A recording of a conversation that allegedly took place between President Donald Trump and attorney Michael Cohen was published recently, casting some implications on the current presidency — provided, of course, that the contents of the recording lead to more revelations.
The conversation revolves around alleged payoffs coming from Trump, apparently intended as a payoff concerning “our friend David.”
Commenters have pointed out that this could potentially refer to David Pecker, head of American Media Inc.
While this is not the first time accusations against Trump for paying the media outlet to stay silent about his story with Karen McDougal are discussed, it is the first real piece of evidence that has been made available to the public.
The nature of the recording has already been questioned from multiple sides, as can be expected, with many people defending Trump and his innocence in the whole story.
It is still not clear exactly how the situation could have played out as some details are missing — a fact regularly brought up by Trump’s defenders — but more and more elements have been surfacing, drawing further attention to the situation.
Some have also pointed out that the quality of the audio in the recording is quite bad, which could further be used as an argument against its legitimacy.
Trump supporters say it should be noted that speech is not difficult to fake in modern times, as even fake videos are close to a possibility as some AI researchers have already shown. The implications for the future of the media are certainly interesting.
However, the authenticity of the clip is hard to dispute even for those critics. What is clear is that the relationship between Trump and Cohen has changed for the worse and a reconciliation seems unlikely.
Political experts say that more stories will get out about their collaboration in the next two years.
