July 22, 2020

So here's the big question from Trump's press briefing yesterday. Did he just signal to Ghislaine Maxwell to shut up, and he'll pardon her?

"Trump was asked about the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite criminally charged with procuring underage girls to be sexually abused by the late investor Jeffrey Epstein and his friends," Mika Brzezinski said.

REPORTER: Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison, and so a lot of people want to know if she's going to turn in powerful people. I know you talked in the past about Prince Andrew and you criticized Bill Clinton's behavior. I'm wondering, do you feel she's going to turn in powerful men? How do you see that working out?

TRUMP: I don't know. I haven't been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. I've met her numerous times over the years since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach, and I wish her well. I don't know the situation with Prince Andrew. Just don't know. Not aware of it.

"He wishes her well. Prosecutors say Maxwell played a critical role in helping Epstein identify, befriend and groom minor victims for abuse, girls, young girls, children. She has denied the allegations and she has pleaded not guilty. You know what, I just want that to sit there for a while. The president at his coronavirus briefing had no doctors, but he wished Ghislaine Maxwell well. I know there's no proven connection in any way, but we've shown on this show video of Donald Trump dancing with Jeffrey Epstein and a bunch of girls dancing around him. And he wishes her well," Brzezinski said.

"I'm extremely uncomfortable with what I just heard and I think everybody should be. And the questions in this case need to be asked and asked and asked until they are answered. And I just think it's very strange that the president would make a comment like that in a case like this."

Kasie Hunt said she thinks anyone who has read any part of the indictment would be shocked by this.

"The allegations that she was in the room trying to make these girls more comfortable in these kinds of situations with Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, everything about this is just -- I mean, set aside Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, you're right, the president sends those kind of messages to those people and we should judge that accordingly, but, I mean, we are talking about despicable crimes with victims who face years of trauma and damage because of these actions.

You know, for the president to -- he clearly has familiarity with the situation. He takes the question. Seems to engage with it like he's the person in those photographs that we were just showing from years ago in New York or Palm Beach, wherever they were taken, and he just sort of throws Prince Andrew in there on top of it, a name that wasn't previously mentioned. Does he want to be part of that situation? I mean, I have so many questions," Hunt said.

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