Oddly enough, the most anticipated press briefing of the year was not led by the snarky, condescending press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was MIA on Monday. Deputy press secretary Raj Shah led the briefing instead.
In her much anticipated 60 Minutes interview, Stormy Daniels shared graphic details about her alleged affair with President Trump, and said she signed an NDA to keep quiet because she felt threatened. https://t.co/C772ZRO8GR
— NPR (@NPR) March 26, 2018
Throughout the briefing, Shah was peppered with questions regarding Stormy Daniels’ highly anticipated 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, which aired on Sunday night. Shah brushed those questions off repeatedly by saying that the president denies all of her statements, although Trump has not personally responded to any of it.
He also deflected when asked whether or not the president watched the interview in order to know which claims he was denying, but Shah said that clips were played on all the morning news shows and that’s likely how Trump knew what she said. Somehow that whole statement Trump made about never having time to watch TV since he’s too busy “reading documents” wasn’t brought up in response to that answer.
On Monday, Daniels decided to sue the president over the NDA — a case that is now in federal court and is assigned to a George W. Bush appointee. https://t.co/y5SWSjEHMN pic.twitter.com/MBwYiKjLtb
— POLITICO (@politico) March 25, 2018
Shah stated that Trump denies the allegations that Daniels was threatened as she said she was or that the president knew of any such threats.
He also deflected from questions on exactly why the adult film actress had been paid $130,000 for her silence by saying that claims regarding “false accusations” are settled out of court all the time, yet no one pushed back by saying that there is no evidence that Daniels had made any claims publicly about the affair prior to agreement, nor did anyone ask why Daniels had been asked to sign what is most clearly a non-disclosure agreement and not court settlement paperwork about an affair that Trump claims never happened.
And let’s not forget this, from #coreylewandowski – who threatened me if I dared to show up at the 2d Fox News debate. Sound familiar? #StormyDaniels pic.twitter.com/Qq7Tyl5cyF
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) March 26, 2018
In the end, Shah followed Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s playbook of “deny, deny, deny” to the letter, albeit with less snark. The president still has many questions to answer regarding the abuse of power evident in Daniels’ claims, for which evidence may still exist on the mysterious computer disc featured in a tweet by her attorney, Michael Avenatti.
If “a picture is worth a thousand words,” how many words is this worth?????#60minutes #pleasedenyit #basta pic.twitter.com/eCkU0JBZaR
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 23, 2018
See the full briefing, with questions about the 60 Minutes interview scattered throughout, below.
Featured image screengrab via YouTube
