Senior political correspondent Maggie Haberman suggested that former President Trump dissed his legal team during a press conference
after another day in court as a “way to show dominance.”
Haberman joined CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Friday after Trump spent the day in a New York courtroom attempting to appeal
the verdict against him in writer E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit. Afterward, Trump spoke to the media, where he alternated between praising and criticizing his attorneys.
“It’s a way to show dominance. It’s a way to show what he wants, knowing they’re not going to say anything back to him, because this is a public setting, and they’re not going to turn to him and argue,” the New York Times correspondent told Collins
, the host of CNN’s “The Source.”
“And it’s a way to humiliate,” Haberman added. “And that is something that we know that he has done with any number of aides, and lawyers, and advisers, and employees, over a number of decades.”
Trump said Friday that he has a lot of legal talent, but they can’t overcome “rigged judges.”
“I’m disappointed in my legal talent, I’ll be honest with you,” he said in an address from Trump Tower in New York City. “They’re good, they’re good people, they’re talented people.”
Haberman said she didn’t know of anyone who advised the former president to attend the court hearing Friday or to address the media. He was not required to attend the court proceedings, she noted.
“He chose to go to this hearing. And I understand it. He has made it very clear he wants to be at legal proceedings connected to him,” she said. “That is invariably going to draw attention to this news conference, and he didn’t take questions from us … All this is going to do is call more attention to that as well at a moment when he is trailing badly with women in polls.”
Earlier this year, a federal jury in New York ordered
Trump to pay $83.3 million for defaming Carroll. The author alleged that Trump defamed her after she brought forth sexual assault allegations against him.
Haberman referenced his comments about Carroll specifically, where he laid out the legal case in “graphic detail.”
“He talked about allegations that frankly, I suspect much of the public doesn’t remember anymore, but if they were tuning in, they will,” she said.
Collins pointed out that he outlined talking points that his Democratic rival, Vice President Harris, could use as political fodder.
“I’m sure they will be after that press conference,” Haberman said.
The remarks also come after New York Judge Juan Merchan delayed
the GOP nominee’s sentencing in his hush money case until after the presidential election, handing Trump a win.
Haberman also pointed out that while Trump likely doesn’t want to go to prison, sentencing could have been used as a political opportunity for him.
“His supporters have been galvanized around moments like that” in the past, she said, echoing comments
made Friday by GOP strategist Karl Rove.
Vice President Kamala Harris
claims to be a champion for women, but many facts tell a different story.
Harris speaks pro-women rhetoric, but fails to protect women and girls from assaults in locker rooms.
Harris endorsed a new Biden-Harris administration rule expanding Title IX
protections to gender identity and sexual orientation, requiring schools receiving federal funds to allow males into female spaces such as restrooms and locker rooms, or into any activity currently separated as male or female.
Initial Title IX rules—signed into law by a Republican president more than 50 years ago—protect women and girls against sex-based discrimination, allowing girls to flourish in school and on extracurricular sports teams
.
Regrettably, this final rule redefining “female” also threatens free speech on campus, protects teachers unions, and obstructs due process protections for students accused of sexual harassment on campus.
Harris also fails to protect women and girls from sexual assault as they seek to cross illegally into America at the U.S. southern border. Sexual assault rates of migrant women coming to the United States is shocking, yet Harris embraces policies that incentivize further illegal immigration and human trafficking.
Reports vary widely on the scope of the sexual violence, which speaks to the lack of concern that Harris embodies. Amnesty International reported
:
Rape is widespread. It is believed that as many as six out of every 10 migrant women and girls experience sexual violence during the journey.
A 2017 report by Doctors Without Borders
found 1 in 3 women traveling through Mexico are sexually assaulted. A United Nations estimate
found among women crossing without husbands or families, up to 70% suffered some type of abuse.
The rampant sexual abuse is perpetuated and grows the more policies like those from Harris and President Joe Biden encourage millions to enter the United States illegally. For example, under former President Donald Trump, the “Remain in Mexico” program and other immigration policies substantially slowed illegal immigration flow. Harris and Biden reversed Remain in Mexico, and the United States has experienced record, earth-shattering illegal immigration flows. Supposedly empowered to mitigate the so-called root causes of illegal immigration from Central American and South American countries, Harris instead stood idly by.
Even CNN
is conceding that Harris is now a hypocrite for using Trump’s border wall in her new political ad to claim she supports controlling illegal immigration. CNN found more than 50 instances since 2017 of Harris slamming Trump’s border wall, with labels like “useless” and “racist.” But now Harris is running ads touting Trump’s wall.
? NEW: CNN is CALLING OUT Kamala Harris for being a hypocrite and using Trump’s border wall in her new ad
You can’t make this stuff up ?
CNN found over FIFTY instances of Kamala slamming Trump’s wall, calling it “useless” and “racist,” and now all the sudden she’s running on… pic.twitter.com/GCc3NXtqoS
Harris voted for the misleadingly named Inflation
Reduction Act, which is treating the Medicare Part D prescription-drug program for seniors as a piggy bank for the reckless spending on other, unrelated programs.
This comes on top of painful, cumulative 20% inflation on Harris’ watch, which disproportionately harms senior women, many of whom live on fixed incomes after retirement and don’t have jobs with pay keeping pace with inflation.
Harris also failed the women of Afghanistan
, who are now relegated to chattel status under the Taliban due to the reckless Biden-Harris U.S. withdrawal from the country.
Harris is effectively silent on the horrific treatment of Afghan women by the Taliban, which just passed a law banning women from speaking in public, showing any skin, or looking at men they aren’t related to.
The Biden-Harris administration is directly responsible for the results of the bloody and botched Afghanistan withdrawal, yet Harris says nothing and makes zero effort to help Afghan women.
In fact, Harris has the audacity to claim
, three years later, that the chaotic withdrawal decision was “courageous and right.” It was neither courageous nor right to relegate women to slave status and in the process also allow the killings of 13 U.S. service members and recklessly abandon the tens of billions of dollars in weapons and other military equipment
left behind.
Pushing people to vote for a female candidate because of her gender is just as sexist as pushing voters to select a man because he’s male. Voters must see through Harris’ misogynistic policies and demand better.
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The 30-second ad, titled “Told Us
,” includes Trump saying, “for 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated and I did it and I’m proud to have done it.” The comments come from a townhall the former president participated in with Fox News in January.
The ad warned that Trump would want to go further and pass a national abortion ban. The GOP nominee has said he wouldn’t sign
a national abortion ban, but has declined to say
whether he would veto such a ban if it made it to his desk
Another 30-second ad, called “Big Family
,” is narrated by Alabama resident Latorya Beasley, who discussed how her embryo transfer was canceled after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February
that frozen embryos
are children, threatening the use of in vitro fertilization
(IVF).
The last ad, a one-minute spot titled “Laurel
,” is narrated by Wisconsin resident Laurel Marcinkus, who discussed how she couldn’t get treatment quickly after her labor had to be induced because of a blood clot in her uterus. Doctors at the time, she said, were afraid of prosecution for treating her.
“I almost died. That’s because of the decision that Donald Trump made,” Marcinkus said in the ad. The footage also includes a quote from the former president, saying that “there has to be some form of punishment for woman” who get abortions. The clip comes from an interview on MSNBC in 2016.
“Told Us” will run in battleground states and during high-viewership moments, including the return of popular primetime programming, the campaign said. The ads “Laurel” and “Big Family” will run as digital spots on platforms Hulu, Roku, YouTube, Paramount, Spotify and Pandora.
“Donald Trump is a fundamental threat to reproductive freedom — and you don’t have to take our word for it — Trump said it himself,” Harris spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a statement. “In fact, he’s said again and again that he’s ‘proud’ that he overturned Roe — a ruling which has harmed countless women, including Latorya and Laurel.”
The ads are part of the campaign’s $370 million investment
in television and digital between Labor Day and Election Day.
The Harris campaign also launched a reproductive rights bus tour
this week that Minnesota’s first lady Gwen Walz and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will join Tuesday. The two spouses will travel to Asheville and Raleigh, N.C., to highlight restrictive abortion laws passed in red states since Roe v. Wade was overturned
in 2022.
