Trump back in court for damages phase of E. Jean Carroll defamation case

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Fresh off his win in Iowa, former President Donald Trump spent time in a New York City courtroom.

  The trial that started today will decide how much he owes writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her while he was president. Mr. Trump was already found liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the 1990s and then lying about her years later.

  William Brangham was in the courtroom, and joins us now from New York.

  So, William, tell us what transpired in court today.

• William Brangham:

  Geoff, today was jury selection. So, 50 potential jurors were winnowed down to nine jurors.

  And then Judge Lewis Kaplan gave instructions to those jurors today. And he was as crystal clear about what this case is really all about. He said, this is not a do-over of that previous case. This is not a chance for Trump to get another bite at the apple, as he put it. He was very, very clear to the jury.

  He said that Donald Trump sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll back in the '90s and that — very briefly, but very graphically, he described what happened in that dressing room. He said then Trump defamed her when she came forward to say that this had happened. He said she lied about it, that he had never met her, and that she made this up to make money.

  And the judge said that Trump knew that those things were false when he said them. So that's not what this case is about. The judge said this case is about, what is E. Jean Carroll owed for that defamation? And the striking thing about watching today's proceedings unfold is that, in the previous times that we have seen Donald Trump in court, it is always Donald Trump against some governmental prosecutor, a special counsel, an attorney general of a state, a district attorney.

  Here, it was Donald Trump against this one woman who he violently sexually assaulted almost 30 years ago. And just seeing them in court, I mean, it's possible that this is the first time that they have been in the same room together since that assault almost three decades ago.

  And I watched E. Jean Carroll very closely for the four hours that they were together in the room. And only once did she sneak one slight sideways glance at him. And that was the extent of it today.

• Geoff Bennett:

  William, what is Ms. Carroll seeking from Donald Trump in terms of financial damages?

• William Brangham:

  She's asking for $10 million for compensatory and punitive damages. She has already received $5 million from the previous case for the assault and for some defamation from Donald Trump from 2022 statements that he made.

  These are about statements he made while he was president. And E. Jean Carroll's lawyer referred to this as Donald Trump using the world's biggest megaphone to say that she was a liar, to say that she made all of these things up. And they're arguing that they want that money to basically salvage her ruined reputation, for the emotional distress that she has suffered.

  They argue that Donald Trump's statements about her has unleashed this torrent of vile tweets. She showed many of them, threats and statements about how she should be assaulted again by millions of Trump's followers. And they argue that they need to make him pay in order to force him to stop, because the former president has not stopped.

  I mean, just today alone, he has posted 30 different posts or reposts about E. Jean Carroll. Trump's defense to all of this is that to argue reputational damage from what the president, then-president said is ludicrous. They argue, and Trump's lawyer today said this, that E. Jean Carroll has thrived since she told this story.

  She's been on talk shows and doing interviews and is planning a documentary series, and that to try to blame two statements that the then president made for unleashing all of these, as they call them, bad trolls on the Internet is inappropriate and they're trying to punish him for no good reason.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And, William, we know that Donald Trump did not show up in court for the first trial, when a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. Why did he appear today?

• William Brangham:

  Geoff, it's a very good question.

  It's legally hard to understand why he came to this trial, where he's already been found guilty on all of these major counts, and didn't come back when he could have potentially made a difference in that case. And I think this, as many have noted, that this is — all of these cases that Trump is involved with have just become part of his political campaign.

  I think he is hoping to create this montage of videos of him entering courtrooms all over New York and Florida and Washington, D.C., and Georgia to try to say, this is the deep state coming after me and interfering with me.

  In fact, tonight, about an hour ago, he posted a post on TRUTH Social saying: I would have preferred to have been in New Hampshire, but I had to be in this court with a Trump-hating judge on another political witch-hunt.

  So, again, I think, legally, the case is hard to make. Politically, I think that's what the former president is doing here.

• Geoff Bennett:

  William Brangham in New York City for us tonight.

  William, thank you.

• William Brangham:

  My pleasure, Geoff.

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