Is there a price that keeps Trump quiet? E. Jean Carroll can find out.

How much money must E. Jean Carroll win to stop Donald J. Trump from talking about her?

A Manhattan jury last month ordered the former president to pay $3 million in damages for defaming Ms. Carroll when he said her accusation that he had raped her decades earlier was a lie. The next day, Mr. Trump appeared on CNN and again accused Ms. Carroll of fabricating her story, calling her a “crazy job” for good measure.

Now Mrs. Carroll is seeking millions more dollars to stop the river of swear words.

Forbes magazine says Mr. Trump is worth it $2.5 billion, but his actual wealth is up for debate – he has said his net worth fluctuates with his mood. As he seeks the presidency again, he has used his legal troubles, including state and federal indictments, to raise money by attacking prosecutors and prosecutors.

Mr. Trump became a celebrity and then the president of the country largely through the power of an unfettered tongue, captivating even opponents with his unpredictable and vicious verbal attacks. He is also known for his love of money, boasting about his fortune and showing off his gilded prizes.

Mrs. Carroll and her lawyers try to win a jury award that would balance his competing desires economically. But is there any amount of money that could convince the former president to keep her name out of his mouth?

Ms Carroll’s complaint will be heard as part of a trial scheduled for January over verbal assaults he committed against her in 2019. Ms. Carroll has said she lost her job as an advice columnist for Elle magazine after those attacks and is seeking at least $10 million in damages for damage to her reputation. After Mr Trump’s recent CNN diatribe, she said she also wanted “very substantial damages” that would “deter him from further libel”.

Ms. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta A. Kaplan, said it was difficult to put a number on that deterrent without knowing more about Mr. Trump’s financial position.

“What I do know is that Donald Trump cares deeply about money,” Ms. Kaplan said. “And here, the prospect of him having to pay millions of dollars in damages every time he discredits E. Jean Carroll again must weigh through his head.”

Mr. Trump’s former fixer and attorney, Michael D. Cohen, who helped Manhattan prosecutors build a criminal case against Mr. Trump over a porn star hush money payment, said the calculation was primitive: “Donald is similar to a grumpy kid who keeps sticking his finger in an outlet, only to stop when it hurts really bad. In this case, it’s in his wallet.”

A lawyer for Mr Trump, who has asked a judge to reduce the amount he already owes Ms Carroll, did not respond to a request for comment.

Ms. Carroll aroused Mr. Trump’s enmity in June 2019 after she first made public her allegation that he raped her in a dressing room in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. Mr Trump called her claim “totally false” and said she was not his “type”. Ms. Carroll sued Mr. Trump for defamation over those remarks in the case now scheduled for trial in January after she was deadlocked on appeal.

Last month’s verdict stemmed from a separate lawsuit filed in 2022 under a New York law that gives adults a year to sue long-ago sexual abusers. It also included an allegation of defamation because Trump had again called the rape allegation a hoax last year. The jury found him liable for sexually assaulting Mrs. Carroll, rather than raping her, and awarded her $2 million for that misconduct, plus $20,000 in punitive damages. It earned her $2.7 million for the defamation along with $280,000 in punitive damages.

Given Mr. Trump’s comments to CNN after the verdict, the punitive damages clearly didn’t have the effect Ms. Carroll wanted.

She went straight back to court. On June 13, the judge overseeing both cases, Lewis A. Kaplan of the Federal District Court, had Ms. Carroll review her previous lawsuit to include the new libel.

Benjamin Zipursky, a professor at Fordham Law School, said U.S. Supreme Court precedent has suggested punitive damages should not exceed 10 times compensatory damages. With that as a guideline, if Ms. Carroll were awarded the $10 million in compensatory damages she seeks, punitive damages of $100 million could be upheld.

Ben Chew, a Washington, D.C. attorney, helped actor Johnny Depp win a $10 million jury award from his ex-wife in a defamation lawsuit, with the former couple eventually settling for $1 million to avoid further lawsuits. Mr Chew said that because Mr Trump’s liability for slandering Ms Carroll has been established in the recent trial, the only issue before us is damages – “and how much would be needed to discourage recidivism.”

Because the damages awarded last month failed to silence Mr. Trump, Mr. Chew said, Ms. Carroll might want to plead for several million dollars — “maybe even to the eight and nine figures,” he said.

Or maybe it takes 10 figures, as evidenced by the success of one major libel case.

Chris Mattei, an attorney who last year helped the families of eight people killed in the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, won $1.4 billion from Infowars conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones, saying the award “improves the direct attacks van Jones seems to have temporarily suppressed”. on the families, though the damage from his decade of lies continues.

“We had to obtain a verdict substantial enough to get him to reassess his business incentives, believing that Alex Jones is primarily a profiteer,” said Mr Mattei.

As for Mr Trump, Mr Mattei added, “he has political incentives at the forefront of his mind right now.”

Mr. Trump has often fought legal battles out of court, using them to win voter support and making allegations that his lawyers refused to repeat under oath. He has called Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who brought charges against him, a “deranged lunatic” and called Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg a criminal.

Those men could send Mr. Trump to prison, but Ms. Carroll’s case threatens only to hurt financially.

“Money has always been a determining factor in his entire personality,” says James D. Zirin, an attorney and the author of “Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits.” He added, “The amount of money he has to pay out diminishes his power and diminishes his appearance as a powerful Teflon Donald-esque figure.”

Mr. Trump has a reputation for stiffening people who work for him, from blue-collar workers to lawyers. But plaintiffs winning money have influence such as property liens and mandatory financial disclosures.

One person who believes Mr. Trump is now likely to stop slandering Ms. Carroll is Barbara Res, a former executive of the Trump Organization. Ms. Res said that since the recent federal indictment against Mr. Trump accusing him of concealing classified documents, his lawyers will be begging him to stop the legal commentary. In layman’s terms: enough, already.

“I think they’ll tell him to stop,” said Mrs. Res, “and I think he’s able to listen now.”

Anthony Scaramucci, who spent 11 days as communications director in the Trump White House in 2017 and is today a harsh critic of the former president, said Trump’s repeated disdain for Ms. Carroll was straight out of his playbook — “double and triple.” down, never admit you’re wrong, never apologize for anything.

“It’s like a washing machine,” Mr. Scaramucci said. “It has a spin cycle, it has a rinse cycle – then it has a repeat cycle.”

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.