E. Jean Carroll challenged former President Donald Trump and won, and now she wants other women to know they have the power to do the same.
Speaking to Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women dinner on Tuesday in New York, Carroll, who won an $83.3 million libel settlement against Trump in January, said the outcome of the upcoming presidential election could hinge on women’s votes.
“Women can really win this election,” she told Fortune magazine’s Emma Hinchliffe. “Black women, especially in the 2020 election, have stepped up. And now I think suburban mothers and women should get involved in this election.”
Carroll, a journalist and author, sued Trump for defamation after he called her a liar in 2019 when she publicly accused him of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in 1996. The jury found that Trump’s statements substantially damaged Carroll’s reputation. This was the second time Carroll defeated a former president in the courtroom. Last May, a separate jury found Trump not guilty of rape but guilty of sexually assaulting Carroll and then defaming her by claiming she made up the story. As a result of the verdict, Carroll was awarded $5 million, raising Trump’s total debt to her to $88.3 million.
Buoyed by these victories, Carroll, joined on stage by her attorney Roberta Kaplan, told the audience that she is “very, very positive” about women’s ability to bring about social change, despite significant violations of women’s rights, including the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the recent overturning Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction by New York’s highest court.
“I don’t think we’ll be stopped, I really don’t think so,” Carroll said. “We just need to work really hard to help our sisters in the South reclaim rights to their bodies.”
Carroll hasn’t yet received any money from Trump, but that hasn’t stopped her from making big plans for how to spend it. “I’m going to give it to everything Donald Trump hates,” she said. “He is packing the Supreme Court with conservative judges who deny women rights over their own bodies. I’m going to put in as much as I can [in]give women back their rights to their own bodies. I’m going to dedicate them to getting women to become lawyers, especially mothers who would like to get some scholarship… Since he doesn’t have a dog, I want to donate some to the ASPCA.”
Asked how she copes with being the target of online criticism from Trump supporters, Carroll said her experience mirrors what many women face on social media. “Every woman in this room has people saying terrible things. [about them] on X, on Instagram. We all hear: “You’re ugly, you’re old, you’re wrinkled, you don’t deserve this, you’re pathetic, you’re disgusting.” We all understand this. I’m not unusual.”
However, the findings of her trials make the violence easier to bear. And Carroll said she was excited to be in the same room with so many powerful women.
“A serious woman is an extremely powerful entity,” she warned. “The main thing is to never despair, never despair. Always stay positive so we can accomplish what we need to accomplish.”