Legal AF by MeidasTouch - BREAKING Legal News… Trump ATTACK on USA
Episode Date: February 2, 2025Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back on the top rated Legal AF podcast and discuss the chaos that has engulfed the first 12 days of the Trump Administration, including the attempt to gut the US eco...nomy; the leadership of all federal agencies responsible for our safety and security and welfare; how attorneys general are winning on various of federal courts against Trump; how mainstream media is giving up on the First Amendment and just giving cash to Trump to avoid being fined and losing their licenses, as attorneys and judges fight to protect democracy, and so much more at the intersection of US law and politics. Support Our Sponsors: Laundry Sauce: For 20% off your order head to https://LaundrySauce.com/LEGALAF20 and use code LEGALAF20 Uplift: Elevate your workspace and energize your year with Uplift Desk. Go to https://upliftdesk.com/legalaf for a special offer exclusive to our audience. Tushy: Over 2 million butts love TUSHY. Get 10% off Tushy with the code LEGALAF at https://hellotushy.com/LEGALAF! #tushypod Public Rec: Upgrade your wardrobe instantly and save 20% OFF at https://publicrec.com/LEGALAF when you use promo code: LEGALAF #publicrecpod Check out the NEW Popok Firm: https://thepopokfirm.com Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
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A major court loss for Donald Trump in federal court.
A second federal judge has now ordered that the government freeze be stopped.
This was a federal judge from Rhode Island and this was after Donald Trump purported
to rescind the government freeze, but Donald Trump's press secretary Caroline Levitt quite
literally as the federal court hearing was taking place said we are rescinding
the memorandum but not the freeze so then the lawyers representing the
various states across the country who brought this action brought that to the
judges attention the judge says I'm not really sure what to make of this I can't cross examine the tweet, but this seems to very clearly suggest that the government freeze is
Still on Caroline Levitt is a public official. This is her pronouncement that the freeze is taking place
So I'm going to issue a nationwide injection blocking the freeze and
This issue is not moot. This issue is real and this is impacting lives.
So order. We'll talk about what happened in that federal proceeding.
We also are going to talk about the purge of FBI agents by Donald Trump, DOJ officials,
who worked on January 6th related cases in Washington, D.C.
A lot of FBI agents worked on these cases.
A lot of DOJ officials worked on these January 6 cases who Donald
Trump and MAGA refer to as heroes, as hostages.
These are some terrorists who they continue to invite to the
Capitol building, some real bad people.
So as Donald Trump is pardoning terrorists, January 6th insurrectionist,
some of the worst of the worst people, he is firing law and order.
He's firing the FBI.
He's firing DOJ officials.
The union that represents the FBI agents put out a strongly worded letter, but I
seem to recall that that union was very supportive of the people who Donald Trump
picked to lead the FBI last week, who ended up firing them all.
I want to cover that all.
And I think we also need to reflect here on all of this law enforcement
endorsement for a lawless presidency, a lawless person in Donald Trump.
We'll talk about that.
Also, there's the broader government purge and its implications across kind of all areas,
whether we're learning about the head of the top acting official at the Treasury Department,
an individual who's a nonpartisan guy who is responsible for the system that made the
trillions of dollars in payments, whether it's social security payments, medical payments, loans, anything
coming from the government.
This guy has access to all of the, and the system has access to all of kind of our private
information.
Apparently Elon Musk demanded access to it.
This top treasury official wouldn't give Musk access to it.
So this guy got pushed out.
So Elon Musk and the
oligarchs can get all of our private information and personal information and have access to the
trillions of dollars in payment systems. That's what Donald Trump's doing while egg prices
continue to rise, grocery prices continue to rise. We're certainly far less safe than we were under
President Biden than we are right now.
I mean, that's for sure.
We're going to talk about all of that.
We should also talk about how with these two horrific plane crashes this week
and the one plane crash over Washington, DC, where a Blackhawk helicopter
crashed into this airplane that was landing into DCA airport from Kansas,
killing a total
of 67 people, how two weeks ago, a week and a half ago, the FAA director was
forced out and forced to leave, top safety committees were gutted, staffing
issues in that control tower, that specific control tower and Trump trying to force on all
federal employees including FAA employees this like bizarre what I think
to be a very unlawful buyout of their of their given the seven six severance
agreement we'll talk about that and also you've got Donald Trump using the FCC to go after CBS, PBS, and NPR.
We'll talk about that.
While all of this is going on too, you've got these like Trumpers, all these cabinet
officials who are like kind of just cosplaying their roles.
The whole thing looks so weird.
You've got like Kristi Noem, who's now the head of Homeland Security.
She like dresses up in different Halloween costumes every day,
you know, as like, you know,
sometimes dresses up as like a ranger.
Sometimes she puts the vest on and she goes out.
All this performative garbage crap
and they can't just do their basic function, right, Popok?
The basic function of government, just keep the people safe.
Let's start there.
And I mean, we're less safe. Let's start there. And I mean, we're, we're less
safe. We're Americans are not safe. In a Trump America, the
world is less safe and Americans are not safe in a Trump America.
That's the lesson of the week from a legal perspective. And
just from a common sense perspective, good to
talk to you too, Ben 12 days in this administration and it has
read the entire Republican Party has rebranded itself as the party of chaos.
That does that is not a that's not a winning strategy.
That's not something that protects America.
That's not a doctrine.
That is an erratic set of behaviors where we're watching a president surrounded by people
who are his enablers, who has no executive function
as part of being the executive.
There's no thought process,
there's no deep abiding understanding of how policy is made
or what are the implications or consequences,
unintended or otherwise, of your policy implications.
It's just this bull in the china shop,
sledgehammer to government, without worrying
that this is a government that is in progress. He's trying to hollow out leadership, civil servants
who know what they're doing, budget cutting, sending the states into disarray because of the
amount of money that federal government is withdrawing
from the economy.
Or as I've said, not even a joke, Donald Trump is hell bent on removing the US from the US
economy, not understanding the fundamentals of the contribution of the US and funding
to the humming of the economy.
The chaotic nature of it.
I mean, if you didn't know better, if our audience didn't know better and you and I didn't know better for how closely we follow
These things you'd think this guy had never been president before they spent an awful amount of time an awful lot amount of time
Reminding us that he was the 45 and 47 president. He's both. He's 45 and 47
I made times they have to write that and in in prior filings and courts and now whenever they speak
But you wouldn't you wouldn't know it by how he's handling matters.
Every presidency is tested at the beginning
of their presidency by matters outside their control.
A natural disaster, a national disaster,
a war, a terrorist attack.
We already just had one and you need to grade Donald Trump
and his administration on how they reacted to that. Donald Trump got up at a podium instead of addressing the nation
and consoling them for the loss of 70 people in a terrific collision, as you
said, of an army helicopter and a plane carrying innocent civilians coming, some
of them coming back from a figure skating competition in camp, and lawyers and doctors and
firefighters and other people that are now in the Potomac or have been pulled out of the Potomac.
Donald Trump takes to it what he should have done as the consular in chief.
Whether he did it inside the Oval Office by a fireside or something else is to consult people, is
to talk about we're gonna get to the bottom of the issue of the crisis.
We're gonna, I'm going to,
I'm gonna announce a new space program
to update the technology of the FAA
that's stuck in the 1980s and 1990s.
And I'm gonna make, and I'm gonna declare that right now
that these people have not been lost in vain.
All right, no.
Three minutes in, he starts using it
as a cheap political hack point.
While people have just started their grieving process, and America too, because it's their
tragedy as well, he starts going after Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, Obama, somebody hands
him some screenshots from a website without telling him that that was the website his
own Trump FAA also used, all right,
to suggest that the reason,
before they even had the black box
or the NTSB had done their job or the FAA
had even started their job,
before they even got their boots on,
Donald Trump is standing in front of the American people
and suggesting, no, declaring,
that it was a black or brown handicapped disabled person
running the air traffic control board
that crashed the helicopter into the plane.
That is a lie, but it supports Donald Trump's false narrative about diversity, equity and inclusion.
This is the exact same thing they did when the ship hit the bridge and led to a collapse of a bridge.
Oh, DEI, you know,
if we just had white, best and brightest people there, we would all be fine.
And then they got the new guy who replaced Sean Duffy, who replaced Buttigieg as the
transportation secretary.
He said, thank you, Mr. President.
You're so right.
It's all about the best and the brightest.
And this is what I want our audience and by extension others that come to our show.
You can leave it in comments for tonight.
Does anybody think that Tulsi Gabbard to head 18 intelligence organizations for America
is the best and brightest that Donald Trump could come up with?
That Pete Hegseth to run the Pentagon from his Fox and Friends couch is the best and
the brightest that Donald Trump could have come up with. That RFK Jr., to be our top health official,
is the best and the brightest. That Dr. Oz for Medicare and Medicaid,
that Cash Patel for FBI, for Pam Bondi for attorney. This is the best and
the brightest. He needs to be judged a report card for the first 12 days.
he needs to be judged a report card for the first 12 days.
We haven't even talked about the 10 cases in five courthouses and three temporary restraining orders
that have already been entered in the first 12 days
of the Trump administration.
What is his report card, America?
What are you watching as we also move into the tariff wars
against our allies and him standing, just to leave it on this bed,
him standing in front of the American people and saying that he's going to tax Canada,
which is the number one supplier in terms of what we import, of energy, of electricity, of minerals, of strategic elements that our own manufacturing sector needs in
order to produce its own products.
And we're going to take that relationship because quote unquote, we don't need trees
from Canada, trees.
Okay, this isn't about trees.
All right.
So one of the things we're going to come away with, I think on this particular episode,
the way you've outlined the topics for today, is that we're watching the party of chaos.
We're watching the chaotic leader as they lurch, as we predicted, from one abuse of power and constitutional crisis to the next.
That's all they're accomplishing right now. And when it matters most, when the rubber hits the road for our national
security, keeping people safe, keeping people's economic kitchen table issues at the front
of the frontal lobe of their brain, they have failed. I don't know what lower grade than
F is for the first 12 days, but we need, this is the call to action part, we need to hold
the entirety of the Republican Party, municipal, local, state,
federal, all the way up. Every election that happens from today forward, all the way to the
midterms, has to be a resounding, crushing defeat of the chaos of the Republican Party
led by Donald Trump. And if you give me, and I've said this before, if you give me back the House and the Senate,
we will impeach and convict Donald Trump by the midterm.
But it has to be because people are grading him on his performance that's happening right
now in a national crisis.
You know, the very concept though, Popak, of grading his presidency still almost kind of normalizes the framework within
which he is acting right now which is he's acting so unpresidential that he's
like if we were to use the example of grades he's the kid who's intentionally
trying to get expelled who shows up and acts so horribly,
just starts basically cursing at the teacher
all over and over again.
It's hard to even view this two weeks.
The most logical explanation is this one,
either the most incompetent, reckless,
dumbest person imaginable,
or this is someone who very specifically and
intentionally is as actively doing the things that you would do point by point
to destroy the country from within, whether it's literally internally
breaking the federal government, removing people who provide for the
safety. I mean, like if you had a playbook, what would you do?
You would do these things.
Then internationally destroying and ruining our alliances.
I mean, every aspect is so kind of tailored
to inflicting harm.
You know, and just the thing about, you know,
this digital age or where everybody's got their phones,
I do think that there are people who are either people who are complacent and
didn't vote or even some Trump voters who are waking up.
But because people are so living on their phones and they've created these, you know, kind of fake
worlds around them created by right-wing media and propaganda, all of like the
terror and fear.
They tried to act like what was happening when Biden was in office, which was not.
We had a competent government.
We were stronger internationally.
Things function.
People weren't afraid to get on an airplane to get to destination point A to destination
point B. The stock market was up.
So like outside of what your ecosystem was telling you, you had an objective data set
to say, is this really what's happening?
And you would look at it and you would say, well, you know, actually the stock market's up.
Actually, inflation's now come down.
Actually, we've gotten out of the pandemic.
Actually, there's 40,000 infrastructure projects
taking place.
Actually, you know, we're building
the semiconductor industry here.
Actually, unions are thriving.
Like, you could then compare.
Now, you can look at things and
it's like two plane crashes in a week. Everybody's being fired. There's like
total chaos. Everybody's kind of you know living. No one knows is there gonna be a
new tariff. Is there gonna be this? It literally is total and utter chaos and to
see the propaganda media go into overdrive trying to sell us that
somehow like like this is not like this is just this is you know our Republican
administration like this is like literally this is this is authoritarianism
craziness you know call it whatever you know in Popeye we didn't even say we
should just say right now the National Labor Relations Board was gutted this past week as well
Donald Trump fired the first black female on the NLRB so that the NLRB couldn't make a quorum
And therefore the NLRB is gonna be unable to recognize unions here grievances
So who does this help the oligarchs?
The oligarchs are gonna be the people who benefit from this. People like Bezos and Musk, who were enemies to unions, got everything
they wanted. This is what they were arguing for before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals,
gut the NLRB. And Trump did that by firing one of the NLRB board members and firing the NLRB
general counsel. Now they say they're gonna challenge you.
On that note, just before you leave out, I want to forget it. When he talks about hollowing out
and firing civil servants, that will fall. I want our audience to translate that,
like Legal AF translator. That will fall disproportionately on black and brown women
and minorities who are in our civil service as Donald Trump whitewashes
the government.
Because when he says things like the best and the brightest, regardless of color, it's
color blind, it's going to be merit, I'm going to get rid of these people, just convert that
into, I am firing black and brown,
disabled, gay, and women from government.
And I am replacing them with 50 year old white men.
You know, and so they've even removed from government websites, you know,
LGBTQ, they now just go, you know, LG or LGB.
They're not recognizing in the Department of Defense Holocaust
Remembrance Day, Martin Luther King Day, you know, Juneteenth, you know, other
national holidays. I mean, just petty things like that, you know, where there
are paintings on the walls and government buildings that say things like equality
and freedom and fairness.
They're literally, you know, painting over it with gray.
With great America.
It's mawa. It's make America white again.
You know, it's fascism.
I mean, it is fascism brought to our shores.
And in the 12, 14 days, Donald Trump has done everything to bring a Putin-esque
government here and there are important signs of resisting theirs.
I think that one, the people after a while aren't going to take it.
I think you are seeing the fact that in the past 48 hours, we're talking about
22, 23 million people watching this network.
48 hours we're talking about 22, 23 million people watching this network.
People are looking to stand up to Donald Trump and to this authoritarian regime.
I think you're going to see international resistance join with resistance here in the United States against this European Union becoming stronger together.
Canada looking to Europe against the United States.
becoming stronger together, Canada looking to Europe against the United States,
France offering military to Denmark and other European nations, you know, doing
that, Mexico standing up with President Claudia Scheinbaum.
You know, one thing we know as we talk about this government freeze and I'll
and I'll turn it over to you to talk about this case.
Now, remember what Donald Trump said there as well. What was Donald Trump's lie when he was exposed
on this government freeze?
Remember that first day?
People's Medicaid portals were shut down.
People who needed surgeries weren't sure
if they were gonna be able to get it.
It was total and absolute chaos,
and it still frankly is a ton of chaos. So Donald Trump and his regime go out there and the same way like Putin
would talk about denazification of Ukraine. What does Donald Trump say? It's like the most ridiculous
thing because if you can get people to believe in absurdities, you can carry out some of the greatest atrocities.
I think that quote was attributable to Voltaire, I think.
So what does Donald Trump say?
He goes, well, what we uncovered, the reason we needed to do this was there were a condom bombs being given to Hamas by Biden.
Condom bombs.
We uncovered that condoms were being sent to Hamas by Biden, condom bombs. We uncovered that condoms were being sent to Hamas,
they were being converted to bombs
and they were being used in Gaza
and they were being used in Israel.
There's zero truth to that.
There was no, there was contraceptives
that were sent to Gaza, Mozambique, not Gaza, Gaza.
And you know, it was Mozambique. And there were
no contraceptives even sent inside Gaza and the West Bank,
the entire thing is false, but they go out there and go
condom bombs. And then people believe that they go it's such
a big lie. Maybe they're not condom bombs, but maybe
something's going on there.
So that's what their PR facing thing is.
But let's get into this case.
Just one thing I do,
because we're having a good thing here.
Because I'm in a different place today.
I'm down in Miami for the last few days.
We'll talk about why in a minute.
But I've run into a lot of Midas Touch
and Legal AF fans down here.
Actually, I said to my wife,
I have a lot of good dialogue and interaction
with our fan and our audience base in New York
when I'm on the streets.
And I said, I wonder if that's gonna happen in Miami.
And it did.
And one in particular I had a conversation with
as part of the Cuban American communities in his 50s.
And he told me that, and I believe this is part
of the resistance that you're talking about,
that those that voted for Trump now are having serious, serious regret about having done
so.
And they're very, to paraphrase this person, he told me they're very quiet watching this
last 12 days.
They're not dumping their chests and coming out with the flags of the pickup trucks.
He said they're almost embarrassed to watch because many of these people came out of fascist
and communist regimes and they thought what they were voting for was the strong man for
democracy at least, which is why they came to this country.
And when he says he's going to take away the temporary protective status for 600,000 Venezuelans,
do you know how many Venezuelans who are law-abiding, documented, hardworking people are that vote
here in Miami that see their friends and neighbors being chased through schools, through churches,
through workforce raids who have gone underground because of it?
Donald Trump's going to pay the price as a result.
He has alienated, and you've done a great series of videos on Might As Touch about this,
he's so alienated those that voted for him and they're having voter remorse that if we
ran the election again today with the benefit of the hindsight of the last 12 days, I don't
believe he would have won.
Look, you've got Pete Hegsif, a Fox News host, running the Defense Department, the Defense
Department, right?
Just an actor like a TV showman.
You have Sean Duffy who's running the Department of Transportation who got famous from the real world and that the real world road rules challenge.
You had Kristi Noem who killed her dog and who's doing this cosplay, you know, dress up game.
You've got RFK who, RFK Jr., who spent a lot of his time on Russian television
talking about how various pandemics were actually created.
This is a total lie that he would say.
They were created by the World Health Organization in order to kind
of weaponize it, to create these bio weapons against America.
And that's why we need to withdraw from the WHO, which by the way, America withdrew from
the World Health Organization on specious and ridiculous grounds like that, totally
isolating us.
I mean, someone like Cash Patel, and this is, you have former federal prosecutor now California,
Senator Adam Schiff, who I had the privilege of interview
was examining Cash Patel at Patel's confirmation hearing
and he was asking Patel, hey, you were creating these songs
with the January 6th insurrectionists, were you not?
And Patel goes, I don't know, I don't know and then
Schiff would show transcripts like we would do at a trial. Well here you're saying mr. Patel
We created the song. This is what you said on the Bannon show
We created this song and we did this for the heroes and we did this for the January 6th hostages who are the real
Patriots and we need to do everything we can to use our, you know,
if we get back in power to destroy the deep state and we need to go after
anybody who went after Donald Trump and went after these insurrections. We, we, we.
So Senator Schiff goes to Cash Patel, you said that right? And then Cash Patel
goes, well, I didn't say I did. And then Schiff goes, well, you said we, you said we.
And then Patel goes, exactly we. And then Schiff's like, you mean we doesn't include you,
you are involved in that? No, we doesn't mean I. And so Adam Schiff's like, you mean to tell me
when you're saying we referring to yourself, you didn't mean you. And, you know, going back
to your example example Popak of
like how are you grading these things you know you think about the student who
just you know doesn't you know just doesn't even want to be there and doesn't
even care these people aren't even trying right they're strutting in there
not even learning like RFK jr. what the difference of Medicare a part a part B
part Z like he doesn't What the difference of Medicare part A, part B, part Z.
Like he doesn't know the difference
between Medicare and Medicaid.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Oh, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know what to do.
And again, who wants,
again, whether you're a red state, a blue state,
a Democrat, an independent, a Republican,
a giraffe, an elephant, a Republican, a giraffe, an elephant.
I don't care.
Who wants people who don't know the basic things of how to do it.
And like who would want to step on a plane with the pilot who didn't
have the pilot training?
Well, guess what?
Now we have the people directing the agencies to direct the pilots
who don't know what the hell they're doing. That's what we have right now.
We have a lot to discuss. We touched on lots of legal issues,
lots of facts, meandered through that first segment.
We'll get back and we'll structure this for the second segment.
But I know you've got a very big announcement, Michael Popak. You're actually starting your own law firm. You decided that you're going to go and start your own firm. You've been motivated by these times. Tell everybody about that.
I've been in law firms before, of course, most of my career, except when I was in-house with a company in New York.
But ever since the election, you know, there were two things that I had a burning desire to do. One of them was to get the Legal AF YouTube channel up and running in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network.
And that's going great, as we know, because of our support of our audience,
most of which overlaps with the Midas Touch audience, we're up to almost 450,000 there.
Second thing was, what was I going to do
with my career moving forward?
And I made a commitment to you and the brothers
that I was gonna be invested and basically full-time
on Midas Touch and with Legal AF,
and that was gonna be my calling,
especially after the results of the election.
It became almost a no-brainer
that I was gonna invest myself in that.
Of course, my family was gonna back me and you
and your brothers were gonna do that.
So we had that.
And then there was like this opening.
Like, what was I gonna do with 35 years of a law career?
Was I just gonna focus only on doing legal analyst work and other commentary here
on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF,
or was I gonna also try as an extension of Legal AF,
if you will, of the extension of our ethos or philosophy here
that you developed with your brothers
and then of course I joined.
Is there a way to do a law firm for our audience
and for those in our orbit, in our environment, our ecosystem,
that made sense that I could lead.
And came up with the idea of, and this is going to be easy, the Popak firm.
We're here already.
We might as well use it.
The Popak firm is now a firm dedicated to obtaining justice for those that have been
injured or damaged, any kind of catastrophic event in your life,
motor vehicle, an auto, a truck.
And these include people in and around your life.
So if you've had a catastrophic injury there,
constitutional law issues where a government entity
has violated police brutality, things like that,
employment law issues, anywhere where you need
a top flight team of lawyers throughout the country.
This is a very broad ambit, all 50 states and beyond, for the PO-POC firm. I already have,
and I'll announce it here as well, a collaboration with an amazing team of lawyers, all top in their
field for recovery, where the highest dollar amounts mean justice,
that's where you want these lawyers.
I'm doing the collaboration with an entity called Big Auto Injury Attorneys.
Big Auto Injury Attorneys is a network.
There's Nick Edson, who's the CEO of Big Auto on my website.
Big Auto is going to handle the onboarding of the clients, the vetting of the clients, and the case evaluation,
and get it into the hands of the right top lawyer
in the right jurisdiction.
Right, so if you got hurt in Alabama,
or you got hurt in New Hampshire,
you got hurt in a red state or a blue state,
or in between the two of them,
you're going to want a lawyer who knows the judges,
the law, because law in this area is very local.
And so my role is gonna be to manage this entire process
and make sure in collaboration with Big Auto,
we get these cases into the right hands.
And don't be fooled by the name,
Big Auto is beyond just auto,
it's one of their brands, of course.
And I'll be involved on some of the cases,
but on a day-to-day basis, it's
really going to be these lawyers handling these matters for you in collaboration with
me. So the Popok firm place, you can go for it, www.thepopokfirm.com, just the way it
sounds. We've got an amazing 1-800 number that you and I joked about, 1-877-POPOC-AF, 1877-POPOC-AF. A contact form will show up, a free case review form,
there's a version of it. And if you phone the number or text the number, then one of the great
screeners for Big Auto will take over and get that case up and running all for free. Nothing gets
paid unless you win. Again, all for free at the
Popok firm for justice here as a natural extension of course on my work with
Midas Touch and Legal AF. Well Popok, I remember people don't know the origin
story of us. I was on the opposite side of you on a case and I remember what a
incredible lawyer you were. That's how we initially bonded. It's getting close to
over a decade ago,
when right around a decade ago
when we had that case together.
So like, I know you're one of the best.
For me, I'm gonna stick to my teaching as a law professor
and doing all the stuff I do here at the Midas Dutch Network,
but it's an incredible resource to everybody else
that they're gonna get to utilize
everything that you're building.
I'm wishing you the best,
and of course you're going to crush it.
I know you crush everything that you do.
So everybody check it out,
and I know you were saying, Popak,
the consultation is free,
the representation is free,
unless, you know, until there's a recovery,
and you get Michael Popak.
I'll run an ad.
I'm gonna create an ad.
I'm still on the road as people know.
We just did the launch of the POPAC firm
at an amazing event, the National Trial Lawyers Summit
in Miami Beach surrounded by other plaintiff's lawyers.
And there's a great picture.
I did an interview for Legal AF.
It's gonna be up on Monday.
I did a special live Legal AF on the spot there
at the hotel.
That's Omarosa.
She's amazing.
She just became a lawyer for the Johnny Cochran firm
where she's gonna go help mass tort victims
and other people.
And here's a little,
I think we're gonna get a regular Omarosa
who has her own views of Donald Trump on Legal AF,
the channel, she could start doing some hot take work
with us there as well.
I like that.
All right, let's take our first quick break of the show.
We'll be back.
POPA, government freeze order.
Let's talk about these terminations.
Are we gonna see wrongful termination lawsuits being filed?
And I think there's gonna be perhaps tens of thousands,
millions of wrongful term lawsuits filed
against the US government resulting
in billions of dollars in verdicts.
There'll probably be a whole cottage industry right there and we'll talk about these terminations of these FBI officials and more.
Let's take our first quick break of the show.
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with promo code LegalAF. All right. Welcome back to LegalAF. Thank you to those pro-democracy
sponsors. We don't have outside investors here on Legal AF or the Midas Touch Network, so they help make this show possible. My younger brother,
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right there. All right, Popa, tell us about what Judge McConnell in Rhode Island did.
Yeah, and let me put it in a quick context.
Twelve days into the administration, we got ten lawsuits,
split between birthright citizenship being denied by executive order,
which is on a fast track ultimately to the Supreme Court,
and a whole other handful about whether the freeze or what
we'll call in the business the impoundment of federal funds by Donald Trump by executive order
is constitutional or not. Got up just, and I want to talk about strategy here for a minute so that
our audience has comfort that we're not the party of chaos, and the lawyers that are for public interest and for justice are not chaotic.
They are quite skilled, quite expert
as tacticians and strategists,
and they've been waiting for this moment,
should it arrive, and it's now here.
All the cases that you and I will talk about today
and on Hot Takes, all of them that have been filed
are in the following jurisdictions.
We're in Washington and California, New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, the District of Columbia.
And there's a reason why these jurisdictions were chosen,
because they all have the better chance of having a judge.
I'm not saying a non-Trump judge,
but just a judge who is fair, balanced, nonpartisan,
or at least was appointed by somebody like Biden, Obama, or even Clinton.
And that's what's happened.
So right, we're only 12 days into an administration, and we have three different judges who have
blocked Donald Trump's executive orders.
Two, Judge Ali Khan down in DC and Judge McConnell
now will talk about up in New, in Rhode Island related to this federal funding freeze to bring
everybody up to speed. Donald Trump decided he's going to take the U.S. out of the U.S. economy.
All the money, the trillions of dollars or at least hundreds of billions of dollars that the
federal government gives to states
to run programs that are important as a social safety net for seniors, for children, for health
care, for construction, for crime, for safety, for security, and not-for-profits, for art,
and not-for-profits, for art, and everything else, right?
And national disaster recovery, all of that, he just decided with a stroke of a pen
that he was gonna put it on hold.
With one day notice, sending all of the states into chaos,
all of the recipients into a panic,
it was so bad that the Medicare and Medicaid portal crashed.
Not that RFK Jr. knows what either of those two things are,
but it crashed because people were so concerned.
It created a stampede or a run on the government by people,
which nobody was calm,
speaking of lack of consular in chief,
by an inexperienced Carolyn LeVette as press secretary,
basically lying to the American people about
what the freeze impacted in their lives and what it didn't. It's so bad that Judge McConnell,
the chief judge in Rhode Island, in issuing the temporary restraining order against the
Trump administration freeze order, cited particularly that he didn't believe Carolyn LeVette or the government that they had
temporarily withdrew the freeze. See, when they saw that the judge had jurisdiction,
they thought they could deny the judge jurisdiction over the case because in order for a temporary
restraining order to be in place, somebody has to show ongoing future harm. If you don't have future harm,
you may have damages, money,
but you don't have a restraining order or an injunction
because there's no live controversy,
or more importantly, there's no future bad event
that needs to be prevented.
If all the events already happened
and aren't planning to happen again,
then the judge would say,
sorry, I can't give you an injunction
because you got to tell me
what future events going to happen.
So the Trump administration ran into court and said, sorry, I can't give you an injunction because you got to tell me what future events gonna happen. So the Trump
administration ran into court and said, oh, it's all moot. We don't have to have
you make a ruling right now because we're not gonna do the freeze. The judge
says, yeah, I don't believe you because at the same time that Carol LeVette said
that the freeze was off, she then posted on social media that the
freeze was back on and the Environmental Protection Agency sent a notice
to recipients of federal money and said,
don't spend the money, we're not sending you the money.
This is in the moments around the hearing
in front of the judge.
And the judge, of course,
because the good lawyers are on the other side,
got all the copies of these things and said,
well, I got these tweets, I can't cross examine a tweet,
but it sure looks like to me
that there's chaos in the Trump administration and it looks like the freeze has not really
been blocked. So no, I'm going to issue the temporary restraining order because it is more
likely than not that you will prove at the end of this case, remember at a temporary restraining
order, the judge is at the very beginning of the case, in the life cycle of the case, has very little evidence in front of them at a first round of briefing,
but has to make an immediate decision based on kind of peering under the hood about what's
going to happen in the future.
And the judge under this prong that we call likelihood of success of the merits said,
it is very likely that you're going to win to prove that that attempt to F with federal funding and freeze it,
that's a different F word, but to freeze it is unconstitutional, a violation of separation of
powers, a violation of the of the Administrative Procedures Act, because Congress made the law and
did not delegate to the president the right to block the funding that they already allocated. So you're gonna, so he's basically pointing to the lawyers
in the courtroom and on the state's side brought by the
attorney's general, you guys are gonna likely win.
Balance of equities is in your favor because of how dramatic
and drastic this pulling out of federal funding
at the last, with no notice.
So you win on that one.
And it's in the public interest
that I restore the status quo.
Temporary restraining order is the first step
towards a preliminary injunction.
The judge set a preliminary injunction hearing for February,
is holding the ring until then.
And at the very same time, this is not the first,
this is the second TRO.
Because Judge Ali Khan and the District of Columbia
on almost a similar set of arguments
raised by a different group of people,
but on the same issues, on the same freeze,
she also blocked it until February 3rd,
which is just around the corner in two days,
when she holds more further briefing
on a preliminary injunction hearing.
So to answer the question that often comes up in the chat,
yes, different federal judges are on different tracks.
They don't defer to each other.
They move forward with their own cases.
They may know and acknowledge what another judge
has recently done in the same exact area,
but they're on their own timetables
and they will issue decisions,
each of which can be appealed separately
to their respective
appellate courts. One would be Ali Khan to the DC Court of Appeals, this one to the First Circuit.
And that's how we're going to ultimately get these fast tracks to the United States Supreme Court
on emergency applications. And that's why I've said it, I'll say it again here. Follow closely,
both here on MidasTouch and on Legal AF,
what's gonna happen in the Supreme Court,
because between now and the April end of the term,
we're gonna see birthright citizenship
up at the Supreme Court.
We're gonna see the federal freeze
up at the United States Supreme Court,
and then you and I are gonna be doing a whole show
about what the Supreme Court just ruled.
That's why we've been giving people the playbook
and the framework for how these cases
are gonna work their way up.
I mean, remember last year, Pol Pak,
you were saying, look, these cases are ready to go.
They're gonna go to all of these jurisdictions.
They're gonna request national injunctions
if and when Trump does these things.
We're seeing that play out now.
They're gonna go through the courts of appeals.
They're going to go to the Supreme Court.
And then ultimately the question becomes, and this is what we've been preparing our audience for,
is there now some realignment on the court where you have six kind of right-wing justices,
that kind of six right-wing justices, three quote-unquote wing justices, three quote unquote liberal justices appointed by
democratic administrations and with the Supreme Court ruling when Donald Trump
was trying to block his sentencing where you had a new five to four alignment of
the three liberal justices along with Chief Justice Roberts, a right wing
justice appointed by George W. Bush and Amy Coney Bar right-wing justice appointed by George W
Bush and Amy Coney Barrett a justice appointed by Donald Trump does that five to four develop as
A way to check Donald Trump as Trump has taken the absolute immunity that the Supreme Court
Gave him during its last term and is doing everything the Supreme Court gave him during its last term and is doing everything the Supreme Court
naively was saying that they didn't think he was going to do.
Everybody remembers the Supreme Court's questioning where you had the liberal justices who were
essentially saying in their questioning and they were saying, well, don't you think that
if you provide an absolute immunity that someone like a Donald Trump
would use it, abuse it, and try to be dictator on day one?
The right-wing justices were saying,
whoa, we don't think that'll ever happen.
What we're worried about is that if you don't give
absolute immunity, you're going to somehow chill
the executive function.
You're gonna prevent the executive from doing
the real serious work that needs to be done.
We don't see any of these parade of horribles
actually happening and then Trump's doing those things.
So let's be very clear.
I mean, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Neil Gorsuch,
Clarence Thomas, and Alito.
Those four will be perfectly fine if Donald Trump just literally says,
I'm a dictator everybody, and I declare America an imperial country. Like, let's be clear.
Those four will do any single thing that he says, period, full stop.
thing that he says. Period. Full stop. And look, I think Alito and Clarence Thomas probably resign in this term and I think that they'll probably have
new justices appointed. We're gonna be younger, far right-wing,
extreme people. Probably my prediction, Popak, is you'll have Judge Cannon as one of these
Supreme Court justices.
We'll see, but I think that's what's going to happen and we'll see who else gets picked,
but you're going to have younger, horrific versions of them.
So assume you'll always have those four.
The issue is you have to look for Roberts and Coney Barrett joining with Katanji Brown Jackson and joining with Judge Kagan
and joining with Justice Sotomayor.
So that's what we're gonna see.
Let's take our last quick break of the show.
A reminder, Popak, where do people go for that?
I gotta play, if you're starting something new,
I'm obligated to plug it, Popak.
What's the, even if I, what's it called?
I don't know either. It's WWW, the Popak firm. It's the, even if I, what's it called?
It's www.thepopokfirm.com. It's really easy to remember.
The POPOC firm, that's the website, and the 1-800 number,
1-877-POPOC-AF. This is 35 years in the making.
Certainly five years in the making on the shoulders
of Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network to help people who need justice.
And of course, this is all free.
We don't get paid.
Nobody gets paid on the POBOK firm unless you get paid.
And I'm here for it.
I know you're here for it.
Appreciate the support.
Absolutely.
All right, let's take our last quick break of the show.
Let's get into what Donald Trump is doing with the FCC
and his own personal lawsuits
and how he's trying to extract personal settlements
by using the government in any other situation.
One might have the opinion
that that's what's called illegal, unlawful, impeachable.
We'll talk about that more.
Let's take our last quick break of the show.
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All right, welcome back to Legal AF.
Thank you to those pro-democracy sponsors.
Really appreciate them.
Again, we don't have outside investors,
so it's so helpful when we have outside sponsors
who help and support this show.
And thank you, by the way, to all of our moderators. They do such great work
Thank you to all the legal a efforts out there
Thank you to everybody who subscribed to Midas plus comm and gets our newsletter. Just thank you to everybody in general
We are so grateful for all of you. All right Pope. Why don't we talk about
Trump using the FCC, right?
Trump appointed his people to the FCC,
his own chairman to the FCC,
and these are people who we knew
would just do Trump's bidding.
So a few things are happening.
So we knew end of last year,
Trump got ABC to pay him $15 million
on that Stephanopoulos lawsuit,
which was a ridiculous
lawsuit where, um, you know, Stephanopoulos described the, uh, sexual assault verdict in,
uh, New York a certain way.
And Donald Trump said, yes, it was, it was only sexual assault with my finger and it
was not rape.
So therefore you defame me.
That was essentially the lawsuit that Donald Trump filed.
Stephanopoulos and ABC caved.
Specifically Disney, the parent company,
wrote a $15 million check.
Everybody was like, most normal legal observers were like,
okay, that's the most ridiculous thing ever.
That was not a strong, most legal observers felt
that was like the weakest defamation case.
And what was Trump gonna say in his deposition?
What were you going to do when you asked Donald Trump about the underlying conduct,
what he was found liable for? I think Donald Trump would show up to that deposition and show
up at trial. I think he wouldn't, but ridiculous. Then we learned that Donald Trump settled with
Metta and Facebook, some lawsuit that Donald Trump filed against them back from 2021 for blocking
him after the insurrection or muting him after the insurrection and Zuckerberg
paid Donald Trump $25 million.
I think it was like 22 to the library, 3 million in legal fees.
So now Donald Trump's next kind of target, if you will, is CBS.
Donald Trump filed a lawsuit in Texas before a federal judge, Matthew
Kazmeric, who's a very pro-MAGA judge. You know him from the Midas Touch Network
and Legal AF because we cover all of those cases where he makes all of these
like ridiculous rulings, whatever Trump basically wants, whatever MAGA wants,
regardless of the law, he gives it to them.
So all of the MAGA and Trump people try to find some basis, frivolous
basis to get the court cases there.
It's where Elon Musk files his lawsuits.
They all try to push it before this MAGA judge basically.
Um, and he's their go-to guy.
So Donald Trump filed what he called an unfair business practices case under Texas law.
That's why he claims it was in Texas because he basically said 60 Minutes was mean to him,
that they wanted to fact check him.
So he didn't do the 60 Minutes interview, but then 60 Minutes interviewed Vice President
Kamala Harris the same way 60 Minutes interviewed every presidential candidate over the past several decades,
pretty much as the existence of 60 Minutes
becoming a very kind of popular show.
And then Donald Trump said,
you selectively edited a portion out
in one of your promo versions of the show
about certain questions about Gaza.
And there was a full version of it
that was up that anybody can see.
I think there was another version that was based on a certain timeline that had
some things that weren't on the full version but anybody could go and watch
the full version. It's what it's what networks do all the time. It wasn't like
editing it out to collude with Kamala to be helpful. It was just what happens in
like if that was the standard when Fox actually makes
the edits to help Donald Trump and like brings in fake audiences, to me that's the concern. Not when
to literally fit the time frame of like a 60 of 60 minutes of broadcast that literally not every
single thing can be included, but 60 Minutes shows that there's a full broadcast
out there.
They're not trying to hide anything, unlike Fox and the Trump propaganda networks that
try to hide everything.
So Donald Trump sued 60 CBS and Paramount in Texas, and now Trump wants to try to get
them to settle.
So a lot of these companies, Paramount run by oligarchs,
the Sumner Redstone family.
Sumner passed away, his daughter runs the company now.
It's the Redstone estate that basically runs it.
I mean, you've got Facebook, which is run by Zuckerberg.
You've got Disney, which by the way,
one of the main shareholders in Disney,
a lot of people know this, is actually Fox.
But a lot of other oligarchs can have major shares
in Disney as well.
And so what Trump does is basically now weaponizes
the government, the DOJ, FCC, other things to basically say,
look, big corporations, I'm gonna screw up your stock.
I'm gonna screw up your,
I'm gonna make it miserable for you. And I'm going to screw up your stock. I'm going to screw up your, I'm going to make it miserable for you.
And I'm going to stop your mergers.
I'm going to prevent you from having sales of things.
So one of the things that Paramount is trying to do
is they're trying to sell.
The Redstone family wants out.
They're trying to get their billion dollar,
for the next, I guess, 30 generations of the Reds,
a hundred generations for the Redstone family forever.
They want to sell this thing that's some of the Redstone,
you know, built and, you know, and sell it.
They're in a deal to do that.
That requires approval by FCC, by DOJ.
So now what does Donald Trump do?
He has his FCC open up an inquiry into CBS and Paramount demanding that they
respond to a number of requests, turnover things.
Then you have CBS and Trump in a personal lawsuit from Trump's personal
lawsuit over the 60 minutes in Texas.
They announced to the judge that they're in settlement discussions.
Then the FCC sends that letter. lawsuit over the 60 minutes in Texas, they announced to the judge that they're in settlement discussions.
Then the FCC sends that letter.
And now I think there's this situation, Popak, where Paramount, the owner of CBS,
they're like, okay, all we have to do is just write Trump a check for, you know,
personally give him money, give him, you know, give him 30 million, give him 40
million, and then maybe we can get our
merger to go through. I think you have the 60 minutes folks who are proud journalists
saying, we're journalists, we're 60 minutes, we have a proud tradition, we're not going along with this.
I think you have the CBS execs probably more aligned, probably divided, but more aligned with their paramount overlords and their oligarchs who control it because
those execs are making a lot of money.
So you've got all of that kind of tension taking place there. And by the way, in my opinion, let's pop up.
I know I kind of cannibalized the topic. I'll give you the next one.
This is exactly what the First Amendment, this is the most clear-cut First Amendment violation where the government's coming in,
chilling the speech of the media, and you have an FCC commissioner,
another FCC commissioner is saying right now, a whistleblower, but one of the people on that commission,
the small commission saying, this is unlawful.
What we're doing, what we're being forced to do is criminal, is not okay,
is totally wrong. We should not be doing this at all. It's a violation of the first amendment.
And then you have Trump doing something similar with PBS and NPR at the same time and attacking
them because he wants to shut them down. Yeah. You've got, I'll just do two lines on it.
All of the things that you just outlined, they're going to find their way, most of them are going to
find their way into the court system back to Legal AF for a minute. They are violations of
various things like separation of, separation of powers, abuse of executive power, bribery
in plain sight.
There's one way to look at the $25 million
that Metta is paying.
They're overpaying for purported injuries
that they don't have to pay for,
because as you said, they're covered by the First Amendment.
So if you remove the phony dispute,
then it's just cash transaction between media and Trump.
We have a name for that.
You've used it in another hot take, and I agree with you.
When you're lining the pockets of somebody
in return for somebody, if something else,
or for favor regulation,
it's called, it has a B at the beginning of it.
So all of that public interest groups
I find very interesting.
And when public interest groups and attorneys general
find things interesting, that often leads to a lawsuit,
meaning the courts and the favorable ones,
not the chasmatic courts, but the favorable ones
to moderate thinking in the New England and the District of
Columbia in the Pacific Northwest and California, reliable places to stop Donald Trump. We have no
choice as an American people and lawyers to do what we're doing in the resistance. I've said, this is a line that I got
from another contributor on Legal AF,
we have to start talking truth to each other
before we can talk truth to power.
That's part of what we do here in our audience on Legal AF.
And the speaking truth to each other is
we have to bring Donald Trump to justice civilly
and his administration of justice in courthouses
and courtrooms in America.
Because we can't let history, as Judge Koffordor said when he blocked the birthright citizenship
executive order denying constitutionally protected citizenship to those born on this soil.
We can't be in a situation where future generations look back and say, where were the judges? Where were the lawyers? Right.
Or, you know, when we talk about black stains on our history, like the Holocaust,
you know, when Jews, gypsies, Russians, and others, gay, lesbian community were
being dragged off to concentration camps. Where were
the Phil on the bike? Where was the court system? Where were the judges?
And where were the lawyers to stand up to that? And to make sure that
Donald Trump is reigned in from his reign of terror as much as possible. We
have to continue to go there. I'll leave you on this statistic. And you and I can
open this up as a time capsule
in four years, okay?
Because we're gonna be here.
And here's the time capsule moment.
Right now, he's averaging, his administration is averaging
about one lawsuit a day.
Think about that.
One lawsuit a day in these courts have been filed,
resulting in three temporary restraining orders,
and we're 12 days into his administration. I have said that by my math, a day and these courts have been filed, resulting in three temporary restraining orders
and we're 12 days into his administration.
I have said that by my math,
I believe that's going to double if not triple.
There were 1000 lawsuits filed in the first administration
against the first administration, 80% were successful,
just to answer the question for people.
I believe that number is going to double if not triple,
meaning we're gonna see two to three lawsuits per day,
every day in the Trump administration from now
until the end of his administration.
And just to answer another query that often comes up,
most cases do not end up at the United States Supreme Court.
The final justice for the vast majority of cases,
and I mean like 99% of the cases,
stays at the district court level, the trial court level,
or the court right above it, the court of appeals
for that particular territory.
So I'll give you an example.
I'll give you one example.
Just since 2022, with the Supreme Court decision
about the Second Amendment, there have been
1,600 cases about trying to apply their Second Amendment ruling about basically gutting all
regulation against guns.
1,600 federal judges have had to deal with that issue.
Only about 60, six zero total cases end up at the United States Supreme Court on any one docket.
So the tens of thousands of other cases that go on every day in federal courts that touch our
lives are decided by federal judges, trial and appellate judges and not the United States Supreme
Court. Yes, the ones the Supreme Court take, right, can change our lives and our rights
and our privileges and our status in a heartbeat, in a flip of a coin. But justice is done at these
other courts, and that's why we have to hold Donald Trump accountable when we tell a terrible tale,
like what's going on with mainstream media, bending over because of their fear of being regulated and
fined by the FCC and being put out of business, or they're going to lose government contracts. Because most of the tech
bros, the what do you call them, the brawling arcs, they also have government contracts. And it's not just Elon Musk.
Amazon has billions in government contracts for computing, for cloud-based things and technology.
They all have or want government contracts and they want to make money with this administration
for quote unquote their shareholders, even if it means sacrificing the First Amendment.
I think that's why we're here on Independent media doing independent analysis and commentary. Look, you talk about these one or two or three lawsuits a day.
Those are the big like injunctive relief type cases.
What I think you're really referring to the state, like the case that we talked
about in Rhode Island, the big one that was that national injunction from this
week, uh, stopping the government freeze at around the same time
that Trump claimed to rescind the freeze,
but then Trump's press secretary, Caroline Levinson,
we just rescinded the memo that called for the freeze,
but not the freeze itself.
That was brought by the state attorney,
the state attorney generals and the states,
but Popak, there are going to be tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands, millions of lawsuits filed by the people who Donald
Trump is wrongfully terminating within the federal government.
I mean, think about if you are a FBI agent, you were just terminated for doing your job and stopping and trying to investigate
criminal January 6th insurrectionist people who tried to kill the police and you were just fired.
That quite literally fits the definition of a wrongful termination and violation of public policy
perfectly. And Popak, I know that by the way,
these are the types of cases that I know your firm
is going to handle.
The type of cases that I handled
when I was in private practice too,
these wrongful termination cases.
And by the way, there would be wrongful termination cases
with one plaintiff who was, you know,
forced out for trying to report violence in workplace,
where I've seen verdicts for one person as high as $50 million, $75 million.
They talk about someone who was violent at the workplace and then their job, they get
fired.
I've seen juries award 50 to 75 million.
Imagine the lawsuit that these FBI agents who were just pushed out,
fired by Donald Trump are going to have, these DOJ officials are going to have,
these career civil servants are going to have. You know, the Justice Department ordered this FBI
purge. The FBI union, FBI agents union was like, we're shocked, shocked.
I tell you, how did this happen?
I mean, we told you this was going to happen.
Even if you read the statement
by the FBI agents association, they go,
if true, these outrageous actions by acting officials
are fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement
objectives outlined by President Trump
and his support for FBI agents.
What are you talking about? He doesn't support FBI agents. Dude hates FBI. He hates FBI agents. They were going after Christopher Wray, your previous head of the FBI, and saying the most
horrific things. Their whole Republican campaign was based on hating the FBI so that the FBI goes,
whoa, this is at odds with what he said. It's actually not at odds. He says he hates the FBI goes, whoa, this is at odds with what he said. And it's actually not at odds.
He says he hates the FBI.
He does something that is hateful of the FBI.
If he was actually, maybe this is the one thing
he was consistent of here.
So you have that, but just think about all of the DOJ
officials that were fired, the FAA officials that were fired,
you know, across all government, the USAID officials,
these people are gonna sue.
The general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board was fired.
I think that these people who in order to fire them, you have to hit certain steps. All of the inspector generals
that he fired, the 17 inspector generals, the watchdogs,
quite literally, you have to give 30 days notice of termination.
You have to provide specific rounds. Trump didn't do that. These cases are admitted liability,
wrongful termination cases, and I think you're going to see a tsunami of those lawsuits.
And here's the thing, who defends the lawsuits?
When the government gets sued for now,
I think it's gonna be billions, hundreds of billions,
if you're gonna add up all of these lawsuits,
who's gonna defend?
Who?
Alina Jaba?
Who?
Trump's lawyers?
Who's gonna take these cases?
You fired everybody.
What happens if the two million people who were offered, I think, these fake unlawful severance buyouts because,
and notice they're like not calling it like full buyouts, they're calling it like a phased out plan,
they're calling it a different name because you can't do a buyout per se like it
and a buyout has to be
prescribed by law and
So they're trying to call it some other phase out. But what if everybody accepted it?
What if all two million people took what if everyone's like sure we're out you wouldn't have a federal government one boomerang on that
Yes
First of all the seven month furlough, which is not a furlough.
He's never going to pay these people the firing against civil service laws and merit board laws
that are going to lead to these thousands of lawsuits that you're talking about.
Because some people might be thinking, wow, this is really weird.
No president's ever done this before.
No president's ever done it before because it's all illegal.
And now that now you and I as taxpayers are going gonna have to pay the freight for the lawsuits and the settlements
and the class action settlements and the mass settlements
that are gonna result from his actions.
Leaving us, that's on the money and litigation side.
Fortunately, there's a group in the resistance
that are saying, we're not taking the buyouts.
We're gonna stay and defend the constitution.
That's why I'm not so thrilled with the treasury guy
you mentioned at the top,
who is the keeper of all of my information and those of the American people going,
F it, I'll just throw the keys to Elon Musk. I'm not going to be a participant in this. No,
you should have stayed in your seat to make sure that Doge doesn't get access to this information
at the very heart of our economy and Treasury. So I don't want people to quit like Christopher Wray. I want them to stay and get dragged out like Inspector General Fong
from her post kicking and screaming. I want the world to see that Donald Trump
is dragging inspector generals who are apolitical and independent watchdogs.
He's dragging them out of the government for all the reasons that we just talked
about. But you're right, if all of these lawsuits are, that's why they're gonna be
coming. So I think my time, I'm gonna win my time capsule bet. It's gonna be,
it's gonna be five, ten, ten times that per day. I told Salty I wanted a
meter, an odometer for Donald Trump's law, the suits against this
administration. You know, but look, that's why we're here.
We're here to sort through it all, curate it all for you,
and bring it to you here on LegalEye
after the Midas Touch Network.
The Department of Justice has a criminal division
and a civil division, right?
The criminal division prosecutes in theory crimes,
or for Donald Trump now protects his crimes,
or crimes with him.
And then you have the civil division, which handles all of these lawsuits that get filed. Donald Trump now protects his crimes or crimes with him.
And then you have the civil division,
which handles all of these lawsuits that get filed.
There's lots of lawsuits that get filed
against the government every day.
So if you've gutted all of the career people
and you don't have people working at the DOJ
and you don't have smart people working at the DOJ,
when all of these lawsuits hit, it's what happens if you have a control tower where the staff quits and what
happens if you don't have, you know, and then they have to monitor the airplane
traffic. What happens if you don't have people who are working, you know, to make
sure that your fruit is safe and your and that the railroads are safe.
And that what if you don't have these people?
The railroad goes off the rail.
That's what happens.
What happens when you don't have
the proper air traffic safety people?
What happens when you don't have the proper
military people in place?
This is what we're going to see.
And the final message I leave everybody with is kind of
where we started. It's most basic core, that kind of concept of government. Like if you were to take
government 101 is to try to keep safety. Like a modicum of safety, safety, safety, safety, safety.
Safety, safety, safety, safety, safety. And if you ask yourself,
are you more or less safe than you were 12, 13 days ago,
you are by far less safe.
And in Trump's America, it's at its core level
before even getting into the kind of hierarchy of needs,
the safety box hasn't been checked.
So when you're doing basic things,
you have to think, wait a minute,
is this strawberry going to hurt me?
Are the labels correct?
Has this even, is there gonna be an outbreak?
I mean, a tuberculosis, like what is happening right now?
So if you're injured by the Trump administration
and it's failed policies,
where do you go? The PO-POC firm, the PO-POC firm.com. Well, there you have it. So Michael
PO-POC, though, I'll leave it on that. PO-POC started his own firm. I'm wishing you all the
best PO-POC in your endeavors. I know that it was always your dream to start your own law firm. And
I think you're doing it at a time
where people need good lawyers.
And so where do they go to reach out to your firm?
Yeah, www.thepopakfirm.com.
And if you want to call, have a case evaluated all for free,
1-877-POPOC-AF.
What else?
Thank you for your time.
And I know that you know, you know catastrophic, you know, you know accidents, you know injuries car accidents
wrongful terminations
Sexual harassment and us, you know anything like that send it, you know send it. You know, I know that's what you're handling
All right. Thank you to our pro democracy sponsors. Thank you everybody for watching
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