MS NOW anchor Alex Witt jumped in to add “proper terminology” after a liberal lawmaker called President Donald Trump an “adjudicated rapist” on her show on Saturday afternoon.

Witt asked Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) for her thoughts on the Justice Department launching an investigation into E. Jean Carroll, with the probe focused on whether she committed perjury during a 2022 deposition. Carroll accused the president of raping her in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s, a claim Trump has repeatedly denied.

The anchor noted the probe is focused on whether Carroll lied when she said no one else was funding her case against Trump; LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman later admitted he was bankrolling the lawsuit. Carroll was awarded roughly $90 million between both her civil sexual abuse and defamation cases against Trump.

Stansbury said the probe into Carroll just shows Trump is manipulating the DOJ to go after his enemies.

“I mean, come on, Donald Trump. We all know that you are an adjudicated rapist, and now you’re going after survivors that have held you accountable,” Stansbury said. “All of this is an attempt to try to silence people and to try to intimidate them by using the United States Justice Department as a weapon against the American people.”

She added, “that is exactly what Richard Nixon went down for. So we can see what’s happening here.”

Witt then jumped in to add some context to the Democrat’s statement.

“Yeah, I just want to be careful, because President Trump was not accused of rape, per se. He was accused of sexual abuse. So going by the proper terminology there,” Witt said. “But nonetheless, I always appreciate having you on, Congresswoman Stanbury.”

The term “adjudicated rapist” was coined by James Carville and eventually adopted by the Democratic presidential campaign of then-Vice President Kamala Harris. It refers to something that Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in a motion in the E. Jean Carroll case.

The judge wrote “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Witt’s clarification stands out because it demonstrates the caution that journalists have adopted after ABC News paid Trump $15 million in late 2024 after anchor George Stephanopoulos said the president was found “liable for rape.”

In fact, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse in civil court, which carries a different definition in New York. But contrary to Witt’s statement, Trump was accused of raping Carroll and found liable for the lesser offense.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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