After watching the Yahoo documentary though, it is difficult to not at least consider another possibility altogether. The overriding takeaway from their reporting is that, in many ways, Trump actually benefited from the timing of the tape’s release because it completely overshadowed the revelation, that very day, of our intelligence agencies definitively concluding that the Russian government was interfering in the election on behalf of Trump.

What would have been a bombshell that could have dictated the narrative of the rest of the campaign and led the media to numerous salacious revelations about Paul Manafort and Mike Flynn, instead got totally defused and washed away by the tidal wave of “pussy” coverage. In its place, the Trump team’s counter attack using accusers of Bill Clinton as props at the debate, changed the subject and rallied their base. Weirdly, the best thing it may have done for the Trump campaign was to force “establishment” Republicans to criticize/abandon him, which sent a signal to unaffiliated voters who hate the status quo that Trump might really be their guy.