Elie Mystal let us know what we're in for from the GOP when it comes to scandals in the coming years. Thanks to Traitor Trump, they're gonna all try to act like this is an episode of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" where the rules are made up and the points don't matter. Exhibit A: Matt Gaetz.
On The Beat Tuesday, talking about Gaetz, Ari Melber posited to Mystal, "I'm curious your view on the intersection of law and politics. Sometimes you break with the legal advice to get the public PR benefit," he said.
"That's kind of a bet, if you will. What happens if you break with the legal advice, and the PR is boomeranging on you, and you played yourself, and Tucker is telling his own audience, 'That was weird. That was a problem.'" he asked.
That's when Mystal made his prediction: "We're going to see this a lot for the next bit of American life. What we're seeing is people trying to run the Trump defense without being Donald Trump, right? We're going to see A LOT of politicians who are accused of sordid behavior," he said. "Trump has been accused by 25 women of sexual misconduct. He has brushed it all off with bluster and ridiculous interviews, right? Every politician accused is going to try some version of the same strategy, right?"
Mystal tells us what we're looking out for. Hoping for, if you're on the right side of things. "We don't know if that's going to work for anybody else other than Donald Trump. If it doesn't work for you, if you try the Trump strategy and it doesn't work for you, the result is jail. Right? It's a one way street there, right?"
ONE CAN ONLY HOPE. (Am I a fool for clinging to a bit of hope that there is still a narrow chance that the Seditious Ex will face justice and consequences, too? Don't answer that.)
But do we know? We'll find out. He emphasized, again, as many have about Gaetz, "If you try to blow off prosecutors and keep running your mouth against the advice of counsel and keep putting yourself in legal jeopardy and it doesn't work, the result is jeopardy. The result is jail. The result is bad things happening to you. And that's the die that Gaetz is casting. That's the die we will see unfortunately a lot of politicians cast as they try to go Trump-lite to get themselves out of problems."
Then there were some references to "The Dark Knight" which I am making myself vulnerable for admitting I haven't seen. So I didn't quite get the specific references about copycat Batmans and hockey pants, but I can glean that in general, the point was that Trump got away with it because he was Trump. Others won't be so lucky.
And I know I'm right because basically Melber summed it up that way. but I did glean it before he summed it up that way. So, HA.
"Whether people like it or not, it is a legal fact," confirmed Melber. "Donald Trump did get away legally with some things that other people didn't."
Mystal got into even more specifics. Like, Trump had SUPER LOYAL henchmen. Gaetz? Not so much, it seems.
"This [Gaetz's scandal] is spinning off of an investigation of a man who was already under indictment who, for all we know, as his trial gets going, if that's not going well for him, will sing," Mystal pointed out. "I mean, remember. Trump had the amazing, I would say, good fortune that none of his alleged accomplices ever seemed to flip on him. Paul Manafort took the weight. Michael Flynn took the weight. They took the risk of needing to get a pardon to never turn tail on Trump," he said.
"Only Michael Cohen eventually was compelled to tell what I believe was the truth. He was the one that didn't get a pardon, by the way," Mystal reminds us. "Does Gaetz have the same kind of pull with his potential accomplices that they're never going to flip on him? Does he really think that? These are the kinds of -- we're back into a world where Trump defied gravity for so long. We're back into a world where gravity always wins."
Melber agreed. "Gravity is back."
Sounds the title of the next Batman movie, if you ask me.
