Even for a messy president who lives for the drama, it must have hurt that Donald Trump’s inaugural Fake News awards were so completely overshadowed by a kiss-and-tell trailer containing the phrase “she talks about what he’s like down there”.
I mean … no offence, Mr President, but the 14-month-old Paul Krugman column you’re trying to get my attention with now desperately needs to contain speculation about bottoming-out that is unrelated to post-election markets. Does Krugman make some fanciful claim about how you guys met, and how he had to tolerate some horrendous, although mercifully very brief, discussion about economics with you, in which you maintained one position throughout, and were “textbook generic”? Does he claim you got him to sign a copy of his Nobel prize citation? Because, otherwise, I need you to pipe down while I listen some more to Miss Stormy Daniels.
By now, you should be aware of Stormy’s work – if, indeed, you were not already. I confess myself a philistine as far as her oeuvre goes, but have since taken the time to sample Three Wishes, which is the film that Trump is said to have got her to sign his DVD copy of after one of their encounters. Initial impressions? Mainly that the guy in it has made the absolute basic error: he didn’t make his first wish a wish for unlimited wishes. Went for something involving two ladies and a Jacuzzi instead. Perfectly reasonable ambition, but surely not something you spaff your entire future on. The lack of economic planning in some of these films is really very disappointing. Were I working in the adult entertainment industry, I would immediately consider offering Paul Krugman a consulting role.
Anyhow, if you do need a recap of where we are on this story, this is how we got here: adult film star Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) claims to have had a series of encounters with Donald Trump over the course of about a year, beginning in 2006. Shortly before the 2016 election, it is alleged that Trump finally paid a $130,000 (£94,000) legal settlement to Daniels in exchange for her silence. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, declines to address the matter of the settlement, but denies that any sexual relationship between the president and Stormy took place. Back in 2011, however, Daniels had conducted a lengthy interview (and polygraph test) about the affair with In Touch, and the magazine has been publishing teaser excerpts from it this week. According to an anonymous source – who talks like someone we’d probably all enjoy a riotous cocktail with – the full account that In Touch will publish on Friday is “5,500 words of cray”.
For her part, Miss Daniels has gone to ground since the story broke. Still, she seems to have left quite enough material for the annals of quotable quotes to be getting along with. Her ability to really put you inside the action is there from the first hook-up with Trump, when she emerges from the bathroom to find him sitting on the bed and inviting him to join her. “‘Ugh, here we go,’ thought Daniels. She described the sex as ‘textbook generic’.”
Oof. I don’t know anything about opera, but I do know this would really benefit from an ironic Puccini soundtrack. When the full 5,500 words of cray drop, I’m going to read them all listening to that Kiri Te Kanawa one from A Room With a View. “It was one position,” Stormy continues, “what you would expect someone his age to do.”
“He told me once that I was someone to be reckoned with,” she mentions later, “beautiful, smart, just like his daughter.” O mio babbino caro …
Primarily, though, the extracts published thus far reveal a majestic hey-ho quality to Miss Daniels’s engagements with the man who would one day become president. Her hilariously affectless candour is a study in that ancient sexual philosophy known as let’s-just-get-this-over-with. As for the act itself, we can’t know whether Stormy took the opportunity to make a mental grocery shopping list, or remind herself that she must get her grandpa’s boiler fixed, but it’s fair to say she never surrenders entirely to the erotic moment. “I actually don’t even know why I did it,” she muses at one point, “but I do remember while we were having sex I was like: ‘Please don’t try to pay me.’” LET THE PUCCINI BLOW YOUR SPEAKERS.
For all the diversionary detail, though, it should be said that this business could have significant implications. After all, if Donald Trump was willing to pay a six-figure sum to someone he says he didn’t have sex with, just imagine what he’d do to keep something quiet if he WAS compromised.
Furthermore, it serves as a reminder that each day you get up and think the bad-taste barrel of this presidency has been finally scraped is a day you lie to yourself. Guys, we’re not even close! I think you can already see that even this episode won’t really end until Stormy is called to testify on Capitol Hill. Picture it – she’ll turn up in an immaculately tailored black suit, probably accessorised with a mantilla. Thereafter, everyone will be glued to a testimony that will include, among a hundred lowlights, some ambitious Democrat leaning toward his microphone with the words: “And if I can just direct you to the section of the In Touch interview which begins, quote: “Oh my God, down there he was just …”
Yes, the entire nation will stop work to watch their TV screens, except for the people who are so grand they’ll just read about the productivity plummet in a Paul Krugman column the next day. It’s a noble sacrifice on their part, but an entirely wasted one. I’m afraid the streams of sex and economics have now been irreversibly crossed, and we’re powerless to do anything but let it all play out across the stormiest of skies.
