Donald Trump used a news conference following a Manhattan court hearing on Friday to make a meandering, conspiratorial, and disjointed rant about the various court judgements against him. Trump has faced increased questioning about his mental acuity and this appearance is likely to raise further concerns.
The event was billed as a news conference, but Trump took no questions from the media as he reminded the public of the long list of women who have accused him of sexual misconduct.
Trump appeared in court for oral arguments in his appeal of the 2023 verdict awarding E. Jean Carroll $5 million for battery and defamation after a jury found that he sexually abused Carroll in a department store dressing room in 1996.
For over 45 minutes Trump held court, bouncing from topic to topic. He claimed, without evidence, that the verdict against him—including the separate criminal case where the jury found him guilty on 34 counts—were part of a plot hatched by the Democratic Party.
Trump alleged—without evidence—that officials including President Joe Biden, former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Vice President Kamala Harris, Sec. Hillary Clinton and other leaders of the Democratic Party had orchestrated legal action against him.
Trump: This whole thing started, with the political campaign of Harris—who’s having a bad time because she can’t talk—of Harris and Joe Biden. This was election interference, it all is. It’s all fabricated, but fabricated in front of very friendly judges for them and in very friendly areas for them, if you get a jury it’s very hard to win in a jury where you have three or four or five percent Republican votes. Very, very tough, actually.
Trump, who has a long history of promoting and repeating debunked conspiracy theories, complained that the justice system was being used as a weapon against him to disrupt his presidential campaign.
When not promoting a conspiracy about the legal system, Trump was casting aspersions on Carroll and other women who have accused him of sexual assault.
Speaking about one unnamed woman, Trump said, “Frankly, I know you’re going to say it’s a terrible thing to say, but it couldn’t have happened, it didn’t happen, and she would not have been the chosen one, she would not have been the chosen one.”
Trump also complained about the courtroom performance of his lawyers as they stood behind him at the event.
“I’m disappointed in my legal talent,” Trump said.
At least two dozen women have accused Trump of assaulting them or making unwanted sexual advances. The allegations against Trump run the gamut of groping, leering at underaged pageant contestants, forcibly kissing women without permission, and other instances of assault.
Trump has denied the claims against him but infamously bragged to television host Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” that “when you’re a star” it is easy to assault women, and that you can “grab ’em by the pussy.”
In his political life, Trump has also embraced policies hostile to women. As president he shepherded the Supreme Court nominations of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh, who later voted alongside other justices (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and John Roberts) in the court’s conservative majority to rescind Roe v. Wade and the right of women to seek an abortion.
In launching her presidential campaign, Harris remarked on the court cases against Trump and his treatment of women, noting that they formed a coherent narrative.
“As many of you know, before I was elected vice president and before I was elected a United States senator, I was an elected attorney general and an elected district attorney. And before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor,” Harris said at a July 30 campaign event.
“So, in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women; fraudsters who ripped off consumers; cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type. I know the type. And I have been dealing with people like him my entire career.”
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