'Yuck': Defense lawyer thinks Stormy Daniels' testimony grossed out jury
Stormy Daniels went into great detail about her two-hour meeting with Donald Trump while she testified in his criminal trial Tuesday — and one expert thinks it might have been too much.
Trump stands accused of falsifying business records to prevent the public from learning about a sexual encounter with Daniels at a time he was courting evangelical Christian voters to his 2016 campaign. Trump has denied that they had sexual relations and, at one point, went so far as to claim he didn't even know the adult movie star.
While the judge asked that Daniels not discuss Trump's physique in detail, she did note things like his leather toiletry bag in the bathroom with Old Spice in it. She recalled him wearing "silk or satin pajamas" when she arrived, and what he changed into when she asked him to.
She also told the jury that he was very curious about her "work" as an adult film star and her transition to directing. Trump also wanted that she'd been tested for STDs, she said.
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Daniels said that Trump asked her about her girlfriends and whether they had sex outside of "work," and if she could call one of them on the phone.
Criminal defense attorney David Markus said that prosecutors asked her about the details to enhance her credibility "and show that this actually happened."
But Daniels didn't need to go into a lot of detail to create what Markus called the "ick factor."
"It's arguably immaterial if the sex happened for the prosecution, and whether or not there was an actual encounter, the key is the transaction," Markus said of the trial.
"But the prosecution loves this testimony because it is great for them. It's great for them to show Donald Trump in an exposed kind of slimy way, and the way he sort of tries — a married man goes about picking up adult film stars and brings them to his hotel room. And in a clumsy way, shows her the bathroom, and when she comes out, he's in his boxer shorts."
Markus said that the jury likely wasn't concerned about the elements of the affair for the verdict.
"They are just thinking yuck," he said. "The same thing everybody said here at least once on their own today, this testimony is yuck, and it works. The jurors are listening. That's probably why the judge is getting involved. At the break where he said we don't need the details."
"Oh, it was fun. Let's get together again, honey-bunch," Daniels recalled telling Trump, tweeted former prosecutor Harry Litman on X.
"And I just wanted to leave," she told the court.
Trump continues to claim he is innocent of the 34 felony counts in the Manhattan case.
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