First Draft: Inside Team Trump’s Plan to Use Michael Cohen to Go After Trump’s Enemies

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Cite

Suebsaeng, A. (2026, August 28). First Draft: Inside Team Trump’s Plan to Use Michael Cohen to Go After Trump’s Enemies. Zeteo. https://zeteo.com/p/inside-team-trumps-plan-to-use-michael

Dated when The Aporia collected the article, usually within hours of publication. Check the original for its exact date and byline.

Zeteo · collected 2026-08-28 · by Asawin Suebsaeng commentary

Quick Summary

This article is an opinion piece that expresses skepticism about former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's claims of turning against the president and seeking redemption. A journalist from The Daily Beast recounts an experience where Cohen, on behalf of Donald Trump, threatened to sue them for publishing a story in 2015, and notes that they never believed Cohen's later claims of switching sides. The article suggests that Team Trump is interested in using Cohen as a tool to go after their enemies.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-08-28, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

Michael Cohen, former lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump, is being considered by Team Trump to use against their enemies. Despite falling out with Trump and becoming a key witness in multiple cases against him, including a civil fraud case in New York led by Attorney General Letitia James and a criminal hush-money case in Manhattan led by District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Cohen's past actions are being looked at as an asset to be used. This comes after several years of public fallout between Cohen and Trump, during which time Cohen became close with anti-Trump figures in the "resistance".

Written for “Trump's Retaliation Tactics” on 2026-10-16, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Story

📰 Trump's Retaliation Tactics
Politics · 1 article(s) covering the same event.

Compared with similar articles

Nothing to compare against. No article is close enough to this one for the pipeline to have linked or judged the pair.
How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
25
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
8%
2 of 25 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
Leans strongly right
expected in commentary, which argues a position · beta estimate
Publisher signals
not measured
these signals count newsroom corrections; Commentary has none to count
Outlets on this story
1
Politics
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-08-28 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

Zeteo · 166 article(s) · 0 correction(s) detected
No corrections detected for this publisher. That may mean careful reporting, or simply that nothing has been checked.

Who wrote this

Asawin Suebsaeng
11 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction
🔮 For instance, we keep hearing about how numerous Republican operatives, Trumpworld figures, and conservatives on Capitol Hill absolutely despise the notably smug James Blair, a former deputy chief of staff who now has the likely impossible task of somehow salvaging the midterms for Trump, and wouldn’t mind cynically shoveling blame on him for the heavy losses, should they occur in the House and Senate.
🔮 Perhaps the most grisly example of Hegseth out-Trumping the sadistically maximalist president took place over the past week, after the Trump-Vance administration announced it would stage not only the first official public execution in the U.S. in nearly a century, but the first one streamed live on the internet.
🔮 It is also, I would argue, a meaningful sign of just how badly screwed the Republican Party and its MAGA overlords likely are, with election night just over a month away.
🔮 When you talk to people close to President Donald Trump, they will be quick to tell you that he’s mad at the TV again, and he’s mad about Republicans who don’t want to talk about him.
🔮 By now, you may have heard the news that in the Dallas arena where the president and the GOP threw their neo-Confederate party, Team Trump promoted the following Insta pic on the jumbotron, for the entire crowd of federal appointees, Republican lawmakers, Christian-right leaders, MAGA dead-enders, grandmas, grandpas, and younger conservatives to stare at:
🔮 “It looks bad, I am willing to admit it,” a Trump adviser told Zeteo late on Thursday.
🔮 I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” Donald Trump triumphantly announced at the American Airlines Center during the first night of the highly unusual midterm convention that the president has forced a largely reluctant GOP to put on Wednesday and Thursday.
🔮 “They will bring them to your state eventually.
🔮 If you work in political media and you, for a second, bought former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen’s schtick of turning on the president and earnestly seeing the error of his mean and Trumpy ways, you might want to consider early retirement.
Also by Asawin Suebsaeng
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
All 11 articles by Asawin Suebsaeng →

Topics

Britain Health Pennsylvania U.S. the Daily Beast’s

Subjects

Trump PERSON · 12× Cohen PERSON · 7× Tim PERSON · 3× Beast ORG · 2× Donald Trump PERSON · 2× Britain GPE · 1× Jeffrey Epstein PERSON · 1× Prince Andrew PERSON · 1× U.S. GPE · 1× Virginia Giuffre PERSON · 1×

Narrative

In the years that followed, Cohen got raided by the feds, very publicly fell out with President Trump, cuddled up to the anti-MAGA “resistance,” and became a key witness in New York Attorney General Letitia James’s civil fraud case against Trump, as well as in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal hush-money case against Trump.
framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-08-28
🔮 If you work in political media and you, for a second, bought former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen’s schtick of turning on the president and earnestly seeing the error of his mean and Trumpy ways, you might want to consider early retirement.

Claims (25 extracted, 2 hedged)

On this day in 2021, Britain’s Prince Andrew was served with a U.S. federal lawsuit alleging he sexually abused a teenager, Virginia Giuffre, under the auspices of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. asserted
he → serve → Epstein
The suit was ultimately settled for around $16 million. asserted
suit → settle → million
Last year, Andrew was stripped of his royal title. asserted
Andrew → strip → title
We made it to Thursday! asserted
We → make → Thursday
It’s Swin again. asserted
It → ’ → ?
If you work in political media and you, for a second, bought former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen’s schtick of turning on the president and earnestly seeing the error of his mean and Trumpy ways, you might want to consider early retirement. uncertain
you → work → retirement
Your readers or listeners could use the upgrade. uncertain
readers → use → upgrade
In today’s ’First Draft,’ we’ll dig into Team Trump’s growing interest in weaponizing the man they once dubbed MAGA-land’s premier sniveling snitch. asserted
they → dig → man
Plus, anti-vax Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the deaths of two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania during a growing measles outbreak are totally not his fault, and Donald Trump has an interview love-in with [checks notes from the Age of Obama] Glenn Beck. asserted
notes → say → Beck
Let’s read on. asserted
’s → let → ?
When I was working at the Daily Beast’s Washington bureau in 2015, future President Donald Trump, via his attorney Michael Cohen, threatened to destroy my best friend and colleague, Tim Mak. asserted
Trump → work → friend
I vividly recall the moment Tim stepped out of our mini conference room, clicking his little recorder and telling us as he chuckled: You gotta hear this… asserted
You → recall → this
Tim had just reached out to the 2016 Trump campaign for comment for a story that would soon be headlined: “Ex-Wife: Donald Trump Made Me Feel ‘Violated’ During Sex.” asserted
Me → reach → Sex
Trump did not appreciate it, so he sicced Cohen on my future best man. asserted
he → appreciate → man
The Trump attorney shouted and swore, vowing to sue Tim and the Beast into oblivion. asserted
attorney → shout → oblivion
(You can listen to some of the hilarious audio here, of a reporter standing his ground and of a small man trying to make himself sound big.) asserted
himself → listen → man
The Beast published the story, Cohen made an ass out of himself by spouting borderline-illiterate bullshit about spousal rape, and his promised world-altering lawsuit didn’t happen. asserted
lawsuit → publish → rape
In the years that followed, Cohen got raided by the feds, very publicly fell out with President Trump, cuddled up to the anti-MAGA “resistance,” and became a key witness in New York Attorney General Letitia James’s civil fraud case against Trump, as well as in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal hush-money case against Trump. asserted
Cohen → follow → Trump
Bragg’s case, of course, is the reason Trump became America’s first felon president, a label Trump bitterly resents. asserted
Trump → become → course
In all those years of Cohen claiming he’d seen the light and had made an anti-Trump turnaround, I never once bought it. asserted
I → claim → it
You can scroll through my public output and social media posts. asserted
You → scroll → output
It was always clear to me (not just as a close friend of someone he profanely threatened with financial ruin, but as a political reporter employing a shred of common sense and instinct) that Cohen was still the same guy: a gross habitual liar. asserted
Cohen → threaten → sense
It was just that his circumstances and benefactors changed. asserted
circumstances → change → ?
Now Cohen – who is seeking a federal pardon, which Trump has the power to grant – has switched sides again. asserted
Trump → seek → sides
And the Trump-Vance administration has taken notice. asserted
administration → take → notice
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