The most senior lawyers in your own administration and on your campaign told
you that after you'd lost more than 60 legal challenges that it was over.
Why did you ignore them and decide to listen to a new outside group?
>> Speaker 2: Because I didn't respect them.
>> Speaker 3: Legal experts are now arguing that that moment that you just
watched during Trump's interview on Meet the Press was basically the moment
he incriminated himself and essentially countered his own legal defense in
the election Meddling case, which, of course, he's been indicted for
both on a federal level and in the state of Georgia.
Now he's facing those two indictments because of his alleged actions,
and here are his statements with a lot more context.
So you can decide for
yourselves whether he engaged in basically incriminating himself.
But understand that his argument, his main defense is,
I was just following legal counsel.
This is what my lawyers were telling me.
Well, is that really the case?
Let's watch.
>> Speaker 1: The most senior lawyers in your own administration and
on your campaign told you that after you'd lost more than 60 legal challenges that it
was over.
Why did you ignore them and decide to listen to a new outside group?
>> Speaker 2: Because I didn't respect them.
>> Speaker 2: You'd hired them.
>> Yeah, but that doesn't mean you hire them.
You never met these people.
You get a recommendation, they turn out to be rhinos, or
they turn out to be not so good.
In many cases, I didn't respect them, but I did respect others.
I respected many others that said the election was rigged.
>> Speaker 1: You called some of your outside lawyers.
You said they had crazy theories.
Why were you listening to them?
Were you listening to them because they were telling you what you wanted to hear?
>> Speaker 2: You know who I listened to?
Myself. I saw what happened.
I watched that election, and I thought,
the election was over at 10 o'clock in the evening.
>> Speaker 1: You were listening to your instincts.
>> Speaker 2: My instincts are a big part of it.
That's been the thing that's gotten me to where I am, my instincts.
But I also listen to people.
There are many lawyers I could give you many books.
There are books that are written on how the election was rigged.
There are numerous books that were written on how the election was-
>> Just to be clear,
were you listening to your lawyer's advice, or
were you listening to your own instincts?
>> Speaker 2: I was listening to different people, and
when I added it all up, the election was rigged.
>> Speaker 3: So there you have it.
Donald Trump has a library with many leather bound books.
He's read two Shakespeare's and a Camus.
But nonetheless, Cenk, he says that his instincts were a huge part of it.
I think that's probably the most damning thing he said there.
But he also kind of muddles the message with,
I also listened to legal counsel that, of course, told me things I wanted to hear.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, when Welker was drawn up the question,
given how much it's in the news and given the case,
she probably thought through a couple potential answers that she could get.
One was, Well, I listened to some lawyers, but not others.
Well, that would already be a problem for Donald Trump's defense,
because that means, okay, so you weren't just strictly listening to counsel.
You were making your own decisions as to which lawyers you would listen to, right?
And already that would be problematic for Donald Trump.
But you know that Donald Trump is not going to understand that concept, right?
There's like, two brain cells, like pong that go there, but
I don't know if they ever meet inside his brain.
But of course, with his verbal diarrhea, he wound up saying a lot more.
I listen to myself.
I listen to my own instincts.
I'm in charge.
Later she asks, Are you in charge?
And he's like, I'm in charge.
I made a decision.
Well, poof, there goes your whole defense on my lawyers made me do it.
>> Speaker 3: That's true.
>> Speaker 4: There's no ands ifs or buts, okay?
I mean, you're totally screwed.
The only way he gets out of any of this is he pardons himself on the federal cases,
and he gets MAGA jurors who are like, yeah,
I don't care about the evidence at all.
>> Speaker 3: In the state of Georgia.
>> Speaker 4: In the state of Georgia.
New York, yeah.
>> Right, in Georgia he would not be able to pardon himself.
Same with New York, because these are state level indictments.
But if he were to be elected again as President of the United States,
there is some concern that he would attempt to pardon himself.
And he was actually asked about that in the context of this interview.
So why don't we take a look at what he had to say about whether he would try to
pardon himself if he were president again?
>> Speaker 1: If you were reelected, would you pardon yourself?
>> Speaker 2: I could have pardoned myself.
Do you know what?
I was given an option to pardon myself.
I could have pardoned myself when I left, people said,
Would you like to pardon yourself?
I had a couple of attorneys that said, you can do it if you want.
I had some people that said it would look bad if you do it cuz I think it would look
terrible.
I said, the last thing I'd ever do is give myself a pardon.
I could have given myself a pardon.
Don't ask me about what I would do.
I could have the last day, I could have had a pardon done that would have saved me
all of these lawyers and all of these fake charges, these Biden indictments.
They're all Biden indictments political they indicted.
They wanna arrest their political opponents.
Only third world countries do that.
Banana Republic.
So ready?
I never said this to anybody.
I was given the option.
I could have done a pardon of myself.
You know what I said?
I have no interest in even thinking about it.
>> Speaker 3: So I just need to understand something, because maybe I'm misinformed.
Okay, that's definitely a possibility.
But for Trump to pardon himself, he would have to do it while he's still in office.
>> Speaker 4: Yes.
>> Speaker 3: When he was still in office.
I maybe have the timeline a little bit mixed up, Cenk,
but when he was still in office, he hadn't been indicted yet.
Am I right about that?
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, so, look, normal process works like this.
You get indicted, you get convicted, then you ask for a pardon.
Normally, no one ever asks for a pardon until there's a conviction, okay?
But Trump has turned everything upside down.
So then in order to get a pardon, you have to admit guilt and then have contrition.
So none of those things happen.
My guess as to what actually happened, based on decoding, the orange moron here,
is that he invited lawyers to say, can I give myself a pardon?
The lawyer is like, no, Mr.
President, there'd have to be a case, and you're not going to be president when you
can't give yourself a preemptive pardon for all the crimes you've committed.
Besides which, that would look pretty bad, right?
And we'd have to be awfully specific.
We'd have to say, for the national documents you're about to steal,
we're gonna give you a pardon.
He hadn't stolen the documents yet.
Okay, so then none of this makes any sense.
But look, his verbal diarrhea has one giant downside, but
it has two accidental upsides.
Part of the reason MAGA believes him no matter what is because all of our
politicians sound like phonies.
That's totally true.
>> Speaker 3: And they are phonies.
>> Speaker 4: And they are phonies.
That's right, okay?
So MAGA correctly assessed that, right?
But then this guy sounds authentic.
Why does he sound authentic?
Because who the hell would admit all those things, right?
He just says all these things he's not supposed to say, and so
they go, then he must be honest.
No, there's a difference between verbal diarrhea and honest, right?
And the second reason that it helps is because he's constantly repeating, and
in politics, it's all marketing, and repetition works.
So he's like, I could have pardoned myself.
I could have pardoned myself.
So when he says that, every MAGA guy now in the country is saying to
all their family and friends, he could have pardoned himself.
>> Speaker 3: Okay- >> But he didn't.
>> Speaker 3: This is gonna seem weird, but
it seems like I'm going off on a tangent, but it is related.
So in regard to the Hunter Biden prosecution, when the defense and
the prosecution in that case had agreed upon a plea deal regarding
specifically the gun charges, republicans lost their minds,
and I actually gave them I felt that their argument had merit, right?
Because the argument was, well, this plea deal is too vague.
This plea deal appears to provide immunity to Hunter Biden on any crime that he
has committed up until this point, and that is just too much immunity.
We're uncomfortable with that, right?
I agree with them on that argument.
>> Speaker 4: Me too.
>> Speaker 3: I felt that it was too vague.
That kind of immunity is unacceptable.
Okay, now think about it in the context of Donald Trump, right?
So what would Donald Trump do if he were to pardon himself before leaving office?
He would essentially declare that any criminality he engages in in the future,
any potential indictment he might face in the future,
he is pardoned from just a blanket pardon, blanket immunity.
Luckily, he didn't do that.
But if you buy his argument that he just made in that video, and
if you think that he would be justified in pardoning himself before he leaves office,
understand what that would actually entail and
then consider the double standard you're engaging in.
If on one hand, you have a problem with Hunter Biden's blanket immunity, and
on the other hand, you would have no problem with Donald Trump's blanket
immunity if he had pardoned himself.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, so in that same case, I said the judge made the right decision
because that immunity grant was way too vague and broad.
Immunity for what?
Everything right in regards to Hunter biden.
But Ana's absolutely right in pointing that out.
But that's the problem with MAGA.
You cannot break through them.
But that doesn't mean you shouldn't talk about these stories.
One, we're in the news business, and this is massive news about the former President
and by the way, the current leading candidate in the race, period.
He's now beating Biden in the polling, okay?
And easily winning the Republican primary.
So he is right now, as things stand,
likely to be the next President of the United States.
So for independents out there that still use their own minds,
how could you possibly do a blanket pardon for
crimes in the future, let alone the crimes in the past?
And when you talk about the crimes in the past,
you have to lay out what crimes they are.
So Trump would have had to have said, yes, we tried to do a coup.
Yes, we did fake electors.
I pardoned myself for the fake elector coup that I was planning and
already committed.
MAGA, you really think he has the power to do that?
And you really think he should have done that?
And you really believe him when he says, I didn't even think about it for a second?
Then why did you just tell us about the meeting you had with lawyers where you
guys discussed it?
That's not really I didn't think about it for a second.
I brought in either the lawyers just voluntarily came in out of nowhere and
he's like, look, lawyers asking to talk about a pardon, which I didn't ask for.
Or he asked for the lawyers to come in and say, hey, how can I avoid culpability when
I'm a lifelong criminal, and I broke like a half a dozen or two dozen laws, right?
So did that meeting happen?
Did it not happen?
Does he think about it?
Does it not think about it?
His contradictions are endless.
But you guys always say no.
Not guilty.
I bet somebody else did something along those lines.
What about this?
What about that?
No, he did all these things.
He's incriminated himself now to no end.
They'll be able to say in court, here's the President on several occasions in that
interview, saying, I made the decision, I was in charge.
It was not the lawyers.
>> Speaker 3: I didn't listen to the lawyers that were giving me good advice
because I didn't respect them.
And instead I decided to seek out lawyers who told me exactly what I wanted to hear.
That was essentially the message,
the implied message in the way he handled the questions in that interview.
So we'll see what happens.
But I just know the basics of what you should and shouldn't do if
you're facing criminal investigations and criminal indictments.
Do not under any circumstance do press interviews about these issues because you
might say something that self-incriminates.
And that's exactly what happened here.
>> Speaker 4: And again,
not bright enough to realize that he's incriminating himself.
Like before you went to go talk to her.
You didn't think for one second, hey, what's my top defense in this case?
Right, my lawyers told me that I could do a plan, a coup, and
I could have people pretend to be electors when they're not electors and
have them sign documents, and then we create a disturbance in the Capitol so
they can't finish the proceedings, and then we have it kicked over to the States.
My lawyers told me to do that.
You didn't think through what your number one defense in court is going to be.
That's your number one defense.
That's what the hero defense lawyers are already indicating they're gonna go with.
And so you just go out there and you blow your own defense?
Come on, MAGA.
If he's smart, why did he just shoot himself in the foot?
Why?
He doesn't think through anything cuz he's not bright at all.
Please, pick someone smart.
Please.