No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump screws HIMSELF following guilty verdict

Episode Date: June 2, 2024

Trump’s inflammatory language following his guilty verdict is poised to hurt him more. Brian interviews former Ethics Czar under President Obama and CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen about the likelihood of a prison sentence for Trump, what it was like in the courtroom the moment the verdict was handed down, and whether he thinks this conviction makes subsequent convictions more likely.Pre-order Shameless: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/shamelessShop 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 how Trump's inflammatory language following his guilty verdict is actually going to hurt him more, and I interview former ethics czar under President Obama and CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen about the likelihood of a prison sentence for Trump, what it was like in the courtroom the moment the verdict was handed down, and whether he thinks this conviction makes subsequent convictions more likely. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So it goes without saying, but a historic week, Donald Trump found guilty on all 30, criminal counts and is now a convicted felon.

I know you already know this by now, but just for posterity, I wanted to say the words. Okay, so what I wanted to discuss here, though, is Trump's reaction to the verdict and how that's ultimately going to come back to bite him. So this is just a small sampling of Trump's own comments in the aftermath of his conviction. This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. There's a rigged trial, a disgrace. They wouldn't give us a venue change.

We were at 5% or 6% in this district in this area. This was a rigged disgraceful trial, but the real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people, and they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here. You have a sore respect, DA, and a whole. whole thing. We didn't do a thing wrong. I'm a very innocent man. And it's okay. I'm fighting for our country. I'm fighting for our constitution. Our whole country is being rigged right now. This was done

by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent. And I think it's just a disgrace. And we'll keep fighting. We'll fight till the end and we'll win. So the usual, it was the judge's fault. It was Biden. fault. It was the immigrants' fault. It was rigged, corrupt. Everybody else is to blame. Trump is perfect. Country's a mess. And he's going to fight until his dying breath. And let's be clear, this has continued on for days. Every opportunity this guy's had to get in front of a mic, he attacks the judge, the case, the Biden administration. His mouthpieces and allies are doing the same. They're all rallying behind him and demanding retribution on his behalf. For example, here's

Rick Scott and Stephen Miller, just to limit this to two people. We are fed up and we're we're not going to take this anymore. So in the Senate, we're going to do everything we can to block judicial, any appointments of the Biden administration that we can. We're not going to find any more programs unless it's tied to public safety. We're going to start and we're going to make sure there's no money for this lawfare against Republicans, including Trump. I want every Secretary of State. Are you purging your voting rules of non-citizens right now? Is every Republican state AG opening investigations into voter fraud, right? Now is every House committee controlled by Republicans using its subpoena power in every way it needs

to right now is every Republican DA starting every investigation they need to right now is every donor off the sidelines and in the game the big dollar guys the rich guys the wealthy guys every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now and of course some of them are out there just outright calling for war literally Tim Poole some loser internet provocateur who has a big audience on the right, literally tweeted out the word war. NBC News had a report out about how Trump supporters are trying to docks jurors and post what they think might be their addresses online, that they're posting violent threats about the judge, the jurors, the prosecutors calling for them to be identified, to be killed, to be hanged. And just like on

January 6th, with all of this going on, Donald Trump's sole priority here is to continue to rile up his base by repeating claims that he's the victim of some unjust prosecution, which of course is just egging these people on more and more. He knows better, by the way, just like he always knows better, but that's never going to stop him. And so the natural progression of this is that there will be violence. Like, I don't know how or when, but the right is at its boiling point right now. And rather than let out some steam to cool things off, or, oh, I don't know, tell the truth about some of this. Trump is out there every day repeating the same lies that got these people worked up in the first place.

But here's where this is going to backfire. Trump hasn't been sentenced yet. That's not happening until July 11th. And you're kidding yourself if you think that Judge Mershan isn't paying attention to what's happening right now. Because let's be clear, all Trump has to do is give the order to his little underlings to leave the jurors alone and they would. The fact that he's opting not to do that, but instead inflaming tensions with yet more

lies about his prosecution, more lies about the judge and Biden and Bragg, is sending a clear message to Judge Mershan that far from feeling any remorse or contrition, he actually revels in the violence and the mayhem. He wants it. So if Judge Mershahn is looking for a justification to sentence this guy to a period of incarceration, that's exactly what he's getting here. Like, we're on the precipice right now. Either Donald Trump is actually going to be properly held to account for his crimes, the

ones that he's currently showing zero remorse for committing, or he gets a slap on the wrist, along with a confirmation that, yes, indeed, he is above the law. and then he would be emboldened 10 times over to do it again, knowing that the judicial system simply is not prepared to hold him accountable for 34 felony counts. That's where we're at. What Judge Mershanops to do next is going to determine whether a lawless criminal gets to keep committing crimes

with virtual impunity or whether he recognizes that he's not above the law. We already know that Trump is not going to stop. He's showing that to us right now. So now we wait and see whether our justice system has what it takes to actually hold him to account. But that justice system has every bit of a justification at this point to know that not only is Trump deserving of a proper prison sentence for committing his crimes in the first place, again, 34 felony counts, he's deserving of it beyond that because of the hostility he's showing the court in the aftermath of this verdict. Simply put, Donald Trump is dangerous, his movement is dangerous, and anything short of a real punishment is only going to embolden him even further. Coming up next is my interview with Norm Eisen, but first,

a quick reminder that my new book titled Shameless is available now for pre-order. It features interviews and insights from Jen Saki, from Pete Buttigieg, Al Franken. The foreword is written by Jamie Raskin. I'm really proud of the way that it turned out. I'd love for you to buy it. So please follow the link in the show notes of this episode

or check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com slash book or just search for Shameless on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or your local independent bookseller. Okay, here's my interview with Norm Eisen. Now we've got CNN Legal Analyst, co-counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during Donald Trump's first impeachment. We've got the ethics are under President Obama, the chairman of the board of state democracy defenders. Norm, you have a hell of a resume here. Brian, when I look back at all that stuff that I've done, I can't believe it.

So I want to jump in here. We are obviously recording this in the immediate aftermath of Trump being convicted of all 34 felony counts. in New York. Let's talk about the prospect of a prison sentence. So given the crimes that we're looking at for Trump, how likely is it that Judge Mershahn would hand down a sentence of incarceration? I think it's a 50-50 shot. I was in court every day for this trial, Brian. And the judge is so fair. Sometimes I felt he was too fair. He was bending over backward to give Donald Trump the benefit of every doubt. Yeah.

Benefit that he did not deserve with his outrageous behavior in and outside of court. However, on the plus side of getting a criminal sentence, you have the fact that this jury convicted on all 34 counts, that the evidence that came in was of the most serious and grave felonies. It's not just that he falsified those 34 documents that were the basis for the charges. But in order to get these felonies, you have to aid, commit, or conceal another crime. And the DA only gave the jury one crime, 2016 election interference, a conspiracy to unlawfully influence the election. And so the jury found Donald Trump. Trump guilty, 34 times over, of harming our democracy.

That is why I think the judge will say, I can't let the guy get off with probation. On the other hand, he's a first-time offender. He's in his 70s. These crimes sometimes result in probation rather than jail time. So, and the judge is very fair. I think he's going to really try to judge Donald Trump. Not as this threat to our democracy, but he's going to keep in mind all of those factors. It could go either way.

I think a criminal sentence is a distinct possibility. Now, my worry here is that Judge Mershon kind of tipped his hand when he said that he didn't want to incarcerate Donald Trump after the contempt charge, where he violated his gag order 10 times because, you know, he said he was the former president. He said he may very well be the next president. So I worry that we got a look into his mindset here and that we, I feel like he'd be loath to incarcerate him now just like he was then. Well, but the other thing he said was, unless I have to, now that the jury has spoken, he may feel he has to. Donald Trump is a 34-time convicted felon and he's convicted of democracy crimes.

And if the judge lets him get away with it, Brian, what message will that send to Trump? He did the same thing again on a larger scale in 2020, deceiving voters to grasp power election interference. Will he do it again in 2024? What about if he gets power back? Will he do it in 2026 and 28? So the judge may feel that to hold Donald Trump accountable and for the sake of deterrence of Donald Trump and the copycats, the autocracy copycats, he may have no choice but to give him a term of incarceration.

We saw how difficult it was for the first prosecutor all those years back to hand down the first indictment and then how quickly the subsequent indictments were to follow. So do you think that convictions are going to follow the same pattern where the fact that it took so long for us to get to this point of conviction that it will make it easier to give give something of a permission structure for subsequent juries when those trials move forward for them to actually move forward with a conviction. I do. The news of this case and the verdict was so loud that future jurors noticed it.

The question is, when are we going to get those other cases? You know, if you put the D.C., the 2020 election interference case next to the Manhattan 2016 election interference case, Donald Trump tried that bogus presidential immunity argument here. The judge gave it the back of the hand. The New York court appellate courts refused to consider it. But Trump's enablers on the Supreme Court, they should have rejected it like all the other courts did. and fast. Instead, they're taking months. They've taken five months to consider whether a president can order political assassinations with steel team six. Give me a break. There, Alito and Thomas are

acting more like Donald Trump's defense counsel. They're doing a better job that his actual defense counsel, Todd Blanche did in the New York case. It's outrageous. So when will those cases come is the question. But yes, I do think it moves the Overton window. What's acceptable? What's possible? Now we know, hey, a jury can hold a president, former president accountable. And we didn't lose as people thought about threats to the jury, the discomfort of the jury. We did not lose a single juror once the case started with opening statements. So that also sends a very important message that juries can hear and resolve these cases. Was that part surprising to you?

I mean, there was juror number two who kind of worried me because we found out that that person got their news only from truth social and Twitter, which is not a good recipe for someone who's looking for accurate sources of information. I don't generally wallow into the, or find myself in the depths of Donald Trump's own, basically, I mean, I think now we realize

that it's just a laundromat for him to wash money, so that he can take money out against his Trump media stock or borrow against it. But in any case, don't really find myself there if I'm looking for accurate information. But did that part surprise you that even that juror voted to convict Donald Trump on all 34 counts? It did not surprise me. And my view is that juries really work hard and they want to do the right thing. Sleeper juries are an extremely rare phenomenon. And in the case of juror number two,

it's true that he follows Trump on Twitter, just the posts that are reposted from Truth Social. But he also follows Michael Cohen. he follows Mueller, she wrote, my friend Allison. Yeah. And, you know, works in investment banking and wants to follow anything that might affect the markets. Look, I kind of, my soul, like, did a lurch when I heard the words, truth, social, but juror number two was fine. Juror number two was not the juror that those of us who were in court every day were worried about.

There was another juror. The court's order prevents me from identifying who it was. The court asked us not to identify jurors who I was very anxious about because this juror would not look at the prosecution witnesses like was looking everywhere else in the courtroom, even looked at me a couple times. And I did not think, look at me in a very friendly way. But gradually, what I observed over the course of the trial was that that juror became more and more engaged. And I was convinced by the end, I told the others about 60 reporters in the courtroom every day. I told everybody, I know how to read jurors for a living. Don't worry about that particular juror.

We were all worried. We all saw it. But it turned out obviously unanimous. Well, and of course, you know, you were in the courtroom for the entirety of this trial. Republicans are now trying to claim just by virtue of the verdict, and I'm sure it would have been a completely different story if the verdict was different. But now they're trying to claim that this whole thing was a sham process, that it was rigged, you know, the whole the whole schick there. But as a legal observer, why did Donald Trump lose this case? Because Donald Trump conspired to unlawfully influence the 2016.

election by paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, hiding it from voters, and then he covered it up by creating this repayment scheme. And the law doesn't allow you to get away with it. Trump is the delay artist. That is his great skill. In a sense, he's delayed accountability since he was first accused of racial discrimination in his housing, housing ventures in the 1970s. When he finally faced justice in this case, and I think the same will be true in all three of the other criminal cases, the jury saw through it and they held him accountable now. The judge did a good job, the jury did their duty. The witnesses were very brave, particularly your fellow Cohen, Michael Cohen. The system did its job. So that's part of it. And then the third thing is,

so he was guilty. The system worked. And then the third thing is, And in some ways, maybe it's, it probably wouldn't have mattered even if they had done a perfect job. His lawyers listened to him too much. And they did a bunch of stupid things. Like they, and that hurt them. That hurt them. To what extent do you think that his edicts to his attorneys to, for example, go harder at Stormy

Daniels or even just to call Robert Costello a very high. hostile Robert Costello to the stand undermined his own case, because these weren't things that Todd Blanche, for example, wanted to do. This reeked of, you know, edicts from Trump himself. Yeah. Clearly, we had reporting here at CNN that Trump ordered that, you know, he put this terrible witness on in his case, who, you know, was so harmful showed. The witness basically was accused by the prosecutor on cross-examination of acting as Trump's agent to try to intimidate and influence Michael Cohen. And, you know, it explained why Michael Cohen couldn't tell the truth about the stormy situation.

He was scared, right? All that stuff he did. So, like, they helped the prosecution and the cross-examination of Stormy to try to prove the relationship never happened. Nobody in that courtroom believed that Donald Trump did not have an affair with Stormy Daniels. So these were, and it actually rehabilitated Stormy. She did better on this cross-examination. So those mistakes hurt, but because the evidence was so powerful and Trump's delay tactics ran out, I think even if the defense had done a perfect job, he would have still lost.

But at least he would have had a better shot. It would have taken longer, I'll tell you that. That's the one part I don't understand is that all this time he kind of couched his entire defense in something so bogus. I mean, this idea that he never had an affair with Stormy Daniels. Why not draw the sting? Why not just say that you've done it and it was a mistake? But then try to, you know, wrap up your defense otherwise. But if you're, I mean, if you believe that Donald Trump is telling the truth, that would suggest that every single word Stormy Daniel,

said was just perjuring herself from beginning to end and opening herself up to felony perjury charges. Yeah. Look, there are some questions about some aspects of Stormy Daniels account. I mean, many people, they played tapes in court of her own lawyer questioning whether she, whether certain aspects of her account. But the cross-examination, because they were trying to disprove the whole theory. The whole theory, they lost the whole theory. Right. And, you know, it didn't, the pieces, there, there should have been about 30 questions in an effective cross-examination of Stormy Daniels. In the end, I don't think it would have mattered. I think Trump would have been convicted anyhow, but it would have made it harder for the jury. It would have

taken longer. And Trump was once again, the victim of his own impulses. He is not. a picture of mental health, Brian. And I believe he becomes so overtaken with these impulses that he can't control himself. I've been watching him for a very long time. And he was watching me. He would a couple times in court, he gave me the deaf glare. One time he accompanied it with the pointing finger of doom. And I was sitting in my seat right on the aisle.

Yeah. And I tried to catch him. his eye after the conviction, after the verdict was read, he was hunched over, he was looking down, he was dejected. He was avoiding eye contact when he left because that verdict crushed him. It actually was quite poignant when he passed his son, Eric, on the aisle. He tried to grab his hand, shake hands. He missed his hand. He kind of grasped his arm. It was an awkward outreach. It was like he was reaching for help after being struck with this, with these 34 devastating blows. Walk us through what else was happening in the courtroom at that moment.

What did the jury look like when this was happening? What did the judge look like? What did the rest of the people in the courtroom seem like? I mean, we just went through what Trump's reaction was. Well, first, the judge told us about 415. I'm going to send the jury home for the day at 430. had pre-written, I file a CNN opinion trial diary every day, and I had pre-written a whole trial diary based on the four questions that the jury had asked and what they meant

and the answers and my looking at the jury while those answers were read back. Then the judge comes back a few minutes later and says, I've received a note from the jury. Okay, the courtroom pauses. We think, oh, maybe they have another four questions. He says, there is a And even these like these reporters, I was there with these 60 reporters that he's battled, pardoned, you know, court journalists, they let out all everybody gasped audibly. It was so loud that the judge said, if you do that again, when the verdict is read, I'm going to clear the courtroom. I'm paraphrasing. But it was like loud. So there was shock. And then there was a silence. when the jury came back in, and I knew, actually wrote my, I rewrote in 30 minutes, my CNN trial diary. And I wrote in there, today Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony charges. I knew I was right as soon as the jury start, walked in the room because they never looked at Trump, except that one juror we were worried about occasionally seemed to glance his way.

They never really looked at Trump, but they had their heads held up. When they came in, their heads were down. They didn't want to make eye contact, but they also were feeling the weight of what they were about to do. It is a very weighty decision. And I know that look and a jury when they come, unfortunately, as mostly a defense lawyer, when they file in, heads down, not looking, that means conviction. And sure enough, we got all 34. Trump was cheerful while before we knew there was a verdict laughing with his lawyers.

He was grim. He got red in the face. He would glance at the jury, glance away, cross his arms. And then as he left the courtroom dejected. And that Trumpian animal energy, the air went out of the balloon when he left. He was, I felt he was ashamed. He did not want to meet my or anybody else's eye. Yeah.

Norm, Republicans are now in the aftermath of this conviction rallying around him, I'm sure you've seen, almost like this is a litmus test issue for the Republican Party. I mean, you saw the previous litmus test issue is how many Republicans could rally behind him, oftentimes perplexingly wearing the same exact clothes as he would wear. But given what we're seeing now, where the law and order party, the self-proclaimed law and order party is falling over itself to defend a convicted felon. Can the Republican brand be saved? It's such a good question. I don't know if it's possible. The reason that I'm pausing is because you forced me to skip ahead to the end of the story, which is can the American brand be saved?

You have Donald Trump, who has completely hijacked one of our major political parties. He is in a, what appears to be, a 50-50 deadlock with President Biden. I publish the American Autocracy Threat Tracker. I track with the scholar Ruth Ben-Giott every one of his promises to impose a dictatorship in America, and they are serious. And he has an organization now behind him. He was fighting the party and the party regulars and Team Normal when he came in. So I kind of, I think that the, if the collapse is total enough, the Republicans and grownups take over,

and people who believe in the idea of America take over the Republican Party again, it can be saved. But I fear that it may go the way of the wigs. You know, there was a rotation through political parties. And the Republican Party was born out of the collapse of prior structures and Abraham Lincoln building a new party. I genuinely do not know the answer. I tend to think that we are going to see the act. advent of a third center and right of center party that will caucus with the Democrats,

because I don't think there's any place left in the Republican Party for people who believe in democracy. And that kind of fusion voting like we have in New York, that may be necessary as part of redeeming our democracy. By the way, I should not, as we work towards the end, I should not end on a pessimistic note because I believe that this conviction and the sentence that is to come will be very important, even if it's a probationary sentence, will be very, very important as an alarm bell. And the polling data suggests that this could make the difference in the 2024 election. It's going to be decided by 40, 60, 80, 100,000 people in three, four, five states. And this could swing poll after poll after poll says a criminal conviction for a democracy crime, which this is, could swing those voters. So in that case, I do think you're going to see a wholesale abandonment of the Republican Party by people who believe in democracy in 2025 to start something new.

And to your point, I think it was 16 percent of respondents in their most recent poll. I think it was the Marquette poll said exactly that, that they wouldn't be willing to vote for some people. who was a convicted felon. So look, these elections are won on the margins. We don't need 80% of people saying that they wouldn't vote for a convicted felon. In certain instances, just a few percentage points, even if some of those revert to the mean or go, you know, go home to Donald Trump in the end, even if it's just a few percentage points who opt not to, that may very well be enough, especially given the fact that our elections are won by 12,000 votes in Georgia, 20,000 votes in Michigan, 40,000 votes in Pennsylvania. So, I mean, you know, this is a game of

inches and these small percentages would, you know, bear themselves out in exactly that way. Norm, you wrote a book about trying Donald Trump, which has kind of become especially relevant right now, given the fact that we are at the culmination of this process. What's it been like to not only get, you know, begin the process of writing that book, but then to see it kind of come full circle in the conviction that we just saw a couple days back? Well, this is how you and I are friends because when I decided to write that book, I called my longtime editor. She's worked on all my books with me, Domenica Alliotto. I said, oh, you've got to work with me on this very important book.

And she says, I can. I'm working with Brian on his book. But she introduced this. So it was worth it. I think this was my sixth book. the point of this book was part of my effort to unlock those voters that you pointed to in the Marquette poll in the big New York Times swing state poll at the end of 2023. They did extensive testing on this same question, and this is what inspired me to write the book.

Biden went from five down on average to nine up. in the six swing states if Donald Trump was convicted and sentenced in a criminal case. And I thought I have to explain that the New York case, that's what motivated me, the New York case is not a hush money case, as everybody calls it. It's not about whether or not he had an affair with Stormy. It's not even about those false documents. The thing that makes those 34 false documents a felony, they were covering up an attack on democracy in 2016, and he did it again in 2020.

So I wrote a book on that theme, but it was a guide for everybody in the trial. Most of those reporters who were in court with me used that book. I did predict the conviction. I do say in that book that I think a conviction will have a powerful effect, and I think there's a substantial chance. This is where we started. of a criminal sentence. Chapter 8 of the book, if people are inclined

to get a copy, it's called Trying Trump, available at your favorite bookseller, including Amazon. Chapter 8 of the book explains why Donald Trump should be, and maybe will be, sentenced to jail. It doesn't mean he'll serve jail in 2024, but I reviewed 10,000 false-fying business records, cases to expose the myths, Brian. People do, they say, oh, nobody goes to jail for that crime.

Fault, in 10% of the most serious cases, that's hundreds and hundreds of cases. People have gone to jail. First time offenders don't go to jail. Fault, if the crime is serious enough, they do go to jail. And this is the third most important point. This is the most serious FBR false buying business records case in the history of the state of New York. So hopefully Judge Mershahn will see it that way and he just might. And that's why I wrote that book. Funny story, George Conway brought his copy. It was my courtroom buddy. And the court officer said, you can't have that book in here. Apparently they were afraid Trump would see it and go into a rage. So he bought a cover. He bought a cover to bring his book to court. Yeah. He just put a cover of

what was what was trump's book the art of the deal he just put a put a flap cover of uh art of the deal on top of that although i think if he was looking to make trump not fall into a rage uh you being in the courtroom were probably a little bit more powerful than him seeing your book so uh yes and he did get man he got angry when he saw george too yeah well you know what uh wouldn't have had it any other way again that uh that book is called trying trump a guide to his first election interference trial very prophetic as uh as we're seeing right now norm thank you so much for taking the time. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Brian, I love it. Thanks for having me on and look forward to visiting with you again soon.

Thanks again to Norm. 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, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to bryantylercoen.com to learn more.