Navalny’s Death, Trump’s Verdict, and Your Beds

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Alexei Navalny’s Death in Russia

  • Trump Found Liable for Civil Fraud in New York

  • Outside of Politics: Making the Bed Part 2

Thank you for being a part of our community! We couldn't do it without you. To support the show, please subscribe to our Premium content on our Patreon page or Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, or share the word about our work in your circles. Sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Instagram to keep up with everything happening in the world of Pantsuit Politics. You can find information and links for all our sponsors on our website.

EPISODE RESOURCES

ALEXEI NAVLANY DIES

TRUMP FOUND LIABLE FOR CIVIL FRAUD IN NEW YORK

This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.  

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:00:30] Hello and welcome. We're back after a long weekend and there is a lot to catch up on. We've got a truly-- I was going to try to do a Donald Trump impression here, Beth. Huge-- that's not it. Huge...  

Beth [00:00:40] I can't do it.  

Sarah [00:00:42] I can't.  

[00:00:42] If I could do it, I would do it but I cannot.  

Sarah [00:00:43] I tried guys. Civil judgment against Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization. And then on the back of struggles to fund aid to Ukraine and the U.S. in a very difficult conversation in Europe about the threat Putin poses to the continent, we received news over the weekend that the main opposition leader in Russia, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in a gulag outside the Arctic Circle. So we're going to talk about all that today and follow up on our bed making conversation from last week that y'all could not stop talking about.  

Beth [00:01:10] Every time I picked up my phone this weekend, all my messages were about bed making. I don't even know what to do with this. I don't. What is life anymore? We know that so many of you are thinking about Alabama's Supreme Court and in vitriol fertilization and reproductive rights in general, and we are thinking about that too. We are thinking deeply about it because that is a very sensitive, complex topic where the scope of that topic can quickly get out of hand. So we're just taking a minute here to consider that, and we will come back and discuss that with you on Friday. I want you to know that we are aware and we care about it, and we will be here to talk about it on Friday. We just need some processing time before we do that.  

Sarah [00:01:57] Another space of an enormous amount of our processing time is on our premium channel. Beth has been covering Donald Trump's ongoing legal morass on More to Say. She's going to continue that and tackle the appeals process today on More to Say. So we're going to continue to direct you there for more in-depth legal coverage. And then in the newsletter on Friday, Beth, you are going to put together a little ketchup, shall we say.  

Beth [00:02:24] I just want you to really feel when you see a headline about what's going on with Donald Trump in court to think, oh, I understand where this plugs into the big picture. I see the larger map of what's going on. I know what I can categorize as important and what I can skip over for now. And so all the work I do on more to say is really with that orientation of saying, like, I want to walk with you through this and make you feel like you've got it. You are not lost in it. You've got it.  

Sarah [00:02:54] And of course we can help you in person as well. We are still booking speaking events for 2024. If you are struggling with employees and they're talking politics, or you are struggling with how to tackle this very important election year inside your nonprofit or your university or your classroom, please reach out to us at Hello@pantsuitpoliticsshow.com to learn more about our in-person events. We not only take a different approach to the news here on the podcast, we take a different approach to speaking, and we can do so in your community. So let us know if you have a need. Up next, we're going to talk about Alexei Navalny.  

[00:03:28] Music Interlude.  

[00:03:37] Beth, I thought before we talked about Alexei Navalny's death, we talk a little bit about his life and why his death is a big deal. So I didn't know this, but he began his career in-- what do we want to say? Civic life. Not that there's a lot of civic life in Russia. But in opposition, I guess. An opposition life by protesting rampant overdevelop in Moscow. He was born in the suburbs of Moscow. He was this professional. He started protesting the over-development. And over time, that shifted into more anti-corruption posture. I thought this was so interesting. As he began his anti-corruption journey, he would buy minority shares in companies run by oligarchs. He would then just go to the board meetings and ask them embarrassing questions and expose their corruptions. And the most interesting part to me was that they had board meeting and said they will allow people to show up to. I mean, this is not an outlandish approach, people do this in the United States; they buy shares and then they would show up and challenge Elon Musk compensation package. So that's not a unique strategy. I just thought it was interesting that they had meetings they'd let him come to at all.  

Beth [00:04:45] Well, his whole trajectory is remarkable because, as you said, he wasn't building on the well-worn playbook that people in the United States who are opposing the prevailing political powers use. He was having to operate in a climate where a lot of information was suppressed, where the press is constrained in brutal ways, constantly. And so to find these openings, to expose corruption and to find opportunities to share that message and to do that ground floor, like, I'm running for mayor, kind of work to start to build a legitimate, sustainable opposition party was remarkable. And he did it imperfectly. And there's been a lot of commentary about some of the anti-immigrant things he used to say. But when you look back at his early life, first of all, he is a product of his culture, as we all are. And he really evolved because as he started to build these practices, he got connected more to liberal democratic ideas, and he started to infuse those in these campaigns. But he was still always trying to say not to elite Russians, but to blue collar Russians, look at what your government is taking from you. And until you care about this, it will continue to do it.  

Sarah [00:06:15] Yeah. It was this weird paradox. And that's what I'm getting at with that. He could just show up to these meetings. Because in some ways there's so much suppression. You don't have a free press. You don't have civil society in any real manner. But at the same time, it's so corrupt and it's so everywhere. It takes very little digging to find it. And I think that seemed to be his emotional reaction in the beginning. It's just kind of like this mixture of disgust and almost frustration that you can't even hide it; it's so obvious what you're doing. I read this New Yorker profile about some of his work in the 2010s, which is when he really starts to take off on this anti-corruption project. He found an organization, he gets this team of lawyers, they start analyzing and digging and doing all this stuff. We use the word corruption a lot. We ask it to do a lot of work around the world. But when you really zoom in on some of the things that he was finding, like in this piece he talked about a major Russian bank that was owned mostly by the government, had purchased 30 oil drilling rigs from a Chinese company at a 50% markup and then this intermediary in Cyprus kept the $150 million difference. But he was, like, they couldn't just shove 30 oil drilling rigs somewhere, they had to go somewhere. They bought them. They didn't need them. They bought them at a markup, which is even worse. And so he goes out into this remote region of Russia and finds this field of oil drilling rigs, looks like a crop out in this snowy region where there's no oil. And he's like, see. And he really got it into video. We all remember that video of Putin's Summer Palace or whatever it is. So he gets better and better at not only finding what's there for everyone to see, but letting everybody see it.  

Beth [00:08:06] And he is still community organizer level when he makes Putin's radar. He runs for mayor. He loses badly, but he raises enough money and establishes enough support and shows enough of this capacity to make people pay attention. Enough of this charisma that Putin immediately starts going after him, immediately starts bringing ridiculous legal charges against him. He gets placed on house arrest, and now Putin has really made an enemy. Because Navalny, I think, began wanting to talk with people about the system, kind of wanting people to see what was around them. I think about how you tell the story of the fish in the water. And I think he began by saying, hang on, let's see the water here for what it is and figure out what we want to do about it. But then Putin engages him so brutally, so fast that Navalny starts to really train his focus on Putin.  

Sarah [00:09:11] So at the same time he's making all these enemies, he's also making friends. He's finding supporters not just in Russia, but he's getting the attention of the international community. You have all these human rights organizations and bodies in Europe saying these charges are trumped up. This trial wasn't fair. He decides to run for president, which of course, they are not going to allow him to do. And then I think what's so interesting is this smart voting strategy he formulates in 2018 and 2020. Because they weren't just at this point allowing him to run, they're not even allowing his supporters or anybody linked with this opposition party to run for. Just like city council in Moscow. And so they're just coming down on him like a hammer. There's a moment where he gets disinfectant thrown in his face and he loses sight. I think it affects sight in one of his eyes. Then at the same time, he launches the smart voting app around 2018, 2020, which is so interesting. I start to dig in how it worked. And I thought, man, this is applicable far outside just Russia. Which is basically, the United Russia party, the Putin's party is not going to allow anybody to win. And sometimes that's made easier because there's just such a wide array of parties and candidates in this parliamentary system. And so what Navalny did is he said, "We're just going to vote for whoever. It doesn't matter the party, it doesn't matter the candidate." It's just we're going to sort of coalesce around whoever is opposing United Russia. I think probably the smart part about this, instead of having to increase your risk, increase your danger by trying to do some sort of research, by trying to look into-- there's no civil society, there's no free press in order to figure out. You can just open his app and say, "Who is Navalny telling me to vote for in even local races far out in the regions of Russia?" And it worked. Worked so well that Google and Apple took it off the damn App Store. So I think that's when they really see that he's got enough support and he's got enough organization, and he's figuring out technology across like 225 electoral districts to really solidify this opposition in lots of different ways to Putin.  

Beth [00:11:23] I know we will talk more about how we're processing this in relationship to the United States shortly, but this, to me, is such a clarifying reality check that the opposition in Russia does not have the luxury of ideological purity. They do not have the luxury of organizing around one specific party or choosing candidates that really reflect their values. You so have to triage here that the first and the only thing is just to say, people other than United Russia exist. We want any leadership to just come in and disrupt this choke hold on power that Putin's party has.  

Sarah [00:12:11] Yeah, you're barely getting to disruption at this point. We're just like a voice, a moment, a bubbling up at all would be nice. Anything at all. So this feels like this strategy is literally anything. And I always feel like that's the tenor of everything Navalny said or did. Was anything, literally anything up until the point of anything in the face of grave danger and risk. Because he launches this app in 2020, he is then poisoned on a domestic flight that same year inside Russia. They emergency land, they get him to Germany where German officials and U.N. officials and all these investigative teams over the course of many months confirm he was poisoned with a Russian nerve agent, which, of course, Putin denies. And then he says, I'm going to go back. I'm going to go back to Russia and face all these trumped up charges and these prison sentences. This is a quote I read where he said, "It was never a question of whether to return or not, simply because I never left. I ended up in Germany after arriving in an intensive care unit for one reason, they tried to kill me." And so he goes back. He's arrested the second he lands and sent off to this Siberian gulag. They then move him up to the Arctic Circle, basically. He's sick. He doesn't get treatment. He goes on hunger strikes. The suffering is so intense and so terrible. And so we received the news on Friday that he was on a walk, he collapsed. And the Russian government officials claim that he died of sudden death syndrome.  

Beth [00:13:40] Sudden death syndrome. Very precise.  

Sarah [00:13:43] Yeah.  

Beth [00:13:44] We lack specific details about how he died. We'll probably never get a comprehensive understanding of exactly how he died.  

Sarah [00:13:53] He died because they killed him.  

Beth [00:13:54] And I think that that is the essential fact here. And his wife, Yulia Navalny, came out and said, Make no mistake, that they killed him. Putin killed him. He died because he fought this regime. He went back to Russia because he loves Russia and because he was never going to give Putin the satisfaction of living in exile. That's really what Putin was counting on, right? When he lands in that ICU in Germany. Putin thinks, well, I've disposed of this problem because not only will he stay in Germany, but also the West will rally around him. And then I can tell Russians that he's an agent of the West, that he is there to stir up agitation among Russian expats and from afar, tell you what you should do here at the bidding of the West. But Navalny was never going to allow himself to be discredited in that way. And that's why he went back. And you can see in so many places where he said, I did not have the luxury of being safe. My country required the sacrifice of me. The only way to continue to expose it is to expose and he basically served himself up and said, they will kill me eventually, but they need to kill me because that's a piece of breaking this cycle.  

Sarah [00:15:10] I just can't imagine. I mean, I cannot imagine the strength of will and the courage and bravery. This man had a wife he clearly loved and who loved him. He had two children. He was only 47 years old. He had this cause that he was so dedicated to and the suffering. There was a quote I read where he said, "I know I'm not the first to suffer in this type of way, but I have to continue in order to try to be the last." And I think it's hard for us to comprehend. And when we put the pieces together, I wonder what this means. I wonder why now. There were protests. Over 400 Russians were detained trying to express some sort of support for Navalny. Now he's now basically created a martyr. We have Ukrainian cities falling. We have Europe at the Munich Security Conference scared. I don't know another word for it. Rightly scared that they feel abandoned by the United States that cannot agree on any type of aid to Ukraine. The Ukrainian military and government and nation is exhausted and beat down. And so I'm trying to see the broader picture here of why now? Or maybe they just drained this man's body so much it gave out. I mean, I don't know and I don't know if we'll ever know, but I think it increases that sense of fear that Putin is dangerous to anyone who opposes him inside his country, absolutely, and outside of his country as well. Which I'm sure, Beth, is something that Tucker Carlson really pressed him on during their interview.  

Beth [00:17:00] I had take a deep breath about Tucker Carlson. Just in general, when I hear Tucker Carlson's name, I have to take a deep breath.  

Sarah [00:17:05] I would think so, especially in contrast to the type of bravery, character and risk that we just talked about with Alexei Navalny. I hesitate to even put these two in the same segment.  

Beth [00:17:19] I agree. I also want to say, before I say what I have to say about Tucker Carlson, that in addition to detaining people who have just been trying to honor the memory and life of Alexei Navalny, they are burning flowers that people are leaving at memorials. They are burning flowers that people are leaving following someone's death. That is the level of repression that is happening in Russia.  

Sarah [00:17:49] And they detained another American dual national.  

Beth [00:17:53] Meanwhile, we are coming up on a year since Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, was detained in Russia and has been kept in a prison. There is so much to say about Vladimir Putin and his regime. For Tucker Carlson to journey to Russia for no ostensible purpose other than uplifting Putin in the world, is one of the most despicable things I have ever witnessed. It was not an act of journalism. Putin himself has come out to say that what Tucker was doing was not journalism. Tucker allowed him to filibuster. Tucker went on a state tour. This just allowed Putin to recycle a playbook that Russia has been using dating back to the Cold War. Well, you hear how terrible it is, but let's show you this train station that's really nice. And Tucker walks around the train station and the grocery store going, well, this is really great. And he says that his time in Russia radicalized him against the United States current leaders. And he talks about how much better the grocery store is in Russia because of inflation in the United States. And, Sarah, I could not help but watch clips of this and remember a version of Tucker Carlson who, in response to much less severe criticism of the United States, took the attitude of then pack your bags if you don't like it here.  

Sarah [00:19:34] That's exactly what I was going to say.  

Beth [00:19:36] It's a big world out there, go find a place you do like. And, honestly, my feeling right now is Tucker, if you like it in Russia so much, why don't you get yourself a nice little place next to Edward Snowden? I bet they've got a studio and a desk ready for you at RT. But he'll never do it, because Tucker is smart enough to know that the second he looks into the camera with that fake incredulity that he does all the time and says one word out of line against Putin or someone Putin is close to, they will not cancel his show, they will cancel his life. They will kill him for it. So to do the work of this regime but always from a safe distance like this, is absolutely the most selfish, greedy, hypocritical, disgusting thing I can imagine.  

Sarah [00:20:30] Because let me tell you something. Not only does he know that intellectually, I promise you, he felt it in his body while he was there. I do not believe for one millisecond you sit across from somebody like Vladimir Putin and don't feel the evil, which is not a word I use a very often. I was so struck when I read Hillary Clinton's book with Louise Penny of how she would talk about, obviously from her own experience as secretary of state, of the physical presence of many of these authoritarian dictators. It's a feeling you have. Or reading some of the Obama staffers about going to China and going to these places where you know you're being spied on and you know that you're at risk. Tucker is a piece of shit, but he's not a fool. And he felt that. He knew that. Tell me once that somebody in that team didn't think, what if they detain us? What if they just changed their minds? And to do all that, to know all that, to feel it (he felt it) and then to come back and put that shit on the internet, I do not know how he sleeps at night.  

Beth [00:21:43] Well, I had the immense privilege of going to Russia in college on a choir trip.  

Sarah [00:21:49] I'm jealous because I ain't going now, and I would have liked to seen it.  

Beth [00:21:51] And I've said to my kids, I will probably never have another opportunity to go to Russia. So this was a few months after September 11th. We weren't sure that we were going to get to go on the trip, because it was so fresh, and we flew to the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, and we got off the plane and I saw the most intense poverty I've ever seen driving from the airport into the city. And then when I got into the city, I saw some of the world's greatest art, an unbelievable ballet, buildings constructed with gold. So it was the most extreme income inequality in a small space that I have ever observed. And even back then, you could feel that this was a more restrictive society than ours. You could feel the constraint that people experience. And that was a relatively open time compared to where we are now. When we left Saint Petersburg, we got on a train and Russian personnel on the train guards took our passports and held them for the entire journey. We took the train from Russia into Estonia and they held our passports the entire time, and they brought dogs in to search every single compartment of the train. There were so many moments on that trip where I felt in my body what you're describing, and I was nowhere near Vladimir Putin and it was nowhere near the situation it is today in 2024. And so for him to get on TV and try to say to the American people, because Joe Biden maybe overheated the economy to prevent a depression coming out of Covid, Russia seems way better than your everyday life, give me a break.  

Sarah [00:23:48] Yeah. Pack your bags. I wouldn't miss you, Tucker. Go on over there, buddy. Have fun. Well, Beth, Tucker was not the only one who could not bring himself to criticize Vladimir Putin after the death of Alexei Navalny. Donald Trump couldn't either, but he did have a tough weekend. Let's talk about that up next.  

[00:24:09] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:24:20] Beth, Judge Engoron has reached the end of his journey with Donald J. Trump in the civil fraud trial brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. He's been at it a while, and he made a decision. Here's was what I would describe as a big decision. He found that the Trump Organization was liable for fraudulently inflating the value of their assets.  

Beth [00:24:47] Can I take us back a little bit in this journey? Because I think this is a case that is still not well understood. It's complicated. It's very specific to the state of New York. Attorney General Letitia James brought this lawsuit under a New York statute that came about because New York is really an international financial center and because New York, as that international financial center, was experiencing a level of fraud and grifting and con artistry that was unusual in the world.  

Sarah [00:25:27] Yeah. Because I think there is that disconnect you're like, wait, if they were defrauding the banks, what's New York's investment in this? What is New York coming and saying, this is how you harm the state of New York. I think that's a very important connective tissue.  

Beth [00:25:39] Exactly. And so New York passes the statute and then over time, continues to tighten this statute up to say, look, as a state, we do not exist to allow people to come here and take advantage of each other. We have an interest as a state in a marketplace that operates as transparently and as fairly and as accountably as possible. And so this is brought by the attorney general in her role as the enforcer of that state statute. And it goes to court, not as a criminal matter. Trump was never going to go to jail in this case. And it goes differently than a lot of civil matters. It is an action in equity. It is where the state legislature has said we as a state are invested in fairness, and we have authorized courts to get into situations that are running unfairly and make it right. And that's why there wasn't a jury here. There was a lot of chatter on social media that Trump's lawyer screwed up and didn't request a jury. And the judge came out this week and explained, no, that's not what happened. They never requested a jury, but if they had, I would have said no because it's not that kind of action. This was not about damages. It was about fairness. My ability to impose a penalty here is to impose a penalty, and is to put in place mechanisms to say you cannot continue to use the state of New York as a canvas on which to do your fraud.  

Sarah [00:27:13] And he seemed particularly outraged that they just wouldn't admit it. That it was clearly established over and over again that they went to Deutsche Bank and they went to these other organizations and said this piece of property is worth X, when in fact it was worth Y.  

Beth [00:27:32] And Y would be like 4 to 10 times less than X. It wasn't a little bit of exaggeration. There's a term in the law called puffery, where everyone to some extent inflates the value of things. All commercials are based on puffery, right? This is the best thing ever.  

Sarah [00:27:50] The best cup of coffee in New York City.  

Beth [00:27:51] That's puffery. That's fine. You don't have to be able to validate every single thing you do. But in financial statements, business records under New York law being transmitted for the purpose of securing enormous sums of cash so that he could develop and renovate and purchase new properties.  

Sarah [00:28:10] And procure those enormous amounts of cash at favorable interest rates, because you were putting up collateral based on fraudulent estimates.  

Beth [00:28:19] He took these values and juiced them to a point that just doesn't pass the straight face test. There would be consistent appraisals within a range of values, and he would put an exponent on that range of values like you said, Sarah, in order to get not only the deal done, but the deal done on the best terms possible. And he did it over and over for years. This was the business model. It makes me think about-- I love that part of Erin Brockovich where the lawyer comes in to this room with her, and she said, "I don't mean to get off on the wrong foot." And Erin Brockovich says, "That's all you got, lady? Two wrong feet and fucking ugly shoes." that's how this opinion reads. That was the business model. That's all they had, were these inflated values to keep the cash coming.  

Sarah [00:29:09] Well, and so I think that's what you see in this judgment. Is how do we not only punish you for tacking an extra zero on $1 million estimate. So that's how you get $355 million. It's a lot of money. I spent a lot of time on those fun websites that help you conceptualize millions of dollars. That's just because I wanted to really soak it up. I wanted to feel it. You know what I mean? We throw these numbers around a lot and you forget how much a million is, and you definitely forget about how much half a billion is. And I just wanted to really feel it, you know what I'm saying?  

Beth [00:29:43] I do.  

Sarah [00:29:43] I wanted to feel it. And I think the other part of this is how he's basically saying this was your business model, you had no other business model and so therefore you can't run the business anymore. You're out. You can't do this. So he cannot run any New York company for three years. His sons can't run for two years. They cannot be officers of their own company, which again is basically just hype. That was the whole strategy the whole time. Donald Trump's personality plus a lot of hype. And so it's now under the control of a court appointed monitor, Barbara Jones, who I did think we should say a little prayer for, but also be happy for her because she's making so much money. They have to pay her millions and millions of dollars to do this which is so great.  

Beth [00:30:27]  It is very expensive to screw up your business to a level that someone has to come in from the outside and run it at the behest of the court. That is not a good strategy.  

Sarah [00:30:39] Because you have to pay an ongoing rate. It's not cheap to run a company like the Trump Company, this multi-million dollar real estate company. What are we going to do? Ask her to do it for free? It's not a volunteer position.  

Beth [00:30:49] And to take it in a posture where she's got to really sort some things out. She has to figure out can this company operate if it is operating fairly and transparently and accountably under the laws of the state of New York?  

Sarah [00:31:03] Well, I thought this sentence from a New York Times piece was perfect and accurate. "The company is, in fact, hundreds of separate companies that Mr. Trump ran by instinct and whim." Yeah, that sounds about right to me.  

Beth [00:31:12] And he made a lot of it. But the point is, in the state of New York, the whim part has to be based on something legitimate. The whim cannot stand for web of lies and deception.  

Sarah [00:31:27] So if you're wondering how you keep seeing $450 million and I just said $355 million, it is because they have to pay prejudgment interest. So you build up a lot of interest on a couple hundred million dollars. And that's been building up over the years long run of the civil trial. And so now he's going to have to pay that plus interest.  

Beth [00:31:51] Because, again, the posture of the judge here is to do equity. It is not to figure out if the banks were hurt or the specific insurance companies were hurt. It is to say these actions were an affront to the state of New York and the way we want business done here. And so what can you do to right the wrongs you have perpetrated on our business environment? And that's how you get to a number that's this big.  

Sarah [00:32:21] And, of course, that's on top of the $86 million judgment he has from E. Jean Carroll's defamation case. It's just a lot. It's a lot of money, Beth. 

Beth [00:32:30] We're hovering here at half a billion right now.  

Sarah [00:32:33] So much money. He said recently during a deposition that he had about $400 million in cash. He sold off a bunch of stuff when he stopped being present to build up his cash reserves. But I think they're going to take a hit, Beth. I think those cash reserves are going to take a hit.  

Beth [00:32:48] He cannot use campaign donations to pay these judgments. He is paying his lawyers based on campaign donations, principally right now, it seems, from all their public reporting.  

Sarah [00:33:00] I've got some interesting numbers on that. Put a pin in that.  

Beth [00:33:03] But he cannot use donations to pay the judgments. And so how he is going to organize his personal finances to deal with all this is going to be very interesting.  

Sarah [00:33:12] Because we know that's what everybody's wondering; is he actually going to have to pay this? So Beth is going to do a More to Say on the appeals process, on the bonding situation and all that fun. Delightful is the word I would personally use, Beth, when talking about this judgment and how it might play out. Now, he's not going to go bankrupt because a lot of his net worth comes from his properties. But I just love that even if he wants to sell something to pay the judgment, he's got to go talk to Barbara Jones about it.  

Beth [00:33:40] He has to talk to Barbara Jones. I don't know how the new shoe enterprise is organized. I'm interested in that as well.  

Sarah [00:33:49] I believe that is a campaign fundraiser.  

Beth [00:33:51] Is that a campaign situation, the $300 plus shoes?  

Sarah [00:33:55] Do you want me to get you a pair for your birthday? It is coming up.  

Beth [00:33:58] It is coming right up. And I was going to have a trial starting for him on my birthday and will no longer be, so shoes would be appropriate.  

Sarah [00:34:05] Okay, I think they're currently sold out. But let's move and talk a little bit about the campaign finances, because they are inextricably tied up with everything else in his life at this point. Because it's not like he's going to look at this judgment and think, hmm, maybe I should stop building everything on an interconnected web of lies that then supports a vague sense of puffery, instinct, and whim. I don't think he's going to take that lesson into his campaign and campaign finance structure.  

Beth [00:34:38] He is not known for integrating life lessons. That is not a thing I would say true about Donald Trump.  

Sarah [00:34:43] True. So the latest election filings, as reported by The Economist, have Trump's campaign at roughly $46 million in cash at the end of 2023. That's less than half of the $117 million President Joe Biden's campaign has. I think Nikki Haley out-raised him in that last quarter. So this is the one that I was like, wow, wow, wow. In early 2022, his legal expenses amounted to about $500,000 a month. I would like to say $500,000 is also not--  

Beth [00:35:18] So much money. A month. That's a month.  

Sarah [00:35:21] So much money. It's less than 10% of the campaign spending. Since then, Beth, as he is now facing 91 felony charges-- these are the criminal charges. Again, we were just talking about civil judgment. This is criminal. This is-- we could go to jail. Okay. The legal fees have ballooned to... Are you ready for this?  

Beth [00:35:40] I'm probably not.  

Sarah [00:35:42] $5 million a month.  

Beth [00:35:47]  I can see that, honestly. It's so much.  

Sarah [00:35:52] He's paying Barbara Jones. She's not cheap.  

Beth [00:35:54] These actions are taking place across multiple jurisdictions. His strategy seems to be don't let anything pass by. File every potential motion. Appeal everything. Getting to the Supreme Court, really expensive. Doing it in multiple cases at a time, $5 million a month sounds believable to me.  

Sarah [00:36:17] So these filings show that in the final three months of last year, more than $0.50 of every dollar donated to Donald Trump went to his legal defense.  

Beth [00:36:25] More than $0.50 of every dollar.  

Sarah [00:36:29] I mean, did you read about how the rallies are too expensive? And so now he's phoning a friend. He's calling in people and it's supposed to be spontaneous. We have got to get to a rally, Beth. We've got to get to a rally. I want to see the phone-a-friend.  

Beth [00:36:44] If he can still pull them off. I feel kind of bad at how much it makes me smile to hear the sentence the rallies are too expensive. But it does.  

Sarah [00:36:52] I know. I don't feel bad at all about how all of this makes me delight and brings joy to my heart. I don't feel an ounce of guilt. Let me be abundantly clear about that.  

Beth [00:37:02] Because, look, stepping back, let's just put this together with our look at what's going on in Russia for a second. Alexei Navalny was poisoned and sent to a camp in the Arctic Circle.  

Sarah [00:37:14] Gulag. Say gulag Because I feel like that really carries the weight of the suffering this man underwent. Gulag at the Arctic Circle.  

Beth [00:37:21] Donald Trump fundraises off his court appearances. He is being asked to pay money, which he will be able to pay if he can sell some things off and release his identity from the lifestyle that he has known for a long time. He is running for president and is ahead in most polls in the popular vote nationwide. If you for a second are tempted to say that he is being persecuted as a political opponent of the governing forces right now, you have got to look at this situation and see that he has more than ample opportunities to defend himself, more than ample opportunities to shape the narrative of what's happening to him.  

Sarah [00:38:09] Nobody is poisoning him.  

Beth [00:38:11] No one is poisoning him. No one has incarcerated him yet. We are a long way from that even being a possibility. It is a real possibility that he goes to trial and is acquitted in some of these cases, right? We are not Russia. I read about Alexei Navalny and can just break out into God Bless America, because this country is doing our best right now in a terribly difficult situation, to figure out how you balance being a democratic nation where some voters do not care about the rule of law, and hanging on to the rule of law because we know that that foundation is what separates us from Vladimir Putin's Russia.  

Sarah [00:38:57] And then he has the gall to come on Truth Social and say, "Well, this just reminds me of how terrible it is here." His conclusion is almost the direct opposite of yours. He doesn't say, "Wow, Putin really shouldn't kill opposition leaders. Aren't I lucky that no one's trying to kill me?" Because, I mean, it's a psychic death for him. So as far as he's concerned, it is. It is an existential risk.  

Beth [00:39:20] That he can appeal. Alexei Navalny has no opportunity to appeal. Not just Trump, there are Republicans in leadership out there making the case that Trump is Navalny and Biden is Putin. And if that is your worldview at this moment, you have decided to be willfully ignorant of every fact. It makes me so angry and so sad that that's the posture people are taking. You can criticize these trials. Again, God bless America. Criticize the trials. Criticize the charges. Criticize Letitia James. 

Sarah [00:40:02] No one's going to detain you. No one is going to take your flowers and burn them.  

Beth [00:40:05] That's right. You are welcome to do whatever you need to do. Trump's shoes are sold out, right? Because this is America. And even when you are being held to account, there are lines that we don't cross here. And I'm thankful for that.  

Sarah [00:40:23] Now, if you are still overwhelmed by all this legal morass and where we are in the varying legal appeals processes for his criminal and civil legal woes, may I send you back to an episode we did a few weeks ago on Trump's 2024 legal calendar? And again, you can also go check out Beth's More to Say on the appeals process for this particular judgment. There's a collection of More to Say on Trump's legal journey through the American court system. Please go check all that out.  

Beth [00:41:00] We got you.  

Sarah [00:41:01] We are doing the best we can. We are doing the best we can as a small team to keep up with all this. We, in fact, are not getting paid $5 million a month to keep up with all this, but we are here for you. If you need that, you can check it out on our premium channels. And, of course, this is not the last episode we will record here at Pantsuit Politics on Donald Trump and his legal pursuits.  

[00:41:23] Music Interlude.  

[00:41:34] Beth, on Friday, we record a very important podcast on Christian nationalism. And at the end, we talked about making our bed and that's all people want to talk about.  

Beth [00:41:47] It was a little disorienting. It was a little bit weird. It was a weird experience.  

Sarah [00:41:51] I liked it when people owned it. They were like, I really appreciate this important conversation. I would now like to discuss the making of the beds. 

Beth [00:41:58] Can I tell you that before we aired that conversation, which we recorded quite some time ago, which is why perhaps you noticed that my voice changed in the conversation; I was not suffering from weeks of relentless winter illness when we recorded that conversation. But what I really want to express hundreds of messages later, is I'm not out there screening my friends for who makes their bed. Before we aired that episode, I did not know who in my life made their bed and who didn't. I'm pretty sure I have a comprehensive inventory now because of my text messages and otherwise. But I'm not looking down on anybody who's not making their bed.  

Sarah [00:42:38] If you were like, "You're not going to like this," I'm like, "Y'all, we are not that invested. We are invested in our own beds, not your beds." This is a thing I have to explain to people all the time. Our loyal listener Ashley said this to me. She's like, you're so forgiving. I'm like, I know because people think I have strong opinions and therefore I am judging them. But I just hold strong opinions about the stance, not where you fall on the stance. This is an interesting place I've found myself in, but I've developed it over many decades and that is true. I will feel so strongly about something and not care at all where you fall on that opinion.  

Beth [00:43:15] Similarly, I have no investment in what anyone else is doing here. I feel like we got a lot of messages that were like, "Let me offer you my set of facts so that you can say, 'Well, in your circumstance, I would not make my bed.'" Like for you to rubber stamp that it's okay to not make a bed under these circumstances. And I just promise you, one, I'm always going to come around to making the bed. And, two, that you prioritize your life differently than that is totally fine with me. Totally fine with me.  

Sarah [00:43:50] The people who work nights, I was like, yeah, you got somebody in the bed, you're just dang out of luck. I'm super jealous of the people who have husbands or partners who are, super hardcore, want the bed made and they don't have to do it. I don't cook. It's the best way to have a partner who cares deeply about something you also care, but don't quite want to exert the effort on. Jealous of those people they've got right.  

Beth [00:44:08] Chad makes the bed a lot here. Whoever is most easily able to grab it does it in our house.  

Sarah [00:44:15] Well, listen, here is where I have shifted a bit since our conversation. I really unlocked some things on the comments. Okay. That doesn't happen much here because my bed is such a beast to make. I think I've made it too hard. There was something about one of the many listeners who commented. I'm sorry I don't remember the name. Somebody was like, I've given up on the throw pillows because why am I making it so hard to do this thing I care about? And I am always trying to perfect processes. Moving a draw container closer to the task at which the things in the drawer are related. I'm always trying to move things around. I move furniture around. I'm like always shifting and changing because I'm reading this great book I keep talking about called Subtract. It's like the art of doing less. And they were talking about this understanding in psychology, that really what you're trying to do is ease the tension. So the example the author used is I want my child to watch less iPad, but it doesn't actually remove the tension to bribe them by giving them a cookie to put the iPad away. What releases the tension is letting the iPad run out of battery or removing the iPad from the situation. You don't want to add something when sometimes just removing something will actually ease the tension in the process. And I didn't have the language for that, but that is how I think about things in my life. I am trying to ease the tension. I don't want to brag, but when I say people talk about why is laundry so hard, I have really perfected my laundry situation. It is as tension free as it can possibly get in my house. I have just needled it and worked at it and added things and messed with things with my kids and myself until I don't have piles of laundry. I don't feel pursued by laundry. Laundry is not a burden because I'm trying to always ease the tension. And so something about hearing someone who acknowledged, like, I think making the bed is important but throw pillows aren't, really helped me because my husband hates the pillows but he also doesn't really care if the bed is made. So I can't trust him as a source. You see what I'm saying? He's not trustworthy on this particular subject. So hearing someone say I really care about the bed being made, why was I making it so hard on myself? I thought, do I have some tension here I could release? And, Beth, I think the answer is yes because I have a split king. I already have two blankets underneath the blanket on top. Then I have a very heavy blanket at the end, and I have all these pillows. And so now I'm like, hold up a minute, I think we've got some tension here I maybe could release.  

Beth [00:46:48] The split king part makes a lot of sense to me that adds a degree of difficulty, and I can see if the throw pillows are not your thing, I don't think that you need them. I have them there because I enjoy them and because I don't feel that my bed is hard to make. I mean, it is a two minute job to make my bed. It is very, very easy. I have lightweight blankets on top. It's fast. Even with the pillows, it's very fast, so I don't feel like there's tension in my process around it. There is tension around the couch, but it's worth it to me. Part of what I'm trying to do in my life-- and I think I have worked hard at this in the way that you have worked hard at getting to that place of "I have a strong feeling, but I'm not judgmental of your feeling." I have worked really hard to come to a place where I'm willing to say, I have a preference.  

Sarah [00:47:37] I want this. Yes. I did not have to work hard for that.  

Beth [00:47:41] Right. But that has been a journey for me to just say, I know that no one else here values these pillows on the couch. I do. I value them a lot. I value not just how they look. When I sit down to read a book, I use the pillows. There is nothing like a nap with your throw pillows on the couch. It's a beautiful thing. I love those pillows and I get that they are a source of friction, but just a little friction in my house. And it's worth it to me to impose that because I'm allowed to have a preference. The other thing that came out for me taking in all of the comments here, I think as a parent it is really important to have some of these things where you say to your child, "This might not make sense to you. You might not see the value in making your bed every day or the value in picking these throw pillows up, but there is value in it. And even if there isn't for you, there is for me. And as a member of a household, we do things like this for each other. I do things for you all day that don't make sense to me, but they're important to you and that's part of how we love each other." I just think there is a soft should. There's such a hard push against any kind of should, but a soft should really teaches people how to be in relationships with each other. And so I stand by my bed making and my throw pillows is what I'm saying.  

Sarah [00:49:08] Well, it totally makes sense to me. I should clarify, my children do not make their beds. One sleeps in a top bunk. If you have a child that makes a top bunk bed every day, I would like to take your parenting class first and foremost. But I did like the person that was like, show me this bed making competition where the beds are up against a wall. Truth. True facts. That's a good point.  

Beth [00:49:28] I mean, not a competition, but I hear you.  

Sarah [00:49:31] No, there was an actual competition we shared on social media. 

Beth [00:49:33] Okay, I got you. Yeah. 

Sarah [00:49:35]  I definitely don't make them make their beds. I'm working on Griffin. I'm getting closer, not quite there. Because I don't go up there and I don't see their processes. This is my struggle with keeping their room clean. I can big picture see the friction. But it's hard for me because I'm not in their room watching how they move around their room to figure out how to help them keep it clean. Because it's constant helping, removing, figuring out for myself and much less for anybody else. So with the pillows, then it sent me down this kind of rabbit hole in my own mind about how bed changing has shifted over the years because I also think is this my preference or have I been influenced? Because you really have to be hyper aware in a home because they're always wanting to sell you new things. And I was like thinking about, remember back in the day when the way you made your bed was you pulled the comforter all the way up and then you folded it down, and then you put the pillows and then you put it back over it. Remember that? That used to be how you made the bed. There wasn't all these stacking of pillows. That feels like a like a trend. But that's a shift in the way beds look and were made over time. And now I'm like, well, do I actually like that better or have I just seen enough of that on Instagram and Pinterest that I think I'm supposed to like that better? Why did we all decide that a pretty bed was like four rows of European shams? You know what I mean? I'm kind of really like, wait a second, is that what I like? Because I think especially when you have preferences around fashion, home, I would even argue food. You're taking in so much it is hard to think like, wait, do I like this or did Nancy Meyers just convince me to like this because you know I love Nancy Meyers?  

Beth [00:51:25] I think that's totally fair. Now, I am not a great homemaker. I have discussed this before. For me, the row of European pillows makes my bed look nicer because it hides the piling, the stacking of the pillows that we sleep on. And so it feels easier to me to just put those pillows, leave them where we slept on them, and then cover them up. And it has that neat and tidy organized appearance so they do not feel burdensome to me. Make your decision. Live your life. Make your bed how you want to make your bed though. I don't feel defensive of that or judgmental of people who choose differently around it.  

Sarah [00:52:07] I'm thinking deeply about my own pillows. I think part of my problem is the pillows we sleep in are not king sized pillows. Our pillows we lay our heads on are not king. I think if I had kings then they would lay nice and flat at the top. I could pull the comforter over and I wouldn't have-- I hope that y'all are either equally disturbed or delighted that I bring this depth of processing both to the death of Alexei Navalny and the way my pillows are arranged on my bed. I don't know if that is comforting or terrifying to myself or anyone else. I'm just being open and honest about it here.  

Beth [00:52:45] No. And I know this about you, and I do respect it and appreciate it. And I am not like that, but the thing that I do think about a lot is what dynamic am I creating in my house by my announced preferences, by my life rules? I really am working with my kids on habits right now, because I see in myself that who I am and how I feel is so much a result of my habits. And making the bed for me is just like brushing my teeth. It is very small investment of time and energy for very big result, for very big return on that investment. And as it becomes a habit, what it asks of me decreases. It gets easier and easier for me to do, and what it pays off for me increases. I enjoy it even more. And I want my daughters to have lots of little things where they see that momentum that a good habit has. And I feel pretty comfortable as their mom right now saying, you're going to pick some of these for yourself, but I'm going to pick some of them for you because you will not do these things. We are not born with this kind of skill or capacity or discipline or interest in developing those things about ourselves. And so this is the time in your life where you have to build these muscles. And if as adults, they say, "My mom was such a pain about making me make my bed, I'll never make it again," cool, I don't care. I don't have to live in their house. That's fine. So it's really not the judgment about the bed making as a life rule for all people in my house, it's about just building capacity for things that I think will serve them well on their own terms when it's time for them to have those terms.  

Sarah [00:54:39] Well, and that puzzling I do. That's what I always tell people. I wish more people felt, realized, could experience that sense of like, just change it. If it's not working, move the chair. If you hate the chair, get rid of it. I think we get stuck in our homes. And that is the thing that I watched my mother never do. So I don't do it. And I hear from people all the time like, I guess I could just change that. I could just move the couch. I could empty the counter and put something else different. I could try to make my bed. I have a fear of stasis in my home-- I guess, not a fear, but I push against it. If I don't like it, can I change it? But now I am action oriented on the Enneagram and my husband is not. And I know a lot of people are not action oriented. And so that's what I always kind of want to be for people, is just try different. If you don't like it, don't do it anymore. If it's not working, try to think about why. If you feel crummy in the morning, instead of saying I'm just not a morning person-- which chronotypes are real. Listen, that's a real thing. Some people are morning people, some people aren't. But that's not a life sentence. You can also build in some habits, change your physical lived environment, sometimes by subtracting, sometimes by adding, to say, could I improve this? Because again as an Enneagram one, like, better better, better, that's what fuels me. And so it's always wild to me when I get a glimpse in somebody else's mind. Even with you with the preferences, never have I ever worried about exerting a preference. Sometimes I have to think, do I have to have a preference on this? Maybe I don't, maybe I could just not have a preference. I'm the opposite. And so I think it's so interesting to even do this tiny, silly but important thing of making your bed, how you can just see this universe of personality and preference and habits and your orientation to habits. I just love people, in summary.  

Beth [00:56:43] I think that's why it hit so hard because it is such a symbol of so many different dynamics around us. Yeah.  

Sarah [00:56:54] Yeah. And that's if you don't share a bed with somebody. Dang.  

Beth [00:56:57] The biggest like button that gets pushed for me in conversations about this because of my own work-- again, this is not criticism of anybody else-- but because of the things I work on for myself, we got back a whole lot of, I don't have time for this. And I have for about 10 years now, really been pushing the voice in my head that says, I don't have time for things because it's loud and very controlling and not very nice. And I hear it all the time. And so I've really tried to reframe if I hear myself saying, "I don't have time for this," I try to say, "I choose not to make it a priority." That's what I don't have time for it means. At the same time as everybody else. If I don't have time for it, it's because I'm choosing not to make it a priority. And sometimes that calls me on the carpet, because I do that exercise all the time. I don't have time to exercise today because of X, Y, work thing. No, Beth, if you're choosing not to make exercise a priority, you think your body is not as important as your work? That's ridiculous. But then sometimes that feels like freedom. And if you're a person who's like, I don't have time to make my bed, okay, I choose not to make my bed a priority. Cool. That's freedom, right? If you just express it that way. So I just think these little things that we do or do not do every single day are a real announcement of how we think about ourselves and what our day means and what brings us joy and what's worth having some friction with other people around. And that's why we have 60, 11 million messages about bed banking.  

Sarah [00:58:34] I love it. I think when something like this opens up, all this personality, behavior modification, habits, routines, psychology, I just think it's endlessly fascinating because it's something that I think about a lot. I think that prioritization and what we choose or choose not to do, not because we all have the same reserves, not because we all have the same amount of free time, (of course we don't) but because these little moments illustrate all that complexity and I think is super, super fascinating. So thanks everybody for joining us on this journey through bed making. Beth, what daily routine should we take on next, breakfast? Oh, breakfast I love breakfast. People don't eat breakfast. Do you know people don't eat breakfast? Like lots of people.  

Beth [00:59:27] Intellectually, I know that. Spiritually, I struggle with it. I wake up hungry.  

Sarah [00:59:33] Hungry?  

Beth [00:59:34] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:59:35] My husband will not eat till two in the afternoon.  

Beth [00:59:38] No, I can't.  

Sarah [00:59:40] How? I had breakfast and I'm hungry right now.  

Beth [00:59:42] I had a late breakfast and I'm hungry right now. Maybe we'll take on breakfast. We will have to check in just to make sure people do still like the politics though. Sometimes the weight of the comments, you're like, how am I spending my time?  

Sarah [00:59:57] What are we prioritizing here at Pantsuit Politics? Hey, we just like to take a different approach to everything, not just the news. And we're always so happy when you join us. And thank you for joining us again today. We will be back in your ears in two short days on Friday. Until then, keep it nuanced y'all.  

[01:00:11] Music Interlude. 

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. 

Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. 

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. 

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 

Maggie PentonComment