Republicans Are Weak A.F. on Trump’s Sexual Assault Verdict

Republicans are never good at condemning Donald Trump, and it was no exception following the verdict in his sexual assault trial.

A New York jury unanimously found Trump liable for sexual abuse and battery against Carroll in the mid-1990s and for defaming her when she accused him of assault decades later. They recommended Carroll be awarded a total of $5 million in damages.

And Republicans’ reactions to the verdict have been weak at the very best.

Representative Mike Burgess, Tom Cole, and Thomas Massie all claimed ignorance. Burgess said he hadn’t seen the verdict yet, Cole said he didn’t “know anything about it,” and Massie said he had “been in a car” and so hadn’t seen the outcome.

Representative Jim Jordan, a staunch Trump ally, said he thought that all of the current lawsuits against the former president were “ridiculous.” But he also claimed to be unaware of the verdict. Since taking over the House Judiciary Committee, Jordan has proven far more obsessed with Hunter Biden’s laptop and attacking the people investigating Trump than the actual things Trump is accused of.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, another Trump loyalist, also said he hadn’t heard the verdict yet. “I’ve been in this meeting,” he said, referring to a meeting with President Joe Biden and other congressional leaders on the U.S. debt limit.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator John Kennedy had no comment on the verdict. Senator Mike Rounds managed a kind of rebuke by not even half-heartedly saying he probably wouldn’t support Trump in the 2024 presidential race.

Only former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who is also running for president, has had the guts to call Trump out thus far. “Over the course of my over 25 years of experience in the courtroom, I have seen firsthand how a cavalier and arrogant contempt for the rule of law can backfire,” he said in a statement. “The jury verdict should be treated with seriousness and is another example of the indefensible behavior of Donald Trump.”

Mary Trump’s tweet was about as short and to the point as it could be:

She tweeted it at 3:20 p.m. When I saw it a half an hour later, it had more than 10,000 likes.

That’s because everyone knew what Mary Trump was communicating, in just repeating Carroll’s name. She was saying thank you, bless you, we salute you.

Knowing what we now know about how the trial went, it’s easy to think this was a breeze. Carroll was a rock on the stand. Her corroborating witnesses were strong. Joe Tacopina, Trump’s attorney, came across about as badly as a lawyer who cares about his reputation could: as a bully defending an accused sexual abuser. Trump’s videotaped deposition, in which he literally confused Carroll with second wife, Marla, was embarrassing for him. Well, that part was embarrassing. The part where he said men have raped women for a million years, “fortunately or unfortunately,” was a little worse than that.

But this was no breeze. This took guts. It took tremendous courage to file this suit and see it through, eat all the shit that Trump’s lackeys would try to force-feed her, deal with whatever kinds of threats she faced—and most of all, to run the risk of losing. Because losing would have been awful, for her and for the country. But she knew the truth, and she was confident that she could convince a jury of the truth.

She thus becomes the first person in history to get the legal system to hold Donald Trump to account. She certainly beat Merrick Garland to the punch. E. Jean Carroll, Trump grossly said you weren’t his type. We say with admiration that you are definitely ours.

Donald Trump has been impeached twice, lost the popular vote twice, was the first ever criminally indicted president, faces numerous investigations into his efforts to overthrow democracy, and has now been found liable of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll.

And minutes after the announcement of Trump’s latest conviction, Fox itself began advancing the question: What else should Trump face consequences for? The network emblazoned to its millions of viewers a recent Washington Post/ABC poll that suggests a majority of the country believes the former president and 2024 candidate should face criminal charges for his efforts to “illegally overturn the 2020 election.”

The choice by Fox has followed an already confused conservative response to Trump’s latest and severe misdeeds. Though there have been moves by conservatives to downplay or detract from the charges, there have been some relative expressions of a newfound willingness to criticize the former president.

Shortly after the verdict, Fox played the deposition clip of Trump mistaking E. Jean Carroll for his ex-wife. A guest on the show, former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy, didn’t even bother trying to spin the incriminating clip.

“The context of this is that he said ‘she wasn’t his type,’” McCarthy said. “The last person you would want to confuse her with would be someone you married.” An uncomfortable pause ensued.

Perhaps it’s just a matter of playing niceties after forking over $787.5 million to Dominion in a lawsuit settlement; perhaps it’s a matter of the facts just being too incriminating not to acknowledge even somewhat. Either way, even Fox is beginning to admit the nature of Trump’s criminality—and that most of America sees him in that way too.

Former President Donald Trump has to pay $5 million for sexual abuse, battery, and defamation against E. Jean Carroll—and he’s livid.

A New York jury unanimously found him liable for sexual abuse and battery against Carroll in the mid-1990s, and for defaming her when she accused him of assault decades later. They recommended Carroll be awarded a total of $5 million in damages.

“I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS. THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE—A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Carroll is not the only woman to accuse Trump of sexual assault: At least 26 others have done so, two of whom testified during the trial. But Carroll is the first to get justice.

Former President Donald Trump was found liable on Tuesday of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and of defaming her when she accused him of assault decades later.

Carroll is not the only woman to accuse Trump of sexual assault, but her case was the first to make it to a courtroom. Trump has vehemently denied all of the allegations, aiming particular vitriol at Carroll.

But on Tuesday, a jury in New York unanimously found Trump liable of sexual abuse and battery against Carroll and of defaming her, after deliberating for fewer than three hours. While they ruled that there isn’t a preponderance of evidence that Trump raped Carroll, they still recommended Carroll be awarded $2 million in damages for the sexual and physical abuse. They also recommended she be awarded an additional $3 million for defamation.

The decision wraps up a high-profile but remarkably speedy trial. Trump, who will not face jail time, declined to testify in the courtroom, although he repeatedly declared his innocence on social media. During the two-week trial, his lawyers sought to paint Carroll as a liar, an attention-seeker, and an implausible rape victim.

Carroll accused Trump in her 2019 memoir of raping her in the Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s. She has sued him twice for defamation: first in 2019, when he said she made up the rape allegation to promote her book, and again in November for posts he made about her on social media. Her lawsuit is civil, not criminal, because she waited too long to report the assault to police.

She remained steadfast throughout the trial, repeatedly affirming that Trump attacked her in the store and that she kept quiet because she was afraid of what he might do to her. There was clearly a good reason for those concerns: Trump attacked her character again and again to try to fight off the accusations.

The evidence that Carroll’s team introduced included Trump’s notorious Access Hollywood tape, in which he brags about groping women without their consent, and the video recording of Trump’s own deposition. At one point during his deposition, the former president reveals his true character: He doubles down on the Access Hollywood comments, confirming that “fortunately or unfortunately,” stars get away with assaulting women all the time.

Not this time.