Kai Bird on Roy Cohn, a Founding Father of Donald Trump’s America

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and the New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. I Roy Cohen had never existed It would have taken a a novelist of real skill to have invented that life.

Cohn started out as a an ambitious prosecutor. And then he rose to the top of Washington's food chain at a very young age. He was already famous in his early twenties As Joseph McCarthy's attack dog. in the anti communist purges of the early fifties. And later as a lawyer for hire.

Cone was friends with presidents and celebrities. While working for mob families in New York City. He reveled in his reputation as a ruthless operator. And he was all around. A nasty piece of work.

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