Nikki Haley attacked the GOP frontrunner, Donald Trump, after a Manhattan jury ordered the previous president to pay columnist E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million on Friday for defamation — an quantity that far exceeded what the plaintiff was asking for in closing arguments.
“Donald Trump needs to be the presumptive Republican nominee, and we’re speaking about $83 million in damages,” Haley wrote on X, previously Twitter. “We’re not speaking about fixing the border. We’re not speaking about tackling inflation. America can do higher than Donald Trump and Joe Biden.”
The defamation fees stem from a lawsuit Carroll filed in 2019, accusing Trump of raping her within the mid-Nineties. A jury discovered Trump accountable for sexually abusing Carroll in June of final 12 months, and this second trial involved statements Trump made attacking Carroll’s character after she went public with the accusation.
Haley has lengthy referred to as for the GOP to “move forward” from Trump to keep away from having a presidential candidate embroiled in litigation throughout an election 12 months. (Trump presently faces 91 prison counts throughout 4 circumstances and a civil fraud trial unfolding in New York.) However her feedback Friday mark a big escalation, as she hopes to place collectively a last-ditch try to problem Trump within the Republican major.
Although Trump wasn’t within the courtroom to listen to the decision straight, he shortly responded to the ruling Friday on Reality Social, calling it a “Biden Directed Witch Hunt.” “Our Authorized System is uncontrolled, and getting used as a Political Weapon, “ he wrote. “They’ve taken away all First Modification Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”
A big problem for Haley is that Trump’s enchantment amongst GOP major voters has solely elevated together with the extent of his authorized woes, because the get together has coalesced across the narrative that the litigation represents a Biden-led conspiracy to maintain Trump from energy. Unsurprisingly, a number of high Trump surrogates, together with a number of rumored potential vice presidential picks, shortly got here to the previous president’s protection on Friday.
Florida Consultant Matt Gaetz wrote on X that “a rustic the place you can not deny a fantastical, false allegation isn’t a free nation.” On the identical time, Georgia Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed Trump was “denied a good trial in NY the place judges are actually political activist [sic] as an alternative of delivering justice.”
Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who herself is being sued for defamation for spreading lies concerning the 2022 election, released an announcement calling Carroll a “lunatic.” “Defamation accusations are being weaponized in opposition to the leaders of the America First motion, whether or not they be Trump, Rudy Guiliani, or me,” she wrote. “Should you say something in opposition to the corrupt political machine you might be focused.”
Lake added: “There aren’t sufficient Soros attorneys on this planet to sue all of us.” (There may be no evidence that George Soros, a billionaire who is commonly the goal of antisemitic conspiracies, was concerned in Carroll’s go well with.)
One of many lengthier statements out of Trumpworld got here from upstate New York Consultant Elise Stefanik, who has hit the marketing campaign path onerous with Trump and is rumored to be within the vice presidential dialog.
Earlier than Trump’s election in 2016, Stefanik, who ascended to Home management in 2021, normal herself a Trump critic and called Trump’s feedback on the notorious Entry Hollywood tape, through which he appeared to brag about sexually assaulting ladies, “inappropriate,” “offensive,” and “mistaken.” In 2018, she told CBS that she’d “disagreed with the President’s rhetoric quite a few instances on the subject of how he addresses ladies.”
However in her response to the decision, Stefanik called the ruling an “outrageous” occasion of “election interference” by the Democrats and President Biden, “who’s so misplaced that he wore his onerous hat backwards.” “They don’t care that they’re destroying our nation within the course of,” she wrote.
