New York Times’ Mara Gay called Donald Trump a “bully and a thug” for attacking the daughter of Judge Juan M. Merchan, who is presiding over his hush money trial after Merchan issued a gag order that bars him from speaking out against prosecutors, court staff or their family members.
“Is this someone who you want, someone who’s going to threaten the safety and security of someone’s adult daughter?” political commentator Nicolle Wallace posed to Gay on MSNBC on Friday.
“He’s a thug. He’s a bully and a thug, and you have to stand up to a bully. I am someone who actually believes that voters are going to have the most powerful say here in November,” Gay explained. “I think that’s really important to issue a vote of no confidence, no interest in Trump and Trumpism. At the same time, it’s this behavior that is the exact reason why I think it’s so important to hold Donald Trump accountable.”
Gay made her points in response to Trump’s about Merchan’s daughter Loren after Merchan hit him with a gag order on Tuesday, which didn’t block Trump from talking about Merchan’s family.
“So, let me get this straight,” Trump wrote on the platform, claiming she’d uploaded photos of him depicted behind jail bars. “The Judge’s daughter is allowed to post pictures of her ‘dream’ of putting me in jail … but I am not allowed to talk about the attacks against me, and the Lunatics trying to destroy my life and prevent me from winning the 2024 Presidential Election, which I am dominating?” Trump didn’t post the photo in question, but an X account named “LM” featured a profile picture of Trump in prison, which has since been removed.
Trump shared that he felt the demand was “illegal, un-American, unConstitutional.” Gay said Trump’s resistance to abide by the law is just another example of his poor behavior and the very reason why he needs to be held responsible.
“There are some people who have said that this case in Manhattan is maybe not as serious as some others, and in some way that may be true, in other ways he’s operating with the same kind of impunity that we’ve seen all along and that is unacceptable,” Gay concluded. “He cannot be above the law. You cannot have a president sitting in the Oval Office who’s above the law. So he should be held accountable.”
Trump’s hush-money trial is scheduled for April 15, which will cover Trump allegedly instructing his former lawyer Michael Cohen to pay off adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged affair between the two and covering up the payments by falsely logging them as Cohen’s legal fees.
