But Daniels’ presence as one of the star witnesses in the case sparked a frenzy on Friday (AEST), with hundreds of people lining up outside the court in Lower Manhattan – more than any other time so far in the trial – to get one of the coveted seats inside. One local New Yorker told this masthead he had been in line since 3am. Another had flown in on the red-eye from California because he wanted a front-row seat to see the first president in US history facing a criminal trial.

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During her first day of testimony earlier this week, Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, told the jury how she met Trump during a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. She was a 27-year-old adult film actress, he was 60 at the time and at the height of his career as a reality TV star hosting the NBC hit The Apprentice.

Now 45, she recalled how he greeted her at the door in satin pyjamas; how she swatted him “on the butt” with a rolled-up magazine; and how, although she never said no, there was definitely a “power imbalance”.

“I felt the blood basically leave my hands and my feet,” Daniels told the jury as she recounted how she came out of the bathroom to Trump suddenly on the bed in his boxers and a t-shirt.

Trump was furious about Daniels’ testimony – so much so that Judge Juan Merchan could hear him cursing and privately warned his lawyers that this “has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that”.

When court resumed after a mid-week recess, Necheles, a former district attorney with clients ranging from corrupt Democrat politicians to New York mobsters, didn’t hold back.

Over almost three hours, the small and feisty defence lawyer deployed what one legal analyst inside the court described as an attempt to portray Daniels as “nutty and slutty”.

As Trump watched on from the defence table, his lawyer repeatedly suggested the witness was “selling” herself at sex clubs, to which an indignant Daniels replied: “I don’t work in sex clubs, I work in strip clubs. There’s a big difference.”

Necheles also highlighted a reality TV show Daniels launched about paranormal activity called Spooky Babes, to suggest the porn star was making money by claiming she could talk to dead people.

And she insinuated that being in the adult film industry would not have left Daniels feeling a power imbalance, telling her: “You’ve acted and had sex in over 200 porn movies, right?”

“About 150,” Daniels replied.

“And there are naked men and women having sex, including yourself, in those movies?” Necheles continued. “But according to you, seeing a man sitting on a bed in a T-shirt and boxers was so upsetting that you got lightheaded? The blood left your hands and feet, and you felt like you were going to faint?”

“I see my husband naked every day, but absolutely if I came out of the bathroom and saw an older man in his underwear,” she said, noting Trump was “twice my age and bigger than me” with a “bodyguard outside the door”.

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Wearing a blue dress that matched Trump’s tie, along with a dark overcoat and glasses with her hair down, Daniels seemed fairly relaxed compared to her first day on the stand, when she often spoke so fast she had to be asked to slow down for the official court reporter.

She also pushed back assertively against some of the attacks. At one point, Necheles asked her: “Isn’t it a fact that you keep posting that you’re going to be instrumental in putting President Trump in jail?”

Daniels asked to be shown the evidence. The defence lawyer then put up a tweet in which someone referred to Daniels as a “human toilet” and Daniels had in turn replied: “Exactly. Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down”.

“If somebody’s going to call me a toilet I can say I can flush someone down,” Daniels told the jury.

The tone shifted considerably after Daniels finished testifying and three new witnesses took the stand: Rebecca Manochio (an employee of the Trump Organisation’s bookkeeping department); Tracey Menzies (a publishing executive who testified about books written by Trump); Madeleine Westerhout (who was Trump’s executive assistant at the White House until she was fired for speaking out-of-school about his family during an off-the-record gathering with journalists).

Westerhout began crying as she recounted that experience, and praised Trump as a good boss who she thought had a “really special” relationship with his wife, Melania.

“They laughed a lot,” she said, recounting moments when Trump would call Melania while she was in the White House residence and say: “Honey come over to the window” so that he could wave at her from his window in the Oval Office.

“There was really no one else who could put him in his place.”