Phil McGraw, aka Dr. Phil, raised eyebrows with how he described Donald Trump in an interview with the former president that aired Thursday.
“I know you got a thick skin,” McGraw told the notoriously thin-skinned presumptive GOP presidential nominee who frequently lashes out at those who attack him and, in the same sit-down, claimed revenge “can be justified.”
“You’re not one of those people that’s afflicted with the need to be loved by strangers. I get that,” McGraw added.
“I think that’s true,” replied Trump.
McGraw was widely criticized for conducting the interview with Trump and giving the convicted ex-POTUS a platform in the first place.
The former TV therapist’s “thick skin” praise, meanwhile, drew accusations of gaslighting and more.
Donald Trump in Manhattan criminal court, May 21. (Michael M. Santiago/AP/Pool)
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On Monday, former President Donald Trump vented about being found guilty in New York of 34 counts of falsifying business records and suggested that the U.S. Supreme Court step in to prevent Judge Juan Merchan from sentencing him in the case.
“The United States Supreme Court MUST DECIDE!” Trump wrote.
While the high court is unlikely to intervene in the sentencing of the former president found guilty by a jury in a state court proceeding, it is expected to issue a ruling at any time on whether the principle of presidential immunity protects Trump from prosecution in the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
But whatever the court decides, the ruling will affect not only that criminal case, but at least two of the others he is facing as well. Here’s why:
Chutkan has paused the Jan. 6 election interference case until the Supreme Court issues its ruling. If the court rules in Trump’s favor, agreeing that former presidents are protected from criminal prosecution unless first impeached and convicted by Congress, the trial will not move forward. If the justices rule in the government’s favor, the case could conceivably go to trial before the 2024 presidential election.
Based on the questions from the justices, most legal analysts believe that the court will not give Trump blanket protection from prosecution, but could issue a ruling that would require another court to examine each of the charges against Trump to try to clarify whether his behavior, such spreading false claims about the outcome of the election, should be characterized as an official act.
If that happens, the start date of the trial could be pushed back until after the 2024 election. That’s significant because if Trump is reelected, he could direct his attorney general to simply drop the case against him.
Georgia election interference
Trump and 14 others face felony charges in Fulton County, Georgia, stemming from their efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that battleground state, and if the Supreme Court were to rule in Trump’s favor on presidential immunity, his lawyers would quickly press Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to drop the 10 felony counts against him.
In January, Trump filed a court motion with McAfee to dismiss the state charges on the grounds that past Supreme Court precedent "shields President Trump from criminal prosecution for acts within the 'outer perimeter' of his official duties."
Proceedings in the trial are currently on hold as McAfee awaits the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity and Trump’s lawyers pursue an appeal of McAfee’s decision to allow Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case despite allegations of misconduct. On Monday, the Georgia appeals court scheduled the case to be heard in October.
A Supreme Court ruling on the immunity question that goes even partially in Trump’s favor would result in a new round of court challenges from Trump’s lawyers that would almost certainly drag the case into 2024 or 2025.
Classified documents
At the core of Trump’s defense in the classified documents case is his contention that, because he was president when he decided to send boxes containing classified documents to his Florida home, he can’t be prosecuted for doing so. In February, Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Aileen Cannon to drop all 40 felony counts brought by Smith on those grounds.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, has already delayed the trial so that it would very likely begin after the presidential election.
Should the Supreme Court rule that presidential immunity protects Trump from prosecution, the classified documents case could be quashed before a trial begins.
Following Trumps conviction on all 34 felony charges in the New York hush money trial, the former president escalated threats against his political rivals, stating that "revenge can be justified” in an interview with McGraw. The host of "Dr. Phil," went on CNN to address his interview with Trump, saying to journalist Abby Phillip, that he is "sympathetic to what Trump has gone through in this particular trial because it was not proper due process for him."
Moreover, Phillip asked McGraw if he thought that Trump would actually seek revenge on any of his political enemies.
"Certainly that's a big issue. I lean strongly into the position — look this is not going to help this country if you get into a position of power and your agenda is one of revenge, retribution — America picks up the tab for that . . . In the meantime, what about America?"
Then Phillip highlighted that Trump said on Thursday that he would indict any Congressional Jan. 6 committee members if elected.
“I actually don’t think he will,” McGraw responded. “This is something that I think he’s had in his mind that there’s only one way to go, and that’s to get even. And I think I really made some headway with him that that is not the way to go.”
He continued, "I am going to relentlessly try and get him to not do that."
Former President Trump said Thursday revenge “can be justified,” the latest instance of the presumptive GOP nominee leaving the door open to going after his opponents, even as he argued the country is worse off after his criminal trial in New York. Trump sat for an interview with Phil McGraw, host of the TV show “Dr. Phil,” who suggested to the former president he didn’t have time to “get even” with his critics.
Dr. Phil McGraw visits "Jesse Watters Primetime" on Monday, Feb. 26, 2024, in New York. McGraw interviewed former President Donald Trump this week. | Andy Kropa
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During an hourlong interview with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, daytime talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw, a psychologist who goes by Dr. Phil, repeatedly expressed sympathy for the former president over the criminal cases brought against him by local and federal prosecutors.
McGraw’s first question to Trump was prefaced by him saying the former president was “fighting this fight and standing up for the rights of due process and fighting against prosecutorial misconduct and prosecutorial abuse.”
“They need to stop pursuing you. Since you started your campaign in 2015 to run for office, there have been so many attempts to get you off the board, even before you started your campaign,” he said to Trump, including Trump’s two impeachments and other investigations into alleged misconduct in the list of things he considered a “never-ending” pursuit of the former president.
“I really wonder how that affects you,” McGraw said, which was just one of the questions framed to get at Trump’s state of mind. At one point, Trump said the interview was like a visit with a psychiatrist.
Trump accused those who oppose him of having “Trump derangement syndrome,” and complained about the gag order put in place by New York Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the hush money trial that ended with Trump convicted of multiple felonies for falsifying business records while running for president.
“Think of it. I’m the Republican nominee. I was the president, and I’m leading the current Democrat by a lot, and I have a gag order from a local judge that was appointed by the Democrat Party,” Trump said.
Much of the interview was spent discussing the criminal cases against Trump, which also include charges for his handling of classified documents, and his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Will Trump seek revenge?
Toward the end of the interview, McGraw asked Trump if he would seek revenge against Democrats if he wins the 2024 election.
“There are headlines out there that say, when you win your second term, that you are going to make the people that have come after you pay retribution and revenge,” McGraw said. “And let me ask you this, before you even respond to that, I want to play ‘what if’ with you for a minute. What if, when you win this election, you said, ‘Enough is enough? Too much is too much. This is a race to the bottom, and it stops here.’”
“I’m OK with it. I am. I’m OK with that,” Trump said. “Sometimes, I’m sure in certain moments, I wouldn’t be. You know, when you go through what I’ve been through — they spied on my campaign. You know, they spied on my campaign. Remember, I announced it. They did things that people don’t even talk about. ... What they’ve done is bad. With all of that being said, we have to unite the country, Phil. The country has to be united. The country is a mess.”
Trump wondered aloud what would have happened if he had followed through on pursuing criminal charges against former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, who was his Democratic opponent in the 2016 presidential race. “I didn’t want to do that,” he said. “I could have done that pretty easily. She busted up her phones, and she busted up her her laptops. ...”
“Retribution is going to be through success,” Trump said. “We’re going to make it very successful. We have to bring the country together.”
McGraw followed up by saying, “We are all brothers and sisters, and there must be no resentment ... and forgiveness is necessary, otherwise, what will follow is not justice, but revenge.”
Trump responded by saying, “Sometimes revenge can be justified, though, I have to be honest, sometimes it can.”
Why would Trump run?
McGraw also asked Trump repeatedly why, as a wealthy older man, he would run.
“What do you say to yourselves when the crowds aren’t cheering, alone, you’re riding in the car, you’re by yourself. What is the hardest, darkest moment that you can think of in this journey you’ve been on the last several years?” he asked.
“You have to be very strong,” Trump replied. “You’re fighting off very evil forces.”
Trump said he’d watched McGraw’s show, and he’d watched people cry after being asked a similar question.
“I said, that’s never happening to me. If that happens to me, that’s the end of my political career,” he said. “I think people — actually, maybe people would like me better — but I’ll tell you what, you need strength. You have to have strength, and people don’t want to see that.”
McGraw’s new network Merit+
The interview was broadcast on Merit+, a new online network started by McGraw, a network offering “traditional family content” and news that is “unbiased and unfiltered.”
In his intro, McGraw said he wouldn’t endorse a presidential candidate, and said he’s reached out to President Joe Biden and to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to see if they would also sit down for an interview with him.
Dr. Phil McGraw debated CNN host Abby Phillip over whether former President Trump received a fair trial in a New York City courtroom last week, during a late-night stop on CNN Thursday.
"I’m sympathetic to what Trump has gone through in this particular trial because I think it was not proper due process for him. I would say the same if it was Biden or anyone else in that process," McGraw told Phillip during the contentious media appearance.
McGraw appeared on the network to discuss his interview with the former president earlier that day. However, the conversation quickly derailed into an argument over whether Trump received due process in his court case, where he was found guilty on 34 felony counts of mishandling business records.
Phillip pressed McGraw to explain why he felt Trump wasn't given due process and remarked at two points that she "didn't understand" his reasoning.
Cohen's credibility was frequently called into question by legal analysts in the media during the trial. CNN's own Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig argued that while Cohen's testimony was important to the case, he had "serious credibility issues."
Because of Cohen's testimony, McGraw argued the jury "heard some things that were very prejudicial, that had nothing to do with solving the problem of the case at hand."
"I think you don't have someone that is considered to be an accomplice in a crime that has pled out or made a non-prosecution agreement and allow that information into the jury's awareness because it's very prejudicial and is not really probative of anything that they're asked to be problem-solving," he explained.
However, Phillip argued that it was "not uncommon at all" in mob cases, for example, for prosecutors to use witnesses who've taken plea deals, like Cohen did, to testify against their alleged co-conspirators in subsequent trials.
Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen returned to the witness stand on Tuesday in the NY v. Trump trial.
"That’s kind of how a lot of these prosecutions work," she said.
"I don't understand how you can say that because someone…signed a non-prosecution argument that their testimony cannot be presented before the jury if they were part of the alleged scheme," she added.
McGraw and Phillip continued to go back and forth about Cohen's testimony, with McGraw asking Phillip to provide other examples where this had been done.
He said he wasn't arguing that Cohen shouldn't have been allowed to testify, after Phillip questioned his claims.
"No, that’s not what I’m saying. I said what I said," he retorted. "I think the fact that he made an agreement to say that he is guilty of the crime that the defendant is being tried for prejudices the jury that ‘Hey, here’s someone that’s supposedly an accomplice that has said, I’m guilty of this,’" McGraw said. "That prejudices a jury about the person that’s currently on trial for the same crime."
Phillip pointed out that Cohen was not prosecuted for falsifying business records like Trump was, before steering the conversation back to the original topic.
Donald Trump arrives to Trump Tower, Thursday, May 30, 2024 after being found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
McGraw previously blasted the "weaponization" of the justice system on his show, following Trump's guilty verdict.
"This weaponization of our great institutions – the FBI, Justice Department, and individual states’ similar institutions – will lead to one of two outcomes: one is more of the same from the other side – tit-for-tat. That may seem deserved, but it is not the right way forward for America," he said.
During the CNN segment on Thursday, McGraw explained that he gave a similar warning to Trump about seeking "revenge" on those he felt had wronged him.
"Look, this is not going to help this country. If you get into a position of power and your agenda is one of revenge, retribution saying, ‘Ok, you came after me so now I’m going to come after you,' America picks up the tab for that. That's not anything that's good to do," he said.
“It’s such an honor to have someone like you see it, and see it so clearly,” Trump said to McGraw at one point during the Mar-A-Lago sit down.
McGraw didn’t just lob softballs, but offered statements of support, reinforcing the former president’s claims that the whole process was rigged. McGraw agreed with Trump that, given the setting in liberal New York and the actions of the judge, the burden of proof ultimately was not on the prosecution, but on the former president to prove himself innocent.
McGraw has been building out his network Merit Street Media, which is a partnership with Christian right outlet Trinity Broadcasting Network. McGraw said that he wants to sit down with President Joe Biden and Robert Kennedy Jr. for interviews.
Dr. Phil’s interview wasn’t all that unusual, though, when it comes to presidential campaigns. For quite a long time, they have been seeking out non-traditional outlets for interviews, taking the opportunity for exposure in friendly settings. Earlier this week, Vice President Kamala Harris sat for an interview with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that was largely made up of softball questions as well. Kimmel is taking part in a Biden campaign fundraiser in Los Angeles next week.
The news out of the interview was McGraw’s efforts to get Trump to commit to toning down his vows to seek revenge.
At one point, Trump told McGraw, “Revenge does take time. I will say that. And sometimes revenge can be justified, I have to be honest.” As McGraw pressed Trump that he should take the opportunity to “stop this vicious cycle of gotcha,” Trump said, “We have to unite the country.” Then he noted that “there are people who did some bad things. I know who they are.” Trump then took credit for not having Hillary Clinton arrested after the 2016 election, and even claimed that he tried to “quiet” his supporters as they chanted “lock her up” at rallies. In fact, during the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly called for Clinton to be jailed and used the phrase “lock her up,” per USA Today.
That said, McGraw later told CNN’s Abby Phillip that he didn’t think Trump would follow through on his vows of retribution.
“I actually don’t think he will,” McGraw said. “…It’s a process. This is something that he’s had in his mind that there’s only one way to go, and that is to get even. I think I really made some headway with him that that is not the way to go…I think he will turn this over in his mind and I don’t think he will do that.”
McGraw also has called for Biden to stop the Trump prosecutions, but the president has no control over the New York state criminal case or the racketeering case against the former president and other defendants in Georgia.
“That is not the case in terms of strict law, but I think if anybody believes that parties on either side can’t get together and get something done if they want it done I think is very naive,” McGraw told Phillip.
Phillip noted that “if Biden weighed in to make that prosecution happen, you would consider that a scandal. If he weighed in to make it not happen, why would that not be a scandal?”
“I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a scandal, but I am saying that if you really think that party politics don’t cross state lines, federal versus state lines, that there aren’t meetings that talk about this and people make decisions about what is best for the party, and sometimes that works for the good of the people,” McGraw said. “Sometimes maybe it doesn’t. If you think that there aren’t politics that does into some of these decisions, I think that would be a naive position.”
Trump has frequently claimed that Biden orchestrated his New York prosecution, and McGraw repeated one of the claims that Trump and his allies have often used to make that argument: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hiring of Matthew Colangelo for his team. Colangelo is a former Justice Department prosecutor who also worked on the New York attorney general’s civil investigation. But that doesn’t show that Biden was involved, as Politifact pointed out. The D.A. investigation also started in 2018, before Biden was the Democratic nominee, Politifact noted.
