Roy Cohn: The man who gave Trump his playbook
Ever wonder where the whole tactic of "deny, attack, countersue, and stiff the contractor" came from? Turns out it had an official founding father.
Historian Kai Bird just dropped a biography called American Scoundrel, digging into the legendary fixer Roy Cohn. Before mentoring young New York real estate moguls, he was notorious for running the legal machinery behind McCarthyism in the 1950s.
As it turns out, Cohn basically handed a young Donald Trump an entire survival guide: deny every allegation, delay every hearing, countersue relentlessly, and never leave a paper trail.
He also passed down the art of simply walking away from bills and letting contractors choke on legal fees until they give up.
Decades of modern political battles and cable news warfare start looking a lot less spontaneous when traced back to one mentor with a notebook full of street-fight rules.
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