It seems as though the media is filled with ridiculous stories these days. But the story that Stephanie Clifford, the adult film actress known as Stormy Daniels, has recently come forward with has stirred more controversy than most others. And it probably has something to do with the man it revolves around: President Donald Trump.
Her interview with Anderson Cooper on CBS’s 60 Minutes was one of the most viewed television events of the year. It began with her recounting her first meeting with Trump. He apparently would not stop talking about himself. This led to her telling him to “turn around and drop ’em” and giving him “a couple swats” with a magazine he was featured in. It all seemed incredibly juvenile. Until she got to the part about being threatened a few years later.
The problem is that most viewers weren’t fazed in the slightest hearing all of this. On national television, an adult film star alleged that Donald Trump engaged in an extramarital fling, that he had legally and physically threatened her to keep her from coming forward, and that Trump’s fixer paid her $130,000 in hush money to obtain her silence before the 2016 election. It sounds like the plot of a movie.
Americans have become immune to the ridiculousness portrayed on the news. Many claimed that the interview itself was mediocre, brushing it aside as if it were nothing. This story only broke a few short weeks ago and has only come back up when there is new legal action taken. But the legal aspect shouldn’t be the most important thing. It’s an issue of morality.
To top it all off, some are now attacking Clifford herself. A Republican candidate for Congress recently claimed that the story wasn’t very believable due to Clifford’s profession. That should not be the reason why people are questioning the validity of her claim. The reason should be that the President, someone who should be held in the highest regard, would never so much as think about engaging in all of the things Clifford has claimed.
It is incredibly sad that the story is believable to some purely because of Trump’s character while to others it is completely far-fetched because of the woman telling it. The public should not take stories such as these lightly, regardless of who is involved. Being it is the president we are talking about, the public should be in an uproar. But this is Trump’s America and it takes a little more than a direct threat and pay off for silence to rattle us anymore.