Prosecutors tease bombshell phone call between Trump and Michael Cohen about Karen McDougal's 'affair' claims that led to a $150,000 payment to 'silence' the Playboy model

Prosecutors in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial said Monday that they will play the September 2016 phone call between Trump and Michael Cohen in which they discuss paying off Playboy model Karen McDougal over affair allegations.

Cohen secretly recorded a conversation with his-then boss and the two-minute recording was unearthed during the FBI's June 2018 raid of his home, with its existence first reported by CBS that July. 

Now it's primed to become a major moment in Trump's hush money trial. 

'You'll hear the defendant in his own voice, ask what are we going to pay for this? 150?' prosecutor Matthew Colangelo teased during opening statements. 'You'll hear him in his own voice suggest paying in cash.' 

Colangelo reminded the jury that this deal was arranged six weeks before the 2016 presidential election, as prosecutors argued that Trump orchestrated a criminal plot to 'corrupt' the election and then tried to cover it up. 

Donald Trump (left) and Playboy model Karen McDougal (right). Prosecutors said Monday that the jury will listen to a call between Trump and fixer Michael Cohen over a payout to bury a story about McDougal's alleged affair with Trump 

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo (right) teased during opening statements that a September 2016 call would be played. 'You'll hear the defendant in his own voice, ask what are we going to pay for this? 150?' Colangelo said. 

McDougal claims to have had an affair with Trump for 10 months from June 2006 to April 2007, about a year and a half after he married to former first lady Melania Trump.

The former model says she met Trump when he was hosting Celebrity Apprentice and when Hugh Hefner threw a pool party for the show's contestants at the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles. 

McDougal wore a see-through dress over her swimsuit at the party, which caught the future president's eye.  

'He followed me around like a puppy dog, trying to get my attention,' she told DailyMail.com in an interview last year. 'He took to me so much that the Bunny Mother said: "Wow, he really has a thing for you."' 

McDougal recalled that as she was saying goodbye, Trump asked his bodyguard to get her number. 

'He called a few days later and asked me to have dinner with him at the Beverly Hills Hotel,' she said. 'I'm ashamed about it now because I knew he was married but at the time it was out of sight, out of mind. I was a different girl then, having fun and not thinking about things too deeply.'

She recalled wearing a Roberto Cavalli long-sleeved blouse and jeans for her meet-up with Trump.

The bodyguard came to pick her up, but instead of driving her to the entrance of the hotel, she was taken around the back and brought to Trump's room. 

'We ate at a little table in the kitchen area with the TV on in the background,' she recalled. 'After dinner, things heated up and Trump made his move. I was attracted to him, but it wasn't like I was looking to jump into bed with Donald Trump, on the first night especially.' 

She said after this first sexual encounter, Trump left money out for McDougal. 

McDougal sat down for an interview with DailyMail.com last year and talked about how she met Trump at a pool party at the Playboy mansion in June 2006 

McDougal (right) poses with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner (left) 

McDougal poses on the red carpet at Playboy's Super Saturday NightParty at the Sagamore Hotel in Miami Beach in February 2010, several years after her affair with Trump 

McDougal (left) poses for a picture with fellow Playmate Carrie Stevens (right) 

'I was dressed and ready to go, and I saw this stack of cash in his hand,' she said. 'I said, "I'm not that kind of girl." He knew he'd made a mistake when he saw how upset I was. He told me I was really special.' 

Nevertheless, she 'cried all the way home,' she told DailyMail.com last year, as the bodyguard drove her back. 

'I didn't think I'd see Trump again – but we got past it. I got another call asking me to dinner and I don't know why, but I said yes,' she recalled. 

McDougal said during her consensual affair with Trump she met the real estate developer five or more times a month. 

Their first trip together, she said, was a July 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe - the same event where porn star Stormy Daniels said she had sex with Trump. 

'I don't know how he squeezed that in,' McDougal said. 'If it happened, it must have been the day before I arrived, or the day after I left, because I thought I was with him all the time.' 

 In the interview she explained how she and Trump carried on without being outed. 

McDougal (bottom center) and other Playboy bunnies pose with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner (top center left) 

A lingerie modeling photo of McDougal 

'I paid for my flights and hotels, and he reimbursed me in cash,' she said. 'It was so there wouldn't be any paper trail, no proof.'

'I thought I was the only woman. He always talked about other girls – do you think that girl's pretty or that girl's pretty? But I didn't think to ask if there actually were other women – usually it's only one mistress at a time, right?' she added. 

She also said her feelings for Trump were real. 

'I was in love with him. He was in love with me. I know that because he told me all the time. He'd say "You're my baby and I love you." He showed me off to his friends,' she said. 

But the model eventually dumped Trump for actor Bruce Willis. 

'I'm portrayed as a disgruntled woman, but I am not that woman. I ended it,' McDougal said. 'A family member came to town and we went to a bar and I met a lovely man named Bruce.'  

'I wasn't cheating on Trump but Bruce and I were talking on the phone a lot already so that made it easier to end it. Why would I stay with a married man when Bruce was a nice guy, and single?' she noted.

McDougal told DailyMail.com that she dumped Trump for actor Bruce Willis (right). The two are photographed together in London in 2008 

'I wasn't cheating on Trump but Bruce and I were talking on the phone a lot already so that made it easier to end it,' she said. She is pictured on an Italian vacation with Willis

McDougal claims she began seeing Trump in June 2006 and says she ended it in April 2007 and then moved on with actor Bruce Willis. She was photographed with Willis in Italy on vacation in August 2007

McDougal said she broke up with Trump over the phone. 

'My mother didn't like us being together and I used that as an excuse,' she recalled. 'He said, "What? That old hag?" I was angry. I told him that's my mother and don't disrespect her. I pointed out that he and my mother are the same age.' 

McDougal's mother Carol is six days older than Trump, who's currently 77. 

'He wasn't happy. He doesn't like being rejected but he didn't try to persuade me to come back. The phone call ended on bad terms,' she said. 

McDougal noted how while Trump's people have denied their affair, the former president never explicitly has. 

'A reporter asked him: "Did you have an affair with Karen McDougal?" and all he said was: "I've done nothing wrong,' McDougal said. 'He knows I'm telling the truth.' 

McDougal recalled how shocked she was when her former lover won the 2016 Republican nomination. 

She also remembered how the story of their affair was starting to get out. 

McDougal said she was approached by the National Enquirer, owned by the media company AMI, whose chief executive David Pecker was a close friend of Trump. 

She negotiated through her lawyer a fee of $150,000 to be paid to her in exchange for her writing health and fitness columns for the company's magazines. 

The story of her alleged affair with Trump would not be published.  

'That suited me because I hadn't really wanted the story to get out,' she said. 'I thought my contract was for work and that it was a win-win situation. I didn't know the term catch-and-kill at that point. I was a pawn in that scenario because of all the stuff I wasn't privy to.'