The Ben Shapiro Show - Trump CONVICTED Of 34 Felonies. Pray For The Republic.

00:00:00.000 Last night, in a historic breach of all historical norms, in a move that really does put the Republic on the precipice of serious constitutional disorder, chaos, and disaster, a jury in New York found, unanimously, that Donald Trump was guilty of 34 separate felonies, all stemming from hush money payments that were made to Stormy Daniels all the way back in 2016.

00:00:23.000 Now, the legal case is an atrocity. 0.95

00:00:25.000 It's a ridiculous, ridiculous case. 0.98

00:00:26.000 We're going to go through all the details in a moment. 0.99

00:00:28.000 It was a political put-up job by Manhattan D.A.

00:00:31.000 Alvin Bragg, who came into office pledging to get Donald Trump, not pledging to find his criminal behavior that was actually criminal, pledging to get Donald Trump under any circumstances.

00:00:39.000 And that, of course, mirrored the language of Attorney General Letitia James, who was elected to her position in the state of New York on the basis of, quote-unquote, getting Donald Trump.

00:00:47.000 It was a put-up job by the judge, Juan Marichan, who clearly wants Trump behind bars, which is why I believe that he's probably going to sentence him to jail time come July.

00:00:56.000 I do not think that Chekhov's gun can sit above that mantelpiece for the entirety of the second act here.

00:01:03.000 This was a put-up job by the Biden administration, which has been attempting to brand Donald Trump a criminal and a felon since literally the day that they got into office.

00:01:11.000 And the Democratic Party, which has been attempting to label him everything from a Putin cat's paw to a traitor to the country since 2015.

00:01:18.000 It all culminated yesterday in a jury finding, in the most ridiculous possible criminal case, that Donald Trump was guilty of 34 felonies. 0.91

00:01:28.000 It's an absurd case.

00:01:30.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump was found guilty Thursday by a New York jury on all 34 counts in his hush money case, concluding the first ever criminal trial of a former president.

00:01:39.000 Now voters will render their own judgment as Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, barrels ahead to the November 5th election, using the trial and other prosecutions he faces as a rallying cry for his supporters.

00:01:51.000 President Trump, for his part, responded to the verdict.

00:01:54.000 This was a disgrace. 0.93

00:01:55.000 This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. 0.90

00:01:57.000 It's a rigged trial, a disgrace.

00:01:59.000 They wouldn't give us a venue change.

00:02:01.000 in the immediate aftermath of the verdict.

00:02:27.000 The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people.

00:02:32.000 And they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here.

00:02:36.000 You have a sole respect DA and the whole thing.

00:02:40.000 We didn't do a thing wrong.

00:02:42.000 I'm a very innocent man and it's okay.

00:02:47.000 I'm fighting for our country.

00:02:48.000 I'm fighting for our Constitution.

00:02:51.000 Our whole country is being rigged right now.

00:02:53.000 This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent.

00:03:01.000 And I think it's just a disgrace.

00:03:04.000 And we'll keep fighting.

00:03:05.000 We'll fight till the end and we'll win.

00:03:09.000 There's no question that this is political.

00:03:11.000 None whatsoever. 0.99

00:03:13.000 The basis of the charges is trash. 0.98

00:03:15.000 This is a trash case that was brought in a jurisdiction unfriendly to Donald Trump with a prosecutor who obviously wanted to make his bones on Donald Trump's back and a judge who wants to be famous based on convicting Donald Trump. 0.98

00:03:28.000 This was, in fact, a put-up job. 0.86

00:03:30.000 Todd Blanch, one of Trump's attorneys, he made the point that the timing of this most recent grand jury is quite suspicious.

00:03:36.000 It turns out That it's kind of weird to file a misdemeanor charge, which is really what this was, a misdemeanor business records falsification charge that expired in 2017.

00:03:47.000 In 2023, as Donald Trump was securing the Republican nomination for the presidency.

00:03:52.000 Here is Todd Blanch, one of Trump's attorneys.

00:03:56.000 I will say that the timing of this most recent grand jury, meaning the 2023 grand jury that ultimately indicted President Trump, kicked into action less than two months after President Trump announced he was running for re-election.

00:04:10.000 And there are coincidences, and then there's coincidences, and I don't think that that's just something that happened.

00:04:17.000 Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA who brought this case, had pledged back in 2021 that he was going to find some rationale for prosecuting Donald Trump.

00:04:26.000 He said, quote, I'm the candidate in the race who has the experience of Donald Trump.

00:04:30.000 I was the chief deputy in the attorney general's office.

00:04:32.000 We sued the Trump administration over 100 times for the Muslim travel ban,

00:04:35.000 for family separation at the border, for shenanigans with the census.

00:04:38.000 So I know how to litigate with him.

00:04:39.000 I also led the team that did the Trump Foundation case.

00:04:41.000 So I'm ready to go wherever the facts take me and to inherit that case.

00:04:44.000 I think it'd be hard to argue with the fact that'd be the most important, most high-profile case, and I've seen him up front and seen the lawlessness he could do.

00:04:51.000 And he was then asked by a reporter, you believe that should happen?

00:04:53.000 He said, I believe we have to hold him accountable.

00:04:55.000 Okay, he was pledging to do this in 2021, and then he did it.

00:05:00.000 And then he did it!

00:05:00.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

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00:06:05.000 Here was Alvin Bragg yesterday responding to the guilty verdict.

00:06:09.000 And again, a Manhattan courtroom that was stacked from the start.

00:06:13.000 While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial

00:06:23.000 and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case

00:06:29.000 that comes through the courtroom doors.

00:06:31.000 By following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor.

00:06:39.000 That is an extraordinary lie.

00:06:42.000 An extraordinary lie.

00:06:43.000 There's never been a case.

00:06:44.000 This is a novel legal theory that was brought to court by Alvin Bragg specifically to get Donald Trump before the election.

00:06:50.000 That's all this was.

00:06:51.000 Everybody knows this.

00:06:52.000 Independents know this.

00:06:53.000 Democrats know this.

00:06:54.000 When Democrats say that all they want is the law followed without fear or favor, it's weird how you're perfectly fine with James Comey letting Hillary Clinton off the hook for obvious criminal conduct in 2016 with the excuse, while she was running for president, we don't want election interference.

00:07:07.000 And then it turns out that you're totally fine with Donald Trump being prosecuted for absolute trash of charges stemming from activities sexually back in the mid-2000s and then from a hush money payment made in 2016. 0.98

00:07:22.000 Meanwhile, you're apparently perfectly fine with the DOJ letting Joe Biden, the current president of the United States, off the hook, even though he clearly involved himself in criminal conduct, in terms of mishandling classified material, because he's a doddering old fool, who then goes out, by the way, and rips the prosecutor for mentioning that he's a doddering old fool, and in the process, shows himself to be even more of a doddering old fool. 0.97

00:07:40.000 You are totally fine, apparently, if you're a Democrat, with the DOJ originally trying to cut such an extraordinary sweetheart deal with the president's son, that it was only scuttled when a judge looked at it and said, what the hell is this? 0.92

00:07:52.000 That is the only reason that Hunter Biden is being brought up on charges now.

00:07:55.000 It's because a judge looked at the original sweetheart deal brought by Merrick Garland's DOJ and said this is so obviously corrupt that there's no way I can greenlight this prosecution deal.

00:08:04.000 As far as the political obviousness of the situation, remember that one of the big prosecutors in this case was a person named Matthew Colangelo.

00:08:14.000 The DNC paid Matthew Colangelo 12 grand in January 2018 for political consulting He donated to Barack Obama's first presidential campaign in 2008.

00:08:23.000 He was the third-ranking official at President Biden's Justice Department.

00:08:28.000 He then joined Manhattan D.A.

00:08:30.000 Alvin Bragg's office in December 2022.

00:08:33.000 And just a few months later, they launched this current investigation into Donald Trump.

00:08:39.000 That indictment began in March 2023.

00:08:42.000 So he moved from the Biden DOJ to Alvin Bragg's office.

00:08:46.000 And three months later, the indictment was brought against Donald Trump.

00:08:49.000 And we're supposed to believe there was no coordination, that Joe Biden knew nothing about.

00:08:52.000 This is just the workings of the gears of justice.

00:08:55.000 That's all this is.

00:08:55.000 Meanwhile, the judge, Mayor Sean, obviously a partisan Democrat.

00:09:00.000 He's donated small amounts before to the Biden presidential campaign in 2020, as well as to ActBlue, which is an activist group.

00:09:09.000 His daughter is a Democratic activist as well.

00:09:13.000 The reality is that she serves as president of Authentic Campaigns, a firm that does digital campaign work like online fundraising, and they work with Democratic political candidates.

00:09:23.000 Not only that, she was apparently the director of digital persuasion for now-Vice President Kamala Harris's 2020 presidential campaign, according to CNN. 0.98

00:09:31.000 So you have a partisan Democrat judge, a partisan hack prosecutor, and a set of charges that are just garbage. 0.93

00:09:39.000 And the Wall Street Journal has likened this to a turducken of a case. 0.98

00:09:43.000 I've heard other people, including my friend Megan Kelly, refer to it as Russian nesting dolls.

00:09:47.000 To understand the charges in this case, you have to understand that, effectively speaking, it is an onion of charges, and at the center, there is nothing.

00:09:56.000 That is all.

00:09:56.000 You actually get to the end of the Russian nesting doll, or the end of the turducken, and it's just a vacuum of space.

00:10:03.000 Let's be real about this.

00:10:04.000 Alvin Bragg brought a misdemeanor charge of falsification of business records that is past the statute of limitations.

00:10:10.000 The only way that he could spin that into a chargeable offense and extend the statute of limitations is to charge it as a felony.

00:10:17.000 The problem is there is no underlying felony.

00:10:20.000 So the underlying felony that he actually ended up charging was a federal felony.

00:10:23.000 State prosecutors do not have jurisdiction to charge federal felonies.

00:10:28.000 Unbelievably enough, the same exact Biden administration that is insisting that states cannot enforce federal law because of federalism have no problem with the Manhattan D.A.

00:10:38.000 enforcing federal election finance law that has been already investigated and Trump has not been indicted on anything election related.

00:10:46.000 They apparently are fine with a state D.A., a Manhattan D.A., going after Donald Trump on a federal election charge.

00:10:53.000 He has no jurisdiction over these issues, none.

00:10:57.000 Andrew McCarthy has been writing about this for, obviously, since the initiation of this mess.

00:11:04.000 He says that payments that were made to Karen McDougal, who is a person that Trump schtupped and then paid hush money payments via David Pecker to, or Stormy Daniels, or to a bellman at his building because there was some sort of false allegation that Donald Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock, which wasn't true, but they made a payoff.

00:11:23.000 In legalese, says McCarthy, these payments were legal consideration for entering into

00:11:27.000 nondisclosure agreements. NDAs are common, lawful, a staple of civil law settlements.

00:11:31.000 Alvin Bragg claims that the NDA payments were illegal because they were essentially campaign

00:11:35.000 contributions that exceeded the federal dollar amount limits. There's a problem with this. NDAs.

00:11:42.000 Paying somebody for an NDA, which is common practice.

00:11:46.000 Every settlement basically ends with an NDA.

00:11:48.000 Every single legal settlement, from employment law to contract law, every single legal settlement ends with an NDA and money being paid.

00:11:56.000 Whether it's hush money payments like this one, or again, whether it's in any other context.

00:12:01.000 That doesn't make it an election contribution.

00:12:04.000 Bradley Smith, who's the former FEC chairman, originally appointed to the FEC by Bill Clinton, He wrote, quote, a businessman candidates intent to protect

00:12:12.000 his public image before an election by settling a lawsuit or other potential legal claim,

00:12:16.000 paying to have old divorce records sealed, settling up contested debts, none of which he has an

00:12:20.000 obligation to pay before or after becoming a candidate, does not make these payments campaign

00:12:24.000 expenditures. If it did, many more politicians than Trump would be in trouble. If the idea is that

00:12:29.000 anything that affects an election is now a campaign expenditure, that would also have

00:12:33.000 consequences the other way.

00:12:35.000 You could literally label your gym workouts campaign expenditures because obviously how you look has an impact on the campaign trail.

00:12:42.000 The idea that anything that has any impact on the election now becomes an election-related expense is totally nuts and unprecedented in American law.

00:12:50.000 But effectively, the judge allowed Bragg to bring these illegal charges Not only that, the judge then stacked the trial by effectively allowing Alvin Bragg to argue that Trump had already been convicted of some violation of election law, even though he hadn't.

00:13:08.000 So how exactly did he do that?

00:13:09.000 Well, Michael Cohen was brought forward, Trump's former attorney and convicted perjurer.

00:13:15.000 And Cohen had already pled guilty to campaign crimes because he thought that was going to allow him to cut a deal with prosecutors to go after Trump.

00:13:24.000 We'll get some more on this in just one second.

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00:14:22.000 So what happened here?

00:14:23.000 Well, typically, prosecutors are not allowed to bring in history of criminal conduct of witnesses.

00:14:29.000 That's typically not something that happens very often.

00:14:31.000 Usually it's the defense that attempts to bring that in and the judge rules on whether that's relevant or not.

00:14:35.000 Here, the prosecutors decided to bring in Cohen's criminal history with regard to campaign finance.

00:14:39.000 Why?

00:14:39.000 Because what they wanted to say is that Cohen had pled guilty to campaign finance violations On Trump's behalf, which meant Trump was actually guilty of a crime even though Trump has never even been charged with a federal election crime.

00:14:52.000 As McCarthy says, even though prosecutors are not supposed to use Cohen's guilty pleas to argue that Trump is guilty of campaign crimes, that's exactly what they did and Merchant let them do it.

00:15:00.000 The judge then barred Trump from arguing he is innocent because he was never charged by the federal authorities.

00:15:05.000 Mershan, reasons that Trump's non-prosecution is irrelevant because the feds may have dropped the case for reasons having nothing to do with whether Trump was guilty.

00:15:12.000 But then how exactly do you admit Cohen's guilty plea in the elections case?

00:15:17.000 Or Pecker, AMI's non-prosecution and conciliation agreements?

00:15:20.000 They had big incentives to cut those deals without admitting guilt, but they're still being brought in to prove Trump's guilt.

00:15:26.000 So Trump has never tried on these charges, federal election charges.

00:15:29.000 He's never even indicted on those charges.

00:15:31.000 So how exactly does Alvin Bragg make his case?

00:15:33.000 He brings in associates of Trump's who have pled guilty to crimes and then used their guilty pleas as an excuse to say that Trump was guilty.

00:15:42.000 of the same sort of crime and therefore you can wrap a misdemeanor around a crime that he was not convicted of or charged with and turn that into a felony for purposes of New York state law.

00:15:51.000 It's totally wild.

00:15:54.000 Again merchants didn't even allow Bradley Smith to testify.

00:15:57.000 Trump's team wanted to bring Bradley Smith in to explain federal election law which is the predicate for this entire nonsense trial and the judge said no.

00:16:06.000 So this thing was rigged from the start.

00:16:08.000 Listen, this trial was over the same way that the O.J.

00:16:10.000 trial was over the minute it moved from Brentwood to downtown L.A.

00:16:13.000 because of the jury pool.

00:16:14.000 That was true in this case.

00:16:15.000 The minute that this was a case that was initiated in Manhattan, this case was over.

00:16:20.000 Trump's team knew it.

00:16:20.000 So all of the kind of heartburn over Trump's team mishandling this or Trump mishandling this because he should have just admitted that, of course, he paid these women off and it had nothing to do with violation of federal election law or anything like that.

00:16:31.000 It wouldn't have made one bit of difference.

00:16:33.000 This jury was rigged from the start.

00:16:35.000 It was meant to be rigged.

00:16:37.000 The judge rigged this thing along with the prosecutors.

00:16:39.000 Trump is correct to point that out.

00:16:42.000 And this is, in fact, a cataclysmic circumstance for the country.

00:16:46.000 Because when you have the chief political rival of the President of the United States being brought up by allies of the President of the United States in a court on spurious charges, charging with felonies, specifically, said the entire media can then claim that he's a convicted felon and so can Joe Biden.

00:17:02.000 When that happens, you are looking at incipient tyranny.

00:17:07.000 What is the outcome of this going to be now?

00:17:09.000 If Donald Trump is put in jail, which could actually happen here, he could be in jail at the time of the election.

00:17:13.000 If that actually happens, or even if he's under house arrest, how exactly, if Donald Trump then loses the election, will anyone believe that that's a legitimate representation of the will of the American people?

00:17:25.000 This case is a fraud.

00:17:27.000 It was always a fraud.

00:17:29.000 Democrats are playing with fire.

00:17:30.000 They don't seem to care if they burn down every institution in the country in order to get at Donald Trump.

00:17:35.000 They don't seem to care if they blow up the law in order to get at Donald Trump.

00:17:37.000 The most important thing is getting Donald Trump.

00:17:39.000 And then they have the temerity to project that Donald Trump is the threat to democracy?

00:17:43.000 That's the case that they keep making?

00:17:44.000 Donald Trump is the threat to democracy?

00:17:47.000 The Biden-Harris campaign put out a statement.

00:17:49.000 They said, in New York today, we saw that no one is above the law, which is just the sickest thing.

00:17:54.000 What we actually saw today and yesterday is that Donald Trump, it's not about him being above the law.

00:18:00.000 It is that the law will be applied to him in ways that it has never been applied to anyone else.

00:18:05.000 The great irony of this is that Donald Trump once bragged that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and he wouldn't lose any support.

00:18:12.000 Well, I mean, the truth is, if you had shot somebody on Fifth Avenue, Alvin Bragg may have let him off the hook, because the rule in New York is you murder someone by throwing them in front of a subway train, and you might get out on no bail.

00:18:21.000 But apparently, if you commit a misdemeanor records error in 2015 or 2016 or 2017, they'll bring you up a decade later on charges.

00:18:31.000 The Biden-Harris campaign said in New York today we saw no one is above the law, except of course for Joe Biden, who is above the law, and Hunter Biden, who was above the law until a judge scuttled that deal.

00:18:39.000 Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain.

00:18:44.000 But today's verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality.

00:18:47.000 There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office.

00:18:50.000 At the ballot box.

00:18:51.000 Convicted felon or not, says the Biden campaign, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.

00:18:56.000 The threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater.

00:19:00.000 Our democracy, trademark, has never been greater.

00:19:03.000 He's running an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution, pledging to be a dictator on day one, calling for our constitution to be terminated so he can regain and keep power.

00:19:11.000 A second Trump term means chaos, ribbing Americans' freedoms and fomenting political violence.

00:19:15.000 The American people were ejected this November.

00:19:18.000 That last paragraph is one of the greatest examples of projection I've ever seen in my life.

00:19:23.000 Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who have trumped up a series of charges in four separate jurisdictions against Donald Trump.

00:19:29.000 They say the threat Trump poses to democracy has never been greater.

00:19:32.000 Can we be clear about this?

00:19:34.000 Trump is the threat to democracy?

00:19:36.000 Here is just a short list of ways in which Joe Biden is a threat to our democracy.

00:19:40.000 One, he and his party have activated apparatchiks at the state level to use federal charges over which they have no jurisdiction to attempt to jail his political opponent who's currently leading him in the swing states in the polls.

00:19:51.000 Two, he activated his DOJ to target Donald Trump in three separate jurisdictions.

00:19:58.000 Three.

00:20:01.000 That same DOJ was activated in order to scuttle a case against Joe Biden and scuttle a case against Hunter Biden.

00:20:08.000 He tried to use OSHA to force 80 million Americans to vaccinate against their will.

00:20:14.000 He defies the Supreme Court on a regular basis by alleviating student loan debt in violation of law and then brags about it.

00:20:22.000 He continues to falsely claim in front of black audiences that if he loses, it will be because Republicans suppress the vote, which is a lie.

00:20:28.000 It is a blatant, outright, anti-democratic lie.

00:20:31.000 And Joe Biden tells it every day, and the media continue to massage his shoulders over it.

00:20:35.000 He keeps attacking the Supreme Court over and over and over, their legitimacy.

00:20:39.000 Claiming that particular justices are corrupt.

00:20:41.000 He and his party have been saying this for years.

00:20:45.000 He has used government agencies to threaten social media companies repeatedly.

00:20:51.000 He has attacked states for enforcing border law.

00:20:54.000 He has used federal predominance over border law to keep the border wide open.

00:20:59.000 But Donald Trump is the tyrant?

00:21:01.000 Are you kidding me?

00:21:03.000 And that statement from Joe Biden is just an astonishing one.

00:21:06.000 He's running an unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution?

00:21:09.000 You literally are running your entire campaign on Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy and he must be stopped by any means necessary because if not, the country will end.

00:21:18.000 Calling for our constitution to be terminated?

00:21:21.000 Donald Trump never did that.

00:21:24.000 The comment that he made on Truth Social was about how, by stealing elections, Democrats were effectively terminating the Constitution.

00:21:31.000 The only person who's been in strong violation of the Constitution repeatedly is Joe Biden.

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00:22:38.000 A second Trump term means chaos.

00:22:40.000 Have you looked around lately, Joe?

00:22:41.000 A little chaotic out there, don't you think?

00:22:44.000 The Middle East is on fire. 0.91

00:22:45.000 Ukraine is on fire.

00:22:46.000 Taiwan is being routinely threatened by China.

00:22:48.000 Inflation has raged out of control for three plus years, increasing prices from when you took office by 20% basically across the board and in some areas by 80 or 90%.

00:22:59.000 Our economy is stagnating.

00:23:01.000 Our social fabric is ripped, and in the middle of this you throw the lit fuse bomb that your political opponent might be jailed, and yet you have the temerity to say that this is about upholding the law?

00:23:13.000 It's a joke!

00:23:15.000 And then you have Hillary Clinton, who, honest to God, if Democrats want Donald Trump to win, I'm not sure how they can do better than by continuing to trot out Hillary Clinton.

00:23:21.000 Hillary Clinton yesterday, in the aftermath of this, she comes out a-grinning.

00:23:25.000 This federal law violator herself, let off corruptly by James Comey, who literally rewrote the charges in order to let her off in 2016. 1.00

00:23:32.000 By the way, that's the original sin.

00:23:33.000 If Hillary Clinton had been prosecuted by James Comey in 2016, none of this would have happened.

00:23:38.000 None of it.

00:23:39.000 She would have lost the election. 0.92

00:23:40.000 It would have been clear that politicians can, in fact, be prosecuted for crimes they commit.

00:23:45.000 And none of this would have arisen.

00:23:47.000 Certainly not a belief, a correct belief by one side of the aisle, that the other side of the aisle is perfectly willing to use the methodologies of legalism in order to destroy candidates on the basis of non-violation of law. 0.93

00:23:59.000 Trotting out Hillary Clinton to laugh and scoff over this, it's disgusting.

00:24:03.000 Here she was yesterday. 0.99

00:24:14.000 Thank you.

00:24:14.000 She gets big cheers because Trump is being convicted.

00:24:17.000 Thank you so much.

00:24:18.000 Anything going on today?

00:24:19.000 Everybody very excited.

00:24:24.000 They don't give a... Ask them to name the charges or describe them.

00:24:27.000 They don't know.

00:24:27.000 They don't care.

00:24:28.000 They just want Trump in jail.

00:24:29.000 That's all.

00:24:30.000 And they're cheering for her. 0.97

00:24:31.000 For her, this criminal.

00:24:32.000 Well, I have to tell you, there's nowhere I'd rather be than right here.

00:24:35.000 Hey, she then started pumping out merch. 1.00

00:24:42.000 This is so... You want to destroy the democracy, you can sell some coffee cups.

00:24:47.000 She started pumping out merch on her Twitter saying it turns out she was right about everything.

00:24:51.000 And it's a picture, a silhouette of Hillary Clinton drinking a cup of tea.

00:24:54.000 She was right about everything?

00:24:55.000 She wasn't right about handling classified documents.

00:24:58.000 She bleach bit her own hard drive to avoid culpability on that one. 0.74

00:25:02.000 And apparently that was totally fine.

00:25:04.000 But they'll throw Donald Trump in jail for hush money payments because he shook the porn star back in like 2006.

00:25:11.000 This whole thing is insane.

00:25:12.000 The media, of course, are truly ecstatic about all of this.

00:25:17.000 Left-wing anchors can't get it out of their mouth.

00:25:19.000 They're just going to say convicted felon over and over, which is, of course, exactly what Democrats want.

00:25:22.000 And they believe that if they call Trump a convicted felon over and over while grinning, that the American public will buy it.

00:25:28.000 I don't think this is going to go the way they think this is going to go.

00:25:32.000 We've been holding our breath as a country for a long time waiting for the cavalry to arrive in the form of the rule of law and it did arrive today and it's a majestic day. 0.84

00:25:44.000 Donald Trump is a convicted felon. 0.98

00:25:46.000 A convicted felon. 0.99

00:25:58.000 Could they be more excited?

00:26:02.000 Could they?

00:26:03.000 Again, it was all about getting Trump.

00:26:04.000 It was never about the crimes that he supposedly committed.

00:26:07.000 Never, ever, ever.

00:26:08.000 Bill Clinton committed worse crimes in terms of covering up sexual activity than Donald Trump ever did.

00:26:13.000 He committed actual perjury for which he was never charged.

00:26:16.000 While being President of the United States, by the way.

00:26:20.000 Doesn't matter.

00:26:21.000 This was all about getting Trump.

00:26:23.000 It was all about using the methodologies of the law in order to get Donald Trump, even if it meant perverting the law.

00:26:29.000 And the media's response to this?

00:26:31.000 They have no idea what they've unleashed right now.

00:26:33.000 They really don't know what they've unleashed.

00:26:35.000 Hollywood celebrities, too, are super excited.

00:26:38.000 All of them, just ecstatic.

00:26:40.000 Tears of joy, said emotional Kathy Griffin, according to Breitbart.

00:26:44.000 God bless New York City, said Ellen Barkin.

00:26:46.000 We are all cheering for justice and that no one is above the law, said John Leguizamo.

00:26:50.000 Ask any of them to analyze these charges.

00:26:52.000 They have no idea what Trump was charged with or for.

00:26:54.000 They don't care.

00:26:55.000 Barbara Streisand said they must not allow this felon anywhere near the White House again.

00:27:00.000 And the celebrities couldn't be more excited.

00:27:02.000 Bette Midler, guilty on all charges.

00:27:05.000 Rob Reiner, guilty!

00:27:09.000 Linda Carter, former Wonder Woman.

00:27:11.000 34 is now my favorite number.

00:27:13.000 Stephen King, the Republican candidate for president is a convicted felon.

00:27:15.000 Okay, you got the label that you wanted.

00:27:18.000 But are you going to be able to stop him?

00:27:20.000 Are you going to be able to stop him?

00:27:22.000 That is the big question.

00:27:24.000 So, what would stop him?

00:27:25.000 Because if he's convicted, but he doesn't go to jail, what impact is that going to have on the election?

00:27:31.000 Everything washes out.

00:27:32.000 He was the first ex-president who had been charged in multiple jurisdictions.

00:27:37.000 And that has had no impact on the polls.

00:27:39.000 What the polls show is that most Americans don't think this makes any difference at all.

00:27:44.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

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00:28:00.000 Producer Savvy is apparently asleep right now in the control room because she didn't take it last night.

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00:28:19.000 Yeah, Savannah.

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00:29:03.000 According to an NPR PBS NewsHour Marist poll, over two-thirds of people said a guilty verdict would make no difference to their vote.

00:29:11.000 About 1 in 6 voters said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to vote for Trump.

00:29:16.000 However, 15% said they would be more likely to vote for Trump if he was hit with a guilty verdict.

00:29:24.000 Only 11% of independents said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to vote for Trump.

00:29:28.000 And less likely, by the way, does not mean won't vote for Trump.

00:29:30.000 Like barrier to entry.

00:29:33.000 If this campaign comes down to Joe Biden calling Trump a convicted felon and Donald Trump saying, you're a terrible president, you're awful at this, and by the way, you're a tyrant who activates the methods of law enforcement to target your political opponents, Trump is going to win.

00:29:45.000 Ironically, politically, this is probably quite good for Trump.

00:29:48.000 That at least is the case that Senator Marco Rubio is making.

00:29:50.000 He happens to be correct.

00:29:52.000 Here's the senator from Florida.

00:29:54.000 Senator Rubio, thanks for joining us.

00:29:55.000 Your reaction?

00:29:58.000 I mean, they just elected Donald Trump president, so politically, I think it's good.

00:30:01.000 I think, unfortunately, they've made a travesty, a mockery of our criminal justice system.

00:30:06.000 I think all over the world right now, they're watching news reports and they're saying, what's America sending to us?

00:30:11.000 Meaning these third world countries, these dictatorships, these crazy places. 1.00

00:30:15.000 I mean, I don't know what I can add to what people have already seen.

00:30:20.000 This is all absurd, and he's totally right about that.

00:30:23.000 So, what does that mean for Democrats?

00:30:25.000 Well, if Trump does not go to jail, then they get the worst of both worlds.

00:30:30.000 They get Trump on the campaign trail being able to talk about this.

00:30:33.000 And also, they look like the tyrants that they are.

00:30:37.000 If they throw him in jail, there is the real possibility of actual violence.

00:30:42.000 Seriously, if he's in jail at the time of this election, and then he loses, how many Americans are going to feel truly dispossessed by the entire system?

00:30:51.000 A huge number of Americans.

00:30:52.000 I'm not talking about like full-scale civil war, but the idea there won't be chaos and unrest is insane.

00:30:57.000 And by the way, that chaos and unrest would then be used by a President Biden in order to crack down on his political opponents even harder.

00:31:03.000 This is all getting very ugly, very, very quickly.

00:31:06.000 This is why there was a, a basic agreement.

00:31:10.000 You don't prosecute your political opponents in the United States.

00:31:13.000 But, unclear what the prosecutors are going for here.

00:31:16.000 Bragg is certainly going to ask for jail time.

00:31:18.000 Here's a reporter asking Alvin Bragg if he'll seek jail time yesterday.

00:31:22.000 Do you plan to request a prison sentence for Donald Trump's multiple violations of the gag order that was in place?

00:31:34.000 The judge scheduled a sentencing for July 11th.

00:31:38.000 We will speak in court in that time.

00:31:40.000 He also set a motion schedule.

00:31:42.000 We will speak in our court filings as we've done throughout this proceeding.

00:31:49.000 Okay, well, I don't believe that you're just making those considerations.

00:31:51.000 Here is the story about whether Trump will go to jail or not.

00:31:54.000 So, typically, you have to have exacerbating circumstances to send a quote-unquote first-time felon on B.S.

00:32:00.000 charges to jail.

00:32:01.000 A 77-year-old first-time criminal offender in the white-collar area, supposedly, you're going to send that guy to jail.

00:32:06.000 But there are a couple of things that Bragg and the judge could theoretically use in order to push Trump into jail.

00:32:13.000 Thing number one could be the violation of the gag order, which is insane.

00:32:17.000 So an unconstitutional gag order was put forward by Merchant in this case, saying that Trump could not comment about the prosecution, basically.

00:32:22.000 He couldn't comment about the judge or his daughter or anything like that.

00:32:26.000 And Trump supposedly violated that, and he threatened him with jail time at the time.

00:32:29.000 So you could theoretically say, well, his behavior shows that he's just going to go out there if he campaigns.

00:32:33.000 He's going to violate all those things.

00:32:34.000 He's going to violate the law some more, so I'm throwing him in jail.

00:32:37.000 That's factor number one.

00:32:38.000 Factor number two is that here's how the process works.

00:32:41.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, the judge set a sentencing hearing for July 11th, just days ahead of the Republican National Convention.

00:32:48.000 In the meantime, probation officers must complete an advisory pre-sentencing report and submit it to the judge before the hearing.

00:32:53.000 Trump will also get the chance to gather character letters from friends, family members, and colleagues to guide the judge's determination.

00:33:00.000 So they'll have an advisory pre-sentencing report in New York.

00:33:02.000 How do you think that's going to go?

00:33:04.000 One of the factors that is taken into account in determining whether an offender, supposed offender, gets probation or whether he goes to jail is remorse.

00:33:11.000 Do you think Donald Trump is going to show remorse?

00:33:13.000 Should he show remorse?

00:33:14.000 So they set up a catch-22.

00:33:15.000 Either Donald Trump throws himself on the mercy of the court and begs forgiveness for this evil crime that he's committed, which of course he didn't commit because there's no crime, or they throw him in jail.

00:33:27.000 That is the highest, again, the media are making it out that it's a small possibility he gets thrown in jail.

00:33:32.000 I'm gonna say that's 50-50.

00:33:34.000 And I'm leaning toward merchants gonna go all the way and try to throw him in jail because, again, you don't put the gun on the mantelpiece in Act 1 if you're not willing to take it off the mantelpiece in Act 2.

00:33:43.000 Here's a bevy of legal analysts agreeing with me on this one.

00:33:46.000 Next big step in the process is July 11th, so it's the sentencing hearing.

00:33:51.000 I do anticipate that the district attorney will ask for some sentence of incarceration, and I do think that there's a good likelihood that the judge will impose some sentence of incarceration.

00:34:01.000 In the most serious F.B.R.

00:34:03.000 cases, a sentence of imprisonment is routinely imposed.

00:34:10.000 This is the most serious falsifying business records case in the history of the state of New York.

00:34:15.000 I think Alvin Bragg is going to ask for a sentence of incarceration, and I think Judge Mershawn will very seriously weigh that.

00:34:26.000 Okay, so, is he going to go all the way?

00:34:28.000 Even if he doesn't, he could put him under house arrest, which means he'd be restricted to Mar-a-Lago wearing an ankle bracelet while doing all of these rallies, presumably digitally.

00:34:36.000 And what happens if he goes to jail?

00:34:38.000 Well, it's possible that Trump could be sentenced to time behind bars, according to the Wall Street Journal.

00:34:43.000 Mayor Jan has broad discretion to impose an even harsher punishment than the four-year sentence that would be the max.

00:34:48.000 There are factors favoring no-prison-time, that he's a first-time offender, 77-year-old, convicted of a low-level non-violent crime.

00:34:54.000 It's also rather impractical.

00:34:56.000 Merchant can make Trump pay a fine or condition his freedom on Trump staying out of criminal trouble.

00:35:00.000 Trump can ask the judge or an appellate court for bail pending appeal to keep him out of custody while he challenges his conviction.

00:35:06.000 But again, this whole thing is designed to get the Democrats beyond the election.

00:35:09.000 That's what this is, it's a put-up job.

00:35:11.000 So why would Mershon allow him to stay out of jail pending his appeal?

00:35:14.000 And I'm going to predict that he sentences him to some jail time.

00:35:18.000 And all hell is going to break loose, because you don't go halfway if you are Judge Mershon.

00:35:22.000 If you're willing to blow the law this strongly, Then why not go all the way and become the guy who put Donald Trump in jail and be a hero of the republic to Democrats forevermore.

00:35:32.000 Alright, in a second we're going to be joined by Megyn Kelly to talk all this through.

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00:36:39.000 Also, this Sunday, we have a brand new episode of the Sunday Special with Pete Hegseth.

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00:36:46.000 He has a new book out, The War on Warriors, that explores how changes in the armed services have affected those in uniform and impacted our ability to protect the country.

00:36:53.000 Here's what that sounded like.

00:36:55.000 So I signed up 20 years ago to fight extremists, put my life on the line, and now I'm deemed one because of what I believe, because of my Christian faith, or because I work for Fox News, or because I support Donald Trump.

00:37:09.000 Any one of those is a wrong answer.

00:37:11.000 Like, I've worn this uniform for the better part of 20 years for this country, and you're calling me an extremist.

00:37:17.000 If they'll do that to me, they'll do it to anybody. And they did.

00:37:21.000 It's a phenomenal conversation.

00:37:27.000 We dissect how the military went woke, what the future of the country looks like.

00:37:30.000 Make sure you check it out this Sunday.

00:37:32.000 Joining us online is Megyn Kelly.

00:37:34.000 She is, of course, host of the Megyn Kelly Show, which is on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday, noon Eastern time.

00:37:40.000 She can also be found at youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly, wherever else you get your podcasts.

00:37:44.000 Megyn, thanks for taking the time.

00:37:45.000 Really appreciate it.

00:37:46.000 My pleasure.

00:37:47.000 Good to see you.

00:37:49.000 So obviously pretty dark day for the Republic.

00:37:52.000 The actual case here was non-existent and it was kind of a turducken of a charge in the sense that it was a misdemeanor that was wrapped around a supposed felony that was wrapped around another claim.

00:38:03.000 It was almost like three separate claims and the charging documents That's something I've never seen before, which is the judge literally saying to the jury that if four of you agree on the underlying felony, and four more of you agree on a separate underlying felony, and four more of you agree on a third underlying felony, that we can aggregate that all together and say that you all agree on the underlying felony that would allow for the charging of a state misdemeanor charge as a state felony, even though we are well outside the statute of limitations.

00:38:28.000 Have you ever seen anything remotely like this?

00:38:31.000 No, I heard somebody say it's like a Russian nesting doll of crimes.

00:38:36.000 And that's exactly right.

00:38:37.000 Just keep going, keep going until you find the little one on the inside.

00:38:41.000 And the whole thing was a fraud from the beginning, Ben, because what really Alvin Bragg was trying to do was bring a federal case as a state prosecutor.

00:38:50.000 And he's not allowed to do that.

00:38:51.000 He doesn't have jurisdiction to enforce federal election law.

00:38:54.000 Which is the exclusive jurisdiction of the Feds, of the Federal Election Commission here, which did investigate this after it broke in 2018, that they'd done this whole catch-and-kill scheme with AMI and Michael Cohen, and said, this is not a problem, legally.

00:39:11.000 This is an electoral issue.

00:39:12.000 You guys can decide whether you like this or don't like this, but it doesn't break any laws.

00:39:16.000 And he decided to backdoor it.

00:39:19.000 If he had just said the underlying felony is federal election law, that's what I'm basing this whole case on, He wouldn't have had jurisdiction to bring this.

00:39:27.000 And I mean, this judge has pretended that that's not the case.

00:39:31.000 This judge has pretended all along that you don't actually have to show a violation of the underlying crime.

00:39:37.000 You just have to show an intent to violate it.

00:39:41.000 So basically what happened was the collusion happened between the DA and the judge to make this as easy for Alvin Bragg as humanly possible, letting him skirt jurisdictional rules Legal rules and pretend that there's a felony when there's not one.

00:39:56.000 No one involved in this case apparently understands federal election law, which we do because literally we've had Brad Smith on.

00:40:03.000 We've been discussing it hour after hour on our show for the better part of a year.

00:40:07.000 And it was completely misspelled out in the jury instructions.

00:40:11.000 And the judge led this jury to the fountain of guilt.

00:40:15.000 And I blame him and I blame Alvin Bragg.

00:40:17.000 And I don't really blame the jury because they had no choice given what they were given here.

00:40:23.000 Megan, obviously you had this sort of hotly fought contest with Dan Abrams last night talking about the federal election law issues and obviously I'm in agreement with you.

00:40:32.000 I'm not sure exactly what he's talking about when he suggests that what is essentially a payment for an NDA, which happens literally all the time, all the time, in a wide variety of contexts by the way, everything from employment law to payoffs like this, Or just settlements.

00:40:46.000 I mean, this is just like a normal thing that happens in the legal world all the time.

00:40:50.000 The suggestion that that is, by any stretch of the imagination, a violation of federal election law because it happened close to an election, as Bradley Smith has himself said, that would be equivalent to arguing that if I had an outstanding lawsuit against me and I wanted to settle that before the election because I just didn't want it hanging over me for the election, that that would amount to a federal campaign contribution by me, leaving aside the fact that there are no contribution limits.

00:41:13.000 By Trump himself, because the candidate can donate as much money to his own campaign as he wants, even if it were to be considered a federal election campaign donation.

00:41:21.000 That's exactly right.

00:41:22.000 So if you run for office, you cannot settle any cases against you.

00:41:27.000 Once you declare, you're just exposed.

00:41:30.000 And you must, according to this jury verdict, and now Dan Abrams, you must let the public see all of your dirty laundry. 0.95

00:41:38.000 Sorry, but if you try to cover any of it up like a normal human or businessman, Or in Trump's case back in 16, man with the number one show on television, you have to be publicly embarrassed, no matter what kind of cretin crawls out of the walls to try to disparage you. 0.96

00:41:54.000 That's absurd.

00:41:55.000 And Brad Smith has been pointing out all along, he was federal election chair under Clinton.

00:42:01.000 He was appointed by Bill Clinton as the chairman of the FEC.

00:42:05.000 And he has been pointing out all along what you look at to determine whether this is a campaign contribution or could be categorized as one.

00:42:11.000 Which is what they assumed in this case, is whether you look at the nature of the payment, not the subjective belief of the defendant.

00:42:21.000 It doesn't matter whether Trump did this to advance his campaign, whether that was the goal of Cohen, Pecker, and Trump.

00:42:29.000 All that matters is the nature of a hush money payment.

00:42:32.000 Is it the kind of thing that could only ever be used to advance a campaign?

00:42:36.000 Or might it have a more broad purpose and is used outside of the electoral context?

00:42:40.000 The answer is clearly the latter.

00:42:42.000 The things that fall within the former lane are things like rally fees and get-out-the-vote efforts, polling to see how a candidate is doing.

00:42:52.000 Those, yes, would be legitimate campaign finance items that you could get in trouble for if they exceeded the limits.

00:42:59.000 But that's not this case.

00:43:00.000 Hush money payments.

00:43:02.000 Alexander Hamilton got in trouble for a hush money payment.

00:43:05.000 So they've been happening since the beginning of time.

00:43:08.000 Only in this case are we pretending.

00:43:09.000 It's somehow unlawful.

00:43:12.000 So Megan, the other issue where you're seeing a lot of people complain about the right wing take on this particular case or even the independent claim on this particular case is Donald Trump goes out there and he says, and I've said, and I think you've said as well, that in the absence of Biden being in the White House, it is unlikely that this happens.

00:43:29.000 That the reality is that the Democratic Party has decided that they are going to litigate Donald Trump's candidacy to death.

00:43:36.000 And what happened here is pretty obviously a put up job that involved the Biden White House.

00:43:40.000 They say, well, show us the evidence.

00:43:42.000 I mean, there is some evidence to that effect in the sense that a Manhattan prosecutor who is one of the people heading up this particular case was literally a political consultant for the DNC.

00:43:50.000 In 2018 and was working at the DOJ until five seconds ago, and then he joined this particular office about three months before the charging documents were brought down.

00:44:00.000 But again, the reality is that if Joe Biden had put out the message, hey guys, we're running an election here.

00:44:05.000 We don't want to see this sort of thing happen.

00:44:07.000 Is there any chance that Alvin Bragg would have brought this case?

00:44:11.000 Well, I guess there's some chance because he wanted to get elected himself.

00:44:14.000 I mean, he he had dual purpose of dual purpose in pursuing this.

00:44:17.000 He wanted to get elected as D.A.

00:44:18.000 and he wanted to make sure Trump didn't get elected as president.

00:44:21.000 But I don't believe that there was no coordination with the White House because look what we saw in the Fannie Willis case when she was publicly disgraced with her extramarital affair with Nathan Wade while she was actually prosecuting the case against Trump.

00:44:33.000 We saw that they coordinated with the White House.

00:44:35.000 We saw it in his bills.

00:44:37.000 They've been coordinating with the White House.

00:44:38.000 We know from Politico's reporting that Merrick Garland has been feeling the full force of the White House in the Jack Smith cases.

00:44:46.000 That Biden himself has been expressing displeasure at how long it took him, Jack Smith, to bring those two federal prosecutions.

00:44:52.000 And has been tapping the watch, tick tock, right?

00:44:55.000 Because he knows if Trump wins, those two cases go away.

00:44:58.000 So what are the odds that there's been coordination and interaction on those three, but not the fourth with Alvin Bragg in New York?

00:45:06.000 But even if there wasn't exact coordination, I don't care.

00:45:10.000 He didn't need exact coordination.

00:45:11.000 And the DA of Manhattan has an obligation, irrespective of his political motivations, not to pursue political prosecutions.

00:45:21.000 He has an obligation to pursue justice, that's it, not even convictions, just To pursue justice.

00:45:29.000 And instead of doing that, he campaigned on a promise to get Trump.

00:45:33.000 And the biggest thing, the best thing you can say about Alvin Bragg today is that he lived up to his campaign promise.

00:45:39.000 Boy, did he ever.

00:45:42.000 So, Megan, looking at what happens next, the July 11th date, which is four days before the Republican convention, which is when the sentencing hearing is supposed to actually happen, what do you think are the odds that the judge, in this case Maruchan, who obviously wanted Trump convicted, what do you think are the odds that he actually sentences him to jail time?

00:46:00.000 Because the conventional wisdom right now is, no, no way, he'll probably give him probation, or he'll give him some sort of house arrest, or something like that.

00:46:07.000 I don't know, I feel like if you go this far to get this conviction, I feel like he's gonna go all the way.

00:46:14.000 That's a dark thought.

00:46:15.000 I mean, that's seriously dark.

00:46:17.000 I don't think he's gonna give him jail time.

00:46:20.000 It would be such an egregious deviation from what would normally be done in a case like this, that I don't think he thinks he can get away with that.

00:46:28.000 It's just, I mean, a first time felon. 0.56

00:46:30.000 It's ridiculous to even say that word about Trump, but okay, let's go with it. 0.90

00:46:33.000 First time felon with no prior record.

00:46:36.000 And what would be the aggravating circumstances?

00:46:39.000 What the left is pointing to is, well, he violated the gag order.

00:46:43.000 The gag order is unconstitutional.

00:46:45.000 The gag order will not be upheld when that gets appealed.

00:46:48.000 That cannot be the basis for increasing Trump's sentencing on this unconstitutional substantive crime.

00:46:56.000 Everything around this, he wasn't afforded due process at a federal level under our federal constitution, nor under the New York state constitution, which doesn't allow you to just say, We incorporate by reference all criminal laws.

00:47:08.000 And if what he did was to cover up some vague violation of one of those, he's guilty of a felony.

00:47:14.000 So there's been multiple constitutional violations here, including that gag order, that cannot possibly be the basis of a sentence enhancement.

00:47:22.000 And I just don't think Judge Machon is gonna have the stones to go quite that far.

00:47:26.000 But He has disappointed me and surprised me many times along the way, so I guess I'm open-minded to that extreme possibility.

00:47:36.000 Yeah, I mean, here's my bet.

00:47:38.000 My bet is that what he's actually going to use as the excuse is Donald Trump's lack of remorse.

00:47:41.000 Because this is the catch 22 that they've now set up, right?

00:47:44.000 Is that he's going to go in for his probation interview.

00:47:47.000 And of course, the minute he shows remorse for a crime that he didn't commit, that becomes the issue of the campaign.

00:47:51.000 He admits that he did the crime.

00:47:52.000 He's showing remorse for doing the crime.

00:47:54.000 So he can't do that, nor would he, because we have all seen Trump.

00:47:56.000 He shows that that is the thing he is least likely to do of all human things, is to show remorse for anything he has ever done.

00:48:01.000 Yes, it's absurd.

00:48:01.000 going to happen. I could see Mershawn dragging him into court and basically saying you showed no

00:48:05.000 remorse for this crime, you've shown no remorse this whole time and so now I'm going to give you

00:48:08.000 a jail sentence. My basis for saying that is Judge Arthur Engeron who hit Trump with a 500

00:48:13.000 million dollar judgment on the basis of absolute crap, meaning that if you're a New York judge and 0.97

00:48:18.000 you want to be famous for the rest of your life, be the guy who put Donald Trump in jail. 0.99

00:48:22.000 Yes, it's absurd. It's like you're not allowed to maintain your innocence or in the context of

00:48:29.000 Engeron, your non-liable nature in the face of a ridiculous trumped up charge.

00:48:34.000 It's like, well, we found a jury that we pushed into this guilty verdict, we the judge and the prosecutor. 0.86

00:48:41.000 And now that they've done what we've told them to do, you have to say we were right all along.

00:48:45.000 You are not entitled to maintain the position that this was an erroneous verdict and that you are not guilty of this crime.

00:48:52.000 And what's amazing is, even though Trump made a strategic mistake by disputing some of the items in this case that he didn't need to dispute, he should have said, let's put to the side whether I had an interlude with Stormy Daniels.

00:49:03.000 It's irrelevant.

00:49:04.000 I think he could have gotten a stipulation.

00:49:06.000 Mr. Trump denies that he had an interlude with Stormy Daniels, but for the purposes of this trial, we are going to proceed as though he did, okay?

00:49:12.000 As though he did.

00:49:14.000 And then we wouldn't have had to have Stormy Daniels on the stand.

00:49:17.000 And he also shouldn't have contested anything about reimbursing Michael Cohen for the NDA.

00:49:21.000 There was nothing wrong with anything Trump did.

00:49:23.000 He didn't do one thing wrong.

00:49:25.000 He shouldn't have led the jury to think, this is an issue.

00:49:27.000 We've got him.

00:49:28.000 Because there was a lot of evidence that he did reimburse him.

00:49:31.000 He had tweeted that out himself.

00:49:32.000 So it's kind of leading them to believe he might have done.

00:49:34.000 Anyway, he shouldn't have done any of that.

00:49:37.000 He should have owned all of this.

00:49:39.000 But now they've put him in a position where if he denies any of it, they get to continue punishing him.

00:49:46.000 For what?

00:49:47.000 Because he said from the beginning, all of this is made up and I didn't violate the law.

00:49:52.000 So I don't know.

00:49:53.000 I maintain this judge is not going to have the stones to actually go that far.

00:49:56.000 But Ben, can we talk about what probation looks like for Donald Trump?

00:49:59.000 Because that's absolutely outrageous.

00:50:03.000 We could have the sitting president of the United States having to sit and check in with his probation officer.

00:50:11.000 He's not supposed to be associating with known felons once he's a convicted felon.

00:50:15.000 So what, like Navarro?

00:50:17.000 He's out.

00:50:18.000 He can't talk to Trump anymore.

00:50:19.000 Steve Bannon can't talk to Trump anymore.

00:50:22.000 He's got to answer to some Community college, city college guy who's trying to enforce the laws against the sitting president of the United States, who's gonna tsk-tsk him and slap his knuckles.

00:50:33.000 Travel could be restricted.

00:50:35.000 They're actually talking about Trump possibly doing rallies from his home, a home arrest, if that's what this judge sentences him to.

00:50:43.000 Part of me wants to see it, I'm gonna be honest, like the home arrest or the actual jail time.

00:50:47.000 Part of me wants to see it because it'll guarantee his win.

00:50:52.000 Every single Republican in America, every single one, the voting participation will break records on the GOP side, maybe even enough to overcome the doubtful independence.

00:51:03.000 But honestly, it can't happen.

00:51:04.000 It's too big a violation of our norms.

00:51:09.000 I mean, I totally agree with you.

00:51:11.000 Obviously, I've never seen Republicans united like this since maybe the Brett Kavanaugh trial.

00:51:15.000 And this is even higher levels than that.

00:51:17.000 So if you're a hesitant Republican or somebody who's sort of on the fence, don't really like Trump, people are going to walk over broken glass to vote for him now because this is so obviously trumped up. 0.98

00:51:25.000 It's so obviously ridiculous.

00:51:26.000 They made a massive strategic error by going after him on these charges and the dates of the calendar, this coming out first. 0.97

00:51:32.000 What a huge blunder.

00:51:33.000 It is going to benefit Trump.

00:51:34.000 I really believe that going forward.

00:51:36.000 Megan, thanks so much for the time.

00:51:37.000 Thanks for your analysis.

00:51:39.000 Thanks for having me.

The Ben Shapiro Show - May 31, 2024

Trump CONVICTED Of 34 Felonies. Pray For The Republic.

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