He promised her food… but they didn't eat. He told her she reminded him of his daughter… and then stripped down to his boxers and a T-shirt while she was in the bathroom. He said he could help her career with a spot on his TV show… and then scolded her, “I thought you meant it,” when she tried to leave.
To be clear, Stormy Daniels never accused Donald Trump of anything other than a payoff. She has maintained that the sex she said she had in his Lake Tahoe hotel suite in 2006 was consensual but not pleasurable. But as I sat in the crowded room of the courthouse where Trump is being tried and heard Daniels testify about the sexual encounter she often joked about, the whole thing sounded a lot darker and darker than before.
Daniels took the stand Tuesday and spoke confidently. She gestured with her hands, sometimes joking, and at other times she spoke so fast that the judge had to ask her to slow down. But despite an agreement from the prosecutor not to reveal “lascivious” details about the sexual encounter itself, things took a somber turn when Daniels described what happened immediately before and after.
Trump was not threatening during the sexual encounter, she testified, although he stood between her and the door. She didn't say no to sex with him, but she also didn't consent to him not using a condom. She stayed in touch with him afterward, she said — even going to another hotel room with him another time — because she wanted to expand her career, and he was eyeing an opportunity to appear on “The Apprentice.”
And yet the words Daniels used to describe the encounter with Trump were sometimes reminiscent of so many of the other stories of women who have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault: She said she blacked out and then got naked was staring. up to the ceiling. She “felt like the room was spinning in slow motion” and blood was leaving her hands and feet. When it was over, she said, she fumbled with her shoes; gold strappy heels that she found difficult to fasten because her hands were shaking so violently.
Ultimately, she blamed herself: “I just thought, 'Oh my God, what did I read wrong to come here?'”