Don't fear Donald Trump, say the women who won an $83 million damages award

The E. Jean Carroll defamation damages trial showed that Donald Trump is “just a guy” and not to be feared, Carroll and her lawyers said on The Rachel Maddow Show Monday night.

Carroll’s legal team was led by Roberta Kaplan, a lesbian who’s legendary for her advocacy of women’s and LGBTQ+ rights — especially bringing down the Defense of Marriage Act — and Shawn Crowley, one of her partners in the firm of Kaplan Hecker and Fink. Both appeared with Carroll, a well-regarded journalist, on Maddow’s MSNBC show to discuss the trial in which a jury awarded $83.3 million to Carroll in her suit against Trump for saying she was lying about being sexually assaulted by him. Trump plans to appeal.

“I feel that this bodes well for the future,” Carroll told Maddow. “I think we’ve planted our flag. I think we’ve made a statement that things are going to be different, that there’s going to be a new way of doing things in this country because of this indestructible team of lawyers.”

“This team of brilliant young people have, as you said, stood up to the man — who, by the way, Rachel, is not even there,” she continued. “He is nothing. He is like a walrus snorting, like a rhino flopping … he is not there, which was the surprising thing to me.”

Carroll said she was initially terrified, “a bag of sweating corpuscles,” about being in the same room with Trump, who she says raped her in a New York department store dressing room in 1996. She had a “breakdown,” losing her ability to speak, at one point before the trial, she said.

But when the trial began and she was on the witness stand, being questioned by Kaplan, Carroll looked out at Trump and saw “he was nothing,” she said. “He was a phantom. It was the people around him who were giving him power. He himself was nothing. It was an astonishing discovery for me. He’s nothing. We don’t need to be afraid of him. He can be knocked down. Twice by this woman right here.” She pointed to Kaplan, who won a previous verdict against Trump as well, with a jury finding him civilly liable for sexually assaulting Carroll..

Kaplan added, “It is time to stand up to the United States’ current biggest bully. And the way to do that is by using the facts and the law and our legal system to say that we’re not afraid, and we saw a jury of nine New Yorkers stand up to him just as much as we did and say not only did you do this, but you need to pay her $83 million.”

Asked by Maddow if the award is big enough to make Trump stop lying about Carroll, Crowley said it’s hard to tell, but so far he’s put his lies on pause. He actually helped their case, she said, by ranting about the trial on his Truth Social platform, holding press conferences where he continued to defame Carroll, and refusing to follow the rules in the Manhattan courtroom. When he stormed out during Kaplan’s closing argument, it “was something I’d never seen before in a court of law,” Crowley said. It helped the jury “to actually see it with their own eyes the way that this guy believes he is not bound by any rules or laws,” she noted.

‘We beat Donald Trump’: E. Jean Carroll and lawyers on Trump's fallibilityyoutu.be

Kaplan said the trial showed “who he really is,” as Carroll’s lawyers were making the case that Trump acts like a bully who believes he’s not subject to any rules, and that’s exactly how he behaved in the courtroom.

If Trump resumes lying about her, Carroll said, she would “absolutely” take him back to court. “We did what people thought was impossible,” she said. “We beat Donald Trump.” She said the fight is not just about her, but for all women and men who’ve been sexually assaulted.

“The fight now is really to take back our future,” she continued. “This is a man who stacked the Supreme Court and took away women’s rights over their own bodies. We would like to be a part of turning our eyes to the future and taking back our rights.”

When Maddow asked Carroll what she’ll do with the money, Carroll joked about taking Maddow shopping and buying them both new wardrobes, buying Crowley a motorcycle, and buying Kaplan a new fishing rod. If Maddow wanted a penthouse in France and to go fishing there, it’s hers, Carroll added.

“If me fishing in France could do something for women’s rights, I would take the hint,” Maddow replied.

With Trump facing multiple trials, including for charges of taking classified documents from the White House and trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, Maddow asked Kaplan and Crowley if they had advice for the lawyers going up against him. Crowley noted that when he’s stripped of the fanfare surrounding his rallies and press conferences, “he’s not that scary, and he also can be controlled. … He’s not the guy that you see on TV. He’s just a guy, sometimes acting like a petulant toddler, but just a guy.”

Pictured, from left: Roberta Kaplan, E. Jean Carroll, and Shawn Crowley