Michael Cohen's Book Says Trump Held 'Low Opinions of All Black Folks'

[elleng]

'The president’s former fixer describes him as a mob boss figure who made racist insults, was driven by hatred for President Barack Obama and engaged in underhanded tactics against opponents.

President Trump routinely referred to Black leaders of foreign nations with racist insults. He had an abiding admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin’s willingness to treat Russia like a personal business. And he was consumed with hatred for President Barack Obama.

Those are the descriptions that Michael D. Cohen, a former personal lawyer and self-described fixer for Mr. Trump, lays out in his book, “Disloyal: A Memoir,” which paints the president as a sordid, moblike figure willing to engage in underhanded tactics against anyone opposing him.

“As a rule, Trump expressed low opinions of all Black folks, from music to culture and politics,” Mr. Cohen writes in the book, to be released Tuesday. He describes Mr. Trump calling Nelson Mandela, who led the emancipation of South Africa from white minority rule, “no leader.”

“Tell me one country run by a Black person that isn’t a shithole,” Mr. Cohen quotes Mr. Trump as saying. He also alleges that Mr. Trump called Kwame Jackson, a Black contestant on his reality TV show “The Apprentice,” a homophobic slur, and that he had deep disgust with Black leaders in addition to celebrities and sports figures.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/06/us/politics/cohen-book-trump.html?

(((In case this hasn't already been posted.)))

[tulipsandroses]

1. Water is wet

I hope there is more to this book. Anyone paying attention to Trump, already figured this out. I imagine Omarosa was in the inner circle for a time being because of all the ass kissing she initially did. I doubt she was there because he had high regards for her intellect.

[Mike Nelson]

2. Amazing...

... how Repubs dismiss it all as "lies," when he has been on full display for years. All these books - and there will be more - confirm what we know. And, still, a group of fans adore their Donald. He is their kindred spirit - they have the same hates and fears.

[cilla4progress]

3. Paywall

I have a Wapo subscription

[elleng]

4. and I have a NYT subscription too.

Can I help you?

'He also was obsessed with Mr. Obama, Mr. Cohen writes. The book describes Mr. Trump hiring “a Faux-Bama, or fake Obama, to record a video where Trump ritualistically belittled the first Black president and then fired him, a kind of fantasy fulfillment that it was hard to imagine any adult would spend serious money living out — until he did the functional equivalent in the real world.”

The video Mr. Cohen describes appears to be a recording that was supposed to be shown the first night of the Republican National Convention in 2012, when Mr. Trump had endorsed the party’s presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, and insisted on having time during the programming.

Among the revelations from Mr. Cohen, who worked for Mr. Trump for more than a decade, are descriptions of the negotiations during the 2016 campaign with a key official at the Trump Organization about how to pay off an adult-film actress who said she had had an affair with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen also explains in detail how The National Enquirer became a weapon working in tandem with Mr. Trump to damage the businessman’s opponents in the 2016 Republican primary.

Asked about the many claims in the book, which The New York Times obtained an advance copy of, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was dismissive.

“Michael Cohen is a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer who lied to Congress,” she said in a statement. “He has lost all credibility, and it’s unsurprising to see his latest attempt to profit off of lies.” A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not respond to an email seeking comment.

In Mr. Cohen’s telling, his lies were on behalf of Mr. Trump, whether it was in investigations or in trying to win him good headlines. Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to a handful of financial crimes and a campaign finance violation related to the payments to the former adult-film actress, Stephanie Clifford, who went by the stage name Stormy Daniels.'>>>

[cilla4progress]

5. Thanks.

SMDH

He's such a bully. I think that's the appeal for his supporters.

[elleng]

6. *Mr. Trump loved Mr. Putin for his audacity "to take over an entire nation and run it

like it was his personal company — like the Trump Organization, in fact,” Mr. Cohen writes.

The possibility of a Trump Tower project in Moscow was enticing to his boss, Mr. Cohen writes, saying that the businessman’s children did not favor Felix Sater, a felon and consultant with deep ties to Russia who had brought in the project. So Mr. Cohen handled it, he writes. That project became something that was examined by Mr. Mueller.

Mr. Cohen describes the Trump Organization as loosely reminiscent of the mafia, with Mr. Trump as the would-be family don.

At another point, Mr. Cohen details how he and David J. Pecker, who was then in charge of The National Enquirer and a friend of Mr. Trump’s, ginned up a story — with Mr. Trump’s knowledge — that intimated a connection between the father of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who was then a primary rival, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Mr. Cohen describes the allure of working for Mr. Trump as being like a drug, one he could not stop consuming. Mr. Cohen describes, with a sense of shame, his own need to please Mr. Trump.'

[cilla4progress]

7. Similar to Wolkoff's description in

Melania and me.

Cult.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. You taking notes, Kanye?