The People vs Donald Trump

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Jon Lovett.

I'm Tommy Vitor.

On today's show, Iran's retaliatory strike on Israel scrambles U.

This is an assault on America.

And that's why I'm very proud to be here.

This is an assault on our country.

Jury selection in the people of the state of New York vs. Donald J. Trump has officially begun, though after one day, not a single juror has been picked. None of them made it past the first day. The Republican nominee is the first former president to stand trial for criminal charges.

Could be longer. Could be longer.

So yeah, we're going to dig into the politics. Let's start big picture. Most people aren't familiar with the details of this case, let alone that it's happening, beyond something about Trump paying hush money to a porn star. If an undecided voter asked you guys why this should matter in the context of this election, what would you say? Lovett, you want to go first?

I was thinking about that question. And first of all, I do think sometimes you don't need to say more than he paid hush money to a porn star to hide it from voters.

You would hope.

But I do think if you did feel the need to add on to that, you could say that he had his goons cook the books and commit fraud. to hide the payments. His own lawyer went to federal prison for helping to commit the fraud. I think that, like most people, view it as unethical and illegal. But you can also say he did it for the same reasons.

Tom, you got anything to add?

No, I think it's good. I mean, I think I would just say, look, you guys, you undecided voter, you deserve to know all the relevant facts about a candidate before you vote. And in this case, Donald Trump denied you that knowledge by illegally coordinating with a news organization to keep news out of the press. And he thought that information was important. We know that because he paid $130,000 to suppress it.

He's a liar and a cheater. Cheated in 2016,, cheated in 2020, trying to cheat again in 2024..

Cheated on a lion.

Uh, hey voter, if, uh, you know, if you had an affair with a porn star and you were running for office, would you be able to, uh, cover it up? Would you be able to, uh, pay a bunch of people to bury stories, including a major media outlet like the National Enquirer? The whole scheme. He's got, he's got the National Enquirer helping him out. He's paying things.

Yeah, we, look, we all have, we all have somebody in our life. They're always surrounded by chaos. They're always dealing with their own bullshit. They're always blaming everyone else from, but themselves. They're always saying like, oh, I could just, once, once I solve this, oh, then everything's going to be smooth sailing for me.

Don't give them the nuclear codes.

You don't give them the nuclear codes. I got that right. That was my next thing. Nuclear weapons. You don't give it to them.

And also this fits within Trump's larger gestalt here, which is, could he have silenced her without breaking the law? Yeah, probably. There's nothing inherently illegal about a hush money payment, but because he's an idiot and a criminal.

I have to say, I know, I know, but I remember John Edwards went through this problem, which is that if you pay them through the campaign, uh, it's an, it's an illegal use of campaign funds. If you don't pay them through the campaign, it's an in-kind contribution. You can really get fucked by the fact that sometimes it's kind of the legality of paying off somebody you've slept with to keep it from the voters. It's a challenge. It's a challenge.

Well, and part of what saved John Edwards was, like, he, nothing saved John Edwards. Well, but his argument, well, he didn't get convicted, but his argument was, I was trying to conceal it from my wife, not necessarily, not the voters, my wife, who's dying of cancer at the time. Donald Trump, uh, I think that Alvin Bragg's going to have plenty of evidence that Donald Trump was not doing this to conceal it from Melania and Barron, but he was doing it to conceal it from the voters, which is why you have Karen McDougal, the playboy model who he also buried. another, uh, story about an affair with, with the national inquirer.

It was Notice, Catch and Kill. And honestly, I put a gag order on me, cause I've thought about this a lot in my past and these issues all for the best.

What else you got, John?

Anyway, uh, let's talk about how Trump is handling this trial. Uh, so far it seems like he could have used a few more diet cokes before Monday's hearing. based on reporting from Maggie Haberman. Let's listen. 40 minutes ago, you wrote an observation that, that, uh, I was very surprised.

Well, Jake, he appeared to be asleep and you know, repeatedly his, his head would, would fall down. There have been other moments in other trials, like the, uh, the agent peril trial, which was around the corner, uh, in January, where he appeared very still and seemed as if he might be sleeping, but then he, then he would move. This time he didn't pay attention to a note that his lawyer, Todd Blanch, passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack. Now, uh, you know, sometimes people do fall asleep during court proceedings, but it's notable given the intensity of this morning and a lot of what was being argued.

Yeah, that's rather surprising. I almost wanted to cut this clip right after Jake goes on this long, there's like, Maggie, you just reported that he looked like he was falling asleep. Well, yes, Jake, he was falling asleep.

I know Maggie's so funny and matter of fact on TV.

I know. Apparently, apparently this got back to Trump during the trial, because then, as he was walking out, uh, the reporter, another reporter said he was glaring at Maggie as he walked out.

Well, so one thing that Maggie Havren pointed out in her live, uh, posting about this is that, uh, a Trump aide named Natalie Harp is in the courtroom and, uh, she's apparently one of Trump's favorites because she has a wireless printer that she uses to print out good news to show him.

Oh, she's the one who, like, follows him on a golf cart and does it sometimes.

How do I hire one of those people? What? I don't have to read Twitter anymore. Someone just gives me good tweets.

I think, I think it'd be good for you. Maybe it stops using, if you don't have to use your phone at the urinal, there's somebody waiting outside the bathroom.

It's like crazy.

I want you guys to know that I asked, uh, Melissa Murray, at what point in the duration of a nap does it go from misdemeanor to felony? So stay tuned for that.

So, cover up insomnia. That's a good update. All right. So he was a little sleepy during the trial, but before the trial, for weeks before the trial, uh, we've heard him, uh, we heard him talking about how this is an assault on America. Uh, in that clip at the top, uh, he's been ranching.

Never hear from him.

Uh, and he's a little mermaid. Yeah. It's the little mermaid. That's, he's just like Ariel. Uh, he's, uh, he's calling this the Biden Manhattan witch hunt case, which is a little wordy.

I was really trying to imagine, first of all, of course they're resigned to it. What else are you going to fucking do? He's in there. He was read, read his literal rights. He has to stay there.

Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, you're in Manhattan, not rural Kansas. You lose like the local touch from events. You lose the local news coverage. But yeah, I mean, I think if, if his staff could decide what he was going to talk about every single day and get him to stick to it, they would focus on immigration and the border and they would demagogue crime and chaos.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, the only times he's done that is either like when he's at a rally and he's got a prompter and they've written that line in, you know, cause they're trying to work with what they got, the campaign, the Trump campaign. Right. And so they're, okay, he's going to make this trial all about himself, all these charges about himself, but at least we can pivot to being like, oh, I'm doing it on behalf of all that kind of shit.

Yeah. Sign me up. I'm one of those people.

I don't think that's the case in any of the other trials, but like, the more he talks about himself and how he's a victim and a martyr, and, like, you know, America's Nelson Mandela, like I do think he, the more he risks losing people who aren't Trump fanatics. Like I. just don't think you can spend six to eight weeks talking about yourself and what a victim you are.

The flip side of that, the reason there is real political risk here is Trump does best when he is able to dominate the news coverage all day, every day, and just make himself the center of gravity, the way he did in 2016,, the way he's struggled to do that more recently. So I think, to the extent there's a political risk to Joe Biden or anyone else, is that, like Donald Trump, once again blots out the sun and he bets on this being a low turnout election for just the most intense partisans on both sides. And he thinks, well, me being the victim, fighting for you as the victim is what motivates my folks.

Yeah. I think they're in a little bit of still in the primary mode, though, Republican primary, with this message, right? Where it's like. they think that everyone loves him. He thinks everyone loves him.

Yeah. I mean, I do think Trump plotting out the sun certainly helped him become the nominee. I don't think it helped him become president as much. And if you look at like kind of blur your eyes, we're going to talk about the Siena poll at the time, Siena poll, but like there's a kind of, there's a way in which people vaguely remember Trump as a divisive figure, but they're losing touch with just how negative and awful he was. And, and only with rose colored glasses, remembering the economy before the pandemic, one of the numbers is that, like 70% of the times, Paul said that he'd said something that was offensive, but they were in the distant past.

On a, on day one of the trial, the DA asked the judge to hold Trump in contempt for violating his gag order. And at least three posts where he attacked witnesses like Michael Cohen, um, the DA wants a fine of only a thousand dollars per post. $1,000 per post, in other words, $1,000 post.

fee.

Um, but he also did ask the judge to jail Trump if he does it again, the judge hasn't ruled on that yet. There's going to be a separate hearing on that, I believe, on April 24th, but judge Mershawn already threatened Trump with jail time if he disrupts the trial or if he doesn't show up. Do you guys think Trump has the discipline to shut the fuck up and follow the gag order? Or do you think he actually wants to be thrown in jail, as some people have suggested?

I don't believe that. for a fucking second. I'm with you.

Look, if you go back, I remember, I think he wants people to think he's not afraid of.

being, he definitely wants that. I, if you go back, I remember during, I guess it was during the 2016 campaign when Trump was being deposed, I believe because of the lawsuit around Jose Andres pulling the restaurant.

Oh yeah, that's right.

And from the hotel in DC, man, we are stuck in 2016 forever. It's yeah, that's, listen, we did something wrong in our previous play through and now we're learning our lesson, but, but, but if you watch those depositions, there's a control Trump has when he really needs to have it. that we forget that Trump does. I think that one of his great tricks is convincing people. he doesn't respond to incentives.

Historically speaking, he has been disciplined during depositions. He can pull it together when he has to. I also think there's a lot of reporting, Maggie Abrams reported on this, that he's really scared of jail and he really doesn't want to go to jail, understandably, either way.

I think he'd do well.

But look, I'll, I'll argue the other side of it, because why not? I mean, you could imagine the scenario where the ultimate example of the system being rigged and unfair is Donald Trump getting thrown into jail for speech made in the context of a presidential campaign. And that's a very high stakes gamble. The outcome would really suck for him. But you know, you could, you could, it's, you could see someone arguing for it.

Well, and that goes to sort of Lovett's point, I think, where it is, it's a, it's the raptor testing the fences kind of thing, right? Where he's going, right up to them. Because if he does end up getting thrown in jail for one, that's not a clear cut threat to the, to the life of a witness or something like that, you're sort of like, eh, should he have been thrown in jail? Then, then the debate becomes, that specific tweet, was that, should that have landed him in jail? Is that fair?

Imagine being the consultant pitching this idea in the room with Donald Trump. All right. All right. All right. No bad ideas in a brainstorm.

I do. I also, can I put on my tinfoil hat for a second, please? I do think, so. Trump, over the weekend, there was sort of a Trump statement about their kind of goals and expectations for this trial, and it was that they don't think that they can hope for...

Goal.

Not guilty.

Well, no, they said. actually, they actually said they don't believe they can get to acquittal, but they think they can get to a hung jury. So hung jury means that there's going to be some... They are, in terms of their jury pool, pretty well fucked. This is Manhattan.

And they show up wearing their totally impartial juror t-shirt from Crooked, that you can get at crooked.

Jordan, who does a lovely job trying to market our fucking business. Great job here.

That's what I'm saying. Gave him a shout out.

Yeah. We can talk about this more, about the jury selection process, the questionnaire that you're allowed to give these jurors, but there's also all these jury consultants that are out there scouring the internet to see where you've donated, where you've registered, what you've said on social media. So odds are we'll be able to identify this kind of weaponized juror.

Yeah. My feeling is you figure... Yeah, there's a lot of people that don't vote in Manhattan, but if you care enough to try to fuck up the justice system on behalf of Trump, you probably voted in 2020.. So you're talking about 85,000.. How many of those are true, true, true, diehards?

Yeah. I just also think there's a large, large pool of people in Manhattan who didn't vote either for Trump or against Trump, and they could be radicalized by the propaganda right on site.

That's true. That's also true.

Of course. Because it did happen to a lot of their fellow countrymen and women.

Yeah. It took a little time.

It did take a little time.

Although you don't really get the personal exposure. You really get to be there with the leader. You get the full... You get to be there right there.

You can smell the Kool-Aid. He's nodding off. He's glaring at Maggie. You got the whole show.

I mean, the reporting about what the jurors have been experiencing, just coming in and being like, holy shit, it's Donald Trump. Can you imagine this?

That's so funny.

You show up for jury duty, you think you're going to get some fucking hit and run? No, you're on the brag Trump case.

That rules. If you have a lot of free time in your life, yeah.

I would say anything to get on that trial, knock on wood. Just kidding. I would tell the truth. I wouldn't talk about my liberal podcast. I'd tell the truth.

It's a good thing you're a resident of LA. All right. Let's talk about the broader political implications of the trial. There's a general consensus that this isn't the most politically damaging of the four criminal cases against Trump, but that doesn't mean it won't have an effect on the race. Clearly, most Republican primary voters didn't have a problem supporting a candidate facing 88 felony counts.

So, just to sum up, you would support him for president even if he's convicted in classified documents. You support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You support him for president even though you believe he's lying about the last election. You'd support him for president even if he's convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say the answer to that is yes, correct?

Yeah. Me and 51% of America.

And if 51% of America jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge before a fucking barge hit it, would you do that?

Yeah, if he could. If it means that he could still have a future in Republican politics. Unbelievable. Even if he's dead.

Good for Stephanopoulos for the way he pressed him on that. Sununu looked completely humiliated and angry in that moment and just like morally bankrupt. This is a guy who, a couple of weeks ago, was endorsing Nikki Haley and attacking Trump left and right. Now he's just bending the knee.

Honestly, like sometimes you think I have more respect for like the diehard Trumpers than people like Chris Sununu. Oh, absolutely. I won't go on a long rant because I'm sure our friends at the Bulwark will do it. That was my first thought when I saw the Chris Sununu thing.

Let's stay in our lane. We're here to help Biden.

Sarah and JV are going to be very upset about this.

We're here to carry Biden's water.

Just pathetic. Just absolutely pathetic. So, of course, 51% of American voters haven't indicated they're okay with a convicted felon as president, but what do you guys make of the polling on this whole situation so far?

I mean, I think we know that if people are informed about the charges, they think they're either very or somewhat serious. There was a poll where only 24% of respondents said they would vote for Trump if he's been convicted of a felony by a jury. So that would be a very bad outcome for him. But we also know is that a lot of voters don't really know what happened or at least don't have good information about what happened. Marquette Law School did a poll last year where they found that half of Republicans surveyed didn't believe that Trump took classified information from the White House to his home at Mar-a-Lago, which he did.

Mountains of evidence. Not debatable.

There's photos. There's pictures. And then 18% of Republicans told The Economist in a YouGov poll that they had heard a lot about the hush money case. 39% said they'd heard nothing at all about it. So again, there's just a huge information deficit.

Yeah. And the Reuters poll that you cited originally, which I think it was like 23%, said that they wouldn't vote for him if he's convicted. Among those in that poll who said they would vote for Trump if the election was held today, so these are Trump voters. in that poll, 13% said they would not vote for him if he was convicted of a felony by a jury before the election. So those voters would actually, they're saying, traditionally in polls, people are not great about predicting their own future behavior, but 13% switching would be a big deal.

Yeah. I also just think having weeks and weeks of coverage of this case is just a way of also talking about all the cases. And one other that jumped out at me from the Reuters poll is that roughly 36% of Republicans say that it is risky for Trump to become president or receive classified briefings because he has the $500 million legal judgment against him. That was like a big and surprising number. And I feel like more and more like, wait a second, hold on, he owes people money all over town.

Yeah. And then the question is like, does it break through? You go to poll. today, 54% of Americans say they'll follow the case somewhat or very closely. 40% not very or not at all closely.

Can I also make a, can I make a hopeful pitch? Sure. That goes even further than that. It has been consistent in the polling that voters want the trial about his election interference to take place before the election. They want an answer.

I like, I think the biggest takeaway for people listening to this show is just a reminder that we are the outliers, the people who obsessively follow the news and are up on this stuff all day, every day. We are the outliers in this country. And a lot of people just have no idea what happened, and maybe they'll figure it out before the election. Maybe they won't.

Right. It's just a swirl, a swirl of noise that will get louder over the next several months, but it's still. a lot of people are tuned out, and more people are tuned out, I think, than they were in 2020 and 2016.. Not just because we keep rerunning the same race, but because just the people are consuming less news. They're consuming it from different sources.

We're allowed to leave the house.

We're allowed to leave the house. That helps. Yeah.

And if you're hearing this in a jury room, just be fucking cool. Don't lie. Be ethical.

Turn it down. Turn it down.

Just be fucking cool.

Download Ben Shapiro.

Be cool. Chill out. You've got this.

You listen to, you listen to nothing.

You're from all sides. You like to hear a lot of different kinds of opinions.

You've never heard of Substack.

You're open. Never heard of Slow Boring.

You don't know who Norm Eisen is.

You've never, you've never heard of Andrew Weissman. Wouldn't know him if you saw him. Rachel Who? Maddow? Never.

The New York Times reports that President Biden and his campaign have taken a quote virtual vow of silence about the trial, but that his advisors say, quote, they hope the trial will amplify their argument that the former president is running chiefly to help himself, including to stay out of prison. So do you think that message will reach people based on the coverage of this trial? Or do you think that Democrats, if not Biden himself, will need to be out there talking about this trial? And I'm just talking about Democrats like us. We're just, we're just lowly podcasters.

I think anyone named Biden, or who gets a paycheck from someone named Biden, cannot talk about this case. It's just the upside is not worth it. The downside is, is huge. I, but I do think, like Democrats writ large, senators, members of Congress, we need to be talking about this. There's the big picture, substance.

I think the very good point and that, like, you, can't just think that they will be the coverage of the trial, and that's what voters will consume, because they're also going to consume the Trump and the Trump world. spin on the trial and you have to push back against that.

And most days of the trial itself will be boring, mundane, procedural stuff happening. That will be the straight news copy.

I agree. a bit like that, Biden obviously can't go out there and be like, here's what happened in court today, and neither should the campaign. I do think they've got to find a way to indirectly or obliquely mirror the message they want to come out of that trial. So Biden, talking about like Donald Trump, only cares about himself. He always thinks he's the victim.

I think you can do that. I think you can also do it with like jokes, like I'm not paying attention to all that. whatever. Cause Joe Biden going up and saying, I'm not paying attention to that trial, but it's a, it's a mess there. Huh?

It's a snooze. Just ask Donald Trump.

What if?

Hey, that's good. Get that to them.

What if, in the debate, Biden walked over to his podium and put 20 bucks on and was like, that's the hush.

Hey, that's pretty good. I was thinking, what about a, what about a, uh, what about a, yeah, that was interesting. What? I said, I said, hush. I don't know.

Maybe cause like hush puppy.

It's getting more thicker. Southern accent. Tommy's doing.

I don't know what's going on in my head.

Jesus.

Oh God.

Now you're Lindsey Graham or John Edwards. Who was that?

It did have a gay lilt to it too. The people in the South, there's some straight people down there.

I keep talking about gag orders and hung jury. I'm sorry.

Your mind is opening.

What is happening?

No gag, no gag, no gag on Tommy.

Tommy just said, no one's going to be interested in the sexual details. Yeah, I'm sure.

Not this country.

I'm talking about of the justice system.

I think, actually, I think the Americans are deeply interested in the purian details of this, and that's what we should be focusing on.

Were you going to say something about it?

I can't remember what the question was. I derailed it.

What were we talking about? Oh, what, what Biden out there talking about? Yeah, I agree with you.

I think, I think it's about, I think, other Democrats, I should be talking about the rule of law. I, the other thing too is, like, you know, this, this, the, the, the victory of the time, Sienna poll, showing that Biden has, you know, ticked up, almost, almost to being caught up, to Donald Trump. It is such a sad statement of like, you know, our society, but regardless, it's like, what's going on? And like, there is this way Biden is paying, you know, the, the, the polling shows that, like. basically, people view the pandemic as like force majeure, they don't hold Trump accounted for.

It's like one last chance to do that until, you know, Biden wins and then Trump runs again. Uh, I guess I'll also say like, I don't know if this was an intentional, uh, I hope it was intentional, but I don't know if it was. I do like that. Biden is specifically focusing on a tax message this week and that he's going to Scranton and he's going to do the Scranton Joe versus Park Ave. Trump, you know, and Biden's in Scranton fighting for you and Trump's in Manhattan fighting for himself.

I think that a lot of work, I mean, like every president is viewed more favorably over time for some reason. I mean, even like George W. Bush, he went out with what, like an 11% approval rating after the Katrina and the surge. I mean, he was in the, in the drags. I was trying to find the numbers right now, but, um, Bush is now viewed more fondly than he was at the time.

It does seem like the election is going to turn on, um, whether voters remember who was president in 2020, which seems to be a problem. It's that one year, just, Trump was president from 2016 to 2019.. And then Biden took over during that pandemic and told us all to inject bleach. And, uh, and then inflation happened and a million Americans died. That was it.

And Biden takes so much grief for the handling of the pandemic and, and, you know, sort of by the anti-vaccine people when Trump employed Fauci and Trump was responsible for Operation Warp Speed. I mean, it's incredibly frustrating the way that people's memories are just broken on this topic.

I really am amenable to the theory that, like, this, is a country that was traumatized and never dealt with the trauma of the pandemic. I just really do believe that Joe Biden said Joe Biden was the adult, you know, this was a country. we were in the pandemic. We dealt with four years of Trump's bullshit. It was terrible.

I found the numbers in 2018, there was a poll where 61% of voters had a favorable view of George Bush, which was double the 33% that he ended with.

Yeah. So there's a recency bias, right? Not just in politics, in all things, right? And in politics, also, incumbents for the last couple of decades have just taken a lot of shit, right? You're the incumbent, you're held responsible for everything, so you take a lot of shit.

All right.

President Biden is also dealing with an expanding conflict in the Middle East. Over the weekend, Iran launched a drone and missile attack against Israel in retaliation for a strike on the Iranian embassy in Syria that killed several top Iranian generals. It was the first time Iran directly attacked Israel, though the US helped Israel shoot down nearly all the drones and missiles. One young girl was seriously wounded at an, at an airbase sustained minor damage. Iran said that's the end of the attack.

Yeah. So, as you noted, I mean, the, this was Iran's response to Israel, killing a bunch of top Iranian generals. Imagine, sort of the equivalent of if another country took out the chairman of the joint chiefs or the CIA director, and they did it in one of our diplomatic facilities, which are considered foreign soil. So it took Iran about two weeks to respond. They telegraphed what they were doing, but I was blown away with how extensive the response was.

It's not a warning shot.

No, it's a pretty serious arsenal going at your country. Now, as you noted, 99% of them were shot down in various ways. A lot of those interdictions were made by Israeli missile defense systems like the Iron Dome, David Sling, the Arrow Three system, all of which were funded by Barack Obama, by the way. For all the people who say he was like a sold out...

So David Sling, not a person?

David Sling, is a missile defense system. Okay.

I read that. I was like, who's David Sling?

I think it's a biblical allusion. It's King David. King David. Yeah. It's my friend David.

So it doesn't seem like it's in anyone's interest, particularly Israel's, to respond with an another attack that would escalate this war. Why do you think they seem to be going ahead with it anyway, or do you think they're going to do something like Iran did, which is to save face, they have to do something, or to send a signal, or what?

Well, so back in 2020, the US, Trump ordered the assassination of the head of the IRGC, at the time, a guy named Qasem Soleimani. The Iranians responded, they shot about a dozen ballistic missiles at US bases in the region. By sheer luck, no US service members died, but 100 of them had traumatic brain injuries and were severely wounded. When that happened...

Which Trump said, no big deal. It's just headaches. He said headaches, yeah.

Right. So at that moment, Trump... The Iranians, sent a message to the US saying, all right, we're done. And to his credit, actually, Trump decided not to further escalate. A very similar thing is happening here.

It's Israel killed a bunch of their generals. That was the tit. I believe this is the tat. Seems like you've done, they've done the tit for tat. It seems like, I'm no foreign policy expert, but that does seem like, I think they've completed a tit for tat.

My fear is that Bibi Netanyahu has wanted the U.

Do you think that's why Biden and the Biden administration was so public about saying like we will not, him telling Netanyahu, we're not going to support you if you escalate further? Yeah. Just because, like he knew that he might, that Netanyahu might want to draw us into a war against them? Yeah.

I mean, there were reports that the Israelis were about to respond, but the Netanyahu was like, let me talk to Biden first. And Biden's like, no, take the win. Stop. And that stopped things.

So Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, apparently, will either hold a vote on the Senate bill that combines aid with Israel and Ukraine. And if he does that, it could trigger a motion to vacate from a large march.

Look, Mike Johnson has been sending so many conflicting signals over the last, even couple of days, because he has been reassuring people behind the scenes that he is going to do a Ukraine bill.

Yeah, he's telling donors he will.

But he's been dragging his feet now for weeks.

job.

So I don't totally understand. I don't even understand what he's hoping to figure out. Because it just seems like, if he does, if he means what he says, which he has been persuaded that we have to do Ukraine aid, and it does seem like that, remember that meeting where basically Biden put it hard on him how important it was to do this. It seems like that, as there has been a legitimate, like, he legitimately understands the importance of actually doing this because he thinks the country should support Ukraine. I don't know how he gets out of this without ending up with some kind of a motion to vacate.

The interesting thing here, though, is I think Speaker Johnson did his little pilgrimage down to Mar-a-Lago last week, and they did a press event after he, and Trump and Trump really seem to knock down any suggestion that there should be a motion to vacate or effort to oust him. So that did seem like a pretty public rebuke to MTG. I mean, I think. broadly, though, I think what this horrible incident over the weekend shows is that the war in Gaza is growing and metastasizing and continues to be destabilizing six months into it. Remember, like the Iranians, their proxy groups killed two US service members in Jordan.

If Israel aid passes, Congress, can the Biden administration still condition that aid? Based on what Israel does, if Congress obviously appropriates the money, but then can the Biden administration still say, well, we have decided that this can go, and this military aid can go, and this can't?

I think they have an enormous amount of flexibility in terms of how they slow things down.

Got it. As we were talking, our friends at Punchbowl and other Hill reporters are reporting out of the GOP conference meeting. This is Mike Johnson's meeting with his caucus. Apparently, first of all, MTG said that Trump standing by Johnson doesn't change her plan to oust him if he screws her.

Weird that logic didn't work with her. Yeah.

But apparently, Jake Sherman says, House Republicans plan to try to pass four bills this week to send aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, according to four sources familiar with the plan. The fourth bill will include a ban on TikTok, a bill to sell seized Russian assets, a lend and lease act for military aid, convertible loans for humanitarian relief, and other provisions. And the GOP leadership will try to move this plan under one rule.

Okay. Well, that doesn't sound simpler.

It does not sound simpler. And then Hakeem Jeffries said, we're not going to come to any conclusion on process until we understand the substance, which seems right. We're recording this Monday afternoon, so you know.

It seems like that should always be the case. Yeah.

One would hope, right?

So, yeah. I mean, it does seem like the Senate bill is the easiest path here, but it seems like he doesn't know what he's doing. It's like Mike Johnson doesn't know how he gets out of this.

He doesn't know how to get out of it, and he's looking for some new.

You have one vote, pal. Yeah.

Apparently, he also said in the meeting, Johnson said, Ukraine needs to stand on its own.

So. Okay. What does that mean, though? We're invaded. People are getting killed daily.

It's like, if we keep giving Ukraine aid, it'll never learn the self-sufficiency and go out there and get a job.

Unbelievable. All right. Before we go to break, a few quick housekeeping notes. Buy our book, Democracy or Else. If that sounds threatening, good.

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No, I don't think so. Anyway, pick up brand new Democracy or Else merch inspired by our book that you haven't even seen yet, but the merch is inspired by it at the Crooked Store. Wear it to remind you and everyone around you that this really is a make or break election. We were just kidding the other times. There is a range of tees, mugs, stickers, and totes, and, as always, a portion of proceeds from every order will support Votes Save America, its partners, and other organizations.

Joining me now is the co-host of the best legal podcast in the world, some might say the universe, Strict Scrutiny, and the co-author of the book, The Trump Indictments, The Historic Charging Documents, with commentary, Melissa Murray. Great to see you.

Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

It's always very fun to talk with you. So wild day today, big legal news. We're talking on Monday. Donald Trump just spent the day in a courtroom in New York. Can you just remind us of the basics here?

So again, where to start, Tommy? The reason why I actually have to give you this information is because there are actually four different indictments against Donald Trump, so it could get confusing. This one is a state-level indictment brought by Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, and the theory of the case is that Donald Trump, before he became president, orchestrated what is essentially a conspiracy to falsify business records so that those business records could be used to hide hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, in order to prevent the public from learning about Donald Trump's alleged affair with Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election. So there are, I think, 34 different charges of falsifying business records, which ordinarily in New York state is a misdemeanor offense. But when it is done in furtherance of some other crime, here the idea is that it is in furtherance of state and federal, and maybe state-level tax violations, all of that leads to a felony charge.

Oof, a lot of felonies. So the conventional wisdom you often hear about this case is that it's the weakest of the four cases that you just mentioned, though that doesn't mean it is a weak case on its own. I've heard you and your co-hosts push back hard on that notion. What do you think is the more accurate way to think about this specific case?

So I don't think it's fair to call this a weak case. I think that maybe to think about it in terms of the consequentialness of the other cases, yes, this may be less consequential in that it does not involve an effort to overthrow the results of a validly conducted election, nor does it involve an effort to allegedly sequester scads of classified intelligence documents in your own personal beach house on the Florida coast. So yes.

Baffling.

It's really a question of degree. Like, when compared to those things, the impeding the peaceful transition of power, attempting to create a coup, attempting to keep these documents for yourself because they're your personal property. Yeah. This sounds like small potatoes, but I think if we were to think about this on its own, it actually does feel quite weighty. And if we think about it in tandem with those other three indictments, I think what it leads to is the sense that there's kind of a pattern, a practice of engaging in subterfuge, engaging if, if these allegations are proven beyond a reasonable doubt, engaging in kind of fraudulent behavior in order to get what you want.

Yeah. And look, we know that Donald Trump thought his stories were potentially electorally damaging because he paid $130,000 to suppress them. And also he complains constantly about social media sites suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, because that also came out right before the election, so clearly there's a precedent here. Earlier today, so in the courtroom, the DA asked the judge in the case to order Trump to remove some social media posts where he was attacking witnesses and to fine him for those posts. If Trump keeps violating his gag order like that by talking shit about witnesses, or maybe even the judge's family, if the gag order gets expanded, what are the odds that he gets some sort of penalty, maybe a stiffer one, maybe jail time?

So I think most of the judges who have had to deal with Donald Trump thus far, and most of them have been in the context of those civil lawsuits, have really been loathe to throw the real hammer at him, which is contempt of court, which is holding him criminally, and contempt for his behavior. with regard to these different witnesses. Judge Kaplan certainly talked about this, but no one has ever really gone up there. The most we've seen from Judge Enger on are significant fines. And I think part of that is because the narrative that Donald Trump is parroting is that he is the victim of persecution.

Never mind the fact that he actually gave some of the judges who could rule on his case their jobs.

That feels like a point in your direction, too.

The Eileen Cannon situation is really a novel one, and we can talk about the politics of that as well.

I want to ask you about that. at the end. Trump also reportedly took a little tiger snooze today in court. How long of a nap do you have to take before it goes from misdemeanor to a felony nap?

Listen, he's an older gentleman.

We'll find out. Yeah, you're right. He's an old man. We should not begrudge him taking a little nap.

Who among us hasn't drifted off in a really boring.

The New York Times reported that the jury selection process could take about eight weeks, and then it's going to keep Trump in town for four days a week. during that period. Can you walk us through the jury selection process? What is that like? What should we expect?

So jury selection, I mean, especially for a case like this that is so high profile, where I think most jurors, prospective jurors coming in off the streets have some idea about what's going on. That's going to make this a little more difficult than your average criminal case, where the circumstances are likely unknown to the prospective jurors. Everybody knows about this, and in order for Donald Trump to get a fair trial, everyone has to be satisfied that the jurors that have been impaneled, whether as actual jurors or as alternates, are the kinds of individuals who are willing to take all of the evidence with an open mind. They don't have preconceived views, and that's hard, because Donald Trump is a polarizing figure. You really have to be careful that you don't have individuals who are stealth jurors who want to be on the jury because they want to stick it to Donald Trump, or stealth jurors who want to be on the jury because they believe Donald Trump is being unfairly treated, and they're there to be a kind of poison pill.

And so the judge disallowed direct questions about party registration or who you support politically, but you can ask about news sources you consume and social media, et cetera. But could I, as a Trump lawyer, look, we all live online. If you register to be a Democrat in the state of New York, that's public somewhere. That's gettable information. If you post on social media, it's gettable.

And they will have jury consultants doing all kinds of work like this. Research. Yeah. I think there was a John Grisham novel about this. with jury consultants.

Give you the boot. OJ Simpson died last week, RIP to the juice. It reminded every one, millennial and older really, what it was like when an entire nation obsessed over one trial. The OJ trial was different in that they allowed cameras in the courtrooms. We were watching this literally all day, every day.

I mean, the overlay of race with OJ was just so evident when that case was being litigated. And again, Los Angeles had erupted in flames just a few years earlier because of the Rodney King beating that was again televised. And I think people made a lot of connections between the fact of those officers and the Rodney King trial getting off and then OJ Simpson being charged with murder. So the racial tensions of that case and the sort of surrounding political milieu, I think, were very, very thick. I don't know if that is really the situation here.

We've got a racist on trial, not race on trial. Do you see all these Gen Z kids doubting whether we millennials actually watched the verdict be delivered at school? I know I did. Gen Z.

I mean, so. is it fair? Can I confess that I'm not in your bracket? I'm not a millennial.

You're, you're just, well, you're just just outside.

That's very flattering, Tommy. I think I'm well outside of it. I mean, I was in college when the OJ Simpson trial was happening. And I remember we were let out of class at the University of Virginia, not necessarily the most, at the time, the most enlightened place about race, but we did get out of class to hear that verdict. And I mean, it really was electrifying.

That's exactly right. Look, there was a Monoculture Kids and we did all watch it.

We didn't have TikTok, we didn't have Instagram. We could not, there were no alternate sources of entertainment. This was it.

Shit was wild. Last question for you. Wait, wait. One more thing.

Do you remember where you were with the Bronco chase? Like that to me is the most salient and the people thereafter, like how you knew, like how did you know if someone was a good friend? Would you drive the Bronco for me? Would you be like AC? Like that's how you knew someone was a true friend.

I mean, like a hundred million people watched it.

I mean, it was outrageous. Yeah.

It was like a Superbowl, truly. Final question for you. So you mentioned this, alluded to it earlier at the top. The most obviously open and shut case, to me at least, seems to be the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, given the law, given the evidence we've seen with our own eyes, given the clear obstruction. But Judge Aileen Cannon seems to be just a disaster in terms of both of making decisions in a timely manner and also maybe understanding relevant law.

I think you've characterized it exactly right. This is the open and shut case. All that is required for a conviction is that you have the documents, you know you're not supposed to have them, and they're still in your possession. And there are people in federal penitentiary for having far less than what Donald Trump is alleged to have had at Mar-a-Lago, leaving aside the question of, like the obstruction charges and the moving the stuff around and allegedly trying to destroy videotape that shows them moving the stuff around. This is a pretty open and shut case, which is why it's so surprising that it's moving so slowly and it seems to be getting just gummed up all the time.

We got to get rid of this stupid blue slip process. It's ridiculous. It's also just unbelievable to me that there is an actual conversation happening about whether Judge Marchand is a fair and impartial judge, in this case because of something his daughter does, when Donald Trump literally gave Eileen Cannon her job in Florida. What are we doing here?

So again, I think there have been circumstances, I mean, presidents nominate federal judges. I think it is perhaps extraordinary, unprecedented for a president to then wind up in the courtroom of a judge that he nominated, but things happen. Bill Clinton was the subject of a civil lawsuit before a judge who, again, these things happen all of the time. I think what's really interesting here is that she's had so many opportunities to get this case on the right track and to do this by the book, and it seems like she's making a lot of decisions that A, don't make sense, or seem only to make sense, in the context of keeping things in the way Donald Trump might want them as a criminal defendant.

Yeah, and maybe dragging this thing out for as long as possible.

Well, I mean, which is what Donald Trump as a criminal defendant is exactly what he wants.

Ugh, frustrating. Well, listen, if you want to understand more about all of these cases, you should absolutely read the Trump indictments, the historic charging documents with commentary by Melissa Murray. Also, if you want to know all about the Supreme Court, what it's up to in the legal culture surrounding it, like where the hell was Clarence Thomas today? Nobody knows. Listen to Strict Scrutiny, truly one of my favorite shows, just so smart and so fun and funny at the same time.

Thanks for having me.

All right. Thanks to Melissa Murray. And before we go, look, we said earlier, Trump's going to be counter-programming this trial with all kinds of rallies and events on Wednesdays and on the weekends when he's off. Yeah. And this, we just wanted to play one example of the kind of soaring rhetoric and powerful messaging that's going to come from Donald Trump in some of these events.

He can stick to this message. We're screwed.

Yeah. Let's hear it.

Union was saved by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg, Gettysburg. What an unbelievable battle that was. The Battle of Gettysburg. What an unbelievable. I mean, it was so much and so interesting and so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways.

How fucking high was he?

Pickets charge. You wouldn't catch me charging, boys. It's also, by the way, just sort of Gettysburg.

Wow. Gettysburg. Wow.

You don't. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. You don't. You don't do.

Four years and score.

Four score and seven truths ago.

Let this be dedicated to, shall not perish.

So beautifully.

Whatever happened to Robert E. Lee? He's a great guy. Why does everyone don't like him anymore? Must've been those Manhattan judges.

Robert E. Lee no longer certified fresh.

Just a horrible, horrible, disgusting. We're also beautiful. Beautiful.

His wife, Sarah Lee. Great chef.

It was so much. It was so much.

So much. So beautiful. So vicious.

It was so much.

Hey, Donald Trump. You can become president. You just got to tell us everything you know about the Gettysburg address and the battle that took place there. Just walk us through every detail that you got.

I think the Biden folks should put that in an ad. Just to have that riff.

It would be very funny.

Those are the kind of ads. You don't test them. They're off the wall. You don't know if they're going to move voters. But I don't know.

What did he take?

That's fucking weird. Anyway, that's what we got for today.

The world will little note.

Nor long remember.

What we say here. All right.

Bye, everyone. We'll have another episode for you on Wednesday. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review.