Stormy Daniels followed her explosive first day of testimony in former President Donald Trump’s secret trial with a second day on the stand Thursday.
The adult film star faced tougher questions today, as Trump lawyer Susan Necheles attempted to discredit Daniels’ previous testimony during cross-examination. She faced the onslaught with polite, unwavering confidence.
Necheles portrayed Daniels as an unconventional anti-Trump cheerleader who was only in it for the money, an accusation Daniels repeatedly denied.
At one point, Necheles highlighted a $40 “Stormy, Saint of Indictments” prayer candle that she sold online, along with an assortment of other similarly themed items.
Trump’s lawyer then accused her of profiting from Trump’s trial by “selling merchandise,” prompting Daniels to fire back: “Kind of like Mr. Trump.”
The defense also awkwardly reminded the jury of Daniels’ pornographic past, accusing her of “selling out” as an exotic dancer as her anti-Trump celebrity grew.
“You have a lot of experience creating false stories about sex,” Necheles said, implying that Daniels’ meeting with Trump was fake.
“Wow. That’s not how I would put it. Sex in movies is real, just like what happened to me in that room,” Daniels responded.
She then joked that if her story about having sex with Trump “was false, I would have written it to be much better.”
Necheles ended his cross-examination with a statement turned into a question, saying Daniels changed his story “multiple times” without giving him a chance to respond.
Daniels told the court Tuesday that she ended up in Trump’s penthouse suite after meeting him at a Lake Tahoe golf tournament in the summer of 2006. She went into detail — sometimes too much details, which prompted a rebuke from Judge Juan Merchan – about how he had invited dinner but wanted to meet beforehand in his hotel room, where he ended up sharing a conversation and, a- she said, made love.
Trump sat nearby, often closing his eyes. But he was so angered by Daniels’ testimony that the judge urged his lawyers to warn him against revealing his feelings so clearly in front of the jury.
“I understand that your client is upset at this point,” Merchan told Trump’s lawyers in a sidebar Tuesday, “but he’s audibly swearing, and he’s visually shaking his head and it’s dismissive.”
“It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” Merchan continued, according to a transcript viewed by HuffPost. “I’m talking to you here, on the bench, because I don’t want to embarrass him.”
Daniels spoke lightly with prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, but became more rigid during cross-examination by Trump lawyer Susan Necheles, which began Tuesday and continued Thursday, after a break in the procedure Wednesday.
While much of Daniels’ story had already been made public, she gave new details Tuesday that complicate the ease with which she consented to the alleged sexual encounter.
Daniels, a porn actor turned writer and director, spoke about “fainting” during the act, staring silently at the ceiling. She felt that because Trump had supposedly offered to land her a spot on “The Apprentice,” she couldn’t refuse his advances.
“There was definitely an imbalance of power,” Daniels said Tuesday under direct questioning.
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