Rachel Maddow, the exceptionally woke primetime host on MSNBC, sparked immense controversy Thursday by proposing the concept of a plea deal, a kind of ‘political solution,’ that could see former President Donald Trump facing a lighter sentence if he agreed not to run for president in 2024.
This eyebrow-raising idea comes after the news that Trump faces federal charges regarding his handling of classified documents, a revelation Trump himself made public.
Maddow made the suggestions on Thursday’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” when she launched into the discussion with a provocative query: “You have to wonder if the Justice Department is considering whether there is some political solution to this criminal problem.”
“Whether part of the issue here is not just that Trump has committed crimes, but that Trump has committed crimes and plans on being back in the White House,” she continued.
Clarifying her stance, she said, “Do they consider as part of a potential plea offer, something that would proscribe him… proscribe him from running for office again? I don’t know.”
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O’Donnell responded to Maddow by suggesting that the idea for such a plea deal would need to originate from Trump’s legal defense team, to avoid any insinuation of political manipulation by the Department of Justice.
“I would imagine if anything like that happened that it would have to come from the defense side of the negotiation,” he said. “That the Trump team would say, ‘Oh, by the way, and with this, we will also, you know, drop out of the race for president.'”
The caveat, he stressed, was crucial to avoid a perception that the Justice Department was actively attempting to bar Trump from the 2024 race.
“Otherwise, it would put the Justice Department in this position that Donald Trump claims they’re in. You know he claims they’re trying to stop him, simply trying to stop him from becoming president again, and that’s the only reason they’re doing this,” O’Donnell said.
Indeed, President Trump echoed this sentiment in an interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday, declaring the charges to be “election interference” and “the greatest witch hunt of all time.”
Close Trump allies immediately responded to Maddow’s theorizing, highlighting it as a potential strategy of the federal government and mainstream media allies to leverage the case as a means of deterring Trump from the 2024 race.
Donald Trump Jr. took to Twitter to share the MSNBC clip, pointedly asking, “Are you paying attention yet? They’re saying the quiet part loud.”
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Another notable MAGA Twitter account, “The Columbia Bugle”, chimed in: “Rachel Maddow Admitting What This Trump Indictment Is Really About.”
Similarly, Trump’s senior advisor, Jason Miller, echoed these sentiments, stating, “Saying the quiet part out loud…this is the Democrats’ entire strategy to try to beat 2024 frontrunner @realDonaldTrump!!!”
This should seriously draw concern to every American. It is essentially endorsing election interference. Let it also be noted that all of this happened on the same day the FBI turned over to Congress the document containing damning information on Joe and Hunter Biden accepting bribe money from a foreign entity.
