After the former president was charged with seven counts stemming from his mishandling of classified documents taken from the White House, Melber summed up the chaos engulfing Trump with lines from “A Lot.”
Melber echoed the musician, saying: “How many problems you got? A lot. How many lawyers you got? A lot. How many people done left you out to rot? A lot.”
“Donald Trump doesn’t just start in the hole, he starts with a lot of this case, what we would call legally proven,” Melber said later to fellow anchors Alex Wagner and Laurence O’Donnell. “He’s also legally presumed innocent, but he is starting out really, really behind.”
The rap reference wouldn’t have surprised regular viewers of Melber’s aptly named show “The Beat.”
Melber, an attorney who also serves as the network’s chief legal correspondent, often interviews hip-hop stars and slips lyrics into his analysis, frequently turning to the words of Jay-Z, Drake, Lauren Hill and more to make his points.
It’s prompted some lighthearted yet withering responses from HBO’s John Oliver over the years: