- [announcer] do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next? call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. rorschach test unsealed. i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. no matter how expected it might have been, it was nevertheless stunning to see it splashed all across front pages 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 be 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 a moment. it may depend upon responses by trump's gop opponents. most were quick to weigh in before the indictment was unsealed. ron desantis said 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. another went further comparing pardoning trump immediately upon his own swearing-in.

chris christie kept his powder dry initially saying we don't get our news in 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, 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 x.m. radio, the only reason they're running against someone whose policies they largely approve of and who has 50% of the vote is because this is what they expected would happen. that his campaign would be talented 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 under way since december of 2020, nearly four years. it's inexcusable that such an

uncomplicated case is still unresolved. and it's true that legacy media show zero appetite about generation tanglements between hunter and president. james comer is currently looking at the claim of fbi informant that the head of barisma paid hunter and the 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 tired 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. to the former president, it was something else. the box on the floor which was opened, 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 e-femara guy who was noted to keep newspaper mentions 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- mar-a-lago. were they of such personal or professional value to trump, or was it indicative of his 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. trump was polling at 43% in february before alvin bragg introduced his charges. and now just a few months later, his support has bumped to 53%. 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. npr, pbs, maris poll finds 70% 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 lambast the justice department for the latest charges which leads me to this 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 eric erickson, 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 a chance

to reconsider now that it's been published and i'm sure you've read it. >> 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 we 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, indicted him in new york, saying they were going to get him. when a grand jury asks you to hand over documents and you instead ask your lawyers to hide them and the lawyers admit but this, that's pretty stupid. it gives an opening for the other republicans to say we've always said he had no impulse control and here's the outcome. the other side is -- >> 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 -- >> give them time. >> this is exactly the reason they're running.

they anticipated that his campaign would fall based on the weight of the prosecution's and potential indictments. >> yeah. it's going to be -- 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 leave. they want to leave it to somebody else. 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 have a potentially different case 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 it's no -- there's no question that they are treating this very gingerly right now and basically hoping that somebody else does the work for them. >> eric, 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? >> they do believe that it is weaponization of the doj when you look at hunter biden and hillary clinton. they also do 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% of the gop still rejecting him. what it is 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 be trying donald trump. and that takes some focus grouping. 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. 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 to choose between him and the constitution, and i chose the constitution. this is another example of that theme. >> aaron, you've looked at data that suggests to you that this is different than the stormy daniels case, 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% among gop voters. this time could be different. explain. >> yeah, i think it's -- first, it's worth noting there was a recent poll from ugov that asked about several different controversies that trump is facing where he could face some

kind of charges. 52% regarded the manhattan indictment, the conduct described there, as being a serious crime. that 52% went up to 65% for retaining classified documents and obstructsing 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 polls people who might be geared

toward donald trump on a more partisan basis, how much it might actually pull them away there him, not so much in the republican primary where it looks like there's a limited impacts, but in the general election where he needs to count on those votes. >> at the same time, eric, you believe there's a prospect that 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. >> yes. 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 toward 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 the 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, they think, waits 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 them go up and down. in fact, we're already seeing this in iowa and new hampshire while he's still in the majority, his numbers have been trending down pretty steadily for the last several weeks. >> yeah. the only thing we know for sure is that we don't know for sure. eric, aaron, thank you so much. really appreciate you being here. >> thanks. to everybody else, what are your thoughts? hit me occupy social media. i'll read responses throughout the course of the program. where does there come from? 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 what aboutism is valid in this

case. why is it taking so long with hunters? 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 can d trump take that you will stuff, and why didn't he just give it back? 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 smerconish.com, answer this week's poll question -- did donald trump's indictment in the classified documents case just guarantee him the republican nomination? up ahead, he's polling at 20% and he has the backing some of the most powerful people in silicon valley. rfk jr. claims he's been 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 him. plus, former president trump set to appear in court on tuesday to face federal charges in connection to his mishandling

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special counsel jack smith making rare public remarks on friday after unsealing the historic had 0-plus-page federal indictment of former president and current 2024 candidate donald trump. >> 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. >> smith did not go into details of the indictment but said people ought to read it. joining me 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. 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? >> well, let's keep in mind mar-a-lago has essentially

lapsed january 6th because doj even before jack smith was appointed, they purportedly have been investigating january 6th since it happened. we are 2.5 years out. mar-a-lago didn't surface until the search warrant hit almost a year ago. so what this tells me -- obviously we 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 any time soon. and one indicator of that is 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 toward any of them. so there has been sort of radio silence. it's still pending. it wouldn't surprise me if the ultimate decisions from doj is no charge against trump on january 6th. >> right. 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

gymn january 6th, or is it a straightforward case? >> i think both. i think this case and the indictment is fairly straightforward and well done. i think the charging of this case gave was merrick garland some political cover if he ends up not charging january 6th. i know we see garland and jack smith as the naun political icons, but they're aware of public perception. they understand it's important that doj be seen as fair. i think ultimately if garland does not charge for january 6th, people who would be upset may look at the charge we saw this week and think, well, at least he charged one of those cases. >> okay. 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 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? >> 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 toward 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, 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. >> 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. you know, 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 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 impacts of what i'm -- impact of what i'm showing now? you know the pictures to which i refer. >> it's new to have photographs and indictments. i remember seeing the first one maybe five years ago when i was ready to leave a prosecutor's office and thought you can put a photo in an indictment? it was untraditional to me. now they're there, they should be. they're evidence. why not? it's an interesting rorschach test. i'm not buying the they're just newspapers. yes, they are newspapers, but the fact that some or perhaps many of the documents were innocuous our souvenirs, fine, that doesn't undermine the fact that even a small portion were decidedly not. and the indictment lays out the high level of sensitivity of those documents. so it doesn't much matter if the sensitive documents are all alone in one folder or are

surrounded by tchotchkes, it's the ones that are sensitive that we care about here. >> jack smith says he wants to give him a speedy trial. is that going to happen? >> 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 see, are you sort of trained from day one. if a judge said today you have to go to trial tomorrow at 9:00 a.m., i would say we're ready for trial. you automatically say that. really who governor wherns trial happens is a, the judge, but with more deference toward 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 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. >> 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. >> this is the single most consequential turn of the week other than the indictment itself dropping. and really a shocker because up until there four days ago, everything was in d.c., the team, the prosecution team was in d.c., the grand jury was in d.c. it looked like they were going to charge in d.c. you're right, there's an enormous difference in the jury pools here.

d.c., donald trump got 5%, outover 5% of the vote in 2020, meaning about 95% 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 had 0%. so -- 40%. so you're looking at a very different jury pool. people say jurors are instructed, selected, vetted out and told don't bring your political views into the courtroom -- nonsense. jurors are human beings, and especially in -- 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? i give doj credit here. they did the right thing legally because they definitely have proper venue down in florida where markle is. it's actually -- mar-a-lago is. it's not clear they have venue in d.c. they could have tried in d.c., fought the legal battle and hoped for the better jury pool, but instead they did the rye thing. they went with what they --

>> i have a different -- i have a different take, and that is that it was for expediency. they want to hurry and get to trial. they know if it went to d.c. it would be more time off the clock as he challenged and tried to move it. let's deal with social media together. let's lean on elie 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 going to cut you some slack. i didn't know it would be personal and directed toward me. so thank you very much. okay? 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 why the hell would he have tang the stuff and why -- taken the stuff and why didn't he give it back?

you've heard me criticize the republican candidates trying to say 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 we were going to go. so that leads me to conclude only that you don't like me saying guess what, those same republicans raised some legitimate issues about hunter, maybe about joe, and certainly about hillary. that's my response. i want to remind you, go to smerconish.com, and answer -- now you know i don't see them in advance. i wouldn't have invited elie to stick around. 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 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. ♪ hit it ♪ ♪ it takes two to make a thing go right ♪ ♪ it takes two to make it outta sight ♪ ♪ one, two, get loose now ♪ ♪ it takes two to make a... ♪ stay two nights and get a $ 50 best western gift card. book now at bestwestern.com. - i'm fernando, i live outside of boston. i've been with consumer cellular for five years. consumer cellular gives you all the same features that these big companies give you. what you get for the cost is remarkable. why would you pay more money?! - [announcer] why would you pay more when you can get unlimited talk & text with a flexible data plan starting at just $20 a month.

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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% 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 roughshod 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 than that which gets the most attention. he strikes populist themes that remind me 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. 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% 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 aren't able to invest the time necessary to have good dialogue with him. this was his response -- >> because i've spent a lot of time studying and writing books -- >> right --

>> i -- and litigating these issues, i have a very detailed domain knowledge of these areas that make it very, very difficult to defend orthodoxies in -- because i know the area so well. yeah, it is almost -- particularly on vaccines, almost impossible for anybody to interview me. >> 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 a pediatric neurologist, you ask four physicians' opinion on an autism diagnosis, you'll get five different answers. although autism was first discovered in the 1940s, it didn't end up in the dsm 3 until the '80s 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 pear-reviewed article linking autism to vaccines. he said this -- >> one of them would be the study which is the cdc study. the cdc actually was very worried about this in 1999. they compared children with the hepatitis b vaccine in the first 30 days of life with children who did not. children who got it later or didn't get it at all. they found an 1135% increased risk for autism diagnoses in children who got it. and what they did -- we -- >> maybe it's correlation, not causation. there are a lot of environmental changes that have taken place in the world. he referenced dr. thomas verstraten, i pulled and read

what he published in the peer review journal "pediatrics" in 2004. 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. i think he cannot and should not be ignored. still to come, why are social conservative views in the u.s. the highest they've been in a decade? i've got a theory. the editor-in-chief of "gallup" is here to break down the numbers. and please make sure you're going to the poll question at smerconish.com and answering this question -- did donald trump's indictment in the classified documents case just guarantee him the republican nomination? u've evolved. you've changed. so have we.

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are republicans winning the culture war? a new gallup poll find social conservativism 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 performed better than expected in the senate during the midterm elections. but new state proposals related to transgender issues, abortion, drug use, and the teaching of gender and sexuality in schools is suggesting america may be inching toward the right. according to gallup, 38% of americans say they're very conservative or conservative on social issues. that's a jump from the previous two years when the number was at 33% and respectively. americans sharing liberal or very liberal views fell. perhaps the most interesting finding 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" muhammad eunice. what's driving this according to your interpretation? >> really two things, michael. numerically it's about republicans really owning their conservative identity. we've seen now a jump for 60% to 7 4% 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% describing it as getting worse. 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, 55% of americans describe changing one's gender of birth as morally wrong. and that is a really important statistic to keep in mind. 43% say it's morally acceptable.

69% 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 really important to remember this is a country where perceptions of things around same-sex marriage, gay rights, have astronomically changed as people have become more informed. >> 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 overturn of roe v. 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're 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. >> that will be a short game. right now, 39% of americans say that they know someone, they

have a friend, a co-worker, a family member who's told them they are transgender. that's 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% 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 how it -- what it really entails, these attitudes are likely to change, if the past is a look to the future. >> i'm worried -- this is subject for a longer conversation 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 unwelcome 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 it as i was thinking it. you get the quick final word. >> absolutely. this is the moral issue for america right now. i think a lot of america's recent history has been about an increasing -- theft in terms of public opinion -- of accepting others, accepting immigrants. this is a moment now where america's 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. >> muhammad eunice, thank you as always. >> thank you for having me. inhospitable. that's the word i was looking for. respect papadopoulos and i couldn't remember that? coming up, the final result

of the poll question at smerconish.com. vote now. register for the daily newsletter when you're there. dr. donald trump's indictment in the classified documents case just guarantee him the republican nomination? when covid hit, we had some challenges. i heard about the payroll tax refund that allowed us to keep the people that have been here taking care of us. learn more at getrefunds.com. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health versus 16 grams in ensure® high protein. boost® high protein. now available in cinnabon® bakery-inspired flavor. learn more at boost.com/tv ♪ dads are special. fun. inspiring. always there for you. so make father's day extra special with gifts he'll love from weathertech. floorliners... cargo liner... seat protector... sunshade... ready-to-wash system and cupfone.

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katherine, what social media reaction? >> we're talking about trump. no one else. focus on his crimes. this is not a witch hunt. he's not innocent. you were doing great until the end because you've prejudged and aren't giving him the presumption of innocence. i get it. something about the indictment i wanted to say earlier, the pictures. i've been wondering. i spoke to others about this. what form of evidence, demonstrative evidence, might we see that would remove some of the dryness from a documents case? the photographs are compelling. they bring it home. the video tape which we haven't seen will be as well. when i read on may 4th, between 5:30 and 5:48 his valet removed boxes from the storage area, it

tells me they've gone through the surveillance video at mar-a-lago and were able to piece together the feds were coming to town and here's what happened. that's going to be compelling. more social media reaction. what else do we have? best headline of the week. warshock test unsealed. you wondered how he was going to respond to this? it was the aforementioned valet -- i can't get that word out of my head since "downton ab abbey". i voted yes because this give trump wants he wants, total media attention on him. it will bring out his base and secure the gop nomination. i don't know, greg. 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. i've given up. i gave up my card. one more. what guarantees the nomination is the cowardice of otherwise opponent. i think chris christi will be different. i think asa hutchinson calling for him to get out. i think christi will come out guns blazing. they're all in a race against somebody who has 50% of the vote and is well-funded. why? they anticipated this was going to happen. when it happens, they say it's

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you are in the cnn newsroom. jim acosta has the day off. thank you for joining us today. indicted, but unrestrained. former president donald trump hitting th