The Daily Beast Podcast - What Prosecutors Need to Prove to Nail Trump With a Felony

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

Elie Honig joins this episode of The New Abnormal politics podcast to explain how the 2024 election could impact the timeline for a Trump trial more than we think. There are a few different ways things can go, and neither is that great if you want to see Trump held accountable. Plus! WSJ’s Robbie Whelan, who covers all things Walt Disney Co., shares with co-host @DeeTwoCents a reason that DeSantis is hellbent on controlling the Mouse, and how Disney’s old board quietly stuck it to him—for now. 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. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

One excellent show we have today. CNN senior legal idolatist Ellie Honig is going to join us to talk the implications of Donald Trump's indictment. Then we'll talk to Robbie Whelan, who covers Walt Disney and Hollywood for the Wall Street Journal, and he's going to talk to us all about some of the lesser-seen parts of DeSantis' war with Disney. But first, let's have some fun. Andy, hold on to your hat. We get to start out the new abnormal on a happy note. I know. I don't believe you. You feel crazy. I know. But in fact, in a week filled with the Mango Man, Trump, we get to instill some actual joy. I forgot what it felt like. But Tennessee kids have really shown up and shown all the way out to the state

capital. They have been protesting. They have been loud. I've seen pictures of young people that look like they are in elementary school with their own little homemade signs with a picture of a gun and a line through it. They are screaming at these politicians. They're showing up at school board meetings. They're fighting for their lives, literally. And it has been a really a sight to see and gives me, you know, my mustard seat of hope. Yeah, absolutely. I know a lot of it's being streamed live on TikTok and for as long as, you know, you're still allowed to stream things live on TikTok.

But yeah, we've got earlier in the week over a thousand students walked out of their schools and basically headed down to the state capital to demand stronger gun laws. And this is also in a week where we're seeing potentially three members of the legislature being kicked out by the Republican majority because they dared to go against the Republican majority's attempts to loosen gun laws even further in the wake of the shooting. at the Covenant School. Look, it's always great to see the kids out there. And personally, I believe the children are our future. And it's something I say a lot. And I'm sort of known for saying that. And this is just another example of why I am correct. And it's just great to see them proving me right yet again. But in all seriousness, it is legitimately great to see. And if anyone is directly affected by this, it's them. They're the ones. I mean, look, obviously, people are dying because of guns outside of schools, but they are the ones that have to go into school

every day. And somewhere in the back of their mind, every day is probably what they have to do if there's a shooting, God forbid, at their school. It seems like they're sick of it as they should be, and they're sick of Republican legislators making things worse and refusing to make things better. And they're out there. They're marching for their lives. They're literally marching for their lives. literally just to say that a lot of these people who are voting against their lives voting against their best interests when was the last time they were in a fucking school one was the last time they were in a classroom you know the question that we should ask is when have any of these members had to do an active shooter drill do they know how it feels and have they been inside of a school

when it's happened and so i am really just proud of these kids literally taking their lives in their own hands because the supposed grownups and the adults that are supposed to give a shit about them clearly don't. I hope that they remember this. I hope that they grow up and they vote these people out. And for those that are a voting age, yeah, I want to see them show up in force and run for office because it's a disgrace. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, they are so far doing a pretty good job of that. And I want to point out, you know, I said they're literally marching for their lives. A lot of these protests were mobilized by a group called March for Our Lives, which is led by students. And they had a great tweet earlier in the week. They said, it's not drag queens. It's not books.

It's not black history. It's not trans rights. Guns are killing kids. And I mean, if that doesn't just get to the heart of the matter, I don't know what does because the first things they mentioned are all things that Republican legislators in many, many states throughout this country, are trying to get rid of or trying to limit instead of trying to limit the thing that is actually harming kids. Yeah. What a novel concept. Rolling on with the good news, I know folks, it's crazy. Chicago mayor's race also landed in progressive hands with Brandon Johnson being elected mayor there. And, you know, let this just be, oh, I don't know, a blueprint for Democrats who say that you can't run on progressive issues. He was outspent by Paul Valles. The picture was painted of him as wanting to

defund the police, as being, you know, pro crime and all of these things. And the people showed up and they showed out for this former educator and said, no, like, this is what we want. Not a fascist light, not someone that wants to put more cops on the streets, but that wants to actually build community and build bridges. And again, just bravo because the man was outspent by millions and millions of dollars. TV ads run against him. And it didn't matter because the people showed up and had their voices heard. So bravo to Brandon Johnson. Yeah, two things. One, isn't it weird that the majority of people in the high crime areas in Chicago, i.e., the people who are affected the most by crime, voted for him? Isn't that weird? Yes. For a guy who's supposed to be.

is soft on crime and anti-cop and whatever. It's just so weird to me that the people in the high crime areas are like, yeah, maybe it's time to try something different for once. So there's that. And then the other thing is I know we harp on the media a lot on this podcast, maybe too much. I don't know, but I'm going to do it again anyway. I am just so sick of, and you alluded to this.

And by the media, I'm talking here. I don't mean right-wing media. I'm talking, you know, the mainstream media. I'm talking to New York Times. I'm talking to Washington Post, whatever. They love to act as though if you're not quote-unquote tough on crime, you have no chance of winning. And they ignore every time it does happen, which is a lot, actually. And when it does happen in the case of Brandon Johnson, they'll use phrases like despite, you know, despite being viewed as soft on crime.

They'll say stuff like that. No. First of all, he's not soft on crime. That's you're already, you're conceding the right wing's argument when you use a phrase like soft on crime. Being opposed to a lot of things the police do doesn't make you soft on crime. It makes you strong on civil rights and civil liberties. And we need to stop letting them characterize things like this. And, and again, the people who live in the crime areas in Chicago, obviously didn't vote for Brandon Johnson because they think he's soft on crime.

What they did was vote for someone because they think doing shit the same way over and over again and not getting results is insane. And that maybe it's time that we actually looked at a solution besides, you know, flooding the streets with more cops as an answer. So we just, we have to call out the media on this because we see this time and time again. We've seen it in California, in San Francisco, in Oakland. We're seeing it now in Chicago. We saw it here in the New York City, May. race and you know unfortunately the guy we ended up with oh dear god yeah might as well be still be on the cop's payroll which is about to be highly inflated thanks to him but the media love to portray

anyone who doesn't want to flood the streets with cops as soft on crime or anyone who doesn't want to make it you know 20 years to life for stealing a candy bar let's just be clear that if more cops and more guns was the way to safety than america would be listed as the safest place on the fucking planet. Exactly. Thank you. And it's not. Just plain and simple. So the logic don't work. But what does work? There you go. What does work? Professional snug alert, professional study alert, people. Listen and learn. What does work is voting, friends. Voting actually works. Showing up to the polls, works, paying attention to the courts work. And that is what happened in Wisconsin with the election of a liberal who, Andy, what is her name?

It's Janet Proto-Sawicz. So Janet has been elected to the Supreme Court, which now flips that court from red to blue, which is amazing, an amazing feat in a state where they were rolling out anti-abortion laws, rolling out all of these aggressive anti-equality laws. and now we are going to, God willing, see a reversal of these things now that the court is back in progressive hands. And again, all of the things that we are laying out, what does it lead back to? People voting.

People pushing back against voter suppression. People pushing back against politicians that don't give a damn. People paying attention and seeing that the Republicans are not just running a national campaign of fascism. They are doing it at the local and state level, and it is up to people to show up to the polls to pay attention so that we can stop their continued insurrection. Yeah. Look, obviously, this can't be undersold in terms of what this means for abortion rights in Wisconsin. And we've already seen Republicans sort of clutching their pearls and saying, you know, we have to stop giving people the impression that we are anti-abortion with no limits,

that we just want all abortions to be illegal because they're not for that. And it's like, well, you might be giving people the impression that that's what you're for because that's what you keep fucking saying. And because that is what you believe. So it's kind of interesting that they are having a, I guess you maybe could call it a come to Jesus moment where they're realizing, you know, finally that what they want is not what the vast majority of the American people want. But this goes beyond even abortion rights.

And it's really interesting. I've seen several commentators on the right talk about how the Wisconsin Supreme Court flipping from conservative to liberal means that the Republican Party has no path to victory in 2024 in the presidential election. And that to me is it's so saying the quiet part out loud that they knew and they know that they couldn't win a free election in 2024 and that their strategy is to depend on conservative courts to throw out votes and to keep voter suppression and to, you know, keep voter suppression high. That is literally their strategy for 2024 was to not win a majority

of votes freely and fairly cast. It is amazing to me that they're actually saying this, and I'm kind of glad they are because it's something we've all kind of known. And, you know, 2020 was obviously a dry run for this with the trying to submit, you know, fake electors. So, and with all the voter suppression stuff we saw that, as we all know, is mostly, mostly involves people of color. And again, this is more than one person. I'm not just picking some random tweet. This is more than one person on the right saying this, that they no longer see a path to 270 because Wisconsin's Supreme Court won't rubber stamp any of their shenanities and illegalities. So this is huge. It cannot be overstated how huge this is for the country. Yeah. People need to continue to pay attention to vote and not just

listen to the noise and think that we're just done, right? Like throwing up your hands, they're throwing everything at us and we can't fight back. Like, this is how you fight back. We need to do it state by state by state. So bravo, Wisconsin. So unfortunately, we have to talk about Donald Trump. And while I would rather not, except let me just say that his Grinch sketch, the courtroom sketch, fantastic. Disney should really run with that one. But apparently it isn't just Michael Cohen that has the goods on Donald Trump because a criminal's going crime. And, you know, one should often really pay attention to, like, there needs to be a series done on just Dorman in New York City, just everywhere in high rises. And like, that be the new taxi confessions. Because apparently, because apparently

one of Donald Trump's doorman was paid off some big money because he said that he had information on proving that Donald Trump had a child at a wedlock. And I was just like for a minute, I'm like, weren't they all out of wedlock? But I mean, I digress. But the reality is he doesn't. He doesn't have a child out of wedlock. But to make sure that the story, the story did not make it into the mainstream, the National Enquirer, along with Donald Trump and his goons, paid off this doorman and now he's singing like a birdie. So that is the other, I think, shoe that dropped this week with regard to Donald Trump's 34, 34 felony charges that he is facing for, you know, not covering up to lie to his wife about his affair, but trying to lie about his

affair to the American people so that he could win an election. I'm a little blah on this story just because it looks like this doorman is kind of a serial fabricator. The payoff seems to have been real. And yes, it does just show that this is what he does a lot. You know, it's not illegal to pay someone money to keep quiet. It's just not. And then that's why we saw the, you know, the Alvin Bragg charges are not that. It's the, you know, it's the false, the falsifying the business records about it.

That's the issue there. But look, it does just show that this is his pattern that he has used his whole life, which is to pay off people who are going to say bad things about him. I guess he has all that money to pay them off because he doesn't pay the actual people who do work for him, as we've known for a long time, like contractors and stuff like that. So I guess he uses that money instead to pay off people who are going to tell bad stories about him. I wish he'd try to pay us off, you know. I mean, if you don't think that I would sit here and sing his praises,

and I'm not even talking for that much money at this point. No, Andy. Now, look, if I wanted to do that, I would have kept working at Fox. Oh, shit. Anyway. So, unfortunately, we can't end with any good news. But let me tell you something. It is amazing to me that these right-wing motherfuckers that want to refer to people who actually

care about kids, who care about children's safety, who care about, you know, trans kids not committing suicide, who care about, you know, protecting children from being gunned down in their classroom. They refer to those on the left, to those that are progressive as groomers and pedophiles. And yet, and yet, dear friends, it is projection at best because what is it, the Kansas legislature overrode a veto that now allows them the ability to inspect the genitalia of children participating in sports to uphold their trans ban. This isn't a, sports physical that student athletes have to go through, you know, your weight, your height, make sure all is okay. No. This is akin to the probe that they were doing on women, the transvaginal

probe that they were doing, that has nothing to do with abortion or care, has everything to do with abuse and harm. Yeah, the Kansas governor is a Democrat. She vetoed this bill, I think, three times, but they finally have enough votes, the Republicans, in both the state house and the state Senate to overturn the veto and they did just that. You know those idiotic shirts that say FBI and then if you get up close it says female body inspector? I want the Republicans to get shirts that say CGI, which sounds like it would be for movies, you know, for making special effects. But if you get up close, it says child genitals inspector. Oh shit. Because that's what they are the party of child genital inspection. Come on. And we need to keep calling them that.

That is, I think, for the next couple years, we need to make it clear that this is what the Republican Party stands for. And you can't say, well, this is just one legislature in Kansas. This is what they, I mean, they're on record as wanting to do shit like this. This is not out of the mainstream of current Republican thought, unfortunately. And this is absolutely grotesque. And, you know, they're trying to spin it as, well, all the kids have to take, you have to do a sports physical. This will just be part of that and it will only be done if questions are raised. So it's like, oh, good. So you're not going to do it to all the kids, which I'm glad they're not. But you know what? People are going to raise this, the question of this anytime, let's say, for example, a girl is just a much better athlete

than some of the other girls. Or it's going to be, you're going to get the parent of a kid who didn't make the team, quote unquote, raising questions about someone who did make the team and forcing this inspection. It's just, it is insane that we are going down this road. And the Republican Party needs to be called out. They are the party of child genital inspections. And that's what they want. They love to use the phrase, this is the future liberals want. Well, this is the future Republicans want. Disgusting. They want a future where they want to normalize inspecting children's genitals. And then they have the fucking nerve to call people on the left groomers and shit like that and yell at them for allegedly sexualizing children. Look at what you're doing here. You literally want

to inspect children's genitals. Think about that. Mm, mm, couldn't have set up better, Andy. Unless you've been taking a ridiculously long nap, and if so, I'm jealous, you probably know that Donald Trump was indicted on 34 counts Tuesday by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office. Joining me now to explain the charges and the potential ramifications is CNN's senior legal analyst Ellie Honig, author of the great book, Untouchable, how powerful people get away with it. Ellie, welcome back. Andy, you throw me a curveball here.

I was told we're going to be discussing the Gwyneth Paltrow trial. Well, I actually would rather. I would not. I would not. So let me start with something you mentioned last time you were on, something that's also in your book. You said that somewhere in the SDNY offices is a draft indictment of Michael Cohen

that spelled out in detail how Trump, in your words, was the driving force behind the scheme and likely criminally liable for it. Obviously, Alvin Bragg is prosecuting state crimes, not federal. But with that caveat, how similar do you think Bragg's charges are to what's in that SDNY draft? Yeah, that's a piece of reporting that has aged quite well. Yes. I will say I did break the story in my book about how the Southern District of New York,

we all know they didn't charge Donald Trump because they didn't charge Donald Trump, but what the internal deliberations were like. And there was this moment back in 2018 when the Southern District was prosecuting Michael Cohen, where now they could not under DOJ policy prosecute Donald Trump at the time because Donald Trump was sitting president. But what they did was in drafting up Michael Cohen's indictment, which became something technically called an information because he ended up pleading guilty to it. But we'll just call it his indictment.

They had all this information about in there about their case against Donald Trump. And there was the discussion that went with that about what do we call the guy? Because you don't use someone's name other than the defendant. and they went through various iterations before landing at individual one, which has now become a sort of infamous moniker. And what happened was the bosses down at Maine Justice. And you have to understand the dynamic here. The Southern District of New York is part of the United States Department of Justice. We are fiercely independent, defiant even at the SD&Y. We don't like taking instructions from the bosses at what we call Maine Justice in D.C. But ultimately, they are in charge. And what happened here was

the boss has got to look at that draft indictment and said, no way. You're not putting all this information about the president in here when he can't be charged. You can't defend himself. It wasn't necessarily just a political thing. I mean, I'm sure there was a political element to it of not wanting to hurt the boss. But the reason they gave the SDNI wasn't like, oh, oh, he's our guy. We don't want him hurt. The reason was we don't put in extensive information about somebody who can't be charged and can't defend themselves, negative information. The SDNY pushed back. There was a series of contentious discussions. And the SDNY said, we got to tell the whole story here. And we don't want to look like we're holding back

because he's president. We know how this came out. If you actually look at Michael Cohen's bottom line document that came out publicly, they barely mentioned individual one. He's just mentioned six or seven times in the indictment and only in passing. Now, as time went on, the SDNY put more information in the record on Michael Cohen's case about Trump's involvement. And ultimately, when Trump left office in January of 2021, and the SDNY was able to indict Trump, they met, and I break this in my book, they met several times and decided against it for a variety of reasons. Some related to the nature of the conduct. They didn't feel it was as important as some of the other things Trump had done. They felt the proof was sufficient

to charge, but not necessarily a slam dunk. They did not trust Michael Cohen. This is not breaking news. They wrote a letter to Michael Cohen sentencing judge saying he tried to cooperate, but we did not think he was fully credible, paraphrasing. And they said, we understood one of the people phrased it to me, and I quote this in the book, the prudential concerns with indicting a former president. And they just felt that it wasn't worth it on this charge, on this evidence, to sort of break that historical barrier in charging a former president. So now, okay, that was all a very long-winded way to get to your question of how does that compare to the case here? The case here is a bit different because, first of all, you're talking about state law

instead of federal law. Federal law, you can just straight up charge a campaign finance violation relating to the presidential election. And there's a sort of bank shot theory that the state is using here that I think has some holes in it where there sounds like and part of the problem with the indictment that we saw the other day is it doesn't really specify what the other crime is. But if it's going to be a campaign finance violation, they're going to have a problem because it's state law and state court and they're trying to charge a violation of federal campaign finance law. And that may not hold up under law. Okay, so along those lines, I have seen legal opinions all over the place on the substance of Bragg's case.

I've seen lawyers say it's going to be tough to get convictions. I've seen lawyers say, hey, they've got Trump on tape. This is, you know, going to be close to a slam dunk. And I've seen everything in between. Obviously, nobody, I would assume, including you, knows all the cards that Bragg is holding. But what's your gut on this? Do you think this is going to be really tough? You know, everyone's very, very big on is this a strong case or a weak case.

Right. There is such thing as a medium case. Sure. Right. There are some real legal and factual, and I guess we should maybe separate them out problems here. Let me lay out some of the legal issues. First of all, like we said, the crime under state law, it is not a crime to pay hush money. Let's just start with that. I know it's bad, it's embarrassing.

You don't want to do it, but it's not a crime. The crime under state law is what we call falsification of business records. And that is what it sounds like. If you falsify a business record, right? I mean, very legal here. And that's a misdemeanor. though. I mean, a misdemeanor, you know, misdemeanors are anything where the max is a year or less and a felony is over a year. So felonies are the real important ones. And no one is going to go to prison for

a misdemeanor, certainly for this type of misdemeanor. And here they have to prove that not just that that records were falsified in the passive voice, that clearly was the case because the hush money payments were logged within the Trump organization as, quote, legal fees, but that Donald Trump knew about or blessed or ordered that it be done that way. You always have to tie the person. to the actual crime. So a lot of people look at the evidence ago. Obviously, Trump knew hush money was being paid. Of course, yes, without question. But you have to tie him to the falsification of the records. Now, I think that's doable here. I think there's pretty good evidence. I mean, he signed checks to reimburse Michael Cohen as a legal fee. So he would have to have been kept in the dark

about that. But another thing he will probably argue in defense is, hey, my lawyer, Michael Cohen, told me we were going to structure it this way and told me it was fine to do it this way. That's called in advice of counsel defense and people are, for the most part, entitled to rely on their lawyer. If a lawyer says, no, no, set it up this way, you're entitled to assume that your lawyer's not telling you to break the law. Right. But of course, Michael Cohen and Donald Trump had a special relationship where they broke the law together all the time.

So start with that as one legal issue. But I think the case of tying Donald Trump to falsified business records is fairly strong. If you go the next step now, in order to bump it up to a felony, you have to prove under New York state law that documents were falsified in order to commit or conceal some other crime, some second crime. And that's where we get into a couple problems. First of all, if you look at the indictment, it doesn't say what that separate crime is. Now, technically he doesn't have to say it at this point. He will, certainly, he, Alvin Bragg, and I should say I'm friends with Alvin Bragg and we were colleagues together at the Southern District of New York. So you can factor that in,

however you will. But as you'll see, I've been critical of the merits of a lot of what he's done. At some point, prosecutors certainly, probably sooner than later, will have to say, here are the other laws that we're arguing here, the second laws that we're arguing here. People who have sort of tried to, you know, argue that this was all on the up and up have said, well, there was a statement of facts also in addition to the indictment. And Alvin Bragg made a statement. And if you sort of go through the statement of facts and parse what Alvin Bragg said, you can identify, you can deduce or infer that there were several laws. And I agree with that. But first of all, that's not how this works. As a defendant, you don't have to go through the long written narrative.

This isn't a law school hypothetical where you have to go, oh, I think I spot an issue there. And I think Alvin Bragg alluded to this. No, an indictment is meant to put the defendant on specific notice. Here's what you're charged with. Here's what you're defending yourself against. And at some point, prosecutors either voluntarily or the judge will require them to commit. But right now, they've not committed. So it looks like, if you're parsing through everything, there are three potential theories.

One is federal campaign finance law. Problem is we're in New York state court. The other is it violated state campaign finance law. I don't know how state campaign finance law possibly applies to a federal presidential election. The third one is this theory about tax fraud, which is alluded to in the statement of facts, but it doesn't make any sense to me. They don't say, and nobody, even people who've tried to sort of bolster this indictment publicly, have not been able to articulate what the theory.

is they say, well, there's a tax fraud theory, but you can't explain it because I would get it if the Trump org took this payment to Stormy Daniels called it a legal fee and took it as a tax deduction. But what they actually did was when they reimbursed Michael Cohen, they paid him extra. And Michael Cohen has said this because they wanted to make sure now that he's getting this, what appears is to be income, he has enough money to pay his tax bill. To me, that is almost the opposite of tax fraud. You're saying, we're going to pay you extra and here's the extra cash to cover it so you can go pay your taxes on it. So there may be something we're missing.

There certainly is something they've not explained if they're going to go with a tax fraud theory, but they're going to have to commit one way or the other. So that's sort of how I look at it. And then you get into the merits of the case and we can talk about this. You know, are they making a mistake to go with Michael Cohen or not? And what other evidence do they have? But that's sort of separate from the legal question. Well, that actually was my next question, though, is.

Yeah. And you alluded to this, will the fact that Michael Cohen, who is himself a convicted felon, he is kind of the main source for all of this. Will this hurt the case for the jury? Will it be easy for Trump's lawyers to spend this as you can't trust this guy? Yeah, I mean, Michael Cohen is a very vulnerable witness. But let me also say, so the couple of interesting things. First of all, the Southern District of New York rejected Michael Cohen.

He tried to cooperate. This is the letter I alluded to earlier. They wrote to Michael Cohen's sentencing judge something like, while Cohen offered us information, we believe that he was being incomplete in some respects and overstated in others. And so they said, He is not a cooperator. We're not giving him what's called a 5K letter, which is what you give to cooperators who you're going to use. Clearly, Alvin Bragg has made a different determination. And

that can be okay. You know, look, I am certainly not a pearl clutcher when it comes to calling bad guys to make cases. I mean, I made cases on way worse people than Michael Cohen who had done way worse things than Michael Cohen. I'm murdered. It's done all the time, right? Yeah. I mean, in the federal system, especially. But yes, if you want to make a meaningful criminal case, especially against a boss, a powerful person like Donald Trump, I talk about this in the book, you almost always have to do it by flipping people under them. It's very difficult to reach a boss. Again, this is a big part of my book. And I don't sort of worry that, oh, Michael Cohen, he's unseemly. How could they rely on him? No, the question really here comes down to credibility. And I guess on one hand, Michael Cohen

has since he broke away from Trump, for the most part, been backed up in the things he said, not entirely. There is this line of thought that, well, Michael Cohen, when he broke from Trump, he's done nothing but tell the truth. I mean, the Southern District rejected him after that. They didn't believe him after that. It's not like he went from this serial liar under Donald Trump, flipped a switch, and now he's this ultimate truth teller. But, but, you know, on the other hand, he will be cross-examined on the fact that he is a convicted perjurer. He lied to Congress for Donald Trump. he was convicted of this campaign finance crime. You know, Michael Cohen and his lawyer, Lanny Davis, like to say, but everything he did

is for Trump. Lanny Davis, you've probably seen this schick. Lanny Davis goes on TV and he goes, whenever someone says, but Michael Cohen committed a lot of crimes, Lanny goes, but finish the sentence for Donald Trump, for Donald Trump, finish the sentence. That is not true. Michael Cohen, when he was convicted, was convicted of eight counts in his first indictment. Later on, he was convicted of a second one of lying to Congress, but putting

that aside, he was convicted of eight counts, counts seven and eight. are campaign finance for Donald Trump. We'll finish the sentence, Lanny. But the first six counts have nothing to do with Donald Trump. The first six counts are Michael Cohen committing financial fraud and tax fraud on his own. Nothing to do with Donald Trump. Now, what Lanny Davis and Michael Cohen are saying now is, yeah, but he didn't really commit those crimes.

He was falsely accused. That is not good for Michael Cohen. That is not good for the prosecutors because A, it makes it look like he's a guy, this is a guy who just can't accept reality. He pled guilty. B, it means he committed yet another act of perjury because he went into federal court, raised his hand, took an oath, stood in front of a federal judge and said, I did these things, I'm guilty of these things. And if he's denying that now, add one more bit of perjury to the ledger.

So I don't know what they think they're doing with this line of argument now. So as you can see, I think Michael Cohen is going to be a problematic witness, but I wouldn't say it's lunacy of Alvin Bragg to rely on him. I do see a world in which you say we can put them up there. is somebody who has made a break from his prior life. And he is backed up to an extent by the checks and the ledgers and that kind of thing. But they're going to need his testimony to directly tie Donald Trump to the heart of the criminality. Was there anything in the indictment that surprised you? No.

I guess I was surprised that I wasn't surprised. I'll put it that way. I mean, all of the run up to this, all of the reporting, and based on the statements of grand jury witnesses, including Michael Cohen, who was basically updating all of us in the world on a rolling basis of what he was saying in the grand jury, was that the focus was going to be on the Stormy Daniels Hush Money payments. And what we were talking about in the media is, will there be more? Will there be, for example, the Karen McDougal payoff?

Will there be some tax crime alleged, like we discussed? Will there be some obstruction or threats? None of that is in the indictment. Now, they do mention Karen McDougal, the payoffs to Karen McDougal and this mysterious doorman in the statement of facts that goes with the indictment. But those are not charged criminally. all of the actual 34 counts relate to the payoffs to Stormy Daniels.

And by the way, if you're wondering how on earth they divided this into 34 counts, they use each check, each invoice and each ledger entry relating to the payments and repayments as its own freestanding count. That's how they get the 34. By the way, it's a little bit of a federal state thing. Feds believe more concise is better. Fed say if you have a, you know, if you can pack a whole bunch of different things into one count, do it.

The state people, and I said, remember, I was a state prosecutor too in New Jersey. So I'm being very broad here. But state people love to take a criminal act and go, how can we divide it into 400 different counts? You can tell which way I think is better. Right. I much prefer the federal approach of like just give them the best stuff and make it as simple to digest as possible. But there is this notion, I guess, is some prosecutors that more is more powerful. I don't personally agree with that.

Isn't there sort of like, wow, 34 charges. He must be guilty. Yes. I mean, there is a sense of that. And I was careful to say on air, do not conflate quality and quantity here. Right. I mean, you know, I get why they probably did 30. I'm not criticizing this for this because I actually think it makes sense because remember, the core of the crime here is the business records. And so each record they falsified would be its own

crime. So I get that. But if this were charged federally somehow, you would just take all of them and go, look, it's all one big thing. It's a conspiracy. They didn't even charge conspiracy, by the way, which means an agreement between two or more people, which clearly this was as a practical matter. And if you look, again, the statement of facts talks about a scheme and a, obviously there was Cohen and Trump and others involved, but they don't actually charge a conspiracy for sort of technical reasons. So I was surprised that none of that extra stuff was in the indictment. It's all about the Stormy Daniels payments, the actual charges, and they don't specify what the other crime is. They will have to fix that part at some point. Okay. So before I let you go,

what does this trial look like once it gets underway? And what's your guess for when it gets underway? What does the timeline look like? All of that. Great question. So it will look like, You saw what was happening the other day. It will be like that, but times five. It was fascinating, just to give you a little color, by the way. So I was at Trump Tower on the day of the arraignment. And then I was down at the courthouse for part of the next day with CNN's coverage. And it was, I mean, if you walked up and down Fifth Avenue, it was just media booth after

media booth crammed in, just people walking on the streets freely in front of us, behind us. Like, it was really quite a scene. You know, it was almost like a movie scene. Like, you walk down the street. and, you know, I recognize who some of the media outlets, you know, if it was international journalists, you'd hear someone speaking French, you'd hear someone speaking Spanish, I wanted to take a sort of video of it, but I was like, eh, you're part of the media, you probably should be gawking in the media. We had people coming right up to us yelling our names and stuff.

It was, we had some people trying to disrupt the shot, and it was quite a scene. So, all right, and a trial is going to be that and then some. But the timing is, so two big things here. One, it seems very, very likely that more indictments are coming, starting with the Fulton County DA in Georgia, which is going to be much more serious conduct relating to an attempt to steal the election. And I think probably stronger proof, too. I think that charge is very likely to hit before the summer. And then DOJ, we don't really know to me, DOJ remains a little bit of a cipher because I'm fairly confident Jack Smith will recommend indictments, but Merrick Garland ultimately has to sign off. And I'm not so sure he will. Now, we are entering into this bizarre phase,

Andy, you made a great point about the timing. Let's just look at the Manhattan case. the next time they are going into court with Trump present is December. That's eight months away. I've never seen a judge set a next appearance. And I get that it's very, very complicated for Trump. We just saw it was like moving, you know, it was like a military operation almost to get him moved around. But the reality of that is we're not going to have a,

there's no way there will be a trial date set until 2024 and likely at least several months into 2024. Now, is a judge really going to try a case? while Donald Trump is in the middle of primaries and debates and the convention and maybe the frontrunner and maybe the presumptive nominee, that to me is really difficult to do as a practical matter, as a political matter. And so I could, if I'm Trump's lawyers, I'm just, my one word strategy is delay. Because the closer you get this thing, the more you get this, all of these cases when they come, the farther out you get them pushed, the closer you get to

2024, and the more likely I think it is for a judge to say, look, we'll do this trial, but it's just too politically fraught. It's too difficult to pick a jury. There's too many X factors to do this in, let's say, June of 2024 with an election just a few months away. And if you're Trump, then that puts you in a scenario where if you win the 2024 election, they're not going to try you while you're in the White House or while you're in transition between the election and taking office. And if you lose, you will be tried, but now we're talking about 2025 and he'll be a twice defeated candidate, and he'll be, I don't know, 80 years old. And it's like, you know, it's just to me, a strategy here. And I think we're seeing it is delay and hope that you get close enough to the 2024 election

that it just becomes untenable to have a trial as a practical matter. And let me say this. One of the things that I stress in the book is I really go after DOJ in particular for taking so darn long to do their work. have all chapter called Waiting for Garland. I say in the book basically, and Fonnie Willis, by the way, deserves just as much blame. I don't know why Fonnie Willis seems to dodge blame. I think people inherently like her. She seems likable. And I think people inherently look at Garland a little differently because he's a judge and is he part of the system or what, or was a judge. Both of them deserve blame for taking two plus years now coming up on two and a half years to do anything. Fonnie Willis, by the way, was in office before Merrick Garland. She's been

DA since this whole thing started. Merrick Garland didn't take office until a couple months later. Two of the results of that are, first of all, the Manhattan DA goes first on what's the least important of the conduct here, of the Trump conduct, and probably the weakest evidence. And two, you're looking at a scenario where you're either going to have a very contentious, very politically fraught trial in 2024, which I doubt, or you're going to have to wait until after the election. So there are real consequences to this. Amazing. Ellie Honig, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate your time. I know this is a bit of a busy week for you. This is how I spend my downtime, Andy. Talking about it with different people.

Thanks so much for coming back. Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. 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. Convierter your passion in a business with Shopify and bathe records of ventas with the form of pay with a better conversion of the world. Has you heard it? The incredible system of pago of Shopify

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make your business will a super-exit with Shopify. Empeat your period of a month in

Shopify. orgs. Folks, I want to welcome to the new abnormal Robbie Whelan

who covers Walt Disney Company and the business of Hollywood for the Wall Street

Journal. Robbie, Disney used to be the happiest place on Earth. And over

the last several months, Disney has been in the news for all the unhappiest of reasons. One, because Governor Ron DeSantis, after the Disney company decided to push back on the Don't Say Gay Bill that was signed into law, I believe, a little over a year ago, Ron DeSantis has seemed to have made it his mission to wage war against the happiest place on Earth. There has been a lot of news over the last week or so that seemed as if Disney had gotten the best of Ron DeSantis in this round with regard to the board where Ron DeSantis had decided that he wanted to take over the board and put in place white evangelical Christians, some of his biggest

conservative Republican donors. So I wanted to be able to give the audience an opportunity to understand exactly what happened with the moves that the board made before they were replaced and kind of where things stand now just this week, the CEO of Disney came out again with another statement saying that Ron DeSantis' actions are anti-business and they are also anti-Florita. Yeah, there's a lot there. I think it's important to take a quick step back and sort of define some of the things we're talking about. First of all, when we talk about, we about the board that Ron DeSantis has sought to bring under his control. We're talking about something called Reedy Creek Improvement District. It's a very specific thing in Florida. It was set

up under the Florida legislature's statutes in the late 1960s. It's what's called a special purpose or a special taxing district. So we're not talking about the board of the Walt Disney Company, obviously. We're talking about the board of the Reedy Creek Improvement District. And the reason why this thing is important is that, you know, there was really no way for Walt Disney to execute his vision of building a theme park in Florida back in the late 60s when the plans were being drawn up without having control over the land to a certain extent. So it's a massive piece of land outside of Orlando, about 24,000 acres. Disney came up with this sort of novel plan that instead of being dependent on counties in that area, Orange and Osceola counties, they were going to be

the ones who were responsible for having roads built and maintaining those roads, building sewers, having a fire department to make sure that people stayed safe when they came and stayed in a hotel at Disney World. All these things are normally handled by a county or a municipal government. Disney decided and convinced the Florida legislature that it was a better idea for Disney to be in charge of all that stuff, and not just in charge, but also financially responsible. So Disney is the biggest taxpayer in this district. They own north of 90% of all the land there. And under the previous setup, what happened was there was a board of supervisors that was voted on every year.

And the people who got to vote were the landowners, the citizens of this district, which of course meant Disney. So when people talk about Disney handpicking the board that ran this district that includes Walt Disney World, it's true that Disney really had pretty close. level of control over who was making decisions about infrastructure, about the really basic meat and potatoes governance decisions that every kind of municipality has to deal with. So fast forward to last year, when Ron DeSantis introduced, or he started backing a bill introduced in the Florida legislature, it's known as the parental rights in education bill. It's now law. And what it says is that you can't instruct kids age, kindergarten through third grade,

in gender or sexuality. It's very much part of this rising tide of backlash from the right in the culture wars, essentially, about gender, about trans rights, about LGBTQ issues. The long and short version of it is that there's a lot of conservatives in Florida who are very worried that their kids are sort of out of their control and that when they go to school, they're going to be exposed to things that don't conform with the types of values that especially conservative Christians hold. And the battleground for that culture war has been in Florida, at least, very much surrounding the school. And so when DeSantis got behind this bill, there was a big outcry, mainly from sort of more progressive activists, Democrats. People who care about equality and representation and justice. I have to be terrible here. I'm not going to, I'm not going to weigh in on.

I know. I'm saying that, Robbie, not you. I'm not putting words in your mouth. Your words, not mine. I'm just a corporate reporter here. Right. Right. There's obviously, you know, it's a very sensitive issue.

people on the left feel that this bill was harmful to children, especially LGBT children, and also harmful to LGBT teachers. And so a movement started brewing inside Disney that was centered around LGBTQ employees who started doing walkouts, they started circulating petitions. And what they wanted, what they wanted their boss, who at the time was the CEO of Disney, a guy named Bob Chebeck, they wanted him to weigh in and tell them that Disney did not support this bill, that Disney opposed the bill. and that Disney cared about trans rights and gay rights.

That was the statement they wanted. And Bob Chappek, who has now left the company, he's been gone since November, was a very cautious guy when it came to politics. His personal policy was definitely right of his predecessor, more conservative than his predecessor, Bob Eager, but he just didn't feel comfortable and he was being advised by his advisors,

which included a bunch of former George W. But staffers that he just did not weigh in. There was no way to win in this situation. He shouldn't try to take on Ron DeSantis. He couldn't try to take on the Florida legislature. And Disney has a very special and delicate relationship with the state of Florida. I mean, they both get a lot out of the relationship, and it's unwise he felt to rock the boat and to weigh in. So he tried to resist. You guys all know the story. It's a huge mistake. The employees continued to rebel,

and eventually he felt pressured to weigh in, and Disney came out publicly against the bill. We oppose this. We think it's harmful to LGBT youth. We will work to repeal it. We're pausing all political donations in Florida until we sort this out. Right. And that is when Ron DeSantis went on the war path against Disney. He called them a woke corporation. He said they're out of touch with Florida parents and their needs. And then furthermore, he went way further.

I mean, he started talking about Disney's content. He started saying that Disney's content was inappropriate. A lot of the conservative activists in the state jumped on board and really seized it as an opportunity while Disney was in the news to use the company as a punching bag. Say, this is a company that there's predators, this company. They want to go after your children. turn them into gay or trans kids. There was a lot of that nasty kind of discourse going around, some of it coming from the

governor's office. So what's happened this week? Okay, now I, sorry, there's a very complex timeline here, but I've been following it very closely for the last year. So what happened earlier this year, DeSantis pushed through a bill that gave him the power to appoint the board of Reedy Creek. So he said, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to strip Disney because Disney's not being compliant and not listening to what I

have to say about the matter. Just a quick pause, Robbie, because when you say things, you know, to the effect, and this is what Ron DeSantis has stated, that Disney is not being compliant, meaning that Disney is not breaking any laws. Disney, it's not like Disney wasn't cleaning up the area, throwing out the trash, doing any of the grooming of this town that they own. When he talks about compliance, he talks about bowing to his will and turning a private company into an entity that is an extension of White East. evangelical Christian theology. Like, that's what he's talking about when bowing to his will, because, as I can see, Disney hasn't broken any laws or gone outside of what they are restricted and able to do in this town. That last thing you said is certainly true. There's no evidence.

There's been no allegation that Disney has not fulfilled its obligations at Reedy Creek or done anything wrong there. It's really about the spotlight has been cast on Disney because they, in a very public way they opposed DeSantis' agenda. And so that's what drew all this attention to them. And as soon as that attention was on them, things got very intense, very quickly. And Republicans in the Florida legislature started talking about how it wasn't fair that Disney got to essentially self-govern at Redy Creek at Walt Disney World.

And, you know, they mentioned that there's a lot of other theme parks in Florida that don't get to do the same thing. They have to pay taxes to a county instead of a district. And that county decides the timelines on which they get to explain. band and, you know, when there's a pothole in the road, they have to wait for the county crews to come fix it rather than sending their own road crew out to fix it. It was really hard to say that this was about anything but punishing Disney for taking a stance against a big part of the governor's agenda and of the legislature's agenda. So I will grant you that this is not about something illegal or negligent that Disney did at the district. It's about politics,

for lack of a better word. Yeah. So what happened was the latest, exchange of fire between the two parties. The DeSantis pushed through a bill in the legislature earlier this year that allowed him to appoint the board at Reedy Creek, this district that includes Walt Disney World. And in late February, he named five new board members who were, yes, they were supporters of his campaigns. They were conservative activists, a woman named Bridget Ziegler, who founded a group called Moms for Liberty. That has been very vocally critical of the trans rights movement. And yes, some of them are allied with the sort of evangelical right. That's definitely true. These people, were seated in March, and once they were seated, they hired an outside law firm to kind of review

the records, give them an update about what's going on, fill us in on what Reedy Creek's been doing the last few years. And what they discovered was that in early February, mere weeks before they became the new board members, Disney had, in a very well-publicized public meeting, held a hearing where they approved for the next 30 years and locked in all these approvals for any kind of expansion they wanted to make at Walt Disney World, which is essentially, as I mentioned before, that's what this district does. Because the only governing power this district really has is maintaining roads, maintaining infrastructure, approving building permits, approving, you know, development plans.

So basically, whenever Disney wants to expand, build a new roller coaster, build an entire new theme park, build a water park, build a hotel, they have to go to this board and say, please, can we, do we have your approval to build all this stuff? Do we have enough infrastructure in place to do it? And what they did in February was they had a hearing, like they'd been having to having hearings for the past 50 years in public with journalists in the room, advertised in newspapers beforehand, and they said, look, here's our 30-year plan for what we might want to do in the future to ban Wall Disney World. Please approve our development plan. The old board, the one that was

appointed by Disney, unanimously approved this 30-year development plan. Quite simply, Ron DeSantis' allies in Tallahassee were not paying attention. They didn't know that it was happening. They only found out that it happened after the new board that Ron DeSantis pointed was seated and put in place. I mean, it's hard to view this as anything but kind of negligence on the part of DeSantis' office. In other words, if he wants to really strip Disney of power, he's got to keep an eye on what the board is doing before he changes over to his guys. And I quoted somebody in my story saying like, you know, if you're in Telahaffi, you're trying to replace this board and undo the power structure that favors Disney, you've got to actually have an eye. on what that board is doing. Mm-hmm. Yes, one would think.

Right. That's kind of where we are right now. But the really interesting thing that's happened this week is that Disney has a new CEO. He's the same as the old CEO, to paraphrase the who. Say hi to the new boss, same as the old boss. Same as the old boss. And his name is Bob Eiger. He's a very famous CEO. And he's very famous in one sense for being one of the more progressive liberal CEOs in recent U.S. business history. I mean, he has been very vocal about his support for abortion rights, voting rights.

And he even at one point contemplated a run for the presidency in 2016 before deciding to give up that effort. And he would have been a Democrat had he run. So the situation on the ground is got a new CEO of Disney coming in since November. He's way more liberal than the old guy. And he is now the one who has to deal with this story and this battle with Ron DeSantis that just will not go away. And for the first time ever, he spoke in depth about DeSantis and about what Florida is. doing and about the relationship with a company. And you'll notice that at the annual meeting that happened yesterday, it started with a roughly 10 or 15 minute video that was just all footage of

Bob Iger walking around Orlando, walking around the theme park, you know, showing off these beautiful vistas at Walt Disney World. And that was not on accident, right? I mean, this is a guy whose company is in the middle of a fight to the death with Ron DeSantis. And he says, look at me. I'm the CEO of the company. Here I am in Florida. And here's what we're going to present to the public. We're going to present this view of a company that is utterly committed to Florida, that loves Florida. He even said it later on in the call during the annual meeting. We love Florida. But at the same time, he did speak in a way that was more kind of specific and aggressive than he ever has about DeSantis and how he views what DeSantis has done. And yes, he said,

look, we're planning to invest $17 billion in Walt Disney World over the next 10 years. It's going to create 13,000 direct jobs, thousands more indirect jobs. It's going to increase the tax revenue. of the state of Florida is going to bring thousands, if not millions of more visitors to the state to spend their money and increase the tax base of the state even further. Anything you do to try to stop that plan or make it harder for us to execute that plan,

which includes, of course, taking control of the board of Reedy Creek and giving them a hard time on things like development approvals, anything you do to stop that is anti-business and it's anti-Florida. And that was his message to Rhonda Sanders. So now we have this really, kind of exciting war of words that is transferred from the old CEO,

Cheapac, to the new one, Bob Iger. And I personally, as a reporter, I cannot be more thrilled that this story has not just died and ended and that I get to write about it for months and years to come. I mean, I think that this is extraordinary because it was at one time the Republican party was supposed to be about business, supposed to be about private entities. And now Desantis' war against Disney has essentially shown us, that unless you have corporations that want to comply with their theocratic way of business, then they're going to go after them.

And I think that what Bob Iger has shown is that we have more money. Like we are investing in this state and you, by your actions, are divesting from this state. And I think it is a very clear message. Last question for you, Robbie, is where do you see this going? What is your best, you know, magic eight ball guess as to the direction that things go for the rest of this year? I'll answer that question. But I first just wanted to respond real quick to something you just said, which is, look, I don't know if Rhonda Sanchez's view of business is theocratic or not. But what I do know is that the guy wants to be president of the United States.

And the best polling red meat issues for his base and the best way that he sees to connect with voters across the country, not just his supporters in Florida, is to really do. dive in on these culture war issues. That's what he seems to be indicating through this site. I mean, he says this is about freedom. This is about parental rights. It's about kids and schools and are in their future. By the way, this is not the only issue that Ron DeSantis is very vocal about related to those kinds of red meat issues. He wants to ban certain courses in public schools. You know, you know all this. He's talked about many things besides Disney. For him, my theory is that Disney is an issue that allows him to connect with people not just in Florida, but around the country, right? Everyone loves Disney. It's one of the most beloved entertainment brands in the world, not just in America,

but every family in America has some connection to Disney. I don't go out of my way to introduce my kids to Disney, but they're completely obsessed with Marvel superheroes, with Mickey Mouse. There's just no way. There's no way around it. There's no way to get it. Disney is so ubiquitous in our culture that for a politician like Rhonda Sandus, it's easy to see how it's this direct vein into the American psyche. And if a guy is trying to be president someday, that's an incredibly powerful tool. You say, I'm going to stand up to this company that you've all heard of. And guess what? They're doing things that you might not know about that I disapprove up.

And you should disapprove up too. And I have the guts to stand up to them, even though they're the biggest employer in my state, the biggest taxpayer in my state. That is a very powerful message from a populist kind of conservative. politician like Rhonda Santa. So again, that's what he's trying to do here. It's not necessarily about the specifics of the issue. And I don't think he expects your regular average Joe voter to care so much about like the specifics of the tax structure at a special purpose district where Disney's theme park is located. But it's really about this broader thing. And he sort of identified

this very vulnerable front that he can use to get his message out to voters not just in Florida, but across the country. Okay. And then where is this going from here? So this. This week, DeSantis instructed his inspector general and the Florida office of law enforcement to open up an investigation into Disney and whether or not they violated any laws by securing these 30-year development approvals without DeSantis's office really noticing or knowing that they were doing so. I think, and I don't have crystal ball. So I'm not going to say it like this is going to happen or this will happen. But what I think is likely to happen is that if there is an investigation, it will be very hard to find, you know, a smoking gun that Disney

did anything illegal. It seems to me like they did what was required of them under the law. They might have done just the minimum of what was required under the law, but they advertised this meeting where they held this consequential vote twice in the Orlando Sentinel. They held it in a public setting announced. They had the entire agenda put on their website. They described what they were going to vote on in very specific terms about their development plan and what kind of theme parks they wanted to build. I mean, it's all been out in the open, like not been hidden. So I think it would be difficult to prove and what legal experts have told me is it would be difficult to prove that they did anything illegal, secretive, or nefarious. However,

if there is a lawsuit, if this issue does rise through the court system and end up at an appeals court in Florida or even a federal court, then I think it might cause some worry for Disney. Because at that point, you're not just litigating, you know, a local kind of public records and open records issue. might be litigating something related to the Florida Constitution, maybe something even related to federal law. And that's when I think that there might be a problem. Not necessarily a problem. It's something that would be of more concern to Disney is if it goes to that level. Who knows? I mean, the lawsuits take a long time. The presidential election is, last time I checked, it's next year in November. So if this issue just stays in the news for the next 12 to 16 months, it might serve as

purpose for DeSantis. But who knows? He could really feel strongly about this and try to push it to its legal limits. And that could be kind of a concerning thing for Disney. And I think it would be a concerning thing for Ron DeSantis. What plays in Florida does not play nationally. I'll have to take your word for that. Yep.

And that is the reality. Robbie Wheelan from the Wall Street Journal. Thank you so much for making the time to join the new abnormal and break all of this down for us. We appreciate you. No problem. My pleasure. Andy Levy

Daniel Moody Who is your Fuck That Guy Institution State Government Who you got to land this week? In this case It is a guy

And it's a Supreme Court Justice Name a Clarence Thomas ProPublica Just published An amazing expose Of the many many Many luxury trips

That Clarence Thomas accepted from a Dallas businessman named Harlan Crow. Crow is a Republican mega donor. That's how he's described, which isn't really fair because he does give to Democrats like Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchin. So, you know, he really is reaching,

it's not really across the aisle, is it? He's reaching right. He's reaching to the seat right now. He's reaching next door. He's reaching, yeah. He's reaching next to him. So anyway, Clarence Thomas has a. accepted all these trips. One trip, which ProPublica estimates, would have cost him $500,000 if he had

to pay for it. That's just one trip. Where the fuck did he go to heaven? Like what? He ain't getting there. That one, I think, was to an island. The thing about this is Clarence Thomas has not disclosed any of this. This was all found out in this investigation. None of this was disclosed. It is absolutely insane that this is allowed to stand. And I have no doubt it will be. I really, unfortunately, I cannot imagine a world in which ethics charges are brought up against Clarence Thomas. I just can't. I wish I could.

But it is absolutely amazing. I mean, you should go to pro-publica.org and read the details. It is just one jaw-dropping thing after another. But they have a great little part in the article where they write that. In Thomas's public appearances over the years, he has presented himself as an every man with modest tastes. They have him quoted from a recent documentary about him where he says, I don't have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States.

I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that. I prefer being around that. Meanwhile, he is jetting off and yachting off, if that is a phrase, with these multi-millionaires to, you know, private retreats and stuff like that. And he has the nerve to get up there and present himself as this. I'm an every man from regular stock.

And if this doesn't describe Republican populism perfectly, I don't know what is. It's these are, you know, the same, this is Donald Trump pretending he's looking out for you. You know, he's just, he's one of you. They are all the same person. It is absolutely unbelievable. He's sitting there on this guy. This guy has a private lakeside resort, and he's out there with a bunch of other big wigs smoking cigars. And then he gives interviews saying that, you know, he prefers an RV in a Walmart parking lot.

Fuck you. And fuck that guy forever. I'm telling you, him and his fucking wife should be in handcuffs. It's criminal, the fact that they're not under investigation. It is criminal. Everything that we've learned about the Thomas's, like, over the last couple of years, and he's just sitting on the Supreme Court right now, having the power. to strip away people's fucking rights. A disgrace. So Danielle, who is your fuck that guy?

So normally I don't like to call out other people in the media who were supposed, you know, Democrats. But this week I just about had enough. And so my fuck that guy to close out this week is Van Jones. CNN contributor. Many people have known a Van Jones for quite some time when Van Jones was on CNN. was listening to Donald Trump at one of the state of the unions and he said, oh, he became a president today because Donald Trump was able to string a sentence together. So this week, as, you know, we got the sketch of Donald Trump and the still photos of him in the courtroom, Van Jones said, I take no joy in this. It's like looking at a sad granddad. You know, the criminal justice system can just be so hard. Bitch, what?

I was so fucking outdone because I thought, you know, maybe that Van Jones had misspoken and he really meant to say he looks like a sad grand wizard because that's what the fuck he is. And I was outdone with the fact that he's talking about how he takes no joy in people in the criminal justice system. Bitch, he took a motorcade, made an appointment at the Manhattan courtroom, was in there for roughly a few minutes. handcuffs, no mugshot, no nothing. He was not in anybody's criminal justice system. Shut the fuck up. You sound like Marjorie Taylor Green who compared his quote unquote incarceration to Jesus. Okay. And Mandela, who neither one I think paid off a porn star, but I don't know history that well. Maybe the books came from Florida. I got to tell you like when people like this who I admired at one time for their activism, for their, you know, working to advance the cause

of lifting people out of environmental injustice situations and advocate for, you know, an end to the incarcerated situation. And then it's like, I don't know if it's money. I don't know if Dan has switched parties. I don't know what it is. But to look at Donald Trump, the man who incited an insurrection, who pointed at the Capitol building and told people to go take their country back, who told his Secret Service to take down the magnetrons because the people that were there with weapons weren't there to hurt him, the people that put children in cages, the person that gutted the EPA, the person that called the proud boys and the oathkeepers good people and told them to stand back and stand by. That man looks like a sad grandpa to you because a watcher.

cis hetero rich, privilege, powerful man is actually maybe being held to account. Get the fuck out of here. So for that reason, Van Jones, you are my fuck that guy. Yeah, I don't have much to add to that because I could not feel more like you do at this point. It is just to see him sit there and say that he looks like a sad grandpa, which sounds like a horrible movie, by the way. It just boggles my mind.

How are you paid incredibly well to say the dumbest stuff in the world? I'm sorry, there is not a shred of empathy in my body for Donald Trump. There just isn't. And I don't understand. I have nothing more to add. Fuck that guy. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. we're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.

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