Trump’s spin doctors are trying to prevent us from looking at the fact that there is an official paper trail and documentation that sets a clear behavioral precedent that meshes perfectly with the accusations of deceit and skullduggery that have been leveled at him for decades. It shifts the accusations about his character and behavior patterns from “his word against mine” territory to “his word against documentation of him doing exactly what he’s been accused of, including the bit where he is also incompetent because he foiled his own hush operation through sheer incompetence.”
That’s the real value of this, up until now Trump would go out with that shit eating grin and profess that he’s pure and honest and that these are just people who are jealous of him. He can’t do that anymore. We have proof on paper that he’s a duplicitous, compulsive liar, who employs mafioso tactics to get what he wants.
His sexual impropriety is very likely what he would rather people notice. The fact of the matter is, most people on either side might think he’s a shithead for cheating on his wife, but that doesn’t mean anything from a legal standpoint. It’s not illegal, roughly 1/3 of the population has done it, it’s a pretty terrible thing to do to another person, but you can’t use “he’s a shithead” in a legal argument. You can use something like this to establish a pattern of behavior though, and that’s what he’s likely afraid of.
That, or the details of their affair involve sex acts that the majority of people in the US would find beyond the pale. That’s still not the point, and it doesn’t really do anything from a legal standpoint, but if she’s got video of something like him engaging in submissive BDSM or pegging, that would seriously undermine his image with his base.
(To be clear, if you’re into those things, I think that’s great, and I encourage everyone in the healthy exploration of their own sexuality–it’s pretty important, too. They’re just things that are contrary to the already-contradictory self image that he’s been trying to project.)
As I understand it, Trump gets very concerned for how Melania takes this information, when it comes up in meetings. He gets all flustered and starts asking about Melania this, Melania that.
Why is this whole affair a problem? He admitted grabbing women „by the pussy“ FFS. Having sex with a consenting adult is worse? Don’t think so.
I expected him bragging about having an affair with a pornstar.
Sorry - off-topic and all that but this one bugs me as it is becoming common enough to seriously threaten the existence of the word cue. You may have meant ‘just add it to the back of the queue behind a load of other things’ but I read it as ‘get it ready to roll in 3,2,1…’ - i.e. cue.
(K.B.Wagers in her excellent Indranan War trilogy, which I completed recently, is a particular offender in this respect.)
The short answer is that it really isn’t any sort of problem for his supporters. They are all capable of heroic levels of cognitive dissonance as a prerequisite, so asking them to both believe that this is no big deal and rich playboy businessmen should be banging models and porn stars as a matter of course, AND that there is no truth to this whatsoever is not a big ask.
But, for the folks outside that bubble, it does get into some sticky territory (no pun intended) when payments like this are made on your behalf. That, along with the fact that there are likely more examples of these hush payments out there, the full scope of which are certainly known to any number of foreign intelligence services, does make this something other than just an affair between a couple of garbage people.
That’s the strange part. I’m not sure why he even bothered trying to hide this one. Based on everything else that came out during the campaign, this probably wouldn’t have mattered that much to his supporters. The cover up however, is more likely to have an impact.
In this case, it’s not even clear why there needed to be a cover up in the first place. But, now that there has been a cover up, that creates an issue. Plus, depending on exactly how the details of the cover up come out, it may be a legal issue not just a scandal.
The cover up is almost always worse than the original issue.
That’s a very consistent theme in our political history. The bigger scandal is almost always about the cover up than whatever it is that was being covered up.
Shah: “I would have Michael Cohen address specifics regarding this agreement you are referring to. False charges are settled out of court all the time.”
This is a hilarious spin. The whole point of the settlement agreement was that the “charges” were true.
Reporters should not let him get away with a pivot this flimsy.
While I don’t disagree with either reading, you are correct. It would have been brilliantly tongue in cheek to have these revelations queue, but cue is what I meant.
And to support the existence of the word cue I have corrected my post.
I’m unsure there will ever be a charge sticky and big enough that takes down trump, and I’m even less convinced this story will have any bearing on him at all.
What I do appreciate is the further decline of the evangelical right into the fringe, exposing their hypocrisy and selective judgment to the future generations on this planet, who will hopefully make better decisions about faith and spirituality than the current generation.
I figure in a month or so, when he’s forgotten that he’s supposed to be denying the affair, he’ll tweet something either bragging about the affair, or disputing some minor detail
“Stormy Daniels said she faked orgasm. Fake News! Not one but three orgasms! Realer than anything those SAD LIARS at NBC have ever experienced!”
You forget that theirs is not a marriage of love, it’s a cold blooded financial transaction. I very much doubt that marital fidelity was ever anything she expected. Hell. the prenup probably specifies that he’s allowed to horn dog all he likes. She agreed to let him have sex with her and to bear him a child in exchange for financial considerations set forth in their prenup. She’s not going to file for divorce as long as doing so would jeopardize her paycheck. Considering his age, she’s probably gritting her teeth until he dies and she inherits a lump sum.
