Stress the System

You have a constitutional right to be horrible.

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Jonah begins by ruminating on the Supreme Court oral arguments for Donald Trump’s immunity case and explains why he doesn’t understand how people could be sympathetic towards the former president. He then turns to the Heritage Foundation’s spat with Erick Erickson before getting to the Columbia protests and Elon Musk’s surprisingly apt observation on the oppressor-oppressed paradigm.

Show Notes:
—Word of South festival
—Advisory Opinions on the oral arguments
—The Collision on the oral argument
—Dispatch Podcast roundtable
—Ukraine: The Latest with Jonah
—Erick Erickson’s article on free markets
—George Packer’s piece in The Atlantic
—Elon Musk’s tweet
—Columbia student who said Zionists don’t deserve to live

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Comments (34)
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  1. Avatar photo
    BaltoJohn

    As a gay man, I claim a license to say this about the youngster who prattled on about Zionists: that little faggot should be grateful most of all he doesn't live where the Muslim Brotherhood/HAMAS holds sway. They wouldn't hesitate to throw him off a tall building. Unless he lived in Iran, where the mullahs would offer him the option of sex change surgery - at the taxpayer's expense, at that.

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    Amy Edmonds

    As someone who knew (and still knows, we had drinks in Nov.) Kevin Roberts for a period, I listened to Jonah with interest. I agree with his assessment of the Heritage and the absolute mess it has become. Kevin is a nice man, I think DC has changed him, as has Trump, but then I have a list of friends, mostly ex, who I could say exactly the same.

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    Erik Martin

    I agree that criminal law cannot solve the problems that come with electing a president with no respect for norms, law, or the constitution, and refuses to hold himself subject to any of them.

    However, if that president commits crimes, he should still be prosecuted for them. The alternative is creating an immunity for presidents that has never existed before, and it is not legitimate for SCOTUS to invent new rights that don't exist in the text of the Constitution.

    The argument that "well then Trump will just prosecute Biden" doesn't hold water. We still have an independent judiciary, and we still have juries. If Trump forces US Attorneys to file frivolous charges against Biden, they will be summarily dismissed by the judge. If he forces them to charge unwinnable cases against Biden, then the jury acquits, and Biden comes out looking like the hero, and Trump and the prosecutors like losers (which is why these cases have never been brought before in the first place.) If he files a charge that ends with conviction, then that charge should have been filed.

    In the Trump Manhattan case, there are a lot of differences with Bill Clinton. The biggest difference is that the payment of the settlement of the Paula Jones lawsuit wasn't hidden, and wasn't falsely filed in business records as something it wasn't, which is the substance of the charges against Trump. But by all means if there is any winnable criminal charge to be brought against Bill Clinton, it should absolutely be brought. Criminal law needs to apply to everyone.

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  4. EireExpat

    Season 7 Episode 162 of how Trump, a small petty manchild has broken every American Institution one by one.

    Justice Gorsuch, after almost 50 Presidents and over 110 Congressional sittings and zero criminal prosecutions says we NOW need “a rule for the ages” all because as Jonah says Trump is a uniquely unfit character. So in effect SCOTUS is creating Trump law?

    James Madison studied why democracies failed and as Jonah said it came down there not being a free society that can survive electing leaders with defective character.

    So here we go…again — as a nation with dementia “ 55 percent of Americans now look back on Mr. Trump’s presidency as successful” compared to 39% in 2019 - CNN/SSRS poll April 2024

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      Thomas Grimmer

      A few thousand years ago, some dude wrote a fable about a little shepherd boy who just wanted a little attention. Turns out if that's mismanaged, people get eaten.

      I hate Trump. I loathe his indecency, his cruelty, his boorishness, his ignorance, his stupidity, and the cultish awe he draws out of pathetic rubes (sorry ~25% of the United States).

      And yet, I was promised, according to my friends and peers, the utter dissolution of civil society. Mass chaos. The mass killing of non-Trump supporters (I'm not kidding). We got... not the best time in American government? And what followed? An utter collapse in American foreign policy? A somewhat less boorish, ignorant, and stupid (and mentally incompetent) president? My home turf, the boring tepid liberal middle that talk radio so decried, seems to have less sway than promoters of Hamas.

      I'm never going to vote for Trump. But boy can I understand not wanting the alternatives on offer.

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    TheMatMan

    I didn't know I needed a recording of Jonah saying late 90s wrestling insults, but now I crave it. Calling Trump an unfit jabroni is probably an insult to jabronis though...

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  6. BPhillips

    Jonah - Bragg is not using federal election law to charge Trump. He is using NY state law - section 17-152.

    Also, I never thought the AARP was a think tank - they are a membership organization, an interest group that focuses on issues affecting old people. Don't be surprised when they advocate for policies that benefit their paying members.

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    Kevin C. Smith

    Ok so here is why the “hush money” payment is an issue and not a standard NDA or non-disparagement agreement.

    What would have been legal: Desiring to secure Daniels’s non-disclosure of her affair with Trump to protect Trump’s campaign for president, the Trump Campaign could have directly entered into a NDA with Daniels. His campaign would then have to report the $130,000 as a campaign expense.

    That report would have then been made public, arguably destroying the entire purpose of the NDA.

    So what happened? The illegal scheme:

    At Trump and his campaign’s direction, a surrogate (lawyer) used a shell company to enter into a NDA with Daniels. That lawyer paid the $130,000 consideration. At this point, everything is still legal (for Trump—it’s still illegal for his lawyer, and he was convicted of that very crime).

    But then, Trump reimbursed his lawyer. He then recorded the repayment as a “legal expense.” This was illegal because a legal expense is for legal services rendered, not for the consideration paid for a contract drafted by the lawyer. Hence, the NY misdemeanor: recording a non-legal expense as a legal expense (“falsifying a business record”).

    The felony: because the purpose of the falsified record was to disguise a campaign expenditure as a legal expense, thereby violating state and federal campaign finance laws, Trump’s conduct amounts to a felony (or multiple felonies, one for each false business record disguising an intended campaign finance violation) under NY law.

    In sum, NDAs are legal and this could have been done in a legal way. Holding Trump guilty for what he actually did will not lead to lawyers “being thrown in jail.” Trump intentionally used illegal means to falsify business records for the purpose of furthering his campaign for president. And if all of the above is proven at trial, the jury should find him guilty of all 34 felony counts.

    It’s not an injustice. It’s not “complicated.”

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    1. BPhillips

      Side note, Bragg also isn't using the federal campaign finance laws, he's using a NY statute, Section 17-152.

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        Kevin C. Smith

        Right, but if I remember correctly, Cohen pled guilty to violating federal campaign finance laws.

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  8. Frederickwf

    Woah, that audio clip from the Columbia dude was chilling. That’s “The Dark Knight” The Joker vibes there. I’m flabbergasted that people can excuse rhetoric like that. Gee whiz

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    The Stray Goose

    Mr. Goldberg, I saw the piece with you and Lulu Garcia-Navarro. She has utter contempt for you. What she did was just shameful.

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    Thewalks

    I listened to Sarah yesterday. Maybe Jonah needs to upgrade to premium membership.

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    1. BPhillips

      Weird I feel like I know more about that subject than Jonah (after merely listening to the AO pod). Makes me wonder how accurate he is about things I know nothing about.

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        Thewalks

        Listening to AO has been shown to raise your IQ by 5 points. Jonah is better than most in admitting when he doesn't know something.

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    2. Jo Jijive

      Exactly! Sarah and David have gone over this. Bragg isn't, for example, prosecuting Trump simply for "paying hush money". Like a lot of legal matters, it's complicated.

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