Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark published American Scoundrel on Tuesday, a biography of Roy Cohn that traces his path from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump. Bird presents Cohn as the mentor who helped shape Trump’s approach to New York real estate, business, and politics.
The book places Trump at the center of that influence and says he still publicly admires Cohn and misses him. Bird said Trump told him Cohn recognized him in 1973 at Le Club in Manhattan and later described the lawyer as someone who guided him from the mid-70s to the mid-80s.
Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark
Bird said he called Trump four times on his personal number to ask about Cohn. On one call, Trump responded, “Oh, I can’t do this. I don’t have time for this. You shouldn’t be using this number. I’m the president. I have Russia calling. I have China calling.”
Bird said Trump also told him, “Oh, terrific, maybe I can promote it. Anything I promote goes to number one.” Trump ended that call with, “Of course, it would have to be fair.” Bird, who won a Pulitzer prize for American Prometheus, said those conversations helped him test how Trump described Cohn in his own words.
Donald Trump and Roy Cohn
Bird said Trump probably learned from Cohn how to profit from ties to organized crime, how to stay a step ahead of the law, and how to lie without remorse or admitting defeat. He also said Trump asked in 2017, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” amid scandal over links to Russia.
Trump’s reaction to the book was not Bird’s only outreach. Bird said he reached out to hosts and reporters, Joe Rogan, and Steve Bannon, but found limited interest. Rogan said he looked at the galleys and replied, “I’m not interested.”
Le Club in Manhattan
Bird’s account ties together the older relationship between Cohn and Trump with the new biography’s claim that the mentor’s methods carried into Trump’s later public life. The clearest evidence in the book comes from Trump’s own recollections: a first encounter at Le Club in Manhattan in 1973, a description of Cohn as useful and fair, and a later plea for “my Roy Cohn” when he faced political pressure.
For readers, the immediate question is how much of that influence is newly documented rather than long familiar. Bird’s version argues that the book does not just retell the Cohn story; it uses Trump’s own words, along with the failed outreach to media figures, to show how little of that relationship Trump has ever abandoned.
