Author and journalist E. Jean Carroll successfully sued Donald Trump in two civil suits, one for sexual abuse and another for defamation. The two suits resulted in a total of $88.3 million in damages awarded to Carroll, both of which are under appeal. She has written five books including her latest, “Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President.” She joins WITHpod to discuss suing Trump, advice she has for young women and more.
Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
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E. Jean Carroll: When I came forward, I was willing to pay the price. I’m a little shocked at how big the price is, but I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I did it.
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Chris Hayes: Hello and welcome to “Why Is This Happening?” with me, your host, Chris Hayes. Well, when the Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump had written a strange, lewd letter to Jeffrey Epstein on the occasion of his 50th birthday, that included a sketch of a naked woman, his signature where her pubic hair would be, and then a bit of odd dialog, sort of third person dialog between the two of them, that was about how enigmas never age and may every day be a wonderful secret. When that was reported, Donald Trump did what he tends to do in these situations. He went nuclear.
There’s a bunch of things he could have said. He could have said, you know, it’s not a secret Jeffrey Epstein and I were friendly for a number of years. I have no recollection of this, but if I did contribute to it, I think he’s a sicko and I cut off ties with him. Like, there’s a bunch of things you could do, right? But that’s not what Trump does. Trump says it went nuclear, ballistic, tried to lobby Rupert Murdoch to kill the story, threaten to sue, called it fake and then did sue, and has now sued I believe the reporters named and Rupert Murdoch, I think for billions of dollars, if I’m not mistaken, for defamation.
Then I should say, subsequently, Wall Street Journal has reported more about this book, which had other people who contributed to it, including Bill Clinton who did not write anything remotely as cryptic and creepy as Trump, although it did talk about Epstein’s childlike curiosity, which I was a little like, ugh, but also Vera Wang and Leon Black, a big finance guy. So there’s a bunch of people in there.
Clearly, I think, I mean I can’t say definitively, I’ve not confirmed, NBC news has not confirmed the book exists, right? So now it’s like, well, were all the rest of them fake, or was just the Trump one? So the point isn’t the reality or the lack of reality in this case, I think it’s almost certainly the case that the reporting is solid. It would be crazy for it not to be. It’s to use civil litigation as a kind of tool of intimidation. I mean, Donald Trump is probably one of the most frequent litigants in America, I mean, suing and being sued. I don’t have the numbers off hand, but this is what he does. It’s where he thrives.
And a lot of times, the point isn’t an outcome, right? It’s just a point of leverage. It’s to get some negotiated settlement. We’ve seen this with lawsuits, he’s leveraged against different companies, media companies that essentially have functioned as what appear to all the world like solicitations of payments that they settle with him, and then he goes easier on them, or he does something in his official capacity to make life for their parent corporation better.
Of all the people that have gone toe to toe with Trump in the courtroom, they’re literally, I think, hundreds or thousands, most likely, I think E. Jean Carroll, who sued Donald Trump for defamation, has probably come out the most unambiguously victorious. And to remind you of the case, E. Jean Carroll wrote a book. She’s a legendary media figure and writer, advice columnist in magazine, long-form feature writer for years.
She wrote a book in which she said that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman. Donald Trump, as is his won’t, said it was nonsense, that she was a liar, that she was not his type, all of which was gross and weird. She sued him for calling her a liar. There were two trials about the substance of the claims that she made, again before a jury, with evidence, I mean, the full thing, and not a beyond a reasonable doubt, but what’s called the preponderance of the evidence standard. And she was victorious both times. In the second one, he was found liable for sexual abuse.
And so I thought as, A, we’re watching the President turn into a litigant for possibly the first time in our history, everyone is just sort of like, oh, of course, Donald Trump is suing, but it’s weird for the President to sue someone. And B, the Jeffrey Epstein scandal kind of engulfed the administration. I thought who better to talk to than someone who has sort of lived through what it’s like to go head to head with Trump on something like this than E. Jean Carroll. So E. Jean, welcome to the program.
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E. Jean Carroll: Well, thank you, Chris. That was absolutely delicious. What a great introduction. I’m proud to be here. Thank you very much.
Chris Hayes: Let me start with your perspective on this, as someone who had to go through a drawn-out legal battle with Donald Trump, and we’re seeing how often he is now using this tool, that in almost like a tactile day-to-day sense, what does it mean? What does it mean to be embroiled in a high stake, high dollar, long drawn-out, well-publicized civil lawsuit with Donald Trump?
E. Jean Carroll: Well, here’s the thing. It’s not just you’re embroiled with Donald Trump. You’re embroiled with his millions and millions and millions of followers —
Chris Hayes: Right.
E. Jean Carroll: — who he keeps whipping up into a froth of excitement. With me, he was calling me a liar. He was calling me a dangerous woman. He was calling me a political operative, being paid by the Democrats. On the first day from the White House, he actually said to people, if anybody knows anything about this woman, please come forward. He wanted to know, you know, how much I was being paid, et cetera. Obviously, nobody came on.
So it’s not just Donald Trump, it’s the legions and legions of his sycophantic fans who then all, well, not all of them, many of them came after me. So when you go up against Trump, you go up against, you know, a whole nation of Trumpers. So that was a shock and a surprise to me. I was not prepared for that.
Chris Hayes: Can you tell me a little bit how that manifests in your life? I mean, obviously, there’s enormous spectrum of this. Like, I’m a relatively public figure and I know what it’s like to have trolls.
E. Jean Carroll: Oh.
Chris Hayes: But my sense, and I’ve known other people who have been, not specifically in your situation, but kind of in his crosshairs, it’s a totally different thing than any other experience they’ve had of, you know, being in the public eye.
E. Jean Carroll: Chris, it’s extremely weird. Do you hear those dogs outside? One is 120 and the other is an 84-pound pit bull, and their job is to bark like crazy —
Chris Hayes: Right.
E. Jean Carroll: — at anybody who slows down on the road near my house. Now, that is not a normal way to live. And I’m sorry they’re barking, but, I mean, you and I are glad that they’re there.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: But I have to have 24-hour, round-the-clock cameras, lights. The police chief is on my fast, whatever that is on the phone.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: So that’s very different because I am a loner. I live in the mountains. You know, think of Henry David Thoreau, that’s a little bit much. But, you know, this is the sort of life that I love and have always led, and to have it turned into this. Also, you know, the police chief came and got the gun my father left to me, a little revolver, because the Republicans had screamed so loudly that I didn’t have a permit, so they came. He came to get the gun. So then an hour later, Chris, I had to go to the gun store and get a shotgun, which is legal in New York. And so, that’s not normal behavior for me. I would never do that, but then I had to do it. So, yes, it changes everything. It changes everything.
Chris Hayes: That life-altering, I mean, life-altering in the sense of just like the reality of your day-to-day life logistics, and I know how much the security can —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — you know, be a hassle, honestly.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: I mean, as much as anything, have you been scared? Does it create any sense of physical fear, the fact that there are people who would threaten to do things to you?
E. Jean Carroll: No. I don’t care if they shoot me. If I sat and care if they’re going to shoot me, well, my life would be stupid. So I’d prefer that they shoot me in the arm or the leg. But you know what, I don’t give two flying figs if they shoot me.
When I came forward, I was willing to pay the price. I’m a little shocked at how big the price is, but I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I did it because as you said in your introduction, Robbie Kaplan, one of the world’s great legal minds, who’s my attorney, and I think were the only two people to beat the most powerful man on earth twice.
Chris Hayes: When you were making the decision about whether you’re going to come forward and you’re going to write this, and you’ve had a very long and incredibly notable career in a million different ways so I want to be very clear about that, the remarkable career you’ve had in many different incarnations for many different years. But when you think about that dividing line, like, do you think the person that made the decision, the prior you —
E. Jean Carroll: Oh.
Chris Hayes: — who made the decision to do it, knew what they were doing, or if you had advice to go back to tell that person, are there things that come to mind?
E. Jean Carroll: Which one of us was a philosophy major at Brown? Who would ask that question? But that, of course, is the core. Of course, I’m a completely different person now.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: You know, that question you’re asking, that is so important for people who are planning to have children because they’re going to be completely different after the children arrive, right?
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: Or if you’re going to buy a dog, you’re going to be a completely different person after you adopt that dog. This is an essential question. Americans should have asked themselves the Chris Hayes question before they voted for Trump.
Chris Hayes: Yes.
E. Jean Carroll: Are we going to be the same people voting for Trump that we will be voting for Trump after we voted for him? Essential. There’s another book for you to do.
Chris Hayes: Do you have a thought about yourself then making that decision?
E. Jean Carroll: Chris, I don’t think deeply about myself. You know, Oedipus looked deeply at himself. What did he find out? I am one of those people. Robbie Kaplan and the Carroll team had to train me to stop saying, I was fabulous. They had to keep saying, E. Jean, you cannot run around saying you’re fabulous all the time, because that’s how I like to present myself.
Chris Hayes: Oh, you mean when people ask you how you’re doing —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — your default is like, I’m fabulous.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: Right. Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: How are you, E. Jean? I’m fabulous.
Chris Hayes: So for civil litigation, maybe that’s not so great. Right. Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. So that’s my default. I don’t like to think about it. I’m glad I made the decision, because people really needed to know. It didn’t do any good because half the country never heard about it, unfortunately, because we’re in the Berlin Wall, and a lot of people don’t get the Chris Hayes show, or they don’t watch Chris Hayes —
Chris Hayes: Sad but true.
E. Jean Carroll: — you know, at 8 o’clock. Their Facebook feed is a completely different feed.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: And so it’s not their fault, but I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I did it.
Chris Hayes: I like what you just said about, you know, you’re not big on —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — self-pity or sort of sinking into introspection about things, which I think is a very adaptive quality for these kinds of fights, because —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — one of the reasons I want to talk to you is we’ve watched all these institutions basically back down —
E. Jean Carroll: Totally.
Chris Hayes: — when they have to go toe to toe. And we’re talking about, you know, some of the best law firms in America, right? White shoe law firms.
E. Jean Carroll: Tell me about it. It’s sickening. They’re worms.
Chris Hayes: Right. I’m trying to come up with some theory in my head of, like, there’s this famous New Yorker essay called “Who Goes Nazi?” which was written by someone who was sort of in the run-up to World War II, thinking about who would end up being a fascist.
E. Jean Carroll: Oh.
Chris Hayes: And this is different than that. But the thing I’m trying to think is like who fights and who doesn’t, and what are the personality traits?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: So I’m asking you to introspect a little bit, to project outwards. Like, why didn’t you back away? Why didn’t you say this is too much, let’s just settle? I can’t deal with it. What kept you going?
E. Jean Carroll: Well, because if you’re talking about these big institutions, CBS, ABC, worms, both of them horrible. I can’t even say anything.
Chris Hayes: Right. Yes.
E. Jean Carroll: And I’m a working journalist.
Chris Hayes: They’re making business calculations. Yes.
E. Jean Carroll: You see, I live in a hubble, so the money didn’t enter into it for me.
Chris Hayes: That’s interesting.
E. Jean Carroll: I could give two flying figs about money. I don’t care about it. That’s a big thing off the table with me.
Chris Hayes: Right. And also, that that point you made, these institutions or companies that are multi-billion dollar institutions —
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, yeah.
Chris Hayes: — they have a lot to lose.
E. Jean Carroll: A lot to lose.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: But we may have lost a great deal more because of their decision.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: They’re thinking of their clients losing their trust funds, uh-uh, much more at stake. Horrible, horrible. But you notice who did come forward was like a dozen women about Trump.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: Maybe 20, more than a dozen, some say 23. That was bold. You know, those women were brave. The women who came forward, they actually did it. And the companies that you’re talking, it’s a puzzle, except, this is the answer.
Chris Hayes: Money.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
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Chris Hayes: More of our conversation after this quick break.
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Chris Hayes: You mentioned the women who came forward, and I’m talking to you in the context of burgeoning Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
E. Jean Carroll: Oh.
Chris Hayes: And you know, one of the things that I’m so struck by is the courage of the victims who have come forward, who have relentlessly sought accountability.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: I mean, a lot of these people had no money. They were in —
E. Jean Carroll: No.
Chris Hayes: — incredibly dire straits.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: They had this guy who was friends of some of those powerful in the world.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: They came forward. And then when that plea deal cut them out, they kept —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — going after him and then sued him.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes, they did.
Chris Hayes: It’s inspiring to me and also enraging to look at what it takes from the survivors of this kind of assault and abuse, to get something like accountability.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. If anybody ever sues a powerful man, you’ll never get accountability because that powerful man is the one who’s always believed, always.
Chris Hayes: Even if you win, you’re saying?
E. Jean Carroll: We won with an upstate jury.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: We won from Trump counties.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: That was not a Manhattan jury —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: — the first jury that proved sexual assault, held him liable for that. Chris, that was an upstate jury. You know, we convinced them. That was one of the first times he really was held accountable, but nobody heard about it because, you know, only a few New Yorkers heard about it. But it was not spread out. Fox News did not do a big thing. I don’t know Weinstein has been held accountable. Cosby was held accountable. He’s out.
Chris Hayes: And he got out. Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: Trump is fighting. You know, he’ll go to the Supreme Court on my two things, and he’ll lose because he doesn’t have a good case. Well, what do you think? You’re a powerful man. Can you explain powerful men to me?
Chris Hayes: I mean, that’s a good question. Well, I would like to flatter myself by saying I don’t have the same components that some of the people we’re discussing have. I’m not a Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby or Donald Trump.
E. Jean Carroll: No. You’re tall. You’re well-known.
Chris Hayes: I’m tall and well-known.
E. Jean Carroll: You have a decent salary.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: You’re in the public eye. You tick off a lot of the boxes, so you can speak for them.
Chris Hayes: Well, I don’t know if I can speak for them. One thing I will say, though, I don’t know if this is gendered, but I’ll speak from my own experience. There is a very seductive thing that happens if you go along your life and you have some bit of success, where, in some ways, your ego has to expand almost at a sort of protective level —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — particularly if you’re in the public eye.
E. Jean Carroll: That’s interesting.
Chris Hayes: Because if you’re too raw and sensitive otherwise, there’s a little bit of like —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — psych. And then there’s also this sort of seductive story that you can be led to tell yourself about how much you’ve earned what you have.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: I think you surround yourself particularly with certain kinds of people. But then there’s also people who are not powerful, who are just like awful, inveterate creeps. And I think the real explosively dangerous thing is when you get an awful, inveterate creep with power. Like, I don’t know how much —
E. Jean Carroll: There you go.
Chris Hayes: — the power is the causal thing. I think Jeffrey Epstein might have been trying to do the same thing if he was like a waiter, you know.
E. Jean Carroll: He wouldn’t have been able to, though.
Chris Hayes: He wouldn’t have been able to. But there’s still lots of folks with no power doing awful things.
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, horrible. Yeah.
Chris Hayes: I think they probably get away with it less. But, yes, the impunity thing is really wild to me. And when you think about Epstein, I mean, this is, I think, relevant to Trump in some ways. I mean, Epstein gets caught red-handed. He gets prosecuted. He’s facing life in prison. He manages this Houdini act with this inexplicable plea deal that Alex Acosta comes up with for him (ph). And then, as best we can tell, you would think that might scare him straight, like no more, goes right back to it.
E. Jean Carroll: And right out in the open —
Chris Hayes: Yes.
E. Jean Carroll: — in New York City, in the mansion.
Chris Hayes: Right.
E. Jean Carroll: Right out in the open. That is a Superman quality.
Chris Hayes: Yes. Like, the total confidence that no one can get you.
E. Jean Carroll: Isn’t that amazing?
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: I think Trump has that same quality, obviously.
E. Jean Carroll: Well, he’s the most powerful man on earth.
Chris Hayes: It’s probably true. Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. Not only on earth, you know, his followers believe that God has interceded and saved him twice. First, we saw the picture with the bullets going by his head.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: We all saw it.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: So that was proof to them that he is really on earth to rule. And for this reason, they hold him almost in this holy veneration. So not only does he have all the aspects that you are just taking awe, now, he’s holy, and that’s hard to beat. That’s hard to beat. Just think of that.
Chris Hayes: What you said before is really interesting. You know, to go back to your trial for a bit, I kept saying like if there was a trial in New York City happening right now in which Barack Obama was being sued —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — for defamation by a woman —
E. Jean Carroll: God.
Chris Hayes: — you feel like that might have been a bigger story.
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, my God. Yes.
Chris Hayes: I mean, it would be the biggest story in the history of political media.
E. Jean Carroll: Absolutely. We’d still be talking about it.
Chris Hayes: It would be all that we’d talked about. Now, part of that, I got to say —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — there is a kind of man bites dog aspect, right? Like, it would be truly shocking because of how people think of Barack Obama.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: You know, knowing people that know him, I think they’re correct that they would be shocked by that. I think it is less shocking with Donald Trump, in which I think people have priced it in a little bit. But it still felt to me like it is strange that this is not a bigger deal. I mean, we covered it very closely. I mean, you were in the center of it, so you’re probably not thinking about that. But how do you think about that part of it?
E. Jean Carroll: I didn’t think about it.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: I needed to, you know, sit in court, tell my story. I came to love the process of the judicial system, and I found it very exonerating. I got to tell my story in court. I got to tell my story when thousands and millions of people called me a liar. So it was very satisfying. When the jury came back in the first trial, I heard that there was an Off-Broadway production in rehearsal, and they were in the middle of a very serious scene, and a production assistant came running out on the stage, she said, Carroll won. And everybody burst into applause and screams, and the house lights went on and off. So that was the feeling in New York. So that was happy. And Carol Martin, she was the woman I told the next day.
Chris Hayes: You called and told contemporaneously.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: She was in her car. Her attorney said the jury is back. Carol was driving, yanked her car off the highway, pulled into a New Jersey little park. I think she even kept the engine running, staggered out of the car and fell on a park bench because she was afraid that when the verdict came in, she would faint or lose consciousness.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: And then it came in, Carroll won. And I hate to be behind the wheels of Carol Martin when that news came in. I mean, none of us would have lived through it. So there were those ecstatic moments felt, I’m sure across the nation, by many women.
Chris Hayes: Oh, yes.
E. Jean Carroll: But as for the general population knowing, no.
Chris Hayes: Do you have advice for women that are going to undertake an attempt to hold a powerful man accountable? You were an advice columnist for many years.
E. Jean Carroll: Twenty-seven years, and I had no problem advising women before I went through it. I’d say, yes, report it. Call the police. Absolutely. Oh, I had all sorts of advice. Now, I don’t advise people about that, because how can I? How can I? She can be hurt desperately and badly hurt.
I happen to be the type of personality as you pound me into the ground, I’m going to stand back up. But if it’s a single mother with children, no, I’d tell her not to. You know, there’s just so much to lose. Also, you need the world’s smartest attorney. Also, for normal people, how do you take on a powerful man? Where do you get the money? How do you even know?
You know, I grew up in Indiana. I didn’t even know a lawyer. Who would I call? The situations are important. Let’s say I work in a factory. Let’s say I work in a Caterpillar factory in Fort Wayne, and the floor manager has been bothering me. Now, what do I do? Do I report him? Do I lose my job? What happens? How do I feed my kids? Do I go to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette and tell the story? Well, they’re going to believe the floor manager. It’s going to be very difficult. She may end up, you know, I don’t know, I can’t even imagine. See, that’s the difficulty. It’s a terrible decision to make because you feel, I want the truth known. Look what happened to the Jeffrey Epstein girls, Virginia Giuffre committed suicide.
Chris Hayes: She did.
E. Jean Carroll: It’s a big decision. And boy, she fought him. Remember, Prince Andrew came. They went in Judge Kaplan’s courtroom, you know, and she stuck to her guns. But, boy, the toll it took on her.
See, Chris, I was an older woman. I was 75 when I went to trial. I mean, I was 80 when we went to trial, 81 when we won. So, you know, don’t try to tell an old lady what she can’t do. But a younger woman, you know, they’ve got a lot to lose.
Chris Hayes: Well, there’s also this context here which I’m curious to hear you talk about. The cliche is a reckoning. And starting in 2017, with me too, I really think the spark was lit by Donald Trump —
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, fabulous.
Chris Hayes: — and the accusations against him, and the Access Hollywood tape. But then the remarkable investigative reporting on Harvey Weinstein —
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, fabulous.
Chris Hayes: — in the New York Times and also in New Yorker. And then this just felt like this sort of seismic, wrenching wave that rippled through all these different parts of society, from —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — theater troupes to universities —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — to corporations.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: And I got to say as a straight man, it was pretty eye-opening for me —
E. Jean Carroll: Me too.
Chris Hayes: — like how common it was —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — how many people had stories like this. And then there was, very clearly, a backlash to it and I wonder where you think we are now, because your book that accuses Trump was published amidst this kind of social moment of reckoning, and then you’ve sort of lived through during the course of this litigation, this backlash. And now whatever we’re in now, like, does it feel to you like the pendulum is going back, that maybe this Epstein story is part of that? I don’t know.
E. Jean Carroll: I feel that we will, in the future, prevail. But, boy, you’re right, we’re going back, back, back. Yeah, there’s a stream. There’s a force. The wave after Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey’s story, and Ronan, that was fabulous. We all stood up.
Now, we’re going a little backwards. You’re absolutely right about that. We’ve gone back 50 years, to be exact. We don’t even have rights over our own bodies anymore.
Chris Hayes: Exactly.
E. Jean Carroll: And the fact that we’re now so concerned about these children, Epstein’s children and the molestation of children, that means, according to a little sweet insight today in The Times, that when populations become concerned about women getting too powerful, they start to worry about the kids. Do you think that could have something about what’s going on?
Chris Hayes: That’s really interesting.
E. Jean Carroll: Isn’t that interesting?
Chris Hayes: It is. I mean, here’s my feeling about the Epstein story. First of all, the details are horrific. You know, I said this the other day on air, it’s like the JFK assassination, where it’s like before you get into any conspiracy theories, if you just talk about the actual known facts, they’re crazy.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. No, I saw that. Exactly. They’re nuts.
Chris Hayes: Like, Lee Harvey Oswald tried to defect to the Soviet Union, then he was there.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: He came back. But he also went to Mexico, and the CIA was tailing his cubicle.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: But you’re like, what? So, you know, with Epstein, it’s like, wait, there’s pictures of him with this academic and this famous person.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: Why was Ghislaine Maxwell in the aisle at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding?
E. Jean Carroll: I don’t know.
Chris Hayes: Even the Wall Street Journal was like, oh, Vera Wang wrote Jeffrey Epstein a note.
E. Jean Carroll: What? I know.
Chris Hayes: Why? So at one level, the details are crazy, and I think that is part of what’s gripping, both how horrible what he did was, how systematic it was, and also the connections he had to the rich and the powerful.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: But I think there’s a third aspect, which is that the reality of the sexual exploitation and molestation of girls is, in the vast majority of cases, horrifyingly banal. It is —
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: — coaches.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: It is pastors.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: It is teachers.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: It is priests.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: It is uncles and stepdads —
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: — and boyfriends.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: And that reality is so ubiquitous and so horrible, that there is a comfort in the notion of like global conspiracy —
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: — of dark, shady, bad guys, evil people who are doing this evil thing. That is a comforting thing to think about —
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: — as opposed to the banal reality, which is that something like 25% of girls will be sexually molested in some way —
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, yeah.
Chris Hayes: — between the ages of 9 and 18.
E. Jean Carroll: It’s really higher.
Chris Hayes: Higher than that. But, I mean, like, even just —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — in this narrow band, as like, you know, girl to teenage girl, tween, whatever. Like, that reality is so awful. It’s like a weird pressure release valve (ph) to think about it all being done by this awful cabal of elites.
E. Jean Carroll: I think you’re onto something. I think that sounds absolutely right to me. Yeah, that sounds absolutely right. I like that.
Chris Hayes: Well, I think to go back to the Me Too question, that was part of the crazy thing about Me Too also. There’s all these powerful men, but it was the ubiquity and the banality of it. I mean, just like —
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, please.
Chris Hayes: — you know, my grocery store manager or whoever.
E. Jean Carroll: Please. Yeah.
Chris Hayes: You know, there’s a hundred of those stories to everyone, you know —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — Donald Trump.
E. Jean Carroll: Exactly. Well, you have a wife.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: You know a lot of women. Every single one of them has had a problem of some sort, every single one. Okay, this is interesting. Now, may I pick your brain?
Chris Hayes: Please.
E. Jean Carroll: I couldn’t wait to ask you this. I’ve written it down. Okay. Now the sirens call. Okay. Now, your subtitle, how attention became the world’s most endangered resource. Now, explain to me because I really do not understand. One half the world is worrying, like you are, about our lack of attention, and the other half, for three hours a day, is riveted on the Epstein-Trump deal.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: How do you explain that?
Chris Hayes: Yeah. It’s a great question. Like, given the book I just wrote about attention, like why —
E. Jean Carroll: I know.
Chris Hayes: No. I don’t have the answer. This is the central question. Like, it’s clear the Epstein story has this attentional pull —
E. Jean Carroll: Boy.
Chris Hayes: — that even in a very —
E. Jean Carroll: Why?
Chris Hayes: I mean, even in a very distracted age, this is the thing to come back to what you’re talking about before, with your trial, which we covered, in which —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — you know, for the people in our network, was incredibly salient. People watched those shows, and they were interested, and they were, you know —
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, I know.
Chris Hayes: But there’s a breadth and breakout attentional grippiness to Epstein that, in some ways, has also been the first thing like this of the second Trump —
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, yeah.
Chris Hayes: — term, right?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: Everything else goes away. I mean, I can name you, like, oh, remember the signal scandal, or remember when the plane crashed —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — and you said it was DEI?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: And we bombed Iran, like, four weeks ago.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: And, hey, you know, where did we end up on that?
E. Jean Carroll: I forgot. Yeah. Wait a minute, we’re spending two, three hours a day on the Epstein-Trump thing, that people are doing their research and they’re reading, they’re looking, where they’re asking about the pictures. And yet, we’re worried about our attention.
Now, also, your book says our attention is being degraded by watching stupid stuff.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: But this is not stupid. This is important things that were riveted by.
Chris Hayes: Yeah. I mean, I think this is in that sweet spot of, like, salacious and important, you know.
E. Jean Carroll: No. That’s exactly it.
Chris Hayes: Well, you’ve worked in journalism, a very long career in journalism. You know the New York tabloids, right? Like, there’s this entire category of story that we would call, like, prurient or lurid —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — or salacious —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — or tabloid —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — that, you know, grabs your attention. That’s on the cover of New York Post, right?
E. Jean Carroll: Totally. Yeah.
Chris Hayes: And this is that story.
E. Jean Carroll: This is that story. And I think when we give attention, now that I hear you talking, we are very good atavistically, you know, for the last, I don’t know, hundred thousand years. Let’s use the word delicious, when something is so delicious, we have more of an ability to judge what is true and what is not true.
Chris Hayes: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: I think we have a special lizard brain. We’re drawn to this, and something bothers us about it.
Chris Hayes: It’s funny you say that. You know, the Trump years are sort of this constant threat to your sanity because you’re kind of constantly looking around, being like —
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, God, that’s exactly it.
Chris Hayes: What are we doing here? And one of the things, when you talked about the litigation process, the judicial process being, you said, exonerating, which I thought was very interesting.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: And I think a lot of survivors don’t feel that way about their brush with the law. But, to me, from a foreign covering it, it was like we’re finally in some kind of bounded universe of regulated fact and reasoning, where, like, we have rules of evidence. Everyone is going to come together and actually —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — look at the same set of information —
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: — reason together and come to a conclusion.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: In that environment, they were like, yeah, she’s clearly telling the truth. I was like, thank God.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: It gave me faith.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes. Yes, it works. The justice system works. And that’s why it’s so scary that he’s taking steps like what he just did with Alina Habba esquire, that little move that he made to keep Alina Habba esquire as a New Jersey —
Chris Hayes: Yeah. As a U.S. Attorney General.
E. Jean Carroll: — attorney general. Yeah.
Chris Hayes: She’s sort of termed out as a temporary, but he’s sort of shuffling things around to kind of keep her there. Right. But did you feel that way? Like, at a deep level, in this country, where people are divided and they can’t agree on what color the sky is —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: –like, in this context, it did do the thing that we want from the system to do.
E. Jean Carroll: You have no idea, and it was brilliant. Why it was so brilliant is we put on 12 witnesses, and they put on no witnesses because they thought that him saying, I do not know this woman, I’ve never met this woman, she’s a liar, that would be enough, but it wasn’t enough.
And I think Joe Tacopina, certainly one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country. I mean, he got Michael Jackson acquitted. He got, you know, ASAP Rocky off. He got the guy who bludgeoned Natalee Holloway on the beach, kept him out of jail. Joe Tacopina represents criminals. He’s at the top of his game. He’s the best. He advised Trump not to fly back from Ireland and testify. He didn’t think Trump should have done it. I think that was a mistake, because we had an upstate jury. And I think putting Trump on the stand, I think, you know, any man who’s been bankrupt six times and still convinces everyone he’s a business genius, could have convinced at least one little upstate.
Well, here’s the thing, the downside of that would be that Robbie Kaplan —
Chris Hayes: Would cross him.
E. Jean Carroll: — would have gotten to cross-examine him, you know, for two or three hours or four hours, and she would have torn his head off and fed it to him. But, you know, they could have won that trial if he had shown up. What do you think?
Chris Hayes: Yeah. I mean, that’s really interesting. I find the texture of this stuff so fascinating because I just don’t know anything about courtroom litigating, and I know people that are very good at it and they make all these complex calculations.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: But it reminded me that there are so many ways in which the jury system can be defective. You know, there’s an entire literature about how bad eyewitness recollection can be.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: You know, there’s a whole universe to this. But your trial, in some ways, was the most profoundly I’ve ever felt kind of the original purpose of this idea of fact-finding —
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: — which is like what is the fact of the matter? What is true about the world?
E. Jean Carroll: Right.
Chris Hayes: Here’s a way to do it.
E. Jean Carroll: Right.
Chris Hayes: We have rules of evidence. We have people get together.
E. Jean Carroll: Whoa.
Chris Hayes: They deliberate, and then they declare, this is true.
E. Jean Carroll: It was an anonymous jury. Judge Kaplan would not permit their names, their places of business, their wives, their telephone number, their addresses. They were taken down in a special elevator, Chris, when they left for the day, into a special vehicle and whipped away out of an unknown exit, out from the court, and taken to an undisclosed location. He really did not want that jury messed with. And so, again, the fairness of the trial. Of course, now, after each day in the courtroom, Trump would blast out on his social, sometimes 40 messages an hour.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, excessively.
E. Jean Carroll: He was talking to the jury that way. So, yeah, it was just fair. And Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, the most conservative, by the book, should be on the Sistine Chapel as God, terrified the hell out of me, I mean, just every white hair, sits on a 2,000-pound perch. You know, Joe Tacopina and Robbie Kaplan are extremely respectful.
Trump, by the way, was off on Truth Social, calling him a fraud and a disgrace, and the worst judge in the history of the world. And there he is, exactly the opposite, a steel rod of a man. So, yeah, it was very satisfying, very satisfying.
(Music Playing)
Chris Hayes: We’ll be right back after we take this quick break.
(Announcements)
Chris Hayes: The other thing about your trial is that there’s so much been this desire over the last 10 years of, like, when are we going to get them? When are you going to nab them? When is the jig up? When is, you know, the moment —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — going to come in the crescendo of the movie, where the villain gets caught —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — or they get unmasked —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — and the crowd goes, oh. Your trial is really only one of those moments.
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, it’s fabulous.
Chris Hayes: But then he keeps going.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. Now, he’s president.
Chris Hayes: The country reelected him —
E. Jean Carroll: He’s president.
Chris Hayes: — after he’s found liable for sexual abuse.
E. Jean Carroll: And which brings us back to your headline, the Wall Street Journal he sued for defamation, as you say, for billions of dollars. And yet, how can you sue for defamation that is harming his reputation? This really comic drawing, and not very bawdy, I mean, an eighth grader would —
Chris Hayes: Right.
E. Jean Carroll: — you know, may think it’s a little dirty, but normal for just two like this for breasts. It was not salacious. It was sort of ribald.
Chris Hayes: Right.
E. Jean Carroll: And he’s suing them because that would damage his reputation after he’s been found liable sexual abuse? Chris.
Chris Hayes: Well, that’s such a good point. Because the tort of defamation is about reputational damage.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: The idea that it does reputational damage to Donald Trump that he would have a body —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — or, like, juvenilely lewd.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes, juvenilely. Yes.
Chris Hayes: And to your point, having already been found liable of sexual abuse, again, something that I keep looking around as the scandal is going and, you know, the people are trying to defend him and JD Vance. Well, of course, he’s in the Epstein files.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. Why? Yeah.
Chris Hayes: We play B-roll of the guy leering at women with Jeffrey Epstein on my program every night.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: He was found liable of sexual abuse.
E. Jean Carroll: I know.
Chris Hayes: He was accused of sexual harassment or assault by dozens of women. And there is a little bit of, I think, a wink wink, nudge nudge by his defenders. But on your case, I mean, it was interesting. He really hates it when people bring up your case.
E. Jean Carroll: Good. I’m glad.
Chris Hayes: I mean, he flips out about it. You know, the lawsuit of Stephanopoulos, which was, again, pretty ridiculous, that was settled. But you’re totally right that the idea that there’s a reputational damage here, given everything we know, is a great point about how defective the suit is, before you even get to the fact of the truth in his defense and his defamation claim. And if he wrote the letter, then there’s nothing.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. There are other drawings existing, other cartoons he’s made. The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch could win a billion dollars from him on this easily.
Chris Hayes: Interesting if they countersued.
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, yeah, they’d have to countersue for that, wouldn’t they?
Chris Hayes: Yeah. Well, that’s interesting, right?
E. Jean Carroll: Okay. All right. That may happen then.
Chris Hayes: Well, he tried to countersue you, right?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: Because the chain of events was you wrote that book.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: It was excerpted in New York Magazine, if I’m not mistaken.
E. Jean Carroll: Right.
Chris Hayes: He called you a liar.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: He said he never met you.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: You sued him for defamation.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes.
Chris Hayes: In this case, they published. He sued them for defamation.
E. Jean Carroll: Okay.
Chris Hayes: Now, he also tried to countersue you for defamation —
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — which was dismissed.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah, it was dismissed.
Chris Hayes: But, yeah, it is interesting if they countersue. Although, again, then you’re suing the president of United States. Part of what makes this all so weird is —
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, right. That’s right.
Chris Hayes: — he’s both plaintiff and president, which is bizarre.
E. Jean Carroll: Well, you should have Robbie Kaplan on your show. She’s got a whole thing about how many times he sued for defamation, tried to get the DOJ to come in and help him. When he sued, he wants the DOJ.
Chris Hayes: Right.
E. Jean Carroll: However, he can sue whoever he wants, without the DOJ.
Chris Hayes: Right.
E. Jean Carroll: This is a good guess for you. Boy, it makes no sense, Chris, with all his defaming. He’s hurt because he’s been defamed. It’s interesting.
Chris Hayes: As all of us are watching this presidency and tearing our hair out and losing our mind, do you have somewhat inner reserve equanimity that the rest of us don’t have, A, because you beat him and because you took tens of millions of dollars off him?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. I’m going to go spend that $83 million money to help women get the reproductive rights back. I want to help, you know, bind up some of the wounds here. Even though I said on Rachel’s show, I wanted to send her to France, which I’ve never heard the end of, by the way. People don’t understand that was a joke. Yeah. That makes me very happy, giving the money away, his hard-earned money. His ego is tied up with his money. And Chris, let’s just go give it to people who are hurting right now because of him.
Chris Hayes: What I said before about the only kind of narrative crescendo, or denouement, or catharsis, this sort of Aristotelian dramaturgical sense of classic Greek theater catharsis of the jury coming back, and the suspense, and they say it. There’s been so few moments like that. Do you hold that (inaudible) anymore?
E. Jean Carroll: You know what, I had that every second of the day.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: I have that swelling feeling of joy always inside me, always. It’s always there, and I can feel it. I can feel it. That’s what it’s like. It’s like I can see him come and go, and I think, hello, old man, I just beat you twice. You know, I always have that feeling. It’s great. It’s a great feeling.
Chris Hayes: Well, I think that’s a great place to end because, you know, there’s a trite bit of advice coaches give, you know, the only way to score is to shoot, right? Like, you got to shoot.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. You got to shoot.
Chris Hayes: The only way you’re ever going to win is if you fight. You don’t get victories from not fighting. So if you want that feeling, the only way to get that feeling is to actually fight.
E. Jean Carroll: And here’s the thing, Chris, you’re such a good interviewer. You gave me that feeling over and over for the last hour.
Chris Hayes: Oh, thank you.
E. Jean Carroll: I’ve had good feeling. I’m not kidding you. Yeah, that’s a good feeling.
Chris Hayes: That’s service journalism for you. E. Jean Carroll is a journalist, author of five books, including The New York Times bestselling book, “Not My Type: One Woman Versus a President,” a memoir about the trials in which she accused President Trump of sexual assault and defamation, and won twice.
E. Jean, that was a great pleasure. Thank you so much.
E. Jean Carroll: Thank you.
(Music Playing)
Chris Hayes: Don’t forget, you can get tickets now for our upcoming MSNBC Live event in Manhattan. Join me and more than a dozen of your favorite MSNBC hosts for our second live community event on October 11. You can get your tickets now by visiting msnbc.com/live25.
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