CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Roasts Trump During Post-Court Rant: ‘If He’s So Innocent’ Why Didn’t He Testify

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer roasted former President Donald Trump in the middle of a post-court rant that went “on and on” and featured claims of innocence that Blitzer challenged.

Trump was in court Friday as an appeal was heard in the case that wound up resulting in Trump being hit with a $5 million verdict, leading to a bombshell $83.3 million judgment for sexual abuse and defaming E. Jean Carroll while he was president.

In that case, Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote a ruling that said “Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump, in fact, did exactly that.”

After the hearing, Trump held a press conference during which he repeated many of the attacks for which he was found liable.

On Friday’s edition of CNN Newsroom, Blitzer described the rambling presser as it played silently behind him, and asked why Trump never told his story under oath “if he’s that innocent”:

WOLF BLITZER: We’re continuing to monitor Trump’s very, very angry reaction to the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll Case.

He was convicted of sexually abusing her and defaming her. Fined some $5 million.

He says there was an extremely hostile judge, that certain evidence that was admitted should never have been admitted. And he’s going on and on and on.

Railing against her, saying he doesn’t know her and never met her, has no idea who she is, only that she’s making up all of these stories.

I want to bring in Karen Friedman-Agnifalo, our legal analyst, to assess this. There was a trial. He he actually didn’t want to attend and didn’t testify.

If he’s that innocent, why didn’t he make his case in front of the court?

KAREN FRIEDMAN-AGNIFALO: Yeah. So that’s one of the big questions here. Because don’t forget there was a second E. Jean Carroll trial that he did attend.

And he did testify. And he did put on, a defense there. So he chose not to in this case. And he is stuck with that decision. This was an appellate argument.

This is him trying to appeal his, the finding of, of, of, of liability that this nine person jury found against him and found that he had sexually abused he he is guilty, essentially, of sexually abusing E Jean Carroll, in addition to defaming her.

And so that is what he’s complaining about here is he almost wants a do over. You can’t do that on appeal. On appeal, the judges look at the record and that’s it. They don’t listen to your defense or anything else that you have to say, but that’s what he’s trying to do.

Today in his press conference, one of the things I was listening for is did he defame her again? And will E. Jean Carroll bring additional defamation charges against him from this press conference?

Because every time he denies ever meeting her or knowing her and denies that this happened, that could be another charge of defamation. So it’ll be interesting to see if the lawyers bring more defamation charges against him.