By Porn star Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday that she hates former President Donald Trump and wants him thrown in jail if he is convicted in his criminal hush money trial.
Daniels’ blunt comment came as Trump lawyer Susan Necheles began cross-examination of the key witness, whose story of having sex with Trump years earlier is central to the historic criminal case.
“Am I correct that you hate President Trump?” Necheles asked in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“Yes,” Daniels replied.
Necheles followed up, “You want him to go to jail, right?”
“If he is found guilty, absolutely,” Daniels testified.
Daniels is set to return to the witness stand Thursday morning.
Earlier, Judge Juan Merchan denied a request by Trump’s lawyers for a mistrial after prosecutors finished their direct examination of Daniels.
They argued that Daniels’ detailed testimony about that alleged one-night stand with Trump in 2006 was “prejudicial.”
“The only reason the government asked these questions, aside from pure embarrassment, is to inflame this jury,” defense attorney Todd Blanche told Merchan as he argued to scrap the trial.
“There’s no way to unring the bell in our view,” Blanche said.
But Merchan said, “I don’t believe we’re at the point where a mistrial is warranted.”
The judge did, however, grant a bid by Trump’s attorneys to strike some testimony from the record.
Prosecutors accuse Trump of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. The payment was made by Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen to silence Daniels from speaking about the alleged sexual encounter before Election Day, prosecutors say.
But the judge had warned prosecutors earlier Tuesday not to air specific details about Daniels’ story of having sex with Trump. As Daniels dove into the details about that night, Merchan at times angrily sustained objections from the defense.
Daniels described meeting Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006 and then having dinner with him in his hotel room.
Daniels testified she sensed no red flags about being alone in the room with Trump. He asked her about the adult film industry, and dangled the prospect of a role for Daniels on his wildly popular reality show, “The Apprentice,” she said.
After using the bathroom, Daniels said she saw Trump in his boxers and a T-shirt on the bed. At that point, she felt “the room spun in slow motion.”
Then Trump said to her, “I thought you were serious about what you wanted.” Daniels took this to mean that having sex with Trump could benefit her career.
Daniels said she had sex with Trump on the bed. Testifying that she didn’t feel threatened at all, Daniels noted, “There was an imbalance of power for sure.”
Before the jury entered the courtroom Tuesday morning, Trump attorney Susan Necheles argued that Daniels should not be asked to testify “about any details of any sexual acts.”
There is “no reason” that details of the alleged sex “should be coming into a case about books and records,” Necheles told Merchan.
A prosecutor countered that it is very important to delve into the story of the alleged affair, including the conversation that led up to Daniels and Trump having sex.
That won’t include “descriptions of genitalia or anything,” the prosecutor said, “but it’s important to us to elicit that she had sex with him, and how she felt about it.”
Merchan said that was fine, but that it was unnecessary to air details of the encounter in court.
The first witness called to the stand Tuesday was Sally Franklin, a senior vice president at Random House Publishing Group. Franklin read aloud a number of passages from Trump’s books, including “Trump: How to Get Rich” and “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire.”
Before arriving at court, Trump posted — and then quickly deleted — a statement raging about the witness schedule and the judge in his trial.
Trump sent that Truth Social post less than one day after Merchan threatened the former president with jail time for repeatedly violating the gag order that bars him from speaking about likely witnesses in the trial.
Trump fumed that prosecutors are not telling defense attorneys which witnesses they plan to call until the day before the witness testifies.
“I have just recently been told who the witness is today. This is unprecedented, no time for lawyers to prepare,” Trump wrote in the post.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told Merchan on Monday the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is keeping its witness schedule hidden in order to stop Trump from targeting people right before they take the stand.
But Steinglass noted that while prosecutors are keeping the order of witnesses close to the vest, Trump’s attorneys have had the witness list for months.
Steinglass blamed Trump for forcing the move, pointing out that he “has been violating the order restricting extrajudicial speech, and we did not want to have the witnesses’ names, the next witnesses’ names out there.”
Earlier Monday, Merchan held Trump in contempt of court once again, for his 10th violation of the gag order. He fined Trump the maximum $1,000 for the latest violation, which brings the total to $10,000 in fines for the 10 separate infringements.
But the judge noted that those fines were hardly a deterrent for Trump, a multibillionaire.
“The last thing I want to do is to put you in jail,” Merchan said to Trump. But “I will, if necessary,” he said.
Trump’s since-deleted post from Tuesday morning also attacked Merchan at length, accusing him of political bias.
“No Judge has ever run a trial in such a biased and partisan way,” Trump claimed.
“He is CROOKED & HIGHLY CONFLICTED, even taking away my First Amendment Rights. Now he’s threatening me with JAIL, & THEY HAVE NO CASE – This according to virtually all Legal Scholars & Experts!” Trump wrote.
Trump’s attorneys have failed multiple times to get Merchan to recuse himself for what they claim is a conflict of interest stemming from his daughter’s work for a Democratic political firm.
The gag order bars Trump from speaking about likely witnesses in the case, and from making certain statements about other related figures including lawyers, court staff and their respective family members. Merchan expanded the gag order after Trump targeted the family members of the judge and the D.A.
