'Jumbled mind': Trump biographer explains ex-president's motives at E. Jean Carroll trial
Former President Donald Trump's testimony in the E. Jean Carroll trial today was more about preparing to use the result as a soapbox than to actually try to notch a legal win, argued biographer David Cay Johnston on Thursday's edition of MSNBC's "The ReidOut."
Carroll alleges the former president sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store, although the current trial does not put that fact, which was litigated in a former civil trial, in dispute, and purely seeks to assess damages.
"I want to play the infamous 'Access Hollywood' tape and how he responded to the tape in the first trial," said anchor Joy Reid, playing the clip of Trump telling Billy Bush, "I don't even wait. When you start, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the [bleep]. You can do anything." She followed it with Trump being confronted with this in a deposition, during which he said, "Well, if you look over the last million years, I guess, that's been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately."
"The mind reels, David," remarked Reid.
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"Well, I think Donald actually has a strategy here with his doubling, tripling, quintupling down on his attacks on E. Jean Carroll," said Johnston. "I think he's hoping the jury awards far more than $10 million. Then he can go out and say see, it's further evidence the system is against you. He can say it's a New York jury, which is code for, they're not Christian and they're not white. And that will appeal to his base, but it won't broaden his support, which is what he needs."
The key thing to understand, Johnston added, is that "Donald here doesn't expect to ever pay this, just as he doesn't believe he'll ever go to jail. Doesn't mean that in his jumbled mind he's also not terrified. He is. But I think his goal here is get an enormous award from this jury so that he can use it to stir up his base."
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