from WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Wednesday, May 10th.

You know, Donald Trump has said he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and his voters would still support him, right?

But we now know he can't sexually assault someone in a department store on Fifth Avenue and not be held accountable by a jury.

So let's talk about the unanimous jury verdict of libel for sexual assault and defamation, but not rape, and the damages of $2 million to E. Jean Carroll

for the sexual assault, back in the mid-90s, $3 million for the defamation, which was much

more recent. Back with us, one more time is former sex crimes prosecutor, Jane Manning,

who is now director of the Women's Equal Justice Project, which

advocates for sexual assault victims and works for systemic change.

Jane, welcome back to WNYC.

Good morning, Brian.

Can you help people understand the finding of liable for sexual assault, but not rape,

as E. Jean Carroll had alleged. The jury actually had four choices,

I see. Rape, sexual assault, forcible touching, or none of the above. What happened here?

The headline from this, Brian, is that this is a resounding victory for E. Jean Carroll, delivered by a jury who found her thoroughly believable.

The issue of the jury finding Donald Trump not liable for the accusation of rape, I think has

everything to do with the fact that when E. Jean Carroll testified about the assault, there was a little

bit of ambiguity in her testimony. She said, I'm not sure whether I was fully penetrated or

partly penetrated, but she was very clear about everything else that Donald Trump did during

the assault when he violated her manually. And I think that that was the reason why the jury found him not liable for rape, but liable for sexual abuse.

I think the thinking was not, we don't believe Eugene Carroll.

I think the thinking was, well, she wasn't quite clear on that, so we're not sure about that.

But she was very clear about the sexual abuse,

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