WASHINGTON — The two perched themselves between the bookstore’s Film and Religion sections — Washington’s courtliest hostess-journalist and the only porn actress she can remember interviewing.

“Tonight, we will be talking about the president of the United States,” the journalist, Sally Quinn, began on Monday evening, introducing Stormy Daniels to a few hundred of her new fans, “while one of the most honorable presidents of the United States is lying in state at the Capitol.”

A brief hush fell. Heads nodded in solemn remembrance of former President George Bush.

O.K. Time to move on to the current officeholder.

“We’re going to get to the Trump part,” Ms. Quinn promised her audience. “But as Stormy points out, it was only two minutes out of her life.”