Music

Welcome to Plaza of America. I'm John Favreau. Dan is still on vacation, but I have a fantastic guest host with me today.

His stereo co-host and my pal, Alyssa Mastermanica. Favre's so delighted to be here. I love you. I love you. I love you. I have a little news.

Look, I trust Trey California for you. Have on my very old Led Zeppelin t-shirt from college. You look like you've been here for years.

That's the whole plan. All right. On today's show, Donald Trump's back in court for his third indictment. His Republican opponents react to the new felony charges. A New York Times poll has him tied with Joe Biden.

And later, Halle Kiefer joins us for another round of, well, well, well, looks like everyone's a fucking lawyer all of a sudden.

But first, instead of us giving you regurgitated legal takes on the latest Trump indictment that we got from listening to Strix Grootney, we are joined by one of the show's hosts, The Brilliant, Leah Litman. Leah, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

So let's dive in. Donald Trump will be arraigned at the federal courthouse in DC today, obviously right after we record this.

He's adding four felony charges to his growing collection. These are the most serious all related to his attempt to steal the election. He knew he had lost.

Trump's campaign has responded with a statement comparing the indictment to persecution and Nazi Germany.

And his lawyer, John Loro, has been on cable news, previewing his defense. Here he is on CNN.

Mr. Trump had the advice of counsel, Mr. Eastman, who was one of the most respected constitutional scholars in the United States, giving him advice and guidance.

That's pure politics. You may disagree with it, and people have spirited arguments about the law all the time, and that's why lawyers are in business.

But we've never had a situation where a spirited debate about the Constitution has become a criminal case.

What's going to happen when there's a Republican administration? Is there going to be an effort to criminalize speech by Democrats?

Is there going to be an effort to characterize something that a Democrat politician says that doesn't meet some kind of true standard at the Department of Justice?

That that's going to be the subject of a criminal indictment. We've now entered a constitutional abyss as a result of this indictment.

Just a spirited debate about the Constitution that resulted in flag polls being stuck into police officers.

That's just usually what happens with spirited debates. Leah, I heard two arguments there.

I heard zero, so I'm curious.

Well, these are the two that have been floating around. One is an advice of counsel defense where they plan to argue that Trump was just listening to his crazy lawyers.

...