The Trump Trials: Sidebar
311 episodes - English - Latest episode: 9 days ago - ★★★★ - 4.4K ratingsThe Washington Post’s Libby Casey, Rhonda Colvin and James Hohmann gather for a weekly conversation about former president Donald Trump’s ongoing legal troubles. As trials loom in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C., the team will break down the most important – and historic – twists and turns, all as Trump seeks a second term as president.
The crew will sit down each Thursday (with the occasional breaking news episode) to discuss what has happened that week, and what’s coming up the next week – often with guest appearances from Washington Post reporters. Listen in to see how you can submit your own questions for the team to answer.
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Episodes
Is the federal government to blame for wildfires gone out of control?
September 17, 2020 19:21Reporter Seung Min Kim on how Trump’s refusal to acknowledge human-caused climate change affects the country’s wildfire management and response plans. Plus, environmental analysis professor Char Miller on who's really responsible for fire mitigation.
The Justice Dept. intervenes on behalf of Trump in defamation case. What happens next?
September 10, 2020 17:24The Justice Department on Tuesday intervened in the defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says President Trump raped her years ago, moving the matter to federal court and signaling it wants to make the U.S. government — rather than Trump himself — the defendant in the case. In this segment from "Post Reports," Matt Zapatosky talks about the unusual move, and where it fits into the larger story of Trump's Justice Department.
Two different stories of American unrest
September 03, 2020 19:43Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha, Wis., police officer in late August. Since that shooting, Kenosha has been the site of unrest, protests, vandalism and violence. Days after the protests and unrest began, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse traveled a short trip from his home to Kenosha where self-declared militia members and armed counterprotesters had been appearing. Rittenhouse was armed with a rifle. Later, authorities say Rittenhouse shot three protesters, killing ...
Trump suggested sending law enforcement to the polls. Can he do that?
August 27, 2020 21:13Faith in the U.S. electoral system is one of the most important fundamentals of this country’s democracy. And this year, it’s being tested in unprecedented ways. Some of those challenges are emerging from the rhetoric of the president himself. President Trump has discredited mail-in voting, suggested rampant voter fraud and said he might not accept the results of the election. Most recently, Trump has threatened to use law enforcement officers to patrol polling places. In an interview la...
Postal problems persist. (But your mail-in ballot is probably safe.)
August 20, 2020 21:52President Trump’s rhetoric about the Postal Service has grown bolder. He’s said that if he stops the Democrats from providing emergency funding to the Postal Service, it’s harder for them to process a surge in mail-in ballots. And according to Trump himself, he wants less mail-in voting, because he thinks too much vote by mail may cost him the election. Meanwhile, a new postmaster general has taken over the agency. Louis DeJoy, previously a logistics executive, was named to head the Postal ...
How an extraordinary election season affects Trump’s reelection chances
August 13, 2020 18:22Usually, in presidential election years of the past, August marks a new phase in election season. Conventions wrap up, rallies and events pick up on the campaign trail and candidates debate in front of large audiences, all leading up to the moment voters go to the polls. But this year, pretty much none of those things will happen in the way that we’re used to. The novel coronavirus fundamentally changed this election year. Many of the traditional events still populate the calendar between n...
TikTok flip-flop: What’s the president’s power over foreign companies?
August 06, 2020 21:03If you’d never heard of TikTok before the coronavirus pandemic sent us all into our homes for months, you’ve probably heard of it now. With little to do at home, millions of Americans turned to TikTok to create and watch short, fun videos of mostly teenagers mostly dancing, lip syncing or pranking their parents. While this social video app may seem harmless when you’re somehow mindlessly scrolling through hours of 30-second antics, the Trump administration insists it might not be so harmles...
How America votes is inherently unpredictable. So why do polling?
July 30, 2020 18:00In the run-up to any modern presidential election, assessing a candidate’s successes and failures has served as fodder for political pundits, analysts and campaign advisers. And in part, those assessments of who is winning and which messages are working are drawn from a whole sprawling effort designed to take the pulse of the American voter: political polling. These days, there are public polls, private polls and polling shops out of news organizations, universities and research centers. Th...
A double down on federal force, a do-over on coronavirus
July 23, 2020 21:43The United States is in search of leadership on many significant challenges we face at this difficult moment in our country. And on two major issues — the handling of the coronavirus pandemic and protests against racism and police brutality — most Americans are dissatisfied with the leadership they’ve seen thus far. As cases rise across the country and fears persist, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 60 percent of Americans disapprove of President Trump’s handling of the virus. M...
Conventions vs. covid-19: Trump’s push for a spectacle while the virus surges
July 16, 2020 21:23The 2020 presidential nominating conventions will look little like the political mega-events we’ve seen in this country for the past few decades. The novel coronavirus pandemic has made the notion of huge stadiums full of cheering supporters plus countless meetings, rallies and after parties, unadvisable under U.S. public health guidelines. Now, for both parties, rejiggering their conventions has been a significant challenge. Democrats have decided to take a largely virtual approach to th...
Will the Court’s decision on electors prevent (at least some) election mayhem?
July 09, 2020 20:14Much of American democracy runs on precedent. How things have worked in the past helps us understand how they ought to work now. Many parts of our democracy function because years of established norms guide them. But sometimes that precedent and those standards face the courts — a chance to take long-standing norms and codify them into law. We saw one of those moments at the Supreme Court this week with a vote on the role of electors in our presidential elections. Presidential electors cas...
July 4 special: 'The Framers would not recognize the modern presidency.’
July 02, 2020 18:00Over the past few years making the“Can He Do That?” podcast, a few episodes have stuck with us. In particular, the episodes that keenly capture the role of the U.S. president that offer particular insight into the ways the presidency was designed to work in our country and how that design is incredible and also flawed. Now, we are bringing back one of those episodes. This show, which originally aired on July 4 last year, is a deep look at what the Founding Fathers wanted the American presi...
Virus cases are surging in the U.S. Is our government better prepared now?
June 25, 2020 22:03In the United States, novel coronavirus infections set a single-day national record Wednesday. For now it seems like deaths are not growing at the same pace as cases, but it’s clear that this virus is not contained and this pandemic is far from over. Yet momentum behind a federal response seems to be fading. The task force is convening less often, federal funding to some test sites has been depleted, and President Trump has said that the country will not shut down again, even as some states...
An ‘erratic’ and ‘stunningly uninformed’ commander in chief: Inside Bolton’s book
June 18, 2020 19:28John Bolton, former national security adviser to President Trump, wrote a book,“The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” The book offers a portrait of President Trump as an erratic and ignorant leader who often places his own personal whims above the national interest. But whether Americans will get to read the book is the subject of an escalating legal battle between Bolton and the Justice Department. The White House says the book contains classified material. Bolton’s attorney s...
Public sentiment on police reform has shifted dramatically. Will it matter?
June 11, 2020 21:52Public outcry and calls for police reform have erupted across the country, with movements taking aim at not just policing tactics, but also broader racial inequities embedded in American life. Many of our nation’s leaders are responding to those calls for reform. House and Senate Democrats on Tuesday united behind federal legislation, the Justice in Policing of 2020 Act. The act bans certain tactics such as like chokeholds and would make it easier to hold officers accountable for misconduc...
Trump’s response to unrest raises concerns among those trained to detect democratic regression
June 04, 2020 19:14Earlier this week, the country watched as the U.S. president walked across Lafayette Square outside the White House to stand in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, hold a Bible and take a photo. In a speech from the Rose Garden moments earlier, President Trump threatened to deploy troops to control protests if state and local authorities did not immediately regain control of their streets. For Trump to make that trek to the church, flanked by the secretary of defense and the chairman of t...
Trump threatened military action to quell protests. Can he do that?
June 02, 2020 16:31Protests across the United States have intensified since last week over the death of George Floyd, a black man whose final gasps of“I can’t breathe” while in police custody, were caught on video in Minneapolis. Many protests have been peaceful, but in several cities, tensions have escalated and violence has erupted. With unrest growing, President Trump decided to address the nation from the White House’s Rose Garden on Monday in a televised speech. Moments before he spoke, though, police ...
Public health partisanship confronts a new reality: The virus is surging in rural America
May 28, 2020 22:11This week, the United States reached a grim milestone: Covid-19 deaths surpassed 100,000 in this country. In recent weeks, the geographic areas and the communities this deadly virus touches, have begun to shift. The Washington Post analyzed case data and interviews with public health professionals in several states to find that the pandemic, which first struck in major cities, is now increasingly moving into the country’s rural areas. Rural America faces unique and significant challenges t...
How Trump is leveraging the presidency to campaign against Biden
May 21, 2020 21:32This presidential campaign season is unlike any other in history. I know, that sounds like something people in world of politics say a lot. But this time, in 2020, during a global pandemic, the campaign trail looks dramatically different — and for now, mostly empty. Former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has spent the past few months holding virtual events, largely from his basement. President Trump, meanwhile, has resumed some travel, though in an official cap...
Politics, pressure and pleas: The twisting case of Michael Flynn and the Justice Department
May 14, 2020 22:28Last week, the Justice Department, led by Attorney General William P. Barr, moved to drop charges against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn has also been seeking to undo his guilty plea since January, and newly released documents have given him the chance, according to his lawyers. As a refresher, Flynn, back in 2017, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The new documents show the FBI prepar...
The president’s desperate push to reopen America
May 07, 2020 22:58After weeks of stay-at-home orders and business closures, some parts of the United States are beginning to reopen. Since late March, President Trump has grappled with the White House’s guidance for when and how the reopening process should work. At the end of March, Trump agreed to extend strict social distancing guidelines for another month, despite his early hopes that the country could reopen by Easter. These days, though, Trump is celebrating the reopening of some states and is increasi...
The Postal Service is in dire need. Trump wants to block the loan that could save them.
April 30, 2020 21:45The coronavirus pandemic has left a tremendous number of businesses across the country without the revenue they’re used to. For the U.S. Postal Service, its losses in revenue — both from the pandemic and long predating it — present a different kind of challenge. The Postal Service isn’t a private company, it’s a federal agency, so the ways to solve its financial problems are murkier. While Congress has stepped in to include a $10 billion loan to the Postal Service in the Cares Act relief pa...
The U.S. is spending trillions to save the economy. Where does all that money come from?
April 23, 2020 19:46Trillions of dollars have been injected into the U.S. economy since March. Late last month, Congress passed a $2 trillion relief bill, the Cares Act, designed to help the country cope with the economic devastation it has faced since the novel coronavirus outbreak began. But those trillions weren’t enough. New legislation expected to pass in Congress on Thursday adds $484 billion to that total. These funds are allocated for small-business recovery, hospitals and coronavirus testing. As our...
Freezing funding, adjourning Congress, reopening states. What are the limits on Trump’s power?
April 16, 2020 22:17Each week, our country’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic presents new questions. Some of those questions are about the role of the president in a crisis, or the role of governors and local leaders, or the role of international organizations, or even the role of Congress. This particular week raised questions about all of those things. President Trump early in the week said that he has“total authority” to order the reopening of state’s economies. Though, on a call with governors T...
A president’s push for an unproven cure
April 09, 2020 22:39As the country continues to battle the spread of the novel coronavirus, many are desperately in search of answers, solutions and treatment options. In search himself, for something of a cure, President Trump has repeatedly touted one particular drug as the likely savior for covid-19 patients: hydroxychloroquine. At this point, hydroxychloroquine is an unproven treatment for covid-19. It’s still in the testing stages as a treatment for the virus, it can have dangerous side effects for some,...
States are competing for life-saving medical equipment. Who decides where it goes?
April 02, 2020 21:23As the spread of the novel coronavirus grows in the United States, many states finds themselves in need of medical equipment like ventilators and protective equipment for health care workers. Yet, for most states getting said equipment has not been easy. Requests have begun to outweigh supply and many states complain there’s a lack of guidance about how they can secure life-saving supplies. Governors are making increasingly frantic requests to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for ma...
Rugged individualism vs. social distancing enforcement: Who can keep us home and how?
March 26, 2020 20:23Much of life as we know it in the United States has drastically changed over recent weeks. Local and state authorities have closed many businesses and mandated that residents stay at home or limit the size of gatherings. Yet how these restrictions are implemented across the country varies widely. Furthermore, even in areas where restrictions can carry legal penalties, enforcement is rare. The United States is, of course, set up this way: States have the power to work independently, in coor...
U.S. elections are being tested like never before. What comes next?
March 19, 2020 21:03The novel coronavirus pandemic has presented some serious challenges to the American electoral process. To solve these new public health challenges, some states have delayed primary voting. Other states have implemented social-distancing measures at polling locations, with mixed results. Others yet have geared up to increase mail-in ballot capacity. Each of these circumstances raise different issues for how voters can choose a candidate in this year’s primary election. Some Democratic pri...
The U.S. stumbled at the start of the coronavirus outbreak. Can we make up for lost time?
March 12, 2020 20:52The World Health Organization has declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. The virus has spread in the United States, with new cases reported daily, deaths totaling more than three dozen, and an expanding list of large-scale cancellations, including the NBA, the NCAA tournaments and Broadway shows. In response, the Trump administration has taken various steps to limit the spread of the virus and to help a suffering economy. But those steps haven’t always gone so well. The...
Does the president have much power to control a viral outbreak?
March 05, 2020 23:35Since it was first detected on the last day of 2019, coronavirus has infected tens of thousands of people around the world and has killed more than 3,000. The outbreak has triggered unprecedented quarantines, stock market upheaval and dangerous conspiracy theories. Most cases are mild, but health officials say the virus’s continued spread through the United States is inevitable. As the country and our health-care system prepares, a lot is still unknown. President Trump has repeatedly sough...
The delegate math questions you were too embarrassed to ask
March 02, 2020 17:11The Republican Party’s 2020 primary season has been pretty straightforward. President Trump has no serious competition for the Republican nomination. But for the Democrats, it’s far less clear who will become their party’s nominee for president of the United States. With so many candidates competing to define the future of the Democratic Party and running on a range of ideologies, it’s been a heated presidential primary season. Candidates have tried to boost their potential and their profi...
Hacks, chaos and doubt: Lessons from the 2016 election revisited
February 28, 2020 08:00In 2016, as the Democratic Party officially selected its nominee, then-candidate Donald Trump saw an opportunity to deepen the schisms that had emerged among Democrats. Four years later, President Trump seems to be embracing a similar opportunity. In tweets, at rallies and in interactions with the press, Trump has suggested that this year’s Democratic primary is rigged against Bernie Sanders. Trump’s assertions about a flawed Democratic primary are just a piece of the story. He’s stoking ...
The problems with pardon power
February 20, 2020 23:40Only a few presidential powers are very clearly outlined in the U.S. Constitution. One of those is the president’s power to pardon. We’ve seen President Trump exercise his pardon power at several moments during his tenure in office - sometimes to much controversy. Tuesday, the president continued this trend. He pardoned or commuted the sentences of several convicted white-collar criminals at the center of federal anti-corruption and tax fraud cases. Trump’s choice to grant clemency to thi...
Trump’s view of a unilaterally powerful president goes unchallenged
February 13, 2020 22:07Since President Trump was acquitted by the Senate in his impeachment trial, there has been a lot of action out of the White House. From firing people in his administration who testified against him in the House Inquiry to compromising the Justice Department’s independence, Trump's actions seem to paint a picture of a president who feels emboldened by the resolution of his months-long impeachment battle. So does this post-acquittal moment reflect a president more emboldened than before? W...
A president acquitted. The balance of power tested.
February 05, 2020 22:33The United States Senate acquitted President Trump on charges — brought by the House of Representatives — of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The vote fell largely along party lines, with one exceptions. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah historically voted with the Democrats to convict the president on the first article: abuse of power. That marked the first time in American history that a member of the president’s own party has voted to remove him. Romney voted with Republicans to acquit...
Will the Iowa caucuses clarify anything? Lessons from history in an unpredictable year
January 30, 2020 22:00The 2020 Iowa caucuses present unprecedented challenges for some top Democratic contenders. Several candidates polling highest in Iowa have been unable to physically spend much time in the state in the final weeks before the vote. Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bennet have been back in Washington serving as jurors in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. Having a presence in those final weeks in Iowa can be the key to wooing any remaining und...
How Bolton’s allegation — no, not the one you’re thinking of — could change the impeachment trial
January 28, 2020 21:35Details of former national security advisor John Bolton’s unpublished book manuscript became public Sunday. These details suggested that Bolton could provide firsthand evidence that President Trump directly tried to deny security assistance to Ukraine until they announced investigations into political opponents, including Joe and Hunter Biden. That assertion from Bolton’s book has renewed the call by Democrats for witnesses in Trump’s Senate impeachment trial. And yet, that interaction bet...
How Trump’s impeachment lawyers could undermine him in court
January 23, 2020 22:14Trump is fighting impeachment-related battles in both the Senate and the court system. His lawyers have conflicting strategies in each arena. The Post’s Ann Marimow explains why these cases matter for the future of presidential power.
Watchdog says the hold on Ukraine aid violated the law. Will it matter in the Senate trial?
January 21, 2020 20:30Economic policy reporter Jeff Stein answers key questions about what legal weight a decision from the GAO carries and how likely this ruling is to be considered by the Senate, as House Democrats and the Trump team make their cases.
Block witnesses? Allow evidence? The battles ahead for the Senate impeachment trial
January 16, 2020 20:22Congress reporter Rachael Bade offers insight into how the Senate trial process may get thrown off course, how new revelations factor into the trial, and whether the final outcome actually as inevitable as it seems.
Pelosi signals next step. Does anyone get what they wanted?
January 10, 2020 22:51After a long standoff, Nancy Pelosi announced that the House will finally consider a resolution to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week. Reporter Karoun Demirjian answers questions about what’s been gained or lost in the process.
Trump and Iran: The president's broad authority to strike
January 08, 2020 22:23Where do a president’s powers begin and end when it comes to issuing a strike to kill? Can presidents decide how much force to use against an adversary? National security correspondent Karen DeYoung breaks down the administration’s decisions in Iran.
Presidents who faced impeachment: Bill Clinton
December 27, 2019 08:00President Trump is just the fourth president to face impeachment proceedings. In 2016, The Post’s Presidential podcast examined the three presidents in that category before Trump. We finish our series from Presidential with the story of Bill Clinton.
Presidents who faced impeachment: Richard Nixon
December 25, 2019 08:00President Trump is just the fourth president to face impeachment proceedings. In 2016, The Post’s Presidential podcast examined the three presidents in that category before Trump. Here’s the second of their stories from Presidential, on Richard Nixon.
Presidents who faced impeachment: Andrew Johnson
December 23, 2019 08:00President Trump is just the fourth president to face impeachment proceedings. In 2016, The Post’s Presidential podcast examined the three presidents in that category before Trump. Here are their stories, beginning with Andrew Johnson.
A divided Congress and a presidency on the line
December 19, 2019 04:50President Trump is the third U.S. president in history to be impeached. Chief correspondent Dan Balz analyzes how this impeachment compares to others, what happens if an impeached president runs again and how Trump’s ability to govern could change.
After heated, long debate, the articles of impeachment move to the full House
December 13, 2019 16:45The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to move the articles of impeachment to the full House. Politics reporter Colby Itkowitz breaks down what happened in the committee debate and what to expect in the House next week.
Articles of impeachment against Trump are unveiled
December 10, 2019 19:54House Democrats announced articles on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress against President Trump in its investigation of his conduct regarding Ukraine. Reporter Mike DeBonis explains what the articles mean, why they matter and what happens next.
Five things we know now that we didn’t know last week
December 06, 2019 19:12This week, the impeachment inquiry offered plenty of new revelations. Political reporter Amber Phillips unravels Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s news conference, the debate over the Constitution, new call logs from the president’s lawyer, and more.
The inquiry moves to Judiciary. Can the president’s legal team sit this one out?
December 03, 2019 20:24Trump and his lawyers won’t be part of Wednesday’s hearing. Have we ever before seen a president’s legal team absent from impeachment proceedings? Reporter Paul Kane explains how past presidents used their lawyers and how Trump’s approach is different.