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I saw the following exchange between Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, and it made me angry. So instead of getting over it and going and doing normal things like a well adjusted adult, I decided to complain about it on the internet.
First of all, I'm at least glad to see that reality is starting to set in. Trump is going to get his nonsense "absolute immunity" claim promptly rejected 9-0 by the Supreme Court. He's going to go on trial on March 4, he's going to get convicted, and he's going to go to prison. This has all been obvious for some time, and people do need to come to grips with it instead of telling themselves "it can't happen, so it won't".
But there is a stark mismatch here between the acceptance on one hand that the jury will convict Trump but the insistence on the other hand that "the charges aren't real". DC is an overwhelmingly democratic voting jurisdiction, but you would need to be cynical indeed to think there is no chance that even one Democrat juror would refuse to imprison a political opponent on obviously baseless charges. But of course, the charges are not nearly so baseless as Carlson suggests.
No, the reason that Kelly and Carlson know that Trump is going down is not because they think there is not one honest soul to be found in DC. They can have confidence Trump will lose this case because both his conduct and the law have little mystery about them. On the facts, there's little if any dispute about the actions that Trump took. On the law we have seen similar charges applied to many January 6 defendants, and it has not gone well for them. If Trump is to get similar treatment for similar conduct, he must be convicted.
Carlson and Kelly know that he's guilty and yet they pretend otherwise. Carlson rants about how outrageous it is to render people's votes meaningless, and yet when Trump is charged for conspiring to do exactly that he flatly states it's "not even a real crime". I emphasize that his contention here isn't even that Trump didn't do the awful thing he's accused of - he's saying that the things he's accused of aren't awful. This lays bare how empty and fake Carlson's feigned defence of democracy is. You can believe that it's outrageous to deprive people of their democratic rights or you can believe that conspiring to deprive people of their democratic rights isn't a "real crime", but it's incoherent to claim both.
But worst of all is the "warning" of violence. Carlson tells us that the man who incited a riot must not be punished or else we'll get more riots. This is the logic of terrorism. Give us what we want or there will be blood. Sure, he phrases it as a prediction rather than a threat and says he detests violence... but he knows full well that many of the people who might actually commit it could well be listening to him, and he knows he is fanning the flames of their resentment and putting the thought of violence in their heads. This would be irresponsible even if Carlson were sincere, but the fact that he's obviously being cynical makes it worse. This is a man who passionately hates Trump and couldn't wait for him to get kicked out of the White House - and yet here he is inventing excuses for him, pre-emptively trying to discredit the verdict he knows is coming, sanewashing Trump's "rigged election" claims, stoking anger, and telling people that violence is the inevitable response if Trump gets locked up. All, one presumes, so he can maintain his position in the GOP media ecosystem. What a worm.
Smith and Chuktan will obviously not allow themselves to be swayed by threats of violence, so we will unfortunately get to see if the dark talk turns into action. I for one hope Trump's most volatile supporters will at least recognize the truth that Carlson acknowledges - it will go extremely badly for anyone who takes it upon themselves to shed blood.
I am doing this selfishly - I see this as a money making opportunity. What do you think the odds are that Trump goes to prison by election day 2024? How much do I have to put up for you to pay me 1k if he isn't?
Money, mouth, etc
I don't do bets with internet strangers anymore - too much counterparty risk, too awkward to explain to my wife if I lose, etc. But I put the probability at something like 85%.
There's various outcomes where things get delayed - SCOTUS declines to deal with the absolute immunity issue on an expedited basis, some other delay tactic succeeds in pushing the trial date back, there's a mistrial and they have to go again, etc. But all are pretty low probability in my view. It seems like the courts are taking the view that this should be resolved before the election and will do what it takes to make it happen.
What number do you put on it?
You're an Australian, correct?
Trump is the current favorite to win the next election @ $2.40 (Roughly 41.6%). You can bet 1000's of AUD currently on this not to happen at 58.4% (with a minor commission, taking you to about 56% implied) on the Betfair exchange. Tax-free winnings as an Australian hobbyist, too. As you think Trump is 85% to get jailed here, surely that makes your number of him winning the election a lot lower than 41.6%. Can even bet against him to win the Republican nomination at 81.3% with similar liquidity. No counterparty risk there.
I think that price probably is already incorporating a high probability of his legal problems derailing him. 41% is really low considering how big his polling leads are against all his opponents.
It's very unclear to me how many people will abandon Trump if he goes to prison, or even if the political effect will be negative at all. Somehow he's only increased his support as he's been found to have committed sexual assault, fraud, and insurrection. Maybe this time is different, but maybe the country has just decided "joke's on you, I'm into that shit".
I'm presuming by the "committed sexual assault" you mean the E. Jean Carroll case? Which is a dreadful example if you're trying to convince anyone that it's the truth of the matter. The claims are very hard to verify - he went into a changing room with her in a department store and assaulted her, but nobody else heard a thing? No shop assistants? No other customers?
And while she was talking and writing about it for decades, she never went to court over it. And the case was, in fact, not for rape but defamation, and it was in a second lawsuit that she added in the assault charges. Which had lapsed due to the statute of limitations, but very helpfully New York State legislation was passed to permit adult survivors of sexual assault to bring cases after they were statute-barred - so long as the case is brought between November 2022 and November 2023.
Now, the act wasn't specifically for Carroll, but it sure turned out convenient timing for her. Well, nothing more than that, maybe.
But compare the Tara Reade allegations against Biden which were pooh-poohed immediately by the same people who were devoutly nodding along that Brett Kavanaugh was a rapist and Trump was a rapist and everyone ever accused of anything was indeed a rapist. If Reade's allegations are nonsense because of where and when they are alleged to have happened, what about Carroll's allegations? The conviction on the basis that "okay, over the years she told a lot of people it happened, so it must have happened"?
Again, I'm not defending Trump's sexual conduct, but this is a very shaky "he said/she said" conviction that is as much, or even more, about politics as anything else.
I actually agree with you that Caroll doesn't seem credible. I have a strong suspicion that Trump would have won that case if he had a better lawyer and listened to their advice. The Serious Trouble podcast ran a demonstration of what a better cross examination might have sounded like and it was brutally effective at painting her as a fantasist. Unfortunately for Trump his lawyer did a terrible job.
It can be hard to get the best lawyers when that can be a career blackball for them.
And it really doesn't help when the client is notorious for both refusing to pay his lawyers and bad-mouthing them after they quit.
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