Here’s a mental exercise. Which is more obscene: President Trump teasing NBC’s Chuck Todd as a “sleepy son of a bitch” or all of the media participating in a porn actress’ sick career rehabilitation program?
When Trump made his comment about Todd in jest during a rally last weekend in Pennsylvania, Tom Brokaw sneered on Twitter that it was “really classy” and dared people to “explain that to your children.”
Meanwhile, the rest of the national press is promoting adult film actress Stormy Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, in her attempt to cash in on an allegedly consensual affair with Trump in 2006.
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday offered Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti an exhaustive 12 minutes to make more wild claims about Daniels’ story, including that she was physically threatened in some capacity as it relates to her nondisclosure agreement with Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen. Avenatti took full advantage of the airtime, repeatedly promoting an upcoming CBS “60 Minutes” interview with Daniels.
Asked by host Joe Scarborough why Avenatti and Daniels would “go to war” over an allegedly consensual affair that would have taken place more than a decade ago, Avenatti said, “Well I think a lot of that is going to become apparent in the interview.” (Surely the answer isn’t: because this woman needs the money, and hence why she is literally on a “Make America Horny Again” strip club tour at the moment.)
Throughout the interview he also said, “There’s the [affair] act and there’s the cover-up and the American people are going to learn about both in the interview and beyond”; “People will have to tune in to ’60 Minutes’ on March 25”; “Again, I think it will become apparent to people when they tune in to ’60 Minutes’ on March 25 as to the details relating to the threat and the American people can judge for themselves on who’s telling the truth and who’s not telling the truth”; and, “Again, I think when people tune in to ’60 Minutes,’ they’re going to learn a lot of the details and the answers to the questions you ask.”
Journalist John Heilemann gamely replied, “I know where I’ll be that night.” The full 12-minute segment was aired a second time toward the end of the show, totaling 24 minutes of Stormy Daniels promo time.
On MSNBC’s “Live with Stephanie Ruhle,” which follows “Morning Joe,” Ruhle began her program saying, “Can you believe this story is not going away?” and adding, “I can’t stand talking about Stormy Daniels.”
Of course, what she followed that with was an eight-minute segment solely about — Daniels!
If only there was something Ruhle, the anchor, could have done so that she didn’t have to talk about the subject she “can’t stand talking about.” Oh, well.
For the record, she said shortly thereafter on her show, “I’m going to be watching ’60 Minutes’ when that interview airs.”
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday promoted Daniels’ fundraiser for money to pay her legal bills. He called it “an act of patriotism” to donate. In late January, Kimmel hosted Daniels on his show for a 12-minute segment wherein he asked her to pick a carrot that would accurately reflect the size of the president’s penis.
Where is Tom Brokaw to ask how you’ll “explain that to your children”?
Evidence suggests that Trump likely did have an affair with Daniels, a revelation that would shock precisely no one.
The only surprising part of this story is that Trump’s lawyer would have bothered trying to hush an allegedly consensual affair from 2006, which isn’t any worse than what Trump said on the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape.
Trump not only copped to his comments on that tape but he dismissed them as inconsequential.
The NDA with Daniels suggests that messages or even images shared between her and Trump may exist, but there is only so much the public is going to tolerate from a porn actress capitalizing on her apparent blackmail threats.
A CNN poll in 1998 showed that 62 percent of Americans stood by former President Bill Clinton when he was impeached, believing that Republicans had gone too far in their attempt to bring him down. Why wouldn’t the same thing happen with Trump?
After Daniels jumped into the spotlight to cash in on her supposed relationship with the president, she instantly embarked on a strip club tour that mocked Trump’s campaign slogan, and in February she charged people to watch her “bare all” in an online video “fit to topple regimes.”
Daniels is taking America on a ride, and the media is her vehicle. We’d like to get off the ride, but the media are having too much fun.
