Inside the Trump Trial with Norm Eisen

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Presidential Debates Scheduled

  • Ethics and the Trump Trial with Ambassador Norm Eisen

  • Outside of Politics: Baby Hawks

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EPISODE RESOURCES

Join us on May 30th for The Nuanced Life Live to kick off our summer series with a virtual workshop on work-life balance.

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.  

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.  

[00:00:29] We're so glad you're here with us. Thank you for sharing some of your time as we process a week of news. Today we have a very special guest. Former ambassador Norm Eisen is here to help us continue Tuesday's conversation about ethics and government, and also to share his impressions from inside the courtroom at former President Trump's criminal trial in New York. We're also going to talk about the announcement that the Trump and Biden campaigns have agreed to participate in two presidential debates. And Outside of Politics, Sarah is going to take us into her neighborhood. If you've been following on Instagram, you know that there are baby hawks. And that you are on a journey, Sarah, with those baby hawks.  

Sarah [00:01:05] If you joined us for Tuesday's episode, you know that we have very exciting summer plans. Every Friday this summer for 10 weeks, we are bringing back The Nuanced Life. The Nuanced Life was another podcast we hosted from 2017 to 2020. It started out as an extended version of our Outside of Politics segment, and grew into a really wonderful celebration and commemoration of big and small moments in our listeners lives, and we are delighted to be bringing it back to you for a limited run this summer.  

Beth [00:01:33] To kick off that limited run, we're doing a ticketed virtual event on May 30th at 8 p.m.. It will be the Nuanced Life Live. We'll talk about work life balance and take your questions in real time. Tickets are on sale now, and our premium members and paid Substack subscribers have a special promo code for a discount on those tickets. With a ticket, you can join us in real time for the event or watch it on your own schedule. And we hope you'll come. It's so much fun. We all get to hang out together in person.  

Sarah [00:01:59] And I just feel like the end of my summer is the perfect time to talk about this. When we're all sort of depleted, we're looking back over the school year, we're thinking, what worked? What didn't? We have time in the summer to really process and build some new procedures, rituals, strategies. So I think we have picked the perfect time to talk about this.  

Beth [00:02:17] So we hope you'll join us there. Next up, we're going to talk about the debates.  

[00:02:20] Music Interlude.  

[00:02:30] Sarah, on Wednesday, the political world was very surprised to learn that President Biden and former President Trump have agreed to doing two debates. Were you surprised?  

Sarah [00:02:40] Yeah. I didn't think we were going to have any debates. I felt like we'd already decided that nobody wanted a debate.  

Beth [00:02:46] It did feel like that. Now, reporting today seems to indicate that this has been quietly underway, that both campaigns concluded at least a few weeks ago, that they would benefit from debates. So we're going to have one on June 27th over on CNN, and one on September 10th hosted by ABC. I do not love this June 27th date.  

Sarah [00:03:09] Why?  

Beth [00:03:11] Because I think they should wait until they are officially nominated. I just think it's disrespectful to the process.  

Sarah [00:03:18] I understand that, but it also feels like it's a pretend process because we know who the nominees are going to be. And I think that the campaigns decided not only would they benefit from debates, but they would benefit from having debates where Robert F Kennedy was excluded. So I get it. I'm not mad at them. Listen, maybe they'll get up there, Beth, on June 27th. This debate will be, I don't know, some sort of apocalyptic showdown, and we'll get to the conventions and everybody will be like, JK, we don't want those two. You never know. Crazier things have happened.  

Beth [00:03:58] Well, that's true. And that would be an outstanding script for a movie. It's hard for me to imagine it happening here on planet Earth.  

Sarah [00:04:07] I think I just appreciate this because even with them shutting out the Commission on Presidential Debates, which feels big, it just feels like an acknowledgment to me that the rules are different. Presidential campaigns are different. This one in particular, because we have a former president running against a current president. And we've been talking a lot about what role still apply, what rules don't. And in particular with early voting happening, it happened so soon. And some states it'll be happening in early September. So to wait until September or October, which I think is what the commission proposed, it does seem out of touch with the reality of this particular election. And I would like to see more with the pace of change, with technology and acknowledgment that every presidential campaign might look different. Like, we just have to adapt. If we come to Jesus a little bit sooner, around 2016, we might have had a different outcome. You know what I mean? To just say, well, this one's different because the candidates different, and to adapt accordingly.  

Beth [00:05:18] I don't mind adaptation. I don't mind disruption. I do think the commission missed the boat by scheduling these debates so late. I do think the last cycles debates were not something to be admired or replicated. So I am for trying some different things here. I just really wish that we let everybody vote in primaries before we decided these are the major party nominees.  

Sarah [00:05:44] But if the DNC is in late August, when exactly would we have this debate before people start voting, and enough time for it to impact and have time to process it? Because I don't think what you want-- especially if you're Joe Biden, but honestly, probably not Donald Trump either. You don't want this convention in August, a debate, and then mere moments before people start voting because you want some time to clean it up in case you've made mistakes.  

Beth [00:06:12] You said that you think they want to have this without Robert F Kennedy Jr, which makes total sense to me. I also think that the inclusion of Robert F Kennedy Jr would make this an absolute ratings bonanza. I wonder how many people want to see Biden and Trump head to head.  

Sarah [00:06:30] Well, I don't want any legitimization of Robert F Kennedy. And I think it's interesting that both of them are, like, let's box him out, because I think it is hard to delineate who he harms more. My instinct says Trump, but who the hell knows? And so I do know that past presidential elections where you have this third party, come in like a wild card. Doesn't feel particularly democratic to me. I don't love it. We already have the electoral College. I'm not looking for another thing here that is this sort of uncontrollable X factor. You know what I mean? Not that the Electoral College is an uncontrollable X factor, but you know what I mean? That, like, all of a sudden it's shrunk down even more to an even smaller group of voters that can swing this entire thing. Be it voters in Florida with Ralph Nader, although some of that was this very confusing butterfly ballot, or it's Green Party candidates in Michigan in 2020. We have enough in American presidential elections that distills the power of this voting into smaller and smaller groups of voters. I'm not looking for another. Place for that to happen, so I'm fine with him just being completely excluded. I don't know if people don't want them to debate. I think people just don't want them to be the candidates.  

[00:08:00] They really are not interested in a presidential campaign. That's been our experience as presidential podcasters. It's people just are like, I don't want to. And in an interesting way that has sort of stopped this March, which felt inevitable, where the presidential campaigns got stretched and stretched and stretched and stretched. Some of this is, I think, was Covid which disrupted all this like it did everything. But I don't know if during Covid people got a taste of like, oh, this doesn't have to consume everything in our lives for like a year. So we would like more of this. It's probably both. I think it's a frustration with the candidates. I think it was a frustration with how expansive and all encompassing and exhausting the process had gotten. And so I just tried to tell myself, like, that's not bad. I think it's fine if people are less emotionally wrapped up for months on end in the presidential election. And maybe the debates will sort of give that pressure release in a real and healthy way. I'm just being very optimistic today. I just got my optimistic hat on.  

Beth [00:09:05] I'm stuck on your use of the word undemocratic about the inclusion of another candidate, because that feels so counterintuitive. I think many people-- I don't know most, but many people who are thinking about these issues would say, well, it feels undemocratic to me that we have these two parties with a lock on everything, and it feels undemocratic to exclude someone who's running and has some kind of credible chance to garner votes in the Electoral College-- probably not to win. Robert F Kennedy junior is not on enough ballots yet to have a path to win the Electoral College. When you decide that the inclusion of a third party candidate actually shrinks the number of people who are deciding the outcome of the election, underneath that is an acceptance of how hardened the red state-blue state dynamic is. And that, to me, is the undemocratic piece. Like, how did we get so entrenched in the red state-blue state dynamic that we truly do have so few states that are tossups. And I don't know how to break that without introducing more third party options.  

Sarah [00:10:15] I don't necessarily think third party options are the best way to shake loose that red-blue entrenchment. I think the right major party candidate could do that. I think one did. I think his name was Barack Obama. Bill Clinton got states that right now if you list them, you'd be like, wait, holler what?  

Beth [00:10:33] Well, Ronald Reagan too.  

Sarah [00:10:34] Yeah, it wasn't that long ago. And I think it will happen again.  

Beth [00:10:39] I hope so.  

Sarah [00:10:40] I don't think we're as entrenched as we think we are. You just read enough history and you realize, like, just the party politics. We say that we have two major political parties-- and that's true. It's so true. But guys, just take a breath and realize that's not black and white because they are not static things. Look at how much the Republican Party has changed in the last eight years. A lot. So I just think that this idea that we just only have two major parties and it's just so ridiculous and undemocratic, but they're not set in stone. If you really took the major party policies over the past-- like our lifetime-- 40 years, and just gave them different names, you'd have way more than two parties. You'd have Reaganomics party, and you'd have Neo-liberal party. And then you'd have what we thought at the time was a post-racial Democratic Party, but wasn't really. We just call them the same things, but they're not. They're constantly shifting and evolving.  

Beth [00:11:53] It's just tough to feel that optimism in a year when more than half of of both parties say, I don't like where my nominee is. I don't like where this race is going. I wish both candidates could be replaced. I feel like I don't have choices. It's a tough pill to swallow. I'm glad they're doing these debates instead of just kind of furthering that sense of entrenchment and entitlement on behalf of these two parties and their nominees. I don't know how much we can learn from them, but I do think that reminding people they still have to work for this is important. So I'm glad they're coming. I don't know how I feel about the inclusion or exclusion of Robert F Kennedy Jr. There's just a part of me that always thinks keeping the process more open has a healthy dynamic. And I do think that the more people see and hear from Robert F Kennedy Jr, the less attractive he becomes.  

Sarah [00:12:50] I think that would be true if Joe Biden and Donald Trump weren't there today. I hate to say that. I think that Joe Biden is, for the most part, except for his age, what people see and recognize as a normal politician. So putting these two extremists up there with him might have that effect of further helping people realize that they are extremists. But I just think that people's attention spans and the ever evolving-- probably devolving-- situation with regards to news is the X factor. For him to stand up there and to say things that people would realize are like beyond the pale, requires them to have been getting a steady input of information that is the pale is, but they're not. They're getting a steady stream of information from social media and algorithms and YouTube shorts that is beyond the pale. And so it's just the window of where you can say something so extreme that people kind of shake them out of their stupor. I don't know. Seems like it's getting smaller to me. You have to have this baseline civic and basic education that I think is lacking.  

Beth [00:14:23] We can't have a democracy if that's our underlying assumption, though.  

Sarah [00:14:26] Why not? We do right now. That's how we got to Trump in 2016.  

Beth [00:14:29] That's the thing. If we can't trust each other to make these decisions, and if we can't trust that voters can hear from candidates and make reasonable assumptions about those candidates, then I don't know what we're doing.  

Sarah [00:14:44] But it's what we've been doing forever. What was that statistic in Axios like a few days ago? It was like 100 years ago, 10% of the populace could read- and that was like 90%. This is not new. And a populace that is easily manipulated by populist candidates is not something we invented in the 2020s. It's been around a really long time. We've had a democracy for a long, long time with the most generous interpretation and under-educated populace and a populace prone to populism. I don't think that's anything new. That's always been true. I think that sometimes it was because of isolation. Sometimes it was because of a lack of education. Sometimes it's because of social media algorithms. The challenge that feeds human beings willingness to be told what they want to hear is just it's ever present. I don't think it's new.  

Beth [00:15:45] Yeah. And that's why I think maybe let them debate, because I have to start with the assumption that putting people's choices in front of them in an obvious way is good. Right now, I think he gets to benefit from being almost mythological. We call him by three letters. He's part of a dynasty. You have to go searching to actually hear his voice, which is not a pleasant voice to listen to. I mean, we have three people who are not pleasant to listen to. This can be a rough debate any way around it. But I just think it's like Trump being off Twitter. The more time you spend with him, the less confidence you have in him. And I think that's true about Kennedy, and that's why I don't want to keep him in the wings and give him the opportunity to be an X factor if there are ways for him to be more known and vetted and part of the process.  

Sarah [00:16:40] I don't know. I think there's just a spectrum. I totally agree about Trump. I read a thing, I think it was in Slate where they were like, he is getting up at these rallies and saying truly bananas things. And the reporting is he rehashed his old argument that he'd solve inflation. Are you kidding me? You are dressing that up in some major ways, if that's how you're writing about him going on about child mutilation and God knows what else he picks from that brain of his on a random Thursday. Stop that. Report on what he actually said and how long he talked and what came up in those two hours.  

Beth [00:17:14] And how people are leaving while he's still talking. His people are finding it bananas.  

Sarah [00:17:19] That's fine. I totally agree with that. But I do always think about that Ezra Klein episode about Russia and how the woman was saying, like, there's a news environment. She talks about when you're just walking through an airport, what's on the cable news channels in the background, at the doctor's office, when you're at the dentist. What does that look like? If you're walking through and you're a Russian and they're just keeping their regula cry ons and they're not showing things blowing up and they're just kind of like keeping business as usual, that's what you absorb. There's this sort of temperature of the water kind of situation. And I do think with Robert Kennedy there is this kind of magic threshold where for people who are not paying close attention, like, how many people even know about Robert Kennedy outside of people who pay attention? I'm not sure. I mean, not a lot. He's not polling high enough to get in this debate, which I think the threshold is, what, like 15% or something? So I don't want to give him a platform to say, no, he's a real legitimate thing-- because he's not, you guys. No third party candidate ever is. I'm sorry. It's just the truth. And we pretend like it's not.  

[00:18:41] Maybe I'm still scarred because my first presidential election was 2000 with Ralph Nader, who I loved, who I fell for. I could visit my mother to vote for Ralph Nader, and I still regret it. So maybe this is a personal thing because it cost the election. It cost lives. If Al Gore had been president, we would not have gone to Iraq like that and people would be alive. So this shit matters. And I don't want somebody rolling in and getting legitimacy and costing. I mean, these these margins in 2020 were not big. So we get enough people in Michigan or Georgia who see him on a debate stage just in freaking passing and go, yeah, I don't like either of them. And then we're back with Trump. No, thank you, I've lived this enough. I'm not interested. I want them all kicked off the ballot. I'm just saying. And, again, nominating people and ballots are party processes, not voter processes. We just put awash of a voter process on in the 60s. And you know what? I'm not sure how I feel about that. Maybe I would like to go back to non-voting primaries, where the party people just pick the candidates, because I don't think it's ended well. I'm just going to be honest, I don't think our little experiment here has turned out great.  

Beth [00:19:58] Well, there's a lot in that and I'm going to go ahead and move us on for today. I think, for the most part, with respect for everything that you said, I think that I come down in a place where I believe it is important to honor the openness of the process. That's why I believe that the candidates should be officially nominated by their parties before they debate. Because even though the reality is they've both gotten enough delegate to be nominated at their conventions, I want to go through the process. I want to believe the primaries still matter and the conventions still matter. And I want to believe that if a person secures ballot access, even if they're not a Democrat or Republican, that we still honor that opportunity and that path, even if that person I think is dangerous. And I think where I really am in 2024, is I want to stare down all of the danger. I want to stare down the risk associated with nominating someone who is currently 81. I want to stare down the risk associated with Reelecting former President Trump, and be extremely clear-eyed about what he's going to do with a second term. I want to be extremely clear-eyed about what even voting for-- not just electing-- Robert F Kennedy Jr could represent. But we will continue to talk about all of this; there's plenty of time between now and November.  

[00:21:29] And getting back to the risk associated with former President Trump, it is a unique set of risks when you have a candidate who is currently being tried for felonies in the state of New York, and we have a special guest to take us inside those proceedings. Ambassador Norman Eisen served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee majority during the impeachment proceedings and trial of President Donald Trump in 2019 to 2020. Eisen has been recognized as at the very pinnacle of the lawyers who provide public analysis on the trials of former President Trump. From 2009 to 2011, Eisen served a special counsel and special Assistant to the president for Ethics and Government Reform, where he was known as the Obama ethics czar. The press called him Mr.. No, which I would want everyone to call me forever if I had gotten that title. And we are so delighted that he joined us today for a wide ranging conversation on ethics in government and the current trial. Thank you for taking the time, when I know you are very in the weeds covering the Trump trial right now.  

Norm Eisen [00:22:45] I'm delighted to be with you and all the Pantsuit Politics listeners and viewers. And there is more to life than Donald Trump and more to politics.  

Beth [00:22:57] That's right. And that's exactly where we want to start. I was thinking about all of your work and my professional responsibility class in law school, which left me with the distinct impression that if you're arguing about ethics in your career, you have lost. My professor made it really clear just avoid even a question to stay on track with what you really want to do. It has been confusing to have that background and then see us build what feels like a public tolerance for corruption. So can you start at the beginning? You've dedicated a lot of your career to ethics. Why should the public care when we hear stories about emoluments or corruption or bribes?  

Norm Eisen [00:23:38] The American idea and the idea of democracy, really-- and this was when my law school friend, president elect Obama, asked me to help him set up the Obama administration. This was the same idea. Government is supposed to work for the people, (of by and for us) not for a president's pocketbook wallet, not to stuff the pockets and the pantsuit with cash and the cronies around the president to get rich. No. And when you come into government and you leave government, you should be breaking that tie. If you want to do well, do it on your own merits, not because of your government position. The American Revolution was the revolution against the corruption of King George the third in his regime, taking much more than they gave to the colonies. So the government, I think, in the Trump administration took a terrible year, the worst we've seen in modern times. The opposite. By the way, the founders and framers of our country felt so strongly about this idea that government should serve the people. It's an ethics idea, and not those who are doing the governing that they put in the Constitution. An ethics rule. There's only one ethics rule that was so important that they put it in the Constitution, and that's the rule that a president and other government officials cannot collect money from foreign governments, or even from a US domestic government, period. It's not just corrupt money. It's no money because it's all corrupt. That kind of money is called emoluments. And then there's the Emoluments Clause. Emoluments is a word bigger than money. It means any kind of benefit, tax or other means. That was the original sin of the Trump administration. And the concern is that neither Trump nor anyone of either party should go into office and capitalize on their connections that way. And that was my job for Obama, and I think we succeeded. It was the most scandal-free administration because the president empowered me and my successors to prevent any of that kind of profit making.  

Sarah [00:26:29] It seems to me the issue is not that people don't care about ethics, is that I just don't know if we know how to think as citizens of corruption when it happens. What I'm trying to explain is I want to hear how you felt and how you keep going, and how you make sense of it when you do all this good work, you have a scandal-free administration, and then someone comes in like the Trump administration wipes it out. I think it's not that we don't care about ethics, it's that we don't know how to walk through clear corruption. Does that mean the system is broken? Is it broken forever? Is there anything we can do? I think we just don't have a good path forward once we see evident corruption.  

Norm Eisen [00:27:19] Sarah, everything's broken. It's a broken world. And we are broken. We are broken. Listen. 

Sarah [00:27:27] This got very philosophical very fast.  

Norm Eisen [00:27:29] Well, that's what you get from a former ethics czar. That's what you get. It's the fundamentally flawed nature of people and our systems and our world. We can do better. I remain optimistic we can do better. People can rise above that. And I think we showed that in Obama. Look, yes, it was a shock to the system when we got Trump. By the way, I worked for Trump. People don't know this about me. There's a Politico article I volunteered. I know Chris Christie and the people around him and they accepted when Chris Christie was running the Trump transition. Norm, come on in. You did a good job for Obama. Come on in and help us have a scandal-free. And I went and I talked to them multiple times, gave my ideas. I even wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post after Donald Trump won with Steve Bannon's ethics czar. Believe it or not, he has one.  

Sarah [00:28:36] [Inaudible]. I didn't even know he had one.  

Norm Eisen [00:28:38] He's the author of Clinton Cash. The way I criticize Trump, he criticizes the Democrats. But I'm like, no, all right with you. If Trump wants to drain the swamp, really, here's how. And we list it. So we had a meeting of the minds for a while, a brief moment. But then it became clear that Donald Trump was going to take those cash and other benefits, was going to take those emoluments, that he was not breaking with his businesses. And that was the end of my time and the beginning of my opposition, because that was the original sin. Taking this, I'm going to hang on to my business is not going to hang on to my cash. And that was the moment when everything that has come since including this trial that we're in-- yeah, I'm here in New York. All of the problems came from that moment when he said, I want my emoluments, [inaudible] president. And then the government started owning this hotels, millions of dollars pumping in. And that's how we ended up in court here in New York. Now we got on the slippery slope to criminality.  

Beth [00:30:00] To Sarah's point that we don't know what to do when we see it, I'd like to take us to the Supreme Court for a second. Because on this slippery slope to criminality, a component of the journey that I am struggling with most is that we have a justice hearing cases related to January 6th, with what seems to me to be a pretty clear conflict, or at least the appearance of impropriety. So will you talk a little bit about the obligations of the justices and Justice Thomas, and what's happening in the Supreme Court?  

Norm Eisen [00:30:38] Lord, the corruption has crept into the Supreme Court, too. It's not all those justices, okay? And it's not all the conservative justices. And, again, I came to Washington in 1991. And when I arrived in Washington (and it's still this way) you were supposed to fight all day with the (I'm a Democrat) the Republicans about this, that or the other till 5:30. And at 5:31, you're supposed to be in the bar having a drink and being friends. And even if you can have a day where you say, I disagree on XYZ, but let's agree on ABC and can do things together bipartisan, that was a good day. And that's fair. It's not totally dead, but it's come under a great deal more pressure in our country. And I think part of the solution is to acknowledge John Roberts is not corrupt. I know the chief justice well. He stayed when I was ambassador, stayed under my roof, came and spent a week with us. We worked on American and European rule of law issues together. And most of the justices are trying to do their best. And they don't see the world exactly the way that I do, but not Clarence Thomas and Alito to a lesser but still troubling extent. They have taken luxury vacations from people with interests, ideological interests, or in an instance that we know of, a case where Harlan Crowe had an indirect interest, who is one of the donors beneficiaries to Thomas. You just can't do that. And they didn't report it. I was in charge for the white House from the president on down. As a czar you got to report what you get out of trip. Private travel or plane travel. How could you not report that they're hiding it. And it creates such a stench. And then the corruption. How can Clarence Thomas sit on cases like the Trump immunity case is going on now, about January 6th, when his wife was involved and was a witness? Congress called her as a witness. He should not [inaudible] corruption. So there's a bad aroma coming out of the far right Alito Thomas. It's just wrong. And no wonder the court's credibility has fallen off a cliff because people don't like what they see.  

Sarah [00:33:35] Well, and we have, you know, again, let's get back to that lovely spirit of bipartisanship, because we have far right corruption on the Supreme Court. But we have a Democratic senator and a Democratic representative, one on trial. I'm assuming, near the Trump trial somewhere in Manhattan, Robert Menendez and then Representative Cuellar in Texas new charges they got him. What are they incentives? What else can we do? This behavior there's a pattern. It's not that everybody does it, but enough people do it that we do seem to have some sort of incentive structure. We talked about it on our own show that you see this pattern, especially from representatives who don't come from a lot of family wealth, who aren't independently wealthy. We don't want just independently wealthy people in Congress. What do we do? What else is needed to disrupt that incentive structure? Instead of just saying, well, these are the villains this time. But if we keep seeing the same villains, maybe it's the-- as I often say about Congress, hate the game, not the player.  

Norm Eisen [00:34:39] If I can offer kind of an interesting case study of the, I think, the strengths and weaknesses of that model, it's speaker Mike Johnson. Because on the one hand, he has pleasantly surprised. I don't even know if surprise is a strong enough word. Pleasantly astonished me and the world by doing the right thing on big issues, avoiding a government shutdown aid for Ukraine, providing other vitally needed foreign assistance. And that's required democratic votes, including to support him when Marjorie Taylor Greene tried to knock him out of the speakership. So he's been kind of a model of bipartisanship on the one hand. But on the other hand, in the era of Trump, he was just down here at the court yesterday embracing corruption. That's what this trial is about. And, of course, Trump is innocent until proven guilty. But the prosecution has amassed a lot of proof. I think they've proved beyond reasonable doubt. We'll come to that. So it's a little weird to see the speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States embracing a criminal defendant who's in accused of interfering in the 2016 election, and Mike Johnson led the 2020 election interference attempt in the House of Representatives, supporting Texas to sue Pennsylvania to throw out the Pennsylvania votes. Which the Supreme Court said, what, the only people who are willing to hear the case-- there's the corruption again-- Alito and Thomas. So you know that Johnson is both pleasantly, surprising model of bipartisanship and an example of some of the extreme partisan dysfunction at the same time. And that is the complicated moment that our nation's politics finds itself in. There is this cancer of autocracy that's crept into the body politic. And Johnson both resisted at times and then is overtaken by it. And that's where we are in 2024.  

Beth [00:37:09] We talked about this earlier with emoluments. When I think about the current trial of Trump, I do think about all of the corruption for which he has not been held accountable. The Secret Service staying in his hotels. The existence of the Trump Hotel and foreign dignitaries staying there. We could make a list that goes on for the length of this podcast.  

Norm Eisen [00:37:34] True.  

Beth [00:37:35] What do we need in terms of mechanisms to hold administrations to account who have not brought in a Mr. No ethics czar who says we are volunteering to uphold these standards? What would help us feel more comfortable that this stuff is getting taken care of at its roots?  

Norm Eisen [00:37:56] I think we have to continue to hold fast to that vision. That's the vision that the founders and framers put in the Federalist paper. Federalist Papers that we have to design a government. And I talked with Obama about this when we were designing the Obama ethics plan. We have to design a government that recognizes the need for virtue, but that people are not virtuous and to take effective precautions against that. And this is probably is not a moment when we're going to make great new strides. This is a moment when we sustain and we wait for that next opportunity. Like the election of an Obama doesn't have to be a Democrat, by the way. I think, Nikki Haley would have been a very exciting choice. I'm a Democrat, so I probably wouldn't have voted for her. But that would have been something people would have liked. I have great respect for Mitt Romney. There are very, very good people. And then we need to find that next moment when we can. Let's hold fast, let's maintain. And then what is the next moment when we make the big leap forward? Maybe there will be an opportunity if Trump is vanquished and Biden succeeds to permanently trump through the presidency. What are the set of rules that we have to put in? I wrote a book about it called Overcoming Trumpery. I describe this Trump style of governance as trumpery, and I wrote with, among others, the Bush ethics czar- so bipartisan. Obama and Bush. Professor Richard Painter. We wrote about here's the rules that everybody should agree on to banish corruption. And a lot of those rules will have to move through Congress and go to the president's desk. Maybe 2025 will provide an opportunity for that. But until we get that window, we just have to hold fast. We can't slip back.  

Sarah [00:40:05] I really like that formulation though. I really like the idea. Going back to my first question, that I think people get discouraged because they feel like it's this impenetrable wall we should build, and if something gets through, the wall is crumbling and nothing is working.  

Norm Eisen [00:40:21] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:40:21] As opposed to what you described, which feels a little bit more like surfing. Like we're going to take the wave we have. Every candidate, every administration is going to present us with new challenges. We have to hold the progress we've made. We have to take our moments to improve it when we can. Like, that's more of a balancing act than this sort of brick and mortar. We're going to build a wall that's going to prevent corruption forever, as opposed to saying, look, we're doing the best we can with what we have. New candidates, new administrations will present new challenges. I mean, obviously, Trump is that. You're in Manhattan right now at this first trial, which I'm intrigued that you called the first election interference. I want to hear how you think about this trial and how you think about taking these moments where maybe we can't advance ethics to learn what's wrong. To really understand in these moments where maybe we can't pass a bunch of ethics laws, but we can really absorb what's going on, what went wrong, what this means for any rules we might pass in the future.  

Norm Eisen [00:41:30] Yeah. One must just deal with at the same time. Like, who is Mike Johnson? Is he that bipartisan hero? Got the Ukraine aid drew and avoided a government shutdown and all those hundreds of Democrats in the House voted to support him. Or is he the man who stood at the press conference down the block from where I'm talking to y'all and defended this outrageous election interference? You got to hold both ideas in your head. We can do better. We can be optimistic. But for now, we have to maintain. And I'm the election interference point. I think the trial has borne me out on this. When I studied this case, I first investigated these allegations of the payment to Stormy Daniels. And was it a personal embarrassment Trump was hiding, or was he attempting after the Access Hollywood tape alienated so many women voters. Not another sex scandal with an adult film starring an adulterous relationship. I investigated that in the impeachment. And what I discovered was Michael Cohen has testified as to this. And Donald Trump was and didn't give a hoot about the personal stuff.  

Sarah [00:42:56] You have to be capable of embarrassment in order to be personally embarrassed.  

Norm Eisen [00:43:02] Trump was all about winning that election. And if that's true, then it's not a hush money payment. It's an illegal campaign contribution. And the false documents that are at issue here were used to cover up the illegal campaign contribution. So that's a different case. That's an election interference case. And that's what the prosecution has put on here. And that goes to our democracy. So I like to think that if Donald Trump had not gone down that path of criminality, that if he had chosen-- he says, I'm going to put my businesses into a blind trust. I'm not going to take the money. I'm going to totally sever the relationship. Then he would not have been in this situation where he was managing the business in 2017 and creating all these false documents. He would not be prosecuted. Somebody else would be prosecuted or nobody would be prosecuted. Even if they had just filed that payment as a campaign expenditure, they would have been fine. But, instead, Trump chose another fork in the road. And that's why he's in criminal trial every day here in New York now. Or I believe his original sin of interfering in an election. And then 2020 was just the same thing as here. We have [inaudible] just leaving the voters, check. The grass power deck and covering it up. Check. That's the three elements of the 2020 criminal prosecutions, including the one at the United States Supreme Court. Now, is Donald Trump immune for the alleged attempted coup? It's the same structure. And that's what I wrote about in my book. And that's what we've seen come to pass in court. But now we got to say, well, the jury agree. That's the real test.  

Sarah [00:45:05] How do you feel about that? How do you feel like the jury is taking in this information? How do you feel about how the trial is going?  

Norm Eisen [00:45:12] I watch them all day long. I got a little binoculars and I watch them all day long. How are they reacting? I spend most of my time looking at the jury in that courtroom. Witness jury. Occasionally, I look at Trump. I look at the lawyers, but mostly the jury. You don't know for 100%, but it appears to me that they are persuaded. This is not a slam dunk. It's not an easy case for the prosecution. But they have very methodically, day after day, assembled the pieces of the puzzle that Donald Trump did make this payment in order to deceive the voters, the grass power that it worked, and that then that he covered it up. He signed the false documents. He was in the meetings. They didn't establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt until Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer and lawyer, took the stand. Everybody expected Cohen to be a terrible witness. He was a very strong witness, credible, soft spoken, and the jury liked him. I noticed that he bonded with the jury, that the jury put down their pens, papers, and they looked at him over and over and listened to him and him at that. And there was a real connection there. And, of course, that's very bad news for Donald Trump. Trump's only hope in this trial is a hung jury, that there's one Trojan horse on that jury. One person is going to say, I don't care what the evidence is. I'm not convicting Donald Trump. That's really their only hope. And I think they probably don't have that juror, at least right now.  

Beth [00:47:08] If that happens, what will you make of it? I mean, Trump is a master of saying total exoneration, right? We saw it with the Mueller report. We've seen it with his impeachments time and again. If he is not held to account, he takes it as something beyond acquittal. How should the public handle it if he is not convicted in this case?  

Norm Eisen [00:47:32] If he's not, he's not going to be acquitted. That's for sure. I'm watching that jury and there is no acquittal that's on the agenda. So that means it's either a hung jury or conviction. It's very likely it's going to be conviction. If he gets on jury. He's going to say-- as I saw when I did the impeachment. We impeached him. We did not convict him at trial. And he's going to say total exoneration. The jury repudiates the political witch hunt of Alvin Bragg. And that's the risk that comes with trying to do the right thing. This case is well founded, and the people who've had various quibbles, nobody who's in that courtroom accepts all the different ideas, these crazy ideas that it's a political case or it's not a good case. I mean, it's legally and evidentially sound case, but every morning when I get out of bed, there's a risk. You want to eliminate all risk, don't get out of bed in the morning. But that's a risk too. So, yes, the risk is there. What are you going to do? Not to get philosophical again, but that's part of being alive. So I think the D.A. did the right thing to charge it. And there has been some controversy. I think the D.A Has put the lie to the doubters, and now we'll see whether the jury agrees. And that's the beauty of the system. And if unexpectedly he is acquitted, then I'll be the first to say the jury has spoken and we have to respect that the case was not there.  

Sarah [00:49:15] So what's the timeline, if he's convicted?  

Norm Eisen [00:49:18] You could conceivably get a verdict in the next week or two, or it could extend beyond Memorial Day. It's just depends on how these last days of trial unfold. So that's the window. And the reason for that is there's a number of days off, and jurors had to be out for a reason. And so if we don't finish up next week, the calendar gets a little tricky. That's point one. And then after that, if he's convicted you'll have sentencing within 30 to 60 days- so over this summer. And I believe substantial chance the sentence is going to be a sentence of incarceration, that the judge will give him some jail time. It doesn't mean that he'll go to jail in 2024 because he'll be let out pending appeal if it goes that way. But you could very well have before the end of the summer a decision by this court that Donald Trump is guilty of election interference and covering it up, and that he's sentenced to jail for it. And the polling shows that the American people really care about that it will have a big effect if it happens. But for the moment, he remains innocent until proven guilty.  

Sarah [00:50:45] I don't think America is ready for that. That's where I put my hands. This is a podcast. But our audience couldn't see. I do this for a living. I think about it a lot, and then it's just something about you articulating well, yeah, we can have a verdict in the next week, and then we'll have a sentence in the summer. I think especially among our audience and the people I talked to, back to our original question, everybody just has this narrative that the system is corrupt and he gets away with everything. And I don't think we're ready for the system to function and work, which I believe it does most of the time, because again it's like we do this black and white, it's either working all the time or it's never working. And I'm not sure where we're mentally, emotionally or psychologically or spiritually prepared for it to work.  

Norm Eisen [00:51:40] Yeah. Well, you saw as I was talking about it, I also I'm closing my eyes and concentrating and trying to think it through because it's so hard to conceive. But that's what we need.  

Beth [00:51:57] I think about Judge Merchan every day, and what it must be like to have been drafted into this position to embody the system in this way. I try to cover-- when we talk about the gag order violations and things-- all the places where he lets Trump slide, where he's generous with Trump, because I want people to know that he is not an anti-Trump crusader. He's really trying to be fair. You can tell how excruciating this is for him. What do you see in his body language, in his courtroom conduct that would help us understand the difficulty of this role?  

Norm Eisen [00:52:41] Well, he's struggling with it like we are. He said to Trump about the gag order-- and you can see the anguish. He's like, you are a presidential nominee. You maybe the next president. I don't want to have to sentence you for contempt to spend time in jail. But if you don't stop, I have to do it. So please stop. Imploring Trump. Just this week, there was a very important document the prosecution, the D.A. wanted to get in. Judge slept on it overnight, he came back, he said, "No, I'm not putting that argument in." And the rulings from the bench, D.A., had a very hard time with the direct examination of Stormy Daniels. Objection. Sustained. Objection. Sustained. And the judge is fair. You could not ask for a more fair judge, but he's not bending over in either direction. He's being balanced on both sides because it also would not be fair to the people of the state of New York. That's how the D.A. Appears on behalf of the people. He has to be fair to them to let them put their case in consistent with the rules and protect Trump. And that works both ways. He has been a model. He's just been outstanding. Outstanding.  

Sarah [00:54:19] Well, thank you so much for all your work on this over the years. Thank you so much for sitting in that courtroom with your binoculars and coming here and telling us and helping us get prepared for what might be coming next with regards to this trial, and hopefully with the next moment we have to take our opportunity to strengthen these ethics laws, to apply what we've learned, to continue to serve and get stronger and not feel discouraged in the face of. Human brokenness, as you so beautifully put it.  

Norm Eisen [00:54:51] Thanks for having me. It was great to be with you and all your listeners and viewers. And have me back, we'll talk some more.  

Beth [00:55:02] I'd love that.  

Sarah [00:55:03] We're going to have to do lots of talking if the scenario we just spoke about plays out at all.  

Norm Eisen [00:55:06] Oh my lord. Oh my lord.  

Sarah [00:55:08] Well, we'll be ready.  

Norm Eisen [00:55:09] Thank you Sarah. Thank you Beth.  

[00:55:11] Music Interlude.  

Beth [00:55:22] Thank you so much to Ambassador Eisen for being with us today. We always end with what's on our minds Outside of Politics. And, Sarah, you are following a miracle of nature right now. Tell us about it.  

Sarah [00:55:32] Yeah, basically of planet Earth across the street from my house. It's amazing. But I have to tell you, they have officially flown the coop. I had three baby hawks-- I had like their mine-- across the street in a nest way up in a pine tree in my neighbor's yard. And the nest has been there (my neighbor thinks) for about five years. Because they come back and they use the same nest over and over again. Usually there are two babies. This year there were three and I think I've seen them before. I've definitely seen the Hawks are very prevalent and present in my neighborhood, and I love them and they're beautiful and huge. And so I think I've kind of been aware that, of course, there was a nest in there around, but I'd never been as consumed as I was this year because we went on a walk one morning and I just saw this little gray, furry head peeking out over the edge of the nest about a week ago. And I thought, oh my God, I could see the babies.  

[00:56:27] So then it was on. I got my binoculars, I went out there, and then I was taking all these pictures with my iPhone and remembered that I have a really nice camera with a zoom lens. So I got that out and I got these amazing pictures, and they just got bigger and bigger, and one is bigger than the other two. And they were very sort of ready-- you could tell. Just perching on the nest into the nest, perching on the end of the nest. And so yesterday I went out and I've kind of gotten acclimated with their schedules. They sleep a little late. And then by lunch in the afternoon, they're sort of up and moving around the nest. I saw the mama feed them one day. It was amazing. And they were gone. In the afternoon I thought, oh my God, they have flown. They are out hunting. Because apparently they hunt as a group. So I thought I saw them this morning, but I went back and either they've tucked back in. I'll check on this afternoon and try to keep an eye out, but I'm just totally obsessed with them. They're so cute. They were getting big so fast. I love them so much.  

Beth [00:57:27] We have a hawk that we talked about is sort of the guardian of our backyard, because every year we see it flying above us, and then we have a dove who likes to return to one of the ferns that hang on our porch in the summer to lay eggs. We just call her mommy bird, and it's so fun when something comes back like that and you feel like there's this continued thread year after year. This is their spot and we get the privilege of observing them.  

Sarah [00:57:54] Yeah, I'm just totally fascinated watching the parents. I think there's two parents. I don't think it's just the mommy bird. I think there's two there. Like a pair who come hunting because they're really low to the ground, lower to the ground than they usually are. They're swooping. They're like down on lower branches. Usually they stay pretty high up. I just love them. And it does feel like such a privilege to see them and watch them. I like all bird watching. I am a bird watcher. I enjoy it. I think it's fun to watch the different birds personalities. I think birds are endlessly interesting and the way they migrate. And so I'm just loving it. I'm loving it. And I'm going to be so sad when they're officially gone. But my neighbor thinks that often the babies come back and use the nest. So how will I know that? I don't know, I'll just make it up in my head and I'll be like, oh, look, my babies are back to have their own babies.  

Beth [00:58:50] I think that's the only appropriate thing to do, just to assume that you're watching the family tree extend and grow.  

Sarah [00:58:57] Exactly.  

Beth [00:58:57] We have lots of bats in our backyard in the summer.  

Sarah [00:59:00] That's good though. Bats eat mosquitoes, man.  

Beth [00:59:02] Yes. Chad is always like, bring on the bats. It's wonderful. 

Sarah [00:59:05] Yes, I wish I had more bats.  

Beth [00:59:07] They're so cool to watch. It is bananas to see sunset and the bats in the backyard. There's so many of them. The way they like hover in the air is really interesting. I don't know. I am getting to where I could just sit out in a lawn chair and observe the things going on around me for hours, and have no complaints at all.  

Sarah [00:59:28] Yeah, I wish we had more bats. That's very cool. And the more you watch, the more you see, the more you pick up. And who doesn't love Planet Earth? It makes me laugh. One year we were watching Planet Earth and Amos was very little, maybe 6 or 7, and we'd watched a couple of episodes with Sir Attenborough just narrating view across the globe, and Amos goes, "How does he know all this?" I was like, well, he's really descript. But I just loved his assumption that he just sees everything, knows everything about all these animals across the globe. Who does want to be like that? Who doesn't want to have complete and total information about this amazing planet on which we live? So I'm just going to take my little piece of it with the Hawks while I can.  

Beth [01:00:18] Well, we would love to hear about what you're watching in the area surrounding you. Thank you all so much for spending time with us today. Don't forget that tickets are on sale for The Nuanced Life Live to have that conversation about work life balance on May 30th at 8 p.m.. All the information to join us there is in the show notes. We'll be back with you on Tuesday. Until then, have the best weekend available to you. 

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. 

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. 

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

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