Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Makes MAJOR LEGAL MISSTEPS in Transition

Episode Date: November 17, 2024

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for a new episode of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On tap? 1. Will Trump's nomination of extreme cabinet picks starting with the purported pedophile Matt G...aetz; possible Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard; admitted former drug additct RFK Jr., and alleged sex assaulter and "white nationalist" Pete Hegseth, lead to the Senate losing enough Republican support to kill the nominations; 2. What does Trump's picks of his former criminal defense team to key DOJ leadership positions mean and what can be done about it at the US Supreme Court and its new term; 3. an update on Steve Bannon's 12/9 NY State fraud and money laundering trial; Trump's criminal sentencing; Jack Smith's public report to the Attorney General in the next 30 days, 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: 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. Beam: Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Rhone: Head to https://Rhone.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF to save 20% off your entire order! Uplift: Visit https://upliftdesk.com/legalaf and get four free accessories, plus an extra discount off your entire order. Moink: Keep American farming going by signing up at https://MoinkBox.com/LEGALAF RIGHT NOW and listeners of this show get FREE Hot Rolls in your first box! Lumen: Head to https://Lumen.me/legalaf and use code: LEGALAF to get 15% off your lumen today! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:02:12 Visit your Toronto area Ford store or ford.ca. Even in the darkest times as a litigator, there's an opportunity to find ways to take advantage of mistakes that are being made by your adversary and ultimately prevail. I think that applies here, Michael Popak, in the broader context of what's taking place in our nation. We have in Donald Trump, his pathology is wired and geared, I wouldn't even say so much to making fundamental mistakes. It is intrinsic to who he is. So it should not come as a surprise that after the election, Donald Trump has had, I think probably the worst single week in transition history for a president elect.
Starting point is 00:03:01 I mean, Matt Gaetz as attorney general, Tulsi Gabbard being appointed or nominated as the director of national intelligence, RFK junior at HHS, uh, Christie Gnome as Homeland security, some random guy named Peter Hegseth, who's a Fox weekend host to become secretary of defense. I think it is now critical to let the American people, as we were doing before, but right now with the chaos being caused, to know the stakes.
Starting point is 00:03:31 So right now, for example, we have Republicans in Congress and many in the Senate who are quite literally covering up a report that may demonstrate that Donald Trump's attorney general pick in Matt Gates is a pedo. That's right, covering up a report that would show that Matt Gates was having sex with underage girls and that there were witnesses to that taking place and the entire Republican apparatus gear to covering that up.
Starting point is 00:04:02 The same way Jim Jordan, when he was a wrestling coach at Ohio State, covered up sexual assault and sexual abuse there. I want to talk about that and more, the broader legal ramifications. I want to let people know what recess appointments are, what Donald Trump's gonna try to do there. I want to talk about Donald Trump appointing his personal lawyers to key legal posts, whether it's in the department of justice or within the White House itself. And I want to give an update on the various Trump related cases,
Starting point is 00:04:36 what is happening there. But perhaps I may glass half full guy, Michael Pofock, or perhaps it's the former litigator in me that's geared towards this, but I look for opportunity. I look for ways to lead in difficult times and I look for ways to try to just demonstrate the reality of the situation where my opponents are making mistakes. Michael Popok, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you and when you're the one on this show that's the optimist, then we know we're moving in the right direction because I get accused of being the purveyor of Popackium all the time.
Starting point is 00:05:14 But you're exactly right. There's two ways to approach what's just happened. And they're both, you can see them as a gift, not the election results, but since then, what we can do with Donald Trump drunk with power, out of control, making mistakes already will go over all the mistakes that he and his chief of staff, Suzy Wallace, have made just in the last 72 hours, overplaying whatever hand they think that they were dealt, overplaying whatever landslide, which is not a landslide, they think that they obtained in their picks for the cabinet, how they've gone about selecting these people, the lack of vetting or FBI investigations about them, and how it is, we believe, potentially emboldening the Senate Republicans to peel away from the majority
Starting point is 00:06:07 and make sure that the most extreme and obscenely unqualified of the picks, and I'm looking at you, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Matt Gaetz, RFK Jr., that you don't get anywhere near confirmed, I feel that the recess option for appointment is fading into the distance. We'll talk about the senators on the Republican side who have all already declared their opposition to a plan like that. And I was also encouraged, we talked about it literally the next day after the election on both Legal AF YouTube channel and here on the major on the main network about the strategy of resistance is not abandonment and resignation. It is pushing forward. New York Times has a great article up right now about the anti-Trump battle
Starting point is 00:07:00 plan that frankly attorney generals and governors in democratic states have been working on for over a year, keeping it a little bit under wraps so as not to step on the Kamala Harris trying to run for a president story. But they are ready with budgets, with lawsuits led by public interest groups like Democracy Forward with huge million dollar, huge multimillion dollar war chests. They have the lawsuits at the ready. They're going to oppose, as we've said, the hundreds of executive orders that Donald Trump is going to use because that intersection of law and politics that we founded this podcast and this brand on of Legal AF is going to be the most busy thoroughfare in our democracy over the next four years.
Starting point is 00:07:47 Every one of those executive orders, and Donald Trump is gonna try to push policy by executive order more than legislation in the MAGA House, because that always gets tied up in some issue, like they don't have a large enough majority to shove these laws through. So he's gonna try to rule by executive fiat. And that's where the lawsuits come in. 750 or more were filed in the first Trump administration.
Starting point is 00:08:14 We expect double that number now. And we and our audience are here for it. Talk about the intersection of law and politics. A of these Nominees by Donald Trump when you look into it, obviously When it comes to the ethics investigation of Matt Gaetz potentially being a pedo and potentially is doing a lot of work there It's an obvious intersection of law and politics, but you talked about Peter Hegseth now with allegations against him for engaging in sexual assault from 2017 resurfacing Hegseth denies the allegation Hegseth by the way is on Marriage number three cheated on wife one with wife two had a baby with wife three while married to wife to wife three works for Fox so the intersection of law lawsuits and these
Starting point is 00:09:06 appointees I think is a reflection as well of Donald Trump who's always been embroiled in this type of conduct, engaging in this type of conduct. So we'll break all of that down. From a messaging standpoint though, you know I do want to call out Democrats though who are still very process-based. Well, we think that the ethics report should be released of Matt Gaetz. Indeed, the ethics committee has thoroughly and meticulously engaged with witnesses, and we think that what would be most appropriate, all right, just say the ethics report, there's a report that Republicans are covering up that Trump's AG could be a pedo.
Starting point is 00:09:47 Like just say that, like why can't you say the American people should not have a pedo as an AG? Right, it's a pretty simple message, it's the truth. We all wanna get out the truth, but the Democrats are still caught up, I think, in over intellectualizing these things, so just call it out. We don't wanna pedo as our AG. Like pretty simple to say that. So let's show you what's going on this week. Get your take Michael Popak. Just a reminder for everybody. Trump's nominees,
Starting point is 00:10:16 technically nominees, the president selects his nominees. Then there's what's called an advice and consent function of the Senate, which means the Senate then is obligated under the Constitution to hold hearings to confirm or to not confirm these picks by Trump. You'll talk about Trump's end run around it, but just the quick review, I talked about it at the outset. Trump picked Matt Gaetz to be his AG. He picked Tulsi Gabbard, who many believed to be compromised by Russia, because she parrots verbatim Russian talking points.
Starting point is 00:10:50 She also went to meet with the dictator of Syria after he used chemical weapons against his own people to be the director of national intelligence, what he picked Tulsi for, giving her access to our most classified information, speaking of which give the nuclear codes to a random Fox News weekend host, the Fox and Friends weekend host, Peter Hegseth. Granted, he was in the military. He also, you know, has this tattoo that many say is aligned with kind of a white nationalist tattoo.
Starting point is 00:11:24 It's a lot of white nationalists have the tattoo. He says, it's just a tattoo showing the crusades that took place, but you know, whatever. Kristi Noem killed her dog, Cricket, to become the Homeland Security Director. Tom Homan to be the border czar. By the way, with all of these people, no FBI, Donald Trump saying that he doesn't want the FBI
Starting point is 00:11:49 to do any checks, no background checks, not looking into their qualifications, whether they can be compromised. So you have that right there. And then there's this issue, right? The Congress has been investigating Matt Gaetz, potentially being a pedo, from the lawyer of one of the women who was underage at the time.
Starting point is 00:12:10 We believe there is credible information linking Matt Gates to underage sex or engaging in underage sex. There are witnesses to it. Also drug use, rampant drug use, as well as obstruction of justice is what we expect is in this report. So Republicans, you want this report out there? Jim Jordan, who covered up sexual abuse at his previous job before being a member of Congress, here's what he says.
Starting point is 00:12:37 And Congressman Jordan, do you have any sense about what will happen with that House ethics report that was supposed to come out Friday. Remember, Gates had been accused of things and no prosecution had been continued, it had been dropped. But Dick Durbin's trying to get his hands on that report, obviously to leak it out to hurt President Trump. What is your sense on that?
Starting point is 00:13:00 Well, it's my understanding that is not supposed to go public. So if it's not supposed to under the rules, it shouldn't go public. And what I know about Matt Gaetz is one of the best members we had on our committee. In my time in Congress, which has been a while, I don't know, there are very few people who have the cross-examination skills he does. And I want someone in the Justice Department who's not going to say, moms and dads at school boards meeting needs to be investigated.
Starting point is 00:13:23 I want someone at the Justice Department who's going to say it's wrong for the FBI to do a memorandum and say that pro-life Catholics are extremists. I want someone at the Justice Department who can tell us who planted the pipe bombs on January 6th, who leaked the Dobbs opinion, who put cocaine at the White House instead of all the other stuff they seem to be focused on. By the way, notice what Jim Jordan's saying there, but also notice his messaging, right? Saying that the DOJ is going after pro-life Catholics and calling them extremists. That never happened.
Starting point is 00:13:58 Okay, people who threaten to blow up schools with bombs got investigated, but notice how they message, notice how Fox messages there as well. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, wants to hurt Donald Trump. No, we just don't want a freaking pedo to be the attorney general. And by the way, Maga Mike Johnson, here's what he had to say not to report on it. That is not the way to do things in the House. I think that would be a conservative question. For those listening on audio, Mag and Mike Johnson said, I am going to strongly request as opposed to what? Weekly request're going to stroke or mediocre Lee request
Starting point is 00:14:46 I'm going to strongly request that the ethics committee not release the report So Popeach let me throw it to you because also in addition to these very serious allegations Matt Gaetz was never really even a practicing lawyer I think the one case that he took he sued an elderly woman in a debt collection case because she couldn't pay a he took, he sued an elderly woman in a debt collection case because she couldn't pay a home care firm that his dad happened to own. That was like one of the two cases. He's never stepped foot in a trial.
Starting point is 00:15:12 He's never, zero qualifications for the job of attorney general. But also, I mean, look, we collectively should not be okay with having a pedo as the attorney general. The report should come. Why is this even a controversial thing? And there's also a coverup within the coverup. Um, it is obvious to me based on the timing that the house ethics committee
Starting point is 00:15:38 that had worked two years on the investigation of Matt Gates that elected to go forward with it even after the Biden Department of Justice had dropped the criminal investigation, presumably or purportedly because they got, there are some issues with the victim, but the victim who was underaged, hence the pedo, girl when she was allegedly raped in a drug-fueled party, These are the allegations. By the way, they're not just in the ethics investigation or the Department of Justice. You and I reported on a federal filing in a case down in Florida involving Joel Greenberg,
Starting point is 00:16:19 who is the Matt Gaetz wingman, who they went away outside the country and brought these girls with them, who's serving nine years in prison for these very same allegations, who's been ready, willing, and able to testify, and has testified to the House Ethics Committee about it. It showed up in a filing in a lawsuit
Starting point is 00:16:41 that was brought related to these matters in which Matt Gaetz was placed in the filing at a drug-fueled party filled with underaged girls for sex. So we were not shocked when the House Ethics Committee, which is one of the only committees in Congress that is actually equally balanced, beat equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, although chaired by a Republican, I am almost certain that the Republican chairperson tipped off Matt Gaetz about what was going to be in the report, which was going to be terrible against Matt Gaetz, and told him he should resign as a strategy to avoid its publication. Because two days before Matt Gaetz actually resigned from Congress, including
Starting point is 00:17:26 the next Congress, he's done, this guy made it public, the chairperson, he said, well, we'll publish it on Friday unless Matt Gaetz has resigned by then. I was like, oh my god, two days later, a day later, Matt Gaetz resigned. So I am sure there was a conversation, I'm pretty sure there was a conversation in which it was revealed to Matt Gaetz resigned. So I am sure there was a conversation, I'm pretty sure there was a conversation in which it was revealed to Matt Gaetz that he should really get out of Dodge and he should try to resign. This whole Jim Jordan and the Speaker of the House saying,
Starting point is 00:17:54 oh, there's no more jurisdiction, it shouldn't be released. And as you said, kind of a line from, although I'm sure it was missed on him, a few good men, I strenuously, I strongly object. Oh, well, as long as you strongly object, then that's different. All of that totally ignores the tradition and precedent
Starting point is 00:18:13 of that committee to release reports, even if the person has resigned or has no longer been returned to Congress. There's been two examples, one in 1987 and one in the 1990s, where they issued the report even though the person wasn't there. And now we have a special case because Donald Trump, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to nominate the person who is being accused of being a pedophile and a rapist to be the Attorney General of the United States, which now puts the total attention on the Republicans in the Senate,
Starting point is 00:18:48 the most deliberative body that we've got going for us where people have no term limits and are gonna outlast Donald Trump by a lot. He's only in their mind a one term president. And so the question is that three or so seat advantage is quickly gonna evaporate because they are apparently, advantage is quickly going to evaporate because they are apparently they are not going to support Matt Gaetz and they're demanding that that report be released for their confirmation purposes to the
Starting point is 00:19:14 Senate Judiciary Committee. The current Senate Judiciary Committee which is lame duck led by Democrats is demanding it but more importantly Susan Collins has said she opposes the Matt Gaetz Nomination Lisa Murkowski Alaska same thing Cornyn who just barely missed being the Senate majority leader, which was not Donald Trump's choice I will talk about that later and how Susie Wiles has already failed Donald Trump on a numerous occasions They are all a raid against Donald Trump. That is almost enough to reduce the majority in the Senate in the new Congress to zero, to nothing. And meaning Gates will not have to go. My working theory has been this has all been a charade. Donald Trump, it's a
Starting point is 00:20:02 two-step charade. Matt Gaetz resigns because he's going to try to stop the report from coming out. Although the other part of it is then why would Donald Trump, in a split second decision, which apparently is how he's making these decisions, with Boris Epstein, his closest attorney confidant that's been picking all of these legal positions. Apparently there was a plane ride in which the Trump whisperer Boris Epstein, who is indicted, a lawyer but indicted in Arizona for the election interference and fake electors scheme and was an unindicted co-conspirator in the DC election case we'll talk about later. He whispered in his ear, Matt Gates, Susie Wiles, the chief of staff nominee is nowhere to be found on the plane.
Starting point is 00:20:54 By the time it lands, it's Matt Gates. So they didn't really think this through because they thought, well, we're going to bury the report over here, but it's going to be revived over there by the Senate. Even the Republicans demanding its publication, you know, it's released to the public. I've always thought this was a major troll by Donald Trump. He knows he can't get the votes for Matt Gaetz. He doesn't have anybody in his administration, including Suzy Wiles, to wrestle up these votes. Normally that
Starting point is 00:21:22 White House position is somebody who has deep, deep relationships on Capitol Hill in the House and the Senate to go get these votes. She does not have that and it's obvious she doesn't have that and her pick, her number one pick to be the Senate majority leader was our old boss Rick Scott and he went down in flames by the Senate in the first round of voting. So he's got no friends so to speak in the Senate, not first round of voting. So he's got no friends, so to speak, in the Senate, not enough to confirm. And then what will he do? He'll just force Matt Gaetz into some other position that doesn't require Senate confirmation somewhere in the administration promising him a job. Because as you said, he's a sort of a clueless bumbler of a lawyer. So like representing other
Starting point is 00:22:04 MAGA interests in a Gaetz law firm, I don't think it's going a lawyer. So like representing other MAGA interests in a Gates law firm, I don't think it's gonna work. So you have that. And then on top of it, you've got the other white nationalists slash sex assault charge against Hegseth. You already gave his sordid background. And then you've got this 2017 charge in Northern California which and now he's being represented talk about bringing this all home he's represented
Starting point is 00:22:30 by Tim parlator a who used to represent Donald Trump but quit him after Mar-a-Lago raid happened and so you know the execution of the search warrant so this is all in my view as I said at the top of today, a gift. And the gift to us is the more outrageous these picks are, the potential Russian foreign asset being named the head of national intelligence, the confessed drug addict and drug user, RFK Jr. being nominated to head health and human services as a former environmental lawyer with a drug problem. Pete Hegseth, who's got his long list of other problems we haven't even touched on, although you showed the tattooed photo where his allegiance really lies in America.
Starting point is 00:23:21 And he's also the one leading the charge for the purge of the military of all the generals and colonels that came out of the fevered imagination of Hegseth, which Trump adopted. And then you've got Matt Gaetz, the potential pedophile. This group, right, if they went through a proper vetting, would never survive. And now we've got to leave it to the Senate to call these people out and get these four at least Pulled as nominees or die in committee or on a floor vote in the Senate Look, what did Donald Trump promise that his presidency would be about? Retribution so if you wanted to inflict
Starting point is 00:24:01 retribution on America on the different departments? How would you inflict retribution on the Department of Justice and career lawyers who work there? If Donald Trump believes they all screwed me by investigating me, put the least qualified individual who will torment them to be the leader with zero qualifications that basically would result in the DOJ being destroyed. Retribution.
Starting point is 00:24:31 You pick Matt Gaetz. You hate your military. You hate your military generals. How do you get retribution? How do you screw the generals? How do you screw America's military? You pick a Fox news host, the weekend host with a very, very, very suspicious background to run the department of defense.
Starting point is 00:24:53 How do you screw over your national intelligence community? If you want to inflict retribution on them, because you believe that they connected you to Russia and you think Russia Russia Russia is a big hoax against you Pick the person who many believe to be compromised by Russia to lead as the director of national intelligence How do you screw over? all of the people advocating for Environmental changes who you believe harmed your interest will pick RFK jr. To run it as well
Starting point is 00:25:27 so these moves if you think about it are a Deliverance of the promise of retribution just you know, I think it's Logical but illogical but think about his sicko mind and what he's doing here when we get back I want to talk Michael Pope Pock about sicko mind and what he's doing here. When we get back, I want to talk to Michael Popock about Donald Trump making his personal lawyers also top picks within his administration. And then I also want to talk about the status of his cases. Then I want to talk about something that's not really getting all that much
Starting point is 00:25:58 coverage, but I think with our platform, we should give it coverage. A Trump appointed judge in Texas, recent ruling that banned President Biden's rule that would have given overtime pay to over 4 million Americans. Let's take our first quick break of the show. I spend most of my day in front of a screen and a microphone. And this used to mean I spent a lot of my day sitting. The research on sitting for long periods
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Starting point is 00:31:52 Welcome back to Legal AF. For those who have been watching now Legal AF for many years, some of the Trump lawyer names are probably familiar to you. Emil Bove, Todd Blanch, John Sauer. I'm sure you've heard a bunch of those names before. Just to remind you, John Sauer is an individual who was arguing on Trump's behalf before the United States Supreme Court that Trump should have absolute immunity. The Supreme Court gave Donald Trump absolute immunity to rule like a king, an authoritarian,
Starting point is 00:32:32 a dictator. Apparently to the United States Supreme Court's right wing, conservative means conserving the monarchy, not actually conserving our constitution. Who would have thought that that's what they meant by conservative? I guess some people would have warned you of that. But during oral argument, one of the judges who was appointed, Supreme Court justices who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, wanted to explore the contours of what Trump's lawyer was arguing about absolute immunity. That lawyer, John Sauer, who Trump just appointed as basically one of the top three positions in the Department of Justice,
Starting point is 00:33:08 which is called the Solicitor General, the position that argues before the Supreme Court on behalf of the Trump administration. Todd Blanch and Emil Bove got senior positions in the Trump administration as well that Pope Hock will talk to you about. But I want you to hear this exchange just to remind you about what John Sauer, Trump's lawyer, argued about absolute immunity. And after hearing this
Starting point is 00:33:31 argument, the right-wing justices said, yes, John Sauer, you are right. This is the power that Trump gets. Here, play this clip. But it has to be proven. Malem in se is a concept long viewed as appropriate in law that there's some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against. Now, I think, and your answer below, I'm going to give you a chance to say if you stay by it, if the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official that for which he can get immunity it
Starting point is 00:34:26 would depend on the hypothetical but we can see that could well be an official it could and why because he's doing it for personal reasons he's not doing it at like President Obama is alleged to have done it to protect the country from a terrorist he's doing it for personal gain. And isn't that the nature of the allegations here that he's not doing them, doing these acts in furtherance of an official responsibility? He's doing it for personal gain. I agree with that characterization of the indictment, and that confirms immunity,
Starting point is 00:35:04 because the characterization is that there's a series of official acts that were done for No, because immunity says even if you did it for personal gain, we won't hold you responsible What do you how could that be? That's an extremely strong doctrine in this court's case law in cases like Fitzgerald. Well, we go back to Justice Thomas's question. So Michael Popock, you heard there, Trump's lawyer argued, yes, it's an official core constitutional function. You should get immunity for that. And the right wing justices said that you should get immunity to order SEAL team six to assassinate political rivals.
Starting point is 00:35:46 Yeah. So where that, first of all, that just reinforces for me, anybody that was trying to push Sotomayor out the door and let Joe Biden in the last remaining days, try to put somebody in there else. A, that's not the Senate, the lame duck senators don't have any will to do that. And so that'll just be a screw up. She'll resign and he won't be able to fill. So she needs to sit right where she is. She's one of the intellectual heavyweights for the progressive and free thinking side of the Supreme Court. We can't lose such a mayor at this time. That whole exchange came out of, as you referenced, an exchange at the lower court, the DC Court of Appeals led by Judge Florence Pan,
Starting point is 00:36:29 now infamous SEAL Team Six question, where you and I listened to that. We were texting each other at that moment. We were like, oh, that's the end of the case for the Trump administration, mainly because John Sauer had taken it to the extreme, and he was so unwavering and doubling down in his position as to lose credibility. He certainly did it at the DC Court of Appeals level when she
Starting point is 00:36:50 posited Judge Pan, picked up here by Judge Sotomayor. What if the president as commander in chief ordered SEAL Team Six to take out a political rival? That's what Sotomayor said, when you, I want to see if you're going to maintain your position that you did below. That's what she's referring to. What I, John Sauer, just so you know, where he's coming from, he is a anti-abortion attorney
Starting point is 00:37:17 whose entire career has been spent trying to take away a woman's right to choose, funded primarily by a combination of the Koch brothers and a Leonard Leo Federalist Society pick. He had been the Missouri Attorney General, taken some extreme positions then. Now, that is why he was picked to be the appellate lawyer. Apparently all of these criminal lawyers for Donald Trump,
Starting point is 00:37:44 criminal defense lawyers for Donald Trump, criminal defense lawyers for Donald Trump, were put together by Boris Epstein. We're going to talk about him later in the podcast. And John Sauer was one of them, replacing a revolving door of other appellate lawyers and people that were not very successful before appellate courts, including Alina Haba. John Sowers got the credentials on paper. Look, he clerked for Judge Ludwig, a friend of the podcast. I've interviewed Judge Ludwig a half a dozen times. I've spoken to him about John Sowers. He said John was a brilliant mind,
Starting point is 00:38:18 somebody that he was a very good law clerk and knows his way around the arguments that the Supreme Court, as argued there a number of times. He clerked for Antoline Scalia, who's one of the poster boys of the Federalist Society movement. So I know why he was nominated, but John has this is nagging little habit of taking things that you, as you just heard, to the absolute extreme and not willing to bend an inch in his position. And while that was effective, and let's give credit where credit is due, he won two major decisions for Donald Trump. He won the Colorado decision in which he argued that the 14th Amendment Disqualification for Insurrectionist Clause could not be applied
Starting point is 00:39:05 at the state level for a federal election. And he got an 8-1 vote on that. It may have been 9-0 on the things that mattered. And that's why, even though we keep talking about, what about the 14th Amendment Insurrectionist Clause? He made an argument that resonated with not just the MAGA right wing of the court. And then we fast forward several months later when he argued in April of last year, the immunity decision, which ended up going almost completely in Donald Trump's favor. But John Sauer kind of let loose on as the Solicitor General representing all the interest in the position of the United States of America is quite different than I think than just being Donald Trump's lawyers.
Starting point is 00:39:50 Now look, he'll always resonate with Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas. The question is will his consistently extreme positions, when you can see it here, and an often confusing way of arguing arguing will wear on the court. It's one thing to appear once in a while in front of the court. John has another habit, which I think is grating, grating on people, including the appellate judges who listen to him, which is he tries to pack into a sentence about a thousand or more words. He tries, you know, it's fatiguing. It's also wearing on appellate judges. And he's been told to slow down, calm down, answer the question. I've heard that over and over again. When
Starting point is 00:40:36 he's appearing, not just randomly, but every week before the Supreme Court, what we want to try to do if we're on the other side of the arguments is aim for Amy Coney Barrett Who yeah, she sided with the majority in this but I think she's not one that likes to be dragged to the most extreme positions like seal team six or selling, you know, the other thing that came up that we didn't talk about here But just remind people, you know G the other thing that came up that we didn't talk about here, but just remind people, you know, Gorsuch and others posited, well, would he be able as president since his core constitutional right is in power is to issue pardons? Could he sell those pardons? Could he self pardon?
Starting point is 00:41:16 I mean, that all came up in the argument too. And John Sauer took a typical John Sauer position. So what I'm hoping is by having somebody who's often considered to be the 10th justice of the United States Supreme Court, that's how much respect that position is given, that he will abuse it relatively quickly and wear out his welcome, and that will help, which is the only thing that we have a hope for
Starting point is 00:41:38 for the next four years, is that we can get Amy Coney Barrett and occasionally Roberts to move over to the logical side, the reasonable side, and join the three on the left, so to speak, or center, and on things that matter in opposing future Trump policy. We know this guy is going to go to the extreme every time and not give an inch. That doesn't always work, especially when it's 10 times a week
Starting point is 00:42:08 at the United States Supreme Court. But to answer the question in the chat, John Sauer is gonna get confirmed. And if you were wondering about Todd Blanch, who was the most successful criminal defense lawyer for Donald Trump in his roster of revolving door criminal defense lawyers, which number almost a dozen starting at the beginning of the prosecutions, but landed on Todd Blanch and Emil Bové, his associate slash partner.
Starting point is 00:42:36 They have all been rewarded with deputy general counsel, which is now occupied by Lisa Monaco for Merrick Garland, and the first assistant to the deputy in Emile Bové. If Matt Gaetz gets lopped off, either voluntarily or involuntarily, I could easily see Todd Blanch being elevated to the attorney general position and everybody move up one notch. They will get confirmed. But now you have, where Donald Trump is telling the world that he's against the weaponization of the Department of Justice, what you have now is
Starting point is 00:43:11 the jailed have now become the jailers and they've put the jailers in jail because all the criminal defense lawyers who were battling it out with the Department of Justice as criminal defense lawyers are now the prosecutors against the Department of Justice and criminal defense lawyers are now the prosecutors against the Department of Justice and the FBI. I don't take for a minute with a grain of sand or salt, Alina Haba yesterday, she speaks for the, she speaks Donald Trump's id. She says things out loud that he thinks, which is, we're coming after you, Jack Smith. Your resignation, you can resign, but you can't hide. We're coming after you, Jack Smith. Your resignation, you can resign, but you can't hide.
Starting point is 00:43:46 We're coming after you. I mean, he already has round the clock security protection for good reason. And for her to kind of amp it up, and for people to think they're gonna turn the page and we're gonna be a unified country, his first thing is to put his criminal defense lawyers and all the prosecutor seats
Starting point is 00:44:06 and all the top Department of Justice seats. And what do you think they're gonna do about it? It's gonna be MAGA hearings left and right, investigating the people that left the last administration all the way up to Joe Biden. And then it's gonna be these people opening up investigations against their political rivals with a solicitor general who believes that giving out an assassination order, a murderous president is immune.
Starting point is 00:44:35 That's a problem. But what I'm hoping is that he's so extreme in his positions, sour, that it will turn off, as I said, the Amy Coney Barrett's of the world, hoping to get her over to our position. If we don't aim for her in every argument, we have no chance, no chance of getting things in our favor five to four throughout the next four years or so. So that's just got to be, you know, I'd love to change the dealer, but sometimes you just got to play the cards that you're dealt. And these are the cards that were dealt. This is the group that will get confirmed.
Starting point is 00:45:09 The group that won't get, especially if we take to the streets, so to speak, call your senator. People are always like, what can we do, Popak? You got two senators in every state. Call them now and oppose Hegseth, Gabbard, RFK Jr., and Gates for all different reasons from being even put up for nomination, let alone confirmed. You talk about the cards that you're dealt right now. Just so everybody knows, the Supreme Court, the legal AFers know this, but for those just joining, there's nine Supreme Court justices. Six have been appointed by Republican administrations.
Starting point is 00:45:45 One was a George H.W. Bush appointee, Clarence Thomas. You have the other two were George W. Bush appointees, Justice Alito and John Roberts. Three Republican appointees were appointed by Donald Trump. That's Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. So that gives you your six right wing justices. You have three democratic appointees, two by former president Barack Obama. That's Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan.
Starting point is 00:46:15 Then you have Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, who was appointed by President Biden. So that gives you your six to three. In terms of what Popak was saying right there, Amy Coney Barrett's big, she was a Notre Dame law professor. Didn't really have all that much experience as a trial lawyer, but her big issue was overturning Roe v Wade. That's what she wrote about her life's mission was get Roe v Wade overturned. Right? So she did that.
Starting point is 00:46:41 She achieved that on other issues. If you can get past that, she's more of a moderating voice, still right wing, but a more moderating voice on some of the other issues. And so is John Roberts on some of the other issues. So in terms of a litigator or as an advocate before the Supreme Court, as Popak says, if you are structuring your arguments, you're never going to get a six to three that just ain't happening because Clarence Thomas and Kavanaugh and Alito,
Starting point is 00:47:15 they're never going with you. The five four that the best you can get is bring Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett on your side. So just so people know the dynamic of what you kind of have to have to argue. And I think what we're going to start to see those five fours to look like on the most extreme excesses. We got to take our last quick break. When we get back, Popak, I want you to go over quickly the status of the various cases where we're at in the various Trump related
Starting point is 00:47:45 cases. I want you to talk through that. Perhaps even start with Giuliani and what's going on there as his watches are now being confiscated and sold which is it gives me a little bit of joy right now. And Steve Bannon's criminal case in New York which he's been trying to derail. Then I want to talk briefly about a case that I'm sure nobody's ever heard of, but I think is incredibly important with massive implications, but it should be talked about, you know, so we're going to use our platform to talk about it. We'll be right back after our last quick break of the show. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath.
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Starting point is 00:54:04 It's time to embody your most confident self. R-H-O-N-E.com slash LegalAF and use code LegalAF. It's time to embody your most confident self. Welcome back to LegalAF. Let me toss it to you, Michael Popak, who's also the host of the LegalAF YouTube channel. Michael Popak leads the LegalAF YouTube channel. Make sure everybody subscribes to that Legal AF YouTube channel. Make sure everybody subscribes to that Legal AF YouTube channel.
Starting point is 00:54:26 It is, to say it was a rocket ship. It's a real rocket ship. You know, Michael Popak, when I first started the Midas Touch Network, when I had about 200 or so followers and subscribers, Michael Popak called me up and said, Ben, what you are building is an absolute rocket ship. Now at that time, when we would do the lives together, there's three people, maybe five
Starting point is 00:54:49 people, sometimes seven, most of them would be family members and an occasional friend or two of mine. And when we would hit 10 people watching the show, Michael Popok and I would call each other after and we would be so joyous and so happy and when we got 50 people, it was the greatest day. And I remember having dinner with you when we were both practicing law in downtown LA. And I think we were getting maybe up to 100,
Starting point is 00:55:18 100 people watching and the smiles that we had knowing that 100 people were consuming this information. So we're just so everybody knows out there. And I guess the broader point is this. You can do it too. And there wasn't a magic formula other than just continuing to speak out every day, tell the truth, do our best, present these facts. And in these trying times, this is where leaders are born. This is where leaders are made.
Starting point is 00:55:50 This is where leaders show their stuff. And Michael Popok, a big leader in the pro-democracy community, that Legal AF YouTube channel is crushing it. Make sure you all subscribe. So Popok, give us the quick overview of all of these cases, including Bannon and Giuliani. And then I want to chat about this federal case that no one's really talking about. I think it's very important.
Starting point is 00:56:10 Appreciate the toss over. We started from the bottom and now we're here. So let's talk, speaking of bottom, let's start with Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon has a state court prosecution by yes, the Manhattan DA, which is the same organization that successfully prosecuted Donald Trump for the 34 felony counts and his prior companies for 19 tax evasion count tax fraud counts. That same Manhattan DA his office is got a trial scheduled to go forward on the
Starting point is 00:56:41 ninth of December, they're going to be back in court on Monday for bad and bad and trying to delay things, arguing that he got a late turnover of some evidence. The judge says she's not inclined to stop the trial from going forward on December the 9th. This is all about the build the wall phony foundation that people are already sitting in jail over in federal prosecutions for which they were not given a pardon, including Bannon's partner and co-founder because they didn't build the wall. They built their bank accounts with the money that they took from people saying that 100% of the money would go to building the wall and it never did. So that's called fraud and money laundering and other wire fraud, other crimes in New York, garden variety crimes for which you
Starting point is 00:57:25 can't get a pardon. It's a state court matter and the governor of the state of New York is not going to pardon you either, Bannon, because she's a Democrat and almost always is. And so he's going to trial. Whether on Monday there's a hearing, I'll do a follow-up on the Legal AF channel that we just talked about. Whether there's a short delay to allow for some evidence to be transmitted over to the defense. I doubt there's going to be a delay. I think we're going to start a trial on the 9th of December. He's looking at like eight to 10 years in jail, a minimum of five. And so while it was sort of a badge of honor to go in for four months for contempt of Congress
Starting point is 00:58:04 and get on the payphone with his dime every week to do his podcast and then get out in time for the vote. You know, voting, although I'm not sure he can vote. This is different. This is five years in a not pleasant place in the New York state prison system, starting probably on Rikers Island, which is a notoriously terrible place. And there's nothing that Donald Trump can do about it. I'm going to talk about things that he's going to do in the city of New York and people that may be benefited in a minute, including Mayor Adams. I'll leave that for a second. But Matt Bannon is
Starting point is 00:58:43 effed, legal a- F'd, and that trial is starting and he can whine all about it on all of his podcasts and all of that. And that's that. Giuliani whines also. Two days ago, I reported on the Legal AF YouTube channel that his lawyers fired him without telling him in the matter involving the 150 million dollar civil fraud judgment that is in the hands of Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss, the mother-daughter team who were horribly defamed and doxed and violently attacked, at least verbally, because Rudy Giuliani ran a fake video showing them committing voter fraud and counting when they they weren't, they
Starting point is 00:59:24 didn't. And they've had a hundred and fifty million dollar judgment running with interest, substantial federal interest for the last almost two years. Finally, the end of the road has been here. It's here now with a judge, Judge Lyman in the Southern District, the federal court in New York. He's ordered Rudy Giuliani to turn it all over. Even Rudy Giuliani says it'll leave him penniless and homeless, we can only hope. His two major assets, an apartment in New York that has already been turned over
Starting point is 00:59:53 to Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss's lawyers, shout out to Wilkie Farr and Gallagher, the lawyers that are doing the case for free. They're not taking any money for this. Just democracy and injustice. And so they got the keys to that five or six million dollar place on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. And there's a fight, a Bruin, about whether Rudy Giuliani is a phony resident of Florida or not. If he's a resident of Florida at the right time, he may be able to put a fence around his Palm
Starting point is 01:00:22 Beach condo near Mar-a-Lago under a unique set of laws in Florida. It's where all the dead beats that owe a lot of money go to protect their homes because there's a homestead law that's been on the books in Florida for a long, long time, but it all turns on when he was a resident or not. The judge said, I got a good day for that. Let's do it on inauguration day. After Rudy Giuliani's lawyers quit him two days ago, citing not that they weren't getting paid, citing that Rudy wanted them to take unethical positions
Starting point is 01:00:53 in court and he was not listening to their advice and they couldn't take it anymore. And then a whole section that was blacked out, which I'm sure was them saying the unethical and illegal positions that Rudy Giuliani wanted them to take. Well, lo and behold, he found a lawyer to take some positions, a Staten Island personal injury lawyer who used to represent get this for those that are about my age, Paula Jones, against Bill Clinton in the 1990s. That was his major claim to fame. So he wrote a typo-riddled letter, you know, where things got typo-ed like instead of seize, like seize a property, it became
Starting point is 01:01:32 ceased, like cease to exist and other problems in the letter. He wrote it to the judge, obviously not constrained by certain meritless positions, saying that all of the, he said firsthand, they've turned over the watches, the grandfather's watch, the ring, the 1980 Mercedes that Lauren Bacall used to own, all they've turned and money and the turn, but they want it all back. They said, no, Florida constitutional law applies and he gets to keep the car because it's worth,
Starting point is 01:02:02 it's a junker and it's worth less than 5,500 and he gets to keep the car because it's worth it's a chunker and it's worth less than 5,500 and he gets to keep a computer and a cell phone and and a pot and a pan and whatever. So they're trying to have the judge reconsider orders that he's already made with the prior council and while they're at it why not? Rudy wants to go to the inauguration and the hearing will interfere about the Palm Beach county property So won't you postpone that please? So we're gonna get a ruling that happened Friday night We're gonna get a ruling by Monday or so by Judge Lyman who moves pretty quickly on these things I think maybe he gives him an extra couple of days for the hearing, but I'm not sure
Starting point is 01:02:38 And certainly he'll probably deny as a motion for reconsideration the return of these other items The judge is yet to rule on the Palm Beach County property, which is worth three to four million dollars He'll probably deny as a motion for reconsideration the return of these other items. The judge has yet to rule on the Palm Beach County property, which is worth three to $4 million. It's another, it's like half of his assets until he has this full hearing, but he has given another order that that property is not to be sold in the meantime
Starting point is 01:02:59 with a restraining order on it, until the judge gets around to making the ultimate ruling. But as of right now, at least, at least on the Ruby Freeman, shame off side of the ledger, they've got about, I would give it five and a half million dollars collected. And then once they are done wiping out Rudy of all of his assets, then they go after his future income or current income with ritz of garnishment to get
Starting point is 01:03:23 any of the podcast money or this book that he's writing for Harper Collins or whatever. They're entitled to that too until it's all paid off. On the Trump side, the cases are going to wrap. We've got the Murchon case on sentencing. The lawyers there for the prosecutor's office, the same at NDA have asked until the 19th of November, so next week to tell the judge what they wanna do with sentencing given the election results. We can only speculate that they're gonna
Starting point is 01:03:58 probably take the position that the sentencing should be pushed off. And even if they don't, it's gonna go up on appeal. He's not gonna get sentenced in 2025 2025 regardless and he's not going to be sent to jail while a sitting president. So just to manage expectations there but we'll know more on the 19th of November when that's filed. On the 2nd of December we're going to get a filing similarly by Jack Smith in the DC election interference case in which he's going to tell Judge
Starting point is 01:04:28 Chutkin what they should do with the case. The reality is he, Jack Smith's going to dismiss these cases. It's already publicly known that he's told his staff to go find other jobs. He's working on his report. The report is what matters now. He's going to turn over two reports, one on Mar-a-Lago and one on the D.C. election interference case, to judge to Merrick Garland, who's already said, at least in the past, that he's going to publicly release them. He has to publicly release them because if he doesn't, he can't leave it to Matt Gaetz or the next attorney general to do it. We'll never see these reports. So I think he owes it to the
Starting point is 01:05:05 American people for many, many reasons that we don't need to go over here about Merrick Garland's slightly uneven stint as Attorney General. I'll just leave it at that. But I think we'll get those reports, we'll get them before the new Congress comes in on Jan 3. That's my prediction on that. And that sort of is a wrap between, you know, and we already reported at midweek that Mark Meadow's attempts to get out from under his state prosecution is going to fail. He's not going to get it to federal court because the Supreme Court says so. One last comment. We talked about the people that have been nominated. One of them we didn't touch on yet, I want to just touch on briefly here, is Jay Clayton for the highest federal prosecutor position in New York,
Starting point is 01:05:53 the Southern District of New York, Manhattan, a US attorney. It used to be the job that Rudy Giuliani had. Jay Clayton is, how do I put this nicely, a meat puppet for Donald Trump, golf buddy of Donald Trump and others in his inner circle, served as sort of the feckless securities and exchange commission chairman in the first administration. He is being put there as a friendly prosecutor in Donald Trump's hometown of Manhattan, so he doesn't have to worry about the next four years being any of his friends or others being
Starting point is 01:06:24 prosecuted by that office. And I also see that after he replaces Breon Peace in the Eastern District of New York, so the whole of New York now covered, that they are going to dismiss their indictments in prosecutions of Mayor Adams. And that'll be something Donald Trump will then have Mayor Adams in his back pocket forever more because that case is either he's gonna get pardoned and or he's gonna force Jay Clayton and others to dismiss the Mayor Adams, a corruption indictment related to him taking money and bribes from foreign powers
Starting point is 01:06:58 because who else would give him that benefit than a president who also obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in his family from foreign governments. Michael Popock, that was a very thorough and detailed summary. I want to briefly talk about a case that's probably not in the news that you've never heard of. It's called Texas versus Department of Labor. Everybody hear of it? No, but you probably should because while corporate media was focusing on all
Starting point is 01:07:29 of Donald Trump's stunts and scams throughout the election and attacking President Biden's handling of the economy when President Biden got us out of the mess that Donald Trump thrust us into with his mishandling of COVID. Oh, and by the way, take a look at those headlines in 2019 when there was a manufacturing recession before COVID hit. I know we wave that men in black wand and have this collective COVID amnesia where we pretend that things were great when Trump was in office, when they were absolutely a disaster. But surprise, surprise.
Starting point is 01:08:01 Now economists are saying with all the havoc and chaos Donald Trump is causing, there is a 75% chance right now of a recession. And the stock market was down last week, not liking Donald Trump's chaos. But Michael Popak, I digress. President Biden's been the most pro-labor president in American history. So in keeping with that tradition, he proposed a rule and the rule said that if you made under $58,656, you're automatically entitled to overtime pay. About four to six million Americans therefore would receive overtime pay under this rule
Starting point is 01:08:40 because what corporations have been doing is saying certain people they're exempt employees because they fit this Exempt criteria therefore we don't have to pay them over time and of course The labor can challenge that status of exempt versus non-exempt But guess what when you have a National Labor Relations Board controlled by management management and not pro workers Let's see if you're ever gonna get get a pro-labor ruling in your favor. And trust me, the National Labor Relations Board under Donald Trump's going to be as anti-worker as it comes. Are you listening?
Starting point is 01:09:15 Sean O'Brien, the head of the Teamsters who tried to bolt sides this and went to Mar-a-Lago, wore the red tie, kissed the ring and gave the thumbs up as he screwed over his Teamsters workers and Teamsters union. Well, Biden put forward this rule giving 4 million Americans overtime pay. But guess what? Donald Trump backed groups and the Republican governor of Texas, they filed a lawsuit, Judge Schaap found a Trump appointed judge by the name of Sean D. Jordan in the Eastern district of Texas, who on Friday issued a nationwide
Starting point is 01:09:51 injunction in favor of Texas, in favor of these Trump act business groups, blocking the overtime pay for about 4 million Americans who would have got the overtime pay that they deserve. Where are the headlines? Where's the outrage? I know there's lots of attacks on Biden, this, that, that, and the other, but 4 million Americans just got denied overtime that they otherwise would have been entitled to.
Starting point is 01:10:16 Now I focus on this instance right here, but I could focus on probably hundreds of other pro labor policies that Trump appointed judge have blocked of Biden. And I understand that our civics has been so utterly destroyed in our education system, which by the way is why Donald Trump wants to abolish the department of education because the uneducated love me, the uneducated love me. But when you actually take a look at what's taking place here, you will see that when Biden's tried to help workers, the Trump
Starting point is 01:10:49 administration can confidently based on their legacy judges have blocked this at each and every step. And so why do I bring this up at the end? I bring this up because knowledge is power. And now that our platform here is bigger than the corporate media we need to share. We need to lead by example and we need to talk about the fact that four to six million Americans who should be getting overtime pay are not getting overtime pay because the 1%, the big oligarchical business interests who are
Starting point is 01:11:22 laughing in your faces right now because they're gonna get the biggest gifts ever and Gigantic tax cuts. Well, by the way, you're gonna get screwed on your taxes You are you think you're gonna get a Trump tax cut good freaking luck with that. You're gonna get the bloody mass Deportations your taxes are gonna go higher while the oligarchs get richer and laugh in your freaking faces I bring this up again not to discourage us, but let's know the reality and let's also know how we message these things. Like I just did, clear-eyed, clearly stated, and I'm not making this stuff up. This is just the truth, the hard truth and nothing but the truth. So help me. That's what's going on. So,
Starting point is 01:12:07 Michael Popak, I talked about that case. I thought it was important to mention that. We're going to keep fighting every day here at Legal AF. This is the place where you should come if you want the facts. The cold, hard facts, the truth, the evidence, it's all going to be right here. The other place you go to, of course, right now, the main home for everything, Legal AF, is the legal AF YouTube channel hosted by Michael Popok where the intersection of law and politics is discussed described dissected every time I look there's like
Starting point is 01:12:38 another hundred thousand subscribers on that channel so pop-up great work building that network out there. Really great stuff. I'll let you give the final word. Yeah, I'll just, I'll just pick up where you left off on Eastern district of Texas guy. We have to do that is a role model, a blueprint of how we're going to do Jiu Jitsu against the future Trump administration. That's why, as I said at the top of this, the attorney generals in at least 17 states that are completely controlled by Democrats are already, for the last year, have been tabletop exercising what they're going to do and how they're going to do it against
Starting point is 01:13:18 Donald Trump to pin him down and make him as quickly lame duck as possible and try to contain the damage, at least as we get to the midterms, hopefully for a crushing defeat. I mean, history tells us if history doesn't repeat, it at least rhymes, to paraphrase Mark Tween, and almost no president, and that includes Barack Obama, who came in with the trifecta of both chambers of Congress and the presidency retained it at the midterm. And so I know Donald Trump is great at setting history, new history, but that seems to be the way this is going to go. And if we're right about that, then we go into court seeking
Starting point is 01:13:58 nationwide injunctions in friendly federal circuit and trial and appellate courts, just the way they did, citing, well, the executive order goes beyond the administrative procedures law and the way that you pass laws and it wasn't done properly. And so, you know, all of these crazy immigration policies that he's about to do or attempts to remove all of the,
Starting point is 01:14:25 this is my major problem I'm gonna leave this point on. Most of what we're expecting Donald Trump to do is gonna leave America weaker, our national security in tatters. Anybody think that the entirety of the attorney of the Department of Justice retiring early because they don't want to serve under a Attorney General Matt Gaetz,
Starting point is 01:14:43 they all take early retirement, same thing in the FBI. Same thing in our intelligence community, which keeps us safe every day because they don't want to be under a potential Russian asset in Tulsi Gabbard. Does anybody think that's a good thing? Or all the three and four star generals saying, early retirement time, I don't want to be under this junior officer who just got elevated to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he passed the loyalty test for Donald Trump. Everything I'm talking about is not just about vengeance and loyalty, it's about it making our country worse off and more insecure to feed Donald Trump's ego. And so we got to use take pages out of his playbook. Fortunately for all of us, he was not quiet about what executive orders he's going to
Starting point is 01:15:29 do and what playbook he's going to follow. We have the playbook. We have the opposing team's playbook in project 2025. And I assure you the lawsuits in those 17 states with those attorney generals enforcing the new robust states rights that the Republicans have always been bleeding about great states rights attorney generals are going to lead the charge along with public interest groups and our community on legal AF and Midas Dutch Network to pin Donald Trump back with all of
Starting point is 01:15:57 these lawsuits are going to be filed and we're going to be referring to precedents like this one by Judge whatever's name is the Eastern District of Texas to use to our advantage to cut down Donald Trump's programs. They wanted, they spent a all of their efforts, the Republicans, trying to gum up the works with Joe Biden, who was just trying to make American life better, not worse than he found it. With overtime pay, who's benefited by that? that the worker the person who's buying the eggs and the gas that was a plus for them student loan relief that was a plus for them but not to the you know having just elected the you know the first
Starting point is 01:16:35 oligarch in chief letting in all the other billionaires and trillionaires or wannabes into the government who do you think is going to be made worse off? The American people who don't happen to play golf at Mar-a-Lago. Well said Michael Popok and look when you go talk about no tax on tips, for example, the media love that, catchy. No tax on tips sounds great. Well, you take a look back at what the actual policy was in Trump administration number one and we actually talk about the reality. The issue was there was no tips. The rule that was passed there by that department of labor
Starting point is 01:17:10 under the Trump administration is that the tips of workers belongs to their bosses. And it was a democratic provision in an omnibus bill that blocked that from becoming a reality. So when you put one plus one together and you wanna get two, if you think about the Trump policy that tips are owned by workers,
Starting point is 01:17:31 and then you say no tax on tips as a concept, wouldn't you think that maybe this is another tax avoidance scheme for billionaires to claim the tips of their workers as their own and then deduct that from their taxes. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. How about we talk about the reality? How about we talk about facts? That's what we're going to do every day on Legal AF here and after.
Starting point is 01:17:54 Make sure you subscribe to this channel. Make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. We love you. We're grateful for you and have a wonderful rest of your weekend. We got this!

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