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Adult film actress Stormy Daniels took the witness stand at former President Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial on Tuesday, delivering highly anticipated testimony about the sexual encounter she says she had with Trump.
Daniels was the second witness called on Tuesday. She first described her background growing up in Louisiana, where she said she worked at a stable in high school. She said she started doing exotic dancing when she was 17: “I made more in two nights than I did shoveling manure eight hours a day.” She said she then started modeling and doing adult films to bolster her dancing career. Daniels, who appeared nervous and spoke quickly, said she was directing films by the time she was 23.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger then asked Daniels about a celebrity golf tournament she attended in Lake Tahoe in July 2006. “Did you meet Donald Trump on the golf course?” Hoffinger asked. “Yes, I did,” Daniels replied, calling it a “very brief encounter.” She said she was 27, and that Trump was about as old as her father — around 60.
The jury — which appeared focused intently on Daniels and her testimony — was then shown a picture of them together.
She said they later ran into each other at the club, and a man she later learned was Trump’s bodyguard told her Trump wanted to have dinner with her. She said she replied, “no, with an expletive in front.”
She did, however, get the bodyguard’s number, and said that later that day her publicist convinced her she should accept the invitation, telling her, “It’ll make a great story. He’s a business guy. What could possibly go wrong?”
She said she went up to Trump’s penthouse hotel suite and was told they’d be going to dinner at one of the restaurants downstairs. When she entered the room, which she described as “three times the size of my apartment,” he was wearing “silk or satin” pajamas. She said she quipped, “Does Hugh Hefner know you stole his pajamas?” and asked him to change, which he did.
They then sat at a dining table in the suite, where she said Trump asked her numerous questions about her adult film writing and directing. He then asked her about sexually transmitted diseases, and she said she’s tested constantly and “I’ve never had a bad test.”
She said she grew frustrated with him because he kept cutting off her answers, and when he pulled out a magazine with him on the cover, she said, “Someone should spank you with that.” She said she then rolled it up and “swatted” him with it. While jurors appeared poker-faced through her testimony, one began rubbing her face and appeared to be holding back laughter.
After that, she said Trump was “much more polite,” and suggested she should come on his TV show “The Apprentice.” “He said, ‘You remind me of my daughter,'” and appearing on the show would show she shouldn’t be underestimated.
In all, they chatted for about two hours, Daniels said. She said she went to the bathroom, and when she walked out, Trump was laying on the bed “in boxer shorts and t-shirt.” She said she was “startled, like a jump scare. Wasn’t expecting someone to be there, especially minus a lot of clothing.”
She said Trump told her, “I thought you were serious about what you wanted.” She said she felt “there was an imbalance of power for sure. He was bigger and blocking the way but I was not threatened either verbally or physically.” Asked if she ended up having sex with him on the bed, she said, “Yes.”
Payments made to Daniels by Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen at the end of the 2016 presidential campaign are at the heart of the case, the first criminal trial of a former president. Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in return for keeping quiet about her allegation that she had a sexual encounter with Trump. Trump has denied the claim.
Prosecutors say Trump repaid Cohen the money in payments that were falsely described as legal expenses and have charged him with 34 counts of falsifying business records. He’s pleaded not guilty.
Lawyer Susan Necheles told the judge before Daniels took the stand that she should not be allowed to testify about “any details of any sexual acts” because it would be “unduly prejudicial.” There’s “no reason it should be coming into a case about books and record,” she said.
Hoffinger said there would not be “descriptions of genitalia,” but “it’s important to us to illicit that she had sex with him, and how she felt about it.” Judge Juan Merchan said Daniels could testify that they had sexual relations, but to leave details out.
Trump, who Merchan has fined for repeatedly violating a gag order by attacking Daniels and Cohen, took to his social media platform before court to complain he’d “just recently been told who the witness is today.”
“This is unprecedented, no time for lawyers to prepare. No Judge has ever run a trial in such a biased and partisan way,” he wrote in a post that was taken down a short time later.
The Truth Social post went up shortly before the Associated Press first reported that Daniels was expected to testify on Tuesday. It’s unclear when Trump and his lawyers were told she’d be testifying — prosecutors have typically not been telling them who would take the stand until the day before, citing Trump’s record of witness commentary.
That Daniels would testify is not a surprise, however. Trump’s legal team had argued unsuccessfully that she should be barred from taking the stand, a request the judge requested before the trial started. Cohen is also expected to testify at some point.
Merchan fined Trump $1,000 on Monday morning, finding that he’d violated the April 1 gag order a 10th time. He warned that future violations could result in jail time.
Before Daniels, prosecutors called a longtime publishing executive to authenticate and read excerpts from some of Trump’s books.
Sally Franklin, an executive at Penguin Random House named Sally Franklin, read one from “How to Get Rich” that said, “For many years, I’ve said that if someone screws you, screw them back.”
An excerpt from another book featured Trump talking about how closely he tracks his money — something prosecutors will likely use to show he was well aware of what he was paying Cohen back for. “I always sign my checks so I know where my money is going,” he said in the excerpt.
In another, he said, “If people see your signature at the bottom of the check, they know you’re watching them and they screw you less.”
Prosecutors estimated on Monday that they’ve passed the halfway mark in their case, which is now in its third week of testimony.
At the end of court Monday, Merchan asked prosecutors how the case was proceeding from a scheduling perspective and how much time they needed going forward.
“This week plus next week and possibly into the week after,” Joshua Steinglass of the Manhattan district attorney’s office said. “Two weeks from tomorrow, maybe?”
The exchange between Merchan and prosecutors took place after a day of testimony from a former Trump Organization controller and an accounts payable supervisor at the company who was the first current employee to take the stand.
In testimony Monday, former Trump Organization executive Jeff McConney testified about instructions he said he received from then-chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg about a plan to reimburse Cohen for $130,000 in expenses. McConney said that he essentially doubled the amount Cohen was owed to help with his taxes and that the payments were listed as a $35,000-a-month “retainer” for his legal services.
Deborah Tarasoff, an accounts payable supervisor and the first current Trump Organization employee to testify, was the person who cut the checks to Cohen. She said they were sent to Trump while he was president for his signature. The checks, which bore Trump’s distinctive Sharpie signature, were displayed for the jury Monday.
