What Went Down In The Michael Cohen Hearing

I think the Stormy Daniels story is sort of a nothingburger, in terms of public perceptions of Trump. That sort of conduct is very much priced into people’s assumptions about him. I guess maybe if it had hit right after the “Access Hollywood” tape, it could have extended that news cycle. But the news media would have forgotten about it the moment the Comey letter hit anyway because they were obsessed with Clinton’s email server.

Nate, so this hush money was meant to keep the Stormy Daniels story under wraps right before the 2016 election — if it had broke, do we have any idea what effect it might have had?

I think this is also a classic example of how these exchanges can fail to land because they get too far into the weeds. Cohen responded well, but that back-and-forth was never going to be easy to follow.