A string of outlandish television interviews are eroding the credibility of E. Jean Carroll, who has claimed that President Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s.
After New York Magazine released an excerpt of Carroll’s upcoming book, which featured a harrowing story claiming that Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room in the lingerie department of Bergdorf Goodman in 1995 or 1996, I argued that the allegation should be taken seriously and examined carefully, but not reflexively believed. Carroll does deserve a fair hearing, but her recent media appearances are not doing her any favors.
In an interview with Anderson Cooper on Monday night, Carroll was discussing how she did not want to feel like a victim, so she likes to describe the encounter she claims to have had with Trump as a “fight.” To this point, it was understandable.
She then said there is so much sexual violence in the world, and in her case the incident only lasted a few minutes. That’s where things really went off the rails.
“I was not thrown on the ground and ravaged,” Carroll said. “The word rape carries so many sexual connotations. This was not sexual. It just hurt.”
When Cooper said people tend to think of rape as a violent assault, she said, “I think most people think of rape as being sexy.” As Cooper awkwardly tried to cut in to head to commercial break, she added, “Think of the fantasies.”
This is the latest in a string of odd statements in interviews. In a Friday interview with MSNBC, she said she didn’t want to pursue charges against Trump because, “I would find it disrespectful to the women who are down on the border who are being raped around the clock down there without any protection.” The bizarre implication of that would be that women should hold off on reporting rape until the situation at the border improves.
Carroll has also, at times, tried to downplay the anecdote that Trump attacked her in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman in 1995 or 1996, saying Monday on CNN’s New Day, he was “only one of 21 hideous men” she describes in her new book. She’s acted surprised by the attention the story has received, even though Trump is president and this was obviously going to blow up as soon as it became public. If anything, the surprise has been that it hasn’t received more attention.
“Well, what is the title of this book? ‘What Do We Need Men For?'” Carroll said in the New Day interview. “Does it say Donald Trump attacked me? I never mentioned Donald Trump in the description of the book. On Amazon, you don’t see it. It was not about selling a book about Donald Trump.”
But New York Magazine ran an excerpt of her book focused on the Trump story with a cover which featured a posed photo of her in a black coatdress with a headline that reads, “This is what I was wearing 23 years ago when Donald Trump attacked me in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room.”
As I noted on Monday, though it’s completely understandable why women who have been sexually assaulted would find it difficult to come forward, it obviously makes things significantly harder to investigate crimes that aren’t described until decades later.
Carroll said that she told two friends about the attack at the time. Both New York Magazine and the New York Times have reported that they spoke with the two friends, who confirmed this account, but those friends choose not to go on the record.
The number of accusations that have accumulated against Trump, the ease which with he generally lies, and his pasts boasts about groping women all may be reasons to discount his denials. But they also don’t mean that he’s guilty of this particular crime, either.
So for the time being, unless or until we hear from her friends, all we have to go on is Carroll herself. Being a bit of an eccentric in television interviews, of course, does not mean that she made up the story. But it certainly raises more questions about her reliability as a narrator as we try to evaluate her serious accusation as fairly as possible given the passage of time.
