Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Trump & Michael Cohen speak for first time since bitter split

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Trump & Michael Cohen speak for first time since bitter split · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Michael Cohen, donald Trump's one time lawyer and fixer whose
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: testimony helped make his old boss convicted felon, is now
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  Speaker 1: doing all he can to win back the president. This evening,
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  Speaker 1: he released a portion of a radio interview he did
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  Speaker 1: kissing up over and over again with the guy he
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  Speaker 1: not too long ago called a racist and a con man.
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  Speaker 1: Cohen was the only person to serve prison time in
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  Speaker 1: connection with the President's multiple felonies. In twenty eighteen, he
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  Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to eight criminal accounts implicating the president in
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  Speaker 1: a payment scheme to silence women who claim to have
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  Speaker 1: had affairs with Trump ahead of the twenty sixteen election.
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  Speaker 1: Cohen did more than a year in federal prison wrote
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  Speaker 1: two books about it, titled Disloyal and Revenge. Revenge's subtitle,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, is how Donald Trump weaponized the US
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  Speaker 1: Department of Justice against his critics, and the irony of
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  Speaker 1: that will become apparent shortly. In twenty twenty four, Cohen
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  Speaker 1: became a star witness against the President, who would go
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  Speaker 1: on to be convicted of thirty four New York State
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  Speaker 1: felony accounts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments.
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  Speaker 1: To adult film star Stormy Daniels. The President denied the
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  Speaker 1: affair the convictions under appeal, and you would imagine that
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  Speaker 1: the rift between former client and former fixer would be unfixable,
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  Speaker 1: especially given all they said about one another.
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  Speaker 2: He's a weak person, and by being weak, unlike other
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  Speaker 2: people that you watch, He's a weak person.
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  Speaker 3: If I know what mister Trump is, he is a racist,
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  Speaker 3: He is a con man, and he is a cheat.
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  Speaker 3: Mister Trump called me a rat for choosing to tell
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  Speaker 3: the truth, much like a mobster would do when one
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  Speaker 3: of his men decides to cooperate with the government.
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  Speaker 4: But you know, he's a sleeves bag.
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  Speaker 5: Everybody knows that.
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  Speaker 1: Oh it's a sleez bag. Apparently not always a sleez bag.
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  Speaker 1: Our first inkling of the reconciliation came in January when
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  Speaker 1: Cohen went on his substack claiming that he quote felt
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  Speaker 1: pressured and coerced unquote by New York's Attorney General Leticia
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  Speaker 1: James Manhattan Daan Alvin Bragg to testify against the President.
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  Speaker 1: Then today, Cohen, who's now a New York radio talk
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  Speaker 1: show host, posted this teaser for the conversation he recently
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  Speaker 1: recorded with his old boss, and now it seems his
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  Speaker 1: former nemesis, quoting his post. After years of betrayal, heartbreak, fury,
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  Speaker 1: and silence, two men who once stood together against the
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  Speaker 1: world faced the impossible question, can forgiveness resurrect what hatred destroyed?
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  Speaker 4: Well?
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  Speaker 1: He plugged the tape interview again on the lead with
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  Speaker 1: Senan Shake Tapperan followed up with this in the on
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  Speaker 1: air run up to his six BM broadcast in WBC Radio.
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  Speaker 4: The President and I, over the course of the past
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  Speaker 4: one year, have seen each other three times, and during
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  Speaker 4: those meetings, they were emotional, they were they were familiar. Again.
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  Speaker 4: It's really it's very tough to describe the feeling. We
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  Speaker 4: had a friendship for fifteen years.
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  Speaker 6: Very close friendship, furry that was rocked by politics, by
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  Speaker 6: the weaponzation of the Department of Justice. And interestingly enough,
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  Speaker 6: that's part of the conversation that there may be no
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  Speaker 6: two people on this planet that have had the Justice
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  Speaker 6: Department weaponized against them more than Trump and I. There
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  Speaker 6: has not been two people maybe that have been put
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  Speaker 6: against one another. Maybe, I don't know, since Andrew Jackson
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  Speaker 6: and Burr, I mean, the only difference is, you know,
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  Speaker 6: there was no hot.
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  Speaker 4: Lead in this one, there was only incarceration.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, this is a point of fact. It was Alexander Hamilton,
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  Speaker 1: not Andrew Jackson who traded hot lead with Aaron Burr.
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  Speaker 1: But Potato potato. Cohen was on a roll, and his
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  Speaker 1: point seems to be that he and the President have
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  Speaker 1: found common ground in their perceived shared victimhood, a theme.
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  Speaker 1: The interview began.
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  Speaker 4: With how you doing, sir?
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  Speaker 5: Welcome, welcome country, are doing good? Well?
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  Speaker 4: Thanks thanks to you, sir. So I want to go
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  Speaker 4: back to twenty sixteen if we can, And because you
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  Speaker 4: and I have obviously traveled the pretty rocky road together.
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  Speaker 4: You remember, do you remember, sir, when I went on
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  Speaker 4: CNN with Brianna Keeler and she told me that you
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  Speaker 4: were underwatering the polls and I responded with those famous
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  Speaker 4: two words, says who, which became some worldwide meme and advocate.
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  Speaker 5: And then they weaponized you like nobody's ever been weaponized,
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  Speaker 5: like few have been.
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  Speaker 4: Well maybe just you and I, sir, and you yeah,
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  Speaker 4: me too, but I.
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  Speaker 5: Don't consider mine. You know, mine was mine was at
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  Speaker 5: a level that nobody's ever seen before. But they weaponized you,
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  Speaker 5: They weaponized a lot of people, and I respect the
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  Speaker 5: fact that you recanted everything you said, and that's a
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  Speaker 5: big that's a big thing that you did.
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  Speaker 1: So there it is. The man who wrote a book
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  Speaker 1: subtitled How Donald Trump Weaponized the US Department of Justice
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  Speaker 1: against his critics now claims to believe that Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: is actually just another victim, just like him, and he's
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  Speaker 1: back to calling him Boss. And if you're picking up
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  Speaker 1: on just a hint of lips brushing backsides, then listen
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  Speaker 1: to this.
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  Speaker 5: The construction jobs in this country are through the roof,
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  Speaker 5: and that's because of all the plants and factories being
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  Speaker 5: built all over our country. There's never been it's a renaissance.
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  Speaker 5: There's never been anything like it.
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  Speaker 4: So maybe what we should do is then have a
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  Speaker 4: press conference and literally put out all of the accomplishments,
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  Speaker 4: because what's happening is Boss, You remember when I was
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  Speaker 4: by your side? Boss.
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  Speaker 1: The conversation ended with the teaser from More to come
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  Speaker 1: over the weekend and Cohen playing a clip of Peaches
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  Speaker 1: and Herbs singing Reunited and it Feels So Good. Joined
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  Speaker 1: now by independent journalists Tara Paul Mary says Michael Cohen
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  Speaker 1: reached out to her last year to ask for the
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  Speaker 1: President's phone number. Also co founder of the Lincoln Project
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  Speaker 1: George Conway. Terror is someone who regularly covers the president.
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  Speaker 1: I'm wondering, what if anything stands out to you about
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  Speaker 1: this interview.
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  Speaker 7: Well, they seem to be back to exactly where they were.
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  Speaker 7: He heard the last word. He said, Boss, he's already
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  Speaker 7: working for him, and he's got another platform WABC in
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  Speaker 7: addition to his substack following, he has a podcast, he
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  Speaker 7: has media, and that's always been important to President Trump.
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  Speaker 7: But yeah, like you mentioned, fourteen months ago in June,
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  Speaker 7: Michael Cohen reached out to me because he saw that
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  Speaker 7: I called the president doing reporting and he asked me
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  Speaker 7: for his number, and he said to me, Terror, I
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  Speaker 7: know him better than anyone else. I think I can
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  Speaker 7: get back on his good side. And I was completely flabbergasted.
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  Speaker 7: I was like, what is going on here? And obviously
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  Speaker 7: it was about a pardon. It's always been about a
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  Speaker 7: pardon for him, right, I mean, he was angry at
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  Speaker 7: Biden for not giving him a part, and he said
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  Speaker 7: before Biden left office, I'm somebody's son too, because he
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  Speaker 7: was angry that he pardoned Hunter. But I was just like,
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  Speaker 7: he can get the number from anyone else, and there
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  Speaker 7: are a lot of journalists and other people had it.
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  Speaker 7: So I just gave it to him, but I didn't
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  Speaker 7: expect much from it. But then, you know, a few
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  Speaker 7: months later, I saw him on MS NOW defending President
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  Speaker 7: Trump on Jeffrey Epstein, like emphatically the way he almost
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  Speaker 7: did as a fixer, saying, I know Trump. I know Trump.
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  Speaker 7: If he says he wasn't on the plane, he wasn't
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  Speaker 7: on the plane, I just know that. And so I
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  Speaker 7: asked him on my show, and I asked him a
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  Speaker 7: bunch of questions about Jeffrey Epstein when he was a
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  Speaker 7: fixer and some of the lawsuits that came forward that
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  Speaker 7: were connected to Jeffrey Epstein about it, and he snapped
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  Speaker 7: at me, and he was incredibly defensive. And I think
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  Speaker 7: you see the progression over the year, as you mentioned
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  Speaker 7: until January when he said he felt compelled and coerced
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  Speaker 7: by Alvin Brad, there was a progression in which he
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  Speaker 7: was working his way back into the President's inner circle
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  Speaker 7: and that he's a very valuable voice to be defending
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  Speaker 7: the President on Jeffrey Epstein. And he admitted on my
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  Speaker 7: show that he handled a case involving an infant, and
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  Speaker 7: he said he sent private investigators to go handle it,
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  Speaker 7: which is obviously disturbing. But you know, President Trump has
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  Speaker 7: denied all allegations against him, but still he was playing
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  Speaker 7: the roleless fixer. And he ended that with boss, He's
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  Speaker 7: back exactly where he started.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, George, I mean, is this reconciliation genuine? And I
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  Speaker 1: guess what else is Michael Cohen gonna do? I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know that he has much going on other
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  Speaker 1: than this this radio show. This gets him a few
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, what do you think?
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  Speaker 2: I mean genuine, I don't know what's genuine. It's it's comical.
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  Speaker 2: I mean it was the listening to this show was
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  Speaker 2: basically comical for the first five or ten minutes, and
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  Speaker 2: then it was incredibly boring because all we heard was
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump perseverating and saying the same delusional things that
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  Speaker 2: he says from day to day, Like, you know, oh,
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  Speaker 2: I ran was two weeks away from a nuclear weapon
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  Speaker 2: if I hadn't broken the jcpoa Israel and so you know,
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  Speaker 2: Israel wouldn't exist, and Collen Pipes in Saudi Arabia wouldn't exist.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it was just this incredible narcissistic love fest,
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  Speaker 2: and you're right, I mean, I twer is absolutely right.
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  Speaker 2: We heard on Jake Tapper's show this morning this afternoon
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  Speaker 2: where he's basically he basically said called and that he
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  Speaker 2: was mad that the Biden administration, with all the great
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  Speaker 2: recommendations he got from Normaliz and other people and Jamie
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  Speaker 2: Raskin for a pardon, he didn't get the pardon. And
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  Speaker 2: now he's resubmitting the application. He absolutely wants a party,
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  Speaker 2: he wants from some things, for something for Trump and
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  Speaker 2: to go back to something that Taras said. Yeah, Cohen
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  Speaker 2: knows how to play Trump. Trump is one of the
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  Speaker 2: most easily manipulable people in the world because of his
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  Speaker 2: extreme narcissism, and here we have it. I mean, Cohen
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  Speaker 2: knows how to do that. And what was really funny too,
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  Speaker 2: is the is the gap between reality and facts and
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  Speaker 2: Trump's perception of them. Even as far as as as
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  Speaker 2: Cohen is concerned, Leave being part of Ran and everything
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  Speaker 2: else in the economy. He said, you've recanted everything. He
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  Speaker 2: said that to Trump, and it's like he said, he said,
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  Speaker 2: Trump said that to Cohen. Cohen hasn't recandied anything. We
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  Speaker 2: heard him on Kate Tapper's show to Say Today, saying
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  Speaker 2: I'm not going back into anything I said in the past,