MSNBC Host ‘Struck’ By Trump Crying ‘Hoax’ On Epstein Survivors After His Own Sexual Abuse Verdict

MSNBC host Chris Hayes found it “striking” that President Donald Trump would rant about the Epstein Files “hoax” during the survivors’ press conference — given his own legal verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case.

About a dozen survivors spoke out Wednesday morning in a press conference organized by lawmakers from both parties to call for more transparency over the Epstein Files. Even as one survivor ripped Trump for calling it a “hoax” at that presser, Trump was up the road at the White House ranting that the issue is a “Democrat hoax!”

On Thursday night’s edition of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, Hayes told Democratic strategist Jess McIntosh that he was struck by the optics of a man with Trump’s history essentially hectoring the survivors of a serial sex criminal:

CHRIS HAYES: Yes. And it was striking to me, Jess, it was always this sort of preposterous wish casting, right, that Donald Trump of all people was going to be the one to like bring accountability and transparency for like a serial sexual predator who was his buddy. But even that said, it was striking yesterday to see all these women up there telling their stories and the fact that aside from Thomas Massie, as the New York Times points out today, three women, Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, and Marjorie Taylor Greene signing on.

There is an interesting gender dynamic at play here. Listening these women tell their story, saying, I’m not a hoax. This is not a hoax. Listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene say, not a hoax. And the man who was found liable for sexual assault by a jury of his peers in a civil trial saying it’s a hoax.

JESS MCINTOSH, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes, it always did require a little bit of cognitive dissonance to cast him in that role vis-a-vis taking down Epstein, but that worked for his base for a really long time. And this is not the first time that we have had the dynamic of Trump versus several women. We have actually seen that before a few times now.

HAYES: Yes.

MCINTOSH: What’s different this time is I think what Sarah was talking about. This is shaking the faith of the faithful. Like there is a part of his base for whom you know whatever he does, he does it at a frequency that I can’t hear, but they hear it. And they believe him and they trust him. And if their faith is shaken on this, they’re going to start noticing all the things he’s taking away from them.

They’re going to start notice that he’s taking — they’re going to start noticing that he’s taking away school lunches and he’s taking away health care. They’re going to start tuning into that. This sort of idea of him as a protector, as a leader, that’s really been shielding him from a lot of absolutely terrible policy. And if he loses that veneer, it’s not just hard for him on this issue, it’s going to become very hard for him on all issues.

And I think the reason why it’s very different here is that he looks weak. Usually when it’s a bunch of women versus Trump, he just comes out swinging. It’s a locker room talk. She’s not my type anyway. We like — we know the sort of, you know, alpha male persona that he comes out with. This looks weak. And his people do not want to see him be weak. But there’s really no other way here. He is — he is running away and he is doing it in public.

Trump was found liable for sexual abuse, not the charge of sexual assault. But Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in one motion in the case that “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Watch above via MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes.