Donald Trump told porn star Stormy Daniels she reminded him of his daughter before he had sex with her, a court has been told.
The adult actress yesterday took the stand to give her eagerly awaited testimony in the former president’s hush money trial that, if found guilty, could see him jailed for up to four years.
Daniels gave a detailed account of her times with Trump, 77, and also how he tried to bed her again a year after their famous first meeting.
The actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, came face-to-face with Trump for the first since their alleged one-night stand following a 2006 golf tournament.
After telling jurors how she became a porn actress at the age of 23, she recalled how she met Trump.
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She testified how he told her, “You remind me of my daughter,” referring to Ivanka, who he said was intelligent and blonde, adding that people underestimate her.
Daniels then told the court that his phrase made sense because someone like her could appear on the US version of The Apprentice, which he hosted, and prove she was not unintelligent.
While at the celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, she said he told her she was “the smart one” because she appeared behind and in front of the camera.
“He said, ‘You direct, too. You must be the smart one,’” Daniels told jurors.
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She said Trump repeated the same comment later in the course’s “gift room” as jurors were shown the infamous photo of them posing together, with the businessman wearing a yellow polo shirt and red cap.
She said she was then invited to his suite in the hotel.
Daniel told the court that, after coming out in silk pyjamas, Trump pulled out a Forbes magazine with himself on the cover.
Daniels said that at that point, she wanted to eat the dinner she was promised, rather than sit in the hotel and listen to Donald, so she went off.
(Image: Getty Images for XBIZ Awards)
Daniels asked Trump if he was always “this rude.” She told the jury she snapped at the millionaire real-estate heir. “Are you always this arrogant and pompous? You don’t even know how to have a conversation” she recalled telling Trump.
She testified that she spanked him with the rolled-up magazine “right on the butt.”
Daniels testified that her publicist urged her to skip a planned dinner with colleagues to meet Trump because it would “make a great story.”
“I was scheduled to go to dinner with everyone from the company that I worked for, and I didn’t want to go to,” Daniels told jurors before admitting that her agent pushed her to meet Trump because it could be “amazing.”
“What better excuse would you have to get out of this dinner than to have dinner with Donald Trump,” Daniels said, recalling the conversation with her publicist.
Once inside his room, she said she was greeted by the millionaire in a Hugh Hefner-style “silk or satin” pyjamas.
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Daniels said she immediately made fun of him about his look.
“Does Mr Hefner know you stole his pyjamas?” she recalled telling him in reference to the Playboy mogul’s famed look.
“I told him to change, and he obliged, very politely,” Daniels added.
She said that Trump then came back into the room wearing a button-down shirt and trousers.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The case centre upon the allegation a $130,000 (£104,000) payment was made to a second woman, porn star Stormy Daniels, who had been in talks with the Enquirer to tell her story.
(Image: Piers Morgan Instagram)
She was paid by Cohen to prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from surfacing in the final days of the 2016 election race.
Prosecutors say Trump then paid back his lawyer and obscured the true nature of such payments in internal business documents.
The businessman has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels – as well as McDougal – and his lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.
If found guilty, he could face up to four years in prison.
The trial continues.