We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't matter. Mother Teresa could not be discharging. And now if you don't mind, we're going to go into the icebox and sit for a long time. Take care.
Welcome to the Trump Trials Sidebar from The Washington Post. I'm Libby Casey, and I'm with James Homan, columnist, as well as Rhonda Colvin, senior political correspondent. And as you can probably tell, we are not in our studio. We are in Milwaukee at the Fiserv Center, the home of the Republican National Convention happening this week. We're recording this special episode on Monday afternoon with a lot of breaking news to cover, including this just in that J.D. Vance is Donald Trump's pick to be his running mate. James, let's start there. You and I are right here with the delegates doing the roll call vote, nominating Donald Trump right behind us. And we heard Mike Lee just announced on the stage.
in the area, rather, Senator Mike Lee of Utah say it's J.D. Vance. And we also saw a true social post from Donald Trump himself. Let's talk about that pick. It's a major pick. This is a 39-year-old from Ohio who is going to be next in line to be the Republican standard bearer, whether Trump wins in 2024 or not. He represents sort of the populist side of the party, what they call the national conservatives. He has a more isolationist view on foreign policy, a more protectionist pro-tariff view on economics. And it does really very much fit with Trump trying to package himself as a populist.
It's striking that he's making Vance the pick coming right off the assassination attempt over the weekend because Vance right away on Saturday, he's kind of he's close with Don Jr. He has more of a smash mouth tone. He was saying Biden directly caused this with his rhetoric, that kind of thing, when Trump himself was taking a very different tack. But it seems like Vance has been the favorite for a while. And Trump feels like he's going to bring energy. And also, as we saw in his social post, Trump says Vance is going to help him not just in the traditional blue wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but he also says it'll help in a state like Minnesota and kind of across the industrial Midwest.
If Trump can win any of those three states or Minnesota, that's the ballgame. He's going to be the next president. Let's bring in Rhonda, who's right outside the Fiserv Forum, where it's pretty darn hot, Rhonda. A fellow Ohioan getting picked to be Donald Trump's running mate. Talk to us about your reporting on this.
Yes, that is correct. A, yes, it's pretty hot out here. B, and we now know J.D. Vance, the junior senator from Ohio, is now going to be the vice presidential pick for the former president. You know, I agree with a lot of the things that James just laid out about the background of J.D. Vance. I think this was not a huge surprise. Because remember, last week's episode, we were bracing ourselves for maybe a name that we weren't prepared for. But he was on that short list in the last few days. And we even saw that there was a motorcade leaving from his residence near Cincinnati, Ohio. That was also another clue earlier. So now we can confirm that he is the pick. I covered when he ran in the midterm elections a couple years ago, when he ran for his Senate seat against Tim Ryan, who was a House member and a Democrat.
That became a really close race. One of the things I heard from voters when I was in Ohio reporting on that race is someone concerned about Vance because he kind of started his national career being on networks tweeting about Donald Trump negatively. I mean, we have we've had one of our colleagues actually do a video on some of the unbearable things that Vance has said about Trump. He has certainly made this turn now is going to be side by side against him or next to him. And we have seen that from other Republicans as well. But I do remember it did not quite sit well with some voters in Ohio when he ran for his Senate seat. But he did ultimately win that. And that was this pick. I want to point out something that our producer shared with us just moments ago from one of our polling experts at The Post.
June CNN poll found 56% of Americans said they had never heard of J.D. Vance. So you do see there's a little room there for Trump to make Vance a part of his national brand. 18% had an unfavorable opinion of him, and 11% had a favorable opinion of Vance, and 15% had no opinion of him. So this will, of course, launch him onto the national stage. We'll likely hear more from him throughout the week. But of course, this is not that much of a surprise. He was on that short list that we've been watching.
Yeah, Rhonda, sometimes the predictable path is the surprise. And we're talking about Donald Trump. You can hear the crowds behind us. A reminder to all of our listeners, you can also watch our broadcast on YouTube. So you can see all of this. Just look for the Washington Post YouTube channel. And you can, of course, listen to this stream.
The Trump Trials sidebar on your favorite podcast app. James, talk to us about all the noise and drama happening behind us right now. Yeah, I mean, the party has never been more united behind Donald Trump. He is getting the coordination I think he really hoped for eight years ago in Cleveland when, you know, just a minute ago, Mike Lee, the senator from Utah, strongly proclaimed, you know, Trump advance. That's our ticket. Eight years ago, Mike Lee was standing on the floor at the convention in Ohio yelling, stop, stop, you know, trying to make a last ditch effort saying Trump wasn't a conservative. Even in 2020, you still had a lot of never Trumpers who were sort of in the Republican firmament. But now this is a party. This is a convention that is incredibly united behind Trump. They're also voting on the platform today.
And that upset some pro-life groups, anti-abortion groups, some of them protesting outside the arena today. But you're not hearing objections on the floor. Even Mike Johnson, the very, very conservative speaker, you know, is on board. Everyone is sort of rallied behind Trump. The events over the weekend certainly, I think, silence whatever dissent there might have been. And so it's Trump's party, and Trump is clearly taking that party in the direction of the Jeannie Vance-style populism.
literally been happening is this nomination process where delegates from the states stand up and say, you know, here are the who's who we nominate Donald Trump. And here's the number of delegates that our state assigns to him. So this is that formal process. You can hear it's a very jubilant crowd behind us. But it's pretty remarkable considering two huge pieces of news, James. One is the assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life. That's what the FBI is calling it just two days ago. We're reporting this again on Monday. That happened on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania. And it is being talked about here by delegates. It is on people's minds. Let's go to Rhonda for more on how that is coloring or sort of clarifying this moment of Trump's leadership, Rhonda.
Yeah, just even standing out here, we're around other networks as well as other right-wing groups. And I have heard a discussion of the shooting. So that is looming large over this convention. And I think it's also something that we're looking for beginning tonight and through the rest of the week, seeing how it shapes the tone of this convention. We know that, you know, right off the bat, including J.D. Vance is someone who, when he came out with his remarks after the shooting, blamed Biden. We've heard that from other Republicans. But we also have some Republicans who want to use this moment to dial back the noise. We've had reporting that Trump wants the noise to be dialed down after this. So we'll see if that tone continues on or if it's even real. But, of course.
This was major news over the weekend. I've been here since Saturday. And as soon as it happened, it was something people were talking about in hotel lobbies. I actually caught up with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and talked to him about his reaction to it. And he said he was so shocked he was watching it in real time and considers Trump a friend and was just taken aback by it. So there was a lot of raw emotion and shock on Saturday. Right now, I think we're just going to see how that shooting and that event makes its way into the talking points that we hear all week long. So it is an important week, of course, for the RNC, making the presumptive nominee, the actual nominee. But it's also maybe a pivotal moment where we're going to see this.
Did you know you can play the Washington Post's games for free? Find the crossword, keyword, ridges, and on the record in the Washington Post app or at washingtonpost.com slash games. No subscription required. This party tried to dial back, but we just don't know yet. I mentioned two bits of major news, of course. The other one is legal news, and that is that. Just today, well, I'm going to pause a moment. I hear the crowd booing behind us. They're showing Mitch McConnell. Here's what's happening right now. They're showing Mitch McConnell on the screen. He's representing Kentucky. He's here to nominate Donald Trump, but the crowd is booing Mitch McConnell.
A reminder that he is the top Republican in the Senate. OK, I'm just letting us listen to this for a minute. So it really does, James. What we were about to talk about, though, and I'll pivot back to you now is the news out of Florida that Judge Aileen Cannon has thrown out the case, a classified documents case against Donald Trump on grounds that she says the special counsel is not justified or legal. And this is shocking news. It throws the case into total disarray. It's not totally gone because Jack Smith can appeal. But let's just take this step by step. What did Aileen Cannon rule today? Well, let's just say Donald Trump's the luckiest person in America. What she ruled was that.
Jack Smith was not legitimately appointed because he was supposedly and has described himself as independent. And so she said that means he should have gotten confirmed by the Senate because he's not an inferior officer in the parlance of statute. She had to really. twist a lot of legal reasoning. A lot of other courts have ruled against this in other cases where special counsels were appointed by George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon. And the very nature of the special counsel is they're supposed to be outside that chain of command so they can have independence and they're not going to be unduly influenced by politics. And Jack Smith said, I still ultimately report to Merrick Garland. He reviews my decisions. And Clarence Thomas issued a concurrence in that big immunity decision that the Supreme Court issued on the final day of its term. And he basically issued the roadmap. Eileen Cannon actually mentions the Thomas dissent.
four different times. And you warned us this might happen. I did. He predicted this in our last episode of Cybar. So let's just break that down a little bit. The immunity decision that made the decision about Trump or any president being immune from acts taken officially in the duty of the presidency. Clarence Thomas had this concurrence that he wrote. Just him. No one else signed off on it. And what did that say? So it said the special counsel statute isn't constitutional and basically said what Eileen Cannon did, which is really striking. Thomas did not need to do that. The Trump folks weren't even arguing this. They weren't arguing it in Florida. It was outside conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation who were. And even in the immunity case, the Trump lawyers never tried to argue that Jack Smith wasn't.
a legitimate special counsel, because when people had argued it under the Mueller probe, that had been struck down. And so Thomas sort of injected himself and said, wait, wait, wait. And Eileen Cannon is really hanging her hat on that. So now the Justice Department will certainly appeal to the 11th Circuit, which is the system that oversees Florida. Then it could end up getting appealed to the Supreme Court. And this ultimately is going to delay a lot. I mean, Rhonda, what does this mean for any hope that Jack Smith has of prosecuting this classified documents case?
Well, certainly, I think it takes it off the table for any time before November's election. But it, again, just kind of gums up this case in a way that it doesn't look like it's going to come to fruition anytime soon. It's going to get bounced around, as James just mentioned, could go through appeal through the Justice Department, but then bounced up to the Supreme Court. This may be a long time before we have any answers on this particular case. But I just want to give you guys a little anecdote. I was here in August at the Fiserv Forum to cover the first Republican primary debate. Trump was not a part of that, of course, but it was a crowded field at the time. And actually, just steps away from where I'm standing right now.
A voter came up to me and he said he was a Republican. And at the time, if you guys remember that day, it was the day before Trump was booked for the charges down in Fulton County. And I asked that voter, how do you feel about all these cases? Are there any that stand out to you? And I remember that voter said it's the classified documents one that bothers me. And he was a Republican voter and a supporter of Trump. But he said that that one looked pretty clear cut to him that Trump was involved in wrongdoing. And if we want to refresh everyone on that case, that was the case where Trump took classified documents to his home in Mar-a-Lago, which is something that presidents before him have never done. They have returned those to the National Archives. When he was asked to return them, he did not. And that's what the crux of the case is.
I just I always think about that voter saying that was the one of all the ones we've been talking about all year. That classified documents case was the one that bothered him. And I think also this is this is bigger because the classified documents case would actually put to bed any question about what presidents can do with documents. Of course, it's been untested because no other presidents have ever done this before. But if this had gone through the legal process, there had been a decision made that would create a precedent that perhaps other presidents could use or not use or it would have been a part of a legal standard. But again, not having a case to start with or even a trial is not going to bode well for any sort of scholars or historians who wanted something concrete.
when it came to what presidents can do with records. So, again, we don't know when this thing will ever start, if it does. But this is certainly in line with some of the concerns that a lot of legal scholars had about Judge Cannon, that she was using a lot of delay tactics. So this is just one that her critics can add. James, this was in many ways, though, seen as the most solid of the cases. By far. And this was the slam dunk. Also, the immunity decision didn't affect this one because it's all conduct after the presidency. And I mean, the conduct clearly it wasn't just what Ronda was talking about, which is illegal, but it's also that he tried to cover it up, that he allegedly told people, you know, don't cooperate, move these boxes when he knew what was in the boxes and trying to get people not to be forthcoming with FBI agents. This was an incredibly damning case that also gets at this idea. We've even heard in the last hour a lot of people saying Trump's the most pro national security. And this shows kind of.
disdain for the rules of classified material. Also for the safety of, not just the rules, but the safety of national security. You have these highly secure documents that are in highly unsecure areas, people just wandering around. And the irony is that 2016, Trump made such a big deal about Hillary Clinton's emails and the classified material. And so the whole thing was what the Trump people worried about the most. And ultimately, it's dismissed, but it can be reversed. The other thing, Jack Smith... Wait, slow down there. It's dismissed, but it can be reversed if a higher court finds that Jack Smith is indeed in place lawfully. Which they almost certainly will. But it's that process it has to play out. It'll take a while. But one of the things that's interesting...
is that Jack Smith, and he may not do this, but he probably will, is when he appeals it, he can ask for it to be remanded to a lower court, but to get a new judge. He can say to the appellate court, like, Eileen Cannon isn't up for this. Yeah, exactly. And he will almost certainly ask for that. Now, if Trump wins, he can get the charges dismissed right away. But if they got a new judge, that could also delay the process even more, although Jack Smith would get a fairer shake from them.
you know, the bar. Yeah. It really is just remarkable to think about, Rhonda, how much of Donald Trump's political fate has hinged on the indictments and prosecutions. I mean, you think about where he was before any of these indictments came down politically. He was sort of floundering. I mean, we, you know, it was Ron DeSantis whose star was Ascendant. And here we are now with so many of these cases in limbo or really being sort of scuttled, just squashed. I can't even think of the strong enough word for it, James. But, Rhonda, here he is now getting ready to accept the nomination.
That's right. I mean, if you would have asked a lot of people, including lawyers and historians and just average people, if we would be at this point by this time this year, meaning that a lot of these cases came to fruition last year, especially Fulton County was around this time of year. They would have thought that it would be a totally different situation for Trump, but it's not. In fact, most of these cases, all of them really are on ice, if at all, in need of resuscitation. So, you know, where do we go from here? I'm not sure. But as James pointed out, a lot of people are saying this is this is really lucky for the former president. Yeah, you said it better than I could run. They are they are in need of massive resuscitation because even the case that he's been convicted in in New York.
The sentencing is delayed. It's postponed until September 18th at the earliest. All right, guys. So we're going to be here all week long covering the Republican National Convention. We'll be broadcasting live on the Washington Post homepage as well as on YouTube. Just look for the Washington Post feed starting at 7 o'clock Eastern time. I am learning my central time, James. That's 6 o'clock central time because that's where we are in the central time zone. And we'll go throughout the night and we'll be covering all the highlights, all the big news. We'll also be talking to our colleagues who are going to be roaming the floor out with protesters, talking to delegates, and we'll be bringing a lot of reporting to the table as well. Yeah, this is going to be must-see TV. Donald Trump's appearance after the assassination attempt.
And the rebranding, the attempted pivot, can they pull that off? One of the historical things is that J.D. Vance, as the VP, traditionally, that's the attack dog role. Historically, Donald Trump sort of changed all that because he was perfectly willing to make the attacks until this week. The VP gave the big attack speech on Wednesday night, and then the presidential nominee gave the elevated appeal to our higher angel speech on Thursday night. So it's possible that we see some kind of reversion to that norm. Rhonda, final thoughts from you as we get ready to continue to cover this big week? Well, we are on the precipice of a very big week, and we will have more information for everyone as this starts.
I'm grateful to be doing it with the two of you. Thanks to all of our team. That's it for the Trump trials sidebar. This special episode, we will be back with you on sidebar later this week. That'll be in your feed Friday morning. And we're delaying the recording this week because we're watching for that final Trump speech Thursday night. So we'll be able to give you a recap of everything that's happened legal and otherwise on Friday. So until then, we'll we'll be here. Thanks so much.
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