During his CNN town hall in New Hampshire on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump swatted aside responsibility over the $5 million judgment for sexual abuse and defamation against writer E. Jean Carroll, who alleges that he assualted her in a department store in the 1990s.
"I want to ask you about a significant verdict reached yesterday," said moderator Kaitlan Collins. "A Manhattan jury found you sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll and defamed her. You've denied this. But what do you say to voters who say it disqualifies you from being president?"
"There weren't too many of them because my numbers just came out. They went up," said Trump. "I think I'm the only person in history that had a charge like that, and usually you leave office and you say I'm sorry and I'm going back home — back home to my family and everything. My poll numbers went up and they went up with the other fake charge, too, because what's happening is they're doing this for election interference."
"This woman, I don't know her," said Trump. "I never met her. I have no idea who she is. I had a picture taken years ago with her and her husband, nice guy, John Johnson. He was a newscaster, very nice man. She called him an ape, happens to be African-American. Called him an ape, the judge wouldn't allow us to put that in. Her dog, or her cat was named Vagina, the judge wouldn't allow to put that in. All these things — but with her they can put in anything."
Trump went on to mockingly describe "whack job" Carroll's story, to the laughter of the largely sympathetic audience — and he even defended his "Access Hollywood" tape comments from years before about his ability to assault women, saying that he made it very clear that women "let" him grab them.
Trump's town hall comes as he is facing a litany of other legal problems, including criminal charges for bookkeeping fraud brought by prosecutors in Manhattan, and multiple other state and federal investigations.
CNN itself came under criticism from some media analysts for holding the town hall in the first place, being accused of giving the former president a platform to normalize election denial and other extremist positions.
