MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell said Donald Trump managed to utter “the stupidest possible thing he could say” while on the witness stand in his civil fraud trial in New York.
“Because Donald Trump is one of the very stupidest people to be charged with business fraud, and because his demonstrably ineffectual lawyers obviously do not have the skills to prepare their client for even the simplest and most obvious questions, Donald Trump incriminated himself and his children with the only one-word answer that he gave all day,” O’Donell said on Monday night.
The word came in response to a question about who in the Trump Organisation was responsible for preventing and detecting fraud.
“Everybody,” Trump said.
“And there, Donald Trump destroyed any shred of defense in the case for himself and his co-defendants, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump,” O’Donnell said. “You can spend weeks trying to think of a stupider answer than that, and you cannot come up with one.”
O’Donnell pointed out that Judge Arthur Engoron has already determined that Trump committed fraud for years. The main question now is how much of a penalty they will face, potentially up to $250 million (£203 million).
As a witness, Trump’s job was to make the judge think the fraud wasn’t his fault or the fault of his sons and blame his accountants, which could potentially soften the penalty.
Instead, Trump “incriminated himself and his kids,” O’Donnell said.
See his full analysis below: