By now, most of the country is aware of the accusation that President Trump had an affair with pornographic actress, Stormy Daniels, in 2006, shortly after his wife, Melania Trump, gave birth to their son, Barron, and that President Trump paid her a sum of $130,000 a month before the 2016 presidential election to keep the details of their encounter quiet.
Although President Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, and Stormy Daniels herself publicly deny the claims, quite a bit of uncertainty has been elicited between the recently-released transcript of her 2011 interview with In Touch Weekly and her deflection of Jimmy Kimmel's queries regarding the allegations in her recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
Now, in a surprising turn of events, President Trump himself has admitted that he indeed had an affair with Stormy Daniels just a few months after the birth of his youngest child with his current wife, and now First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump.
In a closed-door White House briefing regarding the publicity that these claims have been receiving, President Trump, in a fit of rage, administered a ten-minute diatribe that culminated with a confession, sources confirmed.
"I'm sick and tired of this low life, no-name, talentless porn star taking the spotlight away from my America First agenda that is truly Making America Great Again. So, you know what? Yeah, I cheated on Melania with her. Melania had the baby and I had my needs. So when this woman approached me--begging me to put her on my show, by the way--I thought it was the perfect opportunity to release my pent up sexual frustration. She came up to my hotel room. We had dinner. Watched Shark Week. She was obviously starstruck, so I wanted to help make at least one of her dreams come true that night--sleeping with me. Which wasn't even that great, on her part. But lucky for her, nobody is better at sex than the Donald. Believe me."
Senior White House officials were apparently taken aback by the tirade, but as White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, mentioned to Fox News' Sean Hannity, "I think the severe stress of the job has taken a toll on the President. Not to mention finding out about my grandiose mishandling of the Rob Porter situation. After Ivanka showed him those photos, he holed himself up in the Oval Office for three hours before calling us all in to talk about the affair allegations. Maybe the guilt finally broke him."
Needless to say, this is sure to be one of the most bigly scandals to ever be committed by a sitting President. Despite President Clinton's affair with then-intern, Monica Lewinsky, occurring within the walls of the White House, that pales in comparison to the situation surrounding President Trump's affair. This even gives Watergate a run for its money.
Now, there is also a critical piece of information that I've been withholding until now: none of this is true.
To those of you that have continued to read up until this point, I applaud you for actually reading through this article, given the click-bait title. To those of you that actually clicked the sources embedded in the first two paragraphs, you know that the first several link to actual news stories regarding the affair allegations. To those of you that actually clicked on the sources regarding Trump's confession and John Kelly's interview with Sean Hannity, I apologize for rickrolling you, but I appreciate your dedication to verification.
My entire point in writing this article, aside from coming up with (hopefully) humorous fake quotes, was to highlight the incredibly important undertaking of ensuring the sources of your news are actually telling you the truth.
My guess is that this article will be shared, exponentially more times than all of the other articles I've written combined, by people who don't bother to read anything other than the title. I would also guess that some folks might read the first few paragraphs, believe its authenticity, and share it without getting to the point where I admit that it's a farce.
Additionally, I wanted to highlight how incredibly easy it is to completely fabricate something and write a (hopefully) believable article about it. It's scary to think that someone who can just make something up off the top of their head can share that on a platform that can reach millions of people in the matter of hours, but that's a reality that we simply have to face.
What that means is that we have to be careful about the content that we are ingesting. Read multiple sources, from both sides of the political aisle. Fact-check the sources. Click on the links they embed. Make sure you know that what they're reporting on is at least factually correct.
Everyone is free to draw their own conclusions, but I would implore you to do so based on something that is actually true. Yes, most media outlets have a particular political bias. If Fox News and CNN are reporting on the same thing, sure they may have different analyses, but at least what they're reporting on is typically accurate.
Yes, it may be more difficult to do that rather than to simply assume what you're reading is factual, but at least you'll have the consolation of ensuring you're not being mislead.
