I didn’t plan on watching the 60 Minutes interview of “Stormy Daniels.” And I didn’t watch it when it first aired.
But I did later read the transcript, and some things jumped out at me that led me to watch at the 60 Minutes website.
If you want to lose 26 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back, head over to the links and watch.
Some observations, in no particular order.
1. Anderson Cooper did a good job. He asked the right questions about her credibility and that of her lawyer Michael Avennatti (a former Rahm Emanuel oppo researcher and obviously someone seeking to make name for himself as a hero of #TheResistance). Cooper conducted himself as professionally as possible given the subject matter.
2. This is not Bill Clinton stuff. No allegation of sexual harassment or assault (Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick, etc.), or abusing power over an underling (Lewinsky). It’s not even Al Franken territory of alleged non-consensual sexual touching. According to Daniels, there was a single encounter in 2006 that was completely consensual.
3. No minds were changed about Trump as a result of the interview or the story itself. Trump allegedly cheating on a wife is a Casablanca moment. No one actually cares about the story, it’s just political posturing.
4. The Stormy Daniels story is not about Stormy Daniels. It’s about removing Trump from office in one of two ways:
(a) getting Trump under oath in the hope that he will lie, providing a basis for impeachment should Democrats regain control of the House and Senate, or prosecution.
(b) providing material for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to use to try to pressure Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen into turning on Trump.
It will take time to percolate, but I have zero doubt that this is not about clearing Stormy Daniel’s name, as she claimed, or about righteousness, as Avenatti claimed was his motivation. It’s about #TheResistance.
As such, this non-story holds great danger for Trump.
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