Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former attorney and “fixer” is expressing confidence that his former boss won’t run for president again in 2024, according to The Daily Beast.

During an appearance on The New Abnormal podcast, Cohen, who hosts his own podcast Mea Culpa, told co-host, Andy Levy, that coupled with the fact that Trump’s popularity has dropped since 2016 and he can’t risk a possible loss, there’s also the fact serious financial implications may scupper the former president’s political ambitions.

Cohen, whose new book, Revenge: How Donald Trump Weaponized the U.S. Department of Justice Against His Critics, told Levy that “one of the problems with Donald is that despite what he will tell you, he has very thin skin. He has an incredibly fragile ego.”

Serving as Trump’s personal attorney from 2006 until 2018, Cohen’s association with the former president went sour, and as The New York Times reports, “had gone from fraught to hostile.” In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. Then, in November 2018, he pleaded guilty to an additional charge of lying to a Senate committee.

This ultimately led to a three-year prison sentence and Cohen was subsequently disbarred in February 2019. He spent a little over a year in prison but was released early to serve the rest of his sentence under home detention due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cohen described Trump’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden as a “kick to the groin” and said Trump “can’t afford to allow himself to be a two-time loser.”

“One of the things that he knows is that his popularity, even amongst Republicans, has diminished since the 2016 election. People are sick and tired of the chaos that he creates every single day,” he added. “And I think they are getting sick and tired of the way Trump 2.0’ers are doing the exact same thing, the mimicking of Trumpism in order to win or try to win elections. He cannot afford, emotionally, to be a two-time loser.”

But that’s not all, Cohen has to say, and he added “if you read the fine print, he has sole discretion over 90 percent over all the money that his supporters are currently giving him, that makes it into a 90 percent slush fund. So I bet if you look to see how he paid to fix his airplane, which was sitting on the tarmac for a long time, I guarantee it’s coming from that slush fund.”

“He’s not using it for what people believe it’s supposed to be, which is political purposes. He’s using it for himself.”

Were he to announce another bid for the presidency, Trump would lose that ability to use the money as a slush fund, Cohen explained.

“He has made way too much money too easily to go ahead and give this thing up, especially when he knows that he cannot win a general election.”

Every time I see Trump at one of his sparsely-attended rallies I hope this is true. The situation in the U.S. is becoming increasingly draconian, and Cohen also indicates democracy is on life-support. He warns of a future in which The Handmaid’s Tale may be more fact than fiction if Trump returns to office. Life in the U.S. could come to resemble the fictional Republic of Gilead — the totalitarian theocratic patriarchy that takes control of the continental U.S. where “you’re going to lose all your rights.”

“We’ve already lost one in the Dobbs decision of Roe v. Wade. Next is Obergefell, and then there’ll be more to follow because this is what this man has done. We need to all work together to ensure that the people that we do elect are not people like Donald Trump.”

“America right now is hanging on to Democracy by a shoestring,” Cohen said. “You know, people are totally erroneous when they believe that Democracy is part of our Constitution, that democracy is a right. It is not. It is an experiment.”

We are living in frightening times. I dearly hope that Cohen is right and that Trump won’t run again, but even if he doesn’t, he’s inspired scores of other right-wing politicians. Who’s to say we won’t get anyone worse than him?

I really can’t give a more dire warning than this. I hope the Democrats are paying attention.