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Trump sexual abuse verdict won't hurt him with GOP
Trump was found liable in lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll. Does this hurt his 2024 presidential aspirations? After his Victory Day speech falsely comparing his invasion of Ukraine to the defeat of Nazi Germany, is Putin losing domestic support? How might Imran Khan's arrest affect stability in Pakistan? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Number one, Trump was found liable in lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll. Does this hurt his 2024 presidential aspirations?
Found liable for sexual abuse and for defamation, not for rape. A civil case, $5 million he's going to have to pay. That is a horrible, horrible state of affairs for the former president of the United States. It's a stain on the country and it should matter, but it won't. It will be seen by his supporters as yet one more witch hunt, and his immediate response was, "I don't even know the woman," which is obviously untrue, but is a feature of his presidency and of his candidacy. Keep in mind, the people that are voting for him for the nomination are largely people that very strongly support him and very strongly oppose Biden. I suspect that if anything, this is going to have a negligible to slightly positive impact on the way he's likely to perform in the Republican primaries, and that is an insane thing to say.
After his Victory Day speech falsely comparing his invasion of Ukraine to the defeat of Nazi Germany, is Putin losing domestic support?
No. No, not at all. There's a theme with these questions apparently right now. Not at all. Putin domestically has an enormous amount of support. Still, I would say that the war has been internalized as part of national identity in Russia at this point. There are no more significant anti- Russian, anti-war demonstrations in the, a feeling that the Russians are fighting the war against NATO, against the United States, not just against the Ukrainians. Certainly, the war has been extremely poorly fought and managed on the Russian side. The Russian economy has been managed extremely well, and that's a challenging sort of thing to square if you're looking at Russia internationally, but domestically, it means the average Russian still feels okay about where the economy is. At least those that haven't been sent to fight or haven't fled because they're concerned about getting drafted.
Finally, how might Imran Khan's arrest affect stability in Pakistan?
Pretty badly. I mean, look, at the one hand, this is a country that is near default facing massive inflation, huge economic crisis. At the same time, the arrest of the extremely popular former Prime Minister Imran Khan, which was prevented once because all of his supporters stormed around his house and stopped the police and the military from coming in, well, this time around they got him and that is going to lead to mass protests, I'm almost certain, across the entire country in a time that they really can't afford it. So more challenges in Pakistan, sort of an ongoing state of affairs, but worse now than they have been in some time.
E. Jean Carroll departs from the Manhattan Federal Court following the verdict in the civil rape accusation case against former President Donald Trump, in New York City.
Trump liable for sexual abuse
Quick recap: The charges were brought by E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine advice columnist, who said in 2019 that Trump had raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. Trump, for his part, denied the allegation and did not testify or show up in court.
The jury – made up of six men and three women – found that the former president sexual abused Carroll, now 79, but stopped short of finding him guilty of rape. Crucially, as this verdict is a civil case, Trump has not been convicted of a crime and does not face further penalties.
But this is hardly the end of the former president’s many legal woes. Importantly, Georgia prosecutors could reveal in the next few weeks whether they plan to charge Trump and allies in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Now that a jury has found Trump liable for sexual abuse, will the Republican Party distance themselves from their leading 2024 presidential candidate – or double down on his candidacy? If history is anything to go by, expect the latter.