25 January 2024
NEW YORK — Former President Trump took the stand in his defamation case brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll on Thursday for about two minutes in a brief, fiery moment that marked the final testimony before closing arguments.
Trump in the courtroom said nearly as much off the stand as he did while testifying.
“This is not America, not America, this is not America,” Trump said as he was exiting the courtroom, although the jury had already left at that point.
Trump’s testimony set up a critical moment in the case as he sought to stave off Carroll’s request for at least $10 million in damages for Trump’s denials that he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s.
For years, Trump has publicly attacked Carroll’s credibility and appearance in the court of public opinion, including recently at campaign rallies and in dozens of Truth Social posts.
While Trump recently took the stand in New York in his civil fraud trial involving his business empire, Thursday marked the first time Trump took the stand at either of Carroll’s trials. The judge laid out ground rules for what Trump can and cannot say before the former president took the stand, including how many questions he can be asked.
Trump was called as a witness by his defense attorney Alina Habba.
Last week, the judge overseeing the Carroll case had threatened to boot Trump from the courtroom for speaking over Carroll during her testimony.
Speculation had run rampant about whether Trump would address the jury, and he and his legal team had sent increasing signals in recent days that the former president desired to do so.
Carroll, who herself testified last week, is suing Trump for defamation over his denials in 2019, when the former Elle columnist publicly accused Trump of sexually assaulting her decades earlier.
The judge previously found Trump automatically liable for defamation after Carroll in a trial last year secured a verdict finding Trump liable for sexual abuse.
The jury that heard from the former president Thursday is only deciding how much Trump must pay Carroll for defaming her in addition to the $5 million she won last year.
Given the issues already decided, Trump is barred from making many of the claims he has espoused in public in recent days, including denying that he defamed and sexually assaulted the former columnist.
Carroll’s lawyers previously questioned what Trump could testify about, raising concerns that Trump would use his testimony to turn “this trial into a circus.”
“In any event, even with the limitations placed on President Trump by the January 9, 2024 Order, he can still offer considerable testimony in his defense,” Habba, Trump’s lead lawyer in the case, responded in court filings.
Trump’s testimony on Thursday comes after a multiday delay in the trial that began with COVID-related concerns.
On Monday, a juror and Habba both reported feeling ill, and Habba indicated she had been recently exposed to COVID-19 but had tested negative. The judge delayed the trial by at least one day at Habba’s request.
The judge later decided to keep the trial dark for two additional days. Habba had indicated Trump wanted to testify Wednesday so he could first go to New Hampshire for the primary, but neither side had publicly asked for a pause beyond that.