No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Federal judge outsmarts Trump in court

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

The judge in Trump’s election theft case outsmarts him in the courtroom. Brian interviews former Obama spokesman and host of Pod Save America, Tommy Vietor, about whether Trump will be able to not attack the people prosecuting him, how Biden should handle the issue of Trump’s indictments, and whether it’s worth it for Democrats to focus on states like Ohio and North Carolina in 2024.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the judge in Trump's election theft case outsmarting him in the courtroom, and I interview former Obama spokesman and the host of Potta of America, Tommy Vitor, about whether Trump will be able to not attack the people prosecuting him, how Biden should handle the issue of Trump's indictments, and whether it's worth it for Democrats to focus on states like Ohio and North Carolina in 2024. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So it looks like the judge in the trial overseeing Trump's election theft efforts that's Judge Chutkin figured out a way to outsmart Trump.

Trump. So we're two weeks away from this judge deciding on a trial date. The DOJ has requested a date of January 2nd, 2024, which is really, really soon. It would make this the first criminal trial for Trump before the classified documents trial and before the Manhattan DA trial. Meanwhile, the Trump team has floated the idea that this trial shouldn't happen for years still. Now, Trump's goal here is to delay as long as humanly possible, all the while trying this case in the Court of Public Opinion. He knows he will lose this case on the merits, but he's got two outs here. The first is that he wants to poison the well of potential jurors by repeating day in and day out that the election was stolen and that this prosecution of him is political and that he's the victim. If he can reach one potential juror, that's all he'll need for a hung jury.

Like, these convictions have to be unanimous. He needs to plant the seed in the head of one single person who ends up on that jury that he's the victim and he'll have succeeded. And his second plan, the ultimate goal is to win the presidency in 2024, in part by framing Joe Biden as some corrupt, tin pot, dictator who jails his political opponents. Now, of course, we know that's not true and that Donald Trump is being prosecuted by a special counsel for crimes that the whole world watched him commit, but that's not going to stop Trump from claiming what he wants to claim. And if he can manage to win the presidency, then he installs a lackey at the DOJ who will then

withdraw the DOJ from their own prosecution of Trump. So as far as Trump is concerned, he has every incentive in the world to keep spewing this stuff into the void because it's all in service of his plans to absolve himself, meaning that Trump needs this trial to be delayed. So what Judge Chutkin said was, quote, I intend to ensure the orderly administration of justice in this case, as I would with any other case. Even arguably ambiguous statements from parties or their counsel can threaten the process.

In addition, the moral party makes inflammatory statements about this case, which could taint the jury pool, the greater the urgency will be that we proceed the trial quickly. I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings. Meaning the onus is now on Donald Trump, not the judge. judge, not anybody else, but Trump himself to not obstruct and retaliate and threaten or else the trial will happen sooner. And a sooner trial means a sooner conviction and, I don't know, maybe being a convicted felon or literally sentenced to prison isn't the electoral boon that it's cracked out to be, right? So now we find out if Donald Trump will be able to not do something

like this. Despite the demented prosecution of our movement by our corrupt and highly partisan Department of Injustice and deranged Jack Smith. Doesn't he look deranged? You see the picture with the purple robe? He's a deranged human being. We're getting stronger by the day. Somebody said, you should treat him nicer. Maybe he'd be nice. Let me tell you. This guy is a lost soul. Bad guy. He'll get nicer. He's a deranged, sick person. And look, underscoring all of this is the reality that he won't be able to control himself. Judge Chutkin knows he won't be able to control himself.

Trump's lawyers certainly know he won't be able to control himself. Even Trump's own allies on Fox know he won't be able to control himself. Here's Jesse Waters very plainly admitting as much. Well, if he does get the gag order, I'm sure he'll violate it immediately. He will, and he'll dare the judge to do something about it. So if and when Donald Trump continues to make, quote, inflammatory statements about the case in Judge Chutkin's words, then he'll have himself to blame when she sides with the DOJ and schedules a trial for January. And I'd assume that being sentenced to prison in February or March of an election year

probably isn't the rocket fuel that Trump's looking for in this campaign, even one where the whole thing is predicated on victimhood. So now we wait and see if this 77-year-old man can manage to exhibit enough self-control to keep himself out of court long enough to get through this election. But based on what we all know, I'd keep early 2024 clear to watch Trump stand trial for his efforts to steal the 2020 election. Next step is my interview with Tommy Vitor. Now I've got the host of Pod Save America and Pod Save the World, Tommy Vitor.

Tommy, thanks for coming on. Brian, great to see you. Also, the co-host of Liberal Tiers, the show we do together on YouTube, for God's sake. One of the most fun things I get to do every couple weeks. That's right. That's right. We'll talk about that a little bit later at the end here. But first, let's start with the bad stuff and then end with the good stuff.

So we'll start with the Trump of it all here. just recently, Judge Chutkin, who's overseeing the election theft case, the federal case, she's considering Trump's trial date now. So she told his team that the date would be impacted based on whether there's any more retaliatory claims or threats coming from anybody in the case, meaning that basically she's putting the ball in Trump's court. If he attacks a witness, then he gets an earlier trial date, and that's the last thing he wants, but it'll be his fault. Do you think that he'll be able to control himself? Doesn't it feel like a parent to be like, look, if you're really nice to,

your sister, you can stay up and watch the end of the basketball game, but, you know, only if you're good. No, I don't expect him to exert any self-control. I do love her throwing it back in his court and saying, listen, listen, sir, all you have to do here is not retaliate and attack, you know, potential witnesses in this case, and you can get what you want, but I don't think he'll be able to do it. Yeah, well, you know, I'm sure that you've seen his team's defenses in the media now, that this is an attack on his free speech rights, that this is all election interference, on and on. And I know all of this is kind of martyrdom for the base, and that's what they want. They want to feel like victims, and that's what Trump does best. But how do you

think all of this stuff is landing with the independents who will actually decide the outcome of this election? Yeah, I mean, look, I do think, like, it's fair to say there are novel free speech issues when it comes to indicting a former president of the United States who is running again And, you know, sort of, you know, scoping what he is able to say creates some challenges. But, you know, the idea that creating a fake slate of electors is somehow free speech as opposed to a sweeping seven-state conspiracy to steal an election. I would quibble with that a little bit. I think that, you know, his base, there are people who have said on the record and will say again that every time he gets indicted, they like him even more. I think more broadly, what's likely to happen is these cases will.

will continue to be in the news. They will blot out all of their narratives about Trump and all of their stories and all of his primary opponents. And I don't think swing voters are going to like hearing about January 6th again. I don't think they're going to like the idea of a president of the United States who could go to jail. So I just can't imagine this helps him with swing voters.

Yeah. I mean, do you think like, I mean, even with that said, if he was trying to get this out of the ether, he might be trying to talk about something different. But even when he has the opportunity to speak for himself, when he has the microphone, he does the exact same thing. It's just all complaining about Jack Smith and Fawney Willis and Judge Chudkin and just everybody involved in these prosecutions. So even when he has the opportunity to control the narrative, he delves into the same exact stuff that ultimately isn't going to help him in the end. Yeah, I mean, Brian, look, there's some parts of Trump's appeal that I can understand.

If you watch a Trump rally as compared to an Asa Hutchinson rally, you're probably going to see people having more fun at the Trump rally. They feel like they're part of a team. You know what I mean? Like he's making them laugh. But one thing I can't understand about his appeal is the guy just bitches and moans all day long. It's all grievance. It's all about whining about his treatment. I just don't get how voters don't get sick of that.

I don't get how his base is still okay with hearing him whine about stuff all day long. Well, how do you reconcile those things? Because on one hand, you have this party that, like, beats its chest for being alphas, right? Like, that's the whole thing. It's like, where men know how to be men and like all that bullshit. But at the same time, the entire, the entire strategy is predicated completely on just being professional victims and perpetual victims. Yeah. I mean, I think at the end of the day, a lot of his voters think, you know what?

He hates the people I hate. You know what I mean? The people who I feel like look down on me, the elites. the liberals, the people in big cities, he wants to punish them as much as I want to punish them. And so they go along for the ride because, you know, for a shared hatred of people like me, frankly. Yeah, yeah. How should the White House be handling Trump's prosecution?

Because I understand that Joe Biden himself has to be careful not to validate Trump's exact arguments that he is prosecuting his political opponent, which is, of course, not true. But also, this is a massive, massive weakness and liability that should absolutely. be exploited and and yeah how do you how do you how does the white house handle that yeah i mean it's it's complicated like these are these are uncharted waters um i think ultimately uh the president the white house has to be mindful of the rule of law that we are all innocent until we're proven guilty and that there is a clear uh risk of a perception that the department of justice is targeting one of joe biden's political opponents obviously that is not true

You know, I mean, again, the Trump always makes himself the victim. How dare they prosecute me as if, you know, someone is as if Joe Biden forced him to steal a bunch of classified information and like stuff it in his bathroom in Mara Lago. As if this is all just happening like in a vacuum, irrespective of what Trump actually did to warrant. Yeah. Yeah. How dare you react to my actions, essentially is his take. But I do think the, the White House, the Biden campaign, they just, they really can't touch this. I think that these stories, these trials will be covered by. every news outlet all day, every day. And I think people will learn about what's going on. And I just, if I were Joe Biden, I wouldn't want to be the messenger there. What should they do in terms of messaging? Like what, what, should they be sending out anybody?

Should they just completely leave this thing alone? Like I said before, I mean, you, it's very, it's very rare, bordering on never that the White House is given an opportunity where the chief political rival is like enmeshed in four, likely four different criminal indictments. Yeah. I think there's just a risk that like if, you know, the fourth ranking spokesman in Wisconsin on the Biden campaign, if they say something about the indictments that sounds like they're leaning into this, the Trump campaign will lift it up and demagogue it and say, Fox News will find it. They'll make him the face of all things Biden White House and then it'll be too late. Exactly. Exactly. So I would want to make a broader argument about just how extreme the MAGA base is, just how extreme Trump is. You've seen the enormous success Democrats have had in talking about abortion rights,

for example, just a couple of days ago voters in Ohio overwhelmingly voted to shut down an effort to make it harder to enshrine abortion rights into Ohio's Constitution. So I would focus on issues like that and then also be talking about Joe Biden's record. So pivoting to Biden world now, there has been reporting that they see a broader path to the presidency through states that might have otherwise been written off thanks to the issue of abortion. including Ohio, which you just mentioned, where abortion will now be on the ballot, and a state like North Carolina, where there's a 12-week abortion ban in place, and which Biden only lost by one point in 2020. Is this a smart move, or are we falling into the same trap that we always

fall into where we just keep chasing after states that are just not ours to win anymore? Brian, it's a great question. Look, I think at this point in a campaign, you want to signal to everyone that you're going to have as wide a playing field as humanly possible. You know, you might as well say to the press, we're going to compete in all 50 states. We're going to be up on the air in Alabama, right? Because part of it is signaling to your donors that you feel like you're approaching the campaign from a place of strength and also signaling to your opponent that they're going to have to spend money in a lot of places.

At the end of the day, do I think that we are going to be watching a competitive presidential race in Ohio? probably not, but you're going to have a very competitive Senate race for Sherrod Brown trying to get reelected. You will likely have a ballot initiative to enshrine abortion rights into Ohio's constitution. So that could change the calculus in ways that I'm just not seeing at the moment. I do hope they at least try to compete in states like North Carolina. The challenge is like ultimately it'll come down to resource allocation. If you have the money to go on TV in North Carolina, you should do so. But I think I read somewhere that North Carolina was the fourth most expensive

state in terms of Joe Biden's spend in the last six months of the 2020 campaign. So, you know, like you're going to run out of money eventually. Are there any dark core states that you do think are really worth investing in? I mean, it may be like a state like North Carolina. But is there any state that may kind of be written off by the general pundit class that you think really still is ours to take? Great question. I mean, if you were, to, you know, if you were to say gun to your head, which state do you think is on the table that might not have been last time? I think North Carolina would probably be my first one. There are a couple states that I think are probably lost causes, but no one's going to be willing to admit

it yet. Like Florida, Florida is incredibly expensive. It's been trending away. I feel like people are willing to admit that Florida may just be a lost cause. Yeah. I mean, look, it's been trending against us for a long time. The voter registration numbers have been like the bane of the Democrats existence since 2000. I think we're ready to put that one to bed. Yeah, ever since the word hanging Chad came into our lexicon. Florida has been a real problem. You know, the White House is making a really concerted effort right now to promote Bidomics, and they're doing it at a time where we've got the highest GDP of all G7 countries. Inflation is the lowest of all G7 countries. Manufacturing right now is booming. Real wages are outpacing inflation for the first time.

How do you think the White House is doing on this push? And what could they be doing? better. Look, I mean, there's obviously a lot of work to be done. I mean, I don't think there's no way they're looking at their polling currently and thinking this is sufficient, you know, that we've made the case. I think that you're starting to see Joe Biden hit the road again. You're seeing lots of surrogates fan out to try to sell some of his accomplishments around the one-year anniversary of the Chips Act or the IRA or some of the big legislative accomplishments he's had. Look, it's an uphill slog because it's hard to get these things cover, these sort of substantive meat and potato stories covered on any day, it gets even harder when all the press corps

wants to ask about is Donald Trump and whatever he was up to that hour. So, you know, it's going to be really difficult, but they should keep trying. Can you talk about your time in the Obama White House, which was notorious for not owning its accomplishments? Yeah, I mean, like, you know, what always happens is you'll get something done. You'll assume voters are going to like it. And then the President of the United States will look at a poll in a month and be like, why am I not getting credit for this? And then a bunch of really smart senior people get in a room and they point the figure at the communications team and they blame us.

Obviously, we're not selling this, right? Obviously, it's a communications problem. I mean, I think what happened during the Obama era was we went into an enormous deep recession and it took a lot longer to climb out of it than anyone had hoped. And maybe we needed a bigger stimulus to move that process faster. So it's really hard to convince voters that actually things are better for you than you think. I think what Joe Biden can do is stack up all the things they accomplished, like the IRA, the COVID recovery money, the chips act.

Like, it's a really impressive set of legislative wins and tell people that. So, you know, because I think a lot of voters have no idea what happens in Washington on a regular basis. What gets even harder these days, though, is the people you need to reach, aren't listening to POTS of America or watching your shows, right? There are people that, like, maybe aren't reading the news, that aren't watching, you know, network news. And getting to them, getting information to them, often takes more of a paid media strategy

than, you know, just getting out to, like, Sandusky, Ohio and doing the local news. Yeah. So I guess how does Biden reconcile this then? Because, like you said, you don't want to tell people how they're feeling and you have to be, I guess, cognizant of the fact that not everybody is doing well. And there still are, you know, because of income inequality in this country, which is so deep-seated and longstanding,

you can't just say, you know, because of these few macroeconomic factors, everything is great and you're actually doing great. So I guess how do you most effectively tow this line between selling these accomplishments while also being careful that you don't tell people that things are better than they know they are? Yeah, that's a great question. Or is it that you just be careful that you just tow that line and like acknowledge the respect for one side while touting the accomplishments on the other. No, look, I think you hit on the challenge. I think you have to tell people what you did,

tell them what the impact was, but always make clear that you think that there's much more work to do. And then you talk to them about what the obstacles are to that additional work, right? It's like we wanted to raise the national minimum wage to $15 an hour, but Republicans wouldn't let us do it. That's what I'm still fighting for. You know, talking about Medicare expansion across every state,

talking about all the things they want to do to make housing more affordable and how Republicans are blocking those efforts. Like always, you know, elections are ultimately a choice between two sometimes imperfect options. And I think once voters see, okay, well, you know, I might think Joe Biden is a little bit too old, but, you know, Donald Trump's a crazy extremists who sent a horde of lunatics to attack the Capitol on January 6th. So I'm going to go with Joe Biden. And part of, you know, part of the polling you see when people are asked about issues like the economy or Joe

Biden on foreign policy, a lot of it is just tracking his general approval rating, you know, and maybe there's kind of like annoyed at the world anyway, or they think he's a little too old, and that kind of bleeds into the numbers under the hood when it comes to sort of economic policy views when, in fact, it's just sort of, you know, people are like, they're not sure they love the guy right now, and maybe they will later. Yeah. Tommy, we host a series that you mentioned before called Liberal Tiers on the POTSafe America YouTube channel. Can you talk a little bit about the punishment situation and maybe talk about what's been your favorite punishment so far. Am I allowed to reveal the one that isn't out yet? I guess we probably have to hold that one.

Listen, so Brian and I do this very fun show because Liberals here, it's on YouTube. We draft things like we have an episode that will come out on August 23rd or so about ranking some of the most impactful debate moments in presidential history that we're pegging to the, the the Republican primary debate happening that day. The viewers then get to look at both of our set of picks and vote on who they think won, and that we've implemented a series of sadistic punishments, which included Brian getting a specially made Mike Pence tattoo that he made me put on my lower back as a tramp stamp and wear for like, what was it, three or four days when my wife's parents were visiting and then I had a trip to New York. I was literally in this tiny hotel gym in New York

And I couldn't like put my arms over my head because it was lifting my shirt up and she said Mike Penn's 2024 all across the back. So you're a sick fuck is what I think your audience needs to know. So is that your favorite one? I mean, that was by far the best punishment. I mean, there's just no question about it. Yeah, we got to ramp up. We got to ramp up your punishments. Your punishments. The first punishment was that you ever doled out was making me eat a la Ronda Santis's pudding fingers, you know, whole thing. You made me eat pudding with my fingers. That was the first punishment. I think you also had me wear a bunny suit in the vein of John Kerry wearing that sperm suit way back when. Yeah.

What was the other? Oh, you made me, oh, you made me eat ketchup flavored Doritos. For anybody watching, like my biggest diversion in the world is ketchup. The smell of ketchup will make me nauseous. The thought of ketchup will make me nauseous. So I put a hard line when we started this series that I would not touch ketchup. That ketchup could not be a punishment. And so this asshole was like, don't worry.

Don't worry. We won't make you eat ketchup, but we have ketchup-flavored Doritos that I had to eat. And the best part about that is I didn't realize that Brian has a really bad allergy to milk. And in Doritos, there are a lot of milk-based products because I guess the cheese or whatever. And so the look on your face when we busted out those Doritos was... Yeah, it was mostly ketchup, but then also the prospect of my imminent demise. I literally haven't eaten a Dorito since I was probably 14 years old for that exact reason. Elijah would kill me if I didn't ask this. So what is Friends of the Pod?

Friends of the Pod is our subscription community. If you go to Cricket.com slash Friends, you can join. It's very fun. You can get access to the Discord so you don't have to watch these debates or frankly read the news alone. There's people just kind of chatting all day along, including me, John and John. You get bonus content. You get ad-free shows if you want. So it's a lot of fun.

Crooked.com slash Friends. Check it out. Definitely check it out. Also, of course, check out Pod Save America and Pod Save the World, wherever you get podcasts, check out Podsafe America's YouTube channel to see me and Tommy host our show, Liberal Tears. Tommy, thanks so much for taking the time in. Thanks, Brian. Great to see you.

Thanks again to Tommy. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app.

Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.