Michael Cohen, the man who once arranged hush-money payouts for Donald Trump and later testified against him in criminal court, has confirmed that Trump taped an interview for his weekly radio show. Cohen said the segment will air Thursday evening and again Sunday, marking a stunning turn for two men who spent years as courtroom adversaries.
Cohen announced the taping himself, and as reported by the Associated Press, Trump's official schedule showed him taping a radio interview Thursday morning, though the White House did not confirm the appearance. Cohen launched his weekly show, “When You Know… You Know,” on Red Apple Media's 77 WABC on July 12, taking over the Sunday 5 p.m. slot while former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was on a summer hiatus, according to TALKERS magazine. The station also launched a companion Tuesday podcast called “When You Know… You Know Unleashed” for what it bills as uncensored commentary.
From Fixer to Star Witness to Radio Host
Cohen served as executive vice president of the Trump Organization and as Trump's personal attorney for more than a decade before their relationship collapsed. He pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, and was sentenced to three years in prison for what he said was covering up Trump's misconduct. Prosecutors said the payments Cohen arranged during the 2016 presidential race to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal were an illegal effort to influence the election, intended to keep the two women — Daniels a porn actor, McDougal a model — from publicizing alleged extramarital affairs with Trump.
Cohen went on to testify before Congress in 2019, then gave central testimony in Trump's 2024 criminal case, where he described the payment to Daniels and helped secure Trump's conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He gave similar testimony in the 2023 civil fraud trial in New York, which found that Trump and his companies had engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades. Cohen alleged that Trump misrepresented asset values to obtain favorable loan terms and tax benefits, and in 2020 published a memoir, “Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump,” cataloging his break from Trump. At one point, Cohen called Trump an organized crime don and master manipulator.
A Reconciliation Rooted in a Text Message
Cohen has said the reconciliation began in January when Trump sent him an empathetic text after Cohen publicly criticized prosecutors, leading to a personal meeting in Florida, according to the Washington Examiner. In a January Substack post, Cohen claimed he felt compelled and coerced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James to provide negative testimony against Trump in order to reduce his federal prison term. Trump has since linked those comments to his own effort to overturn his legal penalties, citing Cohen's statements in a June Truth Social post demanding that his Manhattan criminal conviction and his New York civil fraud judgments be dismissed over alleged prosecutorial misconduct, as reported by Mediaite. Trump has also asked a court to overturn the remaining parts of the civil fraud case, after a New York appeals court had already thrown out a $550 million judgment against him.
Cohen said the two men once shared 15 years of close friendship, and that their falling-out turned into what he called political blood sport. Now, he says, “we forgave” — adding in his own words that “the good times don't cease to have existed because the bad times came afterward.” Cohen has said he still has affection for Trump, even as he maintains, per the AP's reporting, that he stands by the substance of his earlier testimony.
White House Sign-Off and an Unresolved Pardon Question
77 WABC owner John Catsimatidis said he sought and received White House approval before offering Cohen the radio slot, telling reporters that officials raised no objections because Cohen and Trump had already reconciled, according to Forbes. Catsimatidis purchased 77 WABC in 2019 through Red Apple Media, and the station has long served as a major political platform in the New York media market — it previously hosted Trump for interviews on local issues including the 2025 NYC mayoral race.
Trump holds the constitutional authority to grant Cohen a presidential pardon for his 2018 federal convictions, though Cohen has said he remains undecided on whether to formally request clemency. Such a pardon could clear federal offenses like the campaign finance violations and the lying-to-Congress charge, but it would not touch Cohen's state-level entanglements in New York. It's also unclear how New York's appellate courts will treat Cohen's claims of prosecutorial coercion as Trump's appeals proceed.
The turnaround fits a broader pattern in Trump's second term of former loyalists-turned-critics returning to his good graces, echoing earlier public reconciliations with figures like Elon Musk and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Cohen, who once said he would take a bullet for Trump before becoming one of his most vocal critics, has not detailed what specifically was discussed in the taped interview set to air this week.
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