Comedian Chris Rock on Sunday hurled a heavy dose of mockery in the direction of those who might indict or arrest former President Donald Trump.
Trump has been under investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over a 2016 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claimed she had an affair with Trump, something he has denied. Trump said Saturday that he expects to be arrested Tuesday due to the investigation and called for protests.
With that as the background, Rock, speaking at the Mark Twain Prize event at the Kennedy Center where Adam Sandler was being honored, let loose, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.
“Are you guys really going to arrest Trump?” Rock asked the crowd in which lawmakers such as Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California were present.
“Do you know this is only going to make him more popular. It’s like arresting Tupac. He’s just gonna sell more records. Are you stupid?” he said.
Rock labeled the allegation Trump paid hush money to Daniels to cover up the affair “romantic.”
“We’ve all been cheated on. Don’t you wish that the person that cheated on you paid off somebody, so you wouldn’t find out?” he said.
Buttressing his chops as a comedian who jabs at all sides, Rock threw in a joke that jabbed President Joe Biden and Trump.
“Trump was so bad as a president, he was so bad that Joe Biden had to burst off a monument. Biden was dead for 16 years,” Rock said.
In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal used more measured words to describe the possible indictment of Trump.
“It’s impossible to overstate Mr. Bragg’s bad judgment here. Perhaps the local Democratic DA has discovered some new proof of criminal behavior. But based on the public evidence so far, he would be resurrecting a seven-year-old case that even federal prosecutors refused to bring to court,” the editorial said.
“The prosecution of a former President who is again a candidate for the White House is inherently fraught with political ramifications. A wise prosecutor must consider the potential harm to confidence in the rule of law in bringing a prosecution that at least half the country will deem political. A charge against a former president or current candidate must be for serious offenses with indisputable evidence,” the Journal intoned.
“As a provincial progressive from New York City, Mr. Bragg may not understand the political forces he is unleashing. He might want to consult the satirical wisdom of the Babylon Bee headline on Twitter: ‘Manhattan DA Announces Plan to Get Trump Elected in 2024,’” the editorial added.
Out in Davenport, Iowa, Republicans agreed with the comedian and the newspaper, according to NBC.
“I think it helps him. They’re all a fraud,” Allen Hockemeyer of Waterloo, Iowa, said.
“I don’t hold a lot of credence to that because it’s unproven, it’s unfounded at this point,” Ernie Morgan of Muscatine said.
“There’s been so many cases in the past where there’s been indictments tried to go down, and they never seem to materialize. So, I think with his proven track record, he’d be my guy in ’24,” Morgan said.
Traci Walters of Cedar Rapids said if there was dirt on Trump, it would have been found long ago.
“He’s been under the microscope for how many — what, six, seven, eight years now — they’re not finding anything,” she said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
