MSNBC analyst and weekend host Katie Phang was a guest on Wednesday's edition of the network's Deadline White House. Phang revealed that "I am friends with E. Jean Carroll, but it doesn't color my legal analysis." Of course not!
But Phang had the chutzpah to claim that Carroll—the woman who won a $5 million judgment from Donald Trump in her first defamation suit against him, and is sure to win much more in a second suit—"would have been happy to just get her day in court."
Okay then! We'll look forward to E. Jean Carroll announcing the charity of her choice to which she will be donating all the jury awards!
Recall that Carroll first made these allegations in New York magazine to kick off sales of a memoir. But MSNBC pulled up a clip of Carroll telling Rachel Maddow, "I really wasn't doing it for myself. I was doing it for the women in the country." Oh, the self-sacrifice! Call her Jean De New York!
The best part of Carroll's experience, according to Phang, was probably just "being able to tell her story to a jury."
No doubt! Just like Carroll herself said, she wasn't doing it for herself, she was doing it for all the women in the country. When liberals accuse a Republican politician or judge of sexual assault, she should automatically be believed to be telling the truth and doing it for all women. When a Democrat is accused of sexual assault, well, the accuser's a "dogpatch Madonna" or some kind of trailer trash.
Note: There was a bit of bitter irony for Phang to be a guest on a show hosted by Alicia Menendez. Until recently, Phang had her own MSNBC show on Saturday and Sunday mornings, in the desirable 8 am slot. But MSNBC has stripped her of her Sunday show, and relegated her Saturday show to the less visible noon slot. And who has taken over Phang's Saturday and Sunday morning slots? Yup, Menendez, in an ensemble cast with Michael Steele and Symone Sanders-Townsend.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Deadline White House
1/17/24
4:03 pm ETALICIA MENENDEZ: MSNBC host and legal analyst Katie Phang is back. Katie, let's start with you. Difficult to get through that testimony of from Carroll. So emotional, so clear. The price she has paid for all of this.
KATIE PHANG: I think people need to realize is, the confrontation in a courtroom setting from the victim of rape, which is E. Jean Carroll. And in the interest of full disclosure, I am friends with E.Jean Carroll. We have been friends for a while, but it doesn't color my legal analysis.
. . .
It is a foregone conclusion: there will be a multi-million-dollar verdict rendered by the second jury against Donald Trump. It is a foregone conclusion because the jury has already reached the determination that Donald Trump is a person that commits sexual assault on somebody like E. Jean Carroll and defames her.
. . .
MENENDEZ: I think it's also important that people get to hear from E. Jean Carroll. So, given the absence of that, I want to play for you something that E. Jean Carroll said to our colleague Rachel Maddow. Take a listen.
E. JEAN CARROLL: I really wasn't doing it for myself. I was doing it for the women in the country . . . I was heard. I was heard in federal court in front of a jury of my peers. They weighed the evidence, and the truth was established. and the system works!
MENENDEZ: To be heard and to be believed. To have the system actually work. This case means so much to so many. To survivors, and also to those who want to see Donald Trump held accountable.
PHANG: E. Jean would have been happy to just get her day in court. The outcome was just really the best part about the experience, and yet maybe it wasn't. Maybe the best part of the experience was just having that moment of being able to tell her story to a jury.
