Former president Donald Trump briefly testified in his own defense on Thursday in the civil defamation case brought against him by journalist E. Jean Carroll and defended his social-media posts about his accuser.

In May, a Manhattan federal jury found Trump liable for battery and defamation, and ordered the former president to pay Carroll $5 million in combined damages. Jurors were asked to determine whether there was more than a 50 percent chance that Trump assaulted Carroll in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan in the mid 1990s, as she has claimed.

The jury found that Trump most likely sexually assaulted Carroll but rejected the allegation that he raped her. The jury also decided that an October 2022 post from Trump on his Truth Social platform calling her allegations a “hoax” did, in fact, defame Carroll.

Now, the current jury has been tasked only with deciding how much Trump should pay Carroll on top of the $5 million that was awarded last year. Carroll is seeking at least $10 million in damages.

Trump, for his part, has insisted he has “absolutely no idea who this woman is” and has called the case a “witch hunt.”

Trump’s testimony lasted roughly two minutes on Thursday, as the defense asked him just three questions.

He was asked whether he saw his deposition played in court. He said, “Yes.”

Then, he was asked if he stands by the statements he made in the deposition. He responded, “100 percent. Yes.”

Finally, he was asked if he ever threatened Carroll in his tweets and social media posts. “No,” Trump replied. “I was only defending myself from what I believe was a false allegation.”

However, the judge, having limited what Trump can say in the case as it concerns only damages and not liability, struck the statements that went beyond a “yes” or “no” response.

Exiting the courtroom, Trump said: “This is not America, not America, this is not America.”

Earlier on Thursday, as Trump lawyer Alina Habba hammered out the ground rules of Trump’s testimony with U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, Trump told Habba, “I never met the woman.”

Just last week Trump attacked Carroll in a series of posts on his Truth Social account.

He said his accuser “has been ‘all over the place’ on the timing of this alleged ‘incident,’ which never took place, and is being coached by Lunatic Radical Left Democrat operative attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who has sued me before, and just lost.”

“I am the only one who has been injured by this attempted EXTORTION,” Trump wrote.