Dementia Don evidently wants his sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll to stay in the headlines and is suing ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for defamation, claiming he only finger-raped Carroll and did not penis rape her.

Oh, I think it's actually a rather brilliant move.

Trump knows that voters would generally prefer that their candidate not have committed sexual assault. So he desperately wants to keep calling Carroll a liar. But he can't do that, because he runs the risk of millions of dollars more damages if he does.

So this lawsuit is perfect. Instead of calling Carroll a liar, he's calling Stephanopoulos a liar. That allows him to deny everything and avoid any more liability.

Even better, it gives him a response when (or if) he gets confronted with questions about assaulting Carroll. If in an interview or debate the topic comes up, he will gesture to the litigation as a reason he can't answer questions. "As you know, we're suing Stephanopoulos over this, very good lawsuit, the best, because of his lies about this, and so I can't comment further, except to say that his comments were lies and we'll win in court." It's an echo of his tax return dodge ("I can't release because I'm being audited"), and let's him move to the next question.