Administration

Cohen to Trump: ‘Lay off Twitter … bring the country together’

President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen said in a new interview that, if he could tell his former boss anything, it would be “lay off Twitter.”

{mosads}Cohen told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired Friday that he thinks the president needs to cool down his social media habit.

“Lay off Twitter, run the country the way that we all thought that you would,” Cohen said. “Be able to take the Democrats, Republicans, bring them together and bring the country together instead of dividing the country.”

 

The interview marks the first public comments Cohen has made since he was sentenced to three years in prison in connection with payments he made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both of whom claimed to have had affairs with Trump.

Trump had denied the affairs and has rejected Cohen’s claim that he was directed by his then-client to make the hush-money payments.

“I never directed him to do anything wrong,” Trump told Fox News on Thursday. “Whatever he did he did on his own. … I never directed him to do anything incorrect or wrong.”

Cohen told Stephanopoulos that he previously enjoyed his time at the Trump Organization.

“I will tell you that the gentleman that is sitting now in the Oval Office, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, is not the Donald Trump that I remember from Trump Tower,” Cohen said.

He added that Trump is a “very difficult individual” now and believes the pressure of the presidency has gotten to him.

“It’s not like the Trump organization where he would bark out orders and people would blindly follow what he wanted done,” Cohen said. “There’s a system here, he doesn’t understand the system, and it’s sad because the country has never been more divisive.”