Anderson Cooper Debunks Trump's E. Jean Carroll 'Conspiracy Theory' On-Air

When former President Donald Trump goes after Anderson Cooper , the longtime anchor usually doesn’t respond. But on Friday, he brought receipts.

Trump — who was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll — claimed on Friday that Cooper had coached the writer and advice columnist into leveling rape accusations against him in a 2019 interview.

“There was an Anderson Cooper interview where she said essentially, ‘No, he didn’t rape me,’” Trump told reporters in New York City . “He said, ‘We’re going to commercial break right now.’ Then she came back from commercial break and she was much more hostile.”

Trump, who was in town to appeal his $5 million judgment in the civil case, claimed Judge Lewis Kaplan “wouldn’t let” his attorneys introduce the CNN interview “outtakes” into evidence to learn what Cooper said to Carroll during the intermission.

“This is not the first time that Trump has seemed to suggest some nefarious plot by me to manipulate E. Jean Carroll into saying something,” Cooper said Friday on his “360” show, after playing footage of Trump’s Friday press conference . “He actually brought this up in a deposition for trial.”

Trump’s allegations are “demonstrably false,” the journalist said, before playing pre- and post-commercial break clips of his interview with Carroll.

“The problem with this conspiracy theory,” he said, “is that this interview was actually pre-recorded. We had to pre-record a toss to a commercial break, and then welcome viewers back after a commercial break, so that the entire two parts of the interview would fit into my show.”

“While Trump is apparently suggesting I sat through a commercial break on live TV with E. Jean Carroll, telling her to be angry or whatever, we actually just paused in a pre-recorded interview for a few seconds.”

Raw footage of the interview, which Cooper played next, shows the host finishing his first interview block, asking producers, “We good?” and then resuming the interview seconds later.

Cooper reminded viewers earlier on the show, however, that Trump rarely cares for evidence or decorum.

“I normally don’t respond when Trump says something about me — I mean, what is the point, he recently referred to me using a female first name, which I guess is like a third-grade gay taunt,” said Cooper. “I think he called me Alison or Ashley Cooper, I don’t really recall.”

Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website .