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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Guardian staff

Jimmy Kimmel on Stormy Daniels’s testimony: ‘Yes we do need to know the details’

man on a stage
Jimmy Kimmel on Stormy Daniels’s account of sex with Donald Trump: ‘How are any of us supposed to move forward from that, really?’ Photograph: YouTube

Late-night hosts talked awkward moments and shocking revelation from Stormy Daniels’s day on the witness stand at Donald Trump’s criminal hush-money trial.

Jimmy Kimmel

Stormy Daniels, the former adult film star and the person Donald Trump allegedly paid off for silence before the 2016 election, took the witness stand in the former president’s criminal hush-money trial on Tuesday, and “I can only imagine the nervous farting was off the charts,” joked Jimmy Kimmel.

Daniels testified for three hours and 45 minutes, and things “got off to an awkward start after the bailiff swore her in on a rolled-up Forbes magazine”, Kimmel quipped. “When she raised her right hand, Trump instinctively shouted ‘I’m a bad boy, mommy!’”

Before her testimony, Judge Juan Merchan assured the court that Daniels wouldn’t include graphic details. “Now, that’s where I need to object,” said Kimmel. “Yes, we do need to know the details. Some of us are trying to host a show here.”

Still, there were details. Daniels said her time with Trump was “brief” and that he did not wear a condom, “which is not surprising”, said Kimmel. “He stared directly into an eclipse. Not exactly a safety-first kind of guy.”

Daniels also claimed that they had sex in the missionary position, and that Trump told her she reminded him of his daughter. “Feels like we should lock him up just for that, right?” Kimmel laughed.

Trump, who watched the testimony through a court monitor rather than look at Daniels directly, took to Truth Social after his day in court, declaring the whole affair should be a “MISTRIAL!”

“And then Trump’s lawyers argued that Stormy’s testimony was prejudicial, because how’s the jury supposed to be fair now that they’ve visualized him in the missionary position?” Kimmel reported. “How are any of us supposed to move forward from that, really?”

Stephen Colbert

“Stormy Daniels took the stand to do what she does best, and that’s spank Donald Trump,” said Stephen Colbert on The Late Show.

Like Kimmel, Colbert also objected to the judge’s decision that Daniels omit “any description of genitalia” from her testimony.

“Boo! We want to hear about his itsy bitsy, teeny weenie, those aren’t polka dots linguine,” Colbert quipped.

Daniels’s testimony offered a “thorough retelling of their one night of passionate sexing”, Colbert explained. “When Trump and Stormy became the celebrity couple Stumpy. I’m sorry, I forgot – not supposed to describe his genitalia.”

Daniels testified that she met Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament, when he was 60 and she was 27. According to Daniels, Trump invited her to dinner, but they met at his hotel suite. Trump talked endlessly about himself, she said, and then showed her a magazine that featured him; she told him someone should slap him with the magazine for being rude, and then spanked him with it “right on the butt”.

“There it is, his presidential legacy. Forget the Lincoln Memorial, one day schoolchildren will travel to Washington DC to see the Trump monument,” joked Colbert over a mock statue of the rolled magazine.

Later in the evening, when she was exiting the bathroom, Daniels said she saw Trump sitting on the bed in boxers and a T-shirt, which she likened to a “jump scare”.

“It’s all in the new horror movie Saw: Donald Trump’s Penis,” Colbert joked.

Seth Meyers

With Daniels on the witness stand and Trump’s penchant for dozing off in court, “Trump technically slept with her again,” joked Seth Meyers of Tuesday’s court proceedings.

Daniels testified that in phone calls after their meeting in 2006, Trump called her “honeybunch”.

“Honeybunch? And you guys think Biden is old?” said Meyers. As for the rolled Forbes magazine that reportedly had Trump’s face on it – “I think it’s weird that the hotel even had a copy of Bankruptcy Aficionado,” Meyers joked.

“At some point, we’re just piling on. The man was our president,” Meyers deadpanned. “You know what I mean? Who among us hasn’t slept with an adult film star. And then tried to cover it up and become president. Yet we look down our noses at him? I don’t think so. Shame on us, shame on me!”

Meyers then barreled ahead, noting that Daniels testified that she and Trump had sex in the missionary position. “‘Don’t even think about it!’ shouted Judge Merchan to the sketch artist,” Meyers joked.

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