This is a rush transcript from The Trish Regan Show.
Trish Regan: The big day is here. The day that so many Democrats, so many extreme liberals, have been waiting for our plus years. Donald Trump has been arrested. As we go to air right now at a courtroom in lower Manhattan where he is being charged and there’s a lot of people that are sadly celebrating this. I would just say that this is a very dark moment in United States history. This is a historic moment, of course, and it’s pitiful — in that — I worry, frankly,
I worry for the country going forward because the political insanity has become so untenable and so challenging that we’re going to see more situations like this in the future, making us, as I’ve told you before, no better than a banana republic.
The success of America was always built on its ability to tolerate one another. With what we’re seeing today, it’s clear that that ability to tolerate is gone all in the name of winning and effectively killing off your opponent, killing off the competition. And that’s something that we should all in some ways mourn.
Coming up on today’s program, I have Greg Jarrett, my former colleague, actually over at Fox. He’s the author of Russia Hoax and also a new book that’s just out Trial of the Century. He’s going to be joining with his legal analysis of all that’s been happening.
This is the Trish Regan show. I am Trish. We are brought to you in part by legacy precious metals. Go to legacy PM investments dot com. If you’re interested in investing in gold or silver …Gold, my goodness, it’s way up right now.
As I look at the market overall, you’ve got oil slightly higher. Of course, after that OPEC move, that surprised a whole lot of people, $80.73 it’s currently trading at. That would be WTI up 4/10 of a percent gold at $2,037 an ounce, a gain of nearly 2%. Looking at that market, it’s down.
There are still a lot of inflation fears. But, I think one of the reasons you’re seeing gold move higher actually stems from concern that we’re kind of messed up right now.
I mean, you look at what’s happening, a former president indicted, being arrested, possibly a mug shot (although there’s speculation that that may not happen and might help his 2024 campaign too much) being fingerprinted, the whole nine yards. For what? Political reasons.
There are 34 counts there. The indictment is still sealed. Hopefully, we get a chance to see that today so we can report more extensively on this. But 34 charges against a former president of the United States of America, that is a big deal. So, sure, it may be inflation that’s causing some of the gold run up, but I actually think it’s real concern, understandably, for our country.
Look,
this is what China wants.
This is exactly what they want. They want us divided. Russia wants us divided. And sure enough, we are. And this will most undoubtedly create more division going forward. I mean, what is to stop any DA, anywhere in the country from going after Joe Biden? From going after Hillary Clinton? From going after, hey, Gavin Newsom, that a lot of people don’t like out there in California? Anybody that they think might have a chance in the Democrat Party.
And what’s to stop anyone from going after a whole slew of Republicans? I mean, they’ve made that very clear.
Lines have been drawn now in the sand. And that is not good, not good for society, not good for our country, not good for our national security, and not good for our economy.
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Before I go to my interview with Gregg Jarrett, who has a lot of thoughts on what’s happening right now unfolding there in Manhattan, lower Manhattan today, including, by the way, some protesters, not as many, I think, as some people had feared. Clearly, there’s very tight security, but there was one protester in particular who was just kind of a nutjob and saying some crazy things. These kinds of moments tend to bring out the nutjobs, if you would.
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As I said, not a good moment right now.
This is not a good look for the United States of America.
This is what our enemies want. I sure hope we can pull it together. But I’m telling you, I don’t have a lot of faith right now. You look at how Americans are reacting. All the poll data shows President Trump is actually benefiting from this. So for bragging any Democrat that thought that they were doing a good thing and being the hero they may have actually, and the law of unintended consequences that we like to talk about in economics, they may have actually hurt themselves. Undoubtedly. Really? Because again, looking at the polls, people don’t like this when they feel that something is too political. As I said, we haven’t seen the indictment. So I would like to see these 34 counts and look at them. Up close and in detail. And they’ve tried so many things before, as we know. I think the writer hoax, if you would, was it was a great example. I mean, what in president what president has had to to suffer this kind of political machinery that’s been so directed against him?
I maybe maybe you could say Bill Clinton with his intern scandal many years ago. But this is just of a whole other genre now. And I think that other politicians should be worried. Who the heck wants to go into politics really and truly if this is what you’re faced with?
For more analysis of all this, I’m joined right now by my good friend Gregg Jarrett, the author of the brand new book, “The Trial of the Century”. Very timely. You can preorder it right now on Amazon or on Barnes and Noble. Gregg, my good friend, we were colleagues for many years at Fox. It’s good to see you.
Gregg Jarrett: It’s great to be with you, Trish.
Trish Regan: So, wow, this is a big day. It’s a historic day. I want to get your sense of things from a legal perspective. We’ve analyzed it from a political perspective, but with your legal training, what do you think of what’s going on right now?
Gregg Jarrett: Oh, I think it’s politically motivated and most Americans do. You know, there’s a reason why Donald Trump’s poll numbers have shot up and his campaign coffers have been filled with millions of dollars over the last several days. That’s because, you know, most Americans are smart, They’re not easily fooled. And they see this for what it is. This is a, you know, a feeble zombie case, as they used to call it, in the DA’s office that was resurrected from the dead and is transparently politically motivated. You know, a whopping 76% of Americans in the recent poll, it just came out yesterday by CNN. And this is politically motivated. And they’re right. You know, I think a lot of people look at this and they see this is persecution under the guise of a prosecution. You’ve got to be kidding me. An affair that allegedly happened 17 years ago is now being criminalized?
Trish Regan: But it’s the money. So this is what like I hear you and I want to get into that because what’s so peculiar to me is you had allegedly this indiscretion, if he had it or not, whatever the as I understand it, he didn’t want these allegations coming forward because it would be painful for his family. And he used personal funds to make this go away, so to speak. Isn’t that allowed like that? I mean, I guess they’re trying to contend that it’s somehow campaign finance money. I’m not sure how the D.A. gets there unless he’s got some other charge up his sleeve?
Gregg Jarrett: Well, it’s it’s a novel, if not bizarre legal theory that has never been used, not once by the district attorney’s office. You know, again, we haven’t seen the unsealed indictment. We’ll have to wait and see. But based on the leaks from the district attorney’s office, it seems to be predicated on a misdemeanor under New York law of falsifying business records and then supercharging it into a felony by alleging that the falsification was done to cover up another crime, which is that this should have been counted as a campaign contribution in the 2016 election. That’s utter nonsense. It does not qualify as a campaign finance donation. I don’t take my word for it. Read the excellent editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Bradley Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, laughed at this thing. You got to be kidding me. This is is not objectively and that’s the standard under the law, a campaign contribution.
Trish Regan: So why do this? I mean, Brag himself was quoted in a book that had come out saying that, you know, he thought this really didn’t have much in the way of legs to stand on. He was hesitant to do it in the first place. Why do it?
Gregg Jarrett: Well, because, you know, I think he’s politically ambitious. You know, he sees himself as the hero that brings down Donald Trump. You know, the boogeyman of the Democratic Party, you know, but…
Trish Regan: It’s helping Donald Trump. That’s the irony.
Gregg Jarrett: Bragg is not particularly a bright guy and has an abysmal record as a prosecutor. And the great irony, of course, is that he has downgraded felonies to petty misdemeanors in more than 50% of his cases, which is shocking. And now he wants to elevate a misdemeanor into a felony because the guy’s name is Donald Trump.
No reasonable person believes that anyone not named Trump would ever face such a convoluted, absurd, ludicrous legal theory as this one. I think the defense has a very good chance of getting this knocked out on a motion to dismiss if for no other reason than the statute of limitations expired years ago. – Gregg Jarrett
You know, which only underscores how people are saying, wait a minute, this happened so long ago, you know, back in 2016, seven years ago. And isn’t this really just sort of a private matter?
And, you know, Trump’s Trump’s defense is, you know, I did this for personal and commercial reasons. You know, of course, any married man would do this. A married woman might do it and end his eponymous business empire. You know, he’s got to protect the name and the reputation of it. So the law says unless it is solely exclusively done to benefit a campaign, it doesn’t count. And here there are myriad of reasons other than his campaign.
Trish Regan: So does this make us, in your view, a little like Brazil or Venezuela or Argentina? I mean, I keep looking and, you know, I’ve done a lot of reporting on these banana republics in Latin America and South America. And and I’m like, gosh, it’s it’s feeling eerily similar. This is kind of messed up.
Gregg Jarrett: Yeah, You know, it is you know, the common refrain is we’re looking like a banana republic. What we are actually we’re looking worse than banana Republic. You know, that’s what they do when they don’t win elections. Then they try to reverse the election result by criminally charge, you know, arresting people in public office.
Trish Regan: Or everybody that has had public office winds up in jail somehow. I mean, I think about Lula down in Brazil. Well, now he’s president again. Go figure. I mean, this is just I’ve always thought to myself and prided myself on America being different. And I’m kind of wondering if it’s it’s run its course, because I suspect that the genie is being let out of the bottle here, Greg. I mean, this might be just the first of many, many politicians to face similar charges. You could have days all over the country saying, aha, I’m going to go get him. I’m going to go get her.
Gregg Jarrett: Yeah. And you could have conservative Republican district attorneys in various jurisdictions who were going to start charging, you know, the Biden crime family.
Trish Regan:Â And I’d be worried if I were Biden. Seriously.
Gregg Jarrett: District attorneys who will take a look, for example, in Arkansas and elsewhere at, you know, the Clinton Foundation and how, as I wrote in my first book, “The Russia Hoax”, Hillary and Bill Clinton use that the tens of millions of dollars flowing in from Russia into their foundation. They used it as their personal piggy bank. You know, I you know, Brag has opened Pandora’s box here. And I you know, you could see this really come back to haunt Democrats. And I hate to see this happen. You know, local D.A. in New York is essentially interfering in the next national election by doing this.
Trish Regan: If he’s successful, I mean, I don’t know how he again, we have not seen the indictment. It’s sealed at present. But if he were successful in some way, shape or form, it still wouldn’t affect the former president’s ability to run again, would it?
Gregg Jarrett: No, it wouldn’t. The Constitution has three limitations slash conditions. You’re going to be 35 years of age, a natural born citizen and have lived at least 14 years in the United States older than that. You know, there’s there’s no other bar to holding the highest office in the land. So, you know, it will have to wait and see how this thing shakes out. I’m very interested in reading the indictment, reportedly. You know, it has 34 counts. I suspect I can’t say for sure, but I. The fact that they’re taking the individual reimbursements to Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, and counting them separately as independent crimes. And as my friend Jonathan Turley, a law professor at GW University, said, you know, chopping it up and making it 34 cross country doesn’t make it 34 times stronger. You don’t improve the quality of a case by simply increasing the quantity of the charges. And he’s absolutely right about this.
But it would underscore, you know, sort of an act of desperation on the part of Alvin Bragg.
Trish Regan: The judge in this case is not someone who the former president likes very much. He claims that the judge doesn’t like him very much. He was very clear on truth social, saying he hates me. How is it that the same judge keeps getting these cases? I believe he’s got one with Steve Bannon. He had the one with Michael Cohen. I mean, they just keep going back to the well, the same exact guy.
Gregg Jarrett: Yeah, it’s called judge shopping. And, you know, only in New York is that sort of thing allowed. And it’s fundamentally wrong. It’s a violation of due process that a an accused will be treated fairly and equitably. But if you go shopping for a particular biased judge, you’re undermining those due process rights.
Trish Regan: And it seems like it should be kind of a lottery, right, Like in any jersey with the idea that this particular judge is every case.
Gregg Jarrett: It’s called a wheel, you know, rotates and, you know, that’s how it is in most places. So, you know, this was a district attorney specifically went to this particular judge because of the way he handled the previous business case involving the Trump Organization. Any you know, he hand-picked Martian one Martian, the judge to preside over the grand jury. And by doing that, he then was able to sort of shoehorn him into presiding over the case in earnest after an indictment was handed up by the grand jury. I think this is susceptible to a legal challenge by Trump’s defense team. I think they’re also considering a change of venue because, you know, Alvin Bragg, you know, is not only picking a biased judge, but he you know, he’s picking a venue in which, you know, the jurors are stacked against the accused. And I think you make a pretty good argument for a change of venue.
Trish Regan: Now, I mean, it’s a very different feeling that you you get in Florida. I was recently in Palm Beach and it’s a whole different sentiment down there versus, say, New York City. I think we all know that. And you can look at the voting record to see it. One other question for you, because there’s been talk that the former president, President Trump, might be muzzled, effectively not allowed to speak about this. He’s planned to speak tonight, 8:00 in Palm Beach. Regardless, can can they do that? Can they say, okay, you’re not allowed to talk about this? I mean, is is that a First Amendment violation in some way, shape or form? What’s our take?
Gregg Jarrett:Â It’s an egregious violation of the First Amendment for a judge ever to gag a defendant who’s been accused of crimes? You know, people have a First Amendment right to profess their innocence, to argue their case in the court of public opinion.
Trish Regan: Because a lot of lawyers might say, hey, don’t do that. Right, because you might get in trouble, you might be advised not to. But the idea that the judge is somehow muzzling you, that that takes it a step further.
Gregg Jarrett: Here’s the problem. Whenever judges issue a gag order on the defendant. It’s unconstitutional. The trouble is that most defendants don’t have the financial wherewithal to challenge it. And if they do, the trial is over by the time the gag order is litigated. So this is, you know, what unscrupulous, unprincipled judges have done in the past. And as I say, it’s fundamentally wrong. But, you know, Trump might be the kind of person who could actually challenge it and do so expeditiously and get the judge overturned because it is blatantly unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
Trish Regan: The trial of the century, it comes out next month. You can preorder it right now on Amazon or on Barnes and Noble. Give us your your sort of overall synopsis, if you would.
Gregg Jarrett: Yeah, This is the greatest trial ever in American history, and it established the fundamental bedrock principles of free speech and academic autonomy, the indispensable proposition that nobody should be told how to thank. The greatest trial lawyer who ever lived, Clarence Darrow, defended a schoolteacher who was arrested and prosecuted for teaching the science of evolution, which 100 years ago was prohibited in a lot of states. It was banned. It was criminalized. Darrow took on the defense and utterly destroyed. On cross-examination, the great fundamentalist leader, William Jennings Bryan, and what The New York Times described as the most amazing court scene in Anglo-Saxon history. It’s an incredible read. I got my hands on the original trial transcript buried in the courthouse archives. It’s a stunning story, and I think most Americans should should read it. I invite them to buy the book and read it.
Trish Regan: Well, listen, the First Amendment our First Amendment rights are just more important than ever. But I think what your book does is it helps explain that this is something that we’ve had to fight for really for a long time. But it’s critical that we continue fighting for that, Greg, because that’s part of the foundation, if you would, of this great country.
Gregg Jarrett: You’re absolutely right. And thanks for mentioning it. True.
Trish Regan: Greg Jarrett, thank you so much. Again, ‘Trial of the Century’ Preorder it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Good to see you, my friend.
Gregg Jarrett: Good to see you. Cherish. Take care.
Trish Regan: hank you. Again, my thanks to Greg. As I said, a developing story here and we’re going to continue watching for it. We’ll have more details as soon as we get our hands on this actual indictment. We can look at these 34 counts. We will bring that to you. So stay tuned for more programing. Make sure if you haven’t subscribed to the YouTube channel or to the Rumble channel or to Apple Podcasts, the Trish Regan Show on Apple Podcasts.
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Trump’s arraignment. Again, as I said, very important story. This is what we are focused on today. In the meantime, you get other stuff going on. Of course, we covered yesterday the challenge of what’s happening with China, the Chinese spy balloon that they tried to say, oh, no, not the near. Nothing near to say this is just a weather balloon. That was China’s version things. Then, of course, the president was like, ‘oh, you know, yeah, it’s a violation.’ But really, it now turns out, according to NBC News reporting, that indeed they were able to spy on some key U.S. military sites. This is a problem. They did figure eights above some of these key military sites.
I mean, look, China is getting ready for something.
I just would hope and pray that we are we are similar in that, you know, again, I don’t want to get into anything.
None of us would ever want to get into anything but that whole philosophy of ‘walk softly but carry a big stick,’ that is pretty important right now.
You want to make sure you have the right preparations so that you’re not actually getting engaged with China over something like Taiwan, which by the way, is in some ways quite real. I mean, they said they’d take over Hong Kong. They did it. Russia said that they want to take over Ukraine. That’s what they’re trying to do.
They [our enemies] need to actually fear the United States of America.
Which means, where are the sanctions? We should have way more in the way of sanctions against China in light of what we’ve learned about this spy balloon. Yet, it’s not happening and I’m not sure why. But, it’s all pretty important stuff. And I encourage you, again to make sure you subscribe to the channel, make sure you are here every day because it’s a very rapid news environment. Continue covering it here for you on the Trish Regan Show. Great to see you, everyone. And we’ll talk some more soon.
