CNN’s Abby Phillips and Dr. Phil McGraw clashed over former President Trump’s hush money trial on Thursday night, with the host saying she didn’t understand how he reached that opinion.
McGraw joined Phillips shortly after the interview with Trump, just a week after the guilty verdict was handed down, to discuss the details of the former president’s trial.
“You’re clearly sympathetic to Trump, but you think the talk of revenge should stop. Have you promised him that you won’t seek revenge if elected president?” Phillips asked about the interview.
McGraw responded that he would also sympathize with President Biden if he were in that situation.
“First of all, I sympathize with what Trump went through in this trial because I don’t think it was proper due process for him,” McGraw replied. “I would say the same thing if Biden or anyone else was in that trial, so I just want to be clear.”
Phillips then pressed the famous talk show therapist on why he believes Trump did not receive due process in his historic criminal conviction.
“So there were reporters there, I was there a lot, and there was a judge there who ruled on a lot of questions,” Philip said. “Why do you think the judge wasn’t given a fair process?”
“Well, I think there’s a couple of reasons for that. I think it’s from the perspective of the jury. Again, I’m not a lawyer. I look at it from the perspective of what was given to the jury to solve this puzzle,” he responded. “And I think the jury heard some very prejudiced things that were completely unrelated to resolving the issues in the case at hand.”
McGraw went on to suggest it would be inappropriate for President Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, to testify as a “presumed co-conspirator” in the case.
Cohen, the main witness in the case, paid porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump ahead of the 2016 election. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations in 2018 and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Phillips countered that it is not uncommon for a co-defendant to testify on behalf of an accused co-conspirator at a subsequent trial.
“That’s how a lot of these prosecutions are being carried out,” she said.
McGraw pressed Phillips to give an example of when that would be considered appropriate, and he said prosecutors “always” try to prosecute organized crime, often relying on co-conspirators.
“I don’t understand how just because someone hasn’t been charged, because they’ve signed a non-prosecution agreement, you can’t put that information or that testimony before a jury, even if that person was involved in an alleged crime,” Phillips continued.
The moderator pressed McGraw whether he was saying Cohen should not have testified at Trump’s trial.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I was just saying that. I think the fact that a defendant has agreed to say that he’s guilty of the crime that he’s on trial for prejudices the jury of, ‘Hey, here’s a supposed accomplice who said I’m guilty of this,'” McGraw said. “It prejudices the jury about someone who’s currently on trial for the same crime.”
Philips disagreed, pointing out that Cohen has not been accused or indicted for falsifying business records, as Trump has been.
Phillips then tried to steer the conversation back to McGraw’s recent interview with Trump.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
