Trump will have a lot of explaining to do to his wife, but I suspect he won’t be bothered politically by Stormy Daniels’ testimony

The first time I saw Stormy Daniels, she was almost naked. She had entered the stage of a nightclub outside New York in a Little Red Riding Hood costume and left without any clothes on. I had been looking at two famous breasts over a tiny thong because the then President of the US had seen them too. They were called Thunder and Lightning, I found out later.

The second time I saw Stormy Daniels, this week, she was wearing a long black cardigan and sitting nervously in the Manhattan courtroom. She rattled off so fast that the clerk lost track. The judge asked if she could speak a little slower. And if she could please just answer the questions, without going into irrelevant details.

OldSpice

Stormy Daniels testified under oath in the criminal case against Donald Trump about the hush money she received in 2016. She even talked about the gold manicure set and the bottle of Old Spice in Trump’s toiletry bag. She secretly looked into it when she used the toilet in his hotel suite on the evening of the sexual encounter that Trump wanted to keep secret at all costs.

Daniels leaned back on the witness stand and put her hand on the back of her neck, demonstrating how he was lying on the bed in boxer shorts as she stepped out of the bathroom. She started describing them having sex in missionary position, but that’s when the judge intervened. That didn’t have to be in the file.

Trump swore audibly once, the clerk’s transcripts later revealed, but I could only see the back of his head in the room. It had turned away from Stormy for hours. She became increasingly self-confident and fought hard in cross-examination. “You wanted to take money out of Donald Trump’s pocket,” his lawyer Susan Necheles accused her. “Not true!” Daniels shouted.

A former president’s bed secrets may have been entertaining, but the real evidence in the criminal case was discussed the day before. An accountant and Trump administration assistant confirmed the authenticity of emails, invoices and checks used to handle the hush money payments. Attorney Michael Cohen acted as intermediary. The amounts were recorded in the books as ‘legal services’, the clerks stated. Trump is being prosecuted for exactly that reason: during campaign time he allegedly had the deal with Stormy Daniels illegally concealed in his accounting.

Trump’s lawyer protested to the judge. If this was about accounting, why did the jury need to know whether Trump used a condom? (He didn’t, Stormy stated.) Her emotions that evening are also of little relevance to a suspicion of forgery. Daniels said she felt like all the blood was draining from her hands and feet when it became apparent that Trump was waiting for her. She doesn’t remember how she ended up on the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to think of something else during sex. “Some things should have been better left unsaid,” the judge also said.

Make America Horny Again

Trump will have a lot of explaining to do to his wife, but I suspect he will not be politically affected by the testimony. That’s how it went in 2017, when I was able to meet the presidential mistress in all its glory in that nightclub. Stormy Daniels called her journey through American strip bars at the time the Make America Horny Again tour. At Club Gossip on Long Island I was invited for twenty dollars to watch the latest scandal affecting Donald Trump.

Some supporters came over. Gary, a young man in a checked shirt, spoke with admiration in his voice about the adventure with Stormy, then still shrouded in mystery because she kept her confidentiality contract. “I hope it really happened,” Gary said. It was exactly what he appreciated about Donald Trump, he said.

For some voters, the affair made him unsuitable as president, but for the men in that club, his extramarital transgression made him above all human, and therefore an attractive political figure, I learned then. “Normally politicians pretend they are better than others and don’t do things like that,” Gary said. “Fortunately, he is not a normal politician.”