Jul 11
Andy Cohen Worried by the Prospect of a Trump 'Enemy List?'
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Andy Cohen expressed worry about what might happen to him if he were to end up on Donald Trump's enemy list in the event that the one-term former president might win the election in November.
On his radio show, Cohen and author Ramin Setoodeh discussed the prospect of a second Trump term, which Democrats warn would be dominated by an agenda set by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. The so-called Project 2025 – a blueprint for massively restructuring the government, eliminating Social Security, and curtailing the rights of women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ people – would amount to a dismantling of America democracy, critics of the document warn.
Cohen fretted that a new Trump administration would target him with lawfare in the form of an IRS audit for having critiqued Trump in the past, The Daily Beast reports, and said that he would shy away from such critiques if Trump wins the White House in November.
But Cohen also seemed to think that playing nice post-November wouldn't be enough to save him from a Trumpian reckoning. The radio show host told Setoodeh he expected he "definitely would" be included on an "enemies list" maintained by Trump, who has a reputation for vindictiveness.
"I hosted two beauty pageants for him and then I turned on him," Cohen explained.
Setoodeh told Cohen that Trump "monitors everything that anyone would say about him," and claimed that the former president is especially tuned in to what opinions celebrities are giving voice to.
"He spent a significant amount of time post-presidency sitting with me talking about celebrities who had betrayed him," the Sedootah, who is the author of the recently-published book "Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass," told Cohen.
The writer added, "A lot of his time in his thoughts were spent with people like Kim Kardashian," who, DB recalled, had won Trump's cooperation on winning release from prison for people wrongfully incarcerated, but who then did not lend her endorsement to the reelection campaign that Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
"You have to wonder how he was able to govern," given the amount of time and attention Trump paid to what celebrities were saying about him, Setoodeh said, before adding that "he wasn't able to, in the White House."
Trump has claimed not to be familiar with the blueprint outlined in Project 2025, but the former president has also declared to his supporters that he would serve up "retribution" against the political left.
Cohen related an anecdote about Trump contacting him in a rage over comments made by Teresa Giudice when the "Real Housewives" star appeared on Cohen's talk show.
"When Teresa called Trump broke on 'Watch What Happens Live!' and he called me at Bravo, he was furious at her and he was like 'You need to do a retraction'," Cohen recounted.
Added Cohen: ""He was very, at the time, sensitive about people saying he was broke. That was a huge thing for him."
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
