The Chris Cuomo Project - The Parallels Between O.J. Simpson and Donald Trump’s Trials

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

Chris Cuomo discusses the O.J. Simpson murder trial and its relation to Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial, emphasizing the unique aspects of American culture, law, and justice these cases highlight. Cuomo explores the reasons behind O.J. Simpson's acquittal, emphasizing racial injustice and the American justice system's discrepancies. He contrasts this with New York’s prosecution of Donald Trump, suggesting that both cases represent broader issues of fairness, privilege, and the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.  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

O.J. Simpson's case, O.J. Simpson as a culture figure, and Donald Trump. Why would they be in the same sentence? Oh, many good reasons. These two men are connected. In fact, they are bookends of a dynamic that is uniquely American and uniquely troubling. What? Yes, I will take you through it and it is no coincidence. There are no coincidences. Here we are just marking the 30-year

anniversary of the OJ crisis. Cultural conflict, drama, case, crime, however you want to see it. And O.J. is gone from prostate cancer of all ordinary things. And here we are on the precipice of Donald Trump being the next example of the culture conflict between law and fairness, politics and justice, wants and needs. I'm Chris Cuomo, thank you very much for being here with me at the Chris Cuomo Project. Love having you.

And this one is juicy. So, OJ, what did he mean? Well, he was about what is fair. Did OJ do it? Yeah, he did it. Well, then why didn't they convict him? Okay, let's go through the different reasons. Okay? They didn't convict him because they didn't have it. He didn't do it. He wasn't good for it as Mark Garagos, famed defense counsel would say. No, he did it. The evidence was beyond reasonable doubt. Just because it didn't fit, didn't mean they had to acquit. May Johnny Cochran rest in peace.

Okay, so wasn't that they had a case? Because I don't really remember, you know, it was 1994 and I wasn't even born yet and yeah, baby, I am. Okay, yes, I remember it well. Was a big year for me, why? Because in 1994, Mario Cuomo would succumb to the tide of the contract with America engineered by the then extreme Republican, Newt Gingrich

and his contract with America. Pop would lose as a three-term New York governor, once constantly mentioned as presidential material. And then he was out, lost to a guy nobody had ever heard of, who apparently had a palsy in half of his face, which of course he didn't. And then that man would go on to have a three-term governor's run. And everybody was like, wow, from this great figure of Mario Cuomo to this kind of like vanilla nobody, and yet they wound up canceling each other out in terms of terms. Now, why am I taking this turn? Because it's part of the same mentality of balance, of justice, of interests. So if they had the case, why wasn't OJ convicted?

Okay. It played on a couple of different things that are in competition with justice. Well, what kind of justice? He did it, but why does OJ have to go down when so many others go and get away with it? Hmm. Why OJ when so many black men are put in prison for so long, longer than white men who do the same kinds of things?

Hmm. Why is it okay that one of the key people in the prosecution seemed to be a bigot? Ah, now we're onto it. The OJ case was more about racial injustice than it was about fairness under law. Now, you could see those two as absolutely cousins because racial injustice is inherently about injustice, lack of fairness under law that because of the color of their skin,

people are treated differently, worse more importantly. Okay, so OJ Simpson got away with it because he was black? Not exactly, OJ Simpson got away with it because he was black? Not exactly, OJ Simpson got away with it because blacks were tired of an injustice-ridden process punishing them unfairly. And now you had that manifested in two ways. The key to the prosecution was an investigator who seemed to be a bigot, and O.J. was important to them.

He was a success story. He made good. He was liked. He transcended sport. He went from being a great running back to a prized celebrity. Funny in movies. You see the naked gun movies?

He was funny. He was good. He was on in movies. You see the naked gun movies? He was funny. He was good. He was on the come. He showed that they can make it in America. They can be loved and successful and rich and handsome with his beautiful white wife. And then just like that, poof, he's just like the stigma. He's just like that, poof, just like the stigma. He's just like the stereotype. Black man, succumbing to rage, threatening the whites.

It was like such a trope machine, this situation. So OJ gets off, I remember watching the verdict. Why, why, oh my God, I can't believe this. Everybody was angry. Everybody had a reaction. Well, actually, we should reverse it. In the immediate aftermath, shock, oh, I can't believe it. There were indications that the case was in trouble. Why? Because first of all, he was the first demonstration of money buying a better defense

than you can usually get, right? He had this phalanx of hall of famers helping him out. And it was a little look at that is that justice is a little bit about how much can you pay for it. Then there was this indication that, wow, you know, this guy does seem to be kind of a bigot. Is that okay? He did seem to be prejudiced against blacks. Is that okay? Well, it doesn't really have anything to do with the incident case.

Doesn't it though? So there was that already going on. So he's found not guilty. Yay! Blacks celebrate. Not all. Some. The media focuses on the ones who are celebrating, so now it becomes a black thing. Which is part of what I have heard from black people I've interviewed, black people in my business, black people in my life, for decades and many decades. Which is, God, you just throw us all together. Like, we're all just the same thing, living in the hood, trying to get away from the gangs.

And of course, that's not the totality of the experience, but again, this is what we do. We lump in assumptions, and that's what this case brought to a head. It was a metaphor in many ways. And they celebrated. Why would you celebrate a murderer? Perverse. So what does that tell you?

Well, one of two things. Either blacks like murderers. That's not true. Or blacks felt that this was an example that the system doesn't always beat them. So then what follows that? A wave of fear and anger towards what seemed like an unfair result to placate Blacks. And at the time, that was newish. Now it would make perfect sense if that happened, right? The right would go crazy about how it was woke-ism on display,

getting away with murder, literally. But that was the significance of the OJ case. It was a lot of different things at once, of course. You'll hear different reckonings of why it matters that OJ is dead that really have nothing or a little to do with what I'm saying right now They'll talk about the advent of celebrity Justice and how OJ got away with it because he was a big star and if he'd just been a regular black guy It would have been a different thing Okay, that was part of it too. No question. But it was more important that OJ was black

than that he was a celebrity, a black celebrity, okay? And that's what it meant. It was the system isn't always what it's supposed to be. Justice is not blind. Now, that was what OJ was about. And it lingered, right? It left a bad taste. He was then back out there.

He was disgraced. He would never be accepted in Hollywood or in our kind of culture as a pitch man or anything again Not as he was certainly and he'd be caught up in other shit And there was the civil case where he was found liable for wrongful death meaning what he did it Well, it's a lower standard. It's a different standard. Yeah, and you also didn't have the case against him prejudiced by a prejudiced person Right, so that wasn't going there. He did it.

That's not the question. The question was whether or not, it's not about fairness as we would traditionally think about it, or not traditionally, but we would think about it from a purist perspective. Well, what do you mean? Facts and law, that's fairness. No, no. It's about when you? Facts and law. That's fairness. No. No.

It's about when you choose to punish and why. That's really the crux of where our struggle is with justice. Why this guy? Why them? Why them? Other people do it. If you go down this road, you know what an interesting analysis is? Drug use cases. Now, that has changed, certainly since the 1990s. But, like in New York State and so many, they have decriminalized use cases. Why?

Because they flood the system. Flood the system. And they're not the real bad guys. The person smoking a joint. You know, this isn't 1957. They are not seen as this wicked person on the highway to hell the way they were back then. But if you look at the history of prosecutions when it comes to use cases, the browner you are, the more likely you get busted for it. Now, that's true about a lot of things, but that was an important example because it was such a nothing. It's such a nothing crime. No drugs are bad and marijuana is not your dad's marijuana. It's a gateway drug.

I get it and I agree with you. What do you think of that? As a THC person, I do believe, why don't you just say marijuana and weed? Because I'm not a smoker. What are you talking about? I've seen you with this cigar. Just because I smoke cigars doesn't mean that I smoke weed. Well, then why wouldn't you just say marijuana and weed? Because I'm not a smoker. What are you talking about? I've seen you with a cigar. Just because I smoke cigars doesn't mean that I smoke weed.

Well then why wouldn't you? Because it stinks. And I don't want to inhale things into my lungs. But what about the cigar? I don't inhale it. Do I look like a Cuban 70 year old woman? Why yes, you do sir. Why would you say that? I'll tell you why. Because when I was in Cuba, I think I have a picture of it.

In fact, I think it may be a famous picture, by the way. And I know I'm sitting between the two of them. These two old Cuban women were smoking these fat ass cigars in Havana, and they were swallowing the smoke like you smoke a cigarette. I was wowed by it. Anyway, so this was what it was about that OJ represented all these bigger things. Now, tell that to the Brown family, right? Tell that to the Goldman family, right? Because they wound up being victimized

by this overcorrection because of the victimization of a class of people. He did it. Imagine how frustrating for them. Imagine that, having to live with that. How it would poison your existence. The only satisfaction there is when you lose somebody in that way is that there's justice,

is that their life is somehow avenged, their death is avenged by there being a fair reckoning of it that somehow it becomes an expression of something good and real and right. And this felt like none of those things, unless you look at this initial reaction from black people that finally, one of theirs gets away with it. Hmm, interesting. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from AG1. Listen, my brothers and sisters, you know that I take my health seriously, right? I'm an aging athlete. I'm dealing with long COVID. That's why AG1 is a big part of my game and I have been taking it for many years. Why? Because it's one and

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Hey, didn't you mention Trump? Do you think he killed somebody? No. But why does he have a connection? Oh, let me count the ways. Donald Trump's case is more about what it means to prosecute this symbol in the form of a man than it does about the case itself. O.J. was a no-brainer case. Okay? Murder is most times about someone close to the victim. Okay? It's just how it is. This is also an obvious case. Trump did it. Okay? Now, we could do episodes and episodes on how volatile that phrase is that I just mentioned and how much it will be taken out of context and twisted and used for advantage by the Megyn Kelly's of the world and the other screed machiners. You said he did it.

We haven't even had the trial yet. You don't always have to have a trial to know. You need to know beyond You need to know beyond a reasonable doubt perhaps. Maybe there are aspects of a case that you don't know that change your perspective on them. Sure, sure, sure. Well, I don't need that here. There's very little question that Trump was cooking books or having people cook books for him to show one reality to borrow and another to pay taxes. The problem is, Trump ain't unusual in that regard. Trump ain't unusual in that regard at all.

Well, is this something we see punished all the time this way under this law and by the same types of activators of this process? Nope. No, you don't. In fact, I can't think of another one. In fact, I don't believe we've ever had another one. Well, it doesn't mean you didn't do it. I'm not saying it does.

Well then, what are you talking about? I'm talking about the same thing we were talking about in OJ, which is the nature of prosecutorial ambition which is the nature of prosecutorial ambition and of who you pick on and why you pick on them, what we sometimes call prosecutorial discretion, which I believe maybe it's because I'm a lawyer and this is one of the good examples of how a law degree helps a journalist.

You are underserved in all of this trumpiness and the coverage of the same by a lack of discussion definition and relative assessment of prosecutorial discretion. You are too often led to believe that if there is proof, then they should make the case. If you can make the case you should. And I am here to tell you that that is poppycock. Why? Because there is another aspect to the analysis that looms just as large as the can. And do you know what it is? It is the should. The should. Should we bring this case? Now, I frustrate people with this on a regular basis. You come at me and you say that this is an inconvenience

and that I am missing the point and I am subordinating justice to my own false equivalencies and, you know, all this other nonsense. No, no, prosecutorial discretion is real. Is this case important? Is it important against this person? Does it help validate a policy that matters to us? Will they go after the man who beats the wife the way they go after the man who beats the man in the bar?

No. Why? Because we have a policy concern. Don't be a brute. Don't beat people who are weaker than you. Don't use it as an intimidation tactic to control and to diminish and to demean. Not all punches in the face are the same.

I punch somebody in the face or they punch me. Whoa, I don't think so. But if that happens in a bar, well, it means one set of things. If it's a guy doing it to a five foot, 115, 20 pound woman because he can, because he exercises some perverse sense of control, it's something else. And we want to stop it. We want to punish it. Ah. But aren't they both simple assaults? Yeah. So

then shouldn't they both be prosecuted the same way? No, because they mean different things. And that's what I'm talking about. That's what OJ represented. And that is what Donald Trump's coming cases represent. And unfortunately, for fairness, we start the Trump analysis with the two worst cases. Again, frustrating. What do you mean worst?

The case is a case. If they can bring it and the law is broken, you must. That's bullshit. Do you understand me? If that's how it was and we want to stick to the political context, well, then Clinton lied under oath and they should have prosecuted him for perjury. Oh, but you can't, because you can't prosecute a president for anything.

You've got to impeach him first and remove him, and then you can prosecute him. No, that's not the rationale. That may be true, but it's not the rationale. You don't upset an entire country with a leader duly elected, the most important person, over a sexual peccadillo that is one of the more common things as an aspect of a flawed relationship dynamic called a marriage where over half of them by definition fail. It would meet the legal standard of negligence to enter into a marriage knowing that 56% of them fail. It would meet the legal standard of negligence to enter into a marriage knowing that 56% of them fail. You are literally doing something that

mathematically, statistically is a bad move. So you're gonna prosecute and destroy this guy over a blowjob? Really? No. And we spent too much time on it. And I thought it was gonna reverse those stupid, false, faux puritanical, moral agency arguments that are made all the time in America. We are not what we like to punish.

You are not as good as the standards that you love to prevail upon the powerful. So just as we saw with Clinton, prosecutorial discretion. Now I believe they shouldn't even been investigating it the way they were. That started out with looking at land transactions at Hillary Clinton's law firm. That started out with looking at land transactions at Hillary Clinton's law firm.

OJ was about how blacks are treated by the justice system or mistreated. Trump is about how political opponents can be victimized by the institutions of justice by their opponents. institutions of justice by their opponents. Is that fair to say, yes, yes it is, as much as it was with OJ? No, no, no.

You are now equating racial injustice with Trump that he deserves the kind of discretion and correction that blacks do? Are you kidding? He checks every box of privilege. He is the establishment. He is the human manifestation of getting away with it. Okay.

So then what is the policy? You're not even talking about the case. I told you I think he did it. Okay. I think he cooked his books. I think he paid off those people. I hate saying, paid her the porn star. Why, why, why, why, why? Why do we have to beat her up for what she has decided to do with her life? Just to make yourself feel better about supporting Trump. I mean, come on. Leave her alone. He made the choice of who we wanted to be with. All right? Stormy Daniels, the other one, whoever, whatever. I don't care about who the women are. Okay? Not in this instance. Did he do it? Did he have them paid off? Was it a catch and kill? Yeah, yeah, he did.

And I totally get why. And a lot of people do that. It happens all the time. Yeah, well, it shouldn't. Oh, okay, fine, but it does. And when it happens to you, let's see how you handle it. Where when everything in your life is about to be compromised by a sexual indiscretion

that you had that was completely consensual, then let's see how you feel. Right? Well, not me. I would never... Save it. Save it. You are not as good as the standard that you want to apply to others. That is rarely the case. The hypocrisy is pervasive in our society. Support for The Chris Cuomo Project comes from Done With Debt. This is a big one, especially in America, man. You need done with debt.

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Some of it is done out of spite. I'm convinced people put me on lists and have tracking software put on me just to make my life more of a hassle. But here's the reality for everyone. Personal information is everywhere on the internet. You are an easy target. That's why I personally recommend Delete Me.

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Why? Why? Because I have something that will transform your sleep problem. Cozy Earth. Discover the secret to better sleep with Cozy Earth's luxurious bedding products. Little funny side note, my wife just left to go from our apartment

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be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcast in the survey and be sure to write in the Chris Cuomo project, please. Trump's cases, now I'm only talking about the Bragg cases, and I don't know why the Bragg cases have to come first. In fact, I will use the fact that the Bragg cases are coming first as a counterfactual to the overall premise that this is about the politicization of political opposition, of justice. Because if there were a they, if there were a deep state, if this were a coordinated effort to use the law to get at Trump, you would not start with the brag cases because they are the weakest cases and they make it least likely for you to get any kind of consensus

on this having been the right thing to do. You would start with the Georgia case. What about E. Jean Carroll? No, didn't move the needle. People do not believe her, they do not believe it. Well, they're wrong and the jury say, I know, I know. Again, we're not talking about law and facts and the process there too with a jury.

We are talking about the perception and the policy and the reaction. And you may find that inconvenient, but know that it is an article of convenience for you. It's not that, oh no, this is pure. It's nothing pure. Nothing is pure. Nothing that man touches is pure.

All of these, all of these dynamics have bias. All of them are subjective. You would start with the Georgia case and then have the documents case going on at the same time. Because the documents case is the most likely slam dunk did he break the law. Now, again, I know that you're not gonna like this, but again, that's not my purpose.

My purpose is to interpret the situations around us as food for thought for your critical thinking process. That's it, it only works for a group that wants it, that has an appetite to have their perceptions questioned by different perspective. Are you someone who wants your perceptions, right? Meaning what you bring through the lens of your experience, your feelings, your understanding,

influenced, tested, questioned by outside perspective. If the answer is yes, it's probably why you're watching or listening. And if it's, I don't even know what the fuck he's saying, then you probably are not watching and listening. If you are comforted by siloed thinking and groupthink, if you are a lemming, if you are part of the sheeple, then you're probably not into me because I am unsatisfying to you. I am not looking at the sum totality of circumstances and cherry picking the ones that work for us

and mitigating and diminishing and erasing and exaggerating the ones that do not. But you're getting enough of that, aren't you? Right? You are overwhelmed by that. The Trump case with the valuations is something that is an industry practice. It is an illegal industry practice. It is arguably in this case a victimless crime. You know the expression that if you are explaining

you are losing when you are in the process of having to justify why it's wrong that he did it because even though there's no obvious victim there kind of is because that money could have been lent to somebody else who wasn't lying about cooking their books even though the book that we're talking about here was held by a bank who was happy to do business with Trump and didn't lose any money and wanted to do more business with him. So how can there be a victimization involved? Well, the victimization is that there's a public policy that we don't let people cook the books, but the industry standard is to cook the books and people cook the books all the time. So much so that a business leader

like a Kevin Lowry will come out and say, oh my goodness, you're going to kill the commercial real estate business in New York because all the guys do this. Wow, that's a lot. Well that's what it is. And now you're prosecuting him. How can they not look at it and say that it is gratuitous or going out of the way of attacking this guy so that he can't be as effective in the political process? Cuomo backs Trump. The fuck I do.

I do not like hearing that. Why? Because it cheapens the need to bust out of the game. It's cheap. I don't back Trump. The line for me is that I'm not going to tell you who to vote for. Do I think the guy has disqualified himself a hundred times over? It's not even a close call.

I am embarrassed by the idea that the best America can generate with all the greatness in our country and the leaders and the amazing examples of human achievement. Biden and Trump, two guys that taken at their best are not even close to that anymore. Trump, look at clips of him from the 90s. He is a different guy. He's working at about half the speed that he was. And by the way, nobody was really banging on the door to make him president then.

And Biden, you know that story way too well. Now, do I see them as the same? No. I think fundamentally, Trump has flawed character and is mean and selfish. And I do not think Biden are those things. I do not believe they are equally offensive characters. I don't believe that. I think Biden is a better person than Donald Trump.

I also think that it's kind of fucked up that I'm judging what kind of person people are. Certainly as a journalist. As a voter, I think most often that's the way we go, isn't it? The would you have a beer with question. It's not about policy and really if you think about it the process kind of banks on you being easily distracted from policy by the personal, right? It's easier. We make these things beauty pageants.

So that is the way you look at it. So I will feed that need and say, I don't think they're equal people. I don't think they're equal propositions. I don't think the parties are equal propositions. I just dismiss the relativism because I hate the party system, period. And I get why you say to me, but it's what we have.

You could have said the same thing about slavery. You could have said things about systemic injustice when it was uglier and more obvious. You could say it about a lot of things, but it's the way it is. I know I wanted to change, but not now. This one's too important. You always say that.

And you have used it as an excuse to change nothing. So, sorry. I don't care if Bobby Kennedy spoils the race, the same way Ross Perot did, because it made that Republican Party think about how it had fucked itself and how it should have been doing things differently and better to suit the constituency that it was seeking.

Maybe the same thing would happen for the Democrats. But Trump will destroy the democracy. I don't believe that. I think he's too hapless. I think he's too incompetent. I don't think he has that kind of vision. I don't think he understands that kind of ambition. I don't think he has that notion of strategy,

the ability to recruit the kinds of people he would need to take on that endeavor. And I think his best chance was his first chance and he blew it. And that case is a real case in Georgia. It's a real case. He wanted people to rig the outcome for his advantage. No, he really thought that he won. I do not see that in the phone calls. And I do not see that in the testimony of the people around him. I don't. Do I think people were telling him that,

hey, I think that this was taken from you? Yeah. Do I think that those voices were drowned out by better voices around him? Yeah. And that a reasonable person would have understood that it was not what Michael Flynn was telling him it was. But that case ain't the case in front of us.

It's for cooking the books and paying off women he had affairs with. And that is unsatisfying to people who believe this is more about punishing Trump and hurting his chances of being president than it is about justice. Just like people were looking at OJ and thinking about how the black guy always is going to have to fucking pay for it and white guys would get away with it, even when the process

of going after the black guy evidences the main problem of prejudice against black guys. That's what that was about. out. And that is what this Trump case is seen as for a lot of people and not just Trumpers. This is an unsatisfying prosecution except for Alvin Bragg because he's trying to impress the left flank of the Democratic Party. Just like Biden with all his weird statements about Israel trying to impress the squad and this small slice of fringe lefties, just like this small slice of fringe righties with their wacko nationalist ideas that are dominating our dialogue. Why?

Because social media has allowed a megaphone to amplify minority voices and the media gets tricked by the large number follower accounts that echo a lot of fringe thinking because it works for them from a click and revenue perspective and the media has mistaken reach for relevance, and they then start echoing those people. So you have minority thinking being projected onto the majority. That's what's going on here.

And this case, these two cases from this Alvin Bragg, who's just trying to brag about his ability to go after Trump the same way it was with the AG going after Trump, looks bad, looks like a political prosecution and it doesn't matter that he did it. I'm the guy who broke the story that he knew that Michael Cohen was paying off the women

with the audio tape that Michael Cohen made. I broke the story at CNN. Don't tell me I don't give a shit about what Trump did. I broke it. He did it. Now, I don't know that it was a campaign finance violation. I think that what it was, was something that you can look at as part of the decision

of whether or not you want this guy to be his leader. And for me, it's not about the personal peccadillo, it's about the fact that he'll lie about anything that works to his advantage. He does not value the truth in any way if it inconveniences him. That should matter to you, does it? I don't know.

That's your choice. But that's how the OJ case is related to these Trump cases, that they are largely being looked at as having relevance, significance beyond the law and the facts. Now, do you think I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Buffs? Tell me, because that's the way I see it, and I want to know how you see it, so let's get after it. I'm Chris Cuomo, thank you so much for hearing my take on it, and interpretation of the situation

on the 30th anniversary of the OJ case. OJ Simpson is dead, and we are beginning a similar catastrophic process with Donald Trump. Thank you for subscribing and following. Thank you for being a free agent, an independent, a critical thinker, appreciate it. You can wear your independence with this fetching free agent gear.

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