Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump ILLEGAL ACTS Resurface with NEW Revelations

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo host the midweek edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On tap? 1. The extent of Putin and Trump’s bro-mance and Trump violating yet another federal criminal law in conducting illegal foreign policy with our enemies; 2. New revelations that render Justice Brett Kavanaugh unfit to continue to serve on the Supreme Court; 3. Another round of women reproductive rights setbacks put a woman’s right to choose squarely on the ballot; 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: Lume: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Lume deodorant and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code legalaf at https://LumeDeodorant.com! #lumepod One Skin: Get started today at https://OneSkin.co and receive 15% Off using code: LEGALAF Armra: Head to https://tryarmra.com/legalaf or enter promo code: LEGALAF to receive 15% off your first order! Bookshop.org: Use code LEGALAF to get 10 percent off your next order at https://bookshop.org/?utm_source=meidas-touch&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=meidas-touch-legalaf&utm_content=brand 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. Green Chef: Go to greenchef.com/legalafclass for 50% off your first box + 50 FREE Credits with ClassPass with code legalafclass. 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

It's the midweek edition of Legal AF, the podcast, Karen Friedman, Nick Niflo and Michael Popock. Let me give you a quick rundown because we're going to dive right in so we can get to the meat and the heart of the order. First, we got to talk about the new bombshell book by who else? Bob Woodward of Watergate fame. No investigative reporter better than Bob Woodward. He's on his fifth or sixth book about the Trump administration, this one called The

War. And we learned more about the bromance between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump than I ever cared to know about, including secret phone calls as recently as this past year. And Donald Trump giving his his buddy critical COVID assets at a time when they were scarce in America, to make sure that he and his buddy didn't catch COVID. It was so bad that Putin served as Donald Trump's campaign manager and said, don't tell the American public about you giving me the

COVID tests, because they won't like it. We're going to talk about it here on Legal AF. There's another new bombshell out there after seven years or so of investigation. The Senate Judiciary Committee has finally gotten to the bottom of what we always suspected. Brett Kavanaugh was not properly vetted and nor were the 4,500 tips to the FBI hotline of people claiming that they either, they knew something about or had been victims of sexual assault or abuse by Kavanaugh in high school, college, or law school.

We knew at the time that only one person testified that the FBI never got around to investigating because they weren't given the time by Mitch McConnell, who shut the whole thing down after 72 hours and gave the senators an hour to vote on up or down on Kavanaugh. But now we know what happened behind the scenes with the Trump administration putting the kibosh on any investigation related to Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh, the darling of the gun lobby, of course, is sitting in judgment of us all on the United States Supreme Court. Speaking of the United States Supreme Court, they're open for business again. Oh god, it's the first Monday in October, it's already passed, and we've already got a new

oral argument. There's about nine that are scheduled for the next month. This one about ghost guns and whether the ghost guns should be allowed to be unregistered and people owning them and firing them and using them without background checks. Sounds like that's a bad thing but we'll find out what the United States Supreme Court has to say. Within the United States Supreme Court, first day on the job, decided to do what else? Go after a woman's right to choose and make her a second class citizen with yet another new ruling against women and in favor of abortion restrictions in the state of Texas. What is it with this United States Supreme Court and women's

bodies? They just can't stop making rulings about it and they they were so so chomping at the bit to do something. As soon as the doors open on the first day of October they issued a new order and at the bit to do something. As soon as the doors open on the first day of October, they issued a new order and we'll talk about it here with my illustrious partner, former top prosecutor, current legal advisor for law and order, a high stakes litigator in this corner, Karen Friedman Agnifilo.

Hello, Popeye, how are you today? I'm in high spirits. I see that. How are all your friends down in Florida? You used to live there. Yeah, I wasn't on the West Coast, but I feel for the people in Tampa, it looks like it's gonna take away 95% of the beaches

that we used to love on the west coast of Florida. Everybody I'm sure has seen what's now gone viral, which is a long time weatherman, meteorologist out of Miami who burst into tears on the air because of how devastating this Hurricane Milton appears to be as it has already started to hit down there. So appears to be as it has already started to hit down there. So our heart and our prayers go out to the legal IAF, or the Midas, Midian, or I don't really care what your political stripe is. Nobody should have to die as a result of global warming

and a weather event that's so out of control that it's gonna put tremendous lives in jeopardy. So thanks for bringing that up. Could have easily been Miami, but it's not, or any place else. And shout out, of course, in love and prayers to our listeners and followers in North Carolina and Georgia and other places with Hurricane Helene.

They're just recovering from that, right Karen? I can't help but think about people who are home right now listening to Legal AF who either are just reeling from Helene, as you said, or terrified about what's happening as we speak with Milton and just everybody is thinking about you and praying for you. And we certainly are I'm glued to the TV, I can't stop watching it and really hoping that everyone's going to be okay. I always worry about things like not just the people, but people who have horses and chickens, you know, animals and all of that kind of stuff. It's just so much, and not just

lives, but stuff and things and people who can't travel because either they are nine months pregnant or disabled or just had surgery or whatever it is, whatever the particular circumstances elderly. I mean, there's just so many normal people who are experiencing normal lives. And as you said, global warming is creating and climate change is creating these these never seen before weather events that are that are affecting people's lives and affecting people's livelihoods and everything in between I just I can't think of anything else but that during this time and so that's you

know truly our thoughts and prayers and help and anything we could do, you know, it's certainly anything I could do. I would love to help because I just, I really want to, I want to just send my regards to everybody. While one of the parties decides to undermine one of the supporting pillars of our National Crisis Response Team in FEMA, rather than help people, of our national crisis response team in FEMA, rather than help people, rather than make sure that they're doing everything, that they can support the recovery efforts,

all the Trump administration, sorry, the Trump, sorry, Donald Trump and his campaign, and JD Vance wanna do, is make people fearful of FEMA and spread lies and misinformation, making it even harder to help people in need. I mean, does it- That's such a good point, Popak. I was actually thinking of some of the words,

if they are not careful and people die because of things that they said, there are statutes like reckless endangerment, et cetera. They better be careful because it's the lies that they're spreading are terrifying. I agree with you. Yeah, and then that's where the intersection of law and politics comes into play.

And the last time we had a national crisis of this dimension, of course, was COVID, hitting this many people. And now we have new reporting, switching gears to the Bob Woodward book called War. And there's a lot out there in that book. There's some digs at the Biden administration. There's some digs about foreign policy.

There's some digs about, but mainly, There's some digs about foreign policy. There's some digs about, you know, but mainly about Donald Trump and some things that they've gotten. And the parts of the book that I've read, the excerpts of that are publicly available that were the most troubling is how Donald Trump continues to undermine our national security and collude with the Russians

in order both to end to get elected. A, a, an aid, the most jaw dropping for me was not, yeah, the, the, hey Vlad, I'll send you some COVID tests that are, you know, scarce in America and are, I'm not supposed to send them to you, but I'll get them to you. Lord knows how he got them over to Russia. That one I was like, are you are you f-ing kidding me? We know you're both germaphobes, but I don't think helping that we, you know, you should want the guy to die by COVID. Sorry, not that he survived because of your testing. But the other one that was like his continued phone calls, the revelation of continued phone calls between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, including, according to one of the aides that was interviewed by Bob Woodward, the aide was thrown out of

Mar-a-Lago, a room in Mar-a-Lago in 2023, so that Donald Trump could have a private phone call with Vladimir Putin. And there's been at least, according to that aide, seven other phone calls like that. What is he talking about? I'll answer the question. Well, we can leave it in the chat too. What do you think they were talking about? Okay, Donald Trump doesn't want the American people

to understand what the Russia collusion investigation was all about. It was about Russia trying to help get Donald Trump elected by undermining democracy and the Clinton campaign and helping bolster Donald Trump by having misinformation and disinformation that was favorable to Donald Trump wend its way through social media. And now you've got direct coordination. I'll tell you what, speaking of laws that he may be breaking, Karen, you brought up, I'll tell you what you're also not allowed to do. You're not allowed to conduct shadow foreign policy. We have one president at a time. They alone,

under their under core constitutional rights and duties are the ones that conduct foreign policy. And you're not supposed to be having side phone calls between a former president and Putin for Lord knows what promises were made exactly, Putin, for Lord knows what, what promises were made exactly, Donald? What promises were made by Putin to help you? What promises were made by you if you get back into office as to how you're going to treat Russia? And it's all against the national interest because Donald Trump's stated position about Ukraine is against national, our US foreign policy and our official position in that of NATO and of

sovereignty of Ukraine and all Donald Trump has to say for himself at a debate or otherwise is I got a solution I could solve it in a day yeah your your solution is that Zelensky and the Ukrainian people bend over grab their ankles and give up 40% of their country to to Putin and then he'll go away for now I just bumped into a group of tourists that are staying in a building next to me from Poland and we just had a conversation like right before recording today and they're like in their 30s and 40s, these five guys that were there and we're talking about politics and Poland and they said you should see the look on

their face when I talked about Trump's position, which they knew about Ukraine. And the way they heard it is the way we thought the people heard it over there, which is we're next. If Ukraine falls in any percentage to Russia, it will embolden him to go after Poland, which is a NATO country. And they're worried about it.

It keeps Polish people up at night, and Donald Trump getting reelected or elected again keeps them up at night, as does the rest of our European alliance. To hear that Donald Trump is making those phone calls, what was your take on and take away from what's being reported by a very reliable, very trustworthy Bob Woodward?

I'm just going to put it this way. He puts it down on paper. It's the truth. It's been corroborated three or four times and it is reliable reporting. That's all I'll say about that. Yeah. I mean, first of all, as you said, we've always known that Trump loved Putin and admires Putin and really wants to be like him and said he's going to be a dictator on day one.

I mean, this new movie that's coming out about Donald Trump called The Apprentice talks about how it really follows his mentor, Roy Cohn, who's also another just real kind of harsh person, fixer, dictator, but not of a country of just his way of doing things and taught Trump all of the things that Trump knows about, just never admit you're wrong and et cetera. So he admires that type of figure and we've always known that.

But what really struck me about this wasn't that he shared a COVID test with him or some COVID test, whatever it is, what it is, I don't agree with it. Why would you give a murderous dictator COVID test? Why would you help them? I could see a foreign policy reason why you wanna keep the peace with nations like Russia. So that's not what

bothered me. And in fact, it was reported, I think in 2020, that there were some cooperation during COVID, COVID tests sent over there. What I didn't like about it was that it was so personal, it was like he was helping him personally, not the Russian people. He was helping Putin personally. But what bothered me the most is what Bob Woodward said about how apparently Putin told Trump,

hey, let's keep this between us. You won't look good for doing this. And that they're so close, that their relationship is so close that Putin can ask Trump to keep a secret for him. And Trump said, okay. Now, the one thing you gotta assume is Putin recorded that phone call, right?

Of course he did. And so what does he have on Trump? He could, I always worry about that, that whole reason why you're not supposed to do things like this also is with nation, with these secret calls with dictators is then they have something over you, right? And then they can sort of influence American politics.

That's why you're not supposed to have these secretive behind the scenes discussions. So that was the thing that really struck me as weird that Putin could ask Trump to keep us. Let's keep this between us, you know, like, like co conspirators. But as you said, the other thing too is that he's continuing to talk to him after the fact. And it's right around the timing has a lot to do with the war in Ukraine and events that are happening. And as you pointed out, that there's a statute that talks about

that unauthorized people can't, it criminalizes unauthorized negotiation when there's disputes between nations. And it's called the Logan Act. And I don't know if you violated it, but certainly it came to mind when thinking about this all. And the other thing is Trump's campaign,

his spokesperson, Stephen Chung and Trump, they put out a statement about this book and he calls Woodward a sleazebag, because that's what he loves to do, is call names. But he doesn't deny having contact with Putin. He doesn't deny having contact with Putin. He doesn't deny these conversations with Putin. So, you know, they said a lot of things in that statement, but certainly didn't deny it. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see.

Well, to your point, before you leave that, but to your point, they probably couldn't deny it because they probably think there could be a recording of it. And if they deny it, then Putin could leak it or we can get our hands on it. And on your point, just before we leave this topic, I was also troubled by it. For me, it looked like Putin was serving as Donald Trump's campaign manager to help get him elected, which is exactly what we said. As between the two candidates, we know Putin wants Trump elected, just as Russia television wanted those right-wing podcasters to spread the anti-Ukraine position

in America, because a weak America is what Putin is out for. Donald Trump thinks it's about relationships. It's about weakening America, putting America's at each other's throat, which is to the benefit and destroying the evil empire of America from within. And that is what all that Putin cares about. And he wants to get Donald Trump elected. So he's like, here's some campaign advice. It was almost like Putin became his campaign manager. Here's how you get elected. Don't mention that you and I have that close of a relationship. It's not bad for me. I'm a dictator. I know how to kill people who don't want me to stay in office. But you, you're in a democracy. Don't tell anybody. The fact that you and I have to do a whole segment on that is remarkable.

I agree. So why don't we move on to speaking of things that were bombshell and new information we didn't quite know before or the dots have been connected. Why don't you tell the audience about this Senate Judiciary Committee report headed by people like Sheldon Whitehouse, who finally got to the bottom of what we always suspected, which is that the Trump Whitehouse didn't want Kavanaugh, Brett Kavanaugh now a justice on the United States Supreme Court properly vetted. There were 4,500 tips to the hotline

about people who claim to have knowledge about Brett Kavanaugh being sexually assaulting women at various points in his life. There were at least three that wanted to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and they were shut down by Mitch McConnell. Only one was able to testify. Another woman who knew him from Yale Law School was not, and she was not, and none of them were interviewed by the FBI, not the high school classmate who observed it, not the woman who

said she was jumped and attacked by him in Yale Law School, or even Ford Blasey, Dr. Ford Blasey, who testified tearfully to the Senate committee authentically about the attack. She wasn't interviewed by the FBI either. Why don't you walk everybody through? And then we can always, I always like to have a little bit of a call to action. What can we do about it? You know, now that we've identified the evilness behind it. Yeah, well, you know, so there's a Senate Judiciary Report coming out this Thursday

headed by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. I had to read the reporting on this a couple of times because the difference between Senator Whitehouse versus the Whitehouse, because at one time, at certain points I was like, wait, do they mean the Whitehouse or Whitehouse? You know, anyway, so, but it's Sheldon Whitehouse and the reports coming out and the reporting basically said that in 2018, specifically September 2018, around the time when this when Christine Blasey Ford came out and came forward and talked about the sexual assault that Brett Kavanaugh did to her in high school and testified bravely before the confirmation hearings.

You know, of course that was so reminiscent of Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill. It's like, it's like women, these brave women are coming forward, they're telling us who these monsters are and somehow they get confirmed anyway and then they prove to be monsters on the court. Anyway, it's just so frustrating.

But anyway, publicly, what was so interesting was publicly, Trump was saying at the time that the FBI had quote, free to that claim sexual assault, and the FBI is talking to everybody. Trump said, I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate at their discretion. That was what was publicly done. And what was surprising, though, is that how little they were permitted to do and you ask yourself, why is

this coming out now? And the reason this is coming out now is because, in fairness, also the Biden administration, but that both the Trump administration and the Biden administration really blocked the Senate's efforts to get hold of these FBI records. And it took all these years in order to get this information so that we would be able to know exactly what happened now six years later. And it's funny, first you ask yourself, well, why would the Biden administration do that?

And I had to put on my law enforcement hat. And it's just so interesting because I was in law enforcement so long as a prosecutor. And law enforcement, they hold their cards close to the vest. They don't want to release anything about their methods and means and their investigations. And, you know, there's all these security concerns, but also

investigatory concerns, and you don't want to turn over too much stuff, if it's not necessary, etc. So it's kind of frustrating. But at the same time, I remember it quite well. But you know, what what's coming out in this report is that apparently the FBI was very surprised to hear Trump say these things publicly because they were told to do a very limited inquiry in a very short period of time. I think it was a week's time.

So what they did, and this is all in contemporaneous emails that Senator Whitehouse and the Judiciary Committee was able to obtain, it was things that they were emailing the White House basically saying, can you please give us additional guidance and directives? Because on the one hand, publicly Trump is saying, go at it.

But internally, we are being told not to do these things. And so they were confused by these conflicting public statements to what their mission was. So this is going to be released Thursday and it's going to essentially provide the evidence that we all suspected was there that the the White House Donald Trump exercised very tight control over this investigation despite Trump saying otherwise to the American people once again lying right I get so frustrated with these misinformation disinformation this is called lying okay and you know the other things that I thought was very interesting was that there were

And, you know, the other things that I thought was very interesting was that there were like thousands of messages to the FBI tip line regarding Kavanaugh. They were forwarded directly to the White House. They didn't go to the FBI. They went to the White House where they went into what we call the circular file, also known as the trash can. The FBI had no written protocols to what to do about this. They call this a supplemental background investigation because what they're doing is doing background

on this Supreme Court nominee. That's what he was at the time. And they do a background check. And whatever their protocol is for a normal nominee background check, that's what they were doing. But this is called a supplemental background check because this is now somebody coming forward and making an accusation. And apparently, they do not have, the FBI does not have any protocols in place

for supplemental background checks. And so the White House instructed the FBI to talk to 10 witnesses. And that was about it. Don't pursue corroborating evidence. Don't pursue anything else. And so despite the fact that, as you said, Christine Blasey Ford came forward and talked about how 30 years earlier, he ripped off her clothes and groped her and sexually assaulted her. Another accuser from Yale came forward. This is from a colleague at Yale. OK, this isn't this isn't like, you know, some random off the street. This woman came forward and said that he shoved his privates

into her face during a dorm party. Disgusting. Right. And and, you know, it's just I don't know. The whole thing is just ridiculous. And the thing that this report really confirms is what we all thought, which is what a sham this investigation was. And look, the FBI, of course,

it's not their fault necessarily. They're like, look, we follow our, whatever our protocols are, whatever our process are, but they say they don't have independent authority to expand scopes of investigations or supplemental background investigations outside whatever the request of the agency is. And when you've got making a request saying this is what you should do, that's what they're

supposed to do. I don't know. That was a little flimsy of an excuse. I didn't like that, But that was their reasoning. But the emails show that this was very much, they at the time said WTF. Well, what they're supposed to do is the FBI does it, as you said, an initial background check. Criminal in nature, they're not really there to follow up or follow through with any kind of complaints. And on a standard background check, Brett Kavanaugh's sexual assault history is not

naturally going to come up. But then there's supposed to be enough time for members of the Senate Judiciary Committee getting the initial report and whatever information their staffers provide to them to request additional investigations. See, the committee can do that too. It's not the Senate Judiciary Committee, not just the White House. But the Senate Judiciary Committee was not left with enough time because of Mitch McConnell, who wanted, as always, to short track everything. Like when he got Amy Coney Barrett confirmed in 36 days, he only gave the Senate Judiciary Committee a very short amount of time. They literally had one hour, once the news broke

about the assault history of his, as alleged, they had one hour to look at a, not a summary, raw data from the complaint tip line, the hotline. One hour to look at like 1,600 pages of data. Now once the candidate got on the ropes in confirmation process, which Kavanaugh did, at least for two days, then it's up to the White House to decide how to save their candidate. And they made a political calculation that they didn't have to save him, that they would just work with Mitch McConnell to shorten the amount of time they would tell the FBI, they would give the FBI no further instructions about conducting a investigation while in public

Donald Trump was telling the public, yes, we should get to the bottom of all these things. The FBI should do a full and fair investigation. While in private, he and his people were telling Mitch McConnell and the FBI no such thing. In fact, the FBI went back and said, we just heard you say in public that you want us to do an investigation. What is the nature of the investigation you would like us to do? What's the scope? How many people should we put on it? When? What's the deliverable? What should we be providing you and when? And by the time they got all that sentence out, Mitch McConnell had already called for the vote.

And Kavanaugh got on, bought and paid for. I did a hot take on this recently with our new collaborating partners on the Legal AF MTN channel, Court Accountability, bought and paid for by the NRA and the gun lobby. They spent $1 million, $1.2 million to get Brett Kavanaugh confirmed. And what do you think they did? They wanted in return exactly what has happened in the last two terms, which is a complete application of any responsibility by the United States Supreme

Court right wing to try to have any type of sensible gun control. None. And Kavanaugh is always the deciding vote as is Gorsuch, who they also spent a million dollars to make sure that he was confirmed. That's all you need to know in all of this. So some of these pieces in the Senate judiciary report, as you said at the top of the segment, were sort of known by us,

but now the curtain is drawn back and we see exactly the fingerprints and sinister hand of Donald Trump and his henchmen making sure that that Kavanaugh, their guy, to rip down a woman's right to choose the Dobbs decision, a reliable vote against women and reproductive rights, especially a guy who, like Donald Trump, is a serial misogynist and sex assault abuser. Of course they want him and a reliable vote in Gorsuch. So between, they've gotten exactly what they wanted and they know from Kavanaugh, from his writings when he worked in the White House and Clark did all of that, they knew that

he was going to be in favor of a unitary president, expanding presidential power, expanding the executive branch so that it's not an equal branch of government any longer, and to overturn the administrative state and administrative regulatory power through overturning the Chevron decision, which gave a judicial deference to experts in their fields that are in these regulatory agencies. This is the playbook. Besides Project 2025, which is the playbook and the database they're going to be using to fill the government, the other playbook is a checklist they've been using since they got the numbers and Kavanaugh is part of that of getting the majority there. You know, rip away a woman's right to choose, reduce her to second-class citizenship in

America, check, done, dobs. Rip down the wall between church and state, four different decisions in the last two years have done that, done, done, done, and done. Take away the administrative state and the regulations to help the American people in environmental protection, in OSHA for workers, in the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Eternal Revenue Service, done. Take away all sensible gun control, done. And we have Kavanaugh, who shouldn't even be anywhere near the Supreme Court, even on a tour pass, and yet he sits in judgment as one of the all-powerful nine making decisions against our will.

It's just, oh, okay. That's where we are for that. And we're going to talk a lot about the Supreme Court and their abortion position and the tone at the top from the Supreme Court and what's happening at the state court levels, like Georgia and a woman's right to choose and some new developments at the DC court in the criminal case against Donald Trump.

But we're at that point in the show, Karen, where people ask usually in chat or conversation, how can we support the show? And we're gonna go through the different ways. First of all, we got a brand new, you see how much we got to talk about, got a brand new channel in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF called Legal AF MTN. What else? I'm curating it, I'm the executive producer of it, I'm doing a lot of the content, but I'm also bringing on a lot of people, some of which you've come to love and respect from the Midas universe, like Karen Freeman at Knitfulo,

who's got her fourth hot take up there right now. We've got Mistrial, we've got the After Darks that have started to go up over there. It's now, it's gonna be the home for everything related to Legal AF, still on the Midas Touch Network, but it's another place place where you can go and just you like the podcast. There's the videos for the podcast You like Michael Pope box hot takes they're there you like Karen Friedman's Eknipolos new hot takes they're there and then we brought on and we're bolting on some great new relationships including with court accountability Alex Aronson and

And Lisa Graves, they've done a series of hot takes with me and without me about their Court Accountability's focus on corruption in the federal court system all the way up to the United States Supreme Court with some great investigative reporting as well. And they're doing hot takes related to that. They're coming on tomorrow doing some stuff about Brett Kavanaugh that's going to blow your mind. Court accountability, and they have a playlist. So go over there and free subscribe. And thanks to the audience too, without which I wouldn't be able to say this. In 21 days that we've been up and running, we're over 182,000 subscribers in just three weeks.

And that's a testament to the audience here and to the community of Legal Affairs and the Midas Mighty. So we've got that. We've got other podcasts that are at the intersection of law and politics that are anchored by people that you know and love, like Karen Freeman, Nick Niflo and Mistrial, which appears on Thursdays on the Midas Touch Network. Three former prosecutors and current friends who bring it to you, including one member, a former member of Congress, and bring it to you in a unique voice that's necessary here on the network, Karen Freeman McNiflo, Don DePerry, Kathleen Rice. And then we've got our sponsors.

Now let me talk about them for a minute, because we've worked hard to curate a group of sponsors that are pro-democracy. They know what our content is. They know what the Minus Touch Network and Legal AF is all about, and they're here for it. They're helping through their sponsorship, provide the money and the fuel to keep the network growing independently without outside investors with your help.

You get to see us do ads, that's sort of fun. We've tried all these things, we like all these things, or I wouldn't do them frankly, neither would Karen. So watch the ad, it helps, trust me. And if you can afford it, but only if you can afford it and you think it's something that's useful, try it out. We've negotiated discounts that are unique and you can try it out with our sponsors.

So that's another way to do it. And then at the, later in the show, I'll tell you some other ways, all free, that you can support what we're doing here on Legal layoff in the Minus Touch Network. But first, our first round of sponsors. Have you heard about this new bioactive whole food that seems almost too good to be true?

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After you purchase, I'll ask you, were you heard about it? Please support this show and tell them we sent you. Go to oneskin.co. There's no M at the end, it's not. this show and tell them we sent you. Go to Oneskin.co. There's no M at the end, it's not.com. Thank you, Oneskin. Ghost guns, let me explain what they are and then I'll kick it over to my illustrious partner here

and we can kick around what happened in oral argument, how we got here. There is a proliferation in society, or there was until a temporary, at least a temporary ban was put in place, of what's called, referred to colloquially as ghost guns. And ghost guns are created through kits and plans that you can acquire online.

And then you could also 3D print the parts, or they send you the parts you can put them together and hobbyists and other people that want to have guns that are untraceable acquire them. Again they're in parts but the parts only make one thing. It's not like you open the box and go oh look it's a backgammon set. No, it's got a receiver and a handle and a hammer and that's all the parts of a gun. And you put it together. And the Biden administration took a look at that. It took a look at the Gun Control Act already on the books by Congress and their power to regulate

under an administrative agency in the alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosive agency, the old ATF, and said let's pass a law that's reasonable, that says that ghost guns need to be registered, just like any other gun. And people have to go through background checks in order to acquire the plans and the kits and build them. Sounds reasonable. Who would oppose this?

The gun lobby, MAGA, and the right is the right wing of the United States Supreme Court. So they had the case, the Biden administration brought to the United States Supreme Court, or the gun lobby brought an emergency application to try to stop in 2023 the ban from going into effect. It's not a ban on the ghost guns, it's a ban on ghost guns without registration or background checks. And five of the United States Supreme Court justices, but an interesting five, in 2023 said, yeah, that seems like sensible gun regulation.

We don't see a problem with it. And we'll allow it to go into effect while the entirety of the appeal goes forward. So unlike in an abortion decision we'll talk about later, when they were like, nope, no abortions while we figure out the appeal later. We don't care how many lives it negatively impacts here They were like no we should block we shouldn't we shouldn't allow ghost guns unregistered without background checks in the meantime and the five votes were the three moderate slash liberals of the Supreme Court Kagan

Brown Jackson and so to mayor and Amy Coney Barrett, and Roberts. And then the four right-wing crazies said, no, that seems fine. We should be able to print a gun at home and use it without anybody knowing about it, including the police and law enforcement. So we sort of knew coming into the oral argument on the full briefing of this, that there were originally five votes for this and what would happen next. So Karen, you wanna talk a little bit about the oral argument and what went down?

Yeah, so it was interesting because the reporting from the oral argument is that they might uphold actually Biden's, this Biden administration gun regulation requiring background checks, serial numbers, sales records, et cetera, that's for otherwise untraceable, these untraceable firearms called ghost guns. You know, let's just for a minute, I just want to, I want to underscore what you were saying about how dangerous these are and what these are.

First of all, why would anyone get a ghost gun or assemble a ghost gun, right? These are people who can't pass a background check because if you go into a gun store and try to buy a handgun, you have to go through a background check. So somebody who's underage, somebody who has a criminal record, somebody who has domestic violence restraining order against them, someone who's been hospitalized for a serious mental illness, things are institutionalized, things like that.

Those are the things that would make someone fail a background check. So these are people who fall into that category, who can't otherwise lawfully or legally own a gun. The other reason someone would do it is because if they are to commit a crime with a gun, they don't want it to be traced back to them. And so you're talking about the worst of the worst.

The people you absolutely don't want to have guns are the ones who are using ghost guns. And the other thing I want to say about these ghost guns is if they are made with a 3D printer, they could be made with these plastics that, guess what? Don't go off in metal detectors either. So they are beyond terrifying because they can get through some of the most sensitive areas and locations and not be detected through metal detectors by the worst people, the worst of the worst, who then

could commit a crime and it's not traceable. That's what these are. You're not talking about somebody who likes to build models and model airplanes, hobbyists as they say, who just, oh gee, wouldn't this be so fun to do that? I guess that's possible. But that's where law enforcement comes in and they've been giving these statistics about how,

for example, in 2017, the police submitted 1,800 ghost guns for tracing that were found at crime scenes or that were used to commit crimes, right? 1,800 in the United States. Guess how many in 2021? Over 19,000, okay? So you've got 10 times the number. This means illegal guns were used in crimes

that many times. They've been linked to over 700 homicides or attempted homicides. And again, these are not traceable and there's no background checks, etc, etc, etc. So these are bad guys doing away, finding ways to essentially get around the rules and the laws. And, you know, the parade of horribles is what I just kind of described. The gun lobbyists, they argued before the Supreme Court, their side was basically like, oh, these are just kits and hobbyists.

And this doesn't really count as that. And the two questions that the Supreme Court, there's two specific questions that they're gonna have to answer. Number one, do weapons parts kits that can be readily assembled count as guns under the gun control act? Okay. And number two, whether a partially completed frame or receiver the body that holds the firing mechanism and barrel can be regulated under that law. And what was also interesting is

this is not a second amendment rights case, okay? This is really about the gun control act and what the definition of a firearm is. And is it, you know, and the gun control act specifically says any weapon, including a starter gun, a starter gun, meaning, you know, a gun that starts gun that starts a race, those kinds of guns, which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the

action of an explosive. So it also includes the frame or receiver of a weapon. And so, but the question is readily converted, that's the language is at what point is it readily converted? Is it kit? Is it a part, et cetera? And so, the justices were spent a lot of time during oral arguments, grappling and joking apparently about when a partially assembled gun

may be considered a firearm. It almost reminded me of kind of how they talk about viability of a fetus. It's like at what point does it become a human? And they go through these weird machinations, and they were kind of doing it here and joking about it. And that kind of left me with a bad taste, partly because people's lives are at stake. This is no joke.

But they went through all sorts of different examples, things like tennis rackets without strings or bikes without pedals. Those are still rackets and bikes, according to the Solicitor General. That's what she was saying, but of course, Sam Milito was like, I'm holding up a pad of paper and a pen.

Is this a grocery list or do eggs, ham, peppers, you know, I'm holding up a pad of paper and a pen. Is this a grocery list or do eggs, chopped ham, peppers and onions? Is this considered a Western omelet? You know, and of course, you know, the old timey rapey judge, Thomas, Clarence Thomas said, ATF wasn't regulating in this way for a half a century, you know, and so, you know, my response was yes,

Mr. Douchebag, because they didn't have 3D printers half a century ago. Like, all he cares about is all this old timey stuff, you know, the framers, blah, blah, blah, didn't say this. I mean, it's just ridiculous to me. I get so offended by them, you know, the way they like to kind of play with people's lives, but we'll see what they do. Apparently it looks like Amy Coney Barrett and and Chief Justice Roberts might side with the three

liberals. There were amicus briefs that were filed, you know, by I think half the United States and the D.C. Circuit. And, you know, let's see what they do. If they actually do the right thing here. I don't know. You know, it just, this one kind of irritated me, but let's see what they do. If they actually do the right thing here, I don't know. You know, it just, this one kind of irritated me, but let's see what they do. But it involves guns, so you never know what they're gonna do, because they love their guns. I don't like the jocularity at the oral argument.

I don't like talking about, I thought they had a sponsorship on your podcast. Amy Coney Barrett started, so even though it was a friendly question to the Solicitor General, she started talking about HelloFresh meal kits. I'm like, okay, we've got death and carnage going on. We've got thousands of people that are the victims of mass shootings every year. We have so many school shootings that we all lose track of them and get, and we shouldn't.

And they're joking about it. Like you said, I don't know if a piece of paper and a pen is a grocery list, but it's become a hostage note because Alito's and the rest are holding their country hostage. And don't be fooled by this oral argument and the fact that at least the five that originally, Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, who's standing up regularly now, and acting out regularly against Alito and Thomas, which I guess is a good thing. It's not that she's gone center,

it's that the MAGA have gone so far right that just her being to the left of them is something that we're like, well, thank God she's not all the way over there. She's center right right, but they're center, they're not even center, they're just all right wing nut. And that's why we can't, Coney Barrett is quickly becoming the swing vote here. Whenever she joins with the three moderates and liberals on the Supreme Court and get one more vote,

the things happen. And when they don't, they don't. And on certain things, she allies, she aligns herself with progressive values, like guns. But on others, she doesn't, like church and state and a woman's right to choose. It just shouldn't surprise you, given her background. But the reason that she jumped in is she, even Amy Coney Barrett didn't like the Alito comment. Is this a Western omelet? Is this, and she's saying, well, isn't the actual comparison

that when you get like a meal kit from HelloFresh and you look inside and you got all the ingredients for chili reno, isn't that what it is? And not something else, you can't make a birthday cake out of it. And John Roberts, occasionally, even though he's the evil sorcerer, as we know now from the leaked secret memo from a couple

weeks ago. He even jumped in with sort of the withering simple question. Well, let me get this straight to the gun lobby and the lawyers arguing it. We can regulate guns, but we can't regulate the kit that makes the gun? I was like, okay, well, I know where that vote's going. But don't be fooled by this. This is just a make-up or a make-good to make people think that they're not in the back pocket of the gun lobby.

They'll run into a couple of cases that even the facts are so egregious, even they have to agree that maybe in that situation there shouldn't be unfettered gun ownership. Like the guy who beat up his girlfriend and then fired the weapons on a crime spree, including during a road rage incident and was a subject of a restraining order related to domestic violence. Maybe that guy and others like him shouldn't have weapons, even though we couldn't find it in the old timey times. And the problem with, I took the note,

I'll make sure I get it right, rapey douchebag guy is that, also known as Clarence Thomas Karen is that what what what old timey rapey douchebag oh hold on OT RRD OT RD guy because everything every decision he makes it has to be from like you know the framers didn't intend this when they did x, y, and z. So this is what yeah, go on. This is what Amy Coney Barrett was saying. Amy Coney Barrett said during the last gun decision that he ruled that there are limits to your using historical at decedents,

that if we can't find it in 1790 or in 1850, when women were chattel and owned by their husbands and black Americans were slaves and also chattel, maybe we shouldn't be always looking for that as our guidepost for how to regulate things today. And she said, we're going to hit a point, and I think we've hit it now, where there's no historical antecedent for something. Nuclear weapons? 3D printers? I mean, so stop using that.

And if you don't have another intellectually honest way under constitutional precedent and analysis to make your argument, then you shouldn't be making that argument. But this Supreme Court, I was at breakfast this morning with the court accountability people, and we were, it was great. We were having this great conversation across the table. I'm sure our neighbors didn't think it was great, but we thought it was great. And one of the things we talked about is this Supreme Court led by Roberts has just given up completely. They don't even try to write an opinion that has any intellectual honesty to it, is properly researched or written or analyzed.

They don't even try anymore. Their last decision about immunity is a PPOS as our some of our commenters like to talk about. It has no intellectual integrity. It has no intellectual honesty. It has no proper inappropriate analysis of precedent. They just ignore all of it and reverse engineer to get to their decision. That's judicial activism. Well, of course, this is politicians masquerading as judges. And that's exactly what they're doing. But they don't even try anymore.

When John Roberts wrote the immunity decision, which was targeted to benefit one person named Donald Trump, he wrote, no man is above the law. No person is above the law. It was a one-liner without citation, and then everything that followed completely undermined that point. So they don't even care. So my point is, they're gonna rule that ghost guns

can be properly regulated by the Biden administration. And even they're not gonna find that that's inappropriate. But that's just a gimme, that's just a facade that's bred in circus because they're in the alt-right agenda. They've accomplished everything they've wanted to accomplish. So occasionally they throw normal people a bone, but don't be fooled by that. But we gotta follow it. And we're doing it, by the way, occasionally they throw normal people a bone. But don't be fooled by that.

But we gotta follow it. And we're doing it, by the way, Dina Dahl and I are doing a regular show now on Legal AF MTN called Unprecedented, obviously, about the United States Supreme Court where we cover weekly events like this. We're gonna be doing our next show about it. We're gonna talk about the United States Supreme Court

and the Georgia Supreme Court reducing a woman once again to a second class citizen in this country and ripping away whatever left of her dignity and reproductive health and rights decision making in two twin decisions that came out almost back to back and then we'll give you a quick update about what's going on with the DC election interference case, some new developments and some new filings there. But first, another way to support our show, we've got another group of amazing sponsors coming up next. Legal AF is brought to you by bookshop.org.

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Help us get to 200,000 by next week, by Halloween. That's our goal. And we're gonna get there because of the enthusiasm of our audience for the content and the work we got over there. Thanks for doing all that. Carol, why don't you, you want to talk about the Georgia overturning? We were gonna talk last week, we didn't have a chance to, about McBurney writing this, Judge McBurney used to be the chief judge, but wasn't at the time he wrote it, at Georgia Fulton County trial judge, but it wasn't at the time he wrote it, at Georgia Fulton County trial judge, after

having the Georgia Supreme Court send him back the case and reverse him about whether the six-week virtual ban modeled after Texas that Georgia had passed for abortion was a constitutional or not. They said the reason that you, when they first sent it back to the Supreme Court in Georgia, the Supreme Court of Georgia told McBurney, nah, you were wrong to find that because the original version of the six weeks came out before the Dobbs decision, reverse Roe versus Wade, you're wrong about the timing because the Supreme Court of the United States is the law of the land and you can't do it under that analysis because they ruled that the right to a woman to choose was never properly in the Constitution and they, so you can't use that as the basis to strike

down the six weeks. If you're going to strike down the six weeks, you better go look at it from a Georgia constitutional equal protection or liberty right, privacy right and do that. So he got it back. And he wanted to talk about what he did. And then we'll talk about what the Georgia Supreme Court did when they got it back a few days later. And then we'll talk about what the Georgia Supreme Court did when they got it back a few days later Yeah, so judge McBurney. Okay, if he sounds familiar, he's the guy who oversaw the special-purpose grand jury in Fulton County

He is you know went in the Donald Trump case, right? He was the original one who oversaw that the investigatory grand jury. So judge McBurney Temporarily when the Georgia Supreme Court sent the case back to him, essentially gave women the right to have an abortion back. So it returned it to up to about 22 weeks, which instead of, you know, at which is where they're essentially viability, as opposed to the six weeks where it is now. When, you know, the thing about the six week abortion ban, the law in Georgia, that was the law before even Dobbs, the Dobbs decision. That was the law, but it couldn't be enforced because of Roe versus Wade.

It was one of those laws that was essentially waiting in, it was like waiting in the wings for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade because they've been trying to do this for a long, long time. And so it's really difficult because most women don't even know they're pregnant at six weeks. And so it's whenever there was a detectable heartbeat is essentially when the abortion becomes illegal. And so Judge McBurney got it back and basically found that it was that he put it back to the old law the 22 weeks. And so essentially, you know, he basically said that some of the language I had

written down from the decision that I liked was a review of our higher courts interpretations of liberty demonstrates that liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning protections and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body decide what happens to it and in it and to reject state interference with her health choices. The power however is not unlimited and when a fetus is growing inside a woman and reaches viability, that's when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life. Then and only then may society intervene.

So I thought it was interesting that he was able to kind of bring it back to that point and put it at that point temporarily. And, you know, look, this was the case, you know, this was the place where Amber Nicole Thurman died of sepsis after waiting 20 hours to be treated for an incomplete medication abortion. Candy Miller died after delays in medical care because of an abortion. And this is the case, sister strong women of color, reproductive justice collective versus the state of Georgia.

And apparently they sought a declaratory judgment declaring that this life act was unconstitutional and they were seeking a permanent injunction from enforcing it. And McBurney had, in 2022, had a two-day bench trial and it went up to the Supreme Court that essentially, as you pointed out, you know, really sent it back down to him. And, you know, he did the right thing. McBurney basically says, you know, whether it's called liberty or privacy or equal protection, it's fundamentally the right of a woman to control

what happens to her body. And, you know, he said courts have long upheld adults of sound mind to get to determine what happens with their health and with their own body. And he said, both gluttony and self deprivation are both constitutionally protected lifestyles. You can tattoo, pierce wherever you want. You can pursue or refuse medical care, elective or essential, but at some point the

pregnancy acquires its own rights and that's when it gets protection, but that doesn't happen until about 22 weeks or when it's viable. So, you know, it was just a very, he writes beautifully, actually, I like the way he writes, it's very clear, but also very interesting. And, you know, he also he says there were some other quotes. So at some point, the pregnancy acquires its own rights that deserve protection, protection that can conflict with the mother's exercise of her rights. We struggle mightily and not always peaceably with determining when that point arrives. For some, that is conception.

To others, it's when the egg is fertilized and to others it is later at viability. But he basically said, look, you know, this, this, anyone who helps a woman or performs an abortion, you know, is guilty of a felony under this, under, in Georgia. And that's why there's this issue here that he had to decide how to balance these rights between a not yet viable fetus and a woman's right to choose. And that's what he was weighing. Because, you know, look, both a woman and her doctor can be found guilty in the state of Georgia. And he found, you know, the Georgia right of privacy comes from, no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property except by due process of law. And it's not an absolute right, sorry.

But the state, you know, he found that, you know, that this has to be narrowly tailored and that this six week abortion ban violates equal protection. So you know, he said basically if you want, you can either call it equal protection, you can call it the right to liberty, you can call it a privacy, you could say whatever you want, but the constitution, the state constitution allows abortion up until viability. So I thought it was a very good decision. What did you think? I liked it for the three days that it was the law of Georgia and then the Georgia Supreme Court in a half a page,

callous six to zero decision, a bunch of white guys took it away from the women in Georgia and shut the gate to reproductive rights in the four days that or so that McBurney's decision was the law of Georgia. A credit goes out to reproductive health and abortion clinics in Georgia, some of which were able to provide reproductive health care to women, including abortions, up to some, one in particular, up to 22 weeks, another one at least through 12 weeks, that gates now been shut. Why did they send it back down to him if they were just going to do that? Well, they, yeah, because they, there's still further proceedings that have to go. Now you have another group of women the second time around in Georgia who are going to have to carry to term

an unwanted pregnancy. And then you never hear the follow-up at any of these states about what happens to the poverty, children who are impoverished, single mothers or others that are impoverished, what happens to infant mortality, what happens to the abundance of abandoned children in orphanages. And they're always in states where mortality rate is high, infant poverty, children in poverty is very high. They reject federal funding to help any of these things. They don't have a social safety net

They nobody nobody MAGA doesn't adopt in greater numbers after they support anti-abortion rules They don't adopt at all I mean they do but not in not in greater numbers And so none of that gets talked about and then you got the tone you got Georgia just following the lead in their half-page their procedural, oh no, we're going to stay that order. And so close the gates again of women getting the first-class citizenship. And now let's turn to the United States Supreme Court, which a day or so earlier did the same thing. So we reported on Legal AF about the Biden administration and the Biden-Harris administration after the Dobbs decision came out two and a half years ago in March, which took away a constitutional

right for women to choose, that they were scrambling around and looking throughout as they should all throughout the entire code of federal regulation and turning to all of their agencies that report to the executive branch and telling them go hunt through your regulations and come up with ways that we can try to find with an executive order or a regulation that's being properly applied, we can find a way to have women have reproductive rights, reproductive health rights in their various states using federal law, federal programs and federal money. Go find it. And they did. So in the Emergency Medical and Abortion Emergency Act, the EMTLA, they tried to use that to say, well, look at you hospitals. You're taking federal dollars. You're taking federal subsidies, you're taking Medicare and Medicaid, then you have to comply despite the fact that your state has passed a virtual ban on all abortion,

like Texas and Georgia and other places. You have to give as an emergency care in an emergency room situation, you might have to give it an abortion if that's going to save the life of the mother, period. We don't care what your abortion, your contrary abortion right is or lack of right in your state. And, you know, during oral argument, we just talked about an oral argument today, ghost guns, you know, I thought it was going to be a tight one in terms of the progressives prevailing and using MTALA to at least require that in a medical emergency that if a federally funded hospital would have to comply with EMTALA.

Nope, Supreme Court, US Supreme Court ruled on the first day of the new term, first Monday in October, first order that came flying out was that the temporary ban that was placed on it has been lifted and now Texas does not have to allow, in fact, Texas is criminalizing a doctor from providing a life-saving abortion in an emergency room is fine. It's fine with the United States Supreme Court in a six to three majority. So once again, if you ever thought that maybe they'll let up and take their foot off the throat of women and people who support women and

not continue to reduce them to second-class citizens where they don't have the rights, where they have less rights than my mother did in 1973. I never thought I'd say that in America. Well, this is just another example that whenever they can get their hands on a case coming up from the Fifth Circuit or Texas or Georgia or somewhere else, they are going to continue to make it clear that there will be no constitutional protected or even federal right that overcomes 22 red states that have found that they who have shoved it down a woman's throat and worse that she does not have bodily autonomy. It's on the ballot in November. Ten states literally have it on the ballot to add

it to their state constitutions, the right of a woman to make reproductive choices of her own. But it's on the ballot in general. And if that's not a driver to get Democrats, liberals and progressives and others to get up and vote, I don't know what is. Karen, what do you think? You know, it's just the thing that really upsetting is it's, they say that they can do it to save the life. You know, they like to come out and say that but you know, it's you know, people who are really dying in real life, because doctors won't intervene because oh, the person's not

at the death's door at that moment, right? They are essentially doing this, they're essentially letting women get to the point of the brink of death, because that's the only time they can intervene. And then it's too late for many of these women. And so it's horrific, it's terrible, it's just, they think they care, but they say they care about life, but they don't care about a woman's life. And these laws are just putting women in danger. And

you know, it's an addition in addition to the fact that it's taking away women's bodily autonomy. I mean, this is the handmaid's tale. Anyone who hasn't watched that show should watch it. You know, about force about have as many babies as possible, that abortion is wrong and controlling women and controlling women's bodies, and that men get to be the ones to make the rules. And it's a terrifying society that is being created here. And as you said, the women have fewer rights,

but just from a practical standpoint, what I don't understand is you've got, there's no guidance to doctors, right? There's just no guidance to doctors. It's very much, even in the situations with, you know, elective, non-lifesaving abortions, right? Not like the child is going to be terminally or fatally ill or only survive outside of the womb for a short period of time, or there's something going on with the pregnancy that's going to risk and jeopardize a woman's life.

and jeopardize a woman's life. You know, none of those types of situations. And when you get to the situation where it's like, OK, there's this medical determination that has to be made between a woman and her doctor, these laws make it very confusing. And frankly, it's inhumane. And it's forcing women to carry children, women who are victims of rape, women who are victims of incest, women who are in a situation where they just didn't intend to get pregnant and

aren't in a position to carry a child to term. And women who have to make the absolute just really horrific, difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy because they found out a terrible, terrible, terrible congenital defect in the baby that they wanted and tried so hard to have and to not make the child suffer or themselves to suffer. They make that just torturous decision to have to terminate the pregnancy. You know, obviously a lot of women have to make this choice and it's not an easy one. It's always difficult, always. Even in the just elective abortions, it's always difficult. But this is a decision that

women have to be able to make for themselves, but not under this administration, not under the Supreme Court. And that's where we are. And so there's only one answer. And I say it every podcast, every hot take, whether it's mistrial, whether it's legal AF, and I say it everywhere I can, and we should all say it. And that is to go out and vote in November, because that is the country that we are living in and that MAGA is trying to create. And so I saw a cute little cartoon this morning that was going around on the internet

about a woman walking into a voting booth, and the little bubbles that something like, you know, Republican women, your husbands don't have to know who you're voting for. So women go out and vote and vote blue and that's the only answer here. So well, we've reached the end of another episode of Legal AF on that note. I am ending this alone. Popak had to run and he has ended it for me when I've had to run so many times and concluded it. So just thank you to everybody for being here again on Legal AF every single Wednesday at 8 and every Saturday at 8 Eastern. Those are Eastern United States times. And please come and listen to us at Miss Trial on Thursdays

and all of our hot takes that we do both on just the Midas Touch Network, as well as on the new YouTube channel, Legal AF MTN. We are going to provide as much content as we possibly can on the new YouTube channel, Legal AFMTN. We are going to provide as much content as we possibly can because there's only, I think, what, 28 days until the election and everybody has to have as much information as possible. I was talking to someone earlier about

what's the podcast about is really what they asked. And I said, you know, what this podcast is about is trying to get the truth out. And the reason, the motivation for me, why I've been doing this for the last four years is because it's just shocking to me because to prepare for these, I read the decisions myself. I read the briefings myself.

I read the transcripts myself sometimes of court proceedings. And MAGA and especially their cult leader, Donald Trump, I read the transcripts myself sometimes of court proceedings. And MAGA and especially their cult leader Donald Trump, they absolutely lie. They lie. They just completely lie. Something will happen. Something will occur in court.

And they come out and they lie. And so we are here on the Midas Touch Network to tell you the truth and here on Legal AF and on this trial. So with that, I will sign off. Shout out to all the Legal AFers and everybody else who watches this show. Thank you so much for joining us.