Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hi, everyone. It's Andrew Weissman. I know you're used to me and Mary McCord analyzing former President Trump's legal troubles week to week here on Prosecuting Donald Trump.
But we can't ignore the impact of these trials on the 2024 election. So this week, as a special bonus, I am joining my colleagues over on MSNBC's How to Win podcast with Jen Palmieri and a special guest host to break down how this race for the presidency might be shaped by what is happening in the courtroom.
both here in New York and in Colorado and in Minnesota. And so we're going to discuss all three of those things. And I'm here, as I mentioned, with Jen Palmieri. And Claire McCaskill is away, but filling in for her in his finest acting role ever is Bradley Whitford, who does a really great Claire McCaskill imitation.
So stay here, listen to the full episode. I hope you enjoy it and continue listening to Prosecuting Donald Trump with Mary and me and also How to Win 2024. Stay tuned.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of How to Win 2024. It's Thursday, November 2nd. I'm Jennifer Palmieri. My co-host, Claire McCaskill, is out today, but we have a very special guest here to fill in for her.
He's an Emmy Award-winning actor and producer known for his iconic roles in film, television, and theater. You've seen him in The Handmaid's Tale, Get Out, All My Children. That's kind of a... Way back. That's way back. That's a deep cut meant to throw the audience off. But he may be best known for his role, and this is how I met him 20-plus years ago, as the brash-talking, quick-thinking political strategist on the West Wing...
Josh Lyman. Turnout is down 15%. In Vermont, we're losing in Maine, a state that Bartlett won with 67% of the vote. The Latino vote in Florida isn't turning out, but in Rhode Island, they're coming out of the woodwork. Josh! Hi, Senator. Why don't you take your legislative agenda and shove it up your ass? Victory is mine! Victory!
Victory is mine. Great day in the morning, people. Victory is mine. Morning, Josh. I drink from the keg of glory, Donna. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land. It's going to be an unbearable day. Bradley Whitford. Hey. Thank you so much for coming on and co-hosting with me. Oh, my God. It's great to be here. I was just looking. I just found the Josh Lyman sign that I stole from the set. What are we talking about? Is it just like from your director's chair sign?
sign? No, no, no. No, it's from outside the office. Oh, my God. That's so cool. This is one thing where the West Wing, the television show, did not actually mirror the actual West Wing because we did not have people's names on the doors. It's all very anonymous there. But otherwise. Yeah. Otherwise, it was exactly the same. No, it was. I mean, people ask me this question all the time. So you all started in 99, the last year of Bill Clinton or the last two years of Clinton. Am I right?
Last year of Bill, yeah. Yeah, yes, we began in 99.
Yeah, 99. So you were there for 99 in 2000. We were so worried. We heard about this show. It's called The West Wing. At first, we were told it was going to be about a Southern governor who was divorced and had a young daughter. We're like, oh, that doesn't sound good for us. But then it morphed into, no, no, now it's about a former governor who's from New Hampshire and he's married and it's all good. We're like, great. That's
That sounds great. And then we met you all and it was wild. It was just like having mere colleagues, you know, in this other dimension. So it was really funny going to Washington, D.C., because you realize that prosecutors have been heroicized. Medical people have been heroicized. But up until then, political people were basically just objects of derision. And certainly one thing about the
show that is kind of striking is that it really is in a non-ironic kind of Bruce Springsteen sort of way, an aspirational ode to public service at the end of the day. It's really not even that sort of partisan about it. I always laugh about the differences. You know, you go to the White House and like a bunch of people's offices were like FDR's literal dog kennel.
I mean, it's very... That's my office. I had a great office in the West Wing, but it is like that. It's a square because it's like a dot. Yeah. There's no windows or anything. We had these sweeping windows. I do think that an essential thing that the show got right, I always felt like every show had something to do with...
with the question of how dirty do your feet have to get without you suffocating in the mud in order to get an inch of what you really want done, which I think is accurate and I think is heroic. The thing that shocked us all doing that show was that it was remotely taken seriously, but it came up at this weird time
The first time I went to D.C., we were in the Capitol and all these guys were lining up and I thought they wanted autographs and they were lobbyists because they wanted to get to Aaron to get their little issues on the show. And we realized that at a time of shrinking soundbites, we could get
Basically, the argument about whether or not you should do a decennial census with computers or not, you could get all of that information across. You had to get Rob Lowe laid in the course of it, but people would actually understand it. So it had this kind of odd power that surprised us.
That was going to be my example, was that you all actually managed to do a show about the census and make it interesting, but then also have an impact. And we were really trying to get people to pay attention to the census. But I loved it. I mean, for the reason you described about how dirty do your feet have to get in order to try to accomplish some measure of what you want to do. And I felt that, you know, most people that are in public service, I mean, it's not just public service, but when you're a hack in the White House, you're
people really have a lot of derision for you. But I loved it because I felt like that is the profile of the people I work with. That is what they're like. They are trying to do good and it is very hard to make any kind of gains. And you got to be satisfied with a lot of incremental gains and you just
portrayed a nobility to that, that I think is really, you know, it's really important. And I actually think it still matters today. Everybody still talks about it. You know, they still talk about a West Wing moment, something that we can aspire to. It has a big impact. Can I tell you one thing just from my peculiar perch that is disturbing to me, but I think unfortunately explains a lot of where we are?
You can make horrific personal mistakes, including indiscretions in the Oval Office, and you will be forgiven. You can go to war based on false intelligence. Without a plan, you will be forgiven.
The death penalty in politics is reserved for being bad on television. It is unforgivable. Howard Dean screams, get out of my face. Hillary seems like she's thinking about what she's saying. You can't have that, Bradley. You can't have that. Do you think we would have elected the first black president if he wasn't
incredibly charismatic and fantastic on TV. Thoughtful, but also great on television. Yes, fantastic on TV. And now, also, car wrecks are more fun to watch than people stopping at stop signs. And for whatever you think of Donald Trump, he's
Fantastic television. It's terrifying to me. Yeah, yeah. You got to be able to do it on TV. You don't win otherwise. We also have other things to discuss today. We're going to talk about this week's 2024 winners and losers. And we're going to be joined by...
the co-host of the hit MSNBC podcast, Prosecuting Donald Trump. Andrew Weissman, also my friend from Guest Testing the Circus, is going to help us break down Trump's hellish legal week as his kids have taken the witness stand in this fraud trial. And two courts, two courts, tried to determine whether he's even eligible to be president again in 2024. Then we'll turn to the labor movement happening across the country from SAG-AFTRA's continued negotiations on behalf of Hollywood actors.
where I was just on the picket line yesterday morning to the United Auto Workers deal, which Biden allies had claimed as a significant victory for the president. Okay, so winners and losers for this week. My winner, Mike Pence, getting out at the right time.
You could raise the question, should Mike Pence have run at all? Because given his unpopularity with the Trump base, because he upheld the Constitution, it was very unlikely that he was going to be able to get anywhere. But then, like, you know how these guys are. It's like, I'm the former vice president of the United States. Why not me? I'm a true conservative. Trump isn't. You know, but he got out. Are you paying attention to this stuff at all with the Republicans? Are you just like, it's going to be Trump and it doesn't really matter? Are you looking for a way that...
some never Trump path can be formed and one of these other candidates could rise up. You know, I would like to hear from Andrew later on in the show what's going to happen legally. But without anything extraordinary happening legally, I don't see how it's going to be anybody but Trump.
Clearly, God does not want Mike Pence to be president. So they'll have to look somewhere else. I'm absolutely horrified, blown away by the rapid dissolution of the Republican Party over the last, this is not an insight, over the last six years to a cult that worships the worst guy in show business,
A cult that worships a con man who thinks his followers are idiots. I mean, I did not see that coming. So I've done a whole I've done a whole series of television shows about how this has happened. But people can live in whatever reality they want. You know what everybody says? Everyone, most Trump people I talk to, he says what I believe. He says what I think in my head. He says it out loud. But anyway.
Anyway, I'm going to do a quick loser. My loser of the week is Dean Phillips. What are you doing? Oh, my God. So this is the guy who agrees with Joe Biden on 100 percent of issues, but is going to challenge him anyway. And as the Hill outlet said, arguably the eighth most recognizable Democrat in Minnesota on a good day. I mean, seriously, right. Like Amy Klobuchar, Senator Tina Smith, Governor Tim Walz.
These are all Minnesota Democrats you're going to recognize before you know who Dean Phillips is. I did go to high school with a dog catcher in Duluth, so I know him.
But you have good news. You have a special winner for the week that you want to talk about, which is the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which has been doing some significant grassroots building work for the last decade. I am from Wisconsin. I'm from Madison, Wisconsin, which is a kind of progressive Shangri-La, a place I'm very proud to be from. The
Wisconsin Democrats were in a very difficult place in 2010. They're in a place that is not unlike where the Florida Dems are now. It's seemed pretty dark, pretty hopeless. And the Wisconsin Democratic Party, under Ben Wickler's brilliant leadership,
has transformed the political culture there. They have done an amazing thing. They recently nationalized a state Supreme Court race for very good reason, because it can be a tipping point in a lot of elections coming up right now. And what they do in Wisconsin is
is they have a staff. I'm not sure the exact number. I think it's about 60 people all year, all the time. When we get into election cycles, it goes up. What they do, it's not brain surgery. They do fundamental voter registration, contact with voters. They bring margins down and they are battle tested and they're very, very good at it. And it broke my heart. It's similar to what they did in Georgia, right?
Yes. Yes. And I just wish the Democrats could nationalize what Ben is doing, because the night we lost the House, I had assumed we were going to lose the House just because of the... Right. And 2020, too. Yeah. And when it was so close, I was screaming at the television because we lost it in California and in New York, where we don't even attempt...
to reach out to voters because we assume it's a blue state. You can't write off red states and you can't make assumptions about blue states and build some support in purple ones like Wisconsin. Yes, yes, absolutely. And if I can say something that's sort of pretentious, I think there's a fundamental...
The problem, I think they're batting above their weight. I think we're at the mercy of a conservative minority because the right understands that politics is the way you create your moral vision.
They are correct about that. We think that the things I do, that culture is the way you create your moral vision, but the West Wing won't help you if you have a pre-existing condition, and the Handmaid's Tale won't help you if you are a pregnant teenager in Ohio, and it puts us at a disadvantage, and we will show up. We have seen how
how Black people are treated by police. We have seen people shot in the back, but it takes the horrific cinematic horror of what happened to George Floyd for us to hit the streets, to do the diagnosis as we must. But we tend not to be the people
who do what is necessary politically to do the treatment. Just the like day in and day out methodical work. Ben Wickler's been at this for a long time in Wisconsin. Like, yeah, that's what the Republicans do. They do the mechanics. They have a long runway. They're patient. They spend a lot of money. That's how they capture the Supreme Court. If Claire was here, I think she'd say, yeah, you got a Stacey Abrams the out of that shit.
Right? You are correct, sir. That is what you say. Okay. We have to take a quick break, but when we come back, MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissman joins us. He has a lot to say about Trump's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad legal week. And we have a lot to say about how that could impact things in 2024. Stay tuned.
MSNBC Live Democracy 2024 Saturday, September 7th in Brooklyn, New York. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts at our premiere live audience event. Visit msnbc.com slash democracy 2024 to buy your tickets today.
Welcome back. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are on the stand today in the New York civil fraud trial, which threatens the family's business empire and Donald Trump's very identity as a successful businessman. Yesterday, Don Jr. tried to blame inflated numbers on their former accountant. Andrew Weissman, what's the latest? What's happened today? So,
Donald Jr. and Eric hop on the stand and they're basically, I don't know anything about financial statements, even though, by the way, Donald Jr.'s like, I went to Wharton. And I was the trustee for four years while the father was in the White House. And even though I was a trustee of all of these companies, I don't know what you mean by financial statements.
Trying to say, I left that to accountants and lawyers. So this is basically Operation Throw Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer, under the bus. The reason it was particularly ugly today is...
Eric had a little bit of a problem towing the same line as Don Jr. And this is where it's like, dude, did you read anything before you took the stand? So he's like, I don't know about financial statements. I don't even know if they're financial statements, which by the way, I mean, hello. So the problem is he's on a bunch of emails where people are saying, I need more data from you, Eric.
in order to fill out the, wait for it, financial statements. So it's not really pretty. It's inconceivable to me that this judge is going to find him particularly credible, but it doesn't really matter because the first count is already done. And, you know, I think this is just going to be like additional proof that the judge can use against them. Do you think that the Justice Department
moved too slowly on this? I know not this specific case, but why is all of this, all of his legal issues coming up against the deadline of the elections four years after January 6th? So the answer is my opinion. Yeah, I think they moved too slowly. If I'm trying to give the best case scenario for Merrick Garland, who I think is an honest broker and
obviously a serious person and well-intentioned. It's that he was trying to do everything he could to sort of depoliticize the Department of Justice and to have it back to normal, and that he thought going down that road would have downsides. I disagree with that call, but I don't think he was motivated by anything other than pure intentions. But I think Jack Smith got really jammed up because
because he was appointed in November and within nine months had two major indictments brought. But because of that initial delay of getting the investigation really off the ground, we're in this position where he and at least Judge Chutkin in D.C. are
are very much trying to have this decided before the Republican convention so that the electorate has the benefit or whatever, whatever it is that happens at trial, that the public sees the trial, sees the evidence and, you know, can use that whichever way they see fit. But it could have happened earlier. It's interesting that Merrick Garland's, you know, well-intentioned fear of a
allowing this to appear politicized could end up with a rushed trial that appears to be politicized. Yeah. You resigned the role, you got to play it, boss. I mean, Andrew and I could go on all day about Department of Justice officials who wrongly involve themselves in presidential campaigns in an opportune moment. I don't know what you're talking about. Somebody like, it's like a six foot seven size problem. Big guy. The guys who do things like that. But
Andrew, I don't think we have wrapped our heads around what it is going to be like when on March 4th, which is the day before Super Tuesday, I know it's also the day that the Constitution was ratified, right? And it's an important date on the legal calendar historically. I know you think it's not a coincidence that Judge Chuckens said the trial is going to start on March 4th. Yep. There's no question she wants that locked in stone. Like, that is going to happen. But...
Just this morning, Donald Trump filed a motion to say that the entire case should be stayed while she considers the motion he filed that everything he did
while he was president, he is immune from criminal prosecution. So this is very much the sort of Nixonian, if I did it as president, it's by definition legal, or to go further back, this I am the state. And he is saying, put the entire case on hold.
I don't think it's a terribly strong underlying motion for presidential immunity. But this is what he's going to do. This is constantly, it's going to be constant motions to try to delay and then use the court as a political wedge issue to rile up his base. But I just, I don't see it actually helping him, you know, with independent voters. People
people that he's going to have to, people in Wisconsin he's going to have to win over in the suburbs. But what do you think if he, I'm not the political sort of analysis here, but I see him trying to avoid the day-to-day drumbeat of evidence. This is going to be like
every day of the trial will be additional evidence that at least fair-minded people are going to be responding to. If he can get the Supreme Court to issue a stay while they consider this presidential immunity issue...
that takes off the table the most serious case, which is March 4th gets delayed. And then the Florida case... That's a classified documents case, another Jack Smith case filed in Florida. And that is before Judge Cannon, who by all accounts is a friendlier forum for Donald Trump. She is considering a pending motion to have that trial put off and at least her statements at the oral argument...
suggested that she was open to that. So we're waiting a decision on whether she is going to put off that case. And again, guess what the defense wants? The defense wants it put off until...
Mid-November. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we saw with the Jan 6 hearings last summer, the impact that it has on the electorate when they are day to day, more and more facts in a case is laid out. You know, people did not think that that Jan 6 committee was going to matter, and it mattered a lot. It moved public opinion on how serious those charges were, and particularly with independent voters. So if he is able to avoid this trial, not only is he sort of like escaping justice, but I think he's also...
escaping that drumbeat that it's kind of hard to factor into how we think about president elections, but would have a big impact on 24. Right. Andrew, talk about Colorado and Minnesota and these attempts to keep Trump off the ballot. Do you think they're valid points to make? I think that they're certainly worth litigating.
Personally, I don't think they're going to succeed at the end of the day. I think it will have to ultimately go to the Supreme Court of the United States. But in two states, there's pending motions saying that under the United States Constitution and particularly an amendment that said if you engaged in illegal
insurrection or rebellion, and you did so while you were an officer of the United States taking an oath to uphold the Constitution, that you are disqualified from having office again, unless Congress by a two-thirds vote alleviates that disqualification. So the way to think about that is that to be president, you have to be 35 years or older. So it's like that. But the problem is, is that
There are a lot of open issues. So, for instance, what does it mean to engage in insurrection or rebellion? Who has to make that decision? What is the standard of proof for that? By the way, I'm a lawyer. So like everything's complicated. You know, there's just lots and lots and lots of issues there.
It's obviously never been decided in the context of somebody like Donald Trump. There's even an issue about whether he's an officer for the purposes of that provision. It's surprisingly complicated. The president of the United States may not be an officer?
Exactly. So there are other provisions where the president is not considered an officer. There are some provisions where he is considered an officer. But there are just lots of issues that the Supreme Court is going to need to rule on. There's no question that people are right to raise it because it's in the Constitution and we're a rule of law society, or at least currently we are a rule of law society. And so it should be decided by...
by the courts, but I don't have a lot of faith. Obviously, we'll do whatever the courts say. I do think it's probably healthier for the system if the electorate is deciding this. Voters decide this. Assuming that the provision is
doesn't apply. If the provision applies and it's like he's, you know, it's if he's under 35, then that's that. I mean, it might be healthier for the country to elect a 34-year-old, but it's not constitutional. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us.
When we come back, we will be shining a light on a very exciting moment in the labor movement that is happening all across the country that I happen to be a little bit a part of. So we'll be right back. MSNBC Live Democracy 2024, Saturday, September 7th in Brooklyn, New York. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts at our premier live audience event. Visit msnbc.com slash democracy 2024 to buy your tickets today.
Welcome back. The past few months have seen major strikes across industries from autoworkers to Hollywood writers and actors. And earlier this week, employees at some of the largest drugstore chains in the country also staged walkouts. And in Portland, Oregon, teachers and other school employees are on strike, canceling school for tens of thousands of students in the state's largest school district.
And Biden became the first president to walk a picket line with UAW workers last month, showing how politically this is going to be a really important issue in 2024. The UAW this week reached a deal that won record pay increases for the auto workers. This is a huge deal that is not just going to help UAW workers, but where the wage inequality is so high that
And that gap is so big. This is going to have a ripple effect for other workers that I think it's got to take some time to take hold, but very much rebound to the president's political fortunes. Yes, I think that Biden made a great call on this coming out as no president has ever done before and joining a picket line.
From my point of view in Hollywood, I always assume I live in a bubble. But it turns out as the writer's strike ended and as I think we're nearing hopefully the end of the actor's strike, it turns out I wasn't living in a bubble. It wasn't just the information that I was getting. It wasn't just propaganda. It has become reality.
insane. The discrepancies between wages, CEO pay has gone up 1400 percent. Yeah. I mean, this is the big argument that really worked for the workers was just comparing the CEO pay increases to the lack of increases for the workers on the assembly line. Well, the profits are insane. Everything the writers were asking for was less than one percent.
of the profits. The tone deafness of these guys, these people who have made half a billion dollars going to Wall Street saying, I've earned these bonuses, this business is amazing, and then turning around to the people who create that value, who I'm telling you cannot make a living. I am in a position where I can negotiate. I would not be able to come up now because it's basically been the same
Contract. I've been in the union 40 years, which is a little terrifying. Actually, I'm sitting in a puddle of my spent potential here. Um,
But it's basically the same contract in a totally different business. We were told last contract, we're not sure what streaming is going to be. We're being told now we're not sure what AI is going to be and what's very important right now. AI, everybody says, oh, it's complicated. We don't know how it's going to pan out. I am hoping the administration takes on the threat. I'm worried that a lot of their donors
Our big tech guys, we're not going to want any constraints on AI. Well, as we speak, I am sitting in Bletchley Park, which is right outside of London. And I'm here with the vice president of the United States who is attending a AI conference hosted by the UK prime minister. And I will tell you that your president and vice president are great.
serious as a heart attack about AI. The entire week in the administration, obviously what's breaking through is everything that's happened in the Middle East. But the president had the most aggressive executive order on Monday that any country has put forward. This is like foundational stuff, right? You're not going to see results overnight.
of how to deal with AI. The vice president had a speech last night where she laid out kind of a roadmap for other countries to follow and then really pushed companies and other countries to be more aggressive and have, you need some sort of international framework for how to deal with this, obviously. And when I talked to her about it, she expressed a lot of concern about how this can impact the election with deep fakes and disinformation. And so I would say the administration is really serious about
and then the impact on workers and the economy. And so it brings it back to the UAW strike because union members have been moving away for Democrats for a while. And the president has a very good record on defending union workers from creating jobs because the infrastructure from the chip spill for semiconductor plants and also for protecting pensions, which he did the first year. And he can stand up and say, you know, you may like Donald Trump,
He had a chance to do all these things and he did not deliver for you. And I did. And to deliver for workers in this big way, they have a year for this to take hold. It takes a while for this stuff to take hold and to work its way into the populace. But I think he has a very good standing now to make progress.
serious gains with union workers, with non-college voters who have been moving away from Democrats for a while. And you see it in your industry. You see it in auto, fast food. It's just kind of across the board. I think it's a political winner. I'm really gratified to see that union support is way up. It's huge, huge. It's the biggest it's ever been in America. The support for the Hollywood unions have been incredible. It's
And I think people, especially young people coming up, are really fed up with the insane wealth gap. And I think Biden's in a great position, and I'm really glad he took a stand. Because normally you would not think that the populace in America would be siding with the fancy actors. But I think they see it in their own lives, so they recognize it when they see it happening to actors and writers, auto workers. And so I think it will help Biden with
union workers in general, but then also just with young people and working people that are worried about this. But anyway, this has been so delightful and I really appreciate your time and doing this with me. I loved it. So, so fun, so fun. But life is filled with a lot of joys and sorrows and bittersweet times. And I know there's a couple of people that we want to talk about that you wanted to pay tribute to. Yeah, these are two people from two different parts of my life who
I loved, over the weekend, Matt Perry's passing, and soon after, I found out that Adi Barkan had passed. And as radically...
different as these two human beings are, there's something in very different ways that they had in common that to me needs to be recognized and is a kind of a blessing that happens all around us. There are some people who go through unspeakable difficulties, unspeakable suffering, unspeakable mystery, and find a way to use their suffering as an opportunity to alleviate the suffering of others.
Matthew had such a monster on his back and his struggle was heroic and he was always throughout it all trying to help other people.
Adi Barkin spent his life, used his body. He has ALS. For those who doesn't know, he's an activist with ALS. He was very important, if you ask Nancy Pelosi, to taking what was a liability for Democrats, access to health care, and using his body as an example with his limited time to make it
something that the Democrats can be proud of and can expand. It is insane that we live in a country where we do not have universal access to health care. And that was what Adi was fighting for. And I loved him dearly. ♪♪
Everyone, thanks so much for listening. Claire will be back with me next Thursday. We're going to be doing post-debate analysis after the Republican debate in Miami. Also, remember, if you have questions for us, you can send it to howtowinquestions at nbcuni.com. Or you can leave us a voicemail at 646-974-4194. And we might answer it on the pod.
Senior producer of this show is Alicia Conley. Jessica Schrecker and Ivy Green are segment producers. Bryson Barnes is the head of audio production. Paul Robert Mounsey and Cedric Wilson are audio engineers. Jan Maris Perez is the associate producer. Ayesha Turner is the executive producer for MSNBC Audio. And Rebecca Cutler is the senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC.
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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.