Donald Trump trial live updates: Stormy Daniels returns to the stand in the hush money case

From Rob Crilly, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in court:

This is a high risk strategy by the defense, using Stormy Daniels’ history in the adult movie against her.

Susan Necheles, the only woman on the defense team, has already pointed out that Daniels has made a career out of inventing sex scenes, suggesting that the Trump encounter is just another figment of her imagination.

And now she is asking how it is that someone who has acted in 200 movies could possibly be shocked by the sight of man in boxer shorts sitting on a bed.

One of the women in the jury is sitting forward now, her head snapping back and forth to follow questions and answers.

Susan Necheles is focused on Stormy Daniels’ previous retelling of the story where she came out of the bathroom and Trump was in his underwear on the bed.

She asks a series of questions about Daniels’ surprise about Trump being on the bed and her feeling faint.

Trump’s lawyer is attempting to poke holes in Stormy Daniels’ story about Trump in 2006 where he had invited her over for dinner.

This is the alleged encounter where Daniels and Trump had sex.

Susan Necheles brings up Daniels’ interview in 2018 in which she says she went for dinner.

There is a back and forth over what dinner meant.

‘I went to dinner and didn’t get dinner,’ Daniels says.

Necheles also says it was a big deal you didn’t get dinner?

‘It was dinnertime, I was hungry,’ Daniels says.

Daniels says they spent dinner time in the room, but they never actually ate.

Necheles is going through exact wording in Daniels’ previous retelling of the story and argues there have been inconsistencies.

Donald Trump’s lawyer is asking Stormy Daniels about making porn films.

‘You have a lot of experience of making phony stories about sex appear to be real?’ Necheles says.

Daniels counters ‘wow, that’s not how I’d put it.’

She says ‘the sex in the films is very much real.’ She adds ‘just like what happened to me in that room’ referencing her alleged encounter with Trump in 2006.

Daniels is asked about a supposedly fake story about having sex with Trump.

She responds: ‘if that story was untrue, I would have written it to be a lot better.’

Trump’s lawyer is working to show Stormy Daniels is still making money off her story.

Susan Necheles calls up evidence including merchandise that is sold on Stormy Daniels’ store.

Before pulling up the evidence, Necheles asks Stormy Daniels about taking credit for the Trump indictment.

‘You’re bragging about how you got President Trump indicted,’ Necheles says.

‘I got President Trump indicted?’ Daniels responds by gesturing to herself.

Necheles pulls up an image of one item: ‘Stormy Saint of Indictments Candle.’

She asks Daniels about selling it off the indictment.

‘No, I think it’s funny a store made those for me to sell, so I put them on my site,’ she says.

Necheles asks if she’s making $40 off them, Daniels says no, she’s making $7.

Trump’s defense lawyer Susan Necheles is asking Stormy Daniels about her trying to take Donald Trump down.

She shows a March 27 tweet from Daniels in which she retweets a post that calls her a toilet.

Daniels wrote: ‘Exactly! Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down.’

Daniels notes the person she retweeted was calling her a human toilet ‘so I capitalized on the joke.’

She tells Necheles she put words in her mouth about being ‘instrumental or jail.’

‘You weren’t saying you were going to be instrumental in causing him to be convicted of a crime?’ Necheles asks.

‘No,’ Daniels says. She says ‘someone calls me a toilet, I’m pretty sure I can say I can flush somebody.’

Necheles asks her if she knows what she meant when she said ‘orange turd.’

Daniels responds that she is making her own assumption as to who it is. The court laughs.

Eventually, Daniels says ‘I absolutely meant Mr. Trump.’

She claims she responds to hundreds of tweets that attack her.

Stormy Daniels told the court she hated the name of her strip club tour: ‘Make America Horny Again’.

Necheles is asking Daniels about the advertising for the tour, specifically with a photo of Daniels and Trump from the golf course meeting.

Daniels claimed she fought ‘tooth and nail’ to change the name as Necheles suggested she was trying to capitalize on the affair story.

From Sarah Ewall-Wice, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in court:

Stormy Daniels appears much less nervous in court today.

She is speaking calmly and more slowly than she had been speaking on Tuesday.

Her tone is measured and she is taking pauses at times before responding to questions in cross-examination.

It comes after she was asked to slow down numerous times in court on Tuesday.

Legal experts told DailyMail.com that a nervous witness can be a challenge for lawyers to question because they either do not speak at all or share much more than what is asked. Neither is ideal.

Trump attorney Susan Necheles, who is cross-examining Stormy Daniels, asks her if she wanted to publicly announce she had sex with Trump.

‘No. Nobody would ever want to publicly say that. I wanted to publicly defend myself,’ Daniels said

While discussing payment for her story, Trump’s defense plays audio of Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer Keith Davidson speaking about selling Daniels story.

It’s audio of Davidson speaking to Michael Cohen on his podcast.

In the audio, Davidson recalls Daniels telling him in 2016 if Trump loses ‘we lose all our leverage.’

He claims she told him ‘settle this f***ing case.’

Davidson says he was ‘bullied and pushed’ into settling the case.

In court, Daniels responds to the audio that she never ‘railed at Keith Davidson on the phone.’

‘This says Gina’s boyfriend was going to tell the story. That was a threat from Keith Davidson,’ Daniels says.

Susan Necheles is walking through a statement Stormy Daniels signed in January 2018 denying they ever had an affair.

It happened around the same time the Wall Street Journal article was coming out.

Susan Necheles is asking Stormy Daniels a series of questions about trying to sell her story before the 2016 election.

‘I never asked for money from anyone in particular, I asked for money to tell my story,’ Daniels says.

She claims she was ‘asking to sell my story to publications to get the truth out.’

Necheles suggests she could have done it with a press conference.

‘I could have,’ Daniels says. She adds that she ‘chose to be safe.’

‘You chose to make money?’ Necheles says.

Daniels says she chose to take a nondisclosure agreement.

Necheles has brought up conversations Daniels had with a Slate reporter who tried to convince her to let him publish her story.

Daniels says it was backup if the nondisclosure agreement fell through.

Daniels also says the nondisclosure agreement was a ‘better alternative.’

She claims it would have protected her story with a paper trail.

Necheles says if the story came out there would have been a paper trail.

Daniels says it would have ‘with a target on my back and my family’s.’

She called the nondisclosure agreement a ‘perfect solution.’

Necheles asks if the motivation to go public also was to hurt Trump politically for his ‘newfound’ opposition to abortion and gay marriage saying she wanted money or would hurt him?

From Rob Crilly, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in the courtroom:

Donald Trump arrived in the courtroom at 9:25 a.m. ET with a bigger retinue than any other day.

Florida Senator Rick Scott took a seat in the row behind the defendant, with Trump’s attorney Alina Habba.

Natalie Harp is in her usual seat in the second row next to the aisle.

As Trump entered, Newsmax host Greg Kelly stood up in the public gallery, wished him luck and flashed a thumbs up. He was quickly ordered to sit down.

Real estate investor Steve Witkoff is also in Trump’s small group of supporters.

Donald Trump’s defense lawyer Susan Necheles is questioning the witness.

She has pulled up communications about Daniels attempting to sell her story in 2016.

Prosecutors ask the judge to block an arrest of Stormy Daniels from being submitted into evidence.

The arrest did not result in charges nor a conviction for assault. Therefore, Judge Merchan says it cannot be brought up.

Trump’s defense lawyer Susan Necheles says she would like to ask about Daniels’ husband accusing her of assault and the prosecutors object that anyone can make an accusation.

The judge rejects it being brought up.

He says it was ‘not probative of anything’ as the case went nowhere and Daniels was not convicted.

Ted Cruz has issued an unusual defense of Donald Trump amid Stormy Daniels’ salacious testimony.

The Republican Texas senator said people should not be shocked that Donald Trump has not been ‘celibate’.

By the way, the testimony of Stormy Daniels that was salacious – that was the point of it! Listen there is no person on planet Earth that believes Donald Trump has been celibate all his life. That is not news.

But they want to drag him through the gutter because this is a political smear job. It’s not about the rule of law. It’s tragic what’s happening because the rule of law is important. It protects all of us. This is what banana republics do.”

Donald Trump spoke to reporters before entering the courtroom on Thursday morning.

The ex-president blasted the case against him.

He was joined by lawyer Todd Blanche.

Also with Trump in court today is Florida Senator Rick Scott, adviser Boris Epshteyn and lawyer Alina Habba.

A court officer told photographers in the hallway that Judge Merchan is no longer allowing photography in the courtroom for the rest of the trial.

Photographers had been allowed to take photos of Donald Trump at the start of the day from the front of the courtroom but from nowhere else.

Someone reportedly violated the order by taking a photograph from the aisle while walking to the front of the court.

Photographers are limited to taking photographs from the hallway only when Trump enters and exits.

Here is an example from May 7 of the photography that previously had been permitted:

Donald Trump departed Trump Tower to head to the Manhattan criminal court.

The ex-president waved before heading to his motorcade.

President Joe Biden is watching the news coverage of Donald Trump’s hush-money trial.

‘Only on the evening news,’ he told CNN’s Erin Burnett in an interview that aired on Wednesday night.

He also used one of his favorite phrases to indicate he’s praying for his Republican rival.

‘God love him,’ Biden said.

Biden has been hitting the campaign trail while Trump has been stuck in a New York City courtroom four days a week.

Stormy Daniels walked into the Manhattan Criminal Court early on Thursday morning to prepare to take the stand in the hush money trial for the second time.

She was surrounded by law enforcement and had her glasses on her head as was guided into the court complex.

From Emily Goodin, Senior Political Reporter:

Melania Trump is believed to be in Mar-a-Lago as Stormy Daniels took the stand in the Donald Trump hush money trial.

As Daniels was describing her sexual encounter with the former president, the former first lady has remained behind closed doors of the Trumps’ private club in Palm Beach.

She is preparing for the couple’s son Barron to graduate from high school on Friday, May 17th. And she’s been selling a gold flower pendant in honor of Mother’s Day that can be customized with a person’s initials.

Barron attends a high school in Palm Beach, which is the main residence of his parents. The Trumps have not announced where he will go to college.

Melania hasn’t been seen by Donald Trump’s side in 31 days, since she joined him at a fundraiser for his presidential campaign on April 6th.

She was last seen when she hosted a fundraiser for Log Cabin Republicans at Mar-a-Lago on April 20th.

The event was closed to press coverage but former Trump administration official Richard Grenell, who is openly gay, posted photos on social media of him and the former first lady hosting the gathering.

Melania is reported to be reading coverage of the New York trial even though she is said to consider it her husband’s problem.

When the news of Donald Trump’s affair with Daniels – which he denies – originally broke in 2017, the then-first lady was said to be blindsided and furious with her husband.

Tuesday’s Trump trial began with salacious claims by Stormy Daniels about spanking and bedding the future president in a Lake Tahoe hotel room – but ended with demands for a mistrial and claims she was fabricating sex claims out of greed and spite.

The porn star revealed new details about the alleged 2006 hookup while speaking under oath during a criminal trial with Trump seated just feet from the witness stand, including repeating her claim about swatting the future 45th president’s behind.

It was a dramatic performance where she shared intimate details about their banter inside a a Nevada hotel suite, even as judge Juan Merchan yielded to defense lawyers’ request that she keep sexual details to a minimum. (Her mention of the word ‘missionary’ drew an immediate objection).

Hundreds of people lined up at the Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday morning to see the second act of the Stormy Daniels show.

Cops closed the gate to the park as hordes showed up hoping to get a space to watch her testimony continue.

When Stormy Daniels took the stand in Donald Trump’s hush money case, her salacious testimony was a lewd story of unwanted, unprotected, blackout missionary sex nearly 20 years ago with a married celebrity who would go on to run for and become President of the United States.

Trump, now the  2024 presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is facing 34 criminal charges for falsifying business records for allegedly trying to hide the payment to Daniels before the 2016 election.

Legal experts believe Stormy Daniels’ detailed testimony should not have been allowed and actually damaged the prosecution case despite her being an important witness in supporting their theory that there was an effort to violate election law.

The atmosphere inside courtroom 1530 was already electric. A brooding Donald Trump glared out at the ranks of press as if to gauge the size of his audience before prosecutors and defense lawyers haggled over how much of the mechanics of his alleged affair could be brought up before the jury.

Only no-one had reckoned with the way porn star Stormy Daniels would become a runaway witness as she described their 2006 hotel encounter.

‘I had my clothes and my shoes off. I believe my bra however was still on. We were in the missionary position,’ Daniels said.

Read the full account of Daniels’ testimony below.

Her allegations and claims against Trump, which he has furiously denied, led to the defense asking for multiple objections and demanding a mistrial.