'Off-the-charts bonkers': MSNBC's John Heilemann tries to make sense of 'craziest' testimony ever about a president
MSNBC's John Heilemann tried to make sense of the "off-the-charts bonkers" testimony about Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his election loss.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that Trump knew his supporters were armed on Jan. 6, 2021, and still sent them to the U.S. Capitol.
What's more, Hutchinson claimed that she was told Trump physically attacked his Secret Service detail when they refused to allow him to join the mob there.
This left the "Morning Joe" contributor astounded.
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"I don't even know where to begin," Heilemann said. "We talked yesterday in real time about this because we were both so sort of stunned by what we saw, and I definitely will say that Mark Meadows, who was already at the very center of this investigation before yesterday, is now -- yeah, I don't know if he could be more at the center of it. But the committee obviously has its eyes on him and the pressure is going to mount on him, in terms of his potential criminal culpability certainly is more than political culpability."
Hutchinson's testimony brings criminal charges into focus for Trump and his inner circle, Heilemann said.
"I don't want to obscure the larger picture, which is what you guys were talking about before, either the most extraordinary or certainly in the running for the most extraordinary testimony in the history of the country, potentially the most consequential," he said. "You know, what we now know about Trump's intent, what he knew, what he did, what he thought, and as the committee is not done yet building that case makes it almost impossible, I would think, to not -- the basis for criminal charges is now so abundantly clear, and the pressure on the Justice Department, rightly so, given what we've learned about Donald Trump's mindset where he was willing to do the things he said and thought and things he was willing to let go, is just kind of overwhelming, and the last thing I'd say, it may be the most extraordinary congressional testimony ever, you might want to put John Dean in that category, but the scene that we heard recounted yesterday about Trump's behavior in the presidential limousine I would say is maybe the craziest thing ever described about a president of the United States ever."
"I mean, when you talk about it all day long, but the notion of the president of the United States trying to grab the wheel of the limousine and get into a physical altercation with his protective detail and lunging apparently for the throat of one of them is so off-the-charts bonkers that I still am having a hard time processing it now, 18 hours later," Heilemann added. "I mean, it truly speaks to a degree of madness and unhingedness, at least on that day, that even the sternest critics of Donald Trump have not yet previously been willing to contemplate."
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