4 months ago
27
Former President Donald Trump testified for just three minutes Thursday in a New York defamation trial to determine how much he might owe the advice columnist E. Jean Carroll for disparaging her as a liar after she publicly accused him of a decades-old rape in 2019.
“She said something I considered a false accusation," Trump said in testimony the highly anticipated appearance that lasted so briefly. A lawyer for Carroll objected and U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told the jury to disregard the remark.
Later, Trump said: “And I just wanted to defend myself, my family and frankly, the presidency." That, too, drew an objection and another instruction from the judge for the jury to disregard it.
As Trump left the courtroom after his testimony, he was shaking his head, repeatedly saying: “This is not America. This is not America. This is not America.”
