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It wouldn’t surprise me if the ratings for Donald Trump’s town hall event on CNN were significant. After all, a variety of audiences were interested in what he might say: Republicans interested in the 2024 race likely wanted to hear his pitch. Democrats interested in the 2024 race were probably looking for attack-ad fodder. Media critics likely tuned in to see how the network handled what appeared to be a misguided idea.
But as my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin explained in a smart piece yesterday, it’s a safe bet that a whole lot of prosecutors were also tuned in — and taking notes. This was an event, Jordan said, that “could provide a platform for self-incrimination in his criminal probes and/or open him up to civil liability if he makes defamatory statements.”
It’s an important and underappreciated dimension to what transpired in New Hampshire last night. When you’re the subject of multiple ongoing criminal investigations, defense attorneys tend to agree that it’s best not to talk a whole lot about your alleged misdeeds. If you’re going to do it anyway, it’s also best to exercise great caution and message discipline, so as to avoid making things easier for those preparing to indict you.
And yet, there was the former president, throwing caution to the wind. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein explained in an overnight report:
Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had no regrets about his demand that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find” enough votes to reverse his election defeat, a recorded conversation that is at the center of an ongoing Fulton County criminal probe. Pressed about the call at a CNN town hall by moderator Kaitlan Collins, Trump said Raffensperger “owed me votes because the election was rigged” and repeated false conspiracy theories about his defeat in 2020 by Joe Biden.
Just so we’re all clear, Trump is currently facing a possible criminal indictment in Georgia over alleged election interference. Common sense suggests the Republican should’ve steered clear of anything resembling a confession.
But the former president apparently couldn’t quite help himself. “This was a call that was made to question the results of the election,” Trump said during the event, referring to his efforts to lobby Georgia officials to “find” the votes needed to override the will of the voters.
As part of the same exchange, he said, “I didn’t ask [Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger] to 'find' anything.” When CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reminded him that we’ve all heard the audio recording of their conversation, Trump added, “I said, ‘You owe me votes because the election was rigged.’”
Antony Kreis, a Georgia State University constitutional law professor, told the Journal-Constitution, “Subjects of criminal investigation aren’t usually reckless enough to go on national television and admit their corrupt intent, but Donald Trump just handed Fani Willis a new piece of evidence and tied a bow on it.”
At the same town hall event, asked about the classified materials he took to his glorified country club, Trump conceded he “took what I took,” adding he “had every right to do it.”
The Republican didn’t rule out the possibility that he might’ve showed sensitive materials to others — a point of apparent interest to investigators in special counsel Jack Smith’s office — adding, “I would have the right to. ... I have the right to do whatever I want with them.”
As a New York Times report put it, this was “the area in which he walked himself into the biggest problems.”
In case this weren’t quite enough, Trump also admitted that he tried to convince then-Vice President Mike Pence to help him overturn the 2020 election results, while at the same event, he belittled E. Jean Carroll — one day after a jury held him liable for sexually abusing her — and seemed to mock her claims ahead of a likely appeal.
By all accounts, the former president’s political operation was pleased with how the town hall event went. I have a hunch his defense attorneys had a different reaction.