Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen joined a string of Republicans who have ditched his former boss at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday and joked he would speak to Kamala Harris’s Chicago crowd “if they let me.”
Cohen and a group of former Trump voters and anti-Trump Republicans, including the former president’s ex-press secretary Stephanie Grisham, were in Chicago on the second night of the convention.
The former Trump ally, who was not invited to speak, was most recently in the limelight as he testified against the former president in the hush money trial which saw Trump convicted on 34 charges of falsifying business records.
Cohen made a $130,000 hush money payment to adult actor Stormy Daniels to remain quiet in the leadup to the 2016 election about an alleged affair. Trump logged the reimbursements to Cohen as legal expenses.
Cohen told the jury that Trump directed him to make the payment before the election and that the reimbursement was approved after his victory. Trump is still claiming that he paid Cohen for legitimate legal business.
Ahead of the trial, Cohen told MSNBC that he was getting a slew of death threats from Trump supporters.
“It’s witness intimidation and it’s harassment,” Cohen told the network. “What is his goal? Again, it’s to incite these followers … to prevent me from appearing before … the Manhattan district attorney in this upcoming trial. He does not want to face accountability at any cost.”
At the Democratic convention, Cohen told The Washington Times that he’s concerned for the future of the country if Trump is re-elected.
“I fear for my children. I fear, God willing one day, my grandchildren if I’m lucky enough to live that long,” he told the paper. “I’m concerned about our democratic republic when you have somebody who wants to be president of the United States making statements like, ‘I want to rewrite the Constitution.’ Do you really think this dumba** could rewrite the Constitution?”
“When he says that he wants to destroy our tripartite system of government and confer all power to himself — what do you think is going to end up happening in this country? Because the answer is going to be the end of our democratic republic,” he added.
Cohen spent time in prison after he pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, tax fraud, bank fraud, and lying to Congress.
He told The Washington Times that he was invited to the convention by members of Congress but declined to specify who. He added that he’s a strong supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Cohen is not the only former Trump ally to appear at the DNC.
Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump press secretary and advisor turned critic, said Trump mocks his supporters behind closed doors, calling them “basement dwellers.”
“I wasn’t just a Trump supporter. I was a true believer,” Grisham said, before adding that during a hospital visit “when people were dying in the ICU, he was mad that the cameras were not watching him. He has no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth.”
“He used to tell me, ‘it doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie, say it enough and people will believe you,’” the former press secretary said.
She added that she resigned on January 6, 2021, because she “couldn’t be part of the insanity any longer.”
Other Republicans set to speak at the DNC include former Trump White House national security official Olivia Troye, former Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger, and former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan.
The Republican Mayor of Mesa, Arizona, John Giles, told the convention that “Trump made a lot of lofty promises, unlimited economic growth, American manufacturing reborn, a secure border. Turns out Donald Trump was all talk. He wanted our votes, but he couldn’t deliver a thing.”
Speaking to Americans “in the political middle,” Giles said, “John McCain’s Republican Party is gone, and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind.”