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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. This could be a day of two big decisions, at least one for sure. The Federal Reserve Board will decide today whether to keep raising interest rates as inflation needs more cooling, but as bank failures tied partly the interest rates may still be a risk to the broader economy. We expect this to be the day that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg presents his summation to the grand jury considering criminal charges against Donald Trump. A vote to indict or not could very well come today, immediately thereafter. We will talk about both things on today's show beginning now with some of the politics of the Trump situation as well as some of the legal questions.

We don't know if Donald Trump will be indicted by that Manhattan grand jury. We do know that Trump for a change said something about it that was false, that he would be arrested on Tuesday. Well, today's Wednesday, and it didn't happen. We know that Republicans are trying to make DA Alvin Bragg and somehow financier George Soros the issue. Here's Trump's vice president Mike Pence, on ABC This Week on Sunday. You know how often we discuss ways in which the justice system is stacked against low-income Black people? Pence seems to think it's stacked against rich Republican white guys.

Mike Pence: The frustration the American people feel about what they sense is a two-tier justice system in this country, I think, is well founded. I believe that people understand that if they give voice to this, if this occurs on Tuesday, that they need to do so peacefully and in a lawful manner. That the violence that occurred on January 6th, the violence that occurred in cities throughout this country in the summer of 2020 was a disgrace.

Brian Lehrer: Mike Pence walking that line on Sunday between distancing himself from January 6th, where rioters wanted to hang him, but supporting Trump's claim that holding him accountable for his actions would represent a two-tiered justice system. We'll start there today and welcome Philip Bump national columnist for The Washington Post and author of The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America. He was just here recently for that brand-new book. He's been covering the politics around the hush money cover-up investigation among his recent articles, What it Means to be Soros-Backed. Hi, Philip. Always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Philip: Good morning, sir. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: To start with some basic context. If Trump is indicted, the crime would not be the hush money itself. I think people miss this. It would be falsifying business records to cover up the hush money so people wouldn't know it was related to his presidential campaign. The crime would be the cover-up not really the hush money. Would you say I have that right?

Philip: Yes. Based on the reporting that we've seen from folks in the The Washington Post and New York Times who have sources, obviously, the grand jury's work is private and sealed. That's the understanding, that essentially because there was this decision made to repay Donald Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, for the money that he fronted for that hush money payment and because the Trump Organization characterized that as a legal retainer fee, not as actually repaying for the hush money, that that's the crime, that this falsification of the documents is the crime itself.

Then there's this issue of because that falsification may have been in service of a different crime, namely, these campaign finance violations or potentially a New York state legal violation, the falsification charges jumps from a misdemeanor to a felony. That's the theory behind what the charges are likely to be.

Brian Lehrer: You got a little walkie there in a good way, reminding us that falsifying business records in and of itself, is usually just a misdemeanor under New York state law. It takes that link to the campaign finance system and covering up something for electoral purposes to make it a felony, right?

Philip: That's correct. Again, this isn't necessarily what the charges will be. This is just what the assumption is. The New York Times reported, for example, that there was a New York State law that was this complicating factor that would elevate it to a felony. That may be something like New York State electoral law about potentially trying to affect the outcome of elections. It's all very murky, understandably, because it's all still with the grand jury but yes, that's the operating theory.

Brian Lehrer: You noted in your article yesterday that Trump witness before the grand jury, Robert Costello, the other day said, covering up the hush money was to protect Trump's reputation generally, which sounds like an admission of guilt that he was covering it up, just that he wasn't covering it up specifically to help him in the presidential election?

Philip: That's definitely an admission of moral guilt, which I think there's little question about Trump's guilt in that regard, certainly. It has a very real legal implication. This is the defense that Donald Trump's advocates have long offered to this hush money payment, that it was simply Donald Trump trying to cover up an affair not trying to cover up an affair for the purposes of affecting the election. If it were the case that, let's say, every single month Donald Trump paid off some other woman to cover up some affair that he's had with them, and this certainly happened to be the one that occurred in October 2016, then that is much much harder to charge as a campaign finance violation.

Because the violation is if you're spending money to affect the election outcome and not reporting the money that you're spending. If it wasn't meant to affect the election outcome, then he doesn't have to report it and there's no campaign finance violation. Obviously, that's not credible. [chuckles] However how famous Donald Trump may have been, it wasn't happening that regularly that there were two incidents in the months before the 2016 election in which alleged affairs were covered up. Certainly this one, there's very obvious pressure on him to find that this resolves right before the 2016 election. That's [unintelligible 00:06:35]

Brian Lehrer: I wonder if the precedent of the John Edwards hush-money case might work a little bit in Trump's favor here. I think you just gave us the reason why it won't. To remind our listeners I was reading up on this last night because Democratic Senator John Edwards of North Carolina was running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. How quickly those of us who were around then forget John Edwards. He was such a rockstar for about 10 minutes and then had such a fall from grace. He had been John Kerry's running mate in '04. Edwards dropped out of the '08 race after getting caught having an extramarital affair, and fathering a child with his mistress, all while his wife was undergoing breast cancer treatment.

Edwards paid the mistress to be quiet and hid what the payments were for. There's the cover-up again, but the jury did not convict him. There was one not-guilty verdict and a hung jury on the other counts. Part of Edwards's defense was that he was trying to hide the affair from his wife, not from the public, even though he had a presidential campaign going on at the time. It's not exactly the same facts as with Trump, but it's along some of the same lines. You're a politics reporter, not a lawyer but do you have any idea how DA Alvin Bragg might try to distinguish between the two cases?

Philip: You're exactly right. That is exactly the proper articulation of the Edwards situation. I think it's fairly trivial honestly. If Bragg finds himself in a position where he needs to prove that there was the superseding crime, there was this campaign finance violation, it's not going to be that hard. We have, for example, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former attorney who attested in federal court, to the fact that Donald Trump had told him that he wanted him to make this payment in order to cover up this affair because of the election. Cohen is on record as saying that this was the cause.

Not only that, but we also have the statement from David Pecker, who was at the time the chief executive of a publishing group called AMI, which publishes the National Enquirer. He had reached out to Trump in August 2015, early in the campaign and said, basically, "Hey, look, if you need my help burying any of these stories, let me know." Sure enough in August 2016 Pecker helped buy the story from this other woman Karen McDougal, buried that so that it wouldn't come out before the election.

It was actually AMI that tipped off Cohen that Stormy Daniels was shopping around her story about Donald Trump. We have AMI saying, "Yes, this too, was to affect the election." There are multiple actors who are participating in the Stormy Daniels payment at some point in time who are saying this was to affect the election, and Donald Trump knew about it, and that by itself should be enough to actually prove guilt [unintelligible 00:09:23]

Brian Lehrer: That's a slam dunk different than Edwards's, who was trying to claim he was just hiding it from his wife, and the jury or enough jurors believed that. You also note in your Monday article that the statute of limitations on falsifying business records in New York is usually five years. This happened during the 2016 campaign, which is more than six years ago now but you explained why the statute of limitations might not apply. Why is that?

Philip: That is because New York State has a carve-out if you will, in which if someone who is suspected of a crime has been out of the state for most of the period of the statute of limitations, it can be extended for another five years. Donald Trump very obviously was not in New York State very much from January 20, 2017 to January 20, 2021, so that's fairly easy lift. It is one of those points that Trump's defenders isolate as look at all of these asterisks that would apply here to the potential charges from the Manhattan DA, which I think it is certainly worth reinforcing, this is a fairly exceptional chain of decisions that would need to be made if an indictment were to fall out the way that we anticipate it will.

Brian Lehrer: Another challenge for DA Bragg that you point out is that the federal government decided not to charge Trump with a campaign finance violation over this same thing, the hush money cover-up in pursuit of his election, but the falsifying records charge in New York would seem to need to be linked to that. How does the DA get around the fact that the Federal Justice Department looked at this and decided to take a pass?

Philip: This is why I say I'm not a lawyer. I'm not sure if it needs to have been a proven or even indicted charge in order to be able to sweeten the indictment from a misdemeanor up to a felony. I don't know if they need to be able to point to actual criminal charges. It would seem to me, you probably don't, if the falsification were, for example, in regards to what was believed to be a homicide or something along those lines. I'm not sure you need to charge in a homicide in order to amplify that. Again, I don't know.

That said there are a couple of points that are worth making. The first is, yes, the federal government specifically the FEC never recommended charges against Donald Trump, because the FEC has four people on its commission two of whom are Democrats, two of whom are Republicans, and essentially, they voted two to two and therefore not to advance any potential targets. It certainly isn't. The case the FEC cleared Donald Trump on that was basically that they didn't take action, because of this vote that came down along partisan lines. Then, of course, there's the question of-- sorry, go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. No, you go ahead.

Philip: I was just going to say there's the question of is it going to be a federal charge that is alleged by Bragg? I spoke with experts a while ago, a couple of weeks ago, who pointed to this code in New York State law, which basically says, if you take actions to try and affect an election in a corrupt way, something along those lines, that that's a crime, so it may be something like that, that is what Bragg points to in terms of this indictment.

Brian Lehrer: You and I can't really try the case here, and figure out what every nuance of the defense would be, every nuance of the prosecution would be. They haven't even brought the charges yet or decided whether to, and we don't know precisely what they will be. All that said, I think the reason for this whole line of questioning I've been pursuing is around the idea that for DA Bragg to go down this road at all, with all the ramifications politically as well as legally, he must think that he's got a slam dunk case. Would you agree?

Philip: Yes, I think it's very unlikely that he would try and seek out a prosecution recognizing the stakes here. Yes, it absolutely is the case that a lot of people were talking Alvin Bragg who went prior, and that's something that anyone who's a politician finds enticing to some extent, but the stakes here are incredibly, incredibly hot. This is a historic moment, potentially, and one that could very, very easily backfire not only on Bragg but more broadly for Bragg's party, for Democrats nationally, potentially if this thing goes south pretty dramatically.

Again, there is no indictment, as you and I speak, this hasn't happened. It may not happen. It may be the case if Bragg's side to back off. If he decides to move forward with it, either he feels extremely confident about his case, or he's made a very, very, very big gamble on his political future and on to [unintelligible 00:14:09] nominations.

Brian Lehrer: All the legal analysts I've seen, and one on the show yesterday say any case that's gotten this far before a grand jury is going to wind up an indictment 99% of the time, but still we will see. Listeners, your questions or comments about the potential indictment of Trump in the hush money cover-up case for Philip Bump from the Washington Post, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Our Twitter feed is not displaying for me at the moment, so we're just going to take your questions and comments on the phone for now. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

Trump has been calling for protesters to mobilize in his defense in anticipation of his arrest. Almost nobody has done that, including down at the New York State courthouse in lower Manhattan where the indictment would be announced. Here's New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a WNYC interview yesterday with what she thinks Trump is trying to provoke.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez: He's trying to incite violence in order to intimidate our system out of pursuing justice. The idea of saying, "Should we do this because it's not going to matter?" What will guarantee that it doesn't matter is if we do nothing.

Brian Lehrer: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on WNYC yesterday. Philip, this relates to another two of your articles, I would say one called Trump's brute-force strategy to make his indictment universal, another called accountability for elected officials as a common feature of democracy. We might think on that second idea, dah, of course, accountability is a common feature of democracy. Do you want to give us some of the international examples you cite of that?

Philip: Yes, it's pretty remarkable. One of the things that we've heard in defense of Donald Trump is basically that charge Trump is a sign that we are some Banana Republic backwater, that's not what democracies do. When in fact, the exact opposite is the case that there is a lengthy and recent track record of Western developed nations or democracies, in which former leaders have been tried or have been arrested, have been indicted, and have at times gone to jail.

There are two reasons leaders in France, Emmanuel Macron and François Pinault, if I'm saying the name properly, both of whom face charges. We've seen this happen with cabinet-level ministers in the UK. We've seen this happen in Croatia. We've seen is happen Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, who's faced a number of charges. We've seen this happen in Germany, with a former president in Germany. We've seen at leader in Austria. We start seeing this in South Korea. We see all these examples of who it is who would face charges.

Brian Lehrer: Netanyahu in Israel another one.

Philip: Netanyahu in Israel, absolutely. We've seen all these examples of leaders who have faced charges after leaving office. There's an important distinguishing characteristic here, which is that those leaders are generally in parliamentary systems. In a parliamentary system, one of the advantages to being able to do that is that you're not voting for a candidate necessarily, you're voting for a party, and so there isn't the same investment in the politician.

There isn't the same investment that they have, for example, with Donald Trump, where you're voting for Donald Trump to be the leader. I think that makes it easier, probably in those places to level charges because this is not someone who necessarily a lot of people have a vested interest in as a politician. All of that said though, this is absolutely common feature of accountability mechanisms in similar democracies in the world.

Brian Lehrer: Yet, the reason I asked so much of the news coverage here is about how if Trump is indicted, it would be a first for a former president. Do you think this is a piece of American exceptionalism? Elected officials are more insulated from criminal accountability in general here than in other democracies?

Philip: I do think that's the case. I think in part, it's because, A, we have fewer presidents than there have been prime ministers. Our terms of office tend to be longer, reelection is common. We've only had 40 presidents over the course of the United States' history. There are fewer people to whom this might have applied. We've also seen instances in which it was very likely that someone could have obtained an indictment against a former president, but failed to do so.

The most obvious example being Richard Nixon after Watergate. Gerald Ford instead came out and said, "Hey, we need to move on, we need to heal. Let's pardon Richard Nixon." Had Nixon been indicted, not to rewrite history here, I'll leave that to historians, but had Nixon been indicted, this would not be exceptional in the same way that it is now, and therefore would not seem as though it is the sort of breach with American history, how our relevant history might be.

Brian Lehrer: Sherry in Long Island City, you're on WNYC with Philip Bump from the Washington Post. Hi, Sherry.

Sherry: Hi, Brian. I just called to say basically, that Geoffrey Berman, in his book states that Bill Barr told them to stop investigating Trump about Stormy Daniels, which is why I think the federal government does not do anything.

Brian Lehrer: That point of history is what you're trying to highlight. I don't remember that, Philip. Do you know you would have been covering that more closely, perhaps that Bill Barr when he was Trump's Attorney General, directed the Justice Department to stop investigating Trump over this hush money cover-up?

Philip: Well, Barr's position for the entirety of his tenure as Attorney General was that Donald Trump as president could face no criminal charges. I mean, this was the very infamous discussion that occurred in the wake of the Mueller report and in the wake of Ukraine, the first impeachment, was the fact that Barr in particular upheld this opinion from Justice Department that a sitting president couldn't take criminal charges. I don't remember exactly the point that the caller refers to but it doesn't surprise me. That was Barr's stated position, is no matter what Trump did he couldn't face any indictment while he was sitting president.

Brian Lehrer: Now, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is among a number of Republicans defending Trump this way, dismissed DA Alvin Bragg as a tool of, can I say a rich liberal Jew, George Soros. They use the term Soros-backed DA Alvin Bragg. Listen to DeSantis.

Ron DeSantis: The Manhattan District Attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor, and so he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety.

Brian Lehrer: Philip Bump from the Washington Post is our guest. Philip, you have an article What It Means to Be Soros-backed, and it's not just in your telling that he's a rich liberal Jew, but your article mentions that the Anti-Defamation League has documented ways in which anti-Soros rhetoric mingles with anti-Semitism. Can you lay that part out for us a little bit?

Philip Bump: Yes, I mean, there's no question. [laughs] The working title for that piece was You wanted me to be Soros- backed beyond the obvious. We're trying [unintelligible 00:21:43] out, but it is obviously the case that a lot of the rhetoric about George Soros really traffics in these extremely old anti-Semitic tropes that are well-documented by the ADL and others. There's certainly some of this the idea that there is this Jewish financier who controlling the shape of American culture in the future. That's it. That's what anti-Semites have been saying for centuries. That said, it is also the case that there's a specific goal of calling someone Soros-backed here, which goes a little bit beyond that as well.

When we see someone who's claimed to have been Soros-backed, it is meant by the right in the same way that something like woke is meant that it is all-encompassing descriptor that means unacceptably liberal in essence. Woke obviously has other connotations. That's the thing. It is a code word to the right to say, here is someone who is against us and our values. Now this question of being Soros-backed is interesting. What does it mean? What does it take to become someone who is Soros-backed? Essentially, all it means is that you are someone who is potentially progressive or liberal on criminal justice issues.

When you look at how much money was spent on Bragg's race, yes, Soros did make a contribution to a group that then turned around and did an independent expenditure for Bragg. For example, this attorney Warren in Florida, who DeSantis has also criticized as Soros-backed, I mean, his ties to Soros are extremely tenuous. This DeSantis uses his pejorative anyway, because he understands the way that it, in the same way that DeSantis uses woke as a pejorative all the time. Soros-backed simply means unacceptably liberal with a little hint of anti-Semitism thrown on top.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Let's take another call. It's Tim in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tim.

Tim: Hi. this is actually a reference back to when you were talking about Gerald Ford and Nixon. If the indictment happened and if he's convicted Biden being a moderate, probably has at least an inclination to consider a pardon. If I understand correctly a pardon also is an admission of guilt on the part of the person who accepts that pardon. Would that then prevent Trump from running again, or at the very least prevent him from voting for himself in the upcoming election if he run? I'll take my answer off the air.

Brian Lehrer: Tim, thank you for the question. There are a few hypotheticals in there. One, is that Trump would be convicted. Two, is that Biden would pardon him. Three, is that that implicit mission of guilt would Barr Trump from being a presidential candidate again. On the Biden part, do you think there's any possibility that Biden would pardon Trump if he was convicted of a crime he might be indicted for?

Philip Bump: I can't, it's a state crime, not a federal crime. He couldn't, even if he wanted to, I don't think there be any politic point for him to do so anyway.

Brian Lehrer: If Trump is indicted, we know he can still run for office. What if he's convicted?

Philip Bump: If he were a convicted felon, the irony here [chuckles] is that he'll move to Florida. Florida, despite Ron DeSantis's protestations in 2018, now allows felons to actually vote. I mean, we're way down the path here, obviously. Barring certain criminal offenses Donald Trump would be allowed to vote as a former felon assuming he had served his time in the state of Florida. Again, we're [unintelligible 00:25:17]

Brian Lehrer: He would be allowed to vote, but would he be allowed to run?

Philip Bump: There's no prohibition against it in the Constitution.

Brian Lehrer: In fact, Craig in Riverdale has a political analysis that goes beyond that though in the same direction, I think. Craig, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Craig: How you doing, guys? I think that Bragg, this is not politically motivated. This is grandstanding for him. He wants to be the guy who can indict a former president. This will be the biggest mistake that they can make. This guy will rally the troops and he will get elected from this. This is a huge mistake that they're making. He is dying to get indicted. The fact that he made the announcement that he might get arrested, doesn't that tell you something?

You guys are going to be falling for this trap. He's begging to get indicted. This is going to be a disaster. There are so many other things this guy could be doing to help the city. This is not a New York City or New York State issue. There's so many other things that is wrong that he could be trying to fix. This is way out of his league and this will be the biggest mistake that they could make. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Craig. Critical of both Alvin Bragg if he does take this route, and of Donald Trump. Do you agree with his political analysis that Trump is dying to be indicted, that he's excited about this, that he thinks it's a political plus?

Philip Bump: I think that Donald Trump is probably torn. Maggie Haberman from the Times, has done obviously great reporting on Trump for a long time, points out that he has some real [laughs] qualms. I don't think anyone wants to be indicted and potentially face jail time. There's certainly an obvious downside to that. I think Donald Trump is convinced though that this plays to his potential benefit with a Republican primary electorate.

I think that's probably generally true. I think we're just in such uncharted territory that's really, really hard to predict. I'd hate to go on record here and say, oh, here's what's going to happen. We've never seen anything remotely close to this before. It's really hard to say what'll happen. I will simply say that anyone who has in the past made a prediction that something negative occurring to Trump will hurt him. That has generally proven not to be the case, and so I think that's certainly valid to consider in this moment too.

Brian Lehrer: Now we're going to bring up Trump trying to universalize any potential indictment of him, as you wrote about. Let me set this up with a clip of Trump who did speak on this on Monday.

Donald Trump: Whether it's the Mar-a-Lago raid or the unselect committee hoax, the perfect Georgia phone caller was absolutely perfect, or the Stormy Horse Face Daniels extortion plot. They're all sick and it's fake news.

Brian Lehrer: For one thing, we saw him do it during the 2016 campaign when some of the allegations of affairs came up. He disparages the looks of the woman, so he just called Stormy Daniels horse-faced. He's saying to people, you're not going to believe that I slept with her because she's too ugly. That's a Trump strategy we've seen before.

Philip Bump: No, yes, that's very true. This is the subject of the E Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit. E Jean Carroll the writer made allegations that Donald Trump had assaulted her, he disparaged her, and now she's suing him for defamation and that's still playing out in the courts. The pattern that we've also seen from Trump since 2016 is to try and make all of the attacks on him, attacks on his base. You hear this when you go to Trump rally, what you hear is that Donald Trump is fighting for them, even in the form of these weird legal fights that obviously have nothing to do with the base.

The Stormy Daniels issue had nothing to do with the base except that Donald Trump makes it about how the big deep state is out to get everyone who's a conservative. He just happens to be at the front of the firing line so to speak. He's the one who is taking the arrows on behalf of the entire political war. He's been very good at doing this and inducing that sentiment from his base for a long time.

Brian Lehrer: The caller from the Bronx who's obviously no fan of Donald Trump said this would be an enormous mistake on the part of DA Alvin Bragg if he does bring charges. We played the AOC clip saying accountability deters a politician from there being a next time any other politician, but if the enormous political implications of a Trump indictment have weighed against the relative smallness of the crime relative to other things. Trump is currently being investigated for fomenting an insurrection, the January 6th special counsel, hiding classified national security documents, threatening Georgia officials if they didn't overturn the election results there. This is small compared to those, but I guess brag seems to be deciding this is worth going to political as well as legal war over if an indictment comes, right?

Philip: Yes. You raise a very, very good point, which it is very possible that within the next two weeks, this will be one of several indictments. The effort by Donald Trump to cast this as being a particular attempt to attack him from this particular GA will be muted by the possibility that there are other indictments which have arisen. We may end up in four months time talking about this array of indictments that Donald Trump faces, and how that plays politically, which I think is very different than if it's only Bragg doing only the indictment that we talked about at the off set of the show in which case I think the political ramifications are different.

Brian Lehrer: One slight correction that a few people are pointing out. Just for the record, I think you said Macron was indicted in France. Maybe you meant Sarkozy. Bill Macron did have a--

Philip: [laughs] I did. Come on [unintelligible 00:31:28] what am I doing?

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Previous head of state in France, and yet the precedent stands heads of state from other countries that we consider democracies do sometimes get charged with crimes. Lou on Staten Island wants to respond to the last caller, Craig, and Riverdale. Lou, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Lou: Good morning, Brian. Thanks for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Huron Lou. I'm Brian. Just to get that straight. Go ahead. [laughs]

Lou: The last caller assessment that indicting the former president will incite him to come back to power is utter nonsense. This man lacks substance. If the Republican party are so and backwards, naive, immature that they can't find anybody better to represent them, shame on them. This man is not fit for office. If he were to be indicted, he would not be able to rally his troops any more than he did the time when he lost this election. Enough is enough. It's time for this country to move forward. Bring some mature people into leadership. Mr. Trump is not fit for that office. That's what I wanted to say toward that last caller.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Trump, I've heard, is fundraising and maybe other Republicans are too. Philip, do you know fundraising on the prospect of an indictment?

Philip: Yes, I've seen Ted Cruz's as well. Because it's important to remember, yes, I think in the abstract and objectively speaking, the idea that a former president could be indicted for some things that he obviously did like foment January 6th and things along those lines. Objectively speaking, it's like, okay, yes, this is what happens. This is the accountability process. It's important to remember that Donald Trump from the outset, from the very first days of his campaign in 2015, has framed his career in politics as taking on the establishment of taking on the elites and has framed any negative stories about him, any pushback as being the elites in the establishment lashing back.

The thing to remember here is that this very much fits exactly within the context of the way that Donald Trump has framed his entire career in politics. The idea that this will be a thing where people are like, "Oh, now I think the FBI or I think that prosecutors in liberal Manhattan are valid." Donald Trump actually did something wrong. I think it is much easier to assume that the core base of support from Trump and more broadly from Republicans will be to say, "This is exactly what Trump's been talking about for the past eight years, that they're out to get him, and they're going to use whatever means they can to take them down." It fits very much into the narrative that he has always run on and been successful at least within the party.

Brian Lehrer: Philip Bump, national columnist for the Washington Post and author very recently of the book, the Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom, and The Future of Power in America. Philip, thanks as always.

Philip: Of course, thanks.

 

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