Cohen: Trump 'doesn't have a sense of humor,' isn't joking about being POTUS for '12 more years'

(Image credit: Twitter/MSNBC)

last updated 9 September 2020

President Trump is dead serious when he says he wants to be in the White House for 12 more years, Michael Cohen, his former personal attorney and fixer, said on Tuesday.

Cohen's new book about his time working for Trump, Disloyal: A Memoir, was published Tuesday, and he appeared on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show to discuss it. Cohen said Trump has changed dramatically and is "not the same person I knew going back years ago. He was always gruff, he was always a certain way, but the power he now has has gone to his head."

Above all else, Trump wants to be an "autocrat," Cohen said. "He wants to be the president for life. He wants to be just like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, just like [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un, just like [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro, just like [Saudi Crown Prince] Mohammad bin Salman. He craves this. He doesn't want to run for president, and that's why he says, 'What about 12 more years, 12 more years.' He's not joking."

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Trump isn't capable of wisecracking because he "doesn't have a sense of humor," Cohen said. "He doesn't laugh, he doesn't tell jokes, he doesn't have a sense of humor. He means it when he says it." Cohen likened Trump to a "cult leader," and said he wrote Disloyal in an attempt to "really open the eyes of the 38 percent, the base of his, that no matter what Donald Trump does, it's acceptable to them. He doesn't care and they don't care. He wasn't joking again when he said that he could kill somebody on 5th Avenue and get away with it. He means it." Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.