The charges against Donald Trump have been swirling in the news for years. It’s finally time for him to take the stand. Legal expert and co-host of Strict Scrutiny Melissa Murray joins the show to cover the latest developments surrounding the Trump indictments.
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On today’s episode
Our host
Errin Haines is The 19th’s editor-at-large and writer of The Amendment newsletter. An award-winning journalist with nearly two decades of experience, Errin was previously a national writer on race for the Associated Press. She’s also worked at the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.
Follow Errin on Instagram @emarvelous and X @errinhaines.
Today’s guest
Melissa Murray is the Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, where she teaches constitutional law, family law, and reproductive rights and justice and writes about the legal regulation of intimate life. Melissa clerked for Judge Stefan Underhill on the District of Connecticut and for Justice Sotomayor when she served on the Second Circuit. When she’s not reading the SCOTUS tea leaves, she’s practicing the violin, reading People magazine, and keeping up with Meghan and Harry. Seriously.
Follow Melissa on Instagram @ProfMMurray and X @ProfMMurray.
Episode transcript
Melissa Murray:
Donald Trump understands the game. If he gets to be president, if he wins this election, it is effectively the world’s best get out of jail free card.
Errin Haines:
Hey, y’all, welcome to the Amendment, a weekly conversation about gender, politics, and power from The 19th News and Wonder Media Network. I’m your host, Errin Haines. So we’ve been hearing about former President Trump’s legal woes for the last several years, but now the time has come for his first criminal case to go to trial. Despite my many years of watching the entire Law and Order franchise, I’m still not a lawyer, turns out. Which means I needed help unpacking what we are all about to collectively see in terms of the real life law and order, DJT. And jJust in time, legal scholar and co-host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast, which I’m a faithful listener of, and frequent make-Errin-smarter-on-all-things-law source, Melissa Murray is out with a new book on this very topic. “The Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents With Commentary,” examines the charges against the former president and how we got here. Now, the former and would-be-again president is trying to portray these as just another witch hunt led by the Democrats, but we know that’s not the case. This time it’s not just his voters, but grand juries and others that are having a chance to weigh in. These charges have real implications for political accountability in the 2024 presidential race and that’s why we should all be paying attention to how these cases unfold. So I cannot wait to get into it with you, Melissa. Welcome, welcome, welcome to The Amendment.
Murray:
Thank you so much. Long time listener, first time caller. It’s great to be here.
Haines:
It’s so good to have you. So, let’s just start by getting into the brass tacks of this all. Former President Trump is facing several criminal cases. So just to get us up to speed, can you give us an overview of each of these cases and where they currently stand?
Murray:
So this is one of the things we were trying to do with our book. So as you said, I am the co-author of a new book that just came out about the Trump indictments. We basically collected all of the indictments together and then we annotated them. So Americans who don’t have a law degree, who aren’t familiar with the legal system, could still participate in what is an absolutely unprecedented and momentous time in our country where we are basically trying to call to account a former leader for misconduct allegedly undertaken before, during, and after his time in office. And so the four indictments, again, span that broad expanse of time. The first case that will go to trial, and maybe the only case that will go to trial, is the New York Manhattan DA’s case, the so-called hush-money case. In that case, prosecutor Alvin Bragg alleges that Donald Trump falsified business records for the purpose of hiding his alleged relationship with adult film star Stormy Daniels from his wife and the voting public, because this was all happening in advance of the 2016 presidential election.
Murray:
Ordinarily falsifying business records is a misdemeanor charge under New York law, but when it is done in conjunction with another crime, it can be escalated to a felony. The idea here is that this was done not simply to hide this from Melania Trump, but to hide it from the voting public. In doing so, enhanced Donald Trump’s chances to be elected president in 2016. It is a species of election fraud, and that is how Alvin Bragg is talking about it. I say that because it relates to two of the other indictments. So there is also the January 6th election interference indictment that was brought in the district of the District of Columbia by special counsel Jack Smith. That is entirely about the events of January 6th and the former president’s alleged role in essentially orchestrating that from the White House. It’s a massive indictment in terms of its import, but it’s actually quite lean and spare in terms of who is charged and what is charged.
Murray:
In order to get this before a federal jury, before the November 2024 election, Jack Smith made some very critical decisions, one to only charge a single defendant: Donald Trump. So there are a number of unindicted co-conspirators named here, but they aren’t actually indicted and that was a choice as we explained in the book, to keep this just to one defendant to ensure that it could go to trial. More defendants mean more delays, more motions to get rid of things and to deal with other things. So to keep this lean, mean and spare, they focused on Donald Trump and they only focused on four charges. One of those charges that’s not included, that’s actually quite surprising, is the charge of inciting the events of January 6th. They did not charge that at all. Instead, they charged some basic crimes dealing with obstruction of official proceedings, the electoral college certification, conspiracy to do so, and a charge of defrauding the American public depriving the voter of her civil rights, but they don’t charge incitement.
Murray:
I think that, again, was a very concerted decision to avoid having to prove Donald Trump’s mental state because that would just be a very difficult thing to establish and would require a lot of time, a lot of evidence, and would make this a longer trial than necessary. So, they really tried to focus on the charges that they could try successfully to a jury, and the government has the burden of proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s an incredibly high standard. I think all of the decisions were made to do that, to be able to try this case successfully, to verdict and to do so in the timeframe that would allow voters to know by the November 2024 election, whether or not one of the candidates was wearing an orange jumpsuit. The Jack Smith January 6th case relates to the Fulton County DA’s case. That’s the case that Fanie Willis has brought against Donald Trump.
Murray:
It focuses on the same set of circumstances, the events leading up to and after January 6th, and the effort to subvert the results of a validly conducted election in Georgia, and how that relates to the efforts across the country to subvert the results of validly conducted election in other battleground states. But what’s different about this case is that Fanie Willis is swinging for the fences here. To be clear, this isn’t overly aggressive. This special grand jury that heard the evidence that went into this indictment actually recommended that she charge a number of additional co-defendants, but she made a very concerted decision here to only charge Donald Trump and 18 other co-conspirators, co-defendants, and some of them have already pled guilty. I think that, again, was a very concerted choice to plead that many defendants. So some of them could flip and you could flip up the chain.
Murray:
And she has also made a very concerted decision to try them under Georgia’s RICO statute. That’s the racketeering influence and corrupt organizations statutes. Essentially this is a statute that’s used to try mobsters and mafia organizations. In Georgia, she’s used it against rappers and alleged gang members like Young Thug. She’s very experienced in this RICO statute. The idea here is to show that this wasn’t just a one-off, it was actually a very concerted effort, a conspiracy, a criminal conspiracy to subvert the election in Georgia that had tentacles that were in Fulton County, but also extended across the country. So, those are the sort of election interference cases and then the final case is the Mar-a-Lago documents case. This is as straightforward as you can get, an open and shut case. If this went to a jury, there would be no question that Donald Trump would be guilty because the charges, essentially, you had documents that are classified, that are sensitive, that deal with American intelligence and American intelligence assets on the ground in other countries, and you weren’t supposed to have them.
Murray:
When you were asked to return them to the National Archives, to the government where they belong, you refused to do so. In fact, you actually obstructed the process of returning them by hiding them and trying to eliminate evidence that showed that they were actually present in your beach club slash home Mar-a-Lago. That case to me is just absolutely straightforward. You have this stuff, you’re not supposed to have it, you don’t give it back, it’s a crime. Lesser known people have done serious jail time for doing the same thing.
Haines:
Okay. So first of all…
Murray:
That was a mouthful. I mean, that’s a lot of criming.
Haines:
After listening to you I basically am a lawyer now, so thank you for that, professor. I appreciate you so much. If that’s a preview of this book, I think I’ll keep a copy of this book in one hand and a copy of the Constitution in the other as I am tuning into these trials. But listen, since the Stormy Daniels case is set to kick off shortly, I want to kind of hone in on that one. So, break that one down a little bit more for us. You talked about what Trump is being accused of, but I think I heard you saying, we all largely use a shorthand of referring to this as a hush-money case.
Murray:
I wish you wouldn’t do that. I wish you wouldn’t call it a hush-money case.
Haines:
I know you wish that we wouldn’t do that, and I want to ask you why you wish we wouldn’t do that. You talked about why this is a felony and not a misdemeanor, but if you could just further kind of lay out the significance of this and what we should refer to it as if we should not just refer to it as the hush-money case.
Murray:
To call it the hush-money case is to underscore the tawdriness and salaciousness of its facts. It’s true the facts are salacious. This is about an extramarital affair that allegedly occurred and that was allegedly tried to be kept under wraps by Donald Trump and those closest to him. But DA Bragg is exactly right to talk about this as a species of election interference and to make the connection to some of these other indictments. We note this in the book, that this is a dress rehearsal for what later comes. The desire to win is so all-encompassing that you would actually falsify business records. The allegation here is that he directed payments to Stormy Daniels to stay quiet by paying Michael Cohen for alleged legal services that weren’t legal services at all.
Murray:
Michael Cohen, although he was a lawyer and although he worked for Donald Trump, was not actually being paid in these instances for his legal services, but rather was simply funneling the money to Stormy Daniels. That’s the falsification of business records. It’s then bootstrapped onto what appears to be an election fraud charge. That’s how Alvin Bragg has explained it in the bill of particulars, which we also include in the book. The bill of particulars provides more color to the indictment by giving more detail about the facts that underlie the various charges. More importantly, for our purposes, it’s not just about the falsification of business records to pay off this person so that your wife and the voting public never learns about this before the election. It’s also that it conscripts a giant of American media into the project of also assisting you in that completely fraudulent effort.
Murray:
So one of the things that’s alleged in this indictment is that David Pecker, who was the CEO of American Media, the publisher of the National Enquirer, and whether you think the National Enquirer is a reputable news source or not, it is a news source in the United States, and people do read it, and it’s a massive news source. This is a major company, and they are essentially alleged to have been involved in catching and killing these stories that would be damaging to Donald Trump, who was a candidate in the 2016 election. They worked with Trump, Michael Cohen, and Alan Weisselberg, who’s involved in this indictment as well, to essentially catch those stories by paying off the women for their stories and then never actually running the stories in the paper. This was detailed by Ronan Farrow in his book, “Catch and Kill.”
Murray:
It’s not just Donald Trump who’s doing this. They talk about other women who are paid for their stories, forced to sign NDAs, so they can’t tell their story at any other time, and then the news outlet to whom they’ve sold the rights to their story never actually publishes it. So the story dies. Same thing is going on here, or is alleged to have gone on here in this indictment. To my mind, that’s what makes it really significant. It’s not the tawdriness or the salacious or the fact that Stormy Daniels is an adult film star. It is the fact that the media, one of the institutions that’s intended to check the government, is actually working hand in glove with this candidate to keep this information from the voting public.
Murray:
Yeah. As a member of the media – not the National Inquiry media, obviously – that is pretty stunning to me and I know to a lot of our other colleagues. Certainly part of why it matters from a journalistic perspective and how we are laying out this story.
Murray:
Again, these are allegations. They have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. But the fact of the allegations, and the fact that it involves the media as well as these other elements of fraud that are alleged, that’s what makes it important. Not the fact that it’s tawdry or salacious.
Haines:
Obviously we are living in the real world and not just the courtroom. We know that Stormy Daniels’ position as a porn actor affects our view of this case. Right? So let’s kind of get into the gender and power of what’s looming over this case. How do you think that this trial speaks to the treatment of women in the media and the lens that we are putting onto this one?
Murray:
If you read this indictment – and I encourage all of your listeners to read the indictment – whether you purchase our book or you just go and get the indictment, I think it’s really worth reading. It’s not just Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal is also mentioned here. This is part of a larger pattern that has been documented by other journalists and by other authors who’ve talked about the way in which women are pressured into signing these non disclosure agreements. Thinking that their story’s going to be told they sign this NDA, so they can’t talk about it thereafter, and then they never actually get their story told. What might have been damaging, what might have been useful as a matter of transparency for voters or other interested parties to know, never actually comes to light. We have these individuals who are in power in different institutions that are meaningful institutions in society, basically making decisions about when and how to silence women.
Murray:
Not just in sort of telling their stories, but also in making decisions at the ballot box that would actually affect their lives. Maybe it would have made a decision to some voters to know that Donald Trump wasn’t the family man he professed to be, that there were these allegations, and they could weigh that decision for themselves. They could decide if they believed it or if they didn’t. But that entire question was taken out of their hands in much the same way Donald Trump in creating this 6-3 conservative super majority that now exists on the United States Supreme Court has taken other decisions out of the hands of women. That’s a broad brush to paint it with, but from beginning to end, before his presidency, during his presidency, there is a disdain for women, for women’s stories, and for women exercising their prerogatives to make decisions for themselves.
Haines:
That is also a pattern that proceeded this presidency and has persisted straight through to another case that was not one of the criminal cases, but the civil case, the E. Jean Carroll case. You’re also speaking to another kind of pattern, which is former President Trump and his attorneys constantly trying to game the system.
Murray:
That’s a terrific point, Errin. It’s not just E. Jean Carroll. He not only tried to silence E. Jean Carroll by saying that she was a liar and essentially defaming her for which he is now being held civilly accountable. This whole question of the payments to Stormy Daniels are coming up at a time when he’s insisting that everyone needs to know about Hillary Clinton’s emails and that she is hiding something from the voting public and she should be locked up, when in fact he is alleged to have done the same things he’s accusing her of doing, keeping really important information that voters might want to know about from them on the eve of an election.
Haines:
Yeah. Just thinking about the actions that Trump and his attorneys have taken so far concerning the Stormy Daniels’ case, how does that demonstrate that they are really kind of trying to delay or disrupt this trial in their favor?
Murray:
Where to start? Donald Trump wrote in the 1980s, or ghost wrote, or had ghost written a book called, “The Art of the Deal”. It was one of the ways in which he rose to prominence on a national scale, not just a New York real estate person, but someone of national consequences because of this book, “The Art of the Deal.” He’s gone well past “The Art of the Deal,” and now it’s really just about the art of delay in all of these cases. But here in the New York case there have been lots of efforts to delay the case, questions about whether he can have a fair trial in Manhattan. Notably, he did business in Manhattan for 35 years before becoming president. Never had a worry that he would not be treated fairly in Manhattan.
Murray:
But [he] now professes that everyone in Manhattan is against him, he cannot get a fair hearing here. He wants to move this trial to some venue where they will be more amenable or more neutral to his case, and he’ll be allowed to present a robust defense. This is a man who lived in New York City and called himself the ‘prince of New York’ for a very long time. This all seems like a little sudden last summer. It also belies the fact that you are a national figure and this case is known everywhere because you are known everywhere. That’s not the New Yorkers’ fault. That’s the fact that you were the president and that this is a criminal prosecution against a former president. The idea of moving this around, that just delays and wastes time because there’s never going to be a perfect venue.
Murray:
You are too known. These facts are too known. We just need to figure out what’s disputed here and let it go to a jury to decide what the facts are and what the resolution should be. But you’re exactly right, there have been a lot of delays. I think there will be even more delays as this trial gets going. There’s gonna be a whole bunch of questions, not only about whether the prospective jurors can be neutral and unbiased. There’s going to be a fight I am sure about whether or not the names of those jurors can be released. There are a lot of questions about whether that is safe for the jury, whether they can be kept safe if their identities are known, given the vehement with which some of Donald Trump’s supporters actually support his cause.
Murray:
That’s going to be a question, the kind of transparency we normally associate with a jury trial may have to be more limited here because of the safety concerns. There are going to be motions during this trial, motions to limit evidence that can come in. I’m sure there will be some kind of motion with regard to the bootstrapping of the charges. The fact that Alvin Bragg has linked this falsification of business records charge, which is ordinarily a misdemeanor to another crime in order to escalate it to a felony. I think there are gonna be a lot of questions about whether or not it has to be done this way and can it be done with these particular predicate charges. I imagine that this is probably gonna take longer than anyone thinks it will. More importantly, if this is the only case that actually goes to trial, many people may be left unsatisfied that this isn’t the vehicle for the kind of accountability that they are seeking. This case is important, I don’t wanna dispute that. But it’s not important in the way trying to hold someone to account for allegedly interfering with a validly conducted election would be.
Haines:
This is a case that is running parallel to this current election. For all intents and purposes, former President Trump has been using these legal cases as his defacto running mate. When he is not in a courtroom, he is on the campaign trail using these legal troubles to his advantage with a lot of these supporters in his presidential campaign, which is interesting.
Murray:
I think it’s really interesting.
Haines:
Because it’s effective.
Murray:
I wish we would push back more on the rhetoric. For example, I think a couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump said that Black Americans should be able to identify with him more strongly because of all of his legal woes. I just want to point out, if any Black man had been charged with 91 different crimes, he would already have pled guilty at this point. There would be no discussion about immunity. There would be no discussion about removing this to different places or getting rid of some of these charges. We wouldn’t be talking about any of this at all. Donald Trump as a defendant is likely getting the benefits of due process in a way that I think ordinary defendants often do not. He has a team of lawyers. Many defendants are at the mercy of the public defense system, which tries valiantly to provide great legal service to those who can’t afford it.
Murray:
But they’re overworked and they’re overburdened lawyers and they have huge amounts of cases, and they can’t always give the amount of time to a single defendant’s case in the way that Donald Trump is getting the kind of attention. He’s getting the due-est of process, as my co-host Kate Shaw has said, and I don’t know that we would see this with any other defendant, certainly not an African American man going through this in the legal system. So is this a means for identifying with Donald Trump? I hope that Black Americans are more circumspect than this and more critical in terms of their thinking about what this means, because this is not the treatment that many of us would get.
Haines:
I think that is a point worth raising. To get back into the courtroom, key arguments that you’re anticipating from both sides of this case. What do prosecutors need to show or prove in order to convict former President Trump?
Murray:
I do think there are gonna be a lot of questions about some of these witnesses. Alan Weisselberg is going to be a witness for the defense. Michael Cohen will be a witness for the prosecution. These are both people who already have some criminal liability on their ledgers. That’s going to be a point that both sides will use to try and impeach the credibility of those witnesses. The defense will say, you can’t even believe Michael Cohen, this is a guy who said he perjured himself.
Murray:
This is a guy who’s been to prison. He’s done federal time. He’s admitted to lying to Congress. Why would you ever believe him? That’s something that the prosecution’s going to have to deal with. To be clear, it is often the case that prosecutors rely on cooperating witnesses who themselves don’t necessarily always have the cleanest record. It’s not an unusual thing, but it is something that I think DA Bragg and his team will have to deal with. In the same vein I think the prosecutors are going to make hay of Alan Weisselberg and the various charges that he has pled guilty to. He’s done time at Rikers. He recently acknowledged that his hands are not entirely clean in terms of being entirely forthcoming. So, he’s going to be an interesting witness as well. That’s something that we can expect, just the effort to impeach the credibility of these witnesses before the jury who ultimately will decide what disputed facts mean and what the resolution of this is going to be.
Murray:
Those are some of the things I think we’ll see. I also think we are probably going to see from the defense some pushback on the bootstrapping charge. They will raise a question about whether or not you can actually use the prospect of election fraud, whether it’s at the state level or the federal level. It’s not clear, I think, in the bill of particulars what the theory of that is. That might also be fodder for the defense as they go through this. At every turn you’re gonna see a lot of just bluster, a lot of argument. This is not going to be a smooth and easy trial.
Haines:
Yeah, that is probably a fair prediction. You brought up political accountability and I want to get into that because this case is coming up in the wake of former President Trump locking up the Republican nomination for president. I want to talk about that and some of the other implications that you see of this being the first of the criminal cases. Does it affect any of the other cases?
Murray:
All of these cases are sort of independent entities. The fact that there are four of them by itself is noteworthy, but in terms of what they mean together, it is notable that there are two state-level cases. That’s really important when you think about the fact that Donald Trump may be our next president in 2024. If he is convicted here in New York, because it is a state trial, he as president has no authority to pardon himself. It’s an open constitutional question about whether or not a president can issue a self pardon. That’s an issue of first impression that would surely go to the Supreme Court. Not clear what this 6-3 conservative super majority that seems to be really interested in helping out Donald Trump at every turn would do with that.
Murray:
But that’s an open question. He definitely cannot use the pardon power for a state level conviction. That’s really the importance of both the Fani Willis case and the Manhattan DA’s case. He just can’t get out from under that if he becomes president. He can very easily kill the January 6th election interference case and the Mar-a-Lago documents case by simply directing the Department of Justice to drop those cases. If those cases had actually been tried to verdict, it’s very unlikely that either of them will get to a jury trial before the election. If he had actually been convicted, I think there would be an open question about whether or not he could then pardon himself if he had been elected president. It would also be a question about whether or not the facts of a conviction, whether at the state level or at the federal level, could then result in his disqualification for office.
Murray:
The Supreme Court in a recent decision has essentially said that it would require congressional legislation to make section three of the 14th Amendment operative such that Donald Trump could be disqualified under the terms of the 14th Amendment. Basically that means we would kick this to Congress to decide. Congress is so polarized, so incapable of doing anything, including voting for a new leader, that it’s very unlikely that Congress would be able to pass an acting legislation that would allow Congress to disqualify Donald Trump on the basis of a conviction. Donald Trump understands the game. If he gets to be president, if he wins this election, it is effectively the world’s best get out of jail free card.
Haines:
Yeah, because if Trump is convicted, he is still able to run. He is still able to win. His supporters certainly are not necessarily indicating that this is a disqualifier for them. I’m just hearing everything that you say. Would a conviction really change anything?
Murray:
Well, it might. A conviction before the election might sway some voters. I’m not sure if, because of the way in which the New York case is talked about in these sort of tawdry salacious tones, whether a conviction there is going to move the needle for many undecided voters or voters who are on the fence. I do think a conviction in the January 6th election interference case or the Fulton County case that sort of goes to this broad effort to subvert the election might’ve given a lot of people who are on the fence pause. That’s why you have seen so many concerted efforts to delay the start of the January 6th case. Remember that case was supposed to go to trial on March 4th. We’ve also seen these efforts to delay the Fani Willis trial by talking about whether or not she and Nathan Wade have an inappropriate relationship. That’s such a bonkers claim because typically when you’re talking about ethics violations from prosecutors, it’s that the prosecutors had a relationship with a witness or a juror, or the defense, or with the judge. Not that she’s having a relationship with someone on her own team. What is the conflict there? It doesn’t matter. The point was to delay and to essentially hobble her if this case ever gets to trial to make her look bad before the jury. He may have succeeded in that.
Haines:
Certainly the media was pretty focused on that Fani Willis hearing down in Georgia that you alluded to and the personal, consensual relationship that she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. I’m just wondering in your opinion is the media talking about these trials in the right way? And if we’re not, what is it that we’re supposed to be paying attention to that we aren’t paying attention to?
Murray:
I’m just gonna give a shout out to my MSNBC family. They’ve done a good job being on the case with this. Katie Phang has been in the courtroom. She’s an actual lawyer. She’s trained as a lawyer. She knows the right questions to ask. She’s not focused on did Fani Willis and Nathan Wade go to Aruba and who paid? She’s sort of like, what’s the point of this? Money is fungible. If she’s paying him back, does it matter that he paid first? Do we really think that he took this job so that he could take her to Aruba and pay for it? She’s asking the right questions. I don’t think that’s the case across the board for all of the media, but it’s really important for some of these issues that are really technical, that you actually have people with legal expertise. I just want to shout out Katie’s coverage. She’s been absolutely fantastic.
Haines:
Such a good point. Listen to the lawyers here, people. [They’re] the people who actually know the legal ins and outs of what it is that we are witnessing collectively as a country in these courtrooms when former President Trump is not on a campaign trail. Melissa, thank you so much for helping me unpack some of this as we head into the Stormy Daniels Election Interference trial. Notice how I didn’t call it hush money. See how I’m learning already? Thank you for helping us to unpack that. I will definitely be holding onto my copy of “The Trump Indictments” as I follow along. Thanks for stopping by The Amendment to help us understand this one.
Murray:
Thank you for having me.
Haines:
Now for this week’s asterisk. We’re just a day away from the start of the NCAA basketball tournament and I can’t wait. I have been a tourney stan for years, but I will admit I was previously mainly focused on the men’s side. No more. I mean, have you guys watched the women this season? Electrifying. Seriously I don’t think I’ve ever seen players on the court with so much heart, so much swag, having so much fun. I mean, the hairstyles, they’re playing so hard with a full lace front or just braids that I’m really in love with.
Anyway, these games really have become appointment TV for me and my favorite way to spend a Sunday afternoon. So now it is tourney time and it is time for the rest of y’all to pay attention. I know in a lot of ways I’m already seeing that y’all are paying attention. I saw that ticket sales for the women’s Final Four compared to the men’s Final Four already, the women’s games have sold six times as many tickets. I think that’s proof that there is interest and that everybody watches women’s sports. So this tells me that how to achieve parity in sports is no secret. Get the game in front of as many people as possible. Pay women, promote their games, give them equal facilities, make them the face of huge sponsorship deals, you know, all the stuff that we do for men, because to do less would truly be madness. So I wanna see your brackets. I want you to post your Final Four on social media. You can tag me @emarvelous on Instagram or @ErrinHaines on X. And no, I have not filled mine out yet. I always wait until the last minute, but no multiple brackets, you have to commit people. So everybody enjoy the tournament and I will talk to you again next week.
Haines:
So that’s my asterisk for this week, and that’s this week’s episode of The Amendment, which is also a newsletter, that I write. You can subscribe to it for free by going to the 19thnews.org, where you can also find all of our great journalism around gender, politics, and policy. For The 19th and Wonder Media Network, I’m Errin Haines. Talk to you again next week.
The Amendment is a co-production of The 19th News and Wonder Media Network. It is executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, Terri Rupar and Faith Smith. Our head of development is Emily Rudder. Julia B. Chan is the 19th’s Editor-in-Chief. The Amendment is edited by Jenny Kaplan, Grace Lynch, and Emily Rudder, and was produced by Adesuwa Agbonile, Grace Lynch, Brittany Martinez and Taylor Williamson with production assistance from Luci Jones. Our theme music was composed by Jlin.
