‘Falling Asleep’: Johnson on Trump’s Demeanor During Hush-Money Trial

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
MELBER: “Jason, I don’t want to be unkind to the defendant and he’s legally presumed innocent, but his family’s not there. The jury can notice that. These are his friends and allies. Some of them have gone so far like Michael Cohen who’s so angry at Trump that it might affect his credibility. Some like Mr. Pecker who say, yeah, I’m friendly. The guy’s a liar, but we’re friendly. I mean, he may have committed campaign crimes, that’s what I thought we did, but we’re friendly. And he’s got a whole backstory of, shall we say, really complicated allegations but we’re friendly. If these are the views of his friends, how does that hurt him both in not only the jury but in the court of public opinion?”
Johnson: “That’s the thing, Ari. That’s why this is such a bad week, because we can go through all the sort of legalese, jargon, but really the average person is picking up every fifth word. What they’re picking up are things like adult film star, payoff, family isn’t there, and falling asleep during a trial. So the outside world is like, okay, this doesn’t look good. He doesn’t sound alert. We’re not seeing anything that gives us the opportunity to think, oh, my gosh, Trump is alert. He’s paying attention to this. Friends? How many of us have them? Right? But if you heard someone say this room was filled with people who are supporting Donald Trump and they leave the room every day and Melania is there and everything else like that, it gives the outside public the impression, well, these people believe in him. Even if he’s guilty, his family is still with him. The fact that he doesn’t have people who are down with him, that’s what the public is picking up and the jury sees that.”