Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal Experts REACT to MAGA Madness

Episode Date: May 15, 2022

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard-hitting look in “real time” at this week’s most consequential developments, and occasionally something out of pop culture. This week, Ben and Popok discuss and analyze: 1. The Texas Supreme Court giving permission to the State to open child abuse investigations against parents of transgender children. 2. A bad week for Trump as his $10,000 a day fine for contempt may continue unless he can come up with affidavits and evidence that he’s in compliance a New York state court judge’s order regarding the NY Attorney General civil fraud investigation into his business affairs, and a New York federal judge cast doubt on Trump’s efforts to dismiss the NYAG investigation outright. 3. A state court judge in Florida, appointed by DeSantis, rejecting the Governor’s racist redistricting maps as too racist and violative of Florida’s Constitution. 4. Developments with the Jan6 Committee and its efforts to subpoena McCarthy and Jim Jordan to appear as it wraps up its work in advance of the June hearings. 5. A federal judge rejecting a plea deal for an insurrectionist named “Baked Alaska” because he refused to admit his guilt. And so much more. Grab some Meidas Merch:  https://store.meidastouch.com/ Join the Legal AF Twitter Community: https://twitter.com/i/communities/1518253662920974338 Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Texas Supreme Court rules that the child abuse investigations into family of trans youth can continue. Florida Court strikes down DeSantis, Jerry Manderd-Naps, an insurrectionist named Faked Alaska with draws his plea. What does that even mean? The Trump contempt order out of state court in New York and the Tish James investigation is lifted but with conditions and the January 6th committee, Zapinas, GOP members who spoke with Trump and other high level Jan 6th leaders. This is legal AF,

Ben Mycelas and Michael Popak. Popak, how are you doing? I'm doing good. I love the opening. Popak, let's talk about this Texas Supreme Court what they've ruled recently. And what they've ruled is that the investigations that are occurring in Texas for child abuse

into the private homes of families who are helping their trans children through health issues that trans children privately need to go through that that constitutes child abuse and child endangerment such that the state of Texas will remove the children from their parents and we know the suicide rates of trans kids are through the roof. So basically condemning trans kids to die. That's what this is like let's call this issue what it is. This is an issue by the Texas government to remove trans kids from their families. In Texas's view, they want to try to then groom the kids, actual grooming, to

be straight. They want to groom them to be straight, even though they're trans. And basically, you know, forced these kids to commit suicide. That's what we know happens in these situations. And that is what the state that believes in less government wants to do in the homes of families. So the procedure of this, there was the lower court judge, ACLU filed a lawsuit, lower court judge basically stops these child abuse investigations for taking place. The Texas third circuit court of appeals, not federalists is then the Texas system.

They agree and they issue an injunction, stopping this. And then the Texas Supreme court, which is like the US Supreme court right on to right on Q, what they basically say is, look, as it relates to this specific family, sure we'll allow that injunction to stand, but overall, we are okay with these investigations taking place. And in very similar ways to how the US Supreme Court tries to dance around issues and the way these radical right extremists come

up with these horrible policies. What the Texas Supreme Court said is what packs in the Texas AG and Abbott did the agencies in Texas don't even have to follow it. They're just encouraging them to do it. But ultimately the agency has discretion anyway. Where have we heard this before? SBA. It's like the same thing. You know, it's it's the same way they do it. No one's actually filed the lawsuit. All the states doing is allowing private citizens to become bounty hunters. It doesn't mean they're actually have become bounty hunters. But what it actually results

in is the outcome that they want. And that's how they dance around these issues and create these horrific, horrific rulings. While they wait for the United States Supreme Court to come around and overturn the privacy rights, the privacy rights. And I want to just go into that. I've never seen you smack. I've never seen you smack your ball cap before. Because it's such an important right to have. And so fundamentally entrenched when these people

call themselves conservative, and they want less government, the whole essence of the idea The whole essence of the idea is privacy. Is that adults can get contraception. That if there is a trans kid in a house that the families can make these decisions with the doctors, with their religion leaders, with, they could be atheists. They could do whatever they want because what happens in their house, their privacy, right, is important. So that the government and fascist big overarching government doesn't knock on your door, take your trans kid and force the trans kid to kill themselves. So that the government doesn't come in and take your daughter or or monitor

your daughter's periods and her menstrual cycle. And if they see that the cycle is off and that she's not carrying to term, charge her with murder. It's so sick, Popak. And this is what we're seeing. They don't care about privacy. They don't, they want big government. And when we talk about what these rights are, we should be talking what the counter to the right is. The right is to be free from something. And that's something is government knocking on your door, ripping your kid away and telling your door,

telling your kid, that's what I know. You're so right. The diabolical rulings that they make and the dance that you talked about. And now extending it, where is the libertarian wing of the right of the conservative party? It seems to be completely missing. And as we, it's not even a joke, as we've said, I said it on an earlier legal AF with Karen. Now this right wing, diabolical wing of the Republican party, they just want a shrink government just small enough to either fit in a woman's uterus or in the bedroom.

That's how small they want government to be. And that is where we are with these rulings. And then you have these IV tower jurists who know full well what's going to happen from their ruling. And the comparison you made between the Supreme Court and SBA, I'll take it once that further. Alito in the leaked soon to be majority opinion, as we know, overturning Roe v Wade,

I've talked about it with you before, said very callously and cavalierly, it is not our concern what happens in the real world from our decision, I'm paraphrasing, but this is what he said. And here, Texas Supreme Court says, there was a procedural screw up here. We're gonna stop the investigation for child abuse

related to the plaintiffs that brought the case, but you judge and you appellate court went too far to extend that ban on investigations of families with transgender children beyond a couple of plaintiffs that filed to all transgender parents and their children in Texas. And so, procedurally, you're wrong about that. We're going to let those investments go forward. And then they gave that cover, that fig leaf, that disgusting foe, bullshit cover for their bad act, which was we're not telling the Department of Family and Protective Services and

Texas what to do. The legislature has given them the full power to make the decision and the discretion. And Abbott has the right as the governor and Abbot has the right as the governor and and Paxton has the right as the attorney general to give non-binding guidance, but it's non-binding. You don't have to listen to it. Bendy, you know what happened the very next day after this ruling came out? Do you know what the Department of Family and Protective Services said? What they said? What they did. They had a press conference or a press news release. And they said, we will follow Texas law, including the directive of our governor and our guidelines and our guidance

from our attorney general. And they opened and restarted nine investigations in the state of Texas and to parents with transgender children. You ever see these videos of ISIS when they controlled Raka and one of the first things they would install were these people who would inspect the shops and they would inspect the homes and they would make sure that the women were wearing what they were wearing. For she a law to make sure she a law was being about it. And they they would make sure that, you know, that there was no homosexuality. And they would check and inspect. Is it really?

Is it really that different than what Texas? Well, it's basically the same thing they want, you know, maybe the, the, the garb is a little different. But that's what they want to do. And what our Constitution is supposed to protect us from is the government intruding onto our privacy rights, onto our fundamental rights. That is what the Constitution ultimately is for. And guess which amendment is the one,

just the one that happens to use the word well-regulated? The one that they want no regulation, the second amendment, the right to prayer arms for a with a well-regulated militia, is the only one the radical right goes. That's the one that has, that's the one that you have an absolute no government intrusion. Oh, take your guns into schools.

Go take the AK-47s into elementary schools. Let's put them on birthday cakes. By the way, get ready because over the summer, we're going to be reporting on the decision that of New York at the Supreme Court about concealed carry. And we've been, as people recognize, we've been pretty good at predicting. And concealed carry with very limited driver's license like Reg Lake registration is going to be the law of the land.

And states like New York that have taken guns off the street and not even allowed non-criminals to have them. That's over. There's going to be everybody's going to, everyone in America is going to have the right to a concealed weapons permit with very little training and very little background check. If this Supreme Court makes the ruling that you and I think they're going to make the summer.

And I just don't think, Popok, there are people who have broken down the issue fundamentally the way we are talking about it. Okay. Roe v Wade and Casey are being overturned. What does that mean? Knock, knock. They will be arresting your daughter for murder. They will be arresting your sister, your wife for murder. They will be arresting you for taking contraception for buying contraception, they're coming for you, the government. And that is what the radical right wants to do. And when we're talking about this issue here with these investigations, what are they saying they will be ripping children from the homes of family and these families want what's in the best entrance of their trans child. What they want to do is make sure that their trans child who was born, a trans child, is taken care of, is healthy, is supported, does not commit suicide. And the state, when they have a million other things to focus on. Actually, when they could literally focus on real issues that matter to people and try

to fix things. This is what they focus on. And one of the things that's so symptomatic of this as well, you know, with this baby formula shortage, what does Biden do right away with the baby formula shortage? Let's invoke emergency powers to try to fix the situation. What do Republicans do? Blame the immigrants. Blame the immigrants. And they block it. Block it and blame the immigrants. The immigrants are stealing your baby formula.

But they're over-consuming baby formula. Exactly. The immigrant kids should die and not have baby formula. And they're the reason. Well, how about the Supreme Court in its in its soon to be final decision, referencing baby inventory, the inventory of babies for adoption. Like we're a factory domestic supply of a domestic supply. Like this is the matrix. and we just have people hooked up in pods with hoses in the back of their heads waiting to be adopted. This is the world. Why aren't the crazies that storm the capital, the insurrectionists, the oath keepers, the First Amendment Praetorians? Why are they up in arms equally by what's going on in Texas? They're so worried about the trilateral commission and the Biden administration.

What about their rights that are being stripped away from them in their own home states? I don't care about that. I don't care about that. You know, Ronan McDaniel, the chair, woman, the chair person of the RNC, her staffer who was a leading figure, at least he was giving all of these impassioned speeches that were anti-abortion. He was the individual who literally said that he wants to have sexual intercourse with babies and was arrested for trading in baby sexual pornography, baby rape pornography, and Ronan McDonnell, McDaniel, has not even condemned

her staffer who was arrested. Like, the level of disgusting, like, the depth of it has no freaking bottom. And we're talking about no freaking bottom. Let's just go to the state of Florida with governor DeSantis who wants to take the kind of Trump mantle of despotism and he's running to be not president in 2024. DeSantis is positioning himself as a dictator for 2024 and what DeSantis says is, okay, America doesn't want democracy anymore. We know that is what Republicans believe. We're fighting for pro-democracy, but DeSantis realizes America, America as the GOP sees it is an authoritarian state that looks actually very similar to communist China. It looks like one party rule. They wanted to be the GOP that controls everything

and that there's a veil of democracy, but not real democracy. And so Governor DeSantis just violates every law. Like he doesn't care. There's a constitutional amendment in the Florida Constitution. That was passed by a million votes in 2007 by the by the residents and the citizens of state of Florida to make it so there can be no

political gerrymandering at all ever on the books political gerrymandering by the way political gerrymandering. By the way, political gerrymandering shouldn't be lawful, but if absent a law or a constitutional amendment, mere political gerrymandering, as dumb as this sounds, would otherwise be okay. But Florida voters said, nope, we don't want political gerrymandering. Even if there is political gerrymandering in other states where you see these lawsuits being brought, while it could be political, it can't be racially discriminatorily motivated,

and that's where you see a lot of lawsuits. So what does DeSantis do knowing that you can't politically gerrymandere? Well, he politically and racist gerrymanders. He does both and basically tries to cut out and remove the black members of Congress from the state of Florida by himself, literally, DeSantis, while the legislatures are usually the people who actually do the maps. He rejected their maps, which were already extreme.

He said, you will pass my DeSantis map. And even the Republicans in the state legislature were like, all right, you went to, you will pass my dissentist map. And even the Republicans in the state legislature were like, all right, you went to you're going to get overruled. And he's like, I do not give one F about it. Pass it. And what does the Republican legislator do? Yes, sir. I'm absolutely yes, sir. Absolutely. Thank you for giving us this map. We don't we don't do shit. We don't care. We just follow the dictator and the Republican party. We don't have our own voice. And fortunately, you called it that this court was going to strike it down. You have insight on the court and tell us what happens next. Yeah. Yeah. So Leon County judge, Lane, this is a, this

is a DeSantis appointed judge. I want to make that clear. Even he found to Santa's went too far. This is a guy that before he became a judge, Lane Smith in Leon County, up at Tallahassee in the state court. He had two supremely political Republican jobs. So he's a died in the wall Republican. He was the general counsel of the state's lotto, and he was the general counsel of the Department of Professional and Building Services. So he is the Republicans Republican, and he gets appointed by DeSantis in 2020. Even this guy thought DeSantis had gone too far,

and he said, look, let's look at the numbers. The map that DeSantis inherited had a 16 to 11 Republican advantage for the 27 seats that make up the 27 27 seats of the house that make up the Republican map in or the map in Florida 16 to 11. That's pretty good. That's a plus five advantage in Florida. That was good enough for the Santa's. He not only made it because Florida picked up a seat in the, in the census. So now they have 28 seats. He made a 20, 20 seats Republican, eight safe Democrats, a 20, 12 seat advantage. And while he was at it, he got rid of, he halved the black, the black representation

or more than halved it from five down to two. Because like you said, I'm going to do a political thing. I'm also going to be a racist too and do that. And the judge looked at it and said, this is unconstitutional under Florida's fair district amendment from 2007. And I am, and I'm going to take it off, and you're not going to be able to use this map

for the upcoming election period. And the only thing we know next, of course, is that the Sanctus is appealing to first level appeal will go to the District Court of Appeal for Leon County. And then I assume some sort of fast track. It's going to have to go very fast if this is going to be effective for the primaries, because they're already printing the primary ballots. And then we'll go to the Florida Supreme Court, which as I'm managing expectations, UNR and makeup predictions is packed, packed to the grafters with DeSantis appointed judges.

He is resh- he and Scott, the prior, uh, uh, uh, Rick Scott, the prior governor, also right when you're publicant. It's almost entirely, I think there's like two of the Supreme Court justice that aren't. A lot of them came from Miami, a lot of them owed their careers, literally to either Scott and or DeSantis. So he's got a very favorable Supreme Court, just waiting maybe to, but how they're going to run away from the amendment that the, that the, that the people of the state of Florida put on the books in 2007, I have no idea.

Well, I, I, I have an idea. Here's the strategy. Here's the, here's the, here's the Dessantis strategy. You basically pass it at the very, very, very last minute to possibly pass it. And then you, and then as it works its way through the courts, you then rely on your very conservative right wing Supreme Court, the same way the United States Supreme Court would do the same thing. And you basically cite the state version of the Purcell principle, which we've talked about on the pod, which is let's not have courts intervene with the maps proposed by legislatures so close to the date of an election.

And so what the Florida Supreme Court, my prediction, we'll say is there may be issues here, but we're not going to issue like an injunction. We're not going to stop the map now, let it work its way through the court system because of a version of the Purcell principle. We just have to defer to the legislature. We're so close, you know, to the election. Let's just let DeSantis's map and have a presumption in favor of. I think whether that happens or not, I think that is what the reason that it's past so late and creating all of these issues is to screw around with it and to create the confusion. So whether that happens or not, we'll follow up.

But that's what I think the Dessantis strategy of waiting until the last minute there. Let's just talk briefly, Popok, about this baked Alaska idiot. You have the shamans, you have people named baked Alaska idiot. You know, you have the shamans, you have people named baked Alaska. You know, you have these right wing extremist, social media influencers. There's a, it's like, like carnival characters, like fucking evil, evil carnival.

To side show. Side show. You know, and these are people who are, uh, as crazy as this sounds like respected in, uh, the right wing movement at the high level. It's an important distinction that I always like to make because when the radical right extremists want to portray people who have pro democracy views as extremists. They pick people who I don't even know if they are Democrats or if they are liberal. I don't know who these people are. Like they'll pick a random person screaming and shouting at a school without context and

be like, you see what this woke mob is doing or whatever their language is. And I'm like, I have no clue who this person even is, who you're referring to. I don't know the context of your video, nor is that person Nancy Pelosi. But let me tell you something. Kevin McCarthy was speaking with Donald Trump during the insurrection. Jim Jordan was speaking with Donald Trump. Mo Brooks was leading the insurrection rallying charge that day with baked Alaska.

So your actual leaders, like, could you imagine if Nancy Pelosi was standing right next to the screaming person, you know, at, you know, when they, when they pick, you know, I'm talking, they always pick on the person yelling at the college, you know, who's just like a 19 year old student who really cares about an issue and is probably going about it in a way that feels disruptive to like a speaker. Like this is the radical left at work. Could you imagine Nancy Pelosi with her arm around that person and being like, ah, that's exactly the radical right leaders are these people like baked fricking Alaska. So baked Alaska.

He told everyone he was going to plead guilty. He then said, I'm not going to plead guilty now. And he was streaming the insurrection basically live. That's what his, what he was doing. And now he's like, after telling the government, he wants to plead, he's now with drawings plea. It's all fucking games to these people, right? I mean, these people are just, these people are, I always say clowns, but it gives clowns a bad name.

These are like just just really, really, really. R-rid. People. Yeah, I don't understand what. And theme Joseph Gione, aka baked Alaska was thinking. He's not thinking. So he gets off with a misdemeanor in a plea deal with the prosecution because they charged him

with a higher crime, but they ended up allowing him to plead to parading and demonstrating and picketing. Even though he was one of the first ones in in live streaming, but there was no violence attached to him. So they figured, all right, let's just clean this one up and we'll downshift and downgrade to a parading demonstrating, you know, a appearance ticket basically. Now he's in front of judge Emmett Sullivan, who we've talked about before, a preeminent judicial scholar formerly on the DC appeals court on the state level appointed by George Bush, appointed by Clinton to the federal bench. He's monitored the Foreign Surveillance Act

and the issuance of search warrants. He's a really bright judge and he's kind of had it with the Jan 6 people. So all this idiot has to do is stand in court and do what's called an allocation, say that he's guilty, confirmed to the court that is guilty plea is without any kind of coercion. It's as of as free will that he's pleading guilty. And then the prosecution was ready to wreck. You know, that was the plea guilty on

that count. And then the government would have recommended, you know, kind of a slap on the risk term for him. Instead, maybe because he's a live streamer and he'd rather have his extend his 15 minutes of fame added finitum to that dark underbelly of the web that he that he proselytizes to. He said to the judge, I wanted my day in court, judge, but they told me if I did that, I don't know why I'm giving my son an accent. I don't even know if he has a son accent. If I did that, I don't know why I'm giving my son an accent. I don't even know if he has a son an accent. If I did that, they were going to drop a felony on me. So and the judge said, stop. As I said, judge said, stop. Don't do this for me.

If you want your day in court, sir, I'm happy to give you your day in court. So if you're not meeting guilt out of your own free will and you think the prosecution, you know, was going to threaten your this or that, then let me look at my calendar. March 2023 will be your trial. Thank you and good day. But the government sort of like pissed off that they negotiated with whomever. I don't think he was pro-say by himself in the yellow lawyer. They're keeping the offer open for the citizens that for 60 days, at which time if they doesn't take the deal in 60 days, they're going to withdraw the deal. And this, this idiot's going to go to trial in March 2023.

I, you know, hopefully becomes a baked Alaskan salmon or whatever whatever. Whatever his name is a baked Alaskan salmon filet ridiculousness. Want to remind everybody go to store.mitustouch.com. store.mitustouch.com for all the best might as touch and legal AF gear. We now have these great say gay bracelets. We're donating 10% of profits to the Trevor Project in connection with the sale of these say gay bracelets.

And we also have a lot of other great Midas merch like bands off our bodies. We still look like we have the legal AF certificates of affiliation up. We've got unapologetically pro-democracy gear, Midas touch sweatshirts, T-shirts, great summer gear. I love when people post the Midas touch gear, we got the Mugs, I mean Midas mom mug, bunch of other gear. I love when people post the Midas touch gear, we got the mugs. I may Midas mom mug.

A bunch of other gear check out. Did you see did you see one of our followers mark in Thailand? I mean, he's one of our real followers and supporters with a popaki and handmade popaki in shirt in front of a Buddhist temple in Thailand. I don't necessarily follow the popoqians as much as you do, but I did see that picture. But definitely everybody, it is great pictures. And I do, there's no, there's no bigger supporters out there than legal AF supporters. Let's talk popoq about this Trump contempt order being lifted on the one hand. People may be disappointed. I thought he was going to be sanctioned every day. Why is the contempt order being lifted on the one hand, people may be disappointed. I thought he was going

to be sanctioned every day. Why is the contempt order being lifted? It's $110,000 or so that the judge has ordered him to pay, which is not an insignificant amount of money if you didn't inherit billions of dollars from daddy. And it may still be running. We'll talk about that. It may still be running. I may still be running because it is with a stipulation in essence, not a stipulation, but a demand from the judge. Potential stipulation of Trump actually follows through where really the judge here, Erragon or end to ground, he wants, that's the judge's name, I may be butchering

it slightly, but he wants Trump, you know, kind of called Trump's bluff here, which is okay. You claim you've complied. Get me a declaration from all of these people under penalty of perjury that provides all of the information to prove that these genuinely don't exist. And let me know what's happened with all of these devices and phones that you claim are destroyed, like spell it out for me, and you're good. And I think it's a smart move in the sense that the trial court judge knows that Trump is going to put billions of billions, millions of league dollars and legal fees that aren't his own money into that he raises from other

people into appealing this thing. And I think what the court wants to look like also is very reasonable, which is, look, just prove to me that you're complying. And here's how you can do it and go for it. And if you don't, then you're going to be sanctioned. So I like this a lot. First of all, it's going to require the general counsel of the Trump organization, Alan Garton,

who's now the, I think he's the chief, they've changed general counsel now a lot in corporate America. He's now the chief legal officer, the CLO. He asked the prepared affidavit and the executive assistants that work, this is who knows everything, the executive assistants who work for Trump have to also prepare and file affidavits to confirm what the lawyers like Lena, Lena Habba had said, which is the lawyers have confirmed that there's nothing in Mar-a-Lago in in these offices that are responsive. So the executive assistants have to talk about what they did to assist the lawyers to look at all of the devices and all of the hard copies has to complete their inspection of all of these locations because Ben, you remember, they identified a couple of weeks ago the referee, the discovery referee said,

we haven't gotten the file cabinet out in front of the executive, that's marked executive offices. We, they know the existence of these locations, but they know from their charting and their graphs and their spreadsheets that they haven't gotten information from those places. So they have to also file a report. The judge is going to look at each of these affidavits sequentially. He's going to look at the prior testimony by Alina Habba in court, the lawyer with her declaration and her going down a Mar-a-Lago. He's going to see if this now

gives us a chain of custody or links in a chain of why this information doesn't exist and what they did to look for it. He's got to put a hundred, Trump's got to put a hundred, $10,000 into the court registry into escrow sitting there. Okay. And if the judge doesn't like the results of all these things, then the clock starts running from as if it never stopped from May 7th through, through, whenever at $10,000 a day. That's why I said earlier, the clock may still be running because let's see. So far, this new legal team has shown a complete in a, in, in inability to properly comply with rules and orders of the court. So I'm not banking on them being able to pull this one off either. The judge is like, all right, I'm going to give you one more shot.

And if you're wrong, it's the clock. Now that taxi meter starts again at $10,000 day and backdated to base seventh, bad week overall for Trump. By the way, we didn't talk about this, but I'll touch on it. There was already a hearing on a matter that you and I had talked about earlier in upstate New York federal court, if you'll recall, and our legal a efforts to recall, in which Trump filed a case last December to try to stop the New York Attorney General's office, the same office that is involved with what we just talked about from prosecuting it all,

because they've got, to paraphrase Alina Habba. They've got it out for Trump. You know, what Tish James has been running on trying to bring down Trump. And from the reports of the media that were in the room and from what I've read, it was a pretty rough going in the oral argument for Alina Habba and Trump that this federal judge was not buying, that she was going to basically take the case away from Judge Ergorand who just talked about and from the New York Attorney General and do and and and dismiss the prosecution or find that Tish James isn't able to to lead

it. So those two things happened this week. I don't think these are great results for Trump. He's got one more, one more shot at this three strikes. You're out and then he's just going to have the $10,000 a day at if an item. This is where the media has again, horrifically failed in their coverage of litigation, which is why I'm so glad that we get to do this podcast to really explain what these issues are and what Trump realizes about the media's failure is the media loves a great headline. The media loves a lawsuit is filed. That's like that brings click, click, click, click, click, everybody joins the lawsuits filed. And the way media covers a lawsuit is filed, they don't even give the nuances that

it's a stupid lawsuit. They don't say dumb fuck lawsuit followed by insurrection presidents. He is a loser. And this is a dumb case. They never marry the legal analysis with the reporting we do. They report it like it's a press release. And that's what Trump wants to raise money. So he files the lawsuit. The media does the work for him like the press release and then it's printed nicely that Trump is suing Twitter.

Trump is suing Tish James. It feels equal, right? It feels like Tish James sues Twitter. Trump is suing Tish James. It feels equal, right? It feels like Tish James sues Trump. Trump sues Tish James. It's just lots of lawsuits. It's a push. It's a push. And then when you lose the lawsuit, it does not get anywhere near the same. That's not as interesting. Not as interesting. So like we talked about last week on the pod, but Trump's lost to Twitter, you know, in the motion to dismiss, who covered that but like us and like, you know, and it got a blurb. No one talked about Trump lost because it was the dumbest lawsuit in the world. People forget about it at that point, right? That it was filed three years earlier and it was transferred from

this court to that court, because Trump files the cases in the wrong, then you, you know what, you know what somebody said that follows our show closely, and I admire their opinion. One of the things he likes about our show, and it dovetails perfectly with what you just said, is that we sort of treat the following

of legal political news and the way that we do it, the continuity of what we do, the focus on what we do, the updating that we do, the connectivity that we make, the analysis that we make. He says in a good way, it's like a sports show that you and I are like sports hosts because sports people don't just talk about top-rated past for 400 yards today in three touchdowns. They will fit it into a historical backdrop and background of what happened 40 years ago. Now, tomorrow, yesterday, you know, can be, see what I'm saying? We're in a good way. We're like sports commentators, but about the legal, political arena. Well, you know, I would just, I, the one wrinkle I'd put on the analysis though, is that, you know, where if you covered it like a sports game, though, where you were just treating

two teams unequal footing, it's important that people understand that a Trump lawsuit against Twitter is the equivalent of like the baseball team that's got 10 wins the whole season going up a team that's basically in first place and that they're just not, it's not the same. And the sports guy say that and the better and the betting line says that, this guy's going to get killed today. And the one other piece though with the way Trump manipulates the media too is then when he loses He then blames the judge as being a corrupt judge He takes out an appeal and then what happens?

The media covers the appeal like it's a sexy Trump appeals and then he puts out the thing and so it's a systemic failure of how to cover a legal issue from a mainstream media perspective. And look, there are, I think, good legal sources, very niche within the legal community, which try to break down things that happen. But also it's that focus on the filing of the lawsuit. And you mentioned that Trump case, that Trump case is, there is no basis Trump's of that legend, constitutional violations of his lawsuit. And you mentioned that Trump case, that Trump case is there is no basis Trump's advantage in constitutional violations of his right. What's he talking about? You know, to to to to constitutional violation to be free from a state investigation of your corporation

for committing tax fraud. What the fuck are you talking about? It's the most ridiculous thing in the world. Well, the second most ridiculous thing in the world because these January six subpoenas to GOP members who don't voluntarily want to talk to the committee about their connections with Trump. Like these are in people who are, you know, just a random member of Congress from, you know, wherever who has no connection to the insurrection. These are people, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks, you know, go down the list of the people who were just subpoenaed, who spoke with Trump about the insurrection on the insurrection. These are people who we now have

audio recordings of them saying that they need to speak to Trump, for example, and Tellamy needs to resign. These are people who are caught on audio saying that Trump purportedly wanted to take responsibility. He realized that he, you know, fucked up at the insurrection and admitted guilt. I mean, that was on one of the McCarthy messages where McCarthy says he had Trump reach minute. He recognized that what he did was wrong. Whether that's true or not, we have these people saying that they've had these conversations with Trump, with high level insurrection leaders.

The first thing Kevin McCarthy wants to do is put people on the January 6th committee who were involved in the insurrection. He wanted to put Jim Jordan on the committee. And now when the January 6th committee, they've been very circumspect in a lot of legal AF listeners and viewers that were like, what's up? What's up?

Sapena, these people. And the January 6th committee was like, it's a very difficult thing to get members of Congress. Testify like, we don't want to create a situation where, you know, Kevin McCarthy's gonna say, this is political retribution, we need to be very careful in how we move. But this January 6th committee has been so methodical.

And the January 6th committee said, you know what? And now the evidence on a bipartisan basis, because you have Republicans on the committee, it's overwhelming. We need to speak to these people, because they, all of the body of evidence we have conclusively shows that they were integral participants in what happened on, on a date. And this is what I think a lot of people forget happened. The Senate and the House have already voted after the insurrection that January 6th was an insurrection.

There's actually, I was going through some of these, there's a formal vote that that was actually an insurrection. Send that to me. I want to put that on legal AF community. community. And well, and so these people don't want to talk about it. And then they say, this is a political witch hunt. It's like, just come on. You know, it goes back to the basic, you know, to just to the basic fundamentals of who are we as Americans, not Democrats, not Republicans, not liberal, not conservative. Do we want massive government arresting our children and charging them with murder for decisions that they make privately? Is that the United States of America? Do we want our government leaders America? Do we want our government leaders shunning democracy and dealing with people like baked fricking Alaska and leading insurrectionists like the shaman and having people with horns out of their heads storming into buildings? Is that the United States of America that we are supposed to be? Is that who we identify

with? It's it's so fundamentally a simple decision that to me frankly has nothing to do with politics. And I've said this over and over again. If the Democrats started telling me to inject bleach in my veins, if they supported insurrections, if Biden would bet, you know, was going to help Putin tomorrow, I would stop being a Democrat. Because I have no affinity just because they're a political party. I don't give a shit. I don't care that the donkey logo, I don't care. The only team I play for is the team that just says, be a decent human being,

be compassionate to people, work hard, be able to enjoy my life without these government fascists, knocking on my door and telling me how I need to raise my kids who my family needs to be, how they should be acting when we just want to have our own peaceful tranquility away from that. That's all I ask for. And I support the political party that's going to leave me the fuck alone and support me. And that right now is the Democratic Party.

It's the only one. It's a coalition of Democrats and Independ me. And that right now is the Democratic party. It's the only one. It's a coalition of Democrats and independents and these Kevin McCarthy's and these and these fucking traders represent the worst, the worst of America of human beings. It's that easy for me. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm not who's shocked though. McCarthy three or four days after the insurrection rejected a call for a blue ribbon panel to be established to get to the root of the Jansix insurrection and who was responsible for it. So within a week of the Jansix, if you go back to

the press and this is what we're good at, we're reminding people remembering all of this for us. reminding people, remembering all of this for us. He was opposed to even the creation of a blue ribbon panel that alone with Jan 6th, the only reason there's a Jan 6th special select committee is because there isn't, there wasn't political will on the Republican side for independent blue ribbon panel of states people who would have looked at this the way they looked at the Kennedy assassination,

they looked at Iran Contra and different things at Iran, Contra, and different things. He said, no, I'm not in favor of that. I'm not in favor of getting to the bottom of the truth about our democracy and our republic. So the house led by the Democrats had no choice but to create a special select committee. And then when they wanted to put republicans on it, that were fair-minded if they exist.

They went, of course, to that, to the House leader, McCarthy. And he said, I got a great idea. Put these people on. Jim Jordan, who is now we know, is involved like Mo Brooks, really that's who you want on. We're going to let the wolves into the chicken coop. And they said, no, fortunately, they were independent minded Republicans that step forward. They then banish Liz Cheney. they kicked her out of the Republican tent completely. She's going to have to run as an independent or a Democrat in the future because of it. She from the long, from, if anybody would have told me that, that the daughter of Dick Cheney would be abandoned by her party and pilloried because of her position about Jen sex,

you would have knocked me over with a feather. And so that is the party. And then remember you have the same guy McCarthy threatening the telecom companies that if they cooperated with lawful subpoenas from the Gen 6 committee for his phone records and him knowing he had these phone calls and recordings that just came out off the Gen 6 committee,

said he basically, not basically, basically threatened them and extorted them that he was gonna take away all sorts of rights. I saw the most amazing thing, Ben. One of these guys, I forget who it was, that's a Republican Congress person, he said, we're going after big business, a Republican saying they're going after big business and the woke corporations like Disney.

I mean, what FN party is this? The party that goes after the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Efectious Disease in Dr. Fauci. Imagine, imagine that your main target is the director for infectious disease who during a global pandemic is simply out there telling Americans about what the best health practices are at a given period of time.

That's also public enemy number one for them. But there are real issues at stake here, people, and it is fundamentally who we are as a nation. Please focus on your family. Focus on you. Focus on your community. Don't focus on harming other people's families. Don't focus on ruining other people's lives who aren't messing with you. Let people live how they want to live. Let them be happy. That's what the Constitution's about. That's what our law is ultimately about. That's why Michael Popok and myself dedicate our time speaking about these issues with you. On Legal AF. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time on the

next Legal AF. Ben Myceles and Michael'll see you next time on the next Legal AF, Ben Myselas and Michael Propac signing off. Shout out to the Mike Spineer.