The country’s liberal and conservative media outlets seemed to agree on one thing this week: Michael D. Cohen, the government’s star witness in its case against former President Donald J. Trump, was worthy of contempt.
But they made that argument in very different ways.
Conservative media painted Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, as a traitor to the conservative cause. The liberal media focused on Cohen’s testimony about how he would do anything to impress Trump.
But there was also a bigger difference in their coverage of Cohen’s testimony. Most liberal media outlets gave prominent coverage to what he said at the trial, the first criminal trial against a former president. Many conservative media outlets downplayed much of what he said in court.
Here’s how it played out:
FROM THE LEFT
MSNBC
MSNBC has provided extensive coverage of Mr. Cohen’s testimony on both its television channel and its website. Coverage has often acknowledged that Cohen was an imperfect messenger of details about the hush money case, in part because he spent more than a year in prison for crimes that included lying to Congress. But most commentators still suggested that his testimony hurt Trump’s case.
Cohen paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to prevent her from telling the public about an affair with Trump. Prosecutors say Trump then reimbursed Cohen and falsified records to disguise the payments as legal expenses. Trump has denied the matter and any irregularities related to the payments.
Hayes Brown, an MSNBC opinion writer, wrote on his website that Cohen was a “known liar” and a “terrible person to trust with the prosecution’s case.”
But, Brown wrote, prosecutors did not shy away from Cohen’s checkered past, which “ironically makes him more credible as a witness.”
Lawrence O’Donnell, on the primetime show “All In,” commented that Mr. Cohen had seemed much more measured than usual in his courtroom appearances. His demeanor on the stand, O’Donnell suggested, indicated that Cohen was telling the truth. Cohen was trying to “save what was left of his life by simply telling the truth to prosecutors,” O’Donnell said.
FROM THE LEFT
‘I could save America’
The popular liberal podcast “Pod Save America” devoted the first 10 minutes of its Tuesday episode to the trial. Host Jon Favreau He said Cohen “wasn’t exactly an honest broker.” Another host of the show, Dan Pfeiffer, said he was a “sleazy fool.”
But the hosts, who had worked in the Obama administration, said Cohen’s claims were ultimately corroborated. Favreau said Cohen seemed credible to reporters in the courtroom.
“It appears there is a document for everything Michael Cohen testified, or at least some corroborating evidence,” Favreau said.
RIGHT
Fox News
Like MSNBC, Fox News has also given Cohen considerable coverage online and on television. Much has argued that he is not a credible witness and that his testimony ultimately damaged the prosecution’s case.
Greg Gutfeld, a Fox News host and commentator, said of Cohen that “no one can take this guy seriously.”
“It’s hard to find holes in Cohen’s testimony because it’s all holes and no cheese,” Gutfeld said on “The Five.” “It’s just air.”
RIGHT
newsmax
Standing outside the courthouse Tuesday morning, Jon Glasgow, a Newsmax reporter covering the trial, said “we really haven’t seen much” in Cohen’s testimony that suggests Trump would be convicted.
Greg Kelly, a Newsmax host who often praises Trump, said he had not read Cohen’s testimony. Instead, he characterized Cohen as someone who craved public attention: Cohen, he said, “he’s not a smart man” and “loves these kinds of moments.”
“I’m sorry, something is really wrong with this man,” Kelly said Monday on “Greg Kelly Reports.” On Tuesday he called Cohen a “pathetic clown.”
RIGHT
The New York Post
The day after Cohen first appeared on the stand, the New York Post’s front page made no mention of him. Instead, it focused on a falsehood contained in a book by Jen Psaki, President Biden’s former press secretary. In her new book, Psaki wrote that Biden didn’t look at his watch until after a ceremony for American soldiers killed in 2021 (she had, in fact, consulted him during the ceremony).
The Post published a full-page image of Mr. Biden looking at his watch during the ceremony, with the caption “Yes, under his watch.”