Donald Trump will not be coming to New York City to “confront” E. Jean Carroll as he recently vowed, passing up an opportunity Sunday to ask a judge to reopen his case so he can take the stand at his civil rape trial.

Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan gave Trump until 5 p.m. Sunday to request the case be reopened so that he could testify. The judge’s eleventh-hour courtesy came after learning Trump told reporters last week that he’d cut his golfing trip in Ireland short so he could come back and attend the trial, unbeknownst to his lawyer.

“I’m going back to New York. I was falsely accused by this woman, I have no idea who she is – it’s ridiculous,” Trump told the Irish Examiner on Thursday from his golf course in Doonbeg, County Clare, adding he had to “go back and confront this woman.”

The former Elle advice columnist and TV personality presented 11 witnesses and played footage of Trump making nasty remarks about her before resting her case Thursday. Trump’s lawyers didn’t put on a case, informing the court early last week that the psychiatrist they’d planned to call couldn’t make it. The former president could owe Carroll up to $2.7 million in damages if he’s found liable.

Nine New Yorkers will soon determine whether Trump committed battery inside a Bergdorf Goodman changing room about 25 years ago and defamation when Carroll, 79, accused him of raping her decades later. The panel is set to get the case after hearing closing arguments Monday.

Asked for comment on why his client ultimately declined to defend himself at the trial, Joe Tacopina said he would respond in his closing argument.

In a Sunday filing, Carroll’s lawyers highlighted to Judge Kaplan that Truth Social posts which previously landed Trump in hot water remained online. The judge scolded Trump’s lawyers for his false statements about the case at the start of the trial, describing it as “troublesome” that Trump might be trying to reach “the jury in this case about stuff that has no business being spoken about.”

“(We) continue to object to Mr. Trump’s public statements about evidence the court held to be inadmissible at trial and remain concerned about the prejudice that his statements may have already caused (Carroll) in these proceedings,” Roberta Kaplan wrote, citing Trump’s comments at his Irish golf resort.

The bombshell trial is one of three Trump, 76, faces in his home state, along with ramping-up investigations in Washington, D.C., and Georgia.

The New York attorney general’s $250 million lawsuit against him and his family’s real estate business is going on trial this fall. And the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal case concerning Trump’s notorious hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels is tentatively set for trial in early 2024.

Trump denies all wrongdoing.

____