The Trump Presidency
Hush Money ... or Not

Daily Shouts ... Eight Totally Legitimate Reasons Trump Paid Stormy Daniels $130,000

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Daily Shouts Eight Totally Legitimate Reasons Trump Paid Stormy Daniels $130,000


Photograph by Chris Farina / WireImage / Getty

Dear Wall Street Journal,

I, the lawyer Michael Cohen, demand you retract a recent, totally false story claiming that my client President Donald J. Trump paid the porn star Stormy Daniels “hush money” on the eve of the Republican National Convention to cover up an alleged extramarital affair. In fact, Mr. Trump paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 for various highly professional reasons pertaining to his 2016 Presidential campaign, including:

Tutorial in the History of Cinema

During the campaign, Mr. Trump paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 to tutor him in the history of film. Ms. Daniels—an artiste whom IMDb credits as the writer, director, and star of such films as “Sex Door Neighbor” and “Love in an Elevator”—schooled Mr. Trump in the French New Wave and in the role of the “Girls Gone Wild” creator, Joe Francis, in making upskirt videos today’s dominant genre of independent filmmaking. nasa Consultant

On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Mr. Trump turned to Ms. Daniels for advice on the direction of the American space program, after he was blown away by her immersive, deeply researched performance as Princess Hubba Hubba in “Space Nuts,” an exploration of squirrel food in zero gravity. Legislative Strategy, Jewish Outreach

Mr. Trump, a Washington outsider, worried that, as President, he’d lack the D.C. know-how to negotiate with Congress. In the meantime, he wondered why his Jewish friend Barry felt guilty about eating bacon, one of Mr. Trump’s favorite foods. Who better to turn to for counsel on these matters than Ms. Daniels, the star of “Porking with Pride 2”? For the nominal fee of $130,000, Ms. Daniels instructed Mr. Trump in all aspects of the legislative process, recounting the aggressive tactics employed by legends like her former co-star Lyndon (Long-Schlong) Johnson, as well as answering Mr. Trump’s many questions about sausage-making, his sausage, and whether Jared’s sausage is kosher. Math

After seeing Ms. Daniels’s work in vehicles such as “Finally Legal 7,” “Love Potion 69,” and “Trailer Trash Nurses 6,” Mr. Trump realized Ms. Daniels was a numerical genius. Given Ms. Daniels’s mastery of mathematics’ most abstruse concept, integers, Mr. Trump hired Ms. Daniels to analyze Paul Ryan’s budget and later shortlisted her for the role of O.M.B. director. Ms. Daniels’s College Fund

Mr. Trump is a huge supporter of women’s education. So, when he saw Ms. Daniels’s moving performance in “Good Will Humping,” he promised to send her to “whatever damn math school she wants to go to.” Ms. Daniels said that she’d already learned all the math, but shared with Mr. Trump her dream of going to veterinary school to learn how to care for exotic animals, such as Steve Bannon and tigers. Mr. Trump, who believes it’s very important to keep the world’s population of tigers healthy so that his sons can hunt them, cut Ms. Daniels a $130,000 check for tuition on the spot. Input on Trump’s Vice-Presidential Nominee

Mr. Trump relied on Ms. Daniels’s keen psychological intuition throughout his staff’s lengthy deliberations on his choice of a running mate. He ultimately decided against the leading contenders, the Texas senator Ted Cruz and the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, after Ms. Daniels championed Mike Pence—who, incidentally, served as the inspiration for her film “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”

Dirt

When Mr. Trump learned that Ms. Daniels had appeared on a television show called “Dirt,” he quickly offered to pay her $130,000 to star in a spinoff show, “Dirt on Hillary Clinton,” a high-concept geopolitical thriller starring Julian Assange, Vladimir Putin, and James Comey as a trio of heroic misogynists. Silence

Mr. Trump hates listening to women. But loud women are everywhere! He paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 to be absolutely quiet during a series of one-on-one meetings in which they meditated, ate kale salads, and online-shopped for the perfect present to give Melania at the baby shower.