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Key hush money trial witness Stormy Daniels took the stand, regaling jurors with how she met former president Donald Trump and the lead-up to their now-infamous sexual encounter — that included Mr Trump telling the porn star that she reminded him of his daughter.
The porn star’s highly anticipated testimony comes on Tuesday, the fourth week of the hush money trial. Mr Trump has been accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to so-called hush money payments given to Ms Daniels ahead of the 2016 election in exchange for her siilence about the alleged affair in 2006 — one year after he married Melania.
After back-and-forth chit-chat in Mr Trump’s hotel suite, ranging from “The Apprentice” to Ms Daniels’ ascension from porn star to director, Ms Daniels recalled Mr Trump telling her: “You remind me of my daughter – smart, blond and beautiful. And people underestimate her as well.”
She testified that she had Mr Trump at a celebrity golf tournament on the golf course in Lake Tahoe in 2006. “It was a very brief encounter,” she told the court.
Soon after, the then-60-year-old real estate mogul invited the then-27-year-old porn star to dinner. Ms Daniels said she didn’t want to go, recalling her emphatic response: “No, with an expletive in front of it.”
A friend ultimately convinced her to go, she testified. Ms Daniels remembered her friend ominously telling her: “It’ll make a great story, he’s a business guy. What could possibly go wrong?”
She later wound up at Mr Trump’s penthouse room at Harrah’s, Ms Daniels recalled. Mr Trump’s suite “was three times the size of my apartment.”
Although she didn’t name which daughter, he was presumably talking about Ivanka.
Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who allegedly was also paid so-called hush money payments after having an affair with the former president, has previously discussed being compared to Ivanka by Mr Trump.
Speaking on “Anderson Cooper 360,” she said,“He’s very proud of Ivanka, as he should be. I mean, she’s a brilliant woman. She’s beautiful,” Ms McDougal said. “He said I was beautiful like her and, you know, you’re a smart girl. And there wasn’t a lot of comparing, but there was some, yes. I heard a lot about her. Yes.”
Her testimony echoes what she told “60 Minutes” in 2018. In that interview, she recounted her encounter with Mr Trump: “He was like, ‘Wow, you — you are special. You remind me of my daughter.’ You know — he was like, ‘You’re smart and beautiful, and a woman to be reckoned with, and I like you. I like you.”
After half a morning of testimony, the judge urged Ms Daniels to leave out some of the details, like what the floor tiles looked like.
At one point during the evening, Ms Daniels recalled, she came back from the bathroom and saw Mr Trump in boxers and a t-shirt. “At first I was just startled, like a jump scare,” she said. “I felt the blood leave my hands and my feet, almost like standing up too fast.”
She added, “I just thought, ‘Oh my god, What did I misread to get here?’ The intention was pretty clear.”
While testifying, Ms Daniels also posed to show what Mr Trump looked like horizontally on the bed, showing jurors that he had one hand on her head and one hand on her hip.
The adult film star also testified that she blacked out during the encounter, but emphasized that she had not been drugged and that this was consensual.
Mr Trump did not wear a condom, she testified, adding that the encounter was brief.
Afterward, he reportedly said, “That was great. Let’s get together, honeybunch.” Despite having asked her to get dinner with him, the pair never actually had dinner after all. Instead, she just took a cab back to her hotel.
“I told very few people that we had actually had sex. I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop it, that I didn’t say no,” Ms Daniels testified.
