Back in October, when a judge dismissed Stormy Daniels’ defamation suit against Donald Trump and ordered her to pay his legal fees, it wasn’t immediately clear how that development would change the landscape of Daniels’ larger case against Trump. The defamation charge was just one of several Daniels suits related to the hush money Trump paid her, and the specific allegation—that Trump calling Daniels’ story “a total con job” amounted to an accusation of criminal behavior from a sitting president—seemed like more of a Michael Avenatti special than anything anyone should have taken seriously. But now that Daniels has been ordered to pay nearly $293,000 in legal fees, Daily Show host Trevor Noah broke out his green eyeshade to run the numbers. The results are, frankly, disturbing:
The situation on the ground may change as the other suits move forward, but Trump’s initial hush money payment to Daniels was $160,000, while this recent setback set her back $293,000, so let’s fact check Noah’s claim that, in effect, Daniels has now paid $163,000 to have sex with Donald Trump. We asked a room full of Fields Medal winners to check Noah’s work, and although things went Jonestown within minutes, we did find this scrawled on the whiteboard :
$160,000 – $293,000 = Oh no. Oh no, no no. Oh God. Oh no no. No no, no no, no no. Oh dear.
But looking at this from Daniels’ point of view actually minimizes how awful the numbers are: Donald Trump has now been paid $133,000 to have sex with Stormy Daniels. It brings me no pleasure to report this, but it looks like the President of the United States could make a living by being so horrible to sleep with that the experience baits women into suing him and losing. When you’re the president, they let you do it.
