Trump trial highlights: Actor Stormy Daniels testifies about sex with Trump, hush money payments

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has indefinitely postponed Trump’s Florida classified docs trial pending resolution of multiple pending pretrial issues. The trial had been scheduled to start May 20.

"The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture—before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA issues remaining and forthcoming—would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury," she wrote in a decision. "The Court therefore vacates the current May 20, 2024, trial date (and associated calendar call), to be reset by separate order following resolution of the matters before the Court, consistent with Defendants’ right to due process and the public’s interest in the fair and efficient administration of justice."

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Speaking to cameras for a few minutes outside the courtroom, Trump said, "This was a very big day ... a very revealing day."

"Their case is totally falling apart," he said about the DA's office. "This whole case is a disaster."

Trump, as usual, complained that he should be out on the campaign trail instead of sitting for this trial. "I'm stuck. I'm here instead of" Georgia, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and other states, he said.

He didn't comment on the specifics of the testimony today or Stormy Daniels as a witness.

He also said Biden's backers "seem to be funding" the protests at college campuses — although he didn't explain why they would pay for protests that are critical of Biden. "I think our government ought to find out who they are, where they're from" and treat them like "the J6 hostages."

Under aggressive cross-examination, Daniels appeared frustrated and pushed back against questions that she suggested made no sense or were misleading.

"I don’t know what this is about. Is this about sex, is this about being threatened? You want me to comment on something, and I don’t know what it is, and that’s not fair," she said.

Daniels was being pressed about the details of communications that didn't involve her hush money payment, but she said that she couldn't speak for other people and that she was confused: "I don’t want to confirm or deny something when I don’t know what they’re talking about."

Trial proceedings have ended for the day.

Judge Merchan said court will reconvene Thursday at 9:30 a.m.

Trump attorney Susan Necheles asked Daniels whether she decided she was going to sell her story about her encounter with Trump. Daniels said she didn't just decide that; she had been given advice.

“I was a much braver and much different person” than in 2011, Daniels said.

Daniels said an attorney told her to get high and in front of the story. "Hide in plain view," she said, adding that she didn't know what the story was worth in 2011.

The afternoon break is over, with Judge Merchan back on the bench and the jury being seated once again.

Once seated, Merchan said that if it looks that they will have to continue with Daniels' testimony Thursday, court will adjourn early today at 4:30 p.m.

Court is out of session Wednesday.

The court is taking a brief recess.

Throughout the cross-examination, Trump attorney Susan Necheles has been incredibly facile with every detail of the stories recounted by Daniels in her 2018 book and in other public places.

Necheles is notably exploiting every inconsistency, no matter how minor, to suggest that Daniels is not credible.

“Your daughter’s life was in jeopardy and you did not tell her father — but you went on Anderson Cooper and decided to tell the world?” Necheles asked, seemingly attacking Daniels' character and credibility.

Trump lawyer Susan Necheles asked Daniels about the parking lot encounter she testified about earlier that happened in 2011 in which she said a man approached her and threatened her and her infant daughter.

Daniels said she told a close friend about the incident and instead of going to a planned exercise class, she went to the restroom after this happened. She said she had to explain to the instructor where she was.

"I lied to her and told her my baby had a blowout in the diaper, and that’s why I was crying in the bathroom," Daniels said.

The defense is seemingly pushing Daniels to speak on if she purposely spoke about having sex with Trump as a way to make money.

“A story about President Trump that doesn’t include sex will make you no money, right?” Trump attorney Susan Necheles asked.

"It taught me that I should tell the truth," Daniels responded.

During questioning from Trump attorney Susan Necheles, Stormy Daniels said attorney Gloria Allred wanted her to accuse the former president of rape.

Daniels was asked about a conversation she had with Allred in 2011 that was described in her book "Full Disclosure." Necheles asked Daniels if she told Allred that she did not have sex with Trump. Daniels disputed that, saying she told the famed attorney that she slept with him but did not give her any details due to a lack of trust.

"I did not tell her all the sex details; I did not trust her," Daniels said. "And she wanted me to accuse him of forced … basically rape."

Trump lawyer Susan Necheles pressed Daniels on whether she filled out a form disclosing her finances, which Necheles said was mandated by legal proceedings trying to recoup legal feels Daniels owes Trump.

Necheles argued that Daniels has "totally refused to fill out that form," seemingly trying to impugn Daniels' credibility as a witness and suggest she has ulterior motives. Daniels countered that her attorney filled out "parts of it," but Necheles showed that the completed form included major gaps.

"Isn’t it true that you hope Donald Trump is convicted so you won't have to pay him more than $500,000 you owe him?" Necheles asked.

"I hope I don’t have to pay him no matter what happens," Daniels replied.

Trump lawyer Susan Necheles asked Daniels if she claimed she had sex with Trump. Daniels asked Necheles if she was referring to what she wrote in her book and then said yes.

Asked if it's true that she's been making money by saying for more than a decade that she had sex with Trump, Daniels said she's been making money by telling her story about what happened to her.

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

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

The defense put up an exhibit on the screens in the courtroom, but Judge Merchan told them to remove it.

"Take that down, please. Take it down. Take it down," Merchan said.

The judge called for a sidebar with lawyers in the case, seemingly upset about what was displayed on the screens. It wasn't immediately clear what the exhibit showed.

Trump lawyer Susan Necheles entered into evidence a tweet from Daniels in November 2022 that said, “I don’t owe him s--- and I’ll never give that orange turd a dime (crying laughing emoji)."

Necheles asked Daniels to confirm that it was an example of making fun of Trump because she despises him and calls him names all the time. Daniels said yes, adding it was because Trump made fun of her first.

Trump defense attorney Susan Necheles questioned Daniels on the legal fees she owes Trump over her failed California defamation suit against him.

Daniels acknowledged that she owes Trump more than $660,000 in attorneys fees — a sum far larger than the initial amount she owed, due to several appeals that failed. Asked if she knew that California charges 10% annual interest on outstanding fees, Daniels said she did not.

Daniels has publicly said that she does not want to pay Trump because she doesn't feel she owes him anything and could not afford to, so Trump's attorney used her stance to suggest Daniels has contempt for the rule of law.

Since the start of the trial, reporters, courtroom sketch artists and legal analysts have been using binoculars to get a better look at people in the courtroom since cameras are not allowed.

But amid the heated cross-examination of Daniels, reporters are being told by court officers that they can no longer use binoculars.

The jury has been very attentive and watching carefully during the cross-examination.

Trump lawyer Susan Necheles asked Daniels if she hates Trump and Daniels said yes.

Asked if she wants Trump to go to jail, Daniels said that she wants "him to be held accountable" and "if he is found guilty, absolutely."

Daniels' tone is noticeably different during the first few questions of cross-examination.

As the defense begins their questioning, Daniels sounds punchier and more clipped in her responses.

Daniels said she has not paid off the full amount she owes Trump from a defamation case “because I don’t have the means to pay and I didn’t think it was fair.”

Daniels lost a defamation case against Trump in California spearheaded by her disgraced former lawyer, Michael Avenatti, and was found liable for Trump's legal fees. The case was not about Daniels' alleged affair with Trump per se, but instead about a tweet he posted calling into question her credibility in relation to a threat she says she received in a Las Vegas parking lot.

The judge in that case ruled that Trump's tweet was rhetorical hyperbole protected by the First Amendment and ordered Daniels to pay Trump the cost of his legal fees in case, which totaled more than $300,000. “I will go to jail before I pay a penny,” she tweeted at the time.

Trump lawyer Susan Necheles has begun cross-examining Daniels.

Stormy Daniels testified that she was paid $125,000 for licensing rights to her story in connection with the Peacock documentary.

She said she did the documentary to get the truth out in an updated form, explaining that initially she had agreed to participate years before she spoke to the DA's office for the first time, in 2023.

Stormy Daniels said that Michael Cohen prevented her from coming out and telling the truth by filing a temporary restraining order that dictated there would be a $1 million fine for breaking the NDA per episode.

"It was to keep me from speaking or I would be held accountable for the million dollars that was mentioned in the NDA," she said.

Daniels said she hired Michael Avenatti as her new lawyer at the time "so that I could stand up for myself." She said Avenatti then filed a lawsuit against Trump and Cohen.

Daniels said that she had been brought a statement to sign before going on the Jimmy Kimmel show, but that she purposely signed the document with a different signature.

She said that she signed it in her name, Stormy Daniels, but did so in a way that made the signature look different from all of her previous signatures as a way to "tip off" Kimmel that something was off in the statement.

Daniels testified that 2017 was "probably my best year ever."

Why? She said she wrote and directed one of the most successful adult movies ever made. She said her horse — she's a competitive equestrian — was ranked eighth in the country. And she said her daughter "was a straight-A student."

But perhaps most importantly, that was the last year before she became a household name — The Wall Street Journal broke the story of her alleged affair with Trump and the subsequent payoff in January 2018. "My neighbors in my neighborhood had no idea they lived next door to Stormy Daniels," she said.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Daniels what happened to her life after The Wall Street Journal reported that there was a deal made to buy her silence on her story about Trump ahead of the election.

"Chaos," she said. "My husband asking questions, my friends asking questions."

She said it "blew my cover" and "we were ostracized" from friend groups, horse groups and more.

Suddenly, she testified, there were people on her front lawn; her friends, colleagues and neighbors were asking questions.

Trump called for a mistrial, posting to his social media site just minutes before returning to court this afternoon.

"THE PROSECUTION, WHICH HAS NO CASE, HAS GONE TOO FAR. MISTRIAL!" Trump's post read.

His post came just before his lawyer, Todd Blanche, called for a mistrial at the beginning of this afternoon's court proceedings.

Daniels testified that she spoke to Slate magazine in October 2016 about her sexual encounter with Trump and that the magazine wasn't going to pay her for the story.

Separately, the deal whereby she would be paid to keep quiet was revived around Oct. 28, 2016, with essentially the same terms, including a $1 million liquidated damages clause.

Stormy Daniels is back on the witness stand and testifying about the payment she received.

In asking for a mistrial, Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche laid the groundwork for Trump and his team to try to discredit the trial later, arguing the jury has now been prejudiced and that a fair trial is no longer possible.

"This is extraordinarily prejudicial testimony and you can’t fix it," he said of Stormy Daniels' testimony about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump. "This is the kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from."

Blanche argued that much of Daniels' testimony had nothing to do with the trial itself, which is about falsification of business records, and said her testimony was merely meant to embarrass Trump and "inflame the jury."

He went on to say that testimony was "so prejudicial that there’s a risk the jury won’t be able to focus on the evidence" of the case itself.

Merchan has denied the motion for a mistrial that was brought by Trump's defense team.

“As a threshold matter, Mr. Blanche, I agree that there were things that would have been better left unsaid," the judge said. “I think the witness was a little difficult to control.”

“I don’t believe we’re at the point where a mistrial is warranted," he added. “I’m also surprised that there were not more objections."

Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche said the defense team moves for a mistrial based on the testimony from Daniels this morning.

Blanche argued that the guardrails were thrown aside and the testimony was unduly prejudicial to Trump and the charges in the case. He said her testimony about her encounter with Trump in 2006 is much different from the stories she was telling in 2016.

He said that her testimony has nothing to do with the case and argued that the only reason prosecutors asked about the encounter aside from embarrassing Trump was to inflame the jury.

"What's the jury to do with that?" he said. "It’s still extraordinarily prejudicial to insert safety — safety concerns into a trial about business records."

"There's no way to unring the bell in our view," he said.

Blanche said Daniels' testimony that she "blacked out" before having sex with Trump "is the kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from."

Mayor Eric Adams said the city’s Department of Correction and Rikers Island will be ready if Trump is thrown in jail for violating Merchan’s gag order in the trial.

The department's commissioner, Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, “is prepared for whatever comes on Rikers Island, and I’m pretty sure she would be prepared to manage and deal with the situation,” Adams said during a news conference today, citing Harvey Weinstein’s recent transfer to the medical ward at the jail.

“We have to adjust,” he said. “In this business, particularly around law enforcement, we have to adjust whatever comes our way, but we don’t want to deal with a hypothetical. But they’re professionals. They’ll be ready.”

Asked whether he has had discussions with the department about Trump’s situation, Adams said, “Yes, we have.”

The trial has taken a lunch break until 2 p.m., when direct examination of Daniels will continue.

Eric Trump, the adult son of the former president who is in attendance for today's court proceedings, slammed the trial in a post to his account on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"Pure EXTORTION!!!!" he wrote.

Daniels said that as part of the $130,000 agreement barring her from telling her story about her sexual encounter with Trump, the two couldn't have any contact.

"We had to pretend that we didn’t know each other at all, basically," she testified.

Daniels says she accepted $130,000 to sign the nondisclosure agreement even though she understood Trump was the beneficiary of it.

In an exchange with the prosecution, she testified that Michael Cohen was representing Trump at the time. She said she signed the agreement because she wanted the whole ordeal to be over, not for the money.

The prosecution has tried on a number of occasions today to anticipate certain lines of questioning that are likely to arise on cross-examination, so that the jury hears the answers on her terms first.

For instance, Daniels has said that she wasn’t motivated by money, when the defense team is likely to claim she was, and she says she didn’t report the threatening interaction with the man in the parking lot to police because she was scared.

Daniels testified that she was offered $130,000 for the story about her and Trump, but that "the money didn't matter" to her.

The prosecution asked, “How did you feel about $130,000 at the time?” to which Daniels responded, “I didn’t care about the amounts. It was just get it done.”

“The money didn’t matter to me. I didn’t pick a number,” Daniels continued.

The prosecution went on to ask, “Why didn’t you ask for more money?” and Daniels answered, “Because I didn’t care about the money.”

Stormy Daniels said that after the resurfacing of the "Access Hollywood" tape in October 2016, she was focused on selling her story and that more people were calling and expressing interest in it.

“Did you have any intention of approaching either Mr. Trump or Michael Cohen, his attorney, to have them pay for your story?” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked.

Daniels said no, her motivation wasn't money. She just wanted to get her story out publicly.

Daniels detailed an encounter she had in a parking lot in Las Vegas after she was interviewed by In Touch magazine.

She said she and her daughter were heading to a “mommy and me” workout class when she was approached by a man in the parking lot.

“I thought he was the husband or something of one of the other women in the class,” she said. “He threatened me not to continue to tell my story.”

Asked by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger about what story he was referring to, Daniels said, “About my encounter with” Trump.

Daniels said that she didn’t tell the police about the encounter because she was scared and that she didn’t tell her boyfriend at the time either about the encounter in the parking lot, saying that he was struggling mentally with postpartum issues related to the birth of their daughter as well as alcoholism.

She said she never told her boyfriend about her sexual encounter with Trump because if she told him when “his world was exploding,” his reaction wouldn’t have been good.

The members of the general public taking up four rows in the overflow room were buzzing with excitement before Stormy Daniels took the stand.

They kept up the enthusiasm during the first couple of hours of her testimony, occasionally laughing at some of her lighthearted comments or whispering about a particularly salacious detail from her story.

But the interest seems to have waned over the last 30 minutes or so. At least two people appear to be falling asleep.

Daniels testified that in 2011, she was contacted by someone with In Touch magazine who said they were going to a publish a story about her affair with Trump and offered her $15,000 to participate.

"I freaked out. I don’t know who leaked it," she said. "I said no at first, but they said they’re going to run it anyway."

She said she decided to do the interview "so I could control the narrative."

The magazine was then owned by American Media Inc. — the same parent company as the National Enquirer — which was run by David Pecker, who testified earlier in the trial about buying and suppressing unflattering stories in order to protect Trump.

Stormy Daniels said she met with Trump in the summer of 2007 at his bungalow in Los Angeles.

Asked why she went to see him, Daniels said it was because of "The Apprentice."

After going into the bungalow with Trump, Daniels said, "he kept trying to make sexual advances, putting his hand on my leg, scooting closer."

"I told him I was on my period," Daniels said, adding she was there for between one and two hours.

Daniels testified that Trump tried to call her a few more times, saying in one instance that he would not be able to put her on his TV show. After that, he tried to call again, but she didn't answer.

The meeting at the bungalow was the last time she saw him, she said.

Daniels detailed her meeting with Trump at the Trump Tower in 2007 after he suggested she visit.

Daniels said she was there for about an hour and a half to two hours. She recalled going up to his office to meet him and had met with his assistant, Rhona Graff, in the lobby area.

During their meeting, Daniels recalled Trump telling her that he didn't have a lot of time, but that he wanted her to stop by and say hi and he was "still working on the 'Apprentice' thing."

Daniels said Trump also offered tickets to pageants. Asked if he seemed concerned about others seeing her there, she said, "Oh, no, he introduced me to everybody. He just seemed busy."

Daniels said that Trump asked to see her again at the Trump Vodka launch in January 2007, but she testified that she lied to him.

She testified that when she went to Trump Tower later in 2007, he again tried to get her to see him again. She testified he said he missed her.

Daniels also testified that Trump introduced her to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model and another alleged Trump paramour, at the Trump Vodka launch. She said she met up with Trump in the VIP section, and he introduced her to a woman named Karen, whom she later learned was McDougal.

Trump has also denied having sex with McDougal.

Daniels testified that she later attended the launch of Trump Vodka, in January 2007 in Los Angeles, along with a couple of her friends.

She said that Trump had asked her to go and she decided to attend in hopes of maintaining the relationship with him.

"The chance to be on 'The Apprentice' was still up in the air," Daniels said, adding that it would have been great for her career.

Asked by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger if Trump would call her, Daniels said he would call her often.

“He would call on average once a week, sometimes two to three times a week, sometimes not for three weeks,” and she would put him on speakerphone but didn't tell him that, she said.

Daniels recalled Trump calling "with an update or a nonupdate if he didn’t have one, for 'The Apprentice,'" and that he would always call her "honeybunch."

She said she took Trump's calls because her publicist thought it was a good idea to continue the conversations about the TV show.

Stormy Daniels said she saw Trump the next day at the bar in the lobby of the hotel.

"He introduced me as his little friend Stormy to 'Big Ben' the football player," she said, referring to Ben Roethlisberger, then the star quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Daniels added that she talked Roethlisberger into letting her try on his Super Bowl ring.

Trump left and had Roethlisberger walk Daniels back to her room after the group spent about 10 minutes together, she said.

Daniels has previously detailed the episode with Roethlisberger, saying he walked her up to her room after about 15 to 20 more minutes in the hotel lobby. Daniels wrote in a book that Roethlisberger requested a “good night kiss,” which she denied, saying he then lightly pushed her hotel room door. She said she was “terrified” by the situation.

Roethlisberger has twice faced allegations of sexual assault, which he has denied. He has never faced criminal charges related to them. But he did settle a civil suit stemming from the allegation that he raped a woman in his hotel room in 2008 at the same Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament where Daniels alleged her affair with Trump took place in 2006.

This is a bumpy direct examination for the prosecution. It’s helpful to the prosecution to bolster Daniels' credibility with details, but the judge has limited how far they can go, and she keeps volunteering more than she’s been asked. The judge has repeatedly asked for tighter answers and fewer extraneous details. The judge is sustaining most objections lodged by the defense.

Daniels said she told people about her sexual encounter with Trump, but felt "ashamed" that she didn't put a halt to it.

“I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop it and that I didn’t say no,” she said, adding that she didn’t want people to incorrectly think she was a prostitute.

Daniels testified that Trump did not ask her to keep their sexual encounter confidential.

"He didn’t give me anything; he didn’t offer to pay me or give me his cellphone number or anything like that," Daniels said.

Daniels went on to say that Trump also did not express any concern about his wife finding out.

The jury is mostly expressionless throughout the last portion of Daniels' testimony about having sex with Trump.

Stormy Daniels said that after she had sex with Trump, he said to her, "Oh, it was great. Let’s get together again, honeybunch."

She said it was hard to dress because her hands were shaking so hard.

"I just left as fast as I could," she testified.

After being asked if she felt anything "unusual" during her sexual encounter with Trump, Daniels said she was staring at the ceiling wondering how she got there, and trying to think of something other than what was happening.

Prosecutor Hoffinger then asked Daniels if he was wearing a condom.

Daniels replied, “No.”

Asked if that was concerning to her, Daniels said, “yes,” but she did not say anything about it to Trump, and that the sex itself was brief.

The prosecution asked Daniels if she felt anything "unusual" while having sex with Trump. The defense objected and the objection was sustained.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Stormy Daniels, "Did you end up on the bed having sex with him?"

"Yes," she said, adding that she went to the opposite side of the bed and had her clothes and shoes off.

"The next thing I know, I was on the bed, somehow on the opposite side of the bed from where we had been standing. I had my clothes and my shoes off," she said.

The defense appeared to make an objection, which Judge Merchan sustained. He seemed to be angry at prosecutors and has warned them not to get into unnecessary detail.

Daniels said after she went to the restroom and returned, she was "startled" to find Trump sitting on his bed in only boxer shorts.

It was "like a jump scare," she said. "And that’s when I had that moment where I felt like the room spun in slow motion," she said, describing her internal thinking: "Great, I’ve put myself in this bad situation."

"He didn’t come at me, he didn’t rush at me, he didn’t put his hands on me, nothing like that," she continued.

But she said he told her something to the effect of if she ever wanted to get out of the trailer park, he could help her. "I thought you were serious about what you wanted," she said Trump told her.

Stormy Daniels said she eventually had to use the bathroom. She said she and Trump had only been drinking water.

"I’d been there quite a while, drank a couple bottles of water, and that’s all we were drinking was water," Daniels said.

Daniels said Trump directed her to the bathroom — she left the dining room, went through another room and through the bedroom to the master bathroom.

Trump elbowed his lawyer Todd Blanche as the jury walked back into the courtroom to resume hearing Daniels' testimony.

After returning to the bench from a short break, Judge Merchan told prosecutor Susan Hoffinger that he thinks Daniels is divulging too many "unnecessary" details in her testimony. 

“Ms. Hoffinger, I think the degree of detail that we are going into here is just unnecessary," Merchan said, pointing to Daniels' testimony detailing the floor of the penthouse where she encountered Trump.

Daniels testified that she and Trump talked for a "long time," close to two hours, in his hotel room. They ultimately never ate dinner.

When asked if she had sensed any red flags or concern about being in the room with Trump, Daniels responded, "No."

While in the hotel room with Trump, Daniels called a friend at his request, she said.

Trump had been asking her about the girls she worked with at Wicked Pictures, asking if they had hooked up with each other off-camera, she said. He then asked Daniels to call one of her colleagues.

Daniels then called a friend who happened to be in Lake Tahoe at the same time, who didn't believe she was actually with Trump.

Daniels said, "One, I’m telling the truth; I am with Donald Trump." She added that he had asked her to call one of her friends, "and I didn’t want to actually call my co-workers."