Michel Cohen’s daughter Samantha recalls ‘creepy’ encounter with Trump when she was 15

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Michael Cohen’s daughter Samantha has recounted a series of ‘creepy’ comments she says Donald Trump made about her when she was 15-years-old, in a Monday interview with CNN.

Her appearance on New Day comes as her father’s new book Disloyal: A Memoir, has hit bookshelves.

In the book, Cohen claims that in 2012 Trump whistled at his then-teen daughter as she was playing tennis, remarking ‘what a piece of a**. I would love some of that.’

After Cohen told Trump that she was his daughter, he allegedly replied ‘when did she get so hot?’, and then beckoned her over to come and kiss him on the cheek.

Speaking about the encounter on Monday, Samantha, now 24, said it gave her the impression that Trump was interested in ‘younger women.’

Trump, who was married to Melania at the time, also allegedly warned Samantha to ‘be careful, I’ll be dating your friends in a few years’.

‘I didn’t get the impression he was hitting on me directly,’ Samantha said. ‘But I had the impression that he was interested in younger women and that, you know, women would age out for him and that when one woman became too old, he’d find a new younger one.’

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While the nature of the alleged comments went ‘over her head’ at the time, Samantha said what she remembers most clearly of the exchange is how degrading Trump had been towards her father.

Samantha claimed Trump had remarked ‘”well there’s no way she got her looks from you. Thank god you married a beautiful woman.”’

‘I was desensitized to men making creepy comments about me,’ she said, ‘but I was not desensitized to someone blatantly insulting and degrading my father in front of me – someone who I looked up to and loved very much, and that was very upsetting to me, and that made me think, okay, maybe Trump doesn’t want to treat my father so well.’

Samantha comments come just days after she described Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, as ‘phony and gross’ in a wide ranging interview with Vanity Fair.

Elaborating on those comment Monday, Samantha Cohen described what it was like growing up near ‘incredibly icy’ Ivanka, who lived in the same building as her family and is 13 years older.

‘She never paid me much attention. If I saw her in the lobby without my father, she would just look past me and ignored me.

‘There was never any warmth or recognition that I got from her,’ she continued. ‘And I think that that’s something that other people who know her say as well. She’s just – she’s cold. I always felt like maybe I wasn’t good enough for her attention. But that was my impression.’

Despite fraught relations with Ivanka, Samantha formed a close bond with the president’s other daughter, Tiffany Trump, who is two years older than her and studied alongside her at Pennsylvania University.

Samantha said Tiffany shared a ‘strained relationship’ with her father, caused in part by the fact she had grown up away from the rest of the family in California with her mother, Marla.

Since her father’s conviction, Samantha said she and Tiffany have become estranged. She voiced disappointment over her once close-friend’s decision to endorse Trump for re-election at the Republican National Convention last month.

‘I have very fond feelings for her, but clearly, we can’t be speaking in this time and myself along with other people that used to be close with her just are disappointed that she’s supporting this rhetoric, that we know she doesn’t believe,’ Samantha said.

‘Our close circle of mutual friends included gay people, black people, people of all different races and ethnicities and it’s just very sad to see her going along with this.’

When quizzed as to why she would endorse her father if she doesn’t support his views, Samantha said: ‘I don’t know. Maybe for her father’s affection? I can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up being unwanted by your family. My dad has never been anything but the best father in the entire world to me. I can’t relate with that feeling of wanting it so badly that you’ll go along with anything.’

Samantha was 11 years old when her father began working with Trump. She said she first thought it was ‘cool’ that her dad was working with a powerful celebrity, however she quickly soured on the now-president for how he treated her father.

She said working as Trump’s fixer quickly became Michael Cohen’s identity.

‘I think I saw a duality in him. I realized that my dad spent so much time with these people that I never got to witness, and it was this whole second life that he lived. And he would come home and be a completely different person. Yet, there was always this pull back to Trump.

‘They were incredibly close and I think that it took over a huge part of him. We’d be on vacation, he would be running around the beach in search of cell service. God forbid Trump call and he couldn’t answer. He missed ringing in New Year’s with us because he was outside on the phone, discussing something with Trump. And it took over far, far too much of his weigh consciousness.’

In her interview with Vanity Fair, Samantha described how her dad had a ‘twisted umbilical cord to Trump.’

‘That was one of the reasons I hated Trump so much,’ she said. ‘It always felt like, God forbid my dad came close to not needing him. If my dad had any successes outside of the Trump Organization, Trump cut his bonus or cut his salary. He would find ways to undermine my dad in the office. Trump was holding him back.

Samantha said her father had ‘Stockholm syndrome,’ describing Trump as having ‘occupied 99.9 per cent’ of her father’s time. She describes Trump as being ‘blatantly mean’ to Michael Cohen, quickly snatching her father from his usual routine of things – like driving her to school.

Cohen’s daughter says her father was constantly aware of how Trump treated his own children, believing Michael Cohen was fine with the abuse because he felt a part of the family.

‘That was hard for me to understand at the time, but then I realized that he spent 10 hours a day with him, and he had this whole second life,’ Samantha said. ‘He was correct when he says he was attracted to the power and the allure, but he also believed he loved Trump. When he loves someone he would do anything for them, and unfortunately he came to care about the wrong person.’

Samantha shared that her father as being ‘really close’ with Don Jr. when he first started working with Trump, describing a moment when their two families enjoyed a ‘big family dinner in Palm Beach.’

‘My dad used to tell me how mean Trump was to Don Jr. and how badly he felt for him,’ she said.

Samantha also described an interaction she shared with Ivanka shortly before her dad was sentenced to three years in prison, on account of eight criminal charges, including five counts of tax evasion.

‘I was walking out of the building. I knew that she was in town because Secret Service was everywhere. I walked out of the building and she was standing waiting for her driver. She saw me and I thought she was going to ignore me, as she had the rest of my life. But she grabbed my arm and said, “We all feel so terribly about what’s happening to your dad. Our hearts are breaking for him. I’m so sorry that this happened to you guys,” in this high-pitched, sugary voice.

‘I knew how fake it was. I have no idea why she said that to me because I know she doesn’t care, and it was too late to send a message to my dad. I don’t know if she was trying to make herself feel better, or if she did it for show because there were other people in the lobby. It just felt like someone threw a bucket of slime on me because it was so phony and gross. But no one actually gave a rat’s a*s about my dad or my mom or my brother or me. We were all, as my dad likes to say, collateral damage.’