Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen poured cold water on the former president’s plan to testify in the Manhattan hush money trial, telling the hosts of MSNBC’s The Weekend on Saturday morning that “it’s not going to happen.”
On Monday, Trump is set to become the first former president in United States history to stand trial in a criminal case. Following an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, Trump was indicted in March 2023 on charges of falsifying business records relating to hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels alleged that she had an affair with Trump in 2006, which he has denied.
Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has said the case is politically motivated against him.
The former president told reporters on Friday that he would “absolutely” testify in the upcoming trial. “I’m testifying. I tell the truth, I mean, all I can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that there is no case,” Trump said.
However, Cohen, a close ally turned critic of Trump, didn’t buy what he was selling.
“The likelihood of Donald Trump being on the stand is equal to the likelihood of me waking up tomorrow 7’6″ and playing center for the New York Knicks—it’s not gonna happen,” he told the MSNBC hosts on Saturday. “How many times have we heard the same story again and again and again that ‘I wanna testify. Absolutely I’m going to tell the truth.'”
He added: “Every time Donald opens his mouth you know that something non-truthful is coming out of it. We also know that he’s not a good defendant. He’s not a good witness. We watched that with the E. Jean Carroll case when he couldn’t even identify E. Jean Carroll and confused her with Marla Maples.”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s spokesman via email for comment.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images/Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images
Carroll sued Trump twice for defamation after he spread falsehoods about the former Elle columnist lying when she came forward in 2019 with accusations that Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York City department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. Trump has maintained his innocence and claimed the lawsuits were politically motivated.
When Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan showed Trump a photo from the late-1980s of him, his then-wife Ivana Trump, Carroll and her then–husband John Johnson during a deposition, he said, “It’s Marla,” when referring to Carroll in the photo. Marla Maples was Trump’s second wife before his current wife Melania Trump.
Speaking about his prediction of Trump not taking the stand for the hush money case, Cohen added on Saturday: “In fact, I hope that I’m wrong because I think that would be absolutely classic for America to be able to see Donald Trump on the witness stand trying to defend himself in a case that’s indefensible.”
Cohen spent time in prison after pleading guilty to eight criminal charges, including campaign-finance violations related to the alleged hush money scheme involving Daniels. He has since emerged as a fierce Trump critic, often appearing on MSNBC for his perspective as a former member of Trump’s inner circle.
While it’s still unknown if Trump will actually take the witness stand during his upcoming trial, he will at the very least be in the courtroom since he has to be there as a criminal defendant.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.