TRUMP HIRED ‘FAUX-OBAMA’ TO BERATE DAILY, COHEN SAYS IN BOOK

Before Donald Trump ever sought the Oval Office, he was preoccupied by its occupant President Barack Obama, publicly questioning his birthplace and privately describing him as "a Manchurian candidate" who obtained his Ivy League degrees only by way of affirmative action, according to a new book by Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen.

CNN’s Erica Orden obtained a copy of the book ahead of its Tuesday publication and said “Trump's disdain for Obama was so extreme that he took his fixation a step further, according to Cohen: Trump hired a ‘Faux-Bama’ to participate in a video in which Trump "ritualistically belittled the first black president and then fired him." His book carried a photo of the “faux-Obama” facing Trump, who was sitting at his chair and displaying two books, one of them with Obama’s name. Trump could not forget how Obama skewered him publicly at the White House for his yarn about the former President’s not being an American and how he failed to utter a word in response. Ranting about Obama after he won office in 2008, Trump said, "Tell me one country run by a black person that isn't a sh*thole...They are all complete f*cking toilets," according to Cohen. After Nelson Mandela died, Trump allegedly said of South Africa that "Mandela f*cked the whole country up. Now it's a sh*thole. F*ck Mandela. He was no leader."

Cohen's book, "Disloyal: A Memoir," doesn't name the man who was allegedly hired to play Obama or provide a specific date for the incident, but it does include a photograph of Trump sitting behind a desk, facing a Black man wearing a suit with an American flag pin affixed to the lapel. On Trump's desk are two books, one displaying Obama's name in large letters. As an insider who spent years as Trump's personal attorney and and self-proclaimed "fixer," Cohen says he is uniquely equipped to unleash on Trump, whom Cohen describes as "a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man" and a person interested in using the presidency exclusively for his personal financial benefit.

But in a way perhaps even Trump could appreciate, Cohen reserves some of his harshest judgment for the media, which he blames for falling for Trump's attention-grabbing tactics and propelling him to office. "Donald Trump's presidency is a product of the free press," he writes. "Not free as in freedom of expression, I mean free as unpaid for. Rallies broadcast live, tweets, press conferences, idiotic interviews, 24-7 wall-to-wall coverage, all without spending a penny. The free press gave America Trump." He concluded: "Right, left, moderate, tabloid, broadsheet, television, radio, Internet, Facebook -- that is who elected Trump and might well elect him again."