After winning the Iowa caucuses by a historic margin, Donald Trump made his way to a courtroom in New York, where a jury was selected in a second defamation trial involving E. Jean Carroll. In May, 2023, in a related case, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse, in an incident in the nineteen-nineties, and for defaming Carroll subsequently. Now, she and her attorney Roberta Kaplan are seeking more damages from the former President, who continues to attack Carroll on social media, even during ongoing court proceedings. “I don’t think he can help himself, honestly,” Kaplan tells David Remick. “I don’t think he has enough development in the frontal lobe of his brain to do that.” Since Trump was liable in the suit already, the judge will not allow Trump to argue about the judgment; all the jury must do is determine how much in damages he should be required to pay Carroll. And although she has never asked for a specific dollar amount, Carroll believes a large enough financial blow to Trump may be the one thing to deter him. “Money is precious to him,” she tells Remnick. “And [Kaplan] is going to go get some of his money for his lying.”
This interview originally aired in May, 2023.
