Think Progress wrote:“Well, if he’s proven to have not told the whole truth about the fact that campaigns look for dirt and that if someone offers it you listen to them, nobody is going to be surprised. There are some things in politics that you just take for granted,” Issa said, after host Neil Cavuto suggested voters will care about the story “if he’s proven to be a liar.”
...
“Well, you know, businessmen listen to almost everyone that might be helpful. And by the way, they make pragmatic decisions about how to make bad stories go away,” Issa said. He’s apparently making oblique reference to the tape-recorded conversation between Trump and Cohen, in which they discuss how to buy the rights to Karen McDougal’s story about her affair with Trump. “In business, a problem is something money won’t solve. If you’ve got somebody making an allegation, true or false, suing you for something true or false, you often make a pragmatic decision: make it go away and get back to the important things.”
There is much to unpack in Issa's words and thoughts.
The Truth does not matter. Hey! This is the big leagues, right? Everybody does it. We're living in the big bad world, Snowflake. It doesn't matter if the McDougal allegations are true or false, Trump was acting like a pragmatic businessman. (I could have sworn I heard Rudy Giuliani say he way acting like a protective husband and father.)
Notice the sleight of hand: Even if the allegations were false, Trump. as a pragmatic businessman, would have behaved the same way. In business, a problem is something money won’t solve. Ergo, if he buys silence, it is not hush money, it's just a businessman doing business things. Given evidence that Trump lied about knowing about the Trump Tower meeting beforehand, The Trump defense will fall back from the 'President never knew about the meeting beforehand' to the 'pragmatic businessman getting back to doing important things' defense.
Consider the Trump Tweets (edited to remove the dot-dot-dots) below:
Trump's thumbs wrote:Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.
This is all normal. NDA's are normal. Paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to women who may or may not have had an affair with you is normal. It's all just part of business. That's certainly one way of looking at it.
I think of an older perspective, from The Great Gatsby:
Fitzgerald wrote:They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made