Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 11/8/2025

Episode Date: November 9, 2025

Trump’s callous attack on the poor, and his failed economy have been brought into stark relief by the Shutdown. And as Trump makes clueless statements about a “golden era” for the economy, the voters know better.  That attack on struggling Americans and those that oppose his policies made their way into Federal Courts across America this past week, as Trump and his DOJ suffered losses in 9 cases in 8 courts from Rhode Island to Oregon.  Michael Popok solo hosts the Legal AF Podcast tonight to brief the audience on critical developments you need to know about at the Supreme Court, the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and Federal Courts in Oregon, Rhode Island, DC, Virginia, South Carolina, and Chicago. Support Our Sponsors: 
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Those in opposition to Donald Trump have gotten their groove back, and this week shows it. It's not just on Tuesday night, the shalacking, the wipeout for the Republican Party that happened. It's not just that. It's nine different court orders and judgments and verdicts against the Trump administration, all this week. It's the polling numbers. It is the opponents of Donald Trump turning his economic playbook against him.

Things have changed in a year. Donald Trump didn't get the memo. He's walking around clueless and out of touch. He has a Biden problem, and I'll talk about it. That was demonstrated on election night as whether you're progressive Democrats or you are moderate Democrats, you won and won big,

on Tuesday night. And it's because you're focused on kitchen table politics. You're focused on the people. You're focused on the people's checkbooks and pocketbooks and purses and grocery wagons. Every day that the shutdown continues, it is on a weekly basis $15 billion hit to our economy every week that the government stays shut. And now that has provided. the stark contrast we've needed as opponents of Donald Trump

to show that he doesn't care about the middle class. He doesn't care about, on the divide between rich and poor, he cares only about the rich because the poor are suffering as he trolls 42 million people who are below the poverty line in his economy and denies them full anti-hunger payments, snap payments, which we're going to talk about tonight. the shutdown, which has impacted everyone's health care. It has impacted airline travel.

It has impacted government entitlement payments to people on the social safety net that need it. Never has there been a starker contrast between the haves and the have-nots, between the democratic ideals and the Republican MAGA-depraved politics. and principles. As Donald Trump fiddles as the American economy and the middle class and the poor burn, as he parties it up in Mara Lago, he's not even in Washington right now to negotiate, to

reopen the government. He's at Mara Lago playing golf, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on his golf game with taxpayer expenses instead of doing the hard work of governing and leading from the front. He's not even leading from behind. That suggests he's even in the line. He has abdicated his responsibility. He's busy raising money in Miami this week. Think about this week. He lost nine times in court. I'm going to go over every one of them with you here on Legal A.F. on the weekend. Nine losses. He's going to lose likely at the United States Supreme Court on tariffs. His signature framework for his entire administration. And what's he doing?

He's hosting fat cats in Miami, including Jeff Bezos, including Serena Williams, and others who are partying it up in Miami, and then sleeping in a bed at Mar-a-Lago with golden thread sheets and high thread count and a great Gatsby party and gold fixtures while everyday Americans can't make and meet. And they have noticed 72% of Americans believe the economy is bad, that it's not the golden era of the economy that Donald Trump keeps talking about. It's not the golden era of cryptocurrency. They don't care what the stock market is doing. They care what the supermarket is doing. It's not Wall Street. It's always been Main Street, which is the party of Main Street right now. That stark contrast has been presented to us as the shutdown shows how many millions of

Americans can't afford health care without government subsidy, watching their premiums double and triple. They couldn't afford them, barely afford them before. How are they going to afford three times the amount? As air travel grounds to a halt. By November the 14th, 10% more of air travel will be grounded, 20% two weeks or three weeks after that. If the shutdown continues, and what does Donald Trump care?

He's busy partying. The poll numbers tell him. that he's on the wrong side of the issue. 52% of Americans blame Donald Trump. That's 10 points more than the Democrats for the shutdown. And we're going to cover that and then show what's happening in the courts, the crowds, the courts, the courage.

That is the takeaway from Tuesday night in America on election night, and I'll filter it through all the court at the intersection of law and politics, all of the court results this week, which was an epic string of losses for the Trump administration. From C to shining sea, I'm Michael Popock. You're on the Midas Touch Network. This is Legal AF, the podcast. I'm flying solo tonight. Well, I'm not solo because I've got several hundred thousand audience members with me, leaving comments. You may notice that I'm opening the Saturday

show and I don't have my normal wingman, Ben My Salas, co-founder with me of Legal A.F. and all things legal AF, you know, he's taking some well-deserved few hours off with his family, and he would do it for me, so I had no problem stepping in and taking over for tonight in the show. And we wish Ben and his family a happy time together for the few hours that he's not behind the microphone. Love you, man. Okay, so let's move into the politics side as I slide into the law side. The shutdown is costing the American economy $15 billion a week. $15 billion a week.

Let's put that into a context. Snap payments, which are anti-hunger payments, used to be the old food stamp program, which 42 million Americans below the poverty line, from babies to children to the elderly to veterans to disabled rely on, is $8 billion a month. month of November, $8 billion, month of December, $8 billion. We're losing $15 billion in the economy because of the shutdown. And what is Donald Trump doing? He's playing golf on our dime.

That's called, in my world, that's called theft of honest service. He was elected to do a job, and he's not doing it. And the American people notice it. His approval rating is at 37%. I made a prediction a couple of months ago that it may crack the 30% barrier. Think about that. That means he's lost at least 10 to 12% of MAGA have rejected Donald Trump. You don't get the economy is bad with 72% reporting without a fair amount of MAGA sliding over

to criticize Donald Trump, same with the Trump approval rating. And who to blame while he parties it up and golfs it up at Mar-a-Lago. That split screen. is something that Donald Trump, this is his Biden problem to a certain degree. Because I was a supporter of Joe Biden. Kamala Harris, don't get me wrong. But at the end, and after the COVID restarted the economy, I think that Joe Biden lost touch with the American people,

which is surprising, given his long commitment to public service for more than 50 years. I think he became a little obtuse. I think he became a little disconnected, a little clueless about the suffering of everyday Americans. Donald Trump, for instance, just like Joe Biden, says the economy is working for everyday Americans. Just be patient. Just be patient. How do you tell a baby who's crying without milk or formula to just be patient? How do you tell your senior loved one who can't afford their medication or anything they need to have dignified life? Just be patient. Just hold on.

They said it would be six months after the administration started that all of their policies would come to a fruition and create a roaring economy. We're now 10 months in, none of that has happened. It's actually gotten worse. He says golden economy. He says golden ballroom. He says golden Lincoln bathroom. He says golden lettering on the way in the Oval Office. He says rename the stadium where the Washington Commander's football team plays and make it Donald Trump Stadium.

It's all he cares about. It's an egomaniac. 72% of America says we're suffering. And that's why the Democrats had a tsunami to wipeout of the Republican party on Tuesday, because they have focused on affordability. That's code. That's code word for Trumponomics is killing us. It's always been the economy stupid. I'm not calling you stupid. That's an old phrase from James Carville when he represented Bill Clinton. It's always been, it's, you know, it's always been the watchword. And the Democrats are having a national

conversation, which is very healthy. Between their progressive wing and their Democratic socialist wing and their moderate wing. I fall more in the moderate wing. Doesn't mean I reject every aspect of the progressives. But the Bernie Kratz and the AOCocrats and who helped get Zoron elected mayor in New York with a relatively, you know, relatively close call there. That is one version of democratic ideals. But in big states, which is where presidents come from, like Mikey Sherrill, the New Jersey new governor, and Spamberger, the new Virginia governor. Both were known as moderates in the House. They were known as the Mod Squad. And they're the current and future leaders of the Democratic Party for national office.

After watching the acceptance speech of Governor-elect Spamberger, who doesn't think she couldn't be president? I do. I think she could be president. I think Mikey Cheryl could be president. easily, along with Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker and Pete Buttigieg and others in the party. So that national conversation that we're having in plain sight is healthy. It's always based on morals. It's always based on helping people. It's based on affordability. Nobody could have focused more laser focused on the kitchen table than Mamdami in New York. That was his entire campaign. Donald Trump declared recently that for the Democrats, affordability is now dead.

How is it dead? Tariffs are crushing the American dream. Real estate and pricing around real estate has removed any semblance of being able to afford a home in America. Right now, people aren't worried about owning a home. They're worried about how they're going to pay for what's in their grocery cart, what's in their shopping buggy, which they can't afford. for it. And now all the things that Donald Trump did, all the hundreds of thousands of federal workers and other workers that he threw on unemployment lines, all the funding he cut off to the

states, all the undermining of the health care system, all the undermining of the public funding that goes into giving people dignity in a social safety net. So all those chickens are coming home to roost. Now, on election night and in the courts, I'm glad you're here. People always ask, how can we support the independent and fair and honest commentary and analysis that goes on the Midas Touch Network on a legal AF? Well, subscribe to the Midas Touch Network. We also have LegalAF, the YouTube channel. I got great news there for everybody.

And it's really a group effort. We just crossed 920,000 subscribers in just about a year. We're going to hit a million subscribers on the, Legal AF YouTube channel. We've got no outside investors. We've got no paywall. Check now. See if you're already a member there. Ten videos a day. Twelve new contributors. Not only do we have Adam Classfeld All Rise News and myself and Sidney Blumenthal with a court of history with Sean Walence. We also have, we're bringing on the ACLU with a regular playlist. We have Democracy Forward. Well, I'm going to talk a lot about today and Sky Perryman on a regular playlist.

It's just some amazing work going on there every day. So come over there and join us. So let me transition now into our, the cases. And I want to do first nine losses in seven days in eight courts. You know, it's like the 12 days of Christmas, except it's the grim reaper version for Donald Trump and his assault on justice. Now, we should not be surprised. Donald Trump has been taking a sledgehammer to the Department of Justice, to the federal judiciary, to the rule of law since he got it office. This is what happens when you elect a felon in chief who's been criminally convicted of crimes and who's been given immunity by the United States Supreme Court, and he believes the Supreme Court has his back.

In other words, he's paid off all the refs, and he's playing a game that's tilted on a tilted playing field or court, and he's got the refs. his back pocket. And this is what you get. So he hollowed out the hollowed reputation of the Department of Justice. He put a meat puppet, a crash test dummy in the form of Pam Bondi, where he's really his own Attorney General. He's put all of his criminal defense team to protect him. Again, theft of honest service. He doesn't care about you and me. He doesn't get up in the morning and brush his teeth and think about how is he going to help the American people. He thinks how he's going to make money for Trump Incorporated. I mean, is there, this is a guy who's so out of touch, so clueless, so tone deaf,

that on election day, he trolled the poor. He attacked the impoverished in America, who is such a fragile population. We should be embracing them, regardless of our political stripe. And he attacked them and said, effectively, I'm going to make a political football out of you, and make a political example out of you because I guess you're poor to teach the Democrats a lesson. And I'm not going to make any of the $8 billion

of SNAP payments. Now, fortunately, groups like the 23 Attorneys General who are Democrats and Democracy Ford ran into courts and got a series of orders that got $5 billion out of $8 billion flowing to the American people and to the people that are the most fragile. But doesn't it say everything you need to know that Donald Trump was tormenting the poor,

and I'm talking about poor Americans with a capital, red, white, and blue A, not Trenda, Aragua, not brown people that he hates, not transgender. I mean, it could include transgender Americans. It's not, you know, migrants who don't have proper immigration status, not criminals, Americans, who've done nothing wrong, whose only crime is being proud but impoverished in America. And he decided to do it on Election Day, because he has not noticed that the ground has shifted

under him related to the economy. There's been a paradigm shift in the last six months, and nobody sent Donald Trump the memo. He was so busy using Elon Musk to crush and crash. the institutions of our government. He didn't notice that everyday Americans were suffering in our suffering. And we know what to do when we're suffering. We vote the bastards out.

We run them out on a rail. Let me talk, let me give one high level here before my break about the losses in seven days. I can do it with your help. Let me start with, we'll start in Rhode Island. And you can keep count here tonight on LegalAF and how many I get to cover. This is this week alone, seven days.

Chief Judge of the Rhode Island Federal Court, Judge McConnell. Early in the week, it almost got lost in the shuffle, issued a permanent injunction after trial, blocking permanently the attempts by the Trump Department of Transportation to block infrastructure transportation funds to states, blue states, because they won't cooperate with Donald Trump's depraved inhumane immigration policies. That's now been blocked.

Those funds are now flowing. We'll wait to see if there's an appeal, but right now they're flowing. Same judge. Judge McConnell, that's number two, in Rhode Island, issues not one but two temporary restraining orders to force the Trump administration to release $8 billion worth of SNAP, payments through electronic cards for anti-hung hunger programs. 42 million Americans, 16 million children now have gotten at least five out of

eight of the billion dollars for the November payment because of that temporary restraining order and the courage of Judge McConnell and the courage of Judge Talwani in Massachusetts who had a case in front of her. First case was brought by Democracy Forward. Second case was brought by the 23 Attorneys General and about SNAP payments. And Judge Talwani also issued an order that got that $5 million flowing. That's three. Now let's move down the coast to the Eastern District of Virginia, where two different judges issued orders against the Trump administration.

Judge Fitzpatrick excoriated the Department of Justice in the Comey case, the former FBI director, and ordered that they immediately turned over all documents to James Comey to allow him to prepare for his trial in about two months and said that he was tired of the Department of Justice prosecuting first and investigating any second. Judge Curry, a South Carolina judge who's presiding over the Eastern District of Virginia motions to disqualify Lindsay Halligan, ordered all of the grand jury documents and information and transcripts about Lindsay Halligan to be turned over to her so that she could review whether Lindsay Halligan has been illegally appointed or not. That's in Eastern District of Virginia.

we also have in the District of Columbia staying on that area a jury returned a verdict in three hours that sandwich guy the paralegal in the Department of Justice now fired who in a peak of anger a fit of anger through a fully wrapped subway sandwich from subway salami sandwich with mustard and onions, according to the Custom and Border Patrol officer at his chest, at his bulletproof subway sandwich-proof vest, and then ran. They tried to indict him for a felony of assault on a federal officer. No self-respecting grand jury in D.C. would indict that. So then Janine Piro and her crack-or-jack crackpot U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C.

brought the case as a misdemeanor, the jury over a plate of sandwiches. I'm not making this up. acquitted. My favorite moment in that trial is when the lawyer for the defendant looked at the jury and said, he did it. He threw the sandwich and then proved that the sandwich could not have exploded all over law enforcement because it was still wrapped on the sidewalk, despite one of my favorite pieces of testimony in my 35-year career, the cop saying, the border patrol officer saying, I could smell the onions and the mustard. Oh, the horror. I mean, I agree with them on the onions. I'm not putting that on my salabi sandwich, although it does, it does sound tasty tonight. So two for Rhode Island, one for Massachusetts, Judge Talwani, two in the

Eastern District of Virginia, one jury verdict. And now I'm not even getting a Now let me move to Chicago. Judge Ellis enters a preliminary injunction. She says the actions of the Trump shock forces in Chicago on the streets of Chicago to abuse First Amendment protesters, including the clergy, including the members of the press, shock the conscience. She found that the leader of Operation Midway Blitz, Bovino, lied under oath. We call that perjury. And she entered her injunction blocking for now the Trump administration from blocking, from abusing and violently attacking members of the clergy, members of the press and veterans who are protesting Donald Trump's policy. She read from the poem, famous poem by Carl Sandberg called Chicago in courtroom, also quoted

a number of founding fathers and ended with James Madison's letter to his wife, Abigail, sorry, John Adams' letter to Abigail Adams about once freedom is lost and liberty is lost, it can't be regained. We now move finally to number eight, I assume it is now, two McConnell, one Talwani, D.C. jury, two in the Eastern District of Virginia,

one in Chicago. Now let's move to Oregon. This is eight losses for Donald Trump in the last week. Judge, I'm going to talk more about some of these in detail on the show. Judge Imbergut issued her final permanent injunction after trial, blocking for now the use of National Guard on the streets of Oregon, finding that Donald Trump violated the Constitution. He violated the 10th Amendment. He violated the statute related to the delegation of his authority, and she has permanently blocked it under the facts there.

And then you had the tariffs where you couldn't even tell who were the Trump picks like Gorsuch and Amy Coney-Barrant and, well, at least those two, and who were the moderates on the Supreme Court during the tariff discussion to see if Donald Trump's 200 tariffs on almost all goods around the country is going to be allowed to be a delegated power from Article 1 to. Article 2, from the Congress to the president, under a statute that doesn't even mention tariffs. And the whole fight was over taxes. Aren't tariffs taxes. And if they're taxes, Donald Trump is dead. If they're seen as taxes and revenue generating, he's dead. I'll tell you why they screwed up in that case. I don't think that's going to go well for Donald Trump either. And that's just in a week. If I was a lawyer in a law firm that had Donald Trump and his government as a client, and I had a report, nine losses in a week, I would assume I'd be fired.

But he has no one to blame but himself with this Department of Justice, the way he's left it in shambles. I'm going to come back and talk about some of these individual cases. I'm glad you're here. You may have noticed I'm alone. No, it's not the intersection I do on Tuesday nights. Ben is traveling with his family, and I was happy to fill in for him and handle the show.

I know he'd do it for me. he would do it for the legal AFers and the Midas Mighty. There's many ways to support what we do here in our honest commentary, subscribing, Midas Touch, and Legal AF. We're going to hit 1 million subscribers, which is an amazing milestone and crashing through a glass ceiling for podcasts and for YouTube channels on the Legal AF YouTube channel. Come over there, take a minute, hit the free subscribe button.

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You're on LegalAF, the podcast. I am Michael Popock. I'm short one host today. Ben Mycelis is traveling with his family. Let's, and thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors and those that support LegalAF, the YouTube channel and LegalAF the Substack, along with our podcast. All right.

Now, a lot of people woke up confused in our audience. And I like to pride myself in making sure that people aren't confused. I want them to at least understand without smoke or sunshine what has just happened with the snap payments and Katanji Brown Jackson having entered a temporary stay. Because I saw a lot of chatter, a lot of chatter out there about how could she and why would she block and she's undermining the poor and it's cold comfort to the poor and the in the impoverished. And I understand, and I can empathize with all those feelings. That's not quite what happened. And I think it's actually a smart move by Katanji Brown Jackson. And let me explain it to you.

So what happened is, after two temporary restraining orders entered by Judge McConnell, the chief judge in Rhode Island, Trump, even though on one hand, his Department of Justice was taking appeals, and he was saying in social media that he was not going to feed the poor. Is this like shocking that it took a series of lawsuits to get Donald Trump to care about Americans? It's just fascinating. But even though he was saying all of that, all of that in the eco-s, in the cyberspace, in real life, they were paying out the money. So I was happy to report at some point yesterday that $5 billion of the $8 billion total payment for November hit the electronic cards, the debit cards of 42 million Americans, giving them at least, you know, a little bit more than half of what they were looking for.

I mean, it's still 37% short, and I wouldn't want to be 37% short, but at least gives them something they can go to the supermarket now and take, you know, their 200 of their 350 or whatever it is, and go shopping. while we continue to fight over the $3 billion for the poor, which is immoral. So that happened. Donald Trump then runs to the First Circuit, as we thought he would, asking the First Circuit, and he asked the trial court judge the same thing, to enter a stay, to give them time to brief whether they should enter a preliminary injunction or a stay of the order, forcing them to to pay the remaining $3 billion, whether they wanted a short stay in order to argue for a longer stay, I guess is the right way to put it. And the First Circuit and Judge McConnell denied it,

which means they were going to go to the Supreme Court. Now, they did not go to the Supreme Court on what we classically refer to as shadow, or what we refer to as a classic shadow docket emergency injunction or emergency application. They didn't do that. They went and asked for the same thing that they asked the First Circuit for, which was a temporary administrative stay, the lowest level of stay, to give them time to brief the issue, to give First Circuit time to consider the issue. And they didn't say otherwise they're going to bring an emergency appeal. They said, or them filing a writ of certiorari, which is code word for a regular traditional appeal.

So they were signaling how they plan to appeal. We're going to try to get a stay from the First Circuit. If we come back, we're not sure we're going to do an emergency application. And that sends a chill down our spine every time we hear emergency application because that is generally going Donald Trump's way, 86% of the time at the Supreme Court with the MAGA-6. He didn't ask for that. I read it carefully.

I read it several times. You can read it for yourself. It's up in Legal AF Substack. John Sauer, the Solicitor General for Trump, who's been his right-hand person, right-hand man for criminal appeals forever since he was a criminal defendant and convicted felon. He didn't ask for that. So Katanji Brown-Jackson gets it. Why? Because she's the associate justice assigned to the First Circuit.

and when you get a request for administrative stay, hold the ring for a short period of time, hours or days, she's the first stop on the train for that circuit. And she issued her administrative stay for a short amount of time, and she said it to allow the first circuit with quick dispatch to make its ruling, like in the next 2448 hours. Like I plan on updating you as early as tomorrow that the first circuit has ruled. on this issue already, to give them time.

And once they rule, then she'll sit back and watch to see in the chess match, this perverse chess match that's harming poor people, what Trump does next. She also has eyes and ears. She can read. She knows that five out of the $8 billion already got released, and the fight now is over the remaining $3 billion, which Donald Trump doesn't want to have to pay. He's already undermined his positions in front of the Supreme Court. Trump has? Because he paid the $5 billion already. It's hard for him to say, as in the other funding cases, where the Supreme Court sided with him about cutting funding, where he didn't pay anything. Here he paid five out of eight. And now he's just fighting over the last three, which matters to one group, the impoverished, the below-poverty line Americans, and not so much to the government, except they say, well, we won't get the money back. You know, that's a ridiculous.

attempts through make-weight, through make-weight to balance the equities here. And she sees that, too. So she had to make a decision. She could have referred it to the full nine, but that would have given the MAGA-6 time to coalesce a round-up position. She took it for herself. Smart. Let the first make their decision.

Then see what Donald Trump does next. He's under tremendous political pressure. I outlined it for you at the top of this podcast tonight. He's under tremendous political pressure. to stop abusing and exploiting the poor. Americans in red states, especially, or included. So he might just pay the $3 billion like he paid the $5 billion.

Remember, he told Judge McConnell that he couldn't make even the $5 billion in payments because it was too complicated and difficult. They had to make tables and graphs and charts. They couldn't just do the math and send the money to the states and tell them just to whack off 37%. And then they made the payments within hours. So she doesn't believe them. So yes, it's outside the record, but she can read.

So I know a lot of people said, no, make them pay the $3 billion. But if she denied it, they would have just filed an emergency appeal and asked for full review. She would have then been forced to send it, as is the custom of the Supreme Court. now it's on the shadow docket.

She's trying to avoid the shadow docket. She's trying to avoid all those funding decisions that the Supreme Court made in Donald Trump's favor over the spring and summer. And she did it deftly. So everybody was happy about Katanji Brown Jackson, and they said she's brilliant, and she's the conscience of the Supreme Court

when she ruled in favor of transgender Americans and issued a scathing dissent when the Trump administration got the Supreme Court six to three. This week also to force transgender people to mark on their passports gender incongruous markings, meaning their identity is female,

but they're having to mark it as male because that was the gender assigned at birth. And now they think she's lost her mind? And she's suddenly dumbed down? No. Let's give her more credit than that. And I think hopefully now I've explained why she did it. She actually boxed out the MAGA 6. She boxed out the Trump administration.

She put pressure on the Trump administration politically to release the $3 billion. She put pressure on the First Circuit to issue its ruling. She gave the Heisman to Donald Trump on a delay to let political pressure build on him. And then if they do an emergency injunction or emergency application, which they said they weren't going to do as if right now, then she'll deal with that in the next 48 hours. That's the story about how we got here with Katanji Brown Jackson. And that's why I was not up in arms, although my, you know, my initial knee-jerk reaction was like, no, not her. We even had like a text chain in the Midas world. We're like, oh, no, the optics.

I get it. But once you get beneath the optics and you start reading, which is what I think you support us to do here with our honest commentary, it became a lot more apparent what she was doing. She's playing a five-level, you know, one of those Star Trek chess games that's, you know, that Spock used to play on four boards, and the rest of us are playing like Parchisi. So that's where we are with that. I wanted to lead off with Snap. Then we've got, let me turn to the tariffs for a minute.

And I spotted something, and it's gotten some traction now. I see it in reporting about a major blunder that was made by John Sauer, the Solicitor General for the United States. He's the guy you can't listen to. Sounds like he gargled with a pot of bourbon and broken pavement. You know, that guy? Now, I think he's got some sort of condition, so I'm not here to violate the ADA and say,

but he is hard to listen to. You know, I've got friends that have speech impediments that are successful trial lawyers. It's a famous lawyer in Miami who I'm very close with, have been in the past who has a stutter. And he's a magnificent trial advocate. So I'm not, you know, but he's hard to listen to. And he also has this habit, which is not a medical condition, of trying to pack, you know, 50 pounds of potatoes into a 10-pound sack of argument.

You know, you know, he almost is like, he's like he's getting paid by the word. You know, whatever could be said eloquently in 20 words, John Sauer says, well, 500 words. I could do it in 500 words, 1,000 words. And he double talks constantly. He sounds like fast talking, double-talking, double-talking. snake oil salesman, like used car salesman. And it's starting to grate, talk about make America great again. It's starting to grate on members of the Supreme Court.

You can tell by the oral argument. His major foie plunder is he painted himself into a corner about tariffs aren't taxes. Tariffs aren't revenue producing. Because we all know that's a lie. And he put it in his brief. He put it in his brief that it's raising revenue. He quoted Donald Trump extolling the virtues of tariffs to replace lost income and the trillions of dollars that came into the Treasury to help the American economy. Just like Donald Trump did on inauguration day, talking about him creating a external revenue service to replace income tax by using tariffs as income producing revenue producing.

So let me play first for you the clip of John Sauer getting led down the primrose path and painted into a corner to mix my metaphors there, mix my sayings by of all people, Chief Justice John Roberts. Let's play the clip. But I mean, and I think this is a question for the other side as well. It's too, two facing. Yes, of course, tariffs and dealings with foreign powers. But the vehicle is in position of taxes on Americans. And that has always been the core. power of Congress. So to have the president's foreign affairs power, Trump that, that basic power for Congress seems to me to kind of at least neutralize between the two powers, the executive power and the legislative power. Let me say two things in response. At first, the notion that the taxes are all born by Americans that are not born by foreign producers whose goods are imported does is empirically that's not there's no basis for that in the record it's actually a mix well who pays the tariffs if a tariff is imposed on automobiles um who pays them there's a typically there'd be a

regardless of the importer of record is there'd be a contract that would go along the sort of line of transfer that would allocate the the tariff and there'd be different sometimes the foreign the foreign producer would pay them sometimes the importer would bear the cost the importer could be an american could be a foreign company a lot of times it's a wholly owned american subsidiary of a foreign corporation. So it gets allocated. The empirical estimates range from like 30 percent to 80 percent of like how much is borne by. I mean, it's been suggested that the tariffs are responsible for significant reduction in our deficit. I would say that's raising revenue domestically. There certainly is an incidental and collateral effect of the tariffs that they

do raise revenue, but it's very important that they are regulatory tariffs, not revenue raising tariffs. And the way you can see this, I think, if you look at this policy. Revenue is incidental. It's policy and regulatory. Now, why does he keep saying that? Because the statute that he's relying on to try to steal Article I power from Congress talks about regulation and licenses. So he's got to try to fit this ridiculously triangle peg into a round hole about tariffs

not be, that tariffs are regulatory and or that they're licenses and that they're not revenue generating, that they're not taxes. And you see how well he did with that, that ridiculous tap dance in front of a judge that should, justice that should have been on his side. Especially when the American people remember things like Donald Trump on his inauguration talking about the external revenue service and raising money like taxes through tariffs. And as the justices reminded John Sauer, even though it was in his brief, that is solely the province of Congress, and it's non-delegable. They can't send it off to Trump, just like they can't, you know, the Article 3 can't

allow Donald Trump to create his own court system. How would they like that? The executive branch has a court system now. an economic court created with the war powers and the foreign affair powers of the president, which this Supreme Court seems to love, bends over backwards to give Donald Trump as many foreign affairs and Article 2 powers that they can find.

How about if he sets up his own court? How would you like that competing with you on interpreting economic regulation related to foreign-facing issues? I mean, that's the next step. They wouldn't like that. When it's their turf, they shouldn't like it when it's Congress's turf. And so they were reminded, it's hours of mind it, time and time again,

that it's the power to tax and to raise money has to go through the both chambers of Congress by a majority and then signed by a president before people get bites taken out of their wallets. not the president imposing a tariff that gets passed along as a tax to consumers. Let me play you the clip of Trump talking about the external revenue service, which completely undermines their argument that tariffs are only incidental revenue producers. Let's play the clip. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries,

we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens. For this purpose, we are establishing the external revenue service to collect all tariffs, duties, and revenues. It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury coming from foreign sources. The American dream will soon be back and thriving like never before. Bad. Bad for him. Let me just give you my overview. Amy Coney Barrett is not in favor. I don't think she's going to vote for the president having tariff power under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, which was a limiting statute given to Jimmy Carter in 1977 to stop him from stealing power from Congress. Not one with this capacious superpowers for a president, which violins. violates the non-delegation doctrine, violates the major questions doctrine, created by the Roberts Court to kill Biden policies,

which stands for the proposition that if it's a major issue, like giving the power of the tariff and tax to a president, it has to be expressly spelled out in a statute, not done by implication or word association or a construction of a statute that Congress doesn't hide an elephant in a mousehole, if you know what I mean. and so if you read the statute statutory construction if you look at the meaning of article in article one about the power to tax and to tariff being held by congress if you use the major questions doctrine if you use the non-delegation doctrine Donald trump loses and should lose i think amy coney barrett is over with sotomayor kegan and kataji brown jackson so we have four votes against Donald trump's tariffs we have three votes in favor

I think it's Alito Thomas and Kavanaugh. That leaves Gorsuch and Roberts. By the questioning, it looks to me like Gorsuch is not going to give the president, a president, any president, the power to tax through tariff. He said things like it's a one-way ratchet. Congress could never get the power back. This goes back to taxation without representation,

with a Boston Tea Party. he wasn't buying that the tax, that the revenue isn't a tax, or isn't revenue enhancing a revenue collecting? If he votes the way his questions were asked and him being dissatisfied with the answers, this should now be at least five to four. Roberts too. Just on the major questions doctrine should be five to four. But we'll have to see. You can't trust this administration. You can't trust this Supreme Court. So we'll follow it. I think we'll get a ruling within 30 to six months. In the meantime, they're letting Donald Trump collect all the money. There was a chilling moment for the Trump administration, which I'm going to play for you now, when Amy Coney Barrett said

to the advocates to tear down the tariffs, suppose we rule in your favor. How do we pay back the money? How does the Trump administration pay back the money? Sounds like it be a little bit messy, right? In fact, let me play that clip. And then if you win, tell me how the reimbursement process would work. Would it be a complete mess? I mean, you're saying before the government promised reimbursement and now you're saying, well, that's rich. But how would this work? It seems to me like it could be a mess. So the first thing I'd say is that just underscores just how major a question this is, the very fact that you were dealing with us with quotas. There's no refund process to the tunes of billions of dollars or embargoes,

but there is here. But for our case, the way it would work is, in this case, case, the government stipulated for the five plaintiffs that they would get the refunds. So for us, that's how it would work. Your question, I take it, is about everyone else. We don't have a class action or anything like that. With respect to everyone else, there's a whole specialized body of trade law. And it's 19 U.S.C. 1514 outlines all these administrative procedures. It's a very complicated thing. There's got to be an administrative protest. There was a harbor management case earlier that this court was involved with in United States. its shoe in which, you know, the refund process took a long time, there were any number of

claims and equitable relief. So it's difficult, absolutely. We don't deny that it's difficult, but I think what this court has said in the McKesson case in 1990 is that serious economic dislocation isn't a reason to do something. Northern Pipeline, you guys stayed your decision for a while in order to let the congressional process unfold. There may be a congressional process here as well. You may be able to also be that this court could limit its decision to prospective relief under the John Q. Hammond's case.

There's lots of possibilities. Well, she didn't care about it being messy when they ripped away for 50 years a woman's right to choose. And the havoc had played on women's health and autonomy and body autonomy. So now she's worried about how money is going to be transferred back. I don't know. they can either do it refund you know they haven't spent the money reallocate the money pay it back over time to the american people give it to them as a tax deduction you know refund by tax deduction give it to them as a credit on their taxes so everybody gets it back that's one way you can make

it prospective although all that doesn't help the businesses out of business right now and only end it now but let the government keep the money but I don't know how the government keeps the money If their actions were unconstitutional, the only resort, the only way to fix it, the only remedy is to give the money back. But the fact that she even is worried about that should be concerning and keeping the Trump administration up at night. And, of course, they're whistling in the graveyard or past the graveyard because you've got, you know, Howard Lutnik, the Commerce Secretary with a big Cheshire Cat smile, smiling on CNBC. We won! You heard it here first. We have won this.

Is it possible? We're all wrong. It's possible. I thought they lost the immunity argument. Although when you listen to it closely, the people that I've identified, like Gorsuch and Roberts, were siding with the president in those questionings. But we'll continue to follow that. I want to take on one more major topic, which I thought was interesting, which might give us a window into how this Supreme Court may rule on the issue, you know, as I manage expectations. This week, the day after the tariffs, Supreme Court issued a 63 ruling against transgender people. Let me just put this into paraphrase others in the past, like Kanye West, which is ironic that I'm paraphrasing Kanye West, given my history of having cross-examined him within an inch of his life in a case.

Donald Trump hates transgender Americans. Donald Trump hates transgender Americans. He's done everything he can to demean them, dehumanize them, push them to commit suicide, and take away their rights. This is one of the most disadvantaged groups in America. It represents like 2% or less of America. It's probably even less than that. And yet Donald Trump, on day one, one of his 100 executive orders was to crush the hopes and dreams of the transgender American community. Operative word there, American.

And so he pushed this State Department policy that changed 30 years of State Department policy to allow people to have on their passports, either no gender identification, a photo, or have a gender identification. that matched how they live their life and not what gender was assigned to them at birth. And Joe Biden went one step further, and he said you could have an X if you're binary or you don't consider yourself as having a gender, so to speak. And Donald Trump removed all that. And now the State Department require, with a new policy,

that you're as part of the identification on the passports, because it's in the area of foreign affairs, back to the foreign affairs power, that people have to list their gender at birth, even though they're presenting as a woman or as a man or as binary or as whatever. And the Supreme Court, 6 to 3 MAGA, voted for it and upheld it. But also said, we're not ruling on the merits,

but we are because we think Trump's could ultimately win. and in addition to that, this is necessary because Trump has ultimate foreign affairs facing power and this deals with how we present ourselves to the global world, and he's got a policy if there's only two genders in America. What happened to the disadvantaged? What happened to the underprivileged

that the Supreme Court is supposed to protect? And Katanji Brown Jackson, yeah, the same person people are slightly mad at for her 48-hour stay, she had a scathing dissent. And she said, and I paraphrase, the Supreme Court has forgotten its assignment when it gets an emergency application like this

and when it's trying to weigh the balance of equities. And it's doing it the wrong way and it's the shadow docket all over again and it's wrong. And transgender Americans have rights that are not being properly balanced by the Supreme Court as they bend over backwards to support Donald Trump

and she dissents. Now, in there, though, I was a little bit troubled because it came out like a day after, literally a day after the tariff argument where it was obvious to most observers that Donald Trump's side got shellacked. And they started talking about

his Trump's foreign affairs power and is robust and he's able to declare whether you're a male or a female as a result of the foreign affairs power. And I sort of had a-oh, gulp there for a moment, because what I don't want them to do is to say that even though Aiepa, the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, doesn't say tariffs, they somehow read in

with the foreign affairs power under Article 2 of the President, and they give them the power to tax. You know, how far are they going to stretch this foreign affairs power? It was a little concern. It may have just been a bone they were throwing to the President, you know, like, well, we're not going to give you the tariffs. are going to be able to embarrass and shame transgender people on their passports, how's that? The fact that I even have to do an analysis of transgender people being maligned and undermined

in America. To talk about tariffs just shows you how upside-down world we are in with the United States Supreme Court. I mean, Katanji Brown Jackson, in her dissent, reminds Americans that the suicidal ideation, the rate of suicide are taking your own life for people who, are transgender, who are not allowed to identify or have to have the dissidents and the incongruity of having to identify themselves in a way different than they present themselves, and they self-identify creates a tremendous uptick in people taking their own life. And people being

assaulted and abused and physically assaulted at airports by the TSA. Invasive pat-downs. Drop your underwear, where they're wearing gloves to do an exam, to embarrass people, to force people to out themselves as their gender at birth. But the fact that I have to talk about foreign affairs and the rights of transgender people, which this Supreme Court Magazine 6 puts on the same scale is just disgusting. But I'm glad you're here to talk about all of it without smoke or sunshine. You're on legal AF, the podcast. People might be thinking, Popok is not letting Ben talk.

Popok's hogging the microphone again. Did I tune into the intersection? His show on Tuesday nights on Midas Touch? No. Ben is traveling with his family, and I offered to pitch in the way he would for me to do the show and keep it rolling. We don't miss the show. I don't know if anybody's noticed. We've done the show for five years straight.

We're like the Postal Service. You know, through, I'm going to butcher this phrase, right? through sleet and hail and rain and dark of night, nothing will stop us from delivering our legal AF commentary to you. We've never missed a show in five years. Two shows a week, five years straight, no day off. Ben might have missed a show. I might have been traveling.

Karen might be traveling. We've had fill-ins. Ben did a show like this about three years ago. By himself, I'm doing one now because of our devotion to our audience, to the legal AFRs, to the Midas Mighty, to the community that we've built. When I started, and I joked that I'm employee number four, so to speak, of Midas, three brothers and then me,

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See terms for details. Welcome back to LegalAF, the podcast. No, I haven't hijacked the show. I'm Michael Popock. Ben Moisellis is with his family traveling, and I offer to take over for tonight, as he would do for me. We can't let the Midas Mighty

and the Legal AFers now. We've never missed the show in five years. That's a streak that Luke Garrig or Cal Ripkin would be proud. out of, but we do it all for you. You motivate us to bring our brand of honest commentary to you. Our First Amendment rights won't be compromised, and we won't let yours be either. Thank you for being here on Legal A, after podcast. I want to end the show with two back-to-back orders by federal judges. One, Judge Ellis in Chicago, the other, Judge Imbergut in Oregon. Judge Imbergut, a Trump

appointee, Judge Ellis, a Biden appointee. They came to the same and right place. for justice, separately, as one of the nine losses for Donald Trump and his Trump Department of Justice this week. Judge Ellis has been trying to protect First Amendment expression on the streets of Chicago for the last month. She's issued a series of orders, including temporary restraining orders, and now a preliminary injunction to stop the attack on the, wait for it, the clergy, First Amendment protesters, veterans, and the press who are proposing.

protesting Donald, peacefully protesting primarily, Donald Trump's depraved immigration policy. And she caught the government in a lie. In fact, she caught Greg Bevino, the head of Operation Midway for the, or Operation Midway Blitz, for the Trump administration, lying under oath in, and when he tried to justify violating her temporary restraining order, not to use weapons of war, not to use military grade riot. pepper balls, pepper spray, tear gas, non-lethal, but very painful rubber bullets against First Amendment expression. And he lied and said that the reason he fired his weapon, his tear gas, was because he was hit with a rock. And then he had to admit under oath that he lied because there was video all over the place that showed that didn't happen. In fact, here is the clip of Bovino lying in his deposition and therefore to the judge under oath that she cited in her order, we have a name for this in our business in the legal profession. It's called perjury. And the lawyers for the

Department of Justice are in trouble because they put him on. And that's called suborning perjury. Let's play the clip. Mr. Bovino, I want to talk with you next about another comment that you have made. You said on October 30 that from what you have seen, all of the uses of force by yourself and the men under your command have been more than exemplary your words. You still stand by that? Yes. So when you tackled Scott Blackburn as shown in the video marked for identification as Exhibit 8, that use of force on your part was more than exemplary? Objective form lacks foundation. As we talked earlier, that was not a use of reportable use of force. I've not a use of force. I placed him under arrest. I didn't tackle him. I placed him

under arrest. Now, Judge Ellis, who started her 90-minute recitation from the bench of her order, started with Carl Sandberg's Lincoln, sorry, Carl Sandberg's Chicago poem and ended with one of our founding fathers in a letter, James Madison, to, sorry, John Adams to Abigail Adams about the loss of liberty, which can never be recovered. And in between, she said the Trump administration's actions shock the conscience, and she issued her preliminary injunction. I defy, I dare the Trump administration to appeal that. The Seventh Circuit has already sided with one of her colleagues and has blocked the use of the National Guard on the streets of Chicago. That issue is up at the Supreme Court.

even though Judge Ellis's decision now has not yet been appealed, I dare the Trump administration to try to defend lying members of the Customs and Border Patrol and Federal Security officers who are taking down and tackling people from behind, firing tear gas and pepper balls at the clergy, and lying about it. I want them. I want that debate. and I'm glad that Judge Ellis stood up for what is right and what is moral and what is ethical in calling out the Trump administration and it's depravity. And that which now has been turned to, Judge Imbergat, a Trump appointee.

She's been drawing for the last two months to keep Donald Trump from violating the Constitution, violating the 10th Amendment, violating sovereignty of states in how. he rolled out the National Guard, sent California and Texas troops into Oregon to try to do an end run around her temporary restraining order. Well, we're beyond temporary restraining order. We're beyond preliminary injunction. We're up to permanent injunction, which means case is over. Three-day trial last week. She took testimony. She heard testimony. And in a 106-page decision issued last night on time. She declared that Donald Trump

has unconstitutionally taken over the National Guard, the 200 members of the Oregon National Guard. He's violated the precepts and the principles of our Constitution set forth by our founders and our framers to prevent tyranny, to prevent an overgrown president from using a standing army against his people. She cited to the debate around our Constitution.

And she reminded everybody that the power to send out the militia, the National Guard, is a power of Congress in Article 1 and in Section 8, and that that power was delegated but by statute limited in scope to the president under certain limited circumstances to let him be able to act in real-time quickly, insurrection, rebellion, inability to. execute the federal laws using regular forces. Then and only then can you call for backup

and try to take over and commandeer the National Guard of a state. And in less than until that ever happens, the National Guard, the state militia is under the control of the governor. That's part of our federalism. That was part of the compromise to get states to join the federal union, the government, a more perfect union. And so she said, there's no rebellion. There's no armed, organized insurrection.

At best, it's people peacefully protesting. Yes, there were some flare-ups in June. But by the time Donald Trump sent the troops in in September, all the violence have been quelled by local police officers, local law enforcement, even local federal security officers. Nobody in ICE, and this was a point that was made by Judge Imbergat. No one in ICE, no federal security officer asked for the National Guard. And yet Donald Trump to embarrass and troll the Democrats, blue states, blue cities, and the brands and the governors and all of that sent in the troops three months after what, you know, three months after the cow left the barn, closed the door.

And the judge cited to, in real life, evidence on the ground that did not support a rebellion finding, an insurrection finding, nor that ICE could not execute its laws to pick up arrest. detain, process, migrants. No examples of that. Most of the violence was protester against counter-protester. That's First Amendment expression. So Judge Imbergut issued her order, game over, permanent block. Now the Trump administration can take an appeal, but they have to know already that it may be a losing proposition. Because the Ninth Circuit, which sits over Oregon and California,

already sided with Imbergut in their own way. Because when there was a three-judge panel that ruled against her, dominated by two Trump appointees, they reversed it, they vacated it, well, vacated it, to hear on a full 11-person en banc panel the case over again. But now we've moved beyond the temporary restraining orders. Those are now moot and dead, and Trump is going to abandon that appeal.

We now move on if he's going to appeal Judge Imbergut's decision to stop the deployment of the National Guard on the streets of Portland, Oregon. Good luck. I think under these circumstances, the most three judge panels of the Ninth Circuit will vote against Donald Trump. Now, we're still waiting for the Supreme Court to rule about when a president, and we're going to get, we're going to get, proper, I guess, assume, I'm going to get proper guidance, finally, from the Supreme Court on the Seventh Circuit case, which can be used at all the other cases. And there seemed to be hung up because they asked for additional briefing at the Supreme Court about what regular forces mean. Because if we're in that world under 10 U.S.C. 12406, a statute of delegation to

Trump, if we're in that world, then there has to be an inability for the president to execute federal law as the executive branch with regular forces. Now, are regular forces the military, their army, the standing army, the Marines, the Navy? Is that armed, the armed forces? Is it that and federal security officers? Because there are federal security officers that guard buildings like ice. Is it that combined with, you know, the federal, you know, Border Patrol and Customs of Border patrol and ICE. Is that it? Do you add in local law enforcement? And then and only then are you allowed to call for backup and take over and do the extraordinary thing and cross the divide that the founding fathers wanted us to have to protect us from tyranny and take over the state's

militia and turn it on itself? That's for the Supreme Court to rule. I think that question they've asked to have further briefed on in the month of November spells trouble for the Trump administration. I don't think that's a good question for them to be asking if you're on the Trump side of the arguments, but we'll continue to follow it all. Covered a lot here on Legal AF, even though I was solo, my first solo ride in five years. I mean, I got a show called The Intersection on Tuesday nights on Midas Touch, where I do commentary on things political and or illegal. You can catch me there. If you want to know how to follow all things Legal AF, there's so many different ways. to support what we do here.

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And then Lisa Graves and Mike Sacks and Alex Aronson and others for court accountability action about corruption in the federal court system. And then we've got, we're having Democracy Forward and Sky Perryman, who's got over 100 cases successful against the Trump administration. She comes on and briefs our audience on Democracy Forward. The American Civil Liberties Union is about to join us, hopefully in the next two or three weeks. This is the place you want to hang out at the intersection of law and politics, especially when you're dealing with a lawless rogue Trump administration and Department of Justice. I'm glad you're here.

Thank you to our sponsors. Thank you first and foremost to the legal AFRs and the Midas Mighty. Catch us at the midweek with Karen Freeman McNifalo and me on the Midas Touch Network. And of course, I do about 40 videos a week between Midas Touch and Legal AF at the intersection of law and politics.

I'm Michael Popak. Until my next report. Thank you.