‘Right Out of a Fox News Monologue’: Chris Hayes Hits ‘Performative Umbrage’ of Trump Lawyer’s Impeachment Defense
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes dissected the “blustering” and “lying” from Donald Trump’s defense after the fourth day of his Senate impeachment trial for inciting the Capitol insurrection.
During his opening segment on Friday night, Hayes broke down the Trump lawyers’ strategy and tactics, likening the team’s “performative umbrage” to a rant from the network with Trump’s favorite cable TV prime time lineup.
“Despite being allotted 16 hours over two days to lay out their case, Trump’s defense team used a little over three hours, the entirety of which was performative umbrage right out of a Fox News monologue,” Hayes said. “Blustering about Trump’s commitment to law and order and in some cases outright lying about the House Impeachment Managers’ case.”
Hayes then played a clip of Trump attorney David Schoen claiming that House Democrats ambushed them by playing never-before-seen video during their prosecution against Trump.
“Well, that would be quite a claim if it were true, but it is not,” Hayes pointed out. “Every piece of evidence, including new videos, were given to the defense team before the trial. In fact, the rules of the trial agreed upon before it started said everything had to be shared ahead of time. Trump’s lawyers were not just stretching the truth, or weren’t trying to shoehorn in an obscure legal argument. They were just lying about that.”
The MSNBC host also highlighted the “weird, unprofessional” behavior of Michael van der Veen, who angrily demanded to know asked a question about whether or not the lawyer thought Trump had won the election, prompting Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to fire back:”I did!” And van der Veen made at least one other obviously false claim, when he tried to assert Trump never knew Mike Pence was in danger during the riot — something that Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has publicly debunked, based on his own phone call with the then-president.
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
