Michael Cohen won’t say if he’ll use his Trump interview to seek a pardon

There are few relationships in modern American politics more combustible than the one between Donald Trump and Michael Cohen. For years, Cohen was the man who said he'd "take a bullet" for Trump, only to become the prosecution's star witness against him, branding his former boss a con man and a threat to democracy. Now, the president of the United States is expected to phone into Cohen's radio show — a plot twist that feels less like politics and more like the finale of a particularly messy cable drama. The pardon question hangs over everything. Cohen was convicted on charges including campaign finance violations, tax evasion, and lying to Congress, and he has spent years publicly insisting he wants no pardon — that accepting one would validate a corrupt bargain. Yet when asked directly whether he'd use this interview to seek one, he demurred. That single refusal to answer speaks volumes. It could mean he's keeping his options open, or it could mean he simply doesn't want to hand Trump a headline before the conversation even begins. From Trump's side, the calculus is equally murky. A president calling into the show of his most famous turncoat is not a typical gesture of reconciliation. Some will read it as an act of magnanimity — a leader willing to engage even his harshest critics. Others will see it as a strategic move to co-opt a narrative, to appear above the fray, or to remind Cohen that the man who once held his fate in his hands still commands the national stage. The ambiguity is the point. What makes this moment genuinely interesting is that both men have something to gain and something to lose. Cohen gets relevance and a platform; Trump gets a spectacle and a chance to control the story. But live conversations are unpredictable, and two men with this much history and this many grievances rarely stick to a script. Whether it ends in handshakes, insults, or a bombshell, the interview is a reminder that in American politics, the strangest reunions are often the ones that matter most. Source: [Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/19/michael-cohen-trump-interview-radio-pardon-01043191)