Trump, a porn star and the National Enquirer: Can politics get any seedier than this?
Try to view the world for a moment through Donald Trump’s eyes.
I’ve been covering the developer turned politician turned president turned criminal defendant for two decades. I've learned a thing or two about his world view.
First, Trump thinks everyone is a liar and every institution is corrupt. Second, Trump casts every relationship as transactional. But, third, what Trump really expects is fealty. He allows you into his orbit, but you must worship him like the sun.
His long and cozy relationship with the National Enquirer, a notorious tabloid that puffed him up while pillorying his foes, is a perfect example of all that. And it helps explain why Trump has so often clashed with and criticized fact-based media organizations.
Respectable journalists would never offer Trump the kind of obsequious assistance that the Enquirer provided.
Witness says National Enquirer helped Trump kill stories
It's just so Trumpy that the first witness in his first criminal trial would be David Pecker, the former Enquirer publisher, who spelled out on Tuesday his shady alliance with the real estate developer-turned presidential candidate in 2015.
Pecker told a jury in New York City that he had offered to be the "eyes and ears" for Trump as he ran for president, especially if he heard of women trying to sell stories about their sexual encounters with the former TV reality show star.
Pecker said under oath that Michael Cohen, a former Trump lawyer who served as middleman and is now a witness against Trump, would call with orders to take down 2016 election Republican rivals like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
"I would run or publish positive stories about Mr. Trump, and I would publish negative stories about his opponents," Pecker testified Tuesday after explaining how he "had a great relationship with Mr. Trump over the years."
The former president was indicted last year, accused of hiding $130,000 in hush money he paid in 2016 to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep secret her story about having sex with Trump a decade earlier. Prosecutors say Trump hid that expense as a legal retainer to his former attorney, which they call an illegal attempt to influence the presidential election.
The tabloids call such a maneuver to squelch unfavorable stories "catch-and-kill." Now Trump is caught, charged with 34 felonies in a case that could kill his hopes for another stay in the White House.
Trump calls for 'election integrity.' It's the same ploy he used in 2020 and 2016.
Pecker said he was useful to Trump in plenty of other ways. A Trump Tower doorman tried to sell a story about Trump allegedly fathering a child with a maid. The Enquirer editors eventually decided the claim was not true. But Pecker paid the doorman $30,000 anyway, so the story would stay secret until after the 2016 election.
Then there was former Playboy magazine model Karen McDougal, who says she had an affair with Trump while his wife, Melania, was pregnant. Pecker testified that he advised Trump to buy McDougal's silence, but he refused. The Enquirer paid her $150,000 for two years’ worth of her fitness columns. Prosecutors said Cohen negotiated McDougal's arrangement with the Enquirer by promising it would be paid back by Trump's organization.
But The Wall Street Journal, with smart reporters working in a fact-based environment, broke the McDougal story just days before the 2016 election. Trump's camp at the time denied the affair with McDougal or any knowledge of the Enquirer buying her story.
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Now, Pecker is on the record, in sworn testimony, that Trump knew all about it. And the Enquirer in 2021 paid a $187,500 fine for what amounted to an illegal corporate campaign contribution, helping Trump's campaign with the McDougal payment.
And there's the difference. The Journal did the solid work of journalism. Trump loathes that sort of thing. Because he can't corrupt it. He can't reshape the narrative toward flattery and smooth the angles that might cut him.
There's no fealty to him in that sort of journalism.
Enquirer's heyday: What do Donald Trump and I have in common? The National Enquirer.
It wasn't always like this for Trump. He enjoyed big-shot media treatment before his turn into politics, often portrayed as randy and irascible. His tabloid character cred spurred a reality show on NBC, "The Apprentice," that reworked his long history of corporate disasters into a new and more palatable narrative about him as a business whiz.
Pecker says Trump is 'frugal' and a 'micromanager'
Pecker told us Tuesday about the real Trump, describing him as "frugal" and as a "micromanager." Those traits might have helped Trump in his business endeavors. But they're devastating for him as a defendant trying to pull the "I know nothing" act about how $130,000 of his money left his hands.
Trump's tabloid ally is now a significant threat. Pecker told the jury Tuesday that his relationship with Trump and help for the campaign needed to be "highly confidential" at the time. No more.
And he's not even close to finish in telling his story. Pecker is scheduled to resume testifying Thursday. (The jury is not hearing testimony on Wednesdays during the trial.)
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Look for prosecutors to circle back to an exchange that Keith Davidson, an attorney who negotiated for Daniels and McDougal, had with former Enquirer editor Dylan Howard as the general election results rolled in on Nov. 8, 2016.
"What have we done?" Davidson texted Howard, according to prosecution, when it became clear Trump was winning.
They did plenty. And none of it was journalism. That's why Trump loved it while it lasted. It's also why he is so furious now that it has all boomeranged to humiliate him in front of a jury of his peers.
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's hush money trial reveals seedy side of former president
