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--:-- John Bickley: This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID, and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info. And if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.
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--:-- John Bickley: Former President Trump makes his first appearance after the verdict and gets a raucous greeting while his campaign hauls in record-breaking donations. How are Trump and Biden responding to the historic verdict and how much will it sway voters? I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with guest host Emily Jashinsky, D.C. correspondent at UnHerd.
--:-- Emily Jashinsky: Thanks for coming on. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: And it's Monday, June 3rd, and this is Morning Wire. Ten U.S. senators are pledging to hold up Democratic legislative goals, citing the weaponization of the judicial system against Trump. This has never happened in our country. It's happened in other countries, including many in our hemisphere. It hasn't happened in our country, that it shouldn't be happening now. And while Trump's guilty verdict ends the trial phase of the hush money case, the appeal process is yet to begin. What are the chances of a reversal and how long could that process take?
--:-- Emily Jashinsky: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: The political and legal fallout continues following the unprecedented conviction of former President Donald Trump. Here to break down how the stunning verdict is impacting the race for the White House is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Hey, Cabot, so this story continues to dominate the national conversation for good reason. First, what have we seen from Trump and Biden since the news broke?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, the White House has been borderline giddy since the news broke, with Biden campaign officials taunting Trump on social media and claiming the American people will never elect a convicted felon. For his part, President Biden said the verdict reaffirmed the quote, American principle that no one is above the law, before taking aim at those who questioned the legitimacy of the trial and also those prosecuting his opponent. It's reckless. It's dangerous. It's irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don't like the verdict.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, on the other side of things, Donald Trump has struck a defiant tone, saying he's confident the American people would see through the true motivations of the trial and offer their verdict on election day. The former president made a number of public appearances over the weekend, first sitting ringside at a UFC event in New Jersey, where he was greeted by a raucous standing ovation from the sellout crowd as he did a dramatic fighter-style walkout of the tunnel with UFC boss Dana White.
--:-- John Bickley: Have a listen to that moment.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Donald Trump is in the building in the form of president getting a standing ovation from the assembled masses. The round of applause he getting right now is pretty staggering Trump then gave his first post interview Sunday morning where he told Fox News that he would be willing to go to jail and told his lawyers quote not to beg for anything I'm okay with it. I saw one of my lawyers the other day on television saying, oh, no, you don't want to do that to the president. I said, you don't beg for anything. You just, the way it is.
--:-- John Bickley: We'll have a lot more on the legal ramifications of this case soon, but walk us through the political fallout so far.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, it is not hyperbole to say that Thursday's ruling was the most influential fundraising moment in modern political history. Within moments of the verdict being read, Trump's donation page online had crashed and Google searches for how to donate to Trump exploded. Consequently, the campaign brought in a staggering $53 million in online donations in the 24 hours following the verdict. For context, that is more than the Biden campaign raised all of last month combined and more than double what Democrats raised on the day Roe was overturned, which at the time was their largest single day haul.
--:-- John Bickley: And one more note on the fundraising front, Miriam Adelson, the wife of the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, is now reportedly planning to donate up to $100 million to a Trump-aligned super PAC.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So it's unclear how voters will respond more broadly, but this has clearly galvanized a large chunk of the country. There's no doubt about that.
--:-- John Bickley: Finally, let's get to the latest polling now that the verdict is in. What are we seeing so far?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, a number of polls were conducted in the days after the ruling. and the bottom line is that the majority of Americans, including independents, say it will not impact how they vote. But there are still significant chunks of the electorate who say it will impact their decision. A Reuters poll, for example, has Trump still ahead of Biden nationally, but found that 25% of independents say the verdict makes them less likely to vote for Trump. That's compared to 18% who say it makes them more likely.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, it's worth stressing, early polling on things like this often shifts as voters become more aware of a topic, but Morning Consult did have 54% of voters approving of the verdict with just 39% disapproving. That's similar to YouGov, which had 50% saying he was guilty and just 30% claiming he was not.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, the Trump camp says most Americans were only casually following the trial and will change their mind once they learn more about it. And to that point, there is still plenty of time for them to make that case. We'll just have to wait and see how this shakes up the race. But if there's one thing we know, it's that Donald Trump has made a living, defying conventional wisdom. really more than any other political figure we've ever seen.
--:-- John Bickley: Kevin, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
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--:-- John Bickley: It's still not too late for the left to abandon this approach, but I think at this point it would take presidential leadership. We'll see whether that's something President Biden is capable of. That was Utah Senator Mike Lee. He's leading a group of 10 Senate Republicans pledging to block Biden appointees and Democratic bills over what they say is the political prosecution of Donald Trump.
--:-- Megan Basham: To start, Megan, what's the gist of this pledge and who's joined it so far?
--:-- John Bickley: So the GOP senators argue that Democrats, especially the White House, have turned, and I'm quoting, our judicial system into a political cudgel and must be held accountable. So 10 senators so far, including J Vance Marco Rubio Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn have joined this pledge that says that they will not vote to confirm any of President Biden political or judicial appointees and they also won't fund any of his priorities that don't directly pertain to national security, and they won't cooperate with any of the Democrats' legislative goals.
--:-- Megan Basham: So pretty sweeping statement. I caught up with Senator Lee by phone, and he told me that this is a necessary response to unprecedented events. The Democratic Party and the leftist establishment has changed the political landscape by breaking a seal that's never been broken before in America, especially as an incumbent president. Having your principled political opponent prosecuted never happened in this country. And, you know, it's the sort of door that once it's open, it's difficult to close.
--:-- John Bickley: And I don't think we can continue to pretend that nothing has changed. Now, Republicans are in the minority in the Senate, of course, so that does blunt some of the leverage Lee's group has here. But they do have the power to significantly throw a wrench in the Democrats' agenda. Lee says there's no plausible path for budget reconciliation right now. So there's no way for the Democrats to pass major legislation with a simple majority. They're going to need some Republican votes. and perhaps the most powerful weapon Lee's group has in their arsenal is that they can thwart unanimous consent requests.
--:-- Megan Basham: So those are the procedural votes that are often used to quickly move nominations and legislation forward. Essentially, without it, any piece of business will take much longer and is much more likely to stall out.
--:-- John Bickley: Is there anything Democrats or the White House could do right now that would cause Lee and the other GOP senators to back off this pledge?
--:-- Megan Basham: You know, Lee didn't give specifics on what actions the Democrats could take at this point, but here's what he said it would take for him and the rest of his group to cooperate with the Democrats and the White House again. If the White House were to come out and condemn what has happened and if the administration were to walk away from its own lawfare, I think that would certainly make a difference.
--:-- John Bickley: You know, I don't want to put too fine a point on exactly what would and wouldn't be sufficient, but those are things that would certainly help.
--:-- Megan Basham: Lee said that when the Senate is back in session next week. He expects to see many more of his GOP colleagues joining this pledge.
--:-- John Bickley: Does Lee have any thoughts on how House Republicans might use their levers of power to respond to this unprecedented verdict?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, he said he's pretty careful not to predict what the House will do. But Speaker Johnson has obviously condemned this verdict as well. And he's calling for the Supreme Court to step in. Meanwhile, we're seeing House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, scheduling a June hearing in which he's calling on prosecutors Alvin Bragg and Matthew Colangelo to answer questions on the weaponization of the federal government.
--:-- John Bickley: So we'll have to see if the House GOP puts forward some more formal statement like this in the coming days as we wait on that sentencing on July 11th. But certainly they're also pretty united in condemning this, what you have to call, historic verdict.
--:-- Megan Basham: And this is likely only the beginning of the political ramifications we'll see from this verdict.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks, Megan.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime.
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--:-- John Bickley: Donald Trump's conviction on 34 felony counts in New York City last week marks the end of the trial phase, but the beginning of what could be a much longer and decisive appeal process. No sooner had the jury foreman uttered the word guilty than Trump's legal team announced that an appeal of the decision would be coming within 30 days of sentencing. and according to many legal analysts he should have a strong chance at a reversal We are joined by Daily Wire contributor David Marcus to look at where this complicated case might be headed.
--:-- David Marcus: Morning, John. The 13th juror is the nickname of New York's first Judicial Department appellate court, which has broad discretion to overturn cases such as Trump's. Politico cites former federal prosecutor Arlo Devlin Brown as saying, quote, There is an appeal that could have legs, end quote. And frankly, it's something echoed by many legal experts, including Roger Severino and Leslie McAdoo Gordon, who've both been on this show.
--:-- John Bickley: Part of what makes this such a target-rich environment for appeal is the novelty of the charges that were brought against Trump in the first place. It remains to be seen if Alvin Bragg's legal architecture, which turned bookkeeping misdemeanors into felonies by tying them to other unspecified crimes, is a firm legal edifice or a fragile house of cards.
--:-- David Marcus: Speaking of those underlying crimes, a lot of attention has been given to the fact that the jury did not have to agree which of the three possible crimes Trump allegedly intended to commit. Will that be central to this appeal?
--:-- John Bickley: Yes, even prior to the verdict coming down, it was a very controversial decision by Judge Juan Marchand to allow the jury to convict without unanimity on the underlying crime. That was when experts like Jonathan Turley really started using the term reversible error, which is to say something that could be overturned on appeal.
--:-- David Marcus: Here's Turley on that. It runs the waterfront of procedural to constitutional problems, including federal constitutional violations. I don't even see how you can meet the unanimity requirement in the way that this thing was instructed. Yeah, they were unanimous that some crime was being committed on that secondary crime, but it's apparently between the jurors and God as to what that crime was, unless there's going to be some release of a jury form.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, over the weekend, a piece in New York Magazine pinned by CNN legal analyst Ellie Honig got a lot of attention for saying that prosecutors had contorted the law. What did he mean?
--:-- David Marcus: Honig raised some of the issues we just talked about, but one line really stood out for showing just how unique these charges were. He writes, quote, the charges against Trump are obscure and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor in New York or Wyoming or anywhere has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone for anything, none ever, end quote.
--:-- John Bickley: This really undermines Bragg's claim that the case was brought in a perfectly normal manner like any other case his office might bring. And we should note that Honig saying this is significant. He is an open critic of Trump and really nobody can claim that he is biased towards the former president. So it's evidence that it isn't just Trump supporters who think he got a bit of a raw deal here. These are sentiments even shared by some Democrats. such as former New York Governor David Patterson.
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah. And what about timing expectations here? How long do appeals that are ultimately taken up take to resolve? I mean, as anyone who's observed the legal process even casually will be aware, the legal system doesn't exactly move with the pace of a Nolan Ryan fastball. Appeals can take years, but this is a former president and a leading presidential candidate we're talking about here. Have we mentioned this is unprecedented? So perhaps the wheels of justice will turn a little faster. But who knows? And as we've already probably said a few times now, we're just in uncharted waters here.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, deep in those uncharted waters.
--:-- David Marcus: Dave, thanks for joining us.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.
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