Watch Inside With Jen Psaki Highlights: May 5

joining me now is democratic Congressman Jamie Rasin of Maryland so let me just start there where I ended because when you hear Donald Trump I know we get a little numb to this but we can't compare the Biden Administration to the gapo what what is your reaction to that every accusation is a confession essentially of purpose and we've never had uh presidential candidates much less presidents talk like that before about the other party America there's been a very strong degree of Civility at that level and so it telegraphs some very dark intentions on his part it's what dictators do which is so important for people to remember I want to just go back to the thing I also ended on there which is that the final summary of this article which was very lengthy I mean it was like an 83 minute interview where he said a lot of things he said about the uh his talk of dictatorship a lot of people like it yeah well I mean he's right about that in the sense that dictators whether Pino and Chile or musolini or you know the most horrible specimens from the 20th century have always had their supporters um it doesn't last long because most people want to lead a life of democracy and security and freedom and self-government but uh those kinds of opportunists and demagogues have always been able to fool um some significant part of the population for a certain period of time um and the founders of America knew that Alexander Hamilton in the very first Federalist Paper warned of demagogues who would whip up a mob frenzy based on negative emotions uh instead of using government as an instrument for the common good to make things better for people uh so at this point Americans are forewarned if you look at the things he's talking about doing Mass uh roundups and incarceration um and deportations from the country Crackdown on women in red States on abortion Banning women from going from Red states to Blue states to get reproductive healthc care freeing the so-called January 6 hostages who are a majority of whom people who plad guilty to violently assaulting our police officers that is an authoritarian program I mean that's right out of the authoritarian Playbook of uh musolini and Beyond no no question about it and some who are still in off in still around the country dictators right now he also said and what what strikes me time and time again is that we've seen this movie before you have led investigations into this movie we've seen when he said I think we're going to win and if we don't win you know it depends it always depends on the fairness of an election he said that in response to a question about the potential for political violence yes which is a Hallmark of fascist and authoritarian political parties but look now none of the Republicans will commit to standby the results of the 2024 election they won't even stand by the results of the 2020 election when 60 different Federal in State Court decisions rejected every claim of election fraud and Corruption that Donald Trump brought forward and still they're saying it was a stolen election there is zero evidence of that you cannot make a remotely plausible case for it so there living in an alternate reality and that's how authoritarianism works and they're still to your point not willing to commit to abiding by the outcome in 2024 there was a little bit of like a VP Stakes race out there with a lot of people uh this morning on Sunday morning shows uh answering versions of this question I want to play you something that Tim Scott said in an exchange with Kristen Welker and get your thoughts on it well Senator will you commit to accepting the election results of 2024 bottom line at the end of the day the 47th president of the United States will be president Donald Trump and I'm excited to give back to low inflation low unemployment wa Senator yes or no yes or no will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter who wins that is my statement that is my statement I okay it's not a hard question I think we should acknowledge clearly that is what Trump wants him to to say wants to be on his VP list but how concerned should we be about that becoming as you alluded to earlier the common response I mean it's a dramatic departure from American history when all of the major presidential candidates have agreed to abide by the outcome even when they're real questions like in 2000 in Bush versus Gore vice president Gore actually had a a lead in the popular vote there were real questions about what was taking place in Florida and yet he stood down in the interests of uh constitutional continuity and now we've got politicians who will not even abide by a certifiably legal election outcome because they say well Donald Trump is going to be the 47th president uh end of the day not end of the election but end of the day and we know what other kinds of events they might have planned for that day which is such an important thing for people to remember and be clear about you hopic we've been talking a little bit this morning all right this afternoon about how hope hop pic's testimony and the significance of that um you were a member of the January 6 Committee of course when she testified before the January 6th committee what did you make of the testimony on Friday the significance of it or not significance what's your view well the the best way of understanding that trial taking place in New York is that it's part of Trump's determination to um essentially predetermine the outcome of an election not by advancing a program and going out and knocking on doors and campaigning but rather by manipulating public opinion and so there it was all about uh paying off hush money to a former mistress to keep it out of the news and sweep everything under the rug um but the problem was they were messy in terms of leaving a money trail behind and he described it as legal expenses when he reimbursed Michael Cohen for the money that was going stormmy Daniels and that made it an illegal campaign expenditure and they were cooking the books from the standpoint of state law so her testimony to me reinforced that there was a mad scramble within the Trump campaign to deal with the problem of the Access Hollywood tape and Donald Trump bragging about his misogynistic sexual assaults on women uh in different places and so they couldn't afford to have another one of these outbursts they knew he knew that it was going to be an impact which was striking to me Congressman Jamie Rasin thank you always for your Clarity of explaining difficult issues and bringing us all back to the what's at stake here I appreciate you joining me today joining me now is Ashley Parker she just senior National political correspondent at the Washington Post Andrew Weissman is former general counsel at the FBI and Neil Cel is the former acting us solicitor general so I want to get into the H picks of it all uh but I want to start Andrew with you because you said that her testimony was devastating to Trump's case why so I think you outlined it very well um which is sort of you you really have to think about where is this case going to be at the time of summation and what she gives is really direct evidence from Donald Trump's mouth that he was aware of the hush money scheme where the spect just Stormy Daniels that was a hole in the case until she testified because if you recall until she testified there was a lot of talk about how Donald Trump didn't sign the agreement uh between Stormy Daniels and um essentially Michael Cohen that there were four signature lines but only three were signed Donald Trump didn't sign um and so there was this issue did Michael Cohen do this on his own and Donald Trump never knew well she basically made it clear um of course he knew and she has a direct statement from him as well as as you pointed out her concern that you know there's no way Michael wouldn't have told him because she would he would have wanted credit and he's also not the kind of guy who would have done this on his own notably what she didn't say is that Donald Trump when he learned of this was like oh my God what did you do in fact he said it was in his interest to do that finally we're going to see this week H the sort of the end result of what she's saying which is that he reimbursed that $130,000 and I just want to make it very clear he is on record in a civil case saying I reimbursed Michael Cohen for those hush money payments so this what remains in the case is something that is on paper so you really can see the end of this case coming up fast and furious um with the da just closing it out on the actual reimbursement scheme which is something that cannot really be denied credibly by Donald Trump's Team all right so Andrew gave us kicked off on kind of the legal why now Ashley you've been you covered the Trump team you know them well you wrote a great piece about hopix or she was a central piece in per person in it where you wrote hix's reemergent at the at the reemergence at the criminal trial of her former boss is another Grim reminder of Trump's force field the seemingly inexorable pull he exerts intentional or not over nearly everyone who enters his world you also say that since she testified to Congress about the January 6th attack she hasn't spoken to him there's a lot of speculation out there about why she cried on the stand you know her you know the team why do you think she did she hasn't talked to him since January 6th since she testified I should say yeah that's right so a little context right hopix works the way she ends up on his presidential campaign is she works for the Trump organization she knows his children she knows him he asks her to be one of the first staffers on his campaign it's sort of so far-fetched and the idea that she would be on a presidential campaign is so farfetched the when he asks she thinks he's talking about a campaign a marketing campaign for one of his golf courses right she sort of occupies this role as almost a a daughter um and there's a lot of warmth and affection between the two of them and when I was covering the Trump White House I was struck by as has been reported there were a lot of leaks in the media because there were these Waring factions um within the white house within the white house within the White House there were Waring factions and a lot of people you know were leaking because they didn't like what the president was doing on their their trade agenda or on this issue or that and when hope would deal with the media when when she got upset she was non ideological she truly came through that she was upset because she thought the stories were hurting Mr Trump as she would call him or president Trump um both politically and personally so again she really cared about him right so then she testifies uh before January 6 she is compelled to testify but that adds I don't want to say a full rupture but a cooling of their relationship because my reporting showed um the ianka the president's daughter was furious with hope for text messages that came out that hope had sent that day sort of saying the president is destroying everything we worked for the only job we're going to be able to is on a a local proud boys chapter and Trump himself thought they had gone she had gone too far but in talking to people they said look there's real warmth There's real affection she doesn't want to be doing this she's angry she's frustrated that she's being called again she thinks it's a waste of time and money so again with all of that reporting then a little bit as a viewer reading the tea LEF she started crying when she I believe was she was sort of asked you know the the trumps offered you this ticket to this world they're responsible for your job and I I think it was just truly an an emotional moment for her because is an incredibly complicated relationship she didn't want to be there she didn't want to be answering those questions and he didn't want her to be there and he didn't want to be listening to what she had to say and I think it was very uncomfortable for her to answer honestly with him what 6 10 feet away yeah no question about it I mean given their history as you just outlined um and people can read Ashley Zan's story to learn more Neil you you've obviously argued many cases in front of juries how does a jury digest someone like cop it's been laid out she's close to the person who's the defendant she gets emotional on the stand how do they digest that and what's the goal in that case of the prosecution so I'd say John the first kind of just big picture point is just how sorted this trial is I mean this trial is running through all of Trump's Greatest Hits like Access Hollywood tape the porn star he paid off I mean you can understand why his family isn't eager to be there in the courtroom and I think the jury's probably not eager to be there either and you can see Trump's defense emerging while the prosecution's building its case which is they're taking pot shots at the witnesses and their credibility they've already been attacking Michael Cohen before he's even shown up to testify um but at the end of the day the really hard question is going to be look Trump's lawyer Cohen like took out a home equity loan on his C on his house with his paid for this with his own money and then got it reimbursed by Trump as a business expense and you know that was grossed up by Trump to avoid tax and the like how could that possibly be Michael Cohen's own idea with no involvement or knowledge by Trump so I think that's really what the jury's going to focus on and we saw I think today in the with the Hicks testimony another possible defense which is look yes Trump knew something about these payments but he was worried about protecting Melania he was worried about you know the story coming out um that will have two big problems one Trump doesn't appear to have worried about Melania very much throughout you know his lifetime and second that uh he really appears according to the testimony to just want the catch and kill operation to take it through the election he wasn't as worried about Milani or anyone else finding out about afterwards once he was President he just wanted to keep it from the American people and that's where Hicks was so devastating I mean she testified that when the Access Hollywood tape come out everything changed and everyone was terrified and so the catch and kill operation was part of trying to protect their candidate from the public so much we didn't know in the moment is what I keep coming back to Andrew and this is very consistent with what hope said I mean you described Michael Cohen as a quote dog with a pheasant in his mouth which actually made me laugh when I when I read that basically someone who wants to show his boss what he did I mean how compelling and important is that component of his character how does that link to what you expect his testimony to be like when he finally takes the stand well the jury is going to be asked what possible reason would there be for Michael Cohen to have kept this to himself uh and I think there's sort of two answers one is um of course he wouldn't because he would want to get credit for this in other words there's nothing to hide here there's only something to make him look good in fact you see from Hope Hicks that Donald Trump's reaction was thank God Michael Cohen did this because it would have been really bad for us if it came out before the election she has that statement that's she ends her direct testimony on Friday it was it was devastating um and the second is all of these pot shots that Neil refers to that have been taken with respect to Michael Cen about his character is something that the The Da isn't going to be hiding from he's going to say exactly exactly you think this guy is charitable every that you are hearing is that he wouldn't be doing this um on his own and out of the goodness of his heart so they're going to sort of flip the script on that issue saying everything you've heard about what he's like as a person is why he would of course have gotten uh Donald Trump to approve and finally by the way there are going to be telephone records that show that Michael Cohen at the time of creating the vehicle used to pay back stermy Daniels is on phone calls with Donald Trump um just the same day so the phone records themselves are going to be I think another piece another nail in the DA's coffin um that we be you're going to hear a lot more about um as the case closes so my first interaction with some of Donald Trump's senior AIDS was back in November of 2016 just two days after the election and it's still one of my clearest memories from that period of time it was the day Trump visited the White House you can see the picture there he met with president President Obama in the Oval Office and while that was happening his son-in-law Jared Kushner took a walk with white house chief of staff Dennis MCD around the grounds and around the inside of the westwing and as press secretary at the time Josh Ernest pointed out in the briefing room that day the president-elect brought someone else along to that day uh the president-elect's spokeswoman uh Miss Hicks was here I had an opportunity to meet with her uh just brief to meet her I guess I should say um uh while the president-elect was meeting with President Obama uh you noted that um she also uh had longer meetings with some other members of uh some of my colleagues in the communications team well I was the White House communications director at the time and on that day in 2016 just two days after the election I was one of the people that sat down with hope Hicks when she visited with then president-elect Trump and of all the things she could have asked us about and granted it was two days after kind of a shocking outcome of an election she had one major question how do you get the president to approve every statement that goes out in his name so we told her how we did things and we told her if we need a statement to commemorate say National Pancake Day the president doesn't have to approve it obviously if it's a more significant one he does and he works with us on it and her response was interesting she said Mr Trump will want to approve everything made clear to me that when it came to All Things PR her boss was the definition of a micromanager well fast forward to Friday and that's exact how hope piix portrayed Trump when she testified against him in a Manhattan courtroom her testimony revealed that he's obsessed and controlling when it comes to his media coverage in fact she testified that when she began working for Trump in 2015 during his first campaign the media team consisted of only the two of them she said quote it was just me and Mr Trump who's better than anybody at communications and branding we're all just following his lead he was very involved everyone who works there in some sense reports to Mr Trump it's a very big and successful company but it's really run like a small family business with all of that said I mean here's the takeaway Trump was intimately involved in the minutia of his 2016 presidential campaign all the statements everything so if he was aware of the Small Things how could he not be aware of the big things I mean at one point Hicks painted a vivid picture of the panic inside the Trump campaign after the infamous axess Hollywood tape was released and the attempts at damage control that followed she said said quote I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the new cycle for the next several days and that quote this was a damaging development I mean first of all no kidding did anyone on the planet who saw that tape not recognize this was going to dominate news coverage and be extremely damaging but that aside what's even more damning was her testimony about a conversation she had with Trump once the stormy Daniel story went public in 2018 Hicks testified that Trump told her that Michael Cohen had paid off Daniels without his direction or knowledge but Hicks doubted Trump's cover story she said quote that would be out of character for Michael Hicks also said quote I think Mr Trump's opinion was it was better to be dealing with it the sturing Daniel's story now now said that it would have been bad would have been bad to have that Story come out before the 2020 election look we don't necessarily know what prompted her to break down in tears as she spoke about her former boss on the stand on Friday but we do know her testimony was damning she admitted the payoff was related to The Campaign she admitted that Trump knew about the payoff scheme and without having to call her former boss a liar she admitted that she thought the story he told her about Cohen doing it all on his own wasn't true in the words of H piix we were all just following his lead e

Channel: MSNBC

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Length: 21min 8sec (1268 seconds)

Published: Sun May 05 2024