‘That’s Striking!’ Maggie Haberman and CNN Analyst Agree Trump ‘Made Headway’ Against Defamation Case Witness

New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman agreed with CNN legal analyst Karen Friedman Agnifilo that ex-President Donald Trump’s legal team “made headway” with a witness in the defamation trial involving E. Jean Carroll, whom Trump was found liable by a New York jury for sexually abusing and defaming.

Thursday was a dramatic day in court for Trump in the trial that will decide how much money Trump will have to pay Carroll — who is seeking $10 million in damages — for defaming her while he was president.

Judge Lewis Kaplan threw a Trump spokesman out of court, scolded Trump for blurting things out loudly while his attorney was speaking, and struck much of the brief testimony Trump offered on the witness stand.

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Agnifilo and Haberman did find a ray of good news for Trump in the “headway” he made with a witness who seemed to support the idea that Trump’s defamatory statements about Carroll “didn’t ruin her life the way she has said it would”:

COOPER: Yes. Karen, what was your biggest legal takeaway from what happened?

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, interestingly, he called her prompt outcry, E. Jean Carroll’s prompt outcry witness Carol Martin to the stand, his side did, and that hasn’t been talked about as much as him testifying. But I thought he actually made a little headway there because this is a damages phase of the trial and the jury needs to figure out and put a number on how much damage, frankly, he did to E. Jean Carroll’s life.

And what he got out of Carol Martin, who was a prompt outcry witness, meaning she’s the person who E. Jean told about this back when it happened.

COOPER: Contemporaneously.

AGNIFILO: Yes, exactly. She also had some thoughts about E. Jean Carroll that she admitted to putting in writing to I think, it was her daughter, talking about how she liked the attention and she was somebody who likes the public spotlight and is not — this was not — this didn’t ruin her life the way she has said it would.

And I think he made a little headway there from the damages portion, because that’s really all they’re determining is how much —

COOPER: Right.

AGNIFILO: How much money? What number to affix to this?

So if it didn’t harm her, then I think that that might have made some headway.

HABERMAN: I agree with that.

COOPER: And Kara, what happened — you agree with that, Maggie?

HABERMAN: Yes, I do. Yeah. I think that’s striking.

Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.

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