Having just experienced the fallout from the "Access Hollywood" tape, Donald Trump knew that having Stormy Daniels go public about an alleged sexual encounter would be ruinous for his White House aspirations, former fixer Michael Cohen testified Monday in the former president's Manhattan hush money trial.
Daniels, an adult film star, testified last week that she had sex with Trump in his hotel room at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006. Cohen, working with then-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, had paid her $130,000 in 2016 to keep quiet about the alleged details of that encounter, which prosecutors say was intended to influence the election but was falsely reported as a legal expense.
According to Cohen, Trump was livid when told that Daniels was seeking a buyer for her story. "He said to me, 'this is a disaster, a total disaster,'" Cohen testified. "He told me to work with David and get control over this."
At no point did Trump express concern about this wife, Melania, finding out, Cohen claimed.
"'Don't worry,' he goes, 'how long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long.' He wasn’t thinking about Melania. This was all about the campaign," Cohen said, prompting Trump to smirk and shake his head in the courtroom, CNN reported.
What did concern Trump, according to Cohen, was how others might react.
"Women are going to hate me," Trump said, per Cohen. "Guys may think this is cool, but this is going to be a disaster for the campaign."
But Trump, as his defense team has argued, is also infamously cheap and sought to avoid having to pay, Cohen testified.
"I want you to just push it out as long as you can, just get past the election," Trump said, according to Cohen. "Because if I win it will have no relevance because I'm president. And if I lose, I don't even care."
