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Trump Charged With 37 Counts In Classified Docs Case; Special Counsel Says Trump To Get "Speedy Trial"; What to Make of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; Social Conservatism In U.S. Highest In A Decade; Did Donald Trump's Indictment Just Guarantee Him The GOP Nomination? Aired 9-10a ET

Aired June 10, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

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[09:00:14]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Rorschach test unsealed. I'm Michael Smerconish in Philadelphia. Look, no matter how expected it might have been, it was nevertheless stunning to see it splashed all across front pay in America. Donald Trump indicted again. But will the new 37 count indictment land with Republican voters, the same as the existing case of falsifying business records? Or as Peter Baker put it in "The New York Times," Republican voters may not care if their leader slips money to a porn star to keep quiet, but will they be indifferent about impeding authorities seeking to recover clandestine materials? That's today's poll question, which I'll share in just a moment. It may depend upon responses by Trump's GOP opponents. Most were quick to weigh in before the indictment was unsealed.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, he tweeted, the weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society. Mike Pence used the same word while calling for the unsealing of the indictment, the American people should be able to judge for themselves whether this is just the latest incident of weaponization and politicization at the Justice Department or if it's something different, he said.

Ditto for South Carolina Senator Tim Scott on the weaponization charge, Vivek Ramaswamy, he went a step further, committing to pardoning Trump immediately upon his own swearing in. Chris Christie kept his powder dry initially saying, we don't get our news from Truth Social, Trump's account. Let's see what the facts are when any possible indictment is released.

Only former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson called for Trump to withdraw from the race. The Trump defending reactions, they're curious. We're coming from individuals who decided to enter a nomination battle against a former president who remains immensely popular with the party base. As I've argued here and on Sirius XM radio, the only reason they're running against someone whose policies they largely approve of and who has 50 percent of the vote, is because this is what they expected would happen, that his campaign would be threatened by the weight of various criminal investigations and indictments.

So they're actually trying to exploit something they believe or at least say is illegitimate. Not that I'm totally unsympathetic with some of the talking points. The Hunter-Biden prosecution has been underway since December of 2020. That's nearly four years. It's inexcusable that such an uncomplicated case is still unresolved. And it's true that legacy media show zero appetite to pursue questions about possible financial entanglements between Hunter and the President.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer is currently looking at the claim of an FBI informant that the head of Burisma paid both Hunter and then vice president, 5 million each. The president flatly says that's malarkey. Equally fair to ask why Secretary Clinton was unpunished for what FBI Director James Comey once described as extremely careless handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. But none of that excuses Trump for taking and withholding government property, nor treating it with what looks like brazen carelessness.

The indictment says that Trump retained documents so sensitive that some required special handling. These documents were related to national defense. They were classified at the highest levels. One of them includes a top secret marking, it's dated June of 2020, quote, concerning nuclear capabilities of a foreign country. Photographs included in the indictment showed boxes stored in a bathroom, a shower, a ballroom, all at Mar-a-Lago.

One photo was a Rorschach test. To some, it was the epitome of lax handling of government property, but to the former president, it was something else. The box on the floor, which was open, said Trump, who opened it, clearly shows there were no documents, but rather newspapers, personal pictures, et cetera, witch hunt.

Two questions linger why did he take the materials to begin with? And why didn't he hand them back when requested, like Biden and Pence apparently did? As to the first, "The Washington Post" reported in November of last year that federal agents and prosecutors believe Trump's motive for taking and keeping materials was largely due to his ego and his desire to hold the materials as trophies or mementos, not to excuse it. But he's always been an ephemera guy who was noted to keep newspaper mentions and other chachkas stacked high in his Trump Tower office.

Maybe the bigger mystery remains why, when asked, he didn't return them, instead essentially inviting a federal magistrate judge to authorize a search warrant of Mar-a-Lago. Were they of such personal or professional value to Trump, or was it indicative of a pugilist personality? I don't want anybody looking through my boxes, he reportedly said. It's too soon to know for sure how this all plays out, legally or politically. Trump's GOP support remains steady even after New York's hush money indictment. And in some ways, it's only gotten stronger.

[09:05:16] Trump was polling at 43 percent in February before Alvin Bragg introduced his charges. And now, just a few months later, his support has bumped to one. The Stormy Daniels case provoked a media narrative implying voters don't care about the former president's legal woes, at least when it comes to sex. But maybe voters have their own ideas for what constitutes a serious crime. Data suggests this classified documents indictment could be far more problematic for the former president.

An NPR/PBS/Maris poll finds 70 percent of voters do not want Trump to be president again if he's charged in a classified documents indictment. The polling seems to suggest viewers view these two indictments in separate categories, and that's what the crowded GOP field is counting on, even as they lamb base the Justice Department for the latest charges. Which leads me to this week's poll question at smerconish.com, did Donald Trump's indictment in the classified documents case just guarantee him the Republican nomination?

Joining me now to discuss is Erick Erickson. He's a conservative talk radio host and political commentator, and Aaron Blake, senior political reporter for The Washington Post. Eric, let me begin with you. Before the unsealing of the indictment, you said you thought this would elevate him. I'm going to give you the chance to reconsider now that it's been published, and I'm sure you've read it.

ERICK ERICKSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I have read it, and I do think it's going to elevate him still at first. However, it provides greater ammunition, I think, for all the other Republicans to say when you read the indictment, it actually is one of the stupidest things you will ever read. Not the indictment itself, but the actions of the former president. I mean the man has been -- the Democrats have been after him for six years. They've impeached him twice. They indicted him in New York. They've been saying they were going to get him.

When a grand jury asked you to hand over documents and you instead asked your lawyers to hide them and the lawyers admit you did this, that's pretty stupid. It gives an opening for the other Republicans to say, we've always said he has no impulse control, and here's the outcome. The other side of this is --

SMERCONISH: OK. But they're not saying that. I mean, they're not taking, Aaron, they're not taking the opportunity to the point that I made in the opening commentary. This is exactly the reason they're running. They anticipated that his campaign would fall based on the weight of the prosecutions and potential indictments.

AARON BLAKE, SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: Yes, I think it's going to be a, I think it's going to be a progression. I think what you see with the history of Donald Trump and these controversies is that no Republican wants to be the first to leap. They want to leave it to somebody else. And what often happens in that case is that nobody ultimately leaps. Nobody goes there because they know over the course of many controversies that the people who decide to take that leap see their careers torpedoed. I think we do have something of a potentially different case here in that we are going to see a series of revelations. We now have at least one Republican presidential candidate in, Chris Christie, who seems as though he is going to take this argument to Trump. I think if you look closely at Mike Pence's comments about this, he's leaving open the idea that maybe he's going to argue this stuff is pretty bad ultimately, so we're going to have to see how this plays out.

But there's no question that they are treating this very gingerly right now and basically hoping that somebody else does the work for them.

SMERCONISH: Erick, are they treating it gingerly because they really believe it's weaponization of the DOJ, or are they scared to death of the MAGA base?

ERICKSON: They do believe that it is weaponization of the DOJ. When you look at Hunter Biden and Hillary Clinton, they do also treat it seriously. It's not a fear of the base at this point because they all saw Brian Kemp win in Georgia in 2022 despite 25 percent of the GOP still rejecting him. What it is they're trying to figure out the most persuasive way to connect with voters who still feel loyalty to Trump and explain to them, you may be loyal to them, but he can't proceed.

He's going to be metaphorically shackled in a courtroom, and it's of his own doing. They've got to get their focus grouping and their messaging done to try to precisely thread this. We have seen repeatedly with Trump voters they're willing to consider alternatives, but you have to phrase everything in a way that doesn't make them feel like they're betraying Donald Trump.

And that takes some focus grouping. And I'm aware of some that's already happening among some of the major candidates trying to figure out, how do you explain to the base this is bad? And one guy who can do it is the man whose son has been active duty, and that's the former vice president who already said, Donald Trump asked me choose between him and the Constitution, and I chose the Constitution. This is another example of that theme.

[09:10:08]

SMERCONISH: Aaron, you've looked at some data suggests to you that this is different than the Stormy Daniels case, right? That we can't simply look at Alvin Bragg's indictment and say, well, last time he got a bump, maybe by as much as 10 percent among GOP voters. This time could be different. Explain.

BLAKE: Yes. So I think it's first, it's worth noting there was a recent poll from YouGov that showed it actually asked about several different controversies that Trump is facing where he could face some kind of charges, 52 percent regarded the Manhattan indictment, the conduct described there as being a serious crime. That 52 percent went up to 65 percent for retaining classified documents and obstructing efforts to return them.

So it's not the only poll to suggest that people regard this conduct as being more significant. I think if you also look at the build up to the Manhattan indictment, there was a sense, according to some polls, that people thought this was politically motivated, that there was some politics behind this, a Democratic prosecutor bringing these charges. There was a Quinnipiac poll that showed two to one Americans thought that there was a political role involved in those charges. So I think it's clear that we have a situation in which people regard these charges as more serious.

I think the question from there is how much it is proven in their mind that is something that we're going to find out in the coming months. It could be a while for that. And then how much this actually pulls people who might be geared towards Donald Trump on a more partisan basis, how much it might actually pull them away from him. Not so much in the Republican primary, where it looks like there's a very limited impact, but in the general election, where he needs to count on those votes.

But at the same time, Erick, you believe there's a prospect, depending upon perception, that maybe even some Republicans who don't like Donald Trump will feel some sense of sympathy toward him and come to his side. At least that's what you wrote in part before the unsealing.

ERICKSON: Yes, and that was premised on in Miami. They are pretty notorious in the Southern District of Florida finding people not guilty of these sorts of charges. If he were found not guilty, there would be sympathy towards him. If not, I don't think so. I also do think the one thing I've learned about the President's base and the Republican primary in the last few years is you sometimes have to let this stuff marinate. The initial reaction, and then what comes from it afterwards changes as people hear more about it.

The initial reaction is, circle the wagons. This is political. They have no charges. Look at Hillary Clinton. And then after, it's marinated on and they think, well, wait a second, it was Donald Trump's administration that didn't prosecute Hillary Clinton. And these documents are pretty important documents. You will see people's minds change. You'll see him go up and down. In fact, we're already seeing this in some polling in Iowa, New Hampshire, while he's still in the majority. His numbers have been trending down pretty steadily for the last several weeks.

SMERCONISH: Yes, the only thing we know for sure is that we don't know for sure. Erick, Aaron, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here.

To everybody else, what are your thoughts? Hit me up on social media. I'll read some responses throughout the course of the program. Where does this come from? The world of Twitter, whether Trump was right or wrong, people will ask, why did Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and President Biden get a free pass and Trump didn't? Bob Roth I acknowledge that at the outset. I acknowledge that. To a certain extent, some of the whataboutism is valid in this case. Why is it taking so long with Hunter? Why did Hillary get a pass, despite what Comey said? What is the deal as between Hunter and Joe, if any? He says it's malarkey. All legitimate questions. But left remaining is why'd Trump take all that stuff? And why didn't he just give it back? Because I'm absolutely convinced if he had, I wouldn't be sitting here having this type of a conversation. I want to know what you think. Go to my website. It's smerconish.com this hour. Answer this week's poll question. Did Donald Trump's indictment in the classified documents case just guarantee him the Republican nomination?

[09:14:12]

Up ahead, he's polling at 20 percent, and he has the backing of some of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley. But RFK Jr. claims he's being censored by the media. I'll get into that subject and explain why it's such a challenge when you do interview him and why many journalists may be avoiding it. Plus, former President Trump set to appear in court on Tuesday to face federal charges in connection to his mishandling of classified documents. Legal expert Elie Honig will be here to break down all the charges next.

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SMERCONISH: Special Counsel Jack Smith making rare public remarks on Friday, after unsealing the historic 40-plus page federal indictment of former president and current 2024 candidate Donald Trump.

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JACK SMITH, SPECIAL COUNSEL: My office will seek a speedy trial in this matter consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused. We very much look forward to presenting our case to a jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: Smith did not go into details of the indictment, but said people ought to read it. Joining me now is Elie Honig, CNN senior legal analyst, former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. So great to have you back, Ellie. Let's talk about big picture. First of all, he's investigating, he, Jack Smith both January 6th and Mar-a-Lago documents. What do you make of the fact that this was an indictment pertaining to one and not the other?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Michael, and let's keep in mind Mar-a-Lago has essentially lapped January 6th because DOJ even before Jack Smith was appointed, they purportedly have been investigating January 6th, essentially since it happened. So we are two and a half years out. Mar-a-Lago really didn't surface until the search warrant hit almost a year ago. So what this tells me, obviously we now have an indictment on the Mar-a-Lago documents. We'll talk more about that.

January 6th is still ongoing at DOJ. I don't think there's much of a realistic possibility that it gets charged by DOJ anytime soon. And one indicator of that s, we've not seen any progress, really. We've not seen anybody close to Donald Trump being charged. Remember, there's a whole sort of secondary cast of characters around Trump on January 6th. Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, no movement towards any of them. So there's been sort of radio silence, it's still pending. But it wouldn't surprise me if the ultimate decision from DOJ is no charge against Trump on January 6th.

[09:20:21]

SMERCONISH: Right. And I guess that's really what I was asking. Do you read into this that maybe Trump is getting a pass in the eyes of DOJ for January 6th? Or is it that this is a much more straightforward case?

HONIG: Well, I think it's both. I think this case and I think the indictment is fairly straightforward and well done. And I think it makes sense to me that this was charged more quickly. I also think that the charging of this case gives Merrick Garland perhaps some political cover if he ends up not charging January 6th. I know we see Garland and Jack Smith as these sort of non-political icons, but they're aware of public perception. They understand that it's important that DOJ be seen as fair.

And I think ultimately, if Garland does not charge on January 6th, people who would be upset by that may look at the charge we saw this week and think, well, at least he charged one of those cases.

SMERCONISH: OK, I'm glad you brought up Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, because previously here, you and I have talked about the concept of prosecutorial discretion. I made the argument that I had -- I thought Smith had a very straightforward task, but that there was some question as to whether Merrick Garland would accept the recommendation that he was provided by the Special Counsel. This is Merrick Garland's decision, right?

HONIG: Yes. Ultimately it's Merrick Garland's decision. The way it works under the regulations is the Special Counsel, Jack Smith, has control of his day to day investigation. It's supposed to be hands off, but at a certain point, the Special Counsel has to run a potential indictment or decision not to indict that absolutely by law has to go to the Attorney General, who then has to defer, not automatically, but has to generally defer towards what the Special Counsel wants. So we know for sure that Jack Smith recommended an indictment, and we know for sure that Merrick Garland approved it.

And I agree with you. I think Merrick Garland, as the AG, has to take a broader look and has to think about the broader political picture. And we now know the end result of that calculus.

SMERCONISH: I said in my opening commentary today that the photographs contained in the indictment and by the way, I want to know how rare that you would see pictures in an indictment like this. Put that one up, Catherine, that I call the Rorschach test because to some, there it is, you look at it, stuff is spread out on the floor like, oh, my god, is this the careless way with which he was treating these documents? And then Trump's response is to say, who spread that stuff on the floor? And by the way, all I see, according to Trump, are newspaper headlines. What's the impact of what I'm showing right now? You know the pictures to which I refer?

HONIG: I do, yes. So, first of all, you're right, Michael. It's sort of a new thing to have photographs and indictments. I remember seeing the first one maybe five years ago, when I was just getting ready to leave a prosecutor's office and thought, what, you can put a photo in an indictment. It was unthinkable to me, this traditional prosecutor, and now they're there all the time, and they should be. They're evidence. Why not? It's such an interesting Rorschach test, but I'm not really buying the well, they're just newspaper side.

Yes, they are just newspapers, but the fact that some or perhaps many of the documents were innocuous or souvenirs fine, that doesn't undermine the fact that even a small portion of them were decidedly not. And the indictment lays out the high level of sensitivity of those documents. So it doesn't much matter to me if the sensitive documents are all alone in one folder or are surrounded by tchotchkes, to use your excellent phrase from earlier. It's the ones that are sensitive that we care about here.

SMERCONISH: Jack Smith says he wants to give him a speedy trial. Is that going to happen?

HONIG: Not by the legal definition of speedy. So the federal rules say that a defendant is entitled to be tried within 70, 7-0, days of an indictment. Michael, no federal case ever gets tried anywhere near 70 days. The thing that's important to know here, though, is it's not really up to Jack Smith when the trial happens. Jack Smith was just saying the thing that all good prosecutors are trained to say. You are sort of trained from day one. If a judge said to me today, you have to go to trial tomorrow at 9:00, a.m., I would say we're ready for trial, Your Honor. That's just you automatically say that. That's always your position.

Really who governs when trial happens is, A, the judge, but with more deference towards the defendant, because the defendant's the one with constitutional rights, with the ability to bring motions, with the need to prepare his defense, to do his own investigation. The defense is just starting their investigation, theoretically, on the day they get the indictment. So Jack Smith is just saying, we're ready to go as soon as possible. I think that's an important message to send, but ultimately, he doesn't control that.

SMERCONISH: Elie, on my civil side of the aisle, I know a thing or two when I have a choice of venue, jurisdiction, where I'm going. I'm looking for a friendly plaintiff audience. In this case, Jack Smith could have brought charges in D.C., right? But instead goes to Florida, which I guess by rights is where most of the conduct occurred. But you would think, politically speaking, it's a more hospitable jury for Donald Trump down south.

[09:25:08]

HONIG: This is the single most consequential turn of the week other than the indictment itself dropping and really a shocker, because up until three or four days ago, everything was in D.C. The team, the prosecution team was in D.C. The grand jury was in D.C. And it looked like they were going to charge in D.C. And you're right, there's an enormous difference in the jury pools here. D.C., Donald Trump got 5 percent, just over 5 percent of the vote in 2020, meaning about 95 percent of the people who would have been in that jury pool in D.C. voted against him. Of course, Trump won Florida in 2020. Most of the southern counties where this is going to draw its jury pool from, he won at least 40 percent.

So you're looking at a very different jury pool. And people will say, well, jurors are instructed. They're selected. They're sort of vetted out. And they're told, don't bring your political views into the courtroom, nonsense. I've tried enough cases. Jurors are human beings, and especially in Donald Trump. I'm not saying it's impossible that somebody who likes Trump votes to convict him or vice versa, but man, oh, man, do you want to be in front of a jury that doesn't like the guy?

And let me say, I give DOJ credit here. They did the right thing legally, because they definitely have proper venue down in Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is. It's actually not clear they have venue in D.C. They could have tried in D.C., fought that legal battle, and hoped for the better jury pool. But instead, they did the right thing. They went with --

SMERCONISH: OK. I have different take, and that is that it was for expediency. They want to hurry up and get to trial, and they know that if they went to D.C., it would be more time off the clock as he challenged and tried to move it. Let's deal with some social media together. Catherine, can you put that up? And I'll maybe lean on Elie a little bit to see what it is. I thought this might be the occasion when you would rise above partisan leanings, but you didn't fail to disappoint. Ask yourself, where would you be if you did the same as Trump with those documents? Why do you wish to diminish the country by supporting Trump? Elie, I'm actually going to cut you some slack. I didn't know that it would be personal and directed toward me. So thank you very much. OK.

Now, to the individual who sent me that social media, I say this what, are you joking? I've digested the indictment of Donald Trump. I've offered you my comments as to the seriousness of it, and I've wondered aloud, like, why the hell would he have taken the stuff and why didn't he just give it back? You also heard me criticize the Republican candidates who are trying to say, oh, this is the weaponization of the process, when in fact, this is exactly why they're running, because they hoped and expected that this is where were going to go.

So that leads me to conclude only that you don't like me saying, guess what? Those same Republicans raise some legitimate issues about Hunter, maybe about Joe, and certainly about Hillary. That's my response. I want to remind you, go to my website at smerconish.com and answer. Now you know, I don't see them in advance, I wouldn't have invited Elie to stick around. There's the poll question at smerconish.com this week. Did Donald Trump's indictment in the classified documents case just guarantee him the Republican nomination?

Up ahead, how serious do Democrats need to take? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who launched a primary bid against President Biden, he's doing unexpectedly well in some polls and receiving increasing, but not as much media attention as he thinks he deserves. This week, I sat down with both he and he sat down with Elon Musk. I'll give you my take in just a moment. Plus, are Americans shifting their views on social issues more to the left or more to the right? A new Gallup poll finding may surprise you with its answer.

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[09:32:53]

SMERCONISH: What to make of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.? The environmental lawyer is gaining traction with his challenge of President Biden for the Democratic nomination. A recent CNN poll shows him with approximately 20 percent of the Democratic vote. And he just picked up the support of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

Axios has detailed additional support and funding that he's receiving from Silicon Valley, saying, quote, "A handful of Silicon Valley elites won't determine the presidential nominee, let alone topple an incumbent president, but they could help narrow the money gap and keep Kennedy in the race longer than a typical long shot."

It's enough to make the Democratic establishment nervous. How far he can ultimately go, that's going to be determined largely by the quantity and type of media coverage he receives. Kennedy believes that he's being censored because of his controversial views not the least of which concern vaccines.

The short version, his version is this. He believes that in the 1980s on Ronald Reagan's watch, big pharma was given liability protection that spurred the unleashing of a slew of new vaccines that ran rough shot over the regulatory process and caused a host of abnormalities, including a spike in autism.

Last Monday I spent an hour questioning him on radio and in front of a studio audience. Kennedy is verbose and he's got a command of history as he sees it. His appearance on my radio program coincided with the 55th anniversary of the assassination of his father. He doesn't accept the Warren Commission view of his uncle's assassination nor that Sirhan Sirhan was his father's killer.

But there's much more to his campaign that that which gets the most attention. He strikes populist themes that remind of a cross between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. As we spoke, I realized I could have spent an hour each on the subjects of his uncle's assassination, his father's assassination, COVID and his campaign.

I prepared by watching his two-hour announcement, read news articles and transcripts of his recent interviews, and read his latest book which is an indictment of the work of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

[09:35:01]

I don't recall having prepared as much for any other interview I've conducted. I told him I suspect he is being censored in some outlets, not wanting to give heft to his conspiratorial beliefs. I mean, think about this. If any of the Republicans not named Trump or DeSantis were at 20 percent of the vote, how much attention would they be receiving? A lot more than RFK Jr. But I also told him that he's a challenging interview, one hard to fact-check in real time and many journalists aren't willing or able to invest the time necessary to have good dialogue with him.

This was his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Because I have spent a lot of time studying and writing books.

SMERCONISH: Right.

KENNEDY: I am litigating these issues. I have a very detailed domain knowledge of these areas that make it very, very difficult to defend orthodoxies because I just know the areas so well, so yes, particularly on vaccines, it's almost impossible for anybody to interview me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: On the hot button issue of autism and vaccines, I told him that the diagnosis of the former is clinical. There's no blood test or brain imaging scan. Rather the diagnosis is based on patterns of behavior. As said recently by pediatric neurologist, you ask four physicians' opinion on an autism diagnosis, you'll get five different answers. And although autism was first discovered in the 1940s, it didn't end up in DSM-III until the 1980s. And criteria changed in 1987.

Plus policy changes could have affected diagnosis. Consider that in 1991 it was ruled that anyone with autism qualified for special education services. So you can imagine how changing the diagnostic criteria, as well as public health policy could contribute to a huge spike in diagnosis.

And so I asked him for a specific citation to a peer-reviewed article linking autism to vaccines. He said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: One of them would be the Verstraeten study, which is a CDC study. The CDC actually was very worried about this in 1999. They compared children of the hepatitis B vaccine in the first 30 days of life with children who did not. So children who got it later or didn't get it at all, and they found an 1135 percent increase risk for autism diagnosis in children who got it, and what they did, we know.

SMERCONISH: Maybe it's correlation, not causation. There were a lot of other environmental changes that have taken place in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: He referenced Dr. Thomas Verstraeten. So I pulled and read what Dr. Verstraeten published in the peer review journal "Pediatrics" back in 2004. Here's the conclusion. Quote, "No consistent significant associations were found between TCVs and neurodevelopmental outcomes." Look, RFK Jr. encouraged me to fact-check him. That doesn't sound like

a conclusion that suits his argument. Not that I expect any of this to end the debate about his views or his candidacy, I just think it's an illustration of the challenges presented when giving an airing to his views. But I think he cannot and should not be ignored.

Still to come, why are social conservative views in the U.S. the highest they have been in a decade? I've got a theory. The editor-in- chief of Gallup is here to break down the numbers for me.

And a reminder, please make sure you're going to poll question, it's Smerconish.com, and answering this question. Did Donald Trump's indictment in the classified documents case just guarantee him the Republican nomination?

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[09:42:45]

SMERCONISH: Are Republicans winning the culture war? A new Gallup poll finds social conservatism in the U.S. at its highest since 2012. You might be wondering how is this possible? After all, Republicans barely won control of the House last year while Democrats perform better than expected in the Senate during the midterm elections. But new state proposals related to transgender issues, abortion, drug use, the teaching of gender and sexuality in schools is suggesting America maybe inching toward the right.

And according to Gallup, 38 percent of Americans say they are very conservative or conservative on social issues. That's a jump from the previous two years when the number was at 33 percent and 30 percent respectively. At the same time, Americans sharing very liberal or liberal social views fell from 34 to 29 percent.

Perhaps the most interesting finding in the survey is the rise of socially conservative views over the past two years seen among nearly all demographics including millennials.

Here to explain the trend is editor-in-chief of Gallup and host of the Gallup podcast, Mohamed Younis.

Mohamed, what's driving this, according to your interpretation?

MOHAMED YOUNIS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GALLUP: Really two things, Michael. Numerically, it's about Republicans really owning their conservative identity. We've seen now a jump from 60 percent to 74 percent of Republicans identifying as conservative in the past two years. But socially speaking, contextually, this is happening at a time where in the same survey, Americans are at a new high of describing moral values in the country as poor and 83 percent describing it as getting worse.

And I think you nailed it. The elephant in the room really are those transgender rights issues and gender affirming care, and we asked about that in this poll. Right now, Michael, 55 percent of Americans describe changing one's gender of birth as morally wrong. And that is a really important statistic to keep in mind. 43 percent say it's morally acceptable. 69 percent of Americans say that when it comes to things like sports and competition, one should only be allowed to compete with people of their birth gender, not their gender identity.

It's a really important, though, to remember, Michael, this is a country where perceptions of things around same-sex marriage, gay rights have astronomically changed as people have become more informed. Today 39 percent --

[09:45:08]

SMERCONISH: I wondered whether there was going to be an antidote that would come out between the last cycle and the next cycle which we're in now. An antidote to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade which I think was to the benefit politically speaking of Democrats. And we saw that in the midterm. It sounds like Republicans have identified their issue, transgender rights, and if they are paying attention to your poll, and I'm sure they will, I can only imagine how they'll seek to exploit this going toward the next election.

YOUNIS: That will be a short game because right now 39 percent of Americans say that they know someone, they have a friend, a coworker, a family member who's told them they are transgender. As that number increases here in America, these attitudes are likely to change, as we saw with gay rights in a previous generation. That's one point. The other point really is about we know from sociological research that the more people get to know about an issue, particularly here in the United States, their attitudes change.

Another study we've done with transgender respondents has taught us that only 13 percent of people who identify as transgender in the United States have actually received gender affirming care of any sorts. So as Americans learn more about what that means, and also how widespread it is and what it really entails, these attitudes are likely to change if the past is any prologue to the future.

SMERCONISH: I'm worried -- this is subject for a longer conversation that maybe we'll have in the future. I'm worried about the perception based on these numbers of inhospitality -- what am I trying to say? People are going to feel unwelcomed even more so if they're transgender and they hear this data. And that's going to impact the way in which they're able to lead their lives. I didn't say this clearly as I'm thinking it, but you get the quick final word.

YOUNIS: Absolutely. This is the moral issue for America right now. I think a lot of America's recent history has been about an increasing, at least in terms of public opinion, of accepting others, accepting immigrants. This is a moment now where America is facing a new challenge. And we will see where public opinion shifts on this. But that is the state of affairs today. And the future will tell us.

SMERCONISH: Mohamed Younis, thank you as always.

YOUNIS: Thank you for having me.

SMERCONISH: Inhospitable. That's the word I was looking for. Remember Papadopoulos and I couldn't say that?

Still to come, more of your best and worst social media comments and we'll give you the final result of this week's poll question at Smerconish.com. Have you voted yet? Please go and vote now. Register for the free daily newsletter when you're there.

Did Donald Trump's indictment in the classified documents case just guarantee him the Republican nomination?

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[09:52:19]

SMERCONISH: There's the result of this week's poll question at Smerconish.com. Did Donald Trump's -- wow, a lot of voting. Did Donald Trump's indictment in the classified documents case just guarantee him the nomination? 82 percent say no. Of 36,617.

I'll leave it up. Keep voting all day long at Smerconish.com.

Social media reaction, Katherine, what do we have that came in during the course of the program this week? Enough with the whataboutisms. Right now we're talking about Trump, no one else, focus on his crimes, this is not a witch hunt, he is not innocent.

OK, well, you were doing great until the end when you say he is not innocent because obviously you've pre-judged and are not giving him a presumption of innocence. I get it. It's a very compelling indictment. Something about the indictment that I wanted to say earlier and I never got the chance. The pictures, I've been wondering, I spoke to Elie Honig about this, I've spoken to others about this as well.

What form of evidence, demonstrative evidence might we see that would otherwise remove some of the dryness from a documents case? And the photographs are, you know, compelling in that regard, right? They kind of bring it home. I think the videotape, which we haven't seen, will be as well because when I read on May 24, between 5:30 and 5:38, his valet removed three boxes from the storage area, it tells me that they've methodically gone through all the surveillance video at Mar-a- Lago and are able to piece together, OK, the feds were coming to town and here was the response. A shell game of moving around all the documents. I think that's going to be pretty compelling and hard to overcome.

More social media reaction. What else do we have? Best headline of the week. Rorschach Test Unsealed. Well, it's true, right? And you wondered when you saw the documents that were spilled out on the floor, how is he going to respond to this? And his response is to say, well, who spread them out on the floor? Although it is the aforementioned valet -- valet, I can't get that word out of my head, ever since "Downton Abbey." It's like the Carson of Mar-a-Lago was the one who took those pictures.

Here's more social media reaction. What do we have? You guys remember "Downton Abbey." I voted yes because this gives Trump exactly what he wants and what he had in 2015 and '16, total media attention on him. It will bring out his base and will easily secure the GOP nomination.

I don't know, Greg. I mean, I just don't know. I'm the guy who said he'll never run. I'm the guy who said nobody speaks to John McCain like he did and gets away with it. Grab them by the, you know what. Surely this is the end. So I've given up. I've surrendered my prognostication card when it comes to Donald Trump, I have no idea. But there is an argument to say, you look at those Republican candidates, they're all scared to death to take him on. Then why are you running?

[09:55:03]

One more, I think I've got time. What do we have? What guarantees him the nomination is the cowardice of his opponents. Well, OK, I was just making this point, right? I think Chris Christie will be different. Asa Hutchinson called for him to get out of the race. I think Christie in his town hall, is that Monday night? I think it's Monday night here on CNN. I expect that Christie is going to come out guns blazing.

But I'll just underscore the point I made earlier, they're all in the race against somebody who's got 50 percent of the vote and is well- funded. Why? It's because they anticipated this was going to happen, and then when it happens they say, oh, this is weaponization.

Go try and process that. See you next week.

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