Alvin Bragg's indictment of Donald Trump is just a sham that even Vox and CNN can't get excited about it. Charlie gets into the details of the sham charges, and explains how Bragg's legal claims are so ambitious they could criminalize joining a gym or having a Netflix account. Then, Charlie turns to Alan Dershowitz, who says this is the single weakest criminal case he's seen in sixty years of practicing law. Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Turning Point Actions On The Ground00:01:52
Hey everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk show, a bad day, but we still act.
Alan Dershowitz talks about this ridiculous arraignment, and we have a very interesting conversation I think you'll enjoy.
Liberal Democrat and I agree that the Constitution is under attack.
Email us freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.
Get involved with TurningPointUSA today at tpusa.com.
That is tpusa.com.
Start a high school chapter or a college chapter at tpusa.com.
Buckle up, everybody.
Here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
Turning point USA.
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
That's why we are here.
Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.
Yesterday was not a good day.
Not only was Trump arraigned, Wisconsin was a blowout, and there goes the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
And it decreases our chance to be able to win the White House in 2024.
It's not impossible, but we tried to warn people: turning point actions on the ground.
We were knocking on doors trying to raise money.
The RNC, nowhere to be found.
MIA, that's why we tried to do everything we could to get regime change done at the RNC.
They wouldn't be bothered.
They were too busy doing their things that they do, which is nothing but pay themselves and take care of their DC consultants.
And then Chicago, not as if it was going in a hopeful direction, decided to elect an outright Marxist.
Total Marxist is going to become mayor of Chicago.
Campaign Finance Laws Explained00:08:09
We'll get to these stories, but let's get to the one that is leading, which is the arraignment of Donald Trump.
Donald Trump was arraigned yesterday, and we finally got a picture into what Donald Trump has been charged with or not been charged with.
And I think the details are important.
There are so many ways to criticize and pick apart this indictment.
It's hard to believe this thing was ever even brought.
Alvin Barr should be disbarred for this immediately.
This thing is a joke.
It is an insult to the entire American legal system.
They arraigned and indicted the entire American legal system yesterday.
That's what they did.
So basically, the indictment centers on Trump's allegedly falsifying business records to cover up a crime.
But what was the crime?
What is the crime exactly?
So Alvin Bragg was asked, hey, what's the crime?
What exactly is the crime here that was committed?
Because you don't actually mention the crime in the indictment.
So you're indicting a former president for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up a crime.
What is the crime?
What is he being charged with?
And they don't specify.
They just say, oh, it's just a crime.
Got to figure it out.
Play cut 48.
And they were done to conceal another crime, but the indictment does not simply say what those crimes were.
We are assuming, perhaps, that they might be elected later.
I'm wondering if you can specify what laws we're all struggling with.
So let me say, as an initial matter, the indictment doesn't specify that because the law does not so require.
The first is New York State election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to remote a candidacy by unlawful means.
But why weren't there those crimes charged?
What can be charged with those crimes?
I'm not going to go into our deliberate process on what was brought.
The charges that were brought were the ones that were brought.
The evidence in the law is the basis for those decisions.
Even though he doesn't cite the criminal code that Donald Trump violated, that makes no sense.
And so they're saying they falsified business records.
There's so much wrong here.
And Alan Dershowitz has a fabulous argument he's going to share with us later this hour.
He said, wait a second.
So if this was an NDA agreement, a hush money payment, it is now the district attorney's argument that you must publicize your hush money payments, that you must now make public the private agreements that you engage in if you also might be running for some political office.
And by the way, hush money is not illegal in New York City.
It is a standard operating procedure of the corporate and billionaire elite in New York City.
You're trying to tell me NBC News is not actively negotiating some hush money payments right now.
They specialized in it with Matt Lauer.
Every major media organization, bank, investment firm, venture capital in New York City has done this for quite some time.
It's not illegal, period.
By the way, Michael Cohn is the one that actually wrote the check, and we're supposed to believe that Donald Trump was the one in charge of all what checkbook was being used, as if this is not an accountant issue.
This thing is so preposterous.
And then Andy McCarthy has a great argument.
He said, wait a second, but the alleged crime actually happened after he was a candidate.
So how is it that this involved campaign finance if the alleged crime happened after he was running for the presidency?
Additionally, in the charging documents, it says that Donald Trump was in New York when he reimbursed Michael Cohen in 2017, but according to Peter Struckstroke Smirk and James Comey's own FBI memos, Donald Trump was not in New York that day in February 2017.
So they're indicting him for a crime that they can't specify in a place where they're saying Donald Trump was, even though he was not there.
I want to keep reading this.
Now, there's so many problems with this.
It's almost hard to list.
And I had our team put it together.
I said, can you just list the problems here?
And our team kind of laughed.
They said, Charlie, it's going to take three hours to go through the problems here.
And the media is sheepish, but they're such frauds.
They are such frauds in the media because deep down, this is a joyous day.
Deep down, this is a day of celebration.
They don't care about process.
They don't care about procedure.
They want the complete and total Stalinization of our country.
So let's go through some of the problems.
First, Trump has literally never been charged with a campaign finance violation.
And so what campaign finance law did he break?
It's a federal statute that you're now charging in state court that you can't even say what law he broke.
That's the whole centerpiece.
So you're saying that he falsified business records to then cover up a crime, but you can't tell us what the crime is.
And business records at the best, at the most aggressive prosecution, would be a misdemeanor.
Okay, second, the violation in question, again, would be federal law.
Bragg has no jurisdiction over federal law.
Third, the federal government has already deliberately rejected prosecuting Trump for this alleged campaign finance violation.
Fourth, who's the one that is behind all this?
Michael Cohen.
Michael Cohn is still the one who wrote the check and later billed Trump.
And Cohen was Trump's lawyer.
So it's not even clear that legal expenses is false.
Number five, these are supposedly violations that impacted the 2016 election, but the supposed law breaking happened in 2017 after the election.
So, you write a check after an election, and somehow they need to make an argument in front of a jury that, even though there's no evidence to support this, that Donald Trump writing the check, not even for the full amount, for legal expenses for his then lawyer, was to reimburse Michael Cohen for a payment that Michael Cohen said in a letter to the FEC had nothing to do with Stormy Daniels.
And finally, most importantly, the idea that this campaign is a campaign finance violation is ludicrous.
So, what the DA is now saying under a completely fabricated new precedent is that you must use campaign finance funds for personal use.
For example, if you're running for office and you use it to buy furniture or clothes or things that benefit you, not the campaign, you could get in trouble at the FEC.
So, now they're saying you must use campaign finance funds for personal use, that everything is a campaign expenditure.
There are countless reasons a person might make an NDA payment.
He might do it to protect his marriage, his reputation, his business.
He might do it to avoid an expensive legal battle.
He might do it just to save himself from the annoyance.
But the theory of Alvin Bragg's office is anything that Trump does, which might be remotely help his odds of winning an election, is actually supposed to be reported as a campaign expenditure.
And again, Bill Clinton didn't just do this once, he had a whole system.
It was called the Bimbo Squad.
He would deploy Hill Dog, they would intimidate the women, sign NDAs, threaten them.
And Bill Clinton just said, oh, it's just part of campaigning.
Under Bragg's theory, under this particular theory, if a candidate tries to lose weight, which Alvin Bragg should try to do, that's a separate issue, to look better for a campaign, then their gym membership and Weight Watcher subscription should be a campaign expense.
If a candidate is watching TV at home and comes up with an idea for something to say in a speech, they should bill their Netflix subscription as a campaign expenditure.
The entire point of campaign finance laws is to clearly separate campaign work from everything else.
Separating Work From Personal Use00:05:58
But Bragg's standard is the exact opposite.
He says that any moment the government can maliciously say that everything in your personal life is actually political.
It's no surprise that a liberal came up with this because for them, politics is everything.
This is an outrage.
Look, Americans have had it.
They're done supporting companies that rake in hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes billions of dollars, while trashing the country that made their success possible.
Until recently, we had to take it, but companies like Patriot Mobile are building a whole new economy, one which embraces the values that made America the greatest nation on earth.
Look, Patriot Mobile is America's only Christian conservative wireless provider.
Look, they offer dependable coverage for all three major networks and they offer you a performance coverage guarantee.
If you're not happy with your coverage, you could switch to a different network for free without changing carriers.
All this, plus the knowledge that you're supporting free speech, the sanctity of life, Second Amendment, and our military first responder heroes.
Their 100% U.S.-based customer service team makes switching awfully easy.
Just go to patriotmobile.com/slash Charlie or call them today at 878-PATER.
Make the switch.
It's no new money out of your budget.
In fact, it will save you money.
Go to patriotmobile.com/slash Charlie.
That is patriotmobile.com/slash Charlie.
Get free activation today with the offer code Charlie.
We need to stand together and support companies that share our values.
Patriotmobile.com/slash Charlie or call 878-PATREAT, patriotmobile.com/slash Charlie.
CNN calls it underwhelming.
Play cut 43.
Is it what you thought it was going to be?
And are you unimpressed?
In terms of a case that's being brought against a former president, it's a little underwhelming.
There's not more to it.
There's not more violations, tax violations.
There's not an incredible new set of facts that we didn't know about publicly.
It's really the facts of this case as they have existed for basically almost seven years.
They are done with elections as we know it.
They've changed the voting laws.
They've changed the mail-in ballot precedent.
And they have to try to take out Donald Trump.
They are trying to ruin your connection to Donald Trump.
That your bond, the American people with Donald Trump, they're trying to do everything they possibly can to try to interrupt it.
Let's go to cut 40.
Alvin Bragg discusses Donald Trump's 34 charges for falsifying business records.
He says, we won't put up with crime unless, of course, you're an arsonist, you're a rapist, drive-by shooting, gang, thug.
It's all fine.
52% of felonies, previously charged felonies, are now being downgraded as misdemeanors in New York City.
But if you're Alvin Bragg, then he takes a paperwork issue that is not a crime, it's not even a misdemeanor, standard operating procedure in New York City, and upgrades it to a 34-count felony, anarcho-tyranny, play cut 40.
Donald Trump was arraigned on a New York Supreme Court indictment, returned by a Manhattan grand jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
Under New York state law, it is a felony to falsify business records with intent of defraud and intent to conceal another crime, no matter who you are.
We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct.
We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct.
People are getting pushed onto subways.
They're being released with no bail.
Crime is going up all over New York City.
It's become a dystopian hellhole.
And he has the gall to get in front of the cameras in a press conference and say that serious criminal conduct should not be normalized.
And by the way, not even mentioning all the unbelievable contribution over decades Donald Trump gave to the city of New York.
Even Mitt Romney came out and he said, quote, I believe President Trump's character and conduct make him unfit for office.
Even so, I believe the New York prosecutor has stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda.
No one is above the law.
I'm not even former presidents, but everyone is entitled to equal treatment under the law.
The prosecutor's overreach sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents and damages public faith in our justice system.
Andy McCarthy makes a fabulous argument on Fox.
He said, wait a second, the timeline doesn't even fit.
You guys don't know how your facts write in the charging documents.
Play cut 52.
What Bragg is alleging is that Trump took a series of actions to defraud the voting public in connection with the 2016 election.
The indictment then goes forward with all these counts that begin on February 14th, 2017 and continue until December 5th of 2017.
That's all months after the 2016 election.
Even if what he's alleging had something plausible to it, the actions that we're talking about that he's alleging as criminal and a method of defrauding the public in connection with the 2016 election happened afterwards.
Defrauding the public?
And Bragg is not even specific in this.
I'm going to be very honest, and we have Professor Dershowitz joining us, who's been so clear and so just courageous, honestly, to defy so much of the kind of legal chattering class, is people's unwillingness to call this out is absolute prosecutorial BS.
Defying The Legal Chattering Class00:15:17
It's nonsense.
It is more than political.
This is Soviet show trial stuff.
I mean, let me just read some quotes here.
Mark Stern, who is this ridiculous liberal writer, says, quote, not the slam dunk case that Democrats wanted.
Ian Milheiser, senior correspondent at Vox, calls the whole case, quote, painfully anticlimactic.
And it's unclear whether the law Bragg is relying on even applies to Trump.
Not even clear whether Trump broke the law.
It might not apply to him, Vox.com writes.
Andy McCabe, who shouldn't have a pension and committed actual crimes in the FBI, said that this indictment is a disappointment and said, quote, all our legal friends read this indictment and they don't see the way to a felony.
It's hard to imagine convincing a jury that they should get a felony.
Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, Mike Lindell with My Pillow is launching the My Pillow 2.0.
That's right.
You heard me, MyPillow 2.0.
When Mike Lindell, great American patriot, invented My Pillow, had everything you could ever want in a pillow, but now 20 years later, he discovered a new technology that makes it even better.
The My Pillow 2.0 has a patented, adjustable fill on the original My Pillow, and now with a brand new fabric that is made with a temperature regulating thread.
For exclusive listeners, the MyPillow 2.0 is buy one, get one free offer with promo code Kirk and get your best sleep ever.
MyPillow 2.0 temperature regulating technology is 100% made in America and comes with a 10-year warranty and a 60-day money-back guarantee.
Go to mypillow.com and click on the Radio Listener Square to buy one and get one free offer.
Enter promo code Kirk or call 800-875-0425 to get your MyPillow 2.0 now.
That is mypillow.com, promo code Kirk.
Check it out.
Joining us now is Professor Dershowitz, author of the new book that all of you should check out, Get Trump.
And I understand it's no longer in independent bookstores.
What is going on?
What country are we living in here?
Professor, welcome back to the program.
Your immediate reaction to now the arraignment of Trump and the indictment, the indictment that's now been made public, your reaction.
It's the weakest criminal case I've seen in 60 years of practicing and teaching criminal law.
The basic theory behind the prosecution and the indictment is that when Trump paid $130,000 as hush money to make sure that Stormy Daniels didn't publicly reveal her accusation of an adulterous affair, that when he paid the $130,000, he was obliged to immediately list it in his public corporate forms and tell the reason why he paid the hush money.
Now, would anybody ever pay hush money if they had to immediately disclose, oh, I paid the hush money to keep quiet the fact that I had or was accused of having this affair since the time Alexander Hamilton paid hush money when he was the Secretary of the Treasury.
Never has anybody ever been prosecuted for not completely disclosing on a corporate form the reason he paid the hush money.
This is a nonsense case.
It never would have been brought other than the fact that it's Donald Trump.
Bragg campaigned on Get Trump.
He won.
And now he wants the same jurors who voted for him on the platform of Get Trump to help him get Trump.
It's a travesty of injustice.
It really is.
So can you help me understand how you're able to say you falsified business records to cover up a crime, but not even mention the crime?
How is that possible?
I mean, you've seen thousands of indictments in your career.
I don't understand in what universe this is acceptable.
Well, he tried to in his press conference go beyond the indictment.
You're not supposed to go beyond the indictment at a press conference, but he do it by explaining that the real crime was covering up a campaign contribution, but there is no campaign contribution here.
And by the way, a lot of the allegations of the 34 occurred after the election.
So it couldn't, how do you make a campaign contribution from the White House, from the Oval Office?
Obviously, you'd have to strike out at least half of the allegations if that were the theory.
Nobody knows what the theory is.
You know, Thomas Jefferson once said that for a criminal statute to be valid, a reasonable person has to be able to understand it if he reads it, reads it while running, running.
That's a wonderful image.
You're reading something, you're running, and it's so clear you can understand it.
Well, I'm sitting, and I've been sitting and studying indictments for 60 years.
I do not understand it.
Sorry, Mr. Bragg.
I'm not smart enough, intelligent, or experienced enough to understand your sophisticated indictment.
Or maybe nobody can understand it because it's not understandable.
And there is a fair amount of pushback that is finally materializing, Professor, but it's very tepid.
And it's like, oh, well, this is disappointing or this is a letdown.
Professor, you said something profound on Tucker's program last evening.
You said, I actually wish there would have been a smoking gun.
It actually would have given me more confidence in the system.
Can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, look, I'm not a Trump supporter, unlike you.
And unlike many of your listeners, I am a liberal Democrat who supports women's right to choose and gay marriage and, you know, the range of Democratic policies.
That doesn't matter.
I couldn't care less who I'm for or against when it comes to criminal justice.
And I just, you have to separate out your political views from your views on criminal justice.
No Democrat, no Republican, no liberal, no conservative should be supporting this indictment.
Now, there have been some tepid people saying, well, you know, it's not as strong as I hoped it would be.
I hoped it would be strong.
So I could say, wow, the American system of justice really works.
But this makes the American system of justice a terrible parody of itself.
And, you know, the fact we have elected prosecutors, that's a problem already.
But we have elected prosecutors in New York who run on a campaign to get somebody.
That's Stalin.
Yes, it is.
You don't run to get somebody.
You run to do justice.
You see if crimes are committed.
And if Bragg were doing justice, he would see two crimes right under his eyes.
One, the leaking of this grand jury material.
How did we know there were 34 counts?
It wasn't Trump who leaked it.
It was obviously somebody in his office or some grand jury.
And then the indictment itself suggests another crime.
Stormy Daniels probably committed the crime of extorting Donald Trump.
And he responded, as Alexander Hamilton did, to the attempt to extort him by paying the money.
That's what happens.
But then the idea that if you pay the money, you have to then give the reason on your corporate form for why you gave the money makes a mockery of corporate form.
So I challenge Bragg.
He said yesterday, he turned to the American public and said, this is my bread and butter.
This is the bread and butter of my office.
We do this all the time.
And we do it in sex cases.
Show us one case, one case, where you ever prosecuted somebody for not putting the reason why he paid hush money on a corporate form.
One case.
You can't do it.
It never happened.
Professor, just as a side note, I don't know if you've been asked this.
If you were personally called by President Trump to join his legal team, is that even something you'd entertain?
Because you did that in the impeachment.
I think you could get this case dismissed very quickly.
Is that something you'd be open to?
Well, I have a policy of only representing somebody once.
And so I'm not going to lawyer, but I would certainly be happy to participate in the court of public opinion.
I don't think I could get this case dismissed so easily.
I don't think that if you had the best lawyers in the history of the world, Abraham Lincoln and John Marshall, a New York City judge would dismiss this case because that New York City judge's life would be over.
Everybody would point to him the way they pointed to me when I defended him.
Oh my God, there's the man who helped Trump get free.
So I don't think it's going to be easy.
I think he probably will be convicted by a New York jury who voted for Bragg and voted for get Trump.
It will be reversed on appeal.
It will never be affirmed all the way up to the Supreme Court.
But Bragg's going to be popular.
He'll be reelected.
And he'll probably win his case unless there is a change of venue.
So with that being said, what is your advice then to the Trump legal team?
If you were in their shoes and you see, look, most likely you're going to get convicted here, Mr. President.
I mean, that's a cynical yet honest, and I totally agree view because this is, it's so politicized there.
Should he plea then?
I mean, is that something that you would you think he should fight it?
No, he should fight it.
He should first make the two motions that might be appealable if he loses, the motion for change of venue and the motion for statute of limitations.
It's not appealable if you make a motion to dismiss based on the fact that it isn't a crime.
That's appealable only after he's convicted.
But there are other motions that can be made and what's called interlocutory appeals can be brought.
So I would recommend making those motions, particularly the change of venue motion, and then appealing it if it's lost.
Because I think a lot of judges in Albany and other places in New York outside of the city might say, are you kidding?
Trying him in the same place where the DA ran on a campaign to get him?
Nah, nah.
We have to move this to Staten Island, to Long Island, to Rockland County, maybe upstate New York.
But, you know, you need fair justice.
You can't get fair justice in Manhattan.
I could not win a case in Manhattan for Donald Trump, and I'm a pretty darn good lawyer.
Yes, you are.
And that says something.
And so then, Professor, I want to broaden this just for a second.
And I want to encourage everyone to get your book, Get Trump.
I'm going to ask you about the censorship of your book, which I find to be just extraordinary.
But Professor, you're painting a very dark picture of the American legal system, especially in this area of New York, which used to be America's greatest city.
And it doesn't seem as if we have any sort of hope.
Basically, how did we get here in the shortest way you could describe it, electing DAs, overly politicizing the office?
Is this just a culmination of many decades of errors that is now manifested in this outrageous indictment?
Yeah, I think the democratization of our criminal justice system, which started with Andrew Jackson, has not been good for America.
We're much better off borrowing the English system where they have career prosecutors, civil servants, a director of public prosecution, nobody who's in the government, just making honest decisions about prosecution.
But that's not the core of the problem.
The core of the problem is we've become radicalized.
There's no such thing as a moderate, conservative, liberal center.
I used to debate Bill Buckley all the time.
And, you know, he was a conservative and I'm a liberal.
And then we would, you know, shake hands, go out and have a drink.
That's no longer possible.
Larry David screams at me.
You're disgusting.
You're despicable.
How can you defend Donald Trump?
Oh, my God.
You know, people tell me the Constitution be damned.
Don't care about the constitution say we have to get Donald Trump.
So there's been this movement and it's getting worse.
Let me tell you why it's getting worse, because it's spreading to the law schools and to the colleges.
Look what happened at Stanford and YALE and Georgetown, where members of the National Lawyers Guild, which has 100 branches around the country now, have tried to stop and in some instances have stopped judges and other conservatives from speaking on campus.
I taught at Harvard 50 years.
I bet you that I could not be invited to give a talk on the Constitution at Harvard LAW School without my talk being disrupted.
Let me throw that out as a challenge to the Harvard Law School.
Invite me.
I'll come up at my own expense, no fee.
Let's see if you can allow me to make a moderate liberal speech on the Constitution in front of the student buddy at Harvard or whether the radicals will disrupt me because I defended Trump.
You hear that, everybody?
And I hope the president of Harvard gets the message.
Mr. Bacow, I think, Lawrence Batkow, if I'm not mistaken, right?
Larry's a good guy.
He's on the side of free speech, but he's leaving and he's being replaced by a dean who isn't so much on the side of free speech.
He's being replaced by a president of Harvard who was instrumental in firing Ron Sullivan as the dean of one of the colleges because he had the temerity to represent an unpopular defendant.
So I'm worried about the future.
This is not just today.
This is tomorrow.
I'm worried.
I agree.
And Professor, you're right.
Some of our politics are polar opposites, but I think it's so admirable because we agree on the fruits of the Enlightenment of due process and checks and balances of the Constitution and decency and dialogue.
I'm really afraid we're losing that.
I think that's your, please go ahead.
If they read my book, Get Trump, you will find bases, grounds for agreement.
You will find that, you know, this is not a pro-Republican, pro-Trump.
It's not a pro-Democrat book.
It's a pro-Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson.
It's a pro-American book.
It wants to restore America to its position in the world, which is losing.
You know, one of the presidents of, I think it was San Salvador, yesterday wrote a tweet saying, don't you ever dare lecture us about democracy anymore.
You're trying to imprison the man who's running for president against the incumbent president, and you're telling us about democracy?
You know, we are losing our standing in the world as the great paragon of democracy, justice, and due process.
I'm almost 85 years old, but I'm going to spend the rest of my life fighting for a restoration of due process and constitutionalism.
It may be a losing battle, but I'm not giving up.
It's a righteous cause, and I'm a partner in that cause, despite our different politics.
If we do not have due process in the Constitution, this whole project falls apart.
Professor, tell us about how your book is not being sold in independent bookstores.
Am I understanding that correctly?
Yes, I've had many friends call independent bookstores where I have for years bought my books, and they say, no, no, no, we're not selling a book called Get Trump.
Look, I've had seven New York Times bestsellers, including the number one bestseller, a book called Chutzpah back in 1990, The Case for Israel, Reasonable Doubts.
I was a best-selling author for years in the New York Times, but I've been canceled by the New York Times basically since I defended Donald Trump.
I used to be the lead editorial op-ed writer from the New York Times on legal issues, never since I defended President Trump.
A Weak Case For Prosecution00:04:40
And so now they're manipulating the bestseller lists because they don't put somebody on the bestseller list just because you've sold the most books.
My book was number one, number two on Amazon for fiction over a several week period.
But they don't count.
They only count when there's a variety of places from which the books are bought.
And independent bookstores play a disproportionate role in that.
So it's a subtle form of censorship done by people on the left who don't want books like Get Trump to become bestsellers.
The only way of responding is by you folks making it a bestseller, by buying it on Amazon, buying it on Simon and Sister or whatever, Barnes and Noble, and by calling your stores and telling them, please sell Get Trump.
We want to read it.
Professor, in 2017, you wrote a book called Trumped Up, How Criminalization of Political Differences Endangers Democracy.
That is now five and a half, six years ago.
Are things significantly worse today than they were six years ago, in your opinion?
Much, much, much worse and getting worse.
You know, in Israel, they say an optimist is a pessimist is somebody who says, oh, things are getting so bad they can't get worse.
An optimist says, yes, they can.
So I'm an optimist.
Things are getting worse.
Things are getting much worse because they're spreading to the universities.
They're spreading to the high schools, but particularly the universities and now the law schools.
The law schools used to be a kind of more centerist place because people were going into a profession.
Now you have 100 National Lawyers Guild branches.
National Lawyers Guild is an old communist organization that used to follow the lines of the Soviet Union on everything.
They actually supported Hitler when the Hitler-Stalin Pact had come out in 1939.
Now they have become a radical, hard-left progressive, woke presence on college campuses.
They were the ones who organized the demonstration at Berkeley where a distinguished judge was prevented from speaking.
And they're organizing now all over the country.
They're organizing at Columbia.
They did organizing at other places.
And so these are our future leaders.
Some judges have refused to take law clerks from these schools.
I think that's a mistake because there are good people at these schools.
But the names of the people who have organized these censorship events, preventing people, the names should be published and judges should refuse to hire the individuals who themselves have engaged in censoring free speech.
I wouldn't hire somebody who tried to prevent other people from speaking.
And I would expect other lawyers would have the same attitude.
But I think things are getting worse.
I think we're becoming more politicized.
And there's no real cure for this.
For me, I have a cure.
I'm almost 85 years old.
I just write books and I hope people will read them and take them into account and do something about it.
But the ultimate check in a democracy is at the ballot box.
And you have to vote for people.
We support the Constitution.
Yeah, the Constitution is the great, I think, can heal this.
Professor, in closing here, just remind us, get Trump the book.
Any predictions?
You think now because of Bragg, they're going to indict him in DOJ or Georgia?
Do you think they're interconnected?
Or do you think because how weak this is?
The people who are running the prosecution in Georgia and Florida and Washington are furious at Bragg because he put the worst case first.
And it might affect them.
But, you know, it could affect them either way.
It could affect them by saying, oh, my God, look how weak this case is.
We'll look the same and as bad.
But could affect them by saying, look, we have to rescue this weak case.
Let's present a strong case.
In my book, Get Trump, I go through each of the four cases.
Every one of them is deeply flawed.
You cannot prosecute somebody for having said, find votes.
He didn't say manufacturers said fine.
You can't prosecute somebody for saying, I want you to demonstrate peacefully and patriotically.
So I don't believe there's a basis for any one of those cases.
That's why I wrote Get Trump.
But there is an attempt to get Trump, notwithstanding the fact that there are no legal bases for doing so.
Buy the book, Get Trump.
And Professor, if the American Democrat Party was closer to you, I think the country would be in a much better spot.
Professor, thank you so much.
You're welcome anytime.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us your thoughts as always: freedom at charliekirk.com.
Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.
For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.