BONUS: Chris Hayes interviews Andrew Weissmann & Mary McCord 01:09:12

Hi, it's Andrew Weissman. I'm one of the hosts of Prosecuting Donald Trump, and I'm here to share with you another special bonus episode of the show. Over the weekend, Mary and I had a really great opportunity to talk with Chris Hayes in Austin, Texas, as part of the Texas Tribune Festival. And we were actually at this incredible event.

old theater that Harry Houdini had been in and looked like an old Broadway theater. Of course, that's what I would reference it as a native New Yorker. But Mary, I don't know what you thought. I thought it was awesome. The Paramount, it was beautiful. It was ornate and it was a really neat venue for our discussion. And I encourage people to take a listen because it's not the typical prosecuting Donald Trump podcast. We talked about whether there's a two-tiered system in our criminal justice system.

system in America, you know, two tiers between those who have wealth and those who have not. And we use that sort of as a jumping off point to talk about the prosecutions, of course, of Donald Trump and the differences between

civil accountability under civil law and accountability under criminal law. Yeah, it was really great. It reminded me so much of our conversation with Nicole of the 92nd Street Y and that we were able to sort of pull back and have a larger conversation. By the way, Mary, one of the phrases I've learned from you, which I'm going to quickly adopt, but I will reference you as the originator, is people who are experiencing wealth.

Did I get that right? Yes. Yes. People who are experiencing wealth. You got that right. Anyway, we had a really great time. I hope you all enjoyed the conversation. Hey, everybody. How are we doing? Am I lit here? I'm lit. It's great to be here in Austin, Texas. Great to be here at the Tribune Fest. Thank you all for coming. We do this podcast, Why Is This Happening? It comes out every week on Tuesdays. And I'm going to start today's show with a thought experiment, which is intended as a kind of provocation.

So let's imagine a construction project, maybe a building being rebuilt. And on that construction project, there's copper laying around. And someone who is desperate, poor, maybe in the throes of substance use disorder comes upon that construction site and steals $500 in copper wire.

and there's a security camera, and that person is caught, and they are charged. That person has committed, I think we would all agree, and the law certainly agrees, that person who's stolen $500 of copper wire, by the way, this happens a lot, copper's pretty expensive, that person who's stolen $500 in copper wire is now facing criminal charges. They are squarely on the wrong side of the criminal law regime. They have committed a crime, or at least until that's been proven guilty in alleged crimes.

Now, when this construction project ends and it's all finished, the developer of the project owes the contractor $50,000. And the developer of the project just says, I'm not paying you. What are you going to do about it? That's also something that happens. That contractor has had essentially $50,000 stolen from them. I think we would all agree, like at an intuitive moral level, right? They have had $50,000 stolen.

But the developer has not committed a crime. If you try to go to the police station down the block from this construction site to say, this guy stole $50,000 from me, they're going to tell you, buddy, get a lawyer. That's not our job. That's going to be a civil suit. If the law is going to deal with the $50,000 that this developer has not paid the contractor, that is going to happen through civil litigation. They're going to have to get a lawyer and they're going to have to sue them.

And I think about this, the reason I'm talking about this is to think about the sort of status of the person who steals $500 worth of copper wire versus the developer who essentially steals $50,000 from the contractor and which side of the law they fall on and how the law deals with each of them. So the person that steals $500 in copper wire is going to be charged with a crime and they're in the regime of criminal law.

The developer who has stiffed the contractor for $50,000 is not going to be charged with a crime, definitely not going to be arrested, certainly not going to go to jail and not be bailed out. They're not going to have to experience what that looks like. They're going to face civil litigation. Now, the lawyers in the room are saying, well, yeah, but there's differences between criminal and civil law. But I want to just make this provocation to start tonight before I introduce my guests and talk about the most important and consequential criminal prosecutions that have probably ever happened in the history of the republic.

From a sociological standpoint, if you just came from Mars, right, if you were sort of an alien anthropologist observing the way that the law works, it wouldn't be the craziest conclusion to say that what criminal law does is it is the regime of law used for people who are poor and without power, and civil law is the regime for people who have power and money. That's actually really...

Whatever the sort of legal theories about what distinguishes someone from a criminal violation or a civil one, at a sociological level, if you go to an overnight booking at a local criminal court here in Austin or in New York where I live or anywhere, sociologically, you're going to see people getting run through that system that are pretty consistent demographically. And if you work for a big law firm doing civil litigation, you're going to see a very opposite demographic of the folks that are involved in that sort of thing.

And so the provocation from this thought experiment is to think about what it means of the way that civil law functions in our society and criminal law functions. And the person in some ways who best represents as a human being in lived experience that exact provocation I'm making is the former president of the United States, now criminal defendant Donald Trump. Donald Trump stole a lot of stuff from a lot of people. I mean, there are piano tuners everywhere.

This is true from Atlantic City, who still haven't gotten their $15,000. In fact, he was notorious, notorious around New York for stiffing contractors. There's a fairly plausible facial case to make that he committed tax fraud for years, as revealed in the New York Times story. And he has also been involved in more litigation probably than almost any other person in the country. Hundreds and hundreds of lawsuits. But he's rich and he's powerful.

And everything that's ever happened to him with regards to the law has happened in the regime of civil law. Criminal law are for Harlem teenagers who get accused of a brutal crime in Central Park and sent away. That's what criminal law is. And what's so fascinating about the path that we have before us with the former president now facing 91 counts of felony indictments in four different jurisdictions is a real, almost existential test of what the law is.

What is the law for? What is criminal law for? What does it mean to be a nation of laws or a society under the rule of law? A system that exists largely in the context of people that, again, at a sociological level, poor, don't have a lot of power. That system is going to attempt to secure a conviction against the most powerful person it's ever tried to secure a conviction against. Can it do it?

and I can't think of a better group of people, two people to have that conversation with, than my next guest. I'm going to ask you to give a warm round of applause and welcome to the hosts of the Prosecuting Donald Trump podcast, Andrew Weissman and Mary McCord. For conversational efficiency purposes, I did not give your very, very long and august bios. You're both very fancy people with long CVs and many years working in the government and as you've worked as prosecutors.

So I want to just start with this, like your response to this provocation. Like, I know, again, I know, I know. I'm not a lawyer, but through the magic of marital osmosis, I've learned a thing or two. And I understand theoretically. But what do you think about when you think about like the fact that here's this guy who really has stolen money from people?

in an intuitive moral sense, who's never actually, he's never been in handcuffs, right? And what it says about how the law operates and what criminal law is for. So I think, you know, we definitely have examples of rich people who have had to face criminal penalties. Think Bernie Madoff, Jeffrey Epstein,

Jeffrey Skilling, Michael Milken. The Supreme Court kind of walked that one back. Yeah. Pretty crucially. He did 12 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As this audience may know. And Michael Milken, ironically, prosecuted by Rudy Giuliani, pardoned by Donald Trump, right? So it's not as though people who are extraordinary, wealthy, always escape criminal prosecution, but they're definitely the system operates differently. And that's from somebody who

spent most of my career prosecuting. And I think it's for a lot of reasons. And it's oftentimes not because of the way the prosecutors would view a case. It's because of the resources that the people who are wealthy have, right? So they oftentimes, if they're being investigated, because it's usually not for a street crime like stealing copper tubing or copper wire, it's oftentimes for some sort of white collar offense, securities fraud, insider trading, you

You know, of course, in the case of Epstein, it was...

sex trafficking of minors, that's a little bit different than your normal, right? But a lot of times these investigations are known before there are criminal charges. So people with wealth, they're able to hire very high-powered, well-connected attorneys who put armies of associates on the case. And the government oftentimes, there are exceptions to this, Enron and others, exceptions, which you can talk about. Government is usually pretty leanly staffed, right? And so they're outnumbered already from the beginning.

oftentimes can work their magic to have the case never brought to begin with or have some resolution. And so most of your criminal defendants, like your hypothetical person who stole the copperware case,

You know, they are indigent. They can't afford to hire an attorney. They have an attorney appointed for them, a public defender. Some public defenders, like in Washington, D.C., where I practiced law, are excellent. The federal public defender and the local public defender. New York City also has excellent public defenders.

But other parts of the countries, the public defenders have four or five hundred cases a person, right? The best they can kind of do is just get in there and do their best at trial, right? And so the system is stacked really from the get-go. So there is something of a two-tiered system here. But with respect to Donald Trump, he, of course, has never been on the other side of the V in a criminal case. And I think that's partly why you see him lashing out. He has figured he could just

buy his way out of every wrong that he's ever committed through attorneys like the now-disbarred Roy Cohn and through bankruptcy multiple times, right? And now I think he is, you know, his back is against the wall. He doesn't act like that, but it is, and he can't buy his way out of it.

So I love your hypothetical because it seems like it's a perfect amalgam of why is this happening and prosecuting Donald Trump. So it's like two podcasts merged. And I think it raises interesting but I think very different issues. I mean, one is a sort of big picture issue of

What do we criminalize and why do we criminalize something? And they're definitely before when we were listening to this, Mary and I were saying, you know, in the 19th century in England that you would have had a different result because there was debtor's prison. And so you can have just different criminal laws that would work differently. I think that, you know, if the other sort of like a smaller picture issue is, you

who is most affected by criminal and civil laws, there's no question the civil system is for wealthier people, both because of the cost of entry into it and meaning the bringing of a lawsuit and the lawyers that you need.

And then you're not going to usually sue somebody who doesn't have any money. It's like, what's the point? So it's just going to be about wealthier people in the civil system. On the criminal system, for the reasons Mary said, there's no question there's a complete racial disparity. But I'm not sure that's because of what is criminalized as opposed to

how it's actually implemented. I spent, I think, almost my entire career after my first year as a prosecutor prosecuting wealthy white people, whether it was in organized crime, the Enron task force,

or at the fraud section where we did corporate cases but that is really unusual we're talking about the federal system and it's even unusual within the federal system but remember the federal system's like a tiny little pimple on an elephant right you know in terms of you know who goes who's getting prosecuted so usually as mary knows from from prosecuting in dc that is just very much you know black and brown communities being disproportionately prosecuted um but

This is then my third point is just relating it to Donald Trump. It's sort of like this is all really interesting. But here you have these are crimes that are just so like you don't have to really get into sort of the niceties of the law. It's like, let's see, overthrowing a presidential election, as Mary and I know, having been in the intelligence community, it's not just crime.

mishandling documents. I mean, this is disseminating national security documents to a third party. I mean, very often people say, oh, you know, if I did that, I've been locked up. And sometimes I'm thinking, well, that's probably not exactly right. This is one where it is. Mary and I, if we did anything even close to that, handcuffs, off we go. So it's just so egregious in terms of a

applying it to Donald Trump and what he's alleged to have done. Yeah, I mean, I, to be clear, agree completely. And I think that, you know, the way that these two systems function is partly things that happen before you even get to the law, right? Like the structure of American society, who has wealth, who has power before you get to the law. But what it brings up to me, which is really this really kind of important and high stakes question before the country now, which is the nature of the law, because Donald Trump has a theory of the law.

And his theory of the law is rule by power. Actually, it's a theory of the law that I've only encountered in like leftist undergraduate circles, you know, which is basically like that bourgeois liberalism is a joke and that the laws that you're so into are actually just the cloakings of power. And power is what determines the law. And Donald Trump believes that both as a descriptive matter, like he thinks that describes how the law functions, and also as a normative matter. Mm-hmm.

He thinks that's the way the law should function. The law is just rule by force, right? Might makes right, essentially. I will prosecute my political enemies. And then on the other side of that, you have the Merrick Garland, facts and the law, facts and the law, facts and the law. Like this very... You say that with all due respect. With all due respect to the Attorney General of the United States.

And, you know, I would love to hear you guys talk about this question, right? Because to me, I obviously think the Donald Trump theory is wrong. But I also find myself shrinking a little bit at this kind of facts in the law, balls and strikes. The thing that prosecutors are doing is no different than like measuring a fish you might have caught. Like you pull it out of the water and you're like, it's 11 inches. That's a crime. Like...

There's a lot of judgment. There's a lot of discretion. There's a lot of sociological institutions that are functioning together to produce a prosecution. That, to me, it's not that Donald Trump's critique is right. It's just that, like, what we're doing here, and particularly in the case of this guy, who, like everyone who's bringing the charges, knows what they're doing. Mm-hmm.

There is something different at some level about what's happening here. And I think that's partly because this is so unprecedented, right? So the rule of law, just as a general principle, is that the governed and the governing sort of agree to be bound by and accountable to a set of laws that are publicly public.

that are enforced evenly and fairly, and that when there are disputes, they'll be adjudicated by independent and neutral arbitrators, right? So those are like just the principles. That's good. Yeah, that's a good... Right. So, you know...

To your point, Donald Trump is, yeah, except me, except for me. I'm outside of that. That applies to everybody else. Or my friends. Or my friends, right? And so anybody powerful enough, anyone who's able to pull the levers of power, whether you're outside of the government or inside of the government, will you get accepted from that sort of rule of law? So I think what you see from people like Merrick Garland and all, you know, my former colleagues at the Department of Justice is they are just trying to strictly adhere to that rule

those principles. And independence is one of the critical ones because, you know, the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch. The president, when you are president, not when you are not president, is the leader of the executive branch. There's nothing, and you and I talked a little bit about this earlier, there's nothing in the Constitution that says, oh,

A president could not direct his attorney general to investigate cases he wants him to direct. And in fact, presidents do make sort of policy choices about what things are going to be priorities for the administration. And then they have a political appointee as the attorney general who implements policy. Edmund Mason pornography. Yeah.

I mean, that was a big thing. The barter just is going to go to court. Well, and think about during the Trump administration, Jeff Sessions was the first attorney general. There was like a zero tolerance at the border policy, you know, all these things. And that's implemented in ways that hadn't been implemented before. So there is leeway there, right, for there to be policy priorities under any administration. And an attorney general will typically –

you know, try to carry out some of those policy priorities. That's very different from, you know, making individual decisions about prosecuting one's political enemies. And maybe even though that's not in the Constitution, the Constitution has other things that protect defendants. Due process, you have a right to due process of law substantively and procedurally, and all of the other protections, constitutional protections that come along with that. So a lot of the things that have developed over time, and I think this is where Donald Trump just like

completely, you know, turn the table over on this. A lot of what has developed over centuries, but really I will say modern history, because if you go back too far, you start finding some pretty squirrely things. You really do. It's really post-Watergate. Let's be clear. It's really post-Watergate. Post-Watergate. You know, these are norms that career, Department of Justice, and I was always career, even when I was the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, I was in an acting capacity, so I always career. Career

Department of Justice attorneys, they just respect this idea of independence. And we will not be, as Merrick Garland said just this week, they're not there to be the president's lawyer. They're not there to be Congress's prosecutor. But Donald Trump really tries to turn that on its head. And I think that in doing so, I'll be curious, Andrew, what you think. I think he exposes what

probably a lot of people with wealth have always thought and always believed and sometimes been successful at, but never said it. Slash, I think that, and I'll let you respond, Andrew, but I think it's two things. I think it's people with wealth who have experienced the law that way. I think people without wealth who do feel like the system is rigged or whatever, right? That like, do you have a very cynical view that these people are all corrupt, that like, give me a break, you know, that like, and I think that's part of the appeal of that is that that's his message. Yeah.

So I think that

What Donald Trump has done is quickly learned where there are fissures in the structure that's created and where he can exert power. So I was on the special counsel Mueller investigation. There it was about he could do essentially a Saturday night massacre. You know what? I can fire these people. He can issue pardons. He can dangle pardons. He was like figuring out what can he do

Now he is, since he is not the president, he can sit there and say, okay, you know what? I can't fire, but maybe I can defund them and cause a stop that way. Because I can't, I do not have the power, but maybe I can get my friends in Congress to defund them and figure out how to use them as a lever of power. I can use fear.

One of the more chilling aspects of the Mitt Romney report is coming out of people saying, "I decided not to follow my oath of office as a senator because I was concerned about my family and friends," which, you know, as former prosecutors and seeing witnesses and judges and jurors

you know, almost every day of the week, follow their oaths of office. In spite of that, it was incredibly disheartening to see that report. But he uses fear and actual real violence to have people say, you know what?

Maybe we shouldn't stand up here. So he has various levers to use that, of course, if you're somebody who's really disenfranchised, you're going to be thinking this is like outrageous. I mean, it's outrageous no matter what. But obviously, for people who are in the criminal justice system thinking, I don't have any

anything close to this, let alone the resources to even hire X, Y, and Z defense lawyers. There's a total, I would say it's more than a two-tier system, but that's sort of a given. And just to relate it to Enron, since we're out here in Texas, I mean, there, Jeff Skillings had more partners

him than we had on the end-on-task force. And that's one defendant. Right. And there were a slew of defendants. Now, the thing is... And that was a big task force for a prosecution. Yeah, that's right. I mean, that was big. And the message there is not that defendants shouldn't have good representation. Instead, it's so disproportionate. Yes. And it's also disproportionate when the

The judges are of the same background demographically as the defendants. And things get said, like when somebody was sentencing the head of investment banking at Merrill Lynch, the judge in Houston said, you know, you, unlike other people who appear in front of me, you will not suffer the opprobrium

that most people don't suffer from this opprobrium. You will, because you're going from head of investment banking to being convicted. The judge said that? Yeah, so it's very... So you have this extra...

review and scrutiny that's like a thumb on the scale if you are a certain type of person. And again, it's not that there shouldn't be that. It's just should be applying to everyone. You brought this up because I want to talk. Let's talk about the two cases brought by the special counsel because you talked about this. And you know,

This sort of the norms of the independence of the Justice Department really are in their current incarnation of post Watergate. Right. The Saturday Night Massacre catalyzes and sort of makes active. And this is both in, I think, some in statute and some in norms. Right. This idea of DOJ independence, because it just, you know, intuitively, I think we would all agree. Right. It just cannot be the case. Right.

that the federal government's Department of Justice, you know, if the president wants, you know, if he has a statutory authority on like, you know, some new traffic initiative and like that's his prerogative, right? But it just can't be the case of like, I want you to go investigate these 10 people. We all kind of understand that. But there is a kind of like Chekhov's gun about the Department of Justice to me that sort of hangs over all of this, which is like when Merrick Garland says,

We're not the president's lawyer. We're not Congress's. We're there for the people. It's like, well, who do you answer to? Right? Like, who does the Department of... Who does Merrick Garland answer to? Like, at one level, he answers to Joe Biden, who's the president who appointed him. But at another level, he can't really on some of these questions, particularly vis-a-vis these two independent prosecutors. One is going to be prosecuting the president's son. One is going to be prosecuting the president's likely opponent. And I guess my question is like,

How should we think about the special prosecutor's office and what that really means, even at a ground level, Mary? Like,

How it's operating, what it means to say they're independent. Yeah. So it's interesting because I think there's a lot of confusion about the idea of special counsel because under the special counsel regulations, they really are treated very much like a U.S. attorney, right? So we have 93 U.S. attorneys out there that represent the various... They're broken down by essentially judicial district across the country. And...

They operate, I spent 20 years in one, and I would tell you, I spent 20 years trying to avoid ever going down the street to main justice because we felt like for DC, we make our decisions. Leave us alone. Forget the White House. We didn't even want to deal with the attorney general, right? Like we had one political- How dare you? Exactly. The US attorney, we're responsible for deciding what priorities are in the District of Columbia based on what the threats are.

Both violent and nonviolent, white collar, what have you, national security. Although that's a whole different story because you have to get involved with the main justice in national security cases. And so I think that, I think a lot of people think the special counsel has some other degree of independence. Right. It's just like a U.S. That's actually super useful. Yeah. They're just the U.S. attorney without a physical...

Right. They don't have their own U.S. Attorney's Office because U.S. attorneys and special counsel have to do these things called urgent reports. When you're going to take any step in a significant or sensitive or high-profile investigation, that means take covert steps in your investigation, bring charges, make a sentencing recommendation. You have to send a report up to the attorney general. So does the special counsel. Right.

Now, the special counsel, the decisions and the attorney general's ability to overrule those decisions are a little bit different because I suppose the attorney general for any reason could just overrule a U.S. attorney, whereas the special counsel regulations say that if the

the attorney general thinks that a decision of the special counsel is so unwarranted, right, or unjustified, then he could overturn it. And then he knows he'll ultimately have to report that to Congress. So that's where it's a little different. But it still is not total independence. So when David Weiss brought charges against Hunter Biden, those went up to Merrick Garland. Just like when Jack Smith brought charges against Donald Trump, those went up to Merrick Garland. So I'd add a couple things. Just...

When you want to bring a tax case, since that's in the news, you have to get tax division authority. So even if you're a special counsel, you have to do that. When we brought tax charges against Paul Manafort and I remember thinking, you know what, this may help us because it's like, it's not just us. This is actually the whole department. When we wanted to bring foreign agent registration act cases, we had to get the national security division approval. So there, there's

It really is very embedded within DOJ. I think the main thing about special counsels, though, is that these are internal DOJ guidelines. And to your point about just sort of how ethereal and wispy this is, the reason that the special counsel internal DOJ regulations are constitutional, because we litigated it, I think, three times in the Mueller case,

is because they're so wispy. And I remember... But if they were stronger than that, they might not pass constitutional law. They basically, yes. It failed in the past, right? The wording was that special counsel Mueller was constitutional because he is a, quote,

subordinate officer, which we kept on teasing him about. So you're just a subordinate officer, and he loved that. But that was why it was constitutional, meaning that any day of the week, the attorney general can go, these are my regulations, and now they're not. I mean, he can do whatever he wants. Which, again, which is on the other side of this accountability question, sort of important, right? I mean, at some level, someone's got to

be respond like has to answer to someone who ultimately derives their power from the

American people who elected. Yeah, but isn't the answer to that, even though prosecutors have enormous discretion about what deals they make, who they're going to charge, the Hunter Biden case is a perfect example. There are all sorts of ways that could have been charged, could not be charged, how it's going to proceed. But at the end of the day, I think the check, if you say you want to have an independent DOJ from the president, it's like, who do they answer to?

Well, in this country, you can get charged, but you need to have a grand jury. Now, I know that's just probable cause, so that's a low threshold. That's what we all have. But at the end of the day, you have to prove guilt to...

You guys. So I think that is the ultimate check. And I know that's a little harsh when it's the person has to live through that. That's the question, right? Like because the question I have about this and I've run this again, I'll I've thought about this a lot. Like the Durham Durham prosecutions are great. Right. Where people know there's a sort of anti special counsel, special counsel. People know about John Durham.

Like Trump, right, you're right. So they made like a special counsel to investigate the special counsel or like- I've heard it. Investigate the investigators. I've heard of that, Chris. Yeah, you've heard of that. Like undo their work. And then like he clearly went on this insane goose chase. It went longer than the Mueller office. It cost more money, brought some-

Did he lose three cases? He had one guilty plea and he lost the two trials, which means, just to be clear, 24 jurors found that there was not proof beyond reasonable test. This is wild. This never happens. Never. Never. The way DOJ's win rate is like 98% or something to lose two trials. And so in that case...

the ultimate check to you. That's a great example of the ultimate check, right? It can't just be politics because we actually sort of almost ran the experiment. It's clear that's what Durham was. It's clear that's, that was his mission was to go sort of settle scores politically and 24 different jurors were like, nah, dude. But then the question I have is about, here's my question for you. And I've been thinking about this with Hunter Biden. I want an honest answer. If you took anyone in this room, anyone on stage,

And you had enough time and resources. Could you find a prosecutable crime to prosecute him for? No. You guys are all... Specifically that dude in the fourth row. Well, Chris, I don't know you well enough, but I can say with Mary, the answer is no way. I think I would agree. I think that's the case. I mean, right. So A, you don't know the answer. But I guess my question is like...

They dug and dug and dug, right? Because the Hunter Biden thing feels a little like that. Now, Robby's is a man who's obviously have incredible, we know has committed crimes because by his own admission, he has had a long history with substance addiction that has involved illegal substances. So there's no question that Hunter Biden's committed crimes. We know that. He's sort of a special case. But the broader question, which is like this kind of, if you just go, if you've just chose someone, can you come up with not something that secures conviction, right?

but a colorable jaywalking, you know. That to me, though, is really the issue that I think is legitimately raised in terms of asking yourself,

with respect to Donald Trump, or frankly, any defendant, is are you treating that person comparably? And if you're not, if there's some slight, if there's some difference, is there a legitimate reason for that? Because sometimes there is. And I just think with, just take the big picture, which is Donald Trump, because, I mean, Hunter Biden, he's, you know, he's, it's just such a non-issue in terms of big picture. Donald Trump, okay, so let's do the test of,

Is he being treated comparably to anyone else? Would he, if his name were John Smith, would he be charged?

In the Mar-a-Lago documents case, Mary and I can tell you 100%. And that's not an opinion. There are documented DOJ cases of people who have done far less. There was like an Air Force lieutenant colonel in Florida. Exactly. Junior people go to jail for this. Again, you want to look at that. And I think that's a fair question to ask.

And I think with respect to the January 6th cases, you really don't even have to go very far. You have to go to the hundreds of people in DOJ. And one of the things that's just so unique about the courthouse that he's in is the judges there have been amazing.

inundated with those cases. So the reason you're hearing judges who have said, essentially, where is the white collar component of this case? We're seeing the foot soldiers, what are called the blue collar crime, is they every day have been seeing this. So when you're thinking about comparability, there you're saying, wait a second, the people who are more culpable are not in the door. Yeah, we've run hundreds of people through this building. Yeah, and this brings me, so let's talk, I mean,

Let's talk about the actual cases here, because I like this theoretical stuff. But, you know, it's funny when you're like for me, like during an election season, it's like everyone, as long as humans, you know, first evolve, like we want to know the future and we can't like that is our lot. And, you know, you could do you could read the stars, you could do goat entrails, you could do tea leaves, you can go to crystal balls or you can like aggregate polls like it's all the same stuff because it's like we want to know the future and yet we can't.

So people will ask me during the election, you're like, who's going to win? I'm like, I can't tell you. But what I want to be is like, is he going to be convicted? Like, what's going to happen? What is your best assessment? Let's talk about the Jan 6 case. Let's talk about Shutkin and March, which seems to me on the way forward. What's your best assessment of what the next six months look like?

So there's a lot of variables there. I think that definitely Judge Chutkin, by choosing that date, which was, you know, faster than Donald Trump wanted. He wanted 2026, but it was slower than with- That was so funny. That was a very funny bit. Yeah, it was. Legitimately funny. So it's like, after I'm dead, you can prosecute me, basically. Does Neverwork

Yeah, never. That's never is what he wanted. Because if he wins or if any Republican wins, that becomes never. So, and I think she, you know, she set out a scheduling order with interim dates for everything. You know, people always focus on the trial date, but there's dates that motions have to be filed. There's dates that witness lists have to be presented. There's dates that discovery has to be finished. All these kind of things. It's all set out very carefully. But that's...

That could all get derailed if there are decisions that have to get made on motions that are appealable. Now, normally in a criminal case, there are very few things that a defendant can appeal until the end of the trial.

It's called interlocutory appeals or ones that you can do before an actual verdict. And those are very limited. And they're really limited to things that if you don't get that chance to appeal now, like you will be irretrievable. You know, you cannot, it's irreparable. You can't undo it. Now, you might say, well, isn't that the case for all criminal defendants? Let's assume you went through a trial, you were convicted. Let's assume you were detained pretrial, which of course he is not. And then you win your appeal.

It's pretty irreparable, right? Yeah, can I get those? Yeah. Can I get the year I did in Rikers back? Exactly, right? But here they're talking, it really means things that you have a constitutional right to that you would then lose. So let's talk about things like immunity, right?

We know that Mr. Trump's attorney has said, I will be filing a motion to dismiss this case on the grounds of presidential immunity. That's executive immunity basically saying you're prosecuting me for things that were within my authority as president to do. And I can't be prosecuted for that.

So assuming that he files that, he's been saying he's filing it for a few weeks and he still hasn't filed it. But assuming he files that and assuming that is denied by Judge Chutkin, that's one of those things that you can't put back in the bottle. Because if you're immune from a suit, it means you don't even have to stand trial for it. You're immune. Kind of like double jeopardy, right? If you've been put in jeopardy once through a trial, you can't be made to do it again. Right.

So that's something that is almost certainly appealable, right? So that throws the schedule off and she can't really go forward, at least with trial, because then that would violate this idea of immunity. So that means the Court of Appeals would have to, you know, make an expedited schedule to brief it. Let's assume that the Court of Appeals denies, you know, agrees with Judge Chutkan and does not grant Mr. Trump immunity. Guess where he goes next?

the Supreme Court. Now, they don't have to take a case and maybe they wouldn't. But I'm thinking that when we're talking about, you know, a year of an election and a candidate for election, the former president of the United States, it's something they'll they'll think long and hard about. More of our conversation after this quick break.

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Rachel Maddow presents Ultra, season two of the chart-topping original podcast. All episodes available now. I mean, I guess my feeling on this, again, this is not a legal determination, but it's a political one, is that we are not going to get through the first ever prosecution of an ex-president without the Supreme Court weighing in somewhere. Yeah.

And my fear, Andrew, is that the way they weigh in is the way that they weighed in on redistricting in Alabama in an election year, in the Milligan case, in which a suit was brought saying, these maps violate the Voting Rights Act. And they said, yeah, we'll argue it, but suck it up and just deal with them for now. We'll get to it later. The map stayed in place in election year. A Republican was elected in one of the districts that probably would have been redistricted for a Democrat.

The case went up. They had merits briefs and arguments, and they found, for the plaintiffs, that the maps were wrong. But it's like, well, too bad, too late. My fear is that they try to get something through unimmunity to interlocutory appeal, and there's this, like, the worst case scenario is, like, a shadow docket...

unsigned something that's just like, yes, Donald Trump gets to escape until afterwards. We're putting this on pause. So I'm usually not the optimist. Right. And there's no question that Mary is flagging, I think, the one sort of real unknown that could throw this off.

But I don't, I just, as horrendous as the last term of the Supreme Court was on so many levels, I

I don't see this happening. And I think Judge Chutkan knows exactly what she's doing. As I said, I think the March 4th date, I don't know what was in her head, but it is notable to me that that was the, that was for a very, very long time until, what is it, 1930 or so, was the inauguration date. It was the date that our constitution went into effect. It just seems impossible to me to think that that didn't have, she didn't know that. That date is also a full English sentence.

March 4th. Thank you so much, Chris. That's a fun bit of trivia. You guys, that's free. Keep that. Yeah, I like that. Use it next time. Okay, that's... Okay. So...

I think that it's, I just think that if I had to bet, I would say it's going to go forward. I think she knew what she was doing by setting the date before the Florida Judge Cannon date, that she was not going to be held hostage to whatever shenanigans go on there. And I, so I just think that's going to happen. And I also think the federal prosecutors, I think, have a very good sense of keeping the case in

as short as possible and streamlined. That's usually a very good thing for prosecutors. But is what you're saying, I just want to, because if they are able to get something, immunity and a locatory appeal, you know, and I agree with, I think it's clear that Chauvin's going to not roll for that and I would suspect that.

that the DC circuit would also rule the same way. It's a very difficult argument. Yes, right. Yes. It's a bad, well, it's bad. Yes. Yes. That would be the word. I was overthrowing the government in my presidential duties is a ludicrous argument on its face. The, I guess the question is like, just to game it out, like if they were like, yes, we're going to grant cert on this.

If they're going to be super cynical, the conservative majority, and they're just like, we're going to basically bail out Donald Trump and we're hitting pause on this until we can, you know...

But the non-cynical way to do it would be some kind of expedited review, right? Like they're just like, yeah, we're going to hear it. We're going to hear it in two weeks or something. And the reason I'm optimistic on this point, I think it might derail March 4th, but I don't think it'll derail until after the election. That's the big question. Partly because I do think at least a majority of the justices would vote

feel the gravity of the issue and the need to resolve it quickly. It would just look so Kraven. It would look really bad. Right? Yeah, it would look really bad. And I just don't think they have enough votes for Kraven. To be that Kraven, yes. I think they sort of are dealing with the Kraven on 303 Creative, on Dobbs. They're going to save it for that. I just don't know that they have...

But also because they're also more in the bank for craving. That's right. And also because there's real ideological stakes there of things that they crave it or not believe. Like, believe it. Like, they don't want, you know, they think abortion is not a constitutional right. People in the majority, like, they really believe that. They really believe that their entire adult lives and they're willing to take the flack for it.

- And you bail Donald Trump out for prosecution has very different ideological stakes. - And we've seen them move quickly on Trump things before. Remember just a couple of years ago when the House Select Committee sought presidential records from the White House as part of its investigation, even though Donald Trump was no longer president, he asserted executive privilege over that. Biden says, "I am the president, I'm not asserting executive privilege." Donald Trump sued, Judge Chutkan had this case, she found there was no executive privilege,

The D.C. Circuit had expedited briefing. They found no executive privilege. It went to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court, within days, denied a stay, a stay that would have made the, you know, overruled. And I know all these dates, but...

because my organization represented the House Select Committee along with the General Counsel. And so this is how this kind of litigation works. You brief the district court case over Halloween. You brief the circuit case over Thanksgiving. We briefed the Supreme Court case over Christmas and New Year's. So for those of you who want to be a litigator, that's what your life looks like. But then the Supreme Court acted. They acted fast, right? And the day that they denied the stay, a stay of the circuit court's order,

the documents started flowing. That, within hours. So that's, that is a great reassurance. And grounded in history, right? Which is like, they could have been craven there. They could have bailed out. They could have delayed and they didn't. I think you're right, like, when I think it through about the amount of, and again, they're not idiots on the court. I mean, they understand...

the broader implications of this. They understand where they're pulling. They understand these legitimacy questions. I think, like, when I say it out, I think you're reassuring me that they're not going to do the worst possible most craven thing. In terms of the charges themselves...

The one that sticks out to me as the most obvious and black and white is the conspiracy to obstruct official proceeding, right? That's one of them. That is one of them. I hate to say it, there is... There's an issue. There's an issue. I mean, like in the law... Oh, really? Yes, in the law, nothing's clean. Right, of course, yes. There's always complications. And so...

And so that charge, which is a sort of bread and butter charge in the January 6th cases, and that has gone up to the D.C. Circuit. There was a fractured decision on a whole variety of issues, including does Congress count?

as one of the institutions covered by the obstruction statute. As an official proceeding. Was that proceeding on January 6th an official proceeding? It's just a statutory issue. Was that encompassed? There's an issue about what is the intent standard. So this is actually kind of important because the court was wrestling with, both the district court and the Court of Appeals, with the issue of

Could somebody be criminally charged for obstruction if they are waving a sign in the hearing and that causes it to be delayed? And you're thinking that if that really wasn't something that was intended, that's obviously really different than, you know. Concussing cops. Exactly. And that actually that is the line that the two to one in.

And the circuit said, if there's violence, we don't really have to get to the complications because this is so clearly covered. So that will be an issue. But that's going to be Mary's point. That's going to be after the trial where Donald Trump gets to say, oh, you charged it wrong and you should use this. That should not be decided before. Is there a particular charge that you think is the cleanest or the clearest charge?

I think the first, the 371 conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the government, I mean, that's a theory that's been used time and time again. Never, of course, in these circumstances because we haven't seen anything like that. But it's not, you know, the obstruction of official proceedings has been used with, you know, many, many, many of the January 6th rioters. It's been used in other circumstances. It has its genesis in a very, I mean...

Andrew knows better than anybody is Genesis, so I'll leave that for him to talk about. But it's being applied to something new here. It seems very logical that it should apply. But we have lots and lots of cases of just conspiracy to defraud the government. And when you put together that whole package of facts that are alleged in that indictment, the multi-pronged conspiracy to overturn the will of the people through the fraudulent elector scheme, the pressure on state officials, the pressure on state legislatures,

the pressure on Mike Pence, you know, all of this is very much to defraud the government of carrying out an election and, you know, a peaceful transition of power. Yeah, it's that one. Narratively, I like the fact that it's also the same charge that Mueller brought against Evgeny Prokhozhin, who was, of course, the now departed Russian mercenary slash war criminal who

whose, you know, internet trolls were getting up to all sorts of stuff in the 2016 election. That's sort of interesting to me. But it just feels like

you know the fraud aspect of this seems so obvious to me again like as a non-lawyer particularly with the you know he wasn't one of the fake electors but particularly with the fake electors it's like you signed a document saying a thing that is just not wasn't true and you knew it wasn't true and then you gave it to the government to say this is true and that just seems like

facially frowned. I mean, to me, there's a through line when you think about what Donald Trump has done. So let's...

focus on the first impeachment. There, the fraud was, I want to gin up by withholding vital military aid, which now we understand just how vital, to get you to say you are doing this investigation, because without them, I get to then run and attack Biden and his son based on a fake investigation without telling the American public

that this was paid and bought for, that I essentially extorted Zelensky to do it. The fake electors, same thing. And one of the things in DC that's charged is in order to get some of the fake electors to go along, they said, "Don't worry, this is just a contingency if we win in the States." But that's not in fact how it was gonna be used and was used.

The same thing at the Department of Justice. Jeff Clark, who was the acting attorney general for a day, the idea was that he wrote a letter that was, again, to say the Department of Justice has a real investigation, but it didn't, and had actually found strong evidence of fraud when they did it. So they could use it to undermine and convince people in the states to do something different. We'll be right back after we take this quick break.

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People talk a lot about this sort of intense frame of mind defense, right? Which I'd love to hear. You guys have talked about this a lot, but for people that have not, you know, listened to your podcast or watched shows where you guys have been on, you know, basically the line goes something like this. He's not a criminal. He's genuinely delusional and truly is so reality addled.

that he thought that it was the case that the Chinese government had used Italian satellites and software coded by the ghost of Hugo Chavez to systematically move tens of thousands of votes away from him. He really believed that. That's the argument. And that good luck trying to prove otherwise, because the guy is such a nutcase, you'll never be able to nail him. What do you think of that?

I used to, you know, defense lawyers used to come into me and make arguments like that as to why their clients should not be charged. And I used to give a standard response, which was, that's a jury argument. Like, go ahead, say that to the jury. Good luck with that. Right. Because the idea that the...

I mean, this is where it's like, let's just grow up. This is -- I mean, we are not children. This is the leader of the free world.

I mean, this is like the leader of the free world. One of the things he recently said on TV was that he wasn't even sure what a subpoena required. I mean, of all people to your opening, I mean, somebody who has his litigation experience, I think he would know what a subpoena is, even if he weren't the leader of the free world. So that's like, you want to say that you're completely delusional to have at it, see if a juror agrees with you. And, you know, the other point of it is that even if he,

firmly and honestly believed that the election was rigged, there are things that he did that you still just don't get to do. Correct. You just don't get to make up false certificates and pressure people to do them and then pressure your vice president to throw the whole thing out. Right.

even if you think you won. There are other, you know what you can do? You can go bring lawsuits. Do you know what he did? He brought more than 65 lawsuits and he lost them. So there are ways to deal with that. And there are also important tells, to Andrew's point, there are important tells that are, some of which are in the indictment,

which shows times when he sort of weakly forgot to stick with the program of, I firmly believe this, you know, things. I can't believe I lost to this guy. Or how about telling the vice president, you're too honest. Yes. That would be a pretty good sign that he wasn't delusional. I mean, that is truly an amazing line. You're too honest.

Yeah, that's what you want the leader of the free world to be saying to their vice president. Do you think, how long a trial do you think this is? That first one, that Jan 6 trial?

The government has said four weeks. Four weeks, I think is what they've said. Yeah. You know, it depends because it hit pre-trial motions practice where the sides will argue about what can and can't come into evidence. Those can sometimes narrow issues. Yeah.

You know, the government will always start with a very long list of witnesses and so will the defense. And then sometimes once they start seeing how their case is going, going for, you know, how witnesses are doing, they'll kind of jettison a few. Defense will oftentimes have a long list and then end up calling nobody. Yeah. Because remember, it's the government's burden. If they feel good at the end of the government's case that... Why screw it up? Why screw it up? So Chris, I have a...

since I always tell anecdotes to Mary to her chagrin, I was...

about to go to trial for the boss of the Genovese family, Vincent Giganti. And Judge Weinstein, really revered judge in the Eastern District of New York, said, "How long is your trial going to be?" And we said, "Eight weeks." And he said, "No, it's not." And because he's such a wonderful man, we were like, "Okay, judge, well, how long is our trial going to be?" Meaning like, how long are you going to allow us to go? And he said,

Okay, you said eight, four weeks. And the best thing that ever happened to us was his saying that, where we pared it down to what we needed.

It's just so much better for the government. I mean, that's the thing about jury trials, too, is you've got an audience. Like, if we met, you know, I hope you guys are enjoying this. But you're probably starting to enjoy it less at hour four, I think. That's right. By the way, we're going to be here for four weeks. Yeah, so exactly. Imagine four weeks of this. And again, it's like, that's...

You guys are going to be who's going to decide. I mean, that's, I mean, I think a lot of you defense attorneys would try to strike actually. It's based on your reactions here, but, um, uh,

That would be a great question for the jury questionnaires. It'd be really great to have a question. Are you listening to why is this happening? Yes, what podcast do you listen to is actually probably a pretty good one. So it's yeah, I think in terms of that, I mean, the other thing that is so wild about it, too, when you think about like the actual presenting of that case is like Mike Pence is going to be on the stand, right?

He's definitely going to be on the witness list. I think he's going to be called. He's pretty key. He's really key. I mean, that is a wild thing to think about. It is. Like, Mike Pence, the whole, you know, so help me God, sits down, like, gets, you know, questioned. Then there's going to be a cross of the president's lawyer? Yeah. You know, isn't it true you're too honest? Probably not a question. I don't think he's going to ask that question. But like,

It's just, it's wild to think of, there's something that's really wild when you talk about like trial of the century, to consider the kinds of people that are going to be on the stand in what is going to be the most significant criminal trial in, again, I think in the country's history, I don't think it's even that arguable.

I think that's right. No question. And that brings up the fact that we're in federal court. So unless the Supreme Court decides to change the rules, there will be no cameras in the courtroom. So we're going to have to be relying on journalists who are in there, you know, reporting out

throughout the day about what's happening. And that's raising a lot of debate about whether the rule that has been part of the federal rules for a very long time is a good rule. And I have somewhat mixed feelings about it because I think the whole American public ought to be able to see this trial

and probably ought to be able to see almost all trials because it's transparency and how our, you know, talk about the double, you know, the double or more than double standard. There's no better way to kind of test out how our criminal system works than by having people see it. Totally. And particularly because

you know people's perception of the system are so skewed by either you know television representations um need law and order things like that or like the news at night or big trials like the oj simpson trial which was televised yep yeah you to actually like full transparency to see what's happening in that room on the other side trump you know

He and his attorneys will try to use it as part of the whole campaign stump speech, right? And so then you have this concern about it just giving them a free platform. So I come out on the side of transparency because I think for the betterment of the system as a whole, the rules should change. And the Georgia trial will be televised. That's going to be a very different set of trials. I shouldn't say trial because already we know there's going to be multiple. And the first one is right around the corner, a month away.

Is there a universe, Spiro Agnew famously was offered basically a... Deal. A deal.

in which my colleague, Rachel Meadows podcasts on this bag, man is amazing about this, but you haven't listened to, you should listen to the details of that are wild, similar to some sort of Robert Menendez details as well. Just like real, like low, low level, like just straight up bribery kind of stuff. That's what Menendez has been accused of by the government convicted, but the justice department,

basically, like, did a pretty wild thing, which is, like, resign and we'll not put you in prison. And I don't know, like, is there a universe where it's just, like, drop out and... No, you can't do that. It's too... You can't... Even as I say it, like, of course you can't say... He just wouldn't do it. I can't even imagine him doing it. He wouldn't do it, but, like, I don't know, man. There was a Rolling Stones story the other day about he's asking... Have you guys seen this? That he's asking his...

confidants and advisors, are they going to make me wear the orange jumpsuit? And... I'm sure it's great in orange. I don't know why that's so funny. It's amazing to imagine him there, like, pounding Diet Cokes and calling, like, one person after another, like, are they going to wear the jumpsuit, you know? But, like, I don't think he... The likelihood of him being convicted in these trials, particularly after four, is relatively high. He's obviously running for his freedom, but that's a high leverage bet.

Well, so if he were to win or to have an ally win, the two federal cases will go away. And it doesn't even involve a pardon. As to go to your point, whoever the president is, as the executive can just tell the Department of Justice, these cases are over. It doesn't even matter if there's been a trial and a conviction. They can say dismiss it, C-E-G Michael Flynn. So he's done that playbook.

And at the state level, if those haven't gone, they'll be told. Exactly. He will make the argument. And there's some reasoning that the Supreme Court would back him up, that those will wait until after he's out of office. So you can't obviously you can't have the president United States sitting in a

Fulton County Courthouse every day. While he's being president. And the thought experiment there is, you know, if you have, let's say you had somebody in Texas who escaped an impeachment here, deciding I'm going to now indict the Democratic president, you know, the rule would be

That could happen, but that's going to be told until the person's finished so we don't have 50 AGs running around trying to interfere with the federal government. Right, and so that would mean it would all happen after, you know, whenever. And I think, you know, his thinking, he is enough of a sort of day-to-day survivor, right? That he's not going to think longer term than that. But I do think, I guess the prison jumpsuit story, which lodged in my head, was just because I think that it's impossible to,

understandably for me to conceive of a world in which he ever does a day in prison not because i don't think that he is guilty of the crimes that he's been accused of i think he almost certainly is and i think he'll i think the likelihood of his conviction on them are pretty high particularly i would say the two federal cases um i mean particularly the moral we didn't even talk about the moral case but the evidence there is just like so strong it's just so strong oh just like

It is like before we found out about the new witness, the case was already what's known as a rock crusher. I mean, as a former prosecutor, you look at this and when people were saying, do you think Jack Smith is going to indict? I was just like, on no planet is that not going to happen. I mean, like, of course he is. And the case is so strong. The new witness was a sort of executive assistant who is cooperating, got new witnesses.

new lawyers. And the detail that came out, which maybe you guys saw was that

He was writing to-do lists on the back of classified documents. He had them just around because he has this really weird neurotic obsession with them, my boxes. She's the one that called them jokingly in a captured email, his beautiful mind boxes. This is the woman who is now cooperating. And so because he was so obsessive about having them at Gollum's Ring, I have to have it near me.

That he would just, if he needed to like write something, he just like,

grab a classified doc and write to-do lists on the back of it. So, yes, I think the evidence on that case is rock solid. I mean, that's the kind of case that in any other circumstance would play. You would never take that case to trial. It would be irresponsible. That's why most cases that go to trial are actually harder cases because the cases where your evidence is that solid always resolve. Yes.

You want, as a prosecutor, go to trial on that case because... Right, this will be fun. Right, yeah, exactly. So, right, and I think that's clear, and I think to the degree there's questions about the case, it's timing, judge, jury pool, as opposed to evidence, all of which I think are totally overcomerable. I don't, I still don't... I mean, the issue with juries, and we've talked about this, like, I don't see any world in which Donald Trump is acquitted after trial because it takes 12 to actually agree, right?

But a hung jury... Only John Durham can do that. Yes, right. That's why when you said the 24, that's what is so remarkable. Those were not hung juries. Those were outright acquittals that John Durham got. You know, but...

It only takes one juror to disagree with the other 11 to hang a jury. That is not an acquittal. It does not mean that the jury vindicated you. It means you didn't have 12. It wasn't unanimous for conviction. But that is generally played. I mean, Bob Menendez, who's now Senator Menendez, who's now been indicted for the second time for corruption and bribery, his first trial, it was not an acquittal. It was a hung jury, and the government didn't retry him. And that gets...

played like a win by the defendant because the fact is in many ways it is you don't if the government decides not to retry you you stand not convicted but it doesn't mean you're vindicated so your best prediction i'm just gonna we're gonna end on this note will donald trump be convicted of any of the crimes he's been accused of before election day 2024 and yes oh you guys like that outcome huh

I wasn't sure. But I also, just to go further, I think Judge Chutkin will sentence him to jail time. He goes all the way. That got a gasp. What do you think?

I think he will be convicted. I think if he is and if it's on, you know, all three or even just one count, I think that jail time will be part of imprisonment, will be part of the sentence. But how that gets carried out will be, I think, where a lot of the debate occurs. Like, is that carried out in a room in Bedminster?

Well, hopefully not Bedminster, but, you know, there are complications. Well, I'm... I hope we're right. Okay, that's not what I think. What do I think? Yeah. I think I agree. I mean, I don't have any special... I'm just a guy with a cable news show. I don't have any special expertise here, but I think I agree. I think there is some part of me that just worries that there's going to be some Supreme Court... Someone's going to come up with something. Yeah.

Because he's just, that's what's happened. Because that's always the way it is. That's what's happened. Right. Andrew Weissman and Mary McCord are co-hosts of the MSNBC podcast Prosecuting Donald Trump. Give them a large round of applause. Thank you.

You guys have been a wonderful crowd. I want to thank the Texas Tribune, which is a fantastic journalistic institution that deserves your support. You can listen to Prosecuting Donald Trump and this episode of Why Is This Happening wherever you get your podcasts. And for people that may be from other parts of the country or know people in other parts of the country, this is just the beginning of this year's Why Is This Happening live tour.

Be sure to join us on October 9th for our next event in Chicago. We're going to have Tremaine Lee, Vic Mensa, and Amani Perry there. That's going to be a phenomenal conversation. We will be in Philadelphia on October 16th with Joy Reid, my friend and colleague, and the great author Naomi Klein, whose new book is phenomenal and mind-blowing. And then I'm going to wrap up our tour in New York City on November 12th.

with a little known talent that I've scouted out. I think you're going to enjoy. Rachel Maddow will join me November 12th, town hall. Thank you very much and hope to see you on the road and download the podcast wherever you can. Thank you all. Thank you for listening to this special bonus episode of prosecuting Donald Trump and a big thank you to Chris Hayes and his whole team. Please join us again next week for more updates and analysis of the cases against the former president.

Search for Prosecuting Donald Trump and Why Is This Happening? wherever you get your podcasts and follow the series.

Hi, everyone. It's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, Why Is This Happening? Author and philosopher Daniel Chandler on the roots of a just society. I think that those genuinely big fundamental questions about whether liberal democracy will survive, what the shape of our society should be, feel like they're genuinely back on the agenda. I think it feels like we're at a real, you know, an inflection point or a turning point in the history of liberal democracy. That's this week on Why Is This Happening? Search for Why Is This Happening wherever you're listening right now and follow.