Savvy Daniels is the biggest reveal
Aside from Trump tales, ‘60 Minutes’ interview shows a shrewd mind at work.
After weeks of frenzied speculation, Stormy Daniels made landfall Sunday on “60 Minutes.” And if the adult film star’s interview with Anderson Cooper seemed less destructive than some had hoped (or feared), the full extent of the damage might not be known for some time.
The heavily anticipated interview inspired a giddy hashtag, #StormyDanielsDay, and brought the storied newsmagazine its highest ratings in a decade. The buildup was intensified by an NCAA basketball game that went into overtime and delayed the East Coast broadcast by a half-hour. By the time the report started airing, CBS had released a full transcript to the media, and the more outrageous details of Daniels’ account were reverberating on Twitter, taking some of the bite out of the televised report.
Daniels recalled meeting Donald Trump at a Lake Tahoe golf tournament in 2006 and said that a brief affair ensued. Five years later, she agreed to tell all in a tabloid magazine, but the story was allegedly killed thanks to pressure from Trump attorney Michael Cohen. When rumors of her alleged dalliance with Trump began to resurface shortly before the 2016 election, Daniels agreed to a $130,000 payout in exchange for her silence.
“I was concerned for my family and their safety,” Daniels said of the decision.
In the interview’s most newsworthy and disturbing detail, Daniels alleged that in 2011, around the time she was attempting to sell her story, she was threatened “Sopranos”-style on her way to a fitness class with her infant daughter. “‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,’ ” she recalled being told. “And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ ”
At least for those who’ve followed the saga closely, the interview otherwise included little new information. Daniels mostly confirmed previously reported sordid details: Yes, she alleges she gave Trump “a couple swats” with a magazine that had his picture on the cover. Yes, he made her watch “Shark Week.” No, she says, he didn’t use protection.
What Daniels didn’t do, despite her attorney Michael Avenatti suggesting she would, was provide definitive evidence of a liaison with Trump. When asked by Cooper if she’d turned over photos, videos, text messages or emails related to Trump, as required by the 2016 nondisclosure agreement, Daniels declined to answer — a nondenial that fueled further speculation about the existence of compromising evidence.
To some extent, Daniels herself was the interview’s biggest revelation.
The woman otherwise known as Stephanie Clifford was blunt, funny, smart and self-aware, “a woman to be reckoned with,” as Trump allegedly described her in 2006. She recalled mocking Trump for talking about himself too much, suggesting he deserved a spanking for being so self-involved, and imitated the way he “perched” on the bed’s edge as a way to signal his interest in having sex.
Daniels came across as a shrewd businesswoman whose trade just happens to be sex. She was candid and unapologetic about pursuing her financial interests.
“Yes, I’m getting more job offers,” she told Cooper, “but tell me one person who would turn down a job offer making more than they’ve been making, doing the same thing that they’ve always done?” Yet she also argued that she settled primarily to protect her family. “I did not want my child exposed to all the things that she’s being exposed to right now. Everything that I was afraid of coming out has come out. And guess what? I don’t have a million dollars,” she said, before razzing Cooper. “You didn’t even buy me breakfast.”
The Daniels interview aired three days after Cooper’s sit-down with former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she had a more extensive affair with Trump during the same period. While the style of their deliveries varied dramatically, both women’s accounts align in ways that make them difficult to dismiss. Each recalled a rendezvous at the Beverly Hills Hotel and suggestions that Trump and his wife, Melania, who’d recently given birth, led largely separate lives. Most cringe-inducing was when they also both said that Trump compared them to his daughter, Ivanka.
Unlike the 19 women who’ve accused the president of sexual misconduct, McDougal and Daniels said their relationships with Trump were consensual. Yet aspects of their accounts also echo those of women who’ve come forward against men like Harvey Weinstein — the dinner dates that end up taking place in luxury hotel rooms, the unfulfilled promises of financial or professional gain, the enablers who helped bury the stories.
Where they depart is in their feelings for the man who would become president: Daniels told Cooper she wasn’t physically attracted to Trump, who was more than twice her age at the time of their alleged encounter. Daniels seemed to view her Trump encounter with bemusement, unable to quite explain what compelled her to allegedly hook up with a man she saw as a buffoonish, aging reality star, other than the sense that once she’d entered his hotel room there was no turning back.
In contrast, McDougal described Trump as a “nicelooking man” and a gentleman with charisma. She told Cooper she eventually fell in love with the real-estate developer even though he’d allegedly tried to pay her after their first night together. She was tearful and contrite, apologizing to Melania Trump. She made pains not to come across as a “woman scorned,” telling Cooper she was a “die-hard Republican” who’d voted for Trump.
With his high-low pedigree, Cooper proved wellsuited to the Daniels story, a tawdry tabloid tale with potentially enormous political ramifications. He treated Daniels respectfully and not as a punchline, describing her work in matter-of-fact terms and without the condescension that has marked some media coverage. But he also pushed when it came to the question of her credibility, particularly after she previously denied the affair in a signed statement in January. He also pressed Daniels’ publicity-friendly lawyer, Avenatti, about his previous work as a Democratic political operative.
Roughly half of the “60 Minutes” report focused on the potential legal fallout from the scandal — a sound journalistic decision that almost certainly disappointed a few viewers who were hoping for more dirt. Campaign finance expert Trevor Potter argued that Cohen could potentially face legal trouble for reportedly paying $130,000 out of his own pocket to Daniels. This in turn could make him an ideal target of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
On Monday, Daniels continued to dominate the headlines, announcing that she planned to sue Cohen for defamation as her combative lawyer made the TV rounds in her defense. Other than an oblique tweet about “fake news,” the president maintained an uncharacteristic social media silence about Daniels, an adversary who rivals his ability to suck up all the media oxygen and fired off a provocative parting shot Sunday night: “He knows I’m telling the truth.”