7 months ago
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A Fox News host and commentator have been branded as “gross” and “cruel” for mocking adult film actress Stormy Daniels over parts of her testimony in Donald Trump’s high profile criminal hush money trial.
On Tuesday, Harris Faulkner and Lisa Kennedy Montgomery dismissed Ms Daniels’ claims that she was “nervous” and had “blacked out” during an alleged sexual encounter with the former president, saying that they were “hard to believe” due to her profession.
The pair were later slammed online for their “cackling and cruelty” which was described as “unbelievable” and “slut-shaming”.
Ms Daniels – a key witness in the historic trial – took the stand in New York on Tuesday, and regaled jurors with how she met the former president, the lead-up to their now-infamous, alleged sexual encounter in July 2006 and what happened in the years after, leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
Describing the alleged encounter, she told jurors that when she had come out of a bathroom in a hotel suite Mr Trump had been wearing “boxer shorts and a T-shirt”. Ms Daniels told the court she had kind of “blacked out” but reiterated that she had not been drugged.
She later testified that their sexual encounter had been brief. “I told very few people that we had actually had sex. I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop it, that I didn’t say no,” Ms Daniels told the court.
Discussing the testimony on air later on Tuesday, Ms Faulkner and Ms Montgomery appeared to be unsympathetic to Ms Daniels, with Ms Montgomery – known mononymously as Kennedy – offering a somewhat crude, tennis-based analogy.
“Let’s say that the transaction did take place… Her being surprised that she was going to a hotel room along with a man to have ‘body congress’ is like [tennis pro] Pete Sampras being surprised at being invited to a tennis court and you want to see his serve. And then he says… ‘I started shaking when I saw a tennis racket. I didn’t know what to do with it’,” she said.
“It’s like, ‘bro, you’ve won 17 majors’. This woman saying that she blacked out because she was so nervous is like a surgeon saying he barfed at the sight of blood. It’s a little hard to believe.”
Ms Faulkner agreed, adding: “It’s very hard to believe, because that’s what she got paid to do on film. I mean, it wasn’t even like she was used to doing it in the corners of darkness. She was having sex in front of many cameras.”
Posting the clip to X, Justin Baragona, senior media reporter at The Daily Beast, wrote: “The slut-shaming on Fox News ramps up as Stormy Daniels takes the stand.”
Multiple social media users responded to the short video, with one writing simply: “These women are gross.”
“It’s pretty wicked hearing the cackling and cruelty protecting the oh Godly one Trump," said another user. “@HARRISFAULKNER hocks a Christian book and she’s probably the cruelest on their daytime TV and woman-blamer.”
Another user added: “@HARRISFAULKNER would slut shame Mother Superior if she thought she would look favorable to Trump.”
Some pointed out the irony of shaming Ms Daniels, when the encounter she had been describing on the stand had allegedly been instigated by Mr Trump.
“Slut shaming HER for HIS actions. Unbelievable,” wrote one user.
Another added: “On the topic of slut shaming, what do we call a man who happily associates with women we call sluts? Is there a name for those men?”
Kennedy’s reference to record-breaking US tennis star Sampras – who retired from professional sport over 20 years ago – was also picked up on by those online, with one person writing: “That was one of the worst analogies of all time.”
Elsewhere in her testimony on Tuesday, Ms Daniels described an incident in January 2011 in Las Vegas when she was allegedly approached by a man who “threatened me to not continue to tell my story”.
She didn’t tell the police “because he told me not to say anything and I was scared”.
Ms Daniels said she didn’t tell her boyfriend because he “was struggling mentally with some postpartum stuff with our daughter and alcoholism. I had never told him I had sex with Trump and to tell him then now while the world was exploding would not have been good at all”.
