But Trump being Trump he dropped Roy Cohn when he learned of the latter’s AIDS diagnosis. Matt, thank you. “I hear Roy in the things he says quite clearly,” Peter Fraser, Cohn’s lover during the last two years of his life, told the New York Times in 2016. Roy Marcus Cohn was an American lawyer who came to prominence for his role as Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, when he assisted McCarthy's investigations of suspected communists. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. This week, a new documentary called Where’s My Roy Cohn? President Donald Trump was reportedly shouting to wake the dead when Attorney General Jeff Sessions chose to recuse himself from the … And Cohn, as a young prosecutor, was the one who really pushed for her execution in the electric chair. In Where’s My Roy Cohn?, Tyrnauer tells the story of one of the most villainous and influential men of the 20th century, connecting […] That corrosive line from Tony Kushner's acclaimed play "Angels in America" is delivered by the character of Roy Cohn, a real person who was, in fact, gay, never had any kind of cancer, and would later die from AIDS-related causes. And this hypocrisy and this bare-knuckle win-at-all-costs philosophy - which, I will add, he passed on to his great student, Donald Trump - is what caused people to consider Roy Cohn to be an evil person. With us to talk about the documentary and Cohn's continuing imprint on U.S. politics is director Matt Tyrnauer. - and the title refers to something President Trump was quoted saying as federal investigators were looking into Russian interference in … PFEIFFER: Cohn was eventually disbarred. He was just 59 years old, but he lived long enough to be involved in some historic legal cases. - and the title refers to something President Trump was quoted saying as federal investigators were looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The judge dismissed the suit and accused the pair of “wasting time and paper,” but the friendship was cemented. He transitions, immediately, from that into being the chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy in the Senate subcommittee, which was investigating communists and communist infiltration of the government. “People will drop a suit just by getting a letter with Roy’s name at the bottom.”. “That bravado, and if you say it aggressively and loudly enough, it’s the truth—that’s the way Roy used to operate to a degree, and Donald was certainly his apprentice.”, But when push came to shove, Cohn’s devotion to Trump was not reciprocated. The Anti–Roy Cohn. unearths the origins of the seditious right wing’s ascent, revealing how a deeply troubled master manipulator shaped our current political world. What do you learn or what did you learn in your research about the psychology of that, the moral compromise of that in terms of the role of elite society in a way, why they tolerate people like this and allow them into their circle? The documentary tells the story of Cohn, his life and career, and it’s a grim saga. unearths the origins of the seditious right wing’s ascent, revealing how a deeply troubled master manipulator shaped our current political world. He represented … In effect, Cohn was the personal lickspittle of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. 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