E. Jean Carroll’s litigation against Donald Trump was already a nightmare for the former president. It was, after all, just last year when a jury found the Republican liable for sexually abusing Carroll, and jurors awarded the writer $5 million in damages for her battery and defamation claims.
The jury did not find the defendant liable for rape, though a judge later concluded that the former president, for all intents and purposes, “‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
Last week, the matter became even more serious for Trump: A jury concluded that the former president must pay his accuser over $83 million in damages for repeatedly defaming her, including $65 million in punitive damages.
In a normal political party, this would be the end of Trump’s 2024 candidacy. Indeed, it’s a question that ought to answer itself: How is it possible for a major party in an advanced democracy to nominate someone for the nation’s highest office after the candidate was held liable for sexual abuse?
This need not be a rhetorical line of inquiry, and on some of the Sunday shows, a similar question was posed to two prominent GOP lawmakers. On “Face the Nation,” for example, CBS’s Margaret Brennan reminded Republican Sen. James Lankford that Trump has now been ordered to pay “$83 million to a person that a jury found he defamed after a separate jury found that he had sexually assaulted her.” The host asked, “Does it give you any pause about him returning to office?”
“It doesn’t,” the Oklahoman said, before changing the subject to a discussion about the 14th Amendment.
Around the same time, on ABC’s “This Week,” Martha Raddatz sat down with Republican Sen. Tim Scott, and she began the interview with this very topic. “I want to start with the breaking news on Friday, and that was that your candidate, former President Trump, was ordered by a jury to pay $83 million for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll,” the guest host said. “He was also found before, as you know, liable for sexual abuse. Does that give you any pause in your support?”
The South Carolinian responded:
“You know, myself and all the voters that support Donald Trump supports a return to normalcy as it relates to what affects their kitchen table. The average person in our country, Martha, they’re not talking about lawsuits. As a matter of fact, what I have seen, however, is that the perception that the legal system is being weaponized against Donald Trump is actually increasing his poll numbers.”
So, a few things.
First, there is literally no evidence of the legal system being weaponized against Trump.
Second, this was a jury trial in a civil case, not a case brought by prosecutors.
And third, to hear Scott tell it, voters don’t much care about sexual assault allegations, because they’re focused more on “a return to normalcy as it relates to what affects their kitchen table.” But this is absurd. Not only does it suggest the senator believes Trump should be able to get away with serious wrongdoing, it also suggests that Trump somehow has an advantage on “kitchen table” issues. He does not. Job growth, economic growth, and the uninsured rate, for example, are all better under President Joe Biden than his immediate predecessor. Raddatz offered Scott another opportunity to answer the question in a more sensible way, asking, in reference to the jury verdicts, “That gives you no pause whatsoever?” The GOP senator replied, “The Democrats don’t pause when they think about Hunter Biden and the challenges that he brings to his father.” And that might be a more compelling answer if Hunter Biden were seeking elected office — which he is not. As for the candidate the senator has endorsed, Trump has repeatedly used his social media platform to target Carroll in recent weeks, but in the wake of Friday’s verdict, the former president appears, at least for now, to have written nothing further about his accuser. Or put another way, the punitive damages appear to be having their intended effect. Carroll, meanwhile, is scheduled to sit down with Rachel on the show in roughly 13 hours. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
Latest Post
Recommended
