‘This Is Must-See TV!’ CNN’s Chris Wallace On Trump Testifying at Fraud Trial Monday

CNN anchor Chris Wallace called former President Donald Trump’s upcoming fraud trial testimony “must-see TV” and pushed back on the suggestion the trial is a good thing for Trump.

Trump was absent from his trial in the fraud case brought by James and presided over by Judge Arthur Engoron, who recently ruled that former First Daughter Ivanka Trump must testify in person. Both former co-First Sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. took the stand this week.

But Trump himself is set to testify Monday, and Ivanka will take the stand Wednesday.

Journalists Kristen Soltis Anderson, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Reihan Salam, and Kara Swisher joined Wallace for the debut edition of CNN’s The Chris Wallace Show on Saturday morning in what Wallace has described as a McLaughlin Group-esque news panel show.

Wallace and co. went over a raft of Trump legal news, including his appearance at the fraud trial:

CHRIS WALLACE: Let me talk about another legal issue. Trump’s sons, don jr and eric were in court, civil court in new york this week dealing with a case in which it is alleged that the Trump family and the Trump organization defrauded banks and insurers by inflating their worth. The two, as they’re known in the Trump Organization, the boys both testified and incidentally, and this is must see TV: Donald Trump is testifying next on Monday and Ivanka apparently later in the week. So your sense, how are the Trump’s doing so far in this case?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: I’m not from a legal perspective, I don’t it doesn’t seem like they’re doing well. But from a political perspective, every poll I’ve seen doesn’t suggest that this is taking any toll on Donald Trump’s standing in the Republican primary. Everything that I’ve seen suggests that every time he is under pressure legally, it actually backfires on anyone who tries to use it against him to make him politically harmed by just giving more fuel to the fire. Look how much they hate me. Look how much they want to prevent me from being able to be your president again. So whether it’s these court cases around the 14th Amendment, trying to keep him off the ballot or his other legal challenges, he’s in an enormous amount of peril. He’s done himself no favors. He is his own worst enemy. It is baffling to me that Republicans are going to walk open eyed back into having him as their nominee. But it seems likely that that’s what’s going to happen. And every one of these court cases has done nothing.

CHRIS WALLACE: There’s another legal–.

KARA SWISHER: It’s performance art! He’s like a MAGA Bjork, right? Like he’s, this is all perfect. It adds. Gives him more stuff to do, more material.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO: It’s a virtue. It’s a virtue. Exactly. It’s a virtuous circle for him because he acts like he’s aggrieved. They give him more money, uses that money to pay for his legal fees.

CHRIS WALLACE: No but I don’t think defrauding the bank or, you know, basically saying that the Trump organization is, the billionaire’s net worth2 was a fraud would necessarily be good. I understand the short term gain.

Watch above via CNN’s The Chris Wallace Show.