How much of the odds of Trump actually spending time
behind bars depends on his conduct between now and July
11th,
when he's actually sentenced? Sure.
That's a really great question because even before the trial
started,
we were speaking with legal experts who said that while
they thought it was unlikely that Trump would be spending
any time
behind bars if he were convicted,
that a lot really does depend on how a defendant
behaves after they are found guilty.
We've seen plenty of cases before Where a defendant has
admitted some sort of wrongdoing,
taking some responsibility, and that has helped the outlook for
for a sentence.
Not only is Trump not taking any responsibility for the
verdict,
he's of course going on the attack.
And as we've seen over the weekend.
So it really is going to be an interesting to
see how much time the DA suggests,
if any, in his sentencing recommendation and what the the
judge actually comes down with at the sentencing on July
11th.
We should remind our viewers and listeners that Eric was
actually in the courthouse for the bulk of this trial.
And you were just great,
Eric, your team transmitting real time information for us in
a world without cameras and microphones.
But procedurally, I'm compelled by the next step,
and I believe that's an interview
that the former president of the United States will have
with a probation officer.
How's that going to work?
Yeah, This is a really standard procedure where a defendant
who has been convicted has to meet with these probation
individuals and just sort of trying to give a sense
of who they are as a person,
what kind of risks they might face if they are
flight risk,
that sort of thing. It it's something that is very
secret.
It's not something we're ever expecting to see.
So really the biggest public documents that we can expect
to come out of this might be the the recommendations
from the DA and perhaps from the defense.
But it tell you it would be really fascinating
to be a family on the wall in one of
these interviews because it's going to be something that Trump
has certainly never experienced before.
Yeah, I think we would all love to be a
family on the wall in that room.
Eric, Of course, we've played a lot of attention over
the course of the last several weeks to this trial
in particular.
But a new trial with political implications began today in
Delaware.
President's son Hunter Biden on trial for three gun related
crimes,
essentially buying a firearm and lying about his addiction to
crack cocaine.
At least those are the allegations.
The jury was selected today.
We understand that the opening statements will be tomorrow.
How difficult is this case for the president's son and
his defense team?
You know, it's a, it does seem like a fairly
difficult case
only because I'll point out that some of the biggest
evidence that the government has against Hunter Biden came from,
you know, his own book.
He sort of admitted out there in public that he
was addicted to drugs at the time that he got
this firearm.
So that being said, you know,
his lawyers do have a defense plan here.
They're, they're planning to argue that technically speaking,
perhaps Biden was not actually addicted or high at the
moment that he he bought the weapon and that perhaps
there's a distinction there and that some of the laws
around this particular law are too vague to be applied
in this specific way.
So the, the lawyers have come up with some theories
to get around this
potentially. It's of course, going to be up to this
jury.
But some of that evidence,
like I said, comes straight from Hunter Biden's own book,
Eric. There was a plea deal,
of course, in this case and it it played out
in the public eye as it completely fell apart.
But it did not include prison time.
And I wonder if that plea deal gives us any
sense of how this case might resolve.
You know, we never got to that stage.
So we it, it's unclear.
But it's also worth point pointing out that there is
a separate case,
a tax related case that Hunter Biden
faces from the same special counsel that was brought in
California,
a federal court that is going on trial in September.
So, you know, even if if Hunter Biden is convicted,
he's still going to face this other trial.
And even if he's acquitted,
he'll face this other trial.
So it really is an unprecedented situation that he is
facing here.
Eric, it's great to have you back in the Bureau
of Bloomberg's Eric Larson,
having lived through the trial in lower Manhattan with us
on Balance of power.
For more on the ongoing fallout from former President Trump's
conviction,
we bring in Bloomberg Solea Moss.
And it's great to see you at the table as
always.
Solea, lawmakers are coming back to Washington now.
So this is kind of the next leg in the
story as we go from the legal aspect of the
political one,
not only on the campaign trail but resonating here in
Washington.
The big headline today, though,
seems to be the money.
We're at, what was it,
$52 million, if my memory is correct,
up from 38 million or 34 million rather at the
end of last week.
This is just 10s of millions of dollars continue to
come in small donations and in many cases,
new donors. What are we learning about Donald Trump's chances
through the money?
Yeah, 1/4 of those are a new donors.
We're seeing small cash amounts coming in showing that people
who don't have a ton of money,
don't have millions or thousands to give,
still want to participate in democracy in this way.
The interesting thing is that we didn't actually learn anything
new about Trump and his
history in the run up to the
2616 election from the trial.
So I don't know if what the money that's coming
in,
if that signifies a sigh of relief of like this
person didn't completely
get sort of thrown overboard by the trial.
It's not as bad as we expected.
Or if it kind of was like,
OK, well, that whole we've crossed that Rubicon,
he's convicted, but he's still standing there and conventions are
coming up.
A debate is coming up.
We're going to put our money there.
Or perhaps the fact that he was convicted provides more
evidence to some that this is all rigged against him
before they want to lend his money to support.
It's remarkable, though, the figures that were considering the Trump
campaign together with the RNC says they raised
$141 million in May. And so we've been talking so
much about this
cash gap between Trump and Biden that Trump has been
having to play catch up with figures like this.
Knowing we haven't heard from the Biden campaign yet.
It potentially is a gap that is all but closed.
Absolutely. I mean, what have we been saying for the
last couple of months that the polls show that Trump
is edging ahead,
but the money is showing that Biden's winning.
But if we're going to use that those same metrics
right now,
Biden is winning on both counts.
So maybe the sitting president is an underdog right now.
Senator Mike Lee says he's going to slow things down
in the Senate,
come up the works here,
keep Biden initiatives from progressing,
all in the name of
retribution for Donald Trump. Judicial nominations will be on ice,
for instance. So I guess the store is closed in
more ways than one
on Capitol Hill now. Absolutely.
They're looking to gum up legislation and all parts of
Washington right now to kind of show that,
hey, they they think that the progressives or Democrats were
putting their thumb on the scale for the Trump verdict
or the timing of that trial.
And also kind of, let's see,
show a judge how things are playing out,
right? I mean, if you're a judge on this,
on this case and you're seeing public outcry,
I don't know. I would think you're a human being.
It's going to affect how you rule.
They're supposed to be more pristine than the rest of
us.
So I don't know if it's going to influence their
his thinking.
Yeah. And of course, it will see how it actually
influences legislative business on Capitol Hill,
even if they aren't doing much legislating.
Next week, though, we do now have a date
for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel giving a
joint address to Congress.
It'll be next week, June 13th.
Biden will actually be at the G7.
He won't even be in town.
But Netanyahu and Joe Biden seems that they've gotten their
wires crossed potentially in recent days.
Joe Biden with a big speech Friday saying we have
this three phase plan that Israel has agreed to.
We just need Hamas to sign on.
And then Netanyahu seeming to say not so fast.
Not all of this is,
as you characterized it, what's going on?
Absolutely, Kaylee. It's been a little hard to figure out
what is White House spin and US administration spin versus
what is Hamas saying and what is Benjamin Netanyahu saying
it does. Look, you know,
Biden officials have said that this was kind of
Hamas's plan that they proposed that Israel turned down a
few weeks back.
And we've added some new brush strokes to it and
propose it again.
And it doesn't. And they did give Netanyahu a couple
of hours notice that this speech is coming and here
are the brass tacks of it.
And now we're seeing that Netanyahu is expressing a little
bit of surprise and pushing back on that deal.