Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Blows Up Case With Shocking Admission

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Trump just threw the DOJ and its case against the NYT for criminal subpoenas under the bus with a confession last night that the Qatari AF-1 is unsafe and needs to go back to the shop to be “maxed out” (ie., adding missile defense systems). Popok explains how this admission on the fly not only shows how Trump’s cost-cutting endangers national security and other people’s lives, but will be used by the NYT in their motion to quash the grand jury subpoenas. Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to https://Quo.com/legalaf Subscribe:  @LegalAFMTN  emember 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 Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on Shopify.com. As usual, we can count on Donald Trump undermining one of his criminal cases by saying the truth out loud. it's a Freudian slip in Washington when you accidentally tell the truth. And Donald Trump has just confessed that the Qatari Air Force One is unsafe, consistent with the reporting by the anonymous sources. We call them whistleblowers within the government who cooperated with the New York Times. And as the New York Times moves to suppress and quash those subpoenas,

it's very helpful that Donald Trump has effectively admitted that the plane is unsafe, unsafe at any speed. But don't worry, everybody, and those that fly on Air Force One, like journalists and cabinet members and their families and the first family, don't worry because the Qatari plane is going to be pimped out. Yes, pimp my ride. Supermax is going to be maxed out, according to Donald Trump. This is what happens when you cut corners related to security and safety. it all right here on the Midas Touch Network on LegalAF. Take a minute, come over to League AF YouTube and help us. Early voting has started. Help us get the two million subscribers before

the midterms. It's that important. All right, let's unpack what's going on with the Katari Air Force One. I call it the Katari Air Force One because it stands in contrast to the real Air Force one. You know the one that has all of the laser blinding missile defense systems, the four or five different features that keep it safe from being blown out of the sky by missiles. And that's not something the New York Times had to use anonymous sources for. All you had to do is look at it. There are entire websites like aviation news that have looked at Air Force One, the original one, the one that he should be flying, and said, hey, look at all of the missile defense systems on it. And then you look at a picture at the Katari plane and it doesn't have any of those things. That's why, as the reporting in the New

York Times went about 10 days ago, the Secret Service grounded the plane to stop Donald Trump from continuing to fly it overseas, especially when he was leaving Ankara Air Force Base in Turkey, just 600 miles from the Iranian border. Probably want to use the plane that has the laser-blinding missiles or I'm sorry, or the missile-blinding lasers on the way out to be safe. Now, that plane has been a bad penny since Donald Trump took it off the hands of the Qataris. Qataris, I'm sure they rang a bell and laughed with glee when they got rid of that lemon, that albatross, that is the Qatari gift to Donald Trump.

See, that was a 14-year-old plane that the Qataris couldn't find a buyer for. Nobody wanted this clunker until Donald Trump said, why don't you gift it to me? It's probably worth less than $100 million to $200,000,000, million dollars, not the $400 million dollars Donald Trump likes to proclaim. Of course, he's wrong on the value, but then of course he's doubly wrong on the cost to retrofit it. You see, all of the parties that are responsible for security, like the Secret Service and the Pentagon, they said it would

take two years and a billion dollars to retrofit. So weren't we surprised when it was done in under a year in time for the 250th birthday celebration? Yes, and we see the corners that were cut. As reported in the Times, MS Now, there was no missile defense systems. It can't be used as a situation room. It doesn't have command and control structure. It can't be a flying fortress or White House because it doesn't have those features. That's what MS Now reported. That's what the New York Times reported.

And in fact, when MS Now came out with its story, Stephen Chung said out loud that the journalist was a liar and a crappy journalist and none of it was true. But now we know from Donald Trump, it was all true, which undermines the criminal case that one of Donald Trump's golf buddies when he was still Southern District of New York prosecutor, Jay Clayton, started against the New York Times. See, they subpoenaed several of their reporters, including Julian Barnes, to try to get to the bottom of who's the anonymous source. Who's the leak in the White House? We've got another word for leakers in the White House. They're called whistleblowers, and they're entitled to whistleblower protection. Now, when Donald Trump was asked point blank by a reporter coming off the World Cup, why are you flying in a plane that's not secure?

That's a very good question. He started talking about, don't worry, it's going to be sent back and retrofitted and maxed out. Here's Donald Trump. You know, it has a lot of capability, but as I understand it, in about a month or so, they're going to send it to have it be maxed out. So they're going to be sending it, and they'll have it be maxed out. It'll take you about a month. Which undermines his case or the criminal case by the Department of Justice against the Times,

because he's basically admitted that it's all true. Was there a leak of confidential information? I don't know. Well, Donald Trump just apparently declassified it. So I don't see how they could also prosecute anybody related to it. I mean, this plane has been a disaster from day one. We knew it was going to cost the American taxpayer over a billion dollars. for this free gift. And Donald Trump wants to steal the gift at the end because the thing he never

talks about is that Boeing is going to be delivering two identical Air Force Ones at the end of 28 at a cost of the American taxpayer already of $5 billion. Where did those planes come from? See, Donald Trump wanted to cut corners and wanted Boeing instead of creating new Air Force ones from scratch, use an existing Boeing plane. Where did they have them from? Right. The Russians, the Russian airline, Aeroflot, before it went out of business, ordered two Boeing planes that were under construction. That's what Donald Trump decided to use for the new Air Force ones. So when he's not using a crappy Qatari plane that nobody wants and it's past its useful life, he buys two Russian planes in order to make them into the new Air Force One. Then he's going to try

to fly away with the crappy Qatari plane and shove it into his library in New York. Now, if you, sorry, in Miami. Now, if you thought that Donald Trump cared about those that fly on Air Force One, he doesn't. Who can remember his callous response to a reporter just about a week or so ago, which is effectively, don't, if I'm blown out of the sky, which is probably going to happen, you will be to. Play the clip. Were you aware of any incredible threat by a role and against your blood? Well, I have a threat all the time. That is before you.

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And then Todd Blanche, remember him, he's trying to get the Attorney General position. We're waiting on a confirmation hearing vote. That's going to be later this week or early next week after the Republicans get around to filling the seat vacated by the death of Lindsay Graham on the Senate Judiciary Committee. And we'll follow that live on Legal A.F. While they're doing that, he was asked point blank about, do you think it's right to go after journalists and try to get their confidential sources for them to do their, freedom of the press thing? Here's Todd Blanche, the guy who wants to be your attorney general. Play the clip. Cash Bettell, I do want to go back to my colleague Senator Wai's has some concern. I have concerns about him because of the reports about his drinking, about the incredibly bad morale there.

But I'm not going to ask you on that. You are a supervisor. So obviously, you have some responsibility to be reviewing this behavior. I don't think he has any issues drinking. He has no issues with All right, let me, here's what is very clear. He was at the White House for eight hours, and this is after a report came out in the New York Times, that talked about the $400 million Qatarie plane that was Air Force One, not having certain deceptive defensive capabilities, and issued subpoenas to reporters demanding that they turn over their news sources. I happen to believe it's extremely important to protect the right.

of the press to have confidential sources in order to get out information that is absolutely in the public interest. Do you support Mr. Patel's efforts to subpoena and get reporters under the grill to disclose who their confidential sources are? The Department of Justice requires that I authorize it, which I did. And those reporters, we're not targeting reporters. They're material witnesses, just like a report. reporter would be a material witness to a car crash. They are witnesses. And the question you want to ask them is who were their sources?

No. It goes to the heart of the First Amendment. No, the question we want to ask them is who provided them with classified national security information, which everybody in this body should want to protect? I would hope. I just find it remarkable that we now have confirmation that that Katari plane is unsafe. that it's now been taken offline and is being sent back at hundreds of millions of dollars, more taxpayer dollars, so that Donald Trump, for the waning days of his administration,

can fly around in some golden toilet bowl in the sky and then say, hey, we got the two new Boeing planes coming in, so we don't need this one. I'll be happy to take it off the American taxpayer's hands. That's the one-two step that's going on that's being called out by the Democrats. Now, back to the New York Times. The New York Times has filed a motion to quash those subpoenas issued to its several journalists. It's pending in the Southern District of New York, and it's currently sealed, meaning we don't have eyes on it for a minute. It'll eventually be unsealed.

I think this new confession by Donald Trump is going to end up in the judge's order when he quashire. those subpoenas. They were just doing their job. The fact that Cash Patel and Susie Wiles in the White House are conducting a mole hunt to try to figure out who is it? We're going to do lie detectors and we're going to capture everybody's phones. Cash Patel is never going to find the leaker. First of all, it could be Cash Patel. I had a working theory that that situation room reporting about the Epstein files by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan for the New York Times when it was like detailed notes and almost a recording of conversations in the situation room. There were only two people that phoned into the situation room that could have been recording

it, Pam Bondi and Cash Patel. Now I think it was definitely Pam Bondi because Cash Patel is busy trying to keep America safe at the World Cup, no less. Has anybody seen his World Cup video? You think this guy is going to be able to solve the mystery like Encyclopedia Brown as to who leaked to the New York Times? Here's Cash Patel trying to steal the glory of the World Cup in a video he posted on social media. Play the clip.

We put on the largest sporting event in the history of the world. And everybody, including FIFA and the White House, looks to the FBI, to oriental agency partners, to DHS, to state locals, to everybody to figure out how to get six and a half million people into the U.S. and into these games without a single major security incident. We have lived up to that measure because you guys have put in the time. And it's truly, truly incredible. We just can't say enough about the preparation and the execution. It's been flawless. So I'll follow the story of the motion to quash by the New York Times

and whether Donald Trump's confession that the plane is unsafe at any speed ends up in the judge's order. I think it's something the New York Times will bring up in their filing and will ultimately be something to their advantage to get those subpoenas quashed. That's another, you know, guise. golf buddy of Donald Trump, Jay Clayton, parting gift before he left the Southern District of New York Prosecutor's Office to come over to become the Director of National Intelligence. He started that grand jury. He subpoenaed those reporters. And by the way, that should have been part of his confirmation

process about Jay Clayton doing whatever Donald Trump says. He's captured every aspect of the executive branch. They're in his back pocket. They're wholly owned subsidiaries of Trump organization, plain and simple. And anybody that tells you anything differently is not telling you the truth. You're on Midas Touch. You're on Legal AF. I'm Michael Popok. Until my next report. Can't get your fill of Legal A.F. Me neither. That's why we form the Legal A.F. Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it. Morning A.F. What else? All the other controls.

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