For more on how this all plays out, let’s welcome in former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano. Judge, great to have you on this morning. So the Trump children, Ivanka, Eric, Don Jr. All going to testify this week. Take us through what this means for the case. And do you expect Trump to be in the courtroom to watch his kids testify? I do think that Trump will be in the courtroom to watch his children testify.

Just knowing him, I think he’ll want to give them the emotional support. What’s interesting, Rob, is that they’re not testifying as witnesses for the Trump Organization. They are being called against their will as witnesses for the government. It’s very, very unusual and somewhat risky for the government to call the defendants as its own witnesses. But because this is not a criminal case, there is no right not to testify.

And thus the government can call them. So the government is basically going to say, did you sign this document? Did you order this to be done? Did you approve of this number? Ivanka Trump, who was a defendant in the case, but who was removed as a defendant in the case when an appeals court overturned Justice Erdogan Engaron excuse me. And ruled that whatever she did, if anything, was outside the statute of limitations, she appealed to the Appellate Division to block the government from calling her, and she lost that appeal.

So there could be a lot of fireworks, is the bottom line. Yeah. Over the next two weeks. And if you’re Trump’s defense team, donald Trump wants to testify on his behalf in his own defense. That’s a defendant’s. Right. How do you control him on the stand? It’ll go well, seemingly, when he’s questioned by his own team. But the prosecution, they can go any way they want once they’ve got him on the stand.

This will be, I mean, historic on so many levels when Donald Trump takes the stand. So when he takes the witness stand, because he is a party in the case, they can ask him about anything. If a witness comes to the witness stand and says, I saw the automobile accident, cross examination, they can only ask the witness about the automobile accident. But when a party in the litigation, a person being sued, takes the witness stand, the other side can ask them anything that would affect their credibility.

This is very dangerous for him because the prosecutors here, the government lawyer, they’re not actually prosecutors. It’s civil case. Pardon me. The government lawyers here can ask him about Mar a Lago and classified documents. They can ask him about January 6. They can ask him about the Georgia case. They can ask him if he really won the election. They can ask him if his lawyers told him if he won the election.

So it’s very dangerous and risky for him. How do you control him? You go through a lot of preparation, which, if you know him is difficult to do. Yes, absolutely. And Michael Cohen testifying last week. Did that hurt Donald Trump in the way the prosecution hoped it would? Not as much as they hoped it would because Michael Cohen has a lot of baggage, and the former president’s lawyers did a good job of bringing the baggage out.

What was the baggage? Prior inconsistent statements, saying things to the press and saying things in his examination before trial, which we call a deposition, which were different from what he said in the courtroom. That resonates very negatively with a jury. When you have a judge who’s also the jury, it doesn’t hurt as much, but it does hurt a little bit. All right, Judge, I want you to take off the judge cap and put on sort of the political analyst cap, if you would, or gown, by the way.

But I’m just wondering here. Let’s say that Trump is the Republican nominee. Mike Pence dropped out of the race over the weekend. Let’s say Trump’s convicted in one of these cases before Election Day. We know he’s going to appeal, which will drag this thing out even longer. Could this actually all end up helping Trump when people actually go to vote? Because people will vote for Trump as a sort of a referendum on the corruption in our justice system.

You know, it depends on what you think of the government. It is helping him enormously with Republicans who lately have been skeptical of government generally, and very skeptical of government when it’s run by the Democrats. I don’t know that it will hurt him as much with Democrats or with Independents, but help him with Democrats or with independence, but with Republicans, it’ll help him enormously. Every time he was indicted, his poll numbers went up among Republicans, not amongst Democrats and Independents, who are probably secretly hoping that somehow he suffers enough defeats in the courtroom that they won’t see his name on the ballot.

Right. There are some, though, and again, this is assuming Trump’s the nominee. Looks like he’s going to be. That could change. We got about a year till Election Day. But remember 2016. And it feels like this didn’t happen as much in 2020, but it feels like we’re back there in 2024. If Trump’s the nominee, a lot of people would say publicly, with friends in polite company, you know, they would say, oh, well, I’m not going to vote for Donald Trump.

But then when you close the curtain, you can pull whatever lever you want. And a lot of people turned out being silent Trump voters. You think we can see that again? Yes, I do. It’s not as unfashionable today to say, I’m going to vote for him as it was in 2016 because he’s already been president, did some things that were wonderful for the country while he was president.

But I do think, particularly where we live in the Northeast, there is still some sense of it’s unfashionable to say in polite company, you’re going to vote for him, but in secret. That’s why we put them private. Yeah. Judge, great having you back on. Good to see you on this Monday morning, setting it all up for us. We’ll keep an eye on how this plays out. It’s going to be really interesting to see the Trump children on the witness stand.

Grown adults expect fireworks. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Judge, we’ll have you back. Thank you. .