This is on the media, I'm Brooke Gladstone. Just a heads up, this conversation has a description

of a sexual assault, so take note if you'd rather not hear that.

This week, another legal blow for former President Donald Trump.

Federal judge dismissed former President Trump's counter-deformation lawsuit against

E. Jean Carroll. This happened earlier today. She's the woman who won a civil case against Trump

earlier this year alleging he sexually abused her. That alleged incident took place in the fitting

room of a luxury department store in 1996. Carroll was awarded five million dollars in that civil

case about Trump's alleged sexual abuse, but in a tit for tat, Trump sued right back, claiming

Carroll had defamed him in comments she made to the media following her case. This week, judge

Lewis Kaplan ruled that Trump had not proved that Carroll's statements after the verdict were

false or, quote, not at least substantially true. Just after the original verdict against Trump,

I spoke with Rebecca Tracer, a writer at large for New York magazine, an author of Good and Mad,

the revolutionary power of women's anger. She said the fact that the former president was held

accountable for nearly 30-year-old case underscores just how long it takes for a movement to change

laws and lives. The verdict also suggests that last year's concerns about the death of me, too,

were to coin a phrase greatly exaggerated. I think last summer was a moment where a lot of people

said, look, this recent feminist resurgence that took place in part in reaction to the election of

Donald Trump is at its end point. First, there was that amber herd Johnny Depp trial, which was in

fact really depressing, you know, the treatment that amber herd got from the media and the public.

And of course, last summer, it was also in the wake of the Dobs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade.

The Dobs decision was 50 years in the making, but it happened to happen last summer in the same

period that there was their herd Depp trial. And I think it led a lot of feminist commentators

...