Gore Vidal & Roy Cohn: Classic Interview 

I was thinking the same watching this. They reflect that empty,evil soul he had. He must have gone straight to hell when he died

@@wlhansen2068😂 LOL. This brings to mind what Gore Vidal said in a Live interview, when the interviewer, expecting a reaction, mentioned that William F. Buckley had just passed away. Vidal said, matter-of-factly, “Well he’s not going to like Hell.”😊

That's because he was possessed.

Maybe, but Roy Cohn was right. McCarthy was posthumously vindicated, by defecting KGB officers and recovered Soviet archives, in his claims that key positions in US government, institutions and industries had and were being infiltrated by communist agents. Even the FBI were trying to warn the President that his secretary was a communist agent. Gore Vidal's lazy, pompous, and absolute dismissal of this is what tells you that he, and not Cohn, is the liar and propagandist. Communists always have to destroy their enemies totally. It is not enough to debunk their arguments; they must destroy them reputationally, financially, and spiritually. The smear campaign against McCarthy and Cohn was total and merciless; neither could be seen as having even one redeeming quality. I'm afraid that much of recorded 20th century history is highly revised and serves an agenda other than the sincere pursuit of truth.

But worse than him is Trump. Cohn was bad but he was an intellectual and social genius - he had people wrapped around his thumb for years in NY. Trump is just evil-stupid who abandoned Cohn (who took him under his wing) when he disclosed his AIDS. They’re both evil, but if I had to choose, I’d prefer Cohn.

Trump's role models are Putin, Erdogan, Xi, Orban, and other authoritarian leaders. Cohn was Trump's mentor which is why Trump uses disinformation, the aggrieved victimized narrative, bullying, jury tampering, and threats of violence.

TDS.

@@jaylockwood5030 Every single person will speak about Jeffery Epstein or Harvey Weinstein in the most disgusting terms because every single person knows that those two men are beneath contempt, they are total scumbags. No one will say that you have a derangement syndrome for condemning them because everyone _knows_* they are criminals. Yet, the people who support and defend the convicted sex offender, POTUS non grata Donald Trump, willfully ignore his many, many crimes yet, they have the audacity to say his detractors have a derangement syndrome! The people with TDS are those who ignore Trump's crimes, not those who condemn him! MAGA is a cult populated by people who are unable to discern truth from lies!

Your old queen Cohn had JFKDS and LBJDS.

@@jaylockwood5030 Loser

Haha, you ain't kidding..

One of them a closet queen, a poisonous, thug-enabling toad... and a mentor to the worst President the US has ever had ... and hopefully, ever will.

I hear a noise of two cats expressing themselves before going at it

Indeed. Gore was a patient man and fair one.

Damn right and so do I to this day

Gore was a man. Roy was a fake weasel

His favorite topic was himself

Yes I respect him for wearing his queerness on his sleeve. Didn't GAF. Unlike these fascist closet cases creeps skulking around the halls of power. Like toy and Edgar

I laughed out loud at that. Whatever you think of Vidal, you can’t deny he had wit.

Cohn died of AIDS

I comprehend everything you said I could never have composed that so brilliantly so fucking hillarious

Gore Vidal’s mannerisms are at an SCTV level like Rick moranis or Eugene levy is playing him

Bill Boggs interviewing 2 gay guys with different viewpoints. Terrific.

But he does.

Trump was the same with Kamala. Maybe side eye that’s about it 🤣

@@jen21629 Yes, leering.

What's so lovable in that? Chickenshit, I would say.

Rent free.

@david3551 I mean, the guy's running for president of course he's gonna be on people's mind.

​@@gregh5061we will stop talking about him when the media doesn't shove him down everyone's throats everyday

@@TheoMutumbo I agree. Trump is the most important political figure of the 21st century, obviously people are gonna talk about him.

BULL

That's the only truth gore vidal said. As it should be!!! You defend yourself 1st and then your clients, gore did the same thing!!! He defended himself 1st

Gore Videl was a prissy little queen.

Roy Cohn and McCarthy were proven 100% by the Venona Transcripts and the Mitrokhin Archive release in the 1990s, so Vidal's responses now look dated and backwards.

@Joe Mama as was Roy Cohn who died of aids that he acquired with his homosexual activities . And yet publicly he slated gay people . What a liar he was .

McCarthy was also CLOSETED and LOVED LADIES PANTIES ! HEY mary

Don’t be a racist anti-Semite

@@jordanmascarenhas7974 lol dude shut up

@@jordanmascarenhas7974 i said nothing about him being a jew carry on

His face was ruined not that he would ever be accused of being handsome but his mother insisted on plastic surgery on his nose as a newborn and he lived with scar his whole life.

The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances….

The entire interview was a setup. It was like an early version of Jerry Springer.

Roy Cohn did not walk into that stage not knowing Gore Vidal would be there he would have had his spies tell him who he would be on stage with him.

Not how I interpret the situation. From what Vidal said, it sounds like he was aware that Cohn would be there, but not just him. In other words, it would not be a debate between Vidal and Cohn, therefore not necessary to prepare for a debate. Cohn, being a lawyer and combative by nature and trade, would have prepared notes in Vidal in case challenged by him. As a good boy scout, Cohn obeyed the mantra, to always be prepared. :)

​@@dougtaylor2803 Cohn probably had files on him since the 50s

Sure you did. Didn't you see "Anchorman"? ;)

EXACTLY what I was thinking. :)

Roy Cohn was the best . So proud of him .

🤣

I had to do a double-take too.

haha Cohn is brilliant

@Ross Smith QA

@@paulscottfilms Cohn just about drank himself to death after contracting AIDS. brilliant..indeed. 🙄

@smith simon Both, sadly Cohn was self hating which at the time was common.

@@beccadabeast5013 when did Cohn contract AIDS?

Buckley is smooth too

Including and especially his mother, it appears.

I like him alot - he makes a great argument about the reality of the danger of Communism and how it was important to acknowledge it.

WOW!

or Stephen Miller

@@jamespardue3055 thank you

He dident teach trump crapp. He just took his money and kept him out of trouble .

"Roy Cohn taught Trump everything he needed to know"? Oh how I wish.

Vidal had historical knowledge but piss-poor judgement. Such as lying about the Cuban people being better off. Hindsight has proven nearly all of his statements to be wrong. He was also part of the wave to end the Electoral College....the mating call of Totalitarians.

@@xs10tl1 The Cuban people aren't better off because of an unrelenting 60 year campaign of crippling economic sanctions, murder plots against their leadership and numerous attempted coups by the United States.

@@xs10tl1 Do you think that Fidel and Che threw the Gangsters and Fascists of the island by themselves? Despite over 60 years of unrelenting pressure from the world's most powerful nation, as Hello It's Me mentions, that tiny island with a population smaller than several American cities has no homeless people. Has a near 100% literacy rate. And produces more Doctors than the U.S., every year. In fact, what problems Cuba does have are the direct result of our nation's policies to deprive and destabilize their people and the government they chose.

Imagine a similar debate today with Sarah Palin and Bill Maher. The fur would fly.

@@esltogo6898 Palin was, and is, a cretin !

@@62Cristoforo Why in, gods name, would you use Palin. She is not in any manner an intellectual. I think Maher's pretty smart how about put him up against Roger Stone who is a lot like Roy Cohn.

Look at how Cohn's lies and dishonesty survive. Why are some men able to make their way with utter dishonesty and corruption? Why was Cohn not in prison?

@ Brian Walsh . No I think when you graduate top of your class and are still too young for your Bar examination, that you might have a bit more intellectual clout than a PR man.

I wish

Fascinating? RC was a genuine piece of excrement.

Roy Cohn and McCarthy were proven 100% by the Venona Transcripts and the Mitrokhin Archive release in the 1990s, so this was an especially interesting interview!

They are too busy twerking.😂

Miserable nothing even close in todays sheltered red / blue society

Wait til your boy Hunter goes to jail

@@jordanmascarenhas7974 What has Hunter Biden got to do with anything. He is a private citizen and has absolutely nothing to do with me. Trump has 40+ legal cases pending and growing. He has been banned from ever owning a charity, and likely to be banned from doing business in New York. He is being investigated under the Espionage Act ,and for Sedition. He keeps losing case after case in a Conservative Supreme Court, yet out of a population of 326m he is the person you chose to give the power of the immense power of the Presidency.

@jordanmascarenhas7974 Ha! Your corny comment aged like milk. Russian spy now arrested for feeding false info to fbi and gop.

I love when he says “Well I’ll get to you in a minute”. 🤣

This clip was in the documentary 'Where's My Roy Cohn?' I had never heard of Midday before but came to RU-vid to see if I could find the entire episode. Through Roy Cohn's whole life people would come right out and ask if he was a homosexual/ if he was dying of AIDS, and he always denied it of course.

@@deealone5191 i saw that, and rented it, but got more, really, about Roy Cohn from DemNow in 2016, w/Trump and Wayne Barrett. in 2011, my parents refused me their computer, but i bought the first IPad, ,and still, just got had HBO as a gift, and so obviously screwed up as Bill Maher was abt Islam, this woman named Amy Goodman was a guest, and boom...via ‘on demand’, i double checked and heard : DemocracyNow. so i’ll always be grateful, for him because of #DemocracyNow, with which i STILL start the day.

Yeah, the left would imply McCarthy was gay based on the "evidence" that he was in his 40s before he got married.

@Ross Smith He was willing to do whatever it took to stay in power and be relevant and being a narcissist or a sociopath had no qualms about doing whatever he thought that would take regardless of whose life he destroyed. Just like our former president.

A performance of a liar. Blame, distort, and double down. Notice how Roy starts off calling others of lying. Then distort the word communist to fit anyone who he does not like. Then never backs down. Trump used the same tactics, only foolish people bought what he sold.

Well spotted. I wouldn't be surprised if Cohn had served as, and remains, one of Miller's primary role models.

Now you understand how Stephen Miller's character was appreciated by Donald Trump.

He’s worse!

Stephen Miller reminds me of Goebbels

Caligula was actually a genius. Mccarthy was right more than half the time wich is more than the average poilitician. Cohn vindicated.

Roy Cohn WAS Caligula...he underestimated himself.

McCarthy was right - look at Covid (leaked from a Communist laboratory ) and the censorship that is occurring and ‘woke / cancel culture ‘ . And for me to exercise this opinion could be prosecuted by fifth columners as Omar Talib - Yes - McCarthy had his faults but he was right about Communism and the Risenbergs ! I’ll let you get back to NPR and the NYTimes now ! 🙄

No zombie, Caligula not defended, go and watch some TV

@@martinhanley9524 Really? Covid was "leaked" from a commie lab? 🙄 You're leaving that ignorant comment on social media in the 21st century? Good grief. America prays you grow a free, critical thinking brain. Sooner rather than later. 🤣😂

Thank you for the date!

Cohn never quite looked directly at people, I noticed.

Or turned on.

And yet Cohn was ten times better connected. Go figure.

Actually, history made Vidal Gore out to be the fool. Roy Cohn and McCarthy were proven 100% by the Venona Transcripts and the Mitrokhin Archive release in the 1990s, so Vidal's responses now look dated and backwards, not superior.

Roy met his superior in Gore Vidal

In the book Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir, Christopher Buckley wrote about a letter he received from Vidal soon after his dad passed away. Vidal had written that he was overjoyed that his father had died.

National treasure to USSR

Actually, history made Vidal Gore out to be a fool. Roy Cohn and McCarthy were proven 100% by the Venona Transcripts and the Mitrokhin Archive release in the 1990s, so Vidal's responses now look dated and backwards, not superior.

@@jordanmascarenhas7974 he didn't want our kids getting slaughtered fighting it in foreign countries if that is what you mean. He wasn't a communism himself.

whats the matter with you. maybe a simpleton.

@@paulscottfilms If you don’t know how evil Cohn was, you have no business calling anyone else a simpleton. If you do know and it doesn’t bother you then you’re a scumbag. Either way, you lose.

Dracula infected with the last stage of HIV. Same one that said he was sexually attracted to Trump. Remember he had that boyfriend that got drafted and looked exactly like Trump

And 10x the power.

Could you envisage yourself as one of his concubines?

Then Cohn died of AIDS, didn’t he?

I always wondered about Nixon and Robozo.

There were Soviet agents in the State Department and the military as well as the White House under FDR. Alger Hiss was, in fact, a Soviet agent. Then there were people in government, academia, and the news and entertainment industry who were sympathetic with the Soviets. Harry Dexter White and Harry Hopkins were both sympathetic with the Soviets as was FDR himself who was no Marxist, but saw Stalin's economic program was the New Deal on steroids.

I'm a leftist and a communist sympathizer and I can assure u it was true. Communists held many high offices in the state department and executive branch. Remember, the soviets were our allies in ww2. So thjs was acceptable during FDR era. Communism was trendy in the 30s and 40s among urban workers, intellectuals, artists and celebrities. The ussr was fighting fascism for us

Of course America is brain dead. That’s the America the owners of this country want. A nation of conformist consumers who are more than happy to just pay their rising taxes and shut the hell up and not question anything their government does. The government they’re paying for. A brain dead America is what the country’s owners want and they got it. They got it a long time ago.

Boy do i wish Gore Vidal were around these last 7 yrs.

Nothing wrong with Roy. He at least embraced success and American/ European values, while most in his community hated the successful, trying to lead violence and theft/redistribution schemes ( leftist , Frankfort school, Democracy Now ..)

Liar!

12:57 poor Roy lol

Wow ya in a big way.

“Takes one to know one”? Gore had the maturity & bravery to acknowledge his own sexuality. Cohn was…well, where to begin? Simply a disgustingly poor excuse for a human being in a thousand ways..

I think everyone knew

Takes one to know one.

YESSSSS They're both tarred with the same brush

And I'll bet Trump thinks he sounds like Cohn when he speaks.

Civility in politics existed then.

Yes, I like the way they made their point and actually let the other finish. Today, we get half way through and the other guy yells out a non sequitur and the whole thing is just unproductive shouting match.

You should watch Buckley and Vidal. Great intellectual stuff until later meetings when Bill got his feelings hurt and converted to bashing Vidal.

@@beccadabeast5013 Did u e see Best of Enemies, documentary about their tete-a tete at the '68 convention. Fantastic stuff

I don't think Vidal ever shied away from any debate with the right wing. I think that he hadn't been told about this is what annoyed him because he wanted to be prepare. Obviously he was intelligent enough to pull it off and did a very good job.

Yeah I know who I’d rather have advocating my defence.

Roy Cohn and McCarthy were proven 100% correct by the Venona Transcripts and the Mitrokhin Archive release in the 1990s, so Vidal's responses now look dated and backwards compared to Roy's facts.

True

More like a pompous, arrogant jerk

@@JohnB-dr8sk no.

@@JohnB-dr8sk true, he was also indeed a pompous and arrogant jerk.

Beautiful. You are SO VERY RIGHT. The apple falls always close to the tree

Brillant commentary beyond words. Good quote you made.

Uh, no. Cohn and McCarthy were proven 100% by the Venona Transcripts and the Mitrokhin Archive release. So he was totally vindicated by history.

@@JohnB-dr8sk Ah, Roy Cohn Jr. weighs in.

@@ronagoodwell2709 Anyone opposed to Communism is a "Roy Jr" to you comrade. Just so everyone here knows, all of these Marxist commenters here that hate Roy Cohn are planning to genocide half the country if they ever get full power. We know this from FBI informant Larry Grathwold's testimony to Congress in the 1970s about the Weather Underground. Bill Ayers and his cohorts were working directly with the CCP and the Soviet Union and talked openly about genociding 30 million Americans who opposed the world revolution. Larry Grathwold was praised by President Jimmy Carter and Democrats in Congress after his testimony. Roy Cohn is hated because he helped expose the world revolution here in America. It has nothing to do with anything else that he did. I am old and terminally ill with not much time to live, so thankfully, I won't be alive after these monsters attempt this great evil. But I leave this as a warning to others who will be alive who are trying to understand what is happening. You are all in grave danger if these maniacs aren't stopped....

Both highly intelligent. Vidal's "Palimpsest" was one of the best books I ever read.

Cohn was

Sigh , so many people with shallow and unconsciously tragic lives.

When he was disbarred, then passed of AIDS, the "monster" was finally gone!!!

He was so physically repulsive

A monster?! A rather small monster, don't you think?

Mostly because of the republicans always getting loud and talking over and keep sticking ti their fox news talking points and trying to win instead of an intelligent conversation. Same thing with leftist who won't allow the right wing to speak and shouting them down like we see at some colleges.

Intelligence levels and society has changed with the Dumbing down of America ( book by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt ) also With the subversions that have taken place along the way from 1949 to date.

Evil under the veneer of civility (kind of). These wordsmiths are weilding machetes at each other.

How is Roy Cohn intelligent? A grotesquely dishonest liar.

Omg what an original comment.

Wow witty riposte by an intellectual guest author Gore Vidal who uses language. Unlike what people do today. In English public school men were taught debating and how to parse an argument in public as part of their education so many went into politics, government, and industry.

We don't need to learn anything. We have cell phones.

@@johnny-rLol

American Left contributed to the millions of North Korean and Indochine people being murdered by the Communists.

Spot on! Cohn taught Trump many of his most criminal practices!

You want to tangle communism...?? Fine , but get fair ,honest competent..staff....not a frustrated drunk...and his develish side Kik..whispering poisoning equations that break all rules of decency..

@@bear0balls such as what huh?

Trump talks like Cohn, sounds just like him with a limited vocabulary and range of syntax

It's true. His colleagues gave him an award for "Most vegetation shot." He fired 4500 rounds one day including some into his own aircraft so he could claim a record. He flew only two combat missions (in one day) and injured his foot falling over when partying but called it a combat wound. No Purple Heart though;-)He died bravely of liver damage from a special Japanese bayonet called "booze."

Lol

@@Longtack55 Beautiful synopsis of Tall Gunner Joe! I thought he got a Purple Heart for slipping on a wet deck on ship? Lol

He was Trump's mentor. For real.

And the great defender of Studio 54.

He was the head MOB lawyer in New York. He was totally ruthless. Then died of aids.

He's a narcissist or sociopath. They lack any scruples and stuff like this wouldn't bother them a bit unless of course he didn't take the opportunity to do it and then he would kick himself. Just watched Victim, something something on netflix about his life. The guy wouldn't pay people and used people like all narcs and sociopaths as pawns in their game of life. I'm sure trump already was doing all of this stuff by the time he met Cohn.

He was the close number 2 under McCarthy. A very important part of American history to know and understand. The Edward R. Murrow School of Journalism is at WSU. People like Cohn are absolute snakes yet somehow allowed to survive and prosper. A fascist. Taught Donald Trump a lot, was also closely involved with Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and Richard Nixon.

Subtle*

I remember that and I always wondered who they were referring to. now that I recognized the name in this clip, I must say, that if he was a man to be made fun of, he still came across as more likable and intelligent than the shitshow we have now. the art of the dialogue is lost.

Hehehe

Gore was remarkable, as he always was.

I googled it 1977was the year

If that happened there wouldn't be all this action in the comments.

@@pqmconstruction2003 if you think the interview was recent you have a lot of problems that even Google can't give help for, JS

Cohn said in the interview/debate, the year was 1977.

Absolutely. I am guessing circa 1970

Exactly.

Only in 2016, Cohn''s buddy Trump encouraged the Russian election interference using Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

They may have had differing viewpoints, but Hitchens would never have tried to debate Vidal.

Your wrong its about Harris And Willy brown

@Juan Valdez That doesn’t make sense. The analogy doesn’t work.

Cohn was a mentor to Don Trump.

Venona papers

To a libtard, it would

"Tail Gunner Joe" was the name of a television movie about the life of Joe McCarthy, but I suspect Vidal, efficient with the language as ever, was killing two birds with one stone by making an allusion to the possibility of the latter.

The double entendre was obviously lost on the masses, since they took the phrase from Vidal and entitled the book with it, for mass distribution, in mixed company

The Naked Communist, the goals outed in this book made people propagandized its to bad most don’t realize, Ck out Edward Bernay’s he explains how

These people were educated before TV dumbed us down and diminished attention span.

Because we are products of the Revolutionary War, and have kept having to fight the same enemy in different jerseys....all the while building the greatest economy and innovative culture on the planet.

I’ve thought about this and I blame advertisers and marketers. They are generally dull extroverts and are convinced that what people want to watch is those of that same ilk . The bar is set entertain the LCD.

Because big government doesn’t want it.

Because of Jerry Springer and the birth of the infamous entitled loudmouth Karen!!

Roy Cohn was pure evil A fraud who taught Trump all he knows

I'm stealing that lol

...and Gore Vidal also used as much wiggle room as he could afford. I agree that he is all you said above, I much appreciate his historical novels.

Gore vidsl was fu of crapola

@@juanitamora4857 are you CIA

You need to read more. Taylor Caldwell remains superior.

@@borisbadenov651 Nice!! Thank you for clueing people on about Taylor Caldwell!!! "Joseph Armaugh"

@@asongforsimeon4310 If you think the world had more respect for the mango Mussolini you need to get out more.

These times and the approach to voicing disagreement is different from then, and it isn't coming from one direction.

Our whole society is practically brain dead. What lack of education did to many, the phone and attention spans did the rest. Try explaining something to someone that takes more than a minute, forget it.

@@josephdegennaro6819 Indeed a species with such a paltry attention span would not survive in the wild. Perhaps we are witnessing the degeneration of our species back to the apes the creationists insist we didn't come from. You first, Marjorie.

And biden and camela

Roy Cohn was Donald Trumps mentor.

Cohn was such a fraud

Look how many people still support 45.

You can be selective in the information you absorb and therefore remain wet behind the ears . Life experience is a different matter . That’s why most right wing advocates are apostates of the left.

tape glitch I think, I did the interview live and tape was just made for me.

Cohn couldn’t face his own dogs, never mind his own sexuality. How do these people still get in to government? His “ transactional “ totalitarianism is very much in power today through Trump, and the same people believe the bullshit. If he will lie to himself it’s obvious he would lie to the world.

@@wordscontrolminds All true...but even Vidal never "came out" really. He really didn't have to, though.

@Joe Postove.....Well, that’s probably because it was the 70’s, when gays were heavily discriminated against socially and in the workplace. Lots of employers wouldn’t hire gays. It’s really a recent thing in history that gays now have legal protection against discrimination. Our societal evolution is soooo anemic. It takes decades for the law to catch up to contemporary culture. Marijuana is STILL illegal in most states, yet alcohol kills 88,000 annually. 🤷‍♂️ Our politicians don’t care about the will of the people. They live inside their own elite bubble.

@@anderseckstrand7033 YES, and ironically and unethically Roy Cohn was 'behind' much of the vilifying and destroying of gays! Word is that a lot of suicides were blamed on Cohn's exposures. Cohn died of AIDS!

@@JDMumma It fits somehow - like his minion, the self-loathing underneath the bluster is painfully apparent.

I noticed that too. Cohn hardly looks at the host, except to emphasize certain words. I find that really odd.

Cohn also does not address Vidal directly to his face, refers to him as "Mr. Vidal" as if Vidal is not even in the room.

Vidal had one of the most imposing and impressive broadcast voices ever ! He spoke with authority but with wisdom and humour. He was a gentleman. So missed today in a time of demagogues and unfiltered character assassins. 😮