NOEL KING, HOST:
The adult film actress known as Stormy Daniels spoke to "60 Minutes" on CBS News last night. She described a night in 2006 when she says she had sex with Donald Trump. She also talked about an incident in 2011 where she says she felt threatened to keep quiet about that night.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "60 MINUTES")
STORMY DANIELS: A guy walked up on me and said to me, leave Trump alone. Forget the story. And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom. And then he was gone.
KING: She eventually did sign a nondisclosure agreement through Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen. She reportedly accepted $130,000. Now, that all happened just days before the 2016 election, which raises a big question - whether or not that payment counts as an undisclosed campaign contribution. Now, we should say the White House denies this affair. Cohen says he was not acting on behalf of Trump, and that he was not reimbursed for the payment. For more on this, we're going to bring in CNN's Hadas Gold who's been following this story for quite some time.
HADAS GOLD: (Laughter).
KING: Hey, Hadas.
GOLD: Good morning.
KING: All right. So what stood out to you about this Stormy Daniels interview?
GOLD: The news about this - the news from this interview was her description of that incident in 2011 when she says she was threatened - because she has said and her team has said that there have been threats on her about - regarding this story. But this is the first time we heard anything specific and detailed. And that - the time period of when this happened was - in 2011, she spoke to In Touch magazine describing the affair. The story was never published actually until this past - until just now this - these past few months because In Touch magazine former reporters have said that they were threatened with lawsuits and whatnot. So they decided not to publish it. So clearly, it was known that she was getting the story out. And that's when she says, allegedly, that somebody came up to her in the parking lot outside of a gym to threaten her.
KING: What did you think about her demeanor in this interview? Was she sympathetic? Was she looking for sympathy? Certainly, the idea of being threatened while you're with your infant daughter is rather terrifying.
GOLD: I mean, she says that she is doing this - first of all, they say that they are not the source of the original story in The Wall Street Journal that broke this open - that there had been a payment. And she says that she is now doing this and stepping forward to protect her reputation, to protect her family, to set the record straight. She says she is an interesting person 'cause, listen, she is an adult film actress. She spends a lot of her time without clothes on, and she is not afraid of that. She embraces it. If you follow her on Twitter, she fights back with people and says, you know, this is what I am. I'm not afraid of it. You know, I have nothing to hide in terms of my past or anything like that. So it - and she's also very clear that she's taking advantage of the situation. I spoke to her a couple weeks ago during some shows in Florida. And she said, listen, if somebody came to you and said, that same job you're doing now, I want you to do it the exact same, but I'm going to pay you four times what you've been making before - she says nobody would say no to that. And that's what she's doing now with all these shows that she's doing.
KING: She's being pragmatic, I guess, she would argue. She does, however, face some pretty serious legal repercussions for giving this interview - up to a million dollars for every time she speaks about this alleged affair. Do you think that is scaring her at all?
GOLD: She does seem a little bit uneasy about it, at least from the interview. However, I think that she realizes at this point that it's a little bit beyond, necessarily, just the money infractions. She has had offers from various people to pay off whatever infractions she might have. She is publicly doing some sort of fundraising to cover her legal costs. But she does say that she can handle a decent amount of it on her own - that she is willing to pay back the $130,000. Clearly at this point, it's - for her - beyond the money. And it's more about the story necessarily.
KING: CNN's Hadas Gold. Thank you so much, Hadas.
GOLD: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.