Stormy Daniels Is a Master Troller

60 Minutes

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Am I obligated to write about the Stormy Daniels interview on 60 Minutes last night? I am? Fine: I didn’t really learn anything new. She mostly repeated the basic story that InTouch published a couple of months ago, and added that she never wanted to go public but was forced to after the Wall Street Journal published a story about the hush money agreement. After that, well, if you’re going to go public, you might as well do it right. And she’s doing it right: the ratings for 60 Minutes were up 111 percent last night compared to last week.

In any case, there was really nothing new to learn anyway. At this point, I don’t think anyone doubts that the affair happened or that Donald Trump was well aware of the hush money agreement. However, we did get our first sustained look at Daniels in an interview. And she did well. She doesn’t sound rehearsed or evasive and she doesn’t sound embarrassed. She mostly sounds annoyed about the whole thing.

In any case, the great thing about the Stormy Daniels story is that Trump has really met his match. She’s trolling him just as loudly and just as relentlessly as Trump trolls everyone else. She’s not intimidated and she doesn’t really seem to care that Trump is president of the United States. What’s more, her lawyer seems like an easy match for Trump fixer/lawyer Michael Cohen, who is surely one of the more obnoxious figures to invade our TV screens in recent memory. Inae Oh has more about that here. Apparently he’s promising everything short of a blue dress to prove that Stormy Daniels is telling the truth. I guess we should all keep our popcorn poppers warmed up.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate