This Is How Much Money Michael Cohen Has Made Publicly Hating On Trump | NYC Hush Money Trial

4 months ago

Forbes reporter Zach Everson joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss Michael Cohen, former President Trump's lawyer who testified today at the NYC hush money trial, and how much money Cohen has made in his public crusade against Trump.

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Transcript

00:00 Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes breaking news. Joining me now is my Forbes

00:07 colleague, staff writer Zach Everson. Zach, thanks so much for joining me.

00:12 Thanks for having me on again, Brittany.

00:13 Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former fixer, has been on the stand in the former president's

00:19 New York hush money trial. First, let's talk about his testimony. Over the past few days,

00:24 has anything stuck out to you?

00:28 Not really. You know, it's a story that he's told repeatedly. He's largely stuck to it,

00:34 best I could tell. I mean, I haven't had a chance to go through the actual transcripts

00:37 yet, but there's nothing that really stood out yet, although he did just, the prosecution

00:42 did just wrap with him as we talked about this on Tuesday afternoon, and he's about

00:46 to face the Trump's defense attorney. So we may get some more information then.

00:52 So as you mentioned, it's a story that he's told again and again. He has been charged

00:57 in the past with lying to Congress. Is he a reliable witness here?

01:03 No, I mean, it's never good to be a witness and, you know, have perjury in congressional

01:09 testimony around your neck. He said he's come clean from that. You know, we can expect that

01:15 the defense attorneys are going to make a big deal about that as they should. You know,

01:20 my understanding is that was part of the reason the Manhattan D.A. didn't bring charges earlier

01:24 was that there was a lot of internal debate within the office about whether or not Cohen

01:28 was a reliable person here. But at the end of the day, his reliability may not be the

01:34 most important thing because there's a lot of documentation that's going on here that

01:37 they have to back it up as well. Not as much as in the civil trial, but there's you know,

01:42 it's Michael Cohen is not the make or break, I believe.

01:46 You post the question for Forbes, how much Michael Cohen has made hating on Trump. Here

01:51 are the titles of his two books, Disloyal, a memoir, the true story of the former personal

01:56 attorney to President Donald J. Trump and Revenge, how Donald Trump weaponized the Department

02:01 of Justice against his critics. How did these books sell?

02:05 They did great. The first one was a blockbuster. It spent four weeks on The New York Times

02:09 bestseller list. Our estimate that we got from Second of Books, a scan which tracks

02:14 this sort of publishing data set up to sold two hundred ninety thousand copies. His follow

02:19 up book did OK. It was also on the bestseller list just a week and it sold by twenty twenty

02:25 three thousand six hundred copies as of last October.

02:29 He also has a podcast about his time in the Trump sphere. There's a couple hundred episodes

02:36 of that. Talk about his podcast for us. Sure. I recommend go listening to the podcast.

02:42 I'm a guest. It was a lively conversation with Mr. Cohen. Yeah, it's actually on hiatus

02:48 for a few weeks. He's not doing any social media and he's not doing any podcast during

02:52 the course of this trial. But it is certainly something where he has using to hate on Trump.

02:58 Stormy Daniels has been a repeat guest, despite the fact that she had sued him at one point

03:02 and they reportedly settled. You know, from my experience on it, he certainly went out

03:07 of his way to to trash Trump when possible and also trash people in Trump's orbit.

03:13 And is this podcast a lucrative revenue stream for the president's former fixer?

03:19 It does well. You know, it's been amongst the top three hundred and fifty most popular

03:23 podcasts in the United States, according to Charitable. Some episodes have certainly done

03:27 better than others. I'm going to suspect that the one with Stormy Daniels probably got a

03:31 lot better numbers than minded. I don't know what those numbers are, but it certainly seems

03:36 like a solid revenue. He wouldn't have been doing it for three hundred fifty episodes

03:39 if he wasn't making decent money off of it.

03:42 Michael Cohen really has been embroiled in this national scandal since twenty eighteen

03:47 when The Washington or The Wall Street Journal rather broke the story of the payout. Can

03:51 you talk about the other legal battle battles that former President Donald Trump and Michael

03:56 Cohen have been involved in together?

03:58 Yeah, they've they've sued each other, which is something that you see happen a lot when

04:02 people are involved with Trump. Cohen sued Trump for failing to pay his legal fees, as

04:09 he claims Trump had promised. I believe that suit got tossed, Cohen appealed it won and

04:14 then they settled. Trump has also sued Cohen for neglecting his fiduciary duty as his attorney.

04:21 I can't recall the status of that one, but yeah, they've been embroiled in some lawsuits

04:26 against each other, which is surprising again.

04:29 And is this the end of the road for the two in terms of legal battles?

04:33 No, the end of the road for any legal battles involving Donald Trump is nowhere in sight.

04:40 They continue, you know, don't don't count out Donald Trump. Michael Cohen's business

04:45 is based on criticizing Donald Trump. So I would not be surprised if there's another

04:50 lawsuit again involving those two.

04:54 That's an interesting point. His business is based on hating Donald Trump. Is this going

04:59 to be lucrative for Michael Cohen in the long term? How much juice is left to squeeze here?

05:05 Donald Trump, it's been going on for decades and we're still getting it. You know, you

05:08 and I are talking about it right now as I continue to report on it. So, yeah, it's it's

05:13 not going away. I've made the mistake of saying it was going away in the past. That was wrong.

05:18 I sounded foolish. A lot of other people have said that, you know, Donald Trump, just when

05:22 you think he's out, whether it's due to bankruptcies in his hotels or his marketing interest fading

05:29 or, you know, leading to an insurrection at the Capitol, he bounces back.

05:34 Michael Cohen's testimony really went viral for what he was saying about the former president's

05:39 wife, amongst other things. When the dust settles from this trial, what's next for the

05:45 former attorney?

05:49 Kicking back on the podcast, going back on TV, he's frequently a guest on CNN, more

05:54 media appearances. I would not be surprised to see a third book coming out or some sort

05:59 of other media documentary or something like that.

06:03 Zach Everson, per usual, thanks for the conversation.

06:05 My pleasure.

06:07 Thank you.

06:08 Thank you.

06:08 [END]

This Is How Much Money Michael Cohen Has Made Publicly Hating On Trump | NYC Hush Money Trial

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