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Stormy Daniels detailed her alleged affair, and subsequent non-disclosure agreement with President Trump in an interview with Anderson Cooper that aired Sunday.
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Stormy Daniels detailed her alleged affair, and subsequent non-disclosure agreement with President Trump in an interview with Anderson Cooper that aired Sunday.
CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images
Updated at 10:05 p.m. ET
In Stephanie Clifford’s much anticipated first television appearance since the story of her alleged affair with President Trump began dominating news cycles, the adult film actress also known as Stormy Daniels shared graphic details and said she signed a non-disclosure agreement to keep quiet about the encounter because she felt threatened.
Daniels appeared on CBS’ 60 Minutes, and walked Anderson Cooper through her side of her experience with Trump, beginning with an encounter at a golf tournament in 2006 in which Daniels playfully swatted Trump on the behind with a magazine he had been holding that had his face on the cover.
“From that moment on, he was a completely different person,” Daniels said. “He was like, ‘Wow, you — you are special. You remind me of my daughter.’ You know — he was like, ‘You’re smart and beautiful, and a woman to be reckoned with, and I like you. I like you.’”
Daniels said she had sex with Trump, despite not wanting to or being physically attracted to him, because she felt trapped once she went back to his hotel room alone. Daniels was 27 years old at the time, and Trump was 60.
Still, Daniels made it clear she didn’t consider herself “a victim” and that the sex was “consensual.” Trump did not wear a condom, she said.
The two stayed in touch after that, but did not have sex again, Daniels said.
Trump has repeatedly denied that he ever had an affair with Daniels. It’s unclear whether he watched the interview; he last tweeted Sunday morning, but he has been known to watch 60 Minutes. Trump was in Washington when it aired, although First Lady Melania Trump remained in Florida.
Daniels also detailed her efforts to talk about the affair publicly.
In 2011, after agreeing to give an interview to a tabloid magazine for $15,000, Daniels says a man approached her in Las Vegas.
“I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. Taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, gettin’ all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,’ Daniels said. “And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.”
More recently, Daniels and her attorney Michael Avenatti, have been fighting to void the non-disclosure agreement Daniels agreed to, that involved a $130,000 payment from Trump attorney Michael Cohen, in the days leading up to the 2016 election. Daniels filed a civil suit in California earlier this month claiming the agreement is invalid on the grounds that Trump never signed it.
The alleged affair happened a decade ago, leading some critics to question why it’s relevant now. But the Campaign Legal Center’s Larry Noble says the fact that Cohen paid Daniels just days before the 2016 election could be evidence that the “election was on their mind” and that the money could be considered funds spent as to boost the campaign, and therefore subject to campaign finance laws.
“What [Trump] did as a private citizen is not relevant to the campaign finance laws,” Noble told NPR’s Lulu Garcia Navarro. “What he did as a candidate and what the campaign did in terms of paying somebody not to talk about what he did may be relevant to the campaign finance laws.”
Trump and Cohen had dinner together Saturday night, according to The New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman.
Daniels is one of two women suing to break non-disclosure agreements related to Trump.
Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, filed suit last week to break an agreement she made with American Media Inc., the parent company of The National Enquirer, for the rights to tell the story of her alleged 10-month affair with Trump.
And in an unrelated case, a New York state Supreme Court judge ruled recently that a defamation case involving the president and a former contestant on The Apprentice who claims he sexually harassed her can move forward in state court, as NPR’s Vanessa Romo reported.
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BERLIN — Authorities in Germany arrested former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont on Sunday after he crossed into the country from Denmark, setting up a possible extradition of the separatist leader to Spain.
Puigdemont’s attorney announced the arrest on Twitter and said his client had been taken to a police station. German police confirmed in a statement that Puigdemont had been arrested at 11:19 a.m. Sunday by highway patrol officers in Schleswig-Holstein, a state that borders Denmark.
German authorities did not immediately say what they intend to do with Puigdemont. Spain could demand his extradition under the terms of a European treaty.
The arrest marked the latest in a series of maneuvers that have left Catalonia’s independence movement with few leaders who are not either being held in custody or sought as fugitives.
Puigdemont is wanted in Spain on charges of rebellion and sedition arising from his role in organizing an October referendum on Catalan independence. If convicted, he could face as many as 30 years in prison.
The Catalan leader has been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium since he fled Spain five months ago amid the uproar over the referendum. Separatists won that vote, and Puigdemont’s government declared independence. But the Spanish government deemed the ballot unconstitutional and imposed direct rule.
Spain had reactivated an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont on Friday. At the time, he was in Finland. But his attorney, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, said Saturday that Puigdemont had left Finland and was en route back to Belgium.
Puigdemont’s attorney said that German police have been following proper procedures since the arrest and that his client had intended upon his return to Brussels to “put himself, as always, at the disposal of the Belgian justice system.”
[Catalonia finally declared independence — but Spain vows it won’t last long]
The detention comes at a tense moment in Catalonia. Separatists hold a majority in the regional parliament in the wake of elections in December. But they have not been able to form a government and have abandoned plans to name a new president after the arrest of their latest candidate, Jordi Turull.
Puigdemont had sought to reclaim the presidency for himself but abandoned that bid on March 1, announcing in a 13-minute video that he had come to the decision with “the greatest sadness.”
But he also said that he would set up a foundation that had the makings of a government-in-exile.
“I will not throw in the towel. I will not quit. I will not give up in the face of the illegitimate behavior of those who lost at the ballot box,” he said.
That message was in contrast to the one he had communicated privately to a colleague in messages that were captured by a TV camera and that acknowledged that the Spanish government’s crackdown “has won.”
“I guess that you’ve realized that this is over,” reads one of the messages.
Puigdemont is not the only separatist leader being sought by Spain. On Friday, Spain issued five other international arrest warrants, including for four former Catalan ministers also believed to be in Belgium.
The warrants came as the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that 25 Catalan leaders should face charges for rebellion, sedition or embezzlement. The decision prompted clashes in Barcelona on Friday night between police and pro-independence demonstrators.
Read more:
How Catalonia’s independence went from dream to defeat in just a month
Catalonia’s independence vote: What you need to know
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