Adult film star Stormy Daniels recently shared a traumatic incident account at former President Donald Trump’s trial. She went on to outline her meeting with him in “excruciating detail” that included a pet name via Mediaite.
Tuesday morning featured a massive announcement ahead of the Stormy Daniels hush money election interference trial. A huge news broke that Daniels herself would be taking the witness stand.
As the court began, Judge Juan Merchan revealed which lines of questioning would be permitted regarding Daniels and former President Donald Trump and which would not.
However, when Daniels took the stand, there were many details that journalists found shocking and moving even before Daniels got to her alleged encounter with Trump.
In a traumatic recall of the incident, Daniels divulged the details that included Trump’s pet name for her — “Honeybunch” — and her regret at not saying “no” to him. From The New York Times:
Jonah Bromwich
May 7, 2024, 11:45 a.m. ET
Stormy Daniels says she came out of the bathroom and found that Trump was in the bedroom, waiting for her, in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt. She had been planning to go, she said. He was seated on the bed, between her and the exit.
Maggie Haberman
May 7, 2024, 11:46 a.m. ET
“What did I misread to get here,” she describes thinking. She says she tried to leave and he blocked her path, but not in a threatening manner.
Jonathan Swan
May 7, 2024, 11:47 a.m. ET
Trump is staring straight ahead glumly as Stormy Daniels describes him in his underclothes sitting on the bed waiting for her.
Jesse McKinley
May 7, 2024, 11:49 a.m. ET
Justice Merchan is noticeably upset, and Stormy Daniels seems confused, after some objections, about what to answer from prosecutors. We are in an intense, intense moment here.
Jonah Bromwich
May 7, 2024, 11:49 a.m. ET
Daniels is describing a remarkably intense encounter, and says that the room spun in slow motion and the blood left her hands and feet. She says that Trump did not act particularly threatening but blocked her access to the door to the bedroom. Then she says she “blacked out,” though she did not take alcohol or drugs. At this point, the judge — who has sustained one objection and seems unusually angry — called for a sidebar. He sustains another objection.
Jonah Bromwich
May 7, 2024, 11:53 a.m. ET
Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, is now asking Stormy Daniels about having had sex with Trump, which Trump denies. “Did you at some point end up on the bed having sex with him?” Hoffinger asks. Daniels says yes. When she describes the position they were in, the defense objects, and the objection is sustained.
Kate Christobek
May 7, 2024, 11:53 a.m. ET
Trump is watching Daniels as she talks about the sexual encounter. At one point, he motioned to his lawyer, who then objected.
Jonathan Swan
May 7, 2024, 11:54 a.m. ET
Trump’s son Eric is sitting directly behind him in court, staring straight ahead as Stormy Daniels describes the sexual encounter and its aftermath in excruciating detail.
Jonathan Swan
May 7, 2024, 11:56 a.m. ET
Trump has been unusually restrained listening to this portion of the testimony. His main responses have been to tap his lawyer Susan Necheles, seeming to urge on her objections.
Maggie Haberman
May 7, 2024, 12:04 p.m. ET
Stormy Daniels continues to walk the prosecutors through the encounter. She says Trump didn’t wear a condom. “Did you say anything about it?” Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, asks. “No,” Daniels replies, adding, when asked why not, “I didn’t say anything at all.” She describes it as brief, and repeats that she did not say no at any point. “I didn’t say anything at all,” she says again.
Jonah Bromwich
May 7, 2024, 12:05 p.m. ET
Daniels is testifying about a few details that corroborate her story, including who she talked to about the initial encounter, as well as further discussions with Trump, who called her “honeybunch.”
Jesse McKinley
May 7, 2024, 11:58 a.m. ET
Stormy Daniels describes herself being traumatized by the encounter: shaking, bewildered, wondering “how I got” to the place of having sex with Trump. But she says she didn’t say no, “because I didn’t say anything at all.”
Maggie Haberman
May 7, 2024, 11:59 a.m. ET
Daniels says that while she didn’t object in the moment, she also didn’t enjoy it, and that she felt there was an “imbalance” in the power dynamic between the two.
Michael Rothfeld
May 7, 2024, 12:03 p.m. ET
It’s worth noting that the ominous overtones of Stormy Daniels’s testimony about her sexual encounter with Trump were not present in early versions of this story she has told. In her 2011 interview, she did not mention blacking out, and described it much more casually than she is now. Experts on traumatic sexual experiences say that a person’s perception of such encounters can change over time, and that the most traumatic details may emerge only later.
