Former President Donald Trump's press conference in New York as his lawyers struggled to appeal the $80 million E. Jean Carroll civil verdict against him was completely unnecessary, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN's Kaitlan Collins — and indeed, all it did was remind a lot of women voters why they've turned against him.
Trump, who was held civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation, went off on multiple unprompted tangents at that presser, including bringing up two other women who made allegations against him and accusing CNN's Anderson Cooper of coaching Carroll to accuse him of rape.
"Obviously, Trump had just come out of that courtroom where E. Jean Carroll was just a few feet away from him," said Collins, adding, "Maybe not that strategic to come out and talk and draw attention to the sexual assault accusations against you and sexual abuse findings by a jury. And also his criminal conviction here in New York."
Haberman, who has covered Trump for years, concurred with this assessment. "I don't know of anyone who was recommending that he'd do this," she said.
"It's also worth noting he didn't have to be in court today," she added.
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And despite it being a press conference in theory, she continued, "He didn't take questions from us."
She went on, "All this is going to do is call more attention to that as well at a moment when he is trailing badly with women in polls. And so this, we have — certainly he has called attention to all kinds of things that are typically unhelpful for a candidate."
"Sometimes it has not hurt him," she added. "It didn't hurt him in the primaries when he called attention to the indictment ... [but] this is not a primary anymore and this is different. These allegations are different, and it wasn't just that he called attention to them. He laid them out in graphic detail. He talked about allegations that frankly, I suspect much of the public doesn't remember anymore, but if they were tuning in, they will."
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