Early glimpses of Disloyal, the forthcoming memoir by Donald Trump’s former attorney and personal fixer Michael Cohen, feature new allegations of the president’s blunt racism and deep admiration of Vladimir Putin. Describing his former boss as “a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,” Cohen—a convicted felon who has lied to Congress—alleges Trump is “guilty of the same crimes” that landed him in federal prison, a three-year sentence he is still serving. As the Associated Press reported, the White House has capitalized on Cohen’s lack of credibility in denying the claims. “He readily admits to lying routinely but expects people to believe him now so that he can make money from book sales,” White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern said in a statement, calling the memoir “fan fiction.”
In the book, Cohen paints Trump’s “hatred and contempt” of Barack Obama as a full-fledged obsession, beginning long before his own 2016 presidential bid, according to CNN. Noting Trump’s “low opinion of all Black folks,” Cohen recalls him ranting after Obama’s victory in 2008: “Tell me one country run by a black person that isn’t a s—hole. They are all complete f—ing toilets.” When South African President Nelson Mandela died in 2013, Trump allegedly said, “Mandela f—ed the whole country up. Now it’s a s—hole. F— Mandela. He was no leader.” (CNN also notes Trump belittled and “fired” an actor playing Obama in a video, which was apparently supposed to air during the 2012 Republican National Convention.)
According to Cohen, per the Washington Post, Trump claimed Obama only got into Columbia University and Harvard Law School because of “f—ing affirmative action.” Cohen said that Trump—who, of course, helped fuel the racist birther crusade against Obama—privately described his predecessor as a “Manchurian candidate.” Also, during the 2016 campaign, Trump allegedly told Cohen, “I will never get the Hispanic vote. Like the Blacks, they’re too stupid to vote for Trump. They’re not my people.”
Trump was allegedly enamored by Putin’s all-encompassing power, Cohen writes. In describing Trump’s sycophantic praise of Putin, Cohen said Trump admired the Russian president because he was able “to take over an entire nation and run it like it was his personal company—like the Trump Organization, in fact.” Cohen also argues that Trump, who himself expected to lose the 2016 race, cozied up to Putin with a real estate development project in mind, seeing the Russian president as a way to a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow. “The whole idea of patriotism and treason became irrelevant in his mind,” Cohen writes. “Trump was using the campaign to make money for himself: of course he was.”
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
— An Oral History of the Protest Movement’s First Days
— How America’s Brotherhood of Police Officers Stifles Reform
— Fox News Staffers Feel Trapped in the Trump Cult
— The Tale of How a Saudi Prince Disappeared
— Ta-Nehisi Coates Guest-Edits THE GREAT FIRE, a Special Issue
— New Postal Service Plans Sets Off Election Alarms
— Stephen Miller and His Wife, Katie, Found Love in a Hateful Place
— From the Archive: Rupert Murdoch’s New Life
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive the September issue, plus full digital access, now.