Trump Tells Judge He Wants Trial Televised

In a court filing late last week, Donald Trump told Judge Tanya Chutkan that he wants the trial for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results televised. The motion was filed in response to a ruling from Chutkan who essentially left the decision up to Trump. But now prosecutors are arguing against the measure, saying that televising the trial could intimidate potential witnesses. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Late Friday, Donald Trump and his legal team filed a notice to Judge Tanya Chut telling her that the former president of the United States is actually perfectly cool with televising his entire trial over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. Now, this filing was in response to Judge Tatkin, who just a week prior had effectively put Donald Trump in a box with a motion that she made in her motion. Judge Tatkin gave Donald Trump the option, basically telling him, you need to file a motion with this court telling us why or why not. Your trial should or should not be televised. So if you don't want it televised, you have to tell me specifically explicitly why you don't want it televised. And if you do, you gotta tell me why. There, too. She was, I think, kind of hoping that Donald Trump would chicken out. 'cause he said in the past he wanted it televised, but she thought maybe I, I, I think she thought putting him up against the wall would make him say, no, no, no, let's not do it.

Now, the reason she even did that, because federal trials of course are not televised, but media outlets had banded together and requested that this one be televised. She entertained it, gave the option to Trump, his lawyers filed the motion and said, yep, we're good with it. So that's that, right? The, the whole trial should now be on T on tv. We get to see it, we get to watch it, we get to see every single thing play out in front of us. Not exactly, because unfortunately, even though the judge seems to be okay with it, the defendant seems to be okay with it. The press obviously is okay with it. Jack Smith is not special prosecutor. Jack Smith has told the court that he absolutely under no circumstances wants this trial televised. Part of the reason he says is, you know, hey, there's the rule. Federal trials are not televised.

Which, okay, that's why she actually did the motion though. And then he says it could intimidate potential witnesses to not testify or to change their testimony. And that's true. I mean, that actually is a very real concern. It's one thing if these individuals are testifying, you know, behind closed doors, granted the media would pick up on it 'cause they'd still be allowed in the trial. Just have to report on it afterwards. So whatever these people tell would still become public knowledge and the MAGA freaks would still want to go after these individuals. So the threat of these people, you know, testifying and drawing the ire of MAGA doesn't actually change. So I will say, I don't buy into his argument. I don't think it's going to intimidate anybody into either changing their testimony or request to not give testimony

Because it's all gonna come out in the end anyway. So why not put the whole thing on tv? I am a hundred percent in, in favor of that. I think that is what needs to happen. I think given the scope of this case, the impact, the historical significance of it, it has to be televised a hundred percent. And, you know, whatever issues arise from that, we will address when they arise. But let's not go ahead and start creating problems where they do not currently exist. This trial is too important for the public to not have access to see every single thing that is happening.