Cassidy Hutchinson Tells MSNBC Host About Stunning Confrontation With Her Trump Fan Dad
MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell asked Cassidy Hutchinson about a stunning story from her book in which Hutchinson’s dad scolds her for even thinking about testifying against ex-President Donald Trump.
Hutchinson is the former top aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and bombshell January 6 committee witness who has embarked on a media tour to promote her upcoming book “Enough” — which included a stop on Tuesday night’s edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word.
The host managed to tread new ground by playing a snippet from the “Enough” audiobook in which Hutchinson describes visiting her father in hopes of getting financial support to get her own non-Trump attorney:
O’DONNELL: In this story, you are failed by many men going through this story, not just Mark Meadows, your boss, and the president of the United States, but beginning, sadly, with your father and the way your father failed you in the midst of your desperate attempt to try to get a lawyer.
And you went to your father, try to get financial help from your father. You brought your January 6 subpoena with you to show to him.
And I just want to use your audiobook to just tell — tell the audience that passage of the book. We will just listen to that.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
HUTCHINSON: I pulled my subpoena that I had folded in quarters out of my coat pocket and handed it to him.
“Please, I just need you to listen,” I said, my voice trembling.
He looked at me, expecting me to say more, but I could not find my words. He threw the subpoena in the trash, ranting that I did not need to do anything it asked me to do. He had read online that it was not mandatory to comply with congressional subpoenas.
The investigation was a witch-hunt to take Donald down, he said. He prayed I was not there to ask for money to pay for a corrupt lawyer. Any lawyer who did not work for Donald was corrupt. He had raised me better than to turn my back on the people who cared about me, people like himself and Donald.
“You didn’t raise me at all” was all I thought of to say.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
O’DONNELL: And that scene gets even rougher than that.
This is — I’m sure it was painful to write. It’s painful to read, and it is very much, it seems to me, as a reader, a very clear explanation of the kinds of pressures and predicament you were in.
HUTCHINSON: Yes.
And that scene was difficult to write, as was a lot of the book, Lawrence. But I — when I made the decision to write a book and — about my experiences, I knew going into it that I wanted to bring people into how I actually experienced all that.
I felt that that was really critical, because it — I wasn’t just somebody that arrived at that moment on June 28. And I had a lot of trial and error to get to that moment. I have made a lot of mistakes. I tried to make that take accountability for all of those.
And — but I think what’s important to the reader — so, I — as Mark and I — Mark Salter and I, who — thank you for your very kind words to him, because Mark Salter is a phenomenal human being, but helped pull this story out of me in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to do on my own.
But when Mark and I were writing this together, we wanted — at least I wanted to write it in a way where I wanted to bring my readers in to the actual moments that helped shape me. And that scene, in particular, yes, it was very difficult. And even just hearing that — that’s the first time I have heard the audiobook.
O’DONNELL: Mm-hmm.
HUTCHINSON: But it’s important to help explain how I got to where I was, when I had a Trump-affiliated counsel — or Trump-affiliated lawyer, and then when I ultimately made the split and found a new attorney — new counsel.
Watch above via MSNBC’s The Last Word.
