MS Host Jen Psaki Carves Up ‘Cringey’ Trump AG Bondi With Parade Of Hearing Brawl Highlights

MS NOW host and former Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki dissected Trump Attorney General Pam Bondi’s performance at a trainwreck hearing with a parade of clips showing the aggressive exchanges that characterized her testimony.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Wednesday entitled “Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice,” at which Bondi lashed out at Democratic members and repeatedly bristled when members reclaimed their time. Bondi had a binder full of prepared jabs to attack members whose questions angered her, and advisers assisting her in the effort.

Bondi’s prep material was even revealed to include tracking information on what searches Democrats performed during onsite reviews of unredacted Epstein documents at the Department of Justice.

On Wednesday’s edition of MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki, the host called Bondi’s performance a “cringey” attempt to ape President Donald Trump, and took viewers through what she deemed the lowlights:

JEN PSAKI, MS NOW HOST: Hi, Chris. I wat—did you watch the Bondi hearing? I know you watched it because I just watched your show. I feel like it reminded me of those moments, even with Democrats, where you’re watching it and you’re thinking you want to kind of put your sweatshirt over your head because it’s getting so crazy and going so poorly, and the person who’s testifying is losing complete control of the situation. I don’t know if Republicans felt that way, but I don’t know. I felt that way for them.

CHRIS HAYES, MS NOW HOST, “ALL IN”: I just feel like, you know, Trump acts in ways that are so strange and antisocial and so outside the norm of how anyone in any situation would act, he—everyone tries to imitate him. And when other people imitate him, it somehow feels even worse or even weirder than when he does it. Which is what I felt like watching—watching Pam Bondi today.

PSAKI: Yeah, the echoing doesn’t work.

HAYES: It doesn’t work, exactly.

PSAKI: It doesn’t work.

HAYES: It doesn’t work.

PSAKI: It’s cringey. Well, we’re going to talk about that. Congressman Jamie Raskin, who had many moments today, is going to join me in just a moment.

…

PSAKI: Congressman Jamie Raskin, who grilled Attorney General Pam Bondi today in a way that really only he can—I almost think he enjoys these multi-hour hearings—is sitting here. He’s going to join me at the table for an exclusive interview about one of the wildest congressional hearings I have ever seen.

And, you know, don’t just take that from me because the reviews are in for Bondi’s one-woman wild, crazy show on Capitol Hill today and this A.P. headline. There were a lot, but this A.P. headline kind of summed it up if you didn’t see it: Bondi deflected questions on Epstein files across five-hour hearing.

It wasn’t really—that’s just the headline—because it wasn’t just that she deflected, it was how she deflected that made it so embarrassing for her. In fact, at times Bondi was so obnoxious and so disruptive that she had to be repeatedly, gently blocked by Jim Jordan from shouting over her questioners. And that is how it was covered. When Jim Jordan is the voice of reason, you kind of know things are going off the rails.

Even Pam Bondi’s typical cheerleaders tried to literally look away. And according to Mediaite, Fox News declined to carry almost all of the proceedings live or give them the kind of sustained real-time attention that signals an event truly matters. Let’s just say if Donald Trump’s attorney general was absolutely crushing it there in that hearing today, Fox News would have played the entire thing. They would be doing analysis about how she crushed it. That is not what they’re doing.

I’ve prepped a lot of people for these hearings. As I was just saying to Chris, I have watched hundreds of them, and this one is—well, pretty easy to analyze because over the course of those five hours, Attorney General Pam Bondi made an absolute fool of herself evading questions tirelessly, shouting down lawmakers, talking back and even resorting to name-calling, all while attempting some of the most ridiculous and poorly executed diversions I have ever seen.

But why just read you the reviews. I just wanted to start there when I can take you to the actual show. Here’s Pam Bondi being asked a very simple question about why the Justice Department has not brought new charges against anyone in the Epstein files.

(VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: I mean, I don’t—I don’t know why more people weren’t laughing in exasperation at the absurdity of her answer. I mean, Pam Bondi was asked why she hadn’t investigated any of Epstein’s coconspirators, and she basically said, because the Dow is over 50,000.

I mean, I guess her argument is, do we really want our Justice Department investigating an elite cabal at a time when their stock portfolios are doing so well? This—this is—this is the attorney general of the United States, though. I mean, she’s a person that’s supposed to make big, important, sober prosecutorial decisions. A person that’s supposed to be independent of the president who she worshiped through the course of a five-hour hearing, publicly, out loud, and she’s supposed to be independent of politics in general.

But for most of this hearing, it felt like Pam Bondi was not really acting as the attorney general, and more like she was auditioning for the role of a Trump campaign spokesperson.

I mean, here she was responding to a comment about her office’s handling of the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

(VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: DOJ isn’t collaborating with local law enforcement to investigate the death of American citizens. That was in the question. It’s an important thing to ask. And Pam Bondi’s response is, Donald Trump is the greatest president in American history. And did I mention the Dow, which remains perhaps one of the most absurd moments of the hearing?

It’s like she was kind of a social media bot of sorts, replying with random non-sequiturs and A.I.-generated images of Donald Trump with a six-pack or the verbal version of that.

Can you imagine Merrick Garland answering a question like that? I mean, can you imagine Bill Barr answering a question like that? And the thing is, it kept going like that over and over and over. Every time she was asked a serious question about something within her job description, she evaded either by attacking the questioner or by really over-the-top glorifying her boss.

(VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: Okay, to state the obvious—but we’ve got to restate it sometimes—the question of whether or not the current sitting president of the United States attended any parties with a sexual predator where underage girls were present is not ridiculous at all. I think everybody wants to know the answer to that question.

Also, by the way, it wasn’t exactly a seven-parter. She could have just said no if she knew the answer was no.

And it wasn’t just her refusal to provide a basic answer. That was certainly part of it. When given the opportunity to honor the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, who were literally right behind her in that hearing room, she refused.

(VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: I mean, there was a lot telling about that exchange, including the fact that Pam Bondi—if you know this—refused to even look at Epstein’s survivors and that that says a lot.

It’s not the only shocking thing, though, to come out of that exchange. As Bondi was going back and forth with Congresswoman Jayapal, a photographer in the room snapped this photo of the binder in front of Pam Bondi. And if you zoom in—and we’re going to do that for you and rotate that image to take a closer look—you can clearly see that the page is labeled “Jayapal, Pramila, search history.” And it appears to list all of the Epstein files that Congresswoman Jayapal privately viewed on the Justice Department’s computers, where lawmakers can view the unredacted versions of the files.

Now, after that image became public, Congresswoman Jayapal told MS NOW’s tireless intrepid reporter Ali Vitali, quote, “It’s totally inappropriate. Is this the whole reason they opened the files up to us two days early, so they could essentially surveil members to see what we were going to ask her about?” Good question.

I mean, that was essentially an oppo document in the binder of the attorney general saying what a person who is going to be questioning her had searched just a few days ago, and I hope others start asking it.

I mean, throughout the entire hearing, Bondi made it clear that her goal was to basically not answer questions, of course, but fight with every Democratic member of the committee, no matter what their questions were.

At one point, Congresswoman Becca Balint got up and walked out of the hearing over Bondi’s attacks.

(VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: You heard that correctly. Yes. Congresswoman Becca Balint’s grandfather died in the Holocaust. And Pam Bondi just accused her of being antisemitic, instead of agreeing to meet with Epstein survivors. That’s what just happened there.

And again, these weren’t just isolated incidents. And what I would consider perhaps the clearest sign that she was either completely out of her depth or unprepared with no good answers or a combination—her go-to move during the hearing was to repeatedly behave like some sort of overcaffeinated high-school mean girl.

(VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: The whole thing is given a grown-up version of Regina George from Mean Girls. You know? You know who I’m talking about.

Now, for Pam Bondi, this entire hearing was about putting on a show, obviously, so her boss could see her yelling at lawmakers he doesn’t like. That’s the whole thing.

But Donald Trump was not the only one watching this hearing. I mean, whether it’s the Epstein files or the killing of American citizens in Minneapolis, the entire country has taken an interest in what this Department of Justice is doing. We know this. They’re paying attention.

And if they tuned into this hearing, they saw an administration making a mockery of their priorities. They saw a Department of Justice that only cares about one person, one man sitting in the White House.

Well, at the same time, they saw responsible lawmakers ask tough questions and center the people who really matter in all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RASKIN: You’re not showing a lot of interest in the victims, Madam Attorney General, whether it’s Epstein’s human trafficking ring or the homicidal governmental violence against citizens in Minneapolis. As attorney general, you’re siding with the perpetrators and you’re ignoring the victims. That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change course.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: I think he really captured the energy a lot of people are feeling.

Watch above via MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki.

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