Trump trial – live: E Jean Carroll jury to decide today if Trump raped and defamed writer

The jury in E Jean Carroll’s civil rape trial against Donald Trump is expected to decide today whether or not the former president raped and defamed the magazine columnist.

Both sides delivered closing arguments in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, with Ms Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan using Mr Trump’s own words – “grab ’em by the pussy” – against him.

“In a real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself,” she said.

Mr Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina countered that while his comments in the infamous Access Hollywood tape are “rude” and “gross”, he claimed “that doesn’t make Ms Carroll’s unbelievable story believable”.

The judge will now instruct the jury on Tuesday morning before they will begin deliberations in the case.

Ms Carroll has claimed that Mr Trump raped her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s.

In other legal troubles, the judge in Mr Trump’s hush money case issued a gag order on Monday banning him from posting information about the evidence and witnesses on social media.

Key points

• Jury to receive case tomorrow

• Carroll lawyer calls Access Hollywood tape Trump’s ‘confession'

• ‘Mr Tacopina criticizes Ms Carroll’s testimony, but she showed up'

• Carroll lawyer blasts Trump for avoiding trial

• Tacopina claims Carroll ‘brought a case for money and victimized real rape victims'

16:17 , Oliver O'Connell

Judge Kaplan says there was evidence received at trial that Ms Carroll says shows Mr Trump sexually assaulted other women: Ms Leeds, Ms Stoynoff. A different definition of sexual assault applies to that evidence.

Also, you heard evidence concerning an email Ms Carroll received concerning an episode of Law & Order SVU — it was not offered for the truth, only for Ms Carroll's reaction.

16:14 , Oliver O'Connell

Judge Kaplan explains the damages that can be awarded from any defamation. Again, the jury can award $1 if they determine there was no injury, or more if there was.

He adds that the burden on most questions they are faced with on the jury form is on the preponderance of the evidence and should not be influenced by any inferences made by his actions in court.

15:57 , Oliver O'Connell

On the defamation charge, Judge Kaplan says that whether Mr Trump’s statement was false or true depends on if they find he committed battery against Ms Carroll.

To find him guilty they are required to find clear and convincing evidence of actual malice — that he knew what he was saying was false, or recklessly disregarded the truth.

Meanwhile, on Truth Social

15:50 , Oliver O'Connell

The former president posted on Truth Social this morning shortly before the jury was given their instructions. As Adam Klasfeld at Law & Crime notes, neither the judge nor Mr Trump’s attorney will likely be happy about this.

Here’s what he wrote:

Waiting for a jury decision on a False Accusation where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend myself, even as hard nosed reporters scream questions about this case at me. In the meantime, the other side has a book falsely accusing me of Rape, & is working with the press. I will therefore not speak until after the trial, but will appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me, as a candidate, no matter the outcome!

Klasfeld also points out that Mr Trump was repeatedly "allowed to speak and defend" himself — and chose not to testify.

15:40 , Oliver O'Connell

The full jury instructions will likely be made public later on in written form.

15:37 , Oliver O'Connell

Judge Kaplan explains that a later question on the verdict form is for compensation to Ms Carroll should the jury decided that this is necessary — however, he says, they could award $1 to represent nominal damages. The following question regards punitive damages against Mr Trump.

15:33 , Oliver O'Connell

Judge Kaplan explains that the jury will need to apply common sense using general societal norms as to what constitutes forcible touching of an intimate part of another person with the intention of either gratification or degradation.

15:22 , Oliver O'Connell

The jury must reach a unanimous verdict in a federal court civil case (civil cases in other jurisdictions do not require this).

Judge Kaplan says: “I emphasise to you that this is a civil case for damages. It is not a criminal case.”

He notes that the first count asks the jury whether they find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Trump raped her.

E Jean Carroll is present in court for the beginning of deliberations

15:19 , Oliver O'Connell

Jury brought in to court

15:18 , Oliver O'Connell

The jury is seated and Judge Lewis Kaplan begins delivering his instructions.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in the course of my instructions I am going to explain the verdict form and the burden of proof and my final words to you will be with respect to the conduct of your deliberations.

“E Jean Carroll is suing Donald Trump for money damages for an alleged event at a department store... Allegedly in the lingerie department, the pair went to a dressing room and Mr Trump then pushed her against the wall and kissed her without her consent, allegedly. Mr Trump denies that this ever happened.”

“The second claim concerns a post on social media — Ms Carroll says it was false and defamatory. Mr Trump denied that it was false.”

Jury deliberation set to begin

15:13 , Oliver O'Connell

Proceedings will get underway shortly in New York as Judge Lewis Kaplan gives the jury their instructions in the E Jean Carroll v Donald J Trump case.

Jurors will then be sent out to deliberate on the evidence they have heard.

Trump rape case explained: How a chance department store meeting led to a court case decades later

15:02 , Oliver O'Connell

Decades after she was allegedly raped by a New York real estate mogul who would go on to be the 45th President of the United States, E Jean Carroll has had her day in court.

Ms Carroll, a writer and former advice columnist for Elle magazine, is the plaintiff in a pair of civil lawsuits against former president Donald Trump.

One of those lawsuits is now being presented in a New York City federal courtroom under the supervision of US District Judge Lewis Kaplan. The proceedings began on 25 April, with closing arguments beginning on 8 May.

The jurors in the trial remained anonymous on Judge Kaplan’s orders due to the risk of threats, intimidation or outright violence against anyone seen as an enemy by Mr Trump and his supporters.

Ms Carroll claimed during her testimony that Mr Trump raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

Read more:

Trump on trial: What to know about the E Jean Carroll rape case

Six memorable moments from E Jean Carroll’s testimony during Trump rape trial

14:30 , Oliver O'Connell

E Jean Carroll withstood a barrage of intensely personal questions and inflammatory accusations during more than 13 hours on the witness stand in her civil battery and defamation trial against former president Donald Trump.

The former Elle advice columnist was quizzed about years of emails, text messages, deposition statements, articles and social media posts by Mr Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina as he tried to sow doubt in the minds of the nine jurors who will determine whether she was raped by Mr Trump in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in Manhattan in 1996.

Ms Carroll, 79, remained stoic for most of her marathon testimony. She was at times funny, defiant, and emotional as she was forced to recall the traumatic alleged sexual assault that happened nearly three decades earlier.

Entering the witness box on day two of the trial on Wednesday 26 April, she began by saying: “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation, and I’m here to try to get my life back.”

Ms Carroll is suing the former president in civil court for defamation and battery after he claimed she was a “con job”. Mr Trump, 76, has strongly denied the encounter ever took place.

Read more:

Six memorable moments from E Jean Carroll’s testimony during Trump rape trial

‘Trump is a witness against himself,’ E Jean Carroll lawyer argues in civil rape trial closing arguments

14:00 , Gustaf Kilander

Attorneys for E Jean Carroll described Donald Trump as a “witness against himself” in closing arguments at the civil rape trial against the former president.

Lawyer Roberta Kaplan began her closing on Monday in Manhattan court by calling Ms Carroll’s testimony “credible,” “consistent,” and “powerful,”

“You saw for yourself. E Jean Carroll wasn’t hiding anything,” Ms Kaplan told the jury.

Ms Carroll sued Mr Trump in 2019 and 2022, claiming that he raped her in a fitting room at the Berghof Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s. She argues that he later defamed her in his aggressive rejections of her claims. Mr Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

While Mr Trump himself declined to testify at the trial - or to attend at all - Ms Kaplan seized on his October video deposition in the case to crush his credibility.

She pointed to the moment Mr Trump mixed up Ms Carroll and his then-wife Marla Maples in a photo, saying he “pointed to Ms Carroll, the woman he supposedly said was not his type”.

Read more:

‘Trump is a witness against himself,’ E Jean Carroll lawyer says in civil rape trial

Trump banned from posting about hush money case

13:30 , Rachel Sharp

A New York judge presiding over the hush money prosecution against Donald Trump ruled on Monday that the former president can’t post certain information about the evidence and witnesses involved in the case on social media.

Judge Juan Merchan held that Mr Trump “shall not copy, disseminate or disclose” sensitive materials shared with his legal team from the prosecution “without prior approval from the court,” including putting information on social media, according to NBC News.

The former president, according to the order, can only view “Limited Dissemination Materials” from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in the presence of his lawyers, and “shall not be permitted to copy, photograph, transcribe, or otherwise independently possess the Limited Dissemination Materials,” the network reports.=

In April, the former president was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, related to alleged attempts to pay two women hush money to stop them from coming forward during the 2016 presidential campaign about their alleged affairs with Mr Trump.

Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Who is E Jean Carroll? The writer and TV host taking on Donald Trump

13:00 , Bevan Hurley

E Jean Carroll has been a trailblazing figure in New York’s journalism, entertainment and literary scenes for decades.

Born in Detroit and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the one-time Miss Indiana University beauty queen began pitching her ideas to magazines at the age of 12.

After graduating from college, she got her breakthrough by landing her first published article in Esquire, a “witty literary quiz she concocted” about Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald.

From there, writing assignments at Rolling Stone and Playboy began to “trickle in”, she told Indianapolis Monthly in 1996.

While living in Montana with her first husband Steve Byers and their dog, she came to New York City in 1983 to interview Fran Leibowitz for a cover article in Outside magazine.

Read more:

E Jean Carroll: The author and TV talkshow host who took on Donald Trump

Jury to begin deliberations in E Jean Carroll case today

12:30 , Rachel Sharp

The jury in E Jean Carroll’s civil rape trial against Donald Trump will soon decide whether or not the former president raped and defamed the magazine columnist.

Both sides delivered closing arguments in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, with Ms Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan using Mr Trump’s own words – “grab ’em by the pussy” – against him.

“In a real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself,” she said.

Mr Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina countered that while his comments in the infamous Access Hollywood tape are “rude” and “gross”, he claimed “that doesn’t make Ms Carroll’s unbelievable story believable”.

The judge will now instruct the jury on Tuesday morning before they will begin deliberations in the case.

Carroll moved to New York from Montana on the spot

12:00 , Bevan Hurley

While living in Montana with her first husband Steve Byers and their dog, she came to New York City in 1983 to interview Fran Leibowitz for a cover article in Outside magazine.

Entranced by the bright lights of Manhattan, Ms Carroll decided to leave her husband and move there on the spot. “Of course, I went back for my dog,” she told Indianapolis Monthly.

Ms Carroll quickly established herself as one of the city’s top magazine journalists, writing “Gonzo-style” first-person articles for Playboy and New York.

The New York Times called her “feminism’s answer to Hunter S Thompson”.

She was hired as a writer for Saturday Night Live, earning an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program in 1987.

What are the allegations in E Jean Carroll’s rape case against Donald Trump?

11:00 , Bevan Hurley

The encounter, as recalled by E Jean Carroll, was friendly at first.

Ms Carroll, then a magazine feature writer and TV host, bumped into Donald Trump in the upmarket New York department store Bergdorf Goodman.

As Ms Carroll wrote in her 2019 memoir What Do We Need Men For?, he recognised her as “that advice lady”. She knew him as “that real-estate tycoon”.

Mr Trump supposedly told her that he was there to buy a gift for “a girl”, and asked for help to choose an appropriate item.

She placed the incident in either late 1995 or early 1996, when the future president was married to Marla Maples.

Read more:

What are the allegations at the centre of E Jean Carroll’s rape case against Trump?

As Trump probes intensify, foes of ex-president see opening

10:00 , AP

An investigation into Donald Trump‘s handling of classified documents has intensified in recent weeks, with prosecutors summoning a broad range of witnesses before a federal grand jury and zeroing in on questions of whether the former president or others obstructed government efforts to recover the records.

It remains unclear when the investigation led by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith might end or whether Trump might face charges over documents found at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate. But as probes in Washington and Atlanta proceed, Republican critics of Trump see an opportunity for intensifying legal woes to knock him off his frontrunner mantle in the 2024 presidential race in a way that an earlier indictment in New York failed to do.

The ongoing investigations “are the ones that have the meat,” said Bobbie Kilberg, a longtime Republican donor who has become a vocal Trump critic.

”It’s very, very serious,” she said. “It ought to have a real impact on the American people. And if it doesn’t, all I can do is shake my head in bewilderment.”

Read more:

As Trump probes intensify, foes of ex-president see opening

Judge: Wisconsin fake electors complaint must be reheard

09:00 , AP

A Wisconsin judge said Monday he will order that the state elections commission reconsider a complaint filed against fake Republican electors who attempted in 2020 to cast the state’s electoral ballots for former President Donald Trump.

But this time, Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington said, the commission must consider the complaint without the participation of one of its six commissioners who was also one of the fake electors.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission, Republican commissioner Robert Spindell and those who brought the lawsuit ultimately all agreed that the complaint should be heard again without Spindell’s participation.

Given that agreement, Remington said during oral arguments on Monday that he would write a written order as soon as next week to vacate the commission’s unanimous rejection in March 2022 of the complaint against the fake electors and to require it to consider it again without Spindell.

“Surprise, surprise, I’m coming to the same conclusion, as all the parties have, that the appropriate remedy is to vacate the decision of the WEC and remand it back for further proceedings, which don’t include Commissioner Spindell,” Remington said.

Read more:

Judge: Wisconsin fake electors complaint must be reheard

Six memorable moments from E Jean Carroll’s testimony during Trump rape trial

08:00 , Bevan Hurley and Gustaf Kilander

E Jean Carroll withstood a barrage of intensely personal questions and inflammatory accusations during more than 13 hours on the witness stand in her civil battery and defamation trial against former president Donald Trump.

The former Elle advice columnist was quizzed about years of emails, text messages, deposition statements, articles and social media posts by Mr Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina as he tried to sow doubt in the minds of the nine jurors who will determine whether she was raped by Mr Trump in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in Manhattan in 1996.

Ms Carroll, 79, remained stoic for most of her marathon testimony. She was at times funny, defiant, and emotional as she was forced to recall the traumatic alleged sexual assault that happened nearly three decades earlier.

Entering the witness box on day two of the trial on Wednesday 26 April, she began by saying: “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation, and I’m here to try to get my life back.”

Ms Carroll is suing the former president in civil court for defamation and battery after he claimed she was a “con job”. Mr Trump, 76, has strongly denied the encounter ever took place.

Read more:

Six memorable moments from E Jean Carroll’s testimony during Trump rape trial

Who is Natasha Stoynoff? The journalist whose testimony could help bring down Trump

07:00 , Bevan Hurley and Gustaf Kilander

People magazine sent correspondent Natasha Stoynoff to Mar-a-Lago in late 2005 to write a wedding anniversary story about Donald Trump, who had then recently married Melania Knauss.

Almost two decades later, her experience of the future president allegedly “forcing his tongue” down her throat could prove essential testimony in the E Jean Carroll civil rape trial that began on 25 April in a federal court in New York City. Closing arguments began on Monday 8 May.

Ms Stoynoff took the stand at the Manhattan courthouse on 3 May.

Before joining People magazine, Ms Stoynoff was a reporter and photographer at The Toronto Star, a columnist at The Toronto Sun, and a freelancer for Time Magazine. She then worked for People magazine for almost 20 years. She now writes books and screenplays, according to her bio on Goodreads.

The Trump legal team failed to stop the inclusion of Ms Stoynoff’s testimony in the trial.

Read more:

Who is Natasha Stoynoff? The journalist whose testimony could bring down Trump

Soccer executive and celebrity attorney: Who is Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina?

06:00 , Gustaf Kilander

Lawyer Joe Tacopina is the head of the legal team representing former President Donald Trump in the civil rape trial against former Elle advice columnist E Jean Carroll.

Mr Tacopina began closing argument in the trial on 8 May, stemming from Ms Carroll’s allegation that Mr Trump raped her in a New York City department store dressing room in 1995 or 1996.

The attorney is also representing the ex-president in the Manhattan District Attorney’s investigation into his alleged hush money payments to women claiming to have had affairs with him.

A Manhattan grand jury voted earlier this year to indict Mr Trump for falsifying business records in connection to a 2016 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels for her to remain silent about a 2006 affair she claims to have had with Mr Trump, a claim he denies.

Here’s what we know about the ex-president’s top lawyer:

Soccer executive and celebrity attorney: Who is Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina?

Carroll lawyer files motion for Truth Social posts to be taken down

05:30 , Gustaf Kilander

Attorneys for Ms Carroll requested on Sunday that Judge Kaplan force Mr Trump to remove some of his social media posts about the trial.

Mr Trump called the case a “SCAM” and claimed that her lawyer was a “political operative”.

Judge Kaplan said earlier during the proceedings that Mr Trump’s posts on Truth Social were “entirely inappropriate” and that he may have been attempting to influence the jury.

“Your client is basically endeavouring certainly to speak to his ‘public,’ but more troublesome, to the jury in this case,” Judge Kaplan told Mr Tacopina, according to Newsweek.

“What you’re trying to do is to get away from a statement by your client, a public statement, that on the face of it seems entirely inappropriate,” the judge told the attorney last month.

“Unfortunately, the posts remain available on Truth Social as of the time of this filing,” Carroll lawyer Roberta Kaplan wrote in the Sunday filing. “We continue to object to Mr Trump’s public statements about evidence the Court held to be inadmissible at trial and remain concerned about the prejudice that his statements may have already caused Plaintiff in these proceedings.”

Trump rape case explained: How a chance department store meeting led to a court case decades later

05:00 , Andrew Feinberg

Decades after she was allegedly raped by a New York real estate mogul who would go on to be the 45th President of the United States, E Jean Carroll has had her day in court.

Ms Carroll, a writer and former advice columnist for Elle magazine, is the plaintiff in a pair of civil lawsuits against former president Donald Trump.

One of those lawsuits is now being presented in a New York City federal courtroom under the supervision of US District Judge Lewis Kaplan. The proceedings began on 25 April, with closing arguments beginning on 8 May.

The jurors in the trial remained anonymous on Judge Kaplan’s orders due to the risk of threats, intimidation or outright violence against anyone seen as an enemy by Mr Trump and his supporters.

Ms Carroll claimed during her testimony that Mr Trump raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

Read more:

Trump on trial: What to know about the E Jean Carroll rape case

‘I think she’s sick, mentally sick'

04:30 , Gustaf Kilander

Mr Tacopina showed a clip from Mr Trump’s deposition, in which Mr Trump responded to a question regarding if Mr Trump reached out to Berghof Goodman for comment.

“I didn’t have to reach out to anybody because it didn’t happen,” Mr Trump said.

Speaking about Ms Carroll during his deposition, Mr Trump said, “I think she’s sick, mentally sick”.

Mr Tacopina said, “That was his under oath testimony saying ‘it’s not true. I didn’t do it’,” according to Law & Crime.

‘Trump is a witness against himself,’ E Jean Carroll lawyer argues in civil rape trial closing arguments

04:00 , Gustaf Kilander

Attorneys for E Jean Carroll described Donald Trump as a “witness against himself” in closing arguments at the civil rape trial against the former president.

Lawyer Roberta Kaplan began her closing on Monday in Manhattan court by calling Ms Carroll’s testimony “credible,” “consistent,” and “powerful,”

“You saw for yourself. E Jean Carroll wasn’t hiding anything,” Ms Kaplan told the jury.

Ms Carroll sued Mr Trump in 2019 and 2022, claiming that he raped her in a fitting room at the Berghof Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s. She argues that he later defamed her in his aggressive rejections of her claims. Mr Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

While Mr Trump himself declined to testify at the trial - or to attend at all - Ms Kaplan seized on his October video deposition in the case to crush his credibility.

She pointed to the moment Mr Trump mixed up Ms Carroll and his then-wife Marla Maples in a photo, saying he “pointed to Ms Carroll, the woman he supposedly said was not his type”.

Read more:

‘Trump is a witness against himself,’ E Jean Carroll lawyer says in civil rape trial

‘He didn’t tear apart her story. She tore apart her story,’ Tacopina claims

03:30 , Gustaf Kilander

Mr Tacopina repeated several lines from his opening argument, saying Mr Trump should be judged at the “ballot box”, and that no one is above the law, but adding that no one is below it either.

“Politicians don’t make this country great. Jurors do,” he said, according to Law & Crime.

“He didn’t tear apart her story. She tore apart her story,” he said, rejecting the notion that it’s everybody’s word against Mr Trump’s.

Who is E Jean Carroll? The writer and TV host taking on Donald Trump

03:00 , Bevan Hurley

E Jean Carroll has been a trailblazing figure in New York’s journalism, entertainment and literary scenes for decades.

Born in Detroit and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the one-time Miss Indiana University beauty queen began pitching her ideas to magazines at the age of 12.

After graduating from college, she got her breakthrough by landing her first published article in Esquire, a “witty literary quiz she concocted” about Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald.

From there, writing assignments at Rolling Stone and Playboy began to “trickle in”, she told Indianapolis Monthly in 1996.

While living in Montana with her first husband Steve Byers and their dog, she came to New York City in 1983 to interview Fran Leibowitz for a cover article in Outside magazine.

Read more:

E Jean Carroll: The author and TV talkshow host who took on Donald Trump

Tacopina claims Carroll ‘brought a case for money and victimized real rape victims'

02:30 , Gustaf Kilander

Trump attorney Joe Tacopina began his closing argument by saying that “The last hour and a half was hard for me to listen, for me. Ms Kaplan is a fine lawyer. But she took liberties. We’ll take a journey to justice,” according to Inner City Press.

“People have passionate feelings about Donald Trump, either way. But the court is not the place to express it – that’s for the ballot box. No one’s below the law. If you apply the law to the facts justice will be served – quickly,” he added.

“Ms Carroll has abused the system,” Mr Tacopina claimed. “She brought a case for money and victimized real rape victims, exploiting their pain and suffering. We cannot let her profit from her abuse of this process.”

The Carroll legal team said they’re not requesting a specific damage award as they say the case is about getting Ms Carroll’s “name back” and not about getting money.

What are the allegations in E Jean Carroll’s rape case against Donald Trump?

02:00 , Bevan Hurley

The encounter, as recalled by E Jean Carroll, was friendly at first.

Ms Carroll, then a magazine feature writer and TV host, bumped into Donald Trump in the upmarket New York department store Bergdorf Goodman.

As Ms Carroll wrote in her 2019 memoir What Do We Need Men For?, he recognised her as “that advice lady”. She knew him as “that real-estate tycoon”.

Mr Trump supposedly told her that he was there to buy a gift for “a girl”, and asked for help to choose an appropriate item.

She placed the incident in either late 1995 or early 1996, when the future president was married to Marla Maples.

Read more:

What are the allegations at the centre of E Jean Carroll’s rape case against Trump?

Carroll legal team declines to request specific damage award

01:30 , Gustaf Kilander

Ms Kaplan said the Carroll legal team wouldn’t be requesting a specific damage award, according to Law & Crime.

“For E Jean Carroll, this lawsuit is not about the money,” the attorney said, adding that it’s about getting her “name back”.

Ron DeSantis shares concern about ‘pissing off’ Trump voters in leaked 2018 video

01:00 , Eric Garcia

Ron DeSantis expressed concerns about how not to “piss off” supporters of President Donald Trump in a leaked video from when he was a candidate for Florida governor in 2018.

In the footage obtained by ABC News, Republican Representative Matt Gaetz asked Mr DeSantis, then a congressman, in a debate preparation: “Is there any issue upon which you disagree with President Trump?”

In response, Mr DeSantis sighed and said: “I have to figure out how to do this.”

“Obviously there is because, I mean, I voted contrary to him in the Congress,” he said.

“I have to frame it in a way that’s not going to piss off all his voters.”

Read more:

Ron DeSantis shares concern about ‘pissing off’ Trump voters in leaked 2018 video

Carroll lawyer outlines similarities in testimony of Trump accusers

Tuesday 9 May 2023 00:30 , Gustaf Kilander

Ms Kaplan said that for Mr Trump to win this case, the jury will have to find that Ms Carroll, Ms Birnbach, and Ms Martin all lied under oath.

“Does that make any sense at all, or does that suggest that there is one person here who’s lying — and that that person is Donald Trump?” the attorney asked.

Ms Kaplan showed a chart of the allegations by Ms Carroll, Natasha Stoynoff, and Jessica Leeds, which showed that they all took place in a “Semi-Public Place,” that Mr Trump grabbed them “suddenly,” and that he later called them “Not My Type”.

The attorney also noted that none of the women screamed, according to Law & Crime.

Ms Kaplan told the jury that for Mr Trump to win, “You have to conclude that Donald Trump, the nonstop liar, is the only person in here telling the truth”.

Biden trails Trump in brutal new poll after 2024 kickoff

Tuesday 9 May 2023 00:00 , John Bowden

Joe Biden is seeing some of the lowest approval ratings of his presidency as he prepares for his re-election fight against a Republican nominee in 2024.

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Sunday shows the president with the approval of little more than a third of Americans, while he simultaneously trails his 2020 opponent (and likely 2024 rematch contender) Donald Trump by seven percentage points.

It’s a very poor showing for Mr Biden, who is seeking a second term on the back of his legislative wins in the first two years of his presidency, as well as a strong showing by his party in the 2022 midterm election contests last fall that stopped Republicans from taking the upper chamber of Congress.

He announced his candidacy at the end of April following months of insistences from White House staffers that he planned to do so, and amid polling that had shown during that same time period that a majority of Democrats would prefer another candidate.

Mr Biden’s approval rating sat at 36 per cent in the new poll. In a hypothetical general election matchup for 2024, the president trailed Mr Trump by a margin of 44 points to 38 points, with a large number of Americans undecided. At the same time, he trailed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in another hypothetical matchup, 42 per cent to 37 per cent.

Read more:

Biden trails Trump in brutal new poll after 2024 kickoff

‘She remembers the sound of Trump’s heavy breathing'

Monday 8 May 2023 23:30 , Gustaf Kilander

Ms Kaplan said that Mr Trump attacked Ms Carroll during his time in the White House after she went public with her allegation following the eruption of the MeToo movement.

The lawyer said her client started sleeping with a loaded gun in her bed as she was worried about the repercussions of going public, according to Law & Crime.

Ms Kaplan quoted psychological expert Dr Leslie Lebowitz, who was hired by the Carroll legal team to testify at the trial.

“People have really strange, really unexpected reactions to traumatic situations all the time,” she said.

Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina repeatedly questioned Ms Carroll about her not screaming during the alleged assault.

Ms Kaplan said that screaming “is one of the least likely things to actually occur”.

The lawyer said her client remembers the assault in “vivid, technicolour detail.”

“She remembers the sound of Trump’s heavy breathing as he was facing the wall next to her neck,” she said. “She remembers certain things vividly, and other things, not so much.”

“The psychological expert in this case believes Ms. Carroll,” she added.

Speaking about her view of Mr Trump’s defence in the case, Ms Kaplan said, “If a woman is going to accuse a man of sexual assault, she must play the part”.

“That’s just plain wrong,” she added.

Ms Kaplan called out what she said was Mr Trump’s “Big Lie” in his defence, his argument that Ms Carroll, Lisa Birnbach, and Carol Martin are all not telling the truth.

“I’m sorry. Seriously? That’s just ridiculous,” Ms Kaplan said.

Mr Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen are also often referred to as the “Big Lie”.

‘She was trying to come to grips with the fact that she was being attacked'

Monday 8 May 2023 23:00 , Gustaf Kilander

Ms Kaplan laid out a timeline of the alleged attack during her closing argument, saying that it happened while Ms Carroll was hosting Ask E Jean on America’s Talking between 1994 and 1996.

America’s Talking was run by Roger Ailes, who later served as the CEO and chairman of Fox News before he was ousted following a series of sexual misconduct allegations against him.

Ms Kaplan noted that at the time of the alleged rape by Mr Trump, Ms Carroll was wearing a wool dress with tights, but she wasn’t wearing a coat, indicating what kind of weather there was on that day, according to Law & Crime.

Ms Carroll said that it must have taken place after her friend Lisa Birnbach had published her story on Mar-a-Lago, published in February of 1996.

The writer said she thinks it happened on a Thursday as the department store was open late.

“She was trying to come to grips with the fact that she was being attacked,” Ms Kaplan said during her closing argument on Monday.

The lawyer noted that her client remembers the attack in “great detail”.

E Jean Carroll lawyer calls Trump a ‘witness against himself’ as defence slammed as ‘harebrained’

Monday 8 May 2023 22:30 , Gustaf Kilander

Attorneys for E Jean Carroll described Donald Trump as a “witness against himself” in closing arguments at the civil rape trial against the former president, whose defence was slammed as “harebrained” by a lawyer representing the 79-year-old writer.

Lawyer Roberta Kaplan began her closing on Monday in Manhattan court by calling Ms Carroll’s testimony “credible,” “consistent,” and “powerful,”

“You saw for yourself. E Jean Carroll wasn’t hiding anything,” Ms Kaplan told the jury.

Ms Carroll sued Mr Trump in 2019 and 2022, claiming that he raped her in a fitting room at the Berghof Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s. She argues that he later defamed her in his aggressive rejections of her claims. Mr Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

While Mr Trump himself declined to testify at the trial - or to attend at all - Ms Kaplan seized on his October video deposition in the case to crush his credibility.

She pointed to the moment Mr Trump mixed up Ms Carroll and his then-wife Marla Maples in a photo, saying he “pointed to Ms Carroll, the woman he supposedly said was not his type”.

Read more:

‘Trump is a witness against himself,’ E Jean Carroll lawyer says in civil rape trial

Ailes talk show recorded in same building as Carroll programme

Monday 8 May 2023 22:00 , Gustaf Kilander

Ms Kaplan spoke to the jury about why they showed Roger Ailes’s interview with Donald Trump from the 1990s.

She said that Mr Ailes’s talk show on the shortlived cable news network America’s Talking was recorded in the same building, and broadcast on the same network, as Ms Carroll’s programme on the channel – Ask E Jean.

Ms Kaplan noted that Mr Trump would have seen the end of Ms Carroll’s programme if he watched his appearance on Mr Ailes’s show unless he changed the channel the exact right moment.

The attorney for Ms Carroll noted that a former executive at the Berghof Goodman said that there weren’t many people in the lingerie department on Thursday nights, particularly in the early spring.

Regarding Ms Carroll telling Mr Trump to tell on the lingerie, Ms Kaplan said, “I think we understand what was happening. This was a combination of humour and flirting,” according to Law & Crime.

“It was a joke. Ms Carroll could see the joke in her mind’s eye,” Ms Kaplan added. “The point was that it was funny.”

Speaking about what Mr Trump is alleged to have done to the writer, Ms Kaplan said, “He grabbed her by the p****, or vagina — I’m sorry for my language”.

Jury to receive case tomorrow

Monday 8 May 2023 21:30 , Gustaf Kilander

Carroll lawyer calls Access Hollywood tape Trump’s ‘confession'

Monday 8 May 2023 21:03 , Gustaf Kilander

Mr Ferrara called the Access Hollywood tape Mr Trump’s “confession”.

“Locker room talk can be crude. I get it,” he told the jury, but he added that this goes beyond those instances, according to Law & Crime.

The attorney criticised arguments about Ms Carroll going back to the Berghof Goodman.

“If I get mugged outside the office, am I supposed to never go to work again because it’d be too triggering?” he asked.

“Ms Carroll is entitled to find happiness in her life,” he added.

He argued that the defence was trying to build an image of a “perfect rape victim”.

“That’s the defence’s out-of-date, out-of-touch view. It’s offensive. It’s wrong,” he said.

He concluded that this isn’t a “he said, she said” case.

“There’s not even a ‘he said,’ because Donald Trump never looked you in the eye and denied it,” he said.

‘Mr Tacopina criticizes Ms Carroll’s testimony, but she showed up'

Monday 8 May 2023 20:53 , Gustaf Kilander

Mr Ferrara said that the issue of if Ms Carroll screamed during the alleged assault or not is only relevant if Mr Trump claimed that she consented, but he did not.

“If you’re in the jury room asking whether Ms Carroll consented, then she wins,” he said, according to Law & Crime.

“They didn’t put on a defence case because they don’t have a defence,” he added, noting that Mr Trump wasn’t called to take the stand, telling the jury this means that he would have been harmful to their case.

“Mr Tacopina criticizes Ms Carroll’s testimony, but she showed up,” Mr Ferrara said.

‘Here’s my point: No one lies like this'

Monday 8 May 2023 20:44 , Gustaf Kilander

Carroll lawyer blasts Trump for avoiding trial

Monday 8 May 2023 20:24 , Gustaf Kilander

Carroll lawyer Michael Ferrara began his rebuttal by telling the jury that Mr Tacopina is a “very good lawyer”.

But he said that Mr Tacopina offered arguments instead of evidence, before slamming his comments on respecting the legal system “when his own client didn’t have enough respect” to attend the trial.

“He never looked you in the eye and denied raping E Jean Carroll,” Mr Ferrara said about Mr Trump.

Mr Ferrara said that Ms Birnbach and Ms Martin wouldn’t gamble their professional credibility on a “harebrained” scheme to take down Mr Trump, according to Law & Crime.

He also scoffed at the idea that the trio “modelled their secret, secret scheme on one of the most popular shows on television,” referring to Law & Order SVU.

‘This is an absolutely outrageous case'

Monday 8 May 2023 19:56 , Gustaf Kilander

In his closing remarks, Mr Tacopina said, “Facts are stubborn things” and that Ms Carroll’s story is “not worthy of your belief”.

“This is an absolutely outrageous case. It’s an outrageous case,” he said, according to Law & Crime.

He then asked the jury to have the “courage” to do what is “right”.

‘Game, set, and match'

Monday 8 May 2023 19:53 , Gustaf Kilander

‘Scheme’ is exactly what you think it means'

Monday 8 May 2023 19:34 , Gustaf Kilander

Tacopina says George Conway ‘got his hooks’ into Carroll

Monday 8 May 2023 19:28 , Gustaf Kilander

‘Trump is a witness against himself,’ E Jean Carroll lawyer argues in civil rape trial closing arguments

Monday 8 May 2023 19:15 , Gustaf Kilander

Attorneys for E Jean Carroll described Donald Trump as a “witness against himself” in closing arguments at the civil rape trial against the former president.

Lawyer Roberta Kaplan began her closing on Monday in Manhattan court by calling Ms Carroll’s testimony “credible,” “consistent,” and “powerful,”

“You saw for yourself. E Jean Carroll wasn’t hiding anything,” Ms Kaplan told the jury.

Ms Carroll sued Mr Trump in 2019 and 2022, claiming that he raped her in a fitting room at the Berghof Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s. She argues that he later defamed her in his aggressive rejections of her claims. Mr Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

While Mr Trump himself declined to testify at the trial - or to attend at all - Ms Kaplan seized on his October video deposition in the case to crush his credibility.

She pointed to the moment Mr Trump mixed up Ms Carroll and his then-wife Marla Maples in a photo, saying he “pointed to Ms Carroll, the woman he supposedly said was not his type”.

Read more:

‘Trump is a witness against himself,’ E Jean Carroll lawyer says in civil rape trial