The NPR Politics Podcast - Is Trump Immune From Prosecution? SCOTUS Will Decide

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

The Supreme Court announced it will hear a case related to special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of former president Donald Trump related to Trump's alleged actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Trump argues any actions undertaken by a president while in office are ineligible to be prosecuted, even after leaving office. Here's what you need to know. This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.Our producers are Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell & Kelli Wessinger. Our editor is Erica Morrison. 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.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Bill from a toss-up district in the toss-up state of Michigan. I'm heading to a physical therapy appointment because a few weeks ago I sprained my ankle doing one of those outdoor endurance things that many listeners of this podcast are so fond of doing. This podcast was recorded at 12.06 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, February 29th of 2024. Hey, it's Leap Day. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'm not going out for a run again anytime soon. So what are we thinking? Is he Michigan 7 or Michigan 6? 7 is Slotkin's District, 8 is Kildee. I don't know. We'll have to get some follow-up. I do hope your ankle feels better,

but I appreciate folks really embracing their lack of physical prowess on our timestamps. It speaks to my soul. It's real. Let's keep it real on this podcast. And keeping it real means, you know, we're probably going to get injured. Yeah. Well, hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Keri Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, Donald Trump and the Supreme Court. The court announced yesterday it will hear a case to decide whether or not former President Donald Trump is immune now from actions he has alleged to have done while he was president, specifically the charges that

he plotted to overturn the 2020 election. Keri, can you walk us through what this Supreme Court announcement means? Sure. So the Supreme Court last night around 5 o'clock said it's going to hear this issue of Trump and immunity, and it involves that January 6th case, the federal case in Washington, D.C., that's been frozen for a few months now. The court says it's going to explore the question of whether and to what extent a former president enjoys immunity from prosecution for behavior alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in the White House. And it's going to keep that stay, keep that case frozen until it decides. The court also told us they're going to schedule arguments in that case

for the week of April 22nd. So what this means, long and the short of it, is that this trial is going to be very much longer delayed by a matter of months, if not even longer than that. It kind of depends on what the court does and how quickly it does it. But there's a scenario in which the court doesn't hand down a decision until late June or early July and even raises a bunch of questions that the lower courts are going to have to answer before this trial can pick up again. So it sounds like the timing of when and even if a trial will take place is now going to be severely delayed. Absolutely. And a number of people, including former U.S. attorneys and Justice Department officials from administrations

past, say the window is really closing for a trial. You can't say it's definitely not going to happen before the election, but it's getting very, very tight. And one of the reasons for that is that the trial judge, Tanya Chutkin, is a former public defender, and she takes the right to a fair trial very seriously. She told Donald Trump's lawyers she was going to give them seven months to prepare for this landmark trial, which, of course, is all about these allegations that he conspired to overturn the results of the

2020 election. And because that case has been frozen since December, even after the Supreme Court lifts the pause and allows this case to proceed, if it rules in favor of the government, the judge is going to give Trump's lawyers another almost three months to get ready for trial. And my goodness, we are getting very close to the September and October 2024 time frame there. Dominico, regardless of whether or not it is indeed election interference, this is an argument that Donald Trump is making. And these trials are coming against the backdrop of him marching towards the nomination. What are you seeing in public opinion polling in our NPR polling of how these legal battles are having an impact on his standing, if in fact they're having any impact on his standing? Yeah, well, I mean, it's not election interference. If

this does wind up going into the fall, it's really because of Trump's lawyers own making, because the fact is they have continued to delay and delay and delay, hoping to sort of push this off the cliff past November 5th. But if it does get sort of stuck in some window with weeks before the election, they really only have themselves to blame because they're the ones who have pushed it to that point. And they're hoping that public opinion would show that people think that this is somehow election interference when a majority of people right now do not believe that when it comes to a general election audience. Yes, it's helped him with his base. It's helped him with primary voters. He's raised tons of money from the MAGA base. You know, with every appearance he's made at court, he has sent out lots of emails and

raised lots of money. But what the polling has shown us is that two-thirds think he should not have immunity, including two-thirds of independents who've said that in our latest NPR PBS News Hour Marist poll. 68% of Republicans think he should have immunity. And that's a totally different universe as far as the primary versus the general election. Majorities of people think that the investigations are fair, that they're not witch hunts. And majorities think that he's done something illegal, if not unethical. So very different audiences, like I said, and how his conduct resonates and how these trials resonate with a general election audience.

As news of these trials has continued and as Donald Trump has tried to argue that they are in some way unfair to him, have those arguments done anything to move the needle amongst those independent, persuadable voters? Or have they been pretty much stuck in their positions where they are? You know, what's interesting is when we did see public opinion shift, and it sort of held mostly steady since then, was during those select committee hearings that Congress held in the summer of 2022 that showed again the events of January 6th, the insurrection that happened that day. But not just that, the various people who testified saying what happened behind the scenes, most of whom were Republican. And that was pretty the insurrection that happened that day. But not just that, the various people who testified saying what happened behind the scenes, most of whom are Republican. And that was pretty notable. People were watching. Eyeballs were on that. And that has basically held mostly steady since. It's receded a little bit among independents, but for the most part, about half of independents are

saying that they think that Trump did something illegal. that, you know, this is this is a brand new thing that we're going to be pivoting into in a general election. Everyone's talking about Joe Biden's age, President Biden's age. He's old. OK, what happens beyond somebody who's old? And the thing is, what weighs out here? Again, like I've said many times, the frame for this election, is it Biden's age and complications of whether people think that he's fit to be president at 81 years old and beyond? Or is it this loathe for Donald Trump, which a majority of the country continue to say that they have an unfavorable opinion of him? All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back in a moment. And we're back. Domenico, I want to talk a little bit more about the delays in this case and how the Trump legal team has worked to try to stall this as close to the November election, it seems, as possible. And help us understand what's at stake here. I mean, presumably, is there a calculation that if Donald Trump wins, these cases would then just disappear?

Yeah, I've seen some conservatives describe it as a quote unquote inside straight that Trump is trying to pull off and is coming close to actually doing when it comes to whether he files for personal bankruptcy or what tactic he takes to be able to get beyond that. Because these are a lot of cases. These criminal cases are now moving toward the spotlight of the general election. And these judges are having to coordinate with each other where to put these things on the calendar. We have one date with March 25th with the New York case on the hush money case about, you know, Trump trying to cover up affairs that he allegedly had with Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress and Karen McDougal, the former Playboy playmate. So that's one, right? But there are three others and they all have to sort of interact with each other. And we're moving to a point now with Super Tuesday on Tuesday, Trump likely to do very well on Super Tuesday, looking like the inevitable nominee, moving toward the conventions, moving toward the fall general election when people are really starting to pay attention. And you know, just in terms of election interference, this case was indicted last summer by the Justice Department and the special counsel, Jack Smith, which is a long time away from November 5th, 2024. And so there were a number of

issues that were litigated in advance that took months and months and months to get through the federal courts about Trump basically saying that his key White House staffers should not be able to testify to a grand jury about his behavior in the White House because it implicated some kind of privilege. Trump lost almost all of those battles. And finally, prosecutors got that testimony. And the thing that voters and members of the public are going to miss if this January 6th case in D.C. does not go to trial this year at all, or maybe happens much closer to October than the summer, is, you know, those people, many of whom testified behind closed doors, would be the witnesses in this case, the same Republicans Domenico mentioned who testified before the January 6th committee and more, even more. Who didn't?

And some of that information could be really valuable for voters as they go to the polls and make that big decision in November. Dominico, how much do you see these Trump trials as being a factor in the campaign? I mean, I say this in part because we've certainly seen the former president try to raise money off of some of his legal challenges. But do you expect that we're going to see more of this? You know, Trump essentially making the argument, maybe this sounds a little reductive, but like, vote for me to keep me out of jail. Well, I do think that he's going to continue to fundraise off of it. He's going to try to juice his base. He's raised a ton of money off of it, but his fundraising honestly has kind of slumped a bit from compared to where it was four years ago. And he's had to spend some $50 million plus that came out of groups supporting him on the campaign trail to help support his legal expenses. In January,

his groups raised about $13.8 million and they spent almost one out of every $4 on legal expenses. So this is coming from that. So he's got to continue to juice his base for that. He also needs his base to show up in the fall. And the way to do that is to continue this grievance campaign, this martyrdom campaign to say that they're coming after me to come after you. If they could do this to me, they can do that to you, which is a real stretch. But he's going to continue to need them to show up. And remember, in 2016 and in 2020, he didn't get more than 47 percent of the vote. It's very unlikely that he winds up getting more than 47 percent of the vote again. But with third parties, with his base showing up, that's what he's banking on to be able to, you know, sprint to the finish line.

It is worth pointing out, too, that the Biden campaign, the Biden White House, has consistently tried to punt on this issue and say that this is a matter of the Justice Department. They don't really want to publicly engage at all on suggesting how this might factor into the campaign. But I do think that when you look at this, it's not an easy thing for the Biden campaign to navigate. They want to talk about what a Trump potential second term would look like policy wise for people. But now you're having a lot of attention and focus leading up to November on on trials. I mean, this is a split screen and we talk a lot about how it might be a potentially damaging split screen for Trump. But I'm not sure it's a real helpful split screen

for the Biden campaign either. The top issue in the polls from what we've seen in many polls has been democracy, you know, the threat to democracy. And Trump is the personification of what Democrats and some independents see as that threat to democracy. And the fact that he's on trial, the fact that he's going through these criminal cases, is there exhibit A, B, C, D, E, and F of why he is this threat to democracy? That is what's going to get people out to the polls who may have say that the Biden campaign has to start making a pivot from what they had been doing, which was, you know, looking at Biden's accomplishments and trying to run some ads about that to switching over to full bore Trump and abortion rights. That's what they think is the only trial that may be actually about to happen before the election is this District Attorney Alvin Bragg trial in New York City set for late March. And that mostly is about conduct before Donald Trump entered the White House and about his personal behavior and some bookkeeping offenses. You know, if that's the only case that happens this year before the election,

that would really be something given the magnitude of other charges Trump is facing around the country. That is a wrap for today's show. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.