"Trump Surrenders."

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Speaker 2 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favreau.

Speaker 3 I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Detour.

Speaker 2 On today's show, Donald Trump finally gets his day in court as his first indictment is unsealed.

Speaker 2 Former Mueller investigation prosecutor Andrew Weissman joins to break down the Trump charges as well as the latest developments in the Fox News defamation trial.

Speaker 2 And we bring you the best of the week's worst political coverage in another round of Take Appreciator. But first,

Speaker 2 tickets for the Love It or Leave It, the Errors tour are now on sale.

Speaker 5 And a lot of those shows are almost gone.

Speaker 2 Wow. A lot of them, they're not almost gone.

Speaker 3 Which ones are not? Maybe we should focus on this. No.

Speaker 5 You need to go check yourself.

Speaker 2 The tour will kick off in San Francisco on June 23rd with 13 plus additional shows across the country through December of this year. It's going to be great.

Speaker 6 Man, we're working you this year, yeah.

Speaker 5 I know. I'm excited.
I'm excited to get back out there. I live a small life in Los Angeles.
There's nothing for me here. I'm going on the road.
Okay.

Speaker 6 Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 Get your tickets today by heading to www.crooked.com/slash events.

Speaker 2 $1 of every Love It or Leave It 2023 Errors Tour ticket sold will be donated directly to the Vote Save America Fuck Bands Leave Queer Kids Alone Fund.

Speaker 2 You can take action too by donating at www.votesaveamerica.com slash fuckbands today.

Speaker 2 Speaking of Vote Save America, today is Election Day in Wisconsin, and polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Speaker 2 for the most important election of the year, which will determine the fate of abortion rights and whether the state has a shot at a functional representative democracy.

Speaker 2 Wisconsin has same-day voter registration, so there's still time to help get out the vote.

Speaker 2 Head to votesaveamerica.com for more of all the things we talk about today, with the indictment, with the plane going to Manhattan, the thing that you can have the most impact on is this election in Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 And it will probably matter the most in terms of returning democracy to a state.

Speaker 3 Don't abandon your state like Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 6 Go to the polls.

Speaker 5 Yeah, don't whatever. And what Aaron Rodgers did was wrong.

Speaker 5 And everyone knows what Aaron Rodgers is doing continues to be something that's offending to us. It breaks our hearts.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 he can't fix it.

Speaker 3 What do you think he did?

Speaker 5 I think

Speaker 5 that he decided to take a job in a new city.

Speaker 6 That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 That's exactly right.

Speaker 8 I'm proud of you.

Speaker 5 I just, that's context clues only from this conversation.

Speaker 6 I've literally never heard about this.

Speaker 3 After he did a silent retreat in maybe some ayahuasca. Really? That's all true.

Speaker 5 That's how I make all my big decisions. As you should.

Speaker 2 All right, let's get to the news.

Speaker 2 Donald Trump will surrender at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office today, where he will be fingerprinted, posed for a mugshot, read his Miranda rights, and then arraigned on criminal charges related to hush money payments he made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Speaker 2 The specifics of the indictment will be unsealed in court, but it's been widely reported that Trump faces more than 30 counts, including at least one felony.

Speaker 2 The twice-impeached Republican frontrunner for 2024 is the first ex-president to be charged with the crime, and so far, the coverage has been as subdued as you'd expect.

Speaker 9 I look at all these people on the roadside, and yes, some of them are law enforcement but a lot of these are citizens who know this route and he's going to slow down a bit for this.

Speaker 10 Yeah apparently he sent a box of hats out to some of those who are peacefully gathered over the weekend.

Speaker 11 And Vaughn we can see the motorgate has turned into the entrance to the airport is approaching the airport the plane is on the tarmac and it unless he stops it should be very quickly.

Speaker 11 He'll be boarding that plane and it'll be taking off for New York.

Speaker 9 His plane is getting ready to take off now.

Speaker 2 They are on the move on the tarmac.

Speaker 9 And this is what we have been watching for. And we don't know what destiny looks like on the other side of this trip when he gets here in New York City.

Speaker 12 Welcome back. You are watching the former president's plane take off, heading up in the air and heading back to his home state of New York.

Speaker 12 Certainly not the kind of homecoming that he had ever imagined when he went back from Florida to New York, but he is heading back on a historic flight.

Speaker 5 Al Cowlings, we've heard from Al Cowlings, who says Trump will surrender.

Speaker 3 I think this is exactly the kind of homecoming he actually imagined for a long time, if we're being honest.

Speaker 2 But we do not know which destiny will await him.

Speaker 2 The plane is taking off.

Speaker 2 It's in the air. I love it.
I believe they have turned the fastened seatbelt light off.

Speaker 7 What are they going to cover?

Speaker 5 The news?

Speaker 2 They are now serving some drinks.

Speaker 3 24-7 cable coverage was a mistake. I think that's what we're like.

Speaker 5 As like a society.

Speaker 3 Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 5 Can you imagine, is there anyone on earth

Speaker 5 less likely to heed the Miranda warning than Donald Trump in the history of the Miranda warning? Is there anyone less likely to be like, oh my God, that's a great advice? I'll shut up now.

Speaker 2 I'm very interested today to see if the judge imposes a gag order on him because can you imagine him not being able to talk about this trial as it unfolds?

Speaker 13 That's interesting.

Speaker 6 That's interesting. What will he do with his time?

Speaker 6 Play golf, probably. What will he say?

Speaker 2 Will he talk about issues?

Speaker 6 Yeah, issues.

Speaker 6 Talk about the issues.

Speaker 2 Happy surrender day, day, guys.

Speaker 7 Thank you.

Speaker 2 Do you think we should have did we make a mistake not doing a live show on the route from Mar-a-Lago to the airport?

Speaker 5 I'm tailgating in my mind.

Speaker 3 Someone did put the Fox News commentary over the OJ Bronco Chase footage. They really tweeted it, and it was very well done.

Speaker 2 All right, so we won't know the details of the legal case against Trump until this afternoon. That hasn't slowed down the takes one bit.

Speaker 2 Just minutes after the news broke on Thursday, the Washington Post editorial board was out with a banger titled, The Trump Indictment is a Poor Test for Prosecuting a Former President.

Speaker 2 And the New York Times ran a guest op-ed by a former federal prosecutor titled, Trump's Prosecution Has Set a Dangerous Precedent.

Speaker 2 Basic argument here is that this crime isn't as serious or as easily proven as Trump's other potential crimes, and that it's unfortunate that this indictment has come first.

Speaker 2 Love it, what do you think about those arguments?

Speaker 5 It's very,

Speaker 5 we're back in sort of optics land, which is

Speaker 5 a fun house mirrors where the problem is

Speaker 5 the prosecution, because it is not on some level political, doesn't seem political enough to meet the threshold of being a political in the way that these writers would like.

Speaker 2 You say you can't make the prosecution political, but you've got to have some political judgment in the prosecution.

Speaker 6 Right.

Speaker 5 Like, you don't want the prosecution to be political, but then are worried that it's not being rolled out in the most politically expeditious manner. So it's like, what would have been right?

Speaker 5 You want the prosecutors to get on the phone, do a conference call, figure out the right order? No, that'd be reprehensible. Collusion.

Speaker 5 You want Bragg to hold just for political purposes because you know that the Fulton County or DC cases around the insurrection or overturning the election are more serious and feel more fulsome and deserving of being the first charges to be leveled against a former president?

Speaker 5 You want them to hold? No, of course not. That doesn't seem right either.
So you can't really have it both ways. You want it to be apolitical.
You think this is not the best political move.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 3 Can we talk about the optics of you wearing a radical left defund Bruce Wayne t-shirt while giving this take? This is.

Speaker 3 I heard that you kicked down the door of a retail location on Melrose on the way to the bottom.

Speaker 5 First of all, this is our merch. You make this.

Speaker 7 Oh, well, I mean, I love that shirt.

Speaker 5 I just think it's time we face the fact that Bruce Wayne

Speaker 5 should not have the amount of power on Gotham that he has. That's all.

Speaker 3 Look, I get why this is uncomfortable and that it's uncharted territory, but we haven't even seen the indictment.

Speaker 6 Right.

Speaker 3 It's like, maybe those editorials could wait until we saw the specifics. More broadly speaking, a lot of countries have prosecuted heads of state and not banana republics, like everyone is saying.

Speaker 3 France, South Africa, Israel, South Korea, their democracies have all survived.

Speaker 3 The only one that's imperiled right now is Israel because Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister, is fighting corruption charges and trying to gut Israel's judicial system to avoid the consequences of them.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 I think we should just wait and see.

Speaker 3 And the bigger problem in our justice system, as far as I can tell, is that there's one system for poor people, and then there's one system for rich and powerful people, where they get away with shit all the time.

Speaker 3 And maybe if this sends a message that rich and powerful people should not be able to get away with any crime, white-collar crime, campaign finance crime, that would be a good thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, one of the bedrock principles of our legal system should be that no one is treated differently than anyone else.

Speaker 2 And so once you start making decisions on Trump's potential prosecution based on the fact that he's a former president, you immediately set up those two standards of justice.

Speaker 2 And like, so Trump gets a pass because,

Speaker 2 well, there's a couple arguments. Trump should get a pass because he's committed more serious crimes potentially, and this is a less serious crime.

Speaker 2 Then there's like the optics of the, you know, how do we order them? But you're right.

Speaker 2 prosecutors, in this case, a special counsel, a DOJ, a Fulton County district attorney, the Manhattan district attorney, yeah, they can't coordinate the indictments and have it like a political rule.

Speaker 2 It's just not allowed.

Speaker 6 That would be a fun Zoom. It's just,

Speaker 6 that would be horrible.

Speaker 5 I do think with this one, I think the critique of this is that this is, we hear it all the time, that this is a novel legal theory. The argument that conservatives, I think,

Speaker 5 somewhat fairly are making is that

Speaker 5 this is not a case that would have been brought against an ordinary citizen, right?

Speaker 5 That like this is a complicated set of facts to get to a felony based on a campaign violation, a campaign violation at the federal level that he's not being charged for related to the offense of falsifying his business records.

Speaker 5 We have to see what

Speaker 5 the actual indictment is. We should wait to see that.
But I think the point that they're making is we should be making the argument that no one is above the law.

Speaker 5 And I think that that will become even easier, an argument to make as we see more indictments from other kinds of prosecutions.

Speaker 5 But I think the point they're making is that this is something that is being directed at Donald Trump and wouldn't have been directed at anybody else.

Speaker 2 And I think others would make the argument and have, you know, in Just Security today, you know, Norm Eisen, Ryan Goodman, a bunch of other lawyers pointed out that, like, first of all, falsifying business records in New York is one of them, a very common charge to bring to all kinds of people, to charge all kinds of people with.

Speaker 2 And also, they have then connected falsifying business records to other state crimes

Speaker 2 to turn them into, to make them felonies. And that has happened.

Speaker 2 So we don't, again, we haven't seen the indictment, but it might not just be that they are connecting falsifying business records to a federal crime, but to potentially other New York state crimes

Speaker 2 other people would be charged with.

Speaker 5 But I don't even, like, that's almost beside the point.

Speaker 5 Stepping back from all of this, I think the broader argument about this being uncharted territory and dangerous is the same mistake that a lot of pundits have made, which is the Rubicon is not holding Trump accountable.

Speaker 5 The Rubicon is having a criminal president, right? Like, whether or not you hold Trump accountable after the fact, yes, we're crossing a new boundary.

Speaker 5 We've never charged a past president with a crime before.

Speaker 2 Yeah, guess who crossed the the boundary first?

Speaker 13 Donald Trump. Exactly.

Speaker 5 And then it's so that was true with both impeachments. It's true with the January 6th hearing.

Speaker 5 It's like, oh my God, look at all these extraordinary steps we're taking, these unprecedented steps to hold this person accountable.

Speaker 5 Oh, yes, we all recognize that he's an unprecedented threat and he's doing things in a reckless, with a reckless disregard for the law in the way no president has

Speaker 5 ever before.

Speaker 3 Well, it's also silly to be like, an ordinary citizen wouldn't be charged with campaign finance violations. Like, well, yeah, right.
You have to be a candidate to violate campaign finance law.

Speaker 3 And also, by the way, John Edwards, former United States Senator, who was the vice presidential nominee in 2004, was charged with very similar crimes.

Speaker 3 He was ultimately, I think, a hung jury and he got away, but there is some precedent here.

Speaker 3 I think the bad thing would be if we get into a situation where you have Republicans do a tit for tat and they decide, okay, we need to indict a Democrat.

Speaker 3 Maybe they go after Biden or Barack Obama under sort of specious allegations, but we're far from there.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 2 And, you know, they probably, look, they've all been, they've either called for for

Speaker 2 Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton,

Speaker 2 our president's candidates, either to be locked up, to be indicted. They've all called for that.

Speaker 6 You know what?

Speaker 5 If you want, we'll meet at the middle of the 69th Street Bridge.

Speaker 13 We'll walk Hillary Clinton to you.

Speaker 5 You walk Trump to us.

Speaker 6 Oh, my God.

Speaker 5 I don't mean it.

Speaker 2 Okay, trying to get her on the show.

Speaker 6 I'm just kidding.

Speaker 5 But pick someone you want, and we'll do it.

Speaker 6 Who are we offering?

Speaker 5 I don't know, someone we don't want on the show.

Speaker 6 Mansion, cinema.

Speaker 2 Look, if former Democrats commit crimes, then yeah, they should be indicted.

Speaker 14 That's just the way it is.

Speaker 6 Don't commit crimes.

Speaker 5 Well, the other thing, too, is it's like, hey, we're not negotiating with terrorists here.

Speaker 5 Like, hey, if you charge Trump for legitimate crimes, we're going to find some trumped-up bullshit to charge Joe Biden with the next time he comes through fucking Montana.

Speaker 7 It's like, okay, well, that's a tribe.

Speaker 4 That's a terrible way to go about our making decisions.

Speaker 6 Also, thanks for the heads up.

Speaker 3 We're not going there.

Speaker 2 So, Republicans have been a bit less subtle in their reactions to the news of Trump's Trump's indictment. Let's listen.

Speaker 15 Well, if you got a pile of crap and you chop it up 34 times, it's still a pile of crap.

Speaker 16 And of course, this is not in isolation. This comes after the first impeachment ever of a sitting president over a phone call.

Speaker 17 One thing when you have a cancel culture, it's another when you have a cancel criminal justice system. And I hope that we're certainly not turning to that.

Speaker 2 So this is not even about the forget the federal government, because guess what? They just indicted Trump in a local area. So the equivalent is this.
Okay, you indict Donald Trump in Manhattan.

Speaker 2 We indict Bill Clinton in Court Court d'Alene, Idaho. Figure it out.

Speaker 2 It almost feels like they're pushing the population to react.

Speaker 17 We think they're demoralized and passive.

Speaker 8 Let's see if they really are.

Speaker 18 We control the power of the purse, and that's we're going to have to look at the appropriations process and limit funds going to some of these agencies, particularly the ones who are engaged in the most egregious behavior.

Speaker 19 So the DOJ and the FBI.

Speaker 20 We feel like the DA's time would be better spent trying to prosecute criminals.

Speaker 3 Maybe this is just my bias showing, but I find Marco Rubio's comment there that it's the first impeachment over a phone call to be the most stupid observation of all of them, even slicing the poop 34 ways.

Speaker 2 Well, it's like, well, it's just like the lamest Trump MAGA talking point that Marco Rubio is just, you know. Like, I think Trump used to tweet that all the time.

Speaker 3 Add issue wasn't the phone portion of it, it was the conduct.

Speaker 6 Well, it's like,

Speaker 5 Marco, are you suggesting it's not possible to commit crimes over the phone?

Speaker 6 What are you talking about?

Speaker 2 I also, I liked personally, uh, Jim Jordan using the Manhattan DA's case to then

Speaker 2 as an excuse to defund the FBI,

Speaker 2 which goes to tell you,

Speaker 2 it might not be the

Speaker 2 type of crime that they don't agree with right here, the charges.

Speaker 2 I don't know if they're making the same argument as the Washington Post editorial board that, oh, this just isn't a strong case because

Speaker 2 Trump could go kill someone and they'd be saying the same shit.

Speaker 5 Well, right. There's no legitimate,

Speaker 13 you can't do it at the local level.

Speaker 2 The federal level is also corrupted.

Speaker 5 There's no legitimate place to hold Trump accountable. There's no example.
There's no right way to do it.

Speaker 2 All of these arguments from Republicans, or at least most of them, boil down to the belief that Donald Trump should be immune from prosecution.

Speaker 2 Not because he's a former president or presidential candidate, not because of that, just because he's Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 Because they like him. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So Ron DeSantis, who initially reacted to the pending indictment by saying, I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair, has since changed his tune and said that, quote, Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue.

Speaker 2 Tommy, what do you make of Tiny D's strategy here?

Speaker 3 I mean, he viewed this as a freebie, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, he knows that he can sort of notionally support this safe space for Trump idea, but that it would never happen and that Trump was going to turn himself in. So, you know, well played, I guess.

Speaker 3 I liked Chris Christie's comment, which was basically, who the hell asked you?

Speaker 6 For the funny thing.

Speaker 3 But I mean, look, to the extent Trump has any political genius in him, it's that he has forced the entire Republican Party to support him.

Speaker 3 I mean, he, I think, before Santa DeSantis put out this statement, he tweeted something to the effect of many Republicans haven't weighed in yet, very disloyal, whatever.

Speaker 3 So he's baited everyone into supporting all of these existential issues that surround him.

Speaker 3 Like, you can disagree with Trump on policy, but if you don't support the election lie, if you didn't fight for him around impeachment, if you don't get his back here, like he will go after you.

Speaker 6 Love it.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think saying the extradition thing, which first of all, it's like Trump's like, oh, thank you. I'm not going to acknowledge this.
I'm just going to go on my own.

Speaker 5 I really would like to not give you any credit whatsoever.

Speaker 2 Instead, I'm going to put out a statement talking about how I have expanded my lead over you in the primary.

Speaker 6 So thanks for the thanks.

Speaker 2 Thanks for offering to harbor a fugitive, but I'm not going to be a fugitive.

Speaker 2 I'm going to turn myself in, but thank you.

Speaker 2 You took a subtle shot at me a couple weeks ago, and then you've gone from that to offering to harbor a fugitive.

Speaker 5 Well, I do think it's the same. I don't know that he's, I actually think it's not a shift.
I think he's just doing the first half. The first half is this prosecution is illegitimate.
It's political.

Speaker 5 I can't stand by it. I don't support it.
The second half is I'm Trump without the baggage. He's just not doing the Trump Without the Baggage stuff today, but he will do it again.

Speaker 2 I am and have been very sympathetic to the challenge of winning over the decisive group of Republican voters who are open to a Trump alternative, but still really like Trump.

Speaker 2 That said, why would they pick the guy defending Donald Trump when they can just pick Donald Trump himself? You know, like run DeSantis.

Speaker 6 I just think

Speaker 3 no one's going to remember this in three months or six months. You know, like he's just like, let me get through this news cycle is my guess.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I think that this.

Speaker 5 Look, I'm very much in the camp that he should be.

Speaker 3 If you want to compete against Donald Trump, throw a punch. And I think DeSantis is getting crushed in the polls because he looks like a wimp, and this is part of that argument.

Speaker 2 Well, and I think that this is not, I think this is not going away. This is this trial.
There's going to be potentially other indictments. There's other investigations going.

Speaker 2 Like, one alternative here, I thought about

Speaker 2 Bernie during the debate in 2015 when he said, people are sick of hearing about your damn emails to Hillary, and so am I. And then he criticized her on a whole bunch of other issues.

Speaker 2 Like, DeSantis could have done something like, look, this is up to the jury and the voters to decide.

Speaker 2 Like, I personally think the Democrats are salivating over the chance to run against someone with as much legal and political baggage as Trump.

Speaker 2 And that's why I'm offering an alternative, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think he's, I think he is going to get, I think he'll, let's see, let's see if he gets there. I do think it becomes an we were talking about this in a previous pod.

Speaker 5 I think it's about electability. I think he needs the electability piece to start becoming more salient for people as we get closer.

Speaker 5 But I don't think there's a lot to be gained right now in siding with

Speaker 5 the siding in siding with prosecutors in some way that makes him look like he's on the other side of this issue, not just from Trump, but from Rubio, fucking Joe Manchin.

Speaker 5 I mean, like, this is a place where he can

Speaker 2 do that. I would say that his original answer where he took the subtle jab at trump by saying well i don't know what goes into paying you know

Speaker 2 i think that was he was he was better off with that yeah i think he attacks the prosecution he says he gives takes a little shot and then that's it he should offer a blanket safe space for all future crimes that would be i think this one is just this is a this is pathetic it's unclear if he's good at this so we'll see on the other end of the republican spectrum is asa hutchinson former governor of arkansas and federal prosecutor who announced that he's running for president this weekend and called on Trump to drop out of the race because of the indictment.

Speaker 2 Hutchinson is the first unabashedly anti-Trump Republican candidate to announce, because Chris Christie hasn't jumped in yet. I think there's any constituency for him in this primary?

Speaker 3 This guy was shot out of a cannon this weekend.

Speaker 7 ASAP.

Speaker 6 ASAP.

Speaker 5 Aza Hutchinson, with finger on the pulse, is like, I know what to do.

Speaker 5 I'm going to do it during indictment palooza, and I'm going to go to the place where the MAGA community gathers to get its marching orders this week with George Stephanov.

Speaker 13 He's a former Clinton aide.

Speaker 6 It's a ridiculous.

Speaker 5 He looks ridiculous. Yeah.

Speaker 6 What is he doing?

Speaker 2 Low name ID, too normal, hasn't owned the libs enough. Even if people are open to a Trump alternative, they don't think he should drop out.

Speaker 6 We're Republicans, Republican primary.

Speaker 3 The problem in 2016 is, right, there were all these Republicans that got in the race and none of them wanted to attack Trump because they all wanted to get his scraps when he eventually flamed out.

Speaker 3 If Asa Hutchinson jumps in and actually runs against Trump and criticizes him and has a message against him for the duration of the primary, like, I will be happy. But that interview was not

Speaker 4 electric. You need, you need,

Speaker 5 if, if the goal for these anti-Trump Republicans, you still want the MAGA base, what you need is for somebody like Chris Christie.

Speaker 5 You need Ron DeSantis to grab Chris Christie by the haunches and push him forward and run behind him as hard as he can while Chris Christie's doing all the fulsome anti-Trump stuff.

Speaker 5 And then right when Chris Christie is completely battered and blue, you throw him to the side and say, I'm Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 3 So you're like a weekend Bernie's kind of thing.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you got to use him like one of those football pats. You know, those stocking horse.

Speaker 6 Oh, the coffee shoes.

Speaker 14 Like a shield.

Speaker 5 What is it? Like when they're running?

Speaker 5 Yeah, like one of those things.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I think your metaphor here is a fullback.

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 14 I said fullback. Yeah, he was great.

Speaker 6 Hey, I said fullback.

Speaker 2 Congrats.

Speaker 2 You said fullback.

Speaker 5 Hey, I said fullback. I said fullback.

Speaker 3 I nailed it. No, you nailed it.

Speaker 2 And Aaron Rodgers was a

Speaker 6 football player. Correct.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about the early public reaction to the criminal charges.

Speaker 2 CNN poll released yesterday found 60% of Americans approve of Trump's indictment. Again, we don't know what's in it, but they approve.

Speaker 2 Including 62% of Independents and majorities of every demographic group except Republicans, 79% of whom disapprove of the indictment. No surprise there.

Speaker 2 Only 10% of all Americans think Trump did nothing wrong, though 76% believe politics played at least some role in the decision to indict Trump.

Speaker 4 Yeah, one of them, too. And his.

Speaker 6 You got me in there. That's why I was like, I'm not surprised by that.
That's absolutely Paul Trump.

Speaker 2 People can be like, yeah, no, he deserved it. I'm sure it was politically motivated as well.
And it was.

Speaker 2 And I agree. It can be politically motivated and also the right thing to do.

Speaker 13 It can be both.

Speaker 3 10% thinking he did nothing wrong is so funny because there's a lot of Republicans who'd be like, yeah, he committed crimes for us.

Speaker 3 He did it for me.

Speaker 2 That's where my DeSantis point comes in because when DeSantis did the like, I don't know what goes into paying hush money for a porn star, he's talking to the people who are like, he definitely did something wrong, but I don't know.

Speaker 5 But I also think that it was politically motivated and i don't know if he should have been indicted like a totally fair hit he was in good territory there this is i think one of the problems we've had for such a long time is if there's some like magic set of words some anti-trump republicans could say to the mega base to convince them that trump isn't the right person they know who he is he like being a lying and cheating and shady person like that wasn't just like baked into the price of Trump.

Speaker 5 It was part of his pitch. It was part of, they all know he's a shady guy.
Like that's a big part of what he's offering. So like everybody kind of acknowledges that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but what they can't figure out is if he's a real loser or not. Yeah.
That's what that's where, and that's what we keep saying this, but like, that's where DeSantis and

Speaker 6 gets in there.

Speaker 3 I thought those numbers were better than I expected, to be honest.

Speaker 6 Better for the 60%.

Speaker 6 More anti-Trump. More anti-Trump.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, I think, you know, before any of the specifics of the indictment come out, I do think, I don't think you're ever going to be able to convince people that there isn't some political element to this prosecution.

Speaker 3 It's the Manhattan DA indicting Trump. Like, of course, there is some sort of political piece to this.

Speaker 5 After,

Speaker 5 who for a while said he wasn't sure he could do it, right? Like, came back to it.

Speaker 2 The thing about the 60 number, though, is like

Speaker 2 this is what you just said, Lovett, which people have made up their mind about Trump. 60% is also around where his disapproval rating has been hovering for years now.

Speaker 2 It's like 60% think he has something to do with January 6th. 60% think he should be indicted for this document, right? Like 60% of the country does not think he's fit for the job, does not like him,

Speaker 2 thinks that he's probably a shady guy who deserves to go to jail.

Speaker 3 I just thought some part of that number would have just general discomfort with the concept of prosecuting a former president. So in some ways, I was, I thought those were good numbers.

Speaker 2 I think on that, most Americans are like, you know what? Politicians should not get any special treatment. I don't care if they're presidents or not.

Speaker 2 They'd probably say the same thing about Joe Biden or other people.

Speaker 5 I think one of the reasons Donald Trump became president instead of Hillary Clinton is that there was more antipathy towards just sort of basic politics than we kind of, that we had, like that we had accounted for, right?

Speaker 5 Like, like there's a lot more throw the book at them people out there than we realized.

Speaker 7 Sure.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So his approval ratings so far remain unchanged, which again, I don't think that's too surprising.

Speaker 2 And other polls since the news broke also show that he's expanded his lead in the Republican primary.

Speaker 2 You know, Dan and I talked a little bit about this on Thursday, but to me, that still is a result of like Trump's in the news all the time.

Speaker 2 And now, you know, the lib establishment and the deep state is out to get Trump. And so now we have to rally behind our guy.
So it's not super surprising.

Speaker 5 And every figure of any authority on the right is saying that there's a political prosecution and unfair and not legitimate.

Speaker 2 Now, again, imagine if they hadn't. Imagine if everyone sounded like Asa Hutchinson.

Speaker 5 Tragedy of the Commons.

Speaker 6 Tragedy of the Commons.

Speaker 2 I did find it interesting. He raised $4 million in the first 24 hours since the

Speaker 2 seven total. And then, yeah, seven total now.
And then I saw, at least the Trump campaign is saying, and

Speaker 2 they're liars, so who knows, that like 80% of those are new donors.

Speaker 13 Yeah, proof of the money. Oh, come on.

Speaker 6 I don't buy that for a fucking second.

Speaker 5 New donors?

Speaker 3 I don't believe that they have anyone smart enough in that organization to figure that stat out.

Speaker 7 I don't buy that.

Speaker 6 That seems hard to believe.

Speaker 5 Where are these new donors coming from now in 2023?

Speaker 4 I'm in.

Speaker 2 Give me a break. Bolsonaro.

Speaker 6 Just people who've come here. Bought farm in Romania.

Speaker 2 So with the huge caveat that it's still just the beginning of indictment season, how much do you think Democrats should talk about these charges and what should they say?

Speaker 3 I mean, I don't know that they have a choice. They'll probably all get asked about it.
And so, therefore, they will need to comment.

Speaker 3 I think Dan wrote a piece on this today that I thought was very compelling, where he flagged that the Navigator Research Company polled it, and they found the most compelling argument is basically no one is above the law, even a former president.

Speaker 3 And I do think you should also talk about how everyone is afforded the presumption of innocence.

Speaker 3 And then I would also, you know, from a political perspective, try to pair it with a message that, like, aren't you tired of talking about this guy? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Wouldn't it be great to just move on from this soap opera?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think that that's all true. I think

Speaker 5 if what we're talking about for a while are just these New York charges, I think no one is above the law, but you have to find a way to turn it towards other Republicans.

Speaker 5 Because if we're spending all our time painting a beautiful portrait of why Trump is terrible, I don't think that's the best use of our time.

Speaker 5 You have to get at the fact that all these Republicans are defending him, putting party over country, backing him despite all the harm he has done and kind of despite advocating for him instead of advocating for their constituents, whatever it may be, but we have to figure out a way to be talking about Republicans writ large and not Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 I think you have to do both because Donald Trump's not just an ex-president.

Speaker 2 Donald Trump is the leading contender for the Republican nomination, the likely nominee, I would say, at this point, and thus becomes 30,000, 40,000 votes away from becoming president again.

Speaker 2 And we and all the polls with him and Joe Biden are now still pretty close. Still pretty close.
So I do think there are people out there who are, you know, still haven't quite decided.

Speaker 5 There was in that navigator poll that dan pulled out there was one part of the message which i thought was actually useful and actually mirrors the way republicans do investigations which is this is just the tip of the iceberg and i think as much as we've been saying like this is just donald trump is a shady motherfucker this is just the tip of the iceberg these people are defending this guy even though he broke the law everybody should be treated the same and we got to like follow this to it we gotta we gotta we gotta investigate this and find out what happened and find out what he did i also think that both republicans and donald trump you know over the last week have been suggesting, oh, just wait till we get in power again.

Speaker 2 We're going to punish all our enemies and we're going to use the law to go after everyone else. That gets at both the like the two-tiered system of justice and the drama point that you're making.

Speaker 2 Like, so we want another four years where Donald Trump's back in power and he's just going to take revenge on all of his enemies and he thinks he can get away with whatever he wants.

Speaker 2 The sort of two-tiered system of justice, and you made this point.

Speaker 2 earlier in the pod, Tommy, that there shouldn't be one justice system for everyday Americans and another for the rich and powerful where they pay no consequences for their crimes.

Speaker 2 That was like the next sentence in the Navigator poll that they tested that was part of that very powerful message.

Speaker 2 I think getting that in there too, because you need to make it relevant to people at some point. You know, it's not just about Donald Trump.
It's not just about Republicans.

Speaker 2 It's about what it means for you. And like, if you did this shit, you would go to jail, but not Donald Trump because he's rich and powerful.

Speaker 5 Yeah, when I'm saying we shouldn't be focusing, I'm not saying we shouldn't be talking about Donald Trump. We just can't focus exclusively on it.
We have to make it a larger story. You endorsed him.

Speaker 5 And I did endorse him. But the other thing, too, is I do think it really will matter

Speaker 5 what specific crimes we're talking about, whether we're talking about the New York crimes, we also have the election crimes in Georgia, we have the documents crime, and we have the insurrection-related crimes.

Speaker 5 And I do think if we start to...

Speaker 5 if we start to see charges related to overturning democracy, I think we start to make a bigger case about Republican extremism and their commitment to Donald Trump, even if it violates the basic fundamental values we have as Americans.

Speaker 5 And then that starts to be, I think, a very much more useful, very direct attack on what the kind of government they're trying to put together here.

Speaker 3 I do think it's worth noting that Joe Biden's taking a different approach, where they are trying to draw a contrast, where he's like running around going to

Speaker 3 factories that were started because of investments and bills that he helped get passed, and just sort of put forward this image of a normie Democrat doing things that actually matter to you.

Speaker 3 I'm sure at some point he'll get asked about Donald Trump and he'll have to comment, but I don't think optically that is wrong for Biden to be doing. I think it's exactly what I would recommend.
But

Speaker 2 yeah and i think it's sort of his only option i think the challenge is he needs a theory of attention here and like he ain't getting much attention for those uh ribbon cutting ceremonies in the middle of this and that's not i don't know what the white house can do about that except for just exactly they're trying to draw the contrast he's a normal president trying to get things done for people delivering for people right that's good that's the message it's just gonna be really challenging to get attention he's gotta be standing in front of a fucking earth mover with a bridge being built behind him and saying like you know we're building bridges he's getting fingerprinted.

Speaker 5 I want quotes like that out there. You know what I mean?

Speaker 6 Ribbon.

Speaker 5 Come on, get nods all over the fucking studio.

Speaker 3 Ribbon crushing at a new prison in Palm Beach.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's great. Yeah, we built this prison right by his house.

Speaker 3 Just in case we needed to fill it.

Speaker 2 Love it. You mentioned the documents case.

Speaker 2 Washington Post broke the news this weekend that the Justice Department has found new and significant evidence that Trump obstructed the investigation into his decision to hide classified documents in his beach house.

Speaker 2 The story says, quote, investigators now suspect, based on witness statements, security camera footage, and other documentary evidence that boxes including classified material were moved from Mar-a-Lago storage area after the subpoena was served and that Trump personally examined at least some of those boxes.

Speaker 2 Fox also reported that several Secret Service agents connected to Trump are scheduled to testify before a D.C. grand jury in the classified documents case.
So I, you know, I.

Speaker 3 And they're looking into whether he showed donors some of these documents.

Speaker 5 It is so funny that all these sort of nefarious conspiracies about what he was doing with the documents, and like he may be brought up on charges because he just wanted to show his fellow rich assholes, like, hey, check this out.

Speaker 5 Look at this nuclear weapon China made.

Speaker 6 It's crazy.

Speaker 3 How cool is this?

Speaker 5 And I can't wait. We're going to get the footage with the Benny Hill music on it.
Just start

Speaker 5 with the boxes coming in and out of that fucking wine cellar.

Speaker 2 I do think the

Speaker 2 at first glance, you could look at the obstruction thing and be like, obstruction? That seems like a process argument. But now that you have the Biden case, too, it really is different.

Speaker 2 That, like, oh, Biden has some documents, and then Biden says, search my house, search everything, get them all out there. And then they did.
Trump, they serve him a subpoena.

Speaker 2 And then after he gets a subpoena, he goes, ooh, better hide those documents.

Speaker 6 And then, and then, I mean, that's just

Speaker 6 easy to understand.

Speaker 3 They turned over a bunch, and then they got the Fed searched the Mar-a-Lago, and they found like a hundred more. Right.

Speaker 14 Well, they tried to hide them after they got a subpoena.

Speaker 5 It's very funny because it's a little bit like, well, that's going to be hard to prove. Like with like Dominion, they're like, well, it's hard to prove malice.

Speaker 5 And these guys are texting backstage where they're like, we're lying.

Speaker 4 Oh, no.

Speaker 6 Let's keep lying. Let's lie harder.

Speaker 5 And then Trump gets there to subpoena for these documents. And then they have a video camera of someone hiding it.

Speaker 2 That's amazing.

Speaker 2 He did an interview with Hannity after the indictment. And Hannity brings up the documents case.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 he's like, well, you wouldn't take something when you're not supposed to. He's like, I can take whatever I want.

Speaker 2 He basically admits it to Hannity. I love it.

Speaker 2 I mean, look, I do think this just goes to show, though, if there are further indictments and or even if these investigations drag on, and if the coverage of the campaign is filled with constant revelations that at the very least serve as a reminder to people that Trump brings constant chaos and drama everywhere he goes, you know, we've seen what happens.

Speaker 2 He lost the 2020 election. His candidates lost in 2022 after the January 6th hearings, after they were painted as election denial extremists, which they were.
He's not fucking Teflon.

Speaker 2 The guy lost the last three elections now.

Speaker 5 We have to see. I do think that, like, right now, I think what feels like it's holding is

Speaker 5 whatever. Our just sort of base understanding is this is helping Trump in the Republican primary.
It is hurting Trump in the general. That's the.
And the question is, how long does that hold?

Speaker 5 And we will know how long it's holding based on how long do Republicans keep up this. It's a witch hunt, it's a witch hunt, it's a witch hunt thing on his behalf.

Speaker 5 And how long does

Speaker 5 some of these, does one other Republican in this primary start gaining traction on an electability argument, which then kind of unlocks criticizing him on the substance of these cases, which unlocks a further electability argument and kind of snowballs from there.

Speaker 2 And it's just the drip-drip of the revelations, right? There's so many investigations, so many possibilities for indictments, so much, so many news cycles could be taken up by this.

Speaker 2 I don't have a lot of faith in people's memories, right?

Speaker 2 Like all of this coverage of the plane going to the indictment and him in court tomorrow, whatever, all that, like everyone will free, if that was the end of it all, people would like forget about it in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 But like these are legal cases, they're just going to keep going and going and going.

Speaker 3 They could take years each. And I also think people, like people believe what they read, even if it's like an email full of conspiracy theories, people tend to believe it.

Speaker 3 So, if they're reading article after article about this guy breaking the law, it's going to sink in.

Speaker 3 And I think for sort of normie swing voters, they're going to be like, I don't want him being my president again.

Speaker 3 And then there is this electability argument that will come from DeSantis if he grows his spine to say, This guy's going to lose to Joe Biden again. Look how much baggage he has this time.

Speaker 3 And I think that could be effective.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay. Well, we're going to get an actual legal expert to break down the case here when we come back.
Andrew Weissman will join, and Tommy will be be interviewing him right after the break.

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Speaker 3 Joining me now is Andrew Weissman. He is a former senior prosecutor on the Mueller investigation and former general counsel for the FBI.

Speaker 3 He's also an MSNBC contributor and co-host of the new podcast, Prosecuting Donald Trump, which I assume is mostly sort of NFL scores and updates.

Speaker 8 Yeah, exactly. I don't do sports actually.

Speaker 6 That's okay.

Speaker 3 That's okay. We don't do that here either.
Thank you for coming on today. It's a great day to talk to you.
Can we just sort of start with

Speaker 3 what the heck happens here with President Trump and this indictment? He shows up in court on Tuesday, and then what? I mean, do they unseal the indictment that day?

Speaker 3 Can you kind of walk us through the basics?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I mean, there's a little bit that is,

Speaker 8 you know, this could be very unique because how many times is somebody under indictment who's under secret service protection? So I can tell you what the normal process is.

Speaker 8 The normal process is you get booked like anyone else. You go to the NYPD, you have a mugshot taken, you have fingerprints taken, there's certain name rank serial number.

Speaker 8 Essentially, it's called being processed.

Speaker 8 Then,

Speaker 8 even though you can, a lot of times you can self-surrender to the NYPD. So in economic crime cases where there's no risk of violence or flight, you just, it's fine for the person just to show up.

Speaker 8 In other words, the person doesn't get arrested at their home and brought in cuffs to the NYPD.

Speaker 8 And then normally you would be in cuffs to go from the NYPD to the arraignment. And then at the arraignment, it's a standard process.

Speaker 8 There's a judge, there's a prosecutor, there's a defense lawyer, and in this case, you know, a million of your friends. It remains to be seen whether the judge will open it up to cameras.

Speaker 8 While I was teaching, He may have ruled on it, but I know that a lot of media organizations asked for that. It's up to the judge's discretion what he's going to do.

Speaker 8 The judge basically says to the defendant, how do you plead? The defendant usually says, not guilty.

Speaker 8 They talk about bail conditions. It's sort of a complicated issue in New York now because of a bail reform statute.
But obviously in this case,

Speaker 8 the person, you know, Donald Trump's going to be released.

Speaker 8 There could, though, be discussion in connection with bail.

Speaker 8 There could be issues about

Speaker 8 what he says that either could prejudice a jury or more importantly, what he could say that could incite violence.

Speaker 8 This issue came up in Roger Stone's case, which was while I was at the special counsel. I used to say just at the special counsel's office.

Speaker 8 Now I have to say special counsel Mueller because there's so many special counsels that no one knows what I'm referring to.

Speaker 8 So some of that process may get a little bit short-circuited because of the Secret Service, like it's not clear he's going to have a mug shot. It's not clear he'll be in handcuffs.

Speaker 8 But what happens in court, the part of the arraignment, that is the way it's going to happen. And then typically, shortly before an arraignment, if not the day before,

Speaker 8 the indictment is unsealed because the defense lawyer wants a chance to read it.

Speaker 8 And so

Speaker 8 The defense lawyer will certainly get it, not at that court appearance, because if the defense lawyer gets it at that court appearance, there's going to be a big delay because the defense lawyer and the defendant have a right to sit down and read it.

Speaker 8 And presumably, this is going to be something that's called a speaking indictment, meaning that it sort of lays out a lot of the evidence in the scheme.

Speaker 8 It's not just sort of a restaurant, a sort of very brief recitation of the actual criminal statute.

Speaker 3 You mentioned this interesting question of whether Trump will continue to do interviews. I mean, his lawyer has been doing a lot of TV.

Speaker 3 Trump has been posting on Truth Social, including an image of the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, next to a photo of Trump holding a baseball bat.

Speaker 3 Does that kind of activity create any legal risk for Trump in your mind? And what do you think the odds are of a judge slapping a gag order of some sort on him?

Speaker 8 A couple of thoughts. So one, you know, I was thinking that Michael Cohen and his lawyer are kind of doing the same thing.

Speaker 8 And you sort of realize there's a reason Michael Cohen and Donald Trump like work together and were sort of peas in a pod because they're so similar.

Speaker 8 And they managed to also get lawyers who seem to also have the same moth to a flame view of the media.

Speaker 8 Of course, there's huge risks for Donald Trump to be doing what he's doing.

Speaker 8 He's obviously doing it for political reasons, but he's now going to have political reasons and legal issues that are going to collide.

Speaker 8 And the two risks are.

Speaker 8 If he does something that incites violence, he actually could be committing a crime and be charged with it. It also is the case that he could be violating his his bail conditions.

Speaker 8 And then the judge has a lot of discretion to,

Speaker 8 at the very least, impose more restrictions on what he says publicly and what he

Speaker 8 truths socials about and to limit that.

Speaker 8 In the same way that when Roger Stone posted a really similar photo, that it wasn't of with a baseball bat and the prosecutor, it was of the sitting judge who had his case with

Speaker 8 crosshairs. And as the judge said after a hearing where she didn't believe at all that Roger Stone did this innocently, she said, How hard was it to find a picture of me without crosshairs?

Speaker 8 So if he continues to do something like that, the judge can impose really severe restrictions. Obviously, if he was to be charged with incitement, he could end up in jail.

Speaker 8 awaiting trial.

Speaker 3 Wow, things just got serious. So there are reports that Trump is facing up to 34 separate charges and that at least one of them is a felony.
We obviously don't know if that's accurate.

Speaker 3 There's been a lot of inaccurate information swirling around about this case.

Speaker 3 But would that volume of charges and the seriousness of at least one of them being a felony surprise you given what we know?

Speaker 8 It wouldn't, but I do want to caution you that the volume of charges, it's like this isn't a sort of per-pound

Speaker 8 way to look at this.

Speaker 8 This is, is, by all accounts, there's going to be charges relating to filing a false business record. So if you file that record, the same record repeatedly,

Speaker 8 let's say

Speaker 8 in a business, it's given to the business for one purpose, and then you file it with your accountants and you file it with your tax preparer, those all conform

Speaker 8 a filing of a false business record or the creation of a false business record. So there's, and you could charge it as a felony and you could also charge it as a misdemeanor, the same filing.

Speaker 8 So it's, I think I'm going to be more interested in what's the basic nature of the scheme than all of the ways you could slice it up.

Speaker 8 It reminds me when I did securities fraud prosecutions, you could actually have thousands of counts because

Speaker 8 There's so many securities filings that are made and there's so many

Speaker 8 So there's so many potential victims receiving receiving false filings if that's the charge. But what you do is you sort of take a representative sample.

Speaker 8 So I don't think people should really think about the severity because of the number of charges.

Speaker 3 That's really helpful. Thank you.
So speaking of severity, I mean, we know that there are these multiple separate investigations into Trump, his businesses, and his conduct.

Speaker 3 When you step back and look at, you know, all four or five of them, or however many there are at this point, is there one prosecution or one investigation that you think presents the most serious legal risk?

Speaker 8 Yes, absolutely. So I think that there's one question, which is what is the, what are the, what's under investigation that's, that is the most serious in my view, that's a sort of subjective.

Speaker 8 And there's another, which is what presents the most risk. And I think they're a little bit different.

Speaker 8 I think the most serious crime that's under investigation is the federal January, so-called January 6th investigation, because that's something that goes directly to the heart of our democracy.

Speaker 8 Hundreds of people have been prosecuted in connection with that, but at the foot soldier level, it's really important if they amass the right amount of proof that the leader of that conspiracy and scheme be held to account.

Speaker 8 And that's just so fundamental and core to our democracy that to me, that is the most serious. I think the case that, though, presents the most

Speaker 8 risk. to Donald Trump, and especially if I were looking at this as his defense lawyer, are the state crimes, whether it's Manhattan or Georgia, and probably Georgia more than Manhattan.

Speaker 8 And the reason I say that is because regardless of what happens in the presidential election, meaning regardless of whether Donald Trump or any Republican becomes president, those state charges stick because a federal pardon cannot affect a state charge.

Speaker 8 So if I'm Donald Trump, I have my eye on those state charges and I will be doing anything and everything,

Speaker 8 presumably within the law, to see that a Republican wins the presidency because that will end any and can end any federal prosecution.

Speaker 3 Well, there's two other big cases out there that I wanted to ask you about. One is the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News.

Speaker 3 On Friday, we learned that a Delaware judge ruled that the case will go to trial. What do you think that means for Fox and their odds of winning in this case?

Speaker 8 So, that lawsuit, I think, is one of the most brilliant lawsuits out there in terms of trying to figure out what's the deterrent to making false statements.

Speaker 8 You know, political leaders and candidates can make false statements, and there's only sort of repercussions at the ballot box,

Speaker 8 which could be severe, but they also, as we know, can be ignored by the electorate.

Speaker 8 This is a company saying that I have been hurt by false statements that were, they have to show that they were deliberately made by Fox News. I use the news part of that in air quotes.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I think that the ruling that just happened is pretty devastating.

Speaker 8 It's not just the facts that we've heard about, which are this,

Speaker 8 I'm not a First Amendment lawyer, but every First Amendment lawyer I've talked to said this is the strongest case they have ever seen.

Speaker 8 And usually I don't really, I'm not usually rooting for someone who is suing a news organization.

Speaker 8 You usually think, you know, news organizations have to and are entitled under the Supreme Court law a lot of leeway, but not if it's done with sort of actual malice, including reckless disregard.

Speaker 8 And here the judge made a couple of rulings that were really interesting. One, the judge said it was crystal clear, and I'm using that's quotes, crystal clear that

Speaker 8 factually Dominion did not change any votes. So that is going to be a given in this trial.

Speaker 8 And that's huge when you think about everything that we've been hearing from Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, so many people who are part of this conspiracy theory.

Speaker 8 That is now out of the case, and that the jury will be told that. The other is that some of the defenses that Fox News wanted to bring, the court said they cannot because

Speaker 8 there's no or insufficient evidence to bring it.

Speaker 8 So Fox wanted to be able to say, this was really just reporting that was opinion evidence and entitled to a, quote, quote reporter's privilege and the court said no there's insufficient evidence of that that this was opinion obviously he can just look at the as they used to say he can just go directly to the videotape and see that that's not what was going on with maria bottolomo for instance just take one example or janine pirow

Speaker 8 and famously mr murdoch in his deposition said no they were actually endorsing these fake stories they weren't just reporting it they were actually endorsing what was going on.

Speaker 8 So it looks really bad in terms of what's going to happen in about a month.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I'm not a First Amendment lawyer or any kind of lawyer, but I imagine as a former prosecutor, you would be licking your chops when you found this body of evidence and includes emails and text messages from people being like, hey, let's do some actual malice later tonight on this broadcast.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's as close to that joke being literal as you could seemingly get.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. I was thinking about this case, and this is when you really,

Speaker 8 as a trial lawyer, I think about how I would go about trying it. And I think the first witness would be the woman who was the source for the Dominion fake story.

Speaker 8 And that information was given to one of the Fox anchors. And she's going to say, she's wrote down that she sounds wackadoodle.

Speaker 8 That was her word, that she talks to the wind, that Justice Galia was murdered in Texas. I mean, there's all these crazy things.

Speaker 8 And that would be such a great first witness because it would show just how crazy it was and that Fox knew it.

Speaker 8 And I think for the punitive damages part, you'd want to really hit home Murdoch's statement that this wasn't about red or blue, it was about green. And the theme is, okay, let's talk about green.

Speaker 8 What can you do to this company to make sure they don't do it again if they're really motivated by money?

Speaker 8 And that, by all accounts, is very much what they were focused on, which was that they were going to continue spinning out this false story, even though they were being told internally that it was false.

Speaker 8 And they said, no, it's hurting our ratings, so we're going to continue doing it.

Speaker 8 So that to me means that the punitive damages component of this case is got to be something that they are actually really worried about, because that's where they

Speaker 8 really can take a substantial hit in terms of their business.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think the first witness you proposed they call here claimed to be a decapitated time traveler in that same email.

Speaker 8 That was the source.

Speaker 8 You think that's unusual?

Speaker 3 It felt a touch off to me, but listen, again, I'm no legal expert.

Speaker 3 The final case I want to ask you about, which in many ways is the largest stakes for regular people in this country, a federal judge in Texas struck down a provision of the Affordable Care Act that forces private health insurers to fully cover preventative care services at no cost to patients.

Speaker 3 This is a very popular and I would argue critically important part of the bill.

Speaker 3 Do we have to wait until the Biden administration appeals this up to the Supreme Court to know the fate of this bill once again?

Speaker 8 What's amazing here is who's against preventative care? I mean, just in terms of, just in terms of, just look at the economics of this, let alone the

Speaker 8 health of American people. I mean, there's a reason it's called preventative.
I mean, this is something that's so beneficial to people in terms of their health and the economy.

Speaker 8 I mean, this is like a win-win.

Speaker 8 It's just unbelievable that the sort of political sense that I just want to be against the ACA

Speaker 8 leads to this result. But to answer your question, we don't for two reasons.
One, because the Biden administration can seek and is seeking a stay.

Speaker 8 The district court issued a nationwide ban. All of these nationwide bans are very controversial, whether it's sort of liberal side or conservative side.

Speaker 8 It's this idea that one district judge can sort of control what happens in the rest of the country. But the Biden administration can get a stay and will be seeking a stay of that.

Speaker 8 The other is, let's say they don't get a stay.

Speaker 8 A lot of healthcare companies aren't going to act on this immediately. I mean,

Speaker 8 they've got a relationship and it's mid-year. It's not even mid-year, it's mid-quarter.

Speaker 8 And so the idea that they're going to suddenly withdraw coverage based on a decision that may or may not be good.

Speaker 8 I mean, I can see that it'll be interesting to see whether any company actually says we're going to act on this now as opposed to waiting. And remember,

Speaker 8 these are private companies. They can decide to go forward with the coverage.

Speaker 8 The ruling is about it's not being required. So I do think that there is, in terms of the actual health of people, that there's that sort of reprieve in getting people funding.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, look, I have no faith in insurance companies to do the right thing if it can save them money, but they might do the math and decide that, hey, actually doing, you know, preventative cancer screenings will save us money in the long run.

Speaker 8 And what if they withdrew this and then the court decision is stayed or reversed and then they have to give the money back?

Speaker 8 And what if someone was hurt during that time and they could have found something?

Speaker 8 Even if you're looking at it from their own economic interests, this is one where you can imagine lawyers within the company saying, you know what, until this is really resolved, this is not worth it.

Speaker 8 And there's a lot of downside if we were to take action based on one single decision.

Speaker 3 By one, I think, Bush appointee judge, although we get mad about Trump appointees, but I think this was a Bush appointee from like 2007. So thank you for that, President Bush.

Speaker 3 Andrew Weissman, thank you so much for joining the show. The podcast, again, is called Prosecuting Donald Trump.
You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 I'm sure you guys are going to be covering the trials on a weekly basis. Is that the plan?

Speaker 8 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 Excellent. Well, I will be subscribing as soon as we hang up.
So thank you again for joining us.

Speaker 6 Glad to be here.

Speaker 21 What's poppin' listeners?

Speaker 22 I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week, I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time.

Speaker 26 Want to know about the fake heirs?

Speaker 27 We got them. What about a career con man?

Speaker 29 We've got them too.

Speaker 30 Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins.

Speaker 24 Oh, you know they are represented because representation matters.

Speaker 26 I'm joined by guests like Nicole Beyer, Ira Madison III, Conan O'Brien, and more.

Speaker 29 Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 32 That's odoo.com.

Speaker 2 Okay, before we go, Chief Take Officer Elijah Cohn is back for another round round of Take Appreciator.

Speaker 2 What do you got for us, Elijah?

Speaker 8 Guys, I've got some really exciting fare for you all today.

Speaker 8 In case you don't know how it works, I'm going to share some takes with you. The producers have seen these takes.
John, John, and Tommy have not.

Speaker 8 They'll react, rate them on a scale of one to four Politicos, with four Politicos being the worst. Are you guys ready to appreciate some takes?

Speaker 6 I'm ready.

Speaker 6 I'm ready. Great.

Speaker 8 Let's start with Marjorie Taylor Green's 60 Minutes interview. So Marjorie Taylor Greene did an interview on 60 Minutes.

Speaker 8 60 Minutes promoted the interview initially by saying, Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene isn't afraid to share her opinions, no matter how intense or in your face they are.

Speaker 8 We have a clip from the interview. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 33 And things she says that are over the top, like the Democrats are a party of pedophiles.

Speaker 34 I would definitely say so. They support grooming children.
They are not not pedophiles. Why would you say that?

Speaker 34 Democrats support, even Joe Biden, the president himself supports children being sexualized and having transgender surgeries. Sexualizing children is what pedophiles do to children.

Speaker 33 The question for her and the country is: can she expand her Brash MTG brand beyond the right-wing populist base?

Speaker 2 Is that the question?

Speaker 2 That is the big question.

Speaker 4 We got to.

Speaker 5 People need to know what brash means. We got to help people understand what brash means.
Kara Swisher is brash.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? I guess they felt like they used firebrand too much.

Speaker 2 I will say, her first response when she was like, come on, they're not pedophiles.

Speaker 2 Good for Leslie Stahl. The wow, the whispered wow, I feel like she could have.

Speaker 3 There was a lot of churn about this interview on social media. I thought they did a good job fact-checking MTG in some other instances, but just allowing the Democrats or pedophiles comments

Speaker 3 with a wow was terrible.

Speaker 5 She later goes on to just read a series of horrible quotes about other Democrats. That's like, what are we learning here about this person?

Speaker 5 What are we seeking to gain by this exploration of the life of Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Speaker 6 Now, I'll say controversial take.

Speaker 3 I think this sort of question about whether she can expand her base, I don't know, a couple of years after Donald Trump, is that such a crazy ask? Like, terrible people get elected to national

Speaker 3 or federal positions these days. She could be a senator, maybe.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, well, for sure.

Speaker 2 My thought on that was,

Speaker 2 let's be like, we all know what she's doing here, buddying up to Kevin McCarthy, trying to be more establishment, trying to give press interviews because she wants to run for Senate in Georgia and she knows that to win in Georgia, which is now a pretty purple state, you have to be more moderate than she is because some right-wing and really extreme candidates have gone down statewide in Georgia.

Speaker 2 Telling people that, or at least floating that during the interview, might have been useful for listeners to let people understand the strategy behind why she's doing this shit.

Speaker 5 You know,

Speaker 5 the right always says that there's a liberal media bias. And I think sometimes it's just that

Speaker 5 liberal media treats Democrats as protagonists and Republicans as antagonists.

Speaker 5 And this is like a good example of that, where like Democratic politicians get normal questions that are kind of hard that explore their actual motivations and agency and political realities and then marjorie taylor green gets treated like a new kind of ape we've just discovered like seen coming through the fucking mist what makes her tick what kind of food does she eat

Speaker 6 it's unbelievable oh she has a family structure it seems to be matriarchal so what is going on some good crossfit shots all right let's rank this thing yeah politico rating please in your in your face style two for me tommy is endorsing Marjorie Taylor Green.

Speaker 8 I think she's.

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 8 Tommy called me a bedwetter in the meeting this morning when I brought this interview up, so I'm pretty offended. I did.

Speaker 6 I don't know that I use those words.

Speaker 2 I won't give it a full playbook because I did not see the whole thing originally.

Speaker 2 I saw the Twitter commentary, and then, you know,

Speaker 2 my straight shooter friend Tom brought up that

Speaker 2 maybe it was a little over-torqued. And I will say, maybe just a tiny bit, but it was still pretty bad.
So I'm going to give it three and a half.

Speaker 13 I'm not going to give it a four. Then Three and a half.

Speaker 5 Okay. I was going to say three.
I'm going to say three. Okay.

Speaker 6 I think it was pretty

Speaker 6 bad.

Speaker 8 Cool. Well, we'll see if we can get you up to four with one of these next two.

Speaker 8 You guys know this one's coming. You asked for it.
Let's go to the New York Times. It's a piece titled, Trump Flourishes in the Glare of His Indictment.
Pause for groans.

Speaker 8 Here's an excerpt. Rather than hang his head in shame, as many facing the possibility of prison might, he frames it as just another Trumpian drama in a life filled with them.

Speaker 8 The latest reality show Cliffhanger. Guys, what do we think?

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's painfully stupid.

Speaker 2 It's a Peter Baker classic.

Speaker 3 Getting indicted is bad. It just is.
It doesn't matter if you raise money. You don't want to be indicted.

Speaker 5 Remember when there was that guy, Baghdad Bob, who had said, you know, Saddam is winning, Saddam is winning?

Speaker 3 Spokesperson.

Speaker 5 I think all these people, we should call them the Baghdad Blob.

Speaker 8 That's my name for them. Oh, that's pretty good.

Speaker 5 This is one of the stupidest fucking articles I've ever read in the history of the New York Times. Truly, and you've read a pretty stupid part, but it's stupid all the way down.

Speaker 5 There's an argument about how this is going to distract us from the war effort in Ukraine. He later compares Biden to fucking Gerald Ford based on the fact that I guess they were both president.

Speaker 5 It is truly, it's inane, it is obtuse, it is everything wrong with the kind of coverage. Like, it is all the people that spend too much time focusing on the Times.

Speaker 5 We try not to do it, but my God, put this in a time capsule. What a piece of shit.

Speaker 6 The article.

Speaker 2 It does read like a parody of a like like like the the doug j balloon the new york times pitch bot guy yeah just like wrote the whole thing i mean it's very

Speaker 2 you almost think that peter baker knows what's going on and just wanted to troll everyone trigger us yeah that's sort of what i thought because it is pretty full playbook full playbook

Speaker 6 three and a half again oh joke that's what are you talking about that is

Speaker 6 what are you talking about consistency in that that is this is why we do this this is why we're here this is in the dictionary for full playbook.

Speaker 4 Are you kidding me?

Speaker 5 What gets four stars?

Speaker 2 Just trying, I don't know. We'll see.

Speaker 13 Maybe the third one will.

Speaker 2 Maybe, yeah. I don't know what the third one is.
Or maybe it'll get.

Speaker 5 Peter Baker walking behind Kamala Harris with a shame bell.

Speaker 6 What do you need?

Speaker 8 I think, Olivia and Haley, let's go ahead and keep this one for Pundy's potential at the end of the year. I think this one is staying power.
Solid.

Speaker 2 I do think having, and I just, I disagree over the Marjorie Taylor Green one, having like really gone through the transcript of that, like it was really, it was pretty bad. Yeah.
I can't.

Speaker 2 i thought you just said you didn't watch it you watched the clip no no i read all the transcript i can't in good faith give peter bakery consistent today i can't in good faith give peter baker and that piece which was like a fluffy silly stupid piece like a higher rating than the damage that leslie stahl did with that fucking interview with marjorie taylor green who is fucking nuts and has said nutty nutty things and was not challenged Okay.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 8 There you go. Man's got his reasons.
All right. Well, Well, we'll see this last one.

Speaker 14 I don't know that the way, hold on a second.

Speaker 5 I don't know that we're here to say which article did the most damage.

Speaker 3 She did challenge her on a bunch of factual things. They had it up on the screen.

Speaker 7 Anyway, agree to disagree.

Speaker 6 Let's just agree that you're wrong.

Speaker 7 Yeah, we'll agree that he's wrong.

Speaker 6 We'll agree that John's wrong.

Speaker 8 All right, well, we'll see this last one.

Speaker 8 It's not political. Well, it is political.
It was sent in by...

Speaker 8 PSA fan Crystal at the last minute. So thank you for giving me this one right before we record it.
It's from the Miami Herald.

Speaker 8 It's about Taylor Swift, and it's titled, Taylor Swift is a Big Liberal, but she clearly loves capitalism too.

Speaker 8 Here's an excerpt. Stick with me.
Democrats are socially more liberal, and Swift is drawn to these values, like many in the entertainment industry.

Speaker 8 Socialist ideas sound good on paper, all that sharing inequality, but in reality, Swift's cleaning up in a business that thrives on the advantages of the free market, which most conservatives not only support, but try to advance when possible by lowering taxes and supporting deregulation.

Speaker 8 Swift is a liberal in the sheets and a conservative in the streets.

Speaker 8 She mixed that

Speaker 2 as a as another liberal who also loves capitalism.

Speaker 7 I think that's a stupid take.

Speaker 3 Yeah, this person.

Speaker 2 Hey, guess what? Not a socialist.

Speaker 6 Was it a socialist?

Speaker 5 Was this a high school debate tornado?

Speaker 6 That's poor.

Speaker 2 I want heavy government intervention in the markets regulated, good social safety net. But yeah, I think capitalism's good.

Speaker 3 She's making a ton of money. That is true, but I don't recall her signing up.

Speaker 2 Hope she pays a super high tax rate. Would like to make it higher.
Would like to make sure there's a hefty estate tax. Other than that, make your money.

Speaker 6 All right. How do we get it? You guys want to disagree?

Speaker 5 No, no.

Speaker 3 No, our takes are good on like yours today. We're all over this.

Speaker 5 I'm just trying to understand what.

Speaker 2 Was that what you didn't like that take of mine?

Speaker 6 No, I like that one.

Speaker 5 I'm wondering, I'm trying to think if I can say something, and I don't think I can. Well, just sort of like, you know, on the one hand, she's attracted to capitalism.

Speaker 5 On the other hand, she's attracted to

Speaker 5 kind of socially liberal policy.

Speaker 5 She's kind of attracted to a broad spectrum, and sometimes she's not comfortable talking about being attracted to a broader spectrum than she's sort of publicly acknowledged. See what I'm saying?

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah, you're back in

Speaker 2 an old, old, old conspiracy from many years ago.

Speaker 3 That's a terrible.

Speaker 5 I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 It was nice knowing you. I mean, it's a no, it would have been a good take in, like, I think 2019.
I think that was when it was a.

Speaker 5 Oh, you don't think this is fucking white?

Speaker 5 This is a white hot issue?

Speaker 4 Olivia does.

Speaker 2 A lot of people were talking about it in 2019.

Speaker 13 Four years ago?

Speaker 3 Three years ago? That was a bad piece. I've never done two full playbooks in the same show, but I don't think that's good.

Speaker 5 I don't think, honestly, I think that is too much. Is this too stupid?

Speaker 2 I'm giving it a two because I think part of Take Appreciator is

Speaker 2 really trying to be stupid.

Speaker 5 That's my thing of take appreciator i think it's one i'm giving it a one i'll go to three it's a little bit like oh you believe in a you believe in social democracy and yet you participate in society

Speaker 2 yeah i still i don't i don't get what it was trying i don't get what the take was trying to do even after hearing it that's my problem like i don't get what the purpose of it was it was the meme that love it referenced there basically yeah yeah

Speaker 8 Great round of Take Appreciator. Taylor Swift more politicos than Marjorie Taylor Greene on 60 Minutes, but okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I know Elijah's with me, I can tell.

Speaker 2 All right, that's it. That's our show for today.

Speaker 4 Thank you to Andrew Weissman for joining.

Speaker 2 Thanks, Elijah, for the takes, and we'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 2 Pod Save America is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez.

Speaker 2 It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Siglund and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show.

Speaker 2 Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Girard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montou.

Speaker 2 Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.

Speaker 21 What's poppin' listeners?

Speaker 22 I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it.

Speaker 22 Each week I talk with very special special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time.

Speaker 26 Want to know about the fake heirs?

Speaker 27 We got them. What about a career con man?

Speaker 29 We've got them too.

Speaker 30 Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins.

Speaker 24 Oh, you know they are represented because representation matters.

Speaker 26 I'm joined by guests like Nicole Beyer, Ira Madison III, Conan O'Brien, and more.

Speaker 29 Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 31 Did you know 39% of teen drivers admit to texting while driving? Even scarier, those who text are more likely to speed and run red lights. Shockingly, 94% know it's dangerous, but do it anyway.

Speaker 31 As a parent, you can't always be in the car, but you can stay connected to their safety with Greenlight Infinity's driving reports.

Speaker 31 Monitor their driving habits, see if they're using their phone, speeding, and more. These reports provide real data for meaningful conversations about safety.

Speaker 31 Plus, with weekly updates, you can track their progress over time. Help keep your teens safe.
Sign up for Greenlight Infinity at greenlight.com/slash podcast.