Former Vice President Mike Pence said he doesn’t think most Americans are “focused” on the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault case.
On Tuesday (May 9), during an interview with NBC News, Pence said the story of Trump’s conviction for sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll is of “great fascination” to the media but not to most people across the country.
He described reporting on the Carroll verdict as “one more instance” of members of the media fixation with his “former running mate” when “American families are struggling,” the economy is “hurting,” and the “world seems to become a more dangerous place almost every day.”
He noted that while the verdict was a “great fascination” to national media, it wasn’t something that was capturing the “focus” of Americans.
Pence’s comments came hours after a nine-member jury decided after a nearly two-week trial that Trump sexually assaulted and defamed Carroll, an author who said Trump raped her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in New York in 1996.
Carroll sued Trump over the incident and Trump’s assertion that she was a liar while criticizing her appearance.
The jury did not find that Trump raped her but ordered him to pay Carroll $5 million in damages.
Trump has denied Carroll’s sexual abuse allegations, saying he did not know her.
Pence also defended the former President, saying he had “never heard or witnessed” the kind of behavior Trump was found liable for while he was Vice President.
However, he declined to say whether he believed the jury’s findings would affect Trump’s widely considered the GOP’s 2024 Presidential nominee frontrunner, eligibility to serve in the White House again.
