Stormy Daniels said she couldn’t remember the important details of the sexual relationship she claims to have had with Donald Trump, until seeing a film about Roger Ailes’ sexual harassment of women on Fox News reminded her.
“I went to see that Bombshell movie,” she said, “and suddenly it came back.”
Daniels, a star and adult film director whose birth name is Stephanie Clifford, was speaking to Michael Cohen on Audio Up Media’s former Trump attorney Mea Culpa podcast. Excerpts were shared with the Guardian.
Daniels also described Trump “doing his best, but terribly unsettling impression of Burt Reynolds”, on a bed, dressed only in his underwear.
Daniels claims to have had sex with Trump in Nevada in 2006. He denies it, but a secret payment of $ 130,000 to Daniels reimbursed by Trump contributed to Cohen’s downfall in 2018.
The Trump fixer was arrested for tax fraud, lying to Congress and violations of the campaign finance law. He cooperated with investigators and published a book, Disloyal, while serving a three-year sentence.
The payment to Daniels and Cohen’s role in paying another woman, Playboy model Karen McDougal, during the 2016 elections, are at the center of ongoing investigations. Deprived of office protection, Trump is vulnerable to lawsuits.
Daniels’ appearance on Cohen’s podcast marks a rapprochement between the two. After Cohen orchestrated Trump’s attempts to keep Daniels quiet, Daniels spoke harsh words to Cohen in his own book, Full Disclosure.
Daniels called Cohen a “dim lamp” and “a complete idiot”. She also detailed what she claims to be a threat to her safety and that of her daughter, allegedly from Trump. In 2018, she said: “It never occurred to any of these men that one day I would have a voice.”
Cohen is now a vocal critic of his former boss. Daniels remained a stone in Trump’s shoe. She and Cohen seem to have realized that their enemy’s enemy is their friend.
“Both of our stories will forever be linked to Donald Trump, but also to each other,” said Cohen. “Thanks for giving me a second chance.”
The details of Daniels’ alleged connection to Trump at a charity golf event in Lake Tahoe in 2006 are well known, mainly thanks to his book, which the Guardian reported for the first time.
“I couldn’t remember,” she told Cohen, “how I went from standing in the bathroom door to standing under him on the bed, like I couldn’t remember how my dress looked or how my shoes looked, because I know the shoes because I clearly remember putting them back on and they had buckles on, like gold strappy heels that weren’t easy to, you know, come off.
“And I just, there are about 60 seconds when I just had no memory of it and it wasn’t in the book, and nobody really wanted to ask about it. They just wanted to know the details of what their appendix looked like, or the lack of an appendix. And I was like, it really bothered me for years, like, I definitely wasn’t drinking, so I’m like, why don’t I remember that.
“And I will never forget this moment. I went to see that Bombshell movie and, suddenly, it came back. “
Bombshell was directed by Jay Roach, starring Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie and was released in 2019. It told the story of the fall of Roger Ailes, Fox News chief executive and an important ally of Trump, because of sexual harassment .
Trump denies accusations of sexual harassment and assault by several women. Just before the 2016 election, Fox News killed a story about Trump and Daniels. Ailes resigned in July of that year and died the following May.
Daniels’ own case against Trump for defamation is going to the Supreme Court. She said to Cohen, “I’ve already lost everything, so I’m taking everything to the end.”
From Lake Tahoe in 2006, Daniels also told Cohen that he now remembered thinking, ‘Oh shit, how do I put myself in this situation. And I even remember thinking that I could definitely fight your fat ass, I can definitely get over it. There is a bodyguard at the door. But I was not threatened, I was not physically threatened.
“And then I tried to avoid … I was like, trying to remember very quickly, where I left my bag, like I had to get out of here. And I took a step to the side and he got up from the bed and said ‘This is your chance.’ And I thought, ‘What?’ and he said, ‘You need to show me how much you want or you just want to go back to the trailer park.’ “
Daniels said Trump told her he would give him a spot on The Apprentice, the reality show for which he was most famous at the time. At the time of the alleged meeting, Trump’s third wife, Melania Trump, had recently given birth to her son, Barron.
Daniels told Cohen that he went to the bathroom, and then “was genuinely surprised to see him waiting” when she left.
“I just froze,” she said, “and I didn’t know what to say. He had taken off his underwear and was sitting on the bed doing his best, but terribly unsettling impression of Burt Reynolds.
She “didn’t say anything for years,” she said, “because I didn’t remember.” Now the star of a ghost hunting reality show, Spooky Babes, she added: “I have come face to face with evil in the most intimate way. Demons don’t scare me anymore. “
Daniels described what she said happened next. In an interview with CBS 60 Minutes in 2018, she said, “And I thought, ‘Ugh, come on.’ And I just felt like maybe it was kind of … I deserved it for making a bad decision for going to someone’s room alone. “
The interviewer, Anderson Cooper, said, “And you had sex with him.”
“Yes,” said Daniels.