Trump denies affair with porn star
WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump denies he had an affair with a porn actress who said in a “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday that she had sex with him once in 2006, White House spokesman Raj Shah said.
“The president strongly, clearly and consistently has denied the underlying claims, and the only one who has been inconsistent is the one making them,” Shah told reporters Monday at the White House, adding “there’s nothing to corroborate her claim.”
Stephanie Clifford, known by her stage name Stormy Daniels, said in the interview that she was later threatened to keep quiet about the affair.
“The president doesn’t believe any of the claims Ms. Daniels made in the interview last night were accurate,” Shah said. The remarks represent the White House’s most substantial statement on the alleged affair.
The television interview is the first time Clifford has explicitly confirmed the affair since receiving a $130,000 payment from Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, shortly before the 2016 election in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement. The Wall Street Journal first reported the payment.
The interview drew the highest ratings in 10 years for CBS’s “60 Minutes,” attracting 21.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings released by the network.
Asked about the payment by Cohen, Shah said: “False charges are settled out of court all the time. This is nothing out of the ordinary.”
Clifford’s sometimes graphic retelling of the alleged affair largely echoed a 2011 interview with In Touch magazine about the relationship. In Touch didn’t publish the interview after Cohen threatened to sue the publication, “60 Minutes” reported.
She also said she had been intimidated to keep silent. Clifford said that in 2011, after Cohen’s threat to sue In Touch, a man approached her in a parking lot before a gym class in Las Vegas and told her to “leave Trump alone.” She said the man looked in her vehicle and said: “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.”
Cohen’s attorney, Brent H. Blakely, demanded that Daniels apologize to his client for alleging intimidation.
“In truth, Mr. Cohen had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any such person or incident, and does not even believe that any such person exists, or that such incident ever occurred,” he said,
Clifford’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said Monday that there was additional evidence to support Clifford’s claims. Clifford herself declined to answer questions about whether she had any text messages or videos documenting the relationship.
“We understand the American people want all the information right now, immediately. It would make no sense for us to play our hand as to this issue and we’re not going to do it right now,” Avenatti told NBC News.