Bill Maher Asks Michael Avenatti If He Will Run For Office
Update, with video Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti is interested in running for office, or so it seemed on Friday night’s Real Time with Bill Maher.
These days you can’t throw a dead cat without hitting an Avenatti TV appearance. The attorney shows up all over MSNBC and CNN, and has appeared on ABC’s The View and now Maher’s HBO late-night show. The celebrity lawyer is scheduled to be the guest of the Associated Press at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, where he will be the center of attention, on April 28.
His Real Time appearance was a total love fest.
First, Maher introduced him as not only Stormy’s attorney, “he’s Donald Trump’s worst nightmare.”
Then, Avenatti got a standing ovation, which impressed even Maher, who noted, “I want this recorded: a lawyer got a standing ovation!”
Maher described Avenatti as “something of a folk hero” and wondered how he’s coping with his “new found fame.”
“Wait until we actually accomplish something in the coming months,” Avenatti said, feigning modesty.
Avenatti’s client, porn star Stormy Daniels, claims the NDA for which she was paid $130K by Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen, shortly before the presidential election, in exchanging for keeping a lid on her alleged consensual affair with Donald Trump more than a decade earlier, was not valid because Trump never signed it.
Cohen has said Trump denies her claims. She’s suing Cohen for defamation over some of his remarks about her.
Stormy and Avenatti took to The View to unveil a forensic sketch of a man she claims approached her in a Vegas parking lot seven years ago, told her it would be a shame if anything happened to the mother of her child, and to forget about her Trump allegations. Trump tweeted the whole thing is a con; Avenatti says she’s now mulling filing a defamation suit against POTUS too.
“Let’s be honest. The whole reasons we’re in love with you is we think you’re the top of the spear that’s going to take down Donald Trump,” Maher gushed on his show, then asked Avenatti to walk him through “how our dreams can come true” about Trump.
“How does it get from you winning the case to Donald Trump leaving the White House?” the late-night host wanted to know.
Avenatti predicted his camp will be given the opportunity to depose Cohen and POTUS within the next 60 to 90 days.
“What we’re seeing is the dominoes are already starting to fall. I truly believe this is the Achilles heel of the president,” Avenatti said. “He has trusted a moron with his innermost secrets. The problem is that he has surrounded himself, in his adult life, with people that are incompetent, and the chickens are going to come home to roost,” Cohen claimed, mixed-metaphorically.
Maher wondered why Avenatti filed in Los Angeles. “Because he fucked her here in LA?” Maher questioned.
“They did spend some time at the Beverly Hill Hotel, talking about Shark Week,” Avenatti responded. Not a good answer, but an answer.
Maher remained unconvinced Trump would show up for a deposition. Avenatti said maybe the judge would send out a U.S. Marshal for him. Both men agreed that would make for sensational TV.
Avenatti repeated the line he’s used in his many recent TV appearances, about Cohen knowing where almost all the bodies are buried and will “sing like a canary” when faced with the prospect of time in the slammer.
“When you have a fixer, you need two things at least: you need a guy that’s tough, and you need a guy that’s smart. This guy is neither tough nor smart. I think he’s a zero,” he quipped.
“You know who Donald Trump wishes he had?” Maher asked rhetorically. “You!”
“Here’s the problem: He can’t buy my client and he can’t buy me,” Avenatti chest-thumped.
Switching subjects slightly. Maher wondered if the revelation Cohen’s mystery client is Sean Hannity would do much damage to the Fox News Channel primetime star’s career. The day that news broke, Hannity said on his show that he did not consider Cohen his lawyer, though Cohen’s attorney thinks otherwise. Hannity said he might have slipped Cohen $10 in the past, but never retained him as his lawyer.
“I think Sean overpaid by $9,” Avenatti snarked on Maher’s show. Maher noted he himself pays the valet $20.
When documents seized by the FBI in those raids on Cohen’s office, home and hotel room are revealed, Avenatti is convinced some willl have Hannity’s name on them that will clarify the nature of their relationship. He predicted it will be “very embarrassing” for the Fox News star.
All this giddiness on MSNBC about the raid on Cohen’s offices has Maher worried. The story, he said, is “taking a lot of energy away from real issues.”
Countered Stormy’s lawyer, “I think the cover-up and lying to the American people is always a real issue.”
“Yes, but not what polls say people care about,” Maher shot back. People care about health care and the tax cuts, but they’re not being covered by the media “because they’re all chasing stories like this.”
“I’m not saying you should stop doing what you’re doing,” he added hastily.
“Well, that’s good – because we’re not!” boasted Avenatti.
That’s when Maher suddenly asked Avenatti if this case is his springboard to launch a political career.
“What about the future for you in politics? You got a standing ovation!” Maher enthused.
“As you know, there’s a small matter I’m presently focused on,” Avenatti simpered. “But we will see how that goes. And, I’ll tell you what: if, at the end of that, you decide that makes sense for me, I’ll do it!”
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