Orlando Sonza fighting for Ohio and Jason Willick on the Trump Indictments
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone. Chuck Warren out of the studio for the moment. He will be joining us, we hope, within a few minutes. But we wanted to get rolling with our first guest today, frankly, because he has an amazing background. I'm really looking forward to chatting with Orlando Sanza, candidate for Ohio's first congressional district and proud Ohioan, second-generation Filipino-American, raised in New Jersey, attended West Point.

graduated top 10 in his class, majored in political science, minored in systems engineering. So folks, this guy is no dummy, that is for sure. Orlando Sanza, welcome to the program. Sam, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Great to be here. So what made you decide to go to West Point or to try to go that route?

Yeah, you know, I always knew, I think early on in my life that I wanted to join the Army. I mean, call it whether it's playing Army men as I was a little kid or that. Now, are we talking about the little green plastic guys or did you have the metal ones? That's right.

No, no, no. It's definitely the little green guys, you know, kicking it back old school to Toy Story 1, you know, to those guys. But no, there was a fateful trip that my family and I took. I remember distinctly when I was in eighth grade. Of course, growing up in New Jersey, I was just an hour away from Bear Mountain, West Point country. And so we went up there and I saw the cadets in uniform. I saw them.

marching, I looked out over the Hudson River and I was like, this is the place where I'm going to. This is where I'm going to. And so I made it my commitment. And, you know, I was involved with junior ROTC in high school and that kind of just charted the path. And that's how I ended up at the at the academy. Now, so because a lot of us out here are dummies, what exactly is systems engineering?

So systems engineering, you know, is another name for it is industrial engineering at at West Point. Every cadet had to minor in an engineering, whether it's nuclear engineering, mechanical, electrical. I didn't know that. I love kind of.

Yeah, yeah. So I really gravitated towards problem solving. And really, that's all systems engineering, industrial engineering is. It's how do you solve complex problems, whether it's in business or in manufacturing. And so that's what I chose. Not just me, but actually my wife. I don't know if you knew this, Sam, but...

Folks, sorry about that. We had a very short technical glitch. We are continuing on with candidate Orlando Sanzo running for Ohio's first congressional district. Orlando, when we rudely technologically disconnected you there briefly, you were telling us your wife also, I think, actually went to West Point. So this is an amazing family.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, look, public service and servant leadership, that's in our blood. I mean, that's in the sons of blood, whether it's it's me and my story. But my wife, too, is an incredible person because she grew up in Cincinnati, you know, native here in southwest Ohio. And she also found her way to the academy.

And that's where we met. We were classmates. We commissioned together. We graduated together. We served our country for about five years together. And, yeah, my best friend and also my co-fighter in this thing. So now after that, as I understand, after you both left the military, you moved back to her hometown in Cincinnati. So there's an important question I think we need to ask you here. Yeah, you know.

Go ahead. I know. It's coming. It's coming. Have you become a fan of eating chili on spaghetti?

Look, Sam, I will tell you this. All right. It is Skyline all the way. I don't think I've yet to even taste Gold Star, but it's Skyline all the way. But I had the luxury of chasing Skyline for the first time, wearing a bib in front of my now father-in-law asking for his blessing to marry Jessica. So when I put that coney in my mouth and tasted cinnamon in my chili, I was like, what in the world is this? This is awful.

But I got his blessing, and I've since acquired the Skyline taste. So you actually got a photo of that from that evening? Yeah.

No, because I think I spit it all on my bib. So, you know, no, it will. But it's ingrained in my memory. And so in John's as well. So I love that. So Orlando, just a heads up. Chuck is just now rejoined us in studio here. So we'll be continuing on with the both of us. But all right. Great. Orlando.

Orlando, good to meet you. Nice to meet you. One of the things I wanted to get at in your bio, it says you're a second generation Filipino American. One of the things Chuck and I have talked on this program about is, frankly, the patriotism of people who have come to this country and then served in the military and how in many ways we're finding that recent immigrant families are as or more patriotic than people who have been here for generations. More so. They're more so. They're more so.

Oh, 100 percent, Sam. And, you know, that's something that I grew up.

knowing, you know, and seeing. It's, I think, just a false narrative that has been perpetrated by left-wing media to showcase that this is something just recent. You know, it is truly immigrant families or that have that life story that showcases that it is this sense of patriotism, love of country, commitment to hard work, you know, love of

freedom that this country has and the ability to go from nothing to achieving the American dream. That's something I grew up with and saw in New Jersey. It's something that my wife also, you know, that she's she's coming from parents that have a Mexican-American lineage, then also a Filipino-American lineage. She saw that as well. So, yeah, that's 100 percent true today for sure.

But it's also been true, you know, for for decades also in our country. I like that you brought up the American dream, because if you're running for Congress, another theme we've talked about, Chuck, a lot on this show is that the American dream isn't dead, even if there's a lot of people out there who who seem to think it is. But one group that across doesn't matter where they came from, but immigrants believe in the American dream or the demographic that believes in it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Orlando. That's right. Yeah. Let me ask you a question. So you're running for Congress now out there in Cincinnati. You've had a very illustrious career. You've had some many opportunities to learn certain aspects of a career. So, for example, I want to ask you what each job has prepared, how each job has prepared you to be in Congress. For example, by going to West Point and serving in the military, what experience,

talents did you acquire and develop that will benefit your constituents in Cincinnati if you're in Congress? Yeah, you know, talking specifically to by West Point and military background, I remember distinctly, you know, every week I would go to the cadet barbershop, get a haircut. And there was this poster in one of the you know, one of the walls at the barbershop. And it said West Point where leaders aren't born, they're made.

You know, it's kind of cliche. It's a funny thing, but it just so impacted me the first time I saw it, because what I realized was leadership is about going through experiences and challenges and formulating this ability to lead people and lead them well. You know, the good leaders that we've seen in our country, they're not born. They were made by the crucible of adversity.

And so whether it was at West Point, but then being able to translate and apply what I learned at the academy, which was truly a premier leadership institution and applied it in the military, that's what I gleaned back. And I knew that in the military, whether I was leading infantry soldiers or leading finance soldiers in the second half of my military career, what it came down to is how do you motivate, train and inspire people to achieve a common goal?

but do it in a way that's transformational and so i took that and then translated it into a post-military career but i i would say first and foremost it is leadership that i learned at west point and the military and that's quite frankly what we are seeing the lack of today right whether it's in congress or at the white house just washington and its lack of good leadership

is what's crippling for our nation and what people are tired of seeing. They want good, serious leadership that can solve problems

complex, serious problems. That's what I seek to do when elected to Congress. It does seem, Chuck, like there's a lack of, I was going to say like Congress and the White House often these days seem rudderless, but I guess that would be more of a Navy analogy. They're bad pathfinders, right? They're not good at following the trails that they need to follow to get where they need to go. No, not at all. You also served as an associate prosecutor for Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office.

What while while serving in that role, what talents can you take to Congress that you learn from there? You know, it's a lot of problems, right, that are impacting our nation, not just Southwest Ohio, but specifically, you know, drawing from my experiences and assistant prosecutor as an attorney.

The problem that we're seeing in southwest Ohio, whether it's the crime that is just continued to escalate, the rate of violent crime that's continued to escalate across our big cities or Cincinnati, you know, I just saw the numbers recently that we've got more juvenile homicides in years, in decades in Cincinnati, or it's the fentanyl crisis.

The opioid epidemic that is impacting southwest Ohio and across the country, we need someone that can understand how to advocate for the right legislation necessary to reduce the crime in our cities and stop the wave of harmful drugs like fentanyl from destroying more lives. Look, that goes to the heart of having the right type of laws. And we don't need an actual, you know,

legislator that has a lot background but certainly would help right because it is laws and having constitutional laws

That would then advance the good goals that we need in order to fix those problems. But as a prosecutor as well, I can speak firsthand to what I saw fentanyl was doing and the opioid epidemic was doing for our city and also what violent crime was doing in our city. And so that's what I'm seeking to actually fix and drawing from that experience.

Yeah, I think that's actually one of the most important things right now for Congress to truly understand is how dramatic a shift fentanyl and then sort of the post 2020 lawlessness has created in this country is.

It's a really critical issue. We have only about 45 seconds before we go to break here. We're going to be continuing on after the break with Orlando Sanza, candidate for Ohio's first congressional district. And folks, make sure you stay tuned for the second half of our program. We're going to have Jason Willick, regular Washington Post columnist, talking about all the legal issues with Hunter, with Trump, all that kind of stuff.

So make sure you stay tuned for that. And folks, if you're not already subscribed to our sub stack, go on our website. Make sure you get all the new episodes of Breaking Battlegrounds right when they come out. For Chuck Warren, I'm Sam Stone. We'll be back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Moran. I'm Sam Stone. We're going to be continuing on in just a moment with Orlando Sanza, a candidate with an amazing background running for Ohio's first congressional district. But before we do that, folks,

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rate of return in this economy is a fantastic opportunity. So go to that website, check them out. You're not going to regret it. Invest the letter Y, then refy.com. So you're running for Congress. Why should people vote for you versus the Democratic incumbent?

Yeah, you know, it comes down to really what we've seen that Ohioans want. Today, they don't want the identity politics. What they want is serious leadership representing them in Washington, who has the background and experience as a problem solver, capable of understanding the complex issues impacting our nation. And, you know, unlike my opponent, I'm not interested in focusing on attention-grabbing headlines like...

For example, posing shirtless on the front page of the Cincinnati Inquirer to show off personal tattoos as a sitting U.S. congressman. Was he riding behind Vladimir Putin on his horse? I don't know about that, but he was on top of a rooftop and that was his first headliner as a U.S. congressman. It's like, are you kidding me? You know, it's like, what about highlighting the problems? What weird times.

What weird times. Yeah. That's really bizarre, Orlando. Well, you know, I wish I could make it up, but

But what it really highlights is the leaders that we have in Washington, Greg Lansman is no exception, is just completely out of touch for his role as a congressman and how he seeks to actually solve these complex issues of today. We're talking about a guy who is completely off when it comes to trying to fix inflation.

You know, yesterday or two days ago, he decides to highlight on Twitter, you know, this infrastructure bill that got passed last year and how the we call that the pedestrian bridges to nowhere bill. Right. And and, you know, yeah, it's great if we have a new brand spent bridge here in Cincinnati connecting northern Kentucky and Cincinnati. But look, if our city continues to be crime ridden.

If fentanyl continues to be in our streets, if our wallets are still being wreaked by inflation, then what good is a bridge? And my question to Landsman is, you know, why was your first position when this whole debt ceiling debacle unfolded?

Why was your first position to increase government spending with no cut with no cuts in spending? It's like, are you are you kidding me? It's like, you know, let's perpetuate the problem to solve the problem. You know, your experience as a prosecutor, you see a lot of people on a day to day basis who are really living on the edge, who a few hundred dollars a month can be the difference between, you know, them potentially participating in crime or ending up on the street or having all sorts of issues.

And here we have an economy. The news just came out. Seven hundred dollars per month per family is the cost of the Biden inflation that Landsman and these others are cheering on. How much of an impact does that have on the people of your district?

It has a huge impact. And look, it doesn't take a CPA like me, you know, with a master's in tax to realize that inflation has a direct impact on the wallets of Americans, everyday Americans, middle class Americans, especially where, to your point, I saw the same statistic, seven hundred dollars more a month than two years ago. And what is that actually speaking of? That's the rise in just the cost of living of our utility bills.

I mean, we're talking about, you know, Greg Lansman being one of the ones that voted no on the very bill, H.R. 1, that seeks to reduce our monthly gas and electric bills.

Well, that's contributing to the $700 more a month than Americans are spending. It's the fact that we even have this thing called, you know, electric and energy poverty in our country. And he doesn't want to fix it by the very bill that can lower the cost of gas and electricity for everyday Americans completely out of touch. And so ultimately what I'm seeking to do

is to showcase to Southwest Ohio that we have the opportunity here to bring back serious leadership, not attention-grabbing antics. Back to Washington for Southwest Ohio. Let's roll up our sleeves and let's actually get things done and achieve the things we want to achieve for Ohioans.

We have about three and a half minutes left. Chuck, you have experience as a chief of staff on Capitol Hill. I've worked at the city of Phoenix. I think one of the things that we would both probably agree on is that when you find a member of Congress or any elected body who has that one issue that they are passionate about. You can tell. You can tell. Sincerity when they talk about it. Orlando, what for you is that issue that drives you? Yeah.

Yeah, you know, we haven't touched on it yet. Right. But my ultimate motivation for jumping in this race is my four kids. You know, I I'm raising alongside Jessica, four kids under the age of eight, seven, five, three and one. So when we're talking about protecting them and also achieving an America that is safe and secure for them.

It also speaks to my parenting and the ability to make the best decisions for them. So what's the issue that's near and dear to my heart that's resounding with a lot of Southwest Ohioans? It's standing up for the family, whether it's the parents or the kids.

And whether it's just simply standing up for parental rights with the the the parents bill of rights where you have lands been voting no on simply affirming that we parents have a right to know what happens to our kids schools or to make the best educational decisions for our kids. I mean, that's bar none. First and foremost, we need to stand up for our parents.

And then also stand up for the safety and well-being for our kids so that they thrive. That is the number one issue that I think transcends all these other issues, whether it's fixing our economy for them, securing America for them, or just making sure that they thrive as they grow up in this country. That's what's motivating me to get into this fight, get into this fight with no district map.

Right. I'm not a candidate of convenience. Right. I don't know if this map is going to be blue or red, but we'll find out in a month. But look, I didn't hold out. What Southwest Ohio, Cincinnati, Warren County, Hamilton County needs is a fighter, someone who's willing to fight and lead from the front, no matter what this district may look like in terms of map lean. And I'm committed to do that. I'm committed to fight for my kids, my community and this country will win in November and

And I just urge everybody to join the fight alongside with us. Where can they reach you at? Where can they find you and learn more about your campaign? Where can they donate all that fun stuff? Yeah, absolutely. Orlando Sansa dot com. Orlando, like one of your favorite places in Florida. Sansa S.O.N.Z.A dot com. Come join the team. Come volunteer. This this movement is just starting. Chip in if you can. And we're just excited to do this alongside other strong,

Americans that love this country, love their community. That's fantastic, folks. We have just about a minute before we go to break, and we are going to be coming right back with Jason Willick of The Washington Post. Orlando, we really want to thank you for coming on the program today. Folks, Orlando is one of those candidates we have out there that are really highlighting the growing diversity of the Republican Party. But also what you hear from our guests week after week is the intellectual diversity.

The variety of views and issues that are important to them. And Orlando, we want to thank you again for taking the time to join us in our audience today. We really appreciate having you. We'll look forward to getting some updates on your campaign as it goes forward. And we're wishing you the absolute best. Thank you, Sam. Chuck, thank you for having me. Have a great weekend. Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds will be back in just one moment.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Up next with us today, Jason Willick writes a regular Washington Post column on legal issues, political ideas, and foreign affairs. Before coming to the Post, he was an editorial writer and assistant editorial feature, features editor for the Wall Street Journal, and before that a staff writer and associate editor at American Interest. Jason, thank you for joining us. Welcome to the program.

Good to be with you. Jason, we want to talk about the legal mess our country's in right now with both Hunter Biden and former President Trump. I want to first start with this. So it was announced this week that Germany is not going to meet their commitment on 2% of GMP towards defense spending. Poland is now spending 5% of their GMP towards defense. Should we just move our troops and everything over to Poland?

The post-Cold War arrangement is...

is really uh sort of getting unsettled isn't it with yes with Russia's invasion of Ukraine I mean Germany is the biggest economy in Europe I think there's a growing consensus in Washington that we need to be focusing on Asia on China that that's the bigger threat to American interests and Germany is the richest country in Europe so they're clearly going to need to flip the

put the bill for maintaining security in Europe. And it looks for a moment like they might do that with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Berlin was really freaked out and started to rethink all of its priorities. And I think they're starting to fall back to, eh, it'll be okay. The Americans will take care of it. The Eastern Europeans will deal with it. We don't really need to fundamentally rethink things. And I think it's definitely a priority for a U.S. administration to talk some sense into the Germans on this.

I hope they bring it up at the RNC debate for the presidential candidates on Tuesday night, because I think this is a real issue going forward for national security. All right, let's talk about this. You wrote a column recently called, written, said, Why the Hunter Biden plea fiasco will be a drag on Democrats. And since you wrote that, we now have a special prosecutor, the same prosecutor who gave the sweetheart deal to him on the plea arrangement. Talk to our listeners, explain to them exactly what's happening.

Well, there was this astonishing situation a few weeks ago where the plea deal, which we were all told, you know, this is a very normal plea deal. You know, Merrick Garland says, you know,

Everyone is treated alike. In my justice department, we treat light cases alike. How dare anyone question that? And then they put the plea agreement in front of a judge, and she said, this is very irregular. I've never seen anything like this. What is going on here? She didn't even say, I'm not going to accept it. She just said, can you explain to me what the deal is? What's the immunity?

you know, how much immunity does he get in exchange for pleading guilty to these charges? How does it work on this gun charge, the diversion agreement that you guys have entered? And then the two parties, it turned out, didn't even agree what was in the deal because the defense,

for Hunter Biden thought it was very generous and the prosecutors were like, no, no, no, it wasn't that generous. So the whole thing, the whole thing blew up and they weren't able to reach. And then she said, come back to me in a few weeks, work this out. And then it seems that they've tried to go back and work it out and they couldn't come to an agreement about a plea deal. And I think, you know, what basically happened is the Justice Department was trying to give Hunter Biden a very generous deal.

But when they were asked to explain it in public, it became politically embarrassing to admit how generous it was. So then with all this scrutiny, the thing fell apart. The Justice Department realized politically we can't do this. We can't look like we're giving such a generous deal to the president's son. And so now Merrick Garland thinks that he's resolving this by appointing a special counsel, which, you know, it's true that.

If he would have appointed a special counsel a while ago, you know, that would have, I think, made people less concerned about what was going on. But now you're appointing a special counsel, the same prosecutor who gave this deal in the first place. So I don't think it's really solving the issue. Jason, wasn't there anybody? Look, I don't think Garland made this decision just by himself on his desk one day. So he obviously had some people that he trusts he talks to, right?

Do you think anybody said, you know, we probably shouldn't appoint the same guy that just gave this what most Americans think is a sweetheart deal? Do you think there's anybody advising him that's playing devil's advocate saying, you know, this may not look right? I think, you know, it's.

Republicans were calling for David White, who's the United States attorney for Delaware, who was appointed by Trump. But Delaware is a Democratic state, has two Democratic senators, so it was approved basically by Democrats as well as Trump to become the special counsel. And Republicans initially said, why isn't he a special counsel?

uh... and some of the whistleblowers in this case that you know if you he needed the power of the special counsel that he didn't have so i think our own a few months ago this was the debate was should david weiss be a special counsel i think so and i think our own this trying to you know hold the thing together satisfy critics by making a special capital but

You're absolutely right. You know, it's too little and too late. It stinks to high heaven. We're with Jason Willick. He is a Washington Post columnist. We're going to have him back on our next segment. You can find him on Twitter at J.A. Willick. And this is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We'll be right back with Jason to talk more about Hunter Biden and all the fun Donald Trump indictments. We'll be back.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, if you're looking for a fantastic investment opportunity where you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return, 10.25% fixed rate of return in this market is absolutely phenomenal. And when you invest with YRefi, you actually benefit while doing good for others. They're helping refinance distressed private student loans. And if you're looking for a fantastic investment opportunity,

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We're with Jason Willick. He is a Washington Post columnist. He goes over law, politics, foreign policy. You can find him on Twitter at J.A. Willick, W-I-L-L-I-C-K. All right. Going back to Hunter Biden. Can Congress do anything to have them appoint a new special prosecutor, special counsel, or are they just sort of stuck with this same old, same old? I don't know.

I think they're stuck. I mean, they can do subpoenas and try to do their own investigation. But I think that the Justice Department, you know, they can't compel the Justice Department really to do something different. Merrick Garland's in charge of the Justice Department. And I think that they need to conduct their own parallel investigation if they want to. Mitch McConnell does not get enough credit.

for keeping Mary Garland off the Supreme Court. Not at all. But that's a conversation for another day. All right, Jason, you wrote an article this week called Trump Triggers the Politics of Emergency. Talk to us a little bit about that article and explain to our audience what you see as the most difficult indictment on Donald Trump. What's the most dangerous for him? What's the least likely to produce anything against him? So,

So on the article on the politics of emergency, I wrote that after some of you may have remembered that people wanted to disqualify Trump from the ballot, from running again under the 14th Amendment, Section 3, which disqualifies someone who engaged in insurrection against the United States at the Civil War era election.

provision of the Constitution meant to disqualify Confederates. And so the House impeached Trump for incitement to insurrection and wanted the Senate to disqualify him, but he was acquitted in the Senate trial. But what I'm saying in this column is I think that

Among Trump's opponents, we're going to see this idea getting momentum again. What triggered that was there was a long article by two law professors sort of arguing that he needs to be disqualified. It's not even close. And

And, and it's in effect automatically. So, you know, people can go to court or state secretaries of state can take him off the ballot. And, and, you know, it can be challenged in court, but this is this has to happen. This is what is constitutional. And my point is just we're really getting into a politics of emergency here, I think, as the

As Trump's political momentum increases, he seems likely to get the Republican nomination. I think that's why part of the reason, at least, we saw the decision to indict him. There was a sense that we have to do something about January 6th. And I think in the next year or so, we're going to see some efforts to try to disqualify him from the ballot. Because just if one state disqualifies him from the ballot, that would then go to the Supreme Court and it would become a national issue.

It's been something that, you know, most serious people would not have taken seriously before. But who knows? Maybe in six months they will start taking it seriously and will start lobbying for this to happen. In this piece, Jason, written by these professors, are they arguing that, for instance, a secretary of state or high election state elections official could simply they don't have to go to court to get Trump thrown off the ballot. They could simply make the decision to just leave him off the ballot.

And then it would actually be in Trump's camp or the RNC's camp to try to sue to restore that access. Pretty much there. You know, the procedure varies by state who has standing to do what, what the power is of various election officials. But they're basically saying, yes, someone can try to enforce, in their view, the 14th Amendment. And then, you know, Trump can take them to court and challenge them.

See, here in Arizona, for instance, you have a Democrat secretary of state who's been very vocal about Trump. You have a Democrat AG who's been vocal about Trump. You have a Democrat governor who's called for them to prosecute Trump here. I think very easily they could throw it off the ballot. But you're talking about the politics of emergency. This that kind of thing is what worries me, Chuck, more than anything else right now. That's something goes right to the national environment. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely.

I agree. I mean, look, I think this is not normal politics. This is we're talking about having an election where we have a candidate who's under indictment and for jurisdiction.

The judge in D.C. is basically telling him to stop talking about the case in the way that he is, you know, or, you know, she might have to take action against him. You know, meanwhile, in parallel, you might have efforts to take him off the ballot. And like I said, I don't see how at least somebody doesn't try to take him off the ballot in some blue states such that this gets passed.

to the courts pretty quickly. This is just an extraordinary situation, and I have worries for how it will affect our legitimacy of our political system. If you have an office pool, look for Arizona's AG to try this trick. I'm convinced of it. She is an activist, and she wants that headline. It's amazing. Okay.

Trump's been indicted now on four separate – many indictments, but many counts. But there's basically four big things. What do you view as the most dangerous to him of actually being convicted on in order? If you can rank him in order, what do you think? One, two, three, four. Well, I think –

I mean, what I think he's likely to be convicted on is different from what I think is likely to actually hold up on appeal and what I think is actually the strongest. So go through each case. Go through each case. Let's start first with J6. Go ahead. What do you think on that?

Well, I think, you know, on January 6th, you're talking about a Washington, D.C. jury, which is, you know, roughly 95 percent Democratic. Yes. And I think if you give a jury like that permission to convict Donald Trump, you say, look, if you find, you know, that he acted corruptly, you can convict him. I think

I think he has really long odds to get an actual acquittal. A hung jury is possible. I do think the statutes that are being used in that case, fraud and obstruction and conspiring against rights are sort of strange uses of these statutes. I think they're

They're aggressive uses of the statutes. And I think that there's definitely a chance that on appeal, one or more of those could be invalidated. No, that's not what this statute means. But I think Jack Smith is racing to get to trial, to get a conviction before the election. And, you know, appeals would take much longer than that. I think in Florida, the Mar-a-Lago case, that's clearly the strongest case. I think Trump did mishandle the documents. I think if what Jack Smith says is true, he obstructed the

the efforts of the government to get back the document. That said, in Miami, he's got a much more, you know, friendly, friendly, friendly terrain down there, much more politically friendly terrain. It's possible for me to imagine one juror saying, no, this is politically motivated. I'm not going to convict him and getting a hung jury. Because remember, even a hung jury would be a big defeat for the prosecution in any of these. But I do think that's the strongest case.

by far, down in Florida. And then you've got this New York case that I think is kind of ridiculous about paying. But again, you're talking about a Manhattan jury. Trump is not very popular there. No, I mean, look, I absolutely expect that whatever Manhattan jury it is to convict him, but I would love to see them prosecute all the other New York politicians who have paid off mistresses over the years, because that could be fun.

Right. I mean, it's a little bit ridiculous. And on appeal, some of these appellate courts are going to look at it in probably a less political way and be like, hold on a second, this isn't the proper use of the law. So on a lot of these, I could see one thing on conviction, something else on appeals. Then down in Georgia –

You know, I think Fulton County, again, a fairly Democratic area. Trump's going to try to remove the case to federal court, which would be a little bit of a different jury pool, maybe a more favorable jury pool. I think, you know, some part that that one is a mixed bag. I think some parts of the case are stronger. I think the RICO, the idea of using RICO is interesting.

is a little, is a stretch and may not hold up. But Georgia has sort of more straightforward laws. Like, it's not like this was fraud and fraud means this in some broad sense. It's like, it's more straightforward, like soliciting an officer to do something that they shouldn't do. It's more broken down. You know, this particular phone call was a crime. So I think it's a little more

It's straightforward, but I think the whole RICO framing is flawed. And, you know, that one's a mess. It's a huge case, huge numbers of people. Some of them are going to try to remove it to federal court. That one is not going to go to trial before the election, I don't think. Well, yeah. I mean, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp today said that, quote, this trial, despite what dates anybody is asking for, it's not going to happen before the election.

Oh, did he? Yeah, that came out this morning. That was a couple hours ago. So Kemp has just said this is not happening before the election. So you know what, Jason? If Peacock or Netflix came to you and said, write us the craziest experience about an ex-president getting in legal trouble, could you have made this up? I would need more imagination. I would need more imagination. But, you know, he's...

I think it's important to note, you know, he's given, you know, he's in a real way, he's brought this on himself. Yes, he has. What he did on January 6th. On January 6th, I, you know, I'm on the fence and I, you know, I don't, I'm not, I don't really think that it fits the criminal statutes. I think they're trying to create criminal statutes to fit, you know, his terrible conduct. But I think it's basically terrible political conduct that voters should judge.

And, you know, but that's that's not happening. And instead, we're trying to use the legal process. And, you know, I think one who knows what kind of precedents are going to be set by this legal process. I really do do worry about that. Jason, which of the charges do you think because you've talked about some of them, you know, they may have different fates in front of a jury and then on appeal. Which of these charges is the one that is most likely to make it all the way through and stick?

All the way through and stick. Well, I mean, I'd say if a jury in Florida convicts Trump of mishandling the documents or of obstructing the investigation, that will stick. That's not something I don't think that the appellate courts will reverse. So I probably have to say that one. That's ultimately the strongest, clearest case alleging sort of a straightforward violation of the law.

Yeah, it seemed that way to me. I think one of the questions I had, especially looking at the Georgia indictments, that I felt frankly in some ways angered me most was that they're targeting Trump's lawyers and that sort of thing. That's a really dangerous precedent to be setting in our legal system.

Yes. You know, and to some extent, they don't prosecute the lawyers in the January and Jack Smith's January 6th case in Washington, but they're, you know, named as co-conspirators, you know, without naming them, but it's clear that they're co-conspirators. I mean, the

the line between a nutty legal theory and a fraud, we want people to be allowed to raise nutty legal theories in general. And that's why I made the comparison in the piece. What if somebody says, I have the right to take Trump off the ballot because it's constitutionally required. And so you take him off the ballot and then he wins. Can he turn around and say, this was election interference. Your theory was in bad faith and it was completely wrong. And you're taking me off the ballot was

you know, interfering with the election process illegally. I mean, these are the kinds of things that...

we want to be very careful with. And, and I think, you know, this is what gets to the sense of emergency. People are normally careful with these things, but they feel now we're in an emergency. We have to throw caution to the wind and we, we have to stop this. Democrats are going to create a whole new precedent. It's like when Harry Reed did with the judges in the Senate, and then we go around and use it and they have a cow on a conniption quickly here. We got about a minute left with you, Jason, and we want to have you back on this. I'm sure this topic will be continuing for a while. Um,

President Biden today is having a summit with Japan and South Korea. I think that's a good move for the country. Your thoughts.

Absolutely. We have treaty commitments to defend South Korea and Japan. We've fought a war in the last century in both countries, in World War II and in the Korean War. These are important strategic countries. They're rich, powerful countries that we need to check China. They have a tough history together. Japan invaded Korea. There's no love lost between them on some issues. So to the extent that we can

bring them into an alignment as opposed to being pried apart, our alliance structure will be stronger. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Jason Willick of The Washington Post. We really appreciate having you on again today. Folks, you can follow him at, I believe it's at J.A. Willick on Twitter. That's correct. That's correct. Okay. Follow him, folks, at J.A. Willick on Twitter and subscribe to The Washington Post. Let's keep the good journalism rolling. Breaking Battlegrounds coming back.

Not on air. You got to tune in for our podcast segment. Go to BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We'll see you on air next week. The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web. With a yourname.vote web domain from GoDaddy.com. Get yours now.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds, podcast only, extra innings. Glad you're with us here today. And Sam and I are going to talk about three issues on this portion of the podcast today. We should probably talk baseball, though. Now you got me drooling over this extra innings. I'm going to change it. Podcast is now extra innings. Podcast now for Breaking Battlegrounds is extra innings. So that's where we're at. All right, folks, you were here first. All right, first, the average rate of most common type of mortgages in the United States is now 7.1%.

That's 30-year fixed loans. Wow. That's the highest since December 2001. Folks, most of you remember what happened in 2001, right? We had 9-11 in September 2001. Yeah. So the past year, that's more than 4.4 points from the all-time low seen in January 2021. That's how much mortgage has gone up under a Joe Biden presidency. They don't want to talk about it, but here's what the reality of this is. With a 20% down payment...

And Sam, there's a lot of people who do not have a 20% down payment for a home. No, a lot of people are putting 3%. Maybe. But our mortgage companies, because of these, they're probably going to start requiring, there's no more going to be this 3% stuff, I'm telling you right now, unless you do a 50-year mortgage. Or your Fannie Freddie back. Yeah, right, right, right. So a medium-priced house is $465,000. No, excuse me, sorry about that. With a 20% down now on a medium-priced home, you will pay $465,000 in interest over 30 years now.

up from from how much i mean it had it was 200 yeah 200 right a year and a half ago so when biden talks about the economy's doing great it's it's an interesting scenario a lot of people work that's true i don't i don't feel we're in this crippling recession but we are are in as our guest oscar talked earlier we have things like electric poverty now we have food poverty i loved when you said poverty now right and so that's where we're at and um

You know, I don't know what, you know, this extra $700 a month, Sam, where are people getting it? We know, for example, that 60% of people don't even have $1,000 in savings. They couldn't come up with $1,000 for an emergency. Right.

Where are people getting this extra $700 a month? They're doing it from credit cards. Which is running out. Which is running out. I mean, we're hearing already from the credit card companies that the defaults are going way up. Yep. You're hearing from the auto loan companies the defaults are going way up. If you want to talk about the risk of a real recession, it's not the job situation now, but it's the home and living situation with these folks being displaced. Right.

Because of these increases. And then how do you maintain a job? Well, and this is the dishonesty of our mainstream media. If this was a President Reagan.

President Bush 41, President Bush 43, a Trump. We would see front page stories in the Miami Herald, Arizona Republic, San Diego Tribune weekly of people standing in food lines. Every single day you would see teasers throughout the day on all their commercials for the big piece that night attacking Trump, Reagan, whichever Republican for these conditions. I mean, this is $700 a month per household.

You know, folks, do the math, right? You're talking $8,400 per year. Yeah. Where's the average American getting an extra $8,400? Well, right now they're big borrowing still, and it's a problem. So let's talk now about another problem that the Maui fires. The response to the fires. The response has been horrible. I talked to a friend a couple days ago who used to be an employee of mine who now lives out there.

And we were talking about, I said, so do the deaths get over 100? This is a couple of days after. And she's homeless, lost her house, but she has some in-laws that she's been able to stay with on the island. And she said, Chuck, there's a thousand people missing. I mean, you're going to get to a thousand people dead here because it happened so fast. And there's a story today, which I have posted on our social media of a woman trying to go back and rescue her son. And they found him

I mean, he was he was he was dead with the family pet. And it's just and so the real question is, and Sam, why don't you describe it? There was an administrator who's in charge for five hours, did not allow them to have water that they needed. Yeah, did not release water that, you know, that Maui has stored and didn't allow homeowners to get that water to be able to, you know, protect their properties at all, even for the firefighters to hook up to and fight the fires. Right.

This administrator literally hemmed and hawed because he said that due to environmental considerations, water had to be treated as a precious resource. Let me add a couple other things, because the emergency response from Hawaii, the state of Hawaii, the officials of Hawaii, Chuck, I believe, are guilty of mass murder.

Well, he should be held up for manslaughter. Yeah. I mean, they really should. For a thousand counts by the end of this thing is of manslaughter. Absolutely. What he did was criminal. Well, how about the power companies, which left the power on for five hours in all their lines when they knew they were sparking fires? And why would you do that? The only thing I could think, I haven't seen much investigation on this, Chuck, but the only thing I could think of was they didn't want to turn off power to the big resorts.

Maybe so. Maybe so. I mean, because there's no reason for it. Look, I know from here in Arizona and I know from situations in California now, the power companies have just made a decision. Look, if you get wins over a certain amount that's likely to be starting to down. Shut them down. You just shut them down.

You just shut them down because the risk of fire and the risk to civilian life from that kind of situation is too great. So you shut them down. They did not do that. Then they denied them water. Then they're not letting them into their homes. They didn't activate the sirens to let people know there was a problem. I mean, there are so many things.

Hawaii did wrong here. And they're being kind of given a pass again by the national media on this. What's amazing is Hawaii's governor asked the press to do their job to investigate the water. He did that yesterday. So saying, but

Basically, why don't you guys do your job and find out why this wasn't released? Well, and why aren't they asking questions about the electricity? Why aren't they asking questions about some sort of organized rescue that never came together? So Mr. Manuel, he's the deputy director of Hawaii's Commission on Water Resource Management. Whenever you have a long title like that, you're fairly worthless anyway. Guaranteed. I think he should be charged with manslaughter. I agree. Okay.

And I'm not saying that to make a political point. I think what he did was putting the needs of people as a very secondary measure on this. I think there are numerous, numerous officials there that need to be looked into very carefully and criminal prosecution considered in a number of cases based on how they handled this. And he's number one at the top of that list. I agree. All right. Well, let's talk about a headline grabbing politician. Yeah.

Katie Hobbs thinks Donald Trump should be prosecuted. View that for what he was. I don't know if the country needs a fifth one. And A.G. Maines, which you and I said when the elections were over, that was going to be worse for Arizona than Katie Hobbs. I still stand by that. Chris Mays is smarter than Katie Hobbs. And she directly has and she has an agenda. She has an agenda. I don't.

I think that's just very bad for the country, and I think that is going to cause a real problem for Arizona if they do it. And I'm pretty convinced they're going to try to do it. I think they are going to – I think they're going to prosecute him for sure. And again, going back to some of the things Jason said, right, your jury here isn't going to be an easy jury. No, it's a hung jury here at minimum. Right, it's a hung jury here for sure. You're almost certain not to get it through. This is Arizona still. It's still, despite all the election loss, it's still a lightly center-right, light-red state. Right.

So you're not going to do that. But what does concern me, what he was talking about, that state of emergency, I fully believe and expect that Mays, Adrian Fontes and Hobbes will conspire to remove Trump from the ballot. And given the timelines here in Arizona, they'll do it after the presidential preference election. Right. So when Trump is the nominee, right, they'll wait because until then you can't. I mean, really, you have nothing to remove.

They'll do that. Our timeline is so tight between that and when ballots go out for the general election. There's barely time to print them. So they're basically going to ensure that there's no way that Trump's name appears on a ballot in Arizona if they do that in Arizona.

Does that go up to the U.S. Supreme Court or our Arizona State Supreme Court? Well, it's going to have to go through the Arizona Supreme Court first. I mean, it's going to be a state court case first and then potentially could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, I do think, frankly, the Arizona Supreme Court will rule to put him on the ballot. I agree. But let me just say this. The minute they make that move, I'm putting on body armor.

Because the chance that that will create an actual insurrection and real violence to me is here in Arizona and in many other places in this country to me would be almost 100% if they do that. Well, I hope it doesn't happen. I hope their political ambitions take a back seat. Let the current four cases play out. Well, and let the election play out. I mean, at the end of the day, and Jason Willick alluded to this, is that

There is a role for judging the actions of politicians when they're legally questionable but aren't clearly over a line. Correct. And that mechanism is elections. Correct. And we're going to have one. Yeah, let it play out. Yeah. Let it play out. Well, folks, this is Breaking Battlegrounds. Please share our show with your friends and family and colleagues. You can find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote or wherever you download your podcast. This is Chuck and Sam. We look forward to having you next week. Have a great weekend.