Michael Cohen alleges 4 racist things, said Trump. This is why he is more and more credible, he says.

The long-awaited n-word band has still not been found. But another person close to President Trump accuses him of using racist language.

In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal affairs lawyer, remembers four explicit cases where Trump had said racist remarks about blacks:

• "Blacks are too stupid to vote for me."
• "Name a country run by a black person who is not an idiot. Name a city. "
• Traveling in a Chicago neighborhood: "Only black people could live like this."
• On a black finalist in "The Apprentice": "There is no way I let this black f-g win."

All the usual warnings apply here. Cohen is now a criminal who acted on Trump, both legally and politically. He implicated Trump in a violation of campaign finance and joined the Democratic Party. He has the courage to grind and no concrete proof of that; everything is said hearsay. And an election that is largely a referendum on Trump will take place in four days.

But it is worth emphasizing how much more credible this is, both in the context of Trump's public actions and what others have said about him. The list of racist things that Trump announced and implemented continues to grow – the latest being Willie Horton's – and an ever-growing list of people arguing over and believing that he's not going to get away with it. he said racist things.

It's not just those who are now opposed to Trump, such as Cohen and Omarosa Manigault Newman, who accused Trump of using the keyword after quarreling with Trump and publishing a book this summer. So there are two other black "apprentice" candidates – Randall Pinket and now Kwame Jackson, who confirmed to Vanity Fair that he had heard that Trump had made such a comment. You may remember that Manigault Newman also shared a secret recording in which other Black Trump staff members seemed to agree that Trump probably used the word n.

Here is the transcript of this tape:

KATRINA PIERSON: I'm trying to find out at least in what context it was used to help us maybe find a way to transform it.

LYNNE PATTON: I said, "Well, sir, can you think of any time it could have happened, and he said" No ".

MANIGAULT NEWMAN: Well, that's not true. So –

PATTON: He said, "How do you think I should face it?" And I told him exactly what you just said, Omarosa – in other words, it depends on what scenario you're talking about. And he said, "Well, why not just go ahead and put him to bed."

(CROSSTALK)

PIERSON: He said it. No, he said it. He is embarrassed.

Pierson has since said she agrees with Manigault Newsman's premise to calm her down. But other denials offered by her and Patton collapsed. And several White House spokesmen have refused to explicitly exclude the existence of the word-n band, perhaps because they feared that she would ever make a surface day. and do not make them any more liars.

Cohen's comments deal with all this and all we know about Trump. Pierson and Patton seemed to believe that Trump had said so, but the context might not be as overwhelming as he could. Cohen does not accuse Trump of using the n-word but of attributing racist stereotypes to African Americans.

The comments themselves also sound like things that Trump said and would have said.

Regarding the first, he called other people who did not vote for him – Iowans in particular – "stupid" for not doing it.

On number 2, there was a time when he called most black nations "a makeshift country" in the White House. He even did it in front of a Democratic senator.

The third much resembles Trump's situation when a 2016 candidate repeatedly implored black voters to support him by citing their suffering and saying, "What do you have to lose?" They should support him.

It is possible that Cohen, if he actually invented all of this, knows enough Trump to make his quotes credible on the basis of things already said by Trump. It is also possible that Manigault Newman invents things for advertising. It is also possible that Pierson does not think that the band exists and that the White House spokespersons do not really care about its existence.

But all this, combined with the increasingly unapologetic use of the rhetoric that divides Trump's racism, makes it difficult to immediately dismiss Cohen's allegation.