CNN’s Jake Tapper swiftly fact-checked Donald Trump’s claim during a shouted spiel outside his courtroom Monday in which he stated “even CNN” was saying “there’s no case” against him in his criminal hush money trial.
The former president gave a news conference as he was leaving court Monday, growing increasingly agitated as he read remarks from a stack of papers, criticizing the trial and Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over it. It followed testimony by his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, a key witness for the prosecution.
At the end of the nearly seven-minute rant, Trump shouted that “we have a corrupt judge,” who is “keeping me from campaigning.”
“Every single legal analyst, even CNN, even MSDNC, they’re saying, ‘There’s no case here!’” he said, intentionally injecting the Democratic National Committee acronym into MSNBC’s name.
Cutting away from the live feed, Tapper commented, “All right. A rather angry defendant saying there’s no case here.”
“For the record, although we certainly have people, such as Mr. Brennan on our panel here, who are arguing that this is not a strong case, it’s certainly not the view of CNN, per se, that there is no case here,” Tapper said, amused.
“We’re discussing the qualities of the case. The good, the bad, there’s disagreement. We do have people who are on Mr. Trump’s side on this, on the issue of whether or not this is a good case,” he added.
William Brennan, a former Trump attorney who was on CNN’s panel Monday, took issue with that remark, arguing that he wasn’t sold on the case, but “I’m no Trumper.”
Tapper asked the other panelists to weigh in on Trump’s “very angry” day in court, noting that he “seemed angrier than ever today.”
Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor, said he put Trump’s outburst down to the fact he had to sit through hours of Cohen’s testimony, and “it hit home.”
“Donald Trump, for all his faults, he knows that Michael Cohen, in my view, was connecting with the jury,” Rossi said.
Source Agencies
