REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
- Michael Cohen on Wednesday told members of Congress that President Donald Trump is a "racist."
- Cohen further said Trump once asked him if he "could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole.’"
- Additionally, Cohen said Trump once told him black people would "never vote for him because they were too stupid."
- Follow along with all the updates from Cohen’s testimony here.
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former longtime lawyer and fixer, on Wednesday testified before Congress that Trump is a "racist" who once asked him if he "could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a "shithole."
"[Trump] once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole.’ This was when Barack Obama was President of the United States," Cohen said as he testified before the House Oversight Committee about his relationship with Trump.
Relatedly, Trump reportedly referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries as "shitholes" in a meeting with lawmakers at the White House on immigration in January 2018.
Read more: Trump doesn’t deny calling African countries ‘shitholes’ while meeting with Nigeria’s president
Cohen also recalled a time that he was driving through a "struggling neighborhood" with the president, and "[Trump] commented that only black people could live that way. And he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid. And yet I continued to work for him."
Trump has faced allegations of racism for years, but especially since his 2016 presidential campaign.
Cohen’s comments on Wednesday were particularly significant given his formerly close ties to Trump and intimate knowledge of his worldview.
Read more: LIVE: Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testifies before Congress in blockbuster hearing
The president slammed Cohen in a tweet on Wednesday, stating, "Michael Cohen was one of many lawyers who represented me (unfortunately). He had other clients also. He was just disbarred by the State Supreme Court for lying & fraud. He did bad things unrelated to Trump. He is lying in order to reduce his prison time. Using Crooked’s lawyer!"
Read more about Cohen’s testimony:
- Michael Cohen will testify that Trump knew Roger Stone was in touch with WikiLeaks during the election
- ‘I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is’: Michael Cohen’s bombshell opening statement before the House Oversight Committee drops hours before he is scheduled to testify
- Here are the 4 documents Michael Cohen says he gave to the House Oversight Committee that could be problematic for Trump
- Michael Cohen details hush-money payments in bombshell opening statement: ‘Lying to the First Lady is one of my biggest regrets’
NOW WATCH: 8 key takeaways from Trump’s State of the Union address
See Also:
- Michael Cohen’s testimony got off to a heated start with two of Trump’s key GOP allies attempting to derail the proceedings
- Michael Cohen is doing his best to deprive Trump of any glory at his summit with Kim Jong Un
- A defiant Michael Cohen speaks ahead of public congressional testimony amid taunts from GOP lawmaker
Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (John Haltiwanger)