Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Shocked as Right-Wing Judge Shreds Him

Episode Date: June 21, 2025

The Senior Status Federal Judges are striking back and hard against the Trump Administration, issuing some of the most scathing rebukes from the bench and in opinions from their perch as judicial historians as well. Add to this growing list, Judge Young of the Federal Court in Massachusetts, who of the 400+ cases pending against the Trump Administration, just tried the FIRST trial related to Trump’s cut of millions of dollars in grant money issued by the National Institute of Health to the Black, Brown and LGBTQ+ communities, and declared that the decision to cut funding is the most “blatant” and “palpably” racist act by a Government he has ever seen in 40 years. Michael Popok reports on the trial and Judge Young’s ruling and the role of the Senior Status Federal Judges to protect our democracy. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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today at Talkspace.com slash military. Go to Talkspace.com slash military to get started today. That's Talkspace.com slash military. Well, there may be 400 cases pending against Donald Trump and his administration, but we just had our first complete trial against him in Judge Young's courtroom, a senior status judge, 84 years old, appointed by Reagan in Massachusetts in federal court. And he ruled from the bench that in his entire career, he's never seen more blatant racism by a government than what he just declared in Donald Trump's attempt through the National Institute of Health to cut grants to underprivileged communities in America, including Black and Brown and LGBTQ+. The judge said the decision was arbitrary and capricious

and the decision by Donald Trump to do it and the NIH to execute on it was blatantly racist. There you have it. The first federal judge in 400 cases to finally call out Donald Trump, that the false flag of I'm gonna get to the bottom of diversity, equity and inclusion is really a racist trope that undermines and disadvantages

and in this case could lead to the death of black and brown people. I'm Michael Popock, you're on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF, let me get to it. Judge Young is a maverick, 84 years old, but a maverick nonetheless. He's been ruling since the 80s. He's a trial judge's trial judge.

He believes that the fairest way to reach a decision is not through settlements, is not through summary judgment, good old fashioned trials. And he gave Donald Trump what is now the first trial out of 400 cases out there. The case was brought, it's two cases consolidated, one brought by 14 attorneys general, the other brought by a public interest group devoted to health. They went after Donald Trump's efforts through Doge, through Musk, to cut funding through the National Institute of Health, the NIH, to disadvantaged and underprivileged communities

in America. They just also happen to be a lot of black and brown people and a lot of gay LGBTQ plus people. And Judge Young, having heard all the evidence, having allowed the parties to conduct full and fulsome discovery, exchange of documents, had the final say as he ruled from the bench on Monday, it'll be followed by a written decision,

I'll cover that as well, I might as touch, but I wanted to get this out there. It is important that federal judges fearlessly without concern for prejudice against them or hostility against them by the Trump administration act out. It is no coincidence that a number of the judges that are doing this are in their eighties

and are senior status like Judge Breyer in San Francisco who issued a temporary restraining order on the California National Guard, or here Judge Young in senior status in Massachusetts. I think it's also ironic and cosmic justice that while the Senate Judiciary Committee and other committees run by MAGA try to get to the bottom of Joe Biden's mental status, that many of his peers are defending democracy

and justice from their perch as federal judges. And Judge Young, 84 years old, still has a full workload, not slowing down at all. Let me give you, from what from insiders that were in the room, let me tell you what he said during his ruling. He said, I've never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable. I've sat on this bench now for 40 years, Judge Young said, and I've never seen government racial discrimination like this, and I confine my remarks to this record, to health care. He also noted that the

administration's targeting of LGBTQ plus research, he says it is palpably clear these directives and the set of terminated grants here also are designed to frustrate, to stop research that may bear on the health. We're talking about the healthier, the health of Americans, of our LGBTQ plus community. And that is appalling. He goes on to say, after saying he's never seen a record like this, he said, this represents this case.

Remember, he just heard a trial. This case has been going on since it was filed several months ago, one of 400 now. We're getting very close, very close to my prediction of three or 4,000 lawsuits against the Trump administration before this whole thing is said and done. He had 1,000 the first time. We're less than 200 days into this administration,

he's got 400, But the first trial. So he's not just shooting from the hip, from the bench. He saw the evidence, the witnesses testified in his courtroom, the documents were put in front of him, and he ruled in favor of the plaintiff. But he also said, this represents, this case, racial discrimination and discrimination against America's LGBTQ plus community.

That's what it is. I would be blind, Judge Young said, not to call it out. My duty is to call it out and I do so. Donald Trump under the false flag of trying to root out diversity, equity, and inclusion. Why are we rooting out? Can we step back for a minute and have a candid conversation? Why are we rooting out diversity, equity, and inclusion?

Let me go over those concepts with you because fair-minded people have always believed in this concept before DEI became a thing that corporate America slapped on the side of a door of an office devoted to it. Yeah, we used to call it a diversity. Sometimes we called it equity. Sometimes we called it inclusion.

Sometimes we just called it the office against discrimination. It says that everybody has a right to sit at the table and that some groups in America may need a helping hand because of their disadvantaged position. I'm okay with that. That we are a better community, law firm, business, school, community, hospital, educational environment, you fill in the blank, because people with diverse backgrounds sit around that table and are stakeholders.

That's a good thing. When I went to university and I went to a private, I was lucky enough and fortunate enough and economically advantaged enough that I could go to a private university. When I went to a private university, my school was chock full of ethnically diverse people. And the school was ethnically diverse and that made me a better person. I didn't shy away from it. I think I actually researched what my university's makeup was, ethnic makeup and demographic makeup was because I wanted diversity. If I wanted to go to school with a bunch of white Jewish kids, you know, there's plenty of places to do that. But I wanted the well-roundedness, the world view wanted the well roundedness, the worldview of being challenged by people who grew up rich and poor and middle class, and on

food stamps and on and on scholarship and on trust funds and traveled the world and never left their hometowns. And you know, can you know, contributed to uplifting the poor and disadvantaged and those that never did. I wanted to be surrounded by all of them, to be able to have my own personal dialogue and conversation with them in a liberal arts environment. That's what I wanted as an 18 year old.

It made me and has made me a better person. So why do we shy away from diversity, equity and inclusion and now force corporations and law firms to abandon that ideal, which is consistent with the American print. That's why it always worked because it was consistent with the American principles, the American brand of patriotism.

Yeah. We believe in, yes, the Horatio Alger stories, but we also believe that we help our fellow citizen. Because today you may be riding high and tomorrow not. My father, my late father used to say, money is round. It rolls away from you and it rolls to you. And that's the case for a lot of people. And you have to be empathetic

to people who aren't as successful as you, or are equally as successful. So these attacks on diversity and equity and inclusion, which when it reaches the healthcare of fellow Americans, we're killing fellow Americans in order to prove a point about diversity, equity and inclusion. That's what the premise of Judge Young's ruling is.

How dare they? It is blatant racism. There's nothing else to call it. We just had another person leave working for RFK Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services, our top health official, because he says, these vaccine anti-vax policies, and the new anti-vax people on his consulting committee, on RFK Jr.'s consulting committee is going to lead to Americans dying.

Just what I want to head up my department of health and human services. So you see, this is all part of the scheme. Kill the, I mean, I hate to say it, but kill the Democrats, kill the blue states. The blue states who contribute so much economically, diversity wise, brain power wise, humanity wise, arts wise, technology wise, to our great United States of America, and don't ask for anything in return other

than to be left alone in liberty and freedom. That's all they ask. You know, they don't ask Alabama to pull its weight. They don't ask Arkansas to pull its weight. They don't ask Louisiana to pull its weight. They don't say we're not gonna contribute to the economy, technology, the arts, all the things that make America great. We're not gonna do that because, you know, you have low infant mortality,

you have a high infant mortality rate, or your poverty rate is too high, or your child poverty rate is too high, or your health care is too low for your population. We don't do that in the blue states. We just say leave us alone. And we provide sanctuary for people who are under attack. And I'm proud of Judge Young. He decided to sign his orders, not as a United States district judge, but as a United States judge.

I think there's a lot of meaning in that. And they used to say, what is it? The youngest shall lead us, the meek shall inherit the earth. Senior status judges are working overtime to protect our democracy. And they have the long view, the long lens, the context, the history. History is prologue. They understand it because they lived it. When a guy like Young was appointed by Ronald Reagan is still on the bench calling out racism that he's never seen before in 40 years. And that's not the first time. Remember how this whole thing got kicked off speaking of senior status judges? Judge

Kofordor in Seattle, the very first judge this Trump term to issue a temporary restraining order concerning birthright citizenship. and boy was he right. He said in his 40 years, this was the most blatantly unconstitutional executive order he has ever seen in its attempts to overturn the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship. That he had never seen anything. And when you hear the power of that, a Stephen Breyer,

a Judge Coffin or a Judge Young, you got to sit up and listen. These aren't radical leftist, Marxist judges. Some of them are just, I mean, whether they're Democrat or Republican, given where they're from and what era they're from, they're almost, you can't separate them, they're indistinguishable. Country club Republicans, country club Democrats, we used to call them.

Reagan Republicans and Goldwater Kennedy Clinton Democrats are very close. It's only now when we try to operate at the extremes and we have a president pushing us to the extremes that we don't have that commonality. You know. I shouldn't have to talk about what president appointed the judge. When it comes to Trump, I have to, because they invariably end up on the wrong side, although they are voting 72% against Donald Trump in terms of decision-making.

I'm gonna continue to follow this story. I'm gonna get the Judge Young written order. Sure, it's gonna be 50, 80 pages of masterpieces. I'll bring it back to you right here on Midas Touch. Come on over to Legal AF, join Legal AF, the YouTube community as well. So my next report, I'm Michael Popock.

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