The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump has MOST DEVASTATING Day in Court Yet

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

Ben and Jordy Meiselas are joined by guest host Karen Friedman Agnifilo to discuss the significant developments in the various Trump criminal cases. From Washington DC Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan setting trial, to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee scheduling arraignments in the criminal RICO case, and Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows testifying at an evidentiary hearing in federal court in Georgia, the developments were fast and furious. Ben, Jordy, and Karen also discuss other breaking news items as well. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! Nom Nom: Go Right Now for 50% off your no-risk two week trial at https://TryNom.com/MEIDAS Neurohacker Qualia Mind: Go to https://neurohacker.com/MEIDAS for 75% OFF and use code MEIDAS for an extra 15% off your first purchase. Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 MAGA Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario march 4th 2024 this is the trial date in the washington dcC. federal criminal case against Donald Trump for trying to overthrow the 2020 election that's being prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith. The trial date was set today by Washington, D.C. federal judge Tanya Chutkin. Federal judge Chutkin presided over a trial setting conference in her courtroom. She kept command of the court in the face of Trump's lawyers constantly interrupting her and speaking over her and repeatedly accusing her of engaging in a miscarriage of justice. And then just like that, swiftly, she announced the trial date, March 4th, 2024, and the related dates before that for pre-trial motions. Now, over the weekend,

Trump's lawyers continued their media tour saying how prepared they were, how big and how smart Donald Trump was, how ready he was for trial, that this was easy. But as soon as they were in court, all we heard was Trump's lawyers whining, just like Trump, about not being ready or prepared and how unfair this was or how unfair that is. And once the trial date was set by federal judge Tanya Chutkin, what did Trump do? Well, he immediately took to social media to attack her, to attack special counsel Jack Smith, to attack the entire judicial system. Trump says he is going to file an appeal of the March 4th trial date, but folks, the trial date is not appealable. Next, let's go to Georgia, where we had a busy day in both state court and federal court in connection with the sprawling RICO case against Donald Trump and

18 other co-defendants brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis. In Georgia State Court, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set the arraignment of Trump and his co-defendants for September 6th, starting at 9.30 a.m. with Trump's arraignment to go first, and then each co-defendant will have their arraignments held every 15 minutes thereafter. And we expect this proceeding will be televised and we will have our Midas Touch network cameras in the courtroom. Meanwhile, in federal court in the Northern District of Georgia, federal judge Steve Jones held an evidentiary hearing in connection with Mark Meadows' attempt to try to remove the case from Georgia's state court to federal court. To the surprise of virtually everyone, Mark Meadows testified. He took the

stand. He waived his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. A true mini trial took place in federal court. So what happened and what happens next? Well, Georgia MAGA Republicans don't want anything to happen next. They have started efforts to try and remove Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis as a prosecutor in Fulton County under a new law, SB 92, signed into law by Republican Governor Brian Kemp back in May, which creates the Orwellian-named Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys Qualification Commission prosecuting attorney's qualification commission in order to remove duly elected prosecutors who the Republicans on the commission field bring, quote, disrepute to the profession. When Republicans don't like the outcome, this is what they do. So what will happen next there,

we'll discuss. And speaking of Republicans trying to game the system and destroy our democracy, Republicans are gearing up for an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The scope of it, the Republicans don't really know. Something about Hunter Biden's laptop and subsidiaries and fake whistleblowers and who knows what. But folks, as the Republicans are now refusing to fund our government, they are focused on doing whatever Donald Trump tells them to do to harm our nation. We've got a lot to discuss. I'm Ben Micellis from the Midas Touch podcast, joined by Jordi Mycelis and Karen Friedman Agnifilo. Brett is away and no one better to discuss these legal developments.

So many. It was fast and furious. Karen Friedman Agnifilo and I were speaking all day and I just said, Karen, you're coming on the show. Please. And Karen fortunately said, yes, we're coming on the show. Please. And Karen, fortunately, said yes. We're thankful to have you and your perspective here. Karen Friedman Agnifilo, for those that don't know, for a very long period of time, close

to three decades, was the number two prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and served for certain significant periods of times as the acting Manhattan District Attorney. So it's great to have Karen Friedman Agnifilo here. Jordy, how are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm so excited for the show tonight. Big bro, you look excellent in that shirt. Funny enough, quick, quick story. I know when Ben likes when we talk brother band before we get into the real serious news. I was with Ben when he got that shirt. And so we do a little bit of a pre-show. I comment on Ben's shirt. I'm like, hey, Ben, that's a new shirt. I really like that. And to his, I don't know, lack of memory of being with

his younger brother, he totally forgot that I was with him when we got it. He's like, thanks, man. I just got it the other day. Like made no mention that we got it together. But anyway, let's move that aside. We are so lucky to have KFA, as we affectionately call her here on the Midas Touch Network, join us tonight. And I'm so excited. Karen, how are you doing? I'm great. I'm so honored to be like an honorary sister today on the Brother's Pots. I love it.

Well, it's great to have you here, Karen. We've got a lot to discuss. But from the outset, I do want to mention that lots of people have been asking for the federal judge Tanya Chutkin emoji on our YouTube channel. And so I have been given authorization to unlock the judge Chutkin emoji if we hit 500 members on this episode. 500 new memberships. If you're already a member, you can gift other people memberships as well. If we don't hit it on this episode, I think we'll come close to hitting it on this episode.

We will roll that over to the next episode to unlock the Judge Chutkin emojis, but I'd like to see it unlocked here. And we appreciate everyone who's become a member of the Midas Touch Network. We don't have outside investors here, which is probably not the greatest business model in the world. But the way we grow this platform, for example, how we created MidasTouch.com, which is the new homepage for all things Midas Touch is through those emoji supports and Patreon support. We've been able to bring on some top editors, some top writers, so you can see the direct correlation between emojis and the growth of

this network. And so 500 emojis, we unlock the Judge Tanya Chutkin emoji. And rightfully so, I hope we unlock that today. Karen, there was a lot of developments in different courtrooms today across the country. So let's start with Washington, D.C., where you had special counsel Jack Smith previously requested January 2nd of 2024. You had Donald Trump through his counsel. They requested April of 2026 for the trial date in connection with the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith in DC for Trump's attempts to overthrow the 2020 election. And so a lot for Judge Chutkin to consider. Ultimately, she set a March 4th, 2024 trial date, but Donald Trump's lawyers say, we're not ready. We're not prepared. This is so

unfair. But what happened over the weekend and the previous weekends? What have we seen over and over again? Every weekend, either Donald Trump's lawyers or spokespeople or lawyers slash spokespeople, they go on TV and what do they say? They spread the Trump propaganda to right-wing media, whether it's Fox or Newsmax, and they say, we're ready to go. This is simple. Some Kim Jong-un style stuff here. Donald Trump is so smart. He's so intelligent. He doesn't need to prepare. Why? Because these mega Republicans do not want to exist in the world of law and order. They want to exist in the world of propaganda, of right-wing propaganda. So they say that as if special counsel Jack Smith's team's not going to bring it up to Judge Tutkin and say, Judge Tutkin, they said they're ready.

They said they have the information. They said they're prepared. Here is all of the times they've gone on this media tour and said they are ready. So for example, here is Alina Haba. I guess this was an upgrade this weekend in the sense that her statements were only used as evidence against Trump's legal team at a hearing. She wasn't sanctioned close to a million dollars this weekend like she is another weekend. So perhaps this was an upgrade for her. But let me show you, this was Alina Haba saying Trump is too smart, too intelligent. This isn't just a normal person. He's ready to go. It's simple. It's a perfect phone call. Play the clip. Let me ask you this, the logistics, you saw the timeline there. That's in the middle of running for president, caucuses, primaries. How do you logistically handle prepping a client for all of those different trials and running for president, caucuses, primaries. How do you logistically handle prepping a client for

all of those different trials and running for president of the United States? Yeah, if it was a normal person, honestly, Shannon, I could understand the concern. President Trump is not your average person. He's incredibly intelligent and he knows the ropes. He also knows the facts because he lived them. These are not complicated facts. Look at Fannie. It was a phone call, a phone call that's been around forever that he refers to as the perfect phone call. What is he going to have to be prepped for? The truth, you don't have to prep much when you've done nothing wrong. So that I'm not concerned with. These trial dates also are going to move. It's unrealistic. It's theatrics. And no judge is going to say that you can be on two trials at once in two different states,

because a lot of these overlap. They look at the start date of the trial. But these are four to six week trials at the least. So there's no way they're not going to overlap. I mean, they're going to have to go into October, November of next year, again, by design. But in terms of President Trump, the candidate, I have zero concerns. Look at his poll numbers, and he didn't even go to the debate. Yeah. Karen, so tell us what happened in were looking for basically a never court date. She set March 4th, six months from now, saying that's more than enough time to try a one defendant, four count trial. It's not a, you know, the government estimated it's maybe four to six weeks. This is not the biggest, most complicated trial. So this is more than enough

time. And it got very heated and fiery. You know, John Loro, the defense attorney was saying, I can't be ready. You're going to deny. He used a buzzword called effective assistance of counsel because your ineffective assistance of counsel is a reason to have your case overturned. And he tried to say, Trump is not going to have an opportunity to have an effective assistance of counsel because there's so much paperwork and discovery and stuff that the government turned over that we have to prepare. And it went back and forth. Apparently it got very, very heated to the point where, where the judge had to tell him, admonish him and tell him, take it down a notch,

you know, enough, like don't get so heated. And, you know, you have to wonder why would it, why would a defense attorney do that to it? I mean, it's not going to, you're not going to persuade a judge by yelling at her. So he must've made the calculation that, okay, she had her mind made up. She wasn't going to be persuaded. Certainly she's not going to be intimidated by being yelled at by a defense attorney. So he was clearly performing theatrics, both for his client, Donald Trump, who, who believes in, you know, being tough and the whole tough guy thing and yelling, et cetera. So you have to kind of put that on if you're representing him. I also think he was doing it to try to get the base support, the MAGA Republican people, outraged. They're all about

outrage. And so he was expressing outrage. We can, we can't possibly be ready, etc. So, you know, the other thing that that I think was interesting is, is a lot of people have said, Oh, but this is the day March 4, is the day before Super Tuesday, you know, is that what the judge is doing is trying to prevent him from, from, you know, there's some kind of strategy there for doing it right before Super Tuesday, which is the next day. I think the fact that Super Tuesday is the next day clearly shows how separate politics and criminal justice are. I don't think the judge had any clue or thought about it at all because it has nothing to do. It has no place in the courtroom. And in fact, they were saying, oh, but he's so busy, he has to run for president. And she said, you know what? I've had sports figures before me who have said, you know, I can't possibly start this trial because the football season is starting or the basketball season is starting or whatever.

Or I've had other people who, you know, everybody has a life. Everybody has a job. Everybody has a situation where they can't possibly, you know, they think they can't possibly do this. And she said, look, you know, this goes first. This is more important. It's not a reason to delay the case. You know, she also said she consulted with Juan Merchan, who's the New York State Court judge, who's in charge of and overseeing the Stormy Daniels election interference case. And that's supposed to go March 24th of 2024. And she said she consulted Judge Mershon to make sure that this was okay. And typically,

and we've talked about this several times on Legal AF and elsewhere, that Judge Mershon, I know him, I've worked with him, and I've been before him. And of course, he would defer to not only a federal judge, but it's without a doubt, the January 6 case is probably the most important criminal case in my lifetime. I mean, you know, he's trying to, Donald Trump tried to basically destroy our democracy, right? What, like the very foundation of the United States of America is, and someone who tried to steal it, is on trial. And of course that, although I still believe that Alvin Bragg's case and the election interference case with Stormy Daniels is an important and worthwhile case, without a doubt, this one's more important. And I'm not surprised that Judge Marchand agreed to defer to Judge Chutkin here. Karen, you worked with Special Counsel Jack Smith at the Manhattan District Attorney's

Office. So when Special Counsel Jack Smith was announced as the special counsel back in November of 2022, I remember that day very vividly because there were so many people who were stoking misinformation about Jack Smith and his ability as a prosecutor. And I'm not just talking about right wing people like I'm talking about. I don't know what was going on, but all of a sudden I saw this like anti Jack Smith agenda. And so you and I spoke and you're like, Ben, I work with this guy. I know Jack Smith very well. He's probably one of the top prosecutors

right now that exists in the country. He is the perfect person for this job and he is a master tactician. And we see that here, right? I mean, he could have brought a far more sprawling indictment before the grand jury to vote on, but he was very surgical and tactical and thought many steps ahead. types of arguments that Trump's lawyers were going to make to anticipate all of the different kind of permutations of different cases involving various different charges that Donald Trump's lawyers were going to cite to. And that's why he made this very narrowly tailored complaint that he brought. Did any of this surprise you at all, Karen? No, not at all. And, you know, Jack Smith, like we were baby DAs together. You know, it was both of our first jobs out of law school in the early 90s. I started in 1992. He started in 1994. And the Manhattan DA's office has, you know, 500 lawyers in it, but they group you into these small groups of like 50 people because just it's such a big place, right?

And Jack and I were in that same small group. We were in Trial Bureau 30, which is what it was called. And so we came up together. We were trained by the same supervisors. We learned the same things. And he absolutely distinguished himself early on. He was a superstar from the start. And he was a very even keeled, very smart, very just unfazed, you know, he didn't get stressed out the way some of us did, you know, trials are very stressful. And, but he was the guy who was the cool kind of, you know, I got this. And, you know, he was very interesting. We worked together for, you know, several years, and I couldn't tell you what his politics are. I couldn't tell you what his political leaning is. He's not that kind of a guy. He's just a total straight shooter, all about doing the right thing. And then, of course,

he left and he became a federal prosecutor, and then he became a war crimes prosecutor. And so he's really done tons and tons of, you know, he's truly a career prosecutor in the sense, the true sense of the word. You know, I was a career state prosecutor, but Jack has really been all over, you know, state, federal and international. And he's he's I just don't think anyone could say other than Donald Trump, of course, who, you know, likes to say terrible things about him. I don't think anyone who's ever worked with him would ever say anything different. He's just highly respectable, very, very smart, and very just kind of does the right thing kind of guy.

And as you can see, all the moves he's made so far, he's clearly demonstrating that he continues and remains to be that guy. It must be such a head scratcher for you, Karen. No, no, I was gonna say, It must be such a head scratcher for you, Karen. No, no, I was going to say, it must be such a head scratcher for you when you see Trump tweet out,

you know, this Trump-hating prosecutor. I mean, the way you describe working your time working with Jack Smith is just a by-the-book guy, apolitical, just wants to do the job the way it should be done, you know, politics aside. So when Trump then goes to attack Jack Smith for being a quote unquote Trump hating prosecutor, Trump, Jack Smith's wife.

I mean, what do you think to yourself in those times when you read those posts? You know, look, and it calls him a crackhead and all that kind of stuff. Honestly, what I think it really, really makes me sad for several reasons. It's a perfect example of tearing's the true public servant. I mean, in the truest sense of the word, he's the best of us. He's the best of this country has to offer. And you have somebody who allegedly holds himself out as someone who should be president of the United States and would say that just because he doesn't like that he's being prosecuted. It actually makes me very sad. And it's just such a shame because they're really, it doesn't get better than Jack Smith. It doesn't. He's, he's really kind of, you know, like I said, he's just, he's, he's the true public

servant who believes in serving the public and not playing politics with people's lives. Not, you know, not without fear or favor is, is sort of the, the famous line that is always said. And that's, and that's what he does and how he does it. It's all about, you know, just telling the truth and fairness and doing what's right. And so it's hard for me to watch that. And first of all, it's completely wrong and it's outrageous. And just thinking about what Jack and his family must have to go through, look, obviously as prosecutors, we've all had death threats, et cetera. It's not like when Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss, their life was upended the way it was. They didn't sign up for that. As prosecutors, we sort of sign up for it. It goes with the job. It sucks terribly. It's not, I'm not saying it's a good

thing. It's terrible. I've been there and, you know, had to have police guards outside my kid's school, et cetera. I mean, it's not fun. It's terrifying, but you know, it goes with the territory, but this is on the next level. You know, this is level. This is next level. I mean, Jack Smith's life will be forever changed because of, and not even just Donald Trump, but he's so irresponsible in the things he says. And then you've got his followers who clearly get the message that what Donald Trump wants from them is chaos and violence. And, you know, they over and over again, we see that they've gotten that message, you know, January 6 is not the only example of it. And it's just, you know, very sad that that he gets not only gets away with it, that he's not

being held account, you know, to account for his behavior. Judges are somewhat hamstrung in what they can do to him, to Donald Trump, you know, in his tweets and in his messaging because of the election, et cetera. But if he is convicted, he needs to be held accountable and he needs to go to prison because really what he has done is irresponsible, outrageous, dangerous, and criminal. We don't expect this March 4th, 2024 trial date that was set by Judge Chutkin to move in any material way. I mean, yeah, there may be a two-week extension, a month extension, but I think we can fully expect that the special counsel, Jack Smith, criminal case against Donald Trump for crimes relating to the 2020 election

will take place in that kind of early to mid 2024 period. We can say that with a great degree of confidence as well, with a great degree of confidence that we will see a conviction, I believe, around that period of time related to special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution. You talk about the dignity and integrity of people like Jack Smith, who you know. And as President Biden says frequently, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. I think about that. I also think about, Karen, what you just said, how Donald Trump and this MAGA rhetoric has provoked violence on a very frequent basis. I mean, take a look at what happened over the weekend in Jacksonville, where there was a race-based terrorist attack. That's what it was.

It was a terrorist attack where an individual espousing white supremacist views killed multiple black people based on this hateful and disgusting rhetoric that has been spread and based on the fact that there are no common sense gun control laws on the books. And take a look at what President Biden posted about his cooperation with Governor DeSantis, about what took place as well in Jacksonville. And I want to compare that to what Donald Trump has been posting over the past 24 hours as well. So what President Biden posts, he said, this morning, I spoke with Governor DeSantis to inform him that we've approved the emergency declaration for Florida as they prepare for Hurricane Adalia and FEMA has pre-deployed personnel and assets.

Florida has my full support as they prepare for the hurricane and its aftermath. And then Biden also says, I also reiterated my commitment to support the people of Jacksonville following the horrific shooting on Saturday. My prayers continue to be with the victims and families. And here you have President Biden talking about a, not just a political adversary, but someone in Ron DeSantis who says the most hateful and disgusting things about President Biden, spreads lies about President Biden. You had DeSantis at the Republican debate, if you even want to call it that, saying, I would have told Dr. Fauci, you are fired. At the same time, you have Mike Flynn, who Donald

Trump said would have a major role in a second administration cabinet. And if Trump were to ever horrifically disgrace our nation, I don't even want to think about that thought. But you have Mike Flynn holding events where guests are calling for the execution of Hunter Biden and Dr. Fauci and other things like that. And then you can take a look at what Biden posted. And now let's compare it like this is what Donald Trump is reposting. It is a fake mugshot of President Biden. Just think about this. Think about the level of the lack of maturity is probably the nicest thing I can say about Donald Trump. I mean, this is a petulant, fascist third grader who does this, who reposts this. A fake mugshot? Are you kidding? This is who MAGA Republicans want to give nuclear weapons to? They want Donald Trump

to make decisions of life and death over your life, your family's life, your friend's life, neighbors, coworkers, colleagues, our country. And this is what he's spending the weekend doing. He's also posting photos of himself like this from cult followers that goes, I will vote for him no matter what. The more they indict, the more we unite. I will vote Trump no matter what. What in the world is this? Now let's take a look at what Donald Trump posted after Judge Chutkin set the March 4th, 2024 trial date. And this was after Donald Trump's lawyers went on TV, went on all the right wing media saying he's prepared. He's ready to go. He's so smart. This is what Donald Trump posts on his social media platform. He goes deranged Jack Smith and his team of thugs who were caught

going to the white house just prior to indicting the 45th president of the United States, an absolute no-no, have been working on this witch hunt for almost three years, but decided to bring it smack in the middle of crooked Joe Biden's political opponents campaign against him, election interference. Today, a biased Trump-hating judge gave me only a two-month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, all in caps, super Tuesday, I will, all in caps, appeal, then he puts page two, how do you have an indictment that is based almost entirely on the findings of the January 6th unselect committee of Marxists, fascists, and political hacks, when these same lowlifes who have been caught lying for years about Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine,

FISA, the fake dossier, and much more purposely and illegally, in caps, destroyed and deleted all of the evidence, findings, and proof of the January 6th committee. When will deranged Jack Smith criminally charge the committee? I mean, if you just even remove the fact that this is a malignant, narcissistic, sociopathic, treasonous criminal traitor, I know that's hard, but just remove that for a second. This conduct right here, the statements, the way he speaks, this is not normal. This is not normal. And people are sick and tired of being gaslit by large media networks who try to normalize this behavior. That's why I show these posts, because we can't cover our eyes. We can't close our ears. We can't ignore the reality that what

I just read, yes, it is incredibly dangerous behavior. It is awful. This is not normal. And as you go into it, all they have is just name calling, low life, you're a thug, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Marxist, fascist, tax, all of these things. And then they just lie, saying that the January 6th committee records have been destroyed. It's even internally inconsistent with his statement. He says that they relied entirely on the findings of the January 6th committee. And then he goes, but it's all destroyed and deleted while his lawyers are in court saying that they need all this extra time to go through the records are January 6th committee records that were turned over to Donald Trump. And so this is all some of the most disgusting propaganda. All lies. Jack Smith was appointed, by the way, November of 2022. So it's been less than a year. So when Trump goes three years of they just make things up. Just you're right.

No, I'm sorry. They just make things up. It's it's it's other it's utter lunacy what they do. And not to get too mushy here, Ben, but but you're right, because so much of what Trump espouses is just so hate filled. And that's why I love so much about the Midas Mighty community. We're a community of compassion. We're a community of love. We're a community at the end of the day that stands behind truth and knowledge.

And that's it. And that's why people, that's why the channel continues to grow week over week is because people could come to us and they know we're not going to gaslight them and just show them the clips to just show them the clips. We're going to look at these things and really with a critical lens, go through them and talk to you about why this is so just bizarre and why you and your family and your friends, why it's time to wake up and really start to take action, especially this next election cycle, and make sure we get out there and vote. Because I'll tell you

what, Trump's riling up his base filled with hate, whereas our base is filled with love, compassion, and truth. And those are all things that we can all continue to stand behind you know i showed a video clip over i think earlier this morning of the governor of new hampshire uh chris sununu who said trump's gonna lose because independents are repulsed by this conduct absolutely repulsed by this kind of here i'll show you a video right here of a new ham voter slamming a GOP presidential candidate, Tim Scott, saying, look, if you don't stand up to Trump, you expect me to believe you're going to stand up to people like Putin and Xi? Here, play this clip. You don't stand up to Trump. How are you going to stand up to the president of Russia and China? Yeah, I think the truth is that is not standing up to Trump. How are you going to stand up to the President of Russia and China?

Yeah, I think the truth is that he's not standing up to Trump. The truth is that the... Well, you're avoiding standing up for his past. But you don't have... You don't want to lose all his votes. I get you. And the premise of the question is, why don't you stand up to Trump?

You're just wrong, but I don't. That's the premise of the question. I've never heard you... I didn't hear you the other night stand up and. And I can't accept him as a person. Do you want to have a conversation? Do you want to have a monologue? I'm happy to listen. If you want to have a dialogue, I'll be speaking as well.

I think he wants to have a truthful dialogue. He doesn't want to be gaslit. He doesn't want to be told that you now claim that you are critical of Donald Trump. You absolutely are. And Karen, I think independents specifically are looking at this and they are horrified. I mean, as a as a former prosecutor, you know, and you look at these messages to this just repulsive behavior, repugnant. I agree. I mean, look, I think Jordi, what Jordi was saying, I think should be, you know, we should be reminded of that every day of the week, right? That it has to be about truth and love and not normalize these things because it is outrageous, right? Absolutely outrageous.

And I'm so disappointed in Tim Scott. You know, he was one of, you know, there's a lot of people, a lot of independents who are saying, you know what, I still, I want to be, you know, I want to vote Republican, but it's not Trump. And they were looking at Tim Scott as potentially somebody, you know, who could, who wouldn't be like a typical MAGA, but you're right. I mean, that was a disappointing, a very disappointing answer. He should come out and, you know, not normalize what Donald Trump was doing. It's outrageous. It's criminal. It's okay to call it out and say he is a criminal. He tried to steal an election. That is not okay. I don't know how that could ever be okay. And I don't understand truthfully how it is that people don't see that. I really don't get it. It's a crazy world we're living in.

Because it happened in front of our eyes, right? The smoking guns aren't the needle in the haystack that we got to go through 12 and a half million documents or two terabytes to be like, aha, I've got the email. Every single day after January 6th, before January 6th, we see what this maniac is posting. We hear what he is saying. We watch it. We can judge for ourself this conduct. And so when you see what the Republican Party is doing, and we're going to talk later in the show that they are now focused on when they come back to Congress doing an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, because Donald Trump is telling them to do that based on what? And I say this, Karen, look, as someone who cares about law and order, if these MAGA Republicans say, Ben, Karen, Midas Mighty, we've got 17 audio recordings of President Biden when he

was the vice president. And on them, we see him engaged in bribery on behalf of his son, Hunter. Here they are, press play, and then we hear it and we go, oh my God, oh my God. I would not be supportive of Biden if that's the case. But I'll tell you, I am repulsed when day after day MAGA Republicans pull that crap and it doesn't exist. Where are the 17 audio records? Oh, we never said there were 17 audio recordings. All right, now you're just gaslighting me.

You're just making up fake things. 17 audio recordings. 17, it's a pretty freaking specific number right there that y'all are just making up. All right, we've got a whistleblower and this is the real whistleblower. Where's the whistle? Missing. Where's the next whistleblower? Dead. Where's the next whistleblower? A spy for China. Really? A spy for China? Then I have to hear Kevin McCarthy go, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes the whistleblower more credible because he's in the spy business, so that makes him more credible. Like, no, what are you talking about? You're helping a Chinese spy try to take down. Do you realize what it is that you are doing? Oh, who's your next whistleblower? A Russian oligarch? Really? And then even the Russian oligarch doesn't support them. They

get as a witness, a Russian oligarch, right? Who goes, yeah, yeah. And I never said that. That's just that that's not anything that's even close to what I said. And then they have a whistleblower who goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. April 2020. And then you have a Democrat like Krishnamoorthy who goes, okay, wasn't Trump the president in April of 2020? And then you have the witnesses go, well, what do you mean by that? I mean, wasn't Trump the freaking president? Wasn't Trump in office on April 22? Well, actually, Joe Biden was, Joe Biden wasn't the president. What are you talking about? And I care about evidence. I care about facts, especially admissible evidence, admissible evidence. And so we're going to talk in a little bit about an evidentiary hearing that took place

in the federal court for the Northern District of Georgia, where you know what's required? Evidence. Evidence. Also today, it wasn't in my intro, but Peter Navarro had an evidentiary hearing that was also held. So much was going on. I forgot to mention that in my intro in Washington, D.C. before Judge Amit Mehta. And the federal judge basically mocked what Navarro said when Navarro was like, well, you know, I feel that Trump gave me executive privilege. And Mehta's like, literally, the judge said this, that's weak sauce. I don't care about your feelings. That's absolutely weak sauce right there. You have to come into a courtroom with evidence, admissible evidence. We're going to talk about all of that and so much more. Also, we are super close to getting that Judge Chutkin emoji, 180 more memberships to go,

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just hit that drop down menu. They're right there in the description. Use our code. Hey, I wanted to talk about something real quick before we move on. And it's about Sununu talking about how independents hate Trump. And Ben, you may remember,

we can go full screen here and three screen on Ben because I'm talking to Ben specifically here, Karen, because Ben has been on the show with me when I've told him my anecdotes about talking to people here in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and how they say that they cannot stand the guy, how they are embarrassed that they voted for him in 2016. And that they're they're embarrassed that they voted that they voted for him in 2020. So after those conversations and seeing those anecdotes to see something come out like what Republican Governor Kristen Nunez had said about Trump, you know, and how he's dealing with independence. I just got to say it meets my expectations because of all the conversations that I've had here right here on the ground in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. So that's great to see. I love it. And we just got to keep this energy up.

The guy's an embarrassment. I mean, he's an embarrassment. He's a stank. He got stenched to him. Well, I mean, look, if all you're saying is Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine. There's no substance. Derange this, derange that.

Ukraine, the deep state, Marxist. you know, it's just like enough. Stop. Can you stop freaking whining like you are? Just the whining too. And don't get me wrong. This is some dangerous, dangerous stuff. But the behavior, again, is just not normal. And people just need to say it.

We can't normalize it. I'll show you. We say this is evidence-based. So I'm not just going to say that the Republican governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, said something. I'm going to show you. I'll show you the evidence. Here's what Governor Sununu said. Play the clip.

This week that I don't think anybody can characterize as good for Trump is getting his mugshot taken and released in a Fulton County courthouse. Selling t-shirts within minutes. That may be true, but do you think that it's good for him politically? Do you think having a mugshot out there changes anything in the Republican electorate? It doesn't change anything, but it allows him to maintain his presence in the media, his image. People will be talking about it. Not just what he does with the mugshot, but all the drama that he wants to keep building off of it. He wants this drama to keep going. Give him a fifth and sixth indictment. He'll love it. What about with independents? I mean, New Hampshire, live free or die. He doesn't care. All he cares about right now is getting the nomination. He can't win

in November. Independents hate it. There's no way Donald Trump will win anything above 31% of the independents, which is why Republicans as a whole will get crushed if he's on. Look, as bad as he would be as being on top of the ticket for because we'll lose the presidency. He hurts school board races. He hurts governorships, Congress race, congressional races, Senate races. We will lose all these seats like we did in 22. You know, if you look at my political views, you'd probably say, hey, Ben, Ben's progressive, Ben's liberal. But I don't use those titles right now because I also think I'm far more conservative than these MAGA Republicans who want to overthrow our democracy. I want to conserve our democracy. I don't support insurrectionists. I don't think that it's a good idea to start singing songs with January 6th insurrectionists and release them on Apple Music the way MAGA Republicans do after they send congressional delegations to do that. I don't think that those are conservative people. They are MAGA Trumpers. What'd you say? I said, I had to also, you're also just not a rapist, right? Like, let's just be real. He was, he, he, it was a civil case, but he's a rapist, right? Like on top of everything else. He's also a rapist. Sorry. I just had to mention that. Well, look, it's a federal jury

heard the claims by E. Jean Carroll. Donald Trump had the opportunity to show up like he did at a deposition to defend himself. Donald Trump did not show up and a federal jury found that Donald Trump was liable for sexual assault. This is an individual who we have on audio bragging about sexual assault. In the Manhattan District Attorney case, it's over making hush money payments to a porn star to cover up a three-second sexual encounter while his wife, Melania, had just given birth to their first son together. And this is a real, to your point, Karen, we can't lose track about that. Even when these Republican candidates were told whether or not, you know, if they should raise their hand, if they would still support Donald Trump, if he was convicted of a felony, he's already been found liable of sexual assault. Yeah, that's the thing that kills me. That's what I don't understand.

It's like, I get that these guys don't want to lose the base. They don't want to lose the votes. They don't want to lose the voters. And they're on the Republican debate and they're talking about, well, maybe he thought he wanted to just challenge the election. He thought he lost. I mean, I don't understand how they can go that way. But, you know, he's a guy who has been found liable, OK, for sexual assault. And then afterwards, when he said, oh, but I wasn't guilty of rape, The judge clarified and said, no, no, no. The only reason you weren't found guilty of rape is because New York, unlike every other state in this country, requires there to be a penis to a vagina for there to be a completed rape. Everywhere else,

a finger, anything else, if it's non-consensual and it's a violation the way she said it was, she just wasn't sure whether it was a finger or whether it was his penis. Not sure why he wants to call attention to that either. But she wasn't sure what it was, but she knew something went in her not consensually. And guess what? That is rape in the true sense of the word. Yeah. It's just because New York is backwards and hasn't included that as rape. It's called sexual assault in New York. That's what the judge actually clarified and says, no, no, you are a rapist in the truest sense. It's the rape still counts because that's what we all know to be rape just because it doesn't fit in this quirky New York law.

So I don't think we get away with saying, you know, letting him say he's not a rapist. He's a rapist. He is, he did. E. Jean Carroll testified. And that's the thing that I don't, it just absolutely blows my mind that anyone could support someone like him.

You know, in addition to being a criminal for all the reasons, you know, that we're about to see with the whole January 6th, et cetera, that to me is he's a rapist. And how can that be president of the United States? And how do we not call that out every time we talk about him? Sorry. I was thinking, Karen, about whether or not we should do anything with Trump's mugshot, because there were a lot of people who were saying to us, you know, maybe you do a mugshot on a mug or maybe you do a mugshot on a shirt. But as we were talking about it as brothers and as a network, I ultimately erred on the fact that this is someone who's caused people so much trauma. This is someone who truly is so triggering and it is a photo designed to do just that.

He's traumatized victims. He's traumatized the country. He continues to do that, which is why I don't really want any merch that like displays his face on it like that, you know, for, for, for, for that reason, because I know the trauma cause, but, but, but to what governor Sununu says, this is what Donald Trump is posting on his social media platform and then promoting on his platform as a sponsored ad. And it is the official MAGA gear. Go back to the one where it's the shirt that says, yeah, never surrender, which it's a mugshot of him surrendering. And then the mugshot on the mug, never surrender with the photo.

And then his son- Never surrender except he surrendered. Except he surrendered. That's the photo of him surrendering. And then you have Don Jr. writing the following, I'm donating all profits from these, and these are free Trump flags. I'm donating all profits from these to the legal defense fund. I'm sure others will profit from merch, but I'm just doing what I can to help. This will make the boat parades awesome. Free Trump flag, three by five, shop Don Jr. And it says free Trump. uh free trump uh and then you have you know this is supposedly the the son of a billionaire who's begging for donations for a legal defense fund for a supposed billionaire father from people who who need money i mean this is just again behavior that is not normal

and that we cannot normalize karen i want to to talk about though, an eventful day in Georgia courts, Georgia state court and in federal court. Why don't we start with what was happening in Fulton County Superior Court. Early in the morning, I'm on the West Coast and I wake up pretty early still. I wake up around 6 a.m. every morning. Maybe it's not that early, but I wake up around 6 a.m every morning maybe that's not that early but i wake up around 6 a.m this morning though this this morning all of a sudden at six you know because it was nine uh eastern it was like all this news that was just dropping you know and i was like all right and then karen and i did all

these videos early in the morning together we call them the karen and ben duets which we launched throughout and i i we have fun with our duets and we're going to try to do it on an almost daily basis. But we start off with Judge Scott McAfee. He's a new judge in the Fulton County Superior Court system, and he sets the arraignment date for Trump on September 6th. And all of the co-defendants, Karen, he's moving his docket along expeditiously. Yes, there are these hearings we'll talk about in federal court, but unless and until the federal judge asserts federal jurisdiction and makes that finding, Judge McAfee's saying, I'm doing my duty, I am moving this case forward. Let's start talking about that. Then maybe we can talk a

little bit about the speedy trial demands by some of Trump's co-defendants and how that's kind of expedited in a way that's detrimental to Trump. I think a lot of these proceedings in Fulton County, then we'll go to the federal court proceeding that took place in the Northern District where Mark Meadows was trying to get the case removed. Let's start with state court though. Karen, what happened with these arraignments? Yeah, so it was put over till September 6th. It was given, the judge said, you know, 9.30 a.m. is Trump and then every 15 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever it is, you get to all 18. And an arraignment is just the first initial appearance where a defendant, typically a defendant has to show and has to be present actually in court and has to enter a plea. They all will enter a not guilty plea, even if they want to cooperate later and ultimately plead at an arraignment.

And a defendant will enter a not guilty plea and then they'll put it over for motion practice, et cetera. And the court is going to have to figure out a couple of things. Number one, three of the defendants, Chesbrough, Sidney Powell, and John Eastman have indicated, he's indicated he's going to, but he hasn't yet asked for a speedy trial, which is October 24th. That's when Fannie Willis scheduled that. So Judge McAfee is going to have to put at least those three cases on course to be tried on the 24th, which will mean an expedited motion schedule. But the other defendants, I think, we'll see when they go. But I think everybody's looking at federal court to see what whether or not there will be a removal, because, as you were saying, today was the removal hearing for for Mark Meadows. He's saying, I don't want to be tried in state court. I deserve to be tried in federal court. And and the judge there could remand him back to state court or could bring him up to federal court or bring the whole case up to federal court. So there's really a lot that has to happen between now and October 24th to make that determination. arraignment on September 6th. Now, normally defendants have their arraignment within 24

hours of their arrest because you don't normally, even in Georgia, work out bond in advance. Normally you go in and then you go before a judge and then that happens and that can take 12 to 24 hours. It's kind of infamous what people talk about the time in jail awaiting arraignment. But in this case, you know, they're doing it differently because Donald Trump is Donald Trump. And for whatever reason, you know, he has been treated differently than typical defendants. And so everybody else is getting the benefit of that. But that's what's happening now. So Donald Trump wants to, in typical fashion,

delay, delay, delay the date of the trial. Fawny Willis previously requested a trial date of March 4th of 2024. That's not going to happen now because that's the exact same date that Judge Chutkan just set the trial in the federal Washington DC matter. But then this interesting thing happened, right? Some of Trump's co-defendants like Ken Chesbrough, one of Trump's former lawyers as well, Sidney Powell and John Eastman, who you referenced, they have planned and they filed this Speedy Trial Act demand under Georgia law. We've heard about the right to a speedy trial. The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution makes that a constitutional right.

The Speedy Trial Act in federal court is 70 days. Different state courts have their own variations of a Speedy Trial Act requirement. But Georgia's is particularly speedy. If a Speedy Trial Act demand is made by a defendant, it has to be tried in that term of court or the next term of court, which in this case for Fulton County would end on November 1. And if a jury is not impaneled before November 1, the case against the defendant who made the speedy trial demand gets dismissed on the merits, double jeopardy attaches, and the case goes away. That is a unique law, a very unique law in Georgia.

So you have to be ready as a prosecutor that a defendant is going to declare ready. Not only was Fulton County District Attorney Fawnie Willis ready, this was like a gift to her. And Karen, as a former top prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, you wait for these moments. This is a gift to a prosecutor. You want to go? Not only can Chesbrough, will I try an early, speedy trial with you? Now, I was thinking March 4th of 2024. Now I want every defendant. Thanks, Chesbrough. I want to do all of the co-defendants. If Chesbrough is ready to go, if Sidney Powell is ready to go, if Eastman's ready to go, Trump, you're not ready to go.

They're ready to go. They can prepare. So she requested that every trial now start October 23rd or 24th of 2023. I don't think they all will start that date, but now she has a pretty good argument about why all of these cases should now be expedited. And in Georgia, this will be televised, these trials. So in October, if this stands, if Chesbrough doesn't withdraw his speedy trial request, because I think Chesbrough wanted to separate from the crazies and he was going to be like, well, I'm just the normal lawyer.

But then he's joined by Sidney Powell and he's joined by John Eastman. And that's like the worst case scenario for him. So we'll see what he does. But imagine that. You'll have a trial on TV with this RICO criminal enterprise in the next 60 days. Karen, that's big. So you know what else, by the way? I don't think they realize it, but his lawyer, John Loro, is in federal court saying, oh my God, there's just too much here in my one defendant four count trial. I can't possibly be ready next March. But then you've got Ken Chesbrough, who's compared to Sidney Powell is a real lawyer. At least he used to be a real lawyer. You've got him saying, I don't need time to prepare. I'm ready to go

in two months. So that really undercuts John Loro's argument that this takes two years to prepare for this trial when you've got the same case basically, but bigger, more defendants, more charges, way more detail. They can be ready in two months. It kind of undercuts that argument. By the way, we have 50 more memberships to go before we unleash the Judge Chutkin emoji, clearly a crowd favorite. We will definitely consider doing one about Fulton County District Attorney Fawnie Willis on a future episode. We'll stay focused right now on Judge Chutkin. 50 memberships away, so we are super close. But Karen, walk us through what happened in federal court today while state court Judge Scott McAfee was scheduling these arraignments, which should be on camera as well. You had federal Judge Steve Jones holding an evidentiary hearing on Mark Meadows' removal

notice. Mark Meadows had to argue and prove three things in order to get the case removed to federal court, that he is a federal official. Two, acting under color and authority of federal law. And three, that he has credible federal defenses. If he can prove all three, then the case can stay in federal court. And what Meadows' lawyers have been stressing is under 11th Circuit case law, it is a very low threshold. As Meadows' lawyer says, the lowest possible threshold.

To the extent where Meadows' lawyer lawyers like, look, you may be able to find that he violated the Hatch Act and committed all of these crimes and did all these bad things, but judge, that's not what we're here to decide. It's just, is there any scintilla of a nexus between what Mark Meadows did as a former chief of staff and his federal duties, even if he engaged in the misconduct that Fannie Willis is trying to prove, that should be decided at a motion to dismiss at a later stage. In the meantime, this case should go to federal court. But the big surprise, Karen, you and I were both shocked this morning as Mark Meadows waived his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. And he testified from all I read, he didn't do that good of a job either.

He seemed not to understand the most basic types of things for his job description. Like he was asked, I think even by the judge. So like, what, what is it that you, what do you, what is the distinction you view as your role as political versus as your role working in the executive branch? And Meadows really couldn't answer that question, which could, even if it gets removed to federal court, this is why people maintain their Fifth Amendment rights, because it did not look good for him from a perspective of his potential liability and his immunity claims. That's for sure. But a shocker that he testified, Karen. Yeah, look, this hearing is for those, for all the people who are confused and saying what the heck is going on and what is this hearing?

It is very confusing. Okay, so let's back up for a minute. Mark Meadows does not appear anywhere in Jack Smith's indictment, not as an unindicted co-conspirator and for a minute. Mark Meadows does not appear anywhere in Jack Smith's indictment, not as an unindicted co-conspirator and as a defendant. So everyone says, I don't understand, does that mean he's cooperating? He must be cooperating because he is so wrapped up in all things January 6th. Remember, he's the chief of staff, Cassidy Hutchins testified about him, et cetera. So Fonny Willis then brings an indictment where he's one of the defendants, right? And now he's charged. So everyone says, so wait, that doesn't make any sense because if he's cooperating with Jack Smith, why would he be prosecuted by Fonny Willis? Certainly his lawyer

would have worked something out there, you know, and he has a decent lawyer and his lawyer would have worked something out because you wouldn't, you know, if you're cooperating in one, you would probably cooperate in both. So that made everyone say, well, now he's probably not cooperating. But then why wasn't he an unindicted co-conspirator? That's still a question we don't know. So he's being prosecuted in state court. But he's saying he made a motion in federal court to say this is not the proper place to prosecute me.

This is not the proper place to prosecute me. This is not the right venue. State court doesn't have the right to prosecute me because I was a federal official or a federal officer. And so therefore, because I was a government employee, a federal government employee, I should be prosecuted in federal court. And there is a statute, it's 18 U.S. Code, I can't remember exactly what it is right now, 2442 or something like that. I'll look it up before we end. There's a statute that specifically says a federal official who's doing his job essentially, and in the course of his job is accused of violating the law gets prosecuted in federal court, not state court. And that's really what that means. But Fannie Willis says, no, you also broke state court law. But he's saying, no, I was doing my job. So that's what the removal hearing is. We all said,

okay, but what's going to happen at the removal hearing? Since he's making the motion, he has the burden to prove it. How is he going to prove that he was working under, you know, the color? How does he get? Okay. Yes. We'll give you that you were a federal employee, but how are you going to prove that you were doing your job? Like, you know, let's say an FBI agent is executing a search warrant. And in the course of executing the search warrant gets into a fight with someone and he ends up shooting the person and they decide it's not justified, that has to be prosecuted in federal court because that's a federal officer doing his job. And during his job, he committed a crime and that's federally prosecuted, not state. If that same FBI agent, though, after work or even during work,

if he's still on duty, decided to go rob a bank that or no, because that's federal because it's a bank. Let's say he decided to go rob a 7-Eleven store, you know, that can be prosecuted in the state because he wasn't doing his job at the time. That was totally separate. And that's the easiest way to think of what this removal means. Right. So the question was, how is Mark Meadows going to show whether or not he's going to try to prove that it's plausible that he has a defense that involving he was executing or doing his job, right? Under the color of his authority is really what the language of the law is. And so we all said, how is he going to prove that? He has the burdens. He has the showing because he's the one who wants

to do this because he can't testify. No way can he testify. He will incriminate himself, right? He will, everything he says can be used against him at his trial. He hasn't seen, you know, Fannie Willis's testimony yet. Normally a defendant doesn't have to testify and most of the time doesn't testify on their own defense because the prosecution and the prosecution alone at a criminal trial has the burden beyond a reasonable doubt to prove their case. A defendant can sit there and not cross-examine a single witness, not say a word, certainly not testify. And defendants don't usually make that decision until after they see how the case goes in, after they see all the evidence. And, you know, that makes a huge difference in what they say and how they say it. But here you've got him,

you've got him testifying under oath about the crime that he is accused of. Everything he says can be used against him, right, in his criminal trial. So nobody thought he would do it. He did. He testified. And, you know, it's very interesting because on the one hand, you know, what he said was, look, I was chief of staff. I did everything for the president. I had to keep all the trains running on time. So the president, you know, was both a candidate at the time and president at the time. Yes, he as a candidate, he has his campaign staff and that's supposed to be completely separate than his presidential staff. And there is a law called the Hatch Act that that basically every federal employee knows this.

You can't mix political and your job. You just can't. You have to keep them separate. You can't use the Xerox machine, the phones, the office space. You can't use your time. Your time is paid for with taxpayer dollars. You cannot mix the two, and everybody knows it, and that's the Hatch Act. But Mark Meadows is saying, look, I was required as part of my job to travel with the president, you know, and he would in the course of the same day, he would in the same hour, he would have a phone call that has to do with being president and a phone call having to do with being a candidate. And, you know, so I was helping him with all of it. I had to make sure that he was off this call and on this call. And it was all part of my job, you know.

And so so in that regard, he really admitted to hatch act crimes, but also or offenses. And also he he, you know, really dug in and said, look, the only thing I wouldn't do is get on stage and campaign for him. But short of that, everything else was in my job description. and said, look, the only thing I wouldn't do is get on stage and campaign for him. But short of that, everything else was in my job description. That was part of my job. And so I think that if you, I haven't read the transcript yet, it hasn't been released, but from all the reporting from it, I think that the judge will ultimately find that what he was doing was political. It was not plausible because that's really the standard. It's a very low standard. Is it plausible that you were doing

this as part of your job? I think the judge might potentially think to himself, if I rule against him, he's going to appeal to the 11th circuit, which is very conservative. And then to the Supreme court, which is filled with MAGA Supreme court justices, unfortunately. And this judge might, because they might reverse it. This judge might say, you know what, since I'm going to be reversed anyway, and he's just trying, they're trying to delay everything. Let's just bring the whole thing up. And, and because it's plausible. Now what's complicated is the reason he's doing this. The reason Mark Meadows wants to go to federal court, I believe is because if he, even though it's a lower bar, it's the lower threshold, just that it's plausible, not that he was acting under the

authority of his job, but it's plausible that he was, right? And that he might have a federal defense. He's then going to say, okay, you already, if he gets up there, if he gets to federal court, he's going to say, oh, you just found I'm a federal official doing stuff under the color of my authority under my job. He's going to then cite the supremacy clause. And the supremacy clause of the Constitution of the United States basically says that the laws of the federal government control and not the state court. And so if he was a federal official acting under the color of his authority, he's going to say I'm immune from prosecution from the state. That's his ultimate goal. And he's already halfway there, even though it's a higher threshold.

He's halfway there if he can get the judge to agree with him here. And so he's going to that. And this is a Hail Mary. He doesn't want to wait for his trial. You know, he's putting all his eggs in is a Hail Mary. He doesn't want to wait for his trial. You know, he's putting all his eggs in his own, in his basket, in this one basket. He's saying the tweets are what they are. The calls are tape recorded. Emails are what they are. The witnesses will say what they're going to say. Jan 6th, you know, all the witnesses have testified already. So the evidence is what it is. I don't need to wait for a trial. This is what my defense is. I'm Hail Marying, trying to get to federal court and then get it dismissed under the supremacy clause. It's a

bold move because if he loses, he loses everything, right? Then he actually probably can't go to trial. He probably has to plead guilty in Fannie Willis because he's basically admitted to all of the conduct that is, you know, that, that he's charged with there in this hearing. So it's a big, bold move on his part. But if the judge finds for Meadows, he might then say to everybody, the whole case comes up here. Now, the reason that's bad is, you know, obviously it won't be televised and then we can't see it. And more importantly than us seeing it, I think, you know, the, the, you know, the, the independence that Jordi was talking about and, you know, the, the Republican, all the Republicans who, you know, who feel,

who believe, who only get their news from Fox and believe, you know, all the things that Trump is telling them that this is a witch hunt, et cetera. I think if they see the evidence for themselves, if they see, you know, Shea Moss and Ruby Freeman testify under oath about what this did to them and what, and, you know, and all of the other evidence that Fonny Willis will put on, I really think people at the end of the day, we'll see see this is not a witch hunt railroad. These are real people with real lives and real facts. And I do think having it be televised, it will be in the best interest of the American people and will hopefully bring back the legitimacy of the criminal justice system that Donald Trump has worked so hard to tear down.

I thought it was really interesting there what you said,, Karen about Meadows and how it's a big Hail Mary play for him. You know, it's certainly a big swing and I think it just goes to show along the lines of just how truly desperate he is at this point. And you know that this is his car that he's playing while everyone else is, is in their own camp. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to lay my cards on the table.

I'm going to take this swing. And if it works for me, great. If not, you know, it's like, at least I threw my Hail Mary there. Ben, what do you think about that? Well, Karen, I love watching you on CNN, but I certainly prefer here on the Midas Touch Network for the in-depth breakdowns you do. How incredible is that? Well, and it's because- You can tell, by the way, I just got back from CNN because I don't normally look like this. People are commenting.

I'm reading the comments as we're here. They're noticing the hair and makeup. This is not what I look like normally with the fake eyelashes and the other crap on my face. But anyway. I think you look great always. And I think that to have... Let me finish trashing your other employer for a second, Karen.

What I do think though is that why I prefer this format to a cable news format though is that a lot of the things that you explain can't be done in five minutes. It requires an in-depth analysis of the way the 11th Circuit interplays with the district court, explaining removal. And that's why I just think the cable news format is a tough one if the goal is kind of an evidence-based analysis. And I think too frequently what the format does is it has renowned experts. And I'm not saying this is on the hit that you did for CNN recently, but it ends up having renowned experts like Karen, who literally led a district attorney's office for decades and knows more about this than anybody. And sometimes, and again, I'm not using CNN as an example here, but hypothetically,

they then have someone else who's pretending to be from, or not pretending to be, but they're from the other side. And then there's this both side argument. And it's like, well, there's not really a both sides. Karen just gave you the law and the analysis and there isn't a side that should be the range, Jack Smith, Russia, Russia, Russia. That's not the way the conversation should be taking place. So I am so honored to have you here, Karen, to just be able to break it down in that way. I ultimately think that the audience Mark Meadows had there, though, was a record for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, to your point, Karen, a right-wing 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. What are they going to do when presented with these facts?

And will they be like, look, it's plausible. It's a very low threshold. He was the chief of staff. I hope not, but that's who I think Mark Meadows is playing to. But just to be clear, Mark Meadows isn't seeking the removal of every one of the other co-defendants. You have to pass that three-part test, federal official acting under color of authority with a credible federal defense. So Mark Meadows, it's at least not frivolous coming from him. Like Jeff Clark, the disgraced ex-DOJ official, I don't think it's frivolous to try to do a criminal federal removal, but like the fake electors like Kathy Latham and Dave Schaefer and some of these other people, like I think it's frivolous when they say as a fake elector, I'm a federal official. Like to me,

that's just, that's just ridiculous. Like you're not a federal official because you were a fraudulent elector. I'm sorry. Like To me, those are easy ones that the judge is going to reject and remand, send back to state court. Also, I mentioned this earlier, Peter Navarro had an evidentiary hearing that was held. He's set to go to trial September 5th in his contempt of Congress case. And he had this evidentiary hearing about whether the jury would be able to hear evidence about his claim that Donald Trump gave him executive privilege. And Judge Mehta, the federal judge in Washington, is there a document that says this? Is there evidence that says this? I know you feel that,

Navarro, that it's an emotion, but your feelings aren't evidence in this court. And so you saw the headline there, Judge Mehta said, seems like this court. And so you saw the headline there, Judge Mehta said, seems like this is pretty weak sauce, what you're trying to present. So sounds like Judge Mehta will deny Peter Navarro's ability to bring an executive privilege argument as a defense before the jury. And then Navarro went out before the cameras and begged and said he needed money and please donate to him and to his legal defense fund, the same thing that Don Jr. is doing for Donald Trump. I did a whole hot take on this, but I'll touch upon it just for a moment. This SB9, this law that was signed into

law by Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, that created a prosecuting attorney's qualification commission, which can remove prosecutors in Georgia for the following reasons. We can turn to page eight of this, and here are the reasons that it gives. The following are grounds for discipline of a district attorney or solicitor general, and it goes, one, mental or physical incapacity, right? So you're reading that, you're like, okay, well, if the prosecutor is mentally or physically incapacitated, that makes sense. Okay, two, willful misconduct, that would seem to make sense. I need a definition of that, but okay. Three, with respect to district attorneys, willful and persistent failure to carry out their duties. All right. Again, it's still a

little, it's getting more vague and a little bit more ambiguous and seeming a little bit more unconstitutional, but like, let's, let's read more. Five, conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude. Okay. Crime of moral turpitude conviction. We don't want prosecutors who are convicted of crimes of moral turpitude, but here's the kind of catch-all six, conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, which brings the office into disrepute. That's such a vague standard. What does that mean to bring the office into disrepute? Also, who's appointed to this commission? Governor Kemp will appoint Republicans to this commission. This takes effect in October. And just to be clear through the appropriate process. She should be focused on the 250 accused murderers in Fulton jail, not political theater. She is. And then Senator

Clint Dixon posted this on his Facebook. He goes, like you, I'm frustrated by the Fulton County indictments handed down last week. This is clearly all about Fawnie Willis and her unabashed goal to become a leftist celebrity. While some have called for a special session, that's not a legitimate option. And then it goes on to say the reality is one of the reasons we passed a law this year referring to SB 92 is to hold rogue district attorneys accountable. Once the prosecutorial oversight committee is appointed in October, we can have them investigate and take action against Fannie Willis and her efforts that weaponize the justice system against political opponents. This is our best measure, and I will

be ready to call for that investigation. And when this SB 92 was passed, one of the things they claimed at the time was that district attorneys were not prosecuting enough crimes that the Republicans wanted them to prosecute. I should mention that the most kind of violent states where the most violent crimes are red states and red cities. I'm sick and tired of this narrative that they always want to act like it's democratic cities. It's actually not. If you look statistically. Red states have the highest violent crimes and highest rates along those lines. But here, now they're basically admitting that this law was pretextual to go after Fannie Willis. I think if there's any good news

here, the district attorneys who are the ones who are being targeted by this, they filed a lawsuit to block this law from being passed as being unconstitutional. I think given where we see the trial dates taking place, I do think that they won't be able to remove Fannie Willis before she was able to prosecute Trump, but they are going to try. And this is just what the MAGA Republicans do over and over again. And for example, we see the MAGA Republicans in the House of Representatives. We talked about it last week, Jim Jordan trying to interfere with Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis's criminal case, sending letters, making demands and subpoenaing her and her office. And then you

have this focus on impeaching President Biden. That's their big thing. As of right now, there are 12 appropriations bills that need to be passed and an extension needs to be passed because when the MAGA Republicans left for their summer recess, they refused to pass the appropriation bills. And so the same way they held our country hostage with the debt ceiling negotiation, they plan on doing that again as well. And when they return, rather than funding the government, what they want to focus on is this impeachment of President Biden, because Donald Trump is telling them to do that. And one of the things that Kevin McCarthy is likely going to be forced to do is have to take a vote about initiating an impeachment inquiry before then going down a path of impeachment. And meanwhile, Americans are like, can you focus on the things that President Biden's focused on, please?

We may not agree with President Biden on everything or Democrats on everything. We're not supposed to. But can you focus on jobs? Here's what I know, 37,000 new infrastructure projects have been going up across the country. And that means jobs, jobs, jobs, better paying jobs, better working conditions. Can we focus on healthcare, protecting social security? Can we focus on Medicare? Can we focus on protecting veterans? Can we focus on making sure women can control their bodies? Can we focus on

equality? Can we focus on students? Can we focus on seniors? Let's focus on this, these issues. And that's what President Biden talks about every day. And again, we may have disagreements over the degree to which President Biden does it. Should he roll out the plan here? Should he do with that? But those are the issues that matter to me. I don't want politics to be a circus. I'm going to cover the fascist circus that has become the Republican Party on this and other shows to highlight the contrast between that and law and order and normalcy. But I long for a day or days when we could have normal political discourse, normal political discussion on issues advancing our nation's interests, not this MAGA Republican fascist, weirdo, idiocracy, gaslighting machine. And I have a great degree of confidence that Americans get it.

I think Governor Sununu is right. I really do. I think that by and large, and the large media networks don't pick this up. I don't think anyone's really picking it up. There has been a paradigm shift. You can't talk about this dichotomy of on the one hand, you've got progressive liberals on the left. Those are Democrats. And then on the right, you have conservatives. I'm sorry, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Donald Trump. That's not conservative. They're not fiscally conservative.

They're not conservative on government. There's nothing conservative about them. It's like wacko, MAGA, dangerous crap is what that is. And then I think you have the Democrats, I believe to be a broad coalition. I don't think it's just defined as progressive and liberal, although we should be very proud about the progress and progressive and liberal values embodied in the party. I think it's also independence and people not affiliated with any political party and actual conservatives. And we may have disagreements, but fundamentally, we want a democracy. We want compassion. We want intelligence and we want normalcy.

And those are the fundamentals that the Midas Touch Network is built on. Lots of people go, Ben, did you know you wanted to do a political network? And I go, I know this may sound funny, but I don't really view this as very political. Like I don't. I just want to appeal to our compassion, to our intelligence as a community, to our desire for a democracy

and to spread those values and to be compassionate and just to be nice and to focus on normalcy and then to encourage that in future generations as well. And none of this bullying and meanness and demeaning and dehumanizing people. That to me is the core of what the Midas Mighty is all about, what our pro-democracy movement is all about. And I'm so honored by the Midas Touch community. I'm so honored by, you know, Karen, that you join us and we've got just such superstars on here and the whole community at large. Karen, you know about the after show, right? Have you heard about the after show? Okay. So the after show is this,

after we, and I would love for you to join us on the after show. So did you just call it the after show? It's oh, the, the, the Midas more Jordy called it the Midas. Thank you. I knocked down my earpiece. We have a difference of opinion on what it's called. So after we finish the show, not an after show, after we finished the show, we do the Midas More where we talk. It's for Patreon. So you have to be a Patreon member. And that's, again, one of the ways we fund our independent media network because we don't have outside investors. So we try to do fun ways, emojis,

after shows. I don't want to be beholden to outside investors. So that's why we do it this way. You go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash Midas Touch, M-E-I-D-A-S-T-O-U-C-H. Become a member at any tier. You could become a member at the highest tier, which makes you a honorary producer of the show. You could become, but no matter what tier you are, you get access to these podcasts that are exclusive to Patreon. And then after, if we forgot about a topic, if we wanted to cover something in more detail, if Jordy wants to say, Ben, you should have done this better,

we do it on the after show. And then the Patreon community talks about it. And it's fun. It's a blast. Yeah. And I don't intend to do lots of things that necessarily require memberships, but I look, I think it's so important. Like if you look at what we've been building, how we built

the MidasTouch.com website, by the way, what a great editor in chief we have in Ron Filipkowski and Asin and the whole team there, rock stars, you know, but, but we have to build, we have to come up with the resources, right. To, to, to build this somewhere. So that's one of the ways we do it. And then we want to bring you on this journey with us as this network grows. So that's one of the ways you can help. And by the way, Ben, we, we, we do that too, though.

Right. So we do it that way. Right. So we, we're not beholden to corporate donors at the end of the day. What, what, what our mission here, what we strive to do with the Midas Touch Network is truth, the truth and the truth. And so as long as we can continue to fund the operation with emojis or, you know, a few Patreon memberships here and there, that's what we're going to continue to do. Because you know what? I care too much about this community that is the Midas Mighty community.

And I'm not going to let someone coming from over the top and tell us what to do. No, you guys would hate that, the audience, you with the Midas Mighty. Absolutely not. Never. Because what we stand for, we stand for the truth. And I know that's what y'all appreciate. And that's why this community continues to grow week over week over week. Store.MidasTouch.com for all the best pro-democracy gear. Store.MidasTouch.com, 100% union made, 100% made in the USA. Wear that Midas gear proudly. Karen, final thoughts about joining Jordy and myself. Different than Legal AF, better than co-hosting with Michael Popock. Better than CNN.

We can start some drama here. Much better than CNN, better than Popock. In all seriousness though, Karen, how was it? No, look, I love CNN. I do. And I love that they don't hold me back at all. There's no kind of script or anything.

There's no pre, this is what you should say or not say. So I do respect that. There's no doubt what my bent is or my perspective I should say is. And so for that reason, I really do love them. But I do agree with you. There's just not enough, the format,

there's not enough time to go in depth on these topics. And that's what I love about Legal AF and Midas, you know, the whole Midas Touch Network. And I'm so honored to be on this podcast. I mean, this is like the Brothers podcast is like, you know, the OG podcast, right? Like, this is it. So I'm just so thrilled to be here with you guys beyond. And these issues are complicated. I mean, you know, I'm a lawyer. I went to Georgetown Law School. I've been doing this my whole entire career. And for me to get ready for these podcasts, sometimes I have to reread things two and

three times and I have to, you know, really go back and understand and remind myself. And so I can't imagine how people who didn't go to law school, you know, or who don't have the time to do this, how hard it must be to understand this, you know, to understand these issues and to really figure out what to think and what to, you know, what is the truth. And so I do appreciate being able to be here with you guys to just help spreading the truth, you know, and really what it is and what it isn't. So I love it. And I'm so happy to be here. And if I'm allowed to, you know, use the little girls room, I'd love to join, you know, Midas after dark or whatever it's called, you know, Midas more slash the Show. And Jordi, did you know that Karen and I both went to

Georgetown Law? Perhaps a topic for The After Show. Patreon.com slash Midas Touch. We'll talk about our experience at Georgetown Law and more. Everybody, seriously, thank you so much to the Midas Mighty community. We love you. We're grateful for you. And you are our motivation, a compassionate, intelligent, unapologetically pro-democracy community. Spread the word. Let friends, family, coworkers, anybody you know, let them know about what we're building together, what you're building here at this Midas Touch community so we can continue to spread the word, continue to educate, and continue to support and defend our democracy. Have a great one, everybody.

Jordy, take it away. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.