3/31/23 EMERGENCY POD: Krystal and Saagar Break Down Trump Indictment

Happy Friday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What could we possibly have today? Yes, surprise, Surprise, big special Friday before Crystal takes the kids to school, episode of Breaking Points in honor of a Ford president being criminally indicted for the first time in history. Soacher obviously did a great job yesterday just with the initial breaking news, but we've got a bunch of more details we wanted to bring to you, also some political reaction and our

thoughts on the whole situation. So I wanted to make sure to get that to you as soon as possible. Before we do those saga remind people about Spotify video. Yes, that's right. If you want to see what our faces look like at six am, so we can get it to you as fast as possible. Go ahead and become a breakingpoints dot Com premium subscriber, so you can watch an audio and video on Spotify seamlessly only for our premium members. So we appreciate everybody taking advantage of that.

But Chrystal, where I left off everybody is where we just had. Literally I think it was like a few minutes after the indictment. I just came and did the video. So all I told everyone was that he's been indicted and his lawyer has confirmed it. But we've learned quite a bit more since then. We actually have even a statement from President Trump. Yeah, so we've got a better sense of the timing. Expectation is that he will be

arraigned on Tuesday. Expectation as he will surrender himself in Manhattan. Trump himself has reacted with a couple of statements. First one relatively lengthy, but it is obviously very important signific and so I will bless you by reading the whole entire thing. He said. This is political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history. From the time I came down the Golden escalator at Trump Tower and even before I was sworn in as your President of

the United States. The radical left Democrats, the enemy of the hard working men and women of this country, have been engaged in a witch hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement. Remember it just like I do. Russia, Russia, Russia. The Muller hoaks Ukraine and Ukurini Ukraine, impeachment Hoax one and Beeachman Hoax two, the illegal and unconstitutional bar Alago raid. And now this. The Democrats have lied, cheated, and stolen

in their obsession with trying to get Trump. Now they've done the unthinkable, indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant election interference. Never before in our nation's history has this been done. The Democrats have cheated countless times over the decades, including spying on my campaign, but weaponizing our justice system to punish a political opponent who just so happens to be a president of the United States and by far the leading Republican candidate for president,

has never happened before. He continues Manhattan da Alvin Bragg, who was hand picked and funded by George Soros, is a disgrace. Rather than stop the unprecedented prime way of taking over New York City. He's doing Joe Biden's dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults he should be focused on. This is how Bragg spends his time. I believe this switch hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden. The American people realize exactly what the radical left Democrats

are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our movement and our Party United and Strong will first defeat Elvin Bragg, then be able to defeat Joe Biden, and we're going to throw every last one of these crooked Democrats out of office so we can make America great again. So, going all the way back to the Golden Escalator and through the litany of all the whatever that he recites in that one, he also released another shorter truth that I'll read to you as well and then get your

reaction about all of it. Tzager. He said, these thugs and radical left monsters have just indicated he obviously means indicted the forty fifth president the United States of America and the leading Republican candidate by far for the twenty twenty four nomination for president. He continues, this is an attack on our country. The likes of which has never been seen before. It's likewise a continuing attack on our

once free and fair elections. The USA is now a third world nation, a nation in serious decline, so sad. So you know a lot of the type of language you would expect, but notably no calls for protest or death and destruction or anything like that. Yeah, that's right for what we currently know right now. As a president, Trump is likely to be arraigned on Tuesday, where the so called purp walk may occur. What will the mug shot look like? I was actually looking at some previous

politician mug shots. The ultimate question is do you smile or not smile? He gave us a very nice smile, and given that he also got off in a hush money scheme, maybe that's what the Trump I should feel like. I feel like Trump is going to go with the smile. That's my bet. I think you should go with the smile. Yeah, I think you should go with the smile. So in terms of the actual charges, I have a little bit more detail for everybody here that I can pull up.

So basically Trump has been indicted on thirty four different counts. Now, many of you might be asking how how is that even humanly possible whenever it involves a single hush money payment. Well, what it turns out is that many of these payments were paid in multiple installments. So there is the theory right now that every single payment, every installment of the payment of the one hundred and thirty thousand dollars given over to Michael Cohen itself is its separate criminal charge.

As they're rolling up into an overall theory of the case and the indictment. Another thing that we have learned, Crystal is that there ran jury witnesses were also asked about Karen McDougall, the right playboy model who was involved in the capt and kill scheme with the National Inquirer.

That is somehow being rolled into this case as well. Yeah, so just to remind everybody of those details, because it's been a few years, so you could be forgiven for having forgotten all of the ins and outs of these various alleged affairs. So Karen McDougall and Stormy Daniels both assert that Trump had affairs. Both of them basically sought payment to make these stories go away before the twenty sixteen election, and there were two different methods which were employed.

With Karen mc the National Inquirer actually purchased her story, led by David Packers, the head of that outfit, purchased that story and then held it in a practice that is known as catch and kill. And obviously with Stormy Daniels, we had the Michael Cohen payments, hush money payments, and that's how that one went down. So Packer apparently was a key witness in front of the grand jury. That

is significant because of the Karen McDougall story. Also because yeah, he's kind of a long time Trump confidant and an associate. He could speak to Trump's thinking about whether these payments were about benefiting his campaign or whether they were mostly

about other issues like preserving his marriage. And that becomes incredibly significant in terms of whether they'll be able to actually secure a conviction because of the new unique nature of the charges they're expected to bring here, which would require a federal campaign finance violation in order for them to be a felony. At least that's the expectation. Making clear, we don't actually have the charges in front of us.

Yet we don't have the charge. It's the only one that would really make any sense, though, take a step back and just I can explain this again for people fellowing bookkeeping fraud, and we do know he's been indicted with the felony requires not only a bookkeeping error or was made, or not only that a bookkeeping cover up was made, but that it was done in the commission of a second crime. And the reason why this is a pretty novel interpretation is that Alvin Bragg has no

jurisdiction under federal law. This is only jurisdiction under New York state law. Under that jurisdiction, federal election law obviously is a crime that he is alleging was covered up during the bookkeeping. So in the prosecution of that, he's basically going to have to say that bookkeeping was done in the prosecution of another felony, even though it's a

felony that I technically do not have jurisdiction over. Now, clearly it was enough to pursue an indictment against the former president, it was enough for the Manhattan grand jury to come through. But the famous quote is and grand jury can in dyet a ham sandwich, And you know all I have to do is say, well, we have

kind of a case here at the heart. This is going to be at the very, very hard and I encourage everybody to get familiar with these details because this is going to be at the heart of the entire legal defense theory of the case from President Trump and from his lawyers. There's going to be a political angle, which we'll talk about it in a little bit about the prosecution and all that, but at the actual like will he face charge, will this case even go to trial?

Is going to be this novel interpretation and yeah, we'll save some of our political thoughts for later. Yeah, let's just suffice it to say that when we're gotting in the weeds about bookkeeping, hush money and all this, that's gonna be a tough one for a lot of people to digest. Well, you know, I think we'll talk more about the politics of it. I think the timing is going to be quite remarkable, because you are talking about you know, it's going to be months before this even

is heard before a judge. The first step will be, you know, the judge could throw this thing out before it even gets to a jury. That's the what Trump's lawyers and Trump himself will obviously be hoping for. So there will be months before that even happens. So you're talking about, you know, the meat of a potential trial unfolding right in the heart of a presidential election cycle. So it really is an extraordinary event. It's a historic event. You know, it's one we've seen coming for a while.

But I don't think that should diminish the import of what's happening here, you know, and the specter of a former president like being potentially handcuffed, fingerprinted and read his rights is you know, it's an astonishing moment, however you feel about it. And the political reaction has already been, of course, all over the map. I think we already have a pretty clear sense of how this will play in the Republican primary. How it plays in the general

election is an entirely different question though. So now the GOP response, well, meetball Ron materialized, crawled out of his hole and actually decided to say something about this. Here's what he finally has. He tweets quote and let's put this on the screen. The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law

on its head. It is un American. The Soros backed Manhattan DA has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal conduct, yet now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent. Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.

So a couple of things to say there, Crystal Number One, he's bringing out the extradition canard, but after Trump has made clear that he's likely to surrender and array in to a period. Two, now he's decided now it's not silly season. Apparently now he apparently does know something about hush money. It's just so clear to me. It's just so clear to me that he got the pushback from Trump and from the MAGA world to are very upset with him, internalized it, and then when the indictment happened

and decided to come you know, full bore. It is interesting too because he doesn't even say Trump's name, which almost makes it appear even stranger. It's like talking in the third person. But at the end of the day, you are still defending Trump. And this just highlights the power dynamic of all of this To me at he had to spit out because he is the governor of Florida, and because Trump is the most popular Republican, and because

people want to hear this from Ron DeSantis. So this just shows me that like the third way, the wishy washy, like trying to politically calculate your way through this, it's just not gonna work. My read is the same as Arrasagar. He had a sort of like natural experiment focus group with when Trump announced, like, oh, I'm about to get indicted. He failed the test he took in like, Okay, here's what people wanted me to do. So this time around, I'm going to do what people told me they want

me to do, right out of the gates. So it definitely smells of like very politically calculated to be the most sympathetic to his position that I possibly could. Again, there's no good play here, Like there is no good response for him, because obviously last time he tried staying quiet, that was a disaster. This is probably the best possible response he can have in terms of the Republican base,

But it once again just hands Trump power. So to me, this is a microcosm of the issue that he faces in the GOP primary overall, which is there are no really good moves for him to make. It's an impossible position effectively for him to be in at least, you know, just trying to take on Trump directly or not take on Trump directly. That there is no good move on the chess board. So that's kind of how I looked at it. But yeah, in terms of the Republican response,

it was across the board. Glenn Youngkin also came out right away and said very similar things. I think I saw Kevin McCarthy. You know, this was not a tough one for them to react to. Whatsoever. I think the way the public will pross us this is going to be just a rorshack test of how they feel about Trump. We've seen multiple polls at this point that show effectively that, yeah,

people think you did it. People, even a majority of people think that these charges and allegations specifically around hush money payments are either somewhat serious or very serious. They also feel that it is political, So then it makes it kind of a wash in terms of a public reaction and does once again come down to just what is your pre existing feeling about Donald Trump and whether he deserves to be prosecuted. My guess is that we've spent a lot of time, and I think it's you know,

this is the case against a former president. I think it makes a lot of sense to dig into the legal details and the you know, all of the landscape of what is entailed here. I think for most people, they're not actually going to care that much about the details of the charges, whether it includes Dormy Daniels and Karen McDougall or not, or even that much whether it's over hush money payments or January sixth and fake elector schemes.

I think it's more just about whether the person who has committed crimes and deserves to be held accountable for it, And however you felt about that going in is probably going to result in your reaction to these specific charges against Trump. So in some ways I have sort of

changed my view on this a little bit. I actually think the details of these particular charges don't matter that much in terms of the public I do think that these are the ones that are the easiest for Republicans to defend, where some of the January sixth faker elector stuff would put like Mike Pence and others in a more difficult position in terms of how they would react, right, And that's why immediately Mike Pence came out and said

that the indictment is quote in outrage. I even have the Glenn youngin tweet you alluded to, you know, the most probably center right governor in the entire country. Quote is beyond belief that district Attorney Alvin Bragg has indicted a former president current president of candidate for pure political gain. Arresting a presidential candidate on a manufactured basis should not

happen in America. Continued to attempt to weaponize our judicial system, erode people's faith in the American justice system, and it needs to stop. So when you've got Glen Youngkin, Mike Pence, vivek Ramaswami, Ron DeSantis, all of those people coming to your defense, who do you think the king is? It's Trump.

And so you know, as you said, in terms of how people will digest this, you're talking in a general election, Well, if you're a GOP primary voter, you know who the number one target is of the latter, Well, that's how most of these people vote. And one of the reasons that this is worth focusing on is We just showed everybody yesterday a Fox News poll that showed Trump a fifty four percent strength in the Republican primary. Why did

that happen? Why did he gain ten percent on a month Well, potential indictment was listed as one of the main reasons that people were flocking towards Trump, So in terms of his primary victory or this has made it so much more likely now. Look, of course anything can happen.

He actually could get convicted, although I don't know, I think that it would really hurt, you know, maybe outside of black Swans snarios though politically for him in a GOP primary, which is really all it really matters right now. This is nothing but helpful as you can see everybody's coming, Tim Scott's coming to his defense. Nikki, I haven't seen Nicko Hilly yet, but every as you said, every standard

Republican has a take now out there. The only people who are you know, not protesting are like Adam Kissinger and Liz Cheney, which shows you like he still has a hold on ninety eight percent or so. Yeah, of the GOP who all have to come to his defense. Really in a moment of needed, if you have to come to somebody's defense on something like that, then you're in a position of weakness and he's in a position

of Here's another question. I'm curious for your reaction to Sager, which is, you know, there was a lot of nervousness about, you know, with regard to the January sixth and faith elector scheme, potential indictments, there's a lot of nervousness around, like, Okay, what does it mean to indict a former present? What is the reaction in the country been. Trump has obviously tried to frighten those who are looking into charging him into thinking like, oh my god, this would just like

tear the country apart. I'm not sure we can do it. And you know, we'd all love to pretend these decisions aren't political and that those sort of calculations don't we end,

but we know that they do. So one thing I was wondering is, if you have this first indictment and there isn't this huge create the death and destruction that Trump is like warning of, does that make some of the other individuals, and you know, the Georgia folks or the Special Council in Washington, does that make them actually less nervous about indicting Trump because you know, the seal has already been broken in a way, the dam has already been broken, and the country was able to survive.

So perhaps that sort of encourages them, like, Okay, we can move forward with our own charges here, and it's not going to be the destruction of the republic. It's certainly possible. But at the same time, first of all, I think a lot from what I've seen, you know, amongst a lot of MAGA figures, all of them are saying like, look, we're not proached, like we're doing to do this peacefully. We're going to fight this in the

legal system. All of that, because I think they feel pretty sure that they could probably beat this in a

court of law. You only have no idea. It's not even worth speculation, because you know, it could be that they don't protest for indictment, but then who knows, maybe the dam would break whenever it comes to conviction, or maybe people learn their lesson from January sixth, and they're like, hey, you know what, like I don't need to be involved in some bs like this, but I will come out and vote and make my you know, make it very clear, like how I feel it's it's a complete, you know,

range of possibilities. I genuinely don't know in terms of you know, the indictment schedule and all that. The other problem though that I could easily show, say is let's say that this you know, charged frivolous you know, in my view, is one that gets struck down immediately. Well, it actually looks more bulletproof and stronger. So then if you do come out and you charge him with Fulton County, then it's just going to set even more of a public expectation, whereas the facts of the case on that

one are much harder for him. It's or on a January sixth one, or even on a classified documents one for legally you know, to have some standing. So yeah, yeah, this is a good thing. Why why don't we go ahead and move to the political section here, because I think it's it's worth talking about what the fall this might be. So political reactions thoughts, broader takeaways? What do

you think? Yeah, it's what's your fifty thousand foot I mean, the big takeaway is this is a remarkable moment in history. I think the impact on the GOP electorate is incredibly clear. I think the impact on a general electorate is somewhat

less clear. I would lean in the direction of listen, if you're being indicted and you're on trial for this and probably other indictments to come, that's probably going to be a bad thing for most for a lot of ordinary voters, the type of people who may be persuadable, which you know, it's a small sliver in the country, but they're determinative at this point. So, you know, do I think that these are the strongest charges against Trump? No, but you know, you call them frivolous. I wouldn't call

them frivolous. I think if you or I were engaged in these types of schemes husher Maine payments and potential campaign finance, like I, we would get hit. Right. So, I think a lot of people will look at this as this is a man who has gotten off for so many things, so many times, and they're not going to be super hung up on whether this was the strongest case against him. They're more interested in if this is you know, people who want to see Trump held accountable,

is he actually going to be held accountable for anything? Ever? And so that's kind of my you know, that's my view is it's going to be a worshack test for how people felt about Trump going in, and the actual details of the cases matter somewhat less from a political perspective. Obviously from a perspective their paramount, but from a perspective details of the case matter less that people's existing matter

on the former resident. I think that's fair. I'll tell you why I say fenv of us, because look, he is an extraordinary individual. He's not a normal person, even oh in the eyes of the lot. Okay. The reason that I said it is because, okay, think about the politically what he has done here. I actually almost think back to impeachment. Do you remember, And a lot of

people forget this. The highest level of GOP identification in the Trump years came at the exact moment that Democrats were indicting or were impeaching Trump over the perfect phone call. Because look, nobody was saying that the phone call was good. We're like, hey, this is not a great thing. That said.

When you're gonna subject the entire country to the details of this of what a lot of people think is straight up bullshit, then a lot of people are gonna be able to see through this and they're going to conclude that one party is not serious and that the other person is being unjustly prosecuted. We almost have a direct one to one now. The feelings on January sixth, though, are very different. So I agree that the details themselves

don't necessarily matter. But to the small persuadables, you know, you're doing yourself a tremendous disservice at a macro level by not focusing on the one thing that we know that these persuadables are turned off by the absolute most and putting Republicans in a tougher spot where they can't be completely united. For example, I do not believe that an initial Fulton County, you know, DA prosecution against Trump is met with the same level of GOP vociferous defense

of Trump. Maybe some seventy five percent of it, right, yeah, but not the one hundred percent that we have seen right now. So I think Alvin Bragg has successfully united the entire GOP against Trump. You know, I tweeted this with potentially the dumbest charge relative to consequence in American history, and that is why, like, I look at the charge and I just think it's such a tremendous mistake because also the likelihood that he beats this charge before a

judge is very high. It's very high that this case does not even go to trial. Politically, also, you're making him even more bulletproof, in my opinion, whereas it is way harder for him to contest the Fulton County one and even the January sixth one in terms of election interference or you know, conspiracy to commit to government obstruction, although they're you know, legality wise, it could be difficult. Yeah,

any of those too. I mean, I guess I agree with like the broad sentiment of the American people, which is that he did it, that the allegations against him, theorious that they're not nothing, and also that there were politics involved here. Like I feel all of those things, and I definitely don't you know, I definitely agree with you that of the charges that he is facing and of the things that people broadly want to see him held accountable for, this one is there's no doubt about it.

This is the weakest and it's the weakest case. I think the timeline of this is all going to matter a lot, because remember, it's not like he's gonna this is going to be thrown out a court immediately. This is going to take months to unfold. Probably in those ensuing months, were likely to have additional indictments on January sixth on fake life schemes that are also going to be you know, working their way through the news media and being processed by the American people in real time.

So I think, like I said, bottom line, in terms of how people are going to respond to these charges and the potential charges to come, it's all going to be through the lens of whether you feel this is a person who's basically been lawless, not just in the presidency but in a lot of ways around his entire life and never been held to account for anything, and you're not going to trouble yourself too much with the details of like, well, was this the particular strongest case

against him, because there's a sense this man just operates with absolute impunity, that because he has been an elite, he's been able to get away with whatever he wants, and so you're happy to see a chance for him to finally face some sort of penalty for you know, crimes that the majority of Americans, even a lot of Republicans,

feel that he did in fact commit. You're right. It's important to understand that a large portion of this country hates Trump and genuinely does want to see Hi prison, like probably like thirty percent and then equally thirty percent or like never want him to see no matter what he did, they would no matter what. Yeah, in his own words, he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and he would still win. I actually think that's true.

And then the middle part is gonna be that that That's why I can't let it go, because I'm like, you know, if this is a game of inches, like you really are giving up a lot of the uh turf that you would have. You are giving up your ability and not managing this in a smart way. Uh, We'll see how it plays. I genuinely don't know, you know, in terms of the election. I do know on the primary front, he basically just handed him the GOP primary. I mean to the extent that he hadn't already, which,

if you think about it, is a foolish move. You know, if you think that Trump actually is some existential threat, and now you know, we could be in some Eugene

Debs situation. But again, you know, it's not supposed to consider that it's worth it's worth saying, so just quickly on the gene Deb's situation that you reference there, there is a possibility of jail time with these charges to the extent that we you know, have guesses about what the charges are, but it is not mandatory, so he would not have to face prison time if even if you were found guilty with these particular charges. So I

just wanted to put that out there. But yeah, it's you know, it's quite remarkable to watch it all unfold. I think it's very hard to predict what's going to happen in the general election, but I do think it's very clear the impact in the Republican primary. This just hands a ton of power to Trump and it's almost insurmountable. And it makes it so that all the media attention and focus is going to be on him indefinitely from

here on out. So you know, good luck with like whatever little bills drawn DeSantis wants to get attention for passing through the Florida legislature. No one's going to care, even Biden. I want people to understand this. We're back in it now, folks. We're in the circus again. It is officially silly season, like we are back to the We are back to the cameras that are outside the you know the thing, the leaks from inside the Trump legal team, the Hannity interviews about what's going on. We

are fully back, you know, in the Trump years. Like this is gonna be it now for for months, and it's so exhausting. Uh, you know, obviously we will break it down and keep everybody informed and all that. But this was exactly kind of what the Biden administration, all of them, were saying they wanted to move away from. And the amount of billions of dollars in earned media. He's going to say, get from the amount his name name,

you know, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, all of that. Like, we are fully fully back to the Trump years in this. Let me say let go yeah, go ahead, Let me say one more thing about that, because I think Democrats never learn, they never learned, they still underestimate him. And I look, my gut instinct is that charges against him and the specter of him being on trial in the middle of the present campaign whatever is probably bad for

him with the general elector. But I genuinely don't know, right I think it could it could be wash, It could go either way. I think it will be bad for him because there's just this like normy, like law and order instinct of you know, if you're on trial you did something wrong. Is bad. Democrats have forgotten what a skillful politician he can be. They have are continuing to underestimate him, and so you mentioned like, oh, well, this basically hands the Republican primary to him, and that's

not really great thing for Democrats. I think they believe that it is a good thing for them because they feel that Ron DeSantis is a stronger general election candidate. Rond de Santis certainly thinks that the donors that are backing Ronda Santis certainly thinks that the polls mostly indicate that as well. Right now too, I'm not sure I buy that, because Ron de Santis is just not nearly as skillful a politician as Donald Trump, and so hard

to say who's the stronger general election candidate. But I think it is foolish that Democrats at this point are actually wishing for Donald Trump to be the nominee once again, and has a lot of echoes of twenty sixteen, when they thought the same thing. They thought he'd be so weak in the general election, they thought it'd be a cake walk for Hillary Clinton, and we all know how that turned out. So I think we have a lot of echoes of history here. I completely agree with you.

I say this to everybody. Somebody's like, you really think Trump can win? I said, Hey, anybody who's in major nominee GOP or DEM, they can win. Can't win. That's it, period, end of story. You have no idea what's going to happen? None Like I could. I could lay out what We're almost two years away from election. Who knows what the economy is going. We could be at a full blown recession and Trump could be running, you know, on make

America great again. That sounds pretty good. You know, we could have a crazy escalation of the Ukraine wore and Trump is the only guy who's calling for peace in the election, and he gets re elected. You have or we could say it the other way. You know, Joe Biden's an old man. Yeah, yeah, we don't know what the future holds for him. And then even you know, if his health even just declines and people or thinking like, oh my god, we're gonna have Kamala Harris as the

commander in chief. No, thank you. There's a million ways that Donald Trump, even facing indictment or prison for whatever is coming down the bike here, could be walking back into the White House. Now, I'm not saying that's a guarantee. I do think he's weaker than he was before. I think he's hobbled by you know this. Certainly people were hated stop the steal and hated January sixth, and that clearly has been sort of like an albatross around his

neck with the general public. But never say never, man, don't underastimate this man. They always do. They always do. That's okay, I guess we talk about Okay. Thank you everybody for joining us for our emergency episode here. I hope you guys enjoyed it. As we said, we got Breaking Points dot com if you want to be able to watch the show on Spotify as well for all of our premium members, and we'll see you all later. If there's anything that happens over the weekend, we'll monitor

it and if necessary, we'll do another breaking thing. We'll see everybody later. Bye, yeall.