The Daily Beast Podcast - The Worst Thing That Can Happen If Trump Beats These Charges

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

No one knows what the future holds for Donald Trump and this indictment, but The Bulwark’s Amanda Carpenter has a few ideas and came on the latest episode of The New Abnormal politics podcast—along with MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner—to share them. And there’s good and bad news. Kirschner takes the opportunity to go in on the Department of Justice for its failure to hold Trump accountable for, well, everything, and leaving it up to the states instead. And in true lawyer fashion, he pinpoints the moment that Trump revealed his motive for keeping those classified documents on Sean Hannity. Plus! TNA hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie issue a warning about MAGA Trump defense money scams. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What an excellent show we have today.

MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirshner stops by to talk about the newest whole Trump's Dugganman legally with his obfuscation in the Jack Smith probe. Then we'll talk to the bulwarks Amanda Carpenter about the GOP's reaction to Trump's impending indictment. But first, let's have some fun. So, Danielle, a new week. There's a lot of big stuff going on, a lot of legal stuff going. on that I'm sure our listeners are aware of. I'm speaking, of course, of the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow was found not guilty. Thank God. Last, our long national nightmare is over. We can all move on with our lives now because I know that most of the country was shut down for like

two weeks. Everyone, I haven't seen it like this since, I think, since the OJ trial. I was about to grab sage and lavender and vagina smelling candles and sit in at that courthouse. Free Gwyneth. Yeah. Free Gwinneth. Yeah. I mean, there were people in Times Square gathered around PC Richards watching the trial through the window on the TVs there. It was, boy, it was really, we really, I feel like we really came together in a way that we haven't in a very long time. So God bless Gwyneth Paltrow. And thank God, she was found innocent and can go back to selling overpriced things that don't work to insecure white women. Yeah. Praise the goop soldiers.

So in some other legal news, Danielle, I know all you want to do is talk about Gwyneth for the next half hour, but we can't. We can't. We talked about this before we started recording, Danielle, we simply can't. We got a lot of Trump stuff going on. Obviously, we are recording this on Monday, so we don't know the details of the indictment, which will be unsealed on Tuesday. But we do know that in a different Trump problem, I don't even know what to call him. A different Trump crime, the Justice Department, according to the Washington Post, apparently has more evidence of his obstruction over the classified documents that he had at Mar-a-Lago.

And what they're finding out, this way, they guess is coming from the special counsel's investigation, Jack Smith, that Trump himself went into the documents to see, if there were any he wanted to not give back. And then again, you know, as we've heard before, he instructed his lawyers to lie and say that there were no classified documents. So all of that seems to be moving forward. So we've got the possible, you know, well, we have a definite indictment tomorrow,

but we don't know the details yet. And then we have this moving along down in Mar-a-Lago. You know what's amazing is that all of the Republican Trump backers wanted to equate what documents were. found in Joe Biden's home and with Mike Pence as the same thing as what Donald Trump has done. And so what this latest piece into the, like just window into the investigation that Jack Smith is doing provides that Donald Trump knows what he's doing. Those boxes did not end up in Mar-a-Lago as an accident, much like they're trying to make the payment to Stormy Daniels as his,

one of his lawyers said this was a clerical error in terms of accounting. They're trying to make the Stormy Daniels pay off as an accounting error. And then they also were trying to play off these boxes as just, you know, it's just such in haste that we clean things up out of the White House in this transition period between presidents. No, it is not. Donald Trump sat down looking through. Why would Donald Trump be looking through line by line to decide what he wants to give back to the government? and what he wants to keep. Because he is looking for information, in my humble opinion, I'm not a lawyer, right? In my humble opinion, Donald Trump is looking for information that he could use as leverage.

And just so we know in his love letters to King John Oon, his fucking love letters to Putin, why else would Donald Trump be sitting down and directing his lawyers, tell them that they have everything? Because he's looking for leverage. because that's how criminals move. That's entirely possible. It's also possible he was looking to see which ones would fetch him the highest price.

That too. And it's also possible, look, I've sort of said from the start, I think the overarching thing here is that he is a five-year-old and his attitude is, no, these are mine. Mine, you can't have it. And so he wants to hold on to them because in his mind they're his and no one can take what's his away from him

because again, he's a five-year-old. But who knows? The important thing here is, yeah, this is, we, you know, we've discussed this. I'm not comfortable with the fact that Joe Biden had classified documents. I'm not comfortable with the fact that Mike Pence did. But they are wholly different because both of those people turned them over when they discovered them. And Donald Trump did the opposite of that. He tried to hide them.

After he was subpoenaed, he moved the documents. We know that his valet, or valet, as I like to pronounce it, told investigators that he, He moved boxes at Mar-a-Lago at the former president's instruction after the subpoena was issued. Also, this is from the Washington Post, but this was reported back in October. We already knew this. All of this is just more of a piece. It's just more information pointing towards the same thing, which is good. I'm not downplaying it.

Obviously, if you're going to try someone or indict them, you want as much evidence as you can get. But the point is, that's what this is. This is more evidence. This is not, you know, oh, he committed a different crime. It's all the same crime. and good for Jack Smith for finding more evidence. But all of this points to the fact that he wanted very badly not to give these documents back once they were found.

And that is, again, that's the opposite of what Joe Biden did. It's the opposite of what Mike Pence did. So this is not, you know, this isn't even ideological. It's just, it's just Trump. It's Trump being Trump. And, you know, we'll see what happens with the hush money indictment. But this one has the potential to be much, much bigger. than that. You know, and it's wild because you see the Kevin McCarthy's of the world. I think that

Lindsey Graham, Andy, was on television almost in tears. He was. I don't know what he is crying about. Is he crying because it's possible that one of these indictments that is going to come out from, let's say, Georgia where he was meddling and had no business to, because it's not even the state that he is a senator in, that he thinks that if they can come for Donald Trump, then maybe he may get into the in the other areas. But it's just like, what is it? They're sycophants, their ability to just like cower in the face of Donald Trump and just, you know, this is so wrong.

You don't even know what's in these indictments. You have no idea. But you're willing to go on television and cry about it. You're willing to say any, oh, if they can come for Donald Trump, they can come for anybody. No. You see, the legal law enforcement only comes. Well, sometimes for actual. criminals. The fact is, is that it's usually the people like Donald Trump who are rich,

who are connected, who are able to avoid indictments, who are able to avoid everything. And so the fact that you had these 12 jurors sit down, receive all of this evidence and say, you know what, there is a there there. Because this could have gone the way of all of Donald Trump's other lawsuits. I think that one of the papers, whether it was the Times of the Washington Post said, over the past five decades, Donald Trump has been involved in over 3,000 lawsuits. Like, just think about that. Does that sound like somebody who is innocent to you? Or does it sound like a pattern of behavior?

That sounds like a guy who is trying to get out of paying people a lot. That's what that sounds like to me. Jesus. The amazing thing, you brought up the Lindsey Graham thing where he was almost in tears, which he was, he asked in that, I think it was, a Fox News interview. He asked people, he was like, he was begging people to send money to Donald Trump. Can you explain to me why a guy who is supposedly worth billions of dollars needs people to send him money for a legal defense fund? I don't understand that at all. Like this is, it's such an

obvious scam. It's such an obvious grift. But I guess, you know, he's raised, I guess, a good couple million dollars, maybe more by now, since the word of the indictment broke. and it's just unreal to me that they both talk about how rich and successful Donald Trump is and what a great businessman he is. And then they send him money for a legal defense fund. Like he can't pay for that out of pocket change. It's absolutely unbelievable. And the Stormy Daniels indictment is just, it's the tip of the iceberg. And between the jacksmith stuff, there's the stuff in Georgia.

I mean, look, no one would be happier than I would if, all these legal fees did bankrupt Trump, but if he's worth what, if he's worth even, you know, 20% of what he says he's worth, he can afford the best legal teams in the world for all of these trials. So you listeners out there, stop sending Donald Trump money. Because the listeners are the new abnormal. A lot of new abnormal listeners. There's a lot of overlap between new abnormal listeners and the people sending Trump money. I did my research.

That and the bricks that they bought from Steve Bannon to build the walls. Amazing. Speaking of amazing. This would be almost Shakespearean. If Donald Trump and Fox News, the entity that helped make him, both fall at the same time. But as it seems right now, is that the Dominion case is going to move forward to trial. to trial and that what the judge has said that has been listening to this case is that it is quote crystal clear that Fox aired false statements about the voting company Dominion after the

2020 election and this is according to politico.com the Delaware judge ruled Friday that a jury should decide a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit claiming that the channel broadcasts numerous false statements about voter fraud about the 2020 election. Now remember, they had to hear folks, you know, from both Fox who wanted to claim much the same way that Donald Trump does. Oh, we just, we had no idea, right? We didn't know what we were doing. We're just trying to air the news. No, but through the text message exchange, through the emails, through testimony from their own producers and from Rupert Murdoch, who threw his own people under the bus, said, no, they knew very well what they were doing. And we know that we've seen text messages and comments from the

producers that said they didn't want to insult their audience by, you know, telling them the truth. They wanted to go on with the big lie. And so now, Judge Eric Davis has concluded that Dominion voting systems has enough to move forward in this actual trial. This is what he said. And quote, crystal clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true. And that is what Judge Davis wrote in his decision. And so this will now move forward in a full-blown trial. Yeah, it really was, you know, as you said earlier, and I'll apply that to me as well. I'm not a lawyer, but I follow a lot of lawyers on Twitter, good ones, and I read. And there seemed to be a lot of amazement from these lawyers that the judge went as far as he did. Not that they were

upset about it or anything, but just they were basically saying it doesn't usually work this way in defamation cases, that a judge will come out that strong in allowing the case to go to trial. They were basically saying, man, this is going to be a lot worse for Fox than I think even a lot of us thought it was going to be. And there were a couple of other quotes from Davis's ruling that the trial should go on. And he said, the evidence does not support that Fox News conducted good faith disinterested reporting. Fox's failure to reveal extensive contradicting evidence from the public sphere and dominion itself indicates its reporting was not disinterested. Because Fox's claim has basically been, look, we're just reporting. We're just showing what Donald Trump is saying

and what Donald Trump people are saying. And you can't ding us for that. If they're being dishonest, that's not our fault. We're just reporting what they're saying. And the judge is basically saying, That's not what you were doing because you didn't put the other side in your reporting, so you can't claim to be fair and balanced as the network used to bill itself when I worked there. And then once I left, apparently they had to drop that because they were no longer fair and balanced because it was just me. It was just me. And then, you know, the other thing he wrote is he said Fox dedicates little to its argument on falsity. It claims that the question is whether the press reported the true fact that the president made those allegations. Again, their whole argument is like, look, we're just reporting what the president said.

And the judge was like, no, falsity refers to the content of the statement, not the act of republishing it. Therefore, the question of falsity is whether the content of the allegations was true, not whether Fox truthfully republished the allegations. I mean, he is shooting down pretty much like all of Fox's defenses. Their entire defense. Yeah. Before this trial even starts. And that's why, like I said, the lawyers who cover this kind of thing.

and the legal reporters were all like, man, this guy just, just beat the hell out of them before the trial even started. And that's not a good sign for Fox. You know, this was a bombshell, but it came down sort of in the midst of, you know, everyone was sort of wrapped up in the Trump indictment stuff. So it didn't maybe get the huge coverage that it would have if it had come down another day. But it's a really big deal. It's a big fucking deal, as someone once said.

It's going to be really interesting. I mean, I cannot imagine that Rupert Murdoch isn't trying everything in his power to reach some kind of settlement before the actual trial gets going. But so far, Dominion has held strong and it feels like they don't want a settlement. They want Fox to be found guilty. Yeah, I think that they want a trial. Because in all honesty, this isn't about the money, right? Yes, I would love for Fox News to be absolutely bankrupt and to have to go out of business. Like, I think that that would be the best thing that ever happened for the country.

but then we know that all of these other little entities would sprout up in its place and frankly already have. But the reality is that no, I think that this should absolutely go to trial so people can understand, right? And again, their audience is going to be completely ignorant of what is happening, shielded from what is happening because they don't play actual facts of anything that's going on. But even if this goes into like the USA Today's, you know, like the regular not quote unquote, elite papers, this is a big deal and could shift, frankly, maybe shift us back to a place of good journalism where, you know, entities like Fox can be held accountable for the lies that they are telling the public. And if they are held to this kind of account, maybe it will open up other lawsuits because the ones, and again, I say, I'm not a lawyer, but the one that I'm also looking at is

where is the accountability around COVID? Over a million Americans died. And they were holding up the narrative that COVID was a democratic hoax because Donald Trump told them to carry on with that narrative. I know it's a trickier place to be, but I'm saying if they can be held to account on this,

it should shake these other news outlets to their core and thinking twice about what it is that they can do and say moving forward. Yeah, totally agree. That's why this trial is so important. And speaking of trials, did you watch the Marjorie Taylor Green interview on 60 minutes this weekend, Danielle? No, because I care about my mental health, Andy. But please, by all means.

Well, I didn't either. But for the same reason. It's enough to see the clips. I saw the clips and the clips were disgusting enough and harmed my mental health enough. And look, a whole lot of people were saying before this interview ran that it was a bad idea and that it's normalizing Marjorie Taylor Green. And then there were people saying, no, you know, you have to give people a chance to speak. And then you, you know, you rebut them and all that.

Well, okay, Leslie Stahl didn't really do any of that rebutting thing. So what people who watched 60 Minutes were treated to was Marjorie Taylor Green talking about the Democrats being the party of pedophiles, saying that the Democrats support grooming children. Her actual quote was Democrats, even Joe Biden, support children being sexualized and having transgender surgeries, sexualizing children is what pedophiles do to children. Stahl's response to that was, wow, and she basically was like, you don't have to name call. This is not about name calling. Like, is this an elementary school class? And then, you know, and then Marjorie Taylor Green was able to say, well, they call me racist, they call me anti-Semitic. But this is not name calling. This is accusing

the Democratic Party, including the president, of being pedophiles and of sexualizing children. And so that's not name-calling. That's just disgusting untrue statements that basically were allowed unchallenged. And of course, then there's the other issue of what Leslie Stahl should have said was that none of this is sexualized. Like transgender surgeries is not sexualizing children. It's anti-trans propaganda is what it is. And Leslie Stahl just lets it sit there on a highly rated network news show unchallenged. Yeah, I had tweeted one of the clips from the show and just saying, like, this is a journalistic fail. And one of the commenters on the thread posted the news article that I refer to all the time from the New York Times while Jewish people in Germany were being

shuttled off to concentration camps. The fucking New York Times had hit. in the Better Home and Garden section, talking about his gardens and his long walks that he like to take. And it's just like, this is the modern day version of that. My feeling is that you can cover Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green, but do so in a way that connects the dots for the viewers. If you want to cover Marjorie Taylor Green, you can say, my God, you know, she is a part of what used to be seen as a credible institution that is about governing all people in this country. And look what she has done. Look what she aired up. I mean, for her to be able to sit on CBS and refer to Democrats as pedophiles, people are being attacked because of the rhetoric that Marjorie

Taylor Green and Donald Trump and all of the rest of them are using and to use that platform of 60 minutes to err this anti-Semitic, racist, transphobic piece of trash, it makes me look at 60 minutes and be like, there is no journalistic integrity. There is no one that is above the fray. As you said, this was a complete journalistic fail, and Marjorie Taylor Green, fresh off of her triumphant 60 minutes appearance, because it really was just a triumph for her.

She is headed to New York to, I guess, to protest the arraignment of Donald Trump and Mayor Adams, the horrible mayor of our fair city, has basically said that if anyone engages in violence or vandalism, he will have them arrested, and he pretty much included Marjorie Taylor Green in that. Of course, the thing is Marjorie Taylor Green is not going to get herself arrested. You know, the people like her and Donald Trump, what they do is they go to other people on and they prod other people on to get arrested. and, you know, Tucker Carlson from his cabin in Maine or wherever he is telling people not to give up their guns because they may need to use them. Tucker Carlson ain't picking up a weapon and going after people.

But what he's doing, and he does this consistently, and this is what they all do, is they sit at home and they tell other people to break the law or to commit acts of violence. And look, it's what we saw on January 6th, you know. And that's their MO, and that's how they get away with it. But she's on notice, I guess. for Mayor Adams, Danielle.

I mean, as are, you know, all of their Trump fantastic fans. But my God, I don't know. Hopefully New York City does a better job than the whole of the FBI, the CIA, the D.C. Metropolitan Police, you know, with white supremac organizing in plain sight. Well, at least the NYPD isn't full of a bunch of Trump fans. Folks, I am very happy to welcome back to the new abnormal. my friend MSNBC legal analysts and the host of Justice Matters, Glenn Kersner, who is also a former 30-year federal prosecutor. Glenn, it's too bad we don't have a lot of legal news to discuss these days.

Things have slowed down on the accountability front, yeah. It is so slow. So cable news has been just nonstop coverage on this indictment of Donald Trump. I want to start out actually, Glenn, because, you know, You and I have been talking for at least three years now, waiting on when we were going to ever see any type of accountability for Donald Trump, who we know, who we have watched. The Mueller report showed us, January 6th testimony showed us that Donald Trump is a criminal and has incited violence and has done other things. And so I just want to get your reaction to every paper in America. last week with the headline Trump indicted.

So I think the most important takeaway, at least from my perspective, is never again will a president be able to rest comfortably in the belief that they can commit crimes with impunity? Because a legal barrier has been broken. A former president has been criminally indicted and is about to make his first appearance, his arraignment for crimes he committed while he was a candidate in the run-up to a presidential election crimes he committed these are not just falsifying business records this is falsifying business records to try to steal a presidential election there's a whole there's a world of difference between those two things so you know this sets an important precedent and it's a

huge step on the road to accountability and let's hope that we've learned our lessons and we begin to hold high government officials accountable for their crimes, as I call them the ruling class criminals. One of the things that has struck me, Glenn, is the fact that the media has wanted to talk about the historic nature of Alvin Bragg bringing down this indictment charge. And again, at this point, folks, we're recording this ahead of Tuesday's arraignment. So at this point, we still don't know what those charges are. We've heard speculation is that there are over 30 counts, but again, we're not quite sure what that is. But the historic nature for me, Glenn, is not on the fact of a prosecutor actually doing their job.

The historic nature for me, which I think that the media is missing, is that we have a former twice impeached president of the United States who engaged in such activities that this is not the first indictment that we have. we will see this year. I want you to talk about that part of the historic nature that we've had a criminal precedent in the White House. And we had a federal government, an executive branch, a department of justice that has refused to hold him accountable for any of his crimes while in office, for any of his crimes that were designed to unlawfully and unconstitutionally retain the power of his presidency, the power of the presidency, and for any of the presidency. And for any of the crimes he committed after he left office stealing our nation's secrets, national defense information, and he has been held accountable for none of it by the Department of Justice.

That is a sin. That is, it's inexcusable, it's unfathomable, particularly coming from, you know, 24 years as a Department of Justice federal prosecutor, as an Army Jagged prosecutor before that, dating back to the 1980s. I'm embarrassed. I'm sadden that our Department of Justice has not stepped up to the challenge, and they left it to a state prosecutor to be the first one to bring a criminal charge against a criminal former president of the United States. Bravo to Alvin Bragg for doing it. Bravo for District Attorney Fawney Willis down in Georgia being on the cusp of an indictment. Bravo for Tish James bringing this massive civil fraud suit against Trump and his spawn. But you know what? Donald Trump is a federal problem and he should have been indicted federally long ago. Now, I do believe we're going to get there,

courtesy of Jack Smith. I hope I'm not wrong about that. But it's inexcusable that the feds basically forced the states to go first because now we are seeing the white. hot glare of not only the world's attention, but of Donald Trump's wrath being visited upon Alvin Bragg and his wife and Judge Marchan, the presiding judge. And I hope we get to talk about all of that stuff and how it's likely to play out at the arraignment hearing. A couple of things. One, I just want you to lift up as this indictment has been unfolding, one of Donald Trump's attorneys has been on MSNBC and on all the cable news channels, referring to this Manhattan case as a quote bookkeeping error. What do you say to that, Glenn? Yeah, 30 criminal

charges is reportedly what the indictment contains. It's not a mere bookkeeping error or, you know, an error as to where you put the decimal or you round it up or you round it down. These crimes were a concerted effort to steal the presidency. These crimes were a concerted effort to steal the presidency. These crimes were a concerted effort to rob the voters of the full value of our vote by burying deeply damning information about Donald Trump's unsuitability to be president of the United States. And, you know, it's not just falsifying business records that we are likely to see in this indictment. We are likely to see tax crimes because the reporting is that, you know, he falsified these records and fraudulently took the payments that he made to reimburse Michael Cohen as business deductions and legal

expenses. Mind you, that would be federal tax crimes and that would be state tax crimes in violation of the laws of New York. We suspect there will be campaign finance crimes, both in violations of New York state law and the federal law. You know, this was a conspiracy to steal the presidency. This was not, you know, just some mere accounting error. It's just wild to me. Like, that would be his, one of his lawyers' defense. You know, and he also referred to it as a quote unquote personal matter. Like, this was a personal family matter. I'm like, he paid off a porn star, sir. Like, it's not, it's, you know, you want to talk about character. And to your point, robbing the voters of the full character of Donald Trump. And, you know, you want to talk about character. And

and who they are voting for by burying all pertinent information about him. Yeah. I want to move now to the fact that New York City, Glenn, has been bracing itself for a potential insurrection 2.0. Every single NYPD officer is all hands on deck. There have been barricades that have been put up. As of this recording, New York City mayor, Eric Adams, signaled to Marjorie Taylor Green, who found herself on social media saying that she is going to

fly into New York. I don't know if it's on a broom or not, but fly into New York in order to, you know, defend Donald Trump at this arraignment. And he signaled to her, do not come to this city trying to incite violence, because you will be dealt with the way that we deal with folks in New York. What do you make of all of the preparation that is. is happening around this arraignment? Well, on the one hand, I think it's wise to prepare. You know, the NYPD knows how to do crowd control. Let me tell you, this is not going to look like Times Square on New Year's Eve.

I suspect you're going to have a smattering of the gullible and of the hateful and of the prejudice, you know, the people who refuse to walk away from Donald Trump. And I don't want to be cavalier about it because, you know, when you're in law enforcement, it's always safety first. so you don't want anybody to get hurt at the arraignment hearing. But I view his call to arms on January 6th very differently than I view his present call to arms. He's posted protest, protest, protest, take back our nation.

But, you know, on January 6th, he had fooled his base into believing their vote was stolen, their election was rigged, their president was being unlawfully taken away from them. and whether people were unwilling or incapable to see the actual truth of the matter that their vote wasn't stolen and the election wasn't rigged. I think it resonated with people very personally, those lies that they, for whatever reason, believed. So I think the people who responded to Donald Trump's call to arms on January 6th felt like they had a personal dog in the fight. And he told them, go to the Capitol, fight like hell or you won't have a country anymore. Now stop the certification. And he ensured that at least some of them were armed because after he was briefed that there were, you know, folks in the crowd that were carrying firearms.

He said, take down the metal detectors. They're not here to hurt me. So I think now people don't necessarily, I can't really speak for Trump supporters, but people don't necessarily. have the kind of personal stake in the fact that Donald Trump is now at least beginning to be held accountable for his crimes, I don't think they're going to flood to New York to just completely do Donald Trump's bidding when it doesn't involve them. It doesn't involve their vote. It doesn't involve, you know, fighting like hell against anything or anyone. Donald Trump is now just saying, hey, I am personally at risk. So how about you fly?

to New York City and act up a little bit. I don't think we're going to see enormous crowds. I do think we're going to see an enormous circus. I have a feeling you will see as many people who are pro-accountability and pro-justice as you see there to support Donald Trump who are anti-accountability and anti-justice. Yeah, I tend to agree with you here as well. I think that it's important to have our eyes wide open. But I also think that January 6th, was something that was different. It was about the election and not just about him, whereas this particular case is just about him.

Even though you have Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham going on television and damn near bursting into tears, telling Donald Trump's support is to send him money. Apparently this man is so wealthy, but he still needs the individual contributions of his fans in order to pay his lawyers. But I want to switch gears now to move to,

Jack Smith because the Washington Post has reported that more obstruction, Glenn, has been found with regard to the documents that Donald Trump had at Mara Lago. And this is what they have said, is that, quote, new details highlight the degree to which special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the potential mishandling of hundreds of classified national security papers at Trump's Florida home and private club has come to focus on the obstruction elements of the case, whether the former president took or directed actions to impede government efforts to collect all sensitive records. They are saying that not only did Donald Trump know that he had these documents, they wanted again, his defense lawyer saying, oh, it was just, you know,

we pack in such haste. So how could he possibly know, but that he was combing through these documents. to see what the there there was and to decide what he wanted to return and what he did it. What comes up for you as you think about Jack Smith's case and whether or not, and again, Jack Smith has two cases. It is the obstruction case with regard to the documents being held at Mar-a-Lago and then also January 6th and the inciting of violence. Yeah, this latest reporting from the Washington Post basically lays out obstruction in three easy steps. So let's break it down. First, you have Donald Trump stealing a whole bunch of classified information, national defense information, and other materials from the federal government when he left public service.

Those records should have been transferred to the National Archives because they belong to the federal government. They don't belong to Donald Trump. He stole them. He unlawfully retained them at Mar-a-Lago. Step one is the grand jury after they couldn't wrestle them out of his grubby little pause, the grand jury subpoenaed them. That subpoena as part of a criminal investigation is a court order directing Donald Trump to return all of the documents. Step one. Step two, we learned in the Washington Post reporting yesterday. Apparently, after the subpoena had been served, the boxes were moved, some of them from a storage facility at Mar-a-Lago to a place Donald Trump could personally look at them, rummage through them with his grubby little pause, and I do mean

little pause. And inferentially, Danielle, he obviously picked what he wanted to keep and then Act 3 or Part 3 in the obstruction is after that time, the FBI secured a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago and recovered more than a hundred of those classified documents Donald Trump kept in violation of the subpoena. I just laid out an obstruction of justice case whereby all elements of the crime can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in about 30 minutes before a jury. The only question is, when will he be arrested, indicted, prosecuted, and convicted, held accountable for these crimes. I really hope that the feds, my friends and former colleagues, that the feds now realize that there is a heightened need to deal with the ongoing danger Donald Trump poses to our democracy and to the safety of everybody at this point in New York. He will soon pose the same safety concerns to the folks in Georgia once he's indicted down there.

the feds need to come in and bigfoot this thing, and they need to indict him. Not that I believe the feds do criminal justice better than the states, let me tell you, having been a federal and local prosecutor for decades, the feds don't do law enforcement as well as the states. That's my experience. But sometimes the feds need to come in and big foot a case, because what they do have is the kind of resources and the kind of reach that states don't have, if only because states aren't funded, as well as federal law enforcement and federal prosecutors are funded. And then just to put a criminal cherry on top of this Sunday that is obstruction of justice, Donald Trump goes on Hannity, I think yesterday, and I saw the clip this morning. And Hadidney says, I'd listen to it several times

now, so I can get it almost verbatim. And he says, you know, Mr. President, I'm quite sure. you didn't take those boxes, look through them yourself, and Donald Trump jumped in. He said, I had every right to do that. I have every right to look at them. So, yes, I would do that. And then he said something that was mind-blowing because he just handed Jack Smith motive evidence on a silver platter. He said, do you know Richard Nixon kept documents and sold them to the government for $18 million? Danielle, there you have it. Out of Donald Trump's mouth, he just provided conclusive proof, not that he committed the offense of obstructing justice, but why he committed the offense of obstructing justice.

It was for the money. The money. Wow. All I have to say is that when Donald Trump is convicted, because I just want to put that good energy out into the universe, when Donald Trump is convicted, it is going to. to be because of his mouth, because of his ego, and his inability to just shut the hell up. Hannity there was trying to provide this man with an out. Yep.

And for him to say, oh, no, no, I never actually saw the documents. I had my people, my staff, my lawyers, my whomever look through. So to keep his hands clean, but no, no. Donald Trump walked right in. I pray that Jack Smith is listening and that we see that. If the feds were to come in and now indict Trump, does that then off rail Manhattan or can Manhattan still go and run in parallel? Here's the general rule of thumb. So when I was prosecuting in D.C., I wouldn't say often. I occasionally had defendants that were also being investigated or prosecuted, you know, across the

river in Virginia or across the line up in Maryland. So we had to coordinate, multi-jurisdictional coordination regarding prosecuting the same defendant. Ordinarily, the rule is whoever invites first, typically will proceed to trial first. But often, you know, if prosecutors are, setting their egos aside and doing things in the best interest of the victims and the community or the involved communities, plural, will coordinate and figure out who has the strongest case, who has the greatest interest in prosecuting, and you will kind of cooperatively strike an overarching plan that makes the most sense for all jurisdictions. Now, I have been told, I never practiced in the courts of New York, but I've been told that New York has a longer

run up to trial than many other jurisdictions in part because they allow for lots and lots and lots of pretrial litigation on issues that other jurisdictions don't really allow a whole lot of pretrial litigation on. So if the feds come in, I could see them trying to find a way to coordinate with New York to kind of take over and be the primary and perhaps the first prosecution to try Donald Trump, But all of this is uncharted water. So we're all kind of looking into our magic ape all at this point. Mm-hmm. All right.

Well, Glenn Kershner, we will have to leave it there. But I tell you that once we know what these charges are, I hope that you will come back to the new abnormal. And folks, check out Glenn's own show, Justice Matters. I appreciate you so much and we'll be watching for you all over cable news. Great talking to you, Danielle. Nothing is more abnormal than the rise of the radical right. Fever Dreams is a daily beast podcast taking you inside the rights push to retake power

from the MAGA Acolytes to the straight up grifters. They recently released their 100th episode, so there's no better time to listen. Head to beast. pub slash fever dreams to check it out. Oh, hey, have you heard a former president is about to be indicted? It's Donald Trump. As we record this on Monday, we don't know the details of the indictment, but my next guest is here to talk about why Trump's hush money payment to Stormy Daniels is no small thing and what the political ramifications of his indictment might be.

It's the Bullwarks Amanda Carpenter. Amanda, thanks for being here. Hey, what's going on? Not much. Actually, I take that back. We're living in historic times, Amanda. I wish we weren't. I'm kind of done with it.

I know all the unprecedented stuff Donald Trump is doing. I mean, God, just go play golf and hang out on Trump social. Do you hear a bleat? tweets, whatever it is, just go away. Yeah, I know. The entire point of being rich is to avoid the world, I thought, but whatever. All right. So you wrote a piece of the bulwark called Why Trump's Hush Money Matters. So let me ask you this. Why does Trump's Hush Money matter? And I apologize for Sandbagging you like that. Oh, no, it's fine. I love to talk about my pieces. It's wonderful. It matters because it was part of his illegal scheme to deceive voters before the most important

election that our country conducts. I know everybody gets distracted by the porn star and the hush money, but this was an illegal scheme to suppress information from voters. It matters because it's the big thread of Donald Trump when it comes to how he campaigns and how he governs, because it has to do with his overall election criminality. Right? Like I want people to have that phrase in their head, election criminality. Because we got the Mueller investigation because he did the whole, hey, Russia, if you're listening, could you dig up some dirt to help me win this election? I mean, that happened in broad daylight. And then you had David Pecker at the National Enquirer and Michael Cohen running around to pay off these women so that they wouldn't tell their stories in light of access Hollywood.

And that was illegal because you can't write that off as a business expense. I don't care, you know, if you want to let white collar crime go by. It is actually illegal to do. That is why David Pecker pleaded guilty to it. It's why Michael Cohen went to prison for it. but we're supposed to say, oh, it's not a big deal if Donald Trump does it. And then, you know, more election criminality when it came to shaking down Ukraine. That's why he got impeached, even though the Senate failed to convict him.

And then it turned into January 6th. And so, like, the big threat here is election criminality. And that is why the hush money matters, because he broke laws, allegedly, we'll have to wait and see. But we know Michael Cohen did in order to help win the election. And so I get so annoyed when these people, right, you know, even never Trump. on, you know, my sort of slice the Republican Party, start bringing their hands and saying, oh, I wish this wasn't the first indictment to come down to be so much easier if he was prosecuted, you know, for January 6th. It's like, what are you talking about? It's all the same thing. It is all

the same thing in my mind because it has to do with election criminality and you don't get to fight the easy one first. I'm sorry. Like, it never gets easier. There's no way that, you know, the people that stormed the Capitol in January 6th are going to say, oh, well, if he gets prosecuted for obstruction of justice. I'll renounce my ways now. Like, what world are you living in? This is what you have to deal with. It's going to come out. We're going to have indictment. And if you, you know, this one makes you feel all pearl clutchy, guess what? There's going to be probably a season of indictments. So just strap in, everybody, like get ready for a long summer of election criminality. Yeah. No, there's two things here. I like that your idea of calling this

election criminality is fantastic because, A, that's what it is. and B, the thing I keep seeing from, you know, mostly from people on the right, but even from some, like you said, even from some never Trumpers or even from non-Republicans, I say, well, but this was before he was even president. Why do we still care about this? And you're right, though, in that, yes, it was before he was president because he did it to try to get elected president. Yeah, and my favorite part of this story that proves like just how craven it was, you know, I'm not going to defend anything that Karen McDougal or Stormy Daniels did. or Donald Trump did with them. But these women shopped their stories long before Donald Trump got the Republican nomination. It wasn't until he was on the verge of becoming president that summer and fall after Access Hollywood that they realized, you know what, we need to buy these women off.

It wasn't until it became real that they needed to suppress these stories. And it's like, there's another part of it too. It's like if you listen to what Stormy Daniel said, and you know, I don't know, take it with a grain of salt, but this is her story. She kind of said she was bullied into it. And when you think about it is $130,000 really life-changing money. Right. I mean, I'm not dismissing it. Sure.

I know what you mean to know. But compared to like, you know, what she could have milked that for. Right. Post-access Hollywood. I think she could have made a lot more than $130,000. And she claims she was harassed and all kinds of things. And nobody seems to care about that, which I care a lot about because I can look at her story and be like, yeah, that was worth a lot more than $130,000.

No, that's a great point, especially from someone as allegedly rich as Trump. Right. You're absolutely right. She does talk about harassment. She talks about someone coming up to her, I think, with her daughter in the car. Yeah, and nobody cares about that. Well, she testified to it. I don't know.

She's gone under oath. At that point, I take it pretty seriously. But we're supposed to say, oh, it's no big deal. And, you know, because it's sort of tawdry and this is like a white collar crime, we aren't supposed to care. And I just think that's complete BS. Yeah. And the other aspect of what you said is, you know, the people who are upset that this is

the indictment that they're going with. My attitude on this is this breaks the seal. This may make it easier for other jurisdictions and for the feds to indict him because they don't have to be the ones to be the first to indict a former president. Right. And also, you know, we'll see what happens. But I don't think it's going to be just about the hush money. We all read that in New York Times, Blockbuster.

story about how Donald Trump grew up his tax returns by falsely inflating assets and deflating them for tax advantages and reasons, which Michael Cohen also testified to. So you're telling me that Alvin Bragg looked into his business accounts and only came up with a, you know, accounting expense, fraud, whatever it is for a hush money payment. Like, there's probably a lot more in there. And so this could go in a completely different direction about, you know, the broader Trump empire and how he does business in fraudulent ways, which we all should be on, you know, alert about anyway. Oh, absolutely. Okay. So let's look at the possible political ramifications of this. Again, we, as we're recording this, we don't know the details of the indictment. And as Amanda

just pointed out, there could be stuff in there that will rock the world that we're not aware of. But just based on what we know now, I don't think it's a stretch to say that a lot of the reaction on the right is that this will be a net positive for Trump, both in the primaries and in a general election. a lot of, you know, Alvin Bragg just handed the presidency to Trump kind of talk. Alvin Bragg made the Republicans do it. I mean, and this is like the funniest genre of tweets like, oh, you know, the Democrats made me vote for Trump again. Like, please shut up. Shut up. The liberals are not so like in control of a Republican nomination process that them going hard against Trump made you support the guy that incited insurrection. That's a pet peeve of

mine and it's sort of hilarious to watch and fold in the six-ad way that we're used to. It's an admission of how weak you are. Like, it's like, I can't think for myself, I have to do the opposite of what somebody else says. Like you're 12 years old. Yeah, it's the dumbest thing. And, you know, there's other Republicans you could support for president. I mean, Ronda Santos, Brian Kemp, but Alvin Bragg is going to bully you into voting for Trump again. That is some galaxy brain logic.

So what do you think of the larger point, though? Do you agree that this is going to help Trump? Do you disagree? Do you think it's unknowable until we see what charges are in the indictment? Or do you just want me to go away? It shouldn't. But I agree it is because of the subservient position that so many Republicans who are in a position to challenge Trump have already taken. Did you see Ron DeSantis, his first reaction?

God, he's the worst. Yeah. So after Trump says, I will surrender, which is a great phrase, surrender in Manhattan. Then DeSantis comes out with this weird statement about. the source-funded prosecutor, blah, blah, blah, and I will participate in extradition. Like one, nobody asks you to, but now Rwanda Sanchez is putting himself in the position of being like Donald Trump's defender and wannabe protector. I mean, that is not a strong man move.

That's essentially locking yourself into the position throughout the Republican primary that you are going to defend Donald Trump's indictments. What a freaking idiot. You have the ability to say, you know what, Donald Trump, this is unfortunate. You're being unfairly treated, which I don't. I don't believe in this. I'll be yes, but it's time to move on. And instead, Ron is like, I want to help you. This is all fine. I'm going to help defend you. Beta move. Absolutely a beta move. But in today's GOP, there is, even if you don't fully think so,

there is the possibility that a criminal indictment will help Trump with Republican voters, which is a weird as hell sentenced to say in the first place. But once it said, isn't DeSantis just jumping on that bandwagon? The way that it helps Trump isn't because people say, oh, look at this indictment. Like, it's all good. We love you more. It helps Trump because it freezes the race. Okay.

Right? It freezes the race in a way that all attention remains on him. Like, if we don't live in a political economy, we live in an attention economy. And this keeps the attention on Trump, which he loves. And because everyone's so scared of him, they remain in these reactive positions where we'll just wait to see what happens him and then navigate against it instead of actually taking control of the situation and putting the attention on themselves. So that's why it helps Trump because he's completely comfortable with the chaos and nobody else is. This gets to both DeSantis and more in general. What percentage of the

public outrage from elected GOP officials from the wasteland that is conservative media outside of the bulwark and the dispatch and if you want to do other places? What percentage of that outrage do you think is feigned? And do you think people, like, including Ron DeSantis, are actually, like, happy about this? Oh, I think most of it's fain. I mean, you just look at the Dominion lawsuit. I mean, Tucker Carlson, the quote is, like, burned into my brain. I hate him passionately. Are he him with a passion? They all do. They all do, because it makes him do ridiculous things, but that's their own fault. But they're just going to keep riding this train. And this gets to the fundamental problem is that nobody has a better idea. Nobody has a better idea. Nobody has the nerve to take him out because they look at the coalition that Donald Trump

is built that won the 2016 election and generated, you know, pretty massive voter turnout, even though he lost to Biden. And they don't have a better idea. They don't know how to talk to those voters. Fox News just like Tucker Carlson does not know how to talk to those people about a better idea. Isn't that the most pathetic thing? I mean, we've all watched him forever. Like MSNBC Tucker, Dancing with the Stars Tucker, CNN Tucker, and now this is Maga Tucker. Because he actually doesn't have a better way to communicate with people. They're just spooning the much that they already want. Like digging it up and spooning, like, this is what you want.

We will give it to you because I don't have a better idea of what to serve up. And so that's where we are. It boggles my mind. Yeah. How can you be Ron DeSantis and look at Donald Trump who's going to be indicted, has five or six other investigations swirling around, and you can't make a better case to voters about why, at the very least, it might be time to move on? How pathetic are you? But that's where it is.

And they're in you. No, I agree. But I assume DeSantis's strategy is to pretend to be outraged about this stuff and hope that this stuff actually takes Trump down and leaves him the clear path. But then he'll still won't have angered the Trump sycophans. Yeah. And I think I wrote a piece for, I don't know, probably six months ago at this point, capturing what I think is the DeSantis strategy.

And it is not to challenge Trump whatsoever, not at all. It is to be the Trump understudy. Like, Trump is going to be the lead actor and the big show until he gets sick, until he goes to prison, until he dies by Cheeseburger. And then at that point, DeSantis will take the stage. But he is not going to challenge Trump for that leading role. He can wait for it to be given to him. I mean, he's a young man. He could run in 2028.

It's fine. But he is playing it safe, which is never good. I mean, he really is in the best position. You know, if you look at how he became governor with like the weird build the wall ad, you know, sort of like making it clear to everyone that he is a maga suck up. Right. Like that's how he got to his position now. So he's not going to change ways.

I don't think he's capable of it. He's just going to suck up to thematic base and be waiting in the wings for when he is invited onto the stage. Yeah. And I feel like that's, I think you just nailed the reason why he hasn't. declared his candidacy yet, right? I actually give him a little bit more credit on this front because he does have to wrap up the legislative session, which isn't a big deal, whatever, that'll be done in June or May.

But his plan, what he's positioning for is to, you know, crank out a bunch of conservative, MAGA-friendly accomplishments so he can have the, you know, check, check the resume, look at all these things that I did, and then have the send-off from other Florida Republicans because they have to pass a law essentially saying that he can run for president without resigning, And so they'll do that send-off. And that will give him sort of the image that he is the endorsed candidate among Florida Republicans because he does have a fight down there. In that way, Florida Republicans can approve of DeSantis without actually having to make a choice and give him an endorsement. I know this sounds like really like small bond complicated, but it is important for him

to get out of Florida. I don't think it's going to work exceptionally, but I think that's his plan. I hadn't thought of that at all. That's incredibly interesting. The worst possible outcome of all of this is for Trump to beat these charges, right? It's probably for him to be indicted, drag it out, and win the Republican nomination under multiple indictments. And then we have to consider what we would do with an indicted person who becomes president and would pardon himself. Right? Yeah. Again, we don't know the charges or anything, but these trials aren't over.

you know, this isn't going to be over by June. No. Who knows this could be years and years and years. But if he beats these charges, it just feels like he will be an unstoppable force even more so than he has been in the GOP. Yeah, it'll be terrible. But I don't think there's no way this is getting resolved before 2024. I mean, because you have this, you have the Georgia investigation, you have the Department of Justice, you have stuff that's going on with the True Social and the SEC.

You have Eugene Carroll's case still hanging out there. Oh, in the classified documents. So this is all going to drag on. What I think is the sort of scary yet power move is for Ronda Santas to say, make me the Republican nominee, elect me president, and I'll pardon Trump. Oh, wow. It works on a few levels. Yeah, it really does, doesn't it?

But he would only be able to do that for the federal charges? That is correct. Yes. He's not going to jail because he did some business fraud in New York. Oh, no, of course. Of course. Yeah. Wow.

That's really interesting. I mean, he probably should, but like the reality of it. But I think that would be the power move that also complicates things. Should it become president? But I can see that happening. Right. Very easily. My God.

Okay. So my exit question is we've sort of established that the indictment and all this stuff probably helps Trump in a GOP primary. I have to think, and maybe I'm just being naive and losing my general cynical self on this, I have to think that it hurts him in a general election. please? Oh, yeah. He already lost once. I mean, that's the thing. He lost against Biden. You know, Biden's been a fine president, but come on. Republican nominee lost against Biden. And it can happen again. I think it will be difficult. You know, I'm not counting anything.

I'm not saying that it's a sure thing. But like, how pathetic is it Donald Trump that you lost to Joe Biden? I mean, Republican voters are convinced by that. And everyone says, well, doesn't the MAGABAS just love Trump, love Trump? I'm like, yes. But more than anything, they want to win. I mean, look at how the Republican voting base changed in 26th seem because they decided they wanted to win and Donald Trump would be the best bet to be Hillary Clinton. They don't give a F. If it looks like Trump is going down or is weak or an old and DeSantis seems like the better option, you can bet they will flip on a dime if that's the best way to win. Well, Amanda Carpenter, thank you so much for joining us. Check out the bulwark, one of the two remaining conservative sites. We're the best. We're the best. I mean, I don't know if we're conservative anymore. I mean, people wouldn't even say that. But we are never true, but we have our priority straight for sure. Yeah. Along with the dispatch, one of the two that I actually do subscribe to. Oh, thank you. Having cut all the rest out of my life, bless of me. Amanda, thanks so much. Thanks.

Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. Andy, how are you kicking off this week with your fuck that guy? Well, my fuck that guy. guy is an organization this week and it's an organization called no labels which is interesting because I have a bunch of labels I could call them for those who don't know just briefly they are this supposedly they call themselves a centrist group and they are trying to get ballot access for the presidential election of 24 in all 50 states and they are looking at potential candidates to run against, let's just say it's Joe Biden and Donald Trump or Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis, I guess. And we have people like Joe Lieberman, former senator from Connecticut, started his career as a Democrat, and then later in his career became an independent. He is part of this group. And as people have

pointed out, what these people are basically saying is that it doesn't make a difference to them if the president is Joe Biden or Donald Trump. They are both equally unacceptable. Wow. And that is just flat out insane. And it shouldn't matter. It literally should not matter what your political ideology is. If you can't figure out that regardless of what you think of Joe Biden,

he is in a wholly different class of human beings than Donald Trump, I don't know how you get out of bed in the morning with, I assume you just roll off the bed and fall on the floor. because I don't think you have the brains required to figure out that you're supposed to put your feet down first. These people are insane and this is not the time. Like, yeah, the two-party system sucks and yeah, you may not get the best people in the world. And I firmly believe that. Look, I got no love for Joe Biden.

I voted for him, but he wasn't my choice. But, you know, given a choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, that's not a choice. Yep. That's a must, you know, you have one option there, and it ain't Donald Trump. But now we've got Joe Manchin is saying he will not rule out being part of a no labels presidential ticket. I guess former Maryland governor, Larry Hogan has said the same thing. And it is just unreal to me that these people want to pretend, because that's what they're doing. They know there is no, none of these people think that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are equally bad choices. Joe Manchin doesn't think that. Larry Hogan doesn't think that. Nobody really believes that. But they want to pretend that there is no obvious choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And for that, they get a hell and hearty, fuck that guy. And I don't know what fucking ticket Joe Manchin is going to find himself on. He needs to stay his ass in West Virginia, okay, in his fucking Maserati. While the rest of his status poor.

Hill. And his yacht. Danielle, who is your fuck that guy? So also, isn't just one person, but an entire state. Wow. So first of all, I want to shout out listener Stacey Simmons, who brought this to my attention as an offering this week for Fuck That Guy. But last week, the Missouri House of Representatives voted for a $0 line for public libraries because they are being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, the ACLU of Missouri, because of their book bans. And their spiteful ass budget chairman, Cody Smith, proposed a $4.5 million cut to the public library state aid last week in the initial House Budget Committee hearing. This is according to Vice, where Smith cited a lawsuit filed by the Missouri ACLU. These are the drain the pool type of politicians.

And it was Heather McGee who said this when she joined the new abnormal a couple of weeks ago, which is, you know, back during integration, instead of integrating the swimming pools in communities, what did the white politicians decide to do? Drain the pool. Nobody's going to swim. And so for these politicians, oh, libraries, books, reading, learning, oh no, we're not going to do that. If they can't erase black people, if they can't erase LGBTQ people, if they can't erase women and just center white men,

then they're going to defund the libraries. Like when people talked about defunding the police, it was about shifting resources from these ballooned police budgets to actual community, to community entities that would help people. So for these politicians, they're like, oh, no. And I'm telling you, Republicans want Americans undereducated and heavily armed. Yep. That's what they want. That's the America that they want. So for that reason, Missouri House Republicans, you are my fuck that guy of the beginning of this week.

Because God damn, right? Just disgusting that you would propose something like this. And we'll see how it goes, how it goes through the Senate and to the governor. But what, I mean, it isn't enough to just ban the books. They want to shut down libraries. And I don't know how you look at America and say to yourself, oh, all is well with our democracy. Because it sure is fucking. I know when I look at the top 10 problems facing America today, high on the list is always too many damn libraries.

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