Stormy Daniels’ Trump testimony got off to an awkward start

At 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, in a New York courtroom, five words changed the course of American history: “The people call Stormy Daniels.”

Daniels, now a household name, is an adult film actor at the center of a secret criminal trial that could land Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican presidential leader, behind bars.

Related: Stormy Daniels Testifies: Recap of Day 13 of Trump’s Secret Money Trial

Manhattan prosecutors said Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 for her silence about a sexual liaison weeks before the 2016 election; in turn, he allegedly described the reimbursements to him as legal expenses in business records.

But when Daniels walked into Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom this morning, that speech about books, checks and bank records took a backseat.

Trump turned to look at her as she sat on the bench and then leaned back in his chair, a passive expression on his face. Trump’s son, Eric, who was in the front row of the gallery behind his father, looked at the wall. Alina Habba, Trump’s lawyer who is not on this case, sat with her arms crossed.

The long-awaited legal confrontation between Daniels and Trump then began. Over the course of several hours, Daniels delivered a mix of titillation and made-for-tabloid gossip as she detailed an alleged encounter with him some 20 years earlier.

Daniels, who met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, accompanied the judges during the fateful night when she went to his hotel room, thinking the dinner invitation was just that.

“It’ll be a great story,” Daniels’ colleague told her when she was debating whether or not to go. “What could go wrong?”

As Daniel said, the answer would be a lot.

They decided to talk a little before dinner, she recalled. Trump repeatedly asked about Daniels’ work as an adult performer, prodding her with questions like: “What about testing? Are you worried about STDs? Had she been tested?

“Yes, of course, and I volunteered too,” she said. “He asked me, oh well, have you ever had a bad test, I said, ‘No, I can show you my whole record.’”

At one point, Trump began showing photos of Daniels, including one of Melania. Daniels told Trump she was “very beautiful.” He said they slept in separate rooms.

They talked about The Apprentice, Trump’s reality show. Daniels said there would be no way for her to appear on network television, given her work in adult entertainment.

It was at this point that Trump appeared to compare Daniels to his daughter, Ivanka.

“You remind me of my daughter, she’s smart and blonde and pretty and people underestimate her too,” Daniels remembers Trump saying.

After the conversation began, Daniels went to use the bathroom, which was in a bedroom. When she came out of the bathroom, there was Trump – in bed, wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

“At first I was scared, like a scare,” Daniels told jurors. “I just thought, oh my God, what did I misinterpret to get here? The intent is pretty clear if someone is just in their underwear and lying in bed.”

She tried to get out of the situation, but Trump stood between her and the door, but, she insisted, “not in a threatening way.”

Related: Who is Stormy Daniels and the other key players in Donald Trump’s secret trial?

“He said, I thought we were getting somewhere. I thought you were serious about what you wanted, if you want to get out of that trailer park…” Daniels remembers Trump saying. “I was offended because I’ve never lived in a trailer park.”

Daniels said they ended up having sex. The scant details that followed – including the mention of a specific sexual position and condoms – raised a flood of objections from the defense. At times during Daniels’ testimony, Trump could be seen shaking his head.

At one point, Trump was so outraged by Daniels’ testimony that he swore loudly, prompting Merchan to call lawyers into the courtroom. “I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing loudly and visually shaking his head, which is dismissive,” Merchan said. “It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that.”

“You need to talk to him. I will not tolerate this,” Merchan said. Trump’s top lawyer, Todd Blanche, said he would speak with his client, a sidebar transcript released Tuesday night revealed.

Blanche even called for a mistrial based on the extra margins in her comments. “We are asking for a mistrial based on this morning’s testimony,” Blanche told Merchan after the lunch break. “There’s no way to ring that bell, in our opinion.”

“Beyond the sheer embarrassment,” said Blanche, these details only served to “inflame the jury.”

Merchan rejected the request, but defense attorney Susan Necheles did her best to make Daniels anything but a victim of circumstances. Why, Necheles asked, after so many years did Daniels decide to present his story in 2016?

“You were trying to extort money from President Trump, right?”

“False,” Daniels insisted.

“Well, that’s what you did, right?”

“False!” said Daniels, whose defiance in the interrogation contrasted with his earlier apparent nervous discomfort.

His interrogation is expected to continue on Thursday.

Hugo Lowell contributed to the reporting of this article