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I can actually imagine how the National Enquirer may have been one of the President's most trusted weapons, particularly for keeping Republicans who should know better than to support him from deserting him, or (in some cases, like Cruz), to turn strong opponents into sheepish camp followers. This meme spells it out (though its implication that the shame of it all is only effective against Evangelicals is of course spurious). It amazes me that the Enquirer would put its extortion offer in writing, though.

Sorry, Robert, I'll try to post a little clearer explanation. Try googling "bezos enquirer extortion" meantime, maybe that will clarify the case I'm talking about.

I Googled and read one piece, in which Bezos said National Enquirer put their extortion in writing, so I guess that is what you're talking about.

As far as Huppke claiming Trump is using the Enquirer to blackmail folks in Congress, I'd find that more believable if he were accusing him of blackmailing Democrats.

Well, assuming Bezos is a Democrat (which may or may not be the case; in any event his WAPO is a rag that Trump clearly sees as a partisan enemy), then he IS blackmailing at least one Democrat. And I have no grounds for believing that he is using the Enquirer that way against the Republicans. What I said was that I could see how it could explain a few things that otherwise have had me scratching my head, Cruz's flipflopping being foremost among them.

The only thing there is evidence of, from what I've heard, is that the Enquirer attempted, in writing, to blackmail Bezos into making false statements on their behalf, and that Pecker was also involved in paying hush money to women who had accused Trump of stuff and/or buying their stories in order to quash them. And that he or his underlings were stupid enough to write it all out in emails to Bezos. (Or maybe an underling did it out of spite? All kinds of strange things are possible.)

My hope is that Enquirer goes down in flames. The problem is that some other "yellow journalism rag" will just replace it on the newsstand.