see the second run like its own race. so i did it exactly how i wanted and that's amazing. >> she's going to race more next week in the world cup finals. stenmark says he thinks shiffrin could get to 100 world cup wins one day, which is an incredible number to think about. shiffrin is going to celebrate her 28th birthday on monday, and she will now do so as the greatest skier of all time. >> what a birthday gift. thank you, andy scholes. thank you so much for joining me. i'm fredricka whitfield. smerconish starts right now. we may be about to see what happens when someone is shot on 5th avenue. i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. the office of manhattan district attorney alvin bragg has invited donald trump to testify in an investigation into a hush money scheme involving adult film star

stormy daniels that's believed to be a precursor to an indictment. they're required by law to be notified and invited to appear before a grand jury. if charged, trump would be the first former president to be indicted, but would it slow his current presidential quest? i say not a chance, at least not based on this case alone. any charges here would stem from the $130,000 in payments made to daniels during the 2016 campaign. apparently she had been ready to share her story of an affair with trump, but the publisher was a trump friend, who instead helped broker a deal with michael cohen, in which she was paid for silence. i've thought it was the weakest of the trump investigations which generally fall into four buckets. first, the events of january 6th. second, the mishandling of

government documents. third, the fulton county da investigation, including the phone call to brad raffensperger. fourth, this, the stormy daniels hush money. merrick garland appointed jack smith to look at january 6th and mar-a-lago. meanwhile, the especially jury investigating election interference has concluded its work and recommended indictments for more than a dozen people. it's enough to keep awake any presidential candidate, but when it comes to donald trump, no matter what he steps in, he seems to emerge smelling like a rose. while he was being investigated for handling of classified documents, the process that included the execution of a search warrant at his home, classified documents were found at the homes of mike pence and joe biden. not an apples to apples comparison, put but enough to muddy the court of public opinion. in fulton county, the floor

person casted a shadow on the work of that investigation and gave trump's lawyers a basis to question the process. i've long thought that the mar-a-lago case was the most perilous, the facts seemed straightforward and damning. the manhattan da's prosecution based on stormy daniels, not so much. the money was paid seven years ago and any prosecution would have to rely on a statute of limitations having been tolled while he was in office. that's unprecedented and untested. it sho would rely on what "the new york times" calls a novel legal theory, two cases falsifying business records and a violation of state election law, only by connecting the first to the connect would it be a felony. if that strategy should fail, the manhattan da would be left with a seven-year-old misdemeanor case based on sex, brought against a former president and current presidential candidate who leads his own party's polls.

i thought we learn in the '90s that six scandals don't tank a president's popularity. also, i find it curious that alvin bragg, having decided not to prosecute trump in other matters, would choose this hill to die on. remember, when bragg announced that he would not move forward in a case about trump's business practices, two lead prosecutors quit the department, one leaked his resignation letter to the press and it said that bragg's predecessor, cy vance, concluded that facts weren't in prosecution and directed the team to present evidence to a grand jury and seek an indictment of mr. trump and other defendants as soon as reasonably possible. pomerantz just published a book about this called "the people versus donald trump, an inside account". when bragg won a case for fraud against the trump corporation, he did not pursue trump personally. instead, he seems to be honing in on the much smaller

malfeasance. it should be noted that after trump left office and shedded his immunity, the federal investigation of the daniels case, that which had set former attorney michael cohen to prison and in which trump had been referred to as individual number one was not prosecuted by the u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york who instead took a pass. of course trump seeks to ex exploit this by crying witch hunt, he said i never had an affair with stormy daniels, for would i have wanted this. this is a political witch hunt trying to take down a leading candidate, while at the same time leading all democrats in the polls, et cetera, et cetera. you have to wonder what merrick garland, jack msmith and fawni willis were thinking when news broke that it's alvin bragg who might get the first bite at the apple. if they're seriously contemplating indicting trump,

they would have to think the first claim would be the strongest. the stormy daniels sets the wrong tone. it most plays into his claim of a politically motivated prosecution, whether it's true or not. it could define all of those that follow, all in the context of a presidential race well under way. ron desantis arrived in iowa on friday. donald trump is headed there on monday. it's time for all of these prosecutors to play their handled or fold. joining me is a former prosecutor himself, cohost of the podcast "it's complicated" and a partner at a firm called bryan cave. that's your take on this week's developments? >> i agree with you, michael. this is the weakest of the cases against trump. that said, i think it causes problems for trump. in other words, you laid out this array of potential charges. i will tell you it is always

difficult to try to fight a multi front wart and anything that trump says or does in relation to this case makes it more complicated if he ultimately faces charges in fulton county or elsewhere. >> if he's indicted on multiple front, does it matter which goes first? you heard my take. i think to lead with the weak might tank those that follow. perhaps you disagree. >> it does matter, but it's more complicated than that. in other words, there's often a very careful dance that's done by defense attorneys to try to slow down one case and speed up another in order to get the trial in one case before the other. the defense wants the trial in the weaker case to go earlier, but that doesn't always work out that way. and so, you know, it will be interesting to see how that all develops. i agree with you that certainly jack smith would prefer that the other prosecutors aren't out there. of course i'm sure some of the

prosecutors, like, say, in the r. kelly says, they didn't want all of the other prosecutors charging as well. it's part of how the system works. >> renato, why do you think that alvin bragg having passed on what i think you and i regard as better cases, would have chosen this one to hone in on? >> it's interesting, i first thought that alvin bragg made a brave choice by deciding to take a pass on what appeared to be stronger charges, charges that were taken up by ag james in the civil case. later on he was misleading the public about whether or not that investigation was still ongoing. it made me wonder whether or not public pressure had something to do with that. i don't know whether that had something to do with him deciding to go forward with the prosecution. but i think it's a legitimate

question. >> i said that ron desantis was in iowa yesterday. i perhaps also should have said nikki haley was in iowa yesterday. donald trump will be there on monday. of what concern or consideration is the fact that this race is beginning to merrick garland and jack smith? how does that impact their decisionmaking and timetable? >> it's a great question. i think the fact that the race is ongoing is what caused merrick garland to appoint jack smith in the first place. and i think what mr. smith was to weigh is whether or not this is going to be seen as an attempt by the justice department to impact the presidential race, and really he's going to have to consider the long-term impact on the department, because ultimately the department of justice wants the public to have confidence that it's outside of politics. i agree with you that the mar-a-lago case was by far the strongest. it's clear that jack smith is working up the january 6th case in an aggressive fashion as well.

i think if he indites soon, it won't be seen as too close to the election. >> thank you, as always. we appreciate your expertise. >> thank you. what are your thoughts? hit me up on social media. i'll read some throughout the course of the program. from the world of -- i don't see it. maybe it's twitter. maybe it's not. we'll go right to the poll question. there it is. every legal development with trump bolsters his claim that prosecution has morphed in persecution. the feds executed a search warrant at mar-a-lago and then joe biden and mike pence were sitting on classified information of their own. is it an apples to apples

comparison, seemingly not because we believe they cooperated, he didn't, potentially he obstructed. but it muddies the case in the court of public opinion. still to come, the biggest u.s. bank failure in more than a decade and the second biggest ever friday california regulators seized silicon valley bank citing insolvency. what this might mean for the economy. this brings us to the poll question at smerconish.com. you can use the qr code if you choose. answer this week's pole question. is the failure of silicon valley bank an isolated event or will there be broader financial contagion? cast your ballot.

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new vibrant from air wick. our first fragrances infused with 2x more natural essential oil. it's our most amazing, true-to-nature fragrance experience ever. new vibrant. from air wick. the fall of silicon valley bank in just 48 hours is the second biggest bank collapse in u.s. history and it sent shockwaves from silicon valley to wall street, to main street. svb was known as a tech lender and held more than $200 billion in assets. it was hit by a bank run and a capital crisis, as well as rapid rising interest rates. the failure sent bank stocks

plummeting, customers withdrew a chopping $42 billion in deposits by the end of thursday. in massachusetts, customers were turned away from accessing their cash and were told to come back on monday. deposits are insured by the fdic up to $250,000. the fdic said all insured depositors will have full access to their insured deposits by no later than monday morning and it would paid uninsured depositors an advanced dividend within the next week. for corporations it's a different story. roku held approximately $487 at svb and they said most of their deposits were uninsured. could this, the second biggest institutional failure since the crisis of 2008 lead to a larger systemic failure? that is this week's poll question if you go to smerconish.com and cast a ballot, and i hope that you will. is the failure of silicon valley bank an isolated event or will

there be broader financial contagion. joining me to discuss the aaron cline, former deputy assistant for economic policy at the treasury department. thank you so much for being here. what's your answer to this week's poll question, isolated or more contagion? >> look, i don't think this is the type of contagion that's going to lead to a horrible disease that's going to bring down the financial system as we saw in 2007 and 2008. however, i'm not sure it's completely an isolated incident. silicon valley bank isn't the first bank to go under this week. silver gate, a smaller bank that had leaned heavily into crypto, self-liquidated and went down a few days earlier, there are a couple more dominos that could fall. i'm not sure this is a completely isolated one-off event, but i think the regulators have been telling us that the contagion from crypto is contained within parts of our financial system and silicon

valley bank is big, but it's not like other banks of its size. they have a different business model. >> i've read that nearly all of their depositors are in excess of the fdic limit. does that sound right to you? >> so it does, because this -- look, it's a $200 million bank, it's like keybank, huntington, the banks you see in large portions of america. those banks are about the same size but they have about 1,000 branchs. silicon valley only had 16 branches. how could that be? they didn't take that much money from regular consumers. they took it more from companies. they banked startups and as they got bigger, they kept those relationships. you mentioned roku as a perfect example of something like that. so companies tend to have money in excess of deposit insurance,

whereas regular viewers rarely about more than $250,000 in the bank account. frankly, a lot of americans would be happy to have $250,000 period among all of their assets. >> the "wall street journal" today in its lead editorial raises the question of how will the government respond. i'll put it up on the screen. it says if svb was doomed, it is better to let it fail than have the government bail it out, despite what one hedge fund lord suggested this week. didn't we learn from the 2008 crisis from the fed's rescue of bear stearns encouraged everyone to leave that lehman brothers would be rescued, too. your reaction? >> there are just over 5,000 banks in america and the same number of credit unions. the right answer for the number of banks to fail is greater than zero. if you have no bank failing, you probably have bigger problems in

the economy. the first time in american history we went a year without a bank failure was 2005. 2006 was the second year, and the regulators told us at the time that they had won, this was great regulation, no one was failing, the system couldn't be safer. so what you have to say to yourself sa banks take different types of risk and run different types of business models. some of them fail. that being said, you do need to be careful that the failure is born by the loss of the risk takers at the bank and less soly companies that are using the bank to do general business. i'm concerned with how regulators handle the explosive growth and its reliance on unusual funding sources to maintain and handle that growth. so i think there are a lot of important questions to be asked as we uncover this failure and lessons to be learned.

>> aaron, thanks for the insight. we appreciate your expertise. >> pleasure to be on. >> more social media reaction from the world of twitter, i believe. clarence, no, we don't use honey in heaven. george bailey, that's right, i keep forgetting. no, no, no, you're quoting the right movie, but the wrong scene. the right scene is the run on bailey building and loan, right? oh, my god. a colorized version? we're showing a colorized version? anyway, more to the point, remember what ends up happening. george has to explain, no, i don't have your money here. and then remember miss davis is the one who says -- george says, how much do you need? she says $17.50, and he gives her a kiss and a hug. it brings tears to my eye to

watch that scene. go to smerconish.com and cash a ballot. up ahead, four americans who went to mexico so that one could get a more affordable tummy tuck, wound up getting kidnapped, two killed. rising health care costs have led to a boom in such medical tourism, there's a whole industry that i didn't know anything about. did you? more on what's going on in these mexican border towns from someone who lives right there. .e money moves with merrill. so no matter what the market's doing, he's ready. and that's... how you collect coins. your money never stops working for you with merrill, a bank of america company. ♪ whenever heartburn strikes, get fast relief with tums. its time to love food back. ♪tum, tum tum tum, tums♪

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despite the deadly kidnapping of four americans on a medical tourism trip to mexico, experts say u.s. citizens are still flooding the southern border for low-cost cosmetic surgery. data shows more than a million americans go to mexico every

year for medical tourism and the government says medical tourism brought in over $137 million in 2021. it's so common that there's a dedicated traffic lane at the border designed to speed american medical tourists into mexico. these people are traveling to what's known as mexico's health clusters, where dental procedures, cosmetic procedures, fertility treatments, even veterinary carry are typically cheaper than the united states. americans can save up to 60% on the most common procedures received by medical tourists in mexico. the more frequented and reliable destinations are mexico city, cancun and tijuana. there's an area in mexico year yuma, arizona, known as molar city for the 300 dental offices. but matamoros is not considered a primary destination mainly because there are no nationally accredited medical centers or specialty clinics there or in

the immediate region. but that is where this group of american friends were so that one of them could get a tummy tuck. the procedure typically costs about $9,000 in the united states, but it's half that price in mexico. other examples include a tooth implant with an acrylic crown that would cost $3,400 in the u.s. but it's less than $1,700 in mexico. a coronary artery bypass would be $$73,000 here, $27 there. there are weight loss surgeries and there are a variety of procedures led by orthopedic care. as for security, there are shuttles provided for patients crossing at the texas border, although many americans prefer to arrive by private car so they can shop and dine at the restaurants. officials say there are security officers to guide the district in addition to state and local

police. the founder of the group patients beyond borders says that since the kidnappings he's been inundated by requests from people seeking care across the border and are not expressing concern about violence. joining me is someone who lives here the border and has seen the b practice firsthand. tell me what you know. >> good morning. it's not a weird thing for anyone in the surrounding communities to go there for dental surgeries, for dental work such as fillings. it's pretty normal. everybody does it. it's a lot more affordable than here in the states. and, honestly, a lot of the dentists that work there have gotten their education and certifications here in the united states and just choose to run their business in their home of matamoros. >> i was going to ask, how do you have confidence in this, how

do you know that you're receiving the requisite standard of care. but you're answering that question. in other words, you can go online and look at the websites, you can see the accreditation, the curriculum vitae, the background of these particular practitioners. >> yeah, and locally here a lot of us aren't even going that route of picking out a dentist. you usually know somebody, a family member, a friend that goes, oh, i have a dentist i can recommend and i can tell you where his office is, i've had all my work done there. you usually take their advice and get their information and you go down there. of course, if that's the one you decide you don't want to go with, there's many other options in that area that you can pick from. >> katie, i was blown away by discussing this on radio and receiving so many calls from so many people, you included, who said, like, this is no big deal, this is what we do. we live in the border communities and we save a hell of a lot of money by going over

there. i was unaware of the common usage of this, and also the fact that people will take a day of it. you go over, have mental work done, go to a restaurant, have a margarita. >> have a margarita, grab lunch, do a little shopping. aside from the dental work, there will people that will go over for medications that you can get over the counter, like antibiotics. if you need antibiotics, it's a good choice to go get them. >> given the horrible case that we're all familiar with from this week, what's your level of concern for security? do you think it's going to change the frequency with from a million americans across the border for treatment in mexico? >> i think it might change temporarily. i want to say my wife showed me an article a couple days ago that was written since this occurred with the four americans that the sales in matamoros have been down about 50% in the past couple of days because of so

much national attention on it. but i wouldn't say it's any less safe than traveling to a larger city in america or abroad, not knowing the language and not knowing your way around, there's always going to be a level of risk. >> nice to see you. thanks for your insight. >> thank you so much, michael. checking in on more social media reaction. what do we have? from the world of twitter. it is truly sad that people feel compelled to seek inferior medical care in dangerous places because it's so expensive in the usa. medicare for all. i get that there's a lesson here about the united states' health care system, but to hear katie tell it, it's not inferior. i've gone online because i was shocked by this, and looked at the credentials of these practitioners, and the data i don't think supports the view that soit's so dangerous. maybe it's not all driven by the

factors you identified. up ahead, nine years ago this week, mh-370 vanished, despite a search costing hundreds of millions of dollars, they never found the plane. what do we know of its fate? >> plus, if donald trump doesn't win the gop nomination, could he upend the race by running as a third-party candidate? not if you do a close reading of several state laws in place. they're called sore loser laws, and i shall explain. in the meantime, please go to my website at smerconish.com and register for the free daily newsletter. answer this question, is the downfall of silicon valley an isolated event or will there be broader contagion? ♪

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march 8, 2014, a date i remember well. it was the launch of this program, my program on cnn. also the day, more importantly, that mh-370 disappeared, which marked the start of one of the biggest av aviation mysteries of all time. the plane carried 239 passengers and crew members. it was set to arrive in beijing but has never been seen since. coverage took over our airwaves and everybody else's for months after that. and yet despite launching the largest aviation search in history, virtually nothing was found of the aircraft. theories on how a plane could vanish into thin air have gripped the world for almost a decade, but so far none have been proven. netflix is streaming a brand new

do docuseries. jeff wise is an aviation journalist who plays an important role in the netflix series. he's the author of the book "the taking of mh-370". i invested the three hours in the netflix show. at the end, we still don't know. >> we still don't know, michael. and i think that's the point. you know, in the months that followed the investigators performed this intricate mathematical calculation that told them where the plane went, and they devoted a years-long search to scanning the seabed, really challenging an amazing feat, the water is as deep as three miles and yet the plane was not there. so this is really, i think, what the documentary series is trying

to tackle. how do we reconcile those facts? how can they have performed this rigorous analysis and failed to find the plane? >> i'm going to put up a map of that part of the world and ask the question, is there consensus on what body of water it went down in? >> well, i think there's the main theory and then there's kind of everything else. and the main kind of consensus view is that the plane turned south, almost certainly because the captain had plotted out this very elaborate murder-sus icide scheme and that's where the austrailian government spent hundreds of millions of dollars searching this area. big commitment. but then there's other theories, including my theory in which i try to piece together an

alternative conclusion, in which i say there's this kind of far-fetched seeming series of coincidences which could result in the plane going north to kazakhstan. >> people will remember the revelation that he had a flight similarity in his home that took on a nefarious connotation. what's the bottom line about the pilot? >> you know, it's one of these things where it kind of depends on who you ask. there's a lot of people that think this guy had a troubled marriage and he has all kinds of psychological problems. the people that had the most access to his family and friends say he was a very emotionally balanced guy and was well liked. he was looking forward to retirement. he put up these videos of how to repair your leaky windows. looking at pictures of him, he

seems like a chill guy and he was popular, regarded as an excellent pilot. i did a story the following year about a young german pilot who flew his plane into the alps. the german kid was deeply troubled, he had been pulled from flying duty for psychological problems. he had searches on his computer of searching for how to commit suicide, he had searched this incident, like it had inspired him. we'll never know. the human brain is unfathomable at some level. >> is there still an active investigation? and if not, why mot? >> it's a cold case. the files still exist. the people who looked into it are still around. they've sort of put it on the back burner and they're waiting to see if anything happens. i hope this will shake the tree because there are still questions that need to be asked. there are some really hard realities that need to be faced.

how come the plane wasn't there? people think it's a big ocean, they didn't find it because the ocean is too big. that's not really correct. they had data with a known margin of error. if the plane had flown south, they really should have found it. >> if it were a movie, we would be disbelieving and we would say too could never happen. thank you so much. i appreciate the docuseries and the role you played in it. still to come, the gop race heating up. on friday, ron desantis introduced himself to iowa. if one of them loses the nomination, can they then run as a third-party candidate? the expert answer that you're going to hear in a moment might surprise you. and please go answer the poll question at smerconish.com. is the failure of silicon valley bank an isolated event, or will

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can donald trump run as an independent or third-party candidate if he first fails to win his party's nomination? it's a question circulating throughout the republican party and political media, if trump were to decide to run as an pa independent, it would make for an interesting race. but you can't run, lose, and come back because of sore loser laws. an article says such a candidate

would be denied ballot access in 28 states, totaling 290 electoral votes if sore loser laws are applied as written. this report is titled "if you ain't first, you're last". one of the coauthors joins me now, a practicing attorney and an adjunct professor at the college of william and mary. shear with me the conclusion beyond that i've described. you take a look a look at 50 state laws and what did you find? >> the 28 states the sore loser laws would prohibit somebody who lost the primary from running as an patent or third-party candidate. if donald trump were able to get ballot access in every state that he basically won in either '16 or '20, less the ones that would bar him under the sore loser laws, he would only be able to win 81 electoral votes, that so puts a roadblock in any third-party plans he might have.

>> a fellow named richard winger looked at this issue and came to a different conclusion. he thought it was only south carolina and texas that would have a sore loser law. why do you think that analysis is wrong and yours is >> he only looked historically and said can i find instances where someone sought a major party and ran as a third party candidate. while it's true there are some, the best well known will be john anderson in 1980, i think the modern environment 40 years after john anderson did it, i think the represent scan party would look very differently at a trump third party run if he were not the republican nominee and would look to take advantage of these laws and challenge his access to the ballot in those 28 states. >> jason, what would happen if trump or anyone else for that matter were to run for a nomination and not get it and then try and advance a write-in

campaign? >> so write-in laws are very different. they vary across the country. some states would accept those write-in votes, some states would say our sore loser law applies, we're not going to count those. i haven't done a separate study on the write-in laws but, frankly, the number of candidates who get elected for national office is slim to none. >> why do we have sore loser laws? >> sore loser laws were designed 100 years or so and they protect the party nominees from somebody who lost in a political party primary and says, you know what, i want to run in a general. the idea is if you lost, you lost and you don't get a second bite at the apple to run in the general without having won a party primary. >> i would argue they're outdated to the extent they ever served a useful purpose. my short version would be where gallup says 42% says they are

independent, not as r, not as d, there are a lot of us who get shut out of the primary process. a lot of moderate candidates who can't emerge in a primary i think could be viable in a general election but are often precluded by sore loser laws from coming back. >> that's probably right, but keep in mind, the sore loser laws protect the democratic and republican party processes and they're the ones that control the legislatures in nearly every state in the country so changing those laws would be very difficult. >> right. it's like term limits. there's consensus in the country we should have term limits. i think there's consensus in washington but we need the people in washington to agree with us about term limits and they don't. you get the final word. >> right. i mean, again, i think our study shows it would be difficult or impossible for donald trump to run as a third party if he in fact loses the republican

primary. >> thanks for all the work that went into this. hang on one second. here's a social media reaction. maybe we'll answer together. put it up on the screen, katheryn. i'll read it aloud. if trump runs third party and he wins enough to block them from getting 270. then trump could win outright. your thoughts? >> i would be surprised donald trump could win enough states to win as a third party. >> can i add, you correct me if i'm wrong, if it trump today said i'm out of the republican primary process, i'm today announcing i'm running third party, that he could do, correct? >> possibly, but keep in mind, he's already filed a declaration of candidacy with the sec that says he's running as a represent

cab. there's a good aert gumt he's already affiliated with the republican parties. >> i'll bet he appreciates all the free legal advice you just gave him, which is he better stay in the republican primary and win that process or he's done. thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. still to come, more of your best and worst social media comments and the final result, please go vote. a little esoteric today but we like that. go to smerconish today. is the failure of svb, silicon valley bank, is that an isolated event? we hope so. or will there be broader financial contagion? results in a moment.

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hey, before the poll results, i have a rorschach test for you. going to put something on the screen. you're going to shout out loud what you see. ready? here we go. what do you see? the car's owner, james sterastecki, he's a veeg gvegan. he says it's about his love of tow if-- tofu. the license plate is owned by the state. the state offered him v 3 gan but the motorist said no thanks, just got a standard plate. what were you thinking? here are the results of the poll question from smerconish.com. has to do with svb. might be part of a broader

cont contagion. hit me with it. the 56% of more than 25,000 say it is an isolated event and we hope that they are correct. social media. what else came in during the course of the program? there was this. these people can't get trump out of their head after almost 2 1/2 years. another dog chasing its tail. i assume pete phillips means the prosecutors can't get him out of their head. look, at the end of my opening commentary i said something about, which i think we should all be able to agree, which is it's time to wrap up those investigations because we don't want them butting right up against the 2024 election. thank you for watching. we are live in the "cnn newsroom." i i'm jim acosta in new york. a series of deadly storms has unleashed massive flooding across the central and norther