"He was bigger and blocking the way": Stormy Daniels takes the stand and reminds people who Trump is

[Nevilledog]

https://www.salon.com/2024/05/08/he-was-bigger-and-blocking-the-way-stormy-daniels-takes-the-stand-and-reminds-people-is/

"The people call Stormy Daniels."

Even though Donald Trump's former lawyer and longtime fixer Michael Cohen is a more important witness in the former president's ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan, the press is just as interested in Tuesday's testimony from the adult film actress at the center of his election interference case. No doubt much of the fascination is salacious, due to the nature of her job and her allegations of a disturbing sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. But much of it is due to Daniels herself, who has proved to be surprisingly charismatic, if at times chaotic, even as she faces a staggering amount of negative attention.

Mostly, however, Daniels matters for reasons outside of the courtroom and the specifics of this hush-money trial. Daniels' story is yet another reminder of what may prove to be Trump's electoral downfall: His bottomless misogyny.

On the witness stand, Daniels reportedly spoke quickly and was apparently quite nervous. Initially, her story of meeting Trump sounded funny. She painted him as a pathetic older man trying — and failing — to impress the younger woman. When he first asked her to dinner, she replied "no," but with an expletive. Her publicist eventually talked her into it, hoping Daniels could leverage the connection into a spot on "The Apprentice." In his hotel room, she described him wearing "silk or satin" pajamas and asked him to put on real clothes. He allegedly used the "don't even sleep in the same room" line when she asked about his wife, Melania, who had recently had a baby. Daniels described Trump as "pompous" and "arrogant." She recounted how she jokingly spanked him with a magazine, hoping to tease him into being less of a jerk.

Then the tone of her story changed, as she described how they came to have sex. Trump waited until she was in the bathroom, Daniels said, and then he stripped down to boxer shorts and a T-shirt. "The room spun in slow motion," she recalled on the witness stand. When she made for the door, "he was bigger and blocking the way," she said of Trump. She denied it was sexual assault, however, because "I was not threatened either verbally or physically."

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