Our panel
here in
New York,
Ali Hoenig, you've been looking at
and what we just got.
What do you see now?
First of all, big picture.
This is momentous.
This will be one of the most
consequential prosecutions
in our country's history,
if not the most consequential.
This indictment goes right
to the core of our democracy.
And I think it's helpful.
There's a section in the indictment
where they break this scheme down
into five distinct parts.
First of all,
they say
it's all started
with false claims of election fraud.
And it's really important to note.
DOJ says explicitly Donald Trump knew
that he lost.
He made knowingly false claims.
Second,
they launched this seven state strategy
to pressure
state and local officials to overturn
the results Third,
they used weaponized, to coin a phrase,
the Justice Department
should try to lend its heft
to these false claims of election fraud
and to try to pressure states Fourth,
they pressured
the vice president,
Mike Pence, to do something
that they knew was unconstitutional
and illegal.
And finally,
a tie in the actual January six
violence and here's
what the allegation is
that Donald Trump and his coconspirators
not charged in this indictment,
quote, exploited the disruption
by redoubling efforts
to levy false claims of election fraud.
So that's
sort of a five chapter assessment
of how DOJ sets up
these conspiracies
that they've charged here.
The importance of them
saying the government
saying that Donald Trump
knew they were false.
That is I mean, that's big.
That goes right to his intent.
We've talked about it so many times.
They are alleging Donald Trump
absolutely knew
that these claims of election
fraud were false
or at an absolute minimum,
any reasonable person should have known.
And based on my first quick
reading of this,
they made quite a powerful showing
to that effect.
Listen, that's one of the questions
we have been asking them,
based on who they were calling in
to speak to investigators, is
do they have people who can say
what was going on
in the head of Donald Trump,
that they had evidence that he knew?
Right.
And I include myself
in that having shared
that he shared with me,
he knew he lost the election.
I want to know one thing.
This is the third
indictment of the former president.
But the first four actions
during his time as president.
So that in and of itself
makes it a historic moment.
What I think
he is going to hate in reading
this is that, frankly, his best legal
defense is going to say
I was too foolish and ignorant
to know that I lost the election.
I did not understand
our democratic process
well enough
to know that these schemes do not work,
that I did not have the right to engage
in what my lawyers are presenting it.
Frankly, pleading ignorance
and stupidity is the best legal defense.
And he is going to hate that.
Well, one thing that I think
is kind of remarkable about this moment,
the third indictment,
he's got muscle memory.
Now I'm just looking
at the first statements coming out.
His allies are lining up around
him, sitting members of Congress,
senators are defending him.
They are coordinated.
They have decided what the line is.
This is about Hunter
Biden is the weaponization of the DOJ.
He was ready for this.
That's a scary moment for our country.
Then look, I.
I feel kind of sick,
you know,
I think for all day is kind of
almost giddy feeling like,
oh, he's going to be indicted.
He's not going to be indicted.
It didn't win. It actually happened.
I remember sitting here with January 6th
and watching the violence, watching
what was going on
and being shocked and appalled.
If you told me
it would take two and a half years
before we as a country
said, that's not good,
President Trump, that's not good.
I mean, if you ask a fifth grade class
can you cheat,
can you like
and you can use violence to get your way
a fifth grade class and say you can't,
well, the federal government
just told Donald Trump,
you can't do that.
And what I like about this indictment
is it's just that simple.
You are a fraudster, sir,
and you can't do that. You lied.
You can't do that.
You tried to cheat.
You can't do that.
I think
normal Americans can understand this
and will understand
the gravity of what just happened.
Dave Duncan, do you believe
Donald Trump situation
just went
from a friendly game of checkers
to a game of cutthroat 3D chess? Right.
He now has a list of coconspirators
that are going to literally
be fighting for their own freedom.
And they don't really care to be
in the Cool Kids Club anymore.
Like so many people fell victim to.
I think his situation
gets even more complicated
because with one indictment,
it maybe feels like
you can explain political,
you know,
pension pent up energy behind it.
Then two, now three.
He's also caught
between a rock and a hard place.
He in some instances
saying he didn't do something.
In some instances
he's trying to use
the guys that he was president,
he was protected.
And so he's bouncing back and forth.
And I think it's just going to continue
to weigh on him.
You know, this one's different.
This is different from the indictments
we've seen before.
It's very different
from the hush money payment case.
It's also very different
from the classified documents case.
I mean,
when you read this indictment,
there are sections in here
about the way our Constitution works,
the way we cast
and count our electoral ballots.
It doesn't get more funny.
I mean, this strikes
at the very heart of our democracy,
exactly what it does.
And they make a point.
And another important point
that is made right up front
in this indictment,
they say there are legal ways
you can contest an election.
They make a point of saying that. Right.
It even says on the second page
that he has the right
to make false statements.
He has the right to lie
about the election results.
I think what is,
I think, most striking
is that the other cases,
they're only historic
because this doesn't usually happen.
The president stole some documents.
Maybe he did something bad with them.
He's lying about it.
You don't
you got to slap them on the wrist.
You got to do something
because it's wrong.
He's impeding justice
in the porn star case. You got it.
But these are kind of technical things.
There's actual harm to our country
if this type of thing becomes normal.
If anybody has a
I mean, this is essentially a coup.
I mean,
they look at this in any other country,
you would say this was a coup.
But if you look at this indictment,
this is describing a coup attempt
in our country.
And so this is the 100 years
from now
that everybody's going to know about
and look at.
And if he gets away with that
in our court system, shame on us.
But this is
this is the biggest, to your point.
Yeah, it's
probably the biggest prosecution
in history of the country.
Well, and it resonates with the public
because we all saw the footage
on January six. You knew how you felt.
You know,
even allies
who are now defending him
came out and condemned him that day.
It's hard to argue with it.
But just to underscore what you said,
I think of our adversaries abroad.
I think of our allies abroad.
It shows that
democracy is a fragile thing
and it is not something that we can
necessarily expect
we're going to have
if half
the country is refusing
to accept these realities.
Could you imagine being 78 years old
after being the president
of the United States and waking up
just a few short years later
dealing with these indictments
and just coming to reckon with what
that actually feels like?
I mean, whether Donald Trump
feels it or not, I don't know.
But the average American doesn't see
that is a goal in life to be 78
and to be in multiple indictments
across state and federal levels.
And it continue to grow.
And oh, by the way,
we expect to see a Fulton County
indictment coming at some point
in the near future to.