The potential confirmation of President Donald Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney to the federal bench is a bridge too far for MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, who unleashed on both Trump and Republicans on Tuesday.
During a recent impromptu monologue on her show “Deadline: White House,” Wallace expressed alarm that former Trump lawyer Emil Bove could soon be confirmed as a U.S. Circuit Court judge for the rest of his life. Wallace launched into the monologue after former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade commented on the hyper-partisan context of Bove’s appointment as Trump has forced his far-right politics on the federal judiciary.
“[Trump] has said he’s very angry at Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, even calling him a ‘sleazebag’ for giving him bad advice. He has privately indicated that he is very disappointed in Amy Coney Barrett and some other judges that he has appointed,” McQuade said. “He has this very transactional view of the world and seems to believe that, ‘if I appoint you to the bench you owe me and that you should be deciding cases the way I do.’”
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“It seems that Emil Bove is … part of that transactional view of the world, that is the antithesis of how the law is supposed to work,” the former federal prosecutor continued. “Most judges accept the nomination from a president and then decide cases objectively, sometimes in the favor of the administration and sometimes against. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
At that point, Wallace cut in to lament that “we’re now talking about whether or not any of us has any hope that Donald Trump’s criminal defense attorney might be blocked by a couple of Republicans in the Senate,” adding that the concept was “bats— crazy.”
“It is crazy that this is like, on the bubble! Bove will probably get through because Republicans never stand up to Trump,” Wallace said. “Republicans used to care about the rule of law! … Republicans used to say they cared about the character and the quality of the men and women who were on the bench, and now we’re having basically what amounts to a stupid conversation about whether this guy belongs on the bench. Nobody thinks he belongs on the bench!”
The MSNBC host (and one-time communications director in former President George W. Bush’s White House) went on to suggest that the national conversation surrounding Trump’s judicial appointments should really focus on whether Republicans are now “hostages of the MAGA movement” and if they “have the courage to do the right thing.” She added that even the conservative Wall Street Journal’s editorial board was bearish on Bove and doubted he would have the right temperament to be a federal judge.
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Watch the segment below, or by clicking this link.
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