Why a porn star-payoff is exactly the right first criminal trial for Donald Trump

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

74% : Promoting his Miss Universe pageant on Stern's show, Trump said, "If you're looking for a rocket scientist, don't tune in tonight, but if you're looking for a really beautiful woman, you should watch.
61% : "When Stern hosted a show on E!, he also called on Trump to fill the airwaves.
54% : Trump acknowledged he judged women on their looks: "I tend to like beautiful women more than unattractive women.
54% : Trump wanted to be seen as a rakish alpha male who triumphed over women and ruled within the world of the National Enquire.
52% : How Trumpian.Trump began climbing the ladder of fame in New York City in the 1980s as a brash nepo-baby real estate developer and flashy womanizer.
52% : As Miller, he noted Madonna "wanted to go out with" Trump and that Trump, in addition to living with gal-pal Marla Maples, had "three other girlfriends."
52% : Shortly after the death of Princess Diana, Trump evaluated her physical appearance -- her height and skin -- and told Stern he believed he could have "gotten" her.
51% : Another time, Trump boasted that the National Enquirer had published a story saying, as he put it, "that in the history of the world, nobody has gotten more beautiful women than I have."
51% : That could have been hard-core National Enquirer material -- except that Trump was an important operator within the tabloid cosmos and a close pal of David Pecker, the president of the company that published the National Enquirer.
47% : Across decades, Trump pumped up his image as a swinger who viewed women as trophies and toys, with their value dependent on their looks.
44% : In one instance, he called a People magazine reporter, identified himself as Miller and said of Trump, "Actresses just call to see if they can go out with him and things."
44% : As himself, he leaned on the editor of the New York Post to run a front-page story reporting that Maples had declared her romps with Trump were "the best sex I've ever had."
42% : (The quote came from Trump, not Maples.)
39% : In that campaign, a super-PAC run by a former Mitt Romney operative released a commercial featuring statements from Trump in which he derided women as "dogs" and declared his preference for women with large breasts.
36% : In fact, at his rallies, women wore t-shirts that said "Trump can grab me here" with an arrow pointing toward the crotch.
35% : On another appearance, Trump said, "A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10."
33% : Prosecuting Trump for falsifying business records related to the hush-money pay-off made to stop porn star Stormy Daniels from blabbing about her alleged tryst with him (while Melania was home with four-month-old Barron) may not seem as consequential and serious as placing the former president in the dock for allegedly swiping top-secret documents or for attempting to overturn American democracy so he could remain in power.
31% : Pecker and the magazine's editor conspired with Trump to prevent Daniels from going public with her allegation right before Election Day in 2016.
28% : This was an image Trump assiduously created and nurtured.
28% : On one show, the pair discussed the danger of sexually transmitted diseases, and Trump remarked, "It is a dangerous world out there -- it's scary, like Vietnam.
27% : The jury's job will be to decide whether Trump violated New York State law by attempting to hide the payment to Daniels as a business expense.
26% : As a regular on shock-jock Howard Stern's radio show, Trump paraded as a playboy and obnoxious chauvinist.
24% : A more telling exchange occurred in which Trump said he believed there was something "sick" about women that caused them to be attracted to men who treat them poorly.
24% : The Stormy Daniels case snugly fits into this narrative: Trump was a player who apparently cheated on his wife (a new mother) with a porn star.
24% : And that payment was falsely recorded on the Trump Organization books as a legal expense -- which is the basis of the criminal case against Trump.
17% : His well-known history of tossing insults at women prompted then-Fox host Megyn Kelly to ask him at a debate about his attitudes toward women (which subsequently triggered a feud between Trump and her and her network).
17% : The specific question at hand is whether this phony bookkeeping was done to cover up what might have been an illegal campaign expenditure concocted by Trump and his fixer Michael Cohen to influence the election.
16% : Out of the four criminal cases that Donald Trump faces, the one scheduled to begin on Monday in a New York City courtroom is not the prosecution that most addresses the threat he posed (and still poses) to American democracy.
16% : When Stern referred to Alicia Machado, a winner of Trump's Miss Universe contest who had gained weight, as a "fat pig," Trump went along and referred to Machado as an "eating machine."
8% : But the trial will mean more than that and put on the witness stand the trashy world of Donald Trump.
7% : One Trump comment in the spot came from a 1992 magazine profile: "Women, you have to treat 'em like shit."Being a jerk about women was not a bug for Trump but a feature.

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