During the first trial over the Trump rape accusations from E. Jean Carroll, Trump was in Ireland and he started huffing and puffing about how he was going to stomp across the ocean to defend his honor. He called Judge Lewis Kaplan “extremely hostile” and said he was going to “confront” that woman. The judge laid out a welcome mat for Trump to come and testify, but for some reason Trump’s lawyers did not let that happen.
(Oh look, E. Jean Carroll wins again!)
Similarly, back in 2018, Trump told reporters he was “looking forward” to going “under oath” with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Weird, but that one didn’t happen either. He was given the opportunity to testify at his second impeachment trial. Nope.
It might have something do with how Trump cannot stop himself from pathologically lying in depositions. He lied over and over again in his Carroll deposition. It’s kind of his thing.
So color us real skeptical when we hear Trump telling world-historical dumbfuck Hugh Hewitt how excited he is to testify in all his criminal trials. He said:
DT: Oh, yes, absolutely. That, I would do. because that’s just like Russia, Russia, Russia. That’s all the fake information from Russia, Russia, Russia. Remember when the dossier came out and everyone said oh, that’s so terrible, that’s so terrible, and then it turned out to be it was a political report put out by Hillary Clinton and the DNC. They paid millions for it. They gave it to Christopher Steele. They paid millions and millions of dollars for it, and it was all fake. It was all fake. […]
So I look forward, I look forward to testifying. At trial, I’ll testify.
Nope.
(Listen to the clip here if you’d like.)
Politico notes that back in July, Trump said on Truth Social that he was going to testify. “We’ll have fun on the stand with all of these people that say the Presidential Election wasn’t Rigged and Stollen. TIE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY!!!”
Another “Rigged and Stollen.”
Still nope.
You want to hear what it would be like if Trump testified against himself? He did a demonstration for Hewitt. Here’s a video from the show, tweeted by Republican Accountability Project:
The transcript is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Trump:
HH: So, but did you direct anyone to move the boxes, Mr. President? Did you tell anyone to move the boxes?
DT: I don’t talk about anything. You know why? Because I’m allowed to do whatever I want. I come under the Presidential Records Act. I’m not telling you. You know, every time I talk to you, oh, I have a breaking story. You don’t have any story. I come under the Presidential Records Act. I’m allowed to do everything I did. What is not the case is Biden. Biden didn’t come under it, because he was the vice president. And by the way, Mike Pence didn’t come under it, and he had very serious classified documents, and he didn’t come under, and nobody seems to be bothered by that. But I am totally protected by the Presidential Records Act.
So amazingly angry and stupid and angry and stupid and angry (and stupid). “I come under the Presidential Records Act.” He repeats those words over and over again, because somebody likely said them to him one time and his brain latched on like they were a gun or a Bible or a hamberder. He doesn’t know what they mean. He doesn’t know what the Presidential Records Act is or that it says the opposite of what his damaged brain thinks it says.
Here is Trump earlier in the same interview, babbling about the same Presidential Records Act. Notice how he compulsively says “I come under the Presidential Records Act” like it’s the only way he was ever taught how to combine those seven words:
DT: Like the records case, I come under the Presidential Records Act. I’m allowed to do it. Biden’s not allowed to do it, because he wasn’t president. It’s a special act that was passed in great detail in 1977, in tremendous detail. It tells you everything you’re allowed to do, and it’s not criminal. It has nothing to do with the criminal. It’s not a criminal act. They don’t even like to mention it, because I come under the Presidential Records Act. Biden doesn’t come under that act, because it didn’t pertain to him, because he was vice president and a senator. And the boxes he has are loaded up, loaded up with material that’s the most classified material you can have.
They don’t even like to mention it, how he comes under the Presidential Records Act, which was passed in tremendous detail.
We would say he speaks on the level of a kindergartner, but it would have to be a really stupid kindergartner who cries a lot.
In the same Hugh Hewitt interview, Donald Trump said he would like to debate Meghan Markle. And that if our election hadn’t been rigged and stollen, Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine. And that if he was worried about any of the cases against him, “I would be sitting in a corner someplace and saying mommy, take me home.” But he’s not doing that.
Also he didn’t want to do a “lightning round” of “fun questions” because “I like giving long answers. I don’t want to do a lightning round.” He added, “I never like lightning rounds, because a one-word answer is not appropriate for about 95 percent of the questions.”
Donald Trump is never testifying in any trial, ever.
[Politico / Hugh Hewitt]
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
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Stollen. Who doesn’t like stollen?
"Notice how he compulsively says “I come under the Presidential Records Act” like it’s the only way he was ever taught how to combine those seven words."
The key to Trump's communication style.