CNN political analyst and
senior political correspondent
at The New York Times, Maggie
Haberman, is at the table.
Also CNN political commentator,
received Ervin.
He's a former Trump campaign adviser,
and Van
Jones, the former special adviser,
to President Obama.
Good morning.
I know no one got much sleep.
Thanks for getting up.
We didn't put you in this exam hours.
That is true.
It is true.
Yes, I know.
I know from years ago that I it
you, Maggie, you and Caitlin,
I think of the journalists
that no President Trump
like the back of your hand
more than anyone else.
What did last night
tell you about the year
and a half ahead for the country?
It's going to be ugly
if Trump is a nominee.
And I think that we could
have anticipated that.
I think that
I think two things can be true at once.
I think that
Caitlin elicited a lot of news from him.
I think that he made
a bunch of statements
that certainly his party
and members of his party
are not going to elected official.
His party
are not going to
want to have to comment on,
you know, his
joking about the sexual assault,
sexual abuse,
liable verdict in the civil case
against him a day earlier.
His abortion comment actually
probably is not
that's not the one that
I think Republicans are going to be upset
about, him
doubling down again
on supporting the January six rioters.
So there were a lot of saying that
he refusing
to say who should win the war in Ukraine.
That was really, really striking.
I think all of that was interesting.
And in terms of
just the political context,
in terms of the legal cases,
he walked himself
and Caitlin was right there with him
because she knows
these cases really well.
He walked himself into some trouble
with the special counsel investigation
into why
he had all these documents at Mar a Lago.
I thought that was really,
really important.
I also think two things can be true
at once, and it's true
that his team was really happy.
They were happy with the reaction.
They were happy with the crowd.
They liked how aggressive he was.
Now, you know,
the Biden
people also liked how aggressive he was
because they think it helps them
in a general election.
There is a lot of time to go between now
and then, Poppy,
but all it tells you is Donald
Trump has one side.
And this is the same Donald Trump
that we have seen for seven
or eight years.
All I kept thinking
last night was that famous
like Dennis Green
football coach press conference
where he kept saying
they are who we thought they were.
They are.
He is who we thought.
He who we thought he is.
It's never going to change.
But you made a really important
point here.
If you take a step
back, you're talking to Democrats,
whatever their views on social media.
There was a
lot of Democrats
saying this is gold for us, right?
There's a tax debate adviser,
you know,
weeks, weeks worth of damning content.
It was quite an efficient hour
Can you can both be true
where the former president's
advisers are thrilled.
Republican primary voters are thrilled.
And if you're a Democrat,
you're watching that
and saying we've got 50 attack ads
based on one hour.
Yeah.
I mean,
I think
if you're a Democrat
watching that news that you think
we've been criticizing
and complaining about Biden
this is a horror show
that we don't want a rerun of.
And I think a lot of Democrats
were appalled by his behavior
in throwing Ukraine under the bus.
You know I hope he gets sued again
this morning
for libel and slander
and everything else is being so horrible
toward
the people who have been
on their side of his legal cases.
But, you know,
I think
that we've got to be careful here now
because Trump has a particularly trick
that he uses with nostalgia.
The whole
Make America Great Again is about
that was his era.
That was wonderful is 1950s.
And I'm going to bring you back there
He's now using nostalgia
about the Trump administration
just a few years ago.
Everything was perfect.
So he's trying to own both nostalgic past
and a future he can bring you to.
Which leaves Biden
initially stuck with the president
and no place to go.
And so if you're a Democrat,
don't just get thrown off
by the emotions here.
You've got a rhetorical strategy.
We've got to figure out a way
to take that narrative away from him.
The Trump years were not perfect day
by far.
They were not perfect even before COVID.
So you begin to see
how you can have to fight this guy.
And in general,
I think this guy is almost unstoppable
for the nomination.
Do you believe, David,
as a former adviser to the president,
President Trump,
that this was good
for Democrats, for President Biden
and in general?
Let's just get to the general.
Yeah.
So so I would say
it depends on where you're
coming from, but I think that
somebody
Abby said
last night, this Trump being Trump,
that's what you saw.
So you alluded to the same thing.
I think it was a missed opportunity
for the president in terms of,
you know, what Van is saying is correct.
You know, Biden says this correctly
all the time.
Don't judge me
against the Almighty
in judgment, against the alternative.
And to Van's point,
voters are going to look at Trump
and they're going,
look, the alternative Biden.
You look at the numbers right now
and the current president's numbers suck.
They're terrible.
And so what explains Trump's strength?
It's Biden's weakness.
And so I think voters are going to make
they're going to make that comparison.
And I think
last night was a missed opportunity
for the president,
for the former president to say look,
we're clear,
we're never going to agree
on January 20th.
I mean, on the 20, 20 election
where I could agree on January six.
But let's talk about some things
you might agree on.
We need a stronger border.
We need to stop setting off.
I mean, everyone
today in America is watching
the border crisis happen in real time.
And they're thinking we need to fix this.
This isn't working correctly. Right.
And so Trump really missing
opportunity to really address
those types of things.
Inflation.
Listen, Silicon Valley, bank,
bank, first Republic,
all these things cratered
because of the inflationary policies
of this administration. I get it.
But he could have framed those issues.
Right.
And he never missed it.
Never misses an opportunity
to miss an opportunity
to talk about somebody who's not Trump.
But that was what it was.
He didn't he talked it.
He he was so interested
in defending himself and talking about
he couldn't
he just couldn't put a pin in it.
Quick pivot
and it would have been
that would be him
being a different person
than he is to the world.
Is that ever going to happen?
Which is the way and this is my hope for.
Right.
But that's a Republican field
that Republicans have been living in
for the last seven years.
And now, once again,
they're after a day
where he's on center stage
and they're all running away from cameras
and reporters.
You want to ask them
about what the former president said
the second day in a row for the country.
But I think my question to Maggie is
what what is the endgame here for him
relitigating all of this stuff
besides the fact that it just
is who he is?
And I think that that is the endgame.
I mean, I think it's two things
advisers, you know,
know that when he
they try to prep him
or try to control him or manage him,
he tends to go
even more in the opposite direction
sometimes that
pardoning the people from January right.
So there's I mean,
some of his advisers
were actually really happy
with his January 6th answers.
I couldn't
quite get a clearer sense as to. Right.
That would be the question
on the pardoning issue in particular,
it was because he didn't commit to. Yes.
They're all pardoned.
It was likely.
We play that real quick.
And Caitlin had a good back and forth.
We play that sound
equivocal on pardoning traitors.
When you pardon the January six
rioters who were convicted
of federal offenses.
I am inclined to pardon many of them,
I can say for every single one,
because a couple of them
probably they got out of control
they thought that was cool
because he caveated. It was. Yes, it was.
It was
it was better than the alternative,
which is how this always
tends to get looked at.
I think to the point that you were making
before, though, again,
this was a forum
where Caitlin got a lot of news,
made a lot
a lot of things
that we have not heard him
talk about,
a lot of issues
that he has not been pushed
because when people are traveling
aboard his plane
or he's going to a rally,
it's something very different.
And so how it all plays for his team
and they're feeling good
that they're getting
cheers is very different
than what it might be.
I think it's important of
Caitlin was like a matador
against the biggest bull
in American history.
And I think she put a lot of knives in
that are going to pay off
later on in terms
of getting him to say stuff
that he had not actually said
on the record before.
I think it's very important. Yeah.
But with Maggie's point, you know,
election Republicans
got what they needed out of this.
Trump got what he has as he's tough,
pugilistic people like the base
likes to see that
he's in there
mixing it up with the media.
Again, not a friendly environment. Right.
For for Donald Trump
to come back to CNN,
you know,
I kind of joked that
you would never see Joe
Biden wading into the Fox News debate.
I don't think that's fair compared no.
CNN is not.
My point
is, it's not an unfriendly so unfriendly.
Oh, that was a friendly audience thing
that I think you can't get
a more objective
journalist in interviewer than cable.
No, no, no, I'm not sorry.
I'm just saying everybody.
I completely agree. I'm not.
I'm Caitlin. A great job.
I'm just saying
that Biden is not going to he's
not going to stand up and do that.
I would love to see him take questions,
but with whom? Sean Hannity.
I mean, like, I know what I'm saying.
Like, I'd love to see him
take questions from an audience
like that. Unscripted, no notes.
It's tougher to do.
Well, we'll see if he does it.
And I think the audience, by the way,
whoever just said that,
they asked
some pretty softball questions,
there were no really pressing
hard questions they asked.
And I thought, well,
I think that we can
look at this
from a political point of view
and we should.
But from the point of view
of the United States of a country,
the idea that you've got somebody
who just basically put you on notice,
you vote for me,
I am going to help Putin.
To me,
that's the bigger takeaway
is all the other stuff,
what really matters
right now on the world stage
is what's going on right now in Ukraine.
The fact that he wouldn't
say, I want Ukraine to win
I don't want dictators to win.
I want to make sure
Zelenskiy is triumphant here.
The fact that he was equivocal
and he both cited a brutal dictator
killing civilians and stealing
children with
baby
we should not let that go.
Unremarkable.
Think about what
Kevin McCarthy said
a few weeks ago in Israel,
talking, making that so clear, Maggie.
No, I think that's exactly right.
I mean, listen,
I think that there was a lot of insight
that we got into where Trump
is because we don't hear from him
the way he is to he's not on Twitter.
People don't read his social
the way I'm certain, no matter what
he says. They just don't.
And so
the way what they did
when he was on Twitter,
he does not do a ton
of mainstream interviews.
And that's for a reason.
There's
there's also been fewer
opportunities for him.
He is the front runner
for the Republican nomination
by a very long while.
So I don't see how you don't
try to talk to him.
I do think Davis is right
that the comparison
of you're going to hear Republicans
say Trump went into,
you know, an environment
that Trump
at least has argued
isn't isn't favorable to him
and that he went back and forth.
And I think that you are going
to see
them make that kind of comparison
against Biden over and over.
And that is going to basically
be the frame
they want this election to be,
which is weak versus strong.
I'm not saying that's the case.
But that's what they're going to push.