The millions of Americans who tuned into CBS at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday night in the hopes of catching some fireworks got what they were looking for — just not from “60 Minutes.”
Anderson Cooper’s much-anticipated interview with Stormy Daniels was delayed for nearly forty of those sixty minutes between 7 and 8 p.m. Viewers instead saw Duke and Kansas settle a thrilling overtime battle for the last slot in the Final Four before the show could proceed as scheduled. And Kansas’ victory turned out to be too good to top — both because it was a great win and because Daniels failed to live up to the hype generated in part by her own legal team.
Viewers learned little new information about the porn star’s alleged affair with President Trump, though Daniels spoke more about a chilling threat she claims to have received from an unidentified Trump ally in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011.
But even those details remain murky, whether because Daniels chose not to elaborate for legal reasons (or public relations reasons), or because CBS cut some of what she said out of the televised interview. Already on Monday morning, the actress’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, was on another media tour, teasing more details of her allegations without giving all that much away. Daniels, he said on “Morning Joe,” was “taken by how attractive” the man who allegedly threatened her was, further claiming that particular detail was cut from the “60 Minutes” broadcast.
Savannah Guthrie confronted him on the “Today” show, asking why he had said the evidence would be forthcoming in an interview weeks ago, but then advised his client not to put everything on the table in her sit-down with Cooper. “It would make no sense for us to play our hand as to this issue, and we’re not going to do it right now,” he insisted. “There will be more evidence, it’s just not going to happen right now.”
On “Morning Joe,” he conceded “expectations got a little out of control” for the CBS interview, but he maintained that his decision to ominously tweet a photograph of a CD on Thursday — captioned, “If ‘a picture is worth a thousand words,’ how many words is this worth?????” with the hashtags “60minutes” and “pleasedenyit” — did not have “anything to do with” that.
On “60 Minutes,” Daniels told Cooper she could not say whether she “turn[ed] over all ‘video images, still images, email messages, and text messages,’ she had regarding Mr. Trump,” citing her lawyer’s recommendation. Yet it was her lawyer who tweeted a picture of a CD with the hashtag “60Minutes” days before the interview aired. He also confirmed on Monday his team had no editorial control over what “60 Minutes” aired, meaning it was never clear even to them what the network was ultimately going to broadcast.
What Daniels revealed about the alleged threat on “60 Minutes” was important and warrants more attention. Hearing her recall the story on camera was helpful too.
I’ve been very clear that I believe her allegations are serious and shouldn’t be ignored. But the drip-drip-drip media strategy Daniels’ team appears to be deploying is not helpful to her cause. The media-baiting — tweeting CDs, strategically providing previews of what’s to come, bragging sarcastically about the ratings, leaking emails the day after a big interview — only helps the press turn this story into a circus. It makes her look all too eager to exploit it for fame, which in turn diminishes her credibility with some segments of the public.
Daniels, Avenatti said on “Good Morning America,” is “not going to go away anytime soon.”
“We have a litany of more evidence in this case, and it’s going to be disclosed, and it’s going to be laid bare for the American public,” he asserted.
So long as the evidence is relevant, I’m all for that. But teasing those details to maximize media coverage is cynical and will be seen as such by the public. That won’t help persuade more people they should take Daniels seriously.
