARS.
The My Rating option is not allowing me to click on the number of stars I want to give it. I have no idea if anyone else is having this issue but I'm really ticked off because I want my rating to be counted in the ratio.
Anyway, an unpleasant read for a horrific situation we find ourselves in. Kudos to Cohen for telling the ugly truth. He doesn't defend himself and he's exposing what we can already see but with more complete picture, horrid as it is.
4 stars. 4. STARS.
September 29, 2020
Everything that should be said has been said. But this should be required reading for every single person still voting for the current occupant of the white house (taking into consideration that they can read). If after reading this first hand account of the depth of 45's veniality you are still going to vote for him, then if it all goes up in smoke you can only blame yourself. Having read this the day after the exposure of the infamous, revelatory IRS reports, it is even more galling.
Cohen opens by saying tRump doesn't want you to read it and actually attempts to block its existence. Cohen is upfront about his reasons for staying in the snakepit as long as he did, and if there ever was a mea culpa document, this is it. He doesn't shy away from his participation, but he gets high marks for his family values, for loving and respecting his family, and the fact that they haven't deserted him speaks volumes.
Cohen opens by saying tRump doesn't want you to read it and actually attempts to block its existence. Cohen is upfront about his reasons for staying in the snakepit as long as he did, and if there ever was a mea culpa document, this is it. He doesn't shy away from his participation, but he gets high marks for his family values, for loving and respecting his family, and the fact that they haven't deserted him speaks volumes.
October 11, 2020
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I almost did not read the book as I expected a disgruntled ex-employee rant. Instead, while sitting in a prison cell, Cohen examined himself and tried to understand how and why he fell under the spell of Trump.
The book is well written. Cohen tells about his first meeting with Trump and his son, Don Jr., who managed the Trump building where he owned his apartment. He tells some stories about his work for Trump as his major fixer. He describes how this family did not like Trump and tried to understand why he did not listen to them. I did learn some things I did not know about Trump and his organization. Primarily, how he relates to people that work for him until he gets them hooked and then turns on them. I am glad I took the time to read the book.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is eleven hours and fifty minutes. Robert Petkoff does an excellent job narrating the book. Petkoff is a classically trained actor and is well-known for his narrations of biographies and non-fiction books.
The book is well written. Cohen tells about his first meeting with Trump and his son, Don Jr., who managed the Trump building where he owned his apartment. He tells some stories about his work for Trump as his major fixer. He describes how this family did not like Trump and tried to understand why he did not listen to them. I did learn some things I did not know about Trump and his organization. Primarily, how he relates to people that work for him until he gets them hooked and then turns on them. I am glad I took the time to read the book.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is eleven hours and fifty minutes. Robert Petkoff does an excellent job narrating the book. Petkoff is a classically trained actor and is well-known for his narrations of biographies and non-fiction books.
October 4, 2020
Quite the cautionary tale.
January 3, 2025
Felt like a novel by Martin Scorsese.
"Very" well written and goes in-depth of each event. As much as I dislike Cohen, he has written a worthy book to be read. The level of directness and honesty is hard to come by in these types of books. I was skeptical as I thought it would be a cash grab only or just out for revenge against the current president Trump. I also looked at the cover and felt this may be a waste of time.
It exceeded my expectations and I was proven wrong. I give high praise to Cohen for giving his background on his motives, actions, and what lead to him working for Trump. He also goes into detail on how Trump won the election... fascinating from an insider's point of view how dangerous and corrupt the administration is. Cohen also goes into detail about his "deals" to keep Trump's image good. From my research and in-depth reading, Trump compared to Nixon is on another level. I wouldn't be surprised if Cohen gets into deeper trouble after this book... A brave and complex man with deeply personal issues that ended him losing reputation while landing him in prison. The FBI raided his office so the information in the book is as close to the truth as what happened, even if it's a glimpse of the circus.
The last chapter is a real treat.
I still dislike Cohen but praise this book for the information that it provides.
Worth the kindle purchase. I bought it at 12:30 a.m. on September 8th.
"Very" well written and goes in-depth of each event. As much as I dislike Cohen, he has written a worthy book to be read. The level of directness and honesty is hard to come by in these types of books. I was skeptical as I thought it would be a cash grab only or just out for revenge against the current president Trump. I also looked at the cover and felt this may be a waste of time.
It exceeded my expectations and I was proven wrong. I give high praise to Cohen for giving his background on his motives, actions, and what lead to him working for Trump. He also goes into detail on how Trump won the election... fascinating from an insider's point of view how dangerous and corrupt the administration is. Cohen also goes into detail about his "deals" to keep Trump's image good. From my research and in-depth reading, Trump compared to Nixon is on another level. I wouldn't be surprised if Cohen gets into deeper trouble after this book... A brave and complex man with deeply personal issues that ended him losing reputation while landing him in prison. The FBI raided his office so the information in the book is as close to the truth as what happened, even if it's a glimpse of the circus.
The last chapter is a real treat.
I still dislike Cohen but praise this book for the information that it provides.
Worth the kindle purchase. I bought it at 12:30 a.m. on September 8th.
October 18, 2020
3.5
" As you read my story, you will no doubt ask yourself if you like me or if you would act as I did, and the answer will frequently be no�..however if you only read stories by people you like, you will never be able to understand the world of Donald Trump�. As anyone in Law Enforcement will tell you, if you want to know how the mob works, you have got to talk to the bad guys." Michael Cohen
This quote pretty much sums up my feelings about the book. In Michael Cohen's memoir, he comes across as a shallow yet smart man who clearly understands the difference between right and wrong. He claims that he became intoxicated by the Trump aura and allowed his adolescent desires for power and excitement to overtake his family and country's needs. However, Cohen is a shrewd insider who knows how Trump and his organization operate. I probably learned more from this book than others that I have read, and it wasn't a positive experience.
Before reading the book, I knew that Trump had an unhealthy obsession with Obama and was a birther movement champion. I didn't realize he entertained himself by hiring a faux Obama and made a video where he hurled insults culminating in his apprentice signature "you're fired." How bizarre is that?
I also knew he was a cheat but didn't realize that he had Michael Cohen work with the head of technology from Liberty University (that bastion of Christian morality) to fix the top businessmen's poll tampering with website algorithms to move Trump from 87th to 9th place. There are countless examples of stiffing contractors and friends. Working with the National Enquirer to plant stories against rivals and catch and kill stories that hurt Trump. I could go on and on about vulgar racism, sexism, connections with Russia.
As I read, I felt sorry for his wife and children, who begged him to stop working for him early on. At fifteen, his daughter told him that she thought he was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and, at 21, stopped talking to him after Trump's kick-off speech where he made his Mexican immigrants are rapists comment. His wife, who was against the liaison from the get-go, and tellingly didn't accompany him to campaign headquarters on election night so she could help her son with a school paper.
I don't know why Cohen decided to stand up and write this book, but I am glad he did. It provided me with real insight into the corrupt world of Donald Trump and the motivations of people who are sucked into serving him.
" As you read my story, you will no doubt ask yourself if you like me or if you would act as I did, and the answer will frequently be no�..however if you only read stories by people you like, you will never be able to understand the world of Donald Trump�. As anyone in Law Enforcement will tell you, if you want to know how the mob works, you have got to talk to the bad guys." Michael Cohen
This quote pretty much sums up my feelings about the book. In Michael Cohen's memoir, he comes across as a shallow yet smart man who clearly understands the difference between right and wrong. He claims that he became intoxicated by the Trump aura and allowed his adolescent desires for power and excitement to overtake his family and country's needs. However, Cohen is a shrewd insider who knows how Trump and his organization operate. I probably learned more from this book than others that I have read, and it wasn't a positive experience.
Before reading the book, I knew that Trump had an unhealthy obsession with Obama and was a birther movement champion. I didn't realize he entertained himself by hiring a faux Obama and made a video where he hurled insults culminating in his apprentice signature "you're fired." How bizarre is that?
I also knew he was a cheat but didn't realize that he had Michael Cohen work with the head of technology from Liberty University (that bastion of Christian morality) to fix the top businessmen's poll tampering with website algorithms to move Trump from 87th to 9th place. There are countless examples of stiffing contractors and friends. Working with the National Enquirer to plant stories against rivals and catch and kill stories that hurt Trump. I could go on and on about vulgar racism, sexism, connections with Russia.
As I read, I felt sorry for his wife and children, who begged him to stop working for him early on. At fifteen, his daughter told him that she thought he was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and, at 21, stopped talking to him after Trump's kick-off speech where he made his Mexican immigrants are rapists comment. His wife, who was against the liaison from the get-go, and tellingly didn't accompany him to campaign headquarters on election night so she could help her son with a school paper.
I don't know why Cohen decided to stand up and write this book, but I am glad he did. It provided me with real insight into the corrupt world of Donald Trump and the motivations of people who are sucked into serving him.
Want to read
August 16, 2020This is the tea I REALLY want to read...not even going to lie.
September 8, 2020
Very informative!
Disloyal by Michael Cohen is a very good behind the scenes look at what goes on in the real Trump world. He is as corrupt and nasty as he appears to be. His hold on people and the way he can make people follow him is amazing! How can someone like Cohen, smart and rich, drink the kool-aid? Cohen tells us how. Very interesting. I truly hate Trump and reading about him wore me out! He is such a stressor!
Disloyal by Michael Cohen is a very good behind the scenes look at what goes on in the real Trump world. He is as corrupt and nasty as he appears to be. His hold on people and the way he can make people follow him is amazing! How can someone like Cohen, smart and rich, drink the kool-aid? Cohen tells us how. Very interesting. I truly hate Trump and reading about him wore me out! He is such a stressor!
May 14, 2024
Michael Cohen is a sleazebag lawyer who worked for the sleazebag who is our current president. He is currently serving time (at home) for federal crimes involving campaign finance violations. He was disbarred.
Like everyone else who works, or has worked, for Donald Trump, Cohen decided to write a tell-all book in the hopes of revealing the “real Trump�. The book is entitled “Disloyal�.
He has a very big axe to grind, obviously, with the man that he once considered a friend and a possible father figure. Trump, it turned out, was neither. He was, Cohen now realizes, the person who ruined his life and is now, thanks in no small part to Cohen, ruining this country.
Cohen’s self-deprecation and self-realization of what a complete douchebag he is does not redeem him for his crimes or personal stupidity. If anything, the fact that he knows what a dumb schmuck he was, and is, makes him seem somewhat more sleazy, as if that is even possible.
Cohen nevertheless tells a compelling, fascinating, and disgusting story, one that reads more like a mafia crime drama than a memoir about how he sold his soul to the devil. Indeed, the numerous mafiosi references are an intentional attempt, I think, to add more gravitas to his story, which is basically a boy-meets-Trump, boy-falls-in-love-with-Trump, Trump-inevitably-shits-on-boy’s-life, boy-goes-to-prison story.
I don’t feel sorry for Cohen in the least. The people I feel sorry for are his wife and children, who must forever bear the burden of having this shit-heel for a husband and father.
I wish I could say this book was eye-opening, but, honestly, it merely reinforces what most people already know: Trump is a dishonest, untalented, shameless self-promoting stupid rich kid who has built his legacy on screwing over anyone and everyone that he can, simply because he can.
People like Cohen have let him get away with what he has gotten away with based solely on a false sense of quid pro quo. If Trump has any talent it is this: getting people (architects, designers, builders, contractors, lawyers, wives, fellow Republicans) to feel like they will receive some golden reward if they continuously suckle the teat and kiss the ass of Trump. No one, of course, has ever benefitted from doing this.
Like everyone else who works, or has worked, for Donald Trump, Cohen decided to write a tell-all book in the hopes of revealing the “real Trump�. The book is entitled “Disloyal�.
He has a very big axe to grind, obviously, with the man that he once considered a friend and a possible father figure. Trump, it turned out, was neither. He was, Cohen now realizes, the person who ruined his life and is now, thanks in no small part to Cohen, ruining this country.
Cohen’s self-deprecation and self-realization of what a complete douchebag he is does not redeem him for his crimes or personal stupidity. If anything, the fact that he knows what a dumb schmuck he was, and is, makes him seem somewhat more sleazy, as if that is even possible.
Cohen nevertheless tells a compelling, fascinating, and disgusting story, one that reads more like a mafia crime drama than a memoir about how he sold his soul to the devil. Indeed, the numerous mafiosi references are an intentional attempt, I think, to add more gravitas to his story, which is basically a boy-meets-Trump, boy-falls-in-love-with-Trump, Trump-inevitably-shits-on-boy’s-life, boy-goes-to-prison story.
I don’t feel sorry for Cohen in the least. The people I feel sorry for are his wife and children, who must forever bear the burden of having this shit-heel for a husband and father.
I wish I could say this book was eye-opening, but, honestly, it merely reinforces what most people already know: Trump is a dishonest, untalented, shameless self-promoting stupid rich kid who has built his legacy on screwing over anyone and everyone that he can, simply because he can.
People like Cohen have let him get away with what he has gotten away with based solely on a false sense of quid pro quo. If Trump has any talent it is this: getting people (architects, designers, builders, contractors, lawyers, wives, fellow Republicans) to feel like they will receive some golden reward if they continuously suckle the teat and kiss the ass of Trump. No one, of course, has ever benefitted from doing this.
September 13, 2020
Just finished Disloyal. Of all the Trump books around (and there are a lot), I found this the most interesting and insightful. That said, Cohen seems to have a mobster mentality and clearly enjoyed the illegality and intimidation schemes he and Trump indulged in.
I don't think Cohen was honest about why Trump seems so beholden to Putin. He implies it's because Trump perceives Putin to be extremely wealthy, but I think there's more to it than that.
Cohen has recently participated in some TV interviews where he seemed remorseful. After reading his memoir, I think he's simply sorry he got caught and that Trump didn't protect him.
Finally, if you find Trump's behavior as president troubling, Cohen states he repeatedly nudged Trump to run (as Cohen thought he'd personally benefit from Trump becoming increasingly powerful and influential). Along with Russia, you can thank Cohen for Trump becoming president.
Although I found Cohen's behavior and attitudes distasteful, this memoir is insightful enough that I consider it a "must read." I have to give Cohen credit for making public several details that I'm sure he also planned to include in his book (unlike Bolton, Woodward, et al).
Previous: I'm listening to Bolton's book right now, but Cohen's memoir is what I really want to read.
I don't think Cohen was honest about why Trump seems so beholden to Putin. He implies it's because Trump perceives Putin to be extremely wealthy, but I think there's more to it than that.
Cohen has recently participated in some TV interviews where he seemed remorseful. After reading his memoir, I think he's simply sorry he got caught and that Trump didn't protect him.
Finally, if you find Trump's behavior as president troubling, Cohen states he repeatedly nudged Trump to run (as Cohen thought he'd personally benefit from Trump becoming increasingly powerful and influential). Along with Russia, you can thank Cohen for Trump becoming president.
Although I found Cohen's behavior and attitudes distasteful, this memoir is insightful enough that I consider it a "must read." I have to give Cohen credit for making public several details that I'm sure he also planned to include in his book (unlike Bolton, Woodward, et al).
Previous: I'm listening to Bolton's book right now, but Cohen's memoir is what I really want to read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 8, 2020
The Trump presidency and administration have certainly been the catalyst for a huge number of tell-all books being published in the last four years. They tend to fall into two categories; those written by journalists and scholars, and those written by family members and other Trump intimates. This book, “Disloyal�, is written by Trump attorney and “fixer�, Michael Cohen. Cohen was Trump’s “go to� fellow for all sorts of deeds - mostly dirty - against anybody who considered coming after Trump personally or in business.
Michael Cohen’s book is better written than I had anticipated. (If you want really excellent writing, then look for Bob Woodward’s book coming out next week.) Cohen seems to know where all the bodies are buried , mainly because he was in charge of planting them. He has the inside look at Trump’s business and personal dealings and was with Donald Trump through at least one wife and a lot of girlfriends and all the back and forth with them, including monetary payouts and threats for their silence.
Will “Disloyal� change the minds of many voters? I’d doubt it because I think Trump’s support is rather “baked� in. Voters who already hate the man certainly won’t change their minds, and Trump’s supporters will probably regard what Michael Cohen has written as “fake news�. But Cohen’s book is a fun read for the Trump haters among us.
Michael Cohen’s book is better written than I had anticipated. (If you want really excellent writing, then look for Bob Woodward’s book coming out next week.) Cohen seems to know where all the bodies are buried , mainly because he was in charge of planting them. He has the inside look at Trump’s business and personal dealings and was with Donald Trump through at least one wife and a lot of girlfriends and all the back and forth with them, including monetary payouts and threats for their silence.
Will “Disloyal� change the minds of many voters? I’d doubt it because I think Trump’s support is rather “baked� in. Voters who already hate the man certainly won’t change their minds, and Trump’s supporters will probably regard what Michael Cohen has written as “fake news�. But Cohen’s book is a fun read for the Trump haters among us.
October 25, 2020
“I know where the skeletons are buried because I was the one who buried them.�
� Michael Cohen, Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump
Man, does Cohen get honest in this book.
So I enjoy writing reviews but not about books having to do with Trump The reason that is, is because I am sick of him. I am sick of his voice, his bright orange hair, his slimy lies, his MAGA rallies and his lying sociopathic ways.
So this wont be one of my longer reviews.
I deeply admire Michael Cohen. His honesty is refreshing. He makes no attempts to let himself off the hook at all. And I believe he knows Trump better than almost anyone.
I cal also understand Cohen. I am not making any sort of excuse for him but I know how easy it is to become addicted to power. He's this ordinary guy swept into a life of luxury and power and excitement and oppulance. It would be hard to resist for most people. And he also, I believe, like many before him, thought Trump could never turn on him. I understand Cohen in many ways and I hope, with all the attention his book will generate, that he checks himself and makes sure he stays humble and self aware.
The book itself? Well it grabs you from the beginning as you read with growing repugnance. I knew what Trump was years before he ever took office. Living not far from NYC, and having family from New York, many of whom still live there, I'd heard about for years, the people Trump screwed over, did not pay, lied to. It is sort of regular knowledge up he e. That is also most likely why NYC hates him so much.
I also am baffled by his seeming obsession with Obama. I mean..the thing Cohen talks about where Trump hires an Obama look alike to be berated by him (Trump) is rather sick and extremly disturbing.
I have often wondered if Trump's obsession is sexual in nature (I'm not kidding) because Obama seems to live in this thoughts and influence literally everything he does. The rage he feels toward Obama is so evident. But I do not think it is. I think it is just pure hate and a sort of mental awareness that Obama is smarter the he will ever be and the racist in him cannot handle that.
It is also fascinating to see how everyone cowers before him. People are putty in hands . Of coarse that is happening even now as we see Republicans unable to stand up to him even as their own careers are put in jeopardy and even reporters as well. A good example is Megyn Kelly, whom in fact had her life almost ruined by him, and still seemingly falls over herself to compliment him and seek his approval..or that is how it appears to me.
This book I am giving a five. It is powerful and raw and very well written. I'd prefer though to never have to read another book about Trump ever.
� Michael Cohen, Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump
Man, does Cohen get honest in this book.
So I enjoy writing reviews but not about books having to do with Trump The reason that is, is because I am sick of him. I am sick of his voice, his bright orange hair, his slimy lies, his MAGA rallies and his lying sociopathic ways.
So this wont be one of my longer reviews.
I deeply admire Michael Cohen. His honesty is refreshing. He makes no attempts to let himself off the hook at all. And I believe he knows Trump better than almost anyone.
I cal also understand Cohen. I am not making any sort of excuse for him but I know how easy it is to become addicted to power. He's this ordinary guy swept into a life of luxury and power and excitement and oppulance. It would be hard to resist for most people. And he also, I believe, like many before him, thought Trump could never turn on him. I understand Cohen in many ways and I hope, with all the attention his book will generate, that he checks himself and makes sure he stays humble and self aware.
The book itself? Well it grabs you from the beginning as you read with growing repugnance. I knew what Trump was years before he ever took office. Living not far from NYC, and having family from New York, many of whom still live there, I'd heard about for years, the people Trump screwed over, did not pay, lied to. It is sort of regular knowledge up he e. That is also most likely why NYC hates him so much.
I also am baffled by his seeming obsession with Obama. I mean..the thing Cohen talks about where Trump hires an Obama look alike to be berated by him (Trump) is rather sick and extremly disturbing.
I have often wondered if Trump's obsession is sexual in nature (I'm not kidding) because Obama seems to live in this thoughts and influence literally everything he does. The rage he feels toward Obama is so evident. But I do not think it is. I think it is just pure hate and a sort of mental awareness that Obama is smarter the he will ever be and the racist in him cannot handle that.
It is also fascinating to see how everyone cowers before him. People are putty in hands . Of coarse that is happening even now as we see Republicans unable to stand up to him even as their own careers are put in jeopardy and even reporters as well. A good example is Megyn Kelly, whom in fact had her life almost ruined by him, and still seemingly falls over herself to compliment him and seek his approval..or that is how it appears to me.
This book I am giving a five. It is powerful and raw and very well written. I'd prefer though to never have to read another book about Trump ever.
September 9, 2020
More revelations about the most diabolically corrupt presidency in the history of the United States of America.
October 2, 2020
Disloyal is an eye-opening book. It was engaging and written by a true insider to Donald Trump and his organization. Cohen reveals his shame at his behavior and crimes by enabling and serving Donal Trump. He owns his behavior and greed for power and explains Trump’s influence. Trump, to many people is charismatic and pulls people to him and his cult like personality. Cohen is truthful in this book and explains how conniving and an amoral narcissist Trump is. He claims he also has cognitive issues which can be heard from some of his bizarre comments.
This timely book should open the eyes of everyone, but we know his followers will denounce it. This is a “tell-all� book written by a lawyer who served closely with Trump for a dozen years and was confidant and his fixer. He speaks of the one-man crime wave of our current President and his accomplices. They must fear the post-election criminal investigation. Cohen states: “In some ways, I knew him better than even his family did because I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat. A liar, a fraud, a racist, a predator, a con man: Cohen covers it all in detail. Trump will do anything, including rigging the election.
There are many stories in this book that really need to be read that are outlined in this book. This book is fast reading and not boring and is worth reading.
This timely book should open the eyes of everyone, but we know his followers will denounce it. This is a “tell-all� book written by a lawyer who served closely with Trump for a dozen years and was confidant and his fixer. He speaks of the one-man crime wave of our current President and his accomplices. They must fear the post-election criminal investigation. Cohen states: “In some ways, I knew him better than even his family did because I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat. A liar, a fraud, a racist, a predator, a con man: Cohen covers it all in detail. Trump will do anything, including rigging the election.
There are many stories in this book that really need to be read that are outlined in this book. This book is fast reading and not boring and is worth reading.
September 16, 2020
Where do I begin? I had a hard time putting it down - if I'd not had other things to do I would have read this book in one sitting. It's a page turner! I enjoyed it immensely, even though parts of it scared the bejesus out of me! Michael Cohen is pissed - as much at himself as at Trump, which he readily admits time after time. He relates that since he was dumped by Trump his eyes have opened to Trump's evils and that he has done a lot of soul searching. I'm thinking he may have more to do though? I say this because of the way he described how enamored he was (perhaps still is) by power and money, right up until his residence was raided by the FBI. Man is he one lucky man that his wife and children stood beside him during those twelve years he blindly served Trump's every whim - many times by crossing moral and legal lines and others when he came close to it. I hope his remorse truly is heartfelt - his wife, children and parents deserve that and more! As I was finishing this book news broke about the tapes recorded by Bob Woodward, during his 18 interviews with Trump, for his soon to be released and apparently very telling book "Rage". My reading list grows by the day!
September 13, 2020
I don't know who's worse. Well, actually I do but Cohen is a pretty close second. This will honestly, truly be the last book I read about Trump. I'm hoping my anxiety goes down in a few days. No, it probably won't.
September 13, 2020
Cohen's main defense is both mental illness and that he was addicted to chump like heroin or cocaine. Also that while he did do it, it's an unfair and biased that he was charged.
'It wasn’t just as if I was an alcoholic or a drug addict refusing to get help. It was exactly that.'
While plainly revisionist history, I think it's a valiant attempt on his part to rescue his and his families/loved ones reputation even though at this point it's doubtful his can ever be salvaged.
Cohen is a self identified fixer, that's his skill and not the law. This book is clearly an attempt 'to fix' the damage caused by his behavior and association with chump.
Cohen's father is a Holocaust survivor. He heard chump say that neo-nazi's who chanted, 'jews will not replace us' were 'fine people'. He treated this behavior, a hate crime, like it was a reasonable difference of opinion.
He knew better than most how dangerous world leaders who behaved that way were and still he did it, defended it and even gloried in it.
'Trump stepped up on the makeshift stage we’d installed and he let rip in an hour-long tirade that was breathtaking in its lack of structure, compassion, or coherence.
Trump was spewing things that I found repulsive. Mexicans were rapists...
For an hour I listened as I cringed, inwardly, but swelled outwardly...'
After completing 2 free projects for chump, Cohen accepts a position in which he makes LESS money than he was making before.
For the life of me I can't figure out why employees like Cohen and others want to give labor and cash to billionaires?????????
Make it make sense🤷🏾♀�
Cohen uses a strategy to attempt to obfuscate chumps racism in which he tokenizes marginalized identities. Cohen doesn't explicitly say this but he doesn't need or want to appeal to marginalized voters. What he wants and needs are enough self-hating marginalized folks willing to speak publicly in support of chump.
All a racist is seeking is one single individual of the marginalized group who agrees with their racism. By default they can feel they no longer need to address their own racism.
This is crucial in supporting white supremacy.
'I was all in for Trump, and I eagerly set about proving the case that he wasn’t racist by finding folks from different racial and ethnic and religious groups to speak in his defense.'
Cohen's unbelievably sexist in his treatment of Hope Hicks, Ivanka and Stormy Daniel..
He repeatedly refers to Stormy as a 'porn star' whether a title is required in the discussion or not.
Cohen is liar and he's not at all subtle about it, Examples of his contradictory bullshit:
'I was going to be truthful, but I also had good reason to be economical with the truth.
Of course, as you know, I was lying. I had been reimbursed for the payments, plus money for income tax on the sum, plus a bonus, but that was no one’s business, as far as I was concerned.
If you’re caught in a lie, double and triple down. It was the opposite of Occam’s Razor: instead of the simplest explanation being the likeliest, this strategy involved complicating the narrative, throwing sand in the eyes of the onlooker, claiming that transparently implausible stories were true unless proven otherwise, and even then denying the obvious truth. It was a variation of the old joke: Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes? It was surprisingly effective over time...'
This fucking liar is pissing on our legs, so to speak, and insisting it's rain.
Just playing right in our faces.
This is primarily Cohen's strategy.
He separates the chapters where he admits to his lies from the chapters where he is being arrested and held accountable for his shady deals, at which time he insists on his innocence. Innocence on the shady deals he already fully admitted to making.
Then he begins to brag about how much money and connections he made post chumps election.
'Was I cashing in on my relationship with Trump? Of course I was. What would you do? By March of 2018, to give but one example, I was brokering deals at the level of global, multi-billion-dollar transactions.
These were super-yacht types of people, and that constituted my reality under President Trump.
There I was, going into Mar-a-Lago as the power broker who’d set up a meal between one of the richest men in the world and the President of the United States, and I’d done it with incredible ease.'
Until the FBI show up to arrest him, lol! 'I was now on the other side of the power dynamic I had exploited so often on behalf of Donald Trump.
Over the course of the next several weeks, Trump continued to make statements putting more and more distance between us...
... testified to Congress, for the first time, and I’d lied and lied and lied.'
So here he admits that he is wrong and that his arrest was justified and valid.
'Staying on message meant calling the investigation a witch hunt, no Russian connections, all of the various ways to delegitimize the investigation.'
This becomes his strategy, bizarrely, in this book as makes the case that he was unfairly prosecuted.
“They want you to plead guilty to tax evasion, lying to Congress, and misrepresentation to a bank...If you refuse, on Monday they are going to file an eighty-five-page indictment,� Petrillo said. “They are going to drag you out of your apartment on national television. They are also going to indict Laura.'
The way I cackled!
Why did Cohen think he was above the law? He goes on about how he never committed tax fraud, all his taxes are paid. He never disputes lying to Congress or bank fraud.
Messy, messy.
However if memory serves he falsely inflated the value of his property for loans and then devalued that same property for tax purposes.
That sounds like tax fraud to me as well as bank fraud.
The sheer entitlement of this rich asshole.
He really thinks it's unfair that he be arrested for crimes he committed.
He lied to Congress for fuckssake. He can stop the woe is me bullshit at any time.
'I kept asking, over and over, why I was facing these charges when I was always a legitimate local businessman who followed the letter of the law and only dealt with respectable banks and financial institutions.'
Why you always lying?????? Seriously this is his defense. Expert level gaslighting.
'Petrillo explained that there was allegedly unreported income from my New York City taxi medallions, as well as interest on a loan that I’d made to a private individual.'
So it was true. I can not stop laughing.
'This was the American justice system at work. My lawyers had continually stated that they didn’t see any charges coming, but the truth in this country is that if federal prosecutors want to get you, they will. No matter who you are.'
Ok but Cohen already admitted to the crimes. No one hunted him down relentlessly.
He engaged in crime and rightfully and justifiably had legal consequences.
The sheer ego of this asshole.
'Petrillo said it was unlikely that I would go to prison, based on the charges I had to plead guilty to, but that I’d face significant monetary penalties.'
Ah so he lies and says he never committed the crimes he already admitted to. Then he accepts guilt which he says is to protect his wife but then admits it's really to protect his money.
He goes on to whine about how unfair it is that he's being prosecuted for the crimes he totally admitted and that it was a witch hunt.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Most of this is a curious mixture of furious back pedaling combined with an aggressive attempt to both cover his own ass and save face buttressed by outright lies and gaslighting.
Cohen makes the case repeatedly that his loved ones; wife, kids, parents and even friends were all vocally anti-chump, even before he ran for president.
This is ridiculous and irrelevant at this point. If his kids had spoken out like Kellyanne Conway's daughter, Claudia, maybe, but they didn't. They were fully adults by 2015 and still they stayed silent.
If as the author claims the adult kids were aware of chumps toxic behavior they become complicit like their mother by their silence.
The book describes a scenario in which chump openly lusts after Cohen's daughter Samantha when she is 15, asking her for a kiss and commenting on her body.
Cohen not only doesn't shut this inappropriate commenting down, he reluctantly joins in with nervous laughter.
He describes his 15 yr old daughter's reaction as follows, 'Samantha said she was sick and tired of the way Trump demeaned and degraded me, as if he needed to keep me in my place. She wanted me to quit working for Trump because he was constantly doing things like threatening to cut my pay in half, as he actually did, or withhold my bonus or fire me.
Samantha felt like I had Stockholm Syndrome...'
Now this is a blatant lie. It reminds me of those Facebook posts where parents will attribute a deep thought-quote to their toddler who barely speaks. Teenagers aren't this selfless.
What kind of parent tells their 15 year old kid that their boss demean and degrades them? Who tells their kids about their work pay being cut in half?????
Teenagers aren't spouses or therapists. It's not at all healthy to even involve them in your stress like that.
Now this story/quote I believe, 'Ivanka shunned her in the lobby of Trump Park Avenue, a petty slight signifying that Trump’s daughter believed the Cohen family was beneath her social stature.'
It makes much more sense to me that Cohen's daughter, Sami was socially impacted by her father being a employee of chump. Especially if her daughter and Ivanka are of an age and social circle.
Turns out the daughter is friends with Tiffany.
Additionally Stockholm Syndrome is not a real thing.
The wife has no defense and yes she needs one. She allowed herself to be associated with a racist, sexist criminal. She's not innocent because she stayed married to Cohen and silent as he broke laws to protect this fascist president. She knows who her husband is. Spare me the innocent and ignorant wife routine. She ain't have shit to say as Cohen's star was rising and that same energy needs to be kept now.
Cohen continually compares chump to Jim Jones which is inaccurate as fuck.
First because chump isn't a religious or cult leader. He's a racist the folks following him already believed what he preaches, according to this author that's why chump says it. An example would be abortion. Chump certainly believes in abortion and his position now is a huge about face. He made it to appeal to his base.
So the idea that he's a true believer is bullshit.
Furthermore Jim Jones was a racist and mass murderer. The folks wanting to leave weren't allowed to. The idea that they joyfully drank the koolaid is disrespectful bullshit. The only reason this issue is joked about and treated lightly is because the US and Western world has zero respect for Black lives.
Chump is better compared to Hitler who was also a bit of a bumbling fool. Cohen resists that comparison because his father is a survivor of the Holocaust and his son supported a racist, fascist tyrannical dictator. Chump mirrors the rise of Hitler.
I don't think we'll have official death camps but we already have kids in concentration camps.
I don't blame Cohen for not wanting to acknowledge the part he played in this.
What we're not gonna do though is continue to use a more a palatable to Cohen example and disrespect Black folks further than he already has.
Fuck Cohen's feelings.
He supported the rise of US racist nationalism to historic heights.
I doubt we have death camps but we're on pace for a second civil war.
He needs to stop with this racist nonsense and own his part.
Cohen is guilty and a consummate liar manipulator and gaslighter.
I mean he even lies, gaslights and manipulates in this book using the very same methods he admits to using in earlier chapters of the book.
As if I'm not going to remember what I just read and can be fooled by his late ass defense of his nonexistent innocence.
He is a real character.
Reminds me of Littlefinger on Games of Thrones.
I'm so glad that I pirated this.
This asshole has profited enough already on the strength of his lies.
'It wasn’t just as if I was an alcoholic or a drug addict refusing to get help. It was exactly that.'
While plainly revisionist history, I think it's a valiant attempt on his part to rescue his and his families/loved ones reputation even though at this point it's doubtful his can ever be salvaged.
Cohen is a self identified fixer, that's his skill and not the law. This book is clearly an attempt 'to fix' the damage caused by his behavior and association with chump.
Cohen's father is a Holocaust survivor. He heard chump say that neo-nazi's who chanted, 'jews will not replace us' were 'fine people'. He treated this behavior, a hate crime, like it was a reasonable difference of opinion.
He knew better than most how dangerous world leaders who behaved that way were and still he did it, defended it and even gloried in it.
'Trump stepped up on the makeshift stage we’d installed and he let rip in an hour-long tirade that was breathtaking in its lack of structure, compassion, or coherence.
Trump was spewing things that I found repulsive. Mexicans were rapists...
For an hour I listened as I cringed, inwardly, but swelled outwardly...'
After completing 2 free projects for chump, Cohen accepts a position in which he makes LESS money than he was making before.
For the life of me I can't figure out why employees like Cohen and others want to give labor and cash to billionaires?????????
Make it make sense🤷🏾♀�
Cohen uses a strategy to attempt to obfuscate chumps racism in which he tokenizes marginalized identities. Cohen doesn't explicitly say this but he doesn't need or want to appeal to marginalized voters. What he wants and needs are enough self-hating marginalized folks willing to speak publicly in support of chump.
All a racist is seeking is one single individual of the marginalized group who agrees with their racism. By default they can feel they no longer need to address their own racism.
This is crucial in supporting white supremacy.
'I was all in for Trump, and I eagerly set about proving the case that he wasn’t racist by finding folks from different racial and ethnic and religious groups to speak in his defense.'
Cohen's unbelievably sexist in his treatment of Hope Hicks, Ivanka and Stormy Daniel..
He repeatedly refers to Stormy as a 'porn star' whether a title is required in the discussion or not.
Cohen is liar and he's not at all subtle about it, Examples of his contradictory bullshit:
'I was going to be truthful, but I also had good reason to be economical with the truth.
Of course, as you know, I was lying. I had been reimbursed for the payments, plus money for income tax on the sum, plus a bonus, but that was no one’s business, as far as I was concerned.
If you’re caught in a lie, double and triple down. It was the opposite of Occam’s Razor: instead of the simplest explanation being the likeliest, this strategy involved complicating the narrative, throwing sand in the eyes of the onlooker, claiming that transparently implausible stories were true unless proven otherwise, and even then denying the obvious truth. It was a variation of the old joke: Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes? It was surprisingly effective over time...'
This fucking liar is pissing on our legs, so to speak, and insisting it's rain.
Just playing right in our faces.
This is primarily Cohen's strategy.
He separates the chapters where he admits to his lies from the chapters where he is being arrested and held accountable for his shady deals, at which time he insists on his innocence. Innocence on the shady deals he already fully admitted to making.
Then he begins to brag about how much money and connections he made post chumps election.
'Was I cashing in on my relationship with Trump? Of course I was. What would you do? By March of 2018, to give but one example, I was brokering deals at the level of global, multi-billion-dollar transactions.
These were super-yacht types of people, and that constituted my reality under President Trump.
There I was, going into Mar-a-Lago as the power broker who’d set up a meal between one of the richest men in the world and the President of the United States, and I’d done it with incredible ease.'
Until the FBI show up to arrest him, lol! 'I was now on the other side of the power dynamic I had exploited so often on behalf of Donald Trump.
Over the course of the next several weeks, Trump continued to make statements putting more and more distance between us...
... testified to Congress, for the first time, and I’d lied and lied and lied.'
So here he admits that he is wrong and that his arrest was justified and valid.
'Staying on message meant calling the investigation a witch hunt, no Russian connections, all of the various ways to delegitimize the investigation.'
This becomes his strategy, bizarrely, in this book as makes the case that he was unfairly prosecuted.
“They want you to plead guilty to tax evasion, lying to Congress, and misrepresentation to a bank...If you refuse, on Monday they are going to file an eighty-five-page indictment,� Petrillo said. “They are going to drag you out of your apartment on national television. They are also going to indict Laura.'
The way I cackled!
Why did Cohen think he was above the law? He goes on about how he never committed tax fraud, all his taxes are paid. He never disputes lying to Congress or bank fraud.
Messy, messy.
However if memory serves he falsely inflated the value of his property for loans and then devalued that same property for tax purposes.
That sounds like tax fraud to me as well as bank fraud.
The sheer entitlement of this rich asshole.
He really thinks it's unfair that he be arrested for crimes he committed.
He lied to Congress for fuckssake. He can stop the woe is me bullshit at any time.
'I kept asking, over and over, why I was facing these charges when I was always a legitimate local businessman who followed the letter of the law and only dealt with respectable banks and financial institutions.'
Why you always lying?????? Seriously this is his defense. Expert level gaslighting.
'Petrillo explained that there was allegedly unreported income from my New York City taxi medallions, as well as interest on a loan that I’d made to a private individual.'
So it was true. I can not stop laughing.
'This was the American justice system at work. My lawyers had continually stated that they didn’t see any charges coming, but the truth in this country is that if federal prosecutors want to get you, they will. No matter who you are.'
Ok but Cohen already admitted to the crimes. No one hunted him down relentlessly.
He engaged in crime and rightfully and justifiably had legal consequences.
The sheer ego of this asshole.
'Petrillo said it was unlikely that I would go to prison, based on the charges I had to plead guilty to, but that I’d face significant monetary penalties.'
Ah so he lies and says he never committed the crimes he already admitted to. Then he accepts guilt which he says is to protect his wife but then admits it's really to protect his money.
He goes on to whine about how unfair it is that he's being prosecuted for the crimes he totally admitted and that it was a witch hunt.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Most of this is a curious mixture of furious back pedaling combined with an aggressive attempt to both cover his own ass and save face buttressed by outright lies and gaslighting.
Cohen makes the case repeatedly that his loved ones; wife, kids, parents and even friends were all vocally anti-chump, even before he ran for president.
This is ridiculous and irrelevant at this point. If his kids had spoken out like Kellyanne Conway's daughter, Claudia, maybe, but they didn't. They were fully adults by 2015 and still they stayed silent.
If as the author claims the adult kids were aware of chumps toxic behavior they become complicit like their mother by their silence.
The book describes a scenario in which chump openly lusts after Cohen's daughter Samantha when she is 15, asking her for a kiss and commenting on her body.
Cohen not only doesn't shut this inappropriate commenting down, he reluctantly joins in with nervous laughter.
He describes his 15 yr old daughter's reaction as follows, 'Samantha said she was sick and tired of the way Trump demeaned and degraded me, as if he needed to keep me in my place. She wanted me to quit working for Trump because he was constantly doing things like threatening to cut my pay in half, as he actually did, or withhold my bonus or fire me.
Samantha felt like I had Stockholm Syndrome...'
Now this is a blatant lie. It reminds me of those Facebook posts where parents will attribute a deep thought-quote to their toddler who barely speaks. Teenagers aren't this selfless.
What kind of parent tells their 15 year old kid that their boss demean and degrades them? Who tells their kids about their work pay being cut in half?????
Teenagers aren't spouses or therapists. It's not at all healthy to even involve them in your stress like that.
Now this story/quote I believe, 'Ivanka shunned her in the lobby of Trump Park Avenue, a petty slight signifying that Trump’s daughter believed the Cohen family was beneath her social stature.'
It makes much more sense to me that Cohen's daughter, Sami was socially impacted by her father being a employee of chump. Especially if her daughter and Ivanka are of an age and social circle.
Turns out the daughter is friends with Tiffany.
Additionally Stockholm Syndrome is not a real thing.
The wife has no defense and yes she needs one. She allowed herself to be associated with a racist, sexist criminal. She's not innocent because she stayed married to Cohen and silent as he broke laws to protect this fascist president. She knows who her husband is. Spare me the innocent and ignorant wife routine. She ain't have shit to say as Cohen's star was rising and that same energy needs to be kept now.
Cohen continually compares chump to Jim Jones which is inaccurate as fuck.
First because chump isn't a religious or cult leader. He's a racist the folks following him already believed what he preaches, according to this author that's why chump says it. An example would be abortion. Chump certainly believes in abortion and his position now is a huge about face. He made it to appeal to his base.
So the idea that he's a true believer is bullshit.
Furthermore Jim Jones was a racist and mass murderer. The folks wanting to leave weren't allowed to. The idea that they joyfully drank the koolaid is disrespectful bullshit. The only reason this issue is joked about and treated lightly is because the US and Western world has zero respect for Black lives.
Chump is better compared to Hitler who was also a bit of a bumbling fool. Cohen resists that comparison because his father is a survivor of the Holocaust and his son supported a racist, fascist tyrannical dictator. Chump mirrors the rise of Hitler.
I don't think we'll have official death camps but we already have kids in concentration camps.
I don't blame Cohen for not wanting to acknowledge the part he played in this.
What we're not gonna do though is continue to use a more a palatable to Cohen example and disrespect Black folks further than he already has.
Fuck Cohen's feelings.
He supported the rise of US racist nationalism to historic heights.
I doubt we have death camps but we're on pace for a second civil war.
He needs to stop with this racist nonsense and own his part.
Cohen is guilty and a consummate liar manipulator and gaslighter.
I mean he even lies, gaslights and manipulates in this book using the very same methods he admits to using in earlier chapters of the book.
As if I'm not going to remember what I just read and can be fooled by his late ass defense of his nonexistent innocence.
He is a real character.
Reminds me of Littlefinger on Games of Thrones.
I'm so glad that I pirated this.
This asshole has profited enough already on the strength of his lies.
January 11, 2023
What is Trump's Greatest Fear?
I'm not going to offer spoiler-alerts. This book by Michael Cohen is a must-read. I don't like trump and I'm proud of it. Why am I proud? Because I didn't fall for his swindle. Doesn't mean I'm smarter than those who did.... Well, maybe a little.... I just thought trump was a clown long before he chose to run for president. All one had to do was watch how he conducted himself on TV. I've heard people say how they like him because he speaks his mind. Any of us can do that, but we demonstrate restraint and adult behavior because that's the right thing to do. Giving him a free pass doesn't make him qualified to run anything let alone America.
I watched Cohen during his questioning before Congress and admired him for coming clean. I saw a guy with nothing to lose, and looking for redemption in the eyes of his family, friends, and nation. I knew many would not give that to him because they were devoted to trump. But I believed him especially in his final words stating what he believed Donald J. Trump to be and that if you continue following him you would find yourself standing in Cohen's very shoes sooner than later. Cohen even declared trump would not leave office peacefully and we saw what happened on Jan 6 (no matter how many try and deny it).
This is the first book I've read about trump and probably the only one because Cohen was there side by side with him. I didn't want any third-hand telling of the man who divided our nation not only from Americans, but put us against the Free World (look what's happening in Brazil! A great example we gave them!). In Cohen's book you'll learn how trump operated. How he failed business after business time and again, always falling back on his daddy's fortune. You'll see just how much trump has disdain for even his most devoted followers and America itself. It's a pity his most devoted followers (worshipers even) won't read this because I believe Cohen's book rings true with who and what trump is, and how dangerous he is to our country. The thing is, we can stop it right now. And we all know it. We just have to do it.
I applaud Cohen for his sincerity. I hope he has found his peace and gotten back on his feet again. He deserves it much more than trump did. And readers will also learn trump's greatest fear. If you don't already know it, you will by the time you finish this book. Keep on reading and 'Save America' (pun intended).
I'm not going to offer spoiler-alerts. This book by Michael Cohen is a must-read. I don't like trump and I'm proud of it. Why am I proud? Because I didn't fall for his swindle. Doesn't mean I'm smarter than those who did.... Well, maybe a little.... I just thought trump was a clown long before he chose to run for president. All one had to do was watch how he conducted himself on TV. I've heard people say how they like him because he speaks his mind. Any of us can do that, but we demonstrate restraint and adult behavior because that's the right thing to do. Giving him a free pass doesn't make him qualified to run anything let alone America.
I watched Cohen during his questioning before Congress and admired him for coming clean. I saw a guy with nothing to lose, and looking for redemption in the eyes of his family, friends, and nation. I knew many would not give that to him because they were devoted to trump. But I believed him especially in his final words stating what he believed Donald J. Trump to be and that if you continue following him you would find yourself standing in Cohen's very shoes sooner than later. Cohen even declared trump would not leave office peacefully and we saw what happened on Jan 6 (no matter how many try and deny it).
This is the first book I've read about trump and probably the only one because Cohen was there side by side with him. I didn't want any third-hand telling of the man who divided our nation not only from Americans, but put us against the Free World (look what's happening in Brazil! A great example we gave them!). In Cohen's book you'll learn how trump operated. How he failed business after business time and again, always falling back on his daddy's fortune. You'll see just how much trump has disdain for even his most devoted followers and America itself. It's a pity his most devoted followers (worshipers even) won't read this because I believe Cohen's book rings true with who and what trump is, and how dangerous he is to our country. The thing is, we can stop it right now. And we all know it. We just have to do it.
I applaud Cohen for his sincerity. I hope he has found his peace and gotten back on his feet again. He deserves it much more than trump did. And readers will also learn trump's greatest fear. If you don't already know it, you will by the time you finish this book. Keep on reading and 'Save America' (pun intended).
December 18, 2020
Michael Cohen begins by showing how close he was to Donald Trump for 12 years as a lawyer and top executive for the Trump Organization. They spoke 10 times a day... at all hours. Their cell phone contact lists were identical. He was included in important company matters. Prior to joining the TO he had been successful in law and business and wasn’t in need of a job. He was attracted to the gangster style excitement.
He takes you through the deals and deeds of a fixer for a man devoid of personal responsibility with no respect for the law. Trump would stiff contractors, assume ownership of licensing agreements, cheat consumers and tenants and leave it to Cohen to make any fallout go away.
Reviews for this book seem to focus on whether or not reviewers believe Cohen. I believe that what he wrote is true, but there are surely more unmentioned actions for which Cohen may have criminal liability.
While not illegal a notable omission could be Cohen’s role in the 2016/17 renegotiation of the Trumps� pre-nup. He describes the stasis in the Trump marriage = Trump denies his affairs and Melania pretends to believe him.
While Cohen still has a sense of entitlement, witnessed by going out to dinner with an ankle bracelet, I believe he has been jolted into remorse. He has the love and support of his family. His wife and children for years encouraged him to leave his job with Trump.
Like the adoring fans at his rallies, Trump’s staff is caught in his cult. As Cohen shows, staying in the cult has perks for the ego and the price of leaving is high. I’m reminded of the episode in where Warren Jeffries, from a prison phone, tells his cult members to paint a wall and gives married couples permission (or not) to have sex. No matter how extreme, nor the cost to themselves, they do it. This is how Trump employees behave. We have seen it too, with the Republican Party officials.
Cohen will never be a John Dean; to my knowledge Dean came into the White House unblemished. I do think Cohen’s book will be read in years to come for its portrait of organizational behavior in a corporate environment when the head is unprincipled and widely referenced as the story of Trump unfolds.
He takes you through the deals and deeds of a fixer for a man devoid of personal responsibility with no respect for the law. Trump would stiff contractors, assume ownership of licensing agreements, cheat consumers and tenants and leave it to Cohen to make any fallout go away.
Reviews for this book seem to focus on whether or not reviewers believe Cohen. I believe that what he wrote is true, but there are surely more unmentioned actions for which Cohen may have criminal liability.
While not illegal a notable omission could be Cohen’s role in the 2016/17 renegotiation of the Trumps� pre-nup. He describes the stasis in the Trump marriage = Trump denies his affairs and Melania pretends to believe him.
While Cohen still has a sense of entitlement, witnessed by going out to dinner with an ankle bracelet, I believe he has been jolted into remorse. He has the love and support of his family. His wife and children for years encouraged him to leave his job with Trump.
Like the adoring fans at his rallies, Trump’s staff is caught in his cult. As Cohen shows, staying in the cult has perks for the ego and the price of leaving is high. I’m reminded of the episode in where Warren Jeffries, from a prison phone, tells his cult members to paint a wall and gives married couples permission (or not) to have sex. No matter how extreme, nor the cost to themselves, they do it. This is how Trump employees behave. We have seen it too, with the Republican Party officials.
Cohen will never be a John Dean; to my knowledge Dean came into the White House unblemished. I do think Cohen’s book will be read in years to come for its portrait of organizational behavior in a corporate environment when the head is unprincipled and widely referenced as the story of Trump unfolds.
September 12, 2020
The best tell-all I've read so far. This is actually first hand knowledge and Cohen actually breaks down the defrauding of small business, the lies, the strong arming. The only reason I'm not giving it five stars is because I felt the ending was a bit abrupt. The remaining page count led you to believe there was much more to come but it was supporting documents booo. The book is not short by any means, but it's such a page turner I wanted more. What I like here is that Cohen doesn't make excuses for himself. Do I think the mafia's influence on his childhood was a bit Goodfellas like lol? Yes. Do I feel there is a lot more dirt he can spill? I do. Do I feel he's still protecting Trump, by not divulging even bigger transgressions? Absolutely. But I also feel that Cohen is simultaneously protecting himself. These books should always be taken with a grain of salt because they're so subjective (and a bit revisionist maybe?), but Cohen attempts to 'bring receipts' by posting emails and pictures.
What is obvious in these 'tell alls' is that the authors chose to ingratiate themselves to the Trumps (45 and Melania) knowing they were selfish, or horribly amoral, or both, to advance their own careers and agendas. They wanted access. They dreamt of ways they could impact policy and wield power from the White House and they were willing to sacrifice everything to do that, even their own finances. How do you allow Trump to pay you with money he already owes you (Cohen)? Or pay lawyers tens of thousands of dollars, out of your own pocket, to draft a contract for you to be an 'unpaid advisor' (Melania's 'friend' Stephanie)? YOU'RE paying for them to allow you to work FOR FREE??? It's mind boggling. This is partly what Cohen tries to explain when he delves into the draw of the Trumps and why his supporters are as cultish as they are.
Cohen is self deprecating, almost too much so, and at times tries to 'sound poetic' especially in the first few chapters but, if you can ride that out, there is a lot here to enjoy.
What is obvious in these 'tell alls' is that the authors chose to ingratiate themselves to the Trumps (45 and Melania) knowing they were selfish, or horribly amoral, or both, to advance their own careers and agendas. They wanted access. They dreamt of ways they could impact policy and wield power from the White House and they were willing to sacrifice everything to do that, even their own finances. How do you allow Trump to pay you with money he already owes you (Cohen)? Or pay lawyers tens of thousands of dollars, out of your own pocket, to draft a contract for you to be an 'unpaid advisor' (Melania's 'friend' Stephanie)? YOU'RE paying for them to allow you to work FOR FREE??? It's mind boggling. This is partly what Cohen tries to explain when he delves into the draw of the Trumps and why his supporters are as cultish as they are.
Cohen is self deprecating, almost too much so, and at times tries to 'sound poetic' especially in the first few chapters but, if you can ride that out, there is a lot here to enjoy.
September 10, 2020
I have so many thoughts about this book. First let me say that I didn't like Michael Cohen before I read this book. I admire his moxie for writing it and for admitting, in hindsight, his grievous faults and taking responsibility for all the horrific things he did, destroying so many lives in his insatiable greed in his quest for money and power, never mind what he did to his family. His admitted blindness and excuses he gave to himself in his quest. But, like a life-long criminal who finally gets caught, discovers a conscious, truly sees the destruction and ramifications of his actions, suddenly comes clean, he is sorry now. If he wasn't tossed aside by Trump and found himself on the other side of his vindictiveness, I doubt we would have been reading this book. He would have continued with his ride in the cult he joined and facilitated having consumed the Kool-Aid and been fully vested.
As a news and reading junkie, I knew what the outside truly interested person knew about certain events. But, not how things came to be and what was going on behind the scenes. I knew all about the professional Trump from years of listening to my close friends from NY talk about him and his shenanigans long before his political aspirations. This book delves further into what was really happening that we could only speculate about. There were some things that were skimmed over, but other areas that were more fully explained. I have no doubt there are reasons for this. But, what was explained, including the parts of how he was lured in, Trump's "personality," some of the Trump family dynamics was enough to give a disturbing picture in itself. Given where we are now as a result of this president's actions, there were times I had to put the book down and walk away. But, this and, of course, the Bob Woodward book, were and are the two books I had wanted to read about this mess. I am not sorry I read this book. I still don't like Michael Cohen.
As a news and reading junkie, I knew what the outside truly interested person knew about certain events. But, not how things came to be and what was going on behind the scenes. I knew all about the professional Trump from years of listening to my close friends from NY talk about him and his shenanigans long before his political aspirations. This book delves further into what was really happening that we could only speculate about. There were some things that were skimmed over, but other areas that were more fully explained. I have no doubt there are reasons for this. But, what was explained, including the parts of how he was lured in, Trump's "personality," some of the Trump family dynamics was enough to give a disturbing picture in itself. Given where we are now as a result of this president's actions, there were times I had to put the book down and walk away. But, this and, of course, the Bob Woodward book, were and are the two books I had wanted to read about this mess. I am not sorry I read this book. I still don't like Michael Cohen.
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