JOY ANN REID: I too was told by people that Donald Trump did not intend to win. He intended simply to market himself and grow his business around the world, absolutely. But then he won. And I think probably the scariest parts of what Michael Cohen said to Rachel Maddow in this interview was the beginning and the end part. At the end part, he says Donald Trump looks to someone like Putin or someone like Mohammed Bin Salman, and he sees a future for himself. Now that he's won, he's like, I might as well just live like the other oligarchs that Putin controls. If I'm just another one of the oligarchs and if they report up to Putin and can become rich and they can have power and they can have endless money, why can't I?

Donald Trump looks to be Junior Putin now. He is an oligarch in training, a dictator in training because now that he's felt the power, now that he's begun to enjoy the unchecked power that unfortunately a weak, supine Republican Party, which unfortunately controls one-half of the Congress, has let him unleash on the country, right? They've let him act as king.

And now that he's felt what it's like to be king, he doesn't want to leave. Now he thinks maybe I will do 10 or 20 or 13 more -- however many I can get because, number one, it will keep me out of jail if you're thinking like him. And number two, I can keep the money rolling in and maybe really benefit and get a pardon when it's over.

And the beginning part of that interview was when Rachel opened by asking, 'why are you the one who's suffering here?, And the reason he's suffering is there's a bigger, badder, much more wicked Michael Cohen in business now, and his name is Bill Barr. Bill Barr, who we just found out tonight has had the Justice Department intervene in a civil lawsuit of a woman named E. Jean Carroll, who has accused this president of rape. Now the Justice Department, the taxpayer-funded Justice Department is involved? Michael Cohen was out of jail, and he got snatched back and thrown back behind bars and was told by US Marshals, sign this thing to give away your right to free speech. Give it away. Give away your rights or you're going back to jail. That's terrifying because now that Donald Trump thinks he's the king, he's trying to act as king, and he has the power because of Bill Barr and the Republican Party to at least try to do it.