Twice-impeached former president Donald Trump is “repulsed” by the LGBTQ community, according to his former personal attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen.
Appearing on The Raw Story Podcast, Cohen was asked by co-host Mike Rogers what thinks of “the Central Park Five, [former President Barack] Obama’s nationality, and the LGBT community?”
Cohen responded by saying it was “well-documented” that he “is a racist,” and called President Obama “a thorn in Trump’s large ass. There is no other way to put it.” He pointed to Obama’s race, intellect, and that the former president is “really universally loved.”
With regards LGBTQ people, Cohen said that Trump “thinks about them as much as he thinks about…y’know, nothing. He doesn’t care about the community. In fact, he’s basically repulsed by the community.”
Trump allegedly told Cohen about a friend, whose son is “gay, and you know, he’s really rich…his father hates it,” Trump claimed.
“So it’s not true. I happen to know the family. The father doesn’t hate it,” Cohen said. “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 center.”
Cohen said the exchange showed that Trump ““doesn’t have any regard for anyone. He doesn’t care if you’re Black, right? 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 LGBTQ, ’cause you don’t mean anything to him,” Cohen continued. “That’s the problem, the man lacks any relationships. I mean, it’s why Donald Trump has no friends.”
Speaking about working for Trump, Cohen called his former boss a “monster.”
“My wife, my children begged me, begged me not to take the job… they begged me to quit,” he said, adding that Trump had been “disrespectful” to his daughter.
“I almost felt guilty… it’s weird: the cult of Trump is a cult,” he said. “Plain and simple, he’s no different than any other cult leader, and he is the Jim Jones.”
Last year, Trump’s lesbian niece, Mary Trump, said that LGBTQ people make her uncle “uncomfortable.”
“I think gay people make him uncomfortable with male homosexuality. He’s like guys with no self-awareness,” she told The Advocate. “And trans people make him uncomfortable because he’s uncomfortable with anyone that’s different. And that includes differently-abled, different color of skin, and different beliefs.”
Donald Trump has tapped Scott Bessent to serve as the next Treasury Secretary.
The 62-year-old gay billionaire served as an economic policy adviser to Trump during the most recent presidential campaign and is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management. Prior to that, he was the chief investment officer at Soros Fund Management, a hedge fund started by Democratic donor George Soros.
A Yale graduate, Bessent lives with his husband, John Freeman, in a restored Greek Revival mansion in Charleston, South Carolina. They have two sons, whom they conceived via surrogacy, according to USA Today. He is a member of the French Huguenot Church of Charleston, where his family were founding members in the 1680s.
Kierra Johnson joined The National LGBTQ Task Force in 2018 as its Deputy Executive Director. She has served as its President since 2021.
METRO WEEKLY: Tell me about your experience on election night. How did you feel when the night first started, and when did it sink in for you that things were not going as hoped?
KIERRA JOHNSON: First of all, I couldn't sleep. The night before, I was so -- my family likes to say, "nervous-cited," we created a new word that's nervous and excited -- so, I was nervous-cited. I was like, on one hand, the excitement of the historical moment that we are in was just so motivating. And I had just come back from Pennsylvania knocking on doors, and so, I was on a high from that, and I was talking to my kids. They walked with me to go vote. So, that's the exciting part.
Even as Donald Trump romped to victory in Tuesday's election, there were a few bright spots for our community, with the successes of LGBTQ candidates and ballot initiatives in select states and districts.
The biggest victory of the night was the narrow re-election of U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat who managed to overcome a voter backlash against Democrats that swamped presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Baldwin, a lesbian, will return to the U.S. Senate as its only out LGBTQ elected official, as Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who is bisexual, and Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), a lesbian, are stepping down and did not pursue re-election.
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