68/ Phang:

Daniels: I left bathroom and went around the bed and was hoping to say time to go i was there a long time and i when i opened bathroom door to come out MR 🤢👉🏼Trump was on the bed and he was wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt, i was startled.

DANIELS: “ At first it was just startled, like a jump scare. Wasn’t expecting someone to be there especially minus a lot of clothing.”
DANIELS: “And that’s when I had that moment where I felt like the room spun in slow motion.”

69/ I'm caught up but backtracking slightly. McB:

"At first I was startled, like a jump scare...I wasn't expecting someone to be there and in not a lot of clothing," she says, and felt the blood leave her hands and her feet, like when you stand up too fast.

"Oh my god, what did I misread to get here?" she remembers thinking.

70/ McB:

She says she laughed nervously, went to step around him posed on the bed and leave, and it all felt like slow motion. He stood up between her and the door but "not in a threatening manner," she clarifies.

👀"I thought this is what you wanted, if you ever wanted to get out of that trailer park—" Daniels starts to say that's what Trump told her to get her to stay, but objection, sustained.

71/ McB:

Q: What happened next?
A: I blacked out, though she clarifies that she was not drugged.

Justice Merchan cuts it off right there, and asks counsel to approach.

Sidebar.

Objection sustained.

72/ McB:

Hoffinger resumes, asking Daniels to slow down again, clarifying that Daniels was not drugged in any way nor had she had any alcohol in any way. Daniels confirms both."At first I was startled, like a jump scare...I wasn't expecting someone to be there and in not a lot of clothing," she says, and felt the blood leave her hands and her feet, like when you stand up too fast.

"Oh my god, what did I misread to get here?" she remembers thinking.

73/ I think I messed up slightly with a copy/paste but nothing major. Moving on... GET YOUR PEPTO BISMOL READY.

McB:

Q: Did you feel threatened by him?
A: No, not physically, but there was an imbalance of power for sure. He was bigger and blocking the way, but I was not threatened, verbally or physically.

74/ PEPTO ALERT🤢
McB:

Hoffinger asks her to describe the sexual encounter "very briefly," Daniels starts to describe the fact that she had her clothes and shoes off and started in "missionary position"—but objection, sustained.

Q: Did you end up having sex with him on the bed?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you have a recollection feeling something unusual?
Objection, sustained.
Q: What do you remember?
A:That I was staring at the ceiling, didn't know how I got there.

75/ McB🤢 :

Q: Did you touch his skin?
A: Yes
Objection, sustained.
Q: Was he wearing a condom?
A: Yes
Q: Was that concerning to you?
A: Yes
Q: Did you say anything about it?
A: No, I didn't say anything at all.

76/ McB:

Daniels remembers the entire sexual encounter was brief, and it was really hard to get her shoes on because her hands were shaking so badly
"Let's get together again 👉🏼honeybunch," SD says Trump told her, and she just wanted to leave, she says
Q: Did you say no at any point?
A: No.

77/ McB:

"He didn't give me anything, he didn't offer to pay me, or give me his cell phone number," she says.

Did he ask you to keep this confidential? No.
Any concern he expressed about his wife? No.
Did you end up having dinner with him that night? No.

78/ McB:

McB CORRECTION: I was typing too fast—Daniels said Trump was NOT wearing a condom during the encounter, and that that concerned her. My apologies.

"I told very few people we actually had sex because I felt ashamed I didn't try to stop it or say no," Daniels says.

79/ McB:

There were also details she didn't remember initially, but some of these details came back to her over the years, can she tell us about that? Objection—overruled

Hoffinger tries to clarify there were certain things Daniels always remembered, like the fact that they had sex, but when she continues another objection from Necheles, and counsel approaches.

This has been pretty stop-and-go so far, with frequent objections and sidebars.

80/ McB:

Daniels says she saw him again in Tahoe the next day at her hotel, at a nightclub restaurant downstairs.

👉🏼The jurors are now fully rapt with attention once again, and some of their heads ping pong back and forth from Hoffinger to Daniels, much like spectators at a tennis match.

81/ McB:

Daniels says Trump was in the club with his friend, Ben Roethlisberger, and Trump introduced her as👉🏼 "his little friend Stormy" to "Big Ben" the football player, who let her try on his Super Bowl ring. Trump continued to talk about getting Daniels on The Apprentice.

82/ McB:

Daniels says she told her best friend/photographer Keith—not to be confused with another Keith, Trump's bodyguard— her makeup artist and confidant, and her personal assistant, but not many others about the sexual encounter.

Trump would call her often, "I would always put him on speaker phone. I thought it was funny." Dozens of people would hear these conversations, "it was not a secret."

83/ Klasfeld:

Daniels says that Trump eventually gave her the number of his assistant: Rhona.

Earlier in the trial, Rhona Graff entered Daniels' phone number on Trump Org's Outlook database into evidence.

84/ McB:

During these calls Trump update her (or offer "non-updates") about the Apprentice, 👉🏼ask Daniels if she missed him, and always called her honeybunch—"which was weird."👈🏼

She starts to digress at the next question, and Merchan asks her to "please just answer the question."

Daniels says Trump gave her his personal assistant Rona's phone number in late summer 2006.

She answers more briefly and succinctly now, taking Merchan's instructions to heart.

85/ Press:

Prosecutor: Did he know he was on speaker phone?
Daniels: No.
Prosecutor: Why did you continue to take his calls?
Daniels: My publicist bragged

86/ Klasfeld:

Daniels entered her number on her phone as:

"D Trump Rona [sic]."

Klasfeld Analysis:

The dirty details of the testimony will dominate the headlines, but pay attention to any corroborating evidence that emerges as trial continues.

87/ McB:

We see some evidence now: the contact page in Daniels' iPhone for Rona Graff, which she saved as "DTrump Rona," & another contact page (not from iPhone) for "Stormy" with Daniels' phone no. (only last 4 digits unredacted).

Daniels says Trump reached out and asked her to attend the a party for his vodka brand, which she accepted to maintain the relationship and the "chance to be on The Apprentice" was still up in there air, especially since Trump framed it as her writing and directing.

88/ McB:

At the vodka event, Trump greeted her, unconcerned by the optics, Daniels says, and he introduced her to his friend "Karen"—Karen McDougal.

She says he asked her to go back with him that night, but she lied to him that her and a friend were flying out on a girls' trip.

90/ McB:

We fast forward now to 2007, she says Trump told her to contact him if she was in NY—she "hit him up" to get him to come to the club where she was performing, but he "invited me to his office tower" instead. Why? 👉🏼"It was a public place, lots of witnesses"—objection, sustained.

91/ 😂🤦🏻‍♀️ [Me: "In a very short period of time. In 2 weeks..."]

McB:

Daniels says she had a "very brief" discussion in his office in Trump Tower. She says he was very busy.

👉🏼"It was always, 'I'm still working on The Apprentice thing,'" Daniels says.

92/ McB:

Now to the 2007 Miss USA Pageant, tickets to which Trump had left under Daniels' name at will call, she says. Then, summer 2007, she met with Trump in LA for dinner at his bungalow in Beverly Hills Hotel.

Q: Did you tell your boyfriend what happened in the hotel with Trump?
A: Not the sexual part. Because I was ashamed.

93/ McB:

Daniels' boyfriend waited outside while she went into the bungalow, she says. Trump was busy, watching TV (a documentary about some sailors who got killed by a shark when the submarine sank), and👉🏼 kept trying to "make sexual advances." 👈🏼But no "real update" on The Apprentice.

94/ McB:

She says Trump still did not ask her to keep the sexual encounter confidential, nor did he seem concened about it.👈🏼

Trump called her a few more times—once to tell her he couldn't get her on The Apprentice ("his overruled had been overruled"), Daniels says.

95/ Hi Melania.

Klasfeld:

Daniels recalls meeting with Trump at a bungalow in Los Angeles.

"He kept trying to make sexual advances, putting his hand on my leg," she says.

Q: What was your response?
A: I told him I was on my period.

96/ McB:

Eventually, Daniels says 👉🏼she stopped answering his calls and moved on with her life.

Jan 2008-May 2011, her life was "pretty awesome"—she got a raise, directed movies, started doing more mainstream things, got married, had a daughter.

Then, May 2011, she says she agreed to be interviewed for a magazine called InTouch—a "sort of tabloid."

She learned that someone had sold a story about her to a magazine, so she freaked out. "I don't know who leaked it—I just had my daughter"

97/ McB:

Daniels says that Gina Rodriguez told her you can either take control of it and get paid, or someone else will make money from it, and who knows what they'll say.

She was supposed to be paid $15k, and was doing less work at the time because she had just had her daughter.

98/ McB:

Q: Did you discuss with InTouch all of the details of what happened in the room?
A: No, I tried to keep it fairly light-hearted, and quick and to the point.

InTouch didn't end up running the story, and at the time Daniels says she doesn't know why.

Hoffinger asks to approach.

99/ Kyle Cheney:

👀From afar, I would be surprised if Trump's lawyers don't move for a mistrial when Stormy Daniels is off the stand, given the level of detail Daniels went into that even seemed to bother the judge — and even after he warned prosecutors to steer clear.

100/ McB:

If I'm not mistaken, during each of the many sidebars so far, Bove has stayed back at the defense table with Trump, the two men deep in conversation.

After Daniels was interviewed by InTouch, she had an experience about June 2011 in a parking lot in Las Vegas. She says she was approached by a man who threatened her "not to continue to tell my story"—about her encounter with Trump.

101/ McB:

She says she didn't tell the police because she was scared, and didn't want more of the story to get out because of her daughter, and the father of their daughter, who was struggling at the time and never knew about the encounter in the first place.

102/ McB:

Fast forward to Oct 2011: Rodriguez told Daniels that a story about her had been published on a celebrity gossip site called The Dirty dot com.

She says she never gave the site information, nor had she ever heard about it, and wanted the story taken down.

She remembers she was freaking out, crying and hyperventilating, and Rodriguez asked if her lawyer—another Keith, Keith Davidson—could take it down. Daniels said yes, and it was taken down a bit later.

103/ McB:

Once Trump announced his presidetial candidacy, Daniels says Rodriguez reached out to Daniels and mentioned that she could sell the story again—making money for both her and Daniels.

104/ Press:

Prosecutor: In 2015 once Mr. Trump was running for President, were you told you could sell your story for more?
Daniels: Yes. I was advised by a lawyer to have a press conference

105/ McB:

For what it's worth, Merchan has been keeping this testimony on a pretty short leash, allowing frequent objections from the defense for leading the witness, and steering Daniels back to the questions at hand.

Q: Were you aware in early Oct 2016, the Access Hollywood tape coming out publicly?
A: Yes, Gina told me.
Q: Was she successful in selling the story before the AH tape came out?
A: No.

106/ McB:

Q: Did you continue to agree that Rodriguez could keep trying to sell the story?
A: Yes, I told her she could keep trying. More people were calling.

107/ McB:

Daniels says her motivation wasn't money, it about the story getting out, and in Oct 2016 she says she learned through Rodriguez that Trump and Cohen were interested in buying the rights to her story.

👉🏼Daniels says she understood Trump and Cohen to be interested in paying for the story and killing it, which would be the best-case scenario for her: so her partner wouldn't learn about it, and the story would never get out.