The Media Research Center has long been a hater of E. Jean Carroll for committing the offense of holding Donald Trump accountable for his sexual assault on her, even though it has long defended women who make similar accusations against Democrats. As Carroll won legal judgments against Trump for his offenses, that hate as continued. We’ve already noted how Mark Finkelstein played Juanita Broaddrick whataboutism (a variation of the Clinton Equivocation) in an attempt to deflect from Carroll’s offenses and (poorly) rebut the claim that Republican primary voters’ support for Trump means they “like candidates who have raped women.”
Finkelstein got snippy in a Jan. 18 post baselessly accusing Carroll of telling lies about Trump for money:
MSNBC analyst and weekend host Katie Phang was a guest on Wednesday’s edition of the network’s Deadline White House. Phang revealed that “I am friends with E. Jean Carroll, but it doesn’t color my legal analysis.” Of course not!
But Phang had the chutzpah to claim that Carroll—the woman who won a $5 million judgment from Donald Trump in her first defamation suit against him, and is sure to win much more in a second suit—”would have been happy to just get her day in court.”
Okay then! We’ll look forward to E. Jean Carroll announcing the charity of her choice to which she will be donating all the jury awards!
Recall that Carroll first made these allegations in New York magazine to kick off sales of a memoir. But MSNBC pulled up a clip of Carroll telling Rachel Maddow, “I really wasn’t doing it for myself. I was doing it for the women in the country.” Oh, the self-sacrifice! Call her Jean De New York!
The best part of Carroll’s experience, according to Phang, was probably just “being able to tell her story to a jury.”
No doubt! Just like Carroll herself said, she wasn’t doing it for herself, she was doing it for all the women in the country. When liberals accuse a Republican politician or judge of sexual assault, she should automatically be believed to be telling the truth and doing it for all women. When a Democrat is accused of sexual assault, well, the accuser’s a “dogpatch Madonna” or some kind of trailer trash.
Finkelstein didn’t explain why women who accused Clinton should be implicitly trusted (even though Broaddrick is on record as being a liar) while those who have accused Trump can’t be. He also didn’t mention that Broaddrick has also written a book, presumably to try and cash in on her story.
When Carroll celebrated winning an $83 million judgment against Trump in an appearance on Rachel Maddow’s show in which she joked about how she’d spend the money, Nicholas Fondacaro melted down in a Jan. 30 post:
Columnist E. Jean Carroll made the rounds Monday across the liberal media in a victory lap following her legal win against former President Trump in civil assault and defamation suits. And during a Monday appearance on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, she offered to spend some of the $83.3 million she was awarded on supporting women’s rights; such as “new shoes,” a “penthouse,” and a luxury fishing trip in France for Maddow.
Before she got to fantasizing about going on a personal “shopping” spree with Maddow, Carroll put on a more somber tone as she opined about how her case was about “turning our eyes to the future and taking back our rights.”
[…]Maddow wanted to know how Carroll was going to achieve that stated goal of helping victimized women across the country. “You’ve talked about using some of Trump’s money that you’re about to get to help shore up women’s rights. Do you know what that might be, what that might look like?” she wondered.
Instead of explaining how she was going to help other women, Carroll launched into offering to pay for the two of them to go get “new wardrobes” and how she was going to buy luxury items for her lawyers:
I have such, such great ideas for all the good I’m going to do with this money. First thing, Rachel, you and I are going to go shopping. We’re going to get completely new wardrobes, new shoes, a motorcycle for Crowley, a new fishing rod for Robbie. Rachel, what do you want? Penthouse? It’s yours, Rachel!
With Maddow saying she didn’t need any of that, Carroll also offered Maddow a trip to France for her to go fishing (Maddow’s favorite hobby):
[…]Seemingly aware of how bad the optics of the interaction were, one of Carroll’s lawyers, Shawn Crowley interjected to say, “That’s a joke.”
Fondacaro then rehashed an old smear of Carroll:
This was just another example of a bizarre media appearance from Carroll. In a 2019 appearance with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, she asserted that “most people think of rape as being sexy” and “They think of the fantasies.” And as Cooper quickly went to a commercial, she told him, “You’re fascinating to talk to.”
As Carroll later explained, “rape is the most horrible, violent act that can be done against a woman or man,” adding that shows like “Game of Thrones” depicted numerous rapes and attempted rapes “because it excites people and draws an audience.”