May 2, 2024 • 42 mins
Independent journalist Aron Rupar has followed the Trump legal saga from the beginning. Join us for a conversation about the status of the former President's trials, election interference, how a loss in the courtroom could lead to a loss in November, and other pertinent topics!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Is it just me? Or havewe all lost our minds? It's a
question I've been asking myself on repeatfor the last eight years, and I
know I'm not alone in that.Is it the politics, is it the
culture? Or am I just gettingold? Hi? I'm Jennifer Horn and
I'm a former Republican strategist and partyleader turned independent sanity activist. I decided
(00:25):
to do this podcast so we couldexplore these questions. I'll bring experts to
the table from politics and media andculture. We'll have raw, insightful conversations
with the clear goal of getting tothe bottom of it all. One way
or another. We've all lost ourminds, and I hope you'll join us
on the journey to find them again. Hi, this is Jennifer Horn and
(00:47):
you're listening to Is it just me? Or have we all lost our minds?
We all feel like we've lost ourminds. If you're trying to keep
up with the Trump legal stuff.I can't even say the trial because there
are I think three or four thatare in different stages right now. Maybe
we'll get into a little bit ofthat in a couple of minutes, but
the big one right now that's catchingall the attentional courses. He's in New
(01:08):
York for what everyone is calling ahush money trial, where he and his
personal lawyer, Michael Cohen were involvedin a a scheme to pay off a
porn star, Stormy Daniels, withwhom the president seems to former president seems
to have had a brief affair,And we can get into the details of
(01:30):
that and why it's important and whyyou should kare with our next guest,
who has been following all of thisvery closely. He is a journalist.
He has worked for a couple ofdifferent digital media platforms, but he's an
independent journalist. He's the publisher ofoh gosh, of public Notice. Thank
you eron God. He's the publisherof Public Notice. You can find him
(01:53):
on substack, or you can joinnine hundred thousand other people who follow him
and trust him on It is Aaronrupar You can find him on Twitter at
atr u par Aaron Rupar Erin,thank you so much for joining us today.
Yeah, thanks for having me,my pleasure. It's great to have
you. I'm particularly happy to haveyou today. It just so happens,
(02:15):
so everybody knows. I know,folks are listening to us probably on Thursday.
But it is Tuesday of the weekand the president has just finally been
held in contempt in the court roomin New York City. So it's kind
of weird to start in the middleof it, but let's just start because
that's kind of the current moment.The president's been. The judge has decided
(02:37):
that he has in fact broken histhe rules about what he can and cannot
say the gag order nine times,and he has now been fined a thousand
dollars per offense, nine thousand dollars, Although I was thinking about the four
hundred thousand dollars that he owes inone case and the eighty some I mean
four hundred million dollars and the eightysome million dollars videos e. Gene Carroll,
(03:01):
and I'm thinking nine thousand dollars probablydoesn't sound like very much to him
right now. Yeah, I thinkthat's right. I believe that that's the
most he could have been fined inthis instance, So I don't think there
was a lot of discretion there.But you're right, I mean, nine
thousand dollars for Trump, even givenhis financial difficulties, I don't think is
really going to deter him, andthat's been you know, I wrote about
(03:23):
this in you know, actually uh, Lisa Needham, who writes about the
the Trump Trouser about this in publicnotice yesterday, discussing that, you know,
the problem is that nothing seems torestrain Trump's behavior. You know,
certainly nine thousand dollars won't. Andyou know, all you have to do
is pull up his truth to socialfeed and you'll see that. You know,
(03:44):
he's excoriating judges, the families ofjudges, prosecutors, and it's really
it's a dilemma because you know,ultimately, if he keeps violating these uh
you know, if he keeps beingfound in contempt, at some point,
he could be put in jail forthis. But you know that gets into
you know, would that be agood look for a judge to put that
presumptive GOP nominee in jail? Howwould that logistically even work? And so
(04:10):
you know, I really think thatJudge Mrshan in the in the the hush
money case that we're talking about isyou know, as a lot of judges
have bending over backward to try andaccommodate Trump, to try to avoid you
know, I'm really taking draconian steps. But you know, then you get
into this kind of farcical situation whereyou know, the idea that nine thousand
dollars will deter him is obviously prettyyeah, And I think everything you're saying
(04:36):
makes perfect sense. I was readingthe other day about the steps that the
Secret Service are currently going through totry to be prepared in case he is
incarcerated. Like the very idea of, you know, the Secret Service will
have to be in the jail withthe President if he is incarcerated, Like,
it's crazy when you think about thedetails, but the and I understand
(04:59):
Judge just you know, being verycareful about the perception and about the appearance.
At the same time, I thinkthere's a lot of folks after out
there on the flip side of thiswho are saying, what would happen if
this was me, you know,or you Aaron, or me Jennifer.
You know, if we were sittingin a courtroom repeatedly ignoring a gag order
put on us by a judge,we'd be sitting in a jail cell right
(05:23):
now. You know, nine timeswould not have been tolerated. So it's
a very weird thing. As we'retrying to as a democracy, as a
republic, as the American people,we're trying to process the idea that no
man is above the law. That'swhy a former president is in the courtroom
to begin with, and yet he'sreally not being treated the same way the
rest of us would be treated.I don't know if that's good or bad,
(05:44):
or right or wrong, but it'sthe fact, yeah, I mean,
and it's ironic because you know,one of Trump's big talking points is
that he's the victim of weaponized justiceand that there's a double standard working against
him. But for the reasons thatyou just outlined, I mean, the
truth just kind of the opposite,where, you know, if anybody else
had this pattern of behavior of disrespectingcourt orders, you know, being told
(06:06):
not to attack court officials and thendoing some on social media and on a
huge platform things like that, Imean, yeah, there would be accountability.
But you know, that's kind ofthe story of Trump's entire life,
right that there's never been any accountabilityfor anything that he's done. And you
know, I have long said,going back years and years, I mean
all the way back to the Mullerinvestigation, that the courts and the Justice
(06:29):
Department were not going to save usfrom Trump, and that ultimately it was
going to come down to people votingagainst him, you know, removing him
from power. In twenty twenty.Of course, there was a little coup
attempt that happened after that, butyou know, eventually he left and we're
kind of back in that same situationagain, where you know, I think
that there's a political component to thesetrials in that obviously Trump is going to
(06:50):
have to spend a lot of timein court foreseeably over the next handful of
weeks, you know, during atime when, in theory, he could
be out there campaigning. Although hesays this every day, he said this
morning, you know, when heshowed up at court, he does his
little rant to the cameras before hegoes in the courtroom. And today,
as he has done many times,he was complaining about the fact that he's
in court while Biden is able tocampaign. He's complaining that he can't be
(07:12):
in Georgia, in Wisconsin. Butyou know, yesterday he wasn't in court
and he wasn't campaigning. There's beenplenty of days where he's not in court
because the trial has been three orfour days a week, So you know,
it doesn't hold a whole lot ofwater when you actually look at how
he's spending his time when he's notin court. Although you know, we're
recording this on Tuesday, Tomorrow night, Trump is scheduled to be in Michigan
(07:33):
for a rally, and so I'llbe tuning in for that because I think
it's the first rally that he's hadin like three weeks. He was supposed
to have won in North Carolina acouple of weeks ago that got stuggled weather,
the weather, the weather. Yeah, but anyway, right, Yeah,
Yeah, the point simply being that, you know, there's a political
component to these cases, and wecan talk about that. But I'm still
of the belief, as I havebeen for many years now, that you
(07:55):
know, nothing that's going to happenduring this trial or during any other trial
that may happen before November, isgoing to derail Trumpet's ultimately going to be
up to voters to reject him.Yeah. I've been a you know,
on that same message for a verylong time. You know, the strength
or the weakness, or the survivalor the failure of a democracy lays on
(08:18):
the hands of the people in theend, no matter what the circumstance is,
and if the American people elect himagain, then that's what's you know,
it's up to us to make surethat doesn't happen. Now, let's
talk a little bit, although Iwant to actually come in quickly and something
you just said. The whole youknow, you're absolutely right when about his
ability he stops in front of thecamera on his way into court, on
(08:41):
his way out of court again,his whole campaign message for twenty twenty four
is that he is being victimized.He is being targeted by a corrupt justice
system that somehow Joe Biden is behindall of this. That you know,
his Justice Department is after Trump victimizinghimself. And it's very very effective for
(09:05):
his campaign when he stands in frontof the courtroom and gives his quick grant
to the press every time he goesin and out that door. So you
know, on one hand he's complainingabout not being able to campaign, he's
campaigning. That's what those little interactionswith the press are all about. He's
absolutely speaking to his base and tohis you know, potential voters. Let's
(09:26):
talk about this case. This isone of the things that I think is
really interesting that I hear so much, whether it's on social media or in
conversations with people, everyone talks aboutit as the hush money case. And
a lot of folks out there lookat this and say, why are we
dragging a former president of the UnitedStates through the mud on an affair that
he had, you know, Idon't know how many years ago now,
(09:50):
on this dalliance he had with aporn star. Why are we trying to
embarrass his wife by talking about thefact that you know, she was pregnant
when this happened or you know.That's on one hand, but the other
the flip side of that is thisisn't really a hush money case. This
is an election interference case. Sois the prob one? Can you explain
(10:13):
that to people? And then twois the issue that it's all you know,
trials and you know, like thisare so complicated that people kind of
just don't have the energy to followit. Or is it that they just
don't care that it's election interference orsomething else and they just don't care it's
not going to be part of howthey think when they decide who to vote
(10:35):
for. Yeah, So on thefirst question, why this is election interference
and not just hush money. It'simportant to remember the context of the payments
to Stormy Daniels. In October twentysixteen, of course, we all remember
the Access Hollywood tape where Trump wasrecorded breaking about groping women, and then
(10:56):
literally the next day was when Danielswas in touch with the National Inquirer expressing
interest in selling her story to them. And so, you know, we
can all kind of go back tothat time and remember, you know,
Republicans like Paul Ryan, you know, a lot of leading Republicans basically calling
on Trump to get out of therace or denouncing him right and his pulling
(11:18):
tanked and so that was a verydangerous moment for his campaign. And so
you can imagine that if there wouldhave been this follow up story about Trump
carrying on with a porn star whenhis wife was pregnant, you know,
I guess you know, now,knowing everything that we know, I'm not
totally sure if it would have endedhis campaign. I mean, it seems
like nothing was going to stop himat that point, or I can't imagine
(11:41):
what scandal would have been sufficient todrive him out, but it certainly would
not have helped him, and sothat was the context in which you know,
Michael Cohen ended up being in touchwith Stormy Daniels in buying her story
or you know, essentially paying her, not buying her story, but paying
her not to share her story forone hundred and thirty thousand dollars. That's
the key right there, right.They didn't buy the story, they paid
(12:01):
her to not run the story.That's where the election interference comes in.
And this is slightly different from theKaren McDougall situation. She being a playboy
model who in June of twenty sixteen, just before the Republican National Convention,
had the National A Choir purchase herstory and then they ended up not running
(12:24):
it. So that was a catchand kill as they call it, situation,
and David Pecker, the former bossof the National A Choir, testified
about that last week actually that thatwas made, that purchase of her story
was made with an eye toward keepingit quiet ahead of the election. And
so the Daniel situation was similar butdifferent in that she was paid in exchange
(12:45):
for her silence, and then thispayment was never reported as a campaign contribution
for obvious reasons. The Trump campaignwas trying to keep this quiet, and
then false entries were made in businessledgers subsequently as Trump reimbursed Mike Cohen for
that payment, and so that's wheresome of the criminal culpability came in.
So the yeah, the entire paymentwas made with an eye toward Trump's electoral
(13:09):
prospects, toward keeping this other scandalquiet at a time when he was very
vulnerable politically. And so when peopledo describe it as hush money, it's
a little bit glib because there wasmore going on than just you know,
hush money. Was it was uniquein that the silence was key. You
know, the silence was key forTrump's political prospects at that time, right,
(13:31):
right, And it was it wasit was not about trying to protect
malanious feelings or trying to you know, and it was all about trying to
influence the outcome of a presidential election. And to your point, the the
financial transaction behind all of this wasnot properly accounted for. Uh, And
(13:52):
here we are, all these yearslater, sitting in a court in you
know, New York City. Sobut you do, you do, reason
you do. He's a key pointthat I probably should have mentioned in that.
You know, I think Trump's defensein this case is going to end
up being that he made the paymentto keep this from Milania and not for
political purposes, right, and soI mean you can see how that could
(14:13):
conceivably be an effective defense. Imean, I think we all know Trump
well enough at this point to understandthat he's pretty shameless. And you know,
it seems kind of dubious this ideathat it wasn't political, it was
just meant to kind of protect hisyou know, family life. I mean,
you know, the other thing that'skind of important to keep in mind
here is that the the Daniels thingwas basically Trump cheating on his mistress,
(14:37):
who he was cheating on his wifewith. I mean even layers of cheating
happening here. Meanwhile, Malaniy hadjust given birth a few months earlier to
Baron Trump, his youngest son.So I mean, this idea that there
was some mystery that Trump is kindof you know, kind yeah, yeah,
right. I mean, this ideathat Trump is just trying to be
(14:58):
like a family man or something,he's pretty hard to swallow. But that
could be one area where his lawyerscould try to create some reasonable doubt that
you know, it wasn't really political. It was just meant to kind of
keep things quiet on the family front. Well, and it'll be interesting to
see them try to make that argument. After the testimony that came from The
Inquirer's publisher. I'm not gonna beable to remain remember his first name,
(15:20):
which makes us even worse. MisterPecker, Well, what is David?
David Pecker, whose testimony was significant. It was long, and it went
into great detail, and he wasvery clear that his understanding between him,
he and Trump, and he andCohen, and he and s Jeremy Daniels,
that this was all about the election. This was all about being you
(15:43):
know, keeping it quiet as theyapproached election day because to your point earlier
this they were less than a monthout from when everyone in the country was
going to go vote. Well,so it's important to keep the two different
payments distinct. Though, because Peckerwas involved in the McDougall payment, and
so I'm not sure I would haveto go back and look at the transcript
(16:04):
whether he had any testimony that wasrelevant to the Daniels situation. But he
testified based on what I read inthe transcript, specifically about the McDougall situation
that that payment in June of twentysixteen was the catch and kill situation,
was made with an eye toward protectingTrump. And so you know, Daniels
(16:25):
was in touch with the inquirer.And I don't know if that rose the
level of David Packer getting involved,but ultimately the payment in that situation was
made by Michael Cohen, and ofcourse he ended up spending about a year
in prison for this. I mean, he was convicted of, you know,
serious crimes in connection with the paymentto Daniels, and so you know
that. Yeh. Another talking pointthat Trump has been using is that this
(16:47):
isn't really a crime. You know, all these Fox News legal analysts say
it's not a crime. But that'skind of belied by the fact that his
fixer spent serious time in prison overthis. So, I mean, it's
all right. Tried to convince him. I think that Pecker did. I
thought that Pecker did make a fewreferences to the stormy Daniel's situation, including
(17:08):
Michael Cohen's difficulty in getting the moneythat I mean, Cohen, I believe
took out a personal loan or asecond mortgage or something like that. To
pay Daniels and then had to kindof fight with his boss to get the
money back, which I guess isjust another, you know, a reflection
on Trump's dishonor in a very dishonorablesituation to begin with, I guess as
(17:32):
the whole, the whole thing ofit all. So here, so here
we go. Now he's in court, he's gonna be he's been held officially
in contempt. He's got ways togo in this trial still, I think,
based on what they're saying, anothercouple of weeks at least. But
beyond this, he's got Georgia,which they say a delay could be could
come in that they don't know yet. He's got oh god, he's got
(17:56):
another one that's not coming to meright away. DC one the documents,
the document one is what I'm talkingthat he brought to the to his beachfront
home in Florida. And then ofcourse there's Jack Smith's special investigation and the
January sixth one, that's the bigone. That's the one. One of
the things as I've watched how thisis all unfolded, like I don't understand
(18:18):
why all these little comparatively petty ones, you know, I think this one
that is in court right now iscomparatively petty to January sixth. Is going
through all these little ones first,is that going to really undermine Smith's ability
to be effective by the time weget to the January sixth trial. If
(18:40):
we get to the January sixth trial, which is something else we should talk
about, are people are just gonnabe going, oh my god, I'm
done already. Okay, he hada girlfriend who was a porn star,
Okay, you know, you know, but January sixth is the big one,
that's the one that truly disqualifies himfrom being president. I mean,
I think people would like to believe, but will it be the thing that
(19:02):
disqualifies him? I mean, therehas been some polling showing that there is
a significant percentage of Republican voters whowould not vote for Trump if he was
criminally convicted, and when you know, and the polling has not really disentangled
these cases that I've seen where itusually is just asked in the sense of
like a conviction. So I don'tknow if it would be the same,
(19:22):
you know, if he was convictedin the Stormy Daniel's case VI the January
sixth or you know, I thinkyou're right that the January sixth case is
the big one, in the mostserious in terms of the implications for our
democracy, and you know, justfor what another Trump term would mean,
because obviously he's very unapologetic about hisefforts to overturn the election, and you
(19:45):
know, there's a lot of questionsas to whether he would ever leave peacefully
the second time, or if youknow, there's already been some chatter about
getting rid of the you know,having a constitutional amendment to get rid of
the two term maximum, and youknow, there's real questions about if he
you know, wants to make himselfinto kind of like a putence dictator here
in the States. But I guess, you know, what I'm trying to
kind of hint at here is thatI'm fairly dubious about the idea that any
(20:11):
of these trials is going to dislodgelike his bass is based. And I
think that you know, that's probablylike thirty percent, you know, twenty
five to thirty percent maybe of theUS is just going to to you know,
of US voters are going to votefor him at this point, no
matter what. No of course,these elections are decided on the margins,
and so if it was even fivepercent of Republican voters decided not to vote
(20:33):
for him over a conviction, Imean, that could be enough to obviously
swing the election for Biden. Ratethere based on the timeline, of course,
you know, some of the DCthe document's case was on hold as
the Supreme Court considered presidential immunity.Now you know, they heard arguments just
last week on that, right,you know, based on everything that I've
(20:53):
read and heard, you know,I don't think people are expecting the trial
to be completed by November. Therestill is I think some hope that it
could begin in the fall. Butyou know, again, I think that
we're probably not going to have averdict, and so will there be any
new evidence that emerges, you know, during the course of a trial that
(21:15):
kind of changes the political dynamics.You know, Could it be the case
that even just kind of reminding peopleof some of the stuff that Trump did,
you know, in late twenty twentyearly twenty one, would be enough
to really hurt him politically. I'mnot sure about that. I mean,
you know the thing that especially thismorning is I was kind of processing a
lot of the news about some ofthe campus protested, the campus protesting,
(21:36):
and just kind of the fragility andthe Democratic coalition at this point. You
know, I just find it tobe oftentimes kind of demoralizing that we're even
still in the state of affairs whereTrump, you know, it is polling
at you know, forty five,forty six percent, and his neck and
neck with Biden. Because it's like, what else do we need to see
at this point to understand that thisguy isn't fit to serve and you know,
(21:56):
as one of the worst presidents,if not probably the worst that we've
ever had. So you know,I think that people like yourself and myself,
we'd like to kind of talk throughthis and sort of you know,
pipe dream about, you know,what could happen during the trials could it
erode his support? But you know, we're like nine years into the Trump
experience now, I mean it'll benine years in June's since he launched his
(22:18):
presidential campaign in June of twenty fifteen, and it's just been one scandal after
the next. To me, youcan go back to July of twenty fifteen
when Trump made his comments about JohnMcCain not really being a war hero and
how he liked war heroes that weren'tcaptured, and everybody at the time thought
that that was it for him.And you know, it's just it's amazing
how you know, we kind ofhave we lived through this cycle over and
(22:42):
over and over again. And youknow, certainly I would say if January
sixth on the ground wasn't enough todisqualify Trump, I can't imagine that anything
that happened at his trial, right, you know, if the access hollyou
to do it. Yeah, itjust seems like this guy, you know,
he just finds a way through allof these difference scandals that would be
(23:02):
absolutely devastating for a normal politician.And so, you know, I just
think that, you know, it'simperative on people like myself and yourself to
try to get the facts out thereto people to talk about what's going on
in these trials and also talk aboutTrump's policies that he's putting out there.
I mean, Time magazine had interviewedthis week. I was just gonna say,
yeah, Time Magazine interview explicitly,yeah, very explicitly talking about prosecuting
(23:26):
women who get abortions about yes,I mean, and so it becomes almost
problematic in that it's such a targetrich environment. And you know, I
hear a lot of this from peoplein terms of democratic messaging and whether it's
to scattershot. Shouldn't people really honein on the policy and kind of leave
(23:48):
the personality stuff aside? And youknow, I don't know if I really
have the right answer for that.I will say that, you know,
if you kind of go back intime and think about the Hillary Clinton campaign
in twenty six, team, alot of their advertising and messaging was really
making the case against Trump on thefitness for office issue, right on the
scandals, the personality, the abusingwomen, and it. You know,
(24:14):
it didn't work ultimately, right,I mean, Trump at winning and there's
only it wasn't as simple as reducingthat to the messaging. I mean,
there was a lot more going onthere. You could talk about the comy
letter, you could talk with themedia coverage. I mean that there was
a lot more than democratic messaging.But I do think that there's a little
bit of trauma where it feels likewe already tried, you know, many
times to kind of disqualify Trump basedon just kind of pointing at all these
(24:37):
character flaws and saying look at this. I mean, this guy is a
fit to serve and for whatever reason, that just doesn't really seem to stick
with people, right, And soI do think there probably is some merit
to also, you know, spendinga lot of time and energy explaining,
you know, in his own words, what his policy proposals are and what
that would mean for the country ifhe returns the power. Everybody has to
read that Time magazine article, andI think was it just yesterday. I
(25:00):
think it came out this you know, Monday of this week. But you've
got to find it if you can'tmiss it, if you just search Time
magazine Trump article or something like that. It is very it's very informative.
It's from the the it's right fromhis mouth. These are his words.
Now you can't say, oh,you've said that crazy thing twenty years ago
(25:22):
or something. And I think thatit's very disturbing and I wish more and
more, I wish more people wouldhave access to it. So let's talk
about kind of going down this lookingat how his how his trials and the
multiple trials may or may not impactthis election. You just pinned something on
your Twitter account earlier this morning,and I think you were. Actually it
(25:47):
was in response to somebody commenting onthe Time magazine article. Now that I
think about how this unfolded here,but you say, I increasingly believe this
election will be a referendum on whetheranything matters anymore. There's no rational case
for Trump, but there's a loudcontingent on the left that just wants to
burn it down. Combining that withlow information voters and Republicans circling the wagons
(26:10):
around their guy, you have theoutlines of a calamity. Hopefully people wake
up would which is essentially what youjust expressed. But I would add one
more thing to that, and thatis our youngest generation of voters have never
known anything else. Now you justmade the point it was nine It's been
nine years. So if somebody iseighteen or twenty one or even twenty five,
I mean, this is the theenvironment, this is the politics that
(26:34):
this is the only politics they've known. I think about my kids are in
their early thirties, and I ranfor Congress when they were in middle school
or high school back in two thousandand eight, and so I think about,
how you know that I ran forCongress as Obama came into office,
I think about how their mindsets,their generation's mindset has been framed and shaped
(26:56):
entirely in the most dispunktunctional time ofpolitics, and certainly in my very long
lifetime. So you know, whatyou posted, what you pinned here on
your Twitter account is very salient towhat's really happening and unfolding. And I
worry about this. You know,if this is the only thing that these
(27:17):
voters have known, how do weyou know, they're going to go They're
going to carry it forward with them. They become desensitized to it. That's
what it is when we talk aboutdo people care, not do they care?
They're desensitized to it. It's allthe same to them at this point,
like it's always been this way,It's all they've ever known. Yeah,
I mean I think that's I hadn'treally thought of it in those terms
before, but I think that isright. You know. If you're yeah,
(27:38):
if you're you know, your kid'sage, early thirties, you know,
and that's where you know. Imean, I'm forty, and so
you know, the first election Icould vote in was the four election,
uh, the Carrie George W.Bush one, And I remember even at
the time I mean this is partof I guess maybe the college experience,
but feeling like that, you know, when Bush won, I felt like
that that was a calamity because youknow, I opposed the Iraq War,
(28:00):
and of course the Iraq War wasa big issue in that campaign. And
then you know, we can thinkback on some of the swift voting of
John Kerry and how that, youknow, was kind of a preview of
some of the taxics that Republicans developedin future years, just playing really dirty
and you know, willing to kindof hit below the belt where Democrats sometimes
(28:21):
pull their punches on this stuff.And so, you know, I hear
that a lot from people where it'slike there's kind of a lot of cynicism
about the notion that this election iskind of like an existential choice, or
that you know, Biden doesn't win, it would be a disaster or a
calamity, as I put in thattweet, for the country. And you
know, I get that, Iguess if that's all you've ever known,
(28:41):
and I do think that, youknow, when we think back on Trump's
term in office, a lot ofthe worst case scenarios did not come to
pass. But part of that wasbecause you know, he made the mistake
of putting people like John Kelly,you know, as his chief of staff
or even trying to think, youknow, like John Asper as the Defense
Secretary. I mean, he hadsome voices that were willing to push back
(29:04):
on some of his most egregious,you know, oversteps in a way that
I think would not happen in thesecond term. I mean, I think
it's talked about how you know,one of his big priorities in the second
Trump term would be to get essentiallytoties into those you know, yes,
people into those offices who would notsay no to him or would not you
know, kind of undermine him onthe down low, like I think someone
(29:26):
like John Kelly kind of did,but when he was chief of staff.
And so in this topic, peopleshould be looking at the Heritage Foundation project
that they have going on to tryto bring people up and into a Trump
administration and what's behind all of thatas well. But I'm with you that
the second term will be a wholedifferent story. Really, I don't And
(29:48):
again Time Magazine go and read theTime Magazine article. Every it's everything that
people like you and I have worriedabout with Trump saying it straight out that
yeah, you know, that's exactlywhat I'm looking at. Yeah, and
you know he's not trying to hideit at all. And I think that,
you know, most of his policies, I don't think that you're going
to find like majority support for essentiallyrounding people up. I mean, certainly
(30:12):
his certainly his positions and reproductive rightsare very unpopular, as we've seen time
and time again since the Dobbs decisionin June twenty two, right, you
know, with the midterm that kindof fizzled for Republicans, and then you
know, pretty much any time thatabortion rights has been on the ballot,
it hasn't gone well for Republicans.So that's one issue where you Republicans are
(30:33):
very much out of step with mainstreamviews. You know. I think that
people I think that people would likefor Biden to be a bit more stern
on the border. But I thinkthat when it comes to having kind of
police raids and going into communities androunding people up, I think when people
kind of see that on the ground, I don't think that's going to be
very popular if that comes to past. When when reladence come into a high
(30:53):
school and start taking a dozen kidsout the door or into a work place.
You know where there are you know, whether it's a McDonald's or you
know, a high tech company,or you know where people are sitting there
watching this happen. As people areliterally, to your words, rounded up.
The people, I think, willnot tolerate that. But by then
(31:15):
it will be too late. Hewill already be president, and he will
already and you know Biden talking aboutyou know, people would like to see
him be more stern. I thinkthere's a problem at the border right now,
and Biden is not addressing it aggressivelyenough. But for anyone to look
at Trump and say, well,at least he'll be tough on the border,
I think they have no idea ofwhat Trump will actually do. Yeah,
(31:38):
And the thing to me is that, you know, these are all
most of these conversations that we're havingright now are kind of in the realm
of somewhat normal policy disputes. Imean, we could then, you know,
Bill Clinton was pretty hardcore and immigrationand I'm trying to remember who is
the Cuban team in something like that? Guy? And I was just,
(32:00):
you know, I was like,I don't mean, I'm not even sure
if I was a teenager at thatpoint yet, but you know, I
still remember those images and and howyou know, Bill Clinton, you know,
was pretty hardcore on an immigation.Yes, yes, right, and
so and you know, we'll certainlysee images like that if Trump comes back
to power, you know, andstarts rounding people up. But the issue
(32:21):
for me, and this is kindof a hard thing. It's hard to
kind of express this without sounding someonecallous or it either sounds callous or it
sounds kind of abstract. But youknow, I think the brink that we're
really petering on right now is losingour democracy. And and the sense that,
you know, the thing that wewill have a really hard time kind
of fixing if Trump returns is justhow the sense that we have free and
(32:45):
fair elections and that you know,it's kind of up to the people to
decide the representation on a federal level, you know, how that will really
be eroded. I mean we alreadysaw it with January sixth and the coup
attempt. I mean that was essentiallyan attempt to disempower millions of voters,
disenfranchised millions of voters in Georgia andPennsylvania and Michigan. And you know,
Trump has spent years, you know, not only not apologizing, but you
(33:08):
know, talking about how he wantsto pardon the hostages as he puts it,
you know, the January sixth,and you know some of the things
that the RNC is very openly talkingabout with you know, trying to have
pole watchers not just kind of lawfullybe there, but like actually have hands
on ballots. And you know thatwe're going to end up in kind of
(33:28):
like a you know, a Russiastyle kind of you know, illusion of
democracy where you know, I'm surethere will still be elections, but like
who's going to be counting the voteswill be be counted fairly, you know.
I mean Trump obviously is on tapein Georgia asking officials there to find
votes for him. I mean,I'm sure there'll be chicanery of that sort
in the future. And so youknow, we can talk about reproductive rights
(33:50):
obviously, that's a you know,a vitally important issue in his life or
death, you know, for forwomen who can, for women who want
to get pregnant, who are pregnant, and we've already seen in states where
rights have been rolled back, butthe one that I think is really going
to be hard to recover from isif Trump returns and really erodes our democracy
just in terms of having free andfair elections, It's really hard to bring
(34:14):
that back once they become eroded.And so that's the one for me where
I just hope, like some ofthese campus protesters be the bigger picture where
you know, certainly I support them, they see they won't see the big
well, you know, and theywon't they there's just not the headspace they're
in right now, right And it'slike, you know, I certainly support
people using their constitutional rights to tryand shape foreign policy and to try and
(34:37):
pressure institutions to change decisions that they'remaking in terms of investing or you know,
if they have research agreements with Israelicolleges. I mean, that's all
right, Yeah, it's all withinthe bounds of kind of you know,
lawful activity. But like I hopethat you know, I think you're right
to be kind of skeptical, butthat people realize that if we don't get
our act together this year, youknow, I mean, Trump is on
(34:59):
true social raging, that the protestsneed to be shut down right now.
And what would that look like ifhe was president, we'll we try and
send in the national Guard. Youknow, he could be very militarized.
And we saw previews of that,you know, of course in DC in
June of twenty twenty, and there'dbe a lot more of that in a
second Trump term. I'm shocked thatnobody's talking about Kent State as Trump makes
these comments, you know, andI know that's before your time and it's
(35:22):
before my adult time, but thelike that people are not, you know,
when he says we need to shutthem down now, and what would
that look like? It would looklike Kent State, and how horrific that
was. So boy, we've endedup being able to sort of touch on
a whole lot of a whole lotmore topics here than just the trials.
So this has been great, Aaron. Let's struggle back to the trials to
(35:46):
wrap up. And just as you'rewatching this, I guess it's kind of
a you know, thirty thousand footquestion. As you're watching this, where,
first of all, where do youthink the current trial is going to
land? Having watched this closely asyou have, I know it's we might
not even be halfway through, sothis might be a hard question to answer,
like, where do you think it'sgoing to end up. I don't
(36:07):
think anything will happen where Trump willbe sent to jail over anything, But
that doesn't mean he won't be convictedor have some other sort of consequence.
But then the bigger picture is howhow is how are all of these hanging
not hanging chads, but hanging filesgoing to impact really you know, kind
(36:29):
of the thirty the nutshell answer ofhow will they impact voters? Not Trump,
but how will they impact voters asyou you know, walk into the
voting booth in November? Yeah,Well, Trump doesn't face any prison time
or won't, you know, becausethe crimes that he has been charged with
in the hush money slash election interferencewith Stormy Daniels are not They don't rise
(36:51):
the level where he's going to bein prison for that, you know.
I think that's a more realistic possibility, like with the January sixth case or
the the classified documents case, youknow, the classified document stage, which
which we really haven't talked about.I mean, the judge, Judge Cannon
down there in Florida is doing everythingto run out everything that she can to
run out the clock on that one. So I don't expect that trial.
(37:13):
Speaking of speaking of the Justice Departmentand the you know, the leg the
judicial branch of government that Trump isso convinced as a guest against him,
her behavior in this in this caseis I want to say, it's questionable,
but it's completely legal. She's notdoing anything illegal. She's clearly showing
(37:34):
a reference. She's been reprimanded byhigher courts, you know for some of
when there have been appeals made.I mean, there's been some some rulings
from higher courts kind of slapping down, you know, kind of shaming her
for for some of the stuff thatshe's done. But you know, it's
all kind of you know, whenyou're in judge. I mean, you
know, you can get away witha lot and so but in terms of
like the you know, the questionof like how this plays out, you
(37:55):
know, I mean I hate tokind of bring it back to the tweet
that you brought up, but liketo me, it's like, is anything
in the matter this year or not? I mean, and I just don't
know. I mean, you know, Trump said last month that he was
going to use these trials as andas an opportunity to basically campaign from the
courthouse, and we talked about kindof how he shows up and does his
little rants. It's not very effectivecampaigning, although it is picked up obviously
(38:17):
by Fox News and Newsmax, soyou know, he does get attention,
but it's kind of the same rantevery day, and it, you know,
it's kind of unhinged. I don'tthink it really. It's not appealing
to anybody beyond like his his basevoters. And so you would think that
in kind of a sane world thatbeing reminded day in and day out of
these terrible things that Trump has done, whether it's kind of hushing up a
(38:39):
woman that he had an affair with, you know, when the news cycle
was about him breaking about groping women. I mean again, you would think
that this would be bad politically forhim. But you know, one of
the talking points that his camp fallsback on, and there's some political merit
to this at least, is thata lot of this stuff was litigated in
twenty sixteen, and of course thehush payments weren't because the whole point of
(39:00):
the hush payments was to not litigatethe Jirmy Daniels thing ahead of the twenty
sixteen election. But certainly we knewthat Trump was breaking about growing women,
and we knew that Trump had beenaccused by a dozen or more women of
sexual misconduct, and you know,he still won the election. And so
you know, I can't really predicthow it's going to play out politically,
but I don't think it's going tobe anything that, you know, kind
(39:22):
of undermines his prospects of returning tothe White House. Yeah, I think
that you're probably exactly right. Theonly one I think you alluded to this,
the only one I think has thepotential for that, would be the
January sixth stuff. If the Januarysixth trial got underway before the election,
and if it played the way veryJanuary sixth Committee report plays, where if
(39:47):
people ever read that they would beshocked at what's in there that you haven't
never heard, that you aren't awareof, then I think then I think
that might have the potential to movesome people. But I don't think we're
going to get to that point onthe calendar, you know, before the
election. So I think you're absolutelyright, Aaron. It's fascinating. Hopefully
we'll have a chance to get youback. I strongly recommend that people follow
(40:09):
you on Twitter at at rupar ru p a r at ruppar it is.
It is. It is a rational, logical, informative feed that will
keep you updated when you can't spendyour whole day watching it the way Aaron
does and so I but but trulyfrom a journalist point of view erin it's
(40:35):
it's outstanding. It's an outstanding feedfor people to be following right now,
and I hope that you will dothat. He's the publisher of public Notice.
Can people get public notice on subscribeon substack? Is that where you
are? Yeah? Yeah, it'sat Publicnotice dot co. And the vast
majority of what we publish is totallyfree. I have two lawyers slash legal
(40:57):
experts who are covering the Trump trialsand Supreme Court, and then I,
you know, myself and a coupleof other contributors cover sort of the political
implications of all this, and soyeah, I mean, if you like
kind of the discussion Jennifer and Ihad today, I think you'll probably like
the newsletter, So check it out. Yeah, definitely worth it. Public
notice on Twitter at at roup pareveryone, thank you for tuning in to
(41:21):
another episode? Is it just me? Or have we all lost our minds?
But when we are following the legaltravails of Donald Trump and all seriousness,
it feels like we must be losingour minds. Sometimes it feels like
it's beyond reality or how can thispossibly be? But unfortunately, this is
a world in which we live,and even our journalist friends are saying things
(41:43):
like we are on the break ofthe potential to lose democracy. I appreciate
that you included that in your comments, Aaron, and I appreciate everyone who
cares about this as deeply as Ido, who understands outport it is,
and who are tuning in with usevery week here at Is it just me?
Have we all lost our minds?Mhm
Is it just me? Or havewe all lost our minds? It's a
question I've been asking myself on repeatfor the last eight years, and I
know I'm not alone in that.Is it the politics, is it the
culture? Or am I just gettingold? Hi? I'm Jennifer Horn and
I'm a former Republican strategist and partyleader turned independent sanity activist. I decided
(00:25):
to do this podcast so we couldexplore these questions. I'll bring experts to
the table from politics and media andculture. We'll have raw, insightful conversations
with the clear goal of getting tothe bottom of it all. One way
or another. We've all lost ourminds, and I hope you'll join us
on the journey to find them again. Hi, this is Jennifer Horn and
(00:47):
you're listening to Is it just me? Or have we all lost our minds?
We all feel like we've lost ourminds. If you're trying to keep
up with the Trump legal stuff.I can't even say the trial because there
are I think three or four thatare in different stages right now. Maybe
we'll get into a little bit ofthat in a couple of minutes, but
the big one right now that's catchingall the attentional courses. He's in New
(01:08):
York for what everyone is calling ahush money trial, where he and his
personal lawyer, Michael Cohen were involvedin a a scheme to pay off a
porn star, Stormy Daniels, withwhom the president seems to former president seems
to have had a brief affair,And we can get into the details of
(01:30):
that and why it's important and whyyou should kare with our next guest,
who has been following all of thisvery closely. He is a journalist.
He has worked for a couple ofdifferent digital media platforms, but he's an
independent journalist. He's the publisher ofoh gosh, of public Notice. Thank
you eron God. He's the publisherof Public Notice. You can find him
(01:53):
on substack, or you can joinnine hundred thousand other people who follow him
and trust him on It is Aaronrupar You can find him on Twitter at
atr u par Aaron Rupar Erin,thank you so much for joining us today.
Yeah, thanks for having me,my pleasure. It's great to have
you. I'm particularly happy to haveyou today. It just so happens,
(02:15):
so everybody knows. I know,folks are listening to us probably on Thursday.
But it is Tuesday of the weekand the president has just finally been
held in contempt in the court roomin New York City. So it's kind
of weird to start in the middleof it, but let's just start because
that's kind of the current moment.The president's been. The judge has decided
(02:37):
that he has in fact broken histhe rules about what he can and cannot
say the gag order nine times,and he has now been fined a thousand
dollars per offense, nine thousand dollars, Although I was thinking about the four
hundred thousand dollars that he owes inone case and the eighty some I mean
four hundred million dollars and the eightysome million dollars videos e. Gene Carroll,
(03:01):
and I'm thinking nine thousand dollars probablydoesn't sound like very much to him
right now. Yeah, I thinkthat's right. I believe that that's the
most he could have been fined inthis instance, So I don't think there
was a lot of discretion there.But you're right, I mean, nine
thousand dollars for Trump, even givenhis financial difficulties, I don't think is
really going to deter him, andthat's been you know, I wrote about
(03:23):
this in you know, actually uh, Lisa Needham, who writes about the
the Trump Trouser about this in publicnotice yesterday, discussing that, you know,
the problem is that nothing seems torestrain Trump's behavior. You know,
certainly nine thousand dollars won't. Andyou know, all you have to do
is pull up his truth to socialfeed and you'll see that. You know,
(03:44):
he's excoriating judges, the families ofjudges, prosecutors, and it's really
it's a dilemma because you know,ultimately, if he keeps violating these uh
you know, if he keeps beingfound in contempt, at some point,
he could be put in jail forthis. But you know that gets into
you know, would that be agood look for a judge to put that
presumptive GOP nominee in jail? Howwould that logistically even work? And so
(04:10):
you know, I really think thatJudge Mrshan in the in the the hush
money case that we're talking about isyou know, as a lot of judges
have bending over backward to try andaccommodate Trump, to try to avoid you
know, I'm really taking draconian steps. But you know, then you get
into this kind of farcical situation whereyou know, the idea that nine thousand
dollars will deter him is obviously prettyyeah, And I think everything you're saying
(04:36):
makes perfect sense. I was readingthe other day about the steps that the
Secret Service are currently going through totry to be prepared in case he is
incarcerated. Like the very idea of, you know, the Secret Service will
have to be in the jail withthe President if he is incarcerated, Like,
it's crazy when you think about thedetails, but the and I understand
(04:59):
Judge just you know, being verycareful about the perception and about the appearance.
At the same time, I thinkthere's a lot of folks after out
there on the flip side of thiswho are saying, what would happen if
this was me, you know,or you Aaron, or me Jennifer.
You know, if we were sittingin a courtroom repeatedly ignoring a gag order
put on us by a judge,we'd be sitting in a jail cell right
(05:23):
now. You know, nine timeswould not have been tolerated. So it's
a very weird thing. As we'retrying to as a democracy, as a
republic, as the American people,we're trying to process the idea that no
man is above the law. That'swhy a former president is in the courtroom
to begin with, and yet he'sreally not being treated the same way the
rest of us would be treated.I don't know if that's good or bad,
(05:44):
or right or wrong, but it'sthe fact, yeah, I mean,
and it's ironic because you know,one of Trump's big talking points is
that he's the victim of weaponized justiceand that there's a double standard working against
him. But for the reasons thatyou just outlined, I mean, the
truth just kind of the opposite,where, you know, if anybody else
had this pattern of behavior of disrespectingcourt orders, you know, being told
(06:06):
not to attack court officials and thendoing some on social media and on a
huge platform things like that, Imean, yeah, there would be accountability.
But you know, that's kind ofthe story of Trump's entire life,
right that there's never been any accountabilityfor anything that he's done. And you
know, I have long said,going back years and years, I mean
all the way back to the Mullerinvestigation, that the courts and the Justice
(06:29):
Department were not going to save usfrom Trump, and that ultimately it was
going to come down to people votingagainst him, you know, removing him
from power. In twenty twenty.Of course, there was a little coup
attempt that happened after that, butyou know, eventually he left and we're
kind of back in that same situationagain, where you know, I think
that there's a political component to thesetrials in that obviously Trump is going to
(06:50):
have to spend a lot of timein court foreseeably over the next handful of
weeks, you know, during atime when, in theory, he could
be out there campaigning. Although hesays this every day, he said this
morning, you know, when heshowed up at court, he does his
little rant to the cameras before hegoes in the courtroom. And today,
as he has done many times,he was complaining about the fact that he's
in court while Biden is able tocampaign. He's complaining that he can't be
(07:12):
in Georgia, in Wisconsin. Butyou know, yesterday he wasn't in court
and he wasn't campaigning. There's beenplenty of days where he's not in court
because the trial has been three orfour days a week, So you know,
it doesn't hold a whole lot ofwater when you actually look at how
he's spending his time when he's notin court. Although you know, we're
recording this on Tuesday, Tomorrow night, Trump is scheduled to be in Michigan
(07:33):
for a rally, and so I'llbe tuning in for that because I think
it's the first rally that he's hadin like three weeks. He was supposed
to have won in North Carolina acouple of weeks ago that got stuggled weather,
the weather, the weather. Yeah, but anyway, right, Yeah,
Yeah, the point simply being that, you know, there's a political
component to these cases, and wecan talk about that. But I'm still
of the belief, as I havebeen for many years now, that you
(07:55):
know, nothing that's going to happenduring this trial or during any other trial
that may happen before November, isgoing to derail Trumpet's ultimately going to be
up to voters to reject him.Yeah. I've been a you know,
on that same message for a verylong time. You know, the strength
or the weakness, or the survivalor the failure of a democracy lays on
(08:18):
the hands of the people in theend, no matter what the circumstance is,
and if the American people elect himagain, then that's what's you know,
it's up to us to make surethat doesn't happen. Now, let's
talk a little bit, although Iwant to actually come in quickly and something
you just said. The whole youknow, you're absolutely right when about his
ability he stops in front of thecamera on his way into court, on
(08:41):
his way out of court again,his whole campaign message for twenty twenty four
is that he is being victimized.He is being targeted by a corrupt justice
system that somehow Joe Biden is behindall of this. That you know,
his Justice Department is after Trump victimizinghimself. And it's very very effective for
(09:05):
his campaign when he stands in frontof the courtroom and gives his quick grant
to the press every time he goesin and out that door. So you
know, on one hand he's complainingabout not being able to campaign, he's
campaigning. That's what those little interactionswith the press are all about. He's
absolutely speaking to his base and tohis you know, potential voters. Let's
(09:26):
talk about this case. This isone of the things that I think is
really interesting that I hear so much, whether it's on social media or in
conversations with people, everyone talks aboutit as the hush money case. And
a lot of folks out there lookat this and say, why are we
dragging a former president of the UnitedStates through the mud on an affair that
he had, you know, Idon't know how many years ago now,
(09:50):
on this dalliance he had with aporn star. Why are we trying to
embarrass his wife by talking about thefact that you know, she was pregnant
when this happened or you know.That's on one hand, but the other
the flip side of that is thisisn't really a hush money case. This
is an election interference case. Sois the prob one? Can you explain
(10:13):
that to people? And then twois the issue that it's all you know,
trials and you know, like thisare so complicated that people kind of
just don't have the energy to followit. Or is it that they just
don't care that it's election interference orsomething else and they just don't care it's
not going to be part of howthey think when they decide who to vote
(10:35):
for. Yeah, So on thefirst question, why this is election interference
and not just hush money. It'simportant to remember the context of the payments
to Stormy Daniels. In October twentysixteen, of course, we all remember
the Access Hollywood tape where Trump wasrecorded breaking about groping women, and then
(10:56):
literally the next day was when Danielswas in touch with the National Inquirer expressing
interest in selling her story to them. And so, you know, we
can all kind of go back tothat time and remember, you know,
Republicans like Paul Ryan, you know, a lot of leading Republicans basically calling
on Trump to get out of therace or denouncing him right and his pulling
(11:18):
tanked and so that was a verydangerous moment for his campaign. And so
you can imagine that if there wouldhave been this follow up story about Trump
carrying on with a porn star whenhis wife was pregnant, you know,
I guess you know, now,knowing everything that we know, I'm not
totally sure if it would have endedhis campaign. I mean, it seems
like nothing was going to stop himat that point, or I can't imagine
(11:41):
what scandal would have been sufficient todrive him out, but it certainly would
not have helped him, and sothat was the context in which you know,
Michael Cohen ended up being in touchwith Stormy Daniels in buying her story
or you know, essentially paying her, not buying her story, but paying
her not to share her story forone hundred and thirty thousand dollars. That's
the key right there, right.They didn't buy the story, they paid
(12:01):
her to not run the story.That's where the election interference comes in.
And this is slightly different from theKaren McDougall situation. She being a playboy
model who in June of twenty sixteen, just before the Republican National Convention,
had the National A Choir purchase herstory and then they ended up not running
(12:24):
it. So that was a catchand kill as they call it, situation,
and David Pecker, the former bossof the National A Choir, testified
about that last week actually that thatwas made, that purchase of her story
was made with an eye toward keepingit quiet ahead of the election. And
so the Daniel situation was similar butdifferent in that she was paid in exchange
(12:45):
for her silence, and then thispayment was never reported as a campaign contribution
for obvious reasons. The Trump campaignwas trying to keep this quiet, and
then false entries were made in businessledgers subsequently as Trump reimbursed Mike Cohen for
that payment, and so that's wheresome of the criminal culpability came in.
So the yeah, the entire paymentwas made with an eye toward Trump's electoral
(13:09):
prospects, toward keeping this other scandalquiet at a time when he was very
vulnerable politically. And so when peopledo describe it as hush money, it's
a little bit glib because there wasmore going on than just you know,
hush money. Was it was uniquein that the silence was key. You
know, the silence was key forTrump's political prospects at that time, right,
(13:31):
right, And it was it wasit was not about trying to protect
malanious feelings or trying to you know, and it was all about trying to
influence the outcome of a presidential election. And to your point, the the
financial transaction behind all of this wasnot properly accounted for. Uh, And
(13:52):
here we are, all these yearslater, sitting in a court in you
know, New York City. Sobut you do, you do, reason
you do. He's a key pointthat I probably should have mentioned in that.
You know, I think Trump's defensein this case is going to end
up being that he made the paymentto keep this from Milania and not for
political purposes, right, and soI mean you can see how that could
(14:13):
conceivably be an effective defense. Imean, I think we all know Trump
well enough at this point to understandthat he's pretty shameless. And you know,
it seems kind of dubious this ideathat it wasn't political, it was
just meant to kind of protect hisyou know, family life. I mean,
you know, the other thing that'skind of important to keep in mind
here is that the the Daniels thingwas basically Trump cheating on his mistress,
(14:37):
who he was cheating on his wifewith. I mean even layers of cheating
happening here. Meanwhile, Malaniy hadjust given birth a few months earlier to
Baron Trump, his youngest son.So I mean, this idea that there
was some mystery that Trump is kindof you know, kind yeah, yeah,
right. I mean, this ideathat Trump is just trying to be
(14:58):
like a family man or something,he's pretty hard to swallow. But that
could be one area where his lawyerscould try to create some reasonable doubt that
you know, it wasn't really political. It was just meant to kind of
keep things quiet on the family front. Well, and it'll be interesting to
see them try to make that argument. After the testimony that came from The
Inquirer's publisher. I'm not gonna beable to remain remember his first name,
(15:20):
which makes us even worse. MisterPecker, Well, what is David?
David Pecker, whose testimony was significant. It was long, and it went
into great detail, and he wasvery clear that his understanding between him,
he and Trump, and he andCohen, and he and s Jeremy Daniels,
that this was all about the election. This was all about being you
(15:43):
know, keeping it quiet as theyapproached election day because to your point earlier
this they were less than a monthout from when everyone in the country was
going to go vote. Well,so it's important to keep the two different
payments distinct. Though, because Peckerwas involved in the McDougall payment, and
so I'm not sure I would haveto go back and look at the transcript
(16:04):
whether he had any testimony that wasrelevant to the Daniels situation. But he
testified based on what I read inthe transcript, specifically about the McDougall situation
that that payment in June of twentysixteen was the catch and kill situation,
was made with an eye toward protectingTrump. And so you know, Daniels
(16:25):
was in touch with the inquirer.And I don't know if that rose the
level of David Packer getting involved,but ultimately the payment in that situation was
made by Michael Cohen, and ofcourse he ended up spending about a year
in prison for this. I mean, he was convicted of, you know,
serious crimes in connection with the paymentto Daniels, and so you know
that. Yeh. Another talking pointthat Trump has been using is that this
(16:47):
isn't really a crime. You know, all these Fox News legal analysts say
it's not a crime. But that'skind of belied by the fact that his
fixer spent serious time in prison overthis. So, I mean, it's
all right. Tried to convince him. I think that Pecker did. I
thought that Pecker did make a fewreferences to the stormy Daniel's situation, including
(17:08):
Michael Cohen's difficulty in getting the moneythat I mean, Cohen, I believe
took out a personal loan or asecond mortgage or something like that. To
pay Daniels and then had to kindof fight with his boss to get the
money back, which I guess isjust another, you know, a reflection
on Trump's dishonor in a very dishonorablesituation to begin with, I guess as
(17:32):
the whole, the whole thing ofit all. So here, so here
we go. Now he's in court, he's gonna be he's been held officially
in contempt. He's got ways togo in this trial still, I think,
based on what they're saying, anothercouple of weeks at least. But
beyond this, he's got Georgia,which they say a delay could be could
come in that they don't know yet. He's got oh god, he's got
(17:56):
another one that's not coming to meright away. DC one the documents,
the document one is what I'm talkingthat he brought to the to his beachfront
home in Florida. And then ofcourse there's Jack Smith's special investigation and the
January sixth one, that's the bigone. That's the one. One of
the things as I've watched how thisis all unfolded, like I don't understand
(18:18):
why all these little comparatively petty ones, you know, I think this one
that is in court right now iscomparatively petty to January sixth. Is going
through all these little ones first,is that going to really undermine Smith's ability
to be effective by the time weget to the January sixth trial. If
(18:40):
we get to the January sixth trial, which is something else we should talk
about, are people are just gonnabe going, oh my god, I'm
done already. Okay, he hada girlfriend who was a porn star,
Okay, you know, you know, but January sixth is the big one,
that's the one that truly disqualifies himfrom being president. I mean,
I think people would like to believe, but will it be the thing that
(19:02):
disqualifies him? I mean, therehas been some polling showing that there is
a significant percentage of Republican voters whowould not vote for Trump if he was
criminally convicted, and when you know, and the polling has not really disentangled
these cases that I've seen where itusually is just asked in the sense of
like a conviction. So I don'tknow if it would be the same,
(19:22):
you know, if he was convictedin the Stormy Daniel's case VI the January
sixth or you know, I thinkyou're right that the January sixth case is
the big one, in the mostserious in terms of the implications for our
democracy, and you know, justfor what another Trump term would mean,
because obviously he's very unapologetic about hisefforts to overturn the election, and you
(19:45):
know, there's a lot of questionsas to whether he would ever leave peacefully
the second time, or if youknow, there's already been some chatter about
getting rid of the you know,having a constitutional amendment to get rid of
the two term maximum, and youknow, there's real questions about if he
you know, wants to make himselfinto kind of like a putence dictator here
in the States. But I guess, you know, what I'm trying to
kind of hint at here is thatI'm fairly dubious about the idea that any
(20:11):
of these trials is going to dislodgelike his bass is based. And I
think that you know, that's probablylike thirty percent, you know, twenty
five to thirty percent maybe of theUS is just going to to you know,
of US voters are going to votefor him at this point, no
matter what. No of course,these elections are decided on the margins,
and so if it was even fivepercent of Republican voters decided not to vote
(20:33):
for him over a conviction, Imean, that could be enough to obviously
swing the election for Biden. Ratethere based on the timeline, of course,
you know, some of the DCthe document's case was on hold as
the Supreme Court considered presidential immunity.Now you know, they heard arguments just
last week on that, right,you know, based on everything that I've
(20:53):
read and heard, you know,I don't think people are expecting the trial
to be completed by November. Therestill is I think some hope that it
could begin in the fall. Butyou know, again, I think that
we're probably not going to have averdict, and so will there be any
new evidence that emerges, you know, during the course of a trial that
(21:15):
kind of changes the political dynamics.You know, Could it be the case
that even just kind of reminding peopleof some of the stuff that Trump did,
you know, in late twenty twentyearly twenty one, would be enough
to really hurt him politically. I'mnot sure about that. I mean,
you know the thing that especially thismorning is I was kind of processing a
lot of the news about some ofthe campus protested, the campus protesting,
(21:36):
and just kind of the fragility andthe Democratic coalition at this point. You
know, I just find it tobe oftentimes kind of demoralizing that we're even
still in the state of affairs whereTrump, you know, it is polling
at you know, forty five,forty six percent, and his neck and
neck with Biden. Because it's like, what else do we need to see
at this point to understand that thisguy isn't fit to serve and you know,
(21:56):
as one of the worst presidents,if not probably the worst that we've
ever had. So you know,I think that people like yourself and myself,
we'd like to kind of talk throughthis and sort of you know,
pipe dream about, you know,what could happen during the trials could it
erode his support? But you know, we're like nine years into the Trump
experience now, I mean it'll benine years in June's since he launched his
(22:18):
presidential campaign in June of twenty fifteen, and it's just been one scandal after
the next. To me, youcan go back to July of twenty fifteen
when Trump made his comments about JohnMcCain not really being a war hero and
how he liked war heroes that weren'tcaptured, and everybody at the time thought
that that was it for him.And you know, it's just it's amazing
how you know, we kind ofhave we lived through this cycle over and
(22:42):
over and over again. And youknow, certainly I would say if January
sixth on the ground wasn't enough todisqualify Trump, I can't imagine that anything
that happened at his trial, right, you know, if the access hollyou
to do it. Yeah, itjust seems like this guy, you know,
he just finds a way through allof these difference scandals that would be
(23:02):
absolutely devastating for a normal politician.And so, you know, I just
think that, you know, it'simperative on people like myself and yourself to
try to get the facts out thereto people to talk about what's going on
in these trials and also talk aboutTrump's policies that he's putting out there.
I mean, Time magazine had interviewedthis week. I was just gonna say,
yeah, Time Magazine interview explicitly,yeah, very explicitly talking about prosecuting
(23:26):
women who get abortions about yes,I mean, and so it becomes almost
problematic in that it's such a targetrich environment. And you know, I
hear a lot of this from peoplein terms of democratic messaging and whether it's
to scattershot. Shouldn't people really honein on the policy and kind of leave
(23:48):
the personality stuff aside? And youknow, I don't know if I really
have the right answer for that.I will say that, you know,
if you kind of go back intime and think about the Hillary Clinton campaign
in twenty six, team, alot of their advertising and messaging was really
making the case against Trump on thefitness for office issue, right on the
scandals, the personality, the abusingwomen, and it. You know,
(24:14):
it didn't work ultimately, right,I mean, Trump at winning and there's
only it wasn't as simple as reducingthat to the messaging. I mean,
there was a lot more going onthere. You could talk about the comy
letter, you could talk with themedia coverage. I mean that there was
a lot more than democratic messaging.But I do think that there's a little
bit of trauma where it feels likewe already tried, you know, many
times to kind of disqualify Trump basedon just kind of pointing at all these
(24:37):
character flaws and saying look at this. I mean, this guy is a
fit to serve and for whatever reason, that just doesn't really seem to stick
with people, right, And soI do think there probably is some merit
to also, you know, spendinga lot of time and energy explaining,
you know, in his own words, what his policy proposals are and what
that would mean for the country ifhe returns the power. Everybody has to
read that Time magazine article, andI think was it just yesterday. I
(25:00):
think it came out this you know, Monday of this week. But you've
got to find it if you can'tmiss it, if you just search Time
magazine Trump article or something like that. It is very it's very informative.
It's from the the it's right fromhis mouth. These are his words.
Now you can't say, oh,you've said that crazy thing twenty years ago
(25:22):
or something. And I think thatit's very disturbing and I wish more and
more, I wish more people wouldhave access to it. So let's talk
about kind of going down this lookingat how his how his trials and the
multiple trials may or may not impactthis election. You just pinned something on
your Twitter account earlier this morning,and I think you were. Actually it
(25:47):
was in response to somebody commenting onthe Time magazine article. Now that I
think about how this unfolded here,but you say, I increasingly believe this
election will be a referendum on whetheranything matters anymore. There's no rational case
for Trump, but there's a loudcontingent on the left that just wants to
burn it down. Combining that withlow information voters and Republicans circling the wagons
(26:10):
around their guy, you have theoutlines of a calamity. Hopefully people wake
up would which is essentially what youjust expressed. But I would add one
more thing to that, and thatis our youngest generation of voters have never
known anything else. Now you justmade the point it was nine It's been
nine years. So if somebody iseighteen or twenty one or even twenty five,
I mean, this is the theenvironment, this is the politics that
(26:34):
this is the only politics they've known. I think about my kids are in
their early thirties, and I ranfor Congress when they were in middle school
or high school back in two thousandand eight, and so I think about,
how you know that I ran forCongress as Obama came into office,
I think about how their mindsets,their generation's mindset has been framed and shaped
(26:56):
entirely in the most dispunktunctional time ofpolitics, and certainly in my very long
lifetime. So you know, whatyou posted, what you pinned here on
your Twitter account is very salient towhat's really happening and unfolding. And I
worry about this. You know,if this is the only thing that these
(27:17):
voters have known, how do weyou know, they're going to go They're
going to carry it forward with them. They become desensitized to it. That's
what it is when we talk aboutdo people care, not do they care?
They're desensitized to it. It's allthe same to them at this point,
like it's always been this way,It's all they've ever known. Yeah,
I mean I think that's I hadn'treally thought of it in those terms
before, but I think that isright. You know. If you're yeah,
(27:38):
if you're you know, your kid'sage, early thirties, you know,
and that's where you know. Imean, I'm forty, and so
you know, the first election Icould vote in was the four election,
uh, the Carrie George W.Bush one, And I remember even at
the time I mean this is partof I guess maybe the college experience,
but feeling like that, you know, when Bush won, I felt like
that that was a calamity because youknow, I opposed the Iraq War,
(28:00):
and of course the Iraq War wasa big issue in that campaign. And
then you know, we can thinkback on some of the swift voting of
John Kerry and how that, youknow, was kind of a preview of
some of the taxics that Republicans developedin future years, just playing really dirty
and you know, willing to kindof hit below the belt where Democrats sometimes
(28:21):
pull their punches on this stuff.And so, you know, I hear
that a lot from people where it'slike there's kind of a lot of cynicism
about the notion that this election iskind of like an existential choice, or
that you know, Biden doesn't win, it would be a disaster or a
calamity, as I put in thattweet, for the country. And you
know, I get that, Iguess if that's all you've ever known,
(28:41):
and I do think that, youknow, when we think back on Trump's
term in office, a lot ofthe worst case scenarios did not come to
pass. But part of that wasbecause you know, he made the mistake
of putting people like John Kelly,you know, as his chief of staff
or even trying to think, youknow, like John Asper as the Defense
Secretary. I mean, he hadsome voices that were willing to push back
(29:04):
on some of his most egregious,you know, oversteps in a way that
I think would not happen in thesecond term. I mean, I think
it's talked about how you know,one of his big priorities in the second
Trump term would be to get essentiallytoties into those you know, yes,
people into those offices who would notsay no to him or would not you
know, kind of undermine him onthe down low, like I think someone
(29:26):
like John Kelly kind of did,but when he was chief of staff.
And so in this topic, peopleshould be looking at the Heritage Foundation project
that they have going on to tryto bring people up and into a Trump
administration and what's behind all of thatas well. But I'm with you that
the second term will be a wholedifferent story. Really, I don't And
(29:48):
again Time Magazine go and read theTime Magazine article. Every it's everything that
people like you and I have worriedabout with Trump saying it straight out that
yeah, you know, that's exactlywhat I'm looking at. Yeah, and
you know he's not trying to hideit at all. And I think that,
you know, most of his policies, I don't think that you're going
to find like majority support for essentiallyrounding people up. I mean, certainly
(30:12):
his certainly his positions and reproductive rightsare very unpopular, as we've seen time
and time again since the Dobbs decisionin June twenty two, right, you
know, with the midterm that kindof fizzled for Republicans, and then you
know, pretty much any time thatabortion rights has been on the ballot,
it hasn't gone well for Republicans.So that's one issue where you Republicans are
(30:33):
very much out of step with mainstreamviews. You know. I think that
people I think that people would likefor Biden to be a bit more stern
on the border. But I thinkthat when it comes to having kind of
police raids and going into communities androunding people up, I think when people
kind of see that on the ground, I don't think that's going to be
very popular if that comes to past. When when reladence come into a high
(30:53):
school and start taking a dozen kidsout the door or into a work place.
You know where there are you know, whether it's a McDonald's or you
know, a high tech company,or you know where people are sitting there
watching this happen. As people areliterally, to your words, rounded up.
The people, I think, willnot tolerate that. But by then
(31:15):
it will be too late. Hewill already be president, and he will
already and you know Biden talking aboutyou know, people would like to see
him be more stern. I thinkthere's a problem at the border right now,
and Biden is not addressing it aggressivelyenough. But for anyone to look
at Trump and say, well,at least he'll be tough on the border,
I think they have no idea ofwhat Trump will actually do. Yeah,
(31:38):
And the thing to me is that, you know, these are all
most of these conversations that we're havingright now are kind of in the realm
of somewhat normal policy disputes. Imean, we could then, you know,
Bill Clinton was pretty hardcore and immigrationand I'm trying to remember who is
the Cuban team in something like that? Guy? And I was just,
(32:00):
you know, I was like,I don't mean, I'm not even sure
if I was a teenager at thatpoint yet, but you know, I
still remember those images and and howyou know, Bill Clinton, you know,
was pretty hardcore on an immigation.Yes, yes, right, and
so and you know, we'll certainlysee images like that if Trump comes back
to power, you know, andstarts rounding people up. But the issue
(32:21):
for me, and this is kindof a hard thing. It's hard to
kind of express this without sounding someonecallous or it either sounds callous or it
sounds kind of abstract. But youknow, I think the brink that we're
really petering on right now is losingour democracy. And and the sense that,
you know, the thing that wewill have a really hard time kind
of fixing if Trump returns is justhow the sense that we have free and
(32:45):
fair elections and that you know,it's kind of up to the people to
decide the representation on a federal level, you know, how that will really
be eroded. I mean we alreadysaw it with January sixth and the coup
attempt. I mean that was essentiallyan attempt to disempower millions of voters,
disenfranchised millions of voters in Georgia andPennsylvania and Michigan. And you know,
Trump has spent years, you know, not only not apologizing, but you
(33:08):
know, talking about how he wantsto pardon the hostages as he puts it,
you know, the January sixth,and you know some of the things
that the RNC is very openly talkingabout with you know, trying to have
pole watchers not just kind of lawfullybe there, but like actually have hands
on ballots. And you know thatwe're going to end up in kind of
(33:28):
like a you know, a Russiastyle kind of you know, illusion of
democracy where you know, I'm surethere will still be elections, but like
who's going to be counting the voteswill be be counted fairly, you know.
I mean Trump obviously is on tapein Georgia asking officials there to find
votes for him. I mean,I'm sure there'll be chicanery of that sort
in the future. And so youknow, we can talk about reproductive rights
(33:50):
obviously, that's a you know,a vitally important issue in his life or
death, you know, for forwomen who can, for women who want
to get pregnant, who are pregnant, and we've already seen in states where
rights have been rolled back, butthe one that I think is really going
to be hard to recover from isif Trump returns and really erodes our democracy
just in terms of having free andfair elections, It's really hard to bring
(34:14):
that back once they become eroded.And so that's the one for me where
I just hope, like some ofthese campus protesters be the bigger picture where
you know, certainly I support them, they see they won't see the big
well, you know, and theywon't they there's just not the headspace they're
in right now, right And it'slike, you know, I certainly support
people using their constitutional rights to tryand shape foreign policy and to try and
(34:37):
pressure institutions to change decisions that they'remaking in terms of investing or you know,
if they have research agreements with Israelicolleges. I mean, that's all
right, Yeah, it's all withinthe bounds of kind of you know,
lawful activity. But like I hopethat you know, I think you're right
to be kind of skeptical, butthat people realize that if we don't get
our act together this year, youknow, I mean, Trump is on
(34:59):
true social raging, that the protestsneed to be shut down right now.
And what would that look like ifhe was president, we'll we try and
send in the national Guard. Youknow, he could be very militarized.
And we saw previews of that,you know, of course in DC in
June of twenty twenty, and there'dbe a lot more of that in a
second Trump term. I'm shocked thatnobody's talking about Kent State as Trump makes
these comments, you know, andI know that's before your time and it's
(35:22):
before my adult time, but thelike that people are not, you know,
when he says we need to shutthem down now, and what would
that look like? It would looklike Kent State, and how horrific that
was. So boy, we've endedup being able to sort of touch on
a whole lot of a whole lotmore topics here than just the trials.
So this has been great, Aaron. Let's struggle back to the trials to
(35:46):
wrap up. And just as you'rewatching this, I guess it's kind of
a you know, thirty thousand footquestion. As you're watching this, where,
first of all, where do youthink the current trial is going to
land? Having watched this closely asyou have, I know it's we might
not even be halfway through, sothis might be a hard question to answer,
like, where do you think it'sgoing to end up. I don't
(36:07):
think anything will happen where Trump willbe sent to jail over anything, But
that doesn't mean he won't be convictedor have some other sort of consequence.
But then the bigger picture is howhow is how are all of these hanging
not hanging chads, but hanging filesgoing to impact really you know, kind
(36:29):
of the thirty the nutshell answer ofhow will they impact voters? Not Trump,
but how will they impact voters asyou you know, walk into the
voting booth in November? Yeah,Well, Trump doesn't face any prison time
or won't, you know, becausethe crimes that he has been charged with
in the hush money slash election interferencewith Stormy Daniels are not They don't rise
(36:51):
the level where he's going to bein prison for that, you know.
I think that's a more realistic possibility, like with the January sixth case or
the the classified documents case, youknow, the classified document stage, which
which we really haven't talked about.I mean, the judge, Judge Cannon
down there in Florida is doing everythingto run out everything that she can to
run out the clock on that one. So I don't expect that trial.
(37:13):
Speaking of speaking of the Justice Departmentand the you know, the leg the
judicial branch of government that Trump isso convinced as a guest against him,
her behavior in this in this caseis I want to say, it's questionable,
but it's completely legal. She's notdoing anything illegal. She's clearly showing
(37:34):
a reference. She's been reprimanded byhigher courts, you know for some of
when there have been appeals made.I mean, there's been some some rulings
from higher courts kind of slapping down, you know, kind of shaming her
for for some of the stuff thatshe's done. But you know, it's
all kind of you know, whenyou're in judge. I mean, you
know, you can get away witha lot and so but in terms of
like the you know, the questionof like how this plays out, you
(37:55):
know, I mean I hate tokind of bring it back to the tweet
that you brought up, but liketo me, it's like, is anything
in the matter this year or not? I mean, and I just don't
know. I mean, you know, Trump said last month that he was
going to use these trials as andas an opportunity to basically campaign from the
courthouse, and we talked about kindof how he shows up and does his
little rants. It's not very effectivecampaigning, although it is picked up obviously
(38:17):
by Fox News and Newsmax, soyou know, he does get attention,
but it's kind of the same rantevery day, and it, you know,
it's kind of unhinged. I don'tthink it really. It's not appealing
to anybody beyond like his his basevoters. And so you would think that
in kind of a sane world thatbeing reminded day in and day out of
these terrible things that Trump has done, whether it's kind of hushing up a
(38:39):
woman that he had an affair with, you know, when the news cycle
was about him breaking about groping women. I mean again, you would think
that this would be bad politically forhim. But you know, one of
the talking points that his camp fallsback on, and there's some political merit
to this at least, is thata lot of this stuff was litigated in
twenty sixteen, and of course thehush payments weren't because the whole point of
(39:00):
the hush payments was to not litigatethe Jirmy Daniels thing ahead of the twenty
sixteen election. But certainly we knewthat Trump was breaking about growing women,
and we knew that Trump had beenaccused by a dozen or more women of
sexual misconduct, and you know,he still won the election. And so
you know, I can't really predicthow it's going to play out politically,
but I don't think it's going tobe anything that, you know, kind
(39:22):
of undermines his prospects of returning tothe White House. Yeah, I think
that you're probably exactly right. Theonly one I think you alluded to this,
the only one I think has thepotential for that, would be the
January sixth stuff. If the Januarysixth trial got underway before the election,
and if it played the way veryJanuary sixth Committee report plays, where if
(39:47):
people ever read that they would beshocked at what's in there that you haven't
never heard, that you aren't awareof, then I think then I think
that might have the potential to movesome people. But I don't think we're
going to get to that point onthe calendar, you know, before the
election. So I think you're absolutelyright, Aaron. It's fascinating. Hopefully
we'll have a chance to get youback. I strongly recommend that people follow
(40:09):
you on Twitter at at rupar ru p a r at ruppar it is.
It is. It is a rational, logical, informative feed that will
keep you updated when you can't spendyour whole day watching it the way Aaron
does and so I but but trulyfrom a journalist point of view erin it's
(40:35):
it's outstanding. It's an outstanding feedfor people to be following right now,
and I hope that you will dothat. He's the publisher of public Notice.
Can people get public notice on subscribeon substack? Is that where you
are? Yeah? Yeah, it'sat Publicnotice dot co. And the vast
majority of what we publish is totallyfree. I have two lawyers slash legal
(40:57):
experts who are covering the Trump trialsand Supreme Court, and then I,
you know, myself and a coupleof other contributors cover sort of the political
implications of all this, and soyeah, I mean, if you like
kind of the discussion Jennifer and Ihad today, I think you'll probably like
the newsletter, So check it out. Yeah, definitely worth it. Public
notice on Twitter at at roup pareveryone, thank you for tuning in to
(41:21):
another episode? Is it just me? Or have we all lost our minds?
But when we are following the legaltravails of Donald Trump and all seriousness,
it feels like we must be losingour minds. Sometimes it feels like
it's beyond reality or how can thispossibly be? But unfortunately, this is
a world in which we live,and even our journalist friends are saying things
(41:43):
like we are on the break ofthe potential to lose democracy. I appreciate
that you included that in your comments, Aaron, and I appreciate everyone who
cares about this as deeply as Ido, who understands outport it is,
and who are tuning in with usevery week here at Is it just me?
Have we all lost our minds?Mhm
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Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.