Writer E Jean Carroll is considering suing Donald Trump for defamation again after the former US president made disparaging remarks about her during a televised CNN town hall just a day after he was found liable in a civil case for sexually assaulting her.
“Everything’s on the table, obviously, and we have to give serious consideration to it,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan told the New York Times about the prospect of a defamation lawsuit. “We have to weigh the various pros and cons and we’ll come to a decision in the next day or so, probably.”
On Tuesday a New York jury ruled that Trump had sexually abused the advice columnist in an upmarket New York department store changing room 27 years ago. It also awarded about $5m in compensatory and punitive damages: about $2m on the sexual abuse count and close to $3m for defamation, for branding her a liar.
Trump on Thursday appealed the jury’s decision.
But during the Wednesday night CNN event in New Hampshire – which attracted widespread condemnation of the US broadcaster – Trump repeatedly insulted and demeaned Carroll and her experiences.
Trump said her account of a sexual assault was “fake” and a “made-up story” and referred to it as “hanky-panky”.
Carroll told the Times that the remarks had been upsetting when she read a transcript of them. “It’s just stupid, it’s just disgusting, vile, foul, it wounds people,” she told the newspaper.
She added: “I am upset on the behalf of young men in America. They cannot listen to this balderdash and this old-timey view of women, which is a cave-man view.”
