E. Jean Carroll said she wants to donate her defamation damages to “something Trump hates.”The columnist was awarded $83.3 million last week in her defamation trial against Trump. Donald Trump hates a lot of things. Here are five options Carroll could choose.
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E. Jean Carroll wants to spend her newfound riches in a meaningful way after a federal jury awarded her $83.3 million in her defamation trial against former President Donald Trump last week.The columnist told media outlets she doesn’t want to “waste” the $18.8 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages a jury awarded her on Friday.A separate jury in 2023 determined Trump was liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a department store in the mid-1990s and defaming her, awarding her $5 million in damages. “I’d like to give the money to something Donald Trump hates,” Carroll told ABC News on Monday. “If it will cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent.”In her comments to ABC on Monday, Carroll raised the possibility of donating some of Trump’s incoming millions to women who have alleged they were sexually assaulted by the former president.At least twenty-six women have accused Trump of varying degrees of sexual misconduct since the 1970s, with allegations ranging from unwanted touching to rape.Trump has issued several blanket denials in response to the flood of allegations, characterizing the women’s stories as “FAKE NEWS,” “totally phony,” and “100% false.””Perhaps a fund for the women who Donald Trump has sexually assaulted,” Carroll told ABC News of her potential future donations.Trump has vowed to appeal the jury’s decision, and according to The New York Times, Carroll likely won’t see any money until after he’s appealed the decision.But a former judge told Business Insider that the decision was unlikely to be overturned.Here are five additional options to which Carroll could donate.
A photo of Trump from Tuesday night’s rally in New Hampshire.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images
1. Media outlets and journalistsIt’s no secret that the journalism industry is struggling. Layoffs across a swath of news outlets (including Business Insider) have been ongoing for months.It’s also no secret that Trump has a distaste for journalists. His scorn for news outlets, from ABC News to The Washington Post, has been lengthy and well-documented, as well as his penchant for lambasting individual reporters by name on social media and in the wild.”Journalists are terrible people,” Trump said at a rally in 2015.Carroll, a journalist herself, could choose to dedicate some of her incoming funds toward supporting the fourth estate in a move that would support democracy.2. Foreign countriesIf Carroll has hopes of spreading her wealth beyond the borders of America, perhaps she can make a sizable donation to one of the “shithole” countries Trump has railed against.The then-president landed himself in hot water in 2018 after referring to Haiti and African nations as “shithole” countries during an immigration meeting, asking why the US couldn’t get more immigrants from Norway.The list of foreign nations against which Trump has railed is too long to count. The former president has slammed everywhere, from Mexico (he called for a “boycott” of the country in 2015) to Canada (Trump accused the longtime US ally of taking advantage of America’s generosity).Carroll could take a global approach to sharing her wealth, but if she prefers to keep the money close to home, she could opt to donate the funds to one of the US states against which Trump has criticized over the years: California (“well known for its poor management & high taxes”); New Jersey (“deeply troubled”); or New York (and its “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSERS”).
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump addresses the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) Annual Leadership Summit on October 28, 2023 at the Venetian Conference Center in Las Vegas, Nevada
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
3. Immigrants and migrantsIf Carroll is looking to skip the bureaucratic headache of donating millions of dollars to a foreign nation but still wants to bother Trump, she could share her wealth with the thousands of immigrants and migrants who arrive in the US each day and the organizations that support them.During his time in office and after, Trump saved many of his harshest digs for immigrants and migrants, especially those coming from Latin America. The former president said undocumented migrants are “some of the worst criminals on earth” and called would-be immigrants near the border “stone-cold criminals.””They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” Trump infamously railed off during his 2015 campaign launch.4. RINOs and DemocratsCarroll could choose to circulate the money in the realm of politics. She wouldn’t even need to pick a side of the aisle, as both Republicans and Democrats are among Trump’s many foes.Trump’s distaste for the opposing party and its politicians is, in many ways, par for the course in modern-day Washington. The former president has castigated Democrats as “the do-nothing party” and a “sad joke” who put “our country at risk.”But Trump has also normalized disdain for members of his own party by reviving the RINO nickname — Republican in Name Only — and throwing it at anyone who has refused to fall in line.5. Prisoners of warTrump likes his war heroes uncaptured.
