After Her Accusations, the Media Are All Over the Place

E. Jean Carroll has publicly accused President Trump of sexually assaulting her decades ago, and on Monday night she went on CNN to talk to Anderson Cooper about Trump's take on those allegations. She also commented on why she hesitates to use the word "rape"—preferring "a fight" instead—and her explanation only started getting pickup on Tuesday. The latest on that interview and the media's response to her claims:

• What Trump said to the Hill: "I'll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?"
• Her response: "This was 20 years ago and I probably was, at that moment, in that five minutes, the most attractive woman in Bergdorfs in that one bit of time." She alleges Trump assaulted her in a dressing room there. Her allegation is detailed in an upcoming book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, which was excerpted by New York Magazine. "I love that I'm not his type," she continued.

• As Carroll described it to Cooper, "I was not thrown on the ground and ravaged. The word rape carries so many sexual connotations. This was not sexual. It just hurt." Cooper pushed back, saying "most people think of rape as a violent assault." Her reply "raised eyebrows," as Fox News put it: "I think most people think of rape as being sexy. Think of the fantasies," Carroll said.
• The pick-up of those latter comments seems to mostly be happening on the right; CNN's own video cuts off before those comments were made. "Clearly uncomfortable, Cooper swiftly cut in and said they would take a quick break," wrote the Washington Examiner in its report.
• More from the right: The Blaze calls it "a truly bizarre and uncomfortable moment of television."
• The New York Times, meanwhile, addressed complaints that it kept its story on Carroll's allegations in the shadows, with readers pointing out the Times' Friday night story on Carroll's claim only made it to the homepage late Saturday morning and into the paper on Sunday, and that it ran in the paper's Books pages. Executive editor Dean Baquet acknowledged the story was downplayed, but said it was because of caution. But he admitted the informal rulebook the paper created in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein case regarding having sources on the record didn't quite apply here, as the paper was reporting on allegations, not breaking them.
• In an opinion piece for Mediaite, John Ziegler chides the Times for kowtowing. His headline: "The NY Times Handled the Trump Rape Allegation Just Fine & Should Not Have Been Forced to Pathetically Apologize." You can read his piece here.
• On the other side comes a story from CNN Business, which points out the New York Post's story on the allegations was posted to the website on Friday and then removed the same day, with the URL returning a 404 page. CNN's sources say the story, as well as an AP wire story that was also pulled from the site, came down at the request of former Editor-in-Chief Col Allan. Allan now advises the paper and has made his support of Trump known in the past.
• At the Guardian, Ed Pilkington looks at the Times and Post coverage and concludes that "whatever the finer details of the editorial choices made by top newspaper and TV outlets, the collective appearance of lack of enthusiasm for the story left many observers rattled."

(More President Trump stories.)