The Making of Donald Trump
Understanding Donald Trump's presidency and his distinctive approach to power requires examining the formative relationships and influences that constructed his worldview during his ascent from Queens real estate heir to Manhattan developer to global celebrity. Trump did not emerge fully formed onto the political stage in 2015. Rather, his methods, ethics, and instincts developed through decades of mentorship under figures who taught him how to manipulate media, weaponize legal systems, cultivate powerful connections, and operate without regard for conventional ethical constraints. Two relationships proved particularly formative: his decade-long tutelage under attorney Roy Cohn, who provided the tactical and philosophical framework for Trump's approach to conflict and power, and his friendship with financier Jeffrey Epstein, which connected him to elite social networks and demonstrated the imperviousness of wealth and connections to accountability. Together, these influences and the broader patterns they exemplified created a template that Trump scaled from Manhattan real estate disputes to the governance of the United States.
The Apprentice: Roy Cohn's Foundational Instruction (1973-1986)
The Crisis and the Meeting
In 1973, twenty-seven-year-old Donald Trump faced his first major crisis. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against him, his father Fred, and their company, charging systematic discrimination against Black renters. The evidence proved substantial: Black applicants were routinely turned away from Trump buildings or told no apartments existed, while white applicants received multiple options. Former employees testified about marking applications from Black renters with a "C" for "colored." Testers from the New York Urban League documented the discrimination firsthand. For most defendants, particularly those seeking to build reputations in New York's high society, such allegations would have prompted quiet settlement and reform. Trump needed help, but not the conventional kind.
At Le Club, a Manhattan nightspot frequented by power brokers, Trump met Roy Marcus Cohn, a forty-six-year-old attorney whose reputation preceded him. Cohn's name had been infamous in American politics for two decades. His tactics inspired fear. His absence of ethics was legendary. This encounter proved transformative, establishing a mentorship that shaped Trump's entire approach to conflict, media, legal institutions, and power itself.
The Monster's Resume
By 1973, Cohn already possessed an extraordinary resume in ruthlessness. Born to an affluent Jewish family in the Bronx in 1927, he entered Columbia Law School at seventeen and became a prosecutor in the Manhattan US Attorney's Office by twenty. His role in the 1951 espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg first brought him national attention. As the twenty-four-year-old assistant prosecutor, Cohn pushed aggressively for the death penalty, particularly for Ethel, despite substantial questions about her involvement in her husband's espionage. Cohn later boasted in his autobiography about privately lobbying the judge for death sentences, an extraordinary ethical breach for a prosecutor.
Cohn's ruthlessness in the Rosenberg case revealed something fundamental about his character: the belief that winning justified any means. In his pursuit of death for Ethel Rosenberg, a mother of two young boys, Cohn manipulated evidence, pressured witnesses, and engaged in improper communications with the judge. Years later, declassified Soviet cables showed that while Julius Rosenberg was indeed a spy, the evidence against Ethel proved much weaker. David Greenglass, Ethel's brother and the key witness against her, eventually admitted he lied in his testimony at Cohn's urging. The execution of Ethel Rosenberg remained one of the most controversial judicial killings in American history, and Cohn's role in it established his willingness to destroy lives in service of his ambitions.
This early triumph caught Senator Joseph McCarthy's attention, who made Cohn his chief counsel during the infamous anti-communist hearings of the early 1950s. Together, McCarthy and Cohn embarked on a campaign of accusation, innuendo, and character assassination that ruined countless lives and careers without ever uncovering a single Soviet spy. Their tactics proved devastatingly simple: make bold, inflammatory accusations, demand that the accused prove a negative, use media to amplify fear, and never back down from a claim regardless of how thoroughly debunked.
The hearings revealed Cohn's mastery of media manipulation. He understood intuitively that appearance often mattered more than reality, that bold assertions frequently overrode facts, and that cameras loved conflict and controversy. He staged hearings as theater, complete with dramatic revelations, confrontational exchanges, and shocking accusations, all designed to create compelling television that kept Americans fearful and McCarthy powerful.
The McCarthy hearings finally collapsed in 1954 during the Army-McCarthy proceedings, when the Army's counsel Joseph Welch famously asked McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" This marked the beginning of McCarthy's end, but not Cohn's. He resigned and retreated to New York, where he reinvented himself as a power broker and attorney for the city's elite and its underworld. His client list eventually included Catholic Cardinal Francis Spellman, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, and various mafia figures including bosses Tony Salerno, Carmine Galante, and John Gotti.
This ability to reinvent himself after catastrophic public failure became another lesson Trump absorbed. Just as Cohn transformed from disgraced McCarthy henchman to celebrated New York power broker, Trump later reinvented himself repeatedly: from failed casino magnate to reality television star, from bankrupt businessman to self-proclaimed billionaire, from tabloid joke to President of the United States. The key was never to acknowledge defeat but to immediately claim a new victory.
By the 1970s, Cohn developed a reputation as a fixer who made problems disappear, often through intimidation, threats, and his extensive connections within New York's judicial system and media. As his former law partner Tom Bolan once explained, "Roy's standard method was to attack, attack. Even when he was wrong, especially when he was wrong."
The First Lesson: Never Settle, Always Attack
When Trump and Cohn first met at Le Club in 1973, Trump saw not just a potential lawyer but a kindred spirit. As Trump later recounted, "I knew that Roy was the right guy for me. He was a genius. He was a savage. He didn't care what anyone said about him. He would do anything to win."
Cohn's advice on the Justice Department's housing discrimination lawsuit proved simple and direct: Never settle. Counterattack. Sue the government for $100 million for defamation. Call the prosecutors racists themselves. According to Trump's own account, Cohn told him, "Tell them to go to hell and fight the thing in court and let them prove you discriminated."
Trump followed Cohn's advice precisely, holding a press conference to denounce the lawsuit as "outrageous." The Trump Organization filed a $100 million countersuit against the Justice Department, which the court quickly dismissed as frivolous. But the aggressive posture worked in the court of public opinion. After two years of legal battles, the case settled with a consent decree in which the Trumps made no admission of guilt and committed to only nominal changes in their rental practices. Trump claimed victory, though in reality the case revealed a pattern of racial discrimination that continued in various forms throughout Trump's career.
For Trump, however, the takeaway proved clear: Cohn's approach—deny, attack, never admit fault—worked. This marked the beginning of a relationship that lasted more than a decade, with Cohn serving as Trump's lawyer, fixer, media handler, and most importantly, his tutor in the dark arts of power and manipulation.
The Social Education
The relationship between Trump and Cohn quickly deepened beyond the professional. Trump became a fixture at Cohn's lavish dinner parties at his townhouse on East 68th Street, where politicians, judges, mobsters, and celebrities mingled freely. Through Cohn, Trump gained access to a world of power and connection that proved invaluable to his ambitions. Cohn introduced Trump to political fixers like Roger Stone and media power brokers like Rupert Murdoch, relationships that later proved crucial to Trump's political ascent.
For his part, Cohn found in Trump an eager student, someone with the wealth, ambition, and moral flexibility to fully implement his philosophy. As journalist Ken Auletta observed after watching the two men interact at numerous social events, "There was something almost paternal in how Roy treated Donald. He was molding him, and Trump was drinking it all in."
The Complete Doctrine
Hartmann identifies six core principles that Cohn imparted to Trump, forming a comprehensive philosophy of power. First, never apologize or admit wrongdoing under any circumstances. Cohn viewed contrition as weakness and would rather die—literally, as it turned out—than acknowledge error or fault. As journalist Ken Auletta, who covered Cohn extensively, noted, "The idea that you can admit a mistake is not part of Roy's genetic code." This principle became so fundamental to Trump's approach that even faced with irrefutable evidence—a recorded confession of sexual assault on the Access Hollywood tape, for instance—he denied, deflected, and attacked rather than offering the slightest acknowledgment of impropriety.
Second, always counterattack with greater force than received. When criticized or accused, Cohn's response invariably involved hitting back harder, escalating, making the accuser regret ever mentioning his name. As Cohn himself explained to a reporter, "I bring out the worst in my enemies, and that's how I get them to defeat themselves." This tactic became Trump's signature move, whether attacking Gold Star parents who criticized him, mocking a disabled reporter who questioned his claims, or threatening critics with lawsuits and retribution.
Third, weaponize the legal system rather than using it for justice. Cohn taught Trump that lawsuits were instruments of intimidation, not vehicles for dispute resolution. He filed cases not to win—though winning was nice—but to punish, harass, and silence. The expense and stress of litigation was the point, not the legal outcome. Trump eventually participated in over 3,500 lawsuits, an unprecedented number for any American businessperson or politician, using courts not to seek justice but to exhaust opponents with fewer resources.
Fourth, manipulate media ruthlessly. Cohn mastered the arts of planting stories, cultivating journalists, and creating controversy to serve his ends. He understood that perception trumped reality, that bold claims often went unchallenged, and that most people remembered the accusation but not the retraction. Trump elevated this approach to an art form, calling reporters using pseudonyms like "John Barron" to plant favorable stories about himself, staging pseudo-events to attract coverage, and later using Twitter to bypass media filters entirely and inject his unfiltered messages directly into public consciousness.
Fifth, deploy fear as both shield and sword. Cohn understood that people who felt afraid—of communists, of crime, of social change, of the "other"—proved easier to manipulate and more willing to accept authoritarian solutions. He helped McCarthy weaponize the Red Scare, stoking paranoia about secret communists undermining America from within. Trump adapted this tactic to the twenty-first century, stoking fears about immigrants, Muslims, "inner city" crime, and later a "deep state" conspiracy, always positioning himself as the only solution to these terrifying threats.
Sixth, build a fortress of loyalty. Cohn demanded absolute devotion from his clients and associates, and he repaid it in kind, at least until they were no longer useful. He created a network of mutual obligation and fear that served as both sword and shield in his battles. Trump's infamous demands for loyalty—from James Comey, from his cabinet members, from Republican legislators—and his swift punishment of perceived disloyalty all echoed Cohn's approach to power.
Trump absorbed these lessons comprehensively. As journalist Wayne Barrett, who covered Trump for decades, observed, "Cohn's philosophy shaped the real estate developer's worldview and the belligerent public persona visible in Trump's presidential campaign." The evidence of Cohn's influence appeared everywhere in Trump's subsequent career: the constant lawsuits against journalists, critics, and former associates; the reflexive counterpunching; the use of nondisclosure agreements and threats; the demand for loyalty; the refusal ever to acknowledge error or defeat. Each represented a page torn directly from Cohn's playbook.
Perhaps the most important lesson Trump learned from Cohn proved the most dangerous: that institutions could be bent and broken if one proved shameless enough, aggressive enough, and persistent enough. Cohn repeatedly violated legal ethics, manipulated the press, corrupted judges, and intimidated witnesses, all while maintaining his position as a respected, if feared, member of New York society. Trump observed that the safeguards designed to protect democracy and ensure accountability—the courts, the press, regulatory agencies, ethical norms—proved far more vulnerable than they appeared, especially when confronted with someone willing to attack them relentlessly and without shame.
The Betrayal
By the mid-1980s, Cohn's health was failing. His legal career collapsed as well: he faced numerous disciplinary proceedings and was eventually disbarred in 1986 for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation." As Cohn approached death, Trump began to distance himself. The pattern became familiar in Trump's later life: the discarding of associates who could no longer serve his purposes. According to Roger Stone, a mutual associate, "When Roy got sick, Donald dropped him like a hot potato."
The final betrayal proved particularly cruel. When Cohn was diagnosed with AIDS—a condition he denied to the end, insisting he had liver cancer—he reached out to Trump for support. Cohn had, after all, been Trump's most important mentor, guided his entry into Manhattan real estate, protected him from the Justice Department, and connected him with powerful figures who advanced his career. But Trump, sensing that Cohn was no longer useful and potentially a liability, distanced himself. When Cohn called asking Trump to find him a room at one of his hotels where he could recover, Trump reportedly promised to help but never called back.
Cohn's final months illustrated starkly the transactional worldview he helped instill in Trump. As Cohn lay dying, many former clients and associates abandoned him, not just because of his illness but because his power was gone. In the world Cohn constructed, where relationships were based on utility rather than loyalty or affection, his declining health rendered him worthless. It represented the logical endpoint of the philosophy he lived by and taught to Trump: people mattered only to the extent they could serve interests. When they could no longer do so, they were discarded.
When Cohn died in August 1986, Trump was not among the mourners at his funeral. But the lessons Cohn taught him—the tactics, the worldview, the absolute commitment to winning at all costs—remained. Trump had not just hired Cohn; he had internalized him.
The Ascent: Manhattan Socialite and Power Networks (1980s-2000s)
Building the Brand
With Cohn's lessons internalized and his connections established, Trump embarked on his transformation from outer-borough real estate developer to Manhattan celebrity. The 1980s saw Trump's cultivation of a public image as a billionaire dealmaker, though the reality of his finances proved far more complicated. He pursued high-profile projects like Trump Tower, the Plaza Hotel, and Atlantic City casinos, each serving as much to build his brand as to generate profits. The business model proved unsustainable—Trump's casinos filed for bankruptcy multiple times—but the brand persisted, demonstrating Cohn's lesson about perception mattering more than reality.
During this period, Trump cultivated relationships with a wide array of wealthy, powerful, and often controversial figures. He understood, as Cohn had taught him, that access to power mattered as much as power itself. His social circle expanded to include politicians, celebrities, financiers, and individuals whose wealth and connections could prove useful. Trump attended the right parties, joined the right clubs, and made himself visible in the right contexts. The goal was not friendship in any conventional sense but rather the construction of a network that could be leveraged for business opportunities, media attention, and social advancement.
The Epstein Connection: Power, Access, and Consequences
The Friendship Years
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein developed what multiple sources characterized as a close friendship beginning in the late 1980s that continued into the early 2000s. Trump himself told New York Magazine in 2002 that he had known Epstein for fifteen years and called him a "terrific guy," adding that Epstein "likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." Contemporary accounts and photographic evidence documented the two men socializing regularly at high-profile events, including Trump's 1993 wedding to Marla Maples at the Plaza Hotel, Victoria's Secret fashion shows and parties, and gatherings at both Mar-a-Lago and Epstein's Palm Beach residence.
Flight logs released during legal proceedings confirmed Trump flew on Epstein's private jet multiple times in the 1990s, with Trump's name appearing in flight records at least seven times throughout that decade. According to statements attributed to Epstein himself, Trump first met his future wife Melania Knauss aboard Epstein's private aircraft. Epstein reportedly referred to Trump in 2019 as his "closest friend for 10 years," a characterization independently echoed by Maria Farmer, an early Epstein victim who spoke publicly, former model Stacey Williams, and Jack O'Donnell, a former Trump casino executive, all of whom used variations of the phrase "best friend" to describe the relationship during its active period.
The relationship fit a pattern in Trump's life: cultivating connections with wealthy, powerful individuals who could provide access to elite social circles and business opportunities. Epstein, for his part, collected relationships with powerful men across politics, business, academia, and entertainment. The friendship appeared mutually beneficial during the 1990s, with Trump gaining access to Epstein's social network and Epstein gaining association with Trump's celebrity and real estate empire.
The Disputed Falling Out
The timeline and explanation for when Trump's relationship with Epstein ended remained contested and shifted substantially over time depending on when Trump or his representatives were questioned about it. Trump claimed in 2019 that he had not spoken to Epstein in fifteen years, which would place the rupture around 2004. However, the details provided by Trump and his administration regarding why the relationship ended proved inconsistent.
In July 2025, White House communications director Steven Cheung stated that Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for "being a creep." Days later, Trump himself told reporters that Epstein "stole" young women who worked at his Mar-a-Lago spa and that this prompted him to bar Epstein from the property. Trump subsequently acknowledged that Virginia Giuffre, who later became one of Epstein's most prominent accusers, was among those spa employees, stating "I think she worked at the spa. He stole her."
The most widely cited alternative explanation for the falling out involved a 2004 real estate dispute in which Trump and Epstein competed for an oceanfront Palm Beach mansion, with Trump ultimately outbidding Epstein. Whether this property confrontation caused or merely coincided with the end of their social relationship remained unclear.
Mark Epstein, Jeffrey's brother, stated in 2024 that he did not know why the friendship ended but that Jeffrey had said Trump was a "crook." In July 2025, Mark Epstein made additional statements emphasizing the closeness of the relationship and refuting Trump's claims that he "was not a fan" of Jeffrey Epstein, as well as contradicting Steven Cheung's assertion that Trump was never in Epstein's office.
The Pattern of Transactional Relationships
The Trump-Epstein relationship, like the Trump-Cohn relationship before it, illustrated a consistent pattern in Trump's approach to personal connections. Relationships served instrumental purposes: access to power, business opportunities, social advancement, or media attention. When relationships no longer served those purposes, or when they became potentially damaging, Trump distanced himself. Just as he abandoned the dying Roy Cohn in the mid-1980s, he later distanced himself from Epstein once Epstein's legal troubles made the association toxic. This transactional approach to human relationships, learned from Cohn and practiced throughout his career, became a defining characteristic of Trump's personal and political life.
The Trump Presidency: Cohn's Philosophy at Scale (2017-2021, 2025-Present)
"Where's My Roy Cohn?"
In 2018, as the Russia investigation intensified and legal troubles mounted, President Trump reportedly slammed the table in the Oval Office and demanded, "Where's my Roy Cohn?" The question revealed more than just Trump's frustration with his then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. It revealed the entire template for his view of the Justice Department, of law enforcement, of the very concept of rule of law. In Trump's mind, shaped by Cohn's toxic tutelage, the attorney general was not the nation's chief law enforcement officer bound by constitutional oath and legal ethics. The attorney general was the president's personal fixer, his attack dog, his protector.
This view, profoundly anti-democratic and fundamentally corrupt, permeated the first Trump presidency. William Barr's misleading summary of the Mueller Report, the firing of US attorneys investigating Trump associates, the persistent attacks on "disloyal" FBI officials, and the dangling of pardons to silence potential witnesses each echoed Cohn's approach to legal institutions as tools of personal power rather than guardrails for democratic governance.
Cohn's Tactics in Presidential Power
The Cohn playbook proved remarkably adaptable to presidential authority. The refusal to admit error manifested in Trump's response to everything from the Access Hollywood tape to the COVID-19 pandemic, where acknowledging mistakes might have saved lives but violated the core Cohn principle. The counterattack principle escalated from lawsuits against business rivals to attacks on Gold Star families, federal judges, and intelligence agencies. The weaponization of legal systems expanded from intimidating contractors to pressuring the Justice Department to investigate political opponents.
Media manipulation, which Cohn taught through cultivating tabloid journalists, evolved into Trump's direct use of Twitter to bypass traditional media gatekeepers, spread disinformation, and attack critics in real time. The deployment of fear, which Cohn used to stoke Red Scare paranoia, became Trump's exploitation of anxieties about immigration, crime, and cultural change. The demand for loyalty, which Cohn enforced in his personal network, became Trump's expectation that federal officials prioritize personal allegiance over constitutional duty.
Perhaps most significantly, Cohn's demonstration that institutions could be bent and broken by shameless, aggressive, persistent attacks found its fullest expression in Trump's presidency. Trump attacked the legitimacy of courts that ruled against him, the credibility of intelligence agencies that contradicted him, the independence of inspectors general who investigated him, and ultimately the validity of elections he lost. Each assault on institutional integrity followed the Cohn template: deny legitimacy, counterattack aggressively, weaponize alternative power sources, manipulate media narratives, and never concede.
The Second Term: Epstein Files and Suppression
The Broken Promise
Trump's second presidency, beginning in January 2025, brought the Epstein relationship back to prominence in ways that revealed both the persistence of Cohn's influence and the vulnerabilities created by Trump's past associations. The controversy stemmed not merely from the historical friendship but from the administration's handling of Justice Department investigative files related to Epstein.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump expressed openness when asked about releasing Epstein-related files, though the extent to which this constituted a formal campaign promise remained disputed. Vice President JD Vance, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Attorney General Pam Bondi all made statements suggesting the administration would provide transparency on the Epstein case, generating expectations among Trump's base for revelations about other powerful figures connected to Epstein.
In February 2025, Attorney General Bondi appeared on Fox News and was asked about releasing a list of Epstein's clients. Bondi responded, "It's sitting on my desk right now to review." This statement generated significant attention and heightened expectations. On February 27, the Justice Department invited conservative bloggers and influencers to the White House and provided them with binders labeled "The Epstein Files: Phase 1" bearing the Justice Department seal. However, most of the evidence in these binders had already been publicly released, leading Representative Anna Paulina Luna, chairwoman of the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, to characterize it as "old info."
The Reversal and Terminated Investigation
The administration's position shifted dramatically in July 2025. On July 7, the Justice Department released a memo stating it found "no incriminating 'client list'" for Epstein, directly contradicting Bondi's February statement. The memo revealed that the review turned up more than three hundred gigabytes of data and physical evidence and determined that "Epstein harmed over one thousand victims." However, the Justice Department concluded that victims' sensitive information was "intertwined" in the materials and that "no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted."
According to multiple sources, Trump personally directed Bondi not to release the files in July 2025. As one Trump insider told reporters, "He told Pam not to release the files. We don't exactly know why." This decision caused a rare and significant fracture within Trump's MAGA base. Prominent Republicans from House Speaker Mike Johnson to former Vice President Mike Pence called for more transparency, along with influential right-wing figures including Tucker Carlson and Laura Loomer.
Perhaps the most serious allegation of potential coverup involved the termination of an active criminal investigation. According to information released by Representative Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York was conducting an active investigation into Epstein and Maxwell's co-conspirators until January 2025. Nearly fifty survivors of Epstein's trafficking operation provided detailed information to SDNY prosecutors and FBI agents as part of this investigation, describing how Epstein, Maxwell, and their co-conspirators orchestrated a sophisticated sex trafficking conspiracy that trafficked them to at least twenty men.
Since January 2025, according to counsel for Epstein survivors, this investigation appeared to have ceased with no further investigative steps taken. The Justice Department formally closed the case in July 2025 with the memo stating it "did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties," provided without supporting details. FBI Director Kash Patel subsequently, at a September 2025 Judiciary Committee hearing, repeatedly undermined the credibility of Epstein survivors, the same women whose testimony the Justice Department previously relied upon to convict Ghislaine Maxwell. In August 2025, the Trump administration also fired Maurene Comey, the longtime US Attorney who helped lead the successful prosecutions of both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
November 2025: The Email Releases
The political controversy surrounding Trump's Epstein connection intensified dramatically in November 2025 when the House Oversight Committee, under Democratic control, released more than twenty thousand pages of documents obtained from Epstein's estate through subpoena. These releases included private email correspondence in which Epstein discussed Trump with various associates and made claims about Trump's knowledge of his activities.
In a 2019 email to author Michael Wolff, Epstein wrote regarding Trump, "Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop." The context and meaning of this statement remained ambiguous, and Trump consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein's criminal activities. A particularly contentious email from April 2011 showed Epstein writing to his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, "I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is trump," followed by a reference to a person whose name Democrats initially redacted "spent hours at my house with him. he has never once been mentioned." House Republicans subsequently revealed that the redacted name was Virginia Giuffre.
However, Giuffre herself never accused Trump of any misconduct. In her memoir published before her April 2025 suicide, Giuffre wrote that Trump "couldn't have been friendlier" during their limited interactions when she worked at Mar-a-Lago's spa. In a court deposition given under oath, she stated explicitly that she did not believe Trump had any knowledge of Epstein's misconduct with underage girls. Members of Epstein's household staff similarly testified in sworn depositions that while Trump did visit Epstein's residence, they did not witness him engage in any inappropriate conduct.
Other emails released by Democrats captured Epstein's increasingly negative view of Trump during his presidency. In a February 2017 email to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Epstein wrote: "i have met some very bad people, none as bad as trump. not one decent cell in his body.. so yes – dangerous." Additional correspondence showed Epstein calling Trump "f***ing crazy," speculating about "early dementia," comparing him to a mob boss, and describing him as "a maniac." In a 2018 email thread with Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as President Obama's White House counsel, Epstein wrote "I know how dirty donald is" after she sent him an article about Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to campaign finance violations.
The Cohn Response: Deflect and Attack
Trump's response to the email releases followed the Cohn playbook precisely. On November 14, 2025, the day after the emails dominated news coverage, Trump announced a dramatic deflection strategy. In a Truth Social post, he accused Democrats of "using the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN, and all of their other failures." He then directed Attorney General Bondi to investigate Epstein's relationships with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, JPMorgan Chase, "and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him." Trump characterized this as "another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats."
Bondi immediately complied, announcing on social media that she assigned Jay Clayton, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to lead this new investigation. Notably, all the individuals Trump named for investigation were Democrats or Democratic donors, despite Trump himself appearing far more frequently in the released Epstein documents. The tactic followed Cohn's teaching precisely: when attacked, counterattack with greater force; when accused, accuse the accusers; when evidence emerges against you, redirect attention to evidence against others.
This investigative directive raised immediate concerns about politicization of the Justice Department and potential obstruction of document release efforts. Former federal prosecutors noted that reopening an investigation could provide the Justice Department with grounds to refuse public release of case files, claiming they now related to an ongoing investigation. The newly released emails did not suggest criminal activity by Clinton, Summers, Hoffman, or JPMorgan Chase beyond having associated with a convicted sex offender.
Analysis: The Architecture of Trump's Approach to Power
The Consistent Pattern
Examining Trump's formative relationships and his responses to subsequent crises revealed a remarkably consistent pattern. From Roy Cohn in the 1970s through Jeffrey Epstein in the 1990s to his presidential conduct in the 2010s and 2020s, the same principles operated: relationships served instrumental purposes, ethical constraints did not apply, legal systems existed to be weaponized, media existed to be manipulated, institutions existed to be bent or broken, and admitting fault or error was never acceptable under any circumstances.
The 1973 housing discrimination case established the template. When confronted with substantial evidence of systematic racial discrimination, Trump did not settle, reform practices, or acknowledge wrongdoing. Instead, following Cohn's advice, he counterattacked aggressively, sued the government, claimed victimhood, and ultimately declared victory in what was actually a settlement confirming the discriminatory practices. This approach succeeded in the sense that Trump avoided significant consequences and maintained his reputation among his target audience, even if the underlying conduct continued.
The Epstein relationship followed similar patterns. When questions emerged about Trump's close friendship with a man later convicted of sex trafficking minors, Trump did not forthrightly address the nature and extent of the relationship. Instead, the timeline of their falling out shifted depending on when Trump was asked, the reasons for the rupture changed across different tellings, and Trump alternated between claiming he barely knew Epstein and acknowledging a decades-long friendship. When his administration gained control of investigative files that presumably contained information about Trump's interactions with Epstein, those files were suppressed despite prior promises, an active investigation into co-conspirators was terminated, and the prosecutor who successfully convicted Epstein and Maxwell was fired.
The Transactional Worldview
Both the Cohn and Epstein relationships illustrated Trump's fundamentally transactional approach to human connections. Cohn provided legal representation, media manipulation, social access, and strategic guidance. When Cohn became ill, lost his law license, and could no longer serve Trump's interests, Trump abandoned him. Epstein provided access to elite social circles, business connections, and association with wealth and glamour. When Epstein's legal troubles made the association toxic, Trump distanced himself and later, when controlling the relevant investigative files, suppressed their release.
This transactional approach extended beyond personal relationships to institutions, norms, and democratic processes. Courts existed not as venues for justice but as tools for intimidation. Media existed not to inform the public but to be manipulated for personal benefit. Intelligence agencies, inspectors general, and prosecutors existed not to serve constitutional functions but to protect the president personally. Elections existed not to register popular will but to ratify Trump's preferred outcomes, and when they failed to do so, their legitimacy could be challenged.
The Imperviousness to Accountability
Perhaps the most significant pattern across Trump's life involved his apparent imperviousness to accountability. The 1973 housing discrimination case should have resulted in meaningful consequences, but Trump's aggressive counterattack and eventual settlement without admission of guilt allowed him to claim victory. His multiple casino bankruptcies should have destroyed his reputation as a businessman, but he reinvented himself as a reality television star and continued claiming billionaire status. The Access Hollywood tape should have ended his political career, but he denied, deflected, and won the presidency. His first impeachment should have resulted in conviction, but Senate Republicans acquitted him. His second impeachment following the January 6 attack should have disqualified him from future office, but he was acquitted again and returned to the presidency.
The Epstein connection, which would have destroyed most political careers, proved survivable because Trump employed all the tactics Cohn taught him: deny the extent of the relationship, provide inconsistent explanations that prevent establishment of clear facts, attack accusers and investigators, weaponize government power to suppress damaging evidence, and redirect attention to opponents' associations. The strategy did not make the underlying facts disappear, but it prevented those facts from generating sufficient accountability to end Trump's political viability.
Cohn's Ultimate Legacy
Hartmann argued that Roy Cohn's lasting legacy transcended his influence on Donald Trump specifically. Cohn demonstrated how American democracy could be attacked not from outside but from within, using the very tools and institutions designed to protect it as weapons to undermine it. The legal system designed to ensure justice became a weapon for harassment. The free press designed to inform the public became a platform for manipulation. The congressional oversight designed to check executive power became a political battle corrupted by partisan loyalty. The Justice Department designed to enforce law impartially became a tool for protecting allies and attacking enemies.
Trump simply took the Cohn playbook and scaled it to national proportions. Where Cohn corrupted individual judges, Trump attacked the entire federal judiciary. Where Cohn manipulated tabloid reporters, Trump weaponized social media to reach millions directly. Where Cohn demanded loyalty from clients and associates, Trump demanded it from cabinet officials and federal prosecutors. Where Cohn weaponized lawsuits against individual opponents, Trump weaponized government investigations against political enemies.
The Broader Context of Formative Influences
While Cohn and Epstein represented Trump's most significant formative relationships outside his family, other influences also shaped his development. His father Fred Trump taught him the real estate business and instilled an emphasis on outer toughness and inner ruthlessness, though Donald ultimately rejected Fred's focus on outer-borough apartment buildings in favor of Manhattan glamour. His education at New York Military Academy and later Fordham University and the Wharton School provided credentials but apparently little in the way of ethical formation or intellectual discipline. His multiple marriages and divorces, conducted largely in the tabloid press, taught him how to convert personal scandal into publicity.
The 1980s New York real estate and social scene provided the crucible in which Trump combined all these influences into his distinctive approach. The era's emphasis on wealth display, media celebrity, and dealmaking as performance art suited Trump perfectly. His cultivation of relationships with politicians, celebrities, and eventually international figures created a network that proved invaluable when he entered politics. His practice of using media to create an image disconnected from underlying reality—claiming wealth while accumulating debt, projecting success while experiencing failures—established patterns that continued throughout his career.
Conclusion: The Long Shadow of Mentorship
Understanding Donald Trump's presidency and his broader impact on American political life required examining the relationships and experiences that formed his character and approach to power. Roy Cohn's mentorship in the 1970s and 1980s provided the tactical and philosophical foundation: never admit fault, always counterattack, weaponize legal systems, manipulate media, deploy fear, demand loyalty, and recognize that institutions could be broken by shameless, aggressive, persistent attacks. The friendship with Jeffrey Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s illustrated Trump's pattern of cultivating relationships with powerful, wealthy, often controversial figures to gain access to elite networks and social status, then distancing himself when associations became problematic.
The combination of Cohn's tactical instruction and the broader pattern of transactional relationships created an approach to power fundamentally at odds with democratic norms and constitutional governance. When Trump brought this approach to the presidency, the consequences extended far beyond his personal conduct. The refusal to acknowledge error contributed to catastrophic policy failures, most notably in pandemic response. The constant counterattacking and use of fear poisoned political discourse and deepened social divisions. The weaponization of justice and demands for personal loyalty corrupted institutional independence. The attacks on democratic norms and processes, culminating in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, brought American democracy closer to collapse than at any point since the Civil War.
The 2025 controversy over the suppressed Epstein files illustrated these patterns with particular clarity. Faced with potential embarrassment from revelations about his relationship with a convicted sex trafficker, Trump employed every tactic Cohn taught him: suppress the evidence, attack the investigators, terminate the ongoing criminal investigation, fire the prosecutor who convicted Epstein and Maxwell, claim victimhood, accuse opponents of the same misconduct, and weaponize the Justice Department to investigate political enemies rather than release information about himself. The fact that these tactics largely succeeded in preventing full accountability demonstrated the effectiveness of Cohn's approach and the vulnerability of democratic institutions to such attacks.
Roy Cohn died in 1986, but his influence persisted and grew. Through Donald Trump, Cohn's philosophy of power without ethics, of winning without regard to truth or justice, of attacking institutions rather than respecting them, scaled from individual legal battles to the governance of the United States. Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019, but the questions about Trump's relationship with him and the administration's suppression of investigative files illustrated how Trump's pattern of transactional relationships and imperviousness to accountability extended even to associations with convicted sex offenders.
The long shadow of these formative influences suggested that Trump's approach to power was not merely personal idiosyncrasy or political strategy but rather the culmination of decades of mentorship, practice, and reinforcement. Trump did not invent the tactics he employed. He learned them from Roy Cohn, practiced them in relationships like the one with Jeffrey Epstein, refined them through decades of business dealings and media manipulation, and ultimately deployed them at the highest levels of political power. The question facing American democracy was whether institutions designed for leaders who accepted basic democratic norms and constitutional constraints could survive a president who learned from Roy Cohn that such constraints existed only for those too weak or foolish to break them.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
