I was told by some people that these are sick lunatics that I'm dealing with,
give yourself a pardon, your life will be a lot easier.
I said I would never give myself a pardon.
>> Speaker 2: Even if you were reelected in this moment?
>> Speaker 1: Well, I think it's very unlikely.
What did I do wrong?
I didn't do anything wrong.
You mean because I challenge an election, they wanna put me in jail?
>> Speaker 2: There he is saying it's unlikely that he would give himself
a pardon.
I can't imagine people would believe that.
That the former president on with Kristen welker, that will air on Sunday.
She's the new host of Meet the Press, and this is her first interview
where she apparently didn't push back too much on Donald Trump, but
we'll see when we see the entire video.
Trump claimed multiple times that lots of people told him that he could use
the pardon to pardon himself, and he should in his last administration, and
he didn't that time, so why would he this time.
Here's a little more from Donald Trump.
Mr. President, if you were reelected, would you pardon yourself?
>> Speaker 1: 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,
because I think it would look terrible.
I said, here's the story.
These people are thugs, horrible people, fascists, Marxists, sick people.
They've been after me from the day I came down the escalator with Melania, and
I did a great job as president.
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.
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, I never even wanted to think about it,
and I could have done it.
And all of these questions you're asking me about the fake charges,
you wouldn't be asking me because it's a very powerful thing for a president.
>> Speaker 2: Well, you can believe Donald Trump if you'd like, but
that comes at your own peril, because it seems like he actually thought more
seriously about giving himself a pardon than he led on to Kristen Welker.
CNN previously reported the then president had been asking aides and
lawyers, including then White House counsel Pat Cipoloni who,
on closed captioning comes up as Patsy Bologna during the which I love more
than anything, during those 116 hearings.
He asked Pat Cipoloni about his self pardoned power in the weeks surrounding
the end of his time in the White House.
And as we know, Trump has now been indicted four times in federal court in
Washington, DC, and Florida, and in state courts in Georgia and
New York state, court's important, he faces a total of 91 charges.
And that he could pardon himself in DC, he could pardon himself in
the other federal case in Florida, but he can't pardon in a state case,
and the hush money and the voter interference couldn't be pardoned.
Plus, a presidential pardon is untested, and experts or
a self pardon untested experts divided on its constitutionality.
A legal memo written by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel just
days before Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974 argued a president could not
self pardon, but the legal opinion, of course, is not binding.
So whether or not he can do it, the point is he says that
he probably wouldn't, which means what, Cenk?
>> Speaker 3: [LAUGH] It means absolutely nothing.
>> Right. Okay, so I got a lot of thoughts on it,
but I'm gonna give the first thought to one of our members, Crystal.
She's a YouTube member and wrote in, Trump wouldn't pardon himself, and
I'm the Loch Ness monster, and we live in candy land with cotton candy clouds.
Love doing the show with members, that's funny.
It's true.
Hit the join button below the video to become a member and do the show with us.
Okay, let me add on to what Crystal's saying.
So, first of all, he did have a number of interesting confessions there.
First, he know we had a team of lawyers that came in, said I should do it, but
I wouldn't do it.
Later on, he's like, I didn't even think about it.
Then why did you have the meeting with teams of lawyers?
>> Speaker 3: [LAUGH] >> He's such an obvious liar,
that's why the MAGA guys, I understand their anti-establishment rage and
all that stuff, and I probably understand it better than almost anyone else,
certainly on the left, right?
But I'm amazed, I'm never not amazed at how they can't see
how obvious it is that he's a liar.
>> Speaker 2: That was pretty Trumpian, by the way.
>> Speaker 3: The way I said it.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, I understand.
>> Speaker 2: I'm trying to speak their language.
>> Speaker 2: I probably understand it better than anybody else.
Nobody understands the anti-establishment rage like I do.
>> Speaker 3: Better than I do.
>> Speaker 4: You got to give it credence, you got to give yourself credence.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, it was both giving yourself credit, but
also, at the same time, a little confusing the way I stated it.
It's perfectly Trumppy.
>> Very Trumppy.
>> Speaker 3: Anyways, but you get it, which is that how do you guys not see it,
he just contradicted himself right there, right there in the same two minute span.
Anyways, but he also said, and this is gonna be interesting I mean, I hope we
never hit this scenario where he's president again and can pardon himself.
He said, it looks terrible.
Okay, so when you do pardon yourself, if that happens, you're gonna say,
it looks wonderful.
We all know it, and all of MAGA is gonna say, it looks wonderful.
We're gonna play this tape of him saying it looks terrible, and they're gonna say,
no, fake news, fake news.
And then he went further and said, it's the last thing I would do.
And then when he does it, we're gonna play that tape, and
then MAGA's gonna go, no, quoting Trump is fake news.
>> Right.
>> Speaker 2: Or it doesn't matter.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, guys, I mean, think about it this way.
Sorry, Jackson, one last thing.
Does anyone think that Donald Trump, if he won reelection and
gets convicted of these crimes, goes, no, you guys are right, I'm gonna go to jail.
[LAUGH] Come on, come on.
>> Speaker 4: And his base would want him to pardon himself too,
they would be cheering for know.
But the idea that Donald Trump wouldn't do this as if he hasn't done many
things that are equally on par with that or even more egregious.
He wants to change the laws of an entire state, which is Georgia, so
that he can stay out of prison.
He openly calls, we have him on the phone, asking for
one more vote than he needs to win in that area.
It doesn't get more direct and obvious than that, and
everything else that he's done just to rip people off across his whole life and
do what he needs to do to protect himself and throw everybody else under the bus.
Everyone he's hired, he hires the best people, but
then as soon as they do anything remotely against his brand and his name,
then they're the biggest idiots, and they're the worst people in the world.
So yeah, Donald Trump absolutely, 100% would pardon himself,
because why wouldn't he?
That's what history says.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to say last couple of things here for me.
I'm just slightly amused that he always, he does this on True Social all the time.
The thugs, fascist, Marxists that are against me.
>> [LAUGH] Everybody.
I'm pretty sure they can't be fascist and Marxists.
I think Donald Trump is a fascist, so I'm not criticizing him for hyperbole,
although I don't think it's hyperbole at all when you try to do a coup against
America and say, screw elections.
I just wanna stay in power even though I lost that's kind of definition of fascism.
But anyways, but I wouldn't call Trump a Marxist,
because that doesn't make any goddamn sense.
So I get it if he calls his opponents a Marxist, but
fascist doesn't make any sense.
But again, lodging effects are not relevant for
that portion of the political spectrum.
I wish they were, I wish they were, but they're not, apparently.
>> Speaker 2: Nor is history, by the way, because I don't know that he'd be able
to define Marxist or fascist really in what they each mean.
>> Speaker 3: By the way, next time Michael goes out to interview Trump fans,
maybe we'll ask him.
>> Speaker 2: That's a great question.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, because they call everyone a Marxist.
What's a Marxist?
There's a 0% chance that you're gonna get it.
No, that's not true.
Some of those Trump guys, actually, that Michael interviews,
they're like interesting.
Okay, so I think you'll get two interesting, good answers and
the rest will be a hot mess.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right.
We're gonna maybe be going to South Carolina in a week or so, so
we'll add that to our repertoire.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, and the last thing I was gonna mention is so
you guys had a meeting with lawyers about whether you should pardon yourself.
I know I didn't have a meeting like that, I know I'm not president, so
it doesn't quite perfectly apply.
But Obama didn't have a meeting like that, why did you guys have a meeting like that?
Right, because you knew you broke the law, you totally and utterly knew.
Now he's making it seem like, I can't believe they charged me,
I don't know where that came from.
Apparently, you knew it all the way back then, and
you're wondering if you should protect yourself from legal liability.
Because you knew that at a bare minimum, it was possible they were gonna charge you
for crimes because you knew you had committed them.