Since the match up is anything but a mystery, I think it's important to focus on the issues that will animate the upcoming presidential election. Now, some people will look at former President Donald Trump's attempts to subvert democracy and his authoritarian sounding plans, and say the conversation should stop right there. What other issues are even worth talking about? But of course, there are plenty who don't think that in theory they could be swayed.

Many people have asked me what my position is on abortion and abortion rights.

Which is why we saw Trump release a video earlier this week outlining his stance on one of the most divisive issues out there abortion. He personally took credit for the overturning of Roe v Wade, but said the states need to decide how this plays out going forward.

Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others, and that's what they will be. At the end of the day. This is all about the will of the people.

But speaking of states, the very next day, Arizona's Supreme Court ruled that the state needs to stick to a Civil War era law that basically bans all abortions except when the pregnant person's life is in danger. And Trump, who just said it should be left up to the states, said that decision went too far. He was later asked if he would sign a federal abortion ban as president, and he said no. It all just underscores something Trump does seem to understand. Extreme abortion laws are a political loser for Republicans. But beyond all that, something else voters will have to keep in mind are the 88 criminal charges Trump is facing in four separate, unprecedented cases. Will they be willing to vote for a convicted felon? Well, you can't answer that until there's a trial. And the first one is set to get underway tomorrow. My guest this week is CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid. She has our guide to the hush money trial in New York from CNN, this is One Thing I'm David Rind.

So, Paula, it was last year you and I spoke about these charges in the New York hush money case. And ever since then, Trump has tried to delay and to delay and push back all of these criminal trials that he's dealing with. And honestly, he's been pretty successful in doing that. Right. But he seems like he ran out of road here in New York.

The Trump team is throwing every piece of spaghetti at the wall that they can. They can make anything stick. They have tried to get this case delayed, arguing that it needs to be moved, that Trump can't get a fair trial in Manhattan, so they need to change the venue. They've argued that the judge should be recused from the case because of his daughter's political work. They're also arguing a presidential immunity now. So far, all of these have been rejected by the Court of Appeals in New York. But this is an intermediary court of appeals. The highest court in New York is the Court of Appeals. I know it's confusing. But they could potentially take, for example, this presidential immunity question to the highest court in New York, that court of appeals. And if they fail there, there's always a longshot bid to go to the Supreme Court. So there's always a possibility that there could be additional challenges or delay tactics by the Trump team that could potentially be successful. So far, they haven't been successful. But there's always a chance. And I just point to everyone that no one saw coming, right? This document dump from federal prosecutors that has already delayed this case two weeks. So there's always something else that could happen.

And so take us inside what this is going to look like, with the caveat, obviously, that we've never seen a former president be tried in criminal court before. First of all, how do you seat a jury for a case like this?

It's a daunting task to be trying to find 12 jurors and six alternates to serve on this case. It's incredibly difficult because former President Trump is the most famous man in the world, and most people are at least vaguely familiar with what happened with Stormy Daniels, or Michael Cohen. Right. So they recently released the jury questionnaire, and potential jurors are asked everything from where do you live to where do you get your news to? If they or anyone close to them has ever worked for the former president, for the Trump Organization? Any allegiance or participation in extremist groups like the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys? And then, of course, questions, about the former president and about the case.

We're told those picked could possibly be treated the same as jurors in Trump's civil trial against E Jean Carroll. They may be driven in daily from a secret location for their safety.

So an important aspect here is anonymity. The jury will not be public. They will be anonymous. We've seen what has happened, for example, in Georgia, with the grand jury down there, those people faced a lot of threats, threats. So here the jury is going to be anonymous. Even the jury selection process. We will not be able to report a lot of the details about the jurors.

Outside Manhattan Criminal Court. Police are preparing for what even they describe as an unprecedented several weeks.

We're obviously going to ratchet it up.

That means the building will be wrapped in a security blanket of cameras, uniformed officers, drones, bomb sniffing dogs. And barricades.

So what's going to happen inside the courtroom, even though the public won't be able to to see the potential jurors or the process? The judge is going to be able to ask questions. The defense attorneys, the prosecutors, they're going to be able to dismiss people for cause. So, example, if you don't speak English as a first language or if there's some other reason you were unable to serve as a juror, they can dismiss those folks. Then they each have, preemptive challenges so they can dismiss people for for their own reasons. So it'll take a long time to weed through this pool of potential jurors. I expect that this will likely take several days. And remember, in this trial, each week is only four days. There's no court on Wednesday, the second week of jury selection. We also have Passover. So this could take a few weeks.

And so once we get past jury selection, do we know what the arguments are going to look like.

So this is a case about sex, but this is a trial about falsifying business records.

In January 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that in the weeks before the 2016 election, Donald Trump had arranged a $130,000 payment to the adult film star to keep her from publicly discussing their alleged 2006 encounter.

And the district attorney's office has come under considerable scrutiny for why it took them so long to bring this case motivations for bringing this case. But they're likely going to focus on this hush money scheme. Now, there's nothing wrong with paying someone to be quiet about an affair, but they're going to focus on how Michael Cohen was reimbursed and their allegations of falsifying business records.

Did the alleged payoff come from campaign funds, and was that a violation of campaign finance laws? Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who went to prison over that alleged hush money, says yes and that Trump knew about it.

But now, as part of charging this as a felony in New York, they're also likely going to have to address the fact that this, they argue, was done in support of another crime. Now, it's going to be interesting to watch the defense strategy, because, of course, the biggest question is whether their client will testify. I think universally is.

Going to be my next question. Is Trump going to take the stand?

Yeah, I think most legal experts would tell you that's probably not a good idea, right. He's not likely to help himself or his case. And we say that because we look at his behavior in the other cases where he has either testified or not, he has not been able to conceal his frustration, his anger, his hurt on the stand. And that's not helpful when you're a defendant in a criminal trial. If you can't think clearly and logically and speak concisely and follow your lawyer's directions, you can open up more issues. But again, that'll be up to him and his legal team.

Does he have to be inside the courtroom every single day this is going on?

He does both for jury selection and for the trial itself. Now, I emphasize the court is off on Wednesdays, so he has Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays to go and campaign. But he's been pretty effective at turning a lot of these hearings and court proceedings into campaign events.

I don't know how you can have a trial like this in the middle of an election, a presidential election.

He just goes to one of his properties, holds a press conference, speaks his mind. So he'll he'll be campaigning even when he's not campaigning.

I would have no problem. Testified I didn't do anything wrong.

And we're getting concerned that a conviction, if you are convicted in that trial, could cost you the election given more talks.

And voter well could also make me more popular because the people know it's a scam.

How long do we think this will take? Like when could we get a verdict or even a sentence if we get to that point?

So we expect jury selection could take 1 or 2 weeks again because those are abbreviated weeks. And then the trial itself is expected to last about 5 to 6 weeks. So a jury you never know how long it'll take them to decide a case. But I would expect we should have a decision in June. And of course, in June, he'll also be looking at the Supreme Court for another big decision on his federal election subversion case. So June will likely be a big month for the former president. Legally speaking.

Well, yeah, that was what I was going to say. The three other criminal cases are in sort of a legal limbo. There's not even a guarantee we'll see any of those be tried before the election. But there is this big date at the Supreme Court later this month. What should we be looking out for there.

When it comes to the four criminal cases? I don't expect that you are going to see any of the other three criminal cases go before the November election, and the November election is significant because if Trump is reelected, the two federal criminal cases, classified documents, prosecution and the January 6th case.

They would just go away.

Exactly. He technically, he would have his attorney general fire Jack Smith and then dismiss the cases. So that's almost a guarantee that would happen if he is reelected. If he's not, the cases will continue on. But look, let's look at the January 6th case. Right. That's on ice right now because the Supreme Court is hearing arguments on whether Trump has presidential immunity. That could go a few ways. The special counsel could win. They let the trial go ahead. Trump could win, which would be surprising even as a lawyer say they don't expect him to win outright, but they could also just send the case back down for further proceedings to clarify which ax could have some immunity that would cause a delay. The classified documents case. We don't even have a date on the calendar. And that's a very complicated case. And the judge there, Eileen Cannon, she still has over a dozen motions. Outstanding. And then you have what's going on down in Georgia. Fani Willis has said she wants to bring that sprawling Rico case in August, but that date was set before these efforts to disqualify her. Those have pushed this back and she still says she wants to start in August, but that is ambitious. We have to remember that is also a Rico case that is expected to last months. So as of now, I don't expect that you're going to see the resolution, certainly, of any of these cases, and it's unlikely that any of the others will begin before November.

Well, so based on all that, we've kind of talked about these four cases and how this hush money case here in New York is kind of the lesser of them in terms of like legal strength or possible consequences. But if it's the only one that's going to be tried to completion before the election, like this is a big deal, right?

It is a big deal because historically, this is the first criminal prosecution of a former president of the United States. Now, when you look at the allegations here, right, falsifying business records related to an affair with a former porn star that is not as weighty, right, as president mishandling some of the nation's most sensitive secrets, allegedly down at his club, you know, with documents strewn about the ballroom or efforts to subvert the election. But again, it is a criminal case. It's unlikely the former president would go to jail even if he is convicted. But yeah, in terms of the gravity of the significance, people talk about this case as being the runt of the litter. Now, the district attorney's office is very sensitive to this. And they argue that this too is an election interference case. They would argue that this is a 2016 election interference effort by then candidate Trump to hide from the public the fact that he had had this affair. Now, I think the other side of that is I'm pretty sure most people were aware that Trump had issues with monogamy historically. So I don't know if that's a fact that was truly withheld. But in terms of a criminal prosecution, that is always a serious and grave matter, even if this is the lesser of four trials that he could potentially face.

Yeah. And as of now, it's the only show in town. So it's a big one. And we should say Trump has pleaded not guilty and has denied all wrongdoing across all of these cases. Paula, thanks for getting us ready.

Thank you.

One thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producer is Faiz Jamil. Our supervising producer is Greg Peppers. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director. And Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Lenni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Adam Levine, Elizabeth Hartfield, Laura Smitherman, and Katie Hinman. We'll be back next week on Sunday. I will talk to you then.