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This special doubleheader edition takes up the question of whether President Trump’s hush money payments to his temporary girlfriends is indeed a campaign finance violation with campaign finance law expert and California Fair Political Practices Commission member Allison R. Hayward (and in case you’re wondering, the answer is Yes). It’s not so clear cut as many in the media are saying, as the parallel case of John Edwards from 2008 demonstrates. Then Steve Hayward revisits Yuval Levin’s 2016 book Our Fractured Republic in light of the subsequent election of Trump.
Bumper music at the end of today’s show is a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s classic tune “Dreams” by The Corrs.
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Very informative and enjoyable.Mrs. Hayward is brilliant and charming.
I’m waiting for someone to say, “It’s a messed up system, if someone like Trump has to prove that he was a scumbag before to show that payoffs in 2015 and 2016 were NOT illegal.”
What if Mitt Romney, or a non-lawyer clean Mitt Romney-type person, had been advised to pay a small amount money to a poor woman who was ready to ruin the Republican presidential campaign with Christine Balsey Ford-like allegations while Michael Avenatti-types wait to pounce?
Perhaps Mrs. Hayward should be on Jonah Goldberg’s podcast as he is obsessed with political parties not having enough power. I don’t particularly share his view. Political parties don’t stand for anything much while political action committees at least often seem to have a few beliefs. I think Jonah is just upset that Trump was nominated. What if Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum had won an open convention over McCain and Romney instead of a 2016 Trump convention challenger like Cruz? Political parties have various wings and outsiders that have to be satisfied occasionally or the parties will collapse anyway. (I don’t know that Jonah would get a kiss though…)
Enjoyed hearing both Mrs. Hayward and Yuval Levin. Very informative. By the way, when is Lucretia coming back?
More and more it seems that the law itself is the problem. The thought of a genuine reformation fills me with hope but also dread.
Soon!
Yuval Levin spoke of the Republican Party not being controlled by conservatives. I would like more discussion on how he defines “conservatives.” For decades I regarded George F. Will as a conservative. Yet Will has stated publicly that he would prefer Hillary Clinton as President to Donald Trump as President. Bret Stephens, late of the Wall Street Journal, similarly said he wishes that Hillary Clinton were President. No conservative can hold such a position.
In 2007, Hillary Clinton said
No one who would actually prefer such a tyrant to be President can credibly be regarded as conservative.