Over the past 230-plus years, individuals have opted to run for president of the United States for all sorts of reasons—the best of them benignly, if not somewhat naively, hoping they can make our world a better place. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is banking on the idea that living in the White House could keep him out of the big house. And Seth Meyers, for one, seems fairly taken aback by the whole notion—though not at all surprised.
On Wednesday night, the Late Night host—after comparing Trump’s antics to a Dairy Queen employee “sticking his doink in the soft serve machine” (you’ll have to watch and see)—noted that “Trump apparently is quite afraid of the various criminal investigations into his activities on January 6th. Which is reportedly one of the reasons he’s likely run again and wants to announce soon. He thinks being a candidate, and specifically president again, will protect him from going to jail.”
Meyers had plenty more thoughts on what MSNBC’s Chris Hayes described as “the ultimate Get Out of Jail Free card” (in Trump’s mind at least):
So Trump’s plan apparently is to run for president again because he thinks that will protect him from being indicted by any of the various legal entities investigating him. And Trump knows he’s the one on the hot seat because, to state the obvious, none of this would have happened without him. All the various crimes documented by the committee flow from him. He’s the kingpin.
Even if one of his cronies broke the law at his direction, that implicates him, too. I mean, it’s not like these random dudes just got together and hatched a plan to for a coup without him. It wasn’t a surprise birthday party. There wasn’t a magician there. And if there was, Trump would’ve tried to rope the magician into the coup, too.
Meyers went on to point out that it was Trump himself who assembled this gang of criminal goons that includes Mike Lindell, Steve Bannon, and aspiring Diet Dr. Pepper spokesperson Sidney Powell specifically in an attempt to stage a coup and try to overturn the results of a totally legitimate election. Where he went wrong, Meyers noted, is that “this is the kind of crew you put together for Ocean’s Eleven if the goal was to get caught.”
You can watch the full clip above.