Breaking news out of New York City where just in
the last couple of minutes the judge presiding over Trump's
multi $1,000,000 civil fraud trial now says he will not
permit
the former president to testify in his closing arguments.
Back with us is Danny Savalas.
Dally, it's just great to see you again.
We were having this conversation just a couple of minutes
ago.
You were saying it wouldn't be unusual for the judge
to say no way,
you can't do it. That's what he did.
Not a surprise. Or was it not surprising at all?
In a way, it shows me that Trump is being
treated like other folks.
And I can tell you that if somebody you'd never
heard of was a party and they filed a motion
to say,
hey, I know I have these lawyers.
But I want to give a speech at my closing
argument,
my civil case as well.
That motion would be denied 9 times out of 1099.
Times out of 100. Really.
The judge has discretion to allow it,
but I imagine he conducted his own balancing test between
on the one side I need to maintain courtroom decorum,
and on the other side,
well, this ought to be interesting if I allow this.
And really, courtroom decorum does have to prevail because he
would be giving up just too much control if he
allowed Trump.
A podium to just speak in the format of a
closing argument,
which is literally a speech.
It's supposed to be a summation of the evidence.
But Trump isn't going to follow the rules of evidence.
He's going to follow the rules of Trump.
So no surprise here that Justice and Goran denied this
request.
It is. It was just too risky to keep courtroom
decorum and it would have been too difficult to keep
Trump in control.
Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about that when you
mentioned it last time,
about what what would happen or what are the possible
options that a judge would have if the judge,
for example, would have said yes,
former President Trump, go ahead and give part of the
closing statement yourself,
and then he goes off track.
Out of decorum, what would a judge have the possibility
to do?
Yeah, you're exactly right. It's a big difference between him
testifying as a witness that's guided by the questioning of
the lawyers.
And at some point, the answer to the question ends
and you have a little more control.
But the essence of opening and closing arguments is that
they are a kind of speech.
They're performative in their nature.
And in fact, it's really,
really bad form to interrupt with an objection.
So the presumption is you get to keep talking.
So you have contempt power.
The Trump could, I mean,
the judge could do that,
but you don't want to hold the former president in
contempt.
That's another thorny issue itself.
Dennis Wells, great seeing you.
I thank you so very much.