CLAN: Did Maddow read the New York Times?

TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2024

Pretty Boy Floyd nods off: We're guessing that Rachel Maddow read yesterday's New York Times, though then again possibly not. (She surely read this lengthy piece from the April 7 Sunday edition.)

We refer to one particular part of what had seemed to be a front-page report in yesterday's Today's Paper listing—a report about the now-active criminal trial of the leader of one of the clans.

The trial involves a 2016 "hush-money deal" with a woman who wasn't Trump's wife. In the New York Times report, the woman who still isn't his wife is identified as "a porn star, Stormy Daniels."

Below, you see the part of the New York Times report to which we have referred:

The Other Hush-Money Deals

Although the [criminal] charges relate to the payment to Ms. Daniels, [District Attorney] Bragg’s office is expected to highlight two other deals. Both involve the National Enquirer, which has longstanding ties to Mr. Trump.

In the first deal, the tabloid paid $30,000 to a former doorman employed by the Trump Organization who had heard that Mr. Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock, a rumor that turned out to be false. The publication later determined the claim to be untrue.

In the other deal, the National Enquirer paid Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who wanted to sell her story of an affair with Mr. Trump. She reached a $150,000 agreement with the tabloid, which bought the rights to her story in order to suppress it—a practice known as “catch and kill.”

Prosecutors say the hush-money deals show that Mr. Trump orchestrated a wide-ranging scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election by keeping damaging stories under wraps.

If we understand that last passage correctly, a corporate associate of the candidate tried to keep certain types of stories about the candidate out of public view. 

At this point, we'll quickly note that some such "stories" may turn out to be untrue.

That said, we direct your attention to the $30,000 paid to the former doorman. According to this New York Times report, the "rumor" he'd heard "turned out to be false."

In real time, he was threatening to spread it all about not knowing if it was true. According to D.A. Bragg's indictment, he went to the National Enquirer in the fall of 2015 seeking cash, and he was duly rewarded.

(Further note: This rumor dated to the 1980s! It concerned the candidate as a much younger person! Though also, the rumor was false.)

Presumably, the candidate would have known that the story was false—but everyone knows that now. Everyone, that is, except Rachel Maddow, whose instincts concerning such matters we've sometimes discussed in the past.

(For the record, no one's perfect.)

By now, everyone knows that the forty-year-old "story" is false. In a less imperfect world, that knowledge might serve as a journalistic reminder of this very key point:

Some things which get said may turn out to be untrue.

According to the New York Times, the 40-year-old rumor turned out to be false. Unless you were listening to an embarrassing hour on MSNBC last night, with Ari Melber serving as shepherd and host.

Melber is a legal analyst, except on the night of a trial. Last night, he assembled the rest of the clan and they spent the first many minutes of his (renamed) 6 o'clock program clucking about the claim that the defendant, one Donald J. Trump, may have dozed off briefly—right after lunch!—during yesterday's long and tedious session.

Melber's guests took turns clucking and chuckling about that perhaps unconfirmed report. First, though, Melber had thrown to Maddow on remote.

As you can see by clicking this link, Maddow fashioned skillful jibes about Trump being rocked-to-sleep. Via Yahoo News, The Daily Beast offers this summary:

Trump’s courtroom activities—or lack thereof—were the subject of several observations on MSNBC. Rachel Maddow, for instance, drew off of an ancient yet often quoted saying.

“We did finally get here. The wheels of justice grind slowly. I did not think they would grind so slowly that they would rock the defendant apparently to sleep at the defense table today,” she quipped, with the added implication of Trump resembling an infant.

“I was not there. I do not know if he was asleep. It was possible he was, you know, meditating,” she continued, drawing another laugh from her colleagues.

“But those headlines…that Trump appeared to fall asleep on the first day of his trial—those are going to stick,” she said, emphasizing the relevancy of Trump’s attacks on Biden for his age. Trump, she added, is “fundamentally buffoonish,” and said this trial—and what transpired Monday—are a reminder of that.

Maddow's colleagues—a type of clan—rewarded her with laughs. As to whether such headlines are going to stick, a different thought popped into our heads:

Be careful what you pimp for! Voter reaction to this kind of behavior by an upper-class clan might stick in a different direction.

Eventually, Maddow's comedy stylings were finished—and then the doorman appeared. This is what the cable star said. If we were in charge of her career, she'd be at home for a while:

MADDOW (4/15/24): I mean, it's insane. It's also a reminder of, however scary and somber and important this is, we're also dealing with a guy who is fundamentally buffoonish, and this will be as much a reminder of that as it is of all the more serious things here that are at stake. 

This is a guy—we have had mentions today of the one alleged mistress and the other alleged mistress, and the doorman who is making the allegations about the alleged love child with the third alleged mistress...I mean, this really is a fundamentally buffoonish person, and this will be in the minds of the American people.

Calchas could read the flight of birds Members of political and journalistic clans can read the minds of the people.

At any rate:

If we were in charge of Maddow's career, she would have been down the stairs and out the door right there. That said, in "her performance of the Rachel figure" (Janet Malcolm), she's tilted that way a long while.

Citizens, listen up:

At present, there is no allegation about a third alleged mistress. There is no allegation about an alleged love child.

More specifically, there is no doorman making such allegations. In point of fact, all that doorman ever said was that he would spread a rumor around unless he was handed some cash.

His rumor, which turned out to be false, dated all the way back to the 1980s. Maddow told her jokes and got her laughs, then created the present tense.

People may treat you poorly at times, even when they've been sold to you as someone you can trust. If we had been her supervisor, she would have been out the door.

Concerning what might stick with whom, we'll close today with the closing lyrics to Pretty Boy Floyd, as written by Woody Guthrie:

As through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men.
Some rob you with a six-gun,
Some with a fountain pen.

As through your life you travel,
As through your life you roam,
You'll never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

In Guthrie's telling, Pretty Boy Floyd had gained the sympathy of many people as the laws tried to chase him down. As history shows us, such sympathy can be very strong all through the ranks of the people.

Final point:

When we switched briefly to Laura Ingraham last night, she was playing tape from that MSNBC show. She apparently thought our clan's clowning conduct might score points for Trump! 

Many people have mountains of empathy for the aggressively pursued. That may be especially true when a former Rhodes scholar, misstating elementary facts, calls a former president a buffoon.

(For ourselves, we've said that the candidate in question strikes us as fundamentally disordered. We've also noted that tens of millions of neighbors and friends disagree with that view.)

Could our own's clan's clowning behavior really score points for Trump? We have no earthly way of knowing, but if that's what Ingraham suspects, we can't really say that she's wrong.

The doorman quit a long time ago. Also, his "story" was false. 

Last night, though, the doorman was back! During the 8 o'clock hour, Jen Psaki was slippery with the doorman too. 

Journalistically, the doorman provides an important reminder:

Certain things which get bruited about are, in fact, untrue!

In the stirring language of Nestor, real journalists would want to "drive that matter home." It's very important to understand—you can't always believe the various things you're told!

That said, whose clan was perhaps more clannish last night? Tomorrow, we expect to venture back to the very start of this instructive if perhaps embarrassing journalistic affair. 

It's anthropology all the way down! It may even suggest what we humans are actually like.