After nearly a month of hype, “60 Minutes” has finally aired its special interview with porn star Stormy Daniels (AKA Stephanie Clifford), who says she had an affair with Donald Trump early on in his marriage to Melania Trump.
In her interview with Anderson Cooper, Daniels says that she was threatened after making a deal in May 2011 to sell her story for $15,000 to a magazine. The deal was reportedly canceled after Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue the magazine.
Daniels recalls that later, while she was with her daughter in a parking lot, a man threatened her: “…a guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.’ 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.”
After the threat, Daniels said she signed a $130,000 agreement brokered by Michael Cohen to keep the story quiet, as a way to protect her family and her career. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the agreement, which was later acknowledged by Cohen to The New York Times, in January 2018.
In February, In Touch Weekly published what it says was Stormy’s 2011 interview. In it, she tells similar stories to those she tells in “60 Minutes,” including playfully spanking Trump with a magazine featuring his image on the cover — and comparing her to his daughter Ivanka:
Stormy Daniels says Trump told her: “Wow, you are special. You remind me of my daughter.” pic.twitter.com/WFH4Lcv4v0
— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) March 26, 2018
[Via CBS]
