Stormy Daniels to Stacey Abrams: Meet the women who contributed to Donald Trump's downfall
From pornstars to lawmakers and even his own niece – President Donald Trump has quite a few brave and fearless women push back against his alleged crimes and abuse of power, ultimately making enough noise to contribute to the downfall of his presidency. Even though POTUS continues to cry "systemic voter fraud" and refuses to concede the 2020 election to President-elect Joe Biden, the fact of the matter remains that he has joined the shortlist of former presidents in the past who were limited to just a single term.
Here are some of the fearless women who spoke up and played significant roles in exposing Trump's character and misconduct to the public. At the same time, these women were instrumental in making sure that Trump wasn't reelected to the President's office once again.
Stormy Daniels
It seemed surreal when the President of the United States President found himself in the middle of a sex scandal in 2018 after The Wall Street Journal reported that adult-film star Stormy Daniels had received $130,000 as hush money for signing a nondisclosure agreement in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election about an affair she reportedly had with Trump in 2006 – when his third wife, Melania Trump was pregnant with their son, Barron.
Although Trump, at the time, denied having any knowledge of the payments made to the pornstar, Michael Cohen – Trump’s longtime lawyer, who is serving a three-year federal prison sentence – later revealed in his bombshell tell-all 'Disloyal: A Memoir' that Trump agreed to pay Daniels $130,000 for her silence. Cohen then strategized with the Trump Organization's Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg, on how to pay the adult-film star without attracting notice. They ultimately settled on a personal home equity loan to make the hush payment. Cohen was eventually convicted for lying to Congress, violating campaign laws in service to Trump, and for personal financial offenses.
Last year, Daniels also won her lawsuit against Trump over her effort to cancel the hush-money deal brokered with the president. As a result, a California court ordered Trump to pay $44,100 in attorney fees.
Mary Trump
When Biden was finally declared the projected winner of the 2020 election on November 8, Trump's niece posted a photo on her Twitter page with a glass of champagne, sporting a 'Biden-Harris' hat with the caption, "To America. Thanks, guys." Her uncle's defeat in his reelection bid was an occasion of celebration for her after she launched a massive social media campaign to take him down, rarely masking punches.
It all started after Mary, the daughter of Trump's deceased brother, Fred Trump Jr, became the first member of the Trump family to publish a tell-all book about the POTUS called 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man' on July 14, 2020. The memoir was different from the other numerous explosive biographies published on the president in that it gave an exclusive insight into Trump's childhood and his life before he became the president through the eyes of someone who had witnessed all of it firsthand.
It was clear that Trump did not want his childhood secrets getting out, as his presently-deceased brother Robert filed a lawsuit to permanently block Mary’s book, a day after a New York state court rejected on jurisdictional grounds his first attempt to block its release. He also sued the publisher. However, a New York appeals court judge eventually reversed the lower court’s decision which put a temporary restraining order on the tell-all publication
The book held allegations from Mary regarding Trump's mistreatment of her father which ultimately caused him to succumb to alcoholism and die in 1981. Also when their grandfather died, Mary and her brother Fred Trump III challenged his will claiming the Trumps used its influence to end healthcare for their side of the family.
Nancy Pelosi
It is only ironic that the first – and only – woman ever to serve as Speaker of the House would become the nightmare of the man who denied Americans the opportunity to have the first female president, and that is exactly what Nancy Pelosi became for Trump in his four-year term. From not letting him get away with taunts during her Oval Office meetings with the POTUS to sealing his impeachment in the House of Representatives through her gavel to silently demonstrating her protest by tearing the pages of his State of the Union speech sitting right behind him, Pelosi has done it all and more.
“She is, thank God, the exact right person in the right place at the right time,” said Leon Panetta, a former defense secretary and CIA director and a California native who’s known Pelosi for decades. “I’m not sure anybody else would have had the experience or capability to be able to do what she has done. Donald Trump really has met his match with Nancy."
The Ameican public got the taste of a new power dynamic brewing in Washington. As a result, it wasn't surprising when last week Pelosi was reelected speaker of the House by her caucus for the next session of Congress, marking what will be her fourth term with the gavel.
Stacey Abrams
Although Pennsylvania was the state that ultimately made Biden win the 2020 presidential election, it was thanks to Stacey Abrams, an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author, that he was able to bag the state of Georgia – a state that had stayed red since 1992.
She stood right beside Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama when they all made high-profile stops in the state. "We know that 10 years ago they wrote off the state of Georgia," said Abrams, the former minority leader of the state's House of Representatives and 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee. "But since that time we have been growing and growing ... and now we're grown! We are ready to be the blue state that we were meant to be."
Although most Democratic lawmakers had given up on Georgia, Abrams continued to fight for it and it was due to her influential and progressive ideas that people of the state swayed left. "Whatever happens in Georgia, everyone should get on their knees and thank strong Black women like the fearless @staceyabrams and so many who slog away without appreciation," Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-WA), tweeted before the election.
Whatever happens in Georgia, everyone should get on their knees and thank strong Black women like the fearless @staceyabrams and so many who slog away without appreciation—and then we should pass real policies that benefit them. This all may come down to Georgia & Arizona.
— Pramila Jayapal (@PramilaJayapal) November 5, 2020
26 women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct
The list would not be complete without acknowledging the immense courage that the 26 women who have come forward to accuse the president of sexual misconduct have shown.
Most of the women made their accusations public following the October 2016 release of the now-infamous 'Access Hollywood' tape, in which Trump was recorded boasting about grabbing women's genitals in 2005. Some of them had come forward with their allegations months before the release of the tape. Others came forward after the president was inaugurated into office in 2017.
A list of 26 incidents of “unwanted sexual contact” and 43 instances of inappropriate behavior was detailed in a book, 'All the President’s Women: Donald Trump and the Making of a Predator,' which drew on over 100 interviews, adding to a list of nearly two dozen women who had previously accused him of sexual assault or misconduct.
Some of the accusers included E. Jean Carroll, a journalist, Alva Johnson, a former Trump campaign staffer, Ivana Trump, Trump’s first wife, Jill Harth, a former business partner of Trump’s, Temple Taggart, a former Miss Utah, Mariah Billado, a former Miss Vermont Teen USA and so on.
The White House and Trump have denied the allegations. Trump has also suggested that the women who have come forward accusing him were not attractive enough for him to sexually assault them.