One America News reporter and former national political editor for The Star News Network Neil W. McCabe joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy Wednesday to discuss the state of the 2024 GOP nomination contest, the prosecution of Donald Trump and the realization he says the Establishment elites on both sides of the aisle may well come to as the election cycle plays out.
TRANSCRIPT
Michael Patrick Leahy: 7:18 a.m.; we are joined now on the newsmaker line by our very good friend, the great Neil W. McCabe, with One America News Network.
Good morning, Neil.
Neil W. McCabe: Michael, very good to be with you, sir.
Michael Patrick Leahy: In-studio is John Harris, the executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association.
Yesterday, Neil, Jack Smith – perhaps the most politicized member in a politicized Department of Justice, a special prosecutor – sent former President Trump a target letter telling him to show up before an unbiased grand jury in Washington D.C. – where they hate him – they’re going to try to indict him for his role in giving a speech before the January 6th riot.
Your thoughts on this.
Neil W. McCabe: Jack Smith is a hitman. He’s an assassin working for the Left using all of the levers and buttons and strings of the federal government, the full machinery of the federal government, to go after whoever the Left targets.
Sometimes it’s a Republican like Bob McDonald, who was the governor of Virginia and who everyone said looked like a future president – looked like a future president to me 13 years ago – or even when he goes after Bob Menendez, the senator from New Jersey, a Democrat, but an opponent of Barack Obama’s policies reopening ties with Cuba. Or John Edwards, who is seen as a political rival to Obama.
Jack Smith is the guy they send to go after these people.
And you know, Trump is already looking at one federal trial, so they’ll do another.
This is a very common tactic. Where they basically, instead of having one trial where they go through all of the charges against you, they break it up. So now he’s got what, two different venues? Two different trials. So presumably, he has to have two different legal teams. Fortunately for Trump, he has the means to defend himself in a reasonable way, but it’s been done to other people who don’t have the means to defend themselves.
And this is what we’re looking at.
Michael Patrick Leahy: As ridiculous as the first indictment was; as clearly a political, weaponized charge that the documents charge was, don’t you think that this January 6th charge that’s likely to happen is even more ludicrous and it undermines further the credibility of this prosecution?
Neil W. McCabe: Yeah. If you’re the President of the United States, you cannot be guilty of treason against yourself, right? So if he was raising an insurrection, he was president, he was the government in that moment.
That’s one point.
Another point is you cannot challenge the results of an election until it’s been certified.
So before an election is overturned, you can’t overturn an election until it’s been certified. So before it’s certified, that’s called debate.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Yeah. They’re not in favor of debate.
Neil W. McCabe: And that’s called “political theater.” That’s called “a rally.” That’s called “a protest.”
But there was on January 6th, and that morning there was nothing to overturn because Congress hadn’t certified yet.
Michael Patrick Leahy: They hadn’t convened and accepted and counted the electoral college votes.
Neil W. McCabe: So there couldn’t have been a crime.
And this is where we’re at; it doesn’t matter.
A very good friend of mine, I won’t use his name, but I went to college with him.
He was known in the newspapers as “Tom DeLay staffer number two,” okay?
And he was charged under the Honest Services Act, which was struck down by the Supreme Court as being vague and crazy, and this amazing, sort of catchall.
But his prosecution continued because they needed him to flip on DeLay, which he never did.
And I said to him, “How can they prosecute you with a law that’s been struck down by the Supreme Court?”
He’s like, “I don’t know, but, it’s happening.”
Michael Patrick Leahy: “Brazen” is the word I would use here.
Neil, let me ask you this, what is the political impact of this because I have a point of view.
What impact will this have on the likelihood that Donald J. Trump wins the GOP nomination for president?
Neil W. McCabe: Well, it becomes a lock because what happens eventually is all of the policy considerations and everything else gets put aside, and the Republican Party has to decide, is the Justice Department gonna choose our nominee?
Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, was supposed to reboot his campaign yesterday with an interview with Jake Tapper that, of course, was swamped again by a Trump news cycle.
But in that interview, DeSantis said, “I don’t want to deal with the past. I want to deal with the future. I am the future.”
He didn’t use Trump’s name, of course, but what he was really saying is, “With Trump, we’re dealing with stuff that happened four years ago, five years ago, whatever. Let’s look forward and you know, just drive on.”
But in essence, what he’s saying is if the Justice Department creates static for somebody, we’re just gonna cut them loose and say, good.
And then we’ll just deal with somebody else. So basically, the Justice Department will choose our nominee.
Michael Patrick Leahy: So that was interesting. I thought that was a mistake by DeSantis to do that.
I think basically, Vivek Ramaswamy was the only challenger to Trump who said, “This is absolutely unacceptable. This is politicization. It has to stop.”
But I thought DeSantis kind of whiffed on that.
Your thoughts?
Neil W. McCabe: Yeah, he’s trying to reframe things to justify his own candidacy and it was a very selfish, DeSantis-centric point of view – but that’s the problem with the whole candidacy because there’s no other reason for him to run for president than the fact that he wants to be President of the United States.
There’s no major policy difference between him and Trump.
So what would be different between a DeSantis presidency and a Trump presidency?
Really, at one point, DeSantis’ argument is, “I’m backed by all the donors and all the Deep State people who blocked Trump. So they just hated Trump. And if you let me go through the Deep State and the donors, they’re gonna allow me to do these policies because they just didn’t like Trump, but they like me.”
And so we’ll get another 200 miles of our wall.
It’s kind of a bizarre argument, but there’s no drive, and I think this is what people sense. There’s no drive to do things differently.
He’s basically saying, “I’ll get it done where Trump didn’t.”
Well, you know, will he?
I mean, he’s the governor of Florida.
Trump was President of the United States.
Some of these ads, some of these the things coming out of DeSantis, surrogates – it’s like, if you listen to the DeSantis surrogates, it’s almost as if Trump was working with the Chinese. Trump did not want to build a wall–
Michael Patrick Leahy: Tough stuff.
Okay; closing question for you. If the election in November is Donald Trump versus Joe Biden – with Cornell West, in some states, going for the progressive Left – who wins the electoral college vote in that? As of as it looks today?
Neil W. McCabe: Trump wins because people on both sides of the aisle will realize that this country needs closure. The voters need closure. They need to get this thing sealed off and tied up in a bow.
And for the elites – both Republican and Democratic elites – are coming to the realization that the only way to get rid of Donald Trump is to make him president.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Good thought.
All right; Neil W. McCabe with One American News Network.
Neil, thanks for joining us – we’ll talk to you next week.
Neil W. McCabe: All right, be good.
Michael Patrick Leahy: We’ll be back with more John Harris after this.
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