Porn star Stephanie Clifford, better known by her stage name “Stormy Daniels,” appeared on Saturday Night Live (SNL) this weekend, mocking President Donald Trump and demanding his resignation.
The skit began with Trump (played by Alec Baldwin) calling up his former lawyer Michael Cohen (Ben Stiller), and directing him to “call up Stormy Daniels and fix this once and for all.”
With the porn star on the line, Baldwin’s Trump can’t restrain himself, and he butts in, tipping her off to his presence on the phone.
“Come on, Stormy, stop making such a big deal out of this. Everyone knows, it’s just an act,” the president asks.
“I work in adult films — we’re not really known for our acting,” the porn star quips.
“What do you need for this to all go away?” Trump asks.
“A resignation,” Daniels boldly declares.
Baldwin declines. “Being president is like doing porn: once you do it, it’s hard to do anything else,” the parody Trump quips. “Besides, my poll numbers are finally up, and speaking of polls going up…”
Stormy Daniels brushes off the lewd comment. The president continues, “We’ll always have ‘Shark Week.’ I solved North and South Korea, why can’t I solve us?”
“I’m sorry, Donald, it’s too late for that,” Daniels quips. “I know you don’t believe in climate change, but … a storm’s a-comin’, baby.”
“I’ve never been so scared and so horny at the same time,” Baldwin’s Trump concludes.
The SNL sketch was a clever presentation of the Stormy Daniels saga — although the statement at the beginning (“The following is based on real events”) is classic overstatement.
The Stormy Daniels bombshell first dropped in January, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid the porn star $130,000 one month before the 2016 presidential election as part of a nondisclosure agreement.
Both Daniels and Trump initially denied the allegations that the businessman had an affair with the porn star in 2006. In a 2011 interview with In Touch magazine, however, the porn star recalled her relationship with the future president, complete with at least one sex act. In Touch released a full transcript of that interview, which leaves little doubt that Trump did indeed cheat on his wife Melania with Daniels — around the time of his son’s birth.
Recently, Daniels claimed her nondisclosure agreement had been violated, and started speaking publicly about the alleged affair. Daniels even launched a tour of strip clubs called “Make America Horny Again.” Last month, she stripped at a club in Palm Beach, not far from Trump’s “Winter White House,” Mar-a-Lago.
As for the “Shark Week” reference, Baldwin was riffing off of the In Touch interview, when Stormy Daniels recalled dinner with Trump. The porn star recalled that “Shark Week” was playing in the background. Trump, she said, “is obsessed with sharks. Terrified of sharks.” These remarks sparked an international spike in donations to shark charities.
Interestingly, the porn star harbored political ambitions as far back as 2009, when she considered a run for U.S. Senate.
Daniels’ appearance on SNL gave her claims even more visibility. While the salacious story is unlikely to result in a “resignation” or impeachment, a few evangelical Trump defenders have fallen into traps on the issue. Trump’s character defects had been clear throughout the Republican primary in 2016, so the Stormy Daniels story seems par for the course. That said, the left will likely keep attention on the issue, as it is an embarrassing story for the White House.
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