Pushing Back on Rightwing Distortion of Carroll Settlement

FEATURING COURTNEY HAGLE - A New York City jury has ordered Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages to journalist E. Jean Carroll for defamation. Trump had spent years maligning Carroll in public forums and on social media, sometimes dozens of times in a single day. Ms. Carroll celebrated the settlement saying, “This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down.” 

But Trump responded by claiming that, “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon,” and claimed that, “They have taken away all First Amendment Rights.” Such views were echoed in coverage of the settlement by rightwing media personalities, according to the watchdog group Media Matters for America.