MSNBC’s Glenn Kirschner Says Trump Has Committed Second Degree Murder and ‘Must Be Held Accountable’

Former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said that President Donald Trump “upped his own criminal ante to second-degree murder” by covering up the severity of the coronavirus in public while confessing it to journalist Bob Woodward. 

On Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s The Dean Obeidallah Show, host Dean Obeidallah talked with Kirschner about the revelations in Woodward’s book and taped conversations with Trump. Kirschner pulled no punches.

“What Donald Trump has just done by virtue of the tapes that Bob Woodward released, is he has upped his own criminal ante to second-degree murder,” Kirschner told Obeidallah. “And here’s why: He was lying to the American people about the danger this virus posed…he was saying to Bob Woodward in very dramatic tones that “this thing is airborne only you need to do is breathe near somebody who is infected and you are going to get it.”

Kirschner added that the president also failed to provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), including masks, to hospitals and those in need, despite the fact that he knew the coronavirus was airborne.

“This man has upped the criminal ante to second-degree murder, and there are only two elements for second-degree murder. The first is you caused the death of another,” he added, doubling down on his previous claim. “The second element is the intent element. And here’s where it would otherwise get tricky if we didn’t have Trump’s incriminating admissions.”

Kirschner broke down the second element even further, explaining that it can be satisfied in one of three ways.

“You intended to kill somebody. We are not going to say Donald Trump intended to kill people. Or if he didn’t intend to kill, he intended to inflict serious bodily injury. Let’s give him that one,” he said.

“The third is what’s called “conscious disregard.” That’s defined as your conduct was in conscious disregard of the extreme risk you were creating to other human beings that they would suffer death or serious bodily injury. Trump has admitted, in my opinion as a career prosecutor and frankly, I was the most experienced homicide prosecutor in the Department of Justice because of our unique jurisdictional mandate in D.C., that is second-degree murder and Donald Trump must be held accountable.”

Listen above, via SiriusXM’s The Dean Obeidallah Show.