Stormy Daniels sues as White House sticks it to her story

Best sex he never had?

So who you gonna believe — the president who, by one tally, has made more than 2,400 false and misleading claims since taking office, or the porn star?

While Trump kept it zipped, lipwise and tweetwise, after Stormy Daniels’ “60 Minutes” interview, deputy press secretary Raj Shah entered a plea of innocence on his behalf at Monday’s briefing.

“I will say the president strongly, clearly and has consistently denied these underlying claims,” Shah said. “The only person who has been inconsistent is the one making the claims.”

Along with denying the spanking-and-sex liaison, Trump also doesn’t believe her story of being physically threatened in 2011 by a mystery man who told her “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story” in a Las Vegas parking lot.

“There is nothing to corroborate her claim,” Shah said, reports Newsday’s Laura Figueroa Hernandez.

But why is it again that a Trump lawyer arranged the $130,000 payment to Daniels to squelch her story about his extramarital affair? “False charges are settled out of court all the time,” Shah said.

So who does America believe? A CNN poll completed Sunday found 63% believe Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who say they had consensual affairs with Trump, while just 21% say they believe his denials. The same poll put Trump’s approval rating at 42%, an 11-month high.

They like to watch

The Daniels interview drew 22 million viewers, according to Nielsen. Shah wouldn’t say if Trump was one of them. “I’m not going to get into what the president may or may not have seen,” he said, though he later noted, “There are clips of it playing all over in the morning new shows.”

The rating was the highest for CBS’ “60 Minutes” since a 2008 appearance by then-President elect Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, which had almost 25 million. Trump’s postelection interview in 2016 was watched by 20 million.

On the legal front, Daniels Monday sued Cohen for defamation for suggesting she is a liar. The Washington Post reported that while Trump remains quiet, he has griped to several people that Daniels is not the type of woman he finds attractive.

Daniels said she wasn’t physically attracted to him either.

Janison: Trump, the cave man

Trump haters are so invested in seeing him as a menace and his fans are so unwilling to recognize his weaknesses that both sides may fail to notice when he forfeits his authority, writes Newsday’s Dan Janison.

The scenario repeated itself last week in his will-I-or-won’t-I show before signing the $1.3 trillion spending bill.

He signed, and vowed, “I will never sign another bill like this again.”

We’ll see. Trump has yet to use his veto power.

No fee for this opinion

Trump can be a difficult client for lawyers who tell him what he doesn’t want to hear. So perhaps it’s just as well that former Solicitor General Ted Olson turned down a gig to represent the president in the Russia investigation.

On MSNBC Monday, Olson’s comments were about the revolving door in administration personnel, not Trump’s legal team, but they could apply to either.

“I think everybody would agree: This is turmoil, it’s chaos, it’s confusion, it’s not good for anything,” he said. “We always believe that there should be an orderly process, and, of course, government is not clean or orderly ever. But this seems to be beyond normal.”

The Russians are going

Trump never brought it up in his phone call to congratulate Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election, but he wouldn’t let the nerve agent attack against a former Russian spy living in England go unanswered indefinitely.

He ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian intelligence officers, including a dozen working in New York City, in a joint retaliation effort with European allies.

Shah, when asked why Trump did not bring up the nerve agent attack during the Putin call, said there were “some positive developments” on other issues, and added the White House wants “to work with Russia, but their actions don’t always let this happen.” See Figueroa’s story for Newsday.

'A disaster for our country'

Former President Jimmy Carter says Trump may have made "one of the worst mistakes" of his presidency by picking John Bolton as his national security adviser.

Carter, 93, called Bolton a "warlike figure" who has been "advocating a war with North Korea for a long time and even an attack on Iran, and who has been one of the leading figures on orchestrating the decision to invade Iraq."

In interviews with USA Today and other news organizations he called the appointment “a disaster for our country.” 

In the shorter term, the Bolton pick appears to further isolate Defense Secretary Jim Mattis as instability in the Oval Office continues.

Credit wasn’t due?

White House attorneys are examining whether two loans totaling more than $500 million to Jared Kushner’s family real estate business may have violated any criminal laws or federal ethics regulations, The Wall Street Journal (pay site) reported.

The inquiry was revealed in a letter from the Office of Government Ethics to Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois.

The $184 million loan from the real estate arm of Apollo Global Management LLC and a $325 million loan from Citigroup Inc. were made after Kushner met with top executives of the two firms.

What else is happening

• Shah was asked why White House officials keep denying Trump is about to do things that he then does, such as getting rid of aides out of favor. “Sometimes the dynamics are fluid,” he said.
• How secure is Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin’s job? Shulkin has Trump’s confidence “at this point in time,” Shah said. So, not very secure.
• The 2020 Census will include a question about citizenship, the Commerce Department says — prompting California to sue, arguing this would chill immigrant responses.
• Trump has stayed in touch with Rob Porter — the former White House staff secretary ousted over allegations of spousal abuse — and has told some advisers he hopes Porter returns to work in the West Wing, The New York Times reports.
• Two more high-powered attorneys — Tom Buchanan and Dan Webb — have turned down Trump’s attempt to recruit them for his legal team in the Russia case, the Daily Beast reported. They cited “business conflicts.”
• Run with the bulls, run from the bears. Trump tweeted “Great News! #MAGA” after the stock market’s big bounceback on Monday. He’d been quiet about the slumps in recent months.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the French and German foreign ministers that he predicts “with high probability” that Trump will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in May.