The judge is clearly trying to destroy the witness’
credibility, so the jury will ignore what he has said.
Except that doesn’t always work. Once the word is out, it’s out. The jury will not forget or ignore anything the judge says. You cannot unspeak anything, and most lawyers know this. They will risk contempt to put a word or two into the jury’s ear they know will hit a nerve.
Exactly how I interpret this. If you give him the respect of a former prosecutor or whatever he was and then he says, the star witness is full of it it is much different now. Now he just looks like a “Trump guy” to them. The judge, the witness or both did this on purpose.