I usually take little interest in the gossip that surrounds the lives of politicians, but I found this anecdote tasty as the second trial of President Donald Trump begins on Tuesday.
Since being accused and then sentenced, Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer, has not missed an opportunity to annoy his former boss. If he had confessed many faults during a damning testimony in Congress, we also suspect that we will regularly hear his name during the many trials involving Donald Trump.
In September 2020, Cohen launched a podcast titled Mea Culpa. Nothing but the truth. The most recent episode stars none other than Stormy Daniels, the pornographic actress whose silence Michael Cohen had bought by embezzling funds from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. It is because of these negotiations that Michael Cohen found himself behind bars.
There is something both surreal and deeply upsetting about this association with two of the main characters in the reality TV show that was the Trump presidency. While the outgoing president isn’t the first, and probably not the last, to be haunted by an extramarital affair, I don’t recall a collaboration similar to Cohen and Daniels.
Confidence and emotional exchanges, Cohen and Daniels recalled the memory of another “star” of this B production: Michael Avenatti. Do you remember Daniels’ former lawyer who we saw everyday on TV and social media for weeks? Do you remember that he seriously considered being a Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential election?
Avenatti’s popularity crumbled as quickly as it had climbed. The flamboyant lawyer who drove racing cars had found himself in court for a few scams, including one against Stormy Daniels herself.
Fret not, this post is not the first in a long series on social events or the history of the crisp details of the private lives of political stars. Rather, it is a reminder of the exotic character of the context of the past four years.
For a while yet the media will be interested in the setbacks of Donald Trump and his entourage. It is likely that the collaboration between the former lawyer and the star of pornographic films is ultimately only one episode among many in this interminable soap opera.
For my part, I just hope that the sum of all the controversies, coupled with the impeachment procedure that starts on Tuesday, takes Donald Trump away from American politics for good. As I have pointed out many times; American voters need a healthier Republican Party to be a real counterweight to a Democratic Party increasingly drawn to its left.