Stormy Daniels testifies, and it's not great for Donald Trump
Hi, I have a quick question: Is it bad when your political party’s presidential candidate is on criminal trial and an adult film star testifies under oath in open court about how they had sex while his wife was home with a new baby?
Also – and I apologize for all these questions – is it worse if the adult film star talked about how the presidential candidate told her she reminded him of his daughter?
You see, I’m flipping through the “Crisis PR Handbook” and I’m just not seeing a darn thing on how to handle this ... uhhhhh ... let’s call it a “hypothetical situation.”
Who do you trust, the person under oath or the one who lies nonstop?
To make things easier, I’m going to give the obviously made-up presidential candidate a name: Ronald Flump. So, let’s say a jury in a separate civil case has already ruled Flump was liable for sexual abuse and ordered him to pay millions of dollars to a woman he defamed.
Now you’ve got this other woman, the adult film star, testifying in his criminal case – we’ll call her Windy Daniels – and she is testifying about an alleged affair with Flump while under oath. Flump has repeatedly denied the affair, but he also has denied the outcome of the previous presidential election, fabricated preposterous claims about nonexistent election fraud and generally lied about everything that has ever happened on earth.
Credibility might be an issue with this totally hypothetical presidential candidate, whom I’m 100% making up.
An alleged affair with an adult film star definitely sounds bad ...
Anyhoo, let’s say Daniels testified that when Flump’s wife ... uhhhhh, let’s call her Belania Flump ... was brought up, Flump said not to worry about her because “we don’t even sleep in the same room.”
I have to imagine that would be filed under “NOT GREAT” when it comes to a presidential campaign. But for the life of me, I can’t find any PR tips on addressing an accusation like that, possibly because this is the first time a hypothetical presidential candidate has been accused of such a thing in a courtroom.
The juxtaposition between the two presidential candidates was striking
Maybe the best thing would be to mock the opposing presidential candidate – let’s call him Moe Bliden. Like, “Wow, Moe Bliden’s so old he still believes in the sanctity of marriage, what a loser!” Something like that?
Or perhaps there’s a line of attack that highlights Bliden’s complete lack of alleged affairs with adult film stars?
One problem with those approaches, unfortunately, is that in this absolutely hypothetical situation, in which Flump was having his tawdry laundry aired in a criminal courtroom, Bliden was giving a solemn speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Days of Remembrance, condemning antisemitism.
Yeah, that’s a pretty jarring juxtaposition, I suppose. I don’t think a statement saying, “Porn-staraverse Bliden gives a serious speech after spending the night in the same room with wife,” will really defuse anything.
Perhaps there's a candidate who isn't accused of a tawdry affair?
Ugh. This is tricky.
You’d think there would be a road map for dealing with a presidential candidate who has this much dirt on him and faces more criminal allegations than your average gangster.
It’s enough to make me wonder if the best path forward would be for this hypothetical political party to pick someone who ISN’T being accused of interfering with an election and paying to silence an adult film star he’s alleged to have had an affair with after allegedly comparing her to his daughter and telling her that he and his wife don’t sleep in the same room.
But no, I’m sure there’s a way to spin this as a positive.
I just haven’t found it yet.