Donald Trump has been indicted for allegedly paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. To test your knowledge of the case, see if you can guess which sordid details are true and which ones are made up.
1. What happened in 2006?
A. Donald Trump met porn actress Stormy Daniels at a charity golf tournament.
B. Stormy and Trump allegedly had sex in his Lake Tahoe hotel room.
C. Melania Trump gave birth to Barron.
D. During an appearance on the Howard Stern Show, Stern joked that Donald Trump was a sexual predator, and Trump replied, “That’s true.”
E. Trump told the co-hosts of The View, “I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
F. All of the above, although I wish I were making even one of them up.
2. What did Stormy Daniels say about their sexual encounter?
A. They had generic sex and Trump did not wear a condom.
B. He compared Stormy to his daughter Ivanka.
C. He asked Stormy to spank him with a Forbes magazine.
D. He appeared on the cover of that same spanking Forbes magazine with two of his children, Ivanka and Don Jr.
E. Once again, and sadly, all of the above.
3. After the Lake Tahoe affair, what did Trump do?
A. He stayed in touch with Stormy for about a year.
B. He said that he would get Stormy on The Apprentice and rig the show for her to win.
C. He said that he would get Stormy a condo in Florida.
D. You guessed it: all of the above.
4. Wait, this is the same guy beloved by American Christian Evangelists, right?
A. Yes, they call him a “miracle.”
B. Yes, they worship him more than Jesus.
C. Yes, but no surprises there as this movement has a history of aligning with racism.
D. It’s one of the saddest aspects of this whole era, but all of the above.
5. Okay, what happened in 2011?
A. Stormy Daniels tried to sell the Trump affair story to celeb magazine Life & Style for $15K.
B. The tabloid In Touch magazine got ready to publish a 5,000-word interview with Stormy Daniels about her affair with Trump.
C. Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen threatened to sue Life & Style.
D. Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen threatened to sue In Touch magazine.
E. Life & Style and In Touch killed their Stormy stories.
F. A man approached Stormy Daniels and her infant daughter in a Las Vegas car park and told her to, “Leave Trump alone… That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.”
G. All. Of. The. Above.
6. In Touch magazine? I thought it was the National Enquirer.
A. No, you’re thinking of how the National Enquirer conspired with Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign to buy the story about Trump’s affair with Karen McDougal and then kill the story so that the affair wouldn’t hurt his campaign. I bet you forgot about Karen McDougal, didn’t you?
B. No, the National Enquirer publisher offered to buy the rights to the McDougal story and also to other stories that might hurt Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and then not publish them—a practice known as “catch and kill.”
C. The National Enquirer’s publisher was named David Pecker.
D. Seriously, his name was David Pecker. Also: all of the above.
7. The National Enquirer? I thought it was Access Hollywood?
A. No, you’re thinking of the Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump said, “I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden, I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything.”
B. No, you’re thinking of the Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump said, “I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it.”
C. No, you’re thinking of the Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump said, “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
D. I remind you that this is still the same guy beloved by American Christian Evangelists, who make up the base of his supporters. And, obviously, all of the above.
8. Why is Trump being indicted again?
A. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen set up an LLC shell company to secretly pay people off on behalf of Trump, and used this account to pay Stormy Daniels $130K, once again to keep the story about the affair quiet.
B. Michael Cohen said that Trump didn’t know about the payment.
C. In May 2018, Donald Trump’s other lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show and said that his client, the President of the United States, did, in fact, know about the payment.
D. In December 2018, American President Donald Trump also admitted to knowing about the payment to Stormy Daniels.
E. It’s anyone’s guess. Was the reimbursement to Michael Cohen made from campaign funds? Did Trump falsify business records when he reimbursed Cohen? Was there money laundering involved? The indictment is sealed, so we won’t know the exact charge until next week.
F. Whatever happens, we’ll always have Rudy’s astonishing incompetence on that Hannity interview, not to mention the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference. Oh, right, we’re still doing this part: all of the above.
9. How will all this affect the 2024 election?
A. Trump is already fundraising off the right-wing outrage over this indictment.
B. Trump is claiming victimhood, his favorite role, to drum up support from his grievance-addicted-white-people-are-the-real-victims supporters.
C. All the Republicans are rallying around Trump, and not one of them cares that he broke the law.
D. They also don’t seem to care that Trump is going on trial for allegedly raping E. Jean Carroll.
E. This is the same man that took away women’s reproductive rights in the United States.
F. The January 6th crowd is preparing for a civil war because Donald Trump cheated on Melania and paid a porn star hush money?
G. I hate it here. I genuinely wish I had made any of these up. Anyway, yep, of course, all of the above.