Trump trial live updates: Stormy Daniels takes the stand to testify in hush money case

The prosecution called adult film actress Stormy Daniels to the witness stand to recount her claim of having sex with former President Donald Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Calif. She also testified about her efforts to try to sell her story of the affair and being paid $130,000 by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to keep quiet about it.

During cross-examination, Trump's lawyers sought to paint Daniels as a liar who concocted the story to make money.

Sordid details:

• "I had my clothes and my shoes off. I removed my bra. We were in missionary position," Daniels testified about having sex with Trump.

• "I just left as fast as I could. That was it," she added.

• "I told very few people that we had actually had sex because I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop it," Daniels told the jury.

• On why she continued to meet with Trump following the alleged sexual affair: "I wanted to maintain that sort of relationship because the chance to be on The Apprentice was still up in the air. It would have been a great thing.”

Judge denies defense motion for mistrial:

After a lunch break, Judge Juan Merchan denied a defense motion to declare a mistrial on the grounds that Daniels's testimony had been prejudicial to their client but instructed prosecutors to keep Daniels's responses limited to the questions being asked.

Testy cross-examination: Defense lawyer Susan Necheles laid in to Daniels, portraying her as vindictive of Trump, as in the following exchange.

Necheles: “Am I correct that you hate President Trump?”

Daniels: “Yes.”

Necheles: “And you want him to go to jail?”

Daniels: “I want him to be held accountable.”

Read more from Yahoo News.

Trump's lawyer Susan Necheles seized on opportunities to try to point out inconsistencies in the narrative delivered by Stormy Daniels.

At one point, Necheles accused Daniels of trying to sell her story to In Touch magazine in 2011 at the same time she was threatening to sue the gossip website TheDirty.com, which had weeks earlier leaked the story of Daniels's alleged affair with Trump. Necheles implied the two motivations were contradictory.

Trump's lawyer also pointed out a discrepancy in Daniels's 2018 book, Full Disclosure.

In the book, Daniels wrote that in 2011 she attended an exercise class after being confronted by a man she said threatened her for speaking about having sex with Trump. On the stand, however, Daniels testified that she didn't attend the class because she was too shaken, NBC News reported.

Necheles also pointed to the fact that after the alleged confrontation in 2011, Daniels testified, she didn't tell her then boyfriend out of fear of upsetting him. Yet she chose to share the story publicly in a 2018 interview with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes.

"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 pressed Daniels on the stand, according to CNN.

"Right," Daniels replied.

Later, Necheles pointed to Daniels's past claims accusing Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen of hiring the man who threatened her in 2011. According to reporters in the courtroom, Daniels acknowledged that she did suspect Cohen sent the man at the time but has since realized he didn't.

In the end, Necheles sought to make the point that the only way for Daniels to monetize her story was to speak publicly about having sex with Trump.

"It taught you if you want to make money about President Trump, you better talk about sex," Necheles asked, according to CNN.

Daniels replied, "No, although that does seem to be the case. Sadly."

We're done for the day. Judge Juan Merchan has put a cork in the proceedings.

"Alright jurors, let's call it a day," he said following tense testimony from adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Testimony will resume Thursday.

Trump attorney Susan Necheles told Judge Juan Merchan that her cross-examination of Stormy Daniels would continue on Thursday.

Big picture: The prosecution is using Stormy Daniels's testimony to bolster its claim that Trump broke the law when he falsified business records to keep a story about his alleged infidelity with the porn actress from coming to light. The defense is trying to cast Daniels as a liar who concocted the story to make money.

The cross-examination of Stormy Daniels will continue following an afternoon break.

Stormy Daniels testified that she did not include having sex with Trump in her book, partially because of attorney Gloria Allred. In her testimony, Daniels said she chose not to work with Allred because “she wanted to force me into saying things that were not true,” according to MSNBC contributor Adam Klasfeld.

By showing the jury Stormy Daniels's social media posts mocking Trump and detailing her refusal to pay him court fees for a dismissed defamation lawsuit, defense lawyer Susan Necheles is attempting to show that Daniels was vindictive toward her client. That same strategy will be used against former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen if he is called to testify.

Trump’s attorney Susan Necheles asked Daniels if she owed Trump $560,000 in legal fees and accrued interest as a result of a failed 2018 defamation lawsuit.

“You have money, right?” she asked Daniels, according to the New York Times.

“We all have money,” Daniels replied.

“You’re choosing not to pay President Trump, right?” Necheles asked.

Daniels answered: “I’ve chosen not to pay while it’s still pending, yes.”

Necheles then offered into evidence a Nov. 9, 2022, tweet from Daniels that read: “I don’t owe him shit and I’ll never give that orange turd a dime [crying laughing emoji],” according to reporters in the courtroom.

During her cross-examination, Daniels was asked by Trump attorney Susan Necheles if she hated Donald Trump. She responded with a simple "Yes," according to CNN's Kaitlan Collins.

Necheles then asked if Daniels wanted to see Trump in jail, to which Daniels replied, "I want him to be held accountable."

Trump attorney Susan Necheles begins questioning adult film actress Stormy Daniels about her claims that she had sex with Trump in his hotel room in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Calif.

Daniels testified that she hired lawyer Michael Avenatti to help her get out of the NDA she signed in October 2016, per CNN. By the fall of 2018, she said Trump and former lawyer Michael Cohen agreed not to enforce the NDA. She published her book, Full Disclosure, in October 2018.

According to reporters in the courtroom, when asked if Avenatti was still her lawyer, she raised her eyebrows “comically” and replied: “Noooo.”

When asked the reason, she answered, “Because I fired him, and then later he was found guilty of stealing from not just myself but several other clients.”

If former President Donald Trump is jailed for violating the gag order imposed on him by Judge Juan Merchan, New York City's jail system will be ready for him, NYC Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday during a weekly press conference at City Hall.

Adams said that city officials were "prepared for whatever comes on Rikers Island" and confirmed that he's had discussions with the Department of Correction about the possibility that Trump could be sent to the facility.

On Monday, Merchan found Trump in contempt of court for the 10th time and fined him another $1,000 for violating the gag order when he commented about the political makeup of the jury in the hush money trial. Merchan warned the former president that any further violations could result in jail time.

"The last thing I want to do is put you in jail," he told Trump, "but at the end of the day, I have a job to do."

On Jan. 10, 2018, Daniels said her lawyer, Keith Davidson, had her sign a written statement that denied her ever having a sexual relationship with Trump and receiving so-called “hush money” payments.

Daniels said she signed the statement even though she didn't want to because it wasn't true, according to CNN.

After prosecutor Susan Hoffinger stepped out of the courtroom to remind Stormy Daniels to stick to answering the questions in her testimony, the adult film actress returned to the witness stand.

Cameras aren't allowed inside the courtroom during the trial, so only sketch artists are able to capture images of the witnesses during their testimony. The sketches below depict Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, and Sally Franklin, a senior vice president and executive managing editor at Penguin Random House, who was called to testify to introduce excerpts from Trump's books into evidence.

Court returned from the lunch break with Trump's defense attorneys calling for a mistrial.

Before jurors were called back into the courtroom, lawyer Todd Blanche told Judge Juan Merchan that the salacious testimony from Stormy Daniels about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 was prejudicial.

Among the issues that Blanche raised in his call for a mistrial: Daniels’s testimony that Trump didn’t wear a condom.

Merchan denied the motion.

Court is back in session after a brief lunch break. Judge Merchan and Trump, his team and the prosecutors are in the courtroom.

After the Access Hollywood tape was released in October 2016, Daniels said her then-publicist Gina Rodriguez was told that Donald Trump and his attorney Michael Cohen were interested in paying $130,000 for her story.

According to CNN, Daniels said the deal was “the best thing that could've happened” at the time "because then I'd be safe and the story wouldn't come out.” She wanted the deal to be done quickly, noting that she was fearing for her safety after the alleged threat made by a man in Las Vegas in June 2011.

She said that she “didn’t care about the amount” and that her personal finances were “the best it’s ever been,” according to CNN. Ultimately, she said she signed a nondisclosure agreement and that Trump was the beneficiary of that agreement.

First, Daniels asserted in her testimony that it was Trump who delayed the $130,000 hush money payment set up by Cohen and her own lawyer, Keith Davidson. Trump's lawyers, who have portrayed Cohen as a "rogue" actor, are sure to go after Daniels on that claim when it is their turn to cross-examine her.

Daniels's testimony also gets at the heart of the prosecution's case that the payment to Daniels violated campaign finance laws, and that Trump was aware of that fact. During a Fox & Friends interview on April 26, 2018, then-President Trump said this about Cohen's payment to Daniels: “And, you know, from what I see he did absolutely nothing wrong. There were no campaign funds going into this… which would have been a problem."

Soon after Trump began running for president in June 2015, Daniels said in court that her then-publicist Gina Rodriguez tried selling her story to news outlets but wasn’t successful.

But after Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape came out in October 2016 — in which Trump is heard telling then-host Billy Bush about “grabbing women” by their genitalia — Daniels and Rodriguez revisited conversations about selling her story.

"My motivation wasn’t money. It was to get the story out," Daniels testified, according to CNN.

The court has taken its lunch break, with testimony scheduled to resume at 2 p.m. ET.

Stormy Daniels said she gave an interview to In Touch Weekly magazine in May 2011 about her relationship with Trump. According to CNN, the magazine never ran the story.

She then testified that the following month, she was confronted by a man in a Las Vegas parking lot who threatened her to stop telling her story. She said her daughter was with her at the time, according to CNN.

Daniels said she didn’t report the incident to the police because it would have been upsetting to her then boyfriend.

“I was scared,” she said, as paraphrased by MSNBC's Katie Phang. “And my daughter’s father was also struggling and I did not tell my boyfriend, he was struggling with post-partum stuff with my daughter and alcoholism. I’d never told him about sex with Trump, so if I’d told him then when ‘his world was exploding,’ it wouldn’t have been good.”

While Daniels was testifying, the Trump campaign sent an email blast soliciting donations with the subject line: "I'm sitting in court RIGHT NOW."

"These WITCH HUNTS aren’t about me," the email read. "They’re just a DEEP STATE plot from RADICAL Democrats to come after you — and I'm the only thing standing in their way! But as long as YOU are by my side, I’ll NEVER give an inch to these THUGS."

Daniels recounted several visits she says she had with Trump after their sexual encounter in 2006.

In January 2007, Trump invited her to the launch of his vodka brand, Trump Vodka, in Hollywood. According to MSNBC's Katie Phang, she said she accepted the invitation in an effort to “maintain the relationship" she had with Trump, who had been discussing a possible role for her on NBC's The Apprentice, which he hosted and co-produced.

Later that summer, Daniels said Trump invited her to have dinner at his bungalow at a hotel in Los Angeles. "He kept trying to make sexual advances, putting his hand on my leg," she said of that encounter, per MSNBC contributor Adam Klasfeld.

She also said she visited Trump at Trump Tower in New York City later that year in a meeting that lasted “an hour and a half to two hours.”

Daniels told the jury that she spoke to Trump often on the phone, according to Adam Klasfeld of MSNBC.

"I always put him on speakerphone. We thought it was funny," Daniels said. "Dozens and dozens of people heard me on the phone with him."

She also said she continued to take his calls because her publicist would brag about it.

📸 Big picture: Despite Daniels's account of her uncomfortable sexual encounter with Trump, she continued to see him in the days, weeks and months that followed. Defense lawyers are sure to hammer her on that point.

When describing her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, Daniels testified that Trump was not wearing a condom, that at one point they were in the “missionary position," and that she recalled "staring at the ceiling."

According to MSNBC, when asked if she felt threatened, Daniels replied, “There was an imbalance of power for sure. He was bigger and blocking the way, but I was not threatened either verbally or physically.”

After the encounter, Daniels said she told “very few people” about it “because I felt ashamed I didn’t try to stop it or say no.”

When she left the hotel room, she claimed Trump said, "Oh it was great, let’s get together again honey bunch," per MSNBC.

The prosecution has resumed its examination of Stormy Daniels. During the break, Trump's team confirmed with Judge Juan Merchan that they had just spoken to their client.

According to reporters in the courtroom, Merchan told prosecutors that the details Daniels was sharing in her testimony were "unnecessary" and urged them to move things along.

According to reporters in the courtroom, before the break Daniels said Trump compared her looks to that of his daughter, presumably Ivanka, during their dinner date in 2006.

"You remind me of my daughter because she is smart and blond and beautiful, and people underestimate her as well," she recalled Trump saying. The comment was made in relation to a discussion about a possible appearance by Daniels on NBC's The Apprentice. Daniels ultimately never appeared on the show, which Trump hosted and co-produced.

The court is taking its midmorning break. When the trial resumes, Stormy Daniels will return to the witness stand.

Daniels said she and Trump had sex without using condoms and that she volunteered that she had not tested positive for sexually transmitted infections, according to CNN. Wicked Pictures, the adult entertainment company she worked for at the time, reportedly required all of its actors to wear condoms.

"At the time you had to be tested every 30 days," she said. "Even when I worked with my husband, I had to use a condom, even though I'm allergic to condoms, latex."

Trump has denied having sex with Daniels.

Daniels testified that during her 2006 dinner with Trump, she asked about his wife, Melania, who he married the year before.

According to Daniels, Trump told her not to worry because the two did not “even sleep in the same room.”

Per reporters inside the courtroom, Trump shook his head as Daniels spoke about Melania.

Daniels testified that she informed a friend she was having dinner with Trump before proceeding to his suite at the Harrah's hotel at Lake Tahoe in 2006. She described the penthouse-level suite to the courtroom in great detail, according to reporters present.

When Daniels arrived, she said Trump was wearing “silk or satin” pajamas, according to the New York Times. She asked him to change into regular clothes, and when he returned in a dress shirt she said they went straight to the dining room table, where they discussed her childhood and professional ambitions.

While Stormy Daniels was on the witness stand, prosecutors showed the jury a widely circulated photo of her and Trump in the gift shop at the Lake Tahoe resort where they met at in 2006.

This is that photo:

Stormy Daniels testified that Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, approached her at the 2006 golf tournament in Lake Tahoe to say that Trump was interested in having dinner with her.

According to reporters in the courtroom, her response to Trump's invitation was, “Eff no.”

At the time, Daniels said she had a work dinner she didn’t want to go to, so her publicist convinced her to have dinner with Trump instead, according to MSNBC.

“What could possibly go wrong?” Daniels recalled her publicist telling her.

Daniels said she was 27 the first time she met Donald Trump in 2006 at Lake Tahoe during a celebrity golf tournament, according to reporters in the courtroom. She said she was playing on behalf of Wicked Pictures, which sponsored a hole on the course.

Daniels told the court she was introduced to Trump by the owner of the pornographic film studio, who told the real estate mogul that Daniels was also a director. She recalled Trump said, “Oh, you direct too? You must be the smart one."

Daniels also confirmed that she'd never seen The Apprentice but knew of Trump from various cameos on television. She identified a photo taken at the golf tournament in 2006.

Under direct questioning, Stormy Daniels listed some of the non-adult films she has appeared in, including The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up.

Daniels also told the court she has starred in several music videos, including for Maroon 5 and Rob Zombie.

While on the stand, Stormy Daniels painted a picture about how she was introduced to the adult entertainment industry.

She said that a friend told her about exotic dancing while she was in high school; Daniels mused that it was better than her other job, which was shoveling horse manure. She was 23 years old when she got her first adult film contract with Wicked Pictures, according to MSNBC.

She later started writing for adult films and has directed over 150 films. Daniels has also won awards for both directing and writing.

Stormy Daniels began her testimony by answering questions about her childhood, adolescence and education, per the New York Times. She described her upbringing in Louisiana, where she was born as Stephanie Clifford to a “very low income family” with single working mom.

According to Adam Klasfeld of MSNBC, Daniels's voice was shaky and she was asked to slow down at times.

After a brief sidebar with the judge, the prosecution called one of its most anticipated witnesses of the trial: Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who said that she was paid $130,000 before the 2016 election to stay silent about an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006.

The so-called hush money deal is at the center of the criminal case against the former president.

According to reporters in the courtroom, Trump turned to look toward Daniels, who is dressed in all black, as she took the witness stand.

Daniels, whose birth name is Stephanie Clifford, legally changed her name in 2022.

“The people call Stormy Daniels,” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger told the court.

When asked by prosecutor Rebecca Mangold if ghostwriters ever write books without the author’s knowledge or input, witness Sally Franklin confirmed: “No,” adding, “The ghostwriter works for the author,” according to CNN.

Meredith McIver is credited as Trump’s ghostwriter for his 2004 books Trump: How to Get Rich and Trump: Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate, and Life.

During cross-examination, Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche asked Franklin about McIver’s involvement. According to NBC, Franklin said she’s unsure of how much McIver contributed to the books.

McIver is also the writer who helped Melania Trump write her 2016 RNC speech and was later blamed for allegedly plagiarizing a speech made by Michelle Obama, according to the New York Times and MSNBC.

According to CNN, prosecutor Rebecca Mangold asked witness Sally Franklin, senior vice president at Penguin Random House, to read lines from Trump’s 2004 books Trump: How to Get Rich and Trump: Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate, and Life. Both books were published by Ballantine Books, a Penguin Random House imprint.

One excerpt, according to the New York Times, included a chapter in which Trump describes looking over bills to "make sure I’m not being overcharged."

"For many years I’ve said if someone screws you, screw them back. Like it says in the bible, an eye for an eye,” another excerpt read. "When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can.”

Sally Franklin, a senior vice president and executive managing editor at Penguin Random House, is on the stand. She is testifying under a subpoena.

According to the New York Times, Franklin confirmed on the stand that she’s aware of the 2004 books Trump: How to Get Rich and Trump: Think Like a Billionaire, both of which were published by Ballantine Books, a Penguin Random House imprint.

Donald Trump's criminal trial continues to be a highly anticipated event, with the New York Times' Kate Christobek estimating that approximately 35 members of the public are packed into the overflow courtroom ahead of Stormy Daniels's expected testimony today.

After arriving at Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for day 13 of his hush money trial, former President Donald Trump railed against the case, but did not answer shouted questions about a since deleted Truth Social post about a witness and Judge Juan Merchtan.

He insisted that the payments to Michael Cohen, who facilitated the hush money deal with Stormy Daniels, were a "legal expense," akin to construction costs for a real estate developer.

"We didn't put it down as construction costs he purchase of sheetrock, the electrical cost," Trump said. "The legal expense that we pay was put down as legal expense. There's nothing else you could say."

According to the New York Times, Stormy Daniels is in the courthouse and is expected to testify today. It’s still unclear whether she’ll be called first thing in the morning or later in the day.

The adult film star, whose birth name is Stephanie Clifford (she's since changed her legal name to Stormy Daniels, according to the Times), is the central character in Trump’s hush money trial. She alleges that she was paid $130,000 by Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen as a way to keep her from going public before the 2016 election about an alleged sexual relationship she had with the former president in 2006.

Trump allegedly reimbursed Cohen at a later date. The records of those reimbursement payments are the heart of the 34 charges of falsifying business records at the center of the case.

Donald Trump revealed in a post on Truth Social, which he appears to have since deleted, that he’s aware of who the prosecution’s witness will likely be today and claimed that his lawyers had “no time” to prepare for them.

“I have just recently been told who the witness is today,” he wrote in the since-deleted post, which was published at 7:30 a.m. ET. “This is unprecedented, no time for lawyers to prepare. No judge has ever run a trial in such a biased and partisan way. He is CROOKED & HIGHLY CONFLICTED, even taking away my First Amendment Rights.”

CNN's Kaitlan Collins noted that the post was no longer visible on Trump's social media site shortly after it was first posted.

• Day 13 of Donald Trump's hush money trial resumes in Manhattan criminal court at 9:30 a.m. ET.
  

• According to multiple reports, Stormy Daniels is expected to be called by prosecutors to testify.
  

• On Monday, Trump was found in contempt and fined $1,000 for another violation of the gag order.
  

• Judge Juan Merchan warned that any further violations could result in jail time for the former president.