Stormy Daniels testified in a Manhattan criminal courtroom during former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial, detailing Trump’s remarks about his relationship with his wife, Melania Trump, before their alleged sexual encounter in 2006.
Daniels described her interaction with Trump following a celebrity golf tournament in July 2006, where Trump invited her to dinner. Initially reluctant, Daniels eventually agreed and went to Trump’s penthouse suite. According to Daniels’ testimony, Trump engaged in conversation with her for nearly two hours before any sexual encounter took place. At one point, he showed her a photo of his wife Melania and indicated that their marriage shouldn’t concern her. “Don’t worry about that,” he said, as Daniels recalled, “We don’t even sleep in the same room.”
This encounter took place a little over a year after Trump’s marriage to Melania in January 2005. Their son Barron Trump was born in March 2006, just four months before the alleged affair.
Trump has consistently denied that the affair occurred. During his trial in New York, he was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to the $130,000 payment made to Daniels by Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen. The “hush money” was allegedly intended to ensure her silence about the incident during the 2016 presidential campaign. Prosecutors claim that Trump’s reimbursements to Cohen were falsely recorded as “legal expenses.”
Melania Trump’s name has been mentioned in earlier testimony during the trial, reflecting Trump’s concern about the potential impact of his alleged affairs on his marriage. Former Trump aide Hope Hicks testified that Trump was worried about how his relationship with former Playboy model Karen McDougal would be perceived by Melania and asked Hicks to ensure that newspapers reporting on the scandal were not delivered to their residence.
