Donald Trump's consequence-free epoch is dwindling: biographer

One of Donald Trump's biographers, Tim O'Brien, said that he thinks the time of dodged accountability might be coming to a close.

MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace cited a comment from former Justice Department official Harry Litman, who explained that presidents are never alone and that there are always staff milling about and agents nearby. So, during the 187 minutes in which Donald Trump watched as the violence unfolded on Jan. 6 and did nothing, there were likely people around.

"I share this kind of weary familiarity with the way that Donald Trump has rolled, and he has been this way for decades," said O'Brien. "So in addition to the Jan. 6th committee showing what his state of mind was during that insurrection and it's useful also to remember how many times in his past he's let things rot or let things unspool that harmed other people. That he has no consideration or concern for their well-being. He let his Atlantic City casinos rot and didn't care about the impact on the employees who worked there, the residents of Atlantic City or his investors."

O'Brien went on to recall rally after rally in which Trump encouraged his supporters to attack and hurt protesters or the press.

"Some people took his message beyond his rally and as we know, one person set pipe bombs to journalists and prominent democrats," he said. "I don't think Trump cared at all that that was the consequence of his actions. When COVID-19 landed in the U.S. with full force in early 2020, he was more concerned about the impact on his political prospects than he was about its impact on the health and lives of millions of Americans. And he set in motion a series of just lazy disregard for good policy, but ended up hurting people and now we find out that on Jan. 6th, he was willing to just sit by while the lives of members of Congress and his own vice president were threatened."

O'Brien said that it was clear Trump didn't care and that people shouldn't be shocked.

"I think he has a craven disregard for other people," he continued. Trump "is so self-absorbed and sees the world usually through two lenses, self-aggrandizement or survival and self-preservation that's what kicks in for him. And a sense of duty does not. But even if we're wary of all of this, I think the important public function of the Jan. 6th committee was, despite how much Trump beats us over our heads with this cruelty is they have managed to focus the conversation on things that we knew occurred, things we were familiar with, but there are still lots of gaps in the narrative. I imagine Thursday's hearing is going to be the most dramatic and pointed distillation of what he was doing inside the White House while watching TV and doing absolutely nothing even though everyone around him was pressing him to do something."

He went on to say that he thinks that there will be consequences from the Justice Department for that fact.

"I think that Donald Trump is used to getting away with things for most of his life," closed O'Brien. "He's been insulated from the consequences of his own actions by wealth and then celebrity and now the powers of the presidency and it's an important moment that he finally be held accountable."

See the video below or at this link.

Trump has never cared and always weasles out of accountability — but that's over: Biographeryoutu.be