‘Horribly Naive’: James Carville Attacks Merrick Garland Over Moving Slowly On Trump Prosecution

Democratic strategist James Carville described Attorney General Merrick Garland as “horribly naive” for how long it took him to prosecute President-elect Donald Trump.

Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith in November 2022, days after Trump announced he would run for the presidency again, with the special counsel first indicting him in June 2023. Responding to a listener question on “Politics War Room” about how poorly history would perceive Garland “for failing to adequately investigate and indict Trump soon enough,” Carville argued the attorney general was overly “respectful of tradition” and “institutions.”

LISTEN: 

📺 Embedded media — coming soon

“I think that Merrick Garland is gonna go down as a man so respectful of tradition and so respectful of institutions that he was really — kind of strange to say this about a guy that was an appellate court judge, experienced and highly trained attorney — he was naive,” Carville said. “He was trying to play by one set of rules and everybody’s playing by another set of rules. And I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I think at the end of the day he’s just a horribly naive man that had no idea what he was up against.”