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The Gist
Not Her Type: E. Jean Carroll vs. The President
00:41:06
E. Jean Carroll joins to talk about the lawsuit she won, the president she sued, and the dressing room encounter that changed everything. The author of Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President opens up about the attack by Donald Trump, how she...
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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
Foreign It's Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca and my guest today for the whole show is E. Jean Carroll. You know her. She was a longtime columnist for many an outlet and recently won a multimillion dollar case against one Donald J. Trump. The book is called Not My Type, One Woman versus A President, the Donald J. Trump President. But I will say there is something of, I don't really think it's an elephant in the room, but there's a cadre of people who don't believe Eegene Carroll. They don't believe that she was sexually assaulted in a dressing room in Manhattan many years ago. And we talk about what exact year. And I took that idea, I took that critique seriously and I waded into the conversation. What was the best case against E. Jean Carroll? And I'm not here to say. And I listened to, to I listen to Megyn Kelly and I listen to a few of the critics and I'm not here to say that I'm 100% sure what happened. No, no one can be right. There's a great unknown at the heart of it. But I am here to say that I wouldn't put Eugene Carol on if I disbelieved her. And so in coming to my conclusion, whether to interview her, and I'm glad I did, it's great interview. I took a number of things into account. A few of them we'll get to in the interviews, things that maybe make her more believable. But consider this, if you're like, should we even listen to this woman? And I know a whole bunch of you are like, of course we should listen to her. Clearly happen. It's part of a pattern of what he does. Here are some of my other considerations that got me there. One, there was a jury trial. And even though it's a preponderance of the evidence standard, there was a trial. And I don't totally defer to that. But that is a big data point, is it not? And unlike most of her critics, the jury heard the whole case. And Donald Trump was represented by very able counsel who kept out a lot of information that his side thought of as very damning. The same is also true with certain jurors were on the jury that would not just by their demographic or by their background maybe or even by their media consumption would be favorable to E. Jean Carroll. But all the jurors decided that there is more evidence than not that she was sexually assaulted in, in that Dressing room. I did not read all the transcript, but the book has many transcripts. And when you read those transcripts, sure, this is why Eugene Carroll put them in the book, but they serve Eugene Carroll's point very well. The other thing that I thought about in addition to what we talk about in the interview and you know, why would she lie in the particular way that she did by getting a certain year wrong at first was that Trump was a terrible defendant. Now, this does not get go to guilt or innocence, but it goes to the idea that he had many, many, many opportunities to defend himself and he did so poorly and he did so carelessly and he made choices in his defense that he didn't have to make that wouldn't comport with someone who, quote, didn't do it. When asked to we get into this. When asked to identify pictures of E. Jean Carroll, he couldn't have given worse answers. In fact, an answer so bad it is the title of the book not my Type. And then he misidentified who Aegean Carroll was as someone who was very much his type, which is to say he said, oh, that's my ex wife, Marla Maples. You don't give a worse answer than that in a deposition. Then he claimed the picture was blurry. When jurors see that picture, they're going to say the defendant not making all the excuses in the world for Donald Trump. Maybe in this case the defendant seems to be lying to me. And it is a reasonable inference. Jurors are told when you detect lying in one venue, you can apply that to others, that the defendant is indeed a liar or could be. You add it all up. I can't approach the word definitive, but again, I say to you, I wouldn't have Eugene Carroll on the show if I disbelieved her. And so she is on the show. E.E. jean Carroll, not my type. One woman versus a president. As summer winds down, I'm all about refreshing my wardrobe and what I like to call my staple pieces for the season ahead. I didn't know they were called staple pieces, but then I found out what they were. Quint helps me do that. Quint styles are so versatile, I find myself reaching for them again and again. I want to mostly focus on linen pants, linen shorts, really? Oh, am I a Beau Brummel, a man about town, in my linen quince shorts? They're half the cost of similar brands. I take it on faith I don't even look to similar brands. So good are the quince shorts. 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To get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss and more, visit hims.com that's hims.com the gist for your free online visit himss.com the gist actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. Featured products includes compounded drug products which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness or quality. Prescription requires the website for details, restrictions and important safety information. First, I'm going to give you the subtitle and then we'll back up to the title. And once I do that, you'll know who my guest is. One woman versus a President. I think you know the president is but one woman that doesn't narrow it down, given this president. Well, the name of the book is not my type. And I am joined by Eugene Carroll, who sued the President Donald Trump. And one. Welcome to the gist.
- [08:13]
E. Jean Carroll
Thank you very much.
- [08:15]
Mike Pesca
You wanted to write this book because you're a writer, and. And that's how you process, I assume.
- [08:22]
E. Jean Carroll
I was dying to write this book. I was in the middle of a high comedy. I'm an old journalist. What am I gonna do? Not write a book? I don't think so.
- [08:34]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And you look at every activity as fodder. In fact, that's what brought you into the dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman's, isn't it?
- [08:46]
E. Jean Carroll
That's very astute. That is very astute. It was. Ever since the age I was 12 years old, I've been in pursuit of the story. I wanted to write the story. I wanted to be a journalist. I spent 25 years trying to break into magazines. So the happiest I ever am is when I'm getting on a plane, fastening that seatbelt, you know, flying off to meet somebody I've never met in a place I've never been, and write the story. So, of course, there was no way in hell running into Trump in front of the Burgdorfs, and he says, come help me. Come advise me to buy a present. I am loving it. I am loving it. I'm gonna dine out on this story for years. Right.
- [09:40]
Mike Pesca
So, yeah, especially when the present turns out to be lingerie. That's just adding to the.
- [09:46]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah.
- [09:46]
Mike Pesca
To the humor of it. And you now, at this point, you had written for Saturday Night Live, but you weren't an SNL writer at that time.
- [09:55]
E. Jean Carroll
No, no, no.
- [09:57]
Mike Pesca
So. But still, you look through the world through this humorous lens and. Well, you tell me. And as you wrote in the book, nothing seemed threatening for quite a while of the encounter. Right.
- [10:09]
E. Jean Carroll
No, at the time, I was writing the ASCII Gene column in Elle magazine, and I had a daily talk show on Roger Ailes network, which became, oddly enough, msnbc. So I had a daily talk show. I had a lot of air time. It was live, like you every day. And actually, you started your podcast about 1996, I think, anyway. So, yeah, I had.
- [10:38]
Mike Pesca
I don't think there were podcasts, but, yeah.
- [10:39]
E. Jean Carroll
So I particularly, at this time saw things as stories. And when we. When he didn't like the hats I suggested, he did not like the handbags I suggested. And so when he said lingerie, I'm all for it. Never dreaming that it would be anything but the funniest thing I'd ever, you know, lived through.
- [11:02]
Mike Pesca
So right now, in retrospect, looking back, were there portions before he gets you and pins you in the locker room, were there portions of it that were menacing? Was maybe for you it was one genre and for him it was another.
- [11:18]
E. Jean Carroll
No, no, there was none of that. I'm telling you. No. He was light. He was joshing. He was. It's hard to picture today because now all he does is think about himself. So all we do is think about what he's thinking about. But at the time, he was actually able to, you know, be entertaining and, you know, say he was thinking about buying Bergdorfs and that he actually asked me for my opinion. Now that's. This is like, that's how different he was back in those days. And so, no, I saw nothing. It was building and it was building in a hilarious way. And the adventure went on.
- [12:02]
Mike Pesca
He was charming and you were flirtatious until suddenly it wasn't flirting my brains out.
- [12:08]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah, flirting them out.
- [12:09]
Mike Pesca
And then you're up against the wall and kind of fighting for, if not your life, then your safety.
- [12:15]
E. Jean Carroll
Every person knows what it's like to be in this kind of fight. It does feel like it's for your life. It does feel like that. And it was intense. And that's how I always thought of it, as a fight. And I got out of the room.
- [12:34]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And do you think if you hadn't. You need him, right? You need him in the groin?
- [12:40]
E. Jean Carroll
I tried to get my leg up.
- [12:42]
Mike Pesca
Oh, okay.
- [12:42]
E. Jean Carroll
I tried to get my leg up just so I could push him back.
- [12:47]
Mike Pesca
Okay.
- [12:47]
E. Jean Carroll
So that I did not. Boy, let me think. Trying to picture it. I did not need it, but I did get my leg up enough so I could push him back. His whole weight was against me. His whole weight. And so. Yeah, that's interesting that you would say that. You would know. I didn't know.
- [13:09]
Mike Pesca
Do you think that you. What you did was physically push him off and it was literally separating him from you with your. Then you're very athletic. You used a lot of force. Or do you think that it was more this Emphasized how much you didn't like it. And if he still wanted to, he could have pursued the sexual assault that was going on.
- [13:37]
E. Jean Carroll
He was very. I was. I'm tall. He was about six two and a half the time. Six three. He says he's six three. Probably six three. I was five nine, wearing four inch heels, so that puts me at six one. But he weighed what, 120 220, 230 at the time. I weighed 120 at the time. So he had 100 pounds on me. I'm stamping and pushing. No, I think he was intent. He wanted what he wanted. I don't think he gave up. I think I managed to struggle out.
- [14:17]
Mike Pesca
And the book goes through this, as does the trial, because the book has long passages of trial transcripts interlaced with your observations that are quirky and funny and well written and often. And this is. Take this as a compliment, not at all what I'd expect. But who did you have conversations with soon thereafter about this? So who would have known that you were sexually assaulted by Donald Trump in what you later determined to be 1996?
- [14:46]
E. Jean Carroll
Well, as far as I could see, there was no. I never saw any other person on the floor of Bergdorf's. I never saw any security. I never saw any. So as far as you and I are sitting right here, nobody. We established in the trial that there were no security cameras on the sixth floor. As a matter of fact, there are very few security cameras in the whole place at the time. And so nobody would have known except me and Donald Trump. However, as soon as I got out, I called Lisa Bernbach. My good friend Lisa Birnbach at the time was the funniest woman I knew. And I thought, if Lisa Birnbach, who wrote the Preppy handbook, Hilarious woman, I thought, if Lisa thinks this is funny, then it's not as bad as I thought it was.
- [15:46]
Mike Pesca
Okay.
- [15:47]
E. Jean Carroll
That's why I called Birnbach.
- [15:49]
Mike Pesca
So you. You were looking to her to be kind of a validator, and she was just not in the way you were hoping for or expecting?
- [15:56]
E. Jean Carroll
No, Lisa was. I just got goosebumps. When you said that. Lisa did not laugh. It was terrible. She had. She was feeding her dinner to children. To her children. She had to step out of the room to say, and this is in court transcript, Eugene, he raped you.
- [16:17]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [16:18]
E. Jean Carroll
And those are words I didn't want to hear.
- [16:22]
Mike Pesca
And so what did you do with it for a decade, two decades?
- [16:27]
E. Jean Carroll
Oh. Lisa first of all said, let me take you to the police. We've got to go to the police. Eugene, I'll go with you. And I said, no. The next day, I ran into Carol Martin, who I worked with at America Stock, and she also had a TV show. And I just saw Carol, and I needed a hug. I said, I've got to talk to you. We went to her house. Carol was very upset to hear what happened. I had to tell her, like, twice. So she could get the story. And then she tells me, do not go to the police, whatever you do. He's got 200 lawyers. He will bury you. So for the next 20 odd years, I didn't speak. First of all, I knew Roger Ailes would fire me from my talk show. I knew I'd be fired from Elle. I knew Trump would come after me. I KNEW he had two, as Carol said, 200 lawyers. I was quiet. And then I reached the age of 75 and I said, fuck it. I'm not gonna be. So why. No, I got, you know, this is it.
- [17:40]
Mike Pesca
And.
- [17:40]
E. Jean Carroll
And then I spoke up. And then at 80, I beat him twice.
- [17:45]
Mike Pesca
Do you think the MeToo movement, if that hadn't been in the air, and part of it, part of why it was in the air, was a reaction specifically to Donald Trump. But if it was just Donald Trump being the threat to the democracy that I know you've called him, if it was just him and your experience, would that have been enough for you to come forward? But. Or was it also everything that was going on societally?
- [18:10]
E. Jean Carroll
Oh, when the Megan Tuhey, Jody Kanter story broke in the New York Times, weren't you overwhelmed with the Harvey Weinstein story?
- [18:17]
Mike Pesca
Right.
- [18:18]
E. Jean Carroll
Weren't you just, like, knocked back when all those women came forward across the country?
- [18:22]
Mike Pesca
And the front. I also remember the front page of that New York magazine with all of the Cosby accusers.
- [18:27]
E. Jean Carroll
Oh, my God, that was big. Okay. And I'm sure you know women who have been assaulted.
- [18:33]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, we all do. If we talk to women.
- [18:36]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah. Anybody. Any woman over the age of 40 and went to college has been assaulted in some way. It is amazing. And here they got the women to come forward. It was. It was pretty. It had a huge impact on me. Huge. Of course, that's why I thought, no, I'm not going to. What? I'm. Well, I was such a hypocrite because I was advising women in my column to come forward, and there I was, you know, so. Yeah.
- [19:01]
Mike Pesca
Right. Well, your column might have been good advice, but it's. This is, by the way, true of many columnists who I've spoken to over the years. The columnist often doesn't take the advice. You know how to give the advice. But there are other areas you talk about where that's true.
- [19:15]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah. Well, the trick to having an advice column is you find out what people want to do and then you tell them, say, go ahead, do it, do it, do it. That's how you have an advice column. Right.
- [19:27]
Mike Pesca
And you were seen as, oh, I don't know if it was licentious, but certainly you weren't seen as a blue nose or someone to look down on the enjoyment of sex. But as you write in the book, and as you say under oath, you didn't have sex ever after Donald Trump did that to you?
- [19:47]
E. Jean Carroll
No, no, I never did. And I can't get over it. Even though I know ways to try to overcome it, I cannot do it. I cannot do it mentally. I've just got that. That great has come down.
- [20:01]
Mike Pesca
And I, you know, but there were also other. And I know from your last book you've had many. Well, you accused Les Moonves of sexual assault, but there were anonymous or unnamed in your memoirs. Right. Like a babysitter's boyfriend and on a date, a guy pulled a knife on you. So this has happened a few times, right?
- [20:22]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah. Well, I'm an 81 year old woman. I have led an adventurous life. I have not spent my life in the house. I actually leave the house and therefore I've run into hundreds of men that I like. Hundreds. But there were a few that were not so good. There was also the guy who took my Prius and tried to change the wheel thing and completely fucked up my car. He's on the list. I mean, I have run into some bad guys. Yes. Men have attacked me on dates. One pulled a knife. My babysitter's boyfriend when I was four. Yes, I've had some. I've had, yeah, I've run into. It's not unusual though. It's just that I remember him.
- [21:06]
Mike Pesca
But Donald Trump was the last sexual encounter you had. Even though you went through all of this throughout your life, that, that is.
- [21:16]
E. Jean Carroll
The fact that that's a fact.
- [21:18]
Mike Pesca
And I wouldn't, you know, and if I'm being insensitive by calling it a sexual encounter and in any way implying it was something other than an assault, I'm sorry about that.
- [21:25]
E. Jean Carroll
But I just know you got to. You got to.
- [21:27]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [21:27]
E. Jean Carroll
I just want to make you suing everybody.
- [21:29]
Mike Pesca
Right. Right. When you decided then to come forward. So this before this, when you wrote about it in New York magazine.
- [21:40]
E. Jean Carroll
Right.
- [21:41]
Mike Pesca
What was your process for? You knew probably you'd be sued. You knew you'd be called a liar. So what was your process for getting everything in a row to buttress your case?
- [21:55]
E. Jean Carroll
Even though I knew that nobody could have seen him taking three days from the bully pulpit of the White House and whoa. I could not have foreseen that I had. No. He is, I hate to say this the most powerful man on the planet right now. Nobody has more power. I had no concept of that. I had no concept of what his followers would do because they believe every word. They believed I was a dangerous woman. They believed I'm a Democratic operative. They believe I did it to sell a book. They believe I am a liar, a skank, you know, horrible, horrible, horrible person. And I could not have seen that coming. But, yes, there's a price to pay. Well, I'm sure none of the Cosby people did and the 27 women who've come forward about Donald Trump, each one of whom, or several of whom, he has dragged through the mud. I knew there would. I was not. I'm not completely ignorant. I knew there would be a price, but I was willing to pay it.
- [23:10]
Mike Pesca
There were certain parts of the New York story that, since you wrote it, solidified. For instance, originally, you were not sure if it was 1995 or 1996. But then you take us through process of elimination and actually talking to Lisa and when she did a profile of Trump that you determined that it was 1996, not 95. But do you wish you had done that beforehand just to eliminate one talking point? Or is it more like they're going to. They're going to say what they're going to say.
- [23:41]
E. Jean Carroll
No, we actually. I didn't know it was 95 or 96. Had no eye. And then Lisa is cleaning out her. Her files, and she's the one who finds the story that she'd been to Mar A Lago. And so we figured out Lisa would never have gone to Mar A Lago when she went to Mar A Lago if I had called her and told her what Trump had done. So we knew the attack happened after that. So that way we could put the date pretty, you know, within, you know, four or five weeks.
- [24:16]
Mike Pesca
Right, right. You know, as someone who didn't. Well, I will just say believe women is actually a slogan that I find some problems with because some women lie.
- [24:27]
E. Jean Carroll
I do, too.
- [24:28]
Mike Pesca
Okay. Women are humans. Right. And especially the criminal justice system can't default to that. So I kept. I don't know if you want to call it an open mind, but I was evaluating your claims. I had no reason to disbelieve you, but I did listen to what Trump was saying. And to me, the fact that you had those two ambiguous dates and you acknowledged that actually went a bit further for me, saying, well, if she was just lying and it was just a concocted story, should have something more solid than either 95 or 96. That's just how I thought.
- [24:59]
E. Jean Carroll
Oh, that's interesting. That. Well, that. That makes me feel better. Yeah. You mean you didn't fall for the thing that he said? That I stole the plot from Law and Order?
- [25:13]
Mike Pesca
No, see, that's. But that's another thing that I know.
- [25:16]
E. Jean Carroll
It's nuts.
- [25:17]
Mike Pesca
He will. He will lie about things that are true. You know this, right? He will, he will make up stories even when the truth is actually, you know, exonerat or not so bad or fine. It's just what he does. So tell me about. There is you coming forward, you telling your story as a sexual assault survivor and him ripping into you. And so now there's a change in the law during the course of everything that goes on. But originally the first case that you had against him was Tell me if I'm right. It was a defamation case. It wasn't originally sexual assault case. Is that right? Because at that point the statute of limitations was over.
- [26:02]
E. Jean Carroll
You are absolutely right. The first case is called Carol1. And that was strictly defamation for the three days that he just dragged me through the mud from the White House. That's the first case. Right then, yeah. New York passed the Adult Survivors act, which opened the window of allowing victims to come forward who have been sexually assaulted. But the time frame had closed. In other words, we would not have had the Sean Combs trial without the Adult Survivors act because the main accuser, Sean Combs, main accuser, Cassie, came forward because of that act. And now many states have that act. Adult survivors act like it. There's now a movement to make it permanent because usually women. It's very, very difficult for women to a go to the police and come forward when the man can make sure they are fired. And that's what happens. If a woman has two kids and is supporting the family. There's no way in hell she can come forward. Because powerful men are always believed over women. So this is why they have the Adult Survivors Act. Because when you're young and you know, have kids in high school, in college, you can't come forward. You can't come forward. So, you know, you have to wait until you become a fully mature person and understand what coming forward means, that some victims actually can't come forward.
- [27:44]
Mike Pesca
And we will be back with more of this discussion right after the break. I'm buried in non stop meetings. Maybe you are too. What? And it just brain fog and brain freeze and there's no way to remember if I told the publicist guy to do this, the social lady to do that. And wait a minute, is the publishers, Is it the publicist guy? The socialist lady? That's why I need Fireflies. We're all trying to figure out how to work smarter, not harder. Whether it's automating, post meeting, follow ups, streamlining, communication and collaboration. And I turn on Fireflies, which is an AI teammate that helps me keep track of it all. I turn on Fireflies with the phrase hey, Fireflies flies and I get reliable answers directly inside my video calls. I don't have to futz with the switching tabs or the losing focus. It's all about clarity. Or clarity. It's all about clarity. It's a little weird that Fireflies as animals flit around on our distracting when Firefly as this AI tool is quite clarifying. I guess the common thread is that they're both illuminating. It's time to upgrade your AI note keeper and note taker to be part of the team. Just say hey Fireflies and bring your AI teammate to life. You should note Fireflies now provides tailored summaries that are personalized to fit you and your role across many different industries like sales, marketing, engineering, recruiting, management, more even podcast production. They integrate with Zoom, Google, Meet Slack, Asana, Zapier and your CRM. And right now, when you sign up for a yearly Fireflies subscription, you get your first two months free. Just go to Fireflies AI slash the gist. That's right, two months free when you go to Fireflies AI slash the gist. That's Fireflies AI the gist. Let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips. Honestly Will, I didn't plan any trips, but I did switch to T Mobile.
- [30:02]
E. Jean Carroll
With their new Family Freedom offer.
- [30:05]
Mike Pesca
That's not the itinerary we're following. Well, I'm departing from AT and T and embarking on a new journey with T Mobile.
- [30:13]
E. Jean Carroll
They paid off my family's four phones.
- [30:16]
Mike Pesca
Up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house. Bon voyage. Introducing Family Freedom Our lowest cost will switch our biggest family savings all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com FamilyFreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16128 gigabyte 8299 eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off earlier cancel contact T Mobile okay we are back. And let us dive back in where we left off. You sue Trump. He's the president. He's shielded from lawsuit. It takes a while to depose him. Your lawyer is Roberta Kaplan, who the book's dedicated to, and she has since become a good friend of yours before they changed the law, and I think she was instrumental in getting it changed. What was your understanding of how this would play out legally before?
- [31:19]
E. Jean Carroll
Oh, well, we thought we were gonna win the defamation case.
- [31:21]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [31:22]
E. Jean Carroll
Just Carol.
- [31:22]
Mike Pesca
Just Carol1, as they call it.
- [31:24]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah. No, we thought that we were gonna win that. We knew that we were gonna win that. Robbie Kaplan flew to Mar? A Lago and deposed Trump. We knew we were going to win that one.
- [31:38]
Mike Pesca
What did he say in the deposition? Remind us some. What?
- [31:41]
E. Jean Carroll
Oh, I can't remember. What did he say? Well, they're in the deposition. So Robby tells him I'm not exaggerating three times. That she is about to show him a photograph of the woman called E. Jean Carroll. First, she's established, he's never met me, he doesn't know me. And then she gets him to admit, yes, he knows there's a photo of me together, and it was at a Saturday Night Live party. Even though he always says a coat line, it's not. It's from a Saturday Night Live party. And so she's told him three times. Then she presents him, you know, exhibit number, you know, 23 or 27. She said, please identify the people in this photo. And Trump looks at. He does not recognize Ivana. And then he looks at my husband, John Johnson. That's John Johnson. And he said, that's Marla. And Marla, Robbie said, you're pointing. Who is that? He says, yeah, that's Marla. That's my wife. And Haba Alina. Haba Esquire, leaps in and said, no, that's Carol. And that was that moment.
- [32:56]
Mike Pesca
Well, he then goes on to say, the photo's blurry.
- [33:00]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah.
- [33:00]
Mike Pesca
Which, you know, in the book plays really well with the jury because they're looking at that literal photo, and they could say, it's not blurry. Maybe this is not someone whose word should be taken on faith.
- [33:11]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There's a for instance of what you just said. He lies when he doesn't need to lie. He didn't need to lie there because.
- [33:21]
Mike Pesca
They could see the photos blurry.
- [33:23]
E. Jean Carroll
See, that's what you just said. Yeah. Well, taken.
- [33:26]
Mike Pesca
In order to win both lawsuits, you have to testify. Now he doesn't. And this may have helped and may have hurt him, but you have to testify. And so a lot of the book is about preparing to testify and what you say under oath. And before you even wrote the book, this was all available in the public record so we could read the words. What was interesting and additive to me was the emotion that you were feeling during it. And what was very interesting to me is how much preparation went into that moment. Very much concerned with how you presented yourself to the jury, not just in what you said, but how you looked. You had to look like, well, what? Describe what? All of the effort to get you the right haircut and the right outfit. What was all that effort about?
- [34:19]
E. Jean Carroll
I had to look fuckable.
- [34:22]
Mike Pesca
Mm.
- [34:23]
E. Jean Carroll
Beginning of story and end of story. That's how I had to look. Because the jury in a mock. Robby and the Carol team held mock jury exercises. That's a mock trial. And they presented our entire case to 27 typical New Yorkers, divided it into three juries, and they all agreed on three things. And yes, a man and a woman could end up in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman. Yes, something sexual could have happened between that man and a woman. Bergdorf Goodman in 1996. And yes, one of those people was Donald Trump, and the other one was E. Jean Carroll. Yes. However, all the men thought I was begging him for it because I was too ugly, too old, too dissicated to be attacked. That was going to be a problem. So we looked at clips from my Talk show in 1996. When it happened, I found Lisa Corvelli, the hairdresser who cut my hair and colored my hair, and the one Lisa did my makeup, and we did the exact look. I even wore the clothes. That jacket I'm wearing on the COVID of the book, that's from Bergdorf's, 1993. And I wore it during trial. I wore the clothes I wore that I wore, the shoes, the skirts I wore, things I wore. And I looked not. Look, I'm old. I'm an old crone. I get it. But I look like somebody who could have looked like that woman in 1996.
- [36:08]
Mike Pesca
And, oh, I want to make clear, finding Lisa. This was your old hairstylist from the old TV show. She wasn't in the world of New York City hair styling. She was, like, working at her husband's.
- [36:20]
E. Jean Carroll
Italian restaurant or something in the wine cellar of Hapgood's restaurant in New Jersey. That's where I find her.
- [36:30]
Mike Pesca
But she's the only one who could give you that hair.
- [36:32]
E. Jean Carroll
The only one. And the hair color. And the makeup. She, you know. Yeah. So she did it.
- [36:37]
Mike Pesca
So before you did the mock trials, was this something that Roberta and her team of Robby and her team of really seasoned lawyers had anticipated? Cuz the impression I got was it took the mock trials to point out, just this, that the look was so important.
- [36:53]
E. Jean Carroll
Oh, we found. No, our entire strategy changed from the mock trials. We, as Robby said, we were idiots. We live in a liberal bubble. We didn't even see the gender divide in this country. We didn't see it. I mean, you probably see it because you, you're, you're talking to a varied number of guests. We did not see it because we're surrounded with liberal people here in, In New York. Except our jury was upstate, oddly enough.
- [37:24]
Mike Pesca
Well, you keep. I know you say that, but Southern district in New York, the most, the furthest upstate they could have gone is Rockland. And I looked at.
- [37:30]
E. Jean Carroll
No, no, Orange. Orange County.
- [37:32]
Mike Pesca
Oh, no. And there were.
- [37:34]
E. Jean Carroll
Oh, no, no.
- [37:36]
Mike Pesca
There were jurors from Orange County. Really?
- [37:38]
E. Jean Carroll
No, no. And above Orange County. No. The Southern. No, we had some, many, many people from upstate. Trump. From country. Trump country. No, that was not, as Robbie says, Avocos eating, toast eating, you know, Manhattan Jury. No, no, no. These were upstaters.
- [37:57]
Mike Pesca
And there was also the incident where someone got on the jury and when asked, where do you get your news? You thought he said temple. But what he said was, Tim Pool, the right wing. Well, he's a little conspiratorial. More than hard. Right. He always wears a beanie. Here's my question, though. You had a staff of all the best lawyers and trial consultants, and no one heard Tim Pool. Everyone, everyone in the press heard him say Tim Pool. But not. Maybe that's the bubble too. You didn't realize who was.
- [38:28]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah, yeah, there is the bubble. And as soon as that happened, Robbie had a meeting with the judge and said, judge, I'm sorry, we misunderstood. We would like to have him taken off the jury because there were. Tim Pool had done several podcasts, particularly about E. Jean Carol and what a lying skank she was. So he had been. So Robbie really did. And Judge Kaplan called the guy in and asked him, will you be able, do you think, to render a decision which is fair to both sides? And the Tim Pool guy said you. Yes, he would. And Judge Kaplan said, you're on the jury.
- [39:09]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And let the record show civil juries in New York, like most places, have to be unanimous. 9. Oh, he was one of the ones who sided with you. But what they were doing before what you had to figure out through the mock trials and why you had to dress the part was the people in your mock jury. And presumably whoever you would seat in your jury would in fact be. Be agreeing with Trump with the title of your book, that you couldn't have been his type.
- [39:36]
E. Jean Carroll
Exactly. Exactly. That was what. That was our problem.
- [39:40]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And so the question is, as much as you compliment the jury and say the system worked and position it as some advance for accountability. MeToo feminism. In a way, it's not. I mean, in a way, you had to go. You had to wear a costume to get people to see your side.
- [39:59]
E. Jean Carroll
Oh, but. Oh, please, get the hell out of here. Every woman knows we dress in a costume. Come on. Everybody knows it. When you and your wife have date night, she's going to be wearing something really pretty and it's going to make her feel like a million dollars. So there. No, please.
- [40:20]
Mike Pesca
I knew you. I knew as the advice columnist, you'd see right through that. So tell me about. Let's just skip ahead because we know that the jury found for you and you did many press tours, but I want to know about how you actually get the money. Did you even think about this before the verdict was in, or did you have to stay laser focused on just getting the verdict?
- [40:47]
E. Jean Carroll
Oddly enough, I never cared about the money. I don't care about the money now because I'm gonna give it away. Money is not my. I don't need to buy stuff. If I get some money, I'm going to give it to you to get rid of that curtain behind you. So.
- [41:02]
Mike Pesca
That'S the podcast comment of the year.
- [41:06]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah. No, you know what? It never occurred to me to think about the money. What I want to do is get my name back because he called me a lying skank. He didn't say skank. He called me a liar 27 times in three days. Now, that's not good if you're an advice columnist, because nobody's going to believe it. It's not good if you're a journalist. So I had to get that back. So that's. That was my main thing also. Just to hold him accountable.
- [41:35]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. No, I wasn't even thinking of the money for your personal use. I was thinking to hold him accountable insofar as it would hurt Trump, which is why the jury exceeded even what you were asking, as I understand it. Is that right? Did you find out from them why they gave such a big award?
- [41:51]
E. Jean Carroll
No. The jury was anonymous. We never found out their names, what they did for nothing. Where they lived, whether they were married, saying nothing. You know why? Because this is like a mob trial and where a criminal is in the courtroom and he has. He was talking to the jury every single day, as you know, even though he's not, you know, he on true social, sometimes 40 posts an hour. So, no.
- [42:25]
Mike Pesca
But why? Okay, maybe. Did Robby, did anyone in your legal team offer an explanation as to why the amount was so high?
- [42:34]
E. Jean Carroll
Oh, yeah. Robby and Sean G. Crowley. Robbie, in her delicious. In her final argument, when Trump was sitting in the courtroom, addressed the jury for the final time to bring our case. And what she did was she used everything she got from Trump's deposition for the fraud trial where he bragged about all the money he was worth. And she said to the jury, and he says his brand is worth $10 billion. She was just telling the jury how much money he has. Because her argument was, how much money will it take to make him stop? $5 million didn't make him stop last time. How much is it going to make him stop? Because his followers were threatening me every single day. And Robby wanted him to be stopped. And as she was reaching her peak about how rich he was, well, you know what he did? He stood up and turning. Absolutely. He looked like a walking bonfire. Flames were coming out of his ears and steam was coming off the top. And he walked out during Robbie's final argument. Now, what does that show to a jury?
- [44:04]
Mike Pesca
Contempt of them.
- [44:07]
E. Jean Carroll
Yes. Also, it's guilty people that turn and run.
- [44:13]
Mike Pesca
Right.
- [44:13]
E. Jean Carroll
It's not the guy who's innocent. The guy who's innocent sits there and says, what the hell are you doing? I'm innocent, I'm innocent, I'm innocent. He turned and ran when Robby started to detail the money and ask, what will it take to make him stop?
- [44:30]
Mike Pesca
So you've lived a very, very interesting life and you've become a symbol of a woman who was vindicated in the end and faced her accuser face down. Her accuser. You're also in the middle of our societal reckoning with sexual assault. That sometimes called me too. On the other hand, exactly what we were talking about, that you have a guy in the White House, returned to the White House, credibly accused, and in courts in your case found to have committed sexual assault. Are we two steps forward, one step back? Are we progressing as a society? What's your assessment, society wise, about where we are in powerful men getting away with assaulting women or even non powerful men?
- [45:17]
E. Jean Carroll
Right now we're going backwards and we'll go forwards again. But as you know, it swings and women are the litmus test. And women have been shoved back about 50 years. Watch what happens with women. They bode. They foretell the future of the country. The minute Dobbs went down and women lost rights over their own bodies, it was over. And it's now we have the immigrants. Now we have concentration camps. Now if a woman has a a pregnancy that goes bad, she will bleed to death in a parking lot. So this is. We're going back right now, but I fervently believe we will go forward again. I don't know when we're going to turn around. I am trying to start. I'm getting sick of people sitting on their lazy asses. So anybody who has nothing to do, go to E. Jeancarol substack. I'm going to start a little something and we're going to disrespect the president. That's what we're going to do.
- [46:30]
Mike Pesca
E Jean Carroll is the author of Not My Type. One Woman versus A President. Thank you so much.
- [46:37]
E. Jean Carroll
Wow, this has been fascinating interview. You asked me questions that nobody asked me before. Thank you.
- [46:50]
Mike Pesca
That's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the Gist. I assembled the Gist list alongside Kathleen Sykes. I mean, not really alongside. She's in Utah. I'm here. But we collaborate, as do Astrid Green and the team. She runs our socials and Ashley Khan is our production coordinator who's in charge. It's Michelle Pesca. As I'll tell you, she is loath to say improved GPRU do Peru. And thanks for listening. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host, you seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.