Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith FINAL REVENGE on Trump HITS COURT

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo filling in for Ben Meiselas, host the weekend edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On tap? 1. Trump’s depravity is on full display as he uses misinformation about FEMA’s response to the death and destruction of Hurricane Helene for political gain; 2 What was the real reason behind Trump asking for more time to oppose the DOJ’s massive 165 page, 77 witness-heavy, groaning under the weight of the evidence laden, immunity submission in the DC Election interreference case; 3. Is it fraud or something else that is propping up Trump’s truth social stock price, and is he using it as a conduit for illegal foreign contributions; 4. why is the Biden-Harris student loan forgiveness program on life support after not 1 but 2 rulings this week in federal court; and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Subscribe to the new Legal AF channel: @LegalAFMTN Subscribe to Meidas+ at https://meidasplus.com Thanks to our sponsors: HumanN: Find out how you can get a free 30-day supply on bundles of new SuperBeets Heart Chews Advanced and save 15% for a limited time only by going to https://GETSUPERBEETS.COM, promo code LEGALAF Delete Me: Go to https://joindeleteme.com/LEGALAF and use promo code LEGALAF for 20% off. Calm: Get an excluslve offer of 40% off a Calm Premium SubscrIption at https://calm.com/legalaf Draft Kings: New players can get $77 INSTANTLY in CASINO SITE CREDITS. Just sign up with code: LEGALAF at https://goldennuggetcasino.com and deposit just $7 to get $77 in CASINO SITE CREDITS. Make Any Moment Golden! 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 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson 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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Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. I'm Dave and saving with TD Insurance made me feel like I scored my own jingle. Save on home and auto like only you can at tdinurance.com slash ways to save TD ready for you. It's your second helping of Michael Popok and Karen Freeman at NIFILO. Don't adjust that dial. You're not seeing things. This isn't the midweek edition. It is the weekend edition of Legal AF where we sit at the intersection of law and politics on the Midas Touch Network for a full length podcast. The usual anchor for Saturday, of course,

is Ben Mysalas, but Ben is away for today. And so Karen Freeman Agnifilo has very gamely stepped in for us almost at the last minute. But that's, you know, listen, this is where, we're built for this as trial lawyers, former prosecutors in Karen's example, and podcasters on a news cycle, we can do it. And we can do it because of the love and respect and embrace of our community here.

I might as touch on Unlegal AF. We've got some things, we've got a few things we've got to talk about Karen, this whole FEMA, hurricane aid lies and misinformation sort of coming together and conflating with election lies and misinformation, all being led by Donald Trump as he tries to campaign on the over the dead bodies of American voters in battleground states who were in the path of the wrath of Hurricane Helene. This party knows no boundaries, we're going to talk about it. And what it means for the election in these battleground states, I assure you that if Hurricane

Helene had run through, you know, the the the West, like Arizona and Utah somehow, or non battleground states, we wouldn't even be talking about Donald Trump trying to use that tragedy for, to score cheap political points. But, but here we are. Then we're going to unpack more now that you and I, Karen, have had, I don't know, five passes through the Jack Smith 165 page filing. I've read it backwards and forwards. I've divided it into five sections with staples. I've done hot takes on it all over it. And now we've had a chance,

because when we first went on the air midweek, it had just come out. Literally, we're like scrambling off the printer. But now with a little sober reflection, we can really see what's going on. And we got some updates in the DC election interference case as well, including when we can expect new briefing, why Donald Trump didn't want to have the ability to look the American people in the eye and tell them that he didn't commit those crimes before the election. You'd think he would, but barely doesn't want to do that. And we'll comment about what that probably means for his own sense of whether he's going to win or lose that case.

And then we're going to talk about the truth social dumpster fire and, and, and S H blank T show that is that Trump media stock. It's hovering around $16 a share down from the high of 90 about two years ago, probably propped up by short sellers trying to squeeze the stock. But we got a number of chief executive types being fired or let go or quitting all at the same time off the back as reported by ProPublica off the back of an internal investigation of David Nunes, Nunes, the CEO, former MAGA congressperson from California, and some links between truth social and Macedonia.

What is it with the Trumpers and the Balkans? Well, I got a couple ideas. I'll bat around with Karen Friedman and Nick Niflo when we get there. And then I had hoped based on, you know, Thursday's reporting that we'd be talking about a rare win for the Biden student loan forgiveness program with a Georgia federal judge in Augusta, allowing it to go forward and take care of 35 million people. And I want to

talk about those people, because there's a lot of lies about what makes up the borrower that would be benefited from that program. And I want to really, really talk about it. But I was like, Yeah, Georgia, go you go, you know, see Randall Hall, whatever your name is, the judge in Georgia, and you know, for lifting the injunction. And then as I predicted on the hot take, the very following day, a Missouri Trumper judge blocked the Biden loan forgiveness program for students all over again.

We got a lot to talk about springing Karen. Hey, Karen. Hello, Popeye. Good to see you. We've seen so much of each other and I'm thrilled about that. Let me just take a do a shout out. You shaved your beard. Yeah, I left the mustache ate it. As I said to the brothers recently, it's not that the beard is gone is that the mustache has arrived. I

don't know how I every once in a while I you know, my wife and I like to see my cheeks. And I decided to shave it off. And I was like, don't want to do the whole thing or just anyway, long, it's a long-winded way of talking about my facial hair. So on the, I wanna put my, I wanna do an embrace of you, you can certainly always in my embrace. I wanna do an embrace of our audience

because we did something so remarkable and in under three weeks that I have to comment on it and thank them for it, because certainly we couldn't do it on our own. We decided that there was just so much to talk about at the intersection of law and politics, we were bursting at the seams, we just couldn't do it on one channel.

And so Legal AF and Midas Touch got together and said, why don't we have another channel? I got an idea, let's call it Legal AF MTN. And that new channel is less than, it's only two and a half weeks old. We already have 150,000 subscribers. I mean, it's I mean, it's that's a number that internally we thought we would hit if we were lucky six months from now, not in two and a half weeks. That channel is up and running. We're doing

five videos a day. Karen Friedman, Igniflo already has her first two up there. We're doing Mist Trial After Darks modeled after Legal AF After Darks. You're going to see them over this weekend. And here's a big announcement. I was teasing it on the new channel for a while, but now I can announce it. Two major coups in addition to Legal AF MTN. One, Court Accountability Action, Court Accountability, which is an amazing pro-democracy organization led by Alex Aaronson and Lisa Graves. Lisa Graves of a new great podcast that's right in line with what we do called Grave Injustice.

They have a research arm. They're doing investigative reporting like ProPublica, and about three to five days a week they're going to be doing custom direct exclusive content for Legal AF MTN. In fact, this weekend alone, we have three, I did it with them this time around, we have three amazing hot takes about the United States Supreme Court, about a scandal involving Sam Alito. Oh my God, it's a day of the week. It must be another Alito scandal.

There's a brand new one that they discovered. We'll talk about it there. And about sort of the high of their view that there has been a hijacking in broad daylight of the United States Supreme Court by the Federalist Society and right wing shadowy organizations and donors like the Koch brothers and others and Leonard Leo and they've got the receipts and we talk about it in three amazing hot takes with court accountability. They'll have their own playlist, just like Karen has her own playlist on legal AFMD. And take a moment and hit that oval subscribe button and help build this pro-democracy channel in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network.

And of course, Karen's also not here, not just a full time practicing attorney, high stakes litigator and, and, and criminal and commercial matters, but also of course, has not won but two podcasts. She's got mistrial and mistrial is on Thursdays on the Midas Touch Network. And she co anchors it with Donnie Perry, Kathleen Rice for a unique perspective. Again, at that same crossroads of law and politics. I had the pleasure of being on the show last week. I want to do that again. That was a lot. That was, that was like with a little kids on a roller coaster. I want mommy, I want to do that again. That was fun. I want to do it again. So,

there we go. All right. A long winded way. Karen, tell our audience what's going on in your life. And people like to know about that stuff before we jump into the nitty gritty of our topics for today. Yeah, well, the ladies of this trial love having pop-up on our show. So yeah, we were we all get very excited when when you will when you can find time to be my blushing. I think I just blushed. Okay. But it's it's so fun having you on pop-up. So yeah, no, I'm in upstate New York. My dog boogie is sitting nearby He you know, he loves to be here whenever I pinch hit and do legal AF on the weekends with you guys So thanks so much for having me. Oh first

Beyond the first choice. I mean, did you did you catch the begging tone in the text messaging? Always happy to do it. Well, let's kick it off about why, let me ask you a question. Why do you think, I'm stating the obvious, but it's not rhetorical. You've got a massive natural disaster and human catastrophe in Hurricane Helene. I mean, it actually caught me a little bit off guard. I lived in Florida for a long time, and I was very sensitive to hurricanes of every size from, you know, I can name the four that went through there while I was there.

I missed Andrew, but everything else I was there for. And we know, of course, what happened in New Orleans and in different places with hurricanes in Puerto Rico. But this one was really ended up being quite a killer, leaving thousands and tens of thousands of people homeless to this moment. Thousands and thousands of people dead in multiple states. They just happen to be battleground states for the election, but Democrats don't care about that.

FEMA doesn't care about that. And the Biden-Harris administration doesn't care about that. But apparently, Donald Trump and the depravity of Donald Trump and JD Vance knows no boundaries as they, for cheap political points, they think they're scoring, are exploiting misinformation about FEMA so bad that FEMA had a post. I never saw this in my life. FEMA had a post on a new website, a thing to debunk all of the misinformation out there. Like you're only going to get $750, there's a limit.

No, they're going to take your, FEMA is going to take your property and condemn it. No, they're not. FEMA is cutting you off from the internet and not allowing Starlink, a lie. They had to actually create a website to answer all of these questions. So bad that a Republican Senator from North Carolina went on his own social media and said, basically, can y'all like knock it off and stop passing the misinformation around it's not helping to try to destabilize people's trust in something like FEMA.

What did you think about it? Why is Donald Trump and JD Vance, uh, using the FEMA, uh, using the hurricane tragedy to try to score their points? Why, why is that? They're shameless opportunists and they're trying to do anything they can to destabilize this country and make it so that they will win this election. Anything that can make Joe Biden and Kamala Harris look bad to them is an opportunity and they just don't care.

And you know, look, we saw this with COVID, right? That COVID has been so politicized to the point where now we've got, I mean, which in masks and all of that, right? Like how can science and masking and vaccinations, how can that be politicized? And, you know, recently I was talking to someone about that and about the COVID vaccine and I said to them, you know, don't forget that was under Donald Trump. He developed that vaccine. And you know what they looked at me and said? No, that was Fauci. That

was Fauci. That wasn't Trump.. It's unbelievable to me how disingenuine the MAGA supporters are and how they make excuses for everything. And this is just yet another example of rather than posting the truth, thank God FEMA is doing that through their website and debunking these misinformation lies, frankly. I don't know why we call it misinformation or disinformation.

They're lies, right? Everything's a lie why we call it misinformation or disinformation, they're lies, right? Everything's a lie. So I want to start using that language. And essentially, to me, at least, you know, that's what they're doing. They're just these opportunistic grifters, all of them. And it's like, how can we capitalize on whether it's death and destruction, suffering, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. If we can capitalize on it, we will, whether it's death and destruction, suffering, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. If we can capitalize on it, we will. Whether it's selling Bibles or sneakers or watches or dealing in human misery and a disaster.

If they can either make money off it or get elected and get power off of it, they'll do it. That's their motto motto in my opinion. Yeah, I agree with you. The Guardian did a good overview that the, the, the election misinformation machine is in a perfect storm, no pun intended, is conflating with or joining the hurricane FEMA misinformation being promulgated by Donald Trump in order to score those points so he can go there with the Billy Graham Phony charity and act like he's passing out water and whatever else. Let me make it clear to everybody FEMA is doing the job They were put on this earth to do

There's no budget constraints. You see it on the website There never is that we we don't we never run out of money to help people in America if we have to get it from somewhere else or sell more Treasury bonds or whatever FEMA doesn't really have a budget because even though Donald Trump once said in Puerto Rico after the hurricane you blew our budget or the 3,000 people who died in Puerto Rico you know that was that was his opening line when he had his natural disaster on his watch. But now he gets to, like you said, destabilize another institution that undergirds our democracy. FEMA should be celebrated. The people that run into the burning building is FEMA. And they're working hard to get to people whose trailers blew away, houses blew away,

have no electricity, even as we're on the air right now, houses blew away, have no electricity even as we're on the air right now, have no food, have no shelter. And there was, and the Guardian said, so what you're seeing is homegrown misinformation campaign led by MAGA joining with foreign misinformation campaign by Russian Chinese operatives as well trying to interfere with our election posting a lot of the things that you think is a no that's a funny meme that little AI generated little girl with a dog on the roof with the water AI generated that wasn't a real picture even though everybody was like oh look at that oh that's a Biden Harris administration you know that poor little girl that

poor little girl is a computer generated image, whether by Russia or here, okay? So you have that coming together and Donald Trump surfing on it in order to try to get into the White House. He was a terrible president during every natural disaster that happened on his watch. He was a terrible Consular-in-Chief.

And if people think, well, he was terrible the first time around, let's see how he does the second time around. I mean, why people want to give him the benefit of the doubt? Anybody wants to give him the benefit of the doubt. And now on top of it, talk about using the depravity of using dead American voters and dead Americans to try to make your point and have point and have Elon Musk jump in and say, which is also false, say, oh, Starlink, I can't get my Starlinks and my engineers dropped into

these places. And Pete Buttigieg says, no one's stopping you from trying to reconnect the internet in these places. And Pete Buttigieg, our transportation secretary, said, call me. And Elon Musk said, oh, I will call you. You know, it was like this ridiculous political theater. All right. And then and then on top of it, you got Donald Trump. This is the first time in American history, that the person that was the target of an assassination attempt is going back to the scene of the assassination. You know, ever. I mean, I mean, we had, you know, Roosevelt had a pot shot, two of them, FDR and Teddy both had an assassination attempt against them.

They didn't go back, like FDR didn't go back to Miami after that, you know, the guy, the anarchist pulled out a gun and tried to kill him. But Donald Trump will do anything in order to try to act tough and campaign in fact so bad When you combine that with the with the reality the truth of an Iranian Plot to kill Donald Trump. He's freaking out the sec the Secret Service and everybody else who feels he's not being appropriately Concerned about his own personal safety and they're having trouble covering him when you have bad guy Iranians during during the middle of the Middle East crisis who say they want to kill Donald Trump and Donald Trump's

like yeah I'm gonna go play golf I'm gonna go to Butler Pennsylvania again I mean it's it's just unfathomable what the the the irresponsibility that we're watching on full display. Karen, what do you make of him going back to Butler, Pennsylvania and his and two things I want you to if you can tie him together. He refuses to release any of his medical records. I still to this moment don't know what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania to his head or his psyche or his post-traumatic stress disorder. I don't know any of it because it's not been released the first time in American history and the fact that he's so, so careless and carefree about his personal safety, putting other

people at risk. When the Butler, Pennsylvania shooter missed, he hit a normal citizen who died behind him. So it's not just, oh, I don't care if they want to kill me. It's not you. It's the people behind you on the side of you. And it's just, I'm getting all worked up. Go ahead. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about anyone but himself. And he certainly doesn't care about the Secret Service members. And what will he do? God forbid if something happens, turn around and criticize them and blame them, right? He is just a careless, just anything for an opportunity in my opinion, though, to go and pretend like he's a tough guy, right? Just to go and be like, look how tough I am and I continue to do this and I don't care. And that's just his, that's the way he is. And it doesn't matter whether he has no

respect for law enforcement, he has no respect for Secret Service, he has no respect for the military, he says it over and over and over and over and over again. And so it must be the most frustrating thing in the world to be a Secret Service person who is guarding him and who is who he doesn't listen to. And guess what, these are men and women who have pledged to put themselves in harm's way to protect him, right? They will throw themselves. They literally will take a bullet for this man. And so that has just got to be so frustrating and difficult

if you are one of them that he won't even listen and he won't take advice from them. And he just basically gives the middle finger to everyone and everything. And, and yet he continues, he, he soldiers on. It's just incredible. Yeah. Well, that's the politics part of the law and politics. Let's, let's, let's turn to the updates in the district of Columbia, Chutkin case, which has been moving fast and furious. You did a nice overview of it.

I liked it on this trial, in particular, when you had you and your other two co-anchors talk about how you'd make your opening statements or closing arguments in the case. I thought that was fascinating. We've done an update on it. You and I did it. But I think for now, why don't we focus, rather than go through, I'll give you the high level, then we'll turn it over to you for what's happened. Recently with Judge Chutkin in the briefing, because it's going to alter a bit the amount

of information, more information that the voter is going to get before the election based on a request by Donald Trump. 165 pages filed a week ago. The seal broken and the document now in the public domain by order of Judge Chutkin didn't give Donald Trump any time to go try to appeal that or stay that and so he can't and we now have it. We've now gone through it. My biggest takeaway is that it's the Department of Justice 70, and it's Donald Trump zero.

It's 70 witnesses against Donald Trump, who will be testifying or have evidence of theirs, which has 77, all right, I like that, let's update it, 77. When I left out some of the cooperating, the co-conspirators, 77 zero. And that is just for those that are amateur trial watchers, that's a huge number. To have 77 people, most of which were on Donald Trump's payroll privately or in the White House, selected by him, hired by him in key senior roles in the executive branch, in his campaign, lawyers, private

lawyers, campaign lawyers, lawyers for the Department of Justice, attorney generals, elected officials, Mike Pence, everybody that worked for Donald Trump and around Donald Trump, including all the executive assistants, I mean, everybody has effectively testified one way or the other to grand juries and to the special prosecutor. And those that haven't like Steve Bannon, they've gotten other things from them, text messages and emails, or other, as I could see from the 165 pages, somebody was recording some of the conversations with Steve Bannon, because it's not just a paraphrase, it's in quotes.

And when you see something in quotes, that's because the government has a document, an email, a text, a wiretap, a video, an audio of it. And there's a lot of that within the 165 pages of evidence. It's not the only evidence we're gonna see because there's a compendium and appendix that's coming It's already been filed, but it's going to be disclosed to the public sometime after October the 10th Based on how fast judge Chuckin rules

Could be the 11th or the 12th and we're gonna have another 200 pages plus exhibits plus 30 pages single space of footnotes people that have seen and have said, of more evidence. And what was Donald Trump's response to that, Karen, having seen it and having had a date before the election in order to respond with then again one more brief by the government, both ends of the stick, before the election? What was Donald Trump's ultimate goal and what did Judge Chuck get allowed to do? So first of all, these lawyers who are really respected lawyers or used to be have made a lot of mistakes. And this is a couple of them. But before I talk about them, I want to just comment on something you said, which is, you know, the 70 plus witnesses that are laid out in this document in this filing,

that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are going to be close to 100 witnesses, if not more, maybe not just the tip of the iceberg, but there's more witnesses that will have to testify. Those are just ones that had direct knowledge of the crime, et cetera. But there's gonna be ways to prove this case that they're going to have to do

that's going to be calling other witnesses. There's gonna be FBI agents who took investigatory steps. There's gonna be people who work for a telephone company that is going to have to establish telephone records and social media accounts. And all of those things are ways that this is all going to ultimately have to be proven. So there's going to be more witnesses. All we see in this document is the witnesses that are people who have direct knowledge of the case that was in that document. But this is absolutely going to be a long trial with lots

and lots and lots of witnesses. And what was fascinating to me is two things. First of all, and this is where I think the lawyers made a mistake. The first one was, why weren't the lawyers ready to ask Judge Chutkin to stay the release of the document so that he can appeal it, right? Everyone knows this is all going, that he has a back channel to the Supreme Court of the United States, right? That he can go and appeal anything involving presidential immunity that he wants, first to the D.C. Circuit and then the Supreme Court, or at least try and ask for an emergency stay, right? So it is just strange that they didn't do that. And so I can't imagine that it was strategic,

but I think they must've just missed it and must've forgotten or just didn't think of it. And so that's why she so quickly, because there was no stay in place, right? Because he could have, think about it, right? This was under seal. And so if Donald Trump's lawyers should have said to Judge Shetkin, look, I want a stay of release of this if you rule that he can file this redacted version that was only redacted out the names.

So many people have figured out who most, if not all of the individuals are in there. But they didn't file a stay so that they could appeal it and push this off until after the election, which is frankly what he claims that he wants to do, right? He claims that he wanted this to be pushed off, you know, until later, because he's claiming that this is election interference, which it obviously is not.

The Jack Smith didn't create this timeline. Joe Biden didn't create this timeline. This is a timeline that was created because of, frankly, the United States Supreme Court that waited until the very last day to hear oral arguments and then the very last day that they were hearing decisions to issue this decision. So the timing has nothing to do with Jack Smith. This is something that was created by by Donald Trump and the Supreme Court. And so if they really didn't want this released, they would have asked for a stay. And then that would be appealed. And who knows if it would have been granted or not, but he'd get the delay that he wanted.

So that's mistake number one that the lawyers made. And but so then the mistake, I think, I don't know if I want to call it a mistake, but I'm just trying to think of it from Donald Trump's perspective, you would think he'd want to, you'd want to reply to this or answer this, right? This presidential immunity claim before the election. But instead, what did they do? They said, we need more time. And so and we want we want a bigger page limit and we want more time. And Judge Chuckin said, Sure, it was put off until after the election. So the only thing that's going to be there and that the people are going to see is Jack Smith's side of this and what the evidence is against Donald Trump.

And we're not going to see anything involving what his side is. I mean, maybe he didn't want to talk about it because it's just repeating the same facts again and the new cycle, you know, not good for him because the facts are horrendous. When you read the facts, the factual portions of this, I mean, it's just shocking how, you know, we become so desensitized as a society from the events of January 6th, partly because I guess he calls them patriots, he says he's going to pardon them, he sings their national anthem, you know, he talks about it like in such loving love letter terms that it has this weird impact of neutralizing it and you forget what how serious it was and then you read this document again and you're like holy you know shi

t this is unbelievable just how incredibly sophisticated and aggressive this effort to steal the election was and then how violent right in the end when they couldn't do it through other means and you know they've smartened up and they're doing it again this time and they're not gonna make the same mistakes they made last time. And they're doing everything they can to try to ensure that he steals the election again for the third time. So the first one being the Stormy Daniels when he actually did steal the election

by suppressing that affair. And so it's just unbelievable to me. And yeah, so he's waiting that he we're not going to see anything else about it until after the election. And maybe that was by design so that again, so that he can just suppress this and that this will become old news and that we don't talk about it again. But we have to talk about it every single day for the next month until the election happens because it is outrageous. And, you know, I'm glad you're doing hot takes, Popok on sections of this because that's what this really deserves. This document deserves a section by section, you know, analysis. I was thinking if I can find the time, I want to, I want to actually give the opening statement in this case.

Okay. I hope it's fun. I know, but I need to, I need like a good like- Well, you find the time. I got the place for it. I know, I know, but that's what I want to do. I want to give the opening statement in this case for everybody. So I'm going to find the time and I'm going to do it.

It'll be fun one day before the election. You do that and then maybe one day on the show we can do a little mock trial and I'll do the other side or we'll flip. Oh my God. I'll be the prosecutor. I would love that. You'd be the prosecutor. Jack, let's do it. All right. We'll talk about that offline. If people like that idea, say something in the comments and We're gonna we're gonna talk a little bit more about my thoughts

You know and batten it around with Karen here about some of the strategy that we just watched or non strategy that we just watched In the DC election interference case of what it means to the American voter into the criminal case at large We're gonna we're gonna pick it up after our break. We're going to pick it up with the truth social dumpster fire and possible securities fraud violations that are going on on a daily basis with more to come with the company that Donald Trump has tied at least 2 billion of his purported portrait fortune into. And what about Macedonia? Never thought I'd have to say that word or the Balkans

on this show devoted to US law and politics, but I'm gonna have to because of Donald Trump and his family, we're gonna tie all that together. And then I got out, you know, we don't blow smoke or sunshine. I got to talk about the Biden student loan program. Now I life support with a Missouri, a Missouri MAGA federal judge doing his thing to block it again and increase the suffering and a comment that was made by

the Attorney General for Missouri I thought was completely out of bounds I'll talk about that but there's a lot of different ways to support Legal AF we've grown now we're four and a half years old if you didn't know why we named it Legal AF you do now and. And we got a bigger ecosystem that we used to have. Literally when we first started it was Ben and me and then Ben, me and Karen. We had Brett doing the videos and doing the graphics and Jordy was always doing his kind of working with the advertisers, the things that we had. And that was about it. And then we started to bolt on and bring on more people. This is before the website, before the subst any. And that was about it. And then we started to bolt on and bring on more

people. This is before the website, before the substack. And then we got Salty. And then Salty came in and started to build out a ecosystem that supports all of the Midas Touch family of podcasts and hot takes and everything that you see. I mean, I'm sure you can appreciate when you see literally on Leon Midas Touch every hour for the entire day, 18 to 20 videos a day, nine podcasts, that there's somebody behind all of that. There's somebody and they get paid. That's how it works. I mean, there's only so much you can do for love of country and love of law and politics. And so having built that ecosystem over time, and we're lean, trust me,

there's pro-democracy platforms that are, that we're our, not competitors, but frenemies that are no longer in existence because they decided let's spend $40 million on cars and buildings buildings and furniture we're like yeah why would you ever do that put it all into what you see on the screen so there's so this is how you support then we got another channel that we're building legal AF MTN where you can free subscribe right now and help us get to that 200,000 number and that's putting up five videos a day and and creating there it is, Legal AF MTN, help us get to

our 200,000 subscriber number before Halloween. I can't even believe I'm saying that number so quickly. And bringing in organizations like Court Accountability that's kind of joined there for exclusive content. And Dina Doll and I are going to be doing a weekly show exclusively on Legal AF MTN called Unprecedented, where we're gonna look every week at the United States Supreme Court up and down,

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watch them. Okay, we have already vetted the product. If you see us, if you see us eating a meal from a spot, we ate that meal. If you see us, you know, wearing something or using something, we used it, we wore it or take it or whatever whatever and we're like, yeah, we like it We want to promote it So you don't have to do anything now if you have it within your budget you think the item is interesting and you and you are Kind of following our lead then by all means use our disk every one of these Sponsors has a discount code that legal AF is negotiated that They'll get you something that you can't get on your own. And so that's the other way to support it.

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know who we are as people. And they're like, Yeah, we want to advertise with those people. We want to talk to that audience. And that's a good thing. In our completely independent news network. And all there's a we're doing sub stacks now, there's a new Midas plus sub stack, sort of morphing out of the website and onto the sub stack with Ron Filipkowski and Brett and everybody over there and Karen and I are writing articles for it. Nice little community over there. Legal AF, MTN is going to have one too. We're just, we're waiting for another week or two to get that up and running. Those are the ways to

support us. And then the podcast, of course, free subscribe here if you haven't already. Give us a five star review, comment, thumbs up, all of that goes into that algorithmic formula that nobody can figure out and helps us with the rankings, the ratings, the comments and all that. Same thing with Karen's mistrial on Thursdays. But let's get to it. I'm always excited by our sponsors. It's not something that's like, But let's get to it. I'm always excited by our sponsors. It's not something that's like, oh, sponsor time. I'm like, yeah, sponsor time. Let's go to our first set of sponsors.

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for 40% off unlimited access to Calm's entire library. That's com.com slash legal AF Well, we've reached the end of another legal AF shout out to the Midas mighty and the legal AF first that salty falloff is Cher yet. I made him I made him a bet on the length of this podcast And I just use executive privilege to end the park. Bye everybody All right, let's get back to it. One comment on the old topic, then we'll go to the new topic. Yeah, there's no doubt in my mind that Donald Trump had no intention whatsoever of ever filing his own brief. And he certainly didn't want Donald

Jack Smith to file a second brief. And so he's been crying and complaining about ridiculous red herring things that he knows have no merit. Like, I need more discovery. They're not giving me all the docs. And then you should do the docs first, Judge, before they get a chance to file their brief. And the judge is like, no, we're not doing that. You got a discovery issue. You'll get it at an appropriate time. But I but I need more time now, because now I need 180 pages and I need two briefs. Which by the way, I didn't think was a bad point that he made. I don't completely agree with Eli Honig or whatever his name is, but I did think the balancing of the briefs, and I'm gonna talk about that for a minute, was probably right and took away an appellate

issue that might have been lurking in there. And so here's here's what happened the judge they went crying to the judge because they never asked for more pages the first time when they when at the last minute when Jack Smith said I got a I got 180 pages at least he brought it in at 165 but I need up to 180 pages and I got three days to go and she said no that sounds reasonable what's your objection to that? And Donald Trump wrote, oh my God, you shouldn't even allow any brief. You should just sit in a room and commune with a piece of paper and just decide this

without any facts whatsoever. Certainly don't let them file a brief. That's how, don't do that. Whatever you do is my artist rendering of Donald Trump freaking out. And the discovery, they didn't give me the discovery and then he never asked for more pages. So at one point until like three days ago,

he only had 45 pages to oppose 180. So he always does things in a way to delay, delay, delay. So he files a paper, I need 180 and I want another brief because he got two briefs and I only got one brief and I'm the defendant and it turns constitutional criminal law on its head and whining, whining, whining. I understood why they were only going to get one brief because the Supreme court is the one that set up this procedure.

Donald Trump already filed a motion to dismiss the original indictment leading to the immunity decision. Trump versus the U S on July the first, we did that already. Now it's time for immunity determination off the superseding indictment. But I also understand, to be fair, and we are nothing if not fair on Legal AF, I do understand the argument that this is a new indictment, that they never got a chance to formally move against it and the changes in it, especially the way

that they tried to clean up and address some changes in it especially the way that they tried to clean up and address some of the issues from the immunity decision and that they should have the opportunity to have two briefs and the judge was like you know what that's not bad I'm gonna give everybody two briefs I'm gonna do an equalizer so Donald Trump you get to say Oprah you get two briefs government you get two briefs and what do you get two briefs. And what do you want? You want more time? Of course, Donald Trump wants more time because he doesn't want to file his brief.

More importantly, he doesn't want to have the government file their second brief before the election. He's already got to deal with the 200 pages plus that's sitting under wraps. That's just going to be another bombshell. You and I, we could retire off of what we're going to learn in terms of hot takes and what we're gonna learn in another week in our 11 days again before the election so it is what I always thought the Department of Justice is gonna get two opportunities to present their case to Chutkin and to the Supreme Court and by extension by a byproduct to the American voter and Donald Trump's

just gonna sit there and not say a darn thing. And I think that is a decision of his. As you said, Karen, that he does not want, first of all, he has nothing. He can't go at 77 witness plus, including all the forensic people that hacked and cracked his phone going up on the stand and all eyes used on all the investigators and other people that are bad, you know, that are didn't work for Donald Trump. That's a six month trial. And he doesn't have the ability in a hundred. He doesn't have an ability in an 1800 pages, 18,000 pages to refute that. Nor does he have any interest in doing that. He wants to suck

the oxygen out of the story as quickly as possible. Make it old news. Just to show you like we in our audience thinks this intersection of law and politics, you can't get enough of it. And they want to learn and they're here for it. They did some polling recently. I think it was our, was it our court? I think it might've been either court accountability or was Kathleen Rice, your colleague when she joined me for a hot take when we talked about the debate. And she said they did some recent polling and like vote young voters don't even know what happened on Jan 6. And that was just four years ago, let alone 9 11, let alone let alone. So there is the power of mass amnesia that does happen that Donald Trump is trying to take advantage of

and I, I sort of get that he's going gonna let JD Vance and Walls be the last word for 50 million people and the rest of it he's just gonna do is just gonna try to mean tweet and mean rally his way to the election. And the good news is as of right now, Kamala Harris in all the polling that's legitimate, looks like she's up three and a half to four points overall in the popular vote,

which is about where she needs to be in order to win electorally at the battleground states. And she's leading in five or six of the seven battleground states. She's got to win North Carolina. I mean, the easiest path to victory is North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania. And she's, yeah, she's up right now. Okay. Sort of, uh, In another state, she's like, they're tied in Michigan, you know, Arizona, Trump's ahead, but she's overall doing much, much better, of course, than,ACTA. If it's all f'd up and it could be an off by two or three points then it's under reporting her victory which could end up being instead of being a nail biter could be a landslide but then I got to worry about the other way too that it's under reported for Donald Trump because people don't want to pick up the phone to a pollster

surrounded by their family and say Trump, but they'll do it behind closed doors when they vote. So that's, that's what we have to do. Anything else on the DC election or any of those things before we move on to some other stories? Just, you know, it's just, as you say that, PO Pock it makes me feel like we should put our law practices on hold for 30 days and just every single day, uh, kind of release hot takes about this document

and about January 6th and about the witnesses and the trial and as much as we can because the fact that it's shocking to me that there are people who don't know about it or that they don't think it's that big of a deal, it's shocking. And I think we need to really get that word out there. Even, you know, everyone's trying,

but I feel like I wanna do my part too, you know, everyone's trying but I feel like I want to do my part too You know because I just can't get over it Yeah agreed and So let's turn the page for a minute. Let's go to true social True social is circling the drink It is a entity that has no business model has no real revenue is Burning 30 million dollars a

month in expenses. Well, burning is a bad term. Somebody's getting the money and it's affiliates and people close to Donald Trump and organizations and donors that he's brought in. They're all grifting their way and on the carcass of true social. And who's hurt? Mom and pop investor. I know they may be MAGA, but there's still people who aren't millionaires and billionaires that are putting their money into this stock. The stock sort of stabilized,

even though millions of shares have been sold by the founders because Donald Trump stood up in California at a press conference and said, I think it's a great stock. I'm not gonna sell that stock at all. Sort of locked himself in to not sell that stock. And if he does, there's a securities fraud problem. But now, the rats are leaving the sinking ship voluntarily or otherwise.

And we've got reporting that based from ProPublica, that based on an internal whistleblower investigation against Devin Nunez about him being in bed with foreign investors who are trying to influence a future Trump administration including going over to Macedonia with the rumble the head of rumble now rumble just for some people that know rumbles just been reskinned as truth social. They're true social doesn't they say it's a technology media company. It's not the technology they're using is all rumbles. They just reskinned it as as truth social, you know, like a like a white

brand. And the head of rumble who provides the technology, the plumbing, if you will, for true social, his parents came from Macedonia. He's got these companies in Macedonia. I don't think Macedonia has an extradition treaty with the United States. And Donald Trump and his minions, including Kushner and Jared Kushner and Don Jr., can't get enough of the Balkans right now. Don Jr. went on a campaign stop to Serbia to try to get Serbian-American votes, like a

week ago. Kushner is trying to take some of the 3 billion blood money from the Saudis and other places in the Arab world, which is his entirety of his fund, his first fund ever. He's trying to invest it in kind of aging decrepit hotels in the Balkans to make the Kushner family, Trump family really, really wealthy. And now the head of Donald, one of the heads of Donald Trump's transition teams,

should there ever be a transition, got on a plane with Nunez and the rumble guy, and they went to Macedonia. And there's a whistleblower about like, first of all, don't you see this as a conduit for foreign, illegal foreign contributions into a campaign? Apparently, they didn't see it that way. And they fired the head of products, which is the things that make identity money. You know, what, you know, people say, what are products? Well, look at it from a Midas Touch perspective. Our products are hot takes, the podcasts, the subs, the sub

stack, the community page, the short form videos, the tick tock, the social media, you know, the legal AF MTN, all of that, you know, all the other channels that are in collaboration with the Midas. Those are products, if you will, you know, Patreon and, and news, that's the community, that's products in the crass sense of the word. You got to have them in order to survive as an entity, right? And they don't have any. True social. So they fired the guy that was responsible for making them. They also fired the COO. And he's not this is not the

last shoe to drop over there. They had to disclose it in their securities and exchange filings just three days ago. There's more to come. And yet we see the stock take a bump in the last week or two. I thought it'd be down to 10 already. It's at 16 and change. And that's I think it's because you got a combination of MAGA trying to pump up the stock like GameStop a number of years ago and short sellers that are just waiting for the collapse of the you know like bidding on it's going to go to 10. It's going to go to eight and they're just

waiting in the meantime it's going up but then when it crashes hoping that Donald Trump sells at least from a short seller perspective. So that's where we're watching there. What are you What do you think you've done some good things about watches and different ways of foreign influence in the election through Trump? What are you observing about how Donald Trump uses truth social media that's linked back to Balkans and Macedonia through Devon unions? What's your view?

Well, don't look, don't forget that in the civil fraud case, that one of Donald Trump's biggest claims was that it's his brand that is worth so much. Right. And that's why when he overvalued things, it's not doesn't even take into consideration his brand. It's because he thinks his brand is worth so much money. And so he is right now there. If he loses this election, right, then he's his goose is cooked

because he's going to be sentenced to jail in the New York case. He's going to be prosecuted in Washington, D.C. At least those two cases. Right. And so hopefully the Georgia case and hopefully, you know, the hopefully the Judge Cannon case will be reversed. And he'll be prosecuted there too. So his goose is will be cooked, because he can't pardon himself, he can't avoid any of the stuff if he loses. And so he is taking this opportunity right now to grift as much money as possible, I think to establish

himself and his family in the best possible position they can be in, A, and of course, it has to be in other countries because this country is going to incarcerate him. I mean, he doesn't have a lot of options. And so I think he's out there trying to hedge and prepare and set his family up for life. And on top of that, he is doing these schemes to sell things like the... I think that to me, the biggest one that highlights the point I'm trying to make or that I'm going to make is these $100,000 watch concepts, right? He advertised a gold diamond encrusted watch concept, and it's a concept because there is no actual watch now, but you pay $100,000 and it can be in Bitcoin,

A, that's not traceable, that could be foreign money, that could be anybody, right? And you buy the rights to the watch if it's ever made. And if you read the fine print, they don't have to make the watch. It may or may not happen. Nobody's liable. I mean, it's like the most obvious way

to be able to ingest as much money as possible from where you'd otherwise have limits, right? There's limits in campaign donations, right? That corporations can't donate, unions can't donate, individuals have limits. You know, there's all sorts of rules around how much you can donate. This just circumvents all of that. For people, foreign nationals can't contribute and can't donate to a campaign. Well, if I'm a foreign national, I'm buying the watch or five of them, right? The watch concept that may never be made.

And so he is just that that to me is the thing that is most striking of how the lengths he will go to frankly, hide the sources of his money to get get more money, and to just blur every single line and every single rule there is involving not just campaign finance stuff, but just trying to engage in more fraud for his family and his personal life. But it's shocking. It's absolutely shocking. And I don't know why people accept it, why his followers accept it, but to me me it's just shocking. Yeah they do and we're watching you know foreign influence in our elections before our very eyes and I

don't know if it's been normalized or or people just bake that into who is Donald Trump and just expect it but at any any event, so let's move on to, we're gonna talk towards the end of the podcast about the Biden administration and its constant efforts talking about people working for you right up until the last month. Does anybody have a doubt that President Joe Biden, or as they say on Saturday at live, Joe Biden, that

Joe Biden is going to work until 11 59 on January 20th. I mean, seriously, he's trying to do what he's doing in a, in a middle East that's, you know, is, is in turmoil at the moment, but has a firm hand in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in guiding the outcome there. And in addition to that, he's working hard on his domestic policies for the American people to accomplish all the things that he promised when he ran four years ago. One of them was to help in the student loan problem. And let me just frame this because it's something that chapped my ass.

Somebody once said, no, it's chafed. It's chafed and chapped over this. As the attorney general of Missouri in celebrating and whooping it up over a MAGA Trump judge, federal judge there, a reversing course for what a Georgia judge did the day before blocking the attempt by the Biden administration to help 35 million, million Americans, all voters likely,

with their student debt. These are not people as the Missouri Attorney General said that like they're trying to pay off their Ivy League education and want the citizens to do that. And that really chat my ass where we talk about who these people are. Because these people we talk about it more we come back from our next break. These people are they have to qualify the following ways they have to have their interest has to be so high from 20 and 25 years of paying off their student loans, that it has to be over their principle that they've been trying for 20 to 25 years, and they haven't been able to make a dent on it, that they were eligible for forbearance or for forgiveness in the past,

but they missed the deadline here or there. These are people that didn't go to Ivy League schools, most of them. They were people that went to trade schools, that went for air conditioning repair, they went for plumbing, become plumbers and electricians and roofers and the like, and they're citizens and hard paying taxpayers in the state of

Missouri and all the other states that have brought something that you know, brought this case against them. And it's just it's just unfathomable for me that for cheap political points scoring, they've they've they've opposed it, we're gonna talk more about that particular case. But we got another group of an amazing pro democracy sponsors right here. Don't forget the overflow of legal AF, all that law and politics stuff, go to legal AF, MTN from Midas Touch Network. Uh, it's that love child between those two brands where I'll be curating as

executive producer, everything that happens there. I got my own odd takes unprecedented, a new show with Dean Adal that we're doing once a week at the intersection of Supreme Court politics and the law. And then of course, we got court, I'm so excited about court accountability coming on board as an outlet, exclusive distribution, if you will, for their investigative reporting and their hot takes on critical issues involving the courts, only on Legal AF MTN. Let's go to our sponsors. This podcast is sponsored by Delete Me.

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Really couldn't do it without you. Why don't you take the what happened in Georgia? Because we you know, if we'd gone to air on a couple days after that, we would have had a great story Biden loan forgiveness program upheld by federal judge in Georgia. But now we got Missouri, you want to walk the audience through all that? Yeah, I mean, look, it was, you know, kind of I felt like playing ping pong in a way, you know, like it was a little bit crazy because at first it seemed like we had a victory that we were going to be able to, that we were going to be able to celebrate, right? There was reporting is that,

you know, 27 or something million borrowers could qualify for this debt forgiveness, the student loan forgiveness. As you point out, you have to qualify for it. It's not just anyone with student loans, right? And it's just, and it's 27 million people. And there was a federal judge that had, so this is all arguments over, over injunctions or emergency stays, you know, that sort of a thing.

This isn't like the full kind of trial and on the merits about the program. This is like Joe Biden wants to do this program. I think this is the third debt forgiveness program that he has tried to put to push through. And this is yet another lawsuit. But a judge in Georgia is where it started. Sorry. And then they said, Georgia doesn't have standing, but then they kicked it over to Judge Schlepp. What a word, what a name.

And who's a Trump appointee in Missouri saying that is where this is properly venue, this case. They have standing. And of course, Judge Schlepp very, very quickly in a three-page order, ordered that no, I'm putting the temporary injunction back in place. So I think it was 24 hours when the Georgia judge who had initially put the injunction in while they considered,

they did a temporary injunction while they considered, you know, they did a temporary injunction while they, while they considered this. He, they lifted it quickly, sent the case over to Missouri. And in Missouri, this judge very quickly wrote this short order saying, nope, it's, can't do it. I'm enjoining you from, you know, essentially ordering, this is a federal district judge, ordering the Joe Biden administration not to forgive the debt. And we'll put it over for full briefing, because, and for discovery and trials and all of that.

And so what is that a signal of? That's a signal that essentially Biden is only going to be around for a little while longer. Certainly not enough time to, you know, before the change of administration, whether hopefully it's to Harris or to Trump, it's certainly not enough time to for this to go forward on the merits and to make any sort of ruling whatsoever. I mean, look, so this is dead. It's dead in the water, this case, especially if Trump wins, because then, you know, he'll just not do this program if Harris wins, then this will proceed Through the courts and it will wind its way around but it was really a kind of stunning blow to this program again and

You know, it was just it was hard because as you said in the beginning of this show, you know we thought we were gonna be able to celebrate this win and in less than 24 hours, they just shut it back down. It's a kick in the groin to people that have difficulty paying off student loans because of the running interest. And it's been the program was not made that like when you went to a trade school or a law school, you weren't supposed to have to pay the loans for 20 and 25 years like a mortgage. And if you only made interest payments, because that's all your income could afford, you weren't supposed to like have these loans forever. Education is supposed to be, you know, we want an educated society. We want a publicly educated

society to have that available to people. And why the Republicans are against education and are against people. They might say, well they made, you know, I loved, I forget who it was, it was Wilbur Ross and one of the other billionaires that were in Donald Trump's first cabinet. And they said, well just dip into their 401k plans. Okay. They could also have their Butler run down to a bank and take some money out of their safety deposit box. That's not how most Americans live. A lot of Americans are treading water. And that's one of the reasons Kamala Harris is running on an economy that isn't anti-billionaire

but is empowering to all people in the society, you know, in lifting all boats, that kind of economy. And the people that signed up for beautician school and to be trades people who are important to society next time you have a stuffed toilet, or you need to, or you need like, you know, to get a die job, not me yet, but, you know, thank thank a trade school that that got paid somehow. And a lot of people get taken advantage of in that process. You know, there's tuition for these kind of borderline, phony schools, yet real loans that have to be paid back.

And that's the people they're helping. But no, it's just the opposite game. Whatever the Democrats say as a good social policy, the Republicans find an excuse to kick you in the balls. It's just the way it is. They don't care. That Missouri attorney general does not care about the voter in his state that can't make ends meet and has been paying $100 a month for the last 30 years, 25 years to pay off a student loan that he'll never, his children will inherit, their children will inherit. They don't care about that. And this was a way to like, kind of wipe the slate clean and let these people get ahead so they're not constantly with this

albatross around their neck of not being able to pay the student loan showing up on their credit. I thought we wanted fine upstanding citizens that, you know, had the ability to buy on credit and could afford a home or a down payment or a security deposit. And so how these states are, are the red states are saying no, not our people, you know, if you match some of these states, it's the same states that have low, sorry, high infant mortality rate, high childhood poverty, low rates of adoption, lots of unwanted pregnancies.

And you know, they just act like, well, you know, that's not the role of government. Well, what is the role? That's the difference between the Democrats and Republicans. We see the progressive Democrats and the Democrats see one aspect of the role of government is to help those that are downtrodden, that need our help. They say, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but what if you don't have boots? society, whose GDP blows the doors over out of any other country, whose unemployment rate is like half of some of our allies in NATO and other places. They're envious of a three and a half percent interest rate and a stock market that's booming in a recession that looks like it's not going to be happening and all of that.

But if you want children, more children in poverty, more uninsured people in America, more people under the crushing debt of student loans that they can never not get out of and can't get out of that dark tunnel, there's no light at the end of the tunnel because there's no light. Then you vote for the Republicans who are just making jokes like in golf courses like Donald Trump just got caught. And I did a hot take on and on the new legal AFMTN channel where Donald Trump was caught in a secretly recorded meeting in Arizona at a fundraiser gathering with billionaires

and millionaires in which he was cracking wise about immigration and people of color again you know creating using an out of turn and out of a politically incorrect term politically incorrect term, politically incorrect term, a colonial term for a part of Africa. They're coming from the Congo. I like, is this like the old Tarzan movies from the 1940s? The Congo? Other murderers.

I mean, he looked like he thought Scarface was a documentary, the one with Al Pacino, I mean, about immigration policy. We have to keep the murderers out and done. And then he cracked some jokes about the guy who died during Butler, Pennsylvania, standing behind him, and about his wife. Ha, ha, ha, this is what they do

when the whiteys all get together. Apparently, billionaire and millionaires, they make fun of the brown and black people behind their back. I still find it amazing that he's polling as high as he is with the Hispanic community. Now I know the Hispanic community is not just black and brown. In fact there's a fair

amount of them that identify so to speak as white. I get it but every time he's attacking that immigrant group recent or past I just as a child, a grandchild of immigrants, I just hear I'm next. He has no respect, even though he came as I don't know where they came from, Bavaria or some borderline Nazi country that the Trump family came from. But he's totally rewritten his history. You'd think he came over on the Mayflower with all their Brooks brothers and preppy, preppy, preppy like, I don't know, the father, you know, came over on some boat somehow. But he's forgotten that. And so that's the that's the biggest distinction between the two parties for me. That's why I can't understand why the elections this close. Because I think I think the choice is clear. Let me ask you, let me let me end it this way, Karen. Do you think do you think the

polling is accurate? I won't I won't hold you to it. But we'll we'll bring this back up one day. Do you think the poll is accurate? Do you think Kamala Harris is under-polling or polling accurately? And the same question for Donald Trump at this moment in time. Look, polls are notoriously not reliable. And so, and polling is such a broad term. I think, And so, and polling is such a broad term, I think, you know, obviously, and you've, you've, you said this earlier, how the battleground states are really where it matters. And so I think that the battleground states are the polling in the battleground states is really the only polling I would look at. But the problem with it is accurate or not. First of all, I do think that there's 30 days left and a lot can happen in those 30 days. And I think a lot of information that has to get out and continue to get out should get out. And I think that there are people who are not sure even Even, and it's different than being,

I guess you can call them undecideds or, but I think there are people who have decided, but who at the last minute might panic and say, you know what, I'm not doing it. I'm not, I can't vote for Trump, even though, you know, I like, I think he's tough. You know, I think there are people who might be even Trump supporters who at the end of the day, their conscience

will come forward and when they go to the polls, they might actually know and realize how dangerous this is and how this is really about democracy. So I think, I know I'm not really answering your question, but I do think it's a complicated thing. And I think the most important thing we can do is help get true information out and really just keep fighting and get voters out there

because people have to vote. The thing that scares me the most is what we've been talking about in hot takes and in the prior legal AF, and I'm gonna do as much of this as I can. And I'm so happy about your new show that you have with the Democracy Defenders, because they're really the people who are out there

talking about really what the biggest issue is, which is the next big lie. And the next big lie is what he's doing right now, trying to steal the election again by creating this scenario where he is lying about dead people voting, all the court cases that are being brought in the battleground states, right?

That's where he's bringing these cases. There's three times the number of cases as brought in the last election as now is what the Republicans are bringing and they're making all kinds of claims, all these lies that non-citizens are voting, dead people are voting, they're trying to delegitimize mail-in ballots and make it so that there are problems with mail-in ballots because mail-in ballots you have to have, it has to be in a certain envelope

and you have to have it filled out correctly. And in 2020, there's lots of amazing pro-democracy groups that fought really, really hard to get votes to count and succeeded, but they're already working in conservative states to make it so that legitimately cast votes by citizens who are either overseas because they're fighting the military or they can't leave their house for whatever reason, or they're on vacation, whatever it is. For some reason, people who have to either vote absentee or by mail, they're doing everything they can to make those otherwise legitimate votes not count. But in states where they see that that's

going to impact Republicans, what do they do? They pull those lawsuits. And states where they think that's going to impact Democrats, they're filing lots of lawsuits in Republican jurisdictions where they can tee up these cases and have them be there so that if it's close call, and you'll see that during the election, they're not going to bring these cases. If Trump wins and gets called for a certain jurisdiction, you're not going to see, even if it's a battleground state, you're not going to see any claims of fraud. No way. He'll be like, no problem. Those votes are legitimate. Those count only areas that he loses.

Is he going to then press the accelerator on the cases that he's already teed up in these battleground states and he's going to do everything he can to get rulings that he's going to take up to the his MAGA Supreme Court. And then you'll see what happens there. But that's he's trying to steal this election. They've gotten very sophisticated. They're engaging in lawfare. And that is he's trying to steal this election. They've gotten very sophisticated. They're engaging in lawfare. And that is what is happening right now. Couldn't have put a better ribbon around that particular topic that you and I, Ben, everybody that contributes to Legal AF are

going to be following closely come over to this. As we said, we're bursting at the seams. And I wanted to just thank again, over 150,000 people have already joined with us in the build of Legal AF MTN. It is your channel devoted to law and politics. Find out what 40 million people a month already know that Legal AF is the home of law and politics commentary and analysis like no other. You're going to find amazing commentators that you know and love from the Midas universe, including Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Dina Dahl, Anthony Davis is going to be coming over there, Kathleen Rice and the other contributors from Mistrial are already there.

I've already done a first hot take with Kathleen Rice. And we've got this great two exclusive things that even when we started the channel on the 17th of September, it's hard to believe given how people have taken us into their homes and hearts and their bosoms so quickly. But we never anticipated how quickly we would have an organization with the legitimacy, if you will, of court accountability, court accountability action, and Alex Aronson and Lisa Graves joining us on a regular basis to provide hot takes and content, joining us on that new show, Unprecedented, which I'll be doing once a week with Dina Dahl. We got the first Monday in October

is when the court is open. They've already scheduled 26 of their cases. And the first oral argument for this year starts on Tuesday. So a lot for us to talk about along with the spouses and the wives and the ethics problems and the the next leak and the next Sam Alito problem will do it all one place legal AFMTN. So until and I really want to bring back Karen for a minute because I really want to thank her give her a hug through a lot of it took her a lot people we won't share it on this took her a lot to join us at the last minute she jumped

over hurdles we leave it at that to get here but she is a true professional friend and colleague and couldn't ask for somebody better to fill in for Ben myself who's fine by the way don't want people to panic or anything. It just happened to be that a day. Life intrudes. Life sometimes life intrudes and that's what happens. And Karen will be right back with me on Wednesday on Legal AF midweek and in hot takes right here and on Legal AF MTN. So until our next Legal AF in whatever format And our next set of hot takes and all of that this shout out to the mic to Mike

What the clip that shout out to the Michael Pope box out there? All one of you it's been a long two days. Let's do it again Then shout out to the legal a efforts and the mightest might.