Nancy Mace defends support for Trump despite E Jean Carroll sexual abuse verdict

Republican US Rep Nancy Mace of South Carolina defended her support for Donald Trump after she was pressed about her endorsement despite a federal jury finding him liable for sexual abuse and defamation in an $83m verdict.

In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, the congresswoman was repeatedly asked to square her support for Mr Trump against the jury’s findings, while she argued she was being “shamed” for her “political choices” as a rape survivor herself.

“Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury. Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury. It’s been affirmed by a judge,” ABC’s This Week host George Stephanopoulos told Ms Mace on Sunday.

“If you want to go ahead and defend a woman who made a mockery out of rape, then you go ahead and do that,” Ms Mace said at one point.

“Well, actually what you’re doing is defending a man who has been found liable for rape, Mr Stephanopoulos replied. “I don’t understand how you can do that.”

Ms Mace said the case of E Jean Carroll should not be seen as the same as a criminal conviction.

The federal judge overseeing that case, however, wrote last year that any finding that states Ms Carroll had “failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”

“Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr Trump in fact did exactly that,” US District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote.

Two separate juries in 2023 and in 2024 found Mr Trump liable for defaming Ms Carroll after he repeatedly called her a liar for speaking publicly about allegations that he assaulted her inthe 1990s.

“It was not a criminal court case, No 1. No. 2, I live with shame. And you’re asking me a question about my political choices trying to shame me as a rape victim,” Ms Mace told Mr Stephanopoulos on Sunday.

He said his question is “not about shaming you” but “about Donald Trump.”

“I’m not shaming you at all. I called you courageous,” he said. “I’m asking you a very simple question.”

Ms Mace recounted her testimony during debate in South Carolina’s state legislature surrounding a bill to ban abortion care at roughly six weeks of pregnancy without exceptions for survivors of rape or incest.

“I had to tell my story because no other woman was coming forward for us,” she said. “No rape victims were represented, and you’re trying to shame me this morning. And I find it offensive, and this is why women won’t come forward.”

She said Ms Carroll’s post-trial comments make it “harder for women to come forward when they make a mockery out of rape, when they joke about it.”

“Doesn’t it make it harder for women to come forward when they’re defamed by presidential candidates?” Mr Stephanopoulos asked.

In a statement on X, Ms Carroll thanked the host for “valiantly defending me.”

“I wish [Ms Mace] well,” she added. “And I salute all survivors for their strength, endurance, and holding on to their sanity.”

Following the interview, Ms Mace continued to criticise Mr Stephanopoulos, labelling him “disgusting” and “as disgusting as he is dishonest” and sharing posts that call him “a piece of s***.”

Mr Trump continues to deny the allegations central to the jury findings against him.

Last week, he posted a $91.6m bond to appeal the $83m judgment against him.

But on Saturday, he once again repeated statements that were previously found to be defamatory.

“I just posted a $91m bond on a fake story. Totally made up story,” Mr Trump said at a rally in Georgia. “Based on false accusations made about me by a woman that I knew nothing about, didn’t know, never heard of it. I know nothing about her.”

He called the lawsuit against him a politically motivated stunt from “Democratic operatives,” echoing his baseless conspiracy theory surrounding the mountain of litigation against him.

In another statement, on MSNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday, Mr Trump called Ms Carroll “Ms Bergdorf Goodman, a person I’d never met,” referring to the department store where she said Mr Trump had assaulted her in the 1990s.

“I have no idea who she is, except one thing, I got sued,” he said. “From that point on I said, ‘Wow, that’s crazy, what this is.’”

The verdict in Ms Carroll’s case adds to Mr Trump’s growing financial burden as he campaigns for the presidency against President Joe Biden.

A separate judgment in a civil fraud case in New York has ordered him to pay $454m, plus daily interest, after a judge found him liable for a decade-long fraud scheme to deceive banks and investors to gain favourable financing terms for his brand-building properties.

A New York appellate judge denied Mr Trump’s request to halt enforcement of the monetary judgment against him in that case, but he will still be allowed to lead his real estate empire and apply for loans to be able to afford the bond to appeal the ruling against him.

Mr Trump offered up a $100m bond to stall that judgment.