i think it s true that there will be this fight as to whether the threshold issues can go up on appeal, this is a unique case. this is a president running for the 2024 presidency. and they may be exceptions here. they will ask this court to certify the question to say we would like you to support the effort to get the court of appeals to determine if any case may be brought. there may be some people on the supreme court that may find that attractive. going through the normal steps of trying this case and letting us figure out if it should have ever been tried at all doesn t sit very well with this moment in time. neil: got it. bret baier, if you re still there i d like to go back to you. those of you at home, the president is done in washington. he s heading to reagan national airport and will fly back to
that argument. but he has made himself kind of a minefield in terms of doing that. i would just say about this case, to a point that bret made before, for what it s worth, i had indictments where i had co conspirators or accomplice witnesses. i like to put them in the indictment. i know there s a lot of speculation know about people whose names are not in the indictment. typically when you have people cooperating with the government, you want that in the indictment. you want to describe it, you want to describe who they are. they help you in some ways make the allegations that you put in to the indictment. and that goes back to the jury when they re deliberating over the case. so that s the kind of thing that i d be surprised if he s leaning heavily on people that aren t mentioned in the indictment one way or the other. neil: john, we learned that i think martha touched on it.
but can she force that issue to say i know what you want, but here s what i m going to do, end of story. i think she s a very hard time doing that here, neil. this is because of the tactical move that smith may end up regretting. that is if you really want to get this case to trial quickly, you indict this one first. instead, what he did, he indicted the florida case first. that gives former president trump the ability to come in to the judge s court and say, you know, he tactically undermined my due process right to prepare a defense in this trial by choosing not only to indict me in another district but to persuade the judge in that district to get the case to trial in may. so it s very hard for him at this point to then say and we need to get this case to trial very quickly. now, she may be very open to
you are. i asked one of the president s previous attorneys, what would you do if a gag order. he would say i can t imagine if someone running for president would be asked to supply with this. but every one of his rallies is about this. every one of his appearances and fund-raising, they re all about this. so a judge could really tie his hands if they want to and enact a gag order in a case like this. it s what he talks about none stop on the stump. it resonates with people. built him a lead in fund-raising and support. i can t imagine there would be serious legal fights and wrangling and appeals if that was an attempt. neil: all right, guys. thanks very much. and those just tuning in, donald trump has pled not guilty on all four january 6th charges here. i want to go to griff jenkins in washington where this is going down.
case. i did happen to notice that he looked over a few times at jack smith, the special counsel. he was probably maybe 20 feet away from jack smith, looked over at jack smith a few times. he kept looking forward. did not appear to make any direct eye contact with the former president. jack smith was also looking at members of his team and talking with them and conferring with them. so right now, we have the former president, this is his third indictment in about four months. he pleaded not guilty to all four counts.he looked serious as the charges were read to him and as the prison sentences were read to him if he were found guilty, up to 20 years in prison in some cases. he looked very serious at that point. the next hearing is august 28th at 10:00 a.m. here in washington d.c. the magistrate judge said that she would waive the appearance for the president if he was not able to make it. it s not clear if he s going to