As E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers described the way Donald Trump sexually attacked their client, his “malicious behavior,” and the incessant lies he told about Carroll, Trump couldn't listen to more than eight minutes of the closing argument, briefly storming out of the final day of his rape defamation trial in New York on Friday morning.
“The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan noted, later ordering the former president’s lawyers to remain seated to maintain an orderly courtroom in front of a jury overseeing this highly contentious and historic American trial.
The billionaire stands to lose a massive chunk of his wealth for abusing the prestige of the White House by making false denials about the way he pulled the magazine writer into a Manhattan dressing room nearly 30 years ago and shoving his fingers inside her against her will.
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And yet, Trump has remained defiant even after losing a previous iteration of this case, when a separate jury concluded that the attack occurred, awarding Carroll $5 million for the sexual abuse and his lies. Trump continued to call her a liar on CNN, in 2024 presidential campaign speeches, and on his Truth Social media network.
But when Carroll’s lawyer called out the billionaire’s recalcitrant attitude in her closing argument, Trump wasn’t having it. He stood up, adjusted his suit jacket, and shuffled slowly out of the courtroom followed by his political adviser, Boris Epshteyn.
“We all have to follow the law. Donald Trump, however, acts as if these rules and laws don’t apply to him,” Roberta Kaplan said, triggering the former president’s tantrum.
During the two-week trial, Trump brought the same insolence he displayed across the country into this solemnly decorated courtroom, situated at the top floor of a 26-story federal building that towers over this section of lower Manhattan.
He grumbled furiously from the defense table throughout the trial, snapped at the judge when he was told to control himself, and defied orders to narrowly answer questions on the stand when he finally testified yesterday by reiterating his denials and trying to justify his lies.
The circus continued before the jury walked in Friday morning, when his lawyers tried to sneak new evidence into their final presentation only to be blocked by the increasingly impatient judge.
“They’re totally irrelevant, because they’re not in evidence,” the judge said when reviewing the proposed presentation. “You are not using that slide. Period.”
When lead Trump defense lawyer Alina Habba tried to push back, the judge interrupted her, but Habba pressed on.
“I have to make a record—” she began, sparking a fierce reprisal.
“Ms. Habba, you are on the verge of spending some time in the lockup,” the judge thundered, striking her with a rare threat to throw the lawyer behind bars.
“Fuck it,” she responded, in a muffled voice that was caught on the microphone.
Earlier in the trial, Habba received quite a bit of attention when she yelled “horseshit” while responding to the judge.
This pattern of reverence for professional decorum and common decency played a strong undercurrent at the trial, and Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan seized on it during her closing arguments.
“This trial is about getting him to stop once and for all,” she said.
This disrespect for the law—and unceasing defiance—is why Kaplan asked the jury to slap Trump with $12 million to repair Carroll’s reputation and more than $12 million for the “emotional harm” she experienced by facing what the journalist testified was “a wave of slime” from Trump loyalists.
But the bigger threat to this real estate tycoon could come from punitive damages, which the judge instructed the jury would serve to “punish a defendant and deter his future defamatory statements.” For that, the attorney Kaplan pointed to Trump’s “extreme wealth” and his own boasting that his brand is worth maybe $10 billion, that his bank accounts hold more than $400 million in cash, and that his South Florida oceanside estate of Mar-a-Lago is valued at $1.5 billion.
“The one thing that Donald Trump cares about is money,” Kaplan said, noting that Trump ghosted the previous iteration of this trial but showed up for this one when his riches were on the line.
“How much will it take to make him stop?” she asked jurors.
Trump returned to the courtroom when his legal team delivered its closing arguments, which were inundated with legal objections when Habba repeatedly touched on topics that the judge had previously deemed off-limits because they’d been disproven or disallowed before the trial started.
Habba took the bizarre step of once again showing the jury Trump’s insulting remarks and continued denials after losing his first rape defamation trial last year—a video that ends with a call to “Text Trump” to support his presidential campaign.
“You’re right, that’s how he feels,” Habba said. “Do you know why he has not waived? Because it’s the truth.”
When the judge stopped and corrected her, Habba insisted it was “his truth” and tried to downplay the previous trial’s conclusion by dismissing it, saying “a jury has made a decision.” He later corrected her again on the same matter.
“It is established, and you will not quarrel with me,” he said.
Then when she tried to tell the jury that Democratic political operative Reid Hoffman was funding Carroll’s lawyers—another topic that was off-limits—the judge cut her off yet again.
“If you violate my instructions again, you may have consequences,” he warned.
Habba returned to her main defense, questioning whether the MAGA battalion’s incessant attacks on Carroll after she revealed the attack in 2019 were at all related to Trump’s barrage of insults and false denials.
“You’re not here to pay Ms. Carroll for mean tweets written to her,” she said.
Habba later questioned the extent of Carroll’s harm, noting that the journalist privately texted a friend that she was actually feeling “fine.” Habba also cast doubt on the assessment by a marketing professor that pegged the “reputational repair” program up to $12 million, noting that the instructor never performed such a campaign herself—and bizarrely even entertained the notion that Carroll could somehow hire rightwing media figures like Joe Rogan and Candace Owens to become shills for the longtime magazine columnist.
“This is my favorite part,” Habba laughed. “What planet are we living on?”
The objections and interruptions to Habba’s closing arguments continued until the very end, when she tried to chalk up Trump’s lies to him merely exercising his First Amendment rights.
“In our country, you have a right to speak. You have a constitutional right—” she started before getting cut off.
“You have a constitutional right to some kinds of speech and not others,” the judge interjected.
Carroll’s lawyers had the final bite of the apple when the attorney Shawn Crowley reiterated what she called the jury’s ability to correct Trump’s behavior. As she spoke, Trump chuckled to himself while sitting at the defense table and kept his hands clasped together with his fingers interlocked.
“Rules don’t apply to Donald Trump. He gets to do whatever he wants,” she told jurors. “Make him pay enough so that he can stop.”
