Donald Trump is ordered to pay for his bullying

If ordered tocnn pay millions of dollars for defaming someone, most people would learn their lesson and zip it. Not so Donald Trump. Last May a jury in Manhattan determined that he owed E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist, $5m in damages for her nearly 30 years ago and then, in 2022, accusing her of making it up. Unbowed by the judgment, he called her a “whack job” on the next day and denied ever having met her (even though they were photographed together). “I have no idea who the hell she is,” he protested.Mr Trump now has a big new incentive to restrain himself, thanks to a whopping judgment in a separate but related defamation trial. On January 26th a different jury awarded Ms Carroll $83m for another set of insults and denials over the assault, these ones made by Mr Trump in 2019. Punitive damages represented four-fifths of the total—a sum clearly intended to deter the presumptive Republican nominee for president from defaming Ms Carroll again. Her lawyers had asked for $24m in compensatory damages and “an unusually high punitive award”. Mr Trump called the verdict “absolutely ridiculous!” in a social-media post, and vowed to appeal. The sum may well be reduced: calculating reputational harm is inherently subjective. But at least for now the lesson appears to have sunk in. Mr Trump made no reference to Ms Carroll after the trial.