George Conway: Claiming to Be ‘Completely Insane and Stupid’ May Be Trump’s Best Defense

But “he’s never going to bring himself to do that.”

FLORENCE, SC - MARCH 12: Former US President Donald Trump blows a kiss to the crowd during a rally at the Florence Regional Airport on March 12, 2022 in Florence, South Carolina. Todays visit by Trump is his first rally in South Carolina since his election loss in 2020. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

[On the March 11, 2022 episode of The Bulwark’s “Beg to Differ” podcast, guest George Conway suggested that Donald Trump’s “best defense” against prosecution that might arise from the aftermath of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is that he is “completely insane and stupid.” Conway’s remarks below are transcribed from the podcast.]

Mona Charen: You see this among the Trump defenders. They’ll say, If he had a good-faith belief that the election was stolen, then he will not have the proper mens rea for a criminal conviction. What do you say about that—as a matter of law?

George T. Conway III: As a matter of law, he learned in so many different ways that he had lost and frankly he said to people, one of whom I know very well, but I won’t specify who she is, How could I have lost to this guy? And she basically said, You know, you ran a crappy campaign. She wasn’t alone in telling him that. I’m not—again—I’m not going to say who that was.

So, he knew he lost, okay? He admitted from time to time that he lost: How could I lose to that guy?

And the only way he can get out from under that is to basically try to prove that he is completely delusional and stupid. And he’s never going to bring himself to do that. He’ll just lie and continue to tell the lie.

And that just would not be enough. And I don’t think it would be enough, especially, before a jury in the District of Columbia. And the first jury to hear a Jan. 6th case convicted a Jan. 6th defendant in four hours. So, there’s a big problem here that he has. If somebody takes this seriously at the Justice Department—and if you take Merrick Garland at his word, because he said in a speech back in January, that they were not going to draw any artificial lines about who they could prosecute—they were going to go work their way up in the way that you do in mob investigations, and other large investigations.

You have to look at Donald Trump—because all the roads lead to him.