Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump has MAJOR LEGAL UPDATES as Election NEARS

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for the weekend edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On tap? 1. with just days until Election Day, the stark contrast between the two choices couldn't be... starker, or in the case of Trump, more apocalyptic as the criminal justice struggles to constrain Trump's worst instincts; 2. Judge Cannon is in the news again, for all the wrong reasons ---first being publicly offered the job of attorney general in a Trump administration; then being at the heart of two new court filings by Trump this week to try to have Jack Smith dismissed as special counsel along with the indictments in Mar a Lago and the DC Election Interference cases; 3. Many, if not All the President's Men, are back in Court, as Trump former aides from Michael Cohen to Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clarke, try to have their cases heard before federal courts, and in the case of Meadows and Clarke avoid prison, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Subscribe to the new Legal AF channel: @LegalAFMTN Subscribe to Meidas+ at https://meidasplus.com Thanks to our sponsors: Draft Kings: New players can get $77 INSTANTLY in CASINO SITE CREDITS. Just sign up with code: LEGALAF at https://goldennuggetcasino.com and deposit just $7 to get $77 in CASINO SITE CREDITS. Make Any Moment Golden! Magic Spoon: Get this exclusive offer when you use promo code LEGALAF at https://MagicSpoon.com/LEGALAF Calm: Get an excluslve offer of 40% off a Calm Premium SubscrIption at https://calm.com/legalaf HumanN: Find out how you can get a free 30-day supply on bundles of new SuperBeets Heart Chews Advanced and save 15% for a limited time only by going to https://GETSUPERBEETS.COM, promo code LEGALAF Zbtioics: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF to get 15% off your first order when you use LEGALAF at checkout. Qualia: To boost YOUR NAD+ levels up to 50%, Go to https://qualialife.com/TRUTH for up to 50% off and use code TRUTH at checkout for an additional 15% off. 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 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson 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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Starting point is 00:02:39 where the leader of the Republican Party, who is now Donald Trump, although they are now the MAGA party's former chief of staff, John Kelly says that Donald Trump doesn't want our legal system. He wants a fascist legal system, not John Kelly, Donald Trump's former chief of staff is a four star general. You could say what you wanna say about him working for Donald Trump in the first place,
Starting point is 00:03:03 but this is a man of high integrity and character who's as close as you can be to Donald Trump, perhaps other than Mike Pence, who also says Donald Trump is an existential threat. But here John Kelly said Donald Trump doesn't want the law and order legal system of America. He wants the law and order legal system of Adolf Hitler. He wants an authoritarian one with concentration camps and that shouldn't come as a surprise. Donald Trump's out and about just saying those things. So I wanna break that down.
Starting point is 00:03:32 I think that should be at the top of the show. Then we should talk about how Donald Trump is doing everything he can to try to destroy our legal system from within. Finding allies like the corrupt judge in Florida he appointed, Judge Eileen Cannon Cannon with a possible quid pro quo to make her the attorney general. If he were to win, I don't think he's going to, but if he were, she'd
Starting point is 00:03:54 probably be the attorney general. So essentially exchanging favors, scratch my back, I'll scratch your back. Or in this case, Judge Cannon, can you please dismiss the case against me for stealing nuclear secrets and potentially giving it to foreign adversaries? Just, can you just erase that one and say special councils don't exist, even though special councils are used throughout the country and throughout American history and have been affirmed over and over again? So we should explore that.
Starting point is 00:04:22 And then Donald Trump is remaking the argument that Judge Cannon found dismissing the special counsel to Judge Chutkin still trying to do everything he can to delay and derail that case and to try to set up a issue potentially with the Supreme Court there, which we will get into and then we should talk about what's going on with get into and then we should talk about what's going on with Donald Trump's henchmen, the Mark Meadows of the world, the Jeff Clarks of the world. Where are they? What's going on with their cases? Because the absolute immunity doctrine that the Supreme Court held goes to the presidency does not go with them.
Starting point is 00:05:01 So where are things at there? We should also touch upon the fact that a new victim of Donald Trump came forward, a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model in the early 1990s talking about how Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein played sick twisted games with her. Epstein brought her to Trump's office. Trump molested her in front of Epstein. And then Epstein would continuously talk about Donald Trump in front of her. Talk about that and more. Let's get into it. Michael Popock, how are you, sir? I'm doing great. This this just between Saturday to Saturday. This is like a microcosm of everything
Starting point is 00:05:38 that you and I, when we decided to do legal AF four years ago, It's all in one week. You've got a new woman who's come forward and said that she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump connected to Jeffrey Epstein. The same week that we have, think about this old home week, Aileen Catton and Todd Blanch are going to be in the Department of Justice together after they were just in the courtroom together with her as the presiding judge because job offers have now gone out to Everyone in the MAGA world that has helped Donald Trump being rewarded with a job offer While the cases are still pending against him at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals So if so, some people might be tuning in going is this like a repeat episode of legal AF? It's not it's not
Starting point is 00:06:23 It's just in one week we've got Donald Trump admitting that he lost the election and then taking it back during an interview. A woman coming forward on a sex harassment charge. All the president's men or former aides to the president and that runs from Meadows to Clark to Michael Cohen having their day or trying to have their day in various courts related to having served the president. A guy who served the president as you said as the longest running chief of staff, four star, uh, uh, uh, I don't know if it's four star general, but definitely general John Kelly saying that his former boss fits the, fits the definition, the textbook definition
Starting point is 00:07:01 of being a fascist, that the person who's running to be the leader of the free world and hold our torch of freedom does not believe in the ideals and American values that are embedded in the Constitution or otherwise and instead was always enamored by people, particularly by Adolf Hitler. This is the reason, Ben, and I just did a hot take on this kind of connecting the dots for Midas. This is the reason that our enemies, our sworn enemies, Russia, China, Iran, you know, frenemies like India, they want to see Americans at each other's throat. Well, we can touch on the hacking scandals that have gone on in the last couple of days. They want a weak, weak man, narcissist, angry, somebody that's out of step with American values,
Starting point is 00:07:52 holding the torch of freedom and being the promoter of the American brand worldwide, because that helps them. Because they want somebody like Donald Trump to be the president of America, Incorporated, or the the president of America, Incorporated, or the United States of America, Incorporated, which apparently Elon Musk has tried to trademark because it makes their job easier in trying to make new converts in the communist world by having somebody like Donald Trump in the White House. So that's what we're watching. The world is watching what we do as Americans a week from Tuesday. And we're gonna be able,
Starting point is 00:08:29 right at that intersection of law and politics, bring it all together here on this episode. Yeah, so John Kelly is a four-star general, four-star Marine, and someone always of high integrity and high character in John Kelly. Salty, if we can, first I want to pull up the picture of Lara Trump, and then I want to pull up the picture of John Kelly.
Starting point is 00:08:51 So let me tell you in America, I don't want, and I don't recognize. Okay. And there's a lot going on in this picture as the Patriot Takes Account says, this is the chair of the Republican party, Lara Trump, wearing a giant Trump necklace for her interview with paid Russian disinformation asset, Benny Johnson. Now, Benny Johnson's one of those people who were mentioned in the DOJ indictment, who was working
Starting point is 00:09:19 for that company that got all of the money from Russia to push all of the kind of pro-Russia anti-American stuff. That got all of the money from Russia to push all of the kind of pro-russia Anti-american stuff. So there you have him interviewing her Wearing a massive face of Donald Trump Like the same way for those who are listening on audio You may remember like the flavor flav clock that he would wear, you know in the in the 80s She has that version of Donald Trump's face and she's being serious.
Starting point is 00:09:46 This is, this is what they do. This is what they wear. The America I recognize is general John Kelly. I think we got a photo of John Kelly. He's a four star, uh, general, um, someone of high integrity and high character who Donald Trump and MAGA absolutely hate. He was Donald Trump's selection, this guy. And he's telling us that Donald Trump doesn't want our legal system.
Starting point is 00:10:10 I think that's foundational to our show. And it's what we've been talking about. He doesn't want a legal system where there are juries, where there's evidence. He wants the Putin type of system. And vice president Kamala Harris just put out an ad using the words using the voice of General John Kelly. Let's play it. Do you think he's a fascist? He certainly falls into the general definition of a fascist. The far-right authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, a former president, certainly an authoritarian, using the military
Starting point is 00:10:59 to go after American citizens is a very, very bad thing. He admires people who are dictators. He counted more than once. Hitler did some good things, too. If he was left to his own devices, would he be a dictator if he didn't have people around him? Oh, I think he'd love to be. When somebody's the president, the authority is total.
Starting point is 00:11:18 Total. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. And for those who are just listening on audio, the text is basically just saying here's Donald Trump's former chief of staff, four star general, John Kelly saying the following Can I comment on this recent event in Austin, Texas? Saying this is his new line. He says America's crap. Please not as doing he's always said America's crap But he's refined it now to say won't even call it that to say America's a garbage can where a garbage can where the garbage of the world we are garbage and that's what he goes around now saying At his campaigns here. I'll give you one example of it let's play it okay a garbage can we're like a garbage can first time i said it was last night gave a speech in las vegas 29 000 people who is
Starting point is 00:12:15 an arena we set the arena record that was a big deal arena too we set the record but it was an amazing crowd. The first time I ever said I said it I don't know just came out garbage can we're like a garbage can for the rest of the world to dump the people that they don't want. It wasn't 29,000 people wasn't anywhere close to that amount so just a lie that I have to point out. Popak I think it's just important we start the show as we get close to the election saying the reality, which is this isn't hyperbolic.
Starting point is 00:12:49 His own former chief of staff is saying it. He does not want this legal system where we went to law school with juries, with our constitution, he doesn't want. But he said he wants to terminate the constitution, so not a shocker. No, and yeah, we have to start the show like that. And while he's running ads, while Kamala Harris is running an
Starting point is 00:13:09 appropriate ad, taking direct interview quotes from him, from John Kelly about Donald Trump's fascination for and love of Adolf Hitler. And in and then you you stitch it together with the other comments that he's made about using the military against American citizens. I always remind people during my And in and then you you stitch it together with the other comments that he's made about using the military against American citizens I always remind people during my hot takes that everything and everyone that Donald Trump is talking about our fellow American citizens he thinks it's funny that while Kamala Harris has to run the that that warning
Starting point is 00:13:39 that warning light and warning sound as She goes through all the things that John Kelly just said. He's running simultaneously ads in which he's putting, he's attacking transgender people and saying that Kamala Harris is for they and them and then using some photos of people that are, I don't know what, I don't know if they're transgender people, but he's using, he's using provocative photos and I'm for you and I approve this message. And, but what we have to focus on is it's no longer Donald Trump's fascist tendencies. It's that him combined with the shadow government in exile that he has created that is waiting for him to get in and hold the door open for them to fill government. in and hold the door open for them to fill government. Implementing the Federalist Society's wet dream of Project 2025 to install in America a theocracy, a church-based system, eliminate our public education
Starting point is 00:14:35 system, put up the wall and deport 11 million people, many of whom are doing some dirty jobs that Americans don't want to do in an inhumane immigration system, reduce a woman to second class citizenship, don't stop at one third of women having no right to bodily autonomy and reproductive rights in America, don't stop until 100% of women don't have that with a national abortion ban, suspend the constitution on day one, fire Jack Smith within the first two seconds of being back in office as soon as he can do it, reward his cronies and judges who supported him with plum jobs in his cabinet all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, and the antidote to everything that you and I are talked about and have talked about is simple. It's at the ballot box and it's
Starting point is 00:15:25 not just you voting, it's you doing everything in your power in the next week, nine days to avoid this apocalyptic worldview that we have been presenting because it's in our hands to do it. This would be a different show if we were literally in exile and we were talking about, you know, like we were in Putin's Russia, okay? We're not. We have an ability to change the future and to change the the ending of this story by going there and bringing five and six friends with us and voting early and voting on election, whatever you got to do and get registered
Starting point is 00:16:05 while you're, I'm texting right now during our recording with my sister who's having difficulty getting registered in Georgia where she lives because they're rejecting her light, her driver's license online and I'm guiding her on how to do that, right? Save a vote, make a vote and vote and all the things that you and I are talking about will then just be in the, speaking of garbage, will be in the dustbin of history because it'll never happen. We will avert it. No, I think it's important at the top of the show also, and we've been covering this now for several years to discuss, the rights that have been taken away. Freedoms and rights ripped away from people. That's so opposite of the arc of where history should be going. You know, I hear in these speeches when, whether it's vice president,
Starting point is 00:16:53 Kamala Harris speaking to Gen Z or younger generations that, you know, you may have fewer rights than your parents or grandparents have. The only one caveat I would say is it's not May. You currently now have fewer rights than potentially if you're in the generation of kind of just turning 18, 19, and slightly younger, you have less rights than your grandparents had. In the United States of America.
Starting point is 00:17:25 We've went back beyond the past the seventies at this point in 2024 because of Donald Trump's policies and what he's done with the United States Supreme Court. That's not hypothetical. And I just think too, um, you know, you know, here, uh, Michael Popak, you know, as men and as, as, as, uh, fathers to daughters right now, um, it is, you know, but just in general,
Starting point is 00:17:58 this message from vice president Kamala Harris really resonated with me where she's like men across America, what, what are you doing? Like, do you want to see the women in your life suffer? I think unfortunately for some of the Trump supporters, the answers, yes, they do. That's what, that's quite, that's the goal. They look at how men treat women in Afghanistan, um, and in places like that. And they go, that's what we want.
Starting point is 00:18:28 That's truly what they want. But for all the rest of us out there, there's no excuses. Here, let's play this clip from Vice President Kamala Harris' event in Houston, Texas, where she actually spoke in front of over 30,000 people in a completely filled stadium. Play the clip.
Starting point is 00:18:46 I didn't want this. Let's be clear. And the men across America, this needs to be said, men across America do not want to see their daughters and wives and sisters and mothers put at risk because their rights have been taken. I see the men here and I thank you. The men of America don't want this. You know, that's true. I would say most men of America don't want this.
Starting point is 00:19:22 You know what frustrates me, I think, about the MAGA movement also is they then, they can't even own their own policies, right? Because they know how unpopular their policies are. And so they then pretend that they don't do the things that they did, right? I mean, you have Donald Trump and JD Vance saying, we save the Affordable Care Act. As though Americans are stupid. You spent the entire time trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act with concepts of a plan.
Starting point is 00:19:54 You overturned Roe v Wade, which an overturning Roe v Wade placed IVF and treatments like that at risk as well from being overturned and other freedoms. And they don't even own up to it. They're like, they're like sneaky, you know, they, they, they're like, Ooh, I don't know what I'm, but, but they identify with the, like they identify with Taliban men, you know, that there's no other way to say it. The MAGA men like to see their woman in their life suffering and being treated like second-class citizens. If you vote for Trump and you are a man, you hate women. I can't be more direct than that. You are a woman hater if you support Donald Trump and you are a man. Period. Full stop. That's it.
Starting point is 00:20:38 Yeah. I like the fact that she, with Beyonce on the stage in Texas. First of all, I love the fact she went into Texas, indicating a tremendous confidence and strength. She could have been any other place, Pennsylvania, of course, really important, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, the blue wall, but she decided to take it to Donald Trump in Texas. Yes, have Beyonce up on the stage for sure.
Starting point is 00:21:00 And the rock stars of our party are all coming out in force for her and will and will appeal to different groups and Barack Obama coming out and rapping Eminem one of the highlights so far for me of proxies for Kamala Harris campaigning for her but this is that stands in stark contrast well let me make the point that I'll go to the stark contrast. When Kamala Harris said with Beyonce, there will be a national abortion ban passed if Donald Trump gets back into power with any semblance of a majority in the House or the Senate. There will be. And don't allow them, as you said, to be sneaky and act like plague both sides. Well, we're not in favor of the national ban, but they are in favor of the national ban,
Starting point is 00:21:48 because it's in every one of the teachings of the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo, and those that follow him will not rest until they have a women completely subjugated in the United States, backed, as you said, before the 70s. My wife has less rights in this reproductive rights than certainly my mother did at her age in the 1970s by 100%. I never thought I would ever say that leaving law school. But the juxtaposition that we're seeing here is easy. Look who is out helping Kamala Harris become Madam President-elect. Look at the proxies that are out there and the sanity that's exhibited by the proxies that are out there. And look who is and isn't campaigning for Donald Trump. I defy you or anybody in the chat today
Starting point is 00:22:36 to tell me five people that are credible, that are out on the campaign trail for Donald Trump, that don't have Trump as a last name. Even the ones with the last name aren't campaigning for him. Where is Ivanka? Nowhere. Where is Melania? Nowhere. Where is Don Jr.? He was in the Balkans last I looked.
Starting point is 00:22:51 Where is Eric? Nowhere. Lara Trump? She's running around, as you said, with a flavor, FlavClock around her neck as she's being interviewed by a Russian, effectively a Russian troll, a right wing MAGA Russian troll. And while all that's going on with no proxies for Donald Trump, it's, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene, where and why Matt Gates,
Starting point is 00:23:13 he should be in jail. So he has no ability, he has no trampoline effect to his proxies. You know, JD Vance and him can't be everywhere. That's why he's got to go on Joe Rogan for three hours Joe Rogan because making no new voters because where else is he gonna go and who else is gonna campaign for him? No one's filling arenas that 29,000 figure you mentioned he said the same number about the people out in front of the McDonald's where he was handing out french fries And if they if the corporate media would have pulled back the cameras,
Starting point is 00:23:46 instead of focused on this demented Hamburgler handing out fake French, well they were real French fries, real French fries to fake people in a fake McDonald's and they just pulled the cameras back, they would have seen pro-democracy protesters fighting Trumpers, MAGA, out in the parking lot. That is America right now, created by Donald Trump. That, not the fake people, the inflatable people that are in some Nevada arena. That's not real. And so, for us, we got to keep talking about how the criminal justice system needs to hold him accountable, but we got to do it in the context the backdrop of this
Starting point is 00:24:27 Absolutely and one of the things that we should talk about though too is how Billionaires have Scooped up media assets as their little play thing Both to kind of insulate their frail little egos both to kind of insulate their frail little egos from bad stories, to pump their egos with good stories about themselves because they want to get attention, to deal with their midlife crises, but more significantly also to prop up an oligarchical system in place where they can be the version of Putin's oligarchs, have their monopolies. They're not happy in a system right now where America's GDP is number one and they have 10 private Gulfstream jets. That's not
Starting point is 00:25:21 enough apparently for the billionaires of the world they think this system where they have that is unfair they want to make it so they can not even have to use money to acquire the Gulf Stream just pay I would just like a Gulf Stream today sure sir here you here you go we'll talk about that I want to take our first break But I think this is an important topic because we're seeing oligarchs, many of who are doing things of dubious legality, flexing their money to try to be above the law and also break down our system.
Starting point is 00:25:59 And before we take the break, two major newspapers in America owned by those oligarchs who refused to make an endorsement against theirigarchs who refused to make an endorsement against their own newsrooms that wanted to make an endorsement for Kamala Harris were both canceled by these billionaires that you're talking about owning corporate media. We'll be right back.
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Starting point is 00:32:09 No questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash LegalAF and use the code LegalAF at checkout for 15% off. Welcome back to LegalAF. Well, we took that last break. Michael Popak, we were talking about first the effort of Donald Trump to try to, for his own reasons, because he's a lifelong criminal. Donald Trump's doing it because he's a criminal and he cares about himself.
Starting point is 00:32:38 He wants to destroy our legal system. And let's just be very blunt with our language. He hates America. His entire, you know, people like, Oh, well, he's going to make his entire, you know, you know, if he were to win, it would all be about retribution. I mean, cause he says that his entire life has been zero joy, 100% retribution. And his entire focus in life is making people miserable, screwing up people's lives.
Starting point is 00:33:08 He, he, he gets off on that, hurting people and hating the United States of America. He hates the United States of America. He hates our values and he loves the systems where there are, uh, monarchical, you know, princes who be, who lead with an iron fist. He loves the Kim Jong Un systems and he loves the systems where there are concentration camps and he can kill people that he wants to do. That's what he wants to do. When he talks about rounding up people, bloody mass deportation exercises, what he's talking about is going into your neighborhood, throwing you in a concentration camp and killing
Starting point is 00:33:46 you. So the fact that media entities don't go out there and talk about it, and they have not been talking about it. You know, we've been saying, you know, are they missing? Remember, for the past three years, Popeye are they missing it? Are they not talking about it? Are they both sides in it? Occam's razor the simplest explanation they wanted to They want the same thing that he wants that they're the same people as him They're just like them use a use Elon Musk you and I talked about and I did a hot take on Elon Musk There's only two choices. He's either he's either an unregistered foreign agent, or he's a spy for Putin. But he has been co-opted. He's been hacked. We'll talk, we'll touch a little bit later
Starting point is 00:34:30 on some Chinese hacking and some Iranian hacking. Elon Musk has been hacked. He's conducting his own foreign policy against our interests, his own military policy against our interests, Elon Musk, I mean. And he's now in the back pocket of Putin who's using him as a Kremlin asset apparently according to reporting, where he's just doing the talking points of the Kremlin, but it's even worse because he is conducting his own foreign policy. At once he's turned off the Starlink satellites for use by Ukraine against American foreign policy and military strategy and has instead given the technology to the Russians in their war against Ukraine to destroy its sovereignty because Putin asked him to. He didn't sell or give Starlink to Taiwan because Putin asked him to so he wouldn't
Starting point is 00:35:16 offend China. And this is, and everyone's wondering, I wonder why Elon Musk is doing this. Elon, we don't even have enough time in the show to go through all of the financial reasons that Elon Musk, who, by the way, his companies get $3 billion a year from American government agencies. He has contracts with 17 agencies, not just NASA, where they completely outsource the rocket program to Elon Musk. He gets $3 billion of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars, but that's not enough. He's got cryptocurrency that he wants to manipulate, a big holding in crypto. Donald Trump's perfectly willing to do that. He's got a stock position he wants to manipulate. So he wants a Lackey and the Securities and Exchange Commission being appointed. He's going to pick, Elon Musk is going to pick the head of the SEC, the head of the IRS, the head of the secretary, who's going to be the secretary of state, who's
Starting point is 00:36:09 going to be the secretary of defense, because it benefits Elon Musk. And so this is the oligarchs that are like bugs to a light bulb that are attracted to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump, who's just trying to avoid prosecution and conviction is more than willing to sell this not his soul his soul is gone the soul of America to be sacrificed on the altar of his own greed along with these oligarchs. I want to pivot though and talk about we talked about the overall system that's trying to be destroyed you You can't bury the lead there. They don't want this legal system.
Starting point is 00:36:48 Okay. Let's talk though with still within the contours and confines of our legal system, the types of games that Donald Trump is playing, you know, appointing judge Eileen Cannon, she's at his top of the short list for being an attorney general, it's her and this guy, what, Mike Davis, who was, and Mike Davis was a kind of normal, at first, normal Federalist, if those even things even make sense,
Starting point is 00:37:15 they don't anymore, but back then, and then he kind of radicalized into full MAGA, and now he posts things about like, throwing Mark Cuban into gulags and he's on Trump's shortlist as well and posts other things like that. I mean, this is actually a post from Donald Trump. If it's not Judge Cannon, it's this guy, but be very clear. Judge Cannon and this guy are identical, right?
Starting point is 00:37:39 She's the female version of him. So even though she's not posting on Twitter or X or whatever, these are her perspectives as well. It's why she and him, it'll either be one of them who would be AG. Or it's, hold on, or it's Jeff Clark who's been indicted in Georgia and he wants to use the Insurrection Act
Starting point is 00:38:00 to crush American citizens on their own soil. Or it's Ginny Thomas's personal lawyer, who's the best friends of Clarence Thomas, who helped get him confirmed. Those are the choices for the attorney general position. But just think about it. You have Mark Cuban out there, who's just letting Americans know that, hey, Donald Trump doesn't know what a tariff is, which is what media should be reporting to. When Donald Trump says, I'm going to tariff China, that's not a thing. You don't tariff China. You put tariffs as tax on imports where you're taxing American companies and you are ultimately passing that through to the consumer to try to disincentivize
Starting point is 00:38:39 importing foreign products. That's what a tariff is. So Mark Cuban's like going through all the economic analysis to say, look, under all of these plans, Donald Trump's plan, Social Security runs out in six years. Donald Trump's plan, we go into a great depression pretty quickly because these policies are absolutely disastrous. They make no sense either. And their response by Donald Trump's pick for the fact that Cuban is just exercising his First Amendment right right to say intelligently and Articulate Donald Trump's vision would cause economic
Starting point is 00:39:18 Catastrophe is to say throw mark Cuban in a gulag, but that's what they're going to do. That's what Trump's saying. What do you think he means when he says round you up? You're the enemy within, it's going to be bloody. What do you think that means? Anyway, Judge Eileen Cannon, we learned as kind of the quid pro quo on the short list, but then Donald Trump's motion to Judge Chutkin in the DC case was the motion that worked in Judge Cannon's case where
Starting point is 00:39:53 Judge Cannon said special counsels don't exist. There's no such thing for Donald Trump. There are such things as special counsels within the DOJ that apply to Hunter Biden. That's cool. Special counsels can prosecute Hunter Biden. Special councils can prosecute anybody else historically. But with Donald Trump, we think that the constitution now says
Starting point is 00:40:14 special councils don't exist. Why? Because Judge Cannon just made it up. And now that's being appealed. But Donald Trump's now going back to Chutkin and saying, look, look at what Judge Cannon did. And so talk about the quid pro quo here, Popak, and also if you can talk through, you know, this,
Starting point is 00:40:35 this motion's obviously going to fail, but I think Trump's trying to set up and Trump's mind, if he were to win, he'll then kind of figure out a way to use that motion as a way to, you know, that's his plan. And again, I don't think he's going to win. I want to be clear, but it's really putting the marker down to try to get the case dismissed if he were to win.
Starting point is 00:40:57 I've been trying to unpack the fake leak because I don't believe it was a leak. I think it was on a purpose of telling MAGA that Donald Trump was going to reward Aileen Cannon, the only judge that's been on his side basically, guaranteeing that she'll be disqualified and or reassigned by the 11th circuit. Why he would do that. Did he need it to activate his base to say, hey, I've just rewarded one of your, you know, everybody that's got like a poster of Aileen Cannon in their bedrooms in the MAGA bro world.
Starting point is 00:41:26 Hey, I'm going to give her the job of attorney general. Isn't that great? Like he didn't need to do that in order to activate his base. The people are going to vote for Donald Trump are going to vote for Donald Trump. The question is, has he been making any new voters in the last two months or three months since Kamala Harris has been here? And I think the answer to that is a resounding no. So why do it? Then I had Michael Cohen on Legal AF's new channel,
Starting point is 00:41:49 the one we do in collaboration with Midas Touch, Legal AF, MTN for those that are looking. And we were trying to cogitate a little bit on our hot take about why. And I kind of came up with it after Michael and I were done. Because within 24 hours of the alien Cannon being offered a job by the person that was a criminal defendant in front of her, think about that for a moment, he then, Donald Trump's lawyers then filed back-to-back two motions extolling the
Starting point is 00:42:17 virtue of her legal analysis in a motion or a request to file a motion, that's the way you got to do it in Judge Chutkin's courtroom right now, to file a motion to have Judge Chutkin adopt the legal reasoning of Judge Cannon, who dismissed 40-count indictment against Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, the Mar-a-Lago indictment, finding for the first time in 200 years of constitutional jurors' prudential analysis that the attorney general who heads the Department of Justice isn't empowered to appoint inferior officers without having them all confirmed through the Senate, which makes absolutely no sense. And so
Starting point is 00:42:56 if we did, they can barely, look let's be frank, doesn't matter who's at the top of the ticket in the Oval Office, In one four-year term, any president can barely get his judges affirmed. Can you imagine if he had to do special councils and then, and even in that argument, I never quite understand the argument because it's counter to the foundation of their argument. Their argument at the Trump level is separation of powers. Then why are we putting things through Congress that should only be reserved for the executive branch?
Starting point is 00:43:28 That's not a separation of powers argument. So once I saw the filing with Judge Chuck and say, just do it. Cannon did dismiss this indictment because special counsel, Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed and unconstitutionally funded. See, even though the cannon is the only one that's ever come up with that. And they cited in that filing three pieces of support, and I put support in quotes. Aileen Cannon,
Starting point is 00:43:53 Clarence Thomas's two-page concurrence that nobody else joined in at the Supreme Court level during the immunity decision, which was effectively just a love note to Aileen Cannon telling her to dismiss the case related because Jack Smith was just a love note to Aileen Cannon telling her to dismiss the case related because Jack Smith was just a stranger to the case, a citizen that was prosecuting the case on his own. And then Ed Meese, who's 93 years old and used to be, you can look him up, used to be a attorney general under Reagan and got indicted himself. That and in the first paragraph of all the filings, whether it's with Judge Chutkin or at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals
Starting point is 00:44:25 that also got filed the following day, so all within the last 48 hours, making the exact same arguments for the second time or third time, is a reference to a statement that Joe Biden made during a campaign stop two days ago in which he misspoke. And you know, let's be honest, I love Joe Biden as they call him on Saturday Night Live,
Starting point is 00:44:42 but he occasionally gets a little tongue tied even before this era of his life. He got tongue-tied in his 40s and in his 50s, the first time he ran for president. He was notoriously known as somebody that would use what we call malaprops. He would say sort of the wrong thing at the wrong time and he did it again. He said to a group of people cheering on, he was campaigning a little bit for Kamala, he said, if I had said this five years ago, I would be locked up, but we got to lock up Donald Trump. And when everybody started chanting and cheering, it was like, oh, uh, I mean, politically. So we know what Joe meant, but the aha moment. It's in the first paragraph, second footnote of the new filings. It's been revealed. It's the
Starting point is 00:45:21 politics, the politicization of the weaponization of the Department of Justice that we've said, see what Joe Biden just said, that's how desperate they are and how weak their arguments are, that this is the foundation for it. And Judge Chutkin, I'll stay in the DC court for a minute, Judge Chutkin already previewed where she's going because in September the 5th when they got together in their status conference hearing after the superseding indictment was obtained by Jack Smith, who smartly got a new indictment from a grand jury
Starting point is 00:45:49 after seeing the Trump immunity decision by the Supreme Court in July. He's like, oh, let me see that. What do I have to do? All right, let's get it. We got a grand jury in DC anywhere? Yeah, we got one. All right, let's go in there.
Starting point is 00:45:59 I want a new superseding indictment to make sure it comports with the teachings of this rule, of this new order by Chief Justice Roberts and the majority. They raised their hand when she said any other matters and the Trump lawyers, Emile Bovet, Todd Blanch, you know the usual suspects, they said yeah we're gonna be bringing a motion based on what Judge Cannon did down in Florida to dismiss this entire indictment because he, special counsel, he's not even supposed to be here, there's no special counsels. This is all
Starting point is 00:46:29 improper despite precedent at least reinforced in 1974 during our last criminal presidency of Nixon where they endorsed the use of the appointment of inferior or special attorneys under the attorney general directly in order to be a special or independent prosecutor. And right there in the hearing, it was reported that Judge Chutkin said, well, I'll just do my version of it, like my hands and the head in the hands. I didn't really find that to be intellectually persuasive or legally persuasive, but I'm not going to stop you from bringing the motion.
Starting point is 00:47:10 But I'm just giving you kind of a heads up on that. In other words, Alien Canada is so far to the fringe of analysis on this that no one's going to support her. And so they brought it. And now no one's going to support her. And so they brought it. And now that, and then the brief that was filed yesterday, at the, just yesterday, at the 11th Circuit, which is Donald Trump finally got around a month later to filing his brief a couple of days before the election to tell the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals,
Starting point is 00:47:39 which sits in Atlanta over the Mar-a-Lago case, that Judge Cannon was right. Now I see why they publicized the job offer to Judge Cannon to give her sort of bolster her credentials as a legal scholar and almost like an availed threat that not only could Aileen Cannon be the attorney general, but let's be frank. If Donald Trump gets near the White House again, she's going to be the attorney general. And if she's not the attorney general and or Supreme Court, because she could be attorney general for a year,
Starting point is 00:48:08 then there's an opening and he elevates her from Supreme Court, from attorney general to Supreme Court. So they wanted that story out there while they filed these things. It all became very clear to me once I saw the filings and the timing of the filings. So here's what's good. Chutkin, she's gonna allow the motion to be filed off of this request.
Starting point is 00:48:28 She's gonna have the full briefing and then she's going to deny the motion to dismiss the indictment because Jack Smith is a figment of our imagination. There's another thing I'm gonna do a hot take on later. I'm not even sure that just because even if Jack Smith was improperly appointed or confirmed or whatever or funded or whatever the argument is, I don't think that does a darn thing to the indictment. He did not render the indictment. The indictment was rendered by two
Starting point is 00:48:56 separate grand juries, okay? And if you have to replace him with somebody at Maine Justice, or you have to replace him with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, then so be it. But I don't think that there's a fruit of the poisonous tree indictment doctrine that destroys the indictment. Now, Jack Smith's not ready to go there because he's not going to try to turn 200 years of special counsels on their head and admit that they're right and they're not right. But I still don't think that solves their problem of getting rid of the indictment. They have, by a byproduct though, probably just removed Aileen Cannon from the case. And if it gets reassigned to another federal judge after the 11th Circuit rules sometime in first quarter 2025, then it's going to go back to one of the normal
Starting point is 00:49:42 judges in the Southern District of Florida, many of which I know. And he will not be getting the benefit of having Aileen Cannon any longer. And if he loses, prosecution continues, Jack Smith isn't fired, pardons aren't granted, Aileen Cannon isn't given a job, and the world is better. It's like it's a wonderful life, and we woke up, and there's our wife and our children and all of our friends
Starting point is 00:50:05 As opposed to what happened in the movie So that's where we are with Chuck in and cannon the offer the 11th circuit in DC all-in-one neat package you raise a great point about the special counsel because Why you even bring in a special counsel is? Because historically you go, you you know what we don't even want the appearance here of impropriety if there is a scent of a conflict so we'll create this other layer we'll create this this office that is kind of quasi independent, if you will, they'll have the off, they'll have the authority. Ultimately still has to be connected to the DOJ,
Starting point is 00:50:51 but special counsel, you do your thing. You're not under like the direct day to day, you know, you have to bring me this decision to Merrick Garland. It separates it right? Because the idea is in our legal system, the law, the type of law school that you and I went to when we learned about law, you don't even want the scent of impropriety, Donald Trump wants the stank of fascism pervading. So the very fact that you would bring in a special counsel verse have it prosecuted from main justice is now used against our system, which is actually
Starting point is 00:51:34 trying to build in protections for the accused. I mean, it's, it's, it's a point that you brought in there, but I think it's worth, um, kind of fleshing out that way is that, and then with the Supreme court ruled in Donald Trump's absolute immunity ruling, that one of the examples that they said would be a core constitutional function or official act would be any type of direct communications between a president and their attorney general. It was just a throwaway line in Justice Roberts decision,
Starting point is 00:52:11 but that throwaway line contradicts the entire separation between and the independence of the justice department. What Justice Roberts, right wing chief justice of the Supreme Court said is that, no, that's absolutely protected. It's an invitation now to say, not only do away with special councils, the Justice Department, the DOJ is a weaponized arm of the king because there's now absolute immunity and that relationship is okay.
Starting point is 00:52:46 I mean, just, just think about that for forever. You know, the president wouldn't be calling in, Hey, you know, a G come into the Oval Office. Let me tell you what you need to do. And that's precisely what Robert says is, Oh, is immune. That's a, it's a shocking part of that decision, which gives the green light, going back to what we said earlier,
Starting point is 00:53:09 to turn the justice department into the Gestapo and to round up people in bloody concentration camps, which Donald Trump says he wants to do. And people wanna talk around that and go, oh, maybe he just wanted to listen to his words. That's quite literally what he says. The enemy from within, the military needs to be used on the enemy from within Who's the enemy from within Donald? Oh Democrats Pelosi?
Starting point is 00:53:32 Shifty chef people like that. That's who I wanted. That's who I'm gonna do it on that the Haitian migrants, but they're here lawfully No, they're not. Yes. They are. I say they're not round them up. That's what he's doing wake up people I want to remind you as part of waking up people. We've got the legal AF YouTube channel Make sure you subscribe to legal AF YouTube channel. That's on its way to half a million subscribers still a Rocketship help it get to half a million subscribers because when we win because I'm still confident We will win this election by we I mean democracy and people who love it, we need to build institutions and structures generationally and one of them is Legal AF.
Starting point is 00:54:13 That's why we built out the independent YouTube channel separate from even the Midas YouTube channel. So please subscribe right now, get friends, family members, co-workers, neighbors, whoever in your life to subscribe. And also it goes without question, get them to register or make sure they're early voting as well. And they're voting, vote, vote, vote.
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Starting point is 00:59:57 Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you all the people who subscribe to the YouTube channel Legal AF and thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors. The show's not possible without those pro-democracy sponsors, so please check them out. The discount codes are in the description of the YouTube,
Starting point is 01:00:17 and then there's links to all those sponsors. We spend a long time vetting the sponsors, choosing who's gonna be our sponsor, so please, please, please support them. They help support us. So finally, Michael Popak, we talked about Trump's attempt to destroy the legal system, the games from within. Let's talk about the people in his world who are still trapped now within this
Starting point is 01:00:37 legal system, who don't have the immunities of, of Kings that the Supreme court gave him, um, what, uh. What's going on with these cases, whether it's Meadows, Clark, Giuliani, Pick Michael Cohen. Right, right, right. We got all the president's men in various forms who are, as you said, entangled in the justice system. I'll do it in no particular order.
Starting point is 01:01:06 We got Michael Cohen up there and I did a three-part interview with Michael that's up on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, at Legal AF MTN. One is up now, the rest will go up over the weekend. Right on the heels of the United States Supreme Court in a one-line order denying his appeal, Michael had what I thought was a very compelling case
Starting point is 01:01:24 and one that's important to America and to not just to Michael Cohen. He would have been the name plaintiff, obviously, or is the name plaintiff. But what he very, I think, acutely recognized is that he was the first political prisoner ever jailed in America for exercising his First Amendment rights against the sitting president. He was let out. He was convicted. He pled guilty. He's paid his debt to society, more than paid his debt to society. We know that. And was sentenced to three years in prison. He was let out because of COVID to do home confinement in lieu of being in jail. He has a series of health conditions
Starting point is 01:02:06 that could have made COVID deadly for him. And he was put out, and then he was doing his thing, you know, what you're allowed to do when you're out, including First Amendment right and expression, criticizing the king, criticizing Donald Trump. Had a book coming out about that, and he went down to a meeting with the Bureau of Prisons and others that he thought was just going to be a simple check in and to sign a document to allow them to continue
Starting point is 01:02:31 to stay out on home confinement. And instead they put effectively a gag order in front of them and said, yeah, you can stay out at home confinement, but you got to sign on the dotted line that you're not going to continue to criticize in podcasts, social media and books, Donald Trump, sign on the dotted line or we're going to continue to continue to criticize, um, in podcasts, social media and books, Donald Trump signed on the dotted line or we're going to send you back to jail. And he did not sign on the dotted line and they immediately remanded him. There was like a federal marshal outside the room. They immediately remanded him back to federal prison president and threw him not only in
Starting point is 01:02:59 the clink, threw him in solitary confinement for 16 days. So bad that senior judge, uh judge Alvin Hellerstein, who's done things against Donald Trump recently, said that it was a obvious retaliatory move by the Department of the Bureau of Prisons on behalf of Donald Trump, and had him immediately released from confinement and from jail and sent back to home confinement.
Starting point is 01:03:22 And then Michael tried to sue under a series of constitutional claims. Donald Trump and the government for having done that. And it was denied at the appellate level in New York because the certain type of action that Michael brought, we call it a Bivens action. I'm not sure that was the right one to bring, but they brought a Bivens action. And the second circuit said, yeah, under the current Supreme court rulings about Bivens, you could almost never sue a federal officer. They always have, we're back to immunity here, immunity from civil liability for doing their job or a version of their job, even if it was retaliatory.
Starting point is 01:03:58 And so he lost at the New York court of a second circuit level, then he lost at the Supreme court level, which is terrible because Michael is a poster boy for what could happen to all of us in a next Trump administration, not to keep beating this horse, this dead horse here on this episode, but if Donald Trump turns the turrets of the military and uses the justice system to go after his political enemies, which he's already named. They are democratic elected officials. They are voters.
Starting point is 01:04:31 They are election officials. They are elected officials. They are podcasters. They are media. You know, I told everybody, don't worry. Ben and I will be rolling around in an old van with a low wattage transmitter if we have to, if we're taken off the air. I only say that half and just.
Starting point is 01:04:49 So Michael is that poster child. So Michael lost. Then we've got Mark Meadows and Jeff Clark who are sort of inextricably tied together, not only because they were both co-conspirators and charged in Georgia for participating in a coup against America, but because they've both been trying to get things to happen in federal court and it's so far had they have been unsuccessful. Mark Meadows just got denied by a Trump appointed judge, Judge Kelly, in federal court in the district of in the DC, in his attempt to try to, this is ironic, to try to get documents in the National Archive, which he says could help him in defend his
Starting point is 01:05:34 criminal case in Georgia. Isn't that ironic that he worked for the guy that didn't turn over things to the National Archive, but yet Meadows wants the things in the National Archive in order to defend himself. You see why we need the National Archive and proper record keeping and presidents turning things over, Mark? So the judge on a technicality, on a jurisdictional technicality said, yeah, this is wrong court.
Starting point is 01:05:56 No, denied. And you can try to do it another way, but you're not gonna do it this way. So that was denied. Meadows got rejected six months ago by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is currently the same court handling the new Trump Mar-a-Lago appeal issue. He got rejected from trying to drag his state court case over to federal court, which Jeff Clark, the disgraced former acting attorney general, insurrectionist, he tried to drag his case over with some fake electors
Starting point is 01:06:30 from Georgia as well. And the judge that was assigned, Judge Jones, rejected both efforts on that. The 11th Circuit, six months ago, came up with a unique reason. They said, yes, we recognize that current federal officers who are being prosecuted in state court for something that they did within the color of their office and maybe they have a federal defense, get to go to federal court to have their case tried and then federal defenses up to the US
Starting point is 01:06:58 Supreme Court be adjudicated. But you're former, you're the former White House Chief of Staff, it's right there on your business card. And you're the former, Jeff Clark, the former acting Attorney General, you're not current. And so they rejected the attempts to remove and the appeal on that grounds. Mark Meadows didn't like that response and has something up with the United States Supreme Court for them to determine whether Chief Judge Pryor of the 11th Circuit was right or wrong about whether the federal removal statute applies to former officers or not. A little bit of an esoteric thing and you know the Supreme Court has not been shy about sticking their big fat you know thumbs on the scales of justice in favor of Donald Trump and so I
Starting point is 01:07:41 anticipate that they're gonna determine whether the 11th Circuit was right or wrong about the application of the removal statute. And so the answer to the question that comes up in the chat a lot, why are they trying to go to federal court? It doesn't get rid of their indictment. It doesn't. But it gives them a federal judge and some federal arguments that they think they'll get a friendlier face about, a friendlier forum about, to make arguments about, now back to the top of this episode, separation of powers. And I work for the president,
Starting point is 01:08:10 and this is the department of, and I only did things for him, and you can't prosecute me related to them. And all of those, the immunity, Jeff Clark's like, well, he got immunity for talking to me, so why don't I get immunity for, you know, participating in the coup? And like, so this all, this is the thing that I want people
Starting point is 01:08:29 to be prepared for mentally. This is one of the reasons that you and I put together the idea for Legal AF the channel, the YouTube channel, is because this Supreme Court is going to be actively involved in, for the rest of 2025 in things that matter, including cases that will be before them,
Starting point is 01:08:45 before I think this election gets certified as to its result. I think they're going to be handling cases on an emergency basis at the Supreme Court level about voting, about certification, and then about things related to Donald Trump in his new attempt not to recognize the will of the people should he lose. Trump in his new attempt not to recognize the will of the people should he lose, is all going to be all handled by this United States Supreme Court while they continue to issue new rulings about the executive branch, the three co-equal branches, and their perverse warped view of the separation of powers. Look at what the Fifth Circuit, far right wing Fifth Circuit did.
Starting point is 01:09:25 They made a ruling in a case where they didn't even have to necessarily make this ruling even right now, and it was done intentionally, which basically to say, if the votes don't arrive on election day themselves, so if absentee votes or other votes are postmarked before but happened to arrive afterwards? Or what if there is some ministerial mistake made in a specific office?
Starting point is 01:09:51 Or it just so happens that another batch of votes that are intended to show up, just show up late, because remember when Donald Trump's plan was to gut all of the mail services? And he still is. I mean, they still have that, you know, the postmaster is a Trump lackey who from within is like causing actual harm to, you know,
Starting point is 01:10:12 the efficiency of the post office itself. It's like an anti post office postmaster the same way Donald Trump had anti labor people who would be on the national labor relations boards and things like that. Under Supreme court doctrine that we've talked about for years called the Purcell principle. This is basically federal court abstentions. What it's supposed to be federal court abstention for making decisions
Starting point is 01:10:40 like the fifth circuit made before an election. Now what the fifth circuit said to kind of recognize the Purcell principle, but giving Donald Trump kind of a quiver in his arsenal, if you will, was they said, we just think that in general it is unlawful for votes to be counted if they arrive after election day, regardless of what the circumstances are even if it's you know of the post office screwed it up or there's a mistake that was made not by the sender but by Who knows in the in the chain of command where where that got they go? We're not gonna well pine on that but Michael Popak as you know
Starting point is 01:11:19 What the Fifth Circuit was really doing there was just giving an argument, putting it on the table so that it could be made as an argument to the Supreme Court if we're talking about a situation that probably looks more analogous to a Florida circa 2000, then, you know, that, well, look, we preserve this issue, even though people like, well, the district court probably will make the ruling that this doesn't apply to this election. That's not what the fifth circuit was doing. The fifth circuit was basically inviting Donald Trump.
Starting point is 01:11:54 Hey, in the event this election comes down to a few hundred votes in a state like a Nevada or a Georgia, make the argument that all of those votes are avoided if they come in after. Use our Fifth Circuit for a nationwide injunction, go to the Supreme Court. So that's really what that ruling was about. Now, if the election is... the thing about the 2020 election, about all of this, was not a close election. Biden destroyed Donald Trump. It was not close. Sure, you can say in certain swing states it was close,
Starting point is 01:12:28 but even the states where it was close, like Georgia, for example. Right, it's 11,000. Still 11,000 votes in election law is not like hundreds of votes where you're analyzing in chats and things like that. So that's what they're doing there, Popak, to your point about the Supreme Court.
Starting point is 01:12:44 Well, and let me just make it even more nefarious. They chose Mississippi, which is where the case came up to the Fifth Circuit, because they were forum shopping the Federalists, the right wing, the MAGA. Where can we go to bring a case now that will will pay dividends later? Where's the soft underbelly? Ah, it's either Texas or Mississippi. Something Louisiana, it's something in the Fifth Circuit because the Fifth Circuit is dominated not just by right-wing leaning appellate court judges, but by Trump-appointed right-wing leaning appellate judges.
Starting point is 01:13:18 Two in particular, Judge Oldham and Judge Ho, H-O, are both trying out right now. Speaking of job offers, they're both trying out for a Supreme Court position for Donald Trump. And they were on this panel at the Fifth Circuit, came up from Mississippi, which does not have a mail-in ballot problem. But 20 other states in our country have, including ones that I have voted in, including Florida, back in the past, they have a grace period of five days for mail-in votes coming in from anywhere because of the mail.
Starting point is 01:13:49 As long as it's postmarked, sort of like mailing your tax return, as long as it's postmarked the day that it's due, you got an extra five days. Oh, not according to Judge Hoh, Judge Oldham, and the guy that wrote the opinion. No, no, no. That changes federal law. Federal law says election day. It's got to be arriving on election day. So Mississippi didn't have this problem, but Florida has the the grace period, New York does, California
Starting point is 01:14:12 does, and a lot of other battleground states like you said, like Nevada. So they were like, let's just get this going through the Fifth Circuit because then we can take it, as you said, to make the argument about all the mail-in ballot grace period states. If this comes down to we're searching for votes in the in the couch pillows again. Can I just say just to be hopeful for a minute this is the popachium segment of the podcast. I think there's two likely scenarios for this election. It's either what the media has been force feeding us, which is gonna be razor thin, you know, like two sports commentators
Starting point is 01:14:48 that wanna make a blowout that's going on on the screen look like it's competitive for ad dollars. I think that's going on. I think, sure, it could be razor thin, but I think it's more likely that this is gonna be a quote unquote blowout for Kamala Harris with so much pent up demand to vote for her and to vote for her and to
Starting point is 01:15:05 vote against him just waiting for an opportunity, i.e. the ballot, because every time they've had an opportunity to actually vote in some way, it's gone tremendously in the favor of the Democrats. Every special election that matters in the last two years, the midterm election can be interpreted as a major win for the Democrats. And that was with Joe Biden still at the top of the ticket. Every special election where abortion or women's rights or seats, um, either controlling a Supreme court or a special D or a district in Congress, all Democrat, look at the money, the P the damn broke for money,
Starting point is 01:15:42 because that's the only way you can vote before you vote. You vote with your pocketbook, your purse, and your phone. All overwhelmingly Democrat. Now we just got to put into action and vote and then I think this is either going to be maybe razor. I don't think it's razor. And all these made-up stories that corporate media is speaking about corporate media. Oh black men are not going to vote. Oh this or that or not. That is all bullshit. Okay if the vote totals come in the way it's going to vote, oh, this or that or not. That is all bullshit. Okay. If the vote totals come in the way, it's going to be overwhelmingly
Starting point is 01:16:07 300 plus for Kamala Harris. Is there a scenario where Donald Trump could win? Yes. That's why you and I are working 23 out of 24 hours a day to make sure it doesn't happen. I'll leave people with this line of hope, but also rooted in data with two examples. First, let me take you to Wisconsin. And you may remember, because we had her on, we interviewed her, Janet Protasewicz,
Starting point is 01:16:29 the Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin Supreme Court who defeated Daniel Kelly. She won by like 55% to 44% in Wisconsin. It was a massive victory, like 1.1 million votes to 800,000 votes. I forget the specific vote, 1,021,000 to 818,000 votes. Now that was in 2023.
Starting point is 01:16:55 So that's the one of the most recent elections in the state of Wisconsin, for an example. And that was a margin that she won by because people were pissed that Roe v. Wade was overturned. And one of the things that she was running on was that she was, um, support women's reproductive freedoms and that overturning Roe v. Wade was, was, was unlawful. That was one of the things in that campaign. So just think about, so, so now are you telling me in Wisconsin, in Wisconsin,
Starting point is 01:17:19 where that result happened last year? And by the way, I can even take you more recent, the primaries where Donald Trump underperformed all those polls the 538 average in the past six months I'm not gonna use that men in black wand and pretend that doesn't exist in the past six months Donald Trump underperformed his 538 polling average we were 538 by 15 points in Michigan and Pennsylvania and states like that across the country remember we would say here it happened again here it happened again 20% of voters are still voting for Nikki Haley even though she dropped out months ago Remember, that's what we would do
Starting point is 01:17:57 So even if 30 40 percent of those Nikki Haley voters, you know Or even less go for vice president Kamala Harris That's still huge numbers right there, and these are recent events. And I'll just give you a data point that, to me, makes some of these polls make no sense. So most of the polls right now, they all, it's called like hurting mentality. They all basically are even now. Like every one of them, you know, is either even or they'll have like Kamala Harris
Starting point is 01:18:24 ahead in like registered voters, but then like Trump up one Like every one of them, you know, is either even, or they'll have like Kamala Harris ahead in like registered voters, but then like Trump up one and likely voters. So they could like whatever it is. So they could like edge their bets, but we have her there, you know, or they do stuff like that. But then when they pull people who have already voted, which by the way, is skewing a little more heavily Republican thus far because Republicans are being encouraged now for the first time to early vote. So we're seeing more Republicans vote early. The numbers are like plus 20 Vice President Kamala Harris already. Now, I don't know if I can extrapolate some broader generalizations, but where there are more Republicans voting now, and if you go into states like Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, other state of Georgia, and you see by a raw number, there may be more Republicans.
Starting point is 01:19:25 voters, which is we know what they vote because they did it, are skewing 20 points in favor of Harris, then how could they possibly then extrapolate a likely voter set that looks abnormally different unless what you're trying to do is build in certain assumptions that simply don't exist in a post-Roe world. So again, that's how I at least assess this data as I speak with Tom Bonyer, as I speak with Simon Rosenberg, as I speak with kind of Michael Dowd and other people. I wanna try to get at, make sense of all of these numbers and not the narratives.
Starting point is 01:20:02 But most important, I just wanna let you know the stakes. And I hope when you watch a show like this and you know the stakes, you go out and you vote. And you tell people to go out and vote. And that this community is out there every day, putting in the hard work, we're rolling up our sleeves. So when this show ends, in addition to subscribing to the Legal AF YouTube channel, which is great,
Starting point is 01:20:27 because we gotta build these institutions for the future and we gotta get PO-POK 500,000 subscribers, that's for sure. 500,000 subscribers, let's go subscribe if you haven't to the Legal AF YouTube channel, just search it. Just the best thing you can do is help out people, register or help people vote. We posted an opportunity, for example,
Starting point is 01:20:46 on our community page on YouTube, where you can go take a trip to Pennsylvania, help them door knock over there. But just call friends, family member, coworkers, you can look at our community page to find out about that opportunity. But anyway, do your part, let's leave it all on the field for democracy,
Starting point is 01:21:03 and then let's build generationally. Popak, always love spending this weekend with you and the Legal AFers. Do your part, let's leave it all on the field for democracy and then let's build generationally. PO-POK, always love spending this weekend with you and the Legal AFers. Thank you everybody. Shout out Legal AFers, shout out Midas Mighty.

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