$83.3 million in damages for defaming e. jean carroll, that's a that are pilfered donald trump to swallow or anyone, really, but after he built his political career on the notion that he's a

billionaire, maybe not so much, whether or not that's literally true, and none of this, by the way is filed until the judge signs off on all of it. that it has not stopped yet the former president for making hay of it politically. he went on social media with one of his favorite charges, the phrase, say it with me now, witchhunts, and claiming that our legal system is being used as a political weapon but here's the thing, do damages that are vastly bigger than any we expected allow him to frame all of this as an attack against him and frankly will it help him politically, after all, more than half of voters in our new hampshire exit poll said donald trump would be fit for presidency, even if he is convicted of a crime. i've got to get your reaction to this, gwen, thinking about the fact that this is and $83

million verdict. this is not the $5 million from last year and this is not a trial about whether sexual abuse occurred, that's already been decided but what was your reaction to that number? >> it's a statement number, and again to break it down, there's a certain element that compensates miss carroll to repair her reputation. i believe that amount was about $18.3 million and it's a $65 million statement in terms of punitive damages, that's the punishment aspect. so i think the jury, making this decision in less than three hours, was very convinced based on the evidence they saw and they wanted to send a message. >> it was unanimous, of course and his message on the campaign trail has been, everyone is against me, they are really after you and they are trying to get through me. and this is an example but it might not square because this is not a criminal trial. it was a trial that was brought

by a plaintiff, but that doesn't seem to stop him. >> and it doesn't make its way down to many people. they just see trump is being you know, victimized again and it's almost one of those moments in which you have to say, who is really the victim here? because this is not the believe all women crowd when you talk about today's right, they've been this way for a while, they don't want to believe that e. jean carroll suffered anything from trump, he even said he didn't know herself anything that he says is fact to them. with e. jean carroll in particular, one thing that has been troublesome for me and watching how the right house has treated her for years now, it's that trump continues to perpetuate the myth that she's been put up to this by someone else and this is a moment when i would say why would she want to go down like this, why would she pursue this?

it seems that she is in pursuit of the truth and she wants accountability. this is not a message i expect to make its way through the noise. >> you heard the attorney for trump on the courthouse steps afterwards attacking not only the system itself, the new york jurors, it was a foregone conclusion, she talked about people being influenced you know, in ways they shouldn't have been, to even bring the case but on that last point about defamation, defamation as you know requires there to be a lessening of one's reputation, they are arguing, no, it was enhanced, you are now heroic to people. what is the damage? >> that is an argument that is a huge stretch. any woman that has the courage to bring charges and hold folks accountable either for prior sexual act, or the types of horrendous things that we've heard said, that takes real courage. and so, to say that they somehow benefited from that, nothing could be further from

the truth. we've seen quite a few people who have been on the other side of these types of attacks and all of them are looking to get some sort of compensation for the reputation to be put back to where it was. >> what do you make of this claim, this is all biden's doing? this is a heightened doj. the question presumes the conflation, that there's one mastermind behind all the cases, it's not so here. >> that is definitely not true and let's realize we are talking about several -- civil cases, particularly the criminal ones, we have grand juries that have come in, ordinary residents that have evaluated the evidence and determined there sufficient evidence to go forward and in many of the cases they will ultimately go to a jury, so

again, somebody will be making those ultimate decisions. but on the civil side, and these are individuals where there is documented evidence and the courts have ruled in their favor on various motions throughout the trial, this is not a larger conspiracy with all of these different players and cases. >> you wouldn't know it's 284 days from a general election because we are not talking about somebody who wants to be the assumptive nominee, we are talking about 91 charges, 83 million bucks and in fact nikki haley was lying to be the republican nominee posted on x and said donald trump once to be the presumptive republican nominee and we are talking about $83 million in damages, not talking about fixing the border, not talking about tackling inflation. american -- america can do better than donald trump and joe biden. >> more than a distraction, in

the court of public opinion, he knows that he wins every time. and that's why he has alina habba, a woman i think is grossly unqualified to represent him but she does the job that he wants. every time she was out to the camera and she spins it because again with his base of support, and it's made its way to more moderate republican members, they have drink the kool-aid saying it does feel conspiratorial. so what nikki haley is trying to do in bringing an honest message saying, this is too much for us, let him deal with the problems on his own, that can't work. there have been overtures may to try to have trumped legal bills paid for by the rnc, we haven't even found out if that even happen. i feel that there have been legal bills paid by various entities that go right back to the rnc. they will squash this so the public continues to think that trump is being victimized and democrats are the demons.

>> there's a focus on a number of states, ray charles chuck talks about george on our mind, it comes to fani willis, and i mentioned the word distraction when we are talking about from the perspective of nikki haley, but there is also a scandal that is brewing in georgia, with respect to whether what's being alleged there is a distraction, what is your take. you were a georgia prosecutor, you must have an opinion. >> i do. look, we all know that divorce cases are emotional, messy, and unfortunately that's what we are seeing in this case. regardless of what happens in the case, the fact remains, one

that we are not talking about the evidence anymore. remember this is a case where two sets of grandeur is, a total of 40 or so ordinary citizens past judgment and decided there was sufficient evidence to bring the charges. this da has four defendants, admit guilt in open court, going through their rights, admitting under oath, that they committed various elements of the charges that they ultimately pled to and what people are forgetting is that all of that is proceeding, we have the calls on tape from january 2nd, that's not a question but we are not talking about that evidence anymore. so i think we all need to wait and allow da willis to respond officially, she is required to do so by next friday and let's see what the judge does but they start georgia law, even assuming all of it is true, she is not required to be disqualified based on georgia law because none of it describes a personal interest in the outcome for her. and that's what required. this is not a situation where there's a contingency where you

only get paid if you get a conviction, this is not a situation where there's a relationship alleged with a witness that may lie to improve their relationship with the das office. it is a distraction, and there's many of us that hope that we can get back to talking about the facts of the case and letting that work its way through the justice system. >> bless your heart for the focus. i love it. i am eager to hear about the facts and the meat of the matter and we will see if we get there at all. thank you both so much for your insight and intellect tonight. i appreciate it. there's new pressure tonight on fulton county district attorney fanny wilson -- willis, they are creating a special committee to investigate whether or not she had a an affair with the

prosecutor. there was a separate resolution to impeach da willis. the judge will hold a hearing on all of that next month. my next guest is an expert in legal ethics and he argues that for the sake of the case, da willis should take a personal leave of absence and step aside. professor clark cunningham joins me now. professor, thank you for joining, you just heard my colleagues discuss the nature of the allegations and not being a disqualification, you say, that if the judge decides that willis is disqualified, people might not realize it's not just her, the whole staff is disqualified and a separate state agency has to appoint someone to take over. tell me about what this could mean down the line if this threat is followed?

>> well i certainly agree with your prior guest, that it's too early to decide one way or the other or have an opinion about these motions. i myself have said i to see her reply when it comes in on february 2nd, so far the defendants haven't put any evidence in court. they say they will do it at the hearing. so it's definitely too early in my view to actually say one way or another whether it will be granted but what i believe is that the risks are very great of going forward and fighting the disqualification motion, even if the district attorney eventually prevails, because of the reality, if the motion is granted by the judge than her entire office is disqualified, because the power to act

derives from the district attorney and the state agency is charged to! -- appoint a special prosecutor, she's already been disqualified for one defendant at the grand jury, and it's now 18 months since that disqualification decision and there still nope special prosecutor. >> if the whole office would be disqualified, and that is in if and we don't know the outcome. whoever would replace might decide not to even pursue the prosecution. their hands are not tied, they are not found to do whatever the predecessors have done, right? >> that's the greater risk for the case, not just delay but that the new prosecutor was appointed will take a look and decide to reduce or maybe dismiss everything. and that's the end of the case.

so even the people say there's no risk that it'll be dismissed because of the charges, we could end up in the same place. and in fact, that happened in a disqualification involving this das office a couple of years ago involving the brooks police shooting investigation where district attorney willis voluntarily disqualify yourself because of the work of her prosecutor, and it went to an appointment of a special prosecutor and then the special prosecutor dismissed the charges. so that's a real risk. >> so who is in charge of the agency that would be appointing a new prosecution team? >> pete is the executive director, he actually was the special prosecutor who decided to dismiss those charges against the police officer. he could point himself but he

could appoint a private attorney, or an existing district attorney. part of the problem is it may not be easy to find somebody who wants the job. there's not good resources to pay a private attorney and the existing offices that are large enough, still don't want to take on this case. the other problem is even if she prevails, donald trump and his lawyers are going to ask for an appeal, you are familiar with that, laura. >> let's explain what that is, professor. >> sure, that's an opportunity to appeal an issue before you get to trial and that's what's happening in the jack smith case in the district of columbia. the judge has a decision on presidential immunity to the court of appeals and there's a halt while the decision is being made, that could happen here as well, so she could win for the moment but if donald

trump succeeds in getting a temporary appeal to the court of appeals and then a stay, it could be in the court of appeals for months and whoever loses could go to the georgia supreme court, and if this case is not complete before the general election and trump is elected again, he will argue that he cannot be prosecuted even at state court while he's a sitting president. so the case might go on for four more years. >> we know now that next week's hearing, a lot is on the line. thank you so much. >> pleasure to be with you tonight, laura. up next, trouble in the ivy league. why a big donor says cornell has a toxic environment and why he says the university's president should step p down..

a bit of a nursery rhyme for ivy league schools in trouble, first came penn then came harvard next comes cornell and its president, out with the bathwater? donors have made a big ask of that schools trustees to fire cornell's president, martha pollack, they want her out over what they think is a shameful response to anti- peasant -- anti-semitism. the open letter written by jon lindseth outlined seven demands that includes scrapping di staffing and canceling the opening of a proposed center for racial justice . professor, thank you for being here this evening. do you believe the cornell

president, based on the seven different points will soon be out of a job or ought to be? >> well, on the question of will the president be ousted? two other presidents have been ousted, so that could certainly happen on the question of whether this should happen, you know, on the basis of what we know thus far, you know, the details are rather murky, there are a couple of things which seem to need to be quite troubling. one, the whole question of, donors, big donors. you know, just because you've given money to an institution doesn't mean that your complaints should be taken more seriously than the facts warrant, and my sense is that in the reporting about this, the fact that some of the donors are big donors, it's

used as an excuse to give their complaints more credence. that's one complaint that i have. there's a second one that focuses on the attack on de i. you know, in the attacks, there is a sense of restoration, you know, the idea is sometimes that dei has hurt the universities, let's get rid of it and make our universities great again. there is a reason why dei came to the forefront, it was a well- intentioned effort to make elite institutions more welcoming to people who had long been excluded or marginalized, women, people of

color, people whose sexual orientations were heterodox. dei is an effort to make these institutions more welcoming to those people who have been excluded, and that's a good thing. now -- >> but professor those are some people that look at dei and save the road to is paved with good intention, and they look at dei as something that is exclusionary now as a result. you don't share that particular opinion but what do you say to those who say that may have been the intention, but the result is different, what's your reaction? >> my reaction is that first of all, dei is a catchword, catchphrase, and covers a lot of territory. i think there's a lot that is good about the dei enterprise,

like i said, these institutions are considerably more welcoming than they used to be, and that's a good thing. on the other hand, that's right, there are aspects of the dei bureaucracies, that are problematic . i think sometimes that people who have good intentions you know, they, they go too far, one aspect of dei that bothers me is the impulse towards compelling people, so for instance, if you want to apply to many universities, or to get promoted at universities, you are required to file so-called dei statements, in which you are required to talk about how you would effectuate dei in

your research or your teaching. i think that's bad. i think that it seems like a loyalty test and that's not a good thing. so i think in certain ways, dei goes overboard but in general, i think it has been unbalanced . >> regardless of apposition it certainly has come under attack. professor kennedy, as always, a pleaeasure to pipick youour brb thanank you so m much. > coming up,p, cnnnn's presenentation of f hbo's overe withth bill marrrr.

let's turn it over to our friends at hbo because every friday after real time with bill maher bill and his guests answer viewer questions about topics in the national conversation. here is over time with bill maher. >> hi cnn, stephen a smith is here. he's a comedian, writer and producer and his new series, and the democratic congressman, adam shiff,. all right, here's what people want to know, of this happen before we went on the air, the jury awarding e. jean carroll a $3 million in her suit against donald trump. what do we think, not good,

right? >> this was the suit that he got threatened to be thrown out of several times, right, how toxic do you have to be where you are too rude to be on trial for sexual assault. >> i think it's true justice. the only thing he cares about is himself and going after the money is way to bring about justice. >> do you think he did it? >> i do. >> you think he her in burdock goodman ? >> i have no idea. it means absolutely nothing, doesn't mean anything. and i get tired of people acting like you, first of all he's running for president and part of the reason is because he's getting the campaign dollars so he can pick up the money to pay for his legal

bills. he's not going to lose any money and it ain't going to be $83.3 million, it'll be knocked down and i'm getting tired of seeing so much stuff targeted in his direction but somehow, he still survives we are talking about a situation where he still going to be the gop nominee, still running for president, president biden is you have to be, for indictments, 91 counts, they ain't even bringing up the bankruptcies were this particular case but somehow, someway, he puts cat to shame because he has more than 9 lives. >> come on, you bring up the most perfect disparity, he cares about himself, cares about money and you have joe biden who put forth the inflation reduction act which contains climate provisions that will probably bear fruit long after he's gone, long after he's gone. what does he have to gain by that, nothing except god from did i use the word altruism.

>> i don't share your pessimism about this or the general election. the reason why biden will beat trump is because at the end of the day america will want a president who is a decent human being. who doesn't on other people, who has some interest in the american people, some interest in something beyond himself. at the end of the day people will reject this negative, divisive figure and they are not going to want to put the -- >> they have every time except that one time, no, really, i mean he really lost every election except for 2016 and then he didn't really win that one either. he didn't have the popular vote. i don't put anything past him

and i also think bergdorf should have better security. >> has it been any point in history not to say it's a cold but hasn't been any point in history in which the same candidate has been put forth three times in a row by the same party? >> three elections, that's a great question. >> it could have happened with, who's the guy -- >> teddy roosevelt. >> franklin roosevelt won four elections in a row. so there you go. >> but given the circumstances. >> will there's always something going on. no really, you can't be like well there's a war going on, you have to stick with me. >> he lost the popular vote in both elections but the bottom line is this, i respect the fact that you don't share my pessimism, i understand where you're coming from but i think that's part of the problem. i think the democratic party should share my pessimism and they should be on high alert, they need to treat him with the seriousness that it deserves

because you are having faith in the american people, he did get over 74 million votes, you've got people who are looking at joe biden, i won't call him a cognitive mess or anything, that is disrespectful, but, when you're 82 years of age, it's not offensive to say you are no longer a spring chicken and you don't seem to have the level of fire and energy that you once had. just take that into consideration. you can't ignore the fact that this man is a threat. >> make no mistake, i'm taking it as serious as a heart attack. i'm optimistic that we will have to fight tooth and nail and one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is all the efforts to prevent people from voting. we will have to turn out, we have to work like never before, we have to work like our democracy is on the line because it well is. >> let me interject one thing into this discussion, it was a question i was going to ask you

when we ran out of time. the atlantic put out an article and said separating sports by sex doesn't make sense and talked about how we separate the wnba and the nba, it's just socialization. this is insane. okay. that's why people vote for trent because there's stuff like that on the left that people just go, i know trump is horrible but separating sports by sex makes perfect sense and if you think it doesn't you can't leave the country. >> that's cutting off your nose to spite your face. i'm just giving you the answer. it's not always because they like him, it's because stuff like that is kooky to them. >> it's more kooky than trashing the capital? >> in a way it is. it's apples and oranges. one is more evil and horrible but i mean what would happen if we combined the wnba and the

nba. >> lebron would go from averaging 25 to averaging 70. you mix it up. >> the problem is you are both right, and going to tell you something, when you donate to the democratic party which i have, you get to do certain things >> i didn't even get a thank you. >> i gave them $1 million, twice. >> and i say thank you? >> i got on a zoom with biden for 10 minutes, you can talk to biden for 10 minutes alone and i said >> that was a i, that wasn't biden. >> but what i took away from that was oh, this guy is not the world's greatest public speaker but i'm getting why people like lindsey graham are

defending him and saying, if you don't like joe biden there is something wrong with you. i'm paraphrasing because i had 100 drinks. but he did essentially say if you don't like joe biden as a person, you need to look yourself in the mirror. but there's a flipside and here's the flipside. you can like joe biden but hate capitol hill as it has been for so many years. you look at people, do you ever watch trump debate, he doesn't say anything. he goes up against democrats, it's going to be very good, it'll be fabulous. he hasn't said anything. nobody on the democratic side has the pizzazz, i know you've got the substance but you've got a lot of people out there that are preoccupied with their own lives and they want somebody who knows how to

ingratiate themselves. >> you are like this in back in the future. >> we are on cnn now. >> now you tell me! >> you can't defend yourself against an onslaught of lies and -- >> i just said we are on cnn. >> i'm on fox, what's the difference. >> we are not supposed to swear. >> really? >> on cnn? you are going to lose this cake for me. >> you can watch real time with bill maher on friday nights at

10:00 p.m. and then on cnn friday nights at 11:30. taylor swift becoming the latest person to fall prey to a i deepfake's, and now the white house is weighing in.

if you been online in the past 24 average you might have

heard about pornographic ai generated images of taylor swift that were spreading across social media like the plague. that is until an army of taylor swift fans, this 50s, rolled in to save the day, they posted under the hashtag protect taylor swift coupled with tons of real, decent images of the popstar. it served as an effective stopgap measure that was enough to push the images off the main page of x to the company themselves and they took action. but that time the images had been viewed tens of millions of times and occasionally curious about just how good deepfake's have gotten today, take a look at these. this is a fake ai generated image of donald trump being arrested and another of the pope and fantastic looking puffer jacket. both are fake. i want to bring in taylor lawrence, a columnist for the washington post. thank you for joining us. there are reports that it took nearly 17 hours i think, for x to take down these images but once something is online, the

concern everyone has is, can it ever really go away? >> unfortunately, no, i mean, once something is out there on the internet, you can be removed from one platform temporarily but that just means it makes its way across deeper and darker corners of the internet. these videos and images are already being disseminated, once they are out there, they are out there. >> just thinking about the violation of one's privacy, even if it's not an actual image of yourself, the suggestion that it is, the way people will try to use it in these disgusting ways, i mean the white house is even commenting on the images, calling it alarming and actually, they are calling on legislation to try to tackle the issue. is it even possible to regulate something like this? not just being reactive but

preventing it in the first place? >> it's really hard to prevent this type of thing in the first place but i think the social media platforms could do better. it took 17 hours to get these images taken down. there's no way that that timeframe is acceptable. and we've seen this type of thing spreading with even teenagers, this can happen to anyone and it's a growing problem. i think it's hard to kind of stop all of it, but we can certainly take it down in a faster manner. >> if it takes 17 hours to get it taken down and it's an ai image of taylor swift, a huge celebrity, what would it take the average person to try to use that system to get it taken down? just think about that, what that would look like. next week, congress is going to hold a hearing on how to protect kids online can you

talk about how all of this will really impact regular people? >> absolutely, i mean, look, this ai deepfake images are being created, what about high school girls, girls as young as 13 and 14 dealing with sexually explicit images often synthetically made by other teenage boys . so it's affecting children and i think this goes back to protecting children online but also women online, ultimately the root of these attacks is misogyny, and you saw sag aftra speaking on behalf of taylor today. so i wish that these platforms took online harassment against women more seriously, and have they done that and built these features in years ago, we wouldn't be in this position we are in today. >> let's hope the hearing next week is the needle towards trying to not only condemn but

deter and prevent and hold accountable those who are engaged in this behavior. particularly as it relates to children. thank you for joining us tonight. up next, can we learn anything from the super bowl logo? conspiracy theorist thinks that it revealsls that t the e whwho

it seems no aspect of life is untouched by conspiracy theories these days, not even

the sacred annual sunday event otherwise known as the super bowl. there is a bizarre theory going around gaining momentum the colors of the games' logo are spelling the teams. predetermined, i like to say, what the friday? descending into the madness. >> reporter: something going on with the super bowl logos, coincidence or supernatural or conspiracy, are the nfl seasons scripted? welcome to the table read for the 104th season of the nfl. let's get to work. at the start of the season, the nfl launched an ad joking the games were scripted but many online think it is true. the last two seasons, the super bowl logos match the color schemes of the two teams playing in it but the league tells us they design it two years in advance. 2022, super bowl lvi had orange

of the cincinnati bengals and gold of the rams. the following was replaced by eagles green and kansas city chiefs read. as the semester plant and we are drinking the kool-aid? play for the falcons and buffalo bills before that? calling foul suggesting conspiracy theory the league knows what teams that want to make the big game with predetermined outcome in front of our faces. this year super bowl colors are purple and red leaving one possible outcome for the conference championships, time will tell if the ravens and 49ers. the nfl has denied conspiracy theory. they would say that, wouldn't they? >> i love the tinfoil hat, coy wire, thank you so much. thank you for watching. i will be live on instagram with the laura coates. our coverage continues.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪