Fact check: is Donald Trump the father of Stormy Daniels’ daughter?
Earlier this month it was reported that Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels had an affair. It was then reported that Trump had Daniels sign a nondisclosure agreement which forbade her from discussing “paternity” issues in relation to their affair. Daniels then appeared on 60 Minutes and asserted that an unknown man, whom she believed was sent by Trump, approached her and physically threatened her while she was with her daughter. This has led several people across social media to suggest that Trump may be the father of the child in question. Here we fact check that premise.
This one isn’t particularly difficult to solve. Stormy Daniels asserted on 60 Minutes that her affair with Donald Trump began and ended in 2006. The Daily Beast reported in late 2012 that Daniels’ daughter was born in early 2011. So unless Daniels was pregnant for five years, or she’s lying about the timeframe of her affair with Trump, it is not possible that Trump is the father.
Given that none of Daniels’ claims about Trump have been disproven in any way despite intense media scrutiny, it would be unreasonable to assume that she’s lying about the timeframe of her affair with Trump. Therefore, there is no basis for the assertion that Trump is the father of Daniels’ daughter, and this is merely a matter of one too many social media users piecing together unrelated facts in a manner in which they don’t correctly fit.
The reference to “paternity” in the nondisclosure agreement between Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels could be interpreted as Daniels having gotten pregnant and having had an abortion, or in a far less realistic scenario, having given birth in 2007 and then somehow having hid the existence of the child all these years. So the paternity in the NDA may yet prove significant. But when it comes to the assertion that Trump is the father of Daniels’ child born in 2011, there is every reason to conclude that it’s simply false.
