‘Still Love Him’: A Round-Up of Wild GOP Responses to the Trump Sexual Battery Verdict

With Tuesday came a New York jury’s ruling that former president Donald Trump is civilly liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll, who alleges that Trump assaulted her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s. The jury determined that Trump owes Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages for painting her as a lying quack he’s never met.

Trump was, as ever, quick to respond, characterizing the ruling as merely a “CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!” And, even as he now faces new allegations of sexual harassment toward female employees from when he was still in the White House, top Republicans have loyally stood by him and his campaign to be president again in 2024. Alabama’s Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) went so far as to say the ruling only makes him want to “vote for [Trump] twice.” Cool!

Let us gawk at the range of sad and sadly funny ways Republican politicians reacted to verdict, from defending the former president to saying they simply had no idea what sexual abuse case reporters were talking about.

Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Cramer recognized it as a liability going into the 2024 presidential election: “[Trump]s] first go-around, there were a lot of swing-type voters who were open to the opportunity and I think a lot of those voters abandoned him in the second go-around and [the verdict] reminds them of why,” he said. Cramer said he trusted the jury but still hasn’t ruled out voting for Trump: “Obviously I’d rather have a president that isn’t found liable for battery,” he said. “It’s not a disqualifier, but it’s certainly not a check in the plus column.”

Rubio called the jury and the case against Trump broadly a “joke.”

“If someone accuses me of raping them and I didn’t do it, and you’re innocent, of course you’re going to say something about it…it was a joke,” Rubio told reporters.

“Joke” is... certainly a choice in words to characterize a legally recognized sexual assault perpetrated by a man who spent the better part of 2016 unsubtly joking about your dick size. But, sure, Little Marco.

Speaking of Florida’s Senate delegation, Scott also (sort of) had words on the verdict: “[Trump] said he didn’t do it. I don’t know the lady or anything,” Scott told reporters. When asked whether he could support someone found liable for sexual assault, the senator offered little insight save for a barbed jab at the state of New York: “I don’t know the facts. It’s a New York jury, too.”

“You never like to hear a former president has been found in civil court guilty of those types of actions,” Rounds told reporters. Wow! Brave!

“Of course it creates concern,” an apparently exasperated Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said of the verdict. “How could it not create concern? If what the woman says… if he’s been found liable, how could it do anything but create concern?” Cassidy also framed the verdict as a personal issue: “If she were your sister, what would you think? It kind of speaks for itself. You feel for Ms. Carroll, a woman should not be assaulted, period, end of story, period.”

That’s all well and good, yet, still, according to Politico, Cassidy said he’ll simply leave it up to the voters on where they stand on Trump. Someone give this man the medal of courage.

Asked about the verdict on the conservative radio talk show The Hugh Hewitt Show on Wednesday, Haley suggested the verdict and rape case were merely a distraction. “I’m not going to get into that,” she told Hewitt. “That’s something for Trump to respond to. I think the focus has to be not to be distracted. That’s why we’ve got to leave the baggage and the negativity behind...it’s not my case. It’s his case.”

She continued, “I’m doing town halls all over Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina. And they are concerned about inflation. They’re concerned about their kids’ education. They’re concerned about the border and how out of control it is. They’re concerned about crime and … why is there a Chinese spy balloon flying over us? Those are the things they care about.” LOL at the spy balloon.

Tuberville may have won the tight race for the most rancid response: “It makes me want to vote for him twice,” he told HuffPost when asked about the verdict. “They’re going to do anything they can to keep him from winning. It ain’t gonna work ... People are gonna see through the lines. A New York jury, he had no chance.” He’s since doubled down on his words, quote-tweeting his quote with the caption “100% #MAGA.”

Please just say you hate women and let’s call it a day.

One thing about Pence is that he will stay doggedly faithful to a man who nearly got him killed two years ago. “I would tell you, in my four and a half years serving alongside the president, I never heard or witnessed behavior of that nature,” he told NBC’s Dasha Burns in a Tuesday evening interview. (Again: As of this week, several former Trump White House staffers have accused the former president of sexual harassment while they worked for him.)

As for whether the Caroll verdict should disqualify Trump from the presidency come 2024, Pence offered up only a cheeky little “I think that’s a question for the American people.” He then suggested that sexual misconduct and whether the president of the United States is a sexual predator is irrelevant to the American people:

“It’s just one more instance where—at a time when American families are struggling, when our economy is hurting, when the world seems to become a more dangerous place almost every day—[there’s] just one more story focusing on my former running mate that I know is a great fascination to members of the national media, but I just don’t think is where the American people are focused.”

Haggerty called the trial and verdict a “legal circus” and praised the former president’s ability to rise above the constant legal attacks against him—typically incurred by Trump’s own behaviors, of course. “I think we’ve seen President Trump under attack since before he became president,” Hagerty said in an interview with Fox News. “This has been going on for years. He’s been amazing in his ability to weather these sorts of attacks and the American public has been amazing in their support through it.”

Perhaps Trump wouldn’t need to be “amazing in his ability to weather” constant legal troubles if he didn’t constantly get himself into legal troubles...?

On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had a lot on his plate, first faced with questions about the criminal indictment against Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), and then, of course, the verdict against Trump. He only answered one question on the latter at a press conference...by pretending not to know about it: “I don’t know. I’ve been in meetings,” he said, simply. And that was that.

Kennedy took a page from the same playbook: “I don’t have anything for you on that,” he told reporters, according to HuffPost’s Igor Bobic.

How charmingly, predictably useless of these gentlemen!

Romney has been consistently critical of the former president, so it wasn’t entirely surprising that he spoke out against Trump after the Carroll verdict. “The jury reached their decision and I hope the jury of the American people reach [sic] the same conclusion: we need a different nominee to be the nominee for president. He is in no position to be the president of the United States,” Romney told reporters.

He continued, “We have other people who are highly qualified that could lead our party to victory, and someone who’s been found to have committed sexual assault should not be the face of the Republican Party.”

Romney said he expects “there will be some people, surely, who say, ‘You know, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have someone who’s been convicted of sexual assault to be the face for my children and my grandchildren and the world.’” I sure hope so!

Graham—one of Trump’s most reliable sycophants for years now—has offered only this simple statement on the verdict thus far: “When it comes to Donald Trump, the New York legal system is off the rails.”

Our boy Cornyn seemed altogether unmoved by the verdict. “I don’t think it changes anybody’s minds, one way or the other. … I think people who support President Trump, support President Trump. People who don’t support President Trump, don’t support him, and I don’t think this will have any impact,” he told reporters. In other words, sexual assault? Who cares!

Gonzalez has previously bucked his party on gun safety and same-sex marriage bills, facing censure from the Texas Republican Party in March. He did, however, endorse Trump for 2024, and it seems he stands by that decision, based on what Politico reports that he told reporters of the Carroll verdict: “He has his due process, and the American people will determine who they want as the leader of this country,” Gonzalez said.

Sorry, what does that even mean? Is he expressing support for the legal process surrounding the case? Opposition? Thanks to brain-wormed men’s rights activists, we have strayed so far from the actual, legal definition of “due process” that there’s no real way of knowing what Gonzalez is saying here. But it seems safe to conclude that he is effectively saying nothing.

According to The Hill, Hawley told reporters he’s still confident Trump—who he hasn’t yet endorsed for 2024—will win the Republican primary. But he speculated that the Carroll verdict, like an Agatha Christie-esque plot twist and not the outcome of a rape case, will make the general election more “interesting.”

“People think that the criminal justice system—and I know this isn’t criminal but the New York legal system is—this is my sense of what people think the Republican side—is that it’s off the rails when it comes to Trump,” Hawley added, before pivoting to the “continuing pileup of scandals from the Biden White House.”

Daines responded to the verdict by telling reporters on Tuesday, “Sounds like President Trump’s legal team will be appealing this decision.”

What there is to appeal is unclear, but thanks for your predictably shitty input, Steve.