At the beginning of an hour-long interview with Donald Trump, Dr. Phil McGraw said he did not support any candidates.
What quickly became clear was that McGraw supports Trump’s claim that his conviction for a serious crime was unfair and orchestrated by the Democrats.
“It’s such an honor to have someone like you see that, and see it so clearly,” Trump once told McGraw during the Mar-a-Lago meeting.
McGraw not only made light remarks, but also offered statements of support, reinforcing the former president’s claim that the entire trial was rigged. McGraw agreed with Trump that given the liberal environment in New York and the judge’s actions, the burden of proof ultimately lies not with the prosecution but with the former president to prove his innocence.
McGraw has been expanding his network, Merit Street Media, which is in partnership with the Christian right-wing Trinity Broadcasting Network. McGraw said he plans to sit down for interviews with President Joe Biden and Robert Kennedy Jr.
The interview revealed that McGraw had tried to persuade Trump to tone down his vows of revenge.
At one point, Trump told McGraw, “Revenge takes time. I have to say that. And sometimes revenge can be justified, I have to say that honestly.” When McGraw urged Trump to take the opportunity to “break this cycle of getting caught,” Trump said, “We have to unite the country.” He then noted, “There are people who have done bad things. I know who they are.” Trump then took credit for not having Hillary Clinton arrested after the 2016 election, even claiming he was trying to “calm down” his supporters when they chanted “lock her up” at rallies. In fact, during the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly called for Clinton to be put in prison, using the phrase “lock her up,” according to USA Today.
However, McGraw later told CNN’s Abby Phillip that he did not believe Trump would follow through on his vows of retaliation.
“I actually don’t think he’s going to do that,” McGraw said. “…It’s a process. He’s got it in his head that there’s only one way to go, and that’s to get revenge. I think I’ve really made it clear to him that that’s not the way to go…I think he’ll think about it, and I don’t think he’s going to do that.”
McGraw also called on Biden to drop the prosecution against Trump. However, the president has no control over the criminal proceedings in New York State or the organized crime investigations against the former president and other defendants in Georgia.
“That’s not strictly speaking the case, but I think it’s very naive for anyone to think that the parties on both sides can’t come together and get something done if they want to,” McGraw told Phillip.
Phillip noted, “If Biden had pushed for this impeachment to happen, it would be a scandal. If he had pushed for it not to happen, why wouldn’t it be a scandal?”
“I’m not saying it’s not scandalous, but I’m saying if you really believe that partisan politics doesn’t transcend state lines, federal lines, state lines, that there aren’t meetings where it’s talked about and people decide what’s best for the party and sometimes that works for the good of the people,” McGraw said. “Sometimes it might not be. If you believe that there’s no politics interfering in some of these decisions, I think that’s a naive attitude.”
Trump has frequently claimed that Biden orchestrated his New York prosecution, and McGraw repeated one of the claims Trump and his allies have often used to bolster that argument: that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hired Matthew Colangelo for his team. Colangelo is a former Justice Department prosecutor who also worked on the civil investigation of the New York attorney general. But that doesn’t prove Biden was involved, Politifact pointed out. The district attorney’s investigation also began in 2018, before Biden was the Democratic nominee, Politifact noted.