MSNBC contributor Sam Stein lauded President-elect Donald Trump on Monday for his ability to overcome obstacles that would typically end the careers of other politicians.
Trump decisively defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election despite facing four criminal cases during the campaign. Stein, on “Morning Joe,” credited Trump’s resilience and strategic approach to his legal troubles as key to his success.
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“In terms of what we’re talking about, we were also thinking a year ago this would be the courtroom campaign. How would he wage his run for the office from the courthouse? Ended up being that he leveraged it, frankly,” Stein said. “I think the real lesson from all this is that, you know, say what you will about Donald Trump, but he has one attribute that distinguishes him from anyone else in politics, which is an insatiable perseverance. He will just grind through stuff that, more often than not, other politicians will succumb to. And he can figure it out, he will just claw his way back in and he will fight it. And then he’ll turn it into his advantage. And he did martyr himself by the trials.”
“He did get the rest of the Republican Party to rally around him. And I think if you talk to people in his universe, look, there was a time when the primary itself was uncertain, right? [Republican Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis looked ascendant, it was unclear if he could win but it certainly seemed possible,” he continued. “And then what happened was the indictment came down, and everyone, including DeSantis, rushed to Trump’s side. I think that ultimately Trump managed to use that and leverage that to the nomination. That changed the course of history.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis acknowledged in December 2023 that Trump’s indictments had negatively affected his presidential campaign.
“I would say, if I would have one thing changed, I wish Trump hadn’t been indicted on any of this stuff. I mean, honestly, I think from [Democratic Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg on, I’ve criticized the cases, I think someone like Bragg would not have brought that case if it was anyone other than Donald Trump, and so someone like that is distorting justice, which is bad,” DeSantis said. “But I also think it distorted the primary, and I think those have been the main issues that have happened.”
He added the charges “sucked out a lot of oxygen” from the primary.
The Trump campaign announced in May that it raised $34.8 million just after a Manhattan jury convicted him on all 34 counts of falsifying business records brought by Bragg.
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