The Apprentice Explore Roy Cohn’s mentorship of a young Donald Trumpleading audiences to wonder about the real-life figure behind the movie. Directed by Ali Abbasi, the 2024 film follows Trump in the 1970s and 80s as a young businessman with high hopes for his future. He begins the film sitting in a high-end social club, admiring the great and rich people around him, and only when he met Roy Cohen, he gets the tools that are seen as necessary to become like them. Cohn and Trump are played by Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan The apprentice’s Figure.
Abbasi’s film introduces Roy Cohen as a cold, calculating, practically devil-like figure who teaches Trump how to mingle with the rich and survive in a cutthroat business world. By the time audiences are introduced to Cohn, he is already an established figure socializing with the likes of Tony Salerno, Rupert Murdoch, and others. When fact-checking The ApprenticeWhat is perhaps the most shocking is that The character, who feels larger than life, like a soulless force of evil that cannot possibly exist, is portrayed with an authenticity and sincerity that is almost entirely true. To the real person.
Roy Cohn’s life before meeting Donald Trump
Roy Cohn is best known for the Lavender Scare and work with Joseph McCarthy
On The Late Show with Stephen ColbertActor Jeremy Strong referred to Roy Cohen as “One of the worst human beings of the 20th century.“In a time of history riddled with two world wars, the invention of nuclear weapons, and much more, Roy Cohen is still considered one of the most vile, twisted figures of the last 100 years, and much of this comes from the time From his life before meeting Donald Trump, as explained in the film. Roy Cohen was a prosecutor known for using dirty tactics to bend the law, from extortion to any unethical maneuver imaginable.to win his cases.
In his early 20s, Roy Cohen rose to prominence during the Second Red Scare in the 1951 espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The trial suspected that the Rosenbergs were spies for the Soviet Union, and Cohen earned his reputation for violently sentencing the pair and later persuading Judge Irwin Kaufman to convict the Rosenbergs.. It is often considered that while the Rosenbergs were guilty, the trial was tainted by Cohn’s misconduct and that the couple should not have received the death penalty.
Acknowledgment of the Rosenberg trial saw the young Roy Cohen rise quickly, finding himself the lead attorney for Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy was widely known during this period for his anti-communist agenda, with the pair working extensively to expel communists and Soviet allies from the US. This led to an alternative Campaign known as the Lavender Scare, where McCarthy and Cohn sought the removal of homosexuals from government positionsBelieving them to be more susceptible to communist manipulation.
In the following two decades after his resignation from Joseph McCarthy’s staff, Roy Cohen began his career as a lawyer in New York City. As McCarthy’s reputation deteriorated in the years following their work together, Cohn continued to be a fixer for wealthy New Yorkers, from mob figures like John Gotti and Carmine Galante to George Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees..
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Roy Cohen was Donald Trump’s lawyer from 1973-1985
Cohn became Trump’s lawyer and mentor for over a decade
As shown in The ApprenticeThe Justice Department Presses Legal Action Against Donald Trump For His Role In The Trump Corporation’s Discrimination Against African American Tenants. Buildings owned by Trump and his father, Fred Trump Sr., were accused of making false claims of “no vacancies” to potential black tenants, resulting in Trump and Coun’s initial union. The means of their meeting are likely fictional and dramatized for the film, but they importantly demonstrate the strategies used by Cohn to assist Trump in the case, beginning a partnership that would last over a decade.
Roy Cohn continued to work with Donald Trump on various cases, along with personally mentoring the future president. He is shown in the movie to be instrumental in establishing the political and business tactics that Trump would continue to invoke for subsequent decades, as well as introducing him to future allies like Paul Manafort, Rupert Murdoch, and more. The film highlights certain lessons that Trump in particular received from Cohen in real life, such as constantly being on the attack, never admitting defeat, and that winning is all that matters, even at the cost of human honesty.
Roy Cohen was disbarred for unethical conduct
Roy Cohn was unable to practice law in his final days
Not long before his death, a panel of the The New York State Supreme Court finally disbarred Roy Cohen for decades of unprofessional and unethical courtroom conductA fact that The Apprentice Just a quick mention. Specifics of the misconduct included misappropriating client funds, lying on a bar application, and falsifying a change in a will. It is stated that, in 1975, Cohn entered the hospital room of an unconscious man, forced a pen into his hand, and added marks to a paper in order to change a will (via The Washington Post).
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The disbarment came at the end of a four-year battle between Cohen and the state of New York, and he was likely only found guilty of a small fraction of his actual crimes. Regardless of what the masses say against him, Donald Trump still attended the panel to serve as a character witness in favor of Cohen.
Roy Cohen died in 1986 of AIDS
Roy Cohn refused to admit that he had AIDS until his death
One of the most disturbing aspects of Roy Cohen’s true story, even beyond the Lavender Scary, is the man’s unnecessary, outwardly homophobia. Despite this, Cohn was a closeted homosexual. He was a deeply twisted man who felt the need to publicly deny his homosexuality until the day he died, Claiming on national television that he had liver cancer instead of AIDS. The scene in The Apprentice Where he is shown on TV is taken beat-for-beat from a real-life segment that is worth watching for anyone interested in learning about his horrified character.
Roy Cohn’s sexuality and partners have long been speculated, but the most important aspect of his life is that he did, in fact, contract AIDS at some point in the 1980s. This led to years of him appearing ill, leading to public pressure on him about the issue, which He consistently denied while supposedly receiving experimental drug treatment. Trump’s opinion and involvement on the matter may be original too The ApprenticeBut the Roy Cohen aspect of the story is told accurately.