The Chris Cuomo Project - How Trump Could (And Might) Win The Hush Money Case

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Chris Cuomo explores the complexities of Donald Trump's potential to overcome the hush money case in New York, delving into legal nuances and political motivations, and arguing that Trump is likely to win due to procedural weaknesses and the highly political nature of the charges. He emphasizes the discrepancy in prosecutorial discretion and how similar cases are typically handled, suggesting a strong possibility that Trump's notoriety and the prosecutorial approach may sway the jury towards acquittal. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a lot of confusion about these Trump cases in New York. People are confusing too, they're confusing the reasons behind them, and they're also missing what is the most likely outcome in this alleged hush money case. And I'm going to tell you what that conclusion is more likely to be. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from Cozy Earth. Did you know that 35% of us report experiencing poor sleep quality? It's not that big a surprise. But you gotta go a layer deeper. Why?

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You need done with debt. I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for being with me here at The Chris Cuomo Project. Done with debt. slow about the what kind of sentence, what does it mean? I'm not seeing it, okay? Now, people are confused. So let's remove the confusion. You have Tish James, the AG of New York State, and you have Alvin Bragg, okay? Who is the Manhattan District's attorney, okay? These are different people.

They brought different cases. Now, they may both be painted with the same brush of political ambition and perhaps animus here as motivation for bringing those cases, but the New York case should not be this cross-thatch of these two things. They're very different cases. Now again, you may lump them into the same political pile of dung, but Tish James wanted to be governor, campaigned ongoing after Trump, went after Trump with a case that seems to make the former president an example of an industry standard that is almost never observed,

let alone investigated, let alone punished. Okay? And what is that? That is guys playing with evaluations of properties in two different ways. One is to pump it up when you're looking to borrow against it so that there's a bigger valuation and a bigger equity cushion there potentially.

The other way is when it's tax time and you lower the value when it's tax time and you raise the value when you wanna borrow. Okay, I like it, I don't like it. Irrelevant, it happens a lot, especially in commercial real estate. So why isn't it ever punished the way they're punishing Trump?

That's a good question. And it leads you to what the motivations are. Oh yeah, but he did it, so just so what that they let other people go, he still did it. Well, there should be prosecutorial discretion discretion and if you usually let it go and you didn't let it go here, why? And is it because he did it to a larger degree than anybody else? Well, then let's look at the victimization side.

The banks didn't lose any money. The banks were happy to do business with Trump. The banks had an ability to blow up his valuation if they wanted to and chose not to. So where's the victim? Oh, the victim is a public policy of a specifically designed statute to punish fraud. Okay, well why do you punish fraud? You punish fraud because people are lying and they're getting over on the system. Ah, that's what Trump did. He got over on the system. No, not exactly because the system was not taken advantage of because they were

happy with the outcome. The banks. Ah, yes. But that's money that they could have lent to somebody else and couldn't because they gave it to Trump. Yeah, but they got the vig on the money they wanted. So I'm not seeing the victimization side of this. Now, within the letter of the law, is it accurate? Yes, but this is not a law school exam. This is not a bar exam. This is not a theoretical test. This is not a debate.

It is something that stinks of political motivation, not least of which is because the attorney general campaigned and told you she wanted to do this and then found a way to do it. That takes us to the second case, which is a totally different case, okay? One of them is about fines, humongous fines, the likes of which we've never seen

in circumstances like this before. And I get why people are upset about it and everything that went along with it. But the other one, brag, is criminal. Go to jail, that means, if you lose. Now this on its own is a very different obstacle to entry. We're talking about whether or not someone should have their freedom taken away from them because of what they did, okay?

Remember that. That's what we're talking about here. It's not as simple as you did it, it's wrong, you did it, it's wrong, and it's illegal, you did it, it's wrong, and it's illegal, and it's so fucked up that we wanna take you out of society so that you can't do this again to somebody else. Right? I mean, that's the basic theory. Now, you can say, oh yeah, but all these people get thrown away. We have to stop justifying what we want in the instant case as a function of how that system

has performed poorly or unfairly in the past. And too many are doing that. Oh, but there's so many people, especially poor people, especially poor people of color who get cases thrown at them that would never get thrown at a white guy and they go away, why not Trump? Two wrongs, seriously? We gotta be better than that.

This is not about vengeance. It's supposed to be about justice, right? So if it's about justice, don't be Trump, right? Don't abuse the system. Don't debase everything. Don't make it as bad as it can be just so it suits your interests. Be better than what and who you oppose. I know that's frustrating, but that's the political argument here.

And this is a political argument because Bragg reeks of politics. He was literally bragging about doing this. That's why he and Letitia James getting confused. Because they did both seem to come at this for the same reasons. Ambition. The Chris Cuomo project is supported by all American assets. Why? Because you need somebody to help you make the decisions. What do I do to get away from the markets? Should I just put my money in a tin can? No. But what you can do is hold physical gold and silver. And I'm not

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Now, the hush money case has never made sense to me. And I'll tell you why. Did he pay off these women? Yes, that's not a crime. Okay, did he pay off this women in a way that legally you're not supposed to? No. Okay. Did he pay off these women for a reason that makes it a crime? Maybe. And this is such a sticky wicket. Because under the law, you can have multiple reasons

You can have multiple reasons to do something and get punished for one among others. Meaning, why did you pay off the women? Because let's just make up a couple of random ones and then ones that we know from the record. I was tired of hearing her about it or him about it, whoever you're paying off. Okay, fine. So convenience. Yeah, she was threatening, he was threatening to tell the media, tell my family, tell whoever. Okay.

That's about personal interest. Okay. Ah, but Trump had something else. He wasn't just trying to hide this from his wife, which by the way, is an assumption that Melania didn't know. I'm not sure about that. Why? Several reasons. One, they always know. Two, Michael Cohen told me she had no idea about this, that he had to tell her about the deal

that he was doing for Trump. Michael Cohen is also a liar who would later say she absolutely knew about all of it and she was part of the discussions about it. Now the problem with him is that he's a liar. The good part about him changing the story is that the second one makes a lot more sense, okay? Donald Trump is not known for being a monogamist

and I'm not judging it, okay? I have no idea about what their marriage is about, Donald Trump is not known for being a monogamist. And I'm not judging it, okay? I have no idea about what their marriage is about. No idea what makes it stay together and what works for each other. I don't know. I do know that I hear on a regular basis that Melania is well aware of what he does.

She may do the same thing, depending on what rumor you want to hear that day. And whatever it is, they're still together, okay? So to me, it's like, I'm not in that game. Too many of us wanna be in the, let's judge other people by standards we don't follow ourselves. It's not my thing.

So I don't know that Melania didn't know, so I don't know that he did this deal to keep it from Melania. Did he do this deal to keep it from you for the campaign's purposes? Now an interesting counter to that is, oh because but for him paying off Stormy Daniels and whoever the other woman is who I always forget but that's probably a good thing because she probably doesn't want to be known for just this. You would have thought that he was a man of high

moral standing. It kind of doesn't make sense if you think about it. Everybody knew what kind of guy he was before this. So yeah, you learned about this and you learned about more things after it, but this wasn't a game changer about Trump, was it? So what makes it a crime? What makes it a crime is this being a fugazi campaign contribution

by Michael Cohen? And that it was done for political purposes and it wasn't recorded the right way. So the 34 counts is not 34 deals, it's not 34 women, it's not 34 even independent acts, it's all the different iterations of the single act, which is why I believe that this was at best. I would argue it's not a crime. I would argue if it is a crime, it's a misdemeanor.

And that they boosted it up with all these different counts and things to make it a felony. And I think that this is a really weak case. Now, what supports me in that? The feds passed on it. Oh, they don't have the same laws. Yes, they do. Most election law is federal. Oh, well, but there are parallel state laws. Yeah, but they passed.

Which by the way, a lot of you Trumpers and anti-system people, how come you never say anything about that? You only talk about what the feds do. You don't talk about what they decided not to do. Okay? If there's some deep state and Biden pulling the strings and all this other stuff to fuck Trump at every turn, how come they didn't bring this case?

Food for thought, right? Now, I think he beats the case. Why? I find it hard to believe everyone's saying that you can't get a fair jury in New York because everybody hates Trump. I don't believe that. I have more faith in all of us,

let alone people in New York. I think people can do that. And I think we're exaggerating how much politics means to people. This is different than somebody hearing that you kicked a puppy. Okay, this is politics. Politics is dirty.

People have low estimations of everybody in politics. Maybe more so with Trump, maybe, but I think New Yorkers are sophisticated people, used to having strong feelings, and I think they can be fair. That said, unlike what everybody is saying, which is he can't get a fair trial, they're gonna railroad him, I see it the other way.

I think that it is highly unlikely that you get an entire jury to see this the prosecutor's way. There's so many holes in it that I can easily foresee one or two people saying, you know what, I don't like that he did it. I don't like it morally. I don't like how he did it.

I think Cohen is a dirt bag and I think it was all shady and dirty. But I don't think that this was about helping his campaign per se. I think that this was something he did on a regular basis and it didn't really matter in terms of how people saw him. And even if it was kind of about that, it was really about something else.

And even if it was about his campaign, it was like not something that I think he should go to jail for. Now, people will say, well, that's not the jury's job. Well, it kind of is. No, no, no, the sentence is about the penalty phase is about the judge. Well, yes and no, because as a jury, when you make the determination that someone is guilty, you know what goes along with that, even if you are not defining what specifically it will mean in terms of time or nature of consequence. So I think he's gonna beat the case because I think that it is weak

and I think that it is really pushing people's understandings of reasonableness when it comes to actions and what should be punished. So I think he's gonna beat this case. Now, what does that mean? This is one of the big problems with this case coming so soon, is that the problem is not just the case,

it's what it does to the overall complexion of all the cases. How so? Well, people tend to look at it as a basket. People keep saying 90 whatever indictments, 90 whatever charges, 90 whatever counts. Well, that's not really fair because they're all such different cases, right? What was done civilly with the valuations has nothing to do with like this kind of case about hush money, which has nothing to do with potential incitement of a riot on January 6th,

which is really related, but not the same as what he did and asked not to be done with certification related but not the same as what he did and asked not to be done with certification of the elections in Georgia, which bears absolutely no connection to the keeping of the classified documents. Now, if you wanna look at a through line, there is a through line. It is not legal, it's not legal, but it's not about legality.

But it is true and it is part of the story we keep neglecting here. I often say that Trump gets from the media what he asks for. He antagonizes members of the press, he demonizes them. He calls them out by name. He lies about what reporting is about and what's motivating it. And therefore they get angry at him and they come after him. And that's how human beings work. And the idea that, oh yeah,

but they're supposed to be better than that. They're professionals. Yeah, remember that the next time a cop beats the shit out as somebody who's not answering his commands and threatens him personally. Oh, he's supposed to be better. He's supposed to deescalate. These are human beings.

Okay? And if it's a struggle for cops when that's exactly what they're supposed to do, how do you think it's gonna be for journalists who have such a big index of subjective preference that goes into their work in the first place. Okay, so he gets what he asks for. That's true with these cases also.

Okay? That's true with these cases also. It's even true about the investigation into Russian interference. You have your people take meetings and to rub up against people who say they have access to Russian intelligence and Russian operatives. People know not to do that in politics. I've grown up in it my whole life. You don't mess with foreign people, let alone inimical foreign actors. But they did it anyway.

Because that's Trump. Okay? The documents. Everybody does it. Yet, they don't fight the FBI about giving them back the way Trump did. He was picking a fight because he knew it would likely work for him. And he was right, by the way, in my opinion. So that's not usual.

Biden didn't do that. Pence didn't do that. You see what I'm saying? You get what you ask for. And there is a big aspect of that here. And you got to remember that. Oh, the system doesn't do that. Oh, you asked Martha Stewart. When Comey went to talk to Martha Stewart to try to clean up this situation and figure it out and she said, get out of my office, she wound up going to jail and going to trial. Why?

Because she pissed him off. You get what you asked for. All right? You make phone calls to state officials asking them to change the vote count, you're asking for trouble. You tell a group of angry people to go down to the Capitol and say a lot of really ugly and incendiary things, you're asking for trouble. That's why words matter. That's why leaders use measured language. That's why Trump's crazy antics and exaggerations and hyperbole are so unusual for us. Because

leaders usually think better and more about what to say. That's why every time you guys want to play the gotcha game with the left you got to find really weak ass examples You know like someone saying you go loud and you get in their face. Oh Look, she's asking for violence to Biden. I'd like to take him out behind the gym Well, which is it the guys a step from death and the other foot is on a banana peel or listen to him saying? He's gonna beat up Trump. He's giving messages of violence. Come on, you're picking this weak ass examples because you know that Trump is aggressive

and abrasive and instigatory in a way that we're not used to seeing. And that's what he did on January 6th. And there's a through line there. And he paid off these women and did it in a way with Michael Cohen where he knew it was kind of shady and he did it anyway because that's what he does. He's okay with shady things.

Just like with the money in his properties and his valuations. This is a man who believes in lie, defy, and deny as a strategy. Oh, but he's a great businessman. The fuck he is. What business has he ever run successfully except his own personal brand and image? Perverse as it is.

Look at his casinos. They all go down. He runs nothing well. That is a farce. Multiple bankruptcies. Come on. Oh, but he ran government well. What are you talking about? You got the judges because the right was in power and McConnell engineered it for you. That's why the Federalist Society put up the names. Not Trump. Not anybody he put in there. Oh, but he was great with the economy. The guy has multiple bankruptcies.

He's been bailed out by daddy and other people, including China, multiple times. What are you talking about? Oh, but the economy was so much better. Even if that is the case, that's about policies that are universal to the Republican cause. He didn't create any of that stuff. He's not even a real Republican. What are you talking about? However, all that said, Cuomo's critical of Trump, I also think he's going to beat the Hush Money case. Why? Because I don't buy it as a crime. But he meant it. He wanted to cover it up for the campaign.

So what? Even if he did, people do stuff like that in politics all the time. They cover things up. They quiet people down. I really think you gotta be careful what you wish for, because I'll tell you something. My pop man in an argument once about this kind of stuff

that really stuck with me. He was talking about why you gotta keep your religion out of your policies. And he was talking about reproductive rights, which was only called abortion at the time. Pro-choice, pro-life, as if someone's pro-death. Well, a lot of people are pro-death. You know, one of the big inconsistencies

when it comes to pro-life policies is that people were pro-life in terms of anti-abortion and pro-death penalty, which never made any sense to me. And I argued that with my first boss and he actually changed his position. So here, when you put your faith onto people, right now, you have the largest index of Christians than you're ever gonna have, right?

That you're ever gonna have. What happens if you set the precedent that this is a Christian nation, Christian inspired nation, Judeo-Christian ethics really found the basis of a lot of our laws, so we're going to stick with that, and then it becomes a majority Muslim country. Now isn't it okay for them to say, you know, we're really going to put in some more Ramadan practices. You know, we're going to put in this little touch of shariaaria because you know, as a people, this is what we really are. We all identify with this, right?

Hell no. Why? Because you got Islamophobia going for you there also, right? That's why Trump told you that Islam hates you. But you don't want somebody else's religion put on you. Oh, unless it's your religion. You see what I'm saying?

That's why you keep it out of it. And similarly, you don't want your own political animus to work for you in a moment, but then be turned back on you. Remember, during the impeachments, if you were watching me at the time at CNN, I was saying, man, the Democrats are going to get this back, both barrels. What happened? As soon as the other side came in, boom, Hunter Biden. And another situation where the guy, let's take the allegations on their face and give some, let's give some dapp to them, okay? Hunter Biden used his daddy's name to make money

he had no business making. Maybe his uncle too, Biden's brother. Okay, welcome to politics. Okay, welcome to politics. I'm one of the only guys I know who didn't get rich when their family was in power. Okay, people do it all the time, right, wrong, good, bad, whatever judgments you want to have, it happens. So for you to go all in punishing it in one place, when you turn a blind eye or even participate in it other ways, it's a bad look and makes for a bad system. And that's how I see this hush money case with Trump. This is

something that people do, that they're allowed to do. This was not about manipulating the impression of him and his campaign in a material way. Everybody thought he was a dirtbag before this and they would have plenty of reason to think he was a dirtbag after this. You see what I'm saying? I believe that one or more jurors will agree with that proposition and they'll think that this is just too much for too little and he is gonna win this case, and it's gonna influence the perception of other cases that matter a lot more. And why Trump, man, why Trump?

Why are they abusing the system like this? They must be because Trump, you get what you ask for. You refuse to deal with the feds and won't give them documents that aren't yours. You make phone calls to state officials to try to rig the outcome of an election. You tell people to get really angry and go down to the Capitol where they're certifying the votes. And you give weight to ugly notions like hanging pence and all these other stupid things that those people believe Trump wanted,

whether they were right or wrong, they thought it for a reason, right? You're asking for these things. You're asking for it. And you got to factor that in also. It's not a coincidence that it's Trump. And it's not just not a coincidence because they're going after him because it's a deep state in Biden. It's because he asks for it. But when it comes to the hush money, I think he's going to beat worse or at least get deeper in terms of our understanding. And I'll see you at News Nation every weekday night, 8p and 11p Eastern. And you know what I want? You want to make politics better?

Leave the parties, be an independent, be a critical thinking free agent and go get your free agent gear so you can wear your independence. We're going to be dealing with problems. This is going to be a hectic year. I think Trump is going to beat this case in New York. But we're far from over where his troubles are concerned or our collective concerns as well with this election. So what do you say? Let's get after it.