Movie legend Robert De Niro has been stripped of a prestigious leadership award after making a slew of fiery anti-Trump remarks outside the former president’s criminal trial. The 80-year-old Oscar-winner was set to receive the National Association of Broadcasters’ Service to America Award next Tuesday in Washington, D.C, but the organization rescinded the award because they claim the ceremony is ”proudly bi-partisan.”

In a statement to The Hill, a spokesperson for the group said, ”This event is proudly bipartisan, uniting those from across the political spectrum to celebrate the impactful work of local broadcasters and our partners.”

“While we strongly support the right of every American to exercise free speech and participate in civic engagement, it is clear that Mr De Niro’s recent high-profile activities will create a distraction from the philanthropic work that we were hoping to recognize. To maintain the focus on the service of the award winners, Mr. De Niro will no longer be attending the event.”

Notably, Mr De Niro, who has been a frequent critic of Trump through the years, was invited by Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, to say a few words at a press conference outside the courthouse. The actor tore into Trump and called him a ”threat” to the country, claiming that he incited violence and destruction on January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol.

”I don’t mean to scare you. No no, wait, maybe I do mean to scare you. If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss away these freedoms that we take for granted and elections, forget about it,” the actor said.

He also called Donald Trump a “clown,” adding that “we’ve forgotten the lessons of history that showed us other clowns who weren’t taken seriously until they became vicious dictators.”

“With Trump, we have a second chance, and no one is laughing now. This is the time to stop him by voting him out once and for all. If he gets in, I can tell you right now, he will never leave,” he added. 

Speaking to Sky News, Mr De Niro said that Mr Trump should not be the President of the United States. “You know my view of Donald Trump, he’s a monster. He should not be allowed… listen – he cannot be president of the United States again, never, ever.”

Just hours after the NAB announced their decision, the Hollywood actor didn’t protest it and said he supports the NAB. ”I support the work of the NAB Leadership Foundation and would like to express my appreciation and gratitude for what the Foundation has done and will continue to do for the good of us all, and I wish them well for their continued good work,” he responded. 

 

Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump has reacted to her father’s criminal conviction in the ‘hush money trial’ in New York. After the jury found the former US President guilty on all felony charges, Ivanka shared on her Instagram stories a childhood photo of herself sitting in her father’s lap. Alongside the image, she wrote, “I love you dad,” followed by a heart emoji.

“Ivanka is fully supportive of her dad and loves him very much despite his conviction,” revealed a source close to the family to The New York Post.

She has been an integral part of her father’s political journey, having previously served as a senior advisor in the Trump administration and holding the position of Director of the Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship. In 2022, Ms Ivanka, amid speculations about her potential involvement in her father’s anticipated 2024 presidential bid, clarified that she would not be entering the political arena this time around. Instead, she would focus on young children and family, she claimed back then.

Donald Trump has been convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $1,30,000 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential elections. During the 7-week trial, both Ms Daniels and Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen testified against the president, making shocking allegations. 

The 77-year-old  was accused of covering up a significant sum of money as payment to Ms Daniels to cover up potential sex scandals that could have harmed his 2016 campaign. While Ms Daniels alleged a sexual encounter in 2006 and maintained her account of the incident, the former president vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

After an extended period of deliberation, the jury delivered their verdict at 4:20 pm on Thursday and the Manhattan Supreme Court also delivered its verdict around 5 pm.

In their opening statement at Donald Trump’s criminal trial, the prosecutors seeking to win the first-ever criminal conviction of a sitting or former U.S. president made a bold prediction: they would have hard evidence to back up testimony from Michael Cohen, the star witness branded a liar by the defense.

Over the next several weeks, jurors heard testimony from insiders at Mr. Trump’s real estate company, his 2016 presidential campaign, and his White House that methodically backed up the two core elements of Manhattan District Alvin Bragg’s case: that Mr. Trump was aware of a “catch-and-kill” conspiracy to buy the silence of people with negative information before the election, and that he was involved in a cover-up of Cohen’s hush money payment to a porn star.

That testimony — coupled with evidence such as bank records, emails and a surreptitious recording of Trump speaking about a hush money payment — culminated in the 12-member jury finding Mr. Trump guilty of criminal charges.

Its verdict: He illegally falsified business records to hide his reimbursement to Cohen for the $130,000 Cohen paid to buy the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election about an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006.

To be sure, jury deliberations are secret and the reasoning behind the decision to convict will not be clear unless any jurors decide to speak publicly. Trump is almost certain to appeal his conviction.

Cohen testified at the trial in New York state criminal court in Manhattan that the reimbursement payments were falsely labeled as legal retainer fees in Trump’s family real estate company’s books. Cohen said Trump directed him to pay off Daniels, and that he would not have done so without getting paid back.

“He stated to me that he had spoken to some friends, some individuals, very smart people, and that: ‘It’s $130,000. You’re like a billionaire. Just pay it,’” Cohen said on May 13. “And he expressed to me: ‘Just do it.’”

The verdict vindicated Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who was criticized by both Trump’s fellow Republicans and some of Bragg’s fellow Democrats for bringing a case involving well-known allegations of sexual impropriety, even if the transaction that mattered was financial.

Bragg argued the case was truly about an effort to corrupt the 2016 election – not sex.

“It was the subversion of democracy,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said in his May 28 closing statement. The “catch-and-kill” conspiracy, he said, was meant “to manipulate and defraud the voters, to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion.”

The case is widely viewed as less consequential than the other three criminal cases Mr. Trump faces on charges over efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden and his retention of sensitive government documents after leaving the White House in 2021.

Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty in the other three cases, which are unlikely to reach juries before his Nov. 5 election rematch with Mr. Biden.

‘Out of character’

One challenge for Bragg’s case was Cohen’s credibility. Cohen went to prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to violating campaign finance law with the payment to Daniels and lying to Congress in 2017 about a Trump Organization real estate project in Russia. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche hounded Cohen on cross-examination about his lies to journalists and an instance in which he stole from Trump’s company.

So prosecutors needed plenty of evidence backing up Cohen’s testimony that Trump was aware of Cohen’s payment to Daniels, which they argued was part of a broader conspiracy to buy the silence of people with potentially negative information about Trump in violation of campaign finance laws.

Jurors did not have to rely solely on Cohen’s testimony to accept that Trump intended to conceal that alleged conspiracy by labeling his 2017 payments to Cohen as legal retainer fees.

David Pecker, the then-publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid, testified that he agreed at an August 2015 meeting with Trump and Cohen to be the campaign’s “eyes and ears” for women coming forward with unflattering stories about Trump.

Jurors heard a tape Cohen surreptitiously recorded of Mr. Trump on Sept. 6, 2016, discussing a hush money payment Pecker’s company made to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who says she had a year-long affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007. Trump denied having ever had a sexual relationship with her or with Daniels.

Jurors saw phone records showing Cohen had several calls with Trump and his bodyguard Keith Schiller – whom Cohen said would hand his phone to Trump – around the time of frantic negotiations with Daniels’ lawyer over the payment in October 2016.

In some of his most damning testimony, Cohen said he, Mr. Trump and then-Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg discussed the repayment plan in a January 2017 meeting shortly before Trump’s inauguration as president.

Weisselberg, who is serving a five-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to perjury in a separate case, did not testify for either side at the trial. But jurors saw Weisselberg’s handwritten notes – jotted down on a copy of the wire transfer receipt for Cohen’s payment to Daniels’ lawyer – with instructions as to how Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney should pay Cohen. McConney testified that he understood the payments to be a reimbursement for Cohen, not legal fees.

Hope Hicks, a former communications aide of Trump’s, recalled Trump telling her that Cohen paid Daniels “out of the kindness of his own heart” – consistent with the defense’s efforts to distance Trump himself from the hush money deals.

But Hicks expressed skepticism of that claim.

“That,” Hicks testified on May 3, “would be out of character for Michael.”

People look at Fox News screens displaying news announcing that a jury found former U.S. President Donald Trump guilty on all 34 counts in his criminal trial in New York State Supreme Court, in New York City, on May 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Donald Trump, the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime, will remain a free man while he awaits sentencing and could avoid a prison term entirely for falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star. Here is a look at what’s next for the Republican candidate for President against Democratic President Joe Biden in a November 5 election.

What happens now?

The judge presiding over the case, Juan Merchan, must first approve the verdict and enter a final judgment, though this is typically a formality.

Criminal defendants in New York are typically sentenced within several weeks of conviction, but post-verdict legal wrangling can sometimes lead to months of delays. In the meantime, lawyers and prosecutors will recommend sentences and then argue over them at Trump’s sentencing hearing, where Merchan will make a decision.

Will Trump go to prison?

That is unlikely.

The maximum sentence for Mr. Trump’s crime of falsifying business records is 1-1/3 to four years in prison.

It is rare for people with no criminal history who are convicted only of falsification of business records to be sentenced to prison in New York. Punishments like fines or probation are more common.

Defendants convicted of falsifying business records who get sentenced to time behind bars typically serve a year or less, and even in those cases most were convicted of other crimes such as fraud or grand larceny — unlike Mr. Trump

If punished beyond a fine, Mr. Trump could be placed under home confinement or subject to a curfew rather than imprisoned.

As a former President, he has a lifetime Secret Service detail, and the logistics of keeping him safe behind bars could be complicated.

Mr. Trump could also be released on bail while appealing his conviction.

Can Trump appeal the conviction?

Yes. Mr. Trump is likely to make arguments that Merchan rejected ahead of trial, including that the indictment is legally flawed and politically motivated. He is also likely to argue Merchan deprived him of a fair trial by making legal errors, including allowing salacious testimony by a porn star who said she had sex with Mr. Trump — testimony his lawyers said was gratuitous and aimed at inflaming the jury against him.

The defense is likely to argue that the charges themselves were legally improper. Falsifying business records on its own is a misdemeanor in New York, but is elevated to a felony when done to help commit or conceal another crime. In this case, Bragg’s office said that other crime was a conspiracy to violate a state election law.

But Mr. Trump’s lawyers have argued that state law does not apply to federal elections.

Could Trump still be President?

Yes. The U.S. Constitution only requires that presidents be at least 35 years old and natural-born U.S. citizens who have lived in the country for 14 years.

In theory, Trump could be sworn in from jail or prison on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2025, if he were to unseat Biden.

New York:

Donald Trump engaged in “conspiracy and a cover-up” to hide from voters that he had paid hush money to a porn star, prosecutors told a jury Tuesday in closing arguments at the first ever criminal trial of a former US president.

Less than six months before an election in which Trump is seeking to return to the White House, the stakes riding on the verdict are high — both for the 77-year-old personally and for the country.

Trump is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, afraid that her account of an alleged sexual encounter could doom his 2016 presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass delivered the summation for the prosecution after Trump’s defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, called for his acquittal, insisting the case against the former president was based on lies.

Steinglass said Daniels’s story about her 2006 tryst with the married Trump was the motive for the alleged crime, but the “case at its core is about a conspiracy and a cover up” on the eve of an election.

“The people have presented powerful evidence of the defendant’s guilt,” he said.

Blanche told the jury that Trump was “innocent.” The only outcome should be a “very quick and easy not guilty verdict.”

Cohen, the one-time Trump fixer who became the star prosecution witness, was motivated by “outright hatred” for his former boss, Blanche said.

“He told you a number of things on that witness stand that were lies, pure and simple,” he said.

– ‘Accountable’ –

Blanche said Trump was busy “running the country” when the reimbursements were made to Cohen and he did not closely inspect all the invoices that came across his desk.

“There was no intent to defraud and beyond that there was no conspiracy to influence the 2016 election,” Blanche said.

But Steinglass countered that there was a mountain of corroborating evidence in addition to Cohen’s testimony.

“They want to make this case about Michael Cohen,” he said. “This case is about Donald Trump and whether he should be accountable for causing false entries in his own business records and whether he did that to cover up his own election violations.”

Speaking to reporters before entering the Manhattan courtroom, Trump called it a “very dangerous day for America.”

“We have a rigged court case that should have never been brought,” he said as three of his five children — Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany — stood behind him.

The 12 anonymous jurors were to start deliberations as early as Wednesday.

Polls show Trump neck and neck against President Joe Biden and the verdict will inject new tension into the White House race.

Speaking on behalf of the Biden campaign outside court, legendary actor Robert De Niro berated Trump as a “clown” intent on destroying the country.

The first former or sitting president under criminal indictment, Trump faces charges ranging from the relatively minor hush money case to accusations he took top secret documents and tried to overthrow the 2020 election.

The New York case, which featured more than 20 witnesses over five weeks and gripping testimony by Daniels and Cohen, is the only one likely to come to trial by election day.

– Unanimity required –

If convicted, Trump faces up to four years in prison on each of 34 counts, but legal experts say that as a first-time offender he is unlikely to get jail time.

A conviction would not bar him from appearing on the ballot in November.

Trump chose not to testify in his defense.

Instead, he used his trips to court to stage tirades against “corrupt” Judge Juan Merchan, and to claim the trial is a Democratic ploy to keep him off the campaign trail.

To return a guilty or not guilty verdict requires the jury to be unanimous. Just one holdout means a hung jury and a mistrial, although prosecutors could seek a new trial.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

For weeks, Donald Trump has sat silently in a New York courtroom while former employees and associates have testified in his criminal hush money trial. On Monday, the former U.S. president might seize the chance to tell his side of the story.

It is unclear whether Trump will take the witness stand.

Though he said before the trial began that he planned to testify, his lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge last week that he was unsure whether he would do so. Trump himself declined to tell reporters whether he will testify or not.

The first former president to stand criminal trial has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a payment that bought the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Daniels had threatened to go public with her account of an alleged 2006 sexual encounter – a liaison Trump denies.

Outside the courtroom, Trump, 77, has blasted the trial as a politically motivated effort to hobble his attempt to take back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election.

Inside the chamber, Trump has sat at the defendant’s table listening to Daniels tell her account of their time together in lurid detail. Other witnesses have discussed efforts to bury unflattering stories at a time Trump faced multiple accusations of sexual misbehavior.

Prosecutors said last week they expected to wrap up their presentation on Monday after remaining testimony from Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen, who made the payment to Daniels.

At that point, Trump’s legal team will get a chance to make a presentation of their own, though defense lawyers often skip that step when they believe prosecutors have failed to make their case.

Trump’s lawyers said they did not think they would need much time to call witnesses of their own – unless Trump opted to testify.

“That’s another decision that we need to think through,” Blanche said on Thursday.

If he chooses to testify, Trump will have the opportunity to convince jurors that he was not responsible for the paperwork at the heart of the case and rebut Daniels’ detailed account of their meeting in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

He would not be restrained by a gag order that bars him in other settings from criticizing witnesses, jurors, and relatives of the judge and prosecutors.

However, he would face cross-examination by prosecutors, who could try to expose inconsistencies in his story. Any lies told under oath could expose him to further criminal perjury charges.

Trump could risk tarnishing his credibility or alienating the jury if he goes off on confusing tangents or loses his temper on the stand, said George Grasso, a retired New York judge.

“If he were to slip into campaign mode, he could play into the archetype of Donald Trump as a person who can’t control himself, as a person who’s loose with the truth,” Grasso said. “He could tank his whole case with one outburst.”

Trump last appeared as a witness in a civil business fraud trial last year, delivering defiant and rambling testimony that aggravated Justice Arthur Engoron, who was overseeing the case. Engoron would go on to order him to pay $355 million in penalties after finding he fraudulently overstated his net worth to dupe lenders.

Defendants in white-collar criminal cases typically do not testify in their own defense, but Trump would not be the only one to do so. Cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes are among recent high-profile defendants to take the stand. Both were convicted of defrauding investors and are now serving time in prison.

The hush money trial is widely seen as the least consequential of the four criminal prosecutions Trump faces, but it is likely the only one to go to trial before the election. Trump faces charges in Washington and Georgia of trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden and charges in Florida of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021. He has pleaded not guilty in all three cases.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

New York:

Stormy Daniels finished her marathon testimony at Donald Trump’s hush money trial on Thursday with attorneys for the former president seeking to paint her as a greedy liar who profited from her allegations.

The X-rated film actress, who claims to have had sex with the married Trump in 2006, denied that she threatened the tycoon if he did not buy her silence.

“I wanted the truth to come out… to get my story protected with a paper trail so that my family didn’t get hurt,” the 45-year-old Daniels said during aggressive cross-examination by Trump’s attorney Susan Necheles.

Trump, 77, is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, when the story could have proved politically fatal.

The face-off between Daniels and Team Trump took place six months before the November election, when the Republican hopeful will try to defeat Democratic President Joe Biden.

‘I hated it’

During nearly eight hours of testimony over two days, Daniels walked the New York jury through the one-night stand she said she had with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament, and then the financial settlement she says ensued.

On Thursday, Trump’s lawyers suggested Daniels was out for the money.

They accused her of appearing at strip club events promoted with a picture of Trump and the tagline “Making America Horny Again.”

“I never used that tagline — I hated it,” said Daniels who wore a green dress and a long, hooded black cardigan, her hair loose and her cadence confident.

In her testimony Tuesday, she described Trump’s pajamas, his boxer shorts, the sexual position and that he did not wear a condom.

And while she was “not threatened verbally or physically” she said she “felt ashamed I didn’t stop it, didn’t say no.”

These were details the defense argued were irrelevant to the case — but which they doubled down on and repeated frequently during cross-examination.

Trump has denied having sex with Daniels and his lawyers on Tuesday asked the judge for a mistrial on the grounds her testimony was “extremely prejudicial” in what is essentially a financial records and election-related case.

Judge Juan Merchan denied the mistrial request, and a second one lodged on Thursday.

The jury also heard from a publisher at Harper Collins books — which handled Trump’s “Think Big and Kick Ass” — as well as Trump Organization bookkeeper Rebecca Manochio and former aide Madeleine Westerhout.

The former Trump assistant — who has penned a book about her experience working in the White House and her eventual firing over divulging embarrassing details about the then-first family — broke down in tears at one point when asked about losing her job.

Westerhout, who said Trump would sometimes dictate tweets to her, appeared ever-loyal to the former US leader and called working for him at the beginning of his presidency “an incredible experience.”

She’s a witness who’s clearly sympathetic to Trump — but she confirmed communicating with Cohen to schedule a February 2017 meeting at the White House that could prove vital to proving the charges Trump faces.

Westerhout’s cross-examination will continue Friday.

Gag order remains

Merchan has imposed a gag order on Trump prohibiting him from publicly attacking witnesses and the ex-president — who has traded insults with Daniels for years, calling her “horseface” and other crude slurs — has not yet commented directly on her testimony.

Trump said on Thursday that his side had filed an appeal against the gag order in an appellate court.

His lawyer also demanded that Trump be allowed to hit back publicly at Daniels’ claims about their encounter now that she was no longer a witness.

Judge Merchan denied his request to change the gag order, which Trump has been fined $10,000 for breaking.

During the cross-examination on Thursday, Daniels accused Necheles of trying to trick her into misspeaking.

“You have a lot of experience in making phony stories about sex appear to be real,” Necheles said, noting that Daniels had directed and starred in over 150 adult films.

“If that story was untrue I would’ve written it to be a lot better,” Daniels retorted, referring to her account of the night with Trump. “I didn’t have to write this one.”

In addition to the New York case, Trump has been indicted in Washington and Georgia on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

He has also been charged in Florida with allegedly mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House but that case has been postponed indefinitely.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Donald Trump’s intimate moments with an adult film star spilled out into open court on Tuesday as Stormy Daniels described her alleged affair with the former president in a highly-anticipated moment of his hush-money trial.

The testimony everybody was waiting for arrived Tuesday morning in Manhattan as Daniels took the stand to tell her story of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite.

“He was wearing silk or satin pajamas that I immediately made fun of,” Daniels said as a prosecutor questioned her about the encounter. “‘Does Hugh Hefner know you stole his pajamas?'” she recalled asking Trump.

Her vivid and often graphic testimony included fresh details on a story that has been pored over for years. The scene injected a tabloid-ready moment into the trial, with the adult-film actress confronting the former president before a jury of New Yorkers who will determine his fate. 

During a break, Judge Juan Merchan privately warned Trump’s lawyer that the ex-president could be heard uttering vulgarities during the testimony, which the judge said he would not tolerate. The day before, Merchan had threatened to jail Trump for continuing to violate a gag order barring him from publicly discussing potential witnesses.

“I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous,” Merchan told attorney Todd Blanche, according to a transcript. “It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that.”

Campaign Damage

The private and potentially embarrassing details about the night they met – including her mocking of Trump’s silk pajamas and the manner in which he allegedly initiated sex – are likely to infuriate the former president, who has denied the affair and is deeply protective of his public image. What’s less clear is how damaging the revelations will be to his case or his campaign. 

The remarkable testimony is the latest example of how Trump’s dealings with women are coming back to haunt him in court. Last year, a federal jury in Manhattan found Trump liable for sexually assaulting New York writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s. Another jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages to punish Trump for defaming her by denying her allegation of rape.

Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for the November election even after Carroll prevailed in court in her sexual-abuse lawsuit, and his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton followed a string of damaging revelations about his dealings with women. That included the release of the so-called Access Hollywood tape in which he boasts about sexual assault. 

Star Witness

Daniels is at the center of a case in which Trump is accused of falsifying business records to conceal the nature of a $130,000 payment to her to keep her quiet before the 2016 election. Her testimony is crucial because the Manhattan district attorney, who brought the case last year, must convince jurors that Trump tried to conceal Daniels’s story before the election. 

If Daniels can convince jurors that a sexual encounter took place, it can bolster the district attorney’s argument about Trump’s motivation to make the hush-money payment. 

Mistrial Request

Many of the details Daniels gave the jury Tuesday have been public for years, but her answers under questioning by prosecutors included new claims that angered the defense, including a suggestion that Daniels felt pressured to have sex with Trump due to a “power imbalance.”

Daniels delivered much of her testimony in a colorful demeanor that sometimes bordered on humorous, eliciting frequent laughs from spectators. Daniels avoided looking directly at Trump, even when she walked right by him. For his part, Trump appeared to keep his eyes closed for much of her testimony.

Trump and his lawyers mostly let Daniels testify uninterrupted. It wasn’t until after the lunch break, when Trump’s lawyer Blanche seized the opportunity to ask the judge for a mistrial, arguing that the detailed testimony by Daniels had gone too far and prejudiced the jury. 

Merchan denied the mistrial motion but even so, agreed some of Daniels’s testimony had gone too far. He asked Daniels to stay focused and avoid providing “unnecessary details” in her testimony. He also chided Trump’s lawyers for not objecting to it earlier.

Before the jury came back from the break, Judge Merchan told prosecutor Susan Hoffinger that “we don’t need this level of detail, like the color of the floor.”

Salacious Details

Daniels described how she first met Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite, where she’d been invited after meeting the real estate mogul at a celebrity golf tournament sponsored in part by the adult-film company where she worked. Trump’s bodyguard invited her to Trump’s hotel for dinner and when she arrived at the room, she found Trump in his silk pajamas.

Speaking rapidly during her testimony, Daniels was frequently asked to slow down by the judge. She detailed her banter with Trump, describing him as “arrogant.” That prompted Trump to suggest she should spank him, she said.

Daniels said she asked Trump about his wife, Melania. He told her not to worry about that and that they “don’t even sleep in the same room.” She said she excused herself to go to the bathroom, and found Trump waiting for her on the bed when she returned.

She regretted her decisions that had led her there that night, and said she didn’t disclose her affair with Trump because she felt “ashamed.” The consensual tryst left her shaken, Daniels said, but she stayed in touch with Trump because he promised he’d help her get on his reality TV show, The Apprentice.

Daniels said hundreds of people knew of her relationship with Trump, but few knew they had sex. Her story briefly became public in a 2011 gossip blog post. But by 2016, she decided to accept a $130,000 payment from Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen to keep quiet about the affair.

Extorting money from Trump, as the former president has suggested, wasn’t her goal, Daniels testified.

“My motivation wasn’t money,” Daniels said. “It was to get the story out.”

Cross-Examination 

Trump’s team used cross examination to portray Daniels as a liar who wanted to make money off a fake story about the former president.

Trump lawyer Susan Necheles accused Daniels at one point of making up her testimony as she went along, pointing to evidence that she’d told a Los Angeles lawyer she didn’t have sex with Trump, and that she told some entertainment news outlets that the story about the affair was false.

“You’re making it up as you sit there, right?” Necheles said.

Necheles suggested that Daniels was an extortionist and someone determined to avoid paying Trump more than $500,000 in legal fees she owed him.

“You’re looking to extort money from President Trump, right?” Necheles asked.

“False,” said Daniels.

The lawyer at one point got Daniels to say she hates Trump and that she hopes he’ll go to jail, seeking to convey to the jury that Daniels has biased feelings about Trump.

“Am I correct that you hate President Trump?” Necheles asked.

“Yes,” Daniels said.

“And you want him to go to jail?” Necheles asked.

“I want him to be held accountable,” Daniels said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)