Former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll is trying to diminish former President Donald Trump’s star power in a media blitz following her $83 million civil court win, even comparing the front-runner for the GOP nomination to a snorting walrus.
Ms. Carroll, speaking to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, said she was terrified to testify against Mr. Trump during a recent defamation trial but calmed down when she spotted him in the Manhattan courtroom.
“He is nothing,” she said. “He is like a walrus snorting and like a rhino flopping his hands.”
Ms. Carroll also made appearances on CBS, ABC and CNN after a jury on Friday awarded her $83.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages for comments that Mr. Trump made in 2019, when the columnist accused him of raping her in a department store dressing room in 1996.
A previous jury found him liable for sex abuse, though not rape, and defamation over 2022 comments awarded her $5 million.
During her media stops, Ms. Carroll has tried to poke holes in Mr. Trump’s aura, comparing him to the emperor who has no clothes in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.
“We’re the ones who clothe him in all this power, he has none himself. It’s his followers. It’s his hangers-on,” she told CBS.
Ms. Carroll’s appearances have fueled speculation she will campaign on President Biden’s behalf in a potential rematch with Mr. Trump. She said the president’s campaign has not reached out, though she would help Mr. Biden any way she can.
Mr. Trump says Ms. Carroll made up her story about the department store assault as part of a Democratic-led witch hunt against him in courtrooms up and down the East Coast.
He also said it was unfair that he could not contest her underlying claims during the second defamation trial.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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