The Stormy Daniels testimony so lurid it almost derailed Trump’s trial: How porn star’s lively claims about ‘spanking’, ‘condoms’, ‘STDs’ and ‘the missionary position’ sparked a slew of objections before the judge called her ‘difficult to control’

The atmosphere in courtroom 1530 was already electric. A somber Donald Trump stared into the ranks of the press as if to gauge the size of his audience before prosecutors and defense attorneys negotiated how many of the mechanics of his alleged affair could be brought up to the jury.

Only no one anticipated how porn star Stormy Daniels would become a runaway witness when she described their 2006 hotel encounter.

‘I had my clothes and shoes off. I think my bra was still on though. We were in the missionary position,” Daniels said.

Trump, 77, was already gesturing to his defense. “Objection,” Susan Necheles said, raising yet another objection of the morning.

By then, Daniels, 45, had taken us through her career as an erotic dancer, her first porn film (“I’ll spare you the details,” she said) and her routine of STD testing (once a month at the time said she now meets with Trump twice a month).

The jury heard her talk about “condom-required” porn shoots, describing herself as having “blonde hair and big breasts,” and how she hit Trump with a rolled-up magazine.

But it was two moments, in which she described not remembering how she ended up in a hotel bed with Trump and how he allegedly failed to convict, that briefly threatened to derail the entire hush-money case.

Regardless, Daniels was determined to tell her story of how she met Trump at a celebrity golf event in 2006, before having sex with him and then selling the rights to her story just before the 2016 election.

And tell it, she used all her skills as an actress to convey it with hand movements, pouting lips and nose wrinkles, interspersed with laughter as if to underline the absurdity of it all.

The jury listened to the flood of words and became enraptured. After a day of boring but essential testimony about bills and checks on Monday, Daniels was the showstopper.

Some jurors kept their eyes cast downward as they took notes. Others seemed hypnotized.

Her arrival in court Tuesday morning was watched by all eyes. Even Trump watched her begrudgingly when she arrived, dressed in a long black hooded top that reached below her skirt and glasses above her blond, black-streaked hair, like the goth librarian of a teenage boy’s dreams.

It was one of the few moments when Trump could see her. His view of her was obstructed by the judge’s podium, forcing him to watch her testimony on his desktop monitor.

Daniels also avoided looking at him. She had to lean forward and turn in her seat to point him out when prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked.

The witness stand could barely contain her as she reenacted her meeting with Trump at a Tahoe hotel.

When they met, he was wearing satin pajamas in his suite, before she ordered him to change into something less comfortable.

They started with what passes for a chat between a porn star and a billionaire. After discussing union representation in the adult film industry, wrestling, and STD testing, she walked through the suite’s master bedroom to go to the bathroom.

She couldn’t resist rummaging through his toiletry bag (think Old Spice and a gold manicure set) before heading back into the bedroom. There was Trump spread out on the bed, wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts.

“There,” she said, lifting her right leg to reveal her calf and stretching her left arm behind her head in a seductress’ position.

She was startled at first, ‘like a fright.’ The next thing she knew, she was in bed.

“Was it short,” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked.

‘Yes’ was the answer.

Trump did not wear a condom, she said, in a comment the defense would try to use against her.

Trump looked straight ahead, a frown on his face.

Hoffinger tried to ask more about her memory and how much she remembered about ending up on the bed.

But Trump was having none of that. He tapped his lawyer’s arm, prompting a barrage of objections, which Judge Juan Merchan accepted and asked to expunge several answers from the record.

It was a reminder of how Daniels’ story has changed over time, from a consensual encounter to one that now hinted at a more sinister side.

That theme came up again later, when Daniels was asked why she kept it private.

“I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop,” she said. ‘that I didn’t say no.’

Daniels continually gave long answers to short questions. She explained her state of mind and added a barrage of additional details, much to the judge’s frustration.

“Ms. Daniels, please keep your answers short,” he reminded her.

At other times he simply asked him to answer the questions she was asked. And the court reporter, prosecutor, and judge all had to remind her to slow down, as her words came in a kind of rapid stream that even a stenographer with a stenotype machine would find difficult to follow.

The result was a slew of information that sometimes threatened to introduce new allegations of crimes.

Like when Daniels described wanting to meet Trump in a public club instead of his private office. “Many witnesses,” she said, prompting Necheles to object with a tired, “Your Honor.”

And then there was the time a stranger approached her in a Las Vegas parking garage in 2011 and told her not to sell her story. It was a hint of a conspiracy that Trump’s allies were bent on silencing her.

Seeing their moment after lunch, the defense asked the judge for a mistrial because her testimony had raised all kinds of additional questions for the jurors.

“This is the kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from,” said attorney Todd Blanche. “How do we come back from this in a way that is fair to President Trump?”

She didn’t need to say Trump wasn’t wearing a condom, he said, except to “fire up” the jury.

Merchan ruled that there was no mistrial. But the defense did have a point, he added.

“There were several things that would have been better left unsaid,” he said in his understated way

He even added that he had raised his own objection when the defense had failed to intervene.

‘In all fairness to the [prosecution]“I think the witness was a little hard to control,” he said.

That may be the only thing he and Trump, who has been a disgruntled defender from day one, will ever agree on.