CNN called out former President Donald Trump’s courthouse rant seconds after it ended, with one analyst calling his claim about President Joe Biden “not just false — demonstrably false.”

Monday saw the Stormy Daniels hush money-election interference trial being prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and presided over by Judge Juan Merchan kick into gear. Monday began (after another reported Trump nap) with opening arguments and later included testimony from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.

Trump ended the day with a very lengthy kitchen sink rant outside the courthouse that was carried live on CNN’s live Trump Hush Money Trial brand coverage, and was immediately and thoroughly torpedoed by CNN legal analyst Elie Honig:

JAKE TAPPER: Right. The former president Donald Trump, the defendant in the case of the State of New York vs. Donald J. Trump speaking there, going through a list of grievances having to do with this trial, really, actually, mainly having to do with the last trial, having to do with the business fraud, trial that he has already been fined, hundreds of millions of dollars, for. Elie Honig, your response?

ELIE HONIG: So, first of all, we keep hearing this claim by Donald Trump that this and all the prosecutions are somehow the product of Joe Biden’s White House. We’ve said, and I’ll say it again, that is absolutely false. And here it’s demonstrably false! Here’s why.

Department of Justice is technically part of the federal executive branch, which falls under the president. No evidence Joe Biden has had anything to do with those indictments.

But this case here was brought by the Manhattan district attorney, independently elected by the people of Manhattan, not accountable to, not under the command of anyone, not even under the command of the governor of the state of New York, certainly not the president of the United States.

So that is a patently false claim that Donald Trump continues to repeat over and over.

The other thing that Donald Trump said, and this is why judges instruct juries, you are not to watch any news coverage of this. If you see it on TV, change the channel you see it on. Don’t go on social media because Donald Trump said a couple things that will never get in front of the jury.

He said Alvin Bragg, the D.A., did not originally want to bring this case. Not even clear if that’s true at all, but that will never become part of the proper evidence in this case.

Similarly, Donald Trump did say, correctly, that the Southern District of New York passed on charging in this case, that’s true. But that’s also wildly and completely inadmissible. Won’t get in front of the jury.

JAKE TAPPER: But is it not true that Alvin Bragg did refrain from bringing charges against Donald Trump? And then one of the deputies in his office wrote a book criticizing Bragg for not bringing the charges, and then Bragg did bring charges.

ELIE HONIG: So the sequence was right. Alvin Bragg declined to bring charges based on the falsification of records relating to the value of apartments and value of property. So, Alvin Bragg, I’m not going to charge that criminally.

Then Mark Pomerantz went public, said that was an outrage. Alvin Bragg should have charged the inflation case criminally. Alvin Bragg took a lot of backlash for that.

At some point thereafter, Alvin Bragg returned this indictment —

JAKE TAPPER: A different case.

ELIE HONIG: On something else.

JAKE TAPPER: A different case. Okay. And the original one, Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, did bring a case.

ELIE HONIG: Exactly. That became the civil case, which we just heard Trump ranting about.

Watch above via CNN’s live Trump Hush Money Trial brand coverage.

The post ‘Not Just False — DEMONSTRABLY False!’ CNN Instantly Calls Out Trump Courtroom Rant first appeared on Mediaite.

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