President Donald Trump has laid into Michael Cohen since his return to the U.S., claiming over the weekend that the media was suppressing an apparently nonexistent manuscript for a book that would have contradicted Cohen’s testimony. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images White House Trump says Cohen hearing may have contributed to nuclear talks' collapse

President Donald Trump suggested Sunday night that the high-profile congressional testimony offered last week by his former personal attorney may have contributed to the collapse of nuclear negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a summit in Vietnam.

Trump thus far has attributed his decision to walk away from those negotiations about North Korean denuclearization efforts to Kim’s demands for total relief from U.S. sanctions in exchange for incremental steps toward denuclearization — a retelling North Korea has disputed. But Trump on Sunday offered up another explanation for the abrupt end to his summit with North Korea's leader.


“For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the ‘walk,’” he tweeted. “Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!”

Michael Cohen, the president’s former fixer, spent three days testifying on Capitol Hill last week, including one day of public hearings, appearing before both Republican and Democrat-led committees ahead of a three-year prison sentence for lying to Congress and campaign finance violations, among other crimes.

Despite Trump’s second summit with Kim taking place halfway around the world, with a 12-hour time difference, Cohen’s public testimony before the House Oversight Committee about his time working for Trump loomed large over the nuclear negotiations.

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After reporters shouted questions about Cohen’s testimony during an initial photo opportunity with Trump and Kim, the White House limited how many reporters would be allowed into a subsequent appearance of the two leaders because of sensitivities to shouted questions.

Trump also told reporters that he “tried to watch as much as I could” of Cohen’s testimony, during which Cohen branded the president a racist, liar and a cheat. Contradicting the president's version of events surrounding a hush-money payment that is the basis of campaign finance violation charges, Cohen also showed lawmakers a reimbursement check from the president for payments made to women who have claimed to have had affairs with Trump.

But while the president only briefly addressed Cohen’s appearance in his post-summit news conference before leaving Hanoi last week, the White House and Trump’s allies back home defended him furiously, writing off Cohen’s testimony as unreliable and an attempt at distraction by Democrats.

The president has laid into Cohen since his return to the U.S., claiming over the weekend that the media was suppressing an apparently nonexistent manuscript for a book that would have contradicted Cohen’s testimony.