Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump HIT HARD with Major LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS

Episode Date: December 1, 2024

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for a new episode of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On tap? 1. Trump trying to conduct foreign, domestic, national security and trade policy through social media post is back, and the Mexican President has found a way to use that to her advantage and beat him to the punch and "win" the trade war before it began; 2. Trump's picks for national security and defense positions makes our enemies sleep better at night, and DOD nominee Hegseth's mom by accident tells the wold that she doesn't believe her son is fit for the position either; 3. the Trump transition continues to be the most corrupt in history, using dark money crypto currency and unethical relationships between proposed regulators and the businesses they own, to fuel their personal interests, and America is less safe and secure as a result, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Subscribe to the new Legal AF channel: https://youtube.com/@LegalAFMTN Subscribe to Meidas+ at https://meidasplus.com Thanks to our sponsors: Zbiotics: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF to get 15% off your first order when you use LEGALAF at checkout. Ollie Pet Food: Head to https://ollie.com and use promo code: LEGALAF to receive 60% OFF your FIRST BOX of meals when you subscribe today! Hims: Thanks to HIMS! Start your free online visit today at https://hims.com/legalaf for your personalized ED treatment options. Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Fum: Head to https://TryFum.com/legalaf or scan the QR code on screen and get a FREE GIFT with the JOURNEY PACK today when you use code LEGALAF 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

This episode is brought to you by Miller Lite. Miller Lite's all about celebrating friendships, especially during fantasy football season. And there's no better way to show your friends slash fantasy leagues last place finisher that you love them than Miller Lite's last placements, where you can get their face on a billboard. Yep, a real billboard.

Just go to lastplacements.com to find out how. Miller Lite. Tastes like Miller time. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping

make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. The ScoreBet app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking... Nah, no more statistically speaking. I want hot takes. I want knee-jerk reactions. That's not really what I do. Is that because you don't have any knees? Or... Ugh.

The ScoreBet. Trusted sports content, seamless sports betting. Download today. 19 Plus, Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connexontario.ca. Visa and OpenTable are dishing up something new. Get access to prime time dining reservations by adding your Visa Infinite Privilege Card to your OpenTable account.

From there, you'll unlock first come, first serve spots at select top restaurants when booking through OpenTable account. From there, you'll unlock first-come, first-serve spots at select-top restaurants when booking through OpenTable. Learn more at opentable.ca forward slash visa dining. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists,

one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions, and that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca Donald Trump is the breaker of contracts and promises. That's what he's been known for his entire life I mean look just take the US MCA which replaced NAFTA

Which was the trade deal with Mexico and Canada Donald Trump by threatening to impose 25 percent tariffs blanket tariffs on Mexico and Canada, Donald Trump by threatening to impose 25% tariffs, blanket tariffs on Mexico and Canada violates his own deal. I think that gets lost in the story. He's breaching his own contract. And I think we need to look at it through the framework of a breach of an international contract that took place. I think it's also important to take a look

at how Mexico's president, Claudia Scheinbaum responded because it gives you a template, I think of how you deal with Donald Trump. In addition to being a breaker of contracts and promises, Donald Trump is also a sexual assault or a sexual abuser. He's been found liable for that in court. So is it a shock? No, it isn't. That we are learning more about his pick for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. We now have found out that his mom in 2018, that's right,

Pete Hegseth's mom, you heard me correctly, sent him a letter in 2018, calling him an abuser of women and taking the side of his now ex-wife who he had, uh, cheated on with another woman who was his third wife and had a baby with the third wife. We'll talk about that and its implications in addition to being a breaker of promises and someone who breached contracts and a sexual assaulter, Donald Trump is also a grifter. And we saw that with our coverage last week about those kind of fake scammy guitars that he was selling that Gibson had to send a cease and desist letter for copying the design of their guitars.

But now we're seeing how that ecosystem all plays out. You've got RFK Jr., who Donald Trump's tapped to lead the HHS. There's his wife right there, Cheryl Hines, who's forever ruined Curb Your Enthusiasm for me, selling Make America Healthy Again products. 60% off everything Black Friday sales. That's exactly what we want in an HHH,

in an HHS director, someone who is selling products off of their position. I'm being sarcastic, of course. And then you've got like MAGA people like Lauren Boebert joining websites like Cameo, selling greetings in violation of house ethics rules. But speaking about House ethics rules or ethics rules in general, Trump refusing to sign the ethics transition pledge that all president-elects sign. Also Donald Trump saying no FBI background checks until his FBI gets appointed.

And by the way, where is his FBI director? When was that gonna be announced? Something's going on there. Let's talk about that and more. This is Legal AF, I'm Ben Myselis, joined by Michael Popak. Michael Popak, how are you, sir? I'm doing great.

I love the way you, we call it the Ben Weave. I love it. Because that's how I think about all of these things. way, we call it the the Ben Weave. I love it. I love because that's how I think about all of these things. And we will even though that was quite a connective tissue there you put together, I promise everybody on this show, that by the time it ends in about an hour, we will make sense of all of that some of my favorite parts of what you talked about is just the,

the lack of ethics and financial compromise of everybody that's in the Trump orbit. Um, there are no boundaries. There will be no boundaries. That's what Donald Trump took away from the United States Supreme court, giving him a effectively immunity for everything, including, you know, maybe even murder in the white house. Well, he's just seen that as there's nothing I can't do nor the people that I'm gonna appoint in the cabinet that they can't do, and there's no limits.

And none of them are gonna divest themselves of any of their business enterprises. I'm sure none of them are gonna put their businesses in blind trusts, even if that were permitted or allowed, which in many ways it's not. Linda McMahon is gonna continue to run the World Wrestling Federation, continuing to undermine the morals and values of American youth while she runs the Department of Education.

That's supposed to be protecting America and educating America's youth. Howard Lutnick is not going to sell a darn thing related to cryptocurrency or financial services while he becomes the head of the Commerce Department. Treasury Secretary, he may not continue to run this fund, but frankly, his fund wasn't doing that well lately. He got kicked upstairs to be the head of Treasury under Donald Trump when his fund was sort of kind of failing ever since he left George Soros.

Donald Trump's not going to put his companies in a blind truss. He's gonna continue to grift and make hundreds, we'll talk about it four years from now, we're on the along the way, hundreds of millions of dollars for his family and himself while he's president of the United States. Now he's just got a license to run the business while he's also president of the United States.

And you got RFK Jr. there, shilling for things that he wants the FDA, we're gonna talk about the Food and Drug Administration today, that he wants the FDA, which he will head because it reports the Health and Human Services, to stop regulating, to allow crazy, wacko, untested therapies and cures to be just given directly to the American public and get the FDA out of regulating those things. While on the other side, he's selling snake oil with his wife,

who I used to think, I agree with you, I used to thought she was sort of embarrassed by everything RFK Jr. did, including cheating on her publicly over the summer. But apparently she's back. I mean, the show, Curbs last season is over. Um, and so she, she's got other better to do, I guess, than support him now that he's going to be the head of all things, domestic policy for, um, for Trump, and then we didn't even touch on Elon Musk, but we will because the ethical conflicts are best manifested in a guy like Elon Musk. On the one hand, he wears the, I'm going to be the big red tape cutter and budget cutter, and I'm going to quote unquote, delete all these departments and agencies that help and

protect the American people because I hate them. While he's got his own ethical and financial conflicts because he's a government contractor that wants to do business and more and more business than the $3 billion a year that he currently has. But he's had resistance from Biden regulators. He wants to get rid of all the Biden regulators, of course, and replace them. For instance, I'll give you one example, then we'll move on with our first segment, Starlink, that much heralded satellite communications thing. He's like, Oh, let's not subsidize Verizon and AT&T laying cable to give rural America access to the internet. I can do it

with the Starlink. The Starlink has been rejected time and time again by American regulators under Biden and even by Trump because of its slowness, its latency problem, and the fact that it's not fast enough to do the thing. It's getting slower as more people sign up for Starlink. It's getting slower, not faster. But Elon Musk wants to get rid of the regulators, the FCC, and all the other communications and technology regulators so he can just increase it. The other person that's going to increase his bottom line, his dollars,

his personal economy while he's in office and maybe double the amount that he makes is Elon Musk. Now, one of the interesting things about Elon Musk, interesting may not be the right word there though, is that the way he built Tesla was by relying on loans by the government because it was an electric vehicle, right? And building the EV industry. Now that Tesla is the leader in that, we also see him making many posts, attacking government programs that incentivize other EV startups and maturing EV companies, for example, Rivian. And, you know, he's posting things that spread disinformation about the program.

That is the billion dollar loans given to these EV startups and EV companies without even reflecting that it's the same stuff that Tesla got. And that's how Tesla became the company that it was, among other things. You mentioned Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I mentioned it at the outset, a show that kind of morphs reality with fiction. We also talk about just reality TV in general. That's what pretty much made Donald Trump, Donald Trump, the show Apprentice and how they framed him when Donald Trump was struggling financially.

I mean, here's the thing though, Popak, we're all trapped now in this reality show where fiction has morphed with reality. I think that's been accelerated by social, also just kind of ripping the barriers of people's private lives and personal lives. And everybody's kind of performing on this stage, if you will, in the social media theater that doesn't really have these safeguards where disinformation can permeate. And so, you know, where it's something that you and I in the

Midas Touch Network in defending good governance, statesmanship, you know, referring that a statesman, stateswoman, statesperson, you know, needs to speak soft and carry a big stick, the big stick type policy, be powerful, but don't be obnoxious. I keep on talking about now, we're kind of in the opposite right now. We're in the small stick policy, speak loud and obnoxious, but ultimately when confronted, it's a very weak stick.

I mean, Donald Trump really can't back it up. We saw that with Claudia Scheinbaum. So Trump goes out there. He talks about on social media, I mean, running trade policy that affects tens of millions of Americans with just a random social media post saying blanket tariffs, Mexico and Canada. He also referenced China, but a lot of it was directed at our closest allies. You know,

Mexico is our top trading partner. Canada is our other, uh, reference China, but a lot of it was directed at our closest allies. Mexico is our top trading partner, Canada is our other top trading partner, and saying we're gonna do 25% blanket tariffs across the board. And then Claudia Scheinbaum, the president of Mexico, and for those not following a lot of the developments in Mexico as well, Mexico has been doing pretty good lately. You know how MAGAs all talk about like Argentina, they love Argentina, right? Like wage growth in Argentina over the same period of time

as wage growth of Mexico with Scheinbaum and more significantly her predecessor was I think negative 25% in Argentina and plus 22% in Mexico, wages are rising in Mexico, it's developing rapidly in Mexico. And they've been working closely with president Biden to actually stop the migrant caravans. Notably the MAGA Republicans killed a bipartisan border deal that would have been very helpful in terms of America's cooperation with Mexico and putting more border patrol officers, paying

border patrol officers more, figuring out the asylum process. But Mexico and America over the past few years have been working together to actually fix the problems that Trump created. So when Trump calls out Mexico, President Scheinbaum writes a letter to him and also gives a press conference right away. She didn't hesitate. It's as if, because I think this is what happened. She had studied his pathology.

She prepared, she was ready to go. And she was very clear. She goes, you must not really understand the relationship that we have. Um, to the extent you want to impose these tariffs. We will ensure that we do retaliatory tariffs You should be aware that companies like Ford Stellantis General Motors and other American companies have Production factories in Mexico. You're going to hurt your own American companies if you come after us There are no more migrant caravans anymore. That's a lie.

And we've been working cooperatively to deal with this. And then she says, you need to focus on your own issues. You're the main synthetic drug consumers. When you want to talk about fentanyl, 99% of consumption occurs in Mexico, occurs in the United States, not Mexico. And in terms of the trafficking of these drugs, most of the trafficking comes from Americans and not Mexicans. Most people who get fentanyl are getting it from Americans, from American dealers is where it's actually coming

from. And so she laid it out there. And then she talks about how Trump needs to deal with, instead of spending all this money on war, perhaps you should spend your money fixing your immigration system and focusing on comprehensive immigration reform. And then Donald Trump immediately responds, we did the deal. We fixed everything. We're good now, basically. And who knows if he'll impose the tariffs or not.

You never even know what he's going to do when he posts things on social media. But he acted like they're going to stop the migrant caravans. They said that they back down and it's like that's not what she said at all. But doesn't that just go to tell you Popak how he that's how he does deals also, which is why he's a bad business. He was never a good businessman. And by the way, the USMCA deal, the trade deal was his deal rather than amend NAFTA. He creates the USMCA, which is basically an amendment to NAFTA, but he had to rename it. So it was his. So he's now violating his own terms, creating chaos,

lying about it and then acting like this, like it's done. And it's not like nothing's changed since his tweet. Yeah. And so here's yeah, I let me unpack some of that and run with it. We're back to trade policy, domestic policy, national security policy, economic policy, and diplomacy by social media posts. This is what we hated about, and our allies and even our enemies hated about Donald Trump the first time around. He's gonna use truth social now to post everything much to the sugar,

maybe occasionally X to satisfy Elon Musk and he's gonna whipsaw everybody that relies on consistent coherent policy domestic and and foreign and he's also conducting policy now in a shadow government that is illegal. We have one president at a time, that president until January 20th at 1159 AM is named Joe Biden. In the meantime, Donald Trump is, it was one thing for like Mika and Joe to like go down and grovel at Mar-a-Lago. It's another thing for Trudeau.

I'm going to talk about the comparison between Trudeau's reaction, very Canadian reaction, and Mexico's reaction, which is fine. We'll put a 25% tax on GM and Ford, which has been here for 80 years, and you'll lose 500,000 of your jobs in America and your prices will go up, where Donald Trump's in the background going, I won! And the market's going, let's,

and the foreign exchange market, won. And the market's going, let's, and the, uh, the foreign exchange market, which really declared the winner to be Claudia Scheinbaum by raising the peso against the dollar by 1.5% almost immediately. You know, you got that dueling image of Donald Trump's, I used to call them tweets, his social media post. She's going to close the Southern border. An hour later, Claudia Scheinbaum wrote, I'm not closing the border. I don't we don't do border closing. We did a lot with the

Biden administration to stop the caravans to use an actually an app. An app did more to stop the problem at the border where you can sign up for an appointment with the US Customs and Enforcement Bureau thing than anything else. But they did all of that. That's the problem. This is the problem of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris not able to sell what their accomplishments were to anybody. They successfully dropped by 40% the crisis at the border by huge numbers, but didn't take credit for it. We'll have another show about this, maybe a Pol Pot Live, I'll do a rant on it. So she, as you said, either because she anticipated, look,

just like the attorney generals of the United States have been working for a year to get ready for a potential Trump presidency, even when Biden was having his issues, and then even when they switched to Kamala, they were still, all right, we know all the lawsuits we gotta file, we got all the drafts ready, we know what we have to do, the sanctuary cities and states are ready, that's because they've been building for a year. Sheinbaum just got in, I think Donald Trump thought,

oh, I'm gonna take advantage of a newly elected president, but then he doesn't know her history. Not only on the academic side, where she's a world-class PhD scholar when it comes to environmental research scientist, but also a student activist and leader of the first order. She's sort of the equivalent of our Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi, who got born into a political family

and has the sharpest elbows and the most astute political skills of anybody. That's why she was an amazing and effective speaker of the house. And what would the clown car thing that we're watching with Magga isn't. Claudia Scheinbaum, same thing. She started out on this, you'll appreciate this, Ben.

She started out as the president of her student council in college. That became the forerunner for the opposition party the student-led revolution opposition party that that swept AMLO into office her predecessor Obrador and then she was the natural successor to that she is a politician of the first order of the way Donald Trump has never been she had her letter written already as you as you said she laid out, you don't want this trade war with me, because you will have increased prices on your side of the border and a 500,000 person job loss. And then the market said, yeah, she's right, peso goes up against a dollar. And then you watch the

split screen of Trudeau. Now I know he's got his own problems in his own country and his provinces are forcing him to like go kiss the ring. He literally, just the optics of it, literally flew down to Mar-a-Lago, stayed at some hotel, I know this area well, I say so, lived down there, in West Palm Beach. Didn't even stay in Palm Beach. Couldn't even stay at the nicer hotels. Goes to the hotels in West Palm Beach. Has to come across the bridge with his caravan, right? Speaking of caravans, to go meet with Donald Trump and Howard Lutnick and all these other trade advisors to talk about, please, please, we're not the fentanyl problem, we're not the, we don't have a porous border, please don't nail us with 25%, you know, and then

have to work out a deal with him. Just the optics of it was terrible. And it stands in sharp contrast to Mexico, which was sort of like, F you, you need us more than we need you. We're a major trading partner for you. You know, when it comes to, you know, people, they should just have, in supermarkets, they should have little cards with little sticks

in your food chain where you buy this fruit, where it comes from, in the countries that are involved. So you can see we can't go this alone, not unless you want to have a Soviet style supermarket that you wait in lines, you don't even know what you're going to get on the other end of the line. So I love her response. So does the world, the global economy. And you're already seeing, of course, Donald Trump taking false credit for things around the world, like Zelensky in Ukraine, for instance, because Joe Biden allowed long range missiles to be used and started to be used to give him leverage and negotiations, now has the ability to try to leverage a

deal he's offering NATO to protect all of Ukraine while they diplomatically negotiate over the parts that Russia took, but that's a Joe Biden accomplishment, not a Donald, he'll pick it up when he gets in. But these are all the things that were done before him. So here's my sort of kind of tie together of this. And then the last thing on the trade war, before I leave that, is the whole of his campaign, this is the lying to America that hopefully the Americans will wake up in time for the midterms

and we'll remind them to pay him back for this, because he lied to them. He said that China, China and tariffs, it was always China and tariffs, right? Well, why were the tariffs against Canada and Mexico 25% and the threatened tariff against China 10% and you haven't heard anything about that because China basically came back and said we can wreck your economy, you don't want this fight and you never heard Donald Trump make another word about it, right? Because he's trying to do on the cheap in

his freeloading way through social media posts that which he cannot accomplish on the world stage. And it shows like this, hopefully, that call this out on a regular basis. Such a great point. It's like, let's get into power, or even before we get into power, and let's pick on our friends. It's so Trumpian. Let's abuse those closest to us because we think in Trump's mind, I can get a cheap win by bullying Canada. I know Trudeau is politically vulnerable. I know that, you know, in Mexico or Trump's perception was wrong. He said, you know, look, we're so much more powerful than let's pick on our

friends, even though my whole camp, imagine if he ran the campaign, we're going after Canada, we're going after Mexico's economy, you know, I mean, he ran the campaign, you're so right saying we're going after China. And then the softest of what he did was actually about China. China responded and basically like laughed in his face. I mean, the China, China's response is, do it. We dare you to do it, you know, and Trump backs down to that stuff.

That's the thing. You know, there's always the expression with fascism. Don't obey in advance. You know, the thing with Donald Trump is he's always been, his whole life, he's a paper tiger. He surrounds himself with a bunch of people who are quite literally willing to like die for the guy and give their entire lives for the guy like Rudy Giuliani. By the way, do we have that Giuliani video?

Cause let's play. Cause Trump manages to find people who surround themselves with people like this. Somehow. I love that video. Reality is I have no cash. It's all tied up. So right now, if I wanted to call a taxi cab, I can't do it.

I don't have a credit card. I don't have a checking account. I have no place I can go take cash out, except the little bit that I saved. And it's getting So Trump surrounds himself like Pete with people like that who are quite literally willing to destroy their lives for him But trump at his core always when you confront the guy to his face

The way we saw prosecutors do it not the way the supreme court back back. When you confront the guy, he backs down. He is afraid and authoritarians know that he deep down is actually a very scared little man who fears Putin, who fears Xi, who fears Kim Jong-un. That's why, and he tries to project the thing with it. He's not that, he just, he isn't that guy, but he knows how to act and pretend to like that guy, and people buy that shtick. It's weird to me, but there are people who buy it anyway. Let's take our first question. Wait, wait, wait, one thing, then take the ad break,

because I need cash, I have no cash. I say I have no cash. One thing, he, you know, on, on, but do the ad break. I'll, I don't want to delay you. Go ahead, do your ad. Oh, bye. Bye. Let's take our first quick break of the show.

Your schedule is busy. And sometimes intimate moments happen spontaneously. You don't have the time to go to a doctor's office to get treated for ED. Through HIMS, you can get a personalized ED treatment without stepping foot outside your door. HIMS is changing men's health care by providing access to affordable sexual health treatments all from the comfort of your couch. HIMS provides access to a range of doctor-trusted ED treatments such as chewable hard mints, proven treatments like Viagra and Cialis,

or their generics for up to 95% cheaper. The process is simple and 100% online. No uncomfortable doctor's visits. Just answer a series of questions on their site and a medical provider will determine the right treatment option. If prescribed, your medication ships directly to you for free. No insurance is needed. Pay one low price for your treatments, online visits, ongoing shipments, and provider messaging. HIMSS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers, so if ED is getting you down,

it's time you find the option that works for you. Start your free online visit today at HIMS.com slash Legal AF. That's H-I-M-S dot com slash Legal AF for your personalized ED treatment options. HIMS.com slash Legal AF. The products mentioned are chewable compounded products which are not approved by or verified for safety or effectiveness by the FDA. Prescriptions require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply and see website for details and important safety information.

Subscription required. Price varies based on product and subscription plan. Flavored air isn't like vaping. If vapor was compared to sticky soda, fume cores are closer to herbal teas. Fume has lots of delicious flavors to choose from, like crisp mint, orange vanilla, and new peach blush. With flavored air, you can satisfy your oral fixation

through a passive diffusion system that utilizes no electronics, vapor, or combustion. Fume draws flavor to your mouth and fills the void ditching a bad habit can leave. Fume is not a vape, and there's no nicotine, and it's not addictive. That's very important. Also fume has non-toxic flavors. It truly is a guilt-free alternative to your bad habit. The look and feel of fume is awesome awesome and the design is super high quality. Fume continuously invests in third-party studies to ensure the safety

of their products and is backed by doctors in the US. Personally, my favorite flavor is the crisp mint. I love the taste and I'm truly a huge fan of Fume. So many listeners of Legal AF have told me they've quit their bad habits with Fume and I know it can do the same for you. Fume has served over 300,000 customers, and you can be the next success story. For a limited time, use my code LegalAF to get a free gift with your journey pack. Head to tryfume.com, that's T-R-Y-F-U-M, and use code LegalAF or scan the QR code on screen to get a free gift with your order today.

Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. I have to make a choice. I can either have a great night or a great next day. That is until I found Zbiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink. Zbiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink. Zbiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists

to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for your rough next day. Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for your rough next day. Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down.

Just remember to make Z-Biotics your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Now look, I won't lie. I was a bit on the fence about pre-alcohol initially, but then while hanging out with my fantasy football draft crew over at our favorite Jersey Shore Sports Bar, I gave it a shot.

And believe me, it's the real deal. I spent the entire next day doing all my favorite things with my family, including a long hike on our favorite trail. I kept hearing about pre-alcohol, and I wondered what it was actually like. But now that I've what it was actually like. But now that I've tried it, I believe the hype. And with their GMO technology, they will release different products that help address toxic byproducts of modern living in the

gut. Go to zbiotics.com slash LegalAF to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use Legal AF at checkout. ZBiotics is backed with 100% money-back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money. No questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash Legal AF and use the code LegalAF at checkout for 15% off. Welcome back to Legal AF. Popak, you got everybody waiting there. Use the code LegalAF at checkout for 15% off. Welcome back to LegalAF. Popak, you got everybody waiting there.

Quite the tease of where you were going with this. So I wanna remind everybody too to check out your LegalAF YouTube channel though. It is crushing it. It's LegalAF on YouTube. Popak runs it. It's a rocket ship. And on MidasPlus.com, I did a article

on how I met Michael Popak. So in case you were ever interested in how Michael Popak and I met, go to MidasPlus.com. Here's a hint, we met in 2015, and we were on opposite sides of the case, but I tell the rest of the story at MidasPlus.com. Popeye. And just to sell the story of MidasPlus.com,

I read the post out loud. I was at breakfast with my wife. We're on holiday right now. Some people that follow me on Instagram know. And I read it out loud to her, because she knew parts of it. But you know, I met my wife a few years after that. And she, I mean, she's a little emotional right now, but she was like in tears over it and about it. But you know, I met my wife a few years after that. And she, I mean, she's a little

emotional right now, but she was like in tears over it and about it. And I like made me a little emotional too. So I really appreciated you doing that. We don't often, you know, we're not in the same place all the time and can't give each other a hug. So we need it at this moment. Appreciate that. No, the point, the point I was going to make is this is why, um, and I want to give people some confidence here. The attorney generals who are going to make is this is why, and I want to give people some confidence here, the attorney generals who are going to lead the charge against Donald Trump following in the footsteps of people like Attorney General Letitia James in New York, who had Donald Trump in a deposition, who made him submit to her and obey her and answer her questions.

And other people like E. Jean Carroll's lawyer, Robbie Kaplan and that judgment that's still out there. You know, even though Donald Trump's having his, is having his people write letters telling Letitia James, she should withdraw or vacate her judgment for $450 million that she took off at Donald Trump for the people of the state of New York, for the good of the American people that George Washington's farewell address and Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation and a speech that JFK gave at

Harvard University compels her to get rid of the, don't make Donald Trump pay the $450 million for persistent fraud that his company's perpetrated for a dozen years in New York before he was president because he's president now. Give it up. But the blueprint for what the attorney generals, and there's about a dozen of them, led by the California attorney general and Letitia James in New York is how you deal with this kind of bully. Because once you put him in one-on-one, he will fold. And I'll just leave it on this. And just so we know that what you're saying is true, I assure you that the Putin's

and the North Korea chairperson, you know, chairman and the Chinese president are all sleeping better at night, not worse, after seeing the lineup of who Donald Trump wants to put into his cabinet. Every one of them in their own way, will make America less safe and secure, compromise our national national interests interests or our health or our economy because he's putting in losers who don't have the character or fitness to serve in the offices for which they've been appointed, nor the experience. We'll talk about whether it's the Navy secretary with no military experience, right, who never

ran something larger than a five person family office or Pete Hegseth, we're going to dive into deeply here, whose own mother thinks he's not fit for the job in her own way. And this has just made our adversaries, they are sleeping like babies after seeing this list. None of these people below Donald Trump, even Donald Trump,

are striking fear in the heart of our enemies. Look, you talk about the first trade war that Donald Trump tried to do with China. What did Trump have to do when China had retaliatory tariffs? The United States had to subsidize its farm industry where about 40 to 50% of all income that was being made by farmers was a handout from the federal government to the farmers. Right now that's decreased to about 25% and has been phased over time as some of the retaliatory tariffs and tariffs have lessened but that has been caused by Donald Trump you know so when you see Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy talking about,

oh, we're going to do doge and we're going to, you know, cut the fat and we're going to, in Joni Ernst words, we're going to make them squeal. Right. She is the Senator from Iowa who MAGA is trying to court now because they thought that she would be a critic of a lot of the cabinet picks by Donald Trump. So apparently all you have to do is give her a position. You just create fake roles for these people and you give them a few social media posts and they feel like good about themselves. It's like so that's how easy it is to like

bribe these people or buy them off or get them on your side. So yeah, because Joni Ernst seemed to be a critic of people like Pete Hegseth. But, you know, so now Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy give her a role at the Doge committee, which again is a fake government entity. I do find it ironic as well that Vivek Ramaswamy keeps posting things like,

government support for non-government organizations is an oxymoron. Dude, you're a non-government organization. You're an unelected fake bureaucrat now. You're not even an unelected bureaucrat. You're an unelected fake bureaucrat right now running a fake agency. But Joni Ernst goes, I'm partnering with Trump and Doge

to disrupt business as usual in Washington. My $2 trillion blueprint is an instruction manual to drain the swamp, eliminate waste, and get the federal government back on track. Hashtag, make them squeal. And language like that, make them squeal. Who are you going to make squeal? Recipients of Social Security? Who are you going to make squeal? People whoients of social security. Who are you gonna make squeal?

People who rely on Obamacare or the Affordable Care. Who are you gonna make them squeal? People whose prescription drug prices are less. Now, who are you gonna make squeal? Students who were promised debt relief, who are no longer going to get it. Who are you gonna make them squeal? Because maybe if you wanna make people squeal, you can go to some of the farms

in Iowa where you may hear the pigs squeal, oink, oink, oink, and they're getting a massive subsidy by the government. Now we can look at those subsidies as being a good thing or a bad thing, but we should acknowledge that quite literally billions and billions and more than that are going to prop up a farm industry that was wrecked because of Donald Trump's failed trade policies from Trump number one, or maybe you want to make them squeal. How about your buddies who got PPP loans, who were already pretty rich, that money didn't go to people in America who really needed it. Yeah, they got a check and Biden gave them a check when Biden came into office.

But we're talking about millions and tens of millions in PPP loans went to like rich people. Those loans were forgiven. We never hear about like people so enraged that rich people had and rage that rich people had their low, their PPP loans forgiven. But we attack who the, the, again, it's, it's cheap wins. Popak, they go for the vulnerable. They go to attack people because they're inherently weak, weak people, attacking people who they perceive as weak to punch down and to try to get, you know, these, these wins or whatever. So pivoting now to Pete Hegseth, because that part of, uh, courting Joni Ernst was because she seemed to be someone who would be opposed to Hegseth.

Someone who she would be opposed to, for example, this guy named John Felan or Fee-lon P H E L A N. I like to say felon. Well I'll pronounce it right, felon. Felan. Felan, the secretary of Davey. Just think about this, the guy now in felan, I have to combine this in the take with Hegseth,

because yes, Hegseth, the most high profile one, a guy who's been accused credibly of sexual assault. We read the police report. The Fox News Weekend host who's now being picked to become the Secretary of Defense, someone who's never commanded a company in the military to be now the leader of the Secretary of Defense. But you take a look at this hedge fund guy who donated almost two million dollars to Trump and now he's going to be the secretary of the Navy, a guy who's never been in the Navy, who doesn't know how the Navy works. I mean, what are we,

what are we even talking about here, Popeye? I mean, this is why any conversation you have with a MAGA person, it's just constant gaslighting you back. For you to just, for them to say, Oh, well that's a DEI hire. Who? Who? Lloyd Austin you think is a DEI hire? You mean, cause he's black? Is that what you're just trying to say?

Someone who's quite literally a four star retired general who like ran the most complex military operations. You call that a DEI, but then when you speak about a Fox weekend host who never led a company in the military before leading the Defense Department and then some guy who donated money to lead the Navy you can't have you there's no honest conversation that you could even have in a debate with these magas over stuff like that Pope Popeye, tell us about the letter from Hegsit's mom and tie this all together.

I'm going to tie it all together. Um, you know, things are for sale in the Trump administration. Um, the, you know, like if you ever go to a charity event where I've been, there's like a silent auction, you can get like dinner for four, this, this, whatever it's all goes for charity, you know, whatever the, apparently there was a silent auction and you could buy the secretary of the Navy for $1.5 million,

because that's how much this guy donated, this guy that we've been talking about who's now the secretary of the Navy, this just shows you the punking and middle finger that Donald Trump is putting up to the American people, including those that voted for him, entrusting him with our national security. When I heard that Hegseth was picked,

first of all, I was like, the guy with the ball drop on New Year's Eve that's next to Anderson Cooper for Fox, that guy, the guy that can't even make the starting lineup for Fox weekday, Fox and Friends, he's gonna be Secretary of the Defense Pentagon. It's so outrageous that I was when doing some research for another hot take on Rudy Giuliani, I had to watch some of his America's Mayor podcast and I was

probably the only person watching it and he's got a producer that's up there with him and I was watching something not related to Hegseth when Hegseth was nominated and they broke in on Rudy, and Rudy's just, you know, hanging over his microphone. And the guy said, Hegseth just got nominated. He goes, oh yeah, he'd be good. Communications director, right? He'd be good for communications.

And there was like this long pause and a gulp. And the producer went, no, for Department of Defense Secretary. And he goes, whoa, rip, not communications? Department of Defense? Right, because the guy's not qualified. And even Rudy Giuliani knows it. So you've got that I thought, well, maybe at the secretary of each military branch level, Donald Trump will bring in somebody and

that will ameliorate the issue of this guy being in hair and makeup for 14 years and having no experience, other than being a major in the National Guard a million years ago. It was probably a compromised national security risk because Hegseth wasn't even allowed to be in the Biden inauguration security detail because they were afraid he was a right-wing Christian nationalist. Now he's gonna be the head of the Pentagon. So I thought well maybe the Secretary of the Navy the Army will be retired generals or admirals or somebody that has service relationship. And then I hear about the guy for the Secretary of the Navy, who's an art collector, whose entire experience is running the family

office for Michael Dell, who's the Dell computers guy and his personal investments. So he ran a four person operation. He is now, if he gets through this, and he's one of the rare nominees that doesn't have either defense contractor experience or actual direct military experience for that branch, if he somehow gets by it, I'm not sure he does. I don't think he does. Maybe with Joni Ernst now being co-opted, Lieutenant Colonel Joni Ernst now being co-opted and brought inside the tent by Donald Trump, maybe. Although I think it's gonna be hard getting past Tammy Duckworth. You know, she's the lieutenant colonel who lost both legs and part of an arm in a helicopter crash. I'd say the

Hegsat's got a big problem named Senator Tammy, Lieutenant Colonel Tammy Duckworth as well. So this guy runs a four or five person family office. He's making investments from his sitting on family office. He's making investments from his sitting on his brains. It's all he does. The title, the the statute that defines the qualifications to be the Secretary of the Navy says that by past background and management experience the person has to demonstrate that they are qualified to lead the organization. Okay, the organization, the Navy organization, right, is 400 billion dollars and 1.5 million sailors and Marines and people

around it. Okay, what in his background qualifies him for that other than being a major donor to Donald Trump and being an art collector? Zero. But this, I want people that voted for Donald Trump, and I know you're on this network because I get comments and notes from people. I know you're here. To punish Donald Trump for taking advantage of you and putting unqualified people in these positions

making us unsafe. Let me transition to Hegseth. Hegseth from day one, this network, Legal AF, we were all over Hegseth. I was being unfit and unqualified. Then a week later, right around the time of the Gates debacle that lasted eight days, the problem is all the air and oxygen was being sucked out of the room by Gates and people were, almost like Hegseth was getting like a free ride for a minute but now with Gates out of the way we can focus all of our attention on Hegseth. Here's all the things that happened in the 2017-2019 time period-ish. He gets accused of raping a woman in

2017. That's not it. That's not he's not in a relationship with it's so bad if you if it's to be believed that Hague sets signs a non-disclosure agreement with her as her side one and pays her okay that's 2017. Out or around that same time he has an affair outside of his marriage with a Fox producer that produces a child so he has an out of wedlock child in 2018, 2017 as well, 2017 the rape allegation. And now, besides the fact that he leaves wife two to go with like wife three and cheats on it

and the rape allegation, now you have only Oedipus would appreciate this story. Now you have his mom, Penelope Hexeth, I think we have a photo of her, writing to a friend, but this email gets out, and I'll tell you for good reason why the press is doing their job here, and she writes that you, here we go, that you are, my son, you are an abuser of women. That you are not, you don't have character, that you abuse them. And that was the nicest thing she said about them. That was the, let me read to you from the actual, because I did a hot take on this

one recently. Let me read to you from the actual comments. Here's what she said. You are an abuser of women. That is the ugly truth. I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man and have been for years, Penelope Hegseth continued. And as your mother,

it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth. Get some help and take a honest look at yourself. This is the out of wedlock child era, whether she knew about the rape allegation, it's all that same mix. And now the New York Times gets it. And here's one of my, just to show you how insulting and patronizing the Trump world is to the American voter and their intelligence. Stephen Chung, who's the new communications director incoming, this is what he says. They decried the use by the New York Times of a snippet of an email that was taken out of context. Right now in our chat,

tell me what context could salvage that and make Hegseth and Trump look better than what his mother wrote. What was there like a line of Thanksgiving, you know, recipes and then this was in the middle of it and then she went off on something else? Now the reason the New York Times had to publish this is because Donald Trump refuses and will refuse all the way till he gets in to have to sign the agreements that are required for transition To allow the FBI to do appropriate background checks background checks to find out Who's financially compromised?

Who's ethically compromised or challenged? What are the ethical issues some of which we laid out on the show today between the business? with which we laid out on the show today between the business dealings of these people with the government or with the organizations they're going to lead that they have business in front of. What are those? What are the criminal background checks? What are the sexual harassment, discrimination, predatory-like behavior?

Donald Trump says, we got this, we're doing it ourselves. You're doing it yourself, well, you're not doing a great job because Gates and all of that tanked that one. And now you've got all of this on HexF. So the New York Times and the press and we are just doing the job that we need to do to surface for the American people information that go to the character and fitness of the person that's been nominated for these jobs. I'm going to talk at length about Suzy Wiles, ethical conflicts, Howard Lutnick's ethical conflicts until there are there before somebody to be confirmed because we don't have the reports. I mean, I did

a hot take recently about maybe Joe Biden should order that the FBI conduct background checks or the Menard. We're in the lame duck. We still control the Senate. Let the Senate run around and get white papers prepared, dossiers prepared on these people and advance them to the American people. Because without it, you know, well we spent a lot of time on this email. Without it, we don't know who is being confirmed. Now he's got a lawyer, Hex Seth, we all know him from Legal AF and Midas Touch, Tim Barlettore, he's back in Magoworld, he represented Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago until Boris Epstein, just to make the whole thing

connected here today, Boris Epstein got in his way, wouldn't let him properly produce the documents that should have been produced in Mar-a-Lago, and he noisily fired Donald Trump and left the Mar-a-Lago case before, I think it was before the raid, before the search warrant was executed. But he's representing Hexa, and now he's doing right out of the playbook at Donald Trump, attack the victims. He's threatened the rape victim who's alleged to be raped, threatened her that if she goes to the Senate to testify under oath about what she claims happened to her,

they're gonna, I love this, they're gonna sue her in court for violating the non-disclosure agreement. Okay, nothing says I'm not guilty of a sex crime like suing the person for disclosing something under a non-disclosure agreement. But this is the hardball, like you said, make them squeal about the pork barrel that who? The pork barrel that Congress is responsible for? Things end up in bills that get signed because congressmen stick them in there and they've been in control, MAG has been

in control of Congress, not the Democrats, stick them in there to build roads and bridges that aren't needed or fix this building or invest in this industry that gave them a lot of money. That's the pork barrel. That comes from the Senate and the Congress, right? And the president used to have a line-eyed of veto, but he doesn't any longer, although Donald Trump claims that he's going to use the power of impoundment, which is not a thing, to when Congress funds something to strike off or, as Elon Musk puts it, delete money that was funded for something, setting up a major constitutional separation of powers crisis in the first year of him

being in the presidency that you and I are gonna have a lot of fun following. But here's my wrap-up on Hegseth. I think he's gonna have a hard time getting nominated. I really do. When these things are presented and the minority senators, the senators in the minority for the Democrats in the in the Senate, you know, whether you call it Cory Booker or Tammy Duckworth or Dick Durbin or Chuck Schumer, whoever's going to be leading the charge in the Senate, these are going to be very, very hard questions, especially from people who served in the military about it.

Now, whether they got Joni Ernst over to their side based on what you just posted. It looks like they got the Ernst because she helped kill Gates and the Gates, she met with him, it was like, it's not gonna happen, the sex thing. But with, I'm shocked, she got passed over for Department of Defense, she knows in her heart of hearts to the American people, this guy's not qualified. And the fact that they gave her this

kids table caucus for Doge thing so she can post stupid shit like this, that's gonna that satisfied her enough to sacrifice our national security and make Pete Hegseth supported by the art collector in the Navy. I mean, I'm sorry, I want to sleep well at night about how the Pentagon has run, about how our national, we haven't even done national intelligence. That's for another show. How are we, I want to leave it on this. People had this thing in their heads as they always do. Are you better off now than you were four years ago

from an economy standpoint? And because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris collectively didn't do a great job in selling their success and their accomplishments, the answer to that obviously was a resounding no. Are you more, do you feel more secure now seeing Donald Trump's picks for domestic health issues and science

like RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz and other people and on the security side and defense side like these people than you did yesterday? Can you honestly answer that question and say that you feel safer? That's, that's, that's my rant. It's a great rant and it's rooted in truth, but here's the thing with all of the accomplishments that Biden produced, you didn't really hear Democrats taking credit for these things.

Not even Biden. You didn't really hear a lot of people spiking the football and bragging and self-promoting and doing all the things that Republicans do all the time when they've actually achieved absolutely nothing. Take, for example, the first segment of today's show. Donald Trump posts a tweet. It's about blanket tariffs. He has a phone call with Scheinbaum.

Literally nothing changes. Donald Trump declares victory. All of MAGA and right-wing media say, look at the big win. Look what Trump did. Hip, hip hooray. We're so great. We're getting things done and nothing happened. And no one's even really calling him out for that other than independent media

like us and a handful of others. Um, quite similarly, in addition to, to Biden and Democrats, I think not taking the credit for things that they should actually take credit for, they're also not really all that good at pointing the blame on the people who caused the things credit and blame. It's kind of two sides of the same thing that they really didn't for any of the four years go out there and really prosecute the case. Hey, you know, the things that we're saying here, you know, that trade deal was

Trump's trade deal. You know, the reason for inflation, eight trillion dollars in debt that Donald Trump accrued kind of the most in American history. I thought you're supposed to be fiscally responsible. Going out and being united and calling out the Hegsitz and the Navy guy and all of these things, you just, you don't see a powerful microphone of people who are out there just fearlessly saying the truth. You know, and that for me is the kind of reason for being of this network, but also I want to see others go out there and do it. I want to see political leaders speak the truth very powerfully about the

situation and not complicated terms. This is pretty easy stuff right here that we're, that we're calling out. And I just think that I, at least I hope this could also just be used as a template for people to watch. And on that one point, I'll say this too, Popeye, I'm not sure if you saw this news, you know, Adweek published a story and they were saying Joe Rogan's got the greatest ratings and then they show a chart and number one was Disney tied with Midas Touch for number one.

And Rogan was number two. They spent the whole article talking about Rogan, Rogan for number one and Rogan was number two they spent the whole article talking about Rogan Rogan Rogan Rogan Rogan this we're not even really referenced other than in the chart as though we're some like behemoth corporate media and he's some like you know some some whatever independent you know I took issue with something else I won't name it by all name anything by name, but I got really fired up while I was on holiday preparing for the different shows and saw

a massive national newspaper run an article about a progressive podcasting network and in pages of allegedly fair-minded reporting did not mention any of the contributors and or the Midas Touch Network and I'm like are you effing kidding me? It just shows you but you know it doesn't matter we've now seeped into the water supply. People know who we are. And here's the thing too though, because I think it was important here for this network to, they want to throw you in a box, you know, so it's like you're right wing, you're left wing, and I think one of the struggles, if I'm charitably trying to understand sometimes why that occurs, is that really what this whole network is about, like our legal analysis, everything you've heard today, I'm not trying to be partisan. Like I'm not cheerleading a

democratic position. We're just literally talking about the facts of here's what the trade deal was. Here's what the farm subsidies were. Here's what the guy's mommy said about him in a letter in 2018. Here's the experience and lack thereof of the new Navy secretary. That's not partisan. And I think a lot of the stuff that we say here to me, I'm approaching it not as like, I hope this is a win for the Dems.

Or I just literally approach it like, what the hell is going on America? And what the hell is going on world? And to that end, make sure you all subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel, hosted by Michael Popok, Legal AF on YouTube. And also if you want to learn the origin story about how I met Michael Popok back in 2015, that's on MidasPlus.com.

Just remember to spell it correctly. M-E-I-D-A-S-P-L-U-S dot com. Let's take our last quick break of the show. Today's episode is brought to you by Ollie. And I'm not the only one excited about this new sponsor. My furry part of the family, our Lab Border Collie Mixed Lily is too. Clean, fresh nutrition your dog needs and five flavors,

they'll absolutely flip over. You don't have to be a veterinary nutritionist to know that feeding your dog real whole foods with minimal processing is one of the best choices you could make for their health. A perfectly portioned whole fresh food diet has been proven to extend your pup's life by two and a half years. With absolutely no harmful fillers, no preservatives, Ollie is made in U.S. kitchens with ingredients carefully sourced from trusted growers and producers around the world. Because the time between Ollie's gentle cooking and your dog chowing down is minimal,

they don't need preservatives to extend shelf life. With five protein-first recipes like fresh beef with sweet potatoes, fresh turkey with blueberries, or fresh lamb with cranberries, you might start thinking, dang, my dog eats better than I do. And that's probably true when it comes to Ollie. Here's how it works.

Fill out Ollie's 30-second quiz and they'll create a customized meal plan based on your pup's weight, activity level, and other health info. Ollie crunches the numbers and recommends the right recipes and daily portions for your precious pup based on hundreds of thousands of real dog results. And for any first timers, Ollie will send out your pup's first box with two weeks worth of meals and a guide of how to gradually switch them over to their new diet. Ollie offers three meal plans to choose from.

So you can choose between a full fresh plan, fresh topper plan, or a mixed plan with their freshly baked recipes for your special fur baby. They also have treats and supplements. Who doesn't want more time with their best friend? My wife and I rescued Lily, a muddy paws puppy, saved from the floods in Tennessee almost three years ago.

And we have made it our mission to give her an amazing and healthy life in her forever home. And she really thrives on fresh ingredients, veggies, and proteins. Instead of that, well, let's admit it, sad kibble we used for years. We always had trouble with weight management and lost a prior dog who suffered

from chronic health conditions her whole life. That's where Ollie comes in. Right now, Ollie is offering a fantastic deal to let your pup taste test a personalized meal plan. So head to ollie.com, tell them all about your dog and use Legal AF and you'll get 60% off your first box of meals when you subscribe today. Head to ollie.com and enter code Legal AF

to get 60% off your first box. They offer a clean bowl guarantee on their first box, so if you're not completely satisfied, you can get your money back. That's ollie.com at enter code LEGALAF to get 60% off your first box. Traditional bedsheets, they can harbor more bacteria than a toilet seat.

It can lead to acne, allergies, and stuffy noses, and it's just gross. Miracle Maid offers a whole line of self-cleaning, antibacterial bedding, such as sheets, pillowcases, and comforters that prevent up to 99.7% of bacteria growth and require up to three times less laundry. Using silver infused fabrics inspired by NASA, Miracle-Made Sheets are thermo-regulating

and designed to keep you at the perfect temperature all night long, no matter the weather. So you get better sleep every night. Miracle Sheets are luxuriously comfortable without the high price tag of other luxury brands and feel as nice if not nicer than sheets used by some five-star hotels. Stop sleeping on bacteria.

Bacteria can clog your pores causing breakouts and acne. Sleep clean with Miracle. These sheets are infused with silver that prevent up to 99.7% of bacterial growth, leaving them to stay cleaner and fresh three times longer than other sheets. No more gross odors. Go to trymiracle.com legalaf to try Miracle-Made Sheets today. And whether you're buying them for yourself or as a gift for a loved one, if you order today,

you can save over 40%. And if you use our promo, Legal AF at checkout, you'll get three free towels and save an extra 20%. Miracle is so confident in their product, it's back with a 30 day money back guarantee. So if you aren't 100% satisfied, you'll get a full refund. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made. Go to trymiracle.com slash LegalAF

and use the code LegalAF to claim your free three-piece towel set and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash LegalAF to treat yourself. Thank you, Miracle Made, for sponsoring this episode. Welcome back to LegalAF, a spirited show. Indeed, we could be talking about a lot of stuff right here. Mentioned, Michael Popock, your new YouTube channel. Shout out to all of those pro-democracy sponsors.

And we've been going through the framework that we talked about at the outset of this show. And now we get to the Trump grift aspect of it. We reported last week about Trump selling Trump guitars. We talked about the frequently asked question section of the Trump guitar website, where it talks about how the guitar itself has not even been manufactured yet.

That's kind of consistent with all the Trump products. They're like AI images. You then pay the thousands of dollars, or in the case of the Trump watches, $100,000, which we said makes it very susceptible, let's say, to money laundering. We're also seeing a lot of people trying to buy influence with Trump crypto.

Wall Street Journal wrote about that over the weekend. And so the reason, though though that the grift, other than just being, I think, embarrassing, that he's selling like bootleg Gibson guitars that he doesn't even have the IP for and like how unbecoming of United States president though, is it allows for influence in ways that may not seem obvious. If someone buys all of the guitars for millions of dollars, that

person could be buying access. If you buy all the NFTs, you could be buying access. If you buy the crypto, you're buying access. And traditional quid pro quos that are assessed through normal lenses are not necessarily kind of captured through this. The same way when Trump was in office in Trump Term 1, it was a more conventional one that you can see easier, the Trump Hotel, because you could literally monitor it. Okay. Who's in the lobby?

Who's renting out the rooms? And you would say, oh, the Saudi leader is renting out the room. you would say oh the Saudi leaders renting out the room you could see them there the Qataris are there you see him there this group's there you see him there oh you know here comes another ambassador from this country they're all staying there oh look you can go and Google online their rates are higher so you can see it so now version 2 has a more pernicious subtler version of it. And that's why it's important to call it out. And it looks clownish.

I mean, like we have the video of Cheryl Hines, who is, um, RFK junior's wife and the, the wife of Larry David's, you know, just selling stuff. I'm going to play the video because it's a ridiculous 60% off make America healthy again, products you want shampoo, you want this, I'm selling. But, but, but Pope Pak, all of this grift, we could talk about how embarrassing it's short, but it speaks to this broader issue of influence peddling and how these are all these entry points,

not just buying access through Mar-a-Lago, but through all of these avenues right now that are not easily viewed. And then you'd also tie in what we said earlier. If you start getting rid of agencies like consumer protection, financial bureaus, if you neuter the SEC, which the right wing Supreme Court's done. If you take away all the powers of the National Labor Relations Board, this then festers unfettered until boom, it breaks and the system breaks. Then Democrats take over

and then they're blamed for fixing the system that Republicans tore to the ground. Yeah, I, on the crypto, let me start with the crypto and I'll come to the regulation part of it because there is a case coming up on Monday at the United States Supreme Court that I think I can use as an example of what you're talking about. And we'll cover it on on legal AF on the unprecedented show I do with Dean et al. The crypto is a scary world because the average person, even the most people, the majority of people don't understand it. They don't understand cryptocurrency

or stable coin or Bitcoin. They've heard the word, the phrases, they don't understand the blockchain. That's okay. I'm not blaming people. I'm just saying it is this underworld, this nefarious underworld that had been tried to be regulated by Joe Biden through the Securities and Exchange Commission. And everybody, everybody that is in Donald Trump's inner circle and now in cabinet positions or cabinet level positions have a tremendous personal stake in cryptocurrency, including Donald Trump. Not only does Donald Trump have a cryptocurrency company, which he's going to be marketing through people that he's now appointed to be the Middle East envoy, if you can believe it.

And a guy who's a small time real estate developer in Florida that testified for Donald Trump at the Attorney General case and has now been rewarded with both being in business with Donald Trump and cryptocurrency personally with the family and by being made the envoy to the Middle East. Leave that low for a minute. Howard Lutnick is tremendously invested in something called Tether,

which there's been speculation about whether there really is any money or whether it's an FTX all over again. There's no money behind the Tether. It's a stable coin platform that his company is making a lot of money off of at his existing Wall Street firm and he's heavily invested in the success of cryptocurrency. Elon Musk personally owns

billions of dollars in cryptocurrency and so he wants, I mean Doge is named after a meme cryptocurrency that Musk likes to manipulate by making social media posts that make the price of it go up and down. And so all these people, and they're pushing Donald Trump, and he will do it. I say push, push sounds like there'll be resistance, no resistance. Donald Trump will establish with our hard paying taxpayer dollars, with a deficit that's increasing because the taxes for the most wealthy in our society will be cut again, increasing the deficits, so it's gonna come after new money

that you and I are paying on taxes to create a cryptocurrency strategic reserve like oil and petroleum. So we have enough of it, meaning you're buying it up so the market goes up. You think $100,000 for Bitcoin is a lot? It's gonna go to three times that if the US government gets into buying it

the way they own treasuries. And as soon as Donald Trump gets complete control of our economy through the Federal Reserve Chairman, when he finally gets around to getting that picked and he gets the SEC out of cryptocurrency, now there's an announcement that they're having a cryptocurrency platform attached to Truth Social. So you see how all of these things,

this dark money just got a lot darker and it's all trailing into the Trump presidency. This is, and I'm just, this is not only my words, this is the words of any fair-minded people looking at the issue. This is already the most corrupt president-elect transition that we've ever seen. He had an obligation to tell the American people in a formal document what are his ethical,

to identify the ethical and financial conflicts among his cabinet and himself with things that have business before the government, or these people are going to be handling or regulating, and give a plan for how to solve them. There's no plan. There won't be a plan. He's not going to do that. And he's going to make us and public interest groups and public interest groups supported by us go after him and catch him if we can in court filings.

There's going to be huge litigation over the Department of Government Efficiency and if it was a proper delegation or where do they get their authority from and if it's an advisory committee, you know, there's going to be a whole series of law about that and then it does, as you said, the system breaks. We're gonna watch it right now in a little follow-up case but I just did a hot take on it and we will follow it off a Monday and oral argument. There's a case called Triton, T-R-I-T-O-N, which has to do with vaping, nicotine based vaping,

which the vape industry put a lot of money into Donald Trump and to buy that presidency among a number of industries, including cryptocurrency. And they want a return on their investment. And Donald Trump said out loud many things, but one of them he said was he was going gonna be the savior of the vaping industry. And I don't mean the flavored air one with no nicotine. I mean the nicotine one, the one where every vape over the last generation of vapes has gotten more nicotine and more addictive, not less. That's science, okay? That's not, as you

said, that's not politics. That's science. And the Food and Drug Administration, run by Joe Biden's people, took on the vape industry when they got to the point of wanting to market to children and teenagers with vape flavored, with candy flavored vape, with names like peachy strawberry and cookies and cream. I'm like, who is this for? A 58 year old guy trying to kick the habit? Or is this for a 12 year old? And the FDA, which took off the market years ago, things like flavored

cigarettes was like, no, you're not going to market to children with flavored vape like that. And the vape industry was like, well, it's not a gateway drug and there's no connection. And it's just, you know, people like those flavors. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, people like those flavors. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Fruity pebbles vaping with nicotine in it. So the FDA rejected it. Now where did it go?

Where it always goes in MAGA world, it went to Texas. And they got a judge in Texas. And then the Fifth Circuit, on bank, all the Fifth Circuit, in a 10 to six decision, ruled the FDA's regulations to stop the marketing to children were improper and struck down the regulation and the and the MAGA

judges were all many of them trying out for the Supreme Court. Judge Ho, Judge Oldham who were usually write these decisions they're trying out pick me pick me pick me for the Supreme Court big time from the fifth and they wrote in their decision it is like Kafka to deal with the FDA and it is the old switcheroo and how is these vaping companies ever to know what they can and can't do and struck it down great and hit a shoot an injunction the Supreme Court Magus Supreme Court took it up on appeal like a month ago and And I was like, that's interesting. What's really interesting is it's right after, right after, not before,

they struck down the Chevron doctrine, which is the one you and I talked about since we all left law school, which was reasonable interpretations of confusing regulations are, you give a deference, at least initial deference to the regulator, the ones that are in the business of nuclear power regulation, water and environment regulation and workplace regulation and in here, FDA, Food and Drug Administration regulation. If they have a reasonable interpretation, you kind of go with it. And they hated that in MAGA world, in Federalist Society world, because they want all the power to reside in the presidency. Even though these are administrative agencies, they hate administrative agencies.

They hate regulation and regulators. They want to make all the industry regulate themselves, which means no regulation at all, and the like. And so we had the case that overturned the Chevron doctrine with Chief Justice Roberts writing, it's for federal judges to interpret the law. It always has been. It's not for us. We don't defer to anyone. So they ripped off a 50-year precedent from the books, right? And they replaced it with a case we now call Loper-Brite, which is named after that case. So Loper-Brite comes out destroying administrative integrity and power. And then they take the decision of the FDA to come up on an oral argument,

which is going to be on Monday. So it's a weird world we're in right now, because the Solicitor General's office is Biden's Solicitor General, not the incoming Solicitor General, that's Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyer, John Sauer. So it's the old Solicitor General and the old FDA defending the policy against a law firm in Washington that represents tobacco and vaping 24-7, with a panel, you know, the Supreme Court that knows Trump's coming in with RFK Jr., who is ultimately the head of the FDA because the FDA reports the Health and Human Services. He's an anti-science denier, an anti-vax denier.

The new head of the FDA under Donald Trump, a British guy from Johns Hopkins who's a pancreatic surgeon, he's an anti-vaxxer and an anti-science guy, if you can believe it, who's friends with RFK Jr. So these two are gonna be regulating Vaping World with Donald Trump standing behind them saying, I'm supporting Vaping World. And you know Thomas and Alito and Gorsuch got the memo.

And so we're gonna see a weird thing where the old team is arguing and the Supreme Court sitting there going, knowing that Donald Trump is coming in. This is what happens when you hollow out regulators, when you don't care about the American people, their children's health, or teenagers health, you only care about autocrats, and oligarchs, and rich people. And as you said, who suffers the weakest in our society, the punching down continues. And, and we're here

to call it out. And so the last point on this case that we'll call Triton is that the advocate has to aim for Amy Coney Barrett. Even though, listen, I don't like most of her decisions, but on occasion she's been the center. And if we can get Amy Coney Barrett and the others and maybe Roberts to come over there to say, hey, maybe marketing to children and teenagers with candy colored things and vape with nicotine isn't a good idea, then we have a chance of winning. But it's going to be a struggle and we're going to know right away during that hot bench on Monday about it. And we'll come back here and report on Legal AF. No, I don't know if it's the social media culture, if it is kind of a detachment from self, but when you talk about the people who Trump and these MAGAs are punching down to

and mocking, it's not just some of the obvious groups like migrants and trans people. some of the obvious groups like migrants and trans people. You know, it's, it's pretty much 99% of the population. It's most people who vote or who have voted for Trump are the people who they are laughing at and mocking at Morillago. You know, they've convinced the people who make $22 and 50 cents an hour that their real problem are the people who are making minimum wage and who are out in the fields, you know, working for less than them. When in fact, we should be finding a way to bring most people up.

I mean, you know, we could spend, there's so much corruption that we could talk about in the show. I mean, we didn't even touch upon the fact that Jared Kushner's dad, Charles Kushner, who pled guilty to engaging in multiple felony crimes, including witness tampering when Chris Christie was the United States attorney for New Jersey. I mean, he's now been appointed to become the ambassador to France. I mean, you know, this is a guy who set up his own brother-in-law with the

prostitute in order to go after his brother for cooperating in a federal elections campaign investigation into Charles back in the day, back in 2004, 2005, Donald Trump pardoned the guy, felon, and then made him into the ambassador to France. And like, if you're the guy who's working at the factory or working a job, you know, and struggling to pay the bills, I just want you to observe what Trump is doing. I want you to see this because ultimately all of this is to screw you over. It's ultimately to pick your pocket and then get you so enraged and not knowledgeable about where to vent your rage that they keep doing it over and over and over again,

and keep laughing at you from Mar-a-Lago. Like that's what they're literally doing. And so, look, I think it's our duty here on Legal AF to just fearlessly report on the news. We're not going anywhere. We're not kissing the ring. We're going to report on the facts, verifiable fact. And we're going to do this. We're going to do this every we're going to do this each and every day here. I say, can I say something for you? And if the equivalent of what we're watching with Facebook, and MSNBC, and the rest all rallying around Donald Trump and trying to change, you know,

trying to turn the page would be like if you showed up on to Midas Touch Network, legal AF, the day after the election. And we said something like, you know what, folks, we've been wrong all this time. We think it's time to join hands and give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt and support him. And then we'll see where his policies take it and hopefully it'll be good for America. But we're no longer going to be a critical eye on Donald Trump. We've been wrong all this time. People would be like, F'ing freaking out and unsubscribing. But the media gets away with it. I don't know why they get it. Why do they get away with it?

Because they control the literal food from which you watch. You turn the thing on and you see them. You go to your dentist or your doctor and you see the thing. You can't get rid of it. They control the pipes. That's why we beat them on digital because when you open it up to what the people actually want to consume, it's fact-based stuff, but they control cable. They control the networks. But let me leave you with this. I was thinking about this while you were saying this. You know how like in a club, there's like the VIP section of the club, right? That's Mar-a-Lago. That's where all of Trump's cronies are. And what they've managed to convince all of the people who are waiting on the line, who president Biden and the Biden administration and democratic policies are saying, hey, we should all just get in the club and enjoy ourselves together. And there shouldn't be this exclusive VIP set.

It could be a little bit, but let's all just enjoy the club. Donald Trump is telling the people on the lines, look, I got the secret. I got the secret. I'm gonna get you into the VIP, watch what we're gonna do. I'm gonna do this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. And so the people are there stranded, freezing outside,

thinking they're gonna get into the VIP section, but in reality, they are stranded outside in the freezing cold. And our Lord's idea of going to the VIP when they could literally get inside and just enjoy themselves and we could all just get along. I mean, that's what's going on right. And they're laughing in the VIP section about the people who are stuck in the freezing cold,

who are continuing to support, not just the structure, but to support, they're drinking free in the VIP because the people out there are on the line paying for them to even be in the VIP section. So anyway, maybe that analogy brings it home. Maybe it doesn't, but we'll keep doing our part here. Check out Michael Popok's YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel.

They're doing such good work there. And also mitusplus.com, M-E-I-D-A-S-P-L-U-S.com, mitusplus.com. I want you to go there because that's where I share the origin story of Michael Popok and myself, how we met. It was in a case where we were actually on opposite sides. It's a fun story.

Check it out. Thank you everybody for watching Legal AF. We'll see you next time. Shout out Legal AFers and shout out Midas Mighty. Busy days and long to-do lists? Don't forget about your eyes. Thank you. Pearl Vision Direct Bills, most insurances. Valid prescription required. Valid at participating locations. Restrictions applied. Taxes extra. See store for details. Ends December 31st, 24.

Exams available at the independent doctors of optometry at or next to Pearl Vision.