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Saturday Q&A

We bet you can guess what all the questions in the "Current Events" section are about.

One more week with no Reader Question of the Week. Sorry about that, but we want to get this live as soon as possible.

Current Events

F.I. from Philadelphia, PA, asks: Am I reading this SEC rule correctly? If a felon cannot be an owner of a publicly traded company with a higher than 20% share, what does that mean for Trump and his ownership of roughly 60% of DJT?

(V) & (Z) answer: That rule applies to initial offerings of securities, not to holding securities. DJT has already been offered, so there's no issue here.


J.G. in El Cerrito, CA, asks: Does being a convicted felon limit Trump's ability to get a security clearance?

Most presidential nominees start getting briefed on top security matters at some point (after they win but before sworn in?). I doubt anyone really wanted to give that to Trump this time after seeing his treatment of classified documents and knowing he'd likely use the information for political gain rather than the national good. Does this now mean he must be kept out of the loop until he is sworn in if he wins?

(V) & (Z) answer: Presidents and major-party presidential candidates don't really get security clearances, per se. Effectively, that requirement is waived.

When a person is a major-party nominee, they don't get daily briefings the way the actual president does. What they get is one or two or maybe three briefings that give them a sense of the big picture. The concern with Trump is 100% related to his handling of classified documents and 0% related to his felony conviction. In other words, there is nothing different today than last Saturday on that front. And the Biden administration had already decided that Trump would get one briefing, and that it would be free of any details that might be of value to a foreign adversary.


T.G. in Salem, OR, asks: I suspect that Donald Trump had to forfeit his passport months ago (at one of his many arraignments). And there are those that will say "he'll never flee" (I tend to disagree... if he gets to the point where he thinks he might lose the November election).

But here's my question: Is there any chance the U.S.S.S. has been told they have to keep Trump away from any foreign embassies and consulates? It Seems to me the easiest way to "run" would be to take up residence "on foreign soil" and there is NOTHING the DoJ could do about it.

(V) & (Z) answer: Trump did not, in fact, have to surrender his passports (he has more than one). And the U.S.S.S. cannot keep Trump away from foreign embassies and consulates; any restriction of his movement would effectively place him "under arrest," which would be illegal.

And escaping to an embassy is not quite the panacea that you propose. First, it would have to belong to a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. Second, the foreign government would have to agree to grant asylum to Trump. Third, it is not impossible that the U.S. government might decide to disregard the sovereignty of, say, Venezuela and to enter their embassy and seize Trump. It would be a diplomatic no-no, but that might be less problematic than allowing Trump to escape. And there isn't much Venezuela could, or would, do about it, other than expel the U.S. mission to their country (assuming there was one, which, at the moment, there is not).


J.C. in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, asks: I got confused on something, as I excitedly read the results from the live blog to my family. There were 34 guilty counts, but I thought it was supposed to be 34 counts of the misdemeanor, and then there would be separate finding of guilty on an additional crime to perform the first crime, making it a felony?

(V) & (Z) answer: No. There were 34 counts of falsifying business records, which is a misdemeanor. However, if the falsifications were undertaken in service of some other crime, then the misdemeanors all become felonies.


P.M. in Encinitas, CA, asks: When reviewing the guidelines for sentencing a convicted felon, wouldn't a judge typically consider that individual's lack of remorse and refusal to accept responsibility for his crimes as a reason to impose a stronger sentence? Could Trump's cries of martyrdom may make it more likely that he gets jail time?

(V) & (Z) answer: Yes and yes.


K.F.W. in El Dorado Hills, CA, asks: Read this after the conviction in a news article: "Legal experts say it's unlikely that Trump would face jail time because Trump does not have a criminal record and the charges against him are nonviolent felonies."

But he does have a criminal record. He has been convicted of sexual assault and tax fraud(?) over his real estate valuations.

(V) & (Z) answer: Both E. Jean Carroll cases were civil, not criminal, and were centered on defamation. The finding that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll was part of the facts of the case, but he was not convicted of sexual assault. Similarly, the Letitia James fraud trial was a civil action, not a criminal one. And so, until Thursday of this week, Donald Trump did not have a criminal record.


A.F. in Boston, MA, asks: Yesterday, convicted felon Donald Trump gave one of his trademark speeches full of lies, misdirection, and tacit incitement directed towards all sorts of people involved with the now concluded trial. It seems that some or most of this would have been violations under the gag order during the trial. Is that gag order no longer in effect now that the jury has rendered its verdict? Will it be revived or continue while the case is under (future) appeal or will the appeals court have to impose a new one?

(V) & (Z) answer: The gag order has not been lifted yet, and probably won't be until sentencing. Maybe not even then, since part of the purpose of the order was to protect the jurors, and they are still at risk (people have been trying to dox them).


B.C. in Walpole, ME, asks: I couldn't help but notice that in his remarks, upon leaving the courtroom, Donald Trump referred to Judge Juan Merchan as "Soros-backed." I knew that the notorious Biden Crime Family was behind the trial, and the widely-feared Democrats, and the Drax-Blofeld-Goldfinger-Lex-Luthor-like Judge's daughter, but I had no idea that this trial was part of the International Jewish Conspiracy.

Where do you think Trump coughed that up from?

(V) & (Z) answer: We see two possibilities, and they are roughly equally likely. The first is that Trump just attaches "Soros-backed" to any government official he doesn't like, in the same way he might use "socialist" or "communist" or "un-American."

The second is that, as he is prone to do, Trump garbled his talking points. It's actually DA Alvin Bragg who is accused of being Soros-backed by right-wingers, because Soros gave money to the PAC Color of Change, and Color of Change supported Bragg's campaign.


S.M. in New York, NY, asks: Do you know what percentage of convictions in New York courts are overturned?

(V) & (Z) answer: Each of the state's four judicial departments (a.k.a. circuits) publishes statistics each year, and number-crunchers have gone through and concluded that about 6% of verdicts are overturned on appeal while another 3% are modified in some way.


R.V. in Pittsburgh, PA, asks: Because the jury in the New York trial was not sequestered, is that legitimate grounds for overturning his conviction? I'm sure Donald Trump's lawyers will argue that they should have been sequestered due to high profile nature of this case. But is that really enough to throw out a conviction?

(V) & (Z) answer: The lack of sequestration is not enough to overturn the conviction. The only way that argument would fly is if the defense could prove that one or more jurors was exposed to information that unquestionably prejudiced them, and that they would not have been exposed to if they had been sequestered. For example, if a juror did an interview with Meet the Press this weekend, and said "I was really not sure about the case until I saw your program 2 weeks ago; that was what convinced me Trump was 100% guilty. After that, I no longer bothered paying attention in court."


M.M. in Sheffield, England, UK, asks: How does presumption of innocence work if there is an appeal? I would guess that TFG is now acknowledged as proven guilty by a jury of his peers, even though he is appealing. And that he remains a felon until and unless the conviction is overturned on appeal.

(V) & (Z) answer: Indeed, he is no longer presumed to be innocent, his guilt having been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Note that it's also something of a moot point. In appeals, the courts will not be reviewing the entire case to assess Trump's innocence or guilt. They'll be addressing specific questions of judicial error, or other procedural issues.


R.S. in Ticonderoga, NY, asks: Six months ago or more, Alvin Bragg's case in the "hush money" prosecution was considered the weakest of all the indictments against Donald Trump. Does the successful conviction on all 34 counts mean that the pundits were wrong, or that Bragg is brilliant, or a combination? Also, does this mean that the other cases, if they ever make it to trial, are as likely to succeed (conceding that every trial has unknowns).

(V) & (Z) answer: Keep in mind that prosecutorial budgets are limited, and that every case that moves forward (especially high-profile ones) costs a big chunk of money. So, prosecutors do not generally move forward with a case unless they believe that case is a slam dunk, or close to it. It is also the case that prosecutors know exactly what evidence they have, whereas outsiders (like pundits) only have a general idea. So, Bragg wasn't just throwing a Hail Mary here; he knew the evidence and was very confident he would win.

With that said, let us imagine that Bragg had a 90% chance of a conviction, whereas the other three cases have a 92%, a 95%, and a 96% chance. These numbers are entirely plausible, and if this was the situation, then it could simultaneously be true that: (1) Bragg moved forward because he was very confident of a conviction, and (2) His case was nonetheless the weakest of the four. In other words, it could well be that both he and the pundits were absolutely correct.

And we do think that Bragg's success here bodes ill for Trump in the other three cases, when and if they go to trial. First, because the other cases really do appear to be stronger. Second, because Trump just reminded everyone that, because of his ego or his lack of self-control or whatever, he does things that are actively harmful to his chances of winning.

Politics

R.M.S. in Lebanon, CT, asks: What do you think the Libertarian Party was smoking when they chose to have Donald Trump speak at their convention? This is a man who has proposed terminating the Constitution, and who has argued in court that he is immune from prosecution for any acts he commits in office, including shooting people. Both claims ought to horrify libertarians, centrists, and progressives alike.

Libertarians spent a decade comparing Barack Obama to the Son of Satan for the Affordable Care Act. They claimed it would undermine the foundation of the country and constitute an abuse of power. It has largely been found to be constitutional and has withstood three Supreme Court challenges.

Do you think they are being insincere about protecting constitutional rights?

(V) & (Z) answer: Probably not insincere, not in the way that evangelicals who support Trump seem to be rather insincere about, you know, Christianity.

There are many, many flavors of libertarianism, and Donald Trump is somewhat in line with some of them, most obviously paleolibertarianism. So, we suspect there were some people at the convention who actually wanted to hear from him.

On top of that, the Libertarian Party is very small, and is desperate for some visibility. Getting a former (and possibly future) president to show up, and then making a bunch of headlines by booing him, was some great earned media for them.


W.S. in Austin, TX, asks: You have written many times that John Roberts cares about the legitimacy of SCOTUS. On what do you base that, exactly?

Also, why is Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) so richard-less in dealing with SCOTUS, when he is the person who should be the one to do it?

(V) & (Z) answer: We base that on the long history of chief justices as institutionalists, dating all the way back to John Marshall, as well as Roberts' casting some votes (like the one to save Obamacare) that appeared to be more tactical than being in line with his personal thinking. That said, the last couple years' of Supreme Court jurisprudence strongly suggest he's given up on institutionalism, and he's just letting things take their course. Not only is he investing virtually no effort in moderating the Court's most extreme and/or controversial decisions, he's also lifted barely a finger when it comes to the various ethical lapses from his junior colleagues Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

As to Durbin, we suspect his calculus goes something like this: I can spend my time on an "investigation" of the justices, which they won't cooperate with, and which will result in no sanctions anyhow, or I can spend my time getting Biden-appointed judges approved. I choose Option #2.


S.S. in San Luis Obispo, CA, asks: What is your opinion on the plausibility of a scenario where the Democrats use a House majority to impeach an ethically challenged conservative justice and a Republican-controlled Senate convicts, with an eye toward replacing a problematic conservative judge with a (hopefully) less problematic but much younger conservative judge?

(V) & (Z) answer: We don't think the Democrats would go for this. They have hopes that somehow, some way, the getting-up-there-in-years conservatives (and there are three or four such justices) will die or be forced into retirement while a Democrat is in the White House. They are not going to give the Republicans another 20-30 years of holding Samuel Alito's or Clarence Thomas' seat for free.

It is possible the Democrats would agree to an arrangement where one of the problematic conservatives is replaced by someone roughly equal in age. But then Republicans would balk, as Alito and Thomas are pretty popular with Republican voters, and the GOP wouldn't want to throw them overboard without getting something juicy out of it.


D.R. in Phoenix, AZ, asks: I find myself frustrated whenever the polling question, "Is the country on the right track or the wrong track?" is included in a survey. It seems to me the resulting data is frequently analyzed as roughly equivalent to the presidential approval question. I think it is not equivalent at all! For example, I strongly approve of Joe Biden's presidency, but I think the country is on the wrong track because of the increasing extremism of TFG's supporters, the possibility that Herr Drumpf will be elected again (which speaks to the ignorance and/or apathy of a large bloc of American voters), as well as things like resistance to potential climate change solutions. It drives me nuts that pollsters and analysts would equate my "wrong track" answer as anti-Biden sentiment, or worse, support for the Convicted Felon running against him? There are innumerable reasons a person might think the country is on the wrong track that have nothing to do with Biden's presidency, in fact, many of us think the country is on the wrong track despite President Biden's best efforts.

(V) & (Z) answer: We agree entirely. There are a lot of polling questions out there that are vague and open to interpretation, and that could generate the same answer from people who actually feel very differently.

Truth be told, even approval ratings appear to work that way these days. There are plenty of people who don't "approve" of Joe Biden for various reasons, but are going to vote for him anyhow. There are plenty of people who don't "approve" of Donald Trump for various reasons, but are going to vote for him anyhow. So, what are those approval ratings really telling us? Not a lot.


M.B. in Menlo Park, CA, asks: One explanation for the failure of the polls to predict the 2016 election was the theory of "shy Trump voters": people who didn't want to admit to friends or pollsters they were voting for Trump, but voted for him in the secrecy of the voting booth.

Is it possible that the current 2024 polls are skewed by "shy Biden voters": people who tell their friends and pollsters that they're voting for Trump, but won't in November? Picture Republican women who tell their husbands, "Honey, of course I'm voting for Trump again," but secretly aren't thrilled by having Republicans take away the health care choices of themselves and their daughters. This theory could explain why Democrats have beaten the polls in some of the recent special elections.

(V) & (Z) answer: It's certainly possible. That said, if there are hidden Biden voters, we think it is more likely that they are folks currently identifying as undecided/third-party voters who will have a "come to Jesus" moment when the possibility of a second Trump presidency becomes more real.


D.C. in Atenas, Costa Rica, asks: Please explain why you classify Arizona as "Likely Democratic." I don't see polls that justify that

J.S. Dallas, TX, asks: Your map is wrong. RCP polling for all the swing states shows you have multiple states shaded wrong, including Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

B.W. in Suwanee, GA, asks: I don't look at the map that much because I'm more interested in your reporting/commentary but I happened to notice the other day that Maine was tagged as "Barely Republican" based on the Zogby poll from Apr. 21. I thought that was odd based on what I know about the northeast and then I saw your response to L.G. in Thornton: "Maine is very blue."

So what gives? I know you guys don't have a lot of confidence in early polls for various reasons but can you explain what is going on in Maine?

(V) & (Z) answer: We make no secret of our methodology, and we make all of our data available for anyone who wants to take a look.

To start, we only use polls from pollsters we deem to be reliable and nonpartisan. Further, if a poll includes multiple race conditions (e.g., Biden vs. Trump, Biden vs. Trump vs. Kennedy, Biden vs. Trump vs. Kennedy vs. Oliver), we use the head-to-head number.

Our numbers are the average of all such polls whose midpoints are in the last 7 days. So, if three reputable pollsters had released polls of Wisconsin yesterday, taken from May 25 to May 30, they would all be factored in to our map. If there is no poll with a midpoint in the last 7 days, we use the most recent poll, following the guidelines in the previous paragraph.

Arizona, to address the specific example asked about, is not actually "Likely Democratic," it's "Barely Democratic." That is because there have been no polls in the last two weeks, and most recent reliable poll of Arizona before that, from Florida Atlantic University, had Biden up 45-43 in the head-to-head condition.

In Maine, the story is basically the same. There has been a grand total of one poll of the state in the last 4 months, and that is the one from Zogby. So, that's the poll that our map reflects. Zogby has a Republican lean, and besides, any one poll can be an outlier. But Maine, other than ME-02, hasn't actually gone for a Republican since 1988. This is not likely to change this year, and once polling of individual states becomes more frequent, these sorts of wonky outliers will disappear from the map.

The general scarcity of state-level polling, and the fact that there are so many voters who don't know what they are going to do, is why we've warned over and over not to take current projections too seriously, excepting that they do give us a broad sense of momentum, and of what strategies the presidential campaigns should be pursuing (e.g., northern route vs. southern route).

And finally, RCP is the least reliable polling aggregator out there. They are well known for selectively excluding Democratic-friendly polls from their database, so as to paint a rosier picture for the Republicans. You are far better off with FiveThirtyEight or 270toWin or Wikipedia.

History

F.S. in Cologne, Germany, asks: Please give us your assessments of every president.

(V) & (Z) answer: Time for the only set we haven't done yet:


H.M. in San Dimas, CA, asks: I have always been fascinated by James K. Polk since I first saw his name on a list of history's underrated presidents many years ago. I was particularly intrigued by the fact he said he's serve only one term and did so. Which brings me to two questions: Why did he pledge to serve only one term (yeah, I know, I could Google it) and are there any books about him you can recommend?

(V) & (Z) answer: The same sentiment that drives support for term limits today existed in the pre-Civil War era. There was a sense that officeholders become corrupt, or else calcified the longer they served, and that frequent turnover is a good thing. Further, in Polk's time, being president was a tough job (considerably fewer perks than today), and he came in the middle of a run of one-term-and-done presidents. Since he was likely to serve only one term anyhow, given the way the political winds were blowing in that era, and given that he didn't really feel up to 8 grueling years, formally committing to one term was a no-cost way of scoring some points with voters. It would seem he was right to think he didn't have 8 years in him, as he lived only a few months after the end of his first term, becoming the shortest-lived ex-president.

As to books, you might like A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent, though it's a little hefty (600 pages) and obviously is more about his expansionist agenda than his whole life. Alternatively, consider Polk's volume (or, really, any volume) in the excellent American Presidents Series, which we have recommended before. They're all short and sweet (around 200 pages) and are written very well, often by the preeminent historians of that particular era or president.


J.H. in Boston, MA, asks: About Franklin Pierce, you write that he did not lift a finger while "American citizens began invading and trying to conquer foreign countries so as to make them into slave states."

I knew about Bleeding Kansas and the fight to turn Kansas into a slave state. But foreign countries? I have never heard of this. Are we talking about Mexico?

(V) & (Z) answer: No, we are talking primarily about Central American countries. Before "filibuster" referred to a parliamentary trick, it referred to military expeditions undertaken against foreign countries by private citizens. The word is derived from the Spanish filibustero, which in turn was derived from the Dutch vrijbuiter, which means "pirate."

While pro-slavery radicals in the antebellum era took a long look at various Latin American countries, including Cuba, Paraguay, Peru and Mexico, including a brief invasion of the latter, the most famous filibusterer was William Walker, who led a private army into Nicaragua, conquered it, and declared himself to be president. Franklin Pierce formally recognized the Walker government in 1856. However, Walker got too big for his britches, and tried to invade a bunch of other Central American countries. He was defeated, captured and executed by firing squad. His term as "president" of Nicaragua ultimately lasted a little less than a year.


A.J. in Baltimore, MD, asks: Has there ever before been a presidential election that was significantly affected by a foreign war that American soldiers were not fighting in?

(V) & (Z) answer: Certainly. The election of 1916 was very much influenced by the question of which candidate was more likely to avoid involvement in World War I. And Franklin D. Roosevelt was only renominated and reelected in 1940 because most Americans suspected that entry into World War II was inevitable, and felt it would be better to have a steady hand guiding the ship of state in that eventuality.

Of course, those were both wars that American soldiers were not fighting in... yet. You probably meant wars in which the U.S. never put boots on the ground. In that case, we would direct your attention to the election of 1980, which was most certainly affected by the Afghanistan War being waged by the Soviets and by the Iranian Revolution.


A.G. in Scranton, PA, asks: As a veteran who has lost family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers who were my brothers and sisters in arms to war, I take issue with the greeting "Happy Memorial Day," but get nothing other than quizzical looks and some pushback when I tell people that wishing others to be "happy" on a day set aside to reflect upon the sacrifices of those in the armed forces is not appropriate. We are to remember our war dead on Memorial Day. What is there to be "happy" about?

However, I struggle with what I should say to people in its stead. I have settled upon "have a reflective weekend when remembering those who gave their lives for us" or "have a solemn day of remembrance," but neither of those options is anything other than both far too wordy and a borderline form of mini-lecture.

Was there ever, when the day was set aside, a proper term proposed for what it is an American should be (in terms of the emotion used when bidding another their wishes for the day's emotive experience) on this day?

Damn, that was so hard to write in a way that didn't sound like I was trying to make it wordy and complex.

(V) & (Z) answer: For our post on Memorial Day, we wrote "Happy Memorial Day," and we did so for two reasons. First, we checked various etiquette-focused sites, and found that they approved of that formulation. Second, we thought of our relatives who are covered by the holiday, and knew they would want to be remembered warmly. Think Irish wake.

After we went live, we got some e-mails of complaint, so we changed it to "Have a good Memorial Day." Maybe that's better, maybe it's not.

Gallimaufry

J.B. in Hutto, TX, asks: When I was a university student in the late 1990s, one of my political science professors gave the class a most unusual assignment. She gave us a list of current political controversies (which included abortion, gun control, gay marriage, and a host of other things) and asked us to: (1) state our position on each issue, for or against and (2) rank them by how strongly we felt about them. We were then to write a persuasive essay on whatever issue we felt most strongly about.

However, to our enormous surprise, we were required to write the essay advocating the opposing point of view to that which ourselves subscribed. Pro-life students had to write pro-choice essays and vice-versa, those in favor of gun control had to write in support of gun rights and vice-versa, opponents of gay marriage had to write in support of it and vice-versa, and so forth. A quarter of a century later, this assignment has stayed fresh in my mind and I feel much the better for it. Being able to consider issues from a perspective other than one's own is priceless, but a scarce commodity in these times.

It seems to me that, given the current climate in our universities, that a professor would never be allowed to give such an assignment today. Do you agree or disagree?

(V) & (Z) answer: The issue is not "allowed." There's no central supervision of class assignments, and a professor can give pretty much any assignment they want, as long as it's not a clear violation of university policy. Sure, there might be complaints, and maybe a cranky e-mail from a dean, but if a professor felt strongly about it, they could do it.

That said, while the impulse is a good one, and the lesson being taught is a good one, the specific implementation is not great, in our view. First, this approach asks students to reveal a bit too much of themselves, and can lay the groundwork for future problems. If, for example, a student reveals that they are strongly anti-choice, then they are pretty much outing themselves as a conservative, and they could decide (rightly or not) that their future grades were affected by that revelation.

A second problem is that the assignment is based on self-reporting. And if a professor used that assignment regularly, word would get out, and, some students would claim to hold the opposite view of the one they really do, so that they could write their essay about the opinion they actually hold.

In (Z)'s experience in particular (since this kind of thing is more likely to come up in a history class than the computer science classes that V teaches), it works best if the controversial issue isn't quite so laden with modern-day political baggage. For example, in his California history course, (Z) points out that many statues of Junípero Serra were destroyed during the George Floyd protests because many people see Serra as a symbol of white racism and white cultural imperialism. But then (Z) points out that some people think of Serra as a great hero, and that the Padre has been made a saint in the Catholic church. Students are then asked to spend 5 minutes writing down some thoughts as to why some people view him as a hero. What specific points do the pro-Serra folks make? What evidence do they point to? This comes after 20 minutes of lecture on Serra, a reading on Serra, and a review of a letter he wrote, read aloud in class.


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