The NPR Politics Podcast - What's At Stake For Trump As N.Y. Fraud Trial Continues

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

The former president took the stand Monday in a New York courtroom and was at times combative and defense when asked to answer questions over his knowledge of fraudulent financial statements filed by the Trump Organization. This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Ximena Bustillo, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is edited by Casey Morell. It is produced by Jeongyoon Han. 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 NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org. Hey, this is handsome Greg Roland in Anchorage, Alaska. I'm getting ready to walk out for a professional wrestling match against Jet Lucas, and you are listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. This podcast was recorded at 1240 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, November 7th. Things have probably changed by the time you hear this, and hopefully I will have a win against a former 907 Pro Wrestling Champion. All right, here's the show. Okay, I got to Google this handsome man. I wasn't sure if he was just saying he's handsome or if that's the wrestling name now. Otherwise,

you know, good luck to him because the rest of us have faces for radio. I actually went to a semi-pro wrestling match once at the local JCC and it was wildly entertaining. That sounds like it could be. I mean, like, we're still talking about it. It's been years. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ximena Bustillo and I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. The leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Donald J. Trump, spent yesterday testifying in a New York courtroom. It's part of a civil fraud case that cuts to the very essence of his political identity.

And this likely won't be the last time we see the former president in court as he faces multiple civil suits and four state and federal criminal indictments. Ximena, you were at the courthouse yesterday. You watched Trump's testimony. Remind us, what is this trial about? So this trial came about after a three-year investigation by State Attorney General Letitia James. And she is accusing Donald Trump and his two oldest sons, Eric and Donald Jr., as well as other folks who worked within the Trump organization of committing fraud. And by inflating the value or in some cases deflating the value of very popular properties, things like Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago, you know, staples of the Trump name and brand in order to get better deals on insurance and loans and credit and, you know,

kind of anything they may have needed to show net worth. The lawsuit also alleges that he may have inflated the value of his net worth to get things like land on Forbes top 100 list. Now, wanting to be or striving to be on Forbes' top 100 list is not a crime, but manipulating the value of your assets up or down for financial gain is fraud and is a crime. Domenico, what is New York State trying to prove here? What have they already proven? Where are we? on loans. And, you know, this is something that was apparently perpetual. The thing that had struck me in this trial before Trump had testified was just how much people had put their hands up, said, not me, wasn't me. You know, his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump had testified and essentially said that, yeah, they were on some of these emails. Sure, they're on some of

these calls, but really they were too busy and didn't really have a say in these valuations. They relied on their accounting firm. The former president himself, though, in his combative style yesterday, really sort of undermined that, talking about how he felt many of his properties were undervalued, showing just how intimately involved he is in each of these properties and their valuations. Jimena, there were a lot of questions heading into this testimony about whether Trump would bring his usual bombast and political arguments to the courtroom. And, you know, he's been making a lot of these arguments outside of the courtroom and on social media, or whether he would be more sedate, given that he is testifying in a case that could decide whether he can even conduct business in New York anymore. So which Trump showed up? It was a little bit of both. You know, we didn't necessarily get the audibly like loud, excited, hand waving Trump that you see at rallies. However, that didn't stop him from making accusations and sliding in those jabs about how he finds that this trial is a waste of time, how he thinks that the attorney general is a political hack, including jabs at the judge

himself and how he thinks the judge is not going to be fair to him. He was able to slide those into really winding into gentle answers about his financial statements. And so that angered the judge. And Judge Arthur N'Goran multiple times throughout the trial raised his voice and asked Trump's lawyers to control him,, control the answers. These are yes or no questions. The Trump legal team did not always agree with that and instead said, you know, like, this is, you know, the front runner for the GOP nomination. He deserves to talk and we're here to hear what he has to say. And the judge was like, no, we're not. And it was like, there needs to be shorter answers, like control him.

Wait, they literally said in a fraud trial that is not about his plans to be the Republican nominee, they literally said, but he's a presidential candidate. Let him speak. Yes. That was, you know, one of the things the Trump legal team really relied on is this is not normal. This is not a normal case. He's a former president. He could be the next president, is what they said. And so he needs to be heard. This was interesting, certainly. And, you know, there's been this element off and on throughout this trial of the former president holding court outside because there's this ready press corps. And he did that again yesterday. I think it went very well. I think you were there and you listened and you see what a scam this is. This is a case that should have never been brought.

It's a case that should be dismissed immediately. The fraud was on behalf of the court. The court was the fraud rise in prominence. broader value, part of his net worth, which being on that Forbes list was incredibly important to his rise in prominence. It's just another continuation in the I know you are, but what am I campaign of Donald Trump? You know, anything that's ever thrown his direction, any allegation that's made about his character or his businesses, he finds a way to take that exact charge and throw it back at whoever's making the allegation. So in this case, the scam, this trial itself is a scam and should be dismissed and that the court are the fraudsters.

Even though his company has already been found guilty, this is about the penalization phase. This is how much are they going to pay. And they could pay up to a quarter billion dollars, which would completely undercut his entire organization after he's made a lifetime of trying to sell his name and his brand to be this person who is this great business person who came from nothing, who really made it in the city and has pushed forward with this campaign despite all of the victimization and all the slings and arrows that have come his way. All right, we are going to take a break. And when we come back, what this all means for the 2024 presidential campaign. Our latest bonus episode in your feeds now. We answer some listener questions and get a behind-the-scenes look at our coverage of last month's House leadership race. There was so much confusion. Members were often asking reporters in the hallways, like, what are you hearing? What do you think is going to happen next? That's in our latest bonus episode for NPR Politics Podcast Plus supporters.

If that's you, thank you so much. And if it's not you, it could be. You get bonus content, sponsor-free listening, and support the show and NPR. Just sign up at plus.npr.org. And we're back. And I alluded to this earlier, but Trump splitting his time between trials he decries as witch hunts and rallies where he says, if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone, may do these cases, to delay these cases, to get them off of the 2024 calendar. But that's just not going to happen, as we're seeing, because there are so many cases. I mean, we're talking about four different cases that he's involved in, and it's going to be the kind of thing that really splits his attention. Like we saw this week, you know, he's in a position where he has such a tremendous lead in the polls in the GOP primary that he has a bit of this luxury to be able to spend so much time

at this trial. In a lot of cases, Trump world really believes that because of the trials, it's really insulated him more with the Republican base because he's been able to convince them that he's the victim here. But as these things go along, and whether or not there are guilty verdicts and convictions, and these things start to pile up and other candidates, you know, maybe winnow to one potential candidate who's a primary Trump alternative, it could make things a little more difficult for him. Yeah. So Jimena, I want to talk about how politics have been infused into his legal strategy. Also, I'm thinking about one of his lawyers, Alina Haba, outside of the courthouse yesterday, basically bringing politics right into her criticism of

the prosecutor. Miss James, I have a message for you. The numbers didn't lie when you ran for governor. And that's why you dropped out. And the numbers don't lie when President Trump runs for office in 2024. The 2024 election has been very present, even throughout this trial, which, as we've already established, has nothing to do with any election that Donald Trump has been a part of, does not at its core have anything to do with the future election, no electoral questions at all in this. It's a civil fraud trial straight up. However, the tone of the 2024 election, Trump calling even his own presence at the trial election interference because he's needing to take time

to spend at trial testifying on the bench, you know, that has been repeated. We talked earlier about how his own lawyers, as you just heard Alina Haba herself, are mentioning that Trump is running for president. And we know that he has in part profited and gained notoriety through his legal troubles. This case is not absent of that. Yeah, so Domenico, I hate to bring in the nihilist question of like, what does anything matter? But is this sort of is the kind of thing that we have never seen before in American history. We may never see again in American history a president or a former president facing these many charges while at the same time running. So I think we have to be open to the idea that things could make a difference. We just don't know. We can't predict the future or how it's going to go. I mean, at this point, the Trump team has been able to use these allegations and indictments

and charges to his benefit, frankly. They've been able to raise money off of it. They've been able to insulate themselves in the polling. They've been able to maintain the spotlight. As Trump has always liked to talk about, no press is bad press. He really has sort of lived that moniker for most of his adult life. Now, will convictions make a difference? Very well could. And we're starting to hear some of the candidates talk about this. Former Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for example, who is still

continuing to try to be the alternative to Trump, is saying that he thinks that a conviction would be fatal. Whether it will or won't, we don't know. And what is fascinating here is that while all of this is going on, while a judge has already decided that the Trump organization committed fraud, it doesn't seem to have had any sort of effect on his electability. In fact, there have been multiple polls in recent days that show both that Republican voters, Iowa caucus goers really prize electability, and they believe Trump is the most electable candidate, which in some ways undercuts the arguments of someone like a Ron DeSantis or a Nikki Haley. Well, I mean, the person that continues to be talked about is Nikki Haley. I mean, we have the debate coming up tomorrow. And, you know, she's somebody who,

with the issue set that's happening in the world world wants to be able to sort of draw this distinction between the sort of Trump MAGA right-wing populism and sort of traditional Republican hawkishness and promoting the US role in the world. So we've got some time here. Yes, the Iowa caucuses are coming up quickly, but the field is going to winnow itself. There's only five candidates on the debate stage this week. And, you know, what's going to happen after certain candidates don't make what they wanted to make in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina? You know, if Nikki Haley is able to finish in the top two in Iowa, for example, ahead of Ron DeSantis, do well in North Carolina, win in South Carolina, well, that's a path for her to be a principal alternative to Trump and try to pick off a lot of delegates into Super Tuesday.

Jimena, as we close this out today, I just want to ask you, what is at stake for Trump in this trial, in this phase at most a $250 million fine, but also his ability to conduct business in New York. And you have to remember, New York City is Trump's hometown. This is where, you know, he was born. This is where the Trump Organization really fledged and has become popular. Name brand even from before he was president or considered running for presidency. And so we might see Trump and the Trump organization brand kind of need to go through a metamorphosis, you know, for lack of better terms, if they are no longer allowed to exist in New York. And what that looks like, I don't know, but it will have to change.

All right. Well, we are going to leave it there today. A brief note, as Domenico mentioned, there is a Republican presidential primary debate taking place tomorrow night in Miami. So we will be in your feeds later than usual with our coverage and analysis of that debate. Keep an eye out for that. I am Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ximena Bustillo and I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.