Adult film actress Stormy Daniels testified in Donald Trump’s hush money case yesterday, describing an alleged forced sexual encounter with the former president and how Donald Trump loudly cursed her, prompting the judge to intervene.
While Donald Trump denies having a sexual relationship with Daniels while married to Melania Trump, his niece – clinical psychologist Mary Trump – highlighted a damning detail in Daniels’s testimony.
In New York, Donald Trump faces 34 felony charges related to alleged payments made through his lawyer to Daniels to keep her silent about their alleged affair during the 2016 presidential campaign and the altered business records used to conceal the payments.
Daniels recounted meeting Donald Trump at a 2006 golf event, being invited to dinner, and then being cornered in his hotel suite for a sexual encounter. She said she felt trapped as his bodyguard was outside the suite and Donald Trump was blocking her way out, and he mentioned that his wife wasn't with him and showed a picture of her.
Afterward, Daniels testified that she struggled to put her shoes on because her hands were shaking so hard.
She continued, “He said: ‘Oh, it was great. Let’s get together again, honeybunch.’ I just wanted to leave.”
That specific detail caught Mary Trump's attention.
“Based on her responses to the prosecutor's questions, I suspect much of it was incredibly humiliating for Donald, as Daniels shared intimate details,” Mary Trump shared on her Substack.
“Donald told Daniels she reminded him of his daughter, Ivanka,” Mary Trump continued. “And he called her ‘honeybunch.'”
” I can tell you now: honeybunch is my family’s favorite term of endearment.”
As Daniels testified, Donald Trump visibly and audibly reacted, leading Judge Juan Merchan to call his lawyer, Todd Blanche, to discuss his behavior.
“I understand your client is upset, but he is audibly cursing and visibly shaking his head, which is contemptuous. It could intimidate the witness, and the jury can see that,” Judge Merchan stated, according to the AP. “I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him.”
“I will talk to him,” Blanche said.
Daniels testified that Donald Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, approached her during the 2016 campaign and arranged a $130,000 payment to keep quiet about her relationship with Donald Trump, which lasted until 2012. She discussed the emails she kept that detailed aspects of the alleged deal.
This occurred shortly after the Access Hollywood tape – where Donald Trump boasted about feeling entitled to sexually assault women and “grab them by the pu**y” – dominated the news cycle, and his campaign wanted to avoid another story about Donald Trump’s sexual misconduct receiving media attention.
The AP says the jury seemed very interested in Daniels’s testimony. Donald Trump’s lawyers requested a mistrial after Daniels testified, claiming that her testimony was extremely damaging and unfair to President Trump.
Judge Merchan denied the motion and scolded Donald Trump’s lawyers for not objecting more during the testimony if they believed it was unfair.
