Matthew Dowd: Hush Money Payment ‘Would Have Changed Enough Minds’ in 2016

CABRERA: “I want to bring into the conversation here, Robert Gibbs. He is a former Obama Administration aide, as well as Matthew Dowd, who is with us right now as well. Robert Gibbs, by the way, is former press secretary in the White House and Matthew Dowd worked in the Bush-Cheney administration. Matthew, let me start with you. And take us back to 2016. I mean, that is what the prosecutor is doing right now before the jurors. And just the setting of what they’re calling this conspiracy to conceal this information from the voters. What do you think this — this was? What was happening inside the — the Trump campaign at the time that all of this was reportedly going on behind the scenes?”
DOWD: “Well, I — I can’t speak from experience of having gone through a candidate with this and I don’t think Robert can either having this sort of negatives associated with the candidate. We had other things we had to deal with, never something like this and never catch and kill and all those other things that are associated with this. My guess is — and this is a guest, but I think it’s pretty informed — is there was so much incoming, The Access Hollywood tape, all the things associated with it, and then Donald Trump and his campaigns worry in a very close election against Hillary Clinton that this could — this could be meaningful, and it probably would have been meaningful. If this had come out before Election Day, my guess is that election was so close, this would have changed enough minds or demotivated people on the Republican side that would have made a difference in the election. So they made a calculated effort and we’ll find out if it was illegal or legal by whether or not he’s convicted by a jury. They made a calculated effort to take a legal chance to hide information or to seek to hide information so they could win the election so it wouldn’t come up. That is I’m sure what the calculus was.”