Legal AF by MeidasTouch - WTF?! Trump ANNOUNCES a WAR DECLARATION before Day 1

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Trump just declared that he will call a phony “war” to justify a “national emergency” to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to begin the mass deportations of 11 million people using the military, approved by his DOD pick Pete Hegseth, on domestic soil to conduct mass raids and incarcerations. Michael Popok explains that Trump’s abuse of power will need to be challenged immediately in the Courts and the Senate will have to ensure that no phony “war” is declared to enable a power mad Trump from acting. Protect your home with 50% off a new SimpliSafe system, plus a free indoor security camera, when you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring. Just visit https://SIMPLISAFE.COM/LEGALAF Join the LegalAF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/legalAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown 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

If you thought Donald Trump was joking during the campaign that he was going to use the Alien Enemies Act and declare a phony war against other countries in order to deport the 11 million undocumented people living in the United States, think again. I'm Michael Popak, you're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. We've got new reporting that fresh off his win a couple of Tuesdays ago, Donald Trump has said to the world through a social media post that he is going to use,

effectively use the Alien Enemies Act and the Sedition Act to declare a quote unquote phony national emergency in order to deport 11 million undocumented people living here. Some of whom are here under temporary protected status, meaning granted by the prior president, the current president, Joe Biden, some of which are here who are family members of Dreamers who are here legally, and others. Donald Trump, of course, hasn't thought through what happens when 11 million undocumented who are working for companies like Amazon, internet companies who are picking the

produce, who are working in factories, who's going to do these dirty jobs when the 11 million people are removed as a political talking point. But let's talk about his use improperly of laws on the books that have been on the books since the 1800s but haven't been invoked since World War II, like the Alien Enemies Act. Now, it's one thing to say we're at war with a country. Fill in the blank. Literally at war with a country, a declared war that the Congress declares and that the president as commander in chief then fights. What's the war that we're under? The war of undocumented individual people coming across the border or sneaking into the country? What's the country on the other side of that? And that's the problem with Donald Trump's

attempt to invoke and trigger these acts. This is why, as I've said before, I'll say it again, there are going to be over a thousand lawsuits that are already being drafted now against Donald Trump and his exercise of his war powers and or his use through executive order of declaring national emergencies and wars where none exist. That gets challenged in the court. Sure, we're going to run up into the constitutional court responsibilities and powers of a president as commander in chief, but you have to still do it under Congress's supervision of declaring a war. And I defy and dare MAGA Congress, the 119th Congress coming in on Jan 3, to declare a war to the American people to allow Donald Trump to use this national emergency power.

And if they don't declare a war against whom I don't even know, then Donald Trump's exercise of his executive order would be invalid and would be struck down, should be struck down in the federal court systems and the circuit courts of DC all the way up even to the United States Supreme Court. Look, there is a reason that there's reporting that in the last administration, those people around him who were trying to do the right thing and not enable Donald Trump's worst instincts, that they kept away from him a binder of material telling him what his extended powers would be under various statues like the Alien Enemies Act, the Alien Sedition Act, the Insurrection Act, or martial law. I mean, is that where Donald Trump goes next? I mean, you've got people like Tom Fitton, the guy that's

the non-lawyer that runs Judicial Watch. This is how it all started. He tweets, I've just got word that Donald Trump's going to declare that national emergency almost immediately upon his arrival. And Donald Trump at 4.30 in the morning, because he's got nothing better to do apparently, gives a thumbs up. That's how we conduct national security policy now. Tom Fenton, a right-maga right-wing court watcher, non-lawyer, who wears two tight shirts on all of his podcasts and tapings, he says something, Donald Trump agrees to it, and now we've got new national security policy and the use of the military on domestic soil. I don't want you to lose that from this, the takeaway from this hot take. If you've ever worried about the safety of

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for all this protection. Simply Safe is offering my listeners exclusive early access to their Black Friday sale. This week only, you can get 60% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan. This is their best offer of the year. Head to simply safe.com slash legal AF. That's simply safe.com slash legal AF. There's no safe like simply safe. In order to execute on his national emergency, he'd have to use and then deploy the military and military assets at the border and in other places. Well, that's also a potential violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which has been on the books for good reason since our Reconstruction period after the Civil War to stop federal troops from going against American people on domestic soil. I mean, look, look, Donald Trump in his first administration at least had people

around him that were going to stop him from committing crimes. He wanted, apparently, according to Mark Esper, who is one of several of Donald Trump's Department of Defense Secretaries in the first term, Donald Trump wanted to shoot people, shoot Americans expressing their First Amendment rights in Lafayette Park behind the White House. Shoot them. Esper said in a memoir that he talked Donald Trump out of that. Who's around Donald Trump now to talk him out of anything as opposed to enabling him? Is it gonna be Pete

Hegseth, his nominee for Department of Defense? Now you see it all fitting in because only a Pete Hegseth could exist in order to allow Donald Trump to use the military against American citizens and others on US soil. Pete Hegseth, that right-wing Christian nationalist who's covered his body with tattoos about the Crusades, which is a signal to the all-right Christian nationalists who want to create, get this, Armageddon, right, who want to create World War III in order to have, you know, heaven on earth reestablished and the coming days, right? That's who he wants to be his defense secretary.

So who's going to tell Donald Trump he can't shoot Americans during a protest in the future? Who's going to tell Donald Trump he can't use the Insurrection Act to suppress First Amendment expression and protest in the streets when we invariably do? Who's going to tell him he can't use the Alien Enemies Act and Sedition Act to use military assets in order to deport 11 million people from the United States on domestic soil? Who? The answer is no one. And that is the problem with this

constellation of crackpot dangerous undermining of national security picks that Donald Trump has chosen from Gates to Hegseth to his director of national intelligence who is being speculated publicly as whether she's a Russian turned asset or not in Tulsi Gabbard. And now he's going to conduct the decision about whether he's going to declare an emergency. That's not a thing. Governors can declare emergencies when a hurricane hits. Donald Trump can't talk about a 50-year immigration problem that actually backs up on both parties and their failure to act and to create a dignified immigration policy, and now upon his arrival call it a war and a national emergency in order to invoke war

powers that he may have or in his mind he thinks he has under the Insurrection Act or any of these Alien Enemies Act that require a law, require martial law, a constitution to be suspended. We're not even a slippery slope. It's one step over to declare a phony war to invoke Alien Enemies Act powers against the American people, it's very easy to get there one degree of separation to imposing and declaring martial law suspending the Constitution and writs of habeas corpus letting people rot in jail without getting them to federal courts. This is not the I told you to hot take, this is the illumination hot take about what is happening

so that you can see it, catch it, analyze it, and you can do your appropriate First Amendment things with this information. Contact your senators. You have two of them in every state. Tell them they cannot confirm the most outrageous outlier of selections to compromise our American security, and they need to oppose Donald Trump's in the Congress and the Senate leadership to oppose Donald Trump's worst instincts from using these laws against Americans and others on US soil. Then we got to leave it to the lawyers. That's why we created Legal AF, both the podcast and the new channel right before the election, Legal AF, the YouTube channel, in order to cover this type of story at the intersection of law and politics and tell you what we can do about it.

So go over to Legal AF on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, help us grow that pro-democracy channel in collaboration with the Minus Touch Network as well. So until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF, I'm Michael Popak and I'm reporting. the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at LegalAFMTN. That's at LegalAFMTN.