Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump FREAKS OUT after Pastor DOESN’T BACK DOWN

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

As Trump and MAGA mercilessly attack the Right Reverend Bishop Budde for using her bully pulpit to ask Trump to show grace and mercy for the underprivileged, she takes to the media to double down on taking on Trump, and we should rally to her side. Michael Popok reports on the growing storm around Bishop Budde and why it matters to democracy that she led the charge of a New Civil Rights Movement against MAGA. Head to https://Lumen.me/legalaf and use code: LEGALAF to get 20% off your lumen today! 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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Great! That's 1% closer to being part of the 1%. Maybe, but definitely 100% closer to getting 1% cash back with TD Direct Investing. Conditions apply. Offer ends January 31st, 2025. Visit td.com slash DI Offer to learn more. The right Reverend Marion Budd, Bishop Budd, is standing her ground appropriately against an onslaught of attacks by MAGA and Donald Trump, who claim to be religious, who claim to be Christians, but are attacking this bishop because she had the temerity to use her bully

pulpit to go after Donald Trump and his most egregious, unpatriotic, and undignified and unconstitutional of policies pitting American against American and Reverend and Bishop Budd have had enough. Donald Trump is attacking her. MAGA is following suit and we're here to defend her and to talk about why it's appropriate, of course, for the clergy at this moment of crisis in America and American faith to step forward. I'm Michael Popock. You're on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. I'm sure you heard the news already. I'll show you a clip in a minute of Bishop Budd, who is an acknowledged progressive Episcopalian

bishop. All you got to do is go on the diocese's website, and you'll see what she talks about, how she favors progressive causes like gun control, like support for the LGBTQ plus and transgender community. She's taken on Donald Trump in the past. He should have known better when he saw her up there. She went after him with both fists, both of her religious fists, when he tried to use going to church with an upside down Bible in 2020 as a political sham. And she called him out when he tried to clear Lafayette Park of protesters

so he could make his way to a church across the street from the White House. It's the same bishop. So it's no surprise she was going to look him in the eye with measured tones in an educated way. I mean, nobody can, only Donald Trump would challenge her intellect on religious matters. Of course she had him right where she wanted him. But the world is acting out against Donald Trump. In the same 24-hour news cycle as Bishop Budd looks Donald Trump in the eye and says what is on the minds of all Americans, which is show mercy and grace to those that are underprivileged. Don't punch down. Lift up the transgender community. Lift up the LGBTQ plus community. Lift up the immigrant community. That's what you're supposed to do.

That's the Christian thing to do, the Judeo-Christian thing to do. And so you have that, and then you have the guy in the right wing Danish parliament member, Anders Vestesen, who tells Donald Trump on the floor of the European parliament to go f himself. Why? Because now is the time for all good people to stand up and stand up and lean forward against Donald Trump. And that's what you're seeing.

Donald Trump is not only giving permission, he's demanding a response from the world that we don't sit quietly. Now, let me show you the clip from Bishop Budd, just so we all get on the same page, and then I'll show you another clip of her defending herself on CNN. Let's run the first clip. Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you, and as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. We're scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in democratic, republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. Democratic, Republican, and independent families. Some who fear for their lives.

And the people. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, wadara, and temples.

I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we will all want strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people, good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen. people in this nation and the world.

Amen. Okay, now after that, Donald Trump goes crazy and all the rest of MAGA follows. Donald Trump says this is the same, he pulls the same toolbox out, it's usually against women, and did it again with her. She's nasty, she's not smart. Why is she ignoring the immigration crime wave? I got news for Donald Trump.

That is a trope that doesn't fly. That is a dog that doesn't hunt, as they say in some parts of the country. Most, the majority of violent crime in America is committed by Americans. Documented, good old-fashioned, blue passport carrying Americans, yeah, by large numbers, pales in comparison to the crime wave committed by the undocumented. And he knows it, but it's a cheap, it's a cheap comment, a political point that's hard

in the moment to refute, except when you get in front of Bishop Budd and her bully pulpit. Now, Bishop Budd, oh, let me just tell you first what MAGA responded. Here we go. Representative Mike Collins, remember that name at midterm elections, Representative Mike Collins, he said the person, you mean the right reverend? You mean the bishop? The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.

Right, we should, right. First Amendment speech is out in a fascist regime. We should deport our political enemies even when they're American citizens. Okay, so that's, remember Representative Mike Collins will put his picture up here, circle it, go after him, make sure you defeat him at the midterms. Did you know 80% of resolutions fail by February?

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to improve your metabolic health. Take the next step to improving your health. Go to lumen.me slash LegalAF to get 20% off your Lumen. That's L-U-M-E-N dot M-E slash LegalAF for 20% off your purchase. Thank you Lumen for sponsoring this episode. Then you have Benny Moreno. He says as a Catholic,

no, now he's putting on the mantle of his religion. Well, you may be a Catholic, but you're not the right Reverend and you're not a Bishop in the Episcopal Church. So go on. And a legal immigrant, I don't know, we'll look into that. Let's look into Benny Moreno and how he became a legal immigrant. Yeah? Leave a comment here if you can figure out whether he really came in legally. It's outrageous that

some woke bishop would lecture President Trump about deporting illegals. It's an insult to all of us who came to this country the right way. If you don't have borders you don't have a country. I don't think, I mean, she used a tone and an approach appropriate for the pulpit that you would find, I mean, it would put an NPR audience to sleep. I mean, I love Terry Gross, but, you know, this would be like if Terry Gross gave a sermon. The dulcet tones and even measure. Somebody wrote in one of the commentaries about this that her voice in her presentation during the sermon would be at home in one of those apps for meditation. So, you know, attacking Donald Trump about deporting illegals, she was asking him to show mercy and grace towards those people and recognize that they are hardworking and they work to do the dirty jobs in America

that Americans seem to not want to do. Charlie Kirk, so you already know where this is going to go, he said, Bishop Mariam Edge Budd is the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. She's the first woman to hold the position. She was given a great honor today, a chance to unify America around a Christian message. Instead, she disgraced herself with a lecture you'd hear on CNN or an episode of The View. What an embarrassment. Come on, Charlie, mention the Midas Touch Network. Mention Legal AF, will you? legal AF, will you? You know, so look, that's where they're at. Let's run the clip now of her, not that she has to defend herself, but to explain why she used that moment in time for her, for her Martin Luther King Jr. moment. Let's roll the clip.

What, were you looking at him in that moment? What kind of response were you perhaps hoping for in that moment? I was. I was looking at the President because I was speaking directly to him. I was also, frankly, as you do in every sermon, speaking to everyone who was listening through that one-on-one conversation with the President, reminding us all that in the people that are frightened in our country, the two groups of people that I mentioned are our fellow human beings, and that they have been portrayed in all throughout the political campaign in the harshest of lights that I wanted to counter as gently as I could with a reminder

of their humanity and their place in our wider community. And I was speaking to the President because I felt that he has this moment now where he feels charged and empowered to do what he feels called to do and I wanted to say you know there is room for mercy there's room for a broader compassion we don't need to portray with a broad cloth in the harshest of terms some of the most vulnerable people in our society, who are in fact our neighbors, our friends, our children, our friends' children, and so forth. I've said it before, I said it on PopePak Live last night, say it again. It is important now, more than ever, for the clergy of America, I'm just talking to the clergy now, whatever your religion is,

to step forward in this moment of crisis to oppose Donald Trump and his policies, just as they did and led during the civil rights movement. Of course, the secular community, the atheist community, the agnostic community, and the rest here on the Midas Dutch Network and illegal AF, we need to do the exact same thing. And through the court systems, I'm going to be following closely all the public interest groups like the ACLU, the NAACP, new groups that have been formed just for this moment in time to defend democracy in the federal courthouses, some led by Norm Eisen, a friend of the pod, a friend of the channel. Follow them.

Give you an example. The ACLU in the first Trump term filed 400 lawsuits. You can quadruple that now. We're gonna see 3,000 lawsuits. We're already up to seven lawsuits in two days being filed. We're gonna see thousands of lawsuits. Follow these groups, court accountability action on our channel, on the Legal AF YouTube channel as well,

leading the way along with the attorneys general. We just had 22 states in two cities file against their birthright citizenship denial executive order to try to destroy the 14th Amendment, Section 1, that when you're born here, you're an American citizen Okay 22 states there's only 17 states in the country that are totally blue somehow They got 22 states to band together and file in all the right places All the right federal courts, you know The ones in New Hampshire and in Massachusetts and in Washington State on purpose

to get us to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, all friendly venues for progressives, for moderates, for free-thinking people, all the way to the United States Supreme Court. This is where the battle is fought. It's in the streets. I used to tell my people that worked with me that I trained to be trial lawyers. The following ethos, which is what we need now. I am not gonna be the first one, I told them.

We are not gonna be the first one in our cases to drag the case into the gutter. But by God, if our opponent drags us into the gutter, we're going to brass knuckle our way out. And that's what we have to live by here on Legal AF, in the courthouses, in the churches, in the pulpits, in the streets, on the beaches, start to become Churchillian here. I love the fact that we're together on this community. I love the fact that we built this Midas Touch community together, the Legal AF community together. Take a moment, help us continue to grow the Pro Democracy channel,

Legal AF over on YouTube, Legal AF MTN for Midas Touch Network. That's all you need to know. I'm the curator there. We do six, seven videos a day at the intersection of law and politics. So until my next video, I'm Michael Popock.