An Open Letter To The Media: Trump Is Officially A Sexual Abuser. Don't Let The Public Forget It.

This time, do your jobs.

May 11, 2023

Dear journalists,

You can now say it out loud: Donald Trump is a sexual abuser.

This technical definition is important for a number of reasons. For years you have sidestepped this issue due to the former president’s presumed innocence. Trump was an “alleged” abuser of women, because no jury had ever found him guilty of such a crime.

No more, as The New York Times reports:

A Manhattan jury on Tuesday found former President Donald J. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million in damages. More than a dozen women have accused Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct over the years, but this is the only allegation to be affirmed by a jury.
In the civil case, the federal jury of six men and three women found that Ms. Carroll, 79, a former magazine writer, had sufficiently proved that Mr. Trump sexually abused her nearly 30 years ago in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan.

The jury bizarrely did not find that Trump had raped E. Jean Carroll, even though Carroll accused Trump of exactly that. Carroll claimed Trump pushed her violently against wall in dressing room in a department store on 5th Avenue, and then “using his [Trump’s] weight to pin her, he pulled down her tights and forced his fingers into her vagina and then, she said, his penis.”

This of course is rape. Carroll told numerous people about the assault at the time, including several prominent reporters who were called to testify and verified the story. Notably, two other women also testified that Trump had assaulted them in very similar manner. A total of 19 women have now claimed Trump inappropriately kissed or sexually assaulted them. His ex-wife Ivana Trump even accused him of rape before recounting her story. The stories are all remarkably similar, leading to the very obvious conclusion that Trump almost certainly did most of the things he was accused of.

You can’t call Trump a rapist given he hasn’t officially been convicted of that crime, but you can, and should refer to him as a “sexual abuser”. It may not have been a criminal trial, but Trump was still found guilty in a civil lawsuit and he will now have to pay significant restitution for his crime ($5 million to be precise).

Given Trump is almost certainly going to be the nominee, you must insist on hammering home this point relentlessly. As our own Bob Cesca noted in his piece today, you are already ramping up efforts to normalize Trump. This absolutely cannot happen. We know that the GOP is going to do this because the MAGA wing of the party controls them almost entirely, but you can do your jobs this time and report accurately on the guilty sexual abuser running for president.

You won’t be showing bias or trying to manipulate public opinion. You will be telling the truth, and hopefully helping the nation avoid a mistake that almost ended American democracy as we know it. If President Biden had been found guilty of sexually abusing someone by a jury, you would insist on him stepping down. But for some reason, Donald Trump — even after 19 women came forward to complain of sexual assault, after he tried to steal an election, and after he tried to overthrow the US government — still gets a pass.

So please don’t screw this up again.

Sincerely,

Ben

Note to readers: We’ll be joined by the great Oliver Willis on the Banter Roundtable Podcast this weekend, so stay tuned!

Correction: This article originally stated that Donald Trump was a convicted sexual abuser, which could imply he was found guilty in a criminal court. He was found liable of sexual abuse in a civil trial. The article has been amended to reflect this.