What the columnists said

The Stormy interview didn’t tell us much we didn’t already know about Trump, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times, the man himself having long boasted about being a “disloyal husband.” But it did highlight “Trump’s thuggish way of doing business.” He has a history of using menacing phone calls and physical threats to intimidate business rivals and perceived enemies. If Clifford signed her NDA because she felt threatened, it could be declared “null and void.” So what? said Joe Concha in TheHill.com. Stormy Daniels may be “good for ratings,” but she “won’t change any minds on Trump.” If the alleged affair did happen, it was consensual, and anyway, Trump’s supporters “didn’t vote for a choirboy but a street-fighting businessman from Queens.” Unless a real smoking gun appears, this story will fizzle out “in a few weeks.”

Don’t be so sure of that, said Michael D’Antonio in CNN.com. As the president’s former biographer, I’m impressed by the way Clifford is “outplaying Trump at his own games.” She has secured wall-to-wall media coverage, cannily backing him into a corner. Why else has Trump, a man who has personally lashed out at some 430 critics and enemies, refused to utter a peep about Stormy? Worse, Clifford’s interview has kept the spotlight on the $130,000 payout, said David Zurawik in The Baltimore Sun, a transaction that could count as an illegal campaign contribution by Cohen. Salacious as it was, “this interview spells trouble for Trump.”