Maggie Haber man on_why Trump criticized his legal team when they were standing right behind him
Maggie Haber man on_why Trump criticized his legal team when they were standing right behind him
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00:00With fewer than nine weeks to go before the election, Donald Trump secured a pretty big
00:04win today regarding his New York hush money conviction.
00:07Instead of being sentenced potentially to jail in two weeks from now, he will now be
00:12sentenced after November 5th.
00:15And that's only quote, if necessary.
00:18Those two words standing out from Judge Mershawn's decision today.
00:21And I'll tell you why in just a moment.
00:24But really this decision overall means there will be no big courtroom drama playing out
00:28before voters are going to the polls, at least not in a courtroom here in New York.
00:33Trump was with his attorneys when he found out this news today.
00:36That's because he spent the morning in another courtroom for another hearing, actually coming
00:41within feet of E. Jean Carroll, the woman that a jury found he sexually abused and defamed,
00:47which didn't seem to deter him judging by the comments that he made afterward.
00:53This is a disgraceful case.
00:55I have no idea who the woman is and I never met her.
00:59I'm disappointed in my legal talent, I'll be honest with you.
01:03They're good.
01:04They're good people.
01:05They're talented people.
01:07Today at the trial, they didn't mention the dress.
01:09I said, why didn't you mention that?
01:13Pretty notable to stand there and watch as Trump was surrounded by those very attorneys
01:18who represent him on many different cases.
01:21As he said, he was disappointed in them and listed off grievances during what was billed
01:26as a press conference, but didn't involve answering any of our questions.
01:33Judge Merchant, Judge Ngorin, and Judge Kaplan, very, very hostile judges.
01:39I got sued essentially for defamation because I'm denying a story where I'm right.
01:44I should be suing her for defamation.
01:46There were two witnesses.
01:48One is a woman who's followed me for years.
01:53She said in 1979, I was in an airplane with her.
01:57She said I was making out with her and I grabbed her at a certain part and that was when she
02:01had enough.
02:02It didn't happen and she would not have been the chosen one.
02:08She would not have been the chosen one.
02:11Yes, you heard that right.
02:13Criticizing the physical appearance of some of his sexual assault accusers.
02:19Now this comes, and what you just heard there, it was 45 minutes of that today from Trump
02:23Tower and it's all coming as some 15% of likely voters in six battlegrounds tonight remain
02:29undecided on who they're going to be voting for in November.
02:33My lead source tonight was at that press conference sitting next to me while Trump was going off
02:38and venting.
02:39Senior political correspondent for the New York Times, Maggie Haberman.
02:42I mean, Maggie, just obviously Trump had just come out of that courtroom where Eugene
02:46Carroll was just a few feet away from him as he's appealing this, but it is also a strategic
02:53choice, maybe not that strategic, to come out and talk and draw attention to the sexual
02:58assault accusations against you, the sexual abuse findings by a jury, and also his criminal
03:04conviction here in New York.
03:06Right.
03:07I don't know of anyone who was recommending that he do this.
03:09But it's also worth noting he didn't have to be in court today.
03:12He chose to go to this hearing.
03:13And I understand it.
03:14He has made very clear he wants to be at legal proceedings connected to him.
03:19That is invariably going to draw attention to this news conference.
03:22And he didn't take questions from us, as you know, because you were there as I was there.
03:28All this is going to do is call more attention to that as well at a moment when he is trailing
03:31badly with women in polls.
03:33And so this, we have, you know, certainly he has called attention to all kinds of things
03:37that are typically unhelpful for a candidate.
03:40Sometimes it has not hurt him.
03:41It didn't hurt him in the primaries when he called attention to the indictments that he
03:44was facing.
03:45This is not a primary anymore.
03:46And this is different.
03:48These allegations are different.
03:49And it wasn't just that he called attention to them.
03:51He laid them out in sort of graphic detail.
03:55He talked about allegations that, frankly, I suspect much of the public doesn't remember
04:00anymore.
04:01But, you know, if they were tuning in, they will.
04:02Yeah.
04:03It kind of seemed like what your opponent would be doing two months out from the election.
04:07I'm sure they will be after that press conference.
04:09Kind of reviving all of the nitty gritty details of these allegations that have followed him
04:15since he was inside the White House and a candidate.
04:17And before.
04:18Before 2016.
04:19Yeah.
04:20I mean, look, he denies all of them.
04:21You know, you saw that there.
04:23He has said that repeatedly.
04:25As you know well, he thinks that he is his own best defender, both in a courtroom and
04:30on television.
04:31And he likes to he likes to be in front of cameras.
04:34There are times when that aligns with good politics for him.
04:37And then there are times when it does not.
04:40And it is hard to see how now this may not matter because there's so much baked in with
04:44him and it's very hard to imagine how many actual undecided voters there are.
04:49I think there are people who are leaning in one direction or another and may say that
04:52they're undecided, but they're really persuadable.
04:56This is not generally a lot of information that you would put out there.
04:58And he just gave the Harris team a bunch of soundbites to use in ads.
05:02What I was thinking was also, you know, clearly this is a very sensitive issue.
05:07We know that if you've covered him, you know, the Eugene Carroll thing especially.
05:10But he was making clear, you know, his Harris is, you know, debate prepping in Pennsylvania.
05:17He kind of made clear here's a road map for issues that I'm that I'm triggered by that
05:21that are something to it kind of was saying here's potentially a sensitive topic to go
05:26after me on on Tuesday night.
05:27And here's things I might say, depending on how you how you do it and things that many
05:32millions of people tuning into this.
05:34It's just there's a lot of reasons why I can't really imagine that anyone in his campaign
05:39was actively saying, you know what, here's an idea we're going to take to you.
05:43You know, you should go do this.
05:45He tends to want to do these things on his own.
05:47And there aren't very many people who say he shouldn't.
05:50So the attorneys that were standing there around him, you could only see a few in the
05:53actual camera shot when he was talking.
05:56But actually, you can see John Sauer on the left, Alina Haba, Will Scharf, Todd Blanche
06:02and Bill Bovey was next to him, Boris Epstein.
06:05He was criticizing them, which was maybe one of the biggest, most standout moments from
06:10from the conference, the news conference today, where he was saying they're good, they're
06:15good people, they're talented.
06:16But he was critical of how they've handled the Eugene Carroll case.
06:19What did you make of him doing that in such a public way?
06:22Well, it's a it's a way to show dominance.
06:24It's a way to say what he wants, knowing they're not going to say anything back to
06:27him because this is a public setting and they're not going to turn to him and argue.
06:33And it's a way to humiliate.
06:34And that is something that we know that he has done with any number of aides and lawyers
06:39and advisors and employees over a number of decades.
06:42He is he is constantly complaining about his lawyers.
06:46You know, this this has been going on for decades, even even Roy Cohn, who he has mythologized
06:51as, you know, the most perfect lawyer in his in his death and since his death, he was
06:57really critical of in real time.
06:59And he distanced himself from when Roy Cohn was dying of AIDS.
07:02So this is now just the latest.
07:04You know, these are these these people who who have defended him pretty aggressively
07:08and in the ways he has asked more often than not, up to a line that they try not to have
07:14cross where it would cause problems with a judge or a jury.
07:18He is it's still not enough for him.
07:19Yeah.
07:20And he had a lot to say about judges today.
07:22There was a moment of kind of disconnectedness between what he was saying about the judges
07:27that his cases are before and what other people say about judges that he likes.
07:31I just want everyone to listen to those two moments back to back.
07:37They say terrible things about judges.
07:38They do it with the Supreme Court justices because they think they're going to intimidate
07:43him.
07:44I think it should be illegal.
07:46Judge and Gorin and Judge Kaplan, all of them hostile areas and very, very hostile judges.
07:58There were there's there's a lot there, but, you know, look, Trump has been very critical
08:02of judges and he's been critical of reporters who cover him in ways he doesn't like for
08:06a long period of time.
08:07He described it at one point in that press conference that I don't think you showed as
08:11working the ref.
08:12And then he started talking about the late coach Bobby Knight.
08:15And then he went sort of seamlessly from that.
08:17And he was talking about the judges right before he started talking about Bobby Knight
08:20and working the ref.
08:21And then he went seamlessly into saying that some of us, meaning us in the press, should
08:24be ashamed of ourselves.
08:25I mean, a lot of this is working the ref.
08:27He just sees judges as no different than anyone else.
08:31And he said openly he thinks Republicans are not good enough at that.
08:36You know, he praised Judge Eileen Cannon without naming her, but it's the judge he appointed
08:40who dismissed the documents case against him in Florida.
08:44The other judges who were involved in cases that he didn't do very well in, he was very
08:49critical of himself.
08:50There's not a there's not a specific through line, but, you know, he has he has made a
08:55career out of working the ref.
08:57And it's not surprising.
08:58Yeah.
08:59I mean, the through line was criticizing the judges who don't dismiss these cases or treat
09:03them fairly, even though Judge Marchand today we saw what he did just a little after that
09:07and then praising the ones who do dismiss.
09:09Well, yeah, I would I would actually make the argument that Judge Marchand's decision
09:15to to adjourn the case until after the election, adjourn the sentencing until after the election
09:20in that case.
09:22While I suspect Donald Trump doesn't actually want to go to prison, there is a world in
09:27which this would be politically helpful to him because his supporters have been galvanized
09:32around moments like that.
09:34And he is he is an astute enough reader of the political landscape of especially on his
09:39base to probably know that.
09:40Yeah.
09:41So it may have been better for him.
09:42That's right.
09:43Politically, which everything for him is hinging on this election when it comes to other court
09:47cases.
09:48Correct.
09:49And and I think that he is acutely aware that if he loses the election, you know, that is
09:53the case and there could be other investigations.
09:55So we obviously didn't get to ask questions.