When the porn star at the center of Donald Trump’s New York case finally took the witness stand at the first ever criminal trial of a former American president on Tuesday, it sounded less like stodgy courtroom testimony and more like a chatty brunch to go over a horrible date.
Stormy Daniels raised her eyebrows suggestively when describing what it was like to suddenly find a business tycoon who wears his Brioni suit like a mandatory uniform suddenly appear in his hotel bed only clad in boxers and a T-shirt when she walked out of his bathroom.
She smiled as she threw herself back in the chair to imitate what it was like to see him lying down in bed, “like this,” she said, raising her bare right leg above the wooden panels that line the witness box.
“What can possibly go wrong? Those were his words to me,” she laughed with regret while recalling a conversation with a friend who suggested the rising porn star go out to dinner with the real estate baron after a charity event in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2006.
Speaking with a lightning fast cadence and totally at ease—sometimes even pointing directly at the jurors for emphasis—the adult film director and actress casually went over what seemed like ancient history back when she was 27 years old.
“I didn’t know his age, but I knew he was as old or older than my father,” she said.
Trump, meanwhile, remained in court like a potted plant, quiet and affixed to the maroon leather chair that’s become his home for much of the past four weeks and kept him off the 2024 presidential campaign trail. Having already paid $10,000 for violating a gag order—hush money of another variety—he left it up to his adult son Eric, sitting directly behind him, to belch out what he could not.
“Pure EXTORTION!!!!” the son tweeted midday. “Sitting front row attempting to figure out how any of this garbage from 20 years ago relates to ‘legal’ bills submitted by a long time personal attorney being booked as a ‘legal’ expense—but........