The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump's Coming Arrest, and Political Prosecution Hypocrisy, with Victor Davis Hanson, Arthur Aidala, and Dave Aronberg

00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:12.000 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Monday.

00:00:16.760 Hold on tight. This is going to be a history-making news week.

00:00:20.580 At this hour, former President Donald Trump is leaving his Mar-a-Lago estate to head to New York City.

00:00:26.840 Why? Because there he will face criminal charges, likely stemming from a hush money payment allegedly made to a porn star seven years ago.

00:00:36.940 Well, it was made. The question is, was it made with his knowledge and for what purpose was it made?

00:00:42.220 And is this offense, if it does qualify as a criminal offense, warrant charges so many years later?

00:00:49.100 Can it be charged? Has the statute of limitations passed? And is this an appropriate exercise of prosecutorial discretion?

00:00:54.780 So many questions to get to around this thing.

00:00:58.040 Mr. Trump is expected to be fingerprinted and will likely sit for a mugshot that will undoubtedly become the corporate media's defining image of the 21st century.

00:01:10.160 Joining me now to discuss it all, someone who knows the Manhattan court system very well,

00:01:14.580 and, of course, has been a trial attorney in very, very high-profile cases from Harvey Weinstein.

00:01:20.520 Harvey Weinstein has now been retained to represent Ghislaine Maxwell.

00:01:24.900 You name it. Arthur Aydala has been involved in several of the biggest high-profile cases we've had in New York over the past couple of decades.

00:01:31.280 Trial attorney and managing partner of Aydala, Bertuna & Caymans.

00:01:35.500 Also with me, Dave Ehrenberg.

00:01:37.820 Now, Dave is the state attorney.

00:01:39.300 He's a prosecutor for Palm Beach County, Florida, where Mar-a-Lago happens to be located.

00:01:45.480 And he can give us some insights on what the DA and his strategy may be here.

00:01:50.060 Guys, thank you so much for joining me on what feels like a historic day.

00:01:53.700 I mean, certainly tomorrow is, but the trip north has presumably begun.

00:01:58.000 Trump said he'd be leaving around right now to head up to New York and deal with this.

00:02:02.100 Good gracious.

00:02:03.680 Let me start with you on it, Arthur.

00:02:04.700 As our big New York trial attorney, what do you make of what's happening right now?

00:02:09.760 I just want to read you a text I just got from Joe Tacopina, Mr. Trump's attorney.

00:02:13.880 I can't wait for tomorrow to be over, honestly.

00:02:16.940 I have his other trial in three weeks.

00:02:20.160 So just so everybody knows, I went to high school with Mr. Tacopina.

00:02:24.640 He was a year ahead of me.

00:02:25.980 He looks much older than I do.

00:02:27.860 But we also then wound up working in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office together.

00:02:32.420 We also shared office space together.

00:02:34.120 So I know Joe very well.

00:02:35.900 So I just want to make that clear because, you know, I may be a little biased.

00:02:39.880 I'm being totally honest.

00:02:43.120 Wait, when he says I have the other case in three weeks, what's he referring to?

00:02:46.800 The civil case.

00:02:47.720 The civil case that's in federal court about a sex crime.

00:02:52.180 But it's a civil thing because those statute of limitations are clearly way gone.

00:02:55.380 In front of a very storied Southern District judge, Judge Lewis Kaplan, appointed by Clinton.

00:03:04.360 And that that's the case that actually brought Mr. Tacopina into Trump's world.

00:03:11.240 Well, actually, Megan, the case that the reason why Mr. Trump knows of Mr. Tacopina.

00:03:15.720 I'm already confused.

00:03:17.180 I'm already confused.

00:03:18.240 Hold on.

00:03:18.620 So I'll back up, Joe.

00:03:20.220 Like the federal sex crimes case against Donald Trump.

00:03:24.540 It's the E.

00:03:25.140 Jean Carroll case, Megan.

00:03:26.420 Thank you.

00:03:26.960 Oh, that one.

00:03:27.920 Oh, that's nonsense.

00:03:29.140 OK, that's a civil.

00:03:30.120 That's the civil trial.

00:03:31.500 Yeah.

00:03:31.780 That's what I said.

00:03:32.340 Yeah.

00:03:32.620 OK, I thought we were talking about criminal.

00:03:33.880 That's a civil trial by the woman who claims he assaulted her years ago.

00:03:36.400 Whatever.

00:03:36.820 Trump's got about 200 civil cases against him right now.

00:03:40.440 So I'm less interested in that.

00:03:41.440 But I get it.

00:03:41.860 Tacopina's handling that.

00:03:42.620 That one's actually going to trial.

00:03:44.780 And the way Joe came into Trump's world is Kimberly Guilfoyle, who obviously you and

00:03:49.400 I know, has a long term relationship with Joe from TV.

00:03:53.800 And when she had to be interviewed on the, I believe, the January 6th stuff, she had Joe

00:03:58.320 do that.

00:03:58.960 And then the ball went rolling from there.

00:04:02.080 First to do the civil case, which starts in three weeks, and then to do the criminal case,

00:04:06.500 which is tomorrow's case.

00:04:08.340 OK.

00:04:08.780 OK, got it.

00:04:09.480 All right.

00:04:09.660 So the audience by this point has heard most of these stats.

00:04:13.820 But of course, this is the first time in U.S.

00:04:15.900 history, in U.S.

00:04:17.020 history that we've ever seen the indictment of a former sitting U.S.

00:04:21.400 president.

00:04:22.020 I mean, it's absolutely stunning.

00:04:23.720 He's not sitting.

00:04:24.940 Of a former.

00:04:25.660 I said of a former sitting U.S.

00:04:26.880 president of a former U.S.

00:04:27.920 president.

00:04:29.700 And so that in and of itself makes it extraordinary.

00:04:32.680 I think it's horrible, too.

00:04:33.940 I think it helps Trump politically.

00:04:35.220 I really do.

00:04:35.680 We'll get to all this.

00:04:36.360 I really think it helps him politically, but it's horrible for the country.

00:04:38.760 And it's going to be horrible for him to go through.

00:04:41.120 And it's going to be horrible for us to go through.

00:04:42.700 It's horrible for the system, if you ask my opinion.

00:04:45.480 I mean, I was a pro.

00:04:46.580 I was an intern in that office.

00:04:47.960 My dad worked in that office for many years under Frank Hogan.

00:04:52.000 I was obviously a prosecutor in New York City.

00:04:54.400 I've been a criminal defense attorney.

00:04:55.720 I've been in that world for 50 years.

00:04:57.440 My whole life.

00:04:58.000 I've been in and out of that building between my dad and myself.

00:05:00.820 And it's just, this is not, this is not the case.

00:05:04.340 There may, Mr. Trump may have some big issues in Georgia.

00:05:06.720 He may have some big issues in Mar-a-Lago about the documents.

00:05:09.460 I read today that they subpoenaed the Secret Service agents about the Mar-a-Lago case and

00:05:14.660 the document case.

00:05:15.560 But this case, there is, there's no victim here.

00:05:19.000 Let's just say it's 100% accurate.

00:05:21.280 There is no victim.

00:05:22.520 And in your introduction, you talked about prosecutorial discretion.

00:05:27.900 And that's why Cy Vance, the previous prosecutor, who I believe was on some, one of the shows

00:05:34.340 yesterday, Meet the Press, said, you know, he wouldn't really get into why he didn't prosecute

00:05:39.540 Trump, even though it's the same evidence that, that he had 16 months ago as Alvin Bragg

00:05:45.040 has today, because he used his prosecutorial discretion, that this was not the case that

00:05:50.240 needed to be brought.

00:05:51.780 But there's, there's not going to be a family sitting behind the prosecutor tomorrow saying,

00:05:56.260 thank you for bringing justice to my family, whether it's for violent crime, financial

00:06:01.120 crime, there's not going to be someone there from the IRS saying, thank you for bringing

00:06:05.120 the millions of dollars that Mr. Trump cheated us back into the fold.

00:06:09.180 There's, it's a victimless crime, even under the worst case scenario.

00:06:12.800 So why bring it?

00:06:14.120 Why abuse, in my opinion, your prosecutorial discretion?

00:06:18.240 I don't know the answer to that question.

00:06:19.480 Alvin Bragg said that he bragged when he was running, pardon the pun, Alvin bragged that

00:06:25.080 he had gone after Trump, I think sued him over a hundred times in the past and that he

00:06:30.720 would, that he would prosecute him if they put him in the DA's office.

00:06:33.720 And then he won a very tight race and he was put in the DA's office.

00:06:37.360 At first he didn't prosecute.

00:06:38.760 Then somebody from his office resigned in protest saying you should go after him on all these

00:06:42.380 alleged business crimes.

00:06:43.360 Why didn't you do it?

00:06:44.620 You know, you're, you're weak.

00:06:46.100 And so then he brings this case.

00:06:47.480 And even that guy who wrote the book saying you're weak, you should have gone after the

00:06:51.000 business crimes is calling this a zombie case saying this wasn't it.

00:06:54.480 This wasn't the one that there's so many other good things you could have done against

00:06:58.800 him.

00:06:59.100 But he's, I mean, it's very clearly a political move and you know, it's being cheered in some

00:07:06.280 circles.

00:07:06.920 It's being, you know, a lot of Democrats even are very worried about this, Dave.

00:07:10.420 But I will say just to bring the audience up to speed, he's right.

00:07:14.000 There's no victim.

00:07:14.780 This stems from a payment of $130,000.

00:07:18.180 We think just to be very transparent, we don't know.

00:07:20.820 We haven't seen the indictment gets unveiled tomorrow at the arraignment.

00:07:23.980 So the speculation is based on pre indictment reporting.

00:07:27.300 We think it stems from a $130,000 payment that was made by Michael Cohen, Trump's fixer

00:07:33.720 lawyer back in 1516 to stop her from going public with the an interlude she had with

00:07:41.960 Donald Trump, a sexual interlude.

00:07:43.320 He denies it ever happened.

00:07:45.460 She allegedly was saying, I'm going to come out with it.

00:07:47.860 I may file a lawsuit based on it.

00:07:49.880 She was represented by Michael Avenatti, who's also weighing in on this.

00:07:52.940 And the allegation is that Trump through his fixer, Michael Cohen, paid her $130,000 to make

00:07:58.880 it go away.

00:07:59.420 Now, if that's all that had happened, Alvin Bragg would admit he has no claim against Donald

00:08:04.040 Trump.

00:08:04.560 Alvin Bragg, the New York DA gets involved because he says, you know what Trump then did?

00:08:08.500 Trump then wrote down that $130,000 payment on his books in a way that hid it from tax

00:08:14.840 authorities and New York state authorities and said it was just legal payments to Cohen.

00:08:18.980 And that was dishonest.

00:08:19.920 Well, that's normally a misdemeanor.

00:08:21.420 But Alvin Bragg says, I can elevate it to a felony because it was done to cover up another

00:08:27.700 crime.

00:08:28.260 What was the other crime?

00:08:28.960 The alleged violation of federal election law that was that $130,000 payment right before

00:08:33.860 an election.

00:08:34.720 Well, that's only a felony.

00:08:36.400 That's only a violation of federal election law.

00:08:38.060 If you do it for the sole purpose, your sole purpose has to be to make your electoral chances

00:08:43.620 be better.

00:08:44.120 It can't be to make Melania happier, to make myself not be as embarrassed when Barron Trump

00:08:50.160 sees a porn star saying we had sex in the newspaper.

00:08:53.600 Very high bar.

00:08:54.640 It's why the federal prosecutors didn't bring it, in my view.

00:08:57.340 They declined.

00:08:57.900 They knew all this.

00:08:58.960 They were going after Cohen on a bunch of other things.

00:09:01.120 He was like, I got this one, too.

00:09:02.120 They had him plead guilty to it.

00:09:03.120 But they knew all about this in time to charge him at the federal level and decided not to

00:09:06.700 do it.

00:09:07.020 So now here's Alvin Bragg having promised to get Trump and under all this pressure.

00:09:12.520 And what does he do?

00:09:13.160 He files the charge.

00:09:14.260 It's like a camel, you know, like the hump put on top of the hump.

00:09:18.040 But, you know, it's got it's spun out of control now where he's got like several ledges to his

00:09:24.100 whole legal theory.

00:09:25.600 And he's filed the case.

00:09:26.880 The grand jury has chosen to indict.

00:09:28.200 So that, Dave, is what brings us to tomorrow, where Alvin Bragg is going to have to put up

00:09:33.840 or shut up.

00:09:34.540 And it could be it could be he's got more than we know.

00:09:38.660 What do you think of that?

00:09:40.540 Well, thanks for having me back on the show, Megan.

00:09:42.760 And far from me to disagree with two brilliant legal minds.

00:09:45.320 No, please do disagree in part.

00:09:47.720 First off, I would say this.

00:09:49.480 I have said from the beginning, this looks like the fourth out of four cases against Donald

00:09:54.600 Trump that's swirling around him as far as the strength of the case.

00:09:57.240 I think the Mar-a-Lago documents, that's the greatest threat to Trump's future freedom.

00:10:01.540 But doesn't mean that this is a weak case.

00:10:03.920 At least we don't know.

00:10:04.900 I think it's premature to say that it's all based on the Stormy Daniels payments, because

00:10:09.400 after all, Jennifer Weisselberg did testify before the grand jury and she wouldn't see

00:10:13.100 the knowledge.

00:10:14.200 Stop there.

00:10:14.720 No one, literally nobody knows who that is.

00:10:16.960 Explain her connection to Trump's former CFO.

00:10:20.340 Good point.

00:10:21.740 Jennifer Weisselberg is the estranged ex-daughter-in-law of Alan Weisselberg, a longtime Trump organization

00:10:27.220 CFO.

00:10:27.980 He knows where all the bodies are buried.

00:10:29.480 He's sitting in a Rikers Island jail right now.

00:10:32.380 And he is the one that the prosecutor has been trying to get to flip for some time.

00:10:37.360 He has not yet flipped on Donald Trump.

00:10:39.680 He testified against a Trump organization that led to a guilty verdict against a Trump organization.

00:10:44.820 But not against Trump himself.

00:10:46.500 So Jennifer Weisselberg went before the grand jury.

00:10:49.060 She had a lot to say.

00:10:50.600 She wouldn't seem to have it.

00:10:51.480 Let me just jump in quickly.

00:10:52.380 Let me just jump in quickly.

00:10:53.320 This is so weird.

00:10:54.080 So it's like you, you're an old guy.

00:10:57.300 You're like 75.

00:10:58.200 Alan Weisselberg is, former CFO of the Trump organization.

00:11:01.000 Your son marries this woman named Jennifer.

00:11:03.360 Jennifer shows up at the family meals, the family holidays.

00:11:06.700 Jennifer's got keen ears, allegedly.

00:11:09.240 Jennifer listens to all the family convos.

00:11:10.940 Jennifer's then divorces your son.

00:11:14.940 Then Jennifer inserts herself into this proceeding and says, I know where all the bodies are buried.

00:11:21.280 My former father-in-law won't flip on Trump, but I have dirt and I am ready to spill it.

00:11:30.000 Right.

00:11:30.240 Is that where we are so far?

00:11:31.820 Yeah.

00:11:32.140 Hell hath no fury like an ex-daughter-in-law scorn.

00:11:35.580 That's unbelievable.

00:11:37.080 So she specified.

00:11:38.960 And that's what makes me think maybe there's more to it because she wouldn't seem to know much about Stormy Daniels,

00:11:42.880 but she would know some of the financial stuff that Alan Weisselberg knows.

00:11:46.600 So perhaps this is more than just the hush money payment.

00:11:50.440 But if we're going to go under the pretense that it's that is the hush money payment,

00:11:54.180 I would agree with you that we don't know if prosecutors could even piggyback on federal law.

00:11:59.860 Can a prosecutor at a state level piggyback on federal campaign law to make this a felony?

00:12:04.600 We don't know.

00:12:05.420 But one thing, a couple of things to know when we say this is all political.

00:12:07.900 First, Alvin Bragg, as you correctly noted, Megan, he turned down the prosecution of Donald Trump a year ago

00:12:13.900 when there was immense pressure to do so.

00:12:16.320 He didn't think the evidence was enough.

00:12:18.220 And so he said no.

00:12:19.380 Here he thinks the evidence is enough.

00:12:21.080 So he's doing his job as a prosecutor to follow the evidence and the law and not politics.

00:12:25.940 But here's the other thing.

00:12:26.880 When Michael Cohen was prosecuted by the feds, it was for, among other things, the hush money payments.

00:12:35.180 He was prosecuted and convicted.

00:12:37.300 Well, also, Donald Trump was not prosecuted at the time, even though he was referred to as individual number one,

00:12:43.300 an unindicted co-conspirator.

00:12:44.820 And that's because he was the president at the time and you can't indict a current president.

00:12:48.780 But you know who called him individual one and said he was an unindicted co-conspirator?

00:12:53.340 It was the Trump DOJ.

00:12:54.900 It wasn't some Soros-backed prosecutor.

00:12:56.780 It was Trump's own DOJ who did it.

00:12:59.040 So that's why I don't think this is purely political.

00:13:01.080 And also, we just still, as I said, don't know what's in there yet.

00:13:04.880 But Megan, while we're speaking, and I have a video monitor on,

00:13:09.580 every network right now is covering the mayor of the city of New York

00:13:13.680 and the police commissioner of the city of New York.

00:13:16.960 And it's all about Trump and what they're going to do to Trump.

00:13:19.200 And every police officer is on alert for tomorrow.

00:13:22.480 This is what's called, I mean, David, and you know this,

00:13:24.380 this is what's called prosecutorial discretion.

00:13:27.360 You know that there are these other cases out there and you just rank them as, you know,

00:13:31.360 so he's the lowest guy on the totem pole.

00:13:33.840 And we're in, he's elected by the citizens of the Manhattan,

00:13:38.300 of the borough of Manhattan, the borough of the county of New York.

00:13:40.880 Look, look what he's doing to the city right now.

00:13:45.680 Look at the expense that we're going through.

00:13:48.560 And this is not why people elected him.

00:13:50.980 People elected him so that when they go on the subway on the number four train,

00:13:54.060 which I just did to come to the studio, that they're safe.

00:13:57.800 And that's what, that's what you're, you're being elected as a prosecutor,

00:14:01.880 the way you were to use your good judgment.

00:14:04.620 And here you have to question, even if you're right, let's say David's right.

00:14:08.860 This isn't a political thing that they discovered that Donald Trump broke this little law that

00:14:13.820 Sy Vance, a guy who was the prosecutor for 12 years, the chief prosecutor, who was a prosecutor

00:14:19.300 for years before that in that office said, I don't know of a case that they've ever elevated

00:14:25.980 a misdemeanor to a felony based on election law.

00:14:30.440 Never, ever.

00:14:31.240 Never.

00:14:31.440 So you have a guy who really knows about being the chief prosecutor of the county of New York

00:14:37.500 saying they we've never done it before.

00:14:40.340 And I don't really he didn't say this, but what's the obvious conclusion?

00:14:44.300 And I don't really think we should have because he thought he should have.

00:14:46.980 He could have done it.

00:14:47.680 He had all this evidence.

00:14:48.720 So that's my point.

00:14:50.120 Alvin Bragg has misused his office.

00:14:53.580 And at the very least in the light, most favorable to Alvin Bragg.

00:14:56.580 He just has horrible judgment.

00:14:59.180 In the meanwhile, listen to this from via The New York Post on Sunday in an op ed from

00:15:03.100 victim rights, New York founder Jennifer Harrison.

00:15:06.060 In his first year, Bragg downgraded 50, 52 percent of felonies to misdemeanors.

00:15:10.160 He downgrades felonies to misdemeanors.

00:15:12.500 He doesn't upgrade misdemeanors to felonies unless your name is Donald Trump, compared with

00:15:17.620 39 percent that were downgraded the year in 2019.

00:15:21.660 He had a dismal 51 percent conviction rate for felonies he did charge.

00:15:27.340 So he downgraded more than half of felonies to misdemeanors and those he did go after

00:15:31.960 as felonies.

00:15:32.840 The majority he failed to convict.

00:15:36.620 He's a bad prosecutor and he is a political guy and he ran as a political guy.

00:15:42.200 And now Donald Trump, of course, is his number one number one target.

00:15:46.500 I mean, she raised another point, which I thought was actually quite valid, which was if he's going

00:15:50.980 to target politicians attempting to make a comeback.

00:15:53.240 How about Andrew Cuomo, who actually might have committed crimes in Manhattan within the

00:15:56.600 statute of limitations when it comes to how he committed covid or conducted himself during

00:16:00.620 covid in the nursing homes and the cover up of the nursing homes or his aide, Melissa De

00:16:04.780 Rosa, who openly admitted to obstructing justice while they were in that.

00:16:07.900 Well, how about that?

00:16:08.580 Is that is the nonpartisan, nonpolitical prosecutor going to go after Andrew Cuomo?

00:16:12.620 Hell no.

00:16:13.820 It's just Donald Trump because the Democrats have decided to get him any way they can.

00:16:18.040 They want to stop him.

00:16:19.060 Um, here's let's just do some let's do some protocol for tomorrow, because I think viewers

00:16:24.820 are interested in how this is going to go down.

00:16:26.640 Um, the arraignment, the actual arraignment happens at 215.

00:16:30.520 So just briefly, Arthur, what is an arraignment?

00:16:32.900 Like what happens at an arraignment?

00:16:34.700 It's a if it wasn't Donald Trump, it would literally be a less than 60 seconds, maybe 120

00:16:41.460 second event.

00:16:42.660 Um, the client stands next to the defense attorney at a table before a judge at the other table

00:16:49.200 right next to them is one or two prosecutors.

00:16:53.220 Um, the clerk, uh, stands up and says, this is the case of the people of the state of New

00:16:57.340 York versus, uh, Donald J.

00:16:58.860 Trump.

00:16:59.660 Um, dad, Mr.

00:17:01.380 Uh, defense attorney, have you received a copy of the indictment?

00:17:04.520 Yes.

00:17:05.320 Do you waive its public reading?

00:17:07.620 Because you're entitled to have it read out loud to the public.

00:17:10.880 But you'll, the Mr.

00:17:11.760 Tacopino or Mr.

00:17:12.620 Nicholas will say, yes, we waived.

00:17:14.380 We don't need, we don't need you to read it.

00:17:16.260 How does your client plead?

00:17:17.460 Not guilty.

00:17:18.660 Okay.

00:17:19.120 The judge will just say, all right, why don't we put this on in 30 or 45 days for a conference

00:17:24.040 to see if the prosecutors have complied with their discovery, which under these new bail

00:17:29.040 laws also encompass discovery laws, which means evidence has to be turned over much more

00:17:33.600 quickly than in the past.

00:17:36.000 And, um, that's it.

00:17:38.160 They'll pick a date and the date will all have already been picked beforehand.

00:17:41.260 They won't do it right at the bench.

00:17:42.680 Tacopino says they're going to plead loudly and proudly, not guilty at this proceeding.

00:17:47.020 It's two words.

00:17:48.120 It's not, it's not that hard, but the interesting part also.

00:17:51.480 Not guilty.

00:17:52.400 Even when we talk about like two 15, you know, I, my law firm represents the New York state

00:17:58.940 court officers.

00:18:00.060 Um, the secret service is running the whole show, right?

00:18:02.540 They are, they have to protect the, the president, the former president of the United States.

00:18:06.900 So in that, it may be in the exact courtroom where I tried the Harvey Weinstein case.

00:18:11.420 When I tried that case, when we would walk outside the courtroom, the media was like within

00:18:16.020 a foot of us, right?

00:18:17.080 The, I mean, they were behind, you know, the metal barricades, but they were very, very close.

00:18:21.040 I cannot imagine that secret service is going to allow that to happen.

00:18:25.920 I'm sure everyone is going to be pushed back.

00:18:27.800 I'm sure everyone is going to be far away.

00:18:29.980 I'm sure I, if I don't have a case on in that building that day, as much as many people as

00:18:34.700 I know, it would be difficult for me to get into the courthouse.

00:18:37.000 I'm sure that they're going to restrict access to that building severely.

00:18:41.580 That's why the mayor and the police commissioner are having a press conference as we speak about

00:18:46.040 all the security protocols that are going to be going on.

00:18:49.540 So I wouldn't be surprised, Megan, if there's a bait and switch, um, you don't need, Donald

00:18:53.700 Trump is supposed to surrender very early tomorrow morning.

00:18:56.340 We have about 8 million people in the city, but, uh, over 20 million people when all the

00:19:00.640 workers come in, this is obviously happening on a work day.

00:19:02.740 You got 20 plus million people, they got a lot to manage between 6 and 7 AM.

00:19:08.480 He'll be brought into the, he's supposed to be brought in through the side door, one

00:19:11.960 Hogan place.

00:19:12.920 Once he goes in the building, between 6 and 7 AM.

00:19:15.520 Well, I thought it was just a couple of hours before the two 15 arraignment.

00:19:18.020 This is going to happen as early as 6 and 7 AM tomorrow.

00:19:20.160 That that's when they're saying, that's my sources are saying they want him in there very

00:19:24.460 early.

00:19:25.500 Um, and the other people are saying, well, if he comes in there at 7 AM, we don't need to

00:19:30.060 do the arraignment at two.

00:19:30.860 We can do the arraignment at 11, but so I think there's a lot of, that's why I'm just

00:19:35.200 What happens in the pregame there at 6 or 7 AM?

00:19:37.720 Okay.

00:19:38.160 So he'll go in with the secret service.

00:19:41.140 He'll be met downstairs by detective investigators from the Manhattan DA's office and brought

00:19:46.760 up into the Manhattan district attorney's office, into the detective investigators room.

00:19:51.520 And that's where the famous mugshot will take place.

00:19:54.280 And his, he'll be fingerprinted.

00:19:56.540 Typically.

00:19:56.940 Wait, weird question, weird question, weird question.

00:19:58.600 Very weird.

00:20:00.040 But if you don't like your mugshot, do you get a second go?

00:20:03.780 Is it like a DMV where they show it to you once?

00:20:05.980 You can be like, no, I don't.

00:20:07.380 I do not think that's going to happen.

00:20:09.200 And it'll be interesting.

00:20:10.340 It'll be interesting to see.

00:20:12.060 Does Donald Trump smile?

00:20:13.500 Does he keep a serious face?

00:20:14.740 Like, how is he going to handle that?

00:20:16.340 He'll then be fingerprinted.

00:20:17.520 And typically in precincts now, there is no ink.

00:20:20.380 You get, you put your hand on just a piece of glass.

00:20:23.600 It's all virtual.

00:20:24.640 That, those two things, the picture and the fingerprints get sent to Albany.

00:20:29.300 I think you know about Albany, Megan.

00:20:30.960 Is there a moment?

00:20:31.620 Love Albany.

00:20:32.340 But wait, is there a moment at which they say, Donald J. Trump, you are under arrest for

00:20:37.060 the following crimes?

00:20:38.520 And then his rights get read to him?

00:20:40.420 No.

00:20:41.300 No.

00:20:41.480 His rights would only be read to him if they were going to try to question him.

00:20:46.200 And there's an agreement we read that they have, that they will not handcuff him.

00:20:49.900 Is that normal?

00:20:53.080 Not typically.

00:20:54.260 It's not, but it's not normal to come in with secret service guys.

00:20:57.160 So I just had one of these.

00:20:58.260 It's called an ex indictment.

00:20:59.700 It's when you get indicted before you actually get arrested.

00:21:02.620 So that's what happened here.

00:21:03.760 And in the case that I had in that office with these prosecutors, they did handcuff my guy

00:21:08.500 going from point A to point B.

00:21:10.080 Um, and he was a man in his forties who never had any problems in his life with the law.

00:21:15.860 And it was a paper crime, just like this one is no violence associated with it.

00:21:20.560 But I, you know, they're not going to, the secret service is not going to allow Donald

00:21:23.620 Trump to be handcuffed.

00:21:24.480 There's a lot of protocols, a lot of coordination because you have secret service, you have the

00:21:28.760 DIs from the Manhattan DIs office, and then you have the New York state court officers

00:21:32.200 who take over once he heads to the courtroom.

00:21:34.920 And he does not need to leave the building to go from the district attorney's office into

00:21:39.940 the courtroom.

00:21:40.560 There's an elevator that joins them.

00:21:42.180 So there'll be no outside perp walk kind of situation.

00:21:45.720 He'll then go into that courtroom.

00:21:47.100 And as I said, you know, just, it'll be a two minute situation.

00:21:51.160 And then how he leaves the courthouse will be very interesting.

00:21:54.380 How will there be any cameras inside the court?

00:21:55.860 That's totally 100% in the judge's discretion.

00:22:00.800 You know, I don't know what he's going to do.

00:22:02.900 I would doubt it.

00:22:04.140 If I'm betting 20 bucks, I'm going to doubt it.

00:22:06.180 He's going to let those courtroom artists make their money and they'll make a lot of

00:22:09.320 money.

00:22:10.060 You know, sketching Donald Trump standing there with his lawyers, you know, on either side

00:22:16.300 of him with the judge.

00:22:17.180 And you know how those, those things work.

00:22:19.300 And those, those, those courtroom artists would make a lot of money.

00:22:22.800 I can see this judge, not even in any way, shape or form, trying to make any kind of

00:22:27.400 spectacle out of this.

00:22:29.500 People know what Donald Trump looks like.

00:22:31.600 It's not like they need a photograph of him to see what he looks like there.

00:22:35.000 It's really just for the purpose of.

00:22:37.420 I'm going to ask you about this judge in one second, because I want to know what you think

00:22:40.480 of this judge.

00:22:41.240 But Dave, let me ask you first.

00:22:42.920 There's been speculation about whether this judge might issue a gag order, a gag order,

00:22:48.160 which I understand.

00:22:50.060 I mean, you think about a gag or you think, well, that's there probably mostly to defend

00:22:52.920 to protect the defendant and his right to a fair trial.

00:22:55.880 So if Donald Trump doesn't want one, will he issue one?

00:22:58.840 But it's really there to protect both sides right to a fair trial.

00:23:02.580 The people also have a right to a fair trial.

00:23:04.960 And, you know, without a gag order, I mean, Trump's already planning tomorrow night at 815 at

00:23:09.300 Mar-a-Lago, it's 815 or 8, a massive, you know, speech.

00:23:14.840 He's inviting various people saying, you know, would you like to come?

00:23:18.600 It's almost a loyalty test at this point.

00:23:20.240 Would you like to come to Mar-a-Lago and be there for the president's remarks?

00:23:23.520 So what do you think the odds are that this judge will enter a gag order?

00:23:28.060 I think it's a condition of his pretrial release.

00:23:30.360 The judge may instruct Trump not to criticize prosecutors and the judge himself.

00:23:36.440 Now, maybe that's just wishful thinking.

00:23:38.920 I think the greatest threat to Trump is that a gag order will be imposed and then he will

00:23:43.800 be unable to live by it.

00:23:45.780 And then he could get sentenced to 30 days in jail before the trial.

00:23:50.680 So he's got to worry about that.

00:23:52.180 I think his lawyers and Arthur knows his lawyers better than I do.

00:23:56.100 I think his lawyers probably want some sort of restriction because they know every time

00:24:00.520 that Donald Trump speaks about the case, he hurts himself.

00:24:04.140 He makes admissions, he contradicts his other stories.

00:24:06.620 On the other hand, they may not want a full gag order that would set a trap for Trump to

00:24:11.400 be sentenced to jail because I don't know if he could abide by it.

00:24:14.520 So I think the court will instruct Trump.

00:24:18.000 I don't know if he's going to issue the gag order right away.

00:24:20.080 I think at some point he may have to because you can't go around and call the prosecutor

00:24:25.060 a criminal, a communist, corrupt.

00:24:27.780 And the same thing for the judge.

00:24:29.160 Judges don't like that either.

00:24:30.200 They wear the black robes and you stand up when they walk in the room.

00:24:33.180 They don't like being criticized like that either.

00:24:35.880 I agree.

00:24:36.340 What do you think on that?

00:24:37.320 I agree with David.

00:24:38.520 I think Judge Merchant will do something, will say something, you know, in New York.

00:24:44.120 And I'm sure it's the same in Florida.

00:24:45.660 There are ethical issues regarding lawyers making out of court statements about the case

00:24:54.000 that they're involved in.

00:24:54.880 And, you know, I had to tread lightly when I was representing both Lawrence Taylor and

00:25:00.320 Harvey Weinstein, because, you know, you want to defend your client in the court of public

00:25:07.260 opinion because these are public people and and that matters to them.

00:25:10.480 And it matters to Donald Trump much more than the other two people I just spoke about, because

00:25:14.140 he still wants to be the president of the United States.

00:25:16.720 He's running right now.

00:25:18.880 Excuse me?

00:25:19.820 He's running right now.

00:25:21.100 I mean, that's one of the things that lends the absurdity to this ethical.

00:25:24.220 There's an ethical rule for Mr.

00:25:26.420 Takapina and Ms.

00:25:27.200 Susan Necklace about saying anything outside of the court about their case that could be

00:25:33.420 considered any kind of jury intimidation, any kind of witness intimidation.

00:25:37.920 Does that apply to Trump?

00:25:39.940 No, no, it doesn't apply to Trump.

00:25:41.520 But then the judge, the judge can can warn Mr.

00:25:45.520 Trump.

00:25:46.160 My guess.

00:25:46.880 This is my guess.

00:25:47.640 It's a total guess.

00:25:48.640 He's going to say, Mr.

00:25:49.380 Trump, I'm not putting a gag order on you now.

00:25:51.360 However, I am going to monitor very closely all of your statements on the social media

00:25:55.580 or live or elsewhere.

00:25:56.760 And if I think you come to the point where I'm going to issue a gag order, I will do so.

00:26:01.220 And you will.

00:26:01.780 The consequences are you can be charged with the crime, the a misdemeanor in New York

00:26:06.580 state of contempt of court.

00:26:08.220 And I can give you up to 30 days in jail on that alone and a fine.

00:26:13.280 I think it's five hundred or a thousand dollars.

00:26:15.440 How can we have that?

00:26:17.200 How it's making my head hurt.

00:26:19.860 How can you have the by far the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president

00:26:25.940 right now in this country?

00:26:27.120 The latest poll had him 30 points, I think, ahead of Ron DeSantis post indictment, by the

00:26:31.480 way, post.

00:26:32.180 Um, how can you have the leading candidate for the GOP nomination told we're we're prosecute

00:26:38.020 prosecuting you on a brand new novel crime theory that even the former Democratic D.A.

00:26:45.920 wouldn't bring that you yourself failed to bring until you got pressured.

00:26:49.300 Uh, Mr.

00:26:50.120 Bragg, first time in U.S.

00:26:51.980 history we've gone after a former president.

00:26:54.180 We're going to prosecute you on this novel crime theory for which the statute of limitations

00:26:59.540 may already run all these weaknesses in the case.

00:27:01.640 According to both sides.

00:27:03.000 And you can't say anything about it.

00:27:05.760 You have to keep your mouth shut.

00:27:07.740 Well, that's why you can't criticize the D.A.

00:27:09.580 You can't criticize the charge.

00:27:11.200 How that can't.

00:27:12.760 How is that even constitutional?

00:27:14.220 How can that be constitutional?

00:27:15.380 That's why I'm going to get Dave and I'll go back to you.

00:27:17.460 Yeah.

00:27:17.720 Yeah.

00:27:18.020 On this, Arthur, and I totally agree.

00:27:19.980 I think the judge is going to admonish Trump, say, look, we're going to be watching

00:27:22.860 you.

00:27:23.480 Be careful what you say.

00:27:24.760 You can't criticize prosecutors and this court.

00:27:27.860 But I don't think they're going to impose a gag order yet.

00:27:31.120 It may down the line happen, but not yet.

00:27:33.820 And also, even if the gag order is imposed, I think it'll be a partial gag order.

00:27:37.240 It will not prohibit Trump from talking about the case, but it'll prohibit him from bashing

00:27:41.940 the prosecutors and the process.

00:27:44.520 And the witnesses.

00:27:45.540 He could do it yesterday.

00:27:46.380 He could do it this morning.

00:27:47.660 He could do it this morning.

00:27:48.900 He could do it yesterday.

00:27:49.600 But he can't do it after the arraignment because some magical cloak of protection comes down

00:27:54.120 over Alvin Bragg.

00:27:55.680 Yes.

00:27:56.060 But that's the truth, Megan.

00:27:57.040 Yes.

00:27:57.440 Yes.

00:27:58.080 That's correct.

00:27:58.920 Once you are invited, once you're arraigned, then that magical cloak comes out and a judge

00:28:04.440 now has control and power over you.

00:28:07.220 But you see the position Trump is in?

00:28:08.900 Because unlike any other defendant, literally every media company in America will be devoting

00:28:15.980 full time coverage to this and 99 percent of them will be anti-Trump.

00:28:20.880 So he is up against the universe saying, look at this terrible indictment.

00:28:25.960 It's got new juicy stuff.

00:28:28.080 Let's latch on to the new Jennifer Weisselberg stuff.

00:28:30.640 By the way, there's a long piece in the New York Post about whether she's credible or not.

00:28:33.380 It's actually very interesting saying she's a PR lover that intentionally inserted herself

00:28:39.320 into this.

00:28:40.200 And Michael Cohen is a I mean, it's just what are you saying?

00:28:43.740 Michael Cohen has obviously got massive problems and so on.

00:28:47.400 So how can it be that every newspaper, every every cable show, every broadcast network is

00:28:51.680 going to slam, slam, slam.

00:28:53.300 And Trump has to be like, I'm a good little boy.

00:28:55.880 I can't say anything about the mean Alvin Bragg.

00:28:58.060 I mean, just it's so unprecedented, Arthur.

00:29:01.240 I don't know that they'll be able to enforce this to keep him silent.

00:29:06.040 I mean, they can enforce it.

00:29:07.440 Whether Trump abides by it on a different story, they will charge him.

00:29:11.120 They will.

00:29:12.400 Look, I don't think it's going to happen tomorrow.

00:29:15.080 I think the judge will say, I understand, you know, you need to defend yourself and I'm

00:29:21.820 allowing you to do so.

00:29:23.160 But I'm going to monitor how fiery basically your language is and whether it's intimidating

00:29:29.220 to people who would be witnesses in this case, or if it's so insensitive, whatever the big

00:29:34.800 word is, fiery, that you're going to intimidate jurors or influence jurors like inappropriately.

00:29:41.720 But if he does, if he does that, the law in New York is the judge has to have a very

00:29:47.800 clear ruling as to what the parameters are.

00:29:51.420 I don't think that's going to happen tomorrow, but the judge could call him back at any time.

00:29:55.180 So so tomorrow night at 815, when he has that rally, if he says some crazy stuff, the judge

00:30:01.180 could call Mr. Takapina and Miss Nichols and say, I want your client back here tomorrow

00:30:05.720 at 3 p.m.

00:30:06.460 Oh, my God.

00:30:07.000 Because I'm interviewing a gag order.

00:30:08.520 And if he violates it, they're going to sit Trump's ass in jail for 30 days per violation.

00:30:13.040 My God.

00:30:13.840 Megan, also, it's already a crime if you try to intimidate witnesses, if you try to obstruct.

00:30:18.280 And so he is getting closer to line when he says some of the inflammatory incendiary stuff,

00:30:23.220 Arthur. Thank you. He's been saying so it's already a separate crime.

00:30:27.180 And I don't think Alvin Bragg's charging him with those crimes, but I think he's going to

00:30:31.000 leave it up to the judge to step in if he does cross the line.

00:30:34.400 That wasn't Cy Vance saying that as well.

00:30:36.580 Yesterday, I meet the press that if I were Trump, I'd be very worried.

00:30:39.040 Like, I'd be very careful about what I say publicly, because there are other crimes once

00:30:44.660 you've been charged that can be slapped on you really quickly.

00:30:47.140 That may be even stronger than this crime.

00:30:50.100 So like you said, jury intimidation or intimidation of the judge, which he doesn't want to does

00:30:55.200 not want to add to his list of legal woes.

00:30:57.360 Just want to correct.

00:30:58.240 I said The New York Post had a piece about Jennifer Weisselberg.

00:31:01.000 It was The Daily Beast, which is a much more friendly publication to the anti-Trump side.

00:31:05.620 And I will say this about her just to follow up on what you were saying, Dave.

00:31:08.300 This woman, they're reporting she did not actually testify before this grand jury, but that she

00:31:14.220 was there testifying before a different grand jury in a case unrelated to Trump.

00:31:20.080 So we're not 100 percent sure what she whether she actually wound up in front of the Trump

00:31:24.120 grand jury or not.

00:31:25.180 But they said she had walked into the D.A.'s office midday Monday, claimed a reporter staking

00:31:30.740 out the grand jury that she was about to help prosecutors nail Trump on something that's

00:31:34.200 quote, bigger than any taxes, paper, insurance, banks, insurance.

00:31:37.560 It's bigger than money, she claimed.

00:31:39.560 However, voting from The Daily Beast in the hours after making her claims, two sources

00:31:43.520 with direct knowledge of the investigation told The Daily Beast that Weisselberg had merely

00:31:47.240 used the intense media focus on the case to bring attention to herself.

00:31:51.540 Her attorney, who has guided her through previous interviews with investigators about the Trump

00:31:55.680 org, did not accompany her on Monday.

00:31:58.680 And they say her media stunt casts doubt on her reliability as a witness, could prevent

00:32:04.560 investigators from using her to testify in the future about anything.

00:32:07.560 Uh, about team Trump.

00:32:08.920 Very interesting.

00:32:09.600 I mean, you never know.

00:32:10.280 These, these things bring out such a weird cast of characters who are like, look at me.

00:32:14.140 My left side's my best.

00:32:15.320 If you wouldn't mind just shooting me with the clean lights.

00:32:17.420 Um, and as I said, now Avenatti's weighing in from prison about he thinks this case stinks.

00:32:24.100 Avenatti, the one who shoved us, who shoved this down our throats with Stormy Daniels in the

00:32:28.980 beginning, who now is sitting in prison.

00:32:30.640 Presidential candidate, Avenatti.

00:32:32.000 He was running for president.

00:32:32.900 Remember, Megan?

00:32:33.620 Yeah, he was.

00:32:33.980 Now he's, he's in the, well, he's in, he's in the pokey for 11 years and he's still commenting

00:32:39.660 and the news is reporting it.

00:32:41.160 And this one's actually kind of interesting.

00:32:42.880 So I'll tell you what he's saying.

00:32:44.100 And then I want to talk about what's going to happen.

00:32:45.480 How long is this case?

00:32:46.500 Could this case get resolved before the presidential election?

00:32:49.100 What if it doesn't?

00:32:50.020 What if it does?

00:32:51.080 And he gets convicted.

00:32:52.360 I got so many more questions.

00:32:53.400 Arthur and Dave stick around after this quick break.

00:32:55.280 They'll be back with much more great info.

00:32:58.980 We're told that Trump has left Mar-a-Lago.

00:33:04.200 He is about to go wheels up down in West Palm Beach.

00:33:07.860 They are awaiting the media, a shot of him walking up the stairs onto his airplane.

00:33:13.000 And you can bet the same will be true when it's wheels down here in New York on what truly

00:33:18.040 is history in the making.

00:33:19.700 You know, whether you think it's disgraceful or cause for celebration, as some of the media

00:33:23.680 do, it's history.

00:33:25.580 That's for sure.

00:33:26.320 Um, I mean, I do think I said this at the National Review Institute, uh, event that I

00:33:32.280 attended on Thursday before he'd been indicted.

00:33:34.580 I said, I, if I were Trump, I'd be on my knees praying for an indictment, especially in this

00:33:39.000 case, because it's the weakest one.

00:33:40.380 It's not because anybody wants to be indicted.

00:33:42.140 And I understand the reporting is by Maggie Haberman and the New York Times and others that

00:33:46.320 Trump is genuinely rattled by this.

00:33:48.560 Of course he could go to prison.

00:33:51.220 I mean, it's a New York jury.

00:33:52.720 He's not going to be charged or tried in Texas, can be charged in Manhattan.

00:33:57.000 It went 87% for Joe Biden.

00:33:59.060 This is not, it's complicated because Trump has a long history in the city.

00:34:02.580 So he's not exactly loathed by everybody.

00:34:05.120 Before he ran for president was kind of beloved, but things have changed.

00:34:08.900 So you don't, you don't want this, you know, as a human, but as a political matter, like

00:34:13.980 I said, he's up almost 30 points over Ron DeSantis now, and he took in four plus million just

00:34:18.360 in the first 24 hours after the indictment was arranged, was alleged, and he could get

00:34:22.740 this whole case kicked on the papers.

00:34:25.400 Could he not?

00:34:26.420 Dave, Joe Tacopina, his lawyer, has said he's not going to make a motion to dismiss tomorrow.

00:34:30.540 He said that'd be theater.

00:34:31.440 That's not going to happen.

00:34:32.160 But he's going to file on the papers, a motion to dismiss based on legal arguments saying

00:34:38.080 all the things we kicked off the show with.

00:34:40.020 It's a federal crime.

00:34:41.040 It's never been used before.

00:34:42.180 You can't have a state prosecutor.

00:34:43.920 The statute of limitations has run.

00:34:45.500 It's really just a misdemeanor.

00:34:46.660 So the statute is definitely run all the stuff that we were saying.

00:34:50.220 Megan, I don't think they're going to get this case kicked on any of those grounds with

00:34:55.420 the possibility of one additional argument, which is intent to defraud.

00:35:00.140 Now, under the falsification statute, falsification of business records, which is just a misdemeanor,

00:35:05.180 you have to have an intent to defraud.

00:35:07.560 And there is a legitimate question whether there would be an intent to defraud here because

00:35:12.240 some courts have said that you need money or property.

00:35:16.740 And as Arthur said, and you said at the beginning of the show, is there as a state out any money

00:35:22.540 or property of Michael Cohen paid taxes on this?

00:35:25.880 That's why he got reimbursed excessively.

00:35:28.340 He paid taxes.

00:35:28.980 The state's not out.

00:35:30.200 No one else seems to be out money or property.

00:35:32.100 So if that's the narrow interpretation that the courts will have, then yes, they could get

00:35:36.000 this whole thing thrown out if the case involves the falsification of business records.

00:35:40.700 Again, we don't totally know.

00:35:42.040 I think the other arguments are weak.

00:35:43.940 I think the statute of limitations argument will be rejected because Trump left the state.

00:35:48.120 He moved right here in my backyard, Palm Beach.

00:35:50.480 And when he did so, it pauses the statute of limitations.

00:35:53.720 David, let me just address that.

00:35:55.040 So how were they able to indict him now?

00:35:57.460 In other words, the whole time, from the moment he left Washington, D.C. until whatever,

00:36:03.300 Thursday, they could have indicted him anytime.

00:36:05.560 So I think that argument just doesn't hold water because they just showed that they could

00:36:10.120 indict him when he's outside of the jurisdiction.

00:36:12.960 I think Megan loves to talk about Andrew Cuomo.

00:36:15.200 I think Andrew Cuomo suspending or tolling the statute of limitations during the corona

00:36:22.980 period, during the COVID period, may be what they're hanging their hat on.

00:36:26.480 I will tell you, Megan, I did my own homework behind the scenes.

00:36:30.260 The Manhattan DA's office is very confident that they have a strong argument regarding

00:36:34.540 the statute of limitations.

00:36:36.260 And if I could add, I was about to mention the Andrew Cuomo COVID pausing the statute of

00:36:41.900 limitations too.

00:36:42.340 So there are two reasons why, and that's why I agree, this case would not have been

00:36:45.680 filed if they thought there was a statute of limitations barred to it.

00:36:48.800 They're going ahead because they think it'll at least get to a jury.

00:36:52.360 Okay.

00:36:52.740 And if it gets to a jury.

00:36:55.080 Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

00:36:56.140 About what you said about Maggie Haverman, because I read what was in the Times yesterday.

00:37:00.000 I know.

00:37:00.320 She hates Trump.

00:37:01.100 She's such a Trump hater.

00:37:02.200 It's like everything she writes.

00:37:04.300 So Joe told me about his first conversation with the president.

00:37:07.200 And all he said was that, you know, the president was very quiet when he got the news.

00:37:12.160 He was a little bit like taken back because don't forget, they said it was going to happen

00:37:16.420 in a month.

00:37:17.680 Not right.

00:37:18.500 They lied to all of them.

00:37:19.520 They lied to the, oh, yeah, this isn't going to happen for a while.

00:37:22.040 The grand jury is not coming back probably till the end of April.

00:37:24.460 And then all of a sudden, kaboom, this happened.

00:37:26.700 Who lied to him?

00:37:28.260 I believe the prosecutor said, you know, if things are going to be quiet for a while, you

00:37:32.120 know, you won't hear from us for a while.

00:37:33.420 And then all of a sudden that, you know, that this this I mean, it was widely reported

00:37:37.860 here, David, that the grand jury was in recess on the Trump matter until middle to the end

00:37:43.180 of April.

00:37:43.580 And now all of a sudden on March 30th, they he gets indicted.

00:37:47.280 So when the president found out he was surprised on two fronts that he actually got indicted

00:37:51.680 and number two, the timing of it.

00:37:54.300 But shortly thereafter, President Trump made sure his legal team knew that he was fired

00:38:00.440 up and he was ready to go and he was out of dinner and he was, you know, ready to do

00:38:04.400 battle playing golf yesterday.

00:38:07.060 Yeah.

00:38:07.620 I mean, as you said, Megan, nobody wants to be indicted.

00:38:11.000 But in my opinion, he's proving so many people right.

00:38:14.200 Well, I should say Alvin Bragg is proving them right that this is a witch hunt, that this

00:38:18.180 is a very low level crime.

00:38:20.280 Cy Vance said they've never done anything like this before.

00:38:23.780 And so Donald Trump gets to say, see, I told you they just I'm the guy and they're looking

00:38:29.020 for any crime whatsoever to come after me.

00:38:32.140 Just to respond to Arthur on that, I saw the Cy Vance interviews and Cy Vance said the

00:38:37.080 reason why his office didn't pursue this particular matter was because he was asked by the Southern

00:38:44.520 District of New York, Bill Barr's Justice Department, to stand down.

00:38:48.600 So whether you want to believe him or not, that's why he said he didn't do it.

00:38:51.660 Now, the one thing that I will agree with Arthur and you, Megan, is yes, Cy Vance said that

00:38:56.920 he is not aware of any case where the campaign finance law has been piggybacked upon to create

00:39:04.600 a felony.

00:39:05.380 Normally, when you create a felony from the falsification of business records, it's for

00:39:09.120 some other crime, not campaign finance.

00:39:11.760 But again, we don't know what it's going to be.

00:39:13.880 I will say to you that if the case involves solely the falsification of business records

00:39:18.960 and the campaign finance, then it's weaker than a lot of us would have thought it would

00:39:25.340 be.

00:39:26.000 No, it's an important asterisk.

00:39:27.360 We got there.

00:39:27.700 All we know is 32 counts and the media is like, oh, 32 counts.

00:39:30.840 Now, that could just be repetitive.

00:39:32.220 It could have been like and on January 1st, you entered the falsification and on February

00:39:36.300 1st, you entered a falsification like it could be the same crime space out.

00:39:40.620 Right.

00:39:41.100 It could very much in the conspiracy case.

00:39:42.900 So or it could be new stuff that we don't know about yet.

00:39:46.640 And we need to keep an open mind to see, well, what do you have there?

00:39:49.500 Whether it would ever get to the level of, you know, people like Arthur, people like

00:39:53.420 me believing that the prosecutorial discretion was appropriately exercised.

00:39:57.720 And that just means even when you think you have a crime committed, it's up to you, the

00:40:00.920 DA, whether to prosecute it, whether to prosecute it, whether it's in the interest of justice

00:40:04.520 in the country or your state to prosecute it and that in politics are not supposed to

00:40:08.800 be at play.

00:40:09.540 So we'll keep an open mind to it.

00:40:11.160 But here's first.

00:40:12.240 I want to tell you this.

00:40:12.880 Um, we we've got, okay, two, two updates for you before we show this video, uh, mayor

00:40:19.060 Eric Adams telling the Trump supporters today, control yourselves, control yourselves.

00:40:23.560 Lovely.

00:40:24.680 Um, says New York city is our home, not a playground for your misplaced anger.

00:40:28.520 Oh, well, who are you to tell me my, my anger is misplaced.

00:40:31.860 Maybe my anger is righteous, sir.

00:40:33.860 Although we have no specific threats, people like Marjorie Taylor green, who is known to spread

00:40:37.740 misinformation and hate speech stated.

00:40:39.520 She's coming to town wrongly handled.

00:40:41.440 Mr. Mayor, could you try to rise above the politics and your message to tell everybody

00:40:44.740 to rise above the politics?

00:40:47.020 Just be a classy, calm leader.

00:40:50.620 Go take a look back at how Bloomberg did it.

00:40:52.780 Even Giuliani during times of trouble for the city was spectacular back then.

00:40:57.360 Um, now Trump has gone up the steps.

00:40:59.960 He's walked up the steps.

00:41:00.800 We have video of it.

00:41:01.960 Let's check it out and see how he looked.

00:41:04.340 Here he is.

00:41:05.740 He's getting out of the SUV for the listening audience.

00:41:08.580 Can't really see him very well.

00:41:10.080 Um, I see nothing.

00:41:14.080 Okay, here he goes.

00:41:15.580 He's going up the stairs.

00:41:17.480 You can see no facial expressions.

00:41:20.500 Was he was talking to Melania?

00:41:24.140 Oh, okay.

00:41:25.080 No, he wasn't talking to Melania.

00:41:26.080 She's not coming.

00:41:27.140 None of the family's coming.

00:41:28.140 There he is.

00:41:28.580 He stops.

00:41:29.420 He waves before he gets in the plane.

00:41:31.000 All right.

00:41:31.600 No big news there.

00:41:32.440 We'll see if there's anything more on the New York end.

00:41:34.680 So here's the thing I really want to talk about, Arthur, which is.

00:41:36.800 What's the strategy for Takapina now?

00:41:40.120 Does he want to trial right away?

00:41:41.620 Trump's typical legal approach has been delay, delay, delay, obfuscate.

00:41:45.660 He knows his way around a courthouse.

00:41:46.900 It's all civil.

00:41:48.020 But what's the strategy?

00:41:48.980 Get a trial ASAP or delay it until after 2024, November?

00:41:52.320 90 some odd percent of these cases in that courthouse, all shapes and sizes of cases, do not go to trial.

00:42:00.100 Like 90, I don't know if it's 91, 92, 93.

00:42:02.420 They wind up in some sort of a police settlement.

00:42:06.440 I am confident in Mr. Takapina and Susan Necklace that they will have some sort of a disposition that they could present to Donald Trump.

00:42:15.280 And then President Trump will make the decision, OK, do I take this misdemeanor?

00:42:20.640 No way.

00:42:20.900 I mean, he's not going to plead to a fine.

00:42:21.940 Do I take this misdemeanor and pay a five hundred dollar fine and the case is over with?

00:42:26.860 And now I can just not be distracted with this.

00:42:29.140 Or do I want my day in court and go through all of that?

00:42:32.620 Would Bragg take that?

00:42:34.320 Would Bragg ever take misdemeanor, a five hundred dollar fine?

00:42:37.020 I can see why Trump could eventually be talked into that.

00:42:39.340 But why would Bragg take that?

00:42:40.740 The thing is this, Megan.

00:42:41.780 You never know.

00:42:42.720 Like when I represented Lawrence Taylor, the first author was like five years in prison and all kinds of stuff.

00:42:48.000 He wound up with a misdemeanor and probation.

00:42:50.340 So you never know what what happens and what changes.

00:42:53.820 A case is like a child.

00:42:56.040 You know, you start off as an infant and then you grow into an adult.

00:42:58.660 So I don't know if Bragg would take it if he wouldn't take it.

00:43:01.040 Well, let's see how much pressure he gets on.

00:43:02.300 And, you know, one thing we want to talk about with Bragg before this Trump thing, he was not exactly Mr.

00:43:07.400 a popular district attorney here in New York talking about 52 percent of those cases being reduced.

00:43:12.840 The people in New York, every shape and color want to be safe.

00:43:17.240 They want to be safe.

00:43:18.760 And Bragg was not exactly winning any awards.

00:43:21.160 But then you say correctly that Biden got 87 percent of the vote.

00:43:26.240 And so I don't think there's any going to be tears shed for most of New Yorkers that most of Manhattanites that Trump gets indicted.

00:43:34.620 I also don't think Donald Trump can get a fair trial.

00:43:37.260 But having just done the Harvey Weinstein trial in there and seeing what the jury pool looks like, I do not think that Donald Trump could get a fair trial.

00:43:44.820 Trump's already saying he wants to change a venue.

00:43:46.500 He wants to change a judge.

00:43:47.520 He wants to change a prosecutor.

00:43:48.720 Is he going to get any of that, do you think, Arthur?

00:43:50.320 No, no, I don't.

00:43:51.520 Not even change a venue.

00:43:53.040 When I handed in the motion to the appellate division for change of venue for Harvey Weinstein, the clerk looked at me and smiled and said, Arthur, where would you like to change the venue to?

00:44:00.980 Mars?

00:44:01.920 Everyone knows about this case.

00:44:03.700 Everyone's got an opinion on it.

00:44:05.140 No one's granting you a change of venue.

00:44:07.580 Trump's going to say, how about Mississippi?

00:44:10.260 Alabama?

00:44:11.660 It's got to be in the state of New York.

00:44:13.220 So it's got to be in Albany, Binghamton, Rochester, Buffalo.

00:44:15.660 Staten Island.

00:44:16.780 Staten Island.

00:44:17.580 How about that?

00:44:18.240 I don't think so.

00:44:19.520 I mean, I could just say one more thing before we have to go.

00:44:23.040 I know about the media coverage.

00:44:25.580 And this is where I'm going to throw my objectivity out of the window or subjectivity out of the window regarding Mr. Takapina.

00:44:32.020 What the late night hosts have done to Joe Takapina, they would never dream of saying the things against Mr. Takapina about Ben Crump, who is another fine lawyer.

00:44:44.260 They said that Joe Takapina's office is in the back of the Bada Bing strip club, that he was conceived in Rudy Giuliani's ashtray in his Lincoln Town car.

00:44:54.300 You know, the duplicity and just nastiness and actual prejudice and racism is just crazy.

00:45:04.580 And yet, you know, it's OK.

00:45:06.280 It's just because, you know.

00:45:07.480 And Joe, look, he's a brawler.

00:45:10.060 He's a tough guy.

00:45:11.020 But he's won some real cases.

00:45:12.700 And I'm not saying this is my buddy.

00:45:13.900 I'm saying it because it's the facts.

00:45:15.360 I've seen it as a lawyer.

00:45:16.580 It's fantastic.

00:45:17.860 She's fantastic.

00:45:18.740 He's fantastic.

00:45:19.820 And they complement each other.

00:45:21.460 And Maggie Haberman saying there's trouble on the legal team.

00:45:24.920 That's all BS.

00:45:27.220 It really is all BS.

00:45:28.980 If you look at Rolling Stone magazine, came out with an article trying to say that there was dissension in the troops.

00:45:34.100 And Susan Nicholas said, absolutely not.

00:45:36.160 I think Joe's a great lawyer.

00:45:37.780 Trump said, I'm very pleased with my legal team.

00:45:40.240 But the media's got to create, oh, there's trouble in Trump.

00:45:42.940 They're going to do to him what they did to Dershowitz and try to make his name a dirty word.

00:45:48.580 It's absolutely despicable.

00:45:50.940 He's entitled to a great lawyer.

00:45:52.740 And the people who hate him most should want him to have a great lawyer.

00:45:55.660 That's how the system works best.

00:45:57.540 But wait, let's try to get to when this case gets tried.

00:46:01.060 Like, I see your point.

00:46:02.380 But, Dave, what do you think?

00:46:04.360 Like, is there any way this case, if nobody settles, if nobody offers a plea or nobody takes a plea, like, what happens?

00:46:10.660 Because if he gets convicted, do you think Trump could actually go to jail?

00:46:13.720 And if he gets convicted, does he is he disqualified?

00:46:17.400 It's not like the like the impeachment where you get if you get found guilty on an impeachment trial, you can no longer run.

00:46:23.040 What happens?

00:46:25.000 If he is convicted, he is not disqualified from running for president or serving as president.

00:46:29.440 The Constitution sets forth the requirements to be president and doesn't say anything about a conviction in there.

00:46:35.340 And Eugene Debs, the famous socialist leader, ran for president from prison.

00:46:40.120 Thankfully, he didn't win.

00:46:41.500 So we'll see what happens.

00:46:42.680 But I think this a lot of the outrage that we're expressing, you know, at least you guys are expressing, not so me.

00:46:47.600 But a lot of the outrage, I think, is going to be washed away once Trump gets indicted by the feds.

00:46:52.280 I think that's coming on the Mar-a-Lago documents, possibly on January 6th.

00:46:55.920 And then the Georgia case, I think this stuff, I think, will fade into the background and he will really have to worry about those cases because those cases are the ones that pose real possibility of prison time.

00:47:07.680 This one, I'm not so sure.

00:47:09.540 All right.

00:47:09.640 Now, listen, I actually want to talk to you about that.

00:47:11.240 I know Arthur's got to go.

00:47:12.180 But, Dave, can you stick around for 10 more minutes so we can talk about the breaking news on the on the Mar-a-Lago documents?

00:47:17.660 Sure, let's do it.

00:47:18.780 I'm actually going to that courthouse right now, Meg.

00:47:22.080 And the average time of a trial is one year.

00:47:24.300 Until trial, OK.

00:47:26.160 So quick, quick, quick, before we go.

00:47:27.860 Quick, quick, quick, Arthur.

00:47:28.900 What do you make of the judge?

00:47:31.800 Trump could have had a lot worse picks than him.

00:47:34.300 He's a serious guy, but he's fair.

00:47:37.340 And he did the Trump Corporation case.

00:47:39.560 And I spoke to the lawyers there.

00:47:41.160 And, you know, he leans prosecutorial.

00:47:43.460 But he's, I mean, there are some judges in there, Megan, that are absolute prosecutor judges.

00:47:48.240 One last thing.

00:47:49.280 If Trump got convicted of what we're speaking of,

00:47:51.980 I spoke to my two judges who are in my law firm.

00:47:54.880 Both of them said there's no judge who is sending him to prison.

00:47:58.660 Well, the nation can't handle that.

00:48:00.740 That's as we can't.

00:48:01.800 That's too much.

00:48:03.140 Arthur, great to see you, Dave.

00:48:04.380 Stick around.

00:48:04.840 We'll do 10 minutes on this breaking news out of The Washington Post on what what's happening in that Mar-a-Lago case.

00:48:09.960 Here with me still is Dave Ehrenberg.

00:48:15.460 He's the state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located.

00:48:20.860 So, Dave, many Democrats are upset at Alvin Bragg and this prosecution being brought because they say,

00:48:28.100 yes, we want to get Trump, but this is the weakest one that's of the potential cases that are lurking out there.

00:48:34.740 You got the Georgia alleged interference with the election based on Trump saying, find me the vote.

00:48:39.920 I need you to find me X votes.

00:48:41.780 Very defensible, I got to say.

00:48:43.240 Very defensible if you're a lawyer.

00:48:44.380 OK, there's that one.

00:48:46.980 There's New York.

00:48:47.900 And then there's this special counsel probe run by Jack Smith, who's looking into whether Donald Trump improperly responded to a subpoena that was served on him and his lawyers with respect to those documents being kept at Mar-a-Lago.

00:49:03.840 And the bigger obstruction probe that that happened in the context of to see what whether Donald Trump behaved inappropriately in connection with January 6th to begin with.

00:49:13.940 Did he somehow obstruct justice on that day?

00:49:16.360 A couple of like there's the bigger umbrella layer of what you do on Jan 6th and was a criminal.

00:49:21.120 And then that brought them to getting documents from Mar-a-Lago.

00:49:24.000 Oh, you've got classified docs.

00:49:25.380 Oh, here's a subpoena because you're not cooperating.

00:49:27.600 Oh, did you misbehave once you got the subpoena?

00:49:29.320 So lots of potential places in that probe for possible criminal charges.

00:49:34.780 And there's news on that.

00:49:36.500 And I'll start with what Brett Baer just reported because it's the most recent and it's.

00:49:41.100 It's concerning.

00:49:42.980 Brett Baer reporting today.

00:49:45.460 Fox News is told multiple U.S. Secret Service agents connected to former President Donald Trump have been subpoenaed and are expected to testify before that D.C. grand jury, likely on Friday.

00:49:56.880 This is a today tweet.

00:49:57.760 The grand jury appearances are related to the special counsel Jack Smith probe into the handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

00:50:04.320 So they're going to drag U.S. Secret Service agents connected to Trump before that grand jury.

00:50:08.740 This, as the Washington Post, is reporting that the obstruction case against Trump in general appears to be getting much more intense.

00:50:17.440 They don't report the Secret Service piece of it.

00:50:19.080 They report that, for example, investigators now suspect, based on witness statements, security camera footage and other documentary evidence, that boxes, including classified material, were moved from a Mar-a-Lago storage area after the subpoena was served.

00:50:35.400 And that Trump personally examined at least some of those boxes.

00:50:40.820 Washington Post reported back in October that someone who works for Trump, his his valet, Walt Nauta, had told investigators he moved boxes at Mar-a-Lago at the former president's instruction after the subpoena was issued.

00:50:53.880 Smith's team, the special prosecutor team, has video surveillance footage, apparently corroborating the account that documents were moved after the subpoena was issued.

00:51:08.360 OK, well, moved.

00:51:09.380 What does that tell us?

00:51:10.680 Does it mean.

00:51:12.200 They weren't produced.

00:51:13.660 That's certainly the implication.

00:51:14.820 And finally, they say evidence has been amassed, indicating Trump told others to mislead government officials in early 2022, before the subpoena, when the National Archives was working with DOJ to try to recover these papers and that he ignored requests from multiple advisers to return the documents to the archives.

00:51:34.380 And even after he'd been advised by many people telling him you cannot keep the documents, doing so could be legally perilous.

00:51:41.380 So that one's definitely heating up.

00:51:43.340 What are your thoughts on it?

00:51:45.060 Megan, this is the greatest threat to Donald Trump.

00:51:48.320 It's not New York or even Atlanta.

00:51:50.540 It's not even regarding January 6th.

00:51:52.300 It's the documents because there's a direct tie between Donald Trump and the alleged criminality there at Mar-a-Lago.

00:51:59.100 And for people who said, well, Biden did it and Pence did it.

00:52:02.840 It's not about the possession of the documents.

00:52:05.260 It's about the refusal to give them back.

00:52:07.560 Anymore.

00:52:08.360 Well, it was always.

00:52:10.000 They weren't letting go of that in the beginning.

00:52:11.460 And agreed, because there were three potential statutes involved.

00:52:15.920 And the most serious, though, has always been the obstruction.

00:52:18.140 And that's 18 USC 1519, which would get you up to 20 years in prison.

00:52:22.240 And that's what separates Trump from the others.

00:52:24.080 And if they can show that he got the subpoena and he personally directed his staff to hide the documents, to move it around because there was a camera outside the storage facility.

00:52:35.020 And he was told to put a lock on that storage facility.

00:52:38.200 And yet if he told him to move it around to keep it away from the feds, that's really bad.

00:52:43.800 And now they're subpoenaing the Secret Service because they're there the whole time.

00:52:48.360 And there is no special privilege between a Secret Service agent and his or her charge in Donald Trump, as opposed to attorney-client privilege.

00:52:57.360 And even that privilege can be broken through, as we've seen in this case.

00:53:01.440 Evan Corcoran has been compelled to testify because.

00:53:04.260 Who's that?

00:53:04.760 Tell us who.

00:53:05.380 That's a lawyer.

00:53:06.000 But explain.

00:53:06.860 I got to learn when I go on your show.

00:53:08.200 I got to make sure.

00:53:09.140 Yeah.

00:53:09.420 Right.

00:53:09.680 You don't I don't talk like a lawyer and try not to use acronyms.

00:53:12.520 And right.

00:53:12.840 I got it.

00:53:13.320 My goal, Dave, is always to for the viewers who've been paying a lot of attention to this.

00:53:18.040 They don't they don't mind a repetition of a fact or two.

00:53:20.420 But for the viewers who are living their lives, not paying that much attention to this, they always appreciate just a quick.

00:53:24.300 Who is this?

00:53:25.900 Yeah, that you do it the right way.

00:53:27.560 It's a good lesson for all of us lawyers not to speak in legalese.

00:53:30.220 So Evan Corcoran is Donald Trump's lawyer who drafted the letter that told the feds that all the documents had been returned.

00:53:38.960 Now, noticeably, he did not sign the letter.

00:53:41.520 That was a different lawyer, Christina Bob.

00:53:42.940 It's never a good idea to sign a letter that the drafter won't sign himself.

00:53:46.080 But Evan Corcoran was called in and he said, attorney, client privilege.

00:53:50.960 I can't tell you who told me what and when.

00:53:54.460 And then the courts said, no, no, you've got to give up that information because even under attorney, client privilege, there is something called the crime fraud exception, which means a lawyer can't be used to facilitate a crime.

00:54:07.080 So that's really Trump's problem.

00:54:08.800 I don't even think it's Secret Service is as big of a problem as his own lawyer giving up the ghost.

00:54:13.880 I can't help but feel.

00:54:16.880 Well, why, why didn't why wasn't this done to Hillary Clinton, the use of her lawyer to do all of her dirty work?

00:54:22.800 We've allowed her to do that for how many years now?

00:54:25.200 She gets a total pass.

00:54:26.900 It's just I can't get past.

00:54:28.800 It's Trump.

00:54:29.580 That's why I'm not defending.

00:54:31.180 If he got a subpoena and he hid documents, that's not OK.

00:54:34.220 As a lawyer, you don't have to persuade me.

00:54:36.580 I mean, that's like you're supposed to treat subpoenas very respectfully.

00:54:40.120 That's that's an issue from the court saying, give me him hand these documents over.

00:54:43.740 You can't start hiding them.

00:54:46.120 But it's just so aggravating because she's gotten away with so much.

00:54:49.460 We just went through this whole thing where she used her lawyer to go into the FBI to try to sick them on Donald Trump and say that he was using some Russian bank to hide his nefarious dealings.

00:54:57.520 You know, she's been using lawyers to do her dirty work forever, and we just generally haven't had a practice of criminalizing the behavior of somebody in her position.

00:55:07.020 Yes, we've sniffed around the lawyers from time to time, but this is everything with him is different.

00:55:12.000 Well, Megan, that guy Sussman, I think you're referring to, is the person who went before the feds and said, here's the stuff about Donald Trump.

00:55:20.160 And he was prosecuted for lying to the feds.

00:55:24.320 So I say the lawyers we sniff around, the lawyers we sniff around, but we never go after the actual principle for making it happen.

00:55:30.580 Right. Is she just smarter about not putting her fingerprints on it?

00:55:33.380 Because you want to go after the lawyer who signed the thing saying we returned all the documents.

00:55:37.580 That's one thing we can get into that.

00:55:39.120 But they're not doing that here.

00:55:40.120 They're talking about going after Trump and Trump's I'm sure going to claim I didn't issue the lawyer any orders.

00:55:46.280 He's the lawyer. He knows what to do.

00:55:47.520 Well, either Trump or Corcoran, the lawyer to me, is going to go down for obstruction, one of those two or both.

00:55:56.300 But I think Corcoran is going to save himself by saying the guy who gave me the information that said that all the documents had been returned is my client because Corcoran could face the same 20 years in prison.

00:56:07.780 Why can't Donald Trump say that, you know, there I don't know, was the subpoena for all documents or was it for classified documents?

00:56:12.980 The subpoena were for all the documents that would be that he was not allowed to keep.

00:56:19.060 So I guess it would be for the classified documents because Trump would be able to.

00:56:22.540 So why can't why is that case such a slam dunk?

00:56:24.480 Why can't he say I'm the former president and I declassified them and there was nothing that was responsive?

00:56:28.620 You're lucky you got the ones I did send you.

00:56:30.920 That is his defense.

00:56:31.960 In fact, Cash Patel has said I heard him declassify all the documents.

00:56:36.360 And so they brought Cash Patel, which is an aide to former President Trump, before the grand jury, and they said, OK, tell us what you know.

00:56:45.040 And so he had to say, when did you when did he say that?

00:56:47.300 And under the law, a president cannot just declare, hey, I declassify.

00:56:52.580 It's not like like Michael Scott in an episode of The Office did that.

00:56:55.940 I declare bankruptcy.

00:56:57.500 It doesn't work like that.

00:56:58.280 You got to file certain paperwork and you can't declassify everything.

00:57:02.040 There are nuclear secrets that have to be classified only by the Department of Energy.

00:57:05.400 So I don't think that's a good defense.

00:57:07.340 But the Department of Justice is actually interviewing a bunch of people to make sure that Trump didn't do that anyways, that this isn't just some post facto explanation, because they don't want to go to trial against Trump and have Trump say this is my defense and have one juror have reasonable doubt.

00:57:24.380 And that's a hung jury.

00:57:26.140 I will say, because I've been thirsty for answers to these questions about can a president declassify in this way?

00:57:33.860 Like, what are the requirements?

00:57:34.920 And my takeaway from reading very smart people on both sides of the aisle is it's not as clear as you just laid out.

00:57:39.780 I wish it were more clear.

00:57:41.160 It's it's really not that clear.

00:57:43.160 I'm sure everyone involved is wishing it were more clear.

00:57:45.320 And I think he's got some wiggle room there.

00:57:47.380 We've had some smart lawyers on the show to sort of outline that for us.

00:57:51.100 But we'll see.

00:57:52.560 But at this point, I mean, Dave, just as a as somebody who's who's in the business of seeking justice for the people.

00:58:00.340 You can't have this can't have Trump charged criminally in New York, potentially charged criminally in Georgia.

00:58:07.860 That's where we had the crazy grand juror for a person running around saying, hey, you won't be surprised that lunatic.

00:58:13.100 And now we have this right.

00:58:15.300 You may get charged by Jack Smith in this D.C. special.

00:58:17.640 I mean, this this will tear our country apart.

00:58:21.260 You know, Megan, I know there are a lot of people who say that, but, you know, as a prosecutor, I just I have to disagree because we live under the principle that no one is above the law.

00:58:32.580 And if the evidence is there and the law is there, you go.

00:58:36.200 And Donald Trump benefited from politics because he would have been indicted with Michael Cohen on this whole hush money scheme if he was not the president.

00:58:45.320 He was the president.

00:58:46.060 So he benefited from an internal DOJ policy that you don't indict a sitting president.

00:58:50.040 And then you had Bill Barr protect him by calling off the dogs at the Southern District of New York and in Manhattan in the state prosecutor's office.

00:58:57.480 So he's benefited from certain.

00:58:59.360 Bill Barr doesn't control the state prosecutor.

00:59:00.940 The state prosecutor doesn't answer Bill Barr.

00:59:02.800 If he wanted to go after Trump, he could have done it easily.

00:59:05.680 Well, that's that's true.

00:59:07.540 But I got to say, from a state prosecutor perspective, when the feds tell you to stand down, you generally do it.

00:59:12.180 You defer to the feds.

00:59:13.100 Now you do it because you think the feds are going to pursue it.

00:59:16.240 You don't do it because the feds say.

00:59:17.940 He didn't think that.

00:59:18.320 You do it because the feds.

00:59:19.120 I don't believe that he thought that that's just an excuse now after the fact.

00:59:22.200 I mean, I'll give you some of the other points, but not that one.

00:59:24.900 He could have done it if he wanted.

00:59:25.780 He can't blame Bill Barr for this.

00:59:26.920 No, whoever thought Bill Barr was going to go after Donald Trump.

00:59:28.820 Really?

00:59:29.260 OK, I'm very concerned about it.

00:59:31.980 Before I let you go, I got to ask you one thing.

00:59:33.360 I promise the people Michael Avenatti tweets and I am a woman of my word.

00:59:38.940 So Avenatti somehow is sitting in prison tweeting.

00:59:42.140 I mean, did they have social media?

00:59:43.440 Does he have an iPhone in prison?

00:59:45.240 I don't get it.

00:59:46.920 Maybe he's like sending letters and having somebody else tweet for him.

00:59:50.460 But here is what he tweeted.

00:59:52.020 Rule.

00:59:53.600 If you have to meet with a witness over 20 times, he's speaking of Michael Cohen to get

00:59:57.100 to the alleged facts and truth.

00:59:58.980 Run in all caps because you've got yourself a terrible witness who cannot be trusted and

01:00:02.880 might just crater your career and your reputation.

01:00:05.760 Michael Cohen does have severe credibility problems.

01:00:08.920 He goes on.

01:00:10.600 There are many critical facts and pieces of evidence, texts, emails, et cetera, relating

01:00:14.220 to this hush money scandal that have yet to see the light of day.

01:00:17.680 And he knows because he represented Stormy and they will unfortunately be very damaging

01:00:21.760 to the prosecution if Trump stands trial.

01:00:24.460 At this point, you simply cannot build a case on the testimony of Cohen and Daniels.

01:00:29.700 Now, I will say between Michael Avenatti and Michael Cohen, you couldn't find somebody

01:00:34.620 less credible.

01:00:35.240 Neither one of these people understands the truth if it's staring them in the face.

01:00:38.540 So I don't put really much credit in what he says either.

01:00:41.560 But it is extraordinary to have her lawyer out there saying, oh, wait until you get a

01:00:44.660 load of the text.

01:00:45.480 It's not going to work for the prosecution.

01:00:47.660 Yeah, those guys hate each other.

01:00:49.320 They've hated each other for years.

01:00:51.120 And I can't explain what I don't know what he's referring to about all this other evidence.

01:00:55.580 We haven't seen it.

01:00:56.340 And, you know, judge it by the guy, Michael Avenatti, who's a convicted felon.

01:00:59.960 And how do you get a phone?

01:01:01.200 So is Cohen.

01:01:02.820 Oh, that's why, Megan, I think the feds never charged this case after Biden.

01:01:08.540 took over the Department of Justice.

01:01:10.240 I thought maybe it was because January 6th distracted them.

01:01:13.240 They had bigger fish to fry.

01:01:14.600 But from what I'm hearing is they just never trusted Michael Cohen as a witness.

01:01:18.320 But the state prosecutors do.

01:01:20.020 Yeah.

01:01:20.460 And as far as Avenatti, I wonder, too, how is he getting a phone in prison?

01:01:24.920 You know, is it like a phone inside of a cake like they used to do with files inside

01:01:28.460 of a cake?

01:01:28.900 I don't know how they do that.

01:01:29.980 That's a crime.

01:01:30.680 You can't smuggle in contraband.

01:01:32.440 So I don't know how he does it.

01:01:33.240 I don't know how he does it either.

01:01:34.940 But, you know, God love him.

01:01:36.440 He sees an opportunity to put his name back in the news.

01:01:38.800 And true to form, he does it.

01:01:41.340 Dave, such an interesting conversation.

01:01:42.780 Thank you for your honest analysis.

01:01:44.600 Sure.

01:01:44.820 Thanks for having me, Megan.

01:01:45.540 I guess my Avenatti can run for president from prison.

01:01:47.760 We've seen it done before.

01:01:49.140 Oh, my God.

01:01:50.280 We deserve better.

01:01:51.460 Please.

01:01:52.300 The way things are going now, it's going to be Cohen versus Avenatti.

01:01:56.120 All the best, sir.

01:01:57.000 We're going to be right back with the man I've been dying to talk to about this, and

01:02:01.220 that is Victor Davis Hanson.

01:02:03.520 Don't miss him.

01:02:06.440 In the days since Donald Trump's indictment, which we have yet to see again, we expect it

01:02:10.760 to be made public at the arraignment on Tuesday.

01:02:13.340 The GOP field has grown.

01:02:15.960 Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson becoming the latest to throw his hat in the ring.

01:02:19.940 He says Trump needs to drop out.

01:02:21.460 But as of now, it would appear that the American public does not agree.

01:02:24.460 Not only is Trump leading in the latest polls, one poll shows his lead has increased substantially

01:02:30.460 since news of his indictment broke.

01:02:33.680 And just look at the show of support for the former president as he left Florida for New

01:02:37.640 York.

01:02:37.960 Here are folks on the street waving 2024 Trump flags lining up.

01:02:43.380 And we have other videos to show you in a moment.

01:02:45.520 Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of the book

01:02:49.280 The Dying Citizen.

01:02:51.640 Victor, welcome back to the show.

01:02:53.360 Thank you.

01:02:54.460 Can I start with this?

01:02:57.040 Some of the people defending against the fact that this is the first time the republic has

01:03:03.180 survived about 250 years.

01:03:04.640 This is the first time it's ever been done.

01:03:06.180 It's not the first time a crime has ever allegedly been committed by a former president.

01:03:11.260 Some of the defenders of this prosecution say Trump's extraordinary.

01:03:16.240 Trump's different.

01:03:17.040 Trump is extra legal in the way he approaches life, behavior, all laws.

01:03:22.580 Therefore, this is not precedent setting.

01:03:25.800 You know, the the ringmaster is stands in a unique position.

01:03:30.560 Therefore, don't worry.

01:03:32.480 It won't be an opening of the floodgates.

01:03:35.320 And I was I didn't believe it.

01:03:38.360 And I thought Buck Sexton had a great tweet that kind of summed up my feelings in response.

01:03:43.860 He tweeted out the lesson of Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation was that the Democrats will make

01:03:49.120 up anything about anyone to destroy them.

01:03:51.920 Now, the lesson of Trump's indictment is that they will charge anyone about anything to destroy

01:03:56.500 them.

01:03:56.780 Does anyone really believe this crossing this Rubicon will stop with Trump?

01:04:03.740 Yeah, well, you know, I was listening to your prior guest and I must confess, I was very

01:04:08.500 disappointed.

01:04:09.660 He is in a complete legal and political bubble.

01:04:12.840 He has no idea what the public is thinking.

01:04:15.180 When he says as a prosecutor he has a duty, does he really believe that we're going to we're going

01:04:21.320 to be convinced that if Donald Trump, New York developer, pretty prominent person in New York

01:04:27.320 would have been indicted for this?

01:04:28.960 No, he wouldn't know.

01:04:29.780 And when you mentioned Hillary Clinton, I thought to myself, felony number one, she transmitted

01:04:36.360 top secret documents, at least 16 classified messages on a private server.

01:04:43.220 James Comey said it was an indictable offense, but he didn't think most prosecutors would do it.

01:04:47.700 And then she destroyed felony two, subpoena documents, felony three.

01:04:53.640 She hired a foreign national, Christopher Steele, paid him and hid it through three paywalls.

01:04:59.460 You're not supposed to do hire foreigners to work on your campaign.

01:05:02.820 That's what he was doing.

01:05:03.960 Then she was fine number four for, she called it legal expenses, but that was hiding the million

01:05:10.200 dollar payment through three paywalls.

01:05:13.600 James Comer was the director of national intelligence.

01:05:17.260 He lied under oath to Congress and admitted he did.

01:05:20.440 John Brennan admitted on two occasions he lied before Congress.

01:05:24.460 James Comey went before the Congressional Intelligence Committee and admitted that on 245 occasions

01:05:32.060 he couldn't remember.

01:05:33.760 So what I'm getting at is not what about him or what about him, but the public will not believe

01:05:39.060 that there's an equal application of justice.

01:05:41.540 This isn't a writ for Donald Trump at all, but it's, they're never going to convince anybody

01:05:47.200 that in this particular case, they just happen to go after Trump because this is a statute

01:05:52.740 which they apply equally to every other prominent political figure.

01:05:57.180 They don't.

01:05:57.760 And to try to suggest that they do is an insult to a person's intelligence.

01:06:02.900 And then the other thing is this argument that he's been serial.

01:06:08.880 Yes, he's reckless.

01:06:10.220 Yes, he's on the edge.

01:06:11.820 He's always on the razor's edge.

01:06:13.760 Yes, he's different than most candidates.

01:06:15.320 But we were told that Robert Mueller, the same vocabulary he's been using.

01:06:20.300 I hear it all the time on the media.

01:06:21.920 Walls are closing in on Donald Trump.

01:06:24.840 Walls are closing in.

01:06:26.060 It's everywhere.

01:06:26.840 Bombshell disclosure.

01:06:28.780 And even your guest was telling us in detail what he's been told about the Mar-a-Lago and

01:06:34.120 why that's going to be a more important case.

01:06:36.260 Why doesn't he tell us what he's been told about the Joe Biden investigation?

01:06:40.080 It's very strange how one professional prosecutor has no leaks whatsoever about the investigation

01:06:47.420 of Joe Biden, which has a very different protocol, how they're courting him deference.

01:06:53.300 And we hear all of these leaks coming from lawyers about this other investigation.

01:06:58.980 And when you look back at it, Russian disinformation, we heard the same thing, and it was a complete

01:07:03.260 hoax.

01:07:04.540 Same thing about the Hunter laptop disinformation.

01:07:07.420 It was a complete hoax.

01:07:08.700 And I don't know about the first impeachment, but my God, if the charge was that he was

01:07:16.480 suspending or holding up offensive weapons that the Obama administration did not approve,

01:07:23.640 but he did, and which were ultimately delivered because he had some crazy idea that the Biden

01:07:28.620 family had leveraged Ukrainians using their positions in government, i.e.

01:07:34.220 Biden's, for largesse.

01:07:36.380 That seemed to me a pretty legitimate concern.

01:07:38.700 So what I'm getting at is it's a political matter.

01:07:41.800 And when he says, well, he's really, your guest said, well, he's really got a lot of exposure

01:07:45.680 with a Mar-a-Lago.

01:07:47.800 And I don't, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know about the prerogatives of how you declassify

01:07:53.180 a document, the actual legal legalities of saying that you can or cannot.

01:07:57.980 Joe Biden had no such, there's no such questions about him as vice president.

01:08:02.420 He can't do it.

01:08:03.800 And yet, I don't think I'm putting presidential documents-

01:08:07.400 Well, as I said, I don't think the law, I don't think the procedure is anywhere near as

01:08:10.420 clear as Dave says it is.

01:08:12.580 It is.

01:08:13.080 Again, I've looked as a lawyer.

01:08:14.440 I'm open-minded to show me what it is, and then we'll figure out whether he followed it.

01:08:17.700 I am too, but I think each of those potential, he's right that this is the weakest one, but

01:08:25.060 each of the others has potential liabilities.

01:08:27.240 Because once you go after a former president for papers, which could have been handled

01:08:33.620 administratively, and you have a president that has, as a vice president, took out papers

01:08:39.200 for years, we're not talking about months, they've been in violation of the law for years

01:08:44.220 in a garage that's not as secure as Mar-a-Lago, you're not going to be able to convince the

01:08:49.620 public that that's an equal application of justice.

01:08:51.780 Well, let me ask you this, Victor.

01:08:53.280 So what Dave says, what many defenders of this prosecution regarding the Mar-a-Lago documents

01:08:59.700 say, is everything changed when Trump defied the subpoena.

01:09:04.500 It was one thing to have the documents, could have returned them at any time, they tried to

01:09:08.480 work with him, but then he basically lied.

01:09:10.420 He lied through his lawyer and saying, oh, we've returned them all.

01:09:13.080 And that was a lie, and they claim, according to the Washington Post, they're going to have

01:09:16.320 it on camera, moving the documents.

01:09:19.640 If he did that, that's wrong.

01:09:22.180 But there's a lie of commission, Megan, and there's a lie of omission.

01:09:27.020 And for the period of 2017 to the present, Joe Biden, in fact, lied to the U.S. government

01:09:33.920 when de facto he didn't tell us that he had classified documents illegally in his possession,

01:09:41.000 in at least one, two, or maybe three unsecured locations.

01:09:45.780 That's a lie.

01:09:46.480 All he had to do was say, I have them.

01:09:48.220 And he didn't reveal that until somebody, a third party found that out.

01:09:52.860 And the third party didn't have a classification.

01:09:55.660 Let me ask you another question.

01:09:57.220 Here's my problem on that one.

01:09:58.780 Here's my own answer on that one.

01:10:00.440 My question.

01:10:01.600 Okay, it's bad.

01:10:02.700 You shouldn't lie.

01:10:03.700 You certainly shouldn't hide documents while under subpoena.

01:10:06.400 Although you have the power to declassify them and they're declassified and they're only

01:10:09.580 asking for classified, now we're in a different territory.

01:10:12.460 But why don't we know what Joe Biden did with Hunter Biden?

01:10:17.060 Why don't we know how he's been compromised financially with respect to the doings of

01:10:21.360 his son?

01:10:21.860 Why isn't Hunter Biden under arrest?

01:10:23.660 Why has it taken three plus years for us to figure out that Hunter Biden's committed

01:10:27.480 crimes with respect to drugs and guns?

01:10:29.540 And he lied explicitly on his gun application form and so on.

01:10:32.760 Um, in the case of Joe Biden, it's because they won't investigate.

01:10:36.540 They have refused, refused to look into him in this relationship.

01:10:40.400 And in the case of Hunter Biden, we have no answers.

01:10:42.740 We don't know why.

01:10:43.920 And so it's hard to get worked up about the Donald Trump subpoena.

01:10:48.340 That's what, that's where I am on it.

01:10:49.940 It's really hard to get worked up because it's a double standard.

01:10:53.380 I am.

01:10:54.300 And that the more long ago writ is politically impossible because once they indict him,

01:11:00.560 the special counsel, there's going to be an uproar because of Michael Pence and especially

01:11:04.600 Joe Biden.

01:11:05.620 And I think the more that you've, and, and remember they they're leaking about the prosecutors

01:11:09.980 as your guest seems to have knowledge about.

01:11:12.040 I was kind of shocked that he was telling us that he hears and this may happen.

01:11:15.900 And this is, why doesn't he have that same detail of information about the Biden matter?

01:11:21.120 He doesn't because they're conducting it in Florida.

01:11:24.280 Uh, we're right in the Mar-a-Lago jurisdiction.

01:11:26.300 So he does presumably have sources there.

01:11:28.860 Yeah.

01:11:29.040 Yeah.

01:11:29.280 Well, he doesn't have sources about Joe Biden.

01:11:32.420 Apparently nobody does because it's ironclad shut closed because they're, they're conducting

01:11:37.880 a quote unquote in a professional manner, which they don't apply to other people.

01:11:41.760 So what I get, I think what the American people are saying, Megan, is they're getting sick and

01:11:46.140 tired of the legal profession coming on and trying to convince people that they have these

01:11:51.460 standards and protocols and they believe in the American jurisprudence that it's applied

01:11:56.080 equity.

01:11:56.540 It wasn't with January 6th and the 120 days of rioting and, and mayhem.

01:12:02.380 And it wasn't with any of these things.

01:12:04.860 It wasn't with the Mueller investigation.

01:12:07.940 It wasn't with the laptop disinformation.

01:12:10.540 These same people, I can remember almost chapter and verse, they told us, and they were experts,

01:12:15.680 the same level of expertise that Hunter's laptop was likely Russian disinformation and

01:12:21.700 they used their expertise and people are getting sick of it.

01:12:24.820 And that's the problem.

01:12:26.540 And we have all of these precedents.

01:12:28.440 Donald Trump is a very volatile person.

01:12:31.100 Everybody understands that.

01:12:32.760 But we, he has now been the first president since Andrew Johnson to be impeached in his first

01:12:38.600 term.

01:12:39.080 That's one of the things the founders said that was very dangerous to impeach a president

01:12:43.160 in his first term.

01:12:44.240 When you have an election as a referendum coming up, he's the first president that was ever

01:12:48.680 impeached twice.

01:12:50.000 He's the first president who was tried in an impeachment trial as a private citizen.

01:12:55.340 You could even say he's the first president that the FBI director had a private conversation

01:13:00.260 recorded on a government document, then leaked it to the media for the express purpose of getting

01:13:04.920 a special counsel to try him.

01:13:07.780 So these are all things that are unique.

01:13:09.780 We have never had this.

01:13:10.820 And now he's the first president to have his home raided in retirement.

01:13:15.240 And he's the first president to be indicted by a local prosecutor.

01:13:19.200 We know what's going to happen when this lawyer, I don't want to be derogatory, but when he said

01:13:26.980 that all prosecutors have to follow the law, well, then what he's basically saying is that

01:13:32.580 there's going to be hundreds of local, state, federal prosecutors.

01:13:36.300 It may be conservative and at various instances, the Hunter Biden's living in Malibu, they're

01:13:42.720 going to, this is going to be a free game.

01:13:44.380 They can all file writs.

01:13:46.140 Maybe they're not serious.

01:13:47.720 Maybe they are serious.

01:13:48.600 But the purpose will be what?

01:13:50.400 Just what our founders were very worried about.

01:13:52.680 It will be political damage and notoriety for themselves to injure a political candidate.

01:13:58.500 Yeah.

01:13:58.620 And that's what's going to become a celebrity prosecutor, which is what Alvin Bragg is becoming.

01:14:04.120 And I'm sure wanted.

01:14:05.620 And to your point about James Comey, James Comey, who, you know, you mentioned his testimonial.

01:14:11.460 He tweeted out on Thursday, the day that it was revealed Trump had been indicted by the

01:14:16.580 grand jury, quote, it's been a good day.

01:14:19.560 It's been a good day.

01:14:20.660 I mean, is there anyone left in America who wants to hear him?

01:14:24.660 Yeah.

01:14:25.120 Well, I just filed my income taxes.

01:14:27.020 And if the IRS calls me and I have to go in and see them, and on 245 occasions, I say

01:14:32.760 to the IRS under oath, I don't remember.

01:14:35.640 I can't remember.

01:14:36.780 It doesn't, never heard of it.

01:14:38.760 I'm not going to get off like he did.

01:14:41.220 And he did that in front of a intelligence committee under oath.

01:14:44.000 And some of the questions they ask him about the Steele dossier, he knew chapter and verse.

01:14:48.180 Robert Mueller did the same thing.

01:14:49.520 They brought him under oath.

01:14:51.240 They asked him the two central pillars of the entire Mueller investigation, the GPS

01:14:55.840 opposition network under Glenn Simpson.

01:14:59.540 And they asked him about the Steele dossier.

01:15:01.520 And he muttered that he had no idea what was going on.

01:15:05.220 And that was a complete fabrication.

01:15:07.100 Nobody could believe that.

01:15:08.380 The other piece of it is, you know, Dave and I were discussing, and I appreciate Dave.

01:15:13.060 I mean, I'll defend Dave, because it's good to have the other side.

01:15:15.920 No, it's good to have it.

01:15:16.740 Yeah, you don't want to just be like in the group thing and not hear what the other side

01:15:19.720 is going to argue.

01:15:21.220 But but the other thing he was saying was, yes, Sussman, Hillary's lawyer, was the subject

01:15:26.340 of that of that prosecution by the special counsel.

01:15:29.420 And he was acquitted.

01:15:30.700 Sussman was tried in Washington, D.C.

01:15:32.260 Trump's going to be tried in New York.

01:15:34.860 It never works the opposite way around.

01:15:36.580 Like I was saying, you want to you want to take Trump down to Mississippi or someplace

01:15:40.400 in Alabama or, you know, deep red Florida and try him.

01:15:44.020 Maybe people could get behind that.

01:15:45.680 Maybe if a jury truly of his peers sat and listened to it, maybe they could trust.

01:15:50.740 I would like to say your fix is in.

01:15:52.680 I'd like to say your guess.

01:15:54.860 I'd pose this question to Dave.

01:15:56.460 I'd say, OK, Dave, every prosecutor must follow the law.

01:15:59.660 So we're going to have a prosecutor in Utah or Wyoming that Hunter Biden was driving through

01:16:05.400 at that particular time.

01:16:06.520 And he's going to file an indictment against him because he's going to follow the law.

01:16:09.960 And believe me, a Wyoming or Utah jury will be very different to the Biden family than

01:16:15.380 the Acela Corridor juries.

01:16:18.360 And that's not what we want in this country.

01:16:20.480 And, you know, this raises an existential question, Megan, because we hear from the

01:16:25.580 left, they want to end the filibuster when it's convenient.

01:16:29.240 They want to get rid of the Electoral College when the blue wall falls.

01:16:33.100 They want a national voter law when they are mad about states having ID.

01:16:37.920 They want to pack the court when it's no longer the Warren court.

01:16:40.800 They want to bring in two extra states when they feel they can't get a Senate majority.

01:16:46.020 And it's always about process.

01:16:47.920 And it's always one sided.

01:16:49.400 When you don't want Republicans to be nominated on committees by the House Minority Leader,

01:16:56.600 you do what Nancy Pelosi for the first time in history.

01:16:59.600 You say, Kevin McCarthy, we don't want those people and they cannot serve on a committee.

01:17:03.360 When you don't like the presidential address, you tear it up on national TV.

01:17:06.800 All of these extraordinary acts as these writs are and these indictments are predicated on one thing, that the right won't do that because they are supposedly the adult in the room or they're morally inferior.

01:17:20.300 And that the left has a prerogative because they're morally superior to do this in an asymmetrical fashion.

01:17:27.100 But there are people on the right who say, we don't want to do what they're doing.

01:17:32.300 But if we don't have any deterrence, we're going to lose the republic.

01:17:35.520 But they know that if they do tit for tat reply, we're going to lose the republic.

01:17:40.360 And that's what's so dangerous about this, because there's no way to stop it unless doing something what they do.

01:17:48.320 And then you're into this kind of DEFCON 5 as far as this constitution is concerned.

01:17:53.900 And so all of these other I'm very scared about it.

01:17:57.000 What's the other solution?

01:17:58.840 You know, it's like I was just in D.C. this past weekend.

01:18:01.520 I took my family.

01:18:02.480 I had to do a thing for National Review and I made it into a family trip.

01:18:05.660 And the kids got to see the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, the White House, the Supreme Court, all the fun stuff.

01:18:12.980 And we went to the National Archives, which was a true treat.

01:18:15.860 And we saw the original Constitution of the United States.

01:18:19.000 It's spectacular.

01:18:20.020 It gives you the chills when you see it.

01:18:21.440 The actual signatures, the actual Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, all there.

01:18:27.000 And it's stunning, the history of this country.

01:18:29.540 And we're so proud of it.

01:18:30.860 And now you flash forward to today when it matters.

01:18:34.120 It matters that for the first time in 250 years, we've crossed this line.

01:18:37.680 We've never crossed before.

01:18:40.040 And that it's being defended as like a nothing by so many in the media.

01:18:45.080 And even Dave, you know, defending, well, let's have many.

01:18:47.700 We've got to do it.

01:18:48.480 No one's above the law.

01:18:49.560 As if no one had ever arguably crossed criminal lines prior to Donald Trump.

01:18:56.040 I mean, that's a joke.

01:18:58.120 Everyone understood that to put the country through that would tear us apart at the fabric

01:19:03.000 of who we are.

01:19:03.620 This country's evil, evenly divided right down the middle.

01:19:06.360 Look at the last electoral call, like the election results, right?

01:19:10.720 Half the country, if you look at the polls even out today on this, half the vast majority

01:19:15.560 of Republicans are strongly against this prosecution.

01:19:18.240 And the vast majority of Democrats want it.

01:19:21.180 And the more they pile on, the angrier people are going to get.

01:19:23.580 And for what, for what?

01:19:26.240 Well, we know for what, I mean, I went back and looked at the first impeachment testimonies

01:19:31.340 and one of the themes, it was thematic among all the Democratic Congress people was what

01:19:37.880 made it especially egregious.

01:19:40.100 They claim with Trump's phone call was that Joe Biden was going to be the likely nominee

01:19:44.700 and therefore Trump, and they used this in that impeachment argument, was trying to take

01:19:50.500 out a viable political candidate.

01:19:52.940 Well, this is exactly what's going on.

01:19:55.000 I don't know whether Trump is going to win or not.

01:19:57.260 I'm just going by the polls.

01:19:58.200 He seems to be ahead right now.

01:19:59.460 So you have a Democratic prosecutor and people, special counsel appointed by a Democratic president

01:20:07.720 that are going after a potential, the likely, I don't know whether he's going to be, but

01:20:12.760 right now, the front-running nominee and challenger to Joe Biden's re-election campaign.

01:20:19.820 And that doesn't look good.

01:20:22.180 And that's why one of the reasons we don't do these things.

01:20:25.760 And so I don't know what to say about the whole thing, but I think that the legal class

01:20:30.320 has a lot of answering to do.

01:20:32.380 And they will not, I mean, we saw that with Stephen Bannon and Peter Navarro and all of

01:20:37.760 those performance art, James O'Keefe, Roger Stone.

01:20:41.600 Okay, we got that.

01:20:42.400 But I remember Eric Holder just flat out saying, I am not going to obey a congressional subpoena.

01:20:49.860 And appear over the fast and furious.

01:20:52.560 I'm just not going to do it.

01:20:53.560 And Obama said, he's not going to do it.

01:20:55.160 And that was it.

01:20:55.880 There was no criminal referrals.

01:20:57.620 There was no, you know, performance art, arrest.

01:21:01.100 There was nothing.

01:21:02.220 And that's what gets people, it just, after a while, it just, I think people are worn

01:21:06.340 out by all this.

01:21:08.060 And I don't know how politically it's going to work.

01:21:10.600 What is the answer?

01:21:11.860 Because high road tactics, this is where they get us.

01:21:16.660 And it's like, similar to what you just said.

01:21:18.840 Mark Levin was saying on Fox and Friends, this is a war on the Republican Party.

01:21:21.840 They want to change the voting system.

01:21:23.260 They want to pack the Supreme Court, pack the Senate.

01:21:25.180 The borders are wide open to change the demographics of the country.

01:21:28.240 The Democratic Party wants a one party country.

01:21:30.840 It wants a one party system.

01:21:33.440 The Republicans better wake the hell up.

01:21:36.340 He says, we need to circle the wagons.

01:21:38.060 Well, what?

01:21:39.160 Even if you, I'm not a Republican, I'm a registered independent.

01:21:41.120 What do we do?

01:21:43.520 Well, Kevin McCarthy was, he did one thing right.

01:21:47.140 And that was, and you saw the outrage when Adam Schiff couldn't be on his committee.

01:21:51.600 And he did, he, that was retaliatory.

01:21:53.620 I think one of the things they should do immediately is they should really hold impeachment hearings

01:21:59.200 on Alagandro Mayorkas because he just simply did not follow the law.

01:22:05.460 And neither did Joe Biden.

01:22:06.360 That border is in violation of every federal law.

01:22:10.480 They violated it systematically.

01:22:12.340 And that would be a very easy thing to do.

01:22:14.460 And I think just to show them that they have to carry their oath of office and force the laws on the books.

01:22:19.540 They didn't do that.

01:22:20.480 And I'm afraid that what's going to happen, Megan, is it's not going to be a top-down decision.

01:22:27.160 Once you infuriate and you insult the intelligence of half the country, you're going to have freelancers everywhere.

01:22:33.640 You're going to have local, federal, state prosecutors.

01:22:37.120 And they're going to think of things that they can do to even the score.

01:22:41.380 And that's, and then the Democrats are going to get completely outraged because they feel they always have the morally superior ground.

01:22:48.640 And when I listened to Dave, I thought to myself, well, what do you do?

01:22:53.160 I mean, we've heard so much about Donald Trump saying, march peacefully and patriotically over to the Capitol.

01:22:59.040 And I was thinking, what do you do about Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader who in 2020 in March walked to the doors in front of a mob at the Supreme Court and said,

01:23:10.680 Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, you're going to reap the whirlwind.

01:23:16.040 And you, quote, don't know what's going to hit you.

01:23:20.360 And then months later, we get these illegal mobs that are swarming the homes of Supreme Court justices to affect their opinions, which is a felony in which Merrick Garland ignored.

01:23:32.140 And then not much longer, we get a would-be assassin who fortunately confessed in the text to a mystery to back out.

01:23:41.060 What is that?

01:23:42.580 And so I just, for every one of these legalese that we're hearing this week, you can find 10 examples of where the legal profession, the same legal profession, suddenly had amnesia.

01:23:55.560 Or they were derelict, or they thought it didn't rise to the occasion.

01:23:58.840 And your point about the Biden family, when you see in print, or I guess in electronic transmission, that Joe Biden is referred to by his own son as the big guy.

01:24:09.600 And 10%, and we have Tony Bobulinski willing to testify if the FBI will ever interview him under oath, that he was getting payoffs.

01:24:18.900 And yet, nobody like Dave comes forward and says, you know what, this is a mortal danger to the republic that we have a president who's dealing with China and Ukraine in very mysterious ways when we have evidence from his own son's electronic device that he was a recipient of money.

01:24:35.220 And so, isn't that at least worth some investigation?

01:24:38.900 And that's, so it becomes a political question, not just a legal one.

01:24:42.720 And that's what they don't, a historical one.

01:24:45.140 Why don't we start there?

01:24:46.300 Why don't we start with Hunter Biden?

01:24:48.020 Honestly, what's to stop one of these prosecutors in one of the jurisdictions, many, in which he's committed a crime, from not waiting for this special counsel investigation?

01:24:57.080 Why not?

01:24:57.580 Why doesn't a federal prosecutor tomorrow file a felony conviction that he lied on a permit to get a firearm when he said that he had no prior, you know, arrest or he had no prior problems with the law and he didn't, he wasn't candid on his firearm application.

01:25:17.140 Why doesn't somebody said that there's evidence that he was using illegal drugs, that he was soliciting prostitutes?

01:25:23.000 It's much more flagrant than Stormy Daniel.

01:25:24.840 I mean, yeah, yeah, I mean, when you when it's a federal crime and you have to get Merrick Garland to sign off on it, you're it's it's problematic.

01:25:31.660 But when it's a state crime, like you were clearly using drugs in this state at this time, go for it.

01:25:35.680 I mean, now that we're we've crossed over, let's cross over.

01:25:38.900 Why wouldn't there be consequences that they can see and feel, especially inside the Biden White House?

01:25:44.260 Mr. I have no comment.

01:25:45.380 I have no comment as if he has absolutely no connection to any of this.

01:25:48.300 You know, I didn't pressure any of it.

01:25:49.820 It isn't supporting any of it.

01:25:51.500 But let's see what happens when the pressure ratchets up, because if we're if we're crossed over, then let's be there.

01:25:57.160 I think what what you're what they want, I think what they I don't know if they understand what they're getting at is that you're going to have a red state justice and a blue state justice.

01:26:06.500 And when a blue politician ventures into a red state or vice versa, it's going to be a lot of hazard.

01:26:13.820 And they're creating this and they're creating it on the expectation that no one would ever respond in like kind.

01:26:20.320 And they're very naive because they've exhausted the patience of people that are tired of being lied to by all of this.

01:26:27.000 These professionals that keep claiming the higher moral ground or the greater professional expertise.

01:26:32.640 We've seen the left.

01:26:33.860 We've seen it at Stanford University's law school.

01:26:36.660 We've seen it when they stormed the Tennessee legislature.

01:26:39.920 We we saw it for 120 days when Kamala Harris said this is not going to stop, nor it should stop, of the riot and looting and arson.

01:26:47.520 And so this whole pretense that they're law abiding or that they're professional or that they're adults is just a complete sham.

01:26:54.520 And I think it's a it's a political question.

01:26:56.740 And I think it's really besides all that, Megan, it's really put it's really affected American history because it's starting to warp the primary election between Trump, DeSantis and the other contenders.

01:27:08.560 And it really altered that. And there's this there's a supposition, as you know, better than I do, because you have better knowledge sources.

01:27:16.740 But there's a supposition that Democrats talk and they were in contact or that they wanted these indictments to build up sympathy for Trump so that he would be the nominee.

01:27:29.820 And then presumably would be hemorrhaging once he was nominated because of all these indictments and therefore he'd be a weaker count.

01:27:37.060 I don't know if that's true or not, but that's a supposition.

01:27:39.160 That's a dangerous thing for people to enjoy, that people are interfering with the normal primary process of one party.

01:27:47.420 And that's what they're doing.

01:27:49.600 It's scary because, I mean, I don't think it's going to work.

01:27:52.680 I really do think that the backlash against this will be severe.

01:27:55.080 I think the American public understands this is deeply wrong, what they're doing, that they that they really are in uncharted territory.

01:28:01.440 I because, of course, independents are the ones who decide elections and the independents are split right now, according to the latest poll.

01:28:07.980 I pulled it up, but there'll be more polling that'll tell us how everybody feels.

01:28:11.680 But it's as I said, Republicans are against this.

01:28:13.760 Democrats are in favor and the and the independents are split.

01:28:16.320 But if they just keep piling on Donald Trump, people are too smart.

01:28:19.760 They're going to get it in the same way jurors tend to get it in cases.

01:28:23.040 Ultimately, they kind of see through all the razzle dazzle.

01:28:27.440 I think the independents will get what's being done to him here, too, and will revolt.

01:28:31.960 And I I don't know if I were running the Republican Party.

01:28:34.960 Is it the right strategy to to fight dirty and do what they're doing between now and the next election?

01:28:39.200 Is the right strategy to try to go high road so that you can just use it against them and say, we didn't do that.

01:28:44.020 We could have done that.

01:28:45.720 My instincts are to fight.

01:28:47.040 You know, when when they go low, you go low to punch him right in the face.

01:28:50.900 But I don't know.

01:28:53.040 You know, when he talked about the Georgia call, Dave did.

01:28:57.180 But the incriminating line was I need 15.

01:29:02.280 I need to find 15,000.

01:29:04.060 It wasn't go get me.

01:29:05.060 Is there 15,000 votes and anybody's overlooked?

01:29:07.960 That was a stupid thing to say.

01:29:09.440 But is it a criminal thing to say?

01:29:10.880 I don't think so.

01:29:11.600 But you have Molly Ball, the time journalist who wrote, as you remember, in February of 2021, a lengthy essay.

01:29:18.560 And she used the word conspiracy a lot and cabal interchangeably.

01:29:23.460 But in a as euphemisms, she thought they were wonderful.

01:29:26.920 And she outlined how the Democratic Party had raised over 400 million dollars to absorb the work of particular registrars in key precincts and swing states.

01:29:37.140 In other words, to make sure there were more drop boxes.

01:29:39.960 And then she bragged about how these action teams had changed the laws in March and April of 2020.

01:29:45.500 And it was and then she even said this was even more striking that these Democratic operatives have worked with people in the administration, the campaign, excuse me, to modulate the protests, that they were ready to protest should Biden lose.

01:30:02.100 And they were ready to or they were ready to make sure that they did not protest if it looked like he was going to win.

01:30:10.160 And it was her words, cabal and conspiracy, not ours.

01:30:13.460 And I thought to myself, what if you had a prosecutor that looked at that in Cal?

01:30:18.920 It was California was a red state.

01:30:20.560 And they went back and looked and asked exactly how that money was used and did it go into a particular precinct and absorb the work of government registrars in a asymmetrical fashion, which is against the law, if it did.

01:30:34.540 And so we can just spend all day thinking all of these parallels and they don't seem to be aware of that.

01:30:41.860 I mean, they're almost they're completely.

01:30:44.360 I think once this starts to unfold, once you get up, once you get a mugshot of Donald Trump, just all bets are off.

01:30:49.240 It's going to inflame tempers.

01:30:52.420 I mean, the GOP base, I think, is going to be very angry about that.

01:30:56.920 I don't think it's going to play the way the Democrats think they're they're salivating over it.

01:31:00.540 I think they may rue the day.

01:31:01.780 Let me give you the number, the YouGov poll that Yahoo News slash YouGov.

01:31:07.220 So.

01:31:08.540 Forty two percent of adults approve of Donald Trump's indictment.

01:31:13.180 Thirty nine percent disapprove.

01:31:14.980 Nineteen percent.

01:31:15.760 Not sure.

01:31:16.440 Right.

01:31:16.760 Right down the middle.

01:31:17.660 Democrats.

01:31:18.380 Sixty nine percent approve.

01:31:21.080 Republicans.

01:31:22.220 Only 12 percent approve.

01:31:23.600 Sixty six percent disapprove.

01:31:25.420 Right down the middle.

01:31:26.220 Independents.

01:31:27.160 Forty three percent approve.

01:31:28.820 Thirty seven percent disapprove.

01:31:30.160 Twenty percent.

01:31:31.200 Not sure.

01:31:32.140 Right down the middle.

01:31:33.180 It's completely falling along partisan lines.

01:31:36.280 And that leads me to partisan politics when it comes to the GOP nomination, because this

01:31:42.160 is a very tense time for DeSantis, for Youngkin, for forget Asa Hutchinson.

01:31:47.800 DeSantis comes out for the first time and says, you know, political prosecution, Alvin Bragg,

01:31:52.000 thumbs down.

01:31:52.700 This is my paraphrasing, obviously.

01:31:54.940 And then says, I won't extradite him if it's up.

01:31:57.840 You know, it's up to me.

01:31:58.440 I won't extradite him.

01:31:59.080 It's not up to him.

01:31:59.680 Trump Trump's turning himself in.

01:32:01.780 But it was obvious attempt to appease the MAGA crowd and sort of say, I'm with you.

01:32:06.440 Since Trump was indicted, his lead over DeSantis has gone, has tripled the last poll by the

01:32:13.100 same thing.

01:32:13.700 Yahoo slash YouGov.

01:32:15.760 Trump had an eight percent lead.

01:32:18.620 Now it's 26 percentage point lead over DeSantis, 57 to 31.

01:32:24.380 It's a huge leap for him, not to mention the fundraising advantage.

01:32:29.340 So how does this affect the primary nomination on the GOP side?

01:32:33.660 Yeah, very quickly.

01:32:35.480 It puts DeSantis in a very tricky position because on the one hand, he has to be sympathetic,

01:32:40.260 which I think he genuinely is, to the egregious treatment of Donald Trump and by extension to

01:32:46.080 conservatives in general.

01:32:47.580 But he's also been thematic throughout his campaign that he doesn't do the gratuitous or

01:32:54.660 the unnecessary tweets or social media posts or slurs or smears that Trump does.

01:33:01.920 And so he can't be in a position of saying, giving him a hundred percent endorsement because

01:33:08.420 he's an opponent, A. And of course, I don't think DeSantis would have got himself, I'm not

01:33:14.340 suggesting anything happen, but there's affidavits said they didn't, but he wouldn't have been in

01:33:19.040 the situation that Trump got himself in with Stormy Daniels.

01:33:22.540 So he's going to have to accentuate that, but in a weird way that nevertheless shows sympathy

01:33:28.180 the way Donald Trump is being treated.

01:33:31.720 And I think just to sum up, what's going to happen is, it depends a lot on Donald Trump,

01:33:37.720 because if these indictments start happening and people feel that it's not just an attack

01:33:45.740 on Donald Trump, but it's an attack, as Donald Trump makes the case himself, it's an attack

01:33:50.000 on all conservatives and traditionals.

01:33:53.420 But if Donald Trump starts to scream and yell and compound his own problem, and if this becomes

01:33:59.420 serial, then I think what will happen if he doesn't stop that, in other words, there's

01:34:04.180 a way to handle this that would be wiser, to be more focused and to be laser-like and

01:34:10.700 to address the charges and to point out the hypocrisies rather than to go off.

01:34:14.760 But if he were to continue to go off, and I don't know whether he will or not, then I think

01:34:18.360 a lot of the empathy will start to wane, but the fundamental question won't.

01:34:24.800 And so a candidate like Youngkin or DeSantis can say, you see what they did to Trump?

01:34:29.520 This is what they're doing to us, and play on that.

01:34:32.180 But they're going to say, but we're not going to give them any margin of error.

01:34:37.000 And we're not going to have, we're never going to give them a margin.

01:34:39.500 Our conduct has never given them a chance to do the things they want, but they're capable

01:34:43.500 of it and they want to do it.

01:34:44.620 Something like that, and then they could, I think that would eventually, it would be

01:34:49.280 to their advantage.

01:34:50.060 So a lot depends on Donald Trump, how he handles it.

01:34:54.940 I just keep thinking about these pieces bubbling up, ridiculously accusing Ron DeSantis of being

01:35:01.060 some sort of a pedophile.

01:35:02.380 It's a picture from 20 plus years ago with his arms around high school.

01:35:05.460 I'm very angry about that.

01:35:07.620 Absolutely.

01:35:08.020 And it just goes to show you, they'll stop at nothing.

01:35:10.180 If they get past Trump, they'll make Ron DeSantis into some perverted criminal too.

01:35:14.840 And it's absurd.

01:35:15.820 It's not true.

01:35:17.120 And it's defamatory.

01:35:18.600 It's unlawful.

01:35:19.880 I mean, in a civil court, you could sue somebody over it, but this is what they're going to

01:35:23.740 do.

01:35:24.300 And so, you know, we just got a boxing target.

01:35:28.480 His name is Bob from High Kids.

01:35:30.120 You can punch Bob in the face.

01:35:31.640 You had to fill the base up with water so Bob doesn't topple.

01:35:34.440 The Republicans could use some practice on Bob because they're going to have to learn how

01:35:38.000 to take off the gloves and punch the media, punch these overreaching Democrats right in

01:35:43.600 the face like Alvin Bragg.

01:35:44.700 What he's doing is morally wrong, if you ask me and if you ask Victor and not if you ask

01:35:48.780 Dave, but that's fine.

01:35:49.600 Difference of opinion, always welcome.

01:35:51.440 Victor Davis Hanson, such a pleasure.

01:35:52.840 Thank you.

01:35:53.840 Thank you.

01:35:55.680 Big days.

01:35:56.360 We'll be back tomorrow as Trump is officially the former president of the United States

01:36:01.280 is officially arrested, fingerprinted and sits for his mugshot in the state of New York.

01:36:08.920 We'll be here for you and cover all the angles.

01:36:13.420 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:36:15.640 No BS, no agenda and no fear.

01:36:18.180 Thank you.

The Megyn Kelly Show - April 03, 2023

Trump's Coming Arrest, and Political Prosecution Hypocrisy, with Victor Davis Hanson, Arthur Aidala, and Dave Aronberg ｜ Ep. 520

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