MSNBC Legal Analyst Calls Trump’s Trial Strategy Against Stormy Daniels the ‘Nuts and Sluts Defense’

RUBIN: “And, you know, as I remind our viewers all the time, Chris and Andrea, I sat through two E. Jean Carroll trials and two cross examinations of E. Jean Carroll, and I have to tell you, I agree with Sue wholeheartedly. This was very much what I call a nuts and sluts defense. There was a portion of the cross examination where Susan Necheles was focused on the fact that Stormy Daniels now claims that she is a medium and that she communicates with dead people and has participated in a TV — TV series about the paranormal where she explores things, including the fact that at one point an ex-boyfriend of hers was inhabited by spirits. She was mocking Stormy Daniels. She wants the jury to think Stormy Daniels is a liar, and she is crazy, and she also wants the jurors to judge her for her occupation, and Stormy Daniels gave no ground on that. As Sue just said, she might be an exotic dancer and adult film actor, but she was very clear when Susan Necheles used the phrase ‘selling yourself’ to describe what Stormy Daniels was doing on a tour where she was making appearances at clubs, Stormy Daniels set her straight. ‘I was not selling myself, I was dancing.’ The implication always was I am not a sex worker and I don’t have a sign around my neck that says consent given freely to everyone at any time. She was a woman who seemed pretty self-possessed, in control of her own body and wanting to maintain essentially — to quote Pretty Woman — I say who, I say when, and not you know, Donald Trump was mine — that I was for the taking by this man. I increasingly see what Trump did to Stormy Daniels and she’s used the phrase what happened to me more insidiously than I think I ever have. It is a reinforcement of the predator frame that the Access Hollywood tape introduced. It brought into full vision a very new Donald Trump. Not just a Donald Trump who was womanizing and liked beautiful women and was one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, as David Pecker described him, but a Trump who knew what he was doing and wasn’t just hitting on people, but making it impossible for them to escape or at least downright uncomfortable. And Stormy Daniels today, I agree with Sue, the temperature was down but the self-possession was up and she would not give up. My favorite answer that she gave was when Susan Necheles basically said to her, you make things up like this all the time. You’ve acted in over 200 pornographic movies and those are all made-up. And she said, if I was going to make this up, I would have made it a much better story.”