‘How Is That Not Weak?’ CNN’s Jake Tapper and Maggie Haberman Roast Trump Over Election Crimes — And History of Failure

CNN anchor Jake Tapper and analyst Maggie Haberman roasted ex-President Donald Trump over his desire not to appear “weak” despite his actions after the election and a history of “failure.”

Trump became the first U.S. president to pose for a mugshot as he was arrested Thursday in Fulton County, Georgia on 13 counts related to election crimes in a sweeping RICO case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

The arrest was a three-ring media circus in which every detail was covered in breathless real-time — especially the mugshot.

Special coverage of the arrest continued on Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, during which Tapper keyed in on Trump’s desire not to look “weak” in his mugshot, asking Haberman how that jibes with the actions for which he’s been arrested.

Haberman picked up the baton and ticked through a laundry list of Trump’s failures, and delivering a conclusion that would be chilling for Trump to hear — which he undoubtedly will, given his fascination with the longtime political journo:

TAPPER: And explain to me, to the capacity that anyone, on this planet, can, how refusing to accept a clear, decisive electoral defeat in 2020, and desperately attempting, any way possible, to hold on to power, legally, and then extra legally, and then illegally, at least according to the Special Counsel and the Fulton County D.A., how is that not weak?

HABERMAN: Because, in his mind, he didn’t concede. And that has been how he has operated, for decade after decade after decade, through business failures, through bankruptcies of his casinos, through losses, through products failing, through divorces.

It is all been, if you pretend it is not happening? If you create your own reality? If you don’t give in to what other people are acknowledging as objective reality? Then, maybe it really isn’t there. And he is somebody, who does not think, in terms of long-term strategy. He thinks in very short increments of time. And it’s all about just getting from one post to another. And so, that is how somebody thinks like that.

It’s also how somebody thinks, who has lived, Jake — and this doesn’t really get said, I think, enough about him — he lived a fairly consequence-free life, before he was President. The bankruptcies cost the banks. Now, he did not like the press. He was very unhappy about it. But the bankruptcies were a loss to the banks.

Generally, he had his father, to help bail him out. He has moved from one thing to another, without having to really face the kind of consequences that other people might have in similar circumstances.

So, this is an unusual moment.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.