Donald Trump threw his hands in the air and said he’d “love it” if the judge at his New York defamation trial threw him out of court for loudly ripping sex abuse accuser E. Jean Carroll as she testified Wednesday.
The “Ask E. Jean” advice columnist’s lawyers twice complained that the former president was providing running commentary to his team within earshot of the jurors — including calling Carroll’s testimony “false” and grousing “she now seems to have finally gotten her memory back.”
“Mr. Trump has a right to be present here but that right can be forfeited if he is disruptive … or disregards our orders,” Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Kaplan warned after first cautioning Trump, 77, to “keep his voice down” when talking to his attorneys.
“Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to –,” Kaplan started to say.
“I would love it. I would love it,” Trump taunted, cutting the judge off as he theatrically gestured with his hands.
“I understand that you are probably very eager for me to do that,” Kaplan replied.
“I know you would like that, because you just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently,” the judge said.
“You can’t either,” Trump shot back.
Carroll, who is seeking $10 million in damages from Trump, was the first witness to testify in her case against the real-estate tycoon — coming face-to-face with him for the first time in court.
The GOP presidential candidate returned to the lower Manhattan courthouse Wednesday morning — fresh off a 2024 campaign event in New Hampshire — after attending jury selection and opening statements on the day prior.
He was seen with odd red marks on his right hand as he waved while leaving Trump Tower, but they had mysteriously disappeared by the time he got to the courtroom.
During an earlier break in testimony — when the jury was out of the room — Carroll’s lawyer Shawn Crowley told Kaplan that Trump was “loudly saying things” that the jury might be able to hear.
“I’m going to ask that Mr. Trump take special care to keep his voice down when conferring with counsel so that the jury does not overhear,” the judge said in response.
But Crowley brought the issue up again before a lunch break, claiming Trump had not heeded Kaplan’s instruction and was still loudly muttering during Carroll’s testimony.
“He said it is a witch hunt, it really is a con job,” Crowley claimed.
Carroll in June 2019 went public with her accusation that Trump sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room in 1996.
She sued Trump for defamation after he denied ever knowing her and said she wasn’t his “type” — in a statement to reporters from the White House.
In May, a jury in a separate case found Trump liable of sexual abuse and defamation and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages.
“I’m here because Donald Trump assaulted me and when asked about it, he denied it,” the 80-year-old writer said as she began her testimony in the current case Wednesday.
Trump — wearing his customary dark blue suit, white shirt and red tied — glared at his accuser from just a few feet away as she continued, “I am here to get my reputation back and to stop him from telling lies about me.”
Carroll said Trump’s lies have destroyed her reputation as a trusted advice columnist and “ended the world” she lived in.
“Now I’m known as a liar, a fraud and a whack job,” she said.
“To have the president of the United States, one of the most powerful persons on Earth, calling me a liar for three days and saying I’m a liar 26 times — I counted them — it ended the world that I had been living in,” Carroll said.
Before Trump’s comments, Carroll used to receive some 200 emails per month asking for relationship advice, and after his statements, that number dwindled to just eight per month, she claimed.
Following the remarks for the 45th president, Carroll said she received horrific death threats and messages from online trolls.
She recalled being in a hotel room when she received the first death threat on June 21, 2019 — the same day Trump publicly denied her allegations.
“I thought I was going to get shot,” Carroll said, describing how she panicked as she struggled to close the curtains in the hotel room that day.
Jurors were shown about a dozen hateful messages the New York journalist received including one saying “I hope you die soon” and another saying she should die by “execution” or “firing squad.”
Carroll says she still lives in fear and even looks over her shoulder when she pulls her car into the garage after buying groceries.
And to this day, she receives the nasty messages — “hundreds a day.”
When Trump said she was “not my type” Carroll said he really meant “I’m too ugly to assault” — a sentiment which she said made it hard to get up in the morning.
“I know I’m old. I know I’m 80,” Carroll said. “I know I’m not a pretty young woman, but it makes it tough to go on with the day.”