March 20, 2023

Ron DeSantis Really Wants to Remind You That Trump Allegedly Paid Off a Porn Star

The Florida governor finally weighs in on Trump’s potential indictment.

Phil Sears/AP

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Amid pressure to denounce a New York prosecutor who might soon indict Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis has finally decided to weigh in on the hush-money case swirling around the former president. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, DeSantis insisted, is a politically motivated “Soros-funded prosecutor” seeking to weaponize his office against a political enemy. 

But almost immediately after ticking off that tired MAGA talking point, DeSantis—a potential Trump rival for the GOP presidential nomination— seemed to go out of his way to describe the lurid allegations at the center of the case. In doing so, the Florida governor appeared pretty eager to remind Americans that Trump allegedly slept with a porn actress. (Trump denies there was any sexual affair.)

“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair, I just can’t speak to that,” DeSantis said, before weaving back into a swipe at the Manhattan DA that featured yet another gratuitous description of Trump’s alleged efforts to cover up his payments to Stormy Daniels.

“What I can speak to is if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to do something about pornstar hush-money payments, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office, and I think that that’s fundamentally wrong.”

Despite getting the condemnation of Bragg that they’d reportedly been demanding, Trump allies did not seem happy with DeSantis’ statement. 

I guess repeating the words “porn star” and “hush money”—in the run-up to what could be our very first indictment of a former president—is as good a political strategy as any.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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