I watched something on Friday that left me scratching my head, and maybe someone can sort it out for me. Doesn't everyone know the first rule when it comes to "Judge Judy" Sheindlin is: "Nobody messes with Judge Judy, period"?
CNN host Chris Wallace was certainly blindsided when he had the former TV jurist as his guest on the latest episode of "Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace," which is broadcast on the Max streaming platform on Fridays.
In a preview released before the show aired, Wallace asked Sheindlin what she thought of former President Donald Trump's legal tactics, but felt the need to begin his overwrought line of questions this way:
Donald Trump was indicted in four separate cases, and his legal strategy was pretty clear. He wanted to push all of the trials past the election.
That kind of effort to just use procedural motions, whatever, is that the justice system working or is it the justice system being manipulated?
The host was stunned into silence by Judge Judy's answer, in which she directed a fireball of righteous indignation at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over the lawfare indictment (and eventual conviction) against Trump in the business documents fraud case. She also spoke as a business owner in New York City, frustrated by the violence she experiences there daily -- and as a taxpayer:
Watch:
Read: RedState's coverage of Trump's Manhattan Trial
She said:
I would be happier, as someone who owns property in Manhattan, if the District Attorney of New York County would take care of criminals who are making it impossible for citizens to walk in the streets and use the subway, to use his efforts to keep those people off the street, than to spend $5 million or $10 million of taxpayers' money trying Donald Trump on this nonsense.
That's my view. But I, as a taxpayer in this country, resent using the system for your own personal self-aggrandizement.
When the host asked her to clarify whether she meant Bragg, she said she did, adding, in exasperation: "If you look ... you had to twist yourself into a pretzel to figure out what the crime was. He [Bragg] doesn't like him [Trump]."
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But Judge Judy wasn't done destroying Wallace's efforts, when he tried to trap her by playing the "character" card about the former president, asking Sheindlin what she thinks of Trump. After a pause to think, she answered slowly, "What do I think of him? I think he was a good businessman, a real estate guy, and he was certainly terrific on 'The Apprentice.'"
But the best part was her answer to Wallace's direct question about how she felt about his time as president. She simply refused to be pigeonholed, as she replied, "I don't think that Donald ever should have been president; I don't think even Donald thought he was going to be president."
This might be something of a tangent, but her answer rang a bell for me. The late, great comedian/actor Norm Macdonald, who knew him "casually" from his reality show, said something similar in a pre- Election Day 2016 interview with Larry King--who was close friends with Trump. Norm, who did not think Donald Trump would be elected, said that he reckoned Trump was "playing a part," instead of seriously running for POTUS. He said later in the segment--wearing that grin that fans of the comedian know so well--that perhaps Trump doesn't "want to be president of the United States, as much as he wants to be the president of whatever room he's playing that night."
Food for thought.
If you would like to watch it, there's a slightly longer clip of the Wallace interview here.
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