Transcripts For CSPAN Washington 20240704

Host as we come on the air this morning, the media are gathering outside the ebert art freeman federal courthouse in washington, d. C. About midway between the white house and the capital where at 4 p. M. Today, former President Donald Trump will be arraigned on four criminal councils conspiracy and obstruction related to the 2020 president ial election and the january 6, 2021 insurrection at the u. S. Capitol. Washington journal, thursday, august 3 and our entire program is focused on the arraignment and the mounting legal challenges of former president donald j trump. Throughout the program as we do every morning, we will welcome your phone calls and your comments and tweets and your Text Messages as well. Lots of time to do that in the upcoming three hours. We begin this morning with their first guest, hugo lowell, the political investigation reporter with the guardian. Joining us this morning before the arraignment later today. Thanks for making time to come in this morning. You have covered a number of the cases, the january 6 cases particularly at the courthouse, what can we expect and what is typical in these arraignments of suspects in these cases . Guest i think it will be like viewing donald trump and other court houses like in miami were trump will motorcade in this morning and he will go in through the secure entrance and go down the ramp and take a private elevator to where he will get booked and he will go to the usual process. Arraignments really are procedural moments, the process by which you kickstart the process so once hes done that, he will go to the courthouse in the courtroom for the magistrate judge and he will enter his not guilty plea. Host the magistrate judge today is not the judge that will oversee his case, correct . Guest yes, the judge that will oversee the case is in obama appointee and has developed a reputation for being one of the stricter judges when it comes to january 6 amendments. A lot of cases with the rioters and in some cases has handed out sentencing that is even greater and more onerous than what prosecutors have been asking for. Host the arraignment today, the president is represented by his attorneys. Who will present the case on the federal government side, the department of justice side . Guest we dont know yet. That miami prosecutor was in florida but we dont know if you will be there today. This will probably be the top prosecutors in the gender six case. It might be jp cooney or other prosecutors. Host is it possible other information is announced at these arraignments, not necessarily other charges but other details that are not in the indictment . Guest its possible but unlikely. This is not the venue for the prosecutors to beacons rejecting new details. Sometimes when they go through the scheduling for deadlines and hearings or when trump is next back in court, they will reveal a piece of information like there is an interview going on for a further investigation going on which might change things. Host you have covered a number of cases, presumably you will be attempt to be at the courtiers courthouse later today . Guest it will be very busy and this court has in particular is good at managing highprofile cases. They did the Paul Manafort case in the grand jury activity in the investigation were mike pence provided testimony specific to this investigation. Host is there any word of potential protests at the courthouse today . Guest not that we are aware of. There are barricades going up around the capital. They will be an increased Police Presence around the courthouse for sure. In many ways, its ironic that the former president is being arranged at the courthouse just stepped from the capital which figures majorly in the indictment. Host our guest is with the guardian and his piece just published this morning early at the guardian. Com. Trump will appear in court to it respond to charges of election subversion efforts. We welcome your calls and comments for our guest on todays arraignment of former President Donald Trump. 202 7488000 for republicans, 202 7488001 and for others 202 7488002 the text number is 202 7488003 and you can hit us up on social media. I read somewhere earlier today. Yesterday that Something Like almost 1000 january 6 suspects have been tried at that courthouse . Guest it is the biggest caseload for the department of justice and the u. S. Attorneys office in d. C. We expect 1000 more. Host one thousand more suspects . Guest 1000 more defendants to go through the criminal process. Thats just the rioters from january 6. Host typically, what were the charges of those cases, at least the ones you covered . Guest its actually the same charge that trump is being hit with which is obstruction of an official proceeding which is interesting because there is so much on this. We have got a pending decision on some of the interpretations of that in any way that would undermine the case against trump. If anything, it would be stating how broad the intent was for the statute. The defendants have been arguing that it could be narrow or in some cases a border interpretation. Either way, he is being hit with the same charge that all the other defendants are being charged with. Host here are the four specific counts announced tuesday by jack smith. Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceedg, obstruction intent to obstruct an ficial pceeding and this one, conspiracy against rights. What can you tell us about that charge . Guest its an unusual charge to bring here but it makes sense. Its typically used in prosecutions where there is voter discrimination. It was used in the civil war era which was used to repel black voters but in theory, if you think about how the statue it operates, it is there to protect the constitutional right to vote. The central allegation against donald trump is his actions to obstructing the congressional certifications to overturn the results of the states. He was disenfranchising the American People. This is the umbrella charge that brings it all together. Host that seems like constitutional scrutiny. Guest i think this entire case will go all the way to the Supreme Court if trump can help it. These are weighty constitutional dictates that affect all the courts in d. C. Host your article this morning is a very helpful chart that trump faces several lawsuits in the runup to the 2024 election, showing where we are now with august 3, 2023 and coming up in october, the civil fraud suit in new york city. The 15th of january 2024, the second defamation suit brought bye. G. Carol. Later in may, this is the other federal case, the maralago documents case may, 2024. Will todays magistrate judge say where this for the timing on this particular case, these charges against the former president , was that a decision that the judge will make . Guest thats a decision for judge atkins. The magistrate judge today is processing him. They will maybe set the date when he is back but they will set a trial schedule in the weeks ahead. Host what is the judges record in terms of severity of punishments for the defendants she has seen her courtroom . Guest very heavy, she appears to have very strong views on january 6. Its evident in her opinion and its evident in the way she hands down sentences. Its very unusual even in d. C. That this courthouse can see judges handing down longer penalties than prosecutors normally asked for. Host we have plenty of calls waiting for hugo lowell. Lets go to new york city on the independent line. Caller good morning. I have a quick comment and a question. My comment is its the scheme, because a lot of people believe this is the effect of the attack on the capital but what jack smith is looking at as the scheme. He is trying to nullify the Trump Victory and with an elaborate scheme with attorneys like Rudy Giuliani who i believe is one of the coconspirators. In terms of, i have a question. Donald trump is looking at probably, if you look at the charges come hes looking at life in prison considering he is almost 80 years old. The question that i would have to you is, jack smith, the doj would have many witnesses as well as evidence that has not yet been presented. They dont bring cases like this loosely and the question i would have is because i heard your guest say this might go all the way up to assist the Supreme Court. Most likely, the Appellate Court would rule in favor of the prosecution assuming the prosecution wins. Going to the Supreme Court would be a very extreme measure but im i basically would like to say that it seems like the doj hasnt ironclad case. Theyre not bringing this case loosely and i think youll see so much, a whole lot of other people who will be charged including possibly Congress Members and members of congress who were conspiring. This is a big, big thing. Host thank you for the call. Guest i think its right that the department of justice is a very strong case. It does. Jack smith is a longtime prosecutor in the Public Integrity section and this is how you bring indictments. You bring in witnesses and get their testimony locked down in the grand jury process and you present the indictment. What happens at the appellate level here will be interesting. Trump is not appealing necessarily because he things he can win because this is been his playbook throughout his his litigation in his life. He appeals to buy himself time and delay. We see this in the documents case in miami where he is anticipating bringing all of these motions in a bid to kick the trial date is close to the election as possible if not afterwards because he thinks he can survive until the election and if he wins, he can find a way to drop these cases. Host i for the introduction of the six coconspirators unnamed in this indictment is so that federal prosecutors can focus on donald trump and potentially those coconspirators would be tried separately. Guest i think thats very likely. You have six coconspirators who are described as being adjacent to the criminal acts, close in language and description to the way trump is being described. It suggests they will also be charged at some later date. Host lets hear from rudy from ohio on the republican line. Caller hi, i think trump is going to get railroaded by the jack smith guy. I believe the people should look up barack obama and see what hand he had in all this. If mike pence committed treason, donald trump would have known about it. I think obama is the big guy. Joe biden is not the smartest knife in the drawer, the sharpest knife so he couldnt have gotten away with anything without the big guy knowing about it. I think everybody is barking up the wrong tree. Lets investigate here and see what we can turn up. Host the caller mentioned mike pence. Yesterday, his language yesterday concluding this suite on fox news. President trump is a gaggle of crockpot lawyers to keep faith with the oath that i made to the American People and to almighty god. I did my duty that day. How likely is it that Vice President pence will be called to testify in this trial . Guest its extremely likely. You saw in the indictment that mike pences notes, you see how a lot of the conversations recounted in the indictment probably could have only come from mike pence. We spent a long time covering the behind closed doors for legal fight that went on at this courthouse in the d. C. Circuit judge mike pence was figuring out the contours of executive privilege and speech and debate privilege as he was the presiding officer of the senate that day. When all is said and done, the ultimate ruling of the d. C. Circuit judge not just a trial judge in a federal court. They ruled there was grounds for him to testify to this grand jury and he provided that testimony. Host next up is andy from sterling, virginia, democrats line. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Id like to congratulate you on your excellent reporting the last couple of years. Im pressed im impressed that young men like yourself can report with such clarity. Having said that, could you explain to me why do the gutless republicans are willing to nominate as a president ial candidate this twice impeached, three or four times indicted gentlemen, a traitor to this country, someone who has enriched himself and his family with untold billions of dollars, what has happened to this once great republican that now they are occult, the party of trump. What has become of them and could you please, any inkling as to whether or not this orange monster will accept a plea deal from jack smith . Jack smith should be nominated for the time men of the year. Guest thank you for the kind words. Republicans i think are in a very momentous moment leading to the selection. Part of the election calculus is like trump is far ahead of the polls ahead of the nearest challenger. Its true that if he wins the nomination, and they will have to support him as the nominee. Bill barr was on fox news saying he would vote for trump even though he continues to say what trump did was illegal. You do see this conversion behind trump. I dont think is necessarily driven ideologically. As for the plea deal, i think that is exceedingly unlikely. Then again with trump, his overarching philosophy, if thats the right word, is going to be to stay out of jail. You talk a lot to trump advisors and the one thing he doesnt want to do is be inside a jail. Maybe at the 11th hour, he tries to strike a deal but this is the calculus in prosecution as well. The longer you wait to strike a deal, the less good it is for the government and the less sling and see you get. Host steve on the republican line from santa fe san jose, california. Caller good morning. This is a twopart question. The first part is, in light of the failed hunter biden plea deal which was outrageous and the failure, the reluctance to prosecute Hillary Clinton, how can you not say that there is a two tiered Justice System . Thats the first part of the question. The second part is what do you know insofar as mr. Smiths losing in search of the Supreme Court . I understand he has been slapped down repeatedly at least once unanimously. For liberal Supreme Court justices to slap him down, thats an egregious violation of civil rights. I will take my answer off the air. Guest the way the department of justice operates in these prosecutions is they look for what they call aggravating factors. Thats with respect to National Security and includes the volume of National Security material, the sensitivity of the material and whether there were any attempts made to obstruct the retrieval or the or to proper secure the documents. All of the instances of the aggravated factors the department of justice considers, trump probably hit two or three or four of them. At most, mike pence might have hit one but if you look at jim comey, this would be evident. The second question about jack smith losing in front of scotus, yes, he has been slapped down 90 by the Supreme Court and had a number of field prosecutions including the edwards case. This is the reality prosecutions. You bring a case and you think the facts in the law merit a prosecution. Sometimes you do not win but that isnt an indication of prosecutorial conduct or an indication of a case of being corrupt but it means the case was weak or is overturned on appeal. Host the callers comments about a two tiered Justice System are a common refrain the last couple of days from some republicans anyway. Certainly the president or the former president , f hi statement reflecting some of that sayin is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the biden crime ly and their weaponized department of justice to interfere with the 2020 president ial election which President Trump is the leading by substantial margins. Why did they wait 2. 5 years to brin these fake charges in the middle of trumps Winning Campaign for 2024 . Why wasnt it announced the day after the joe biden scandal broke . The answer is the election interference. Those are political arguments, those are not legal arguments the president s team will need to make in this case. What are the legal arguments we expect his team to make on the charges he faces . Guest the statement where he talks about how this came down as we got into the president ial cycle. The delay was trumps own fault because he litigated through the investigation. This investigation been going on since days after january 6. We spent months and months, 16, 18 months trying to decipher the grand jury activity that was going on where trump was litigating every step of the way to prevent his Deputy White House counsel, he has had months and months of delays it was coming down now because he was litigating it. As to trial strategy, we dont know yet. Its difficult to predict how the defense argument will work. We havent seen the discovery yet and the kind of defendants that will be involved. They are talking about the First Amendment discussion but that will not work under these statutes. Host from the Washington Times duane is calling from jamaica, queens new york on the independent line. Go ahead. Caller good morning, gentlemen. You mentioned the two tiered Justice System. Trump is in a good position. He has millions of dollars being supported by his supporters. A person like me, i couldnt afford what hes going through. All the tax dollars we have been putting in to go after this guy, he is not going to give up. Trump wants to stay out of jail. He doesnt want to go to jail. He is so privileged that he needs to do what he needs to do for his people, meaning his supporters and they are so confused. Im confused at times with trump. He has done this country a disservice and now we will be claim to the television all day long about this hearing. I understand he is the former president but he will not give up. Thank you for taking my call. Guest i think trump is in the best position he can be to face these charges. He has got a leadership committee, his president ial bid, hes got his lawyers on these federal cases and leadership super pac. He probably got tens of millions still left. To fight these charges in its troop compared to other political officials, hes in a better position. Someone like jeff clark, the former Justice Department official who is probably one of the coconspirators in the indictment, jeff clark will not have the same resources donald trump has. Yet he might be hit with the same charge. In that sense, there is an inherent in equity because donald trump is running for president. Host the caller mentioned how much money the former president is spending on defense, i think 20 million was thrown around from his Political Action committee . How much more is he expected to spend and at what point does that interview with dez interfere with the fundraising for his campaign . Guest i checked in with people close to trump yesterday and they dont think it will be an issue going forward. Theyve restructured the way they are spending their retainers. One lawyer was making close to 90,000 per month. That has been brought back and spending is being restrained potentially to stay in for the long haul. Host lets go to macon, georgia, democrat line. You are on the air. Caller yes, i just wonder why human beings cannot see the forest for the trees. I dont understand that. Where is his family . I havent seen one person defending him. If that was my father up there accused of all of that, i would follow him all the way to the jailhouse. It just doesnt make any sense. They always talk about hunter biden. I heard somebody accuse obama. Obama was like he could walk on water as a human being. When i was a little girl in school, i would dish i could see the teachers that would commit anything. You could just see them out, you know. Where is his family, where is his family . Host the rest of the trump family in any of these cases . Guest the Trump Organization is his family. His family is not been mentioned in these indictments at all. They have not made mention but there is a passing reference to Melania Trump in relation to one of the codefendants hauling the boxes around which is interesting given how much focus the january 6 committee when they hold that hearing based on trumps own family and their testimony and think about ivanka trumps discussion about how she believes bill barr said there is no evidence of Election Fraud that wouldve changed the result of the election. When you talk about Jared Kushner and talk about i wasnt really there. He is trying to put some distance away from january 6. I wonder when it gets to trial that this is where you will see the transcription testimonies come out and illustrate the point that even trump some family own family did not believe this. Host there were more serious charges in the maralago case. Are more charges likely in this case related to january 6 . Guest its possible i may know that the grand jury and d. C. Has been hearing evidence about potential fraud with respect to the save america pack and how they were fundraising and they want to stand up a Legal Defense fund and they got the money and didnt use it and didnt pay lawyers. We note there are further interviews scheduled with the counsels office with with rick with witnesses that will talk about that. Host the grand jury that handed down the indictments, they are still in panel and their work is not yet done . Guest thats actually pretty common in these cases. They will hand down indictments and then there will be continued investigations afterwards. You cannot use a grand jury to continue to investigate. There has to be a goal oriented purpose. You sit earlier the indictment was worded in a way that they just wanted to get an indictment out fast. Maybe it is based on the political schedule but its possible you will see more indictments and especially more superseding charges. Host going back to your chart in the guardian, where do you see this trial fitting potentially . Guest its becoming a very crowded trial schedule for trump. I think the judges will have to figure out and call each other up and figure out where they can fit in these pretrial motions. Maybe its spring 2024. Because you dont have a restriction here, we expect the trial to go farther. Host lets hear from dawn in montana on the republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I was wondering how one American News had people justifying about fraud in the elections . There must be tapes available about pulling ballots out from under the table, recounting, a truck load of ballots all across state lines. All kinds of testimony under oath. Why havent they brought that out as it pertains to a corrupt election . By the way, i am a gutless republican, thank you. Host the dykman directly addressed the indictment directly addresses fraud. Guest even further back, the department of justice immediately after the election looked into some of these claims. It was to maybe play create trump and both of the instances which the caller mentioned were debunked, the thing about putting ballots on the table, that was not the case in georgia. Also the korean air cargo plane, they looked at bamboo strands in ballots. As reporters, we talked to people who were involved in that aspect and they said they did not find any bamboo strains or anything to suggest they came from a courier. Many of these have been investigated and many have been debunked. Host next is charlene from texas, good morning. Caller good morning. I just want to say that its funny that the republicans are really upset about hunter biden but when it comes to trump, they are afraid of the fbi. They were domestic terrorists. America is the largest maker of terrorists abroad and at home. Its just what they do. What they did is terrible for democracy. I think if we had Kamala Harris and kevin and get the both sides together and get their heads together, they could do something but they wont. Democracy will probably die but we are in a new world. We could have a president may or may not be going to jail. He could be president in jail. We need to understand this is breaking territory, we dont know whats going to happen. It will be fun to watch along the way. Host bold New Territory here . Guest i think thats right. I dont know if we will be in a situation where we will have a president who is in jail. If trump wins the election, winning the election from a jail cell is impossible because theres a Legal Counsel memo that said president s may not be impeded in the institution of their office. That wont happen but its true that we may be in a situation where this Time Next Year and before the election, if trump is convicted on these january 6 interference charges, he may be a convicted defendant looking at possible jail time as he goes into the election which only raises the stakes for everyone. Host this is ulysses in kansas city, missouri, democrats line. Caller good morning. Concerning the commitment of the followers and whether there is any concern there could be a commitment or endangerment such as jury nullification to disregard the facts . What, if any processes are in place for the jurors to address that . I guess judgment notwithstanding the verdict. It seems that people are now saying maybe it wont happen. Thats my question. Guest jury selection, jurors take this seriously and weve seen this repeatedly in cases in the january 6 cases and related cases. Steve bannons case when he was indicted for contempt of congress and you really get a diverse set of jurors. There are ways for the prosecution and defense to strike people with conflicts but judge chutkon has given narrow jury instructions and these statutes are not difficult to acquit or find a decision either way. The language is very straightforward. We will have a definition of the benefits by the time this goes to trial. Host do you think the trump legal tmobile push for that the Trump Legal Team will push for a change of venue . Guest its possible because they may find a way to delay this further. It would not be out of the realm of possibility. I dont think theres any way that will succeed. The crime took place in d. C. And it will be tried in d. C. Host we know you have a busy y and we thank you for your reporting in the guardian. He is the political investigations reporter for the guardian, thank you for being with us. Guest thank host host you. There is more ahead on this arraignment day for former President Donald Trump. We will be joined by jim mantel who is the politics editor for the Washington Examiner. We will talk further about the political fallout from the potential from this indictment. First, more of your phone calls on arraignment day for the former president set to appear at 4 p. M. This afternoon at the freeman courthouse. A live look here on this thursday morning, we will be right back. Book tv every sunday on cspan2 features leading authors discussing their latest Nonfiction Books live at noon eastern on indepth, the bestselling author and historian will be our guest to take your calls and talk about native american history, the civil war and more. His books include empire of the summer moon, rebel yell and his latest, his majestys airship. At 10 p. M. Astern on afterwords, the book filthy rich politicians. It extorts american politics fueled by wealth and offers suggestions on how to hold Election Officials more accountable and he was interviewed by a columnist. 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Host a live view this morning outside the freeman courthouse, the federal courthouse in washington, d. C. Where today at 4 p. M. Eastern, former President Trump will be arraigned on four counts of criminal conspiracy and obstruction in relation to the 2020 president ial election and the january 6 2021 insurrection and attack on the u. S. Capital. We continue to take your phone calls throughout the morning on this arraignment day. 202 7488001 the line for republicans, 202 7488000 four democrats, and 202 7488002 independents and all others and you content send us a text at 202 7488003. We welcome your comments via text and twitter and instagram. Looking at the daily caller this morning and comments from bill barr last night, the former attorney general on cnn, lets hear from our callers and first to trenton, georgia on the republican line. Caller hello, good morning. I just wanted to say that i think this is a request for delay for the change of venue is not much more than a delay tactic because mr. Smith, wasnt he recently reprimanded at the court for withholding evidence . And the fact that Alan Dershowitz said the judge had worked at a firm where hunter biden was on the board. I dont see how 95 of the electorate in washington, d. C. Being democrat, i just dont see how President Trump, former President Trump could receive a fair trial. I think that a change of venue would be in order. Host kalani in honolulu, hawaii democrats line. Caller good morning, i wanted to mention, how do we get Fact Checking to be some kind of, i dont know, i dont know how to say it. There are so many lies out there that everybody is just misinformed. How do we get that corrected . Thats one of the big problems with so many of us on one side and so many of us on the other side. Its a big problem, thats all i think. Host in this case in particular, where you think you are hearing the most misinformation . Caller when you look at the january 6 committee and with the doj has done, they have all these proven facts where you have the other side i appreciate everybodys input the you have the other side saying this and that but where are the facts . Even with the republican politicians, they have seen so much stuff, where are the facts . Host up next is brad from the Nations Capital, good morning. Caller good morning. Im a little bit disappointed in your reporting or moderation this morning. Moments ago, you had said about the last election being falsely, trumps false allegation that was rigged or had problems or something. You made a point to say that that was untrue in the election, it was a Fair Election and everything. But any time you ever report russian collusion, you never said alleged russian collusion that that was fake. When you guys report stuff for the democratic side, its fact there was russian collusion which we know very well now after all these years that it wasnt but then when you report something on the other site, youre are quick to report that thats fake. It didnt happen. People that are uninformed and here you actually believe this stuff at last caller. I just think you need to be more responsible and more fair and balanced. Having someone like the guardian on for the first half hour and people are listening to this and listening to one side but they are not hearing the other side. Maybe it would be good to have someone from an alternate source to sort of debate with that person rather than have one side put out there. Thats my opinion on that. There should be a change of venue from d. C. Hes can i have a hard time finding a jury that will be fair to him in d. C. Thats just a fact. Middleclass people that support from in d. C. , you have the upper class which are democrats and then you have the poor people, less fortunate people that also vote democrat because they want handouts. I think you will have a hard time finding a fair trial in d. C. Host they have already brought almost 1000 defendants through that courthouse from january 6. Does the same logic apply there that they didnt get a fair trial based on your classification of how d. C. Drawers might be . Caller oh yes absolutely. There are still people from january 6 in jail, being held in prison and the same judge that trump is going in front of, but out most of the harshest sentences toward these people. This is all easily researchable on sources in the media and on the internet. Im not making this up because i heard it on fox news or cnn. You do a little bit of searching and you can dig this stuff up, absolutely. When they tried to rush the right white house, we can call that an attempted coup. That kind of got swept under the rug and no one was arrested. They tore down the statue outside indian avenue and Police Headquarters in the statue was still not there. No one said anything and no one has been held accountable. They broke out windows and birch down cities. Those people did not get sentences where this investigation that was put out for january 6. Host we go to john in virginia, good morning on the republican line. Caller good morning. This witchhunt, and thats what it is, its all a political witchhunt, has been going on now for seven years. We had years of russian collusion and like the guy ahead of me who said its all a big lie. Then there was the impeachment because they impeached donald trump for what joe biden actually did. Joe biden bride ukraine. Then there was january 6. Host are you saying joe biden bride ukrainians . Caller yes, hes on audio and video tape. You look at if you look at the real news you would know that. Host onto jeffrey calling on the democrats line in newport news virginia, good morning. Caller good morning and happy arraignment day, 3. 0 i was thinking about all of these indictments that are being handed down. Its because of potential crimes. He basically [indiscernible] but he is not serving any jail time, just waiting for trial. Is there a bail set for each one of these appearances, these indictments he has to make . Thats what im trying to figure out. He is supposed to be not above the law. He served as the president but hes not the president anymore, hes a regular citizen. Is he getting special treatment, is bail being posted, is there bail . Im trying to figure out where this legal system, twotiered that most republicans talk about, is this how thats applied . All you have to do is run for office, be up in the capital and once you leave, you can do anything you want and you will not have your regular, i guess system apply to you . You get favors here and there. You are indicted but you are out until the trial. Host the details of the arraignment, we will know later today. That will be at 4 p. M. Eastern at the freeman courthouse here in washington, d. C. Its been the site of many cases related to january 6. A caller had mentioned theudge in the case, tanya chutkon, the presiding judge in the case on donald trump are generally six. Peers an article about her host hamilton, virginias next, good morning on the republican line. Caller good morning cspan and all the listeners t world. The gentleman that set ths a trump cant get a fair trial in d. C. , im wdeng if he can get a fairri in fort worth, florida where the bulk of people ted for trump so he would prab get acquitted down there and found guilty up here. It is amazing how i have friends that are trumpers d when you try to talk to them and discuss one of these issues etr its the documents or this new indictment, theylws bring up hunter biden or Hillary Clinton. In 20172019 when trump owned the house of representativ, the senate and the white house, why didnt he put these people in jail . He had full control over everything. He has already said he will politicize the doj if he gets reelected. The guy need to go to jail, im sorry. He is innocent until he is Proven Guilty in a court of law. We are a country of laws and we need to respect that above all else. Vote, vote, vote. Host thanks for the call. Charlene is next in pennsylvania, republican line. Caller good morning. I do agree with your last caller that our country is corrupt and i dont think we will ever find it. Go back to your caller from hawaii. I dont see this country ever being able to come together. I think what we need to figure out is to cut this country in half and put all the democrats on one side and all the republicans on the others and we solve the situation. Thanks for taking my call. Host murfreesboro, arkansas is next, mike on the democrats line, good morning caller good morning. I think everyone is in agreement that the doj is not going to jail trump no matter what. If hes convicted, he wont serve a day in jail, not for federal offenses. On the other hand, if georgia indicts and convicts him, for crimes in georgia, can the doj supersede georgia and keep him out of jail on state charges . Host good question. I dont know and i dont have an expert here to answer that but we have not heard from the District Attorney there in Fulton County georgia. We expect to hear something in the coming weeks. Dave is on the independent line, lynchburg, virginia good morning. Caller good morning and thanks for taking my call. Its hard to imagine with all the exposure that donald trump has had that anybody can believe anything he says. I used to listen and laugh. He is the president or hes been indicted in all these things. He says these things that are so bizarre. How can people believe anything he says and how can our other elected officials not be standing up and making the case that this is it . How can we follow this guy because 30 of the republicans do. The Founding Fathers would never have imagined a scenario like this because they couldnt imagine somebody so immoral and corrupt getting elected president. Thats my take, have a good day. Host four counts of obstruction and conspiracy handed down by the special counsel, the arraignment today at 4 p. M. Eastern at the federal courthouse in washington. A key part of that indictment has been extemporaneous notes and interviews with the former Vice President mike pence. Mike pence was asked yesterday for further information and thoughts on the president s actions and heres what he had to say. [video clip] weve investigated this case to the highest ethical standards and they will continue to do so. Host we will get that for you shortly but we will go to tammy in newport news, virginia, go ahead. Caller good morning. I know people think its like woke communists that are doing this but its not. Trump did this to himself. I was talking to my friend and i just wish we had a highspeed train so i could sit there and watch and laugh at this. The Founding Fathers definitely would not expect any of this. For the people who say washington, d. C. Is chocolate city, is seems to be ok. Host reston, virginia, independent line, welcome. Caller thank you for taking my call. I was a republican all my life and i one thing to say everybody is up in arms because they say the country has been politicized and trump is innocent. Trump has been in trouble all his life. Hes been in and out of court all his life. He has been sued by 3500 schools and businesses. It is not like the guy was so innocent. Just because he is winning the gop, hes been in trouble all his life. Nothing against them, hes just a bad guy. Have a good day. Host mike pence, the former Vice President yesterday in indianapolis and reaction to the indictment [video clip] for my part, i want people to know that i had no right to overturn the election. Thats with the president maintained that day. Frankly, he has said over and over again over the last 2. 5 years is completely false. Its contrary to what our constitution and the laws of this country provide. Im a student of american history. The first time i heard in early december somebody suggested as Vice President i might be able to decide which votes to reject and which votes to accept, i knew that it was false. We had just won a war against a king. The last thing they would have done was had unilateral authority in any one person to be the next president. I dismissed it out of hand. I was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers and he i understood my the constitution. The president continually demanded i choose him over the constitution. I want the American People to know. I believe with all my heart that by gods grace, i did my duty that day. As i stand for nomination of president , i want them to know. I will always stand on the constitution of the United States of america. Our country is more important than any one man. Our constitution is more important than any one mans career. That is true of me, and the former president of the United States. We are going to stand on the facts and stand by what happened that day and trust ourselves. Host we are live outside the federal courthouse in washington, d. C. , which sits at the intersection of constitution and pennsylvania. The media tends tents, cameras and reporters, waiting this afternoon. 4 00 is the time schedule for donald trump to be arraigned on four counts, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. Those are the four charges handed down in the indictment on tuesday from jack smith. 4 00 p. M. Eastern today, we continue to take your calls and comments on the expected arraignment today of former President Donald Trump, 202 7488001 is the line for republicans. 202 7488000 free democrats and 202 7488002 for independents and all others. Let us hear from wallace on the republican line in new jersey. Caller my son is in the army, my brother is in the army. I have a whole bunch of Family Members in the army. I am an extra republican. I am so displeased with donald trump for the things he has done. It is a shame, really. He should be charged with high treason and hung outside the white house for what he has done. This is so ridiculous. It makes me ill. I am feeling ill about what he has stolen. Host freddie in South Carolina on the democrats line, go ahead. Caller yes, i would just like to say two things. The best way to get donald trump in jail is going to be house arrest. The next thing i would like to say, if he is found guilty and they call mike pence as his first witness, it is game over. He will have to tell what he adult home what he told donald trump. Host in illinois, ruth on the independent line. What would you like to say . Caller talking about the lady in bc and the department of justice being so fair, that shaman, the guy with the buffalo helmet, they were ready to send him to jail for 22 years. For his part in january 6. Tucker carlsen was given the tape from the hill, he put the tape out that showed the cops on capitol hill letting the shaman letting him in, taking him from room to room. Until they took him in on the floor. All we saw was the shaman standing on the desk with his arms up reached and all that. But he when he was on the floor, he said a prayer for the democrats and the republicans. Host do you know what his sentence ultimately was in his case . Caller i thought they sent him home. Host in terms of the sentence handed down from his trial, do you know what that was . Caller they were going to put them in jail for 22 years, he was going to jail for 22 years. Host do you know the ultimate sentence was . I do not, so im asking you. Caller i thought they sent him home. I thought they immediately got rid of him after the tape came out. But fox news mustve been so pressed by i call it bidens gestapo, the top people in the doj. This country we are going to hell not in a hand basket, we are going on a rocket ship. Host kathy in virginia on the republican line. Caller good morning. Drain the swamp, they are all corrupt. They are all dishonest. Republicans and democrats alike. Host that is it . Caller i think so. It is a bad system that we are in these days. Host in addition to Coverage Later today, any potential News Conference, comments at the courthouse here in washington, d. C. We will bring you a News Conference ahead of the federal arraignment of the former president , stemming from jack smiths investigation. It is being held by a group called not above the law coalition, group made of organizations calling for accountability for those who oppose certification of 2020 election results. We will have it live on cspan, on cspan now and cspan. Org, live at noon eastern. Suzanne is next on the democrats line in philadelphia, good morning. Caller mi on now . Host you are. Caller i am not at all eloquent , so bear with me, please. When jack smith said please read the paper, i tried so hard. I really tried to get the paper. I could not. At all. I really tried. If someone could have helped us just told us how to get it, i would have. I would have paid anything for the paper. When a lawyer was on cspan the other day, she said she was talking about the amount of people on the jury and how many people would be if one person was for trump, that the amount of people, it would have made a big difference protrump. It would have ended up protrump. I do not see how it is going to be just hope it works out. I really hope it does. God knows i hope it does. Anyway, that is my opinion. Host from arkansas, good morning. Caller good morning. You hear me . Host yes. Caller i do not think we have a doj or fbi anymore. I think we have an extra branch of the democratic party. It started with bill clinton, they are not going to tell the truth. They need to be put out at the higher level of the doj and fbi need to be researched himself. They are the ones causing trouble, the ones telling all of the lies. There is not an honest thing in them, that is what i believe. Donald trump may have done something wrong, but it will not be the truth that comes out of the doj or fbi because they are part of the democratic party. Host the arraignment of former President Trump set for 4 00 p. M. This afternoon at the federal courthouse in washington, d. C. That courthouse houses the Federal District court, d. C. Circuit court of appeals and the grand jury that has been taking in testimony and evidence in this case and others on january 6, that is where the grand jury is. 202 7488001 is the line to call for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats and 202 7488002 for independents and all others. Usa today with a closer look at terms indictments, we will go over the three that have come down so far. The first indictment, hush money paid to stormy daniels. Prosecutors accuse the former president of covering up alleged state and federal election law violations by falsifying Business Records about a payoff to adult film actor stormy daniels, the trial is set for march 25 in new york city. The second, the classified documents case at maralago. Trump is accused of illegally keeping classified documents, including some involving nuclear weapons, after leaving office. That came down june 9. Former president arraigned on june 13 and a trial date set for may 20 to begin in fort pierce, florida. Todays arraignment, the january 6 insurrection at the capital, a mob of rioters attacked the Capitol Building january 6 to stop certification of the president ial electoral vote and keep trump in office. A federal grand jury indicted trump on these counts. Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. That arraignment of former President Trump is today at 4 00 p. M. Eastern. Bill is on the republican line in orange park, florida. Hello. Caller hello. This might be the best deal for mr. Trump there ever was. Now he has complete subpoena power. He is going to bring in everybody that went against him, the socalled witnesses, including that hooker. My sisterinlaw just moved to indiana. Talking with people, she found out mike pence could not be elected dog catcher in that state. He goes back to indiana, he cannot get elected for nothing. Host why do you think that is . Caller trump won the state by how many points, 50 or 60 points . They know he is better. He is even trying to run for president. 2 is milk, he aint even got that. Host next up is pamela on the democrats line in tennessee, good morning. Caller i have a few questions for the Trump Supporters. I would like to ask them if they think the president could change the outcome of the election, dont they think someone might have tried it before . Also, would they like to be convicted of a crime without any evidence, or if someone committed a crime against them to get away without any evidence . That is what is happening to us now. The president tried to change the outcome of the election and deprive us of our rights to vote for those of us who voted for biden, it was a legitimate election. I would like some honest answers, i have come discussions with friends of mine who are Trump Supporters. Do you realize he is trying to become a dictator of america, that that is his ultimate goal . If he is elected, he will Never Leave Office again. Do you understand that . This election will determine whether we remain a democracy or become a dictatorship. Mr. Trump has shown himself to be a traitor to america, he wants to become a dictator. People in congress i am sorry they are so dishonest and entrenched. But this country will end up a dictatorship. That is why the rest of the world is watching, that is why our Credit Rating got dropped. The rest of the world thinks we are fools. I would really like answers from the republicans to those questions. Thanks for your time. Host your calls and comments and more on the way. We are going to take a quick break. Next, we will return with your reactions to the Trump Indictment. First, we have our conversation with james antle, the politics editor for the Washington Examiner. He is with us next as we welcome your continued input into our conversation. All of that ahead. Be uptodate in the latest in publishing with book tvs podcast about books, with current Nonfiction Book releases, plus bestseller lists and Industry News and trends through insider interviews. You can find it on cspan now, our free mobile app, or wherever you get your ps. 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Cspan shop is the online store, browse the latest collection of cspan products, apparel, books, home to core and accessories. There is something for every cspan fan and every purchase helps to support nonprofit operations. Shop now or anytime. Washington journal continues. Host former President Donald Trump will be arraigned today on four counts of conspiracy of obstruction related to the january 6 capitol hill riots, the 2020 president ial election. We continue our conversation here in washington journal and are joined by politics editor for the Washington Examiner james antle, thanks for coming by. What is the difference between this federal indictment and the maralago documents case indictment . Guest there are a few things. In the classified documents case, it is pretty clear. You either have access to the documents you are not supposed to have or you do not. I am sure the trump Legal Defense team has theories about president ial powers regarding classified documents they will use in defense, they are possibly going to compare themselves to other people who have had classified documents and maybe were not given the same treatment. By and large, that seems to be a straightforward case. The january 6 case, clearly there is the subtext of some sort of incitement of the attack on the capital, but that is not exactly what hes been charged with doing. Sort of looking at the ways in which his efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election were on some level fraudulent or corrupt is the case being made against him. I think at least initially politically, that indictment probably works to his favor, at least with the republican primary electorate. A lot of primary voters are going to feel the views they hold about the 2020 election are implicated in this indictment and, on some level, holding these views is being criminalized. They are going to view it as a bit of a pile on. This is not a portion the republicans who are particularly exercised by what happened on january 6 are already not voting for donald trump, they support other candidates. They support chris christie, mike pence. They perhaps support ron desantis, but to a lesser degree. In the immediate effect, i suspect the former president s poll numbers with republicans will not be changed. But when you head to the general election, which at the moment is where the former president appears to be headed, this is probably not helpful, just the practicality apart from how you feel about the merits of any of the cases. There are practical issues with being so tied down with all of these legal fights. To what degree does that cut into your ability to wage a competitive campaign . Host in terms of what we are hearing potentially, some early ideas for the legal arguments for the president s team is there is a First Amendment case to be made. You touched on it briefly, the idea the president was expressing his views and you mentioned his supporters can relate. Their views are being potentially criminalized. Do you think that works as a legal argument in addition to the political argument that the president is making on the campaign trail. Guest it works for Republican Voters as a political argument, whether it works with the broader general electorate remains to be seen. As a legal argument, juries you cannot predict what a jury is going to do and what trump would have to do in this case is raise reasonable doubt. The core argument, in addition to free speech, is going to be where jack smith is going to present this all as a corrupt arrangement. The trump Legal Defense team will try to argue there was no corruption, trump believed he would you have a won or there were serious questions about the election. As opposed to a coup, what trump was attempting to do this will be the argument, i think he was asking other constitutional actors, state legislatures, the Vice President , members of congress to exercise lawful powers he believed they possessed and exercised them in certain ways to get to the bottom of the election. When they did not exercise them in the ways he asked, he left. That is what i think their argument will be. The special counsel argument will be that attempting to do all of this from the very beginning was a corrupt exercise. Host it appears the indictment relies a great deal on the interviews of former Vice President , mike pence. He has been the one republican candidate to come out strongly reacting against the indictment. What do you think this means for his president ial aspirations . Guest it is an interesting case as to whether you can make these arguments with the republican primary electorate. The former Vice President s case, he has no choice. He is not pulling very well, he is struggling to make the debate stage for the first republican debate, though i do expect he will probably clear the donor threshold required to do that. The fact it is this point suggests troubles with his campaign. He rebuffed trump on this, he has taken the stand that he chose the constitution over donald trump. That is sort of where he is leaving his case with Republican Voters. It will be interesting to see how it works out. A problem for the former Vice President , just like the former president , is it so much of the conversation about 2024 is going to hinge on 2020. Expence himself says, elections are won about the future when you are talking about the past, that is generally to your detriment. I think pentz would like to move on from 2020, whereas trump seems stuck in that year, which for most people was not a pleasant year even apart from the election. I think it is going to be difficult because of the circumstances for pence to escape 2020. Host we welcome your calls and comments, republicans is 202 7488001. Republicans democrats 202 7488000, independents and others 202 7488002. Your publication frames it like this in an article this morning. Trump indictments and biden family investigations could define rematch election. We have heard in response to the most recent indictment the allegations of a twotier Justice System. What about the biden family and hunter biden in particular . Guest from House Speaker mccarthy on down, that was the immediate pub can immediate republican response. This is happening as things are heating up in the investigation of hunter biden and the revelation the current president was present on speakerphone and some luncheons for meetings with Hunter Biden Business Associates , which is not quite the smoking gun republicans were hoping for, but it is a Development Beyond what we were previously told about the president s level of involvement in his sons business activities. We are told there is pretty much a firewall, now we are told he was around, but he was talking about the weather and exchanging pleasantries. I think this is going to become a big part of the republican weaponization twotier system of justice argument. Whether that works with the broader electorate, i do not know. It does have resonance with the republican primary electorate. Host into your point mike pences point with elections being about the future, does this back and forth between the campaigns provide an opening for candidates who will talk not only talk, but propose about the future and break away from the arguments of what the current indictments are all about, or with the biden family is doing instead, focusing on issues in the campaign . Guest most voters do not want a rematch between trump and biden. That is not a popular set of choices. But if you look at polls of democratic and republican primary voters at the moment, the current trajectory is to provide that rematch. Both men have healthy leads over their primary opponents. President biden does not really have a toptier challenger of any kind. Donald trumps lead over ron desantis is almost as big as president bidens lead is over Robert Kennedy junior. If one creates an opening for a centrist third party, whether it is no labels or someone else, some ambitious person may see a trump biden rematch, an opportunity to sort of present themselves and maybe get votes so they can get on the ballot in enough states. Within the republican primaries, it does present the opening for ron desantis or someone else to say they can get us beyond the past disputes. Up to this point, no one has been able to make that case successfully enough to make headway nationally or in states. Host with the Current Trump 2024 campaign, that has resulted in a bump in the polls and fundraising for the former president. Any early indications of that from the campaign . Guest what little we have seen in terms of polling there has not been much in terms of polling since the indictment has come out. It has generally been stay the course or upward movement. Trump is generally polling between 50 and 60 of the National Republican primary electorate, that is a Pretty Healthy lead for a nonincumbent president. He makes the argument he is a quasiincumbent and many Republican Voters are receptive to that, which is to his benefit. We will see if the fundraising numbers i think this will be viewed more by a lot of republicans closer to the alvin bragg indictment than the classified documents indictment. I suspect there be rally around the flag effect to it. It puts the rest of a field in a somewhat awkward position. You cannot be seen as exciting with jack smith over trump, you cannot be seen as siding with the biden Justice Department over trump. But if you are running against trump and you cannot capitalize on the fact he is now under multiple indictments, what will it take for you to break through . Host let us hear from our viewers, we will go to johnny in granite falls, washington on the independent line. Johnny in washington. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have been watching you guys since the 1980s, so this is a thrill and i am very nervous, bear with me. I wanted to make a comment about the Trump Indictments, i am glad they are going on and i hope something finally sticks. I do not want to see this man back in office. I am kind of hoping he will do what is right for the country and drop out of the race, just turn his endorsements over to somebody else and save us, spare us from sucking all the life out of the campaign. That is just my opinion on that. I had a question, i am glad to have a reporter, about the devon archer hearing. I was wondering if you know why that was a closeddoor session and who made that decision. Host she is talking about the associate of hunter biden. Guest generally, those decisions are a negotiation between the attorneys of whoever is going to testify and leadership of the House Oversight committee believes the transcripts of his interview are about to be published or have been published, maybe at some point this morning. Then you will get to see what the answers are. A lot of times these hearings, the disadvantage of not being able to see the person testify in real time as members of the committee from each party are going to get to preemptively characterize with the testimony is and they are going to have their own take on what it would be. For the republicans, the going argument was that devon archer came in and testified about the level of the president s involvement in discussing things with Business Partners of hunter biden. The democratic argument was that these were largely pleasantries, they did not revolve around the substance of any business decisions. Devon archer was not aware of any of the allegations about the president receiving any money or payoff from any of Hunter Bidens business activities. At most, what we are looking at is hunter biden attempting to create the illusion of having influence over then Vice President joe biden. The republican counterargument is being present at any of these calls or meetings is at a minimum creating or reinforcing that illusion. Host in terms of the federal charges against hunter biden, the implosion of the plea deal with the judge in delaware certainly is not good news to the Biden Campaign with the potential hunter biden trial later this year or early next year. Guest we are hoping this agreement would be the end of Hunter Bidens legal troubles and essentially the end of this being in the headlines, apart from some Republican House investigations. It is easy, if there are no Court Proceedings going on, to cast what House Republicans are doing is a partisan exercise. If it is still going on in the courts, it becomes more difficult to move beyond that and frame it as purely a partisan exercise. The courts and Justice Department remain having some interest in what hunter biden was up to. Definitely not what they wanted to be talking about and had to adjust what they have said about it. If the white house line had been the president never discussed anything involving Hunter Bidens business arrangements, now the standard line is the president and hunter biden have never been in business together. It is a subtle distinction, but it is an important one. Host michelle on the democrats line in florida, good morning. Caller good morning. I am 70 seven years old, ive been a democrat, independent and republican all through those years. What i would like to say is, let the Justice Department handle all kinds of cases. You have got the trump case, the biden case, all kinds of cases that come in the court. We do not need to have a former president make negative comments about the Justice System. I speak four languages and i watch international tv. I can tell you this is an embarrassment for our country. I would like to say that if biden is guilty, then have the evidence. If trump is guilty, have the evidence. He will be judged in court and that is all we have to do. We do not have to publicize it on tv. The Justice Department will do their role. I know trumps followers are never going to change, because he has hypnotized them. On the other hand, you have biden. Who some people like. Because he has done some very good Financial Transactions for different people. I do not investigate that. But the Justice Department will determine what the facts are, then the jury will decide that. Guest that is certainly the case for trump, we have multiple cases that are going to be litigated in court, presumably going to be decided by juries. In Hunter Bidens case, if not the president s, we seem to be headed in that direction as well. Host will the hunter biden case take place in delaware . You have been in washington a while, weve been talking about the potential jury for the latest case, january 6 for President Trump. Will it be hard to impanel a fair jury for that here in washington . Guest the irony, what i think a lot of people would view as a stronger indictment, the classified documents case, trump drew a more favorable judge potentially. A better venue, with a better from a trump perspective jury pool. In terms of a perspective jury pool, that is more favorable to the former president. In d. C. , where i think some of the arguments in the indictment are more debatable, certainly did not get the judge that trump would have wanted. I think given 80 , 90 democratic vote in the city, it will be difficult. Trumps lawyers will be able to challenge prospective jurors and they will do it they can to screen them. But that is going to be an argument about the venue. Host chris from virginia, republican line. Caller good morning. Just a couple of things, seeing how all of this has been coming to play host we lost our caller, we will go to gary in texas on the independent line. Caller good morning. I see all of this stuff on tv, america is upside down and backwards it seems like. I do not have a dog in this race. I would like to see joe manchin and mike pompeo run for president so we can get rid of biden and trump and get america back on the right track. As far as the impeachment goes, i did not understand why garland , adam schiff and other people are not being impeached along with trump. They are just escrow good and guilty as trump and biden. Come on joe manchin and mike pompeo, get your head in the ring. Host do you think this gives further opening for a potential thirdparty candidate . Caller i do. I think a trump biden rematch will make it very attractive for someone to try to get in as some kind of thirdparty candidate. Obviously, there is a lot of fear on the part of democrats that would create an opening for the former president to win the election, because it would be a lot of suburbanites who might vote for a more conventional republican would not vote for trump. If forced to choose between trump and biden vote for biden. If joe manchin or a centrist figure like that was an option, they might conceivably vote for that option. Unless the bottom falls out for trump, which is certainly something that could happen, we could be looking at the third consecutive election that hinges on 50,000 to 100,000 votes in a handful of states, perhaps as few as three states. If that is the case, Something Like a thirdparty challenge could swing the race one way or the other. We are still arguing over 30 years later over whether it benefited one candidate or another, so these things can be difficult. They can swing the race in unpredictable ways, that is the democratic concern right now. If you did see a no labels or centrist thirdparty, or even a strong thirdparty challenge on the left, it would be to trumps benefit. Host let us hear from shawn in colorado, republican line. Caller good morning. The media, democracies are at risk. All of the scrap. This crap. The Biden Crime Family is an asset of Foreign Countries and they are attacking his political opponent. This is disgusting. The doj, everyone, the whole swamp needs to be cleaned out. It is disgusting. I have Family Members that died for this country. Host any response . Guest sure. Obviously that will be a big part of trumps argument heading into the general election. A lot of the republican inquiries on capitol hill will focus on, at a minimum, hunter biden was making money off of being a biden. The most favorable interpretation of those events for the president is he either was not that aware of what his son and brother were doing or he did not tell them forcefully enough to stop. Now with some of the speakerphone claims, we are seeing may be he had a little more awareness of what was going on and certainly seemed to on some level be enabling, if not encouraging them. That is going to trigger further investigation, then we will have to see where it goes. Host we touched on other republican candidates response to the indictment, some of them responding talking about a twotiered Justice System, the weaponization of the federal government. Another approach by will heard ahead of the indictment in iowa, i want to play the comments he made about the former president running and the reaction of the audience in iowa. [video clip] the reason donald trump lost the election in 2020 is he failed to grow the gop brand in areas like women with a College Degree in the suburbs. Black and brown communities, people under the age of 35. We need leaders who did like your governor reynolds, who went to places people did not expect. That is how you turned red. If we one of the things we need and elected leaders, for them to tell the truth, even if it is unpopular. Donald trump is not running for president to make America Great again. Donald trump is not running for president to represent the people that voted for him in 2016 and 2020. Donald trump is running to stay out of prison. If we elect i know. I know. Listen. I know the truth. The truth is hard. But if we elect donald trump, we are willingly given joe biden four more years in the white house and america cannot handle that. God bless you and god bless america. Host will heard is not polling high in the republican primary, but there is a big field. What did you think of his argument . He initially had the crowd in his hand, he had some support. Guest what you are seeing with will heard is the dilemma for anybody who is not donald trump in the republican primaries right now. You have to find some way to make the argument that trump should not be the nominee and you should be, perhaps being entangled in all of these legal situations will disadvantage the republican ticket in 2024. If you make the case to aggressively and position yourself too much against the preferences of republican primary voters who still by and large like and support trump, you end up like will heard getting booed off the stage and not polling well. Is there a way to make the argument he was making before he was booed . When the audience seemed receptive, can he a bottle that point . Or is that too difficult to do . Chris christie is polling better than will heard and is probably the best polling candidate who has made an aggressive antitrump push. His past denomination looks dicey. Host elizabeth on the democrats line. Caller thank you for giving me this privilege to be on your show. It sounds like you all really know what youre talking about, very impressive and i appreciate it. What i would like to say is that first of all, when donald trump started out i thought, oh no, he is involved with the christian right. I did not get it. Somebody who has got that much immorality going on do not mind me, i am a christian and i am a democrat. Every one of my buddies are christian democrats, even the ones that do not admit they are democrats. There are People Like Us that actually believe you have to have some kind of substance as a person to be a leader. You cannot just be anybody who has got so much going on. Stormy daniels as an example or whatever. I have let a pretty wild myself. We are not judgmental. But you do not want someone who is insulting people from the getgo and who is a racist. He is even putting down the disabled, that is not somebody anybody should be looking out to in the first place. Once people put their faith in someone like that who does not respect to certain groups, then you get what you pay for, so to speak. That is why we are dealing with what we are dealing with now. It is not heated this and this made a run after he became president , it is how he started in his campaign. As a person, as a christian i never was patriotic, but this will make you patriotic and make you believe in your country. I believe in my heart of hearts that because he is such an immoral i hate to use that word. It sounds like i am trying to preach or something. But since he is this type of person, that is the fruit of it. Host thanks for the call. Guest a big part of were any republican primary challenger to donald trump is going to try to do is separate evangelical voters in particular from trump and try to move some of the base away from the former president. It was a tough draw in 2015, 2016. Managed to do it, he did it through a number of policy promises. There is a view of a lot of leaders among those activists that he kept the majority of those promises, certainly the reversal of roe v. Wade would not have happened without some of trumps nominees to the Supreme Court, which will be used against him in a general election. Certainly with social conservatives in republican primaries, that is a pretty impressive aspect of his record. That was something Ronald Reagan and george bush tried and failed to do. Donald trump did it. For a lot of the reasons the caller mentions and some of trumps distancing himself from his handiwork on roe and dobbs, some challengers see an opening in that will be critical if you are going to make roads in a place like iowa or South Carolina, pivotal early states in the republican nominating calendar. You will need those voters if you are able to be competitive with the former president. Host the former president is leading all of the polls for the republican primary. We had a caller earlier this week that said the rally last weekend it was not the crowd they talked about, it was not his big as former rallies. Outside of the polls about the horse race, where do you see potential weaknesses in donald trump support that he did not have an 2020 or 2016 . Guest if you break down some of the polling numbers and look at the focus groups of republican primary voters, including by various campaigns, trump has wide support but some of the support is soft. The people running against trump are hoping the subset of trump voters who are with him right now, but has misgivings about his temperament, misgivings about the way he talks, misgivings about his tweets or whatever we call those things today who do not like those aspects of trump, they may have openness to other candidates they are currently less familiar with. Peeling those people away is a big part of how ron desantis or anyone else has some kind of path to winning the nomination. There is also the possibility that, at some point it has not happened yet, so it may not. But at some point, it is possible the practicality of nominating someone who has so many other problems the Desantis Campaign has previewed some of these criticisms by noting how much of Trumps Campaign spending has gone toward legal fees rather than trying to build a competitive race against joe biden. The practicalities of running someone in a general election that you were trying to win who has so many other problems they are dealing with becomes daunting. At some point, do republican primary voters take that into consideration when deciding who to vote for . I think that even among republicans, trump has a plurality of the party pretty firmly in his camp. A majority of the party with him right now. There is a core group, close to a quarter of the party, that would like to move on. That is not big enough to win by itself. But it could present a challenge in a general election. There is an electability argument of the republicans will be making. Host can you give us a condensed version of where you see weaknesses in the incumbent president , the Presumptive Democratic nominee . The weaknesses in his party . Guest not a lot of enthusiasm among younger voters, which she needs. A lot of concerns about his age. Suboptimal enthusiasm from black voters, even more trouble and levels of enthusiasm among hispanic voters. They are making some shifts toward republican candidates in certain races. His numbers on a lot of key issues, including the economy, the low unemployment rate, the recent declines in inflation, he gets a very low marks on the economy. That is a major issue. Low marks on handling of immigration at the border. Republicans who are not trump argue that biden probably could not win an election that is a referendum on his presidency, which is why they try so hard to make it a binary choice between him and trump. Host in texas, independent line. Caller hello. Revenge and separate from government, whatever we do is godly or ungodly. If we support lies no matter what party, if you support lies and pushing lies, trying to convince people of lies and call yourself christian, we are not going to heaven. I dont want nobody to die and go to hell. In the same manner, people have got to stop fighting for lies. To make their party or Family Member or friend justified when they know it is not true and they know something is wrong, do not support it. I love all of you will, i hope you keep god and jesus christ in your life. Except truth. Host question for you from a text from stephen arizona. I find it interesting to the best of my knowledge, based on news reports i have heard and seen, none of trumps defenders are disputing facts presented in the indictment. Instead, they are attacking the personality and motives of the indictment. Guest i think there might be some dispute over intent, motives, with the meaning of certain there is some dispute over whether trump was deliberately inciting versus whether the crowd got worked up. He was telling them to be peaceful. A big part of the trump Legal Defense the trump political defense against legal charges is going to be double standard twotiered system of justice weaponization. When they go into court, they will need to have a legal argument that moves beyond that. It will be interesting in the classified documents case to see what they say or do on that front. Host let us hear from elayne in pennsylvania, republican caller. Caller good morning. I am just calling because all of this going on about trump, i do not think it is a very nice of people to be laughing about one persons going to jail, especially with everything going on. They are coming after trump, they are coming after us. I do not watch cnn that much, but they are laughing. How can you laugh about one person might be going to jail . They are coming after him, they are coming after us. Abortion, that is important. That should not be the top of anybodys list. You are either american or not. You want freedom or you dont. I do agree with the caller yesterday, where is walter . We do not have reporters anymore. I went to see the movie the sound of freedom, go see it. It is a very true story and this is what is happening in our country now. Host several observations, would you like to respond . Guest a big part of the republican primary and Trumps Campaign is distrust of certain institutions. The media probably tops that list. Media bias has been a topic of interest to Republican Voters at least since richard nixon, that intensified under trump. Cable news network have to go out and find new republican pendants to defend trump in 2015 and 2016. But it has gone deeper in this campaign, you are starting to see concerns raised about other institutions like the fbi and Justice Department. 30 or 40 years ago, Republican Voters would have had a lot of faith in them. Host one more call from maryland, democrat line. Caller good morning. I wanted to preface my remarks to respond to a gentleman that called in the last segment, complained about the journalist from the guardian newspaper. Saying it was a leftwing, the Washington Examiner, as everyone knows, is a right newspaper. So there is the answer to that. This idea, it is a false equivalency between hunter biden and donald trump. Hunter biden was not the president of the United States. He did he did not try to overthrow the election. He did not try to stop the election. He did not do any of those things. There is no equivalency. Republicans are not going to be happy. Theyre not going to be satisfied unless hunter biden gets life imprisonment, death penalty, or commit suicide. Only then will they be satiated and that is the truth. They are very bloodthirsty. This whole idea that hunter biden is the big bogeyman and not donald trump, who was president of the United States, people died in that riot. Host appreciate the call. Final thoughts. Guest that is going to be the argument. It is not an apples to apples comparison and for no other reason than i hunter biden it was never president of the United States. Republicans are trying to center their investigation to hunter biden more and more on the president himself rather than just his son. Clearly in the absence of that family relationship, would any of these business arrangements be possible, but yes, it is possible and certainly, a possibility that once you move beyond republican primary electorate, that is not as engaging as a potable argument. Host james antle, read more at Washington Examiner. Com and on twitter. Thank you for being with us. 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Host we are live outside the federal courthouse in washington. Later today former President Donald Trump will be arraigned on four counts of conspiracy and obstruction. In relation to the 2020 president ial election, the attack on u. S. Capitol january 6 2021. Our cameras are live there as are other media organizations, reporters waiting for the arrival of the president later the former president this afternoon. We continued the conversation with you and your views on this like indictment, let us arraignment what it may mean for the president ial race next year and more. Republicans, 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. Independents and all others, 2027488002. John in wisconsin on the independent line. Caller good morning. I notice a text message got put up two minutes after it was sent and another critique, i hate to do this, but on such a hot button topic issues like this, i would appreciate at the moderators would refrain from interjecting questions while people are on hold for such a long time. All i can do is comment. Thank you for taking my critiques. I think some of the older viewers will recognize this and get some humor out of it. I think jack smith seems to be playing the part of the great karnak from the old Johnny Carsons gets on the latenight television before i became political. It became political. Donald trump could not they cannot bring charges to enforce free speech because you cannot charge against First Amendment. Now they are saying he not only did all the conspiracy things. Im not a big trump supporter. I voted for him both times. But how can you read a persons mind . He Still Believes to this day that the election was not right. This pretty much what i have to say about that. The other thing i have to say about the Credit Ratings of the country. We just got downgraded. It is joe bidens father because of all be spending the last couple of years. Trump did some spending but he continued. I do not have children, unfortunately, but if it comes down to your children and your grandchildren are going to suffer greatly from all this spending. We need to get the politicians out of the corrupt washington dc area everyone frightfully calls a swamp. I think the majority of American People in the country are in the middle of the road like i am and common sense type people. We need to stop fighting amongst each other and get our country back on the right track. Thank you for taking my criticism. Host thank you for giving us the critique. Thank you for calling in. We go to louisville, texas and louise on the democrat line. Caller good morning. I think the problem we are having nobody is willing to tell the Republican Party the truth. The senate, their representatives, donald trump lied to them on a regular basis. The only way you can tell these republicans that they are living in lala land and donald trump has committed these crimes, do not blame the judge. Did not blame the prosecutor. Do not blame the people who agree he has committed the crime. Look at the facts for yourselves and make the judgment call and stop blaming other people who see the truth. You find the truth and it will set you republicans free. Host alta california, mary on the republican line. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. Trump was an outsider. He is not a politician. From the beginning they started complaining about now this indictment i think is so ridiculous. Why dont we bring up all the things biden has done . The congress is doing the right thing bring out what is going on in the government. I think we need to start getting honest with each other. I think you very much. Host hollywood, florida, pat on the independent line. Youre on the air. Caller hi, good morning. I have a couple of things i would like to say. He had a previous caller he had a previous caller referring to the acceptance of the evangelicals of trump and i was surprised myself for a group that called themselves to be so moral to accept someone so immoral for the presidency. There may think i believe was trying to overturn roe v. Wade. Amongst that as well i think donald trump gets too much credit for roe v. Wade because he did nominate the judges and put them in place, but the real person behind all of this is mitch mcconnell. Had he not taking the steps he did take, those judges would not be there. I have a question. In terms of donald trump and the socalled nightmare of securities, logistics in prison, if at my job, i do something that causes my termination, i lose my pension, i lose all of my privileges attached to that job so therefore anyone found to be indicted, convicted of something should forfeit any benefit they had and in this case, forfeit the secret service etc. For what he now currently holds. I would like to know what can be done to enact Something Like that. Host thank you for the call. Next up in michigan, lest there is only democrats line. Caller it is kind of amazing how amazing i am. A couple of things. I want to ask a previous guest if you watch the hearings. I think that is very important. Do you knows sent a letter to carmen kolmar about a week ago and he put it on video. It is there for the looking at. My point really being, my friends and relatives are not a people. They just do not know and i really wish they would focus on the dominican that came out. It should have lasted for one month so people know they are being lied to. That is all i got. Host a piece here from the wall street journal. The opinion of david rifkin and lee casey. This Trump Indictment imperils the presidency. Is he that they write, in moore v. Harper two 023 the Supreme Court recognize a parallel constitutional provision, the elections clause which devise authority for setting the rules of Congressional Elections between the state legislature and congress was sufficiently federal in nature to justify the high courts review of state Court Decisions involving these roles, even though it ordinarily has no authority to scrutinize the states courts interpretation of state laws. They write it was trumps constitutional duty to quote take care that the laws be fully faithfully executed. He had no power to direct state officials actions but urging them to ensure the integrity of federal elections could fall within the outer bounds of his responsibility. He had no authority to direct the Vice President s discharge of his constitutional duties as Senate President , but pleading with the adVice President to take certain actions as are complete within the bounds of his authority. President s do it routinely when the Vice President is called on to cast a deciding senate vote. They also say the indictment of trump means the Supreme Court will almost certainly be called on to determine the scope of a former president s immunity and whether trumps actions after the 2020 election fell within the outer reaches of his official responsibility. Continuing with your calls on this arraignment day here on washington journal, a view of the media gathered of the courthouse. The capital there in the background. The media has been gathered since early this morning, 5 00 or so east here in washington and our cameras will be out at the courthouse throughout the day. The court the arrival of the president if possible and any other possible comments from folks who are in attendance. We go to North Carolina, faye on the republican line. Hello there. Caller yes, are you there . Host yes, we are. You are on the air. Caller on that riot they had, trump said go in peace. Maybe everybody forgot that. And obama, he should not have obamas judge. They should change the judge and that is all i got to say. Host calhoun, georgia is next. David on the independent line. Caller thank you. I want to clarify i hear these democratic callers saying the republicans are blind. We live a lie. The democrats have already turned on one of their own because he is a catholic, rfk junior. My point is and then your last guest, he never said anything about biden and he has crimes too. Oh this indictment today but with this indictment today, trump a break in 1023 bring in 10 203. We will see how it all goes and i hope the democrats if you are a democrat, just like everybody says if you are a trumper or a republican, you are a racist, well, i hear a lot of africanamericans and spanish people, they are going for trump because they are religious. If you are democrat, you cannot be a christian. I hope they understand that. Host why do you feel that, why cant you be a christian . Caller i mean, it is just like, everybody says you are a racist if you are a trumper or a republican, but that is ok, right . It is kind of the same thing. Democrats go against christianity in every case. They go after the catholics. They go after the churches. Host they have at the party, the president himself is a catholic the head of the party, the president himself as a catholic. Caller he is not real. He is a crook like the rest of them. Host on to houston, texas, vicki. Caller i would like to say a few things. In relation to the woman who spoke about coming after trump, there come after you, that is silly. To me, i respect her and i pray for her, because a lot of these people that are following trump, excluding the ones who are doing it for political gain, some of these people are really under spell when it comes to him. It is a sad day. It is a sad day who was a president of the United States would stoop so low to allow this to happen. Most people do not speak about this but i am disappointed in the previous Vice President pence. I been one to say this for a while. At the time of this was going on, he hadnt said nothing, then all of a sudden he said whatever he said today, yesterday, and of course he said it under owes, but i think is a Vice President he was the second person in command. Have something happen to this country, i was very disappointed in him. Im a democrat up at the same time we all have to respect our leaders. I am a democrat. Im a preacher. I love god. Whoever say a democrat is not a christian, that is a lie. That is pretty much all i want to say. Also, biden and his son, they are the blank in the world because trying to get off of a drug addict. Every person who has a celebrity Family Member come they all do the same thing. At the end of the day, that is not make biden a bad person. If you hear people talk, bidens problem is that he is old. Trumps problem is that hes a crook. But only thing they come back with is biden is old. I would rather vote for biden if he was 95 years old, a man of integrity, and love and god. People are talking about hunter. Ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Host susan on the republican line. Caller hi. Thank you very much for having me. Can you hear me . Host yes, we can. Caller i am listening to everybody and i watch the news. I am so frustrated because i am a moderate republican. All these republicans that are on the right, i do not understand. All these liberals on the left, i do not understand. I am a person i would not vote for joe biden. I think he is about president. I think trump has gotten away with murder. I wish there was some way and no disrespect to trump because he did a lot of good things for the country, but i think he needs to step aside. We got really good republican candidates out there i wish could have a chance, a chance to be heard. Get him out of the way and clean that out. Let them have a chance. One of them is doug from North Carolina, the governor of North Carolina. Host north dakota, yeah. Caller he deserves a chance. Vivek is very good but hes a bit too protrump for me. I wish more moderate democrats be heard and if not, lets get this no labels party going. I hope they can make it because neither of these two men running for president are worth it. Theyre both bad. That is where my frustration comes from. Host in that vein, here is a piece by hearing the olson in washington henry olson in the washington post. Trumps legal woes make him a nonviable candidate. In this piece, he says, there do count in politics. Facts do. It is a fact trump is already hamstrung by his l charges, which are only going to get worse. Trump says he will op out but it does not mean he is as financial legal pressure teous upward, even a man of his willpower will decide to save his own skin then press his own look, if he does not, republican primary voters will have to decide whether they want to risk nominating a man who cannot campaign for himself. That is henry olson, washington post. Com. Cindy in North Carolina on this arraignment day in washington. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I watch face i watch faithfully and i watched the hearings on cspan. I wish some of the colors would also watch all of that and be more informed but my problem with the hearings today is that democrats are never going to stop. I was a democrat. I voted for obama. But when that money went to irene in the middle of the night iran in the middle of the night, i changed independent. I think a lot of the politicians are corrupt. We are subdivided in the country that now they are attacking christians, your faith, or whatever. The bible teaches us do not try to plot a splinter out of someones eye we have a log in your own and you cannot see things clearly. I pray for discernment. The lord will lead me in the right way who is telling the truth or who is this evening. Who is deceiving. When trump came down that elevator they had it on him constantly. Biden family is corrupt and i wish they would put more on their about all of the money they got. I know they are checking into that, congress checking in to bed. There are so many people who cannot see both of them i think donald trump is a little corrupt because he was in business and that is why he got elected in because he was not a politician. Most of us know the politicians are corrupt. How can you make as a senator, joe biden, all of those millions of dollars because you should not be making that much we are in the senate. Same as nancy pelosi. Host on to terrel in maryland on the democrats line. Caller i used to call the radio, the conservative Radio Station in baltimore. They keep me off of the radio when chris krebs said that this was the safest and secure selection ever and donald trump fired him. And Brad Raffensperger told donald trump asked him to find him 11,000 votes and right then and there when i was talking on the radio i tell those people at the Radio Station that donald trump is going to jail. This was two years ago. Here we are. We are here because donald trump made some mistakes and finally someone had the courage, the special prosecuted there to put donald trump in his place because everybody was afraid. Mike pence was afraid. He was going to kill his own Vice President. Who does this here in america . He was going to kill his own Vice President. If obama did that to joe biden, obama will probably be in jail right now. Your conservatives talk about god put donald trump in office, i tell you what, god took donald trump out of office because that was the safe and secure election. He lost. He cannot take it. He could not take it. I will say one thing about these conservatives, if i asked them, is that hair on top of Donald Trumps head real and they say yes, the you know theyre going to continue to go with donald trump. Host from the Washington Times, the headliump the defense team cast january 6 indictment as an attack on free speech writing the former president s lawyers are framing the new indictment as an unprecedented battle over free speech that federal prosecutors cannot when. Want of the lawyers on trumps defense team is hammering home the message that this is the quote first time the First Amendment has been criminalized. He wanted president by this Justice Department will make it quote criminal to state your position and engage in political activity. It is, speech for this reason, what the president saw in 2020 was all these irregularities going on, affidavits, sworn testimony, examples where rules were changed in the middle of the game. He had every right to comment on that and i politically an act politically. With they would have to show is all the speech was not entitled to a First Amendment protection. Is going to be impossible for the government to provide criminal and corrupt intent beyond a reasonable doubt. Read more on Washington Times. Com. Kathy in new york on the republican line. Caller good morning. I grew up in berlin and Civil Liberties were a big part of everyday life. It was understudied to say understood you to say whatever you want. That is what america is about. He had those expressions, i am robert, i am glued, but we got it. People looking to be mean, theyre going to be mean all around the world. You have to accept this. Aoc you brought the real meaning to me of what a freedom of speech is when they defended it is so upsetting me they defend eight nazi freedom to sit with a want to say. They defended the people who burned an american flag. Half of my friends were from a different country because we play at the parking you meet people the park and you meet people. We believe it is a great country, america, maybe it is not all beautiful to have freedom of speech but it does make us stronger. Back to the case against donald trump, yesterday a part of the case was read that starts with trump is allowed to. He does not believe the election results, we know that. It is written in story form, because many people have questions. We agree that is not a crime but were going to tell you a story and make you believe in this case it is a crime. It upsets me. I guess that is my comments for the day. Something is wrong with the way that was presented and i do think something is very wrong with the Justice System we have to go through. Host thank you. Robert in georgia on the independent line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I never thought you can see a person were ignorant in the white house than george w. Bush, but 2017, proved me wrong. We need a man like eugene debs in the white house and in 2017 we needed a man like charles the tele. I know a lot of you listeners would not know who that is or any of those folks, but that is why instead of reading the bible so much, they should read the history of this country especially the founding of it. Read the best piece of the nonfiction ever written. Host we are live here with like cameras outside of the courthouse today for any arrival of the former president , potential comments from participants today. 4 00 easterns were the arrangement scheduled for best arraignment is scheduled for. Also on cspan Networks Today coming up at noon eastern, we cover a News Conference ahead of their arraignment. The event is being held by the organization not above the law coalition. Made up of a group of organizations calling for accountability for those who oppose certification of the 2020 election results. It is congresses is at noon eastern on cspan. We also stream it live on cspan. Org on on our freee mobile app, cspan now. Up next on the democrats line, good morning. Caller thank you. Im going to talk about what is coming up today. I would say to those who are out there, why do we have the rule of law . Why do we have it . I know why we have it. If anybody is convicted of anything, we would say they are guilty until proven innocent. Innocent until Proven Guilty. If trump had not did all these things hed done, he would be in court today. All of these things happen for one reason only because he wanted it to happen. Anybody who is a controlling person, wants to control things to their way of thinking, their way of acting, and if you do not do what i tell you to do then i am and you go or fire you. If youre here to tell the truth, they do not want to hear that. If youre going to do a scheme, your with me or not. People have choices. Why do they choose to do bad things . Why do we have the rule of law . If we did not have the rule of law, it would be chaos today. I am thankful we have the rule of law. Not everybody is guilty. Not everybody is innocent. But today it feels like we are pitting against each other about what is true and what is not true. A lot of people do not know about the rule of law. Host do you have confidence in the eventual jurys and come to the rule of law in the right decision the former president . Caller yes i believe that because people do not have an agenda for we get into that position of putting your hands in a position of being a jury, that is a great responsibility to know the facts that are given to you and being educated or being knowledgeable enough to know right from wrong if a person do not know right from wrong then they should not be a jury. If they know what he did i would go back to the part where they had a rally, why would you have a rally on the day they are giving a count . Or can people go in when they are having the vote count . These are things people should know. Host appreciate your call this morning. I want to share this statement from the secret service regarding todays arraignment the former president about the security preparations going on which says wow the secret service does not comment on specific protective means or methods, we have the utmost confidence in dedication and commitment to security shared by all of our Law Enforcement and government partners. We are working closely with the police department, u. S. Marshals service, u. S. Park police, u. S. Capitol police, and the federal act of service to ensure highest levels of safety and security for the former president while minimizing disruptions to the normal court process. The arraignment in washington said for 4 00 p. M. Today. Cameras are live. Toms nights on the democrats line in virginia. Caller good morning. I love these last couple the callers. It made me think of something creative for all the christians out there that do support President Trump and for all of the people out there that do support the rule of law which should be everybody, not just the christians, and we have to have faith in god above and we also have to have faith in our judicial system and our legal system that what is right will come out of this. I know it can be very scary or be used to weaponized the legal system to try and get people to not support President Trump but i think i do believe it is going to backfire. I think Trump Supporters see the corruption of these charges. They are going to he is going to be exonerated. You are reading things from lawyers that are saying this is probably the single greatest attack on the First Amendment ever in the history of our country and they are targeting donald trump with that attack. He will, just like the report that came out vested there is no predicate for an investigation that said there is no predicate for an investigation, and what it trump call it, the russia hoax, and it was. Then the fbi went to leak the investigation during his presidency to damage and further. Then we had those investigating him were compromised. If not for some nefarious organization, but they were personally so bias they cannot get a legitimate investigation. If you look at the election, we know there were unconstitutional elections carried out across the country. The mail in ballots that were mailed out to every single voter. Thanks they were done there were not in line with their state legislatures, laws or how to run the elections on how to run the elections, those are the things donald trump was supposed to do because they change the roles in the middle of the game and then you have this stuff going on with the fbi, investigations, my favorite is the fbi manipulating the voice of americans by colluding with facebook and twitter to silence free speech in america. Here is the wonderful thing for everybody out there, christians and people who believe in the rule of law, all of this stuff will have to come out. That is Donald Trumps entire defense. They will all be called. If this goes forward, everybody who colluded against Donald Trumps administration will be called on the stand and they will be held accountable. I am a man of powerful faith and i believe trump was gods man, he is not a perfect man, but it is very normal for god to not use the perfect christian. Usually does not use the person who thinks they are perfect christian. I have profound faith will be exonerated. He will be exonerated and i believe will be stronger as a country because all this weaponization of our legal system to go after our political opponents, we do not do this in america, and we know they do this in communist countries. We do not do that here. They are trying to do it and i believe, i have profound faith donald trump will be exonerated. All of those that were guilty of the collusion to try and damage his presidency and all the stuff about the impeachment, everything, that will all come out in this court case. Host stamford connecticut on the independent line. Mike, you are on the air. Caller good morning. That last guy is out there. He is drinking the koolaid. Hopefully, there will be an aerial view of the arraignment. It may biggest arraignment ever. Comer is always looking for one whistleblower after the of their. He spent how many years looking for people and he cannot find anybody in what he does, they take off. He says we got it all come with a laptop, the crime family. You are all crazy. Trump is a crook. Raisi being arraigned . Raisi being arraigned . Host in the New York Times from the Headline Firm the court of public opinion. Former president donald j. Trump bases 78 the accounts and three different criminal cases including civil lawsuits and trials alleging all sorts of wrongdoing. At least in the court of public opinion, is a defense can be boiled down to three words, what about hunter . From trump steam to conservative media the Republican Party leadership, the reaction to the latest blockbuster indictment accusing the former president are nothing short of trying to subvert democracy focused not on the evidence against him so much as the scandals of president bidens son. The real outrage rights peter baker, trumps the vendors maintained his hunter biden is shadys business dealings. The Justice Department they claim is likely after the former president to cover up for the current president. While hunter biden is a oneman crime by who personifies the washington swamp. The wave of what about is from trump world crested with this weeks indictment has been building for months, way of shifting attention from the former president s legal troubles. The strategy provides the former president s hardcore base with the narrative to embrace that absolves him of misconduct while muddying the waters enough to cause at least some independence of swing voters to throw up their hands out of a sense of well they all do it. Tina on the democrats line in North Carolina. Caller good morning. This is not about our president biden. This is about trump going to record. And the reason he is going to court is because he has done so many things. Any time you tell somebody to go to the capital and fight like hell, who would do that . The president of the United States would never do nothing like that. Not only that, he wants to run america like russia. He want to mess with black people. Why would you want to take black peoples vote . That is terrible. The he had the mailman move the mailboxes. Everything is so crooked. Who would want somebody to run for president like that . If you want democrats to go down, you Better Believe the republicans are going down,too. Because there are plenty of people saying they are republicans do not have a pot to piss in. Host john on the republican joan on the republican line calling from cleveland. Caller good morning. I do not have my notes together. Host it is all right. Whatever you want to say is fine. Caller ok. I think President Trump was the best president we had. He had everything in order. His personal life, i do not want to go into it, that is his life. The going to personal life if we go into personal life about trump, we should go back to jill biden when he was dating joe before she was divorced. He did not even acknowledge his seventh grandchild. He is not thinking. Whoever is giving him the information are putting him on a bad track. Every time i turn around he is on vacation. This world is a total mess for what he is doing. Our guys locked up in prison have no air conditioning. They have nothing. They are up in their cells. All these illegals coming over and going to the state, they are getting taken care of better than our own people. Host 10 more minutes on topic, the arraignment of donald trump. And comments on social media this morning about the arraignment today. Clint says this, these trials are not just for donald trump. These trials are for the American People to get justice for this country. Congresswoman from hawaii, the newest Trump Indictment is bidens administrations latest tyrannical a tactic to distract entering resources from his main political adversary. To not anyone who criticizes how government runs an election is a criminal . George says free speech is not a get out of jail card for engaging in criminal conspiracy. Robert said the jury in this case needs to be carefully screened and selected to form an ideologically balanced pool of 13 jurors. Why do i suggest 13 . The jury foreman. Do not have a balanced jury for six conservatives he says on the jury. There we go with some tweets and comments on the topic this morning. Tony in texas on the independent line. Caller good morning. I hope i do not have get disconnected. I have some constructive criticism. This is my third call asking washington journal has the Political Writer book on washington journal. You had three books, one from the baker family. Run from Major Garrett and one from the watergate person. Nobody wants to put this book on. Number two, an article today in the Washington Times which you always code from susan, that the transcript is out. In the transcript he is saying that nikolai asked hunter biden to call his father. He said he was not there when the call was made. But the gentleman told him the following day. On november two, there is an email where it is titled levis contract and invoice proposal. In the proposal it is asking for some senior officials from u. S. Government to come over there. What happened one month later . Biden went over. He got that prosecutor fired. John lyness the best, all we want is the truth john lenon said it the best, all we want is the truth. Host mentioning the piece by susan available this morning in the Washington Times. Com, we are looking at live video. These are folks outside of the courtroom the federal courthouse here in washington. 4 00 p. M. Eastern is when the former president will be arraigned. On the democrats line is sharing in florida. Caller thank you for taking my call. I some of the say the people who keep bringing up joe biden and hunter biden where possibly talk about trumps arraignment, hunter biden has been investigated and he will be held accountable for his crimes. That is already a done deal. I think when you mentioned it that trump said to mike pence you are to on his. I think that sums it up because trump is a lawyer and he always has been. He cannot run a charity in new york because he had ripped so many people off with the scam universities and the charities. People saying he was sent by god . Please give me a break. I guess you can say the same think about jim jones or hitler. Trump is made it clear hes going to be a dictator. Hes going to end democracy as we know it and our country is going to change per unit he wants to do away with all the checks and balances on the presidency so i can get away with all these crimes he keeps on doing he can get away with all these crimes he keeps on doing. This is the tip of the iceberg. Im sure there are things we do not know about. I want people to read the indictment. Use critical thinking. Host i believe we have a link to the indictment on our website. The chum supporter with the flag trump supporter with the flag and therell probably others out there later. Our cameras are there for the potential arrival of the president , potential comments from participants in todays arraignment. Christine in oregon on the republican line. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I want to say as far as im concerned trump was the first president weve ever had. The biden family is the most corrupt people ever. Joe biden, his family has been like that from the very beginning, his dad was involved with the Voting Machines were the elections that were rigged. Joe biden has been doing that from day one. The second he got into the senate that is all he has been doing for he has been cheating on the elections with the Voting Machines every time. Trump busted him. Everything that happened with Hillary Clinton spying on him. Why did she need to spy on him anyways . Who cares what he is doing . Hes running for president. They are a trump family as well. They are a drug family as well. We do not have any say in anything. He does not care about what we are saying. He does not acknowledge as. He knows he is guilty. As far as the 78 indictments alleged indictments for trump that is outrageous. They cannot make the mistake. They cannot make that mistake. Whatever exposure is coming out this coming out. The bodies are going to get called. Donald trump is every right to defend what he did because he did bring the country back to a better place than we work when he came and into a recession. Host the former president facing four counts of conspiracy and obstruction in relation to the 2020 and the attack on the capital. 1 6 2021. A couple more calls here. In new jersey, brendan on the independent line. Caller hi, thank you for taking my call. The kick off the last caller was just talking about the most corrupt family being the bidens. I would like to reference the caller to go back and look at the Kennedy Family and come back to meet with that. I would like to say i think theres a lot of misconceptions. This is not about freedom of speech. It is about the actions that stem from the result of such speech. Trump team team a shouting freedom of speech because it is the easiest excuse for them to give in return to all of these charges. It is the easiest think is followers can latch onto. First amendment. They are censoring us. The reality is it is not a freedom of speech issue. As an issue of what happens as a result of you speaking. It is a result of what happens of you speaking. When it crosses a line, that is where there is a problem. It has been outlined where you can speak your mind until it crosses a line. Unfortunately, Donald Trumps got away too long with saying whatever he wants. We have put up with it long enough and i appreciate the Justice Department for not bringing charges about conspiracy or insurrection, but they are bringing charges, real charges that have to deal with what he said and put extent of it as a result. Host do you think the doj, the prosecutors will be able to prove he in your words cross that line on free speech on First Amendment . On january 6 and before regarding the election . Caller there is no doubt in my mind they will get what he said, that is freedom of speech, it is recorded. With the doj to do is slink aid. What was a result of what he said . Would he do . I think there is plenty of evidence to see what him and the unindicted coconspirators day to charge him. I do not think it is something they brought because they wanted to. Whether we want to believe it or not, think they did their job and i support the Justice Department. Host we will get one more call. Margaret in wisconsin of the democrat line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have some comments. The shelti of the United States the fealty of the guy stays has to be to the president , not the man, and i do think so many people have put trump up on a pedestal. It is not that he was a bad president. We should not have to only think he can be the only one that can do what he did. There are many wonderful people in the United States that could do what hehe has ruined so manyh his words. Free speech or not. Then he hides behind the law. Where the average person could not possibly use this stalling tactic of every single time hes called to be accountable he gets lawyers and they go to court and the appeal and appeal and appeal until finally it just runs out. I feel like people have put the man above the presidency. That is not our democracy. He, to me, is a classic bully. He rules from fear and hides behind the law. Just want i would like to see him without his lawyers having to actually be accountable. I have faith in the Justice System but i dont have faith that he can be this and we will have a convicted felon as our United States president , which would be a really sad day. Thank you so much for letting me comment. Host thank you for your calls this morning. Our cameras outside the federal courthouse in washington. Check back later today online at cspan. Org. The former president do to be arraigned at due to be arraigned at 4 00 p. M. Eastern. We will be streaming on her website at cspan. Org. Look for any comments from his offense from that as well participants from that as well. You will see the link to the indictment itself. You can read this indictment of former President Trump and the counts against him. That will do it for washington journal on this th