Pod Save America - Did the Supreme Court Just Save Trump?

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Donald Trump and President Biden hold dueling events at the Texas border as the issue of immigration becomes a top concern for voters. Mitch McConnell says he’s stepping down from Senate leadership after years of enabling Trump. House Republicans' sham impeachment investigation blows up in their faces. RFK Jr. gets a step closer to being on the ballot in Arizona and Georgia. And later, Strict Scrutiny’s Leah Litman stops by to talk about the Supreme Court’s latest gift to Donald Trump in the presidential immunity case. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Mitch McConnell says he's stepping down as minority leader. House Republicans' impeachment blows up in their face. RFK Jr. may be on the ballot in Arizona and Georgia. And later, strict scrutiny's Leah Littman stops by to talk about the Supreme Court's latest gift to Donald Trump. But first, we had ourselves a showdown in Texas on Thursday, Dan. One border, two presidents presidents a few hundred miles

apart from each other uh trump was an eagle pass ranting and raving about a migrant invasion which seems like exactly the kind of event he had in mind when he ordered republicans in congress to kill a bipartisan border deal that would have made it tougher for him to demagogue the issue here's a clip because everybody i speak to says how horrible does nobody explain to me how allowing millions of people from places unknown from countries unknown who don't speak languages we have languages coming into our country we have nobody that even speaks those languages they're they're truly foreign languages nobody speaks them what what do you think he's talking about what the language is you always have to you always have to do a little deep dive into the dark recesses of his mind.

This feels like something. Did he hear about a language that he, someone said something about a language that he hadn't heard about before, that he hadn't heard of before. So now people are coming in. They don't even speak languages. They don't even speak languages. I mean, he's heard of what, five languages, maybe total. And Pig Latin, Pig Latin's one of them. Like, I don't, I don't even speak languages. I mean, he's heard of what, five languages, maybe total? And Pig Latin's one of them? I don't know. I'm sure Elijah knows the answer as to whatever weird thing is going around in mega media that may bring it up on Trimily Online

or something. I don't know. Okay, that's great. Meanwhile, President Biden was in Brownsville to meet with Border Patrol and accurately point out that the border isn't more secure right now because Donald Trump wants to scare people into voting for him so that he can spend another four years not doing anything to fix our immigration system. Here's Joe Biden. We need to act. It's time for the speakers and some of my Republican friends in Congress who are blocking this bill to show a little spine, pass a bipartisan, bipartisan, as another member, bipartisan, conservative leaders supported this border security bill. Let's remember who we work for, for God's sake. We work for the American people.

Let me end with this. I understand my predecessors in Eagle Pass today. So here's what I would say to Mr. Trump. Instead of playing politics with the issue, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, issue, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me or I'll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do it together. You know and I know it's the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country has ever seen. I wonder how that's going to work. They're going to join each other. Maybe they'll give a co-state of the union together. What'd you think of the dueling visit, Stan? I think it's great that President

Biden went to the border. Trump was going there first. Biden made his trip afterwards. I'm operating the assumption they did that on purpose. He says he didn't. He said, I didn't know my friend was going. Well, he may not have known, but I imagine someone inside the White House did know. And I think that's the right choice. I think it's a good thing that the president intentionally went to the border because it shows that he is becoming more aggressive as this election goes on. Going to the border on Donald Trump's strongest issue

on the same day as Donald Trump is not a low-risk endeavor. It's a sign of aggressiveness. I think it's good. It means also it's going to get more attention. CNN carried it live. MSNBC carried it live. We're talking about it here,

which is a sign of a gigantic news story in and of itself. And so I think that was the right thing to do. I also took note of the fact that the president brought up comprehensive immigration reform at the beginning of this. And I think one of the things I've noticed about the conversation around this issue is we have gone entirely to border security and border security only. And it's leaving out the fact that comprehensive immigration reform fixing the whole system remains incredibly popular. And I think there's a benefit to Biden

to broaden the conversation back that yes, we have to secure a border. Yes, we have to deal with the specific crisis happening right now, but we also have to fix the bigger problem. And Donald Trump sure as hell not gonna fix the bigger problem. Yeah, pathway to citizenship, very popular.

Citizenship for dreamers citizenship very popular uh citizenship for dreamers very popular very tough bipartisan border deal also popular uh when you test all the polls that have tested it so far 66 in the navigator poll out today and popular with democrats as well this is not just a like independent republican thing yeah no i think it was I'm glad that he went, met with border patrol, whose union supported the bipartisan deal, something that he noted. And then, you know, he's just, the message is, I'm willing to compromise with Republicans because I care about solving the problem. Donald Trump doesn't care about solving the problem, cares about himself. It's, you know, the border is maybe the most salient example of that, but it works for any number of issues over there that we'll be talking about over the course of this campaign. New polling from Gallup says immigration is now people's number one concern.

They asked him a question, open ended question about issues, immigration number one. who's immigration number one. And voters also say that they trust Trump a lot more than Biden, even though Trump brags about killing the border deal, takes credit for it, tells people that he killed it. And yet still, people trust him a lot more than Biden. This does seem to me more of a policy issue than a messaging issue. But what do you think? You mean in terms of the deficit on the between the two? Yeah, it's obviously a policy problem, right? It's I don't know whether this Gallup poll is correct. I'm a little skeptical that immigration has now gone ahead of inflation, jobs, the economy, but that's beyond the point. In every poll, the salience of immigration has gone up and the intensity of concern about it has gone up. Even a majority of Democrats in some

polls now say what's happening at the border is a crisis. And so this is not Biden's not saying the right thing. It's not that he's not talking about it enough. It's that there's a very real thing happening. People are seeing images of it. And because largely the cynical ploys of Republican border state governors, the problem is arriving in people's states, right?

Cities are dealing with the influx of migrants that's putting strain on social services. If you walk around places, you will see people with signs saying they're migrants who were brought there. It's in people's face in a way that is very, very real and is why President Biden is... You don't generally just go pick the issue your opponent has a 35-point advantage on to go talk about, but the salience has gone up so much that you have to do it and you have to address it, and that's why he was doing it today. Yeah. And to the point that it's a policy issue, Biden says he might act without Congress to curb the flow of migrants across the border, but that his options are limited without legislation. So there's been reporting that he's considering an executive action that may allow him to close down the border between ports of entry when the border is as crowded as it has been over the last several months. He's also getting some pushback from progressives on this

who think that the rumored executive action would be too tough on legitimate asylum seekers. There's also a huge question as to whether it would survive a court challenge since when Trump used a similar authority in the Trump administration. Basically, the courts ruled that, yes, the president has a lot of leeway and power when it comes to the border, but they can't run afoul of asylum law. So thoughts on what the right move is here? I just don't feel like I know. I'm deeply steeped enough in the policy to be able to parse the arguments made on both sides of this. People we really respect have said that it is going to have certainly an unfair disproportionate impact on some legal asylum seekers who we should be trying to help in this country. That's what America is about. But then you also have these Democratic governors, progressives who are begging the president to do something. Biden's just in an impossible situation. There are no good answers, right? There is not something that is going to ensure access to as many legitimate asylum seekers as possible and deal with the crisis at the border. And this crisis is being exploited politically by his opponents, and they will not give him the help to address it. And so he's, I think, from a purely political standpoint, right, just to set me aside for the actual policy implications, in general, you were at your strongest as president when you were taking executive action and then hitting Congress for refusing to give you the tools to further address the challenge.

And so I understand politically why that would be the right thing to do. I just am uncomfortable declaring it's the right thing to do without fully understanding the details of the plan and what it would mean for the people we do care about and are trying to help, if that makes sense. It does make sense. And I was going to take the politics out of it for a second. And let's imagine that Joe Biden is not running again, is a lame duck president, didn't care about the politics, but does deeply care about a border crisis that, as you said, even Democratic governors and mayors are asking for help with, because it's just more migrants crossing than in any time in recent memory, right? So what would you do? The policy problem is only solved, as the Biden administration is saying,

with legislation. And the legislation you would want is not just legislation that addresses the border, but as we were saying, legislation that fixes the immigration system, that probably increases legal immigration, that gives a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants in this country already, that provides more resources at the border and more resources in the interior. So that's what you would do. Since he can't do that because of the politics, the only other policy solution is like everything else that he has to do that Congress has blocked, which is executive action, right? And the challenge with executive actions is you just don't know if they're going to hold up in court. And because a lot of them aren't meant to be taken by the president alone, they're meant to be legislation. But we have a broken fucking Congress

because Republicans refuse to do anything that might help Joe Biden politically. So he's probably looking for policy solutions like this executive action that would help a little bit. But as the Biden White House is saying, like they're not going to it's not going to solve the problem and it might be struck down in court. But I do think you're right, like showing that at least he tried every available option, working with Congress, being willing to compromise on a bipartisan border deal that is not the one he would write himself if he if he had his had his wishes and then taking executive action, even if it's knocked down by the courts. He's at least at that point saying, look, I tried everything I could to solve this problem, and no Republicans wanted to. This is why it's so much harder to run for reelection than it is to just be an insurgent challenger, because Biden has to actually make decisions that have impacts on people's lives.

And I remember when we were in the White House, just sitting in one of these meetings, not on the border on another topic, where going through a... Congress wouldn't do what we wanted them to do. So going through a series of suboptimal policies to try to address it, that would be, wouldn't solve the problem wholly, would fix some of it, have some effects in the wrong direction in other ways, and could be struck down by the court. And I remember someone in that meeting saying, welcome to the White House, the department of shitty options, because that's exactly what it is, right? Well, I mean, it's kind of what we went through with the dreamers right we wanted to make sure that dreamers in this country were protected that they couldn't be deported the legislation could not pass congress because republicans refused to

work on that with us and so you know everyone's like oh why did obama wait so long to protect the dreamers and do an executive action well when he finally did because the lawyers told him i don't know how much that's going to hold up in court. And sure enough, he took the executive action. Dreamers were protected temporarily. But then as soon as Donald Trump took office, they weren't because an executive action is not as strong as legislation.

So when everyone says, oh, why doesn't the president do something, do something, do something? Congress. Yeah. Like the Congress is, you need Congress to pass laws. You can't just take executive actions, student loans, immigration, whatever you may want. Like, yes, the president should try. And this president has tried on a whole host of issues. But like, there's only so

much you can do. The laws of the country are that you need legislation passed by Congress, particularly if you need funding, particularly if you need funding, especially if you need funding. It says so in the fucking Constitution. All right. Speaking of Congress, Republicans are on quite a run lately. Killed the border deal, blocked a bill to protect IVF. Did that yesterday? Remember, they were all like, oh, yeah, no, we're for IVF. What are you talking about? Those those kooks in Alabama?

No, not us. We're Republicans. We value life. We're for IVF. Tammy Duckworth's like, OK, well, here's a bill that would protect IVF on a federal level. No, absolutely not. No, I think it's a state thing. We're good. We're good. Oh, it's just they think it's a state's thing. It's a bill that would protect IVF on a federal level. No, absolutely not. No, I think it's a state thing. We're good.

We're good. Oh, they think it's a state thing. It's a state thing. Oh, just like abortion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That seems familiar. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just like everything else.

They are still refusing to help Ukraine fend off Putin's invasion, still can't figure out how to keep the government open, so they just pushed the funding deadline another few weeks. I guess they got that done. Kudos. Yeah, they legislated procrastination this week. That's what they did. They just pushed the funding deadline another few weeks. I guess they got that done. They procrastinated. Yeah, they legislated procrastination this week. That's what they did.

But the reason they can't get to all of this is because, you know, they are just using all their time to focus on what's really keeping people up at night. Hunter Biden. Republicans asked him the dumbest possible questions for over six hours on Wednesday and still can't find a shred of evidence that Joe Biden did anything wrong, let alone illegal, which is making impeaching the guy a bit tricky, especially after their star informant turned out to be a Russian double agent who's been charged with lying to the FBI about a fake bribery allegation involving Joe Biden, just totally made up, given to him by Russian intelligence, foreign intelligence sources. He passes it on. Republicans, you know, they believe it. Hook, line, and they take it. They take the bait. They launch an impeachment inquiry against the president of the United States based on entirely on Russian disinformation. They were victims of a Russian operation, a Russian intelligence operation, because they're that fucking dumb. So not much left after that in the impeachment inquiry.

And even Republican media is having a tough time defending the impeachment inquiry and Hunter's testimony. Let's listen. Congressman, do you think maybe the American public is getting a little tired of this because they can't understand it. It's complicated. They don't know all the names and places and faces.

And you haven't proved the basic point yet that President Biden was directly involved. Is the public getting tired of it? Well, large scale international money fraud schemes are by their very nature complicated. I just don't know how much longer this investigation can go on without bearing some fruit. Now, I think that there are Republicans in the House that would like to see, hey, Hunter might be in the courtroom at the same time that Donald Trump is in the courtroom if that happens over the summer. And that would be hugely embarrassing for the White House. Have you had any conversations with our new House Speaker Mike Johnson or James Comer or Jim Jordan about moving the ball down the field here? Because every time I have a member of Congress on, and I understand, I hear you, but they say the exact same thing you just said.

So I think when the transcript comes out, it's going to read well for them because they did a great job prepping for a read. But the reality is, yeah, yeah. But when you get down to it and you start parsing the words, you start realizing, oh, yeah, yeah, that's that's very interesting. OK, so that was that was Stuart Varney on Fox Business. And then it was a Newsmax host interviewing a Republican member of Congress. And then that last interview was Republican House member Andy Biggs.

He's one of the people that I'm not a fan of Kevin McCarthy. House member Andy Biggs. He's one of the people that I'm not a fan of Kevin McCarthy. So pretty extreme. And he was basically saying, yeah, you know, I think when everyone reads the Hunter Biden transcript of the interview, it's going to read pretty well for him because it reads well because they prepped him well. But but if you really parse the words, you might be able to find something. It seems pretty bad for them, huh? Yeah, it's just it's so embarrassing because they launched this. They launched this entire thing only to throw red meat to the Freedom Caucus to make them believe their own Fox News pickled brain conspiracy theories without any plan, any evidence. And the evidence they had was completely and totally made up by someone hanging out with Russian spies. Just absolutely

just an amazing self-own from these people on an issue the American people could not have given two shits about to begin with. Just wild. You know how complicated this story is? Like, we have not talked about this a ton, partly because you have to put up your fucking white board and get out your red string to understand all the allegations, just about all of which are completely just false, wrong. They continue to say all these like crazy things that aren't true. They keep saying that he had Hunter Biden at a bunch of shell companies. Not true. They said that a Russian woman had paid millions of dollars to Hunter Biden.

Not true. Disproven by one of their own witnesses. to Hunter Biden, not true, disproven by one of their own witnesses. They did the whole story about how Joe Biden's brother paying back Joe Biden alone was somehow nefarious when Joe Biden wasn't vice president or president, just alone. And this whole claim that Hunter and James Biden had $20 million, they keep repeating that. Cable news hosts keep debunking them during their interviews that they're saying this. There's nothing's nothing. There's nothing. All they get like you have Hunter Biden who suffered through addiction is now facing charges for anything that he did wrong. And yet they can't get beyond that. Right. They can't get beyond Hunter's issues and to connect them to Joe

Biden. In fact, just about everything that has come out about what Joe Biden hasn't done shows that he was acting exactly as he should have acted. As a father who very much cared about his son, who was going through a lot and did some bad stuff, but didn't do anything wrong himself forget about illegal nothing even improper from joe biden these people are it's ridiculous yeah this is what happens when a group of particularly dumb people who consume really bad information get power they're all swimming in the in the crazy swamp and they're just like they're hearing all the shit from right-wing media and they believe it and they believe it totally believe it totally believe it i just love that the the um the entire

basis for the impeachment turned out to be like a russian intel operation it reads like a bad episode of the americans it's not like the guy's name is smirnoff there are no bad episodes of the americans i just want to stipulate that i know that's what i'm saying is if it was just like a i should have said like a bad ripoff of yes yes yes yes that's what i read so apparently their next step is a public hearing where they ask Hunter all the same questions that they asked him in the private hearing. Hunter originally wanted a public hearing. They said no. They wanted to do it behind closed doors. Now the behind closed door hearing was a disaster for them. And so now they want to go back into the out to the public and Democrats reaction.

I guess Jamie Raskin was asked about this. He's like, I mean, I don't think we should have a public hearing, but like we need a public hearing. But go for it. If they want to go for it and make asses of themselves to the public by doing what they did behind closed doors, like go for it. Doesn't matter. Great. Fully support it. Just more just more wasting time, wasting everyone's time because their boss, Donald Trump, needed one more talking point to go after Joe Biden in the general election.

That's why they're doing all this. All right, let's turn to the Senate where they've got 99 problems. But a Mitch ain't one, Dan. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have to say, you saw the script. I saw the script, but this morning. I was going to surprise you, but.

I read the script. I know that's unusual. Not all the ghosts, too. But the playbook subhead was Mitch move, get out the way, which I thought was pretty good, too. That was pretty good. Good for playbook. But it's true. On Wednesday, McConnell announced that he'll be stepping down from his leadership position in November, ending his run as the longest serving Senate leader in history. The news led to a lot of tears here at Crooked. We appreciate all the condolences.

McConnell's Republican colleagues in the House also took it pretty hard. Here's a statement from the Freedom Caucus. Our thoughts are with our Democratic colleagues in the Senate on the retirement of their co-majority leader, Mitch McConnell, in parentheses, D-Ukraine. Unreal.

One thing you can't say about Mitch, he's well aware of how much he's despised. Here's a clip from his announcement. Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them. First of all, Dan, how are you doing? Well, John, I was doing pretty good this morning. Then I woke up early as I do and I opened up my computer. I started reading some news

and I read a lot of lionization of one Mitch McConnell. Where did you find that? I didn't even find that anywhere. I mean, the tributes from Capitol Hill reporters who've covered him. What is this? Is this the end of the old Republican Party, one of the the one last Republican standing in the way of the MAGA takeover of the party and that he waved the white flag and handed it to Donald Trump.

But here's the thing. I know you're going to disagree with this. I prepared myself for that fact. I know you're going to come in with some more common sense than I'm going to bring here, but so be it. to bring here, but so be it. There is no person walking the planet today more responsible for America being on the cusp of stumbling ass backwards into authoritarianism than Mitch McConnell. I completely agree. Go ahead. I was going to arrive at the same point from a different direction, but go ahead. I want to think about this. You go first.

No one has done more to give billionaires corporations access to our political system than Mitch McConnell. The first big suit challenging campaign finance on this country was McConnell versus FEC. After his judges gutted campaign finance, when we tried to close the Citizens United loophole, Mitch McConnell blocked it. After his judges gutted the Voting Rights Act, he was the person who stopped bipartisan efforts to reinstate the Voting Rights Act for a decade now. We've gone a decade without reinstatement of the Voting Rights Act. The person who helped elect Donald Trump by stealing a Supreme Court seat from Barack

Obama, the person who then rigged the court that is now trying to rig the election for Donald Trump, and most importantly, more than anything else, after a violent mob of people were sent by Donald Trump to almost murder Mitch McConnell, he came out and he blamed Donald Trump. He believed Donald Trump was responsible. He held the ability in his hand to convict Donald Trump in the Senate, ensure that Donald Trump could never run for office in this country again. And what did he do? He walked away. He blinked at the last minute because he thought it would hurt fundraising for the NRSC. That is Mitch McConnell. He's not an institutionalist.

He's not a bulwark against right-wing populism or Donald Trump. He is someone who brought Donald Trump to us because he cares more about right-wing judges and low-tax-raiser corporations than the country itself. And he could just go away and never come back. And I have any effort to, I'm going to scour the internet to fight back against efforts to try to lionize this man because he has been an evil figure in American history. Was that unhinged?

I think he's misunderstood. You're like, I was just texting my friends with a bulwark yesterday. What I was going to say is I have some begrudging respect for how Mitch McConnell throughout most of his career understood power and used power to further his own political interests and his own political agenda, which is an agenda that I find abhorrent. But like the way that the guy was able to stack the courts, right? And get he, all he cared, you talked about a lot of horrible things he did, but like he cared about judges from the get-go, cared about Supreme Court, cared about the rest of the judiciary. And all he wanted

to do was just stack those courts with judges, stack them, and he really cared about keeping the Senate majority more than anything else. Those are like the two things that Mitch McConnell cared about more than anything else those are like the two things that mitch mcconnell cared about more than anything else i want republicans keeping the senate so that we can appoint as many of those judges as possible right and he and he figured all these like sort of underhanded bend in the rules break in the institutions type way to get that done but you're right he didn't he hates donald trump right i don't think i don't think he is like true MAGA in his heart. But he made he whether it was a calculation, whether it was cowardice, whatever the fuck it was, we would not be sitting here today dealing with the possibility, the good possibility of another Trump presidency. another Trump presidency were it not for Mitch McConnell's failure to take action in the days after January 6th. I was reading some of the Mitch McConnell stuff today, although I didn't see any

of the lionizing that triggered you so hard. But I was reading the Washington Post story about what McConnell said to Jonathan Martin for his book. And I forgot about this, but he apparently said to Jay Mart, this was right after January 6th, I feel exhilarated by the fact that this fellow, meaning Donald Trump, finally, totally discredited himself. He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Couldn't have happened at a better time.

What do you hear about the 25th amendment? This is how Mitch McConnell was talking privately like the day of January 6th. I think it was that night he said that to Jay Mark. He thought that Donald Trump would just just like screwed his own political career, that we'd never hear from Donald Trump again, that he wouldn't have to rally at least 10 or 12 Republican senators to join Democrats and the other Republicans in impeaching Donald Trump and convicting Donald Trump. And if they had convicted Donald Trump, he would not have been allowed to run for president again. We wouldn't be here right now. No, Mitch McConnell thought that like he just looked at the polls or he just in his gut. Oh, no, people aren't going to like this guy again. And he had the power to do something

about it. He chose not to. And that's where we are today. And that's honestly all the other stuff you said, bad stuff. It's like normal bad policy stuff. And then it gets to like, yeah, you're sort of like breaking norms and bending institutions. Yeah, it gets to that kind of stuff, too. But like what he on his tombstone, it should just say he didn't he let Donald Trump free after January 6th. That's it. That's all you need to know. Whatever the intent was, whatever the motivation was, that was his decision, his decision alone.

And he made it. And now we are all living with the consequences of it. And it is somewhat fitting that one of his last acts of power will be to get on his hands and knees and endorse Donald Trump. Endorse Donald Trump. Endorse Donald Trump, the guy who just makes racist jokes about his wife and sent a violent mob to his workplace. That's the guy he's endorsing. And why?

Because what does Mitch McConnell care about most? Got to keep the Senate. Thinks that if he doesn't endorse Donald Trump, Republicans might not keep the Senate. Ands that if he doesn't endorse Donald Trump, they might not, Republicans might not keep the Senate. And that would be bad because he loves that Senate because that's,

the Senate is a right-wing judges machine. That's what he wants. So the race to replace him is on. So far, Republicans have their choice of Johns.

John Thune from South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, John Barrasso of Wyoming are the frontrunners. But even though they've all endorsed Trump, Trump may want someone who has their head even further up his ass. What do you think, Dan? What's going to happen here?

This is different than the House because the rules are different. In the House, you need a majority of the entire House, which is why Kevin McCarthy had to, first Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson, had to get almost the entire Republican caucus to support him. In the Senate, it's not a real constitutional position. Senate majority leaders just decided by it's a secret vote in the caucus, and you only need a majority of the people voting. And so the ability to hold him, 12 mega senators can't hold the leader hostage. But if these three people named John all run against each other, they're all just – they're all kind of somewhere between McConnell and Trump. They're not really – They've all endorsed him, but they're not –

They've all endorsed him. Cornyn kind of tries to pretend to be a little more MAGA-friendly, but in general, they're none of them. Trump doesn't love any of them. So if all of them ran, could another person – you would only need like 11 votes at that point if four people ran to win so that is possible but the secret ballot thing is really critical here because it you're not you're not you can vote and donald trump doesn't have to truth about you afterwards right you can vote for yeah a random john and get away with it in a way you can't in the house until until uh jd vance steals all those secret ballots and like sends to Donald Trump and tells on everyone.

Yeah, I guess that. I hope they lock him away somewhere. Yes. Yes, I'm sure. I do think that the secret ballot might save those three more than anything else because some of these Republican senators really don't want a MAGA minority leader or majority leader, but they're afraid of Donald Trump like everyone else in the Republican Party is. They usually just want someone who will get them out of there by Thursday evening and ask them to come back until midday Tuesday. So that's less about, these majority leader things are less about large policy positions and more about quality of life

for an elderly, wealthy Senate. There's some reporting that Trump might want Steve Daines, who's Senator for Montana and head of the NRSC. So he's in charge of trying to get Republicans to win the Senate. I guess if he succeeds, yeah, maybe that works. If not, probably not. All right. Some news about another politician who's helping Trump win the election. The Super PAC supporting RFK Jr. says they've gathered enough signatures to help get him on the ballot in Arizona and Georgia. He's so far only on the ballot in Utah, but the Super PAC has pledged to spend $15 million to get him on the ballot in every other state. So it's my understanding this doesn't make it a done deal in Arizona and Georgia, right? No, it's not a done deal. These signatures have to be validated by the Secretary of State. The way people get these signatures is they often stand outside of supermarkets and just

ask people to sign. And they have to be valid signatures, real people who live in the state, accurate addresses. Now, the Super PAC is expressing real confidence that they have done this, which usually means they have gotten not the exact number of signatures, but well beyond that. There's a number you generally have to get that assumes that a certain percentage of your signatures will get tossed because people fill it out incorrectly, don't take it seriously, are visiting from somewhere else and just fill it out or whatever else. So I think it's not a complete done deal, but it seems we should prepare for the fact that he's going to be on the ballot in these two states. deal, but it seemed we should prepare for the fact that he's going to be on the ballot in these two states. And they announced he's, they have 60 to 70% of the signatures they need to get on the ballot in Michigan too. So they're getting close there. So what's your level of concern over this

news? I see like, I'm more concerned obviously because now he's on the ballot in swing states, but try this out. If he's not on the ballot in every state, I do think that some of the very low info voters who show up and see his name on the ballot in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, wherever else he is, like they could just vote for him. But I think if you can message to other voters who are RFK curious that, oh, you know what?

This guy is on the ballot in 10 states. And so it's impossible for him to win because he's not even on the ballot everywhere. So he's not a real candidate because he can't win the election. Then you might be able to persuade more a lot of those people that they're just throwing their votes away if they vote for him. But maybe that's just too optimistic. I would never say too optimistic. but maybe that's just too optimistic. I would never say too optimistic, but yes, you can do all those things.

It would be, it would be much better off if he was not in the ballot on the balance swing States given that, that, and he is more concerning to me than Jill Stein or Cornell West. Well, Cornell West is also, is not on the ballot anywhere.

Yes. I'm just picking other potential candidates. Jill Stein is already on the ballot in some pretty alarming places, because as the Green Party nominee. But RFK Jr. gets up to double digits in some of these polls, 7%, 8%. Everyone else is 2%, 3%. And third-party numbers tend to go down as you get closer to Election Day and people sort of sort into voting for someone who might actually be president. But it's starting at seven to 10 is

more problematic than starting at two to three. So yeah, I find it, I find it, it's not great, is what I would say. Where are you on best strategy to deal with this? Is it like, is there a concern that if you talk about him too much, you're elevating him is, or should you just go at him hard now and try to disqualify him in the minds of voters? Like, what do you think? I think you have to. He is a Rorschach test for a lot of voters right now. Right.

Some people just see him as a Kennedy. Right. That's all they know. And they think of his father and his uncle and the and the and the family legacy. Other people see him as a truth teller, right? Or an environmentalist or an anti-war candidate because he's talked a lot about opposing what's opposing funding for Ukraine. And he's talked about Gaza and those other things. We have to define him as a MAGA adjacent kook because that's what he is. And I think if we just, you can't leave this one to chance because

I've mentioned this on the podcast before. Howley brings it up to me all the time. There is a lot of RFK Jr. stuff happening on TikTok and Instagram. He is very big because of his environmental history, a lot of what he said about eating and farming, and his very discredited views on vaccines. He's very big on health lifestyle influencer media. And he says out there seeming normal to these people who do not consume any political news at all. And we can just not lay that to chance. So I think we should be aggressive.

The DNC recently brought on board Liz Smith, who you and I both worked with on the Obama campaign, who was sort of the media mastermind behind Pete Buttigieg's campaign to work on the third party problem. And she is a very strategic and aggressive rapid response person. And so I imagine that this is in the offing as we get closer and as he is getting on the ballot. But I think ignoring this problem is only going to make it worse in this media environment. Yeah, no, I agree with that. Okay, one quick thing before we go to break. Next week is State of the Union. And last week, I had the great privilege, Dan,

of sitting down with our good pals and former White House colleagues, Alyssa Mastromonaco and Cody Keenan. What a fun group. I know, we had a great time. Talk about how these speeches get put together, why they're important or not important, the notes that we think Biden should hit, and some fun stories like these. Did you ever get a wild or

really funny policy pitch? The wildest situation I had been in was the great salmon controversy of 2011. Yes, this is one of my favorites. Please tell it. Interior and Commerce were very angry that we were going after the duplicative salmon supervision that was happening in the federal government. And I was like, what am I supposed to do? He's about to give the State of the Union. And Bill Daley's like, no, it's true. You don't have to change it. And Gary Lux, like, I think you should change it. And I was like, you know what? It's a funny joke. Let's just deal with it. The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in freshwater, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater.

I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked. It's not a funny joke. That's the thing. It's not a funny joke. It was better than the spilled milk joke, but it's still not a funny joke. All right, anyway, you need to be a Friends of the Pod subscriber to hear the episode, so great chance to sign up. You can also start listening to episodes of Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer if you become a friend.

All kinds of great content. I don't know what you're waiting for. Go sign up. Crooked.com slash friends. Go be a Friends of the Pod subscriber. All right. When we come back, Leah Lippman will join us to talk about the Supreme Court's decision to take Trump's immunity case. Thanks for watching. The Supreme Court has ruined yet another week for freedom-loving democracy enjoyers everywhere.

The court announced on Wednesday that they will take up Trump's claim that presidents should be able to commit whatever crimes they'd like while in office. Because apparently only the nation's top jurists can figure that one out. Real legal quandary. But the real concern is their timeline. They won't hear arguments until April 22nd, which could mean Trump's election subversion trial doesn't happen until late summer or fall, and it may not happen before the election at all. Here to help us understand what the hell is going on is our brilliant pal Leah Littman from Strict Scrutiny. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Okay. What is your best guess on what happened here and why the court did what they did? It's extremely messed up. I mean, why they did what they did and why it took them so long.

I'm sure there were probably three votes for just Donald Trump's position of grant the stay, three votes for just Donald Trump's position of grant the stay, delay, you know, to decide it until next term, effectively prohibiting any trial from happening before the election. And then the chief justice, right, who is ostensibly leading this fine institution thinks, okay, well, I need to compromise with those crazy pants and the people who recognize that actually there should be a trial before the election. And so he comes up with this great strategy of taking two weeks to come up with a briefing schedule, granting the case and scheduling argument for two months out from now, and potentially creating a situation in which they release a decision sometime in June and thereby block a trial happening before the election.

Like, let's pretend for a second that this decision came from a court where all the justices were acting in good faith. Can you think of a legitimate reason for the decisions they've made on this case and the schedule they've set out? Because I did read a couple, you know, legal analysts who were like, well, they're moving faster than they would normally move on a case like this. They're just not moving at Jack Smith's preferred pace. Well, they're moving faster in this case than they do in most cases. But the point is, this isn't most cases. And they have acted more quickly, particularly at Trump's request, when they have been asked to do so. In the Colorado case, right, they granted that request within days. And then they schedule that case for argument a month out. In the Bush versus Gore case 20 years

ago, the court was granting petitions within days, issuing decisions within weeks. That wasn't exactly a model for great decision-making. And I think the best defense of what the court is doing is it is trying to act in this case with a sort of judicious behavior and thinking about all of these issues that courts try to do. But the point is, that's not really necessary given the frivolous underlying legal issues and the fact that they could have taken this case up months ago in January when Jack Smith asked them to take the case before the D.C.

Circuit ever weighed in. Yeah. Why do you think they why do you think they didn't take the case then and then if they were only going to take it this many months later? I mean, they didn't take it because that's the normal process for judicial review, right? You wait until you have a court of appeals decision and then after the court of appeals acts, then the Supreme Court weighs in. But the fact is they depart from that model of decision making sometimes when it suits them. Sometimes when it suits them, they have a case on their docket this term that they just heard last week in which Ohio has asked the Supreme Court to block an EPA, you know, climate regulation, a clean air regulation before the D.C.

Circuit has even weighed in. And the court was like, yeah, we'll schedule argument on that, baby. So, you know, they sometimes depart from usual procedures. And the question is, like, why didn't they do so in this case? Again, given the timing that was staring them in the face. If the liberal justices are worried that some of their colleagues might be intentionally dragging their feet on this, will we ever know? Like, can Jack Smith ask them to, like, blink twice during oral arguments? You know, we have asked them to propose safe words so we know what's going on. They haven't yet taken up that

suggestion. But I don't know that we will ever know, really, because they are in a position where they are effectively coerced into silence. This is partially why you see Sonia Sotomayor utterly beclowning herself on the speaking circuit with Amy Coney Barrett, talking about how, you know, friendly all of the justices are and what a warm and happy place it is, right? When you need to secure the votes of Chief Justice Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, right, in order to keep the place kind of not from descending into the nihilism of Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, like you are not really in a position to poke the bear that much. And so they don't really have the luxury of speaking out in the way that we might want them to. That makes a lot of sense. Can you help people understand why an

oral argument in late April could mean a trial that might not happen before the election? You just said that they could hand down the decision in late June, which I guess is the end of their term. But couldn't they also, like if oral arguments were the 22nd, couldn't they issue a ruling in one week, two weeks, three weeks from then? Oh, absolutely. Right. They could issue a decision, you know, as soon as it is ready. There's some possibility that any justices, you know, who might want some delay or who might dissent from that ruling might try to draw it out and say, oh, I'm still like wordsmithing this absolute like shitpost of a writing. But right, assuming that that doesn't happen, there's already considerable delay built into the system. Because what the Supreme Court did in its order granting this case is it said, the Court of Appeals, that is the DC Circuit, shouldn't actually release its mandate until

the delivery of the Supreme Court's judgment in that case. That sounds super technical, but what it means is the Court of Appeals can't release its mandate and thereby give the case back to the district court to actually start up trial proceedings until the Supreme Court releases the judgment in the case. But under the Supreme Court's rules, sometimes they don't actually deliver the judgment until 30 days after they release the opinion. So there's a potential 30-day gap between the Supreme Court decision and when the case would return to the district court. Again, it's possible they would, you know, deliver their signed opinion sooner, but I wouldn't count on it, and then you add to those 30 days the 80-some days that Judge Chutkin said were necessary to actually do the pretrial proceedings, then you're at 110 days. So if they waited until

the end of June, then 110 days from July 1, that's already into November. And so if they're not releasing this decision in May, it's already really making it difficult for a trial to begin, much less commence or much less finish before the election. And let's say that Chief Justice Roberts is trying to engage in some kind of compromise here and dealing with the three crazies and also trying to move this along and get a trial before the election. Can he hurry the dissenting justices along if they're trying to drag it out? Can he shorten that period between when the opinion is issued and when the judgment is issued? He can absolutely shorten the time between when they release the opinion and when they deliver the copy to the Court of Appeals and the district court. He can absolutely do that. But then as to hurrying up the dissenting justices, I mean, of course, he could try to do some things. He could threaten to release the opinion, you know, before their dissents are ready.

That's actually something some courts have done, right, including the Supreme Court sometimes. So that's a possibility, a tactic he could use. But he doesn't necessarily have a ton of other tools at his disposal, you know, beyond saying, like, guys be reasonable. And they're not necessarily going to listen to that. How much power does Judge Chicken have to move this along once the court rules? She has a good amount of power. It depends a little bit on what the Supreme Court says in any opinion. It's possible that the Supreme Court issues an opinion that says, you know, in some subset of cases involving criminal activity while in office, you need to make the following determination before you conclude, you know, this person isn't

entitled to immunity. And so they could say, well, actually, before you conclude, you know, this person isn't entitled to immunity. And so they could say, well, actually, before you begin the proceedings, you need to have additional briefing, make these additional determinations. So, you know, she could try to shorten the 80 someday window that she suggested she would give the parties. But right, there's still going to be something she has to do. And you just can't hurry that along. Do you get any hints from the order about how they might rule or even how they're thinking about the case and how they wrote it? There's absolutely no way that they actually adopt his version of immunity. I think it's ultimately like no, even if they embrace his version of immunity, there's a bunch of stuff in the January 6th

indictment that doesn't pertain to official acts, right, or stuff he did using the office of the presidency. So it's not going to make the indictment or the case go away entirely. But it really bothers me that people are setting this up as, oh, the big issue is whether the Supreme Court says, right, presidents can just commit crimes while in office and be immune. No, the big issue is their timing of the decision and whether they actually interfere, right, with the legal process that is attempting to actually work its way through. Dan, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the political implications of the two possibilities we're facing here. One, a trial that happens in the fall or late summer fall and ends right before election day. And two, a trial that doesn't happen before election day. What about a third option where a

trial starts before election day, but doesn't finish? Oh, I mean, yeah, that's a good one. It seems like that's the most likely of options given the calendar that Leah just laid out, right? Because if they're going to proceed and they just don't get it done, but either way. So I am going, maybe call me a naive optimist here, but I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that I just cannot imagine a world where one of our two presidential candidates being on trial for fomenting a violent insurrection is a net positive. Like it's just not, right? It's just not. We put aside all the logistical things about how he's got to be in court and can't be campaigning in all the various battleground states and can't do his daily diet of Fox News interviews.

It just is a reminder of the one thing that voters like least about Trump, which is all of the big lie bullshit. And so that is not good for him. Dan, I'm glad you said that because I've had a take on this that I didn't want to say out loud to jinx it. But I was like, if the trial ends up happening before the election but it's just very delayed and we spend october with donald trump on trial for trying to subvert the election it's possible we may look back on this and be like thanks scotus thanks

for delaying a little bit because i'd rather that be in voters minds right before the election it's even better if it's in voters minds in in October than it is in the summer. You basically – given our experience with the Access Hollywood tape in 2016, that conviction has to come like on Halloween. Like any day before that, it's going to get flushed down the memory hole before people vote. That's true. Now let's do no trial. No trial. It's just that they've decided to push it and it's just Donald Trump in the hush money trial. Or I guess while we were recording, Jack Smith just asked for a July 8th trial date for the classified doc case.

I'm sure Eileen Cannon I'm a naive optimist, but I'm not insane. So I'm not going to agree with that. If there is no trial, then it is going to be incumbent upon Democrats, including President Biden, who has not talked about this for all the reasons we've talked about before, to drive home the argument that we are about to elect a person who could be, months after being elected president, sentenced to prison. And the only reason he wouldn't is because his first act as president would be to pardon himself for the crimes he committed. And that is a way of driving the narrative

we've talked about all the time on here, which is that Donald Trump is not running for president to help you or help your family. He's not thinking about you. He's thinking only about himself. He's running to simply avoid accountability for the crimes he committed

because he believes that rich and powerful people like him do not have to play by the same rules as the rest of us. And we have to drive that every single day. Not running for president, running from the law. Sometimes you can do both. Running to stay out of jail. Yeah, no, I do think that will rile everyone up pretty good.

And also at that point, the Supreme Court will come under some withering criticism, as it has in recent years for basically, I mean, Leah, these people read like the New York Times and they follow all the news. Like, do you think that that, like the outcry,

like will weigh on Roberts at least during this, in these next couple of months? Or do you think they're just insulated from all that and they don't give a shit? I think it really depends on the justice.

I mean, Sam Alito hate reads the Times and it's not going to move him, you know, an inch. But I think there is some possibility, right, that the justices like the chief, for example, are concerned about public criticism of the court effectively giving Donald Trump an ability to slow walk the trial and run up the clock on the election interference case. But I think he's also banking on the fact that he is going to get, and the court is going to get a ton of credit when they ultimately reject the immunity claims

and pair it with a decision that allows Trump on the ballot. And they are going to, again, bank on the media covering this as a neutral, moderate court that occasionally rules for Trump and against him. And they think that will get them enough goodwill to buy back any criticism they get from slow walking the trial. So but basically, if the district court gets the case in May, mid-May, it's still possible. But like if we go into June, not possible.

Is that where we are? Is that where we are? I think, yes, the end of May is an important inflection point where any later than that makes it extremely difficult to get a trial off the ground before the election. OK, well, fingers crossed. Again, liberal justices blink if blink if everything's OK. All right, Leah, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone have a fantastic weekend and we will talk to you next week. Bye, everyone.

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