President Donald Trump and Michael Cohen have had a whirlwind relationship over the past few years. Cohen, who used to be Trump’s fixer and once said he would “take a bullet” for him, has for years traded barbs, testimony and lawsuits with the president. Now, Cohen plans to host Trump on his “Mea Culpa” podcast, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper that their relationship has been “resuscitated.”
When asked by Tapper on Thursday about this sudden change of heart, Cohen elected to evade the question.
“You say that you haven’t forgotten the past. You testified under oath obviously that President Trump directed you to commit crimes,” Tapper said on CNN’s “The Lead.” “Do you stand by that?”
“Let me say this: I will not discuss what I had said in the past, what I had stated under oath. I will not go there simply because I want to live for the future,” Cohen responded. “I refuse to be pulled back into yesterday’s news and yesterday’s headlines so that a slew of people can turn around and start to try to pull it apart. I truly believe that there is forgiveness between Donald Trump and myself, and that to me is what is important right now.”
“Yesterday’s news and yesterday’s headlines,” as Cohen puts it, isn’t just gossip. Trump’s fixer-turned-adversary, who now hosts the podcast “Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen,” split with the president in 2016 during the federal investigation into hush-money payments made during Trump’s first presidential campaign. He pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges including campaign finance violations, which resulted in a three-year sentence in federal prison and a $50,000 fine. Since then, Cohen has served as a witness, testified against Trump, sued the Trump Organization and been sued by Trump.
“We forgave, and not because the past didn’t happen, not because the scars disappeared, not because every disagreement suddenly becomes irrelevant, and certainly not because I’ve forgotten anything. I have not,” Cohen told Tapper. “But remember this: Forgiveness does not require amnesia. It requires the courage to stop allowing yesterday to dictate tomorrow.” You can watch the full clip below.
Michael Cohen on repairing his relationship with Trump: ‘Forgiveness does not require amnesia’ pic.twitter.com/bkXtk6IBup
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 20, 2026
During the CNN appearance ahead of his Thursday podcast with Trump, Cohen noted that he submitted a pardon application to former President Joe Biden, which was denied before Biden left office. He has since resubmitted the same application to Trump.
“What I did is I took that same application with the same documentation, and I just rewrote the cover letter, removing the name of ‘President Joe Biden’ and inserting the name ‘President Donald Trump,’” Cohen told Tapper. “Now interesting, because you’re not the first person to ask me this question: I have not received an acknowledgement that they have the application, which is on my to-do list, which I intend to call tomorrow to find out what happened, because I did send it by FedEx, so I do have a receipt.”
Michael Cohen says he’s submitted pardon application to Trump WH pic.twitter.com/03nLynmGBj
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 20, 2026
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