"She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay? She loved it until the commercial break. In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn't she? She said it was very sexy to be raped."

Said Donald Trump, in his deposition, quoted in "Trump claimed woman who accused him of sexual assault in a luxury department store said 'rape was sexy' and 'indicated that she loved it'" (Insider). The deposition was made public on Friday.

Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan then asked the former president: "So, sir, I just want to confirm: It's your testimony that E. Jean Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?"

That gave Trump the opportunity to clarify that he was just talking about something he heard her say in an interview she did on television:

He responded: "Well, based on her interview with Anderson Cooper, I believe that's what took place." Trump repeated the claim that Carroll described rape as sexy several times and suggested that Cooper was in a "panic" over her comments, so he called for a commercial break.

What an important clarification! When I read the quote — the one I put in the post title — I thought "commercial break" was a metaphor that referred to a stage of the sexual activity that he's accused of engaging in with her. I thought he was saying they were in the middle of having sex and she said something like "It's very sexy to be raped." He's denied even having a sexual encounter with her but seemed to be conceding that he did. And would her remark mean that he knew she did not consent to sex or that she withdrew consent? I can see how you could argue that it does not, but it's a question of fact, and Carroll's burden of proof is a preponderance of the evidence.

Based on this news report — and I'd like to see the full text — I'd say that Trump did not react strongly enough to Kaplan's "It's your testimony that E. Jean Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?" Maybe there are additional lines of testimony before he said "Well, based on her interview with Anderson Cooper, I believe that's what took place," but that is poorly worded if he means to deny that there was any encounter at all. The phrase "that's what took place" indicates that something took place. It sounds as though he's trying to use her statement in the TV interview to explain his understanding of the sexual encounter, as if he knew at the time that she enjoyed sex that outwardly resembled sex so he was giving her what she wanted. 

Not only is that wrong chronologically, it's not even an accurate representation of what Carroll said to Anderson Cooper:

In the 2019 interview, Carroll told Cooper that she did not like to use the word rape because it "carries so many sexual connotations" and that "most people think of rape as being sexy" and "think of the fantasies." By comparison, she said that her encounter with the former president "was not sexual. It just hurt."

She's arguing about the connotations of the word "rape." She was not even saying what she thinks about the word, only characterizing what other people may think and why she preferred to say — look at the transcript — "sexual violence."

Did Trump not understand the interview with Anderson Cooper or did he deliberately distort it? Carroll didn't "actually indicate[] that she loved it." The "Okay?" is infuriating. It sounds as though we need to get up to speed. I think he knows he's bullshitting — don't bullshit in a deposition! — because he switches to hedging: "In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn't she?" But he lands on an affirmative statement as if he knows: "She said it was very sexy to be raped." No, she did not. 

Read the transcript!

ANDERSON COOPER: You don't use the word rape.

E. JEAN CARROLL: Sexual violence is in every country in every strata of society, and I just feel that so many women are undergoing sexual violence. Mine was short. I got out. I'm happy now. I'm moving on. And I think of all the women who are enduring constant sexual violence. So, this one incident, this one, what, three minutes in this little dressing room, I just say it's a fight. That way I'm not the victim, right? I'm not the victim.

COOPER: You don't feel like a victim.

CARROLL: I was not thrown on the ground and ravished. Which the word "rape" carries so many sexual connotations. This was not -- this was not sexual. It just hurt. It just --

COOPER: I think most people think of rape as a -- it is a violent assault. It is not --

CARROLL: I think most people think of rape as being sexy.

COOPER: Let's take a short break --

CARROLL: They think of the fantasies.

COOPER: We're going to take a quick break. If you can stick around we'll talk more on the other side....

COOPER [after the break]: Before the break, you said you don't use the word "rape." A lot of women hearing this, I mean, a lot of people hearing this who believe you would say that this is rape.

CARROLL: You know, I just have trouble with the word. I just have trouble. I write an advice column for 25 years and women write to me with these devastating stories and they have been violently, you know, disposed of by men. And I just -- I feel too much respect for their suffering. I didn't suffer, Anderson. I did not suffer. I didn't lose my job. I wasn't beaten. You know, I just don't use the --

COOPER: So you say you stomped your foot....

Cooper decided that was enough discussion of semantics and the larger problem of violence against women. They move on to the details of the encounter — her foot, her holding onto her purse the entire time. But you can see clearly from that transcript that she never says she finds rape sexy. She's trying to bring some intellectual depth to the subject. I see the influence of the feminism of the 1970s, which stressed that women were experiencing pure violence and that it wasn't sex at all. Cooper redirected her into shallower things: So you say you stomped your foot....