Reacting to Donald Trump canceling his Monday press conference on Georgia election fraud and delegating it to his lawyers to present it when he goes on trial in Fulton County on racketeering charges, MSNBC host Jen Psaki ridiculed the former president for creating more chaos for his legal team.
During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," the former White House press secretary noted the massive turnover among lawyers the former president has employed, many leaving because they have trouble getting paid.
With host Joe Scarborough laughing in the background as Jonathan Lemire explained "There's a theory here that Donald Trump, as we know, has trouble retaining good counsel, partially because he doesn't pay them and some of them end up testifying against him. His lawyers signaled 'We're going to quit if you do this because you're going to make our lives harder.' His advisors were doing the same, you can say, 'If you get there and say the wrong thing it's going to put you in more legal jeopardy.'"
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again
That is when Psaki jumped in.
"Presumably they've been telling him for months now, right?" she began. " Because he's gone out there and said things that could be used in court and we may see [special counsel] Jack Smith and others use in court as the trials begin, as he's done rallies over the last few months."
"But yes, as you touched on there, we don't entirely know, but a lot of the smart theorizing in my view here is, one, he's gone through more lawyers than anyone can imagine, he has not been clearly paying, there's been a range of reports on this, people who have been his legal counsel, people who have been politically advising him even," she continued. "He owes a lot of people a lot of money."
"There's an interesting component, [MSNBC legal analyst] Lisa Rubin wrote about this actually," she explained, "In one of the recent federal court hearings that [Trump attorney] John Lauro was participating in, where he asked in the discovery phase for discovery for all these documents to be provided to lawyers who are not paid by the campaign -- volunteer lawyers essentially, because he can't pay them or won't pay them."
RELATED: These Iowa Republicans say they'll support 'perfect' Trump no matter what — 'until he dies'
She then added, "So yes, it seems like he's having a bit of trouble holding on to counsel here. This does seem to be one of the first times that we know of where he has potentially listened to legal counsel on what is inadvisable for him by canceling this rally, which probably wasn't easy. He never likes to look weak -- that does seem to be the most likely theory at this point."
Watch below or at the link.
MSNBC 08 18 2023 06 17 50youtu.be
