MSNBC host Joy Reid praised some of the Black public officials prosecuting former President Trump, saying Monday "my DEIs are bringing it home."
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was the first person to criminally prosecute Trump, and it was "wonderfully poetic," Reid said. DEI, which stands for diversity, equity and inclusion, has become a hot topic of debate as conservative governments like Florida and Texas have banned such programs from college campuses.
"But for me, there is something wonderfully poetic about the fact … the first person to actually criminally prosecute Donald Trump is a Black Harvard grad," Reid said. "The very kind of person that his former staff, the people who worked for him, Steven Miller, etc., want to never be at Harvard Law School. But he was. And he came out and graduated, and he’s prosecuting you, Donald."
"And a Black woman is doing that same exact thing in Georgia and a Black woman forced you to pay a $175 million fine," Reid continued, referring to District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia and New York Attorney General Letitia James. "Donald Trump is being held to account by the very multicultural, multiracial democracy that he’s trying to dismantle … It says something good about our country that we’re still capable of having that happen. Go, DEI. My DEIs are bringing it home."
Trump was indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in March 2023, following a yearslong investigation by Bragg. The charges against Trump are related to hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the trial for the hush money case began Monday.
The former president was also indicted in Georgia, as part of Willis' investigation, on multiple charges related to election interference. In James' case, Trump recently posted a $175 million bond — lowered from $454 million — to prevent the state from seizing his assets while he appeals a judge's ruling that he fraudulently inflated his wealth for financial gain.
Reid said Trump was "outdoing actual mobsters" by criticizing the judge on the hush money case, noting one of Trump's lawyers had mobster Benny Eggs as a client.
"So Donald Trump is at this point outdoing actual mobsters in his attacks on the judge’s family, the daughter," she said. "He knows he will never spend a day, a second, a moment in prison."
Trump returned to the Manhattan courthouse for day two of his hush money payments trial on Tuesday, where Bragg called on Judge Juan Merchan to hold Trump in contempt of court.
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Bragg filed the motion minutes after the second day of Trump's trial got underway in Manhattan. It relates to Merchan's gag order against Trump, which prohibits the former president from speaking publicly about prosecutors, witnesses, court officials and their families.
In his motion, Bragg argued Trump has "willfully violated this Court's order by publishing several social media posts attacking two known witnesses— Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels."
An Associated Press/NORC poll found that just 35% of Americans believe Trump committed a crime in the case. Trump told reporters this week that payments he made to Cohen were merely a "legal expense." Cohen has said Trump reimbursed him for a $130,000 payment to keep Daniels quiet about an alleged affair they had, which Trump denies.
Fox News' Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
