In her first TV interview since Donald Trump was found guilty, Stormy Daniels said that she was subject to harassment and threats after testifying in the New York hush money trial.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Daniels said that when Trump was found guilty, “for that brief moment it was worth me testifying because at first I wasn’t going to. I had to shut down my life. I was basically — my choice — sequestered.”
But Daniels said that as friends were celebrating and sending her texts when the verdict came down and that it “was over,” for her “it was just getting started. For every person that was excited and thrilled and congratulating me, there was somebody else that was very upset. And it just poured gasoline on some of the stuff that I had been going through the entire time.”
Daniels said that she was “doxxed,” in which personal information like an address is maliciously published online, while “my mailbox was destroyed. My animals have been injured. My daughter can’t go outside because there’s press and looky loos out there. I’m afraid to go outside. I’m afraid to go out and mow the lawn.”
She added that the “death threats are so much more graphic and detailed and brazen, like people don’t care, and it’s scary.”
During the trial, Daniels testified about her sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, giving a vivid and graphic description of meeting him at a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf course and then meeting him later in a hotel room. She told jurors about the shock at coming out of a bathroom and finding him partially clothed. They went on to have sex, and even though it was consensual, she also made clear that she did not enjoy it. She also said that Trump did not wear a condom.
In the Maddow interview, Daniels took issue with some reporting on her testimony. Although some reports were that she testified that she “blacked out” during the encounter, she said that she “blocked out” what happened. She said that therapists had told her it was a “defense mechanism” to block out a “terrible” experience.
“It is way more common for you not to remember these pieces than for you to remember them,” she said. “And it made me feel a little bit better in a messed up way or a little more normal. But I’m not — I’m not a liar.”
Trump has denied her claims, and has characterized the trial as a political prosecution. He was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to Daniels. His sentencing is now scheduled for Sept. 18.
During the interview, Maddow went through portions of Daniels’ testimony during the trial, which was not televised.
“Leading up to the trial was hard enough, like flying up [to New York] repeatedly and sitting in the rooms and going through things and reliving all these terrifying moments,” Daniels said. “The only thing that kept me going, I guess, was thinking that there was an end in sight. And there’s not.”
Daniels said that she is a registered Republican and emphasized that she was subpoenaed to testify and was not paid. “So much of the hate mail I get is, ‘Drop the charges.’ I didn’t sue him. I’m getting nothing.”
She defended her testimony and the decision to do it.
“I did nothing but answer the questions,” she said. “I didn’t go up there and present an essay to a spoken word in the theater, you know?”
She added, “For those who said it was uncomfortable to witness or to hear, I lived it,” she said. “All you had to do was hear my very PG rated version on the stand. I had to relive it. I had to say it in court in front of all these people, knowing that it would be public record, that my daughter is going to read this, that everyone is going to read this.”
“Maybe this is too far for our conversation right now, but for all those people who like to drag me about talking about what his genitals look like, don’t you think for a second that I wish there was something else I could prove?” she told Maddow. “I wish he had a birthmark that looked like the state of Texas on his shoulder, you know, or a funny-looking mole. That’s the only thing that proves that I did — that he did take his clothes off in front of me.”
She also said that Trump was “trying to make an example” out of her, or “of anybody who dares stand up to him.” The former president is no longer bound by a gag order that prevents him from attacking witnesses in the case.
“I’m not afraid of what he could say about me or what he could call me. I’m telling the truth. I’m the only one that has continued to tell the truth. I can prove everything that I have ever said,” she said.
