Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump SCREWS OVER FOX as Lawsuit BACKFIRES

Episode Date: November 2, 2024

By filing his suit against 60 Minutes and CBS, did Trump just open the door to have CBS and the public get to see all of his emails and text messages showing illegal coordination between Trump and Fox dating back to 2016 through today. Michael Popok explains how the phony Trump black barbershop visit heavily edited by Fox as a campaign ad may be his undoing. Rocket Money: Let Rocket Money reach your financial goals faster by going to https://rocketmoney.com/legalaf Join the MeidasTouch Patreon: https://Patreon.com/meidastouch 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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Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more and save 10% on your first month. That's betterhelp.com. You better be careful what kind of lawsuit you file against CBS News Trump because it's going to open the door potentially to all the coordination and cooperation between the Trump campaign and Fox News, which we just recently reported on when Fox News helped Donald Trump by editing his phony black barbershop visit to make him less stupid and look less stupid. I'm Michael Popak.

You're on Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network and let's talk about the new suit filed by Donald Trump against 60 Minutes and CBS in Texas before a hand selected Maga judge, judge Kazmeric in Amarillo, Texas. And what I said earlier was, I'm not sure we get to the point where the parties have to turn over documents in that phase we call discovery, because I think on its face, this case should be dead on arrival. That CBS should be able to get out of that case by applying Texas law against Donald Trump, specifically Texas law against somebody suing to stop someone else from exercising

their first amendment rights. And what is more first amendmenty? What is more freedom of the press than 60 minutes airing the interview with Kamala Harris? There is none in that case should be dismissed. But if it's not, think of the Pandora's box that Donald Trump is open. Because I think it's fair game for the lawyers for CBS to ask for the documents from Donald Trump about the coordination between the Trump campaign and Fox News going on right now before our very eyes.

But what am I talking about? Well, we reported on it on the Midas Touch Network. Just about seven or eight days ago, Donald Trump gave a phony black barbershop interview where later on it turned out that the owner of the black barbershop didn't know that this was going to be Trump arriving and he was not pro-Trump at the time. It turns out that the Fox News and Fox and Friends or whatever it was, did a healthy amount of editing to make Donald Trump look less rambling, less stupid, less amount of word salad, which is the attack he's used in criticism. He's used against Kamala Harris in the new lawsuit. They were helping out her word salad. Well, that's exactly what Fox News did do related to Donald Trump. In fact,

I'm going to show you a clip and then compare it to what CBS is accused of and tell you why, what the coordination between Fox and Trump, which has been going on since 2016, if not before, is going to be an issue and documents and depositions are going to be taken and come out about that issue. And Donald Trump may rue the day he filed that particular lawsuit. Let's roll the clip first of the phony barbershop and the Fox News's hand getting caught in the cookie jar of doing that editing. It appears Fox gave its recent barbershop interview with former President Trump a

bit of a trim, leaving some of his tangents, exaggerations and false claims on the cutting room floor. Now, we should point out editing interviews is not unusual, especially when you're dealing with time constraints. Brevity is, of course, important. But the most important element is that the meaning of what's being said has to remain the same so that you don't misrepresent, whether intentionally or not, what your subject is saying.

We have to point out the irony here. The former president recently accused CBS of editing a 60 minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, allegedly to make her look good. The question is, with all this extra revenue we're gonna be bringing into the country, so do you believe at some point in time we could find a way once the country's back on its feet

and getting enough revenue and paid off our debt, do you think it's possible to find a way to eliminate federal taxes for the country? There is a way. There is a way. There is a way. And how do you feel about it? You know, in the old days, when we were smart, when we were a smart country, in the 1890s and all,

this is when the country was relatively the richest it ever was. Good question, interesting answer, but actually that attendee had to ask the question four times and get Trump to answer. And Fox stitched it together over the course of seven minutes to create the illusion of one clear answer. Participants had to keep following up

when Trump would meander and ramble. Now, this is an example of what some Trump critics call sane washing. The press sometimes cleaning up Trump's speech to make him sound more sane. I would call it an example instead of normalizing, you know, an example of normalizing Trump to fit him into a TV time slot.

Sometimes when that happens, you end up cutting out a lot of his false claims and rambling. Okay, now why is that important? Because Donald Trump falsely claims the lawsuit that he just filed in Texas in federal court before a hand-picked judge that's a MAGA Trumper that they picked on purpose because

he's the only judge in one district in Abilene in Amarillo, Texas. And there they claim that CBS helped out Kamala Harris and her word salad, their words, by doing heavy editing and changing her answers as a result. That's not what happened. What happened is the difference between a promo when you're trying to sell the episode on 60 Minutes and the 60 Minutes episode. During Face the Nation, they ran a promo or an introduction and they showed a clip of the interview, but she gave a two-part nuanced answer to the Israeli Hamas issues, which are complicated

for Democrats and other people. And they aired the first part of it and it was almost like dot, dot, dot, tune in tonight to 60 minutes to see the rest of the interview. We've all seen these promos before. And when you tuned in at night, you saw the entirety of the answer. It's not what Donald Trump has said, is that they swapped another part of the interview in and changed her answer to the question to make her look better. It's just that she gave a full answer,

let's say three or four lines, and they only used the short part of it when they promoted it, who cares? That's classic First Amendment freedom of expression. You don't have a right to sue over it. And if you do, there's statutes in every state almost that make it a major penalty. You'll pay the other people's attorney's fees if you file such

a suit to try to chill their First Amendment expression. But if it gets past that stage, and since they pulled Judge Kazmeric on purpose because they filed there, a MAGA right-winger of the First Order, a Trumper of the First Order, somebody who was a deputy general counsel of a Christian anti-abortion group before he became a federal judge, the only federal judge in Amarillo, Texas. They want him to make a ruling even if it's against the law, even if it's against Texas state law. They want to take that appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is also predominantly and dominated by Trumpers. And then if they lose there, they want to go to the United States Supreme Court.

This is the slingshot move that we're watching over and over again in federal court. It's the Texas to the fifth. This is like a basketball game. It's Texas with a pass to the fifth and they shoot, they score at the United States Supreme Court. I mean, there are 13 other circuits

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That's rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. Rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. So if he decides that he's trying to help out Donald Trump, Kazmarek the judge, and he elects to deny the motion to dismiss that I know is coming by CBS on a couple of grounds, one jurisdictionally and the other one that it violates Texas's anti-SLAPP. That's an acronym that's strategic litigation against active participation. So SLAPP, it means you sue somebody to stop them from speaking. If he finds, well, no, I find that this doesn't violate the SLAPP statute and I'm not going

to dismiss the case and discovery can continue, which means the exchange of documents and information and testimony between the parties. When that happens, turn over all your Fox coordination. We know for a fact and from prior reporting that Donald Trump and people around him have been coordinating with Fox News since his administration. That Donald Trump hired in his administration a number of people that were executive producers and on-air celebrities or whatever they are, for Fox News on purpose. Then he continued a close relationship with Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo and others. Lou Dobbs, who no longer exists, and Tucker Carlson. Now, one of the reasons we don't have Tucker Carlson to kick around anymore, at least on Fox News, is because we learned about a lot of this coordination in the Dominion voting systems lawsuit. Thank God they filed that lawsuit. They got $757 million from

Fox for defamation, but Fox also miscalculated because there was a summary judgment process that allowed Dominion to post on the public docket thousands of emails and text messages between producers and on-air people like Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs and Tucker Carlson. We found out a couple of things. They hated Donald Trump, except for Maria Bartiromo, who seems to have a little bit of a sweet tooth for Donald Trump and still does today. They hated Donald Trump like Tucker Carlson, but it was in the interest of ratings for Fox News to coordinate closely with his administration and to try to keep him in power. That's the crass way of saying, their purse, their pocketbook was greater than if they had any morals, and they decided to side

with Donald Trump. Now, we also learned about the close coordination between Fox and Trump in the Mark Meadows data dump because he turned over all his text messages to the special counsel to try to avoid being indicted by Jack Smith. And some of those ended up in recent filings. And it showed the close coordination between Mark Meadows and Bartiromo and Sean Hannity, in which he's getting direction, like they're the campaign directors for it.

So if I'm the lawyers for CBS, and they're pretty smart, I know some of the lawyers for CBS and they work here in New York, then I'm asking if I don't get the case dismissed and I don't get awarded attorney's fees, then I want to know about everything about what just happened with the barbershop, what happened with the Foddy Town Hall, with the women who were bussed in by Fox, who were Republican and Trumpers, to be in the room to cheer him on an all-woman town hall. How was that coordinated? Let's talk about that. And the barbershop and everywhere else, we were like, that's odd, that level of coordination. But we just had a thing where, I'll see if I can find the clip now, where Donald Trump shows up with the Fox and Friends

on the curved couch, and he's basically given some of the questions in advance and told that they're gonna help him. I mean, they're just saying stuff out loud now. CBS would be a fool to bury their head in the sand and not try to go after that particular thing. Let me see if we can, let's roll the clip now with the Fox and Friends. Your material was real funny. Who wrote it? Who helped you with it?

Well, I've had a lot of people helping. A lot of people, a couple of people from Fox, actually. I shouldn't say that, but they wrote some jokes and for the most part, I didn't like any of them. Right. So, you know, if you know, he who lives in a glass house should not be throwing boulders at somebody else. This is what I think is going to happen. I think Judge Kazmarek is on the horns of a dilemma now. He's between a rock and a maga place. If he dismisses the case, because he should under Texas law, it's a win for CBS and journalism

and First Amendment rights. He won't do that. If he keeps the case around to favor Donald Trump, which is likely, he'll open the door to discovery like this, in which they should be entitled to obtain all the times that Donald Trump has had his interviews on Fox News clipped, edited, where he's been given a draft. He's been able to comment on it, where he's been given maybe the questions in advance, or where the town halls are rigged or where there's phony meetings in barbershops with

black voters, things like that. So I'd be careful if I were Donald Trump. This is probably a Stephen Miller, Boris Epstein special within the Trump group came up with this great idea. They went and found this lawyer down in Florida who doesn't practice in Texas, but used to be in the Trump White House as a deputy general counsel at some point, never practiced law, never tried a case in his life. And some New York lawyer, also not a Texas lawyer, to get together and file the lawsuit and file it right and try to get it right into the

home court of Kaz of Cosmeric. But I love the way this is now set up for Cosmeric. Who are you going to side with? Justice and CBS or Donald Trump and open the door to Fox coordination. Get ready, Maria Bartiromo. Get ready, Sean Hannity. Get ready the rest of you. If I were the lawyers for CBS, as soon as I appear, I would send a preservation letter telling Fox News,

you better keep and not destroy all of your coordination, communication, or any communication at all with the Trump campaign at present and in the past and with Trump particularly, including text messages on WhatsApp, on Signal, on direct messaging, on social media, on any platform. I don't care if it was strapped to a carrier pigeon, I want it and I want it preserved. That's how preservation letters work. We'll continue to follow right here on Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network. Come over to our other channel. We're building Pro Democracy Channel with Legal AF along with Midas Touch Network and we call it Legal AF And I sit at the intersection of law and politics and I bring you commentary and analysis

that 64 million people a month now know that Legal AF is the home of a unique brand of analysis and commentary at the intersection of law and politics like no other. So until my next hot take, my next podcast, Legal AF, the podcast, or Legal AF, the YouTube, I'm Michael Popock and I'm reporting. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network,

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