Former President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House on January 24, 2020 (Drew Angerer/Getty)
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s onetime lawyer and fixer, has claimed the former US president was “repulsed” by LGBT+ people.
The disbarred lawyer told the Raw Story Podcast that as much Trump and his cronies sought to paint him as a modern Republican – a balm of sorts for a party so often seen as out of step with current society – he was anything but.
Between very rarely even acknowledging the LGBT+ community and relentlessly rolling back trans rights, queer Americans knew well the apathy Donald Trump held towards them – even as his wife Melania claimed otherwise.
Cohen said of Trump’s views of the queer community: “He thinks about them as much as he thinks about, ya’know, nothing.
“He doesn’t care about the community. In fact, he’s basically repulsed by the community.”
“He doesn’t care if you’re LGBT+, ’cause you don’t mean anything to him,” he added.
Cohen went onto share a story where Trump said he knew a man who “hated” having a gay son. And in a plot twist nobody saw coming, this really wasn’t the case.
He recalled that Trump told him: “Oh, you know, ‘A friend of mine has a son, who’s gay, and you know, he’s really rich […] his father hates it.’”
“So it’s not true. I happen to know the family. The father doesn’t hate it.
“Now, would the father prefer him to be, you know, heterosexual? I don’t know. I never asked him.
“Maybe yes, no, I don’t know. It’s none of my business, it’s between them. But Trump then puts himself into the dead centre.”
On the topic of racism, a similarly barbed approach from the real estate mogul, said Cohen.
While he said he didn’t work for Trump since he was “in junior high school, or high school” at the time, Cohen claimed that it is “well-documented” that Trump “is a racist”.
Overall, Cohen, who has increasingly dished out Trump’s sordid dealings amid a federal investigation into his finances, described Trump as vastly indifferent to minority groups.
“He doesn’t care if you’re Black, right?” Coehn said. “He doesn’t like you.
“He doesn’t care if you’re white, he doesn’t like you really, either — unless, of course, you’re a Trump supporter. Right?
“He doesn’t care if you’re LGBT+, ’cause you don’t mean anything to him.
“That’s the problem, the man lacks any relationships. I mean, it’s why Donald Trump has no friends.”
