Donald Trump’s hotly anticipated moment taking the stand in his own defense at E. Jean Carroll’s defamation damages trial landed with a thud Thursday.
The former president, 77, testified for less than three minutes — after a Manhattan federal court judge ordered that he be kept on a tight leash, restricting what he could tell jurors about Carroll’s allegations.
His defense attorney Alina Habba was only allowed to ask him a handful of questions, and Trump was barred from veering off-topic.
First, Habba asked Trump about taped testimony from 2022 in which he denied knowing Carroll, 80, who has accused him of sexually assaulting her and defaming her by calling her a liar.
“You viewed your deposition, didn’t you?” Habba asked.
“Yes, I did,” Trump replied.
“Do you stand by it?” the lawyer probed.
“One hundred percent. Yes,” he answered.
Then, Habba asked if Trump was defending himself when he denied Carroll’s sexual assault allegations in public statements as president in 2019.
“Yes, I did,” Trump answered. “That’s exactly right. [Carroll] said something I considered a false allegation.”
But Judge Lewis Kaplan quickly jumped in and told the jury to disregard everything Trump had said after, “Yes, I did.”
Habba then asked if he ever intended to hurt Carroll — a question that appeared meant to defend against the former “Ask E. Jean” advice columnist’s claims that Trump “unleashed his followers” on her.
“No, I just wanted to defend myself, my family … and frankly, the presidency,” Trump answered.
The judge again jumped in and told the jury to disregard everything in Trump’s statement after the word “No.”
Still, Trump was uncharacteristically subdued during his brief stint n the witness stand — apart from two outburst when the jury wasn’t around, including huffing “This is not America” as he left the courtroom.
The ex-president’s muzzling was a product of a prior ruling by the judge that barred Trump from denying both that he had sexually assaulted, and that he didn’t know Carroll, at the trial.
Kaplan imposed the restrictions after a different jury at an earlier trial last May found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her with statements he made on Truth Social in 2022 — and ordered him to pay her $5 million in damages.
The judge before the ongoing trial also determined that Trump defamed Carroll for the comments he made in 2019 when she first came forward with her allegations.
That leaves jurors with the sole task of determining how much Trump should be ordered to pay Carroll in damages. She is seeking at least $10 million.
Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan only asked the former commander-in-chief one question during cross-examination — whether this was the first of Carroll’s two trials that Trump had attended, to which he answered yes.
Trump was asked one final question by Habba about if the reason he didn’t attend the first trial was because he was following the advice of his former lawyer — to which he also replied yes.
But after the jury was sent home, Trump didn’t miss an opportunity to sound off.
“This is not America,” he said as he shook his head and sauntered out of the courtroom that sits inside of one of America’s oldest court districts.
Moments before Trump took the stand, as his attorney and the judge were negotiating what he’d be allowed to say, the 2024 Republican presidential candidate loudly muttered “I don’t know who the woman is. I never met this woman,” in an apparent reference to Carroll.
“Keep your voice down, Mr. Trump, Judge Kaplan snapped, setting the tone for the tame testimony that was about to come.
Trump’s testimony stood in stark contrast to his time on the witness stand in his civil fraud trial at a nearby Manhattan state courthouse, where there was no jury but only a judge who will decide what penalty to impose on him and his real estate empire.
In that case, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron had to repeatedly instruct Trump to stop making speeches — but the real estate mogul was still given far greater leeway and was on the stand for much longer.
That trial, in which New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $370 million from Trump, wrapped in December and Engoron has said he hopes to render his verdict by next Wednesday.
Jurors in the defamation damages, meanwhile, are expected to start deliberating following closing arguments, set for Friday morning. Trump is expected to attend.
Earlier Thursday, jurors heard from Carroll’s last witness, her former boss and Elle Magazine editor Roberta Myers, who testified Carroll is a “truth teller” and was one of the top columnists for the publication.
The jury was also shown clips of Trump’s October 2022 videotaped deposition in which he claimed Carroll wasn’t physically his type before he accidentally confusing a photo of Carroll — taken of when she was younger — with his ex-wife Marla Maples.
“I saw her in a picture,” Trump said of Carroll in the Oct. 19, 2022, tape. “I don’t know what she looked like and I said it with as much respect as I can, but she’s not my type.”
The jury from last year’s trial was also shown portions of Trump’s deposition video.
The only witness called by Habba — other than Trump — was retired television journalist Carol Martin, who was grilled about whether she thought her longtime friend Carroll enjoyed the attention she got from going public about the alleged assault.
Trump came to court for the first two days of trial last week, but skipped one day while he attended the funeral for his mother-in-law, Amalija Knavs.
He showed up again to court on Monday briefly before Judge Kaplan canceled trial for the day due to a sick juror and Habba’s “exposure” to COVID. Trial was also down on Tuesday and Wednesday presumably for the same reasons.
Carroll’s lawyer, Shawn Crowley, told the jury during opening statements last week that Trump “unleashed his followers” on Carroll who has received hateful messages and death threats ever since Trump denied knowing her and called her accusations false.
Crowley said that Carroll lost her journalistic reputation when Trump levied his position as president to discredit her.
Meanwhile, Habba argued during her opening remarks that Carroll’s life improved since she was thrust into the international spotlight.
“She doesn’t want to fix her reputation, ladies and gentlemen. She likes her new brand,” Habba said at the time.
