'You hate Donald Trump!' Stormy Daniels accused of vendetta, extortion in scorching cross-examination
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/Getty, Drew Angerer/Getty, Tyler Le/BI
- After nearly four hours of direct testimony, Stormy Daniels was cross-examined by a Trump attorney.
- 'Am I correct that you hate Donald Trump?" lawyer Susan Necheles demanded out of the gate.
- Other questions accused Daniels of lying about sex with Trump and trying to extort him.
During a fiery cross-examination in the New York hush-money trial, porn star Stormy Daniels fought back against a defense lawyer's accusations that she has a vendetta against Donald Trump — and that she tried to extort him.
"Am I correct that you hate President Trump?" defense lawyer Susan Necheles demanded early in Tuesday afternoon's questioning.
Daniels looked directly at Necheles, her voice crisp as she answered.
"Correct," Daniels said.
"And you want him to go to jail?" Necheles pursued.
"If he's found guilty, yes," Daniels snapped back.
Manhattan District Attorney's Office
The tense exchange came after nearly four hours of direct testimony, in which Daniels described the one-night-stand she says she had with the then-Apprentice star in 2006.
"It was hard to get my shoes on because my hands were shaking so hard," she told jurors of getting dressed after what she described as a regrettable encounter.
Trump has denied there was an encounter.
Prosecutors say Trump falsified 34 business records in order to hide a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels that purchased her silence just 11 days before the 2016 election.
Sticks and stones
Trump and Daniels have long called each other names on social media.
In a classic exchange from October 2018, the then-president called Daniels "horseface" in a tweet, as he celebrated a federal judge dismissing her defamation lawsuit against him.
"Game on, Tiny," responded Daniels, in a callback to her then-new book, Full Disclosure, in which she mocked his genitalia.
On Tuesday, the lawyer-witness exchange over this tawdry and long-running war of words led a female alternate juror to roll her eyes.
Necheles raised her voice as she confronted Daniels with a 2022 tweet in which Daniels called Trump an "orange turd."
"I'll never give that orange turd a dime," Daniels had tweeted.
"You call him names all the time!" Necheles shouted, in what was more an accusation than a question.
"Yes," Daniels answered quickly. "Because he made fun of me first."
"So one of you started it, but you continue it?" Necheles asked, her voice still loud.
"Correct," Daniels answered defiantly, at which point the alternate's eyes rolled.
Trump's mood lightened
Trump had appeared visibly downcast during Daniels' direct testimony, as she described their conversation before the alleged encounter. Trump compared her to his daughter, Ivanka, and assured Daniels that he and his wife kept separate bedrooms, she testified.
Daniels also described feeling ashamed and scared after the encounter.
Her fear increased in 2011, she told jurors, after she gave an interview about the encounter to In Touch magazine.
The piece never ran. But soon after her interview, a male stranger threatened her and her infant daughter in a Los Vegas parking lot, she told jurors.
During these descriptions, the GOP frontrunner slumped in his chair at the defense table.
He kept his chin down and watched Daniels' testimony on the large screen on the wall opposite him, raising only his eyes.
But on cross, Trump's mood visibly lightened as Necheles questioned Daniels about why she waited to go public, and why she never filed a police report about the stranger.
His chin rose, and his scowl disappeared.
"Mr. Trump, how's it going in there?" a reporter asked him in the hallway during a break in the cross-examination.
"Very well," Trump answered.
Extortion? False!
At another point in grilling Daniels, Necheles accused the porn star of cashing in on a false "claim" of sex.
She used the word "extort" to describe Daniels' motive.
"You were looking to extort money from President Trump?" Necheles asked.
"False," Daniels snapped back.
"And that's what you did?' Necheles asked.
"False," Daniels answered again.
"You've been making money by claiming you had sex with Mr. Trump for more than a decade, right?" the lawyer asked.
"I've been making money by telling my story about what happened to me," Daniels answered.
"And that story has made you a lot of money, right?" Necheles demanded.
"It has also cost me a lot of money," Daniels answered.
Daniels' cross-examination is expected to continue Thursday morning.