Kai Bird
American author and columnist
41
APPEARANCES
32
PODCASTS
Oct 30, 2026
Alison StewartHOST
In all the reporting and all of the research you read, what's been underreported about Cohn's involvement with communists?
Kai BirdGUEST
So Joe McCarthy was a really run-of-the-mill average politician, sort of an empty vessel, not really an ideologue, but he stumbled on the issue of communism and the threat of subversive communists in government.
Kai BirdGUEST
And then he hired Roy Cohn in 1953 to become his chief counsel for his subcommittee to investigate communists and the government.
28 MINS LATER
Alison StewartHOST
What is a piece of advice that he gave Donald Trump that we still see Donald Trump using today?
Kai BirdGUEST
By that time, after the third trial, Robert Morgenthau knew he couldn't go after him again.
10 MINS LATER
Alison StewartHOST
What is a piece of advice that he gave Donald Trump that we still see Donald Trump using today?
Kai BirdGUEST
Well, you know, when I started out writing biography and history 40 years ago, I studied the McCarthy era and I concluded that Roy Cohn was kind of a minor figure historically and a nasty lawyer who would sort of be in the way, trying to upset the apple cart.
16 MINS LATER
Alison StewartHOST
In all the reporting and all of the research you read, what's been underreported about Cohn's involvement with communists?
Kai BirdGUEST
Yes, well, we report that Peter Manso, this reporter who was a friend of both men, attended the memorial service.
Kai BirdGUEST
And according to Manso, he saw Donald Trump sitting at the back weeping at one point in the memorial service.
Kai BirdGUEST
I don't know what to make of it because we've rarely seen Donald Trump showing any kind of human emotion genuinely.
Kai BirdGUEST
Um, but I think this is an indication that fits with everything else we've reported in this biography that, that, uh, Donald Trump really liked Roy Cohn.
Mathias AskHOST
What was the most important thing you got out of those conversations with Trump?
Tina BrownGUEST
What was this? Where did this kind of hatred of the, quote, establishment, as it were, come from, which Trump has absorbed, too?
Kai BirdGUEST
It's a mystery on one level, and then on another, you know, he was a closeted gay man in the 50s, and he never could come out.
Kai BirdGUEST
He was a national public figure at the age of 27 with his photo on the cover of Time magazine.
Kai BirdGUEST
You're right, he came from privileged background, but he had this sort of animus against the establishment, against the Ivy League universities, against immigrants.
6 MINS LATER
31:48
Do you see that happening? I mean, Tina and I were just talking about the churn in the White House and in the cabinet and all the rest of it in Trump 2.0.
Susan GoldmarkGUEST
Uh, yeah, but it was also Joe Kennedy called and, and demanded that his son be given the job.
Kai BirdGUEST
But in the end, Joe McCarthy chose Roy Cohn because he was more qualified as a commie hunter at that point.
Kai BirdGUEST
Bobby became the deputy counsel while Roy became the chief counsel to Joe McCarthy, and they immediately disliked each other.
6 MINS LATER
McGraw MilhavenHOST
These McCarthy hearings were to root out communism and homosexuals within the military, and it was led by Roy Cohn, who was a closeted homosexual.
Kai BirdGUEST
But, yeah, Roy was a closeted gay man who, you know, at the age of 27, his image was splashed across the cover of Time magazine.
Kai BirdGUEST
And even before that, he had been an assistant prosecutor in the famous Rosenberg atomic spy case.
15 MINS LATER
McGraw MilhavenHOST
Donald Trump calls him up out of the blue and says, what, I need to be, you need to be my teacher? How does this friendship spark?
Susan GoldmarkGUEST
Uh, yeah, but it was also Joe Kennedy called and, and demanded that his son be given the job
Kai BirdGUEST
But in the end, Joe McCarthy chose Roy Cohn because he was more qualified as a commie hunter at that point.
Kai BirdGUEST
Bobby became the deputy counsel while Roy became the chief counsel to Joe McCarthy, and they immediately disliked each other.
6 MINS LATER
Kai BirdGUEST
Well, you know, it was all kind of ridiculous because the Communist Party was minuscule at the time.
11 MINS LATER
8 MINS LATER
Paddy O'ConnellHOST
Does it tell friends and foes of your president how to deal with him? If you understand Roy Cohn and the friendship with the young Donald Trump, does it give you an upper hand in dealing with him, in negotiating with him? He's a disruptive but also a consequential president.
Kai BirdGUEST
Uh, he was the prosecutor who sent the Rosenbergs, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, uh, to the electric chair in 1953.
Kai BirdGUEST
And then he became chief counsel to Joe McCarthy, and he was the sort of brains behind McCarthyism.
Kai BirdGUEST
Uh, and of course in that position, he ruined thousands of lives, uh, civil servants having to leave the government and being fired for either being homosexual or because of their left-wing political views.
Kai BirdGUEST
And then he goes on to New York, back to New York where he was from, from the Bronx, and he becomes a high-priced divorce lawyer and a lawyer to all five mob families in New York City.
Kai BirdGUEST
And then of course, uh, he's probably best known these days because in 1973, he became the lawyer for a young real estate developer named Donald Trump, and he, he was his lawyer from 1973 until, uh, he died in '86 of AIDS, always in denial about his sexuality, always in the closet.
20 MINS LATER
Kai BirdGUEST
You know, I don't think you can understand the last 10 years of the Trump era unless you understand Roy Cohn's life.
5 MINS LATER
Ian MastersHOST
That had the effect of shrinking the left enormously to this day, and suddenly the Republicans took over the House, the Senate, and the White House.
Dan RavivHOST
not admitting any problems at all like we expected the high price of oil uh the other day he was asked by a reporter do you have any regrets about the iran war and he said none i guess that's true to form and and tell me kybert he learned some of it from roy cone
Kai BirdGUEST
he learned all of it from roy cone Roy was, as the title says, he was a scoundrel, a villain, but a very charming villain.
Kai BirdGUEST
He was raised by his mother, Dora, in the Bronx and in New York City and the Upper East Side.
5 MINS LATER
Dan RavivHOST
That fits into the early Trump in New York, under the tutelage of Roy Coe? Oh, absolutely.
Kai BirdGUEST
in housing in Queens, in their apartments owned by the Trump Organization, and it was very blatant.
Kai BirdGUEST
And of course, Roy famously said, "Oh, you should fight it." You know, "You should sue the, the feds.
Kai BirdGUEST
Let's hold a press conference and announce a $100 million defamation suit against the federal government." You know, it was a nonsense suit, and it was dismissed within two months.
6 MINS LATER
Terry GrossHOST
How did the relationship between, uh, Donald Trump and Roy Cohn change as Trump became more famous and more powerful?
Kai BirdGUEST
You know, when I started out as a historian and biographer almost 40 years ago now, I decided I wanted to figure out how power works in America.
Kai BirdGUEST
So I started writing about establishment figures, John McCloy, the powerful Wall Street lawyer, Mac Bundy, the Harvard dean and national security advisor to Kennedy and Johnson, Robert Oppenheimer, the atomic physicist.
Kai BirdGUEST
And I thought that that would be helpful for explaining how power works in a complicated democracy like this.
Kai BirdGUEST
Now, in all of those books, I wrote a little bit about Roy Cohn, a sort of festering, nasty little lawyer who caused problems.
10 MINS LATER
Kai BirdGUEST
You know, H.L. Mencken used to say, uh, "What a dull world this place would be for ho- us honest men if it weren't for the sinners."
Kai BirdGUEST
And Roy Cohn was a seasoned 40-year-old, uh, lawyer who, who knew everyone and was a lawyer to all five mob families in New York City.
Kai BirdGUEST
And he, he was a famous guy, and he, he helped Donald Trump get the tax abatements he needed for the first big deal, the, uh, renovation of the Commodore and then the building of Trump Tower, uh, which was all, w- which was built with concrete.
Kai BirdGUEST
Well, Roy Cohn was the lawyer to Fat Tony Salerno, who controlled the concrete business and the unions that poured the concrete, and Donald Trump needed the-
Eugene DanielsHOST
Is it the environment that we are currently living in, the ability for misinformation and disinformation to spread as quickly? Conspiracy theories being a cottage industry for a lot of people, especially online, that makes this era worse than when Joel McCarthy was there?
Matt CooperHOST
Tell us about how he was the prosecutor who sent a couple, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, to the electric chair.
Kai BirdGUEST
He was in his early 20s, and he became an assistant prosecutor on this famous Rosenberg atomic spy case, and he was relentless.
Kai BirdGUEST
So, uh, during the Rosenberg case, he had ex parte conversations with Judge Irving Kaufman, who was pr- the presiding judge.
Kai BirdGUEST
And Roy just, you know, uh, he, [clears throat] he guided the judge and, uh, was relentless in, in bringing a prosecution and, and persuading the judge to inflict the death penalty, sending not only Julius, but also Ethel, the do- the mother of two young boys, to the electric chair.
Kai BirdGUEST
And that wa- that gave his first sort of, that, his first sort of public renown was coming from that Rosenberg case.
8 MINS LATER
Matt CooperHOST
... regardless of the position that they have, always used the legal approach as a weapon, always accuse the accuser?
Kai BirdGUEST
You know, I don't think you can understand the last 10 years of the Trump era unless you understand Roy Cohn's life.
16 MINS LATER
Jeffrey BrownCORRESPONDENT
What jumped out at you? What stood out, uh, especially vis-a-vis Roy Cohn's involvement?
Kai BirdGUEST
Roy was a gay, closeted man then, but he went after gay civil servants in the State Department r- ruthlessly.
Kai BirdGUEST
He had this private life, and yet he was, uh, shamelessly going after fellow gays.
Kai BirdGUEST
But it's his values, his, uh, resentment of the establishment, uh, that now prevails in our politics.
Kai BirdGUEST
He is the architect of this politics of resentment, resentment against the establishment of the elites, this sort of right-wing populism, this suspicion of immigrants.
Kai BirdGUEST
observation that the world would be a very dull place for us honest men if it were not for the sinners.
Kai BirdGUEST
observation that the world would be a very dull place for us honest men if it were not for the sinners.
Kai BirdGUEST
They were sort of the next generation of the establishment that McCloy represented.
23 MINS LATER
Kai BirdGUEST
They were sort of the next generation of the establishment that McCloy represented.
25 MINS LATER
Kai BirdGUEST
At one point, in court, he accuses a deputy prosecutor named Donna Goldstein of fraud, legal fraud.
Kai BirdGUEST
He claims that she was calling up Trump organization employees and tenants in the Trump apartments in Queens and threatening them if they didn't testify against Trump.
Kai BirdGUEST
But the judge had to take it seriously and halted the proceedings for two weeks and then reconvened.
29 MINS LATER
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