Reporting on Donald Trump’s Monday night interview with Fox News — his first since his indictment in the classified documents case against him a week ago — MSNBC’s Ari Melber was so excited by the revelation that he tapped Lauryn Hill’s hip -started rapping the hop classic “Lost”. Ones on Tuesday’s episode of “The Beat.”
“Think about what Lauryn Hill once said in her wisdom,” the host said before turning lyrical: “‘Hypocrites always wanna play innocent, always wanna take it to the absolute limit / Never face it. Don’t want to when it’s time for punishment / Can’t talk cleverly on the day of judgment because the result is no coincidence.’ It is a profound statement about justice or consequence or responsibility or what some people call karma.”
Melber’s report came about 10 minutes into Trump’s Fox News interview with Bret Baier, in which the former president said he had returned “some” of the misclassified classified documents to the Justice Department (previously contrary statements saying that he returned “all”) and that he did not return them in time because he was “too busy”.
Melber cast the interview as the latest evidence that special counsel Jack Smith has “a measurably stronger hand than other prosecutors” Trump has faced in the past.
“So I have shown you some of this important information. You totally take it: What’s going on here? What is he getting at in this interview? What is this defendant doing?” Melber said, addressing his audience directly. He then acknowledged that it is easy to write off these incremental developments as having been done there, but he emphasized that it is time may differ.
“You follow the news, so you’ve probably seen this thing before where Trump mixes lies with brazen statements and then gets away, seemingly avoiding accountability. That’s a hand,” Melber said. “On the other hand, the facts show that there are parts of it that are really different now.”
First, 37 charges against Trump, partly covered under the Espionage Act, for moving hundreds of classified documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate and allegedly returning them on a subpoena from the Justice Department For refusing, marks the former president’s first time facing a federal case. And “he certainly never faced a prosecutor like Jack Smith,” Melber said.
“Jack Smith clearly has a stronger hand on average than some of the other prosecutors who have come down these streets,” he continued. “He has an investigation into where he actually delivered some stuff and now has an August trial scheduled, which is troubling Trump World. Jack Smith still has more in the barrel. He has an open inquiry on Jan. 6, which puts the pressure on others in Trump’s orbit on both of these matters.
That’s when Melber turned to Grammy-winner Hill for some wisdom.
“You know, you take it all together and you might think of what Lauryn Hill once said in her wisdom: ‘Hypocrites always wanna play innocent, always wanna take it to the absolute limit / Never mean it. Don’t want to face when it’s time for punishment / can’t talk smart on the day of judgment because the result is no coincidence.’ It’s a profound statement about justice or consequences or accountability or what some people call karma,” Melber said. “Now, we don’t do karma, it’s above our pay grade, and the DOJ shouldn’t do karma, it has a spiritual meaning. The consequences they have to deal with should be based solely on evidence without fear of bias.” All I can tell you is that this special counsel, who is different than others Trump has faced, found enough evidence for a valid, court-ordered search, then found the very things he was looking for. was going, at first slowly and respectfully, giving this defendant every possible step off the ramp, then filed his indictment overloading it with damning evidence.
Watch the full “The Beat with Ari Melber” segment in the video above.
