Judge Aileen Cannon was nominated by former President Donald Trump. Mary Trump, the former president’s niece, criticized Cannon for the slow progress of the Espionage Act case and referred to her as “Donald’s personal pocket judge!”
Judge Cannon, a Trump appointment, was chosen at random to oversee the trial of former President Donald Trump on 37 counts of violating the Espionage Act.
As part of a video series for her The Good In Us email subscribers, Jen Taub was hosted by Mary Trump, the host of The Mary Trump Show podcast and an outspoken critic of Trump. Taub is a frequent participant on Mary’s #NerdAvengers panel and an anti-Trump legal expert.
During a lengthy interview, Mary and Taub went in-depth on Trump’s many legal issues — including Judge Cannon’s case:
“MARY: No, I don’t think it’s overstating it to say this is our last shot, just as I think it’s their last shot, which I think goes a long way to explaining the fervor and intensity with which they’re approaching this election. How do we match that? Because, again, a human nature, sometimes for people fear is more motivating than more positive emotions. But we can’t go down that road. We need to create something where people feel welcome and we’re actually changing things for the better. What do you think is a good way to get there in 2024, in the next 11 months that we have?
TARA: I think that we shouldn’t allow the MAGAs to co-opt love of country. They have. Totally. And that pisses me off. And at the Lincoln Project, we’ve said this a couple times, and we’ve put out ads out where it’s like, hold on the American flag. They don’t own that. Don’t let them co-opt that. They don’t own our sense of patriotism. Okay, January 6th, insurrectionists, they’re not patriots! Okay? They’re traitors.
And it’s okay to have righteous anger. And I think that’s the difference. It’s righteous anger that these people are trying to co-opt what it means to be an American, what it means to defend the Constitution, what it means to be patriotic. Don’t let them have that. And that’s where I think you flip it. You can have righteous anger that’s not rooted in hatred. Yet fear of losing our country to those people—that should be a motivating factor.
MARY: Tara, that is such an amazing distinction. And more people need to say that, yeah, they have their anger and they have their rage. I swear. It’s just the two minute scream every day on the right.
TARA: Great 1984 reference.
MARY: Thank you. But our anger is righteous. And in that case, it’s not a bad thing. It’s a way to motivate as long as we don’t let it consume us. They’re the ones who are angry. We’re the ones who have the reasons to be. So, I love that distinction.
TARA: It’s like the civil rights movement. There were a lot of reasons to be angry and to be consumed with rage, and we could have ended up in a race war, but we didn’t. It was the righteous anger of the American people across the spectrum that led to those dramatic changes for the better for this country. I mean, we’re still a work in progress—the fact that it took that long, a hundred years from the Civil War, to finally have equal rights for people of color in this country is insane. But it happened because of the righteous anger of the American people. There are more people, I believe, who believe in doing the right thing than there are of the others. And it’s just a matter of activating and recognizing what’s at stake here. And I think that it takes all of us to do that.”
