During a CNN interview on Tuesday, Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL) said he doesn’t think President Trump has anything to answer for regarding his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels and a legally sketchy $130,000 hush payment his lawyer made to Daniels just before the 2016 election — because “really what we need to do is pay attention to Putin.”
Asked specifically if Trump “needs to address” a death threat Daniels says she received from someone who wanted her to stop talking about Trump, Rooney said, “Oh, I don’t know.”
“I think he probably should say we might’ve been better off not trying to cover anything up, and we really weren’t trying to cover anything up, we just signed an agreement to protect ourselves financially or something,” Rooney said. “But really what we need to do is pay attention to Putin.”
At another point during the interview, Rooney repeatedly suggested Trump’s affair with Daniels and the scandal surrounding his attempts to cover it up is no big deal because of the precedent set by Bill Clinton two decades ago.
“We had a lot of presidents that were certainly not Boy Scouts… you just mentioned about Bill Clinton here a while ago,” Rooney said, before asserting that the media wasn’t as interested in Clinton’s alleged misconduct as they are about Trump.
“It would have been helpful if the public had the right to know about some of the previous indiscretions of other people, had the right to know about Bill Clinton,” he said.
Rooney, who identifies as Catholic, served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the Vatican from 2005 to 2008. During a CNN interview on March 8, he generically described the conduct surrounding the Stormy Daniels scandal “abhorrent,” but wouldn’t directly condemn Trump.
GOP @RepRooney sounds off on Stormy Daniels, but doesn't directly condemn Trump: "The whole fact this is being talked about, this conduct may have occurred, is just abhorrent to me… I don't think it is a good thing. I really don't." pic.twitter.com/UljPQ7d8r4
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 8, 2018
Rooney’s comments on Tuesday indicate that as far as the President of the United States is concerned, he believes two wrongs make a right. He’s not the first self-professed Christian to go extreme lengths to dismiss Trump’s conduct.
Earlier this month, Robert Jeffress — a Southern Baptist who leads First Baptist Church in Dallas and serves as an evangelical adviser to the president — made a case on Fox News that evangelicals “knew they weren’t voting for an altar boy when they voted for Donald Trump. We supported him for his policies and his strong leadership.” Jeffress added that evangelicals “understand the concept of sin and forgiveness.”
But Trump has never asked for forgiveness. In fact, on Monday, deputy press secretary Raj Shah said that Trump “doesn’t believe that any of the claims that Ms. Daniels made” during a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday — including one about being threatened in a parking garage — “are accurate.”
Later, a reporter asked Shah why a $130,000 payment to Daniels was made in the first place if she never in fact had an affair with Trump, as the White House claims.
“I would have Michael Cohen address any specifics regarding this agreement that you’re referring to,” Shah said, dodging the question.