Angelo Carusone and Dean Obeidallah discuss how media outlets should cover Trump's criminal trial
Published
Angelo Carusone / Dean Obeidallah interview 3/27/24
Citation From the March 27. 2024, edition of SiriusXM's The Dean Obeidallah Show
DEAN OBEIDALLAH (HOST): I'm talking to Angelo Carusone.
So, Angelo, big thing is coming up. Donald Trump's criminal trial looks very likely will begin April 15th. The first time former president is on trial, criminal case. We know what he's gonna do. We know every day he's gonna come out of court and hold his little court himself and spew lies, lie about the evidence, lie about what's said there because there's no cameras in the courtroom. It's him.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS): Yup.
OBEIDALLAH: How well, how first of all, how should the media — the real media — deal with that? Is it nonstop fact-checking? Is it cutting away from him? He's literally lying about the evidence that's been presented.
CARUSONE: It definitely shouldn't give him a free pass to lie about the evidence he's presented. I am skeptical that they will. I think, obviously, there will be some that will regurgitate. I think that — but if this is where the backlash comes in, as long as there's enough heat on them not to sort of be a raw stenographer for his counter offenses, it will be helpful. The one thing I'll say on the flip side, though, is that he remains an irresistible temptation when he sort of steps up to a microphone, and he and if you're a producer, you know he's gonna freewheel and say some things that is gonna get you a lot of attention.
And that is always the real struggle here is how much you know, they'll hide behind the idea that it's newsworthy. And to some things could be newsworthy, but you don't have to do it live and unfiltered in the most damaging and destructive way. You can always characterize what he did and say without giving him free, unfiltered airtime. So I think the media shouldn't be giving him, the ability to respond every single day and poison the well and sat — because there's — it's more — one, it's important for that. It's important that they don't do that just from, like, a sheer, like, fairness perspective.
There's another reason too, which is that the one thing — I put various degrees of stock in pulling, not much across the board. But the one thing that seems to be pretty universal is even amongst recalcitrant Republicans that say they don't support Trump but they, you know, eh, they're still going to vote for him, but the one thing they keep saying that would change their mind, you know a portion of them is that if he ends up getting found guilty of a crime, that that actually would change their mind, that they would — that there's a portion of Republicans say, yeah, that actually is where the break point for me is. I wouldn't be able to vote for somebody that actually is found guilty of a crime. And if they allow Trump to poison the well so much and to see — to salt the earth around the trial, such that an outcome of him being found guilty does is not able to actually have any meaningful effect on the voter behavior in a way that is even more destructive.
Not just because of the outcome, but because it's it's tainting something that people have said is important to them. So if if they have a false impression that the process was so busted that it undermines whatever they thought was important about that outcome, about, you know, him being found guilty. That doesn't change their behavior. It is an issue.
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OBEIDALLAH: But, you know, you make a great point because Trump comes out and speaks for the political reasons. He can't change the evidence that went before the jury.
CARUSONE: No.
OBEIDALLAH: He can come out and lie about it. So his consumers, his supporters can be like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna buy the Bible, the Trump Bible, and I believe everything that this idiot just said to me.
CARUSONE: The Trump Bible. I love this.
OBEIDALLAH: Right? The Trump bible. Unbelievable, isn't it?
CARUSONE: It's my favorite thing.
OBEIDALLAH: Sneakers, phone, Bible. It's his favorite book. He's got a lot around the house. So — but putting that aside for a second here. Since it's political, does that mean President Biden, democrats should engage some even putting out a statement every time he says Biden's prosecuting me in Alvin Bragg, and Alvin Bragg is working with Biden, and Biden's prosecuting me.
Even a boilerplate statement over and over, and the Biden administration because they do nothing now. They say nothing. And I really hate when they say nothing because this is politics.
CARUSONE: Yeah. I think they need to have something that makes it clear that it's not them. It is a little weird to not have any response only because it's the nature of the way the media works. Right? Which is that they will quote one side, and if you don't, and when I have this fight all the time, internally, we always struggle with this, which is, like, what happens when especially lately with all the the Elon Musk stuff is, like, what happens when Fox is writing an article about us?
And, you know, it's the entire thing is completely not true, but yet we don't comment to Fox, but sometimes we should. It's like it's a weird tension, which is, like, it's you know, sometimes you're better off not saying anything. But then there's this other thing, which is, like, if you don't challenge even something that's completely true, it's so lopsided that eventually over time, that can get used against you in a weird way because it helps, you know, it's like a — any kind of narrative requires building blocks. And so the repetition of only one part without ever hearing the counterbalance, just like you were saying before with those op-eds. Right? Where sometimes you say, wait a minute. You need to give that you need to put this quote from the person you're criticizing in there just because you have to fair — you need it sometimes. Right? And it's the same thing here. Without giving them anything to latch onto, just like any scale, every time Trump gets out there and makes the claim that he's being prosecuted by Biden, and there's nothing in the article that helps balance that out. And the assumption that the media is going to proactively do that is simply wrong. This decision is not true. They actually are not truth vigilantes. Right? So, like, that is the problem here. Like, if 40 years ago, you could make the assumption that there were people inside newsrooms that were saying, wait. We have to make it clearer, that this isn't true. That's simply not the way that the media will play this out.
They will they will parrot what Trump says, and they will then let it stand. And so I think and this is an instance where I don't know if you should get into the merits or anything like that, but I do think it's very important that they make it crystal clear that they're not the ones driving this prosecution, not only for political reason, and I think there's a good reason that that is not the perception, but also because it's important for the justice system. Like, you actually should have people having faith that what this guy is saying isn't true. And the truth is most people, honestly, will be sympathetic to Trump's argument. Most people don't have a lot of confidence that the system isn't gonna screw them in some way.
And I do think when you have a chance, especially as the person in charge of that system, to put confidence back into it, you should.
OBEIDALLAH: No. And and you're right. They — it's not like Biden should comment on the evidence that's been introduced. I'm gonna be curious what happens if Trump is convicted and is a convicted felon, how they speak about it then. Because then you could say Donald Trump who who is convicted of 23 felonies in New York, and they gotta say convicted felon every 5 seconds.
Yeah. Over and over, convicted felon, convicted felon, convicted felon.
CARUSONE: That's right.
OBEIDALLAH: The same way George Bush said Saddam Hussein in 911 over and over. And that wasn't a true connection. This is a real connection.
They have to repeat it nonstop.
CARUSONE: And I will say, we got a keyhole view, by the way, of how the media will not do a good job with this because there was a couple weeks ago where the judge in Georgia had dropped a couple of the indictments against Trump.
OBEIDALLAH: Yep.
CARUSONE: So that you know, he took 6 counts and said, okay. These 6 counts, you can't have them. 3 of them were not about Trump, but 3 of them were. If you go back and look at the coverage, like, Trump still had a lot of other counts against him, like a dozen or more. It was a lot.
Like but it was, like, the headlines and the chyrons and all the news coverage was recounts against Trump reduced. The number of charges against Trump reduced. Judge overthrows — throws out charges against Trump. They never said how many still remain. Like, it's not normal to have a dozen or so charges still sticking against you.
And even the reasons why they were pushed out, I get are super legal and technical I don't think we have to get into all that, though it was, you know, fine. But, like, they didn't actually contextualize that. So the major story was Trump major victory here. The guy is still sitting on a dozen-plus counts.
You know? And I think it's an example of how the media is gonna not do a good job here. It's a keyhole view, but it was not very — it didn't give me a lot of comfort and confidence about how they're gonna handle these larger criminal pushes against Trump, because just simply by how much they overplayed, you know, the judge tossing out a couple counts. And if anything, it should make you feel better about the justice system. And, also, it still shows the guy still got a lot.
You know? But yeah.
OBEIDALLAH: And last thing before we wrap up is that the media hasn't updated what happened. So three charges are gone. So Trump is not charged with 91 felonies anymore. It's 88.
Nobody's saying 88.
CARUSONE: They're not!
OBEIDALLAH: Everyone's still saying 91. And then and I kinda joke on the show. I'm like, alright. It's 88 now, which is actually laughable to go, like, it's only 88 felonies.
CARUSONE: Yeah.
OBEIDALLAH: But that's the number correctly now is 88. It's no longer 91. And they might get refiled not to get the legalese. We went through on the show weeks ago.
CARUSONE: Right.
OBEIDALLAH: They weren't dismissed on the substance. They were dismissed about the grand the lawyers possibly has to go back and make a more thorough case to the grand jury connecting the evidence, and that could be it. So, Angelo, I want — there's some other things I want them to touch on, but we've run out of time here, my friend.