Trump trial jury selection merry-go-round extravaganza

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm talking about what could happen tosomebody who lives in New York who's being
called to potentially be on the juryfor the Donald Trump case. We'll talk
about that because remember the other daywe said they had chosen seven people.
We talked about that. Oh welltoday two of them are no more.
Oh they're not dead, they justyou know, not on the jury anymore.
Matt Case is my producer to ThursdayThursday. So we got to start

(00:20):
off right, Matt, what areyou drinking today? Well? I got
something for you today. Oh yeah, this is what I've been waiting for.
Last week. You said I neededto step my game up, and
you need a little bit of alittle bit of action. I got myself
a mountain dew major melon. Whatfound this at the grocery or not the
grocery store, the gas station rightacross the alleyway here from our studios and

(00:44):
lovely always Sonny Dundee, Omaha,Nebraska, United States Earth in that order,
you forgot North America, but allthree of you. Oh yeah,
North America. Earth now in NorthAmerica, Western Hemisphere, Earth, Galaxy
Artemis. I don't know. Wecall it the Milky Way, don't we?
You forgot the solar system in themilky Way, by the way,

(01:07):
Yeah, how can we see itin it? Well, they sent the
camera far away to take a pictureof it, that's why. Oh yeah,
I thought you could see the milkyway like on a real dark night,
gets a little milky up there.I don't think that's the same thing.
Anyway. I'm drinking my coffee concoction, but I'll have something else later.
It's a surprise. Cheers to you. Cheers Ah. Did we h

(01:37):
what was the over under on thefirst juror to be dismissed out of this
case? Do we have an overnarn? I don't think we I don't think
we put one on there, butwe had to have beat it right.
Yeah, that was quick, Imean less than forty eight hours. This
morning. One juror expressed concerns abouther identity becoming public and her ongoing ability
to render a judgment free of outsidesourses and outside influences. She said her

(02:04):
family already had been starting to putthings in her head because they asked her
if she was one of the jurorsthe judge judge merchand very quickly I was
like, you know, who's fault. This is who do you think he
blamed it on? He blamed iton Yeah, Bill Buckner. No threw

(02:29):
the legs. No, Ma,the man rest in peace. Ah still
catching flax. Sorry Bill. Heblamed probably blamed it on dj T.
No, No, blamed it onthe press. Oh, for leaking too
much information about the people so theycould be identified. I mean, if

(02:51):
you knew. Okay, so wedon't know who these people are. We
don't have their names. But ifyou had been called for drury duty and
this was the case, you probablygoing to tell a few people, aren't
you, And then they see whothe jurors are that have been seated in
your family, sees something that looksan awful lot like your profile because we

(03:12):
had the information we had, likesome of the things that these jurors,
you know, did, It alwaysgets out, just asks trev Alberts.
Boy. But I mean, atleast she was honest and said, look,
I can't do this, I can'tdo this. I told you finding

(03:35):
eighteen people who could do this.Good luck, man, and good luck
it took you two days. Iget six, and then they got at
a seventh at the end of theday, and now two of the seven
they had are gone. This isthe first one, and I think this
is good. I don't want somebodywho's going to be easily influenced being on
this jury. That defies the wholepurpose of a jury, isn't it.

(03:58):
But we told you, like,how on earth are you going to maintain
an unbiased perspective considering who the defendantis and what's on the line here?
And again, if your identity atall, anybody knows who's on this jury.
There are crazy people on both sidesthat absolutely are likely to threaten your
life and your family's life. Youbetter render verdict X because if you don't,

(04:25):
your dog is going to be inperil. Right, there are crazies
on both sides that would do thatwitness protection program. I mean, what
are we thinking? I don't know. I would just straight up say I'm
not doing this. There's no wayyou can make me be a part.
I don't care about civic duty.I care about my life. I care
about my family's life. I careabout my career, my job. I

(04:45):
care about the life that I've built. You're not going to have me be
a part of this jury. Ican't do this. I'm not going to
put myself in this position. Yeah, like, who would voluntarily do this
except for somebody who has political motivationswhere they stood something to gain by either
convicting Donald Trump or the opposite.I'll allow quitting him, allowing him to

(05:10):
go with no charges if the glovedoesn't fit. I don't think they're going
to be trying to any gloves onthis one, although if they did,
I don't know if I want tosee that that would be bad. Although
I don't think it's about what hedid with Stormy Daniels allegedly. I think
it's about more of what the moneyhe paid her and how that was paid.

(05:34):
So what about this second jur I'lltell you all about this person next,
because this one was a little bitdifferent than the first one. The
reason that he got the boot that'scoming up next. Stick around a lot
to talk about, as you cantell. News Radio eleven ten kfab e
Ry Sunger on news Radio eleven tenkfab dismissed juror by the name of Cat.

(05:58):
Kat said she was dismissed. Idon't know why exactly. Spoke to
in mis NBC reporter he has meanvasodion and Cat says everyone was shocked.
Everyone was frozen. We went tothe courtroom and we saw Donald Trump.

(06:19):
I was shocked. I was sittingin the second row, like six feet
away. He looked less orange thanI expected. That was the note that
she took from this. What wasthe last part. I was listening to
that tiger king drop, Hello,all you cats and kits and kittens.

(06:39):
That's true story. I don't don't. I don't need to hear it.
Thank you and kittens. Sorry,I clicked it before you finished that sentence.
She said, he looked less orangethan I expected. Oh, I
on the ball here, Maddie.Yep, pop fly went right over the
head on that one. Many jurorssaying they've either read art of the deal?

(07:00):
Does that I mean, does thatdisqualify you? What other juror said
they were dismissed for. These arepeople that weren't actually seated on the jury.
I'm going to get to the secondperson who was seated on the jury
and now is gone. These arepeople that were perspective jurors that either aren't
going to be on there for onereason or another, or they said they
didn't want to be, or theysaid they couldn't be fair or impartial.

(07:25):
One juror said she had a relativewho works for the Justice Department. That's
probably a conflict of interest in someway. Another perspective juror said, they
don't really have any beliefs about Trumplies. I'm sure, but he does
read the news New York's Times andso forth. That was the answer.
Okay, well, that's interesting.You read the news, but you don't

(07:46):
have an opinion on Donald Trump.I don't believe you. Oh. The
same person also says he follows Trump'struth social posts as well as Michael Cohen
on X. Still doesn't have anopinion though, no opinion, though,
there's no way. Another juror saidthey have read several pages of Disloyal by
Michael Cohen, the book. Thejuror says she read part of the book

(08:09):
for unspecified business reasons. Oh hmm. The person previously seated on the jury
known as Juror four. Juror fourbecause we're not supposed to know their names,
right, Yeah, they're supposed tobe protected, even though the press

(08:31):
is, you know, reporting whothese people are without their names. This
person has been officially yanked. He'sgoing to be asked about crimes he or
his wife are alleged to have committedin the past because they were unearthed by
the District Attorney's office. Uh.Oh, that's not great. That's not

(08:56):
great. After a conference with thejuror, judge one Merchand says he is
excusing Juror four, who's previously beenseated and sworn his prior arrest. Questioned
by the DA and they said,you said on the questionnaire that you had
and people you know were not arrested. I didn't have criminal record. The

(09:24):
lie detector test determined that was alie. He had to take a polygraph.
No, that's just what Maury Povichwould say. Oh, I always
got a kick out of that.No, but he gone, So that's
two of seven. We haven't wehaven't had any more put on Duror iiO,

(09:50):
by the way, was the onethat said she couldn't be impartially anymore
and left. Okay, So Jurorfour, here's the details. A prosecutor
from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's officesaid the man was arrested in Westchester,
New York for tearing down political advertising. Ah. The propaganda that was being

(10:16):
ripped down was political posters that wereon the political right. So this person
lied to be on this jury,certainly knowing that they were not a fan
of Donald Trump. Based on thisinformation, boy oh boy, also that

(10:46):
juror number four's wife had also beenpreviously accused of or in a corruption inquiry
that needed a deferred prosecution agreement withthe DA's office. So not only did
this person have been arrested and lied, but they knew someone they were close
to, someone who has been arrestedand lied about that too. So what's

(11:11):
that say? What do you think? What do you think? Is there
any chance that any of the fiveremaining people that are still seated and sworn
in right now waiting for this trialto start, is there anything that makes
you confident that these people can handlethis thing? Because I don't. Well.

(11:35):
And on top of that, evenif they think they can, you
know what kind of influences on theoutside are going to figure out who these
people are. This is what JudgeMerchant said, Sorry, I'll let you
talk after I say his quote youcan And this is to the press.
This is when in his admonishment ofthe press for these identities being you know,
figured out, deciphered, he says, quote, you can write about

(11:56):
anything on the record, but applycommon sense when writing about jurors using physical
descriptions and descriptors. He told thepress to refrain from writing about anything that
can be observed with eyes in orderto ensure jurors remain safe. So there
you go. What do you think. I think it's interesting that two people

(12:16):
have left for two very different reasons. Yeah, one was a straight up
liar and one was afraid of beinginfluenced by outside sources because people figured out
who she was, right, onethought that she could be impartial. Then
once she got swept up into thefervor of the situation, then realized,
oh no, well it was herfamily, right, which it was just

(12:37):
her family. She probably thought well, I'll be fine just going in here,
and then all, yeah, you'reright though, I mean, it
kind of pulls your whole life intoit, I suppose. And the other
guy, you could say, possiblywent in with certain motivations. And you
know, well, obviously this jurornumber four seemingly had that right you would

(13:00):
think arrested for tearing down right wingpolitical signs, that is so illegal,
and now you are, You're goingto be a juror. And they swore
to this person in. I'm gladthat they did a little more digging in.
Kudos to the DA's office, whoare certainly on the opposite side of
the aisle from Donald Trump on thisright, we've been accusing them of trying

(13:24):
to rig this thing. This wouldhave been a juror that would have tried
to convict Donald Trump. Both sidesare trying to rig it. By the
way, did you see what ClayTravis tweeted a couple of days ago.
What did he tweet? What didI miss? He was saying, do
whatever you can to get on here. Oh yeah, yeah, that's ignorant.

(13:45):
I'm just saying, maybe the onlyway this thing works is if you
have equal representation of people. Sowhat you said are very biased. This
is what you said. The onlyway you're going to get twelve people is
by having six on each side thatare insanely biased. Yes, but wouldn't
they just keep voting on party lineslike they have to come to a unanimous
conclusion. Have you not watched twelveangry men? We talked about this yesterday,

(14:09):
I still have Come on, Itold you I didn't have time last
night. Come on, maybe Ican fit it in this weekend. You
gotta watch twelve Angry Men. You'llnever look at a courtroom the same.
I don't know if anybody else outthere feels like you could have been on
this jury. But if you thinkyou could have, if you think that
this is a sham, if youaren't a big fan of what's going on,

(14:31):
or if you think that this isa circus and you're kind of interested
in it, your opinions are welcome. You can call us at four oh
two, five five eight eleven ten. Four oh two, five five eight
eleven ten. We'll have more foryou. It's two twenty seven on news
radio eleven ten kfab. Emery Sungeron news radio eleven ten kfab. You
could win a thousand bucks. It'sa nationwide keyword contest. Right, had

(14:52):
a couple of Omaha area winners fromour sister station, Cat the cat the
country station, not the cat thatwas in the jury's selection process. No
no dogs, cats in kiddies.This person. Okay, I'm just getting

(15:13):
the kick. They're questioning the jurorsnow right, Well, uh. One
prospective juror told Trump's lawyer his politicsaren't always my politics, but said she
agrees with him on some policies anddisagrees with him on others, but as
a human being, that's a differenttopic. She says, what is that

(15:39):
supposed to mean? Does she canseparate the policy from the person? Yeah,
but we're this isn't what the wholepoint is you're supposed to theoretically,
ideally you're going to be doing likeyou're not going to know this man,
right, that's a whole point oflike a jury. Yeah, but maybe
that's the best case scenario because everybodyknows them. One juror was questioned said

(16:06):
they're a centrist because you know they'reasking these questions to people. The juror
added, everybody needs a chance,regardless of who they are, to be
innocent until proven guilty. Is thatPeron's gonna make it? They're on the
right path. I don't know.They're saying a lot of things that you'd
say if you want to be onthis jury, and that's just isn't that
part of it? Those who wantpower? Should we let them have it?

(16:29):
Why do you want it in thefirst place? I want to have
the jur number four. That's that'swhat that's the scenario. You know,
what we need here is one ofthose weird Stanford University experiments from the seventies.
Use one of those to determine thetwelve people that we get? What
is that? Is that the onewith the bells and the dogs? That

(16:49):
might have been one, but theyou know, the weird human experiments where
it was like, is this theone where they put like a like a
zapper with a couple of like boltsin the guy's neck, And like he
said, I I don't think so. This was more this was more of
a sociology sort of thing, youknow. Uh, you said, Stanford,

(17:14):
They've done a lot of stuff there. Yeah, I don't know.
Oh, I don't know, man, I'm reading this. Here's a good
one. One prospective juror says theywere born and raised in Brooklyn and described
encountering Trump and ex wife Marla Maplesonce when they were shopping for baby things
at ABC home in Manhattan. Wouldthat affect this, like this person remembered

(17:42):
this for like, I mean,gosh, this gotta be like thirty years
ago. It could if it wasa bad or really good experience, right
like, it could color your perspective. Didn't isn't Tiffany Trump? The uh
wasn't Tiffany, the daughter with Marla. Yes, I have no idea.

(18:03):
Yes, it is, it is, It is about it, it is.
I know you don't know the Trumpfamily tree at this point. Come
on, man, not a bit. She actually has a million followers on
Instagram for what it's worth. ReallyYeah, yeah, she is thirty which
ninety three, ninety three, Sothey would have been probably shopping for baby

(18:26):
things in and around nineteen ninety three, because that is the only that is
the only child that he and MarlaMaples had together. Well that, I
mean, that must have been aninteresting experience. They remember this. Do

(18:48):
you remember seeing somebody famous when youwere shopping once? I don't even know,
you know, I don't know ifI've even ever that someone famous ever
in your life, other than likeseeing him on stage, you know,
like a musician or something. Ibrought Asa Hutchinson into this studio and you've
not met anyone famous. Yes,my point still stands. Sorry, Asa,

(19:14):
I couldn't say it with a straightcase. Ah yeah, No,
I mean you've talked to some celebritiessince I've been here. Yeah, on
the phone. We had a NikkiHaley on the phone a few times.
That's true. Not in person though, you talk to her. She called
in and you were like, oh, hey, what's up. Yeah,

(19:36):
how are you doing? That's exactlywhat I said. You know who else
is like wandering around outside the courthouse? Huh? Take a while guess as
to who would be the most likelyrandom person that you think is a terrible
person. Most people think is aterrible person. But it is leeching on
to this for attention. I'll giveyou a hand. Okay, excused from

(20:02):
Congress. Oh that guy I can'tthink of his name. Oh, come
on, George Santos. Yeah,that's him. Wow, George Santash that's
funny. All right. So anyway, we're gonna keep an eye on this.
Two of the seven initial jurors thatwere seated in sworn in they have

(20:26):
been removed. One of them basicallyasked to get removed and said, my
family asked me. They were ableto figure out that I was on this
jury and they were starting to saystuff to me, and I just don't
think I can be unbiased at thispoint. So she was excused. And
then another jury number four, whichis gonna be a fascinating bit because this
is going to be a person thatwe're gonna have to follow how this goes,

(20:48):
because this person lied about being arrestedor being close to somebody who was
arrested recently. And also the reasonhe was arrested he was tearing down political
signs that were featuring Republican politicians.They dug this up after they swore him
in. So kudos to the DA'soffice for, you know, finding that

(21:12):
they didn't have to do that.Good enough. Well, if you want
to talk to us, you can. It's four two five five eight eleven
ten. Is the number. Fourtwo five five eight eleven ten. Keep
an eye on this. I wantto talk about this Columbia students, Uh,
these Columbia people, Colombia, youknow on one of the Ivy League
schools, it's the Ivy League schoolin New York. Well, they're having

(21:38):
days long protests right now that areanti Israel and pro Palestine, and it
is certainly making people feel quite uncomfortable. We'll talk about that coming up on
news radio eleven ten. Kfab EmerySunger on news Radio eleven ten Kfab.

(21:59):
I'm having fun just kind of goingthrough all the details we're learning about these
perspective jurors and the jurors that arenot going to be there and they're never
going to find eighteen people. Idon't care what they say, but you
can call in with your opinion.Four two five five eight eleven ten.
Four two five five, eight eleventen. Gary's on the line. Gary,
Thanks for the call. What doyou got on your mind? Well,

(22:19):
I gotta I wanted your guys opinionon something, all right, and
uh and maybe we could do apool or survey with the other listeners.
Okay, when and if this isever all done, do you foresee this
becoming a reality show or just aspecial on Comedy Central? Ooh, okay.

(22:41):
So, because there are a bunchof people on the left, the
Democrats, who are really invested intrying to put Donald Trump in jail,
they are going to treat this asseriously as possible. They don't know how
to laugh about stuff like this,Gary, So if if they was left
to their devices, they are goingto be turning this into a full blown

(23:02):
ten episode Netflix documentary that is goingto unpack every last step in this case
and vilify Donald Trump and anybody associatedwith him for the better part of ten
hours worth of footage that they're likelygoing to have on this on this series.
However, if you put with you. Yeah, but if you put
an actual, you know, funnyperson in charge, there's nothing but comedy

(23:25):
here. I mean this whole thing. Like, if you can just like
remove the whole politics and the theconsequences of this trial one direction or to
the other, and you can justlook at it for what it is.
This is comedy, one oh one, Like this is so easy to make
a comedy special out of I wouldwatch it. I'm laughing just thinking about
what's going on in there right now. I mean, who wouldn't be if
they don't care about, you know, the specifics of the politics. If

(23:48):
you can rip that a part ofthis, this is just hilarious. This
is hilarious stuff. Yeah. Iwould like to hear what some of the
other investers think too, but Ijust I don't know. To me,
it's it's just dumb. But well, well it's also dumb. Yeah,
but stupid is as stupid does,or something like that. Gary, I
appreciate the call. Gary, thanksfor listening and being a part of the

(24:11):
show today. All right, Well, he's right though, I mean,
if you were going to think aboutdoing some sort of you know, retraction
to the left. I just can'timagine unless it's like a Seth MacFarland type
person like Seth Macfarland's a pretty liberalkind of guy, but he would turn

(24:33):
this into a comedy spoof it.The name that came across to me was
Adam McKay. Okay, yeah,the guy that's taking some serious topics and
made him funny. Yeah yeah,like uh like Ricky Bobby, very serious
story in that biopic. It diddid pretty well, I think. But
he did, wasn't it Adam McKaythat did The Big Short? Maybe,
and that was actually a serious movie. It was really well done, had

(24:56):
Christian Bale. I'll have to lookthat up. Yeah, Adam McKay,
Oh yeah, he did a reallygood deep dive on the relationship with step
brothers once. That's true, thattoo. I enjoyed that one too.
But I feel like you're undercutting mypoint, but that is true. He

(25:18):
did do The Big Short. Oh, there you go. But I would
say he's another one of those wherehe probably would have a political slant to
it just based on his movie history. Well maybe as long as he treats
it like uh, like they tradedthe Anchorman, right, I mean the
story of Ron Burgundy. That that'sthe guy. Mm hmm, yeah,

(25:44):
I'm Ron Burgundy. Yeah, that'sthe guy. Anyway, all right,
Brian's on a phone line four twofive eleven ten. Brian, what's up
day? Not much? I feellike I stumbled into a uh, not
so serious conversation with maybe. WellI was hoping to be a serious comment
here, but that's fine. Anyway. I used to judge debate, like

(26:07):
high school debate tournament, and listeningto all this with the jury selection,
it just feels like this is thetime where you really wish that every kid
would have to do debate in highschool, you know, because with the
flip of the coin, you hadto argue one point or the other and
they give you a topic that youhadn't prepared for. Yeah, and at

(26:27):
a minute it was like you haveto you have to argue for it,
and it really taught. But inmy opinion, it really teaches empathy and
being able to see the other sideof the story and kind of go all
that. And so it's just asthis jury selection comes through, an impartiality
plays out. It's I just thoughtthat that was just the common I wanted

(26:48):
to throw out there. Yeah,no, and I don't disagree with that.
In fact, Brian, you're talkingto a guy who was third place
in the state and eighth grade debateacross the state of Iowa right now.
So I did my fair share ofdebate. My experience with debate as like
an activity in school was you wereright. You had to be able to
like actively get a couple of differentideals understood and be able to argue for

(27:15):
them based on what the argument wasgoing to be in favor or against something.
But I noticed that a lot ofthe guys or girls that were in
this activity were future lawyers. Theywere future politicians that their goals were to
be, you know, arguing forThey'd be the DA or the defense attorney

(27:36):
in this situation, I think,or a judge. Where Whereas you know,
like most of the kids that hadno interest in this are generally going
to be the ones that are pulledup for jury duty. But they don't
have that part of their brain thattells them they should have a spectrum of
views on things. They just wantto have the one opinion. Yeah,
I had this vision of some ofmy classmates actually being in that same situation

(27:59):
trying to ary for something and theyjust wouldn't care. Yeah, no one,
But that's unfortunately just kind of theworld that we live. And even
though you're right, I mean,if you would have been exposed to having
to understand and argue for both sidesof a singular issue, he probably would
have gotten a better idea of howpeople feel about different things. Appreciate the
call, Brian. Yeah, bet, apparently your Stanford experiment was a thing.

(28:25):
Donald is on our talk back featureof four h two five. No,
that's not how you do that.You go to the radio app.
That's right. You go to theradio app search eleven ton kfab, you
hit the button. You can giveus some audio. Here's what he had
to say. Hey, guys,I think you're thinking of the Stanford prison
experiment where they lock some students inand call them inmates and other students call
them guards. Is that what youwere talking about? That was Yeah?

(28:48):
Uh. In hindsight, being twentytwenty, I don't really see how that
would help. So I rescind mycomment and apologize to everyone. This is
why I undercut. You're out ofMcKay point. Yeah, you did it
to yourself. Hey, we're atthe end of the hour. I'll get
him next hour, all right,and next hour, by the way,
we're gonna start off by talking toSenator Pete Ricketts because he wants to talk

(29:10):
about this Alejandro majorcis bumbling stumbling impeachmenttrial, if you want to call it
that. We'll talk about that andget to this Columbia University story as well.
On a Thursday Thursday on news Radioeleventon KFAB