Donald Trump intends to attend Carroll defamation trial

Donald Trump said Thursday he plans to attend every trial against him, starting with next week’s defamation damages trial brought by E. Jean Carroll.

The trial begins Tuesday, the day after the Iowa caucuses.

“Yeah I’m going to go to it, and I’m going to explain I don’t know who the hell she is,” Trump told reporters at The Trump Building in New York City, according to The Hill.

Trump is also facing federal trials in Washington, D.C., and Florida; a state trial in Fulton County, Georgia, regarding the 2020 election; and a hush money trial in New York.

“I want to go to all of my trials,” Trump added later.

He made the comments after closing arguments in the $370 million fraud trial against him, which he also attended and went off on the judge and the New York attorney general in a roughly six-minute rant before being cut off. Trump called those proceedings “a fraud on me.”

The Carroll trial is to determine damages that Trump owes after a jury concluded last year that Trump sexually abused her. It was thought that Trump would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Monday declined to rehear his appeal for immunity in the case. But he hasn’t as yet.

At stake is how much more than $5 million Trump has to pay in defamation damages to Carroll.

A judge last weekend barred Trump from testifying that the sexual assault did not occur.