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…
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