Would Donald Trump like to pull a Col. Nathan Jessup?

On the Friday afternoon edition of Deadline: White House, John Heilemann confronted that very question: would the former president dramatically testify in his own defense, just like the infamous Marine officer did at the climax of A Few Good Men? And citing Trump’s trademark, narcissistic (and misplaced) self-confidence, the political author concluded that the former president, now hunkered down in Mar-a-Lago, would be “desperate” to jump back into the spotlight and make the case for himself.

Host Nicolle Wallace kicked off the conversation by noting how Trump couldn’t help but live tweet a running commentary of his last impeachment process.

“He will have the same impulses,” she noted. “He won’t have the same outlets, but the notion that every time they play his speech, every time they show his 6:00 p.m. tweet, where he basically claims victory and says, this was deserved, this is what happens when great patriots have something stolen from them, if no one defends any of that context, do you really think the strategy will simply remain to argue constitutionality?”

Heilemann began by conceding Washington reality will not, in this case at least, match up with Hollywood fantasy. Trump’s defense counsel has already summarily rejected the House Democratic Impeachment Managers’ request that the former president testify, calling it a “publicity stunt,” but perhaps also recalling how poorly Jessup’s angry self-defense on the stand went.

“It’s my understanding that that’s exactly accurate,” Heilemann reiterated. “The president has been convinced not to appear and that that is the strategy that they are pursuing and they see his appearance not only as not helpful but potentially harmful.”

“On the other hand, we know Donald Trump. And so, is your question, which was, is there — does Donald Trump give any consideration to appearing?” he added, before offering up blunt a counterpoint. “Donald Trump is desperate to appear. He’s Nathan Jessup in A Few Good Men. He wants to get in there. Of course he ordered the code red, Nicole. He knows he wanted to see the March on the Capitol, and he wants to tell us all that he wanted to see the march on the Capitol, these people were doing exactly what he wanted.”

For now, there appears to be no chance Trump will appear as a witness in the Senate trial in the coming weeks. But Heilemann seems to be holding out the chance the former president, notorious for not listening to his own expert advisers, changes his mind.

“He is going to, at every moment of this trial, be — they’re going to have to tie him down with leg irons and restraints to keep him from wanting to get on a plane and get up to Washington, D.C., or to get in front of a satellite hook-up and be on air, because Donald Trump believes more than anything else, he believes in himself, and in his ability to persuade anyone of anything, and that he is always in the right, so it’s going to be — how we end up, I don’t know. But do I think every day is going to be — every hour, every minute — is going to be a constant struggle to keep Donald Trump from testifying? I do.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

The post John Heilemann Suggests Trump ‘Desperate’ to Testify at Senate Impeachment Trial So He Can Have His Own A Few Good Men Moment first appeared on Mediaite.

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