The latest secret recordings of Trump come from former reality star and White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman. In hyping her new tell-all book about working for Trump, Manigault Newman has released recordings of her being fired by Chief of Staff John Kelly (in the White House Situation Room, no less), Trump expressing disappointment about her being fired (of which he appeared to have been unaware), and, in the latest revelation, several Trump aides discussing the president’s use of the “n-word.”

If there’s one lesson for those who place themselves in Donald Trump’s toxic orbit, it appears to be: Record everything. Considering the president’s propensity for lying and throwing disloyal courtiers under the proverbial bus, it’s a smart self-preservation strategy.


I have to be honest: I’m unimpressed with all of this.

It just doesn’t rise to the level of scandal in the Era of Trump. I’m holding out for the really juicy stuff. You know, something like Trump mocking a disabled reporter, calling African countries “shitholes,” or maybe referring to undocumented Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and “animals.” Imagine if there was a tape that came out in which the president talked about sexually assaulting women and grabbing them by a private body part. That would really be something!

I’m joking, of course, because Trump has already said and done all of these things — and a lot more stuff that’s just as bad. But somehow, it doesn’t dent his popularity among his supporters or convince congressional Republicans that maybe they shouldn’t be propping him up.

And while unearthing a tape in which Trump uses the n-word would certainly be a newsworthy event, it would merely confirm what we already know — that a man who regularly calls prominent African-Americans “dumb” or “low IQ individuals,” has no senior black aides, regularly attacks black athletes for kneeling during the national anthem, and refuses to condemn neo-Nazis is a stone-cold racist.


There is some strange notion that for someone to be a racist he or she must use the n-word or otherwise refer to African-Americans in a disparaging manner — as if this somehow outweighs a long history of behavior that shows clear prejudice against people of color (in the case of Trump, going back to the 1970s).

If you need to hear Trump use the n-word to believe he’s a racist, it’s pretty clear you haven’t been paying much attention to politics over the past three years. That Trump has used racial slurs is hardly the only revelation from Manigault Newman’s book. It’s titled “Unhinged,” which is the word she uses to describe Trump’s deteriorating mental state. Trump rambles “incoherently, speaking in random fragments (and) veering from thought to thought,” writes Manigault Newman. He speaks “gibberish,” and is “just this side of functionally literate.” He “has only a surface-level understanding of the content he’s signing into law,” and his aides “prep him to lie every day.”

I suppose these revelations are notable because Manigault Newman has gone on the record, but everything she tells us would be obvious from anyone who has actually heard Trump speak. Or one can just check out the daily stream of leaks coming from White House aides, chronicling his precarious mental state, his serial dishonesty, and his ignorance.


For example, on Monday Politico ran a piece quoting anonymous White House aides who said that Trump is confused by time zones and regularly mispronounces the names of countries.

If anything, the most shocking thing we could learn about Trump in a secret recording would be him expressing a coherent, intelligent thought, while correctly using a noun and a verb.

I understand the impulse to cover the Omarosa story. It’s juicy, it’s titillating, and it’s a compelling human drama — even if, considering her track record of attention-seeking behavior, Manigault Newman is a decidedly untrustworthy protagonist. But nothing she’s revealed is truly shocking or unexpected. After all, Trump’s monstrous lack of fitness for the office he holds is a fact hiding in plain view. We don’t need secret recordings to know that.

Michael A. Cohen’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @speechboy71.