Will Trump Win Back Haley Voters?
2024-02-27 01:17:11
Pod Save America is a no-bullshit conversation about politics hosted by former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor. It cuts through the noise to break down the week’s news and helps people figure out what matters and how they can help. They’re regularly joined by journalists, activists, politicians, entertainers, and world leaders. You can watch on YouTube or listen to new episodes every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Ad-Free Pod Save America episodes available NOW through Friends of the Pod subscription. Head to crooked.com/friends to join today! For a transcript of an episode of Pod Save America, please email [email protected] (edited)
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Donald Trump pivots to the general election with a series of speeches that remind us of why he lost the last one, and later, Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissman talk to Lovett about all the latest legal news and their new book, The Trump Indictments.
Ooh. What's that about?
But first, Trump won the South Carolina primary on Saturday, beating Nikki Haley by 20 points, 60 to 40%. This is the first time a Republican who wasn't the incumbent president won the first four primary contests, a full sweep. And certainly the first time a candidate did so. while facing 91 felony counts. Nikki Haley lost the home state.
She also served as governor. She has also lost her Koch network funding. But she's heard our prayers and said that she'll be staying in the race through Super Tuesday. Let's take a listen.
Today in South Carolina, we're getting around 40% of the vote. That's about what we got in New Hampshire, too.
I'm going to count it. I know 40% is not 50%. But I also know 40% is not some tiny group. I said earlier this week that no matter what happens in South Carolina, I would continue to run for president.
I'm a woman of my word.
We're headed to Michigan tomorrow. And we're headed to the Super Tuesday states throughout all of next week.
Nikki, Nikki, Nikki, Nikki, Nikki.
You can hear my voice in there. It's like a sad Howard Dean Iowa speech at the end there.
It's awesome. 40%. Look at that.
So much. Moral victory. Go Nikki.
What is it? 38.6?.
No, it's 39.
8.
. Ooh. It was very close.
Hey, almost there.
And Trump, and Trump was like 59.
7 or eight or something. So I know you guys were probably up late Saturday night digging through the South Carolina results. Who's got any big takeaways?
What do you got? Love it.
So here are the, I just, from the exits, here's what I found interesting. That here's who Nikki Haley won. She won moderates, but which we already knew, but the, and she won independents. She won people who decided this month and she won first time primary voters. And I just found that to be interesting.
These are people that have been watching this unfold. And the late, you think the late deciders at this point would be like, I want to be with the winner. I want this to be over. But that the late deciders are saying, I'd like this to keep going. I thought it was, I don't know what it means.
It just was interesting.
I kind of think that if you, and this will, this would not apply in the general election between Biden and Trump, because everyone knows them. But if you are undecided, I don't think you break towards Donald Trump, because, like, you know, Donald Trump, you have, you've made up your mind about Donald. Do you love him? You're either with them or you're like, eh, what else do I do?
But you're, you're leaving your house on a Saturday to go vote in a pointless primary.
You know who, you know who would do that if they lived in South Carolina, this gang of assholes.
Yeah. Well, that's well, and, and it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be that informative about the future.
So Dave Weigel, uh, it was a reporting from South Carolina, and he described the four type of Haley voters as longtime superfans, Republicans picking her as the strategic, electable choice, independents, who legitimately wanted her to be president, and Democrats, who would support her as a thumbtack under Donald Trump's tires. That's us. Yeah, that's us. Right. And the.
question is how many of these different groups, you're not the longtime Haley fan, the superfans.
Oh, the superfans. I only recently discovered her work. I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm exile. I'm exile.
Carolina horse. Yeah. I was going to say you were more into the other, uh, the other candidate from South Carolina.
We'll talk about him. We'll talk about him. And then just the last thing I, that the two, the other things that jumped out at me from the exits are only 13% of people said the most important quality is can defeat Joe Biden.
Yeah, they did. Cause they don't, cause they read polls.
Well, but because they read polls and because the vast majority of Republicans believe Donald Trump won, right. Which is always like, if you're, you know, Haley's winning people, who think that she's the more electable choice. Fine. But basically, Republicans believe that whoever they nominate is going to win. I mean, do you think that's worth membering?
And then the last, just that 36% said if Trump is convicted of a crime, that's not. 36 of Haley voters. at 30%, 6% of the primary voters say that if Trump is convicted of a crime, he is unfit, which just continues the thing. What we saw in Iowa, what we saw in New Hampshire, et.
cetera. I think the big, the big takeaway, obviously, is that the primary has been over since Iowa remains over. I mean, I like apologies to the cable networks that had, you know, 10 pundit pandals on a Saturday night. Like, look, we're all trying to squeeze some more life out of this primary with content, but it's, it's over. I, I, I had the same thought as you, uh, love it.
Like, electability is just not an issue for Trump. Like Haley's got a better case, but no one cares. Republican voters could care less. Um, uh, Trump won 71% of non-college educated voters. He struggled the most in counties with the highest educational attainment.
Um, I saw that Trump lost voters with postgraduate degrees pretty badly. So if you've got some friends in red States, you can tell them a PhD is only six years away.
I did, but also, right, I guess. who are the, who? are the PhD candidates turning out for this thing? It's not, it's not in politics. Get yourself a philosophy degree.
I know we.
offended them one time. I was a philosophy major. Don't get mad at us. Yeah. Silver linings.
Um, yeah, no, I mean, I think the primary is pretty much over the, uh, the Trump campaign put some numbers to that. Uh, they argued in a memo afterwards that even if you give Nikki Haley, her 43% that she got in New Hampshire, which was her high watermark so far, uh, in all the contests in the upcoming weeks, um, Trump would secure the delegates needed to win the nomination by March 19th.
Well, it's not a really, you don't really need to break out the Excel spreadsheets. She hasn't won anything and she said she was, she is an accountant, which I didn't know.
I learned that. Oh, you didn't know she was an accountant? I didn't know she was an accountant.
She always brings about that when she talks about the budget. It's her most boring talking.
point. As soon as she talks about the budget, my eyes glaze over. But, but it's funny, it's.
just like we have a memo and we've, we've put our smartest number crunchers on it and because she will not win a single state, there's no path for her to become the nominee. Did.
you guys notice that Trump did lose to Haley in counties with a heavy military presence, which is just sort of interesting and notable. Maybe the attacks. I saw 70% of veterans voted.
for Trump, but I didn't know. Maybe they're in cities. Yeah. She won cities, so that's.
what that was. Yeah, probably all in Charleston. I mean, Trump does keep slightly underperforming his polling average. It could be that we just have a bunch of kind of freaked out Democrats turning out to vote for Haley in these primaries, but I don't know. Notable.
So that, yeah.
And we will find out more about that on Super Tuesday. Want to talk to Dan Thursday?
Tell us what Dan said about it. Well, you all read the message box, I hope. Yeah, that's what today's pod is. We reprocessed message box. So we're going to, well, Dan didn't put this in his message box, but we will find out more about this on Super Tuesday, because there's a lot of closed primaries.
So we're finally going to know what her, I would imagine that in a closed primary, that's a Republican only. She only polls, uh, 25%, because she's winning around 25% of Republicans in all these states. Exactly right. In South Carolina, if you don't.
vote in the Democratic primary, you can vote in the Republican primary. Right. And so,
but it'll be interesting to see, and I don't, there's been limited polling in the Super Tuesday states, but it'll be interesting to see if Trump's polling in those states matches a better to hit the final result, just because it'll in some of the closed primaries. So we do know that, look, there's a non insignificant number of people voting in Republican primaries who, at least from their exit poll answers, seem like they will be unavailable to Trump. in November, South Carolina, 31% said he's not physically or mentally fit to serve as president, or physically or mentally. Maybe they picked one, uh, 36% believe that Biden won legitimately in 2020.. Uh, she won those by a lot, unsurprisingly.
And then more than one in five voters told, uh, the AP vote cast exit polls that they won't back Trump in general election. So, you know, uh, Mike Madrid, who's a GOP strategist, uh, with Latino vote, said, in February of 2020, only 6% of Republican voters, uh, were saying that they wouldn't support Trump in the general election according to these exit polls. And in February of 2024, we are seeing like three times that number in polling and in some of these, uh, focus groups. So I was getting excited about that. And then I decided to temper my excitement, as I always do by looking back.
So in June of 2008,, a week after Hillary Clinton endorsed Obama at the famous unity, New Hampshire event, guess what? Percentage of Clinton voters told pollsters that they would vote for Obama in the fall. Who wants to guess? 68, 72, 54%. only, you know, Obama ended up getting from Democrats in 2008, 89%.
Uh, that event between.
with that, where Hillary Clinton went, uh, and did the union event, I believe that's where, um, we included a classic line, which is George W. Bush and John McCain are two sides of the same coin and it doesn't amount to a whole lot of change.
It's so good. So, so, so, so, so good. So good. That was your line. So good.
It was not as good as Pokemon.
go to the polls. I will say that you can see Clinton voters warming up to Obama, maybe a little more than, than these Haley voters warming up to Trump again, because Obama was still relatively unknown. They had Donald Trump for four years. So if they're saying they don't want Trump and maybe it's a little bit better. I do think that this is, you can,
you can, you can blur your eyes and make it a good factor. You can play your eyes and make it a bad fact. The reality is right now, the polling is real. Joe Biden up against sort of gauzy, imaginary Trump. And in some ways that is going to be people telling pollsters that they would never vote for a convicted felon.
Well, I bet, if you ask them, in August of 2016,, if they vote for somebody who was accused credibly of sexual assault and had the, had, you know, grab them by the pussy, they'd say they never vote for somebody like that either. And they come home at the same time. I think there's a lot of people who still don't fully grasp that Donald Trump is about to be the Republican nominee. And once that comes into full relief, we'll hopefully come back in these polling. But I just think we don't know, but that is the hope, but it is all hope that the polls will change, because.
the polls are fucking terrible. I too am worried about the revealed preference that might come.
out in an election. So, you know, we have no idea what Haley voters are going to do in November, but at least what she's done for us and what she's continuing to do for us is she is giving the Biden campaign and Democrats a universe of voters that they can target with persuasion efforts. And obviously that's not going to matter too much in South Carolina, but Super Tuesday has most of the swing States. And so figuring out what percentage she gets in Michigan and Arizona and stuff like that, like, we will be able to know where those voters live, the demographics of those voters, and the Biden campaign will be able to go and target Haley voters. Will you get them all?
No, all you need is some, all you need is some.
He's like, and the point Dan makes like step up is a terrible result. Like, yes, Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. Obviously, Haley is not winning. This is who the Republican party wants. But the fact that Donald Trump has not been able to consolidate this party, that the results are so consistent, is not a good factor for him.
It just isn't.
Do you? Yeah. What do you think about that? So, Dan, Dan, the title of Dan's message box for those who aren't a frequent readers, which fuck you if you're not, you know, that's harsh. Sorry.
If you're not, you don't know what you're missing. There you go. So it's so good and it's a quick read. Yeah, absolutely. Sorry.
The title of Dan's message box was yet another underwhelming Trump primary win. Agree? Disagree? I want you to know something. I didn't read.
the message box, for, I also had that opinion. Great. And I just want that out there. I appreciate.
you lining up the sequencing. Maybe you should write a sub stack. Get it out before Dan.
I'm going to take the other side of the Dan take here. I think 60% of the vote is a lot. I think we should be honest that Trump barely tried. I heard that he spent about $1.2 million in South Carolina. He barely visited the state.
Haley did like 50, some odd events. It was her home state. That's gotta help her a little bit where she has universal ID. There's also just the weird fact that, like this is a zombie primary. Like your, your folks aren't really that fired up to turn out for you.
I, well, maybe they are. I don't know. We don't really know what it does to turn out where everyone knows that the campaign is over. I do think a bunch of Democrats turned out and probably tipped the numbers a little bit in her direction. So I don't know.
Like, I think he's crushing her and it is what it is. I don't know that.
we can look at these primary results, or any primary results, and extrapolate out to the general on like, it's possible that what we're seeing from these Haley voters are people who again, will not vote for Donald Trump and, and things are bad for him. I certainly hope so. We just, I just don't know if we, I don't know if these results can tell us that, because, and I'm remembering that 2008 race when, when we, I mean the March primaries, the April primaries and every time Hillary Clinton just clobbered us in one of those primaries, in those late spring primaries, everyone's like, Oh, Barack Obama is not bringing the party together. He's going to lose in November. This is going to be bad.
What's happening? And then it wasn't a problem at all.
Well, it wasn't a problem, in part because there was a concerted effort to unite the party and ultimately brought a financial crisis and a financial crisis, but also, like, you know, Hillary Clinton speaks to the convention. There's a few dead enders who do sort of ridiculous things, but really, for the most part, the party obviously came together. Their policy platforms were virtually indistinguishable. Uh, you know, will Nikki Haley endorse Trump? We can hope?
not. We can, we can now be more, look, we've, we've been on the side of, she. ships are burning, just her and Chris sitting at this table with us. Yeah. New Friday pod.
just dropped. John Thune, one of the last holdouts in the Senate. Republicans endorsed.
Trump after this. And then later, not a moment. Oh, that's what you were doing. You didn't.
laugh. I was like, tell me a good one. He didn't get it. He didn't get a philosophy to grow up. Even worse than deep in thought, even worse than Thune.
There's a time story today that, uh, they're, they're smoothing over the tensions between, uh, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell so that Mitch McConnell can ultimately endorse them. What's funny.
is not even smoothing it over. Like behind the scenes, they're smoothing it over. And.
then Trump was like, I think he sucks. I just, I was like, I mean, it has been a while since Trump brutally attacked Elaine Chao with all kinds of racist statements. So it has been.
a while since then. They haven't spoken since December of 2020.. Okay. Trump, this is Ted Cruz territory. If he endorses the, uh, Trump called Mitch McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, who served in his cabinet, Cocoa Chao, which we all believe is a cocaine reference.
Somehow.
she's a drug trafficker. She did resign in protest. So that's it. Yeah. It was like seven.
days left. Uh, he called, he referred to her as Mitch's China loving wife. Apparently, these talks are being brokered by, uh, Chris Lisavita. I don't know how to say his name. The Swift boat veterans, for truth guy is running the Trump campaign.
Chris Lisavita. And this pint sized high heel wearing lobbyist, Josh Holmes, who's just a real jerk. Can I, and, and jerky?
may well be Thomas, but you point, you put this on social media. You said, of course, McConnell's again, pint sized lobbyist is greasing the skids from Mitch's inevitable Trump endorsement. Why you read my tweets? Gotta keep those lobbying shop going to afford all those high heeled boots. Now, now, Tommy, what is it about them not being flats?
That's so offensive to you. What, what is it about his stature? That's so worthy of your condemnation? Perhaps he is not a tall person. I don't think it's his problem.
I don't think it's a problem.
Short people can be unethical. Isn't that we walked in here. You said that people don't get funerals. Okay, so let's just start there with this fucking bit you're doing. Second.
of all, that was Tim Miller's joke. Third of all, all of you are anti short. This guy's.
the scummiest little lobbyist ever. I think we need a new segment on this, on the show. It just, it's just defend your tweet and you have to, you did the treat. Now you have to defend it. I stand by it.
I like it. Anyway, what do we think? Mitch McConnell? The more important thing is, aside from Chris Christie, Chris Christie, and maybe, hopefully, Nikki Haley, but you know, let's be real. Uh, the whole fucking Republican party is getting behind all of the, all of the officials, the Republican party are getting behind Donald Trump, after so many of them said on the record that he was responsible for a fucking insurrection.
and trying to steal the election. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. It's unbelievable. Mitch McConnell.
Yes. It's despicable. It's just, but it's going to have, I mean that has back to those Haley voters. There is a concern that if you are a person that pulled the lever for Haley, that, uh, you see every Republican politician that you voted for everyone in the party just backing Donald Trump, that, and you're thinking, I don't like them, but this person did and this.
person did. I mean, it's big for money. It's big for donors. That's what Mitch McConnell brings you. It's the institutional support.
It's a big money. donors. It's the billionaire class that kind of stepped away from Trump and thought he was, you know, kind of an untouchable for a while. That money will all come flooding back. I do think it's a bit of a, that's very.
true. I do think it's a permission structure. I think so too. I think the permission that is,
that is so much of like the, that, that the establishment, getting behind Trump in 2016, gave permission for a lot of people who were hesitant to say, well, it's for the courts, it's for this. I mean, McConnell's whole thing was that, that, that it was worth it because we got the Supreme court. He then hits his limit. His wife resigns in protest from the cabinet. He says, Trump has gone too far.
And it was this flowers for Algernon week, where they all kind of found their kind of, I'm sorry, moral. What's that? Because they, they, why was it flowers for Algernon? Because they had a book you read in Anchorage? Because they had a, it was in fact a great book.
Thank you. And, but the analogy is they had a week of finding their moral courage and then, right when they could have impeached it, it all, it all faded back away.
Well, Elaine Chao left to spend more time with her. cocaine is what Trump told me. Yeah. Nothing from you two? Cocaine?
Cocoa challenge. It's a call back to the joke. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
It's okay. Not, they're not all winners. We have other cocaine jokes. And we have, we have a lot of cocaine content.
So, uh, just before we leave this section, Joe Cunningham, a former South Carolina democratic Congressman, who's now a leader at no labels, said that they would be interested in having Haley on the ticket. Her campaign said she's not interested. They've said that many times now, but, uh, something to worry about. Our, our boy, Dean Phillips also said he'd be open to being a VP to Nikki Haley on a no labels ticket.
That gelato is getting pretty warm. Got to say, get that guy.
Unbelievable. Incredible. Where's everybody? on their on, again, off again, anxiety about no labels. I can't, I can't keep track.
Well, they haven't been able to find a candidate. Yeah. That's,
and, but in this interview, Joe, Joe Cunningham, before they asked him about, uh, Haley, he was like, I'm not saying anything, but we've been talking to a lot of exciting people whose names were about to release soon. And, but, but it's getting late, but I don't know. I'm, I'm, I still have concern. They're on, they're on the ballot in a lot of States, certainly more than RFK is. We talk more about RFK, but he's not on the, he's on the ballot in fucking Utah.
And that's it.
And he got smoked at the libertarian convention over the weekend.
Smoked one, one person. He got one vote. He had one vote at the libertarian convention in California. I don't think that's happening, for him. Was nervous about that.
But I do think.
the labels is still the worst smoking of a Kennedy in politics in some time. Oh my God.
What? No, no. Cut that. Why? What do you mean?
Making assassination jokes? No, I'm talking about Joe Kennedy losing in Massachusetts. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay.
Sure. What are you talking? Oh, my God. What did you think I meant?
Okay. Okay. Hillary, in June of 2008.. Remember that? It was like a South Dakota newspaper.
ed board. You know what? Dropping. That was tough. She did not mean that.
She didn't mean it. That was tough. Uh, look it up. I'm not going to explain it. According to my emails to reporters.
that week, she meant this.
We're being honest. We're being honest about what we're doing for.
a living at the time. Tommy on the grassy knoll taking Hillary out.
Jesus Christ. This is good.
stuff. I'm not associated with this. Leave it all in. Uh, anyway, there's another problem that Haley... Try as you might, you are associated.
This is true. There is a, um, there are sore loser laws, which is going to, that. could, that Haley and Chris Christie, although after talking, after listening to Chris Christie's interview with you, he keeps being mentioned as a loan, no labels candidate. I feel like it's not going to happen after listening to, yeah. But in 47 states, there are laws in the books that say, if you are a candidate in a primary, that in the general, you cannot, or at least it severely restricts your ability to run in a general, either as an independent third party or the other party.
And so there is different, there are differing views, legal views, on whether that would apply to a presidential race, but regardless, it would be,
it would have to be litigated. Yeah. I will say that the argument that all of the justices just got behind that says the 14th amendment doesn't bar Trump because states can't do. that does seem like it's like all of a sudden the states are determining Nikki Haley can't be president of the constitution. says she can.
Interesting. But I'd be like, hopefully that's the least of our worries.
So, even though Haley's sticking around for a few more weeks, Trump is allegedly turning his focus to his general election rematch with Joe Biden. Here's an NBC news headline, fewer grievances, more policy, Trump aides and allies push for a post South Carolina pivot. That's a real throwback. I haven't seen something like that since 2020 at least. So this was his team spin ahead of Trump's speech at the conservative political action conference or CPAC.
They told the New York times that Trump would quote, present a brighter vision for the country, brought about by a second Trump term. So, uh, here's how that brighter grievance, free vision, sounded over the weekend.
at CPAC. I stand before you today, not only as your past and, hopefully future president, but as a proud political dissident, I am a dissident for hardworking Americans. November 5th will be our new liberation day, but for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and imposters who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day. And then I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time. And a lot of people said that that's why the black people like, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against.
I'm being indicted for you, the black population will have 18 million people, in my opinion, in our country that shouldn't be here. And they do come from prisons and mental institutions and they are terrorists. And we're going to be paying a price and it will be the largest deportation in the history of our country. And it's true in Beverly Hills, you pay a fortune in taxes. They say you can only brush your teeth once a day.
Whatever happened to the cocaine they found in the white houses?
Where is it? Hey, by the way, isn't this better than reading off a fricking teleprompter?
Told you we'd have more cooking content. Uh, so cheery, just so optimistic, so grievance-free, so focused on policy. Uh, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Lots of crazy shit from Trump last weekend. I'm having a little 2016,, 2020, deja vu, where it was hard to figure out like which Trump comments would actually, voters would actually care about, uh, and which ones they just laugh at.
Cause. now we're getting, you know, Trump's been out of the spotlight a little bit, but now we're getting the, he's back in the speeches and the rallies and we're getting crazy comments. He's hugging the flag again. He's hugging the flag again. He's doing all the hits.
He's, he's saying things that everyone on Twitter is freaking out about. But like, what do you guys think in terms of like, what is most damaging to him in a general election and what stuff that probably just doesn't matter as much, even though it's crazy? I will say real quick, just on the,
on the pivoting to substance stories, what's so funny about these stories, it's not just that there's so many recent examples of them spinning this and him not doing it. It's the suggestion that the grievances and the cruelty inherent in his rhetoric isn't what the Trump base loves about him and wants to hear. Like Trump believes that every election is a base turnout contest. He might be right about that. And the base loves owning the libs and owning the rhinos, and maybe owning the lighting guy who didn't do a good job at the event he's at, and he fires them on stage.
Like that's his whole brand, and they love it. And like, well, we just, why would we pretend?
otherwise? Yeah, no, no, grievance is their top policy issue. At least to the people that show.
up at CPAC. Making people like us mad is their deal. Grievance and revenge. Yeah. Now I don't.
think that's true of the general election, which is, I think, why the campaign wants him to just pivot away from that grievance and, and focus on the policy. I see. I don't love to get into media criticism as much these days, because I think it's sort of a waste of energy, but the New York times going with that headline about the, like just getting spun, completely spun, by the Trump campaign, laying out an optimistic, hopeful vision. To be fair, he did, he did say the words that they gave to the times in a, in a preview, they must've previewed excerpts from the speech, but when you watch the whole speech, he like rushed past them as fast as possible. It was an hour and 30 minutes.
It was so long time. Yeah. One thing that jumped out to.
me is at some point in the speech, which is long, he says something like, when I say revenge, I mean, America's success will be my revenge. You can tell they're trying to finesse it. So there's, they are clearly worried that Trump's very correctly, that all that Trump's saying, I will be your retribution. I will be your revenge. that there, that there's a real problem for them.
I feel like there's like a lot about, like how kooky and crazy was up there. But to me, like what I was going back to are the parts that actually come, come back to extremely unpopular and dangerous and, and scary policies for most people. At one point in his sort of long and randering rant about the border, he says, we have languages coming into our country. They have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It's a horrible thing.
It was wild. And then at the part where again, like he wants to deploy the U? S military into America cities, he goes on this tangent, which is a lie, about how he deployed the national guard to Minneapolis in 2020.. And I'm, I'm the one that did that. If I hadn't done that, the city would have burned to the ground.
None of it's true that national guard, Tim Waltz, Tommy's friend,
at the request of other Democrats, deployed national guard, but he's out there starting to tell this story about how I'm going to deploy the military. I've done it before. I'll do it again. Um, that to me is the sort of, I would get, get away from, Oh, wow. He called himself a genius.
and Oh, the thing about the prompter and cognitive decline. and get back to, he is promising. It's not an optimistic vision. It is a dark and terrifying, chaotic, authoritarian vision for using power to.
hurt the people he doesn't like. Yeah. I, I, I would just focus on the substance. Like there was a big political story about the second term agenda, which includes the 16 week abortion ban, because Trump likes round numbers. As we discussed in a previous show, it's even nasty portations of migrants by the U S military weaponization of DOJ, a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports.
Like that would probably not help the economy. Just guessing 60% on Chinese imports.
and 10% across the board for all imports from all countries. So not an economist, but I imagine that.
might hurt inflation. You don't like high prices now. Uh, yeah. Banning fetal tissue research. So you can't find cures for diseases.
dictating a local school curriculum from the federal government. Like you said, deploying troops against protesters, abandoning NATO, calling the January six, uh, folks who were locked up hostages. It's probably worth highlighting, but yeah, keeping it on the substance of what he would do in term two, I do think is, are the parts of the speeches and the agenda that will really turn off voters. There's a lot of, I watched that hour and a half long thing. There's a lot of it that is just entertaining.
He tells stories about landing in Iraq and jokes and cracks, you know, makes fun of people and the crowd loves it. And he's being sarcastic half the time and having a good time, and we can't fall into that trap. Yeah, I keep,
I've been thinking about this a lot, cause there's this, the truth is, the agenda he has laid out is extremely scary and, and very dangerous for the country. And I think he would have much more ability to carry it out in a second term than he did in the first, because the guardrails are off. He just has the, the kookiest kooks around him. Uh, and he's going to have even friendlier courts and he's going to ignore Congress. He's gonna have a friendly con, right.
So I, I really worry about that. But you also want, I think, what drives a lot of voters, a lot of, uh, swing voters, voters who don't pay close attention to politics, what drives them nuts about Trump is that he just sounds like a crazy man. Like he sounds like an idiot, but I've been thinking about, uh, they need to like make an argument that he's like a useful idiot for a lot of these. Like, there were Nazis at CPAC. Okay.
And there've always been since, since the Trump era began, there've always been Nazis at CPAC and in past years they've been kicked out. And, uh, this time around they met no resistance. They were there, they were self-identifying as Nazis. It wasn't like a big thing. And, uh, you mean like their pronouns?
Yeah. Yeah. Their pronouns were.
One.
was wearing a black leather jacket and looked like he was about to get beaten up in an Indiana Jones movie. Like they couldn't have been more Nazi looking. And it made me think too, like we.
have completely memory. hold already his fucking dinner with Nick Fuentes. Yeah. Uh, another, uh, self-described Nazi. and where, where Trump had dinner with him in Kanye West.
And then Trump said, Oh, Trump said he liked him. And then he said, Oh yeah, he gets me. And I think we, Trump, is going to surround himself and has surrounded himself now with, like the bottom of the MAGA barrel, uh, Nazis, right-wing Christian nationalists, racists, all kinds of kooks. And he's kind of an idiot. And if you flatter Trump, he'll do whatever you want.
And if you say nice things about him, he'll do whatever you want. And so when Trump goes off and, like, you know, uh, releases this agenda and talks about this agenda and then says crazy shit, like it's all of a piece where you put him in the white house, and he is such a moron that all of the, whether he's too lazy or not, he's going to have people around him who are going to do this.
They're going to enact this agenda. I think the other piece of that idea, there's sort of the Nazi MAGA part. And then there's also just the really creepy religious conservatives. And I really want someone to start a pack. We could call it bro pack.
The targets that highlight some of these policies. for the young men who think Trump is this cool, like kind of counterculture guy that is, I don't know. It's like, it's fun to be for him. They need to know about national abortion bans, banning contraception, banning porn. There was the guy a couple of days ago who was talking about, um, uh, getting like recreational sex being a problem and getting away with recreational sex.
I suspect that a lot of, yes, the, the, the, the guy who,
you know, started the whole critical race theory, panic, and then, you know, all the school stuff.
now he's into no recreational sex. Yes. So I imagine a lot of the kind of Joe Rogan fan, Barstool sports fan, Trump fans probably don't know about any of this stuff. And they might not believe that Donald Trump himself believe any of this or, or would enact these policies if he were on his own, but they need to know that, like the, if Trump is elected, the people who come along with him are the Chris Ruffos, the Mike Pence's, the speaker Johnson's, that's who will be empowered.
in enacting these policies. And guess what? In 2020 or in the first term, like all those people, got what they wanted? or the, the, the hardcore right-wing Christian nationalists, they got their, they got their Supreme court justices. They got their other judges, got their abortion.
They're all talking about IVF. Now, Trump, you know, uh, nominated, uh, and, and got confirmed a judge to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench who was, you know, anti IVF and had her on a short list for the Supreme court. Like this is, this is what he does. He just, whatever they want, he's there to, if they flatter him, he's going to do whatever they want. I talked about this a.
little bit with Melissa later, but there's a story out that basically these, uh, um, uh, Christian conservatives, they, they, they don't want Trump to talk too much about the authority they believe he has if he's president, because he can use something called the Comstock act to, he doesn't need a law. He can basically, with the, with the, with a stroke of a pen, do an executive order that bans the most common ways in which people access abortion. in this that with the stroke of a pen, we could, we could keep the Senate. We could win the house and Trump could still have the ability to do that. And if you think that he won't, uh, then you should look at what happened with Roe.
You should look at what happened when this administration and when the courts are stocked with these Christian conservatives who, uh, uh, do not care about the political repercussions, do not care what anybody thinks, do not care what people in California and New York and other progressive places think they will, they will, they will rule.
over us. And it's important to know that the Republicans are really worried about the round stories about attempts to ban IVF and they're all scrambling and trying to back away from it. But many of them, 125 Republicans in the house sponsor a bill that would, uh, would, ban IVF. It's called the life of conception act. Mike Johnson is a co-sponsor.
So it's important to.
tie them to these things. Well, and that's in the house, in the Senate, Tammy Duckworth introduced a bill that would protect IVF access, and Senate Republicans blocked the bill from consideration. They also, they all voted down the, uh, a bill that would have protected contraception, the right to contraception, after Dobbs too. So it's, it's complete bullshit what they're doing now. I do think there is one reason to amplify just sort of the craziest, funny Trump comments that maybe won't affect people as much.
And I remember, I think you and many talked about this last week that there's a Biden strategy now of, um, like significantly ramping up the efforts to highlight the crazy shit that Trump says. Apparently dictated by Joe Biden himself to his staff. Yeah. And, and partly that's to like, scare people. Like this is what's coming, but also to get under Trump's skin and to like, it, because if he consumes all this stuff and you could tell in the CPAC speech, he's starting to do the like, Oh, and then, and then I mix up a name and they say that, um, they say that I'm cognitively, you know, I'm in decline and I'm not.
in decline. You know, he's like, they say that I think Obama is president. What I'm actually saying is that Obama's behind the scenes actually pulling the strings, because we know Joe isn't in.
charge. Like what are you talking about? I do think it's worth like continuing to needle Trump and mock him. There needs to be more mockery of Trump from, from, like the campaigns and the, and, and elected Democrats themselves. Because if you just do the scary Trump and he is scary, like you're sort of feeding into the strongman thing.
So I do, I do think there needs to be a.
little bit more mockery. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I'm just trying to figure out that there's. there is a tension. I think part of it, I think crazy is like this drug to kind of broad a category of what we're talking about.
And I think, I think that when he is silly and zany, that isn't as bad as when, I think. when he's, when he is legitimately confusing things, I think that we should be highlighting that all the time. When he thinks Nancy Pelosi is Nikki Haley, when he thinks Obama is Biden, when he thinks world war two is world war three, whatever. I think we should be getting that out there. I think when he's just sort of being kind of bombastic and almost fun in a way.
that, like, I, like the Beverly Hills shower thing, Beverly Hills. Um, was it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You.
can only brush your teeth once. Oh, you brush your teeth. Like, I think that stuff, that stuff,
like, Hey, by the way, people are here, but they brush their teeth. I don't know. It's not a.
fluoride stuff. It's a Beverly, Beverly Hills. There's a lot of MAGA people in Beverly Hills. Yeah. That's where there's one of the few places.
That's where you see them. There's one little red circle. Yeah. It's anyway. Um, but anyway, I just, like, I think that there's a certain kind of like cofefe drum where I don't care about that stuff.
I just, I don't care about that stuff. I.
don't, the two speeches that are good examples of like, the, the different Trumps, the, the, the Trump that the advisors want is the Trump after Iowa. That's what he's like, you know, he's seeming gracious and he's not saying anything nasty about his opponents. And he's like, and he said, remember, he was like, it. wouldn't it be nice if we could all come together, not just Republicans as a party, but Democrats and liberals. I mean, it's all bullshit, but that's what his advisors want.
What they don't want is angry Trump, like he was after New Hampshire. And I think if you can get under his skin and make him like sort of lash out, that's not,
I think that's, that's damaging. I think that's the distinction. And then the point of, by the way, when you say, like, have there been examples where Trump has shown the discipline they want, it's that speech. And the good news is his, like, like all of us, he only has a certain amount of discipline in his, in his little discipline meter every day. And it goes, his goes down fast, but I never had much to begin with.
Honestly, I think it's a mirror of what we were talking about with Biden, where, when Trump is angrily defending himself, when he sees, that's to me, is actually where you have the sweet spot of both. where he's the angry, yes, it captures some of the danger, but it's also makes him seem kind of kooky and not up to the job. Like that to me,
like angry, angry, crazy is good. Kooky old narcissist is a, is, a, is, is very damaging to Trump. I think, from a character perspective, I think the policy, there's a lot of policies that are damaging that we should amplify, but when he, there's a reason why they changed the speech so that it's not like I'm out for, I'm proudly out for revenge and blah, blah, blah, retribution. Now they're, it's almost like they're, they know that, like Stephen Miller has been writing these speeches with Donald Trump. And you can imagine that some other advisors are like, okay, easy on.
the easy on the, uh, yeah, there's a, there was a line in the speech at CPAC where he says like, I believe in an America that'll be richer, stronger, safer, more prosperous. And it honestly could be fucking lifted out of a Hillary Clinton speech from like 2009.. And like that, the part where I think that's what they want him to be kind of living in.
The South Carolina, do you guys watch South Carolina speech? It was like 22 minutes. It was, it started super dark. Like migrants are coming from mental institutions and they're terrorists and the border is the worst. And then he just did 15 minutes of acknowledgments.
He's really, the acknowledgments so far this campaign have been really, at CPAC. it was like a full 10 minutes at the beginning.
Including calling Lindsey Graham a lefty. Uh, and then Graham got booed. It was very awkward.
He's calling, at the beginning of CPAC, he's calling out like, Oh, Seb Gorka, I almost forgot you. I almost forgot you at the end. Good thing, you're tall. I said, why are you calling out?
Seb Gorka? He was calling out these right wing, like leaders like Javier Mille and the president of the Vox party in Spain and Bolsonaro.
Seb Gorka from the very beginning of the administration, when it turned out he had been a member of a Hungarian right wing. Yeah. So that was from, that was the days of oopsie.
doopsie. I joined a Nazi group. Oh, I forgot about that. Wow. Um, all right.
So there's always a straw poll at CPAC, uh, where, you know, Trump beat Haley by a Saddam Hussein margins, 94 to five. So, uh, all the excitement was over the VP straw poll. They did a VP straw poll for Trump, even though, you know, he hasn't actually locked up the nomination. Uh, and the two top finishers were South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem and Vivek Ramaswamy. Uh, they both got 15%.
Pretty good. Uh, straw polls are generally meaningless, though. Trump was apparently paying close attention to this one. He likes to know what the CPAC folks are thinking. You guys have any initial thoughts on the Trump veep stakes?
We have, we've been real responsible. We've stayed away from it so far, but now I think we're, we can, we can dip our.
toes in the water a little bit. I feel like the idea that Trump wants to spend more than the absolute, fucking bare minimum amount of time he has to spend with Vivek Ramaswamy, uh, makes it hard to imagine Vivek getting the nod. It's like, okay, I think he likes having him up there, but I don't, I don't think he wants to spend all every Saturday with him.
I do think this is where Trump gets the media game and how to play it better than anyone. Like normal campaigns, take the VP process so seriously. There's all this vetting and clandestine meetings, and you keep it secret. And, like Trump's, going to float shit from now until the day he chooses.
And he's going to use it to turn into a game show. He might do like an apprentice. He'll get.
a game show out of it. He'll get these candidates to dance for him. He'll elevate their profiles in ways. It's good for everyone, right? Like if you are sending Vivek Ramaswamy to campaign for you in Michigan, it's better that he is potential vice presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy than failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, right?
So, like it's a symbiotic thing. And I.
don't know, it's just, I, I stupid, my, my, like. who the fuck he knows at this point. But, um, I have this belief that Donald Trump simply cannot get past the fact that Tim Scott is single and that his engagement seems weird to him. And that's my hope. because Tim Scott is pushing himself so hard out there.
He's saying the Bible tells me why I'd be a better VP than a, than a president is basically what he said last week. It's so embarrassing. It's so embarrassing.
and sad. If I'm a strategist on Trump's campaign, I am, I would wager that they are pushing Scott hard. And Kellyanne Conway wrote a long New York times piece about this and she floated Scott. or she said, like Scott or Marco Rubio. She thinks it should be a black or Latino candidate that he picks.
And I could see them pushing a Tim Scott hard, because you get, he's, you know, he, he, he sends a signal to the weirdo, uh, evangelical freaks. Uh, but he also, they would hope that selecting Scott would chip away at Biden's lead with black men, which Trump was able to do in 2020 a little bit. So I could see Scott. now, if it's Trump, what does Trump feel most comfortable with? I could see more, Chris.
I could see a Christy gnome. I think that's look, I have the.
same, I look for the same reason. that makes me nervous about Tim Scott. That's why I'm like sort of hanging my, my hat on this idea that, like, there's this, something that makes Trump uncomfortable. He gets engaged right before going to the endorsement. It's all very dark,
but also like, don't you think back in, in 2016, that Trump also thought Mike Pence was a fucking square. He got talked into it and he tried to fucking kill him. Well, that's the only thing that he, but that's the only thing he didn't deliver on. Pence helped him. Like Pence was great up until then, convinced him when he stopped having the courage.
The funny thing about Trump.
is like, he, can't, he, what he, he says what he thinks. Right. And he keeps being like, I don't know, Tim Scott, this guy absolutely sucked at selling himself and talking about himself. He's so terrible on TV. Now he's great.
When he's talking about me, he's great. It's like, you wonder if there's a little bit in there that's like, I don't know that he would be great for selling a ticket. He was a part of, I don't, I'm overthinking it, but it's very funny. The way he these humiliates Tim Scott, every time he calls him up on stage, that moment where to do that.
with whoever's going to be there. Well, they have to get, they have to be, they have to be broken. But like that moment where Tim Scott walks up to the podium after Trump says, I bet this guy hates Nikki Haley. And then Tim Scott walks up next to him and Trump goes, uh oh. He's like, I don't know.
I love you. I love you. And then there's that clipper. He's like, on this Valentine's day, let's show our love. And he always puts the fucking J in, the Donald J.
Trump. I just, Donald Trump's fucking weirdo Christian meters going off. He's from New York city. Can't take it out of him. I admit, but look, he went with Mike Pence.
That's what I'm saying.
You know, above all, he wants to win. I don't know. All right. Enough of this. Uh, before, before we go to break, as you probably know by now, the three of us wrote a book called democracy, or else how to save America in 10 easy steps.
We're only four months away from you all having a copy of the book in your hand, but maybe the lure of a reasonable page count loaded with illustrations. Isn't your thing. Well, we've got you covered. That's right. We're about to hunker down for, uh, let's be honest.
It's going to be a tedious eight hours, uh, that we'll never get back to, uh, to bring you democracy, or else, as an audio book. That's right. We're going to record the audio book. Uh, it's perfect for the avid listener who loves this pod, but wishes it could just be four hours longer, uh, head to crooked.com slash books and pre-order. now you can get hard.
copy. You can get your audio book. How are we each reading for eight hours? And the book is only?
four hours long in this pod. I don't know. Maybe we can cut it down. Okay. Anyway, that's, that seems like, for, that's a, that's an off mic thing that we can figure out when we come back.
Love it. Talks to Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissman about their new book, the Trump indictment.
I don't know the difference between off mic and on mic anymore. I mean,
Lots of legal shenanigans to cover. So let's dive in. Joining us now, NYU law professor and co-host of strict scrutiny. It's Melissa Murray, and former federal prosecutor and host of the podcast prosecuting Donald Trump, Andrew Weissman. Welcome both of you to the pod.
Thanks for having us.
Nice to be here.
We have a lot of news to cover, but everything unfolding right now begins in the court with these charging documents. You have a new book, the Trump indictments, the historic charging documents with commentary. Melissa, I'll start with you. What stood out to you as you sank deeper into these, into these rich texts?
That's a great question, John. What stood out as we just got deeper and deeper into all of this alleged criming? One thing that stood out was that this is a really vast tableau that, taken together, shows Donald Trump allegedly committing crimes before, during, and after his presidency. And I don't think the enormity of the scale of the alleged criminality had really hit us in that way. Wow.
Before he was president, during his presidency, and then retaining the documents.
unlawfully, allegedly. Andrew, one thing that struck me, reading them as Melissa knows, a lay person with a great LSAT score, is that what always jumped out to me was the indignation of anyone who has spent time deep in the facts around Donald Trump. That prosecutors who might normally be quite reserved, you feel, in especially the documents case and in the insurrection case, a sense of moral indignation from these people who made the law their life, that the chief executive meant to enforce the law was so brazenly uninterested in following the law.
So let's just take the Florida case, that case which has to do with retaining highly classified documents. And I note that Melissa correctly says alleged, but this is one where, you know, let's get real. They were found there. So this is not a complicated case. But in terms of that sense of outrage or indignation for anyone who has seen highly classified documents, the idea that somebody would put those in a location intentionally that is not secure, given how important they are to all of our national security, is the kind of thing that is really hard to fathom.
It's the kind of thing that when you see those documents, you wish when I have, I wish I hadn't seen them. I was so concerned about whether I would inadvertently reveal any information in there. I think with the January 6th indictment, it's easier for, I think, the public to understand just how significant that is, because it so much goes to something that until Donald Trump was a commonplace, which was, of course, there's a peaceful transfer of power. That is.
what separates us from an autocracy. So in New York, a date has been set for Trump's trial over his efforts to falsify business records and hide payments to Stormy Daniels. Now, the Jack Smith delay is now could have been Alvin Bragg's gain. It's slated to begin on March 25th. You pointed to the insurrection case as one that really strikes at the core of democracy.
A lot of people have said that this case in New York is the weakest or the least perilous for Trump. But at the same time, Michael Cohen was already found guilty at the federal level for being part of this scheme. Andrew, what's the realistic range of outcomes? So if he is convicted, there certainly is.
the potential for him to go to jail. It is also worth remembering that he cannot be federally pardoned for this. It is a state crime. The judge will consider a whole variety of factors, including what other people have been sentenced to. It is worth pointing out that the judge here has already said, with respect to those kinds of attacks, that this is not an important case, that it's not serious charges.
He has issued a decision on the pretrial motion saying that he thinks these crimes are very serious, that they are a form of election interference, that it was repeated alleged felonies, and it was with the complicity of a major, I won't say news institution, but certainly a press institution, the National Enquirer, that was complicit with not giving information to the public, but actually keeping information from the public. So in many ways, this is the sort of precursor to other crimes that we saw charged in the federal case and the Georgia case. So I do think it's important, and I think it's one where he could very well be sentenced to jail.
We often talk about this case as sort of the amuse-bouche of election interference, right? So it escalates certainly on January 6th, but the roots of it, I think, can be seen even earlier.
in that Manhattan case. Yeah, like in a video game, there's the first part of the game where you learn the different commands. Yes. You learn how to jump and hit. This feels like that's where Trump was sort of getting his routine down.
Also, in New York, Trump has appealed the ruling of Judge Arthur Engeron that found that he owes roughly $450 million as punishment for his fraudulent business dealings. Andrew, as you said on your podcast this week, if you add that to the nearly $90 million he owes Idrin Carroll, that's real money. What are the odds? Trump will have to produce this money, or will he be able to wriggle out of it? It's extremely good that he's going to.
have to produce the money. He can take an appeal, but just to be clear, within 30 days, if he has not posted a bond or put up the full amount of money, both parties, both the state in the Engeron case or Idrin Carroll in the federal case, get to start enforcing the judgment, and both judges have said no to Donald Trump seeking a stay. We had Robbie Kaplan on our podcast, Strict Scrutiny,
and she was very emphatic. She is getting her money. He has to put up a bond, and she is going... E. Jean Carroll is getting her money.
We've already heard Letitia James say the same thing. If there isn't enough liquidity to actually provide for the full judgment, there are a whole bunch of buildings that could easily satisfy that judgment. James Tower has as good a ring.
as anything else. Well, I was about to say, what would you like to see in James Tower if we manage to take it? I've heard pitches for a public library. Perhaps Planned Parenthood could get some office space. I mean, there's a lot of great options for what we can do with this new public facility on 5th Avenue.
I think the National Archives would like a word, too. Okay, yeah, that's great. That's great. That's great. Donate it to Ukraine.
Sure, I guess.
Sort of technically complicated. All right, let's talk about the... Back to the federal indictments. Trump appealed the D.C. court's ruling.
that said, he's not a god-king, immune from prosecution now and forever. Jack Smith quickly replies to the Supreme Court well before his deadline, saying that the court should deny this appeal. We're still waiting. Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney, she speculated that the delay suggests there is a mouthy dissent in the works.
That was her speculation, because if the court were planning to hear the case, nobody that would want a dissent would want to delay it. I thought that was a lovely bit of speculation. There's also been a debate of whether or not there'll be some sort of grand bargain where the court rules in favor of Trump on that 14th Amendment case. that's seeking to bar him from the ballot but against him on immunity. Melissa, would you like to do any informed or reckless speculating?
All of the above. I think it's almost a foregone conclusion, based on oral arguments and our own predictions in advance of oral argument, that the 14th Amendment disqualification case is going to be a loser for Colorado. I think Donald Trump is going to win there. Just as a practical matter, I don't think this court has any appetite on either the liberal or conservative wings to have a patchwork of ballots across the country. We said that before oral argument.
It was borne out by oral argument where everyone just coalesced around this idea that states do not have the authority, although they have the authority to decide their own election laws for themselves, they don't have the authority to make a cascading decision. that then has repercussions for other states and for the country as a whole. I think that's where that's going. I think, given that, there is a great deal of pressure on the court to find a loss for Donald Trump. It sort of looks like it's evened out.
I want to just emphasize that Joyce is likely right. Maybe there is a very mouthy dissent in the works. I'm sorry to introduce that term, by the way.
Or not. Picturing Alito, for the record.
That's who I was picturing too. When that mouthy dissent comes out, I hope you'll come back to strict scrutiny and read it aloud in a dramatic reading, like you did before for Dobbs. I do think that if there is a dissent in the works, that will surely take a lot of time. Irrespective of why the delay is happening, the very fact of the delay is just posting another de facto victory for Donald Trump. I think that cannot go unstated.
This court is going to present itself as a hero when it sort of splits this baby. One judgment against, one judgment for. But the fact of the matter is,
the longer you take with this, the more he is won. Andrew, Trump's goal here, more broadly, as Melissa is pointing out, is delay, delay, delay. That's what the Supreme Court is seemingly helping him do. There's a story in CNN this morning that basically said Trump's strategy is going to be to use the Florida documents trial as a plow to kind of push the D.C. insurrection trial past the election.
The scheme is Judge Eileen Cannon, who is, to put it mildly, a sympathetic ear to Trump, would schedule the case for summer as opposed to May. That would force the D.C. trial later. Then Eileen Cannon discovers how complicated all this is, has to delay the trial even further, and there's a cascade of delays that pushes the insurrection trial past the election. Now, it seems like there's a better way to pursue this strategy than telling the press about it, especially when judges have access to the Internet.
And Jack Smith is the lawyer on both of the cases. But what was your reaction to this? And what are the tools in Jack Smith's toolbox to prevent this strategy from potentially working? So, assuming that the judge, Judge?
Shutkin, gets the green light from the Supreme Court so she can move forward, I think that she is not going to give, to put it bluntly, a rat's ass about a Florida date. No one is taking that date seriously. I think that the judge has kept the May date as a blocker, but nobody, in fact, is treating it that way. I think she was doing it precisely to sort of screw up everyone's schedules. I have a very cynical view of her take, given her conduct.
But I don't think, if she tried that, that it would work. And one of the things that Judge Shutkin can do is just schedule her trial without looking at what that date is. It's also important to know that the same kind of immunity motion that the Supreme Court is hearing, a sort of separate one, is now wending its way because Donald Trump had the temerity to argue that even after he was president, he still is immune. He has made that motion and a whole series of motions before Judge Cannon in Florida. So there's a lot of reasons for Judge Cannon to just sit on this and delay the case.
I don't think that she's going to, even if she tries to use her new date as a blocker, that it's going to work with Judge Shutkin. And also, remember, Judge Shutkin has the argument that she had set her date. So she had sort of the first claim to it. So I think that will, assuming the Supreme Court does what we think it's going to do, I think that there is going to be that federal D.C. trial right after.
the Manhattan trial. All of it has this sort of odd Shakespearean quality, like two houses, both alike in dignity, but not really quite, because one is orange and wears a tie down to his navel. It's just all weird and bad and, honestly, just unprecedented in every way. It's one of the reasons why we decided to write this book. This is an unprecedented situation where you have four criminal trials proceeding in tandem against the same person, and that person used to.
be the leader of the free world. So the one we haven't mentioned yet is in Fulton County, Georgia, where Trump and 18 of his closest goons are facing trial for trying to overturn the presidential election. Trump's lawyers have accused the district attorney, Fannie Willis, of having a conflict of interest because of her relationship with another attorney on the prosecuting team. I feel a bit baffled by this because I don't understand the conflict. And, just not to put too fine a point on it, if she were sleeping with a juror or the judge or someone on the defense team, that would be a conflict of interest to me.
It may not be optically awesome, or there may be ethical problems with a prosecutor sleeping with another prosecutor while pursuing a case, but it's not a conflict of interest, even if they went on fun vacations to all kinds of.
. even if they did have a nice time in Belize. What is this? I mean, most of the time when.
you're concerned about prosecutors' ethics with regard to undue interference or influence with another party, it's genuinely on the other side, like a defendant, a judge, a juror, a defense lawyer, not someone on their own team. And again, you're right, the optics of this look poor and the press coverage of it has been poor. for Fannie Willis, certainly, but I'm not certain that this is the conflict they're looking for. The idea behind the conflict, as it's been ginned up, is that he is a public servant appointed by her and paid by the prosecutor's office out of public monies, and he is using those public funds that he is receiving to do a job that apparently he is ill-qualified for, according to his detractors, and using that money then to take her on vacation. So she's benefiting and being enriched by this appointment that she made to her paramour.
But so here's what, OK, let's say I say that's all true. So, just so I understand, her plan was first become district attorney of Georgia. Step two, build an indictment, a multifaceted, vast indictment using the RICO statute to go after Trump and his associates so that she could hire her love interest, so that she could pay him from the coffers of Georgia, so that she could go to.
Belize. That's yeah, that's very. what's bothering you with that.
But like, I mean, I don't, but even.
like. I didn't seem taken. I'm just like I was like I watched the whole thing because it was fucking awesome. And she was awesome on the stand. But then I was like, well, did you pay cash or did you not pay cash?
Even if he paid for the trip, I don't understand. Don't you have to prove that she's pursuing the case because she wanted the trip? Am I missing? Andrew, am I missing something?
So can you just also put this in the context of what has been reported with respect to the Supreme Court and Justice Thomas and Justice Alito and the amount you're talking about here?
What's worse, a love interest or a Winnebago that you love?
I don't know. I mean, and those are people who are paying vast amounts of money and have cases and causes in front of the court. And so the idea that this, which is just the most paltry amount of money, and also there's money's fungible. So the idea that this is not a guy who is destitute, who desperately needed this and his only source of money was this, you know, a contract, which is in our terms. And of course, you know, because you took the LSATs as low bone.
This is as close to pro bono work as you can get. So it is a preposterous legal and factual argument.
And Andrew, I don't want to blow your mind, but wait till you found out who Clarence Thomas was sleeping with, because that person's also affected by some of these cases that Thomas is hearing.
I don't know if you know that. Yeah, I heard that too.
I like, honestly, the prospect of if you knew who Thomas, Clarence Thomas is sleeping with, just so boggled my mind. And the picture, it just really, it really sucked, the, it sucked,
right out of your face. Your brain, just, you. just, I feel like, I feel like your LSAT score went down.
That was, that was a wild trial. But again, I think everyone in that 19 defendant indictment is thinking about the art of delay, like forget the art of the deal. It's really the art of delay. And Michael Roman, who is the person who raised these allegations against Fonny Willis, he's one of these defendants. There has already been a very extended effort to try and use standard administrative processes to get Fonny Willis disqualified or to otherwise limit her authority as prosecutor.
That didn't work. And so now they sort of switched to this ethical quandary. Michael Roman, who is the ops guy for Trump long ago, is the one who's raised it. And the whole point of this is to inject some chum in the water so that perhaps this is a situation where a judge will rule that she is disqualified. If that is the case, then it has to go to the special body to identify a new prosecutor.
There's probably not a prosecutor in the state of Georgia with the kind of experience doing RICO trials that Fonny Willis has. that will make it harder for this prosecution to continue in the direction that it's been going. And if that doesn't happen, and all that happens is that Fonny Willis gets bruised and hobbled a bit, it's going to make it harder, I think, or at least damage her a little bit in her credibility with a jury. in the event, this does go to trial. So it's kind of a win-win from all sides for the Trump team.
Andrew, have you ever had a weekend trip? so good, you got a tattoo?
No. I just thought that was a cool part of it. I mean, that's neither here nor there. But I mean, I hope she's happy. That's also part of it.
I'm just rooting for her.
It's just unbelievable that this is the, with no offense, but this is like the level of discussion. We have. the former leader of the free world, and this is also an example of the judge, who appears to be quite serious, but is really a neophyte on the bench, should have shut this down. This is one where maybe there's an ethics issue. He could be like, this is for a different forum.
This is not for this case. And so you're seeing, both in Florida and in Georgia, the leaving aside any partisanship, you're just seeing real inexperience on the bench. And you can compare that to, let's say, Judge Kaplan, who oversaw the E.G. Carroll case, was just a master in the way that he handled Trump. He handled the jury.
That is what you really see as sort of showing the rule of law and its absolute best light.
So this is not to exonerate either Scott McAfee or Eileen Cannon. I will say, though, the fact that Eileen Cannon is in the position that she's in and is doing this incredibly complicated criminal trial with very little criminal experience is a result of politics. I mean, like Florida has the Southern District of Florida, where she sits, has three open district court seats, and the Biden administration has been unable to fill them because of the blue slip requirement in the Senate and the fact that Florida has two Republican senators. So when this case went in the wheel to be divvied up among the judges in the Southern District of Florida, it was basically a one in three chance. they would get Eileen Cannon because there are three vacancies that cannot be filled because of Marco Rubio and Rick Scott.
Before we let you go, there was two sort of non-indictment related legal stories. I just wanted to touch on. One is the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case over whether states can bar platforms like Facebook and Twitter from performing content moderation. It seems like most of the judges were skeptical that this isn't a violation of the First Amendment. But Gorsuch, Alito and Thomas were open to the idea that this was censorship and that posters must be free to post.
Melissa, any reaction to the oral argument? So I will just all full disclosure, I haven't.
listened to it yet, because I've been in class all day and in office hours, but that is my evening tonight. I'm going to sit back with some vino and listen to the dulcet sounds of Justice Alito harping on these lawyers. But the description that you gave is the one that I've read in write-ups of the oral argument. And yeah, I'm not surprised by that. And if you've listened to their responses, in other cases, not just cases involving the internet and content moderation, but just sort of like cases involving religious freedom, like this is a wing of the court, Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas that literally seems like it's getting an intravenous diet of Fox News constantly.
And so this idea of cancel culture, a war on conservatives, a war on conservative thoughts, the censorship of conservatism as a disfavored ideology is one that they are always talking about across a wide variety of doctrines and disciplines. So I'm not surprised that that came up today. And I'm actually just eager to hear how vociferous and vehement they were about it.
It's coming up again in a couple of weeks in a case involving the Biden administration and sort of what their role can be in terms of the art of persuasion of social media. And there's a real issue there in terms of how far can you go? There? they obviously were doing things like they were trying to prevent the spread of COVID. I mean, these are good things.
These are science based. And this bubbled up through the fifth circuit that asked a lot of questions about, well, you say that's science based. So a very anti-fact, anti-science.
Andrew, you have to explain what the complaint was. So the idea here is that the Biden administration went on social media and said, do not take ivermectin to prevent COVID. That's.
not going to work. And they wanted to have the sites not promulgate things that were going to actually kill American citizens. And so that was one of the many things that they were doing. that's really outrageous. And so this, again, is a sort of far right hack.
It was interesting today, just one quick note is there was a split that appeared between Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Alito, where Justice Alito was talking about how this is so Orwellian, talking about sort of trying.
to paint. President Biden. How did you listen to it? You had class the same time I did.
Some of us multitask, you know, it's like class. You were listening to the oral argument in class? So, you know, some of us, you know, really can do so many different things. But anyway, so Justice Kavanaugh responded to that saying it's not Orwellian. This is a private actor.
This is not the state doing it. And so it is completely different and it's not Orwellian. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, how that sort of the sort of right part of the, you know, the right conservative meaning part of the court, you know, where they sort of split off.
And then one last question for you, Melissa. Hey, is that a child in your freezer? Are you just happy to create a Christian theocracy?
The, sorry. So the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling, says embryos or kids, just too small for big wheels. That's the only issue. Basically shuts down IVF in Alabama. I want to just get your reaction to the ruling.
But one I wanted to step back and ask you about, basically, there's been this cycle and the cycle is legal. scholars like you say they're going to overturn Roe. Conservatives try to say they won't. Others say it's hysterical. They overturn Roe.
Say, oh, this is going to lead to IVF rulings. It's going to lead to women being in parking lots, unable to get health care. Even if they don't want an abortion, they say that's hysterical. Then it happens. I'm curious where you see this going next.
And if you can talk about the next step that people are going to say isn't going to happen, whether it's a federal ban at the executive level or what have you. So thank you for acknowledging.
the fact that I have said all of this, and I've been right, even though all of these men have said that we were hyperbolic, that this was hysterical. I was right about all of these things. I called them all a long time ago. And this is not like a fight with my husband. I take no pleasure from being right here.
But I was. And as far as you can keep that in, as far as I can tell, the only place this can logically go is some recognition, whether constitutionally or statutorily, of the fetus as a person. And I said that after Dobbs, like this idea that Dobbs simply returned this to the states for deliberation by the people. That didn't make any sense. If you believe abortion is murder, you can't be okay with California allowing it.
So there was never going to be a tenable settlement by leaving this at the state. So the end game, and they've been very upfront about it, is fetal personhood. They've been very fetal personhood forward. The Dobbs opinion has all kinds of fetal personhood Easter eggs. And so I think we are going to be moving to a moment where the question is going to be called, is the fetus a person for purposes of constitutional law or for purposes of statutory law and both?
And this is going to play out, I think, in the next election cycle. There was reporting in the New York Times last week where Jonathan Mitchell, who is the architect of Texas SB eight, and also the person who argued on behalf of Donald Trump in the disqualification oral argument before the Supreme Court, he essentially said that he really hopes Donald Trump does not know about the Comstock Act. The Comstock Act is an 1873 law that prohibited the transmission in interstate commerce of any quote, unquote articles that could be used for immoral purposes, including information or materials that could be used to advise individuals about how to have an abortion or actual aborto facients. And the law has basically been in destitute for like since the 1950s, like no one's really been prosecuting anyone under the Comstock Act, but it's still on the books. And so Jonathan Mitchell's point was everyone's talking about this national ban.
Are we going to have a national ban? And Donald Trump is like, I would never support a national ban. He doesn't have to, because Comstock is waiting in the wings. And even if they don't actually get to the point where they're going to enact a national ban on abortion, they can still resurrect this zombie law, the Comstock Act, and use it as a cudgel that limits the ability across the country of sending the materials for medication abortion, of going back and forth in interstate commerce for abortion services. They can do everything that they could do with the national ban, with the Comstock Act, and they're probably going to.
So I say this over and over again, this next election, the Supreme Court is on the ballot. Once again, Thomas and Alito are septuagenarians. They're in their seventies. If there's a Republican president, they will step down and go off to their Walmart parking lots to sit in their Winnebago's and salmon fish for hours and hours. And when they do, that Republican president will replace them with literal teenagers, like younger than Eileen Cannon.
And this conservative super majority will literally last for another generation and a half. Those are the stakes.
Those are the stakes. But until then, if you have some time, you should pick up this book.
The book is the Trump indictments, the historic charging documents, with commentary by Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissman, two friends of the pod. That's right. You heard me, Melissa. You're.
how do you feel about that? I mean, I've known you longer. That's all I'm going to say. I mean,
I'm not saying we're not closer. I'm not saying you're sitting, you're, you're sitting to my you're.
sitting close to me. I did take you to Belize. OK, next year in Belize. Thank you both so much.
That was great. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having us.
All right. Thanks to Melissa and Andrew for joining us today. We'll have a new pod for you. on Wednesday. I will be hosting with Mehdi Hassan.
We'll be back on the pod. Bye, everyone.
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