Usually in politics, a party’s presidential front-runner being found civilly liable for sexual assault and on the hook to his victim for $5 million would spur primary rivals to attack him on it quickly. Not so much with former President Donald Trump.
Like so much in the political world in the nearly eight years since Trump first announced he was running for president, the leading 2024 Republican candidate has upended the game. Rather than full-blast jabs at Trump Tuesday afternoon, all that emerged from Republican White House hopefuls was relatively lukewarm or tardy responses to the jury verdict.
JURY ORDERS TRUMP TO PAY $5M IN DAMAGES TO CARROLL FOR BATTERY AND DEFAMATION
The New York state jury found Trump sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll, that he subsequently defamed her, and ordered the former president to pay roughly $5 million in damages. But jurors dismissed her rape claims.
A Trump legal spokesman said the former president plans to appeal the case.
Republican presidential candidates’ clear distaste for the matter, and other legal threats against Trump by federal and state prosecutors, reflects the challenge they face in trying to wrest the 2024 GOP nod from the party’s most popular figure. Polls repeatedly show GOP voters ready to give Trump another chance at the White House as he tries to be the only president besides Grover Cleveland in 1893 to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Since Trump announced in November 2022 that he was running for president again, Republican opponents have sniped at one another but largely left him alone. Among them is Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who is expected to jump into the GOP primary scrum soon, along with former Gov. Nikki Haley, “anti-woke” businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC). Other prospective GOP candidates include former Vice President Mike Pence, ex-Gov. Chris Christie, and Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH). And on Tuesday, they, too, weren’t exactly eager to issue statements about the Trump verdict.
The only Republican presidential candidate who was quick out of the gate with criticism after the E. Jean Carroll verdict was former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, already the most overtly anti-Trump 2024 Republican presidential candidate. Hutchinson issued a critical, if not scalding, statement against Trump.
“Over the course of my over 25 years of experience in the courtroom, I have seen firsthand how a cavalier and arrogant contempt for the rule of law can backfire,” said Hutchinson, who was U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas in the mid-1980s, among other high-level positions in federal and state government. “The jury verdict should be treated with seriousness and is another example of the indefensible behavior of Donald Trump.”
More typical was the response to the jury’s verdict by Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
When asked about the civil judgment against Trump on Fox News minutes after it was announced, McDaniel sought to change the subject.
Voters, McDaniel said, “are going to be focused on what’s happening on our southern border, what’s happening with inflation.”
Doug Heye, a Republican consultant, said the jury verdict offered yet another chance for GOP candidates and voters to reject Trump, particularly after the former president said on Truth Social about the verdict, in all caps, “I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS. THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE — A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”
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“This should be more ammunition for Republicans to dump Trump once and for all,” Heye tweeted.
Former Rep. Denver Riggleman, who held office as a Republican but has since left the party, asked on Twitter, “Shouldn’t all of us Americans expect immediate statements from everyone associated with the GOP — plus evangelical & religious groups — separating themselves from a GOP presidential candidate found liable for sexual abuse & defamation?”
