‘Did It Help Or Hurt Your Life?’ Ari Melber Asks Former Trump Officials About Consequences of Working for Ex-President

MSNBC’s Ari Melber wasted no time in asking three former White House officials if working for former President Donald Trump did them harm.

Melber welcomed a rather unusual trio of guests to The Beat on Wednesday and peppered them with questions. Present were former U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland, former Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews, and former trade adviser Peter Navarro, who was recently released from prison. Navarro, who was a figure in the ill-fated plot to subvert the 2020 election – served a four-month sentence after being convicted of contempt of Congress. He had refused to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Jan. 6 select committee.

“I’m not aware of any panel quite like this,” began Melber, who noted Navarro’s conviction in the segment’s introduction. “I’m going to start with a couple quick questions, and then we’ll broaden out. So, in a sentence, if you could oblige me, for each of you, you’ve worked for Donald Trump. Did it help or hurt your life?”

Navarro jumped in to offer a “fact check.”

“Just a fact check,” he said. “I was convicted for simply refusing to testify before Congress because it was my judgment by the constitutional separation of powers, I shouldn’t go there–”

Melber interrupted him.

“We’ll get to that,” the host said. ”

“You implicated me in some kind of crime with Donald Trump,” Navarro protested. “I simply took a principled position. I’m glad I did that, and if my case as it reaches the Supreme Court establishes the rules about executive privilege and the constitution and separation of powers, it was well worth it. Serving with Donald Trump, I saved a lot of lives during the pandemic, and I created a lot of jobs the two years before that, and I couldn’t be more proud of serving this country.”

Navarro did not elaborate as to how he “saved a lot of lives.”

“I share Peter’s pride in serving my country,” Sondland chimed in. “And to answer your question directly, Ari, it helped my life because I now have a platform from which to make my views, which I believe are representative of most Americans known, where I would have been, you know, whistling in a dark tunnel otherwise. So it really was a net benefit.”

While Matthews called it “an honor to get to work in the White House,” she offered a qualification.

“Donald Trump might have been the more difficult president to do communications for, but I think that made me a better communicator and better at my job moving forward,” she said. “I think my decision to resign on January 6th certainly hurt my career in terms of being able to work for Republicans moving forward. But I do think that, as the ambassador mentioned, it gave me this platform now to be able to express the views of what I think is middle America and where a lot of Americans are.”

Watch above via MSNBC.