NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump testified for just three minutes Thursday in a New York defamation trial to determine how much he might owe the advice columnist E. Jean Carroll for disparaging her as a liar after she publicly accused him of a decades-old rape in 2019.
“She said something I considered a false accusation,” Trump said in testimony the highly anticipated appearance that lasted so briefly. A lawyer for Carroll objected and U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told the jury to disregard the remark.
Later, Trump said: “And I just wanted to defend myself, my family and frankly, the presidency.” That, too, drew an objection and another instruction from the judge for the jury to disregard it.
As Trump left the courtroom after his testimony, he was shaking his head, repeatedly saying: “This is not America. This is not America. This is not America.”
Kaplan has instructed jurors that they must accept the findings of another New York jury that awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding that Trump did sexually abuse Carroll at the Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan and defamed her in October 2022 statements. Trump did not attend that trial.
Carroll, who is seeking over $10 million in damages, was in the courtroom as Trump was sworn in as a witness in Manhattan federal court.
She claims Trump ruined her reputation after she accused him for the first time publicly in a memoir of sexually abusing her in spring 1996 in the dressing room of the luxury department store.
Trump, 77, has vehemently denied the accusations for the last five years and continues to assail Carroll, 80, on the campaign trail as he pursued the presidency as the Republican frontrunner.
Kaplan in Manhattan has instructed jurors that they must accept the findings of another New York jury that awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding that Trump sexually abused Carroll at the Bergdorf Goodman store and defamed her in October 2022 statements. Trump did not attend that trial.
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