President Trump made racist comments on several occasions before he was elected, according to his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
In an interview with Vanity Fair published on Friday, Cohen recounted times when the alleged remarks were made, including a discussion at Trump Tower when he told then-candidate Trump that the crowd at his campaign rally was predominately white.
“I told Trump that the rally looked vanilla on television. Trump responded, ‘That’s because black people are too stupid to vote for me,’ ” Cohen told Vanity Fair in an interview Tuesday.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill. Vanity Fair said it not receive a response to multiple requests for comment.
Cohen also said that after Nelson Mandela’s death in 2013, Trump called on Cohen to “name one country run by a black person that’s not a shithole.” He then added, “Name one city.”
Cohen said the comment was similar to how Trump reportedly referred to Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations as “shithole countries” earlier this year.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied those comments in January, the magazine noted.
Cohen recounted other alleged conversations, including one he had with Trump in the late 2000s while the pair was traveling through a “rougher” neighborhood in Chicago to attend a Trump International Hotel board meeting.
“Trump made a comment to me, saying that only the blacks could live like this,” Cohen told Vanity Fair.
Cohen, who worked with Trump during the first few seasons of “The Apprentice,” also said he was talking one time with Trump about two of the show’s contestants — Bill Rancic and Kwame Jackson.
Trump allegedly explained to Cohen why he decided to pick Rancic instead of Jackson, a black investment manager with a degree from Harvard Business School.
“He said, ‘There’s no way I can let this black f—–g win,’” Cohen said of Trump.
Jackson confirmed to Vanity Fair that he has previously heard that Trump made that comment.
“My response to President Trump is simple and Wakandan: Not today, colonizer,” Jackson told the magazine while referring to the fictional African country depicted in the “Black Panther” franchise.
Cohen told Vanity Fair that he wishes he had left his job at the Trump Organization when he heard Trump make the racist comments.
“I should have been a bigger person, and I should have left,” he said.
Cohen is not the first person to accuse the president of making racially charged statements.
Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman wrote in her new tell-all book “Unhinged” that there are tapes of Trump using a racial slur on the set of “The Apprentice.”
Trump has denied the tape exists and questioned Manigault Newman’s credibility, calling her a “lowlife” and a “dog.”
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Michael Cohen: The racist comments Trump made before becoming presidenthttps://t.co/Xh3Ty2MlBA pic.twitter.com/gOJm64A2dg
— The Hill (@thehill) November 2, 2018
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