Michael Cohen's Relationship With Donald Trump Is Even More Pathetic Than You'd Expect

Sometime-attorney Michael Cohen is having a rough couple weeks, and a New York Times story published Friday—which details just how embarrassingly one-sided Cohen’s relationship with Donald Trump really is—likely won’t improve matters.

The Times reports how Trump has repeatedly threatened to fire Cohen over relatively minor ills, gone out of his way to degrade and insult him, and stonewalled the man who’s said he would “take a bullet” for him from his 2016 presidential campaign.

Roger Stone, a Trump gadfly who’s certainly seeing to his own interests relaying this messy tale, told the paper: “Donald goes out of his way to treat him like garbage.” Sounds like Trump!

Stone describes their relationship thus (emphasis added throughout):

Mr. Stone recalled Mr. Trump saying of Mr. Cohen, “He owns some of the finest Trump real estate in the country — paid top dollar for it, too.” In Mr. Trump’s worldview, there are few insults more devastating than saying someone overpaid.

For years, Mr. Cohen has described himself as unflinchingly devoted to Mr. Trump, whom he has admired since high school. He has told interviewers that he has never heard Mr. Trump utter an inaccuracy or break a promise. He has tweeted about Mr. Trump nearly 3,000 times.

Obsessed much!! Just tweet about the weather and airport delays like everyone else.

Cohen’s efforts to dig himself out of holes his boss created get much worse, like the time he apparently tried to talk to Melania Trump about Stormy Daniels:

At a Republican fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, Mr. Cohen went so far as to approach the first lady, Melania Trump, to try to apologize for the pain he caused her with the payment to Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who has claimed to have had the sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.

Sadly, the anecdote ends there.

He even reportedly badgered Trump with conspiracy theorist photos allegedly depicting Bill Clinton and an illegitimate son:

Some of Mr. Cohen’s efforts to help only led to embarrassing rebuffs in front of those in charge. A month before the election, Mr. Cohen approached Mr. Trump outside his Trump Tower office with photographs of Bill Clinton and a mixed-race man alleged — without any evidence — to be the former president’s illegitimate son. Mr. Trump knocked the papers away, angrily telling Mr. Cohen to “get that out of my face,” said one former campaign official who witnessed the incident.

But no matter what Cohen did for his buddy, it was absolutely never enough:

Particularly hurtful to Mr. Cohen was the way Mr. Trump lavished approval on Mr. Lewandowski in a way he never did for Mr. Cohen. When Mr. Cohen told Mr. Trump that he believed that Mr. Lewandowski had been behind a negative story about Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump dismissed the comments as simple jealousy, and didn’t pay attention, according to two people familiar with the incident.

Mr. Cohen raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump in the campaign, at a time when the candidate was struggling to attract support.

It’s deeply difficult to be the second-favorite child, I have to assume, but it’s inarguably worse to be the least-favorite child who might soon be rotting in prison.