Stormy Daniels testifies at Trump trial about alleged sexual encounter and "hush money" payment

Trump arrived at the courtroom wearing a marigold tie and dark suit just before 9:30 a.m. He ignored shouted questions and read a series of quotes about the trial from TV commentators. 

The former president defended the 2017 payments to Cohen, saying they were for legal expenses: "We didn't put it down as construction costs, the purchase of sheet rock, the electrical cost. The legal expense that we paid was put down as 'legal expense.' There's nothing else you can say."

"It's a very, very unfair trial. The good news is they have nothing," Trump said before entering the courtroom.

Susan Necheles, an attorney for Trump, said in court that the defense team was informed that Daniels will be the second witness called to the stand. She reiterated the defense's objection to any testimony about sexual acts.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger countered that "the details of the encounter ... are important" while saying the prosecution will not ask about "certain details that might be too salacious." She said Daniels would be asked to testify about "how she even ended up having a sexual act with him."

"It's not going to involve any descriptions of genitalia or anything of that nature," Hoffinger said.

Judge Juan Merchan acknowledged Necheles' point that Daniels has "credibility issues," but said that supported prosecutors "eliciting certain background information about the events that led to that encounter."

Prosecutors' first witness of the day is Sally Franklin, a senior vice president and executive managing editor at the publishing company Penguin Random House. She said she published several of Trump's books, including "Trump: How to Get Rich" and "Trump: Think Like a Billionaire."

Franklin read a series of excerpts from both books, which were co-authored by Meredith McIver, a Trump Organization staffer.

Some include references to his time on NBC's "The Apprentice": "All the women on 'The Apprentice' flirted with me — consciously or unconsciously. That's to be expected. A sexual dynamic is always present between people, unless you are asexual."

The excerpts also included passages about his "penny-pinching."

"When you're working with a decorator, make sure you ask to see all the invoices. Decorators are, by nature, honest people, but you should be checking regardless," one said.

The excerpts also demonstrated Trump's reliance on Trump Organization executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney. The one about McConney included an anecdote about Trump falsely telling McConney he was fired years ago — a story that McConney called "a teaching moment" when he recounted it on the stand Monday.

Prosecutors called Daniels to the stand to testify after both sides finished questioning Franklin.

"The people call Stormy Daniels," Hoffinger said, as the jurors all seemed to shift in their seats.

Daniels began her testimony by recounting her early life in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Born Stephanie Clifford, she said her parents split up when she was 4 years old and she was mostly raised by her mother. She said the family had a "very low income."

In high school, she danced ballet and had an affinity for horses. She said she taught riding lessons and worked at a stable in exchange for boarding her horse. At 17, she moved out and soon began exotic dancing. She said the club didn't ask to see her ID.

"I started dancing on the weekends, which was actually kind of cool, because I didn't have to miss any classes and I could still make more in two nights than I did shoveling manure eight hours a day," Daniels testified.

She said she started nude modeling at 21. She explained that clubs would bring in "guest stars," but they needed to have "credentials or credits" to be invited. She said that meant posing for magazines, entering competitions or performing in adult movies.

Daniels' introduction to adult films was an opportunity to earn more, she testified. At 23, she said she was an extra at a friend's shoot when the director saw her and "thought I was already an adult actress." Her friend told her that doing just one shoot would bump her "pay grade."

About six months later, she began writing and directing adult films. "I was one of the youngest, if not the youngest, adult feature directors and definitely the youngest female feature director," she said.

Daniels said she met Trump for the first time in 2006 when she was 27 and he was 60. Both were attending a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in Nevada. Daniels said she was there under contract with Wicked, an adult film company.

"Wicked sponsors one of the holes on the golf course, which, yes, I know it's very funny," she said on the stand.

Her duties entailed greeting golfers as they played through the hole where she was stationed. She said that is how she first met Trump, and that it was a "very brief encounter." She was introduced as a director, which caused Trump to take notice.

After his round, Trump saw Daniels again and remembered her from the course, she testified: "He remembered me specifically, that I was 'the smart one.' He asked for a DVD."

Prosecutors displayed a photo of Trump and Daniels together at the tournament:

Later, Trump's bodyguard asked if she wanted to have dinner with him, Daniels testified. She initially said no, but she and the bodyguard, Keith Schiller, exchanged numbers, she said.

Daniels testified that her friend encouraged her to take Trump up on his dinner offer, telling her: "What could possibly go wrong?"

She said she agreed to go and went to meet Trump at the hotel where he was staying. 

"I arrived and went upstairs. Keith had given me very specific instructions to take a certain elevator up to the penthouse floor," Daniels testified. She said the bodyguard told her that Trump was waiting for her inside. She entered and waited in a foyer with a "big, beautiful wooden table" with flowers. It was there where she encountered Trump, she said.

"He was wearing silk or satin pajamas, like two-piece pajamas, that I immediately made fun of him for, and said, 'Does Mr. Hefner know you stole his pajamas?'" Daniels remembered. "I told him to go change and he obliged very politely."

Trump came back in a dress shirt and dress pants, she testified. The hotel suite was "three times the size of my apartment," Daniels said, describing the room in detail.

Eventually they sat at the dining room table. 

"It wasn't even dark outside just yet. [There] was still some light coming through the windows. And he said, 'You know, it's a little bit early, would you mind like just talking for a bit and get to know each other?'" she recalled, saying they talked about her childhood and "getting-to-know-you" topics.

They also discussed her work, according to Daniels: "He was very interested in how I would segue from being a porn star to writing and directing … He was interested in a lot of the business aspects of it, which I thought was very cool. He asked questions like, are there any unions? Do you get residuals? How are the people paid?"

Daniels also said they had a "very brief" discussion about his wife, Melania. "He said, 'Don't worry about it, we actually don't even sleep in the same room,'" she told the court.

Throughout the conversation, Daniels remembered, Trump would "ask me questions and then not let me finish the answer. 

"He kept cutting me off. It was almost like he wanted to one-up me, to talk about himself."

Eventually, she said she "had enough of his arrogance and cutting me off and not giving me my dinner." She testified that she asked him, "Are you always this rude, arrogant and pompous?" and said, "Someone should spank you."

Trump gave her a magazine, Daniels testified. "I don't think he thought I would do it," she said. "So, I took it from him and said, 'Turn around,' and I swatted him … right on the butt."

The conversation turned to "The Apprentice," Daniels remembered. Trump told her that she should be a contestant, to which she replied: "There's no way that NBC would ever allow an adult actress on television." 

"He said, 'You remind me of my daughter because she's smart and blond and beautiful and people underestimate her as well,'" Daniels said. She added that Trump offered to tell her what the show's challenges were ahead of time: "I can't have you win … but I can give you some advantage to make sure you at least make a good showing."

Daniels said she and Trump spoke in the suite for "close to two hours." 

With that, the court took a break. Trump did not look at Daniels as she testified.

After the break, Merchan told Hoffinger that Daniels' testimony did not need to be as detailed moving forward.

"Ms. Hoffinger, the degree of detail we're going into here is just unnecessary," he said. "We don't need to know the details of the conversations, what the suite looked like or anything like that."

Back on the stand, Daniels picked up where she left off. She said she left the dining room in Trump's suite and made her way to "what I assume was a master bathroom." She said she noticed a toiletry bag on the counter.

"I did look. I'm not proud of it. I wondered what is in here,'" she recalled. "The items were Old Spice and Pert Plus. I thought that was both amusing and odd. And a manicure set, which was gold. Gold tweezers and all gold things."

Daniels said Trump was on the bed in his boxers and a t-shirt when she came out. She said she was startled. "I wasn't expecting someone to be there, especially minus a lot of clothing," she testified. 

"I felt the blood leave my hands and my feet, almost like when you stand up too fast, and everything kind of spinned," she said. "And I just thought, 'Oh my God, what did I misread to get here?'"

Trump was "posing" on the bed, holding his head up with one hand, Daniels said, demonstrating for the jury.

"I said, 'I've got to go,'" she testified. "And he said, 'I thought we were getting somewhere, we were talking, and I thought you were serious about what you wanted.'"

Daniels said she did not feel physically threatened, and likened the experience to being "in a funhouse, moving in slow motion." She said she didn't remember what happened next: "I just think I blacked out. I was not drugged. I was not drunk. I just don't remember."

She said she remembers being on the other side of the bed, with her clothes and shoes off, still wearing her bra. She said she and Trump had sex on the bed: "I was staring at the ceiling. I didn't know how I got there. I made note, like I was trying to think about anything other than what was happening there."

Daniels testified that Trump didn't wear a condom. 

"Was that concerning?" asked Hoffinger, the prosecutor.

"Yes," Daniels said. 

"Did you say anything about it?" 

"No." 

"Why?" 

"I didn't say anything at all," Daniels answered.

She said they did not go to dinner and she took a cab back to her hotel. 

"I told very few people that we had actually had sex because I felt ashamed that I didn't stop it, that I didn't say no," Daniels testified. "A lot of people would just assume. They would make jokes out of it. I didn't think it was funny."

Daniels said she saw Trump later that weekend at a nightclub at the hotel where she was staying. His bodyguard approached her and asked if Trump could speak with her, she remembered. She agreed because "it was in public."

She said Trump was with Ben Roethlisberger, the quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and she convinced him to let her try on his Super Bowl ring: "I remember it clearly because … two of my fingers fit into it." Trump left, and asked Roethlisberger to walk Daniels to her room, she said.

After that weekend, Daniels said Trump would call her about once a week. She said she would always put him on speaker phone so others could hear him: "We thought it was funny … Dozens and dozens of people heard me on the phone with him. It was not a secret."

She said she told "scores" of people that she had gone up to his hotel room, but only a handful of friends knew that they had sex.

Daniels said she kept taking his calls because "my publicist thought it was good to continue my conversations with him about the television show."

She said she attended the launch of Trump's vodka brand in 2007 at his invitation: "He spent most of the time talking to my friend, but every time I came over, he asked me if I would go back with him that night." She declined.

Later on, she visited him at Trump Tower in New York. She said he was very busy and the interaction was brief. 

In July 2007, Daniels said Trump called her and said he was working to get her on the spin-off "Celebrity Apprentice." She said he asked her to meet him at his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles to discuss the matter further. She had her boyfriend at the time drive her to the hotel. She said she and Trump spoke but did not have sex.

Asked if Trump wanted her to keep their interactions confidential, Daniels answered, "Absolutely not."

The Los Angeles meeting was the last time she saw him. She said he called her several weeks later to tell her he had been "overruled" and couldn't get her on the show. 

Daniels said she moved on with her life. She told the court the next three years were "pretty awesome."

In 2011, Daniels agreed to an interview with the gossip magazine In Touch about her experience with Trump. She was supposed to be paid $15,000. Gina Rodriguez, her agent, arranged the deal. 

On the stand, Daniels said she agreed to the interview because she wanted to "control the narrative" and would "rather make money than someone make money off of me." 

She said the interview lasted 10 or 15 minutes. The magazine didn't run the story. (In Touch would eventually publish it in 2018, after Daniels' allegations came to light.)

Two employees later tell CBS News that the interview never ran because Cohen, Trump's attorney, threatened to sue when the publication asked Trump for comment. Daniels was never paid.

Several weeks later, Daniels said she was approached by a man in a parking lot while she was with her daughter. "He threatened me to not continue telling my story" about Trump, Daniels testified. She said she didn't go to the police because she was scared.

Jumping forward to 2016, Daniels said she was focused on selling the story because, at first, she believed getting it out in public would make her safer.

"It was motivated out of fear, not money," she said.

Before the "Access Hollywood" tape was revealed in early October, Daniels' agent Gina Rodriguez couldn't sell the story. After the recording was released, Daniels said she soon learned that Trump was interested in securing the rights. 

Daniels said she preferred this route because her husband wouldn't find out about the alleged sexual encounter. She said she was "happy to get it taken care of." Her financial outlook was "the best it had ever been," Daniels testified. 

She said she wanted to get the deal done by Oct. 14. "I was afraid that if it wasn't done before the [election] then I wouldn't be safe, or that he would never pay, and there wouldn't be a trail to keep me safe," Daniels told the court.

She said she understood that accepting the deal for $130,000 meant that "I could not tell my story, and that he also could not tell the story."

Daniels said Trump's side "kept making excuses" as the weeks dragged on and no deal was finalized. "It made me more concerned that something bad was going to happen, and that if it wasn't done before the election, that it was not ever going to happen because he got whatever he wanted," she testified.

The court then took a break for lunch.

Todd Blanche, Trump's lead defense attorney, asked the judge to declare a mistrial as the court returned from lunch.

"The court set guardrails for this testimony, and the guardrails, by the witness answering questions from the government, were just thrown to the side," Blanche argued, before the jury reentered the courtroom. "And there is no way to unring the bell."

Blanche said her story is "way different from what she was peddling in 2016."

He cited testimony about being "blacked out" and Trump not wearing a condom, as well as Daniels' description of Trump's hotel suite and the power dynamic in the room.

"All of this has nothing to do with this case and it's extraordinarily prejudicial," Blanche said.

He said the testimony was designed "to inflame the jury to not look at the evidence that matters."

He protested her repeated assertions that she preferred to meet Trump in public after their alleged sexual encounter.

"What's the jury to make of that?" Blanche asked. He noted that Merchan sustained objections, but the jury still heard Daniels' answers.

Merchan said he agreed with Blanche that there were "some things that would be better left unsaid" in Daniels' testimony and that she was "a little bit difficult to control."

But he said there were still "guardrails in place," referring to limits on what the prosecution could ask about. 

"I don't believe we're at the point where a mistrial is warranted," said Merchan. "I will note that where there were objections, those objections for the most part were sustained ... I will also note that I was surprised there were not more objections."

Merchan pointed out that he personally objected at one point because "there was no objection coming from the defense," and told them to take some responsibility.

"Whether these are new stories or not new stories, the remedy is on cross-examination," added Merchan.

He also offered to limit what the jury can consider regarding Daniels' story about being threatened in a parking lot.

"The court has done everything that I could possibly do to protect both sides," Merchan said.

Returning to the stand, Daniels resumed her testimony about the nondisclosure agreement from October 2016. She read aloud an email from her attorney Keith Davidson to Cohen on Oct. 17, in which Davidson told him the deal was off. 

A week later, Davidson told Cohen, David Pecker and Dylan Howard that Daniels was preparing to tell her story to another outlet. On the stand, Daniels said she spoke with the news site Slate before the deal with Cohen was ultimately finalized. Slate was not offering to pay her.

Cohen wired $130,000 to Davidson on Oct. 27. On Nov. 1, Cohen received a signed copy of the agreement, with Daniels' signature next to the pseudonym "Peggy Peterson."

Daniels said she ended up with about $96,000 after fees for her attorney and agent. She said the Wall Street Journal reached out to her on Nov. 4, the same day the paper revealed the first "hush money" payment to the model Karen McDougal. McDougal also claimed she had sex with Trump and was paid $150,000 by the National Enquirer's parent company for the rights to her story in August 2016. Trump denies her account.

Daniels said she declined to comment to the Journal, citing the NDA she had signed just days before.

The prosecution jumped forward once again to January 2018. Daniels said she was coming off "probably my best year ever," marked by several career accolades. "My neighbors in my neighborhood, they had no idea that they lived next door to Stormy Daniels," she said. 

The Wall Street Journal was preparing a story about the "hush money" payment and reached out for comment on Jan. 10, Daniels said. 

Davidson, her attorney, sent her a statement to sign, denying the sexual encounter. She said she did not want to sign it since it was false and because "I was told that saying anything at all, anything, was a violation of the NDA."

Once the Journal's story was published, Daniels said her life became "chaos."

"Suddenly I was front and foremost everywhere. People on the front lawn. My husband asking questions, my friends asking questions," she said. "It blew my cover, I guess, for lack of a better way of explaining it, to everyone that I rode horses with, everyone in my neighborhood, everyone in my daughter's friends."

At the end of January, Daniels appeared on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" She said Gina Rodriguez, her agent, set it up. She said she was instructed not to talk about the NDA. 

Before going on the show, she signed another statement prepared by Davidson, her lawyer, denying that she had an affair with Trump. 

"I signed it 'Stormy Daniels,' but I signed it not how my signature looks any time I've ever signed it," she testified in court. "As a tip off to Jimmy Kimmel."

On the show, Kimmel asked if she had signed the statement. She replied, "that does not look like my signature, does it?"

The prosecution wrapped up its examination with a series of rapid-fire questions about Daniels' interviews and appearances once she was released from her NDA.

In February 2018, Daniels hired a new attorney: Michael Avenatti. He filed a lawsuit against Trump and the LLC that Cohen used to make the $130,000 payment. The suit sought to nullify the nondisclosure agreement since Trump never signed it. By the fall of 2018, Cohen and Trump had agreed not to enforce the agreement.

Avenatti would later be convicted of stealing from clients, including $300,000 that Daniels was owed as part of a book deal. He is currently in prison.

Daniels testified that she wrote her book "so my daughter had an account from her mom's own words of what I lived through, and why I did the things that I did." She also appeared on Cohen's podcast in 2021 and 2022, and was paid about $100,000 from documentary producers for the rights to her book.

During a sidebar, Daniels leaned forward and asked the court reporter if her cadence had been better. Daniels had been urged to slow down at several points earlier in her testimony.

Trump attorney Susan Necheles almost immediately began questioning Daniels' motivations, at first asking if she is driven by money.

"Don't we all want to make more money in our jobs?" Daniels replied.

Necheles asked Daniels if she hates Trump.

"Yes," Daniels said.

"And you want him to go to jail?" Necheles asked soon after.

"I want him to be held accountable," Daniels said.

Necheles reiterated her question: "You want him to go to jail, am I correct?"

"If he's found guilty, absolutely," Daniels said.

Last year, Daniels was ordered to pay $121,000 in Trump's legal fees stemming from a dismissed defamation lawsuit. Necheles asked if it was true that she doesn't intend to pay those fees, and whether she said she would "go to jail before I pay him a penny," referring to a 2022 tweet by Daniels.

"Yes," Daniels said.

Trump, who had not watched Daniels during her questioning by prosecutors, was turned toward her throughout Necheles' examination.

Daniels was shown a financial disclosure form she had to provide in connection with an attempt by Trump to collect debt. Necheles said she omitted a lot of key information and tried to quiz Daniels on the lapses, but was interrupted by several objections. 

Trump's attorney then asked Daniels about a "million-dollar" ranch she bought. "Isn't it true that you have been hiding your assets because you don't want to pay the judgment against you?"

"No," Daniels said.

Necheles asked if Daniels is hoping she won't have to pay Trump if he's convicted and imprisoned.

"I'm hoping I don't have to pay him no matter what happens," Daniels said, combatively.

Necheles asked if Daniels has been "making money by claiming to have had sex with President Trump."

"I've been making money by telling my story," Daniels said.

"That story has made you a lot of money, right?" Necheles asked.

"It has also cost me a lot of money," Daniels replied.

Continuing a confrontational line of questioning, Necheles asked Daniels about her claim that she was threatened by an unknown man in a parking lot in 2011, after she gave an interview to In Touch about Trump. She first told the story in an interview with Anderson Cooper on "60 Minutes" in 2018. 

"For seven years, it's your claim that you kept this story secret from your husband, right?" Necheles asked. 

"I kept all of it secret from my husband," Daniels replied.

Necheles pointed out what she said were inconsistencies in her account. In her book, Daniels wrote that she went to an exercise class after the alleged threat. On the stand, she said she went to the bathroom outside the class but couldn't take the class itself. 

Trump's attorney suggested Daniels made up the threat in 2018 to explain why she hadn't come forward about the alleged sexual encounter with Trump earlier.

"The reason you told this story in 2018 is, you were using it as an excuse for why you never publicly said before that you had had sex with President Trump; right?" Necheles said. "You used this supposed threat that happened to you as an excuse to tell people, 'This is why I didn't talk publicly, I was afraid.'"

She suggested the man who Daniels said threatened her "never existed."

Necheles ended the day with questions about when Daniels decided to sell her story. The tension in the courtroom was palpable throughout Necheles' cross examination.

"You were looking to extort money from President Trump, right?" she asked.

"False," Daniels replied.

"Well, that's what you did," Necheles said.

"False," Daniels repeated. "I was terrified so I decided to change my tactic."

Necheles showed text messages between Daniels' agent Gina Rodriguez and Dylan Howard, the editor of the National Enquirer, from 2016. Daniels said she authorized Rodriguez to shop her story to outlets "so I could make it public." 

Rodriguez told Howard "I have her," referring to Daniels. She said Daniels was prepared to tell her story if it went through a source and wanted $100,000.

With that, the court adjourned for the day. Daniels will return to the stand on Thursday when the trial resumes.

Merchan, the judge, warned Blanche that Trump's behavior was "contemptuous" during Daniels' testimony. He said during a sidebar that the former president was "cursing audibly" and "shaking his head visually" as Daniels testified, according to a transcript of the conversation.

The exchange took place just after Daniels described a two-hour conversation she says she had with Trump in a hotel suite before they had sex. She had not yet described the alleged sexual encounter.

"I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that's contemptuous," Merchan said. "It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that."

Merchan told Blanche, "I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don't want to embarrass him."

"I will talk to him," Blanche replied.