May 6, 2023

"Trump claimed in a deposition that he couldn’t remember if he was seeing Marla Maples before his divorce. It would be quite a thing to forget."

That's the subheadline for "Trump’s affair was huge tabloid news. Now it’s apparently news to him" by Aaron Blake (WaPo).
At one point, [E. Jean] Carroll’s attorney asked Trump a basic factual question: “Isn’t it true that you were seeing Ms. Maples before you were divorced from Ivana Trump?” 
Trump responded, amazingly, “I don’t know,” in the sworn deposition. “It was towards the end of the marriage. So I don’t know, really. It could be a lapover, but I don’t really know.”...

It was such bullshit he had to invent a word: "lapover." 

Or... wait... Google says it is a word:

   

It's a word for the way those hospital gowns are supposed to cover your ass but famously don't. Good use of the language, Trump. What a comedian! Even under oath. What's funnier than a deposition? An ass protruding from a skimpy hospital gown. 

The WaPo column dishes up this Trump quote from 1994, when Trump said something about the "long-rumored Christmas 1989 standoff" between Ivana, the wife, and Marla, the girlfriend:

"We were actually standing near the restaurant, getting ready to put skis on. And I was standing there like an idiot and Marla and Ivana were here. And there wasn’t shouting, but you could obviously see there was some friction. And a man who was standing right next to me, who weighed about 350 pounds and wasn’t a very attractive guy, said to me, ‘It could be worse, Donald. I’ve been in Aspen for 20 years and I’ve never had a date.’ And I’ll never forget the statement and it sort of lightened it up a little bit for me. I’m saying, ‘You know, I guess it could be worse.'... My life was so great in so many ways. The business was so great. ... I mean, a beautiful girlfriend, beautiful wife, beautiful everything. I mean, life was just a bowl of cherries."

Beautiful girlfriend, beautiful wife, beautiful everything.... 

55 comments:

RideSpaceMountain said...

"I mean, a beautiful girlfriend, beautiful wife, beautiful everything. I mean, life was just a bowl of cherries."

Amen. Just make sure the beautiful wife and girlfriend never meet. If they do feign ignorance. Sometimes women lapover too.

Kate said...

The WaPo used an adverb? Was this an opinion piece or straight news?

Instead of "amazingly" they should shift to "like an elderly man with a sliding memory". The Left is still trying to make Trump a slimeball. A whole field of possible slurs lies before them if they'd only open their eyes.

Aught Severn said...

I suppose it is impossible he didn't just screw up and get 'overlap' backwards. I mean, mistakes like that have not ever and do not happen.

What a ridiculous mistake to focus on!

iowan2 said...

He said it could have happened that way, not sure...

Not being a trained Politician..."I do not recall", isn't part of his lexicon.

Not sure the relevence to the the civil claims against Trump.

Legal question. Are you required to answer all depositions questions?

wild chicken said...

Of course he's going to say he doesn't remember things that don't matter to him anymore.

It's a flex, a rich guy flex. Busy man, lots of life going down since back then.

Media acts so puzzled. Lol.

gilbar said...

the WaPoo claimed..
"Trump claimed in a deposition that he couldn’t remember if he was seeing Marla Maples before his divorce. It would be quite a thing to forget."

Now they should talk about Hilary!'s memory in HER depositions

AMDG said...

Scooter Libby was convicted on less.

Tina Trent said...

FDR, JFK, Bush One, Clinton...

One cannot, at least, accuse Trump of being a hypocrite. That has to drive the left mad.

Dave Begley said...

“ life was just a bowl of cherries."

Haven’t seen that phrase in a long time.

Now, for Trump, his life is mostly a shit show.

tommyesq said...

Speaking of something that would be "quite a thing to forget" ...

gspencer said...

The lefties jump at his not remembering when he started seeing Marla, but ignore Carroll's not being able to remember the one date (the alleged rape) that, according to her, ruined her ENTIRE life. FU, MSM.

R C Belaire said...

Althouse stuffed "cruel neutrality" in the bottom drawer for this post.

D.D. Driver said...

Haven't we learned that depends on what the definition of is is. Maybe he was "seeing her" while he was married. Or maybe he was just fucking her on the side but they didn't start "seeing each other" until after the divorce.

Guys who sneak and fuck around on on their wives are liars by nature. Why would you expect them to give a straight answer?

Big Mike said...

Somehow, Althouse, I get the strange impression you don’t much like Donald Trump.

Jamie said...

Goose, gander again... She can't remember the year in which she was raped in a dressing room, he can't remember the order of events in the breakdown of one of his marriages.

One benefit of being a military brat and then moving a fair amount in adulthood is that I can often tie events to where they happened and back into the approximate dates. My husband, who only moved a couple of times as a very small child and then lived in the same house from kindergarten through high school graduation, was trying to remember when he got his first "new" car (as opposed to a loaner from his dad and a loaner from his grandparents), and absolutely couldn't make the timeline work out. The bell of memory tolls for all of us, to a greater or less extent.

Of course, Trump could be dissembling, just as I suspect Carroll was dissembling, to keep from providing the other side something they can work with.

cassandra lite said...

I remember a tabloid headline from when they were dating: "Marla Maples: Best sex I ever had!"

Marla had him pegged from the beginning. As it was then is as it is now, the fastest way to Trump's heart and cabinet is praise. All id and ego, no superego.

Enigma said...

Bullshit to invent "lapover"? No, he just misspoke "overlap." If Biden said this it'd be attributed it to his obvious brain soup.

Inga said...

This is how a narcissist sees his world. A bowl of cherries if he gets his way in all things. Who cares if he ruined his 1st marriage and broke up the family, he was getting some good ass! And now all these years later, sadly he can’t remember his wonderful life as a young tycoon with a hot wife and girlfriend on either side of him and was a lucky SOB because he wasn’t the 300 pound guy who couldn’t get any ass at all. That’s the ticket, be an optimist and the the sunny side of all of life’s car wrecks, that you’ve caused.

Amadeus 48 said...

Hate to say it, but Trump obviously meant "overlap". It could have happened to anyone.

Sheesh.

n.n said...

So, ChatWaPo believes that the complainant has a witness to support her defamation case? Or is this more misdirection by social/mainstream media and judicial activism a la Pelosi's precedents, Whitmer event, Mar a Lago-gate, etc.?

Roger Sweeny said...

That's why I used to hate him. Now it's not "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". More like, "maybe I'll hold my nose and vote for the enemy of my enemy."

Sebastian said...

"It would be quite a thing to forget."

But not as quite a thing as the day--correction, the year--of a rape that changed your life forever.

Josephbleau said...

I have been in depositions for technical engineering matters, if you are asked a question in vague terms like, were you seeing her, it would be very confusing. Does the attorney mean she was in your visual range? Does it mean you were having sex with her?

And don’t try to tell me that lawyers don’t use this as a tool to deceive you into saying something that they can misconstrue. So I don’t know is not the wrong answer. Lawyers are there to attack you and make you look guilty, they don’t deserve any presumption of honesty. Don’t be naive.

Yancey Ward said...

Trump will be 77 years old in a month. At that age, he might well not remember the truth. Were it his only dalliance outside of marriage, I would expect him to be more likely to remember, but the truth is that Maples was surely not the only woman he was seeing while married to his first wife, and there is little doubt he had other girlfriends after divorcing Ivana and marrying Maples, and some of them probably predate Maples herself. Additionally, you are assuming that Trump read the tabloids about himself at the time. I imagine there are lots of people who know far more about the tabloid coverage of Donald Trump in those days than Trump himself knows.

I can tell you the exact date I lost my virginity, including time of day, and the name of the girl, what she was wearing, how she smelled, what was in the room (her dorm room) etc. I can give you good estimate of the date of the second girl I slept with- at least to the month and week. I can't tell you what order the third and fourth came in because they were close together in time, and the details are much fuzzier- I can narrow it down to a year and season, but the memories are not quite that impactful as that first and second time.

Joe Smith said...

And yet we all knew what he meant.

Hillary and other lefties get a pass from fellow lefties for saying 'I don't recall' under oath hundreds of times.

Impossible to prove perjury.

He's just playing by established rules.

Either way, who he was or was not 'seeing' has nothing to do with the allegations.

Indeed, it might help his cause if he was seeing Maples.

He could introduce photos into evidence and say, "See? This is the kind of babe I was screwing, not some plain Jane."

Narr said...

I've spent years trying to figure out why the lusts and loves of this rich NYC boor are supposed to matter.

In 2023, we're supposed to care about his marriage forty years ago?

Must by a gender thing.

Chuck said...

This seems like a very good time to recall that during Trump’s two marriage breakups, he was calling reporters as “John Baron,” and “John Miller,” to serve them insider tidbits of the Donald Trump social doings. Often, about all of the amazing women who were interested in Trump. Generally fabricated.

Remember the tapes from a Washington Post reporter coming out in 2015-16? I sent links to my Republican friends who were at that time just sort of Trump-curious. Some were Trump-enthusiastic. I wrote to them saying, “This guy is totally crazy, right?” It was a conversation-ender. Much like asking them now, “What exactly is the conservative argument against Liz Cheney?” They don’t last a minute in that conversation.

Josephbleau said...

I guess Trump should have been like Clinton and said that depends on what seeing is. But Clinton was a lawyer, not a property developer.

rhhardin said...

I always assume the wife has decided that sex isn't any longer a priority so a girlfriend comes into the picture, because it is a priority.

Jake said...

The whole notion he’s being subjected to this lawsuit is bullshit.

Marcus Bressler said...

TDS is a terrible disease to have. Give it a rest.

MarcusB. THEOLDMAN

Birches said...

If E. Jean Carrol can't even remember the year she was raped, he can forget when he started dating Marla.

Double standards.

gilbar said...

meanwhile;
resident Joe Biden stated, that he was "PROUD" of his son Hunter's antics.. Including his pedophilia.
Joe Also stated, that as Hunter was a BIDEN; he'd done "NOTHING WRONG" including his
crack smoking
child prostitute use
bribery
illegal gun purchases

Joe said, that That was "just what Biden's DO.. It's NOT WRONG... When you're a BIDEN"
https://twitter.com/11thHour/status/1654674275863863298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1654674275863863298%7Ctwgr%5Efb9ed104d410ee1aaff521841d285de3f3452167%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2023%2F05%2Fmy-son-has-done-nothing-wrong-joe-biden-defends-son-hunter-as-feds-near-decision-whether-to-bring-charges-video%2F

Tomcc said...

It's an odd miswording; I presume he meant to say "overlap". He is and was a philanderer, there was probably a lot of "overlap".

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Lapover is my new favorite word.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Lapover is when you have so many frequent lap dances you start expecting a free lap dance.

farmgirl said...

After his divorce- or after his separation? Sometimes the separation feels like the divorce, but it’s just the beginning of a long journey.

William said...

He mistook a photo of Carroll for that of Marla Maples. Can there be any doubt that he raped her? This is more damning evidence than Monica's blue dress.

walter said...

This just in!
Trump was a cheating horndog, repeatedly drawn to the next young thing.
Therefore, raped a 60 yr old sex columnist/author with admitted sexual abuse history in a high end department store fitting room.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-gut-says-that-what-reade-alleges-did.html

Danno said...

Trump is smart to use the Bill Clinton lack of recall.

Biotrekker said...

Trump seems to be a classic narcissist.

walter said...

Take a moment to imagine outrage if a Trump kid called Trump "Pedo Pete".

walter said...

Chuck said...
This seems like a very good time to recall..
--
Chuck said...
"I am afraid you are mistaking me for someone who has an interest in fair treatment of Donald Trump. I'm not your guy. I am interested in smearing him, hurting him and prejudicing people against him."
3/4/16, 4:46 PM

Narr said...

Here come the usual children to clutch at their fake pearls.

n.n said...

the wife has decided that sex isn't any longer a priority so a girlfriend comes into the picture, because it is a priority

Empathy? #NoJudgment #NoLabels #LoveWins?

n.n said...

Was there a "burden" of evidence? #BabyLivesMatter(BLM)

Blair said...

Yup, Trump is a narcissist and a terrible human being. Ironically, it's this quality that made him such a great President. He was strong on so many issues not because of any great moral conviction, but because it pissed off his enemies. It was, and still is, entirely personal. And that's why he is now, suddenly, inexplicably running to the Left of DeSantis. Which may not work so well for him.

Crazy World said...

Trump the young billionaire was a playboy in the 90s so he absolutely raped that freak in some random dressing room MSM 2023

Michael K said...

Guys who sneak and fuck around on on their wives are liars by nature. Why would you expect them to give a straight answer?

The voice of experience.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Cofveve!

boatbuilder said...

I'm pretty sure that there was a fair amount of money involved in DJT's divorce from Ivanka. I would guess that the lawyers were still working out the formalities long after the marriage was over. It's not like someone couldn't look it up, as DJT's relationship with Maples was hardly a secret. So him not knowing the precise sequence of events doesn't seem unlikely.

There doesn't seem to be much doubt that DJT was not exactly a faithful husband (or maybe there is--it would be news, however). Does anybody think he would wait until all the paperwork was completed before getting back out there?

I suppose another question would be Hillary's: What difference does it make at this point?

D.D. Driver said...

Guys who sneak and fuck around on on their wives are liars by nature. Why would you expect them to give a straight answer?

The voice of experience.


No complaints from your wife, but I see why you are salty.🤷‍♂️

Robert Cook said...

"Somehow, Althouse, I get the strange impression you don’t much like Donald Trump."

Who with any discernment does?

Cruising Troll said...

It was 34 years ago. If Hillary gets a pass on "not remembering" things from 1 year prior...

Josephbleau said...

“Who with any discernment does?“

So in your many interactions with him, you learned not to like him, how many hours have you spent in his company?

Otherwise, you can only claim, you were influenced by the media to not like him. That is different.