Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Cabinet in Shambles as Musk's Plans Blow Up

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Another war has broken out in the failing Trump Administration, as “real” cabinet members and agency heads instruct their federal workers to ignore Elon Musk and DOGE’s insulting email to justify their existence by listing 5 things they accomplished last week. Michael Popok explains how this latest fiasco has blown up in the Trump Administration’s face including in Federal Courts, requiring Trump to finally tell federal workers to ignore Musk. Elevate your workspace and energize your year with Uplift Desk. Go to https://upliftdesk.com/legalaf for a special offer exclusive to our audience. 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

A war is broken out in the Trump administration. On one side, those that oppose Elon Musk and his attempts to fire workers by way of an email that tells them to justify their existence in a return email with a whole group of cabinet members for Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Cash Patel, and others telling their workers, ignore it. And so embarrassing with egg on their face that the Trump administration in the face of a new lawsuit filed over that same email have basically said, yeah, that's all aspirational. You got a lot more time. Don't worry about that particular email. You see this one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing and it's leading to this level of failing and corruption that we're reporting on right here on the MidasTouch Network and

on Legal AF. I'm Michael Popak. Thank you for joining me. Let me give you the timeline of what's happened here. I think it's very good. Forbes actually did a very good breakdown of this timeline. It starts with a February 22nd, hard to believe it's only a few days in the making, which Musk sent out through his Office of Personnel Management email from a cowardly email address of HR

at OPM.com, nothing like HR email to fire up your day and in a cowardly way try to fire you. It, uh, he told his team that they need to justify to 12 million workers or sorry, 2 million workers, their existence. But by the later that same night on February 22nd, major cabinet level departments had already told their employees to ignore Musk. So you had Marco Rubio, secretary of State, and Pam Bondi at Justice, and Patel at FBI, telling their employees to pause. They love that word pause in this administration.

Pause responding to the email because they'll be in charge of the review process. Most of them later said, we'll respond on behalf of the department. You don't have to do individual responses. Then Musk had a take to the airwaves the next day on February 23rd. He defended the email on his Twitter account, on his ex-account, by saying, it's just a very basic pulse check to see if we have any non-existent, no-show, no-work jobs where they're collecting payments or payroll, but he has no evidence that any of that is happening.

Then the Department of Defense on that same day led by Pete Hegseth and the federal judiciary all told their employees not to respond. Tulsi Gabbard, the head of the Office of the Director of the National Intelligence said the same thing, told her staffers not to respond because of their inherently sensitive and classified nature of their work. Later that same day the American Federation of Government Employees and AFL-CIO Labor Union, the largest labor union representing the federal workers, sent a letter to the Office of Personnel Management telling them that their

their email from Musk that was received was plainly unlawful and an insult. They then used that same email later this week, just a couple of days ago, to amend their lawsuit in San Francisco to say that this is illegal, arbitrary, and capricious and that he has, I thought Elon Musk had no power. He had no authority to fire people. Well, not according to the emails that he's sending out. By the same day on the 23rd, Kristi Noem at Homeland Security directed her workers not to respond to the Musk email. We then move on to the 24th of February, where Elon Musk doubles down on the email. So you got this total disconnect.

You know, he's jumping up and down like a one inch tall person wanting to get attention and saying, look at my email, you're going to get fired if you don't look at my email. While every cabinet level person in the Trump administration and really who's really in the administration, not a special advisor, senior advisor, tells their employees, ignore that guy in the corner. So by the 24th of February, he's defending it and we'll get it all sorted out. A lot of people are in for a rude awakening, Musk said,

and a strong dose of reality. But by that time, later, about four or five hours later, the Department of Transportation head, Sean Duffy, also ordered his employees, first ordered his employees to respond to the email. He's the only one so far. Even though the unions representing the air traffic controllers have said,

we got enough on our hands with planes falling out of the sky, we don't want to have to respond to emails. Then later that same day on the 24th, 100 House Democrats sent a letter to 24 federal agency heads telling them not to respond to the email. The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service run by Scott Bessent also on the 24th directed their employees to respond to the email but that they shouldn't do it immediately. They should do it at a later time. Then Trump when he's being interviewed

with President Macron in his office, he said a lot of agencies shouldn't respond like FBI in the office of the director of national intelligence. He said that was really more aspirational in a friendly manner. He then tried to defend the email. He said he thought it was great. A lot of people aren't answering because they don't exist. That's another Trump lie. But by a half an hour after the press conference with Macron, the Trump administration officially tells federal agencies who are all already not complying that the email from Musk was voluntary and that they will not be fired if they don't respond and that they

should refer themselves to their each agency for their own decision making. But then five hours later, Musk says that subject to the discretion of the president that he purportedly works for, federal workers who don't respond to the email will get a second chance. Physio, chiropractic, and massage therapy are all great resources for when you need them.

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leading 15-year warranty that covers your entire offer and it's only available at our link. Start 2025 right, stand, move, thrive with Uplift Desk. I mean nothing says I'm a failing administration. Like this shit show, that's a legal term, that's going on right now. You got Bannon attacking Musk, right? You've got, you know, if he didn't, if Trump didn't like Bannon attacking Musk and saying that he's a parasite that should be immediately deported, he would have told him to stop doing it. So Bannon is out bashing Musk. The real cabinet heads are telling their employees to

ignore it, except for Sean Duffy in transportation, who's the ultimate lapdog. And then you've got them trying to fix. Again, this is why lawsuits are so important at the intersection of law and politics, because you got the lawsuit brought by the labor union that says, yeah, judge, you see the latest email we just got from Elon Musk telling us

that if we don't tell him what we did in the last week, we need to go. That's also arbitrary and capricious, a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, a violation of the separation of powers and the rest. And that's just more evidence. So Elon Musk is generating evidence against the Trump administration in courtrooms. And at the same time, wait, I'm not done. At the same time, the Trump administration realizing that they got a losing hand in these courtrooms are telling their federal employees, two million of them, ignore the email.

Okay. You know, if you can't figure out, if the Trump administration can't figure out Elon Musk's power and role, what he, somebody should send, here's an idea, somebody should send Elon Musk the email back to him, asking him to say what he did, five top things he did last week, and what power and authority he had to do those things under the Constitution,

because he's not a Senate confirmed member of the cabinet or a head of a federal agency. He's some sort of free radical that Donald Trump uses as a tool, because he is a tool, to, you know, as a distracting tool to do his bidding. That's where we're at. Nobody knows what Elon, even the Trump administration doesn't know what Elon Musk does on a daily or hourly basis. They don't know what Doge is.

They don't know what the power of Doge is. They don't know what Elon Musk's power is. That's why they can't speak straight in court. And they get tongue-tied when a judge asks them, like Judge Chutkin in the most recent hearing, said, what does Elon Musk do? What are his powers? Oh, he's just a special advisor. He doesn't even work for Doge. He's not the administrator of Doge. He doesn't, really? Because when he sends out emails and texts, they seem to be completely counter to the positions taken in the court of law. It's going to be up to judges to hold this administration accountable because they play fast and loose with the facts, mainly lie to the

American people and hope they won't get caught while they move on to the next topic. Very little of what Donald Trump says out loud when he starts spouting a quote unquote fact, very little of what Donald Trump says out loud. When he starts spouting a quote unquote fact, very little of what he says is true. And Elon Musk is worse. I used to joke that I had friends that whatever they told me was completely believable and true. I had other friends, I had to give them what I call a truth discount. Maybe 80% of what they told me was true and the rest was a little bit embellished. Other friends, 50% discount. You know, maybe 80% of what they told me was true, the rest was a little bit embellished. Other friends, 50% discount. That's about as low as I go. After that, I'm like,

you know, why am I talking? Why am I listening to this person at all? But with Trump and Musk, it's a 95% truth discount. Most of what they say to justify their policies and procedures are a lie, are a complete lie. We'll continue to follow it. It's important that we do on a daily, on an hourly basis, right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. While you're here, hit the subscribe button for Midas, but help us continue to build the pro-democracy channel we call Legal AF, Legal AF MTN for the Midas Touch Network. Let's do that together. Let's get that to a million before the year is over. We're already at almost 500,000.

We got two weeks to go to our half birthday. It's hard to believe we formed it in September. And then follow me, Michael Popach on LegalAF, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time. And then I got a new show, Popach Live on Tuesday nights. It's 45 minutes of just me. sometimes an interview, but just me. We have about 400,000 or 500,000 people that get together with me every week and do that at the intersection of law and politics.

So until my next reporting, I'm Michael Popak. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AF MTN. That's at Legal AF MTN.