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TRUMP FOUND GUILTY! · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: We are looking at count one, guilty. Count two, guilty.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Count 19, guilty. Count 20, guilty.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Count 33 and 34, guilty.
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: That is Donald J. Trump defendant in New York versus
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump found guilty on all 34 felony counts.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: That is the verdict here in this case.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Guilty, guilty, guilty. Donald Trump, the twice impeached former president
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: and current Republican nominee, is now running as a convicted felon.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Late Thursday afternoon, after about only eight hours of deliberation,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: a 12-person jury of his peers found him guilty on
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: first degree as part of an effort to unlawfully influence
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the 2016 election. He is scheduled to be sentenced on
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: July 11th just four days before he is formally nominated
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: at the Republican National Convention. Dan, how about that?
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: What a day, my friend. What a day.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Good things can happen. Oh, I'm sorry. Were we supposed
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to be, this is a very serious and somber day
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: for America, or are we just, are we popping champagne?
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: We're popping champagne. Okay, good.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to make sure you're on.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: We're not going to pretend.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Everyone, all, everyone.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: I know, I know.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Everyone is pretending that we can't be happy. This is
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: a dark day for America. We've been living in fucking
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: dark days for years now, right? Let's have a good one.
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: And this is not to say that we're like, oh,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: this means we're going to win the election.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: That's not what it means. Yeah, we're going to talk
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: about that later. But today, this day, this weekend, this
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: is a happy time. We can go back to being...
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: anxious and scared afterwards, but right now, happy day. Okay,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: we are going to hear from our old pal, Norm Eisen,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: CNN legal commentator, our former White House colleague. We're going
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to hear from Norm in a bit. He was in
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the courtroom. We're going to hear later from Strict Scrutiny's
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Melissa Murray, brought her back after she's doing double duty
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America this week, and she's going to get
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: into the verdict with us and what happens next. But first,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: let's hear from the convicted felon himself.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It's a rigged trial,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: a disgrace. They wouldn't give us a venue change.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: We were at.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: 5% or 6% in this district, in this area. This
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: was a rigged, disgraceful trial.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: But the real verdict is.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Gonna be November 5th by the people. And they know
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here. You
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: have a Soros-backed DA. And the whole thing, we didn't
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: do a thing wrong. I'm a very innocent man.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: And it's okay.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: I'm fighting for our country. I'm fighting for our Constitution.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Our whole country is being rigged right now. This was
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: done by the Biden administration in order to wound or
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: hurt an opponent, a political opponent. And I think it's
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: just a disgrace And we'll keep fighting, we'll fight till
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: the end, and we'll win, because our country's gone to hell.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: We don't have the same country anymore. We have a
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: divided mess. We're a nation in decline, serious decline. Millions
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: and millions of people pouring into our country right now
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: from prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists, and they're taking
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: over our country. We have a country that's in big trouble.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: But this was a rigged decision right from day one.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: to try this case. Never. And we will fight for
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: our constitution.
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: This is long from over.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Cry harder.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Are you going to drop out? Great question. I appreciate
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: that person.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Um, of course the Biden administration, uh, you know, the
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: DOJ actually passed on this case. So everything he said
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: about that was a lie. So to give us his
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: perspective of what it was like inside the courtroom shortly
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: before Donald Trump walked out and just spoke to the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: cameras just now, our former White House colleague and pal
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Norm Eisen, can you give us a little color from
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: inside the courtroom today? What was it like when the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: When the when the verdict came in, there was a
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: little confusion at some point because it seemed like Judge
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Mershon was going to send the jury home at 415.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Then suddenly we had a verdict.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: What was going on there? You know, it was a whiplash.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: Because we all thought he said, OK, we're sending the
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: jury home for 30. We're going to send them home.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: And people were already tweeting, oh, this means the jury
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: is deadlocked. I'm like, I was already like going to
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: fight a social media war. No, it doesn't mean anything.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: It's only one day. Then he says, we have a note.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: This is a very, this courtroom, 1530 of Manhattan Criminal Court,
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: part 59, is full of the most battled, heartened people. journalists, right?
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, you guys, Dan trained me how to deal
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: with journalists on a wholesale basis.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Run far away.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Mission accomplished.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: When we had a really big problem, he would tell
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: me to run at them. Even in that room, when
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: he said we have a note from the jury, there
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: is a verdict. Those cynical, you know, they gasped. He said,
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: I will not have any outbursts, no loud outbursts when
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: the verdict is read. I immediately wrote, I can read
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: it to you. I immediately wrote a jury of 12
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: Americans today found Donald Trump guilty on 34 charges of
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: election interference and cover up. I've already filed my, I
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: do a daily trial diary for CNN. I already filed it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: I knew that if it came back that fast, and
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: that's part of the gasp, if it comes back that
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: fast in a day and a half, that's a hanging jury,
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: not a hung jury. And so there was that feeling.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: Of course, you never know for 100%. And then- You know,
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: then the jury came in. They filed in about a
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: half an hour later. They did not look at Trump.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: Their head was down. That's a sign. I'm a defense
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: lawyer most of my life. I never wanted to be
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: a prosecutor. And when the jury comes in and not
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: one looks at your client, you're doomed. And then the
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: first count. guilty. What's the verdict on count one? Guilty.
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: And those beautiful 33 guilties that followed that. And he
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: is guilty. He's guilty of subverting. It was so strange.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: I wrote this in my CNN column, not to say
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: alleged election interference, but for the first time I could
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: write election interference, criminal conspiracy and cover up. he's now
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: an adjudicated criminal. And he's a democracy criminal. That's what
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: matters so much. And I hope people will recognize that
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: when he says he's going to be a dictator on
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: day one, it's just more criminality ahead.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Norm, what was Trump's reaction as these the 34 guilty
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: people read?
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: Grim. It's not a good feeling, Dan. I happen just
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: by happenstance. There is a place where I sometimes sit
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: that is the last seat on the left as you
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: enter the courtroom right before the door. And that's where
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: he looks. And a couple times in this trial, I
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: think I talked about it with you all once, he's
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: met my eye, he went glared, grimaced at me. So
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: I made sure, like I was sitting forward in my seat,
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: I was attempting to meet him, I was looking him
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: in the eye. He was not looking anybody in the eye.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: He was looking down. He was, I think, angry. He
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: recognizes that this will be very damaging. and that he
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: may go to jail. I think there's a serious prospect
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: that he's going to get a jail sentence. And if
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: he's not reelected, that he serves that jail sentence.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask about that. Like, say
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a little more about the possible jail sentence, because I
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: know you've written in your book that you thought the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: jail was likely. Of course, you know, we know sort
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: of the history of these kinds of cases, and it's
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: a first offense. What makes you think that jail is
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: really on the table here?
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: The reason I think that jail sentence is on the
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: table is that I looked at 10,000 of these FBR,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: falsifying business records cases in New York since 2015. I
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: wanted to know, do defendants ever get jail time for
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: this crime? And in the most serious cases, and this
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: is the most serious FBR case in the history of
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: the state of New York, in the most serious cases,
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: defendants do get jail time. I don't think the judge
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: is going to send him up for the, you know,
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: this is a one and a third to four years sentence.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: New York has indeterminate sentences, so you get a range.
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: The judge also has the power to sentence him to
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: less than a year. I think he probably will get
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: a sentence of less than a year, but that's not
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: good news in Manhattan because those sentences are served in jail,
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: not state prison, and the jail for the city of Manhattan,
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: of course, is Rikers. So that's not great news for
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: the former president. Wow.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Trump to Rikers question mark, pod title.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: If he loses, if he loses the election, if he
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: wins the election, he's going to put up a bunch
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: of constitutional defenses at the end of his appeals. I
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: don't think the judge released him on his own recognizance.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: I don't think he's going to have to serve jail
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: time before he's done with his appeals, the appeals in
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: this case. can take a year, even 18 months. So
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: but if he it makes the election a referendum of
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: the American people on Donald Trump's criminality and accountability. And
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: we've seen 2018, 2020, 2022, when that's the question that
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: is put to them. They don't like Donald Trump's way
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: of doing business. So, you know, it's not a great
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: day for Donald Trump.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Well, Norm, there was a Certainly one former occupant of
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the White House who should have taken your ethics training.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: I tried to give it to him. I tried to
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: give it to him, Favs. I volunteered. The wonderful Max
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: Steyer of the Partnership for Public Service brings the specialists
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: in for both presidential campaigns. And I helped both presidential
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: campaigns with these. I offered to help with this stuff.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: And I actually had a brief tenure after he won
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: advising Chris Christie's team before Christie was booted out of
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: the transition. So he had his chance. Um, That was
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: the original sin when he chose to take office, and
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: we talked about it at the time. The Constitution says
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: there's only one ethics rule in the Constitution. Don't take
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: money or other goodies from foreign governments, monuments. When he
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: did that, it was all downhill from there and landed
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: him– landed him in these 34 felony convictions that he
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: received just a few minutes ago.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Norm Eisen, thanks, as always, for joining the pod. And,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: you know, hope you go take some time off.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: The pod is I'm going to I'm going to take
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: my wife on vacation. The pod is not just news
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: for us. y'all sound the alarm and you talk about
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: what we have to do, what we have to do.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: We've been having this conversation since that emoluments talk about
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: Trump's criminality the first week of the pod.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's right.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: I thank you and all of the Pod Save America family. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Pabst.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Norm.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: Take care.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: All right, Dan, now that we've got all the legal
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: stuff out of the way, now we get to talk politics. So,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: you know, the reaction from Trump and Republicans so far,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I would say, has not been necessarily surprising. In addition
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to what we heard from Trump earlier, you know, the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Speaker of the House is already out with a statement
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: saying this is shameful and political. The Trump people have
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: already been fundraising off this. The minute the verdict was announced,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: they sent out fundraising appeals about this. You get a
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: bunch of, you know, Twitter conservatives and right wing MAGA
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: people saying, oh, this is only going to this is
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: only going to elect Donald Trump now. That's the new thing.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: It's good.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: This is actually going to help Donald Trump and hurt
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden. And then I noticed that Larry Hogan, the
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: former Republican governor of Maryland, who is now running for
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Senate in Maryland, he simply posted a tweet saying, you know,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: everyone should respect the verdict. And Chris LaCivita, Trump's senior aide, said,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: this is the end of your campaign.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: So they seem to be taking this quite well, is
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: what I'd say.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And on the other side, Joe Biden tweeted, only one
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: way to keep Trump out of the Oval Office, at
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the ballot box. The Biden campaign released a statement saying,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: in New York today, we saw that no one is
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: above the law. Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: would never face consequences for breaking the law for his
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: own personal gain. But today's verdict doesn't change that there's
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: only one way to stop Donald Trump. Ballot box, just
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: like what Biden said. And then it said convicted felon
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: And then the White House put out a statement that
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: just said, we respect the rule of law and have
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: no additional comment. OK, so that's all the reaction. What's
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: your take on the verdict and the potential political impact
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: now that we've had a couple hours, I guess, to
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: really sort of soak in all the takes?
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, the verdict, it is just always in these
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: moments worth stepping back and realizing just how what an
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: unprecedented historical event this is. This is a former president.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: If Donald Trump was not running for office ever again,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: this would be a gigantic deal, right? First former president
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: convicted of 34 counts of a crime related to his
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: first election win, right? You have a jury of his
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: peers declaring that he tried to cheat to win that election,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: committed crimes to do so. Huge deal. Then you add
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: in the fact that he is the presumptive Republican nominee.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Then you add in the fact that polls show that
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: he is a jump all the way from the White House.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Then you add in the fact that we are three
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: and a half weeks away from the first debate potentially
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: in this campaign. And that debate is scheduled before his sentencing.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: So he will not be able to use house arrest
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: as an excuse to get out of that debate.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Might have to do the second debate with an ankle
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: bracelet on.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: He might have to do it by Zoom. It's a
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: giant event, right? And we're going to get to the politics.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: The politics are interesting and important and fascinating, but it's
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: just with all things, Trump is just always worth just
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: trying to take a step back for a second and
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: try to Place it, the absurdity of it and the
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: danger of it in the broader scope of history, because
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: it's a huge deal.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: It is a huge deal. And yeah, you're right. I mean,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: like even setting aside the politics, it does raise the
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: stakes of this election in another way, which is like
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: if we if this country goes ahead and elects a
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: convicted felon to be president, then, yeah, we are in
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: some tough times and we've been in some tough times.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: in politics for the last seven, eight years now since
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump walked onto the scene. And now this, I
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: do think this raises the stakes in the election even
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: higher because now we have a very vengeful and angry
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump running to become president who has now been
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: convicted by a jury of his peers.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: I would say this is not the biggest thing, but
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump being elected president after being convicted of 34
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: felony counts, Would be the end of scared straight as
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: a strategy with kids in school.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's it.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Like you can talk about the politics and the polls
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and we're going to get into all that. But it's
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: just like the man who wants to be in charge
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: of like it says in the in the faithfully executing
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the laws of this country has broken, has been convicted
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: by a jury of his peers of breaking the laws
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: that he now wants to faithfully execute as president United
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: States again. That's that's where we are right now. And again,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: he's now been convicted of cheating in the 2016 election.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: He was unlawfully influencing the 2016 election by falsifying business
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: records in furtherance of this hush money scheme. He has
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: also been charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And we are waiting for the Supreme Court that he created,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court majority that he created, to decide whether
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: he is immune from prosecution for that, for trying to
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: overturn the 2020 election that he lost. So he's been
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: convicted of trying to unlawfully influence the 2016 election he won.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: He's been charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: that he lost. And now he is running to be
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: president again in the 2024 election and is currently leading
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: in the swing states. That's where we are, Dan. That's
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: where we are.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: All of those polls were conducted before the conviction.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: That is true. That is true. Well, so then what
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: do you think? Let's go right there. What do you
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: think about the political impact of this? We've been talking
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: about it since before we got a verdict. Now that
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the verdict is out, it's starting to sink in. What
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: do you think?
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: I think the prevailing narrative that the conviction won't really
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: matter is, I think, pretty disconnected from both what the
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: polls actually say and the reality of an election that
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: is likely to be this close. It is certainly true
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: that upwards of three quarters to 80% of voters believe
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: are not going to change their mind. Even in the
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Marist poll, there's a swath of voters who say Trump's
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: conviction makes them more likely to vote for him. I'm
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: going to guess those voters weren't previously prior to the
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: conviction in the undecided pool. I'm going to guess that
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: they were pretty hardcore Trump voters. And there are a
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: lot of voters who don't think they care. We've already
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: seen that voters, when asked about the various Trump's various crimes,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: have rated this one to be less severe, although most
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: of them think these charges raise serious questions about Trump
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: and are serious, just not as serious as stealing classified
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: documents and participating in a scheme to violently overturn an election.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: So we're really grading on a criminal curve here. There
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: are a swath of voters who are deeply uncomfortable, and
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: they keep telling pollsters in poll after poll after poll,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: deeply uncomfortable with sending a convicted felon to the White House.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: That doesn't mean they're all going to end up in
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's camp. It doesn't mean they're all going to
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: decide today. The next time Nate Cohn personally calls them
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: as part of his poll, they're going to tell them
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: that they're for Joe Biden, but it means that there
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: is an opening with a set of voters. CNN last
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: month in a poll focused in on the 25% of
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Trump voters who said that they would reconsider their support
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: if he were convicted of a crime. That quarter of
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Trump's vote is younger than the average Trump voter. It's
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: more diverse than the average Trump voter, more likely to
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: believe the election, Biden legitimately won the election. So these
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: are voters who, many of them, I would guess, are
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: the same voters we're seeing in the swing states who
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: are currently saying they're voting for Donald Trump and Ruben
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Gallego and Donald Trump and Bob Casey. And so these
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: are very gettable voters for Joe Biden. And a conviction
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: is an argument to make for those voters. And so
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: it's going to take time and energy and effort. It's
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: not going to happen overnight. But this can really be
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: a big deal and end up with a certain set
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: of voters that is more than big enough to decide
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: the election.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: The certain set of voters that don't like criminals in
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the White House. Yeah.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: That's a smaller swath than you would like. It's a
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: certain flavor.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: It's a certain flavor of voters. No, I mean, you
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: mentioned there was a new NPR PBS Marist poll. Marist
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: polls is a very high quality pollster. And they found that,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: you know, 75% of registered voters, something more than 75%
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: of registered voters said that the verdict would not impact
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: their vote choice at all. But I got to, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: there's some other polls like that, and they're being cited
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: all over the place. I got to say, if you
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: called me, if I was taking the poll, And you said,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: would a verdict impact your vote? I would say no,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: because I've already decided that I'm never going to vote
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: for Donald Trump for anything ever, as long as I live. So,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: of course, there's going to be a huge percentage of
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: people who say that it's not going to impact their
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: vote because most people have decided already. Because most people
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: know Donald Trump and know Joe Biden and have experienced
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: both of them now for the last eight years. And,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: you know, they've made up their mind. So you're right.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: It's always going to be about the voters who either
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: haven't made up their minds yet. or have made up
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: their minds, but are like open to changing their minds, right?
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Which we know is like, I don't know, anywhere up
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to 25% of the electorate, probably, if you believe a
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: lot of these polls. But again, we don't know because
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: it's early. Now, you said we obviously have a lot
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: of work to do to make that argument. How do
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: you think Democrats, Joe Biden, his campaign should handle this
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: going forward? Because that's the big question, because we know
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: it's going to you know, dominate news coverage for, I hope,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the weekend at least. We're recording this on Thursday. But everyone, like,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: you know, the news moves on fast these days. No
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: one remembers anything. Like, how do Democrats and Biden keep
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: this in the news and really brand Donald Trump as
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: a convicted felon, which he is?
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: You have to call him a convicted felon over and
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: over and over again. It has to be... It's basically...
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: should be at the end of every sentence that involves
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Donald Trump, a convicted felon, wants to cut
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: your Social Security and ban abortion nationwide. You have to
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: say it. And there are two reasons to say it.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: I am generally skeptical of the idea that we should
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: do– Democrats should do their messaging as a way to
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: just trigger Trump into reacting. I find that to be
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: overly troll-y, I would think, and not particularly effective of
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: swing voters. But in this case, yeah, this will cause
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: him to react and that is fine. But voters have
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: to know that he's a convicted felon. And polls are
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: showing that more and more people are paying attention to
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: this trial as it has gone on. I'm sure people
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: will know about the verdict and hear about the verdict.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: But we're still going to have to keep talking to
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: him about it because the voters we need the most,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: that swath of voters who are willing to change their minds,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: are the ones we see over and over again in
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: polls who engage with politics the least, who consume the
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: news the least, who talk about politics the least. And
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: so this is going to be a process with that.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: The second thing I think is critically important is to
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: remind people that this is not the Biden administration or
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: the deep state or anything like that. This was a
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: jury of Donald Trump's peers that was selected with input
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: from Donald Trump's attorneys. They are the ones who rendered
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: this verdict. And I think that is critically important because
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: trust in institutions is way down across the place, but
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: people still believe in juries. And we have to remind
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: people that this was a decision from a jury.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Yes. No, I totally agree. Now, there was a report
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: last week that maybe Biden was going to speak about
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: this when it happened. That has obviously not happened. I
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: guess he's currently at Rehoboth Beach. He probably saw this
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: on television at Rehoboth with his family, like all the
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: rest of us did, just watching it on TV. I
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: wonder what he will say or what he should say
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: in the days to come. It seems like the White
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: House or the campaign is intimated that he would speak
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: in an informal setting about it, probably when asked by
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: a reporter. I think the big question then is what
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: happens in the debate? And if you're in debate prep
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: with Joe Biden over the next couple of weeks, how
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: do you handle this? Because my instinct is that Joe
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Biden has to talk about this. And he has to
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: talk about it in the right way, basically just how
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: you said it, right? It's a jury of his peers. Again, DOJ,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Biden's own justice department, declined to prosecute this charge. They
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: could have prosecuted the federal charge here. They did not,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: even though they did prosecute Michael Cohen and got a
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: guilty plea from him. So it had literally nothing to
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: do with the Biden administration. This was a decision by
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Alvin Bragg. And of course, Trump's defense lawyers, like you said,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: had input into the jury and everything. So how do
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: you think that Biden should talk about it and how
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: much should Biden talk about it?
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I think he should talk about it in high leverage moments.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: It should be part of the debate, for sure. He
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: should bring it up in the debate. He should talk
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: about it in the debate. I think he should explain
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: why it is– he should use the bully pulpit that
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: he has to try to explain what it is Trump
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: was guilty of. I think this is where election interference
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: is really important. The fact that he falsified these business records,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: not simply just to hide personal misconduct or to hide
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: an affair. He did it to trick voters to lie
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: to the public, that he perpetuated a fraud on the
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: public in order to gain power. And that is a
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: way to tell a broader story about how Trump does everything.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: And I think, like if someone asked me why this
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was a big deal who hadn't really been paying attention,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, well, he used his money. He
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: did what he always does, which is he used his
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: money and influence to hide the truth from the American
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: people And I think one of the prosecutors made this
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: point during the trial, but they said, you know, is
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: it a big deal that Donald Trump had an affair
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: with a porn star 10 years ago?
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: But that was for the voters to decide. And what
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: he did is he broke the law so that they
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have that choice. He took that choice away from them.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: And he made it with, you know, he made these
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: choices with David Pecker and Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: lawyers and everything like that. And he and then he
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: hid it from people because he thinks that the rules
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: don't apply to him. And he only cares about himself.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: And so just like he tried to overturn the election
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: that he lost, he cheated on the election that he
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: won because he thought that the Access Hollywood tape was
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: going to end the campaign. And then if this came
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: out too, who knows? Maybe he could have lost the election.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: We don't know that. But again, he took that choice
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: away from the American people. He tried to hide the
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: truth from the American people because he's rich, because he
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: has influence, because he's well-connected. And that is how he's
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: governed as president. That's how he would govern again. He
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. He will
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: screw anyone over. even his supporters, even the people who
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: are loyal to him. He does not care because he
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: is only in it for himself. And right now he
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: is running for president again so that he can escape
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the legal consequences that were already rendered by a jury
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: of his peers.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: The other important language here, and I've seen this polled,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: we've had many opportunities to look at polling over various
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Trump crimes over the last couple of years here, but
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: is the point that no one in America, no one
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: is above the law, not even a former president.
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: I think that's how Biden should talk about it. And
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I think that's the way to explain it.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: So what do you think the Trump campaign does to
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: try to mitigate the potential damage here? We've already seen,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: like I said, they are fundraising. They are saying that,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: you know, we've raised more money in the last, you know,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: our sites crashed because so many people are donating. They're
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: already doing that. They're, of course, trying to delegitimize the verdict.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: in the minds of the American people, not just from
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the Trump campaign, but from like nearly every elected Republican probably.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: So they're going to pull that, they're going to try
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: to delegitimize the verdict. And then what else do you
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: think they're going to do here?
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the primary thing is to maximize
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: it for fundraising and organizing purposes. We saw the preview
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: in this and that much discussed New York Times story
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: about Donald Trump's outlaw image. Don't forget that These are
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: the people who raised millions of dollars off of his
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: mugshot by putting it on t-shirts. The only tweet Donald
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Trump has sent since January 6th, 2021 was the mugshot.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: I think, and the second thing is they were prepared
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: for this, right? You had the statements from Governor Reynolds,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Mike Johnson, just Republican politicians all across the spectrum had
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: statements in the can to put out as soon as
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: the verdict came in to show that the party was
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: going to stick with Trump. And it's also why Chris
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: LaCivita probably foolishly went after Larry Hogan for speaking out,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: which is to use blunt force and fear to show
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: every Republican you stay in line or you pay a price. Now,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: this is probably good politics for Larry Hogan, to be honest,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: but for everyone else, you see why you're really going
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: to say something supportive, you're going to keep your trap shut.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: And then it is to turn on the fire hose
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: of propaganda and disinformation to muddy the waters here, to
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: make it seem like it's rigged, it's the Biden Department
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: of Justice, it's a corrupt judge, other people, you know,
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: we'll see this in the sentencing. There'll be other, you know,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: other people who've committed, who've done similar things, haven't gotten sentenced,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: haven't gotten charged. And it's just, it is a fire
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: hose of disinformation and propaganda. And that has been known
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: in the past to provide just enough cover for Trump
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: to avoid full political accountability for some of these things.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Because there are a bunch of voters who are, don't
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: really love Donald Trump, aren't really happy with the way
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: things are going. They're angry at Biden for whatever reason,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: for high prices, and they're looking for permission to stick
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: with Trump. And he's trying to give them that permission.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: He doesn't have to do it for a lot of voters.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: It's just, you know, 50.1% of that swath of voters
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: that we were just talking about to keep him in
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: his camp to win this whole thing.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: And I do think like the best retort from Democrats
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: is like thousands of people have gone to jail for
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: this very offense.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: This case, this this these felony charges are prosecuted in
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: New York all the time in the first degree, much
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: like it was with Donald Trump. So why does Donald
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Trump get off and not them? Why should the law
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: not apply? It's like what you were saying about no
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: one's above the law. Why should the law not apply
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump? Just because he's a rich guy running
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: for president and all the other people who are found
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: guilty of falsifying records, business records in the first degree,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: like they should go to jail, they should be punished.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: But Donald Trump shouldn't. when he was convicted by a
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: jury of his peers who had nothing to do with
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the Biden administration or the prosecutor or all that bullshit.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And by the way, he's got a whole bunch of
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: other felony charges. And the only reason he's not sitting
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: in a courtroom in Florida right now is because the
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: judge that he appointed is slow walking the case. And
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: the only reason that he's not sitting in a courtroom
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: in D.C. right now is because the Supreme Court majority
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: that he created is delaying the case. So, like, let's
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: not pretend this was some political vendetta thing. to just
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: get Donald Trump when Donald Trump has been treated more
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: fairly than most people on trial and also has been
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: using his connections and his influence to evade the law
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: in a whole bunch of other cases.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Right. And let's not pretend like this is an isolated
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: incident on a otherwise unblemished record of civic participation and innocence, right?
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's already in the last year I mean,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: he's been convicted of a found guilty of perpetuating a
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: massive fraud on the state of New York. He has
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: been involved in defamation. He's been declared some guilty of
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: sexual assault by a court.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: We all watched him try to steal the election. He
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: tried to have his vice president hung.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: On national television. He was impeached twice. What are we
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: talking about? He was impeached twice.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Everyone was like, no one should be fucking sheepish about this.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's ridiculous. Like, we were all there on
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: January 6th. We all saw the month leading up to it.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: What are we doing here, people? It's ridiculous. Anyway, okay.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: That made me feel better. When we come back, we
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: will be talking to Strict Scrutiny's Melissa Murray about the
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: verdict and what comes next.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: With us to dig in a little more into the
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: verdict and what's next, we have our friend Melissa Murray,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: co-host of Strict Scrutiny. Melissa, welcome back.
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me. I feel like I've been here
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: twice in two days. I think that's exactly right. Like
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: I've gone nowhere.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I like just finished hearing you talk to Tommy about this.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: So first thoughts on the verdict.
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: Well, in the words of the immortal Stormy Daniels, that
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: was fast.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Good stuff.
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: Good stuff.
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: So this morning, I'm going to L.A.
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: Tomorrow.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: And I was like, you know, it's going to suck
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: because this verdict is going to come out on Friday.
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: Because once they started asking, once the jury started asking
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: for information about the meeting between Pecker and Cohen and whatnot,
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: and more information about sort of the conspiracy aspects of this,
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: It was like, oh, they're really digging in, and they're
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: looking for the links that bring Trump into this. So
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: they're already at the main stuff. And I always figure, like,
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: if they were already asking for that kind of stuff
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: and were reviewing that– they weren't going to go beyond
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: this weekend. I mean, they've already lost one Memorial Day weekend,
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: like having to be on this story. I mean, they
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: didn't have to deliberate over Memorial Day, obviously, but they
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: want their lives back. And I just figured by Friday,
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: this would be over. I wasn't expecting it to be today.
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: That was actually much more surprising. So the fact that
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: they came in at around 4.30 and that it's unanimous
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: on all of the counts, like, you know, amazing. And
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: Big props to the people of New York and to
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, who in April 2023, lots
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: of people, including former folks from the DA's office like
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: Mark Pomerantz, were really questioning his judgment about bringing this
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: case as opposed to something more sweeping. But he seemed
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: to have figured out the sweet spot, and he got
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: a conviction on all of those counts.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Do you think this was a winnable case that the
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: defense lost and Trump lost because he probably made his
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: defense lawyers do all kinds of things that they wouldn't
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: have argued maybe if Trump wasn't their client?
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: A hundred percent. Like, this is a white guy with
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: resources and three relatively good lawyers. One very excellent criminal
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: defense lawyer who apparently got sidelined. We don't exactly know why.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: I speculate it's perhaps because she has a uterus. But
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: Susan Necklace, who is one of the defense lawyers, is
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: a very good lawyer. And it wasn't clear that she
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: was always on the same team as her client. And
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: the other lawyers, there are a couple of times where...
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: Submissions were made to the court and she refused to
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: sign them. And, you know, one might speculate she refused
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: to do so because she would like to continue practicing
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: in this jurisdiction with the reputation she now enjoys. But
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: he seemed really attached to Todd Blanche and Emile Bove. Bove,
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: I'm not actually sure how you say it, but Todd Blanche.
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: is not really a defense lawyer. He's a former prosecutor.
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: He's a very experienced prosecutor, but he doesn't have a
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: lot of experience doing criminal defense cases. And I do
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: think this was a winnable case, but maybe not by him, right?
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: So the defendant always has the easier time of it,
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: especially a white defendant with lots of resources, because the
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: government has such a huge burden to bear. They have
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: to prove the defendant's guilt on every count, beyond a
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: reasonable doubt. That's very, very hard. And all the defense
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: has to do is say, like, they didn't do that.
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: They actually don't have to put on any defense at all.
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: And indeed, they really didn't here. But what they do
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: have to do is offer a counter narrative to the prosecution.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: And here the prosecution crafted this narrative that didn't depend
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: on on Michael Cohen. It depended on those documents, which
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: don't lie, which are irrefutable. And Michael Cohen and all
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: of the other witnesses were merely corroboration for the documents.
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: And the defense never really put up a counter-narrative that
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: could go toe-to-toe with the narrative those documents created.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: So sentencing is July 11th. What happens between now and then?
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Is it the idea that the judge just on July
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: 11th unveils what he believes the sentence to be, or
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: are there arguments, emotions in between?
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: So there's going to be stuff in between. And one
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: of the big things that happens is, you know, Donald
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: Trump's going to have to come back down to downtown
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: Manhattan and go to another part of the courtroom building.
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: And if he thought the courtroom was shitty, he's going
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: to love this part. He's going to be taken to
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: the probation department where he's going to be interviewed and
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: he's going to be asked about his criminal history. He
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: doesn't have one, so that'll go pretty quickly. He'll be
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: asked about his health, all kinds of things. And all
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: of that information will be compiled by a probation officer
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: into what is known as a pre-sentencing report. And that
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: pre-sentencing report will go to Judge Marchand, who will use
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: it as he thinks about what the appropriate sentence is.
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, things that are considered are the
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: defendant's past criminal history, if there is one, whether or
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: not the defendant is likely to be a recidivist and
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: do this again, things of that nature. And so that
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: can take some time to compile the PSR, you know,
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: a couple of weeks before I think the July 11th
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: sentencing date is probably a little ambitious, like this is
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: likely to be appealed. And there may be questions about
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: whether Judge Marchand is willing to impose a sentence while
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: those appeals are pending. He could decide to just sort
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: of put everything on pause until the appeals are decided.
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: It could be the case that he is more reluctant
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: to sentence in view of the coming election cycle. I mean,
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: if the sentence, and I think it's more likely that
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: it's something like probation as opposed to incarceration, if he's
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: on probation, it's going to be very hard for Donald
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: Trump to fly around the country doing campaign events. It
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: is a cramp in your style necessarily to be a
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: convicted felon and be under a criminal sentence. So hard
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: to say when that's actually going to happen, but there
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: are a lot of interim steps between what we just
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: saw in the courtroom and what will happen in the
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: courtroom again when he's sentenced.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I want to ask about the sentence because I know
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday's pod with Tommy, you were like a little
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: more skeptical that he might actually serve. jail time. I'm
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: still skeptical. Still skeptical. Can you talk about like why,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: we just have to, you know, Norm Eisen and Norm
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: thinks that jail is, he's not sure about jail, but
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: he thinks jail is on the table. What makes you
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: think that they just won't, that the judge will be
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: reluctant to do this?
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: So jail's obviously on the table. Lots of things are
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: on the table. Probation, house arrest. I think the reason
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: for me that jail and incarceration seems unlikely, and again,
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: I'm totally happy to be wrong on this. This is
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: not like having a fight with my husband where I
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: have to be right. I'm happy to be wrong. But
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: the reason why I think jail is less likely here
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: is because we've already seen Judge Merchan really come up
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: close to the question of whether or not Trump should
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: have some kind of incarcerative sanction for violating the gag order.
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: And Judge Merchan himself said, I'm really loathe to put
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: you in jail, you are a former president, you may
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: be a future president. I'm really loathe to do that.
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: And none of that has changed, right? He's still a
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: former president. He may be the future president. And I
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: think given the nature of the offenses, the fact that
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: he has no recorded criminal history, it's just, I think,
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: a lot easier to sentence him to some kind of
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: alternative sanction, whether it is house arrest or probation, as
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: opposed to throwing him in Rikers. And to be clear,
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: if he went to Rikers, he's not having the same
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: Rikers experience as, like, say, the Central Park Five, now
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: the Exonerated Fives. I mean, he's getting a very different experience.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the appeals process. Can you sort of take
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: us through what that might look like and how long
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: that might take and where it goes and what are
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: the courts that might end up hearing that?
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: So I believe the defense has, I think, I just
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: looked this up. I want to say it's like 60
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: days to file an appeal, maybe longer. But they have
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: some period of time in which they can present an appeal.
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: And the appeal could be to all kinds of things.
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: So they could appeal various decisions that were made in
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: the course of the trial on the view that any
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: one of those decisions was reflected a clear error that
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: was prejudicial to the defendant over the course of the trial.
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: To me, the most obvious appealable issue is the bootstrapping
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: of the charges, the idea that these falsification of business
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: records charges were in most cases, misdemeanor offenses. But when
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: they are done in furtherance of or in the concealment
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: of other crimes, they then become felonies. And it's not
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: really clear, A, whether you can have the other crime
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: be a federal crime. And that was one of the
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: universe of crimes that the prosecution had identified, a federal
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: campaign crime. law that was violated. They also identified state-level
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: tax laws as well as state-level election laws. But that
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: could be an appealable offense, like the bootstrapping. I think
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: there are all sorts of ways in which that might
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: play out. I actually thought it was going to be
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: a bigger issue at the trial, and it turned out
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: not to be. But I think it could be a
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: very big issue on appeal.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: And is there a possibility that, so it goes to
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: an appeals court, Would it go to the like the
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: state Supreme Court of New York?
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the New York, which is interestingly called Judge Merchan
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: is actually on the New York Supreme Court. The Supreme
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: Court in New York is the trial level court. The
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: intermediate appellate court is known as the appellate division. That
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: would be the next step. And then after that is
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: the court of last resort in New York state. And
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: that is the court of appeals.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: And there's no way this could go to the Supreme Court, right?
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Or could it?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: It could.
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, like, you know, if he petitioned for sort
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: of post-conviction federal habeas relief, that could then be swapped
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: over to the federal courts. And then you was a
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: district court, an intermediate appellate court, and then on to
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: the Supreme Court. I mean, there are lots of different
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: permutations that this could take. And yes, it could go
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: to the Supreme Court. And of course, the Supreme Court
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: is already fat on a diet of Trump related cases.
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: So it will be of no moment to them.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: But if Trump were to, Norm hinted at this, but
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: if Trump were to win the election, then there would
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: be a whole array of constitutional issues that would be
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: at the same time. Can you just talk briefly about
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: what those questions would be?
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: So if he wins the election, and I feel creepy
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: and gross saying that, so full disclosure, I'm not trying
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: to manifest something. If he does win.
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: Then we have the sort of unprecedented circumstance of a
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: president-elect who has been convicted in a state of crimes.
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: Now there are certain things that won't be able to happen.
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: So he's not going to be able to pardon himself
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: because these are state-level charges. So he's not gonna be
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: able to sort of wipe this conviction away as he
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: could if he won and he had been subject to
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: a federal conviction. But there are questions about whether or
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: not a sitting president can serve a sanction for state-level
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: criminal convictions. I mean, like, we've never had that sort
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: of situation. Like, maybe it's something that the Supreme Court
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: has to get involved in eventually and determine, like, maybe
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: it's something that gets deferred until after his term of office. Like,
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: you'll recall when Bill Clinton... had the whole issue with
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: Paula Jones in the civil case, one of the things
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: he argued is like, I can't go be a defendant
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: in a civil lawsuit because I'm president of the United States,
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: even though this lawsuit's not related to what I've done
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: in the conduct of my job. It's when I was governor,
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: but it's just too much stuff for me to deal
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: with while I'm presidenting. I think there's a fair argument
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: to be made that you can't be on house arrest
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: when you are president of the United States, even if
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: the House is the White House. There are certain constraints
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: around the job of being president that are incompatible with
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: serving a criminal sentence. And again, these are questions of
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: first impression for constitutional law because, weirdly— Our originalist forefathers
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: never imagined that someone that we might elect to the
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: highest office in the land would be someone who had
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: a rap sheet. So, you know, we are truly in
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: the upside down. We should fly a flag.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: I was just about to ask before you went, like,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: which flag do you think is flying outside the Alito
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: home this evening? Is there a flag for this?
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: Well, according to Justice Alito, Mrs. Alito has a flag
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: for almost everything, for veterans, for holidays, for sports teams,
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: the Phillies, all of it. So I'm sure she has
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: in her arsenal a flag, a flag for when your
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: preferred presidential candidate is credibly convicted by a jury of
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: his peers on 34 counts. So I don't know what
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: that would be. I'm not a flag aficionado, but... I'm
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: sure she has the right flag for the moment. And
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: since it is, Her house that she jointly owns with him,
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: I know that he won't be able to stop her
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: from doing it because she has rights, which he, as
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: her husband, honors and respects her choices.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Justice Alito would never tell a woman what to do, ever.
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: Never.
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: He's a feminist, Dan. I mean, I think we saw
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: that from the letter. That letter was like, it was
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: almost as though Germaine Greer or Susan Sontag had written
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: that letter. So feminist.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: A feminist just like Donald Trump, as we learned in
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: this trial.
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Melissa Murray, thank you as always for joining and spending
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: time with us on Pod Save America all week long.
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Have fun out here in Los Angeles.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: Oh, I will.
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: I'm going to see the Sarah McLachlan concert at the
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: Hollywood Bowl.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Amazing. Great spot to see a concert.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: I'm ready.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: All right, before we go, two quick housekeeping notes. The
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: first is, you know, we agree with Joe Biden that
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: we still have to beat Donald Trump at the ballot box,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: which is why, even though we're very excited today, everyone's
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: got to work very hard over the next five months
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: to make sure that a convicted felon is not elected
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: president of the United States. That's what Vote Save America
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: is for. If you haven't signed up, go to votesaveamerica.com
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: slash 2024. You can sign up, The folks at VSA
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: will give you all kinds of work to do. You
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: can donate money. You can do volunteer shifts all over
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: the country. You can join Team East or Team West.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: It's a fun competition. Anyway, go to VSA and check
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: it out. Also, just in time for June, the Crooked
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Store has launched our Pride or Else collection. It includes
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: designs for everyone, whether you're leading the parade or showing
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: up as an ally. The collection also includes fresh versions
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: of our best-selling Leave Trans Kids Alone, You Absolute Freaks merch.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: That's evergreen, unfortunately. Most importantly, a portion of proceeds from
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: every order go to Crooked's Pride or Else Fund in
• 48:33
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• 48:37
  Speaker 1: resources to queer and transgender communities across America. Prep for
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Pride at crooked.com slash store. All right, everyone. Have a
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: fantastic weekend. Have a few extra Martha Ritas.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, Martha Ritas. If there isn't
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: a Martha Rita glass in the Crooked store by the
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: end of next week, I don't know what you guys
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: are doing.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Can you believe, Dan, that John Lovett is not here
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: for this verdict for this day? Of all the years
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: we have dealt with Donald Trump....
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: He's just....
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: That is just the... It's a small thing for today,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: but it's just a real funny footnote for me.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: I would say I think... think often about what happens
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: when he first gets access to the internet when this
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: is all over.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Well, we got to talk about this because there's a
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: couple of different shows he's got to do here. He's
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: got to explain himself to me and Max for offline.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: He's got to come on Pod Save America. And we
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: got to quiz him about the news. I don't know.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: He's got to go on Keep It, I guess, talk
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: about this season of Survivor when he's legally allowed, I guess.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Unbelievable.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Actually, you know what? It seems kind of like justice.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: It is justice. It is justice.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Finally, two people who have evaded accountability their whole lives.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Here's hoping that John Lovett had better luck at the
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Tribal Council than Donald Trump did in Manhattan.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 50:04
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• 50:52
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• 50:56
  Speaker 1: David Tolles, Kiril Pallaviv, and Molly Lobel. There are a
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  Speaker 1: lot of issues on voters' minds right now. Six big
• 51:10
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• 51:13
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• 51:16
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• 51:19
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