In a Sunday morning segment on MSNBC’s AM Joy, host Joy Reid had on a panel of guests to discuss what kind of legal trouble the Trump children might be facing after Michael Cohen’s explosive testimony before the House Oversight Committee that implicated each of them — less so Eric, but definitely Don Jr. and Ivanka — in not just a higher level of involvement in decisions made in the Trump Organization, but specifically as regards the potential “Trump Tower Moscow” at the center of Cohen’s lies to Congress the first time he testified.
One of Reid’s guests, Tim O’Brien, is the author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being Donald, and his insight during the segment could prove to be prescient and shocking.
After the group discussed just how deep Ivanka was in the project — especially in light of her interview in which she claimed to know almost nothing and play almost no role in it — O’Brien noted that Ivanka’s lies were plain on their face: She was in Moscow, scouting out sites for the project on a tour of the city with former Russian mafia player (and current federal informant) Felix Sater.
Then the host asked him what lengths Trump might go to in order to protect his children, and O’Brien was unequivocal: Trump would burn Jared Kushner in a heartbeat to shield Ivanka from legal trouble.
I think he would go to great lengths to protect his children, I do not suspect he’d go very far to protect his son-in-law. I think he would throw Jared Kushner under the bus. I think Ivanka’s going to have to make a decision at some point whether she prefers her husband or her father, that could be a dramatic moment in all of this.”
It’s true — Ivanka has long held herself out as the “reasonable” Trump, refusing to get into the fray on social media as her oldest brother does, and refraining from doing the kind of incendiary television interviews that her brother Eric participates in. And as has been widely reported, Ivanka and Jared each have aspirations far beyond anything they’ve achieved so far, so its conceivable that when the time comes to make that decision, she may make a choice that her father never sees coming.
Watch the clip here:
Featured image via screen capture
