Speaker 1: Today, a judge put on a gag order. I'll be
Speaker 1: the only politician in the history that runs with a
Speaker 1: gag order where I'm not allowed to criticize people. It's
Speaker 1: been a little while since we checked in on Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's multiplying legal troubles, and a lot is happening. Judges
Speaker 1: presiding over two of his trials are struggling to contain
Speaker 1: his frequent public outbursts like the one you just heard there.
Speaker 1: Some of his former lawyers and his former chief of
Speaker 1: staff are now talking to prosecutors, and in at least
Speaker 1: two states there are legal challenges aimed at trying to
Speaker 1: keep Trump off the ballot in twenty twenty four. I'm
Speaker 1: west Kosova today on the Big Take Bloomberg. Zoe Tillman
Speaker 1: and Sarah Fordon are back to help us sort through
Speaker 1: the latest from inside and outside the courtrooms. Zoe maybe
Speaker 1: should start with the various attempts by judges to control
Speaker 1: what Donald Trump is saying about the cases inside the
Speaker 1: courtroom and outside.
Speaker 2: So right now, there are two court orders in place
Speaker 2: that restrict what Donald Trump is allowed to say, post
Speaker 2: do whatever publicly. The first is in Washington in the
Speaker 2: federal election obstruction case.
Speaker 3: One of former President Donald Trump's legal battles, continues today
Speaker 3: in the district. Federal prosecutors and lawyers for mister Trump
Speaker 3: will be back in court to argue over a potential
Speaker 3: gag order in the case.
Speaker 2: And that prohibits him from any comments That target is
Speaker 2: the keyword. Prosecutors in the case, potential witnesses in their testimony,
Speaker 2: and court staff. And that was a result of prosecutors
Speaker 2: going to the judge in DC, Judge Tanya Chutkin, and saying,
Speaker 2: you know, we had a couple of weeks, a couple
Speaker 2: months of this case after he was indicted. We did
Speaker 2: not ask for this initially, but he has shown that
Speaker 2: he cannot be trusted to not say inflammatory things that
Speaker 2: could put witnesses at risk of intimidation, potentially threaten personnel, prosecutors.
Speaker 4: You know, government servants.
Speaker 2: Where things stand now is you know, we expect Trump's
Speaker 2: legal team to continue pushing to get this.
Speaker 4: Gag order lifted.
Speaker 2: They had asked Judge Chutkin to do that, she had
Speaker 2: paused it temporarily. During that time, he managed to post
Speaker 2: about a witness in the case, his former chief of staff,
Speaker 2: Mark Meadows, and the judge said, you know I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna keep this on hold, and so now he can
Speaker 2: go to an appeals court to try and fight it there,
Speaker 2: and that's what we expect to happen next. The second
Speaker 2: order is from a state judge in New York where
Speaker 2: he's on trial on civil fraud allegations.
Speaker 3: Back here at home, there was a bit of drama
Speaker 3: today at the civil fraud trial of former President Donald
Speaker 3: Trump in New York when a judge find Trump again
Speaker 3: for violating a gag order against criticizing the judge's stat.
Speaker 2: And that's a narrower order after he posted a message
Speaker 2: that disparaged the judge in that case as clerk promoted
Speaker 2: her photo. He later took it down, but judges are
Speaker 2: extraordinarily sensitive when it comes to their staff, and that
Speaker 2: was sort of a wrong bear to poke and prompted
Speaker 2: an immediate reaction, and since then has actually been fined
Speaker 2: for violating that order.
Speaker 4: But you know, as of now.
Speaker 2: Someone who is used to being able to say whatever
Speaker 2: he wants and to use the platforms that he has
Speaker 2: to go after attack what he sees as his enemies,
Speaker 2: is really for the first time under legal constraints to
Speaker 2: not do so. And whether he can comply with that
Speaker 2: long term is a very big open question.
Speaker 5: And it was very interesting in Chutkins's reasoning on when
Speaker 5: she imposed the gag order. She basically said, no, you
Speaker 5: do not have unlimited First Amendment rights, because of course
Speaker 5: this is the defense position that they're trying to silence
Speaker 5: him and muzzle him. And she says, no, you cannot
Speaker 5: criticize and go after court staff or potential witnesses. And
Speaker 5: she's also concerned about tainting the views of the jury
Speaker 5: when the case goes to trial.
Speaker 1: Now, initially the judge suspended her own gag order while
Speaker 1: the Trump legal team argued against it, but then she
Speaker 1: decided over the weekend to reimpose it. Why did she
Speaker 1: do that?
Speaker 5: I mean, she basically ruled that their defense arguments were
Speaker 5: not legitimate and that she correctly had imposed the gag order,
Speaker 5: and that then clears the way for them to take
Speaker 5: it up on appeal.
Speaker 2: You know, I think it's important to take a step
Speaker 2: back and say that in all cases, it is not
Speaker 2: sort of free reign for everyone to say whatever they want.
Speaker 2: That when you are allowed to go free pending trial,
Speaker 2: you are under a microscope and you're under the jurisdiction
Speaker 2: of the court and things that you say, or do
Speaker 2: you know the phrase goes can't be held against you.
Speaker 5: Just to jump in here, I mean, this is all
Speaker 5: in a political context, right, So he is saying that
Speaker 5: these cases are part of a political witch hunt. In
Speaker 5: the New York case, he was calling out the judge's
Speaker 5: clerk as being partisan and being affiliated with Democratic lawmakers,
Speaker 5: and he kept on doing it even after the judge
Speaker 5: had put him unnoticed.
Speaker 3: We're being railroaded here, very partisan judge with a person
Speaker 3: who's very partisan sitting.
Speaker 4: Alongside amount, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.
Speaker 5: So now what we're seeing is judges are not taking
Speaker 5: this and then putting him on notice. They're telling him
Speaker 5: to stop. Then they're finding him. So we're now on
Speaker 5: the second violation in New York where the judges has
Speaker 5: hauled him and even put him on a stand. Last
Speaker 5: week in a eye popping moment where he stopped the proceeding,
Speaker 5: which is about the New York Org trial where he's
Speaker 5: being accused of artificially inflating the value of his businesses.
Speaker 5: The judge stopped that proceeding, put him on the stand
Speaker 5: and asked him to clarify who he was talking about
Speaker 5: when he described that person sitting next to the judge.
Speaker 1: And of course Trump said that he was talking about
Speaker 1: his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the judge said that
Speaker 1: is not credible.
Speaker 5: I don't believe it.
Speaker 1: Now the judge in that case find him five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars the first time, ten thousand dollars the second time.
Speaker 1: But is a fine ever going to be effective against
Speaker 1: someone like Trump, who has a lot of money and
Speaker 1: probably thinks that the political attention he gets whor it
Speaker 1: is worth the money.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, the fine for him is a drop
Speaker 5: in the bucket. The point is if he keeps going,
Speaker 5: what will the judge do next? And he's even said,
Speaker 5: you know, this could include prison time if he doesn't stop.
Speaker 1: And Zoe, That of course is the big question and
Speaker 1: why everything involving these cases and Donald Trump is extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Another defendant might be put in jail for violating a
Speaker 1: judge's gag order. But does anyone think that a judge
Speaker 1: would actually confine Donald Trump to jail.
Speaker 2: I think that he is counting on pushing that line
Speaker 2: as far as he possibly can and forcing a judge
Speaker 2: to potentially do something really uncomfortable. You know, this is
Speaker 2: like an ultimate game of chicken. But these are the
Speaker 2: tools that are available to judges, and there are different
Speaker 2: types of sanctions. They have, you know, a good amount
Speaker 2: of discretion to get creative. But at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, if the judge in DC determines that there
Speaker 2: is nothing she can do to stop what she sees
Speaker 2: as you know, direct interference with the case, the consequence
Speaker 2: is a revocation of bond. It is to say you
Speaker 2: cannot be trusted to be on pre trial release without
Speaker 2: compromising the integrity of this trial. It's not just about
Speaker 2: your rights as a defendant. It's about the public's right
Speaker 2: to have this trial administered fairly, and that's what she
Speaker 2: is saying she has to protect. The question of jailing
Speaker 2: a former president a current presidential candidate is obviously extraordinary.
Speaker 2: A few of us have been reaching out to different
Speaker 2: agencies just kind of asking, you know, has this ever happened?
Speaker 2: Have you ever had to the Secret Service a protectee.
Speaker 4: Go into custody what happened? And they've been a little cagy.
Speaker 2: They don't want to disclose, obviously, the extent of how
Speaker 2: they protect people, but the general senses it's really never happened,
Speaker 2: and no one's really sure how they would handle it.
Speaker 1: Sarah Zoe mentioned that Donald Trump is appealing here. What
Speaker 1: is the path? Could this ultimately go up to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court where they're going to have to make decisions
Speaker 1: about what a court can tell the former president, what
Speaker 1: he can say and not say.
Speaker 5: Well, actually yes in a short answer. So the next
Speaker 5: step would be to you peel to the DC Circuit
Speaker 5: and then depending on how that goes, it could easily
Speaker 5: land in front of the Supreme Court at a time
Speaker 5: where the Supreme Court has been trying to stay out
Speaker 5: of the political pray, or at least they say they
Speaker 5: want to stay out of it, but they may be,
Speaker 5: you know, right on the board having to make these
Speaker 5: very difficult and conflicting decisions.
Speaker 1: After the break, Trump's former lawyers talk to prosecutors Zoe.
Speaker 1: As all of this drama has been playing out over
Speaker 1: the gag orders, there has been even more drama as
Speaker 1: some of Donald Trump's former lawyers to help push the
Speaker 1: case that the twenty twenty election should be overturned, have
Speaker 1: now turned against Donald Trump and are cooperating with prosecutors.
Speaker 4: That's right, you.
Speaker 2: Know, as we geographically shift our attention from New York
Speaker 2: and Washington down south to Atlanta, where the sprawling state
Speaker 2: racketeering case is unfolding against not just Donald Trump but
Speaker 2: eighteen other defendants who include some of his closest allies
Speaker 2: and supporters in the post election period. So what's happened
Speaker 2: recently in the past few weeks is that four of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's co defendants in that Georgia case have cut
Speaker 2: deals with prosecutors to plead to criminal activity after the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty election, and three of those guilty pleas came from.
Speaker 4: Lawyers who played a key role.
Speaker 2: In developing the legal theories that underpinned the whole attempt
Speaker 2: to overturn the results of the election, who were public
Speaker 2: faces of conspiracy theories and trying to get Georgia lawmakers
Speaker 2: to intervene so ahead of a trial that was supposed
Speaker 2: to start against two of the lawyers, Kenneth Chesbrow and
Speaker 2: Sidney Powell, who had asked to expedite their hearing of
Speaker 2: the case and to go to trial fast and gotten
Speaker 2: their case severed from everyone else. But right on the
Speaker 2: eve of that they both cut deals. And they were
Speaker 2: not the first to do so. There was another defendant
Speaker 2: Scott Hall, who was a Georgia bail bobsman involved in
Speaker 2: sort of another part of the post election conduct that
Speaker 2: involved accessing election equipment in rural Coffee County, Georgia. He
Speaker 2: pled for We would not put them sort of in
Speaker 2: the innermost circle of Donald Trump's advisors necessarily, But our
Speaker 2: key figure is to the point that what this seems
Speaker 2: to signal is, you know, the traditional building up of
Speaker 2: a case and the flipping of folks a bit farther
Speaker 2: down the ladder to try and get at the big
Speaker 2: fish on top, who for the Fulton County District Attorney's
Speaker 2: Office has always been Donald.
Speaker 1: Trump and Sarah Do we know what they're telling prosecutors
Speaker 1: as part of their deal.
Speaker 5: Well, we know what their alleged conduct that they're being
Speaker 5: charged with is. We don't actually have transcripts or access
Speaker 5: to their testimony. But the reason these deals are significant
Speaker 5: is that when it raises the leverage by the DA
Speaker 5: in Atlanta Fulton County, Fannie willis to try to flip
Speaker 5: more people, as Zoe was saying. And two, it also
Speaker 5: makes them the witnesses in her case who are going
Speaker 5: to test them against Trump. So to the extent that
Speaker 5: they have knowledge about behavior that will directly implicate him
Speaker 5: and his higher level allies. I mean, we've got, you know,
Speaker 5: boldface names in that case, former chief of Staff Mark Meadows,
Speaker 5: former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, senior Justice Department official under Trump,
Speaker 5: Jeffrey Clark, and others. So there's a lot at stake here.
Speaker 1: And Zoe, if others do decide to follow these lawyers' lead,
Speaker 1: do they get the same kind of deal or is
Speaker 1: it better to be the first one to give a deal?
Speaker 1: And there's an additional incentive to not hold that too long.
Speaker 2: As a general principle, it is always better to go first.
Speaker 2: You tend to get rewarded when you reach an agreement
Speaker 2: early on to testify. You tend to have the most
Speaker 2: leverage at that point because if you're the first, you know,
Speaker 2: prosecutors don't know what you have or what anyone else has,
Speaker 2: so you're in a stronger position to say you know
Speaker 2: you have nothing right now, so you need me. The
Speaker 2: fact that Sidney Powell, who was a very prominent proponent
Speaker 2: of conspiracy theory, this was not someone who was really
Speaker 2: behind the scenes.
Speaker 4: This was a public face of this case.
Speaker 2: She ended up getting a deal that included misdemeanor guilty
Speaker 2: plea and no jail time. You could really not ask
Speaker 2: for much better in this situation. I think Kenneth Chesbrow
Speaker 2: and Jenna Ellis the other two lawyers who pleaded guilty,
Speaker 2: they had to take felony guilty.
Speaker 4: Please not so good. They're still not going.
Speaker 2: To jail very good. That's sort of the big thing.
Speaker 2: But you know, for lawyers who are looking at their
Speaker 2: bar licenses, for instance, a felony on your record is
Speaker 2: a lot worse than a misdemeanor. So, you know, we
Speaker 2: already see a bit of an escalation. There are degrees
Speaker 2: of discretion that prosecutors have in terms of what they
Speaker 2: put on the table, and the deals just typically tend
Speaker 2: to get worse.
Speaker 1: You hold out, and do we think that these lures
Speaker 1: will be called to the stand to testify against Trump
Speaker 1: in court?
Speaker 5: That's what she's slaying the groundwork for.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it seems really likely, you know, that is the
Speaker 2: value that they bring. At this point, all of this
Speaker 2: unfolded so publicly, there's a sense, really, you know, talking
Speaker 2: to sources on all sides of this, that there is
Speaker 2: not much new that could necessarily come out about key events.
Speaker 2: What happened, Who was where, who was talking to whom?
Speaker 4: But the power of.
Speaker 2: Having someone who was in that room saying this is
Speaker 2: what happened to the jury is a lot more effective
Speaker 2: than more of a hearsay secondhand accounting of that.
Speaker 1: We mentioned Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and
Speaker 1: he too has now testified. Can you tell us about
Speaker 1: that case, Zoe.
Speaker 2: That's right, So that's shifting gears back now to the
Speaker 2: federal criminal investigation into the twenty twenty election. Mark Meadows
Speaker 2: was not charged in that indictment. He is not one
Speaker 2: of the unnamed, unindicted co conspirators referenced in that indictment.
Speaker 4: And there had.
Speaker 2: Been a fight earlier in the year that was under seal,
Speaker 2: but that we and others had reported on where Trump
Speaker 2: was trying to stop Mark Meadows from complying with a
Speaker 2: subpoena to go testify before the grand jury on executive
Speaker 2: privilege grounds. And Trump lost that fight, and then things
Speaker 2: went very quiet, and there was some reporting that perhaps
Speaker 2: Mark Meadows had in fact gone to the grand jury
Speaker 2: to testify, but wasn't quite confirmed or sure what had happened.
Speaker 2: And now recently my colleague Chris Strom has confirmed along
Speaker 2: with others that yes, Mark Meadows did go before the
Speaker 2: grand jury to testify, and that he was granted immunity
Speaker 2: to do so and was compelled to do so by
Speaker 2: a court order. We know that there has been an
Speaker 2: appearance and that he has provided testimony to prosecutors to
Speaker 2: the grand jury in that case, but the substance of
Speaker 2: that is not public.
Speaker 1: And how, if at all, does that affect Meta's circumstance
Speaker 1: in the Georgia case.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's no direct correlation between the two cases.
Speaker 5: The two prosecutors are working independently, but certainly it does
Speaker 5: raise the question whether he would be open to some
Speaker 5: kind of agreement in Georgia and whether the prosecutor would
Speaker 5: take one. But it's important to you know, as Zoe said,
Speaker 5: he was not a cooperating witness. He did not strike
Speaker 5: a deal. He's not trying to help out prosecutors unlike
Speaker 5: the others. Unlike the others. Exactly, he was compelled to testify.
Speaker 5: Special Counsel Jack Smith and DC got a court order
Speaker 5: put him on the stand, said he was going to
Speaker 5: be granted immunity, which meant that he could not take
Speaker 5: the fifth So he did have to say what he knew.
Speaker 5: In response to questions, I would.
Speaker 2: Say there is an open question of if he is
Speaker 2: called as a witness at trial in the federal case
Speaker 2: against Donald Trump. Former prosecutors say that as a general rule,
Speaker 2: what he says on the stand there can't necessarily be
Speaker 2: used against him in the Georgia case, But it also
Speaker 2: could in some ways still be fair game for Georgia
Speaker 2: prosecutors to I mean, they don't have to like.
Speaker 4: Close their ears off. If he took the.
Speaker 2: Stand, it sort of would be yet another extraordinary situation
Speaker 2: that would pose very rarely tested questions of the interplay
Speaker 2: of these state and federal prosecutions. It doesn't stop him
Speaker 2: from being called, but it does raise a lot more
Speaker 2: questions about the relationship between these two cases proceeding on,
Speaker 2: you know, generally very separate tracks.
Speaker 5: I would see mini minimum, you know, in openings and
Speaker 5: closings they could always reference public testimony by Meadows in
Speaker 5: the DC case. And here we have a timing question
Speaker 5: just to sort of put the schedule back and focus.
Speaker 5: The DC case right now is scheduled to start March fourth,
Speaker 5: whereas there's still no trial date for the remaining defendants
Speaker 5: in the Georgia case. So there's potential for the DC
Speaker 5: case to be well on its way before we get
Speaker 5: a trial moving in Georgia.
Speaker 1: And even though there's a lot we don't know about
Speaker 1: what Meadows has told prosecutors, what these lawyers have told prosecutors,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump certainly appears very concerned about what they might
Speaker 1: have said.
Speaker 5: And you know, Meadows in particular, was you know, he
Speaker 5: was the man in the room. And Meadows, let's remember,
Speaker 5: was the one who actually set up the quote perfect
Speaker 5: phone call with Georgia's former Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger
Speaker 5: to find those eleven thousand plus votes that he needed
Speaker 5: to flip the election.
Speaker 1: When we come back, can states kick Trump off the
Speaker 1: ballot in twenty twenty four? Sarah? While all this is
Speaker 1: going on in courtrooms in DC, in New York, and Georgia,
Speaker 1: there's an entirely separate question also involving Donald Trump in Minnesota,
Speaker 1: in Colorado, where these states are exploring the question of
Speaker 1: whether to disqualify Donald Trump from the twenty twenty four ballot.
Speaker 1: Exactly what is that and how is that proceeding?
Speaker 5: Well, this is very interesting. So there is a provision
Speaker 5: in the Fourteenth amendment which would prevent an official from
Speaker 5: being on the ballot if that person has been involved
Speaker 5: in an insurrection. And so we have state election officials
Speaker 5: across the country actually, and also you know, advocates and
Speaker 5: defendants on both sides who are trying to press this question.
Speaker 5: So does Donald Trump's involvement in the events of January
Speaker 5: sixth and the assault in the Capitol preclude him from
Speaker 5: being on the ballot. And the two cases that right
Speaker 5: now seem to have the strongest potential the most legs
Speaker 5: are in Colorado, where hearing started this week on this question,
Speaker 5: and in Minnesota. We we're going to have a hearing
Speaker 5: coming up, I believe it's on the second of November.
Speaker 2: The section of the Constitution that we're now engaging with
Speaker 2: has its origins in the post Civil War period, and
Speaker 2: it was intended to sort of address this question of,
Speaker 2: you know, the Civil War has ended, and there are
Speaker 2: these ex Confederates who you know, either were serving in
Speaker 2: the Federal Congress at the time and then join the
Speaker 2: Confederacy and now want back in on politics, or just
Speaker 2: you know, former active members of the Confederacy who want
Speaker 2: to be part of the US government again. And that
Speaker 2: was the genesis of this language was trying to say no,
Speaker 2: there are going to be limits on your ability to
Speaker 2: participate in the process because of what you did. And
Speaker 2: then it really went dormant for a long time, and
Speaker 2: then suddenly January sixth happened, and the constitutional scholars went
Speaker 2: back to the books and said, you know, there is
Speaker 2: this language that is still here that says that if
Speaker 2: you committed it insurrection, there are consequences and are there
Speaker 2: situations out of January sixth where this becomes relevant? And
Speaker 2: there were a handful of cases, most that really went nowhere,
Speaker 2: mostly for procedural reasons, but one did in New Mexico
Speaker 2: against a county official who was charged and convicted for
Speaker 2: participating in the riot. So now you have this ruling
Speaker 2: on the books that says there is some context where
Speaker 2: maybe this could apply to January sixth. And so we've
Speaker 2: now had lawsuits all over the country, many of them
Speaker 2: tossed out for being procedurally deficient and not serious trying
Speaker 2: to stop Donald Trump from appearing on ballots.
Speaker 4: But there are two cases, really three, and the two
Speaker 4: main ones are in Colorado.
Speaker 2: And Minnesota, one of which was brought by the group
Speaker 2: that got this New Mexico County official kicked out of office,
Speaker 2: saying Donald Trump incided them up and supported it and
Speaker 2: pushed them and then didn't.
Speaker 4: Use the resources at his disposal.
Speaker 2: As president to stop them when it happened, and that
Speaker 2: all of this meant that he engaged in an insurrection
Speaker 2: and should be barred from.
Speaker 4: Holding office again.
Speaker 2: And you know, secretaries of state have largely said, even
Speaker 2: those that are sort.
Speaker 4: Of Democrat aligned, I'm not going to make.
Speaker 2: This call, but judge, you make the call, and I
Speaker 2: will follow what you tell me to do.
Speaker 5: And one of the big questions here is does this
Speaker 5: amendment apply to the office of the presidency? Okay, because
Speaker 5: back in the Civil War era it wasn't, you know,
Speaker 5: involving a president or former president or a presidential candidate.
Speaker 5: So this is one of the big questions that these
Speaker 5: cases are going to need to address.
Speaker 1: As a practical matter, if one or more states who
Speaker 1: were disqualified down Trump on these grounds, how would that
Speaker 1: actually work? How can you have a presidential election where
Speaker 1: the nominee of one of the two major parties is
Speaker 1: not on the ballot.
Speaker 4: It would be absolute chaos.
Speaker 2: We're back in like constitutional crisis mode where I don't
Speaker 2: think anyone really knows what would happen the state Republican
Speaker 2: parties have intervened in these cases to sort of advocate
Speaker 2: specifically for that component of it, to say, you know,
Speaker 2: we have a right to say who's a bona fide candidate,
Speaker 2: and it's not for other outside entities to make that
Speaker 2: kind of call. It's really just not clear how it
Speaker 2: works if, for instance, he's not on the ballot in
Speaker 2: Colorado or Minnesota, but if he still ends up winning
Speaker 2: the Republican nomination via other states and then the general
Speaker 2: election is not on the ballot in Colorado and Minnesota,
Speaker 2: it's really just not clear how that shakes out. But
Speaker 2: you know, for now, at least there are these threshold
Speaker 2: questions that the Constitution has this language, and parties are
Speaker 2: going to court and saying this is your problem, judiciary
Speaker 2: to sort out.
Speaker 5: And this is important because these cases are actually the
Speaker 5: ones that have the most direct bearing on Trump's ability
Speaker 5: to run for office. And we've talked about this in
Speaker 5: one of our previous chats. The actual cases that he's
Speaker 5: charged with, the four cases, none of them involve a
Speaker 5: potential conviction that would prevent Trump from either running or
Speaker 5: holding office.
Speaker 1: So these started as kind of an interesting academic constitutional question.
Speaker 1: Now they're actually live in the courts. But do we
Speaker 1: think that these have a chance of actually prevailing, that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump could possibly truly be barred from the ballot
Speaker 1: in any states.
Speaker 5: Well, that's why we're watching these two in particular. As
Speaker 5: always said, most of them, you know, don't have legs,
Speaker 5: but these potentially seem to be able to do that.
Speaker 2: This is another situation where the Supreme Court, like it
Speaker 2: or not, could be asked to make really big decisions
Speaker 2: about the election pretty quickly.
Speaker 4: The courts in both of these cases, it's.
Speaker 2: A trial level judge in Denver and then the Minnesota
Speaker 2: Supreme Court that we'll hear arguments later. They've all acknowledged
Speaker 2: that whoever loses is going to try to take this
Speaker 2: up the chain as quickly as possible, and everyone has
Speaker 2: eyes on getting it to the Supreme Court as quickly
Speaker 2: as possible before ballots start, you know, becoming official early
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four, ahead of primary contests.
Speaker 4: You know, the judges have set schedules with.
Speaker 2: That in mind and understanding that they are probably very
Speaker 2: likely not the final arbiters of this question. And even
Speaker 2: if the Supreme Court doesn't do anything if you know,
Speaker 2: there's a ruling and they decline to act on it,
Speaker 2: That in and of itself is becoming involved in the election,
Speaker 2: and quite early on in the cycle.
Speaker 1: So, Zoe, you do think that ultimately this question will
Speaker 1: come before the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: As of now, you know, the sources that I've talked
Speaker 2: to on this on both sides have indicated that they're
Speaker 2: in it to win it and whoever loses. You know, Trump, certainly,
Speaker 2: I think his side has been quite clear about that
Speaker 2: in court.
Speaker 4: But there's an.
Speaker 2: Expectation that the advocacy groups that brought these cases, they
Speaker 2: have been laying this groundwork, you know, for months, if
Speaker 2: not years, to try and pursue this issue as far
Speaker 2: as they can take it.
Speaker 5: And of course, Donald Trump and his lawyers completely refute
Speaker 5: any idea that he was responsible for inciting this assault
Speaker 5: on the Capitol.
Speaker 1: There's never a shortage of things to talk about with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and certainly this conversation shows that's true. What
Speaker 1: are you watching for next in all of these various cases?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean what's fascinating is we haven't even talked
Speaker 2: about the case in Florida and where things stand with
Speaker 2: the alligation making mishandled classified documents.
Speaker 4: And we haven't even talked about the other New.
Speaker 2: York criminal trial that's scheduled to happen early next year
Speaker 2: on you know, did he falsify business records? There is
Speaker 2: constantly now a flow of filings and hearings and deadlines
Speaker 2: that he and all of us watching this have to
Speaker 2: contend with this week, against the backdrop of everything else
Speaker 2: we've already talked about, the judge in the Florida case
Speaker 2: is going to hear arguments on Trump's request to kick
Speaker 2: that trial down the road right now. It's scheduled for May.
Speaker 2: They've been arguing that, you know, prosecutors are slow rolling
Speaker 2: evidence and they just need more time. Prosecutors say that
Speaker 2: that's totally bunk and they're just looking for excuses for
Speaker 2: delay so we could get you know, sleeper ruling. That's
Speaker 2: big news of a new trial date in Florida. So
Speaker 2: I'm sort of continuing just to watch all of the
Speaker 2: dockets as much as possible.
Speaker 5: In addition to the Florida hearing this week that Zoe mentioned,
Speaker 5: we're also watching a prod of Donald Trump's children testifying
Speaker 5: in the New York trial This is the Letitia James,
Speaker 5: the New York Attorney General in the Trump Org trial.
Speaker 5: So they're testifying this week Don Junior, Eric and Ivanka
Speaker 5: and then Trump himself is taking the stand in that
Speaker 5: case on Monday, and at stake there are the charges
Speaker 5: that he has falsely inflated the value of his businesses
Speaker 5: to get loans and other business opportunities.
Speaker 1: Sarah Zoe always great to talk to you. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time, Thanks for having.
Speaker 4: Us, Thanks for having us. I'm sure we'll be back.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.
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