Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF - 4/4/26

Episode Date: April 5, 2026

Trump loses Cabinet, DOJ, War, Ballroom, Supreme Court and any shred of remaining credibility, all in one week. Ben and Popok take the helm of the Legal AF Podcast to cover breaking legal and political news from the last 48 hours, and so much more. Support our Sponsors: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to join https://joindeleteme.com/LEGALAF and use promo code LEGALAF at checkout. Dose: Save 35% on your first month of subscription by going to https://dosedaily.co/LEGALAF or entering LEGALAF at checkout. Go to https://mackweldon.com/?utm_source=streaming&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcastlaunch&utm_content=LEGALAFutm_term=LEGALAF and get 20% off your first order with promo code LEGALAF 120Life: Visit https://www.120life.com/products/120-life-free-shipping?code_bp=LEGALAF and use code: LEGALAF for 20% OFF! Become a member of Legal AF YouTube community: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgZJZZbnLFPr5GJdCuIwpA/join Learn more about the Popok Firm: https://thepopokfirm.com Subscribe to Legal AF Substack: https://michaelpopok.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=c0fc8f5c 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 Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Save $80 with code space 80 at Talkspace.com. A lot to cover on today's Legal A.F. Trump loses his ballroom. A stunning defeat in federal court that we predicted right here on Legal A.F. Donald Trump loses his AG. Pam Bondi is fired. Who is going to replace her? The Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is serving as the acting attorney. general and people in federal prosecutorial offices across the country, taking Pam Bondi's portrait and throwing it in the garbage. We'll talk about that. By all accounts, Donald Trump lost big in the Supreme Court, the oral arguments in Trump's executive order case, where he tried to overturn the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship provision via an executive order.

Donald Trump sat there for a little bit during the oral argument, and then he threw a tantrum and walked out in the middle of oral arguments, quite embarrassing. Loser, loser, loser. And then when we talk briefly at the outset, we'll talk a little bit about what's going on in this catastrophic and unlawful. That's the intersection and nexus between law and politics right there. Unlawful war in Iran. The United States continues to lose military equipment. Last week, it was the crown jewel of the air. Force, some of our surveillance airplanes and tanker planes over in Saudi Arabia.

We've lost all of these Reaper drones. And then, of course, the F-15E, the A-10, these fighter jets were shot down. Two helicopters that were part of the search and rescue team were hit as well. And we will continue to be providing those kind of daily updates regarding the war that we've been doing. And I know we just try to get you the facts, show you everything that's going on. But this is Legal A.F, the intersection of law and politics. Let's bring in Michael Popak, because we got a lot to discuss.

No delay in anything here, Popak. A week that saw a lot of losing by the weakest president and, frankly, one of the weakest people in American history, world history at that, Poppac. Yeah, finally, Susie Wiles, the chief of staff and her. trying to keep the revolving door shut in the cabinet, which was one of the problems in the first Trump administration as he fired five and hired and fired five different attorneys general and then replaced his whole cabinet within a year and a half. She kept a pretty good lid on it for about 16 months,

but now I think you and I are going to be reporting an hourly, daily basis, on a velocity of cabinet replacement that we haven't seen since the first Trump administration. It's not just going to be Pam Bondi. Pam Bondi, it was funny. You and I joked a couple of weeks ago when Christy Noem got canned. I said, why isn't it Pam Bondi? You and I went back and forth about that. But Christy Noem, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard, besides having a gender in common,

the misogynist in chief is at it again, getting rid of the incompetence and starting with the women. I mean, his entire cabinet is basically incompetent. My prediction is a third or more. of the cabinet is going to be replaced over the next month. Tulsi Gabbard, when you hear insider leaks, and this is the leakiest, most undisciplined administration that we have ever seen. You know, we go from no drama, Obama,

and very little leaks during the Biden administration, into the leakiest administration. This administration should worry less about who's sitting in their press pool and getting MAGA influencers in the Pentagon press room and in the White House because they think that's the way to control the propaganda machine. Worry less about that. Worry more about their leaks.

Because the newest leak is that Donald Trump is polling people, polling his cabinet, whether Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence should live or die in her role. When he starts polling, you're done. So Tulsi Gabbard, maybe because he had to fire Pam Bondi and did it on the way. We'll talk about it in the segment. on the way over. You love this? What a great boss.

Hey, Pam, we're going to go over to the Supreme Court, be the first president ever to sit in on a Supreme Court oral argument. Why don't you come along for the ride and the beast? On the way over, fires her. So Tulsi Gabbard her. Cash Patel. There it is. I love that photo.

I don't think he said it right there, but it's coming. Cash, it's like a Godfather movie. Like, she's lucky nobody was sitting behind her on the ride over. Then you got Cash Patel. I mean, he is not long for Trump world. And there's been reporting that Donald Trump has been consulting with the closest of his closest advisors, which apparently are his wife, Melania. Oh, yeah, she doesn't do anything else.

And Susie Wiles. And that they're trying to figure out whether Stephen Miller should be fired because of the migration, immigration, deportation, removal, alien enemies act policies are. so hated by the American people as Donald Trump's favorability rating heads down below 30%. And he's got to throw all. There's so many people being thrown under the bus by Donald Trump. This bus is not going to be able to move. And he's never going to take personal responsibility.

Or as I joke during a hot take, the good news, the gift to the Democrats is Donald Trump will not be able to grow a brain, ethics, morals, leadership, or character. between now and the midterms or when it matters for that campaign. So he's got to like, in his view, flush the toilet. And so we got Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi, Christy Gnome, likely Cash Patel, RFK Jr., I don't think makes it much longer. But you and I were right on the money, not that I want to twist my arm out, patent ourselves on the back.

But we said, I know I did, you did too, that Pam was never going to make the April 14th Epstein subpoenaed testimony. We'll talk about that when we get to Epstein and her in a minute, at least as the actual attorney general, as an ex, and fight over it, maybe, for that hearing was coming up. And so for all this is, just to round it out at that intersection of law and politics that you and I live on, the chaos that we see in his lack of war planning, his lack of exit strategy, getting out maneuvered by the Iranians, you and I said before we got on the air today, if a Democratic president had the loss of life, the loss of planes in this war with no exit strategy, if it was Obama, or if it was Carter or Clinton,

they would be burning them an effigy in the streets led by the Republicans. And yet here, because people are just fatigued, not on our show, but just fatigued by what Trump does and his erratic lack of leadership in focus, we just chalk it off to, well, it's just another loss of a F-15 fighter jet. I mean, no, it's not. It's a reflection. It's a symptom of a disease. The erratic handling of his cabinet, the people that he picks to replace the people that he's firing, the decision. decision-making around Iran, the lack of stewardship over the economy, the lashing out at his enemies, and then at the same time undermining our democracy by doing a full frontal assault and I'm trying to do a massacre of mail-in ballots, which we'll talk about later today. This is, if Donald Trump, to end it this way, if Donald Trump believes that any of his arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, is going to have an impact on the midterms.

And from reporting, including with our new great Washington Bureau Chief, Scott McFarlane, who joined me on Legal AF yesterday for a great video, the Republicans know that this is going to be a bloodbath. And they're preparing for the blood bath at the midterms, not just the House, but the Senate too, which will have domino effect on people's decision-making all along the way, all the way to the United States. Supreme Court. Take a look at the, or I'll talk about the U.S. military aircraft losses that you

mentioned, either severely damaged or just totally destroyed, one F-35, four F-15E strike eagles, including the most recent F-15E that was hit in the past 24 hours, the A-10 Thunderbolt, an E3G century AWACs. That's the crown jewel of the Air Force, those AWACs. I mean, there's only like 18 of them in existence. Nine KC-135 tankers, 17 MQ9 Reaper drones, one UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, two H-H-60G pave hawk search and rescue helicopters, one CH-47 Chinook. 13 American military bases in the Middle East have been evacuated. Then, of course, the loss of life, which, you know, from what we understand,

It's been reported around 13 soldiers have been killed. But, you know, there are lots. I've seen lots of reporting that suggests the number could be higher. And normally I would say, well, I don't want to veer into that territory of potential speculation. And, you know, it's just sent com repeatedly was saying no aircrafts were shot down, you know, for example. That was like one of their last post. They've like pretty much gone silent for like a 48 hours. period and one of their last post was basically doing a fact check that that's totally false when

Iran was showing videos of them shooting down the planes and then it turns out that Iran videos are accurate and by the way you're being conservative because we haven't even included the soldiers who in training exercises to get ready for the war died on this side of the war absolutely Absolutely. And look, it was the editor at large for the Wall Street Journal, not Midas touch, although I agree with what he says, but in this sense, the editor at the wall, the editor at large of Wall Street Journal, that's something to the extent of, you know, it's kind of a sad and depressing thing that we almost have to trust what Iran is saying more than what's coming out of Donald Trump and his inner circle and what the White House is saying. That's the editor at large at the

Wall Street Journal, you know, basically saying that. And that's a. deeply problematic thing. I mean, let's be clear. There's propaganda in war all of the time. And one of the ways Iran is utilizing their propaganda, though, is trying to appeal to, you know, hey, you know, we're going to retaliate if you attack us and we're just going to do retaliation. That's tailored to what you do. So you attack a power plant. We attack one of yours. And, you know, and that's the type of language they're using while the Trump regime is out there, you know, saying we're going to, I mean, literally, we're going to rain hell down. We loiter over you and death from the sky.

We're going to bomb you into the Stone Age. We're going to destroy the country, decimate, decapitate. They don't have weapons anymore. They don't have the, what do they have, BB guns? I mean, it's just to watch and observe that. You know, it is so utterly, it's depressing. It's idiotic. It's dangerous.

You know, it's horrible. But, you know, the nexus also here, to the interest. intersection of law and politics, in addition to the fact that the law is unlawful, you know, you go to the people who Trump puts in these positions, the cabinet members, you mentioned, the Pam Bondies, you know, the other people, you know, how Donald Trump carries out a legal case is scattershot, it's all over the place, you know, it's relentless in its gaslighting and delays and being all over the place. And sometimes that has the ability to overwhelm an adversary because even though it's factually, legally, you know, wrong and a mess, you know,

Trump's okay being sanctioned over and over again or when it comes to war, taking casualties, you know, and just spewing a bunch of nonsense, hoping the other side just gets overwhelmed and tired. That's frankly been his legal strategy his entire life. But let's get into it because when people fight back against Donald Trump, you know, you see them win, right? Whether it's Abrago Garcia, you know, who fights back and wins, you know, whether it's E. Jean Carroll, fighting back and winning her trial. When you fight back against him, you know, individuals have shown that they can stand up to all of the resources that he throws their way. So let's talk about this ballroom, this ballroom ruling. So Judge Leon's a federal judge in the Washington, D.C.,

federal court. The National Historic Trust is the group that brought this lawsuit. The full name is the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States. They initially moved for a preliminary injunction a few weeks back. They lost. And then the judge gave them what's called leave to amend because they had to plead, put different legal claims in there because they kind of left certain things out. And Popak, you and I were pointing out in your hot takes and on legal AF what the right statutes were. And Judge Leon was like, okay, use these.

He basically was like, you cited some statutes, but you haven't really hit the core constitutional arguments that you needed to hit. Then they amended their complaint, moved again for a preliminary injunction. The Trump regime was like, you can't do it twice. And Judge Leon's like, why not? Yes, you can. I mean, you can amend a complaint that's allowed in the law, essentially. And then Judge Leon, based on the amended complaint, blocked any further construction or construction at all on the ballroom. less than until there's congressional authorization. I'll just read for you very quickly what Judge

Leon said, and then I'm going to toss it over to you, Popak. Judge Leon writes, the president of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of first families. He is not, however, the owner. Trump claims that Congress has given him the authority in existing statutes to construct his East Wing Ballroom Project and to do it with private funds. The plaintiff, the National Trust for the Historic Preservation in the United States claims the president has no such authority under existing statutes and that a preliminary injunction is necessary to avoid irreparable harm. I have concluded that the National Trust is likely to succeed on the merits because no statute comes close. Let me repeat that again. No statute even comes close to giving the president the authority

he claims to have. As such, I must therefore grant the National Trust motion for a preliminary injunction and the Ballroom Construction Project must stop until Congress's authorization is complete. In other words, you need congressional authorization. Popak, I want to show you this clip of what Donald Trump said after being handed that order and then get your take on it. Let's play what Donald Trump said in the Oval Office after getting an order that clearly said, you must stop building the ballroom unless and until you get congressional authorization. Here's how Trump responded. He's allowed to continue building as necessary. And when it talks about the safety and security of the White House and its grounds. So, just so you know, I wrote some of the thing down, we have a drone-proof

roof, and it talks about the president and a staff. Well, we're not a lot of bulletproof glass. The White House was built a long time ago. This has the highest level of, in fact, they call this graph, this grass, this, the glass, it's bulletproof and it's ballistic proof. It's very thick. It's like that. And it's going 45 feet high. And every window is covered. Every door is covered. The roof is drone proof. We have secure air handling systems. Popak toss it over to you. So Trump is saying, well, the judge did say he can't block national security issues. So the ballroom is actually my drone and ballistic missile protection room. Yeah. So Trump has another nasty habit. He's always compromising. national security when he tries to make a point. By the way, and I'm of a certain age, I've never seen print that large. I don't know, we could put that back up, just a screenshot,

a still of him reading from his notes, whoever wrote him in that Sharpie. That's some pretty big font there for Trump. Look, there's been a rumor, all kidding aside, that he can barely read. And certainly either he's purposely Trump, purposely misapprehending what the judge ruled. where he can't read and nobody around him will disabuse him of his thoughts. Trump's got another problem with the ballroom. He keeps shape-shifting on what's going on on that project. On Air Force One, right before the judge issued his order, he basically referred to the ballroom as his words,

a shed, just a shed, sitting over a presidential emergency operation center. I mean, there is a Pioch that's already under the White House since the 1950s, sort of the panic room for the president. And the situation room is down there as well. Every time he gets pushed, he says, it's not the ballroom. It's all of the emergency bunker that we're building underneath. The ballroom is just a shed. In other contexts, he tells the American people and anyone else who will listen,

this is a big, glorious ballroom that for 150 years presidents have wanted, and we need it. women don't get their height. This is his words, not mine. So women won't get their high heels caught in the grass in the now completely paved over Rose Garden area. Okay, let me explain. You're very kind today. Judge Leon, who I love, put 18 exclamation marks. 18. I've, I've been doing this for 35 years. I've seen an exclamation mark or two. on occasion, maybe twice a year, in a federal result. 18 in one, including a number of eye-rolling exclamations

where the judge restates the government's position about the ballroom, where they tried to compare when there was a paint job for the White House or shabby carpet removed or a fence that needed to be removed. And something else, and comparing that to a 90,000 square foot ballroom that's now attached to a White House or a White House that's now attached to a ballroom and say it's equivalent. And he would say, after he repeats that, the judge Leon would say, please, an exclamation mark, which is his version of an eye roll in him attacking their position.

He went over the statutes, as you outlined, that say you have to get congressional approval, maybe even appropriation funding, Trump's whole theory has been, if I take the money from big business, big tech, Apple and banks and things, to pay for not all of the $400 million, but some of it, I won't need congressional approval.

Under his theory, which is not a slippery slope, this is an exact extension of his argument, Donald Trump could have knocked over the entire White House, right? Claimed it was under national security reasons, He had to build a bigger bunker and rebuilt the White House and not have to get congressional approval. But Judge Leon reminds us in his order is that the president, as you said, as a temporary occupant, but Congress holds the keys to federal property.

They're the permanent landlord. And your money dodge, your money trick of taking private funds is not going to get you out from under the approval that you need from Congress. And he says at the end of his order, you read from the beginning, at the end of his order, he says, good news, president, my paraphrase, you've got time. Go to Congress. Go to Congress. Try to get an authorization. They may even find money for you.

But what you're doing now in comparing pools and, you know, every major project in the last 150 years for the White House has been approved by Congress, the North Portico, the South Portico. right the total renovation and remodeling and gutting during Truman's time to replace AC and and wiring and plumbing all approved even Donald Trump in 2019 and all he was doing is putting up a fence he knew he had to go to Congress to get an approval that took nine months and now that Donald Trump has figured out if he controls these two committees because some people coming into the show tonight be like, didn't they just approve this? Sort of. The Fine Arts Commission, completely under Donald Trump's control, spent a total of 12 minutes approving his plans. 12 minutes. I joked with people

that I had to appear before a planning board in New York to get some shutters and a flagpole approved. It took me a year and a half and a three-hour hearing. Okay. And I wasn't knocking down the East Wing, if you know what I mean. Then it goes. to the National Planning Commission, which on Thursday voted again in record time to approve the ballroom. But that's not congressional approval. These are just committees along the way that have to approve that Donald Trump has taken control of, much like the Kennedy Center and the rest. And so what you and I thought, and I did a hot take on this right before, right after, I think Monday or Tuesday, after our Saturday together last week, and I said, attend this

We know some judges watch our show. Attention, Judge Leon. As you know, there's a big hearing on Thursday, this past Thursday for the National Planning Commission. You've been sitting on your injunction since the beginning of March. Now it would be a good time. And all of a sudden, lo and behold,

he issues the injunction, the red tag stop work order. Now, back to your video clip. Trump fancies himself some sort of Bob the Builder. You know, I'm the builder. You know, I'm Robert Moses. I'm the ones who built the pyramids in Egypt. You know, he sees all things.

But he can't understand the comment that the judge made, which was, I acknowledge that there's a giant hole of Donald Trump's own making next to the White House. I'm stopping the vertical construction. And he lists all the things, landscaping, excavation, foundation work, vertical construction, everything related to the ballroom, except secure the site. secure. Now, if the judge have been guided by people who do construction law, and I've done a fair amount of construction law and litigation in my career, he would have used sort of a different term of art. He would have said, you're allowed to secure the site. Get a tarp over it. Get some sandbags out there.

Make sure nobody can crawl into the White House from a hole that you created. That's called securing the job site. That's the language he should have used. What he used was, if it relates to the security of the White House, you can do that, but don't do anything else towards contributing towards the ballroom. Donald Trump is like, security, ballroom? Oh, I can continue to build. So within an hour or two of that video you just played, Greg Craig, who's representing the National Trust, filed his motion for clarification, which is still sitting with the judge, which points to that very video you just played and says, see, Judge, he's intentionally misinterpreting your order, and he thinks he can still build his ballroom with your red tag on it. So now we're waiting, what we're waiting for,

and I'll do an update on Substack Live for Legal AF or something like that, when the judge issues his order of clarification. I think he should, and I'm glad that they ran in for a motion for clarification. I'll tell you why, and this is where you and I sort of nerd out on procedure. There was one error that was made in an order that you and I covered extensively when Judge Curry fired Lindsay Halligan, found her illegally appointed as a U.S. attorney. But the language that she used was a little bit loose about whether there needed to be an appointment if she was thrown out of the job and enjoined from going back to work and the process that was necessary or acknowledged to fill that spot and that kept Lindsay Halligan in her role for another four months as a Department

of Justice says that only applies to this case or that doesn't apply overall and this and that. All she had to do and all the lawyers really needed to do was file and I thought they were going to, file a motion for clarification to get Judge Curry to fix her order. Judges can do it sometimes on their own, like if they see it, but you should not, if you want to be, you got to be on top of things with the Trump administration. You can't, as you've said, you give him a finger, he takes your whole life. You give him a little bit of a vague language in an order. Oh, I can build the ballroom. So I, kudos to the lawyers for the National Trust to running back in quickly with a motion for clarification to get that order result. What's the end result? Trump, if he feels he's got the votes

and you think he'd do it now before the midterms, when he certainly's not going to have them, he would try to get the House in the Senate to approve this ballroom, maybe funding, did and blame the Democrats or whatever. Instead, or they could do it parallel at the same time, fight the case to the appellate court, which is the next stop based on the ruling by Judge Leon, and then maybe throw a hand grenade into the Supreme Court, which John Roberts definitely, as we'll see later in our next segments or so, definitely does not want or need about whether he's got the power to tear down half the White House as they're trying to get the heck out of Washington and drop their last order by June.

But that is, so there'll be that, there'll be weather. And I haven't heard of maybe, and maybe Scott McFarland when we have him back on and he does his reporting, maybe you can figure out from his visits on Capitol Hill whether there's any move afoot by the Trump administration to try to double track this and get the House and the Senate to approve the ballroom.

The end result is what you and I have said for the very beginning. Whether it's the ballroom or the Kennedy Center naming, or his attempts to put his name on a peace institute or on money or whatever he's trying to do, you know, as any super narcissist tries to do when they know they're about to get thrown out of office or be made lame duck. We're going to have to fix all this, you know, much like they tore tore down the Saddam Hussein statues after that regime fell. We're going to be left spending taxpayer dollars, you know, doing something with the ballroom, maybe putting the east wing back up,

you know, taking chisling the names off of everything, taking the ark to triumph down, whatever he's building now, we're going to have to live with and fix in the future. And he's just hoping that we don't have the political will or money to do it. I think we do. Oh, we're going to do it. It's going to be great. We are going to rejoice those moments where the statues come down and the names come down. Ooh, Midas Touch Network will be right there with our Washington, D.C. Bureau, with the people, as always.

One other thing I want to point out, you know, Donald Trump's been lying and saying that the funds are coming from all private donors and that there's no public funds in all of us. First off, that doesn't matter in the analysis. You can't usurp congressional's power of the purse. And this is one of the things that Judge Leon said by having private individuals, billionaire buddies of yours, right-wing oligarchs, you know, fund this thing. By the way, Congress, if they want to, can allow those private right-wing oligarch people to fund it, but it's got to be codified in a law so that we know it's actually happening, right? And it's not BS and it's just being,

we're being told that's what happening, but that's not what's happening. So if Donald Trump's just saying the ballroom is a shed and the real purpose is the bunker and it's all this national security purposes, we shouldn't have right-wing oligarchs funding the national security apparatus. And that's not what they're doing.

I mean, we likely know that I'm sure there's hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money that's going into this new bunker and that's going into why White House renovations. And by the way, when you looked at Donald Trump's latest 2027 budget where it has $1.5 trillion in military spending while cutting major social programs and health care and housing and urban development programs to help low income people get houses and cuts FEMA and it cuts the NIH and so many other things, it has around $350 million, interesting number,

because it's right around the number that Donald Trump said the East Ballroom, the East Wing Ballroom renovations would be, has about $350 million for renovations, another $150 million for miscellaneous renovations. And so where's that money going to? So a lot of money is going to White House renovations that's in that 2027 budget, and that doesn't even include the bunker, because I think those things would be included in the military appropriations portion in that $1.5 trillion number, which increases the military budget 40% from the prior year. year, basically 100% from when Biden was in office. And it's the biggest year-over-year increase in military spending since World War II.

And Donald Trump was on video saying, we don't have enough money for health care. We don't have enough money for social programs. We're a big country. Okay. We have to spend the money on war, right? A direct quote from Donald Trump at the end of last week. All right, let's take our first break of the show. If you or someone you know has been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident,

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So Pam Bondi, Pam Bondi was fired this past week, according to reports. She was begging to keep her job. Apparently Donald Trump told her right before he gave that disastrous. address to the nation regarding the war in Iran, whatever the hell that was supposed to be. He was seen in a car with Bondi earlier in the day, and then he apparently told her right before that speech the next morning he fired her, that night he fired her, and then it was announced publicly. And again, we heard that she was begging for her job, please don't do this, please don't fire

me. But Pam Bondi was fired. There were people who were saying, ah, maybe it's because she tipped off Eric Swalwell about an FBI investigation or the FBI was going to release an investigative file into Swalwell's background or with a Chinese spy or something, whatever they attack Swalwell for. Swalwell's like, you think I'm talking to Bondi? Like, what are you talking about? Like, that never, that never happened. I mean, but I think we all know what the issue was. I mean, Bondi was not able to cover up the Epstein files, the way Donald Trump thought she was going to do,

the cover up was botched. And this was an attempt to be like, all right, Bondi's gone, So I guess we just don't have to talk about Epstein anymore, right? We've moved beyond that. And, you know, the Democrats, to their credit right away came out with statements saying, nope, Pam Bondi is still under subpoena, not in her capacity as Attorney General, as the name Pam Bondi. She needs to show up before the House Oversight Committee on April 14. She doesn't get out of that deposition just because she got fired.

And also, we're not going to stop investigating the Epstein files and digging up the cover-up. And there are still millions of documents that have not been produced that are still being covered up. There are still major portions of the investigation that are being covered up. I mean, we were talking about like money laundering investigations into Epstein. That whole file apparently has been covered up, drug trafficking investigations into Epstein that ran adjacent to his child sex trafficking ring. Same thing with his money laundering ring, that entire investigation and the portions therein, you know, being covered up. And so Pam Bondi is out. Attorney General is now an acting attorney general, Todd Blanche. People were saying, ah, is it going to be Lee Zeldin, the EPA director? Is he going to be the next attorney general?

Whoever becomes the AG has to be Senate confirmed. And obviously, lots of people feel that Todd Blanche based upon his involvement in covering up the Epstein Files and being Donald Trump's former criminal defense attorney and working with Gilane Maxwell to move her into club. Fed over in Camp Bryant in Texas and all of the things that he said that he's really not someone the Senate can confirm and that his hearing for a confirmation if Trump tried to make him, the attorney general would be a complete and utter disaster. But we'll keep you posted there. Meanwhile, you had lots of federal prosecutors across the country who are the career prosecutors who have not quit or been fired rejoicing that Pam Bondi's gone. They were posting photos or sending photos to the media of throwing out Pam Bondi's portrait, and they threw out her portrait right away.

One of the stories Pam Bondi would always try to tell is that when she first became Attorney General, she, like, saw that Biden's portrait and Merrick Arland had not been taken down in one of the offices. And so she took it down herself, and then she, like, basically disciplined and retaliated against one of the top career federal prosecutors who dealt with national security issues

for and blamed that guy for keeping the portraits up. And that was kind of a story that was told amongst the federal prosecutorial community right away about just what an evil individual that she was. But her legacy will always be shame and, you know, all the disgusting things she did most prominently covering up the child sex trafficking ring. But I'll show you what Todd Blanche said, you know, even when you have Jesse Waters, kind of the Fox chief propagandist right now telling, you. you know, looking at the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, like, I'm not sure you

really understand the way people feel about these Epstein files. I'll show you what Todd Blanche had to say with Jesse Waters right after the news of Pam Bondi being fired. Here's what Todd Blanche said about the Epstein files. Let's play. Now, the Epstein files, you'd agree not handled well? And I don't, first of all, I have never heard President Trump say that the Attorney General was anything that happened to her had anything to do with the Epstein Files. And so look, the Epstein Files has been a saga that's lasted for the entire, for the past year. And what happened when the President signed the Transparency Act is the Department of Justice has now released all the files with respect to the Epstein saga. And the Attorney General Bondi and I appeared in front of Congress voluntarily a couple weeks ago to answer any questions they had.

We have made every single congressman, senator, available to come and see any document redacted, unredacted that they want. And so I think that to the extent that the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward. Michael Popak, what do you make of it all? I think one of the reasons that people, we're going to go through the reasons Pam Bondi was fired, but I think one of the reasons come to legal AF and trust what you and I do is, to get some value add, right? You've heard the headline, Pam Bondi out, right? But the ramifications of that, the dominoes from that, the impact politically and legally and our legal institutions of it, I think that's what people want to hear. I'll try to cover that here. Pam Bondi to refute the talking point from MAGA and even from Donald Trump, she died the death of a thousand paper cuts because

she's incompetent. And Donald Trump at least needed the head, no, the, the, the imaginary head of the Department of Justice, because Donald Trump has made it clear that he is the head of the Department of Justice, that he is the chief law enforcement officer. He has said it. And if people found that unsettling, when the criminal in chief, felon in chief, told the American people, good news, everybody, I'm in charge of the Department of Justice. There is no barrier, there is no independence, it is an executive branch office, it will sit in the White House literally and meet with me about cases and about outcomes. And Pam Bondi will be my communicator about these issues. And she's a terrible communicator. He knew that though.

I think loyalty got her the job. Not the first choice. You know, when you and I did our reporting, about the transition team, the first choice on the org chart for the head of the Department of Justice was Aileen Cannon. It was leaked, the list was leaked, never denied by the transition team, let alone Judge Cannon. We'll talk about her when we get to the Supreme Court next. And then when that didn't pan out, with Todd Blanche as the number two even then, despite him trying out for the job, for the moment he left Codwalter, Wickersham, and Tass. a big white shoe firm in New York, but they didn't want him to represent Donald Trump, setting up his own shop with Emil Bovi to represent Donald Trump. And look, let's give credit

where creditors do, even if it's on the side of darkness. He did a good job for Donald Trump. You know, he, Donald Trump gets convicted of 34 felony counts, but, you know, really with the reelection and the sentencing, you know, other than having it permanently branded on him historically, he survived that. The other criminal prosecutor, prosecutions either got dismissed through Judge Cannon or got blocked by the new Department of Justice after Donald Trump won a second term. And he got him immunity being on the team that argued at the United States Supreme Court and got him a declaration by the Supreme Court that he's not an insurrectionist and that wouldn't be enough to keep him off the ballot. So by all accounts, Todd Blanche, other than not being as MAGA as MAGA would like and suspicions that he's been a Democrat, whole time as opposed to being what he calls himself a principled conservative. He's been trying

out since day one. Even when he was interviewed, I think, in New York Magazine or New Yorker magazine about why did you join Donald Trump? Why wouldn't you? And implicit was, I want to be attorney generals. He gets passed over. And even then, it's not Pam Bondi number two. It's Mac Gates. We'll talk about a Florida connection for Donald Trump and Attorney General's Attorney's General. Matt Gates, who had a sticky little problem of child sex trafficking allegations and had a never got through the, never got to the confirmation process. And then it was, again, passed over of Todd Blanche, Pam Bondi,

an impeachment lawyer and attorney general in Florida at one time, not a federal prosecutor, not a federal anything. And he needed her to at least be a good communicator. She's terrible. For all the grief that Kamala Harris took, unwarranted for being, you know, oh, a word salad, you never can understand anything she says. Pam Bondi's worse. Pambani has been worse. And this, even though you and I said this performative act of hers that met its match in Congress in the House and the Senate during hearings, in which she came with her burn book.

And instead of answering questions, just attacking the person, asking the question, and then reeling off. think we'll talk about it later reeling off she can't even get it right reeling off statistics about the economy instead of answering questions about the Epstein matter um all came to a head you and you and i said why is she doing that it's not helping in the amerit the eyes of the american people or otherwise he said oh she has an audience of one it's Donald trump but that works the other way too that audience of one did not think she did well in those and i think the couple of final nails in the coffin is when she ran down to Congress two weeks ago to try to cut off at the pass,

Representative Comer's, the chair of the Oversight Committee, subpoenaed to her about the Epstein matter and said, and this obviously choreographed with Comer, I'll go down with Todd Blanche and I'll get in a room with the Democrats and we'll just let them answer questions, ask the questions.

And the only question that the Democrats had, led by people like Representative Summer Lee, and others was you're showing up for the 14th for your sworn-in testimony, right? And she wouldn't give a straight answer. And the whole thing devolved into a screaming match with her, and the Republicans and the Democrats getting the better of her, Summer Lee being called the B-word or the equivalent of it by Comer, the whole thing looked terrible.

And that might have been one of the last straws for Pam Bondi. But if you want to go back further and go back to the Vanity Fair interview that Susie Wiles gave, the chief of staff, even though supposedly she's friends with Bondi, that was damning,

what we call damning faint praise when she said effectively, Pam Bondi did not cover herself in glory with the way she handled the Epstein files. This was after Pam Bondi said, and I've got the list, the client list right here, on my desk, you know, and then six months later, she's been backtracking ever since.

So when you lose Susie Wiles, which apparently she did, you lose Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, which she had, you lose the right-wing social media MAGA influencers like Laura Lumer, who's been calling her Pam Blondie and calling for her head since the beginning of the administration, over the Epstein file of handling or mishandling. When you lose all these groups, then who is your support group? And this is a message to women who want to work for Donald Trump, future attorneys general that want to work for Donald Trump. You know, it's a short-term gig. And if you're a woman, it's even a shorter-term gig in the MAGA-Trump world. So Bondi goes. The question is now, who's going to replace her as Donald Trump, and we'll talk

about in the Supreme Court segment also seems to be rocking the boat to get another pick on the United States Supreme Court. There might be some overlapping lists here. But the problem that they have is that many of the people on the short list for the Attorney General, because when Donald Trump announced that Todd Blanche would be the interim Attorney General, he did not end the race to replace his coach by saying, and I'm nominating him to be confirmed in the Senate to have the job. And by the way, he probably would get confirmed in this particular Senate, Todd Blanche, I mean. He didn't say that. He's letting it play out for another Hunger Games race to see who's going to kiss enough

but for Donald Trump to get the job. But he's got a major Tom Tillis problem. Yes, the same Tom Tillis that has effectively been blocking his Federal Reserve chair pick, Kevin Warsh, although there's going to be in mid-April, apparently some sort of confirmation process starting. But Tom Tillis has said two things lately that matter. A Republican who doesn't care because he's not running for reelection. One, I'm not going to vote for your Fed Reserve chair pick.

And that ends for Jay Powell on the 15th of May unless you clear him and kill that criminal investigation of J. Powell for something wrongdoing related to testimony in Congress or construction of the building for the Federal Reserve. And he just said, I'll play the clip in a second, I'm not going to vote. I'm going to, he's on the Judiciary Committee as well. I'm going to step over with the Democrats and block any attorney general candidate that's a election denier or Jad 6 propagandist. Let's play that clip. Two pieces. One is the investigation of Jerome Powell, there will not be another Fed chair confirmed until that's disposed of

or until for the first time since the allegations were made public, they could actually prove there's even a scintilla of criminal activity. We have seven Republican members of the banking committee saying there wasn't. Now, separate matter, for me, the threshold for somebody following Pam Bondi ends the moment I hear they said one thing that excused the events of January the 6th. I've been very clear on that. So I hope whoever they have in mind to follow General Bondi was very clear. clear-eyed on my position on January the 6th. That's why I didn't support two other nominees who

were coming through Judiciary Committee, and I won't support any nominee who thought that any element of January 6 was excused. Yeah, so when you look at that list, it shortens the list considerably. The list that seems to be accumulating, and you and I know some of these people, Harmeet, Dylan, who's been trying out for Attorney General for a long, long time. Full disclosure, I litigated a case with her once, a couple of cases with her, actually. She's a the Civil Rights Division, headed that division, completely destroyed what the Civil Rights Division has ever been about since its founding in the 1950s, and everybody has left streaming having worked there. But she's been angling for that job since she lost the Republican National Committee

chairmanship position. Lee Zeldon, talk about continuing the political hackism of the Department of Justice. Lee Zeldon, a little-known congressman from Long Island. I don't know. maybe he was in the brothers district at one time uh now the EPA administrator who just spends his entire time getting rid of all the protections uh that that give us clean air and clean water he's yes he's a lawyer but no he's never practiced in federal court at best he's been a military lawyer working for the jack core but he's got the chops for being a pit bull for donald Trump so you got lee zeldon you've got you've got uh that person i don't think aileen cannon is going to give up her lifetime appointment federal job for the short-term gig of being an attorney general because

I think she's holding out for the Supreme Court position. I don't think they take Emil Bovi back off the Third Circuit Court of Appeals because I think they're saving him for potentially being on the United States Supreme Court. Mike Lee, Senator from Utah, he's not given up his day job in his senator position to be, you know, maybe a six months or a year of an attorney general given the lifespan of Donald Trump's Attorney's General. It's a thankless job, as you can see. So you've got to pick somebody who sees this as a leg up on their career. Turning to Florida for a minute,

I do have a dark horse candidate in Jason Redding Kenyones, who's the U.S. Attorney Southern District of Florida, who Donald Trump has been using to go after his political targets, like Comey again and John Brennan again. He's a former short-term Miami state judge. He was in a circuit court judge. He was in the military. I think he was in the Marines.

He was in the U.S. Attorney's Office. He's relatively the right age. I could see Cognos going. I'll take it as a stepping stone to some other things in the MAGO world. There's other people that have been considered. And Todd Blanche is still apparently in the running, although not trusted by the inner inner circle for Donald Trump. You and I talked about I caught a shocking podcast clip when I was doing research for another video of Peter Ticketon, the 80-something-year-old former Military Academy high school roommate of Donald Trump, who Trump often uses to take cases that no other self-respecting lawyer will take in the MAGO world.

And I was shocked to see him on, I don't know if it was on the, I won't name the podcast. Yes, it's ones that nobody watches. But he did say that Pam Bondi's not to blame for the failures of the Department of Justice. It was Todd Blanche and not going after the political enemies of Donald Trump, which is a talking point of MAGA, but more importantly, Tickerton doesn't say anything unless Donald Trump lets him say it. He obviously wanted to destabilize or at least signal to Todd Blanche that, you know, you got a lot of work to do to get back into my loyal camp before. I even consider you for Attorney General.

We'll continue to follow it every step of the way here on Legal A.F. Comprehensive overview right there by Michael Popak. I'm going to take a quick break right now. Just remind everybody, if you or anyone you know has been involved in an auto accident, a trucking accident, if you've been injured by the negligence of somebody else, or especially a company or truck or something belonging to a company, injured you, reach out to the Popock firm. Call or text 877 Popok A.F.

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which is like the Oscars for podcast. Both Legal A.F is up for best podcast in news and a show that I do on Midas where I kind of ride solo called The Intersection is up for Best New Podcast in News. It's now down to a popular vote, if you will. It's the People's Voice Award. We are currently number one with 12 days,

to go, but we need and would love to get that award and it gives you the ability. Early voting is open. We're always in favor of early voting here on Might as Touch. Legal AF. The links are below, 12 days to go. And if we win, we go to New York and accept the award on our audience's behalf. And it gives me an opportunity to reunite with the brothers. Let's do it, everybody.

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Thank you to all of our sponsors for supporting the show. Let's just get right into it. Michael Popock. There was oral arguments this week. The case for the United States Supreme Court involving Donald Trump trying to overturn the 14th Amendment via an executive order. Just the fact that I even have to say that sentence that you're trying to overrule a constitutional amendment via an executive order. So everybody knows executive orders are not laws. They're just supposed to be the interpretation of the executive branch, how existing laws should be implemented.

to the extent to which something is interpreted, has to be within the bounds of a law. So yet alone, we're talking about using an executive order to try to say the 14th Amendment, doesn't say what the 14th Amendment says, without even me telling you what the 14th Amendment says, the very structure of that concept, that an executive order is trying to overrule an amendment

is something that should tell you already, that it's the height of frivolous. But let me just read for you what the 14th Amendment says, Section 1, all persons born are naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the states wherein they reside. It also goes on to state. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges

or immunities of citizens of the United States. And so based on that interpretation, Donald Trump reads the words the opposite of what it says, and says if you're born here, that does not make you a citizen. If you were born from somebody who was a migrant who was here, who was not a citizen at the time that they gave birth, and you just can see for yourself or hear for yourself what the 14th Amendment says. So all of the courts across the country rejected Donald Trump's executive order,

and they blocked it. Donald Trump appealed, filed what's called a petition for certiorari, all the way to the Supreme Court. Some people were surprised that the Supreme Court even took oral argument on it because it's so frivolous. Although I think given perhaps the cloud hanging over so many people's head, the ramifications of such a horrific interpretation, you know, the Supreme Court thought that they should hear it. So they heard oral arguments this week.

Donald Trump said he was going to attend it. So Donald Trump showed up there trying to act all tough and strong. He was there while his solicitor general, which is like one of the top positions at the Department of Justice, they're responsible for doing oral arguments and arguing and briefing before the Supreme Court. It's called the Solicitor General. That's the position. The guy who is in that position right now is somebody by the name of John Sauer. So Donald Trump listened to John Sauer's oral argument, and the Supreme Court was not having any of it and basically said, yeah, but that's not what the Constitution says. And the Supreme Court would ask him questions too. Like, so is your view that like Native Americans and indigenous people here are not actually citizens? And Donald Trump's Solicitor General was like, huh, I never thought about it that way. So maybe they're not.

I don't know. There were just some ridiculous moments. Everyone knew. I don't know if it's going to be a nine to zero ruling or a seven to two ruling or eight to one ruling. I'll get your take on at Popak. But Trump's going to lose this one and lose it big. And this was one of like, we talked about like his ballroom.

That's like the main thing. And he loves and he loves harassing people who are here who look different than him. And so this is also like one of the things he wanted to do is terrorize and torture people who are citizens here and remove birthright citizenship as a as a avenue for citizenship. I'll just show you two portions that I found notable before throwing it to you, Popak, from this oral argument that happened this week. And then as Donald Trump heard where this is going, he threw a tantrum and then just walked out in the middle of the argument before the ACLU lawyer made her argument. And it's like, dude, you showed up in the Supreme, like it's such loser behavior going back to the beginning. It's like you don't need to show up, number one. But if you're going to show up, just be a decent human being.

You know, it's not like these oral arguments last hours. I mean, at most they go 90 minutes, oftentimes shorter. Your lawyer argued. You sit there. Be respectful. Let the other lawyer make the argument. You know, and then you leave when it's done. But he stormed out in the middle of it through a tantrum.

It's just, again, the behavior is objectively just a way loser human beings behave. You know, and he's a loser. He's been a lifelong loser. He's just a lifelong, terrible, vile piece of trash. His entire life who fraud, defrauded people, bankrupted things, screwed people over, lied about everything. He's doing it again. Let me go to those two notable points. points right here. This is when Justice Roberts was asking John Sauer. Well, what about the fact that

the Constitution says nothing that you are claiming it says? How about the Constitution as a document? Here, let's play this clip. 500 birth tourism companies in the People's Republic of China whose business is to bring people here to give birth and return to that nation. Having said all that, you do agree that that has no impact on the legal analysis before. I think it's, I quote what Justice Scalia said in his Hamdan descent where they had, where, like, their interpretation has these implications that could not possibly have been approved by the 19th century framers of this amendment.

I think that shows that they made a mess, their interpretation has made a mess of the provision. Well, it certainly wasn't a problem in the 19th century. No, but of course, we're in a new world now, as Justice Alito pointed out to, where eight billion people are one plane right away from having a child who's a U.S. citizen. Well, it's a new world. It's the same constitution. It is. And then I'll show you another clip right here as well. Let's take a look at where one of the justices asked him about, so what's your view about Justice Gorsuch?

Do you think Native American, a justice who Donald Trump appointed? Do you think Native Americans are birthright citizens under your test? Your play this clip. Do you think Native Americans today are birthright? citizens under your test and of your friends test? I think so. I mean, obviously, have been granted citizenship by statute. Put aside the statute. You think they're birthright citizens? No, I think the clear understanding that everybody agrees in the congressional debates

is that the children of tribal Indians are not birthright citizens. I understand that's what they said, but your test is the domicile of the parents. And that would be the test you'd have us apply today, right? Yes, yes. So a tribal Indian, for example, gives up allegiance to born today, birthright citizens? I think so on our test. They're lawfully domiciled here.

I have to think that through, but that's my reaction. I'll take the yes. That's all right. Michael Popat. I'll have to think it through. No, you're supposed to think it through before you file your papers, and as you're standing in oral argument, even John Sauer, the Solicitor General, who will say anything,

even if it means undermining his credibility and refusing to acknowledge illogic in his own argument, wasn't prepared for this or a purpose, because there's no argument. You played where I said from John Roberts the moment. And it happened early on, and it was right around that time that Donald Trump stood up and walked out, setting history twice, first sitting president

to have attended oral argument. and first sitting president to ever walk out as his hand-picked Supreme Court justices, rebuked him to his face while he was there, and then fired Pam Bondi on the way in. It was a very momentous day that day. But I pointed to that same clip when John Sauer said, I think I'll go down in history, as the loser argument that it is. Well, there's, there are, you know, 8 billion people that are only one plane-line plane ride away from U.S. citizenship, and it's a whole new world order, but it's the same old

Constitution. For me, that was the weekend at Bernie's moment. He was, John Roberts was dead at that, I mean, John Sauer was dead at that moment in response to John Roberts. You know, you could, I joke that it reminded me of the phrase that, that Senator Kennedy used against Christy Knoem, when she testified about no competitive bidding or competitive bidding for her ad campaign that got her fired from the, from the Homeland Security. that she's as dead as fried chicken. He was as dead as fried chicken at that moment. But it got worse, everybody.

And the bookends for me, and I'll just summarize it without playing it, is when the inevitably, when the Wong Kim Arc case came up, see as complicated as Supreme Court cases can be in oral arguments, this one wasn't. There were four big pieces of paper. I joked in one of my hot takes. It's not like one of these 2,000 piece. jigswap puzzles of put the Statue of Liberty together. There's like four big, four big issues here.

That's how simple the puzzle was. It was the 14th Amendment in the language that you read. It was a statute where Congress codified who is a citizen cribbing exactly, copying and pasting the exact language of the 14th Amendment in 1940 and then recodifying it in 1952, which completely undermines the argument that Donald Trump has made and Sauer tried to make, which is this constitutional provision is for slave babies. That's Trump's words, not mine. Babies of slaves. Look at the date, Donald Trump said in a social media posting. This has to do with descendants of slaves, not anyone else.

Well, the problem with that is it says a person, which is when a drafter or framer of the Constitution or amendment uses the term a person. It is the broadest definition and meaning. It means everybody that's in the United States, regardless of their immigration status or whether their parents are U.S., it's the person in the United States. And so you may want to, you could say maybe in 1868 when the Reconstruction Amendments came out,

of which the 14th Amendment is won. All right, on the minds of the legislators, on the amendment drafters was the newly-futable. now black Americans and a famous decision, infamous decision from the United States Supreme Court at the time called Dred Scott, which even to this day, you know, in when they teach it in law school, you hear gasps in the room, that that was the Supreme Court's position that human beings in America who happen to be black and slaves, having been brought by, having been brought into involuntary servitude by Americans, would now be considered not to be American citizens. So, or human beings at all. So yes, that's where that amendment came from. But then how do you describe a 1940s Congress during the height of the World War II? They weren't worried about the descendants of slaves or black or a slave babies. How about 1952 during the Korean War? They weren't thinking about that either. So those are three big pieces of paper. And the last one is the case from

1898, which is the Wong Kim Ark case. And in Wang Kim Ark, a baby born in San Francisco, to Chinese parents when he was in his 20s, left the country to go to China to visit family and come back. When he came back, he said, you're not an American citizen. He said, I was born in San Francisco. They said, yeah, but your parents are Chinese. We're not letting you be an American citizen because there was a lot of, as there is today, a lot of anti-Chinese sentiment then. Chinese had, much like the black, what became black Americans, were put into involuntary servitude, many of them, to build the railroads in America, and they were not well-liked, to say the least, in America. And so that went up to the Supreme Court, and Justice Gray famously wrote

with an analysis that's right on point that Wong Kim Arc is an American citizen with birthright citizenship. That's the case. Now, what you and I had hoped is that why are they even taking this case? just say the 1898 precedent stands or the federal law and the executive order violates both of those and be done with it and don't take the case. But no, because the Trump administration was pushing, this is the bulwark of our immigration policy, you must take this case.

They took the effing case. We were a little worried, a little white knuckle moment. What are they going to do? I could watch Roberts, watch Amy Coney Barrett. What I didn't know is how quickly Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would come to the rescue of the Constitution. And so there was this moment about this Wang Kim Hart case where, and I interviewed the American Civil Liberties Union deputy director of Immigration Rights Project a day before the oral argument about Cecilia Wong. No, I don't think a relation, because I think she spells it WANG. Cecilia Wong was the advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union against John Sauer. And there's this amazing moment where there's actually laughter. You know, John Sauer's position.

effectively got people laughed at it when when cabinow of all people said to cecilia let me ask you a question if we were to find that the wang kim ark case from 1898 is dispositive and the precedent here be a pretty short ruling uh it would be a pretty short ruling right that would be the easy way to handle this case right and she waited like a beat, like a comedic beat, and she said, yes. And the entire, I don't know if that's the moment Trump walked out, everybody laughed because of the, you know, brevity is the soul of wit. She just came, you know, that was like a, that was an answer 30 years in the making with her

law career, but that was the right answer. And then just moments later, as a bookend, Gorsuch is going back and forth as you played one clip with John Sauer. And John Sauer, knowing that he got hurt and you and I've been advocates before appellate courts and you know when you get hurt and you know what you got to deal with the next time you get up and knowing that he got hurt on the Wong Kim arc precedent decided to try to use it to his advantage and he got one second into that. He said, well in the Wang Kim art case and Gorsuch stopped him and said, I don't think you should be using the Wong Kim arc case to support your position. So I'm like, okay. So let's just do the math. Donald Trump has to get to five. He's to count to five. I'm not even sure how he counts to three.

We got Sotomayor, Katanji Brown Jackson, who had a great line in there and talk about an Orwellian vision. She said, I'm confused. Are we supposed to have pregnant women come in for depositions to talk about their allegiance or that they're going to be subject to the law? Like another, I started a picture, you know, a maternity ward attached to a conference center where you whisk these women in, you know, to have depositions under oath. And of course, John Sauer had no good answer for it for this thing that was pointed out by Katanji Brown Jackson. So Sotomayor, Katanji Brown Jackson and Kagan, three votes against ripping out the 14th Amendment out of the Constitution by executive order. And then you've got wherever Alito and Thomas are. Interestingly enough, besides Donald Trump arriving at this,

he threatened to go to the tariffs oral argument. He went to this one. The first question out of the box was by Thomas, Clarence Thomas, African-American, who asked the question about Dread Scott, that case I told you about earlier, to kick things off. Didn't really go anywhere because there's not much to go with that based on you know to try to give a historical reference to this So let's put Thomas out there

Maybe even Alito we'll talk about him in a minute too out there Gorsuch, Kavanaugh Amy Coney Barrett Roberts I think slide over maybe we lose one I doubt it I think it's eight to one seven to two And yes we should and I want people who are in favor of the democracy the way we understand it to be encouraged when we talk about things like this but keep it in perspective the perspective is that in 90% of the emergency docket cases for this term that they've sided with the Trump administration they let him make a

shambles of the federal government destroy the relationship between the federal government funding and the states and by extension voters destroyed federal programs that matter to people and make their life have dignity and affordability. Destroyed our standing around the world, including through U.S. aid, let him fire everybody in the executive branch, and of course, give him immunity and let him run into action, probably side against on voting mail-in ballots, having a grace period by which they can still be counted after arrival,

if they've been voted on in time, and probably destroy the last semblance of voting rights act. So we're still waiting on some ruling. Sure, we'll probably get a ruling that Donald Trump can't fire Lisa Cook on the Federal Reserve the way he did it. And we'll get this ruling and we got the tariff ruling and a couple of other things. But by and large, not a great term for the democracy, the way we talk about it. And something I'll just touch on, you know, we had the Salazar,

case that came out two days earlier, that was actually eight to one, but with everybody in the eight except for Kataji Brown Jackson to find that a state medical body that regulates like psychotherapy and psychiatrists can't prevent conversion therapy. That's where a therapist tells somebody that it's bad to be gay or transgender and let me tell you why and try to convert them. And that led to a Syrian, Gorsuch wrote the decision on that, and that became a whole First Amendment speech thing, which I don't even think is appropriate.

I sided with Katanji Brown Jackson. It would be like, my speech is regulated. I'm a lawyer. You're a lawyer. You don't get to tell people how to commit a crime. You don't get, you know, my speech gets regulated all the time. A pilot in an airplane, you know, doesn't get to say, hey, I'm going to F with the passengers now.

Hey, let's take a vote. I'll section, aisle seats first. Who wants me to slam into this mountain? Yeah, that you know, First Amendment. No, no. There's just certain things that get to be regulated. And so we've had some bad things. So when we want to put things in perspective, we don't want to hand ring all the time and be the angel of death all the time.

And when things go in our favor, we want to talk about it and maybe even celebrate it and talk about the ramifications of it. But we also have to put it into the context that you and I do hourly, daily and podcast here on Legal AF. There you have it. of the episode, Trump losing his AG, Trump losing his ballroom, Trump losing oral arguments. You know, look, the Supreme Court, though, has given him way too much. And so, you know, the fight continues. It's why you got to keep on fighting and not lose hope, you know, and just got to keep your integrity. Don't bend to fascism. Keep on fighting. I know it's been tough, but, you know, The fight that you've been in is actually showing results.

And there's going to be, sadly, a lot more bad rulings along the way. There's going to be some good rulings along the way. But you keep applying the pressure, right? Pam Bondi fired. Christy Noem fired. Who's going to be fired next? Is it going to be Lori Chavez-Darimmer? Is it going to be Howard Lutnik?

Who else from the Epstein class goes next? Your pressure is working, right? And part of applying the right type of pressure, though, is also understanding the legal frameworks, the legal structure, what's going on behind the scenes. So we could all be very informed citizens. And that's what we do here on legal AF every single weekend. And of course, on the legal AF YouTube channel every single day. Popak, people want to vote for that legal AF Webby Award. What do they do? Yeah, thanks, Penn. They go. We have 12 more days. left until voting ends. This is for the People's Voice Award, which is you deciding who's going to be the top podcast in America for the Webby Awards. Intersection is up for best new podcast

for news and LegalAF is up for best podcast for news. We're currently in the lead among the five final finalists, but it's all by popular vote. It's all by the vote of our audience. And here's an opportunity for you to actually, you know, you like our podcast. You. You're like to keep them on the air here's a way to contribute when we hopefully announced that we won the wendy award we'll accept it on your behalf we always do all of that there's a committee that's also gonna go to award some awards as well but to be frank i'd like to win the uh the people's voice award because it's really a reflection of our audience the fellowship of the community that we've built here and uh links are below to do the voting 12 more days everybody make sure you subscribe to the

legal a f youtube channel and the legal a f sub stack let's get those channels to remain at number one, and let's get those channels continuing to grow. And then also if you or someone you know have been injured in a car accident, auto accident, or injured by the negligence of a company or the negligence caused by some other entity or somebody else, call 877 Popak AF or text 877 Popak AF or visit thepopokfirm.com. Go to thepopokfirm.com. They've got people taking phone calls in all states. Consultation is free.

You may know someone who are family or going through something really tragic and catastrophic. They're looking for a lawyer. Tell them to reach out to Michael Popok. Michael's representing a lot of people who listen and watch Legal AF. 877 Popok AF. Go to the Popock Firm.com. Thanks everybody so much for watching this episode of Legal AF. Stay in the fight.

We're in this together. We'll see you next time on LegalAF.