Stormy Daniels on 60 Minutes: Trump knows 'I'm telling the truth'
In her much-anticipated 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday night, adult film actress Stormy Daniels told Anderson Cooper that in 2006, she had unprotected sex with President Trump after meeting him at a Lake Tahoe golf tournament, and he "knows I'm telling the truth."
Daniels, 39, said she wasn't physically attracted to Trump but the encounter was consensual and she's "not a victim." Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, told Cooper that Trump said she reminded him of his daughter and that he and his wife, first lady Melania Trump, had "separate rooms and stuff." She kept in contact with him because she viewed this as a "business deal," and he promised to try to get her on The Apprentice. Their final meeting was in July 2007, and Daniels said they had sex only the one time in Lake Tahoe. Through a spokesman, Trump denied having an affair with Daniels.
Daniels said in 2011, she agreed to discuss the alleged affair with a sister publication of In Touch magazine for $15,000, and not long after, she was accosted in a Las Vegas parking lot while with her infant daughter. An unidentified man "walked up on me and said to me, 'Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,'" she told Cooper, adding that he then looked at her 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."
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Two former employees of the magazine told 60 Minutes that the story never ran because when In Touch asked Trump for comment, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen threatened to sue; it was a few weeks later that Daniels was approached in the parking lot. Daniels said she never went to police about the incident because she was afraid and felt "rattled." For more on her initial meeting with Trump and the nondisclosure agreement she signed with Cohen, visit CBS News.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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