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- [00:02]
Narrator/Advertiser
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Karen Friedman
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Karen Friedman
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Karen Friedman
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Karen Friedman
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Lisa Graves
Thanks, Sadie.
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Karen Friedman
I'm Mayra Ameth, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com Sadie is a Mochi member, compensated for her story.
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Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
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Karen Friedman
Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal af. I'm your host, Karen Friedman. Agniphiolo It's Wednesday and it is a great day to be here with every to talk about all the things that are going on at the intersection of law and politics. As you can see from my background, I'm on the road and I am joined today by Lisa Graves, who I absolutely love co hosting with. So Lisa, thank you so much for being here and pinch hitting for Michael Popak, who's also on the road today without good Wi fi service. So welcome to Legal af. And how you doing, Lisa?
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Lisa Graves
I'm doing all right. I just want to say you look lovely with that outdoor setup. How wonderful. And with all the news that's breaking. But so great to see you and thanks for having us.
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Karen Friedman
Well, normally I record from New York where we are having record winter. So I'm on the west coast now and I thought let's be outside as much as we possibly can.
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Lisa Graves
So that is an excellent choice.
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Karen Friedman
Yeah, it's lovely. It's absolutely lovely. So we have a lot to talk about today. You know, we're at war with the Middle east, in particular Iran and so much going on over there. And we really need to talk about that. Can Trump do what he's doing? You know, the Congress basically are they going to stop him? Because, you know, Trump doesn't have inherent war power authority. He although he's the commander in chief of the military, it's Congress who has the power to declare war and they have not done so. So we should talk about that, what's going on and just have I love to hear your reaction to the situation and it's ever evolving. We should talk about that. And also while we're talking about it, we should note that Congress is debating whether to pass a resolution today about whether to stop this because this is not A war that was sanctioned by them. And so even if they do pass it, Trump can veto it. So the fact that they're discussing it is great. But I think anyone who thinks that's going to be the thing that stops it just not bearing the lead here and saying that it's unlikely that it's going to do much, but I applaud them for at least bringing this to a debate and so that the conversation can be had about it. We should talk a little bit about Epstein. Not a lot going on or to talk about other than the Clintons had to sit for depositions. But the big news is the House Oversight Committee just voted to subpoena Pam Bondi to talk to the panel, which I think is a big deal. The attorney general is going to have to answer for what she doing and what she's not doing. And it'll be interesting to see what she says and what she talks about. So we're going to talk about that. We're also going to spend some time talking about the thousands of lawsuits that the White House is facing now that they're trying to actually slow walk the refunds of these tariffs, the billions of dollars in tariffs that were paid and the Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 recently in a huge, huge win or loss for Donald Trump, although he's calling it a win, a huge, stunning blow to Donald Trump about the tariffs and these lawsuits are all about how do we get our money back. All this money was paid and businesses want their money back. So let's discuss that and why it is that Trump is declaring it a victory, other than we all know that that's what he does regardless. Right. That's just his, his way of, of spinning things, hoping that people just read headlines and don't actually dig deeper. But I don't think anyone would say that that was a win in any shape, any way, shape or form. That was a stunning blow to his tariff policy. We're also going to talk about if you remember the executive order, do you remember the executive order that Donald Trump issued against individual law firms, basically saying he went after individual law firms that have lawyers that were used to be involved in investigating Donald Trump, Right. If, if it was part of the Mueller investigation or, or other investigations that he felt he feels he was unfairly targeted? His retribution campaign, which is so much about what this presidency is all about. It's all about retribution. He went after individual law firms that have hired these former Justice Department attorneys and basically threatened them, many of which have capitulated and made deals with him giving him just so many millions and millions of dollars of pro bono hours that they were willing to do for causes that he believes in. So basically free legal work in exchange for settling. But at least four law firms have stood up and are challenging the executive orders. And Trump, in a reversal on Monday, said, you know what? I'm not going to go after these law firms anymore. I'm going to drop this case. I think he sees that it's a losing situation because every time he fights it, he loses in court. But then word on the street is that Stephen Miller was pissed off and didn't like that Trump is doing this and not going after them. So he reversed course again. So it's like this, this crazy. No, we're not going to go after it. Yes, we are. So we're going to talk about that and what's going on there. And also, Lisa, I'd be remiss to have a show and not talk about what's going in the Supreme Court with Lisa here, because she is truly a Supreme Court expert. And so we're going to talk a lot about what's going on with the Supreme Court right now, and in particular, how it's going to affect the midterms with all these congressional maps that are these, these state maps that are being redrawn, et cetera. So a lot going on, and this is what we're going to talk about today. So good to see you, Lisa. Let's just jump right in. Let's start with the Epstein sit. Did you get a chance to. I know we saw the transcripts for Hillary when she testified. By all accounts, she did a great job, really fought back, and frankly, made them feel like, I don't know why you have me here because I didn't know the guy and I have nothing to add. And I don't think they got her in any way. I mean, I think they really, maybe that's why they didn't want it public, because they didn't want to see themselves being outmatched by her. And they were so desperate, in fact, that they brought up Pizzagate and other ridiculous, ridiculous conspiracy theory claims because I think they were just desperate looking for things. But then Bill Clinton had to testify. You know, I'm looking forward to seeing those transcripts and reading them. You know, I do think he actually has some stuff to answer for. And, you know, he did have a close relationship with Epstein. And, you know, we all know what his history is with young girls, as, you know, especially one particular intern. So I do think that he has a lot to answer for to why was he in the hot tub with girls, why was he, you know, with Jeffrey Epstein so much and on the plane, et cetera. But, you know, so I'd like to see what he had to say about all of that. Frankly, the most important person that has to testify is Donald Trump because he is the one who's got the most answers. But they're going to be calling Pam Bondi to have to testify. And the thing that I think would be, I'm most interested in hearing is what does she have to say about the missing documents that have not been released? You know, not just the tranche of documents. I think I've heard estimates that all that's been released is about half of what the government has. There's still a whole other half of documents that need to be released. So although there are many, there's still a lot missing. But even in that first big tranche that was released, there were some documents that were clearly pulled out. And lots of investigative reporting has come out that show at least one 13 to 15 year old girl, possibly more, have accused Donald Trump of sexual assault involving Epstein. And where are those reports? Why were they pulled from the documents that were released? So she's got a lot to answer for and it'll be interesting to see how that goes and how that plays out. So I'm very much looking forward to, to that testimony. So what, what, what are your observations on, on Epstein, Lisa?
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Lisa Graves
Well, you know, the first lady who should have been testifying is Melania Trump. And the fact that they were calling Hillary Clinton to testify and not Melania, I think reveals very much the hyper partisan nature of the way a lot of the Republicans in the Congress are treating this issue in a way that is totally inappropriate given the nature of the allegations. Obviously, as many people have been reading, this is one of the most serious instances ever, multi year trafficking in persons operation in essence being run by Jeffrey Epstein. Serious charges that he was facing before he died, serious charges that Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of in terms of trafficking girls. And then there's the record beyond that, the really horrifying things that are in those files, the files that have been released, the partial files, which reveal really a lot of very despicable things and behavior by men whose names were redacted while some of the victims names, some of the survivors names were not redacted. And then you have the situation that you described, Karen, where NPR and other outlets went through systematically to try to assess what was removed. And there's a full set that relates specifically to allegations against Donald Trump from someone, a person who describes herself as a survivor of Trump's predation, who was interviewed not once, not twice, but at least three times. And, and part of her testimony was apparently part of the case against Ghislaine Maxwell. So it was treated as credible by the FBI at the time. And what we're seeing is reports that those files, the files that relate specifically to some really very disturbing allegations against Donald Trump, claims that he engaged in pedophilia with a young girl, that those were removed. And, you know, you're more of an expert than me on the actual mechanics of a file, but my recollection from working on criminal justice policy at Main justice is that when the FBI interviews Anyone, there's a 301, you know, a record of that interview. And that there were numerically, just in terms of the document file numbers, 301s that were removed that should have been included in the release. And so it looks like Pam Bondi is helping to cover up accusations against Donald Trump. It certainly looked like that before these investigations. Since the revelations, the disclosures have been very partial. Representative Jamie Raskin, for example, said that when he did, in essence, a Google search on these documents, Trump's name was in the documents that they could see behind the behind closed doors with DOJ monitoring them. He said over a million times, there are others who've said when they've done different searches for Trump's name, it's been 50, 60,000 times. And there was an analysis at an earlier point about a different set of documents, the documents that came out of the Epstein estate. Wall Street Journal did an analysis in which Donald Trump was the person most frequently mentioned in emails that came out of the Epstein estate, including communications between Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell about Donald Trump. Some very serious things were said in those files as well. And so, you know, it's hard for me to believe, as someone who was Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department, that the Justice Department is engaged in this kind of COVID up, except that we have two people, the top two people at the helm of the US Department of Justice whose previous roles were defending Donald Trump. Pam Bondi was one of Trump's main defenders in his first impeachment trial. And Todd Blanche was one of Donald Trump's criminal defense attorneys. And other people who were criminal defense attorneys for Trump have been put into other roles within the Justice Department. But for me, you know, one of the other things that is shocking right now is the Ghislaine Maxwell situation where she comes or she's, you know, called in essence to testify by video. She asserts the Fifth Amendment refuses to answer, suggests in essence that she would answer if she could be released. And yet this is someone whose testimony, her claims that Donald Trump was always a gentleman are belied by all the other evidence we've seen. He certainly has not always been a gentleman, even in the public eye. And she, immediately after she made the sort of, I would say, theatrical claims, in my personal opinion, in that Todd Blanche interview, she was immediately moved to this country club like federal facility where she has all sorts of perks that are inconsistent with the level of severity of the crime that she was, crimes that she was convicted of, where she should be serving her sentence at a regular prison under the conditions of confinement that prisoners who are sexual abusers like Ghislaine Maxwell get. And so instead you have this person who Donald Trump actually said out loud that he wished her well, Ghislaine Maxwell. And she's not testifying. But, you know, the former First Lady Hillary Clinton was called to testify. The former President Bill Clinton has been called to testify. We'll see what his testimony reveals. Representative Comer on the Republican side claimed that Clinton exonerated Trump. That's not possible because there's actually documents in the Epstein files that suggest otherwise, despite Donald Trump's claims of no wrongdoing. And what we really need to do is to get to the bottom of this. And so, so let me toss this back to you by saying it is a major breakthrough that five Republicans would join the Democrats in demanding that Pam Body testify under oath, under subpoena about, or in essence the equivalent of under subpoena about the Epstein files. Because she needs to come clean. I think that she is in jeopardy of, unless Donald Trump pardons her. I think she's in jeopardy of, you know, potential crimes herself, in my opinion, based on her previous statements to both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee in, in light of including her claims that there's no evidence of any wrongdoing by Trump, when in fact there are 301s in which the FBI took seriously the claims of at least one young girl and, and possibly two young girls that Donald Trump had sexually abused them, though he denies it.
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Karen Friedman
Yes, he does. You know, I'm glad we started the show talking about Epstein because really, what we really have to talk about is this war with Iran that we are in. And I believe, and I think others, I've talked to others who also believe that this war was manufactured and started largely to distract from what is going on in this country. Right. Because everywhere you look in the news, on tv, you're talking about Iran, you're talking about the war. You're not talking about Epstein, you're not talking about these files, you're not talking about this giant pedophilia ring that just is stunning how many people it covers and this investigation. And it's really a scandal that is, that's gripping our country. And we're not talking about that right now. But I am not going to stop talking about it. And neither are we here at the Midas Touch network because it is really important. We're also not talking about ice. We're not talking about, you know, Renee Goode and Alex Preddy and people who are losing their life, American citizens who are being murdered by ICE agents, you know, that somehow we're not talking about that anymore. And we're not talking about all the people who are just being plucked out of their homes and off the streets. Law abiding people who are being deported and held in essentially concentration camps in this country right now as we speak. Instead, we're just talking about Iran. And so we have to. It's incumbent upon us to not let those issues go away. As much as Trump doesn't want us to be thinking about those things, he wants to create an emergency, a national emergency, so that he can declare an emergency and then declare martial law for the midterms. We know he wants to nationalize the elections. We know he's already saying that he's losing when the midterms come up. And so he's doing everything he can to manufacture emergencies so he can get up there and say, oh, you have to continue. You can't let the, let Congress go Democrat because look at this, we're on the verge of World War Three. And if you do, they're going to hamstring me and we're going to be at risk. And that is the main reason I believe he has manufactured this war. I mean, because if you remember, if you remember when we dropped that bomb on Iran months back, he said, we have obliterated their nuclear program. Obliterated. That was his word. It's eliminated, it's gone, it's done. Okay, so if that's done, how is it that a couple of months later Donald Trump can turn around and say they were on the verge of creating nuclear weapons, we were about to be attacked. I had to get them before they got us, you know, and, you know, and on One hand you hear people saying, oh, it's for regime change. On the other hand, you hear Pete Hegseth say, it's not regime change. I've heard someone else say that you've got military generals or military leaders telling people this is, you know, this is Armageddon and this has been sanctioned by Jesus Christ. I mean, really just crazy stuff going on somehow justifying this all out war on Iran. Who is defending themselves, retaliating. I mean, look, no one liked Ayatollah Khomeini, right? He was a, a monster. One of the worst people in the world, right? A complete monster. And I'm sure the Iranian people are thrilled that he has been removed. But to remove him without a plan in place about what to do and what we're going to do, how we're going to replace this is actually irresponsible and unfair. To say that the Iranian people are somehow prepared to now rise up against, you know, against the regime in Iran and suddenly have a government ready to just put in place. I mean, this man was, was in place. The Khomeini was in place for almost 50 years, you know, so it's just crazy to me that we would do this so irresponsibly if that's really what we were trying to do. And when Trump was asked about, well, who's going to take over, he's, well, we thought about this person, but that person's dead. And then we thought about this other person, but that person's dead, you know, because they got killed in these, in this. So they have no plan. And this sort of, well, Iranians, we did it. You know, it's your turn to now finish it. Let's see what you do. I think is really short sighted, irresponsible, not fair to the Iranian people, and frankly risks putting someone even worse in his place. And so it was a really ill advised, I think just temper tantrum that is being fought by Donald Trump on behalf of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants to go to war against Iran and has legitimate beef against them. But that's what's happening here. And the Constitution of the United States starts with Article 1. And Article 1, the framers of the Constitution started it with Congress, right, Because they didn't want it to be the president, because they didn't want the president. They wanted to move away from a king. They wanted to move away from having this all powerful unitary executive. So they said, you know, we're going to make Congress the first article, the most, in some ways the most important or equally as important as anything else. And Article two, you know, is it goes from there, from the courts and to the presidency. And, you know, the president's Article 2 in the courts, that's Article 3, and they did that by design. And Article 1 says Congress has the power to declare war, raise and fund the military, and regulate the armed forces. And Article 2 says that the president is the commander in chief of the military, so he can direct military operations, he can respond quickly to threats and defend the United States forces or territory, but. But he can't declare war. Now, of course, that's a little wishy washy because you can bomb people without declaring war, and that's how people justify it. So in 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution act, that was enacted after the Vietnam War to try to limit unilateral presidential wars. And it basically says you can act without prior congressional approval if there's an attack on the United States, an attack on United States forces, or an emergency requiring immediate action. But Congress has to be notified within 48 hours, which Trump did with a formal report, and military action must stop after 60 days if not authorized by Congress. And again, Trump has justified going to war and creating this emergency by giving different justifications, not all of which are consistent. And here we are in this situation where we have Congress trying to push a resolution to stop it, but even if they get enough votes to do it, he can override it, he can veto it, and I think that's where we're going to see ourselves in the coming days. But, Lisa, what is your take on what's going on in Iran and this whole situation, and what can we do to stop Trump from dragging us into a war that nobody wanted? World War Three. I mean, he ran on the platform of no foreign wars, America. And there's a lot of MAGA people, not just Republicans, but, but MAGA people who are really ticked off about this because this is not what they voted for. Another Middle Eastern or other foreign war. So, Lisa, I'd love to. I'd love to hand it over to you.
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Lisa Graves
Thanks, Karen. Well, you know, I really appreciate your grounding this in the Epstein files, because the timing of it, I just don't believe Trump's claims about the necessity of doing it just now. I think that this is another way in which this president has wielded the power of the presidency to try to shape the news, to serve himself, not necessarily to serve the interests of the American people. That may be a controversial thing to say, but as you point out, Trump said just months ago that his unilaterally bombing of Iranian nuclear sites was successful and that the intel they had was that it was super successful and that the. The threat of nuclear. Nuclear program from Iran had been mitigated. Now, of course, that comes after Donald Trump threw out the agreement that had been negotiated with Iran, made a big deal of. Of. Of throwing it out. This was, you know, in the previous administration and then, you know, did not have an agreement, a specific agreement, agreement in place that would go beyond the previous weapons inspections. But I think that, you know, unfortunately, given the actions of Trump, I think it has to be seen as this is partly about getting Trump's role in the Epstein files off the headlines. And that's really sad. You know, it's really awful to think that we would have a president that would put soldiers in harm's way, in part because he wants to do a war of choice at his whim, and that it is serving his interests, both his interest in changing the narrative, which is what something he's obsessed with is what, you know, can he control the headlines and also setting up a circumstance in which he can try to assert that we are in an emergency, we're in war, and so we don't have to have elections. We shouldn't have elections, even though America had elections in 1944, when thousands and thousands of our troops were engaged in war in two theaters, in the Pacific theater and in Europe against Hitler and against Japan and their allies. Allies. And so the idea that America cannot conduct an election just because we're at war is not true. Hasn't been true through all the wars America has been involved in our lifetime and beyond. But also, it is the case that you have a White House that thinks it can just assert emergency or assert emergency powers at whim, at will, whether there's an actual emergency or not. As a way to get what they want. Congress is debating a resolution on Iran right now. Obviously, Trump loyalists control both houses of Congress, so we don't know how that's going to come out. They may very well end up voting in favor of this war in Iran. You know, Iran has had these leaders, these ayatollahs, both Khomeini and Khomeini, basically, for decades now. And they have engaged in repression of their citizens rights. They have. Have engaged in. In executions. Their regimes have executed people, just people who dissent or. Or people who violate their religious dictates in terms of women and LGBTQ Iranians. And so, you know, it certainly is a repressive regime, but there are A lot of repressive regimes in the world. And the United States has said, and not always followed through, but said it's not going to be the world's policeman and that. That if we're going to go to war, we need to have a plan to win that war and to exit that war. And we saw the folly of this just 25 years ago when George W. Bush took us not only into war in Afghanistan in search of Al Qaeda in the aftermath of the terrorist acts of 9 11, but also lied us into a war in Iraq, lied about the reasons for that war. We lost tens of thousands of American citizens in that war. Hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq were displaced, and civilians and military people were killed in addition to Saddam Hussein. We weren't welcomed with open arms coming into the streets, as Paul Bremer and Bush's Defense Department leader said we would be. We were not welcomed the way Dick Cheney asserted. In essence, we would be. And that lie cost us billions, if billions of dollars and the lost lives of so many Americans in a situation in which there was not an actual plan for how to get in and get out. And I'm pretty certain right now, when we're looking at what's happening in Iran, there is no actual real plan, no real exit strategy, or what are the terms of victory. So, you know, right now we're seeing speculation that the son of the leader who Trump just had killed could be the leader of Iran imminently or, you know, as they. As the Iranian government works. You know, I'm not sure that. I'm not sure that it's the best outcome for someone whose father was killed to then be leading the determination of whether we're going to have a peaceful relationship with this country or not. It seems like not a good outcome. But on the other hand, the United States post Nixon, post what the CIA was involved in in Chile with Pinochet, post actually the US government, along with the UK in the late 1950s, destroying the democratic movement in Iran in order to preserve the oil access and prop up the Shah in Iran in the 50s. We have tried in the most recent decades to not have a policy of assassinating the leaders of other countries. But look at Trump. He not only has ordered the killing of the leader of Iran, but he's also sent in troops to seize the leader of Venezuela. He's threatened other countries. And in fact, despite Trump's claims that he's a peace president and deserves the Nobel Prize for peace, he's invaded or used troops against, I think, at least Eight countries in the span of one year. And so we have a president who's acting unilaterally in matters of war, where the Congress, in our Constitution is supposed to be the primary actor, as you point out, Karen, unless the United States itself is attacked. And I'll just conclude on this note, because the rationales being put forward for this war basically change by hour, by hour. And one of the things that we've seen and that you mentioned is that dozens, dozens of troops have reported, reported that they were told by their commanding officers that we are going into Iran in order to ignite Armageddon, World war in order to begin the return of Jesus Christ, because supposedly Donald Trump was anointed to begin Armageddon. That kind of talk is reckless. It's wrong, it's inappropriate, and it, it underscores that there is apparently no clear directive, no clear mission. And we have someone at the helm of the Defense Department who has been engaging in an array of disinformation, including claiming that we didn't start this war, when, in fact, obviously, Donald Trump did, and we are all going to pay the consequences for it. We are already right now with gas prices jumping up, up just in the few days since this war was begun by Donald Trump. And I fear that it is a little bit like that movie Wag the Dog, that it is a distraction, but it's a distraction that's going to cost Americans their lives, and it's going to cost us Taxpayers an untold amount of money, because this is another reckless, thoughtless, capricious act by Donald Trump with no actual serious planning for how to get us out of this war eventually. And, in fact, the suggestion that they want to be an endless war in order to have Armageddon, which is terrifying and outrageous.
- [34:24]
Karen Friedman
Now, you know, now we know why they changed the Defense Department's name to the Department of War, because they were saying it in advance, because it's all about war. You know, this. I'm not a wartime, you know, no new wars president. That's all he's doing is dragging us into war. So it's actually scary, you know, and friends who are in the Middle east or have family members in the Middle east, it's terrifying, actually. And my heart goes out to all of the people who have to live in a war zone right now. And, you know, the United States, too, right? We have to be on guard. And so, you know, thoughts and prayers for all of our military and all of the people who are out there having to live in this. And I hope if Someone's listening, that they know that most Americans don't support it. Donald Trump, although he happens to be our president, doesn't represent how most of America feels. And hopefully we can right this wrong very soon because this is just an atrocity. And I apologize for the American people for where we are right now, because it's just absolutely terrifying.
- [35:33]
Lisa Graves
So the American people did not consent to this. In fact, as you point out in the election, the argument was that Trump would get us into fewer wars, that somehow Trump would not engage in the types of wars that he criticized his predecessors for being involved in. And yet he's disregarded that promise like so many others.
- [35:53]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. Well, we've reached the time where we have to take our first ad break. And we love our sponsors. They're what keeps the lights on and keep us on the air. And we're doing great. And Midas Touch recently passed the 6 million subscriber mark, which is astounding with billions, billions with a B views of Midas Touch videos. And so Midas Touch Network is just on fire. If you're not a subscriber, please hit subscribe. This is the fastest growing independent news network and we see what's happening to mainstream media. So this is the best place to come get your news if you want to know the truth and if you want to hear what the facts are. So that's what we provide on the Midas Touch Network. And these sponsors who sponsor us know what we're about. They don't tell us what to talk about. They don't. We have no, nobody who says, oh, you, you have to have this point of view or that point of view. But they know what our point of view is because clearly we've been, we've been going strong now for, I think, six years. And so if you like what they have, and we test them all out, if you like what they have, feel free to, to give them, give them a try. So we're going to take our first ad break.
- [37:06]
Narrator/Advertiser
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- [40:11]
Karen Friedman
Welcome back. We're back and thank you again to our sponsors who are amazing but mostly thank you to all of you who are who watch us every week, every day, the people who go onto the Midas Touch network to get their news and to the Legal AF YouTube channel and Substack, that's also a very fast growing platform run by Michael Popak, our co host. And that is a great place if you want to hear more content and more deep dives into various legal issues that are going on. He's really done a phenomenal job of attracting extremely talented lawyers and other individuals to come and podcast on the Legal AF YouTube channel and substack. So definitely thank you everybody for your support and for your comments, all the comments that you leave after the show. Sometimes if I'm having a really bad day for other reasons, I'll go and read the comments just to kind of keep me going on why it is that we work so hard to bring everybody the news, the truth. Because it's so frustrating for me when I turn on the news or I open up a certain newspaper or another, because I like to just get a wide variety of sources just to hear what people are saying or on social media and I hear things. All you have to do is read something that Donald Trump posts on Truth Social or tweets out, or that some of the headlines that are clearly in bed with the MAGA administration. You hear what they have to say. And I always, always look beneath the hood. I go and I, I read it myself. I read the transcripts, I read the court filings. And it's just shocking to me how they don't tell the truth, that they spin things that are just absolutely total lies. For example, Trump saying that he won big in the Supreme Court tariffs case. Now, there is no way. I've read that decision. There is no way, is no way that he could say he won. They struck down his tariffs and said they were illegal, period, Full stop, can't do it.
- [42:24]
Lisa Graves
And he lost. He lost.
- [42:26]
Karen Friedman
He lost. Big loser. So that's just a lie. Like, that's not even, you know, it's like, it's like I, I miss the days when Democrats and Republicans would debate issues, you know, do you, I, I think taxes should be raised. I think taxes should be lowered. I, you know, don't believe that in the death penalty. I do believe in the death penalty. Whatever, you know, whatever you're, you know, pro abortion, anti abortion, you know, whatever your, whatever your issues are. But we don't even deal in debate anymore. We're dealing with lies, just absolute lies. And so in this big 6 to 3 decision, which was the biggest loss and absolutely obliterated, if you want to hear obliterated Trump's tariff policy, Trump is saying that this is a big win. And I think his justification for it is because Supreme Court didn't spell out how he has to return the money. And because they didn't spell that out, somehow he thinks that absolves him of having to return the money. But that doesn't seem to be the case. There are over a thousand lawsuits that have been filed or that have been pending. And major trade groups and individual businesses want a refund of the more than $130 billion that was collected. And the administration, by all accounts, is trying to slow walk this and delay it so that they don't have to refund this money. And on Monday, an appeals court denied, denied, the Justice Department or the Trump administration, I should say, their request to delay refund these, this money until June, which is what they asked for. So there's, I think, more than 2,000 cases pending in the United States Court of International Trade, which is a specialty court that I believe is in New York. And it is, they're going to be the ones who determine how this comes back and how this money comes back. And I think, think what people are pushing for is a global solution to get the money back as opposed to individual cases that could drag out for years and years and years and frankly, crush the courts and completely stop the courts. Because there's so many lawsuits just to try to get individual money, not to mention the fact that small business owners, et cetera, probably can't afford the lawyer it's going to take to get their money back. Right. So rather than trying to, to drag this out case by case, that could go on for years. You know, I, we're, I think, hopefully someone will come up with a global, you know, a court will come up with a global resolution. And, you know, it's just, it's absolutely a confusing situation that the, that the Supreme Court didn't define how it should be done. I'm not sure it was their role because that was not really something before them at the time. But, but here, now we're all left trying to figure out what to do. But what, what is your take on what'? With the tariffs, Lisa, and the Supreme Court and that ruling, do you see any way that Trump won that decision as he claims?
- [45:40]
Lisa Graves
No, he definitely lost. In fact, I guess the only way you could say he won is that there were three dissenters who would go along with basically anything he wants anytime, and that's Justice Clarence Thomas, you know, Justice Sam Alito and Brett Kavanaugh. They were wrong. That should have been a 90 decision because it was a slam dunk. It was clear that Trump could not use the International Emergency Economic Powers act to impose a tariff. It's clear that the Constitution specifically provides that the tariff power is controlled by Congress in Article 1. It's an express power granted to Congress. It was a slam dunk case, and the court should have kicked him back last August to mitigate the damage that was accruing from his unilateral, unlawful imposition of these irrational, arbitrary, and capricious tariffs that he had no power to give. And so now we're in a position where some of these, some of these businesses have been out money for coming up on a year. Some of them are going to be out money as they wait for themselves to be paid back for tariffs that they absorbed. And that hurts American businesses. These tariffs hurt American businesses, big businesses and small businesses. Both big and small businesses were involved in litigation challenging Donald Trump's assertions. Those big and small businesses won. The court didn't have, you know, sort of full briefing on how to unwind such a wide illegal act, such a wide imposition of tariffs, but it found that those tariffs were unlawful. And the money needs to be paid back. And every moment in which Donald Trump is not paying back that money costs us, the taxpayer, the American people, potential interest on the money that was wrongfully collected and has been and is being wrongfully upheld. And so every moment that Donald Trump is not having his administration pay back these tariffs not only hurts the American businesses that employ millions of Americans across the country, but hurts us as taxpayers for what we may be on the hook for, for the continuing retention of this money that does not belong to Donald Trump or the US Government that should not have been imposed. Some of those tariffs, I'm confident, will ultimately, those tariffs received, will ultimately be paid back. But in the meantime, I'm certain that the American people are not going to get their money back for goods whose prices were increased as a result of those tariff costs being passed on to the American consumers because of Trump's unilateral and arbitrary actions to impose tariffs on some countries because he didn't like their leader, didn't like what they said. They didn't kiss his ring. They didn't give him a gold trophy. This is exactly why no one person, no president, should have the tariff power, because that power could be wielded in a way that hurts our broader economic interest, which is why it's supposed to be a congressional power. But we'll see what happens, what the lower courts do in terms of ordering these terrorists to be repaid. But this notion that he Won is absurd, but it is the case that he should have lost sooner. So that's what I would say in response to that.
- [48:57]
Karen Friedman
So you're saying that although businesses may get their money back, that the consumers are not. That's your take.
- [49:04]
Lisa Graves
I don't think they are. I mean, it's possible that some business is going to say, oh, we're going to give you back the refund of how we jack the price up in response to that. Now, some businesses decided not to impose those costs on consumers because they were concerned that if they pass those tariffs, costs, those tariffs onto consumers, they would erode their customer base because it would jack the prices up so much. So some companies absorbed those tariffs, other companies did not absorb those tariffs and increase the cost of goods that Americans were buying. And we paid those, we paid for those goods at sort of full price, price plus. And I don't, I don't know, I haven't, I don't know of any significant component of the business sector that was subject to the tariffs that has promised to pay the consumers back for what Donald Trump cost them.
- [49:53]
Karen Friedman
Oh, yeah, it's, it, it really is a complicated thing to unwind because you can't really have the court order it to go back to the consumers because how do you know if they passed it on or not?
- [50:03]
Lisa Graves
Right, right. And some in, you know, Wall street, part of what was happening last year in terms of, you know, the absurd, you know, just, just, you know, really awful, grotesque claims by Pambani that we shouldn't be talking about the Epstein files because the Dow was so high. But the Dow has been high in part for, you know, for a couple reasons. One is the AI bubble that is just, you know, growing and growing despite the performance problems and debt acquisition by the industries engaged in AI, the rest of the business sectors have been slow. In fact, jobs reports, you know, show the jobs reports before Trump took down, the jobs reporting and then the external reporting about jobs and job growth since then have shown that Donald Trump has had a negative impact on the American economy. And the tariffs are part of that. But the other part of Wall street has been this thing called Taco, which is Trump always chickens out. And so for some of these tariffs that were imposed in May and then taken down Wall street, some, some on Wall street were betting that these, these tariffs would not stick. And so they didn't impose, they didn't push those costs on, and they thought that they would ultimately get their money back. So that's part of what's been happening behind the scenes.
- [51:16]
Karen Friedman
Wow. Well, let's pivot now from tariffs to these lawsuits against law firms, firms that Trump has, you know, went after these individual law firms and has now reversed. So Trump issued an executive order saying that the certain law firms were going to be forbidden from entering federal buildings, from getting security clearances, from doing business with the government. And that is just. Absolutely. That can put many businesses, as many law firms out of business, because especially businesses who work in Washington, that's their bread and butter, right? They have to go and talk to government officials, regulatory officials, you know, and government. Government buildings are. Are everything federal. Government buildings could be federal jails and prisons, federal courthouses. It could be federal regulatory agencies. It could be so many different federal buildings that lawyers have to be able to go into do business with. And there's certain types of cases or matters that lawyers are invol that they have to get security clearances from the government. And Trump again said, we're not going to give security clearances to those particular law firms. And he singled them out by name. And he made no kind of. There was no hiding from the fact that he was going after law firms who hired or who had lawyers on staff who he viewed were people who went after him. This is pure and simple retribution. There was no reason to go after these particular law firms. There was no sort of philosophical issue. There was no, they did something wrong and therefore they can't do business anymore. It was just, I don't like the lawyers you hired because they went after me, so I'm going to go after you. And like, like I said in the beginning of the show, most of many of the laws, many of the law firms capitulated and basically made a deal with Trump. And in exchange for dropping, in exchange for basically lifting these executive orders, he turned around and got free legal work from them. And really, it actually caused a big issue in these firms. Several people resigned as a result in protests. Several lawyers, not as many as I anticipated or had hoped, but these people have families to feed and jobs, so they do what they have to do. And several of them just have huge morale issues internally. A lot of people were really upset by the fact that they would settle, but the university started to settle and others. He's been going after people one by one, and people have been settling with them. But there's these four law firms who stood up to Trump, and I applaud them. It's Wilmer, Hale, Perkins, Coy Jenner, and Block and Sussman Godfrey. And these are really big firms, and a lot of. And frankly, when they go to court, they typically win. Right, because this executive orders, these executive orders are illegal. Can't do this. And so they largely win. They've been fighting, winning. Trump was then appealing it, right? He was appealing these lawsuits. And in a reversal on Monday, they came out, out, the, the Justice Department came out and said, we're not going to, we're going to discontinue this litigation. I think they want to cut their losses because they keep losing. And word on the street is that Stephen, and this was public, they came forward and publicly said, we're discontinuing these lawsuits. And word on the street is that Stephen Miller did not like the, the blowback that everyone was saying, oh, he's chickening out. You know, they didn't like it. I'm sure some of it came from the law firms who settled, who are pissed off. Like, come on, we settled. You're making us look bad. And, you know, so. And you're going to drop this now. So I think they got a lot of bad press because of, you know, chickening out here again and knowing that they're losing. And Stephen Miller told them to reverse it. And the four law firms got phone calls basically saying, oops, we didn't mean it, and we're not going to drop the cases. So. So it's kind of bananas what's going on over there. But I want to give a shout out to those four law firms and we should support them for fighting Donald Trump, because I'm sure it's not easy. Sure it's expensive. I'm sure it's hard to go up against the giant monster king who has all the power and then some, because he's taking much more power than is granted to him under the Constitution, with full immunity granted to him by the Supreme Court. So taking on Trump is no small feat. He's vindictive, he's a bully, he's mean, and he is. It's got to be a hard thing to do. So I wanted to give a shout out to these firms, which is why I really wanted to talk about this today. So what are your thoughts on this, Lisa?
- [56:17]
Lisa Graves
I join you in that those firms did the right thing by sending them to Trump. Unfortunately, Trump's mini me, the acting president, Stephen Miller, apparently has intervened to try to keep this litigation alive. Trump has put far too much trust in Miller, who is just a font of terrible, stupid ideas and completely ridiculous claims about the powers under the Constitution that a president has. And Miller has asserted himself, apparently, according to news accounts here and I just think this is a case where these were outrageous, unlawful orders to begin with. You know, you cannot have the President, United States, using his power to punish people basically for their First Amendment activity just because he doesn't like them and doesn't like what they did. They were engaged as lawyers in litigation on behalf of their clients and were. Did nothing wrong, did nothing to that would warrant the restriction of their security clearance. It was purely a pernicious, vengeful act by Trump that no president should have such power. And in fact, typically under our First Amendment, presidents don't have the power. They're not supposed to use their power to basically chill the speech that the government disagrees with, even the government in the form of one person, Donald Trump, or the government at large. And so the firms that didn't cave were doing the right thing in defense, both of their. Their rights as corporations to be engaged in business, to have access to security clearances if their lawyers fulfill the requirements of those clearances. Unlike some of the people in the Trump administration, the past administration, and this Trump administration, who got security clearances over the objections of the actual officials who are supposed to protect us from people like Jared Kushner, who have conflicts of interest or issues that would prevent them from having access to classified information. There was no allegation whatsoever that any of these firms or any of their lawyers had any such issues. And so that it was, you know, wrong. And then there are other factors that are worth knowing. So, first of all, as you pointed out and as the announcements of Trump's agreements indicated, these law firms that settled with him agreed to use, you know, millions and millions of dollars worth of law firm assets, resources, to aid Trump in his personal policy agenda. You know, his agenda, not necessarily the American people's agenda, not necessarily the work of the American people, because we already have government lawyers in every agency that are supposed to be doing the job of the American people. This was its own sort of boondoggle, in essence, of Trump being able to command the control of private firm lawyers to do his bidding. Some of them claim that those settlements with the pro bono agreement didn't necessarily give him that full control, but some control or some direction, and that they could use their pro bono hours in different ways. It's all very sketchy. And one of the most sketchy components of it was that one of the very first law firms, in fact, I think the first law firm to cave was Paul Weiss, whose chairman, Brad Karp, just resigned from his role as chairman of this mega firm because he. Because he appeared so many times in ways that were very concerning in those Epstein files. And so you have to wonder, you know, this sort of dominoes that were set up, we, you know, if one domino falls, then that may put pressure on others. So I do wonder about, you know, Paul Weiss's decision, the decision of that firm to cave to Trump and the role that Brad Karp may have played given the fact that he was, you know, is someone who, whose name appeared. I'm not suggesting that he himself engaged in any trafficking whatsoever, but he has resigned from his role as chairman because of fallout from the revelations from those Epstein files.
- [60:19]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, he wasn't just a lawyer at Paul Weiss. He was, as you said, the chairman of Paul Weiss. Like that was a big deal that he resigned. It was a big deal that Paul Weiss caved and settled with Trump. Trump. And so just the kind of overlap and connection, the connective tissue between Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and other people in high level positions of power like Brad Karp is stunning. It's absolutely stunning to me. All right, we're going to take a quick next ad break and when we come back, we're going to talk about the Supreme Court. We're going to talk about redistricting, we're going to talk about what's going on in Texas right now at the primary. Some good news coming out of there. And we're going to now take our quick ad break.
- [61:08]
Narrator/Advertiser
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- [63:49]
Karen Friedman
All right, we're back and let's talk a little bit about the midterm elections, redistricting, the Supreme Court primaries. Texas is holding its primaries right now and it looks like Talarico has won. And if you remember, he's the guy who was supposed to be on the Colbert show and they, they took it off the air and, and you know, essentially CBS essentially said pulled it and then Colbert put it on YouTube and it got more views than it would have gotten by far if it had just aired Effect. Yeah, I know, it was great. But you know, I watched it and it was adorable. He was adorable. And he's a Democrat. It's the Democratic primary and he won. I think that's exciting. You know, he's kind of a good guy. He's no nonsense. He, he's a breath of fresh air for somewhere like Texas. So, so that's, I think, a huge, a huge thing that's, I think, going to be great. And you know, look, there's a lot going on in, in voting and redistricting in the Supreme Court. And, and rather than me even trying to frame it, I'm going to turn it over to you because nobody is better at talking about these issues than you, Lisa. So why don't you tell us, kind of give us an update on where we are and, and make us all excited about the midterms.
- [65:08]
Lisa Graves
Well, you know, so let me, let me Start with the bad news first, basically, and then maybe get to some of the good news, depending on your perspective. But the Roberts Court has, again, intervened in a way that has put its thumb or its fist on the scale of justice in favor of Republicans in redistricting. And that came in a decision that was issued over the past week involving New York and the maps in New York. And that was a, a ruling issued by Sam Alito and overturned. It basically found that it, it found that the lower courts could not overrule a district that had discriminated against black and Latino voters in Staten Island. And so what you had was a litigation happening at the state court level finding that there was a, a district in, you know, outside of New York City in the, you know, I don't know, Staten island in the boroughs. You're going to tell me that after this part, Karen. But anyway, Staten island district that the.
- [66:13]
Karen Friedman
Yes, yes.
- [66:14]
Lisa Graves
Okay.
- [66:17]
Karen Friedman
Let's just talk New York City for one second.
- [66:19]
Lisa Graves
Yes.
- [66:20]
Karen Friedman
New York City has five boroughs. Okay. There's or five counties is really what they're called. It's five counties or five boroughs within New York City. There's New York county, also known as Manhattan, Kings county, also known as Brooklyn, Queens county, also known as Queens, Bronx county, also known as Bronx, and Richmond county, also known as Staten Island. So, yes, yes. Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten island are the five boroughs that make up New York City. So.
- [66:54]
Lisa Graves
All right, thank you. Thank you. Because I was like, I think so. But then I was like, well, it is, it's.
- [67:00]
Karen Friedman
It is an is. It is an island.
- [67:02]
Lisa Graves
Yeah.
- [67:02]
Karen Friedman
And it's close to New Jersey and close to New York, but yes.
- [67:06]
Lisa Graves
Okay. So this case comes out of one of the boroughs of New York. Thank you so much, Karen. And it's a case where the lower courts were litigating this matter. And so it was in the middle of state court litigation, but the case made its way to the U.S. supreme Court. And what happened was the Roberts Court basically blocked the ruling of the lower state courts. And one of the reasons why that's so significant is that a few years ago, probably almost 10 years ago, in a case called Rucho v. Common Cause, we had the Roberts Court basically saying that the federal courts were not supposed to be intervening in elections in that way, but the state courts had the power then. Of course, when the state courts have the power now, we have the Roberts Court saying, oh, but not here, where it might affect a Republican district. That was the district that Republican U.S. house Representative Nicole Maliatakis. If I'm pronouncing that correctly. And so the US Supreme Court has said also that no court, federal or state court, should change election laws in the middle of an election season. And we know that this decision was issued by the Roberts Court after the filing deadline for candidates in New York has already passed. And so this is another instance where we see this Roberts Court basically trying to make sure that the federal law is not used to protect that federal and state law is not used to protect against the vote dilution of black and brown Americans. And that vote poorly for another decision that's still pending before this Supreme Court, a decision in the Calais case out of Louisiana, where the Roberts Court is considering striking, pardon me, striking down Section 2 of the Voting Rights act, which was passed in 1965 to protect against changes in rules around elections that have an adverse effect on voters, in particular on black Americans. And in that case, the Calais case, you had litigation out of the 2020 census where the white dominated legislature of Louisiana took those census results and made sure that white majorities could win in five of the six Louisiana districts and had one district that was a black majority district and that was litigated. That map was found to be unconstitutional as for diluting, diluting the votes of black voters. And so another map was created to have two black majority districts for white majority districts in Louisiana, where the popular, the population of black Americans in Louisiana is about one third of the state. And so it was proportionate, even though proportionality is not strictly required. And so this court, the Roberts Court, has taken up that case and they are considering not just ruling against Louisiana, ruling against those matters, but at the behest of the Trump administration and a host of right wing amicus brief, dark money funded amicus briefs, the Supreme Court is considering finding Section 2, the Voting Rights act, unconstitutional. And that would basically set a precedent. I think it's an illegitimate precedent, but a precedent going forward, basically denying states the ability to protect black and brown voters from having their votes diluted and perhaps even providing a weapon for Republicans to use to challenge black majority districts in order to basically bleach out our congressional delegations to try to preserve white dominance in Congress and in every other part of a state government. So state government, city government, county government, school boards and the like. And so when you look at this decision out of New York, that comes out of the U.S. supreme Court, comes out of the Roberts Court, what you see is a decision by a Republican appointed majority on the U.S. supreme Court changing the rules in order to protect Republican seats, to protect that Republican seat in that borough of New York, even though the lower court was already in the process of fighting against it. In fact, had. There was a dissent in that case. The dissent was by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. And they wrote about how this court was playing politics. And so what Justice Sotomayor wrote, and I'm just going to quote it here, she says, time and again, this court has said that federal courts should not interfere with state court litigation. And then she says, time and again, this court has said that federal court should not meddle with state election laws ahead of an election. Today, the court says, except for this one, except for this one, and except for this one. And so that's what's been happening, is you have a U.S. supreme Court that is engaging in these issues in a very partisan way. Even though they allowed the California response, the proposition that passed, to stand, they did so in the face of basically allowing Texas to go forward with a map that redistricted Jasmine Crockett out of her seat and displaced other black and brown representatives in Texas that a lower court, a Trump judge, even had found was what, you know, was decided based on racial grounds. And I'm very worried that this Roberts court is doing whatever it can to try to help the Republicans preserve a majority in the House of Representatives in this cycle. And I'm worried in part because I saw this playbook, we saw this playbook before in the 2022 election. Even though a court had found that in Alabama, the map was inconsistent with federal law, was a violation of the Voting Rights act, the Roberts court allowed a map to go forward in Alabama that helped Mike Johnson become the, you know, basically help the Republicans get control of the House and ultimately help Mike Johnson become the leader of the House, the majority leader of the House of representatives after that 2022 midterm. Then the Roberts court said, oh, hey, Alabama, you have to redraw that map. But the damage was already done. The election was not going to be rerun. The House majority had already changed. And then similarly, in this Texas case that this emergency order from last December, the court allowed that redistricting to stand even while it was considering this Klay case. And that sent a signal to other states that they should go forward, they could go forward with the redrawing of maps that Donald Trump has insisted he needs in order to keep control of the House of Representatives and expressly has said he needs to keep control or he will be impeached or there will be investigations of his actions because if the Democrats get control of one or both houses of Congress, they will have the power to actually hold this administration accountable, issue subpoenas, have hearings, investigative hearings, and also have the power to not just roll over with every legislative demand or even acts of war. And so Trump is doing everything he can to try to basically Pre Rig the 2026 election so that he can win no matter what. And we're also seeing these other maneuvers, like the suggestion perhaps that we should federalize or nationalize elections, that he should have control over all the voting rolls, and that if any time he loses, it's an illegitimate election result, that he can't lose, basically, and that he won't accept any loss. And so that's why I think so many Americans are coming together to say they have to make the turnout so big that those kind of machinations cannot take hold. And so on the good news part, and I'll just say this in my, my personal capacity, not my organizational capacity, I am so glad to see the election results coming out across the country with so many Democrats winning in Republican districts. So much more, so much bigger turnout in some places, because I think the American people, including districts where there's a Republican majority, Democrats, have been able to win, because I think there's a portion of Republicans who agree that this administration is out of control, that we need to have limits on Donald Trump's assertion of power. And the only way that we can really successfully do that is through the ballot box.
- [75:32]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, that is. I'm seeing the same thing across the country and it gives me a lot of hope. And we do have to go out and vote and vote in record, in record numbers. A couple other things going on today. You've got the Justice Department again, Jeanine Pirros, who is the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, in another one of Donald Trump's retribution, just his, his, his quest for revenge, wanted an investigation into Joe Biden's use of auto pen. And frankly, they couldn't even build a case because there is no case. So another fail, another l. Another loss for Jeanine Pirro, who also tried to indict those members of Congress like Mark Kelly and others, for putting out that video, basically telling service members, you don't have to follow unlawful orders. But this was just the fact that our taxpayer dollars are, that people are spending their days looking into cases like the auto pen one. It's embarrassing. It's a waste of money. And even they, even in this Justice Department determined they can't bring that case. There is no case. So that was good news. And I also am seeing, and this is just, I'm seeing it in, you know, certain headlines, but I haven't read the transcripts or seen it myself yet that Kristi Noem is testifying today before Congress and she's being questioned and apparently she's being grilled on her affair with Corey Lewandowski. So very interesting. Even Jamie Raskin, I'm hearing, kind of went after her because, you know, she's having an affair with, with her. With her lower level subordinate and he's, you know, getting paid a lot of money, etc. And she's steering contracts to businesses that he's affiliated with.
- [77:25]
Lisa Graves
That's.
- [77:25]
Karen Friedman
Those are the allegations. The fact that, and people have been whispering about it for a long time. The fact that she's being asked about it is stunning. So I look forward to hearing what, what she says about that.
- [77:38]
Lisa Graves
The other part of the contracts, you know, the spouse of one of the other high officials at the, at the, the Homeland Security, like really, it just, it smells, you know, as they say, something smells in Denmark. It really.
- [77:49]
Karen Friedman
Oh, Tulsi Gabard, right.
- [77:51]
Lisa Graves
No, no, the other, the other, the other spokesperson and spouse like there, you know, the, these no bid contracts that dhs.
- [77:58]
Karen Friedman
Oh, right, right, right. I saw that. Yeah.
- [78:00]
Lisa Graves
The other thing is, and, and then
- [78:02]
Karen Friedman
I know this was her, this was her spokesperson.
- [78:04]
Lisa Graves
Yeah.
- [78:05]
Karen Friedman
Who used to be her. Used to be her spokesperson and left. Yeah, just left. Yes, this was her. I saw that. And she's. They, they put a contract in where you didn't have to bid and she, you know, millions and millions of dollars, like hundreds of millions of dollars to this friend of hers, essentially.
- [78:24]
Lisa Graves
Yeah, it is really crazy. And also, you know, like, I don't think any department secretary needs a plane with a bed. You know, I understand that the white. That the, you know, Air Force maybe the secret.
- [78:34]
Karen Friedman
Maybe the Secretary of State because they travel overseas and you know. Yeah.
- [78:40]
Lisa Graves
Let me just say I once, I was on, I was once on a plane headed to Denver with Federico Pina, who was the Transportation Secretary. And they tried to, they tried to move him up to first class and he said, I cannot. I am a civil servant. I'm the, even on the, I'm the Secretary of Department of Transportation. I don't get to just use taxpayer dollars to sit in first class. That was, you know, you know, that was in the Clinton administration. But here we are 25, 30 years later and we have a DHS secretary demanding her own private jet to jet around America, you know, because her Role is, is predominantly domestic with a bed. I don't think, you know, regardless of the allegations about Corey Levandowski and you know, all that other drama, that was what was asked about today and I think legitimately asked about, you know, we need answers to those things. But why are we spending our taxpayer dollars for that kind of luxury travel for any of these, any of these exec branch officials? It is really outrageous and gross.
- [79:34]
Karen Friedman
Apparently, apparently she fired a pilot because he forgot her little. Oh, there you go. ICE Barbie finally cornered on her alleged affair with top Aid. And apparently her husband was sitting in the, in the background. But, but you know, she. Apparently Corey Lewandowski, who was on the plane with her, had to get off and switch planes and the pilot forgot to bring her her blanket, her special blanket, and she. And she fired him. Like, like, what is going on? And as you said, this is taxpayer dollars. I was a government employee for 30 years. Everywhere I went, I had to fly coach. You know, exactly what you were saying. And I wanted to, like, I wasn't going to spend extra money, you know, like taxpayer dollars. It's irresponsible and you're just not allowed to do that. And I still fly coach, but that's another story. But, yeah, Pilot fired over Kristi Noem's missing blanket and the constant chaos inside dhs. She, she can't be long for this world. I mean, I mean, she is, I think, one of, one of the many, but biggest disasters of the Trump administration. Right. I mean, and they should, look, they should have known it all along from the fact that before they even hired her, she like, bragged about killing her puppy. Right. I mean, I'm outrageous. Sociopath, right? Totally. And, you know, it was a window into how she would train her ICE agents to just go kill American citizens.
- [80:54]
Lisa Graves
And you know, Tom Pillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina who's not running again and really took her to task, including over some of these issues. Like what her judgment is just so, so out of whack, really. So, you know, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens next. But I just want to say, Karen, it's a joy to be on this program with you. It's a joy to be part of the Legal AF Podcast network. It's a joy to be part of Midas Touch. I always enjoy our conversations. I always learn something. And I'm just grateful to have the chance to have these conversations with you and support you and Popak and the whole gang.
- [81:29]
Karen Friedman
That's amazing. Thank you for saying that. Lisa, I learned so much from you. You're like a true scholar and so I absolutely, I'm a practitioner. You're a scholar. So I learned so much from you and I'm absolutely, so thrilled to be doing this with you. And thank you so much for stepping in. And we've reached the end of another midweek edition of Legal af. Join me and Michael Popak every Wednesday or Michael Popak and Ben Mizellis every Saturday. And again, subscribe to the legal AF YouTube channel, substack, join the Midas Touch movement and the Midas Touch network and subscribe there and just come on board. We have a, we have a big, a big boat with a big tent and we need as many people, people as possible to defeat this, this orange administration.
- [82:23]
Lisa Graves
So join us.
- [82:25]
Karen Friedman
Join us. Yes. And let's defeat them. Let's win. Let's get back to like a normal society that we can all recognize. So, yeah, right. Good to see you, Lisa, to see you.
- [82:36]
Lisa Graves
Thanks everyone.
- [82:37]
Karen Friedman
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