President John Pudner’s radio tour across our Republic continued in Birmingham, Alabama to analyze the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, its implications on Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s case against former President Trump, and what effects it would have on the presidential election. However, a lot can change in just a week’s time, and the last week has certainly been one of the most eventful in modern political history.
One such event was President Biden’s withdrawal from the race, which occurred after this interview, and while not surprising given the circumstances, has nonetheless resulted in an outcome very concerning for the future of our Republic. After seemingly throwing out 14.5 million primary votes with this decision, the leadership within the Democratic Party has coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris, a candidate from California who has only ever faced one contentious race in her political career, has never had a single delegate cast in her favor for President, and who has only ever received 844 votes for the highest office in the land, fewer than the 1,201 write-in votes for "Donald John Trump" during that same primary. Despite this, she's now become the presumptive Democratic nominee for that office in just 48 hours. This highlights a troubling trend of hypocrisy on what has been the key issue for liberals up and down the ballot - safeguarding and protecting democracy.
Even before this revelation and the events of the last week, recent CBS News/YouGov polling showed that voters believed that “democracy” and the “rule of law” would be just as safe under either President Trump or Biden, and as Pudner and host J.T. discuss, the seemingly partisan lawfare waged against political rivals and installing of presidential candidates without a single vote cast, showcase why this perception exists and how this exemplifies a troubling trend for our Republic.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Democracy, Supreme Court, Smith, decision, prison, bankrupt, Trump
SPEAKERS
J.T. and TBOR Action President John Pudner
J.T. 00:00
Joining us now is John Pudner and I've been waiting to talk to John on the situation. I mean, I love his political analysis, the president of Take Back Our Republic Action, and also a Bush aide in 2000. He knows the inside ropes. John, welcome back and thanks for being here.
John Pudner 00:15
Thanks. Wish I were physically there, got my wife and grandbabies down in Auburn, but I'm up in Milwaukee getting ready for the convention.
J.T. 00:22
Well, let's talk about this big decision that came down yesterday from the Supreme Court, and depending on who you ask, they're losing their ever-loving mind or they're saying it's about time. So, the decision that presidents are immune to certain things during official presidential duties versus non-official duties, we were just talking with Attorney Kirby Faris in the studio a few minutes ago about this, and he says the court fell kind of short on defining official versus non-official.
John Pudner 00:58
This Court does seem to try to only go as far as they think they need to on decisions, but the idea from the left that they're just creating new things here, the Supreme Court generally makes a ruling when something that everyone assumed was the case gets challenged, which is what was happening with Jack Smith's latest attempt to throw a political opponent in prison or bankrupt him, and so to me, the basic ruling seems like common-sense. They sent it back down to the lower courts to decide as you and sounds like it's Kirby said on which are official and which aren't, but the basic precedent has to be put in place here.
J.T. 01:35
Basically, this puts the whole time coming after your opponent in a political situation here. This does open the door for President Trump's legal team to kind of come back at this New York case, and have it thrown, in the essence that they want to say there are some things that were done in this trial that kind of fall in that arena of official presidential duties that were used to make a point in this other case in the state of New York. Your thoughts on that?
John Pudner 02:06
That's right, and I think the bigger impact even is on Jack Smith, who has been the lead prosecutor they put on him. Smith 10 years ago was overruled nine to nothing by the Supreme Court. He went after Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, and got him convicted to two years in prison basically for saying good things about a business leader in the state, it was an absurd case, but same kind of thing, the goal was to bankrupt him, McDonald had 28 million in legal fees, he got a two-year prison sentence, and of course, keep up the ballot. McDonald just won a big governor's race, looked like he would probably be a US Senator today and shift the whole balance of the Senate. The Supreme Court, in that case, ruled nine to nothing against Jack Smith. I mean, he got so overboard in this case, threw it out, and even Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted against them, but they put Smith in charge of going after Trump, and then acted shocked they lost a Supreme Court ruling on this.
J.T. 03:08
And the whole thing about challenging the election results, all of a sudden, this kind of opens that door as well. If you feel that the election wasn't done fairly, that there was some nefarious activity behind the scenes going on, this blocks any political opposition from attacking you if you want to question that, right?
John Pudner 03:27
Yes, and this obviously came on the heels of the January 6th decision. In that case, there were definitely some bad guys there, I think there are some people who attacked police and should be in prison, but this case, the example of somebody who went into the Capitol for four minutes, came back out, and was prosecuted, is ridiculous, and it's interesting that our newest, very liberal member of Supreme Court actually ruled with the protester in that case. But, they've just gone so overboard. If you're running a campaign on the other side is a threat to democracy, therefore, we have to bankrupt, and throw him in prison, keep him off the ballot as they tried to do in Columbus. What's really interesting is a new CBS poll that says 47% think democracy safe if Trump's elected, 48%, only one point better, think it's safe if Biden is elected, and that's basically a 50/50 out who's threatening democracy right now on what they thought was their lead issue for this campaign.
J.T. 04:41
And I love what the Hill said, "Trump says Supreme Court delivered a high-level spanking to Jack Smith", what about Merrick Garland, Jack's boss here? I mean, it doesn't leave him looking very good either.
John Pudner 04:51
No. The fact that Garland could have been on the Supreme Court, I just want everyone to remember that, as overtly partisan as he is. Again, you could say the newest appointment is a very liberal woman, but she's been willing, as I just mentioned, follow the law, and you know, she'll usually disagree with where conservatives would be, but not always, but Garland is actually completely in the tank on this.
J.T. 05:17
Well, I think the decision yesterday...it's not over as far as arguing down the road when it comes to points that presidents will get themselves into or situations. What's the definition? Well, wait a minute, that's right, nobody wrote the definition, so there'll be more definition writing, don't you think down the road on this?
John Pudner 05:45
Oh, sure. I mean, the president can't walk down the street and clock someone over the head with a baseball bat.
J.T. 05:54
Well, some of the people that came out with these ridiculous scenarios, it's just outrageous, and everybody, you know, that came through the courts and looked at this...that's not what this decision is saying, stop with the insanity and the madness on the left side of the liberal television networks. It's always good, John, thanks for being with me.
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