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David Marcus
Cousin of Roy Cohn
David Marcus is the cousin of Roy Cohn, the notorious attorney who served as a mentor to Donald Trump. Marcus is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist for international reporting and also the author of two books about the emotional lives of teenagers.
The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Gabrielle Schonder on June 29, 2020. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Manhattan in the 1970s and ‘80s
I’m going ask you to go into the time machine for a moment because we’re pretty fascinated with New York City in the early ’70s and a young Donald Trump sort of entering a New York that’s very different than the New York you and I are very familiar with and that you are speaking from.Can you kind of set the scene a little bit, early 1970s, New York City?
So the New York City of the early 1970s was made for someone like Roy Cohn, made for someone like Donald Trump.There were media wars breaking out.The city was decadent, but it was about to have a resurgence.And it was a city in search of heroes, in search of characters, in search of people it could admire or at least follow. …
Roy should have been discredited in 1950s when he was tarred by the McCarthy hearings, the Army-McCarthy hearings.But amazingly, by the 1970s, he was the man about town.He was the one who connected everyone.He was the one who put people together and deals together.And he somehow intuited, somehow figured out that New York was waiting for people like Donald Trump.
Roy Cohn’s Social and Professional Circle
… But Roy at the time is working out of his townhouse, working and living out of his townhouse?Can you tell me about his place on the Upper East Side?
So Roy in typical fashion had a beautiful townhouse that was falling apart around the seams, but it was his home and it was his office.So he didn’t pay rent.He didn’t—he was nowhere to be found on the lease or the mortgage.And yet he had a downstairs that was buzzing with switchboard operators and people waiting sort of in line to see him.And then he lived on the upper floors in a bedroom lined with toy frogs, plastic frogs and rubber frogs that were his collecting passion for some reason.And then, on the deck, on the rooftop deck, he would sit sort of taking people as he sat in his bathing suit and suntanned. …
What sort of figures were kind of coming in and out of the townhouse, the types of clients that Roy was representing at the time?
I went there first as a college student and later as a journalist, and I was amazed, I was dazzled, and I was disgusted.In one day, you might see Carmine De Sapio hobbling in.Or you might see Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, was his name, another mafia don.Or you might see Cardinal Spellman from the Catholic Church.Or you might see George Steinbrenner, the owner of the Yankees.They all came and paid homage to Roy.They all were clients of Roy’s.It was a crazy assemblage of people.
Later, when Ronald Reagan ran for office, Roger Stone was a regular visitor.He came and talked money with Roy and his partner Tom Bolan.And everywhere you looked, there were people who were heiresses and there were people who were in the industry or developers.And they were all crowding in to see Roy, to get a few minutes of Roy’s time.
And so I would just sit there as this parade of people would come through.And the more important ones, especially Donald Trump, would get the immediate attention, and the rest of us would be sort of left to watch and ogle everybody else who was there, biding time, waiting for a meeting, waiting for time with Roy.
Now, Roy’s meetings were very odd, because if he really wanted to impress you, he would be up on his rooftop deck in nice weather sunbathing, wearing nothing but a bathing suit, and you would have to go and sort of take a meeting with him as if there was nothing unusual about that.
That’s a bit of a power move.
… It was sort of, yes, you sort of had to, you were the—whoever you were, you were the supplicant; you were coming to ask a favor from Roy.However, he increasingly treated Trump as an equal.He loved—he loved Trump.
Roy Cohn’s Approach to the Law
Let me ask you a little bit, before we get to their meeting, what Roy’s approach was to the law? …
… Roy certainly had an unorthodox approach to the law.He loved to say, “Don’t tell me what the law is; tell me who the judge is.”And he consorted with these judges.He made phone calls with them.He did things behind the back of prosecutors which were, frankly, completely illegal.And he wasn’t a lawyer in the typical sense.He did graduate from Columbia Law School before he was even old enough to take the bar.He had to wait till age 21 to take the bar.But —and he had a phenomenal mind.He could read a list of names when he was younger and recount that list of names 50, 100 names.
But that wasn’t—he wasn’t really a lawyer, though.He—his—and he admitted this—his pride and joy was bullying people and bribing people and making deals behind the scenes.He was a fixer.He was a connector.And he actually joked about this, and people often joked about this at the birthday parties I went to for him.He was a terrible lawyer because he didn’t pay attention to details; he didn’t pay attention to names; he didn’t pay attention to dates.
I was at, I think—I was at—I think it was Roy’s last birthday party, so it would have been February of 1986, just a few months before he died.And a bunch of people made toasts to him, including Donald Trump.And Donald Trump said: “I love telling people that Roy Cohn’s my lawyer.He’s a lousy lawyer, but just his name scares off everybody.”
I remember this anecdote where Trump kept a photo, I think, of Roy in his desk at Trump Tower that he would take out.Can you tell— you know that story?
Yeah.Trump was very proud that he kept a photo of Roy Cohn on his desk, and he said when people came and they were considering going after Trump for money that was unpaid or for legal, for anything that Trump had done illegally, he would just point to this photo of Roy.And the message was clear: ”Roy will defend me; it’s not even worth going after me.”
What’s the signal that that association sends to an adversary?
Well, Roy cultivated an image of—as a bulldog.Nothing, nothing, would stop him from tarring opponents or even doing illegal things.And everybody in New York knew it.You did not want to tangle with Roy Cohn, not because he knew the law, not because he would pay attention to your case, but because he would use—he knew before anybody else did that the court of public opinion is often more important than a court of law.
Roy Cohn Meets Donald Trump
… Let me ask you a little bit about when Cohn and Donald Trump meet at Le Club.Do you remember what the discussion is about in that first encounter?There’s a case that Trump has around that time.
Sure.Roy was very proud—and he told me when I was writing a paper during college—that he was the kind of person, the kind of lawyer who would never admit guilt, never admit he was wrong.He would always go on the offensive, on the counterattack.Nothing is more revealing of that than his first meeting with Donald Trump.
In 1973, one of the places to see and be seen in Manhattan was called Le Club, and Roy was there holding court, as he often did, and Roy was in his mid- to late 40s.Donald Trump walked in.He was young; he was in his late 20s.He was not a known person at that time.His father was a developer; Donald Trump was under the wings of his father.And he saw Roy Cohn sitting at a table, in the middle where Roy liked to sit, and Trump said, you know, “I know about you; can I ask you a question?”And the question was, the U.S. Justice Department was going after the Trumps very, very—with incredible evidence that they owned a bunch of apartments in Queens, and they were not letting Blacks and other minorities rent those apartments.
And Trump said, “My lawyers say I should just settle out of court, just pay some fine and settle out of court.”And Roy famously said, “Don’t do that.”He said: “Just go after the Justice Department.Don’t ever admit guilt.”And Trump was intrigued and asked for a meeting with Roy later in private.And Roy recounts this.Roy recounted this to me and to many other people.Roy said to him when they met: “You might be guilty; it doesn’t matter.I want you to go after the Justice Department.”And they ultimately decided that Trump, instead of admitting guilt—and he was guilty of discriminating against people—Trump countersued the Justice Department for $100 million.
Now, the evidence was—there was a preponderance of evidence.The files from people who wanted to rent were marked “C” for “colored” by Trump’s people.“C” for “colored.”And then they basically threw them in a garbage can.But—and the Justice Department had it— remember, this is a time in the early 1970s, when the Justice Department was becoming more vigorous about enforcing civil rights.
But Trump turned around and countersued.And even in his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton, he claimed that as a victory.He said he was never proven—he was never found guilty.But in fact, his countersuit didn’t work, and in fact he did end up quietly settling out of court.But Roy went on the offensive and said, “This is a victory”; Trump was vindicated.And that’s a headline; that’s the news that stuck with many New Yorkers, even though it was wrong.
The Roy Cohn Playbook
How—how formative was that experience for Trump, do you think, to sort of be introduced to Roy Cohn’s playbook in the way in which he was and to have seen how it would play out publicly?
… So that was a defining moment for Donald Trump.Donald Trump was on the ropes.There was no doubt that he and his father had been racist.There was no doubt they had discriminated.There was no doubt there was wrongdoing.And yet Roy Cohn showed him that you can turn around a situation.You can make it yours; you can own it just by ignoring the facts, completely ignoring the facts, and going after your attacker.
… I wonder, because we don’t have a sense of this, about Roy’s approach to race relations and Roy’s understanding of race.I don’t know much about that.Do you—do you know?
I find myself wondering all the time what Roy really thought about race relations… And Roy didn’t really talk about it that much.But Roy did have a few friends who were Black, a few friends who were Hispanic.And I actually think that Roy would not approve of the way that Trump plays the race card. …
What did Cohn teach him about working the levers of power in New York?
New York in the ’70s, when Trump and Cohn met, was really a place of who you know.It was a place of what they called the “favor bank.”So Cohn was a Democrat, and yet he was very plugged in with Republicans.And his law firm had a Bronx—high-ranking Bronx Democratic operative, and he was friends with Mayor Abe Beame, who was a Democrat.And yet Cohn prided himself on having been friends with Richard Nixon right before that.
And so the lesson from Roy Cohn was: Don’t go the way the establishment does.Don’t play by the rules.Cheat and lie and swindle and threaten.
Again and again with building projects, Roy showed Trump that he could get around zoning ordinances, he could get around unions, he could get around the norms by dealing with Mafia, by threatening people, by basically buying off politicians, because that’s what Roy did.
… I think about his attack strategy to redefine the debate, to get off the issue.Help me understand what he’s doing there.What is that playbook?
Roy was way ahead of his time in manipulating the media.There was no social media there, and yet Roy defined the story every day or every week.And he would be asked questions, straightforward questions, about all kinds of cases he had been involved in, and he would—he would dodge them, and he would change the narrative, and he would make up things, and he would distract and divide.And that’s pure Trump.That’s what Trump does so well.That came from Roy.
… It was recasting a loss, right, or never admitting defeat, as he did in the housing discrimination case.
Yeah, Roy taught Trump three important lessons, unfortunately for all of us.One, never admit you’re wrong.Two, go on the counteroffensive.And three, divide and conquer.Find someone to scapegoat.Find someone to blame.In Roy’s case, he blamed Communists; he blamed gay people.In Trump’s case, it’s “the other”; it’s anybody else.
Cohn and Trump’s Relationships with Their Fathers
… Let me ask you a little bit about Trump’s relationship with Roy versus his relationship with his own father.In many ways, we look to the Fred Sr. relationship, and we’ve talked to folks who are really sort of Trump biographers that have helped us with that dynamic, but when you think about the relationship he had with Roy, how significant was that compared to, you know, the relationship he had with his dad?
To understand Trump’s relationship with Roy, you have to understand both men’s relationships with their own fathers.Trump and Roy each had a father who was emotionally distant, who was very demanding, and who had high expectations for his son.In the case of Trump, Trump kind of emerged as the star son at some point, and Roy was the only son.
Both fathers were from the outer boroughs.Both fathers wanted to make it in Manhattan.That was a hugely important thing in the ’60s and ’70s in New York, to not be an outer-borough kind of has-been, but to be in the limelight of Manhattan.
And I think that Trump saw in Roy someone who was encouraging like a father, someone who was paternalistic, someone who was caring, someone who was loving in his own way.More than Fred Trump had been, Roy was that to Donald…
And so, several times I was at a party at Roy’s townhouse, and Trump would come in characteristically late.He would come in late, and Roy would just stop looking, whoever he was with—it could have been Andy Warhol; it could have been Norman Mailer; it could have been any—Mike Wallace, the reporter, the journalist.Roy would stop looking at a person, and he would—his attention would fixate on Trump.And Trump would only stay for a little while.Trump sort of put appearances in.But Roy was all Trump when Trump was there.
And years later, I saw interviews that Roy did, talking about how much he believed in Trump, that Trump could be a president, that Trump could be a could be a nuclear—could be a negotiator for nuclear matters.It was—it was odd.Roy was friendly with many, many people.He had many disciples and young people he liked, but nobody as much as Trump.
Cohn’s Influence on Trump’s Political Approach
… Roy is really a figure of Washington who comes to New York really with his tail between his legs after the Army-McCarthy hearings and, you know, meets Donald Trump and uses a certain approach to government, approach to politics, approach to adversaries and criticism.But what do you think he maybe plants in terms of politics and ambition with Trump?Do you think there’s—do you think there’s some influence on Roy’s experience in Washington that he shares with the young Donald? …
So by all means, by all measures, Roy should have been a failure after he returned from Washington to New York.He had been the subject to the Army-McCarthy hearings.He was embarrassed.He was humiliated.He had gone after the Army to protect a friend of his, and the Army counsel had turned around and basically said, “Have you no decency?”It was a shocking moment in America.It was in fact what a lot of people think was America’s first reality-TV show, these hearings that were on every day, that millions of Americans saw.
But incredibly, Roy’s lesson was you can be defeated; you can be humiliated; you can do something embarrassing; you can do something wrong.And don’t admit it.Just come back and make light of it, and people in Washington will forget, because Washington changes, and the characters change.And all you have to do is be there, be amid the power.
And Trump learned that from Roy.In fact, Roy, who left Washington humiliated in the mid-1950s, by the 1980s, the early 1980s he was being feted; he was being celebrated in the White House by President Ronald Reagan.He helped get Ronald Reagan elected.He was friends with Ed Meese, who was in charge of the Justice Department, and Roger Stone, who was a main campaign aide.And Roy was in the White House for dinners, for celebrations.He was getting telegrams from Nancy Reagan.Nancy Reagan called him after the election and said, “Thank you for getting Ronnie elected.”She credited him with doing that.
So Roy realized that the lessons he learned in New York—dodge and deflect and deny—worked very well in Washington, where there’s a lot of news happening and where you can just take advantage of the news cycle, which is something Trump has done very well.
Trump and Loyalty
… Let me ask you a little bit about when Roy is ill and Donald seems to abandon him.<v David Marcus … I watched as everybody knew he was lying about having liver cancer.Everybody knew he had AIDS, and he didn’t admit it in public.He denied it in public, but he admitted it essentially to me in private.And he was hurt because some people stuck by him—his law partners; his male friend at the time, Peter Fraser—but Trump dropped him like a stone when it became apparent that Roy’s mind wasn’t functioning well, that Roy couldn’t do what he needed to do—to make contacts, to go to court, to threaten people, to get on TV.He was just losing the sort of alacrity he’d had for so many years.And Roy was really hurt by that.
… Trump stopped seeing him, stopped calling him, stopped paying attention to him, stopped referring to him as he got progressively worse.And as it became apparent that Roy was going to be disbarred by New York, which he was, he was of no use to Trump.Trump basically forgot about him.What does it tell us about the way Trump is using advisers and using those that are very close to him, right?We just described Roy as almost being a fatherly figure in some ways to Donald.
I can’t say many good things about Roy Cohn, but he was intensely loyal to people.As my grandmother declined and as she got ill and feeble, in her 90s, Roy was always there.He was calling her all the time.He would make sure they saw each other.And there was something tender about Roy, which is not evident in the way he treated other people outside the family, it was not evident in the way he treated most people, I should say.But he had that tenderness.
But Trump was different—is different from Roy in that way.Trump will use you and take you as a friend, so-called friend, until the day when you turn on him or you’re of no use to him, and you’re gone.You’re written out, and in fact, he’ll deride you.Roy actually was loyal to people when they became sick, when they became feeble, when they had legal problems, when they had financial problems—not everybody, but several people.Trump has none of that. …
In the administration, there is a period in which he says, the president says, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?,” you know, when he’s frustrated at his attorney general and he’s looking for a lawyer that’s going to—you know, that’s going to get him out of pickles.What—what is he looking for?What does he— Help us again with again that dependency that he had on Roy and that need that Roy fulfilled for Donald.
Right. One of the most chilling things that Trump ever said, at least to me and my family, was when he blurted out in the White House, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”He was actually taking a shot at Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, who he chose, and he was saying that Jeff Sessions wasn’t enough like the mob lawyer Roy Cohn, who’d break every rule imaginable, right?Jeff Sessions, who was, to my family’s mind, very pro-Trump, wouldn’t cross a certain line in defending Trump; he wouldn’t stop investigations. …Trump was saying—that evening, he was saying: “I need somebody who’s going to fight dirty for me.I need somebody who’s going to break every rule imaginable.”And that was a—that was so revealing, that comment, and so frightening about where we are in this country, about the fact that the president is reminiscing and calling for his mob fixer to fix things in Washington. …
Help me understand.Roy Cohn was somebody that broke the rules in order to defend his clients.And he was somebody that painted outside the lines.But ultimately he’s disbarred.This is fact, right?This is—this is a certain approach to law, right?And so the president isn’t asking for, you know, a traditional establishment sort of D.C. figure at this moment.He’s looking for—he’s looking for a fixer.
… Roy Cohn changed Trump’s life.Roy Cohn brought him into the spotlight.Roy Cohn showed him how to grab power and keep power and push other people away from power.And the fact that Trump, years later, years after, decades after Roy’s death, is still yearning for a Roy Cohn, that’s frightening for all of us.That means that Trump knows he wants somebody who will throw apart any convention, who will not be stopped by legal bounds, who will do Trump’s bidding in every way possible.That’s really scary.
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