Daniels testified that her friend encouraged her to take Trump up on her dinner offer, telling her, “What could possibly go wrong?”
He said he agreed to go and went to meet Trump at the hotel where he was staying.
“I arrived and went up. Keith had given me very specific instructions to take an elevator up to the penthouse floor,” Daniels testified in reference to Trump's bodyguard. He said the bodyguard told him Trump was waiting for him inside. He entered and waited in a hall with a “big, beautiful wooden table” with flowers. It was there that he met Trump, he said.
“He was wearing silk, or satin, pajamas, which I immediately teased him about and was like, 'Did Mr. Hefner know he stole his pajamas?'” Daniels recalled. “I told him to go change and he very politely obliged.”
Trump returned in a dress shirt and dress pants, he testified. The hotel suite was “three times the size of my apartment,” Daniels said, describing the room in detail.
They finally sat down at the dining room table.
“It wasn't even dark outside yet, and he said, 'You know, it's a little early, do you mind talking to each other?' ” she recalled, saying they talked about her childhood and “getting to know you kind of stuff.”
They also talked about their work, according to Daniels: “I was very interested in how I went from just being a porn star to writing and directing…I was very interested in some of the business aspects of it, which I thought was great. There there are unions, how much do they charge?”
Daniels also said they had a “very brief” discussion about his wife, Melania. “He said, 'Don't worry about it, we don't actually sleep in the same room,'” she told the court.
Throughout the conversation, Daniels recalled, Trump “asked me questions and then wouldn't let me finish the answer; it was almost like he wanted to make me a little bit, to talk about himself.”
Finally, he said he had “fed up with his arrogance and cutting me off and not giving me dinner.” She testified that he asked her, “Are you always so rude?” and said, “Someone should give you a drink.”
Trump gave her a magazine, Daniels testified. “I don't think he was expected to do that,” he said. “So I said, 'Turn around,' and I hit him with it … right in the ass.”
The conversation turned to “The Apprentice,” Daniels recalled. Trump told her she should be a contestant, to which she replied, “There's no way NBC would allow an adult actress on television.”
“He said, 'You remind me of my daughter, she's smart and beautiful and people underestimate her, too,'” Daniels said. She added that Trump offered to tell her what the challenges of the show were before hour: “I can't make you win… but at least you can make a good presentation.”
Daniels said she and Trump spoke in the suite for “close to two hours.”
With that, the court took a break. Trump did not look at Daniels as she testified.
