One of the more amusing recent stories is hearing that Donald Trump is suing George Stephanopoulos because of the questions he asked of Nancy Mace.
Just to recap: Nancy Mace is a Republican Representative from South Carolina known as a bit of an iconoclast. Mace is a tough cookie; in1999, she became the first woman to graduate from the Corps of Cadets program at The Citadel. Mace has also been very public about the fact that she was raped at the age of 16, which experience she has underlined while arguing that there should be exceptions for rape and incest in any abortion bans.
A few weeks back, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on one of the Sunday morning TV shows, Mace sparred with him over his asking her why — as a very public rape victim herself — she would support Donald Trump.
Instead of answering the question — which is a legitimate question to ask of a politician — Mace repeatedly accused Stephanopoulos of “shaming” her as a rape victim.
That accusation is complete nonsense.
If anything, Stephanopoulos “shamed” her for being a shameless hypocrite, which is a completely legitimate accusation to level at a politician.
Regardless, Trump took offense to the fact that, in his questioning of Mace, Stephanopoulos said that Trump had been found “liable for rape.” To be fair to Trump, that is not what he was found liable for; he was found liable for “sexual assault.”
What did Trump actually do to E. Jean Carroll? Let’s be frank here: he finger-fucked her in department store dressing room in 1995 or 1996.
He finger-fucked her in a department store dressing room.
There was penetration.
New York state’s definition at the time defined rape as solely “nonconsensual penetration of the vagina by a penis”; that definition has since been expanded. If it were being criminally prosecuted today, Trump would have been convicted of rape.
Stephanopoulos’s choice of vocabulary was certainly sloppy. But that doesn’t mean that he defamed Trump. Just to remind people, defamation requires:
- That made a statement that adversely impacts the plaintiff’s reputation;
- That the statement was “published”;
- That there are some kinds of discernible damages.
For example, if you went around your neighborhood telling everyone that “Mrs. Jones” used to be a prostitute when you knew full well that was not true, that would be defamation.
Here there is no doubt that the statements were published because they were on national television; there is considerable doubt that it damaged Trump’s reputation in any way. In addition, there are special rules when the plaintiff is a “public figure” — and it doesn’t get much more public than Trump — that stem from the Supreme Court’s case in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). These rules require a demonstration of “actual malice” on the part of the defendant before the plaintiff can recover.
This is not happening with Trump.
Trump sealed his own reputation when he bragged in the famous Access Hollywood tape that as a celebrity he could “grab” women “by the pussy.” He’s proud of his reputation for sexual assault.
Trump is just mad that E. Jean Carroll won defamation suits against him twice, and he’s trying to cheapen the impact of a defamation verdict. In effect, he wants to be able to say, well, maybe I defamed E. Jean Carroll but George Stephanopoulos defamed me, so what’s the difference?
It’s the “yeah but” rhetorical strategy. A pox on all your houses. That’s the strategy.
