Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 5/21/2025
Episode Date: May 22, 2025On the midweek edition of the Legal AF podcast, Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Dina Doll break down a new ruling by a federal judge finding the Trump administration in violation of a court order, Trump�...�s official acceptance of a Qatari jet, Alina Habba’s use of legal retribution to target political opponents in New Jersey, and a new probe into Andrew Cuomo launched by the Trump DOJ. This and more on the midweek edition of Legal AF! Support Our Sponsors: Vessi: Take the first step toward adventure with Vessi. Visit https://vessi.com/LEGALAF to keep your travels comfortable and dry. Explore confidently and enjoy 15% off your first pair at checkout! Uplift: Elevate your workspace and energize your year with Uplift Desk. Go to https://upliftdesk.com/legalaf for a special offer exclusive to our audience. Delete Me: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to join https://deleteme.com/LEGALAF and use promo code LEGALAF at checkout. Laundry Sauce: For 20% off your order head to https://LaundrySauce.com/LEGALAF20 and use code LEGALAF20 Moink: Keep American farming going by signing up at https://MoinkBox.com/LEGALAF RIGHT NOW and listeners of this show get FREE WINGS for LIFE! Subscribe to the NEW Legal AF Substack: https://substack.com/@legalaf 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Welcome to a midweek edition of legal AF.
I am going to be the host this week with Dina Dahl, cause Michael Popok, sadly
lost his mother and he is burying her and
dealing with his family and spending time.
We send him our love, our condolences.
What a wonderful son he is.
His little daughter is not even a year old, got to meet her grandmother, which was such
a wonderful blessing.
We just are going to send all sorts of love
to Michael Popok. He deserves it.
And he deserves this break.
And, Dina, we're so incredibly happy
that you are available to step in,
which you've done many times
whenever one of us can't make it,
and to be on the midweek edition of Legal AF.
How are you doing, Dina?
I'm okay. Definitely condolences to Popak,
his wife, Natasha, his daughter, Francesca,
the entire family.
I know it's not easy for them,
and I think he mentioned that his mom had been at a camp
with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
So maybe you can share that a little bit more at that point,
but I'm sure, like, he saw her as such a source of strength and inspiration
and she was a huge fan of his.
So I'm glad to be able to help out
and allow them more time to grieve
and looking forward to talking to you about yet again,
I mean, it's a nonstop, nonstop lawlessness
and stuff coming out of Trump.
There's tons of stuff for us to talk about today.
Yeah, there really is.
I mean, the overall theme that we're gonna talk about today
and it kind of hits every topic we're gonna talk about
has to do with the politicization of justice.
How prior to Donald Trump, I always imagined justice
to be muted out evenly, fairly, without fear or favor.
It's not about politics, it's not about griev favor. It's not about politics.
It's not about grievances.
And he's politicizing everything, absolutely everything,
whether it's his new interim United States attorney
for the state of New Jersey, Alina Habba,
and her new task force on election integrity.
It's funny, they name things the opposite.
It's like the opposite, right?
They're doing the very thing. They name it something to call it. It's like the opposite, right?
They name it something to call it something.
So like the bill they're trying to pass, they call it the big beautiful bill.
That is very big, that's for sure, because it's not doing any of the things that they
said it was going to do.
It's like a Trojan horse.
It's like, you know, rather than cutting spending, it increases spending.
Rather than cutting the deficit, it increases the deficit.
And then they have all this fake math that goes into it,
but it's just crazy.
So back to what our topics are
and what we're gonna be talking about,
but this is what they do.
This is how they do it.
They name things a certain way
and it's the opposite of exactly what it is.
So Alina Jaba has this new task force
on election integrity and it's the absolute opposite.
And we know that how from her words.
Her words are saying things like,
we're going to turn New Jersey red.
It's all about politics. It's not about integrity.
It's not about justice, which is what prosecution is supposed to be.
We're also, just along this theme,
we're gonna talk about how they are shipping deportees
now to third party countries, right?
South Sudan, et cetera,
without taking away due process rights.
And you've got them absolutely not caring
about court orders, about injunctions, about due process.
They talk about suspending habeas corpus.
Again, the politicization of justice.
We're going to talk about that today, Dina.
And finally, we're going to talk about how
he's setting his sights on it.
First, he, Donald Trump, and his administration
dismissed a case against Mayor Eric Adams, right?
The New York City mayor,
so that he can enforce and help enforce the immigration policies here in New York City,
because we're a sanctuary city, but Trump doesn't like that. And having a criminal bribery and
corruption case hanging over his head really stood in the way of him being able to do that.
And so they dismissed that case. And around the same time, just lo and behold,
coincidentally opened up an investigation
into the front runner running against Eric Adams
for mayor of New York City, who Andrew Cuomo,
a familiar name that we know and who was somebody who was in the,
definitely at odds with Donald Trump
during his first term during COVID especially.
So that's what they're doing.
They're opening up an investigation into him.
Is it a coincidence?
Or is it to help Eric Adams stay in office?
Who knows, but we're gonna talk about that.
And also just new reporting that's coming out
in the New York Times talking about how Trump
is politicizing the Department of Justice
and going after his enemies just in general.
So I think it's a good theme for us to talk about today
overall, because it kind of, the corruption
and the politicization really is a common thread
throughout a lot of what his policies are.
For example, today they announced
that they are accepting this,
it was a $400 million jet from the Qataris,
but I saw today, no, it's actually a $200 million jet.
I don't know, somehow they think that must make a difference.
It's a gift.
At first it was supposed to be a gift to Donald Trump
that he was gonna take with him
after having it retrofitted to the tune of a billion dollars
of taxpayer
dollars to make it something that can be Air Force One worthy, right?
It has to withstand nuclear radiation and bombing and, you know, it has to, there's
so much that has to be done to it to make it Air Force One.
And so that's going to cost a billion dollars and he was going to keep it in the end.
It was going to be a gift to him.
I saw today it was announced that it's a gift to the government. It's a gift to the Air Force.
I don't know. I want to see the fine print of that deal because I don't really trust it. And,
you know, it's funny when you look at this, first of all, this is this this gift that he's getting
that he's receiving is really it's so strange to me because first of all, it's an old plane. It's like 15 years old.
It's not that, 14 or 15 years old.
It's not like some brand new thing.
They took this old plane.
They made it shiny in the inside, you know,
with gold and all the things he likes, you know,
for the royal family.
So it looks good, right?
But it's this old clunker of a plane
that's been on the market for years. They couldn't sell it. And so now what are they going to do? They're going to offload it to us and make it seem like they're giving us some great gift. But it's really it's going to cause more to retrofit it. And guess what? What happened to Made in America? Like, why don't you buy an American plane and retrofit it and spend the money in America. But instead, here we are, we're accepting a gift that who knows what the
what it how do you how do you accept a gift from somebody and then say no to them? I mean, that's
one of the things that's really hard and why gifts are so disfavored in public office, right? It's
very difficult. And so that's why there's all sorts of ethics around if you're a government employee
or a politician accepting gifts, because you have to be able to look them in the eye
and say no to them.
And other things as well.
So that's what's in the news today.
I don't know, Dina, what do you think about this airplane,
about this lame airplane?
I really was like thinking, oh my God, this must be really great
if this is gonna be in the next Air Force One,
you know, this incredible thing. But I'm like, this is like a used car, but it's like
a used plane. Yeah. I mean, it is Boeing. Boeing manufactured
it. So it was made here initially. But yeah, he liked the interior. The interior is decked
out with like cashmere and all that kind of stuff. And that's all it took. But there's
new reporting that shows that Qatar
didn't want to actually even gift it.
As you said, they've been trying to sell this for years.
They were trying to sell it to the United States,
but Trump wanted it to be a gift.
And to your point about conflicts,
because you have on the one hand, right,
if we get a gift, are we indebted to them?
And then on the other hand, how do you say no,
if you are a country like Qatar or other many countries
around the world that are so dependent
on military defense from our country,
how do you say no to gifts, right?
I mean, it's just the difficulty with our alliances,
this is why it's just not allowed.
It's bad for both parties, frankly.
But so,
of course, it came out that they weren't originally going to gift it because this is Trump. He lies
about everything. But one thing I haven't heard discussed, which is something I'm almost even most
concerned about, is after we deck this out, right, if this becomes a decked out Air Force one, like
you said, able to withstand like literally every missile in the world.
If he does end up bringing it back to his library,
which who knows, maybe that's what would happen.
Are we going to take away all of that protection?
Cause otherwise we are literally giving a man
who doesn't believe in our democracy, right?
Something that makes him more fortified
than anybody else in the world other than our our president. Seems like a very bad idea.
I would think even more important than us decking it out is us taking away all that equipment
so his plane can be back to a normal plane. The last thing we want is an authoritarian person
being able to fly around and something like that.
Well, talk about waste, fraud and abuse, right? And overspending.
I mean, yeah, maybe originally this was made in America.
It was Boeing.
I didn't know that.
So thank you for clarifying that.
But what it's gonna take in order to, first of all,
but by not buying an Air Force One plane,
which I know there's one in the works,
but by taking this and accepting it and retrofitting it,
you're not giving the business
to an American company again, right?
You're not buying a new plane. But what you are doing to retrofitting it, you're not giving the business to an American company again, right? You're not buying a new plane.
But what you are doing to retrofit this plane,
and the thing that really frustrates me
is as a former law enforcement person,
the devices that you can put to bug,
you know, you can bug,
the devices to bug something, right?
To listen in, to eavesdrop, whatever,
are almost microscopic at this point.
And they are so, they can be hidden,
they can be placed in god only knows where,
they are hard to find.
This is a giant plane.
I just can't imagine the work that's gonna go into it
to have to figure out and make sure
that it's completely secure.
I mean, that's my issue. This is a gift from a foreign nation.
This is not something made by a company in America
that has security clearances and government contracts
and hopefully has America's interest in mind, right?
And they don't want to sabotage this country.
I don't know.
The whole thing just smells fishy to me.
It just seems weird. And I just don't know. The whole thing just smells fishy to me. It just seems weird.
And I just don't understand that why it is that we had to accept a used airplane from 15 years ago,
like a used car where we couldn't get a new one. A, give the business to one of our own companies,
but B, get something brand new and nice and and not have to pay taxpayer dollars to
To to you know make just because it's got like cashmere and gold
That's all it is right. I mean, let's just be frank, you know, it's it goes to his taste
It's the opulent kind of gaudy taste and that's all it takes that and he thought it was gonna be quicker because those
Are first ones that he commissioned in his first term aren't ready yet
They may not be ready for a while. And that's all he thinks about.
He wants to fly around in a nice new shiny plane, period.
That's about as far as he gets in the thought process.
So what is he talking about?
Yeah, but doesn't this mean
he's not gonna be ready by the end of his term?
Well, no.
I mean, his insiders thought
it could be ready within the year.
So who knows?
I mean, this is all very like,
nobody's ever done this before. So who knows? I mean, this is all very like nobody's ever done
this before. To your point about spy things, it probably has to get taken apart and put back
together, which is going to be so long. So nobody's really thought this through. Knowing Trump,
he's probably like, who cares about the spy things? Because he thinks he's above it all.
Who even knows? We're going down a lane here that's never been done before. But at the end
of the day, it is all about the cashmere. Point Blake, that's all he cares about.
Let's be crank.
I don't know.
I think it's going to end up costing more money than it would
if he just bought a new plane, frankly, and started
from the beginning, right?
They've already started.
Yeah. And they've already started the other planes.
We've already bought those planes.
The government has already entered into a contract
for two new Air Force ones. That's in the other planes. We've already bought those planes. The government has already entered into a contract for two new Air Force 1s.
That's in the works already.
It's just taking slower than they thought.
But we're already paying for that because the idea is if he takes it, they're going
to use that eventually.
The whole thing is a mess.
I mean, the thing is we don't need it.
So why buy, why do this?
You know, it just makes no sense.
Anyway, that's enough on the, that's enough on the used car slash airplane
that we're getting to be our Air Force One from Qatari.
Let's talk about what's going on in the United States
and our Justice Department and the weaponization
and politicization of kind of justice, right?
And I just want to frame it with the overall,
the reason I, this, just the overall theme here and the reason this topic was important to me that we cover
is because of the fact that I've spent my entire career in law enforcement and in prosecution
and I did it for three decades. And every politician that I've ever worked for or worked with,
whether you're elected or appointed,
they've all tried to do the right thing and they care about doing the right thing.
And this phrase that people have heard me say now for years on Legal AF,
follow the facts wherever they lead without fear or favor.
It's like a mantra.
And without fear or favor is It's like a mantra. And without
fear or favor is means without politics, without you're not influenced by money, you're not
influenced by by position, you're not influenced by party, you follow the facts wherever they
lead and you bring justice if it's warranted. And that's it. And it's just amazing to me how Donald Trump,
who was prosecuted four times, right, two states
and two federal cases, accused the biggest accusation.
And the reason people, I think, were so frustrated is he
convinced people that those were political prosecutions.
He convinced people that, no, it's okay to have top secret,
it's okay to have top secret documents sitting in my house
and in the bathroom and in a room where all these people
are coming in and out of,
I can just have them spilling out onto the floor,
unsecure, I took them with me. That's not a crime.
Yes, I did say lock her up about Hillary
because she had emails on a server
that went through her house in a private server.
And I said, lock her up for that.
But no, my documents that I'm waving around,
my top secret documents, not a crime.
Calling up Brad Raffensperger in Georgia
and saying, find me whatever, 5,000,
whatever that number was, I used to know it.
But the number of votes needed to win the state of Georgia,
you know, no, that's not a crime.
Just let that go.
False slates of electors, January 6, right, allowing,
trying to stop the certification of the election and the falsification of business records here in New York,
whatever it is, those are actual crimes.
Those are things that were done that were criminal,
that if anyone else had done would be considered crimes.
He, of course, has presidential immunity for a lot of that,
and although he was convicted in New York of what he did,
obviously, it didn't really have any effect, but I never saw it as political.
Obviously some people did and that's their right.
And he ran on cleaning up government and among other issues and basically saying he's not going
to politicize things, that it's going to have election integrity
and bring back integrity into elections.
Yet everything they're doing is politicizing all
of their policies.
I mean, that's what's going on here.
So what does he do?
He appoints Alina Habba, the interim United States attorney
for the state of New Jersey. Who's Alina Habba?
She's his longtime lawyer who represented him
in three different cases, civil cases,
including the one in New York, the Arthur and Goran,
where he was held in contempt several times
and she was fined and et cetera.
She's his longtime attorney and he is rewarding her
by making her the interim United States attorney
for the state of New Jersey, despite the fact
that she's never been a prosecutor and that nobody
in either party thinks she will ever
not only get Senate confirmation,
but she also will not pass the,
she'll never pass Senate confirmation or that even the district judges in New Jersey will will have her come in.
The senators aren't going to appoint her or put her name in.
So she so as a result, she has 120 days before she's out.
And nobody thinks she's going to make it past those 120 days.
And what does she do during this 120 day process?
She creates this election integrity in New Jersey process, you know, and says, I'm going
to try and turn New Jersey red.
That is all about politics and infecting politics into prosecution.
And that is what you're not supposed to do.
And she's using her position as this political bludgeon, and she is, wants to turn New Jersey
red.
And so as a result, she's announcing investigations into the Democratic governor and the attorney
general, Matt Plotkin, who I know was interviewed here on the Midas Touch Network.
And I think Governor Murphy might've been as well.
And they are investigating them for not cooperating
with federal immigration authorities, right?
Because New Jersey is a sanctuary city.
And in fact, there's a law.
There's a law that's been upheld
by the Third Circuit in New Jersey. So a federal
court has upheld the state law saying it's not preempted, meaning the state was allowed to pass
this law, essentially saying that that law enforcement, local law enforcement doesn't have
to assist immigration authorities, right? New Jersey as a sanctuary city wants to have immigrants
be able to report crimes if they're victims,
want to be able to come forward,
wanna be able to, if you're gonna be in a traffic stop,
you don't have to worry about,
if you don't put your blinker on,
getting pulled over and then deported
and sent to your country that you're a citizen of
or some third party country that you have no connection to
because that's what they're also doing.
And so they are politicizing this
and she's gonna go after them
for not, for enforcing what is a valid law in New Jersey.
Did you see, I mean, I'm sure,
what do you think of all that, Dina?
Yeah, I mean, I think you're right on about,
I think he also created in the Department of Justice,
Ed Martin, the weaponization working group,
which ironically they're saying
is supposed to be weeding out weaponization.
But as you've said, all they've been doing
is creating weaponization.
To your point here with the investigations
regarding the sanctuary cities,
I mean, his borders are
promised that they were going to do this. Anybody that still believes that they're not
going to do what they say does it to their own peril because they said they were going
to go after sanctuary cities. It looks like this is happening. And then also with Alina
Haba charging, right, the Congresswoman, LaMonica McGuives, regarding that protest that happened
after ICE when they went in to do oversight,
charging her with felony assault,
despite when we all saw the videos,
the chaotic nature like the mob-like chaos
that the ICE agents created there
when they tried to arrest the mayor of Newark.
So this is them just, I mean,
would we have thought we were gonna talk about this is them just, I mean, I would, we have thought we were going to talk
about this a year ago, right? DOJ investigations to governor, indictment of a sitting congresswoman
with felony assaults. I mean, we're definitely getting into weaponization. I mean, totally,
totally. For people who didn't follow it that closely, why don't you tell them about that,
about the, about the mayor of Newark and the congresswoman and what they did?
Yeah. So, I mean, this, you know, the
for the so that so what happened was three different congresspeople
who are representing that area in New Jersey wanted to check out
the Delaney Detention Center. They wanted to go inside.
They wanted to make sure the conditions were humane. Right.
I mean, we're getting no insight to what's happening.
People are shipped off here and there,
shipped to different states.
So they were allowed in,
and then evidently the mayor of Newark came later
to go inside and they didn't allow him in.
ICE agents didn't allow him in.
And they ended up arresting the mayor.
And while they were trying to arrest the mayor,
I mean, you could imagine the mayor of a mayor,
major city being arrested, this created like chaos.
And there's a ton of people pushing and shoving
and it's really chaotic.
The indictment says, I mean, speaking about a prosecutor,
I definitely want to hear your thoughts on this
because it's one thing to indict,
it's another to get a jury to convict
because they put up screenshots of Congresswoman McIvers
and what she evidently did that was felony assault.
And basically they're saying it was like her forearm
was on the ICE agent.
This was, they kept referring to the forearm.
But you look at the body cam, you look on the video,
it's just chaos.
I could not imagine actually convincing a jury
that this was like any sort of intentional assault
and not everybody kind of pushing and shoving each other.
But they don't care, right, Karen?
This isn't about proving in court the item.
In fact, Ed Martin, who's the head
of his weaponization working group,
which is just getting started, folks, so this is going to get a lot worse, specifically
said that where they can charge, they will charge and where they cannot charge, they
will name and shame, which basically means if you can't charge somebody, you're not
even talking about convicting somebody.
You're talking about putting charges
like they just said with this Congresswoman,
which can be very tenuous, right?
But they're saying they can't even get to the point
of charging somebody.
It means that there's zero evidence, zero incident,
zero, an event that occurred, zero law
that you can tie somebody's actions to
and still name and shame.
This is how far they're gonna go
with this weaponization here.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
That indictment of the,
so that started with a arrested the mayor of Newark,
correct me if I'm wrong.
Yes, exactly.
For like trespassing or something.
And they quickly realized that
that's a bogus misdemeanor
Trumped up charge and I know and and so they dropped that really quick
But they had to get it happen arrest so they they charged this representative
Lamonica MacGyver with felony assault on law enforcement and this was when you look at the video
I watched it over and over again to try to find where is this assault?
And I don't think they're gonna be able to prove it
I think it's a it's a big scuffle and those are hard to prove in in the I
prosecuted many of them when
You have to be able to show that it's not enough to be part of a big group and well
He must have done something right you have to show that this person
Did exactly what they are being charged with someone else did what they're being charged with, and so on and so on.
And I didn't see it. I don't see it.
And I think that's just that's such a bridge too far, right?
If you can't prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, not only are you going to prosecute,
you're not going to bring that case.
You shouldn't bring that case, but you shouldn't bring it against somebody
who is an elected official, that's for sure.
It's very disruptive.
And frankly, you have to ask yourself the question,
if this representative were a Republican,
would they have charged them?
And the answer I'm sure is no.
And that's the opposite of without fear or favor.
That is what you're not supposed to do, right? We went, again, not to talk about when I was a prosecutor,
but this is just where I draw my experience from. You have to be willing to, if you're
going to prosecute a case of protesters, for example, for chaining themselves together,
blocking traffic, refusing to allow people to, you know,
go down across the Brooklyn Bridge, whatever it is,
you know, those types of things, you know,
you give them a chance to leave you,
you, all that kind of stuff, but ultimately,
there's some people that you have to prosecute
if they absolutely refuse to move, et cetera.
You have to be willing to do that and be content neutral. You can't only
prosecute the KKK doing that, right? You have to also be willing to prosecute the grandmothers
who are anti their grandsons getting sent off to fight a war or whatever, whatever you agree with,
right? You have to be willing to prosecute the same conduct
that's content neutral.
And that is the opposite
of what this administration's doing.
They're looking for people who are,
they consider to be their political foes, frankly,
and going after them.
And as you said, weaponizing the Department of Justice.
It's just not the way it's ever been done.
And it's not the way I think a civil society should be.
It's really such a shame.
And the fact of the matter is they're doing the very thing
that they accused the Biden administration of doing
and just completely politicizing the office.
And Alina Haba is doing it with the U.S. Attorney's Office
in the Department of Justice.
And it'll just be interesting to see how far the how far they get with the Department of Justice because the line prosecutors who have to have to actually implement these policies.
It'll be interesting to see if they go along with it or if they say put their foot down. I mean, they'll get fired like we've seen others get fired or they'll have to resign.
But at the end of the day, there's no evidence.
Either a judge is gonna throw it out
or a jury is gonna throw it out, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, in fact, to the matter, as you said,
Alina Haba has 120 days.
She has 120 days to create a name for herself
and audition for whatever next job she wants to do.
So buckle up.
She's gonna be willing to, I think,
continue to do this kind of stuff
for that time period she has left.
Yeah, I heard she's interviewing to take over
for Janine Pirro on Fox News.
Okay, well, that's better for you.
Janine Pirro, who is going to be nominated
to be the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia,
because Ed Martin, who you talked about,
had to have his name pulled because he would have not
gotten confirmed.
But instead, they put him in another position,
as you said, this election integrity or whatever.
Weaponization working group.
Whatever it is, yes. Weaponization working group. Whatever, whatever it is, yes.
Weaponization working group.
The opposite, the names.
It's actually not the opposite.
It's exactly what it is.
They're weaponizing the government.
So, I mean, it's labeled what it is.
It is the weaponization working group,
not the anti-weaponization working group.
There you go, there you go.
They did not do the irony in that one.
They actually named it.
All right, so we're going to take our very first break.
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So let's continue on this theme of the Department of Justice
and the weaponization of the Department of Justice
that the Trump administration is engaging in.
And let's talk a little bit about what is happening now
here in New York.
So we've talked a lot about how the mayor of New York,
the current mayor, the sitting mayor of New York City,
Eric Adams was indicted on various corruption charges
for taking bribes from other governments
and others, et cetera.
And it was a serious case, serious enough
that at the time, he's a Democrat.
So at the time, the Democratic, well, he was a Democrat now.
He's independent.
Eric Adams ran as a Democrat, was a Democrat.
And Biden, who obviously was a Democrat,
his Justice Department brought this case against Eric Adams.
And they brought it in a very public way.
They arrested him publicly during a very important week here
in New York.
It's the United Nations General Assembly.
There's foreign dignitaries all over from all over the world
who are here, and Mayor Adams has to protect them
because he's the head of the police department as the mayor and he's the host as the host
of New York City where the United Nations is located.
And the Biden's Justice Department felt that the case was serious enough
that they both wanted to send a message to Eric Adams
and to all the foreign countries that were here visiting
that were not for sale and arrested him
in a very dramatic fashion during that time period.
It was a serious case.
It was a big case.
It's a big deal.
He was gonna fight the case.
And you could just see he started currying favor with Trump.
He started using similar languages as Trump.
He started saying things
like they're prosecuting you, not me, you know, all the things that Trump was saying,
well, he was being prosecuted, accusing this of being politicized, even though it's the
same party. And after a series of clearly successful meetings between Adams and Trump,
or Adams' people and Trump's people,
the Justice Department agreed to dismiss the case
against Mayor Adams in order to...
so that he can enforce, help enforce the immigration agenda.
I mean, New York is the biggest sanctuary city
and we have a lot of immigrants and we welcome them here.
And immigration is obviously a controversial issue
and a controversial topic,
but this is how New York City has always been.
And they dismissed the case.
It was a lot of drama and back and forth in the dismissal.
Should it be with prejudice, without prejudice?
There are people who resigned.
In fact, the interim US attorney here in New York
who was appointed by Trump was very, very respected.
Her name's Danielle Sassoon.
She very loudly resigned.
She got into it with Emile Beauvais kind of publicly.
It was a big deal here in New York,
this whole dismissal of the Adams case.
But we have learned, somebody leaked this,
and I'm not really sure who, that the Department
of Justice has opened a criminal investigation now
into Eric Adams' political opponent.
So what's happening now is Eric Adams is running
for reelection again, but he's running as an independent.
He's no longer a Democrat.
And so the Democratic primary is coming up June 24th,
and the person who's leading the Democratic primary is none
other than Andrew Cuomo.
So everybody thinks he's going to be the Democratic,
or has a good chance of being the Democratic nominee.
And so he's, and really that's who typically wins
in New York City is whoever the Democrat is.
So it's likely going to be Eric Adams versus Andrew Cuomo
in the next election.
And lo and behold, here the Justice Department is announced
that they are investigating Andrew Cuomo.
And look, Andrew Cuomo was the governor of New York
and he left in kind of a scandal of his own.
There was a couple of issues he had.
He had a sexual harassment issue, a pretty big one.
And so he left in kind of disgrace, frankly.
And there was also always this question about COVID
and his handling of COVID.
Some people loved him.
He was in some ways the country's mayor.
He talked, my mother in Southern California
listened to the news and there's something
about Andrew Cuomo that comforted her, talking her through the COVID, you know, the pandemic.
And, you know, so there's a lot of people
who have a lot of positive feelings about him as well.
But he was a governor who was punishing.
He was a difficult governor.
He was, didn't have a lot of people who loved him
from a, like he's not easy to work with, put it this way.
And in fact, I've been on the other end of his,
one of his rants, it's not fun.
He's viewed as someone though,
because he's kind of a strong personality,
as someone who could potentially take on Donald Trump
and be strong enough to take on Donald Trump,
despite his flaws.
And, uh, and the sexual, you know,
the sexual harassment stuff, which frankly I don't love.
But there are people who think, but he's,
but yet he might be able to be strong enough
to take on Trump.
And in some ways, I think that's gonna be the fuel
that propels him into office.
I think there are people who are afraid that Eric Adams is going to kowtow to Trump,
and Andrew Cuomo will stand up to him,
because he's mean enough to do it.
And that's kind of his reputation.
And so, what does Trump do, coincidentally?
He opens an investigation into Andrew Cuomo.
And here, the investigation is about how during COVID,
Cuomo moved elder patients from the hospitals
into nursing homes. And the death rate in those nursing homes went up by 50%.
This was a death sentence that he lied about the numbers is what the accusation is,
and that's what they're looking into, whether or not this is, you know, they're talking about
things like Ed Martin, who he talked about, is talking about things like manslaughter
and negligent homicide, and that's what they're looking at him for. And this was a long time ago,
and that's what they're looking at him for. And this was a long time ago,
but they're looking at the false statements
that they say he made to a subcommittee
that was investigating the New York COVID response.
And they're saying Cuomo lied during this testimony.
So that's what's going on here.
But it's just more politicization
and more weaponization, Dina.
I mean, this is what they're doing.
Yeah, I mean, the fact that they didn't bring
this investigation or announced the investigation
until the election is right around the corner
is obviously so concerning because to your point,
this has to do with his testimony in 2020
regarding the assisted living facilities
and whether or not he was involved
in the making of those reports.
He told the House that he wasn't
and now there's maybe evidence that he was.
The House did refer him for criminal prosecution
for him potentially lying to them.
The Biden DOJ didn't take it up.
The Trump DOJ could have taken this up
way back in January, right?
This isn't a new development.
It's not a new fact.
They thought they were going to have Eric Adams at their mercy because as you know,
they didn't just want to dismiss it.
They wanted to dismiss it without prejudice, which meant they could refile.
And to our kind of earlier conversation, when we talked to, you talked about career
DOJ people and are they going to follow
with these kind of lawless orders or resign, the attorneys that resigned made a difference
because the judge then looked, you know, appointed an independent person to advise him on what, how
to handle this because it had become obviously a very disputed issue within the Department of Justice.
And he ended up getting that Eric Adams had it dismissed
without prejudice, which meant it wasn't like
Trump couldn't hold it over his head,
which I think was a win,
even though you could still argue
that it wasn't really a win because it got dismissed,
but at least it got dismissed in a way
that it was less of a quid pro quo,
like I'm going to hold
this over you and you're going to be the mayor of New York and I can always refile. And that
was a direct result of all those prosecutors quitting. So quitting does make a difference.
In terms of Cuomo, I mean, you just can't think of like the timing of this is huge. Because look, we just talked about Alina Jaba
investigating the sanctuary cities, right?
They have said they plan on going after officials
in sanctuary cities.
Karen Bass in LA, it's just a matter of time
before they start looking into her.
Having somebody like Andrew Kowal,
people across the country thought he does a very
good job at standing up to Trump.
Trump knows what a foe, how difficult going head to head with Andrew Cuomo would be in
this fight that they plan on bringing to sanctuary cities.
They know he's going to be a formidable force.
So the timing of this, along with all the other acts
of weaponization they do, yeah, certainly seems like they,
but you know what, it could be the kind of thing,
like, you know, Trump said it,
the prosecution of him emboldened his base.
I don't know, I mean, you're in New York, Karen,
but I could see emboldening actually Democrats,
the fact that he's going after him so close to the election,
they may wanna vote for Cuomo even more
because they want somebody to stand up to Trump.
So this might actually help him rather than...
Oh, I think so. I think so completely.
I think this is the reason people would vote for him.
And I think Trump and the Department of Justice knows that,
which is why I think they are going after him
in order to try to neutralize that.
At least they're going to try.
And Cuomo, I guess, is the person to stand up to him.
I don't know. Like I said, I struggle with this because he is a flawed individual.
And the fact that he was investigated and is fighting.
First of all, do you realize that the taxpayers in New York are footing
his legal bills
to the tune of, I think it's like $60 million
in legal fees to fight these sexual harassment suits?
It's, there's a lot of women, there's a lot of people,
and, but if he's the only one who could stand up to Trump,
then so be it.
So, but it's hard for me as a New Yorker to,
you know, things like integrity used to matter, right?
Things like not being a sexual harasser or a rapist
used to matter, but now I guess that is something
that makes you strong and tough
and can be president of the United States
or can be mayor of New York City.
I don't know.
I miss the days when things like ethics and integrity mattered
and we cared about those things. And now it just seems like all we care about is showing
how tough you are and how you can just flaunt the laws and the rules and the norms and the
ethics and just whoever's, you know, you're a sucker. If you lose and I win, but you followed the rules and I didn't,
you're a sucker, you're weak.
And that's how they look at it.
And they laugh about it.
And that's just not my kind of person, I don't like that.
I really do care about things like character and integrity.
And I mean, it's just, you know, they're going,
Trump, just to add to the list, by the way,
they're not just going after Andrew Cuomo,
they're going after Jim Comey, right?
For the former FBI director, right?
They're going after him and opening an investigation
because he assembled or took a picture of some seashells
that were on the beach that said eight, the number is 8647.
And they're saying, you know, it was a code to call for the assassination
of Trump, right?
The eight to 86 him or, you know, they're also, they, I, did you hear this?
They're, they're going to, they're looking into investigating Bruce
Springsteen and Beyonce because they performed at Kamala Harris's and Oprah because they spoke at or
performed at her election, you know, at her campaign rallies. He's going to investigate
them. I mean, that's crazy. That's just, that's insane. I mean, he's really just democracy
doesn't matter anymore. I mean, he had performers at his rallies and his things.
I mean, I just don't understand this.
You know what the irony is,
is he says that these are in kind campaign contributions,
which, you know, that's basically what he was convicted of
because he paid off Stormy Daniels
and then didn't report it.
So it's hilarious to me that he's all of a sudden,
the arbiter on campaign rules and violations of them.
So yeah, no, I mean, this is just,
he wants to go after anybody who doesn't kiss the ring.
And unfortunately, there are so many people
that kiss the ring that, you know,
he thinks he's entitled to do it.
I mean, this is a little bit of a side note,
but I don't know if you saw it went viral.
There was a daughter of a slain police officer
who went to the White House and accepted a medal.
And she was not a Republican.
She's not a fan of Trump.
And so she did not do any of the usual, you know,
bowing down to him or whatever.
And Trump and these kinds of viral photos
was like shocked the fact that she's not doing that.
He's just surrounded by people who are yes men and we love you
and you're the best and you're the greatest.
And so he thinks he's entitled to go after any celebrity
or any known person who doesn't bow down to him.
And, but the irony of him trying to say
that there's some sort of campaign violation
was the funny part for me.
Yeah, I agree, I agree.
You know, just speaking of things that are going viral
and the media, et cetera,
what I can't get past is I cannot get past the fact
that the Democrats and the legacy media
are self-flagellating and going after Biden for this, you know,
ridiculous, whoa, all these people covering up for him.
And this is what we're talking about, as if the, you know,
and then now accusing the cancer diagnosis of being dropped to deflect away from the fact
that there's this big expose that he was, that he was, you know, not mentally there, et cetera.
I mean, and the Democrats, it's like,
the reason I think the Democrats are,
have lost this particular election cycle partly
is because the Democrats self-flagellate.
I mean, we, Democrats eat their young.
And meanwhile, the Republicans circle the wagons around one another and I don't care
Who you are Matt gates? We love you, you know, like it doesn't matter who it is, right?
Who is that congressman? I bought wise names escaping me the one who lied about literally everything. Oh, yeah, George Soros
Santos Santos Santos. Yes, George Santos. Yes. Sorry
George Soros? Santos, Santos, Santos, yes, George Santos, yes, sorry.
George Santos, another one, like, right?
Like he was like a walking crime spree, George Santos, right?
But that they circle the wagons around their people.
And we like, okay, yeah, clearly there was a decline
at some point of Biden and we all saw it.
And then he stepped out and that was it.
But somehow this is like now that's all we talk about is this,
this cover up, this crazy whatever.
But it's like almost like what about the fact
that we're accepting a bribe from Qatar.
We're accepting this giant airplane.
We are going after people who didn't commit crimes.
You know, we are deporting people to third countries
and violating what the Supreme Court has told us we can do,
not us, told Trump what they can do. Like, it's like comparing jaywalking to homicide. Yes, both
of them are technically crimes, but they are not equivalent, right? They aren't. And so, yes,
poor Joe Biden clearly declined in the end and then stepped aside
and whatever. But that, that, that took to make that somehow equivalent to what is going
on and not to be spending our time calling out what, what is actually happening here.
This is, there is no rule of law when it comes to Trump and his people. They literally are
doing whatever they want.
It doesn't matter what judges say, what courts say,
what the law says.
They say things say what they want it to say versus what it
actually say, and they're just doing what they want
and getting away with it.
That's what we should be focusing on.
I mean, I don't think that this is Democrats saying it, though.
The everyday Democrat does not care and is not saying it.
This is the consulting class who is trying to keep their jobs.
They made a mistake when they pushed Biden out because,
you know, I haven't read the book,
but all the reporting of the book,
there is no like smoking gun.
It's all the aging stuff.
We all saw that in real time.
Every speech, every shuffle, the fall on the stage, he was aging, he didn't do well. We all saw that in real time. Every speech, every shuffle, the fall on the stage,
he was aging, he didn't do well, we all knew it.
They are trying to cover, this is a CYA move
because otherwise the narrative would be
you pushed out somebody too close to an election,
but instead they're flipping it and they're making it
his fault he should have turned out before.
The fact of the matter is we all knew he was getting old.
So this to me is not a Democrat.
This is not the voters.
This is not the constituents.
This is not people who care.
This is about a bunch of people trying to save their jobs
and to flip the narrative from you did the wrong thing
by pushing somebody out too close to an election to,
oh, no, he was wrong for not getting out.
There is to me, I have not seen any evidence of anything
that we didn't all see in real time.
Yeah, I look, I agree.
He whatever I think I personally think he should have.
You know, he ran on saying I'm a one term president. Right.
That's what he said.
And a lot of people voted for him for that reason
so that Trump wouldn't come back.
And I think a lot of people felt
that he should have pulled out earlier,
that he should have stepped aside, I should say,
and not put himself forward.
And that I think is, you can criticize him for it,
but he was a great president and he's a great man.
And now his family's struggling with this cancer diagnosis.
And I just really...
And meanwhile, the country's burning and on fire.
And so many things are happening, but we're focused on that.
I just don't understand it.
And, uh, anyway, so that's...
Thank you for letting me go down that little non-secret.
Yeah.
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We're back and we are going to talk about our last topic of the evening.
And the fact that we are shipping people to now it looks like South Sudan
in violation of court orders. And this is just bananas.
What's going on here.
In an effort to deport people quickly,
Donald Trump is doing lots of different things, right?
He is revoking certain visas, he's revoking statuses,
he's paying people to self-deport. He is speeding up the process, the immigration process,
to streamline it so that you're not mired
in court process for years and years and years.
And frankly, I'm sure there's a lot of people
who think that the court, the immigration system was broken.
Congress was unable to pass any law
that made sense of immigration, made sense of the issue.
The immigration courts have huge backlogs.
There is a problem, and I think it's,
we have to be honest about that and call that out.
And as a result, lots and lots and lots of people
came over to the United States.
And there are some people who felt frustrated by that because they felt that our cities,
some cities can't take it, right? Some cities love and want to have migrants.
And it's actually a huge boom to their economy. and great workers, great neighbors, great people.
But there are some places that I think that it was it was very difficult for them.
And there was a lot of frustration there.
And so the system has been a problem for a long time.
Different people have different ideas on how to fix the problem and have different ideas
of what immigration in this country
should look like. Regardless of what point of view you have, I happen to absolutely,
I live in a sanctuary city, I'm pro-immigration. Every person here practically in this country
that is not a Native American is the product
of an immigrant, and it's partly why I love this country, right?
What makes this country beautiful
and amazing is just the different cultures
and different people, and, you know,
we have the Statute of Liberty here in New York.
It's all about immigration.
We have Ellis Island.
I mean, it's just this is the history of this country.
But so regardless of what your point of view is, Ellis Island. I mean, it's just this is the history of this country.
But so regardless of what your point of view is, we are also allegedly a country of laws.
We were up until recently a country of laws.
And so what does that mean?
It means that you follow laws, whether you agree with them or not,
because we're a democracy, right?
That's part of being in a democracy is you try to persuade people.
You vote people into office.
They they put laws in place of, you know, that people kind of that your representatives vote for and
you follow them because that's the law and some laws I like and sometimes I don't and but the
laws you like and I don't, I'm going to follow and that's a civil society, right, and that's where
we live. This administration doesn't seem to want to do that
because there's a whole set of laws in place
that protect immigrants and protect people
who are in detention.
And you have things like due process rights.
In fact, the Constitution even talks about due process rights.
What does that mean?
It means you have a right to process.
You have a right to some kind of court process before certain things are taken away from
you.
And Donald Trump doesn't seem to really want to follow that.
They don't want to respect that.
And so they talk about things like suspending habeas corpus.
That's something they want to talk about.
And what is suspending habeas corpus?
Habeas corpus, a writ of habeas corpus essentially means
to bring a body to court.
It means produce the body to court.
Something Kristi Noem did not know, by the way.
She got it wrong, what that is.
It's a little scary.
But that's a right in this country, right?
That is a right that no matter who you are,
if you're detained, you have a right to have your body be brought
to court through a habeas corpus to be told to challenge,
to challenge your detention.
Now, the judge might say, sorry, you're staying in,
but you have a right to have process.
And that is one of the indelible rights that's in the Constitution. And it's only been suspended a couple of times, I think less
than a handful of times in our nation's history.
And certainly not any time in the recent history.
I think the very last time had to do with the bombing
of Pearl Harbor.
And that was, but before that, it was even much longer ago
in the 17s and 1800s. I mean, that's how rare this is. And that was, but before that it was even much longer ago
in the 17s and 1800s.
I mean, that's how rare this is.
But Stephen Miller is think, is talk very openly
about wanting to do that so they can deport people
and deport migrants and not have
to have them be brought to court.
They can just take them in the middle of the night
and take them away and bring them to a place
where either their home
country or somewhere they will be accepted. And if they are not on this soil, then there's nothing
we can do to if you suspend habeas corpus, even if you don't suspend habeas corpus, if they're taken
away, how are we going to get them back? So that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to be
able to meet this promise to deport a million migrants before the end of the year, because that's what the promise is. They want to be
able to just ship first, ask questions later, kind of like they did with Abrego Garcia.
Oops, we made a mistake. Doesn't really matter, right? Mistake doesn't really matter. Just
get as many people out as possible, whether it's the Aliens Enemy Act that they're invoking
to try to streamline things, whether it's to just go and scurry people away in the dark
of night, whatever it is.
It's even a bridge too far for the Supreme Court of the United States, who last week
in the middle of the night said, you know what?
You can't do that.
You have to give some process.
Telling them the night before after business hours and then putting them on a plane the next morning without a meaningful opportunity to consult with a
lawyer is not due process. And even the Supreme Court, that was a bridge too far.
And what's happening, what's happened today is a Boston federal judge, Brian
Murphy is his name.
He issued an injunction in March saying that people
can't be sent to a third country,
meaning a country that you have no connection to.
You're not a citizen of that country.
It's just a country willing to accept you.
Cause some people aren't by the way,
some people aren't welcomed by their country, right?
You come here from another country and you commit murder,
or you commit rape, you're convicted and you're detained.
Your home country might not want you back.
And so what are you gonna do with that person?
So these individuals, right, what does Trump do?
He picks the worst of the worst.
He picks people, eight people from Myanmar,
Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, Mexico, and South Sudan,
who were eight immigrants who all have been convicted of
the worst offenses you can imagine, murder, rape, robbery, etc. And the night before,
literally the night before, despite Judge Murphy issuing an injunction in March saying that people
can't be sent to a third party without giving them an opportunity to raise concern like fear of persecution,
fear of torture, right?
He said, you can't do that without giving them
an opportunity to challenge it.
Doesn't mean you get to stay here forever.
It means you get process.
It means you get have a right to go to court
and have Trump gets to, and his administration
gets to say the reasons you shouldn't be here
and you should be able to go to this other country.
And you get to say the reasons why you don't want to or you can't or shouldn't.
And that should be, and then the court rules.
And then if you lose, then you get sent wherever you get sent.
I mean, there's a way of doing what he wants to do and do it the right way.
He just doesn't want to.
And that's what bothers me is do it the right way. He just doesn't want to. And that's what bothers me,
is do it the right way. Because due process matters. Process matters. Laws matter. And so
these eight individuals, these immigrants who I accept that they aren't great citizens and people
that we necessarily want here, they were told less than 24 hours before the night, the night before,
literally to the and the next day they were put on a plane.
And Judge Murphy said that is an insufficient amount of time.
And he's thinking of bringing a criminal contempt finding,
and he wants to hold hearings.
He wants names to know who's doing this.
Now there's flight trackers for this plane that took them
and they're not sure where the flight is going
and because it didn't stop in South Sudan, who knows?
I mean, there's all this question now about confusion
because that's also the chaos,
that's also what they kind of do, right?
It's they don't answer questions,
they don't tell you anything
and they sow kind of this chaos
and it's like, oops, well, they're gone, can't do anything about it, I don't have control
over them anyway. And Judge Murphy basically said, no, that's not okay, you
can't do it. And, you know, Trump's, their spokespeople are smart, they're like,
well, these are bad people, nobody wants them, and nobody wants to accept them.
But this is, I think, at least the fourth time
the Trump administration has been accused by attorneys
of violating this order by Judge Murphy.
And the problem is there's not a lot of repercussion
for this because they're gone.
And what is a judge going to do to the Trump administration?
What are their actual powers?
Well, it's interesting because I think they're...
Evidently, like you said, this is kind of just, you know,
developing. The story is developing.
And evidently, these men are the plane landed,
it went to take off from Texas, went through Ireland,
as you said, there's flight trackers on it,
and landed in an East African nation,
Jibedine, I believe I'm pronouncing that right. And that's evidently where it is. The notice that
was given was that it was heading to South Sudan. Now the Trump administration is backing off from
that saying that's not the ultimate destination, they're not giving the ultimate destination.
But the Judge Murphy said that they cannot leave the airplane until he figures this out.
He might hold hearings, he said.
The lawyers for the deportees wanted him to order the plane to come back.
He did not do that, but he might have some sort of hearings while they're still in custody.
This is very much a developing story.
The fact that we have been here more than once before, where there's a clear order,
this is how you handle sending somebody to the third party.
In this situation, they had valid deportation papers.
It was more about where you were sending them.
And Judge Murphy had made clear
when you're sending them to a third party country,
you have to make sure you're giving them notice not in English,
you have to give them enough time to be able consult
the lawyers. We just have the Supreme Court, right, with the Aliens Enemies Act saying 24 hours is not sufficient. Here, this is
perhaps the amount of time the government gave. There's a little bit in dispute, but it's definitely not more than 24 hours. The
notice wasn't English. So like very clearly violating his order, Judge Murphy, in the hearing today, very upset about the fact
that they're violating it.
And as you said, he might look into criminal proceedings.
And this is not even the only case.
There is a Guatemalan man again with Judge Murphy
that they sent to Mexico.
And they Trump put in the declaratory statement saying
that the man, we only know him by his initials,
OCG had evidently been
okay and fine and felt safe going to Mexico.
And then when it came time to have a hearing, the ICE agents admitting nobody had actually
asked him, nobody had spoken to him.
So in the hearing today, Judge Murphy really eviscerating about that too, like you basically
lied to the court here. So the amount that Trump is doing
in terms of violating court orders, lying to the court,
all in this name of really,
and you know the fact that we're talking about the DHS
maybe doing like a reality show regarding immigrants,
this is the reality show, right?
Let's be frank, he's doing this on purpose.
He's scaring people.
I mean, can you imagine you're coming,
we shouldn't even be talking about deportation
or immigration policy.
This is about taking somebody off the streets,
giving them a life sentence in a country they're not from
for the sole crime of crossing into this thing.
A lot of them haven't come legally into this country,
but even if not, I mean, you are scaring people.
That's his purpose, right?
That's his purpose.
This is why he doesn't care about the laws.
His whole point is to make this as scary,
as depraved as possible.
As being a daughter of an immigrant,
I can't even imagine purposely wanting people
to not come to this country,
especially when we're talking about low birth rates,
we need immigrants more than ever.
But this is what this is about.
It's about scaring people
and they're willing to break
the law to do it.
But it is heartening to see now we saw Judge Boasberg
talk about criminal contempt.
Now we see this judge saying he's gonna take it up
at another hearing.
And again, it's these low-level career officials
that are going to be subjected to this criminal contempt.
It's not Trump. It's the low level ones, which is the only saving grace possibly in this.
Because I know that's the thing a lot of people are saying, who cares about the judge's orders
against them? Like, who cares? Who cares? It's just violating. Does it matter? Does it matter?
The fact of the matter is we're giving these officials due process, right? They're slowly looking into was, you know, what did these Trump
officials know? Did they violate it? We have to be patient and let this play out. But the person
who's just trying to do a job and feed their family and is not really like the MAGA person,
may not want to break a judge's violation when they see their co-worker get brought into court
and his name publicly named and deposed. But then they'll get fired. The problem is they'll get want to break a judge's violation when they see their co-worker get brought into court
and his name publicly named and deposed.
But then they'll get fired.
The problem is they'll get fired.
That's what they do.
If they don't, well, if they don't listen.
Yeah.
Yeah, but it's better to get fired than criminally prosecuted.
And it's the same thing with the US.
Yeah, if I was somebody like that, I'd be like, fire me.
I don't want to go in front and get a lawyer and all that kind of stuff.
And here's the thing, it may not make a huge difference, but AOC talks about this, and
I think she talks about this so well.
She says, we have to slow them down.
You may not be the one person that, yes, you decide to not do it.
You decide to quit overdoing it, like we saw with the US attorneys with Eric Adams, but
you're slowing it down.
You're taking a chink into what they have to do.
And that helps.
Every little action helps.
So just like we saw with all these federal employees,
everyday people getting fired,
we are seeing the everyday US attorney
or the everyday DHS employee kind of being
the resiliency between us and Trump.
And we're going to have to see case by case.
But it's helpful that it's not just like the upper echelons.
Like we're never going to be able to count on Stephen Miller to do the right thing.
But we may be able to count on that person who's just really trying to do
their job and go home to their family at the end of the day.
What's really frustrating to me about all this is
deporting immigrants who have committed violent crimes has always been a thing.
Every administration, even New York City sanctuary cities,
they all get deported, all of them.
And in fact, the numbers are such that more people
were deported under Biden last year
than Trump is on track to deport this year.
That's what the numbers are showing,
which so to make it seem like deportation
is not something that was already happening.
It was and always has been.
Violent criminals have always been deported,
period, full stop.
But they get some process and then they go
and they leave this country.
What's happening now, what's different
is Donald Trump is packaging it differently.
He's doing it in a way to,
first of all, he's taking credit for it
as if he's the first person to have thought of this
and it wasn't happening already.
And he's doing it in a way to violate court orders.
He's not, doesn't wanna go through the process.
He wants to do it so that we all get upset and everybody's,
you know, hemming and heying and everybody's, you know,
everybody's out of breath about this
because he's violating all these court orders and doing it
so that he can then say, oh, but this is a murderer.
This is a rapist.
This is a robber.
The Democrats want you to, you know, want you
to love these people and care about them.
But really these are the people who are the scourge
of our country.
Guess what?
Those people would have been deported anyway
under a Biden policy, under every policy that we've had.
I mean, this is how it's always been.
This is what happens.
This is who gets deported.
And so he's using this as like a marketing campaign for himself
and so that he can then actually blow a giant hole into all
of this and deport hundreds of thousands of people
who aren't violent criminals, who are hardworking people.
The reason they say these are all criminals is
because they view it as a crime to come here
and to be an
undocumented immigrant. They view people who come across the border as criminals just by virtue of
that. It's not that you come here and commit a crime. To them, it's all criminal because you
came here when you weren't supposed to. And what's interesting is when you look at the people who
their policies are impacting, it's Haitians, it's Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans,
Salvadorans, Afghans, Cameroonians.
All of these are people who,
that is who they're going after.
They're moving to terminate
their temporary protective status.
They are moving to kind of get them to be deported.
They're going after students, right, as well, moving to kind of get them to be deported.
They're going after students, right, as well, and student visas, and people who are here temporarily.
Those aren't people who are here unlawfully or criminally,
but you know who they haven't done anything to?
They haven't touched the $250,000,
or not dollar, 250,000 Ukrainians who are here, right?
They are welcoming the white South Africans who are here.
Why is that?
Because they each have a certain skin color.
Those are people they want here.
Those are people they want having babies here
and having higher birth rates.
It's the people of color that they are deporting en masse
and they are using as poster
children these eight or ten or whatever it is really bad people who would have been deported anyway
as because we're fighting about process for everyone including the people who aren't
criminals. We're fighting for process for everyone. They make it seem like no we're fighting to keep
the murderers and the rapists here in this country. No we, no, we're fighting to keep the murderers
and the rapists here in this country.
No, we're not.
We're just saying follow the law.
Follow the process, due process, so that the grandmother
who's done nothing wrong and who's lived here for 40 years
and who has a large family here gets to stay and doesn't have
to get deported in the middle, you know,
doesn't have to have her house broken into in the middle of the night and whisked away
to some third-party country the next day, right?
I mean, that's what we're saying, is if the process doesn't work
for the people you don't like, for the rapists,
the murderers, the robbers, make them as bad as you want.
I don't care. It doesn't matter,
because that's how much I believe in due process
and the rule of law.
The process should work for everybody, including them.
And they will get deported the right way eventually
because that is what the law is.
But if they don't have process, neither does anybody else.
And that's where it becomes dangerous.
And that's where this situation I think is untenable.
And the criminals are the easiest to deport.
Let's be frank about that because they're in jail, right?
They've been convicted of a crime.
They have their sentence and they usually get deported when they're done with their
sentence.
I mean, they are in the justice system by nature of them being convicted criminals.
They are the easiest people to deport.
You don't have to do raids to go get the criminals.
You don't have to tear the mother from the child
in the street to go get the criminals.
You don't have to stake out the schools
to go get the criminals.
We know where the criminals are
because they were in the justice system.
That's how we know they're a criminal.
So, you know, this is definitely,
I think you touched on it, Karen.
This is all about race.
He's deporting people of color,
the temporary protected status, people are here legally.
So this whole farce around illegal,
deporting people illegally, that is well beyond that.
We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands
of people here legally, but they are people of color.
And like you said, they want more babies.
JD Vance talks about that. Elon Musk talks about that.
The birth rate is declining in the United States,
which can be bad, right?
We've seen in Japan and other countries,
economies slow down when birth rate falls.
The United States of America, we've never had that problem
because people are clamoring to come contribute
and become working members of our country.
But when you start shipping them off,
even when they're here legally,
and you also start talking about declining birth rates,
and you take away a woman's right to choose under row,
you are trying to make more white babies.
And it becomes a scary situation
that we need to keep our eyes and ears out for.
Yeah, without a doubt.
It's happening.
I mean, this is what I think a lot of people want,
but we have to, the due process matters,
habeas corpus matters, the rule of law matters,
living in a democracy matters,
separation of powers matters, the constitution matters.
We cannot let this person who's trying to become,
well, I don't know what he's trying to be.
We can call him a fascist dictator,
you can call him an oligarch, you can call him whatever it is. he's trying to be. You can call him a fascist dictator. You can call him an oligarch.
You can call him whatever it is.
It's not theocracy.
It's all of the above.
He's trying to create a situation
that is not what this country's founded on.
And it's an existential crisis we're in
and we have to fight for it.
And we have to fight every single battle
and try to get our country back because it's so obvious what he's doing. crisis we're in and we have to fight for it and we have to fight every single battle and
try to get our country back because this is, it's so obvious what he's doing.
We all see it, but we just have to call him out for it.
And that's why I love Legal AF.
That's why I love the Midas Touch Network because that is what we try to do.
We try to come here day after day, week after week, and give you our interpretation of what's
really going on. And we don't have to, we don't have editors that we have to run our
points of view past, we'll tell you when we're talking opinion versus what's a fact. And
we also aren't afraid to admit if we're wrong, right? I mean, that's exactly what we do here on Midas Touch.
And that's why I am so grateful to have been a part of it now
for I think almost five years and so proud of Midas Touch
and how great they are and how great they got.
The Midas Touch podcast got the Webby Award
for being the number one podcast.
And they're getting every big interview of anyone who's anybody is being
done by people in Midas Touch and we just got Katie Fang is coming in to be a part of
Midas Touch and I mean more and more people are gravitating towards the Midas Touch network
and it's because of what we're doing and the fact that we're here to tell the truth.
And I still believe in without fear or favor. So I call it like I see it. And so do you,
Dina. And so does Popak and Ben and everybody else here on the Midas Touch Network. And
so I'm just so grateful to have met you and to be able to do this with you regularly.
So is there anything else we should talk about?
Anything else you wanna mention before we sign off?
No, I feel the same way.
I'm grateful that we have a voice because it is,
and other people get to,
we kind of get to have a collective voice
and collective community
because this is really difficult stuff for going through.
But this is just the beginning.
I really believe in the justice system
and all the really strong state attorneys,
generals, and officials out there
really fighting the good fight.
So, you know, we've got a long road to go,
but we're definitely here to, we're bringing it here.
We're not going to be walking away, right?
Oh, God, no, absolutely not.
If anything, we have a big job ahead of us for the next,
you know, whatever it is, three and a half years. There's a lot going on. And every day,
it's, it's, you just when you thought it couldn't get any worse or any more, just unbelievable.
He accepts a plane from the Qatari government. So, so we've reached the end of another midweek episode of Legal AF. Dina, thank you
so much for being here and send our love and condolences to the entire Popok family and
hopefully we'll see Popok back again soon. Great to see you, Dina.
Good to see you, Dina. Good to see you too.