President Trump "never thought he was going to win" the 2016 election, Michael Cohen, his former personal attorney and fixer, said on Tuesday, and he only entered the presidential race because he saw it as "a branding opportunity in order to expand worldwide."
Cohen revealed this during an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow about his new book, Disloyal: A Memoir, which details his time working for Trump. In Disloyal, Cohen writes that Trump spent much of his 2016 campaign "sucking up to the Russians," because he wanted to be able to borrow money from people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Because Trump expected to lose the election, Cohen claimed, he wanted to keep all options open for the Trump Organization, including building Trump Tower Moscow.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Trump not only "never thought he was going to win" in 2016, he "actually didn't want to win," Cohen said. "This was supposed to be, and it's how he started it, the greatest political infomercial in the history of politics. If you take that line and you add to it the Trump Tower Moscow project you'll understand that this was a branding deal, that's all that the presidential campaign started out as, this was a branding opportunity in order to expand worldwide. There's only one problem: He won." Catherine Garcia
-
August 16 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday’s political cartoons include football season anticipation, and Donald Trump angling for Putin's autograph
-
5 hilariously cold cartoons about the Alaska summitCartoons Artists take on the Alaskan totem pole, a peace flag, and more
-
Sudoku medium: August 16, 2025The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
-
Border agents crash Newsom redistricting kickoffSpeed Read Armed federal Border Patrol agents amassed outside the venue where the California governor and other Democratic leaders were gathered
-
Man charged for hoagie attack as DC fights takeoverSpeed Read The Trump administration filed felony charges against a man who threw a Subway sandwich at a federal agent
-
Trump BLS nominee floats ending key jobs reportSpeed Read On Fox News, E.J. Antoni suggested scrapping the closely watched monthly jobs report
-
Trump picks conservative BLS critic to lead BLSspeed read He has nominated the Heritage Foundation's E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics
-
Trump takes over DC police, deploys National GuardSpeed Read The president blames the takeover on rising crime, though official figures contradict this concern
-
Trump sends FBI to patrol DC, despite falling crimeSpeed Read Washington, D.C., 'has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world,' Trump said
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
