Donald Trump, elected “family values” Republicans and Trump’s evangelical supporters might be trying to ignore the alleged mistresses of Donald Trump, but these women don’t appear to be fading away. While Stormy Daniels has been grabbing a steady stream of headlines and will be featured in an widely anticipated 60 Minutes interview this Sunday, another woman, Karen McDougal, stepped forward in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN with details of her nearly yearlong affair with Donald Trump in 2006. Yes, the same year he had an affair with adult film actress/director Stormy Daniels and the same year his newlywed wife gave birth to son, Barron.
McDougal, a former Playboy “Playmate of the Year,” sat for a forthright interview that can only be described as highly credible. She says the pair met at a Celebrity Apprentice event at the Playboy mansion and began having an affair shortly thereafter. Like, Stormy Daniels, Trump sent his bodyguard, Keith Schiller to pick up and/or escort them to his bungalow at a Los Angeles hotel. Among the startling details, McDougal says that after their first sexual encounter, he tried to pay her and she was devastated. In her own words:
First of all, what an ass, right? Secondly, this mirrors what Stormy Daniels said after their first sexual encounter, that she got the impression he was going to offer to pay her. Is this a normal occurrence for Donald Trump? Paying women for sex? You may think it isn’t important and none of our business, but if there is a long trail of women out there, they would presumably have leverage over Donald Trump, leaving him open to blackmail. That is a threat to our collective national security.
Back to Karen McDougal’s interview. She says that she was with Donald Trump at that same celebrity golf tournament and she was bewildered listening to Stormy Daniels’s account of her first meeting and sexual encounter with Trump that week in Lake Tahoe. Trump must’ve had help from his trusted bodyguard, Keith Schiller, juggling mistress #1 and mistress #2 in the same weekend.
COOPER: When you heard the stories of stormy Daniels who has come forward who says she was at the Tahoe club as well and others who said that they were there, you didn't know about that at at the time?
McDOUGAL: No, I did not know.
COOPER: Does it, what do you think when you heard that?
McDOUGAL: My first thought is how could she have been with him when I was with him? The only time we weren't together on that particular trip was when I, he was on the golf course golfing. I didn't go, clearly, but I went to every event, every after thing, parties, daytime things, I was there. That's why I can't understand. Now I do remember him saying, he came in one day and said, oh, there are a bunch of porn stars out there, they were wanting pictures of me. I said oh, that's funny, that's cute, whatever. I do remember him saying that, but I can't imagine when he found the time, except for maybe the day I left. So it's kind of like, wow, how did this happen?
And despite being married and having a newborn son at home, McDougal confessed she and Trump met frequently and (gulp) did not use protection, something Daniels claimed as well.
COOPER: This is a hard question to ask. You said you had sex with him that first time. All those times you saw him, this was an ongoing sexual relationship?
McDOUGAL: Absolutely.
COOPER: How many times did you actually see him?
McDOUGAL: Again, when you're in a relationship, do you count how many times you have sex? No, however, I can tell you we saw each other a minimum up to five times a month. Up to bigger numbers a month.
COOPER: Over the course of how long?
McDOUGAL: Up through 2006, I ended it in April of 2007. So 10 months.
We were together many times.
COOPER: Many dozens of times you were intimate?
McDOUGAL: Um-hum.
COOPER: This is another tough question, and again you don't have to answer it but it's been raised with other people. Did he ever use protection?
McDOUGAL: No. Nothing.
COOPER: Was that something you thought about? Or didn't concern you at the time?
McDOUGAL: You know, we talked about it. We talked about it. Right beforehand. He was starting to. And then he's like I don't like these things and we discussed things. And we were honest with each other. And we didn't. We didn't use any.
McDougal said that she was in love with Trump, even voted for him and that he frequently told her that he loved her and McDougal even thought she might become wife #4.
And despite still being a newlywed to Melania, Donald even had the nerve to take her to their apartment at Trump Tower. McDougal says her guilt eventually prompted her to end the relationship. In fact, Donald Trump even introduced her to his entire family, including Melania and Ivanka. McDougal provided a photo of that meeting at a Celebrity Apprentice event. And like Stormy Daniels, Trump made a favorable comparison of McDougal to his favorite daughter.
McDOUGAL: You know, he, he's very proud of ivanka. As he should be. I mean, she's a brilliant woman. She's beautiful. She's -- you know, that's his daughter, and he should be proud of her. He said I was beautiful like her and, you know, you're smart, there wasn't a lot of comparing, but there was some. Yeah. I heard a lot about her. Yeah.
As for Melania, McDougal offered a public apology, noting that she wouldn’t want the same thing done to her.
You can see the full interview at CNN.
Meanwhile, the Storm Watch got a lot more interesting in the lead-up to Stormy Daniels’s much-anticipated 60 Minutes interview. First up, Daniels’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, put his foot on the accelerator and sent a legal request to the Trump Organization and two banks, asking for them to preserve evidence. From Talking Points Memo:
Avenatti wrote a letter to the Trump Organization noting links between the company and the payment Cohen made to Daniels. He noted that Cohen reportedly used his Trump Organization email when arranging the payment to Clifford, and that another lawyer who worked with the Trump Organization was involved in a February arbitration between Clifford and the company created by Cohen, Essential Consultants.
“In light of the unmistakable links between you and the defendants in this lawsuit, including, among other things, Mr. Cohen’s affiliation with your organization, and his use of his Trump Organization e-mail account and other office resources to effectuate a transaction flagged by a U.S. bank as potentially suspicious criminal activity, we intend on serving a subpoena for the production of records within your possession regarding this transaction when permitted to commence discovery in this action,” Avenatti wrote in the letter.
Avenatti followed up with another eye-popping tease on Twitter. Daniels’s hush agreement mentioned texts, photos or other evidence of their relationship. Last night Avenatti seemed to be saying the “other” is video evidence of their relationship. He tweeted a photo of a CD that appears to be inside a vault.
How long can Trump’s “family values” base stand behind him? Buckle up, America. We are heading into a storm of epic proportions.
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