Disloyal : A Memoir

The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump

by Michael Cohen

Hardcover, 432 pages

English language

Published Sept. 8, 2020 by Skyhorse.

ISBN:: 978-1-5107-6469-9
ASIN:: 1510764690
Goodreads:: 54925472

View on OpenLibrary

(3 reviews)

This book almost didn’t see the light of day as government officials tried to bar its publication.

The Inside Story of the Real President Trump, by His Former Attorney And Personal Advisor—The Man Who Helped Get Him Into the Oval Office Once Donald Trump’s fiercest surrogate, closest confidant, and staunchest defender, Michael Cohen knows where the skeletons are buried.

This is the most devastating business and political horror story of the century. As Trump’s lawyer and “fixer,” Cohen not only witnessed firsthand, but was also an active participant in the inner workings of Trump’s business empire, political campaign, and presidential administration.

This book almost didn’t see the light of day as government officials tried to bar its publication.

This is a story that you have not read in newspapers, or on social media, or watched on television. These are accounts that only someone who worked for Trump around the clock for over a decade—not a few months or even a couple of years—could know. Cohen describes Trump’s racist rants against President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Black and Hispanic people in general, as well as the cruelty, humiliation, and abuse he leveled at family and staff. Whether he’s exposing the fact that Trump engaged in tax fraud by inflating his wealth or election fraud by rigging polls, or outing Trump’s Neanderthal views towards women or his hush-money payments to clandestine lovers, Cohen pulls no punches.

He show’s Trump’s relentless willingness to lie, exaggerate, mislead, or manipulate. Trump emerges as a man without a soul—a man who courts evangelicals and then trashes them, panders to the common man, but then rips off small business owners, a con-man who will do or say absolutely anything to win, regardless of the cost to his family, his associates, or his country.

At the heart of Disloyal, we see how Cohen came under the spell of his charismatic Boss and, as a result, lost all sense of his moral compass.

The real real Donald Trump who permeates these pages—the racist, sexist, homophobic, lying, cheating President—will be discussed, written about, and analyzed for years to come.

2 editions

arensb reviewed Disloyal : A Memoir by Michael Cohen

Review of 'Disloyal : A Memoir' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

This is not a pleasant book, and Michael Cohen is not a pleasant character. He comes across as a crook who finally got caught, and is now desperately trying to redeem himself through abject mea maxima culpas. Consider him a rather unreliable narrator.
Nonetheless, he provides insight into what it's like to work with Donald Trump. To the extent that it chronicles the Trump presidency, obviously this book will become obsolete on Jan. 21, 2021 at the latest. But it also provides some insight into what it's like to live under Trump's spell, to see him as someone worth admiring and fighting for. This, despite not just knowing what sort of person Trump was and is, but actively carrying out a lot of his dirty work. This part gives some amount of insight into the eternal question of how a Hitler or a Trump could have been elected, and how demagogues hold sway over populations.
If you don't want to buy the book so as not to give Cohen any royalties, by all means borrow it from your library. I, for one, found it more interesting than Bob Woodward's [b:Rage|53317913|Rage|Bob Woodward|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1597575057l/53317913.SY75.jpg|81657197], which came out around the same time.

gimley reviewed Disloyal : A Memoir by Michael Cohen

Review of 'Disloyal : A Memoir' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Ghostwritten, I assume, since he mentions getting a ghost writer when he was going to write a book that praises Trump, but quite entertaining. He says we'll hate him but I did not for most of the book. It's told as the sorrowful tale of one who was in a cult, now out seeing the error of his ways. His love for Trump is convincing even as he sees the horribleness he is part of. I believe all his stories and his portrait of Trump certainly matches all the evidence and what I've read in [b:Rage|53317913|Rage|Bob Woodward|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1597575057l/53317913.SY75.jpg|81657197] which I read at the same time. When he finally gets arrested I was pleased to see him suffer, if even that can be believed. Is this a book of a reformed man? Or just a vengeful hit job? Hard to tell, especially since it's ghosted so I can't get close enough to Mr Cohen's true thoughts.

There's no quick fix for a country in which this could happen, no matter what the next administration may do and there's no instant transformation of a man from one who can do what he does while in the cult to one who would never act that way again given the right circumstances. Will the evangelicals get to hear how Trump was playing them and learn anything? I don't think they'll get so far as to even find out they were played and so many in this country are still being played. I suppose there are still many Nazis in modern Germany too.

I enjoyed, mostly, reading this, the stories acting as a respite from the horrible world we're living in. The awfulness, I fear, will remain for while but maybe it can be covered over with something more pleasant soon.

GrampaSiFiG

rated it

Jan. 15, 2023