Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF REACTS to Major Legal DEVELOPMENTS

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for a new update at the intersection of law and politics on the Legal AF Podcast. On tonight's show, Ben and Popok cover: 1. Whether the MAGA Civil war over immigration and H1-B policy will split MAGA apart and pay immediate dividends to the Democrats in their efforts to defeat Trump in Congress; 2. Why Gaetz hasn't been prosecuted for sex crimes and possible federal gun law violations; 3. Whether Trump's use of outside group's to do his bidding and go after Democrats converts them into government actors for the purposes of law suits. liability and making their private records available to the public, 4. Whether Trump is trying to use the Supreme Court to help him acquire a personal stake in TikTok, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Support our sponsors: Zbiotics: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF to get 15% off your first order when you use LEGALAF at checkout. DeleteME: Go to https://joindeleteme.com/LEGALAF and use promo code LEGALAF for 20% off. Wild Grain: Wildgrain is offering our listeners $30 off their first box - PLUS free Croissants in every box - when you go to https://Wildgrain.com/LEGALAF to start your subscription. Mud Wtr: Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% OFF your @MUDWTR by going to https://mudwtr.com/LEGALAF #mudwtrpod Subscribe to the new Legal AF channel: https://youtube.com/@LegalAFMTN Subscribe to Meidas+ at https://meidasplus.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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got Elon Musk banning the far-right MAGA Nationalists. The far-right MAGA Nationalists saying all of these Tech Bros are now saying we need immigrants to fill engineering jobs. Donald, didn't you tell us that you were going to build schools here and give all these high paying jobs to Americans? Wait a minute, you're trying to bring these jobs now from India like the tech bro magazine? We'll break it down and also I'll read you what Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk have been saying because if any democrat ever used the language like that, I guarantee you it would be the front page story

around the clock and it would be all over. We'll break it down. But speaking about it being all over, we finally got that Matt Gaetz report, the ethics committee report dropped. It showed that Matt Gaetz engaged in statutory rape. It showed that he engaged in illicit drug use. It showed that he engaged in obstruction

of the congressional investigation and took improper gifts. But what I want to talk about here, because we cover that ethics report in detail in depth though, is the selective prosecution here, notably the Republican prosecution here, notably the Republican special counsel went after Hunter Biden for filling out a form when he purchased a gun in 2018 saying that he was not under the influence of drugs.

Well, Matt Gaetz is a gun owner. Why is Matt Gaetz not getting charged with that same thing? Similarly, if you look at Florida state law prosecutions, there's been a number of people who have been charged with statutory rape, um, who had sex with 17 year olds. Why wasn't Matt Gaetz being charged with that? We'll talk about what real weaponization is here on the Midas Touch Network. And speaking about real weaponization before Donald Trump's even taken office,

he's using his special advisor or senior advisor or soon to be Stephen Miller's nonprofit organization. And it's viewed as a nonprofit, but Miller's out there sending on that America first legal organization that he runs this letterhead. He's like sending these letters to all of these different cities throughout the country, threatening them that the federal government is going to take action against them using the nonprofit to do that, trying to threaten and intimidate them before Trump even takes office. I want to break that down. I also want to talk about the concept of quasi governmental agencies. At what point, Michael Popak,

where you have these fake agencies like Doge and first America legal that are acting as arms of the government, do they become susceptible to FOIA requests and do they become within the per view of being viewed as public actors for purposes of holding them accountable for their conduct. I also want to talk about this TikTok ban that's set to take place on January 19th. And Donald Trump filed this bizarre amicus brief requesting that the Supreme court pause the ban, even though it was signed into law by president Biden.

It was a bipartisan bill that led to the TikTok ban. And for those watching and those listening couldn't see that, but we just flashed on screen the original TikTok lawsuit, which was TikTok versus Trump. Because Trump was the OG TikTok banner. It was Trump who wanted to pan TikTok. And now there's a big donor of Donald Trump, Jeffrey Yass, and he's been given a lot of money to Trump and he's a TikTok investor as well. So now the positions have kind of suddenly changed.

And I think it's important to that we at least reflect and understand what the Senate committee that investigated TikTok said that they were doing with our data and how it was being potentially used to surveil on American citizens in China and why this even came about in the first place. But we'll break it all down and more. This is Legal AF. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy holidays. Happy New Year. place, but we'll break it all down and more. This is legal a F Merry Christmas.

Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy holidays. Happy new year. Michael Pope. Pop. Great to see you too. I was just going to, I thought to myself, this is going to be our, our last

weekend, uh, legal AF before the new year, happy new year. We're really excited here. I might as touch and on legal AF about, about what's on the other side of 2025. I don't mean Trump's taking office. I just mean that we are well positioned to continue to provide the independent journalism, commentary, and analysis that is so desperately needed now more than ever, as I like to say in some of my hot takes. And now more than ever, we're starting to see that MAGA is not monolithic.

And there hasn't been the MAGAfication of the United States coming off of the election far from it. And this type of, um, we'll get into the civil war that has just broken out, of course, on social media involving Elon Musk and Ram Swami. I mean, when you use the R word and the C word, we're going to get into it in a minute, against the American people and MAGA voters, that may not go well. You know, and when you are, as you said, when you are, it's hard to say you're employed by a fictitious organization. I think those two

concepts are mutually exclusive. But when you when you say you work for something that's the Department of Government Efficiency, that's neither a department, nor in in the government and you're not subject to things like FBI background checks and Senate confirmation processes, you might just get the wild cards that we're watching now. And to see the Laura Loomers of the world, or I think you referred to it on the show with Michael Cohen, as the OG MAGA, you know, She's a 9-11 election denier. She's the one that gave Donald Trump the idea that hardworking Haitians in Springfield, Ohio,

when they're bored are eating cats and dogs. That came from Laura Loomer's fevered imagination. And she's decided that she didn't vote for Elon Musk and she didn't vote for Ram Swami, who's now known on Truth Social as Khan Swami. The two of them are trending as hashtag Doge Twins and that's not a compliment. We'll get into it in a minute. And it's all over this arcane area that you and I know well as practicing lawyers and business owners as the H1B visa and Elon Musk and Ram Swami's position about it, which has

driven MAGA crazy. Or as I said on a recent hot take on the Legal AF channel, MAGA woke up and realized they don't like black and brown people. And again, they forgot that. And now they're going after through the H1B fight, they're going after Elon Musk, and by extension, Donald Trump, even before the 119th Congress gets sworn in on the third, and before Donald Trump gets sworn in on the 20th. So the way this all went about was Donald Trump appointed as a special advisor, a fairly accomplished person. I mean, this isn't a political,

this guy is Sriram Krishnan. He was born in India. He worked all these big tech jobs here in the United States. He currently was working at Androsine Horowitz, not shockingly a big venture capitalist firm because that's where Donald Trump pretty much picks his cabinet and advisors from. But he previously worked at the Twitter that all of MAGA hated and Facebook and Snap and you name the ABCs of big tech. This guy has worked there throughout his career and he's a respected guy and he kind of took that plunge from,

you know, Techbro world into MAGA Techbro around the same time as all of these Techbro venture capitalists saw that they could take over the MAGA movement for their own kind of agenda. And it seems that they view, I don't think it seems, but that they view the MAGA base as very malleable and very stupid, and that they could take advantage of these people. But the people who they're calling stupid are the OG MAGA's who have been with Trump forever. And they're very nationalistic. They hate immigrants. They hate black and brown people.

And they've made that very clear over the years. You know, mass bloody deportations build the wall. And so this is this kind of bizarre coalition that's being held together right now that, you know, that, that we see. And so Trump appoints Sriram Krishnan as a special advisor to artificial intelligence. OG, far right wing nationalist MAGA goes, why are you bringing in all these people from India?

To which Elon and the tech bros are saying, we need these talented engineers from India. What are you talking about? We love our engineers from India. We don't like, and they were trying to appeal to the far right MAGA. We don't want the other immigrants like when it comes to agriculture and hospitality and construction, let's mass deport them, do mass deportations there, but the H1 visa is a process that allows us to get foreign workers in specialty occupations like engineering and we can pay them less money to do

these jobs. They're kind of beholden to the tech corporations. They work incredibly long hours. And in order for us to run our tech companies, we need engineers from India, to which the far right-wing nationalist, Maga, said, "'Build schools. Get these jobs to Americans. Train Americans.

Your whole thing was America first, not India first. What are you talking about? And then this is where kind of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy kind of, you know, took it an extra step and you use the R word. I hate using this word, but I just want people to know what you're referring to on multiple occasions. Elon Musk started referring to the MAGA base as retarded and sub-tard, and he said, go F yourself.

And then Vivek Ramaswamy said that the American culture of mediocrity is to blame, and essentially said, look, all these white families, and not so many words, Vivek, basically, these white families had their kids grow up with Boy Meets world and Zach Slater from Saved by the Bell while Indian families were having their kids study around the clock and work much harder and had higher aspirations. And so really the big problem here is that, you know, American white families are just not doing the good job and we need Indian engineers from India because the culture is just a more ambitious, smarter, more sophisticated, harder working culture. And they're saying that to the MAGA base, whose whole thing is the exact opposite of the MAGA base. Like, huh? What? What? I mean,

then they're saying it in a lot more stronger terms than I am. Laura Loomer goes, "'The elephant in the room is that Elon Musk, "'who is not MAGA and has never been, "'is a total effing drag on the Trump transition. "'He's a stage five clinger who overstayed his welcome "'at Mar-a-Lago in an effort to become Trump's side piece "'and be the point man for all of his accomplices

"'and big tech to slither into Mar-a-Lago Laura Loomer, calling him a side piece. This is where Ian Miles Chung, who's a big right wing influencer. He's not American. He lives in Malaysia. This guy and he refers to the other part of MAGA. And again, I hate using this word, so please forgive me. I'm just it's newsworthy, so I have to say it. He goes, much of the anger being driven towards Elon Musk today is simply disappointment being projected by the retarded right that's on the fringes of

the conservative movement against Musk, whom they wish was an unrepentant racist like they are. And then Elon Musk responds exactly. Elon Musk also was asked by some of his right-wing supporters, like questions like this. There are over 330 million people in America. Surely there must be enough among them to build your ultimate team. Why would you deny real Americans that opportunity by bringing foreigners here?

Elon Musk responds, your understanding of the situation is upside down and backwards. Of course, my companies and I would prefer to hire Americans, and we do, and that is much easier than going through the incredibly painful and slow work visa process. However, there is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America. This is not about handing out opportunities from some magical hat. You don't get it. This is blindingly obvious when looking at NBA teams as the physical differences are so obvious to see.

However, the mental differences between humans are far bigger than the physical differences. In other words, Elon Musk is saying, in not so many words, that white Americans are dumber than foreign America, than foreigners who come here and work the jobs for him. Then someone responds to him, open a school. We have brains. Elon Musk then goes, if you need a school you've lost already to which this other

account goes incredible at this rate. You're actually going to make me side with the leftist who wants you treated like a hostile foreign agent. Then Elon Musk started banning all these kind of right-wing accounts. He suspended Laura Loomer's account. He suspended all these other right-wing accounts. And that's kind of that sets up the stage right there, Popak. So you talk about this arcane H1B visa kind of process, but it's also showing that these tech bros, they're like, we need immigrants, just ours, for engineering, not the other ones where we have labor shortages. Let me, yeah, that's great. Let me unpack a couple of things. We use it in a shorthand, I want to make sure everybody's on the same page with us. When we say tech bros, those are the owners and principals of tech companies in Silicon Valley and Provo, Utah

and in different places around the country, mainly men. There's kind of Joe Rogan type, Elon Musk type of people. And we shorthand it with TechPro. H1B is on paper. It has always been a very, very important way to connect talent to jobs where Americans can't fill those jobs, at least not at the capacities that are necessary. I'll give you an example. We're in the midst of not just an AI renaissance, we're in the midst because of Donald Trump and other policies of a cryptocurrency and crypto mining Renaissance. You have to mine through quantum math and computer and

electricity and power. You have to mine the Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency. And so states like Washington state that have hydroelectric and other places are becoming the home of crypto miners. But they need, for instance, electricians. Right now, if your child doesn't want to go to college or does want to go to or wants to go to college, think about the job of an electrician, because they are in short supply and high demand in places like Washington State because of crypto mining. And so take that to the next level. Electricians are needed, but also people who have engineering backgrounds, strong work ethic, and the like. So H-1B is on paper a very good program. Now there's abuse, let me be fair, there is abuse in

the H-1B program. Bloomberg just did a great investigative report that came out a couple days ago about abuse in the H-1B program where 50% or more of the H1B visas, which are these golden lottery ticket visas that give you a path to ultimate citizenship in this country, they're being obtained not by the individuals in India, but by placement agencies that are acquiring en masse and applying for en masse the actual H1B. And so they're the middle person, and they're paying the actual tech person very little compared to what the company would pay them. But it's an inefficient market where it's hard, apparently,

for the Microsofts and Teslas of the world to find them on their own. These companies are coming in the middle, sometimes fraudulently, applying under bios and resumes that don't really exist, and they get 50% or more of the allotment of H1B. So you got a problem there. I get that problem. On the Laura Loomer front, this is the part that gives you and me special delight here on the network, here's a comment that she wrote. Think about the crazy that went into this statement where she combines the great replacement theory, which is a racist bigoted theory that came out of Europe

that has been mapped on to Democrats and liberals by saying all you care about is replacing white people and white voters with black and brown people. That's the great replacement theory. So you have that going on in her head. You got Elon Musk trying to hire these people from India and defend the hiring practices around it. And it all came together in this statement that she made. She said, and she addressed this one to Ram Swami. Ram Swami knows that the great replacement is real, almost saying he's part of the great replacement. "'It's not racist against Indians,' she wrote,

"'to want the original MAGA policies I voted for. "'I voted for a reduction in H-1B visas, not an extension.'" See, here is the disappointment of MAGA voters who are thinking they got duped in the process of voting for Donald Trump. I wonder, Ben, as a thought experiment, if we reran the election, the November 5 election, how many MAGA voters for Donald Trump would either stay home or not vote for him now knowing what he has done in his cabinet or his proposed

candidate and what he's doing with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. I'll leave that for comments today in the chat. Here's what else she said. The tech billionaires, in other words for tech bros, don't get to just walk inside a Mar-a-Lago and stroke their massive checkbooks, I wasn't sure where that statement was going, and rewrite our immigration policy so they can have unlimited slave laborers from India and China who never assimilate. Then we're back to the great replacement theory. You don't even know what MAGA immigration policy is. That's a MAGA OG person. And then others have attacked it well. And the problem is you have, like you said at the top of

this podcast, you've got leaders in the inner circle for Donald Trump who are running one of his major initiatives, cost cutting or whatever Doge is supposed to do, who have said one of two things. Either, and this is them talking now, either Americans are retards or they're a part of a culture of mediocrity. Okay, that is not a great way to treat your voters. And this is what happens when Donald Trump decides to bring into his government people without an FBI background check who aren't going through Senate confirmation hearing, who are known loose cannons, who are known to be contrarians. And now they're cannibal, I call it the cannibalization of the vagabond party. They're cannibalizing each other

That's what we're watching. It's back biting that's turning into kind of To cannibals and and we're here for it And this just shows you if this is happening on December the 30th the 28th You can imagine what's gonna happen on Jan 3 and on Jan 20 and moving forward because this party, this Republican party is not disciplined. They are not disciplined. They all rallied around for all different weird reasons around Donald Trump.

Nine million people decided to stay home and set out democracy. That's not including the another 11 million who are registered to vote, didn't even bother. So you have that whole group. And now you've got Donald Trump telling, we're gonna talk at TikTok time, telling the Supreme Court that he has the business skill,

the acumen and the political mandate. He keeps talking about this mandate. As you said, this coalition is barely held together with tissue paper and chewing gum. I mean, and there are fissures that are already showing themselves. And that is where fair-minded people and people at the center or people who are progressives or liberals or democrats, that is what we need to exploit. The quicker we can take advantage of that

and the complete chaos that's going to be them trying to govern in the House, in the Senate, through executive order. The quicker we can exploit all of these divisions, the quicker and faster we can make Donald Trump a lame duck president. We have to take all of this, pin him down in the House. Look, the House Democrats learned a very valuable lesson and did really well in the remaining hours and days of the 118th Congress about how to be an effective party in opposition, effectively making Hakeem Jeffries the co-speaker of the House. That's going to continue. The Senate, a little bit harder, but the Senate is a little bit different of a body. So they're not they're not proposing many bills. So they're not proposing many bills. But the Senate Democrats have to do their part per committee,

especially during the all important confirmation hearings that we'll be covering live here on the Midas Touch Network. And then the court system comes into play when Donald Trump sees the chaos and can't get anything done in the Congress, and he tries to stroke executive orders and do it by pen, that's where the lawsuits come in. And that's where the federal courts,

friendly federal courts are to help us there. The quicker we can make Donald Trump a lame duck president, so that by the way, we crush him at the midterms and we get back one or both of the of the chambers of Congress, the better. What was Donald Trump doing in both of those scenarios when the continuing resolution was derailed by Elon Musk and when Elon Musk was in this civil war with the other, I think larger base of MAGA is the Loomer type people than the tech pro type people. What was Trump doing? He was golfing and posting on social media, weird stuff.

He was golfing over and over again. And this is the thing about him. And this is his lack of leadership style. He's not a real leader. He runs away from all of these issues. He can campaign. He loves campaigning because he loves lying. He loves going around. He loves the attention. He loves crowds. He loves manipulating people. He loves that aspect of it. But when it comes to kind of the nuts and bolts of leadership, the banality of boring leadership of going through spreadsheets and going through finances and looking through documents and holding meetings and running an, you know, and running an organization. It's why his organizations in the past, most of them have gone bankrupt. It's cause he's a bad leader. He runs away his handling of COVID like a miracle.

It's all just going to go away. Let's pretend it didn't happen. And then he would do the press conferences that he would love because of the ratings, because of the ratings and the attention. And so he does not have control over his own base. But then again, he really never had control over anything his entire life. It's a guy who was handed, you know, everything that he had from his daddy and that was his life.

If he did nothing with his money before being in office, he would have had more money than he would have had anyway. He got bailed out by banks over and over again. He files lawsuits against banks after he screws up stuff. This is just who he is. It's, it's not a, it's not a quirk that this is inherent in his dysfunctional leadership and personality. We'll take our first quick break of the show when we come back. Let's talk about Gates. Let's talk about Miller. Let's talk about TikTok. We'll be right back.

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Give them some support if you can, some great products and great stuff. And they help support our independent media network grow. We have zero outside investors and, uh, Popok, I talked about the latest podscribe charts, which, uh, ranks, which ranks the podcasts, not like the whole networks because network to network, we were actually beating Rogan in the, in the ad week writeup, but in Podscribe's podcast, they have Rogan one, the Midas Touch podcast, they do with the brothers was two. and then legal AF was number eight. We're number eight.

We're number eight. And that's beating a lot of those other podcasts that you hear about. Um, but why am I mentioning this is because we have no outside investors, those pro democracy sponsors help us grow. And also if you can, uh, subscribe to Pope box, YouTube channel, the legal AF YouTube channel. So Popok, we talked a lot about Matt Gaetz, you know, and a number of hot takes. I don't think we really need to go through this Ethics Committee report. I think people get it that Matt Gaetz was, there was a finding that there

was substantial evidence that Gaetz was involved in statutory rape of a junior in high school, that Matt Gaetz was involved in illicit drug use while holding public office. It was as bad as we thought it was going to be, except for they couldn't find substantial evidence of sex trafficking, but everything else is a tremendous stain on his, to the extent that his reputation could be stained, a tremendous stain on his reputation. Exactly Popak. And you have the text messages messages and people are wondering, well, why don't they find by substantial evidence that there was sex trafficking? Gates would use this

website called Seeking Arrangements, which is now called Seeking, which is like a sugar daddy website that kind of masquerades as that. And Joel Greenberg, who did plead guilty to sex trafficking, he would find the girls and the women on this website. They would kind of meet up and have dates that they would call them dates. And then there would be payment exchange for services. And then in one of the lawsuits that was brought by a Republican lobbyist

arising out of this kind of whole thing, a number of the women were deposed. And if you look at the depositions, they were asked, do you think that you were trafficked? Do you think that this was trafficking? And the women would say things like, this was part of, this was what was expected in this situation. No, I don't think I was trafficked.

So if you're wondering why that it's why the prosecution did not go that extra step, I think they looked at the deposition testimony from some of the women. And, and I'm drawing a distinction here. That's not the 17 year old girl is a girl. That statutory rape. That should have been charged in my opinion in Florida. It wasn't because of the fact that Florida is controlled by Republicans and Gates are Republican in that state, but other people have been charged with that in Florida, which I'll get to in a moment. But that's why the feds

thought that they would struggle to get that conviction because I think that you know some of that deposition Testimony which is not flattering at all for Matt gates even though gates was like posting that as though like well Let me let me before you before you go on. I mean sometimes this gets lost his wingman Joel Greenberg is in jail for nine years in a federal penitentiary and Willingly testified and would testify against Matt Gaetz. We'll talk about that when we get to the crimes part.

He was a former tax assessor for Seminole County in Florida about Matt Gaetz's age. They ran together. When I say wingmen, I mean like they did things together. They had parties according to the report, drug-fueled parties, underaged girls, and the rest. Everything that Matt Gaetz did, Joel Greenberg went to jail for for nine years. So just leave it at that.

So here's some of the testimony. And the way it would work is Gaetz never had the seeking account. It was Greenberg who had the account and Greenberg was the one who would find them. And so here's like what Gaetz posted. He goes, this is what Gates was saying was like part of his defense. Another one of the ethics witnesses who was

an alleged prostitute claims she was indeed not when actually pressed in a deposition. This won't be in the ethics report because of course, were you escorting working? What were you doing? I wouldn't consider any of those to answer. I wouldn't consider it any of those. There was a lot of times where I did not get paid for being there. In that time, I thought a lot of these people were my friends. Question, okay, all right, so you wouldn't characterize

anything you did in 2017 as sex work? Answer, no. And what she's saying is a lot of times I wasn't paid, but then there were times when she was paid. He goes, this is what Gates's other defense was giving funds to someone you are dating that they didn't ask for. And that is in charge for sex is now prostitution. There is a reason they did this to me in Christmas Eve, Eve report

and not in a courtroom. So this is his defense giving funds to someone he says because he's dating. He claims it's a date with the ladies that were found for him and that they didn't technically charge him, but that it was a given what was going to take place as part of this relationship payment for sex, that therefore there was nothing wrong with it. Because here is the deposition that he posts. So it wasn't the amounts charged did not depend on how attractive a guy was. Is that fair to say answer? I never charged anyone anything. Like I said, it was just given and Gates is like, Oh yeah. Innocent is like, what are you talking about? How is this? I'm listening to you. I'm waiting for you to get to how this is a defense.

He cherry picked that as the best piece of evidence for him in this. And by the way, you're right, Pope Buck. I want to be clear. I'm disappointed that the DOJ did not prosecute him for the same things as Greenberg. I wanted to tell you why their justification was. There's other depositions where the women said that they didn't think that they were trafficked. And I thought the DOJ looked at that. And again, we have a lot of complaints with what Merrick Garland did, but judge for yourself if you thought Garland should have brought those charges. But clearly-

One thing before you move on. Mike Cast, Mike Cast, yeah, the Republican chairperson of that bipartisan ethics committee, it's five and five five except they give the chair position to whoever's in the control of the house, that's Republicans. And they fought long and hard to delay the publication of this report. And then another good reason Matt Gaetz shouldn't be the top lawyer in America and the attorney general, he files a lawsuit to try to stop the publication after it's published and never sort of its moot at that point, but just gains negative attention for himself. But in the opposition or the dissenting one page that was attached to the dissenting members

of the committee, they went out of their way and actually spilled ink to say, we don't disagree with any substantive finding of the committee about the substantial evidence to support statutory rape, illicit drug use, bribery, improper use of office and all that. We just don't think from, we have the jurisdiction to have released that report because he's no longer a member of the house. But the first lot, the best that his supporters, his MAGA Republican supporters on

that committee could come up with is we agree with the findings. We just don't think it should have ever come out. And then there's one little secret Easter egg here. Somebody flipped on secret Easter egg here. Somebody flipped on Matt Gaetz because in order for that report to be released they had to get a vote from the Republican side. I don't know who it is. I'm not here to out them. But somebody grew a conscience and said maybe the ethics committee is the one committee in the House that should be publishing their findings and not withholding it because of the nature of the name of our committee. And that got somebody, maybe not a MAGA, maybe, then there are, this reminds us all, that there are moderate, what I call country club Republicans that aren't MAGA, that aren't

automatically going to vote with the Speaker of the House in MAGA in the House. Donald Trump knows that. Donald Trump knows that it's gonna be difficult for this Congress, this House, to get anything passed. He knows that. We watched what happened on the 118th, first term and second term. It was a do-nothing Congress. If it wasn't for Hunter Biden, they would have done nothing at all. No bills got passed that helped the American voter at all. And every time they just careened from one crisis to another related to the debt ceiling or how to fund the government. That's all we ever, other than that, the American people could just ignore Congress because

it did nothing. It'll do nothing again if the Democrats have their way and they do. And they're disciplined. Hakeem Jeffries learned at the knee of Nancy Pelosi, he knows how to hold Democrats together and so Trump knows that. That's why executive orders are going to be the focus of Donald Trump's efforts to try to implement his policy in the shortest amount of time possible and that's where this legal AF comes in, our legal AF channel comes in, because all that, all roads lead to a court disposition.

I got, but you want to turn to crimes. Why don't you think, I have a question I wanted to ask you about Matt Gaetz. Now that the report is out, we have to, are we going to assume that Trump's going to give him a pardon on the federal side and it's now left to the state to do something about it? What's your handicap on whether he gets pardoned now because that report has been published? Zero. I don't think he's not going to be

prosecuted by Florida prosecutors in DeSantis' estate and Trump's DOJing prosecuting him. Does he get a pardon? Do you think Trump pardons him? prosecuting him. So does he get a pardon? Do you think Trump pardons him? No, no, I don't think you I don't think it's needed because there's no, um, I think they'll just let the statute of limitations run and maybe at the end of the Trump administration. But look, the link here is that Pam Bondi, Trump's head of DOJ, who will get confirmed because she was the attorney general of Florida. And that's that that gives you the experience, whether you like it or not. Yeah. She's going to get, she'll get, she'll get, cause she's not one of the people who I think won't get confirmed. Um, but she was the attorney general in Florida when all of this stuff was going

on with Gates, when Gates was not prosecuted for statutory rape, and then all of the pretty much local district attorneys that would have jurisdiction over Gates and the other attorneys that would with Gates when Gates was not prosecuted for statutory rape. And then all of the pretty much local district attorneys that would have jurisdiction over Gates in Florida are DeSantis puppets or DeSantis picks in Florida. So that's why, you know, there's, he doesn't really run the risk of being prosecuted even though he should, even though he should be. I mean, look at this though, Popak, Miramar, I looked at other people who didn't-

Yeah, I know Miramar. I used to represent Miramar back in the day. So Miramar cop arrested accused of sex with 17 year old girl. And this was June 23rd, 2023. This story was this cop met a girl on Tinder. She said that she was 23 years old. The cop was 28. She said that she was 23 years old. The cop was 28. They went out on a date. They had sex. She then said that she was 19. They had sex again.

It turned out she was 17. Statutory rape, you don't get any, you don't get, there's no issues of intent or anything. He was charged with that. Think about, he was charged with that, but Matt Gaetz, in Gaetz's situation, where it was done in a kind of prostitution sense, and Gaetz was not charged with it.

And there are other examples of that. I'm gonna give you the insider Florida also reason for that, as you know, cause we've got Dave Arenberg on the network. The local DAs in Florida, where I practice and I've lived for a number of years, are known as the state attorneys. They ultimately answer to the attorney general, but by each county has its own state attorney. And the reason that Miramar is in Miami-Dade County is because Kathy Rundle, who's been the long time over 30 years state attorney,

I know her well, Kathy Fernandez-Rundle is the state attorney and she is law and order, not MAGA, Republican, but not MAGA. And she runs a very tight ship there with her prosecutors. Dave Arenberg in Palm Beach County, I guess he might be leaving soon, but he was for a long time the Palm Beach County state attorney. And so he runs his show there. Now, if the governor doesn't like the way that the show is being run, I think I said the attorney general really they report to not really they really report to eat to the governor. And the governor, as you pointed out, is the Santas the Santas has taken on what he's considered to be woke, liberal or democratically appointed prosecutors

like the one in Hillsborough County in different places, and threatened to replace them or actually fire them. There's been lawsuits about him firing prosecutors who he didn't like. So any of them that are thinking, and Matt Gaetz I believe is from the west coast of Florida. I forget exactly where his district is, but wherever it is, it's MAGA slash Republican country. One other thing though,

some of the things that are obvious crimes that are coming out of the report, some of them don't have a statute of limitations. And so if he doesn't get the pardon on the federal side and the Democrats take back the presidency in four years, he could be prosecuted for some of these things. There's a couple of those that don't have actual statute of limitations. So that's where we are on the Gates Report. That's where we are on the Gates Report, but I wanna just pivot.

One, I think the DOJ should have charged him, but they didn't, that's just my opinion. They thought that they weren't gonna get the prosecution. Statutory rape should be prosecuted in the state of Florida. Republican leadership there at the highest levels did not prosecute Matt Gaetz. That was a decision that they made there.

But you wanna talk about real weaponization. Who did the DOJ under Biden prosecute with the Republican special counsel? Hunter Biden for what? Hunter Biden was not a member of Congress. He was not in a public position. He was a private citizen. Biden wasn't the president then. Biden wasn't the vice president then. It was in between Biden administration, being the VP and the president when Hunter engaged in

the conduct. But what did they go after Hunter for? There was no allegations of statutory rape with Hunter. It was consensual sex with adults, consenting adults. What was the Hunter charge? Oh wait, I know what it was. It was for, let's pull it up right here, filling out an ATF, alcohol, tobacco, and firearm form, saying that he was not under the influence of drugs around that time period. Wait a minute, doesn't Matt Gaetz want to abolish the ATF? And wait a minute, one of the things in the report was that Matt Gaetz was under the influence of drugs

and alcohol and hard drugs around this time, and he's a gun owner, so did he fill out that same form when he was buying guns? Because we know he was buying guns at that time. Should there be an entire special counsel investigation into Matt Gaetz instead of a private citizen like Hunter Biden? I mean, just look at what Hunter was charged with.

I mean, this is wild. According to the indictment, Hunter purchased a Colt Cobra 38 SPL revolver from a federally licensed firearms dealer on October 12th, 2018. By the way, same time when Gates was doing all these drugs when according to the report, the congressional report, when purchasing a firearm, a prospective purchaser must fill out a firearm transaction record, ATF form four, four,

seven, three, and certify that all of his or her answers on the form are true and correct as alleged in count. One of thement, Hunter Biden knowingly made a false written statement on form 4473, intended and likely to deceive the dealer he purchased the firearm from when he certified that he was not an unlawful user of or addicted to any stimulant, narcotic drug or any other controlled substance. And by the way, the way they got the evidence about Hunter was when Hunter took responsibility for his actions years later and talked about in his autobiography that he was addicted to drugs and how it took him so much to overcome it. And it was his message to other users

and people who suffer from drug addiction about how you can overcome these dark days. And he mentioned what was a dark day. He got a, he purchased a gun while he was addicted to drugs and how it was the lowest point in his life, but he's taken accountability for his actions. The Republicans go after that guy, not the statutory rape guy,

not the congressmen guy, not the congressman who they want to fake attorney general. So let's be very, very clear here what's going on. And frankly, I'm disappointed that Democrats didn't give a more robust defense of Hunter Biden and the public in general. They like, they shied away from an issue that I think actually made president Biden so freaking relatable. We all have someone in our lives, and we may have have a tragic story where someone passed in our lives. This

may be something about ourselves, people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol, alcohol abuse issues, and who are struggling to get by who need a helping hand, not a wag of the finger, and not the ridicule and not the push to side that leads to even worse behavior or even kind of worse outcomes. You need to be helpful. So to me, one of the things I loved about President Biden was to see a father who was always with his son at the lowest moments when Biden wasn't running, when the spotlights weren't on, just private assistance to help your kid get out of a difficult

situation. And I know there's so many people out there who know that they wish they had that in their lives or that they want to be like that in their lives. So whether that's legal or not, legal or not, there's a moral component of this as well. And sometimes there's the intersection of morality and law, but we want to talk about real weaponization. It's Hunter Biden. That's the, you know, that's to me where this was directed at. Popak, I want to get your take on that. Pivot to Stephen Miller and TikTok. We got to take our last quick break of the show. This episode of Legal AF is brought to you by Wild Grain. This holiday, treat yourself and your loved ones to fresh baked deliciousness.

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slash LegalAF and enter code LegalAF at checkout. That's joindeleteeme.com slash legal AF code legal AF. Welcome back to legal AF. Where we last left off, Popak, I was just talking about the disparate treatment of Hunter versus Gates. On the one hand, Gates, public person, Congress member, picked to become an attorney general.

He did all of this while in public trust, statutory rape. None of that's the case with Hunter Hunter, private citizen, no statutory rape, um, was not picked to be in an administration in a top position. They went after Hunter for filling out an ATF form that said he's not addicted to drugs and also, I mean, how, what a vague statute in and of itself. Do you, are you addicted in that moment? Are you addicted after, but anyway. to drugs and also, I mean, what a vague statute in and of itself to it. Are you addicted in that moment? Are you addicted after?

But anyway, ostensibly Gates filled out that same form. There's no special counsel going after Gates. There's none of that. Yeah. So a couple of things. One, I want to make one correction. I said that Kathy Fernandez-Rundle, the long-time 30-year prosecutor in the state attorney's office in Miami, was Republican. I'd known Kathy for a long time. She's actually a Democrat, which also explains why there's prosecutions for things like that in Democratic Miami-Dade

County and not in other places like where Matt Gaetz lives. Secondly, one of the reasons that there's this distinction between Hunter Biden and Matt Gaetz is because let's just call it out. There was a mistake that was made by Merrick Garland who bent over backwards to appoint special counsels usually from a different party in order to act like appropriately that the agency, the department was independent, it wasn't weaponized. And so rather than keeping it in house, there's no reason that they couldn't have kept

that investigation and conclusion about whether to prosecute or not at main justice. Just because it was the president's son, I don't think automatically on their special counsel's rules he had to do that. But you know, Merrick Garland had been over backwards to create special counsels, you know, and make them either Republicans or not friendly or whatever. And to a, there's

an old line about to a hammer, to a hammer, everything is a nail. And to a special council, everything is something that has to be prosecuted to justify their very existence. And so Weiss, the special counsel, the special prosecutor for Hunter Biden had in his mind to conclude that there was a crime committed, a crime that is almost never prosecuted. Nine day ownership of a gun where he thought better of it and threw it in a dumpster and he only he self-reported it in his own memoir. That's who you go after. If Hunter's last name was Horowitz, let's be frank, he would not have been prosecuted. It's because MAGA was all over Weiss to do something

and he felt he had to do something. And they should have cut that deal in Delaware that would have resolved both the tax case and the gun case in one neat package. And it probably would have led Hunter Biden to have served some jail time, which he was willing to do and offered to do at that moment. That moment passed.

And then it got really politicized as you would expect it would because of what the Oversight Committee run by MAGA and the Judiciary Committee run by MAGA was doing on a daily basis to make themselves relevant and to get attention to go after poor civilian Hunter Biden. And yet you're right. Maybe because the Department of Justice didn't wanna be accused of being weaponized. So they dropped Matt Gaetz. You and I all both agree on so many things,

but one of the things we agree on is that they should never have dropped the investigation on Matt Gaetz. But they were like, well, we don't wanna be weaponized. He's in office and okay. So they don't do it. That was another big mistake. There's gonna be a lot of criticism in the memoirs and the books that will be written about Merrick Garland's tenure. I think that's another one to chalk up to that.

In terms of the crimes that were committed, these are crimes that were committed as alleged, now substantially backed in the ethics report. It's up to a strong willed prosecutor, probably one of the democratic ones in Miami, to try to find some link or nexus. I'll give you an example. Give me an example. Here we go. We're just brainstorming here.

If they really went out of the country and they took any of those cheap cruises out of Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, or Miami for some of this. Those are controlled by Democratic state attorneys and they could be investigating whether that trafficking happened out of a port in one of those three places. I would look into that as well. As to the Fed side, you're right. They're not going to do a darn thing about it, but the hypocrisy stinks and just shows you, you know, where the lack of Republican values are on these particular issues. I have a question for you before we leave Matt Gaetz. He's threatened to come back,

you know. He didn't come back in 118th. He can't come back in 119th. We're already gonna fill that position. Where do you think he ends up? And then I want to ask you, what do you think DeSantis does with the open Senate seat that will come up with? Because now that, what's your face? The Laura, not Laura Bush, Laura Trump has decided, I don't even know what her big announcement was, but she's decided she doesn't want to have that Senate seat.

Do you think DeSantis picks himself for the Senate seat? What do you think happens there? It's very interesting to me. No, I mean, I think DeSantis is going to pick a DeSantis loyalist. Who's not in the MAGA orbit. There's still that conflict between him and Trump that exists. Trump did a desync demonious thing the other day as well. I think that DeSantis was waiting to see if Trump was potentially going to make

him secretary of defense and get rid of Hegseth. Trump went all in on Hegseth and then DeSantis didn't want to get played by Trump. So he then responded, no, Lara, to which Trump then responded, oh, that's the sanctimonious. Lara acted like she was bowing out. And if you think about the people in Trump's world who may have got that position, like a Byron Donalds or someone else, I just think that DeSantis is not going to go to someone who's that loyal to Trump. I think he may pick someone who's not even necessarily on our radar, who's very loyal to DeSantis. Why not himself?

Why not? He's termed out. Why not? Why not put himself in the position? I think that that will look very self-serving. He'll get mocked for it. I think he's positioning himself to run in 2028 against JD Vans. himself to run in 2028 against JD Vans.

I think that he takes, I mean, if I think he takes time off, you know, you know, after, or, you know, he, he views it as he phases out and then he runs against, uh, you know, he runs in 2028. I think if he appoints himself, it'll, he'll get mocked for that in the MAGA base. I think it's a bad political move. It's a bad look. I mean, not that I'm trying to give this answer, pointers, but, but I'm, I'm

just, I'm trying to think about it to answer your question that he's not going to appoint himself. I mean, he'd rather be governor and why, why go through the, why be a senator and then be under kind of Donald Trump's MAGA Senate orbit when you have Florida? It's just if for an ambitious power-hungry guy It doesn't seem like a move to get less power than you're going to get right Yeah, I mean the governor's do in Florida move into the Senate's Rick Scott's an example of that, but you're right I think it's a lot of political grief

It's not the juice is not worth the squeeze to put himself in, although it's happened before governors have put themselves into that short time track, we give them two years in the Senate, then he'd have to run again. But you're right, if his ultimate ambition is to run against a weak Republican field, and, and, and not to pat ourselves on the back, but let our bench on the Democrat side, I will take it any day and twice on Sunday for the, not just for midterms, but for the presidential election that is

coming up after this one, then the Republican side. I mean, this Nikki, you know, the recycling of Nikki Haley and DeSantis all previously rejected and Ron Swammy and whoever else we're not thinking of a couple of governors, I would take our bench in a heartbeat. And because there's going to be a tremendous we're seeing chaos now in a mega civil war. Wait till wait till daddy's not around anymore. To you know, with his thumb and his oppressive tactics to hold that party together, it just flies away. As far as I hear, here's

the thing. Democrats need to get out of their own head. We talked about Merrick Garland. To your point, criticism is probably putting it lightly what's going to happen after that tenure about how he did everything. But he was so worried about looking fair that he ended up being unfair to his own team and to his own people. And he basically weaponized it against his own people and gave all of the benefits and favors to the other side. You know, Democrats need to be Democrats again. It's clear right now in this moment that there is a strong rejection of oligarchs

and billionaires and the 1% that's screwing everybody else. People are getting wise and savvy to the fact that the reason that we're angry and right now is actually not because of the transgender volleyball player from San Jose State University or because there's a congresswoman from Delaware who's using the female bathroom in Congress, or that an immigrant in Ohio is not actually eating your cats and dogs, but that the billionaires are literally eating your lunch, that they've created a structure that's rigged the game against the average Jane and Joe and American to screw them. That private equity has slurped up all of the supply of housing, which has made it completely unaffordable so they can

commoditize it and sell it. And when they screw up, they get bailed out by the government, by their rich Republican friends in the government. People are getting wise and they're pissed to this and Democrats need to act like Democrats and not Republican light. Democrats need to lean into these issues and not get so psyched out. They need to stand up and be loud and proud and say, no, we're actually here for the people. And they shouldn't wait until the midterms or in the election to start going to the factories and speaking to the firefighters.

I always say A, B, C, always be campaigning and you've got to have a constant on switch because otherwise you look phony and inauthentic when you go back to these communities and constituencies 90 days before an election and ask for their vote. You have to go and you have to start explaining to them right now. Look who Donald Trump's appointing to this position, that position, that position, that position, this position. That's all Project 2025.

They're going to take away your benefits. You're a union worker. Why are you voting against your own union? What are you doing? You're voting against yourself and your family and higher wages and overtime and your social security and Medicare and explain to them now. Don't wait until the election anyway. I don't even know why I went on that tangent, but Democrats be Democrats.

Okay. And, and focus on the issues and deliver for the people and message those issues and do those issues. That's what I want to see anyway, regardless. Let me be very clear about the D B D Democrats be Democrats, Democrats, be Democrats and ABC always be campaign. Let me just dispense with the Stephen Miller thing quickly. Cause I want to spend more time on the tick tock thing.

Let me just handle, let me do Miller. I'm going to give you tick tock. So Stephen Miller runs this organization, America first legal. Technically it's a nonprofit. Um, he sent the following letter. Uh, he sent the following letter to various cities, including San Diego, calling them sanctuary cities. He's citing the Constitution and saying basically, you know, we're going to go after you if you

stay as a sanctuary city. He's going to be a senior advisor to Donald Trump. He already is, but he's going to have an official position soon. So to me, it seems like he's using this nonprofit letterhead and the nonprofit organization to engage in kind of threats, knowing that he's going to have this position. I mean, what jurisdiction does first America legal have over San Diego's policies about how they want to deal with their own border situation in San, you know, in San Diego, that's actually a border town that's close to these issues.

So, you know, the whole purpose of this is Stephen Miller wanting to make himself feel tough and powerful to get a headline, which is why I really don't want to give him more attention than three minutes because he's looking for the headline, but there is a concept I want to talk about super briefly. Then I'm going to turn over Tick To TikTok to you, Popak, which is quasi-governmental agencies and quasi-governmental power. At some point when an agency is draped with the, um, all of the things that come along with being a government agency and they're acting on behalf of

a government, they're no longer just some random nonprofit. They're no longer just some private entity. They become official government actors or quasi governmental actors. And then they're subject to certain constitutional limits and restrictions and obligations like Freedom of Information Act requests, unlike private industries.

Like I couldn't do a FOIA request right now of Microsoft, like as a private citizen, but could you be doing a FOIA request of Doge and Elon Musk's emails and Vivek Ramaswamy's emails? Are they now governmental actors? Should the American public get access to all of their emails, text messages, data, you know, they'll say, no, no, no, we're private citizens, but you're out there saying official government account, official this, official that. To me, there is a strong

legal argument and precedent here that all of these private actors who are now masquerading as public officials, even like the czars of this, border czar, this person, why can't people start doing FOIA requests of their information? Now, they'll reject the FOIA request and they'll say, no, we can't give it back. Then it will spawn all of this litigation over kind of, are they quasi-governmental actors or not?

But to me, that seems like the righteous fights to be able to do in order to bring transparency to these issues. So I tell that to you because these are the things that we're grappling with and thinking about behind the scenes about how you deal with this situation where Trump is contorting government institutions and blurring the lines between governmental and

non, you know, and non-governmental and kind of mixing and matching right there. But Popak, speaking about mixing and matching, Donald Trump was Mr. TikTok ban in 2020, right? He invoked it under national security law. He wanted it banned. TikTok sued Trump. It's TikTok v Trump. There have since been a lot of hearings on this issue. And to be fair, there have been some Democrats who have been like, you know, what, when Trump initiated this process, some Democrats have said this. He may have had a point back then, because it seems to be that TikTok is using and they're owned by a company called ByteDance and then ByteDance is owned by a parent company

in China and the ByteDance, the American kind of company claims that it has a firewall between the Chinese company, that's the main parent company, but frequently that's been demonstrated to be inaccurate and false and that China's been able to surveil on America This is the argument from the Senate Intelligence Committee that the Chinese government surveilling on you when you have tick-tock Yes, you may enjoy the app, you know number one. There's a concern about the algorithm Interfering with elections and the algorithm influencing behavior, but to they they're surveilling on you. And the TikTok goes, no, we're not surveilling on you. We promise you we're not. We're not giving this data to China.

And in the Senate saying, we're doing it. So Trump did an about face, right, Popak? Jeffrey Yass is this big Trump donor who's an investor in ByteDance. So he's been pushing Trump to now favor TikTok. Even though Trump didn't win the youth vote, he got more youth vote this time. And so with that background, he wants TikTok. So give us the league,

what's going on with the amicus, what's happening? All right, I'll be happy to. I agree with you, by the way, on the other point, I wanna just do one minute on it. I've done a fair amount of public records request law, had a local government, municipal government practice back in another life. We, you and I have been successful in like in the Marjorie Taylor Greene case and where

she tried to use her private Twitter at the time, which was really her public Twitter. We went after that successfully. I think Sunshine is the best antiseptic And we have to make sure that if Donald Trump is improperly delegating and off offloading to his in coordination with these quasi governmental agencies, these NGOs, these non governmental organizations like America First and the rest of them, which are going to serve as Donald Trump's private pit bulls, but for his administration policies, I think they've crossed the line.

And I think it's worth the fight to find out what the coordination is and the rest. I mean, for America First to threaten sanctuary city mayors and others, which is doing Tom Homan, the soon to be border czar work sounds like they've crossed over, we'll continue to follow all of that. On the TikTok world. I said in a hot take that I did recently, that whether you like it or not, platforms like TikTok are watching you as much as you're watching them. And they're getting from you not just information. And from let's be frank,

the children of America. I mean, it's a lot of, you know, 12 to 30 year olds who are using and on TikTok on a regular basis. I haven't seen the demographic breakdown of it, but there's adults, of course, there's people that are in their 30s, 40s and 50s and beyond that are on there. But there's that sweet spot of the demographic. And they're not only making videos, but they're filling out forms, they're participating in surveys, they get a link to something like, hey, do you wanna see what you'll look like

when you're 50 years old? Upload a photo. And you're like, yeah, I wanna see that. You upload a photo. And now, because TikTok is ultimately owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party through ByteDance, you've now given to the Chinese and the Chinese military and their military grade computing and weapon systems, a face recognition database,

and you're helping their AI by doing that. You think it's fun. Hey, look what I look like when I'm 50. But I'm not sure I want to do that one now. But maybe. So there's all these different ways for them to collect data from you. And just as you said earlier, surveil on Americans. It's not just an innocent platform, where kids do challenges, and you know, all get together and do some sort of flash mob, or a dance move in a

new craze. It's not it's more nefarious and insidious than that. And because it's in the, it's not. It's more nefarious and insidious than that because it's in the hands of our enemy. I know that Donald Trump's inviting the president of China to his inauguration, but at last I looked, China is still our enemy, not just our frenemy or our co-superpower, just like Putin is.

You wouldn't know it by the way Donald Trump acts, because he treats these people, you know, like it would be like, how do I put this? There's a new Superman movie coming out and I saw the preview for it. It'd be like Superman sort of hanging out with Lex Luthor and all the other people, because you know, we're all sort of superheroes.

No, they are the red menace they always have been and they want to wipe out our way of life and our democracy and undermine our ability as the leaders of the democratic brand worldwide to have moral authority. And all they want is their own territorial ambitions to be achieved everywhere around the world. That's why when you go to Central and South America and you go to, I mean Donald Trump who never leaves, rarely leaves America, he hates to travel, it's a known fact, he hates travel outside of America, brings his own pillow and everything. He you know he woke up to find out the Panama Canal was being used for Chinese cargo and that China has invested in Panama. You know, wake up. If you go to foreign countries and you travel, you have an interest in the world around you,

you will see that China has invested hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars into the infrastructure of Caribbean countries, South America, Central America and in Panama in order to gain a foothold and to have these countries be in their sphere of influence. That's how they've done it. It's a little bit of a problem in America. We've been so focused on America infrastructure and America first that we forget about the sphere of influence that's being perpetrated by these other countries on a global basis. And so TikTok, although it looks, it's like a Trojan horse. It's all candy colored and happy, but behind it are these very stone-faced Chinese communists

that are trying to do a couple of things, surveil, get information for their AI databases and algorithms, and fourthly, to use TikTok and TikTok influencers to sow discontent, disinformation, and brainwash Americans. Just like Facebook is, I would say unwittingly duped, they're not, they make a lot of money so they don't care what content is on their platform.

But that is a prime example of how our enemies try to sew division and put each other's seethe, put each other's seething at each other's throats, which MAGA thinks is a great thing. That's why Donald Trump's like, I love that. He's putting, they're putting us at each other's throats because Donald Trump can only exist in a seething cauldron of political division and animosity. So of course he loves it. That's the collusion, small C collusion. It's not that Donald Trump is actually coordinating through his campaign with the Russians and the Chinese.

It's that he willingly benefits from there. It's the enemy of my enemy is my friend theory. He willingly benefits from them wanting to do the same thing. The American people F them that Donald Trump does in order to get elected. Because if we're all kumbaya and peaceful and happy and like the shining city on the hill and the aspirations of Clinton and Kennedy and Reagan

and even the Bushes, then Donald Trump does not get born into that environment he key he only gets born in an acid bath of fighting and division you know and so he loves now he loves tick-tock it probably helped that the that the owner of the president and chairperson of tick-tock was in one of the lines of tech bros that went to Mar-a-Lago recently, and the fact that a major donor for Donald Trump is an early investor in TikTok,

and has been whispering in his ear since before the election that he wants TikTok to be saved. So now Donald Trump has come in with a really weird, I've never seen this before in my life, a president-elect who's not even a president-elect yet. Let's remember, that's what Jan Six is supposed to be. Jan Six makes you the president-elect.

He's now the president-elect-elect. He files a brief with John Sauer, who's going to be, you know, just again, no smoke or sunshine, going to be confirmed as the Solicitor General of the United States, but is currently getting paid as a private criminal lawyer and appellate lawyer for Donald Trump. So he files an amicus brief that nobody asked him to file. I have to actually look on the docket then as to whether they got permission and has that been accepted as a brief. I assume they'll accept it because they labeled it

President Trump, not even President-elect Trump, President Trump's brief, and in it, he says the briefing by TikTok, he sides automatically with the Chinese. The President-elect of the United States sided with the Chinese on First Amendment grounds against the American people and our national security. I can't put too fine a point on that, okay? Could you imagine any democratic

president or any other time in our life where it would be okay for the guy we just voted to be president to intervene in a case and side with the Chinese against American security? Never. But it's not the problem on mainstream media. It's not presented that way, the way you and I do it here on Legal AF. It's always this, as you like to call it, this both sidesism. Oh, it's interesting today, there was a brief filed by President Trump with John Sauer in which he didn't take a position on the First Amendment. Not true, he took a position on the First Amendment.

He sided with the Chinese, if you actually took the time to read the brief, and saying that he's got the business acumen to solve the problem. Okay, next, Bill, how's our weather in the Midwest? I mean, that's how they report. Read the effing thing. And if you read it, it says, I will solve the problem. I will balance national security interests, which have been overblown with the with business with business terms, just give me time after I get into office. And so don't, so he's asking from an amicus position, not a party position, for the court to give an injunction or a stay, an emergency stay, to allow him

and his administration time to broker a deal and come up with a new bill. There is a law already on the books that requires this to be sold, for sale, because of national security risks and concerns. Okay, that is the law. The Supreme Court has to look at that law and decide whether it's constitutional, not give breathing space to see if Donald Trump, the ultimate haggler, is going to be able to handle a deal with the Chinese. The last time I heard about him wanting to make a deal about the sale when he was in office last time, he wanted a VIG, a commission to go to the U S government for brokering the deal.

But I was just, just, I mean, totally crazy and inconsistent with his position that they are a private company that has first amendment rights. TikTok's position based on the briefs that they filed, which I did a hot take on illegal AF, is that it's not their First Amendment rights. It's the First Amendment rights of 140 million Americans that are using TikTok that's being denied because we're going to have to sell, which I don't see the link there. Because if it's going to get sold, then they'll have a place to go. And there's no constitutional right to have a platform. They'll go to another platform. We all left Twitter and X.

We went to blue sky wherever we went and they'll, they'll be another tick tock, you know, um, that won't be owned by our enemies. Like, you know, think about this. Well, what if there was a Russian platform that Americans decided to embrace and use, not knowing that underneath it, all the metadata and data was being used against them in compromising our national security?

That's the way this issue should be posited to the American people. Now, here, I'll make a prediction about it. You got an amicus brief, let's assume for a moment that the court's going to accept it. They don't have to accept amicus briefs. They can go, no, we got this.

We don't need that brief. But I think because it's the president, Trump, amicus, here and there. But it is a procedurally wacko request by a non-party to have an injunction or a stay to give that non-party who's the head of the executive branch time to broker a deal on a law that's on the congressional side. Talk about separation of powers problems. You got them all over the place. If I'm the Supreme Court I'd be like okay that's interesting. We're gonna make a declaration on an or we have oral argument on the on the 10th of January that's when it's scheduled. We'll cover it here. We're going to make a declaration. We have oral argument on the 10th of January. That's when it's scheduled.

We'll cover it here. We're going to go forward with that. We have full briefing. We saw your amicus. We get it. You want to do some sort of business deal. That's interesting, but that's uninteresting to us as judges. We're going to do the hearing on the 10th.

We're going to issue our decision before the 19th of January, which is the drop-dead deadline for the forced sale based on the bill. You know, they didn't stay that by the way. They're just trying to cram in the hearing and try to get a ruling out, you know, for all of us that were pulling our hair out, waiting for them to make a decision on the immunity ruling that went on for months and waited for the the Colorado ballot insurrectionist issue, months, and waited for the abortion decision to come out in Dobs. This one's gonna come out in a week

after the oral argument, and they're gonna have to make a choice. Either they're going to stop the bill, or no, the law, finding that it's unconstitutional, bill or the law finding that it's unconstitutional or you know it's not reasonably proportionally shaped to fit the problem and they got to go back to the drawing board or they're going to say as the three-judge panel 3-0 in the DC Court of Appeals said it's constitutional and Congress's word is is law here when it comes to this type of issue, and they are going to have

to go through with a forced sale. And then Donald Trump can get in on the 20th and do whatever he wants after the fact, because I haven't heard anywhere, Ben, unless you have, that there's actually a buyer that's willing to come in. It's right now, it's a fire sale because nobody's going to give them fair value because it's a forced sale. That's one of their arguments, sort of a due process argument, but they're not going to get it sold on the 19th.

They're going to have to either go dark or come up with or do a fast sale and get it out of Chinese communist hands. Then Donald Trump can do whatever he wants after the fact. That's my view, but this is MAGA controlled Supreme Court. You may have a different view. What do you think is gonna happen? No, I think that there are a lot of billionaire Trump donors who are coming up with the plan to acquire the algorithm

now led by that Jeff Yas guy, who's a big kind of Trumper. Whether that can be achieved before the 19th is unclear. The broader point is that very recently Donald Trump's big position is that TikTok is an existential threat to our national security and it must be banned immediately under executive orders for imminent national security harm. That was Trump's position in August of 2020. It's only gotten worse since then as Tik Tok has gotten bigger. Not the, those concerns have not alleviated.

Database is bigger. Now the Congress made a similar finding. Now I like Tik Tok. I enjoy before going to sleep. Look at Tik Tok. I watch these silly videos that the algorithm sends me now. That enjoyment, that liking of the platform, I have to, at some point, know that there are areas and issues in national security law beyond my lay

person's purview of what's taking place here. And when you can get Congress in a bipartisan way to agree this thing is really a threat, I think that that needs to be taking seriously. I got a question. And I got a question. Do you think Trump could or would buy it for truth social? I think that that would not shock me if part of his, he would not have the funds to do it himself, but would it shock me that part of his plan

behind the scenes to buy time is to make truth social and equity partner in the capital stack that ultimately acquires the algorithm with Jeff? Yes. I have zero doubt in my mind that that's something that he would be willing to do. And in my opinion, it's something that to your point that he's probably exploring how to get, uh, Trump media through the value of his shares right now, um, to have those shares acquire the algorithm.

He wouldn't be fully able to do it, but in concert with another capital stack of other investors, absolutely, to turn a valueless truth social, even though on paper it has value because the mag is by the stock, and acquire something of real value in TikTok. And then we'll have an emoluments fight in court about whether he's just benefited

himself as the president lied his pocket with a business. And exactly. And that goes back to the original point I made with D B D Democrats need to be Democrats and ABC always be campaigning. These issues right here shed light on a oligarchy, a use of funds by billionaires to screw over people. They're not hiding it anymore. I thought it was pretty clear before, but they ain't hiding it. And Democrats need to realize that they need to get out on all the platforms.

The same way President Biden did an interview here on the Midas Dutch network, and he led the way. You need to get out there and you need to message this to the American people each and every day. And one of our roles here at Legal AF is again, in just recording on the facts to show you what's going on, to show you the legal structures, how our legal system's under attack, what can be done, what can't be done, what may be able to get done. And we're gonna keep doing that every week with you. So Michael Popak, thank you so much. That's the kind of full roundup on TikTok.

We'll follow up more as we learn more details. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 4 million subscribers, would love that. Subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. It's free to subscribe. Make sure you subscribe there. And really have a great new year. I hope you had a happy holidays, happy Christmas, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa. And just know we're going to be here with you

every step of the way next year, the year after, the year after, and the year after that. We're here with you. You have a lot to be proud about. Even though the election didn't go the way you probably wanted it to go, you're still fighting, you're still here. And I'm telling you, compassion, love, the truth will prevail. There are setbacks along the way, but we're in this in the long run with you. So we love you, we appreciate you, and shout out to the Legal A F'ers and shout out Mike Spence.