Legal AF by MeidasTouch - DC Judge Puts the Screws in Trump on Key Military Issue

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

In a scathing new order blocking Trump’s ban on transgender American troops, a DC Federal Judge has declared that the ban is “fueled by animus” and “dripping on pretext” and observes the “cruel irony” that those who valiantly serve to protect our freedoms are having theirs ripped away from them by Trump. Michael Popok explains the new order, and the automatic stay imposed, and what happens next up to the US Supreme Court. Dose: Save 30% on your first month of subscription by going to https://dosedaily.co/LEGALAF or entering LEGALAF at checkout. 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

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Breaking news, a federal judge has declared that Donald Trump and his Pentagon head, Pete Hegseth, and their ban on transgender Americans serving in the military is so fueled and dripping in animus and bias that it violates the US Constitution, the Fifth Amendment due process clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and she, Judge Reyes, has blocked it with choice words for Pete Hegseth and by extension for Donald Trump and those that argue that his war powers, his commander-in-chief powers, are supreme and can't be evaluated or critiqued or stopped by a federal judge. Judge Reyes has a thing or two to say about that in her order,

as she also frames this as a cruel twist of fate, her words, that those Americans who happen to be transgender, who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect your freedoms my freedoms your liberties my liberties are having their rights their freedoms and their liberties denied to them by the Trump administration in that cruel twist of fate she's gonna fix it with her block of their ban we'll talk about what happens next at the next level of appellate court right here on the Midas Touch Network. I'm Michael Popak of Legal AF.

Let's get down to it. And I knew this order was coming. I told you in a prior hot take last week after listening to and watching and getting reports of the hearing that Judge Reyes held in which she, now here's a legal term coming up, tore a new one into Pete Hegseth and the Department of Justice lawyers, we knew this was coming. And now it is here. Now what I like about it is that it's very, very thoughtful. It's very poignant.

It is well researched, it's well argued. This should stand the test of time as an order. More importantly, it should do well when it travels up to the appellate court and ultimately to the US Supreme Court. What Donald Trump wants federal judges to do is to get out of the way and don't exercise any federal jurisdiction to assess or critique any of his exercise of his presidential powers. That's what he thinks the Supreme Court is going to be okay with. And every time you hear it, over and over again, they attack on the judiciary.

Oh, this is just a single judge. It wasn't popularly elected, didn't get a mandate. Over and over and over again. A single judge can't block policy. Every major constitutional development in our history for the last 200 years has come up the exact same way. One judge makes a decision about the constitutionality, the constitutionality of an action of a president or his administration, which ends up

in a three-judge panel for appeal, and then the United States Supreme Court. That's every case. And now we've, and that's how this is gonna travel, the same exact way. And Judge Reyes reminds the Trump administration as the Federalist Papers, I love when judges go back to the Federalist Papers from our old timey times

at our founding and paraphrases insights James Madison who reminds the president that his power is not unlimited, the judiciary power is not unlimited, the judiciary power is not unlimited, but together they keep each other in their respective lanes. And that's how you have the checks and balance system. So she said just as bad as judicial excess in reaching out in asserting jurisdiction where they don't have it, presidential access

has to be addressed by the court system. Now in terms of her, let's start from sort of the back in her dripping in animus. Policy is fueled by animus. How does she know that? Because Pete Hexeth said it. He said out loud as the justification for his policy, in effect, that people who are transgender and soldiers can't be trusted. They're dishonest. They're liars. They destroy the esprit de corps. They destroy

lethality and readiness of the military. Now, you have to put that against over 130 years of service for at least the six or eight soldiers that sued, in which they've received dozens and dozens of commendations. They've served with Valor on nuclear subs, and one of them is in a military conflict war zone right now. And every expert that was provided by the plaintiffs who was in leadership in the military, including responsible for military readiness said the exact same thing. There is nothing to suggest that transgender soldiers are

any different than their binary sexual colleagues next to them in terms of valor, honor, leadership, intelligence, honesty, military readiness, zero, to which Pete Hicks says, doesn't matter, Trump wants me to get rid of them. That's basically what they have. As the judge sussed out during the hearing, they have no basis or justification to support their findings because there are no studies that declare that transgender soldiers are more dishonest and more depraved than anybody else. So here's what the judge said on page 65 about animus. Did you know the liver is the second largest

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for 30% off your first month subscription. Or 64, starting on 64. In our constitutional republic, citizens are free to hold and express divergent views. But when sincere personal opposition to a group of people becomes enacted law and public policy, the necessary consequences is put the imprimatur of the state itself on an exclusion that soon demeans or stigmatizes those whose own liberty is then denied. Such is the case here," the judge states.

"'The military ban is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext. Its language is unabashedly demeaning. Its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit and its conclusions bear no relation to fact. Thus, even if the court analyzed the military ban under rational basis review, it would fail. On page 65, the court continues, plaintiffs contend that because the military ban is fueled by animus, it fails any level of scrutiny. They stand on solid legal ground. Romer vs. Evans, a famous Supreme Court case, a law that seems inexplicably by anything but animus toward the class it affects, lacks a

rational relationship to legitimate state interests. That's a Supreme Court case from 1996. Lawrence vs. Texas, moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate governmental interest under the Equal Protection Clause. That's a Supreme Court case from 2003. United States v. Windsor. Legislation intended to injure, stigmatize, demean, or degrade does not survive scrutiny. That's a case from 2013. Claiborne.

A law that rests on irrational prejudice, cannot stand. And finally, a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate government interest. Defendants probe or respond that the court cannot probe government officials' subjective intentions. True, the judge said, the court cannot read minds, but it can read. And the Hegseth policy tagged transgender persons as weak, dishonorable, undisciplined, boastful, selfish liars who are mentally and physically unfit to serve. Its accompanying fact sheet piles on, further calling transgender persons insane, not resilient, unhealthy, and unfit. Hardly subtle, the judge

wrote. Refusing to give up the ghost, however, defendants refused to answer whether this language invents animus. The judge asked the Department of Justice lawyer, would you agree with me that that's demeaning? I can't say, Your Honor. You can't say. But the court has no such problem. It finds, this is over to page 66, that the military's ban languages and the military pan's language convinces the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group. desire to harm a politically unpopular group. Faced with incontrovertible facts, defendants do not contend that the military ban is an animus free zone. They argue instead that the military ban must be impossible to justify based on anything

but animus to be unconstitutional. Defendants claim that if there is a facially legitimate bona fide reason, then perceived animus is not a ground on which the court can second-guess. Defendants have not provided, however, a legitimate reason for banning all transgender person. Period. What's going to happen next now that the judge has found that it is likelihood, that it is likely that the plaintiffs will prove at trial that they have had their fifth amendment and equal protection 14th amendment rights violated. The judge has stayed her block for two days to give the Trump administration time to file an appeal. Why? Trump was going to ask for it anyway. She would have to decide whether it was appropriate to block and then he's going to have to ask

for it again at the appellate court level, the DC Court of Appeals. She saved them a step, and all of us a lot of grief, said, you want to stay, you got to stay for 48 hours. Go file your notice of appeal and go seek your stay beyond 48 hours from the appellate court, which is her bosses at the DC Court of Appeals. Now a three-judge panel will be randomly assigned to the case and I believe 3-0 at least, maybe 2-1, they're going to side with Judge Reyes on this extraordinary thoughtful writing here, decision and order based on solid jurisprudential grounds, I really do. So then I don't think they're gonna order based on solid jurisprudential grounds. I really do.

So then I don't think they're going to stay based on the factors that an appellate court uses. So I think the stay is over. The block will go into effect during the pendency of the appeal. Transgender troops will not be able to be bounced and drummed out of the core, so to speak. They'll have to remain. Talk about profiles and courage. Can you imagine being a transgender American soldier now after this order and with the government being forced to retain them? Reality is, other than Hegseth, when you go below the chain of command, they all agree that transgender troops are fine and serving admirably.

It's just an animus motivated policy decision where Donald Trump wants to punch down at people who are disadvantaged and Pete Hegseth goes along for the ride. That's it. And he believes it too. You should read his Christian nationalist writings of Pete Hegseth and all the dozen books that he wrote before he became the head of the Pentagon. So the Supreme Court's gonna have to deal with this and based on prior Supreme Court precedent including many that the judge cited going back even to a case involving Donald Trump's Muslim ban the Hawaii versus Trump case

written by Chief Justice Roberts I believe the transgender bounce is gonna get blocked by the Supreme Court and they're not gonna side with Donald Trump but it's gonna be up to Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. I think Alito Gorsuch and gender bounce is gonna get blocked by the Supreme Court and they're not gonna side with Donald Trump. But it's gonna be up to Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. I think Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas are too far gone. Kavanaugh, we'll see. Kavanaugh is interesting just to leave it on this. Kavanaugh's roommate in law school was Jeb Boasberg.

Jeb Boasberg is who Donald Trump bashed as being corrupt yesterday in his social media posts, leading the Supreme Court's Chief Justice Roberts to come to the aid of Boasberg and all federal judges and tell Trump to knock it off. And he doesn't want to hear impeachment talk anymore. He only wants to hear about appeals. So we'll have to see how this has impacted the mind of Kavanaugh in his voting about Donald Trump going into the future. I'll do it right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Legal AF the podcast Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time right here on the Midas Touch

Network. Come over to Legal AF the YouTube channel. Legal AF the YouTube channel. We're over 500,000 subscribers in less than six months and we're doing the law and politics intersection every day, every hour, help us continue to grow that pro democracy channel. So until my next report, I'm Michael Pofock. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro democracy channel, where I'll be curating the top stories, the

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