George Conway: Trump Knows He's a Criminal

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Speaker 2 Welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.
Our guest today really needs no introduction. George Conway has been a, not only a prominent lawyer, but obviously a

Speaker 2 persistent and eloquent Trump critic. And he joins us.

Speaker 2 I'm Vermin.

Speaker 3 You are too.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 2 Welcome, fellow Vermin.

Speaker 3 Right. This is a Vermin podcast.

Speaker 2 This is the question that I wanted to ask you, George, because you, I mean, do you know how Donald Trump's mind works? Do you know what goes on up in that lizard brain?

Speaker 2 And if you do, explain his choice of the word Vermin. Because it's not a random word, right?

Speaker 3 I don't know the inner workings of the man's mind. And that's a good thing, that I really cannot fathom the inner workings of his mind.

Speaker 3 I can tell you that he meets all the criteria for somebody with narcissistic personality disorder. And I don't think you need a degree to know that.
I think you just need a copy of the DSM-5.

Speaker 3 And I think he meets all the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, i.e., he is a sociopath,

Speaker 3 which are even easier to apply because there are fewer criteria.

Speaker 3 He's a pathological liar. He has no capacity for empathy or for remorse.

Speaker 3 And he has trouble obeying laws and rules. And

Speaker 3 there are a bunch of other things. So he's way into that category.
What exactly goes on in his mind, I don't think anybody could actually tell you.

Speaker 3 And I think that to the extent he calls people things like he called a bunch of people just a couple of hours ago or two or three hours ago, deranged lunatics who deserve to be in mental institutions.

Speaker 2 No projection there.

Speaker 3 There's a fair amount of projection that goes on. So, you know, I mean, every accusation is a confession with him.
And I think deep down, he knows that he is not the stable genius he professes to be.

Speaker 3 And, you know, Vermin, he has a limited vocabulary, but he learns a few good words here and there.

Speaker 2 That was my question. That was one of his words.
Now, of course, you're New York real estate. Maybe the word vermin would come up, you know, during the course of business, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, if you own a lot of property.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but most people in New York say rats, right? They don't say pizza vermin. Rats, right? They say

Speaker 2 vermin.

Speaker 3 Right. They don't say pizza vermin.
They say, oh, there's the pizza rat, you know? And so,

Speaker 3 you know, maybe it was that copy of Mein Kampf that was allegedly by his bedside.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this is the puzzle for me because, you know, I, he's obviously not a deep reader. He is somebody who is not a master of the English language.

Speaker 2 I don't think he's ever been accused of being eloquent.

Speaker 2 And every once in a while, a word will pop up, and you could think that, okay, that's Stephen Miller off in the corner, you know, his homonculus, you know, saying, use the word vermin.

Speaker 2 Because it doesn't sound like a Donald Trump word, but it sounds like it's intentional. I mean, if there sounds like there's something in that lizard brain of his.

Speaker 3 I think he knows that vermin are something to be eradicated. And I think

Speaker 3 exterminated. And I think that's why he likes the word.
And, you know, I think that a lot of what he is saying is that he will do whatever he can to whoever he can, who he thinks has crossed him.

Speaker 3 And that's his object in life. And that's completely consistent with his sociopathy, his psychopathy, his antisocial personality disorder, his malignant narcissism, whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 3 They thrive on a couple of things. A malignant narcissist or narcissist sociopath.
They have this enormous need for praise. Narcissistic supply is what it's called.

Speaker 3 And then, you know, if they don't get that, they become very angry and resentful and they seek vengeance and they seek to destroy that which they cannot control.

Speaker 3 And the bulwark is right up there on the list.

Speaker 2 No, we're on the list. We're on the list.
We're on the list. Yes.
So, George,

Speaker 2 since we're here, I do want to talk about your new endeavor, the Society for the Rule of Law, which is important.

Speaker 2 But since we're here, I'm locked into the character and the mentality of Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 It's all interrelated, actually.

Speaker 2 Well, of course, it's all interrelated.

Speaker 2 So, George, when did you know?

Speaker 2 Do you remember the moment when you know and you looked around and went, wait,

Speaker 2 he's nuts. He's a malignant narcissist.

Speaker 3 Did it hit you all at once?

Speaker 2 Was it a gradual thing? Was it like a rash or was it like a heart attack?

Speaker 3 It was kind of like a rash and then a heart attack, maybe? I don't know. It was something that developed over time.
I

Speaker 3 should have known better in that I was a New Yorker for all of my professional life and I saw him in the newspapers. I mean, not that I paid close attention.
I knew about him.

Speaker 3 I actually lived in one of his buildings, one of them that was actually mentioned in court today, which is, you know, unfortunately why we're here today. That's a whole other story.

Speaker 3 And I thought there was some normal aspect to him. You know, we know all these egomaniacs on Wall Street and the legal professions, and there have always been some egomaniac politicians.

Speaker 3 But at the end of the day, I mean, let's get real. I mean, if you run for president, you become president, you have to have a big ego.
You have to be, you know, you have to be somewhat narcissistic.

Speaker 2 But on the other hand, people hope he was in on the joke, right? That, you know, that

Speaker 3 you close the door and go, okay. Or that, you know, the gravity of the office.

Speaker 3 and the people around him

Speaker 3 would cabin him in some fashion. And, you know, there would be moments that would be cringeworthy because he is a bit uncouth and he doesn't really know much about government.
And

Speaker 3 he can be an asshole like a lot of people, like a lot of politicians.

Speaker 3 But at the end of the day, you know, he's going to realize that he's elected to something that's just much bigger than himself and that he loves the country. And I didn't conceive of what was to come.

Speaker 3 But as I watched him in early 2017,

Speaker 3 I was like, what is this fucking problem? He doesn't seem to get it. He seems to get worse.
He says all this crazy stuff and then he doubles down on it.

Speaker 3 He's, you know, in the Oval Office with the Russian ambassador and the foreign and Sergei Lavrov, I guess the foreign minister, and saying all this crazy stuff and doing all this crazy stuff.

Speaker 3 And the inauguration, you know, he's elected president of the United States.

Speaker 3 What difference does it make that your crowd might not have been as large on a rainy day as that of the first black president who was inaugurated on a bright and sunny day? I mean, who cares?

Speaker 3 You're president. It's great.
Congratulations. How can you not take pride in that? And I came to the conclusion that there was something sufficiently wrong about the guy that it didn't make any sense.

Speaker 3 You know, I was not going to function well taking a job in his administration because sooner or later I'd get my ass fired.

Speaker 3 And having two members of the household in that fucking warbit was like, okay, I'm just not doing this. But I still like wondered like, well, maybe he can get it together.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 It's better to sort of keep distance. But I kept watching.
It's like, what is wrong with him? Why does he keep doing this?

Speaker 3 And over

Speaker 3 time,

Speaker 3 I started wondering about his mental stability.

Speaker 3 I used to send texts to someone I know and saying, at some point, I said, you know, maybe you should take him to the psych ward at Walter Reed.

Speaker 3 that did not go over well yeah wouldn't think so no it didn't but i also started reading like what is the issue and i know there was this book that it turned out john kelly brought to the white house one day about you know that basically talked about him being dangerous a psychiatric case and a dangerous one but the one article that i remember reading and it all just sort of lit up for me at once was

Speaker 3 there was this article and I think I must have seen it sometime in late 2017 or early 2018. I'm not sure.
It's hard to place.

Speaker 3 Now, I don't think I saw it when it came out, but it was an article by a woman who was, her name was Alexa Morris, I think, and she was writing for, I don't know if she still does for,

Speaker 3 Rolling Stone. And it was entitled, In Essence, Does Donald Trump Have Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Speaker 3 And what she did was she went through then seven or eight or nine, I forget how many diagnostic criteria there are, but. One after another.
And it's nailed.

Speaker 2 One after another.

Speaker 3 Okay, I need to start reading more about this and i read the book that i mentioned that john kelly had i read a i started reading a bunch of stuff yeah and i came to realize this man is absolutely a pathological narcissist i basically came to this conclusion sometime i think in early 2018 because i remember talking about it with the journalist over drinks like this guy's a you know he's a narcissistic sociopath yeah and then It occurred to me like, this is totally inconsistent with being president.

Speaker 3 Now, not that there aren't narcissistic presidents, but if you are so narcissistic that you cannot put anyone's interests ahead of yours, including that of the Constitution and the country, both of which you are sworn to protect,

Speaker 3 well, how can you serve? You know, the framers viewed public officials as fiduciaries, and they viewed the president as the ultimate fiduciary, which he is. the ultimate fiduciary in the public realm.

Speaker 3 And you wouldn't trust this man to basically run anything. You wouldn't trust him with your money.
You wouldn't trust him with your life. You wouldn't trust him with your kids.

Speaker 3 You wouldn't trust him with anything. That's why I sort of got into that.
And it was just gradual over time. I think by the spring of 2018, I came to the conclusion that the man was not well.

Speaker 3 But the question is, well, what do you do about that? And, you know, I didn't say anything about it until, I guess, 2019, I started saying about it.

Speaker 3 And I basically proposed to the Atlantic that I would write something. I ended up writing a very, very long thing.
And

Speaker 3 one day I just decided, I'm just going to tweet out the

Speaker 3 diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder and say, hey, guys, look at this. Recognize anybody?

Speaker 3 And, you know, I mean, that's how I kind of got into that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, kind of no coming back from that.

Speaker 3 Okay, so since we're... Since we're among friends, we're among friends, right?

Speaker 2 This is a connect the dots moment because you and Judge Ludig and others in Barbara Constock have put together,

Speaker 2 I would say, the kind of an anti-maga federalist society about the rule of law, again, which I want to talk talk about. And this comes at the moment, of course, when

Speaker 2 we have this full-on frontal assault on the rule of law by the former and perhaps future president of the United States.

Speaker 2 And before I get up to the current moment, I keep going back and forth on all of this.

Speaker 2 If we could have a joint podcast with, say, I don't know, if we could get Alexander Hamilton, James Madison here for the podcast, and say, okay, you guys were not naive.

Speaker 2 You knew that there were dangerous guys out there. You knew that there were would-be autocrats.
You knew that there were sociopaths.

Speaker 2 They didn't have the diagnostic language for it, but they understood that in order for a constitutional republic to survive, you needed to erect bulwarks and guardrails against dangerous kinds of men.

Speaker 2 And they thought they had.

Speaker 3 Absolutely.

Speaker 2 They thought they had. Did they?

Speaker 3 They did. Did they? They did.

Speaker 2 Or we're going through an experiment that shows that, in fact, they failed.

Speaker 3 No, I think as bad as things got

Speaker 3 in January of 2021, the system held. It held because of the courts,

Speaker 3 because of the two houses of Congress, because of federalism. So far.

Speaker 3 Right, so far. I mean, all of those things held.
I mean, the one thing, I mean, the framers understood that the dispersion of power was important to prevent tyranny.

Speaker 3 The one thing they got demonstrably wrong, I believe,

Speaker 3 was the Electoral College. I mean, it made sense at the time.
I mean, you can't blame them. They were working with what they had to work with.

Speaker 3 But they thought, or at least that I forget which which of them, I think it was Hamilton wrote something about the Electoral College. And I forget the number of the Pavedal Rose paper.

Speaker 3 But he basically said, look, you can have some tyrant become governor of a state in substance, because, and when you read the description of what he was talking about, you think, yeah, just like Trump, right?

Speaker 3 But he could never become president because to become president, you've got to earn the respect. of the entire country through the Electoral College.

Speaker 3 You know, he didn't foresee the creation of political parties and the 12th Amendment, and then the fact that the states would all defer to the popular vote in choosing electors.

Speaker 3 And they got that part wrong. But they got the rest of it pretty much right.
And I do think we owe the framers credit for creating a system that held that we survived those four years.

Speaker 3 That said, I don't know whether we could do a rerun here. I don't think we can go two for two, and I wouldn't try it.
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Speaker 2 Okay, so the group that you have launched with Judge Ludig and Barbara Constock and others used to operate under the name Checks and Balances and has now required.

Speaker 2 I mean, one of the reasons why we're talking about this is this has been, I think, reinvigorated with a lot of support from the Defending Democracy Together Institute, which is kind of a cousin of the bulwark.

Speaker 2 You know, our publisher, Sarah Longwell, very, very involved. And she told The Independent about this in an article about your organization.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Every day we see new evidence of the active threat posed to the rule of law by corrupt actors putting partisanship over principle.

Speaker 2 We need leaders who model principle behavior for the next generation, who push back vocally against the big lie, and who create a permission structure for people to follow the law, not knuckle under to political pressure.

Speaker 2 There's no one better positioned to fill that void than the society for the rule of law. And there's no time more urgent for us to tackle these problems now.

Speaker 2 And what's interesting is that this announcement comes really the same week that we're seeing Donald Trump laying out very, I think rather explicitly, you know, plans to use a second term to undo these post-Watergate reforms that created a wall between the White House and the Justice Department.

Speaker 2 We had that big story in the Washington Post just last week about how he wants to go after his own enemies list, the people he feels betrayed him, his own Attorney General, Bill Barr, Mark Milley, the former chairman of the General Chiefs of Staff, his former chief of staff, all of this.

Speaker 2 So we are at this unique moment. So tell me what you and Judge Ludig and others want to accomplish and how will you go about it?

Speaker 3 That's a good question.

Speaker 3 I mean, we have yet to figure out everything that we're going to do, but we're going to basically bang the drums about the dangers that the Republic faces if this man becomes president again.

Speaker 3 But it's not just about one man anymore. I mean, I think it was more about one man when we started Checks and Balances 1.0.
This is now 2.0, which is the rule of society for the rule of law.

Speaker 3 I mean, 1.0, we were kind of focused on, and I remember this distinctly, we were focused on Trump's attacks on Jeff Sessions

Speaker 3 and upon his attacks on the special counsel and the possibility that he might try to use the Justice Department to affect the course of justice in his favor, in his own favor.

Speaker 3 That was a relatively narrow problem. I don't think we can, I didn't conceive, but maybe others did, of an attempted coup, an insurrection, attempt to steal an election.

Speaker 3 What I thought was dangerous was that the man wanted to put himself above the law in at least those narrower respects, which I thought was bad enough.

Speaker 3 And I thought that his language that he was using, you know, for example, he criticized sessions for allowing the indictment of two Republican congressmen, if you recall.

Speaker 3 And it's like, you know, this isn't about politics. This is like, you actually have to enforce the law.
You are in charge of it.

Speaker 3 So at that point, I thought it was just, there was just going to be this corrosive effect.

Speaker 3 And, you know, I began to think, well, I hope he's not re-elected because the corrosive effect will be too great. We didn't see the cataclysm, the relative cataclysm that occurred.

Speaker 3 And the one thing that we see now that goes even beyond anything we could have conceived, beyond the insurrection, beyond January 6th, beyond the four indictments and beyond the 91 counts.

Speaker 3 is that his corruption has flowed through the entire political system. In the States, you've got the Cary Lakes of the world.
You've got in the House, you've got...

Speaker 2 Mike Johnson.

Speaker 3 Mike Johnson, yeah, you've got. And basically, the termites are loose in the clubhouse here.
And even if he goes and drives his golf cart into a water hazard, the termites are still here.

Speaker 3 And this is a long-term effort on our part to message the importance of the rule of law and the importance of our institutions.

Speaker 2 Okay, so the termites are loose in the political system, which raises the really interesting question about where the conservative political infrastructure is.

Speaker 2 The Federalist Society, and you know these folks.

Speaker 2 You know, you were on MSNBC, and you know, you were talking about this and the difference. And as I said, it's been built as kind of an anti-MAGA federalist society.

Speaker 2 It seems to me, and people are going to have to bear with me for a moment here, the Federalist Society has its MAGA elements and clearly is part of this, but it is divided.

Speaker 3 Correct.

Speaker 2 And that there are a lot of other conservative jurists, including, and perhaps most importantly, members of the federal judiciary, who share your concerns. They are conservatives.
And

Speaker 2 they have been guardrails against Trump. So give me a sense of what's going on here.

Speaker 3 Let me tell you a story. I'll tell you a story.
Back in

Speaker 3 the before times, and I think this was 2015, I remember talking to a friend of mine who is a federal judge. I won't say where,

Speaker 3 but a very respected conservative federal society judge.

Speaker 3 And he told me that he thought Donald Trump was going to win the nomination. and based upon his assessment of the politics in his state.

Speaker 3 And I was kind of shocked, but but I heard some of his stories and I was like, oh, wow.

Speaker 3 When we formed Checks and Balances in 2018, I ran into him on Connecticut Avenue in front of the Mayflower, which is where the Federal Society always has its principal events.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 he had heard about checks and balances and he'd obviously seen that I'd gone off the reservation because of publicity.

Speaker 3 He walked up to me, put his hand on my shoulder, shook my hand and said, you're a good man. Good.
You know, this is how a lot of them, you know, he's not alone.

Speaker 3 And remember, Judge Ludig has been pushing this interpretation of the, not an interpretation, it really is kind of a straightforward application of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Speaker 3 The two professors who wrote the seminal article on that this year were both members of the Federal Society. They spoke countless times before the Federal Society.

Speaker 3 In fact, one of them was at the convention last week. And also when that 2018 Fed talk event, I remember being out into, into, they had a big, big dinner, which that year they held.

Speaker 3 They always have it every year, but that year it was a particularly big dinner. I'm not sure why it was bigger than the other ones, but it was at Union Station.

Speaker 3 And I went into the bar area during the speechifying. And the young people, the younger members walked up to me.

Speaker 3 In fact, while I was being interviewed by a reporter from the Washington Post, and they walked up to me and said, thank you for doing this. We agree with you.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 But of course, they can't go out and say that. But there's a lot of that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but the fundamental point is also that Donald Trump outsourced all of his judicial appointments to the Federalist Society.

Speaker 3 To Leonard Leo. Not the Federal Society as an institution, but to Leonard.

Speaker 2 But Donald Trump also doesn't understand what it means to be a quote-unquote conservative judge. Right.
So there's a real gap there.

Speaker 2 And I think that you saw some of this in the aftermath of the 2020 election where you had a lot of Federalist Society, conservative judges who flatly rejected Trump's attempts to overturn the election.

Speaker 2 And in fact, they will play a crucial role.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 2 you have Leonard Leo, who has created this massively successful and lucrative grift, but has achieved goals beyond his wildest dreams. So where's the Federalist Society going to go?

Speaker 3 I think the problem with the Federal Society is it is divided. And put yourself in the shoes of Eugene Meyer.
Okay, the executive director of the Federal Society.

Speaker 3 He has been the executive director of the Federal Society since its founding in 1982 or three.

Speaker 3 He's a fine man, a libertarian, a conservative, more of a libertarian. His wife was actually one of the original members of Checks and Balances.
But, you know, he's got to go out and talk to donors.

Speaker 3 He'll go to donors, I suspect, in some places, and all they'll do is they'll bitch about Trump.

Speaker 3 And then he'll go to donors in other places, and they're, you know, probably more southern and in other areas of of the country. And you'll get an earful about how Trump is great.

Speaker 3 And so, you know, to sort of preserve the institution,

Speaker 3 they walk a tightrope. And then, you know, part of one of the things of the federal society, one of the federal society thing that they always do is they don't take positions on things

Speaker 3 as a general person. I mean, they don't really, you know, they'll have panels.

Speaker 3 endless panels on originalism, but they'll always put a liberal on the panel and there is no endorsed position, but you'll have the two FedSOC types battling it out against the aclu type or whoever and they don't really put out position papers or take positions on political issues they try to be more think-tanky in that way but without advocacy and so that's a combination of the division the sharp division and and and that reticence to take positions And again, the judges, the selection of judges was not a FedSOC operation.

Speaker 3 In fact, it was controversial among some people because the FedSOC kept getting drawn into it, which was, I think, a source of ambivalence for its members because some people like the judges in the federal society, generally speaking.

Speaker 3 On the other hand, the FedSOC isn't supposed to be taking positions like that, and they don't. So it's like there's a, there's a little, you're trying to have it both ways there.

Speaker 3 And, and, and, and it mirrors a lot of other institutions on the, on the right.

Speaker 2 The reason why I'm emphasizing this is, is that we, of course, are seeing Eileen Cannon and the role that she's playing in one of the Trump trials.

Speaker 2 And she was obviously, you know, backed by Leonard Leo, but she's not.

Speaker 3 She's an outlier.

Speaker 2 Not all of these judges are Eileen Cannons. As I guess, the point.

Speaker 3 Cannon is an outlier. I mean, the fact of the matter is, he lost 63 cases.
It was a Pennsylvania case.

Speaker 3 One of the most important cases was a federal case in Pennsylvania where Rudy Giuliani had his ass handed to him by a federal district judge who was a FedSOC member, and then by a panel of the Third Circuit.

Speaker 3 where the opinion affirming the dismissal of a case was written by another FedSOC appointee, a Trump appointee.

Speaker 3 And Trump Trump lost his cases, you know, he lost the Manhattan DA case in the Supreme Court. He lost the case against Congress in the Supreme Court.

Speaker 3 And he was very critical of the court because his view is, I appointed you, so you should do whatever I tell you to do.

Speaker 3 Ah.

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Speaker 2 I know you've commented on this extensively and it's hard to make predictions here, but as you're looking at the four trials, it appears that Eileen Cannon is going to drag her feet on the Mar-a-Lago documents.

Speaker 2 Feel free to disagree with me. The Manhattan DA case seems to be on hold.
All eyes seem to be on the case in front of Judge Chutkin. How do you think 2024 plays out in the court of law?

Speaker 3 I have continued to hold the view that I think that by November, by the election day in 2024, he will be a convicted felon. I think that's still highly likely.

Speaker 3 I think he's very likely to be tried and convicted in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Speaker 3 I do, before Judge Chutkin, I do hold out some outside hope that the Florida case, the Mar-a-Lago case, goes to trial before then. But for the reasons you articulate, I'm not very confident in that.

Speaker 3 I do think he's at risk in the Georgia case. And, you know, I think the evidence is overwhelming against them, even in the Mar-a-Lago case.

Speaker 3 I think the evidence is so overwhelming against him that there is no way he's ever going to get an acquittal in that case.

Speaker 2 I mean, he's obviously counting on winning the presidency and making it all go away. He's also obviously counting on appeals.
There may be a conviction, but it will be under appeal in November.

Speaker 3 I think that's right.

Speaker 3 I think that's right i think he probably would get bail pending appeal although i'm not sure i would give it to him if i were sitting in judge chutkin's shoes but that said i think he is running for his life i think he is running for his freedom for he is running for president in substantial part i mean obviously there's the vengeance aspect of it which we've talked about this is partly he's running and he and i i think maggie haberman reported this back in 2020 he ran in 2020 in part to avoid prison because he deep down he knows he's a criminal.

Speaker 3 And this is something you see if you talk to students of authoritarianism in other countries, you know, the Ruth Ben Giats of the world and the Federico Finkelsteins of the world, they will tell you that is a very common thing.

Speaker 3 These people cannot give up power or don't want to give up power, and they want to maintain power because they're afraid somebody is going to do something to them and throw them in jail.

Speaker 3 And this is Trump. And Trump is not wrong here in the following sense.

Speaker 3 If he is elected in 2024 and he is sworn in on January 20th, 2025, which they would have to do, I think basically all the cases against him would have to be dismissed regardless.

Speaker 2 Even the state cases. Even the state.
Correct.

Speaker 3 Yes. I mean, you know, there's, again, there's no law on this because we've never really had a president who has been indicted in four places for 91 counts.

Speaker 3 But the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, both of the Nixon and the Clinton administrations, opined that a president cannot be subjected even to charges by the federal government.

Speaker 3 They focus on the federal government, but I think the logic to stake them. I think those opinions go too far.
I think a president could be charged.

Speaker 3 I think as a practical bad, he's not going to be charged by the justice department, but he could be charged by the state.

Speaker 3 You just can't throw him in jail because that would prevent him from doing his duties under Article 2.

Speaker 2 The problem with, and again, you've wrestled with this and talked about this extensively, is the asymmetry in dealing with Donald Trump. I think Robert Mueller was a perfect example of that.

Speaker 2 He was, you know, playing by the rules, old school rules. Donald Trump basically just threw over the board.

Speaker 2 I think that clearly Jack Smith has understood that asymmetry, but still, you know, in the last week, just like the last couple of weeks here, Donald Trump is on trial in four different venues.

Speaker 2 There's going to be a lot of witnesses. There's going to be a lot of evidence gathered.
And we have a poll that comes out showing that it's certainly possible he will be elected president.

Speaker 2 At the same time, we begin hearing stories about how he intends to weaponize the Department of Justice to go after his enemies. He begins to refer to his critics and opponents as vermin.

Speaker 2 This may not be covered by the judge's gag orders, but you can see that he's creating an environment where he is saying, you really don't want to cross me.

Speaker 2 If you are thinking of going into a court of law and testifying against me, this is what might happen to you. It's at such a big level.

Speaker 2 It's almost like, you know, above the level of the judge's ability to gag. Yes.
But that's what's happening right now.

Speaker 2 And he's also saying that if you have committed crimes on my behalf, I'm going to pardon you. He's made it very clear.
So on the one hand, I can obstruct this case through pardoning.

Speaker 2 In the other hand, I can obstruct this case by the intimidation and the threats of anyone who would testify against me. Correct.
And this is happening in broad daylight in real time, George.

Speaker 3 No, that's absolutely right. I mean, you could make an argument that his First Amendment rights, you know, to talk about vermin should be, should be curtailed.

Speaker 3 But that would probably go too far.

Speaker 3 I think that the gag order subjecting him to potential penalties can only be applied with regard to specific witnesses, but he's crossed those lines and he probably will in the future.

Speaker 3 But you're absolutely right. I mean, this is the stuff of authoritarianism, of mob bosses.
It's basically,

Speaker 3 I will do whatever it takes to get even. When he tells people, I will be your

Speaker 3 vengeance, retribution, right? I mean, he's really talking about himself because he's the only person he actually cares about.

Speaker 2 So yesterday in the news, of course, his sister, his older sister, Marianne Trump Berry, who was a longtime federal judge, passed away.

Speaker 3 A respected federal judge.

Speaker 2 Respected federal judge. And I think that

Speaker 2 you noted this on social media. Trump's first post.
Since the news broke this morning of his sister's passing, this is Donald Trump. First post after his sister sister has passed away.
Donald J.

Speaker 2 Trump.

Speaker 2 Deranged Jack Smith, Andrew Weissman, Lisa Monaco, the team of losers and misfits from crew, and all the rest of the radical left zealots and thugs who have been working illegally for years to take me down will end up, because of their suffering from a horrible disease, Trump derangement syndrome, in a mental institution by the time my next term as president is successfully completed.

Speaker 2 Make America Great Again. I'm not sure where that sentence went there.
That was his very first.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think we need to cut him slack today because his sister did pass away. So he's obviously

Speaker 3 about that. Yeah, he's grieving, and it must be just a devastating loss for him.

Speaker 2 His sister, though, did understand him, didn't she?

Speaker 3 She did. And

Speaker 3 there was that famous recording that Mary Trump made.

Speaker 2 All he wants to do is appeal to his base. He has no principles.
None, none. His goddamn tweet and lying.

Speaker 2 Oh my God, I'm talking too freely, but you know, the change of stories, the lack of preparation, the lying, holy it's right.

Speaker 3 And she also talked about how he, how the the stable genius, she told

Speaker 3 her niece, I guess, about how the stable genius had somebody take the SATs for him for money. Yes.

Speaker 2 Okay, one last question. Since we're talking about the rule of law, also on Monday, the Supreme Court announced for the first time that it was creating a code of ethics that will cover itself.

Speaker 2 And of course, this comes after all of these reports of the lavish trips and the gifts that were given to Supreme Court justices like Clarence Thomas, etc.

Speaker 2 Your thoughts?

Speaker 2 Glass half full, glass half empty?

Speaker 3 I think it's a positive thing. I mean, it is really nuts that the Supreme Court has not had binding ethics rules applicable to it.

Speaker 3 Because when you look at what the federal courts do, I mean, most cases in a federal district court and even in a U.S.

Speaker 3 Court of Appeals matter to nobody except the particular parties at issue and decide no major issues of law.

Speaker 3 Whereas the Supreme Court decides things and not just just about, we're not just talking about the hot button issues that everybody like, people like to rant and rave about, like abortion and affirmative action, the five, four votes.

Speaker 3 Every case is taken because it impacts a lot of other cases, just about every case. And, you know, I had a securities case I won in the Supreme Court.
That was my one time in the Supreme Court.

Speaker 3 And it was like a billion dollars for my client, probably, but

Speaker 3 There were lots of other clients, lots of other companies that had cases throughout the federal system or potentially in the federal system, represented by armies of lawyers in other courts and other jurisdictions.

Speaker 3 And, you know, they all had an interest in my case every bit as much as my client did.

Speaker 3 But when you go to the disqualification sheets, when you go to the conflicts memos that you would have in a Court of Appeals or a district court or in the Supreme Court, all those parties aren't listed.

Speaker 3 So it makes sense to have rules. The Supreme Court needs to have rules that are even stricter than what apply to lower court judges.
And I think the way to make up for that is to pay them more.

Speaker 3 First-year associates at some law firms get paid more than some Supreme Court justices. It's crazy.
We don't pay these judges enough. We should be paying them more, but subjecting them to more rules.

Speaker 3 But this is a start. I don't know whether it's the complete answer.
I think Congress is going to have to take a look at it.

Speaker 3 I don't agree with Justice Alito and some others that the Supreme Court is basically immune from this kind of regulation.

Speaker 3 I think that Congress has the power to prescribe rules just as affecting the federal judiciary, just as it prescribes salaries, just as it sets the budget.

Speaker 3 And, you know, it requires this among the executive branch, too.

Speaker 3 I think that there is probably going to be some room for congressional regulation, although I haven't read what the court did today, but I think it's a very, very useful step that the court is trying to promote confidence in

Speaker 3 its decisions by taking this important step.

Speaker 2 Well, my big question is: who enforces it? Is the court going to enforce it on itself, or is there some mechanism for well?

Speaker 3 I'll say this: I mean, it's not clear to me that if a justice signs one of these disclosure forms and you know it's materially omissive i think there's probably a federal statute or two that would apply to that and also if a justice were to take i don't know a loan and then have it written off that's income that's that's income enough that doesn't go for most of us most of us i mean you know again i'm not saying this happened but if it were to happen and say a quarter million dollars for an RV, I don't know, were written off and it weren't reported as income, I mean, that's tax evasion, potentially.

Speaker 2 I just don't have close enough friends who are willing to give me a half million dollar RV and then right off the loan.

Speaker 3 You know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 I've not lived the right kind of life.

Speaker 3 I did a panel with Judge Ludig at our event this week, and I just said, I just think about poor.

Speaker 3 Abe Fortas rolling in his grave. Oh, geez.

Speaker 3 He basically could have become Chief Justice. He was going to become Chief Justice, but for $20,000 that he took from this guy, Wilson.

Speaker 2 I mean, I mean, and then he had the grace, though, to resign.

Speaker 3 Because the Nixon department, the Nixon Justice Department was threatening to prosecute him.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was told last entry.

Speaker 3 So there are enforcement mechanisms.

Speaker 2 George Conway, George Conway, lawyer and longtime Trump critic who is one of the co-founders of the Society for the Rule of Law, along with Judge Michael Ludick, former Congresswoman Barbara Comstock.

Speaker 2 Best of luck, the timing could not be any better. Thank you for your time, George.
Thank you. Thank you all for listening to today's Bullwork podcast.
I'm Charlie Sykes.

Speaker 2 We will be back tomorrow, and we'll do this all over again.

Speaker 2 The Bullwork Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.