The MeidasTouch Podcast - Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner on Protecting his City from Trump

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on blue cities and states fighting back against the Trump administration and Meiselas interviews the no nonsense fighter for democracy Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner who said all options are on the table when fighting back against the unlawful conduct of the Trump administration. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The question now is, which city is Donald Trump going to send his military to invade next? Is it going to be Chicago? Is it going to be Philadelphia? We're just a year ago. Donald Trump was getting booed while selling golden sneakers. Remember that? Here, play this clip. Oh, a lot of emotion.

There's a lot of emotion in this room. Thank you. Thank you. So the really nice thing is we have lines, and I want to thank Jay. and I want to thank Alan, but we are selling golden sneakers in Philadelphia a year ago and now threatening to send the military to invade Philadelphia. Earlier on Monday, Donald Trump was asked if he's planning on sending the military to invade cities without the approval of the governors of the states where those cities are. Here's what he said. Let's play it.

Prepare to order national guard troops, though, into American cities if those governors don't request the federal deployment? I am, but I also think that, Look, Chicago, everybody knows how bad it is. Everybody's standing there, knows. We know you don't have to be doing any studies. They should be saying, please. Please, please invade me. You should be saying, that's just what, that's how an abuser sounds right there.

Then you have Maga Republican Congress member James Comer, who is a wing of this authoritarian movement. And he said, yep, we're coming to Philly next. We're coming to New York City. We're coming to Chicago. How about the red states and the red cities actually? where the violent crime is significantly higher, but do tell James Comer, play this clip. We're going to support this. We're going to support doing this in other cities if it works out in Washington, D.C. And again, it's unfortunate, but we spend a lot on our military. Our military has

been in many countries around the world for the past two decades, walking the street, trying to reduce crime in other countries. We need to focus on the big cities in America now, and that's what the president's doing. That worked in Washington. D.C. Why don't you vote to allow President Trump to come into Chicago or New York City or Philadelphia and try to combat the criminal activity in their city? So I think that this is an experiment that's probably needed in a lot of the Democrat-run cities in America. An experiment, just an experiment, it's called fascism, saying our military was sent to other countries like Fallujah. Well, in Fallujah, now let's send them right here into the United

United States. Then Pete Hegson spoke earlier today where Pete Hegson said, the morale of the troops is great. They love invading American cities. They just, they just love it. Here's what Hegson said here, play this clip. Defending the nation's castle and ensuring it is safe and beautiful and working with law enforcement. And Mr. President, let me tell you, the morale of the troops getting out there talking to them. They love this mission. They're grateful to be doing it, whether they're D.C. National Guard or other state national guards. And at your direction as well, sir, it's just common sense to make sure they're armed as well. And so they were rolling out, shooting their armed, capable of defending

themselves and others if need be, supporting law enforcement, and we're proud to be there, sir. Well, look at the mission you just accomplished. Look at the mission you've just accomplished. You've sent the troops into the American cities. And meanwhile, take a look at a city like Philadelphia, you've got the Trump regime trying to take away as much money from the city as possible. When the city's doing well, the city's thriving, the city's trying to build out parks and museums. And the Trump regime is like, nope, military, that's what we're going to do. Ice disappearing people here. Play this clip as Congressmember Brandon Boyle is quoted here talking about what went down.

Here, play this clip. President Donald Trump has rescinded $150 million in construction funds for the Chinatown Stitch. Philadelphia's Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems acknowledging the loss of funds as they presented the plan for the first time at the city's Art Commission meeting this week. It's definitely a step back to the project. but we want to stay positive. Officials say even with the loss of federal funds, the Chinatown Stitch Project is not dead.

City officials presented an updated plan this week. It's a beautiful park. The goal now, to find the funds. We're trying to finalize the preliminary engineering, enter the final design phase of the project. We need to find about $12 million to complete that. Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle led the fight against the tax law that rescinded the funding.

He tells action news, quote, I won't stop fighting to restore this funding. for Philadelphia. Chin, who is executive director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, says the Chinatown Stitch will continue its already funded planning phase. Let's bring in Philadelphia District Attorney

Larry Krasner. Larry, we're talking about why we're talking about this. We have to talk about it. Donald Trump invading cities, Philadelphia is top on that list with the United States military. Did you ever think as a district

attorney, as a lawyer, you would be dealing with that number one and number two what's your response to all of this well you know my response is fascists will be fascists i mean let's talk about what's actually going on here we have a guy convicted of 34 felonies who is claiming to be the voice of law enforcement somebody helped me with that we we have a guy who uh you know we all know was very close to geoffrey epstein who ran a historically notorious pedophilic ring and doesn't want to release information about that. And he's here to make us safe. Really? Is that how that works? Did he make us safe when you had an effort to overthrow the government of the United States apparently on his behalf? And he

exonerated all those people. He pardoned all those people, some of whom were doing sentences of 20 years or more. You know, what do traders get? And yet he let them all go. Let's put a little finer point on it. Here's the truth. the Republican states, meaning the ones that voted for the last Republican candidate for president in the last election cycle, have been more homicide prone for 25 years than the Democratic states. In fact, 24 out of those 25 years, you stood a better chance of getting killed in a Republican state than a Democratic state. 24 out of 25 of those years. The difference has been about 133 percent, meaning if 100 people get murdered in a Democratic state, there's 100. 133, adjusted for population getting murdered in a Republican state. Republicans are terrible at public safety. When they're not committing crimes themselves, which this president does all the time, by all indications, when they're not doing that, they are endangering their people.

And yet, for some silly reason, that is not a message that my Democratic Party has been able to get across. Well, here it is. We do not need an invasion led by an insurrectionist who is a 34-time confirmation. felon who's violating the Constitution, we do not need an invasion of a city, and Philadelphia is that city that is enjoying a more than 50-year low in homicides. That had a record year last year and is doing better and better and better. And that is basically going on with all of these Democratic, largely majority minority cities that are led by mayors of color. That is what's

going on with all of these cities. It is totally unacceptable. And I certainly will do everything in my power to tell them if they're going to F around, they're going to find out. So tell us what the find out stage would look like. I mean, what you are able to share. Let's just say he targets Chicago next, which is what the plan seemed to suggest, but then comes to Philadelphia after that. Or who knows, maybe he comes to Philadelphia next.

This time, not selling golden sneakers for $499, but putting the military on the streets. what do you do about that? How do you fight that both with legal authority, moral authority, and just the power of the people? Well, thank you for raising moral authority, because we don't talk about it enough. We basically say, what can he get away with? That is how depraved our public discourse has become about the president of the United States. What can he get away with as he keeps moving the goal line when it comes to the Constitution, when it comes to the laws with his hack Supreme court and yes he has at least four hacks on that supreme court we're hoping it isn't five so we do need to talk about morality and not just law but it's very clear this is completely illegal he does

the president does have the ability to mess around more in dc than he does in the states and that is because of the 10th amendment to the united states constitution which specifically says that he cannot commandeer local law enforcement to do whatever crazy thing he wants to do he cannot force local law to go after immigrants, for example. That has worked for a federal agency known as ICE. So we're going to go to the courts. We still have courts. Sorry, President Trump, and we are going to bring it to them the same way California has

brought it to them, that this is an illegal invasion in many different ways, that it's completely unacceptable. But we have another very important tool, and I want the public to hear this, and I want them to understand that you are not alone. And that important tool is called state prosecution. The President of the United States has zero ability to pardon someone who is convicted in state court. This is why he has not pardoned himself for being convicted in state court of 34 felonies by my, you know, I would say reform prosecutor colleague in Manhattan. This is why it hasn't done that.

So if what you have is a group of ICE agents or you even have the military coming into Philadelphia and they're committing crimes, they're committing assaults that are illegal, that are illegal. They're kidnapping people. They're engaging in unlawful restraint, which is a crime in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. They're obstructing the administration of justice. If you have people coming in, military ICE, whoever it is, acting beyond their legal authority, they can be prosecuted, assuming they commit crimes in state court. And they cannot be pardoned by the president, which means they get to tell a Philadelphia jury exactly why it is that they thought they could invade this city and they get to bear the consequences, whether they are handcuffs, a jury trial, or a jail sentence. That's what they get to bear. I need back

and down. Frankly, I'm a little tired of some of my elected Democratic colleagues for not standing up, but I really do want to commend those profiles and courage. We've seen Governor Pritzker organize a group of governors to resist this fascistic nonsense. We've seen the mayor of the city of Chicago who has never flinched from standing up. We got Gavin Newsom in California stand it up these days a bit. We need to applaud that. We need to stand up. We need to be on the right side of history.

You know, and if it means a short trip to jail, so be it for me. I've been there before. I don't mind. Talk to us about that as well because for me, as a non-political person who stepped into this space, we've always been trying to call out Donald Trump as we saw him, which is fascist. We would say, hey, these quotes sound an awful lot. lot like Nazi Germany, what he's saying. And then whether it was corporate news or politicians, they would say, whoa, whoa, whoa,

you can't go there. You can't say those things. Like, you've never held back. We've seen so many in whether it was politicians or especially corporate news, just normalize this behavior, which wouldn't fly in any organization, nonprofit, big corporation, medium size, yet alone the presidency. I mean, just the way he behaves on a day-to-day basis, not. to mention his criminal conviction, the civil judgments against him and all of that. But it does

seem that there is right now in late August after the summer a bit more of a drive by Democrats or just people to say enough and fight back. So that gives me hope. What do you make of this moment? You know, what I make of the moment is that it is time for courage. And if you're elected officials, Democrat or Republican, don't have it, then vote them out. We need to have Americans who are in elected office who stand up for America, who stand up for democracy. The phrase is, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Well, make no mistake, Donald Trump, just like Adolf Hitler, as at war with equality, the words coming out of his mouth, the endorsement by the Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacists that seem to be in every nook and cranny of wherever he goes. These people do not believe in equality.

It is America's most fundamental principle. So whether you are a voter, whether you are someone outside of politics or you're an elected official, stand up. History is watching. We need to be on the right side of history here. Much of my viewpoint is formed by the fact that my dad volunteered and served in World War II and went to school on the GI Bill after that, the son of immigrants. I know what a Nazi is. And my father-in-law was a career military pilot who flew in three wars. He knew what a Nazi is.

The people who have joined the military, kept their oath, care about this country, do not want to be invading cities in violation of the Constitution, targeting and picketing on, targeting and picking on cities that have a high proportion of minority populations, targeting a particular political parties, cities. They don't want to be doing that. They shouldn't be put in that position. It's not right for them, and it's not right for this.

country in other words stand up larry finally i got to ask you about your take on the trump cover up of the epstein files in your position as a district attorney your office prosecute sex crime sex trafficking you know how files like this are handled how redactions are handled what the overall process is how you how you work with victims versus the convicted sex traffickers, that whole relationship, the fact that Gilane Maxwell gets transferred from a maximum security facility, the convicted sex trafficker to minimum security facility and DOJ doesn't speak to the victims at all and the victims are being retramatized. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice refusing to turn over those files. Just love your overall perspective on what's happening there,

given your unique position. Sure. Well, you know, first of all, There's a shredder, and that shredder's probably worn out by now. Any Democrat who thinks that Donald Trump is holding documents that implicate him and that he hasn't destroyed them already if he has exclusive control over them is being naive. This is not a meeting of gentlemen. You are dealing with someone who called Epstein, one of his best friends, and Epstein called him that as well. And we all know that there's a very strong possibility that his conduct was way, way, way over any moral line.

and possibly way over any legal line. So no, he is not going to turn over documents in his exclusive control that implicate him. We already know he's a fraudster. We already know that he's someone who does funny stuff with documents. Let's not kid ourselves. But I do think these issues are very closely related, meaning I think a lot of this talk about invading cities comes exactly at a time when there's about to be a press conference, I believe, on September 3rd, that is bipartisan demanding that this information come out.

and it's important that whatever information is not already shredded come out because at least it can be a clue as to what went on there. There is no prosecutor in the world who would ever tolerate what is going on with Jelaine Maxwell unless it was someone trying to cover up crime. Okay, that's a cover up. That's all that is, plain and simple. That is a cover up. It's a whole bunch of snakes involved in that thing and they're being snaky.

So what we need to do is we need to keep our eyes on the prize, which is we cannot have a monarch, we cannot have an overthrow of the government of the United States. We also cannot be naive and imagine that Donald Trump is somehow going to turn over documents that implicate him that are in his exclusive control. They're not. We need to keep our eye on the ball as to what he is doing here and we need to keep pushing for justice. Larry Krasner, District Attorney of Philadelphia, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for sharing your time and wisdom with us all. Thank you. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six million subscribers.

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