Trump appears on Michael Cohen's radio show, signaling a public reconciliation

President Donald Trump participated in a phone interview on Michael Cohen's WABC radio show, "When You Know, You Know," on Thursday. The conversation, which will be broadcast Sunday, follows years of hostile exchanges in which Cohen testified against Trump in congressional hearings and two criminal trials.

During the interview, Cohen referenced a Bible verse on forgiveness, played the song "Why Can't We Be Friends?" and largely avoided direct discussion of their past conflicts. Trump acknowledged that Cohen had been "weaponized ... like nobody's ever been weaponized" and said he respected Cohen's decision to recant previous statements.

"They weaponized a lot of people, and I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said," Trump told Cohen.

Cohen, who is serving a three-year federal prison sentence for crimes he said were committed out of "blind loyalty" to Trump, reiterated that he does not want the dispute to define his life.

"The good memories don’t cease to exist simply because terrible ones followed them. True loyalty doesn’t mean pretending that you were never hurt. Reconciliation doesn’t mean surrendering your principles or rewriting facts. It simply means deciding that your story doesn’t have to end in its worst chapter," Cohen said on the show.

Trump also used the platform to praise his economic policies, criticize Democrats and comment positively on the war in Iran, echoing language from his campaign rallies.

Cohen told NBC News before the interview that listeners would be surprised by what Trump said, and he later described the conversation as "great" and based on forgiveness. The two have met in person at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, estate last year and at Mar-a-Lobby this year, which Cohen described as a "warm and reminiscent of old times" encounter.

The interview comes after Cohen’s 2018 guilty plea to multiple federal charges, including making hush-money payments and falsifying business records, and after a series of legal actions that pitted the former president against his former fixer for several years.