Then candidate and former president.
The line between
all of those different realities
for Donald
Trump was already pretty blurry,
but at times it appeared
to completely evaporate
inside that New York courtroom.
Today,
while the judge declared
that this is not a political rally,
Trump did cite the latest
poll numbers to the cameras
that were stationed
outside as he walked in
and out of the court.
And his campaign was firing off
fundraising email
after fundraising email.
Here with me tonight is Elizabeth
Griffin, who was Donald
Trump's White House
communications director.
I mean,
we've seen Trump under oath before
and some of his taped depositions, he's
typically more muted
and has a bit more restraint.
But it seems very clear at the minute
that he walked into that courtroom today.
He wasn't trying to appeal
to the judge here.
He was really trying to appeal to
to a larger political audience.
Yeah, very much so.
I mean, the word I would use is defiant.
And I think that was by design
to the degree
that there's ever a strategy
in anything Trump does.
I think he's kind of realized
in this civil
case, it's
more or less a foregone conclusion
there's already been
the summary judgment.
There's not really a case for him to win.
It's how do I win
in the court of public opinion?
And you know this. I know this well.
When he has wrapped
media attention on him,
he just wants to dominate that attention
that he has and wants to look strong
above anything else.
The facts at times be damned.
So I think that to the degree
that if there was a strategy,
it was look tough,
look defiant,
use the old playbook of
this is rigged, this is a witch hunt
and try to command
as much media attention as he can
because again,
this is a day he's
not on the campaign trail.
One of his chief opponents, Governor
DeSantis, is being endorsed
by Kim Reynolds in Iowa.
But he did have the media's attention
and American eyeballs on him.
And his campaign, obviously,
you know, they fundraise off of this.
They were sending out
emails against the attorney general
the moment he walked into court.
But then I noticed at points later
they were taking quotes
where we were watching these exchanges
in real time
and kind of quoting
the judge out of context,
like the one where he said, you know,
I don't want to hear
what Donald Trump has to say.
He was saying about the tangents
that Trump was going on,
but they were quoting that
and blasting it out
to millions of people.
Well, and that's exactly why
it's important
to have reporters there in the courtroom
to actually relay those facts,
because if it was purely communicated
through Donald Trump and his attorneys,
we wouldn't have the facts.
And we also saw Olena Harber,
his attorney,
give a kind of bizarre speech
outside of the courtroom
where she was talking about
basic procedures
in that you would have in a courtroom
and seemed like this
was an offense against her
and the Donald Trump team.
They're going to do this.
This is classic Donald Trump playbook.
It's us versus them.
I'm being indicted for
you is what he tries to convey
to the American public.
And the reality is, is
it might be working.
We saw these latest New York Times
Siena numbers.
He's beating Joe Biden in
four of the five battleground states
and outperforming significantly,
significantly where he was
at this time in 2020.
So I think he's relying on
there's
going to be
courtroom and legal battle
fatigue of the American public
and so long as he looks on top of
it looks angry and like
looks like he's fighting for
something that might work.
What are the other 2024 candidates
who are preparing
to be on the debate stage
this week
where he is
not going to be
how do you think they view something
like what happened today.
It's I mean it's
it's the myth
that these candidates
many of whom are
my friends are still kind of buying into
which is like he's suddenly
going to be out of the running
in their moment it's going to happen
like he is careening to the nomination.
We are what two months out from Iowa.
And I don't see something
fundamentally changing.
Right
unless something were to take him
out of the race
which nothing's going to you know, court
date is going to
nothing is going to make him
drop 40 points in the polls.
And can I say one thing, Caitlin?
What I couldn't help but think
obviously today he had to be there.
This is a civil trial
and he was on the stand.
He hasn't had to be in the courtroom
on these other dates.
He's chosen to show up. Yeah.
He cared more about showing up
because his business interests
were being challenged
then when he was actually being accused
of sexual assault,
Nate, name a person that you know
who wouldn't be there
to defend themselves,
you know, hook, line and sinker
against an allegation of sexual assault.
He didn't even show up in the Eugene
Carroll case
that tells you all
you need to know about Donald Trump.
And given you worked with him,
worked for him,
I mean,
what did you make of him
talking about his brand value,
saying that
that's something that should be
part of the financial statements,
which I think most bankers would say
is, is not what you considered
a loan application.
He he puts a lot of stock
in the brand value.
And I would argue that in many ways,
I think the brand value has diminished
in recent years and since his presidency,
or at least in the mainstream probably.
But that that is what it is.
The business is a brand of the presidency
for him as a brand.
It's not about the American public.
It is about Donald Trump.
Well, Ferguson, thank you very much.