Donald Trump has denied reports that his son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump refused his plea to join his campaign, but panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" think it's a case of protesting too much.
The former president denied a report by New York Magazine's Olivia Nuzzi that claimed the couple refused to participate in his 2024 campaign, saying he had never even asked them to help out, and MSNBC's John Heilemann joked about where things were headed.
"Won't be long before Trump is saying about Jared and Ivanka what he would say about everybody else in these situations -- 'Jared, Ivanka, never met them, hardly know them, who are those people? I never heard of those losers,'" Heilemann said. "Yes, I mean, look, Trump absolutely, positively, definitely tells everybody who turns him down from coming on the campaign that he doesn't want them to be on the campaign after they've told him that they won't be on the campaign. I believe that sequence of events."
Heilemann also said that Trump's denial shows that Nuzzi's report was likely accurate.
"She usually has him dead to rights," he said. "You can usually tell because the pushback on whatever Trump has really got, he comes back hard and calls it fake news. Look, these two are smart enough to now recognize just how toxic their father is and they recognize the damage he's done to them, and I don't think they will be seen anywhere closer than a barge pole away from him."
Host Jonathan Lemire said this pattern has played out since Trump first entered politics.
"Roger Stone quit his 2015 campaign, the next day Trump claimed he fired him, so this is not something new, but perhaps read into it what you will," Lemire said, "just it is the latest sign of just how troubled and disastrous this campaign has been in its early stages."
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