"The Fixer's" Relationship with Trump
CABRERA: A porn star's lawsuit against President Trump's personal attorney has been put on hold for 90 days. A federal judge in Los Angeles halted the case against Michael Cohen, in part to let events play out in a criminal investigation underway against Cohen in New York and warned Cohen likely faces a criminal indictment. But who is Michael Cohen and what is it, exactly, he does for President Trump? Here's CNN's chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Ana, lately, Michael Cohen has been in the news almost as much as his famous client, Donald Trump, but their relationship goes back more than a decade.</s>BORGER (voice-over): In the soap opera in which a porn star accepts a payoff to keep quiet about her affair with Donald Trump, there's got to be a guy who gets it done.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is Michael Cohen?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where's Mr. Cohen?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is this guy?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is this guy?</s>BORGER: Michael Cohen is where he's been since 2007, standing behind Donald Trump, or closer in his back pocket.</s>SAM NUNBERG, TRUMP CAMPAIGN AIDE: Michael was, I would always like to say, the Ray Donovan of the office.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll take care of it.</s>NUNBERG: He took care of what had to be taken care of. I don't know what had to be taken care of, but I knew Michael was taking care of it.</s>DAVID SCHWARTZ, FRIEND OF MICHAEL COHEN: He's the guy you could call at 3:00 in the morning when you have a problem.</s>BORGER (on camera): Do you know stories of Donald Trump calling him at 3:00 in the morning?</s>SCHWARTZ: Donald Trump has called him at all hours of the night. Every dinner I've been at with Michael, the boss has called.</s>BORGER (voice-over): But Cohen did not call the boss, he says, when he decided to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 out of his own pocket, 11 days before the election.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's ludicrous.</s>BORGER (on camera): So, you believe 100 percent Donald Trump knew?</s>AVENATTI: One hundred percent.</s>MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, AUTHOR: There's not a meeting that takes place, there's not an expenditure that is authorized that he doesn't know about it.</s>BORGER (voice-over): Cohen wouldn't go on the record for this piece, but his friends claim it's all part of his job in Trump world, giving the boss deniability and protection.</s>DAVID SCHWARTZ, FRIEND OF MICHAEL COHEN: If you know the relationship between the two people, he took care of a lot of things for Mr. Trump without Mr. Trump knowing about it. That's part of the overall structure, is that Michael had great latitude to take care of matters.</s>BORGER: In Michael Cohen, Trump hired his consigliere, a version of his long-time mentor of the lawyer, Roy Coe (ph), a controversial figure and an aggressive defender of all things Trump, no questions asked. After D'Antonio finished his book on Trump, he got the Cohen treatment in what turned out to be an empty threat.</s>D'ANTONIO: Then he got mad, and it was, you just bought yourself an f'ing lawsuit, buddy. I'll see you in court.</s>BORGER: In 2011, Michael Cohen described his job this way.</s>MICHAEL COHEN, DONALD TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: My job is, I protect Mr. Trump. That's what it is. If there's an issue that relates to Mr. Trump that is of concern to him, it's, of course, of concern to me. And I will use my legal skills within which to protect Mr. Trump to the best of my ability.</s>BORGER: Cohen, a sometimes Democrat, first came to Trump's attention after buying apartments in Trump developments. Then went to the mat for Trump against one of his condo boards. And won.</s>SCHWARTZ: Trump loved him for it. That was the beginning of it. And then after that, they became close. It was much more than an attorney/client relationship. It was something much deeper, almost father and son, kind of thing. Always hot and cold. Donald Trump could be yelling at them one second and saying he's the greatest person in the world the next second. Donald Trump knew that Michael always had his back.</s>BORGER: For Trump, it wasn't about pedigree. Cohen, who is 51, got his degree from Western Michigan's Cooley Law School and had some initial success in the less than genteel world of New York taxi cab medallions.</s>SAM NUNBERG, TRUMP CAMPAIGN AIDE: If you look where Michael came from in his legal career, before he started working for Trump Org, it wasn't like he came from a white-shoe law firm. He came from, you know, a hard-nosed New York trial firm. Trump has an eye for talent. And this was somebody that, I mean, he used to call him his bulldog, his tough guy.</s>BORGER: At the Trump Organization, he's done a bit of everything. Running a mixed martial arts company, securing real estate branding deals, and even taking care of transportation.</s>NUNBERG: You know, the famous Trump plane, there was an engine issue that he actually took care of and got a really good deal on.</s>SCHWARTZ: Watching him is -- it's like a reality show. He's got three phones, he's got the hard line, he's got two lines, he's texting, he's on the computer.</s>D'ANTONIO: You can almost say this is Donald Trump's mini me. For a guy who started really in the middle class on Long Island to now be quite wealthy himself, known internationally and, yes, he's in a bit of a jam with the Russia scandal.</s>GLORIA: In the eye not only of Stormy, but now under criminal investigation in New York, including a stunning raid on his home, office, and hotel room with a search warrant that mentioned not only Cohen's businesses, but the president himself, causing a fight and a circus in court. Not to mention the continued interest from the special counsel and Congress.</s>COHEN: I look forward to giving all the information that they're looking for.</s>BORGER: During the campaign, when Trump said he had no contact with Russia, Cohen was privately trying to cut a deal for a Trump Tower Moscow. It never happened, but Mueller has asked about it.</s>NUNBERG: The sad reality is that Michael pursuing that Trump Tower deal in December is just another factor that goes into this whole Russian narrative.</s>BORGER: Cohen's name was also in the infamous dossier, which alleges he traveled to Prague to meet with Russians. He's completely denied it.</s>SCHWARTZ: It's immeasurable, the damage that has been caused to him, to his family.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will faithfully execute --</s>BORGER: When Trump became president, he did not bring his brash wing man to Washington. (on camera): Do you think he wanted to be in the White House, be White House counsel or --</s>D'ANTONIO: There must have been a part of him that was dreaming of a great job at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But he's also the guy who not only knows where all the bodies are buried, he buried a lot of them himself. And that, ironically, disqualified him.</s>COHEN: And they say, I'm Mr. Trump's pit bull. That I am his -- I'm his right-hand man. I mean, I've been called many different things around here.</s>BORGER (voice-over): Now he may be called to testify, with the Stormy Daniels case in federal court.</s>SCHWARTZ: I know Michael Cohen for over 21 years and I know that he will not rest -- he not will not sleep -- he doesn't sleep anyway, right -- until he recovers every single penny from Stormy that's due the</s>LLC. AVENATTI: I've seen a lot of attorneys use intimidation tactics. The problem is, if that is your speed and you are a one-trick pony and you use that in every case, when, all of a sudden, you run up against somebody that doubles down and that isn't intimidated, well, then you're lost.</s>BORGER: Cohen flew to Mar-a-Lago to dine with the president the night before Stormy Daniels appeared on "60 Minutes," because if you're Michael Cohen, you've always been the ultimate loyalist.</s>COHEN: The words the media should be using to describe Mr. Trump are generous --</s>BORGER: And that loyalty --</s>COHEN: -- compassionate, principled --</s>BORGER: -- is what the president and his allies are counting on as Cohen faces the feds. (on camera): We'll just have to wait and see who wins that test of loyalty -- Ana?</s>ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Gloria Borger, thank you. On the new season of "PARTS UNKNOWN" -- it kicks off tomorrow -- Anthony Bourdain explores West Virginia.</s>ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST, "PARTS UNKNOWN" (voice-over): Everyone who comes here tends to tell the same story. But I wonder, what does everybody miss? If you were describing all those in this area, small families, beautiful countryside, uniquely beautiful. How many places look like this? Church going. I don't say grace before dinner, but every meal I've had here, people do. I believe these are straightforward, heartfelt expressions of something people deeply believe in. So is this the south?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I consider it more just, we're not on the morals of --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no.