He should never have paid Daniels anything. He would have weathered that “storm” (no pun intended) without putting himself in the middle of a blackmail scheme. Do I still support Trump? Yes. Do I always agree with his words or actions? No.
Since you’ve never been powerful or wealthy you likely don’t realize that they encounter these shakedown scenarios all the time and they and their lawyers have to make judgement calls about how to handle them.