Be scarier with his clothes on. Do you want to see him jailed . I dont think that his crimes against me are worthy of incarceration. I feel like the other things that he has done, if he is found guilty, absolutely. Stormy daniels, the woman at the center of trumps hush money scandal, takes the stand. Revealing in vivid detail the alleged sexual encounter that she says left her shaking. And the 130,000 payment that bought her silence. Plus, more of my exclusive interview with wnba star Brittney Griner including how she survives a Russian Gulag. The letter she wrote to putin, how trump turned on her, and her joyful homecoming. But we begin on the day that probably most trump trial watchers have been anticipating. And one donald trump has likely been dreading. Today was the day that stephanie clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, took the witness stand in trumps hush money election interference trial. Trump was dreading this day so much that even before daniels entered the courtroom, he tweeted and then quickly deleted a social media post ranting about her impending testimony without explicitly naming her. He also made his lawyers argue that she should not be allowed to speak about the alleged sexual encounter at all. It is clear that trump not only did not want the story to come out before the 2016 president ial election, he didnt want it to come out today before the jury. When daniels took the stand, she appeared nervous and was asked multiple times to slow down in her responses. She spoke about the events of july 2006 when she was working at a celebrity Golf Tournament in lake tahoe, where she met trump for the first time. As we have seen immortalized in this photo of the two of them. She said she was 27 years old at the time. When asked if she knew his approximate age at the time, daniels said, she knew he was as old as her father and guessed 60. When trump invited her to dinner that night, it was her publicist who encouraged her to take up his offer, according to daniels. It will make a great story. Hes a business guy. What could possibly go wrong, daniels recalled him telling her. That line drew laughter from the courts overflow room, though we all know now what daniels said happened that night, and its not funny at all. She recounted when she arrived at the hotel suite, he was wearing silk or satin pajamas to which she asked trump, does mr. Hefner know you stole his pajamas. She testified whether she is a porn actress could ever be on the apprentice, trump told her, you remind me of my daughter. Smart and blond ivanka. Then while showing a picture of melania who at the time was home looking after their newborn baby, daniels said trump told her, they did not even sleep in the same room. At one point, daniels describes how she spanked trump with a magazine, which per news reports had a picture of his face on the cover, for being rude and continuing to cut her off in their conversation. Someone should spank you with that, daniels recalled saying to trump about the magazine. Danielsed that trump rolled up the magazine and gave me a look as kind of a dare. So i took it from him and i said, turn around. And i swatted him right on the butt, she testified. Then came her testimony about the sexual encounter with trump that caught her off guard. Daniels said that she went to the restroom, while waiting for a friend she called to come up to the room. When she walked out of the bathroom, she was startled to find trump sitting on his bed wearing only boxer shorts. It was like a jump scare, she said. And thats when i had that moment where i felt like the room spun in slow motion. She described her internal thinking. Great, i have put myself in this bad situation. He didnt come at me. He didnt rush at me. He didnt put his hands on me, nothing like that, she continued. She said trumps response was that if she ever wanted to get out of the trailer park, he could help her. I thought you were serious about what you wanted, she testified trump told her. It was at that point that trumps lawyers objected and then objected again multiple times as daniels continued to describe her alleged apparently brief sexual encounter with trump. Daniels, i was trying to think about anything other than what was happening there. When it was done, daniels recounted trump said to her, oh, it was great. Lets get together again, honey bunch. To which daniels claimed i just left as fast as i could. The prosecution also asked, did he express any concern at that point about his wife finding out, to which daniels said no. Not more than ten feet away, trump was forced to listen to every word of her testimony, reportedly growing visibly uncomfortable multiple times. Shaking his head and pushing his lawyers to object to various lines of questioning. In fact, when the court convened after their lunch break, trumps defense team called for a mistrial on the grounds that daniels testimony over their alleged encounter was unduly prejudicial to trump and included information they claimed was not relevant to the case. Trumps lawyer todd blanche argued the only reason the government asked these questions aside from pure embarrassment is to emflay the jury. The judge denied the request saying i dont think were at a point where a mistrial is warranted and i think you have the remedy of crossexamination. That croakation by trumps lone female attorney accused her of profiting from more than a decade off her claims that she had sex with trump. At one point, trumps lawyer questioned daniels claiming you are making this up as you go, right . Which daniels vehemently denied. Daniels will be back on the stand thursday morning to continue her crossexamination. Joining me is adam reese who was in court today. Katie phang, Trial Attorney and host of the katie phang show on msnbc, lockland cartwright, former Executive Editor of the national enquirer, and michael rothfelt, coauthor of the fixers, the bottom fielders, crooked lawyers, Gossip Mongers And Porn Stars who created the 45th president. An apt title. Adam, im going to start with you. We dont have a transcript unfortunately of every word stated, but it seemed to me just reading the notes you and our great reporters put in, that the part where Stormy Daniels actually describes this encounter with trump was pretty dramatic. Go through it with us in a little bit greater detail. She was very compelling. She was riveting. She looked directly at the jury as she told this story. Took us back to 2006 when she met trump, lake tahoe golf course, a celebrity tournament. And she meets him on the golf course and a little later his body guard says, mr. Trump would like to have dinner with you. She goes up to his hotel room and she recounts in vivid detail every little moment, the Black And White tile floor, the furniture both in the antiroom and the living room. They sit down, they have a conversation. Mr. Trump is asking her about her work, about the adult film industry, about stds, about do you get tested . Are there doctors on the set . He said you remind me of my daughter, ivanka. Beautiful, blond. He says dont worry, melania and i dont sleep in the same bed anymore. Were not in the same bedroom, even though they had been married only a year. They continued to banter about, and they talk about wrestling. Hes very into wrestling, and she picks up a magazine, rolls it up and hits him on the back side. Eventually, she goes into the master bedroom, she says i need to go to the bathroom. She goes into the restroom in the master bedroom. She again recounts details in the bathroom, there is a toiletry kit with old spice toiletries, and she says she freshens up and when she steps out, lo and behold, to her surprise, mr. Trump is on the bed in his boxer shorts. And from there, it only got more graphic, more detailed. Right, and katie phang, the notes, you know, its quite harrowing to read them. And im sure it was harrowing for the jury to listen to it, because she sort of describes kind of being like, i put myself in this position. Kind of didnt seem to know what to do. She describes something that sounded consensual but not something she really wanted to do. But that she kind of did anyway and just tried to leave her body and not be there and get out as soon as she could. The thing that is sort of striking about it is it isnt part of the case. It isnt necessarily part of the case, but Donald Trumps lawyers are contesting whether they had this sexual encounter at all. And so as just the notes were recounting, as shes describing this, they keep objecting which is sort of prolonging the story. Just ill let you say more. Yeah, so its a necessary part of the prosecution and for those that are criticizing the decision by either merchan to allow it to happen or the prosecution to bring it in, there really wasnt any other way, joy, that the story could be told. You had to have the underlying context of why it was so important for donald trump to desperately try to get her silenced before the November 2016 election. Why . For exactly the reasons you just heard from adam reese, my colleague. That level of detail would have been humiliating for donald trump. It would have been embarrassing to have the president ial candidate of the gop in 2016 saying that he doesnt sleep in the same room with his, you know, bride of less than a year and that he could be spanked on the bottom with a magazine and hes lounging in hugh hefners pajamas. These are visions and images now branded in the minds of the jury because the prosecution called a witness like Stormy Daniels who took the time to walk through that humiliating moment in her life to make sure that jury went on that ride with her. Whether you wanted to hear it or not, it was, again, something that needed to be said because if you didnt have that testimony, then why in the hell would donald trump be so desperate to keep it silenced . If it was just them hanging out having tea and crumpets, why be so desperate to make sure the public doesnt hear about it . Thats the reason they needed to know the context of why that silencing happened. Right, and lockland, you had Donald Trumps son, eric trump, who is the only one showing up in court for him, going out and start railing on social media saying the prosecution doesnt give an s about the merits of the case, the prosecutors are sitting at their table giddy at the salacious show. This is the intent. The entire case is a massive extortion play. But the reality is, it is this story and the details of it that for a publication like the national enquirer, would have been salacious gold if they had published such a dramatic story. The fact they didnt almost makes the case. Most definitely. I was sitting just two rows behind eric trump as Stormy Daniels was giving testimony today in court. His head was down for most of it. On his phone. But as im listening to Stormy Daniels tell this tale and in very graphic detail, im sitting there thinking, this is the type of scoop i came to the enquirer to break, this is the type of scoop that could have changed the course of the election. Thats why today was so important. Because the timeline here, joy, is that once the access Hollywood Tape hits, the campaign is scrambling. And while Stormy Daniels and her manager Gino Rodriguez were looking to shop her story in the summer, there wasnt much interest. Fast forward, the access Hollywood Tape, and all of a sudden, its a massive priority to catch and kill this story off the market. My boss, dylan howard and the Chief Content Officer is in commune cautions with Keith Davidson, her attorney, and Michael Cohen, making sure the story would never so the light of day. And michael rothfeld, welcome to the show, you had people like yourself looking to break stories like really going up to days before the election about these catch and kill agreements. Including your story that you were working on for the wall street journal. Talk a little bit about that. Well, we had gotten some information just a few weeks before the election in 2016 that there were some women being paid off for donald trump, and you know, within a few weeks the election was coming up. We were able to get a copy of the contract that Karen Mcdougal, a former playboy model, playmate of the year, had signed with the national enquirer, where lockland was working at the time, and they had paid her 150,000. For this catch and kill. As he said, and we reported that four days before the election. It did not make tremendous waves at the time, but it sort of set in motion the chain of events that has led us to today. At the time, we knew Stormy Daniels was also being represented by the same lawyer as Karen Mcdougal, Keith Davidson, and she had been talking to people about telling her story but she went dark. We didnt know who paid her. It took us another year to determine that so that when we reported at the journal in January Of 2018 that Michael Cohen had paid her 130,000, just less than two weeks before the election. One thing thats interesting is hope hicks is who was his communications director, right, and thats who you all were calling to get confirmation of the story, no . Yeah, for the mcdougal story, we were dealing with the enquirer, and we called also hope hicks who was the Press Secretary for his campaign. She testified last week, you know, she ran this by Michael Cohen, she ran it by david pecker, the publisher of the enquirer. Trump was very insistent because we did mention stormy in that story as well, that they deny he had any sexual relationship or romantic relationship with either woman. That was what hope hicks had testified was the most important thing to him. And you know, she told us at the journal, we have no knowledge of any of this, and she said for her, that was true, but obviously, we know now that trump and Michael Cohen both knew about that deal with the national enquirer. Let me come back to you, adam. Just to talk about some of the demeanor and i dont know how much you could see. I think you were in overflow watching it, but donald trump, you could see donald trump and his lawyers sitting there. What was the demeanor during the as these details came out . I had a direct view of donald trump. He was more alert today than he usually is. When she walked in both in the morning and in the afternoon, he did take a noticeable quick glance of her, and then during her testimony, he would look up at the monitors. So he could get a good look at her. Eric trump did the same. He was trying to avoid being seen looking at her, but he was taking occasional glances up at the monitor. Its hard for mr. Trump to see the witness and in fact when Stormy Daniels was asked by the prosecutor to identify mr. Trump, she actually had to get up out of her chair to stand up and point over to mr. Trump in his blue suit. Adam reese, thank you, my friend. Appreciate it. And we appreciate your notes. 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