joining us now, gloria borger and elie honig. he served as u.s. district attorney for the southern district of new york. gloria, the new york times story that mary trump provided the material for in terms of tax documents was in 2018. why now is former president trump suing her and the journalist? well, i think the president doesn t need enemies and so the en enemies are the media, the press. he hinted there s going to be more. someone on his team hinted there will be more of this against the so-called fake news. so he took on the new york times. it seems to me, and i m not the lawyer here, but it s frivolous. it s what donald trump does. he likes to throw out lawsuits all the time. and to keep himself front and center. when we figures he s not front and center in the way he wants to be, as in this case, he sees himself as the victim here, he ll do it. and he ll do it more and he ll
senator scott saying he was not going to back away from these negotiations. that he wanted to be here and continue on with them. i have reached out to him and his office. we have not heard anything back. the bottom line, we are seeing yet another agenda item for president biden falling apart here on capitol hill. a lot of people in the community are going to be disappointed by that news. thank you. former president trump has filed a lawsuit in new york state court. this time, he s seeing his niece. mary trump. and three new york times journalists over what he s called the illegal disclosure of his tax information. the former president also claims his niece violated a 2001 settlement agreement among the family. mary trump said this in response, quote, i think he s a loser. it s desperation. the walls are closing in and he s throwing anything against the wall that he thinks will stick. as is always the case with donald, he ll try and change the subject, end quote.
do whatever he has to do to keep himself out there even with things as ridiculous as this. suing for $100 million. elie why not. pick a number. $100 million. does he have a case? does he have a chance? no, gloria s right. as a general rule, donald trump is just really, really bad at the law. either he doesn t understand the law or he doesn t care. to break this case down sort of two batches. the new york times has nothing to worry about here. i read the complaint. it s incomprehensible as to how he thinks the new york times did anything wrong in publishing this. as to mary trump, his niece, he allegations she violated some agreement, but i was saying, okay, good, what s the term she violated? it s just not there in the complaint, so i think he s grasping at straws. the book, peril, is getting a lot of buzz and sometimes he likes to deflect.
joining me now is it former federal prosecutor joyce vance. your views on donald trump s new suit against both his family and the new york times. this is a curious lawsuit, ari. the word frivolous is not a word that lawyers throw around lightly about lawsuits because it has implications. trump s learned that. this suit boarders on frivolous. as to mary trump and the allegations that she violated her contract with donald trump in disclosing these documents, the complaint fails to point to a specific provision in the agreement between them that she breached. and that s of course essential if you re going to prove a contract claim. there would be no reason to withhold that in the complaint. it could even mean that the complaint would be subject to a motion to dismiss. so at least on its face without having access to the primary documents, this doesn t look