OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A Fox News analyst and former legal eagle for then-President George W. Bush said he believes that Donald Trump is turning his Manhattan hush-money trial into “political gold” that is dramatically improving his polling numbers.
John Yoo, a legal scholar and University of California-Berkely law school professor, responded to a post-trial press conference Trump held on Thursday after the day’s proceedings were over during an interview with host Neal Cavuto.
“All right, obviously, the former president not a fan of this ongoing trial now into its 10th day. So tomorrow will be day number 11,” Cavuto said before bringing in his analyst panel.
“John Yoo to you. And obviously, the frustration the president is expressing again and again as he has, about how limited he is to say and speak his mind, something that Michael Cohen is not. And this gag order and the thousand dollar fine each time he, you know, he says something out of turn, and prosecutors want him punished to believe it’s up to $9,000. Prosecutors say four or five more examples. That’s another four or $5,000. Where’s all that going?” Cavuto asked.
“You know, I agree with President Trump that he’s under an unprecedented, unfair gag order when you take into account the campaign,” Yoo began.
“But as we’ve talked about before, maybe I’m being contrarian here. Even though he’s suffering these legal setbacks, he’s turning it into political gold. As you mentioned, he’s six points ahead of Biden amongst registered voters nationwide. It’s incredible how he sort of performed a judo move on Biden and these prosecutors by turning these attacks into favorable political ratings,” the scholar continued.
“I think maybe part of his what we just saw, Biden has trouble giving a press conference and stringing cogent sentences together. I tell you, Neal, you sit in a courtroom for ten days in a row where you can’t say anything, and all you have to do is listen to people attack you,” Yoo added. “And then at the end of that day, you get up and give a pretty good press conference. They’re pretty good cogent statements not typed, you know, no transcript written out for you not practiced. And so you look at that contrast between him and Biden, and he comes out looking better.”
WATCH:
A CNN panel of experts and pundits expressed some shock at how “effective” they found the questioning of a witness for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecutors by a lawyer for former President Donald Trump in his hush-money case on Friday.
CNN anchor Erin Burnett and chief legal analyst Paula Reid were stunned by the “incredibly effective” cross-examination of prosecution witness Keith Davidson by former President Donald Trump’s legal team, labeling it an “OMG” moment.
“We are tracking minute-by-minute updates as Trump’s defense attorney just finished cross-examining a key lawyer. Talking about Keith Davidson, he represented both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who were both paid to keep quiet about alleged affairs with Trump. Erin?” co-anchor Wolf Blitzer said, bringing in Burnett.
“And the prosecution requested a five-minute break here to decide whether they’re going to try to do re-direct examination. And Davidson’s testimony so far, some really crucial moments both on direct and in these recent moments in cross. He says these deals were crafted in the weeks before the 2016 election and he said that he never had any interaction with Trump directly,” she said before addressing Reid.
“So, Paula, as I said, they just asked for a five-minute break, and you said this is a five-minute break where you sit down and go, OMG, we need to clean up on aisle five,” Burnett said.
“They did incredibly damaging things that raised questions about whether Davidson was indeed in the business of extortion,” Reid said.
