Scott Prentice

Playmate Karen McDougal says Donald Trump tried to pay her right after they had sex. She refused. Ten years later, a tabloid run by his friend paid her $150,000 to stay quiet. It was June 2006. Trump invited her to dinner in his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He was married, and Barron was a few months old. At the end of the night, he held out money. Twelve years later on CNN, the memory still hurt: "I looked at him and I said, that's not me, I'm not that kind of girl." She cried all the way home, but the affair went on for ten months. Then McDougal ended it. In 2016 Trump ran for president, and the story suddenly had a price. That August, the National Enquirer bought it for $150,000. The paper's boss, David Pecker, was a longtime friend of the candidate. Not a word was printed. In the tabloid world this is called catch and kill. That November, Trump won the White House. In 2018 McDougal broke her silence anyway. She sued to void the deal and went on CNN before any judge ruled. The tabloid backed off and let her hold on to the $150,000. In December 2018, prosecutors revealed the Enquirer's owner had admitted it paid her to keep the story away from voters. Trump denies the affair. First she refused his money. A decade later she took $150,000 to stay quiet, kept it, and talked anyway. Hypocrite, or the smartest player in the room?