John Dean explains why he thinks it’ll be more difficult for Trump to ‘beat up on’ the court now

Joined now by CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp and CNN contributor and former Nixon White House counsel John Dean. Great to have you both here with us. Ashley, let's go to you first and talk about the politics of this. We've gone through all of it today, all of kind of the movement.

Does this affect Trump politically? I have to be honest, just based on the emails I've gotten today from Trump PACs and Republican PACs, I think they were expecting these seizures to happen today. And it seems like they might even be a little disappointed that they.

That they didn't, because the emails I'm getting from these PACs are, you know, Trump Tower seized, Trump Tower about to be seized. Mega emergency. Please donate now. They really want to profit financially off of this for obvious reasons. But I think also politically,.

They know that this is good for his base. He has conditioned his voters over eight years to believe him when he says these are all Biden trials, to believe that everything around Trump is corrupt and he is the one with the integrity. He did this over time.

By calling the media the enemy of the people, by talking about the deep state, the intelligence officers, the generals, the Democrats. Everyone's in on it to get him. And he's completely unimpeachable. They believe that. So I think today, legally,.

He got to win with that, with that ten extra day delay and that lowered bond. But politically, he's winning. He's kind of winning no matter what among his base. John, we're looking at the real possibility.

Of seeing something that nobody anticipated, perhaps since maybe around the time of your days at the White House, a president, a former president, at least a current presidential candidate in court for a criminal trial. This would be unprecedented,.

For sure. For sure. What we're seeing right now, though, is a candidate who's running for office and using the form he's is stuck with pretty effectively. He's drawing attention to himself.

Every time he's gone to court. I'm somewhat surprised that the court houses allow him. He was set up in this instance to go down to 40 Wall Street to do a press conference, yet he was able to do a lot of press coverage right from the hall of the courthouse and did it effectively.

So he got what he wanted, which is the spectacle that he likes to have around these events where he can distort them to his base and pretend that he's suffering the suffering, these terrible grievances. So, yes, it is unusual. It's unusual.

A candidate would run on the basis he's running. And times have definitely changed. And as I'm reaching a bit into the future here, but when I was on the trail for the GOP primary, Trump's rivals would make the case, well, if he's convicted,.

That's why we should say it. If he's convicted. We think that that's when people enough people might abandon him. Do you think voters will actually abandon him if he is indeed convicted in one of these cases, particularly.

Maybe even this one that starts April 15th? No. And Trump himself said this earlier today that he if he's convicted in that hush money case, that it might even make him more popular. I don't doubt that that's true.

He's again conditioned his base to see him as a victim. And so when something like that happens, it cements the narrative that that he is being targeted. But the the the theory that people will drop away from Trump if he's convicted really,.

I think only applies to donors. Maybe some surrogates, maybe some endorsements. And and I think most of his voters are completely sold on him. I think there's a very small pocket of Republicans really can't stomach the idea.

Of voting for for Joe Biden. And they're going to hold their noses to vote for Donald Trump. And in the end, if he's convicted or goes to prison for any of this, then they might reconsider. But again, I think that's a very,.

Very small percentage of the overall MAGA voting bloc. John, to Trump's civil fraud trial, did do you think the appeals court made the right decision in lowering his bond? Well, they certainly gave no explanation of why they did it.

And this is certainly going to lower the judgment ultimately. But what they did do is sort of showed mercy of the court on somebody who was clearly struggling to get the bond that he was confronted with.

And accepted a much lower number. So that that shows a hand of fairness. It's going to make it a little harder for Trump to beat up on the first district of the appellate level of courts in New York because they've been fair to him, even more than fair. In fact,.

I think they gave him a break most people would never get. All right. We're going to have to leave it there. John Dean, S.E. Cupp, as always, thanks so much for your thoughts, your analysis. We appreciate both of you.

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