Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 5/24/24

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Donald Trump's hush money case is just days away from going to the jury.

It's possible the twice impeached, four times indicted 45th president, who polls show currently has a very credible chance of becoming the 47th president, could soon be a convicted felon.

Tonight, what's next in Trump's historic trial, and how the outcome is likely to play on the campaign trail, next.

Good evening, and welcome to Washington Week.

We're going to talk about Justice Alito's flags and the vice presidential sweepstakes, but our main subject tonight is the Trump trial, the only one we'll probably see before November's election.

Here with me to discuss all of this is Josh Gerstein, the senior legal affairs reporter at Politico, Mara Liasson, the senior national political correspondent for NPR, Ed O'Keefe is the senior White House and political correspondent at CBS News, and Nancy Youssef, a national security correspondent at The Wall Street Journal.

Thank you all for coming, for joining me.

Let's go right to the trial.

And, Josh, you were just up there this week.

So, I'm picking on you first.

Are we looking at a verdict next week almost definitely?

JOSH GERSTEIN, Senior Legal Affairs Reporter, Politico: I think it's very likely.

I mean, the jury will probably get two or three days next week to deliberate on the case, and I think that'll probably be enough for them to come to a decision.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Why do you think that it's enough for them?

Because they're motivated to get out of there already?

JOSH GERSTEIN: I mean, they've been in there for six weeks or so, seven weeks by the time we get into next week.

And so I think that they're not physically cooped up, but they've been stuck in that courtroom for long enough that I just don't see them wanting to drag this out.

There's also not, I think, a huge amount of like factual dispute for them to sort of chew over.

There are some issues of credibility to talk about, and there are a lot of legal issues to wrestle with, but it's not a question where they need to go through the evidence piece by piece.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Go to the credibility of the key witness, Cohen.

You've been watching.

I'm not asking you to predict.

I would like to ask you to predict, but I'm not going to.

But go to the credibility of, of the key witness.

Did he do what the prosecution needed him to do?

JOSH GERSTEIN: I think he did basically do what the prosecution wanted him to do.

I don't know if it's quite going to be enough to make the whole case come together.

I mean, obviously, he has major credibility problems.

Anytime you're going in to testify about something that you've repeatedly denied in the past, it's going to be a difficult thing to do.

Then he has all kinds of other baggage, all kinds of criminal charges that he pled guilty to.

I will say he did a pretty good job on the stand of presenting a sort of very even keeled demeanor, which is a complete contrast with the way he behaves in other public venues, including on his podcast and so forth, where he's completely bombastic and, you know, has this almost insane rage against Trump.

And the defense kept trying to bring that up to see if he would sort of bring some of that out on the stand.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And there was no, you can't handle the truth moment.

JOSH GERSTEIN: No, not like that.

And he was almost subdued on the stand.

And he used a bunch of different techniques to try to break up the cross-examination and slow it down in a way that kind of caused it all to kind of peter out, sort of took the air out of the balloon, JEFFREY GOLDBERG: All right.

Mara, it's a New York jury, presumably, majority Democrats.

On the other hand, it's a criminal trial.

You need a unanimous decision on a jury.

What do you think chances are of a hung jury?

MARA LIASSON, Senior National Political Correspondent, NPR: Politically?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

Well, no.

Do you think there's a reasonable chance that he could actually walk from this?

MARA LIASSON: Absolutely.

You just need one juror to have a hung jury, just one that isn't completely sold on this, sure.

I think that Trump has a lot of ways to win.

He could win with a mistrial or a hung jury.

He could win with an acquittal, obviously.

And even if he's convicted, he has spent a lot of time convincing a lot of people that this was rigged, it was a witch hunt, sham, and, you know, destroying faith in the justice system along the way.

And I think he can continue to do that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Josh, what happens if he is convicted?

Goes right to appeal, he doesn't have to go to jail, even theoretically.

JOSH GERSTEIN: Well, I mean, there would be a sentencing, there'd probably be a delay of several months while the two sides go back and forth about what sentence is appropriate in the case.

And then the appeal would come after that.

Obviously, the complexity here with all these Trump trials is you have the looming election, you have the summer conventions and so forth that are going to cause scheduling conflicts, and I imagine that Trump's lawyers would try what they've tried in this case and every other case, which is to drag it out and delay it as long as they could.

If they can push the sentencing until after the election, they'll try to do that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And then what would happen if he won the presidency?

JOSH GERSTEIN: If he won the presidency, obviously it's a situation the country's never been in before, but I think most legal scholars have the view that a state court would not be able to prevent the duly elected president of the United States from serving.

And so the state court proceedings would probably have to be put on hold, meaning if the judge thought that Trump deserved to go to jail, that would probably have to be put on hold until he wasn't president anymore.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Ed -- ED O'KEEFE, Senior White House and Political Correspondent, CBS News: Do we have to go straight from the White House to prison after a four year term, conceivably?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Conceivably.

Well, you know, you get a helicopter ride on your last time out.

At least you get that.

Well, let's talk Ed, about, about where we were a few months ago.

You know, we all recall that we were thinking two trials, three trials, four trials before the election.

We're at a point now where this might be the last time Donald Trump is in a courtroom before November.

ED O'KEEFE: I'm glad you went there because I think both campaigns this week realized the cadence of all of this.

The anticipated cadence is going to change after next week, that by the beginning of June, both of them, in essence, are going to have the opportunity to set actual, traditional campaign schedules and not be stuck in courtroom hallways talking to us every day, twice a day, live on cable news.

There's a frustration among some Democrats that this has actually been a real beneficial situation for Trump because at least twice a day he could come out, say something unfiltered, go back to court, and his numbers are holding.

The Biden campaign is eager to see him out there again, doing things, saying things that get him in trouble, that they can flag for their supporters, flag for those that are on the fence, and raise money off of.

And now they believe they're going to have an opportunity to do that in the weeks leading up to what may be an actual debate and potentially the only debate that these two will have.

NANCY YOUSSEF, National Security Correspondent, The Wall Street Journal: I'm glad you mentioned the undecided voters, because we've seen so many polls for months about what effect a verdict in this case could have on undecided voters.

And I'm personally looking forward to actually getting a verdict one way or the other because we will have that tangible decision.

You know, as a former -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Don't you enjoy endless idle speculation?

NANCY YOUSSEF: Mostly, to a point, yes.

Because I was a courts reporter, you know, we talk about the verdict, but it's different when it actually happens in terms of how people react.

And I think so many people think if there's a guilty verdict, it might sway voters one way or not guilty or hung jury.

But once that actually happens, I think we're going to see different numbers.

It's, it's once it, once you hear the words, I think it really does change how people react to a verdict, that something we've been talking about hypothetically will be very well next week.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Where do you think it?

I mean, do you have any sense of what do you think might happen?

I mean, we all know that the Biden supporters are pretty determined on their guy and Trump supporters we know are very determined on their guy.

Do you think there's going to be a -- NANCY YOUSSEF: It's those independent voters, some of them who said, I've already made an opinion about this case because I've heard the facts about it since before the last election.

If they hear guilty, for example, do they feel differently hearing a former president of the United States have that ruling made by jurors?

And conversely, if you're someone who's on the fence and has said, I'm really waiting for this verdict, and you hear not guilty, you might decide, that didn't really sway me one way or the other as much as I thought it would.

There's just something about the verdict that I think could lead people to make different assessments or opinions than they thought they would before.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Ed?

ED O'KEEFE: I would just point out, we polled this question of whether or not you think he's guilty or not.

56 percent of people polled by CBS this week said he's probably or definitely guilty of a crime.

But you set that against polling that consistently shows him, at least in a statistical tie with the president, in the battleground states that are going to matter.

So, right now, before that verdict comes, it looks like, yes, he's guilty, but it doesn't necessarily matter.

MARA LIASSON: We also have a lot of polling from the primaries where some Trump supporters and plenty of Nikki Haley supporters said if he's convicted, they wouldn't vote for him.

Now, that's a hypothetical question.

I think the number of people who actually wouldn't vote for him if he was convicted are smaller than those who said they wouldn't in the primaries.

But there's a number of them.

JOSH GERSTEIN: And one thing I've raised, as I think Nancy was alluding to, you know, there's also a question of this has been happening in a situation where Trump has been able to go into that hallway and basically say whatever he wants.

He now has, when I was up there in court, two or three rows of people, an amen chorus behind him in court that goes out and says things he's not supposed to say because he's under a gag order, stands in front of the courthouse and has a press conference pretty much every day the trial is in session.

On the other side of that equation, you have some talking heads on cable news, but Democrats have generally been quiet and President Biden has been quiet during the trial.

And my understanding from the newest reporting is that that will stop once a verdict comes in one way or another.

MARA LIASSON: And there haven't been cameras in the courtroom.

That's another factor.

ED O'KEEFE: And let's also not forget, that verdict may come, and then another trial begins the following week.

And it has nothing to do with Trump.

It has everything to do with the Biden family.

ED O'KEEFE: How do Republicans then take advantage of Hunter Biden's federal case?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, we'll stay on that for a minute.

I want to come back to Josh with another question about what it would mean to have a convicted felon running for president.

But go to this because the Hunter Biden trial is going to get a lot of attention.

Hunter Biden is not running for president, unlike Donald Trump, and yet it's going to be -- ED O'KEEFE: And yet we've never had the son of a sitting president on trial for gun possession -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It's a year of firsts.

ED O'KEEFE: Yes, I mean, so, so again, like that, that now is the other variable that has to be accountable because you know the Trump team is more likely to try to exploit that trial for its political benefit and say something during the trial while dad is off at summits in France and Italy for the first two weeks of the month, and then spends the rest of the month getting ready for a debate.

ED O'KEEFE: So, the news vacuum, or the daytime news vacuum of trial coverage of the former president is not going to shift to the Biden family, and the president himself doesn't have anything to do with it, and can say very little about it.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

And one more point on this, Mara, this has been a psychologically devastating, long journey for Joe Biden, watching his son get into all kinds of trouble.

We're heading into a difficult period for the president, too.

I mean, you're exactly right, we thought that this, this season would be filled with trial news, but we didn't realize it was going to be Hunter Biden.

MARA LIASSON: Right.

Look, it's a lot of heartbreak for the president, and it's a lot of primal fear for Donald Trump, who's worried about being in jail.

I mean, both of these guys are under tremendous stress.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Come back to this point about -- let's just say that the jury finds him guilty of the charges, what does it mean?

And I don't mean what does it mean morally, historically.

What does it mean technically?

Does it mean anything to have a convicted felon running for president and possibly winning the presidency, or have we -- we don't have any sort of guidelines for this?

JOSH GERSTEIN: Well, I mean, there are past examples of people who have run.

Obviously, there are not past examples of people who have won.

You can go back to Eugene Debs, who ran from prison.

Lyndon LaRouche ran several times after he had been convicted.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You're talking about people who couldn't win the presidency.

JOSH GERSTEIN: But these are people who were -- right, who were unlikely to win, so we haven't encountered this before.

It probably impacts the judge's calculation on does he want to go forward with the sentencing?

Is he going to really try to, you know, put Trump under house arrest in the middle of the campaign?

It's just a very different calculation than you would see in a normal case.

And whatever you do, you're going to be accused of a double standard of some sort.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Nancy, let's lift up and go globally for a second.

What is this -- what would it signal to our allies and adversaries that the president is convicted of a felony?

NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, look, we're used to other countries having presidents who have been convicted or who have pushed people out.

I mean, look at like a country like Pakistan, where the judicial system is used to actually influence the election.

And so the United States has always held itself as a beacon of election process and not having criminal records associated with its election process.

So, it puts us in a category that I think we'd assign for other countries, not for the United States.

And so in that regard, I think it signals, I think, to the world a different kind of United States, but also potentially a more politicized court system where you have a closer marriage between the courts and the election process.

That's an unintended consequence.

I'm not saying that's happening in this case, but you have those two silos kind of coming closer together in a way that we haven't seen before.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Let me switch to this issue of Justice Alito and the controversial flags that were flown over his house, according to Alito, by his wife without his participation.

Josh, is there any chance that the justice would recuse himself from cases involving 2020 election, for instance, because of this new controversy that was reported out by The New York Times.

JOSH GERSTEIN: I mean, I think it's highly, highly unlikely based on Alito's track record and based on the way he has responded to other ethical criticism he's received in the past, including over his travel, you know, on other people's dime.

He's been very cantankerous about that and confrontational and has refused to sort of accept any responsibility for any kind of a mistake and has said it's sort of his political enemies coming to get him.

And I suspect we'd see an answer from him in the same vein if he gave one at all.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Do you think that this is the appearance of impropriety or an actual impropriety?

JOSH GERSTEIN: Well, I mean, we don't know the details, at least with respect to the second incident of how this flag got to be flown over his property Jersey Shore house.

I don't know for sure if his wife put it up, if he knew it was being put up, who knew what it meant and why they put it up, although it does seem to me a little bit different in kind than the first incident, incident with the, you know, Star Spangled Banner being flown upside down, you have an American flag at your house, you decide to do some kind of protest for various reasons, whether it's a dispute on your block or support for Stop the Steal, you turn it upside down, moment of anger, you have to acquire other flags in order to put them up on your flagpole.

And so to have that one means somebody selected it for them to put it up there.

MARA LIASSON: He was so quick to blame his wife on the upside down flag, he hasn't said anything about this other flag, which is also a symbol of the insurrection.

So, you'd think if he had a handy excuse, he would have used it.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

One handy excuse is that it is an actual Revolutionary War flag.

MARA LIASSON: Yes, but it's become a symbol of the kind of -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: The extreme credulity is what you're suggesting?

MARA LIASSON: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

Ed, any thoughts about the lasting impact of this or this is -- ED O'KEEFE: This is -- and now everything is fair game.

What you do on, at, or in your house as a public official is now fair game.

And is official Washington and are we as a country okay with that, because that's where this is going now.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Are we as a country okay with it?

ED O'KEEFE: We'll see.

MARA LIASSON: What do you mean, that everybody should be able to fly insurrectionist flags over their house if they want to, if they're a Supreme Court justice, without any damage to the court's reputation?

ED O'KEEFE: The court's reputation was already damaged.

MARA LIASSON: This damages it more.

ED O'KEEFE: Sure, in the eyes of 50 percent of the -- MARA LIASSON: Yes.

It looks like the court is not just conservative, it's partisan.

ED O'KEEFE: Sure, but I think that perception has been there for about 24 years.

MARA LIASSON: Yes, I agree, but this confirms it.

ED O'KEEFE: So, okay, but my point is, we've had federal judges targeted in their homes.

Their children or husbands shot.

We've had legislation introduced to try to keep their addresses out of the public sphere.

And now we go and do this.

And the shoe will be on the other foot at some point, and it'll be Republican senators accusing liberal justices, and the whole dichotomy will shift, and as you said, the politicization of the courts is here, and this is how it's always going to be now, if this is what we're all focused on.

And that's fine, if that's where the debate is headed, but that's where the debate is headed now, if this is the conversation.

Personally, I have more issue with the fact that he was flying a Philadelphia Phillies flag with that other flag as a Yankees fan, but that's just me.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Look, don't go near the third rail of this show, all right?

I can't handle the controversy.

I want to go to the vice presidential sweepstakes for a minute and look at the competition to fill this slot, very important slot obviously.

And I'm trying to understand what Trump is looking for.

Here's one clue, by the way, as to what Trump is looking for.

I want you to just watch this for one second.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter what happens, Senator?

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): No matter what happens?

No, if it's an unfair election, I think it's going to be contested by each side.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator, no matter who wins.

MARCO RUBIO: I think you're asking the wrong person.

The Democrats are the ones that have opposed every Republican victory since 2000, every single one.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes or no.

Will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter who wins?

SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): That is my statement.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But is it -- just yes or no, will you accept the election results of 2024?

TIM SCOTT: I look forward to President Trump being the 47th president.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, loyalty is job one, correct.

MARA LIASSON: We have gone way beyond the litmus test of saying you thought 2020 was fraudulent and rigged.

Now, we're saying, all these Republicans are refusing to say that they would accept the results of an election where Donald Trump doesn't win.

Donald Trump has never said he'd accept the results of an election if he didn't win.

He's been saying that since 2015.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, to be fair, some of them are parsing it a little bit and saying like, well, if it's fair, but then what's the definition of fair?

MARA LIASSON: Yes, but Donald Trump said, he was asked if his supporters would be violent if he didn't win, and he said, well, I don't think that's going to happen because we're going to win, but he said, it depends on the fairness of an election, defined by him.

I mean, we are in a whole new place now.

This is not about re-litigating 2020.

This is a party.

Whose leadership says they will not accept the results of an election unless they win.

The peaceful transfer of power is the bedrock of democracy and one party doesn't believe in it.

ED O'KEEFE: But it's also like, will you accept the results of this election question is the new, would you accept the vice presidential nomination if it was offered to you question.

Like if you're not definitively answering that question, you're clearly interested in the job.

Because otherwise you're preserving -- you're taking a position -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That is a red line for Trump, in other words, like if you can't get over that first -- ED O'KEEFE: And they know that by taking those Sunday morning television bookings, that they're being tried out.

MARA LIASSON: It's all an interview.

It's a job interview.

ED O'KEEFE: Yes, and Kristen Welker and Margaret Brennan get to conduct a job interview for Donald Trump.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

So, not suggesting that you're being cynical about it, but you're saying that they literally want to go on the Sunday morning shows in order to show that -- in other words, they're not avoiding the question.

They're actively seeking out the question.

ED O'KEEFE: It would seem, wouldn't it?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I'm shocked.

ED O'KEEFE: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Shocked.

ED O'KEEFE: The T.V.

show where my president would like to see how well they perform.

ED O'KEEFE: My question though, when you look at this list of like seven, eight, nine names, Arkansas -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Have you been making that list the whole show?

ED O'KEEFE: No, beforehand.

Arkansas, Ohio, Florida, the Adirondacks, North Dakota, South Carolina.

None of those are growth opportunities for the Republican Party.

So, that's one thing.

None of those things matter.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, in other words, he can't find a sufficient loyalist?

ED O'KEEFE: He doesn't want to.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Why wouldn't he want to find a loyalist who also happens to come -- ED O'KEEFE: Because this is a base-motivating election.

And so you have to find the guy.

Who reinforces to the party that we're going to take power and do everything we can to run this town.

And when they're coming from Arkansas, Ohio, Florida, although there's residency issues, Northern New York, North Dakota, or South Carolina, that's just the party.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Speaking of Florida, I don't have much of a doubt that Marco Rubio, who we just saw, would move to Georgia in order to run, do you, or wherever he -- because Donald Trump is not moving from Palm Beach.

ED O'KEEFE: Having covered the senator, since he was a senator when he ran for president, there are family considerations there with kids who've never lived anywhere else.

If they're all on board with it, it'll happen.

MARA LIASSON: Can he senator from Florida?

ED O'KEEFE: And also that, by the way, yes.

I have not studied Florida election all that closely, but I got to believe there would be Floridians concerned with their -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Though I am no election expert, it seems that the Florida senator has to live in Florida, generally speaking.

Josh, not that I'm looking to you as the constitutional expert, but that seems to make sense, right?

JOSH GERSTEIN: You would think so.

So, you know, maybe he doesn't have to take his family with him.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, from your perspective, is this the paramount issue for Trump as he searches for a vice president, or is it the only issue?

MARA LIASSON: What?

Loyalty, you mean?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: The loyalty, the, I don't need another Mike Pence.

I don't need somebody who's going to -- MARA LIASSON: Who brings a constituency or something like that?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, as opposed to, you know, I mean, in other words, the loyalty thing overwhelms every other thing.

MARA LIASSON: Yes.

JOSH GERSTEIN: I think it does completely overwhelm anything else, even overwhelms ideology.

At some point, he takes into account what he thinks your appeal is going to be to get, as Ed says, to get his voters out, his base voters out.

But he won't even consider anyone that has not shown 100 percent loyalty.

And this is something we saw at the very end of the Trump administration and we're expecting to see at all levels of another Trump administration, which is like, it's not just the litmus test for the vice president, it's going to be the litmus test for anyone who serves in the Trump administration.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I do have one substantive or ideological question related to, policy related question to this.

He has Marco Rubio as a top tier candidate, classic Republican hawk on national security foreign policy.

He has J.D.

Vance who's kind of a neo-isolationist.

You've studied this stuff carefully.

Do you think that he could -- I think Trump's disposition is toward the quasi isolationism.

Do you think there's a chance for any traditional Republican hawk, not only Marco Rubio, but a person like Tom Cotton?

Do you think there's anybody who's possible with that?

NANCY YOUSSSEF: It's a fascinating question, isn't it?

Because I'm old enough to remember when a vice president was picked because he came from or she came from a battleground state or appealed to a certain demographic.

The fact that they have to now potentially be in line on foreign policy, which is an area that vice president doesn't usually come into, is an interesting dynamic.

So, we've seen Rubio start to move a little bit away from that.

We saw, for example, he voted no on the supplemental, which would have provided aid to Ukraine.

So, I guess the question is, one, does that person have to be an isolationist, and will these candidates be willing to move away from their traditional Republican positions towards Trump's to secure the, the nomination?

And if so, it really speaks to a shift in terms of the, the criteria we're looking for in a vice presidential nominee.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Nancy, before we go, I have to ask you one other question.

It's a Wall Street Journal question.

Donald Trump this week suggested that Vladimir Putin will release Evan Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal journalist imprisoned in Russia, as a favor to Trump because they get along so well.

What's your reaction to that?

NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, first of all, thank you for mentioning Evan.

It's been a year and 56 days that he's been held in a Russian prison, wrongfully detained for being a journalist.

Trump first mentioned him during the TIME Magazine interview.

He described him as a brave young man.

And now he sort of brings it up that he would be released if elected.

I would just say that, you know, hostages has traditionally been a bipartisan issue and that the position has been that we as Americans try to secure any American home.

And there have been hostages held when, when Trump was in office four years ago.

So, we'll see.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, we all hope here that he's released as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, we do need to leave it there for now.

But I want to thank our panelists for joining us.

And before we go, we want to wish everyone a meaningful Memorial Day, especially those of you who are remembering a loved one who served our country.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.