YouSaid · the spoken record

Roberta Kaplan

lines on the record: 35
first: 2025-07-17
most recent: 2025-07-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I just believe that my job is to keep fighting and that I, even though a lot of people would say that my cynical instincts as a lawyer are very good, at bottom I think I'm hopeful. And I do think we will be able to turn this around. It's going to take some time. It's going to take a lot of pain for a lot of people.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every single look, I have no way of knowing, obviously none of us do, what helped or what doesn't. So I believe every single one of them is necessary. I had to do it. And if we have to do another case, I will do it again.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I do think that he is not attacking Egene or myself right now because he's very worried about how that will be perceived by the justices of the Supreme Court. I think that's absolutely correct.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not Trump or Elon so much. It's all the people who follow them and, you know, like that poor Will Stansel, who was attacked based on Garak, that's the people you have to worry about, kind of the nut jobs who actually believe all this QAnon craziness.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's something that I think is on my wife's mind for understandable reasons all the time. In order to do what I do, I'm very good at repression. And so I can't tell you that I like wake up or, you know, think in the middle of the night that I'm afraid. This is who I am and what I do. And if People like me don't fight back. If lawyers know how to use the court system and who have judges' respect, don't fight back, then who will?”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And I think this is only going to make it more pronounced because you can't have, it's not even just having technical conflicts. You can't really be a litigator if you have to worry that what you say or do on a case involving a completely different client is going to ir One of your private equity guys, you just can't do it.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so, There were certainly tears in the culture. It wasn't perfect, but a lot of us, certainly my generation and Upp at Paul Weiss, really believed in the culture and the principles that the firm had. And so this kind of this quote unquote deal that the firm did with him is just devastatingly painful to so many of us. Paul Weiss was known for its litigation practice. That's what people came to Paul Weiss for. That's what I did. That's the kind of work they did. And for their dedication to pro bono and public interest work. It's not clear to me today that if a law firm has a big private equity M&A hedge fund practice, that that practice is necessarily compatible with having a truly independent litigation department. And so, kind of the movement of big firm lawyers to smaller firms has been happening now for years.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So let me say, first of all, that the first firm that did deal with Trump was Paul Weiss, and that was the firm where I learned to be a lawyer when I was there for over 20 years.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The factual scenario where we want to deal with presidential immunity And my guess is most of them answer the question will be no.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it certainly has a better chance than the $5 million, which I think has very low chances. On the second claim, I think if you're the justices, you have to be thinking to yourselves, is this really...”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think that argument went well. As you noted, they've already rejected the Westfall Act argument because that they made in a different route to the Second Circuit. I think they're going to reject the presidential immunity argument because he waived it in this case At the very beginning of the case, when we install state court, the other side submitted a letter that literally said to the state court judge, no one is seeking to escape accountability here. Eugene can pursue her claims when he is no longer If that's not a waiver of presidential immunity, I'm not sure.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is in a different position. So there we have argued it. They raised two issues. They raised this Westfall Act claim, which is how they got the case of federal court at the very beginning, and he's now trying to reassert that for the third time. And they raise the underlying claim of presidential media. They're related claims, but they're under separate legal That I argued before the circuit three weeks ago.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“that it wasn't necessarily a federal crime, then you couldn't admit it under the rule of evidence that allows prior bad acts to come in when it's a case of sexual assault. In most circumstances, they don't come in. The problem with that argument is, as I said in my... At the court, is it was too many lawyers trying to screw in a light bulb because it was a crime in 1979 to do what Donald Trump did to Jessica Leeds. It was just a different crime. Even if the Supreme Court thought there was any doubt there, it's not what's called a scotus worthy issue. It just isn't. There's no split between the circuits. There's no big deal. And we have so much other evidence that came in, as the court concluded it wanted a difference anyway. The big verdict”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Their main argument at the second circuit, and I think they'll try at Scotus, is this argument that we admitted the testimony of Jessica Leeds, who was on a plane in 1979 when Trump, she got bumped up to first class. It's the same pattern. They were making polite chit-chat, and then all of a sudden he kind of pounced. The other Natasha Stoyanov, who was a people magazine reporter who came to Mara Lago right before Baron was born, as I recall. So that would be... Probably 05, I think, or late 05. And she also, he brought her into a room and kind of did the whole pouncing thing with her. And their main argument was kind of ridiculous. Their main argument was really about Jessica Leeds. And it was this argument that because she was on a plane and you didn't know what state they were flying over when this happened”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But they didn't. So you're right. That case, they're going to try to, they've told us they're going to try to take to the Supreme Court. The main issue, there's no issue really of presidential immunity there because when he made that statement, he wasn't president. And obviously when he assaulted E.G., he wasn't president.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So on the first verdict, which is kind of the cornerstone of everything, because that's the underlying sexual abuse verdict, the money, Trump, believe it or not, I've never seen anyone do this before, but they deposited the $5 million plus with the court. Am I doing commercial litigation in the Southern District for eons at this point? And I've never seen a defendant just deposit the money with the court. I don't know what the reason was. I don't know why they didn't just take out a bond, which is what he did for the bigger verdict.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I agree, and I think it's due to a lot of other factors that are somewhat unrelated. One, and I know you focus on this care, the rise of disinformation and misinformation on the internet. I mean, people were probably getting access to Alina Haba's videos, but not to any like real news about what had happened at the case. And two, there's obviously this incredible resentment, obviously, in our society of certain very large segments now and that Donald Trump appeals to that because Donald Trump himself is very resentful and he can channel that in ways that”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I was surprised by that, and I think the reason for it was Donald Trump's own behavior in the courtroom. It's a really bad idea if you're finding a penalty of damages claim to act like you're contemptuous of the court in the courtroom. And they saw that every day. He would come in in the morning. He'd sit through court, make lots of nasty comments, make huffing and puffing and derisive comments. And then he'd leave and he'd go to, I think it was Trump Tower somewhere down town, and they would do a press conference that he would videotape, in which he continued to defame me, Gene. So, like, imagine what a case this was for us. I got to say the jury, not only do you need to give enough money to make him stop, He continued to do it through this very trial and we showed all the videos. So in retrospect, that all makes sense.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So both of them came back very quickly. It was under three hours for both, which is shockingly fast for almost any case. The first case we had a much tougher jury. We had this guy who's a Tim Pool who got all his news from Tim Pool's podcast. We couldn't get off the jury and it had to be unanimous, so he had to vote with us. So I thought that was going to take longer. Right. And the second jury was more, there were people from New York City, so I thought it was a more sympathetic jury. I was actually, I mean, two things. One, I thought they were going to issue punitive damages that were going to be hefty. You know, I wasn't expecting honestly the number as high as we got, which is really only 3.6 times the compensatory, so it's well within constitutional limits.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the upper east side of Manhattan, that people would come to all the time. And so, you know, I don't know whether you call it a client list. I doubt he even called it a client list. But there's no question that there were a number of other people. He wasn't the only person engaged in the kind of misconduct he was engaged in with women. That wouldn't have made any sense. I mean, I just would be shocked if that were true. And so look, I don't know what's going on and I don't know who's on the list and who's not on the list. But it was obviously a grave miscalculation on the president's part to kind of trumpet this all these years and then become president and need to squat.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, What's always been most astounding to me about Jeffrey Epstein is that it happened in plain sight, right? He wasn't hiding in some upstate cabin somewhere where he was doing this. He was in a townhouse. Middleman.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it would have been great evidence, but under the rules of evidence, I couldn't get it in. It was hearsay. He was dead. Wasn't necessarily all that reliable. I mean, there are all these strict rules of evidence, which is why we won the case in the first place, because these rules generally are good, but they limit the kinds of evidence that may not be as reliable as other kinds of evidence. I just knew I had no chance in hell with Judge Kaplan on that.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, the main reason is I don't think Judge Kaplan would ever have let it in. And we need, you know, one of the most important things when your court is having credibility with the court and not making arguments that he's going to be disdainful of. So I just thought under the rules of evidence that there's no way he would let that in. And I didn't even try. There was other stuff that I did try that he didn't let in. For example, Trump wrote a book in one of his books he wrote. He suggested going to Berdorf Goodman to buy gifts and he had denied that he ever went to Berdorf Goodman. And the judge wouldn't even let that in. And the argument was, well, Tecapina said, well, he didn't write it. And we were like, what do you mean? The copyright's in his name. Like, what do you mean he didn't write it? But I think Judge Kaplan was thinking at that point”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly, and here's this woman who lived her life twenty five years submitting stories, goes to live, believe it or not, with Honduras Thompson and Aspen. She was fearless. And so she had a very hard time. I probably would too of acknowledging Really fundamental damage that this incident had done”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Quite dramatic because she's phenomenal at speaking, and she literally couldn't answer the question. She had a hard time coming up with words and forming sentences. So I had already suggested that maybe the psychologist should be there for the second trial, EG thoroughly rejected that suggestion on my part. But when we had the session where she was having a really hard time speaking, I said, look, I really think you need to talk to the psychologist again. And she did. And she came up, they came up with a strategy for how she would confront Donald Trump when she saw him.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not only did they not like it, they hated it. And the reason is because I assume some of them had prior incidents themselves, and certainly all of them knew other women who'd experienced this. So it was very important that Eugene not only say it, but say it in a way that was believable. And in order to do that, she had to believe it. So a lot of shrink time with a phenomenal psychologist, husband got us that. Then as we were preparing for the second trial, remember the first trial Donald Trump didn't show up. The second trial we all believed he would show up. And we knew that it would be the first time that E would see him since 1996, since the spring of 1996 when this happened. And as we were doing kind of prepping the outline and going through the questioning, it was about two days before, it was the weekend, as I recall, E-Gene lost the ability of speak, which again, for Egene is...”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because during the dire exercises, particularly the women jurors, really did not like when Eugene said or suggested in any way that she was not a victim.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Out of California, who was one of the people who developed trauma theory back when they were using it with Vietnam veterans and really knows this area really well. And she spent how many hours with Vietnam?”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tell your story, especially this kind of story on direct. The more fundamental issue, which also came out of the Mock Jury exercises, was that Eene, as you can again tell, has a very hard time understandably so given her history and her background of admitting any weakness. And so she had a very hard time even saying how what Donald Trump had done to her had irreparably damaged her life. And just so there's no mystery about that, Egene was never able to date again after they happened in their psychological reasons that explain that. But she had a very hard time coming to terms with that. And so on that, we did a couple things. One, probably the smartest thing we did, is we hired this phenomenal expert witness, psychologist.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was worried that she would speak in a language that the jury, some of the jury might understand, but some might not, and that that would be off-putting to the jurors. And that just took, frankly, just a lot of prep sessions where we would go through it with her over and over again. And by the end, she was actually phenomenal at it. And I knew in Cross, she would be great because when Joe Tecapina or then Alina Habacross her, that's when she was really in her element. And it's often easier to answer questions with a hostile questioner than it is to kind of share.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think we did two things in prep. One kind of a surface level on one more serious. At the surface level, you're hearing how E-Gene speaks. She signs a lot of her emails ravishing regards. It was very important to me while I didn't want to cage her in any way. I wanted EGN to be able to be Eugene. I didn't want her, I think the rule I said is no words greater than three syllables.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Judge Kaplan asked everyone in the room all the potential jurors. I guess there were probably 100 of them in the room that day. And he said, if anyone believes that the election of 2020 was rigged, please raise your hand. None of the 100 potential jurors raised their hand, but Donald Trump did. He sat there in the middle. Like that. So it was. The irony in the sense of comedy in this particular case was very, very strong.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was so contemptuous of the court and the judge's authority and so disrespectful to me that the jury, which had already spent days listening to the horrendous threats Eugene receives almost every day, which I had categorized by type of violence. So I think we started with rapes, is that right, E? And then we went to strangling, and then we went to shooting, and then we went to disemboweling. I mean, literally, there are so many in each category. It was the best way to organize it. I'll give you another example. We were in the jury selection process.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not turning Eugene into a yes, no witness. That's not who she is. She won't be believable if she tries to do that. And she is who she is. And I think the jury clearly, certainly the judge, and I think also the jury was charmed as 99.9% of the population are when they meet Eugene. So that was EGEN. And then I was there kind of being the straight guy, for lack of a better term, and kind of just making the arguments as simply as I could and applying legal principles. And you have this guy getting up like a teenager, really. I mean, my son, who's 19 is more mature than that, getting up and storming out. And when that happened, I remember thinking to myself, okay, you just lost another $10 million. That was my thought process as I was. Because. Continuing to give my closing argument.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you know, that is true in almost every case. This obviously was much more dramatically true here. And in a lot of ways, a case or similarly a trial is like a play. This you see in all a lot of the litigation versus the Trump administration right now, everyone knows, including the judge and the lawyers, what's really going on. because of these time worn and frankly effective rules of how to present evidence in court and how to make arguments and decorum and all those things, there's always two levels going on. And it's very important, I think EG and I make a pretty good mutton Jeff that way, or Abbott and Costello, whoever you want to say, because Eene, you know, my strategy with my teammates was you guys, we just have to let Eugene be gene.”
2025-07-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT