"Why Donald Trump hasn't addressed porn star Stormy Daniels by name"
Updated 27 minutes ago
Throughout the 14 months of his presidency, and even before that, Donald Trump has never hesitated to lash out or taunt people who get on his nerves. No one has been spared, from Pope Francis to Kim Jong-un to journalists and even sports figures.
But there's one name you aren't seeing in Mr Trump's tweets (at least, not thus far): Stormy Daniels.
Speaking in an articulate, determined way, Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — calmly discussed how a thug came up to her in 2011 and implied that her daughter could come to harm if she didn't keep silent.
She spoke about the non-disclosure agreement she signed a week and a half before the 2016 election, what journalist Anderson Cooper called "the most famous hush agreement in history".
She also talked about spanking Mr Trump, having dinner with him, and having consensual sex with him in 2006, when she was 27 and he was 60. She didn't enjoy the encounter, Daniels told Cooper, but felt that she didn't have a way to escape it.
It was the 180-degree opposite of the famed 1990 New York Post front page that supposedly quoted Marla Maples, later to become Mr Trump's second wife, as saying her relations with Mr Trump were "the best sex I'd ever had".
Ms Daniels said nothing about the affair was a secret, even though Mr Trump's wife, Melania, had just given birth to their son, Barron, who is now 12 years old.
The reaction from Mr Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen has been understandably irate, and Daniels has been threatened with a $1 million fine every time she speaks about Mr Trump.
Melania Trump's press secretary has asked that the Trumps' "minor child" be spared from being included in any news stories.
And Mr Trump sent out a single cryptic tweet about fake news.
Why he's stayed quiet
But Mr Trump has said nothing about her specifically, for a number of reasons.
First, if Mr Trump were to let loose with tweets about Daniels, he would essentially confirm the entire relationship. There is no question that the NDA exists, or that Ms Daniels received $130,000 from Mr Trump's attorney, Mr Cohen.
But, there is still a question of where that money came from, specifically whether it was drawn from campaign funds, which would be illegal under US law.
Mr Cohen has insisted he paid the money out of his own pocket and that "people are mistaking this for a thing about the campaign", according to Vanity Fair.
Second, the president has a family — five children, including Barron, who lives at the White House; Ivanka, who works at the White House; and Donald Jr., who is going through a divorce — not to mention the First Lady.
The spectre of a sitting president attacking a porn star might be something that the media would relish, and his family actually might cheer him on. But then again, they might not.
Eventually, people will be writing biographies of both the president and his wife, and no doubt they will be writing their own autobiographies at some point, too. Every utterance, every gesture and every tweet becomes historic material.
All of those books are now likely to include pages about Stormy Daniels, and only the President can blunt its impact on the public's view of the First Family for generations to come.
Pre-nup 'a hard, ugly tool'
Also, there is the question of the relationship between the First Lady and the President, one of the most talked about in Washington since Bill and Hillary Clinton, who was rumoured to have thrown a lamp at her husband in anger over his behaviour.
Mr Trump has had pre-nuptial agreements with all three of his wives. He told New York Magazine that he actually thought his agreement with Melania, before their marriage in 2005, had made their relationship stronger.
"It's a hard, painful, ugly tool," said Mr Trump. "Believe me, there's nothing fun about it. But there comes a time when you have to say, 'Darling, I think you're magnificent, and I care for you deeply, but if things don't work out, this is what you're going to get.'"
In addition to financial settlements, some pre-nups also spell out the assumptions for each party in the marriage, and whether fidelity is expected. It's completely possible that there are no such expectations in the Trump pre-nup.
And yet, if Mr Trump were to attack Daniels by name, it could be fodder for any future legal actions by his wife, whether or not she decides to stay married.
It seems incredible to be talking about a president, his wife and a porn star, but that is the state of Washington in 2018.
And, the situation is not even the greatest of Mr Trump's problems, given that he is already preoccupied with what former FBI director Robert Mueller may be digging up on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Daniels, however, seems to have accomplished something that no one in Mr Trump's staff has been able to do. She has put the President's speaker on mute."
