Trump trial live updates: Stormy Daniels takes the stand to testify in hush money case

The prosecution called adult film actress Stormy Daniels to the witness stand to recount her claim of having sex with former President Donald Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Calif. She also testified about her efforts to try to sell her story of the affair and being paid $130,000 by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to keep quiet about it.

During cross-examination, Trump's lawyers sought to paint Daniels as a liar who concocted the story to make money.

Sordid details:

• "I had my clothes and my shoes off. I removed my bra. We were in missionary position," Daniels testified about having sex with Trump.

• "I just left as fast as I could. That was it," she added.

• "I told very few people that we had actually had sex because I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop it," Daniels told the jury.

• On why she continued to meet with Trump following the alleged sexual affair: "I wanted to maintain that sort of relationship because the chance to be on The Apprentice was still up in the air. It would have been a great thing.”

Judge denies defense motion for mistrial:

After a lunch break, Judge Juan Merchan denied a defense motion to declare a mistrial on the grounds that Daniels's testimony had been prejudicial to their client but instructed prosecutors to keep Daniels's responses limited to the questions being asked.

Testy cross-examination: Defense lawyer Susan Necheles laid in to Daniels, portraying her as vindictive of Trump, as in the following exchange.

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

Daniels: “Yes.”

Necheles: “And you want him to go to jail?”

Daniels: “I want him to be held accountable.”

Read more from Yahoo News.

Trump's lawyer Susan Necheles seized on opportunities to try to point out inconsistencies in the narrative delivered by Stormy Daniels.

At one point, Necheles accused Daniels of trying to sell her story to In Touch magazine in 2011 at the same time she was threatening to sue the gossip website TheDirty.com, which had weeks earlier leaked the story of Daniels's alleged affair with Trump. Necheles implied the two motivations were contradictory.

Trump's lawyer also pointed out a discrepancy in Daniels's 2018 book, Full Disclosure.

In the book, Daniels wrote that in 2011 she attended an exercise class after being confronted by a man she said threatened her for speaking about having sex with Trump. On the stand, however, Daniels testified that she didn't attend the class because she was too shaken, NBC News reported.

Necheles also pointed to the fact that after the alleged confrontation in 2011, Daniels testified, she didn't tell her then boyfriend out of fear of upsetting him. Yet she chose to share the story publicly in a 2018 interview with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes.

"Your daughter's life was in jeopardy and you did not tell her father — but you went on Anderson Cooper and decided to tell the world?" Necheles pressed Daniels on the stand, according to CNN.

"Right," Daniels replied.

Later, Necheles pointed to Daniels's past claims accusing Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen of hiring the man who threatened her in 2011. According to reporters in the courtroom, Daniels acknowledged that she did suspect Cohen sent the man at the time but has since realized he didn't.

In the end, Necheles sought to make the point that the only way for Daniels to monetize her story was to speak publicly about having sex with Trump.

"It taught you if you want to make money about President Trump, you better talk about sex," Necheles asked, according to CNN.

Daniels replied, "No, although that does seem to be the case. Sadly."

We're done for the day. Judge Juan Merchan has put a cork in the proceedings.

"Alright jurors, let's call it a day," he said following tense testimony from adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Testimony will resume Thursday.

Trump attorney Susan Necheles told Judge Juan Merchan that her cross-examination of Stormy Daniels would continue on Thursday.

Big picture: The prosecution is using Stormy Daniels's testimony to bolster its claim that Trump broke the law when he falsified business records to keep a story about his alleged infidelity with the porn actress from coming to light. The defense is trying to cast Daniels as a liar who concocted the story to make money.

The cross-examination of Stormy Daniels will continue following an afternoon break.

Stormy Daniels testified that she did not include having sex with Trump in her book, partially because of attorney Gloria Allred. In her testimony, Daniels said she chose not to work with Allred because “she wanted to force me into saying things that were not true,” according to MSNBC contributor Adam Klasfeld.

By showing the jury Stormy Daniels's social media posts mocking Trump and detailing her refusal to pay him court fees for a dismissed defamation lawsuit, defense lawyer Susan Necheles is attempting to show that Daniels was vindictive toward her client. That same strategy will be used against former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen if he is called to testify.

Trump’s attorney Susan Necheles asked Daniels if she owed Trump $560,000 in legal fees and accrued interest as a result of a failed 2018 defamation lawsuit.

“You have money, right?” she asked Daniels, according to the New York Times.

“We all have money,” Daniels replied.

“You’re choosing not to pay President Trump, right?” Necheles asked.

Daniels answered: “I’ve chosen not to pay while it’s still pending, yes.”

Necheles then offered into evidence a Nov. 9, 2022, tweet from Daniels that read: “I don’t owe him shit and I’ll never give that orange turd a dime [crying laughing emoji],” according to reporters in the courtroom.

During her cross-examination, Daniels was asked by Trump attorney Susan Necheles if she hated Donald Trump. She responded with a simple "Yes," according to CNN's Kaitlan Collins.

Necheles then asked if Daniels wanted to see Trump in jail, to which Daniels replied, "I want him to be held accountable."

Trump attorney Susan Necheles begins questioning adult film actress Stormy Daniels about her claims that she had sex with Trump in his hotel room in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Calif.

Daniels testified that she hired lawyer Michael Avenatti to help her get out of the NDA she signed in October 2016, per CNN. By the fall of 2018, she said Trump and former lawyer Michael Cohen agreed not to enforce the NDA. She published her book, Full Disclosure, in October 2018.

According to reporters in the courtroom, when asked if Avenatti was still her lawyer, she raised her eyebrows “comically” and replied: “Noooo.”

When asked the reason, she answered, “Because I fired him, and then later he was found guilty of stealing from not just myself but several other clients.”

If former President Donald Trump is jailed for violating the gag order imposed on him by Judge Juan Merchan, New York City's jail system will be ready for him, NYC Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday during a weekly press conference at City Hall.

Adams said that city officials were "prepared for whatever comes on Rikers Island" and confirmed that he's had discussions with the Department of Correction about the possibility that Trump could be sent to the facility.

On Monday, Merchan found Trump in contempt of court for the 10th time and fined him another $1,000 for violating the gag order when he commented about the political makeup of the jury in the hush money trial. Merchan warned the former president that any further violations could result in jail time.

"The last thing I want to do is put you in jail," he told Trump, "but at the end of the day, I have a job to do."

On Jan. 10, 2018, Daniels said her lawyer, Keith Davidson, had her sign a written statement that denied her ever having a sexual relationship with Trump and receiving so-called “hush money” payments.

Daniels said she signed the statement even though she didn't want to because it wasn't true, according to CNN.

After prosecutor Susan Hoffinger stepped out of the courtroom to remind Stormy Daniels to stick to answering the questions in her testimony, the adult film actress returned to the witness stand.

Cameras aren't allowed inside the courtroom during the trial, so only sketch artists are able to capture images of the witnesses during their testimony. The sketches below depict Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, and Sally Franklin, a senior vice president and executive managing editor at Penguin Random House, who was called to testify to introduce excerpts from Trump's books into evidence.

Court returned from the lunch break with Trump's defense attorneys calling for a mistrial.

Before jurors were called back into the courtroom, lawyer Todd Blanche told Judge Juan Merchan that the salacious testimony from Stormy Daniels about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 was prejudicial.

Among the issues that Blanche raised in his call for a mistrial: Daniels’s testimony that Trump didn’t wear a condom.

Merchan denied the motion.

Court is back in session after a brief lunch break. Judge Merchan and Trump, his team and the prosecutors are in the courtroom.

After the Access Hollywood tape was released in October 2016, Daniels said her then-publicist Gina Rodriguez was told that Donald Trump and his attorney Michael Cohen were interested in paying $130,000 for her story.

According to CNN, Daniels said the deal was “the best thing that could've happened” at the time "because then I'd be safe and the story wouldn't come out.” She wanted the deal to be done quickly, noting that she was fearing for her safety after the alleged threat made by a man in Las Vegas in June 2011.

She said that she “didn’t care about the amount” and that her personal finances were “the best it’s ever been,” according to CNN. Ultimately, she said she signed a nondisclosure agreement and that Trump was the beneficiary of that agreement.

First, Daniels asserted in her testimony that it was Trump who delayed the $130,000 hush money payment set up by Cohen and her own lawyer, Keith Davidson. Trump's lawyers, who have portrayed Cohen as a "rogue" actor, are sure to go after Daniels on that claim when it is their turn to cross-examine her.

Daniels's testimony also gets at the heart of the prosecution's case that the payment to Daniels violated campaign finance laws, and that Trump was aware of that fact. During a Fox & Friends interview on April 26, 2018, then-President Trump said this about Cohen's payment to Daniels: “And, you know, from what I see he did absolutely nothing wrong. There were no campaign funds going into this… which would have been a problem."