Stormy Daniels Interview To Air On 60 Minutes On March 25th

The Stormy Daniels/Donald Trump story will break open wide on 60 Minutes next weekend.

CBS News has announced that Anderson Cooper’s interview with adult film star Stormy Daniels, who stands at the center of a story that just isn’t going away no matter how much the Administration might want it to, will air on March 25th:

The CBS News program “60 Minutes” has set a date of March 25 for when it will show a recently conducted interview with the pornographic film actress who says she had an affair with Donald J. Trump.

A person briefed on the process, who would speak about it only on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the segment with the porn star, Stephanie Clifford, would run then.

Ms. Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels, spoke with the “60 Minutes” contributor Anderson Cooper last week.

Ms. Clifford went forward with the interview, which her lawyer first hinted about in a tweet featuring a photograph of him, Ms. Clifford and Mr. Cooper. It proceeded despite an arbitrator’s ruling reaffirming an agreement that she reached with Mr. Trump in October 2016 to remain silent about their alleged relationship in exchange for $130,000.

She has said she had a consensual relationship with Mr. Trump that started in 2006 and lasted several months.

In recent weeks, Ms. Clifford’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, has led a publicity blitz, appearing frequently on cable news shows, since she filed a lawsuit on March 6 seeking to break her 2016 agreement. She asserts that the nondisclosure agreement was void because Mr. Trump did not personally sign it.

That lawsuit came after Michael D. Cohen, the president’s longtime personal lawyer who said he paid her $130,000 legally pressured her to stay silent. Days before Ms. Clifford sued, Mr. Cohen secretly obtained a temporary restraining [order-DM] through an arbitrator in California to prevent her from speaking about her alleged affair.

Mr. Avenatti wrote in a letter to Mr. Cohen on Monday that Ms. Clifford would be willing to pay back the $130,000 to end the deal to stay quiet. The offer had a deadline of noon Tuesday for Mr. Cohen to answer, which came and went.

The fact that there had been an interview at all when Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti posted a photo of himself, Daniels, and Anderson Cooper on his Twitter feed that tagged 60 Minutes. Cooper is principally a host and reporter on CNN, of course, but he has been a semi-regular contributor on 60 Minutes for many years now. Not long after that tweet, reported that Cooper had conducted an interview of Daniels that would air on 60 Minutes, although the report stated that it wasn’t clear when the interview would run. Earlier this week, there had been some indications that attorneys representing someone were apparently considering whether to file some sort of action to try to stop the report from airing, which includes the interview with Anderson Cooper that was aired last week. At the time, CBS had not confirmed when the interview would be aired, or even whether it would air at all. Apparently, at least part of the reason for that is that the story was being processed through the normal fact-checking and legal review that the reports that the show airs are typically subjected to. Initially, CNN had reported that the interview would air this coming Sunday but it became apparent as the weekend approached that this would not be the case.

In the meantime, though, there does not appear to have been any legal effort by any attorneys affiliated with either President Trump or Michael Cohen, the Trump attorney who claims that he negotiated the Settlement Agreement with Daniels himself and paid her $130,000 to remain silent out of his own funds. Whether we will see any effort to block the report from airing between now and March 25th remains to be seen, but as I discussed on Sunday, there is no real legal support for the kind of restraining order that would be sought in a case like this. The Supreme Court has made it clear in cases dating as far back as 1931 that prior restraints on publication are highly disfavored under the First Amendment, and it’s almost impossible for any party to get a court to stop a truthful report from airing or being published. If there is any cause of action based on the interview, it would be against Daniels herself for violating the confidentiality provisions of the agreement and that alone would not be sufficient to stop the report from airing. This is especially true given the fact that the confidentiality of the agreement, which is attached as an Exhibit to the Complaint that Daniels filed seeking to have the entire Settlement Agreement nullified, includes a liquidated damages clause that provides the damages that Daniels would supposedly be obligated to pay if she breached the agreement. Given that, there really is no authority under which lawyers for Trump, Cohen, or anyone else can prevent the report from airing.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    You think that 60 minutes episode will get any ratings?
    On Morning Joe, this morning, the attorney, Michael Avenatti, claimed Stormy Daniels was threatened. He was extremely vague and added absolutely no details. I’m guessing it was just another one of President Dennison’s sycophants, like Bunge, but this attorney is playing this case like a virtuoso at a grand piano.
    Between the Porn Star and Bob Mueller subpoenaing Trump Org. business documents, Donny must be absolutely flipping his comb-over. I can’t wait to see what fvcked up thing he does in a fit of rage this time.

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  2. Yes, I saw the Morning Joe segment live. I’ll be posting something about that later this morning.

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  3. HarvardLaw92 says:

    Trying to grasp the magnitude of a situation where better than half of the country is cheering for a porn star 🙂

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  4. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @HarvardLaw92:

    better than half of the country is cheering for a porn star

    And the other half of the country is saying it’s perfectly OK to have an affair with a porn star, and then pay her hush money with an illegal campaign contribution.

    6
  5. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Stormy didn’t think trump would actually get elected so she settled for a measly $130K. At some point in the last year she realized if she had just waited another month she could have gotten a lot more so she came around for another bite at the apple.

    Seems to me trump and co made a bad bet not giving into the blackmail when she hit them up for more money. The tell all book is going to more than make up for whatever they get out of her in a breach of contract suit.

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  6. CSK says:

    What I keep wondering is why Trump is so desperate to muzzle her. His fans wouldn’t care if he were videotaped raping fourth graders. Melania knows what she married and doesn’t seem to care, apart from the current public embarrassment, which she should be used to anyway. His kids know he’s a hopeless lecher.
    What is it?

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  7. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Daryl’s other brother Darryl:

    Nah, more like 30%. He has a core base of crazies – the same core base that supported Palin et al no matter what – which won’t desert him over this.

    It will hurt him with moderates / independents and women, and put Congressional Republicans into the unenviable position of having to defend Trump or side with a porn star. It’s a no-win for them.

    I’ll gladly take that in the lead up to a midterm 🙂

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  8. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @CSK:

    She has media. Not sure if it’ll turn out to be video or sexts, but she has something tangibly humiliating for him in her possession.

    The one thing this clown can not handle is being embarrassed. It pushes every single button – the kid who was never good enough for his father, the buffoon from Queens who got laughed at by Manhattan society – every single one of those deep seated insecurities gets ramped up to 100 by something like this. Embarrass him and he will come out swinging. Every. Single. Time. They’re setting a trap for him here, and he’ll walk right into it.

    Like any good narcissist, he has compensated by attempting to create an alternative reality. Whatever she has – and I’m betting it’s a piece of work – stands to blow that up in his face. I’ll be amazed if he doesn’t go to court trying to stop it from airing.

    And I can guarantee you that Larry Tu is praying that he does. They want this fight.

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  9. @CSK:

    Follow the money.

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  10. @HarvardLaw92:

    At least she’s making a living in an honest line of work.

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  11. JohnMcC says:

    @Daryl’s other brother Darryl: Listen, if the average Trump voter had an affair with a porn star his friends would be hearing about for years to come.

    And no one has noted that Mr Avenatti claimed six other women have contacted him with similar stories.

    @HarvardLaw92: Exactly my thinking. (Making you very smart fellow, eh!) Of course they made videos! Who wouldn’t? It’s like the trophy his son brings home from Africa. And does Viagra work EVERY time?

  12. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Doug Mataconis:

    Oh, I agree. I have no objection to the lady or how she earns her living at all. None. More power to her for being both strong and unashamed.

    I just find the awkward situation it puts much of Middle America into to be amusing.

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  13. Kylopod says:

    @CSK: Trump has no fear of being exposed as immoral; his entire career is built on basking in it to some degree. But we already heard Daniels describe their encounter as “textbook generic.” I somehow don’t think the details are going to help further Trump’s brand as the virile playboy, and I suspect that may scare him more than even the thorny legal questions.

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  14. Kylopod says:

    One of the most revealing (and perplexing) episodes in Trump’s career, to my mind, was Marla Maples’ statement that sex with Donald was the “best sex I’ve ever had.” Let’s be clear: she was somehow either threatened or pressured into saying this. I don’t know how. But there’s no way that Mr. “grab ’em by the p*ssy” is or ever was a great lover. But it sounds exactly like the sort of bombastic Trumpian boast he’s given to making about pretty much everything.

    That’s why he fears what may be revealed by the Daniels affair.

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  15. CSK says:

    @HarvardLaw92: @Doug Mataconis: @Kylopod:

    She did say she could “describe his junk.” On the other hand, she also recently claimed that of the three celebs with whom she’d had sex concurrent with her affair with Mangolini, Trump was the best of the bunch. Admittedly, that could be an extremely low bar, but…

  16. MarkedMan says:

    @CSK:

    What I keep wondering is why Trump is so desperate to muzzle her

    Josh Marshall ran a blog post implying that the scuttlebutt amongst those who knew what she said in the interview was that there might have been some domination involved with Donald on the receiving end. And that would make him look weak. No politician can afford looking weak, but Trump’s support is so heavily dependent on his bully image that it would evaporate overnight if a story like this became accepted.

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  17. JKB says:

    One expects CBS is dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on this interview. I learned recently that the lawyer who negotiated Stormy Daniels’ “silence” is the same lawyer, Keith M. Davidson, who was negotiating the extortion of Hulk Hogan for which the tape published by Gawker was a “shot across the bow”. As an aside, Hogan contacted the FBI and a sting was organized that resulted in the arrest of the lawyer and his client, but they were never prosecuted. Had the FBI/DOJ prosecuted, then this Stormy Daniels agreement wouldn’t have happened.

    It does seem likely that they are working hard to not end up with Gawker’s fate.

  18. Kylopod says:

    @MarkedMan: To quote the late Roger Ebert:

    Howard Stern has his moments of insight, and one came while he was discussing the murder of Mistress Hilda, a fifty-eight-year-old French-born dominatrix whose body was found in her New York apartment surrounded by whips, chains, and the other tools of her craft. It’s often said, Stern observed, that the clients of S&M parlors are powerful men. “It’s the wimps and the weaklings who are the rapists,” he added. It makes a certain amount of sense. Some men, deprived of a sense of power, compensate by assaulting the weaker. Others, uncomfortable because they have so much power, pay to have someone take command.

  19. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @JKB:

    So the party line is going to be “Trump was extorted”. Got it.

    Good luck with that one … 🙄

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  20. CSK says:

    @MarkedMan:

    She did say she spanked him. If she had a video of that….

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  21. al-Ameda says:

    I’ll admit it. I’m hoping Stormy says that Trump loves golden showers.

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  22. PJ says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Stormy didn’t think trump would actually get elected so she settled for a measly $130K. At some point in the last year she realized if she had just waited another month she could have gotten a lot more so she came around for another bite at the apple.

    Seems to me trump and co made a bad bet not giving into the blackmail when she hit them up for more money. The tell all book is going to more than make up for whatever they get out of her in a breach of contract suit.

    I doubt she would need to spend any of her book money on that, she just needs to set up a GoFundMe page, and people worldwide would be happy to cover that for her…

    (IANAL, and I am unsure if GoFundMe would remove the page if she did set one up. It doesn’t, for example, allow legal defense funds.)

  23. Sleeping Dog says:

    @MarkedMan:
    Pictures, pictures! We pictures. Video would be better thought.