Donald Trump is not
heading to his civil fraud trial
like he was scheduled
to be doing about right now.
He scrapped the plans unexpectedly
in a last minute post yesterday.
Writing he,
quote, already testified to everything
and has nothing more to say.
The reversal also came
after he doubled down on his dictator
remarks at a dinner in New York City.
CNN's Kristen Holmes
joining us right now
with more on all of this.
Kristen, no court today,
more dictator talk
and now more polling momentum
What are you hearing from that team?
Decision for him not to testify?
His lawyers had been pushing
back on the idea
that he would show up in court.
And it seems that they won out on that.
And Donald Trump decided
not to actually take the stand.
But this is far
from the end of his legal troubles.
And when I talk to his team,
what they're really trying
to figure out now
is how to navigate these
various upcoming trials,
including the one here in D.C.
where he is
charged with trying
to overturn the 2020 election,
which is slated to happen in March,
which really will be
the peak of primary season.
So they are trying to figure out
how to navigate that.
Now, as you look here,
this is what I want to show you.
This calendar here in January.
Look at all of the dates here.
This is what we're starting to see.
This election season is ramping up.
He is expected to travel
at least two total weeks here
between New Hampshire
and Iowa leading into
that caucus and then that primary again.
Legal troubles aren't over
and they're still going to be discovered.
He's still going to be needing to meet
with various lawyers
and that is going to impact
how far out he can plan his travel.
One thing to pay attention to
and I know you noted this
as his polling numbers
go up, as
he seems to be getting more support
from the Republican Party.
He's also ramping up his rhetoric,
including mentioning that dictator
comment 11 more time
over the weekend at an event in New York.
Take a listen.
Cater for one day.
But The New York Times said
and you know why
I wanted to be a dictator
because I want a wall, right?
I want a wall
and I want a drill, drill, drill.
One thing just to point out here
is that this was an answer
saying that he wanted to be a dictator
for a day when he was asked by an ally,
Sean Hannity,
over and over again
that if you were to be reelected,
would he abuse power?
And instead of
answering directly,
he deflected
and said
that he would be a dictator for a day.
And as we have seen,
as his poll numbers continue
to go
up, as it seems to be inching towards
the nomination,
that question
was a response to a number of anti-Trump
Republicans and Democrats
who said that
if Trump were to be reelected again,
that they would
they believed that
he would be a dictator or abuse power.
And again,
when he was asked directly, he deflected.
And now it seems that
he's doubling down on that line, Fred.
All right, Kristen Holmes,
thank you so much.
Panel is back with me.
We are also joined by CNN legal
analyst and former
federal prosecutor Elliot Williams.
Matt Moore's
Matt Gorman was sitting
in your Republican seat on Friday
or on the last day when we talked
extensively about the dictator remarks
and his
he really focused in on the issues
that Trump was talking about,
the border wall
and drill,
drill, drill,
which since had a lot of Republicans
come out and say, oh, he's just joking.
Now I have to say,
I think I was willing to buy that
from Republicans.
For a lot of years
when I covered the Trump administration.
And then I was there on January 6th
and it definitely stopped being funny.
What do you
what is your take on his decision
to do this year?
Well, my take is he is doubling down
because he knows we're
all going to talk about it right here.
We are almost a week after
he made the initial comments.
And here we're still talking about it.
We are also talking about the issues of
you know,
American energy independence
and drill, baby, drill.
We are talking about
securing the southern border.
So he is using this to troll
all of us essentially
to also talk about the issues
he wants to talk about.
He instinctively knows
how this media landscape works.
And that's
why you're seeing him double down on it,
because otherwise, in
no other political environment
would you ever double down and say,
I'm going to be a dictator
even for one moment
as American president.
But we're not dealing
with the traditional politician here.
We're dealing with Donald Trump,
who knows how this media
cycle plays and knows here we are
spending our time talking about it.
And so he's going to continue
to double down on things like this.
We should not be shocked
for the next year
if there's going to be
a lot more statements like this.
What is it
about the Republican base
these days
that makes this appealing
this dictator thing?
Because because they.
Well, there's two facets of this.
One is because they do feel like
they want someone who's good.
You know,
there's aspects of a strong man.
They're looking for strength right now.
They see weakness
emanating the Oval Office.
They see the world on fire.
They're looking for someone
to see the party of Reagan.
Right.
Sitting on the hill like tear down
this wall.
Democracy is the height of everything.
Like, what has changed?
And I'm not condoning
what he's saying for the record,
but what the Republican base
is looking at saying, you know what,
I want him.
He's going to go in there
day one, start taking on issues
to, you know,
go back to eight years ago
when everyone said
the Republican base takes him
not literally but figuratively.
That's what they're doing right now.
They're saying, you know what, he's not
I don't think he's
going to be an actual dictator.
I think is going to go in there,
make decisions on day one and so on.
Two issues
I care about as a Republican voter,
American energy independence
and securing the border.
So the challenge there, Eliot, is that,
you know,
it does seem like
he has a track record
of actually doing the things
he's going to say, despite the fact that
you know
I mean, many people in 2016 Muslims
say, oh, bin
Muslims, he's never going to do that.
Oh, like,
you know, build
a border wall with Pentagon money
that's supposed to defend the country.
And oh, wait, he did do that.
What is like your view of
how and whether
the legal system would hold
if this arc
continues and we see Donald Trump
head back towards the Oval Office?
I think the cynical answer is that
it will not.
And I think this is not me,
quite frankly, talking as a lawyer,
but as the child of immigrants
and it happens all over the world.
And I think we in the United States
have this notion, particularly
on the political left in America,
that our institutions will
somehow save us
if someone comes in
and says, I'm going to circumvent
the Justice Department,
the Defense Department,
the State Department,
Department of Education,
and just implement policies
that I wish to have implemented.
He can just do that.
And I think we had
or at least for most of American history,
just this notion
that that a president could not do that.
And so, for instance,
if you take the wall and drilling,
those are both things
that the government is capable of doing.
And there's a process for doing it.
You know, there's a
there's a procurement process
for how to construct a wall and so on.
But the president sort of making clear
he is going to install
or at least a said
he wants to install people around him
who will just do it.
And I think
we've got to get off
this notion in America
that we will be saved by the rule of law.
It only is as good as we who
choose to adhere to it
and politicians agreeing to carry out
to sort of try to play along.
It requires by
and by
and from the people
who are governed by the laws.
I want to show you, Mary, on a
Senator, J.D.
Vance, who is a conservative senator
from Ohio, who I would say is
particularly Trumpian,
I guess, in his sort of orientation
of late.
He spoke to my colleague
Jake Tapper on State of the Union
over the weekend.
Watch what he had to say.
Do you really have no concerns
that Donald Trump
might try to abuse his power
if reelected?
No, Jake, I don't.
Look,
the guy was president for four years.
We had peace. We had prosperity.
We had wages rising faster
than inflation.
Joe Biden has been president
for three years now.
The average Ohio family pays 10,000
more to afford the same standard
of living
The idea
that Trump is going
to be radically different
than what he was four years ago
is just preposterous.
He was an effective,
successful president.
I think he will be
an effective, successful president again.
That's why I've endorsed him.
And I think this desire
to make the election
all about the past
is indicative of the fact
the Democrats don't have much to run on.
I think Republicans do.
I mean, marijuana,
that's what you're going to see
from Republicans here in Washington
if Donald Trump rolls on. Oh, absolutely.
And we've heard from Kevin McCarthy
this past week saying, oh, no,
don't take Trump at his word.
I think it was actually kind
of indicative that J.D.
Vance himself
said, oh,
you know, he's
not going to be this radical,
radically different from what he was.
Well, a lot of people
remember Trump
as being this guy
who broke down barriers.
And I think
one thing that Elliot said,
which is true, is
that there is concerns
about the institutions
and who will run those institutions.
Because a lot of people said
during the Trump
administration, and we've seen it
from some of his former officials, said,
I was there to say the right thing.
I tried to change his mind.
You know, we put our foot down
to make sure
certain things stood in place.
Those people may not be
in that administration anymore.
And I think that's something that I'm
sure the Biden campaign
is going to be leaning on.
And I think to that point, it's
not just the senior political appointees
that he's talking about.
It's literally purging
many of the career officials who for whom
the president, former president
and his allies deemed
to be insufficiently loyal.
That's a big
there's a process for firing people
in the federal government.
But he's now stated
that he does not wish to adhere to it.
And I think
he's capable of doing it.
I just can't say it enough. Yes.
And I think the power in this
for the Biden campaign, in this argument
lies with the power
of making this argument, lies
with moderate
voters, suburban voters, swing voters.
We know it is.
It is for reasons
that you guys were just discussing
that we could probably talk
about for hours.
It is red meat for his base,
but his base alone doesn't get him there.
He has to win a sliver of independent,
moderate suburban voters.
And so,
you know,
the more
that the Biden campaign can drive
this contrast
can use the four years to say,
because I think Marion is right.
People remember those four years as being
borderline autocratic,
borderline despotic.
If you're not somebody
who is inclined to like Trump,
that's how you remember those four years.
So he is an incumbent.
I mean, he is not a challenger
in the way
he was in 2016
where he can just kind of
paint pictures with words.
And, you know, he has a four year record.
And I think for the Biden
campaign to just keep
driving this argument at moderate voters,
suburban voters, that's where
that's where the political payoff of
making this argument.