Trump’s IMMUNITY CLAIM Just BLEW UP IN HIS FACE

[00:00:00]We start with breaking news, and that is that President Trump has accused China of extensive interference in the 2020 US elections, and also alleged that US intelligence had covered up attempts by Beijing to damage him electorally.

[00:00:19]In an address to the nation, the US President, who lost that election to Joe Biden, repeated his claims it had been rigged against him.

[00:00:28]Dozens of investigations, audits, and court proceedings at all levels have failed to find any evidence of fraud.

[00:00:38]Opposition Democrats had warned ahead of this speech that Mr. Trump was laying the ground to interfere in November's midterm elections, in which the Republicans risk losing control of Congress.

[00:00:53]>> US spy agents >> Okay, so Trump and his lawyers made this absolutely wild argument in court. They say the president is basically untouchable. The president can do almost anything and never face criminal consequences. And when I say anything, I mean literally anything. They're arguing presidents have some kind of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts done in office. That means a president could order an assassination.

[00:01:16]A president could rob a bank. A president could commit fraud. A president could do almost any crime imaginable. And as long as they do it as president, they're immune. They can't be prosecuted. They can't be charged. They can't go to trial. And the president's lawyers actually had to defend this in court.

[00:01:31]>> Nick Johnson and Stephen McDonald, who's going to be taking us through reaction to those comments by President Trump.

[00:01:39]Let's start first with reaction from the United States. Uh Nick, there had been expectation about the comments that we heard from President Trump, but what sort of reaction has there been since those comments were made?

[00:01:56]>> Well, a lot of Democrats, as you might imagine, have have described what President Trump says is completely bogus, as as repeating false information, misinformation.

[00:02:07]But, going back to the contents of this speech, I mean, this is safe territory for Donald Trump. In in a in a world that he hasn't been able to control a narrative he hasn't been able to control over uh the Iran war over the past few months, this is going over safe >> A judge actually asked them about the assassination thing, and they basically admitted, "Yeah, under our legal theory, a president could order the military to assassinate a political opponent and never face criminal charges, never go to prison, never be held accountable."

[00:02:36]That's the argument Trump's team has been making. But, before we go any further, real quick, let's be honest, you can't really trust mainstream media anymore. That's why we built Pump Politics to bring you real stories, real context, and no corporate spin. If you want to stay ahead of the headlines, join our free newsletter. We'll send the news straight to your inbox every day.

[00:02:54]Just click the link in the description to join. And if you just want to support what we're doing, join us, be part of the community that actually cares about the truth. All right, let's get back to the video. But, the courts have absolutely demolished that argument.

[00:03:07]Multiple courts have rejected it.

[00:03:09]Appellate judges have mocked it. The Supreme Court rejected it. And it's become clear that Trump's whole immunity defense is falling apart. His broad claim of total immunity from criminal prosecution just blew up in his face. It completely backfired. Now, he's got a much narrower, much more complicated legal standard to deal with. And that standard actually exposes him to criminal prosecution for lots of conduct that he thought was protected. So, his big immunity defense that he was selling to his base, that he was saying would protect him completely, has basically failed. And that's a major development in his legal situation. In February 2024, a unanimous three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that Trump does not have presidential immunity from criminal charges. The judges wrote some pretty blunt language. They said, "We cannot accept former President Trump's claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power, which is the recognition and implementation of election results." And then they got even more direct. They said, "For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump." That's the court saying Trump is not president anymore for legal purposes. He's just a regular citizen who can be prosecuted like anybody else.

[00:04:18]That's not diplomatic language. That's a court basically saying, "Your immunity defense is over. You're prosecutable.

[00:04:24]You can be charged. You can be tried.

[00:04:26]You're citizen Trump now."

[00:04:27]And the assassination hypothetical that came up in oral arguments really illustrates how extreme Trump's legal team was pushing this. During the hearing, Trump's attorney was pressed by judge on the immunity argument. And the judge asked, "Under your theory, could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political opponent?" And Trump's lawyer basically said, "Yeah, under our legal theory, that would be possible. A president could do that and never face criminal prosecution." The judge responded, "That is absolutely chilling, and it has no basis in our Constitution." And conservative legal commentators called that moment a catastrophic blow to Trump's defense.

[00:05:02]Because once you admit your legal theory would allow presidential assassination, you've lost. You've already lost the argument. There's no coming back from that. Let's look at what actually happened in these court battles because the legal reasoning is important and it completely undermines Trump's immunity defense. The DC Circuit Court made it very clear that they thought Trump's arguments were not close to being constitutional. Legal experts told outlets that the court's reasoning very politely and very dryly basically told Trump, "You're not even close." Former prosecutor Patrick Cotter said, "None of these arguments passed the laugh test."

[00:05:32]That's a real quote from a legal analyst. The court rejected Trump's entire theory. Trump was trying to argue that if a president avoids impeachment and conviction, that president is automatically immune from criminal prosecution. That's what Trump's team was claiming. But the appeals court said, "Absolutely not." The court warned that such a rule would leave presidents free to commit all manner of crimes with impunity. That's the court is saying, if we accept your argument, you're basically saying presidents can commit crimes and never be punished. That's not what the Constitution allows. Now, the Supreme Court got involved because this was such a huge constitutional question.

[00:06:04]On July 1st, 2024, the Supreme Court issued its Trump v. United States opinion, and the court did give Trump something. The court held that Trump has absolute immunity for official acts that are within his constitutional authority.

[00:06:17]So, if Trump does something as president that's truly within presidential power, he's completely immune. That's a win for Trump. But the court also said Trump has only a presumption of immunity for other official acts. Meaning, if Trump did official things, but they're not clearly within presidential authority, the immunity isn't automatic. It has to be argued and decided. And the court was very clear that Trump has no immunity for private or non-official conduct. So, if Trump did something as a private citizen, or if he did something that wasn't part of his official duties, he's not protected. He can be prosecuted.

[00:06:47]They split the difference in a way that hurt Trump overall. The Supreme Court said, you've got some immunity for clearly constitutional acts, but everything else is open to prosecution.

[00:06:57]And now the courts have to go through all of Trump's alleged conduct on January 6th and figure out which parts are official and which parts aren't.

[00:07:05]Which parts are within presidential authority and which parts go beyond it.

[00:07:08]And that's enormously complicated, and it opens the door to prosecution of a lot of conduct. For example, Trump's communications about election fraud might be protected if they're viewed as official, but pressure in Mike Pence, that might not be official. That might be private conduct. Inciting the crowd on January 6th, that might be private political conduct, not official presidential conduct. So, the Supreme Court framework actually exposed Trump to prosecution for lots of things he thought were protected. The immunity strategy has become a double-edged sword for Trump. On one hand, the Supreme Court ruling delayed his January 6th trial past election. So, from Trump's perspective, that delay was helpful.

[00:07:45]But, on the other hand, the ruling also hardened the line that presidents are not immune for non-official acts. So, the Supreme Court basically say, "You don't have total immunity. You've got limited immunity for certain things, but lots of conduct is not protected." And that means lower courts will now scrutinize Trump's conduct very carefully. They'll have to decide what's official and what's private, what's within presidential authority and what isn't. And if they classify key actions as private or political or beyond his constitutional duties, those actions can proceed to trial. Trump can be prosecuted for them. So, his broad I'm immune from everything claim has already blown up. It's been replaced by a narrower, more complicated test. And that test actually exposes him to significant criminal liability. The immunity defense has failed in other cases, too. In December 2023, the Second Circuit Court ruled that Trump had forfeited any presidential immunity defense in E. Jean Carroll's defamation case. Trump waited 3 years to raise the immunity defense, and the court said his delay was undue. The court basically said, "You can't just sit on your immunity defense for years and then suddenly raise it. You had to raise it earlier." And the court sided with the district judge who rejected the immunity claim outright. So, in that case, Trump's immunity defense didn't work on the merits, but it also didn't work on procedure. He waited too long. He didn't raise it properly. So, he lost on timing and timing. Trump's immunity arguments are failing across multiple fronts.

[00:09:07]They're failing substantively in criminal cases. They're failing procedurally in civil cases. They're failing in appellate courts. And it's becoming clear that his immunity strategy was never going to work the way he sold it. All right. So, let me break down what all of this means for Trump and what it tells us about his legal situation. First is that the broad immunity claim completely backfired.

[00:09:27]Trump was telling people he had total immunity. He was telling his base, "Don't worry. I can't be prosecuted. The courts are going to protect me. I'm I'm from criminal prosecution." That was his message, but that's not what the court said. The court said, "No, you've got limited immunity for certain official acts, but you can be prosecuted for lots of conduct." And the appeals court was especially brutal about this. They called his arguments laughable. They said his legal theory makes no sense.

[00:09:52]They said it has no basis in the Constitution. And once a court starts calling your arguments laughable, you've lost the legal battle. You might still win, but you've lost credibility with the court, and that matters tremendously in future proceedings.

[00:10:04]Second is that the immunity defense basically narrowed Trump's ability to argue in his own defense. Under the old Trump argument, he could have said, "I'm immune from all of this. Prosecution goes away, case dismissed." But under the new standard, Trump has to argue that each specific action was an official act within his constitutional authority. He has to make that argument for pressuring Pence. He has to make it for the January 6th speech. He has to make it for all the communications about election fraud. He has to convince a court that each action was official and within his power. That's a much harder argument. That's a much more complicated argument. That gives prosecutors multiple opportunities to argue that specific conduct was not official. It was private. It was beyond his authority. It was abuse of power. So, instead of one broad immunity defense that covers everything, Trump now has to defend each action individually. That's a massive disadvantage for him legally.

[00:10:54]Third is that Trump's immunity claims have essentially telegraphed his legal strategy and exposed weaknesses.

[00:11:00]Because now everybody knows Trump thinks he needs immunity for official acts.

[00:11:04]Everybody knows Trump thinks some of his conduct might be prosecutable if it's viewed as private. And prosecutors can now focus on conduct that they think a court will view as private. They can focus on the Pence pressure because that's clearly private conduct. They can focus on the speech on January 6th because that's political rhetoric, not official presidential duty. They can focus on communications that are clearly beyond presidential authority. And Trump has to defend against all of that individually. So, the immunity strategy that was supposed to protect Trump has actually narrowed his defenses and made him more vulnerable. Now, let's talk about what a judge actually thought when Trump's lawyer admitted a president could order assassination under their legal theory. The judge said that's absolutely chilling and it has no basis in our Constitution. That judge was clearly horrified by the argument. That judge understood that if the law allowed presidents to order assassinations and never face prosecution, the Constitution is broken. The rule of law is dead.

[00:11:56]Executive power is unlimited and a judge said that from the bench a judge said this has no basis in the Constitution and that kind of judicial language has real weight. That kind of rejection carries real consequences in appellate court. Because the appeals court sees a trial judge rejecting the assassination argument and saying it has no basis in the Constitution. And then the appeals court agrees. And then that reasoning influences the Supreme Court. So Trump's absolute immunity defense was so extreme, so dangerous, so fundamentally anti-constitutional that judges kept mocking it. The Supreme Court's partial immunity ruling actually made the situation worse for Trump in some ways.

[00:12:31]Because the Supreme Court said yes, you've got immunity for some things, but no, you don't have immunity for other things. And now the lower courts have to figure out which is which. And if the lower courts decide that key conduct is non-official, then Trump can be prosecuted. He can be tried. The case proceeds. So instead of having complete immunity or no immunity, Trump's got this complicated middle ground where he's vulnerable on the conduct that courts view as non-official. And prosecutors can argue about which conduct is official and which isn't. So the Supreme Court ruling that was supposed to help Trump by giving him any immunity at all actually exposed him to prosecution by saying he's not immune for non-official conduct. That's a disaster for his legal strategy. Courts will scrutinize several categories of Trump's alleged conduct. Communications about election fraud might be classified as official because Trump was the president making policy statements, but prosecutors will argue that Trump knew the statements were false, that he was engaging in fraud, that fraud is never an official duty of the presidency. So, even if the statements were made in an official capacity, the underlying fraud makes them non-official. That argument could convince judges that those communications are not protected by immunity. Communications with Mike Pence about pressuring him to reject electors are even more clearly private conduct.

[00:13:45]Those are communications between two people about political pressure. That's not official presidential conduct.

[00:13:51]That's private pressure to overturn an election. Courts are very likely to classify those communications as non-official and therefore not protected by immunity.

[00:14:00]The speech on January 6th to the crowd at the ellipse is also questionable as official conduct. Trump might argue that as president he was making a political speech protected by immunity, but prosecutors will argue that the speech was incitement to violence. That incitement to violence is not an official presidential duty. That January 6th was not an official act and courts may well agree. So, Trump's got huge exposure on that speech. So, what's the reality here?

[00:14:26]The reality is Trump's immunity defense has failed. His broad claim that he's immune from criminal prosecution has been rejected by multiple courts. His legal theory has been called laughable and unconstitutional. His arguments have been rejected as having no basis in the Constitution. His attempt to claim total immunity has been narrowed to limited immunity for certain official acts. And that narrower immunity actually exposes him to prosecution for loss of conduct.

[00:14:52]The assassination argument backfired so spectacularly that it undermined his entire immunity theory. And now Trump is in the position of having to defend individual actions as official or non-official, rather than claiming a blanket immunity. That's a much weaker legal position. That's a much more vulnerable position. That's a position where prosecutors can win. And that's why his immunity claim blew up in his face. It blew up because it was so extreme. It blew up because courts rejected the logic. It blew up because the Supreme Court framework actually exposed him rather than protecting it.

[00:15:23]It blew up because the legal arguments were so bad that judges started mocking them. And once judges start mocking your legal arguments, you're in serious trouble. You've lost the case. You might still fight on, but you've already lost credibility with the courts. You've already telegraphed that your legal theory is weak, and that matters enormously in criminal prosecutions.

[00:15:41]That matters for your trial. That matters for your ability to get a jury to believe your arguments. So, Trump's immunity defense that was supposed to save him has basically destroyed his legal strategy. It's blown up in his face. And now he's much more vulnerable to prosecution than he was before. And this immunity ruling matters for something bigger than just Trump. It matters for the rule of law in America.

[00:16:02]It matters for whether presidents are subject to the law like everyone else, or whether they're above the law. For years, Trump has been arguing that presidents have special powers.

[00:16:11]Presidents have special protections.

[00:16:13]Presidents can't be prosecuted for things they do in office, but the courts have rejected that argument. The courts have said, "No. Presidents are subject to the law. Presidents can be prosecuted for crimes. Presidents are not above the law." That's a crucial ruling for democracy. That's a crucial ruling for the rule of law because if presidents were truly immune from prosecution for official acts, presidents would be above the law. Presidents could commit any crime they wanted and never face consequences. But courts have rejected that theory. Courts have said, "Presidents are subject to the law like everyone else." The appeals court specifically rejected the argument that avoiding impeachment means immunity from prosecution. Trump's theory was, "If I get impeached and acquitted, or if Congress doesn't impeach me, then I'm automatically immune from prosecution."

[00:16:56]But the appeals court said that's not how the Constitution works. The appeals court said impeachment is a political remedy. Criminal prosecution is a legal remedy. They're separate. You can avoid impeachment and still be prosecuted criminally. You can be acquitted in an impeachment trial and still be convicted in a criminal trial. The two processes are independent. So, Trump can't claim that avoiding impeachment gives him immunity from criminal prosecution. That argument has been completely rejected by the courts. And the appeals court's language about Trump becoming citizen Trump is really important because that's a court saying for purposes of this criminal case, you're not the president.

[00:17:32]You're just a regular person. You have no special status. You have no special protections. You're subject to the law like everybody else. That's devastating language for a defendant. That's language that tells juries, this guy doesn't get to claim special status.

[00:17:45]He's just a regular person who broke the law.

[00:17:48]That's the kind of language that makes conviction more likely.

[00:17:51]That's the kind of language that destroys a defendant's credibility. The assassination hypothetical is also incredibly important because it exposed the absolute ridiculousness of Trump's legal theory. Once a court hears that under Trump's immunity theory, a president could order an assassination and never be prosecuted, that court is done with the argument. That court is not going to accept a legal theory that allows presidential assassination. That court is going to reject it completely.

[00:18:16]And appellate courts that read that hypothetical are going to reject it even more strongly. So, Trump's own lawyers created the worst possible hypothetical to argue for their case. They basically defeated themselves by admitting their legal theory would allow assassination.

[00:18:29]And this matters not just for the criminal case, but for how Trump supporters view the legal system because Trump has been telling his supporters he has absolute immunity. He's been saying the courts will protect him. He's been saying he's untouchable. But the courts have basically said no. The courts have said you're vulnerable. The courts have said you can be prosecuted and that contradicts what Trump has been telling his supporters. So, now Trump supporters have to reconcile what Trump promised them with what the courts actually ruled. And that causes problems for Trump's narrative. That causes problems for his ability to keep his supporters energized and believing in him. The Supreme Court's partial immunity ruling is also important because it shows the Supreme Court was not on Trump's side.

[00:19:09]The Supreme Court gave him some immunity for certain things, but the Supreme Court also made clear he doesn't have immunity for lots of conduct. The Supreme Court split the baby, which means the Supreme Court didn't fully endorse Trump's legal theory. The Supreme Court didn't say he's immune from everything. The Supreme Court said he's immune from some things. That's a partial victory at best and it's a partial loss that exposes him to prosecution for significant conduct. So, the immunity defense has completely blown up. The strategy failed. The legal arguments were rejected. The appeals court mocked the reasoning. The Supreme Court narrowed the scope and now Trump is much more vulnerable to criminal prosecution than he was when he started pursuing this immunity defense. In fact, Trump might have been better off not pursuing the immunity defense at all because now the courts have made very clear that he's not immune for private conduct. They've drawn a bright line between official and private conduct and prosecutors can now focus on conduct that falls on the private side of that line. So, the immunity strategy that was supposed to protect Trump has actually made his legal exposure worse. Trump's immunity claim was supposed to be his get out of jail free card. It was supposed to shield him from prosecution entirely, but instead it's become a road map for prosecutors on what to prosecute. It's exposed weaknesses in his legal position. It's created a legal standard that actually makes him more vulnerable rather than less. And it's poisoned his credibility with judges by forcing him to argue that presidents can order assassinations. That argument is so extreme that no court will ever trust any argument Trump makes about immunity again. The assassination hypothetical has basically destroyed Trump's ability to argue for immunity on any narrow ground because judges will always remember that Trump's team thought the Constitution allows presidential assassination.

[00:20:51]That's the reality of where Trump stands on immunity. His broad claim has been rejected. His narrower claim has been accepted, but in a way that exposes him to prosecution. His legal strategy has backfired completely and the courts have made very clear that he is subject to the law like everybody else. He is citizen Trump now. That's what the court said. And that means he can be prosecuted. He can be tried. He can be convicted. His immunity defense has completely blown up in his face. And that changes everything about his legal situation going forward. This is a decisive legal defeat for Trump, no matter how he tries to spin it.