Ten Commandments of Trump + A Conversation With Jeffrey Sonnenfeld

Mea Culpa

Michael Cohen

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today on Mea Culpa, I sit down with Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean at Yale School of Management, founder of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute, and author of the forthcoming book Trump’s Ten Commandments, to examine Donald Trump’s leadership style through the lens of corporate power and institutional behavior. An early critic dating back to The Apprentice, Sonnenfeld draws on decades of research on CEOs and crisis leadership, paired with my firsthand experience with Trump, to break down how he governs through intimidation, retaliation, and has an inability to accept loss. We explore why appeasement by universities, corporations, and civic institutions only accelerates democratic erosion, the risks of normalizing coercion, and whether collective resistance remains one of the most effective counterweights to abuse of power. Subscribe to Michael's Substack: https://therealmichaelcohen.substack.com/ Subscribe to Michael's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMichaelCohenShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:28.6	This is my Mayo Copeland.
0:32.6	Oh, baby, don't lie for me.
0:35.6	If I tell you my story, don't cry for me.
0:39.0	I did my time that's fun by me.
0:41.3	This is my fair to me.
0:46.3	This is Michael Cohen, and you're listening to the one and only Mayaculp a podcast, available everywhere and anywhere you get your podcasts.
0:55.8	And thanks to you, we have now exceeded more than 500 million downloads to date. But look, there's something I learned the hard
1:02.3	way about Donald Trump. Didn't learn it in a boardroom. It wasn't in a courtroom. It wasn't even
1:08.4	in the Oval Office. It was in the silence that followed the word no.
1:14.2	Donald cannot metabolize the word no.
1:18.0	In business and politics, in relationships, rejection to him is not information.
	...

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