All right, fformer President Donald Trump traveled to Virginia today to plead not
guilty to all four counts during his arraignment.
Of course, these counts were tied to his third indictment, this time for his
alleged role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
This is what the scene looked like.
There were, of course, individuals there to celebrate his third indictment,
especially considering this has to do with him attempting to overturn the results of
our democratic process.
And there was even a group of people who broke out into a rock jam session.
So that's kinda what the scene was like.
Based on reports, there weren't many Trump supporters there.
But as you can see, there's heavy police presence.
So in the immediate vicinity,
I don't think a lot of people were allowed to be there.
Now, with that said,
I do wanna go to the reaction from Trump immediately after his arraignment.
And remember, he pleaded not guilty to all four counts.
And when the press caught up with him for some chopper talk,
here's what he had to say.
>> Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much.
This is a very sad day for America.
And it was also very sad driving through Washington DC and seeing the filth and
the decay, and all of the broken buildings and walls and the graffiti.
This is not the place that I left.
It's a very sad thing to see it.
When you look at what's happening, this is a persecution of a political opponent.
This was never supposed to happen in America.
This is the persecution of the person that's leading by very,
very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot.
So if you can't beat him, you persecute him, or you prosecute him.
We can't let this happen in America.
Thank you very much.
>> Speaker 1: Do you want these trials to happen before the 2024 election?
>> Speaker 1: Now, while Trump would like to believe that he is
beating President Joe Biden by a lot in the polls,
the latest New York Times Siena College poll has him in a dead heat.
They are tied, which, to be quite frank with you all, is not a good look for
President Biden, and is concerning considering what the ramifications could
be should Donald Trump actually get reelected.
And I'll give you the details on that in just a moment,
including some trolly moments [LAUGH] from President Biden in just a moment.
Cenk, your thoughts?
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, so, look, there's some theatrics to this that I explained
in a live video where Trump looks at Jack Smith,
who's in the room 15 feet away from Jack Smith.
The special counsel looks back at him.
Trump does weird things.
When they ask him his age, he says 77.
>> [LAUGH] >> Double 077, no,
that's called 77 here in America.
But there's a huge part of this that's important, and
this one is gonna be a little controversial.
So mainstream media is always like, that's it, we got him.
Now this is the one, right?
And we haven't participated in that until now.
I think this one could be really damaging to him, even among the Republicans.
Why do I think the 37% I know you guys discussed that Ana on a previous show,
37% of Republicans who are hardcore MAGA are going to leave him?
No way, hell no.
They're not even gonna look at the evidence in any way, shape or form.
But, look, especially, please, please, let it be televised, cuz especially if it's
televised and they see witnesses, there's something that there's a lot of things
that the establishment doesn't understand about Republican voters.
One of the essential ones is that they don't have
access to the same information we have, right?
They keep assuming, how could they know that Trump lost 60 cases in a row and
didn't present any evidence and they still believe him?
Cuz they don't know that.
>> They don't cover it.
>> Speaker 3: I know that seems impossible to believe, but
right wing media has never covered those 60 court cases that he lost.
If they see with their own eyes people going up on the stand going, no, we knew
they were fake electors, and we knew that he hadn't won the election, but we thought
if we do the fake electors, well, then maybe we could subvert democracy.
And it's Republican after Republican after Republican saying, yeah,
we were trying to basically do a coup.
If that's the case, and if they manage to flip some of these folks,
they have already flipped a whole bunch of the fake electors, and they have damning
evidence, which I think they do, but we're gonna have to see in trial.
If they see that with their own eyes, for a lot of Republicans,
I know it seems hard to believe, but
it'll be the very first time they have ever seen any of that evidence.
>> Speaker 1: So I just wanted to reinforce the point that you're making,
because just yesterday, following Trump's indictment, you have Greg Gutfeld and
a whole host of right wing media figures arguing that the indictment has to
do with what Trump said, that this was a violation of his freedom of speech,
which, by the way, is incredibly easy to debunk.
It's literally stated in the second page of this 45-page indictment that
Trump challenging the validity of the results of the election is totally fine.
This indictment has nothing to do with what Trump said, but
rather the actions that Trump engaged in.
And so, as we've shared with you before,
but I'll just reiterate again, he is facing four counts.
I wanna go through those counts with you quickly.
So he's facing federal case brought in Washington this week by
the special counsel.
I'm sorry, so there are three indictments.
This particular indictment having to do with his attempts to overturn the results
of the election have four counts, and one of them has to do with the fact that he
tried to interrupt the January 6 proceedings in which the vice president,
Mike Pence, was supposed to certify the results of the election.
And luckily, even after the riots took place, Pence went back and
managed to certify the election.
>> Speaker 3: Look, guys, I know they do ridiculous arguments all the time, and
there's one, though, they really, really should be doing, and
I'm surprised they're not doing.
I'll help them out in a second.
But this idea of freedom of speech just cuz he said things out loud,
God, it's depressing that that works with anyone.
But guys, there's tons of things that you say that are still crimes.
If you say to a hitman, I'd like to hire you to murder my wife,
just cuz you said it out loud doesn't make it freedom of speech.
That's still a crime.
>> Speaker 1: Totally. >> Speaker 3: [LAUGH] Right,
there are many things you can say that are crimes, but for right wingers,
it's so easy.
>> You can't defame people, that's not protected by the First Amendment.
>> Right, and we can give you dozens of examples.
There's so many crimes where you say, hey, I'm going to kill you, is also a crime
just cuz you said, but for a lot of right wingers, but sometimes on the left, too,
but mainly right wingers these days, they don't care about the facts.
They'll believe anything as long as it helps their side, right?
So they hear freedom of speech, they're like, yeah, that sounds right.
How does this sound right?
Did you even think about it for a second?
But guys, the argument they're not making is the curious one.
This indictment is about, hey, you knew you had lost the election, and
then you lied about it, and you did this fake electorate scheme.
Well, the whole case falls apart instantly if the election was stolen, and
Trump wasn't lying at all.
He had actually won the election.
>> Right.
>> So, MAGA, golden opportunity, golden.
Present all of your all of your Krakens, all of your dumps.
I'm not the one who said it, Trump said it, okay?
Massive or otherwise.
>> Speaker 1: All of your Hugo Chavezs.
>> Speaker 3: The Hugo Chavez's ghost, bring him back.
You guys got this.
But I'm being serious, guys.
If you're a MAGA, why aren't you excited?
This is your golden opportunity to prove your case, and you could televise it.
Bring in all the evidence.
You know why?
Cuz even you know you have zero evidence, none.
>> Speaker 1: So just to go over the counts one more time.
So it's one count for conspiracy to defraud the United States, and
that's in relation to the fake elector scheme.
Two counts for obstructing the vote certification on January 6, and
one count for conspiracy to violate the civil rights, which Aka Trump's
attempt to change the vote counts in various swing states like Georgia.
And we have him literally recorded on the phone speaking to Brad Raffensperger,
the Secretary of State of Georgia urging him to find a specific number
of votes in his favor in order to flip the state from Biden to Trump.
Now, I wanna talk just briefly about something else that concerns me,
and it's what could happen if he is prosecuted for this,
convicted for this, and ends up winning reelection.
But before we do, just a moment of comedic relief because there were two videos of
President Joe Biden today that I particularly enjoyed.
Here's the first one.
>> Speaker 3: Mr. President, will you be following the arraignment today, sir?
>> No.
>> Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I just really appreciated that video [LAUGH].
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, I like how honest he is, like no, but mainly whenever
they do those bike by questions, I'm like, don't distract him, please.
I'm always worried that he's gonna fall down.
>> Speaker 1: True, true, although he looked stable and-
>> You look good there.
>> Speaker 1: He looked good, yeah.
>> Speaker 3: All right, go get him papa Joe.
>> Speaker 1: And then he decided to troll Trump on Twitter as well, and
I wanted to give you a little taste of that.
>> I like my coffee dark.
>> Speaker 1: Okay, well done.
Dark Brandon, makes an appearance here and there.
I wish that was his typical state of leadership, but
we don't really see him that often acting that way.
>> Speaker 3: What's interesting is, of course, MAGA has this alternate reality
where Joe Biden's a super tough guy and then that Dark Brandon is real and
he got Merrick Garland and Jack Smith to do all this.
Internal reporting, take it with a grain of salt,
with all internal reporting is that he was super frustrated with Merrick Garland.
And he's like, was this guy a professor or a prosecutor?
And the point is he was not interfering and
he was super angry at Garland for not going forward, right?
Now look, there's conspiracies here which are not implausible about the timing that
now it's gonna be right in the middle of the general election, the trial is, right?
So I don't know, man.
All I know is Garland was super slow, and then Jack Smith came in and
is an actual prosecutor and is getting things done.
But it appears is kidding around about Dark Brandon,
Biden was on the sidelines sitting there stewing at Garland for not going forward.
>> Speaker 1: So look, the one thing I'll say is for Trump supporters to feel anger
or frustration over the fact that this will take Trump away from the campaign
trail during the election, I mean, they're justified in being upset about that.
However, I would just implore you to consider the fact if you feel that way,
that Trump is the one who put himself in this position to begin with.
>> Speaker 3: 100% >> Right?
>> And by the way,
you voters are the ones that put him in the position to be your candidate.
He's up by 40 points, and you guys are the ones doing that.
Look, Jeff Zachary had that great line about when he was fired from CNN.
He said, yeah, I did the thing they're accusing me of.
So I handed them the gun, and then they shot me with it.
And so that's what Trump's doing.
Time after time he's like, here's another gun, here's another gun,
here's another gun.
>> Speaker 1: No, he shows up every single day with a massive bag,
like a Santa-sized bag of rakes.
Just releases the rakes all around him and continues to step in it.
That is who Donald Trump is.
He's his own worst enemy.
Look, the reason why he's gotten away with so much is because his base is so
loyal to him that other Republicans are terrified of them.
So they provide cover for Trump.
And Trump has had an entire life of entitlement where he has been able to
engage in terrible behavior, in some cases, breaking the law.
But because of his power, because of his wealth,
he's able to skirt the consequences.
Sure, he might have to pay $25 million in a settlement after he defrauded students
with Trump University, but $25 million, what's the big deal?
He always finds a way to get out of any situation.
But for the first time, it appears, and this is unprecedented,
we have a former president facing three separate criminal indictments,
and each case, we have seen evidence implicating him in these crimes.
>> Speaker 3: So, guys, doesn't it matter what the facts are?
So, for a while, John Edwards was pretending to be the most progressive in
one of the presidential campaigns.
I never bought into it.
You go back and check the tapes.
But if you did buy into it, you like his policies, right?
And then it turns out that he lied and cheated, not just in his having an affair
on his wife, but it affected campaign finance, etc.
Were we supposed to be like, I don't care about the facts, nop, nop, nop.
The one that was claiming to be the most far left, so we support him, no.
It looked like to us he did it.
And by the way, he got away with it.
Ironically, his prosecutor was Jack Smith, and they lost that case.
But doesn't it matter at all that he did it, right?
And to the Republicans, they're saying, like for example, if he didn't do it,
if there was something where they charged him and he wasn't guilty of it, I'd be
like, no, that's terrible, don't do that, cuz that'll destroy our justice system.
People will lose faith in the system, and you should never cry wolf.
If you cry wolf, it destroys your credibility on everything else.
But Republican voters are saying very loudly and clearly so
far in the polling that, no, they don't care what the facts are.
They don't care that he did it.
They don't care that he stepped on a thousand rakes.
They say, well, he's our boy, and so we hate you guys, and
he hates you guys, so we're sticking with him.
But we'll see if that holds up if a whole bunch of this
evidence comes out in a way that is spectacularly public.
But remember, most of this is gonna happen after the biggest primary states.
It might be devastating for the Republican Party.