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The Chris Wallace Show

Donald Trump Spent Week in New York City Courthouse for Jury Selection in His Hush Money Criminal Trial; Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Presidential Immunity to Criminal Charges; House Speaker Mike Johnson Working with House Democrats to Bring Bills to House Floor Including Ukraine and Israeli Aid Packages; Pro-Palestinian Protests Growing Larger and More Disruptive on U.S. College Campuses. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired April 20, 2024 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:41]

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, and welcome. It's time to break down the big stories with some smart people.

Today were asking with the jury set for Donald Trump's hush money case, can the former president get a fair trial in Manhattan?

Then, with enemies like these, who needs friends? We'll dig into how long House Speaker Mike Johnson can survive with the help of Democrats.

Plus, day jobs for the duke and duchess, will you sign on for Harry and Meghan's new offerings?

Our group is here and ready to go. So sit back, relax, and let's talk about it.

Up first, with opening statements set to begin Monday in Donald Trump's hush money trial, the former president is railing against the case, the judge, and the prosecutors, saying and doing things many lawyers suggest he probably shouldn't.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The whole is watching this hoax.

WALLACE: Donald Trump at a New York City courthouse blasting his criminal hush money trial.

TRUMP: New York is going down as a very corrupt place.

WALLACE: The former president has reason to worry, given his record in Manhattan courtrooms this year. In January a jury found him liable for defaming E. Jean Carroll, his damages totaling $83 million. Then in February, a judge fined Trump $355 million for fraudulently inflating his empire's worth.

TRUMP: A fine of $355 million for doing a perfect job.

WALLACE: This time a criminal jury will decide his fate, and witness his behavior, which ranged this way from appearing to fall asleep in court to making surprising statements outside of it.

TRUMP: I was paying a lawyer and marked it down as a legal expense. That's exactly what it was.

WALLACE: A claim some court observers say makes much of the prosecutors' arguments for them.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: That video could be played before the jury, no question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Here with me today, author and podcast host Kara Swisher, Reihan Salam, president of the Manhattan Institute and contributing writer at "The Atlantic," "New York Times" journalist and podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro, and Jonah Goldberg, editor of "The Dispatch," and columnist at "The L.A. Times." Welcome back, everyone.

So Reihan, can Donald Trump get a fair trial in Manhattan?

REIHAN SALAM, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "NATIONAL REVIEW": Honestly, I don't see how he can. Of course, finding a jury that it's going to be broadminded and fair is going to be exceptionally difficult, but the bigger issue is that this would not be a set of charges brought up against anyone else other than Donald Trump. You have Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan prosecutor, who is notorious for not prosecuting actual crimes. And here he is taking a series of trumped-up misdemeanors and then packaging them up as a felony. I think that it's unserious.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, "NEW YORK TIMES" JOURNALIST AND PODCAST HOST: I'm so tired of this argument. I really am.

WALLACE: I'm sorry. I apologize.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: No, I am. This idea that because it's Donald Trump that he cannot get a fair trial in the biggest city in the United States --

WALLACE: You've got to admit, he does not have a good record in Manhattan. He has gotten hammered in a couple of these --

KARA SWISHER, PODCAST HOST, "PIVOT" AND "ON": Maybe he's wrong.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, but this is --

WALLACE: Maybe he's wrong. Maybe it's bias. He can get a fair trail in New York City?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, of course, he can get a fair trial in New York City. And in fact, I remember at the beginning of this process, everyone was going on and on and on about how this is going to take forever to get this jury empaneled and how he wasn't going to be able to find anyone. And it has happened speedily. This judge has been actually on the ball. And what we've seen is that this trial is going to start as scheduled on Monday.

SALAM: I mean, by the way, just to be clear, judges in New York City, they're elected, right. They're oftentimes Democratic political contributors. So you're darn right. They see this as an opportunity to make a name for themselves.

SWISHER: Stop. It's different juries all over he keeps losing. Every time he does this, I feel like would you like some cheese with the whine? He's in court. He's done things, either they win or not, and he has a jury in front of him. And you can't assume everyone in New York is the same. I don't know if you live in New York --

SALAM: I sure do. I'm a lifelong New Yorker, and I will tell you --

WALLACE: Jonah?

JONAH GOLDBERG, "THE DISPATCH": I'm going to take -- and I grew up in Manhattan. I can take the Solomonic approach to this and cut the baby in half.

[10:05:01]

I think Reihan's absolutely right that this case should not have been brought. I think the way they're stacking the charges and trying to bootstrap these things together is not very persuasive to me. And if his name weren't Donald Trump, this wouldn't been brought.

That said, I still believe in the jury system. I think he's probably going to get a hung jury. And I still think the court system is legitimate and fair, and he can get a fair trial.

WALLACE: Let's turn to Trump's behavior so far this week, because it's pretty extraordinary. He dozed off in court a couple of times, actually, I think three as of Friday. Prosecutors say he has repeatedly violated a gag rule by attacking witnesses and jurors. And he seemed to admit, as we mentioned in the set-up piece, that he marked payments to Michael Cohen as a legal expense. Kara, is Trump, even in week one, his own worst enemy in this case?

SWISHER: Always, but he thinks it works. And it works for the base. It works for fundraising. The idea that he's a victim, the grievance industrial complex will go into place. You're already seeing that in the fundraising. And this is how he behaves. He's an impulse control person now under control, and that's got to really hurt.

And as to the sleeping, he's tired. I don't know what to say. He must be tired.

WALLACE: Can we use the line that you mentioned to me earlier?

SWISHER: Which one?

WALLACE: "Don Snorleone."

SWISHER: "Don Snorleone," I do like -- I have to say, once again, the Internet, just when you think it's over, you're like "Don Snorleone," I think it's, what's the other one?

GOLDBERG: "Fake snooze."

SWISHER: "Fake snooze" and stuff like that. I think those are great.

WALLACE: Well, when you're talking about sleepy Joe, and suddenly he's the one that's --

SWISHER: He can't use that anymore, unfortunately for him. But one of the things that I do like is the idea of all these people, the jurors as they're coming forward, putting up all the social media stuff about him, and he's got to listen to it, because mostly he doesn't get that incoming of negativity. He gets positivity constantly, people constantly licking him up and down. And all of a sudden he's seeing what --

WALLACE: I want to pick up on that, because I was talking to Norm Eisen, who is a distinguished lawyer and he's actually written a book about all of those. He was in court, and he said there was one moment this week where the judge reprimanded Trump. He doesn't get a lot of reprimands now. And he said, now, Norm Eisen is not a fan of Trump, that he kind of sunk back in his chair and his chin went down, and he looked like a beaten six-year-old he said. The lack of control for a guy who is always in control has got to be tough.

GOLDBERG: Yes, it's not just that he's always in control. It's that he surrounds himself with an entourage of yes-men and yes-women who tell him what he wants to hear, who praise him. He always flocks towards praise. He's never kept waiting. And the problem is this is a very controlled environment and he's, he's used to behaving like an escaped monkey from a cocaine study. And all of a sudden, he has to sit there --

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: Where do you get these analogies?

GOLDBERG: He has to sit there and sit there quietly and behave himself. And I think it revs him up to misbehave more once he gets out of the courtroom.

SWISHER: There's no phones allowed. So that must be he must be, he must be like --

SALAM: Here's one thing that I think is really worth noting. One thing that Donald Trump did while in New York, while in Manhattan, was go to Harlem to visit the bodega where Jose Alba was a guy working as a clerk there. He was the victim of a violent crime. He defended himself, then Alvin Bragg brought charges which he immediately dropped because Manhattanites were outraged about the fact that a guy who was defending himself, was getting charged, while the other guy was likely to get off scot-free. I think Donald Trump is actually using this as an opportunity, whether you like it or not, to first of all, visit an NYPD cop who was killed on the job and go to his wake.

WALLACE: Let me just say, that may help him on the front page of "The New York Post" but it doesn't help him in the courtroom.

Anyway, I want to pick up on yet another legal case that Donald Trump's involved in. This Thursday, the Supreme Court is going to hear Donald Trump's case for total immunity for a president involving official acts. Reihan, how many justices do you think will side with Trump either for complete immunity or partial immunity?

SALAM: It's hard for me to say. I will say that I think that Chief Justice Roberts is going to be open to the argument that the D.C. circuit used very loose reasoning when issuing there decision here. You could say that no, he is not immune to all criminal prosecutions. But when you're looking at criminal laws that have some bearing on a president's official duties, that's something that you want to be very careful about. And that's not coming from Donald Trump's lawyers. Thats coming from Walter Dellinger, who was President Clinton's solicitor general. He made that case way back in 1995. You've got to be really careful when you're risking having criminal laws interfere with the president's official duties.

WALLACE: Like trying to overturn an election?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, I was about to say.

SALAM: Then you make a determination based on the specific facts of the case. But I think that there are some cases like going to the Justice Department and saying, hey, maybe we need to investigate something. You might not like it, but that could be within the scope of a president's official duties.

WALLACE: Lulu, quickly, how many justices will side with Trump that when it comes to official acts --

[10:10:03]

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Three. We always know the same three are always going to take his side, and they are Neil Gorsuch, they are Samuel Alito, and they are his good, good, good pal --

WALLACE: Clarence Thomas.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Clarence Thomas. You all know the name already. I was --

GOLDBERG: Gorsuch is the most pro criminal defendant justice on the court regardless of the politics of it. That's why he votes with liberals all the time. I think there is zero chance that any justice will endorse Trump's view of complete and total immunity to criminal things. Trump will lose that nine-zero. Whether there's a qualified immunity dependent on specific cases and circumstances, maybe.

WALLACE: On Capitol Hills Speaker Mike Johnson with some fancy footwork to win a key vote in the House amid Republican threatens to fire him. So did Johnson outfox the far right? Then pulling the plug. With a big drop in sales, we're asking, is

Tesla in trouble?

And later, double whammy. Our tortured poets are ready to dish Taylor Swift's big albums surprise.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:52]

WALLACE: Now to that major vote later today in the House. Four foreign aid bills up for a final vote, including one to send $61 billion to Ukraine, which far-right members of the house GOP flatly oppose. The bills are expected to pass with the help of a majority of Democrats, as we saw Friday during a key procedural vote.

But relying on Democrats has got Speaker Mike Johnson in trouble with his own Republican conference. Far-right members are now threatening to call for a motion to vacate, which is a vote to remove him as speaker. Johnson says he will press on.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON, (R-LA) HOUSE SPEAKER: I'm not deterred by threats. We're going to do the right thing, and let the chips fall where they may.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: There's a lot to break down here, but let's start with Johnson's strategy. Jonah, can Johnson continue, as he is at least right now, to run the House with the aid, the total dependence on Democrats?

GOLDBERG: No. I think this is a -- well, it's not a one-off. It's a four-off because there are four bills. But Democrats don't want to normally support Johnson on anything, Republicans on anything. That would be abnormal. And if he tries to continue to leverage Democratic support beyond this specific thing that's happening basically today, I think that would spell his demise.

WALLACE: Lulu, in hyper-partisan Washington, and particularly in a highly polarized House, how sustainable is this for Johnson? I mean, he would not have gotten the rule, and if he passes the vote today, he wouldn't have done it without the intercession of Democrats.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, I think it's unprecedented, but I also agree with Jonah that it's a one-off. I don't think that this is going to be a new moment of comity between the Democrats and Speaker Johnson.

However, I am impressed with how he has managed this. I mean, this allows very yes factions within both Republicans and Democrats to vote for the parts of the -- of this that they want to vote. So like, if there are Democrats who are uncomfortable with Israel aid, they can perhaps not support it. If there are Republicans who are uncomfortable with Ukraine aid, they can perhaps not support it, and then they bundle them all together. And so I think actually he's done very well out of this.

WALLACE: The House, right wing of the House GOP was not happy with the way this went down. Here is Congressman Matt Gaetz talking about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MATT GAETZ, (R-FL): It seems as though the coalition to proceed on to this foreign aid bill doesn't include House conservatives. And I think that's going to rile a lot of Republican voters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Reihan, at least in this case, has the right wing of the House GOP been outfoxed by Johnson?

SALAM: They're in a really tough spot, partly because they do not want to blow up yet another speaker. You now have a presumptive Republican presidential nominee who does not want the House Republicans to continue to embarrass him as he's looking to win another presidential term. So I think that they really are in a really difficult position because they didn't have a clear strategy. When you're looking at these rebels, what exactly is it that they want? What is their discrete, realistic ask that they can actually get in a real negotiation? It's just not clear, and that's why they can't move the ball forward.

SWISHER: They want to blow it up. I mean, I'm the only person who listens to "The War Room" by Steve Bannon, but she said that on it. She said, I don't --

WALLACE: Marjorie Taylor Greene.

SWISHER: Marjorie Taylor Greene said we could do this all day. We could replace them all day. They want to -- they want to burn it down. That's exactly what they want to do.

WALLACE: See, I don't agree that they want to burn it down. I think that they had a position of power and they were saying, hey, look, we will burn it down, and they kept having speakers who caved. It seems to me that Mike Johnson kind of called their bluff and said --

SWISHER: Right, exactly.

WALLACE: Go ahead, do your worst. I can get the votes. And my guess is that there's a move to vacate, to throw him out, don't you think that the Democrats --

SWISHER: He might win it. He may win it, and then they're finished because you can only threaten someone for so long if you don't deliver.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What was interesting to me is actually his decision. There was a moment of consideration where he was going to try and put in a different level set for the motion to vacate, meaning that it doesn't just require one person, that it might require more people, and that would they actually make it more stable for him to try and govern his coalition.

[10:20:13]

Now, what he decided at the last minute is not to push that through with these four bills. It is a little mysterious to me as to why, but --

WALLACE: Because I think he was going to have a bigger revolt on his hands.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: He was going to have a bigger revolt on his hands, but at the same time, he is left in a position after this that still with the same problem.

So we're looking at Ukraine now. We're looking at Israel now. But what about the next tranche of money that needs to go to Ukraine? This isn't just a one-off. They are still prosecuting a war here. What is going to happen further down the line? And this is what I'm concerned about when you look at the state of the House GOP.

WALLACE: I'm going to pick up on that, because let's get to the bottom line here. This is -- we can talk about the politics inside the House. The real issue is, Ukraine going to get the $60 billion in US aid that has been waiting months for and losing on the battlefield when they haven't gotten that. Will the U.S. end up showing Ukraine the money?

GOLDBERG: I think they will, and this actually leads the answer. I think Lulu is right about this, they're not going to get any more Ukraine aid until after the presidential election. There's going to be a new House, there will probably be a new speaker then. But they don't -- Mike Johnson has this one. He can only fire this bullet once, this trick of using Democrats. And the reason why I think he's safe and why I predicted last week on this show that he would be safe, the perils of prediction, is that anybody remotely qualified to replace him doesn't want the job. And nobody who does want the job can get elected. No one has any appetite to do another speaker race thing. And so he's, he's there because --

WALLACE: But it seems to me, Lulu, that there's another aspect to this, which is if you end up with another speaker crisis, it's going to hurt the Republicans. And the Republicans, at a certain point you've got to think voters are going to say it, can anybody here play this game? And we're not that many months from the November election.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But what's interesting to me is that if you look at the group that is actually at the heart of all this, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, et cetera, they are in safe seats. They don't care. This isn't a problem for them. This is --

WALLACE: Why, why do you say that? Do you think they want to be in the minority?

GOLDBERG: Yes.

SWISHER: Yes.

WALLACE: You do?

GOLDBERG: Yes. I think they want to be pundits. They want to make the perfect the enemy of the good. They're part of a culture of losing where they get to complain and gripe about the establishment. It drives them crazy when they have to be held accountable for doing things.

WALLACE: Reihan, you're got 20 seconds. Do you agree with that?

SALAM: I don't agree with it, but I think that they need a new strategy, number one. Number two, I'll say another big thing that's happened here is that the Czech Republic, Europe is rallying. They're sending munitions. This is in a way working. Actually, the conservative saying, we need to put more conditions, we need to get tougher before we give aid, it's actually elicited the response from Europe that we wanted to see.

WALLACE: Anti-war protests spread across the country this week, especially on some college campuses. And the demonstrations are raising a serious question on the left. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:27:55]

WALLACE: Protests grew bigger and more disruptive this week on college campuses as pro-Palestinian groups expressed outrage at Israel's continuing war in Gaza. But along with the anger comes mounting controversy over how to handle the demonstrations and where to draw the line between what's anti-war and what's antisemitism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: From the river to the sea --

WALLACE: At Columbia University in New York, a 50-tent pro-Palestinian encampment broken up by police and more than 100 people arrested just one day after those school's president was grilled on Capitol Hill.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Colombia's code of conduct?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it does.

WALLACE: Pledging to crack down on unauthorized protests and offensive speech by students and professors.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're getting think the message.

WALLACE: Colombia's handling of the issue a stark contrast to Harvard's president four months ago, which led to her forced resignation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment, yes or no?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It can be depending on the context.

WALLACE: Fallout from the war also felt at the University of Southern California, which canceled its Muslim valedictorian's commencement speech. USC citing security concerns after it discovered the student's Instagram linked to a website calling for the abolishment of Israel, an argument she's not buying.

ASNA TABASSUM, VALEDICTORIAN, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: The university preemptively made a decision that I think impedes on my freedom of expression.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WALLACE: Reihan, whether it's in the streets or on campus, to get back to my original question, where do we draw the line between anti-war protest and antisemitism?

SALAM: Well, certainly when it comes to private universities, they have wide discretion over which speakers they want to champion. This is something that folks on campus have been saying for a great many years now. And I think that --

WALLACE: I'm talking about student protests. When is it just we don't like what's going on in Gaza and we oppose it, and when does that become antisemitism?

[10:30:02]

SALAM: Look, when you're dealing with harassment and intimidation, when you're using violent language, when you're disrupting classrooms and the larger student experience -- at Columbia, when you have a large encampment at a place that is meant to be a commons for the larger student community, that is something that, in my view, shouldn't be tolerated. And then beyond that, you have a lot more genuine harassment that has actually led some classes to say we're not going actually announce exactly where the class is physically located, where it's happening. We're going to text folks an hour before the class --

WALLACE: But Kara, as the war drags on and the outrage grows, where is it -- and this is a slightly reframing of the question, how do you distinguish between free speech over policy and hate speech against Jews?

SWISHER: Well, unfortunately, that's the problem with all these universities. I thought the Columbia -- the head of Columbia handled that very well in Congress.

WALLACE: Well, she had about two months to practice.

SWISHER: Right, exactly. And they figured out what the correct thing to say and not be caught in the thing. So that that worked out well.

I think the way you articulated is if it starts to really disrupt things. I was subject to it when I was doing one of my appearances with Gavin Newsom, and people disrupted the entire thing. And what was really interesting is he agreed with them, and it didn't stop, and it disrupted the experience of people there.

Now I'm very pro protest. If people want to protest, they can. But there is a moment where it does tip over into either hate speech or utter disruption of other people's experiences where these universities should be able to make these decisions. Although I would -- I have a very wide berth for comics and protesters kind of thing.

WALLACE: Then we've got Colombia's President Minouche Shafik who clearly wasn't going to make the same mistake in front of a congressional hearing that led to the ouster of the presidents of Harvard and Penn. Jonah, are these college presidents, have they wised up and are they changing their tune?

GOLDBERG: Oh, clearly. They're getting a message. The president of Pomona drew a hard line and said you've got 10 minutes to get out of my office. You're not here, you don't have permission and kicked them out. I think that's the right thing to do.

I think -- I don't think anybody actually addressed your question about the antisemitism part, like the antisemitism isn't whether its disruptive or not. You can have disruptive antisemitism are non- disruptive antisemitism. The question is, like, are people being singled out, American Jews being singled out for the actions of another country that they're not, that they don't live in. And you see Jewish members of the administration being picketed at their homes and singled out there. They wait for Anthony Blinken's kids to get in the car before they say hateful and terrible things. You see people saying things simply about Jews qua Jews. That's antisemitism. It's collective guilt --

WALLACE: If you say "From the river to the sea," is that antisemitism?

GOLDBERG: Well, it is a genocide -- taken literally, it is a genocidal sentiment about a Jewish country. And people can take it as they want. The point I want to make is, if you're going out there and you're celebrating Hamas, you're wearing Hamas insignia, you're waving the Hezbollah flag, as we've seen, whether or not you're antisemitic, you are pro terrorist. And there are a lot of people out there at these protests who are celebrating the mass murder of people, terrorist attacks, defending the terrorist government of Iran, and antisemitism in the debate can detract from that.

WALLACE: Let's talk about the other thing that we mentioned in our setup pays. Lulu, what about the case of the University of Southern California? Was USC right to ban this woman, the valedictorian, from speaking next month?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: This case is really interesting, actually, because she was chosen by the University of Southern California. They had 200 valedictorians, and they said, you're going to be the one to speak. And then there were protests by Jewish groups who found this link to the website. There was no --

WALLACE: Which called, to remind people, for the abolishment of the state of Israel.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But there was no indication that she was going to address this in her statements.

SWISHER: Pre-crime.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: There was no -- it's like a pre-crime. It's like a thought crime. There was nothing there that she said, I'm going to go and make this speech. I'm going to say these terrible things. There was no indication that that was true. So it was literally being targeted for her religion and for something that was --

WALLACE: Well, not necessarily her religion.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: No, no, but because she --

WALLACE: She had expressed sympathy, or some support for --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But --

WALLACE: I'm not saying that whether --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But what she has said is this is a version of Islamophobia. And so you can't say that one thing is antisemitism and then another person is actually being removed from a valedictorian position for something that she may or may not believe --

WALLACE: Reihan, do you agree with that?

SALAM: I don't. I think that they have many options to choose from. I think the big mistake here happened in this election process, because I do think that it's a legitimate to try to find someone who is going to bring people together, someone who is not going to endorse hateful sentiments.

With regard to this situation, I think that, look, they had every right to say we want to see a copy of the remarks. If you stray from those remarks, we will cut your microphone off. But I think the big, big mistake here was actually not being really thoughtful about the fact that we're in a fraught moment, that antisemitism is extremely pervasive, that anti-Zionism amounts to antisemitism, and that you have someone who is endorsing pretty radical and toxic ideas.

[10:35:12]

So that was the big screw up in this case. It happened before this decision.

WALLACE: Some American Olympians are protesting what they may have to where this summer in Paris. We'll show you.

Plus, Harry and Meghan have new day jobs, but are they the panel's jam?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:09]

WALLACE: Once again, it's time to get our group's yea or nay on some big talkers.

Up first, Olympic sized drama for Nike. This week, the company released Team USA's uniforms for this summer's games in Paris, and a number of athletes are criticizing the skimpy looking women's outfit, with one former female athlete calling it a "costume born of patriarchal forces." Nike says there will be many different styles for athletes to choose from. Lulu are you yea or nay on Nike's new uniform.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Hard nay. I mean, this is longstanding complaint of female athletes that a lot of what they're forced to wear is sexist. And I'm glad that this is getting this kind of attention. And I understand that there's a lot of different uniforms, but those weren't the uniforms that they were choosing to showcase when they put this out there. And so I think this is a very important --

SWISHER: I want the men to wear them. That's what I want.

GOLDBERG: Not the shotput.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: I really wouldn't want the men to wear them.

Reihan, it is true that female athletes have complained, and not just in the United States, female athletes at the Olympics have complained for years about that the officials and the outfitters are trying to sexualize women's sports. Where are you on the Nike uniforms? And I certainly don't want to see you wearing one of those.

(LAUGHTER)

SALAM: So look, I mean, you have a bunch of different options to choose from. That seems totally fair enough. I will say, Chris, I hadn't realized, they're really ugly. And I think that that is bad. But I'm still a yea on it. Come on, guys. You know, lighten up.

WALLACE: Next, the duke and duchess of Sussex go to work. This week, we learned what Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are doing to make a few bucks. She is starting to sell jars of jam as part of her new lifestyle brand called American Riviera Orchard. He is the executive producer of an upcoming Netflix series on the world of polo. The prince himself plays the game and is expected to make a few cameos.

Kara, yea or nay on Meghan's jam and Harry's polo series?

SWISHER: I like jam. OK, sure, why not? And polo, not, that's a nay. What is it, like four people watching it, I suppose?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: He might bring the game to popular --

SWISHER: No, no, no.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: He's a rich man who plays polo. And this is what he knows. WALLACE: Jonah, I know that you're spending a lot of time wondering and worrying about what the duke and duchess are going to do to keep the wolf from the door. Where are you on all of those?

GOLDBERG: I'm a yea because I'm in favor of any pursuits that keep them away from my television set and makes it --

WALLACE: No, no, no, but the TV series is going to be on Netflix.

GOLDBERG: I have high degree of confidence I can avoid a Netflix series on polo, right?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Now in your algorithm, I guess.

GOLDBERG: Yes. So I want them to do normal things that don't -- that aren't constantly chasing being a celebrity.

WALLACE: I'm not sure that they're avoiding trying to be a celebrity.

Finally, the moment at least two of our group here have been waiting for, Taylor Swift's expected new album, "The Tortured Poets Department" dropped Friday, along with a surprise second album that includes 15 songs. On Instagram, Swift posted, "I've written so much tortured poetry in the past two years and wanted to share it all with you."

Lulu, this isn't really a yay or nay question because we know it's a yea, but have you listened to the album, have you listened to all 31 songs, and how great is it?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Is it a yea, is it a yea? I think you've made an assumption here. I actually think that there can be such a thing as too much Taylor. And I think --

WALLACE: How dare you?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And I think we're now -- I think we're now at peak Taylor. I think dropping one album is one thing, but then having the second album also, it's just like a lot.

WALLACE: Did you like the music?

SWISHER: I liked the music. I'm going to go yea. I think there's never too much Taylor. Every -- and Reihan and I were up all last night listening to it.

(LAUGHTER)

SWISHER: And braiding each others hair. It was really nice.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: I love that you guys get together off camera.

Up next, is Tesla in trouble? The latest numbers that have gone under the radar. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:49:07]

WALLACE: With so much focus on Trump's trial and the drama on Capitol Hill, there's a major business story that's gone under the radar. Tesla, the leading manufacturer of electric vehicles, releasing its figures for what one analyst called a nightmare first quarter. And with E.V. demand overall plummeting, the longer-term outlook isn't bright for Elon Musk's company.

Check out these numbers. First quarter sales dropped for the first time in almost four years. Its share of the E.V. market is down from 62 percent to 51. Tesla's market cap, or what the company is worth, down by more than half from its $1 trillion peak in 2021. And this week, the company announced its laying off more than 10 percent of its global workforce, around 14,000 people. Kara, why is Tesla in trouble?

[10:50:00]

SWISHER: If only someone said this a year ago it was going to happen, I don't know. I thought this was going to have been because, one, competition, it was coming, increasing. And he is he is plowed the field for these vehicles, E.V.s, but there's going to be competition, and good competition.

Secondly, he hasn't made a good product in a while. They haven't -- you have to really keep these innovative products cycles when you have --

WALLACE: They just recalled all of the cyber trucks.

SWISHER: Yes, right. And there's issues around service, around even just like doorknobs falling off and stuff like that. So they haven't kept up with the quality that you expect for these expensive cars. Cyber truck was a distraction, and then the brand itself with Elon spending all his time over at Twitter, it's a real problem for the brand.

WALLACE: X, it's called X now.

SWISHER: X, whatever.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: Jonah --

SWISHER: Call it whatever you want. It costs him a lot of money.

WALLACE: Burn book, yes.

Jonah, Tesla is one of the worst performers in the S&P 500 this year. They say it's in the same territory as Boeing, which I think we know is not good territory. Is this a Tesla problem, is it an E.V. problem? What's going on? GOLDBERG: Yes, I think it's both. I agree with everything that Kara

said. There's also just been, like there's a glut coming from China, and also there's been an enormous amount of press about the electrical infrastructure not being available to do long trips. And so you just have bad odor coming on it. And then you have the mismanagement of the actual company on top of it.

WALLACE: While Tesla is as tanking, Lulu, Elon Musk, who doesn't lack for self-assurance, is trying to get his $56 billion pay package reinstated which was shut down by a judge and Delaware. Is his baggage or his shenanigans, do you think they are contributing to Tesla's problems?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Absolutely. I think he's distracted. I think he's been occupied, as Kara said, with what's happening at X. And I also think that what we expect of our captains of industry, quote-unquote, is something a little bit more sober, so to speak. And I think it's -- he's clearly not really focusing on the things that he should be focusing on.

SWISHER: But he's going to get that money, by the way. They're moving to Texas and he'll get that money. And this board, which is not a board, will give it to him.

WALLACE: I'm very relieved about that.

SWISHER: Yes.

WALLACE: The panel is back with their takes on hot stories or what will be in the news before its news. That's right after the break.

So is that what the move to Texas is all about?

SWISHER: That's correct.

WALLACE: To get out of incorporation in Delaware?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:57:12]

WALLACE: It's time for our panel's special takes on what's happening or predictions of what we should be looking out for. So Jonah, hit me with your best shot?

GOLDBERG: So there was a big, very serious report in the U.K. called the Cass Report named after a medical scientist, Hilary Cass, that threw a lot of cold water on some of the more extreme claims about gender affirming care for kids. And it's changing policy throughout Europe. And I think that that it spells a sea change that is coming to how we talk about this in the United States. And I think it can't come soon enough.

WALLACE: Lulu, you're answering the pressing question, why are so many people moving to South Carolina? GARCIA-NAVARRO: Indeed. This is a story that caught my eye in "The New

York Times," my paper, because this is about the great resorting of America, how people are moving to places where they want to have likeminded people live next to them. They profiled a company called Conservative Move where real estate agents have gotten into the business of trying to get people who are in liberal states to move to conservative states. South Carolina is the fastest growing state in the United States right now. And so I just found it fascinating, and actually, frankly, quite troubling that this is now moving into the commercial sphere and trying to encourage people to not be with people who might disagree with them.

WALLACE: Reihan, best shot?

SALAM: When President Biden first came into office, he was really hot on resetting the relationship with Saudi Arabia, to say we're not going to take your shenanigans, staying to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that, look, we are going to take a more aggressive posture towards you. But now President Biden's reelection prospects depend on Saudi Arabia. That's both because this administration is fighting for a Saudi-Israel accord, but also because he's depending on the Saudis to hold down energy prices. So this is a big reversal for the president and a pretty awkward position for him to be.

WALLACE: Kara, bring us home.

SWISHER: Speaking of rich people, and he's very rich, they are feeling the squeeze. Luxury spending is way down. You just saw the results from LVMH, the juggernaut, the luxury juggernaut. And that's due to China, inflation, and all kinds of things. But at the same time, luxury housing spending in this country has gone down considerably. And so prices have declined seven percent this year, and that was two declines. Everyone in the pandemic bid up these rich houses and they were living in their beautiful estates. And now the prices are going down. And so you could get a real bargain, Chris, on a multi, $10 million home.

WALLACE: The question I want to ask, though, is, Kara, are you personally doing what you can to reverse this trend and put spending on luxury items up? Youve got a very successful book.

SWISHER: I get that, but I'm not quite in your group.

WALLACE: Oh, please.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's hard for the rest of us to hear you two talk, let me just put that out there.

SWISHER: Anyway, I think it's interesting to see what happens here. And the prices were elevated, and now they're, because of a lot of reasons, down. It'll be interesting to see where it goes.

WALLACE: But the economy kind of hangs on, and spending, maybe not high-end spending, spending is pretty strong.

SWISHER: Yes, I think it just the prices got out of line with what they were actually worth. And that's really -- and they're going back, they're going back to, I think it's called secular normalization.

WALLACE: I'm all for secular.

Gang, thank you all for being here. And thank you for spending part of you day with us. We'll see you right back here next week.