The 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels, the adult-film star and director who says she had an affair with Donald Trump, will be broadcast on Sunday, March 25 at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Find your local station. 
 
 Daniels talks to Anderson Cooper about the relationship she says she had with Mr. Trump in 2006 and 2007, revealing details that bring her story up to the present. It is the first and only television interview in which she speaks about the alleged relationship. 
 
 The president has denied having an affair with Daniels. 
 
 The 60 Minutes segment will include an examination of the potential legal and political ramifications of the $130,000 payment that Mr. Trump's attorney Michael Cohen says he made to Daniels using his own funds. Daniels accepted the money in return for signing a confidentiality agreement. 
 
 Cooper conducted the interview earlier this month after Cohen obtained a temporary restraining order against Daniels and she sued the president in state court in California. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is seeking a ruling that the confidentiality agreement between her and the president is invalid, in part because Mr. Trump never signed it. The president's attorneys are seeking to move the case to federal court and claim Daniels is liable for more than $20 million in damages for violations of the agreement. ||||| The adult star who flirted with a Senate run goes public on Sunday night in an interview that could increase the pressure on the president 
 
 Stormy Daniels got her start in politics the same way most people get a used dresser – from a post on Craigslist. 
 
 “Seeking a female candidate to challenge David Vitter in the Republican primary for the United States Senate in 2010. We are looking for a candidate with a history in some aspect of the adult entertainment industry,” read the ad placed in 2008. 
 
 Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana who championed family values, had been ensnared in a prostitution scandal and some cheeky pranksters wanted to troll him on it. 
 
 But soon, what started as a gonzo prank idea was turning into something if not serious then at least real. “WE HAVE FOUND OUR PORN STAR,” read a follow-up post. 
 
 The porn star in question was Daniels, and in no time she was grabbing national headlines with her slogan that promised “Screwing People Honestly” – unlike her male opponent. 
 
 Trump offered me cash after sex, says former Playboy model Karen McDougal Read more 
 
 As wild as that was, that turned out to only be the prelude to Stormy Daniels’ main event. She currently faces a much more powerful male adversary, the president of the United States, as she prepares to go public on Sunday in a TV interview to give details about her alleged 2006 affair with Donald Trump. 
 
 The interview with Anderson Cooper, which is expected to break viewership records for CBS’s venerable 60 Minutes news magazine show, is easy to dismiss as frivolity. But her allegations, and the legal maneuvers Trump’s allies have employed to try to keep them quiet, could have implications spanning not just sex and sexual politics – but campaign finance laws and violence against women. 
 
 “You don’t know who become the pivotal players in history,” said Jonathan Tilove, who chronicled Daniels’ first steps in politics as a correspondent for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. 
 
 ‘My daughter’s name is Stephanie, not Stormy’ 
 
 Born Stephanie Gregory Clifford in Baton Rouge in 1979, Daniels grew up with her mother, who worked as a trucking company manager. Her dad was seldom around. As a girl she loved dancing and horses, but if her parents hoped she might pursue a childhood dream of becoming a vet, it was not to be. She left home and began stripping at 17; by 21 she was performing in adult films under the stage name Stormy Daniels. 
 
 She considers it her real name, but her mother, Sheila Gregory, can’t abide it. 
 
 “My daughter’s name is Stephanie, not Stormy,” she said when the Guardian reached her at home Tuesday. “Please forgive me if you think I’m being rude,” she added, before hanging up. 
 
 Gregory may not have made peace with her daughter’s career, but by any measure, Daniels is extremely successful at what she does, both in front of the camera and behind it. She started directing in her mid-20s, and won best new starlet at the 2004 AVN awards, referred to as the “the Oscars of porn”. The following year, she made a number of cameos in mainstream film, including Judd Apatow’s blockbuster hit The 40-Year-Old Virgin. (On social media, Apatow has said he admires her work.) 
 
 It was clear she was smart, prepared and comfortable with the media frenzy Bradley Beychok on Stormy Daniels 
 
 In 2009, when her Louisiana campaign began, Daniels was living in Florida and not registered with either party. And as those who worked with her, most of whom did not want to speak on the record, quickly realized, she was not going to be a prop, but sensed opportunity. “She was smart enough to know that we weren’t trying to drag her through some college prank, that maybe this was an avenue to explore,” said a person with knowledge of the campaign. 
 
 Her platform, thin though it was, was socially liberal and fiscally conservative. But mainly it was about trolling Vitter, and she was a master provocateur. Asked if she was pro-life, for instance, she said she was “pro-condom”. Asked if she really just wanted to embarrass Vitter, she replied flatly: “I don’t see how I could possibly embarrass him more than he’s already embarrassed himself.” 
 
 Most notable though, was her ability to stay in the public eye, despite her never formally entering the race. “It was clear she was smart, prepared and comfortable with the media frenzy,” said Democratic operative Bradley Beychok, who met with Daniels during a “listening tour” in Baton Rouge. 
 
 The Craigslist post turned what should have been a low-key election into a national spectacle, and Louisiana is just quirky enough of a place that national election forecaster Nate Silver didn’t rule her out. “She’s certainly not without her, um, charms,” Silver wrote at the time. 
 
 Daniels’ campaign would prove quite literally explosive. At the height of her political momentum, the Audi belonging to her political manager burst into flames, and though no one was ever apprehended, blurry surveillance footage showed someone loitering around the car and getting into it shortly before it detonated. 
 
 Soon after that, and amid a domestic violence arrest, Daniels opted out of the race. Vitter would go on to win, riding the wave of anti-Obama backlash in 2010. But when he ran for governor a few years later, his Democratic opponent won in an upset by reviving the prostitution scandal that Daniels had worked to highlight. 
 
 Target on her back 
 
 Today, as she prepares to take on the president, Daniels is – improbably, perhaps, at 39 – on top of her industry, with a confidence and acerbic Twitter profile to match. 
 
 Her second foray into politics began in February, when the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, had paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about her story just before the 2016 election. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest This image released by CBS News shows Stormy Daniels with Anderson Cooper. Photograph: AP 
 
 In response to the bombshell, the tabloid In Touch Weekly published an interview with Daniels it had been sitting on since 2011, kept under wraps due to legal threats from Trump’s circle. In the interview, Daniels describes in explicit detail a consensual, nearly year-long sexual dalliance with Trump, allegedly begun weeks after his wife Melania gave birth to their son, Barron. 
 
 Sunday’s interview, however, will be the first time Daniels has spoken about the matter since Trump forged his own political career, and the first time she will address the efforts to muzzle her, which she has been fighting in court. 
 
 Details from Daniels’ account further shape the narratives that first emerged about Trump and his relationship with women during the 2016 election. More than a dozen women came forward to accuse Trump of sexual harassment and assault in the lead-up to the election. And while Daniels’ alleged affair with Trump was consensual, the context is nonetheless informative about how he views women. 
 
 The sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump – the full list Read more 
 
 And Daniels is not alone. Another adult film star, Jessica Drake, who accused Trump of trying to buy sex from her, claims she also has “confidential information” about Trump’s relationship with Daniels, according to a 2016 non-disclosure agreement or NDA. 
 
 On Tuesday, the former Playboy model Karen McDougal became the second woman this month to challenge Trump’s efforts to silence her, announcing she was suing the president to be released from a 2016 legal agreement that restricted her ability to speak about her alleged affair with the future president. 
 
 Separately, a judge this month ruled that a defamation suit brought by former Apprentice star Summer Zervos, who accused Trump of harassing her, may go forward, clearing the path for other sexual misconduct allegations against the president to be aired. 
 
 “It is settled that the president of the United States has no immunity and is ‘subject to the laws’ for purely private acts,” the judge declared, citing the precedent set by a lawsuit brought against Bill Clinton by his alleged mistress Paula Jones two decades ago. 
 
 Meanwhile, the president, who has denied all the claims brought against him, remains committed to keeping Daniels quiet. 
 
 Daniels’ legal team, in a clever bit of maneuvering, has offered to pay back every dollar she was paid in the NDA for the chance to speak freely. Her team claims the agreement is null and void because Trump never signed it, and they are moving ahead with the CBS interview despite a threat from Trump’s camp of up to $20m in damages. 
 
 Daniels now has a target on her back, and her lawyer has said she’s been physically threatened and is under 24-hour security. But her background in adult entertainment may give her a rare liberty other women Trump has tried to shame into silence do not possess. Namely, she is not easily embarrassed and she doesn’t care if people don’t like her. 
 
 “Slut and whore are words used by people who feel threatened,” she responded to a troll on Twitter who accused her of promiscuity. “I find power in them.” ||||| Washington (CNN) The lawyer representing the porn star suing President Donald Trump called a tweet he posted of an apparent data disc a "warning shot" to the President. 
 
 On Thursday night, Michael Avenatti tweeted an image of what looked like a CD or DVD, with the caption: "If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is this worth???? #60minutes #pleasedenyit #basta." 
 
 Avenatti said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the disc contains evidence proving the porn star's claims about her alleged affair with Trump. 
 
 "I want to be really clear about this: It is a warning shot. And it's a warning shot to Michael Cohen and anyone else associated with President Trump that they better be very, very careful after Sunday night relating to what they say about my client and what spin or lies they attempt to tell the American people," Avenatti said. 
 
 Avenatti is representing Stephanie Clifford, otherwise known as Stormy Daniels, who is suing Trump over a nondisclosure agreement she argues is void. 
 
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– Stormy Daniels' interview with 60 Minutes is set to air Sunday night and the adult film star is gearing up to share her story with the world. Per the Guardian, a record audience is expected to tune in for the sit-down with Anderson Cooper as Daniels discusses her alleged affair with President Trump. In the pre-taped interview, CBS says Daniels talks to Cooper about the relationship she says lasted from 2006 to 2007. "It is the first and only television interview in which she speaks about the alleged relationship," CBS says. The segment is also expected to touch on the legal battle brewing between Daniels and the president, whose attorney, Michael Cohen, says he paid the porn star $130,000 of his own funds in return for her signing an NDA. An apparent inside look at the tactics being used in that battle was offered up Thursday by Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, when he tweeted a photo of a CD or DVD with the caption: "If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is this worth???? #60minutes #pleasedenyit #basta." The attorney told CNN it was "a warning shot" at Trump and his supporters. Trump has denied the affair ever took place while also claiming that Daniels has violated the NDA multiple times and could owe some $20 million. Trump attorneys are trying to get the case moved into federal court. Daniels' reps argue the NDA was never valid to begin with because Trump never signed it.