Michael Cohen's "trifecta of truth"

Michael Cohen — whose "Disloyal," out yesterday, is the No. 1 Amazon bestseller — told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Tuesday night in a show-long interview:

• "If you look at just the books that have come out recently — Mary Trump's book, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's book, my book — it's kind of like the trifecta of truth."
• "We all seem to be pointing to the same thing: [President Trump] is devoid of empathy."

Why it matters: Never before has a sitting president been hit by so many blistering books, so many times, in a one-month period. Bob Woodward, armed with a reported 17 interviews with Trump himself, will be out Sept. 15 with "Rage," which Trump is already attacking.

Other Cohen highlights:

• On Trump's financial records: "I think it poses a tremendous threat to the president, which, of course, is why he elected not to release his tax returns."
• On Trump's praise for Vladimir Putin: "Trump is keen on this power. And whether it's Putin, Mohammed bin Salman, the Kim Jong-uns, the Maduros, it's the power that he is so involved with and so in search of, that this is exactly what he believes.”
• On National Enquirer hit pieces on Trump's opponents: "Whoever was rising in the poll, that's who became the person that we needed to knock out of the race. ... [Salacious rumors] would be provided to me by David Pecker. I would immediately take them into Mr. Trump's office, we would sit down, we would talk about it, he would approve it and then I would contact David. Next thing you know, two days later on the front cover, Marco Rubio has a drug problem."