The secret is out. InTouch magazine reported on Wednesday that porn actress Stormy Daniels admitted to having sex with Donald Trump in 2006, just four months after Melania Trump gave birth.
Not that it was that much of a secret. Allegations of their liaison surfaced last week, when the Wall Street Journal revealed that a lawyer for President Trump arranged a payment of $130,000 to Daniels, (real name Stephanie Clifford), only a month before the 2016 election, as part of a nondisclosure agreement to keep her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter. Michael Cohen, the lawyer, has repeatedly denied the claims. But if the president is as tough a dealmaker as he claims, would his lawyer have paid out $130,000 over nothing?
Still, is any of this really our business? Many are wondering why we should care. After all, this is private behavior. Many presidents have had affairs, and some may have paid off partners as well. If Daniels’ account is correct, she and Trump were of age, it was consensual (not that that framework isn’t questionable, as the #MeToo movement has made clear), and it happened years ago.
So is this really news?
Well, yes. Because our president’s moral fitness should matter — despite how we’ve shaped the definition of deviancy over the past 18 months. Had it mattered more earlier, perhaps we wouldn’t be suffering the variety of moral outrages we’re currently witnessing.
The Trump-Daniels affair dates to 2006, but the nondisclosure payoff supposedly took place near the end of the 2016 campaign, just as candidate Trump was fending off allegations of sexual impropriety that threatened to sink his campaign — including the infamous “Grab ’em by the p—y” recording from “Access Hollywood,” and the accusations of actual groping and assault that emerged in the days afterward.
It is possible, nay, probable, that even evidence of rather grotesque infidelity (four months after the birth of his child? Really?) would not have had an effect on his candidacy. But considering that 92 percent of American voters still believe that adultery is immoral, it is also possible that it might have. We learn about presidents’ policy positions, religious inclinations, personal habits and health; this too is something that might have been worth taking into account.
Sleazy affairs might not be the uplifting sort of news we prefer, but morals do matter. Shouldn’t moral failures, too?