Abby Phillip Confronts Dr. Phil Over False Claims About Trump’s Trial

A video segment of CNN's Abby Phillip attempting to stop "Dr. Phil" McGraw from spreading false information about Donald Trump's recent criminal trial has widely circulated on social media. Less than an hour after his remarks last night, a short clip of McGraw and Phillip's CNN interview was posted on X, formerly Twitter. Their conversation was in response to McGraw's recent hourlong interview with Trump, in which the former president spoke about his family, the state of the country, and his recent conviction.

On May 30, a New York jury found Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels by Trump's then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, before the 2016 presidential election. The verdict makes Trump the first former president convicted of felony crimes.

Daniels alleged she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, which he denies. Trump has maintained his innocence and says the case, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, is politically motivated. His legal team says it will fight the case, which will include an appeal, if necessary.

Early in the CNN interview, McGraw, an American television personality and psychologist, said, "I'm sympathetic to what Trump has gone through in this particular trial because I think it was not proper due process for him," adding, "I would say the same thing if it was Biden or anyone else in that process."

Phillip asked McGraw to "tell us why you think he didn't get due process?" McGraw replied that the jury "heard some things that were very prejudicial, that had nothing to do with solving the problem of the case at hand." Trump's case has drawn partisan criticism, and legal analysts across the spectrum disagree on core tenets of the proceedings.

He then spoke about the prosecution's star witness, Cohen, stating, "you don't have someone that is considered to be an accomplice in a crime that has pled out or made a non-prosecution agreement and allow that information into the jury's awareness because it's very prejudicial." In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight charges in federal court, including tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations related to Daniels. He served over a year in prison and a year and a half in home confinement.

The clip posted by Acyn, senior digital editor for MediasTouch.com, has been viewed by nearly 100,000 users by late Friday morning. In it, Phillip pushes back against McGraw, saying, "It is not uncommon at all for people who are accomplices to crimes for people who have taken plea deals...to then testify in subsequent trials for their alleged co-conspirators," adding, "that's kind of how a lot of these prosecutions work."

McGraw didn't budge on his opinion, asking for concrete examples from Phillip. She noted that this is common in organized crime cases, notably mob cases. In some instances, plea deals even explicitly include agreements that the defendant will later testify in court. It is a fairly frequent practice for someone who has taken a plea deal to then take the witness stand, and an overwhelming majority of criminal cases result in plea deals than a criminal trial.

Newsweek reached out to McGraw's agent for comment via email on Friday.

• X users with legal backgrounds have replied to the segment, such as former assistant U.S. attorney Richard Signorelli, who writes, "It happens in most federal criminal cases, many state as well. Always appropriate and necessary."
• User @RichardClip, who identifies as a lawyer, replied to Signorelli's post saying "testifying is often an express condition of the plea agreement."

Other users, like @therealcoinmon, took a more satirical approach, writing, "dr phil and the my pillow guy the new trump A team," referring to Mike Lindell, a staunch Trump supporter who endorsed conspiracy theories about 2020 election fraud and supported attempts to overturn the results. Another user, Charli Huxley says, "Oh... Dr Phil is unapologet