Trump’s arraignment will be unprecedented in U.S. history. Here’s what’s next

John Yang:

America enters uncharted waters this week as Donald Trump is to appear in a New York court to face the first criminal charges ever brought.

Reports indicate the sealed indictment charges him with more than 30 counts stemming from hush money payments allegedly made to women during the 2016 presidential campaign. At the same time, recent polling shows him leading the 2024 Republican presidential field.

Those are the topics of today's weekend briefing with Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official, and Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and the founder of the Republican Accountability Pact.

Chuck, I'd like to start with you. This hearing that he's going to go to on Tuesday, it's a routine procedure called an arraignment. Now, the former president was referring to it as being arrested. What's going to happen on Tuesday?

Chuck Rosenberg, Former U.S. Attorney:

Yes, in the routine case, John, it's a routine proceeding. The defendant appears, enters a plea of not guilty. The indictment is unsealed, and he's given a copy. And then the judge does some logistics. He or she sets the dates for motions and possibly even for trial. Again, in a routine case, it's a very brief and rather uninteresting proceeding.

John Yang:

But obviously, this is not a routine case. What is a trial going to look like? Or what would you imagine a trial would look like with the defendant as a former President of the United States?

Chuck Rosenberg:

Well, I hope in a sense, it looks like any other trial for any other person, that a fair jury is selected and paneled, that the judge presides in a dignified and thoughtful way, and that both sides present whatever arguments and evidence they choose to present. It's really important that whatever judge presides over this treats it like any other case, even if we think about it as very different than any other case.

John Yang:

Sarah, we mentioned in the introduction about some polling. There was a Yahoo news YouGov poll that went in the field after the news of the indictment came out. It showed Trump widening his lead head to head against DeSantis, and then well ahead when he was put up against a larger field of other candidates. And again, this was after the news of the indictment came out. What do you make of that?

Sarah Longwell, Republican Strategist:

Yes, this is what you'd call a rally round trump effect. You've seen basically every elected Republican official come out in defense of Trump. You've seen all the conservative news sites make bociferous defenses of Trump. Even his 2024 likely opposing candidates have been out defending him.

And so you're going to see a temporary bump for Trump. The question is it a short term effect, which it certainly is. But how short is short term? It the length of a GOP primary, or is it a week? And I think a lot of that is going to depend, really, on two factors.

One is the quality of Donald Trump's opposition. You know, somebody like Ron DeSantis figure out how to use this, actually, as a political opening to go after Trump, because unless that happens and it's also a question of how many other indictments are there? You know, if there's more indictments, and you continue to just see all of the focus and all of the oxygen being absorbed by Trump, it creates this dynamic where all of the other 2024 contenders actually end up being supporting cast members in Donald Trump's drama.

There's no other room for them to make an affirmative case for why they should be the 2024 nominee. That would really be how Donald Trump would win this nomination again.

John Yang:

Sarah, I know you had a focus group on Friday with people who voted for Donald Trump both in 2016 and in 2020. What did you hear?

Sarah Longwell:

Yes, I mean, look, people were very upset, very angry on Trump's behalf. And they were saying things like they were more excited to give him money. If there was going to be a T-shirt with his mug shot on it, they were likely to buy it.

But most importantly, what they said was that every single one of them wanted to support him for the 2024 nomination. And I haven't had a group of two time Trump voters where everybody has wanted to support Donald Trump in months and months.

There's really been this big opening lately, especially since the 2022 midterms, where a lot of these voters are very interested in somebody like Ron DeSantis. And you'd usually get a big chunk of the group interested in moving on from Trump, believing he had too much baggage, looking for somebody electable. This group was 100 percent all in on Trump.

John Yang:

Chuck, Sarah mentioned the other investigations, federal investigations, his handling of classified documents, his role on January 6, the state investigation in Georgia about trying to overturn the election. Now that he's facing charges in New York, how does this all play together? Does one affect another?

Chuck Rosenberg:

Yes and no. I mean, sometimes when there are parallel investigations, prosecutors in different jurisdictions will coordinate their work to the extent they're permitted to by law. Even if that doesn't happen and he's indicted in other places, well, then he simply has to respond and appear in all of them.

So, you would hope there was some level of coordination. John there may not be, but that doesn't help Mr. Trump in the end, if he's indicted in three places, well, then he has to appear in three places, and if he so chooses, defend himself in three places.

John Yang:

Sarah, among these different charges or different investigations, I should say, has only been charged in one. Do voters differentiate between these allegations? Do they see one is more serious than another?

Sarah Longwell:

It's not as much the voters as it is the right wing media. So this is the one that folks on the right are much more eager to defend because they think this is the weakest case. And so they're happy, especially, you know, politicians who are going on Fox News, they're happy to defend him on this case because they don't think it's as strong. They're going to be less happy to defend him potentially on an indictment around January 6 or on putting pressure on Georgia election officials to find votes.

Those are going to be tougher for them to defend. And I don't think you'll see the big emotional our democracy is ending type rhetoric from as many people. But right now, the voters are really taking their cues from the media and from the elected officials, all of whom are acting like this is a tremendous miscarriage of justice.

John Yang:

Chuck, it's one thing because I'm sure, one thing to get an indictment, another thing to get a conviction. What are the challenges? Or does trying a former president present special challenges for the prosecution?

Chuck Rosenberg:

Well, all cases present challenges for the prosecution. To your point, in order to get an indictment, you have to meet a probable cause standard, really one of the lowest standards in the law. In order to obtain a conviction at trial by a unanimous jury, you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard in the law.

And so there's a huge gulf between probable cause and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And, oh, by the way, your evidence that you are introducing in court is challenged by the other side. It's cross examined, and if they choose, they can put on their own witnesses.

So there is a big difference. Good prosecutors, by the way, don't just indict a case because they can obtain probable cause. They know they're going to have to try the case. And our rules, at least as federal prosecutors, was not to indict a case unless you had a reasonable probability of conviction.

But there's a big difference between those two standards, and prosecutors understand they have to meet the more difficult standard in court.

John Yang:

Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, former federal prosecutor Chuck Rosenberg, it's going to be an interesting week. Thank you both very much.