The David Pakman Show - 6/20/23: DeSantis WON'T STOP as GOP fumbles Biden "crimes," Trump faces prison

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

-- On the Show: -- The College Board isn't putting up with Ron DeSantis's plan to scrub AP classes of LGBT topics -- Republicans James Comer and Marjorie Taylor Greene admit they don't know if there are tapes of Joe Biden receiving bribes -- Ron DeSantis defends Donald Trump over his latest criminal charges and deflects to talking about Hillary Clinton's emails -- Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik claims Biden "committed multiple criminal acts" -- Trump supporters sound confused about what it means to be charged under the Espionage Act -- How much prison time is Donald Trump facing? -- Trump reportedly was offered multiple outs in the classified documents scandal before the DOJ had no choice but to raid Mar-a-Lago and prosecute him -- Trump's trial timelines will overlap with voting in the 2024 election -- Caller talks about how his family is only focused on right-wing culture war issues -- On the Bonus Show: Charlie Kirk calls Juneteenth "pagan garbage," Utah city violated First Amendment with drag show restriction, stock market recovering, and much more... 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 🏠 Watch David’s “Replace Your Mortgage” interview at https://replaceyouruniversity.com/pakman 🧻 Reel Paper: Code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep: Get 20% OFF a mattress + 2 free pillows. Go to https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🦛 Happy Hippo: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off at https://happyhippo.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 Speaker 1 Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is now trying to cut LGBT subject matter from an advanced placement psychology class that is taught in Florida as an optional class. And the College Board, good for them, is saying no. The bigger story here. Well, there's really two stories here. There's three stories. There's 12. No, there's three as far as I can tell. One is the subject matter in the curriculum of this advanced placement psychology class, which we'll talk about in a moment. The second part of it is the continued, quote, anti woke war that Ron DeSantis is fighting in the state of Florida.

And thirdly, is that this is yet another example of how right wingers claim to have a particular value. But then as soon as that value is inconvenient, they abandon it. And I will tell you about that in a moment. And it has everything to do with this subject matter being in a psychology class, which based on their previous statements is something you would think they would be OK with. So let's go to the beginning. What is going on? USA Today reports Ron DeSantis wants to scrub AP classes of LGBTQ subjects. The College Board isn't having it. And it says another showdown over advanced placement courses could be brewing in Florida, this time over AP psychology as the nonprofit that runs the program. The College

Board faces pressure from state officials to remove or revise lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity. The conflict is another example of how DeSantis is pushed to restrict how race and LGBTQ issues are taught is impacting Florida schools. Florida's Department of Education sent a letter to the College Board asking them to review all AP courses to see if they need modification to ensure compliance with a Florida law that targets instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. The message is clear. Remove that stuff. The College Board responded with a defiant letter

late last week saying we will not modify our courses to accommodate restrictions teaching essential college level topics. This could be a showdown and this class could become a source of conflict. The Hill also reporting College Board says it won't alter AP courses to comply with Florida laws. They put out a letter saying that this is not something that they are going to do. Adding doing so would break the fundamental promise of advanced placement. Colleges wouldn't broadly accept the course for credit,

and that course wouldn't prepare students for careers in the discipline. So let's talk about what it is that is going on here. First of all, this is, you know, as usual, the way that the anti woke Florida people want to frame these stories are this is extremely inappropriate stuff being taught to kids. The reality, of course, is that this is an advanced placement class. It's overwhelmingly call it a high school seniors and some high school juniors, occasionally a sophomore. If they're a real go getter, you know what I mean? But it's overwhelmingly seniors and juniors who are either this year or next year going to be adults. It is an optional class. Relatively few people take advanced placement classes. I'm not saying the raw number is low, but relatively few people take

these classes. When I took AP economics in high school, that was the one AP class I took. It was 12 students out of 900 or something like that. And that was it. So nothing is being pushed on anybody. These are almost legal adults. And most importantly, and this is the point the college board is making, AP level classes are. Equivalent to college classes, you sometimes get credit. I was able to skip right to intro to macroeconomics with Richard Wolff, by the way, at the University of Massachusetts my first semester because I got credit for AP micro from high school. So if you arbitrarily say we're going to change around what's in this class, the class is designed to be a college equivalency class

in college, in psychology class. LGBTQ issues are part of the subject matter. If you arbitrarily remove that from the AP high school class, you endanger that class actually being a college equivalency class. So it is undeniably. Now, let me get now to this next issue. So first and foremost, doesn't make any sense to remove it. Makes perfect sense to have this content there. If you are a right winger now, I what this an if, OK, we're doing abstract thinking. If you are one of the

right wingers who writes to me and says, David, whether it's trans, even if it's gay, all of this stuff is merely mental illness. There's no biological basis for LGBTQ. It's just mental illness. By that standard, a psychology class is the correct place for this subject matter. This is a college equivalent psychology class. I'm not supporting this view. But what I'm saying is if you have the view that LGBTQ issues are merely issues of mental health that should not be taught to, quote, kids, then what better place for them than in a college equivalent psychology class? Another reminder that they don't actually mean

the things they say. They love saying these subjects shouldn't be in science class. They shouldn't be in biology class. Well, maybe they should or maybe they shouldn't. It's quite a large amount of scholarship on that. But if they shouldn't and you believe these are simply mental illnesses, then if not in a college equivalent psychology course, where the hell do you put this subject matter? So there's two different views on what the Santa's is doing here. It's mere pandering to continue this veneer of an anti woke warrior in Florida who will bring that anti woke perspective to the Oval Office if he is elected. I don't know that it's just pandering because this is actual legislate this. There is plenty of legislation

that DeSantis has actually signed into law. These haven't just been PR battles that go along these lines. The hate legislation in Florida under DeSantis has been going on for a period of time now that there may be a pandering element to it, but it is much more than mere pandering that we can write off. So that's the latest battle. By the way, I will restate this doesn't overall. I mean, listen, maybe you get away with this. A lot of people

won't even hear about this. A lot of these things, the hardcore anti woke trans stuff, the abortion restrictions fighting Disney. There actually doesn't seem to be that much of an appetite for this nationally. And it may end up hurting DeSantis or at least not helping him catch up to Donald Trump, which is at the end of the day, what he needs to do right now in the Republican primary. All right. I now am glad I genuinely am glad to be able to do what so many of you delightful MAGA people have been telling me I should do. Talk about the Biden crimes. Talk about the Biden crimes. Let's talk about them. Donald Trump was indicted on 34, 37 felony counts last week. And on that day, you had Fox with a front page headline about the Biden bribery. And you had Trump speaking at Bedminster talking about Biden's documents and all of these

different things. So let's talk a little bit about it. We're going to talk about later about some of the allegations made by Republicans that Joe Biden has committed crimes. That doesn't really sound like due process to me, but we'll get to that in a moment. But let's talk about the new bombshell about Biden bribery. If you actually question Republicans specifically about what they are alleging here, you get them mostly to admit they don't know whether the Biden bribery tapes actually exist. They haven't spoken to one of the main people making these allegations in three years. Even those who are sure the tapes exist say they actually don't know if they are reputable

or trustworthy. So let's talk about Biden bribery. And you are very quickly going to realize as of right now, there isn't anything that we would call evidence on the day of Trump's indictment. So many of you wrote to me and said, why won't I talk about this? Well, it's not that I won't talk about it. It's that we actually need to know, is there anything worthy of talking about? Here is Republican Congressman James Comer, not sandbagged by some left wing interviewer, but interviewed on Newsmax. And he says the tapes, the tapes, everybody is building this case around.

He's not even sure if those tapes are legitimate. When will you be able to confirm if these recordings are legit? How long is that going to take? Well, I can confirm that the recordings were in the 1023. Remember, I was OK, let's pause it right there. The 1023, the 1023 they are referring to is a form that asserts the existence of such tapes. It is not evidence of the tapes. What he says is the form mentions the tapes. That's like if I make a statement and I I could write down on this piece of paper down here that Hunter Biden's laptop

is actually, you know, a Nintendo Wii. The fact that I've written it down doesn't mean that it is true. OK, but let's continue. Speaker 4 Graslie, when we saw the unredacted version. OK, so Graslie was saying alleged yesterday. So these recordings are legit. You can confirm they are legitimate. They were I can confirm they were listed in the 1023.

You understand that, right? He he can't confirm that these recordings are legitimate. They were I can confirm they were listed in the 1023. You understand that, right? He he he can't confirm that these recordings are legitimate. He can just say they are referred to on a piece of paper. The FBI redacted. I don't know if they're legit or not, but we know that the foreign national claims he has them. Exactly. We don't know if they are legitimate. This is the blockbuster that so many of our MAGA viewers are saying I'm ignoring. OK, here is James Comer saying they haven't heard from the so-called major witness in three years with respect to the tapes. Look, it mentioned in the FBI form that the oligarch had 17 tapes of Biden, two with Joe Biden, except in the bribe, that he used that as an insurance policy. And this oligarch is a high ranking,

was a high ranking member or owner of Burisma? Yes, that is exactly right. So you had the tape that you just showed him? Have you had any contact with him? Unfortunately, nobody's had any contact with him for the last three years. OK, so the blockbuster that I ignored on the day Trump was indicted in an extraordinarily detailed and tight indictment per Chris Christie that that day, I am guilty of ignoring the blockbuster story in which a supposed Russian oligarch who hasn't been heard from for three years asserted, according to a 1023 form, that he has tapes which we don't know exist.

And even if they exist, we don't know if they are legitimate tapes. Here's Marjorie Taylor Greene also admitting it. The audio is poor. She's speaking to CNN's Manu Raju here. But listen closely to what she says. What you're paying for. So that guy recording the audio is a really hard thing to do. And so we need to find out, does he have those? I don't think I're going to find that out. OK, so she first says these audio recordings that were made are a really big deal. Now, does the guy have the audio recordings? I don't know. And I don't think we're going to find out. Wow. That is really quite a story, Marjorie. Really, really unbelievable. And then when you actually go through a lot of the reporting on this, you see that there is a lot of shakiness, shakiness. The Daily Beast reporting Republicans admit they don't know if the Biden bribery tapes

really exist. Newsmax had an article earlier this week of Congressman Waltz saying that a blind eye is being turned to the Biden documents. We're not even really sure that the Biden documents refer to things that exist. You have an article from The New York Post, Burisma boss in alleged Biden bribes scheme claims to have 15 taped conversations with Hunter and two with Joe, according to Chuck Grassley. Is Chuck Grassley telling the truth? Is the guy actually a Burisma boss? Did he actually claim to have those tapes? Do the tapes exist? Are the tapes legitimate? Do the tapes even expose the alleged criminality they claim is there? And then also Fox News reporting Burisma audio tapes could be could be a cataclysmic event for

President Biden, according to Trump's completely weaponized and delusional former acting AG Matt Whitaker. There is very little here, my friends. The Hunter Biden laptop. OK, the laptop maybe is real. There were three MacBooks dropped off by someone to a blind repairman who couldn't actually see whose they were. But he saw a sticker on one of the MacBooks for Beau Biden's charity and said, this is Hunter Biden's laptop. It didn't really contain much other than some extraordinarily vague, unsubstantiated reference and explicit pictures of Hunter Biden himself. Not exactly a major blockbuster story. The Biden bribery tapes. Do they actually exist? We don't really know right now. The Biden, quote, classified documents scandal. Let's suspend that one for now because I'll dig into it a little bit

later. And then Hillary's crimes. Of course, she was cleared of criminal wrongdoing. And we'll talk about that later. The one thing out of all of this that I can tell you is real is that there is a real 37 count federal felony indictment against Donald Trump. It contains photographic evidence. It refers to audio recordings. It is extraordinarily tight, according to Chris Christie. That is real that we know exists. But these MAGA people keep writing to me and saying, David, you're not willing to talk about X, Y, Z. I'm glad to talk about it when I have time like today. There's just really not that much to say about it. And that's the reason I'm not giving it more coverage. One of our sponsors is Yotta, the free banking app that makes it fun to save money, just like

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All right. Listen, I think we're doing something good today. We talked about Biden's bribery. We were going to talk now about Hillary's emails. We're going to talk about Joe Biden's classified documents. I think that while you and I mostly understand that these are red herrings and what about ism from the right, it's not a bad thing when we have the opportunity to put on the record everything we know about these situations so we can refer back to it. So I'm going to give you a couple of examples here of incredible whataboutism from right wingers.

Here is, for example, Ron DeSantis, interestingly enough, defending Donald Trump against his recent indictment by immediately bringing up Hillary Clinton's emails. I know it's satirical and almost a parody at this point that you ask about a real 37 felony count indictment with pictures, with evidence, with witnesses. And they say, well, what about Hillary's emails for which she's been cleared of criminal wrongdoing? But that's what they want to do. Here's Ron DeSantis. When I was in Congress, I remember, you know, Hillary had the emails with the classified. And my view was, well, gee, you know, as a naval officer, if I would have taken classified to my apartment, I would have been court martialed in a New York minute. And yet they seem to not care about that. And is there a different standard for a Democrat

secretary of state versus a former Republican president? I think there needs to be one standard of justice in this country. Right. And that standard of justice is if there is evidence of criminality, regardless of who you are, you get yourself indicted. It's actually sort of shocking that they're still doing this. And it's not just Ron DeSantis. Here's another example. Here's Republican Congressman Mike Waltz, who, again, in an attempt to defend Trump says, listen, you can call it what about ISM. And then he brings up Hillary Clinton's email. Why not just hand them over? If to your point, this happens a lot. Yeah, well, look under if he believed he was privileged on the Presidential Records Act, then

that is a conversation that I would argue should have continued to happen because what's missing also in this conversation and I could tell you this talking to Floridians and and folks back home, you can call it what about what about ism. And we will, because that's what it is. What have you? They're calling it fairness. And there's legal precedent here. When you have the Clinton tapes, when you have the Clinton emails, when you have the fact that the sitting national security adviser right now, Jake Sullivan, was sending and laundering classified documents into an unclassified server on top of the fact that the sitting president of the United States admitted he had documents in his garage that you're going in and out of. People look at

that and say, whoa, wait a minute. There was prosecutorial discretion there. They didn't prosecute. They didn't go after these folks and all of these other instances. All right. You get the point. This actually makes no sense. But sense and the facts don't matter. So it, in a sense, makes perfect sense that they are doing something that makes no sense. Donald Trump's indictment is based on 37 felony counts related to mishandling classified documents, obstructing justice,

making false statements. Some of those actions under the Espionage Act, which we will dig into later as we continue our deep dove into this. The Hillary Clinton email controversy was based on allegations that she used a private email server for public communications. This was deemed extremely careless by the FBI. It was not deemed criminal by the FBI because it did not appear to break the law. That's what we care about. The Trump indictment says Trump shared a classified map related to military operations

with people who were not qualified to see that he knew that it wasn't declassified because he said after leaving office, this is classified. He improperly stored boxes containing classified documents by his toilet in the ballroom, in the shower. He went out of his way to avoid giving back the documents. Hillary Clinton's email controversy involved emails that were retroactively classified by the State Department after they were sent or received. An important detail.

None of them were marked classified at the time. The Trump indictment alleges Trump got numerous requests from the Justice Department saying, just hand the stuff over, hand it over. And he didn't do it. The allegations against Trump include making false statements to the FBI, going to his aides and lawyers and saying, help me lie, help me hide, help me do everything to avoid giving these documents back in the Hillary Clinton situation. She immediately and voluntarily handed over about 30000 emails to the State Department

that were work related and deleted about 30000 personal emails she deemed irrelevant. The right likes to say, well, the 30000 emails she deemed irrelevant weren't irrelevant. OK, well, the investigation hasn't determined that that's the case. The Trump indictment could result in prison time for him and Walt Nauda, who is a co-conspirator and was also indicted. The Hillary Clinton email controversy was fully investigated and the determination was there was not a crime committed. And so charges were not filed.

The right says that's because of political bias. There is no evidence of that because the things Hillary did and what Trump is accused of are dramatically different. So that's Hillary's emails. Let's now look at the Joe Biden part a little bit more closely. Elise Stefanik, who is an absolutely horrible Republican member of Congress, went on Fox News and remember due process law and auto law and order, whatever they call it these days. She went on Fox News and remember due process law and auto law and order, whatever they call it these days. She went on Fox News and said, I believe Joe Biden committed multiple criminal acts.

Really? Wow. Based on what evidence and you have them trying to protect Joe Biden, who has, I believe, committed multiple criminal acts. There's going to come a point where they're going to have to report on it. Absolutely. All right. Thank you so much, chairwoman, for coming. Thank you. By the way. Not going to ask a question about is that due process?

Is that law and order, Elise? I believe that the president has committed multiple criminal acts, although I have no evidence. So let's now dig into this one. And then we're going to really be able to say we did it. And I don't want to hear any more from the MAGA people. The insistence that Joe Biden is a crook is not backed by any evidence at this point in time. They say it to try to counterbalance documentary, photographic and sworn eyewitness evidence of Donald Trump's criminality. Trump is innocent until proven guilty. But there is an indictment based on 37 felony counts, mishandling, obstructing, making false statements, et cetera. The Biden classified documents incident is based on the discovery of a few dozen classified documents, some from when Biden was in the Senate, some from the era of the Obama

administration at Biden's former office and home. There's a special counsel investigating it. The special counsel hasn't finished yet. I'm fine saying if the special counsel finds evidence that Joe Biden did something illegal, then charge the guy. However, that's not actually the path that that investigation is going. And we're going to get to that in a moment. Trump's indictment says he was sharing classified documents, as I said, with people who weren't authorized to see them improperly, storing them, directing lawyers and aides to lie and hide and obstruct and destroy. He had toilet documents, a huge dump of documents right by his toilet, all these different things. Biden's document incident involves records that were inadvertently misplaced in a locked closet

at his former office and some in his garage at home. The White House has said as soon as we figured that out, we immediately turned it over and have been cooperating fully with the DOJ. That is not what Donald Trump did. And much of what Trump is charged with is in that aftermath. It's the cover up, for lack of a better term. Trump defied requests, as I told you, made false statements, as I told you, told aides to hide and obstruct, as I told you. Biden's classified documents don't involve a single allegation of lying or a single allegation of obstruction of justice. Why? Because Biden didn't do those things. He's been he has not been accused of any wrongdoing

or charged at this time. Trump's indictment could result in prison time. We don't know yet, but it could. Biden's classified document incident by all legal assessments that make sense, not by Mark Levin or Tom Fitton, but by people who actually are taking this seriously. Biden's consequences could be administrative sanctions or in theory he could have a security clearance revoked, even though he's president, if it finds if the investigation finds that he was negligent or behaved improperly. Then of course, we have the Biden bribery stuff. I already talked about Biden bribery earlier. of course, we have the Biden bribery stuff. I already talked

about Biden bribery earlier. So we've now looked at Biden bribery. We've looked at Biden classified documents. We've looked at Hillary classified documents. We've done it all. OK, if anybody is found to have likely committed a crime, I'm the first to say charge them. But it would be wrong for me to tell you that that's the direction these things are pointing. Those are the facts. No matter how many times MAGA Trump is start screaming about it. One of our sponsors today is replace your mortgage. Mortgages are a really interesting thing in the United States. The poor often can't afford them and the rich often don't use them. Instead, the wealthy use special financial tools to pay off their debts, often in a fraction of the time that it takes for a middle class American to realize that same payoff. Replace your mortgage teaches you

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a win for you and for the environment. It's time to move on from that toilet paper from trees that you're using at home. When you use real paper, it doesn't feel like you're sacrificing anything. It's soft and fluffy and they'll ship it to your door in plastic free packaging on a schedule. and the David Pakman Show to real paper dot com slash Pacman and use code Pacman for 30 percent off your first order and free shipping. That's our E.L. paper dot com slash Pacman and then use code Pacman. The info is in the podcast notes. All right. Let's continue some explanatory discussions of some of what has been circulating in the

news for the last week or so. We took calls on the Friday show at the end of last week, the way we always do. And a caller called in talking to me about the Espionage Act and the fact that failed twice indicted, twice impeached former President Donald Trump was partially charged under the Espionage Act in this latest round of indictments and sort of seemed to be implying by his questions that if you're charged under the Espionage Act, you were being accused of being a foreign spy in some way, shape or form. And of course, I explained that that's not the case.

And I want to delve into that a little bit more today. The Espionage Act is a law that says you can't keep or share secret information that belongs to the government without permission. If you do, you could end up in prison. And the law was made a while ago. It's still used today. There are some who say it is sometimes used improperly or applied incorrectly. But it is not unusual that it is used to prosecute individuals who are not quite literally spies. And that is exactly what is going on here.

Trump also made similar claims during that speech at Bedminster, sort of saying they're charging me under the Espionage Act like I did X, Y, Z, but I just had some papers and it's really not even a criminal issue at all, he claims. So a couple of important places to start and then we're going to talk about some examples. The Espionage Act is not for spies who help other countries only. It's for people who keep secret papers without permission. It's for people who refuse to turn over secret and classified documents that they have. It's for people who obstruct the government's attempt to recover documents that, remember, belong to them, to the government, rather not to the

individuals that are holding them. Even while Trump was president, many non spies were charged under this law. And Trump didn't have any problem with that at those cases. So we've got a bunch of examples here. This is from a CNN article. Robert Burcham, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, long career in the first month of the Trump presidency. The government figured out this guy had more than 300 classified documents or files in his home. He had a storage pod and some of the documents were there. He wasn't charged with spying. He wasn't charged with giving the documents to people. He cooperated and he was indeed prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Doesn't mean he spied for a foreign country. Kendra Kingsbury, analyst for the FBI,

indicted in 2021 for possessing classified documents in her home during the time that Trump was president. Again, a similar situation, not really controversial in terms of the use of the espionage act there. Jeremy Brown, retired Army Special Forces sergeant, became involved with far right group the Oath Keepers convicted last year for possession of unregistered grenades and guns and for violating willful retention of national defense information provisions. He was found to have documents and he was charged on that basis. And then there's other examples. OK, Harold Martin and Ahmed Delhadi, Yassin Zerogeddin, Weldon Marshall, Marshall, Gia Fai. There's all of these examples. So this is not a unique or unusual thing. You aren't required to be spying for a foreign country

in order to be charged under the Espionage Act. The papers belong to the government, not to Trump. And this is a critical distinction or detail that needs to be understood. There was this kind of flippant attitude from Trump during his speech at Bedminster, where he said, these are my documents, it's unilaterally my choice what to do with them, et cetera, et cetera. He misstated how the Presidential Records Act works. He misstated the timing, suggesting that he's actually being charged for things he did as president when he's being charged for his actions after leaving the Oval Office.

But he acted as if these are his documents when they are not the shirts that he claimed, the mementos or for whatever reason, they seem to call them mementos. I don't know how the right comes up with this stuff. The word is mementos. But he said, I had all sorts of mementos, shirts and sports balls and different things. The papers belong to the government and slash to the American people, depending on how you want to say it. And Trump lied. He tried to hide them from investigators, et cetera. So now you have a situation where Trump could face prison time if he's found guilty. We'll talk about the prison time a little bit later. And it is not improper to use the Espionage Act.

Have there been problematic uses of the Espionage Act in the past? Sure. Are all uses of the Espionage Act problematic? No. Is it the law? Yes, it is. So in addition to this, it's important to mention Trump hasn't been charged for what I'm about to tell you.

But you know, so you always want to go through every layer. Why charge Trump under the Espionage Act if he wasn't spying for another country? Well, that's not what the Espionage Act is, but it is important to mention Trump has done some pretty sketchy stuff with regard to foreign powers. Many of you will remember the infamous incident in 2017 when he had the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov and Russian and Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, a widely known spy recruiter for Russia in the Oval Office.

And Trump shared with them information given to us in confidence by our ally Israel. Now you might say, I hate Israel. OK, but fine. It doesn't change the fact that Trump unilaterally sharing secrets from allies isn't a good thing and is extraordinarily problematic from a national security perspective. Number two, Trump tweeted a classified image of damage to an Iranian spaceport in 2019. Trump told Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte about two nuclear subs that the US had off the coast of North Korea. He wasn't supposed to say that. That's not something he was supposed to be talking about. He almost certainly gave

sensitive information, if not classified, to Russian President President Vladimir Putin during the G20 in Germany in 2017. And then Trump confiscated the interpreter's notes about the conversation. Very, very, very unusual. And fifth, you might remember when Trump posted videos to Twitter or a video to Twitter of several members of SEAL Team five in camo and night vision goggles revealing where they were and with unblurred faces. He's not being charged for any of those things. And the Espionage Act doesn't have to be used only for issues related to spying for foreign countries.

But the point is, Trump also does have a history. Of being at minimum careless is where I would feel confident saying at minimum careless with the sensitive information he shares with foreign leaders, including adversarial ones. Now, all of that being said, let's have a sober conversation about how much prison time Donald Trump is really facing. Let's contextualize the Trump prison time discussion. On the one hand, there are headlines about Trump is facing 536 years. On the other hand, you have individuals who say there is no time in prison coming for Donald Trump. My personal opinion, this is now not we're not doing legal now. Now I'm just giving you my personal opinion. Two weeks ago, I was convinced Trump would get no prison time. I now think it is

very likely Trump will get no prison time, but that's a bit of a softening. I am now open to the idea that depending on how this federal trial goes, it's at least conceivable Trump might end up getting sentenced to some prison time. Now let's take my opinion out of it and let's talk about sentencing guidelines and the crimes that Trump is accused of having committed. Five hundred and thirty six years is one of these. Listen, if you take every crime individually and you look at the maximum possible sentence, assuming he was convicted of every crime he's charged with, that no crimes are consolidated or grouped together and that he gets the maximum

consecutive rather than concurrent sentence for each of those crimes. That's how you get that top number 536. But the more realistic number is far lower. And I want to explain to you why. If you look at the crimes that Trump is charged with, he's accused of giving or trying to give a show, I guess you would say, classified information to people who were not actually authorized to see that stuff. There are obstruction charges. There are all sorts of different charges that are that are here. And the most he could get for the heaviest charges would be five to 20 years per charge. But the actual prison time would depend on a lot of different factors. What are the goals of the punishment? How does this actually go if a trial comes or if a plea deal is accepted or whatever the case may be?

When judges are to decide how much prison time they will give someone, particularly when you are talking about these multiple dozens of counts, federal trials, there are sentencing guidelines and sentencing guidelines, at least in an ideal world, are based on the effects of the crimes that individuals have been convicted of. Research data, questions about recidivism, how victims were affected, the role that the individual played in a crime. So you might have, like, for example, a crime around someone's death. But depending on the role of the individual, they might not be charged with murder.

They might be charged with something else. So a lot of different things, as well as was this a guilty plea where the person accepted responsibility? Did they fight it in a trial and were subsequently found guilty? All of these different elements are factors and the guidelines assign a number to each factor reflecting how serious it is. And this this is includes what are the crimes as well as the circumstances surrounding it. And you add that all up and it gives you an offense level.

The higher the offense level, the more severe the crime and the circumstances and aggravating factors and presumably the longer the prison time is going to be. And so there's an article that tries to sort of look at this. The article is on the Just Security website. It's called How Much Prison Time Does Former President Trump Face Applying U.S. Sentencing Guidelines? And if you go through it, I'll kind of just like shortcut it for you. The article adds up everything and gets a total offense level level that would signal somewhere between 253 and 293 months in prison for Donald Trump. That's 20 to 24 years for an individual who has no previous crimes on their record. That's like a starting point to get us a ballpark. This is only an estimate and many things could

change this. First of all, there could be more charges against Trump or some charges could be consolidated and eliminated. Evidence or facts could come forward. Trump might get sentenced on multiple counts at once. Trump might only be found guilty or might only plea to certain crimes. He could be acquitted altogether. Obviously, all of these different factors. The general idea is if Trump were found guilty. Of most of the things he's charged with, realistically, you would start with a top line sentence

of 20 to 24 years. These are only guidelines. They're not mandatory. Judges can choose to go with different prison time based on a lot of other different factors. And of course, listen, everything we know about Trump right now is he's not going to take a plea deal. He's going to fight this fight, this fight, this even when people come to Trump and say, hey, this is your best path forward.

If it doesn't have the right optics, Trump rejects it. I'll give you an example of that later on in the show. We would probably only see a departure below that. At the end of the day, is it possible that Trump is convicted of or pleads guilty to something but ends up with only a symbolic sentence, maybe even a suspended sentence or home confinement? We're talking about a former president here. And all of those circumstances are 100 percent possibilities. At this point, we are only starting to get into this. And this also doesn't even consider what about the New

York indictment? What about a possible second federal indictment? What about the possible indictment coming out of Georgia? If you think about the totality, the seriousness of the crimes in the federal indictment, the possibility of Trump facing three or four different indictments, it sort of feels like that could very likely point to some prison time. At the same time, we're talking about a former president, nearly 80 years old, with a lot of at least plausible mitigating circumstances, his lawyers could argue, including age and security issues with Trump serving even a single day. And so we may end up with some symbolic home confinement. We are all getting ahead of ourselves. I believe in law and order, so I don't want anybody sentenced

to anything until they've been found guilty or have pled guilty to something in a plea deal. And so I'm not going to get ahead of myself. This is all hypothetical. And obviously, it's going to be one of the biggest stories of the next couple of years. I love my Helix sleep mattress. I've been sleeping on Helix mattresses for years now, which is why I asked them to be a sponsor. You actually take their famous sleep quiz takes just a few minutes to answer questions about your sleep preferences, body type, sleep position, whether you have back pain and Helix will match you with a mattress that's perfect for you, which is really unique and helpful because a lot of people don't know

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Go to happy hippo dot com slash Pacman. Click the pink button at the bottom of the page that says free Kratom. You can also get 20 percent off all of their products with code Pacman. That's happy hippo dot com slash Pacman. Click the free Kratom button to receive some product completely free with free shipping. After that, use the code Pacman for 20 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. By now, I'm sure most of you know that this entire federal prosecution of Donald Trump didn't have to go this way.

But what I mean by that is different than what we're going to talk about right now. In general, when we say it didn't have to go this way, we all understand any other normal person when authorities come to you and say, hey, you took all this stuff, you got to give it back. And then they ask you again and again and they send letters and they send people and meet with you and say, you've got to give it back. Most of us would say here, take the stuff back. And in that sense, this never had to give it back. Most of us would say here, take the stuff back. And in that sense,

this never had to go this way. But there's a new report about an even more relevant and pressing way in which it didn't have to go this way. It is being reported by The Washington Post that Donald Trump rejected his lawyers efforts to avoid the indictment from happening in the first place. And this truly is classic Trump. And it tells us a lot about how the next several months into the next 18 to 24 months, quite frankly, are likely to go. Let's take a look at this.

This is a great report by Josh Dossi and Jacqueline Alomani. Trump rejected lawyers efforts to avoid classified documents indictment. The former president was not interested in attempting to negotiate a settlement in the classified documents investigation. One of Donald Trump's new attorneys proposed an idea in the fall of 2022. This is months ago now, months ago, the former president's team could try to arrange a settlement with the Justice Department. The attorney, Christopher Keese, wanted to quietly approach justice to see if he could

negotiate a settlement that would preclude charges, hoping Attorney General Merrick Garland and the department would want an exit ramp to avoid prosecuting a former president. Keys could would hopefully take the temperature down, he was telling others, by promising a professional approach and the return of all documents. But Trump was not interested after listening to other lawyers who urged a more pugilistic approach. Just wait until you hear who those lawyers were. The article goes on. So Keyes never approached prosecutors, according to three people briefed on the matter. Special counsel was appointed months later. The rest is history, as we now know. He's a former solicitor general general of Florida who was paid three million dollars

up front to join Trump's team last year, declined to comment that quiet entreaty last fall was one of many occasions when lawyers and advisers sought to get Trump to take a more cooperative stance in a bid to avoid what happened Friday. The Justice Department unsealed an indictment, including more than three dozen criminal counts. As we now know, Trump, 77 years old, now faces the most legal, legally perilous moment of his life playing out in federal court charges that could bring decades in prison, as we talked about in the previous segment. The article goes on to explain how Trump's claim that this is only under the Presidential Records Act is wrong.

This now has become a criminal matter. Also in a Vanity Fair, Bess Levin writes report Donald Trump passed on a plan to avoid criminal charges, and now he's facing up to 400 years in prison. And it's basically a rewrite of much of the same stuff that we just talked about. This is classic Trump. OK, we have since learned that one of the people suggesting to Trump take a more combative approach, take a more pugilistic approach. Was this guy named Tom Fitton from this right wing group called Judicial Watch, not a working lawyer in the sense of criminal defense who would be able to give Trump anything approaching sensible advice on this particular matter? Classic Trump. You've got a bunch of lawyers. It's not just Christopher

Keyes, a bunch of lawyers who are going through who actually know what they're doing. And they're saying, listen, this is serious. Why don't we approach them and say, hey, we don't want this to get to an indictment. Let's figure this out. Now that we have the right people around Trump, we can get you the document in a professional and sober way. You're not going to have to indict Trump. And by the way, everything that we saw from Merrick Garland over the last couple of years is that he didn't want to have Trump indicted. There were some criticizing Garland saying this guy is not even willing to indict Trump. He just it's just not even a chance. I never went that far, but it certainly seemed

like it wasn't something Garland was looking to do. But the more we learn about the goings on of the last seven, eight months, the more it seems as though Trump's refusal to take a less combative approach, in a sense, forced the hand of Merrick Garland. And there is a very good write up that we already looked at in the last segment about how federal sentencing guidelines could be applied. Those federal sentencing guidelines. I'm not going to redo that segment because we did it 10 minutes ago on the show. They point to something like 20 to 24 years based on sentencing guidelines, severity of crimes, how they'd likely be sentenced and Trump being a first time offender, at least technically speaking,

so on and so forth. And the estimate also now adds that if Trump were to take responsibility, it might cut it down by about a third. I don't think Trump is going to be doing any of those things. So this is on brand for Trump. When you look at even the Mueller probe into Russia stuff. Much of the way it went down was a direct result of the way in which Trump didn't just shut up and say, hey, I'm president now. I'm running the country. There's an investigation. I won't interfere. I will cooperate, but I will be saying nothing else publicly about it. Had Trump done that at the start of the Mueller probe, 90 percent of it wouldn't have taken place. It would have wrapped much more quickly and it likely would not have brought down as many people as it did.

Instead, Trump was tweeting about it daily, making comments during press conferences, making attacks on on Mueller and investigators and actually giving new leads to investigators about things that they should be looking at. So it was self-inflicted. This may end up being we don't know. We're speculating. This may end up being the greatest example in Trump's life of opting for a path because of his personality, because of his ego, because of his narcissism or whatever. This may be the single decision

Trump made, which is to say to his lawyers, don't go in and negotiate me out of an indictment. This may be the decision that ends Trump's public life. It may not be, but it may. And we're going to continue following it. Let's now discuss what the next 18 months are going to look like for the American political system. Last week, I did a segment for our tick tock account, which, by the way, tick tock over 500000 followers on tick tock. It's crazy what's going on. We're reaching young people. Wild things are happening on TikTok. I did a segment where I laid out why I don't think the impact of Trump's arrest will be limited only to the presidential race.

And the point I made was that there's going to be a significant trickle down effect. Now I'm wondering whether I did this for TikTok or for our straight arrow news partnership. But in any case, I do remember talking about this, maybe even on the bonus show. Now, I don't remember. My argument is as follows. It would be wrong to assume that Trump's trials and indictments will only affect the presidential race. I believe that it will affect down ballot Republicans. And it has the potential, depending on how this all goes over the next six to 18 months, to generate an insane amount of chaos for Republicans trying to get themselves reelected in November of twenty twenty four. If you are a pro Trump acolyte and you're trying to get

reelected and Trump really has legal issues and is damaged in the primary, maybe loses it or wins, but then loses to Joe Biden. It could turn off a lot of people from voting for their local elected official House or Senate for reelection. On the other hand, if you take the anti-Trump side as a Republican seeking reelection in twenty twenty four and Trump prevails, that could end up being very damaging to you. So there's a lot of risk here to many in the Republican Party. And as we talked about late last week, Republicans are worried that Trump is going to drag them down. We now are really starting to look at trial calendars and Republican debate schedules and primary schedules. And it is hard to come away with any conclusion other than the one that Newsweek

has come across or come come to believe, which is that, as they say, Donald Trump is likely to be swamped with multiple overlapping criminal trials. This is the one scenario other than a health problem that could derail Donald Trump's campaign. Newsweek writes Donald Trump is at risk of being faced with multiple criminal trials at the same time, all while campaigning to become president in 2024. Tuesday, Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 federal offenses connected to the Jack Smith documents case and is expected to appear next in Florida court in June. It is currently unknown when a trial could be set for the classified documents case with the decision to be made by Judge Eileen Cannon, of course, as we talked about, appointed to

the bench by Trump facing calls to recuse herself. The article continues. The New York trial will will take place. This is the other trial. The New York trial will take place while the Republican primary is well underway and after the so-called Super Tuesday, where several states vote on the same day elsewhere, there have been indications that the criminal investigation in Georgia is drawing to a close and Trump could face former indictments. That's going to be

sometime between July and September. Probably here they're talking about July and August, etc. Fannie Willis's office says federal indictments will not have any impact on the Fulton County election investigation, saying what she is doing is going to happen regardless of what is happening federally. And then it's also important to remember that Donald Trump is potentially going to be federally indictment indicted an additional time related to January 6th. So when we think about what could derail Trump, a health problem, but that could happen to

anybody. Anybody could be derailed by a health problem. The political scenario that could derail Trump is that he is so flooded with criminal trials that he quite literally just can't keep campaigning. It pulls him off the campaign trail. Trump has pledged to stay in regardless. That is his pledge. But Trump says things all the time that end up not being true. This is really a cautionary tale. It's best to commit only one crime per year so that you can keep your schedule clear. I'm sort of kidding. Of course, Trump is

innocent until proven guilty. I still doubt at the end of the day that the path away from Trump in this primary is that he drops out. I believe that the path out of Trump in this election is that he drops out. I see it as far more likely that Trump stays in, wins the primary, but loses to Joe Biden in twenty twenty four. I believe that is the most likely scenario. The second most likely scenario is Trump stays in the primary but loses the primary. Less likely, but still possible.

And I believe the least likely scenario is that Donald Trump bails on the primary and even less likely. I think it's Trump dies and is no longer a candidate. I would put that as fourth. That's my order for this. At the end of the day. It really is up to Republicans to decide what it is that they want. And right now, although the polling is moving a little bit and I know we're going to look

at polling later this week. The polling is moving a little bit, but Trump is still very much in control. Chris Christie's argument is when you talk to the Trump supporters today. About half of them or more say, I do support Trump as of today, but I'm open to supporting somebody else. Chris Christie's argument is if you take the people who are definitely not supporting Trump in the primary and then you add to that the number of not supporting Trump in the primary. And then you add to that the number of people supporting Trump, but willing to vote for someone else. That's enough to win. And Chris Christie is correct. Mathematically, the question is, what would it take for that group

that says I support Trump, but I'm willing to look elsewhere? What would it take to get them to actually look elsewhere? And even two more indictments, I don't believe is going to change their mind. We have a voicemail number. That number is 219 to David P. Take a listen to this. Hey, David, this is Michael Sacramento. I just want to say like when I like your show a lot to the last four family gatherings that I've had like my right wing relatives all they talk about all they talk about is like transgender stuff like how much they hate that you know the different you know whatever there's like one one transgender woman that beats people in

like swimming and that's all they talk about. That's the most important thing in the entire world. Yep. That in like black mermaids and black people shouldn't be in any movies, basically. So I think. Listen, folks, Santa Claus is white and mermaids are white. Why can't these woksters understand that? This next election, we need to be prepared for any response

that we can do regarding those types of things. Yeah. I think like Chris Christie, even though I agree, he does sound pretty smart to me and to you. The Republicans don't care about that stuff anymore. They don't care about taxes or foreign policy. All they care about is culture wars. So I think we have to have good responses for that stuff. My response to them was it's like they're saying, oh, we're concerned that transgender people are just going into women's dressing rooms to rape them. Well, guess what? Donald Trump went into a dressing room dressed as a man and he raped somebody. So they can't even are using that as sexually assaulted.

Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Let's be clear. No, the caller is I mean, that's crazy. And it is incredible that these are the conversations, you know, at one point, the sort of Thanksgiving conversations were very politically stressful, but they were about like tax policy and foreign policy. Now it's about

black mermaids. And that is that is a really crazy commentary about where we are today. Folks, we've got a bonus show coming up right after this show. Make sure you're subscribed at join Pacman dot com to get instant access to the bonus show. We've got an incredible week of shows coming up. I will be at a wedding on the West Coast. We've got a great cast of villains. And then I'm going to be back with you so strongly, so strongly, folks, on Monday. Please be nice to the guest hosts, at least to their face. OK, you can email me later and complain, but please be nice to their face. We'll see you on the bonus show.

And then everything just continues throughout the rest.