You make sense, this response there?
Well, look, look,
I still think he answered it right.
He lost.
But we all know that as a matter of law,
he lost the election Right.
The deeper question
and the one that I think he's dodging is
do you believe
it was a full and fair election?
That's really the question.
And with respect to the interviewer
and I think she let him off the hook.
I mean, in the end, did he lose?
Of course he lost.
And I believe he lost
because he lost
in a full and fair election.
There's a lot of Republicans
I think a majority of Republicans
in the country
do not believe it was a free
and fair election.
Yeah, well,
I think that shows you
the impact that Donald Trump has had
on a lot of people.
And that impact started on election
night, Anderson,
because when he came out there
that night at two 30 in the morning
and said,
you know,
we won the election, it's being stolen,
People assume
that the president of the states
knows things they don't know.
And if you're also inclined
to be supportive,
you want to give him
the benefit of the doubt.
And then that stuff has just seeped in.
He has said any number of times
to me, both personally,
and I've heard him say to others,
you say something in tough times,
it becomes true.
And that is clearly his philosophy
on everything he's doing right now
to the American people.
And I know in your book
you wrote about that
moment has been the key moment for you
that you were like, all right, enough.
Yeah.
We see how the former person is behaving,
the rhetoric against the judge,
the prosecution, even Mike Pence.
Is this just free speech or more?
Well, I mean,
I think
the judge will decide that
ultimately to me, though,
there are always limits on free speech.
I mean, this is the classic
you can't yell fire in a crowded theater.
I mean, there are limits on free speech.
And by the way,
when you're
a criminal defendant, out on bail,
let's focus on that.
He is now out on bail in three different
jurisdictions, New York,
Florida and Washington. D.C.
We have a frontrunner in this race
who's out on bail in three jurisdictions.
It's pretty incredible.
And when you when what happens,
though, when you're let out
is that there are restrictions
placed on you for you to stay out.
And one of the restrictions
that was placed on him
was no contact or intimidation
of potential witnesses.
He's saying
if you go after me, I'm coming after you.
His lawyers are now saying
that post was not
that was generalized
political speech, not directed anyone.
Well, of course,
that's what they're going to say
because what they really feel like
saying is,
oh, my God,
I can't believe he did that again.
That you think
that's what they said privately
to privately.
Their lawyers are like
want to jump out the window
having to defend some of this stuff.
And here's the bottom line on it is that
let's put aside
if it's legal or illegal for a second.
Is this the kind of conduct
that the Republican Party
or the American people want
for someone who's going to be president
to send out tweets or posts,
wherever they are,
that he sets a true
social saying, this kind of stuff,
threatening people
in trying to intimidate
Mike Pence,
trying to intimidate the judge
You know, Mike Pence,
as we know
this is
he's just falls in the line of Rex
Tillerson and and
and Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr and
all these folks who were
were the best people
ever when he hired them.
And then as soon as they say something
and extraordinarily loyal also to him.
Yes.
And as soon as they disagree with him,
then they become the worst
people on earth,
the things he wrote about Mike Pence.
Look, I'm running against Mike.
I want to make sure I beat him
and I become the Republican nominee.
But he doesn't deserve that.
He doesn't deserve those comments.
The former president's
lawyer, a new lawyer, John
Laura, is
defending the president's actions.
Obviously, he says
a technical violation of the Constitution
is not a violation of criminal law.
Does that make sense to you?
You know? No.
And he admits that the president
violated his oath
Think about that.
The president cited states
promises to preserve, protect
and defend the Constitution
of the United States.
His own lawyer has admitted
he violated the Constitution.
I want to play something
he told Laura Ingraham on Fox last week.
What President Trump said is, let's
go with option dig. Let's just halt.
Let's just pause the voting
and allow the state legislatures
to take one last look
and make a determination
as to the as to whether or not
the elections were handled fairly.
That's constitutional law.
That's not an issue of criminal activity.
Did he admit
the president committed a crime
because the president is charged
with trumped obstruction
of an official proceeding? Right.
He did.
And let me say what else he did.
You know,
he he's opposite of what the evidence is.
Mike Pence
has been very clear about this.
He said the president didn't ask him to
halt or pause
He said that he was
asked by the president
to reverse it and to reverse the result.
And that's
what Mike Pence is going to testify to.
I suspect that's
what he's already testified
to in the grand jury.
We don't know for sure
because those matters are secret,
but I suspect
he is anything different
to the grand jury.
Mark Meadows is going to testify.
Oh, I've said all along,
I think Mark Meadows is already
cooperating witness.
He has all the looks
of a cooperating witness
running into coffee
shops away from the press.
And he's disappeared in the indictment.
I mean, he's referenced once or twice,
but so when you did see Mark Meadows
as an unindicted coconspirator
and you see
absolutely no mention of him at all,
how devastating his testimony could be,
it could be the worst testimony
for him outside of the family members,
because Mark Meadows was with him
constantly
during and involved in all of it
in Georgia in the electors.
He was a very
involved chief of staff in my experience.
He was
he made sure he was in every meeting
and every conversation.
So and we remember
there are hundreds of text messages
that he turned over
to the special counsel that he kept
and many more that he kept.
The former president
saying he's going to ask
the judge
be reassigned or recuse,
says he can't get a fair trial in D.C..
Is any of that legitimate?
They're not going to move the trial.
I mean, there's
no there's nothing
he's shown he's saying
because he was appointed by Obama
and she's been tough on
January six defendants,
that that makes her, you know, biased.
He's got to show something
better than that
to get a judge disqualified
and to get the venue moved.
And what the argument is,
I don't like the jury pool,
so I'm going to get the venue moved.
That's not a basis for moving venue.
Do you think the public has a right
to see?
I mean,
do you think there should be cameras
in the court in this?
I've always thought
there should be cameras in federal court.
I thought that if we haven't state court,
sheriff or court,
I understand that there are times
where people
are performing for the cameras.
But I think for the
American people to see,
because I think
everyone in the justice system
works extraordinarily
well in this country. In the main.
And I think
the more we take the veil away from it
on the federal side as well,
and people
get to see the rights of defendants
being acquitted,
juries really
considering all the evidence deliberating
and then ultimately
a verdict being rendered,
I think that give
more confidence in the system,
not less in terms of
you know,
I don't know if you saw
a former
attorney general, Bill Barr, told
Kaitlyn Collins last week
the DOJ case is legitimate.
The former president, quote,
should not be anywhere
near the Oval Office. The same interview.
He didn't rule out
voting for the former president
in a one on one matchup against Biden.
What do you. Does that make sense to you?
Well, I
you know, and he's a lawyer, Republican
not entirely.
And I think that this is something
that people have been avoiding.
As you know, a lot of people
somewhere in the race,
somewhere outside the race
and talking about this.
And I think part of it
is because
there's real serious discontent
with President Biden,
concerns about his age and his health
and all the rest of that.
So I think that's why
some people do it that way.
But I do think
that Bill Barr, to be fair to him,
has been as clear as any former
member of his cabinet
on the things that he
said about the president,
how the president conducted himself
and how he his critique
has been devastating. Yes.
And so I think I think, look,
if Bill wants to take that position,
I think we need to give him a pass
on that one, because in the end,
he has put forward substantive facts
as to why Donald Trump
shouldn't be president again.
This new CBS News YouGov poll.
91% of MAGA
Republicans and 83% of non-meat eager
Republicans think the indictments
investigation against Trump
are trying to stop his campaign.
The argument
you've been making consistently
and especially now,
I mean, are you worried that it's not?
I mean,
how do you make traction
with those voters?
Because
the argument says voters is
these are two separate questions.
People are discontent with what
they've seen, Anderson, out of DOJ.
And I can't say I blame them in terms
of what happened with Hillary Clinton
or rather, it did not happen.
And what they see
now with the Hunter Biden plea
being rejected,
seemingly because the judge thought
it was an unfair
plea deal that favored Joe Biden.
If you're a Republican, you say
to yourself,
this looks this looks fishy.
So I think that's where those numbers
come from.
The separate question is,
regardless of that, regardless
if you think that is prosecutions
are politically motivated or not.
There's very little arguing
about the conduct,
the underlying conflict that led to it,
inviting people to
to Washington
on January six, saying it's
going to be wild,
telling them the election is stolen
when it isn't,
urging them to march up
to Capitol Hill and saying,
you know, I'll go up there with you.
I knew listening to that
he would never go.
If Donald Trump's
worried about breaking a fingernail,
he doesn't go,
let alone be in danger
with people who are being violent.
Then he goes back to the White House
and watches
people commit violent acts at the U.S.
Capitol and does nothing
if you're not morally responsible
then for what happened on January 6th.
Having done that, forget legally.
Is that the kind of person you want
behind the desk in the Oval Office,
whether you believe
he should go to jail or not,
would you believe he's criminal or not?
Is that the bar now
for B presented states?
Well,
not only he may have committed a crime,
but we think
it might be politically motivated.
That's why I say put that stuff aside
and look at the context.
Look at the context.
In that case,
look at the conduct
in the in the documents case
where he was asked for 18 months
quietly, privately to give the back.
He didn't.
And look at look at the context.
Even the Stormy Daniels case,
which I believe
is a ridiculous prosecution
to been brought.
But do we really want a president
who's paying off a porn star
during an election
to hide the fact
that he had an affair with her
while he was married?
Like that shouldn't
probably be the standard
for what we want behind the Oval Office.
So that's my argument.
And that's why those numbers don't worry
nearly as much as you suspect they might.