The Megyn Kelly Show - Historic Arrest of Former President Donald Trump, with Alan Dershowitz, Charles C.W. Cooke, and Ric Grenell | Ep. 521

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

Breaking News: the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, has been arrested and arraigned in New York City on 34 felony charges. First, Alan Dershowitz, author of "Get Trump," joins to discuss his texts from Trump, the statute of limitations argument Trump will make, how he could easily win on appeal if he's convicted, the gag order possibility and the First Amendment, defending the Constitution vs. helping Trump, whether Trump will be charged in the Mar-a-lago docs case, the importance of asking "what about Hillary Clinton," and more. Then Charles C.W. Cooke, senior writer for National Review, to discuss the political implications of the Trump arrest, the Democrats changing the "norms" despite what they say about Trump and norms, Democratic hypocrisy on law-breaking, the corporate media's massive obsession with Donald Trump back again, Trump's rocketing poll numbers over DeSantis, and more. And then Ambassador Ric Grenell, former acting DNI director, joins to talk about how everyday Americans are outraged by this indictment, the danger to America for what will happen now that the Democrats crossed this line, why Trump will be the GOP nominee, whether Ron DeSantis will run at all, major donations coming to Trump recently, and more.Dershowitz: https://www.amazon.com/Get-Trump-Liberties-Process-Constitutional/dp/1510777814Cooke: https://charlescwcooke.comGrenell: https://fixcalifornia.com Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. America's 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, turning himself in today to be formally arrested and arraigned on criminal charges by a Democrat DA who ran on the promise of him being an aggressive anti-Trumper, was touting the number of cases he had brought against Donald Trump and true to his word, though he originally rejected these charges, as did the feds, Alvin Bragg brought them today. There's a lot to dissect regarding the legal ramifications, the political fallout, and the onslaught of media coverage. Ahead,

we're going to hear from Rick Grinnell, as we know, one of Trump's closest confidants, and he will be with the president tonight. Charles C.W. Cook is here with a warning to the media, but we begin the show with Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of the new book, which we featured not long ago, Get Trump, the threat to civil liberties due process and our constitutional rule of law. You can order it right now on Amazon. There may be a backup, but order one anyway, because as usual, Alan's been prescient on how things were going to unfold when it comes to Trump legally. Alan, great to have you back on the show. So I heard you say on your podcast, The Dershow, that you'd been texting with Trump post indictment. What did he say? Well, only he texts me. I've never texted

him. I don't have his text number. He called me and then he texted me. He said, Alan, getting ready to leave for New York. This was yesterday. And can't really believe it. These maniacs want to destroy our country. So sad. Nothing on Hunter Biden and the crimes are so bad. Anyway, your words are very important. Save America, Donald Trump. P.S. Congrats on the book. Doing really well. Well, I appreciate that. Look, the timing for the book couldn't be better. The title Get Trump is not original with me. It comes from the campaign promise of Letitia James, the attorney general of New York. She used those words, I promise to get Trump. Bragg didn't exactly use

those words, but he used that concept. And when he first got into office, he looked at the evidence and he said, no, it's not there. It's just not there. And the New York Times on Sunday reported that he got tremendous pushback, tremendous opposition. Two people in his team quit and the pressure was too great. Nothing changed. There were no new witnesses. There was no change in the law. The statute of limitations didn't get extended, but the pressure was too great for him to resist. And I understand that because I was under similar pressure. You know, when I defended Trump in 2000, before that I was the most popular person on Martha's Vineyard. I was the one who was asked to perform weddings and speak at funerals. Once I defended Trump, no one would talk to me. Caroline Kennedy would walk out on a dinner party,

et cetera. If you think that's great, that's one tenth the pressure that a judge in Manhattan would get if that judge ruled in favor of Trump. They would never again be appointed, never again be elected, never again be included in social scenes. And if a juror ever said, I'm the juror who caused a hung jury or I'm the juror who caused an acquittal, their lives are over. And you don't expect judges and jurors to be able to resist that kind of social pressure. Maybe you expect a professor to do that. And I did at great cost to my family. But the emotional pressures on people

of New York, 85 percent of New Yorkers hate Donald Trump's guts. How does he get a fair trial here? He can't. So he's saying that he wants his case moved to Staten Island. I actually, I think it'd be a brilliant move because there you get a Republican leaning jury, jury, the odds are. And, um, let's see what they do. Let's see. I mean, if Alvin Bragg is so confident in his case, why not put it in front of people who are more right-leaning and see if you can convince them? Isn't that closer to jury of your peers? Absolutely. It was my idea originally. I came up with the idea quite some time ago. I said, eat a Staten Island because the pizza is much, much better there than in Manhattan

or Rockland County or upstate New York. But let's get it out of Manhattan. You cannot have a fair trial in Manhattan. And I told that to President Trump and he agreed with me, although his lawyer the other day said they hadn't made up their mind. I think they made up their mind. They have to move it out of Manhattan. That's an absolutely essential thing and they have to move quickly for a ruling on the statute of limitations. Remember the argument. Let me ask you about this. Okay. Can I ask you about, let me ask you a statute because I had a debate here on the program yesterday, Arthur Idalla, who I know you know and like, and another lawyer, state attorney from the district that covers Mar-a-Lago and Palm Beach.

And they were saying they weren't that moved by the statute of limitations argument. And I know you love it. And so just for the viewers who are listening now, it's basically we believe we're speaking at a time at which the indictment has not yet been unveiled. We don't yet know exactly what's in those 34 counts, but we still understand it has to do with the Stormy Daniels hush money payment and that that Trump didn't record it properly on his business records. He made it look like a legal payment to Michael Cohen, who paid it one hundred and thirty thousand. And that's not in and of itself necessarily problematic, but that would normally be treated as a misdemeanor. He's elevating it to a felony by saying it was used to cover up an underlying crime, which would have been an in-kind contribution during the election run-up. It's a

long and convoluted thing. So which, dumb it down for people who are not lawyers, what is the statute of limitations problem? Yeah, the statute of limitations is very important. It goes back to the origins of law. And there's a two-year statute of limitations on the misdemeanor, five on the felony. The theory behind the statute of limitations is it doesn't run when the person is an escapee. He's running away. You can't find them. And so the statute has an exception.

If you can't find them, if he's a fugitive, or if he's out of the state continuously. Now, why can't you indict him if he's out of the state? I have the best proof. Nobody could ever beat me on this argument. Of course, you can indict him when he's out of the state. What's the best proof? They indicted him when he was out of the state. This indictment came down last Thursday. He was in Florida. If they could indict him while he was in Florida, why couldn't they have indicted him while he was in Washington? Why couldn't they have indicted him while he was in Florida. If they could indict him while he was in Florida, why couldn't they have indicted him while he was in Washington? Why couldn't they have indicted him while he was in Florida the last two or three years? So the policies behind the statute of limitations are clearly violated. There's no good reason they didn't indict him earlier, except that nobody wanted to indict

him earlier. DAs, U.S. attorneys, federal election officials said, no, we're not going to indict him. The statute of limitations requires you indict somebody as reasonably quickly as you can within the terms of the statute. Now, there is a New York Court of Appeals decision, very wrongly decided, which basically defines the word continuously as continually and says that every day that he's out of the state doesn't count. That's ridiculous. The policies behind the statute of limitations are clear. He should not be allowed to be tried. He's been denied a speedy trial, a fair trial, a trial in the right venue. And the misdemeanor is the made-up misdemeanor. Here's what the misdemeanor basically says. It says that when

you pay hush money to hide an adulterous affair with a former porn star and you pay $130,000 to make sure your wife, your family, the voters, the business associates don't learn about it, you must immediately record that in your public corporate records. You must stay in your corporate records. I paid the money to keep it quiet, but now I'm telling you I paid the money to keep it quiet and it'll be on the Megyn Kelly show tomorrow. Has anybody ever truthfully described what a hush money payment was for? Has anybody in history ever been indicted for that? If you don't have that, you don't have anything because you can't get the felony without first getting the misdemeanor. There is no misdemeanor here.

So all of this is very important because Alan accurately points out if this stays in Manhattan, Trump will not get a fair trial. This will almost certainly be a political witch hunt brought home. And so what we're talking about now is a potential guilty finding by a New York state jury. I mean, we're jumping ahead, but Alan is one of the most accomplished, if not the most accomplished appellate lawyers in America, especially when it comes to criminal law. And you're already looking ahead to the appeal because then it would go up appeal to a more stable body of lawyers, judges who would have to take a look at this and ultimately potentially to the New York State Court of Appeals, which is our highest court to take a look at whether these issues like statute of limitations, issues of law could have been decided and whether this ever should have gotten to a jury. That's right. And any first year law student could win this appeal. You don't need Alan Dershowitz to win this appeal. If the person's name wasn't Donald Trump and it wasn't the city

of New York and judges didn't worry about how they wouldn't get promoted if they free Donald Trump. It's a very, very easy case to win on appeal. There are at least four or five issues that are clearly reversible, and the appeal would probably be argued in the run-up to the 2024 election. I mean, if you're going to indict somebody who you've promised to get and who is a member of the other party and he's running against the head of your party, you better darn well have a strong case. This case is like Michael Cohen going in front of a grand jury and saying, I, with my own eyes, saw him rip the tag off a mattress in 2006. And it says clearly on the mattress tag, ripping off that tag is in

violation of the law. But nobody ever gets prosecuted for that. Duh. Nobody ever gets prosecuted for misreporting a hush money payment. This is the first of a kind. Even the New York Times will do anything to see Trump convicted. Acknowledges this is a novel a novel. Novel is a euphemism for it's a crap case. It doesn't exist. It should never have been brought. It absolutely violates the rule of law and vindicates those who claim, tragically, that America is not a system of laws anymore. It's a system of people. Look at what happens at Stanford University and Yale University, how they treat judges like trash. That's what we're turning out. Law students and lawyers and prosecutors and sometimes judges who put politics over law. It's not what I was teaching when I was

in Harvard for 50 years. It's a scandal. One of the other things you've been railing about justfully, I think is the possibility of a gag order in this case. Um, and these guys yesterday thought it was potentially likely that perhaps they'd give Trump some, some leeway to start, but that if he keeps going off as he has been all day on truth, sir, social, um, that he might try to muzzle him. Now he hasn't yet yet faced the judge at this at the time of this recording. But they were saying as soon as he gets in front of the judge, he will no longer be able to criticize the judge. He will no longer be able to criticize the prosecutor and could potentially be slapped with a gag order that stops him from talking about the case. You have strong thoughts on gagging Trump. Well, that would be a clear violation, not only of his First Amendment rights,

but of yours and mine. Justice Marshall once said, wrote in an opinion, that the First Amendment has two elements, one, the right of the speaker to speak, but just as important, the right of the listener to listen. So I would immediately put together a group of the best First Amendment lawyers on a voluntary pro bono basis, representing you and me and everybody else in America, and take the case as far up as we can to the Supreme Court on the issue of the gag order. The gag order would so clearly be unconstitutional. Having a democratically appointed or elected judge tell a Republican candidate for president that he can't campaign for president and a judge telling anybody he can't criticize the judge.

What could be a greater violation of the First Amendment than a judge telling a defendant you can't criticize me? Free speech for me. Can I tell you both of my lawyers yesterday and I said what you're telling me that today this morning he can criticize the judge and the D.A. But after the arraignment tomorrow, he's not allowed to. And I haven't looked up. I was admitted in New York. I'm now retired as a New York lawyer. It's been a long time since I actually practiced. I don't remember there being some ethical rule that says you cannot criticize

your judge publicly or the DA coming after you. They seem to think that would be a no-no as soon as we had an arraignment. I don't think there's any chance they're going to be able to stop Trump from doing that. And they shouldn't. And I will defend his right to speak. And even if there is an ethical rule, the ethical rule applies only to lawyers. Last I looked, Donald Trump wasn't a lawyer. That's what I said. That's what I said. He has absolutely the right to walk out of that courtroom and say the judge should be impeached. The judge is terrible. He can say whatever he wants about that judge. Don't ask me. Ask Hamilton and Madison and Jefferson and Adams. Ask all of them whether you can criticize a judge. Jefferson spent half

of his life criticizing judges, including his own cousin, John Marshall. And, you know, you can't impose those kinds of restrictions, especially since the case will almost certainly not be tried in Manhattan. And or upstate New York, where I'm from, or potentially Long Island. There's a few, some districts. Not the Bronx. Not the Bronx. No, no, not Brooklyn. Right. That's where you're from. So they'll move. But won't this judge knee jerk say, no, we're not doing that. It's not a matter of knee jerk. The judge has to go home at night to dinner. The judge has to meet his friends tomorrow. He has to spend weekends. No judge in New York City has the courage to give a verdict or a ruling that benefits Donald Trump. They will be called, as I was called, a facilitator of Adolf Hitler. So you're saying the judge, he won't even give him a change of venue because he won't give him the time of day. He will give him no gag order only because he knows he's going to be reversed. You know, normally judges are afraid of being reversed, not in the Trump case.

The judge doesn't care. He'll blame it on the appellate division. He'll say, I wanted to put Trump in jail. I wanted to prevent him from running. Don't blame me. Let me ask a couple other questions. Lots to get to. Trump's railing about the judge suggesting his daughter worked for Kamala Harris. A quick review. We haven't found it solid. Saw something from Gateway Pundit suggest she may have. She may indeed have worked. The judge's daughter may have worked for Kamala Harris. That was not relevant. OK. And secondly, there's a report by Paul Sperry in the New York Post. He's a very good reporter, very in-depth investigative reporter who says that Bragg, we know that he campaigned on all the times he sued Trump and so on. But he, Paul

Sperry reports that quote, before recently locking her account, Alvin Bragg's wife, Jamila Ponton Bragg, even bragged on Twitter that her husband was going to nail Trump on some unspecified felonies. Why? Because she felt Trump was racist. Is that grounds for getting rid of this D.A.? Yes. But getting rid of the D.A., what good will that do? There'll be another assistant. They'll persist in the case. You have to get rid of Manhattan. Manhattan is what can't be the locus of the DA, the judge, or the jurors. It can't be

Bronx. It can't be Brooklyn. It has to be a place where the hatred of Trump is not so great that it will make people quite deliberately violate the law. People have written to me saying, we know you're right on the First Amendment. We know you're right on the Constitution. Please shut the F up because you're helping Trump. That's more important, that you're helping Trump than the Constitution. And I say, no, defending the Constitution is more important. Megan, this is different than any case I've ever been involved in in my life, different than the O.J. Simpson case, different than the Leona Helmsley case, different than the Klaus von Bulow case. People didn't like me for those cases. This is not like that. People do not

want to associate with you in any way if you're perceived as doing anything that favors Donald Trump. They think it's like favoring Adolf Hitler in the 1932 election. That's the mindset. People call it Trump derangement syndrome. They are absolutely right. The most rational people, the most rational. Let me give you an example. Let's hypothetically consider that the judge opposed a gag order. Who would be the first person you would go to to object to that? The American Civil Liberties Union. Do you think they're going to get involved? You know how much contribution they lose if they actually went in there and defended Trump's right to free speech? I have to tell you, I think they might have to do it. But boy, they would do it with their nose closed. They would do it losing sleep and they would do it losing money. But that's the atmosphere,

the toxic atmosphere. And we have to recognize this. The closest I come to this is the 1970s when I spent time in the Soviet Union defending Sakharov and Sharansky and dissidents. And I saw what happened to lawyers who defended anti-Soviet dissidents. They got locked up in the gulag. They got deported. They lost their jobs. You mentioned OJ Simpson and some of these, like, let's say, you know, with Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer when they were on trial, the public absolutely believed in the case of like a Dahmer. Yes, he did it. We understand he did it. He's got to have a fair trial, but it's different because whether he did

it is actually the very core of the question. And you have to screen for jurors who have an open mind, at least on proof. What is the standard of proof? Did they meet it here? Trump walks into the jury with hatred of him, irrespective of whether he did this. They'll already hate him. That is a very unique circumstance. I mean, maybe it's not unprecedented. I'm sure you could find some defendants who were loathed upon walking into the jury room. But this is a very strange and unprecedented situation. So I agree with you on the change of venue. This is also a vote for whether he's to be the next president. And it's so time. I just want to say one word. My book was the number one, number two bestseller on Amazon over the last two weekends. You cannot buy a copy

in an independent bookstore. Try to buy Shakespeare and Company. Try to go to Books and Books. They will not sell a book called Get Trump, even if it's number one or number two on Amazon. And that means it can't get on the Times bestseller list, because the Times bestseller list requires that you have independent bookstores. So the hatred goes beyond voting. It goes beyond juries. It goes beyond reading books. You know, satyrs. I'm going to a satyr on Wednesday night without members of my family because they will not eat with me at a satyr because I defended Donald Trump. That's how you say you're not a Trump voter. Like you've openly said many times you're not voting for Trump. You didn't vote for Trump.

You don't want Trump to be president again. You defend the Constitution. All right, but enough of that because we've had that conversation many times. I want to keep going. There's an article today, and there have been a lot of articles like this, but this is just one. I think this is from The Atlantic, yes, by David Graham. Don't take your eye off Jack Smith.

Who's Jack Smith? He's the special prosecutor appointed to look into the Mar-a-Lago documents and whether Trump obstructed justice in withholding those documents and on a broader level, whether he committed some crime in connection with January 6th. That's what Jack Smith is investigating. This is based off of Washington Post reporting yesterday that said, according to the Washington Post, Trump was a lot more involved in preventing documents from being turned over to the National Archives and to the DOJ than we knew before, that Trump was telling others to mislead the government officials, and that after the subpoena

came in, Trump ignored multiple requests from the advisors to return the documents and actually went down there and looked himself and made sure documents were not turned over and so on and so forth. Now, what this Atlantic article argues is, number one, this is not like Joe Biden with his documents in the garage and in the university setting at the UPenn or Mike Pence having some documents. This is not like that because, number one, the documents Trump had are quote, extremely sensitive, reportedly covering nuclear secrets and programs aimed at China and Iran. That may matter because it is tougher to declassify nuclear secrets, even if you're a president, according to what I read. Second, when the government asked Trump for the documents,

he, unlike Biden and Pence, quoting her, refused to hand them over. This truculence is why the FBI ended up making the unannounced search. And then they talk about what he did even after the subpoena hit him. He reportedly tried to obfuscate. The Democrats are excited about this case and kind of like they're interested in Bragg, but they love Jack Smith and they love the Mar-a-Lago investigation. What do you think of that? Yeah, well, they're absolutely right. The Jack Smith investigation is a much, much, much more serious one. It's the only one where if the facts are as they believe them to be, then there is a crime. Jack Smith must be furious at Alvin Bragg, though, for bringing the weakest case first

and leaving the strongest case for last. Look, I am not a Trump supporter. If Trump committed any crimes that anybody else would be prosecuted for, he should be prosecuted. He's not above, he's not below the law. The problem with the Mar-a-Lago case is Trump may claim, his lawyers haven't said it in court, but they may claim that all of this was declassified by Trump before he left office. That becomes a question of fact. But I have no doubt that the Mar-a-Lago case is the strongest. In my book, Get Trump, I go through all four of the cases,

and I rank them in order. Bragg's is the least serious. Mar-a-Lago is the most serious. After that comes Washington, D.C., which he'll win on because he used the words patriotically and peacefully, and that puts him within the First Amendment. The Atlanta, Georgia case, he'll win because he used the word on tape. Fine. Fine doesn't mean manufacture. It means it's there. Look for it. So the strongest case clearly is Florida. The weakest case clearly in New York. Weakest case goes first. It taints all the rest of the cases. And so I think the only defenses he has in Florida are first, did he declassify? And second, he will make the argument that although there may not be similarities between what Trump did and what Biden did and what Pence did, you can't indict one former president for classified material unless you go after the others as well. That's a political argument.

I'm sorry, but what about Hillary Clinton? I mean, Hillary Clinton destroyed, destroyed information, federally subpoenaed emails and devices to hide evidence. So it's like, I know you get mocked. What about Hillary? What about Hillary? She destroyed documents under subpoena and there was, she was given a total pass. If we want to do this, Alan, I get it with the book, put that down.

If we want to do this, we can do this all day long. And there's an, you know, in that piece by Paul Sperry, he goes through, let's see what a DA in Tennessee might do. Let's see what a DA in Arkansas might do to the Clintons right now with their, you know, many people believe this is a corrupt operation, the Clinton Foundation. Like I, I get it's bad to ignore a subpoena, nevermind not comply with it or say you have when you haven't, but why didn't anybody give a damn when she did it? Keep going. No, look, I agree. I have a chapter in the book. I had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal called What About-ism? What about-ism? It's a good argument. What about-ism? What about Hillary Clinton? Hillary Clinton was walking around with a hat basically saying, what about-ism?

That's a legitimate argument, particularly when a man is running for president of the United States against politicians who are trying to prosecute him. Whataboutism is a good argument. I make it very strongly in my book, Get Trump. That's an argument that doesn't work legally. You can't win a case by going to court and say they didn't prosecute somebody else, but it really works politically. And I think in my book, I pose two tests before you can prosecute a presidential candidate or a former president. One is the Nixon test. The people in his own party want to see him prosecuted. They did with Nixon. The other is the Hillary Clinton test.

If they didn't prosecute Hillary Clinton, they ruined her chances of becoming president when Comey got up and made his ill-advised statement. But in his ill-advised statement, he said she was careless and reckless, but nobody else has been previously prosecuted for that. That's the standard. If it doesn't meet that standard, you can't apply it to Donald Trump. That's the thesis of my book, Get Trump. What about it? You have to have some comparisons when you're going after the president and a future president. I know you've been you've been right. You've been raising that point, too, which is very good, which is not only is it the first time a former president's been indicted, but this is

the presumptive nominee almost at this point. I mean, he's certainly the leading candidate for the next presidential race on the GOP side. That's what's made and being indicted by an opponent, a political opponent. Somebody was on the other side. So but here's my last question to you, because as somebody who's, I mean, truly one of the most respected lawyers in America, how bad is that? How I worry. I'm scared right now. I'm worried for our country. There's a reason nobody's ever crossed these lines. And it's not that no other president or leading candidate for the nomination has ever come close to a legal line. That's not the reason this has never happened before. They have sicked so much firepower on Trump from the moment he got elected from the impeachments and Russia, Russia, Russia, and the number of lawsuits that have been brought against him.

And then since he left office since January 6th, then all the special special counsel and local counsel and DA's looking in, there's no question they'd find something. And they would have done that on probably Barack Obama and certainly Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and so on. So I'm really worried about where this is going. And yet I can't say it would be foolish for the Republicans to do it, to respond in kind. Well, I hope they don't do it. The greatest attorney general in American history and one of the greatest justices was Robert Jackson, our chief prosecutor at Nuremberg. He was as scared as you are. He said any prosecutor can rummage through the hundreds of statute books and the thousands of regulations and find something to pick on somebody with. And that would be the end of the rule of law in America. He knew because he was at Nuremberg. He knew because he prosecuted people during the worst times of American history and during the Second World War.

He served in the Supreme Court. Listen to Robert Jackson, a centrist conservative, a Democrat, to be sure. But he warned about this day. And this is a day that I never thought in my 60 years of practicing law I would ever experience in America. I am scared for America. I am 85 years old. I'm going to devote the rest of my life to defending the Constitution against my friends, fellow Democrats, liberals and leftists, because they are the ones today who are the new McCarthyites, who are posing the greatest danger to liberty, freedom and democracy. And that worries me greatly. And I'm glad you're on my side, Megan. Eighty five years young. I always listen to you. And I think this is how you stay young. You keep your mind active, keep yourself active. You turn out a book every couple of months. You stay talking. You stay interested and interesting. You're a role model, Alan Dershowitz, in many ways.

Thanks for being here. Thank you so much, Megan. Up next, National Review's Charlie Cook, who's no Trump fan, but has got some serious problems with what's going down against him right now. Stand by for that and then later, Rick Grinnell. Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show. Here with me now, Charles C.W. Cook, senior writer for National Review and host of the Charles C.W. Cook podcast. Charles, we are awaiting the actual arraignment at this hour, but we expect it to be a 34 count indictment based on the alleged falsifications of business records. We still believe at this hour that it stems from the Stormy daniel's hush money that was paid by michael cohen trump has said before he didn't know about it and michael cohen's word is going to be

very important in this investigation he's a convicted felon and not a reliable man uh we've heard reports that they're going to have business documents that may support michael cohen's word but the other star witness is a porn star who's been completely lionized by the media now. But so far as I can tell, Stormy Daniels' greatest accomplishment has been several movies whose names I cannot repeat in polite company. And this is a person who slept with a married man and then threatened to expose him right before a presidential election and then took a payoff to keep quiet about it. So she's the hero. Michael Cohen, convicted felon,'s the hero. Michael Cohen, convicted felon, is the hero. And Donald Trump is going to be the villain, both in Alvin Bragg's telling of this whole thing and in that of the media. So how do you see what's going on today?

Well, I think it's a profound mistake. I think it's a mistake specifically for Alvin Bragg to have brought this case. And I think it's a mistake more broadly for a prosecutor who belongs to and is backed by one of the two major parties in the country to have given in to pressure and sought this indictment. A great deal of the conversations that I have heard about this take place at this abstract level. Are you pro-Trump? Are you anti-Trump? Should Trump or any other former president or prospective president be above the law? But those aren't really the right questions to ask. The right question to ask is, is this a strong case? Would this case have been brought against anyone else? And I think that the answer is obviously no. I wouldn't say that if there was sufficient evidence that Donald Trump had committed a serious crime, that he should be

let off because he was president, that would be ridiculous. That would create a bizarre incentive structure. But this case, which has specific facts and is circumscribed by specific laws, is weak. And I think we all know it. The predecessor to Alvin Bragg sy vance dropped this case because it was weak in fact the new york times reported that the same people the same office that has brought this case against trump considered for a while bringing a case against stormy daniels on the grounds that she was extorting trump which she did did. I mean, both sides actually did what they've been accused of here morally. Donald Trump did cheat on his wife with this porn star and this porn star did extract money from Donald Trump to keep it quiet. The question

is whether it is the sort of crime for which a normal person would be prosecuted, and whether the case is likely to stand up in court. And I think the answer is no, there are statute of limitations problems, the legal theory on which this is based, it's really convoluted, and I think, pretextual. So, you know, do you want to open this Pandora's box for this rinky dink crime that may well be thrown out? The answer to me is obviously no. It's open. Pandora's box is opened. It's official. It's happened. The indictment, now the arraignment, the official charging, the fingerprinting, the arrest, it's happened. And there's no turning back now. There's no turning back. All we have left is the restraint of Republican prosecutors at the state and federal level. That's it. Because if they don't exercise

that restraint, and I'm not even sure, Charlie, how I feel about whether I want them to. These Democrats don't tend to learn lessons unless you punish them. Unless they exercise the kind of restraint Alvin Bragg refused to, it's all bets are off when it comes to the judicial harassment of one's political opponents. Yeah. I mean, we have had instances in our past in which a sitting president has used the law to imprison one of his rivals. Woodrow Wilson did this using the Espionage Act to Eugene Debs, who was a socialist candidate in the 1910s. But we look back, or at least I hope we do, on that incident with a great deal of regret. It's one of the arguments against the Espionage Act.

It's actually still on the books, but presumably would not be used quite in that way. The fact that we are back in this place is regrettable and it is worrying. And I'm in two minds on your point about retaliation, Megan. On the one hand, I'm with Alan Dershowitz, your previous guest. I hope that we don't enter into a cycle of retribution here. I hope this stops here. But it cannot be the case that this is now a factor in our politics that is only used in one direction. We've seen a great deal of that over the last 40 or 50 years, that only one party gets to use this law or that law or this tactic. And after a while, the other side rationally says, well, no way,

which was, of course, why Alvin Bragg shouldn't have done this in the first instance. A good example against my instinct, against Alan Dershowitz's instinct, would be the special counsel law, which was only repealed, I believe, once Republicans had used it against Democrats in the late 1990s. That did demonstrate to both sides that there were flaws in that approach to federal law enforcement and led to a bipartisan effort to get rid of it. But, you know, we don't want to live through that, even if that would be the right course, even if the only point at which this will become obvious to everyone involved in our politics is for some sort of retaliation.

We're not going to enjoy living through that. And I really wish we hadn't started this process. I remember when Trump first got elected, there was this Twitter account that I then followed that would document the norms he was breaching. Some of them actually were breached and some of them were made up. And you look at what these Democrats have done in terms of the norms, right? Trying to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate, trying to add extra states, right? Talking openly about packing the Supreme Court with extra justices and disobeying Supreme Court rulings that they choose not to follow because they find them upsetting. Merrick Garland sicking the DOJ on parents who showed up to object to COVID protocols

or critical race theory and then leaking it to the New York Times, leaking, you know, private details about criminal investigations and so on to the New York Times while trying to maintain

the moral high ground. These all these things that they that they've changed, all these norms that never should have been crossed, that have been crossed. And now this, and now this. And I just think, you know,

look at what happened on the judicial filibuster. They're talking about the Senate filibuster now. The Democrats want to get rid of the Senate filibuster. But look what happened on the, you know, with respect to legislation. Well, look what happened with judges. The Democrats got rid of it under Harry Reid for lower federal court judges.

And you remember Mitch McConnell standing up there and saying, you will rue the day you did this because you will not always be in charge of this chamber. And it was exactly the right warning. That's exactly right. And sure enough, when the Republicans took control, they got rid of it for Supreme Court. And that's how Mitch McConnell got three justices under President Trump on there. Like it's the only thing the Democrats understand. Now, it hasn't led them to stand down. It's gone even more escalatory toward, and we're not talking about getting rid of it on the Senate and legislation. But I don't see, what's the answer for Mitch McConnell to have sat back and said, okay, I'll be the one.

I'll be the adult in the room. You know, we're in kind of the same position right now. Well, you're speaking my language now, because as you said at the top of the segment, I'm not a fan of Donald Trump's and I've been as willing as anybody to call him out for his excesses and his breaking of norms. What drives me absolutely crazy, though, is the idea that if you do that, as I have, that you are supposed to remain blind to the many norm-breaking activities in which the Democratic Party and its intellectual adherents have engaged in as well. I mean, again, I agree with Alan Dershowitz here. The willingness to violate constitutional provisions and constitutional norms that we have seen as the direct result of Donald Trump having been legitimately elected president has been absolutely astounding. are supposed to be liberals, who call themselves liberals, arguing that, say, to plead the fifth is a sign of guilt, which they would not have been caught dead saying in, say,

1990. The number of federal institutions that I have seen targeted over the last five or six years, the Electoral College, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the filibuster is nothing short of astonishing. And even with this president, the current president of the United States, Joe Biden, it is not an excuse. It is not exculpatory to say, but Donald Trump, if the president of the United States, as he has, repeatedly ignores Congress. Last year, the President of the United States issued an executive order to forgive student loans without Congress. This was a flagrant violation of separation of powers, and I assume and I hope it will be upheld as such at the Supreme Court. But Donald Trump does not enter into it. The year before, President Biden was told by the Supreme Court that Congress had to manage any eviction moratorium. He did it anyway. This has been a pattern with him. So, yeah, we do not have a problem with just one party or just one person with norm breaking in this country.

And it's just bizarre to me that when this is pointed out, these violations are deemed somehow magically different. And not just norm breaking, law breaking, law breaking. You know, we could go back to Hillary Clinton. I did that briefly with Alan, but just you don't even have to go back that far. You know, take a look at the response to the BLM riots and the total pass that was given to those lawbreakers. In fact, cities like New York are now cutting those people checks to apologize for the law enforcement that did manage to take place during those riots. You know, you could go to sanctuary cities, complete, complete ignorance, the decision to ignore federal law on people who cross our border illegally and are found living in these cities. They just won't obey. They won't obey the law. They won't cooperate with federal law enforcement.

So no one's going to look at them as this party that actually deeply cares about upholding the law. The only reason they suddenly care about upholding the law is because there's a man named Donald Trump who right now is crushing the polls on his way toward becoming the Republican nominee for the second time. And there's a faction of the Democratic Party that believes if we indict him, he won't be able to do it. And there's a faction of the Democratic Party that believes if we indict him, it'll make him more likely to be the opponent to Joe Biden and we can beat him more easily. The motivations are not entirely the same. But as Alan Dershowitz says, there is one thing they're unified on and that is get Trump. Yeah, and I think it's important, the point you just made about lawbreaking and ignoring the law to this case. Alvin Bragg is quite famously the sort of prosecutor that lets all manner of crimes that I think most Americans would want to see harshly prosecuted go. Now, if we were talking here about someone who had come in and was an adherent of the broken windows

theory and said, all of the laws on the books will be enforced in all circumstances, I am going to go after alleged criminals. Nothing will be left alone. Fine. I would still think this case was extremely weak, but it would be comprehensible. Alvin Bragg is the opposite. You know, I mean, I joked the other day that ironically enough,

if Donald Trump had actually shot someone on Fifth Avenue, his famous line from 2015, Alvin Bragg probably wouldn't have indicted him. Alvin Bragg does not seem particularly bothered by violent crime. He does not seem particularly bothered by serious crime. And yet he's brought this case, a case that was rejected by his predecessor, a case that is so weak that I've been reading about its weakness in the New York Times and listening to people talk about its weakness on NPR. And I think that does breed and should breed a certain contempt towards the law and towards the way that figures such as Alvin Bragg see it, which is as a means to single out certain people

and make their lives pretty difficult. Alvin Bragg ran for his current position, promising to get Donald Trump. He didn't say for what. That is a Soviet mentality. Again, if there is a strong case against Donald Trump in any state or the federal level, in any circumstance, so be it. I hold no brief for him.

You said he's likely to be the next Republican nominee. I sincerely hope not. If anything, my incentives run the other way. I should not be on your show defending Trump from Alvin Bragg. I should be here saying, yeah, look, the guy's a criminal, drop him. But I don't want to live in a country that hews to Lavrenti-Barrier's line, you show me the man and I'll show you the crime. I want to live in a country that is truly neutral on this question. And what Alvin Bragg has done here is not neutral.

The stats, we pulled them yesterday. Alvin Bragg has downgraded 52% of the felonies in New York City to misdemeanors. 52% he's downgraded from felonies to misdemeanors. In this case, he's taken an alleged misdemeanor and upgraded it to a felony of the felonies. He did choose to try to prosecute. He only won convictions in 51% of the cases, 49% of the cases he failed to win a conviction. And by the way, a conviction is also considered one when you enter into a plea. So you don't actually have to win in front of a jury. You just have to get a plea deal. He was unable to do that in 49% of the cases brought. It's because this guy doesn't put any elbow grease into it. His heart is not in

prosecuting crime unless again, your name is Donald Trump. Now, Jack Smith, the special prosecutor, he's looking into Trump in Washington, DC. If he decides to bring charges on Mar-a-Lago, that's going to go before a DC jury. Guess how that's likely to go. I mean, it's, I just think that even Trump's critics are going to understand there's something really fundamentally unfair about what's being done to him. I think Charles, it's why they now the Trump campaign is now saying they've raised $8 million since charges were announced on Thursday, since they said they had an indictment, $8 million. And they're having people, brand new donors, huge portion, I think 25% of those are from brand new donors who have never donated to Trump before. He's been in politics now,

how many years officially since 15 when he declared that this is stirring up sentiment, even from people who aren't naturally inclined to support this guy. Yeah, and that case bothers me as well, just because it seems that the enforcement of that law is selective. And I would counsel people against saying Donald Trump has been targeted by Alvin Bragg, therefore he should be the nominee. I mean, as a human being i do understand the screw you instinct but what trump did in this case although it's not criminal it's

still morally reprehensible and i think he denies it we should say that for the record well he denies it but he also paid her off and if uh you had said to any Republican in the late 1990s, you more or less likely to vote for the guy who slept with a porn star while his wife was at home with their child, I think they would have said less. And I think they would have been right to say yes. So I think there's a logical jump to therefore we should have Trump, but people should be outraged by this decision, certainly. I want to talk to you about the politics of it because the shift is noticeable. The ground is shifting beneath our feet by the second. And actually, Trump is also moving by the second. He's on his way right now. We're an hour away from the arraignment and he should be departing

for the courthouse within moments. We'll bring it to you and we'll talk about the politics with Charlie and we're going to take a stab at some of the media reaction, which has just been absurd. The coverage of the past 24 hours. We'll go there next as Charlie stays with us and then Rick Grinnell up in just a bit. It's now one o'clock Eastern time at the time we are doing this show live. It'll be recorded. It'll be released later as a podcast. Trump is getting ready to leave Trump Tower and to head downtown to the New York State Supreme Courthouse where he will be arrested. We are told he will be fingerprinted. We were told by Michael Isikoff and reporting for yahoo that he

will not have to do a mugshot there are reports that that actually is standard in a case like this in which he doesn't actually have to turn himself in um so not sure if that's special treatment in the way you might you might consider it uh we are also we were already told that he's not going to be handcuffed of course this has all been arranged between the secret service and local authorities. And there's no reason to handcuff Trump. It would be actually dangerous for Trump to front. That's standard, just in case. And he'll get into a motorcade and head south. The traffic tower traffic all around. It's right smack dab in the state Supreme Charles. And, um, I practiced there many times for many years while I was a New York lawyer and they have chiseled in the marble above the columns, the following it's actually sort of a messed up, but it's an attempt to quote George Washington. Uh, and it reads the true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government. The actual George Washington quote was the due administration of justice. So they'll walk in and we'll see whether this is the true administration of justice, whether this really is a case that Alvin Bra himself, whether Trump can get a fair trial in front of a Manhattan, not just New York City, that's five boroughs. This is the borough of Manhattan, which went 87% for Joe Biden, whether he can get a trial in Munster in front of a jury of his peers,

and whether the judge and the jurors ultimately who will sit for this case, if asked, can put aside partisan politics and the enormous pressures that come when you have anything to do with Donald Trump, when you come into his orbit at all to actually do the true administration of justice, or whether that firmest pillar of good government has already taken a serious ding, thanks to Alvin Bragg and is headed for many more. Can we spend a minute on media? They're back at it. They're back at it. It's Trump wall to wall on CNN, on MS and elsewhere. And I get it. This is a big story. So, you know, to some extent I'll give him a pass, but even last week, you know, they'd started it.

They see an opportunity to grow their failing ratings, CNN in particular. And we've put together just a slate, just a short montage, giving you a flavor of how the coverage went yesterday as he got in his plane and traveled. Watch. I think that looks like the president's plane. We are seeing former President Trump's plane land here. We see the Trump plane taxiing now. There he is. There he is.

He looked like such a solitary, somber figure there. What does that tell you, that body language? Much more resigned. As we watch Donald Trump's limo drive on the FDR. This is actually the street where we expect the former president to drive. He will go in through that door. Once he enters those doors, Jake, he is under arrest. They really did try to turn it into the OJ Simpson, white Bronco. We've got him. They hired a boat to sit on the Hudson, or maybe it was the East River, to try to get a picture, and they did, of his plane.

It's beyond. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a couple of things going on there, Megan. The first one is that the press understands and has always understood that Trump is ratings gold. And I think this is one reason why many of us just don't believe that they think of Donald Trump what they say they think of Donald Trump. Because if you really, truly believed that he was a threat to the foundation of the republic from which it could never recover, you would not do what the press has done right from the moment he came down that escalator, which is to obsessively cover every single thing that he does to the point at which they were in 2015 and 16 covering sometimes for up to an hour an empty podium. Yep.

The second thing here is that the media is hugely biased there's no point pretending otherwise all of the surveys confirm this all of the donation and contribution reports that are put out by the fec confirm this it is located in urban areas. And it is, by and large, full of people who have wanted to see this for a long time. Again, there is nothing per se wrong with a president or prospective president being indicted. It is not in and of itself the sign of a banana republic. But there are many people in the press, as there are many people in the Democratic Party, whose view is that the United States or one of the states or cities within it has to get Trump on something and it doesn't particularly matter what it is. There was a freestanding, free-floating desire to see the guy booked, to see him arrested, to see him in handcuffs,

to see him in an orange jumpsuit. And most of that's not going to happen, literally. But figuratively, it is now. And these people are very excited about it, because they've wanted it for years. And they've wanted it independently of the details. They wanted it long before they knew about this case. They wanted it long before Trump did what he did after the 2020 election, which was a profound disgrace for which he should have been impeached. They wanted it 10 minutes after he first sat down in the Oval Office. The first two years, we sometimes forget this with all that's happened since, but the first two years of Trump's tenure were marked

by this fantasy that he had colluded with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election, that this would be discovered, and that he would end up in Alcatraz. And finally, albeit on the flimsiest and most dangerous of pretexts, it's happening. At least it's happening in part. And the press cannot contain itself. And they are, if not likely, they are at risk. And I say that sardonically of making him the Republican nominee once again as a result. Yes. I want to get to that. It occurred to me watching the press just salivating over this, that they are as out of touch with the mood of most Americans as Bud Light is with the desires of its customer base. This is ridiculous. Dylan Mulvaney cans being released.

I think the ABC News poll showed 60% of Americans are not in favor of this indictment. All those who are, are Democrats, hard partisans, and the few Republicans who consider themselves never. Sorry to interrupt you. Can I just add something that was fascinating about that poll was 60% of Americans were against this, but 72% of Americans thought that it was nakedly political, which tells you that there are some Americans who are in favor of this, who think it's nakedly political. And that's the problem, isn't it? Yeah, they're all about getting Trump. It's the theme of the show.

So let's talk about what they're doing. There was a very interesting article in Politico today in which it was sort of a warning, I thought, to Democrats, to media that's getting drunk again on the Trump wine. It tastes so good. The numbers are going back up. CNN was in the basement. I mean, it still is on its ratings.

And here's their savior. He's back. So Politico, a couple of quotes I wrote down, writes of an uneasy deja vu has set in. We've seen this story before, quoting some top Democrats, that the Democrats believe Donald Trump will win the nomination and that he's the easiest to beat. So, yay. However, they go on to point out he did win more votes in 2020 than he won in 2016. Joe Biden is about to turn 82 years old. Kamala Harris is extremely unpopular. And then a quote in there, I think it was speaking of Never Trumpers, a guy from the Lincoln Project, Rick, what's his name? Klein? What's Rick's last name? The guy in the Lincoln

Project, in any event. Wilson. Wilson, thank you. The media is covering Donald Trump wall to wall. The Democrats are overconfident. Trump's opponents are struggling with how to handle him in their messaging. I think all three of those are fair points, Charlie, and we're walking down a path that feels very familiar if you lived through this in 2015-16. Yes, I agree. And I'll say it again. If you truly believe that Donald Trump were a threat to the republic, then you wouldn't behave like this. And you certainly wouldn't hope that he would be the nominee. We have a two-party system. And that means that anyone who manages to secure the

nomination of one of those two major parties has a reasonable chance of being president of the United States. I don't want the Republican Party to choose Donald Trump. I don't want them to choose him because I think he'll lose, but mostly I don't want them to choose him because of his conduct while he was in office, while he's been out of office, his lies about the election, and so on. I don't need to go through it all for your listeners. They're probably familiar with what I think. I think to bet on the idea that Donald Trump won more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. Also, we may have a recession next year. When Joe Biden won in 2020, it was in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic. His opponent was erratic to the point at which Biden could benefit

from being seen to be quiet, really hiding throughout the election. That dynamic might not play out the same next year if that is the matchup. Donald Trump is nothing if not energetic. Joe Biden is going to be under more scrutiny from the electorate. There won't be the excuse of COVID to keep him in his basement. He will seem old and frail. Kamala Harris will continue to be unpopular. And the problems with the country will not be blameable on the incumbent President Donald Trump, but on the incumbent President Joe Biden, who will still be presiding over high inflation, inflation that under his leadership has reached a 40 year high, will still be presiding over high gas prices, may well be presiding over a recession. You don't want to roll that dice if you're an anti-Trump fan. And what do I see the press doing? I see them rolling that dice once again. They can't help themselves. They're mercenary, really,

at the end of the day. And they understand that putting him on TV leads to ratings, whether it's the empty podium, the plane flying over the river. And how about the absurd comment by Gloria Borger? He looks somber. He looks like a damn ant figure. You can't see anything about him. Imputing motive and mood onto the guy. Like, what are you saying? It's just her weird projection, I guess, of what she'd like to see or what she's feeling herself. I have no idea. But it takes me back exactly to the irresponsible coverage that the press did in the 2016 race. And the thing is, I've been thinking about this, because we recently had on Rick Leventhal, my old pal from Fox News. You remember Rick? And a great reporter. And he is the one, Charlie, who was there when Hillary Clinton stumbled at the 9-11 memorial right before the 2016 election. She was there and he was there. And, or he got a,

he got a text from a good cop source who said she almost fell like out of her shoes into a car. And then we wound up seeing that video and it really did hamper her electoral chances. People were very concerned about what we were seeing because there'd been questions about her health already. Joe Biden's 82. All it's going to take is one of those. One. He's already walking slower. He's mumbling all the time. He's confusing words and sentences and ideas all the time. Can't keep legislation straight. Thinks the dead person is alive and thinks the alive people are dead. I mean, he's made mistakes in both directions. And so it really is very precarious. I do think Kamala Harris as the potential next president will motivate even Trump's detractors to pull the lever for him. And she is loathed in a particular way. I don't have to tell you that. So, you know,

these Democrats who are like, elevate Trump, let's do what we can to get Trump. You know, be careful what you wish for. Yeah, I don't want to overstate the case because I do think the Democrats, unfortunately, have a pretty good shot in 2024. But Joe Biden and Kamala Harris really have the worst of both worlds in one sense. There was a poll I saw a week ago that showed that Joe Biden's approval rating had dropped seven points since the Silicon Valley bank collapse. And what that told me was that what has sometimes been one of Joe Biden's strengths, that is that he's milquetoast, that he doesn't inspire great anger or joy in people, is also a weakness in that he is a hostage to fortune. People are, by and large, apparently willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, to see him as an unthreatening caretaker,

providing things are okay. And so when it started to look as if inflation was going down a little bit and employment was steady, then his approval rating jumped up to 43, 44, 45 percent. But then we had a bank run and it went down to 37. Well, the problem with that, if you're that sort of candidate, is there's not much you can do about it. And your personal attributes can only make it worse. So again, if we have a recession next year, and the economy doesn't look great, and Joe Biden looks old, or maybe and look, I hope to God this doesn't happen. But maybe falls off a stage in the way that Bob Dole famously did in 1996. Those numbers are going to drop through the floor, because there's no real Joe Biden movement in politics. Barack Obama had a movement. Donald Trump had a movement. Joe Biden does not.

Which brings us to Kamala Harris. Suppose that Biden doesn't run for whatever reason. Perhaps he gets sick. Perhaps something happens to him. Perhaps he just decides that it's all too much. She inspires people in a way that Trump does. She inspires people to vote against in a way that Trump does and that Barack Obama did. And that's not going to be great for the incumbent party either. So we're not looking here at the sort of election that we had in 2012, where whatever Mitt Romney's advantages or disadvantages, he was running against an extremely talented person who had a following and had his own movement that would sustain him, even if the economy wasn't great, or bad things happened in the world. Biden doesn't have that. And I just find it incredible, the confidence with which Democrats, not making this up myself, I think it was in the New York Times today, Nate Silver pointed it out on Twitter.

Democrats are starting to say, we want this guy because we can beat him definitely. Well, don't count your chickens. Be careful what you wish for again. And that's, here we are April 4th. By the way, it's Abby's birthday. Happy birthday, Abs. I got you a Trump indictment and also huge leaps for him in the polls. So whichever way you're going, It's April 4th. He hasn't done it. And there's some speculation beginning that maybe they're trying to run out the clock so that if by chance he's decided not to do it, it'll make it too late in the Democratic Party to sub in anyone other than the sitting Vice President Kamala Harris. So all of it's very interesting. I do want to ask you about polls.

Good gracious, the polls. They're fascinating. As you know, I was with you at the National Review Ideas Summit last Thursday in Washington. It was great to see you in person. And our pal, Michael Brendan Doherty interviewed me on stage. It was super fun. I loved seeing the whole gang. I only ever see you guys over Zoom. So I enjoyed the whole thing. And we talked, this is hours before we would find out that the grand jury had indicted Trump. We talked about Trump, his electoral fortune and so on. And I said the following, and I'm setting myself up now because we do have real data coming in. But here's what I said.

If I were Trump, I'd be on my little altar every night praying that Alvin Bragg indicts me. Please, please, Lord, let Alvin Bragg convince that grand jury. So he should beg because he does well when he's being persecuted and he gets out there as like the strong man saying, I'm going to take everybody on. And if I were DeSantis, I'd be praying for the opposite, that they leave him alone. So then there was never to say it'd be good for the country, but that it would be good for Trump politically. Well, now here we are just a few days later and we have real data, polls taken after the announcement of the indictment.

And my God, right now, it's a bloodbath, Trump over DeSantis. And I know you like DeSantis a lot and you live in Florida and you're not a Trump supporter, so I want to get your take on it. Trafalgar, Trump over DeSantis by 33 points. March 22nd to 25th, it was Trump over DeSantis by 14. All right, now it's 33. YouGov, Trump over DeSantis by 31 points. In February,

he had just a 10 point advantage. McLaughlin, Trump over DeSantis by 30 points. In February, it was 16. Trump over DeSantis right now in New Hampshire by 13. Trump over DeSantis right now in Massachusetts by 24. Some poll named Fabrizio, which I never heard before, 538 rates at B slash C level poll. Trump over DeSantis by 30, I could keep going. So not only are they huge leads, but they're essentially more than double what Trump had over DeSantis within the past few weeks. There's no question the indictment was a political gift to Trump. And my thought, my question for you is, is it recoverable, right? Can Trump play the persecuted victim from now through November 24? Or can DeSantis recover? And well, let me start with that. Start with that. Well, I think there's two ways of looking at this. And I'm obviously not quite sure which one is true. And those are as follows. The first way of looking at it are that this is going to be 2015-16 all over again, and we'll write about it and analyze it and shout about it. But in the end, Trump will just run through like a steamroller and win a plurality of the vote and become the nominee. And what we have seen in the last few days is at it is that we're seeing the fluctuations that you would expect in a very early primary cycle where people have different levels of name recognition

and are being celebrated or vilified for what's going on in the news i mean ron dos santos is the governor of florida he has not announced yet I think it's almost inevitable that he will, but he hasn't announced yet. He doesn't have 100% name recognition. So what has changed over the last six months? What has pushed Trump up in the polls before the indictment that came down last Thursday? If you go back to November, Donald Trump was being, I think, reasonably blamed for some of the losses that Republicans had suffered in the Senate, while Ron DeSantis was, again, reasonably being praised for having won what was until about 10 minutes ago a swing state by 20 points. And you saw some pretty good polls for DeSantis, especially as an undeclared candidate. Over time, both the blame that Trump had absorbed and the celebration that DeSantis had engendered started to diminish a little bit, and Trump started to recover. And now he is the main story in the news. Trump is the main

story in the news again. And so you're seeing people back that way. What will be important is whether or not that changes once DeSantis gets into the race. If DeSantis gets into the race and nothing happens, and Trump just sticks with 10, 15, 20 point leads across the country, then I think Trump's going to win the nomination. But if DeSantis gets in, is on an equal footing, is standing next to Trump at debates, is actually going after Trump for his shortcomings and making the case for himself as a candidate, and you see movement in the polls, well, that will be encouraging. I know this is wishy-washy on the one hand, on the other hand, sort of answer, but I genuinely don't know. I can make a case for both of these. I obviously have my preference. I don't want to get sucked into

motivated reasoning. You know, I would say on the other hand, the less pro-Trump argument is that DeSantis has done pretty well for somebody who has not declared. He's done a lot better than any other candidate was doing at this time in 2015-16. He's sort of the second front runner, if you will. It's tough to know. I personally just find it completely bizarre, the idea that people would say, because this candidate has been indicted, I'm therefore more likely to support him. I think that is just as much of a non sequitur as to say, because I don't think this is a strong case, you know, I'm going to oppose him. It's just that the two sections aren't linked.

But you're right. That's what we're seeing. I think it reflects anger. The other point I was going to raise, but I'll save it for Rick Grinnell who's up next, is how long can DeSantis wait? Because $8 million over four days is a lot. And if Trump's doubling his already substantial lead over Ron DeSantis in these state after state and on a national basis, and the funds are pouring in, and that's only on one indictment we could have three um it does make me wonder whether desantis needs to change his

timing you know move it up do something to stop the bleeding um i'm sure he'll have a lot of money in his coffers as well i don't know i'll give you a quick thought on that before i toss to rick well i don't think thatSantis is going to want for money. I mean, I saw a reasonable estimate recently that said he may have $300 million. The question is whether it matters. One of the things that Trump has been good at historically is winning without spending as much money as his opponents. And it was true in 2015, 16, all the money was with Jeb Bush. It was true in the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton massively outspent Donald Trump and he still won. So if he's going to win exited Trump Tower. We're told that we should expect him to make some brief remarks

after he exits the courthouse following the arraignment. He is at the courthouse now. And then we know tonight he'll be speaking at Mar-a-Lago more at length. And that'll be very fascinating to listen to. We'll have that covered for you tomorrow.

Charles, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Rick Grinnell is up next. He will be at Mar-a-Lago tonight for Trump's speech and has a lot of thoughts on what we are seeing on this day. Joining me now, Rick Grinnell, a close confidant of President Trump. Rick served as acting director of national intelligence and U.S. Ambassador to Germany in the Trump administration. He's currently in Florida at Mar-a-Lago, where he will be in attendance at Trump's Mar-a-Lago event tonight as well. Rick, great to have you. Let me get your reaction as we await the actual

release of the indictment. We have some idea of what to expect, and we certainly have some idea of how things are likely to go in New York State Supreme for any Republican, never mind one named Donald Trump. Your thoughts on this day? Well, look, Megan, I'm not a lawyer. I'm just an everyday American. And I'm watching what's happening to our country. I have to say, you know, I have a lot of friends who are first and second generation Americans. I love hanging out with older people who've got wisdom. It's kind of my personality. I love to hear stories from immigrants who love America and who talk about America. And I think if you talk to these groups, older Americans and first and second generation

Americans, they're like the canaries in the coal mine for the rest of us. And they are screaming loudly that this is un-American what's happening. You can't have the ruling party go after the guy who's running against them. We've watched this in other countries for years. I've worked at the State Department for 12 years. I know you know that. And I have become an expert at calling out dictators and others who try to manipulate the powers of government to go after their political opponents. There's one difference that's really bothering me. Because in other countries, there is usually a pack of media surrounding the dictator, who literally just say whatever the dictator wants. And they have cozy relationships with the dictators, they get big dinner party invites. They probably get money and contracts in other countries. But we've always been the United States of America, where we don't have a media that allows this type of situation to happen. I believe that the reason

why the Democrats are way overreaching, why the Democratic Party under Joe Biden is going after their political enemy and trying to arrest him, the leader of the opposition, the overwhelming leader of the opposition. The reason why they're getting away with this is because we've got all the newsrooms in Washington, D.C. that are fanning the flames. They're not stopping this. They're cheerleading it. And that is a low point. I'll just finish with this, Megan. Many great civilizations have lasted roughly 250 years. They've all imploded from within. I fear what's happening to our country. I think if you're listening to this broadcast, if you are someone who is interested in foreign affairs, but you're not an activist,

you got to stop voting for these Democrats. They're totally woke left. And it doesn't matter who is in charge. It could be future President Ron DeSantis, future President Nikki Haley, future President Ted Cruz. They will all be indicted. They will all have their homes raided by this type of fascism that we're seeing in the Democratic Party. It's not your father's Democratic Party. We've already seen the articles saying Ron DeSantis is even worse than Trump. And these attempts to smear him as, you know, a pedophile because he taught English. I don't think they will do to DeSantis. This is what Trump said in one of his true socials when DeSantis said, you know, I don't know anything about paying off a porn star. And Trump was quick to respond like, it's because we don't let intelligence officials, you know, bank here.

I said, I'm a former intelligence official. I'm no longer with the government. And they came up with some other excuses. And I really put them in a corner when I said, is it because I'm a Trump supporter or because I'm gay? Which one is it that you're really coming after me for? And of course, then I had, you know, the leader of the banking department call me the manager and is a reckless, out of control power base, whether it's government, the media, the big fortune 100 companies, our universities. If you want to be counterculture, you got to be a conservative these days. You got to go up against the big man.

You got to be fighting for the people. You got to be a conservative. And that's why that place in Washington, D.C., that keeps growing every time you go there, there's a there's a new huge crane building, another big building. And the deficit is another trillion dollars. That's why that place is out of control. We got to stop voting for these people and stop rejecting that power base in Washington, D.C., because it's ruining our country. I just got this from my team, Rick. Trump just truth socialed out.

Heading to lower Manhattan, the courthouse seems so surreal. Wow. They are going to arrest me. Can't believe this is happening in America. Make America great again. I read this and I feel sad. I feel sad for our country. I sat there at that presidential debate in August of 15, and I threw A-plus level questions at Trump and the others because that's my job as a member of the media.

Trump didn't like some of them. Some of the others didn't like some of them. But that's how you raise contentious issues with candidates and let them show the country whether they're up to the job. Then the people decide. That's our process. This, what's happening to him by people who are angry about his popularity with Americans right now, angry that he was elected in the first place, is un-American. We really have crossed an ethical, legal, historical, foundational line that is a before and after moment for America, Rick.

It's a red alert. It is a red alert for this country. And I am saddened to think about what has now happened. This is a Pandora's box. We will never, ever be able to go back. I fear what future conservative Republicans are going to do to get back at them. I fear that. I think that we're in this situation where we're delving to the bottom. Where are the Democrat thoughtful leaders? Why are they not stopping this? Why are they not rising up? They are literally afraid of the ruling party. And let's be honest, Joe Biden is that figurehead. He's like the puppet. But the people behind him that are doing this are the comfortable ones, are the ones who are not getting media scrutiny, who have big jobs, big power. They made a lot of money after Obama's. You know, they went on Netflix boards and media boards and made millions and

millions of dollars. Now they're behind the scenes and they're crafting all of this stuff. This is un-American. And I just say, you know, for all these people who want to say, oh, I don't like the mean tweets, you're going to lose your country if you do not realize what's happening. And that's why I've been very upfront and I've been candid about saying that I think Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis and others should immediately drop out. They should recognize what's happening in our country. This is not a normal situation. And by the way, I say that I think Ron DeSantis has done a good job as governor, but it's the governor of Florida. He's not been in Washington, D.C. I did not agree with him when he said, well, I haven't had any leaks in Tallahassee. So that means the bureaucracy really is going to like me. That's naive. When you go to Washington, D.C., it's a different game. I'm just not so sure that he's ready yet. He needs more time. And, you know, the other thing, I like Charles Cook. I was listening beforehand. I like him. I respect him a lot. But I haven't seen him out on the campaign trail in all of these swing states listening to voters. And if there's one thing that Rick Riddell knows, it's the swing state voters.

I've been all over constantly paying my own way to go and listen and go to all these rallies and help our candidates on the right. And I have to say that there is no question in my mind, Donald Trump is the nominee. You just have to talk to regular voters. You don't have to talk to blue mark blue check marks on Twitter. That's a whole different conversation. But the people who are showing up and calling in every single county across this country, the activists, there is no possible way they are going for anyone other than Donald Trump. He's won this nomination. I said to the National Review crowd last week, Rick, I said, don't let, because this is, they're more DeSantis backing, as you know, they're not big Trump fans over at NR. And I said, you guys should not let the fact that you are done

with Trump blind you to the reality that the country may not be. You know, you have to keep an open mind. We're in the midst of a presidential race. And yes, DeSantis hasn't declared. We all know he's likely to. So, I mean, of course, he has to be factored in. But I'm not sure that I'm not sure. Yeah, you think you might not. I. I think that he's never made that decision yet to do it. I think there are a lot of people making a lot of money on the super PACs and, you know, how that whole crowd, the political crowd loves to make money off candidates. So there's no question that all of that is happening.

I'm not sure that he's running. I never have been sure that he was running. I think now when you look at the polling, you know, Trump is surging. The money is surging. He's under some scrutiny and attacks. I got to believe that the few people around him that are making the political decision are looking at it and saying, oh, I'm not sure we may ruin ourselves with the MAGA crowd, even for 2028. Maybe this isn't your... Well, that's an interesting thought because I have heard that DeSantis' plan right now is to focus on winning over Cora Maga. He knows he's got the NRs of the world. He knows he's got the more establishment Republicans rooting for him. The Lincoln Project, they are not gettable by anybody affiliated with MAGA. So he's focused, I'm told, on trying to win hardcore MAGA voters over to him. And there is a real question about whether they're gettable, whether the best way of doing that is just to wait, just wait

until Trump's not in the way and MAGA's not mad at you for interfering with his chances and so on. Before we spend more time on DeSantis and Trump, let me take you back to something you said about the Democrats, their response to all of you say, where are the party leaders? Where are the people to stand up and say, this is wrong. I mean, we're going after maybe a misdemeanor on book keeping that they're trying to create into a felony based on an underlying alleged campaign violation that even the feds didn't charge. And in which there was also no victim, no victim at either level. What are we doing for that? We crossed the Rubicon. What? So where are the Democrats? And their response so far has been no one's above the law. No one's above the law.

No one is above the law. What do you make of that as a longtime guy who understands Washington better than most? They created sanctuary cities. They're going to tell us no one is above the law. They created entire cities where you get protection for breaking federal law. I mean, come on, we were born at night, but not last night. This is ridiculous. For any Democrat to say no one is above the law is a joke. We all know that they have protected people who surge across the borders. I mean, there's there's countless examples of people who are absolutely above the law.

I wish that no one was above the law. But let's go back and look at what they've done. They've tried to impeach Donald Trump. They told us for four years, just get his taxes. You get his taxes. You'll prove he's not a billionaire. You're going to embarrass him. You're also going to see he didn't pay his taxes. That story went away in six hours. As soon as they got his taxes, it dropped so fast. So all I'm saying is, is that this is all politics. And I get it. I'm a big boy. I get politics. But we should have a media that calls out this phoniness, that calls out these fake arguments. And the reason why the Democrats keep

making things worse, the reason why they keep going for even crazier ideas is because they are not being stopped by the media. There's no check. There's no nobody who's pushing back. And again, I know a lot of these reporters. I have a lot of friends who are Democrats. They'll privately say to me, oh, gosh, this is not good. We're going to really ignite the Trump people. And also, I think independence, it's no longer just about the base. I live in California. I live in Los Angeles, California, where there are a lot of soccer moms who always vote for Democrats that are my friends. And something has happened with them. Their kids are literally having to call people different genders in school. They're watching as some of their I have a situation where I live in Manhattan Beach, where a young girl is literally contemplating having her breasts removed. Now, I think that her parents should be arrested.

I think anybody who is allowing a minor, someone who's under 18, who, by the way, has to have a card to go to an R-rated movie. But we're going to give them hormone blockers and we're going to let them change their body like that when they can't even get a tattoo. But now they're going to have their breasts removed. I mean, all of this is mounting. Common sense has evaporated. And that is because the Democratic Party is allowed to go crazier and crazier by the media. And I think that it's a tipping point. I think a lot of independents are watching this and saying, I didn't like the mean tweets, but gosh, he had a lot of common sense and the world was better. And my 401k was better and we wouldn't have had these wars.

Quick point on above the law. And then I want to ask you about what's happening in Trump fundraising and donors and some of the jason miller information he put out uh there was a great piece on national review dan mclachlan authored it and it reads when a democratic president was above the law he goes into what happened during bill clinton's impeachment and points out that these same senators and lawmakers who are now saying we're a country of laws no one's above the law dick durbin and chuck schumer and others um were are all the same people who back when bill clinton lied under oath in connection with that whole monica lewinsky scandal um defended him there was no question he lied under oath and they were told these same people were saying he should not

be prosecuted he should not be impeached they, every single one of the Democrats in the Senate voted for acquittal on all charges. So when it was their guy on the line, they saw above the law very differently. They said, oh, it's just about sex. It's just about sex. Well, hello, Stormy Daniels. By the way, I did look up some of the Stormy Daniels star of Happy Endings and Summer Hummer. That, too, has its roots in sex but we're hearing a very different message um okay let's talk about fundraising because it sounds like this has been a

boon to trump 2024 jason miller says they've raised another 1.1 million just today eight million since the indictment and counting and then points out um over% of the donations, this is an Axios, over 25% of the donations came from first time donors. Quote, this is to Jason, there's a whole new group of Trump supporters who are angered by what they see as a political persecution. The campaign tells Axios 16,000 plus volunteers signed up on his website in just 24 hours. So talk to us about what you're seeing in Trump land in terms of new, new enthusiasm, new MAGA volunteers and so on. Look, what we're seeing is that that people are outraged at losing their country and having the ruling party do these things to the opposition leader. And so you've got a lot of first and second generation

Americans who are getting off the sidelines. I think you've got a lot of just normal working people who have seen the death of common sense from the left. And they're realizing that it doesn't matter who's president from or who's the nominee from the right. They see the debanking issues. They see the cancel culture. They see what's happening to their right. They see the debanking issues. They see the cancel culture. They see what's happening to their kids. They see what's happening to our schools. They know that the death of common sense is real. And so they decided that that guy who is trying to change Washington and who is literally the enemy of Washington, D.C., they think he's the one to do it. They see him fighting, getting every accusation and still standing and not backing down. They see the

support rising. And so we see a lot of first time involvement. You know him. You've been with him. You've talked to him. You're going to be there tonight. Is he, quote, somber as the psychoanalysts over at CNN gleaned from his two steps they watched him take? What's his mood? And what do you think we're going to hear from President Trump tonight? Well, I just talked to him a couple of days ago, and I think what is really clear is that he sees what is at stake. And what he said to me is that this is not about me. This is about who they're coming for. And he's just in at stake. And what he said to me is that this is not about me. This is about who they're coming for. And he's just in the way.

And I know that is a statement that he's made publicly, but he believes it. And he sees that he is the guy that they're coming after, but that he represents a whole bunch of other people. I think the onus is now going to be on us here at the Trump campaign to be able to articulate what that means. What are we fighting for? What's at stake? And I do believe that this indictment has fundamentally shifted not only America, but even what we are going to see and say on the Trump campaign. And so the onus is on us. We've got to make sure that we keep all of these new voters focused on what's at stake and what the issues are. And so time will tell. I'm confident, though, that President Trump sees this for what

it is. And all of those around him realize that this is not just about Donald Trump. We're in a huge moment. We are three years away from that 250 year mark and prayers for America are very much in order. Rick Grinnell, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Good to see you. All the best. Here we are, 1.51 Eastern time. Trump will be formally arrested and arranged shortly. The former president of the United States, the leading candidate right now to take on the sitting president of the United States in the next presidential election. We are likely to see, we will see, the exact charges against him in that 34-count indictment and learn much more about where

Alvin Bragg plans to go with this. And then we will learn about Trump's response, expected to make some remarks after the proceeding. And then, of course, tonight, a more robust response from Mar-a-Lago, where he will return to, to which he will return after the indictment and the arraignment conclude. We will have full coverage of all of this for you tomorrow. As always, thank you for trusting us on these big days. We greatly appreciate it. And we'll pick it for you tomorrow. As always, thank you for trusting us on these big days. We greatly appreciate it. And we'll pick it up again tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

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