The NY Times just reported that Micheal Cohen, Trump's former fixer had recorded a conversation two months before the election, with Trump discussing payoffs to a former Playboy model with whom he had had an affair in 2006
.
Shortly after Melania gave birth to their son in 2006, Trump had a year-long affair with McDougal.

During FBI raids on Cohen's office this year, they seized the recording.

Rudy already validated the authenticity of the recording:

Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, confirmed in a telephone conversation on Friday that Mr. Trump had discussed the payments with Mr. Cohen on the tape but said the payment was ultimately never made. He said the recording was less than two minutes and demonstrated that the president had done nothing wrong.

“Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Mr. Giuliani said, adding that Mr. Trump had directed Mr. Cohen that if he were to make a payment related to the woman, write a check, rather than sending cash, so it could be properly documented.“In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” Mr. Giuliani said.

What Rudy failed to mention is that it was The National Enquirer who paid Karen McDougal 150K for her story and then buried it before the election.

And David Pecker, the chairman of TNE, is a good friend of Trump. Maybe that was the payoff?

Giuliani has been so unstable as Trump's spokesperson that I'm not he helped him very much with his response to the article.

Upon learning of the tape, Trump wasn't happy.

And remember, as The Times notes, "When The Wall Street Journal revealed the existence of the payment days before the election, Mr. Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said, “We have no knowledge of any of this.” She said Ms. McDougal’s claim of an affair was “totally untrue.”

Trump and his team lied about this affair and that matters. Character used to matter to Republicans, or so they said. Now we know differently.

Who knows how many other sordid affairs and details were buried and covered up before the election? And what will be found in the Cohen treasure trove of materials?

I imagine this isn't the only secret recording Michael Cohen has possessed while acting as Trump's cleaner. So far, we only know a small fraction of what the FBI seized from him.