Daniels sued the president after he tweeted that her claims of a man threatening her not to come forward with her story of the alleged affair she had with Trump was a “total con job.”
Luckily, it’s only one small part of her saga with Trump; this defamation case referred only to the tweet in question. It doesn’t take into account, for example, her case against Trump in which she is suing him, and his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, over the $130,000 payment made to keep her silent about her alleged affair with Trump just before the 2016 election. Arguably, a much bigger fish to fry, and a battle not yet lost.
In a lot of ways, the ruling isn’t unusual. Daniels being ordered to pay Trump’s legal fees (not yet released what those will be, but likely to be significant, given that the case lasted six months) isn’t unusual in a disposition like this one.
Judge Otero said:
“Mr. Trump, as President, made a hyperbolic statement against a person who has sought to publicly present herself as an adversary to him.”
He is concerned that defamation suits against the president could snowball, and ultimately hinder “discourse” that is an expected part of politics.
“Any strongly-worded response by a president to another politician or public figure could constitute an action for defamation. This would deprive this country of the "discourse" common to the political process.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the president has taken to Twitter to gloat about his victory:
The president insults a lot of people. While some, like then-Republican candidate Jeb Bush, whom he called, among other things, a "pathetic figure," are also men of privilege, many of the people Trump mocks are marginalized.
Even before taking office, Trump has a history of using gender-based insults to criticize and demean women, whom he has described as “nasty,” “Miss Piggy,” and “neurotic.”
Journalist Serge F. Kovaleski’s disability was not off-limits:
Daniels, whose career is in the adult entertainment industry, is frequently vilified not only for being a woman, but for working in a field adjacent to sex work. When the president sends messages rich with misogyny, it reiterates a cultural stigma that women—and especially not women involved in any kind of sex work—are not to be respected.
Even in victory, he can’t seem to restrain himself from describing Daniels as a “horseface.”
Judge Otero’s ruling is downright frightening; has Trump essentially been given a free pass to go on Twitter rampages? Should name calling and personal jabs be an expected part of political discourse, delivered to social media at all hours of the night?
Daniels and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, have already filed an appeal against the judge’s ruling. Avenatti also took to Twitter:
As did Daniels herself:
Her legal battle against Trump is likely to be a long one, but she doesn’t seem to be losing hope.
