‘Always speaks as if he might be wired’: MSNBC analyst busts Trump’s suspicious ‘no quid pro quo’ call to Sondland
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough reacted to EU ambassador Gordon Sondland's description of a criminal enterprise operating out of the White House.
Panelists on "Morning Joe" agreed the ambassador's testimony outlined an extortion scheme directed by Trump against Ukraine that undermined U.S. foreign policy to personally benefit the president.
"You listen to (House Democratic counsel) Daniel Goldman, an organized crime prosecutor, he began to elicit evidence that will build a narrative that whether or not Republicans are ultimately publicly persuaded by it, they will know to be the truth," said former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance. "This was a vintage mob operation with Trump not putting his fingers too directly on things but sending out his lieutenant Rudy Giuliani, who Sondland told us they all knew that when they took Rudy Giuliani's orders, he was speaking for the president, and it's clear now to all of us how this worked and that it really was a bribery scam."
Trump himself admitted he called Sonland on Sept. 9, the day the House was notified of the whistleblower complaint, to insist he wanted nothing from Ukraine, "no quid pro quo" -- and MSNBC analyst Mike Barnicle said that was highly suspicious.
"I was speaking to someone involved in this inquiry in Washington," Barnicle said, "and they were stating what Joyce just said, that Trump, if you follow the behavior, the verbal behavior of Donald J. Trump, president of the United States, it's like following the behavior of a mob boss. He speaks always as if he's aware it might be wired, that something around him might be wired, and he's never saying, 'You go do it.' He never direct ordered to someone intimately involved in this thing."
Scarborough said Trump spent years working alongside the mafia in his real estate development experience.
"He was around the mob his entire adult life," Scarborough said. "He even bragged he loved working with the mob because they could actually lay cement faster than anybody else. I mean, ask Jimmy Hoffa. But he dealt with a mob, he grew up with a mob surrounding him. When he went to New Jersey, he was dealing with a mob. He knows how to work that way."
"The guy's always just trying to survive the next 10 minutes," he added. "So, yeah, he thinks people are listening at all times."