Trump trial latest: Raging ex-president calls for mistrial over ‘difficult to control’ witness Stormy Daniels – who says she hates him | US News

If you missed today’s evidence, here’s a quick rundown of what we heard on day 13 of the hush money trial against Donald Trump.

Star witness takes the stand

Stormy Daniels, one of the trial’s key witnesses, was called to give evidence following rumors in the morning that she was to appear.

She started her testimony by describing her upbringing and how she got into erotic dancing before her nude and adult film work.

Ms Daniels also recalled her first meeting with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006, when she was invited to dinner with the former president.

Details of hotel suite meeting revealed

Ms Daniels told the court Trump was wearing “silk or satin pyjamas” when he entered the foyer of the hotel suite he was staying at.

She said she made fun of him, saying: “Does Mr Hefner know you stole his pyjamas?”

Ms Daniels said she and Trump sat down and discussed a host of subjects including her childhood and career. Trump had suggested putting her on his TV show The Apprentice, Ms Daniels recalled.

When she suggested she wouldn’t be taken seriously due to her profession, Trump told her she reminded him of her daughter as “people underestimate her as well”. He suggested it would be a way of showing her talents.

Daniels describes bedroom encounter

Stormy Daniels testified that she found Trump sitting on his bed wearing just boxer shorts and a T-shirt as she walked out of the bathroom at the suite.

She described it as a “jump scare” and said it “felt like the room was spinning”.

Ms Daniels told the court she ended up having sex with Trump in what she said was a “brief” encounter. She said that she felt there was a “power imbalance” before they had sex.

Trump has denied having sex with Ms Daniels.

Further meetings described to court

Ms Daniels gave details of subsequent interactions she had with Trump after the 2006 hotel suite encounter.

She saw him in a hotel bar with an American football player the next day, and attended a vodka launch party in 2007 where she testified that Trump introduced her to Karen McDougal.

She also described going to meet him at Trump Tower and going to his LA bungalow in June 2007. The pair spoke several more times by phone but the calls stopped after she was eventually told she would not be able to appear on The Apprentice.

Money ‘not a motivator’

The porn star testified to both the prosecution and defense that her decision to try to sell her story in 2016 was not motivated by money.

When she learned that Michael Cohen was offering $130,000 for the story to never be published, she said it was “the best thing that could happen” to protect her family.

She said she received $96,000 of the original payment.

Ms Daniels described how her life became “chaos” and she became “ostracised” after a newspaper published an article about the settlement payment in 2018.

She says she had sought to get out of her NDA agreement with Trump in order to “stand up for herself”.

Cross-examination begins

Defense lawyer Susan Necheles began her questioning of Ms Daniels by asking if it was true that she hated Trump – which the witness agreed with.

She also said she wanted Trump to be sent to jail if found guilty in the trial.

Ms Daniels was pressed on the fact that she owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump in legal fees following a failed defamation lawsuit in 2018.

She was shown a tweet she posted in 2022 in which she called Trump an “orange turd” and said she doesn’t “owe him “s**t”. Ms Daniels said she had called Trump names as he’d mocked her first .

Ms Necheles honed in on Ms Daniels not filling out a financial disclosure form, demanded by Trump’s lawyers, related to the legal fees she owes the former president.

She said she’d left out some parts in order to protect her family.

Daniels denies attempting to ‘extort’ Trump

Ms Daniels denied a suggestion by the defense that she tried to sell her story in 2016 in order to “extort” Trump. She told Ms Necheles twice that this was “false”.

Asked why she had decided to sell her story after saying a man had approached her in a car park in 2011 and threatened her to keep quiet, Ms Daniels said she was a “different and much braver person in 2016” than in 2011.

“Donald Trump was not just a guy on television, he was running for president,” she said.