Trump attorney says he will not 'defend or condemn' Trump’s rhetoric toward Manhattan DA

Joe Tacopina, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, on Sunday called Trump’s social media attacks on the officials involved in New York's hush-money probe “ill-advised,” but declined to directly condemn the posts.

“I'm not his social media consultant,” Tacopina said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in discussing Trump's posts, one of which warned of “death and destruction” should he face a criminal indictment.

Since Trump inaccurately predicted that he would be indicted last Tuesday as a result of an investigation into a hush money payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign, the former president and 2024 presidential candidate has ramped up his attacks against the officials in charge of the investigation, particularly Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat. In one post that has since been deleted, Trump shared an article with a picture of him holding a baseball bat next to a photo of Bragg.

“I think that was an ill-advised post that one of his social media people put up, and he quickly took down when he realized the rhetoric and photo that was attached to it,” Tacopina added.

Trump has not been indicted in the New York case, though he still could be.

When asked whether he was concerned that Trump’s barrage of social media posts on Truth Social, the platform Trump helped found, could lead to violence similar to the Jan. 6 riots, Tacopina said that he did not believe it was Trump’s rhetoric that let to the violence at the Capitol in 2021, and declined to condemn “anything regarding social media.”

“Well, I'm not accepting that proposition, that his rhetoric created violence [on Jan. 6]. I think violence was on the way that day," Tacopina said.

“I'm not going to defend or condemn anything regarding social media. That's not what I do. I'm not a Trump PR person. I'm a litigator and a lawyer,” he told NBC’s Chuck Todd.