The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - An Analysis of Trump and Biden with CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

Elie Honig is CNN's senior legal analyst, a former federal and state prosecutor and the bestselling author of Hatchet Man.

The Comedy Cellar live from the table is brought to you by Sheath Underwear, the official underwear of comedy. Visit sheathunderwear.com slash cellar to get 20% off your first order. Every order supports the show. So don't forget, that's sheathunderwear.com slash cellar. Support the show and support your balls. Welcome to Live from the Table, the official podcast for The Comedy Cellar. I'm here with Noam Dorman, the owner of The Comedy Cellar. Dan Natterman is gallivanting around France somewhere, last I heard. And we have a special guest today, Ellie Honig, who is an American attorney and legal commentator.

He is the senior legal analyst for CNN. And welcome to the show. I like that intro. I like that you stress that I'm an American. I took that from you. Right off of Wikipedia or something. I mean, when people ask me, why isn't your podcast, you know, a household name? I say there's so many reasons. Our introductions. What an early the attorneys you have in here are French

or Belgian or something. Well, I mean, you were just saying that it all sounds like we have Israeli names, so you possibly could have been Israeli too, right? Thank you. All right. First of all, Eli Honig. So we've met over the years. We've become kind of friendly.

I've become more and more an admirer of yours because you have shown that you're not afraid to take positions that the people that you're generally surrounded with, the CNN types, you know, that get under their skin. Well, let me push back a little bit. I appreciate what you're saying. I appreciate what you're saying. I hear what you're saying. What you're saying is that I don't do partisan politics in my legal analysis, which is absolutely- There's no audience capture to you.

I will say things that tick off Trump people. I will say things increasingly lately that will tick off people who hate Trump and just want to see him go down for any reason. CNN itself has really, ever since I've been there, has never done anything other than encourage me to just call it straight down the middle, do what I do. You know, people sometimes say,

do they ever lean on you? Do they ever say, well, put it a little more on this side? Absolutely never, never. And the anchors there support what I do. But I will say, like, I'll say candidly, it's not always easy because there absolutely is a liberal left bent in general among legal analysts, just the way it plays out. And so a lot of what you get is leans against Trump and is sort of outcome driven.

Whatever's worse for Trump is correct legally. And I don't view it that way. As you know, I'm not a huge fan of Donald Trump's. I'm not a political or personal fan of his. But what I see my job is in the media is to, A, call it straight, but B, call out abuses of power. And when I started, when we first met, Trump was the president. And I was most frequently calling out Trump's abuses because he was the one in power. He was the one, in my view, misusing executive orders in certain instances, misusing DOJ. My whole first book, which you hosted the party here,

was a criticism of Bill Barr and Donald Trump. But had a good title. What was the name of the title? Hatchet Man. Hatchet Man. Yeah. And then but but when Trump left office, things shifted a bit. Not not necessarily there's got to be a good guy and a bad guy, but there was an emerging B storyline, which is prosecutors and judges, to an extent, overreaching, bending rules, bending normal practice, doing things out of the ordinary in order to get Donald Trump. And so I've been very critical of some of the prosecutors and prosecutions, which I'm sure we can get into.

So just to be clear, I happen to know firsthand that CNN does not lean on anybody to say anything. And I didn't mean to imply that. Yeah. I meant to imply that the people who watch CNN and the people, put it another way. Yeah. Conservatives watch Fox. And then everyone else is split between. Yeah.

I think we aim for just intelligent moderates who want to be talked to like adults and not pandered to. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to give you my opinion. I don't want to put you on the spot. Also, I will say CNN has changed. You know, I started there in 2018. Here we are six years later. Like it's changed a bit and not as a result of anything intentional,

but just as I was saying before, the journalistic imperative is to criticize, is to question and hold to account those in power. And it's been Democrats. And you have, I mean, since we're talking about CNN, Van Jones, who was fired or resigned from the Obama administration for being a communist or something like that.

But this guy is really, I think, substantial and terrific. And he, like you, has, I remember one time Trump did something, I think it was on criminal justice reform. Van was the driver of that. Van worked with the Trump administration to pass criminal justice reform. And it was, Van was the driver of that. Yeah. Van worked with the Trump administration to pass criminal justice reform.

And some people want to hold it against him. They, they'll, they'll, they'll take a photo that Van took with Jared Kushner or somebody and go, Oh, you're a traitor. As Van says,

you want to get stuff done or do you just want to be on Twitter? He's not, he's not, it's not all for show. He's, he actually has, Van has made a bigger difference in people's lives. That's exactly right.

He wants to make a difference. And that's more important to him than that. So, he's been good on CNN. He got killed for saying some other good things. I think there was one night he said, Trump tonight became our president or something

like that. And then he had to retract it. But he was ready to do that. He was ready to follow his heart. Van is an intellectually honest thinker. Yeah. And he also, the thing I love, I mean, I love a lot about him, but he can see a bigger picture that isn't always obvious. Like, he can go beyond just, all right, I logged on Twitter,

I saw a bunch of people saying X, that's the take of the day. Like, he can think beyond that. He can think around three or four corners. So, and what he, I didn't watch it second by second, but it seems to me, you correct me if I'm wrong. He was instrumental in opening the floodgate that night after the debate, which gave everybody license to say what everybody had been thinking for a

long time, but what might, or it's probably going on with Joe Biden. The first person. So I was really interested because watching the debate, I'm thinking, oh, my God. And it was historic. But go ahead. And, you know, I'm texting with my friends going, holy Lord.

But you never quite know are other people seeing it the same way. And when the debate ended, I think the first person to speak substantively was John King, another guy – talk about a guy who calls it straight down the middle. And John King said right away, disaster. And then I was like, well, what's the left side of the table going to say that? I think it was Van, Axelrod was there. And they were both like, that was a complete disaster. And the Democrats have a real problem. They were straight up about it. Now, David Axelrod is also a good friend of mine, has been calling for over a year now saying Joe Biden needs to step aside. And now what's happening, he and Jon Favreau and the pod save America guys are getting blistered

online by the hard left who they don't want to hear it from these guys. And they say you're traitors and they're getting it worse than I've ever gotten it. So, you know, you look, I respect people who speak their mind and who are honest and have intellectual integrity. I mean, there was a lot to be read. We're going to talk about the law, but there was a lot to be read between the lines, in my opinion, because all these people are connected. Axelrod knows Obama, who knows Biden.

So the truth had to have been known by the inner circles there. Yeah, I don't know. That's a very important question. It had to be. Well, people ask that question of, and Jake Tapper's pushed on this quite a bit when he's had people on, but let me put it this way.

I think Michael Smirconish had a date. My law school roommate. I met law school classmate. Really? Oh, wow. And Judge Chutkin. Yes, and we were all in the same class i know she was so michael did a daily poll the other day where he asked something like

if not for the debate would dems would george clooney and other dems have come forward and said i see a real problem with joe biden and the response was like 90 you're saying no of course not would not of course not so the question is like, you know, the question is who knew and how long have they known? But there absolutely is an L someone wrote a good article for New York magazine. I forget the name. I may have been Jonathan Chait, but it was like, it's, it's a, there's a problem here with Joe Biden's age, but there's also a trust problem with the people around him. And have they been straight with us? And why is it only coming out now that we all just saw it on national TV? Well, two things I think of.

So first of all, I think in retrospect, the media has made a mistake, it's a game of inches, in becoming too incestuous with former Democrats coming out of government. Well, that works both ways, though. There's plenty of former Trump people in the media now. I mean, a lot of them have turned on him. I wouldn't say- But there's Kayleigh McEnany is there on Fox.

That's what I say. It's a critical mass thing. But when Stephanopoulos kind of replaced David Brinkley as a host of ABC show, this was a... No matter what... And I'm not...

I don't have any huge problem with Stephanopoulos. But he was a highly partisan Democrat. He was not the profile of a, of a, of a journalist. And then this just began to snowball and snowball and snowball. So we have Axelrod and Van Jones. And at some point they, listen, this is what I think. Let's just say one thing. Social pressures, even though people don't talk about it, social pressures,

friendships are the most corrupting things there are. social pressures, even though people don't talk about it, social pressures, friendships, are the most corrupting things there are. You and I become friends now. You say something stupid. Do you think I'm not going to think 20 times before I tweet about it? I'm going to get an email from you. No, I'm saying, that's how we should do it.

But immediately, ah, it's my Ellie, you know, I can't, I can't. And when all those people on CNN, when so many of them straddle both worlds, the Democratic Party and journalism, this creates a force. I mean, how else are you going to explain? I mean, let's say one of the things. So I consider myself to be a sensitive observer of things.

And I've said to people, when Barack Obama took Joe Biden by the hand at that fundraiser, I said, something is wrong with Biden. Obama knows that because if Biden were fine, first of all, he's the president of the United States. You let him stay out there as long as he wants. Second of all, if he's fine, but he's really not picking up on something, you say, hey, Joe, or you tap a, hey, buddy. He took him by the hand parentally. And he didn't mean to do that. He did that because that's what he instinctively did because he knew Joe Biden's mental and physical situation.

That's what I said when I saw that. That was true. And Biden, now we know it was true. Clooney now wrote, the Biden I saw, Obama was at that fundraiser. It's not just those two. It's everybody they all knew. Here's a question that I don't have an answer to. Assuming they all knew, why would they have pushed for and accepted the early debate? That I don't know. I can't even begin to answer that. Well, there could be a cynical reason, which is-

Right, they wanted to expose him and get him out in time. If they had waited until September, maybe. Or maybe they fooled themselves to somehow, he's not good, but he gets by, he manages. To your first point, there are White House alums and political alums

on every news network. Coming out of the White House, coming out of Congress, et cetera. In a way, you know, you want that. You want someone, you don't want just some person with an opinion who's never done the job. You want someone like David Axelrod to go,

you know, we had crises in the White House. Here's what happened. Here's how it played out. Here's how it relates to what's happening. That's where I do my best work, where I can say, okay, they're on trial now. They got this witness coming up for cross-exam. Here's what they're trying to, you know, here's what they're going to try to go at

that witness with, where you can do like Troy Aikman or Tony Romo, you know, okay, and take them inside the huddle. So you want that. And I think it's each viewer and reader has to make their own judgments. Is this a person who's still loyal to their formers or not? I mean, look at Axe. Axe has made, I won't say enemies, but he has ticked off a lot of people on the Democratic side because he's calling it like he sees it. So some people do that. That's why I said it's a game of inches because they do need that.

And then, of course, like you had Rick Santorum one time. But over time, I've been watching CNN for 40, 50 years, whatever it's been on for 40 something years and uh just over time it drifted i think to a point where not just cnn alone all the networks and fox too i mean fox used to get terribly criticized back in the early 2000s when o'reilly was guy right that was another universe of reasonableness compared to what fox is now yeah i mean i used to really enjoy that fox it had you know more kondracki and with all sorts of liberal people juan williams there were a lot of really smart liberal people on fox even if it

tilted right and even the even the conservatives were not like uh laura ingram they were charles krauthammer right george will Will. You had really serious intellectual people. I have no memory of watching Fox at any, I mean, I still don't. Even O'Reilly compared to Tucker. I mean, I don't know what's on that slot now, but I mean, O'Reilly, he had his views. He was a blowhard, but he had really interesting, worthwhile debates every night,

and the debates were real real and you could learn. And O'Reilly liked to get a good version of the opposition. He liked to fight, you know? So anyway, that was it. So let's talk about the- Let's talk about the law. Case dismissed. Yeah, that came out kind of out of nowhere.

So just so people can follow along, this is the classified documents case down in Mar-a-Lago, one of the two federal cases, Jack Smith. And a couple of days ago, Judge Cannon, I mean, Cannon. Trump appointee. Trump appointee. But I defended her. I mean, I wrote I defend her to an extent.

I don't think everything she does is great or smart, but I also think there's a lot of hyperbole about her and a lot of just attributing horrible motives to her out of nowhere. But Judge Cannon granted a dismissal. She threw the case out because basically the argument, and this argument's been made with all the special counsel. It was made against Robert Mueller. It was made against David Weiss, the Hunter Biden special counsel, and it's never succeeded until now. The argument is if you're going to have special counsel, capital S, capital C,

this position within the Justice Department that holds the same power that the AG has, that a U.S. attorney has, to indict a criminal case, federal criminal case. There's two ways that can happen. One has to be presidentially nominated, Senate confirmed, the same way an AG or a U.S. attorney is. That, of course, was not done with Jack Smith.

Or two, Congress has to pass a specific law saying, we hereby create a position of special counsel. Which they had done. They did that. That's how we have an attorney general. No, we had a special counsel law. Well, so that's right. So before this, and people have, I think, gotten this part of it wrong.

I've heard some commentators, and I linked to an article where I criticize in my New York Magazine piece. People say, well, this goes against 50 years of precedent going back to Watergate. No, it doesn't. She actually, the history supports what Judge Cannon did here. Because what she says is, back in the 70s with Watergate and the 90s with Clinton and Ken Starr and all that, we had a law. It was called independent counsel at the time, but Congress passed a law saying we're creating this job called independent counsel. That law expired in 1999 and was not renewed. So there

is no such law now. So she says, if you have a law, great, you're good to go. So Watergate was fine. Clinton was fine. But now we have this reg regulation that DOJ passed, and there's no law that authorizes them to do that. Now, DOJ says, well, there's laws that say basically like the AG can do what he wants. The AG can delegate his authority, and that's good enough. And that's where the other judges have come out. So the next step, Jack Smith is appealing. He actually appealed, I think, officially just today. It'll go up to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. I think there's a pretty good chance Judge Cannon gets reversed. But the title of my article, I think, was Judge Cannon will probably get reversed. But she's not

crazy to grant this argument. It's not as, you know, you see people just peddling in outrage. Oh, it's terrifying. It's a horrible decision. I mean, maybe she'll get reversed. But like, first of all, anyone who tells you definitively it's right or wrong, they're just guessing. We don't know. There's been a couple district judges who've said it's no good. Three, I think, or four. And she says, there's been a, sorry. There's been three or four who've said it's fine to have special counsel.

She says, no, it's not. So it's going to work its way through the appellate courts. And the Supreme Court? They can take it if they want it when it gets up there he's got to go through the courts that the kind of thing they have to yeah i mean i'm not so sure they're going to agree with with judge cannon i mean part of the reason i think judge cannon did this now is justice thomas in the immunity decision which i'm sure we'll talk about two weeks ago clarence thomas issued this concurrence which is i agree with the immunity part. Also, I want to add this other thing.

He also was like he just went out on his own. He's like also another issue not here for us now. But I think special counsel is unconstitutional to begin with. And he lays it out. And Judge Cannon cites some of that. He was obviously giving her like here's a roadmap if you want to strike this down. So she's probably got the one vote at a nine. I don't know that she'll get all the conservatives, though.

I could see her losing this one, six, three, seven, two, but I don't know. I mean, a five, four decision upholding, it wouldn't shock me either. Yeah. Because there's a general, seems to be a general, uh, uh, vibe on that court now. So like the pendulum has swung too far in this kind of into the, into the hazy, never, never land of of authority nobody know who's in and let's pull things back let congress the legislate let them legislate right you want the special counsel we're not asking is this you know just vote for special counsel and by the way right when you voted for the special counsel uh it was it was called independent counsel independent counsel before that kind of implies that you thought you needed a law to do this.

Otherwise, right. And your decision not to renew it and not to pass a new statute sort of suggests that you didn't want it. That's right. Because we don't have to renew it because the law is meaningless anyway. Yeah. I mean, like I said, the counter argument is going to be there's this whole series of laws, 533, whatever, you know, whatever the numbers are that basically say I'm summarizing

here, but say, well, the AG is the chief law enforcement officer and can appoint and delegate and give people jobs as necessary. So, um, that's, you know, that's the other point of view and we'll see. We'll see. I don't actually have any point of view on this. Yeah, I, I get, I, I agree. I, I can see both sides of this and I don't feel like I need to be up on a mountain screaming about it either way. We'll see what the courts say. But I do have a point of view about what I'm about to say. Well, and then this will bring us immunity, which is that every, this is a, is a sickness, a liberal sickness at this point that people think that every single, every and any case that goes President Trump's way is a partisan, corrupt decision. Totally agree with you. And as I said to our friend on Kush two days ago,

nevermind that Justice Roberts betrayed the Republicans on Obamacare, betrayed the Republicans on Trump's tax returns, on any number of other things. He fits the profile of a never-Trumper, actually. There's no reason in the world to think Justice Roberts is trying to prop up President Trump. Go ahead, yeah. Everyone's focused, of course, on the immunity decision, but just in this Supreme Court term that just ended, we saw conservatives joining with liberals to give liberal outcomes, left-leaning outcomes on two abortion cases. That's right. On a gun case, on a case challenging the Biden administration's interactions with social media

companies, some call it a censorship case. I don't think that's quite right. But I mean, there were a whole series of decisions where some or all conservatives came over and joined with liberals and the result was a liberal, you know, a liberally favored result. I don't buy that. I agree with you on this. And I think so, you know, but those weren't, not all of those were MAGA cases. No, but, uh, some of them, but the Trump, the tax return was a MAGA case if there ever was one. Right, right. Exactly. People need to get thicker skin when it comes to these judges. Like some people think that they can't handle it if they don't get every single thing their way.

And if you look at the judges, I make this point in the article I just wrote. I said people say, oh, Judge Cannon needs to be disqualified, thrown off this case because she got reversed by the 11th Circuit. I said, oh, if that's the standard, say goodbye to Judge Chutkin, your classmate, because she just got reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which, by the way, went out of its way to excoriate her and the Court of Appeals. They said, I'm paraphrasing, but the Supreme Court said, given how much this case has been expedited with no fact finding, and that's a criticism I had been making that obviously Jack Smith, obviously Judge Chutkin were bending rules, practices, norms to rush the hell out of this case. There was this whole liberal, there was a very prevalent fantasy out there pushed by, I won't name names, but there's a lot of them that what's going to happen is Judge Chutkin is going to set this case for

trial. It's going to start in July and August, and it's going to go through September and October. We're going to have this big dramatic January 6th trial. And the jury's got, Just Security, this website, did the most ridiculous article I've ever seen by people who've obviously never stepped foot in a courtroom, where they said, not only did they predict when the trial was going to happen, they predicted the date of a verdict. They said October 31st or October 25th, we will have a verdict. That is the most hubristic, ridiculous thing you would never do if you ever actually tried a case. Meanwhile, in my book, my second book, which we also did the party here for, I said two years ago, before any of these cases were indicted, I said,

he's going to get indicted. Trump's going to get indicted a bunch of times. And it's already too late though. Merrick Garland has already missed the boat. I say in my book, among other things, he's not even thinking about immunity. Immunity is obviously going to go up to the Supreme Court. That in itself is going to take way more time than they have. It's always been this fantasy out there. So people, you know, and if you look at the judges, by the way, who've had the Trump cases, they've ruled overwhelmingly against him. Judge Mershon in the Hush Money case.

Judge Chutkin. Judge Lewis Kaplan on the E.G. and Carol case, who I appeared in front of a bunch of times, Judge N'Goran on the civil fraud case. I'm not saying they're wrong. I mean, I think they're mostly were right. But, you know, people rooting against Trump got so used to getting 98 percent of the calls that when they lose a few in front of Judge Kagan, who, by the way, has denied a whole bunch of Trump's motions, too, is impeachment removal. It is like, they can't take it. It's like, listen, man, like if you've, if you spend any time actually litigating grow up, like you're not going to win everyone. You're going to have judges who frustrate you. You're

going to have judges who don't give you everything you want. I had, you know, how many times I had my cases gutted by judges in ways I thought was unfair. You don't have tantrum. You just, you deal with it. You move on. Yeah. And I'll say this. I agree with everything you said. When we went to law school, any five to four, six to three decision, even seven to a decision, unless it was like, you know, Dred Scott or some, they were always arguments on both sides that were, that required you to think about them and chew on them. There was never a case where that's ridiculous. Right. Or only a only a corrupt person could have ruled that way.

Number one, number two. There's a whole spate of Watergate cases with Nixon appointed justices on those. And they came out unanimously against Nixon. And Trump has lost a lot of cases by his own judges that he appointed, that he nominated. I mean, they ruled against him on the subpoenas. They ruled against him on the tax case. They ruled against him on all the election stuff. So I don't think these justices give a crap. Maybe Clarence Thomas.

But I don't think these judges, justices, love Trump or worship him. I think that they're conservatives as advertised. And they're not going to be on board with certain things. So that's the key. And then I want you to tell us about the immunity case. If you see one of them make a decision, which is inconsistent with their normal conservative. They say, Hey,

what's going on here? You were concerned all of a sudden, but when these, many of these cases are perfectly predictable within their, their legal worldview and their judicial philosophy, then what, why are you saying it's, and then you have legal experts like Lawrence tribe and,

and, and throwing bombs and they undermine the country this way. You know, Trump is very divisive. But this kind of stuff, both sides are contributing to a loss of faith in our institutions. That's very damaging. Well, I don't have a problem with pointed criticism of judges and justices and prosecutors. I mean, that's what we're supposed to do. But I do have a problem with hyperbole.

And a lot of times you have, this is the end of democracy. You know how many times people have said this is the end of democracy? The worst decision since Dred Scott. Dangerous, dangerous. That I don't subscribe to. I think that most of what we do is, within our process, we're protected by guardrails. You're not going to like every decision. You're going to hate some decisions. You're going to think some decisions are really unwise. But I don't go in for this hysteria of danger and threat and all that. All right. It're going to hate some decisions. You're going to think some decisions are really unwise, but I don't go in for this hysteria of danger and threat and all that. It's time to take a moment to thank

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a hundred percent money back guarantee again for 20% off your first order sheath underwear.com slash seller or promo code seller at checkout. Prosecutors. Yes. Have absolute immunity from prosecution. Prosecutors have absolute immunity from prosecution. What do you mean? Absolute immunity for prosecutors have prosecutorial prosecutorial immunity from prosecution. Prosecutors have absolute immunity from prosecution. What do you mean?

Absolute immunity for prosecutors have prosecutorial immunity. Civil immunity. And criminal. I don't know about that, but okay. Well, this is important. I assumed. So let me give you, I'll give you the background. So we have had civil immunity in this country since 1982. Case Nixon v. Fitzgerald.

Nixon, it was Richard Nixon. Had nothing to do with Watergate, actually. Some guy named Fitzgerald was in the military and got fired. He sues Richard Nixon for damages, money damages. And the Supreme Court says you can't because hiring and firing executive branch employees, it's part of the president's job. Since 1982, all federal executive branch employees, including me when I was a little peon at DOJ, you can't be sued. So in other words, if somebody who I prosecuted and got locked up sued me for personal damages for wrongful prosecution or sued me for subpoenaing them or sued me for something I said in court, I'm covered. I can't be sued. I'm immune. But as it was explained to me, if you go out tomorrow night and you get in a fight at a bar, nothing to do with your job, you're not immune.

So we've had civil immunity. And the test has always been, are you in your job or out of your job? What we didn't know until two weeks ago is, is there such thing as criminal immunity at all? And what the Supreme Court said was yes in ways that we'll discuss to an extent for presidents. I actually thought that their opinion was going to apply to all federal officials, but it only applies to the president. This is very important. I want to ask you. Because we know cases of prosecutors who falsify evidence,

fail to disclose exculpatory material, essentially railroad innocent people to prison. Prosecutors have been prosecuted for that. They've been prosecuted for that. It's rare, but yes, it happens. So they don't have criminal immunity? No, no, no. Okay, so I misunderstood that. They have civil immunity. Okay. So, all right. Fair enough. So then tell us about the immunity case with Donald Trump. So I'll tell you what was

surprising and what was not surprising. What was not surprising is that the Supreme Court said there is some form of criminal immunity for presidents. I mean, I predicted it a thousand times in writing, on air, in my books. That was not hard to see coming, unless you were just so blinded by Trump hatred that you thought, of course, there was going to be some immunity. Why wouldn't there be? There is immunity.

We've had immunity for 40 years on the civil side. Of course, there was going to be. And I think most level-headed people anticipated there will be some form of immunity. What was surprising is they went farther than I expected. They drew the immunity lines more broadly than I expected a couple of ways. One, the Supreme Court basically says, we're going to base this on who the president is talking to more than what they are talking about. So they say, when the president's talking to DOJ and the

attorney general, automatically immune, basically. If he's talking to the VP, presumptively immune, almost definitely. If he's making public statements to inform the public, almost certainly immune. And so I thought that was a little broader and construed a little differently. Here's a really important point. The Supreme Court said if something's immune, you can't charge the president for it, but you also cannot even use it as evidence. So what they now have to do with Jack Smith's case is pull out the whole thing

where Trump tried to manipulate DOJ, pull out the whole thing with Mike Pence, pressuring Mike Pence, pull out the whole thing with the speech. I actually think that's too far. Amy Coney Barrett actually said that too. She said, I agree with immunity, but I think they should still be allowed to use it.

Yeah, you have to tell the story as a prosecutor. So I think it makes Jack Smith's case almost impossible to the point where I think he's gonna have to consider a dismissal. The third thing they did, which was not, I guess, shocking. But not a dismissal on the electors' part. Well, so that's right. So the parts that will probably still be standing

will be the pressure campaign on state officials, the fake electors. But the question is, like, is that enough to sustain his very, he probably has to redo his indictment because the conspiracy is so broad and he can't even tell those parts of the story. Again, I think that's crazy. A, can he still sustain a conspiracy, you know, based on that? B, the evidence tying Donald Trump specifically to those things is a little attenuated. Like, the evidence of him pressuring Mike Pence is direct.

He sat down face to face with Mike Pence and pressured him. He pressured him on Twitter. The evidence of him dealing with DOJ is pretty clear. The evidence of his tie into the fake electors scheme, it's goes through Rudy. Although the evidence of him pressuring state officials is clear. He made, you know, he called Brad Raffensperger. So that part's pretty good. So, you know, I listened to that part's pretty good. By the way,

I listened to that whole phone call today. Yeah. And I came away thinking they have nothing on Trump. Well, I got to tell you, so everyone knows this phone call because everyone knows the one line. I never listened to it until today.

The one line of it is, I just need you to find 11,780 votes. You know, Noam, nobody knows this. How long is that call? An hour. It's 62 minutes. And so, and there's several other points in,

and I'm just telling you what his defense lawyers will say. There are several other points in that call where he says to Raffensperger, all I'm asking you to do is to count the votes as they were cast. So as Trump often does, he says it both. You know, he says something like, I want you to go be strong and protest,

but be peaceful and patriotic, but go kick, I'm paraphrasing, you know, but go kick ass and take names, but be, you know, like he's doing a typical Trump thing, but he's all over the map. And to take that one, you know, 10 word sentence out of context, out of a 62 minute call and the way people have said smoking gun, it's over. I mean, I'll give you what, Doug Jones, who is a Democratic senator from Alabama, who was a very high ranking official at DOJ, who was a liberal icon and a brilliant- He's the one of Roy Moore. Yeah, yeah.

Brilliant guy. He said on CNN, he held up a transcript of that call and he said almost what you just said, Noam. He goes, everyone was sort of laughing. Oh, he said, just find me. It's a no brainer. He said, let me tell you something. Any defense lawyer is going to tear this phone call here apart.

It's not the smoking gun you think it is. The call proceeds this way. Trump, at the beginning of the call, says, listen, we have this. It's a crazy call, to be clear. We have this evidence of fake ballots. We have this evidence of people who were turned away. We have this evidence of forgeries. He lists like four or five different things that would be hundreds of thousands

of ballots. True, which they are not. None of them are, clearly now we know none of them are true. It's not clear that in that fog right then that they knowingly knew that none of them were true. But

in that context, later on he says, listen, we have all these things. You only need to find 11,000. Out of the hundreds of thousands I'm telling you are out there. That's what he – I just need you to find 11,000. That's what actually the call is. That's what his defense is.

But that's actually what happened. Yeah, I mean, that's how you read it. That's fair. Well, what's the other reading? His other reading is he was saying, I just need you to like – I don't care how you get there. Wink, wink. I just need you to like add 11 000 onto my side you know now that that can still be there is as you said there's like a little psychological pressure you're strong yeah he says they're laughing at you oh yeah laughing at trump's over

the top i mean and when the when the guy i forget who it is but like raffensperger's lawyer whoever's like sir there's no evidence he's like you're committing fraud right now you're committing obstruction right it's crazy i mean but if you imagine incarcerating somebody because you say beyond a reasonable doubt, this call was a crime. Well, no way.

So let's talk about what happens now with this case. It gets sent back to Judge Chutkin. She now has to do the fact finding that she should have done right off the bat.

She, I think she's going to try to hold a hearing. Now, it's not going to be on TV, but she's going to, you know, allow prosecutors. I think this will be sort of a thin consolation for not being able to try to hold a hearing. Now, it's not going to be on TV, but she's going to allow prosecutors.

I think this will be sort of a thin consolation for not being able to try their case. And they'll probably put on Mark Meadows and Mike Pence. It'll be dramatic. And it'll be like the January 6th hearings that we saw, only it won't be on camera, but we'll be covering it. And I think then she will say, given the Supreme Court's ruling, I find A, B, and C are out of bounds, D, E and F are inbounds. And Jack Smith will probably have to adjust his indictment.

Now, obviously, if Trump wins the election, nobody's you know, nothing's getting tried. Nothing's happening. He's not going to prison. If Trump loses, then I guess you put this, you know, then I guess you try this case in a vastly reduced, streamlined fashion. But again, it's really hard to tell the story even of the fake electors or the pressure on Raffensperger. If you're not allowed to mention what he did with DOJ, you're not allowed to mention his public statements. You're not allowed to mention what he did with Pence. And the other thing that's important, the Supreme Court specifically went out of their way. As soon as the opinion came down, I was on set with CNN and I was like immediately word search, interlocutory, because I wanted to see, and the answer is yes, they did. The Supreme Court said, whatever Judge Chutkin rules, you know, the district court judge rules

here, what's in, what's out, you, Donald Trump, get to appeal that before your trial. So what she can't do is say, A, B, and C are in, D, E, and F are out, trial starts next week. She's going to say A, B, C, and in, D, E, and F are out, and Trump's going to say, I disagree, I think it should all be out, then it goes back up to the Court of Appeals, then maybe back up to the U.S. Supreme Court. So if Trump loses the election, this trial is not even going to happen in 2025. I mean, it's going to happen in, you know, God knows when. All right, let me read you, how should I approach this? So I am, I tend to think that I like Justice Roberts' opinion here. Okay. Because I think that he's aware that the norms that have held and have held us in place for a very long time are gone. So, for instance, there's the famous Clinton pardon to Mark Rich.

Right. This was as prima facie a corrupt pardon as— Well, it was investigated criminally by the SDNY. It was by SDNY. Yeah, they didn't find enough, but they opened an investigation on it. And there was no—I didn't know they were investigating criminally. Oh, no, that's public. Yeah, I'm not breaking news here.

But there wasn't much national demand for president Clinton to be tried. There weren't Republicans making speeches and, and the, um, president Bush had some doozies to president, but yeah, I'm just, I'm just saying an example and president,

I'm not trying to make a part of an example and president Bush's, uh, justice department didn't start looking into, to, um, president Clinton's pardons. Right. But, um, those days are over, right? department didn't start looking into to um president clinton's pardons right but um those days are over right i mean and and this this decision might protect biden as much as it's

protecting trump so let me just read from the key part the key part i think you'll agree of uh robert's decision are you talking about sotomayor's dissent how she says a seal team can now right and you can assassinate your enemies and you can do anything basically the president can do anything he wants yeah and he says um the dissent the dissents overlook the more likely prospect of an executive branch that cannibalizes itself with each successive president free to prosecute his predecessors, yet unable to boldly and fearlessly carry out his duties for fear that he may be next. So what he's saying is that this is all going to descend into every administration trying

to get the one that came previously, and that because you're afraid the next one's going to try to get you, you're afraid to be candid with this one. You're afraid to have this guy hauled into court. And then just one more thing to add to it, this old adage that you guys say about a district, you know, a grand jury or anybody can indict a ham sandwich. He doesn't want the president to become ham sandwiches. Right.

Where you just find some charges to make and then you haul everybody in and you put them under oath and you start getting, he says, we don't need this. It's not worth it. Yeah.

I, first of all, I disagree with the hypotheticals that Justice Sotomayor floats. I have huge respect for her. I've met her a couple of times. She was a- She's a wise Latina.

She was a great district judge here in the city. She was a second circuit. I argued in front met her a couple times. She was a wise Latina. She was a great district judge here in the city. She was a second circuit. I argued in front of her a couple times. I know people who clerked for her. I think the world of her. I don't think... I understand her point. She's saying this could lead to really troubling outcomes and sort of difficult questions.

I don't think she truly believes that the president can now order an assassination. He just did. Didn't you see the believes that the president can now order an assassination. He just did. Didn't you see the bullet that went by Trump? I think if that scenario happened, Justice Sotomayor would say that's not an official act and you're not immune. And I think any reasonable judge would say that. I think it would be 9-0 to say, of course he's not immune,

even applying the Supreme Court. Of course it would be 9-0. So I think it's hyperbolic. Now, she does have some trickier questions, like what if a president took a bribe to issue a veto or to appoint somebody as a U.S. attorney? I mean, I think that's also obviously outside the scope of the job.

And you're right though. The reason people hate immunity, I get why normal humans hate immunity because it sounds like it's a free pass. Nobody likes a free pass, especially for already powerful people. But the point of immunity is not like, let's give these people a nice perk. The point of immunity is civil and criminal, both officials need to make difficult decisions every day that impact people's lives, people's finances. And if you open them up to lawsuits or now in the president's case, indictment, you're going to paralyze them. And maybe even as Justice Roberts says, cannibalize the government. And so, you know, one of the comebacks to like, well, it's always easy to go, well, nobody's against the law. You go, well, this but this is the law.

Like it's part of the law that we want our officials to be able to function without fear of reprisal. And one thing, by the way, that the three dissenters dodge, and I wish they would have to answer this. Do you agree with immunity at all? Or are you just saying there should be zero immunity for anyone, criminal immunity for the president ever? Or is your dissent just based on we do concede that there should be some base level of immunity, but we think they went too far? And they sort of dodge that so that it's easier to wave a flag and just say no, no, no. But I believe that if it was up to them, they would have to acknowledge that there are certain absolute core functions that a president has to be immune for. I mean, again, taking the Obama ordering a drone strike of whoever it was, al-Awlaki, or whoever it was overseas, a foreign adversary. If he were indicted by that, and you do have runaway prosecutors, he should obviously be immune because that's him being commander in chief, doing the job of

commander in chief. And I do wonder if Justices Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kagan would agree that there even should be some very narrow immunity. They didn't address that. They just said, we hate this. Well, this is why I think it's so smart in a way. I don't know if he this is intention or I'm just wrong about this, but he gives some, you know, Roberts, Roberts. He gives some basic principles and then it becomes a question of fact for the lower courts. Right. And so rather than have to predict every scenario that might happen or lay down specifics so that a president could build his behavior around the concrete rules that have been laid out,

I want to accomplish it, but let's do it this way because this is how to say... I'm going to do it all by talking to DOJ. That's fine. Exactly. Yeah. You let the lower courts deal with it. And that if it then at some point it might work its way up to the Supreme Court.

And unless it's ridiculous, abusive of discretion, the Supreme Court just doesn't take the case. Right. And common sense is able to prevail throughout the legal system. That's an interesting point. I like the idea about why would they give a roadmap, but it's also, as a practical matter, they're gonna make it virtually impossible

to prosecute a president for anything that happens while he's in office because then you get into the whole game of pulling out this piece, pulling out that piece. They can't even mention it at Trump. By the way- Well, they can prosecute Trump for the electors. Yeah, I think that's right.

The court told them. I think that at trial. And by the way, well, they can prosecute Trump for the electors. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. I think that's right. And by the way, um, this immunity argument gives Trump a shot. I wouldn't say a over 50% shot, but a good shot, an additional argument on appeal. That's why the sentencing was put off because Trump's lawyers put into motion. And I think Trump, uh, I think DOJ or excuse me, the Manhattan DA's response is due next week. But Trump's lawyers are saying, well, if we go back to the hush money case, most of that conduct was pre-presidency 2016 during the election. Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels, et cetera. But there are several pieces of evidence that have to do with conversations Trump had in the White House while he was president. For example, he had key communications with Hope Hicks, who was his communications director, about how do we message this to the public? Do we tell them this? Do we tell them that? He had

communications with, I'm blanking on the woman's name, but Westerhout or something like that. She was a witness at trial. She sat outside the White House, outside the Oval Office, and she talked about how Trump would review documents and what his practices were. They had evidence of an official government ethics disclosure form that Trump had to submit because he was president, a federal form. And their argument is all of those things we now, they argue, we now know were immune and hence should not have been allowed in the trial at all, even as evidence, hence tainted evidence was in against me. And this whole thing should get thrown out.

Now, the response is going to be, and this is sort of what we were just talking about, and I think a good response is none of that was official duties. All of that was political and personal. I think that's where Judge Bershon will come out, but that could go back up the line. That could end up back in the Supreme Court. And, you know, the Supreme Court said you're not to get into the motives of what the president was doing. It's not your job to say good, bad, or ugly. It's your job to say, was what he was doing an executive function, essentially? Does the judge have the discretion to say, yes, that evidence shouldn't have been allowed,

but the jury would have come out the same way? So that's called harmless error, the prosecutor's best friend. And I guarantee you, I don't guarantee you, but I suspect that the DA's response is gonna be, A, none of it was immune, but B, even if it was immune, it was too minor.

It didn't make a difference. The problem is, and Trump's team anticipates this, the way they argued the case, the guy who argued the case, Steinglass, I don't know him. I know Alvin Bragg quite well. I've been critical of him. I like him. I mean, we're friends. We go back, we were colleagues, but I've been critical of him. But Steinglass, the way he argued the case was like a table pounding. Every piece of evidence, he was like, this is devastating. I never, I was, as a prosecutor, I was like to show, don't tell. I never liked doing prosecutors like, this is devastating. This is absolute, like just explain the proof and they'll get it. But anyway, when it comes to those pieces of proof, I just said, Hope Hicks and the form, every time Steinglass said to the jury in closing,

this is overwhelming evidence of guilt right here. This is overpowering. And so their own words were, this is hugely important. So that's being used against them now too. So I don't know, you know, I don't think Marshawn's going to throw out the conviction. I just, he's made clear where he stands. But look, it gives Trump. I already I mean, I wrote a piece that got got me a lot of heat where I said there are after the verdict. I said, you got to respect the verdict. Jury did what they did. Jury did their job, given the case they were given, given the proof they saw.

Reasonable jury can absolutely come out guilty here. I have no qualms with the jury. the case was charged by the DA, I think is a major, certainly a major problem in terms of good, fair prosecutorial practice, but also potentially a real legal problem too. I have another question for you about this stuff. Cause I have no idea what the answer is here, but I thought about it at the time. Yeah. Once it came out that the, that her had decided that we can't prosecute Joe Biden for the documents because he's a old man with a failing memory. And then, as I understand it, Biden's documents were from the time he was a senator even, let alone vice president.

So he had no right to the documents. Trump had various rights to have had those documents. He just didn't say the magic words, I'm declassifying. But there's a lot of evidence that Trump obstructed justice and that's not okay. And that's certainly personal. Why didn't he just drop the documents part of the indictment? Because it is obstruction. Yeah. Because how are you going to prosecute Trump for having documents when you just let Biden off the hook? I think the argument is, well, the obstruction versus cooperation deal, you know, that makes a big difference. And I think even just focusing on the documents, the argument was Trump had them and he was the archives negotiated with him for a long time and asked him and he didn't respond to a subpoena.

Just like it's just a question of who was acting in good faith. But just make an end round around all this uncertainty that actually did knock him out of the water, blow him out of the water. He could have had a nice clean case of obstruction, as I understand that. That's a lot of evidence there. You can charge just obstruction, but it's kind of weak to bring in front of a jury. I actually don't have a problem with Trump being charged and Biden not. Now, I think there's enough of a difference in the way they handle the documents. When I wrote, I said on air, and I wrote a piece about, and the White House lashed out at me, Ian Sams, who's this very aggressive spokesperson

for the White House. I said, the big story of the Herr report about Biden's documents, I don't really care what Robert Herr thinks about if Joe Biden's with it or not, senile or not. That to me is like a side show, although it's more interesting now, I guess. But I said, who cares what one guy thinks

about Joe Biden's mental acuity? The big takeaway that we're all missing is Joe Biden has been, and his people have been lying their asses off to us for years because Biden and his people have been saying, not for years, but ever since this came out for a year and change, Biden and his people have been saying,

complete accident. He had no idea. The stuff just all got shuffled in 100%. He had no knowledge inadvertent. That's bullshit. There's, there's a recording. Joe Biden's autobiographer made an audio recording of, and then one of them, Joe Biden says something like the classified stuff is downstairs. He absolutely knew. And they've lied to us. And Ian Sam's just sent some, some, you know, like ad hominem. Oh, this is a really stupid, embarrassing analysis

or something. Actually while reporter NBC and MSNBC, Ken Delaney and retweeted it and said, this is really smart. And Ian Sam's lashed out. And I was like, you can be as mad as you want. Like facts are facts. Um, so, uh, so yeah, you know, we almost finished. So we can, we're not going to get to the Chevron stuff, but, But this actually brings us to what we were talking about off mic before we started, which is that there's some sort of, I'll use a phrase again, critical mass, I think, that's being reached that there's so much lying that's gone on on Team Biden, from the lies about Hunter not being involved in his business to looking in the camera and saying the laptop is a Russian plant to the things you just alluded to, to the coverup about

his age, to about his, you know, compass mentisness. Can I give you one real quick, just on my mind? We have now seen, I'm working on a piece now about the Biden tape. Everyone wants to hear the her tape, right? And do you remember after the whole her report came out and Biden was rip shit? They asked me about Beau Biden's death. He said, how the hell dare they? He was all, it turns out Joe Biden was the one who brought it up. Robert never even mentioned it. I mean, that is an outrageous act of dishonesty by the president.

So you put the, and then the media being in, and then the flip side is all the things about Trump and Russia and all not turning out to be true. And somehow they've lost the moral high ground to Donald Trump. I think everybody thinks Trump is still worse as a liar. Yeah, I mean, Trump lies way more. There's no question.

But I don't know if it's just a matter of amounts of lies. When you're lying about the fact that the president is not mentally fit. Right. And then, by the way, there's Kamala Harris lying and trying to keep innocent people in prison that we've heard these stories. When she was a DA, you mean? While she was a DA. And this is Laura,

Laura Bazelon wrote an article in the times about it. Nick Kristof wrote an article about, that's my own pet thing with, with, but that, that they, they're losing their strongest issue against Trump. And then all of a sudden that stigma that how could you support Donald Trump

is not, the gravitational force is not holding people in place anymore. And how are they going to beat Trump now? Because people like his policies. People like the economy under Trump. And I'm not saying correlation is causation with presidents and economies, but most people do see it that way.

I think it's a really interesting point because it has been and remains the case that Trump lies way more than Joe Biden and the Trump administration lied way more than the Biden administration. The Trump administration and Trump lied almost to the point where it was so common and so rapid fire. It was just like taken as a given. A Sharpie on the map. There's so many who could even write like. But a lot of them are also ridiculous and very narcissistic and precious. Some are stupid and crowd-sized, but some are very serious.

But you are right that the Biden administration and Biden folks have ceded the high ground to a bit. I mean, the law would call it the doctrine of dirty hands, basically. That's right. If you had some hand in the wrongdoing, it doesn't matter if it was less than the other guy, like you're out of luck. And I think politically, it it's no longer you know, it's no longer like a choice between truthful and lies.

It's a it's a choice between lies all the time and lies a decent amount of the time. Lies a decent amount of time. But there's no lie. He won't tell that this is the important. Wasn't it so busy? I can't figure out Joe Biden's. I can figure out Donald Trump's lying. He just says whatever the hell he wants and doesn't care. But like, why would Joe Biden in the middle of the debate say no American service members were killed in my tenure? I mean, everyone, of course. I don't think that was a lie. You think it was just like he, he, I think what he meant to say was we're not involved in wars. Okay. So you say he didn't state it correctly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, 13 were killed during the Afghanistan

withdrawal. No, I don't think that was a lie. But I think, listen, Biden has a whole career of lying. We know this. Well, I just gave you two examples. No, but he dropped out of the presidency years ago for plagiarism. How benign is that now? I mean, in the 80s, it was like, he plagiarized? He's done. And he was

done. In the 80s, it was like Gary Hart was seen on a boat with another woman what was the name of the boat oh god wait wait monkey business monkey business yeah by the way for the record i was born in 1975 so that was like that's very what year was 84 88 i don't know yeah um yeah so uh but like the bar is the bar of what even counts as bad behavior is so raised now. It's insane. It might have been 92. Anyway. An affair.

Gavin Newsom. I didn't even know this until the other day. Gavin Newsom apparently had an affair. I think I saw it, right? Had an affair years ago with his campaign manager's wife. And there's a clip of Gavin Newsom coming out and like, I'm so sorry that I hurt him. But you know what? He's fine.

It's like no one cares anymore. Different world. I mean, I think this is a, it is good that America has become more mature about the reality. I agree. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Like there's something, all right, smoking weed. Remember? I didn't inhale.

I mean, who cares? Or things have just gotten so much worse that relatively speaking. Yeah, maybe we're just like, all right, we don't have time for that. Yeah. But what is clear is that there's no lie Biden won't tell. And there's no lie Trump won't tell. And in that sense, I think they are the same. Trump is shameless and Trump's ego is, I mean, they have different styles.

Right. But those two big lies, he knew every single email in that laptop was real. He knew that. Right. And the press had to have known it all. See, this is what really bothers me, is that there's been a few chapters where everybody was in on it. Well, let me say about the laptop.

I mean, I'm not going to defend the press there. The press got it wrong writ large. I thankfully never was called upon. I never had any occasion to talk about it um but like it definitely seemed like a bizarre story like i would have absolutely had my suspicion level on high for like this laptop gets brought to a repair it ended up being true gets brought to a repairman who's blind well of course but that's what the hell yeah but that's who brings a laptop in for repairs and doesn't pick it up? Yeah, and that's as far as the press went with it.

Their job actually is to start picking up the phone. I think the media has acknowledged that that was a screw up. But there were two things about that. First of all, the FBI had the laptop in 2018. Yeah. So, and John Turley had, who was writing for Fox, had the evidence number. So they knew the laptop

had been with the FBI for a year. But more importantly, nobody can fake somebody's emails if the recipients of the emails are walking around and talking. All you have to do is, listen, there's an email here to you. What was his name?

Rob Walker. Is it real or is it fake? Not one person who was supposedly in a faked email, not one person came out and said, that's not my email. So we knew it was true. I mean, anybody would have, it's true, the story is weird, but they could have found out. They didn't want to know if it was true. It's, you know, I mean, I mean, anybody, anybody would have, it's true. The story is weird, but they could have found out. They didn't want to know if it's true,

but leaving the press out of it, Biden looked in the camera and said, it's a plant. He knew it was real, but then for, for a regular citizen, they say to themselves, he lies about anything also,

but also the press covers for him. And then the press, the stuff that half the things they told us about Trump lying about turned out not even to be like, anyway, so we could go on and on. You want to call the election? No, no, I, I have no idea what's going to happen. The one thing I will say that strikes me, and this is not an original point. I've heard other people say this is like these massive events can happen, okay, a criminal conviction, like, you know, whatever one may think of it, a criminal conviction, six months before

the election, a disastrous, historically disastrous debate performance, now an attempted assassination, and each of them doesn't move the polls or moves the polls like 1% or 2%, like, I mean, everyone is so locked in that no matter what happens, they're both going to have 40 and 40%, I think, almost literally no matter what happens. And so there's just such little play. There's such little middle ground here. I mean, look, it seems Trump is well ahead at this point, but things happen so fast. I mean, who would have thought a week ago what's happened in the last week would happen. So who the hell knows? I think if the Democrats were to nominate a fresh, young, moderate candidate, they would still win this. Well, it's going to be Harris

if it's not Biden. I think that has, I think when this all started, there was talk of Newsom and Whitmer and whoever. I think one thing that has become clear is if they replace Biden, it is going to be Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket. Maybe she has, she may well, I mean, some of the polling shows she has a better chance than Biden. Not in swing states, not that some of the, some of the popular vote polls. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think she has it. I'm not making, what's your prediction? My prediction, I would have to be that he would win Trump. But I also would say that there's a good chance that they will replace Biden with a fresh moderate,

as I'm saying, because it's the only way they can win. Yeah, well, more and more voices are coming out. And I think next week, there was sort of a little lull with the attempted assassination, the RNC. But I think next next week they're really coming up on do or die time here. The Democrats like their conventions in the middle of August. They're thinking of doing this roll call thing earlier so they can make sure they get them on the ballot, which is also very controversial.

But like they're out of time, you know, next week, basically. You have to look into this because I looked into it a little bit, but I'm sure I got it wrong. The rules, as I understand them, say that once they nominate him, right, then the party can choose a replacement for him in any way that they want. Oh, OK. So that they could actually, you know, if they just have the steel to face down one thing they should learn from Trump.

Right. People don't really care. He said, you said, you said grab him by the pussy. You should resign, Mr. President. The Rams people said, you know, you're out of this. It'll be fine. Yeah. They're scared of like Nicole Hannah-Jones saying if you pass over Harris, black women, blah, blah, blah.

I don't believe that's true at all. I think black women are savvy enough to understand Harris can't win. That's why they had to go with someone else. And they hate Trump. If they have the nerve to do what the godfather would do and do whatever it takes to put on the candidate who has the best chance of winning,

then I believe they will win. And I think that's what they probably will do because in the end, if that's the only thing you can do to win, you have to do it. My instinct is similar that it, you know, Trump is ahead by any metric right now, but whether they replace Biden or not, I have a sense things always tighten and things always end up a little closer than we expect. So I don't think it's over by any means, but he has to debate again. I don't think they will. I don't, I don't think it's over by any means. But he has to debate again. I don't think they will.

I don't think Trump will. Because why would you? When you had such a... Because if the next debate is a draw, then Trump will undo a lot of what the benefit that he got out of the first debate. I have breaking news. What? Biden just tested positive for COVID.

Jesus. Is this real? Do you really think I would interrupt the two of you to say that if it weren't true? Wow. Is he going to claim he had COVID during the debate and that's why he wasn't feeling well? It's a little too late for that.

He hasn't had it for four weeks. I don't think COVID is a big deal. Yeah, I don't think COVID really. I've had it, I don't know. We're still talking about COVID. At least twice that I know of Yeah You interrupted us for that? I thought you were going to say he dropped

He resigned? I mean dropped out of the race to be clear Right Yeah Or dropped I do have a question for you guys Go ahead quick Yeah yeah

I mean wasn't Reagan's Alzheimer's covered up? Yeah Well I mean I only know what I've read, but it sounds like for the last year or so, they shielded him. But you can't do that now. The media is all over you.

It's every day. I invite everybody to go to YouTube and look up Reagan's last press conference. Okay. Now, I can't say whether he had any cognitive decline at that point. He is so sharp. Really? He's so good. Yeah, yeah can't say whether he had any cognitive decline at that point. He is so sharp. Really?

He's so good. Yeah, yeah. He's so good. There's no indication of Alzheimer's. Okay. Now, he might have already been, forget names or whatever it is. But they knew, right? No, no, they didn't know.

Okay. They didn't know. I mean, he was getting older, but I don't think we even know he had Alzheimer's then. It's not like it established that. It's sort of accepted wisdom now that he was, but I don't know. I guess we'll see. Everything about Reagan was accepted wisdom.

I mean, just as an aside, because I'm older, we were always told Reagan is an idiot. He can't string words together. And then after he was president, his diaries came out. His handwritten speeches came out. Stories from people who worked in his cabinet came out about how wise he was. George H.W. Bush spoke at his funeral and started crying because Reagan taught him more about leadership than any. And it turned out it was all false.

I have a quick question for you. So Reagan was the first president I remember. Right. I was, again, like I said before, born in 75. So it was all false. I have a quick question for you. So Reagan was the first president I remember, right? I was, again, like I said before, born in 75. So who's the, it's your birthday. Who is the first president you remember? Oh, Lyndon Johnson. Really?

Yeah, yeah. Holy crap. Yeah. So 60s, late 60s? Well, from after, I was born in 62. Kennedy was assassinated in 63, right? Oh, Kennedy was president when you were born. Does that make you feel old? Not until you said it.

You know who was president when I was born? This is a good little trivia question. Carter? No, Ford. 75. 75. A very narrow Ford years. How about you?

Same. Ford? Yeah. All right, there you go. Ford babies. Yeah. All right, guys. All right.

Ellie Honig, always a pleasure. We should do this more often. Yeah. I always assumed since you're on CNN, you're not supposed to talk too much or get yourself in trouble. Especially if we give you birthday cake. Yeah, the cake was awesome. All right.

Give a plug. It's a pleasure. Thanks, guys. Thank you. One final time to Sheath Underwear for sponsoring live from the table. Don't forget to visit sheathunderwear.com slash seller today to get 20% off your first order. Support the show and your balls with Sheath Underwear. Very, very good.

Thank you. Okay, are we done? Yeah. No. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we're going to do the...