7. Can Trump still run for president?

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1:18Only Murders in the Building. Premieres September 9th. Streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. New episodes Tuesdays.

1:31Hi there, it's Alistair here. And as you can see, I am with Rory Stewart, but I'm absolutely thrilled to be with Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci, our colleagues, partners and friends from the rest is politics US. And you won't get any prizes for guessing why we've decided to come together, the four of us. It's because of the counts against Donald J. Trump in New York court guilty on all 34. Katty, how's it all playing out and what does it all mean? Well, it's great to see you guys. I think, Anthony, I feel a bit like the JV team who are suddenly allowed to play with the big boys or in your language, we're sitting at high table.

2:09So you may have heard our emergency trip that I recorded from US, which I recorded from Ronald Reagan National Airport yesterday after we just got the news and I was landing from a flight. But Donald Trump has been found guilty on all of these charges. And it has kind of thrown the I'm back in Washington, D.C., and it's thrown the kind of Washington political world up on its up on end with Democrats texting me incredibly confident from the Biden campaign, suggesting that they always knew they were always knew they were going to win at the ballot box in November, which is actually true. I've heard this kind of weird level of confidence from the Biden campaign all along, despite what the polls are telling us about it being very tight.

2:50And then from the Trump campaign, there's a kind of a loyalty test that is playing out in real time of, you know, one person in Trump world texted me last night saying this is a civil war in the GOP. You're either with us or you're against us. and specifically what's playing out kind of on social media between all the Republicans is, are you with Donald Trump in the idea that this is an attack on him and a witch hunt against him and therefore believe that the whole system is rigged? Or are you a little squishy on that as some Republicans, not very many top Republicans, have come out and said, I believe in the system.

3:34The system is fine, but the jury just got this verdict wrong. So you've got the Biden people pretty confident and the Trump people insisting on loyalty from Republicans. Can I come in with a question maybe to Anthony, who's a lawyer? I guess there are a couple of possibilities, aren't there, if you're a Republican and you don't like this result. You could, like Trump, say the whole system is corrupt and rigged and the judge is corrupt. But I guess there's another more mild possibility where you could say, yeah, he may or may not have committed these crimes, but these are trivial crimes. Literally, what did he do?

4:12He falsified his private business records. He paid off some harsh money to a woman. I'd do the same thing. I wouldn't want some woman testifying against you and running against president. In other words, presumably, there may be a chunk of Republican voters who will say, I'm not saying the system's corrupt. I'm just saying this is trivial. This is not something that I'm going to particularly morally judge Trump for. OK, so that's the reason why you're a rational politician or a former politician. And that is not inside the prism of the reality distortion of Trump world, Rory. So what goes on in Trump world, he is this impetuous, hangry sort of person, almost like a golem, a Frankenstein monster.

4:56He comes around and trashes everybody and everything. and that type of rationale is not going to play with it. Moreover, he has a narrative that he's told his family. And if you listen very closely to the closing arguments, he infused that narrative into the closing arguments. Never had sex with a porn star. I didn't do this. I didn't do that. It's a narrative. And so he has to go with the rigged because it fits his conspiracy followers. It fits his base. But the danger, if you're a garden variety Republican, is you're now taking a wrecking ball to everything that America stands for, which is this very flat system, this very fair system.

5:42And I think this is very, very dangerous. And I'll take you guys back in history for just one second. The Whigs had this problem over slavery, and they smashed into each other in the mid-1850s. And out of that came the Republican Party. And I feel like the Republican Party, it's the it's not the beginning of the end, but it's definitely the end of the beginning of the Republican Party. They're they're going to be very different in the next five years than they are today. And they won't be Trumpian, by the way. But Anthony, what I think we find incredible and Cathy mentioned Ronald Reagan Airport.

6:16And I was a journalist when Ronald Reagan was president. And I thought, you know, the whole him thing with him and Thatcher was kind of pretty nauseating at times. But he was an amazing kind of political figure. And it's impossible to imagine that in that era or kind of any era up until now, that you could have the sort of announcement that we had last night, a former president guilty on all counts of these serious charges. And where I would push back on Rory's analysis earlier, I think the judge made clear that the crime, as it were, that what turned this into a felon wasn't just the falsifying of business accounts.

6:51it was in order to interfere with the outcome of a presidential election. And that's the kind of real sort of crime against the state, as it were, even though it was a New York state case. But what has happened to American people? Forget politics for a minute. What has happened to American people that this is not automatically the end of the road for Trump? Well, the American people are dissatisfied with the system. There's a good 25 percent of them that don't like the system, Alistair, and a result of which they want to wreck the system. He represents that. And I'll just say this quickly. If you've ever played king of the mountain before, there's one apex predator.

7:32There's one primate throwing the other people off the mountain. Trump has done that in the Republican Party, and he put his daughter-in-law in charge of the Republican National Committee. In a normal scenario, somebody would be an elder statesman in that position and say, hey, we have to reconvene. We've got to kick this guy out of the party. They don't have the capability of doing that with the courage. I mean, I think what you're getting to, Alistair, is kind of the, in a way, what's called here the sorting of America, that America has sorted itself into two groups that have become themselves more extreme.

8:07And as they became more extreme, the parties became more extreme with them. Ezra Klein wrote a great book on this, on the partisanship in America. and it's there you've got into a position where you are in a tribe and therefore everything somebody else does that's outside of your tribe is, as we're seeing play out today, something that has to be fought. There's no room anymore. Alistair and I, Anthony and I were talking about this on this week's podcast. 30 years ago, there were moderate Democrats who were more conservative than the most liberal Republicans serving in Congress. I mean, there were 150 of them.

8:45There are none today, zero. So there's no crossover in the middle of the political parties. And as that has happened for various structural reasons, the parties have then followed suit by becoming more extreme. And so you don't get people standing up. And it's interesting, you know, you had one guy, Larry Hogan, who is one of the very few remaining kind of centrist Republicans who's running for the Senate in Maryland. And he tweeted out this in response to the verdict. At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders, regardless of party, must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship.

9:19We must reaffirm what has made this nation great, the rule of law. Classic Reagan, right? Classic Reagan commentary from a moderate Republican. Within minutes, the chairman of the Trump campaign had retweeted that with a few words, your campaign has just died. So the mafia. Rory? So obviously, full disclosure, the four of us are on the Biden side of this and we're massively anti-Trump. But I'm just going to keep playing devil's advocate. Katty works for the BBC, Rory. I'm your resident analyst, Rory. Can I just step back, though, and do something which I can see from the comments is really winding people up.

10:03I'm not going through the ropes, Rory. I just want to make that clear. So if I look at the comments, they don't like me playing the Republican side on this, but I'm going to play the devil's advocate once more, OK? We're talking about this as though this is the most amazing, catastrophic thing. And Alistair's like, he was conspiring to defraud an election. In the end, these 34 counts, when you go through them, are count number one, check stub number 5630, count number two, check stub 5630. It's basically one thing he's done. He's paid Michael Cohen money, which he's accounted for as a legal stipend so that Cohen can pay hush money to Stormy Daniels.

10:45And he's done it because he doesn't want Stormy Daniels producing a story in the middle of his campaign saying he's had sex with him. and it's not that unusual at the state level and the city level in the u.s for convicted felons to run so we we talk a lot about rhode island uh with buddy sianci in the state where i spend a lot of time connecticut joe ganim has just come back from being convicted for nine years for electoral fraud he's just been re-elected as a mayor so are we not being a little bit pious about this whole thing and holding trump to completely different standards to the way that a lot of u.s politics operates no who wants to say that mooch you go first well i i i don't i don't see it that way rory i i see this actually as a mild case and so i'll cede every point that you made on this case but there is a legacy of crime with this guy in bad behavior you've got three other cases coming and by every legal analyst every legal standard even his buddies say wow those cases are way more damning than this case so let's give him this case no problem uh you know frank lunds is saying this morning 67 percent of the people are going to vote exactly the way they were going to vote prior to this conviction.

12:11Hold on. Does that mean 33 % aren't? 33 % are now wavering. That's according to Frank Luntz. I think that's a big deal. And I think that's the seam. And I think that's why Cady's expressing from the Biden camp, their exuberance and their confidence. But let's just see Rory's point. Rory, you're right. This is a minor thing. But this guy has a legacy. He has a trail of crime behind him and he's forcing people to break with the system alistair called it the mafia i'll call it authoritarianism he's he's pushing talking points to people like lindsey graham and they're all parroting each other we're talking about a litmus test they all have to say the same thing on twitter the system is rigged they went for him and now they're going to come for you.

13:08And all of this stuff is being fed to them. And they're being told, you want to be up for vice president? You better get on CNN and read these talking points. And if you talk about the party of Reagan, they never did that. These guys, you know, Reagan, 40 years ago, he was here in France speaking to living veterans who assaulted those beaches. We're going to be here again this week on the 80th anniversary. The country I live in, the country that Cady lives in, very, very different country now. And we have to accept that. And we have to either force change from the top or not. But Donald Trump's toxicity has hurt everybody.

13:46You know, if you want to use a mafia expression, the fish stinks from the head down. And his stink has permeated into that party. You're right, Rory. Of all of the cases against Donald Trump, the January the 6th case, the Mar-a-Lago documents case, taking secret documents and allegedly handing them over to people who could misuse them. This has always been seen as the least serious of those cases. It's just that it's the one that came first. And so because it's history-making, it's the first time that a former president has ever been convicted of a felony, of course it's a big deal. It's a Rubicon that America is crossing.

14:27And I think the reason people focus on Trump is that he keeps smashing through American norms. And one thing that Donald Trump has taught all of us is that this country's democracy is founded partly on rules and laws, but it's also partly founded on customs and norms. And Trump has smashed those customs and norms. So he smashed this one. What else is he going to smash? What else is he prepared to bulldoze his way through? And what else is the Republican Party prepared to follow him on? And we don't know, I don't think we're going to have a result in any of the other cases before the election. So this, in a way, this lets the Supreme Court off the hook on having to rule quickly on whether he has total immunity or not.

15:12But this is the test, this case will be the test of whether the American public is perturbed or not particularly perturbed by voting for a convicted felon, which they have never done before. But Cathy, sorry, go on. Very quickly, question from the live stream. There's a lot of questions coming in, but one for Anthony, because it's come up, I think, in five questions. People keep saying that the offense he committed was that he used campaign money and that if he had used his own money, it wouldn't have been a crime. my understanding is that's a misunderstanding of what the case is could you clarify just just for people once again it's not about whether he used his own money yeah well he he used corporate money and so what they would say to you is if he donated the money from himself personally paid the taxes on it put it into his campaign he he would be allowed to do that but he didn't do that.

16:11He was trying to use corporate money to pay for this because he was really trying to hide the payment. And so in other words, if he had done it with his personal money into the campaign, there would have been a check from the campaign to Stormy Daniels. All of the journalists on earth would say, what was that? So he was trying to avoid it. So he put the check through Michael Cohen's account and then he paid Michael through the Trump organization. So that's there's a lot of malfeasance there, right? There's business fraud, because he's not allowed to do that from a business fraud and a tax perspective.

16:46And then there's election fraud, because he's not allowed to put money in from his corporation. He can only put it in from himself personally. And then the big kahuna is the one that everyone's most upset about. He boondoggled his way into the electoral win by keeping this out of the news. And he then went on to pick three Supreme Court justices. Again, I'm just giving you that view of why people are so upset. Yeah, Cathy. That's the case. Use corporate money. It's that personal. And we have to remember, go back in time, the Stormy Daniels story was coming to a head, and she was asking for this money in order to keep quiet just about a week after that Access Hollywood tape.

17:33And that's why there was so much urgency around it. Now, Americans, I remember, I still remember where I was when the Access Hollywood tape came out and we all assumed that was it. That was it. Donald Trump wasn't going to get elected. You can't grab a woman by the pussy and say that you like doing it because you're a celebrity and then get elected. Actually, he got elected. So I don't know. He was worried about the Stormy Daniels story. I don't know that it would have meant that he didn't win the Electoral College. He could still have done it. Because if you want it with Access Hollywood, why not Stormy?

18:05okay there's a lot just just sorry that's that's what the people that don't like them are saying katya i do see that point to you okay now the we're getting lots and lots and lots and lots of questions one of the most common question coming through it's a yes or no answer from both of you uh will we have the mooch and katya on the podcast beyond the elections please you can give you five seconds to think about that i think it's probably a yes but um i'm i'm in i'm in a great time even if you don't want me okay now listen but the other thing this this one i've broken down many doors and gone into places where i'm not wanted so well listen and also somebody who was listening to your podcast earlier who lives in west wales is offering you refuge there if donald trump does win so look at the map it's a nice place i will need that.

18:56You tell him that the Welsh are Italians in the rain and I expect to be living in his basement for four years. Now, I've got a question, which may be for both of you from different perspectives. There's a question from Charlie who says that Trump is about to do a press conference. I think he's waiting until we've finished our live podcast and then he's going to do his press conference. So basically, if you were suddenly filling in on the BBC for a couple of minutes, Cathy to say this is what we expect from Trump today what would you say and Anthony given your perspective of having worked with him in these not nothing like this but in this kind of moment what's his style going to be when he comes out swinging at four o 'clock Cathy?

19:41We had a preview of what he was what he's going to say because he said it last night the system is rigged against him the country is going to hell there are millions of people coming into the country illegally you have to vote for Donald Trump. He may even throw in a bid to donate to his campaign, which everybody on his campaign is doing this to raise funds at the moment. But the overriding message is, I can't get a fair shake in a woke system of justice that is run by the Biden White House. But it's not, though. Either way, you're trying to fact check Trump, that's a waste of time. And by the way, nor can you.

20:22That'll be the closer is and nor can you. So vote for me. Anthony. Well, you know, I'll just say that when you're hearing him speak, because I have the Trump decoder ring, I got it out of my cereal box and I'll turn it on for you. When you hear him speak, it's all about projection. So anything he is saying, he wants to do. When he says the system is rigged, he's saying, when I'm president, I'm going to rig the system. When he says they're coming after me unfairly, oh, by the way, when I'm president, I'm going to go after my adversaries unfairly. So everything that he's saying, he's trying to project it onto the other side of exactly what he's going to do.

21:03And one thing that he's saying, which I think is true, he has raised some money from this. The totals as of this morning from the Trump war room was$34.8 million. dollars. And so he would be remiss because he's greedy and he loves money. He'll have to bring that up as well. One of the questions that's come up quite a lot in the stream is people saying, will he go to prison? And I'd like to dig into this a little bit. When sentencing comes in July, there's, let's say, a 50-50 chance that the judge will decide to send him to prison. And that's something that we haven't really lent into or factored because it will mean a possibility that an elected president of the United States next year could be sent to a New York state court.

21:47And he would then probably appeal to the Supreme Court saying this is going to cause a constitutional crisis. How on earth do I do my job as president if I'm in prison in a New York state court? And I think when voters begin to think through what it's going to mean for a president to be at risk of being locked up in a New York state court while trying to do his job as president, that may put people off, or am I wrong? Anthony Cassie? I would be surprised that it's 50-50. I mean, my understanding is that it's more like 90-10, that he won't go to prison. It's a first criminal felony, and it's a nonviolent crime.

22:26So whilst there is a maximum prison sentence possible of four years, the overwhelming majority of people in Donald Trump's position don't go to prison. more likely as some sort of fine or probation or possible probation. Now, the probation could have an impact on his ability to campaign. If he has to check in with his probation officer, seems unlikely that he'd have to wear an ankle bracelet. That's not what I've heard from lawyers this morning. But he may be on probation. He might have to say to his probation officer, by the way, I've got to go and campaign in Georgia. And they'd have to get signed off on that.

22:57Anthony, where do you put the odds of him going to prison? I just I just well, I don't think he goes to prison, but I will say this. If he thought he was going to prison and he thought there was no stopping that, he would be desperate to cut a deal. He does not want to go to prison. This guy's never been. He's a big baby. He's born with a silver spoon. He's never been in a bar fight. He has all of that overcompensating over masculinity because of the baby nature of his personality. And I'll just throw out a screenplay idea. Is it impossible for Joe Biden to call the governor of New York and the governor of Georgia?

23:37Brian Kemp is a friend of mine and he's a Republican. Kathy Hochul is a friend of Joe Biden's and say, hey, let's cut this guy a deal. You pardon him at the state level. I'll pardon him at the federal level. But he's got to go away. And I know people will think that's probably crazy, but I'm telling you, that has got to be in the potential matrix of outcomes. If this thing gets up, if the Supreme Court comes out and says you don't have any immunity beyond professional immunity and they get Jack Smith to rev up one of those cases, Trump is going to panic. Because one thing I know about Trump, guys, he is a gun waver.

24:14OK, at the shootout at the OK Canal, he's going to miss the target because he'll wave the gun in a situation like that. He doesn't like being pressured like that. Now, right into the mix of this, we've got a TV debate in our election next week between Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak. But there's going to be a TV debate between Trump and Biden. Let's just flip it around and think about from Joe Biden's perspective. He's standing there, sitting there, constantly being accused of rigging this, being in charge of this, politically motivated. How does he deal with Trump on that basis? Does he go kind of fists all flying?

24:51Does he try and sort of stand above it? Does he look down on Trump? How does he handle this? So people I spoke to on the Biden campaign just in the last few hours have pointed to a couple of things. They don't want Joe Biden to suddenly act like Donald Trump. They don't think that helps him go out fist flying or waving his gun, even if he pointed it more directly. What they'd like to do is get sort of former respected Department of Justice people to come out and say very clearly, the system is honest. This was not Joe Biden that was taking Donald Trump to court. The 12 members of the jury did their job.

25:28It was free and fair. So they want that and they would like to get Republicans like Larry Hogan, who we mentioned earlier, to do something similar, to come out and kind of in a fair minded way, speak to what the Biden campaign refers to as the 6 % of the 6, the 6 % of voters in the 6 states that matter and try to, the people have not yet decided and try and reassure them that this was a fair process. And they think that comes better from ideally from sort of respected, moderate Republicans and Department of Justice officials. They'll be doing the same thing. They've already started saying that this was the system working.

26:07This was the American system of justice working and invite and sort of incite, I think, some sense of patriotism. That's the other thing I'm hearing from Biden people. This shows that the American system of justice is not, as Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, is saying, a communist courtroom, comparing it to kind of Castro's Cuba. But this is the American system of justice and you can believe in it and you can be proud of it. Anthony, I should tell you that you've now got offers of exile accommodation in New Zealand, Singapore, Scotland and Liverpool. And there's somebody in Wales who runs an Italian...

26:44wouldn't have that Alistair Campbell's house though your your house looks amazing to me well I mean can I yeah it's nice but I'd be worried about this Trump's secret service crashing through the windows can I can I can I come in yeah Jack Creations keeps asking I need you Alistair yeah Rory's keeping very quiet about his basement by the way Anthony my basement's ready for you Jack Creations keeps coming in with a question by the way go ahead rory i'm sorry so jet creations keeps asking does this hurt or help trump and i guess you guys are saying that it's hurting trump it could hurt i i let let let me again in my devil's advocate role say there's a story that it could help trump and the story is that people just feel that judicial processes are being used all over the world to hit political opponents they're being used in india where modi just locked up the chief minister of delhi they used in bangladesh they used in argentina all the time and here it's being used again and it feels like i guess again putting on my inner republican that you're just it's like going after al capone for tax you you're just trying to find something to get the guy on he was only done five counts