Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 1: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent
Speaker 1: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,
Speaker 1: it just means the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 1: But enough with that, Let's get to the show. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, good evening. Everybody feels a little weird to
Speaker 1: say that we have an amazing show for everybody today,
Speaker 1: a primetime show with the full crew, counterpoints, breaking points,
Speaker 1: everybody coming together to right talk about the Trump indictment,
Speaker 1: the arrangement, the arrest, the drama of it all. It's
Speaker 1: just amazing. I know we did a reaction video for
Speaker 1: everybody already, Crystal, but what do we have today? Major
Speaker 1: crossover episode here, the breaking points and counterpoints, teams colliding
Speaker 1: in real, live primetime. It's all happening. So we're going
Speaker 1: to go through everything that we learned today. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: charges were unsealed. We saw Trump in court pleading not guilty,
Speaker 1: So we're going to go through that. Get Emily and
Speaker 1: Ryan's reactions as well. Be Casager and I got to
Speaker 1: talk about it a little bit earlier today. Talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the potential political impact such as we
Speaker 1: know thus far, take a look at the polling that
Speaker 1: has been conducted, how the American people feel about these charges.
Speaker 1: How's it going to impact Trump for the Republican primary
Speaker 1: and potentially in the general election. We also are going
Speaker 1: to take live whatever Trump is doing this evening as
Speaker 1: being billed as a precedent. Is he going to take questions?
Speaker 1: Is it going to be more of a speech, is
Speaker 1: he going to know? Is he going to go on
Speaker 1: for a long time? Is it going to be like
Speaker 1: tightly scripted. We will see. We'll take all of that live,
Speaker 1: and then on the other side of that, we also
Speaker 1: have legal analysts who are on sort of either side
Speaker 1: of this issue of whether or not he should have
Speaker 1: been charged in this particular case, so we can get
Speaker 1: their takes as well and ask them all the questions
Speaker 1: that we have and that you guys have, speaking of that,
Speaker 1: Premium subscribers have been submitting questions. We're going to be
Speaker 1: going through some of those throughout the course of the night.
Speaker 1: We're going to be continuing to take a look look
Speaker 1: at them live as we are going through this stream.
Speaker 1: So become a premium subscriber, submit your question. If you're
Speaker 1: already a premium subscriber and you have a question for
Speaker 1: any of us, or for the legal analysts, or whatever
Speaker 1: something pops up to your mind, make sure to submit
Speaker 1: those because we will be taking a look at that.
Speaker 1: That's right Breakingpoints dot Com to go ahead and sign
Speaker 1: up for that. We've already got a couple here that
Speaker 1: our producer Griffin is sending along and we will certainly
Speaker 1: get to so wow, I mean, I know, it's already
Speaker 1: been a kind of a crazy day. Christal. We have
Speaker 1: some video some audio of some of the things that
Speaker 1: have already gone down here. What should we start with, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's take a look at We'll go sequentially here.
Speaker 1: First we have the specter of Trump actually arriving at
Speaker 1: the courthouse. We've got kind of like an overhead view
Speaker 1: there you can see zooming in the drone footage or
Speaker 1: helicopter footage or whatever. This is his motorcade arriving at
Speaker 1: the courthouse, courtesy of CNN. Let's go ahead and take
Speaker 1: a look at this next picture that we have that
Speaker 1: you can see him like waving to the crowd as
Speaker 1: he steps out and walks towards the courthouse. We also
Speaker 1: did get released one image of what he actually looked
Speaker 1: like sitting there in the courtroom. And take a look
Speaker 1: at that. It's looking very sort of like bit dower,
Speaker 1: bit Dower. That's a good, good word for it. Great,
Speaker 1: be somewhere else, what's that he'd rather be somewhere? Probably
Speaker 1: rather be somewhere else, even though this may inure to
Speaker 1: his political benefit at least of the Republican primary. Still
Speaker 1: probably not loving having to sit in court and be
Speaker 1: out of control of his circumstances in a way that
Speaker 1: he really doesn't like to be. We did get the
Speaker 1: charges unsealed. I mean, frankly, my TLDR is it's very
Speaker 1: much what we were expecting. Yeah, absolutely, thirty four counts.
Speaker 1: It's all about falsifying business records. The whole reason that
Speaker 1: it's getting bumped up to this felony charge is because
Speaker 1: of the idea that this was a cover up that
Speaker 1: has to do with, you know, federal election fraud effectively,
Speaker 1: and there was a statement of facts that also was
Speaker 1: released that really seeks to lay out the sequence of
Speaker 1: events lay out, Okay, the stormy Daniel's payments, also talks
Speaker 1: about the Karen McDougall payments, also talks about these Doorman
Speaker 1: payments that I completely forgot about back at the recesses
Speaker 1: of my memory. And really, is it pains to lay
Speaker 1: out some what they considered to be evidence that these
Speaker 1: payments had to do directly with the twenty sixteen campaign,
Speaker 1: And of course legally that is extremely significant. The whole
Speaker 1: reason that John Edwards was not found guilty on his
Speaker 1: campaign charges because they couldn't determine that the payments were
Speaker 1: directly about the campaign. Of course, Trump's defense will say, oh,
Speaker 1: this could have been about saving his marriage or any
Speaker 1: number of other things. So there had been some speculation
Speaker 1: Ryan ahead of time that perhaps there were some other
Speaker 1: pieces here, maybe there'd be a conspiracy charge. They were
Speaker 1: digging into Karen mcdo McDougall, maybe there was something in
Speaker 1: there that we really didn't even know about that he
Speaker 1: had uncovered in the process of this investigation. Not so much.
Speaker 1: And you did see Karen McDougall show up in the
Speaker 1: statement of facts, but not in the indictment. Yes, it
Speaker 1: seems like bad luck for the prosecutors in that the
Speaker 1: National Inquirer's attorney was like, Eh, this could be a crime,
Speaker 1: so let's not do this if it says that in
Speaker 1: the statement of facts. That basically, and the most guilty
Speaker 1: Trump appears in the entire thing is when he's on
Speaker 1: tape with Cohen saying, why don't we do this payoff
Speaker 1: in cash? Yes? And Cohen's like, cash one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars in cash. Now, let's let's do a check.
Speaker 1: And then they figure out, you know, complicated ways that
Speaker 1: they can move this check. And then but then Naami,
Speaker 1: which is the Inquirer, they end up paying for it instead,
Speaker 1: and there's some agreement according to Cohen, that they're going
Speaker 1: to reimburse them, but then the National Acquirer General Council
Speaker 1: is like, no, like why are you going to do this? Yes?
Speaker 1: The best part that, the best thing they have to
Speaker 1: show that this is election related and not millennia and
Speaker 1: shame related was Trump trying to slow walk the payment
Speaker 1: to Stormy Daniels passed the election and then saying to her,
Speaker 1: guess what, you're screwed twice now and we're not paying
Speaker 1: you at all. Yeah, which shows that because you know,
Speaker 1: let her say it publicly what you're still planning on
Speaker 1: being married to Malania. So that really does like make
Speaker 1: the point that it is about election. It was about
Speaker 1: the election. I have that part of the statement of fact,
Speaker 1: Emily that I can reach to you and get your
Speaker 1: top line reactions. Here they write that the defendant that's Trump,
Speaker 1: directed lawyer A, that's Michael Cohen to delay making a
Speaker 1: payment to Stormy Daniels as long as possible. Trump instructed
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen that if they could delay the payment until
Speaker 1: after the election, they could avoid paying altogether, because at
Speaker 1: that point it would not matter if the story became public.
Speaker 1: As reflected in emails text messages between and among lawyer A,
Speaker 1: Lawyer B, and the AMI editor in chief that's David Packer,
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen attempted to delay making the payment as long
Speaker 1: as possible. So, I mean, that really jumped out at
Speaker 1: me as well, because of course, it's very difficult to
Speaker 1: prove what somebody's mindset was at the time, like was
Speaker 1: this just for the campaign or was it for the mayor,
Speaker 1: or was it some sense of shame from Trump that
Speaker 1: we've you know, heretofore never seen before. Could be right,
Speaker 1: this is as close to Trump just being like, this
Speaker 1: is one hundred percent only about the campaign and after
Speaker 1: I'm elected, I do not care about it as you
Speaker 1: could possibly get. Yeah, and I mean we all kind
Speaker 1: of know that instinctually. I mean, Donald Trump, he's Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: He's been talking to the tabloids about his personal sexual
Speaker 1: relationships for decades. But in this particular case, he can
Speaker 1: still come back because even with that, he can still
Speaker 1: come back and say, well, they weren't going to raise
Speaker 1: the issue if I'm not a candidate. So here's why.
Speaker 1: That's my reasoning, because it doesn't matter if I'm not
Speaker 1: a candidate to them, not just to me, to them.
Speaker 1: And so that's where you get into a case which
Speaker 1: is so far from clear cut that it's painful for
Speaker 1: me because again, it's very much an unprecedented I've heard
Speaker 1: a lot of people on the right call this like
Speaker 1: a crossing the Rubicon moment where you're charging a former president.
Speaker 1: Now that's not to say that Donald Trump has done
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing worthy of being charge. I think we're all
Speaker 1: we can all look at numerous different allegations against Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's the most important takeaway from today. So
Speaker 1: that this is the tip of the iceberg. There have
Speaker 1: already been allegations raised in the Washington Post in the
Speaker 1: last couple of days about what the Special Council is finding.
Speaker 1: I think those are strategic leaks along the lines of
Speaker 1: what we saw from Russia Gate. But there have already
Speaker 1: been there's already leaking suggesting that case is much more
Speaker 1: serious than people realize. We've heard legal analysts like Barr.
Speaker 1: Barr himself has said that that case is turning out
Speaker 1: to be very, very serious. You have Georgia and a
Speaker 1: hungry da in Georgia who looks like she wants to
Speaker 1: do the same thing. So this really could be just
Speaker 1: the beginning for Donald Trump. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from everybody that I've seen as well, the most serious
Speaker 1: mightded legal analysts that I trust. Everybody's like, look, I
Speaker 1: think this one is pretty frivolous. I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: if it's necessarily going to pass the smell test for
Speaker 1: a judge. They're like, but on the classified documents one,
Speaker 1: that one's a real problem because a you have the
Speaker 1: obstruction charge. B all they have the ability to a
Speaker 1: subpoena the Secret Service about Trump himself and his own
Speaker 1: relationship like cifling through these documents. He also have his
Speaker 1: lawyers violating their attorney client privilege because he basically got
Speaker 1: them to maybe possibly lie on his behalf, making it
Speaker 1: materially interesting. I do want to come back though, to
Speaker 1: the facts of why we're all gathered here today, this
Speaker 1: specific arrest indict today, Why are we gathered here today?
Speaker 1: I think it's very interesting ran we are talking here
Speaker 1: at the end of the day about this campaign crime.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I will say, personally, I believe
Speaker 1: that Trump is guilty as hell on the campaign. That said,
Speaker 1: he is not guilty in the eyes of the law
Speaker 1: because the federal authorities who have jurisdiction over this crime
Speaker 1: never charged him. Interestingly enough, what's happened is that in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, with this campaign charge, it was specifically
Speaker 1: decided by federal prosecutors not to indict Trump after he
Speaker 1: left the White House. I know that initially there was
Speaker 1: also the bar case of making prosecutors drop the charges
Speaker 1: against Trump, saying we're going to abide by DOJ guidance.
Speaker 1: We cannot indict a sitting president. Second, and this is
Speaker 1: what's interesting in terms of what you have to prove A,
Speaker 1: is it even possible for a Manhattan DA to prove
Speaker 1: the commission of this campaign finance fraud in New York
Speaker 1: State given the fact that New York State law here
Speaker 1: is not actually what governs the overall campaign infrastructure, because
Speaker 1: that's what ultimately what Michael Cohen pled guilty to. The reason, guys,
Speaker 1: that we're spending time on this is because the way
Speaker 1: that all of this becomes a felony is that the
Speaker 1: bookkeeping charge itself has to be made in the commission
Speaker 1: and the cover up of a separate crime. And in
Speaker 1: that what they have to prove is a it's never
Speaker 1: been tried before to try and prove a federal crime
Speaker 1: as a cover up crime in New York State. And Two,
Speaker 1: as I understand it, it can't just help. It can't
Speaker 1: just be for this crime to have been to help
Speaker 1: the campaign. For example, painting the outside of your business
Speaker 1: or settling lawsuits are our campaign expenditures. It has to
Speaker 1: actually be the sole purpose, like polling or rent for HQ. Now,
Speaker 1: from the messages itself, I would personally say if I
Speaker 1: were to represented this on a federal grand jur or
Speaker 1: a federal jury, yeah, I would be like, this is
Speaker 1: probably the sole purpose. That's it. I mean, look, there
Speaker 1: are eleven other peers that would have to agree with me.
Speaker 1: Trump would be able to mount a competent defense, and
Speaker 1: I think that's why we're all going to have to
Speaker 1: spend so much time in not even whether he looks guilty.
Speaker 1: He absolutely looks guilty, but he's in the eyes of
Speaker 1: the law, he's not guilty of this crime. Has not
Speaker 1: been convicted of this game, right, it has not been
Speaker 1: convicted of this crime well in federal court, which is
Speaker 1: where ultimately the actual jurisdiction of this charge takes place,
Speaker 1: which is why again we're all gathered here and why
Speaker 1: thirty four counts of felony actual bookkeeping fraud we're charged
Speaker 1: against Trump. So we have to spend a ton of
Speaker 1: time on it. Yeah, I mean, I do think there
Speaker 1: is a New York state election law that they are
Speaker 1: also invoking here that is relevant to the case. And
Speaker 1: these are all details that I definitely want to ask
Speaker 1: both of our legal guests about to zoom on for
Speaker 1: a second, Like I sort of can't help but laugh
Speaker 1: at this whole scenario because of everything that Trump did, right,
Speaker 1: trying to steal the election and alleged hide these dog
Speaker 1: is sorting through the documents after he was told that
Speaker 1: you have to hand him over, and he claimed to
Speaker 1: handle like all the stuff that he did not to
Speaker 1: mention this, you know, war crimes that we just take
Speaker 1: for granted that American presidents all commit. At this point.
Speaker 1: Of all those things, it's some like tawdry horn star bullshit.
Speaker 1: And in some ways it's like, actually right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like I couldn't help laughing to myself about like that,
Speaker 1: it's this one that's the first one to drop, because
Speaker 1: in some ways it is kind of perfect and gets
Speaker 1: this juxtaposition of all the different lenses that you can
Speaker 1: view Donald Trump through, Like is he just this sort
Speaker 1: of like ridiculous reality star who like bumbled his way
Speaker 1: tripped over his own dick into the White House? Right?
Speaker 1: Or is he this like you know, fascist mastermind inciting
Speaker 1: his supporters to go and you know, riot at the
Speaker 1: Capitol and with these elaborate schemes to overturn the election.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I guess the answer is a little
Speaker 1: bit of both. But that's why you know, I've got
Speaker 1: I just have a lot of complex feelings about this
Speaker 1: because the other piece of this is I would like
Speaker 1: to see more white collar criminals prosecuted, not less. I
Speaker 1: would like to see more former presidents prosecuted, not less.
Speaker 1: So when I hear these, you know this hand, oh
Speaker 1: my God, the president and God forbid that we like
Speaker 1: hold future presidents accountable for their crimes, I'm like, good,
Speaker 1: that would be a good thing. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: I do look at this and feel that it is
Speaker 1: far from the worst thing that Trump did in office,
Speaker 1: as not even close to the worst thing meant Obama
Speaker 1: did in office or Bush did in office, let alone
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Yeah, and what it seems like they're trying
Speaker 1: to do is to not break the precedent of prosecuting
Speaker 1: former presidents, and so they take something that no other
Speaker 1: president is ever going to do, and that's have some
Speaker 1: type of a that's true Trump and the other things too,
Speaker 1: completely reckless handling of classified information. Like even the worst
Speaker 1: war criminals that we've had last four years their sensitive
Speaker 1: even by their mustang. But he's not. He's not like
Speaker 1: going through he's not touching it, moving it around and
Speaker 1: lying to people, lying to his own lawyers, And it
Speaker 1: would be unseemly, it would be unseemly, not to have
Speaker 1: the help do it for you. Yeah, exactly. And the
Speaker 1: corruption that is that circles Trump all of the time,
Speaker 1: and you know that you could have you could have
Speaker 1: prosecuted him over the Postal Museum that, yeah, the little
Speaker 1: Trump a little Trump restaurant that I had, and he's
Speaker 1: got all of these foreign governments overpaying and then telling him, hey,
Speaker 1: we're overpaying for this particular thing, and then he and
Speaker 1: his family walk out like fabulously rich. But to go
Speaker 1: after that would set a precedent, Yes, that you're going
Speaker 1: to start prosecuting those types of crimes. And even though
Speaker 1: Trump is more brazen about it, the rest are still
Speaker 1: doing it within the same cut. Like that's that's such
Speaker 1: a That's actually a really great point. You're not going
Speaker 1: to have a problem where you're like Joe Biden paid
Speaker 1: hush money to a porn star probably right, maybe Yeah's son,
Speaker 1: but he's not a president, so you can prosecute hunder right,
Speaker 1: theoretically he doesn't have a dog. I do like your point, though, Ryan,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why it's important. You know, if
Speaker 1: we were thinking about Bush, you know, if I put
Speaker 1: on my Fahrenheit nine to eleven days, you know, It's like, well,
Speaker 1: if we do start going after profits and all that,
Speaker 1: maybe we have to start talking about the Carlisle group.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, no, I can't be doing that. There's
Speaker 1: too there are way too many people in this town
Speaker 1: who are not maybe one of them the governor of Virginia,
Speaker 1: from many other people who are far too connected and
Speaker 1: wealthy off of a system like that, or even Jared could.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's always the one that fascinates me, the
Speaker 1: far violations that all of these former presidents and their
Speaker 1: aids are all deeply entangling from the Bush family, Obama
Speaker 1: and his White House Chief of staffs now working for
Speaker 1: TikTok as a lobbyist. Like, what the hell is going
Speaker 1: on here when you're looking at that that's well accepted
Speaker 1: within the realm of corruption. Trump, you have to go
Speaker 1: after him, as you said, for what we all know
Speaker 1: him as as the reality TV star. We do, though,
Speaker 1: have the video of Alvin Bragg that I think is
Speaker 1: actually worth playing. That gets to what we were discussing
Speaker 1: here about the legal theories under which the eventual indictment
Speaker 1: actually took place. We're going to go ahead and play
Speaker 1: a six here, guys. Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 1: Under New York state law is a felony to falsify
Speaker 1: business records with intent to the fraud and an intent
Speaker 1: to conceal another crime. That is exactly what this case
Speaker 1: is about. Thirty four false statements made to cover up
Speaker 1: other crimes. These are felony crimes in New York State.
Speaker 1: No matter who you are, we cannot and will not
Speaker 1: normalize serious criminal conducts. So that's what he was getting
Speaker 1: at there, Crystal. In terms of the charges that he
Speaker 1: laid out. Interestingly, I do want to note that initially
Speaker 1: in the statement of fact, there was a mention of taxes.
Speaker 1: Now you and I immediately picked up on that in
Speaker 1: our reaction video, because the reason is that Jeff Bragg
Speaker 1: actually does have a jurisdiction over in New York State
Speaker 1: taxes obviously, but in the three crimes that Bragg lays
Speaker 1: out in his statement, not one of them that he
Speaker 1: mentioned actually had anything to do with taxes. Ryan, Emily,
Speaker 1: did you guys pick up on that he spot talks
Speaker 1: specifically about defrauding the public in terms of a campaign
Speaker 1: finance violation, then pointing as you said, Crystal, to the
Speaker 1: New York state campaign law, and then third, the actual
Speaker 1: bookkeeping fraud itself, that though, is the misdemeanor, the actual
Speaker 1: cover up crime. He is solely focusing here on campaign finance.
Speaker 1: Ryan Emily, what did you guys make of that? Well,
Speaker 1: that's how you get it too where he needs it
Speaker 1: to be. That's when you get it to the level
Speaker 1: of severity where you can go and make a statement
Speaker 1: like that and pitch it to the public. Is saying
Speaker 1: this is worth prosecuting a former president over, Yes, And
Speaker 1: so I think that's where I think that's where that's
Speaker 1: coming from. It's partially legal maneuver. Let me read from
Speaker 1: the statement of fact is to dig into what Soger
Speaker 1: is referencing here. They do go to some length to
Speaker 1: lay out that they sort of structured these page mints
Speaker 1: to be deceitful and probably tax advantageous in a way
Speaker 1: that could indicate frauds. So it is interesting that they
Speaker 1: didn't use that as like, oh, this is the cover
Speaker 1: up that we're using to get it to a felony account.
Speaker 1: So they say that the Trump organizations, CFO and lawyer
Speaker 1: A that's Michael Cohen, agreed to a total repayment of
Speaker 1: four hundred and twenty k they reached that figure. Oh
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, don't care how they reached that figure.
Speaker 1: The Trump Organization's CFO then doubled the amount to three
Speaker 1: sixty so that Lawyer A could characterize the payment as
Speaker 1: income on his tax returns instead of a reimbursement, and
Speaker 1: Lawyer A would be left with one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: K after paying about fifty percent in income taxes. Finally,
Speaker 1: the Trump Organization CFO add an additional sixty K as
Speaker 1: a supplemental year un bonus, is that nice for him?
Speaker 1: You're in crime. Bonus got his man electric president. That's
Speaker 1: what an insane way to run a business. Can I
Speaker 1: just say that together these amounts total forms aka that
Speaker 1: Trump Organization's CFO memorialize these calculations in handwritten notes on
Speaker 1: the copy of the bank statement that Lawyer A had provided.
Speaker 1: So and there are some other things here about taxes,
Speaker 1: but that was the primary paragraph that was focused on
Speaker 1: the way they structured payments and how they didn't really
Speaker 1: record it properly from a tax perspective. And I guess
Speaker 1: what I heard earlier today, and I'm becoming like a
Speaker 1: legal expert on the inticracies. This particular type of business
Speaker 1: fraud is that the cover up doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: of your own crime. It could be of anyone's crime.
Speaker 1: So if Michael Cohen is guilty of tax fraud here,
Speaker 1: it could have been in service of that. But again
Speaker 1: to Sager's point, that isn't actually the theory that Bragg
Speaker 1: seems to have leaned into. Whatever right, and what they
Speaker 1: seem to be doing is that if they had the
Speaker 1: list it as a reimbursement, then they'd have to say, well,
Speaker 1: what was it a reimbursement for? And so it's really
Speaker 1: in furtherance of the cover up, so that they called
Speaker 1: it income so that they don't have to talk about
Speaker 1: why they did it. But I think that saying that
Speaker 1: Cohen Trump is trying to cover up a crime that
Speaker 1: Cohen committed doesn't comport with what we understand about Trump.
Speaker 1: Trump has never done anything for anybody else ever, true,
Speaker 1: This would be the first two x that he ever
Speaker 1: committed on behalf of other people romantic. As you've mentioned
Speaker 1: before Valentine's Day, if you read it February fourteenth, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: Ryan often rightfully points out Trump doesn't get the credit
Speaker 1: he deserves being romantic. Oh, yes, true and true. Here
Speaker 1: we are, nobody's mentioning it. Yeah, it is silent, that's true.
Speaker 1: I do you remember covering at the White House. You
Speaker 1: always made sure to mention Milania. I guess that's the
Speaker 1: bare minimum that you do for your beloved wife. But well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the problem seems to be it all comes
Speaker 1: back to the question of whether there was a crime,
Speaker 1: and we can all think there was, but it does
Speaker 1: seem problematic for a county prosecutor to be able to
Speaker 1: try to persuade a county jury that a federal crime
Speaker 1: was committed when the federal prosecutors themselves declined to pro
Speaker 1: because take it away from think about out the president,
Speaker 1: that that would set because then you don't need jurisdiction anymore.
Speaker 1: Any county prosecutor can say, well, here's you know, the book.
Speaker 1: These bookkeeping errors were made in quick books, and quick
Speaker 1: books exist in Montgomery, Alabama. Yeah, that's right, so we're prosecuting.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really, really important point because the
Speaker 1: people who are cheerleading this particular situation, I think all
Speaker 1: of us sort of share this ambivalence. We don't really
Speaker 1: know in that bigger picture question, how to think about
Speaker 1: this from thirty thousand feet whether it's a net good
Speaker 1: or a net bad. But something in my gut definitely
Speaker 1: says it's a net bad for the reason Ryan just suggested,
Speaker 1: which is that there is some merit to the Banana
Speaker 1: Republic argument when you have to do legal gymnastics to
Speaker 1: prosecute a former president in a case that actually is
Speaker 1: weak compared to potential other cases that are out there.
Speaker 1: And so when you start setting dangerous precedents, the people
Speaker 1: who are cheerleading this as a victory for democracy, who
Speaker 1: are constantly accusing Donald Trump of being the antithesis of democracy,
Speaker 1: being the ultimate villain in the Great Story the Great
Speaker 1: arc of Democracy, may actually be doing an equal amount
Speaker 1: of damage to that question of democracy. So let me
Speaker 1: provide the counterview, just to put it out there, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of similar to what Alvin Bragg said.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone here is denying that Trump committed
Speaker 1: some crimes with regard to this particular situation. It looks
Speaker 1: like a misdemeanor. Yeah, And by the way, Michael, by
Speaker 1: the way, let me also say that while it's certainly
Speaker 1: not anywhere close to the worst thing that he did
Speaker 1: at the time that he was making these payments. This
Speaker 1: was in the fallout of Access Hollywood, and now in
Speaker 1: hindsight we realized he was able to overcome that and
Speaker 1: win the election over Hillary. But at the time they
Speaker 1: were deeply concerned that if you had Karen McDougall and
Speaker 1: Stormy Daniels and all of this litany of whatever come
Speaker 1: out at the time, that it would damage his campaign
Speaker 1: and he would lose. There's some merint to that that
Speaker 1: is possible. So all of the concerned about like Russian
Speaker 1: memes and whatever, there's no doubt that this sequence of
Speaker 1: events and their attempt to hide these stories and to
Speaker 1: engage in book keeping fraud and campaign finance violations and
Speaker 1: whatever to cover it up, it wasn't nothing. And I
Speaker 1: do feel like, Okay, if any of us had committed
Speaker 1: this sort of fraud, like we would probably have the
Speaker 1: book thrown at us. It doesn't require legal gymnastics to
Speaker 1: see that there were there was wrongdoing here. And so
Speaker 1: if you truly want a system where you know there's
Speaker 1: not two tier system of justice, then you know it's
Speaker 1: appropriate for him to have to face consequences for this,
Speaker 1: even as it doesn't rise to the level of some
Speaker 1: of the other crimes that he committed, Like the fact
Speaker 1: that he committed other worst crimes doesn't negate the fact
Speaker 1: that there were lower level things that were done here,
Speaker 1: I think. But then I think to stretch them to
Speaker 1: fellow new a different So you do the legal gymnastics
Speaker 1: to get to felony level. I do think it's a
Speaker 1: different question. I agree with that, and I grew with
Speaker 1: your point about I would love to see more white
Speaker 1: collar criminals right. I would love to talk about how
Speaker 1: Biden is implicated in Hunter. Biden's like very shady lobby,
Speaker 1: and I think there's something very real there. I think
Speaker 1: we should have those conversations. We could go back to
Speaker 1: Bush and Obama and have those conversations. We could talk
Speaker 1: about what's happening with TikTok right now and lobbying and
Speaker 1: all of that. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I also think we need to have a sort of
Speaker 1: consensus as a country on what that looks like, and
Speaker 1: we just don't. In a very scary way. We can
Speaker 1: go back to Komi talking about Hillary Clinton essentially being
Speaker 1: guilty but not raising to the level that a prosecutor
Speaker 1: would bring the case well and that's and that's where
Speaker 1: I'm like, maybe they like I'm good with Herbie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been a while since this Exactually, if this brings
Speaker 1: us actually to where basically answering or debating a premium question,
Speaker 1: so as we'll take our first This is from than
Speaker 1: girlick reciprocity. Do you think this indictment and if convicted,
Speaker 1: the conviction will make it easier more acceptable to invite
Speaker 1: or change charge other politicians for their various crimes? Longtime
Speaker 1: follower love breaking points and you guys, we love you
Speaker 1: to ethan. I mean that kind of gets to what
Speaker 1: we're discussing. I guess it all just comes back to
Speaker 1: the original point that Ryan made, is well, what crimes
Speaker 1: are we talking about here? So insider trading? Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's roll right, Like, let the SEC and the federal
Speaker 1: prosecutors that said that hasn't ever happened. I mean, even
Speaker 1: in one of the most clear cut cases ever, the
Speaker 1: Richard Burr case, straight up insider trading. The FBI sees
Speaker 1: his phone, nothing happened to the guy. Still haven't heard
Speaker 1: anything about it two or three years later, and somehow,
Speaker 1: you know, we're all twisting ourselves in the knots here
Speaker 1: Manhattan DA is to indict felony bookkeeping fraud on thirty
Speaker 1: four different counts. That is where we could see, obviously
Speaker 1: the dichotomy of what this might look like. So do
Speaker 1: you guys think that this will pave the way to
Speaker 1: the type of crimes that I think all of us,
Speaker 1: including especially the Breaking Points audience, wants to see politics
Speaker 1: actually get charged with. I honestly don't think so. I
Speaker 1: actually just think Ryan's point stands. The establishment is still
Speaker 1: so strong, but the establishment might not be able to
Speaker 1: contain what they unleash. I think that they're doing this
Speaker 1: on purpose this way so that they can try to
Speaker 1: coord and off themselves from any type of future accountability.
Speaker 1: But there will be so much appetite for revenge next
Speaker 1: time around, like, well, if you did this, so now
Speaker 1: we're going to come for you. And when they start
Speaker 1: to come for their opposition, they're going to go for whatever.
Speaker 1: And so they might end up and there might be
Speaker 1: so much pressure on them to make a case that
Speaker 1: they might have to make an actual corruption case. Well,
Speaker 1: and then the Supreme Court will say that there is
Speaker 1: no sing as we forgot. I fundamentally think the obstacle
Speaker 1: to that happening is the media's disinterest. I think you
Speaker 1: can't fix this without a genuinely curious and skeptical fourth estate.
Speaker 1: I think this is a media if I think we
Speaker 1: were all watching MSNBC and CNN today. Fortunately I now
Speaker 1: forced myself to do it for everybody here. It is
Speaker 1: though well, I needed to know. What I needed was
Speaker 1: to see every inch of Trump's day. I wanted to
Speaker 1: watch it, but a second by second breakdown on camera.
Speaker 1: But in all honesty, so long as you have MSNBC, CNN,
Speaker 1: Washington Post, New York Times, the entire corporate media establishment
Speaker 1: cheerleading for the selective prosecution, let's set this case aside.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the entire I think approach to Trump
Speaker 1: while also ignoring or doing what they did in the
Speaker 1: lead up to the twenty twenty election with the hunter
Speaker 1: Biden's story. Again, I'm not trying to make I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to draw equivalences here. I'm just trying to say
Speaker 1: it is obvious the media has a pattern of selective prosecution,
Speaker 1: selective interest in corruption. They'll have interesting corruption if it's
Speaker 1: an anti establishment Democrat, they'll have an interesting corruption if
Speaker 1: it's an anti establishment Republican. It doesn't matter. They are
Speaker 1: a uniparty in favor of the political establishment, so as
Speaker 1: long as they control the political discourse in this country,
Speaker 1: I don't think this changes things. I think maybe it
Speaker 1: does pave the way for prosecutors maybe in Red states,
Speaker 1: And Grind's right, there is a there's a question of
Speaker 1: precedent here. If you start having prosecutors in Red States
Speaker 1: do one thing. But if the media tells the public
Speaker 1: that that's bullshit and what Bragg did is totally legitimate,
Speaker 1: then it's a that's a huge obstacle. I sort of
Speaker 1: buy the idea, you know. I think about thinking, here
Speaker 1: we are twenty years later in Rock War, like thinking
Speaker 1: a lot back over that whole trajectory, and the media
Speaker 1: journalists who like were stenographers for who the Bush administration
Speaker 1: and who fed these lies and not only suffered no
Speaker 1: professional consequences, many of them are like wealthier and more
Speaker 1: powerful than ever before. Many of them are central like
Speaker 1: players and commentators in this hole. Literally lie. There are
Speaker 1: no consequences to Ryan's point, to committing a crime or
Speaker 1: telling a lie, or making a giant mistake as long
Speaker 1: as it's in the like accepted DC way in service
Speaker 1: of like whatever the establishment narrative is, or I think
Speaker 1: to carry it over into relevance. Like with the criminal
Speaker 1: legal world, if you're doing the same crimes that everybody
Speaker 1: else is doing, you're probably safe because they're not going
Speaker 1: to want to open the can of worms of like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's actually be serious about insider trading, let's actually be
Speaker 1: serious about corruption, let's actually be serious about war crimes,
Speaker 1: because everyone's implicated. And so I do think that the
Speaker 1: things that will that this opens the door for are
Speaker 1: the more like, more brazen or more outside of the
Speaker 1: traditional carved out space of DC crime. I think those
Speaker 1: are the pieces that are likely to be prosecuted more.
Speaker 1: And I can't say that that's like that. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: about that. I'm sorry that it won't also touch the
Speaker 1: sort of parts of you know, criminality in DC that
Speaker 1: just become accepted as the part of doing business here.
Speaker 1: But the idea of more politicians facing more charges for
Speaker 1: the crimes that they commit, I'm not going to cry
Speaker 1: about that one h I think, well, why don't we
Speaker 1: talk about the politics erstual and the rules and all
Speaker 1: of that, so I know that we have a little
Speaker 1: bit Yeah, so let's go ahead, let's go and put
Speaker 1: the CNN poll. This is the most recent one out
Speaker 1: about how people feel about the actual charges. Now, I
Speaker 1: do want to say this pre dates us actually getting
Speaker 1: to see the specific charges, but everybody had a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea of where we were headed with these. So
Speaker 1: go ahead and put b one up on the screen
Speaker 1: from CNN. What you can see is that it breaks
Speaker 1: down unsurprisingly on long party lines. Ninety four percent of
Speaker 1: Democrats approve of the decision from Alvin Bragg to indict Trump,
Speaker 1: seventy nine percent of Republicans disapprove, sixty two percent of
Speaker 1: Independence approve, and overall you have a solid majority sixty
Speaker 1: percent of Americans who approve of Trump's indictment. And my
Speaker 1: analysis of this, then I'd be curious what you guys think,
Speaker 1: is that you know, you've got about sixty percent of
Speaker 1: the country that really doesn't like Trump, and they don't
Speaker 1: actually care that much about the details. They feel like
Speaker 1: and I kind of understand like they feel like this
Speaker 1: is a man who has gotten away with so much
Speaker 1: so long that now I'm going to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: what not this was like oh, and you're going to
Speaker 1: stretch it to a fellow I don't know about that,
Speaker 1: So I think you just get a gut it's a
Speaker 1: Rush Act test. Like, if you think Trump has been
Speaker 1: a lawless criminal for a lot of his life, then
Speaker 1: you're not going to like be worried that Alvin Bragg,
Speaker 1: you know, stretch the definition of the charge or whatever.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be like, good, this dude is finally getting
Speaker 1: what's coming to him. And if you're on the other
Speaker 1: side of that, and you like Trump and you believe
Speaker 1: in him, and you think he's been unfairly treated, then
Speaker 1: you're gonna obviously be opposed also, no matter what the
Speaker 1: specific details are, because let's not pretend that that forty
Speaker 1: percent or so or all the you know, seventy nine
Speaker 1: percent of Republics who are against these charges wouldn't also
Speaker 1: be against January sixth charges, wouldn't also be against the
Speaker 1: class my document charges, wouldn't also be against like fake
Speaker 1: elector scheme charges. What do you guys think? Go ahead, Ryan, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's right. I think I think that's what. I think.
Speaker 1: It's well said. So the fact that the charges basically
Speaker 1: came out exactly as people kind of thought they were
Speaker 1: a means we can basically I think extrapolate from that
Speaker 1: to where we are today. Emily, I'd be curious how
Speaker 1: you square that with the Trump camp celebration today of
Speaker 1: what a political win this is for them, because I
Speaker 1: also part of me also feels like they're not wrong
Speaker 1: about that. Oh, it is a political win. More than
Speaker 1: half the country wants him in jail. It's we're in
Speaker 1: such an amazing place right now. Wherever there's a black
Speaker 1: and white Trump has succeeded in terms of wherever the
Speaker 1: political establishment creates it, like impeachments is a good example,
Speaker 1: creates a situation where it looks unprecedented, or it looks
Speaker 1: like a witch hunt, whatever. Whenever that happens, Trump benefits
Speaker 1: from it. But that's a very different question. I think
Speaker 1: when you have Hillary Clinton not as the foil, when
Speaker 1: you potentially have a Joe Biden presidency in the rear
Speaker 1: view mirror where he's passed legislation that some people really like,
Speaker 1: I think that all changes the equation. Trump's internal polling.
Speaker 1: This is from Philip Blagmann to RCP. He told he
Speaker 1: was He reported that Trump's internal campaign polling looks like
Speaker 1: Trump v. DeSantis fifty one twenty one, fifty one twenty
Speaker 1: one Trump v. Biden forty seven forty three. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he his internals have him up on Biden. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't know how good those numbers are the Trump campaign. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it makes sense that they're going out there with us
Speaker 1: and celebrating it. It's not helpful ever in a general election.
Speaker 1: I think that's a ridiculous thing for Republicans to say.
Speaker 1: I think it's a cope that Republicans are saying five
Speaker 1: to ten percent of the country who would answer, I
Speaker 1: think these charges are good. Yeah, and I was supporting
Speaker 1: for president. Yeah. Actually, honestly, there definitely are. But there
Speaker 1: are the number because ten percent of the country that
Speaker 1: feels that way. But that's another importance thing to emphasize.
Speaker 1: Let me try on that is he said. Trump said
Speaker 1: repeatedly on the campaign trail, that makes me smart, when
Speaker 1: he talked about the way he exploited tax leopoles, when
Speaker 1: he talked about whereas Joe Biden will never address the
Speaker 1: fact that he routed his book money through an escort.
Speaker 1: Trump Joe Biden. Donald Trump would come out and be like, hell, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it makes me smart. He'd be like, you would
Speaker 1: do the same thing. It's baked into the Trump cake,
Speaker 1: and I think that sucks. I don't think that's a
Speaker 1: great precedent to set at all. I never liked it,
Speaker 1: and I think it made conservatives look really foolish a
Speaker 1: lot of the time. But it's completely expected Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and people know that that's how he This is the
Speaker 1: interesting thing I want to pick up on the politics
Speaker 1: front of this. Let's go to the next ones. Chrystally,
Speaker 1: you and I spent some time on this in our
Speaker 1: show with the tear sheet b Tube, guys, please In
Speaker 1: the same poll, sixty two percent of Americans, including ninety
Speaker 1: three percent of Republicans, seventy percent of independence and sixty
Speaker 1: six percent of Democrats, they're like, yeah, we do think
Speaker 1: it was motivated by politics though, so like even the
Speaker 1: people who all support the case and do think that
Speaker 1: he's guilty or you know, not necessarily in the case
Speaker 1: of Republicans, they're like, yeah, I still think it's political.
Speaker 1: So if you do think it's but then see that's
Speaker 1: where I come back to what you said, Ryan, where
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, I definitely think he's guilty, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's a wash and I don't like Joe Biden, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was political, and yes, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter to me. I'm I'm voting more on gas prices
Speaker 1: or Ukraine or the economy, or Biden can't speak, or
Speaker 1: Trump is whatever those people like. When things are political,
Speaker 1: it's a wash like this used to come back. I
Speaker 1: used to always come back to this, you know, after
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. Before twenty sixteen, everyone's I can't believe Trump's
Speaker 1: approval rating, by the way, as if Hillary's wasn't as bad.
Speaker 1: But the case was, he still had some sixty six
Speaker 1: million people who were willing to vote for him. Two
Speaker 1: thirds said I do not like this man. I don't
Speaker 1: like him, and then he got ten million more votes
Speaker 1: the second time around, after like, I hate this guy.
Speaker 1: I would never let in my house. I would not
Speaker 1: be friendsized person. I don't want to be around. I
Speaker 1: don't want him as a neighbor. But I'm going to
Speaker 1: vote for him for president of the United States. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I get it right, Like that's a deep animating thing
Speaker 1: in our politics. That's what you get. Have two likely
Speaker 1: nominees that are profoundly unpopular, one of whom is like
Speaker 1: sundowning before our eyes, and the next heart beat away
Speaker 1: is someone who is even more unpopular in these two guys.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you have people who were like, I literally
Speaker 1: want this man in prison, and also but I hate
Speaker 1: not sure of the air. And it's the same thing
Speaker 1: with Jeb Bush. It's like most Republican primary voters in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen voted against Donald Trump, which at the time
Speaker 1: was a vote against Donald Trump. It wasn't like you
Speaker 1: were just, oh, I'm really I'm a big Rubio person.
Speaker 1: People were a big Rubio person, but they were or
Speaker 1: cruise or whatever. It was spread out between many, many people,
Speaker 1: but they mostly were taking votes against Donald Trump. If
Speaker 1: you're voting for Donald Trump, you're voting for Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: And that again has continued over and over because the
Speaker 1: foil is Jeb freaking Bush, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and
Speaker 1: who's at next, Gavin Newsome Andrew Cuomo. I mean, seriously,
Speaker 1: like it just it. It's exactly why we are where
Speaker 1: we are because there is no serious answer from the
Speaker 1: republic Her Democratic Party to Donald Trump or to the
Speaker 1: some of the arguments he makes that have validity. They
Speaker 1: don't all well, but some of them, so I think
Speaker 1: we all will probably agree in terms of the Republican
Speaker 1: primary this is nothing but good for him. The trial
Speaker 1: is going to be playing out like at the height
Speaker 1: of the prime I mean, nothing could be four Literally,
Speaker 1: Desanta should just not run. I'm actually like, at this point,
Speaker 1: you heard this is kind of his moment. I just
Speaker 1: don't see it. I don't see it. So we'll put
Speaker 1: that in motion to dismiss. But yeah, yeah, well, yes, true,
Speaker 1: we'll put that to the side because I do think
Speaker 1: the impact on the general election is a lot less clear.
Speaker 1: And here's why. I could see a world where it's
Speaker 1: basically a wash, where people just you know, they know
Speaker 1: all this stuff about Trump. They live through January sixth,
Speaker 1: they live through the fake electors. It's sort of like
Speaker 1: baked into the cake. They're also not happy with Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: and so it's sort of a jump ball. But we
Speaker 1: did see ryan in the midterm elections that Trump was
Speaker 1: a real wait around the GOP and specifically because of
Speaker 1: January sixth and stop the Steal and all of the chaos,
Speaker 1: and him and his candidates were very much repudiated. So
Speaker 1: if you have overhanging the general election in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: him dealing with legal woes to do with you know,
Speaker 1: January six documents stop the steal all of those sorts
Speaker 1: of things. I do think that that could be much
Speaker 1: more damaging to him than honestly I would have thought
Speaker 1: before the midterm results. Yeah, and the raid on mar
Speaker 1: A Lago played so handily into Democratic fortunes that there
Speaker 1: was a lot of speculation that Democrats did it just
Speaker 1: for the purpose of getting Trump back into the midterms
Speaker 1: either way, no matter how the decision was made. Once
Speaker 1: that decision was made, Democrats wanted to talk about nothing
Speaker 1: else other than trumpep and they used mar A Lago
Speaker 1: and this document handling as the excuse to do that,
Speaker 1: and that it did seem to work like that did
Speaker 1: seem to drag Republicans down there. And so you know,
Speaker 1: Democrats have no credibility whatsoever on this question because in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, Hillary Clinton did her pied piper thing. She's like,
Speaker 1: this is the guy that we're going to be able
Speaker 1: to easily beat. We know how that ended, right, Yet
Speaker 1: twenty twenty they were convinced they could beat him, and
Speaker 1: they beat him. Twenty twenty two, they wont him out
Speaker 1: in the field. They thought it would help them. It
Speaker 1: did help them, So maybe they've won some of their
Speaker 1: credibility back on this playing with fire because they've also
Speaker 1: gone out and played in all these Republican primaries, helping
Speaker 1: all these MAGA candidates win huge taking a huge risk
Speaker 1: with in the future of the country. I think they
Speaker 1: won every single one of those. So they do seem
Speaker 1: like they want this guy out. Oh, look to me,
Speaker 1: it's one of those where how can you disaggregate stop
Speaker 1: the steal from abortion? Because abortion was such a clear,
Speaker 1: massive and winner for the Democrats that you could be
Speaker 1: learning the wrong lesson, like how much to stop the
Speaker 1: steel matter? We actually really don't know, and then how
Speaker 1: much did stop the steal? Insanity play into Well, if
Speaker 1: they're willing to go full our word on stop the steal, like,
Speaker 1: does that mean they will do the same thing whenever
Speaker 1: it comes to abortion. Man, whenever somebody says then you're
Speaker 1: an extremist, you're like, yeah, maybe I should just sit
Speaker 1: this one out. Trump, though, is actually a lot smarter
Speaker 1: than most Republicans on abortion. He actively is missing himself
Speaker 1: from Ropers's way. He's like, yeah, I got it done.
Speaker 1: But also I wouldn't be doing what a lot of
Speaker 1: these other people are doing. There's not a single other
Speaker 1: Republican literally in the entire country who is willing to
Speaker 1: do that, let alone the most popular person. So I
Speaker 1: don't think it would be as easy to like beat
Speaker 1: over the head for Joe Biden and others. Same thing
Speaker 1: whenever it comes to Medicare, social Security. But you could
Speaker 1: say whatever you want about the man, especially on tax policy,
Speaker 1: but on entitlements itself, you could not attack him saying
Speaker 1: that this is something that you wanted to do. So
Speaker 1: what do you think about that? Emily? Like in the
Speaker 1: general election, Lens, I just I respect Trump too much
Speaker 1: as a politician to say, do not ever count this
Speaker 1: man out. Yeah, I know he's a clown, but listen,
Speaker 1: you know, clown got a lot of votes. He has
Speaker 1: political skills, weirdly, and I think part of that comes
Speaker 1: from being an entertainer of course, with people, as people
Speaker 1: have mentioned over the years. But I do think it's
Speaker 1: it's important that everything we're talking about gets this issue
Speaker 1: of polarization and that what one thing energizes the Republican
Speaker 1: turnout democratic turner. I actually think we're going to get
Speaker 1: a hint of this in Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which
Speaker 1: I know we're going to talk about a little bit tonight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just in terms of turnout. You know, when you have
Speaker 1: a third of the country in the camp, that's like,
Speaker 1: prosecute him. It's political, but it's still okay because we
Speaker 1: got to get him on something like he's done so
Speaker 1: many things over the years. We got to get him
Speaker 1: on something he deserves that he's skated too many times.
Speaker 1: When you have that thirty percent and thirty percent, that's like,
Speaker 1: which hunt, this is how I end up going out
Speaker 1: to vote, et cetera, et cetera. Then you have that
Speaker 1: like remaining portion of the country, maybe the normal portion
Speaker 1: of the country, that's just like, what the hell is
Speaker 1: going on? I'm exhausted by this. We litigated Stormy Daniels
Speaker 1: four years ago, five years ago. Why am I hearing
Speaker 1: the name again? Like, I don't know who Kerry McDougall is,
Speaker 1: but I've heard the name a million times. I just
Speaker 1: don't care. So I think it's just really hard to
Speaker 1: say about the general election until we know where the
Speaker 1: economy is, where Joe Biden is, until we see, for instance,
Speaker 1: where the Documents case goes, where the Georgia case goes.
Speaker 1: This is really the tip of the iceberg. One thing
Speaker 1: we know for sure is that there are other cases,
Speaker 1: and there will be other developments in those cases before
Speaker 1: the election, and so in that way, it's just very
Speaker 1: hard to imagine we know definitively which little block gets
Speaker 1: animated enough to tilt an election that historically with Trump
Speaker 1: has been a slim margin. No matter what, Let's go ahead,
Speaker 1: let's do some questions here from the premium subscribers and guys,
Speaker 1: use the AMA. If you are premium subscriber, use the
Speaker 1: AMA function that you all know and love. If you
Speaker 1: are not a premium subscriber, you can still become a
Speaker 1: premium subscriber. Bringpoints dot com and then you can submenty
Speaker 1: your questions. Okay, Talon Mahaski, what happens if Trump goes
Speaker 1: to prison and gets elected? It's a great question, Hi,
Speaker 1: Cryslin Sagar. You've mentioned previously on the podcast that Eugene
Speaker 1: Debs set the precedent for receiving votes while in prison
Speaker 1: in that instance the camp at lost. Is there any
Speaker 1: roadmap or guidelines for what would happen if Trump were
Speaker 1: to be found guilty in any of the upcoming cases
Speaker 1: and if he were to win the election. No, there
Speaker 1: is no roadmap. There also is no guideline. What complicates
Speaker 1: this even more is you can't try a sitting president
Speaker 1: and actually the significant amount of legal immunity that you
Speaker 1: get whenever you become president. So whenever you become the
Speaker 1: president elect, he wouldn't be entitled to any of those
Speaker 1: legal protections. But however, whenever you would become the president,
Speaker 1: then actually that would change everything, especially potentially in terms
Speaker 1: of new charges. Obviously, it would be totally uncharted territory.
Speaker 1: I've actually asked for people who know there. As far
Speaker 1: as others know, there is no existing DOJ guidance around
Speaker 1: any of this. It never got to this point during Nixon,
Speaker 1: obviously because he was going to be forced out of office,
Speaker 1: and then Ford with the preemptive pardon for any and
Speaker 1: all crimes, also removed what it would look like secret
Speaker 1: service detail and all that. I believe that's the last
Speaker 1: time it was ever seriously considered by the United States government. So,
Speaker 1: as you alluded to Eugene Debs, who was the socialist
Speaker 1: candidate in that in that election, I think he actually
Speaker 1: won a decent amount of the it was like four
Speaker 1: percent or something like that. It was it was not
Speaker 1: it was not an insignificant number of votes. But obviously
Speaker 1: I think that was one hundred years ago now at
Speaker 1: this point, and in terms of the development for pre
Speaker 1: existing guidance what you asked for talent, there is no roadmap,
Speaker 1: There is no guideline. So we'll all find out together.
Speaker 1: Do you read about Debs in your new book? No
Speaker 1: too now, too early? Yeah? Yeah, interesting guy though, Yes
Speaker 1: it was the espionage yet he was giving anti World
Speaker 1: War One speeches, that's right, And they said, well, you're
Speaker 1: messing with the you're messing with our ability to recruit
Speaker 1: though boys to go over and save the world from democracy. Right,
Speaker 1: But I guess Trump would he'd be sworn in in
Speaker 1: his cell. Is that how that would have to work?
Speaker 1: Now he commander in chief? Could he order a seal
Speaker 1: team raid on the jail and bust himself out. Nothing
Speaker 1: requires of the president actually to be sworn in at
Speaker 1: the Capitol. They only need to get sworn in by
Speaker 1: a federal j like LBJ sworn in on LBJ. Harry
Speaker 1: Truman was sworn in in the White House. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think about some of the other ones who are
Speaker 1: some of them actually didn't even take the oath of office.
Speaker 1: Until days later, which is kind of crazy from a
Speaker 1: commander in chief perspective because you're like, are technically in
Speaker 1: charge of the government or not. Part of the reason
Speaker 1: why LBJ wanted to take the oath. So maybe you
Speaker 1: if you followed the logic, if you can't try a prosecutor,
Speaker 1: so you can't jail I mean you can't a president.
Speaker 1: You can't sentence. You can't jail one either. You pause
Speaker 1: his sentence, he serves his term, and then he goes
Speaker 1: right back right when he finishes. I do want to
Speaker 1: note for everybody it is eight fifteen that is technically
Speaker 1: the start time for the Trump press conference. We're on watch.
Speaker 1: We are taking a look at that. The moment that
Speaker 1: he comes out and he's actually up on the stage,
Speaker 1: we'll bring into all of you. Yeah, and don't forget also,
Speaker 1: I don't we are still going to also try and
Speaker 1: cover the Wisconsin election in Chicago mayor e. Well, so
Speaker 1: we're not only going to be talking about these are
Speaker 1: huge I was refreshing my memories asn't a president. But
Speaker 1: do you guys know Jim traffic hand is yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he actually held This is funny. He held the seat
Speaker 1: that Tim Ryan represented in Youngstown, and Ryan was actually
Speaker 1: an aid for him at one point. And then trafficant
Speaker 1: was found guilty on ten felon accounts of all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff, and then he gets expelled from Congress. So
Speaker 1: I mean that was like sort of he was sort
Speaker 1: of sentenced to prison and then kicked out of Congress.
Speaker 1: And then when he gets out, he tried to run again,
Speaker 1: and Ryan runs against him and beats him. But that's
Speaker 1: sort of the closest that I can think of in
Speaker 1: modern history to a member of Congress or elected official
Speaker 1: being directly like in prison while trying to serve an office.
Speaker 1: It also could become constitutional because there would be all
Speaker 1: these questions up to the Supreme Court, because then also
Speaker 1: they could make an argument around like election certification at
Speaker 1: the state level, as whether you would even certify vote
Speaker 1: for like the elector why would the electoral college then
Speaker 1: cast a vote for somebody who was actively in president. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this would be really interesting. Yeah. So you guys remember
Speaker 1: Don Blankenship in West Virginia. He's a primary campaign, that's right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Oh wow, man, isn't
Speaker 1: he the any I think he did cocaine? Mitch question
Speaker 1: all right, Evan lamarca premium subscriber again, you can become one,
Speaker 1: or if you're a pre existing one, submit them on
Speaker 1: the AMA question Hello, breaking points. If former President Trump
Speaker 1: wins the twenty twenty four election, do you think he
Speaker 1: will forgive and forget the actions taken by the legal system?
Speaker 1: Are we looking at the same Trump here, Evan? Is
Speaker 1: there a chance that Hunter Biden or President Biden will
Speaker 1: then face charges because of retribution by Trump? Will this
Speaker 1: set a dangerous president for future presidents and presidential candidates?
Speaker 1: Let's put the precedent aside, because I think we've already
Speaker 1: answered that one Trump himself, Emily, what do you think
Speaker 1: My take is is that he would ask the DOJ
Speaker 1: and try to get Jeff Sessions or whoever the future
Speaker 1: type of person like that would be to do so,
Speaker 1: but that they probably wouldn't do it, because that's basically
Speaker 1: exactly what happened all throughout his entire presidency. Yes, but
Speaker 1: he learned from that, and that's where then, and that's
Speaker 1: where I think it gets really interesting, is that you know,
Speaker 1: from Schedule F to everything else, one of the big
Speaker 1: elements of this transition phase that the conservative movement is
Speaker 1: looking at right now. They see this as a potential
Speaker 1: transition phase to another Trump presidency, to a desantist presidency.
Speaker 1: They're trying to staff up. They're trying to actually vet
Speaker 1: people in advance of a potential Republican presidency to staff
Speaker 1: the administrative state and some of these really high level appointments.
Speaker 1: They are. If there's one thing that is animating that effort,
Speaker 1: it's to get the right people that will follow those
Speaker 1: sort of directives. Now, there were a lot of people,
Speaker 1: even in the sort of Trump friendly conservative legal movement
Speaker 1: after the twenty twenty election, who said, now, like this
Speaker 1: stuff is nonsense. Should they have been more vocal, perhaps,
Speaker 1: but there were a lot of people who disagreed on
Speaker 1: that point. Mike Pence is actually one of them. Mike
Speaker 1: Pence actually sought out Council on the legitimacy of that
Speaker 1: legal argument, which was dead on arrival to a lot
Speaker 1: of people's ears. But he actually went out and said,
Speaker 1: is their legitimacy to this? And a lot of people
Speaker 1: in that world him no. But that said, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: knows damn well that that's what blocked a lot of
Speaker 1: his agenda. You said, Jeff Sessions accusing himself from the
Speaker 1: Russia investigation, it's still rank of Donald Trump, so I
Speaker 1: think he's really learned a lesson from that. So in
Speaker 1: another Trump presidency, I think, frankly, there's a question of
Speaker 1: whether you could possibly find enough people to do that.
Speaker 1: So I think that's a legitimate question, But I also
Speaker 1: think that is their top priority. I mean, I am
Speaker 1: a little skeptical always Ryan when I see these articles
Speaker 1: about like, oh, this time is going to be different
Speaker 1: and Trump learned is this time it's going to be
Speaker 1: highly competent from the top down, and they get the
Speaker 1: planned in place. It's like, you know, he did have
Speaker 1: four years to figure some of this stuff out and
Speaker 1: he never did. So I'm a little skeptical that it
Speaker 1: would be this well oiled machine a second time around,
Speaker 1: with everybody in police to like do his bidding or
Speaker 1: the bidding of the conservative ecosystem or whatever the goal
Speaker 1: timately is. They don't call it the shallow state. It's
Speaker 1: a deep You're not gonna be able to come in
Speaker 1: with just a couple of dudes who were really charged up,
Speaker 1: like go do this do it all? How funny was it?
Speaker 1: See Boris today? I was some of these people. It's
Speaker 1: like they're characters that never died. I mean Jason. Look,
Speaker 1: I'll say this about Jason, he actually is pretty good
Speaker 1: at his job, like relative to almost everybody else I've
Speaker 1: dealt with him. Also on the he understands the assignment.
Speaker 1: He is exactly you know what it is. He understands
Speaker 1: the assignment. And also Trump really trusts him, and that's
Speaker 1: something very rare. Some of the people around Trump. I
Speaker 1: will just say, that's some of the dumbest people I've
Speaker 1: ever met. No, no, only the best, the best. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that aside, Crystal, I get to your point.
Speaker 1: I think you're correct, which is fundamentally I just don't
Speaker 1: believe it. I'm like, I actually saw this movie before.
Speaker 1: There's no reason to believe that literally anything has changed.
Speaker 1: Everybody's like, oh, but this time they're gonna vet the appointees.
Speaker 1: They're the president on day one is supposed to appoint
Speaker 1: some five thousand people to government. How many people actually
Speaker 1: are going to check that box of what you just
Speaker 1: alluded to? Maybe two hundred, maybe three hundreday bakers. H Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's like where are all these people coming from? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, you actually need and also you know, to
Speaker 1: work for the federal government. I'm not even saying I
Speaker 1: support this, but they're all kinds of like license You're like,
Speaker 1: you know, I have to be a lawyer. If you
Speaker 1: want to be in this job, you have to have had,
Speaker 1: you know, exposition or what master's degree. I believe in
Speaker 1: some many of these like non Senate confirmed appointed positions
Speaker 1: within the government. And then even if you do appoint them,
Speaker 1: some of them, as I just said, are Senate confirmed
Speaker 1: all the way down to the undersecretary level. There's no
Speaker 1: reason you know that Lindsey Graham or any of these.
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney is going to vote for these people. It's
Speaker 1: not like the Democrats aren't going to help you out.
Speaker 1: And what if the Democrats keep control of the Senate,
Speaker 1: what Chuck Schumer is going to let some moron is
Speaker 1: twenty two years old to be like under secretary. You know,
Speaker 1: It's like there's always structural reasons, but I just don't
Speaker 1: think that's going to work out. And it gets worse
Speaker 1: than that. And I know that one of the biggest
Speaker 1: hurdles for people who wanted to be in the Trumpet
Speaker 1: administration is that they had this ham fisted rule. Well,
Speaker 1: they implemented yes about people's tweets, and they would scroll
Speaker 1: back years in people's tweets, and a perfectly qualified person
Speaker 1: who was super maga wouldn't get a job because they
Speaker 1: sent one tweet in favor of Ted Cruz in fifteen.
Speaker 1: I have personal friends who this happened to you. That's funny,
Speaker 1: by the way, guys, And it looks like secret Service
Speaker 1: is moving through the room. I'm just keeping an eye
Speaker 1: on the feed just to make sure you see what's
Speaker 1: going on. But it looks like there's some activity in
Speaker 1: the room. People are getting excited, so just keep that
Speaker 1: in mind. Just talking, all right, let's do another Let's
Speaker 1: do another premium question here real quick. Before I do that, though,
Speaker 1: I do want to remind people that we will have
Speaker 1: election results later too, and the Chicago mayor's race, and
Speaker 1: this Wisconsin State Supreme Court race, which is weirdly extremely
Speaker 1: important because it could flip it's currently a four to
Speaker 1: three conservative majority, could flip the sort of partisan inclinations
Speaker 1: of the court. Huge stakes in terms of potential presidential election.
Speaker 1: Wisconsin was the only state Supreme court that even considered
Speaker 1: Trump's you know, in sane stop the Steel Court case nonsense,
Speaker 1: huge implications in terms of abortion. As it stands, this
Speaker 1: like eighteen hundred's complete abortion ban is in effect in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: The more liberal candidate has said she would vote with
Speaker 1: the other liberals to overturn that. So a lot of
Speaker 1: voters saying that like that is number one for them.
Speaker 1: Also huge implications in terms of just partisan control of
Speaker 1: the state. This is a state that has been gerrymandered
Speaker 1: like crazy in favor of the Republicans. So a liberal
Speaker 1: balance court would look very skeptically at this so very
Speaker 1: high stakes there that we're going to be watching for.
Speaker 1: But let's go ahead and is Trump coming out or
Speaker 1: he's walking out? I was just telling everybody of our control,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and switch over to the feed here, guys,
Speaker 1: this is the former president. Yes, and you can see
Speaker 1: him walking in here. Personally, I cannot do this. I
Speaker 1: was wishing they would call him president A Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Individual one, individual one. Some of the cowboy
Speaker 1: hats reading supporters and fans. There as kind of more
Speaker 1: of a rally vibe energy to it than you know,
Speaker 1: any sort of like somber legal proceeding or anything like that.
Speaker 1: The idea is, I guess he's going to give some
Speaker 1: comments and maybe he's going to take questions from the
Speaker 1: pre I don't see just looking at this setup, I
Speaker 1: don't see how he could possibly take a questions. Where
Speaker 1: would the press be? And then it looks like he's moving.
Speaker 1: Is this the ballroom? I believe in mar Lago and
Speaker 1: he's like moving, like lovingly through the crowd taking I
Speaker 1: mean that they certainly look like they love it. I
Speaker 1: don't know if he loves them, but he loves him
Speaker 1: enough to sell him a fifty dollars T shirt with
Speaker 1: a fake Buggs with a fake mudshot. Did you guys
Speaker 1: see that? I may or may not have bought one
Speaker 1: already for the set. Yeah, but just looking I guess
Speaker 1: he's making his way. I'm just looking at this logistically, Emily,
Speaker 1: do you agree, I'm not sure how this could possibly
Speaker 1: set up up as a press conference that's what they're
Speaker 1: billing it at this setup looks like his campaign. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a rally. It looks like it looks like
Speaker 1: when it does look a campaign, it does look exactly
Speaker 1: like his campaign announcement. Well, he brings a little bit
Speaker 1: more fire than he did for the last time that
Speaker 1: we were all together. Yeah, we were so boring. The
Speaker 1: last time. So before we hear him start, what do
Speaker 1: you guys think, Is this going to be like a
Speaker 1: wild Trump off the cuff speech or is this going
Speaker 1: to be one of the tame teleprompter like stay on
Speaker 1: the script Trump speeches. I think he's in it. I
Speaker 1: think he's most animated when he's in back against the wall. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I always think about the day. The most
Speaker 1: animated I ever saw the man was. I interviewed him
Speaker 1: two days after the midterm elections, and it was because
Speaker 1: it was a disaster that in eighteen and he his
Speaker 1: only mission in life was to convince me and then
Speaker 1: the press later in the press conference that it was
Speaker 1: not his fault. That all right, guys, all right, so
Speaker 1: he's coming up here, let's go. Let's see how it
Speaker 1: goes to Trump. We'll see, all right, gents, let's cut
Speaker 1: to the wide and let's see what exactly the means
Speaker 1: you guys on the other side. All right, That was
Speaker 1: the former president giving what was much more of like
Speaker 1: a campaign speech than a direct response to the charges
Speaker 1: of the day, going through all the greatest hits, going
Speaker 1: back to the beginning, Russia Gate, impeachment, Ukraine, the whole bit,
Speaker 1: and also, and this was maybe I wasn't necessarily expecting this,
Speaker 1: talking not just about the indictments from today, but going
Speaker 1: through each of the potential charges that could come against
Speaker 1: him with regards to documents and fake elector scheme. You
Speaker 1: talked specifically about Fulton County. And by the way, disclaimer
Speaker 1: for YouTube, any nonsense that he said about the election
Speaker 1: is exactly that, So we are not endorsing any of
Speaker 1: the claims that he made in that video. But what
Speaker 1: are you guys' top line thoughts on I'm stunned at
Speaker 1: how short the speech was. It comes in in exactly
Speaker 1: twenty one minutes. It's one of the shortest speeches that
Speaker 1: Trump is given in a lot. I've seen him give
Speaker 1: speeches at like the Easter dedication for the White House,
Speaker 1: which are longer. But number one was not spending more
Speaker 1: time going through the specifics, not talking about the indictment. Actually,
Speaker 1: I thought it was a smart move because he basically
Speaker 1: pulled back, and I thought it was a bit of
Speaker 1: a tell spending more of his time, not even on
Speaker 1: Alvin Bragg. If you look at and somebody can go
Speaker 1: do the statistical analysis dramatically, more time talking about the documents,
Speaker 1: about the Presidential Records Act and about the Fulton County, Georgia.
Speaker 1: It might actually be an insight into his thinking as
Speaker 1: to where he faces genuine legal and political jeopardy, not
Speaker 1: actually looking at this as all that much of a threat.
Speaker 1: One of the most important lines Philip Weigman flagging from
Speaker 1: real care politics is that he said that prosecutors wanted
Speaker 1: him to settle the case, but quote, I want no
Speaker 1: part of that now. Look, obviously we have no idea
Speaker 1: whether that is true or not. It's certainly possible. I
Speaker 1: guess that it could be true that they were trying
Speaker 1: to roll him up or get him to a plea deal.
Speaker 1: Just everybody can get a press relation roll them up
Speaker 1: on who he's the president. That's a good point. I
Speaker 1: don't know what really happened. Who's the Davos guy. What's
Speaker 1: his name? Oh? Yeah, well up. And it's funny because
Speaker 1: you were just talking about bugs. Just so people know.
Speaker 1: They weren't that bad. I hate him in tailand they
Speaker 1: were nice not sending me to the pod. Do you
Speaker 1: guys think, Yeah, what do you guys think? What was
Speaker 1: your Yeah? It was like a good Billy Joel concert.
Speaker 1: He's playing all the hits like he was he was
Speaker 1: feeling it, like it wasn't the Trump that just kind
Speaker 1: of stumbled out there right after that the election. I
Speaker 1: think he very much regretted taking the advice of his advisors,
Speaker 1: who a said he should announce at that point and
Speaker 1: b said that he should stick to the script and
Speaker 1: try to be uh, you know this this politician who's
Speaker 1: like plays within the rules, and he did that, and
Speaker 1: he's like, now look what they did. They're trying to
Speaker 1: throw me in jail. So you know, he's just going
Speaker 1: to say, we'll screw it. What's the point, and it
Speaker 1: will set him up. It gives him a reason to
Speaker 1: run his campaign because now he can just say he's,
Speaker 1: you know, fighting off all of these different forces that
Speaker 1: are coming on him, which then means that he doesn't
Speaker 1: actually have to say what he was going to do
Speaker 1: with if he's elected. I almost have this thought, I'm
Speaker 1: curious what you guys think. This to me is like
Speaker 1: almost the real campaign launch of twenty twenty four. Like
Speaker 1: his original campaign, it was such a snooze fest. We
Speaker 1: covered it all here Live, you know, we made a
Speaker 1: whole big to do out of it, and we watched it.
Speaker 1: We're like this, that's it, Like it's so disappointing. This
Speaker 1: it felt genuine for with him just watching him, you know,
Speaker 1: meandering all over the place. Chinatown is my personal favorite.
Speaker 1: We're all trying to figure out, like what is he
Speaker 1: talking about here? That is a part of a vintage Trump.
Speaker 1: His energy scene there seemed more in a fighting posture, Crystal,
Speaker 1: What did you think overall? Yeah, I mean it is
Speaker 1: kind of an in between vibe because certainly higher energy
Speaker 1: than the campaign launch, which was almost like very somber
Speaker 1: of their but he was more or less on script, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, short spit speech. He more or less to
Speaker 1: the teleprompter with a few little ad libs here or there.
Speaker 1: So it was like, in terms of the Trump vibe,
Speaker 1: it was kind of in between. He clearly had a
Speaker 1: lot more energy than he did at the campaign launch,
Speaker 1: and a couple things stand out to me. Number one,
Speaker 1: to your point, Sager, I'm not sure it is smart
Speaker 1: strategically for him to focus on all the range of charges,
Speaker 1: because these particular charges are the weakest of all of
Speaker 1: them and the ones that he has the most to
Speaker 1: work with. So I'm actually a little surprised from a
Speaker 1: tactical perspective that he didn't just like laser in on
Speaker 1: these and hammer at home and get all the talking
Speaker 1: points going, and then the move is, which he has
Speaker 1: done before everything else, even though the other things may
Speaker 1: have more merit and may be more difficult to dismiss,
Speaker 1: you just lump them in the same category and say, see,
Speaker 1: it was a witch hunt with Alvin Bragg, and these
Speaker 1: are all witch hunts too, without having to get into
Speaker 1: all the specifics of like the parah, the document, like group,
Speaker 1: and what the acronyms he's using that I don't even
Speaker 1: know obviously off the top of my head. So I
Speaker 1: was spri that tactically. I do think it's a tell
Speaker 1: that he, like you kept pointing to Emily saying this
Speaker 1: is the tip of the iceberg, he clearly sees it
Speaker 1: that way as well. He sees this as the first
Speaker 1: of probably a number of charges he's going to have
Speaker 1: to deal with, and so he is already trying to
Speaker 1: make his case about all of those charges right now
Speaker 1: from the beginning. So I think that is noteworthy. And
Speaker 1: then in the politics of it, and Emily would love
Speaker 1: to get your thought about this again, this just makes
Speaker 1: it impossible for any other Republican contender, because this is
Speaker 1: like the campaign launch, and guess what, It's not about
Speaker 1: policy or you know, what you're going to do for
Speaker 1: your state or for the country or whatever. It's about
Speaker 1: the litany of the attacks on him that he sees
Speaker 1: is unfair and all the people that are out to
Speaker 1: get him. How do you compete with that when that
Speaker 1: is the landscape that he is crafting, and that is
Speaker 1: going to be the landscape that the media is playing
Speaker 1: on too going into the primary elections. You absolutely don't.
Speaker 1: And I actually wonder if that's factoring into Rhonda santa
Speaker 1: decision to test the waters in a way. He's not
Speaker 1: in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, like Tim Scott, like
Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo, like other people that are declared. Of course,
Speaker 1: he is an acting governor, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: he really has waited, I think more has with more
Speaker 1: hesitants and eluctance into those waters than anyone else. Because
Speaker 1: if the election is about Donald Trump, the only person
Speaker 1: who's going to win a Republican primary is Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: If one of the top issues every single day is
Speaker 1: that for Republicans, the government is being weaponized to pursue
Speaker 1: a political enemy, and that political enemy is Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Even if it's a proxy as symbol, Trump always says,
Speaker 1: it's not about me, it's about you. I'm only in
Speaker 1: the way. If that's it, he's still the one in
Speaker 1: the way. So it doesn't make any sense that you
Speaker 1: could see somebody eating at the media attention. I understand
Speaker 1: all the arguments that there are different lanes for different
Speaker 1: Republican candidates going forward. I get it. But if this
Speaker 1: becomes the headline news over and over again, now that
Speaker 1: we have super hungry district attorney down in Atlanta, we
Speaker 1: have a special council probe on the documents. That's to
Speaker 1: Ryan's point he made earlier that was huge in the
Speaker 1: midterm elections was forcing the conversation about Trump with the documents.
Speaker 1: Democrats were very successful in making every candidate who was
Speaker 1: running everywhere talk constantly about Donald Trump, answer answer for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. It made the MAGA candidates talk. It was
Speaker 1: like bait for them, talk more and more and more
Speaker 1: about Donald Trump. He has raised ten million dollars since
Speaker 1: the indictment. This is a big is a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Ten million dollars since the indictment, So not only in
Speaker 1: the sort of media ecosystem. Will he eat up all
Speaker 1: of the different time and conversation. He could also do
Speaker 1: that with donors. It's also entirely possible that because he's
Speaker 1: the high profile subject of this, he gets all of
Speaker 1: the funding money. I kept thinking about that too, you know,
Speaker 1: earlier when I was watching Joe Biden is the president
Speaker 1: and he is the most irrelevant man today in the
Speaker 1: middle of his own tenure, the press the White House.
Speaker 1: CNN is chartering her speedboat to watch this plane land,
Speaker 1: the helicopter shots, the drones. There were hundreds of press
Speaker 1: assembled outside of Manhattan, and the President of the United
Speaker 1: States is sitting in the White House and they quote
Speaker 1: call the lid like no public events scheduled at three
Speaker 1: o'clock PM, because they're like no, It's like they're not
Speaker 1: even involved in any of this. And I just kept
Speaker 1: thinking about this. The Trump era began the day that
Speaker 1: he walked down the escalator. It will end the day
Speaker 1: that he dies. Even when he's not a candidate. He
Speaker 1: is literally the center of gravity of politics. He was
Speaker 1: like that even the first two years before he decided
Speaker 1: he was going to run again against Biden. And when
Speaker 1: you're the center of gravity, how do you run against that.
Speaker 1: He's a bigger he's almost a larger than life figure.
Speaker 1: He's not even political, he's meticultural. Now at this point,
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, what is your case to Republican voters? Like?
Speaker 1: You know, I saw Richard Hannania say this. He's like, listen,
Speaker 1: DeSantis won't win because there are not people on YouTube
Speaker 1: who consider themselves like actual QAnon preachers for Trump, who
Speaker 1: think they're going to deliver, like no one is like
Speaker 1: out there having shrines of Desanders, like he's going to
Speaker 1: del over me from wayfair pedophiles. What you're saying is
Speaker 1: that there's an opening market. Look, I get you're right
Speaker 1: doing you know who benefits you benefits the most to
Speaker 1: be out to have Joe Biden out of the news,
Speaker 1: Joe bid Of course, that's the craziness of it, all right,
Speaker 1: that's the craziness. And that's what I was thinking about,
Speaker 1: is listen, whether they're right or not. And I think
Speaker 1: they're very foolish and they're forgetting history to be like
Speaker 1: we want Donald Trump to be the nominee. That is
Speaker 1: what Democrats think. They want Donald Trump to be the nominee.
Speaker 1: They are more fearful of Ron DeSantis as a contender.
Speaker 1: The best thing for Joe Biden that could possibly happen
Speaker 1: is for Trump and the Trump circus to be dominating
Speaker 1: in the news and Biden to just be laying back
Speaker 1: and not saying anything. So you have really like a
Speaker 1: full service economy here. The corporate media on the liberal
Speaker 1: side is going to be interested in leaning into this,
Speaker 1: and I mean in a sense like we're doing that.
Speaker 1: I can't blame them, because it is historic to have
Speaker 1: a former president who is being indicted on this charge
Speaker 1: and probably a range of other charges as well. They're
Speaker 1: going to be leaning into it and making Trump the
Speaker 1: center of their iire conservative media is going to whether
Speaker 1: they want to or not, They're going to have to
Speaker 1: do the same thing on the other side and focus
Speaker 1: a lot on these and rebutting these charges, and that's
Speaker 1: going to be the center of gravity there. All of
Speaker 1: the oxygen in the political ecosystem is going to be
Speaker 1: taken up once again by Donald Trump. By the way,
Speaker 1: Brandon Johnson just went up, Wow and very interesting. Yes, guys,
Speaker 1: left wing, most left wing mayorson child Washington. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: So just to everybody who's watching the stream and who
Speaker 1: is listening, tomorrow when all this is going down. We
Speaker 1: are actively monitoring the Chicago mayoral results and the Wisconsin
Speaker 1: Supreme don't you give us Ryan a little bit of
Speaker 1: an update on give us a lay of the land
Speaker 1: in the Chicago rights for people I have been following
Speaker 1: this and are like, I don't live in Chicago, why
Speaker 1: should I care. It's a microcosm of our tough on
Speaker 1: crime and defund the police debate that we've been having
Speaker 1: since twenty twenty, basically with Democrats being told that you
Speaker 1: know everybody, you know that that anybody who ever wore
Speaker 1: defund the Police t shirt has to be driven out
Speaker 1: of politics forever. Speaking of thinking of Wisconsin, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And Mendel Barnes almost won that race that Democrats gave
Speaker 1: up on him on. So Brandon Johnson middle school teacher
Speaker 1: kind of left left. The organizer for the for the teachers'
Speaker 1: unions had the support of called it's called United Work,
Speaker 1: the United Working Families, which is an affiliate of Working
Speaker 1: Families Party, which has been organizing in Chicago for several
Speaker 1: cycles now, and kind of taking what was a little
Speaker 1: rump resistance to Rama Manuel and growing it into a
Speaker 1: real kind of Democratic Socialist base on the city Council,
Speaker 1: and this was their first candidate that they're running at
Speaker 1: the mayoral level in November, or most first serious one
Speaker 1: in November. He was at like three percent and he
Speaker 1: propelled himself into the runoff into the top two against
Speaker 1: Paul Vallas. He was outspent two to one. Wow, And
Speaker 1: so there was a lot of pestimism going in that
Speaker 1: the money that came and the organizing from the police
Speaker 1: union would be enough to swamp him. But it looks
Speaker 1: like right now he's up by eleven hundred votes, and
Speaker 1: they expect that he'll win the mail in ballots by
Speaker 1: at least ten thousand, and there's like almost what was
Speaker 1: that margin of that look like a couple of points,
Speaker 1: So right now he's up a point, but he would
Speaker 1: end up winning by maybe three or four points if
Speaker 1: the projections. If the projections hold. Wassman was saying that
Speaker 1: Ballast needs a miracle at this point, and it does
Speaker 1: seem to be a very clear ideological divide between the
Speaker 1: two of them, and Vallis actually came in first in
Speaker 1: the initial runoff that knocked Lori Lightfoot, who was the
Speaker 1: incumbent mayor out, so you know, it looked like he
Speaker 1: had a strong hand to play here going in as well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's backed by a lot of the more
Speaker 1: sort of like conservative apparatus in the city and certainly
Speaker 1: back by the police union as well. Brandon Johnson was
Speaker 1: accusing him of being like sort of like a closet
Speaker 1: Trump supporter kind of thing. It was a very clear
Speaker 1: ideological divide between these you can't fascinate and the Sanders
Speaker 1: wings big problem has always been working class black voters,
Speaker 1: and so this is that kind of the first time
Speaker 1: that this coalition since like Harold Washington in the eighties
Speaker 1: in Chicago, really pulled together working class black voters and
Speaker 1: a progressive movement that is coded sometimes fairly sometimes unfairly
Speaker 1: as kind of white dominated. Yeah, and that force coming
Speaker 1: together is what is needed if you're going to take
Speaker 1: if you're going to become dominant in democratic primaries, and
Speaker 1: that had eluded the left in a lot of these races,
Speaker 1: and you saw South Carolina break the back of the
Speaker 1: Sanders campaign in twenty twenty, for instance. So if they
Speaker 1: do pull this together, that it's a model, and whether
Speaker 1: it can be repeated, we'll see. I was just said,
Speaker 1: I think you can sort of make it Trump connection
Speaker 1: here as as much of our stretch as it may seem,
Speaker 1: and that when Lori Lightfoot was toppled, it was this.
Speaker 1: Republicans sort of see in this a win for the
Speaker 1: tough on crime Republican line, the the you know, centrist democrat,
Speaker 1: the valance. You know, this is the voice, the voices
Speaker 1: of reason and centrism are winning out because crime has
Speaker 1: escalated in ways that your average Chicagoan feels threatened by.
Speaker 1: And I think they're probably making a well, I know
Speaker 1: they're making a similar argument in Wisconsin, which is another
Speaker 1: race we're paying really close attention to. But abortion is
Speaker 1: playing into that race as well. It's not playing in Chicago,
Speaker 1: but it is playing in Wisconsin in the way that
Speaker 1: it played out in some midterm competitions. And I just
Speaker 1: think it's really important for people on the right who
Speaker 1: look around the country and see what does look like
Speaker 1: just urban decay. I mean, we're here in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: It's a city that has plenty of problems, and that's
Speaker 1: been sort of front you know, front page news for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks in the way that Congress has
Speaker 1: handled it. But Republicans think that means people are going
Speaker 1: to gravitate in one direction. Yes, that people are going
Speaker 1: to reject socialism. They're going to reject radical leftism. You know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was talking about hardcore Democrats and looney leftists,
Speaker 1: looney liberals or whatever, because they're even the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: has real problems and Democratic socialists have real problems in
Speaker 1: terms of governance in certain places. That is not automatic.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be a reflex. There's nothing given
Speaker 1: that these cities are just going to swing right because
Speaker 1: of all of that. And I think Chicago could be
Speaker 1: a really big indication tonight. I'm thinking of a multiple things.
Speaker 1: So on the one hand, I was just looking at
Speaker 1: a population map the other day. Here I can go
Speaker 1: ahead and pull it up, and basically what it showed
Speaker 1: is that you had California and the state of New
Speaker 1: York lose a lot of population. That's what got the headlines.
Speaker 1: But the bigger story was that every major urban city
Speaker 1: across the country, save for cities in Texas, Arizona, and
Speaker 1: even in Florida, many people were leading Miami Dade County
Speaker 1: for you know, Tampa or other places which we're had
Speaker 1: more affordable housing. So at a certain point, you might think, well, okay,
Speaker 1: well the people who are staying in the cities clearly
Speaker 1: are not leaving. You know, by definition, anybody who is
Speaker 1: on the cusp of hates it so much that they
Speaker 1: might vote differently is just going to leave. A lot
Speaker 1: of people aren't just going to stay. So, if anything,
Speaker 1: it could lead to a situation where people who are
Speaker 1: committed to the project, to the city life and to
Speaker 1: who want that and align or at least aren't as
Speaker 1: perturbed as many others are obviously willing to vote within
Speaker 1: those policies, and then people who don't like it are
Speaker 1: just going to leave. So you might even have what
Speaker 1: even more geographic polarization, if that's even possible. Significant net
Speaker 1: migrations happen between urban and not even rural areas, but
Speaker 1: really more suburban and ex urban. That probably is only
Speaker 1: going to continue now as a result of that, But coincidentally,
Speaker 1: actually think it probably makes it easier for leftists to
Speaker 1: win in major cities if that's going to be the case.
Speaker 1: Does all that make sense? Yeah? It does. I mean
Speaker 1: you also there are a lot of people who can't leave, right, Oh,
Speaker 1: look for I think you should leave. No, I'm just
Speaker 1: saying leading yeah, and certainly in the parts of Chicago
Speaker 1: that have been just beset by a scourge of gun violence,
Speaker 1: you have had massive populations, lot huge, but you also
Speaker 1: have a lot of people who you know, can't afford
Speaker 1: to leave and have no choice but to stay and
Speaker 1: to to try to, you know, figure out the best
Speaker 1: way forward. You know. One of the things Ryan that
Speaker 1: I'll be watching for is the media's takeaway on if
Speaker 1: Brandon Johnson does prevail, Because anytime, like in Eric Adams wins,
Speaker 1: it's like seen as a referendum on this is it's
Speaker 1: the moderates time and the tough on crime eras here
Speaker 1: and whatever, and whenever a leftist wins, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a fluke doesn't mean anything, right, Like, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: both are in these neighborhoods in Chicago that are actually
Speaker 1: experienced experiencing extreme levels of violence, wants something other than
Speaker 1: just incarceration as as a response to that, Like the
Speaker 1: media could blore that as a possibility if Johnson wins, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're definitely not going to take it as like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a national backlash against Joe Biden moderate adventure. There's
Speaker 1: no way. Whereas when when Eric Adams wins, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this means everything for the country, where you know. I
Speaker 1: think probably the intelligent thing to do is to look
Speaker 1: at the specifics of the races, the specifics of the candidates,
Speaker 1: the specifics of the coalitions that you were talking about
Speaker 1: that have been built up over a long period of time,
Speaker 1: and view it through like a unique regional lens, rather
Speaker 1: than trying to paint some broad national picture based on
Speaker 1: one mayoral race result would be my suggestion. I also
Speaker 1: really think that Republicans see their hope right now as
Speaker 1: this backlash in general, and I think that's why Trump
Speaker 1: framed his speech the way he did. To some extent,
Speaker 1: that's his only option. But there's this idea that the
Speaker 1: overreach and what feels like abnormality and unprecedented decisions, that's
Speaker 1: what can tap into your voter that you need to animate,
Speaker 1: get out and actually vote Republican and independent who may
Speaker 1: go back and forth, makes them feel like the ground
Speaker 1: is shaking under their feet, make them feel uncomfortable, And
Speaker 1: I just don't think that translates into wins for centrists
Speaker 1: and for Republicans as easily as people think it does.
Speaker 1: I think that's what Trump is obviously to the point
Speaker 1: that was raised here about how Donald Trump is trying
Speaker 1: to tie this into the broader legal fights that he's facing.
Speaker 1: I think that's very deliberate. It's very deliberate because he's
Speaker 1: tapping into what voters feel as being like maybe unsettled
Speaker 1: or new abnormal in all of those different ways, including
Speaker 1: with crime. But it doesn't automatically translate. There's no guarantee.
Speaker 1: We've got one of our guests standing by, but why
Speaker 1: don't you guys keep an eye on these results too,
Speaker 1: and we'll get everybody updated because Wisconsin polls have closed
Speaker 1: as well, so we should be getting some results on.
Speaker 1: We will absolutely get them. So I believe we have
Speaker 1: our guest standing by control room, we can go and
Speaker 1: have there. He is national security lawyer Bradley Moss. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show. Brad. It's good to see you.
Speaker 1: Good to see how you guys doing doing good? How
Speaker 1: about you? Well, can't complain it's been an interesting day. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know this is your super Bowl, Brad, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: classified documents case. That'll be that's true. That's true, that
Speaker 1: was your super Bowl. Although you know we've got a
Speaker 1: significant amount of that discussion in the speech as well, Brad, So,
Speaker 1: the last time that you were on our show, one
Speaker 1: of the things that we wanted to discuss was about
Speaker 1: the potential indictment. All that was based on leaks. We're
Speaker 1: specifically focusing on the novel theory of the case. As
Speaker 1: you said, well, that's why novel things are novel. They
Speaker 1: will get tried in court. Now that you've had the
Speaker 1: chance to both read the indictment and to read the
Speaker 1: statement of facts, what's your major takeaway from this case?
Speaker 1: And I know that you've always found it defense or
Speaker 1: you found it defensible originally, do you still stand by that?
Speaker 1: What do you think? What do you think about it? Sure,
Speaker 1: I think it's still defensible. I do view this as
Speaker 1: a very bold and risky move by Alvin Bragg. This
Speaker 1: is a very clear misdemeter case. If that's all he
Speaker 1: is bringing, I would have no concerns. I think Trump
Speaker 1: would be toast. The elevation of this to a felony
Speaker 1: is based on two basic issues. One is that campaign
Speaker 1: finance issue, which obviously is that novel theory. The idea
Speaker 1: to tying it in without actually charging a state election
Speaker 1: crime because they can't get to be preampted by federal law.
Speaker 1: But referencing that for a basis of elevating it to
Speaker 1: a felony, that's going to be a subject of pre
Speaker 1: trial motions. We don't know how that'll go. That'll be
Speaker 1: a fascinating legal nerd moment. The rest of us, every
Speaker 1: everybody else will just be waiting to see what happens.
Speaker 1: But the backup Alvin Braggers got here is these referencing
Speaker 1: state tax crimes as well. That could be interesting, That
Speaker 1: could salvage things if for any reason the election crime
Speaker 1: provisions go down and residuces this to a misdemeanor. But
Speaker 1: remember a misdemeter is still a crime. They're still a
Speaker 1: crime here either way. Can you explain that tax piece,
Speaker 1: because I, frankly, as a non lawyer, am a little
Speaker 1: confused because in the statement of facts, clearly he you know,
Speaker 1: references that this was used and you know in part
Speaker 1: to have to engage in tax broad There are some
Speaker 1: details that are given in the statement of facts with
Speaker 1: regard to that. I read through it earlier in terms
Speaker 1: of how the payments were structured so that Michael Cohen
Speaker 1: could recognize it in a certain way on his tax statements,
Speaker 1: but it didn't seem that that was the piece that
Speaker 1: he was using to elevate this to a felony charge.
Speaker 1: So does he have to lay that out now or
Speaker 1: can they then in the trial make that case. How
Speaker 1: does this all work out? Sure? So the next step
Speaker 1: that the Trump team is going to take, and they're
Speaker 1: going to take this anyways for a number of reasons,
Speaker 1: is they're going to ask for a bill of particulars.
Speaker 1: They're going to ask for more detail beyond the basics
Speaker 1: that were in this indictment, and there was limits to
Speaker 1: what Alvin Bragg was legally required to do right now
Speaker 1: and what they could basically wait for the Trump team
Speaker 1: to make them do more. So that be, you know,
Speaker 1: the Trump people file for a bill of particular So
Speaker 1: try to get a nailed down Alvin Bragg on what
Speaker 1: the specific state laws are at issue that he's going
Speaker 1: to be relying upon to elevate it to a felony
Speaker 1: and how that relates to the statement of facts or
Speaker 1: offense whatever they want to call it in this case.
Speaker 1: At this moment, I don't think that Alvin Brag is
Speaker 1: going to have to provide as much detail as the
Speaker 1: Trump team would like. A lot of this will ultimately
Speaker 1: come down to if this gets the trials, that's where
Speaker 1: he'll have to lay it all out. But a lot
Speaker 1: of it's also going to come down to discovery. Alvin
Speaker 1: Bragg's got sixty five days to basically turn over everything
Speaker 1: he's got to the Trump team so they can start
Speaker 1: deciding whether or not they're going to go with pretrial
Speaker 1: motions to you know, to try to dismiss as a
Speaker 1: matter of law, or try to get reduced down to
Speaker 1: a misdemeanor, any number of issues. That's where a lot
Speaker 1: of the details, a lot of the information will be outlined.
Speaker 1: That's what the Trump team is waiting to see. Got it? So, Brad,
Speaker 1: we had some of our premium subs. They submitted some
Speaker 1: questions that we thought were best for a lawyer. One
Speaker 1: of them is what would happen today if Trump had
Speaker 1: pled guilty? He actually intimated during his speech that prosecutors
Speaker 1: had wanted to strike a deal a What did you
Speaker 1: make of that? Do you think that was just trumping Trump?
Speaker 1: Do you think that was legitimate and be Actually that
Speaker 1: is a good question, like what does happen or what
Speaker 1: would a plea for the agreement even look like? Would
Speaker 1: he plead to a misdemeanor, like would that some settlement
Speaker 1: type of b what do you think? Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: no doubt that the DA's office probably did offer something
Speaker 1: to Trump's team, some form of misdemeanor that Trump would
Speaker 1: have to allocut to a certain number of charges would
Speaker 1: be you know, probation if anything. If this is a misdemeanor.
Speaker 1: In the end, even if it's a felony, jail time
Speaker 1: isn't really guaranteed, let alone likely for Donald Trump given
Speaker 1: the circumstances, given his lack of a criminal history, at
Speaker 1: least so far. So if he had pled guilty today,
Speaker 1: he would still been released, probably un bond. If anything,
Speaker 1: there would be a pre sentencing report, there'd be any
Speaker 1: number of details of both sides would get to submit
Speaker 1: briefs outlining what punishment they believe would be required under
Speaker 1: the New York state guidelines, and that would ultimately go
Speaker 1: to the judge at a sentencing hearing. But he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been going to jail today. It's not that kind
Speaker 1: of kick, got it, Brett Brad Like you talk about
Speaker 1: the New York State election law reference that Alvin Bragg
Speaker 1: made you do, that entirely clear whether he's relying on
Speaker 1: New York state election law or the federal election law.
Speaker 1: Either way, here's and this is where there's going to
Speaker 1: be these pretrial motions which are going to get kind
Speaker 1: of interesting to legal nerds I don't know about for
Speaker 1: anybody else. There's going to be a pretrial motion by
Speaker 1: the Trump team claiming that whatever election law Alvin Bragg
Speaker 1: is relying upon, that it's been preempted, that he can't
Speaker 1: rely on state election law, for example, because the federal
Speaker 1: election laws preempt any state election laws that would apply
Speaker 1: to a federal candidate. Congress didn't want federal candidates for Senate,
Speaker 1: Congress or for the presidency to have to worry about
Speaker 1: fifty state laws and the federal election law, so that
Speaker 1: would get preempted. So that that's going to be interesting
Speaker 1: to see exactly what Alvin Bragg is relying upon here,
Speaker 1: and if he's going for the federal one, there's going
Speaker 1: to be the obvious problem of well, you haven't charged it,
Speaker 1: and that's not within your jurisdiction. How can you elevate
Speaker 1: the charge based on a federal crime, which is the
Speaker 1: purview of DJ That's where over the next two to
Speaker 1: three months, says more details come out as the bill
Speaker 1: of particulars gets filed, I think we'll get a better
Speaker 1: sense of the nature of his case. These are things
Speaker 1: that Alfa Bradstein no doubt has already gained planned out.
Speaker 1: They've got legal memost prepared of how they would respond.
Speaker 1: Their briefs are probably pre written. For the most part.
Speaker 1: They know what they're going to argue. They just don't
Speaker 1: know what the judge will decide. Bradley, in your view,
Speaker 1: are there any risks to precedent here? Mile boss Tim
Speaker 1: Connie wrote in The Washington Examiner earlier that it's sort
Speaker 1: of ridiculous to suggest every expense that helps a campaign
Speaker 1: is then classified as a campaign expense. Although there's obviously
Speaker 1: other things going on here. That said, there is a
Speaker 1: kind of big question looming over it. Does this you know,
Speaker 1: Republicans are saying this is ushered in the Banana Republic
Speaker 1: era in American politics. Earlier you said there is a
Speaker 1: question going for misdemeanor to fellony, sort of converting that.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Chait wrote skeptically about that as well. Do you
Speaker 1: think there are any risks to setting bad precedents here
Speaker 1: or do you see this as a more narrow case.
Speaker 1: I view it as a narrow case, and I'll here's why.
Speaker 1: I'll say that there is a clear mysdemere case here
Speaker 1: because he used personal funds. This isn't like what Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton did where her campaign reimbursed the law firm that
Speaker 1: had paid for the subcontractor to do the steel dot
Speaker 1: the thing that was campaign funds to be nobody to indict.
Speaker 1: It's a campaign. It shut down whatever corporate entity is
Speaker 1: all that's left of it. This was Donald Trump, from
Speaker 1: the Donald Trump Trust, cutting checks to Michael Cohen to
Speaker 1: reimburse him on the he locks that he took out
Speaker 1: to payoff Stormy Daniels. And it was the documentation outlining
Speaker 1: the payment to Michael Cohen was done through business records.
Speaker 1: That's how he got caught up in this particular criminal provision.
Speaker 1: So that's very distinctive and very trumpious, trump yasque like.
Speaker 1: That is distinguishable from what say Hillary Clinton would do,
Speaker 1: or a Barack Obama and his campaign would do. There
Speaker 1: wouldn't be there's no Obama organization to have run that
Speaker 1: through and a trust to have run that to pay
Speaker 1: off on a hush money deal the way that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump did. That's what I think makes this a very
Speaker 1: narrow case in that regard. I don't see that if
Speaker 1: this failed, and or if this goes forward either way,
Speaker 1: I don't see this having ramifications for much of anybody else.
Speaker 1: Got it. So, if the Trump campaign had paid Stormy
Speaker 1: Daniels with campaign money, would he be in the clear here?
Speaker 1: He personally might have. It depended on how it was
Speaker 1: documented by the campaign and where you know what they
Speaker 1: wrote down in FBC disclosures, But that's an issue of
Speaker 1: federal campaign laws, and that would be a problem for
Speaker 1: the lawyers and for the officials in the campaign who
Speaker 1: handled that. The extent to which Donald Trump personally would
Speaker 1: have been criminally reliable would have been a far hazier issue.
Speaker 1: But they didn't want the campaign handling it because they
Speaker 1: knew they would have to disclose all that to the FEC.
Speaker 1: He didn't want this disclosed to anybody. He was concealing it.
Speaker 1: And that's what this whole indictment and the same of
Speaker 1: the defense outlined. This was a two year conspiracy to
Speaker 1: kill these stories true or not. And I don't know
Speaker 1: to you who whether or not these stories with Kara
Speaker 1: McDougall and Stormy Daniels were true. And then to cover
Speaker 1: up the concealment of them through these shady reimbursed I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we have a pretty good sense. We have
Speaker 1: another question from we well know, all right, that's not
Speaker 1: what's on trial. So we have another question from one
Speaker 1: of our premium subscribers. Brian McAfee asked about the statute
Speaker 1: of limitation. He says, can anyone break down the statute
Speaker 1: of limitations in this case? Because this was another piece
Speaker 1: where there was they had to kind of do some
Speaker 1: legal maneuvering to make it so that they still had
Speaker 1: time to charge this case. Yeah. So the problem for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump here is he left the state of New York.
Speaker 1: He left first and twenty seventeen to become the president
Speaker 1: to live in DC, and then after twenty seventeen, right
Speaker 1: after twenty twenty when he lost the election, he moved
Speaker 1: to Florida. He left the state, and under New York
Speaker 1: state law, the moment he left to permanently reside somewhere else,
Speaker 1: the statue limitations was told it continued on and so
Speaker 1: it was put on hold that spatial limitations. That's why
Speaker 1: it hasn't lapsed in this case. That's why it continued
Speaker 1: forward and That's why that issue if he brings it
Speaker 1: up in tree trial motions, but I'm sure he will,
Speaker 1: that's why that will fail. And finally, this is as
Speaker 1: the President himself discussed or former president himself discussed in
Speaker 1: his speech tonight, this is one case of potentially a
Speaker 1: number where Trump could face charges. You've got the documents issue,
Speaker 1: You've got the Fulton County grand jury and fake elector scheme.
Speaker 1: You've got the Special Council looking into a variety of
Speaker 1: misdeeds here in Washington. What do you think is the
Speaker 1: sort of most serious charges that he could face? Which
Speaker 1: case do you think is the most potentially solid here
Speaker 1: moving forward? The case that I have been waiting for
Speaker 1: since August, the document case. Now, is this just your
Speaker 1: personal bias speaking Bradley, totally not my personal bias, But no,
Speaker 1: that is the one that I think is the most
Speaker 1: clear cut and simplest one. And here's why the January
Speaker 1: sixth one is going to get tied up in all
Speaker 1: kinds of issues of the Office of the President trying
Speaker 1: to interact with state officials and officials with the DJ
Speaker 1: trying to push what is what he would argue is
Speaker 1: a lawful government operation. It would have run into issues
Speaker 1: of what happened on January sixth in terms of his
Speaker 1: commentary with First Amendment prompts. There's a number of issues
Speaker 1: that would get tied up with that one. The Georgia case. Again,
Speaker 1: it's all tied up in a couple of phone calls.
Speaker 1: I don't know the full universe what Fanny Willison has got.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's going to be very interesting when we
Speaker 1: see it all, but that has some convoluted aspects where
Speaker 1: it's a lot more of an issue for the fake
Speaker 1: electors and Rudy Gileani for what he said before the
Speaker 1: legislature than I think it is for Donald Trump. I
Speaker 1: think he's still just nice to think it's a shadier case.
Speaker 1: The documents are clear. They went tomorrow lago. They were
Speaker 1: still classified, they still had the markings, and as far
Speaker 1: as we can tell now from what we're getting from
Speaker 1: even that sealed ruling that got leaked out regarding Evan Corcoran,
Speaker 1: he was ordering his lawyers to help him conceal where
Speaker 1: the documents were to avoid the subpoena at ballgame. As
Speaker 1: far as I'm sor right, yeah, I mean that's it
Speaker 1: fits with almost every legal analysis that I've seen yet
Speaker 1: involving all three cases. So, Brad, we always appreciate talking
Speaker 1: to you. We appreciate your view. Thank you for joining
Speaker 1: us and for staying late. We appreciate it very much.
Speaker 1: Not a problem, I'm going absolutely okay. So I mean, look,
Speaker 1: it seems to be basically Chrystal clear at this point,
Speaker 1: pun intended. I guess every major legal analyst that we've
Speaker 1: seen right and left as Brad. You know, Brad has
Speaker 1: always been somebody who wants to prosecute Trump. He's been
Speaker 1: a big defender of any of these cases. All of
Speaker 1: them are like, yeah, this one it's a little weak
Speaker 1: or at the very least. You know, he's saying open
Speaker 1: and shot on misdemeanor. He's like, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1: You know. What he was saying about Fulton County is
Speaker 1: something I've heard before, but all of them always come
Speaker 1: back to. But the documents one is the real problem.
Speaker 1: Everyone right and left Trump only himself. You know, he
Speaker 1: obviously addressed that during his rally, talking about NARA, the
Speaker 1: National Records Act, and the Presidential Records Act in his
Speaker 1: own personal authority. It really does the problem also for him,
Speaker 1: is it doesn't even come down to his possession of
Speaker 1: the documents themselves, which would not have been a crime.
Speaker 1: It all comes down to the obstruction charge. That is
Speaker 1: the one that separates him from all of these other
Speaker 1: public officials. That said, who knows, I mean politically, it
Speaker 1: still would be damaging for Biden or for the DOJ
Speaker 1: to go after join the sitting president himself has also
Speaker 1: had classified documents. What did you guys take away from
Speaker 1: Brad's analysis, Yeah, on his misdemeanor point. Misdemeanor is also
Speaker 1: tough for the prosecutors because there's this two year of
Speaker 1: statute limitation, whereas the felony allows you to go to
Speaker 1: five years and then lets you pull in the misdemeanors
Speaker 1: as a result. So they're relying then completely on this fellow.
Speaker 1: They need the felony for that statue limit, and they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: he moves to Florida, so actually doesn't count, and so
Speaker 1: we can extend it as long as we want. But
Speaker 1: you can litigate that and they could lose that. Yes,
Speaker 1: that actually answers the premium subscriber question we got from
Speaker 1: Brian McAfee on can anyone break down the statute of
Speaker 1: limitations in this case, the two to five year that's
Speaker 1: why the felony is absolutely key. And that's where Trump
Speaker 1: pointed out in his speech. You know, everyone, quote, including
Speaker 1: rhinos and hardcore Democrats see this case as a weak one. Yea,
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's true. I mean, basically, you don't see
Speaker 1: any full throated defenses of this particular case being just
Speaker 1: a knockout, like you're just knocking this one out of
Speaker 1: the ballpark. And I think that's important because, as we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, I do think Trump benefits in that
Speaker 1: murkiness that when that he's able to pitch this as
Speaker 1: black and white, and that's why he latched onto that
Speaker 1: to the extent that he did in his speech, I think.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean that documents case, that's the big one. Well,
Speaker 1: and I could be wrong, but I think that's the
Speaker 1: case that Trump talked the most about in his speech
Speaker 1: tonight as well. I mean, he certainly went into some
Speaker 1: detail about why he felt he had the authority and
Speaker 1: what a bunch of nonsense it was. And actually Joe
Speaker 1: Biden did the same thing, only worse than They're in
Speaker 1: Chinatown or whatever. It seems to me like he also
Speaker 1: may feel that that's the case where he is in
Speaker 1: the greatest jeopardy because it also seems that they kind
Speaker 1: of get the goods on this one. I mean, they
Speaker 1: subpoened all the surveillance footage. There seems to be somebody
Speaker 1: on the inside who was very close to Trump, perhaps
Speaker 1: in his Secret Service detail, even who has been informing
Speaker 1: on him or one of his lawyers. It just recently
Speaker 1: was reported, I believe, by the Washington Post that they
Speaker 1: had additional evidence that seemed to indicate even after he
Speaker 1: had certified. Oh, yes, of course, we gave him up,
Speaker 1: that he personally was like sifting through these files and
Speaker 1: moving documents around. So could be that that one on
Speaker 1: the obstruction piece is the most clear cut legally speaking.
Speaker 1: But Ryan, I do wonder about, you know, the politics
Speaker 1: on the legal case. Maybe one thing, the politics of
Speaker 1: it did become a lot less clear when it was
Speaker 1: revealed that Joe Biden also had classified diety. Oh and
Speaker 1: Mike Pence had classified documents. And then everyone goes, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess everybody had classified documents, So what the hell
Speaker 1: is going on here? Yeah, there's a there's a sense
Speaker 1: among some people that there's never a price to pay
Speaker 1: for fighting no matter what the odds, you should always
Speaker 1: you know, take your fight, you know, to your to
Speaker 1: your opposition, and that they're this idea that you have
Speaker 1: that there's capital that you can gain and lose is
Speaker 1: not It's not really based in reality. But I think
Speaker 1: they're wrong. And I think if they spend capital on
Speaker 1: this Manhattan case and it gets dismissed, let's say, or
Speaker 1: it just fizzles, then then I think it does draw
Speaker 1: some energy away from stronger cases that they have, like
Speaker 1: the one you're talking about. So not only would they
Speaker 1: be prosecuting a document's case, which is tricky because the
Speaker 1: current sitting president has his own document document issues nowhere
Speaker 1: near as bad as Trump's. Like you said, he was
Speaker 1: just flagrantly committing crimes the entire time. But if it's
Speaker 1: if you have that confusion coupled with a failed prosecution
Speaker 1: in Manhattan and whatever happens in folding it, it allows
Speaker 1: him to build a narrative that there's a witch hunt.
Speaker 1: One thing that I did wonder though, as well, is
Speaker 1: I know, obviously you know they'll all claim, oh, we're
Speaker 1: not considering the politics of it whatsoever, We're just evenly
Speaker 1: applying the facts in the law, and of course that's
Speaker 1: total nonsense. And you know, the DOJ folks are these
Speaker 1: sort of like nervous nelly, like naturally personally conservative types,
Speaker 1: where I think they were probably deeply worried about what
Speaker 1: it might do to the country to charge Trump and
Speaker 1: are you going to have violent clashes and are you
Speaker 1: gonna have riots industry, like how is this all going
Speaker 1: to unfold? And you know, we saw some a little
Speaker 1: bit of protesters getting in each other's faces today, but
Speaker 1: it's certainly wasn't like another January sixth, right, So I wonder,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, if you don't have them feel
Speaker 1: like they have a little bit of cover now and
Speaker 1: feel a little bit less nervous about bringing whatever cases
Speaker 1: and whatever charges they have and you know, seeing what sticks,
Speaker 1: because they'll be less fearful of like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: just literally going to rip the country into very very possible.
Speaker 1: So we've got our other guests standing by. Josh Hammer.
Speaker 1: He's the opinion editor over at Newsweek. There he is.
Speaker 1: He's joining us now. Josh, I know that you watch
Speaker 1: the speech and you've also you know, for the audience.
Speaker 1: He's also got a legal background so can speak to
Speaker 1: a lot of that as well. It's like what we'd
Speaker 1: like to focus on here, Josh. At this point, I'm
Speaker 1: assuming you've read the indictment, the statement of facts and
Speaker 1: all that. What do you make of the case on
Speaker 1: its face against Trump? Well, great to be with you, guys.
Speaker 1: I mean, legally speaking, the indictment today, the statement of
Speaker 1: facts when I actually read it, even weaker than I
Speaker 1: expect that to be, and I had pretty shockingly low
Speaker 1: expectations for how weak it would be. I mean, we
Speaker 1: do not know, literally, we do not know at this
Speaker 1: point what the alleged enhancement crime is that will purportedly
Speaker 1: take this from misdemeanor to felony. We literally don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know. The scuttle but for the past
Speaker 1: few days has been that Alvin brad was going to
Speaker 1: try to invoke federal US campaign finance law. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: the case. I mean, in Alvin Bragg's posting Diamian press conference,
Speaker 1: he also alluded kind of confusingly to New York state law.
Speaker 1: So the whole thing is totally muddled. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's jurisdictional issues, there's statute limitations issues. It's really quite
Speaker 1: farcical on its face. I think we have a question
Speaker 1: here that you maybe well positioned away in on from
Speaker 1: women of our premium subscribers is from Grace Gene. Grace says,
Speaker 1: are there other New York crimes that depend on breaking
Speaker 1: other laws? You discuss how the felony upgrade of Trump's
Speaker 1: charges depend on proving the crimes were committed in the
Speaker 1: further ins er covering up of other crimes, but in
Speaker 1: this case may have been federal though you're saying, Josh,
Speaker 1: it's not actually clear not state laws that were broken.
Speaker 1: Is there any precedent in statute or common law for
Speaker 1: other state laws being broken that depend on other crimes
Speaker 1: that may be based in federal law. I mean nothing
Speaker 1: that I can remember for my first year of criminal
Speaker 1: law course at the University Chicago Law School. I'll put
Speaker 1: see that way. I mean, you know, if I were
Speaker 1: to go into like Lexis and Nexus or Westlawn like
Speaker 1: literally type in certain search terms, maybe I could pull
Speaker 1: up some rogue prosecutors, some rogue judge out in kind
Speaker 1: of the middle of the country who did something crazy
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty years ago. But I mean to say
Speaker 1: that this is non normal, I think would be understating it.
Speaker 1: I mean, Alvin Bragg is a county district attorney. He
Speaker 1: is a partisan county district attorney who if he is
Speaker 1: actually trying to reach for federal campaign finance laws, again
Speaker 1: holding aside the glaring and obvious statute of limitations issue here,
Speaker 1: he just quite simply has no jurisdiction to do so.
Speaker 1: And in fact, US prosecutors have looked into possibly trying
Speaker 1: to prosecute Trump for alleged violation of those federal campaign
Speaker 1: finance laws and they have passed on the case. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe there's some precedent. He deepened the leads
Speaker 1: of legal research Nerdery, But this is not a not
Speaker 1: a common thing, Josh on that question, this is just
Speaker 1: basic process stuff. What can people expect to happen next
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump? There's a lot of speculation, you know,
Speaker 1: anything can happen. There's already been speculation about what a
Speaker 1: possible sentence would look like, et cetera, et cetera. What
Speaker 1: do you think people should be looking out for in
Speaker 1: the days and weeks ahead. So, one thing that I
Speaker 1: thought was interesting about the speech in mar A Lago tonight,
Speaker 1: it was a very tight controlled speech. I mean, to
Speaker 1: be totally blunt. I actually thought it was somewhat boring,
Speaker 1: and I think that was probably I thought that was
Speaker 1: probably intentional. Right, I'm sure his lawyers were saying be boring.
Speaker 1: I guess on the one hand, that's okay. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, I thought politically as somewhat of a missed opportunity.
Speaker 1: But clearly, and the reason I raised that, Emily is
Speaker 1: because clearly his lawyers are already in his ear. So
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting just as a matter of kind of
Speaker 1: the truth social social media stuff, to see like whether
Speaker 1: the tone actually comes down a little bit. As far
Speaker 1: as the courtroom stuff, I mean, you're gonna you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna see a lot of cross motions filed, a lot
Speaker 1: of kind of lower profile stuff. Trump's team, quite possible
Speaker 1: will make a motion to kind of move venue from
Speaker 1: Manhattan at least to get this thing to Staten Island,
Speaker 1: which is the only New York City borough that is
Speaker 1: even remotely politically heterodots where he might get anything remotely
Speaker 1: approximating a fair jury. So I expect some kind of
Speaker 1: motions on both sides to kind of take up a
Speaker 1: lot of the court's time. But as far as possibly
Speaker 1: getting to a jury, if that it really is, where
Speaker 1: as ultimately heads that would be many many months down
Speaker 1: the line, probably late summer or early fall. I think
Speaker 1: I want to ask you, Josh, the question that I
Speaker 1: asked our last guest, which is, of all the various
Speaker 1: legal jeopardy, not just this these particular charges, but you know,
Speaker 1: Fulton County and the document situation in January sixth and
Speaker 1: fake electors, which do you think is the most difficult
Speaker 1: case for Trump and which do you think that he
Speaker 1: faces the greatest legal jeopardy. Well, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I don't think any of these cases are particularly serious
Speaker 1: on the pure legal merits. I really don't mean I
Speaker 1: mean the January sixth and Diamond, which I assume is
Speaker 1: going to happen at this point. I mean, there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of build up, you know, the January sixth
Speaker 1: Kangaroo Court kind of issues recommendation. Merrick Garland, from my perspective,
Speaker 1: has been kind of sicking the prosecutorial APPARATUSUS on conservatives
Speaker 1: for a while now, So I expect him to kind
Speaker 1: of go forward with something January six related. But there's
Speaker 1: a very direct First Amendment case law that really protects
Speaker 1: what Trump said at the Ellipses that day, So I
Speaker 1: don't view that as particularly legally serious. The classified document stuff,
Speaker 1: to me, is clearly statutorily protected under relevant statute, and
Speaker 1: it's also constitutionally protected under the basic Commander in Chief
Speaker 1: Article two progative because he was the sitting president of
Speaker 1: the United States. And also the fact that Joe Biden
Speaker 1: has his own classified document retention issues, I think mitigates
Speaker 1: the possible effectiveness of that charge on Trump. So that
Speaker 1: kind of leaves us with Georgia. That kind of leaves
Speaker 1: us with the whole infamous Brad Rathensburger phone call as
Speaker 1: possibly the least legally dubious. And I'm phraising myself carefully here.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's serious, the least legally dubious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting perspective. I haven't heard that one yet.
Speaker 1: Here's an interesting one from one of our premium subs
Speaker 1: which he might be able to answer from. Brian McAfee says,
Speaker 1: who is the victim here? You know, I have to
Speaker 1: remember from my law school days that who is the victim?
Speaker 1: And did Trump have men'sray? I'm assuming I said that correct.
Speaker 1: I'm fairly sure I was taught a mens rea was
Speaker 1: required for a criminal charge unless it has a strict
Speaker 1: liability crime. I am struggling, struggling to find Trump's guilty
Speaker 1: mind here to prosecute. First of all, explain what the
Speaker 1: hell he's saying about. Translates to the question all right, sure,
Speaker 1: so yeah, So a criminal law, one on one, there
Speaker 1: are two components for a crime. There is the actus rays,
Speaker 1: which is the Latin term for the literal kind of
Speaker 1: actual act, the actual conduct. And then this questionnare is correct,
Speaker 1: you also need the relevant men's rea, which is kind
Speaker 1: of the subjective mindset. So I am not barred in
Speaker 1: New York. I'm barred in Texas. So I can't necessarily
Speaker 1: speak with with any kind of great expertise for the
Speaker 1: relevant underlying New York statutory law. But I would imagine
Speaker 1: and that the actual misdemeanor here, the falsification of business records,
Speaker 1: probably has a strict liability attached to it, which, to
Speaker 1: kind of break down the league leads means that you
Speaker 1: don't actually necessarily have to have a certain kind of
Speaker 1: subjective mindset that if you do it, you do it.
Speaker 1: But the men's ray is crucial here because when we
Speaker 1: get into the possible federal campaign finance law stuff that
Speaker 1: makes all the difference in the world. So Alvin Bragg's
Speaker 1: theory of the case, if it actually does involve federal
Speaker 1: campaign finance law, is that Donald Trump purposely and deliberately
Speaker 1: falsified as business records in order in order for the
Speaker 1: subjective intent to strictly benefit his twenty sixteen presidential campaign.
Speaker 1: The obvious problem for Alvin Bragg's theory of the case
Speaker 1: is that his purported star witness, the convicted lawyer Michael Cohen,
Speaker 1: has literally testified that Donald Trump directed him to make
Speaker 1: the payment to save Trump's family from embarrassment, i e.
Speaker 1: It was not necessarily to benefit of twenty sixteen campaigns.
Speaker 1: So if you take Michael Cohen's own word, then the
Speaker 1: men's ray of fails at least on the federal campaign
Speaker 1: finance screends. Got it. Josh has actually been very, very helpful,
Speaker 1: So we appreciate you joining us tonight on breaking some
Speaker 1: of this down answering some of those questions. So appreciate it. Man,
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thanks jash Any Signs. So we have a
Speaker 1: huge call here from Dave Wasserman. How do we decide
Speaker 1: to say her name? Well, I don't think we did.
Speaker 1: Has defeated Daniel Kelly for Wisconsin Supreme Court. Wow. The
Speaker 1: result flipping the ideological control of the court from conservative
Speaker 1: to liberal. A huge victory for the pro host pro
Speaker 1: choice side. So that's the call there from Dave Wasserman.
Speaker 1: Obviously we'll wait for the ap but that's usually as
Speaker 1: as good as it gets for the early one, and
Speaker 1: it's early initial reactions. Well, that's that's the early call.
Speaker 1: And when you're looking at these numbers, we see seventy
Speaker 1: one percent votes are in from Walkersha County, That's where
Speaker 1: I'm from. Kelly got fifty nine percent of those seventy
Speaker 1: one percent that are in, and Potassowitz has forty one percent,
Speaker 1: forty one percent in Wakansha County. Now, part of that
Speaker 1: is millennials changing voting. Talk about those numbers, he would
Speaker 1: want something like mid sixties. Can we back up area
Speaker 1: right before the election results? Yeah? Explain why this is important?
Speaker 1: Why should anyone care about the Wisconsin's bere important? Well,
Speaker 1: Chrystlin Ryan might have additional thoughts on this, but I
Speaker 1: will say I think it is correct. Both the left
Speaker 1: and the right. You'll notice have cast this framed this
Speaker 1: as a referendum on Scott Walker's era that he ushered
Speaker 1: into in Wisconsin. Wisconsin has been on a seesaw for
Speaker 1: the past decade plus. I was in high school when
Speaker 1: the Act ten drama was going down and had teachers
Speaker 1: who made up excuses to get out of class and
Speaker 1: go protest, and it was it was new for Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: which is a historically working class, very often much of
Speaker 1: the royal parts of the state all voted Democrat. You
Speaker 1: know that district in northern Wisconsin. David Obi had it
Speaker 1: for forty years and it flipped in twenty ten with
Speaker 1: Sean Duffy in the Tea party. Years Wisconsin has been
Speaker 1: on the seesaw, going back and forth. Scott Walker lost,
Speaker 1: and it's you know who's going to win based on turnout.
Speaker 1: Who's animated based on turnout. And that's why when Wassherman
Speaker 1: says this is a big win for the pro choice side,
Speaker 1: that's because they animated voters on this abortion issue. They
Speaker 1: animated They successfully got more pro choice voters out than
Speaker 1: they did pro life voters in a state that was
Speaker 1: seen in the corporate media as being this beacon of
Speaker 1: the conservative movement. The conservative movement had taken over Wisconsin
Speaker 1: and it just was never true. It was never true.
Speaker 1: And all of these different Act ten issues, abortion issues,
Speaker 1: jerrymandering issues are in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court
Speaker 1: and we'll be decided by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. So
Speaker 1: this is huge, go ahead, right, And so far abortion
Speaker 1: rights have been on the ballot in what Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan,
Speaker 1: now Wisconsin, and every time abortion rights voters have come
Speaker 1: out and upheld them. Interesting, so that works, how about that? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: like Crystal said, there's this eighteen forty law on the
Speaker 1: books and it's working its way through the courts right now.
Speaker 1: But while it is, abortion is not happening in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: that this will change that. Like this this is a
Speaker 1: way that people can vote and change their material lives.
Speaker 1: So it's and then there's the jerry mannering, which is huge,
Speaker 1: and then there's also the twenty twenty four lives. Sure
Speaker 1: to say, I think that one is also I mentioned
Speaker 1: guys can throw up C two here please. We have
Speaker 1: a Milwaukee Journal Central Sentinel piece where they actually lay
Speaker 1: it out quite well. The interesting thing to note here
Speaker 1: is that there is a four to three majority on
Speaker 1: the Court for the conservatives. Now that he has lost,
Speaker 1: and I'm not even trying to Janet now that Janet Janet,
Speaker 1: it's not a disrespect I swear to go, you know.
Speaker 1: So now that she has won, she is now won
Speaker 1: a ten year term on the court, which means that
Speaker 1: the next race on the Court is not until twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. So we have a two year period here
Speaker 1: where four to three liberal majority will stand at a
Speaker 1: time when abortion is directly before the Supreme Court, voting
Speaker 1: is before the Supreme Court on jerrymandering, and critically, all
Speaker 1: of the stop the Steel efforts were happening in the
Speaker 1: Wisconsin state legislature during the twenty twenty election, which might
Speaker 1: have been challenged if there were any Republican victories in
Speaker 1: the state legislature that might have led to attempts to
Speaker 1: decertify or have a different interpretation of electoral college law.
Speaker 1: All of that will now be before a liberal court
Speaker 1: in a direct flip on the issue. So people forget
Speaker 1: that Trump's challenge in twenty twenty was rejected four to
Speaker 1: three by the Wisconsin the exact court. Yes, if he
Speaker 1: had won that that changes everything. It could have been Democrats,
Speaker 1: Democrats were able to say, it's been seen by fifty
Speaker 1: judges and all fifty have thrown it out. Get out
Speaker 1: of here with your nonsense. If they had won in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: all bets are off. And by the way, my understanding
Speaker 1: is the one conservative who sided with the liberals on
Speaker 1: that it wasn't on really the merits of the case.
Speaker 1: It was on some procedural standing issue, and so there
Speaker 1: was a lot of there was very deep concern that
Speaker 1: if you end up with this concern majority, that next
Speaker 1: time around they may not go the way that they
Speaker 1: did this time. So that was certainly incredibly important. I
Speaker 1: just want to underscore the abortion piece, though, because I
Speaker 1: do think this was central, and you know, anecdotal reporting
Speaker 1: from the ground is that every voter was basically like,
Speaker 1: I'm here because of abortion. I'm here because of abortion
Speaker 1: because it is super real and it's super tangible and
Speaker 1: it's you know, super like present in people's lives. Right now,
Speaker 1: this law is currently in effect, it is whinding its
Speaker 1: way through the courts, as Ryan said, and now, just
Speaker 1: to select Janet was quite explicit. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we're used to this game that like Supreme Court justices play, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm gonna you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: opine on cases that. No, she was pretty clear, like,
Speaker 1: I do not think this is appropriate. Some eighteen forties
Speaker 1: law is certainly women couldn't even vote, then certainly we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be abiding by that law. So she was very
Speaker 1: clear about how she would vote on it, and I
Speaker 1: do think that was probably the dominant an issue. To
Speaker 1: speak to Emley's point about the political dynamics in the state,
Speaker 1: voters have more often than not in statewide races elected Democrats,
Speaker 1: but at the legislative level it is wildly different. Republicans
Speaker 1: have so much power within the state legislature because of
Speaker 1: this post twenty ten Jerrymander and I know we can
Speaker 1: talk about this near eyes glaze over, but they only
Speaker 1: need to win like forty percent of the vote in
Speaker 1: order to win majority in the state legislature. So you
Speaker 1: have a situation where a party that has lost statewide
Speaker 1: repeatedly and lost the popular vote repeatedly still has all
Speaker 1: of this power in the state. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the other issues that now Justice select Janet has talked
Speaker 1: openly about how she does not think that that is
Speaker 1: appropriate and would take a hard look at these lines
Speaker 1: that have been drawn, so huge, huge stakes here in
Speaker 1: terms of reproductive rights, huge stakes in terms of jerrymandering,
Speaker 1: and of course from a national perspective, certainly huge stakes
Speaker 1: for future Stop the Steel election. The congressional delegation of
Speaker 1: eight is six Republicans and two Democrats like that alone.
Speaker 1: It's in a fifty to fifty state, and they have
Speaker 1: borderline supermajorities right of Republicans in the state legislature. Well,
Speaker 1: and this is where I would say Wisconsin Republicans have
Speaker 1: gotten way too comfortable. I made the same argument in
Speaker 1: twenty eight twenty oply, So I want to say, you know,
Speaker 1: it is absolutely important to look at Wisconsin. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that's just because in from wis guns and
Speaker 1: as a really good test laboratory for the country at large,
Speaker 1: it actually has It has urban centers, it has rural areas,
Speaker 1: It has pretty robust exurban and suburban areas. And this
Speaker 1: is a state that had a really big organizing history,
Speaker 1: that has a history of socialism, Bob Lafal and all
Speaker 1: of those things. Because it came out of the early
Speaker 1: labor movement, and because it came out of that period
Speaker 1: where where labor had a lot more power where rural
Speaker 1: areas were very different culturally. And so when when you
Speaker 1: look at what's happened in the state of Wisconsin, where
Speaker 1: you have a lot of people, I mean, Bernie Sanders
Speaker 1: trounced Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin trounced her. Donald Trump draws
Speaker 1: big rally crowds. He's always had a close race in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: And that's the country. I mean, really, Wisconsin is the country.
Speaker 1: And when you look at an issue where you have
Speaker 1: Republicans running on crime, this you can dry. You can
Speaker 1: draw a direct line from you know, let's just stay
Speaker 1: from you can go from Kenosha to Chicago. Just take
Speaker 1: that short drive from Kenosha to Chicago. Republicans in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: were running on crime. They tried to cast Justice select
Speaker 1: Janet as being soft on crime, which they thought in
Speaker 1: this climate where like carjackings are just up astronomically in Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: that that would do it. That this is how they win,
Speaker 1: this is their this is their roadmap. And instead, you know,
Speaker 1: Chicago looks like you're going to have the most left
Speaker 1: wing mayor since the eighties. I mean, it's just it's
Speaker 1: not what Republicans think it is. Let me throw let
Speaker 1: me throw one more wrench into this because the question
Speaker 1: of super majority was brought up, and there's actually a
Speaker 1: state Senate special election that is also going on which
Speaker 1: will determine whether or not Republicans have a supermajority. And
Speaker 1: this also connects to the state Supreme Court seat that
Speaker 1: we have been discussing, because some of them have already
Speaker 1: openly been saying that if they get that super majority,
Speaker 1: they're going to impeach Justice Janet right away. So they're
Speaker 1: talking about it already like if we get that two thirds,
Speaker 1: we're coming for her, even before you know she had
Speaker 1: even won the election. So it is high stakes all
Speaker 1: of these things and quite noteworthy. But I do think
Speaker 1: one of the things that was most telling to me
Speaker 1: was the fact that Janet was running very aggressively on
Speaker 1: here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: let this abortion law anti abortion law go into effect,
Speaker 1: and Dan Kelly, the conservative candidate, was more like, ah, well,
Speaker 1: i'll talk about that when we get to it. He
Speaker 1: took more of the typical line, which shows you that
Speaker 1: he was much less comfortab we talking about the issue.
Speaker 1: Doctor Os looks that the Republican is up by about
Speaker 1: one hundred votes, okay in that special election. Well, how
Speaker 1: many more votes to be cast? Eighty six percent in
Speaker 1: sixty three thirty? Close? Wow, I will say, some real
Speaker 1: breaking news coming from my iPad right now from my mom.
Speaker 1: Crystal is right. She is right. She is right about
Speaker 1: the gerimandering issue as well. There you go, thank you.
Speaker 1: Missing people hate that their vote doesn't count, and we
Speaker 1: know that in DC is people who go out and
Speaker 1: vote just for fun. Like it doesn't exactly that reason. Okay,
Speaker 1: any other final thoughts here that we want to wrap up.
Speaker 1: Maybe on Chicago. I know that we still don't have
Speaker 1: the exact cut there, but Wisconsin. Obviously, the fact that
Speaker 1: we were able to even make a call here tonight
Speaker 1: on the stream is actually pretty incredible. Yeah. Should we
Speaker 1: end the stream by making fun of CNN? I think
Speaker 1: that'd be a good something. Everybody here at the table,
Speaker 1: everybody out there watching this live. I alluded to this before,
Speaker 1: I just could not believe it. Let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. So on Monday
Speaker 1: when Trump or sorry, on Tuesday, when Trump was arriving
Speaker 1: in New York City, let's put the tweet up here, please,
Speaker 1: one D one CNN literally went out of its way
Speaker 1: to get a camera on board a speedboat which they
Speaker 1: chartered trying to capture a few second shot just of
Speaker 1: Trump's plane landing in New York City, in addition to
Speaker 1: an aerial helicopter shot that they also had going on. Now,
Speaker 1: imagine the mechanics that are going through here. We're hiring
Speaker 1: a freelance cameraman. We're having a live camera link to
Speaker 1: this individual. We are chartering a speedboat is it the
Speaker 1: Hudson River whatever, whichever river there near LaGuardia. That's half
Speaker 1: of that. We also have video of what this major
Speaker 1: investment looked like. So guys, let's go ahead and play
Speaker 1: this for the audience. If you're watching or if you're
Speaker 1: listening on Spotify, and if your premium, I urge you
Speaker 1: to open up your phone whenever it's safe to actually
Speaker 1: watch this, let's go ahead and play it for the people.
Speaker 1: D two here please for the vo It is just
Speaker 1: absolutely incredible. Let's take a listen. I just want to
Speaker 1: note for viewers, we are seeing former President Trump's plane
Speaker 1: land her at LaGuardia Airport in New York. That is
Speaker 1: his flight that he is taking before he is going
Speaker 1: to make his way over here to Trump Tower, Phil
Speaker 1: and Dana before he is going to be a rain tomorrow.
Speaker 1: That of course is look at the mastery of that shot.
Speaker 1: Where'd they get the sun shot? That's the helicopter Ryan,
Speaker 1: they have the area, they have the hailshah. Yeah. Think
Speaker 1: about the astronomical amount of money that was spent on
Speaker 1: those two individual shots. That is what their news gathering
Speaker 1: dollars are going towards out of line, and everybody need
Speaker 1: a premium subscription so we can get a breaking point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's Trump and Deck. You're right, I said, CNN has
Speaker 1: just gone through sadly a round of layoffs and it's
Speaker 1: like cutting essential travel and ship and yet it was
Speaker 1: that expensive his boat gas boat people tell me the
Speaker 1: boat gas is very expensive. Very What do we do?
Speaker 1: What do we do? You below deck? Huh? Yeah, that's true,
Speaker 1: that's shout. It reminds me, do you guys when CNN
Speaker 1: did that like whole hologram thing for this was a
Speaker 1: while back being in school watching this and it was like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe this is real. It was like there's
Speaker 1: no point of this other than just like you apparently
Speaker 1: have way too much money to spend. But this point
Speaker 1: they're literally talking job their job cutting. They're doing all this,
Speaker 1: they have a helicopter hovering. First of all, I actually
Speaker 1: a lot of questions. Why is helicopter able to get
Speaker 1: that close? It's a little close and to a runway
Speaker 1: given what we do with the footag edge and the FAA,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure sure boat big yeah, I mean just
Speaker 1: they just the sheer amount of resources that they are
Speaker 1: spending on this entire circus. It just comes back to
Speaker 1: like Trump was great for ratings and for all the
Speaker 1: talk of Chris Licked saying, oh we're gonna move away
Speaker 1: to Trump all this the day he's back, they went off.
Speaker 1: That's a Jeff Stucker playbook. Move go all out that
Speaker 1: you can for Trump because they haven't changed it all
Speaker 1: isn't working. Yeah, because it isn't working. And so now
Speaker 1: they're right back to their bread and butter. It's just unbearable.
Speaker 1: So anyway, there you go. Now, if they went stripe
Speaker 1: fishing right like off the boat afterwards, yes, maybe they
Speaker 1: charged like they had a little company retreat on it.
Speaker 1: After company retreat, that's some team building. Become a premium
Speaker 1: subscriber so that we can get a boat, and I
Speaker 1: guess we could know we would never spend your hard
Speaker 1: earned money on ship like that, which is why their
Speaker 1: business model is bullshit and our business model is not.
Speaker 1: We spent our time here. Wow, we've been up here
Speaker 1: for almost two and a half hours. Trump was for
Speaker 1: twenty of it while breaking all this down for you.
Speaker 1: We brought you the Trump and indictment, the pre show.
Speaker 1: I guess like everything that happened after the arrest, we
Speaker 1: reacted to the speech. We were able to call some
Speaker 1: elections here and all that live. Thank you all to
Speaker 1: our premium subs, who not only submitted questions that were
Speaker 1: actually great for our legal guests, but also just for
Speaker 1: enabling the work here. You know, it costs a lot
Speaker 1: of money to put on these streams crew, you know,
Speaker 1: disrupt the schedule, rent studio, et cetera. So thank you
Speaker 1: all for supporting our work. And I just want to
Speaker 1: say how much more beautiful this is going to look
Speaker 1: in our new studio when it's all done very very soon.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait, We really like, we really can't wait
Speaker 1: to reveal that to everybody. It's a look. So the
Speaker 1: actual truth is it's a poe and that we're retiring
Speaker 1: now because he's going to the White House. You are
Speaker 1: all actually going to love it. Whenever we do our
Speaker 1: next live stream from the desk and from that new studios.
Speaker 1: I'm so pumped. I can't even stop smiling just thinking
Speaker 1: about it. So we love all of you. We will
Speaker 1: post a lot of this over on Wednesday. Chris wan
Speaker 1: will be back on Thursday, and then Ryan Emily will
Speaker 1: have a special counterpoint show for you guys on Friday.
Speaker 1: So you are not missing on anything, right, We'll see
Speaker 1: you later, see y'all, see you then,