When Donald Trump heard that Stormy Daniels intended to sell her story of their affair, he thought it would be a disaster—but only because it would hurt what women thought of him, while men would think it was “cool,” Michael Cohen testified Monday.
“This is a disaster—a total disaster—women will hate me. Guys they think it’s cool, but this is gonna be a disaster for the campaign,” Trump said, according to his ex-fixer and attorney’s testimony during the former president’s hush-money trial Monday.
According to Cohen, Trump’s polling with women was poor following the release of the infamous Access Hollywood video, where he described women’s bodies with obscene language and bragged about forcing himself on them. Cohen recalled Trump telling him that Daniels going public would be a disaster, and Trump later ordered Cohen to “get control over it.”
Cohen would end up helping to pay off Daniels to keep the affair under wraps until after the 2016 presidential election.
During her testimony last week, the adult film actress revealed salacious details about her 2006 tryst with the president, including how Trump didn’t use a condom and compared her to his daughter Ivanka. Daniels also said she used an excuse to avoid sex a second time with the former president. Despite the likelihood of these details coming to light with Daniels going public, Trump apparently thought men would appreciate that he had an affair with a porn star. This misogynistic view of extramarital sex lines up with how Trump framed the Access Hollywood video as “locker room talk” with the help of a suggestion from his wife, Melania.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime, and has pleaded not guilty on all counts.
