Trump trial verdict: Don found guilty on 34 charges — plus, is abortion 2024’s key election issue?
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Hello and welcome to American Friction, the new weekly US politics podcast that tells you everything you need to know in the run-up to the presidential election. Out every Friday from the makers of Oh God What Now, The Bunker and Papercuts. I'm Jacob Jarvis.

And I'm Chris Jones. It's 22 weeks until the American presidential election. And well, we've got some pretty big news. Yeah, so finally, a Trump trial verdict is in and we are joined, as always, by our favorite political reporter dude, Nicky McCann-Ramirez. Hello, mate.

Oi, bruv. In it. Well, so Trump, Nicky, he has been found guilty on all 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in the first degree. The former president of the United States is now a convicted felon. And guilty AF has immediately started trending on Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it. Just, Nicky, what the actual...

What the fuck? When I saw this coming through and I saw one and then it just they just kept coming. Yeah. Tell me what you're thinking, what you're feeling. And did you expect this at all? Yeah. I mean, I think we didn't really expect it today. There was a report that the jury was going to be dismissed for the day. And then 20 minutes later, it was like, oh, no, no, no, no. The jury has a verdict. And, you know, it was like that moment in the office where what is it like? It's happening. Everybody calm down.

And, you know, it's a really historic moment. An American president has never been convicted of a crime in this country. So I think a lot of people are just initially digesting. We have a segment later in the episode where Chris discusses everything that could potentially happen now that Trump has, in fact, been convicted. When we recorded earlier today, it was theoretical. But, yeah, I think...

It kind of went the way people expected. We sort of all thought that if we got a verdict before Friday, it was likely going to be a conviction either in whole or in part. And then if the deliberations went on into next week, we'd be a little more concerned about like a hung jury or an outright acquittal. But...

My God, it all just came down all at once. Yeah, yeah. It came just super quick. I was sat in my living room watching Top Gun, being very American because, you know, I love all that shit. Cosplaying being an American. Yeah, exactly, y'all. And then my housemate was just like... It's y'all with an A, by the way.

But then my housemate was just like, "Yeah, a Trump verdict's gonna come in." And I was like, "Oh, I know, like soon." And then he said, "No, in 30 minutes." And then this swarm of texts happened and here we are re-recording. Chris, you were in bed. I was, yeah. 'Cause you like to tuck up. So thank you very much for getting out. You're welcome. Your pajamas look very nice. So what do you think to it? Are you equally as bamboozled as we are?

It's hard to say, really. It really could have gone either way. I don't think Trump is surprised, to be honest with you. I think the way he's been taking this on throughout the whole entire trial has been building up to a guilty conviction. But also, I don't think it necessarily damages his cause terrifically, which is a weird thing to say, because he's been holding this argument that

Absolutely.

For sure. I mean, it feels like to me, like being in court can kind of be one of the best places for him to be. Nikki, I don't know what you think. He's in the limelight, but he's also he has to shut up for a large chunk of time. But then he can go out and give a speech. But then he but he's constantly getting attention. What do you reckon, Nikki? Well, yeah, I mean, one of the first things he did even I think he posted it before the verdict was fully out, actually, or someone on his staff posted it.

was an image of him with the words "political prisoner" on his Truth Social and a link to a donation page. And in fact, WinRed, one of the major Republican donation platforms through which a lot of people like contribute to candidates and campaigns and all that, crashed in the last 30 minutes because of the amount of traffic it's getting. To be clear, Trump is not currently a prisoner. He was not remanded to prison after the verdict. He is out on bail.

We'll get into more of the details later in the episode, but the likelihood of him actually getting sent to prison is still pretty slim. But when he walked out of the courtroom, as he's done pretty much every day since the trial started, he addressed reporters. He said that he is a very innocent man, that the whole country was rigged, the trial was rigged, and that the real verdict is going to be on November 5th when people get to vote. So...

He's going to fundraise off of this. He's going to say that this is a political persecution. We're already seeing the reactions from other Republican lawmakers pour in, calling it like a kangaroo court, a rigged trial, all that kind of stuff. And by contrast, I expect that the Biden campaign will now be very excited to use the term convicted felon when discussing Trump.

Yeah, for sure. But does the Biden campaign also have to tread a little bit carefully in some ways? So we'd initially, when we first recorded, which is, yeah, all in the past now, we've spoken a little bit about Robert De Niro and that speech he gave outside the court and that side of things and how Biden put himself into the centre of the trial. Does he have to be careful to make it look like this legal process wasn't remotely politicised? Because if he tries to use it too hard...

That just feeds the Trump bullshit beast whirlwind, doesn't it? Yeah, I think you have to strike a balance there because obviously...

Republicans have been harping on this for months now. You've had the ongoing string of Republican lawmakers showing up to the court, bashing the judge, bashing DA Alvin Bragg, again, saying all these things about the trial being rigged and corrupt and this being election interference by Biden. But at the same time, it's an opportunity for the Biden campaign on a silver platter. Like, how often can you literally point to your opponent in an election and say, well, actually, you are a convicted criminal?

So I don't think they're going to never before. Literally never before. I mean, in some down ballot races, probably, but never in the presidency. So we actually do expect Biden to deliver a speech probably sometime tonight. The chatter was that it would happen pretty immediately after the verdict addressing this.

And I think, you know, that'll probably be like the big forceful statement that Biden gives on the matter. I think he's going to really punch up the idea that, you know, justice was served today, that this was the American criminal justice system at work. And then I will expect him to bring this up during the debates. I expect it to come up at certain points during the campaign. But also...

Biden and the Democrats can now hand this off to like the DCCC, all of the big democratic organizations who make the campaign ads, who do the grassroots efforts, the phone banking and say, this is now in your material, use this. So

So I'm assuming we're also going to see like an uptick in the political ads, the fundraising off of this. It'll be a whole mobilization of the American political apparatus around this conviction. Well, for sure, friend of the podcast, Reid Gallen, who was on last week from the Lincoln Project, must be thinking, I'm going to be able to make some pretty good stuff tied to this. It's a pretty big gift to them. So Chris now talked me through a little bit of the nuts and bolts practically behind

We've actually got to wait a little while till we find very much definitive out about Trump's fate, don't we? Yeah. July 11th is when we're expected to find out about the sentencing around this trial. Just to go into a little bit of what Trump could actually be facing here. It's 34 counts, as we've mentioned, of falsifying business records.

In New York State, this is classed as a Class E felony, which is actually the lowest in New York. It's the lowest class, and it carries four years jail time. Now, he's not going to serve whatever 34 times four is in terms of jail time years. He's not going to be in prison for the rest of his life if he does go to jail over this. It would likely be a maximum of four years. But...

It's not impossible, but it's extremely unlikely that he will go to prison over these charges. He's more likely to face a fine or community service or probation.

But it's also worth pointing out as well that, as I say, it's unlikely, but if he does go to jail, nothing to stop him from running for president still. He can still basically campaign from his cell because there's nothing in the constitution to prevent that, which seems like a wild oversight to me, but not my country, so I can't really comment too much. One thing we do know...

for sure, though, is also how Trump is going to continue to react from this, which is what I mentioned earlier, but also how the rest of the GOP are going to keep up their messaging about this, I guess. For example, I think you mentioned it a minute ago, Nikki, about people coming out and commenting already. I see that Marjorie Taylor Greene has posted on Twitter an upside-down American flag, which, if you remember from last week, is what Justice

Samuel Alito was alleged to have done outside his home which is associated with stop the steal so she's done that I'm

I'm not shocked, but I think we'll continue to see a lot more of this further down the line. So 34 times 4 for you quickly is 136, just by the way. So 136 years, so he'd be like over 200. You're a pretty good at maths, man. Yeah, I've got a B in GCSE, so yeah. Yeah, nice job. Put it to use where we can. Also, Marjorie Taylor Greene, big sigh. Just putting the flag upside down feels like the most unpatriotic thing in the world to me, but maybe, again, I'm not American, I'm not a...

big old American patriot, so perhaps I'm wrong. She also said that this isn't a prosecution, it's a persecution, and we must end the weaponisation of government in America, and this is what happens in third world countries. So that's what she said. That's some sick wordplay, Marjorie. Really solid there. Nicky, I mean, he can appeal this surely though, can't he as well? As much as we say now the Trump trial's over, it's going to drag out, isn't it?

This is all just going to drag out. Most definitely. They can appeal on several different fronts. They're going to exhaust every legal option they can. And then, of course, if there's an appeal, the judge has the discretion to delay sentencing until after the appeals process is exhausted or do the sentencing like pending the appeal before the appeal. It all sort of really depends on what the judge is willing to do. Like we said, the judge has been very hesitant about

to remand Trump to prison. So I don't think anyone's going to see him in an orange jumpsuit anytime soon. It'll probably be pretty much business as usual up until the moment he's like sentenced to probation, in which case he'll have to jump through several different hurdles probably to keep up a normal campaign schedule. But again, it all really depends on what the conditions of his sentence are and what the judge...

considers an appropriate penalty because before sentencing even happens there will be a whole process i forget by what office in new york but basically they'll do like a big review of his criminal record his history the fact that he's a first-time offender all this other stuff and produce sort of a suggestive document to for the judge to evaluate the sentence um that'll happen first the judge will then decide but yeah he's going to be dealing with this for a while now

Well, both of you, thank you. Thank you, Chris, for getting back out of bed. And Nikki, enjoy the rest of your afternoon, which I'm sure is going to be very, very busy. Just before we go, there was one of the standing president that was arrested, allegedly. Do you know who and what year? I know it was for speed. Was it not for a speeding horse? It was for a speeding horse. No idea who. Jefferson.

It was apparently in 1876 and it was Ulysses S. Grant. Okay, but Grant was kind of a badass.

Well, speeding on his horse and carriage, that's pretty badass to me. Yeah, that is pretty cool. Well, I'm sure he got three points on his license or whatever. So, well, now we're going to go back into the main show we recorded earlier where Chris and Nicky spoke to Laura Casisto from the Wall Street Journal about how abortion is going to be the key issue in November's election.

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Abortion might just be the key issue that shapes the 2024 election. In fact, according to a KFF health tracking poll, around one in eight voters, or 12%, now say that abortion is the most important issue for their vote in the 2024 election.

But who is leading on this issue? Trump or Biden? Have attitudes changed from four years ago? And why might Arizona be the key battleground on abortion leading up to November's big vote? Well, here to discuss all of this with us is Laura Casisto, national legal affairs reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Hi, Laura. Hi. Hi.

Straightforward first question. Abortion has been a massive issue in American politics for a very long time. I want to start with the most recent happenings, really, and that's with Arizona, which has just repealed about a 160-year-old law on abortion. How big of a deal is this? Could you explain what's happened?

- Yeah, so what you had in Arizona was you had two laws that were on the books. One of them dated back to the Civil War, and one of them was passed much more recently. It was a 15-week ban. The one that they did back to the Civil War was a total ban, so a much stricter law.

And so what happened after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and states were allowed to shape their own abortion policy is there was really what I would describe as genuine confusion in Arizona about which one of those laws was the law of the land. Was it the more recent law or was it the stricter law, the more expansive law? And so that was a case that went all the way up to the Arizona Supreme Court. And the court ruled that the stricter law took precedence, that it was really the intention of the legislature that that

be the law that prevailed. And so they allowed that law to take effect. With a small caveat, they put a kind of delay in place. And then what happened sort of in the interim was that the legislature came together and really, I think, to a lot of people's surprise, was able to get a few Republicans to vote in favor of repealing that older law, that 1864 law. And so...

Now, I think the hope of abortion rights groups is that that law won't ever really go into effect. There's still a little bit of maneuvering and kind of machinations that are taking place right now to make sure that doesn't happen. But that's sort of the state of play in Arizona. At the same time is, of course, you've got this ballot measure, which I'm sure we'll talk more about, which is also really raising the stakes on this issue. So what's kind of been the political fallout of this repealing of this law? Has it impacted national politics as well?

So, yeah, I think that what you saw in Arizona was a little bit of a microcosm of what you're seeing with Republicans around the country, which was Republicans kind of really grappling with, on the one hand, they had very strong members of their base, pro-life organizations with deep roots in the state who backed Republican candidates saying, do not repeal this law. We want to protect as many babies as possible.

This would be sort of a real kind of betrayal if you were to repeal this law. But then on the other side, you have Republicans recognizing that the optics of having a law, a Civil War era abortion ban, with virtually no exceptions go into effect,

was just something that was very likely to be unpopular based on what we know in other states, was just something that gave Democrats a really powerful message in the upcoming election. And you saw this sort of tension there. And you did see national candidates weigh in. You had Donald Trump weighing in and saying they should repeal this law. You had Carrie Lake calling Republicans and telling them to vote to repeal. And so you had this playing out on kind of the national stage. And I think

We'll kind of see in the coming months what this means for the Republicans who voted to repeal the kind of small number of Republicans who did. Do they get blowback from some of these pro-life organizations? Do they potentially down the road face primary challenges? Lots of kind of interesting tension to explore there. You mentioned Donald Trump there. What is his actual stance on abortion? Because

It isn't completely clear to me exactly what his policies might be. For example, would he try and introduce a nationwide ban on abortion if he were re-elected? When you consider his power when it came to overturning Roe versus Wade, for example, it seems as though he's very against it, but perhaps not publicly.

I would venture to say that actually the more you know about Donald Trump's abortion stand, the less one understands it. If you're sort of confused by it, it's not because you're sort of in the UK and I'm here. Like, it is as confusing as it seems, in fact. But I'll try to give you...

I'll try to give you my best sort of roadmap to it, which is, you know, I think to kind of rewind a little bit, of course, Donald Trump gets this kind of windfall when he's president and gets to appoint three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court and really gives conservatives on the court the majority that they need to overturn Roe v. Wade. And I think that there is...

a part of Donald Trump's thinking that is sort of saying, and I've heard that he said this to the pro-life movement, look, I gave you this Supreme Court, right? I created the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade. This was a 50-year goal of yours. You know, a little bit like what else do you want from me, right? I think there is a piece of him that feels like I...

I kind of did the heavy lifting here. I got this decision thrown out. And now it's sort of up to you to push the state level for the kinds of restrictions that you want. I kind of I think that there's a part of him that feels he sort of turned this back over to the states. That was what people said that they wanted. And he doesn't want to sort of get very involved in the issue beyond that.

I think a national ban is unlikely to reach his desk just because of the political dynamics in the U.S. that would happen through Congress. They probably don't have the votes for that even kind of after the next election. But even if it did, my sense is that he has signaled that he likely wouldn't sign something like that, that he's not interested, again, in banning abortion nationwide. That's our sort of best guess about where he's sitting right now. I think a kind of third thing to try to understand about Donald Trump is, you know,

he does have a lot of power without even signing a national ban, who he sort of appoints to his administration is going to be another key thing we're going to be watching if he gets reelected, because that could really shape a lot of kind of just policy details that actually can have a lot of power. Yeah, I feel like Republicans are in this...

without giving them too much sympathy. They're in this position of like kind of the dog that caught the mailman in that they got Roe v. Wade overturned through the Dobbs decision, but also ripping the mailman to shreds is incredibly unpopular and it's having a lot of electoral consequences for them.

So I think it speaks to what you're saying about Trump being in this position where a lot of Republicans are still pushing for more stringent restrictions on abortion. He wants to brag about overturning Roe as part of his own record as the former president.

But if you could speak a little bit about the backlash he's experiencing from some Republicans, particularly like evangelicals who were instrumental to getting him elected in 2016, form a big part of his base and have been pretty disappointed at sort of the softening of his language regarding abortion. Do you think that's going to affect him in the election? Yeah.

Yeah, I think that those are two very important and kind of very separate points. And yeah, I think there is no question when I talk to pro-life organizations that they are disappointed, that they would have rather seen a Ron DeSantis or a Mike Pence

win the primary, that they felt like those people had a much kind of clearer moral compass when it came to the abortion issue and that Donald Trump is a little bit afraid of the issue. It's not something that he kind of feels the same kind of commitment to. I think they feel a little bit

a certain element of betrayal, even though he did sort of give them this great thing and kind of overturning Roe v. Wade. I think the kind of second sort of step question is exactly that, though. I think that the argument that pro-life groups here are making is you need to cater to us. You need to listen to us. We have this base. If our base doesn't turn out, this sort of hurts you in the election. And I think that kind of second order question is a thing that remains to be seen.

pro-life groups are still supporting Donald Trump. And they're still ultimately, I think, going to tell their base to come out and vote for Donald Trump. A Trump administration is still better for them in a myriad of ways than a Biden administration. And so I think there is a world in which he sort of gets away with this, right? He is able to appeal a little bit to that mainstream voter, say that I'm not going to impose, you know, national restrictions on abortion while also kind of getting that base to still turn out. But I think

I think we'll see. I mean, certainly we've seen that abortion right now is energizing Democrats to come out and vote much more than Republicans. And that there is a kind of question about whether the fact that they're so sort of mealy-mouthed on this issue is making the base, you know, just a little less inclined to kind of come out, wait in line, come out on a rainy day, that kind of thing. Yeah. And I think we know historically that candidates tend to soften a lot of their messaging post-primary and ahead of the general. And speaking of voting, I

A lot of states are directly putting this issue in front of voters through ballot referendums, like constitutional measures. And in most, if not all cases that have taken place since the overturn of Roe, they've been won by pro-choice voters. I

I'm curious about what you're seeing in terms of the Republican response to these grassroots efforts to codify abortion rights. I know one of these is expected to be on the ballot in Arizona in November. Yes, I think about the Republican response in sort of two buckets.

One of them is the kind of messaging response, like how do they appeal to voters not to vote in favor of abortion rights? And I think that's something where I really see them struggling a little bit. I think the messaging tends to be around this sort of slippery slope. Roe is quite popular in the United States, and a lot of these ballot measures sort of mimic Roe. They protect abortion through viability. And so the kind of pushback we've seen a lot from the pro-life side is to say, well, you know, that might be what it

says, but there's all these sort of loopholes. This is going to allow abortion until birth. And we've seen that just by and large, voters aren't buying that. Voters sort of believe that these measures do what they say. They're not sort of, they're not kind of buying this message that there's sort of a secret kind of poison pill in there. It just isn't sort of resonating. And I'm going to be

really fascinated because I think Arizona and Florida, which where abortion is also going to be on the ballot, are going to be two of the most important referendums so far. And do they kind of sharpen that message? Do they find an alternative message? And then a second strategy that we're seeing is to just try to create confusion or to prevent these things from getting on the ballot or

all. And that, in particular in states where Republicans have control of, say, the Secretary of State's office or the Supreme Court, they have some tools at their disposal. In Arizona, for example, the legislature is looking at putting one or potentially more alternative ballot measures on the ballot and

So then somebody goes and they're like, wait, what? Which one do I want to vote for? Which one do I not want to vote for? And just that kind of creating a kind of confusion, you know, is something that hasn't worked in the past. We saw them try to do in Ohio. It didn't work very well. But I think it'll be really interesting to see, you know, kind of how well those tactics work. Yeah, I recently interviewed Eva Birch, the Arizona state senator who spoke about her abortion on the Senate floor yesterday.

And I am fascinated by that entire situation because, correct me if I'm wrong, the situation there is that for voters to get the measure on the ballot, they need like several hundred thousand signatures versus Republicans in the legislature can just by simple majority vote put that competing referendum on the ballot without going through any of the hurdles that voters have to go through. Yes, there's definitely a kind of a disparity.

in states that are Republican-controlled, which is most of these states where abortion is kind of most at issue, there's definitely a disparity between the barriers that Republicans face to getting something on the ballot, which are not high. And, you know, it's not only the fact that you have to gather these signatures, but gathering signatures is just, like, shockingly expensive. Millions and millions of dollars. Yeah.

So before you've ever run a TV ad, before you've ever kind of really campaigned on this, you're spending a huge chunk of cash just getting the measure on the ballot itself.

You mentioned TV ads there. I thought that was really interesting. Is there a specific group when it comes to abortion that either side tries to target? Because I was looking at some research and polling from Brookings Institute, which basically suggests that whether a person is black, white or Latino, this is an issue that impacts them just as much as the other. So who really are

the targets for these kind of TV ads on policies surrounding abortion? Yeah, it's a great question. And I think, as you said, I think a really interesting one, actually, I think it's gonna be a really interesting one in Florida where you have a large Hispanic population. And I think that that'll be kind of different from a lot of the other states where we've seen measures on the ballot. And so figuring out how to sort of speak to that population, which has kind of its own set of views on abortion. You know, I

and I feel like I'm not going to kind of presume to speak for what they are. I think we, I think that's part of what a lot of what groups are trying to do is kind of wrap their heads around how that might speak differently to those groups. But I would say by and large, if I think about the television ads that I've seen over the last couple of years, um,

I think that they're speaking to a couple of different groups. One, you know, some of the most powerful ads we've seen, I do think are largely, although not exclusively aimed at women, particularly kind of women of childbearing age. And these are these ads that I think a lot of us are familiar with, where it's the woman who has had the kind of tragic pregnancy circumstances.

the kind of thing that I think a lot of women are going to look at and think that could happen to me. Even if I don't think I would otherwise get an abortion, I could have a situation where my child doesn't have a skull or where my life is in danger and this could happen to me. And I think that those are really kind of tugging at people's heartstrings. And I do think they're trying to reach men there, too. You know, the husbands, the brothers, the fathers. But I think those really kind of resonate with women. Another

kind of brand of ad that I see a lot of is ads that I do think are trying to reach a much wider base of people. And those are ads where I see them talking a lot about medical freedom. I see them hearkening back to the pandemic and mask requirements and vaccines and

And sometimes they're not even mentioning the word abortion. And I think that that, like those kinds of ads, which I've seen running in places like Kansas and Ohio, I think they're trying to reach out to that voter who maybe doesn't think much about abortion at all, but might kind of viscerally find resonance with this idea that I don't want the government interfering in my personal life. There was that really good one out of Texas where it was like a woman and her husband who had just been given like terrible news about their fetus and like,

what are our options? And then the doctor, like, calls a congressman. And it was a little more, like, kitschy, a little more, like, intended to be funny, but it went super viral. And so it's been interesting to see the different messaging strategies Democrats are taking on this issue. Yeah, and that ad, I think, that ad to me is, like, a great example of someone which is, that ad is just, like,

brutal, right? Like it's just it's not subtle. And we've seen like Biden has also been kind of running ads with sort of a woman who had to kind of have a termination. And it was just a horrible experience. And anyway, the end of the ad is Donald Trump did this. And you see the kind of just the directness that Democrats are sort of taking, not just saying this is a horrible thing that happened, but trying to directly blame Republicans for it.

Post Dobbs, I think Republicans are feeling really comfortable appealing to the conservative controlled Supreme Court to sort of legislate from the bench on this issue. I mean, we're waiting on a ruling that will affect the availability of common medications used to induce abortions and treat miscarriages.

At one point, Justice Clarence Thomas hinted at wanting to revisit other major court decisions affecting reproductive freedom, contraception, the right to privacy. Could you talk to us a little bit about the role American courts have in all of this?

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think that a lot of attention gets focused, rightly so, on the Supreme Court, the kind of final word on these things. And it's really interesting to see. We have not one but two abortion cases back in the Supreme Court. One is the one about pills, as you mentioned. Another is about abortions for people who have had medical emergencies, who need to visit the ER and needed an abortion. And I think the Supreme Court, I think, was a little

I would kind of read into them a little bit of reluctance to have to tackle this issue again. I think they really hoped they had gotten it off their plate. But I think what one of those cases, things that those cases point to is there are just a lot of nuances here that are going to continue to be litigated. I think we also kind of expect that we might at some point see a case involving interstate travel kind of make their way up, make its way up to the Supreme Court.

But you also kind of have the state courts, which I do also think are important to talk about, that this has just drawn a completely new level of attention and scrutiny and money towards. Because in a lot of cases, what's really being litigated is, does our state constitution have a right to abortion? Do some of these other privacy rights that our constitution has maybe kind of cover this?

And so we've seen in sort of state Supreme Court elections in places like Ohio and Wisconsin, abortion become a huge issue. And I think really kind of create a kind of partisanship around those courts that we maybe hadn't seen as much in the past. And so, yeah, I think of the courts as being still a kind of really crucial and I think often somewhat overlooked arena for this issue. Yeah.

So one of the things we're seeing, I think it was last week, was doctors urging the Supreme Court to include abortion under the umbrella of stabilizing care in ERs, in emergency medical services. I would love to get your viewpoint, since we're talking about the Supreme Court. Why did this case come to be? What is the question about emergency medical services and abortion? This entire...

discourse, this like public debate that's taking place in like legislatures, courts, the federal government is exposing a lot of areas of medicine that I think a lot of people pre-Dobbs didn't really have to think about. Like the idea that like if you're in an accident or experience an emergency and need an abortion in the ER, that that was just a given, that was something you could do. So I'd love to get your take on this case and a little bit about how

These sort of unknown loopholes are being exploited by Republicans. Yeah, so this is, I think, a fascinating case and I think gets a little bit less attention than some other ones because it is kind of confusing. There are aspects of it that are quite technical. But I do think that at core, it is really a kind of question about...

emergency care and the scope of abortion laws when it comes to emergency care, that to me has been one of the sort of central post-Dobbs questions. I think to a lot of people's surprise, I think, to be honest, I think groups on both sides did not anticipate how many of these stories we would be hearing about women unable to get care in emergencies, women being able to be told to wait in the hospital parking lot, women being told that they needed to go out of state. I think that was sort of unexpected.

Because, I mean, I think that people on the anti-abortion side would say there are exceptions in these laws, and these exceptions sort of cover the ability of people to get them in emergencies. And so a kind of a question that's arisen is why aren't those exceptions seemingly working in the way that they should? Very few people seem to be availing themselves of these exceptions.

And I think the answers to that are kind of, the answer to that is probably twofold. I think one of them is because the exceptions were sort of not written by doctors. I think doctors often kind of struggle to interpret them. These exceptions, I think, are often being interpreted to say that somebody has to be

really on kind of the brink of death before they can get an abortion. And so that means that in a situation where maybe you're in danger of getting sepsis or you're in danger of having your kind of blood pressure skyrocket to the point that your life is truly, truly at risk. And it sort of is forcing doctors to kind of wait. And then I think another kind of piece of this is just that the

penalties are so harsh. A lot of these are criminal laws. And so the consequences of kind of making a call in the wrong direction are really stark for people. And so that's kind of the background to this case. And so what this case is, is the Biden administration sued Idaho and said, your abortion ban violates what's called EMTALA, which is a law around emergency care, and it requires hospitals to provide care in emergencies.

And really kind of the intention of EMTALA back in the day when it was kind of, when it was passed, was to prevent what's called like sort of patient dumping, where a patient shows up to the hospital, they don't have insurance, the hospital says, yeah, we're going to send you to the public hospital across the street, good luck.

But the Biden administration sort of interprets this rule to say, well, this also means that you can't have a woman coming to a hospital in Idaho needing an abortion and say, yeah, you've got to go to Oregon to get that. And so that's the issue in this case. The Supreme Court sort of expected to weigh in on it in the next few weeks. And the Supreme Court's in kind of a tough spot on this if they—

rule in favor of Idaho, if they rule against the Biden administration, you know, I think there's like some messaging that's going to happen around this that says, you know, the Supreme Court is like saying that women have to go fly to Oregon when they need an abortion. And so I think politically for them, it's like a really they're in a tricky spot.

Just to finish off here, Laura, I was looking at some Brookings Institute stats which suggested that most Americans from their research are in favour of legalising abortion. I think it was 63%. So why is this such a divisive issue, which is probably an impossible question for you to answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway, but also at the same time,

you kind of cover all of this day in, day out. What should us Brits who look at this from the outside in, what should we be watching out for when it comes to abortion issues leading up to November's election?

Great. Well, yeah, I'll answer the first part of that question. And I think I have a couple of thoughts about that. And you're right. Like, do I have the definitive answer to that? No, but I do have some thoughts about it. And I think one kind of tricky thing is that what people think about when they think about legalizing abortion has a lot of nuances in it. I mean, for some people, that really does mean having no restrictions and kind of abortion through a pregnancy. But for a lot of Americans, it means something kind of

much mushier, much more in the middle. It's maybe having access when I really need it or having access to a certain point in pregnancy. And I think that the nature of the kind of political process in the U.S. has meant that we haven't been able to kind of come in the vast, vast majority of places to that kind of consensus place, that kind of compromise place.

And so what you have instead of compromise is you have states sort of on one end of the spectrum that really are kind of allowing abortion throughout pregnancy that I think is probably not where a lot of public opinion is at. But then on the other hand, you have states imposing these very, very sweeping bans with very few exceptions all the way from conception through sort of the end. And that, again, is kind of not where most Americans are at. And so I think part of it, it sort of remains so divisive because I think

unlike in the UK and lots of other countries, you have just, I think, barriers in the political process to reaching a compromise. The parties have both kind of adopted positions that are sort of extreme on one end or the other. And then I think kind of another reason for it is probably to some degree gerrymandering. And I guess this sort of plays into what I was just saying, but that

People in a lot of states, in a lot of state legislatures, their districts are so gerrymandered that they're really just worried about playing to their base. They're worried about the kind of primary. And again, they're not kind of worried about finding what might be that place that the majority of people in my state might be in. In terms of what I'll be watching,

heading into November. I will be very interested to continue to read the tea leaves about whatever Trump is saying. I do think, as I said, that a kind of underrated question is, who is he going to appoint? You know, what could he do administratively? You know, I think there's just been too much focus on this sort of national ban that's not going to happen and not enough focus on how much power he would have over, say, the FDA, which approves abortion drugs in the U.S.,

I think another thing I'll be watching is Florida. We talked a lot about Arizona, which is also really, really crucial. But to me, Florida is really fascinating because it's going to be the biggest ballot referendum fight yet. It's going to be the most expensive. Florida also does some of the highest number of abortions of any state in the country. And so the stakes are very high in practice.

And so I just think you're going to see a really brutal kind of drag it out fight in Florida over the future of abortion. And I think it's going to give us a real sense of like when both groups bring all the money, all the power, you know, you're going to have, I think, DeSantis talking about this. So all the kind of big names to this issue, you know, who kind of comes out on top?

Well, I think this is an issue that we will continue to see headline after headline more and more as November fast approaches. Laura, thanks so much for your time. Oh, thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much, Laura.

Now it's time to round up a few other stories that you might have missed. So firstly, Truth Social isn't doing very well at the moment, which is a real shame for Donald Trump, seeing as it seems to be something he uses as a sort of online journal to vent about anything that comes into his mind. Chris, talk me through what is going wrong with Truth Social. Well, everything really, isn't it? It's just shit. Yeah.

Like, there's no other way to describe it. It is literally just made for Trump to rant online because he can't really do it on Twitter anymore. But yeah, things are going wrong with Truth Social. And CNBC did a load of research into it. And they found that from April to May, views have dropped about 21%. And from March...

to May, it's about 35%. So basically, no one wants to listen to Trump go on anymore, even his own people. And I'm not a financial journalist. I think you know this. I can barely divide. But what I can say is that they made a net revenue loss of $328 million in the first quarter of this year, which I think is quite bad. Yeah, that's...

That feels like a lot of money. Yeah. That's a lot of money. Yeah, a lot of money. And then when CNBC asked Truth Social why this has happened, they replied with a comment which was, why would we comment on a fake news network reporting on fake analysis? So it's fair to say that they're taking the news pretty well. Yeah. Nicky, does this matter at all, though?

Because basically, truth social doesn't have to do well for it to help Trump. It matters in terms of Trump's financial situation. And I suppose he wants to be the successful rich guy. And it makes him look a bit stupid. His business is tanking. But that's happened forever, too. So and everyone still thinks he's this sort of business guy.

Does it matter politically? Because as long as a bunch of journalists who are happy to write about things Trump says keep going on Truth Social, so as long as about 50 people, let's say, who are journalists keep going on it,

His messages are going to get out to everyone anyway, aren't they? Wow. Just like call me out. I literally have like my truth social alerts. I'm sorry, man. We've all been there. But you know what I mean? I do know what you mean. It's going to get spread, isn't it? No, yeah.

And like, that's really the reality of it. That truth social is only relevant because it's the platform that Trump posts on. It's the platform where he's been like providing live commentary for his trial. It's the platform where he does endorsements, where he reacts to verdicts in his other cases. But,

To your point, I don't think it's necessarily even about the perception of like being seen as like a super rich, successful guy. I think the reason Truth Social is being kept on life support is because it recently went public. It recently debuted on the stock market. And regardless of if it does poorly, if the stock goes down, Trump stands to make millions, if not billions, when he's legally able to cash out.

This is important because Trump is currently on the hook for a ton of money he's been ordered to pay in two civil fraud lawsuits that were brought against him in New York. One by the state of New York, where he owes, oof,

close to like half a billion in damages to the state. And then he owes E. Jean Carroll, the writer who sued him in civil court for defamation and allegations of sexual assault, he owes her like tens of millions of dollars. And he has to pay those out. I think there's like an appeals process and everything. But if he doesn't,

the state of New York or even E.G. Carroll can petition the court to seize his properties, seize his assets to get that payment. So if he can cash out

on all that good, good truth social money, he saves himself from like losing any of his properties or having to dip into campaign funds to pay those out. It's just like a massive windfall that I think he's trying to keep at least at a baseline because I frankly don't think truth social will survive many more years. It just needs to live long enough for him to cash out.

I mean, I'm looking at a post he posted an hour ago at the time we record. And I mean, it's pretty top tier analysis, Nicky here. So can anybody believe that our government would be spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on prosecuting this ridiculous case?

I did nothing wrong. In fact, I did everything right. The testimony in court was amazing for the defense. So where are you going to get that kind of insight from? It's not only that he didn't do the thing wrong, he did everything right.

Right. He did it all right. So on other people who are being accused of doing stuff wrong. Nice little segue from me there. You've done this before. Yeah, it's not my first rodeo, let's say that. But so there is some maybe good news for Hunter Biden at the moment, as far as I can see, which I suppose is also good news for his dad, the president of the United States, Joe Biden. Chris, what has happened with Hunter Biden's tax case?

Well, it's certainly news. I'm not sure I'd categorize it as really good news. So just to go on what this trial was going to be about, he was accused of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019. He pleaded not guilty to that. It was supposed to take place next month, but now it's been pushed back indefinitely by

Well, postponed it definitely. I think it was meant to be pushed back to September, but now it's just completely gone. But this really isn't the end of the road for Hunter Biden where legal issues come in because next month he's also got another trial coming up, which is where he's been charged with illegally buying a gun whilst on crack cocaine and lying about it on a government document when making the purchase. This is in Delaware. What?

I think kids in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, you know. We've all been there. We have all been there. You know, we've all had a Saturday night out. Among us hasn't done that, you know. Exactly. And this trial is the reason the tax trial has basically been pushed back because it would have essentially, or his legal team argued, it would have been impossible for the two to happen at the same time and arrive at a fair conclusion. So...

That is still going ahead. Although he's out of this tax trial, this other trial in Delaware is very much going ahead. He's very much still a thorn in his dad's side. Nicky, do you think it helps Biden at all, it being pushed back, meaning that some dirty laundry won't be getting aired for a really long time throughout the campaign? Or is there also the risk it gets pushed back to October and then the final month before the campaign is...

look at the president's son and, ooh, well, if he's dodgy, maybe his dad's dodgy, which seems to be what the right constantly want to say. Yeah, that's pretty much like you nailed it. That is the constant argument on the right. We've nailed it, Josh. Yeah, we've talked about it before. I think, you know, Hunter Biden has said it. It's not going to stop. It just keeps going. I think sort of in the vein of what we talked about, I think a week or two ago regarding like Steve Bannon,

In terms of the gun case, which once again, whomst among us, I think for the Biden campaign, they probably see it as better to get that out of the way. Like when we're still...

you know, six-ish months out of the election, get it done, let the right have their sort of circus field day with the trial, with everything that comes out of that, and then just kind of like buckle down and have a couple months to do damage control. Like you said, if the second trial gets scheduled in October, that is one hell of an October surprise. But, you know, there's much like Trump has been implementing this strategy. There's a lot of

and motions and requests that you can file to just like keep pushing something back. And we'll just have to wait and see how that plays out. And I think it's worth saying, no matter what happens with Hunter Biden and his legal issues, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, there we go, I've mentioned her, are never going to stop talking about Hunter Biden and any of these cases, even if he's not convicted in any of them. They will continue with

Donald Trump's kind of line of inquiry of the system's rigged, everyone's out against me. Whereas in this case, it'll be everyone's out against the GOP. Yeah, there's still the impeachment probe. You could have also ended that sentence earlier, Chris, when it's just Marjorie Taylor Greene will never stop talking. Yeah, stop.

So now one final really quick thing just to wrap us up. Project 2025, you mentioned Steve Bannon, another name which gives us all a collective, ugh, that fucking guy. But anyway, he's been popping up a little bit. Link to Project 2025. What is it and why is it getting traction now? And in terms of the election, Nikki, why do you think it might matter? Oh, yes. It's huge. And it's really under the radar. Yeah.

Project 2025, or the Presidential Transition Project, is a sprawling collection of policy proposals crafted by the Heritage Foundation, which is an extremely influential right-wing think tank.

The Heritage Foundation is, like I said, very prominent conservative think tank that was founded in 1973 and really rose to prominence under the Reagan administration. It does like research, policy work and lobbying through its sister organization, Heritage Action. The thing to remember here is that and I'm sure there are similarities in the UK, but

A lot of times in the United States, lawmakers are not the ones actually writing laws. They're not sitting there at their desk, like writing, writing out the bills and then submitting them to Congress. A lot of times they outsource their work to think tanks, lobbying groups, other organizations to write the bill for them. And then they will adopt it into Congress, get it through the process.

The Heritage Foundation, in many recent elections, has prepared this presidential transition project, which is when an election is about to happen, they'll bring together all of these conservative minds, all of these people to craft projects

a giant docket of potential legislation, policy goals, agency goals, that then if the Republican candidate wins, they hand to that new government as the sort of plan for their administration. It's basically a giant instruction manual for how Trump and the conservative movement would approach a second Trump term. This year's plan is,

is really interesting and really critical because it adopts a maximalist view toward the powers of the American president, the powers of the executive branch of government. They would...

gut major federal agencies and purge the government of thousands of civil servants in order to replace them with hyper-conservative Trump loyalists. I wrote about this recently for Rolling Stone. Project 2025 contains plans to continue attacking abortion rights and the right to contraception. It also proposes mass arrests, imprisonment, and deportation of undocumented migrants.

rolling back a ton of civil rights guarantees for minorities, the erosion of the separation between church and state, and like so, so, so, so, so much more. And that's just the surface of it. So we will definitely be bringing everyone a deep dive into Project 2025 before this election, because it really is the manual that the Trump administration is going to be operating under if they win in November.

Just before we end, then, let's take a look at some of the polls, which are giving us a sense of what America's thinking, what it's feeling at the moment. So, Chris, tell me about some of the polling that has stood out to you. Yeah, so I looked at a poll that was primarily from young people because I don't think we've done that much polling.

on how young people feel. So it's always nice to check in on them. So I looked at some polling that was from Semaphore, which was taken from Blueprint, which is a democratic firm. And it's not really good news for the Democrats, to be honest with you. According to their research of around 1,000 18 to 30-year-olds, a large majority of them believe that almost all

all politicians are corrupt and that the country is worse off than when they were born. Some more stats. 51%... Hold tight. 51% believe that the US political system doesn't work for people like them. 64% agree the US is in decline. And 65% of them think almost all politicians are corrupt, as I mentioned before. And a really interesting quote from even Roth Smith, who's Blueprint's lead pollster,

said to Semaphore that young voters do not look at our politics and see any good guys. They see a dying empire led by bad people, which is pretty cutthroat and not good for anyone, it seems. Yeah, yeah. That's... Yeah. Thanks, man. Yeah, you're welcome. On that depressing note... Our numbers guy there bringing the... I like to bring the mood up.

Bringing the depressing numbers. That's the polls. I don't dictate what the polls say. They talk to me. They talk to you. I'm a poll whisperer. I like that. He's like Ray Mann, just like seeing numbers. Possessed by Pew Research, man. It's a pretty scary case we've got going on. He's got a poltergeist. I'm sorry, bye. Oh, nice. That was worse than mentoring Marjorie Taylor Greene, man. Well, on that note,

Poltergeist, I'll leave you with that. That brings us to the end of this episode of American Friction. So, Nikki, thank you very much. Always a pleasure.

And Christopher, thank you very much to you, our numbers guy as ever. I think you mean the pollster whisperer, but you're very welcome. And thanks to you, Gerv. Thank you. I didn't have to ask you to thank me this week, so that was very nice. That's always nice. I thought I'd just chuck it in, to be honest. And an even bigger thanks to you, listeners. If you want more from us, we're out with a new episode every Friday, early afternoon if you're in the UK and in the morning if you're stateside. You can also follow us on Twitter at...

Instagram and TikTok. Our name on each platform is at American Frick. And if you've got something you'd like us to answer on the podcast, send us your question to American Friction at podmasters.co.uk. That's American Friction at podmasters.co.uk. And we'll do our best to answer it on the podcast. You've been listening to American Friction. See you next week. American Friction was written and presented by Chris Jones, Jacob Jarvis and Nicky McCann-Ramirez.

Audio production was by me, Simon Williams. The group editor was Andrew Harrison and the executive producer was Martin Boitosch. Artwork was by James Parrott and music was by Orange Factory Music. American Friction is a Podmasters production.