During an MSNBC panel discussion on Donald Trump's latest assertion in an NBC interview that his political enemies should be prosecuted, "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough suggested it could blow up in his face if it came to fruition.
In his Sunday interview with NBC's Kristen Welker, the president-elect asserted that Democratic lawmakers who took part in the House select committee hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection deserved to be jailed, but then claimed he would let his appointees to head up the FBI and the Department of Justice make the call.
With co-host Jonathan Lemire saying Trump has already given a prosecution go-ahead for FBI director nominee Kash Patel and Pan Bondi, slated to be the new attorney general, to go after the likes of Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and newly elected Sen. Adam Schiff(D-CA), Scarborough predicted it would be a fatal mistake.
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"You know, it shows you it's one thing to say something on a campaign trail, to level those threats, those unconstitutional, illegal threats on a campaign trail or in an interview as a punch line, it's quite another when these people are talking back to you and saying, what we did was legal. Seriously?" the Morning Joe host stated. "How does that — and this is the thing we need to keep asking, how does that end for Donald Trump when he tries to put Bennie Thompson in jail? When he tries to put any of those members in jail? Adam Kinzinger in jail for doing their job, first of all, and not doing anything illegal?"
"It would actually draw attention back to January 6th," he elaborated. "Now, as we get further and further away from January 6th, people started believing, you know, the propaganda around January 6th that Donald Trump was pushing on the campaign trail. But at the time, 20 million people saw it. People were riveted by the testimony, people were deeply concerned by what happened and Donald Trump's poll numbers go down."
"I think the last thing you want to do is actually draw people's attention back there," he continued. "And finally, the third thing is, if you arrest Liz Cheney, Bennie Thompson, you name it, whomever, you make them political heroes. One of the reasons many people believe Donald Trump got re-elected president of the United States is because he was sitting at a defendant's table all summer and it made him a martyr."
"And so, if he turns around and makes, let's say, Liz Cheney a martyr, he only makes her stronger, only makes her more powerful and only makes it more likely that she's the next president of the United States," he predicted.
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