The NPR Politics Podcast - Additional Trump Charges Likely Won't Be Decided By Election

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

The state charges in Georgia are on ice as Donald Trump and his team pursue an appeal, with initial arguments set for October. In the near term, Trump will need to select a vice presidential candidate and Sen. Tim Scott is making his case with a $14 million dollar effort to persuade Black voters.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, campaign correspondent Franco Ordoñez, campaign reporter Stephen Fowler and campaign reporter Elena Moore,The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Suggs. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Alfred from Jordan, Minnesota. I just graduated kindergarten today. This podcast was recorded at... 12.06 p.m. on Thursday, June 6th.

Things might have changed since the time we heard this. But I'm still going to be playing baseball. Okay, enjoy the show. Congratulations, Arnie. We should have some graduation music. You know, I am planning a banger of a kindergarten graduation party of my own. So I was really feeling that timestamp today. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the campaign. And I'm Stephen Fowler. I also cover the campaign. And there's some potentially significant news in Georgia in the election interference case against former President Trump and his associates. Stephen, just catch us up. What happened? So as you may know, there's a case against Donald Trump and a bunch of other people in Georgia. All of these different people have all of these different charges and all of these different charges help all of these different filings from the defense attorney saying, no, we want this charge gone. We want that charge gone. No, take everything off the case. So the big thing right now, as you might have heard in the past couple of months, is that Trump and several other defendants are trying to get the prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis, removed from the case.

They say she has a conflict of interest because an attorney who helped manage the special grand jury part before the charges was her boyfriend. And some of the issue was, were they dating while this was happening, before the charges were filed, after, so on and so forth. There was a lot of very salacious hearings, a lot of personal details. Ultimately, the judge said either Willis or the man she was involved with needed to resign. He did resign and she stayed involved with the trial in the case. Now Trump is appealing to try to force her off the case as well with oral arguments set for October. But the big news is that the appeals court in Georgia says you can't do anything on the Georgia case until we decide this, which might not happen until March of 2025. So no Georgia election

case developments until next year, if ever. You know, we've said a lot on the podcast that there could not be clear answers in a lot of these cases, and that seems to be bearing out. And Franco, just strictly politically speaking, this is a good development for Donald Trump. I mean, in many ways, it's vindication for Trump and his long strategy to delay, delay, delay. I mean, he's wanted to delay these cases for a long time, and there are many of happen until after the election. If he wins, there are real legal questions, whether it's, you know, constitutionally, a state can take action against a sitting president. You know, Trump can't throw out this case. It's a state case. But the other ones that are led by the special counsel, Jack Smith, if Trump wins, if Trump wins, he can toss out those cases. So, you know, this is a very big deal for Trump.

And look, there's a lot of questions about what a state prosecution could do if Donald Trump is elected, although many legal theorists suggest that it would be highly unlikely that a prosecution would happen with a sitting president. And there is also a longstanding DOJ precedent that you don't prosecute a sitting president. Right. And it's also a question, Fonny Willis might not even be the district attorney in 2029. There might not be an appetite to go after this. There might be settlements or plea deals or a lot of the evidence has kind of fallen out of the public realm of attention. And so it might be that the window for this has passed. But another thing I do want to make sure people know is that this sort of delay was likely to happen regardless of Fannie Willis and who she hired and who she dated because there are so many charges and so many defendants. It's almost like throwing defense spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. There were motions to try to eliminate individual charges. There were motions to try to eliminate

every single charge and kind of ticky tack ways of saying, no, we don't want to face these charges. There were motions to try to eliminate every single charge and kind of ticky-tack ways of saying, no, we don't want to face these charges. Please throw these out or please eliminate this or don't put this in front of the jury. So it's likely that no matter what, something was going to be appealed with this case, with Trump, and something was going to kick that well past the 2024 election. It just so happens that this one is the most tawdry of them all. And the most politically advantageous for the defense. Right. And most politically advantageous for Trump. But I will say oral arguments over this appeal happening in October. I mean, the appeals court of Georgia is not the big flashy TV courtroom of Fulton County Superior

Court or the Supreme Court or like we saw in New York. But in October, there's going to be more conversations about Fannie Willis and who she dated, but also about Donald Trump facing criminal charges and already being a convicted felon. And it could not be the best for him that in October, as people are voting, there's more headlines in Georgia reminding people, hey, remember what happened the last time an election with Donald Trump on the ballot happened? Yeah, I mean, the politics are still there that maybe there is no conclusions in these other cases, Franco, but Democrats are still going to be able to message against running against Donald Trump as a convicted felon on 34 counts. And they already are. I mean, it's a big part of their messaging for the last couple of weeks. You know, President Biden has used the term convicted felon in recent rallies. The campaign is putting it in their press releases, in the marketing. Now, there are

questions whether that is, you know, a good look for the administration. There are definitely some powerful people in Democratic circles who, you know, feel that Biden should kind of step above the fray. But it seems very clear right now that the Biden campaign is going to make that point clear. And it's part of their efforts to kind of develop a contrast between Biden and Trump. As Stevens was saying, you know, in October, they want the American people to really be thinking about who do you want? They don't want this to be a referendum on Biden. They want this to be a choice election. And the convicted felon, I think they think works in their favor. And of course, we're still waiting on a decision from the Supreme Court regarding

the questions of presidential immunity. And we will likely have those in the coming weeks. So we'll have more to talk about soon. Stephen, thank you so much for doing this. Of course. We're going to take a quick break, and when we get back, we're going to talk about the Trump campaign's effort to win over Black voters. Spend or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. This message comes from NPR sponsor, the NPR Wine Club, a place to explore the exciting world of wine,

including wines inspired by popular NPR shows like Weekend Edition Cabernet. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, all purchases help support NPR shows, like weekend edition Cabernet. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, all purchases help support NPR programming and fund quality reporting developed to connect people to their communities and the world they live in. More at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. And we're back, and campaign reporter Elena Moore joins us.

Hey there. Hi, guys. So, Franco, you have some new reporting about Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who I think it is fair to say has not been subtle at his interest in being Donald Trump's running mate. What's his pitch? What's he doing?

What he's doing is, you know, appearing to make the best case that he can to be Trump's running mate in November. And how he's doing that is he's launching a new campaign to woo black voters, a segment of the voting public that Trump has made very clear that he wants to win. And Scott is, you know, pointing to a path that he thinks can really do that. He thinks they can make a real difference. You know, black voters, of course, overwhelmingly supported Democratic presidential candidates over the years.

But he points to recent polling that show that support is falling. And he thinks he can chip away at those numbers. I was part of a conversation with him. Here's what he had to say about that. There's a lot of reasons why the shift is becoming just so blatantly obvious that it's now undeniable that there is something amiss. And it's real. I think, frankly, it's not just racial, but it's going to manifest itself in a racial shift that we haven't seen in probably three decades of politics. Now, he's going to put some of his own money behind this with his PAC. He's going to invest

$14 million, almost $15 million in a campaign to do this. He's going to be traveling to battleground states. And, of course, we can't forget the politics here. And this effort could boost his chances because, again, Trump has made it very clear that he wants to appeal to these voters. Can we also – I think there is a distinction that's important here because polling has absolutely shown that there's been some movement towards Trump among black voters and Latino voters. But there does seem to be a gender divide here. A lot of that movement seems to be more male than female. You know, it's a very similar trend that we're seeing in other groups. I mean, this is an area that Trump has been able to kind of, you know, cleave some voters from. And Tim Scott thinks that he can do more. Again,

Tim Scott is not expecting all these black voters to all of a sudden move over onto the Trump aisle. But, you know, that doesn't need to happen. You know, they just need a few thousand to either vote for Trump or not vote in these very close races

and battleground states like Pennsylvania, like Georgia. I mean, a small amount matters a lot in this coming election. When all the swing states are decided on the margins, every margin matters. Absolutely. And Alina, you have some recent reporting as well that suggests that there is some ability for potentially Trump to appeal to these voters. Yeah. And I think it's less that he has ability to appeal to them and more that Biden has a disconnect with them. We know, like what Franco just said, black voters overall have overwhelmingly sided with Democratic candidates for decades.

But we've also seen specifically a generational divide here. And poll after poll, national polls show that younger Black voters are distancing themselves from Biden. And I got exclusive access to this new poll this week from the University of Chicago that extensively polled young Americans of color, Black Americans, Latino Americans, and AAPI Asian Americans. So among young Black voters under 40, just a third of them say they're going to vote for Biden. Around 23% say they'll vote for Trump, which is higher than the margin he had. Exit polls showed that around, you know, voters under 45, Black voters under 45, around 80% supported Biden four years ago. So it's a pretty striking number that instead

of getting 80% of that vote, they're getting a third. And I think that like another thing to note here is that black voters are not alone in that. This is like by far a generational divide among young Latino voters, among young Asian voters and white voters. Sure. And we know historically young voters, lower income voters, they tend to be lower propensity voters. But the political magic of Donald Trump has also been he's able to get lower propensity voters to show up. And that seems to be something that his campaign is banking on again. Yeah. I mean, they've been very successful at getting these low propensity voters, getting them to vote. That's what that's how he was able to do so well in 2000 in 2016.

And you can see that they are banking on that again. And this is the trick of this election, because we talk about polls a lot, too. Polls don't always account for the low. It's hard to predict who's going to show up if they've never shown up before. Right. So this is why we always use that caution with polling data is the polls could be and have been in the past wrong about where these groups will land. And the Biden team is absolutely taking notice. I mean, that's why you're seeing Biden traveling across the country, specifically targeting these groups, these groups in Atlanta, these groups in Detroit, these groups in Philadelphia.

He knows how critical this constituency is for him. His campaign knows how important it is for him. And I mean, they are doing the work. And when I talk to Democratic strategists and pollsters about this, they say, look, no campaign is perfect five months out. And that's why, you know, you have a campaign to make sure that you go out and get these voters and remind them of why they need to vote for your candidate, whoever that may be. But Elena, it also seems like there's two ways for Trump to benefit from the situation. Sure, some element of voters may vote for him that either never voted in the past or switching over. But also a real risk that these voters just stay home.

And a stay home vote that was leaning Biden is almost as good as a vote for Trump. We've seen time and time again that the issues are the reasons that a lot of these groups stay with the Democrats. I mean, that's what I hear when I'm out talking with young people. You know, there's like, yeah, maybe you don't love the guy at the top of the ticket, but you know, you're turning out because of abortion access, or you're turning out because you want criminal justice reform. And the thing here that I think will continue to be an obstacle for the Trump campaign, and people like Scott is, you know, you can go anti Biden as much as possible, but you can't reinvent your platform. And I think that's going to be their big challenge. And that's kind of what Kathy Cohen and I talked about.

She's a professor at the University of Chicago who runs the GenForward poll. And we discussed that balance of, yes, there's a huge deficit here for Biden. He's losing a lot of voters of color. But where are they going? So it's not that they see Trump as always a viable alternative, right? For them, I think it's an analysis of Biden. Can I support Biden? I think if people hold, for example, criminal justice issues as most important to them, the alternative is not to go to Trump. The alternative is to either vote for Cornel West,

maybe for Kennedy, I think, or to stay at home. And I think we don't take seriously enough what does it mean if enough young Black people or enough young folks of color decide just not to vote. And that's the other thing we haven't even talked about is Trump isn't the only alternative here. We know that there are some major third party candidates that are going to be on the ballot in some states. You know, you heard Dr. Cohen mentioned Cornel West, a progressive professor, and of course, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. All right, let's leave it there for today. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the campaign. And I'm Elena Moore. I also cover the campaign. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.