Donald Trump met porn actress Stormy Daniels at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006. Trump's personal lawyer paid $130,000 out of pocket to Daniels as part of a confidentiality agreement, says Peter Bergen.
The matter might have ended there had the Wall Street Journal not revealed the transaction in January 2018, less than a year after Trump took office as president, he says. Bergen: Trump, weakened by the release of an old audio recording in which he boasts of being able to "grab" women "by the pussy," wants to avoid another scandal. He says the media became interested again in Stephanie Clifford's story and Cohen again bought her silence, as she previously did with former Playboy magazine model Karen McDougal. The story has since emerged in her autobiography, inspired by the Trump movement's slogan "Make America Great Again," Bergen says, and she describes her night with Trump as "the least impressive" in an unflattering way in her book. The actress is not far behind and gives him the nickname "little thing," in reference to his virile member, he adds.