The Daily Signal - Supreme Court Rules in Trump’s Favor, Biden’s Family Encourage Him to Stay in Race, Steve Bannon Goes to Prison | July 1

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: The Supreme Court hands former President Donald Trump a win.  People close to the Biden family say the president's family members are encouraging Biden to stay in the race after Thursday’s dismal debate performance.  U.S. military bases put on high alert in Europe becasue of a threat of a terrorist attack.  France’s politically right National Rally just had another bid win.  Steve Bannon goes to prison.  Relevant Links Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/ Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription   Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcasts Sign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Supreme Court issued a major win for former President Donald Trump today. I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Monday, July 1st. The Supreme Court handed former President Donald Trump a win today. The High Court ruled that Trump has legal immunity from being prosecuted for official acts as president. But the lower court will decide whether or not some of Trump's actions on January 6th constitute official acts and fall within that purview. Well, Trump reacted to the ruling on social media today, writing big win for our Constitution and democracy, proud to be an American. President Biden's campaign had a very different reaction to the ruling.

They put out a statement saying today's ruling doesn't change the facts. So let's be very clear about what happened on January 6th. Donald Trump snapped after he lost the 2020 election and encouraged a mob to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. Well, here to explain more about the decision from the Supreme Court today and what happens next is Heritage Foundation Legal Fellow, Zach Smith. Zach, thanks for being here. Of course. Thanks for having me on the show.

All right, so let's set the stage a little bit first. Before we get into what the Supreme Court said today, give us a quick refresher on what exactly Trump is accused of in this J6 case. Yeah, you may remember. this is one of the four criminal prosecutions that Donald Trump is facing. There were the two state prosecutions, the one in Manhattan with Alvin Bragg and the one in Atlanta, Georgia, being brought by Fannie Willis. And then there are the two federal prosecutions being brought by Special Counsel Jack

Smith, the one in Florida related to Donald Trump's retention of documents marked as classified at Mar-a-Lago. And then the prosecution in Washington, D.C., about a lot of the events that happened in the aftermath of the 2020 election. And so this case that the Supreme Court ruled on to the Supreme Court ruled on to the United States, today came from that Washington, D.C. based prosecution filed by special counsel Jack Smith. And as you mentioned, many of the charges in that prosecution related to Donald Trump's conduct in the aftermath of the 2020 election, related to some of the events that happened on January 6th,

as well, some other events as well. But fundamentally, today's ruling by the Supreme Court is going to make it much, much more difficult, if not impossible, for many of those charges. to survive, even though the case has been sent back to the lower federal courts. Okay. So let's talk through what exactly we heard from the Supreme Court today. This was a 6-3 ruling. And they said, yes, former President Donald Trump, and for that matter, all presidents, they are entitled to presumptive immunity for official acts, but not immunity for unofficial acts. How significant is this ruling for Trump and for future presidents? Well, this is a very significant ruling. It's going to be taught in law schools going forward on

issues related to presidential power, presidential immunity. And keep in mind, Virginia, presidents have been immune from civil liability, from civil lawsuits going back to the Nixon era in the aftermath of Watergate. The Supreme Court recognized that for a president to be subject to civil suits would make it much more difficult for a president to efficiently and effectively discharge his duties that the office requires without looking over his shoulder, being worried about being second-guessed or held civilly liable for those actions. And so you can imagine those concerns are amplified in the criminal context as well. And I think it's important to highlight a couple of things that you said there. The Supreme Court actually said there are three different areas

where the president enjoys immunity. They said in core areas, core areas of his executive duties. They called it the area subject to his exclusive and preclusive purview. In those areas, the president enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution. And those are areas that the Constitution explicitly and exclusively gives to the president. So, for instance, the pardon to power someone. That is within the absolute discretion of the president. And regardless of whether Congress tried to legislate in that area, regardless of whether Congress tried to criminalize the act of pardoning someone, that wouldn't matter because the Constitution clearly gives that authority exclusively to the president. Now, for other official acts that the president may take, this is where the court said that at a minimum,

presidents enjoy presumptive immunity from prosecution. It's interesting because Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote this opinion, he left open the door that presidents may enjoy absolute immunity for some are all of those other official actions as well, But he said the court didn't need to decide that issue in this case right now and that at a minimum, presidents enjoy presumptive immunity. And the government would have to rebut that presumption. And then finally, as you mentioned as well, for unofficial acts that a president may take in either his capacity as a candidate or in his personal capacity, there would be no immunity for those actions. Okay. So now we have a situation where the lower court, U.S. District Judge Tanya, Tanya,

check-in, she's going to be looking at this case at the events leading up to, and on January 6th, special counsel Jack Smith is going to try to prove that the things that former president Donald Trump did do not fall within that official purview of being official access president. Ultimately, that's going to fall on the judge to determine yes or no. What can we expect to see here? Well, the Chief Justice did give some guidance in his opinion today. And so, for example, he said that Donald Trump's interactions with DOJ officials in the aftermath of the 2020 election, those fell within the purview of his core executive responsibilities. He, as the president, has the responsibility to oversee the Justice Department and other executive branch agencies as well.

And so he should enjoy absolute immunity for those conversations. And so to the extent any charges that Jack Smith brought against him are predicated on those interactions, those are gone now. those are gone now. The Chief Justice also strongly implied that Donald Trump would likely, should likely receive immunity for his interactions with Vice President Pence about the electoral certification, those types of conversations as well. But he did leave open the door that there may be some room where those may not be subject to immunity. And so that will be subjected to further fact finding by the district court. And the same thing applies to the other charges based on Trump's interactions with the so-called fake electors in the states, although alternative electors

is the better term for those individuals, as well as some of his actions on January 6th, although the Chief Justice did say that as a general rule, presidents enjoy wide latitude to speak and communicate on issues that their constituents will find very important. So we'll have to wait and see what Judge Chuckkin does with this case, but again, I think Jack Smith and this prosecution, faces a much, much more difficult road in the wake of this decision. And quickly, Zach, before we let you go, any sense of timing? Could this case go to court and we get a ruling before the election? I doubt it.

I don't see any way this case goes to trial before the election. That's especially true when you also consider that several of the charges Jack Smith brought against Donald Trump are also going to be impacted by the court's decision from last week in the Fisher case, where essentially they kicked out some of the charges against January 6th defendants that also formed the basis of some of Jack Smith's charges against Donald Trump. And so I think it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that this case will go to trial before the upcoming election. Great. Heritage Foundation's Zach Smith, if you want to hear more from Zach on the legal issues on this case and others, be sure to check out his podcast that he co-host

with Giancarlo Canaparo Scotis 101 for a deeper dive into all things legal. Zach, thanks for your time. Of course. Thanks for having me all. on. Politico reports that there was tension at Camp David this weekend. Members of the Biden family reportedly trashed some of President's top advisors at Camp David following Thursday's debate and the continued fallout after that debate. Some of Biden's family members have reportedly even encouraged the president to fire or demote some of his top advisors over the disastrous debate on Thursday. But Biden does not appear to have any plans to do so, at least right now. now. People close to the Biden family so that the president's family members, including Hunter,

are encouraging Biden to stay in the race. All reports indicate that Biden has no plans of stepping out of the race right now. And because Biden already has the delegates that he needs to serve as the Democratic nominee, he's the only one who can remove himself from the race. Axios reports that there is a large PR campaign that's underway to move away from Thursday night's debate and reject those calls for Biden to step down. The question is, will that PR campaign be successful? That remains to be seen. But we may know one way or another in the coming days, so stay tuned. U.S. military bases have been put on high alert in Europe because of a threat of a terrorist attack. A U.S. defense official told Fox News that there is

credible intel pointing to an attack against U.S. bases over the next week or so. There are about 83,000 U.S. troops on various bases across Europe. The official that Fox spoke with said that the threat was not tied to the French elections, which took place yesterday. The bases are not on lockdown, but they're under what is known as force protection Charlie. This means that the U.S. bases have learned of a credible threat of a terrorist-related attack and have hence up to their security measures. It's unclear how long this threat level will last, but initial statements indicate that heightened threat levels could run potentially through the summer.

France's politically right national rally party just had another big win. You'll remember last month that France's president, Emmanuel Macron, dissolved parliament and called for snap legislative elections following the huge conservative wins in the European Parliament. But the decision may have just cost Macron and his party during. Macron's party came in third, with 20.7% of the vote during the first round of voting on Sunday. The left-wing New Popular Front came in second with almost 28% of the vote, and the Conservative National Rally Party was first, with 33.1% of the vote. This places the National Rally Party in a position to win the most seats in the National Assembly

in France, but it takes 289 seats to have a majority in France. France's 577-seat lower house. And the Conservative Party may not be able to achieve this. It remains to be seen. If they can't win the majority, that would lead to what is referred to as a hung parliament. The second round of voting in France will take place on Sunday, July 7th. Steve Bannon went to prison today. Bannon is a former political aide to former President Donald Trump, and he refused to answer

a subpoena from the House committee that was investigating January 6th. For denying that subpoena, Bannon will serve four months of a prison sentence in Danbury, Connecticut. During a press conference today before entering prison, Bannon said that he's proud to serve out his sentence per Benny Johnson's ex-account. I am proud to go to prison. If this is what it takes to stand up to tyranny, if this is what it takes to stand up to the Garland Corrupt Criminal DOJ, if this is what it takes to stand up to Nancy Pelosi, if this is what it takes, To stand up to Joe Biden, to Joe Biden, I'm proud to do it. Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Green was also at that rally and called what is happening to Bannon a political war and political persecution. Bannon had appealed the ruling against him,

but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the sentence against Bannon. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the DailySigua Podcast for Top News. Be sure to check out our morning conversation. morning, I am so pleased to be sitting down with Rebecca Wigel. She's a writer and producer of the brand new film out on July 4th, Sound of Hope, The Story of Possum Trot. This is an inspirational, true story of a small church community in Texas that decided they were going to adopt 77 of the hardest to place children in the state of Texas. It's powerful. You're probably going to weep during

it. I know I did. It's just a beautiful, beautiful story. And so if you want to get a little bit of a sneak peek and a preview of how this movie was made, the backstory, and this amazing community and how they stepped up, catch the conversation with Rebecca Weibel. She also explains the best way to go about getting tickets and a little bit of insider information on how she went about telling the story as a writer and producer. Catch that conversation tomorrow morning. And if you would, hit the subscribe button.

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