what did you make of his comments, wednesday night specifically on this subject? well, interesting. i felt like he could not control himself, right? i mean, the day before he was bound by a court to have defamed this woman. the next day he went on to continue to defame her. i mean, it is expensive. and the court has a 5 million dollar settlement for this e. jean carroll case. and you know, she is not alone. there are 25 other accusers, and this is a guy who loves fame, right? think about all the people who had single out during the rallies, from poll workers to peter strzok. you could see a world where you are opening the door to endless defamation cases, two endless, you know, this sexual assault case was because of the survivor.
joining me now, former acting solicitor general of the united states, that professor of law at georgetown university. and msnbc legal analyst. rick wilson, cofounder of the lincoln project, republican media strategist, and author of running against the devil of america and trump, and democrats for themselves, and the coast of the podcast gaslit nation author of the new, how a culture of conspiracy keeps america complacent. thank you all very much, trump s attorney joe tacopina says they are appealing the verdict in the carroll case, what are his chances of success on appeal? slim to none. trump has two things that happened to him this week in return to june carroll, one, he lost the 5 million dollar verdict against a unanimous conviction by the jury, now he say he is going to appeal, as argument is you cannot get a
million dollar sexual abuse defamation judgment against donald trump. his lawyers have filed a notice saying he plans to appeal his loss in new york civil court this week, t.j. carroll. meanwhile, carroll is mulling a ban new defamation suit following trump s comments about her during a cnn town hall. joining me, now msnbc legal analyst, and lisa, ribbon who is in the courtroom for the entire trial. , lisa welcome. we saw the dramatic testimony in this history making case. do you have a sense of what the appeal might be based on? and what would happen next? i, do alex, you know, there was a motion for a mistrial, in the middle of the case, that gives a little bit of a road map to what joe tacopina and his fellow lawyers representing what donald trump might be thinking. up it really breaks down to a few things. one, they argue that natasha s stone, off who is another of donald trump s accusers never should ve been allowed to
and they unanimously found that he is liable. you are being arrogant if you think that this is nothing. this is not nothing. this is a sexual battery of 5 million dollar finding by a jury, yes he will appeal it, and that appeal as it goes up the food chain will bring it back to the front page. back again and again. trump access hollywood, i could touch her anywhere i want. plenty of grounds on which to appeal. what are they? i don t really see them right now. of course donald trump has the right to appeal. i am very dubious it will be successful. fox news, of all the places, seems to at least at this point understand the reality of the situation. a former president being found liable for sexual abuse is easy to understand, and it is plainly awful. but because the jury didn t find him liable for the rape narrative, it is already forming on the political
sum seems unusually high to you, or how do you think of the 5 million dollar price tag? i think that juries sometimes like to find round numbers and work backwards to allocate them. one of the things i thought was so unusual here was that e. jean carroll s lawyers in their closing made a very big deal of the fact that for her, this wasn t about money. they did that for two reasons. one, they were trying to undercut tacopina s narrative that e. jean carroll and her friends conspired to make up a story. first, bring trump down, then to make money and sell books, and third, to be famous. and by saying the amount of money, we are not going to put a price on it, yes we are suing for damages but we will not put a price on it, that is up to you, by saying that they were trying to take the power away from the tacopina narrative. but they were also saying it because it was true. for e. jean carroll it was about getting her name back, getting her reputation back. what surprised me today about