Steve Cortes, a onetime member of Trump campaign's Hispanic advisory council, was the subject of ridicule Friday after he suggested to fellow CNN co-panelists that the president's longtime attorney paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 to protect his client's marriage.
The former Trump campaign adviser argued, as many others have, that the president's voters knew what they were getting when they elected him — and that the recent FBI raid on Cohen regarding the Daniels payment is a "witch hunt."
Agreeing with CNN political analyst Jeffrey Toobin and even Cortes' assertion that Americans knew who Trump was when voting for him, Clinton White House adviser Paul Begala said that it's possible Trump's attorney Michael Cohen arranged the payment to affect the outcome of the 2016 election — an act that could feasibly be a violation of campaign finance law.
"Trump should have said, 'look, okay, I made a mistake in my marriage,'" Begala continued. "It would have been fine, but you can't spend 100, if in fact they did, spend $130,000 to affect the election and not report it, not disclose it."
"What if it wasn't to affect the election?" Cortes asked. "I'm not saying it happened, but let's say he did. Let's say he did sleep with Stormy Daniels. Wouldn't it be plausible, at least, Paul, that this money might have been spent to preserve his marriage?"
"Two weeks before the election?" Begala said, smiling. "No. Sorry. The affair happened like 10 years ago."
Watch below, via CNN: