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Ok. So, there's been a lot of updates on
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Trump and the whole election situation,
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what's going down. So we don't want to waste any time
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We have Nikki mccann Ramirez,
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a political reporter for Rolling Stone to help us break down all
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that's been going on.
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Nikki. How's it going?
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It's great. It's great.
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Let's see. Last time we talked,
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you told us about the 91 charges that Trump was facing.
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How likely is it that he'll actually have to go to court
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for the most serious charges against him before the election?
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It's looking increasingly unlikely.
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Trump has been very successful in introducing a lot of court challenges
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Sort of legal mumble jumble to slow down the case.
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As we've seen, he's leveled a couple of Supreme Court challenges
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both related to his criminal cases and unrelated to criminal cases.
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we're currently waiting to see if any of these criminal cases will
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actually go to trial before the election or if they'll be delayed
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so much that they'll kind of take place at the same time
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as the election is heating up while we approach November.
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So convenient, so convenient.
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Well, you can get away with when you have money.
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Can you tell us about his financial crimes case in New York
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City? How much money does he have to come up with
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And do experts think he's even gonna be able to come
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up with that kind of cash?
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Yeah. So there are two financial crimes cases in New York
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One just concluded it was a civil fraud trial brought by
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the State of New York against Trump,
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several of his adult Children and his company,
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the Trump organization and they were ordered to pay over 300 million
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in damages to the state of New York because the state essentially
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alleged that Trump had misrepresented the value of his companies,
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his corporations, his real estate holdings in order to defraud investors
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and taxpayers. Trump is fighting that money.
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He's going to appeal the case and he claims he has enough
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money to pay for whatever he wants.
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But the reality is that a lot of the finances paying for
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his legal defense in his,
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in his various criminal trials are coming from his campaign.
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it's not really allowed to pay out penalties for crimes with campaign
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funds. So he'll have to come up with the,
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the money elsewhere. And part of that may be,
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the state has said that they are prepared to seize his assets
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his real estate holdings if that's what they need to do
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And then there is a separate upcoming case that's supposed to go
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to trial soon, which is a criminal fraud.
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In 2016, it was alleged that Trump paid a porn star
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Stormy Daniels a bunch of money to keep quiet about an
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affair before the 2016 election.
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Basically, the state of New York is alleging that that money
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constituted a campaign finance violation and like a form of fraud.
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So that case will go to trial.
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there's a lot of criminal accounts.
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There, there's a lot of corporate mumbo jumbo that they used
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to try and disguise the payments they made to Daniels.
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So we'll see how that one plays out,
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but he may be on the hook for a lot more money
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Well, I guess we're gonna have to hear about it
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We all remember Stormy Daniels icon.
03:14
Hello, who could forget?
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what are your thoughts on the Supreme Court ruling the other day
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about keeping him on the ballot?
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So there's kind of two minds here in,
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the federal system of the United States allows States by and large
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to determine how their elections are run.
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There is a clause in the constitution that's referred to as the
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insurrection clause which bars people who have been found to have committed
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insurrection or rebellion for running for federal office.
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This was a clause that was added to the constitution in the
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aftermath of the civil war.
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In the 14th amendment,
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it is in the same amendment that granted citizenship to freed slaves
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that like defined what a natural citizen of the United States was
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What the Supreme Court essentially said was that while states have
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plenty of rights to determine how elections are run within their own
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states, they cannot unilaterally determine the eligibility of a federal candidate
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All of the judges agreed on that but the states could
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not do that unilaterally.
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However, they disagreed in how far some of the justices wanted
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to take that decision.
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Some of the liberal judges who said yes,
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like we don't think Colorado should be allowed to just like unilaterally
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remove Trump from the ballot without really having legally determined if insurrection
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or rebellion had been committed.
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The Supreme Court also didn't weigh in on if Trump committed insurrection
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in his actions and like the aftermath of the 2020 election,
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that question remains undecided.
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But what some of the liberal justices said is that most of
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the requirements that determine who can and cannot be president,
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you know, you have to be like a natural born citizen
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of the United States.
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You have to be like 35 years old.
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There's no congressional law that enforces those mechanisms.
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They're in the constitution.
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So they are sort of automatically enforced.
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So the Liberal justices said that requiring Congress to create a law
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that would determine how states can implement the insurrection clause or how
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candidates, federal candidates would be affected by the insurrection clause.
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They said that would be taking things a step too far.
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And what we do know is that obviously Trump appointed three of
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the current justices on the Supreme court.
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They are very friendly to him.
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They have made some very conservative decisions in recent years,
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most notably, the overturning of Roe V.
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Wade and Trump has another Supreme court case that the court will
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begin hearing in April where he is arguing that presidents should have
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widespread immunity from being prosecuted for crimes that were committed while in
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office. And of course,
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it sounds ridiculous even the fact that this is being heard by
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the Supreme Court, that is a huge deal in itself because
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the argument Trump is essentially making and he made it in court
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in like the DC Appeals Court is that unless Congress impeach a
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president for a crime that he committed while in office,
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he cannot be criminally tried for it.
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So that is the precedent.
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If the court agrees with that precedent,
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it would just be catastrophic for any potential accountability we could have
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for any president, any federal elected lawmaker.
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So I would definitely keep an eye on that case.
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Trump, I think coming off of the Colorado Supreme Court case
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is feeling really confident,
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but you also have to hold on to the hope that the
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Supreme Court isn't just like completely lost at this point because it
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really would be a complete subversion of pretty much every law we
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have against corruption, criminality in office.
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So that, that's the big one we're keeping an eye on
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Yeah, dude, that's too much.
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So, your magazine had an explosive story this week about the
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kinds of drugs that staffers in the Trump White House were taking
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Can you give us a little taste of what they were
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doing and how your colleagues were able to get the receipts
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Yeah, so that investigation kind of kicked off in January
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where the office of the inspector general,
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which is basically like hr for the department of defense released this
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massive report of an investigation they conducted into the White House Medical
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Unit. And what they found was that the White House Pharmacy
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which was to be clear,
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not run by an actual pharmacist was kind of operating as a
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pill mill for prescription drugs just like handing out things like like
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Xanax Ambien. this like anti narcolepsy drug that helps people
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stay awake, not tracking prescriptions,
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not recording, you know,
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who was getting. What sort of the one of the things
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in the report that they had was that when staffers from the
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White House would go on international trips,
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they would just hand out like goodie bags of uppers and downers
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So people could like fall asleep on the plane and then
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like wake up and be like peppy for all the media appearances
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and stuff they had to do abroad and they just had bins
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of like medication that like theoretically shouldn't be over the counter that
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people could just like walk up and grab.
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And so when that report was released,
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my colleagues also went in NOA,
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they started reaching out to people who had worked in the administration
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in the White House Medical Unit and it confirmed a lot of
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what was in the report.
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Basically, people were like the,
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the sense we got was that people were just popping pills using
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the White House pharmacy as sort of their personal like medical supply
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closet to just get whatever they on it without really having to
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go through the process of like getting a diagnosis and tracking what
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they were taking. And you know,
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I think the opening line of the article really summed it up
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really well, if you ever felt watching the Trump administration,
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if you ever thought like,
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oh my God, are these people high?
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The answer might be.
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Yes. The White House turned into Coachella.
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Basically. So the Department of Defense,
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it's the military that runs the White House medical office.
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They made tons of recommendations on what needed to change how to
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restructure the office because,
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you know, it's not a real good thing if people in
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the White House think they just have to sort of like their
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personal little prescription drug market in the basement.
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I I don't know if it's in the basement.
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I've never been to one.
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Oh my gosh. That's crazy.
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Wild times, wild times.
09:45
But thank you so much Nikki.
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We would love to have you back to cover that case in
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April. So of course,
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and I wanted to ask where can people find you?
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So I'm obviously at Rolling stone.com.
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That's where all my articles are,
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are published and I am on,
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on Twitter Threads blue Sky and all of that is at Nikki
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MC R. Thank you Nikki.
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Thank you so much for having me dude to think that like
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the same person who had all of this happening while they were
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president of the United States is now running for re election.
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He just, I think he wants to be untouchable and he
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wants everyone in the White House that supports him to be untouchable
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I mean, not excuse me,
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not the White House,
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the Trap House. Yeah.
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Moving on, moving on.
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