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00:00Let's get some analysis on this now. Richard Johnson, US politics lecturer at Queen Mary
00:05University joins us now from London. Good to have you with us, Richard. So expecting
00:10Wang Ma-chan to issue an unconditional discharge in the sentencing for Trump today. Just explain
00:17to us what that means exactly.
00:19What that means is that the state of New York has determined that it's not in the interest
00:23of the state to incarcerate the felon. But this is not an overturning of the jury's decision.
00:32Trump will remain a felon. Being a felon carries certain penalties. It would restrict Trump
00:40from ever serving on a jury in the state of New York. It could restrict his access if
00:46he wanted to buy a firearm and actually could also restrict his travel. Now, this was a
00:53particularly curious one because Trump is not the first president to have a criminal
00:58record. George W. Bush had a criminal record. But for a misdemeanor, he had pled guilty
01:03to drunken driving back in the 1970s. And when Bush was elected, there was some discussion
01:08that he was applying for waivers to gain visa free access to travel to Canada. Now, I'm
01:15not sure how serious that ended up being, whether Canada would have looked into that.
01:19But when you travel abroad and you get visa waivers to certain countries that are friendly
01:24to the United States, you have to declare on that that you don't have a criminal record.
01:29And Donald Trump, of course, would have to declare that he was a felon, which would complicate
01:36that. So we'll have to see in practice whether that means anything. But Trump remains a felon,
01:42even if he does get this unconditional discharge.
01:46Yeah, Trump very much not going off scot-free here. Richard, we saw from that Supreme Court
01:52ruling that two conservative justices sided with liberal justices to go ahead with that
02:00sentencing from Wang Man-shan today. The fact that that happened does go some way to show
02:05that nobody is above the law, doesn't it?
02:09Well, yes. I mean, the Supreme Court is a court that is strongly shaped by the ideological
02:17interpretations that the justices apply to the Constitution. And that tends to align quite
02:23strongly with the party of the president who appointed them. But I think it isn't accurate
02:29to say that the Supreme Court members are purely partisans in robes. That is to say that
02:35they act purely on the basis of what the interest of the party is that appoints them.
02:40Some might form judgments that are closer to that than others. But basically, once you're on
02:46the Supreme Court, you're there for life. And it's extremely rare in American history for
02:54Congress to remove a member of the court. They have to go through the impeachment process,
02:58which would require two thirds consensus in the Senate, which would be unlikely to be found
03:02for a particular judge on the basis of their political leaning. So in a sense, they are much
03:07more insulated and protected from partisan punishment, say, in the way that a member of
03:14Congress is. If they step out of line against Trump, they could lose a primary election.
03:19Well, that isn't something that Supreme Court justices have to think about. So they do exercise
03:24greater independence from the party that put them into office than I think sometimes people expect.
03:31And Trump has recently claimed that Wan Malshan is trying to embarrass him. Do you think that
03:36this is an embarrassment for Trump? How embarrassing is this for him?
03:42Of course, it is embarrassing for, I think, anyone to have a criminal conviction,
03:49particularly given the circumstances of this criminal conviction, which are rooted in
03:55allegations about marital infidelity that Trump denies. But of course, that's not quite what the
04:03jury came to believe. Whether this has larger political ramifications, I'm less sure. I don't
04:13think that Trump supporters have shown that they are particularly moved by this in any way. Trump
04:20claims that this is lawfare against him, that this is a stitch up, have been received quite
04:27well by Republican voters. And so I think this is another example of how the United States is
04:34such a strongly divided country at the moment, and that people interpret the events around them
04:41through a partisan lens. And so Democrats will look at this and it will confirm to them that
04:47they view judges on suited character to be president of the United States. And Republicans
04:52will look at this and see Democratic elected prosecutors moving against a president they
04:58didn't like in a jurisdiction that's heavily Democratic. And at the end of the day,
05:03I think in terms of the political ramifications, it'll be a bit of a wash.
05:08And of course, Richard, this wasn't the only case against Trump. It's the only one to have
05:12reached a conclusion now. Tell us how unprecedented it is for Trump to now be
05:16returning to the White House after effectively defying four criminal cases. Well, it is remarkable
05:25how Trump has been able to navigate the legal jeopardy that he faced. Of course, running for
05:31president did provide him with a degree of protection because at the very least, his
05:38presidential campaigns caused the different courts to delay proceedings in some matters.
05:46But also Trump was strongly helped by the intervention of the Supreme Court in the
05:50summer and the Trump v. United States case, which said that the president is immune,
05:55not just this president, any president is immune from prosecution for official acts that they
06:01conducted as president. Now, this particular New York case is of a different character because this
06:07refers to actions that were alleged and found to have taken place in the 2016 presidential election
06:14before Trump was elected president. But the actions say relating to the 6th of January 2021
06:22and so on, these pertain to when Trump was president and the Supreme Court has given him
06:27immunity. That is quite extraordinary. Now, what I would say on the other side is, of course,
06:31Joe Biden may be grateful for that Supreme Court case in the coming months and years, as it does
06:38protect him from legal lawfare or actions taken against him by Republican prosecutors who may be
06:48unhappy with the things that he did when he was president. And finally, Richard, I did want to
06:53get your thoughts on this so-called expansionist agenda that Trump has been pushing in recent days,
06:58talking about taking over Greenland, absorbing Canada. Tell us your thoughts on this agenda that
07:07he's been pushing. Well, I think in many ways, this is classic Trump negotiation tactics. Trump
07:14has known throughout his business career, this long predates his political career, that you ask
07:21for the impossible and then you might get more than you ever bargained that you would plausibly
07:26have gotten otherwise. And I look at the wild ambitions of Trump with respect to Greenland or
07:36Panama or Canada, and I think few expect that any of those will become territories of the United
07:44States. But what it has done is, A, it's headline grabbing. So it has brought attention to certain
07:53issues that Trump cares deeply about, whether that's trade or competition in the case of China,
08:00or competition with China in the case of the Panama Canal, or U.S. strategic defense in the
08:07case of Greenland. And secondly, what it's done, I suppose, is it has put pressure on the respective
08:14governments that are in charge of those territories to consider how or to raise the
08:22political stakes against them, should they not take action in a direction closer to what Trump
08:27wants to take. You know, Trump could have said to Denmark, I want you to increase your defense
08:32spending. And maybe Denmark would have. But if Trump says, well, if you don't increase your
08:36defense spending, we're going to take Greenland. Well, it's not likely that Trump would take
08:41Greenland, but it shows to Denmark how serious, how important this issue is to Trump. And it may
08:47cause them to move a bit more in the direction of Trump or that Trump wants to see them.
08:52Richard Johnson, U.S. politics lecturer,
08:54thanks so much for joining us. Really good to get your insight there.