With Donald Trump convicted on 34 felony counts by a New York jury, commentators and ordinary voters alike are debating what comes next and how (if) the verdict will affect the election. In this flurry of arguments and speculation, there is a risk of getting lost in an important aspect of the case: what Trump actually did to Stormy Daniels.
On the stand, Daniels draw a picture A powerful man who invited her back to his hotel room, offered her a chance to be on his reality show, undressed her unexpectedly while in the bathroom, and had sex with her without a condom while his bodyguard waited outside the door. Daniels has not accused Trump of sexual assault, but said she essentially “blacked out” during the encounter and could barely put on her shoes afterward because her hands were shaking so violently. Her parting words, she testified: “Let’s get back together, honey bunch. We were great together.”
He was not brought before the court that night in 2006. Here’s what happened next: Through his proxy Michael Cohen, Trump, when he was a presidential candidate, paid Daniels to keep quiet about their encounter. Then he False business records Cover that payment.
Trump not guilty in the lawsuit and denied having sex with Daniels. “It was a rigged, shameful trial,” he said told reporters After reading the verdict on Thursday.
But according to Daniels, Trump wasn’t just a married man cheating on his wife, he was a TV and real-estate tycoon who used his celebrity and wealth to trick a woman into having sex with him and then keep quiet about it. was Remember when the American public cared about such things?
Trump’s trial was a reminder of an earlier era in Trump’s political career, when allegations of sexual harassment and assault by multiple women threatened his candidacy. infamous Access Hollywood The tape, in which Trump bragged about his ability to grab women “by the vagina,” briefly looked like it could derail his campaign.
In the years since, the evidence behind Trump’s allegations of misconduct and sexual violence has grown stronger, most notably in 2023 when a jury acquitted him of journalist E. After being found guilty of sexual assault and defamation against Jean Carroll.
Even so, reports of Trump’s sexual misconduct by women have somewhat faded from public view, as Vox’s Constance Grady pointed out last year, as he embraced Three other legal cases, his alleged involvement in the January 6 Capitol riots and the troubling question of what his election in 2024 will mean for democracy. There is also a Feelings of indifference Among voters and commentators surrounding Trump’s alleged misdeeds, Trump’s poll numbers in particular have failed to budge even during his criminal trial. He famously claimed that he could Shoot someone on 5th avenue And no voter to lose has never seemed more true.
But Daniels’ disturbing account of Trump’s treatment of her is a reminder that his treatment of women still deserves public attention.
One of the biggest questions surrounding his potential second term is whether he will restrict Americans’ access to abortion and ContraceptionThrown into high relief by flipping a question Roe v. Wade. Knowing how Trump thinks and acts about women can give voters important information about how he might approach these issues, including Huge implications for women’s rights.
Stormy Daniels made it clear in her testimony how Donald Trump treated her. A New York jury heard and considered him. Now is the time for the American people to do the same.
Stormy Daniels Describes A Scary Sex With Trump
Trump’s trial in New York has been called a “Bribery paid to silence” Case in press (including Vox). This description is an accurate statement of the legal questions in the case, which raised questions about the $130,000 payment. But shorthand obscures the ugly facts of Trump’s encounter with Daniels.
During the trial, Daniels described the encounter to the jury for the first time, as is sometimes done. Even Judge Juan Marchan Uncomfortably it was 2006, and Trump, then 60, invited Daniels, then a 27-year-old adult film actor, to meet him for dinner at his hotel suite in Lake Tahoe. During their conversation, Daniels said he told her she should be on the TV show, ApprenticeAnd to prove to the public that “you’re not just a dumb bimbo.”
They talked for about two hours, Daniels said, and then she got up to go to the bathroom, assuming that later, she would make her exit. Instead, she found Trump sitting up in bed wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt. “I felt the house spin in slow motion,” he told the jury. “I felt the blood basically leave my arms and legs.”
She tried to walk around him to leave the room, but he stood in her way, saying, “I thought we were going somewhere,” and, “I thought you were serious about what you wanted. If you ever want to get out of that trailer park —”
“I was angry,” Daniels testified, “because I never lived in a trailer park.”
Although Daniels said she did not feel physically threatened by Trump, she told the court that “there was definitely an imbalance of power.” She testified that she was concerned that Trump did not use condoms; At the time, he performed with Wicked Pictures, the only studio in the porn industry that mandated condom use. During sex, he didn’t say no, she testified, “because I didn’t say anything.”
The testimony is reminiscent of Trump’s long history of misbehavior and sexual misconduct allegations
The testimony was significant both for its own sake and for what it recalled: a decades-long history of allegations that Trump used his position of power to harass and sometimes assault women. was there Jill Harthwho said Trump pushed her against a wall and put a hand up her dress at Mar-a-Lago in 1993. Natasha Stoinoff, who said Trump assaulted her in 2005 while she was working on a story about his marriage to Melania. And there was Carol, who Said Trump raped her In the Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in 1995 or 1996.
In each case, Trump has maintained his innocence, often taking to social media to insult the women who have accused him. He said that Carroll was “absolutely untrue”. and “not my type.” he Daniels says A “sleazebag” and “horseface” when he went public with his allegations in 2018. “All these liars will be prosecuted when the elections are over,” he said Threatened in 2016. “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign.”
But Trump was also caught in that Access Hollywood In a 2005 tape he bragged about his ability to hook women: “When you’re a star,” he said, “they let you do it.”
According to An article published in Slate this week by ex apprentice Producer Bill Pruitt said such casual misbehavior was a must for Trump in his television days. He once ordered a female camera operator off the elevator because “she’s too heavy,” Pruitt wrote. He compared another female cameraperson to his daughter, saying, “There’s a beautiful woman behind that camera” and “that’s what I want to see.” He forgot a female contestant’s name, referring to her as “the one with the …” before patting her chest, Pruitt wrote. Trump’s campaign has denied the account, calling it a “complete fabrication and fabricated story.”
The 2016 and 2017 elections and the subsequent rise of the Me Too movement drew more attention to allegations of sexual misconduct and misogyny by Trump, who became an example of the movement’s central thesis: that powerful men routinely use their positions to harass and abuse women, and then it Get away from.
But Trump has managed to avoid any real consequences for years of accusations against him — or even his taped comments. A backlash against Me Too pushed the issue of sexual misconduct out of the public conversation Today, Trump He is ahead in many votes for the presidency.
But now that Trump has been convicted by a jury of his peers — a jury that heard Daniels’ testimony about how Trump treated her and, we can assume, believed her — it’s worth revisiting what the women said about her.
As voters try to figure out what Trump would do if elected for a second term, they can learn a lot from how he treats the women he encounters — and whether he views them as full and equal human beings or as crudely valued lesser creatures. Used as needed, and then ruthlessly ignored if they cause trouble.
