'Never encountered someone so loathed': NYT reporter astonished by hatred for Mark Meadows

Many of Donald Trump's political allies have debased themselves for the former president, only to fall out of his good graces, but perhaps no one else has ever fallen so far as Mark Meadows.

The ex-president's final White House chief of staff joined the MAGA think tank Conservative Partnership Institute a week after Trump left office and enjoys a salary of just under $850,000, but New York Timesreporter Robert Draper told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Meadows has been cast out of the Trump orbit as he faces Georgia racketeering charges and other legal perils.

"In a broader sense, I mean, he's in deep trouble," Draper said. "I mean, he received an immunity order to testify before the federal grand jury, and it seems pretty evident to me that the game that Meadows is playing here is that he wants to stay out of trouble. He doesn't want to be prosecuted by Jack Smith's team. At the same time, he doesn't want to take the witness stand, so he provided a road map during six hours of testimony he gave to the grand jury on March 23 of last year."

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"My suspicion is that Smith's team is going to want him on the witness stand, because he was the man in the room next to Donald Trump when Trump apparently knew that he had lost the election but proceeded to try to overturn it anyway," Draper added. "Of course, if Smith's team puts Meadows on the witness stand, they're putting a habitual liar on the stand, meaning he could be eviscerated on cross-examination. The problem Meadows has is now Jack Smith's problem, too."

Meadows stands alone among former Trump allies – and political figures, in general, Draper said.

"In a class of his own is the answer," Draper said. "Over 30 years of reporting on politics, I have never encountered someone who is so loathed. A lot of people feel that way because they felt lied and swindled by him. Many of these people, I should add, are, like himself, conservative Christians who took him at his word, who saw him as cut from the same religious cloth, as it were, as they are, and then found that he was a shyster. So many of them remain embittered by Meadows, they simply didn't want to talk to me, as if it was an act of self-defilement to revisit those years."

"He really is -- obviously, to say anyone is the least trusted man in Washington, I mean, that's a distinction you have to work hard to earn," Draper added. "Let's say, Mark Meadows is a hard-working man."

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