Did he also make her pee on the bed for his bizarre amusement?
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My god, but the wheels are coming off today! How much longer can this last?
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Were the wheels ever on?
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Good point.
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Time to break out the Mark Burnett/MGM outtakes from The Apprentice right about now, Iâd say.
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After this story, wonder if Trump still holds WSJ in high regard? He thought they treated him fairly. I doubt this wouldâve been published had it not had reliable sourcing -especially because it is WSJ.
ETA: Paging Mother Pence.
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Thatâs the editorial page that Murdoch still controls with an iron fist. The rest of the paper has done some fairly good investigative reporting on him, even though they used to be a lot better before Murdoch took over.
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From a report published in The Hill on November 4, 2016, shortly after Cohenâs intervention:
Additionally, people familiar with the matter told the [Wall Street Journal] that adult film actress Stephanie Clifford was recently in talks with ABCâs âGood Morning Americaâ to reveal a past relationship with Trump, but ultimately cut off contact with the network.
Hicks, Trumpâs spokeswoman, said the claim was âabsolutely, unequivocallyâ untrue.
As mentioned, the information was also published in the WSJ (and elsewhere, too).
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All I can say is that we owe @antisachetdethe a lifetime supply of the drink of his choice. Poor guy, he must have been in the air this entire week!
Am I the only one whoâs starting to think he may actually be an astronaut? 
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If theyâll do it with you, theyâll do it to you.
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Wait, were you confused too? For a second I thought they were talking about Melania.
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Mike will not be allowed to eat alone with Trump anymore. A relief, I would imagine.
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I will normally dismiss this sort of report when I see it in passing. I am presuming, trusting actually, since it is on TPM, that there is some traction to this one.
I have pretty much ignored the âsalaciousâ bits of the Dossier as well.
However (To quote Colbert âDot, Dot, Dotâ)
[Wait, just went back and read the item, this is from the WSJ?]
Shazam!
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Of course it was because heâs the best negotiator.
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Rumor is that she is not actually living in the White House. People are saying thatâŚbelieve me.
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I have a few meandering thoughts on this:
At this point, Putin would release the pee pee tape as a favor to Trump to change the subject. Thatâs how bad âshitholeâ gate is for him. So anything that changes the subject is probably welcome news to him at some level. This involves a consensual affair and hush $ for it. Itâs probably the least legally questionable or morally depraved thing he has done. Thatâs how bad a human being Trump is.
After reading a tweet that made me recall a passage in the Wolff book and Joshâs post, this looks to be something bigger. Bannon said that Kasowitz settled âhundredsâ of claims by women. Hundreds may have been hyperbole, but Bannonâs point was that Kasowitz handled a lot of problematic stuff involving Trump and women. His larger point was that Kasowitz is not a guy with a weak stomach and even he couldnât figure a way out of what Trump did on Air Force One to deliberately spread a lie to mislead prosecutors about the Trump Tower meeting. That is when Bannon essentially checked out mentally from the Administration (and was gone a few weeks later).
Josh adds to this that the timing of this hush money settlement came around the same period as Access Hollywood. So not only did Wikileaks and Russia (and Rudy Giuliani and the FBI NY office) help Trump get out of a big hole, Bannon/Kasowitz (and it looks like Cohen) did a very aggressive and active clean up of Trumpâs many questionable encounters with women (affairs, harassment, and other stuff). Cohen may have been working with Bannon and Kasowitz on this. Was the WSJ tipped off by Bannon on this story? Is that why they went public with it?
Politically, one impact could be that it feeds into the anger that women feel about Trump essentially skating on sexual misconduct, and it could be a driver of the female vote which could top 60% for the Dems. Another impact is that âshitholeâ gate + this revelation may start a flood of such articles about Trumpâs conduct. If any of that touches the rape trial of Jeffrey Epstein, the rape claim that was dropped or the issues with the Trump modeling agency, that could be explosive.
I think Seth Abramson has a very trenchant observation. He claims this payoff proves that Trump was susceptible to blackmail and if he was worried about what looks like a consensual affair, what would he do to cover up more depraved behavior like the pee pee tape? It also supports Christopher Steeleâs essential point that the Russians knew Trump was depraved and set him up with kompromat because they knew he could be blackmailed.
So as I think about this out loud, thereâs more here than simple distraction politics.
NOTE: I also wouldnât underestimate Trumpâs desire to not embarrass Melania. From the Wolff book, he seeks approval from everyone, including her. This stuff could create a backlash within his family which might result in some unexpected revelations and developments.
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Never heard of her but after Googling images of Ms Daniels, there are two things I can say - Yikes and Yikes!
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Thereâs no point getting excited about this. The White House has said the reports have been strongly denied. And Iâm sure weâre talking about some great denials. Believe me, nobody has better denials. Theyâre totally believable denials. I mean, unbelievable denials. Beautiful denials. If they were any better denials, theyâd come with man-eating crocodiles.
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She looks Norwegian.
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Okay, now I am laughing. Nice.
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