Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, is the star of a new ad campaign aimed squarely at the president, ahead of Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.
“Later this week, he’s going to stand up and blatantly lie to you,” Cohen warns in the ad, which was produced by liberal research group American Bridge 21st Century.
“I’m here to tell you he can’t be trusted ― and you shouldn’t believe a word he utters,” Cohen says.
Trump was formally nominated as the Republican candidate for president Monday night; the convention runs through Thursday, when Trump will accept the nomination.
The president’s former “fixer” was sentenced in 2018 for directing payments to keep pornographic film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal from discussing their alleged affairs with Trump. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Cohen is serving out the remainder of his three-year sentence in home confinement.
Cohen says in the ad that he helped create an “illusion” to “conceal the real Donald Trump” in the decade he served as the president’s attorney.
“He’s going to tell you that if you reelect him, the economy will bounce back; that only he can get us out of this economic crisis,” Cohen says. “Maybe for those like him. But if you think he cares about working-class Americans, you’re dead wrong.
“So when the president gets in front of the cameras this week, remember that he thinks we are all gullible, a bunch of fools. I was a part of it. And I fell for it. You don’t have to like me. But please, listen to me.”
According to Vanity Fair, Cohen is in talks with American Bridge to appear in additional ads leading up to the election.
Cohen was released from prison back in May but returned to the facility after refusing to sign an agreement with the Bureau of Prisons that would have barred him from publishing a book. A judge ruled in Cohen’s favor in late July, finding him to be a target of retaliation, and he was released to home confinement once more.
The tell-all book Cohen planned to publish, “Disloyal,” is set to be released in September.
A foreword on the book’s website offers tantalizing hints at what the attorney has to say about his ex-boss.
“I stiffed contractors on his behalf, ripped off his business partners, lied to his wife, Melania, to hide his sexual infidelities, and bullied and screamed at anyone who threatened Trump’s path to power,” Cohen wrote. “From golden showers in a sex club in Vegas, to tax fraud, to deals with corrupt officials from the former Soviet Union, to catch and kill conspiracies to silence Trump’s clandestine lovers, I wasn’t just a witness to the president’s rise ― I was an active and eager participant.”