The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump — Facing Federal Indictment — Is Greeted Like A Rock Star

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

Crowds in Georgia and North Carolina greeted the former president with tremendous enthusiasm, undeterred by the Justice Department's allegations that he endangered the country by hoarding state secrets at his Florida resort. Mindful of the need win over his supporters to secure the nomination, many of the president Republican primary opponents echoed his claims of political persecution.This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, voting correspondent Ashley Lopez, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. 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

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 the Schloffman family from Colorado, inside the United States Supreme Court, standing in line for the courtroom lecture tour. This podcast was recorded at 1.05 p.m. Eastern on June 12th, 2023. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but we'll have channeled our inner Nina Totenberg as we listen to the tour guide explain the importance of what we're about to see.

OK, here's the show. As long as it's not the outer Nina Totenberg where you're going and like shoving the microphones in the sources' faces. Yeah, you could very easily end up getting kicked off that tour. But we all appreciate that we have that Nina Totenberg on our side. There's only one Nina. Yeah. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Ashley Lopez. I also cover voting.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And it is a big week for former President Donald Trump. Tomorrow, Tuesday, is his first scheduled appearance in federal court. Wednesday is the former president's birthday. And as Scott Detrow alluded to on Friday, this is another one of those unprecedented Trump stories. Last week, Trump became the first former president to be indicted in federal court. He's facing 37 counts related to his handling of classified documents. He and his defenders say that this is all part of a longstanding witch hunt. Some are even planning rallies outside of the courtroom in Florida.

And I want to start there, Domenico. What are we expecting tomorrow when Trump heads to the courtroom? I don't think we know entirely what it's going to look like. Certainly, there have been some people who have used some violent rhetoric. I'm thinking of Kerry Lake, the failed gubernatorial candidate in Arizona who talked about the millions of Trump supporters are mostly card carrying NRA members. To me, it was more of a provocative vice presidential tryout, to be totally honest. And we don't know what's going to happen. We know that the police are going to be on high alert, that there's always going to be huge security anytime that you've got a high profile person going into one of these kinds of cases.

Yeah. Trump also said on a radio interview this weekend that he wanted people to protest. But again, kind of unclear whether that's going to materialize. I want to talk through the politics of this because Republicans have stood by Trump through a lot over the last couple of years, two impeachments, indictment in New York. He is currently still the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. Is there any sign over the last couple of days that that is shifting? Any comments from Republicans in Congress indicating that? It is safe to say that at this point, this is not the straw that broke the elephant's back, Miles. At this point, they are pretty much standing in lockstep with Trump. Republicans in Congress,

Republicans on the campaign trail, even the ones who want the job from Trump, are essentially turning their sights on the Justice Department saying that they have politicized, you know, these kinds of prosecutions, that they're directly aiming for someone like Trump. We have heard from some Republican candidates like Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, who have said that, you know, Christie said that this is devastating, these facts. Hutchinson says that Trump should drop out. And it's one reason why, frankly, someone like Christie could be such a thorn in Trump's side. But, you know, they really are in the minority of their party and have

really limited support at this point. Well, I want to turn, Ashley, to Florida. The governor of Florida, where this is all taking place, is also one of these candidates. Has Governor DeSantis come out and said anything about all this? Yeah, I was going to say, I think Ron DeSantis's comments over the weekend, he held an event in North Carolina, I believe, were kind of interesting, right? Because he did mostly criticize the Justice Department and I guess in that way defended Trump. But it was weirdly backhanded. You know, look, when I was in Congress, I remember, you know, Hillary had the emails

with the classified. And my view was, well, gee, you know, as a naval officer, if I would have taken classified to my apartment, I would have been court-martialed in a New York minute. Even though he's defending Donald Trump, I think he's kind of stopping short of saying that, you know, mishandling classified documents isn't a problem. It's just such a weird position for people running for president to be in because, you know, you would assume that defending national security would be a big part of a Republican platform. So it's just such an interesting tightrope. And to see sort of like the main challenger that Trump has so far trying to navigate that has been interesting so far. Are Republicans who are standing by Trump here saying that this is made up, that he didn't

actually do the things that the indictment said he did? Or are they saying that it's being blown out of proportion? Well, I think that what they're really trying to do in order to try to walk this line is point at the Justice Department and say that they've set a double standard in how they go after conservatives versus how they go after Democrats. Now, there's no actual evidence that that is the case. Clearly, this is a very different case than the case of former Vice President Mike Pence and current President Biden having had classified documents found at their residences. But they're the ones who found those documents. They're the ones who turned them in and didn't try to hide the documents. So very different. That's what they're trying to aim at. And the reason here is because Trump has been able to convince so many of his supporters that the Justice Department is out to get him, that there's a deep state conspiracy, really kind of pushed by Democrats. And because he's been able to do that and been able to talk down so many of the institutions in this country that had been so revered like the FBI, like the Justice Department, he's been able to insulate himself somewhat within this Republican primary, especially when you don't have a chorus of voices from the people who you're running against or the leaders on Capitol Hill. OK, time for a quick break.

And when we come back, we're going to dig more into how Republicans are responding to the Trump indictment. And we're back. So Trump was out on the campaign trail this weekend traveling and talking about this indictment. What did he say, Domenico? Yeah, Trump made a speech before the Georgia Republican Party. And really, he was greeted like a conquering hero, you know, and he spent a lot of time in this speech, really downplaying this indictment, talking about how these are baseless allegations that he's done nothing wrong. And I thought that this one clip of him was really interesting in how he sort of tried to turn it on the audience. Because in the end, they're not coming after me. They're coming after you.

And I'm just standing in their way. Here I am. I'm standing in their way. And I always will be. Yeah, so he's able to take his own victimization, own sense of victimization, convince his audience that he is being victimized, that he's being aggrieved.

And not only is it him, but it's them too. And that he's really standing up for them. not only is it him, but it's them too, and that he's really standing up for them. He's the person carrying their mantle of anger, as he'd once said. And it's really been able to galvanize these folks behind him. And, you know, he really used this stage to also take a lot of those criticisms of him and turn them back on Democrats, whether it's disinformation and misinformation. He said the Democrats are the party of disinformation and misinformation, even though it's a lot of his supporters who've been purveying some of that. So we saw a whole host of that kind of I'm rubber, you're glue.

I mean, the sort of obvious thing to take from this is that Trump is really warning, I guess, his base and his voters that, you know, this is Democrats going after their team. And that kind of stuff always gets base voters very riled up. It is less about, you know, national security documents and sort of like, you know, the mundane sort of laws we have about confidential documents, which, by the way, very interesting and important. But this is more about they are making like Democrats are coming after our team. It is going to make it harder for us to win elections. They're not playing fairly. The same sort of like Trump refrain we heard all throughout the last couple of years, several years. So I think, you know,

when he says that he is saying like this is us versus them, which, of course, is very helpful in politics. Well, one of the interesting things I took away over the weekend was that there were a number of people who have been at different times in Trump's circle who have come out pretty strongly against Trump after this indictment. I want to listen to a bit of an interview that NPR Steve Inskeep did this morning with Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton. Can the Republican Party be the party of law and order if its leader is a person who's under indictment? Well, that's one reason why he should withdraw from the race right now. That's not what he's going to do. He will try and delay this trial past the election, hoping that he'll win and can then pardon himself. But a really innocent man would insist on trial at the earliest possible

date. Bill Barr, Trump's attorney general, also came out over the weekend and said, basically, if even half the things in this indictment are true, then the former president is, quote, toast. But none of the other candidates who are running against Trump have taken those strong of stances. Why is that? Well, we have heard from someone like Chris Christie, who said that these charges are devastating. Bolton is sort of in that camp of the sort of establishment wing of the Republican Party.

But a lot of these folks who are running against him just really don't want to cross his base. And it has been somewhat surprising, to be honest, that they don't go more forcefully because they want to take the job from the guy or take the position from him as the frontrunner. I think they're hoping that they can walk this sort of very narrow tunnel-like path where they can let these legal woes mount on top of Trump and that that'll push him out and they won't have to take any of the fire from him. But I think that'll be kind of tough to do. I'm just surprised that, you know, these candidates aren't positioning themselves to sort of be there in case, you know, some voters sort of wise up to the fact that this is going to be an issue moving into the general, especially. Like, I keep on waiting because I

ran into these voters in the past couple of years, people who, I'm talking about Republican voters, who really like Trump, who have been concerned for years now about Trump's baggage that seems to only be getting bigger and, you know, what that means for them winning back the presidency. And I don't know, I think it's really interesting that instead of positioning themselves as like, you know, a complete alternative to Trump, a lot of these candidates are kind of just echoing what he's saying and, you know, not really drawing a distinction at all. I, you know, I think that's because it is probably clear to, you know, everyone, at least now that, you know, Trump's not going anywhere and it's likely he's only going to be garnering more support. But I don't know. I just think I'm kind of stunned at how few candidates who are running for president are really presenting any sort of clear alternative to Trump at this point.

But, I mean, it is also still very early. But here's the thing. If his chief rivals don't do it and the leaders in Congress don't do it, then why should we expect that his voters would change their minds? And I think that that's the kind of thing that every time one of these things come up and people say, well, is this the thing? Have they changed their mind? Do you think this will do it? Well, you know, you got to look to the sort of movements of some of these other candidates and Republican leaders who so far have not gotten off the Trump train. Right. Well, it is always worth noting that we are still a year and a half away from the 2024

election. So lots more developments to come. All right. That is it for today. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Ashley Lopez. I also cover voting. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.