Pod Save America - TRUMP FOUND GUILTY!

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

A jury of Donald Trump's peers finds him guilty on all 34 counts in the Manhattan election interference trial. CNN Legal Analyst Norm Eisen shares what it was like in the courtroom when the verdict came down, and Jon and Dan talk about the political fallout and which voters the conviction might sway. Then, Strict Scrutiny co-host Melissa Murray joins the show to talk about next steps for sentencing and possible appeal. 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... We are looking at count one, guilty. Count two, guilty. Count 19, guilty. Count 20, guilty. Count 33 and 34, guilty. That is Donald J. Trump, defendant in New York versus Donald Trump, found guilty on all 34 felony counts.

That is the verdict here in this case. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Donald Trump, the twice impeached former president and current Republican nominee, is now running as a convicted felon. Late Thursday afternoon, after about only eight hours of deliberation a 12-person jury of his peers found him guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree as part of an effort to unlawfully influence the 2016 election he is scheduled to be sentenced on july 11, just four days before he is formally nominated at the Republican National Convention.

Dan, how about that? What a day, my friend. What a day. Good things can happen. Oh, I'm sorry. Were we supposed to be, this is a very serious and somber day for America, or are we just popping champagne? We're popping champagne.

Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure you're on the front. We're not going to pretend. Everyone is pretending that we can't be happy. This is a dark day for America. We've been living in fucking dark days for years now. Let's have a good one. And this is not to say that we're like,

oh, this means we're going to win the election. No, no, no. That's not what it means. Yeah, we're going to talk about that later, but today, this day, this means we're going to win the election. No, no, no. That's not what it means. Yeah, we're going to talk about that later. But today, this day, this weekend, this is a happy time. We can go back to being anxious and scared afterwards. But right now, happy day. Okay, we are going to hear from our old pal,

Norm Eisen, CNN legal commentator, our former White House colleague. We're going to hear from Norm in a bit. He was in the courtroom. We're going to hear from Norman a bit. He was in the courtroom. We're going to hear later from strict scrutiny's Melissa Murray. Brought her back after she's doing double duty Pod Save America this week. And she's going to get into the verdict with us and what happens next. But first, let's hear from the convicted felon himself.

This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It'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. 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 the 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 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 because our country's gone to hell. We don't have the same country anymore. We have a divided mess. We're a nation in decline, serious decline. Millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now from prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists. And they're taking over our country. We have a country that's in big trouble,

but this was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case, never. And we will fight for our constitution. This is long from over. Thank you very much. Why should voters vote for a Canadian felon? Are you going to drop out? Cry harder. Are you going to drop out? Cry harder. Are you going to drop out? Great question. I appreciate that person. I do too. Of course, the Biden administration, you know, the DOJ actually passed on this case.

So everything he said about that was a lie. So to give us his perspective of what it was like inside the courtroom shortly before Donald Trump walked out and just spoke to the cameras just now. Our former White House colleague and pal, Norm Eisen. Can you give us a little color from inside the courtroom today? What was it like when the verdict came in? There was a little confusion at some point because it seemed like Judge Mershon was going to send the jury home at 4.15. Then suddenly we had a verdict? What was going on there? I sent, you know, it was a whiplash, right? Because we all thought, he said, okay, we're sending the jury home 4.30. I'm going to send them home.

And people were already tweeting, oh, this means the jury is deadlocked. I'm like, I was already like going to fight a social media war. No, it doesn't mean anything. It's only one day. Then he says, we have a note. This is a very, this courtroom, 1530 of Manhattan Criminal Court, part 59 is full of the most battled, heartened journalists, right?

I mean, you guys, Dan trained me how to deal with journalists on a wholesale basis. Run far away. Mission accomplished. When we had a really big problem, he would tell me to run at them. Even in that room, when he said, we have a note from the jury, there is a verdict. Even in that room when he said we have a note from the jury, there is a verdict. Those cynical, you know, they gasped. He said, I will not have any outbursts, no loud outbursts when the verdict is read. I immediately wrote, I can read it to you. read it to you. I immediately wrote a jury of 12 Americans today found Donald Trump guilty on 34 charges of election interference and cover up. I've already filed my, I do a daily trial diary for CNN. I already filed it. I knew that if it came back that fast, and that's part of the

gasp. If it comes back that fast in a day and a half, that's a hanging jury, not a hung jury. And, and so there was that feeling, of course, you never know for 100%. So and then, you know, then the, the jury came in, You know, then the jury came in. They filed in about a half an hour later. They did not look at Trump. Their head was down. That's a sign.

I'm a defense lawyer most of my life. I never wanted to be a prosecutor. And when the jury comes in and not one looks at your client, you're doomed. And then the first count, guilty. What's the verdict on count one? Guilty. And those beautiful 33 guilties that followed that. And he is guilty. He's guilty of subverting. It was so strange. I wrote this in my CNN column, not to say alleged election interference, but for the first time I could write election interference, criminal conspiracy and cover up. He's now an adjudicated criminal and he's a democracy criminal. That's what matters so much. And I hope people will recognize that when he says

he's going to be a dictator on day one, it's just more criminality ahead. Norm, what was Trump's reaction as these the 34 guilty people read? Grim. It's not a good feeling, Dan. I happen just by happenstance. I happen just by happenstance. There is a place where I sometimes sit that is the last seat on the left as you enter the courtroom right before the door. And that's where he looks. And a couple of times in this trial, I think I talked about it with you all once he's met my eye,

he went glared game grimaced at me. So I made sure like I was sitting forward in my seat, you know, I was attempting to meet him. I was looking him in the eye. He was not looking anybody in the eye. He was looking down. He was, I think, angry. He recognizes that this will be very damaging and that he may go to jail. I think there's a serious prospect that he's going to get a jail sentence. And if he's not reelected, that he serves that jail sentence. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. Like, say a little more about the possible jail sentence, because I know you've written in your book that you thought the jail was likely. Of course, you know, we know sort of the history of these kinds of cases and it's a first offense. What makes you think that jail is really on the table here? looked at 10,000 of these FBR, false fine business records cases in New York since 2015.

I wanted to know, do defendants ever get jail time for this crime? And in the most serious cases, And in the most serious cases, and this is the most serious FBR case in the history of the state of New York, in the most serious cases, defendants do get jail time. I don't think the judge is going to send him up for the, you know, this is a one and a third to four years. New York has indeterminate sentences. So you get a range. The judge also has the power to sentence, so you get a range. The judge also has the power to sentence him to less than a year. I think he probably will get a sentence of less than a year. But that's not good news in Manhattan because those sentences are served in jail, not state prison.

And the jail for the city of Manhattan, of course, is Rikers. So that's not great news for the former president. Wow. Trump to Rikers question mark, pod title. If he loses, if he loses the election, if he wins the election, he's going to put up a bunch of constitutional defenses at the end of his appeals. I don't think the judge released him on his own recognizance. I don't think he's going to have to serve jail time before he's done with his appeals. The appeals in this case can take a year, even 18 months. But it makes the election a referendum of the American people on Donald Trump's criminality and accountability. And we've seen 2018, 2020, 2022, when that's the question that is put to them, they don't like Donald Trump's

way of doing business. So, you know, it's not a great day for Donald Trump. Well, Norm, there was certainly one former occupant of the White House who should have taken your ethics training. I tried to give it to him. I tried to give it to him, Favs. I volunteered. The wonderful Max Steyer of the Partnership for Public Service brings the specialists in for both presidential campaigns. And I helped both presidential campaigns with these. I offered to help with this stuff. And I actually had a brief tenure after he won

advising Chris Christie's team before Christie was booted out of the transition. So he had his chance. That was the original sin when he chose to take office. And we talked about it at the time. The Constitution says there's only one ethics rule in the Constitution. Don't take money or other goodies from foreign governments. foreign governments, monuments. When he did that, it was all downhill from there and landed him in these 34 felony convictions that he received just a few minutes ago. Norm Eisen, thanks as always for joining the pod. And, you know, hope you go take some time off. The pod is, I'm going to, I'm going to take my wife on vacation. The pod is not just news for us. Y'all sound the alarm and you talk about what we have to do, what we have to do. We've been having this conversation since that emoluments talk about Trump's criminality the first week of the pod. That's right. That's right. I thank you and all of the Pod Save America family.

Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Pabst. Thanks, Norm. Take care. All right, Dan, now that we've got all the legal stuff out of the way, now we get to talk politics. So, you know, the reaction from Trump and Republicans so far, I would say, has not been necessarily surprising. In addition to what we heard from Trump earlier, you know, the Speaker of the House is already out with the statement saying this is shameful and political. The Trump people have already been fundraising off this. The minute the verdict was announced, they sent out fundraising appeals about this. You get a bunch of, you know, Twitter conservatives and right wing MAGA people saying, this is only going to elect Donald Trump now. That's the new thing. It's good. This is actually going to help Donald Trump and hurt Joe Biden. And then I noticed that Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor of Maryland, who is now running for Senate in Maryland, he simply posted a tweet saying, you know, everyone should respect the verdict.

And Chris LaCivita, Trump's senior aide, said, this is the end of your campaign. So they seem to be taking this quite well, is what I'd say. And on the other side, Joe Biden tweeted, only one way to keep Trump out of the Oval Office, at the ballot box. The Biden campaign released a statement saying, in New York today, we saw that no one is above the law. Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain. But today's verdict doesn't

change that there's only one way to stop Donald Trump ballot box, just like what Biden said. And then it said convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president. And then the White House put out a statement that just said, we respect the rule of law and have no additional comment. Okay, so that's all the reaction. What's your take on the verdict and the potential political impact now that we've had a couple hours, I guess, to really sort of soak in all the takes? I mean, it is just always in these moments worth stepping back and realizing just what an unprecedented historical event this is. This is a former president.

If Donald Trump was not running for office ever again, this would be a gigantic deal, right? First former president convicted of 34 counts of a crime related to his first election win, right? You have a jury of his peers declaring that he tried to cheat to win that election, committed crimes to do so. Huge deal. Then you add in the fact that he is the presumptive Republican deal. Then you add in the fact that he is the presumptive Republican nominee. Then you add in the fact that polls show that he is a jump all the way from the White House. Then you add in the fact that we are three and a half weeks away from the first debate, potentially, in this campaign. And that debate is scheduled before his sentencing,

so he will not be able to use house arrest as an excuse to get out of that debate. Might have to do the second debate with an ankle bracelet on. He might have to do it by Zoom. It's a giant event, right? And we're going to get to the politics. The politics are interesting and important and fascinating. But it's just with all things, Trump is just always worth just trying to take a step back for a second and try to place it, the absurdity of it and the danger of it in the broader scope of history because it's a huge deal it is a huge deal and yeah you're right i mean like even setting aside the politics it does raise the stakes of this election in another way which is like if we if this country

goes ahead and elects a convicted felon to be president, then yeah, we are in some tough times. And we've been in some tough times in politics for the last seven, eight years now since Donald Trump walked onto the scene. And now this, I do think this raises the stakes in the election even higher because now we have a very vengeful and angry Donald Trump running to become president who has now been convicted by a jury of his peers. I would say this is this is not the biggest thing, but Donald Trump being elected president after being convicted of 34 felony counts would be the end of scared straight as a strategy with kids in school. I mean, that's it. Yeah. I like you can talk about the politics in the polls and we're going

to get into all that. But it's just like the man who wants to be in charge of, like it says in the faithfully executing the laws of this country, has broken, has been convicted by a jury of his peers of breaking the laws that he now wants to faithfully execute as President of the United States again. That's where we are right now. And again, he's now been convicted of cheating in the 2016 election. He was unlawfully influencing the 2016 election by falsifying business records in furtherance of this hush money scheme. He has also been charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election. And we are waiting for the Supreme Court that he created, the Supreme Court majority that he created to decide whether he is immune from prosecution for that, for trying to overturn the 2020 election that he lost. So he's been convicted of trying to unlawfully influence the 2016 election he won. He's been

charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election that he lost and now he is running to be president again in the 2024 election and is currently leading in the swing states that's where we are dan that's where we are all of those polls were conducted before the conviction just that is true that is true well so then what do you think let's let's go right there what do you what do you think about the uh the political impact of What do you think about the political impact of this? We've been talking about it since before we got a verdict. Now that the verdict is out, it's starting to sink in. What do you think? I think the prevailing narrative that the conviction won't really matter is, I think, pretty disconnected from both what the polls actually say and the reality of an election that is likely to be this close. It is certainly true that

an election that is likely to be this close. It is certainly true that upwards of three quarters to 80% of voters are not going to change their mind. Even in the Marist poll, there's a swath of voters who say Trump's conviction makes them more likely to vote for him. I'm going to guess those voters weren't previously prior to the conviction in the undecided pool. I'm going to guess that they were pretty hardcore Trump voters. And there are a lot of voters who don't think they care. We've already seen that voters, when asked about Trump's various crimes, have rated this one to be less severe, although most of them think these charges raise serious questions about Trump and are serious, just not as serious as stealing classified documents and participating in a scheme to violently overturn an election. So we're really greeting on a criminal curve here. But there are a swath of voters who

are deeply uncomfortable, and they keep telling pollsters in poll after poll after poll, deeply uncomfortable with sending a convicted felon to the White House. And that doesn't mean they're all going to end up in Joe Biden's camp. It doesn't mean they're all going to decide today. The next time Nate Cohn personally calls them as part of his poll, they're going to tell him that they're for Joe Biden. But it means that there is an opening with a set of voters. And CNN last month in a poll focused in on the 25% of Trump voters who said that they would reconsider their support if he were convicted of a crime. That quarter of Trump's vote is younger than the average Trump voter. It's more diverse than the

average Trump voter, more likely to believe the election, Biden legitimately won the election. So these are voters who, many of them, I would guess, are the same voters we're seeing in the swing states who are currently saying they're voting for Donald Trump and Ruben Gallego and Donald Trump and Bob Casey. And so these are very gettable voters for Joe Biden. And a conviction is an argument to make for those voters. And so it's going to take time and energy and effort. It's not going to happen overnight. But this can really be a big deal and end up with a certain set of voters that is more than big enough to decide the election.

The certain set of voters that don't like criminals in the white house yeah which is just that's a smaller swath it's a certain flavor it's a certain flavor voter no i mean you mentioned the um there was a new uh npr pbs marist poll marist polls actually it's a very high quality pollster and uh they found that you, 75% of registered voters, something more than 75% of registered voters said that the verdict would not impact their vote choice at all. But I got to, and there's some other polls like that, and they're being cited all over the place. I got to say, if you called me, if I was taking the poll and you said, would a verdict impact your vote? I would say no, because I've already decided that I'm never going to vote for Donald Trump for anything ever, as long as I live.

So of course, there's going to be a huge percentage of people who say that it's not going to impact their vote because most people have decided already, because most people know Donald Trump and know Joe Biden and have experienced both of them now for the last eight years. And, you know, they've made up their mind. So you're right. It's always going to be about the voters who either haven't made up their minds yet or have made up their minds, but are like open to changing their minds, right?

Which we know is like, I don't know, anywhere up to 25% of the electorate, probably if you believe a lot of these polls. But again, we don't know because it's early. Now you said we obviously have a lot of work to do to make that argument. How do you think democrats joe biden his campaign should handle this going forward because that's that's the big question because we know it's going

to you know dominate news coverage for i hope the weekend at least we're recording this on thursday but everyone like you know the news moves on fast these days. No one remembers anything. Like how, how do Democrats and Biden keep this in the news and really brand Donald Trump as a convicted felon, which he is. You have to call him a convicted felon over and over and over again. It has to be, it's basically should be at the end of every sentence that involves Donald Trump. Donald Trump, a convicted felon, wants to cut your Social Security and ban abortion nationwide. You have to say it.

And there are two reasons to say it. I am generally skeptical of the idea that we should do – Democrats should do their messaging as a way to just trigger Trump into reacting. I find that to be overly troll-y, I would think, and not particularly effective to swing voters. But in this case, yeah, this will cause him to react and that is fine. But voters have to know that he's a convicted felon. And polls are showing that more and more people are paying attention to this trial as it has gone on. I'm sure people will know about the verdict and hear about the verdict. But we're still going to have to keep talking to him about it because the voters we need the most, that swath of voters who are willing to change their minds, are the ones we see over and over again in polls who engage with politics the least,

who consume the news the least, who talk about politics the least. And so this is going to be a process with that. The second thing I think is critically important is to remind people that this was, this is not the Biden administration or the deep state or anything like that. This was a jury of Donald Trump's peers that was selected with input from Donald Trump's attorneys. They are the ones who rendered this verdict. And I think that is critically important because trust in institutions is way down across the place, but people still believe in juries. And we have to remind people that this was a decision from a jury. Yes. No, I totally agree. Now, there was a report last week that maybe Biden was going to speak

about this when it happened. That has obviously not happened. I guess he's currently at Rehoboth Beach. He probably saw this on television at Rehoboth with his family, like all the rest of us did, just watching it on TV. I wonder what he will say or what he should say in the days to come. It seems like the White House or the campaign intimated that, you know, he would he would speak in an informal setting about it, probably when asked by a reporter. I think the big question then is what happens in the debate. And like, if you're in debate prep with Joe Biden over the next couple of weeks, how do you handle this? Because my instinct is that Joe Biden

has to talk about this. Yes. And he has to talk about it in the right way. Basically just how you said it, right? It's a jury of his peers. Again, DOJ, Biden's own justice department declined to prosecute this charge. They could have prosecuted the federal charge here.

They did not, even though they did prosecute Michael Cohen and got a guilty plea from him. So it had literally nothing to do with the Biden administration. This was a decision by Alvin Bragg. And of course, Trump's defense lawyers, like you said, had input into the jury and everything. So how do you think that Biden should talk about it and how much should Biden talk about it? I think he should talk about it in how much should Biden talk about it? I think he should talk about it in high leverage moments. It should be part of the debate, for sure.

He should bring it up in the debate. He should talk about it in the debate. I think he should explain why it is. He should use the bully pulpit that he has to try to explain what it is Trump was guilty of. I think this is where election interference is really important. The fact that he falsified these business records, not simply just to hide personal misconduct or to hide an affair, he did it to trick voters, right? To lie to the public, right? That he perpetuated a fraud on the public in order to gain power. And that is a way to tell a broader story about how Trump does everything.

Yeah. And I think, like, if someone asked me why this was a big deal who hadn't really been paying attention, I would say, yeah, well, he used his money. He did what he always does, which is he used his money and influence to hide the truth from the American people. And I think one of the prosecutors made this point during the trial, but they said, you know, is it a big deal that Donald Trump had an affair with a porn star 10 years ago? I don't know, but that was for the voters to decide. And what he did is he broke the law so that they wouldn't have that choice. He took that choice away from them and he made it with, you know, he made these choices with David Pecker and Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels lawyers and everything like that. And he and then he hid it from people because he thinks that the rules don't apply to him.

And he only cares about himself. And so just like he tried to overturn the election that he lost, he cheated on the election that he won because he thought that the Access Hollywood tape was going to end the campaign. And then if this came out too, who knows? Maybe he could have lost the election. We don't know that. But again, he took that choice away from the American people. He tried to hide the truth from the American people because he's rich, because he has influence, because he's well connected. And that is how he does how he's governed as president. That's how he would govern again. He doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. He will screw anyone over, even his supporters, even the people who are loyal to him. He does not care because he is only in it for himself. And right now,

he is running for president again so that he can escape the legal consequences that were already rendered by a jury of his peers. The other important language here, and I've seen this polled, we've had many opportunities to look at polling over various Trump crimes over the last couple of years here, but is the point that no one in America, no one is above the law, not even a former president. I think that's how Biden should talk about it. And I think that's the way to explain it. So what do you think the Trump campaign does to try to mitigate the potential damage here? We've already seen, like said they are fundraising they are saying that you know

um we've raised more money in the last you know our sites crashed because so many people are donating they're already doing that they're of course trying to delegitimize the verdict uh in the minds of the american people not just from the trump campaign but from like nearly every elected republican probably um so they're gonna pull pull that. They're going to try to delegitimize the verdict. And then what else do you think they're going to do here? Yeah, I think the primary thing is to maximize it for fundraising and organizing purposes. We saw the preview in this and that much discussed New York Times story about Donald Trump's outlaw image. Don't forget, these are the people who raised millions of dollars off of his mugshot

by putting it on t-shirts. The only tweet Donald Trump has sent since January 6th, 2021 was the mugshot. I think, and the second thing is they were prepared for this, right? You had the statements from Governor Reynolds, Mike Johnson, just Republican politicians all across the spectrum had statements in the can to put out as soon as the verdict came in to show that the party was going to stick with Trump. And it's also why Chris LaCivita probably foolishly went after Larry Hogan for speaking out, which is to use blunt force and fear to show every Republican you stay in line or you pay a price. Now, this is probably good politics for Larry Hogan, to be honest, but for everyone else, you see why you're going to – you're either going to say something supportive or you're going to keep your trap shut. Then it is to turn on the fire hose of propaganda and disinformation to muddy the waters here, right? To make it seem like this is – it's

rigged. It's the Biden Department of Justice. It's a corrupt judge. We'll see this in the sentencing. There'll be other people who've committed, who've done similar things, haven't gotten sentenced, haven't gotten charged. And it is a fire hose of disinformation and propaganda. And that has been known in the past to provide just enough cover for Trump to avoid full political accountability for some of these things. Because there are a bunch of voters who don't really love Donald Trump, aren't really happy with the way things are going. They're angry at Biden for whatever reason, for high prices, and they're looking for permission

to stick with Trump. And he's trying to give them that permission. He doesn't have to do it for a lot of voters. It's just 50.1% of that swath of voters that we were just talking about to keep him in his camp to win this whole thing. Yeah. And I do think like the best retort from Democrats is like thousands of people have gone to jail for this very offense, right? This case, this, this, these felony charges are prosecuted in New York all the time in the first degree, much like it was for Donald Trump. So why does Donald Trump get off and not them? Why should the law not apply? It's like what you were saying about no one's above the law. Why should the law not apply to Donald Trump? Just because he's a rich guy running for president and all the other people who were found guilty of falsifying records, business records in the first degree, like they should go to jail, they should be

punished. But Donald Trump shouldn't. When he was convicted by a jury of his peers who had nothing to do with the Biden administration or the prosecutor or all that bullshit. And by the way, he's got a whole bunch of other felony charges. And the only reason he's not sitting in a courtroom in Florida right now is because the judge that he appointed is slow walking the case. And the only reason that he's not sitting in a courtroom in D.C. right now is because the Supreme Court majority that he created is delaying the case. So let's not pretend this was some political vendetta to just get Donald Trump when Donald Trump has been treated more fairly than most people on trial and also has been using his

connections and his influence to evade the law in a whole bunch of other cases. Right. And let's not pretend like this is an isolated incident on a otherwise unblemished record of civic participation in innocence. Right. I mean, he's already in the last year. I mean, he's been convicted of a found guilty of a mass perpetuating a massive fraud on the state of New York. He has been involved in defamation. He's been declared some guilty of sexual assault by a court. We all watched him try to steal the election.

He tried to have his vice president hung. On national television. He was impeached twice. He was impeached twice. Everyone was like, no one should be fucking sheepish about this. I mean, it's ridiculous. We were all there on January 6th. We all saw the month leading up to it. What are we doing here I mean, it's ridiculous. Like, we were all there on January 6th.

We all saw the month leading up to it. What are we doing here, people? It's ridiculous. Anyway, okay. That made me feel better. When we come back, we will be talking to

Strict Scrutiny's Melissa Murray about the verdict and what comes next. All right. With us to dig in a little more into the verdict and what's next, we have our friend Melissa Murray, co-host of Strict Scrutiny. Melissa, welcome back. Thanks for having me. I feel like I've been here twice in two days.

I think that's exactly right. Like I've gone nowhere. I like just finished hearing you talk to Tommy about this. So first thoughts on the verdict. Well, in the words of the immortal Stormy Daniels, that was fast. Good stuff. Good stuff. So this morning, I'm going to L.A. tomorrow.

And I was like, you know, it's going to suck because this verdict is going to come out on Friday. Because once they started asking, once the jury started asking for information about the meeting between Pecker and Cohen and whatnot, and more information about sort of the conspiracy aspects of this, I was like, oh, they're really digging in. And they're looking for the links that bring Trump into this. So they're already at the main stuff. And I always figured, like, if they were already asking for that kind of stuff and were reviewing that, they weren't going to go beyond this weekend. I mean, they've already lost one Memorial Day weekend, like, having to be on this story.

I mean, they didn't have to deliberate over Memorial Day, obviously, but they want their lives back. And I just figured by Friday, this would be over. I wasn't expecting it to be today. That was actually much more surprising. So the fact that they came in at around 4.30 and that it's unanimous on all of the counts, like, you know, amazing. And big props to the people of New York and to the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, who in April 2023, lots of people, including former folks from the DA's office like Mark Pomerantz, were really questioning his judgment about bringing this case as opposed to something more sweeping. But he seemed to have figured out the sweet spot, and he got a conviction on all of those counts. Do you think this was a winnable case

that the defense lost and Trump lost because he probably made his defense lawyers do all kinds of things that they wouldn't have argued maybe if Trump wasn't their client? A hundred percent. Like this is a white guy with resources and three relatively good lawyers, one very excellent criminal defense lawyer who apparently got sidelined. We don't exactly know

why I speculate it's perhaps because she has a uterus. But Susan Necklace, who is one of the defense lawyers is a very good lawyer. And it wasn't clear that she was always on the same team as her client. And the other lawyers, there are a couple of times where submissions were made to the court and she refused to sign them. And one might speculate she refused to do so because she would like to continue practicing in this jurisdiction with the reputation she now enjoys. But he seemed really attached to Todd Blanch and Emile Bove. I'm not actually sure how you say it. But Todd Blanche is not really a defense lawyer. He's a former prosecutor. He's a very experienced prosecutor,

but he doesn't have a lot of experience doing criminal defense cases. And I do think this was a winnable case, but maybe not by him, right? So the defendant always has the easier time of it, especially a white defendant with lots of resources, because the government has such a huge burden to bear. Like, they have to prove the defendant's guilt on every count beyond a reasonable doubt. That's very, very hard. And all the defense has to do is say, like, they didn't do that. They actually don't have to put on any defense at all. And indeed, they really didn't here. But what they do have to do is offer a counter narrative to the prosecution. And here the prosecution crafted this narrative that didn't depend on Michael Cohen. It depended on those documents, which don't lie, which are irrefutable.

And Michael Cohen and all of the other witnesses were merely corroboration for the documents. And the defense never really put up a counter narrative that could go toe to toe with the narrative those documents created. So sentencing is July 11th. What happens between now and then? Is it is the idea that the judge just on July 11th unveils what he believes the sentence to be or their arguments, emotions in between? So there's going to be stuff in between. And one of the big things that happens is, you know, Donald Trump's going to have to

come back down to downtown Manhattan and go to another part of the courtroom building. And if he thought the courtroom was shitty, he's going to love this part. He's going to be taken to the probation department where he's going to be interviewed and he's going to be asked about his criminal history. He doesn't have one, so that'll go pretty quickly. He'll be asked about his health, all kinds of things. And all of that information will be compiled by a probation officer into what is known as a pre-sentencing report. And that pre-sentencing report will go to Judge Marchand, who will use it as he thinks about what the appropriate sentence is. And so, you know, things that are considered are the defendant's past criminal history, if there is one, whether or not the defendant is likely to be a recidivist and do this again, things of that nature.

And so that can take some time to compile the PSR, you know, a couple of weeks. I think the July 11th sentencing date is probably a little ambitious, like this is likely to be appealed. And there may be questions about whether Judge Marchand is willing to impose a sentence while those appeals are pending. He could decide to just sort of put everything on pause until the appeals are decided. It could be the case that he is more reluctant to sentence in view of the coming election cycle. I mean, if the sentence, and I think it's more likely that it's something like probation as opposed to incarceration, if he's on probation, it's going to be very hard for Donald Trump

to fly around the country doing campaign events, right? It is a cramp in your style necessarily to be a convicted felon and be under a criminal sentence. So hard to say when that's actually going to happen. But there are a lot of interim steps between what we just saw in the courtroom and what will happen in the courtroom again when he's sentenced. I want to ask about the sentence because I know on Wednesday's pod with Tommy, you were like a little more skeptical that he might actually serve jail time. I'm still skeptical. Still skeptical. Can you talk about like why we just have to, you know, normize in

and norm thinks that jail is he's not sure about jail, but he thinks jail is on the table. What makes you think that they just won't, that the judge will be reluctant to do this? So jail's obviously on the table. Lots of things are on the table. Probation, house arrest. I think the reason for me that jail and incarceration seems unlikely, and again, like I'm totally happy to be wrong on this. This is not like having a fight with my husband where like I have to be right. I'm happy to be wrong. But the reason why I think jail is less likely here is because we've already seen Judge Merchan really come up close to the question of whether or not Trump should have some kind of

incarcerative sanction for violating the gag order. And Judge Merchan himself said, like, I'm really loathe to put you in jail. You are a former president. You may be a future president. I'm really loathe to do that. And none of that has changed, right? He's still a former president. He may be the future president. And I think given the nature of the offenses, the fact that he has no recorded criminal history, it's just, I think, a lot easier to sentence him to some kind of alternative sanction, whether it is house arrest or probation, as opposed to throwing him in Rikers. And to be clear, if he went to Rikers, he's not having

the same Rikers experience as, like, say, the Central Park Five, now the exonerated fives. I mean, he's getting a very different experience. You mentioned the appeals process. Can you sort of take us through what that might look like and how long that might take and where it goes and what are the courts that might end up hearing that? So I believe the defense has, I think I just looked this up. I want to say it's like 60 days to file an appeal, maybe longer. But they have some period of time in which they can present an appeal. And the appeal could be to all kinds of things. of the trial on the view that any one of those decisions reflected a clear error that was prejudicial to the defendant over the course of the trial.

You know, to me, the most obvious appealable issue is the bootstrapping of the charges. The idea that these falsification of business records charges were, in most cases, misdemeanor offenses, but when they are done in furtherance of or in charges were, in most cases, misdemeanor offenses. But when they are done in furtherance of or in the concealment of other crimes, they then become felonies. And it's not really clear, A, whether you can have the other crime be a federal crime. And that was one of the universe of crimes that the prosecution had identified, a federal campaign law that was violated. They also identified state-level tax laws as well as state-level election laws. But that could be an appealable offense, like the bootstrapping. I think there are all sorts of

ways in which that might play out. I actually thought it was going to be a bigger issue at the trial, and it turned out not to be, but I think it could be a very big issue on appeal. And is there a possibility that, so it goes to an appeals court, would it go to the state Supreme Court of New York, possibly? Yeah, the New York, which is interestingly called, Judge Merchan is actually on the New York Supreme Court. The Supreme Court in New York is the trial level court. The intermediate appellate court is known as the appellate division.

That would be the next step. And then after that is the court of last resort in New York state, and that is the court of appeals. And there's no way this could go to the Supreme Court, right? Or could it? It could. I mean, like, you know, if he petitioned for sort of post-conviction federal habeas relief, that could then be swapped over to the federal courts, and then you have a district court, an intermediate appellate court, and then on to the Supreme Court. I mean, there are lots of different permutations that this could take. And yes, it could go to the Supreme Court. And of course, the Supreme Court is already fat on a diet of Trump-related cases.

So it will be of no moment to them. But if Trump were to, Norm hinted at this, but if Trump were to win the election, then there would be a whole array of constitutional issues that would be at the same time. Can you just talk briefly about what those questions would be? So if he wins the election, and I feel creepy and gross saying that, so full disclosure, I'm not trying to manifest something. If he does win, then we have the sort of unprecedented circumstance of a president-elect who has been convicted in a state of crimes. Now, there are certain things that won't be able to happen. So he's not going to be able to pardon himself because these are state-level charges.

So he's not going to be able to sort of wipe this conviction away, as he could if he won and he had been subject to a federal conviction. But there are questions about whether or not a sitting president can serve a sanction for state-level criminal convictions. I mean, we've never had that sort of situation. Maybe it's something that the Supreme Court has to get involved in eventually and determine. Maybe it's something that gets deferred until after his term of office. You'll recall when Bill Clinton had the whole issue with Paula Jones in the civil case. One of the things he argued is like, I can't go be a defendant in a civil lawsuit because I'm president of the United States.

Even though this lawsuit is not related to what I've done in the conduct of my job. It's when I was governor. But it's just too much stuff for me to deal with while I'm presidenting. governor, but it's just too much stuff for me to deal with while I'm presidenting. I think there's a fair argument to be made that you can't be on house arrest when you are president of the United States, even if the house is the White House, like that there are certain constraints around the job of being president that are incompatible with serving a criminal sentence. And again, these are questions of first impression for constitutional law, because weirdly, our originalist forefathers never imagined that someone that we might elect

to the highest office in the land would be someone who had a rap sheet. So we are truly in the upside down. We should fly a flag. I was just about to ask before you went, like, which flag do you think is flying outside the Alito home this evening? Is there a flag for this? Well, according to Justice Alito, Mrs. Alito has a flag for almost everything. For veterans, for holidays, for sports teams, the Phillies, all of it. veterans, for holidays, for sports teams, the Phillies, all of it. So I'm sure she has in her arsenal of flags, a flag for when your preferred presidential candidate is credibly convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts. So I don't know what that would be. I'm not a flag aficionado,

but I'm sure she has the right flag for the moment. And since it is her house that she jointly owns with him, I know that he won't be able to stop her from doing it because she has rights, which he, as her husband, honors and respects her choices. Right. Justice Alito would never tell a woman what to do. Never. Never. He's a feminist, Dan. I mean, I think we saw that from the letter. That letter letter was like it was almost as though Jermaine Greer or Susan Sontag

had written that letter so feminist a feminist just like Donald Trump as we learned in this trial yes Melissa Murray

thank you as always for joining and spending time with us on Pod Save America all week long thanks for having me have fun out here

in Los Angeles oh I will I'm gonna see the Sarah McLachlan concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Amazing. Great spot to see a concert. Spotted in 1997 again.

I'm ready. All right, before we go, two quick housekeeping notes. The first is, you know, we agree with Joe Biden that we still have to beat Donald Trump at the ballot box, that we still have to beat Donald Trump at the ballot box, which is why, even though we're very excited today, everyone's got to work very hard over the next five months to make sure that a convicted felon is not elected president of the United States. That's what Vote Save America is for. If you haven't signed up, go to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024. You can sign up. The folks at VSA will give you all kinds of work to do. You can donate money. You can do volunteer shifts all over the country.

You can join Team East or Team West. It's a fun competition. Anyway, go to VSA and check it out. Also, just in time for June, the Crooked Store has launched our Pride or Else collection. It includes designs for everyone, whether you're leading the parade or showing up as an ally. The collection also includes fresh versions of our best-selling

Leave Trans Kids Alone, You Absolute Freaks merch. That's evergreen, unfortunately. Most importantly, a portion of proceeds from every order. Go to Crooked's Pride or Else Fund in support of organizations working to provide gender-affirming care

and life-saving resources to queer and transgender communities across America. Prep for Pride at crooked.com slash store. All right, everyone. Have a fantastic weekend. Have a few extra Martha Ritas.

I was going to say Martha Ritas. If there isn't a Martha Rita glass in the cricket store by the end of next week, I don't know what you guys are doing. Can you believe, Dan, that John Lovett is not here for this verdict for this day. Of all the years we have dealt with Donald Trump. He's just... Oh, man. That is just the...

It's a small thing for today, but it's just a real funny footnote for me. I would say I think often about what happens when he first gets access to the internet when this is all over. Well, this is... We got to talk about this because there's a couple different shows he's got to do here he's got to explain himself to me and max for offline he's got to come on pod save america and we gotta like quiz him about the news he's i don't know he's got to go on keep it i guess talk about the uh talk about this season of survivor when he's

legally allowed i guess i don't know. Unbelievable. Actually, you know what? It seems kind of like justice. It is justice. Yes. It is justice. Finally, two people who've evaded accountability their whole lives.

Here's hoping that John Lovett had better luck at the Tribal Council than Donald Trump did in Manhattan. Bye, everyone. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community Bye, everyone. If you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira Wakeem is our senior producer.

Reid Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Tolles, Kiril Pellavive, and Molly Lobel. Thank you.