CNN’s Jake Tapper Jokes Trump Has More Court Trials Than He Can Keep Track Of — ‘And It’s My Job!’

CNN’s Jake Tapper jokingly apologized to viewers that former President Donald Trump’s has so many criminal trials and other legal actions against him that they’re hard to keep track of — “And it’s my job!”

Trump faces 91 felony charges in four different criminal trials, in addition to civil actions like the fraud trial that has been playing out in New York.

On Friday’s edition of The Lead, Tapper and Maggie Haberman went over developments in some of them, including an appeals court decision to lift the gag order in the fraud trial — not to be confused with the gag order in the federal Jan. 6 elections crimes trial — not to be confused with the other federal trial.

Tapper mock-apologized for the deluge:

TAPPER: Yesterday in New York Appeals Court lifted the gag order that’s supposed to keep Trump from talking about the court staff, like the clerk, et cetera, for the ongoing, this is the civil fraud trial. I really and I have to apologize to people. I’m sorry. There’s so many court cases —

HABERMAN: There are a lot. And there’s two gag orders. I mean, you’re talking about one.

TAPPER: It’s very difficult. And we really — I’m sorry to be this — it’s tough, it’s tough to keep all this straight in your head. I have a difficult time. And it’s my job. Anyway, today’s Trump’s lawyers filed papers arguing, quote, silencing a presidential candidates core political speech at the height of his political campaign is the essence of censorship. I mean, they have a point. But by the same token, he does say things that put people’s lives in danger.

HABERMAN: He has gotten more leeway than almost any criminal defendant. I’m not saying with similar circumstances, there have never been sort of similar circumstances. But any criminal defendant who was making these kinds of statements would almost certainly see some kind of a gag or and see some kind of a crackdown from a judge.

TAPPER: If not jail time.

HABERMAN: Or see jail or see fines. And he has actually gotten an enormous amount of leeway. Now, the circumstances are what they are. He is the front running candidate for the Republican nomination. And so it is against the backdrop of a political campaign, although it’s a campaign he chose to run, but it’s not surprising. He’s doing it that way. You’re seeing every time that one of these gag orders is staid and a judge sets it aside pending another decision. He immediately starts making the same attacks that he barred from doing before. And I think he thinks that plays to his advantage.

TAPPER: And the idea that this clerk has anything to do, I mean, the judge is the person making these decisions. The judge is the one calling the shots. Not this woman but he loves to attack women, young women especially.

HABERMAN: I think that there is a lot that is very different in the New York State trial than there is going to be in the federal.

Watch above via CNN’s The Lead.

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