Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said a recent verdict in which a Manhattan jury found him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room does not disqualify him from being president.
"A Manhattan jury found you sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll. You've denied this. But what do you say to voters who say it disqualifies you from being president?" CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked during a 90-minute town hall meeting at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire.
"This woman, I don't know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is," Trump said.
The former president also claimed he had “every right” to take hundreds of classified documents from the White House upon leaving office and declined to say if he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal and wouldn't answer when asked whether he wants Ukraine to win its war with Russia, saying, “I want everyone to stop dying.”
“I don't think in terms of winning and losing. I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people,” he said.
“I want everyone to stop dying. They're dying, Russians and Ukrainians,” he said after Collins pressed him a second time.
The townhall comes at a fraught time for Trump.
A jury in Manhattan on Tuesday decided that the former president must pay $5 million in damages for sexually abusing Carroll in the 1990s and then defaming her by branding her a liar.
In April, Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as prosecutors accused him of paying two women to suppress their accounts of sexual encounters with him. He has denied all charges.
Trump has remained defiant in both cases, saying he never met Carroll and that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal investigation is a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
Trump, the front-runner in the GOP race, would not commit to signing a federal abortion ban, telling CNN he was “going to make a determination” on what he thinks is “great for the country and what is fair for the country.”
“I’m looking at a solution that’s going to work,” Trump added when pressed again on his position.
But he did call the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade “a great victory.”
“Getting rid of Roe v. Wade was an incredible thing for pro-life because it gave pro-life something to negotiate with,” he said.
On gun violence, the president said the recent rash of mass shootings were the result of a mental health crisis and that he would consider arming teachers and hardening schools to protect children.
“We have a very big mental health problem in this country. And again it’s not the gun that pulls the trigger. It’s the person that pulls the trigger. And we have to protect our Second Amendment,” Trump said to applause.