CNN’s Poppy Harlow Asks E. Jean Carroll Straight-Up How It Felt ‘This Jury Found That Trump Did Not Rape You’

CNN’s Poppy Harlow straight-up asked journalist E. Jean Carroll how it felt that the jury in her rape and defamation trial “found that Trump did not rape you.”

Ex-President Donald Trump’s trial for defamation concluded Tuesday afternoon when the jury rendered unanimous verdicts finding Trump liable for sexual battery and defamation and ordered him to pay Caroll five million dollars.

On Wednesday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, Harlow and co-host Phil Mattingly interviewed Carroll and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan. Harlow and Mattingly wasted little time in getting to questions that might be nagging skeptical viewers, like the finding of liability for “sexual abuse” but not for “rape” and the donor to Carroll’s defense whom Trump attacked after the verdict:

HARLOW: We all remember that you said, E. Jean, I’m trying to get my life back.

CARROLL: Yes.

HARLOW: And here to try to get my life back.

CARROLL: That was like, yesterday was so — I was such a happy woman. I felt like we had accomplished that.

HARLOW: You did.

CARROLL: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Talk about what you were thinking as the jury’s decisions were read off in your mind through —

CARROLL: We were sitting there, like this, Robbie’s hand, it was like holding a block of ice. And we didn’t have any idea what the Jury was going to do. The Former President is incorrect, the jury was not from Manhattan. Where was it from Robbie?

ROBERTA KAPLAN, E. JEAN CARROLL’S ATTORNEY: Mostly West Chester north.

CARROLL: Yes, six men, three women. His kind of jury actually and so, when the verdict came in, she squeezed my hands so hard. I almost yelped, but it was a great moment.

HARLOW: What about when that first finding was found? This jury found that Trump did not rape you. What about that moment?

CARROLL: Robbie can explain the legal?

HARLOW: Sure. And I want you too, but I just wonder, E. Jean, what went through your head when you heard that?

CARROLL: Well, I just immediately say in my own head, oh, yes, he did — oh, yes, he did. See, that’s my response.

KAPLAN: So, look, New York law on sexual crimes like this is complicated, and it’s not probably, appropriate for morning viewers. But the truth of the matter is, is that sexual abuse, which he was found guilty of, is a very, very serious offence.

I’m not going to get into the body part situation with you, but it’s a, people go to jail for sexual abuse. It’s a very serious offence, and most importantly, E. Jean brought this case because she wanted her name back, as you said, at the very beginning, she got her name back and the jury found that he lied. And he lied about her maliciously.

MATTINGLY: I don’t think anybody was surprised by some of the stuff we heard from the Former President last night. Obviously, you’ve addressed him talking about the jury. Another thing that he and his lawyers have often spoken about is the lack of disclosure about a big Democratic donor funding part of this case. Was there a reason it wasn’t disclosed, and did you view this as political in any way?

CARROLL: No, I just completely — I just completely forgot that he even existed.

HARLOW: In your deposition?

CARROLL: Yes, in my deposition.

HARLOW: OK, Trump lawyers have called that Roberta a sign of bias, it raises questions about the motives of bringing this case. And I wonder what the reaction is.

KAPLAN: So, every single witness, every one of those 11 witnesses who testified in this case, testified under oath and told the truth, not because they don’t like Trump, but because it was the truth. That’s what this case was about. Who was telling the truth?

The jury decided that E. Jean was telling the truth. And there may be of witnesses who don’t like Trump, there may have been jurors that Joe Tacopina said in his opening who don’t like Trump. But that process was about the truth under the law and that’s what the jury found.

Watch above via CNN This Morning.