'Completely delusional' Trump allies try to convince him felonies will help: Morning Joe
Donald Trump's allies insist his 34 felony convictions will help his election chances, but MSNBC's Joe Scarborough called out those claims as "completely delusional."
A New York jury found the former president guilty on all counts of falsifying business records to cover up other crimes, and the "Morning Joe" host questioned how that would appeal to anyone who wasn't already a committed Trump supporter.
"You know, there is such a bubble, too, that these people live in," Scarborough said. "I mean, even people in sort of the media orbit that I've talked to, they think 34 felony convictions, it's great for Donald Trump, great for fundraising, firing up the base – man, people are going to do whatever it takes to vote. It fires up his 44 percent, his 43 percent, you know, and the ceiling may be 46 percent, 47 percent, but, you know, they actually believe it."
"Trump knows better than to believe that this is something that he wants, but there are people around him that have convinced themselves, living in the bubble, that these 34 felony convictions was the greatest political advance for Trump in some time," Scarborough added. "They're just completely delusional."
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Panelist Jonathan Lemire agreed that Trump didn't believe the convictions would help him, despite what his allies tell him and the media, and pointed to his panicked social media posts during and after his criminal trial.
"They're right, it'll fire up the base, they're right, it'll be good for fundraising, at least for the time being," said Lemire, the White House bureau chief for Politico. "Couple things here. First, we do know and have long said on the show, the way to know what Donald Trump is thinking is what he posts on Truth Social in the middle of the night. It has been screed after screed, expressing frustration of what's happening in his legal cases."
"Also, I talked to people around him, he doesn't want to go to prison," Lemire added. "He didn't want to be convicted. They convinced themselves they'd get a hung jury, they were surprised by the verdict and, particularly, that it was unanimous. Even if this helps politically with his base, there's simply no way it helps beyond that."
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