Chris Hayes took a close look during Wednesday night’s “All In” at Donald Trump’s refusal to obey orders from judges in his various court proceedings — and also how so far, these courts haven’t really been punishing him for it.
The MSNBC host argued that there are “a million reasons” why the law needs to hold Trump accountable, “but one of the biggest ones is to puncture the political myth of invulnerability and impunity.”
Watch the clip above now.
Hayes began with a recap for viewers of the latest. Earlier in the day, Trump was in court for defaming E. Jean Carroll a second time, a woman he allegedly sexually assaulted. During the proceedings, Trump repeatedly interrupted, including talking over Carroll’s testimony. The judge eventually threatened to kick Trump out of court, though for unclear reasons, they didn’t end up doing so.
But Hayes pointed out that Trump’s whole reason for even being in court appears to actually be in order to get kicked out.
“Because he wants to be the victim here, mumbling under his breath, glowering at the woman he’s already been found to have assaulted in a dressing room and then defamed, and continuing to defame, refusing to stop defaming her, even when it brings harassment and threats down upon her, even when confronted by a judge who knows Trump is angling to be thrown out of a court proceeding he does not even need to be attending,” Hayes said.
“Because he wants to be martyr. This is the central focus of his campaign. As he made clear today, again, by posting to social media trashing the judge during the hearing, what are you going to do?” Hayes opined.
The MSNBC host explained that Trump is attempting to win from the courts the idea of “immunity, complete immunity, total supremacy over everyone and everything, even the law,” a “genuine belief” he is also “selling” to his base.
“And it’s precisely what is so shocking about him as a person: How long, through sheer shameless and sociopathic behavior, he has been able to get away with it,” Hayes continued. “It is also the reason why it is so important to bend him to the will of a law of our nation. The law that we are all, as democratic citizens, collective participants in.”
Hayes argued that this is “important at a moral level,” because of his crimes, which include “defaming the woman who he sexually assaulted, or trying to end the Republic.”
Hayes also said it’s “important at a democratic level, to demonstrate the supremacy of the rule of law and to show that no one is above it.” And he added that it “is also supremely important politically,” because Trump’s most politically vulnerable moments have been “when he looks like a loser.”
“Which is, in the end, he truly truly is,” Hayes continued. “Like after January 6 failed and he could not overturn the election, and he flew out of town… and after the 2022 midterms, when all his candidates lost, and Republican Party insiders again started grumbling about Trump being an albatross around their neck.”
“The con job he has been running his whole time in politics is that he is a winner,” Hayes said. “The guy has never actually won a national majority of the vote. Never. And now he is working on the next phase of the con job, selling the notion that even the law itself cannot hold him and cannot restrain him. That he is sovereign over it.”
“And so there’s a million reasons the law has to hold Donald Trump to account, but one of the biggest ones is to puncture the political myth of invulnerability and impunity that he is selling to his faithful base,” Hayes concluded.