Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen claimed Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that Trump “relished” watching the Capitol Police and innocent people being hurt and killed during the deadly riot on January 6.
Anchor Nicolle Wallace said, “Let me ask you since you know him, and you understand the sort of sociopathic way his brain works, what is his incentive structure for perpetuating a big lie that killed law enforcement officials. He likes to align himself with law enforcement. They were mutilated by his own supporters at the Capitol. Do you see him looking at it as a sort of pride, that his supporters will even mutilate law enforcement officials for him? Or what do you think he relishes out of what his supporters did in service to him on January 6th?”
Cohen said, “That’s a great question. So Donald Trump needs the adulation of the crowd, the way that you need oxygen to breathe. It’s very sad, because instead when he rowdied up that crowd, and he turned around and told them, ‘You go, you go, and I will meet you there.’ That, to me, was the very first telltale that he wanted them to attack the Capitol. What he did, because he’s a coward, he got his Secret Service to get him back to the White House. He went straight up to the residence. He turned on the three televisions sitting in the room, in his bedroom, to the various different channels. He sat there, and he watched.”
He continued, “I could visualize it. He would sit there and watch the various different channels and see all of the crowd wearing the MAGA hats, wearing these MAGA 2020 capes, wearing the Trump 2020, you know, flags, you know, attacking the police officers, attacking the Capitol, and he took a pride in it, in that this paramilitary group was doing his bidding because people don’t realize this. I’ve said it before, but I think it’s important that people understand this. Donald Trump never wanted to be president of this country. He wanted to be its dictator. He wanted to be an autocrat, just like Vladimir Putin, like Kim Jong-un. He wanted to be like Mohammed bin Salman, a monarch. The United States of Trump.”
Cohen added, “When he saw the civilians attacking Congress for the purposes of what? For not allowing the election results to be read, he actually for a moment believed in his head that he would be able to overturn the election results, that he would be reinstated, and in the next four years, he would do nothing but try to figure out how to stay president for life. How to become an autocrat. He relished in the moment as officers were hurt or killed, and innocent people lost their lives, were severely injured. He relishes in that sort of thing. No different than when he turned around and told people if that person starts screaming in the crowd, ‘I give you permission to beat them up and don’t worry, I’ll pay your legal fees.’ Fortunately for a lot of people that they didn’t do that because Donald Trump would never pay your legal fees, and you can take that to the bank because I’m right now in litigation with him on the exact same topic.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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