The judge who presided over Donald Trump's criminal hush money
trial in New York has postponed his sentencing.
Judge Juan Marshawn approved the delay after the former
president's lawyers asked for more time to review the potential
impact of the Supreme Court's immunity decision that came down
yesterday.
His sentencing was originally scheduled for next week and now
it will take place on September 18th.
Our own Robert Costa is here with me now covering
all of this.
Bob, good to see you.
Good to see you. So this delay is significant.
I mean, it was the original sentencing date was supposed
to come just days before the Republican National Convention in
Milwaukee.
What's the impact here? It will still happen before the
election.
Well, for me personally, it's about whether I can get
my money back for my hotel reservation on July 11th
because that was the sentencing date for former President Donald
Trump now in September. So this changes the entire political
calendar.
Both Republicans and Democrats I've been speaking to have been
bracing for weeks for July 11th to be a significant
day because it would decide whether Trump would be sentenced
to house arrest, probation or even a jail sentence.
That could start as early as this summer or even
this fall.
Now all of that is pushed back.
Now, it's not pushed beyond November.
It's just pushed back until September.
So this is potentially for the campaign,
not a July surprise, but a September surprise.
But because of the immunity question hovering over this campaign,
there's no real guarantee this is still going to happen
in September.
The judge could rule that in some way there still
needs to be a deliberation legally about whether Trump can
be sentenced in New York
in terms of whether something's an official act or not,
because Judge Tanya Chunkin on a federal will be working
through what's an official act or not on the January
6th case that could impact what happens in New York.
So we're in a fluid moment legally and politically.
Yeah. And if that sentencing does happen in September,
it will be right around the time early voting starts
in some of these states,
too. So that will be interesting to watch.
You mentioned the immunity case.
I want to ask you a little bit about that.
Obviously, Democrats are, you know,
criticizing this court decision. But I'm curious what this ruling
may mean for a Trump administration,
what he could do with this kind of immunity went
forward.
Trump was elected in 2016.
I covered his transition closely,
and it was evident that he was not familiar with
the apparatus of the federal government to any real extent.
And he brought in some advisors who had some seasoning
in terms of managing the federal government.
But it took him three to four years to fully
understand the scope of the federal government,
the powers of the executive.
So if he now comes into power,
he's not the Donald Trump who came down that escalator
and really didn't have a grasp of the government and
governing.
He is someone who knows what it means to be
president and to have presidential power.
He's also an advocate for presidential power.
So we're looking potentially at a presidency,
a second Trump term where you would have expansive use
of presidential power,
especially in the wake of this ruling.
And what has the Trump campaigns reaction been to this
ruling?
Are they kind of pushing that as as a message
or are they kind of letting that rest for it's
a bit of political and policy dance for them.
They know that there are groups like Project
2025 that are outlining potential steps a Trump administration could
take on different fronts.
But at the same time,
they're not fully embracing that because they want to be
a bit coy,
I'm told, by Trump advisors about what exactly Trump would
do in his presidency.
But we do already see that Trump is signaling a
real use of executive power.
The Supreme Court, of course,
has given him some power.
Maybe Trump would have another appointment as president.
But one of his key policy proposals is a mass
deportation,
as he calls it, of undocumented people in this country.
And that would be a significant use of executive power
because it would possibly involve the use of the military
and other federal agencies to remove people,
remove families from the United States.
Yeah, it seems like all of these areas are where
Democrats can kind of seize on,
at least at this point,
especially after the president's poor debate performance.
Speaking of that debate performance,
I know a lot of attention has been focused on
the president,
of course. But, you know,
Donald Trump did have lots of lies,
exaggerations during the debate as well.
Has his team been reacting to that?
How have they been talking about this debate?
I mean, it was interesting.
I was with him covering him on Friday after the
debate in Virginia,
and he made a point to say this is not
about age,
it's about competence. And I'm curious how they are kind
of playing this out.
Or are they kind of laying low and letting the
attention focus on Biden?
It's more of the latter.
They see the debate in their view,
as a clean win and they don't feel the need
to have Trump hitting the drum on that issue.
They're letting Democrats in the views of some of my
sources,
go to war with each other over the debate and
its consequences.
And they're they're happy to watch all of that play
out from their side of things and prepare for what's
now most important for them,
which is the vice presidential selection.
All right. And we will stay tuned for that around
the convention,
perhaps earlier. Bob Costa, thank you very much
and a quick programming note.
Join us for a special Independence Day edition of America
Decides.
Our CBS Reports documentary team went out into the field
to talk to voters behind the polls.
This half hour documentary is followed by an America Decides
panel about what it all means for the election in
November that airs this Thursday,
July 4th at 5:00 PM Eastern.