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Donald Trump and Michael Cohen are friends again. Or at least they aren’t enemies anymore.

The rapprochement between the president and his former lawyer, whose excommunication from Trumpworld culminated when Cohen testified for the prosecution at Trump’s 2024 criminal trial, entered a new phase last week when Trump appeared on Cohen’s weekly radio show. The episode, which is titled “Burying the Hatchet” and aired in full Sunday, was a relatively chummy public reunion that dwelled little on the origins of their rift.

With the country embroiled in a trade war with Canada and a hot war with Iran, Cohen’s triple-agent performance might understandably register as little more than palace intrigue (or perhaps a court jester’s routine). But it also underscores a dynamic that has powered Trump’s political career from the start—and may help explain why his presidency is currently flailing.

Hang on. Remind me who Cohen is and how he ended up on Trump’s bad side.

I don’t blame you for blissfully memory-holing this particular subplot. Cohen started with Trump back in 2006, doing legal work for and helping run his businesses. But Cohen also handled tasks better befitting a mob-boss consigliere: paying hush money to women who claimed affairs with Trump, serving as Trump’s self-described on-air “attack dog,” and threatening media outlets that pursued critical stories. When Trump moved into the White House in 2017, Cohen was reportedly disappointed not to land an administration job. But he didn’t turn against the president until the following year, when federal agents raided Cohen’s office and he pleaded guilty to campaign-finance crimes and other charges, saying Trump had ordered the payoffs to help him win the 2016 election. Their relationship reached its nadir when Cohen served as the star witness in the criminal case that convicted Trump over hush money payments to the porn actor Stormy Daniels.

That’s a lot of bad blood. So what was Trump and Cohen’s conversation on Sunday like? 

At times, it seemed as though their boss-fixer relationship had never ended. Cohen fawningly addressed Trump as “sir,” echoed his criticisms of “crazy leftists,” and predicted that future presidents would thank Trump for the ballroom he tore down part of the White House to build. When Trump darkly joked that it’s been hard to make a peace deal with Iran because the U.S. military has killed so many of its leaders, Cohen obligingly guffawed. “The country is doing good,” Trump declared at one point, to which Cohen responded, “Well, thanks to you, sir.”

The hatchet burial has been brewing........

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