I’m going to have to start taking full-on Silkwood showers after reading the news. I have a feeling, in retrospect, the Trump era will feel a bit like stepping in dog shit. It will take a while to completely scrape his residue off our shoes, and even then our country will be redolent of Trumpessence for years to come.
Next up! Michael Cohen’s book — specifically the tawdry bits, as related by The Washington Post.
And … we begin:
Cohen writes that before winning the presidency, Trump held a meeting at Trump Tower with prominent evangelical leaders, where they laid their hands on him in prayer. Afterward, Trump allegedly said: “Can you believe that bulls--t? Can you believe people believe that bulls--t?”
“The cosmic joke was that Trump convinced a vast swathe of working-class white folks in the Midwest that he cared about their well-being,” Cohen writes. “The truth was that he couldn’t care less.”
Gee, you don’t say. How can this be, Michael Cohen? You mean the guy who promoted Trump University doesn’t really care about the well-being of hardworking middle-class folk?
Cohen details a tawdry 2013 visit to a Las Vegas club, the Act, with Trump and Aras and Emin Agalarov — a Russian father-and-son oligarch duo. Cohen asserts that the group watched a debauched strip show that included one performer who simulated urinating on another performer, who pretended to drink it.
Trump’s reaction to the show, Cohen writes, was “disbelief and delight.”
Okay, super-gross, but no worse than what we expected.
Oh, and guess what! Donald Trump is an irredeemable racist!
Cohen writes that during the 2016 campaign, Trump was dismissive of minorities, describing them as “not my people.” “I will never get the Hispanic vote,” Cohen recounts Trump claiming. “Like the blacks, they’re too stupid to vote for Trump.”
Cohen describes Trump’s obsessive hatred of Obama, including claiming that the only reason the former president got into Columbia University and Harvard Law School was because of “f---ing affirmative action.” He also recounts Trump’s “low opinion of all black folks.” claiming that Trump once said while ranting about Obama, “Tell me one country run by a black person that isn’t a s---hole. They are all complete f---ing toilets.”
Also, according to Cohen, Trump “signed off” on the National Enquirer story that alleged a connection between Ted Cruz’s father and JFK’s assassination.
“It’s not real, right?” Trump allegedly asked after being shown a photograph, which the magazine would claim depicted Cruz’s father with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before Oswald killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
“Looks real to me!” Cohen responded, according to the book, prompting Trump to laugh as he demanded that the story be run on the tabloid’s front page.
“To say it would be a low blow would be an insult to low blows; can you think of another politician, ever, who would stoop this low?” Cohen writes.
No I can’t, Michael Cohen. I think some of this stuff would make Karl Rove shit his Underoos. But then, hey, a lot has happened in the past four years that I never thought could possibly come to pass. Thanks for finally coming clean, Pugsley. Here, have a cookie.
UPDATE: And this, from CNN:
Trump's disdain for Obama was so extreme that he took his fixation a step further, according to Cohen: Trump hired a "Faux-Bama" to participate in a video in which Trump "ritualistically belittled the first black president and then fired him."
I can’t believe this is the actual timeline I’m stuck with. Can’t I visit the parallel universe where Hillary Clinton is president and I’m a semi-sentient brain floating in a jar of hardboiled egg brine? I’d prefer that.
“This guy is a natural. Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry." — Bette Midler on Aldous J. Pennyfarthing, via Twitter. Find out what made dear Bette break up. Dear F*cking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump and its boffo sequels Dear Pr*sident A**clown: 101 More Rude Letters to Donald Trump and Dear F*cking Moron: 101 More Letters to Donald Trump by Aldous J. Pennyfarthing are now available for a song! Click those links, yo!