What does "she was partially to blame for the encounter" (last paragraph) mean?


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In a forthcoming book titled “What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal,” an excerpt from which was published on New York magazine’s website, Ms. Carroll, an advice columnist, accuses Mr. Trump of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s.

President Trump has forcefully denied the accusation, saying Ms. Carroll was “lying,” that he didn’t know her and that he wouldn’t have assaulted her because “she’s not my type.”

Portions of the interview were played Thursday on “The Daily,” and a fuller article about Ms. Carroll by Ms. Twohey, Jessica Bennett and Alexandra Alter will follow later in the day. For now, here are the main takeaways from the interview:

• The two women in whom Ms. Carroll confided were well-known figures in the ’90s world of New York media. Ms. Martin was a news anchor on WCBS-TV in New York from 1975 to 1995. Ms. Birnbach is a writer best known for “The Official Preppy Handbook,” a best seller released in 1981. She has occasionally written for The Times.

Both knew or had met Mr. Trump during that period: Ms. Birnbach had recently interviewed him at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., while Ms. Martin had met him at her news station and had a friend who briefly dated him.

• When Ms. Carroll told the two women about the alleged attack, they had very different reactions: Ms. Birnbach said she told Ms. Carroll to call the police, while Ms. Martin told Ms. Carroll not to talk about it because Mr. Trump was too powerful. Ultimately, Ms. Carroll, thinking she was partially to blame for the encounter, remained silent about it for decades.