Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 05, 2023


Trump Pleads Not Guilty - What Happens Now？


Episode Stats


Length

41 minutes

Words per minute

159.61559

Word count

6,566

Sentence count

429

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergus Ferguson react to the Trump Indictment, and give their initial thoughts on the case, and the reaction from the media and left-wing reaction to it. Ted Cruz: It's a sad day in American history.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.540 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.280 Welcome.
00:00:06.060 It is a verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.500 Senator, history in a terrible way was made in America.
00:00:13.200 Donald Trump, a former president of the United States of America,
00:00:16.520 was arrested and was treated like a criminal by the media
00:00:22.700 and by many people that were celebrating this day.
00:00:25.240 They've been fighting for since 2016.
00:00:27.440 Before I even play as lawyers, I want to get your initial reaction to watching this today.
00:00:33.300 Yesterday was a sad day.
00:00:35.720 It was pitiful.
00:00:37.200 It was an abuse of power.
00:00:39.020 It was partisan.
00:00:40.820 And I've got to say my biggest sentiment from yesterday was that it was underwhelming.
00:00:47.720 You and I have been talking now for a week about this impending indictment.
00:00:52.840 And we laid out the grounds on which the indictment was expected.
00:00:58.020 And I've got to say a bunch of lefties on Twitter were coming after us saying,
00:01:02.180 well, how can Cruz know?
00:01:04.020 This can't possibly be the case.
00:01:06.400 The indictment is seen.
00:01:08.260 There's more there.
00:01:09.340 It reminded me of the breathless apprehension that the left had for the Mueller report.
00:01:16.240 The Mueller report was going to prove everything.
00:01:18.060 I still remember.
00:01:19.020 You remember the SNL episode where Robert De Niro played Robert Mueller?
00:01:22.780 Oh, yeah.
00:01:23.080 And they asked, you know, do you have the goods?
00:01:24.700 He's like, I got it.
00:01:25.560 I got it.
00:01:26.180 I got it.
00:01:27.160 And, oh, every Democrat heart went pitter-patter, pitter-patter.
00:01:30.740 It's got to be there.
00:01:31.460 It's got to be there.
00:01:32.000 It's got to be there.
00:01:33.060 Well, for the last week, as you and I have been analyzing what was expected in this indictment,
00:01:39.020 lefties on Twitter were saying, no, no, no, you haven't seen the indictment.
00:01:42.780 You don't know what's there.
00:01:44.520 Well, you know what we've seen now?
00:01:47.940 We've seen the indictment.
00:01:50.360 And there ain't nothing there.
00:01:52.740 It was so utterly and completely underwhelming.
00:01:56.380 In fact, I got to say one of the more amusing things.
00:01:59.060 So on Twitter, you know what's trending?
00:02:03.740 Even CNN, the words even CNN, because even CNN said, all right, this is underwhelming.
00:02:11.400 This ain't nothing.
00:02:12.220 Now, the entire indictment consists of 34 counts of the same thing, and the same thing
00:02:21.540 is what we've been telling you for a week it was going to be, which is a violation of
00:02:26.380 New York Penal Law 175.10.
00:02:30.660 Now, as you recall, New York Penal Law makes it a misdemeanor to create a false business record.
00:02:38.620 That misdemeanor has a two-year statute of limitations.
00:02:41.260 So if Alvin Bragg had charged Trump on the misdemeanor, the case would be thrown out
00:02:46.520 immediately because more than two years has passed since 2016.
00:02:50.760 So he had to instead proceed under a different New York Penal Law, Section 175.10.
00:02:58.460 To do that, he had to allege that it was a false business record in furtherance of another crime.
00:03:06.320 That is the bootstrap through which he can elevate under New York law a misdemeanor into a felony and get a longer statute of limitations.
00:03:15.940 Well, that's in fact exactly what he did, all 34 counts, same thing over and over and over again.
00:03:22.740 But I got to say the amazing thing, the indictment doesn't specify what the other crime is that this was allegedly in furtherance of.
00:03:32.880 In other words, it just repeats false business record, false business record, false business record.
00:03:36.920 And it has the boilerplate language in furtherance of another crime.
00:03:42.400 But it's almost like the district attorney said, never mind, we don't know what that other crime is.
00:03:46.680 Look, you and I had speculated on this podcast what the other crime could be.
00:03:50.440 It might have been the most likely candidate was a federal campaign finance violation, which raises all sorts of problems.
00:03:56.760 But that was the most likely alleged crime.
00:04:01.260 Well, Alvin Bragg didn't allege that he didn't specify what the crime is.
00:04:05.660 That's truly amazing. It's underwhelming.
00:04:08.680 This case is nothing but politics.
00:04:11.760 And the result is it's going to be thrown out.
00:04:14.660 You know, one of the interesting things that you just mentioned was the shock of how this indictment was so absurd to the fact that he's saying,
00:04:24.640 well, there was a crime that was committed possibly, but we won't tell you what the crime is.
00:04:28.200 Well, the whole point of an indictment is so that the accused knows what they're being accused of.
00:04:32.700 Donald Trump went home not knowing what he was accused of.
00:04:35.860 And even his lawyers, when they walked out of that courtroom, they seemed to be dumbfounded at the idea that we were even at a point where you would have an indictment,
00:04:47.420 a 34 count indictment, and you still wouldn't know what the actual crime is that they're accusing of committing.
00:04:52.960 And Alvin Bragg's like, well, you know, it could be.
00:04:55.960 We'll let you know. We didn't list it. We don't have to list it.
00:04:59.700 Here's his attorneys, Trump's attorneys in their own words.
00:05:01.960 ...to happen to somebody who was the president of the United States.
00:05:08.300 And on the one hand, on the one hand, there's not really any surprises.
00:05:12.920 I know there was a lot of talk over the past several weeks and the past several days about what's going to be in this indictment and what's going to be there that we don't know.
00:05:23.340 There must be something besides what we've been talking about for the past four or five years.
00:05:29.220 There wasn't. There's nothing.
00:05:31.500 The indictment itself is boilerplate.
00:05:34.180 It doesn't allege any federal crime, any state crime that's been violated.
00:05:39.480 It doesn't allege what the false statement is.
00:05:42.200 And it's really disappointing. It's sad.
00:05:44.660 And we're going to fight it. We're going to fight it hard.
00:05:47.100 Can you tell us what Mr. Trump's reaction was?
00:05:49.920 Were you surprised by anything in the indictment?
00:05:51.800 No.
00:05:52.240 How about you, Joe? Were you surprised?
00:05:53.260 I was surprised there were no facts in there.
00:05:54.880 I mean, normally in an indictment you have alleged facts.
00:05:57.240 So they said that this was a false business record entry to aiding and embed another crime without saying what the other crime was.
00:06:03.640 I mean, the last thing that he said there was it's aiding and embedding another crime and they don't list what the other crime is.
00:06:10.220 Have you ever seen something that is basically this incomplete to charge someone, especially at the level of the president of the United States of America?
00:06:17.520 Yeah, look, maybe on a half-assed indictment of someone convicted of shoplifting or joyriding in a car, but not in a high-profile serious case.
00:06:32.440 Listen, the district attorney knew that everyone on earth would fly-spec this indictment.
00:06:36.440 They would read it.
00:06:37.860 This indictment, to be honest, a first-year law student could cut and paste and produce this indictment.
00:06:44.000 Number one, the 34 counts.
00:06:45.380 I have to admit, I was kind of curious, okay, what are the 34 things he's done?
00:06:49.400 I didn't know about 34 things he was alleged to have done.
00:06:53.320 Well, it turns out the 34 counts are just 34 individual entries in the bookkeeping.
00:07:00.280 So it is the same basic crime alleged to have occurred month by month by month.
00:07:07.260 Also, Alvin Bragg did something quite unusual.
00:07:09.340 So he released the indictment, and then he released an additional document called a statement of facts.
00:07:15.760 Now, usually an indictment includes some pretty specific factual allegations.
00:07:21.140 This one doesn't at all.
00:07:22.200 It just has the boilerplate language about false bookkeeping records in furtherance of another crime.
00:07:28.900 It doesn't specify what the other crime is.
00:07:30.840 The statement of facts is intended to be more of a narrative.
00:07:34.640 It, frankly, is a media document.
00:07:36.260 It was meant for media consumption.
00:07:38.280 And it describes what the prosecutors think went on.
00:07:42.680 And it talks about several things.
00:07:44.560 One of the things it talks about is the National Enquirer.
00:07:47.820 And the National Enquirer, their publisher, David Pecker, by the way, I will say as an aside, talk about someone named out of Charles Dickens.
00:07:55.820 I am not a fan of this particular individual.
00:08:01.180 It is.
00:08:04.920 God has a sense of humor.
00:08:06.300 But the indictment describes how Trump met with David Pecker and had a plan that the National Enquirer was going to assist in Trump's presidential campaign.
00:08:16.880 Now, you might like that.
00:08:19.580 You might not like that.
00:08:21.700 But it's not criminal.
00:08:24.340 And let me be clear.
00:08:26.000 I don't exactly have an absence of sentiments on this.
00:08:33.560 Because when the National Enquirer got in bed with the Trump campaign, the first target they directed their enmity at was me.
00:08:42.560 Yeah.
00:08:42.760 And they ran multiple stories, the most ludicrous of which was alleging that my father had killed JFK.
00:08:50.360 Look, that is part of what David Pecker made a decision.
00:08:55.220 He was essentially trying to do everything he could to elect Donald Trump.
00:08:58.340 So that's part of this indictment, not concerning me, thankfully, but concerning attacks on Donald Trump and people who came forward with allegations against Donald Trump, where the National Enquirer agreed to work to try to quash those stories.
00:09:19.880 Now, listen, whether you like or dislike media outlets deciding they want to support a particular candidate and help them, that happens in politics all the time.
00:09:31.960 Yeah.
00:09:32.700 Unless you're prepared to indict ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC for crawling in bed and spooning with Joe Biden.
00:09:42.320 Then that is not, in fact, criminal conduct, whether you agree or disagree with the political decision that particular media outlet makes.
00:09:54.380 So the statement of facts also details a couple of different payments.
00:10:01.620 One, a payment that went to Karen McDougall for $150,000.
00:10:06.140 Secondly, a payment that went to Stormy Daniels for $130,000.
00:10:12.320 Now, those are both women who alleged that they had had affairs with Donald Trump.
00:10:16.080 I don't know if that's true or false, but that's what they alleged.
00:10:18.780 And the indictment alleged that Trump paid them $150,000 and $130,000 respectively.
00:10:25.640 As we've discussed on the podcast, whether that's true or false, that's not illegal.
00:10:31.740 There's no law in New York State against an individual having an affair.
00:10:37.160 There's no law in New York State against an individual paying anyone involved in an affair not to talk about it publicly.
00:10:43.900 That is all entirely legal.
00:10:47.120 What is alleged in this statement of fact is that Michael Cohen, the personal attorney to Donald Trump,
00:10:54.500 paid $130,000 to Stormy Daniels and that Trump then reimbursed Michael Cohen.
00:11:00.880 And we now know, so the math that's laid out in the statement of facts is that Cohen paid $130,000 to Stormy Daniels
00:11:09.480 and then apparently $50,000 for, quote, another expense, and it doesn't tell us what this other expense is.
00:11:16.040 So that's $130,000 plus $50,000, that's $180,000.
00:11:19.920 And apparently what happened is they took that $180,000, they doubled it to $360,000 because when Michael Cohen was paid back,
00:11:29.960 he would have to pay taxes, federal taxes and state taxes for the money being paid.
00:11:35.060 So the basic math was if you pay him $360,000 and he pays 50% taxes, he would recoup his $180,000.
00:11:42.320 And then they decided to pay him an additional $60,000 on top of that, which the statement of facts calls a supplemental year-end bonus.
00:11:51.700 So all in, he was paid $420,000 and that was paid in a series of payments of $35,000 a month.
00:12:03.020 And by the way, what are the 34 counts?
00:12:06.400 It's each of those payments, it's each of the record-keeping, it's literally entering it into the books,
00:12:11.640 that's a count, writing the check, that's a count, and that's a count in the month of January,
00:12:18.480 it's a count in the month of February, it's a count in the month of March, April, May, June, July,
00:12:22.520 that's how they get to their 34 counts.
00:12:24.260 So in translation, it's the same damn thing over and over again, and that's how they got to 34.
00:12:29.300 It's each month's payment, yes. 0.93
00:12:32.200 It's each month's payment.
00:12:33.940 Wow.
00:12:34.280 And when you hear it that way, it makes you even more angry at what has happened here,
00:12:40.900 and the fact that Donald Trump is even having to sit in this scenario,
00:12:44.360 and there were even people in the media that were asking questions about this,
00:12:49.680 like, are you sure this is a really good idea?
00:12:52.380 There was an NBC News reporter that confronted Bragg about the previous DA
00:12:56.920 and the feds not pursuing these exact charges against Trump.
00:13:00.120 I want to play that.
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00:14:27.700 Senator, I want to play for you this NBC News reporter
00:14:29.880 because I think the media was also honestly shocked
00:14:32.740 at how weak this indictment,
00:14:34.620 this 34-count indictment was for, quote,
00:14:37.760 felonies out of thin air.
00:14:39.420 And NBC News called Bragg out for this,
00:14:42.340 saying like, hey, did you screw up, basically?
00:14:44.560 Listen.
00:14:44.760 Hi, you had expressed a year ago
00:14:49.480 that you had some reservations about the case's readiness.
00:14:52.860 Can you talk to us about what were some of the questions
00:14:55.080 in your mind that needed to be answered
00:14:56.840 in order to bring a case to this mandate?
00:15:01.300 I'm not going to go chapter and verse into many thinking.
00:15:05.180 What I will say is, I believe the time period you're talking about,
00:15:07.900 I've been in office for a couple of months.
00:15:10.960 The investigation, in my view, was not concluded.
00:15:14.500 Into the conduct in particular that is the base for the charges today.
00:15:19.400 Since that time, we've had more evidence made available to the office
00:15:23.340 and opportunity to meet with additional witnesses.
00:15:26.120 So, as I said earlier, I've been doing this for 24 years.
00:15:30.740 I don't bring cases prior to a thorough and rigorous investigation.
00:15:35.660 Now, having done so, the case has been brought.
00:15:38.900 This is Brad Garrett Haake with NBC News.
00:15:40.940 Your predecessor took a hard look at this case
00:15:43.080 and decided not to charge it.
00:15:44.500 Federal prosecutors took a hard look at this case
00:15:46.560 and decided not to charge it.
00:15:48.260 Do you believe you have new evidence
00:15:49.700 that led you to decide to charge this?
00:15:52.040 Or why now?
00:15:54.300 As I just mentioned,
00:15:55.900 we have had available to the office additional evidence
00:15:59.100 that was not in the office's possession prior to my time here.
00:16:02.340 And as to part of your question about the federal,
00:16:07.240 we have a distinct and strong, I would say, profound independent interest in New York State.
00:16:11.880 This is the business capital of the world.
00:16:14.860 We regularly do cases involving false business statements.
00:16:19.220 The bedrock, in fact, the basis for business integrity
00:16:24.520 and a well-functioning business marketplace is true and accurate record-keeping.
00:16:29.020 That's the charge that's brought here.
00:16:30.560 False-fying New York State business records.
00:16:33.000 So, Senator, he's making up two different things here.
00:16:37.220 One is, well, we have this new evidence.
00:16:39.480 Does he have to share that with Donald Trump in this indictment?
00:16:43.020 Wouldn't you have to say what that new evidence is?
00:16:45.720 Number one.
00:16:46.340 And two, then he basically doesn't tell you what it is
00:16:48.940 and goes back to the original statement.
00:16:50.500 Yeah, there's virtually no new evidence in this indictment or this statement of fact.
00:16:56.800 This is all based on allegations that have been around for years,
00:17:00.440 have been around for many years,
00:17:02.060 that prosecutor after prosecutor have looked at
00:17:04.640 and concluded that there was not a crime they could prosecute.
00:17:09.400 Where are we now?
00:17:11.340 Trump came into court.
00:17:13.140 He pleaded not guilty.
00:17:14.580 He left.
00:17:15.740 It ended up, the DA made an interesting decision.
00:17:18.720 They didn't do the mugshot.
00:17:19.780 And, by the way, the decision not to do the mugshot was entirely political.
00:17:25.800 You and I predicted on this podcast.
00:17:27.700 By the way, I want to take a moment of victory lap.
00:17:30.680 On this podcast on Monday, I said Trump will come in wearing a beautiful blue suit,
00:17:39.780 a crisp white shirt, and a bright red Donald J. Trump tie.
00:17:43.680 That is exactly what he was wearing.
00:17:46.120 The only piece I did not accurately predict is I didn't realize
00:17:49.540 that Alvin Bragg would be so political he'd decide,
00:17:52.840 okay, we now have the first defendant in the history of New York City
00:17:55.900 who doesn't get a mugshot.
00:17:58.160 So they skipped the mugshot because they didn't want to give the picture to Trump.
00:18:01.940 So instead we have pictures from him in the courtroom
00:18:03.960 in exactly the attire that we predicted on this podcast.
00:18:08.480 Does that not just go to scream to the politics of this, though,
00:18:11.680 that's so political that you didn't even give the mugshot because you didn't want him to use it?
00:18:16.140 Yes.
00:18:17.100 Can you use that in your defense?
00:18:18.520 Yes, because they realized the mugshot.
00:18:19.940 Well, so the next step, Trump is scheduled to go back to court December 4th.
00:18:29.140 Now, listen, it's early April.
00:18:30.680 December 4th is a really long time away.
00:18:33.080 That's weird.
00:18:34.360 That's weird that it's dragging along that slowly.
00:18:37.820 In the meantime, it is a virtual certainty that Trump's legal team will file a motion to dismiss.
00:18:45.760 And they might file a motion to dismiss on multiple grounds.
00:18:48.500 One ground they could file is that the indictment is deficient.
00:18:52.720 The entire basis for getting around the statute of limitations
00:18:56.560 and making it a felony is that the false business records allegedly
00:19:01.620 were in furtherance of another crime.
00:19:04.100 They don't specify what that crime is.
00:19:05.620 That's one of the first grounds on which you'd file a motion is to say,
00:19:09.760 if you don't specify what the crime is, you have not pleaded the crime under New York state law.
00:19:15.680 I think that a motion to dismiss on that basis is quite likely.
00:19:19.700 I think you're also likely to see a motion to dismiss,
00:19:22.540 maybe the same motion, maybe a different motion,
00:19:24.780 based on vindictive or selective prosecution.
00:19:28.520 Alvin Bragg ran for office.
00:19:30.860 And on the campaign trail, he promised to, quote,
00:19:34.220 get Trump.
00:19:39.400 That is on its face, it screams of selective prosecution,
00:19:44.700 that this is a political left-wing Democrat who wanted to go after a political opponent that he hated.
00:19:51.300 And that's what was going on here.
00:19:53.120 I think we will see that issue litigated early on at the outset.
00:19:58.760 I think another issue that you're likely to see raised,
00:20:02.480 the entire basis of this crime, alleged crime, is that these were false business records.
00:20:08.800 It's not clear that the records at issue are business records at all.
00:20:13.600 Donald Trump paid these funds from his personal accounts or from the blind trust that was erected to hold his assets while he was president.
00:20:25.620 In other words, it wasn't from the Trump corporation.
00:20:29.480 It wasn't a business entity.
00:20:31.520 Now, the statement of facts refers to some personnel in the Trump organization who were involved in cutting the checks.
00:20:38.400 But the checks they cut were not business checks.
00:20:42.480 They were checks from Trump's personal funds.
00:20:45.700 And so, listen, if Ben Ferguson writes a check to somebody, that is not a business record under the ordinary interpretation of it.
00:20:55.000 So that's another ground on which I would expect this to be litigated and challenged.
00:21:01.680 And I think all of those are serious grounds.
00:21:05.440 This indictment was not brought to get a conviction.
00:21:09.880 This indictment was not brought to try to actually put Trump in jail.
00:21:14.720 This indictment was brought to be a political smear. 0.98
00:21:18.320 And the irony is, in that one regard as a political smear, it is horrendously inept.
00:21:25.720 In other words, listen, I'll be surprised if next week Trump is not at 60 percent in the GOP primary.
00:21:33.000 I've already described how this is the single greatest in-kind contribution to the Trump 2024 campaign that I've ever seen, brought by Alvin Bragg, the left-wing George Soros, Democrat DA.
00:21:48.700 So if their purpose was a political smear, it titillated the excitement of the left who hates Trump.
00:21:58.840 But I don't think it succeeded in the purpose that they hoped it would.
00:22:03.000 Yeah, I don't think it did either.
00:22:04.540 But I also think that there's a problem now for this president, and that is the political side of, can he get this dismissed, Senator, before December?
00:22:13.840 Or are his hands literally tied and his legal team's hands tied until December, which you know means then this is going to be an issue well into this election cycle?
00:22:27.740 Look, this is going to be an issue into this election cycle.
00:22:30.820 There was no getting around that.
00:22:32.060 The Democrats hate Trump, and so they were going to argue about indicting him, potentially indicting him, wanting to indict him, right up until Election Day.
00:22:39.940 That was going to happen regardless.
00:22:42.900 I would like to see this resolved quickly.
00:22:45.140 I don't know if the New York state courts will operate quickly.
00:22:47.760 I do think there's another whole set of issues.
00:22:52.740 The judge admonished Trump about his rhetoric.
00:22:56.320 I've got to say, so there's not a gag order in place.
00:22:59.360 But if the judge tried to put a gag order in place, I think that would raise very significant First Amendment issues.
00:23:07.700 Trump is not an ordinary defendant.
00:23:09.700 He is a leading candidate for president of the United States, and the idea that a New York state judge would try to impose legal penalties on one of the leading candidates for president of the United States, who happens to be a former president,
00:23:22.940 from speaking his mind about just about any issue of public concern, is really an astonishing and an unprecedented notion.
00:23:32.460 And so I don't think the judge will try to enter a gag order because it really is to say that's playing with dynamite would be an understatement. 0.98
00:23:41.200 But I was more than a little concerned by the judge admonishing rhetoric because it's none of his damn business. 0.76
00:23:51.380 This is not a mob boss who is threatening retaliation against a prosecutor. 0.93
00:23:58.620 This is, in fact, a partisan prosecutor who ran promising retaliation against a political opponent whom he hates.
00:24:08.300 And so I think that there's a whole world of potential problems that could rise, but they haven't risen yet.
00:24:14.980 And I actually don't think they will. 0.91
00:24:16.720 I don't know this judge, but I would be surprised if the judge were that foolish because any effort to silence a leading contender for president, I think, would be doomed to failure. 0.71
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00:24:57.700 I want to ask you about another shock, and that was the media spreading what I would refer to as fake news about some of these charges.
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00:26:14.640 Senator, the media was also out there, and they were obsessed.
00:26:17.860 It was almost like the word was sent out to everybody in the media.
00:26:21.400 ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC.
00:26:24.420 The list goes on to use a big word to make this sound like Donald Trump's in deep you-know-what.
00:26:30.680 And the word they were obsessed with today was the word conspiracy.
00:26:35.240 I'm going to play this montage for you, and I want to get your reaction.
00:26:38.400 Trump pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan courtroom, again, to 34 counts of falsifying business records and conspiracy.
00:26:45.660 Conspiracy is a very effective tool used by prosecutors to charge someone, charge groups of people,
00:26:52.660 and hold them accountable for all acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.
00:26:57.360 But the big question now arises, who is the conspiracy with?
00:27:00.440 It's 34 counts of falsifying records and conspiracy.
00:27:05.920 It's 34 counts of falsifying business records and conspiracy.
00:27:11.760 We need to see what was the purpose of the conspiracy, who was in the conspiracy, what were the so-called overt acts.
00:27:19.660 You actually have to take a step in furtherance of that conspiracy.
00:27:26.100 You don't actually have to complete the conspiracy.
00:27:28.700 You don't actually have to go through with it.
00:27:30.520 You can just intend to go through with it.
00:27:32.340 Now, Senator, I've got a whole other minute of this type of talk.
00:27:36.180 I think everybody gets the point here.
00:27:38.920 They were obsessed with this word conspiracy.
00:27:41.840 Was the president charged with conspiracy today?
00:27:45.820 No.
00:27:47.020 Look, listening to that montage, you want to know the definition of fake news.
00:27:51.940 You just saw it.
00:27:53.300 You can read the indictment.
00:27:54.900 There are 34 counts.
00:27:56.060 There are 34 counts of all the same thing, which is a fraudulent business record in furtherance of another crime.
00:28:05.040 There is no conspiracy count.
00:28:07.000 One of those commentators said a conspiracy count can be a very powerful tool.
00:28:11.380 That's actually accurate.
00:28:13.100 But that's not what Alvin Bragg brought.
00:28:15.720 There was no conspiracy charge.
00:28:18.160 And every one of those commentators, assuming every one of them is talking after the indictment came out,
00:28:22.920 those news organizations should all issue retractions or corrections because there is no conspiracy charge.
00:28:32.140 And any news organization saying to the contrary is is lying to the American people.
00:28:37.880 Well, let's talk about another aspect of this, and that is how do you move forward if you're running for president with this hanging over your head?
00:28:49.620 And also, I think it's pretty clear now that other indictments could happen.
00:28:54.540 We may have mugshots of the president in the next couple of months, depending on these other cases.
00:29:01.840 This is a distraction.
00:29:04.600 It's going to be a big distraction.
00:29:06.500 It's going to take time, energy, money, focus away.
00:29:10.520 And they're trying to place doubt in the voters' heads that you can't vote for Donald Trump because if you do vote for a guy like Donald Trump,
00:29:16.660 he might go to jail, and therefore you're wasting your vote.
00:29:19.180 That's obviously what the media is trying to do here and what the Democrats are hoping is going to happen.
00:29:25.340 So how do the American people look at this moving forward?
00:29:28.160 And if it grows, Senator, is that a reason to bail on and say, all right, they've done their damage.
00:29:36.840 Fine.
00:29:37.160 We'll figure out something else.
00:29:38.540 Look, this is blatant election interference by rabid Democrats, whether it is Alvin Bragg,
00:29:49.400 whether it is the Biden White House and the Biden Department of Justice,
00:29:52.660 and we've talked at great length about how I believe Merrick Garland desperately wants to indict Donald Trump,
00:29:58.960 or whether it is a left-wing Georgia prosecutor with a grand jury who is a self-described witch.
00:30:08.540 All of these, I believe, are partisan efforts to use the criminal justice system to subvert the will of the voters.
00:30:19.620 If you're a Democrat and you don't want Donald Trump to win, there's an obvious avenue to pursue, which is try to beat him in an election.
00:30:30.320 If you're a Republican, and there are certainly some Republicans who don't want Donald Trump to win,
00:30:35.340 the obvious answer is to beat him in a primary election.
00:30:38.940 That's actually how our political process works.
00:30:42.540 We're going to have primaries to select the Republican nominee and the Democrat nominee,
00:30:47.060 and we should be debating who the best nominee is, who has the best record, who is the most likely to win,
00:30:53.920 who would make the best president.
00:30:56.240 That's the essence of politics.
00:30:58.420 What is happening is these left-wing Democrats, they don't trust the voters.
00:31:03.440 They don't want to have the voters make that determination.
00:31:06.340 They don't actually want to have to make their case to the voters.
00:31:10.260 Instead, they're trying to end-run the will of the voters by pursuing bogus and abusive prosecutions.
00:31:19.540 I think that is an endeavor doomed to fail, and ironically, the more they do it, the more they end up politically benefiting and boosting Donald Trump.
00:31:34.940 And so I'd like to see all these ridiculous prosecutions stop and let the voters decide,
00:31:43.340 let's have a real and meaningful debate about the right direction for the country,
00:31:48.360 not a partisan witch hunt driven by Democrats who ultimately are angry with the voters in 2016
00:31:57.900 for having dared to elect Donald Trump in the first place.
00:32:02.040 I want to ask you one other question politically about this,
00:32:05.040 and there was a lot of conservatives I saw today that were saying,
00:32:07.660 okay, if this is how the game is going to be played,
00:32:10.540 then there needs to be conservative DAs around the country that go ahead and jump in
00:32:17.180 and start charging Democrats with crimes.
00:32:20.040 Hunter Biden, James Biden, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, the list goes on and on,
00:32:24.160 to show them if they're going to do it, we'll do it too.
00:32:27.240 What is your reaction to that strategy where they're saying,
00:32:29.920 all right, they want to go to the mattresses,
00:32:31.460 we can't just keep sitting back here acting like we're statesmen.
00:32:34.040 If they want to play by these rules, then let's play by these rules.
00:32:37.660 Look, at some level, it may be inevitable.
00:32:40.540 We talked about, when Verdict launched,
00:32:43.720 the first night this podcast came into existence
00:32:47.640 was the first night of the very first impeachment of Donald Trump.
00:32:53.480 One of the things that we said in the opening days of Verdict
00:32:57.540 is the Democrats are crossing a Rubicon,
00:33:01.520 and they are creating a new environment
00:33:04.760 where whenever you have a House of Representatives from one party
00:33:07.700 and a president from the opposing party,
00:33:10.880 the odds of impeachment being used as a means of political warfare
00:33:15.920 have risen dramatically.
00:33:19.160 Now, I wish the Democrats had not crossed that line,
00:33:22.880 and I think our country is worse off
00:33:25.820 when you have the impeachment of the president
00:33:28.860 as a routine matter of political battle.
00:33:31.840 But I think the Democrats have pushed us in that direction.
00:33:35.860 I think what Alvin Bragg has done,
00:33:37.980 and I think what Merrick Garland wants to do,
00:33:40.560 would push us dramatically more in that direction,
00:33:44.720 where it's not just impeachment,
00:33:46.840 which the American people do understand,
00:33:49.320 it's politicians attacking politicians,
00:33:51.160 there is inevitably some element of politics to it.
00:33:57.280 An indictment and a prosecution is meant to be
00:34:00.600 separate and apart from politics.
00:34:03.860 So listen, part of me,
00:34:06.800 my heart hurts
00:34:08.120 when I hear people saying,
00:34:10.540 all right, Republicans,
00:34:11.780 go indict the Democrats now.
00:34:13.480 I don't want to see our legal system used
00:34:17.780 as a weapon and tool of political retribution.
00:34:21.940 Now, to be clear,
00:34:23.260 I've said repeatedly,
00:34:24.820 the Department of Justice
00:34:26.000 should investigate
00:34:27.880 the Biden family,
00:34:31.500 and Joe Biden in particular,
00:34:32.900 for corruption.
00:34:34.600 Official public corruption
00:34:36.520 is a responsibility of the Department of Justice,
00:34:39.480 and I think there is significant evidence
00:34:41.720 that Joe Biden personally has profited
00:34:44.580 and that his family has profited
00:34:46.520 from communist China
00:34:47.740 and also from Burisma,
00:34:50.080 the Ukrainian natural gas company.
00:34:53.080 Those investigations
00:34:54.700 are perfectly appropriate.
00:34:57.500 Ideally,
00:34:59.020 they should happen
00:34:59.840 in the Department of Justice,
00:35:01.260 even though
00:35:02.220 it is headed by a Democrat attorney general.
00:35:05.320 But I do think
00:35:07.340 we've got a good possibility
00:35:08.740 of seeing
00:35:09.580 some Republican DA somewhere
00:35:12.260 who decides,
00:35:13.220 all right,
00:35:13.980 I want to be famous like Alvin Bragg.
00:35:16.400 I'm going to go do this too.
00:35:17.460 And I got to say,
00:35:18.660 that is much worse
00:35:20.400 for the rule of law.
00:35:22.580 It's worse for the Constitution.
00:35:24.540 It's worse
00:35:25.320 for our democratically elected government
00:35:28.440 if we go down that road.
00:35:30.780 But Alvin Bragg
00:35:31.860 and Merrick Garland
00:35:32.640 have pushed us
00:35:34.240 a long, long way
00:35:35.480 down that road.
00:35:36.200 And I understand
00:35:37.220 the rage and fury
00:35:40.240 that is leading people
00:35:41.200 to call for that.
00:35:42.560 Last question for you.
00:35:43.800 And I want to ask you
00:35:44.360 about these future indictments.
00:35:45.720 Before we get to that,
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00:37:07.200 Last question for you,
00:37:08.540 Senator,
00:37:08.820 and that is,
00:37:09.840 with this indictment today,
00:37:12.840 do you believe
00:37:14.040 it's going to be
00:37:15.540 pretty easy now
00:37:16.540 to get these other
00:37:17.900 indictments
00:37:18.420 against Donald Trump
00:37:19.120 because those grand juries
00:37:20.160 are going to say
00:37:20.760 and those prosecutors 0.79
00:37:21.300 are going to say,
00:37:21.620 hey, they've already
00:37:22.100 done it in New York.
00:37:23.000 You're not going to be
00:37:23.840 the first.
00:37:24.440 Go ahead and take the leap.
00:37:25.480 Maybe.
00:37:27.680 Look, I think it makes
00:37:28.860 it a little bit easier,
00:37:30.900 but I don't think
00:37:32.460 it makes it much easier.
00:37:34.760 The Atlanta investigation,
00:37:37.020 I don't really know.
00:37:38.000 I don't know
00:37:38.720 that that prosecutor,
00:37:41.000 as we discussed,
00:37:42.240 the grand jury forewoman,
00:37:44.360 the fact that she went
00:37:45.300 on a media tour
00:37:46.340 broadcasting her partisan
00:37:48.880 dislike for Trump,
00:37:50.860 that's a real problem
00:37:52.260 for the prosecutors.
00:37:53.220 I promise you,
00:37:54.040 the Atlanta prosecutors
00:37:55.040 were horrified
00:37:56.720 when she did that.
00:38:00.100 It will raise,
00:38:01.520 if there is an indictment,
00:38:03.340 it will raise
00:38:04.160 an obvious ground
00:38:05.200 for challenging
00:38:05.860 that indictment.
00:38:07.680 The greatest peril
00:38:09.520 legally
00:38:10.200 has always been
00:38:12.140 the Department of Justice.
00:38:13.280 And listen,
00:38:13.720 the Department of Justice
00:38:14.560 has a unique role.
00:38:15.720 It is the exclusive
00:38:16.560 enforcer of federal law.
00:38:18.700 We've discussed
00:38:19.640 at great length,
00:38:20.380 I believe Merrick Garland
00:38:21.600 has made
00:38:22.280 the political decision
00:38:23.480 he wants to indict
00:38:25.400 Donald Trump.
00:38:26.160 It's why,
00:38:26.840 and we've talked
00:38:27.280 about this before,
00:38:29.340 DOJ leaked
00:38:30.540 that they intended
00:38:31.300 to indict Hunter Biden
00:38:32.480 for purely personal crimes
00:38:34.220 that had nothing
00:38:35.200 to do with Joe Biden
00:38:36.340 because,
00:38:37.900 A,
00:38:38.040 they wanted to insulate
00:38:38.960 Joe Biden
00:38:39.520 in the White House
00:38:40.200 from liability
00:38:41.420 and complicity
00:38:42.480 in corruption
00:38:44.380 with foreign governments,
00:38:45.520 but B,
00:38:47.060 because it gave
00:38:48.440 a easy
00:38:50.820 appearance of balance
00:38:53.340 for Garland to say,
00:38:54.500 look,
00:38:54.760 I indicted a Biden, 0.99
00:38:55.740 I indicted a Trump,
00:38:56.600 look how even-handed I am.
00:38:58.640 I think that plan
00:39:00.240 hit a major,
00:39:02.100 major impediment
00:39:03.200 when it was suddenly
00:39:05.640 discovered that Joe Biden
00:39:06.860 had classified documents
00:39:08.220 seemingly everywhere.
00:39:09.280 I think prior
00:39:14.220 to the Biden documents
00:39:15.720 being discovered,
00:39:16.840 the odds
00:39:17.780 were extremely high
00:39:19.300 that Merrick Garland
00:39:20.920 was going to indict
00:39:21.800 Trump for the possession
00:39:23.780 of classified documents.
00:39:26.560 Now,
00:39:27.440 it is really tough.
00:39:29.020 It is really tough
00:39:30.340 to bring that case
00:39:31.580 against Trump
00:39:32.300 and not bring it
00:39:34.220 against Biden.
00:39:35.120 Everyone,
00:39:35.580 even MSNBC,
00:39:37.740 the partisan shills there,
00:39:39.980 would be forced
00:39:40.840 to ask,
00:39:41.300 wait a second,
00:39:41.980 why is this only a crime
00:39:43.440 when Republicans do it?
00:39:45.380 And so,
00:39:46.660 I think
00:39:48.680 yesterday's indictment,
00:39:52.260 well,
00:39:52.800 last week's indictment
00:39:53.960 and yesterday's
00:39:54.640 not guilty plea,
00:39:56.460 marginally increases
00:39:57.980 the chances
00:39:58.680 of future indictments,
00:40:00.400 but at the end of the day,
00:40:01.620 I think there are
00:40:02.400 real impediments
00:40:03.640 to the other cases
00:40:05.520 and those impediments
00:40:06.500 may be sufficient
00:40:07.440 to prevent the indictments
00:40:09.380 from coming.
00:40:10.740 We're going to keep 0.99
00:40:11.560 covering this here
00:40:12.480 and we'll let you,
00:40:13.480 we'll keep you updated
00:40:14.360 on all of this
00:40:15.300 as it continues
00:40:16.060 to move forward
00:40:16.880 and these possible
00:40:17.700 other indictments.
00:40:19.240 As you said,
00:40:20.120 Senator,
00:40:20.360 this is a sad day
00:40:21.040 for this country
00:40:21.760 and it's going to be
00:40:22.540 very hard to get
00:40:23.200 the genie back
00:40:23.780 in the bottle
00:40:24.260 after what the Democrats
00:40:26.000 have done
00:40:26.740 to the President
00:40:27.700 of the United States
00:40:28.340 of America,
00:40:28.760 former President
00:40:29.240 Donald Trump.
00:40:30.320 And I think,
00:40:31.040 like you said,
00:40:31.680 his approval rating
00:40:32.920 and his numbers
00:40:33.740 are going to skyrocket
00:40:34.800 in this primary.
00:40:36.400 He's going to be
00:40:36.900 the overwhelming frontrunner
00:40:38.160 on steroids after this
00:40:39.680 and that may be
00:40:40.580 the biggest backfire
00:40:41.460 of all for what
00:40:42.040 the Democrats thought
00:40:42.840 they were going to get
00:40:43.420 out of this one.
00:40:44.380 Don't forget,
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00:41:00.740 Senator Cruz and I
00:41:01.400 will see you back here
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