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"Trump Surrenders." · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Donald Trump finally gets his day in
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: court as his first indictment is unsealed. Former Mueller investigation
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: prosecutor Andrew Weissman joins to break down the Trump charges
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: as well as the latest developments in the Fox News
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: defamation trial. And we bring you the best of the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: week's worst political coverage in another round of Take Appreciator.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: But first, tickets for the Love It or Leave It
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: The Errors Tour are now on sale.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: And a lot of those shows, almost gone.
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: A lot of them, they're not almost gone.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Which ones are not? Maybe we should focus on those.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: No. You need to go check yourself.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: The tour will kick off in San Francisco on June
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: 23rd with 13 plus additional shows across the country through
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: December of this year. It's going to be great.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Man, we're working you this year.
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I'm excited. I'm excited to get back out there. I
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: live a small life in Los Angeles. There's nothing for
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: me here. I'm going on the road.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Get your tickets today by heading to www.crooked.com slash events.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: $ 1 of every Love It or Leave It 2023 Errors
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Tour ticket sold will be donated directly to the Vote
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Save America fuck bands. Leave Queer Kids Alone Fund. You
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: can take action too by donating at www.votesafeamerica.com slash fuckbans today.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Vote Safe America, today is election day in
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin and polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: for the most important election of the year, which will
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: determine the fate of abortion rights and whether the state
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: has a shot at a functional representative democracy. Wisconsin has
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: same-day voter registration, so there's still time to help get
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: out the vote. Head to votesafeamerica.com. for more of all
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the things we talk about today, with the indictment, with
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the plane going to Manhattan, the thing that you can
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: have the most impact on is this election in Wisconsin.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: And it'll probably matter the most in terms of returning democracy.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: To the state. Don't abandon your state like Aaron Rodgers.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Go to the polls.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, don't, whatever, and what Aaron Rodgers did was wrong.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: And everyone knows what Aaron Rodgers is doing continues to
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: be something that's offending to us. It breaks our hearts.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: And he can't fix it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: What do you think he did?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: I think that he decided to take a job in
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: a new city.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. I'm proud of you.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: That's context clues only from this conversation. I've literally never
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: heard about this.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: After he did a silent retreat and maybe some ayahuasca.
• 2:47
  Speaker 6: Really?
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: That's all true.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: That's how I make all my big decisions.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: As you should.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. Donald Trump will
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: surrender at the Manhattan district attorney's office today where he
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: will be fingerprinted, posed for a mugshot, read his Miranda rights,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: and then arraigned on criminal charges related to hush money
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: payments he made to porn star Stormy Daniels. The specifics
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of the indictment will be unsealed in court, but it's
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: been widely reported that Trump faces more than 30 counts,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: including at least one felony. The twice impeached Republican front
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: runner for 2024 is the first ex-president to be charged
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: with the crime. And so far, the coverage has been
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: as subdued as you'd expect.
• 3:25
  Speaker 7: I look at all these people on the roadside, and yes,
• 3:27
  Speaker 7: some of them are law enforcement, but a lot of
• 3:29
  Speaker 7: these are citizens who know this route, and he's going
• 3:32
  Speaker 7: to slow down a bit for this.
• 3:33
  Speaker 8: Yeah, apparently he sent a box of hats out to
• 3:36
  Speaker 8: some of those who were peacefully gathered over the weekend.
• 3:40
  Speaker 9: And, Vaughn, we can see the motorcade has turned into
• 3:42
  Speaker 9: the entrance to the airport. It's approaching the airport. The
• 3:45
  Speaker 9: plane is on the tarmac. And unless he stops, it
• 3:49
  Speaker 9: should be very quickly. He'll be boarding that plane and
• 3:53
  Speaker 9: it'll be taking off for New York.
• 3:54
  Speaker 7: His plane is getting ready to take off now. They
• 3:58
  Speaker 7: are on the move on the tarmac. And this is
• 4:00
  Speaker 7: what we have been watching for. And we don't know
• 4:02
  Speaker 7: what destiny looks like on the other side of this
• 4:05
  Speaker 7: trip when he gets here in New York City.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Welcome back.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: You are watching the former president's plane take off, heading
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: up in the air and heading back to his home
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: state of New York. Certainly not the kind of homecoming
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: that he had ever imagined when he went back from
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: Florida to New York. But he is heading back on
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: a historic flight.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Al Cowlings. We've heard from Al Cowlings, who says Trump
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: will surrender.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: I think this is exactly the kind of homecoming he
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: actually imagined for a long time, if we're being honest.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: But we do not know which destiny will await him
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: on the other hand. The plane is taking off. It's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: in the air.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I believe they have turned the fastened seatbelt light off.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: What are they going to cover, the news?
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: They are now serving some drinks.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: 24-7 cable coverage was a mistake. I think that's what
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: we're learning.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: As like a society.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine, is there anyone on earth less likely
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: to heed the Miranda warning than Donald Trump in the
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: history of the Miranda warning? Is there anyone less likely
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to be like, oh my God, that's a great advice?
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: I'll shut up now.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I'm very interested today to see if the judge imposes
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a gag order on him because can you imagine him
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: not being able to talk about this trial as it unfolds?
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: That's interesting.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: What will he do with his time?
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Play golf probably.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: What will he say? Will he talk about issues? Yeah, issues.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Will he talk about the issues? Talk about the issues.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Happy Surrender Day, guys. Thank you. Do you think we
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: should have... Did we make a mistake not doing a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: live show on the route from Mar-a-Lago to the airport?
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: I'm tailgating in my mind. Someone did put the Fox
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: News commentary over the OJ Bronco Chase footage. Did they really?
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: And it was very well done. All right.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: So we won't know the details of the legal case
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: against Trump until this afternoon. That hasn't slowed down the
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: takes one bit. Just minutes after the news broke on Thursday,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: the Washington Post editorial board was out with a banger titled,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: The Trump indictment is a poor test. for prosecuting a
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: former president. And the New York Times ran a guest
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: op-ed by a former federal prosecutor titled, Trump's prosecution has
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: set a dangerous precedent. Basic argument here is that this
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: crime isn't as serious or as easily proven as Trump's
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: other potential crimes, and that it's unfortunate that this indictment
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: has come first. Lovett, what do you think about those arguments?
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: It's very, it's, it's, um, We're back in sort of
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: optics land, which is.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Did we ever leave?
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: It's a fun smell of mirrors where the problem is
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the prosecution, because it is not on some level political,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem political enough to meet the threshold of being
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: apolitical in the way that these writers would like.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: You can't make the prosecution political, but you've got to
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: have some political judgment in the prosecution. Right.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: You don't want the prosecution to be political, but then
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: are worried that it's not being rolled out in the
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: most politically expeditious manner. So it's like, what would have
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: been right? You want the prosecutors to get on the phone,
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: do a conference call, figure out the right order? No,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: that'd be reprehensible. You want Bragg to hold just for
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: political purposes because you know that the Fulton County or D.C.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: cases around the insurrection or overturning the election are more
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: serious and feel more fulsome and and deserving of being
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: the first charges to be leveled against a former president?
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: You want them to hold?
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Of course not. That doesn't seem right either. So you
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: can't really have it both ways. You want it to
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: be apolitical. You think this is not the best political move. Okay.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Can we talk about the optics of you wearing a
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: radical left defund Bruce Wayne t-shirt while giving this take?
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: I heard that you kicked down the door of a
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: retail location on Melrose.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: First of all, this is our merch.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: You make this. Oh, well, good. I mean, I love
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: that shirt.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I just think it's time we face the fact that
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Bruce Wayne should not have the amount of power in
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Gotham that he has.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: That's all. Look, I get why this is uncomfortable and
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: that it's uncharted territory, but we haven't even seen the indictment.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Maybe those editorials can wait until we saw the specifics.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: More broadly speaking, a lot of countries have prosecuted heads
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: of state and not banana republics like everyone is saying. France,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: South Africa, Israel, South Korea, their democracies have all survived.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: The only one that's imperiled right now is Israel because
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister, is fighting corruption charges and
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: trying to gut Israel's judicial system to avoid the consequences
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: of them. So I think we should just wait and see.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: And the bigger problem in our justice system as far–
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: as I can tell, is that there's one system for
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: poor people and then there's one system for rich and
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: powerful people where they get away with shit all the time.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: And maybe if this sends a message that rich and
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: powerful people should not be able to get away with
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: any crime, white collar crime, campaign finance crime, that would
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: be a good thing.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, one of the bedrock principles of our
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: legal system should be that no one is treated differently
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: than anyone else. And so once you start making decisions
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: on Trump's potential prosecution based on the fact that he's
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: former president you immediately set up those two standards of
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: justice and like so trump gets a pass because well
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: there's a couple arguments trump trump should get a pass
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: because he's committed more serious crimes potentially and this is
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a less serious crime then there's like the optics of
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the you know how do we order them but you're
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: right like the prosecutors in this case a special counsel
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: a doj a fulton county district attorney the manhattan district
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: attorney they can't coordinate the indictments and have like a
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: political world. It's just not allowed.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: It would be a fun Zoom.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: That would be horrible.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I do think with this one, I think the critique
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: of this is that this is, we hear it all
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the time, that this is a novel legal theory. The
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: argument that conservatives, I think, somewhat fairly are making is
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: that this is not a case that would have been
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: brought against an ordinary citizen, right? That like, this is
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: a complicated set of facts to get to a felony
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: based on a campaign violation at the federal level. level
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: that he's not being charged for related to the offense
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: of falsifying his business records. We have to see what
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: the actual indictment is. We should wait to see that.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: But I think the point that they're making is we
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: should be making the argument that no one is above
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: the law. And I think that that will become even
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: easier an argument to make as we see more indictments
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: from other kinds of prosecutions. But I think the point
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: they're making is that this is something that is being
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: directed at Donald Trump and wouldn't have been directed at
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: anybody else.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: And I think others would make the argument and have,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: you know, in just security today, you know, Norm Eisen,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Ryan Goodman, a bunch of other lawyers pointed out that, like,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: first of all, falsifying business records in New York is
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: one of them, a very common charge to bring to
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: all kinds of people, to charge all kinds of people with.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And also they have then connected falsifying business records to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: other state crimes to turn them into, to make them felonies.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And that has happened. So again, we haven't seen the indictment,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: but it might not just be that they are connecting
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: falsifying business records to a federal crime, but to potentially
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: other New York state crimes, which other people would be
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: charged with.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: But I don't even, like, that's almost beside the point.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Stepping back from all of this, I think the broader
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: argument about this being uncharted territory and dangerous is, is
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: the same mistake that a lot of pundits have made,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: which is the Rubicon is not holding Trump accountable. The
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Rubicon is having a criminal president, right? Like whether or
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: not you hold Trump accountable after the fact, yes, we're
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: crossing a new boundary. We've never charged a past president
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: with a crime before.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Guess who crossed the boundary first? Donald Trump.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So that was true with both impeachments. It's true
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: with the January 6th hearing. It's like, oh my God,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: look at all these extraordinary steps we're taking, these unprecedented
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: steps to hold this person accountable. Yes, we all recognize
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: that he's an unprecedented threat and he's doing things with
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: a reckless disregard for the law in the way no
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: president has ever before.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: It's also silly to be like, an ordinary citizen wouldn't
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: be charged with campaign finance violations. Like, well, yeah, right.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: You have to be a candidate to violate campaign finance law.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: And also, by the way, John Edwards, former United States
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: senator who was the vice presidential nominee in 2004, was
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: charged with very similar crimes. He was ultimately– I think
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: it was a hung jury and he got away. But
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: there is some precedent here. I think the bad thing
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: would be if we get to a situation where you
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: have Republicans do a tit for tat and they decide, OK,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: we need to indict a Democrat. Maybe they go after
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Biden or Barack Obama under sort of specious allegations. But
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: we're far from there.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Right. And, you know, they probably– look, they've all been–
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: They've either called for Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, former president's candidates, either to be locked up,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: to be indicted. They've all called for that.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: Hey, you know what?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: If you want, we'll meet at the middle of the
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: 69th Street Bridge. We'll walk Hillary Clinton to you. You
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: walk Trump to us.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I don't mean it.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, trying to get her on the show.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. But pick someone you want and we'll
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Who are we offering? I don't know.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Someone we don't want on the show.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Mansion cinema.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Look, if former Democrats commit crimes, then yeah, they should
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: be indicted. That's just the way it is. Don't commit crime.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Well, the other thing, too, is it's like, hey, we're
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: not negotiating with terrorists here. Like, hey, if you charge
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Trump for legitimate crimes, we're going to find some trumped
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: up bullshit to charge Joe Biden with the next time
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: he comes through fucking Montana. It's like, OK, well, that's
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: a terrible way to go about our making decisions.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah. Also, thanks for the heads up. We're not
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: going there.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Republicans have been a bit less subtle in
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: their reactions to the news of Trump's indictment. Let's listen.
• 13:30
  Speaker 6: Well, if you got a pile of crap and you
• 13:32
  Speaker 6: chop it up 34 times, it's still a pile of crap.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: And of course, this is not an isolation.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: This comes after the first impeachment ever of a sitting
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: president over a phone call.
• 13:41
  Speaker 10: One thing when you have a cancel culture, it's another
• 13:44
  Speaker 10: one you have. a canceled criminal justice system.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: And I hope that we're certainly not turning to that.
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: So this is not even about the, forget the federal government,
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: because guess what? They just indicted Trump in a local area.
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: So the equivalent is this. Okay, you indict Donald Trump
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: in Manhattan. We indict Bill Clinton in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Figure it out.
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: It almost feels like they're pushing the population to react.
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: We think they're demoralized and passive.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Let's see if they really are.
• 14:08
  Speaker 8: We control the power of the purse, and we're going
• 14:10
  Speaker 8: to have to look at the appropriations process and limit
• 14:13
  Speaker 8: funds going to some of these agencies, particularly the ones
• 14:15
  Speaker 8: who are engaged in the most egregious behavior. So the
• 14:18
  Speaker 8: DOJ and the FBI?
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: But we feel like the DA's time would be better
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: spent trying to prosecute criminals.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Maybe this is just my bias showing, but I find
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: Marco Rubio's comment there that it's the first impeachment over
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: a phone call to be the most stupid observation of
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: all of them, even slicing the poop 34 ways.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Well, it's just like the lamest Trump MAGA talking point
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: that Marco Rubio is just, you know, like I think
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Trump used to tweet that.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: All the time. At issue. Like a perfect phone call.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: At issue wasn't the phone portion of it. It was
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: the conduct. Well, it's like, Marco.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Are you suggesting it's not possible to commit crimes over
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: the phone?
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: What are you talking about?
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I also, I liked personally Jim Jordan using the Manhattan
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: DA's case to then, as an excuse to defund the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: FBI and the DOJ, which goes to tell you, It
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: might not be the type of crime that they don't
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: agree with right here, the charges. I don't know if
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: they're making the same argument as the Washington Post editorial
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: board that, oh, this just isn't a strong case because,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump could go kill someone and they'd be
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: saying the same shit. Well, right.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: There's no legitimate argument. You can't do it at the
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: local level. The federal level is also corrupted. There's no
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: legitimate place to hold Trump accountable. There's no example. There's
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: no right way to do it.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: All of these arguments from Republicans, or at least most
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: of them, boil down to the belief that Donald Trump
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: should be immune from prosecution. Not because he's a former
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: president or presidential candidate, not because of that, just because
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: he's Donald Trump.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: Because they like him.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Ron DeSantis, who initially reacted to the pending
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: indictment by saying, uh, I don't know what goes into
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: over some type of alleged affair, has since changed his
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: tune and said that, quote, Florida will not assist in
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue. Tommy,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: what do you make of Tiny D's strategy here?
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, he viewed this as a freebie, right? And
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: he knows that he can sort of notionally support this
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: safe space for Trump idea, but that it would never
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: happen and that Trump was going to turn himself in. So,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: you know, Well played, I guess. I liked Chris Christie's comment,
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: which was basically, who the hell asked you?
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Funny.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: But I mean, look, to the extent Trump has any
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: political genius in him, it's that he has forced the
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: entire Republican Party to support him. I mean, he, I
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: think before DeSantis put out this statement, he tweeted something
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: to the effect of, Many Republicans haven't weighed in yet.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Very disloyal, whatever. So he's baited everyone into supporting all
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: of these existential issues that surround him. Like you can
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: disagree with Trump on policy, but if you don't support
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: the election lie, if you didn't fight for him around impeachment,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: if you don't get his back here, like he will
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: go after you. Love it.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think saying the extradition thing, which first of all,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: it's like Trump's like, oh, thank you. I'm not going
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: to acknowledge this. I'm just going to go on my own.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: I really would like to not give you any credit whatsoever.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Instead, I'm going to put out a statement talking about
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: how I have expanded my lead over you in the primary.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: So thanks for offering to harbor a fugitive, but I'm
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: not going to be a fugitive. I'm going to turn
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: myself in, but thank you. You took a subtle shot
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: at me a couple weeks ago, and then you've gone
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: from that to offering to harbor a fugitive.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I do think it's the same. I don't know
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: that he's... I actually think it's not a shift. I
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: think he's just doing the first half. The first half
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: is this prosecution is illegitimate.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: It's political.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: I can't stand by it. I don't support it. The
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: second half is I'm Trump without the baggage. He's just
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: not doing the Trump without the baggage stuff today, but
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: he will do it again.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I am and have been very sympathetic to the challenge
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: of winning over the decisive group of Republican voters who
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: are open to a Trump alternative, but still really like Trump.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: That said... Why would they pick the guy defending Donald
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Trump when they can just pick Donald Trump himself? You know,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: like Ron DeSantis.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: I just think no one's going to remember this in
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: three months or six months. You know, like he's just like,
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: let me get through this news cycle is my guess.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think that this.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I'm very much in the camp that he should be. No,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: I know you want to compete against Donald Trump. Throw
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: a punch. I think DeSantis is getting crushed in the
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: polls because he looks like a wimp. And this is
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: part of that argument.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think that this is not going away.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: This trial, there's going to be potentially other indictments, there's
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: other investigations going. Like, one alternative here, I thought about
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Bernie during the debate in 2015 when he said, people
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: are sick of hearing about your damn emails to Hillary
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and so am I. And then he criticized her on
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other issues. Like, DeSantis could have
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: done something like, look, this is up to the jury
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and the voters to decide. Like, I personally think the
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Democrats are salivating over the chance to run against someone
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: with as much legal and political baggage as Trump. And
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm offering an alternative, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: I think he's, I think he is going to get,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: I think he'll, let's see, let's see if he gets there.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: I do think it becomes an, we were talking about
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: this in a previous pot. I think it's about electability.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: I think he needs the electability piece to start becoming
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: more salient for people as we get closer. But I
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: don't think there's a lot to be gained right now
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: in siding with the siding, in siding with prosecutors in
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: some way that makes him look like he's on the
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: other side of this issue, not just from Trump, but
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: from rubio fucking joe mansion i mean like yeah this
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: is this is a place where he can.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: I would do that i would say that his original
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: answer where he took the subtle jab at trump by
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: saying well i don't know what goes into paying you
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: know yeah i think that was he was he was
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: better off with that yeah i think he attacks the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: prosecution he says he gives takes a little shot and
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: then that's it.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: You offer a blanket safe space for all future crimes
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: that would be clever. I think this one is just,
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: this is pathetic. It's unclear if he's good at this,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: so we'll see.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: On the other end of the Republican spectrum is Asa Hutchinson,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: former governor of Arkansas and federal prosecutor who announced that
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: he's running for president this weekend and called on Trump
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: to drop out of the race because of the indictment.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Hutchinson is the first unabashedly anti-Trump Republican candidate to announce
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: because Chris Christie hasn't jumped in yet. Think there's any
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: constituency for him in this primary?
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: This guy was shot out of a cannon this weekend.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Asa.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: Asa.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Asa Hutchinson with finger on the pulse is like, I
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: know what to do. I'm going to do it during
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: indictment palooza. And I'm going to go to the place
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: where the MAGA community gathers to get its marching orders
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: this week with George Stephanopoulos.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Former Clinton aide.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: It's ridiculous. He looks ridiculous.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: What is he doing?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Low name ID. too normal, hasn't owned the libs enough.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Even if people are open to a Trump alternative, they
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: don't think he should drop out. We're Republicans, Republican primary.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: The problem in 2016 is, right, there were all these
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: Republicans that got in the race and none of them
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: wanted to attack Trump because they all wanted to get
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: his scraps when he eventually flamed out. If Asa Hutchinson
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: jumps in and actually runs against Trump and criticizes him
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: and has a message against him for the duration of
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: the primary, like, I will be happy. But That interview
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: was not electric.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Here's what you kind of need. If the goal for
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: these anti-Trump Republicans, you still want the mega base, what
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: you need is for somebody like Chris Christie, you need
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis to grab Chris Christie by the haunches and
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: push him forward and run behind him as hard as
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: he can while Chris Christie's doing all the fulsome anti-Trump stuff.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And then right when Chris Christie is completely battered and blue,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: you throw him to the side and say, I'm Ron DeSantis.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: So you're like a weekend Bernie's kind of thing.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to use him like one of those
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: football pads.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Stocking horse. Like a fullback? Like a shield.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Like a blocking shield? Yeah, like one of those things.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: I think your metaphor here is a fullback. Okay. I'm
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: going to block for you.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I said fullback.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's great.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Hey, I said fullback.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Congrats.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: You said fullback.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: And hey, I said fullback. I said fullback.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: You nailed it. You know you nailed it.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And Aaron Rodgers was a? Football player.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the early public reaction to the criminal charges.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: CNN poll released yesterday found 60% of Americans approve of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Trump's indictment. Again, we don't know what's in it, but
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: they approve. Including 62% of independents and majorities of every
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: demographic group except Republicans, 79% of whom disapprove of the indictment.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: No surprise there. Only 10% of all Americans think Trump
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: did nothing wrong. Though 76% believe politics played at least
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: some role in the decision to indict Trump.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one of them too.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: He got me in there. That's why I was like,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not surprised by that.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: People can be like, yeah, no, he deserved it. I'm
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: sure it was politically motivated as well. And it was.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: And I agree.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: It can be politically motivated and also the right thing
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: to do. It can be both.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: 10% thinking he did nothing wrong is so funny because
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of Republicans who'd be like, yeah, he
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: committed crimes for us. He did it for me.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: That's where my DeSantis point comes in because when DeSantis
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: did the like, I don't know what goes into paying
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: hush money for a porn star, he's talking to the
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: people who are like, he definitely did something wrong, but
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know. But I also think that it was
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: politically motivated and I don't know if he should have
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: been indicted. Like, totally fair hit. He was in good
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: territory there.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: This is, I think, one of the problems we've had
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: for such a long time is that there's some like,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Magic set of words some anti-Trump Republicans could say to
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: the MAGA base to convince them that Trump isn't the
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: right person. They know who he is. Being a lying
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: and cheating and shady person like that wasn't just like
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: baked into the price of Trump. It was part of
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: his pitch. It was part of they all know he's
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: a shady guy. Like that's a big part of what
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: he's offering. So like everybody kind of acknowledges that.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But what they can't figure out is if he's
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a real loser or not. Yeah. That's what that's for.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: And that's what we keep saying this. But like that's
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: where DeSantis. Yes. Yes.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: In there. I thought those numbers were better than I
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: expected to be honest. Better for the 60 percent. Oh yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: More anti-Trump.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: More anti-Trump. Yeah. I mean I think you know before
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: any of the specifics of the indictment come out I
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: do think. I don't think you're ever going to be
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: able to convince people that there isn't some political elements
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: of this prosecution. The Manhattan D.A. indicting Trump. Like, of course,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: there is some sort of political piece to this.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: After for who for a while said he wasn't sure
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: he could do it.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Like came back to it.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: The thing about the 60 number, though, is like this
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: is what you just said. Love it was people have
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: made up their mind about Trump. 60% is also around
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: where his disapproval rating has been hovering for years now.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: It's like 60% think he has something to do with
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: January 6th. 60% think he should be indicted for this document.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: 60% of the country does not think he's fit for
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: the job, does not like him, thinks that he's probably
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a shady guy who deserves to go to jail.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: I just thought some part of that number would have
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: just general discomfort with the concept of prosecuting a former president.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: So in some ways I was, I thought those were
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: good numbers.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I think on that, most Americans are like, you know what?
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Politicians should not get any special treatment. I don't care
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: if they're presidents or not. They probably say the same
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: thing about Joe Biden or, you know, other, I think one.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Of the reasons Donald Trump became president instead of Hillary
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Clinton is that there was more antipathy towards just sort
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: of basic politics than we kind of, that we had
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: like that we had accounted for, right? Like, like there's
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: a lot more throw the book at them people out
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: there than we realized.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Um, So his approval rating so far remain unchanged, which, again,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's too surprising. And other polls since
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the news broke also show that he's expanded his lead
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: in the Republican primary. You know, Dan and I talked
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: a little bit about this on Thursday. But to me,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: that still is a result of like Trump's in the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: news all the time. And now, you know, the. the
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: lib establishment and the deep state is out to get Trump.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: And so now we have to rally behind our guy.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: So it's not super surprising.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: And every figure of any authority on the right is
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: saying that there's a political prosecution and unfair and not legitimate.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: And there's no... Which again, imagine if they hadn't. Imagine
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: if everyone sounded like Asa Hutchinson.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Tragedy of the commons.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Tragedy of the commons.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I did find it interesting. He raised $ 4 million like
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: in the first 24 hours since the... Seven total. And then, yeah,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: seven total now. And then I saw at least the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Trump campaign is saying, you know, they're liars, so who knows,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: that like 80% of those are new donors.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Oh, come on.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: I don't buy that for a fucking second.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: New donors? I don't believe that they have anyone smart
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: enough in that organization to figure that stat out. Yeah,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: I don't buy that.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: That seems hard to believe.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Where are these new donors coming from now in 2023?
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: I'm in.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Give me a break.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro. People have come here.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: Bot farm in Romania.
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: So with the huge caveat that it's still just the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: beginning of indictment season, how much do you think Democrats
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: should talk about these charges? And what should they say?
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know that they have a choice.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: They'll probably all get asked about it. And so therefore,
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: they will need to comment. I think Dan wrote a
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: piece on this today that I thought was very compelling,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: where he flagged that the Navigator Research Company polled it.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: And they found the most compelling argument is basically no
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: one is above the law, even a former president. And
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: I do think you should also talk about how everyone
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: is afforded the presumption of innocence. And then I would also,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: you know, from a political perspective, try to pair it
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: with a message that like, aren't you tired of talking
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: about this guy? Yeah. Wouldn't it be great to just
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: move on from this soap opera?
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that's all true. I think like
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: if what we're talking about for a while are just
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: these New York charges, I think no one is above
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: the law. But you have to find a way to
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: turn it towards other Republicans because. If we're spending all
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: our time painting a beautiful portrait of why Trump is terrible,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's the best use of our time.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: We have to get at the fact that all these
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Republicans are defending him, putting party over country, backing him
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: despite all the harm he has done and kind of
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: despite advocating for him instead of advocating for their constituents,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: whatever it may be. But we have to figure out
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: a way to be talking about Republicans writ large and
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: not Donald Trump.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I think you have to do both because it's Donald
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Trump's not just an ex-president. Donald Trump is the leading
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: contender for the Republican nomination, the likely nominee, I would
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: say at this point, and thus becomes 30, 40,000 votes
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: away from becoming president again. And we and in all
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the polls with him and Joe Biden are now still
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: pretty close, still pretty close. So I do think you
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: have like there are people out there who are, you know,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: still haven't quite decided.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: There was in that Navigator poll that Dan pulled out,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: there was one part of the message, which I thought
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: was actually useful and actually mirrors the way Republicans do investigations,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: which is this is just the tip of the iceberg.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And I think as much as we begin saying like,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: this is just Donald Trump is a shady motherfucker. This
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: is just the tip of the iceberg. These people are
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: defending this guy, even though he broke the law. Everybody
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: should be treated the same. And we got to like
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: follow this to it. We got to investigate this and
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: find out what happened and find out what he did.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I also think that both Republicans and Donald Trump You know,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: over the last week have been suggesting, oh, just wait
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: till we get in power again. We're going to punish
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: all our enemies and we're going to use the law
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: to go after everyone else. That gets it both the
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: like the two tiered system of justice and the drama
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: point that you're making. Like, so we want another four
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: years where Donald Trump's back in power and he's just
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: going to take revenge on all of his enemies and
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: he thinks he can get away with whatever he wants.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: There's sort of two tiered system of justice. And you
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: made this point earlier in the pod, Tommy. that there
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be one justice system for everyday Americans and another
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: for the rich and powerful where they pay no consequences
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: for their crimes. That was like the next sentence in
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the Navigator poll that they tested that was part of
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: that very powerful message. I think getting that in there too,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: because you need to make it relevant to people at
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: some point. You know, it's not just about Donald Trump.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: It's not just about Republicans. It's about what it means
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: for you. And like, If you did this shit, you
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: would go to jail, but not Donald Trump because he's
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: rich and powerful.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what I'm saying, we shouldn't be focusing. I'm
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: not saying we shouldn't be talking about Donald Trump. We
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: just can't focus exclusively on it. We have to make
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: it a larger story.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: And you endorsed him.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: And I did endorse him. But the other thing, too,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: is I do think it really will matter what specific
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: crimes we're talking about, whether we're talking about the New
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: York crimes. We also have the election crimes in Georgia.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: We have the documents crime. and we have the insurrection
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: related crimes. And I do think if we start to
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: see charges related to overturning democracy, I think we start
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: to make a bigger case about Republican extremism and their
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: commitment to Donald Trump, even if it violates the basic
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: fundamental values we have as Americans. And then that starts
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: to be I think, a very much more useful, very
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: direct attack on what the kind of government they're trying
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: to put together here.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: I do think it's worth noting that Joe Biden's taking
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: a different approach where they are trying to draw a
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: contrast where he's like running around going to, you know,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: factories that were started because of investments and bills that
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: he helped get passed and just sort of put forward
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: this image of a normie Democrat doing things that actually
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: matter to you. I'm sure at some point he'll get
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: asked about Donald Trump and he'll have to comment, but
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: I don't think Optically, that is wrong for Biden to
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: be doing. I think it's exactly what I would recommend.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: But yeah, and I think it's sort of his only option.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I think the challenge is he needs a theory of
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: attention here. And like he ain't getting much attention for
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: those ribbon cutting ceremonies in the middle of this. And
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: that's I don't know what the White House can do
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: about that, except for just exactly. They're trying to draw
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: the contrast. He's a normal president trying to get things
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: done for people delivering for people.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: That's good. That's the message. It's just going to be
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: really challenging to get attention.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: He's got to be standing in front of a fucking
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: earth mover with a bridge being built behind him and
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: saying like, you know, we're building bridges. He's getting fingerprinted.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: I want quotes like.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: That out there.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Come on.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: We're getting nods all over the fucking studio.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Ribbon cutting at a new prison in Palm Beach.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. Yeah, we built this prison right by
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: his house.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Just in case we needed to fill it. Love it.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the documents case. Washington Post broke the news
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: this weekend that the Justice Department has found new and
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: significant evidence. that Trump obstructed the investigation into his decision
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: to hide classified documents in his beach house. The story says, quote,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Investigators now suspect, based on witness statements, security camera footage,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and other documentary evidence, that boxes including classified material were
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: moved from Mar-a-Lago storage area after the subpoena was served,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: and that Trump personally examined at least some of those boxes.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Fox also reported that several Secret Service agents connected to
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Trump are scheduled to testify before a D.C. grand jury
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: in the classified documents case. So, you know.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: And they're looking into whether he showed donors some of
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: these documents.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: It is so funny that all these sort of nefarious
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: conspiracies about what he was doing with the documents, and, like,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: he may be brought up on charges because he just
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: wanted to show his fellow rich assholes, like, hey, check
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: this out. Look at this nuclear weapon China made. It's crazy.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: How cool is this?
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: And I can't wait. We're going to get the footage.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Put the Benny Hill music on it, just with the
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: boxes coming in and out of that fucking wine cellar.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: I do think at first glance, you could look at
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: the obstruction thing and be like, obstruction? That seems like
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: a process argument. But now that you have the Biden case, too,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: it really is different that like, oh, Biden has some documents.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: And then Biden says, search my house, search everything, get
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: them all out there. And then they did. Trump, they
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: serve him a subpoena. And then after he gets a subpoena,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: he goes, ooh, better hide those documents. I mean, that's
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: just easy to understand.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: It's pretty easy. They turned over a bunch, and then
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: the feds searched the Mar-a-Lago, and they found like 100 more. Right.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Because they tried to hide them after they got a subpoena.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: It's very funny because it's a little bit like, well,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: that's going to be hard to prove. Like Dominion, they're like, well,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: it's hard to prove malice. And these guys are texting
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: backstage being like, we're lying.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Oh, no.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Let's keep lying. Let's lie harder. And then Trump gets
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: there to subpoena for these documents. And then they have
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: a video camera of someone hiding it. That's amazing.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: He did an interview with Hannity after the indictment. And
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Hannity brings up the documents case. And he's like, well,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't take something you're not supposed to. He's like,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: I can take whatever I want. He like basically admits
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: it to Hannity. I love it. I mean, look, I
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: do think this just goes to show, though, if there
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: are further indictments and or even if these investigations drag
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: on and if the coverage of the campaign is filled
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: with constant revelations that at the very least serve as
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: a reminder to people that Trump brings constant chaos and
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: drama everywhere he goes. You know, we've seen what happens.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: He lost the 2020 election. His candidates lost in 2022
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: after the January 6th hearings, after they were painted as
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: election denial extremists, which they were. He's not fucking Teflon.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: The guy lost the last three elections now.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: We have to see. I do think that, like, right now,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: I think what feels like it's holding is, you know, whatever.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Our just sort of base understanding is this is helping
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Trump in the Republican primary. It is hurting Trump in
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: the general. And the question is, how long does that hold?
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: And we will know how long it's holding based on
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: how long do Republicans... keep up this, it's a witch hunt,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: it's a witch hunt, it's a witch hunt thing on
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: his behalf. And how long, and do some of these,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: does one other Republican in this primary start gaining traction
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: on an electability argument, which then kind of unlocks criticizing
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: him on the substance of these cases, which unlocks a
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: further electability argument and kind of snowballs from there.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: And it's just the drip drip of the revelations, right?
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: There's so many investigations, so many possibilities for indictment, so much,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: so many news cycles could be taken up by this.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of faith in people's memories, right? Like,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: all of this coverage of the plane going and the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: indictment and him in court tomorrow, whatever, all that, like,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: like everyone, if that wasn't the end of it all,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: people would like forget about it in a couple of weeks.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: But like, these are legal cases. They're just going to
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: keep going and going and going.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: They could take years each. And also like people, like
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: people believe what they read, even if it's like an
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: email full of conspiracy theories, people tend to believe it.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: So if they're reading article after article about this guy
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: breaking the law, it's going to sink in. And I
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: think for sort of normie swing voters, they're going to
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: be like, I don't want to be my president again.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: And then There is this electability argument that will come
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: from DeSantis if he grows a spine to say this
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: guy is going to lose to Joe Biden again. Look
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: how much baggage he has this time. And I think
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: that could be effective. Yeah.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: OK, well, we're going to get an actual legal expert
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: to break down the case here when we come back.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Andrew Weissman will join and Tommy will be interviewing him
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: right after the break.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: Joining me now is Andrew Weissman. He is a former
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: senior prosecutor on the Mueller investigation and former general counsel
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: for the FBI. He's also an MSNBC contributor and co-host
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: of the new podcast, Prosecuting Donald Trump, which I assume
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: is mostly sort of NFL scores and updates. Yeah, exactly.
• 35:57
  Speaker 8: I don't do sports, actually.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: That's okay.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: That's okay. We don't do that here either. Thank you
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: for coming on today. It's a great day to talk
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: to you. Can we just sort of start with what
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: the heck happens here with President Trump and this indictment?
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: He shows up in court on Tuesday, and then what?
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, do they unseal the indictment that day? Can
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: you kind of walk us through the basics? Yeah.
• 36:20
  Speaker 8: I mean, there's a little bit that is, you know,
• 36:23
  Speaker 8: this could be very unique because how many times is
• 36:26
  Speaker 8: somebody under indictment who's under Secret Service protection? So I
• 36:30
  Speaker 8: can tell you what the normal process is. The normal
• 36:32
  Speaker 8: process is you get booked like anyone else. You go
• 36:35
  Speaker 8: to the NYPD. You have a mugshot taken. You have
• 36:39
  Speaker 8: fingerprints taken. There's a certain name, rank, serial number. Essentially,
• 36:43
  Speaker 8: it's called being processed. Then, even though a lot of
• 36:47
  Speaker 8: times you can self-surrender to the NYPD, so in economic
• 36:51
  Speaker 8: crime cases where there's no risk of violence or flight,
• 36:56
  Speaker 8: it's fine for the person just to show up. In
• 36:58
  Speaker 8: other words, the person doesn't get arrested at their home
• 37:00
  Speaker 8: and brought in cuffs to the NYPD. And then normally
• 37:06
  Speaker 8: you would be in cuffs to go from the NYPD
• 37:09
  Speaker 8: to the arraignment. And then at the arraignment, it's a
• 37:11
  Speaker 8: standard process. There's a judge, there's a prosecutor, there's a
• 37:14
  Speaker 8: defense lawyer, and in this case, you know, a million
• 37:16
  Speaker 8: of your friends. It remains to be seen whether the
• 37:19
  Speaker 8: judge will open it up to cameras. While I was teaching,
• 37:23
  Speaker 8: he may have ruled on it, but I know that
• 37:24
  Speaker 8: a lot of media organizations asked for that. It's up
• 37:27
  Speaker 8: to the judge's discretion what he's going to do. The
• 37:30
  Speaker 8: judge basically says to the defendant, how do you plead?
• 37:34
  Speaker 8: The defendant usually says, not guilty. They talk about bail conditions.
• 37:40
  Speaker 8: It's sort of a complicated issue in New York now
• 37:42
  Speaker 8: because of a bail reform statute. But obviously, in this case,
• 37:46
  Speaker 8: Donald Trump's going to be released. There could, though, be
• 37:51
  Speaker 8: discussion in connection with bail. There could be issues about
• 37:57
  Speaker 8: what he says that either could prejudice a jury, or
• 38:01
  Speaker 8: more importantly, what he could say that could incite violence.
• 38:05
  Speaker 8: This issue came up in Roger Stone's case, which was
• 38:08
  Speaker 8: while I was at the special counsel. I used to
• 38:11
  Speaker 8: say just at the special counsel's office. Now I have
• 38:13
  Speaker 8: to say special counsel Mueller because there's so many special
• 38:15
  Speaker 8: counsels that no one knows what I'm referring to. So
• 38:19
  Speaker 8: some of that process may get a little bit short-circuited
• 38:22
  Speaker 8: because of the Secret Service. Like it's not clear he's
• 38:25
  Speaker 8: going to have a mugshot. It's not clear he'll be
• 38:27
  Speaker 8: in handcuffs. But what happens in court, the part of
• 38:30
  Speaker 8: the arraignment, that is the way it's going to happen.
• 38:33
  Speaker 8: And then typically, shortly before an arraignment, if not the
• 38:38
  Speaker 8: day before, the indictment is unsealed because the defense lawyer
• 38:42
  Speaker 8: wants a chance to read it. And so the defense
• 38:47
  Speaker 8: lawyer will certainly get it not at that court appearance
• 38:50
  Speaker 8: because if the defense lawyer gets it at that court appearance,
• 38:54
  Speaker 8: there's going to be a big delay because the defense
• 38:56
  Speaker 8: lawyer and the defendant have a right to sit.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Down and read it.
• 39:00
  Speaker 8: And presumably, this is going to be something that's called
• 39:03
  Speaker 8: a speaking indictment, meaning that it sort of lays out
• 39:07
  Speaker 8: a lot of the evidence in the scheme. It's not
• 39:09
  Speaker 8: just sort of a sort of very brief recitation of
• 39:13
  Speaker 8: the actual criminal statute.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: You mentioned this interesting question of whether Trump will continue
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: to do interviews. I mean, His lawyer has been doing
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: a lot of TV. Trump has been posting on Truth Social,
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: including an image of the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, next
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: to a photo of Trump holding a baseball bat.
• 39:28
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Does that kind of activity create any legal risk for
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Trump in your mind? And what do you think the
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: odds are of a judge slapping a gag order of
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: some sort on him? A couple thoughts.
• 39:39
  Speaker 8: So one, you know, I was thinking that Michael Cohen
• 39:41
  Speaker 8: and his lawyer are kind of doing the same thing.
• 39:43
  Speaker 8: And you sort of realize there's a reason Michael Cohen
• 39:46
  Speaker 8: and Donald Trump like work together and we're sort of
• 39:48
  Speaker 8: peas in a pod because They're so similar and they
• 39:50
  Speaker 8: managed to also get lawyers who seem to also have
• 39:53
  Speaker 8: the same moth to a flame view of the media.
• 39:58
  Speaker 8: Of course, there's huge risks for Donald Trump to be
• 40:01
  Speaker 8: doing what he's doing. He's obviously doing it for political reasons,
• 40:05
  Speaker 8: but he's now going to have political reasons and legal
• 40:08
  Speaker 8: issues that are going to collide. And the two risks
• 40:12
  Speaker 8: are if he does something that incites violence, he actually
• 40:16
  Speaker 8: could be committing a crime and be charged with it.
• 40:20
  Speaker 8: It also is the case that he could be violating
• 40:22
  Speaker 8: his bail conditions. And then the judge has a lot
• 40:26
  Speaker 8: of discretion to, at the very least, impose more restrictions
• 40:32
  Speaker 8: on what he says publicly and what he truth socials
• 40:36
  Speaker 8: about and to limit that. In the same way that
• 40:40
  Speaker 8: when Roger Stone posted A really similar photo that it
• 40:44
  Speaker 8: wasn't with a baseball bat and the prosecutor, it was
• 40:48
  Speaker 8: of the sitting judge who had his case with.
• 40:53
  Speaker 10: Crosshairs.
• 40:54
  Speaker 8: And as the judge said after a hearing where she
• 40:56
  Speaker 8: didn't believe at all that Roger Stone did this innocently,
• 40:59
  Speaker 8: she said, how hard was it to find a picture
• 41:01
  Speaker 8: of me without crosshairs? So if he continues to do
• 41:06
  Speaker 8: something like that, the judge can impose consequences. really severe restrictions. Obviously,
• 41:12
  Speaker 8: if he was to be charged with incitement, he could
• 41:15
  Speaker 8: end up in jail awaiting trial.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Wow, things just got serious. So there are reports that
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: Trump is facing up to 34 separate charges and that
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: at least one of them is a felony. We obviously
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: don't know if that's accurate. There's been a lot of
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: inaccurate information swirling around about this case. But with that
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: volume of charges and the seriousness of at least one
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: of them being a felony, surprise you, given what we know?
• 41:42
  Speaker 8: It wouldn't, but I do want to caution you that
• 41:44
  Speaker 8: the volume of charges, it's like, this isn't a sort
• 41:47
  Speaker 8: of per pound way to look at this. This is,
• 41:53
  Speaker 8: by all accounts, there's going to be charges relating to
• 41:55
  Speaker 8: filing a false business record. So if you file that record,
• 42:00
  Speaker 8: the same record repeatedly, let's say, in a business, it's
• 42:07
  Speaker 8: given to the business for one purpose, and then you
• 42:09
  Speaker 8: file it with your accountants and you file it with
• 42:12
  Speaker 8: your tax preparer.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: Those all can.
• 42:15
  Speaker 8: Form a filing of a false business record or the
• 42:19
  Speaker 8: creation of a false business record. And you could charge
• 42:23
  Speaker 8: it as a felony, and you could also charge it
• 42:24
  Speaker 8: as a misdemeanor, the same filing.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: So I.
• 42:29
  Speaker 8: Think I'm going to be more interested in what's the
• 42:32
  Speaker 8: basic nature of the scheme than all of the ways
• 42:36
  Speaker 8: you could slice it up. It reminds me when I
• 42:38
  Speaker 8: did securities fraud prosecutions, you could actually have thousands of
• 42:44
  Speaker 8: counts because there's so many securities filings that are made
• 42:49
  Speaker 8: and there's so many potential victims receiving false filings if
• 42:54
  Speaker 8: that's the charge. But what you do is you sort
• 42:56
  Speaker 8: of take a representative sample So I don't think people
• 42:59
  Speaker 8: should really think about the severity because of the number
• 43:02
  Speaker 8: of charges.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: That's really helpful. Thank you. So speaking of severity, I mean,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: we know that there are these multiple separate investigations into Trump,
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: his businesses and his conduct. When you step back and
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: look at, you know, all four or five of them
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: or however many there are at this point, is there
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: one prosecution or one investigation that you think presents the
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: most serious legal risk?
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
• 43:27
  Speaker 8: So I think that there's one question, which is what's
• 43:31
  Speaker 8: under investigation that is the most serious, in my view,
• 43:35
  Speaker 8: that's a sort of subjective. And there's another, which is
• 43:38
  Speaker 8: what presents the most risk. And I think they're a
• 43:41
  Speaker 8: little bit different. I think the most serious crime that's
• 43:44
  Speaker 8: under investigation is the federal January, so-called January 6th investigation,
• 43:49
  Speaker 8: because that's something that goes directly to the heart of
• 43:51
  Speaker 8: our democracy. Hundreds of people have been prosecuted in connection
• 43:55
  Speaker 8: with that, but they're at the foot soldier level. it's
• 43:57
  Speaker 8: really important if they amass the right amount of proof
• 44:01
  Speaker 8: that the leader of that conspiracy and scheme be held
• 44:04
  Speaker 8: to account. And that's just so fundamental and core to
• 44:07
  Speaker 8: our democracy that, to me, that is the most serious.
• 44:10
  Speaker 8: I think the case that presents the most risk to
• 44:15
  Speaker 8: Donald Trump, and especially if I were looking at this
• 44:18
  Speaker 8: as his defense lawyer, are the state crimes, whether it's
• 44:21
  Speaker 8: Manhattan or Georgia, and probably Georgia more than Manhattan. And
• 44:24
  Speaker 8: the reason I say that is because regardless of what
• 44:28
  Speaker 8: happens in the presidential election, meaning regardless of whether Donald
• 44:33
  Speaker 8: Trump or any Republican becomes president, those state charges stick
• 44:38
  Speaker 8: because a federal pardon cannot affect a state charge. So
• 44:43
  Speaker 8: if I'm Donald Trump, I have my eye on those
• 44:46
  Speaker 8: state charges and I will be doing anything and everything
• 44:51
  Speaker 8: presumably within the law, to see that a Republican wins
• 44:54
  Speaker 8: the presidency because that will end any and can end
• 44:58
  Speaker 8: any federal prosecution.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: Well, there are two other big cases out there that
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: I want to ask you about. One is the Dominion
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: lawsuit against Fox News. On Friday, we learned that a
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Delaware judge ruled that the case will go to trial.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: What do you think that means for Fox in their
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: odds of winning in this case?
• 45:18
  Speaker 8: So that lawsuit, I think, is one of the most
• 45:21
  Speaker 8: brilliant lawsuits out there in terms of trying to figure
• 45:25
  Speaker 8: out what's the deterrent to making false statements. You know,
• 45:30
  Speaker 8: political leaders and candidates can make false statements, and there's
• 45:35
  Speaker 8: only sort of repercussions at the ballot box, which could
• 45:39
  Speaker 8: be severe, but they also, as we know, can be
• 45:42
  Speaker 8: ignored by the electorate.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: This is a.
• 45:45
  Speaker 8: Company saying that I have been hurt by false statements
• 45:48
  Speaker 8: that they have to show that they were deliberately made
• 45:52
  Speaker 8: by Fox News. I use the news part of that
• 45:55
  Speaker 8: in air quotes. And I think that the ruling that
• 46:01
  Speaker 8: just happened is pretty devastating. It's not just the facts
• 46:05
  Speaker 8: that we've heard about, which are, I'm not a First
• 46:09
  Speaker 8: Amendment lawyer, but every First Amendment lawyer I've talked to
• 46:11
  Speaker 8: said this is the strongest case they have ever seen.
• 46:14
  Speaker 8: And usually, I don't really, I'm not usually rooting for
• 46:17
  Speaker 8: someone who is suing a news organization. You usually think
• 46:22
  Speaker 8: news organizations have to and are entitled under the Supreme
• 46:25
  Speaker 8: Court law a lot of leeway, but not if it's
• 46:28
  Speaker 8: done with sort of actual malice, including reckless disregard And
• 46:32
  Speaker 8: here the judge made a couple of rulings that were
• 46:35
  Speaker 8: really interesting. One, the judge said it was crystal clear,
• 46:39
  Speaker 8: and I'm using that's quote, crystal clear that factually Dominion
• 46:45
  Speaker 8: did not change any votes. So that is going to
• 46:48
  Speaker 8: be a given in this trial. And that's huge when
• 46:51
  Speaker 8: you think about everything that we've been hearing from Donald Trump,
• 46:55
  Speaker 8: Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, so many people who are part
• 46:59
  Speaker 8: of this conspiracy theory. that is now out of the
• 47:03
  Speaker 8: case and that the jury will be told that. The
• 47:05
  Speaker 8: other is that some of the defenses that Fox News
• 47:08
  Speaker 8: wanted to bring, the court said they cannot because there's
• 47:12
  Speaker 8: no or insufficient evidence to bring it. So Fox wanted
• 47:16
  Speaker 8: to be able to say this was really just reporting
• 47:19
  Speaker 8: that was opinion evidence and entitled to a, quote, reporter's privilege.
• 47:24
  Speaker 8: And the court said, no, there's insufficient evidence of that.
• 47:28
  Speaker 8: that this was opinion, obviously he can just look at the,
• 47:31
  Speaker 8: as they used to say, he can just go directly
• 47:33
  Speaker 8: to the videotape and see that that's not what was
• 47:36
  Speaker 8: going on with Maria Bartolomo, for instance, just to take
• 47:39
  Speaker 8: one example, or Jeanine Pirro. And famously, Mr. Murdoch in
• 47:44
  Speaker 8: his deposition said, no, they were actually endorsing these fake stories.
• 47:50
  Speaker 8: They weren't just reporting it. They were actually endorsing what
• 47:53
  Speaker 8: was going on. So it looks really... bad in terms
• 47:57
  Speaker 8: of what's going to happen in about a month.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm not a First Amendment lawyer or
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: any kind of lawyer, but I imagine as a former prosecutor,
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: you would be licking your chops when you found this
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: body of evidence and includes emails and text messages from
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: people being like, hey, let's do some actual malice later
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: tonight on this broadcast. I mean, it's as close to
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: that joke being literal as you could seemingly get.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 48:19
  Speaker 8: I was thinking about this case, and this is when
• 48:21
  Speaker 8: you really, as a trial lawyer, I think about how
• 48:24
  Speaker 8: I would go about trying it. And I think the
• 48:26
  Speaker 8: first witness would be the woman who was the source
• 48:30
  Speaker 8: for the Dominion fake story. And that information was given
• 48:35
  Speaker 8: to one of the Fox anchors. And she's going to say,
• 48:40
  Speaker 8: she's wrote down that she sounds wackadoodle, that was her word,
• 48:44
  Speaker 8: that she talks to the wind, that Justice Scalia.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: Was murdered in Texas.
• 48:49
  Speaker 8: I mean, all these crazy things. And that would be
• 48:51
  Speaker 8: such a great first witness because it would show just
• 48:54
  Speaker 8: how crazy it was and that Fox knew it. And
• 48:58
  Speaker 8: I think for the punitive damages part, you'd want to
• 49:01
  Speaker 8: really hit home Murdoch's statement that this wasn't about red
• 49:05
  Speaker 8: or blue, it was about green. And the theme is, okay,
• 49:10
  Speaker 8: let's talk about green. What can you do to this
• 49:12
  Speaker 8: company to make sure they don't do it again if
• 49:15
  Speaker 8: they're really motivated by money? And that, by all accounts,
• 49:20
  Speaker 8: is very much what they were focused on, which was
• 49:23
  Speaker 8: that they were going to continue spinning out this false story,
• 49:27
  Speaker 8: even though they were being told internally that it was false.
• 49:31
  Speaker 8: And they said, no, it's hurting our ratings, so we're
• 49:33
  Speaker 8: going to continue doing it. So that to me means
• 49:36
  Speaker 8: that the punitive damages component of this case is got
• 49:40
  Speaker 8: to be something that they are actually really worried about
• 49:43
  Speaker 8: because that's where they really can take a substantial hit
• 49:47
  Speaker 8: in terms of their business.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the first witness you proposed they call
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: here claimed to be a decapitated time traveler in that
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: same email. That was the source.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: You think that's unusual?
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: It felt a touch off to me. But, you know, listen, again,
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: I'm no legal expert. The final case I want to
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: ask you about, which, you know, in many ways is
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: the largest stakes for regular people in this country. A
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: federal judge in Texas struck down a provision of the
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: Affordable Care Act that forces private health insurers to fully
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: cover preventative care services at no cost to patients. This
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: is a very popular and I would argue critically important
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: part of the bill. Do we have to wait until
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: the Biden administration appeals this up to the Supreme Court?
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: to know the fate of this bill once again?
• 50:38
  Speaker 8: What's amazing here is who's against preventative care? I mean,
• 50:43
  Speaker 8: just in terms of, just in terms of, just look
• 50:45
  Speaker 8: at the economics of this, let alone the health of
• 50:49
  Speaker 8: American people. I mean, there's a reason it's called preventative.
• 50:52
  Speaker 8: I mean, this is something that's so beneficial to people
• 50:55
  Speaker 8: in terms of their health and the economy. I mean,
• 50:58
  Speaker 8: this is like a win-win. It's just unbelievable that the
• 51:03
  Speaker 8: sort of political sense that I just want to be
• 51:05
  Speaker 8: against the ACA leads to this result. But to answer
• 51:10
  Speaker 8: your question is we don't for two reasons. One, because
• 51:13
  Speaker 8: the Biden administration can seek and is seeking a stay.
• 51:17
  Speaker 8: The district court issued a nationwide ban. All of these
• 51:21
  Speaker 8: nationwide bans are very controversial, whether it's sort of liberal
• 51:25
  Speaker 8: side or conservative side. It's this idea that one district
• 51:29
  Speaker 8: judge can sort of control what happens in the rest
• 51:31
  Speaker 8: of the country. but the Biden administration can get a
• 51:34
  Speaker 8: stay and will be seeking a stay of that. The
• 51:37
  Speaker 8: other is, let's say they don't get a stay. A
• 51:40
  Speaker 8: lot of healthcare companies aren't going to act on this immediately.
• 51:44
  Speaker 8: I mean, they've got a relationship and it's mid-year. It's
• 51:49
  Speaker 8: not even mid-year, it's mid-quarter. And so the idea that
• 51:53
  Speaker 8: they're going to suddenly withdraw coverage based on a decision
• 51:59
  Speaker 8: that may or may not be good. I mean, I
• 52:01
  Speaker 8: could see that it'll be interesting to see whether any
• 52:04
  Speaker 8: company actually says we're going to act on this now
• 52:08
  Speaker 8: as opposed to waiting. And remember, these are private companies.
• 52:11
  Speaker 8: They can decide to go forward with the coverage. The
• 52:15
  Speaker 8: ruling is about it's not being required. So I do
• 52:18
  Speaker 8: think that there is, in terms of the actual health
• 52:21
  Speaker 8: of people, that there's that sort of reprieve in getting
• 52:25
  Speaker 8: people funding.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, I have no faith in insurance
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: companies to do the right thing if they can save
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: them money. But they might do the math and decide that, hey,
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: actually doing preventative cancer screenings will save us money in
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: the long run.
• 52:39
  Speaker 8: And what if they withdrew this and then the court
• 52:41
  Speaker 8: decision is stayed or reversed and then they have to
• 52:44
  Speaker 8: give the money back? And what if someone was hurt
• 52:47
  Speaker 8: during that time and they could have found something? Even
• 52:49
  Speaker 8: if you're looking at it from their own economic interests,
• 52:52
  Speaker 8: this is one where you can imagine lawyers within the
• 52:55
  Speaker 8: company saying, you know what?
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Until this is.
• 52:57
  Speaker 8: Really resolved, this is not worth it. And there's a
• 53:01
  Speaker 8: lot of downside if we were to take action based
• 53:04
  Speaker 8: on one single decision.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: By one, I think, Bush appointee, Judge. Although we get
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: mad about Trump appointees, but I think this was a
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: Bush appointee from like 2007. So thank you for that,
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: President Bush. Andrew Weissman, thank you so much for joining
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: the show. The podcast, again, is called Prosecuting Donald Trump.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts. I'm
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: sure you guys are going to be covering the trials
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: on a weekly basis. Is that the plan? Absolutely. Excellent. Well,
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: I will be subscribing, uh, as soon as we hang up.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: So thank you again for joining us.
• 53:32
  Speaker 10: Glad to be here.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. Before we go, uh, chief take officer, Elijah Cohn
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: is back for another round of take appreciator. Uh, what
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: do you got for us, Elijah?
• 53:50
  Speaker 10: Guys, I've got some really exciting fare for you all today. Um,
• 53:55
  Speaker 10: In case you don't know how it works, I'm going
• 53:57
  Speaker 10: to share some takes with you. The producers have seen
• 53:59
  Speaker 10: these takes. John, John, and Tommy have not. They'll react.
• 54:03
  Speaker 10: Rate them on a scale of one to four politicos,
• 54:05
  Speaker 10: with four politicos being the worst. Are you guys ready
• 54:08
  Speaker 10: to appreciate some takes?
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: I'm ready. I'm ready. Great.
• 54:13
  Speaker 10: Let's start with Marjorie Taylor Greene's 60 Minutes interview. So
• 54:16
  Speaker 10: Marjorie Taylor Greene did an interview on 60 Minutes. 60
• 54:20
  Speaker 10: Minutes promoted the interview initially by saying, Georgia Republican Marjorie
• 54:25
  Speaker 10: Taylor Greene isn't afraid to share her opinions, no matter
• 54:29
  Speaker 10: how intense or in-your-face they are. We have a clip
• 54:32
  Speaker 10: from the interview. Let's take a listen. And things she
• 54:35
  Speaker 10: says that are over-the-top, like... The Democrats are a party
• 54:40
  Speaker 10: of pedophiles.
• 54:42
  Speaker 6: I would definitely say so. They support grooming children.
• 54:45
  Speaker 9: They are not pedophiles.
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: Why would you say that?
• 54:49
  Speaker 6: Democrats support.
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: Even Joe Biden, the president, himself supports children being sexualized
• 54:56
  Speaker 6: and having transgender surgeries. Sexualizing children is what pedophiles do
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: to children.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 55:03
  Speaker 10: The question for her and the country is can she
• 55:07
  Speaker 10: expand her brash MTG brand beyond the right-wing populist base?
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Woo-hoo!
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Is that the question? That is the big question.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: We got to, people need to know what brash means.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: We got to help people understand what brash means. Kara
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: Swisher is brash.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? I guess they felt like
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: they used a fire brand too much. I will say
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: her first response when she was like, come on, they're
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: not pedophiles. You know, Good for Leslie Stahl. The wow,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the whispered wow, I feel like she could have.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of churn about this interview on
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: social media. I thought they did a good job fact-checking
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: MTG in some other instances, but just allowing the Democrats
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: or pedophiles comments with a wow was terrible. She later
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: goes on to just read a series of horrible quotes
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: about other Democrats. That's like, what are we learning here
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: about this person?
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: What are we seeking to gain by this exploration of
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: the of the life of Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: Now, I'll say, controversial take, I think the sort of
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: question about whether she can expand her base, I don't know,
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: a couple years after Donald Trump, is that such a
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: crazy ask? Like, terrible people get elected to national or
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: federal positions these days. She could be a senator, maybe.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well, for sure. My thought on that was,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: let's be, like, we all know what she's doing here,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: buddying up to Kevin McCarthy, trying to be more establishment,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: trying to give press interviews because... she wants to run
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: for Senate in Georgia and she knows that to win
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: in Georgia, which is now a pretty purple state, you
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: have to be more moderate than she is because some
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: right-wing really extreme candidates have gone down statewide in Georgia.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Telling people that, or at least floating that during the
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: interview might have been useful for listeners to let people
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: understand the strategy behind why she's doing this shit.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: You know, the right always says that there's a liberal
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: media bias. And I think sometimes it's just that Liberal
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: media treats Democrats as protagonists and Republicans as antagonists. And
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: this is like a good example of that, where like
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Democratic politicians get normal questions that are kind of hard
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: that explore their actual motivations and agency and political realities.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: And then Marjorie Taylor Greene gets treated like a new
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: kind of ape we've just discovered, like seen coming through
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: the fucking mist. What makes her tick? What kind of
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: food does she eat? It's unbelievable. Oh, she has a
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: family structure. It seems to be matriarchal. What is going on?
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: Some good CrossFit shots. All right, let's rank this thing.
• 57:39
  Speaker 10: Yeah, Politico rating, please. In your face style.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: Two for me.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Tommy's endorsing Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: I think she's great.
• 57:48
  Speaker 10: Yeah, Tommy called me a bedwetter in the meeting this
• 57:50
  Speaker 10: morning when I brought this interview up, so I'm pretty offended.
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: I did? I don't know that I used those words.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: I won't give it a full playbook because I did
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: not see the whole thing originally. I saw the Twitter commentary,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: and then my straight shooter friend Tom brought up that
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: maybe it was a little over-torqued. And I will say,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: maybe just a tiny bit, but it was still pretty bad.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to give it three and a half.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to give.
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: It a four.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: Three and a half?
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: I was going to say three.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say three.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: I think it was pretty bad. Cool.
• 58:21
  Speaker 10: Well, we'll see if we can get you up to
• 58:23
  Speaker 10: four with one of these next two. You guys know
• 58:27
  Speaker 10: this one's coming. You asked for it. Let's go to
• 58:29
  Speaker 10: the New York Times. It's a piece titled Trump flourishes
• 58:33
  Speaker 10: in the glare of his indictment. Pause for groans. Here's
• 58:40
  Speaker 10: an excerpt. Rather than hang his head in shame as
• 58:44
  Speaker 10: many facing the possibility of prison might, he frames it
• 58:47
  Speaker 10: as just another Trumpian drama in a life filled with them.
• 58:50
  Speaker 10: The latest reality show cliffhanger.
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: Guys, what do we think? Yeah, that's painfully stupid.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: It's a Peter Baker classic.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Getting indicted is bad. It just is. It doesn't matter
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: if you raise money. You don't want to be indicted.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: Remember when there was that guy, Baghdad Bob, who had said,
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: you know, Saddam is winning, Saddam is winning?
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: Spokesperson.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: I think I think all these people should we should
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: call them the Baghdad blob. That's my name from that.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: That's pretty good.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: This is one of the stupidest fucking articles I've ever
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: read in the history of The New York.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: Times, truly.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: And you've read a pretty stupid part, but it's stupid
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: all the way down. There's an argument about how this
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: is going to distract us from the war effort in Ukraine.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: He later complies Biden to fucking Gerald Ford based on
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: the fact that I guess they were both president. It
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: is truly it's inane.
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: It is obtuse.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: It is everything wrong with the kind of cover. Like
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: it is all the people that spend too much time
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: focusing on the times. We try not to do it.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: But my God, put this in a time capsule. What
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: a piece of shit.
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: The article.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: It does read like a parody of. Like the Doug J. Balloon,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: the New York Times pitch bot guy just like wrote
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. I mean, it's very, you almost think
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: that Peter Baker knows what's going on and just wanted
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: to troll everyone. That's sort of what I thought because
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: it is pretty.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: Full playbook.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: Full playbook. Three and a half again.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: What are you talking about? This is why we do this.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: This is why we're here. This is in the dictionary
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: for full playbook. Are you kidding me? What gets four stars?
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll see. Maybe the third one will.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: Maybe, yeah.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the third one is. Or maybe
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: it'll get to.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: Peter Baker walking behind Kamala Harris with a shame bell.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: What do you need?
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 10: I think Olivia and Haley, let's go ahead and keep
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 10: this one for Pundi's potential at the end of the year.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 10: I think this one is staying power.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: Solid.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: I do think having, and I just, I disagree over
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: the Marjorie Taylor Greene one, having like really gone through
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: the transcript of that. Like it was really, it was
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: pretty bad. Yeah.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: I thought you just said you didn't watch it. You
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: watched the clip.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: No, no, I read all the transcript. I can't in
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: good faith give Peter Baker... You're pretty inconsistent today, pal.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: I can't in good faith give Peter Baker and that piece,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: which was like a fluffy, silly, stupid piece, like a
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: higher rating than the damage that Leslie Stahl did with
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that fucking interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was fucking
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: nuts and has said nutty, nutty things and was not challenged. Okay.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 10: All right.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 10: Man's got his reasons. All right, well, we'll see this
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 10: last one.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know that the way, hold on a second.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know that we're here to say which article
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: did the most damage.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: She did challenge her on a bunch of factual things.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: They had it up on the screen. Anyway, agree to disagree.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Let's just agree that you're wrong.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll agree that he's wrong.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: We'll agree that John's wrong.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 10: All right, well, we'll see this last one. It's not political. Well,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 10: it is political. It was sent in by... PSA fan, Crystal,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 10: at the last minute, so thank you for giving me
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 10: this one right before we recorded. It's from the Miami Herald.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 10: It's about Taylor Swift, and it's titled, Taylor Swift is
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 10: a big liberal, but she clearly loves capitalism, too.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: Here's an excerpt. Stick with me.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 10: Democrats are socially more liberal, and Swift is drawn to
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 10: these values, like many in the entertainment industry. Socialist ideas
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 10: sound good on paper, all that sharing and equality, but
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 10: But in reality, Swift's cleaning up in a business that
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 10: thrives on the advantages of the free market, which most
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 10: conservatives not only support but try to advance when possible
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 10: by lowering taxes and supporting deregulation. Swift is a liberal
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 10: in the sheets and a conservative in the streets.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: She mixed those up.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: As another liberal who also loves capitalism, I think that's
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: a stupid take.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: Hey, guess what?
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Not a socialist.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: Was this a high school debate tournament?
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: That's poor.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: I want heavy government intervention in the markets, regulated, good
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: social safety net. But yeah, I think capitalism's good.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: She's making a ton of money. That is true. But
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: I don't recall her signing up.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Hope she pays a super high tax rate. Would like
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: to make it higher. Would like to make sure there's
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: a hefty estate tax. Other than that, make your money.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: All right. How do we write this one?
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: You guys want to disagree?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: No, no. No, our takes are good. I'm like, here's today.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: We're all over this.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to understand like what.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Was that what you didn't like that take of mine?
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: No, I liked that one.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: I'm wondering, I'm trying to think if I can say
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: something and I don't think I can. Well, just sort
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: of like, you know, on the one hand, she's attracted
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: to capitalism. On the other hand, she's attracted to to
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: kind of socially liberal policies. She's kind of attracted to
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: a broad spectrum, and sometimes she's not comfortable talking about
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: being attracted to a broader spectrum than she's kind of
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: publicly acknowledged. See what I'm saying?
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: It's an old conspiracy from many years ago.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: That's a terrible take. I don't know what you're talking about.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 10: It was nice knowing you.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: No, it would have been a good take in, I think, 2019.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: That was when it was a.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, you don't think this is fucking white? This is
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: a white-hot issue? Olivia does.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: A lot of people were talking about it in 2019.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: Four years ago? Three years ago?
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: That was a bad piece. I've never done two full
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: playbooks in the same show, but yeah.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's good. I don't think, honestly, I
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: think that it's too stupid to.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: Be a full playbook.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: I'm giving it a two because I think part of
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Take Appreciator is you have to.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: You have to really kind of.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: You're really trying to be stupid. That's my thing of
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Take Appreciator.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: I think it's one. I'm giving it a one. I'll
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: go to three.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit like, oh, you believe in social
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: democracy and yet you participate in society?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: I don't get what the take was trying to do
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: even after hearing it. That's my problem. Like, I don't
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: get what the purpose of it was.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 10: It was the meme that Lovett referenced there, basically.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 10: Great round to take, appreciator, Taylor Swift.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Elijah.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 10: More politicos than Marjorie Taylor Greene on 60 Minutes, but okay.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Elijah's with me. I can tell.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 10: All right.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: That's it. That's our show for today. Thank you to
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: Andrew Weissman for joining. Thanks, Elijah, for the takes. And
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to you soon. Pod Save America is a
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Haley
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.