Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode 4/5/2025

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok head the top rated Legal AF podcast, and tonight discuss: Two separate Federal Judges declaring that the Trump Administration is acting in "bad faith" and committed an "...illegal act" concerning its illegal deportation powers; the Supreme Court's alarming decision about Trump's cutting funding and spending and what it means for future cases; MAGA trying to suppress the vote and throw out votes in North Carolina under a phony fraud challenge to steal a NC Supreme Court seat; the fact that even the Trump DOJ thinks George Santos should go to jail for a long long time; and what the Courts and the Senate Republicans can and will do to stop Trump's Tariff policies which have put the economy face first into a meat grinder in just the last 48 hours, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Support Our Sponsors: iRestore: Reverse hair loss with @iRestorelaser and get $625 off with the code LEGALAF at https://irestorelaser.com/LEGALAF! #irestorepod Delete Me: Delete Me: Get 20% OFF your DeleteMe plan by texting LEGAL to 64000 Liquid IV: Get 20% off when you go to https://Liquid-IV.com and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Trust & Will: Get 10% off plus free shipping of your estate plan documents by visiting https://trustandwill.com/LEGALAF Learn more at https://Handsoff2025.com Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:02:24 Nice travels. Federal judge issued multiple rulings against Donald Trump when it comes to Donald Trump kidnapping migrants and sending them to concentration camps. Is a contempt order forthcoming? We will be covering that. And also a federal judge order Donald Trump immediately return at least one of the migrants
Starting point is 00:02:45 who was kidnapped and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador. The Trump regime responded, go tell the dictator of El Salvador, you are a Marxist judge, we are not listening. That was actually the response from the White House. We'll break it down. I wanna give you an update on a major Supreme Court ruling
Starting point is 00:03:03 that deals with Donald Trump withholding grants to educational institutions on the basis of Trump's view that educational institutions are too focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Wanna talk about an update with George Santos, yep, you heard that name right. Even the Trump DOJ is recommending at least 80 significant prison sentences.
Starting point is 00:03:27 We'll go and talk about what the specific sentence they're requesting is. In their brief, they say he is a pathological liar who needs to be incarcerated for basically his own good and for the public safety because the guy is just going to keep on doing it over and over again. I want to cover the North Carolina Supreme Court race, a ruling from the North Carolina Court of Appeals. I had the honor of having Justice Allison Riggs, the Democratic Supreme Court Justice on the North Carolina Supreme Court
Starting point is 00:03:55 on the Midas Touch Network on Friday. We did a 25 minute or so interview right after the ruling from the Court of Appeals. I'll talk briefly about that. And Donald Trump is getting sued by multiple groups now over the tariffs against the world. Trump called it Liberation Day. We call it Annihilation Recession
Starting point is 00:04:14 or probably Great Depression Day. Donald Trump is currently golfing today while there are hands-off protests around the country. I mean, we're seeing literally millions of people protest Donald Trump We've been covering that all day on the Midas touch YouTube network is all I know Corporate news is not giving that enough tension attention now that we have the platform here We're giving it attention. And so yes, we'll cover that on other videos today But we'll cover on legal AF the conservative group and other groups suing Donald Trump over his tariffs,
Starting point is 00:04:45 basically saying it's unlawful. You can't declare war powers to tariff the world, which is actually a tax and tariff on American businesses. And you're not just tanking the markets, you're tanking the overall economy and businesses that rely on free trade are going to go bankrupt. And last week we heard about the crash.
Starting point is 00:05:06 This upcoming week, I think we're going to hear about more businesses going bankrupt. This is going to have a horrific domino effect on our country. But people are rising up, Michael Popok, and it's important that shows like Legal AF and others exist during this moment of turmoil, of chaos. I wish we were talking about things
Starting point is 00:05:25 that we were talking about, you know, a year ago, expanding prescription drugs, making it cheaper, growing the economy and things like that, but we're in a world of an authoritarian regime, the Trump regime, that wants to destroy the legal system, intimidating law firms, so on, so forth. Let's break it all down today, Paul Parker. Great, thanks, Ben.
Starting point is 00:05:47 Yeah, I mean, I'm nostalgic for the Biden administration. It was 75 days ago. This, you know, we've said before, and I will repeat it again here, elections have consequences. And I've had a lot of conversations in the last 48 hours with self-proclaimed Republicans, even people that voted happily
Starting point is 00:06:07 for Trump, didn't hold their nose. And now I just spoke to somebody recently in the business world, they said, what is going on? They're all insane over there. The tariffs was the final straw for most of these people. And what we're seeing now is a few things. Republicans, hard to believe, Republicans in the Senate stepping forward to reclaim the power that was granted to them by the Constitution, the sole power that was granted
Starting point is 00:06:32 to them by Article 1 related to tariffs. They loaned the presidency a certain amount of power in a couple of emergency type acts, but they're not being properly used by Donald Trump. He's doing the there's an exact mirror image. What he is doing with deportations without due process, kidnappings to foreign countries to be tortured or killed is under a phony declaration of war and to saying that we're at war with Venezuela and that the drug gang is Venezuela. And therefore he can do all of these crazy unconstitutional things.
Starting point is 00:07:03 Same exact thing on the economic side. He's claiming that there is a structural imbalance emergency. Oh, crap, a structural imbalance emergency? Uh, what's the cure for that? Oh, I get it. A hundred different tariffs, averaging 24%, killing $7 trillion of our stock value, and sending the entire economy into the crapper in two days. You called it Annihilation Day. I joke that it's what are we being liberated from?
Starting point is 00:07:31 Our financial security, our social security, our wallets. Is that is that what we're this is up there with mission accomplished with George Bush in terms of you know misnomers. And now we've got Senate Republicans stepping forward. We'll talk more about it today. Trump passing bills to take back the tariff power because the underlying emergency laws that Trump is relying on are fugazi. They're fraudulent.
Starting point is 00:07:56 They're being fraudulently used. As on the other side, as you and I predicted last week about tariffs, somebody was going to get around to filing a lawsuit that Donald Trump exceeded his powers granted to him by Congress in the area of tariffs, which is limited to begin with. And that has already begun.
Starting point is 00:08:14 As other federal judges, Judge Zinnis and Judge Boasberg, who we'll talk about next, both within hours of each other, looked the Department of Justice and the Trump administration in the eye and said, you have acted in bad faith and you've committed an illegal act. Judge Zinnis in Maryland ordering the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia on Monday and get him out of jail in El Salvador and in my courtroom apparently or purported, you know, effectively. And Judge Boasberg in his contempt hearing,
Starting point is 00:08:45 not even his hearing about preliminary injunctions, saying to the lawyer for the Department of Justice, that's sketchy, that looks like people that are acting in bad faith to get around the lawsuit in my power, not somebody who thinks that their conduct is ultimately gonna be affirmed by a court. Wouldn't you agree?
Starting point is 00:09:05 As he went into a prosecutor mode for a full hour of live, it was like a, it was like an autopsy of a living, I never saw a living person get an autopsy, but that's what happened to Drew Ensign for the Department of Justice. So we're seeing Republicans having to step up and try to get back power in the area of tariffs, including the bill that was passed by Republicans as well to
Starting point is 00:09:29 revoke the Canadian ones as of course they're popping champagne courts and smoking big fat cigars over the tax cuts they're about to hand. Is this the week for tax cuts to be handed out to the wealthy while our economy heads for the shitter and is in the grinder? I wouldn't think so. out to the wealthy while our economy heads for the shitter and is in the grinder? I wouldn't think so, but to the Senate, you know, they're in a delusional world. And then we've got the lawsuits that have been filed to try to restrain Donald Trump with some updates there as well.
Starting point is 00:09:55 You talk about the grinder, Donald Trump sending these DOJ lawyers, work for him, into the meat grinder. You know, it's an interesting dichotomy since the Trump regime exists extra judicially outside of the judicial system, acting as authoritarians, but we still have a judicial branch, which is still a co-equal branch. So Donald Trump, you know, struts out these lawyers who go in front of these experienced judges who were trained in the top law schools,
Starting point is 00:10:26 who are like, to be a federal judge at the level of these judges, it's like being in the Navy Seals of the military, right? So they're sending out these individuals with very little experience to do hand-to-hand, intellectual legal combat with judges who are the most experienced people in these areas and they're in this courtroom and they're still existing
Starting point is 00:10:49 at least when they open up the courtroom door and they're in front of the judge in chambers, right? They're existing still within the confines of a judicial system and they don't know what to say. These lawyers, it's what you and I flagged what we thought was going to happen. I mean, both in terms of the cuts to the DOJ, that they literally don't even have the resources to, you know, do the research and to kind of do the bare minimum actual work. I mean, it's a lot of work, a lot of documents, but then they don't have the answers. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And then they're getting just absolutely destroyed and slammed by these judges. So I think as we see protests escalate as well and grow,
Starting point is 00:11:28 we're also seeing an escalation in the judicial system where now we're moving to the area of contempt. I think once the floodgates open there, we're gonna see contempt orders over and over again. I think Judge Boesberg's the first that's gonna actually issue contempt order. It certainly seemed based on the hearing that that's gonna go that way.
Starting point is 00:11:46 But Popeye, let's break down these two really big, there's a lot of big immigration cases. So I don't wanna play short shrift to other ones that I think are, like there was another case which basically where the Trump regime was going to kidnap a Venezuelan and send him to El Salvador. And they made a mistake and they recognized the error,
Starting point is 00:12:04 they send them to another state about to send them to El Salvador. Thankfully that was flagged before a judge said, bring it back to New York at your own expense right now. Like there are, there are dozens of these cases right now that are happening regarding Trump kidnapping human beings, sending them to concentration camps who are not actually gang members who received no due process at all who are now rotting in an El Salvador concentration camp. You know, the big case Judge Boasberg, of course, because he issued an injunction back
Starting point is 00:12:33 in mid-March saying, don't do this. Stop. We'll figure this out. Let's just go through a process. The Trump regime heard the order, but then they were first like, oh, it's an oral order. We don't have to listen to oral orders. Oopsies. The plane is now in international waters. So because the plane's over international waters,
Starting point is 00:12:50 you don't have jurisdiction, which is again, totally false. And then they finally went to basically the ad hominem attacks. You're a Marxist Obama judge, even though he was appointed by George W. Bush to be a DC superior court judge. We're not gonna listen to Marxist judges. So that's how they escalate. Boasberg a DC Superior Court Judge. We're not gonna listen to Marxist judges.
Starting point is 00:13:05 So that's how they escalate. Boasberg has escalated in kind. So there's that big case before Boasberg. Then you have Zinnis, Judge Paula Zinnis in Maryland. And she ordered the return of Abrego Garcia, an individual who a Trump immigration judge in 2019 said, don't you ever send this guy to El Salvador.
Starting point is 00:13:24 He will get killed in El Salvador. There were allegations that Abrego Garcia was a gang member back in 2019. That was based on seems like an unreliable informant. There was really no evidence ever suggesting that he was. This was an individual who was working in Maryland with his family. He was checking into ICE at the direction of a 2019 Trump immigration judge ruling and then he was kidnapped sent to El Salvador exactly where the judge said he can't be sent
Starting point is 00:13:53 So if you want to argue a this guy should have been deported certainly shouldn't have been to El Salvador The Trump DOJ admitted at Pope Oc in their filing saying this was an error oopsies So then the judge judge's ininnis, Paula Zinnis says, okay, we'll return them. And then the Trump regime led by Stephen Miller and others said, you're a Marxist judge. You're a Marxist judge, go tell dictator Javier Bukele, go tell him, I would rather go tell Bukele rather what you're gonna do and see if Bukele wants to return him.
Starting point is 00:14:24 You don't have jurisdiction Judge, that's where they're going with it. Popak, what do you make of these cases? Well, I'll synthesize it the way that you did. Within 24 hours, two federal judges declared that the Trump administration and the Department of Justice are acting in bad faith and they are an illegal act. I mean, if you read the reporting from in the room, we'll be getting the transcript soon. We'll do more reporting about what happened with Boasberg, who was there on a... This one is so many spinning plates about the Alien Enemies Act in the Boasberg case, which was the first one three Saturdays ago. Just three weeks ago at 6.30 at night, he issued an injunction,
Starting point is 00:14:59 a temporary restraining order type injunction, until he could hear the full preliminary injunction, which is now set to be finally heard after briefing on the 8th of April. So we're really only talking about a four week period, maybe for temporary restraining order. But he ordered the return of those planes and for those people to be brought back if they had already left Texas.
Starting point is 00:15:23 And then he got down as he said he would, Judge Boesberg, I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. And the bottom is a pretty deep bottom. It is apparent from the facts developed by Judge Boesberg in his courtroom that knowing that the judge was going to, knowing that the lawsuit had been filed the early morning of three Saturdays ago,
Starting point is 00:15:42 knowing that there was gonna be a hearing at 5 p.m. that Saturday, three weeks ago. The Trump administration worked under cover of darkness. Trump signed the proclamation of declaring phony war against Venezuela because there's a drug gang in America that came from Venezuela, and then used that to declare phony powers
Starting point is 00:16:00 under the Alien Enemies Act to kidnap and deport without due process to the killer jails, literally the killer jails of El Salvador. Now, so to the judge signing their declaration on Friday, but not publishing it until Saturday, loading the planes and getting all the logistics done in advance so that the birds were in the air
Starting point is 00:16:19 by the time the hearing started is the very definition of acting in bad faith. And so the judge went through that timeline with Truenson. I would say I have pity on him, but I don't because he decided to keep this job or take this job. So he gets to stand there and he doesn't have much to say. As you said, he's being led to the slaughter by the Trump administration. But again, he's not blameless. So I'm not apologizing for him. But the judge said, let me walk through at his contempt hearing.
Starting point is 00:16:47 This is the hearing about whether between 635 and 730 and beyond, the Trump administration violated a federal judge's temporary restraining order. You can call him a lunatic Marxist, you can call him a criminal corrupt, but he is a federal judge until he's not a federal judge. And he has powers to enforce because you can imagine the anarchy
Starting point is 00:17:11 that would happen that Trump would promote if federal judges just said, oh, you didn't abide by my rule? All right, what else do we have on the docket today? That's not how federal court works. And that's not how enforcement of federal orders work where the inherent authority of federal judges power. So this hearing, not to be confusing to people because there's so much going on,
Starting point is 00:17:30 is about contempt and about whether based on the briefing and oral argument and the judge then spent an hour dusting off his prosecutor cross-examination skills, which he was, to just live roast this guy, Drew Ensign, in the courtroom. In every way possible. Socratic method, is it your position that you abide, the government abided by my order?
Starting point is 00:17:55 Yes, okay. Now let's walk through the timeline. How can you possibly say that you abided by my order? Let me tell you what it looks like. It looks like the order was signed, but then deep sixth until the next day, the planes were loaded with people knowing that the lawsuit had been filed.
Starting point is 00:18:12 Do you see where I'm getting that implication from? Right, sir? And then knowing that there was gonna be an order, you already lifted the birds off the plane, lifted the birds off to get them to El Salvador to avoid my jurisdiction. You see that doesn't look very good for the administration, right sir?
Starting point is 00:18:27 And then he said, who did you tell about my injunction? Now the right answer in that hearing should have been, I told the Homeland Security Secretary, Christine Noem or her affiliate, I told the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, I told the Department of Justice, Pam Bondi, and I told the Office of the President. That was not his answer.
Starting point is 00:18:49 And that pissed off the judge because that should have been, that's the only answer because he was ordered to inform the administration and everybody appropriate about it. And apparently that didn't really happen. That's on the Department of Justice. So he's annoyed about that. And he's, and then when he walked through the final nail
Starting point is 00:19:07 in the coffin for this guy, if he even needed a final nail, is when the judge said to him, now let me talk about this state secrets privilege that the administration is refusing to turn over to me, the federal judge, the information that I have required to get to the bottom of the flight details, the who, what, where, why, and how of the flights. And you're withholding that based on the state secrets privilege. Is that right, sir? Yes.
Starting point is 00:19:29 Okay. Would you agree with me that the information about the flights themselves is not confidential as we use that term? It could have been shared with me in my chambers. And he said, yes. He says, okay. Now give me an example where a state secret privilege was used about non-confidential information. Go ahead. And of course, he looked at it in his shoes and he top danced and he said, right, right. It's pretty sketchy, isn't it? So we're going to get a contempt order.
Starting point is 00:19:59 The question is, what is the remedy that the judge, not if, it's when, we're going to get it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. What is going to be the remedy that the judge, not if it's when, we're gonna get it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, what is gonna be the remedy? Is it gonna be fines per day against the federal government, meaning our taxpayer dollars? That doesn't sound like something I want. Is it gonna be a default judgment
Starting point is 00:20:16 against the federal government? He's gonna strike their defenses? And he's gonna enter the, he's definitely gonna enter the preliminary injunction. That's happening on the eighth with a hearing and the ninth with a preliminary injunction being entered, which keeps the injunction about using the alien enemies act in place all the way through the end of trial. And so I'm going to kick it back to you in a minute, Ben.
Starting point is 00:20:36 I'm going to ask you what you think the remedies are going to be, because they're going to be something. Supreme court is hovering in the background because they asked for full briefing, which they've received, about whether this gap between the temporary restraining order and the preliminary injunction, whether they're going to block Boasberg's injunction order. And we're still, you know, Saturday night on air. We don't have the Supreme Court ruling on this.
Starting point is 00:21:02 And I think by the time they rule, they're either going to get over the period, but they're going to rule by not ruling, because he's going to hold that hearing on the 8th. And the question for the Supreme Court, which we're going to hit later today, is whether they're going to side with the Trump administration about the illegal use of phony war powers
Starting point is 00:21:18 to imprison people without due process in a foreign country where they will be tortured and killed under all of the UN conventions against torture? Or what world do we live in? Now, I thought I knew what world we lived in, but later on you and I are gonna talk about a Supreme Court case that gives me quite a amount of pause about where the strike zone is
Starting point is 00:21:42 with this particular Supreme Court. Look, I think the remedy is going to have to be to target, you know, the any lawyer who's making unethical and false representations should be subject to the sanctions. If a lawyer with a bar card is going before a judge and lying, they should like any other lawyer it would be no different. They would have to face consequences. Now, that can mean sanctions against their license, being recommended to the various bar authorities where they're members of, a judge frankly issuing an order, you know, censuring a specific lawyer so that in a post Trump error,
Starting point is 00:22:28 the lawyer's conduct can be evaluated, I think in the proper context. To your point, Pope Aga- What do you do with the administration? In terms of the financial, well, you know, but to me, that's the way that you deal. I mean, you know, imposing a financial sanction, I mean, I would like to see, eventually,
Starting point is 00:22:45 if you're held in contempt, the agency official who's responsible for this be incarcerated. I mean, I think that's where it should be escalated to, and if you're violating federal orders, you go to jail. The question becomes, well, then Trump just pardons them, right? Or the question is, is that the DOJ doesn't enforce it, or then do you have literally
Starting point is 00:23:06 a court, you know, ordering their bailiff to arrest someone in the court jail while the DOJ, you know, so. But the Metro police deputized. You know, so, so that becomes the question. That's what I think should happen. Not because even I despise the Trump regime, which I do. Any lawyer who defied orders, that would be the consequence. But I'm thinking in terms of how do you craft a remedy in this moment of time? I think it has to fall on the weight of the lying lawyers who are suborning perjury before the Judge Popak. I want to about what Judge Zennis ruled as well.
Starting point is 00:23:46 I wanna talk about the George Santos update as well. And I wanna talk about people wanna know the updates on the North Carolina Supreme Court race there. And I had that great interview with the Democrat-aligned Justice. So we're gonna cover all of that. I wanna take a quick break right now. I wanna remind everybody to subscribe
Starting point is 00:24:09 to Michael Popok's YouTube channel. Also, Michael Popok started his own law firm that's doing great as well. So if you have a catastrophic injury, whether it's a car accident, trucking accident, employment case, medical malpractice, negligence, or if you or someone you know has a case, Popak, where do they go?
Starting point is 00:24:29 Yeah, it's come over to my website. It's www.thepopakfirm.com, P-O-P-O-K, and a 1-800 number to make it easy, 1-877-POPAK-A-F. And we've got those lawyers and other people standing by to kind of evaluate the case as it makes its way to me. And again, as you said, we're focusing on these catastrophic injury cases, auto, truck, rollover, anything that happened,
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Starting point is 00:28:45 The discount codes for them are in the description below. My brother, Jordy, spends a long time vetting those sponsors and negotiating the discount codes. So take a look at those are in the description below. Okay, Michael Popok, let's talk, we talked about Judge Boesberg's ruling. Tell us about what Judge Zennis, a Maryland federal judge, did.
Starting point is 00:29:08 What was her ruling? How significant is it? And the response from the Trump regime. And she's from your old sort of hometown. She's from Mineola, Long Island, a Nassau County person. Mineola train station, Mineola. Right, next stop, Mineola. Change trains at Jamaica, whatever it's supposed to be.
Starting point is 00:29:26 She went to Yale Law School. She clerked for some amazing judges. She was, by the way, not only was she selected by Obama, but she was confirmed by the Senate at some very high numbers. It was 53 to 34, which is, you know, today you would never see that. So to call her a Marxist, I mean, first of all,
Starting point is 00:29:45 they don't know it's like that old, it's like the old movie Princess Bride. I don't think they know what that word means, Marxism. She was just picked by a different president, that's all. That's how our federal court system works. Sometimes you and I identify when it is important to the story and the analysis, what president picked that judge,
Starting point is 00:30:05 to explain some sort of warped ruling, usually, we'll say, a Trump-er. But, you know, I would... I did a whole hot take on Judge Zinnis. I didn't mention that she was picked by Obama. It wasn't relevant to the particular story. Boasberg's bipartisan selection process is not important to the story.
Starting point is 00:30:21 We only do it when it's important to the story, or it's something we think is the sort of the missing piece to explain a result. But she, you know, within 24 hours, is very hot-bothered herself in her own hot bench. She had another set of lawyers in front of her. And this one, you know, there's just uniform, universal public outrage
Starting point is 00:30:43 about what happened to Mr. Abrego Garcia. I mean, he is a person who was under a amnesty order, temporary or otherwise, since 2019, by a federal immigration judge. In their own filing, as you mentioned, on page three of their own filing, they don't say that immigration customs enforcement ICE should have been aware. They said they were aware of the judge's order of amnesty that he cannot be returned to El Salvador because he will be killed and yet they put him on the plane anyway. I mean, they had to concede that. They thought maybe if we just say it in a couple of words, nobody will notice, but we all noticed that it is a concession.
Starting point is 00:31:25 And the judge said, let me get this straight. You don't have due process. Oh, we do. Oh, well, what is the due process? Whatever the president said the due process is. Okay, what was the due process? You didn't give them notice. So they had no time for lawyers.
Starting point is 00:31:42 You shackled them together. You gave them no due process. I don't care what you say the presidentled them together. You gave them no due process. I don't care what you say the president gave them. There's no due, we know there's no due process. They were put on planes, kidnapped and put on planes and sent to El Salvador, right? To try to avoid apparently jurisdiction, which is not gonna work.
Starting point is 00:31:59 Cause I have inherent authority. We'll talk about that in a minute. And you screwed up at at least one person who's brought this suit here, who's brought this case here, because he should not have been deported, and you admitted that he should not have been deported. You, the Trump administration, committed an illegal act. And it went downhill from there in the hearing.
Starting point is 00:32:21 And she's ruled, I'm just waiting to get my hands on the written order, but she ruled from the bench late on Friday that he is to be returned from the deep darkest depths of the cells of El Salvador's supermax prison. And he is to be returned to the United States ASAP on Monday. And for those that say, oh, I shouldn't have the power to do that.
Starting point is 00:32:44 Yeah, she does. First of all, as has been outlined in every brief that's been filed in this area, anything that the president does, including a phony war power declaration or a constitutional core power, is ultimately reviewable by a federal judge, a single judge in a single district as our press secretary likes to say over and over again. That's how it works. That is our checks and balance system. Because I would just ask,
Starting point is 00:33:09 if I was in the Socratic method, and I had a Trump DOJ lawyer in front of me, I would say, okay, what is the check and balance on the president's exercise of this power if you don't think it's my federal jurisdiction and my ability to review? Just tell me what it is. I got time, go ahead.
Starting point is 00:33:25 And they have no answer, they never talk about it in their briefing, they ignore, they want to always ignore, as Amy Berman Jackson put it, they always want to ignore Article One and Article Three. All they talk about like a broken record is the Article Two powers of the presidency. And oh, by the way, did I mention that I got a mandate and I won seven battleground states?
Starting point is 00:33:45 That's all they wanna talk about. And that doesn't fly in federal court. So the judge said, I have inherent authority under the Administrative Procedures Act that's been violated under the Constitution and under everything else to bring back this person. Now their argument is you can only do it by writ of habeas corpus, which supposes,
Starting point is 00:34:07 which presupposes that the person is in the United States and is trying to get out of detention to be brought before a federal judge because they've been illegally detained. That's not what's going on here. We're not talking about them fighting detention for now. They're fighting removal. They're fighting deportation to a place
Starting point is 00:34:27 that's not American soil, when they should not have, especially in this particular gentleman's case, where he's married to a US citizen, has a baby, living in Maryland. Whether he is or is not a member of that gang in El Salvador, that's already been put through the grinder of the administrative immigration procedure. And an immigration judge has ordered him stay in.
Starting point is 00:34:50 And Donald Trump decided, oh, where is that? Where's that order? I don't see it anywhere. That's not gonna fly. So now we're gonna see, because if you're right, and I know you are, about them saying, we're gonna thumb the nose at this Marxist judge, and they're not gonna do it on saying, we're going to thumb the nose at this Marxist judge, and they're not going to do it on Monday.
Starting point is 00:35:05 We're going to have a constitutional collision of epic proportion starting on Monday when the judge doesn't see or doesn't get a report that she likes about Mr. Abrego Garcia's return. Now, for them to say they can't get him back also is talking out of both sides of their mouth, because what they told the judge, Judge Boasberg, is that the relationship between America talking out of both sides of their mouth. Because what they told the judge, Judge Boesberg,
Starting point is 00:35:25 is that the relationship between America and El Salvador on this issue is a function of the foreign relation power and the ability of the president to negotiate foreign treaties and delicately balanced agreements. Okay, so you have these foreign agreements and you're paying them $6 million to house these people
Starting point is 00:35:46 and you have no ability to pick it. You're telling me Trump can't pick up the phone and call up a Kelly and tell him, hey, you know, hold on, what is it? Inmate 16493? Yeah, you gotta pop them out. We're gonna be picking them up. You're telling me you can't do that?
Starting point is 00:36:00 Well, then you have a whole nother world of hurt about violation of the UN conventions on torture, which you're not allowed to do, and other things. So, they're taking, the Trump administration is taking such inconsistent positions in the court, and of course, federal judges are smarter than they are, and are up on it. We're gonna see, it's gonna be a big matter on Monday.
Starting point is 00:36:21 What happens, Ben? You know, if you look at all of Donald Trump's conduct, it points to the authoritarian playbook kind of step by step. Authoritarians don't care if people suffer. That's kind of a standard when it comes to authoritarian. So if you're wondering, does Donald Trump care that he's destroyed the markets? No, Donald Trump actually hates bankers. He hates stock market. He never did well in it. He bankrupted his businesses. He always thought that Wall Street looked down on him.
Starting point is 00:36:52 So it's part of his retribution, but he's happy actually that people's 401Ks and pensions are suffering. And if you want an explanation of the tariffs and you're trying to find, well, why is he doing this? This isn't gonna help him. Well, in his view now, as he, this is the authoritarian mindset of like a Putin.
Starting point is 00:37:10 You think Putin cares if his people are suffering? Do you think Saddam Hussein cared if his people were suffering? Do you think Kim Jong-un cares if his people are suffering? No, but then you have to go and beg for exemptions. You have to beg for favors. You have to beg for, you know, other countries have to beg. Please, can you help me here? You're gonna screw this, you have to beg for favors, you have to beg for, other countries have to beg,
Starting point is 00:37:26 please, can you help me here, you're gonna screw this, you're gonna screw that, and that's the authoritarian mindset. Frankly, it explains everything about what he's doing. He's not smart enough to actually engage in a thoughtful process at any level, whether it's economic, judicial, otherwise. So he just wants to break it down, destroy it.
Starting point is 00:37:46 That starts with destroying the economy, they're breaking it and then have people suffer and then try to beg. Like that's actually what he wants. With one element missing, he purposely did this to pressure Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve Chairman, who he hates and wanted to replace,
Starting point is 00:38:02 to cut interest rates in June. He'll have no choice but to do it, but look what he had to do. Kill all of our financial security and our economy, the dumbest recession ever, in order to force J-PAL to cut interest rates? Yeah, as Carl Quintanilla says, it's trying to cook a steak by burning down the house.
Starting point is 00:38:20 Okay, great, at the end of the day, you have a burnt steak and now you have the entire house absolutely destroyed. So, good luck trying to eat it with no forks. But Donald Trump, he doesn't care about the suffering of these people. Like, Donald Trump did not greet the four Lithuanian, the four Americans who died in Lithuania, and he didn't make any statement of, you know, mourning, of sympathy, any expression of that. When four American troops died in Lithuania and he didn't make any statement of you know mourning of sympathy any Expression of that when four American troops died in Lithuania the Lithuanian leaders did they gave a incredible thoughtful sad You know respectful though, you know process as they were as the bodies were sent back to the US the US did nothing
Starting point is 00:39:00 Donald Trump doesn't care Donald Trump hates America. You just have to be very clear. Trump and his regime hate America. They hate it. They hate our systems. They hate law and order. And we just have to be clear and not like over complicated with big words. I do want to say this though, the Justice Department still, even with the Trump regime, is seeking 87 months when it comes to George Santos. In a sentence This is from The Legal Filing. Thank you, Kyle Cheney, for his great reporting as always. Santos is a pathological liar and fraudster. For years, Santos manufactured and promoted a fictionalized biography, one that depicted himself
Starting point is 00:39:37 as a highly educated, independent, wealthy, successful businessman, all premised on a heap of lies. And then it goes and says that Santos's history and characteristics are extremely troubling and call for a significant prison sentence. So even the Trump DOJ saying when it comes to Santos, which is ironic given all of Santos's support for Trump, they are seeking that.
Starting point is 00:40:02 Popak, let's talk now though about these lawsuits. You know, we talked about the economic policy, so it's worth mentioning now these lawsuits against the Trump tariffs. This one group called New Civil Liberties Alliance, they filed a lawsuit on behalf of a small business owner in Florida who would do a lot of import from China as part of her business.
Starting point is 00:40:25 This is what the new Civil Liberties Alliance posted. We just filed the first lawsuit challenging Trump's China tariff, they write. IEEPA, that's the law, lets presidents freeze assets, not tax American businesses. No one's ever used it this way in 50 years. Our client is a small business in Florida, hurt by this unlawful
Starting point is 00:40:46 move and pop up, you know, you got to just say there they are right about that. You know, this law IEPA and there's other laws allow, you know, sanctions to be imposed in wartime by a sitting president without Congress. But, you know, the imposition of these types of tariffs, I mean, we still have co-equal branches of government and, you know, drastically changing economic policy like this without going to Congress is unlawful. But just like with the immigration issue, when it comes to the tariff issue. What's Trump doing? He's doing it under war powers. He's saying we're in a war. That's why he uses the term invasion.
Starting point is 00:41:30 We're being invaded when he talks about Canada and he defames Canada, by the way, elbows up Canada. We've got an elbows up emoji. What does he say? He says Canada, it's like his version of Putin's denazification of Ukraine since Trump wants to take over and conquer Canada, not just to trade war, Trump wants a real war.
Starting point is 00:41:47 He wants to invade Canada. That's how the Canadians perceive it. That's why Canada's standing strong against Donald Trump and showing the world the way to do it. But Trump says, oh, they're drug dealers, they're killing Americans with fentanyl on purpose, and that's why we need to do it. War powers, war, war, war, international affairs,
Starting point is 00:42:04 and that's how he tries to say, I don't have to follow the law because we're in a war right now. That's what dictators do. Popak, break down what this and other lawsuits challenging his tariff power are before we go to our next break. Love the lawsuit, don't like the venue. Since we're being honest here, having practice all over the country, including in Florida, Pensacola, Florida, federal court, not my number one choice. It won't be the only lawsuit challenging Donald Trump's ability as a president to impose tariffs.
Starting point is 00:42:36 See, that got lost not on Legal AF or on the Midas Touch Network, that got lost by mainstream media about, they just took it as an article of faith that the president can impose tariffs. He can't. Article one, section eight of the constitution gives the sole power to tariff,
Starting point is 00:42:52 to impositions and excise taxes on Congress. The only reason a president even has any of the five or six congressionally made laws empowering under limited circumstances a president to impose a tariff is because the 1930s in the Depression, when Congress got together with the support of Hoover, this Trump is modern day Herbert Hoover, unfortunately, they, the Smoot-Hawley Act, which was then the highest
Starting point is 00:43:28 global set of tariffs in American history, America first all over again, protectionism all over again. It didn't do well, as it never does. It led to a 67 or 80 or sorry, 70% decline in global trade at the time, and it worsened and hastened the depression. So Congress was like, hmm, maybe we should give some power to the president over tariffs, but only in an emergency. So they came up with the National Emergency Act and the IEEPA, which gave him under limited, again, you have to declare a phony war or a phony emergency,
Starting point is 00:44:05 a conjured up emergency to give you these powers. In 50 or 60 years, no one has ever used the IEEPA to ever impose a tariff. They've used it for other things. And now Congress has woken up, at least some of the elder states people in there, and have said, uh-oh, we might have gone, this guy's out of control. We got to start reeling him back in.
Starting point is 00:44:28 So Chuck Grassley, who's a huge Trumper, 80 year old, he's number three in line for the presidency. He came up with a bill with Mary Cantwell, Democratic Senator, which is going to pass, which is going to try to impose some discipline on Trump. Good luck. They're going to require that he give Congress a 60 days notice about any new tariff that's not really retrospective and give Congress six, six, oh no, he has to give him, he has to give him a short amount of time notice and then give
Starting point is 00:45:03 Congress 60 days to evaluate it and then decide whether they're going to go along with the tariff or not. Question is, what do you do with the ones that have already been imposed? In the Senate, and as well, four Republicans, you know, the moderate ones, join with the Democrats to strike the tariffs against Canada.
Starting point is 00:45:21 But now they're going to have to do it against the other 70 countries, as you and I have reported on all the channels that we run. The formula used by Trump is bullshit, and world economists have slapped their forehead over it. That's how it came up. Is that why there's an 80% tariff in Vietnam or in Ivory Coast, because you just divided the amount
Starting point is 00:45:40 of the trade deficit by the total amount of the trade deficit by, what's the denominator there? I forget. But anyway, it's a very simplistic formula that's not really a reciprocal tariff. And as a result, the world kind of collectively slapped their forehead. Now, the big silver lining is that Donald Trump announced, I've got to deal with Vietnam, everybody. Great. So my Nikes and Lululemons are not gonna be taxed at the highest rate. And as I said in a hot take, great, when you're homeless, you can wear all the Nikes and Lululemon that you want.
Starting point is 00:46:14 So Congress is trying to reel in Donald Trump, and he's of course fighting it, kicking and screaming. Courts are gonna have to get involved about whether Donald Trump exceeded his authority, granted to him this limited authority. Think of it as a bundle of sticks. Congress had all the bundle of sticks pursuant to the Constitution about tariffs. They loaned a one stick from the bundle to the presidency. Now they want it back because he's, he's choking us with it.
Starting point is 00:46:43 So we're going to watch that. But at the same time, you know, while I was heartened a bit by some Republicans, a gang of four, a gang of five, gang of six, getting together to try to rein in Donald Trump collectively, at the same time, you know, Senator Thune is popping champagne corks because they're about to pass a huge tax grift for the wealthy and cut federal funding more. Is this the moment where we need more federal funding cut, more workers thrown on the unemployment line
Starting point is 00:47:15 and less tax revenue coming into the United States? Is this the time for that? No, and I would suggest that this is ill-timed and tone deaf by the Republicans. And what we have to do, I'll leave it on this, whether it's today with hands off mass mobilization Saturday, which is sort of the first opportunity for people to kind of like, besides voting, express their dissatisfaction with the Trump administration. We need to, no amnesia. We need to remember what the Republicans once again have done to wreck an economy.
Starting point is 00:47:49 Okay? Just like Obama had a clean up after Bush and Biden had a clean up after Trump won. Look what's happening now. We need to hold the Trump administration and everybody with an R next to their name accountable and responsible for the things that we're watching that's happening on their watch.
Starting point is 00:48:06 And that's where the midterms come in. In the meantime, there's special elections you and I'll talk about that are really, really important. We talked about them last week, but this is our ability. You say, elbows up, whatever the American equivalent of that is, we gotta start doing it and doing it now. First talk truth to each other, which is what we do every week,
Starting point is 00:48:22 every hot take on Legal AF and on MidasTouch, and then we gotta do this mobilization part. American equivalent today is hands off with this hostile takeover. When it comes to Canada, it is elbows up, and I think when it comes to internationally, I've gotten pitched a few things from my friends in Australia, my friends in Europe,
Starting point is 00:48:42 I'm workshopping those, but we appreciate all the international support here. As I've always said from day one, pro-democracy is an international movement. This right-wing virus is not unique to the United States. We've seen it internationally. We've seen how it's crushing countries across the world and it's rooted in this kind of Putin-esque view of what the world order was once like, frankly, before the United States Constitution,
Starting point is 00:49:14 before French enlightened thinking. Things were not good then. That's not how we should be advancing in ways of humanity and helping each other and be empathetic, love with judicial systems that are certainly not perfect, that's an understatement, but that work and that help and that have due process. So it's why I think it's all important that you all subscribe to Michael Popak's YouTube channel, Legal AF, I wanna get that channel a million subscribers soon. It's a rocket ship right now.
Starting point is 00:49:41 Make sure you all subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. Also, if you or somebody you know has been injured at all, Michael Popak's new law firm handles catastrophic injuries like trucking accidents and bad car accidents, sexual harassment cases, medical malpractice, negligence. So if you have a case like that or you know someone who has a case like that, Michael Popak, where do they go?
Starting point is 00:50:04 Yeah, and we're representing the family of flight attendant on the American Airlines flight that went down over the Potomac. And so, it runs the gamut, but it's in that vein that you just talked about. www.thepopokfirm.com, real easy, P-O-P-O-K. And then a 1-800 number that I thought would be catchy and we'd remember, especially our legal AF audience,
Starting point is 00:50:25 1-877-POPAC-AF. Let's take our last quick break of the show. When we get back, I wanna talk about the United States Supreme Court's ruling regarding Trump blocking grants on the pretext of schools are teaching diversity, equity, and inclusion, what the Supreme Court did, what it means. And then we should talk about schools are teaching diversity, equity, and inclusion,
Starting point is 00:50:45 what the Supreme Court did, what it means, and then we should talk about the North Carolina Supreme Court race. Where there, MAGA Republicans are trying to steal a Supreme Court seat in a race where a Democrat won, not just in one recount, two recounts, and get this, the Republicans in challenging 65,000 votes and trying to get those thrown out say say only in the Supreme Court race.
Starting point is 00:51:06 We're okay in all the other races that existed, but it's just, we just want to challenge the Supreme Court race, and we just want to challenge like the Democratic areas. Let's not focus on a broader recount. Let's just target it there. It's the most insane, MAGA thing, but it shows you how within a framework of democracy,
Starting point is 00:51:24 laboratories of autocracy fester. Take a quick break. This show is sponsored by Liquid IV. I was born by the beach and I haven't recovered since. Born in December, but a summer baby all the way. And my daughter, she was born on a 95 degree sweltering day last June. So I love summer.
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Starting point is 00:55:31 Uncomplicate the process with Trust and Will. Protect what matters most in minutes at trustandwill.com slash LegalAF and get 10% off. That's 10% off at trustandwill.com slash legal AF. All right, welcome back to Legal AF. Michael Popok, why don't you take the United States Supreme Court, I'll take the North Carolina Supreme Court issue and we will continue then to highlight our coverage
Starting point is 00:55:59 of all the protests. We've done around the clock protest coverage here on the Midas Touch Network because we've heard everybody loud and clear and look when we have a network of this size right now, scale, scope. We know corporate news is not wanting to cover it so it makes our job more important than ever and the fact that we built this platform, it's to platform these protests ultimately. Popak, let's talk about what the Supreme Court- Yeah, yeah, and on hands off, go over to the Legal AF MTN landing page and go under
Starting point is 00:56:31 shorts. You'll see some great shorts from each of our contributors about hands off and their involvement with it over on the Legal AF YouTube channel. So look, you and I, the reason we're sometimes inaccurate about our predictions or our good faith analysis of what we think will happen at the United States Supreme Court is because frankly, we're watching a struggle for the soul of the Supreme Court by extension of the United States there. And Amy Coney Barrett is,
Starting point is 00:57:01 I'll just say it aloud one more time. She is the swing vote. It is the Amy Coney Barrett court, I'll just say it aloud one more time, she is the swing vote. It is the Amy Coney Barrett Court, not the Roberts Court. And that means that in close call five to four decisions, where she votes is what the majority decision is going to be. And that has been going on for the last two years and certainly this term in particular. I have to think out loud, I'm going to posit out loud that Amy Coney Barrett, who sided with Roberts and the Democratic wing of the Supreme Court just three weeks ago, two weeks ago,
Starting point is 00:57:31 before the joint session speech, to a five to four decision, again, she's in the five, it's the Amy Coney Barrett Court, we're just living in it, that she got so bashed by voting with John Roberts to force the Trump administration during the pendency of the appeal to pay out $2 billion of U.S. aid that humanitarian organization or the State Department, its obligations already incurred, that she was so bashed
Starting point is 00:58:00 that not only did Donald Trump feel he had to come out and console her in public, which of course, I don't think she appreciated, especially since she was also bashed for giving him sort of the stink eye during, when he walked by her during the joint session speech. But she was attacked, I'm sure violently attacked. They said she was Amy Cami Barrett. They called out the fact that one of her eight children
Starting point is 00:58:22 is somebody she adopted from Haiti. I mean, MAGA got MAGA on Amy Coney Barrett's backside. And now we were like, yeah, all right. It looks like this could be the voting block. Roberts and Barrett joining the other two to reign in Donald Trump in cutting off the fuel supply for funding in an arbitrary and capricious fashion, depending regardless of the program. We're like, Okay, I'm feeling pretty good about that one. And the reason we can't get the strike zone right, to use my baseball metaphors, is that the strike zone keeps changing. It's like an umpire. One inning, you know it, it's underneath the armpit and down to the knee, that's the strike zone. And the next inning, it's at your chin
Starting point is 00:59:05 and he's calling a strike. And we're like, why can't we figure this out? It's because they're not figuring it out. Amy Coney Barrett either got bashed to crap and she didn't want to do it again. Or she found a way, and some intellectually honest or dishonest way, to side with the other side.
Starting point is 00:59:22 Automatically the other side is Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas. That is a solid four for anything in favor of the executive branch, regardless of what every other judge has said about it. Three are by themselves, right? You've got Katanji Brown Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor. And the question is these free radicals in the middle,
Starting point is 00:59:42 Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. Roberts is center right, right. And Amy Coney Barrett is center right, right. But she plays the role that Kennedy had played. It was the Kennedy court for years. And Sandra Day O'Connor played, except they're more to the right of either of those people. But now, based on what happened two weeks ago on approving the $2 billion being paid
Starting point is 01:00:07 and affirming the judge's order, I'm like, oh, this is gonna be easy. She's not gonna like the fact that aid to teachers, grants to teachers to work in inner city schools, to help children, okay? Our public children, our public education system is being cut off without notice in the middle of a school year
Starting point is 01:00:26 harming teachers and children alike under a false flag of DEI. I'm thinking, no, she's not gonna, the woman with eight children, I'm sure they're all in private school, but she's not gonna go for that, right? It's based on that last result, no. Either because this is a make good, a make up,
Starting point is 01:00:45 or she found a way to slide over. Everybody wrote an opinion. That's how at odds with itself the Supreme Court is. Everybody wrote one. But at the end, it doesn't matter how many opinions you write, because it came down to a five to four to allow Donald Trump to cut the spending
Starting point is 01:01:03 to teachers and students. You know, he's already chloroformed the Department of Education. Let me just say in, with a shout out to Kanye West, you'll never hear Michael Popak say that usually. Donald Trump hates American school children. There's no other way to put it. He's killing public education.
Starting point is 01:01:23 He's killed it already when it's regulations and all the programs that go along with it, including for those that are disadvantaged and disabled. And then at the same time, he's killing off the teachers who don't, some of them don't want to really voluntarily go into inner city schools and urban schools, blue state schools, because you know, it's treacherous. They need a little battle pay.
Starting point is 01:01:41 And that's some of this grants was for that. So he cut the court on that as well. And my takeaway is this does not bode well for me about all the other spending cut cases, arbitrary and capricious cases that are in the pipeline on their way up to the Supreme Court if Amy Coney Barrett is not going to dig in, which she didn't, and she is just going to twist in the wind, depending upon whoever talks to her last, or who bashes her last. What did you think then?
Starting point is 01:02:10 You know, I think that this is where someone like an Amy Coney Barrett over-intellectualizes these things and views it as, well, look, procedurally, all we're doing is we're issuing a stay in favor of the Trump administration. We're not necessarily saying that the administration is right in withholding the grants, but we are saying we need to preserve the status quo and the status quo as frozen right now
Starting point is 01:02:38 was that the Trump administration said that the grants don't go. So isn't that freezing the status quo? No, no, the status quo is that they're supposed to get the grants don't go. So isn't that freezing the status quo? No, no, the status quo is that they're supposed to get the grants. It's kind of like what we saw with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruling we covered last week, PO-PAC,
Starting point is 01:02:54 with the National Labor Relations Board where they viewed the preservation of the status quo for purposes of staying, which is kind of freezing in time, that the NLRB member does not go back, when it was like, well, you're then buying into the Trump regime spin of it, that that's the status quo.
Starting point is 01:03:11 The status quo is that the person shouldn't have been unlawfully filed. So, to me, it gets a little more complicated, but if you were to ask Amy Coney Barrett, hey, you just ruled against school children, what do you think her answer would be Popeye? That's not what I did. She goes, All I'm saying is we're preserving the status quo.
Starting point is 01:03:31 Federal rule of whatever and the gravamen. I'm like, what are you after talking about? You just hurt inner city schoolchildren. This lack of connectivity to the human dimension. These are people being deported and sent to killer jails, never to be heard from again. These are families that are being broken up. This is your financial security and your ability to care for yourself and for your loved ones. And if you're aging parents in the future, that's at risk. Don't talk to me about procedure.
Starting point is 01:04:02 It was one of the things that during COVID, the way that it was really exposed there, like as you had these mass casualty events and people were dying, it was obvious that a lot of these magas, not a lot, most like didn't care about people dying. Like that's why sometimes you call it a death cult because like just the idea of like, oh, well, someone just died. That's not bad to you. Like what are you talking about? Like there were mobile morgues and they were like, Dr. Fauci and like, what, what are you, what are you upset about? What, what someone's dying, you
Starting point is 01:04:33 know, and then the person like from their family, like a MAGA family, they would like have people die and they would be like, what, what evs it was the whole thing is so utterly bizarre to me though, but it's why I try to break down my hot takes and talk about just things like empathy and love and just common sense because we have to reconnect with like reality. Maybe it's in an advanced digital age, you know, whether it's the social media apps and all the info is making mush brains of ourselves and we don't, I don't know. I just know we have to return to empathy, love, understanding, friendships. And that's part of the message that we talk about on the show for that reason. All right, let me talk briefly
Starting point is 01:05:12 about what's happening in North Carolina. You all may know the story. Go back and watch the video I did with the associate Supreme Court Justice, Allison Riggs. So she was appointed by a democratic governor in North Carolina in 2023. So then that specific seat goes up for reelection in 2024. So a short turnaround just based on the dynamic of that specific seat.
Starting point is 01:05:34 So November 2024 elections you have in North Carolina, the Democratic candidate, Justice Allison Riggs, she was already a Supreme Court justice. And you had a Magna Republican candidate who was on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. His name was Jefferson Griffin. Of course, not a great election for Democrats nationally in November 2024. But Justice Allison Riggs won that election. She won by seven hundred and thirty four votes. There was a recount that was held. She won the recount.
Starting point is 01:06:01 There was a second recount that was held. She won that recount in North Carolina. They also have voter ID. All the things that Republicans say, you absolutely need all of those things. Those exist in North Carolina. Did Jefferson Griffin after two recounts accept the outcome? No, he didn't. He filed litigation and said, actually, you have to throw out the absentee votes.
Starting point is 01:06:23 Absentee vote shouldn't count, but only from Democratic areas. So he targeted, there was 30 or 35,000 absentee votes. Jefferson Griffin targeted 5,000 absentee votes just in Democratic areas, not the others. And that was part of another 65,000 votes that Jefferson Griffin said needed to be thrown out. And actually within that group, Alison Riggs learns that her parents are in that group.
Starting point is 01:06:47 Her parents filled out all the applications the right way, but Jefferson Griffin saying that, oh, there are people who have challenged that these voters are real voters. Those voters are all real voters. But for whatever reason, you know, some right-wing person may have challenged it, their signature doesn't match this or this or this,
Starting point is 01:07:04 and 65,000 votes then were in dispute, even only as it relates to this race. They counted for if Republicans won congressional races, fine. If Trump won, fine. They're not asking for recounts on anything other than this specific Supreme Court race, right? That's utterly ridiculous. And she won twice. So now Jefferson Griffin wants to win it in the courts. The North Carolina Supreme Court is a five to two Republican court, five Republicans, two Democrats.
Starting point is 01:07:34 She's one of them, one of the Democrats. She had to recuse herself from the filings because the case involves her. The Supreme Court stayed any certification of the election results while it was litigated, which was outrageous to begin with her own Supreme Court basically screwed her over, because now you had a five to one right wing majority there. And then the case worked its way up through the North Carolina Court of Appeals,
Starting point is 01:08:02 which by the way, Jefferson Griffin is a judge on he wasn't on this three judge panel, but it's a right wing court of appeal because the Republicans engage in all of this nonsense, right? Like they don't play by the rules. That's one of the big problems here. They gerrymander. They, you know, they, they do these, you know, procedural hacks that to me are, you know, that Democrats didn't do before. Democrats were playing by the rules. you know, that Democrats didn't do before. Democrats were playing by the rules, okay, you're Democrats, we're Republicans, we could all be nice,
Starting point is 01:08:29 and Republicans were like, nah, screw you, we're gonna try to rig the maps and all of this so that we can win basically, no matter what the outcome is, heads I win, tails you lose basically. So the Court of Appeals on Friday in a two-to-one ruling ruled against Allison Riggs in favor of their Republican colleague Jefferson Griffin and said all those 65,000 votes should be challenged on what basis so Allison Riggs parents votes now get thrown out
Starting point is 01:08:56 And now they're now voters have to go and like find Whether or not their their vote is challenged or. And because this is just targeting the democratic areas, people say that this challenge is tantamount to stealing the election away from Alison Riggs. I mean, to me, you know what they would never do? They would never hold another election right now, right? Because they know Alison Riggs would win. Instead, they wanna go and kind of surgically
Starting point is 01:09:21 get rid of democratic votes and say, oops, your signature doesn't match that signature. So therefore, like as though people have like the identicals, look at my signature when I'm busy, look at my signature, you know, when I'm not busy, look at my signature from two years ago. And this is the type of stuff that the Republicans are doing as it relates, though, just to this specific race. So I had Alison Riggs on, go back and watch the full interview. The current status of it is,
Starting point is 01:09:48 is that these votes now are gonna be challenged and voters have to like go and find out what's going on. Watch the video Alison Riggs gave the information about where you can learn more details about her, her race. She's like, she's had to to spend a million five or something like that in legal fees. We'll put a link to the video down here in our clip. Let me mention one thing about this.
Starting point is 01:10:12 That is, we've been following that story for a long, long time. So glad you had the judge with you. This is all about one thing. The Republicans hate votes and hate voters. Every time you hear about election integrity Just translate that use your you know, Google translate just use your legal AF might as touch translate That means voter suppression when they want to make early voting shorter when they want to make the lines longer
Starting point is 01:10:38 When they want to make you up you brought the wrong piece of paper. It's like I'm thinking of a number Oh, did you bring your passport? Did you bring your proof of citizenship? Where's your birth certificate? Where's your wet ink birth certificate? That is all nothing about fraud. The thing that happened in North Carolina is about a second envelope about certain ballots and whether it was signed or not.
Starting point is 01:10:59 It had nothing to do with what was inside the ballot. It was about a ridiculous, it's like the old manufacturers who give you a coupon, but they don't really want you to cash in the coupon. So it's like cut off the CP code on the side of the box and make sure you in the original receipt and mail it to this, make sure you get the number right
Starting point is 01:11:17 because they don't want you to mail it in. This was a double envelope issue about security envelope, about the inner ballot. That's what this is all about. And this is what it's all about is, voter fraud in America is not a problem. As you said, you don't burn down the building to make a stake. You don't make it so hard for people,
Starting point is 01:11:39 such barriers of entry for voting, that it is a tantamount to suppression, especially when you don't like the way the votes went. And so when you hear Republicans here, they hate you and your right to vote. We should be having it as easy as any other democratic country in the world. Should be like an ATM, a week long voting issue,
Starting point is 01:12:00 secure voting and like an ATM like machine, I'm done, drop boxes everywhere. They want drop boxes nowhere. They want absentee ballot revoked. They want veteran, people in the military, their ballots revoked if they don't come in on time. And they want this, challenge only their race in their place and try to toss the votes to win a close race. What does that tell you about the depravity of the party?
Starting point is 01:12:24 It tells you everything you need to know. Popak, that's the status there. and try to toss the votes to win a close race. What does that tell you about the depravity of the party? It tells you everything you need to know. Popak, that's the status there. We covered a lot today. Hopefully everyone's appreciated also our coverage of the protest. It's something that I'm most proud about in building this platform that we're able to showcase things
Starting point is 01:12:41 that would not be getting that attention and needed that attention. And to me, it's exactly where this network filled a void and a need. And we did it for that purpose and we're able to meet the moment there. You're meeting the moment with the Legal AF YouTube channel because it's not just you, by the way, you're of course one of the best legal analysts out there, but you've compiled a whole team of some of the top best legal analysts as well. They're getting some of the top best legal analysts as well. They're getting some of the top, top interviews.
Starting point is 01:13:09 I mean, you know, we always hear about American oversight filing these lawsuits. You got the people from American oversight on the channel. You know, we hear about what's going on in the Senate. You have the top people, Senate Judiciary Committee people and senators who are talking about, get Sheldon Whitehouse, you got Committee people, and senators who are talking about, get Sheldon Whitehouse, you got others who are talking about their legislation.
Starting point is 01:13:30 The groups that you have there are first rate, and it's a testament to you, what you build, Popak. Everybody subscribe right now to the Legal AF YouTube channel. It's going to be, and already is, an invaluable resource during these difficult times. It's going things are going to ramp up. And you know, we've always said we got to build the infrastructure yesterday for the issues of tomorrow.
Starting point is 01:13:54 And that's what we've been doing kind of piece by piece, brick by brick ready and waiting for a moment like this. Also Michael Pope box law firm will put a link also in the description below, but please, if you can, if you have a case, you know, a catastrophic injury case, serious injury case, car accidents, trucking accidents, auto accident, negligence, slip and fall, you know, any type of case where someone's been wrongful death cases,
Starting point is 01:14:23 people that you know in your life, sexual harassment cases against someone at work or whatever, Michael Popak handles those cases. Michael, where do they go? Yeah, easy, www.thepopakfirm.com and an easy to remember, 800 number 877, Popak AF. Everybody, thank you for watching this episode of Legal AF. We covered a lot.
Starting point is 01:14:46 Subscribe to this YouTube channel as well. We're gonna have a lot of updates over the next 24, 48 hours for sure. Thank you for watching. Shout out, Midas Mighty. Shout out Legal AFers.

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