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August 18, 2025 15 mins
NOT MY TYPE: One Woman Vs. A President, by celebrated writer E. Jean Carroll—who successfully stood up to Donald Trump in court twice and won twice— is a candid and uniquely personal account of the defamation and sexual assault trials that captured the nation.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one six point seven light FM.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening to the show. I'm so pleased to
have as my guest today the celebrated writer e Jene Carroll.
Her new book is Not My Type One Woman versus
a President. E Gene Carroll successfully stood up to Donald
Trump in court twice and won twice, and she is
presenting a candidate and uniquely personal account of the defamation

(00:33):
and sexual assault trials that captured the nation. Egen Carroll's
so pleased to speak with you. Thank you for doing
this today.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I am delighted to be here, Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
So. I have spent the last few days reading your
book and preparing for our conversation by watching interviews in
your column and articles. And the first word that comes
to mind is that you are delightful, smart, thank you, Vick,
and whimsical. And for people who don't know, oh, your
body of work is very large, including a biography of

(01:03):
Hunter S. Thompson, where you immersed yourself in that world,
which is insane. Suffice to say, you're not a wallflower.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
No no, nah.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yet in court for all the people who really only
know your history from the last few years of seeing
you in newspapers and seeing you in court. In court,
you were literally and figuratively buttoned up beautifully, I'll add,
but sort of seared into this package. And that's kind
of the entertainment of the book at the beginning. Is

(01:34):
what went into the presentation of you. I wonder if
you can talk about that backstage presentation.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
The great Carol team of lawyers headed by Robbie Kaplan,
probably the greatest legal mind of her generation. They were
the smartest people probably in the country when it came
to lawsuits. And they had a problem with me because
I naturally, I'm sitting on a ball as we're talking,

(02:02):
and I am actually I am one of those people
who loves to just grab joy. That's my thing every day,
find something to grab and enjoy it. And we had
a problem because I found it impossible to tell anyone
that I had been hurt. Couldn't do it. If you

(02:25):
asked me how I was, I'd say, I'm fabulous, you know,
because I never want to upset a person who asks
me how I am. I don't want to tell them
what I actually am thinking. So I tell them I'm fabulous,
and that perks them up, which perks me up. So
that has always been my philosophy. You cannot win or

(02:49):
even go into court against the most powerful person on
the planet. Let's be honest, he is at this moment
the most powerful person plan who had done me harm,
and they had to bring me along to where I
could admit it. So they had quite a time getting

(03:12):
me mentally prepared, so that immediately brought me down when
they actually put my sister Candy Carrol on the stand
to explain to the jury, yes, we always smile, yes,
And Candy smiled the entire time. Yes, we always smiled,
and then she'd smile at me and she smiled the judge,
she smiled the jury. So that had to be trained

(03:34):
out of me, and they kept saying, a gene, this
is not entertainment. You're not having fun doing this. This
is a very so that we had to, as you say,
button it up. They didn't want me telling stories, charming stories.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
One word answers all these things.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
One word answers, and the one word should not have
three syllables. Just keep it short, keep it short. I
got the impro ession that they prefer that I don't
say anything, but just in case I did have to answer,
I had to keep it short.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
There's such an interesting thing about it. It's like everybody's
in a bit of a parade. So you talk in
the book about the level of detail that went into
your wardrobe, the buttons on your coat. Is you're dressed
too shiny for Manhattan? Again? Are your words too intelligent
for the room? But also the look of Trump's lawyer
Joe Takapina in his six thousand dollars bespoke suits. It's

(04:28):
like theater in it from everybody eyes on the stage.
Can you call it a runway? Actually?

Speaker 3 (04:33):
I call it run The whole world was a high comedy.
That was the shocking part to me. I was not
prepared for this world that I entered. There was no
such thing as a normal conversation in a courtroom. It's
all dramatically presenting. You know. The criminal defense lawyer Joe
Tacopina belt like Popeye, just magnificent. One morning he opened

(04:56):
up his jacket so I could see the inside I had.
That's seen the Aurora boy, Allison to I'd seen the
inside of Joe Takapina's jacket. It was. It was a
completely different world and highly absurd and comedic, which was
shocking and delightful to me. It was not what I expected,

(05:19):
and I wanted the world to know. I'm an old,
old journalist. I needed to put it on the record,
this is what happened.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
It does feel like you would have been holding back
all sorts of energy. Even when I'm talking to You're
bouncing on this thing. It's like it would have to
burst forth somehow. And this is the book.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yes, I had, Yeah, I held it in. And also
it was I hadn't had no sleep, and so I
was actually perfect for court because I was half dead
from lack of sleep, because who can sleep. I'm going
to go sit face to face with Donald Trump? Who

(06:01):
could sleep? But when he walked in and I saw
this old guy in the old blue suit and the
red tide jumping out in front of him, I thought, Oh,
he's just an old guy. It's everyone around him who

(06:23):
makes him Donald Trump. It's we who are giving him
the power. So I ain't giving him any power. So
I loved sitting in the witness chair facing him and
telling him the truth to his face. It was wonderful.
It was a marvelous, marvelous feeling. I'll never get over it.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
We're speaking with Egene Carroll, the former Al advice columnist,
TV personality and celebrated writer. Her new book is Not
My Type One Woman Versus a President, which has debuted
at number two on the New York Times bestseller List.
You're listening to Get Connected on one six point seven
light FM. I'm Nina del Rio. To get to that
a little bit. I want to go back in time
when the attack happened in nineteen ninety six, I happened

(07:09):
to be working right around the corner from you. I
was on fifty sixth Street, and I'm about twenty five
years younger than you, and I had just arrived in
New York from Texas, and we're from different generations, and
I was not savvy at all. But it occurs to me,
I find the explanation of what happened to you completely plausible.
I worked in media for a lot of men doing

(07:29):
inappropriate things, and you didn't want to make a scene.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
No, you want to make a scene. You want to
get ahead.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
You want to get ahead, and you want to be
one of the guys. Whatever that meant at the time,
and so you stuff it in a box. So now
you're out, and you've won the case, and so you've
been vindicated. And I know you've answered this question before,
But when did stuffing it in the box stop working?

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Boy, see something so terrible happened in Burdorfs that I
just shut it down four years because I knew if
you came forward. First of all, my reputation would be crushed.
Second of all, no one would believe me right. Third
of all, he would probably retaliate by the way all

(08:14):
those things happened. But then the Harvey Weinstein story broke.
Do you remember the wave of women stood up? We
thought at last? And boy, I'm telling you, I got
caught up in it, and I came forward. Of course
paid a terrific price for it. But I'm glad I did.
I found my voice at the age of seventy five

(08:35):
and beat him at the age of eighty. So it
takes a long time sometimes to speak up takes a
long time. I'm glad I did. But I can understand
why some women do not want to do it.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
I know you spoke with I read your interviews with
women in the Atlantic who had spoken up and.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
The boy you really did your research.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
I fast by this topic.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
I just sucked it up in the last Let me
ask you a question.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Oh sure, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
If you're out in front of Burgdors and you ran
in this ninety six, you're just gotten to and he said, hmm,
you're working for such a I know your work. Could
you advise me on a gift? Would you have gone
with Downald Trump into Burgdors's shop?

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (09:21):
See, it's it's it's a story. It's a story.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
It's I think anybody, even if you weren't a reporter,
probably would have done it. It's that whole thing about
somebody who's notable wants my company. Can I help them
for five minutes or whatever it is. I think you
you don't expect it. You're caught blindsided when those things happen.
I think as women, our first thought is not sex necessarily,

(09:49):
it's no. I don't think so. I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Even though I flirted, my brain's out with him. Yeah,
here's what I hadn't never thought of this that you
brought it up. If I had not gone with him
to search the president, if I had said, oh, I
don't have time, I have to give back. I can't.
You know what, I would have regretted it the rest
of my life. I should have gone. I would have

(10:15):
been dining out on that story forever.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
What a great story you bought a you helped him
find something for some woman whatever.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, I never thought of that. I would have regretted
it if I hadn't done it. Isn't that amazing?

Speaker 2 (10:31):
On a different note, so, Alena Habba was the lead
attorney for Trump's defense in the second trial, and as
we have this conversation, she's the interim United States Attorney
for the District of New Jersey. I live in New Jersey,
so maybe perhaps non politically, what do New Jerseyans need
to know about Alena Habba.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
Well, Alena Habitt Esquire is, first of all, Trump's most
beautiful attorney. She is extraordinarily this is going to be
shocking to you, extraordinarily smart woman. She's hugely smart. She
defended him, she lost, but she won the election. After

(11:11):
every day after court, he and she would go out
and they would say everything the judge had not permitted
them to say. She won that election by using the trial.
So she is not she didn't know diddly squat about
the law, did not know the first thing about the law.
She wore clothes beautifully. She took his obnoxious complaining to

(11:38):
her under his breath. I could hear him there right
behind me. He dressed her down mercilessly throughout the trial.
Stand up, stand up, stupid, stand up, and she would
stand up, Mina, and she would defend him with all

(11:59):
of her passions. In heart. She was very eloquent and
oh my god, she conceded. She was so arrogant. But
that's what he liked. So a mixed bag, super smart.
I think she's going to run for office. I think
you better get ready for it. I think she's a
force to be reckoned with. Don't count of Lena Habba

(12:22):
esquire out and the diamond she wears, which is as
big as a rich squacker. She and her husband are
now complaining to the jeweler who's sold it to him.
They said they've been cheated out of thousands of dollars.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Fantastic, I.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Know.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Tell me about Tell me about speaking with Anita hill Ah.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
It was a zoom robbie kaplan. My great attorney was
on the call and I was looking forward to speaking
with Anita Hill. It's a few things I wanted to
say to Anita Hill. And she came on to the
zoom and there she was in front of me, and
I just after twenty seconds of looking at it, I

(13:10):
just burst into tears. They just rolled out of my eyes,
just rolled down my face. She is such such a
dream woman for me that she had. She ruined her career.
She was on the trajectory to be at the top.

(13:34):
She could have been a Supreme Court justice. She everybody
had her their eye. She was gonna, she was smart,
she was beautiful, she was placed directly. She was gonna
be it, and she took stood up and told the
truth about Justice Thomas. It was I couldn't believe she did.

(13:55):
She was I couldn't believe I was had her looking
at her't I was overwhelmed with her power and her calmness.
And she you know, she's none of this, Oh Egen,
no please. She just sat quietly and let me enjoy
my good cry, because it's an enjoyable thing to see somebody.

(14:17):
So she understood that. And you know, the call was wonderful.
She has a wonderful voice, and she's working and doing
very well and a great connector, But boy, she paid
the price.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Egene Carol, the book is not my type. One woman
versus a president. Thank you for being on to Get Connected.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Thank you for having me. I feel very connected.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one I was six point seven light FM. The views
and opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the
views of the station. If you missed any part of
our show or one to share it, visit our website
for downloads and podcasts at one O six seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
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