CNN: Donald Trump Deposition
Transcript
00:00:01:13 – 00:00:13:21
Jake Tapper
Earlier today, Donald Trump sat for a deposition under oath. For now, only a few select people know if Trump actually answered any questions or if he caught another case of, let’s call it forgetfulness.
00:00:15:04 – 00:00:23:07
Donald Trump
I don’t remember that. I don’t remember the names. I don’t know that I said it. I don’t I don’t know. I don’t know the answers. I mean, I don’t remember.
00:00:24:28 – 00:00:46:19
Jake Tapper
By the way, that’s the guy who once claimed to have the, quote, world’s greatest memory. Speaking under oath in 2015 for a deposition about Trump University, that’s a case that ended with Trump agreeing to a $25 million settlement. But today, Trump is facing a defamation lawsuit brought by former magazine columnist Jean Carroll. Carroll claims that he raped her in the mid-nineties, but this case isn’t about that alleged assault.
00:00:46:19 – 00:01:15:16
Jake Tapper
It’s about comments Trump made about Carroll once she made the accusation. He said he never met her. He said she’s totally lying. And he said she wasn’t his type. The reality is, even as Trump fights one defamation case, he’s weaponising defamation claims against others, including suing CNN for calling his lies. Well, lies. I’m joined now by Cancer Cal, who represented both Sarah Palin and Hulk Hogan in their respective lawsuits against The New York Times.
00:01:15:16 – 00:01:32:05
Jake Tapper
For Palin and Gawker, for Hulk Hogan. Ken, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it. It’s good to see you. So Jean Carroll says she plans to sue Trump next month about the sexual assault claims. What are the chances that his answers in the defamation case might be used against him in that case?
00:01:32:09 – 00:01:55:01
Kenneth Turkel
So you’ve got this new law up in New York that’s reviving statute of limitations. So what’s interesting about this, you get these attributes of B two cases with a pending defamation case five years ago when the MeToo cases were coming. That wasn’t is strange, but this is a new vibe. Of course, the answers are going to matter. They’re going to matter for that case.
00:01:55:21 – 00:02:12:17
Kenneth Turkel
You know, theoretically, if there was ever a criminal investigation, they’d matter for that. In other words, if it was fresh and you were alleging rape and the police were involved, you would take five on that all day. Yeah. So, yeah, of course they matter. I’m not sure that there’s any real strategy not to answer them in the context of two civil cases.
00:02:12:17 – 00:02:25:04
Jake Tapper
Right. I would imagine that he just denied that, that he didn’t have a case of amnesia, that he actually said, no, it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. I can’t think of anything else that would make sense. But you’re the lawyer.
00:02:25:04 – 00:02:42:23
Kenneth Turkel
Tell me he’s kind of all in on this one in the sense that the public comments he made on social but it’s a very he said she said thing I never knew her. Right. That’s a hard one to get away from. Right. Right. If you qualify something, you may have a little wiggle room, a memory loss thing, or I’m confused.
00:02:43:06 – 00:02:52:04
Kenneth Turkel
But when you say I never knew her in the context of the accusations being made, you are playing a zero sum, he said. She said credibility game to a jury.
00:02:52:20 – 00:03:12:20
Jake Tapper
So we’re in an era now where there’s it seems like there’s a lot of defamation cases in the media. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s divorce ended up with back and forth them defamation claims a black China lost her five year fight against the Kardashians over a canceled reality show. Why do we seem to be in this new era of high profile defamation cases?
00:03:13:02 – 00:03:32:16
Kenneth Turkel
It’s a great question. It’s a question I’m answering literally every week now somewhere. Let’s. I was just talking to Laura about this. I was on her show a few times talking about Depp, her talking about Alex Jones. Let’s pull away first and say, are they defamation cases? Because my position on Depp heard was that it wasn’t really a defamation case.
00:03:32:16 – 00:03:56:01
Kenneth Turkel
It was like counter allegations of domestic violence. Right. You didn’t really hear talks about speech, about public figures, standards or provable falsity. You just had all this kind of mud slinging. Right. Alex Jones took a default judgment on both cases, Texas and Connecticut, meaning liability was not an issue. We weren’t discussing First Amendment parameters, principles. There wasn’t a hard dove on it.
00:03:56:13 – 00:04:18:16
Kenneth Turkel
So all those really speech cases. All right. We call them speech cases because we know that that’s what was the genesis of the claim. The issue, though, of why they’re going to trial to me is the more fascinating one. And what I’m seeing, I’m grassroots level. This is what I do. Yeah. Palin was a speech case. I mean, they were deep dove on actual mouths, deep dove on basic First Amendment principles.
00:04:18:16 – 00:04:46:10
Kenneth Turkel
Their motion practice appeals, reversals, I think and this is just gut feeling, grassroots level. The judges are seeing more and more what technology is doing in that arena. So much privacy, the inter-relationship. And so what’s happening is they’re putting Jacobs unheard of 20 years to try this many speech cases. I think The New York Times hadn’t had a trial, libel case, jury trial in something like 28 years before we tried Palin.
00:04:47:06 – 00:05:07:00
Kenneth Turkel
All right. You’ve seen four and what’s come speech cases for argument’s sake. Okay. They involve speech at least as a genesis of the claim. I think what you’re seeing is a judge’s recognition that, like, enough’s enough, right? There’s all this noise out there. We’re going to start developing some law here. Interesting. I think we have to for a lot of reasons.
00:05:07:02 – 00:05:12:14
Jake Tapper
And. Very interesting. Thank you so much.
Kenneth Turkel
Thanks for having me
President Biden now facing a very….
Start: 10/19/2022 09:29:55 PM
End:10/19/2022 09:35:08 PM