Pod Save America - "Trump Without the Handcuffs.”

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

The world waits for a Manhattan jury to indict Donald Trump. Strict Scrutiny’s Leah Litman joins to break down the strength of D.A. Alvin Bragg’s case. And Tiny D pokes Trump as he continues to shrink in the polls. 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, the world awaits for a Manhattan jury to indict Donald Trump. Strict Scrutiny's Leah Lipman joins to break down the strength of Alvin Bragg's case. And Tiny D pokes Trump as he continues to shrink in the polls. Speaking of, speaking of, the trailer has dropped for an exciting new eight-part series from Crooked and iHeartRadio called Stiffed, which is about the rise and fall of Viva, the erotic magazine for women started by Porn King publisher Bob Guccione in 1973. Host Jennifer Romolini takes you on a wild ride through the story that rocked the publishing world.

takes you on a wild ride through the story that rocked the publishing world. With a team of feminist writers and editors behind it, Viva had full frontal male nudity, Dan. That's penises. Just so you know. A fashion section run by Anna Wintour and cover stars like Bianca Jagger. But were they doomed to fail from the beginning? Trailer is out now.

First episode drops March 30th. This is a really fun, great series. So excited for everyone to check it out. Listen on all the podcast platforms. I got a lot of dick jokes in just in the housekeeping, Dan. Look, I read the housekeeping this morning. I said an over under in my head of how far you would get through it before you started cracking up. And you beat the over by far. You did a great job.

You're a true podcast professional. Okay, good, good. All right, let's get to the news. I don't know if you've heard, but it seems like Donald Trump may have gotten himself into a bit of a pickle. We are all patiently waiting for a grand jury in Manhattan to indict the twice-impeached frontrunner for the Republican nomination on criminal charges for paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. The jury met on Monday, but we learned today, Thursday, that they won't be meeting again until next week for some unspecified reason, which means that next week is the earliest an indictment could come.

the earliest an indictment could come. But already, according to the New York Times, Trump has been preparing for his likely arrest by telling people he is excited about a potential perp walk and even mused about whether he should smile for the cameras. Meanwhile, without knowing any details about the potential charges or evidence against Trump, House Republicans are threatening to investigate Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, while the paid liars over at Fox are coming up with some pretty creative defenses of their guy. He represents 74 million Americans. And if he's the nominee, you're putting 74 million votes in prison. Settlements like this, whatever you think of them, are common, both among famous people, celebrities, and in corporate America. In this case, you can believe whatever side you want to believe, but paying people not

to talk about things, hush money, is ordinary in modern America. There's no proof Trump slept with Stormy. There's no baby. And Trump didn't use campaign funds. There's no crime here. The only potential crime here, Mark, is that Donald Trump was an extortion victim. On a bookkeeping charge, he put a payment to a woman in the legal column. That was in the wrong column. Hillary put the dossier in the same column and she got a fine.

I think this is all gonna blow over because I don't see any way that they're actually going to get Donald Trump to appear for indictment or any type of charge. If you're going to arrest a president, there better be a dead body or a suitcase full of cash. Or as Kilmeade says, a suitcase full of dead bodies. That's it. That's the new standard. A suitcase full of dead bodies is the only way that Trump could actually justifiably be charged with anything. Is that a thing that Kilmeade says? What's the context for that? I mean, you know, Dan, who among us hasn't paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to silence the porn star we had an affair with in order to win a presidential election. And if they can come after Donald Trump for that, they can come after you for that too,

Dan. Great. That's where we are. So you wisely suggested that before we dive into the politics, we take a step back and talk about the moment we're in right now. The frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president is on the cusp of being charged with a felony. And not only is he staying in the race, most of the party is sticking with him, despite the possibility that he'll be charged with even more serious crimes that include trying to overturn the last election by sending a violent mob to Congress. Is this where you thought the country would be?

We started this show seven years ago. Can we put a pin in the seven years thing? Because I want to have a longer conversation about that someday. We're entering almost our, we're well into our second term. You and me with keeping it 1600. I don't know. Trump's gaining in the polls. I wonder what will happen. Here we are seven years later. This is what's happening. Okay. The serious point here

is that the situation you just described about a man under multiple criminal investigations, likely to be arrested any day now, being the front runner for the Republican nomination, and therefore basically a coin flip away from returning to the White House in a couple of years, is the perfect statement about how we got Trump to begin with, and that the forces that brought us Trump haven't gone anywhere, that we have this deeply radicalizing Republican Party that exists in a dystopian media environment of propaganda and disinformation with declining trust in institutions, a mainstream media that has been absolutely gutted in terms of its reach and its

credibility to be an arbiter of facts and reason and truth, and that the work still goes on. That even if Trump goes to jail at the end of this, even if Ron DeSantis wins this primary, or Joe Biden beats both of them, as those forces still exist, they're bigger than Trump and they're going to be what we ultimately have to confront. And it is, I guess why seven years later, we're still doing a podcast. I think it's very small part of this, but I can't get over that fact. That's a lot of years. I mean, we have been hearing for months that the Republican establishment is finally

done with Trump. They don't think they can win with him. They have to move on. Save us, Ron DeSantis. And here's the guy who just lost them the presidency and the midterms about to get arrested for one of potentially many felonies. So naturally, they all took the opportunity to really twist the knife.

This is a political witch hunt perpetrated by one of the far left radical socialist district attorneys in Alvin Bragg. There is no limit, no end to the limits they will go to, to go after Donald Trump. I think what happens here is that President Trump will be stronger at the end of the day, but the damage done to the law may last for decades. It almost looks like it's an effort to detract, but at the very least, it's another example of two tier system of justice. I just wrote a book a couple of months ago on exactly this topic. It's called Justice Corrupted, How the Left Has Weaponized the Legal System. I do every week a podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz. Yesterday's podcast is an hour-long, deep dive on the legal issues

explaining why the facts in law are utterly bogus. Talk about fucking sanctimonious. I mean... Forget about Ron DeSantis. I wrote a book, and I also host a podcast. I mean, John, just slow your roll there, buddy. It kind of hits close to home. That is not how I preface my takes, by the way.

That's exactly how I preface my takes. I just offer them. Well, you got to be out there. Look, this is a competitive content environment. You got to be out there promoting your stuff. What is wrong with these people? Forget about, you know, we started with the moral implications of the Republican Party standing by a potential criminal. But just from just if you do the pure politics, pure politics, and there are a number of Republicans, not all of them, but a number of them who are like, we can't win with Donald Trump.

We need Trump's policies without the Trump baggage. This is it. This is your opportunity. Why? What's wrong with them? Because they are craven, cowardly chuckleheads with a strategic sense of plankton. They just keep doing the same thing over and over. It's like muscle memory. They're just like, oh, God, something happened to Trump.

We got to defend him. We got to defend him. like, oh, God, something happened to Trump. We got to we got to defend him. We got to defend him. There is some short term discomfort over moving away from Trump at any moment, right? After the first impeachment, the second impeachment, the Access Hollywood, January 6th, the potluck dinner with the Nazis, whatever it is, like at any moment, you can do it. But you're going to take some shit in the short term. But they all believe, we know this from reporting, we know this from just common sense, that these Republicans believe that Joe Biden is incredibly beatable in 2024 and that Donald Trump, of all the candidates, gives him the least best chance to beat Joe Biden.

I'm not saying that's an accurate assessment, but that's what they believe. And they want the presidency. But they can't stomach the short-term discomfort of having Sean Hannity yell at you or Tucker Carlson yell at you or Charlie Kirk show up at your door or whatever to do the obvious thing. And they made the same mistake over and over again. He's never going to fall under his own weight. You have to move away. You have to take a stand. And they cannot do it. They will not do it. And every time they don't do it, it gets more difficult to do it the next time. I mean, just to try something out, you know, I'm not going to comment on, um, an ongoing investigation. Nothing has happened yet. And in our justice system, you're innocent until proven

guilty. So I continue to stand by Donald trump until we know anything like that even if you are want to if you don't want to get any shit from trump or the base or the mega media you could say something like that but instead they're like we are gonna we're not just standing by donald trump we're going to investigate a local prosecutor for an indictment that hasn't yet arrived and like we're gonna we going to take federal funds away from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, the Law and Order Party. We're going to say,

no Manhattan District Attorney because he may go after, he may indict our guy. It's wild. I don't have it in front of me, but did you see the Rand Paul tweet that said, something like, the prosecution of Donald Trump is one of the greatest abuses of power of all time.

The prosecutor should be thrown in jail. Yes. Honestly, it says it all about the Republican Party right there. And it's not hypocrisy because this is where we get. We've talked about this before. We get into the hip. Like no one cares about you point out someone's hypocrisy. It is basically just like, no, no, no.

We have a different set of rules for us. We get to win all the time. We get to do whatever we want. We are above the law. And you're not. Everyone else isn't. It's Donald Trump and those of us who are Donald Trump loyal followers. And then it's everyone else is the enemy.

And we can do whatever we want to the enemy. That's it. That's the thought. I know you're going to get into the legal analysis with Leah, but what do we know about what happens next? And just from a political logistic standpoint, like how a criminal defendant runs for president while being tried for a felony? Well, let's start with the logistics. So here's what happens. The grand jury renders an indictment. Donald Trump either gets arrested or he turns himself in, at which point he is stripped naked and he has marched down Sixth Avenue, Game of Thrones style.

Now you're just trying to get me excited. Just wait. And he gets marched down Sixth Avenue, Game of Thrones style, where all of the people who made this happen, the stars of the resistance, get to yell shame at him. You got Mueller, Comey, the Krasensteins, the guys from the Wicked Project. Fauci is there for some reason.

Fauci is there. The Jim Acosta shows up at the end to shout some questions. They let Michael Avenatti out of House of Rose. I think he might be in solitary confinement. He's in a real prison. Anyway, wherever he is. We might get invited. That's how that works logistically.

It's important to be self-aware. Yes. Okay. So that's what's going to happen, huh? What will really happen is what happens to most rich, famous, particularly white people who get charged and arrested for crimes is there will probably not be a perp walk. It will be handled quietly. TMZ will spend the largest amount of money they've ever spent for a copy of the mugshot, which hopefully they will succeed. That mugshot will then appear on T-shirts that Donald Trump sells to benefit

his campaign and be wearing them forever. And crooked walls of self. That's it. You heard it. Merch team. Got another one. And he will, he's on a flight risk and we'll just go about his life campaigning for president, attacking the prosecutor who was trying to prosecute him for these crimes.

And that's that. And then, I mean, what if, you know, there was a debate scheduled and he's like, I can't get to the debate. I have a court hearing. You do wonder. I was just wondering, there could be some... And we're just talking about the one felony now. I mean, he could be having multiple trials. He could be telling Alvin Bragg, I can't show up at court today because I got to go down to Fulton County and get a reign there. Yes.

I mean, it likely, it presents a set of political complications, which we have talked about and we'll talk about. I mean, a trial could be going on in the fall of 2024 when he is supposed to be campaigning or on a debate stage or at the convention. I mean, I frankly think that some ambitious young judge should consider him a flight risk and put an ankle monitor on him and keep him imprisoned in Trump Tower for a while. He'd probably like that. Just keep him in Mar-a-Lago. That's where he's been for last

year anyway. Got to keep him in New York State. It's a state crime. Get him out of Florida. All right. So we are obviously out of the prediction business, but I do want to get your take on a few political prognostications. Quote, the prosecutor in New York has done more to help Donald Trump get elected president than any single person in America today. That is South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Here's another one. You are about to increase the odds that Donald Trump will win another four years in the White House dramatically, maybe even decisively. That is disgraced former pundit Mark Halpern. So here's my question for you. How many undecided voters do you think will get off the fence now that they can finally

support someone who may be a convicted felon by Election Day? Do you think that'll get off the fence now that they can finally support someone who may be a convicted felon by Election Day? Do you think that's what the swing voters were looking for? They're like, eh, seen Donald Trump since 2016. Eh, not sure about him. Waiting for him to get arrested. There's my guy. That's exactly what I think. A small handful of people in diners frequented by New York Times reporters think, and will tell us

when those New York Times reporters go there to check it out. Jeremy Peters has talked to all of them. Yes. I think we need to, there are a lot of predictions happening there. We don't do that. I think this is obviously an unprecedented situation. The politics are complicated, particularly in the Republican primary, but we should just stipulate that being indicted for a crime is not going to help you. It's just a question of how much it hurts you. It is not going to make him more likely to be president. It's not going to make him more likely to be the nominee. It's just a question of whether enough people will care to penalize him enough to have him not be the nominee.

That is the simple fact here. to have him not be the nominee. That is the simple fact here. Yeah, I think it's ludicrous to suggest that this will help him in a general election. That is the most obvious thing in the world. For just a million reasons, none the least of which is that

people have largely made up their mind about Donald Trump and the insurrection and a whole bunch of other shit have basically moved his poll numbers within a tiny margin for the last six or seven years. And the idea that indict the indictment will actually lead some people to the polls who haven't already supported Donald Trump in the last couple elections is just it's baffling. It's baffling.

Now, let's talk about the dynamic in the Republican primary, because I do think there's some interesting stuff there to talk about. Other Republicans and lots of pundits have predicted that getting arrested as the law and order candidate will only help Trump in the Republican primary, where voters are prone to believe that this is just another Democrat witch hunt to destroy their favorite Republican president for some affair. What do you think about that? I think that is also pickled galaxy brain take. Once again, being arrested is never going to help you politically. It's not. It is going to complicate, as you said, to complicate Donald Trump's campaign logistically, but also politically, because whenever you have a primary to choose a nominee to run against a sitting president, the dominant issue, the one that trumps everything, ideology, morality,

everything else is electability. And Donald Trump potentially facing criminal prosecution in the fall of the election year creates a pretty strong electability argument for his opponents to make against him. I'll give you the other argument again i keep making these other arguments that i don't actually believe so please don't tag me with them okay now elijah this is this is where you do the cut right here someone on twitter someone on twitter the other was like hey why did you when did you become such a big ron desantis fan yeah i'm a huge fucking well i mean i can mean, you defended him vigorously last week. Yeah, I did because I was trying to play a role here.

I'm trying to give some people some interesting arguments since we don't have any Republicans on here. Okay, on this one, this would be the electability argument. And Trump's already trying to say this, which is Trump is the one that Democrats fear most, which is why the Democrats and the liberal establishment and the media, they're all trying to take Donald Trump down. And this is whatever you think about Donald Trump. This is a massive injustice and it's a political prosecution and they're going after him. And so they're going after you.

And then, you know, you get a bunch of Republican voters who are like, and again, there's like the Trump fans who it's not going to matter for. There's the people who've decided we're all in on DeSantis or someone else. We don't want Trump. And then there's like the swing voters in the Republican primary who's like, eh, I like Trump, but I'm willing to entertain alternatives. But I'm not sold on DeSantis but I'm thinking about it. And for those people, the argument would be, well, they're coming after Trump and they want to get Trump and I'm going to stand with him. This is the argument that, Ross Duhat made this argument

in the fucking New York Times and I didn't find it super compelling but it was an argument. I mean, the point here is, on its own, it does not help Trump, for sure. On its own, it doesn't end his campaign either. How Trump handles it and how Ron DeSantis handles it, which we'll talk about, is going to dictate this. And we do know in the past that Donald Trump, when he is the center of attention and the center of a controversy

where a bunch of the people that Republican voters has identified as the wrong kinds of people line up against Trump, he strengthens. It's why his numbers went up during impeachment. And why his numbers with Republicans went up after the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. And so that could happen again in the short term, but how Ron DeSantis handles it, how Trump behaves will determine the end result here, the actual impact. We're not going to know the impact of this for months. There may be a quick bump in numbers. It could be real, could be statistical noise after an arrest, but there's a long-term impact here and it can't be viewed just in a vacuum because there are other charges potentially to come.

Other arrests, other things are going to happen. And the question is, is the full weight of that too much? Does it make Trump seem like a loser? Because in Republican politics, loser is much worse than criminal. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Loser is much worse than criminal.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I do think, I mean, the other side of that argument for those swing Republican voters is just what you said, which is they look, they're like, I still like Donald Trump. Maybe I think the prosecution was unfair, but like, oh, we got to win. We got to beat Joe Biden. We're going to, this guy's getting indicted for all these things. Why not just go with Ron DeSantis? That's the other side of that argument.

How much do you think it matters politically that breaking campaign finance laws is a less serious crime than hiding nuclear secrets in your beach house or plotting a coup that ended up turning violent against members of Congress? If you needed evidence that there is not some giant top-down deep state conspiracy against Donald Trump, it would be that this crime is coming first. Because it by far, this is, it is very serious. It can have very real, real, real impact. But just when you lay them all out, you have a seven-year-old,

as old as this podcast, seven-year-old crime emanating, public crime emanating from personal conduct compared to deeply dangerous handling of classified information while president and engineering a violent coup against the United States. This one clearly has less substantive moral and political impact than the other two. And if we were deciding this, this would not come first. This would probably come last. Doesn't mean it's not significant. Doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable for it. Just from a purely political point of view, this is the easiest one for Republican voters looking for a reason to stick with Trump to use his permission structure

to do so. I don't know. I think it's a nice little appetizer. Oh, you think it's a moosh? Moosh. I think you get one. Look it. Alvin Bragg indicts the guy. The world doesn't end. Knock, knock. Knock it on wood.

And then we're ready for Fulton County. We're ready for what's coming next. We already got one under our belt. That's what I'm saying. Look, I also think I don't love minimizing this crime just because relative to hiding nuclear secrets from the government and staging a violent coup it is not as bad because it's not just i mean yes it stems from personal conduct like you said but it's it's cheating. It's cheating in the election, not just on your way. That's why we have campaign finance laws. What Donald Trump tried to do is

say, because I'm rich, I can take a couple hundred thousand dollars and buy this woman's silence. And even though you're only supposed to donate X amount of money to your campaign, I'm going to blow through that limit. And then I'm going to lie about it because I'm trying to win this election. And like, just because we now think that Donald Trump gets away with everything and we think, oh, well, if the Stormy Daniels story had come out a couple of weeks after Access Hollywood, it wouldn't really matter that much. And Donald Trump may still win. We don't know that.

And that's why you have campaign finance laws, because the campaign finance laws are like, no, you can't spend that much money to silence someone and you can't hide the reporting of it. So it's like a real, I mean, it was him trying to cheat an election, which he always does. Yeah, it is. The argument on the politics here is two things. One, it's the fact that Donald Trump is a corrupt cad is not a new piece of information to people, right? They knew both of those things. is a corrupt cad is not a new piece of information to people, right? They knew both of those things. We have actual evidence of the political impact of alleged crimes of similar nature to the other two charges, right? We have seen much different, very poorly covered by the press, how the handling of alleged classified information can weigh down a campaign as it did in 2016. And we know from 2022 that candidates' involvement in January 6th and pushing the big lie,

the documented fact, hurt them in those elections. And so we just, it's not that it's not serious, it is quite serious. It's just from a political salience point of view, I think you can very credibly argument that it is the least salient of the three crimes. The fact of the arrest is a big deal, regardless of the crime. So the other big Trump crime news this week was an appeals court order that his lawyer, Evan Corcoran, has to testify in the classified documents case because attorney client privilege doesn't apply when you help your client commit a crime. The appeals court upheld a federal judge's finding that the government made a prima facie showing that the former president committed criminal violations. That was from the

federal judge's order. How do you think an indictment in this case or in the many other Trump investigations, Fulton County, the other Jack Smith investigations around January 6th, I believe the Manhattan or the New York state has some other business investigations they're doing. There's something about Truth Social and the SEC. There's a multiple investigation. There's a civil rape trial going on right now. Thank you. That's another one.

So how do you think additional indictments change the political calculus? It is a question. I do think it's just amazing that in a basically year and a half period, Donald Trump's had two different lawyers help him commit two different crimes. This is the second time. Courts don't lightly undo attorney-client privilege. It has now happened twice with two different lawyers with two different crimes, which is just wild. We know from all the polling that Republican voters still like Trump. He still has a high approval rating. They think he was a great president. It's just a question of whether

all of this noise weighs him down. And the more indictments you have, the more arrests you have, the more trials you have, the more noise. It reminds people of the baggage. And it emboldens Ron DeSantis' case to be the alternative. Trump without the handcuffs is essentially his pitch now. That's good. That's good. I hope you're listening to DeSantis' campaign. We do not want to help Ron DeSantis.

John May, because he's a huge DeSantis fan. Look, at some point, there's a lot of people out there who's going to have to actually pick between Ron DeSantis and Trump. We're not one of them. We do not have to. Isn't that nice? Isn't that nice? Look, I know that you're fine with another four years of Trump.

I'm not. That's what you're saying. That's your position on this. That's what I'm doing. All right. So not a lot of Democrats, except for us, are talking about Trump's impending arrest. Joe Biden isn't. Should he be? I don't think so, but I figured I'd ask you. If not, should some Democrats be making the case that if not, you know, hitting Trump for these charges, at least hitting Republicans in Congress for trying to investigate a state prosecutor because they think Donald Trump is above the law? I do not think Joe Biden should talk about this. I think it complicates, even though this is not a federal case where the prosecutors essentially work for Joe Biden, it complicates things. It probably helps Trump for Joe Biden to be commenting on it. So he I can't imagine he would do it. He won't do it. There

will be people arguing he should do it. I think those people will be mistaken. I think Democrats should make the case that Republicans are focusing on all of this dumb stuff, on protecting Donald Trump, on investigating the investigators instead of doing all the things people actually want them to do. Raising wages, lowering costs, making healthcare more affordable, averting the debt ceiling crisis that's coming. All of those things that we know people care about that they're not doing so they can do all this other stuff in the service of politics for Donald Trump, for MAGA Republicans. I think that's the case to make. Yeah, I just think that I don't think that a Democrat talking about this outside of Joe Biden, which I agree, like he can't just be getting into a prosecution. I don't think that like

elevates it in the media as much as the facts of the case. Yeah, the president's being arrested. It's up. Right. That's going to like, you're not going to need a Democrat to go out in front of the case. Yeah. You know, the president's being arrested. It's not. Right. That's going to like you're not going to need a Democrat to go out in front of the cameras and say that. That's in the news. That's in there. All right. Let's talk about the other major political figure who hadn't weighed in on Trump's impending arrest until this week. Governor Ron DeSanctimonious, a.k.a. Meatball Ron, a.k.a. Tiny D. Here's what he finally had to say. I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair.

I just, I can't speak to that. But what I can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, that's an example of pursuing a political agenda. I do appreciate that he said porn star hush money payments multiple times in that answer it was like uh i'm not you you know what i'm thinking about there uh i do you guess i do does it involve was it an msnbc hit yes back in the back in the uh 08 campaign in the primary when Billy Sheen in New Hampshire tried to insinuate that Barack Obama once did cocaine. And then Mark Penn just said it multiple times in an MSNBC.

I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't say he did cocaine. What are you talking about cocaine? What are you talking about Barack Obama cocaine? And so that was what Ron DeSantis just did. We're so old and so lame. Honestly, go look at it on YouTube. It's a classic.

All right. Tiny D later sat for an interview with Piers Morgan for an interview with a Fox streaming service that he also wrote up in the New York Post. What a sentence. The headline was in the New York Post for Piers' story, Ron DeSantis rips Trump's character chaotic leadership style. Here's what he said. What are the differences between you? I mean, obviously, you know, the approach to COVID was different. I mean, you know, I would have fired somebody like Fauci. I also think just in terms of my approach to leadership, you know, I get personnel in the government who have the agenda of the people and share our agenda so the way we run the government

i think is no daily drama focus on the big picture and put points on the board what is your favorite nickname that trump's given you so far is it ron ronda sanctimonious or meatball ron i don't know how to spell the sanctimonious i don't really know what it means but i you know i kind of like it's long it's got a lot of vowels i mean so we go we'd go with that. That's fine. You know, you can call me you can call me whatever you want. I mean, just as long as you, you know, also call me a winner. Yeah. Ripped Trump's character there. What do you think of Tiny D's strategy? I just want to say that every time I hear RhondaSantis' voice, it's like the first time all over again. It's always, it is like, it doesn't get less annoying over time.

It's just, you're constantly shocked at how annoying it is. I don't know. You know, I'm a fan of Ron DeSantis, of course. But like, I don't know if that's going to wear well, that voice. Yeah, you do Ron DeSantis with the on mute with the subtitles on when you watch your boy. Way back in the day, you may have been there for this, but we watched a focus group about the new House Republican majority, and they played a lot of footage of Eric Cantor. Oh, yeah.

He's another one with a bad voice. With a voice. And the focus group crowd just revolted against Eric Cantor's voice. And I really feel like that's how it's going to play for Ron DeSantis. Anyway, we do substantive criticism here. No, no theater. Hey, look, I'm just telling you what the voters care about. Not saying it's good.

Not saying it's bad. Yeah. Anyway, so what do you think? What do you think of DeSantis? He's, you know, he poked out a little bit. He's doing a little, little needling of Trump. And I will say for him, by the way, before you answer, sorry, like a little does go a long way with the press. Like DeSantis said that in the interview, which I think we can all agree is pretty mild.

And the New York Post wrote it up as DeSantis rips Trump's character. I mean, that is going to happen a thousand times. And he should be savvy enough to know that because the press is always spoiling for a fight between politicians. But they're particularly spoiling for a fight between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump for a whole host of reasons. What I think as a strategy, this is, you see, basically what DeSantis said, there is the core strategy of his campaign.

Like I bet in a whiteboard in the DeSantis headquarters-to-be, it is that. It's how do you – if your lane is Trump without the baggage or the handcuffs, whatever, and you're going to be less chaotic and you're going to – you have to find one issue to differentiate yourself on. yourself on. And that issue is obviously COVID because it's the place where you are known for terrible reasons for your quote unquote success in COVID. We're in the Republican party. Success is measured by lives owned, not lives saved. And- I let a bunch of old people die. That's where I'm running on. And so you pick Fauci, right? So that is the strategy. But I feel like DeSantis needs to show, not tell. He basically just read the whiteboard to the people. Instead, you want to demonstrate those things without being so explicit about it. And he walked sort of right into a trap here where he was sort of faced with a binary choice, defend Trump like everyone else, or use his opportunity to differentiate yourself. And the worst decision in politics is not the wrong decision, it's no decision. And that's what he did here. He tried to do both. And I think he pleased no one. And

you see in the press coverage is shitty for him all across the board, I think. And by the way, something similar happened with him on Ukraine. He tried to walk back his statement that his campaign put out to Tucker Carlson about his position on Ukraine, calling it a territorial dispute. And then with peers, he was like, well, Putin's a war criminal. And I did my statement was taken out of context. It's like, no, the context was it was a fucking written statement, dude. We didn't take it out of context. We all read the words. So i do think it's emblematic of sort of what he's trying to straddle here in this primary look i as you know huge ron desantis fan clip um and i have been laying out the reasons why i don't think it's a great idea for him to

just go nuclear on trump this early because there are a ton of Republican voters who love Donald Trump, even as they are potentially open to alternatives. But even for me, I think that his Piers Morgan interview and his Stormy Daniels statement is just a little too cute by half. You know, Tommy makes the point that it's like DeSantis is showing is being too weak and Republican voters want strength and that's why they want Trump. And my take is like slightly different. I don't think it's contradictory, but it's like DeSantis there sounds like a typical politician in trying to carefully criticize Trump for the press. And like you said, reading the message from the whiteboard. And Trump is trying to put him in a box of typical establishment politician. And he's sounding like a typical establishment politician in the way that he's criticizing Donald Trump right now.

And I think that's if you're one of those voters who is like open to DeSantis and still open to supporting Trump again, you kind of look, you listen to Donald Trump just being Donald Trump. And then you listen to Ron DeSantis, like doing his line about Fauci and COVID and making a stupid joke about the vowels and DeSanctimonious. And you're like, eh, I don't know. This guy seems a little, little, little typical. I think what you're seeing here is, is the great challenge of potential undoing of DeSantis' campaign, which is Trump's hardcore base, the one that can deliver him the nomination in the winner-take-all primaries of the Republican Party. They're dedicated to him personally, and they are MAGA through and through.

The universe of voters who are open to Ron DeSantis, which makes up probably 65% of the Republican Party, they are ideologically incoherent. Some of them are more traditional Republicans who would certainly pick a Republican over Joe Biden, but are uncomfortable with Trump for a variety of reasons. The reason he flips on Ukraine is because he's got a whole bunch of people, including huge donors, who think that the Republicans should return to their neocon roots and be tough on Russia. So he flips there. You have people who love all the stuff Donald Trump did, just think he wasn't effective at it.

So you want all the MAGA stuff with more efficacy and less chaos. You have people who want to return to some of not Paul Ryan-like entitlement cuts, but more traditional tax cuts and trade and trying to stitch that anti Trump or DeSantis curious coalition together is going to be very, very challenging for him. And he's not doing it very deftly early in the process here. What would you have advised DeSantis to do this week? Just chill the fuck out. Interesting. Or just not say much at all. Well, I think his Piers Morgan interview, his statement feels very reactive. The narrative is, and it's borne out in the polling that Donald Trump has gained ground on DeSantis, that Trump

has ascended. DeSantis is falling. And I think that is an accurate fact that is being attributed to the fact that Donald Trump is lashing out at Ron DeSantis left and right, and DeSantis has not been responding. But the polling does not actually show that's why Trump is gaining and DeSantis is falling. DeSantis' favorability ratings are better than Trump's. Yeah, they have not taken a hit. Even as he's been losing ground in the head-to-head, his favorability ratings are quite high and his unfavorability rating is very low. This is all among Republican voters.

Yeah. So that's the key point, which that means that voters are returning to Trump, not because they've learned information that they don't like about Ron DeSantis. Donald Trump, that he hasn't been involved in some sort of major embarrassment recently, like losing the primary or dining with Kanye West or all that. He is just owning the news like he does so well. And Ron DeSantis was everywhere right after the midterms, and he's faded into the background. And so don't be reactive, Trump. I think in this case, I would have just gone after the prosecutor if I was Ron DeSantis. I would have said as little as possible, just gone after the prosecutor and said, I'm focused on my legislative session doing X, Y, and Z. This is a long game. Play the long game here. Understand why you are fading. And it's not because you're not responding to Trump. It's because you haven't announced your campaign yet. I would maybe speed up my timeframe to try to get

this going and try to find some high-profile moments that remind people why they like me that have nothing to do with Trump during the course of this legislative session. But I think he's being reactive. He's not handling the first bit of turbulence well. And it's just like, relax for a second. There's only two people are going to win this primary, Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. You're still the other person and there's no need to panic just yet. I think to your earlier point about how the Republican Party is fine with a criminal, but they don't like a loser. I think if Ron DeSantis does not start defining Donald Trump as a loser, Ron DeSantis will be a loser.

Like he's just got a I think and he doesn't have to just come right out now and say, like, the guy's the biggest loser, though. That would be interesting. I think just like every time Donald Trump attacks him, every time he's asked about Donald Trump, just have this sort of like it's sort of sad. It's sort of pathetic. You know, like I'm, I'm focused on my stuff and, you know, Donald Trump, he was, he was a great president once, but I, you know, he's sort of, he's struggling for relevance. He's got all these indictments. It's just, it's sort of sad. It's sort of sad. You know, like I think he's got to put him in a loser box and right now it just doesn't,

I don't know. It seems like it's, it's too cute by half and it's too subtle what he's doing. I think it's actually the opposite of subtle. I think it's too just obvious. Transparently political. Yes, transparently political. It is subtle in the sense that it's – For people who are tuned in like us, right? For most voters, they have no fucking idea that Donald –

Yeah, he's getting the worst of all worlds. He is pleasing no one. He's getting all the downside, none of the upside. And he just has to – this is the question. He has not faced real political turbulence in his life and how you handle that. Like when we work for Obama, right? I hate the 2008 parallels to this, but DeSantis is like Obama in the sense that he is completely fresh on the national stage. And it is an untested proposition of how we'll handle the tremendous pressure and glare and scrutiny of a presidential campaign. And if he does, if it's possible, he can't handle it. It's very possible he can't.

We're going to find that out pretty quickly here. And he hasn't had anything like this because he's been in Florida only talking to MAGA-friendly press outlets and just holding press conferences where he fucking owns the lips. If that's the only clips people see, then yeah, Republicans are going to like him. But when he has to actually sit down, do interviews, do press conferences, do all this kind of shit, that's the real test. It's so funny that right now we're talking about him being completely in safe spaces and we're talking about him venturing out into dangerous territory by speaking to slightly more pro-trump maga media

people it's not like right he's not doing he's not sitting down with the ghost of tim russert for meet the press right he just has to he might have to talk to either ducie or something oh boy tiny d okay when we come back dan will talk to strict scrutinies, Leah Lippman, about the case against Donald Trump. We are eagerly awaiting the potential indictment and arrest of Donald Trump here to break down the legal cases. Leah Lippman, the host of Crooked's fantastic legal podcast, Strict Scrutiny. Leah, welcome back to the pod. Thanks for having me.

Leah, Donald Trump said he was going to get arrested on Tuesday. The press thought it would be Wednesday. We were hoping it would be today. Do you have any sense of what the delay is with the grand jury vote on a potential indictment? I mean, we always knew we needed to take him seriously, not literally. So the day of the week was a little beside the point. But basically, the way grand jury proceedings work is they impanel a grand jury and that grand jury hears a bunch of different cases, but it might not actually sit on days it was scheduled and their

proceedings aren't actually public. So the grand jury wasn't actually seated, I think, either on Tuesday or maybe even Wednesday. And it looks like Thursday is the first day in which they're actually going to sit down and hear cases and decide whether to issue indictments. So it's really about the scheduling of the grand jury and the secrecy of those proceedings. This maybe sounds like a crazy question, but do we have any reason to believe the indictment is actually imminent other than Donald Trump's postal and true social? Or are we just going off of wishful thinking or something like that? I think it is largely based on things that are coming from his camp, in part because grand jury

proceedings are generally secret. I mean, we don't necessarily know whether someone has been indicted unless they make it public or until they've been arrested. Now, having said that, there has been some suggestion and piece of evidence otherwise that some things are happening, interviewing other people close to the Trump camp and other people seemingly being asked questions or becoming involved in this New York-based investigation in a way that it looked like it had died down a few years back. So there are some pieces of corroborating evidence for his statements. In general, what happens after the indictment? Just help us understand the process. Talk to us, like the non-lawyers that we are. Will he get frog-marched? Will there

be the perp walk America deserves? How soon could a trial happen? Just what's the basic process here? Sure. So after an indictment, there will be a determination about whether, you know, someone will be held before trial or during trial. And that might be a point in which an arrest happens. There will then be a determination about whether someone will be held with or without bail, before trial, and then there will be a trial. Unfortunately, the timing on these things is all over the map. It really depends, you know, what priority the prosecutors give this case relative to others, as well as what other kinds of cases they are trying to bring. And so it's impossible to know what sort of schedule we are looking at, you know, the only kind of legal

constraints are you have a constitutional right to a speedy trial, but that's a pretty toothless guarantee. And as long as it happens within, let's say, a year, a few years, it's going to be fine. So it really depends on how the office tries to proceed. So there's no guarantee this will happen before the election, were there to be a trial? No guarantee, although you kind of have to think that they don't want this hanging over their heads, you know, for some uncertain period of time and indefinite point in the future. But again, that's just my own intuition. Our understanding of what Donald Trump is being investigated for and maybe indicted for involves hush money payments to a woman he had an affair with. People get money in exchange for

their silence all the time in the course of business and in cases. Why is this one a crime? What crime did Donald Trump allegedly commit here? So the New York state crime is falsifying business records. So, you know, you have to report payments, you know, that you are making as part of your business and you have to report them truthfully. You know, that is just a state requirement. And the charge of falsifying business records is actually a pretty common one that New York prosecutes all the time. But what makes this case potentially different is falsifying business records is typically a misdemeanor. And here it looks like they might be trying to charge him with a felony. And in order to charge him with a felony, you have to show that the

business records were falsified with an intent to commit some other crime. And we don't totally know what that other crime is. It might very well end up being federal election law or campaign finance violations, where basically the allegation is they use this money for the benefit of the campaign, but didn't disclose it as such. So that's the general theory, falsifying business records, and they're trying to elevate it or escalate it up to a felony charge by proving that the business records were falsified in order to commit some other crime, likely violation of federal campaign finance law. That's a federal law. This is a state case, but that works because the business records falsification is in service of that federal crime?

because it's the business records falsification is in service of that federal crime? It's because, yes, exactly. The underlying state charge is falsifying business records. Now, this theory is admittedly slightly untested, whether the felony that you are trying to conceal that New York can prosecute you for is a federal crime versus a state one. That's a little uncertain, but it's not even clear that that is the only crime that they are saying he was intending to commit when he falsified these business records. There could also be state charges as well. It just so happens that that's the most likely one given that they, you know, Michael Cohen already pled guilty to a federal campaign finance violation. So in other words, we're all making a whole bunch of judgments and speculation based on

an incomplete set of facts. Is that fair to say? Exactly. I mean, this is the world that Donald Trump has forced us into. Yes. Okay. One parallel that people have drawn with this admittedly incomplete set of facts is to the case against former Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, who also provided

money to a woman with whom he'd had an affair. He was indicted, charged, taken on trial and got off. How are these cases similar or different? Sure. So they're similar in that the allegation there was there was a payment made to an individual to keep them quiet. And the allegation was keeping that individual with whom John Edwards had an affair quiet was a benefit to the Edwards campaign. Now, there are, however, some pretty important differences. One is John Edwards' defense is not, let's say, as credible for Donald Trump because John Edwards' defense was he wasn't keeping his affair quiet for the benefit of his campaign, but rather to keep it from his wife and children as his wife was dying from

cancer. And it's not just that he said that. It's also that he continued to pay the woman with whom he had an affair after the election. And so that gave his defense some additional credibility there. Now, how believable is it that Donald Trump doesn't want anyone to know about his infidelity, right? Like it's just not that credible. And on top of that, you don't have, again, just based on the admittedly speculative incomplete facts we are working with, you know, a piece of evidence that suggests he continued to make these payments, you know, after the election because what he really cared about was, you know, public opinion or his wife's opinion or his, you know, family's opinion about, you know, who he was sleeping with. you know, family's opinion about, you know, who he was sleeping with. Let's presume for a second that the crime is the one you suspect it may be involving campaign finance violations because of the falsified business records. If that is the case, how difficult a case do you think that is to prosecute?

Does it give Trump a real opening to get off here? Like, what's your legal analysis of the kind of case that Bragg would bring under the circumstances? I mean, the misdemeanor charge, you know, falsifying business records, that seems pretty straightforward. You know, proving the predicate or enhancement felony seems more difficult. And it's more difficult in part because it turns on what Donald Trump's intent was. And proving intent, that is, like, what is in someone's mind, is always a little bit difficult. I think, frankly, particularly true when you're dealing with someone who's a serial liar, who has like a pretty agnostic relationship with the facts.

And so you don't really know when all of the things or which of the things they say are actually true. Now, that being said, it can't be the case that just because someone is a perennial liar means they can never be convicted of an intent crime and a campaign finance violation. And here you also have the additional fact that Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to this very offense, and that's got to help the conviction. So is it possible he could be convicted? Yes. Is there a way in which he could get off? Yes. I mean, part of what is the atmosphere around this case is that it would have been possible, it could have been possible for a state prosecutor to bring this charge, you know, four or five years ago. It's been possible

for federal prosecutors to, you know, bring a federal campaign finance charge, you know, ever since we knew these facts and ever since the Michael Cohen plea, and they haven't. And I think that, unfortunately, that atmospheric aspect of the case might color people's assessments of whether they think he is, in fact, guilty. And if he were to be found guilty, it's life in prison, right? This is it, throw away the key. That's how it goes. to be found guilty. It's life in prison, right? This is it, throw away the key. That's how it goes. You know, our criminal system is in fact, overly punitive and overly harsh. But no, it's not actually going to be life in prison. And, you know, there's a wide range of different punishments that might happen just depending on, you know, whether he's convicted of a misdemeanor or

felony, and if he is convicted of the felony, and what charges they bring. So it's really impossible to tell at this point. But no, I don't think we're looking at life without parole. Oh, well, there you go. Okay, I'm now going to put you in the position of a deeply uncomfortable hypothetical situation. Uh-oh. Yeah, imagine this. Donald Trump has found himself destitute. He needs legal representation. Donald Trump has found himself destitute. He needs legal representation. The court appoints you to be his pro bono attorney. How would you, legal expert, I can promise you no one who's working on Trump's legal team is going to hear this. So give us your best stuff. How would you

defend Donald Trump? Were you his attorney? So first I would come up with a set of alternative facts to explain why exactly my client, who is very much a family man, wanted to conceal this affair from his very young child. And, you know, on top of that, I do think some amount of this case is going to be decided just in the public eye. And I think, you know, with public messaging around why these charges are being brought now, why they weren't brought then, that's going to be a part of the story as well. And so my guess is that will seep into the trial as far as, you know, defense allegations about prosecutorial misconduct or impermissible prosecutorial motives saying like, they're just out to get me, you know, their predecessor decided not to prosecute me. And now they're just doing so because of some bad press surrounding, you know, someone who left the office and was unhappy with the previous prosecutor's decisions.

So, you know, I would definitely try and mount the John Edwards defense, definitely look into, you know, the prosecutor's conduct and all of those things. And then I would take a shower and I would have some difficulty sleep. I can imagine. Would you try to plead this out as a misdemeanor? Would that be an option for Trump? Yeah, that is. But, you know, it is really hard to know exactly like what the state's posture is going to

be. You know, our criminal legal system is a system of pleas. You know, 98% of cases end up being resolved in plea deals. And in the federal system, I think it's actually even higher than that. But there are always going to be some cases that prosecutors think they, you know, need to go to trial or want to go to trial. And this also might be a case where, you know, the defendant, Trump, doesn't want to plea because, you know, he's not necessarily always rational in making decisions. But yeah, no, a plea to a misdemeanor, if he isn't being charged with a felony would be a pretty standard and not

that surprising way of resolving, you know, a case like this one, at least outside of these facts. Well, Leah, I hope that someday in the near future, Donald Trump was indicted so that this conversation will wear well over the test of time. So thank you so much for joining us. It is always great to talk to you. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much to Leah Lippman and don't forget to follow us at cricket media on Instagram and Tik TOK while it's still around. And at pod,

save America on Twitter, subscribe to pod, save America on YouTube for access to Pod Save America on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. And, you know, consider dropping us a review, if you're so inclined. Everyone have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.

Hopefully the indictment fairy will come. Have a great weekend. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producers are Hayley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.