The Great America Show - DERSHOWITZ SAYS THE UNITED STATES HAS LOST ITS STANDING TO TALK ABOUT DEMOCRACY AS A RESULT OF SOME LOCAL D.A. WHO PROMISED TO GET TRUMP

00:00:00.000 Hello everybody, I'm Lou Dobbs and welcome to the Great America Show.

00:00:04.040 Good to have you with us as we fight for truth, justice, and the American way.

00:00:09.480 There's no doubt this week that the country's careening between one crisis and the next,

00:00:14.920 and the nation is without a doubt in decline. And there's little evidence that decline is in

00:00:20.540 any way manageable. Only a fool would think those crises are anything but orchestrated. 0.96

00:00:26.580 A hardly stealthy Chinese spy balloon that Biden permits to float over our secret bases 0.96

00:00:33.080 coast to coast for a week. The obvious alliance that Biden struck up with the Mexican drug cartels

00:00:40.240 and the 2,000 mile border that they now control. Or the conspicuous weaponization of the entire

00:00:47.420 federal government against decency, the rule of law, the American way of life, our heritage,

00:00:53.520 our history, and our values. Nothing about these crises is normal or natural. The indictment of

00:01:00.920 President Trump, his arrest, with even some of the Marxist dims saying, it's enough, stop.

00:01:07.180 Guess who might have been listening? The most liberal appellate court in the nation,

00:01:12.300 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which on the same day that President Trump was indicted

00:01:17.620 by the Manhattan D.A., ruled that porn star Stormy Daniels had to pay President Trump

00:01:24.720 $121,972 in legal fees from a 2018 defamation lawsuit that she lost. Our guest is an icon in

00:01:37.900 American law. He once represented President Trump in his first impeachment, for which the left has

00:01:44.180 never forgiven him. Our guest is Alan Dershowitz, attorney, Harvard law professor emeritus, and

00:01:50.580 author of the new book, Get Trump. Alan, great to have you back with us here on The Great America

00:01:56.300 Show. Let's begin with the indictment, a historic and dark document. Your thoughts on its adequacy and

00:02:04.320 its likelihood of survival. I've been reading indictments for 60 years, teaching at Harvard Law

00:02:10.520 school, practicing. I've never read an indictment like this. You can read it over and over and over

00:02:15.560 again, and there's just no crime. Here's the basic theory underlying the indictment. Donald Trump

00:02:21.620 allegedly paid $130,000, his hush money, to make sure that a former porn star doesn't reveal to his

00:02:28.420 wife, his friends, his voters, his business associates, et cetera, that they had an adulterous

00:02:34.220 affair. The purpose of the money was to keep quiet, to make sure it doesn't become public. And Bragg says,

00:02:39.600 in order to avoid being prosecuted for felonies in New York, he then immediately had to go and

00:02:44.880 publicly disclose on an open corporate form, the fact that he paid the hush money in order to keep

00:02:51.280 people quiet and prevent the public from learning it. Has there ever been so ridiculous a claim 0.82

00:02:57.680 in the history of America from the day that Alexander Hamilton paid his hush money to prevent 0.85

00:03:04.600 an adulterous affair from coming out? There have been thousands and thousands of hush money payments

00:03:10.340 never in the history of the country has anybody ever been prosecuted for not then putting it on a

00:03:15.860 public form. Why would anybody ever pay a nickel in hush money if they then had to report, oh, I paid

00:03:21.720 the hush money to prevent from coming out what I'm now going to put in a public record? It's absurd.

00:03:27.140 I can't even say it without smiling. Do you think that the the courts will smile as well?

00:03:35.840 Perhaps chuckle when they see it? No, not the courts in New York City, not the courts in Manhattan.

00:03:42.440 The courts in Manhattan know this is an injustice, but no judge in New York, elected judges in New York,

00:03:49.220 no judge in New York is going to be the guy who walks around town with people pointing the finger

00:03:54.020 at him saying, that's the man that freed Donald Trump. How do I know that? Because I defended

00:03:58.680 Donald Trump once in the floor of the Senate and nobody in Manhattan would talk to me. Nobody on

00:04:04.180 Martha's Vineyard would talk to me. I became the devil incarnate. But just because I defended him

00:04:09.820 once, I can imagine how much more so that would be for a judge who freed him, who actually freed him.

00:04:16.460 You know, a robe doesn't give you courage and no judge would have the courage to throw this

00:04:21.320 indictment out, even though they all know that it's not worth the papers written on.

00:04:26.660 Including the judge, Judge Merchant in the in the court in New York when that indictment was handed down.

00:04:37.180 No, he's not going to have the courage to do that. You know, he has family connections to the Democrats.

00:04:42.240 He's just not going to do it. Even if he knows he's going to be reversed, he'd rather blame the

00:04:48.760 people upstairs in the court. It wasn't my fault. Those damn judges up in Albany, they reversed it.

00:04:54.880 They're the ones who freed Trump. I didn't free Trump. No, nobody wants to be the one responsible 1.00

00:04:59.780 for freeing Trump in the borough of Manhattan. In the borough of Manhattan, you cannot get a fair trial.

00:05:06.100 Remember, Greg ran and won the DA on the promise to get Trump. Now he wants the very people who voted

00:05:14.240 for him to get Trump to serve on the jury to determine whether he has, in fact, gotten Trump. 0.96

00:05:20.900 I mean, if somebody wrote a novel about this, it would be rejected for being too ridiculous. But that 0.92

00:05:27.440 novel came true in the courthouse where I have practiced for many years in New York. And it was a sad,

00:05:35.480 sad, sad day. Well, it's a pretty sad day right now. A historic event, a dark event in this country's

00:05:45.820 history. I think you agree with me on that. And the reality here is New York has become something

00:05:54.460 unto itself. In addition to all of the evil we see in the partisanship and the ideological conflict that

00:06:01.960 grips its nation. We're balkanizing the country on the basis of Marxist ideology, if you wish,

00:06:11.260 progressive partisan politics or conservative politics. We really, you know, it's one thing to

00:06:19.700 say this about Manhattan and New York, that they are entitled to their ridiculous politics. 0.96

00:06:28.400 But I can't excuse it. And I don't think the judicial system at large should do it. 0.66

00:06:34.940 It's getting worse. It's getting much worse, not better. Why? Because the future leaders of the

00:06:40.540 bar, the future judges, the future professors are now at Stanford Law School, at Yale Law School,

00:06:47.260 at Georgetown Law School, stopping people from speaking, saying that the Constitution doesn't

00:06:54.060 matter, that it's a white male, a patriarchal document and should be ignored. There are now

00:07:00.040 a hundred chapters of the National Lawyers Guild in law schools around the country. What's the

00:07:05.040 National Lawyers Guild? It started as a communist front organization. It supported Hitler when Stalin

00:07:11.600 made the pact with Hitler because the Soviet Union told it to do so. It supported Israel in 1948 because 0.76

00:07:17.880 the Soviet Union told it to do so. It then rejected Israel in 1967 because the Soviet Union told it to

00:07:23.520 do so. And so you have this, quote, woke, progressive, hard, hard, hard left becoming more and more

00:07:34.440 influential in law schools. And by the way, the hundred chapters of the National Lawyers Guild have a

00:07:40.140 lot of professors in them as well. And so we're seeing our next generation of leaders today are in

00:07:47.760 the elite law schools are being taught to disvalue the Constitution and to put politics, ideology,

00:07:54.400 partisanship above it. In my book, Get Trump, I go through all of this and I go through the history of

00:08:00.740 how we got there. And I go through all of the four counts that are now being investigated against

00:08:06.560 Donald Trump and show there's nothing to any of them. And if the shoe were on the other foot,

00:08:12.120 if these were investigations being done of Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or Hunter Biden,

00:08:17.700 everybody would be on a different side. All these progressives would be saying, oh, my God,

00:08:22.340 what a terrible distortion of justice. But now they're they're rooting for injustice. They're

00:08:27.240 rooting for violations of civil liberties. Well, they are rooting and cheering. And at this point,

00:08:35.440 there is very little that suggests to me, at least, that President Trump is going to have an easy time

00:08:44.340 of it. I know that his one of his lawyers, Joe Tacopino, says he doesn't believe this case will

00:08:50.100 get near a jury. But if it does, you know, God help the president because they don't want to give up

00:08:58.800 venue. They don't want to give up jurisdiction over this case because he is their avowed enemy.

00:09:05.440 Being Donald Trump. Your thoughts? I look, I think this case will get to a jury because I don't think

00:09:12.140 judges will have the courage to throw it out. And I think a jury will convict a member of the jurors

00:09:18.900 will be the same people who voted for Alfred Bragg and the judges will be the same people who voted

00:09:23.780 for Alfred Bragg, many of them. If there's a change of venue, things could be different.

00:09:29.440 If the case, there are two motions that can be made early on that might be appealable, might be

00:09:37.060 appealable. One is the change of venue motion and the other is the statute of limitations. And if

00:09:42.520 they're made quickly, they'll be denied by this judge. But they can then be taken up to the Court

00:09:46.900 of Appeals before there's any trial. But I do think we're going to have a trial here. I don't think we're going

00:09:51.740 to see this case dismissed without a trial, although that would be the right thing to do.

00:09:58.480 Should we have anything at all in the New York appellate courts? Are they any better than the

00:10:03.540 Supreme Court's first jurisdiction?

00:10:07.500 Well, it's a divided Supreme Court. I mean, it's called the New York Court of Appeals. It's divided.

00:10:13.820 It has Republicans and Democrats. So at least there'll be some dissenting views. But the Supreme

00:10:18.780 Court of the United States, I think, will ultimately not tolerate this. But it'll take, you know,

00:10:23.520 a good part of a year to get to the United States Supreme Court, even on an expedited basis. And by that

00:10:28.160 time, we're well into the presidential campaign. This is the first time in history, forget about the fact

00:10:35.480 that it's the first time in history that a former president has been indicted, the first time in

00:10:39.540 history that a current presidential candidate has been indicted. And I think it was the president of

00:10:45.340 San Salvador, I'm not sure, one of the South American countries, who said yesterday in a tweet,

00:10:50.300 don't lecture us about democracy anymore. You're prosecuting and threatening imprisonment of the

00:10:57.120 man who's running against your incumbent president? And you're lecturing us about democracy?

00:11:02.460 The United States has lost its standing to talk about democracy as a result of some local DA who

00:11:11.200 promised to get Trump. The title of my book, Get Trump, is not original with me. It's completely

00:11:16.920 plagiarized from the campaign promises of Letitia James and Alvin Bragg. And that's the campaign to

00:11:26.280 get Trump beyond New York. It's spread, you know, all over the country. And we're going to see,

00:11:31.040 and then we're going to see some pushback. We're going to see some local Republican DAs

00:11:35.280 trying to get Hunter Biden, trying to get other Democrats. And it's going to destroy the neutrality

00:11:44.120 and objectivity of our legal system, which is a great tragedy.

00:11:48.620 It is a tragedy. It's a tragedy that is not only unfolding before our very eyes,

00:11:54.020 but taking root throughout. I think it's, by the way, I want to compliment you on the book,

00:12:01.260 Get Trump. I don't think I've seen a more timely, not even from you, a more timely title. And you are

00:12:09.000 sagacious in your timing, as well as your interpretation of law and politics.

00:12:18.240 But I, and I recommend the book to everyone, Get Trump by Alan Dersowicz. But there is in this

00:12:24.700 now, I think there has to be a recognition on the part of our thought leaders, our once leaders in

00:12:34.100 business, academia, you name it, that this country is now contending with a new force,

00:12:41.500 something we've never seen in this expanse. And that is a Marxist force within the Democratic Party

00:12:49.480 that has taken hold and now controls the federal government. And we have to acknowledge that.

00:12:56.100 I don't think we can get much done. Do you not agree?

00:12:59.460 I do not agree. And that's why I'm remaining a Democrat to fight from within the Democratic Party.

00:13:04.340 I think there is an effort to do that. I don't think it has yet succeeded. And I'm going to fight

00:13:10.560 back. I'm almost 85 years old. I have been a Democrat all my life. I'm a Democrat, not because

00:13:16.720 of any particular person, but because I support a woman's right to choose, gay marriage, reasonable

00:13:21.820 gun control, reasonable climate control, separation of church and state. I buy the Democratic agenda

00:13:28.260 over the Republican agenda. But I don't buy the effort to try to push the Democrats into the kind

00:13:35.940 of woke progressive extremism that we're seeing happen. My greatest enemies, by the way, are not

00:13:42.280 conservatives at all. They are the radical left. That's the people that I fight against every day.

00:13:48.640 And I'm trying, trying to prevent the Democratic Party from becoming what you've described it as being.

00:13:54.680 I don't think it's there, but I think there's a risk it could become that. And I think it's important

00:13:59.840 for people like me, the few remaining Democrats who believe in a more centrist, libertarian approach

00:14:06.940 to fight from within until until we've given up. I'm not ready to give up.

00:14:13.440 Well, we've heard this audience has heard Alan Dershowitz, icon of American law, say that you can't

00:14:21.360 trust the courts of New York. You cannot trust the Marxist Dems. And it's even at best an even bet on

00:14:28.640 the appellate courts. We know in the federal courts that we've got almost a thousand people

00:14:35.000 who've been incarcerated, some of them in prison for two years without trial. We have seven years of

00:14:42.300 political persecution of a president without so much as a yawn from the left or the progressive

00:14:49.460 Democrats, or even if there is such a remaining thing, a moderate Democrat. It is, we have to

00:14:58.020 acknowledge what it is. The woke madness has permeated every department in the federal

00:15:05.500 government. There is no exception, whether it's the IRS, the Department of Defense, the Department

00:15:11.000 of Justice, the FBI, the IRS. I mean, I just don't find an exception to the domination of the

00:15:18.280 Marxist Dems and the Democratic Party in alignment with the deep state that control

00:15:22.580 the federal government. Look, I think there are two events that have occurred over the last few years

00:15:30.400 that have transformed America for the worst. One was the election of Donald Trump and then the loss

00:15:40.520 of Donald Trump, but the whole Donald Trump phenomenon, which created Trump derangement syndrome. 1.00

00:15:46.560 People are just nuts. You can't talk to them. Larry David runs up to me on Chilmark. We've been friends 1.00

00:15:51.940 for years. I helped his daughter get into college. We, you know, he comes to my house for dinner. He works

00:15:57.100 out in my gym, screams and yells at me. I'm disgusting. I'm despicable. There's that syndrome. And then there 0.99

00:16:04.140 was the murder of George Floyd. That turned America into an identity politics country where every branch

00:16:12.380 of government now must, must make reparations for the horrible evils of slavery. And it's permeated every

00:16:21.040 institution of America, the academy, the media, corporate America, political America. You cannot

00:16:27.780 today say, I believe in racial equality. You cannot quote the Bible that says, don't recognize faces or

00:16:35.260 implicitly don't recognize races or genders. Everything turns on identity politics today.

00:16:40.820 And those two events are transformative events. And people have taken sides. You can't have a

00:16:49.400 conversation in the middle. You can't say, look, you know, Donald Trump, as I've said, did a great deal

00:16:55.140 of good on the Middle East. The Abraham, of course, is fantastic. The recognition of Jerusalem,

00:17:00.840 the Golan Heights. I played a small role in some of these events. I worked with President Trump. I admire

00:17:06.720 that. I think that's great. I don't like his views on ABCD. You can't say that anymore. Or you can't say,

00:17:14.140 look, it's important to increase the number of minorities in universities, but let's not do it 1.00

00:17:19.900 through racial quotas. You can't say that anymore. There's no middle ground. That's what I worry so

00:17:26.080 deeply about. And in my book, Get Trump, I propose middle grounds. I propose ways of dealing with some of

00:17:33.540 these issues that don't hand over the narrative to the extreme extremes on the left or the extreme

00:17:40.080 extremes on the right. And where would we find such bipartisanship, such moderation that we would

00:17:47.880 accommodate the Marxist Dems who are demanding control of this country and the reversal of our

00:17:57.380 heritage, our values, whether it be the Judeo-Christian culture that has created all of this.

00:18:07.940 I can tell you where to find them. I can tell you where to find them. At the ballot box.

00:18:12.980 Okay, you find it at the ballot box, because I think that when radical right or radical left people

00:18:20.080 run for office against good moderates, they tend to lose. Not always, but they tend to lose. America

00:18:28.720 is a centrist country. We need centrist leaders. We need courageous leaders who are willing to lose

00:18:36.400 the votes of the extremes on either side and say, look, America is a country in the middle.

00:18:42.760 You can be a liberal conservative. You can be a conservative liberal. You can be a moderate. You could be

00:18:48.700 a libertarian, but we have to marginalize the extremes on either side. And that's what I've been

00:18:55.300 standing up for all my life. That's what I'm going to spend, whatever the good Lord gives me,

00:18:59.460 left of my life to fight for moderation, Americanism. When I walk into my house every day,

00:19:06.580 my little apartment in New York, I turn to a wall, the entry place, and I see an original copy,

00:19:13.180 an early copy of the Declaration of Independence. I see an early copy of Tom Paine's book. I see an

00:19:19.820 early – a letter from George Washington. I see a letter from Alexander Hamilton, from Jefferson,

00:19:24.820 from Lincoln. These are the people who inspire me. These are the people who keep me going. I want

00:19:30.720 to make sure that the values that they created for America, separation of powers,

00:19:36.820 checks and balances remain the central part of our constitutional democracy.

00:19:43.860 I admire your idealism. I admire your patriotism. I think it's wonderful. But I know right now,

00:19:52.260 anyone in this country listening to this show and to you, who is a Marxist dem, just said,

00:19:59.140 my God, he recited how many names, founding names of this nation who own slaves and should – as part of

00:20:11.440 the national original sin. That is the way they view the world. And when you talk about modern –

00:20:16.280 That's the way they do it, and we have to fight back, and we have to tell them that the Declaration

00:20:20.560 of Independence did not include the right of property in the Declaration, because Jefferson didn't want to

00:20:28.000 permanentize the ownership of slaves. These are complicated issues. Washington's wife owned

00:20:34.640 slaves, but he didn't. You know, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Not everything he said

00:20:40.900 about blacks was perfect. The perfect is the enemy of the good. And we've had phenomenal leaders, 1.00

00:20:46.620 and I fight for our legacy. And my family loves America. We've been here since 1889.

00:20:53.640 We were rescued from the pogroms of Europe. So many Americans were rescued from discrimination,

00:21:00.280 and bias, and bigotry. We don't want to see it returned to America.

00:21:03.400 It's too late, Alan. It's here.

00:21:06.040 No, we're going to fight. I'm not giving up.

00:21:07.800 I'm not giving up.

00:21:08.280 There is systemic racism. There is systemic extremism. And it is mostly, mostly, if not

00:21:18.600 predominantly on the left. Well, I'm fighting it on the left, because that's my tradition. And that's

00:21:26.040 where I come from. And that's where I have to fight the fight. And I think people on the right

00:21:29.880 should fight the fight against extremism on the right. Yeah.

00:21:33.160 I wish that every progressive in the country would follow the standard that you carry, repair to that

00:21:40.840 standard. And the country is on its way to salvation. But right now, Donald Trump, you made

00:21:50.360 it almost sound like it was Donald Trump's fault, but that there was Trump's arrangement.

00:21:53.640 No, no. I'm suggesting it's a phenomenon. No, it's a phenomenon that he was in part responsible

00:22:01.000 for in the sense that he was the person who said, I'm running against the establishment. I'm running

00:22:06.360 against the deep state. I'm running against this. You know, he's a provocative person. You can

00:22:10.840 describe provocative in neutral terms. I'm not blaming it on him. I'm just attributing part of

00:22:16.840 it to him. Yeah. And I think that because he is Donald Trump, he stood up for America first,

00:22:26.200 for balanced trade, the withdrawal of our troops from foreign remote outposts and postings,

00:22:34.520 that he should be applauded by the left because I'm a product of the sixties. I remember when that

00:22:40.600 was a serious issue for the left, they wanted our troops at home and moderates wanted a modest

00:22:46.760 foreign policy. That is precisely what Donald Trump offered America and was rejected. Maybe not at the

00:22:54.120 ballot box, but by a rigged election as Donald Trump predicted in May of 2020. All I want is nuanced,

00:23:03.400 moderation, recognize the goods of every side. Every side has some goods to say. You know, I even

00:23:10.680 agree with what President Trump said when he went to Charlottesville. He was talking about people who

00:23:15.720 don't want to tear down the monuments. And in that context, he said there are good people on both sides

00:23:21.000 and there are bad people on both sides. And of course, that was totally misunderstood and misinterpreted.

00:23:28.200 There are good people on, not on every side, not for every issue. Obviously, the people who

00:23:35.000 marked in Charlottesville saying we want to replace them, et cetera, those aren't good people. But there

00:23:40.360 are good people who don't want to tear down the monuments. I'm among them. I want to move them to

00:23:46.040 museums, perhaps, where they can be subject to education and teaching. But I want moderate solutions,

00:23:53.640 and that's what I'm opting for. Unfortunately, one of my moderate solutions requires me to leave in

00:23:58.760 a minute because I have another obligation. But it's always a pleasure to return to your show,

00:24:04.120 which I had so many good times on in past years. And I hope you continue educating America for many,

00:24:10.200 many more years. We're going to take that as your concluding thoughts, Alan. And you're leaving us with

00:24:16.840 with the inspiration to find moderation. I hope that that can be achieved. I am highly skeptical,

00:24:27.080 as you probably have inferred long ago.

00:24:29.720 I'm a skeptical person as well. I'm a skeptical person as well. But my final message is please

00:24:34.280 buy my book, Get Trump, because that will send a powerful message to Bragg and others. There are

00:24:39.560 people out there watching him. There are people out there holding him accountable.

00:24:43.000 Alan Dershowitz, a great American. Thanks, everybody, for being with us. Here tomorrow,

00:24:48.680 Republican strategist and pollster John McLaughlin on the extraordinary polling numbers for the 45th

00:24:55.080 president. Please join us here tomorrow. Till then, God bless you. God bless America.

The Great America Show - April 06, 2023

DERSHOWITZ SAYS THE UNITED STATES HAS LOST ITS STANDING TO TALK ABOUT DEMOCRACY AS A RESULT OF SOME LOCAL D.A. WHO PROMISED TO GET TRUMP

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