Dear Media-- You're Doing it Again
The Stormy Payoff Trial is Focusing All Attention on Donald Trump, Again. Seriously, STOP
Stop.
JUST. STOP ALREADY.
I woke up on Monday and turned on CNN. The image on the screen was of a car with police escort going down the highway on it’s way to the NY Courthouse, and the images evoked the same scenes of O.J. in the white Bronco all those years ago. This is not the trial of an accused double-murderer, its a trial regarding line items on a financial disclosure form and whether “legal fees” is adequate to describe a payoff to a porn star for silence. The in studio newscasters kvetched about it for the next 30 minutes, and the pundits they had come in talked about how it could be bad for Trump, or counterargued how this could benefit Trump. Of the hours I watched the news off and on during the day there were only five minutes dedicated to anything else. Last week, they spent HOURS every day discussing the minute details of every single f**king juror AS THEY WERE PICKED. Opening arguments haven’t even started on this yet and I’m already bored to tears about this f**king trial.
It wouldn’t be so bad if there was, you know, nothing else going on in the world, but there is. The United States House of Representatives, the hold-ups of providing seriously needed aid to Ukraine and Israel, passed legislation doing just that. The landscapes of both situations just fundamentally changed overnight. Ukraine is the biggest theater of war in Europe since WWII and is the bulwark against Russian aggression; funding their munitions while replenishing our own can change the course of the war immediately. We’re also about to OK the use of confiscated Russian funds in Europe and among NATO to be used to help fund Ukraine to the tune of $300 Billion as a form of reparations. Israel has been a complete fiasco, and American humanitarian aid and conditions on spending may actually help ease the suffering and bring it to a close. Not to mention, it might curb some of the outside aggression currently occuring between Israel and Iran right now.
All of this is to say, there are IMPORTANT things going on in the world outside of New York. Yet for some reason, CNN, MSNBC and almost every news website seem to want to broadcast wall to wall coverage of some of the dullest, driest criminal procedure matters, and FOX wants to broadcast how all of this is a farce and solely intended to tar the former President in an election year. Sadly, it seems like CNN and MSNBC are playing right into FOX’s hands on this, again.
The Overall Problem, Briefly
The media has always had a problem covering Trump’s campaigns. They played his speeches unfiltered, thinking his amateurish antics, poor vocabulary and outright dishonesty would turn people off. You could turn on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, FOX, whatever channel in 2016, and they would all be covering the same speech in real time. The problem is that there is an opportunity cost associated with that. Trump was being given air time in volumes that would not be given to any other candidate and weren’t covered. All the networks would talk “Trump”, “Trump”, “Trump.” It gave the impression he was the only game in town. What does that say to Joe Six Pack who doesn’t care, doesn’t understand issues and only follows the zeitgeist? “Hmm…Trump?”
Once again, Trump is sucking up all the oxygen in the room. Biden has something huge right now he can brag about and is not given the time of day. Why? Everything is focused on the NY Courtoom where D.A. Alvin Bragg brought financial disclosure charges against Donald Trump. The news media is FIXATED on this. It’s one of the most irrelevant cases in remembrance.
Of all the criminal cases against Trump, this is the least noteworthy and the most comical. Years before he ran for President, Trump had an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. He had numerous affairs, something that in itself is no crime, although really seedy and classless.1 When Trump ran for office though, people around him realized that this didn’t look so well so his friend David Pecker, owner of the National Enquirer, made plans and executed payoffs to the women for their silence. How they were carried out varied from woman to woman, but when accounting for the money, they were labeled as “Legal Expenses.”23 In most cases, this would get no attention and accountants wouldn’t bat an eye. However, when politics is involved, it creates an opportunity to smear a candidate (something everyone in the media loves no matter how much they deny it) and brings up legal questions about financial disclosure and the FEC.
Yes, that is what the trial is about. Whether or not a payoff for silence can be lawfully considered a legal expense. Pretty dumb huh.
What is worse is that nobody cares. You know how you can tell? BECAUSE ALL OF THIS WAS KNOWN BEFORE TRUMP WON IN 2016. You’d think the news media would take a look at that and consider it before broadcasting all day coverage, including gavel to gavel shit that can’t be broadcast first hand because there are no cameras allowed in the courtroom.
So now we are right back where we started from, with the media going “Trump!” “TRUMP?” “TRUMP…” and everything else pushed to the sidelines. Pundit analysis is horribly off—they keep saying that this keeps him from campaigning, when in reality why does he need to campaign when he’s covered 24/7, his Truth Social posts are now being reposted and reported on incessantly and the networks give him free coverage coming into and out of the courtroom to say anything he wants? It’s more attention than they would give Biden if he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Questions arise about what it means if he wins or loses; what they don’t realize is that it doesn’t matter. Supporters will still support Trump and his line that this is a witch hunt; opposition will still scream bloody murder that Trump is a criminal and should be in jail. He’s already been found guilty in civil court of rape and defamation, but that has hardly put a dent in his approval any, despite the attention.
How They Should Cover the Trump Stormy Daniels Trial
The only attention they should be giving Trump during the trial is the scene when he first shows up at court, with the tagline description, “Donald Trump was back in court today regarding whether he broke campaign finance law. Today is the [x] day of the trial.”
That’s it. Keep him off the news. State only a line that makes him look like the small and pathetic man he is. GIVE ATTENTION TO OTHERS. Don’t keep your cameras fixated on Trump; this is what he wants. The more he is on TV drawing all the eyeballs and getting all the attention, that means Biden and everyone else ISN’T being covered.
If he testifies, sure, you can talk about that; it’s news I guess:
[Prosecutor]: So you slept with Stormy Daniels, and also with Karen McDougal while your wife was pregnant with your son Baron.”
[Trump} Yes.
But really, everything everyone else does in the trial doesn’t matter. Nobody cares about it.
When we get to the classified documents case and the Georgia Vote Tampering case, there may be more there to report on. As for now though, this case is really unworthy of the attention the networks are heaping on it.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
The Stormy Daniels story owes itself to the enterprising attorney, Michael Avenatti, who was able to get Daniels out from under her NDA.4 He’s now serving 14 years for embezzlement from a number of his clients, including Ms. Daniels. Avenatti had previously made a name for himself with high profile cases involving many famous people, for which he loved all the attention those cases brought. But how he got his start is actually pretty fascinating too.
While still a law student, Avenatti made a name for himself by turning the “Pepsi points” case into one played out in earned media like cable news shows, in an attempt to get a better settlement. The Pepsi Points case was one where Pepsi erroneously made a legitimate offer on a commercial for a Harrier Jet if so many Pepsi Points were accumulated. Some guy in Seattle accumulated the requisite points, was denied a Harrier, and then sued Pepsi to deliver on its offer. You can see the whole thing on Netflix in “Pepsi, Where’s My Jet.”
PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject
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Footnotes and Fun Stuff
On a side note, why do evangelicals continue to follow this guy? He’s single handedly broken every single deadly sin and seems to wallow in them.
In the case of Ms. Daniels, the money was paid by longtime Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who was later reimbursed for the money by the Trump Organization, and the accounting heading was put in the books by Trump CFO, Allen Weiselberg.
I am not sure if anyone could point out for me a more apt description really, without being completely obvious about what it was used for.
How he did this was actually pretty interesting; he let Stormy talk with reporters and when it came to an NDA or the terms of it, she hemmed and hawed and said “I can’t talk about that.” He practically dared Trump to ENFORCE the NDA, knowing that by doing so he was validating everything Daniels said and was insinuated by the reports.
So true! What’s that expression? All press is good press. We could never forget him if he’s never off the damn TV.
I didn't realize Avenatti had a connection to the Pepsi points case. That's incredible.
I know what you are saying, but a former president of the United States is being charged with 34 felonies! Obviously with Trump it means less, because this is probably the 5th worst crime he committed that week, but if any other president was up there I think we would see the same coverage. This is a big deal.