The (First) Indictment (The Secret Podcast PREVIEW)

Hey there. It’s JBL. On the Secret Show with Sarah Longwell today, we talked about Trump’s indictment. What else? Here’s the show.

Let’s talk about what the indictment means for Rhonda sales. Like, let’s just take it from Ron DeSantis world because I have one of the things that is interesting to me is that we have been waiting to get a sign of what kind of candidate Robinson’s is gonna be in the last couple of weeks. We’ve gotten a bunch of information. It’s quite interesting. So first, he comes out and shows us, oh, he’s gonna run right up alongside Trump on foreign policy and on Ukraine.

And then he gets yelled out by Republicans k? So we also learned that the dynamic is different with with DeSantis than it is with Trump. They’re going to be willing to yell at him for his positions. And then he walks it back. Right?

Or he starts it. He like pretzels. He’s like, gosh. He’s or dead stream at all. Right.

Okay. So alright. Okay. Ron DeSantis can get bullied around a little bit, pushed around a little bit. Doesn’t quite know who he is.

Gotta do a little clean up on aisle twenty twenty four. Okay. Now, then we have shortly thereafter, we have Trump announcing his own indictment and imminent arrest. We can change before it actually happens. When around the scientist’s astronaut, he says, am I gonna do anything?

I’m not gonna interfere? Sore us back to you, bad, but I’m not gonna interfere. Well, then the Mago world starts yelling at Ron DeSantis. How dare you? You’re not doing anything.

Look at you. So then when Donald Trump does, the actually gets the indictment gets released. Or I guess it’s not released but, like, reported on. That’s been leaked. It’s been leaked.

Right? So we know what’s happening. DeSantis says, oh, no, I’m interfering. No extradition. And soon, Sanctuary State.

The freeze date of Florida will not extradite Donald Trump. Oh, Oh, so so you can be pushed around by the megabits and change your position. Here’s the thing. For Ron DeSantis. If Rhonda Santos on the first go round and on Monday morning quarterbacking, so but, you know, if I but can even see it sort of clearly now if he’d come out and said, if they try to take Donald Trump, you know, I I will not participate because I’m in charge.

I’ll protect Trump. I’m the alpha here. Right? That would have gone a lot better for him than this beta move where it’s like, Oh, yes, I’m a I’m a I’m a supporting player in the Trump drama, and you’ve all watched me backtrack when you yelled at me.

And I offered him his help, my help, and he immediately rebuffed it by announcing that he’s gonna go up to New York because he’s not afraid to confront these people. Right.

I mean,

that’s even worse. Like, I’ll hold your coat, Donald. No thanks. Go get your shine box. I got my own coat.

That’s

right.

Right?

That’s right.

So what

do you think of that? I think this stuff is all going wrong for DeSantis, and he is going to he’s been he’s been living on altitude on on on ice cream capsules in the air, and it’s all coming crashing down to Earth. With all of this.

Yeah. So, I mean, so he, the the the senate, meaning, DeXandas, put forward their bill to reform their resigned to run or revoke their resigned to run law last night at, like, seven fifty. Funny. Funny. Interesting.

Weird.

We’re done. Crazy.

I you know, I we need an Amanda shirt because I think we are getting back to the dynamic that Amanda hit on months and months ago, which was so brilliant. Ron DeSantis is sort of sliding back from being the potential challenger to just being the under study? So I think that Trump’s indictment makes it a hundred percent certain that DeSantis runs. So I think, you know, there there been a tiny bit of chirping from, like, George Conway and your friend Lucy called well over the last few days saying, I don’t know. Look at him.

If his polling keeps deteriorating, it’s got a lot of hurdles. Why run now? And when you could just run-in twenty twenty eight, no matter what, it’ll be open eat in twenty twenty eight no matter what the outcome of this election is, he’ll only be forty nine years old. And I I could see that I I think it’s wrong from DeSantis’ point of view. I think he has to run this this time anyway, but that that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have believed it.

I think Trump’s indictment says to DeSantis, I have to be there because what if everything blows up? What if what if the What if he’s actually put in jail? What if there’s there’s discovery and we’ll discover this? What if on the stand he starts, you know, talking like a chicken? Right?

You know, who who knows? So he has to run. Then

half the Republican base will start speaking chicken. Speaking at Chicken Tops. Oh.

Yeah. So I think this means the Santa’s push that he has to run But his role becomes almost explicitly as an under study at that point because what is he What is his contrast? Right? This is so I I I won’t even fall too for not reading it because it hasn’t gone out as many years. No.

We haven’t. This year. Because today’s isn’t out yet. Oh,

I read your why the scientists should run.

But what let’s pretend Donald Trump has been has has been indicted. This becomes the story about the campaign and fortunately for Trump, it becomes a forward looking story, an argument for his candidacy, and not the backward looking

twenty twenty. It’s a great point. Yep. It’s a You know, we no longer

talking about him getting screwed in twenty twenty. We’re now talking about him being screwed right now today, and the way to wreck remedy this is to vote because when they’re coming after Trump, they’re really coming after you. So imagine you are a candidate trying to break through in this race and you’re a Republican. In order to get time on Fox, you can’t like show up with a white paper on entitlement reform. Right?

You can’t you can’t say, well, I figured I’d save Social Security. Can I have some time with Lara today?

No. All

you can do is come on to talk about Trump’s indictment and the Trump case. And the the menu of things which you are allowed by voters to say about that, go about like this. It is a witch hunt, It is terrible for America and I will fight and do everything in my power because we have to protect Donald Trump because if they’re coming for him, they these radical socialist communists will come for you. It’s so important that he he’d not be convicted and so vote for me. No.

I mean, the the logic of all those things is So you have to vote for Trump. Right? You have to show them show them whoever they are that we will not be called. And the only the only logical response to that is to vote for Trump. You can’t, like, make that case and then say, so vote for Miranda Santos.

Alright.

So let me so now let me, like, push back on this just a little bit. I agree with. I agree with what you’re saying. But it’s the argument. Right?

It’s the argument around why this helps Trump in the short term. Right? Okay. That’s the argument of why it helps him in the short term. I think there’s this open question about what short term means.

Yeah.

Because I agree. Right? Like, I’m arguing too. Of course, this is gonna help him in the short term. Everyone’s gonna be talking about him, cast the other candidates as as as supporting players.

And Ron DeSantis is an under study just to keep the them thematics going. And and if there’s one thing, the the thing to crypto night to Donald Trump, is being ignored. Right? Right. And now everyone’s talking about them all the time.

We’re gonna talk about what our we we spent a lot of time talking about around the Santos when Oh, like, I don’t know Trump’s hanging out, lamely and Mar a Lago, and looking kind of pathetic. And okay. Well, now and that point about the He’s got an animated grievance now that feels immediate for people is I think really key. Alright. But the question is, is how short it how short term does it help in?

Well, this is a big unknown, but it’s still worth unpacking because This is gonna this is what the dynamics are gonna make the difference is okay. So if there’s a bunch of other indictments, does that pile on continue people’s sense of grievance and allow Donald Trump to extend this narrative and make it so that no one there’s literally just no other oxygen for him the whole way through. Or, actually, does everybody rally to his defense? But because I’ve listened to voters say this now for months and months. He’s got a lot of baggage.

He’s alienated a lot of people. I don’t think he can win. That can creep back in. Like, that can still be calm. A big piece of the discussion that people can shift over time.

They can go from immediate anger on his behalf to yeah, but people aren’t gonna vote for this guy. We need somebody who’s not under multiple criminal investigations. So that’s that is that is totally possible, and it depends on a bunch of things that happen over the next, this is okay. March fifth twenty twenty four is super Tuesday. The first primary is in either the who’s beginning of February or maybe right at the end of January.

So there is like nine, ten months of green here, a field to play And I just think people the the people on Twitter right now who are like, it just made Trump the nominee. I’m like, no one didn’t. Like, even with the forget the argument about, like, and GOP based voters, primary voters will or will not make Trump the nominee. The fact that that is true, notwithstanding, is also just like, you don’t know that right now.

No. Nobody nobody knows anything. Right. You know, Antonio, none of us can peer all the way into the future. I mean, a lot depends on whether or not there are other indictments.

It depends on what the charging docs look like in all of these cases. It depends on the timeline for trials. Right. I mean, how how I assume it is always in Trump’s interest to delay everything. Right?

Because, you know, like like, a wrestling imprecise, you wanna keep delaying the main event and stringing the audience along. String the marks along as long as you can. Right? Whether irrespective of everything, no matter what the context, Right? I’m gonna delay my my announcement on.

I made a very strong decision on presidenting, but I’ll, you know, you’ll have to wait for that. That’s — Yeah. — the art of the Ts. Right? But I don’t know.

I I just look at I look at the the I look at the dynamics of the system, sort of, and I have trouble seeing how other people make the case. Right? Because it you would have to start making a case about electability. And a, unless Trump’s general match up polling against Biden, absolutely craters. Like, if if you can wave around a bunch of polls showing Trump losing Biden by fifteen, that’s one thing.

But, you know, most of the polling basically since twenty twenty one has been, you know, Trump either down five or up two. Right? I mean, he’s he’s in the Bulwark against Biden. Sure. And if that’s what the polling looks like, then what I don’t know.

You then have to have somebody who was out there aggressively making the case that Donald Trump can’t win, who’s willing to say that out loud in the the Republican media ecosystem. Eysa Hutchinson? I guess Eysa Hutchinson who who who had you know, I said this last night of the show and some people then you know, wrote in, I guess, they didn’t hear me say, like, Ron DeSantis instead. Asajans did, the only thing I ask if Republicans I don’t need them to be like us. I don’t need them to be never trumpers.

You just said, this is concerning we’re gonna let the justice system play out. Mhmm. Great. Right? Isn’t that a perfectly healthy response?

Like, it is. Fabulous. Love it.

Yeah. Give

me more of it. It it should just be what every Republican says, random automatically, but that’s not

That’s

This is gonna be on a loan or on island out there with that.

Yes. Somebody I gotta has been just time reporters all morning. And somebody’s, like, well, what do you what do you think this does for Asa Hutchinson? And I was, like, oh, it makes a bunch of the Never Trump be the ten percent of sort of anti really anti Trump Republicans in the party, go, oh, look, these adjacencies here.

Fancy that.

Look at this. So, you know, they were like, was anybody gonna go after him for this And that, you know, the other one is is Chris Christie is could could could try to make some hay out of this since he has decided not so much. We haven’t seen so much evidence of it yet because he’s gonna be an attack dog here. Pence is gonna continue to put himself in the sour spot by saying both things every time. Penn

said that this was outrageous. An

outrageous travis

Steven

also that Donald Trump should absolutely not be the president again. Has

has Kristy said anything about the indictment? I

don’t think so. Youngkin says.

Alright. So, well, don’t tell you what Youngkin said. You and me right now. I’ll bet you five bucks. Charlie Sykes says, I was a prosecutor.

This is absolute overreach. Travisy, this guy up in New York doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Maybe, yeah, sure. What what if that’s true though? Like, this is Here’s the thing. I I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know I don’t know.

Like, I’ve seen serious people, not partisans, also suggest, like, this is just, like, not the most This is not the one to get him on primarily because it’s not the kind of thing that’s usually prosecuted as a felony. And so it looks trumped up to quite a phrase. Yeah. Now we haven’t seen it. We haven’t seen it.

So maybe maybe not so much, but

I mean, we’ll see it. And if it is, then it won’t fly. Right? I mean, this guy’s gonna have the best lawyers money can buy is the full appeals process. He’ll be appeal all the way to the supreme court in the United States if he wants to because he is a former president, where he has appointed a third of the justices on the supreme court Nobody in the history of American law will ever get as fair a shake in court as Donald Trump will.

Hey,

you just said something though that is something I’ve wondered about that I don’t I don’t know the answer to. Maybe and maybe you do. If in all these indictments, Trump is able to plead not guilty, mountain defense, and then appeal appeal appeal appeal appeal. The chances of him ever getting quote, like there’s no chance he’s in jail. By the time like, let’s say some of them are really he’s got a really strong case against him, but there’s still no chances in jail prior to the election.

Nobody’s gonna be this

is gonna be in the middle of a bunch of complicated — Yes. — legal wranglings. Yes.

And I I don’t wanna say there’s no chance there’s no chance he’ll be in jail before the election. I don’t think there’s any serious chance that he’ll ever be in jail. I just don’t think our everything that I have seen in forty eight years of living in this country suggests that people like him don’t ever see the inside of a cell. Right? That’s not how this works.

Mhmm. And maybe that’s that’s to the good. Honestly, I’m I I know I’m a squish about this. And, yes, it is. As Kim Willey said, today in her piece for us, it’s a stress test of the system itself.

Does the system work? Do we have equal protection under the law? I I I see all of that. The other hand, if you if if the law does work and it does say that he has to go jail that isn’t free. That’s gonna come with a cost and a pretty heavy cost.

And I don’t know that I’m I’m glad that I’m glad that the legal system will figure this out and that none of us has to make a decision and a judgment call on it.

Yeah. Hey, zing of the fact that it’s the legal system and not any of us one of the the, like, insane things that I see on Twitter, including from not my friend, but I guess yours, Eric Erickson, are things like he’s like, if Democrats were smart, they would bring these other indictments fast. Whatever. And I was like, what Democrats? Like, Democrats have no control over that the idea that this is a political plot bipartisan Democrats, like, it could be it could be partisan on the part of brag in his particular because this, you know, you can go back and find video of brag.

And I think I’m pretty sure of is it Fannie Will Saletan Georgia? Both of whom ran on and, like, said outright, like, I’m gonna press cute Donald Trump. And I think that’s great to have out there, like I was always out to get this guy. And maybe I don’t know enough about how DA’s run. Maybe they always run saying, why I’m gonna prosecute this type of crime?

Like, it’s a travesty that my predecessor didn’t do anything about that.

With Wall Street, remember? I’m gonna go get those fat cats down on the down on the street. Yeah.

So but you know, that that certainly does a lot for the impression that these are politically motivated by like these individuals who may have part of it. But the idea that there’s like big way Democrats can coordinate on this is asinine and and, like, ridiculous.

Tries me crazy. Like, it really does drive because these are decisions which are made. I mean, in these two cases, literally made by two elected officials. Two separate elected officials who have sole discretion over this. Nobody else gets a say in it.

Joe Biden can’t call Alvin brag up and say, no, no, don’t do that. I want you to wait and do it on April seventeenth, but that’s not how this works. But more to the point, it’s not how any of us want it to work. This is what — Yeah. — what we want as an independent judiciary where the district attorney’s office is not answerable to anybody because other because that way, lies, if you do that, then eventually you have the president of the United States calling the state secretary of state in demanding that they find twelve thousand votes.

Right? That’s that’s where you wind up. And I the level of bad faith shit like that that is floating around. Like, you people just elected Donald Trump. Right?

You know, Republican voters are infants with no agency. Right? They are they are little children who who cannot possibly take response ability for their actions. They just the world around them happens and they react to stimuli like they are plants. That drives me crazy and the bad faith stuff over how the justice system is supposed to work drives me crazy in the Honestly, the, you know, the this case arguments about what this case is or isn’t we haven’t seen the charging documents.

We have no idea how flimsy or how strong the case is. Yeah. Right? And we will. Like, it isn’t like like nobody will ever know.

We’re gonna see all this stuff. It’ll be public. On like Tuesday. Yeah. But the fact that you hear people say that, just just tells you where they’re coming from to start.

Right? Which is it’s just any club at hand. Right? They’re here to protect the precious or to make a demonstration to show that they’re on the side of the angels. When again, for ninety five percent of these people.

And this is why this is why secretly I love Marjorie Taylor Green because I never worry that Marjorie Taylor Green is lying to people about what she really thinks.

Yeah.

Hey, again. It’s JBL. The conversation goes on from there. If you wanna hear the rest of the show, head on over to Bulwark Plus and subscribe. We’d love to have you.