Former President Donald Trump recently discussed E. Jean Carroll’s rape accusations in a new Megyn Kelly interview. Here is what he said:
“She didn’t know anything.”
“She did an interview with Anderson Cooper, and when you watch that interview, I’m a totally innocent man.”
Meanwhile, New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman called BS on former President Donald Trump’s claim he never considered pardoning himself, and would not do so if elected again via Media Ite.
In a preview clip from his upcoming interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump told NBC News anchor and new Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker that he never even wanted to “think about” pardoning himself while president, and that if he becomes president again a self-pardon would be “the last thing” he would do.
On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, host Anderson Cooper played that claim for Haberman, and asked for her insight.
Haberman made a few points, including that Trump clearly “sees his freedom at stake” with the 2024 campaign:
“COOPER: Yes. I want to play something that Trump said about self- pardoning. He told NBC that he would think about it anyway. Let’s play this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, if you were reelected, would you pardon yourself?
TRUMP: I could have pardoned myself. Do you know what? I was given an option to pardon myself. I could have pardoned myself when I left. People said, would you like to pardon yourself? I had a couple of attorneys that said, you can do it if you want.
I had some people that said it would look bad if you do it because I think it would look terrible. Let me just tell you, I said the last thing I’d ever do is give myself a pardon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Self-pardon obviously never been tested in court, but if he got back in the office, is there anything he would not try to do to avoid prosecution?
HABERMAN: I mean, I think that what we have seen with this campaign so far is that he sees his freedom at stake. And so I would be really surprised if he got back into office and said, you know what? I’m just — I’m not going to try that. But we don’t know what it would look like, where the cases will be, what is happening.
I will say that, you know, he said there were a couple of lawyers who told him that he could have pardoned himself when he was in office before. I’d be surprised if any of those lawyers were people who were actually employed by the office of the president as opposed to outside voices.”
