White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday refused to answer questions about Stormy Daniels, a porn actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, just one day after reports surfaced that President Donald Trump was upset with Sanders for how she handled questions about the affair.
In response to questions about Clifford, her alleged affair with Trump and the $130,000 hush payment she was reportedly given by Trump’s personal lawyer on the brink of the 2016 election, Sanders dodged.
“We’ve addressed this extensively and I don’t have anything more to add,” she said, twice.
The curt response follows reports that Trump was upset with Sanders for giving the Clifford story “steroids” in the way she responded to questions from reporters on Wednesday about the affair, CNN reported.
Sanders acknowledged on Wednesday that Trump’s lawyers had recently won arbitration against Clifford in “the President’s favor.” She was likely referencing a restraining order that Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen recently filed against Clifford, according to NBC news.
Clifford recently filed a lawsuit against Trump for not signing the non-disclosure agreement that, along with a $130,000 payment from Cohen, was reportedly designed to bar her from discussing the alleged affair, according to The Wall Street Journal. Cohen has claimed that Trump did not know about the agreement or the hush money, but Clifford’s attorney has said that Clifford has evidence that he was aware of the arrangement and she wants to be free to share her side of the story.