Donald Trump holds berserk press conference after Marie Yovanovitch destroys him

| 6:00 pm EST November 15, 2019
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Just how badly did Donald Trump blow it today when he began attacking Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch on Twitter while she was testifying? Not only did he just earn himself an additional article of impeachment and a longer prison sentence once he’s out of office, he also blew it in the court of public opinion.

Donald Trump spoke with reporters after he committed felony witness intimidation against Marie Yovanovitch, and his desperation made clear that he understood just how badly he’d blown it. Trump completely lost control of the narrative when he posted those tweets today. He ended up yelling “quiet, quiet, quiet” over and over again while reporters hammered him over his attack on Yovanovitch. Whatever he might have been aiming for, this wasn’t it.

When you try to intimidate a witness into not testifying against you, it’s a surefire way to convince everyone involved that the witness is telling the truth about you. We just saw this in the Roger Stone trial. It’s not just that Stone was convicted on an additional criminal charge, and will end up with a longer prison sentence, for threatening to murder Randy Credico and kidnap his dog. It’s that Stone’s berserk threats probably helped convince the jury that Credico’s testimony against Stone should be believed.

It was bad enough for Donald Trump that Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony today was devastating to him. Trump has backed himself into a corner with his attack on her, because he just unwittingly told everyone out there to believe her. When Trump realizes he’s blown it, he’ll usually go quiet for a minute, then begin digging himself an even deeper hole. We’ll see how much worse he makes this for himself when his former ally Gordon Sondland publicly testifies next week.