Stormy go too far? No.
Squeamish pundits think so. The Resistant Grandmother (TRG) thinks not.
You’d think by now that Americans can handle hearing about a president’s sexual peccadilloes. After all, there was Bill Clinton and the cigar. And JFK’s bedding down Marilyn Monroe (and others). “Happy birthday, Mr. President”... indeed! We’ve seen a lot and survived to tell the tales.
But the recent flap around Stormy Daniels’ testimony in the hush money trial suggests otherwise. Apparently we’re a country of snowflakes who find her description of what happened during her one-night stand with Donald Trump too tawdry for
delicate ears.
Piling on
The trial’s become a “sleaze fest,” said Tina Brown on Morning Joe. The former Talk magazine editor and The Diana Chronicles author known for covering celebrities in semi-tabloid fashion said the graphic nature of Daniels’ testimony went too far. Other pundits – mostly male – followed suit, although others – mostly female – disagreed.
Brown and other critics echoed the sentiments of Trump’s attorneys who filed a mistrial request.
Rebutting Trump’s claim: “It never happened”
Manhattan prosecutor Susan Hoffinger said the testimony was important to refute Trump’s claim in opening statements that the affair “never happened.” It’s all reminiscent of Trump’s claim his assault of writer E. Jean Carroll also never happened, even though Carroll won two libel suits presenting witnesses and evidence against Trump’s claim she lied.
Judge Juan Merchan who is presiding over the hush money case denied the mistrial filing, promising he would instruct the jury to disregard portions of her testimony. Before doing so, Merchan asked this all important question of Trump’s attorneys: If the testimony were so out of bounds, why didn’t you offer any objections when you had the chance?
Still, critics feared some of the details went too far, as the trial’s purpose is not to prove the affair occurred, but rather that he committed election fraud by lying on official forms. But while it’s easy to reduce the case to a matter of correctly filling out documents, the origins of the crime center around Daniels. If she can convince a jury the event happened, that makes Trump a liar and helps to prove that lying on state documents reflects his criminal intent.
So, what exactly did Daniels say?
Trading books for porn films
Daniels began her testimony with a description of a hardscrabble upbringing in Baton Rouge, LA. Her parents divorced before she started elementary school and the family was “average, lower income.” Nevertheless, Daniels was a good student and editor of her high school paper, winning a scholarship to Southern Methodist University to study veterinary medicine.
Tired, perhaps, of a life of just eeking by, Daniels took a friend up on an offer to appear in an adult film as a way to make some easy money. The money proved compelling. Weighing the prospect of being a poor student over the course of four+ years versus abandoning school and immediately solving her money problems, she opted for a life in adult films.
By the age of 27, Daniels had become a well-known entity in that world.
The smart girl from the hardscrabble background had achieved some measure of success, security, and good money. But she wanted something more, and that would lead her to The Apprentice celebrity, Donald Trump.
A prodigious golf cart ride
In July of 2006, Daniels’ film company, “Wicked Pictures,” sponsored a portion of the golf links at the Edgewood Tahoe course in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Daniels was among the greeters for the day.
By design or chance, Trump and Daniels rode together in the same golf cart and got to talking. Their chatting gave Trump the impression Daniels might be willing to get to know a New York millionaire with connections in the media even a little better. Trump’s invitation they “talk” later was not unwelcomed. So when he invited her to dinner, she said yes.
Playboy
Note that the invitation was for dinner, not sex. She counted on that even though he suggested she come up to his hotel room, rather than pick her up or meet at a restaurant. OK, we can go from there, was the idea. But soon there’d be more ominous signs.
When Trump’s bodyguard opened up the future president’s hotel door and ushered her in, Daniels found Trump undressed and lying on the couch in “satin or silk” pajamas. She then realized there would be no talk of which restaurant she would like to go to. And no discussion about what to order for a dinner table already set up in the suite. Obviously, eating dinner either out or in wasn’t on Trump’s menu.
What to do?
In order to assess the truth of her intentions, it’s important to know what Daniels did not do. First off, she did not encourage or play along. If Daniels were there out of a mutual desire for sex, she would have signaled that with an affectionate embrace of the pajama-clad celebrity followed by her own disrobing to some extent. But
she did not.
Instead, she mocked Trump, asking if he had borrowed a pair of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s pajamas. Temporarily chastened, Trump changed back into regular clothes.
The intolerable rudeness of interruptions
But Trump’s temporary giving in to a gentleman’s obligation to his female guest would not signal a change that would last throughout the evening. Daniels described Trump as a oafish suitor – indulging in the boorish habit of asking questions and then constantly interrupting her answers. On the plus side, he exhibited an interest in her work, pressing her with questions about royalties, unions, etc. In exchange, he shared enough tidbits about the television business to keep her there.
Germ averse
A well-known germaphobe, Trump then asked whether sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were common in her industry. She replied that film personnel were routinely tested and had to submit proof of health before filming. She added that she had recently been tested and was determined to be “clean.”
Perhaps satisfied that any sexual encounter with Daniels would not yield any untoward medical consequences, he kept Daniels engaged by suggesting he might be able to wangle an appearance on The Apprentice – an attractive career goal for a 20-something looking for greener pastures. Also flattering – but icky, too – was his comparison of Daniels to his daughter Ivanka. Both were blond, beautiful, smart, and often underestimated for their intelligence, he said.
While Trump kept his end of the conversation going, he also exhibited the habits of a rude, privileged, older man by those constant interruptions. Exasperated, Daniels said she got "snappy,” asking him, curtly, “Are you always this arrogant and pompous?" "Are you always this rude?”
Perhaps to break the tension and bring him down a notch, Daniels "spanked" him "on the butt" with a rolled-up phony Time magazine with the New York hotelier’s picture on the front. As Trump had remained in his street clothes, Daniels apparently still did not believe they were venturing into “having-sex” territory. At one point, she risked going into the bathroom, feeling safe enough as the discussion had continued to avoid the subject of sex.
Surprise!
But Trump surprised her when she re-entered the suite by his having stripped down to his underwear and a tee shirt and then lying on the bed. Now cornered, emotionally and physically, she felt constrained to leave, believing in part she had led him on just by staying. The easier thing to do was go along.
The sexual encounter, while consensual – “because I didn’t say anything at all” – was also traumatizing, with Daniels enduring rather than enjoying it, focusing on the ceiling more than any indoor canopy has the right to be the center of attention.
She also noted that Trump did not wear a condom, satisfied he would not catch an STD, given the safeguards required of her in the adult film industry. Tellingly, however, he did not ask if that was OK with Daniels, apparently not attentive to any concern she might have of getting an STD from him.
After the encounter, Daniels described herself as “bewildered” and “shaking.” “The room spun in slow motion. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, what did I misread to get here?’” Daniels said.
Fighting dirty, Trump-style
Throughout her testimony, Trump followed a now-familiar behavior of gesturing dramatically and mumbling words like “bullsh**” to his lawyers. Judge Juan Merchan called Trump’s attorneys to a sidebar, demanding they control their client. Lead attorney Todd Blanche repeated several times throughout the admonishment, “I will talk to him, your honor.”
After Daniels’ testimony and the court’s lunch break, Blanche returned not reporting that he had talked to his client but, rather, demanding the proceedings be immediately terminated and the judge declare a “mistrial” because of the “salacious” testimony of Ms. Daniels. As mentioned earlier, Judge Merchan
did not.
The morning after (of the testimony)
Since then, political pundits have examined, parsed, and predicted based on Daniels’ testimony, with many coming out voicing the familiar theme that Trump benefits while everyone else does not.
As if wanting to be the first to hedge their bets on a possible Trump reelection, the comments follow a common theme: This trial is not likely to change anything in the electorate. In that cynical view, Trump will win given any one of the three possible scenarios:
Trump is found not guilty due to Daniels’ testimony.
Trump gets off via a hung jury.
Trump is found guilty, but no one cares.
On today’s Morning Joe, one pundit asserted that due in large part to the trial’s not being televised, “This trial has simply not captured the public’s attention.” In talking about his travels to Chicago and other places, “No one seems to be talking about this,” he proclaimed.
The well-known pundit also declared that poll results are not offering any evidence that the trial is having any material effect so far on the race, ending with this familiar trope: “The price (of Trump’s criminality) is already baked in.”
Nerd alerts
As someone who lives within the Chicago suburbs, I’m not sure I agree with the contention that people in middle America are not paying attention, as talks with neighbors and friends over dinner usually lead with updates of what happened in the Manhattan trial that day. In other words, those who are politically engaged in my world are following the trial often minute by minute, getting updates even at work.
But, OK. That’s just a microcosm of political nerds who do not in any way represent the American masses, is the idea. So I checked the polls for some hoped-for clarity and found a somewhat different, not-as-cynical point of view.
What the polls say
According to a May 1 PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll, 54 percent of Americans say the hush money trial and other investigations are fair and important to determining if Trump broke the law, a disqualification for office. Of the total, a sizable but lesser amount – 47 percent – already believe that Trump has done something illegal, even before any jury verdicts come in. While it is true that a majority of Americans – 55 percent – are not closely following the proceedings, 45 percent saying they are paying attention. The poll by nature assesses national attitudes, not just those of the “coastal elites.”
The Haley Effect
Perhaps the most hopeful sign that Trump is not as easily fleecing voters this election cycle compared to 2016 and 2020 are the number of protest votes for Nikki Haley – a candidate who bowed out of the race in March. Yesterday's primary results from red state Indiana are a case in point, with 22 percent of Hoosier State voters choosing the former U.N. Ambassador over Trump. The sizable Haley vote has been a pattern tracking throughout all the primary contests. In the important battleground state of Michigan, Haley earned 27 percent of Republican primary votes – about 300,000 votes for her in total outcome. In another hotly contested “blue wall” state, Pennsylvania, Haley received about 17 percent of the vote. In Wisconsin, she captured 13 percent.
According to a late April analysis in the Wall Street Journal, the still-large number of Haley voters months even after she exited the race show “Trump’s biggest vulnerabilities heading into November.” A March Time magazine analysis said: “Super Tuesday may have eliminated hope by millions of Nikki Haley voters that they could deny Donald Trump the Republican nomination, but if they stick together they could keep him from returning to the White House in 2025.”
The Infernal Inferno
To TRG, the chorus of “Trump always wins” cheerleaders is akin to the inscription over the gates of hell – “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” – in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, written in 1814. During that Morning Joe broadcast featuring the jaded consensus that Daniels’ testimony may have gone too far and, therefore, hurt the state’s case against him and maybe even neutralized the trial’s effects on his presidential chances, another voice spoke up that mirrored The Resistant Grandmother’s (TRG) sentiments.
Speaking for hope was Vanity Fair political writer Molly Jong-Fast who believes it’s wrong to give into despair, as the pundit class seems to too easily: “We should not be so cynical to believe Trump’s criminality is baked into the price of Trump,” she said further suggesting that voters are older and wiser during this, a third Trump candidacy.
She added that, while remaining positive is key, so is the hard work of getting out the vote, something Democrats seem better at than Republicans lately, judging from recent special and reproductive-rights elections. “It’s going to be a turnout election,” she added. So unless we want to live in the hellish environment of Alighieri’s imagination, we’ve got to put aside the naysaying and get out and vote.
–trg
https://actblue.com
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