MSNBC’s Michael Steele, despite being a former chair of the Republican National Committee, is no fan of Donald Trump — and on Saturday, he made it clear that he’s even less enamored with Fox News host Jesse Watters. After he called out Watters’ attempts at sowing doubt about the jurors in Trump’s hush money trial, Steele said the conservative host is being a “pathetic little tool, right now, as far as I’m concerned — what he’s doing by calling out these jurors and opining on how they’re going to acquit Donald Trump based on this.
The MSNBC host pointed to a Daily Beast article on Watters going juror by juror, speculating on why they could potentially not be impartial
“He’s sowing the doubt, trying to keep this narrative going,” Steele said.
Reading from the Daily Beast article, Steele noted how Watters expressed his skepticism after describing the second juror as a nurse from the Upper East Side with a Master’s degree, adding that she was not married, had no kids and lives with her fiancé who works in finance. Watters then chuckled.
“We don’t know, why would you chuckle at that, right? Well, we do,” Steele added, indicating it was due to Watters’ incredulousness that someone with the demographics he had listed could be impartial.
“What does this say about the forces that are trying to further undermine a very important aspect of our judicial process, which is citizens sitting as a jury, dispassionate, observing the facts as they’re presented, assessing all of that,” Steele continued.
“And then you have someone like Jesse out here forecasting and literally trying to gin up crap about the jurors. There’s a reason why the judges made sure these jurors are not known,” Steele said.
Earlier in the conversation, he had brought up a juror who asked to be dismissed after it appeared that information that had been reported about her could expose her identity. She expressed concerns for her personal safety after several people close to her asked if she was on the jury, adding, “I don’t believe at this point I can be fair and unbiased and let the outside influences not affect my decision-making in the courtroom.”
“And there’s a reason why, as we’ve seen and talked about, certain jurors are like, ‘You know what, I don’t even want to be a part of this because I don’t want to be threatened. I don’t want to have to deal with it,’” Steele said.
Due to the extraordinary circumstances of the trial itself — this is the first time a former president has been brought to criminal trial by jury — Judge Juan Merchan went on to insist that the workplaces of jurors be kept secret. Merchan also previously imposed a partial gag order after Trump used social media to criticize prosecutors, witnesses and the judge himself.
Steele turned the conversation to Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who noted that she had to move after she was confronted and threatened by a man with a gun outside her home in Seattle, who admitted that Jayapal’s liberal political beliefs were the primary reason he tried to attack her.
“We watched what happened on Jan. 6th. We watched the former president incite an insurrection. And so I think that this is the thing the country is in the middle of. Those jurors should all have protection immediately,” she continued. “There is no reason why they should not all have immediate protection, because I don’t trust the political situation that we’re in.”
Opening statements in the trial could begin as soon as Monday.
Trump is accused of covering up a $130,000 hush money payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult entertainment star Stormy Daniels to guarantee she would remain quiet about an affair she and Trump engaged in. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Watch the exchange between Michael Steele and Rep. Jayapal regarding the trial and Jesse Watters in the video above.
