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We gotta smile from ear to ear because we're about to start Legal AF at the midweek. Dina Dahl sitting in for Karen Freeman Igniflo, my regular podcast partner. And Dean is my regular podcast partner on Unprecedented, our Supreme Court podcast over on Legal AF YouTube and is now hosting Monday night, along with Lisa Graves, a new night that we've opened up. You've asked for it. We brought it Legal AF live Monday nights, 5pm on the Legal AF YouTube channel.
- [03:20]
B
Hi, Dina, great to see you. So excited to be here.
- [03:24]
A
Thanks for. Well, I say thank to fill it in, but it's our pleasure to have you here and to brief our audience. Let's kick it off. Number of things to talk about that have happened in the last hour, two hours before I got on the air. We're talking about the slush fund in yesterday's Todd Blanch. Sworn testimony is like old news already. We got a first lawsuit that's been filed to stop it. We've got the Senate and the House considering ways to stop it. There seems to be no political will to let Donald Trump walk away from $100 million in tax liability. We've got the resignation of the general counsel of the Treasury Department rather than participate in possibly an illegal wipeout of Donald Trump's tax liability. And we got the first lawsuit filed by a couple of Jan6 officers, you know, who as always have stepped forward to protect and defend the line and democracy. But theirs is not the last lawsuit. There'll be multiple lawsuits about this. And something that happened just as we came on the air where the Senate threw up their hands and said, we're not funding the ballroom. Now. That in and of itself is a devastating blow to Donald Trump's ego and his Golden Ballroom. They're not gonna take a billion dollars and pay for security and all the hardened facility and. But what does it mean? I want to ask you this question. It's rhetorical now, but I'll come back and ask you what does it mean to the political will in the Senate to approve or to kill the $1.776 billion slush fund if there was there. From what I'm hearing on Capitol Hill, there is no support for this. Nobody's like clapping. Nobody's saying great idea. I mean politically, including Republicans. So let's try to figure out, read the tea leaves. If the ballroom got killed what that may portend for the slush fund. The lawsuit we'll talk about then. We got to pick up on something that we covered a few months ago. Only the first president to ever be indicted for stealing presidential records would then try, by way of a White House memo, declare that they don't have to save anything because the Presidential Records act can't apply to them because they're a separate branch of government. We were like, what? We're just gonna. We're just gonna pull up a giant incinerator and incinerate the whole Trump administration documents at the end? They're not gonna. They're not the people's papers. I thought they were the people's papers. And now we got Judge Bates, who's issued a new preliminary injunction, which is right around what we thought would happen. So I want to talk about that and so much more as we wait on pins and needles for things like the Supreme Court's final rulings as they round out their year. And then we had an election night in America, which the Republicans are saying represents the power and the muscle flex for Donald Trump. But does it. What does it mean for the general election, given Donald Trump's abysmally historically low polling numbers, which get. Every day there's a new announcement. Dina, of a poll, it gets lower and lower. We're going to see how low this is going to go before, just several months from now, before the midterms. But I'm so glad you're here. Let's. Let's open the show. Let's kick it off with what you've observed, update our audience from your perspective about the things that you found interesting about this as we peel the onion about the slush fund, the settlement agreement, the attempt to take away tax exposure and liability for the Trump family. Well, let's start with all of that and testimony that, that, that Blanche gave before he let the American people know that he was going to absolve Donald Trump of tax liability. He didn't tell that to the senators, now, did he?
- [07:22]
B
You know, from a legal perspective, this is a legal show, right? I. This is one of the most stunning stories, Tom. Blanche, in a, in a typical situation, committed malpractice here would be disbarred. In any other situation, he was sued for basically created a billion dollar fund without filing one motion in the case. That's stunning. Not only did he not file a motion, he was given an opportunity on a cake platter to get it dismissed by Judge Kathleen Williams, who said, I don't think that I even have a case here. Go ahead. And, you know, both sides tell me whether or not I should or should not take this case. Any defense lawyer, I mean, any lawyer we're talking about, like the bare minimum of a qualified, competent lawyer would have taken that opportunity and run with it. Of course, the deadline was May 20th. So instead, Todd Blanche, acting really as Trump's personal attorney and not as our attorney, rushed this settlement. So really just the malpractice. His job, whether or not he wants to believe it or not, is representing the American people. He was told to step aside, that there was going to be a conflict of interest. He was given a memo, according to the New York Times, by career lawyers within the irs, laying out all of the defenses, including statute of limitations, to get this dismissed. On top of Judge Kathleen Williams questioning whether or not there was even a real case or controversy since Trump was suing himself. I mean, he had so much, many opportunities to try to file one motion in this case. And without filing one motion, he handed over more than a billion dollars to what appears to be January 6th insurrectionist. And to your point, you know, his testimony was in front of Congress was just atrocious, trying to act as if he has no idea whether or not the money will eventually end up in the hands of January 6th insurrectionist, despite the fact he's going to be the one appointing the people on the commission who's going to be doling out the funds. Clearly, Todd Blanche here acting as Trump's personal attorney. And then we can get into the audits, which in itself, as you said, there could be worth more than $100 million. I mean, IRS policy is to audit every president and vice president. That has been a policy for years. So you get a sense of how extraordinary it is that Trump is going to be getting, and not just Trump, his sons, his businesses, his affiliates are going to be getting this favor of permanently never being audited. And of course, there is even that existing audit self dealing to such an extent it is hard to comprehend, all wrapped up as if somehow it has to do with this frivolous, baseless lawsuit. And unfortunately, these Capitol Police officers who again and again have had to speak out against the lies coming from Trump and Republicans trying to rewrite January 6th are having to stand up. Thankfully, they have the ability to stand up against this slush fund, but they shouldn't have to. Really? We shouldn't be in this position.
- [10:36]
A
Absolutely. And then you've got the way that Todd Blanch did it in using a statute that relates to when Attorney General can stop an audit. Because at the core, see, I no longer think this was about a $10 billion lawsuit or even a slush fund. I think this was about Donald Trump having at the top of his checklist of things left to do before he's powerless was to get himself out from under that audit. The audit he's been under since 2010, about a $75 million or so refund that he received, this company's received, and a tax loss of several billion dollars. About two projects that the IRS was challenging. And it's interesting that they enter the settlement. There's no mention of Donald Trump's family getting this tax break. Then the press happens. And then the next day, after Todd Blanche steps off of the Senate, out of the Senate hot chair, he posts a one paragraph amendment to the settlement, which he doesn't call an amendment to the settlement, which adds a new provision waiving forever the tax liability and audit of against the Trump administration, Trump individually. This is the audit that Trump used as an excuse for decades not to reveal his tax returns. I'd love to reveal them, everybody, but I'm under an audit. And then here you go, you've got this May 19th memo, a day late, but hundreds of billions of dollars not short, letting them off the hook. This is what's sticking in the craw of Congress and the senators, even the MAGA ones. And I'm not sure there's political will for this. First of all, you've got the former, now former general counsel for the Treasury Department. And I just had Matt Platkin, former attorney general for New Jersey, who's now in private practice with lawsuits concerning. He came up with a great theory, which is the guy stays around, holds his nose and lets the settlement get announced. But as soon as Blanche wants to now go to step two and violate a criminal statute about when an audit can be interfered with, which I believe he's interfered with on behalf of Trump. That's a bridge too far even for this general counsel. And he resigns because it's in that order. Okay. Then you have all of these open challenges that will come in the lawsuits we'll talk about next. Because if Blanche doesn't have the power under this certain statute that allows him to interfere with with audits, if he doesn't have that power, then that aspect of the settlement goes out the window. And if he doesn't have the power as the head of the Department of Justice to set up a settlement fund related to the Internal Revenue Service, completely different agency. Think about the parties that were involved in the lawsuit. It's Trump v. Irs. Let's put aside for a minute. But they're on the same side and he controls them. And it's a collusive conspiratorial suit with no adversary parties. Let's put all of that aside for a moment. Okay, Got that? All right. Department of justice isn't a party. Department of justice, at best, would be the lawyers for the Internal Revenue Service. So then to settle this case, Trump has his Department of Justice, who has an anti weaponization committee, set up a fund that's going to be funded by the IRS in order to administer. How does he have the power to do that? How does Blanche have the power to order the treasury to put taxpayer dollars into a fund under his direction in a case that he's not even a party to? So all the things we just outlined are going to be parts of lawsuits. 1, 2, 3, 4, I think at least another two filed before Memorial Day. You think fireworks only get fired in federal holidays like Fourth of July, Wait till Memorial Memorial Day. So we're going to talk about now. I'm going to turn to the new suit, first of its kind, filed by officers Dunn and Hodges. There they are, done or no, Hodges. Trapped. We all remember that picture. Trapped inside the revolving door being his life being crushed out of him. And they, they've been very poignant in their testimony about the post traumatic stress disorder they have suffered. And I, and I love their angle. And the angle for their lawsuit is Trump is funding terrorists. Trump is funding insurrectionists because he's giving the money to the proud boys and the Oath Keepers and all the bad guys that attacked our rule of law, and therefore he should be stopped. And they made their case on a very narrow plank of the Administrative Procedures act of arguing that things are outside statutory power, you know, asking for a declaratory judgment. They didn't touch the constitutional, obvious constitutional issues, but they do kind of get to the heart of the matter, but also bring it forward. Right. With this, this human aspect of Trump's funding terrorists. You know, at the same time, he's trying to put the Southern Poverty Law center out of business for breaking up terrorist organizations and allegedly funding them. He's funding them with this fund. What did you make of the lawsuit?
- [16:19]
B
Absolutely. And to your point about, you know, that the person who signed this agreement was the newly created chief executive officer of the irs. That role did not exist before Trump, and that person was not confirmed by the Senate. That's the person who signed up. Because as you said, the General counsel stepped down. Nobody else really probably wanted their name on this. And they had to create it through this, this sham settlement because of the fact that there is no legislative, statutory authority for it. It's interesting because I know the executive order was pointed to a few times. Trump put out an executive order last year that said that agencies had to follow his definition of the law. And both Judge Kathleen Williams cited that actually is saying this is why there's not a real case or controversy, because does this mean the IRS has to follow Trump's definition of the law? It is. Was also cited in this new lawsuit as well. But Trump in one of the press conferences that he didn't know about the settlement, which is interesting because if he didn't, I mean, of course he's lying about that, but, you know, that's a, that you could take that quote as evidence to say that the Department of Justice wasn't, or the IRS wasn't having to follow his definition of it because he didn't know what the definition was. They are, they, there's, they have not even a shred of legal justification for the slush fund. The, the, the fact that it's some sort of settlement of a civil suit is a complete sham, and then there's no statutory or now even in the executive order that gives them any kind of basis for this fund. But to your point about it funding terrorists, Trump doesn't do anything out of loyalty. I do not believe he is giving them this money six months before the midterms as a way to thank them for what they did on January 6th. He only does something if it is going to serve him right. Now, I just interviewed Officer Michael Fanon to ask him about this slush fund from my touch. And, you know, he really believes that political violence is going to be part of all of our elections. It scares me that he's wanting to fund insurrectionists six months before the midterms, where he's already talked about how we should have standing armies to make sure the right people are voting because his poll numbers are so low, they're doing all this redistricting to get the vote. And that lawsuit really captures that. The officer's lawsuit really captures it. They said they, that they have been threatened, you know, to this day, threatened, and they have been injured. And they point out the fact that they believe that this is going to just encourage the insurrectionists to commit more political violence. And, and I, and I believe that that is the purpose of this.
- [19:20]
A
Tomorrow I'm going to have with me the lawyers who filed this lawsuit. They're coming on public Integrity to brief our audience about what the next steps are and how they collaborate with what's obviously going to be a series of other filings. I don't know if it's going to be members of the house like the 93 that joined together the file an amicus brief in Miami or it's going to be others. But there's other aspects. It all leads all the roads up the mountain all lead to the same place in blocking the fund, blocking the funding of the fund, blocking the eradication erasure of Donald Trump's tax exposure to but they'll, they'll come at it from slightly different angles and perhaps with different judges. They'll all be in D.C. federal court, I'm sure not sure which judges yet. Do we know which? Let's maybe we'll look it up while we're doing the show tonight. What judge has been assigned to this particular case? I'll have those lawyers on and ask them those questions. Let me read to you from their filing. This is paragraph one in the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century. That's saying a lot for this guy. President Donald J. Trump has created a taxpayer funded slush fund to finance the insurrectionists and the paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name and that it's a sham. They go on to say that the fun endangers the lives and safety of plaintiffs Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, officers who defended the Capitol on January 6th in two ways. By its very existence, the fund encourages those who enacted violence in the President's name to continue to do so. They face credible threats of death and violence on a regular basis. Second, if allowed to begin making payments, the fund will directly finance the violent operations of rioters, paramilitary and their supporters who threaten plaintiffs lives and continue to do so. And then they had this line among many. Paragraph 12 Dunn and Hodges did not back down on January 6th. They held the line to defend democracy and the rule of law. They bring this case to do so again. You know, there's just a certain gravitas that comes from these two talking about the funding and refunding and reanimating of these groups that by any account should be completely out of business with their leadership in jail. And it would be under any other sane administration that committed to the rule of law and democracy. And yet today we're talking about let's give them a check for a million dollars to get back on their feet. What do you think?
- [21:56]
B
It's so disturbing. It's like the Capitol police officers did their job so well that members, the Republican members of Congress are willing to let Trump pardon them and now potentially pay them. Because if the Capitol officers hadn't done their job that well, members of Congress would have been beaten as severely as those officers. And the fact that these Republican Congress members are willing to have allowed those officers to protect them and don't have the decency to have stood up against the pardons because honestly, the pardons were bad enough. I mean, the fact that we're even to the point we're talking about getting them paid is shocking. The fact that they had all the constitutional protections afforded them as a criminal defendant and were still convicted and yet pardoned without a peep from these weak Republican Congress people who had the luxury of not getting hurt that day because men and women put their bodies on the line for them, is just, it's a shame on this country that we have, I don't think even barely reconciled with it is really disturbing. And I think you're right. You alluded to in the beginning that perhaps the slush fund to pay insurrectionists will be a step too far for these Republican Congress people. But it is just the fact that this is even on the table, it shows really the kind of authoritarian figure Trump wants to be.
- [23:33]
A
Well, I mean, there's that old saying. After you hear a description of something sounds like a cult and it sounds like a cult, when the Democrats who are making great political hay out of this, as they should to pin this tail directly on this donkey, they say, well, let's see if we can reach common ground. Can we pass an amendment that convicted child sex abusers can't make application for the fund voted down by the Republicans? Can we pass an amendment that people convicted of or indicted for violently attacking law enforcement can't make application voted down. And every one of these is going to be a new ad against these Republicans. That's why they hate this. They hated the ballroom and they killed that billion dollar hot potato that Donald Trump threw at them. Here you go. I need a billion now for the free ballroom. They were like, yeah, no. During a national discussion about an administration that where affordability has fallen on deaf ears looking callous. We're not going to give a billion dollars for a Golden Ballroom. I think that factors in here because if there's no political will, one thing you can say that unifies all MAGA in the House and the Senate is that they're cowards and they're worried about their political hides. And if they can't get this passed and don't want to pass it as we reported it coming on the air. Why does Trump think that they're not gonna block his weaponization fund? They didn't even remember when we reported on three months ago when they were gonna have a little thing and the big beautiful bill to give $50 million or some amount of money to pay back the Lindsey Grahams of the world and congresspeople who incurred legal expenses related to the Jan6 investigation because they were cooperating with the insurrectionists that got killed. So now Trump's takeaway from that was, well, 50 million didn't work. I'll go for a 1.776 billion. I don't get it.
- [25:43]
B
No, we shouldn't get it because like I said from the start, this is beyond any legal political. And that's why it's scary. We have the Department of Justice who is meant to keep us safe. We wanting to go pay criminals who, who beat and killed officers. And doing this right before another election, we should be disturbed, we should be scared. And it's not just Trump, it's Tom Blanche. He. The fact that he, as, I mean, like to your point to Congress, he wouldn't even rule out paying out of this fund somebody who was convicted of violence that day. This is where we're at. And it is stunning. There are a few stories that we have discussed that are as stunning as this one to me because there is like you can't even try to spin your way out of it. And the fact that it is politically even a step too far for a lot of Republicans and Trump still doing that is alarming.
- [26:50]
A
I think we have a new tagline for midweek edition of Legal af. It can go on mugs and T shirts. Midweek Legal af. You'll be stunned. Right?
- [27:01]
B
I know. I always think I'm not going to be surprised. And then there's like a further level of depravity. This to me is a five alarm fire because Trump tends to know where his party, I think, is willing to go and not go. And this is so extreme being paying the proud boys, essentially. You know, this sounds to me like a private army. He's trying to coalesce here, right?
- [27:28]
A
And I think even the Republicans, like, dude, realize that if they don't draw the line in the sand here, this could lead to a limitless president where he has unlimited constitutional power to do anything. You know, put money in his pocket, wave his own debts, waive his own like this. This may be. You're always wondering what is the last straw, even for maga, and we may have reached it here and for the Department of Justice. I mean, there should be calls for Todd Blanche to resign. If Merrick Garland gave that performance and did these things, there'd be calls for him by the Republicans to immediately resign. But instead, no, we just have the communications director for Donald Trump, you know, relishing in the fact that Trump made his entire party run hard to the right yesterday and he's like, f around and find out. That's what I'm going to say on my official White House account. I'm like, I don't know how that helps you in the general election to make, to make everybody a mini Trumper, you know, and we're going to see. I think there is a golden, there's a silver lining to what happened yesterday. You know, the harder right these candidates for the Republicans have to run to appease Donald Trump, the more they're out of lockstep with the American people who, and candidates who all they have to do is just step ever so slightly to the left and to the center to gain the votes. We haven't heard the last of Massie in Kentucky. First of all, Trump just created a couple of new Thom Tillises who are going to be able to completely run around unfettered from now until they're out of office opposing the Trump administration without any repercussions. And Massie may run as an independent, splitting the vote and maybe grabbing the seat in Kentucky, especially if this is a wave election. So we're going to cover all that so much more. We come back, I want to talk about Judge Bates new ruling about presidential records. We'll talk about the ballroom and, and anything else that pops in into our minds. You're here on Legal af, the podcast, the Webby award winning Legal AF podcast. We swept the Webbies. You may be wondering where are the Webbies? You have to order them from the Webby Company. You get one free.
- [29:48]
B
Nothing is free, right?
- [29:49]
A
Yeah, I know. Nothing's free. Not even the award you win. And then we'll, and then I'll put it here over on this little podium here. People get to see it. That's one. Then you know this, this show sits or the YouTube channel sits on this show. We've got a YouTube channel, 12 videos a day over on called Legal AF. YouTube. You may not have heard of it. Hopefully you have come over and help US pass the 1.2 million subscriber base. We're getting there. We're close. If you think you're subscribed I don't think you are. I think you should go. I think you should go check. Because if everybody was subscribed who told me they're subscribed, we'd have 3 million already. And if we just got of our viewership to subscribe, which is not a huge number, I'd even take 5%. We beat the Midas brothers. I'm not competitive, I'm just stating the obvious.
- [30:36]
B
Sure you're not.
- [30:37]
A
But take, take a moment and hit the free subs. Well, they're my partners over there.
- [30:41]
B
Yeah, I know.
- [30:43]
A
So hit the free subscribe button there as well. Then we've got Legal AF Substack. You'll see writings and reportings by Dina Dahl. I do a live report every day, including today, and a bunch of other content you can't find anywhere else. Legal AF Substack, that's so we got two. There it is. We got two things going on there. And then we've got our sponsors that I've been with us, some of them with us from the very beginning in the last six years. Some of them are brand new, all curated and vetted by a combination of Jordi and me, the other hosts. So we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back and finish the show. So here's our sponsors. Magic Spoon is basically the grown up version of your favorite childhood cereal. All those nostalgic flavors you remember but packed with protein. I've been loving the fruity and peanut butter flavors lately and they've also got Frosted Cocoa, Cinnamon Crunch and more. 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As someone with an active online presence, privacy is really important to me. There's just so much personal information out there. And even if you haven't experienced identity theft or harassment yourself, you probably know somebody who has. That's why I like Delete Me. They do all the hard work of wiping your and your family's personal information from data broker websites, and they keep working in the background, constantly monitoring and removing the information you don't want online. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com LegalAF and use promo code LegalAF at checkout. But the only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com legalaf and then use code legalaf at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com legalaf code legal AF welcome back to Legal AF. At the midweek, we got Dina Dahl sitting in for KFA and Michael Popak. So when things are going terribly, Dina, for a president, when every other day a new set of polling numbers come out, whether it's the guy on CNN that Donald Trump is, is having a bromance with Gary Edson, Harry Edson, it's like, this is the most abysmal numbers in the history of the presidency. And then they stopped Trump. And Trump's like, I like that guy. I like that guy. You know, like, are you following the storyline here, grandpa? So, you know, and then you got the Silver Bullet memo comes out. You got New York Times and Sienna Paul, Ipso Paul. And they're all one. They're competing to see who's going to report the lowest number for Donald Trump with the margin of error. He's in the 20s in favorability. And his takeaway from that is they love me. They can't get enough of me as the voters can't run further away from him. And if you plug all these numbers in. Sorry, Karen, sorry. If you plug all these numbers in, Dina, thank you. Then you come to the inexorable conclusion that he's going to lose the House and likely the Senate. I mean, you, you've got right direction, wrong direction approval numbers which are horrendously low. You have the lowest consumer confidence index in history in 50 years. There's a lot of recessions that were in there and something called Covid. You've got that You've got joblessness, no jobs being created by this economy. Hyperinflation already started. Double gas prices, which people hate for good reason. Cause it ends up being a tax on everybody. Any tax refund you might have gotten has gone up in smoke at the gas pump. You plug all of that in and it's a 40 to 50 seat advantage for the Democrats. I mean, there's polling out that shows that a random Democrat with no name, a no name Democrat versus a no name Republican in a congressional seat, the no name Democrat wins by 11 points. We haven't even done platform, we haven't even done policies. We have, we haven't even done the do you want to have a beer with me? Test. It's just no name. And Trump knows it. Which is why we're seeing, you know, you and I and others I've interviewed are starting everything now with this breathless. It's unprecedented. It is stunning. It's because he's running out of time and he knows he's running out of time. I compared it on the intersection last night to one of those game shows where they, they lock. So you win, you win a chance in 20 minutes to grab whatever you can inside of a department store or a toy store or whatever it is, right? You get a shopping cart, okay, he's going out of business. You know, he's trying to stuff as many dollars in his pocket and get as much benefit as possible before he's made completely powerless at the midterms. So all of this whistling past the graveyard, I think we're going to win. I just controlled the primaries. This guy lost because I said so. It's all hyperbolic bullshit. That's not going to help him in the electoral races. And then when he has a bad news cycle which is like every, every third hour, he then pushes a button somewhere, you know, and Todd Blanche and his Department of Justice file or indict and do something else to steal the news story. Which is why we waited till like the second half of the show instead of leading with Raul Castro of Cuba, like, who gives a flying about Raul Castro of Cuba, sorry, my Cuban American friends, you know, but I don't want to indict Fidel Castro any longer either. So why don't you pick up the pieces from what got announced today and why you think it got announced today by a beleaguered toddler.
- [37:35]
B
The indictment of Castro, basically that. Yes. So the 94 year old. And I think that is the, that in itself is the detail of why this is a distraction. Reminds me A lot of how they, they thought of celebrated about the killing of the Iranian leader who was also probably going to pass away at any moment. But essentially they indicted Raul Castro for 1996. They took down a plane that had three American citizens and a green card holder. And we said that it was outside Cuban airspace. Cuba had always alleged that this was a terrorist group that they took out on the plane. But they have decided to indict him today. Well, actually they, it was just unsealed today. They indicted him back in April. He is not the current leader of Cuba, but he is the power still. He's seen as the power still behind the throne. Although of course, here again, I'm going to say he's 94 years old. So his physical condition, we really have no idea. So it seems very much like a show. But Todd Blanche has said this is not just some sort of show indictment. We basically plan on bringing him to justice. Does that mean they're going to go and capture him like Maduro and bring him here to the soil? You know, who knows? But at this point it sounds like we know that Rubio and Trump have been talking quite a bit about invading and taking over Cuba. There's that humanitarian crisis unfolding in Cuba as a result of really us all the sanctions that we are having there to try to kind of force regime change. But I, the, for me, the biggest takeaway here was this, his age. At this point, even if you were to prosecute a 94 year old man, I don't know how much power he really has at this point anymore.
- [39:32]
A
Yeah. Now let me give it from a Miami perspective.
- [39:35]
B
Yes, please.
- [39:36]
A
All right. And so, and I've got former law partners that represented some of these people who were shot down in civil cases against the Cuban government. I don't have any insider knowledge, but I know those people and I know what it means to the Cuban American population and the Cuban population in Miami. And think about where they chose to announce the indictment. Tina. In front of the Freedom Tower. Freedom Tower is not only the Ellis island on Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami for the Cuban population, but where they came through for immigration status. But it sits directly next to the 2.63 acre plot of land that Donald Trump has gotten donated by the state of Florida for his Trump library, convention center, casino, hotel, thing, whatever. That's supposed to be a 50 tower monstrosity where he stole $300 million from a local university because they gave him the property for free. There's a lawsuit about that that's pending down here in Miami related to the violation of the emoluments clause. So just out of, and if you take a wide enough lens with the indictment announcement, you can see the parking lot where he wants to build that. That's one he's trying to curry favor and shore up his political support. This has nothing to do with 94 year old Raul Castro. As you said earlier, it's always about Trump. Trump just watched Eileen Higgins, the mayor of Miami, Democrat, first Democrat in 30 years, first woman ever, and beat the MAGA pick by him, Trump and, and Ron DeSantis by 14 points. Okay? To win the mayoralty of the city of Miami. So just to be clear, there's a county that used to be called Dade county, now Miami Dade county, and there's a county mayor, she's a Democrat, there is a city mayor who is now a Democrat, first time in 30 years and first woman ever. And so, and she won by a lot. Like, like she so crushingly crushed the guy, the MAGA guy she was running against that he conceded like within a second of the race, people and said what a great race. Anyway, so he's got, if he's got a hope to win. And for MAGA to ever win again in Florida, they've got to secure that base in Miami. So this is a complete pandering to a Cuban American, which is 70% of Miami Dade County, a Cuban American population who cheered wildly according to local reports when the indictment was announced, because the symbolism of this 94 year old, when Castro, his brother died, it was, it was like a national holiday in, in Florida, in, in Miami. You know, I live within blocks of the Cuban exile community on Cayo Cho, which is kind of runs up against Coral Gables where I live. And so I get it. So if you think this was, this was nothing more than we're having a slow news cycle and they've been getting, they've been getting pressure from Marco Rubio, used to be the, the senator down here, and others, including I'm sure, including my former law partners, to bring Raul Castro before he dies to justice. Now look, I'm not against octogenarians and septuagenarians and nonarians being brought to justice. Okay? I was very supportive of Ellie Wissell and everybody who were Nazi hunters chasing after, including some that didn't, you know, that didn't get put on the stand until they were in their 90s and brought to justice. So it's not, I don't want to say that justice has a time limit or a statute of limitations, but you Also have to put this in the political context that you and I just did. And that's one thing I get to bring here of being a longtime resident in Miami and practicing law down here and being a part of this community is I see the political tambourine for what it is. And I think that's what we really just saw. To people who don't live down here, it's like, that's interesting. Raul Castro is just indicted. And I'm like, no, this is to shore up the votes. This is to get Spanish language radio, you know, a buzzing down, you know, and then it can. Then it can roll into the midterm elections for the candidates. I'm sure every congressional candidate for, you know, Republican was at that press conference, you know, because that, you know, that they got to show their bonafides. Was Marco Rubio there? He had to have been, right?
- [44:08]
B
I would think. I don't know.
- [44:10]
A
Yeah. I don't know what the reporting is. I think Marco is probably there because, you know, he's been trying to over, you know, take over Cuba, his ancestral home, forever. And, you know, there's a big. Let me just tell you that in the Cuban American community down here, your bona fides are established depending upon when your family emigrated or were forced to leave the island. If your family was forced to leave because of Castro and the revolution, you have a certain higher status in this culture than if you came before. If you were part of the prior president and made a lot of money with the prior president and got out before, you're on a lower social rung than if you came out because you were forced out after. That still goes on down here from a political infrastructure that's controlled by the Cuban American community.
- [45:02]
B
I mean, Trump is. It's always a PR move, right? It's always a PR move. Who even knows if they're going to legally be able to actually physically bring him here? Yeah, no, that's a fascinating take there. And hopefully, you know, hopefully he doesn't get as many points as he's trying to get out of that PR move.
- [45:21]
A
Yeah, we'll see. I mean, that's what that's going to be. I want to see the polling on that. But he knows he had. He's. He's crazy. Cratering in Miami for people in Idaho who are wondering, why are we indicting Raul Castro at this late date and bringing him to justice? It has as much to do about bringing somebody to justice for a horrendous act of shooting a plane out of a sky and killing people, as it does for the political side, byproduct of shoring up failing numbers in Miami. And of course, we sit at that politics and law intersection. So we wanted to bring it to you there. You want to talk about Judge Bates and the, and the Public Presidential Records act and what's happened there. Can you frame that issue?
- [46:02]
B
Yes. Well, I think that Trump is taking a cue, knowing that Nixon should have destroyed those tapes way back when, because as we know, the tapes are what brought back brought down Richard Nixon. By the way, Trump's approval ratings is about where Richard Nixon was when he was forced to resign. That's how bad those poll numbers are. Well, rather than just, you know, take his files and have the FBI come after him again, Trump has decided to have the DOJ say, well, presidential records should just not be a thing anymore. And that because as president, he has this absolute power over the executive branch that he cannot be told by Congress to preserve the records. That's what the DOJ said to the court. Court, they're trying to basically make it so Trump could either destroy them or just put them in his briefcase and take them this time wherever he wants. The judge base issued a preliminary injunction saying, no, you have to preserve all of the records. This litigation is still going to be moving forward, but right now they have to follow the Presidential Records Act. And it is also, I thought, indicative of the time that this preliminary injunction also said that the presidential and vice presidential team within the White House cannot use Signal Chat or WhatsApp for their official communications. Because, as we know, you know, Hegseth has infamously used it. And this is one way that executive branch can just do a runaround around the Presidential Records act is use an app that auto deletes. So the preliminary injunction also making it clear there that they're not supposed to be doing that. But, you know, it's. The office of the President is. This is a public. You are a public servant. That job, the powers is being loaned to you by the American people. Unfortunately, too many people gave that power to Trump to be loaned. But it is stunning to me, you know, the no Kings rallies, some people say, said they thought maybe the no Kings was too cutesy of a term or something like that. But Trump in so many ways, just really does want to be a monarch. Between the putting his face on the passports. I don't know if anybody hasn't renewed their passport yet. Go do it quickly because his face is going to be on it and you're going to be stuck with his face. On the passport to him signing the hundred dollar bills along with the Treasury Secretary to him not wanting any record of his communications. He wants to, to change the office of the President. And unfortunately, the Supreme Court has given into him so many times how much they're willing to put, I mean, this is what we talk about on our Supreme Court unprecedented show all the time. They, you know, they push back when it came to the Federal Reserve and the tariffs because of course, it's money and they care about the money and they don't push back when it comes to labor rights and not the board covering the governing the labor rights. But this is, this is the tension that exists. And really, it's not just Trump. It is Project 2025. It is the Republicans. It is that movement that wants to make the president all powerful in this co equal branch of government. So for today, Judge Bates at least issuing this preliminary junction, saying, I don't care what you say, Department of Justice, your interpretation of the Presidential Records act, you have to follow it while this litigation proceeds.
- [49:42]
A
Absolutely. And probably beyond, probably beyond the litigation. So stop burning everything and stop shoving it down the toilet and eating it and whatever else they were doing during the first Trump administration. It's the people's papers. It'll always be the people's papers. And, and no, it's not. I don't think it's going to be found to be a violation of the separation of powers that Congress has created the national archive and required that the National Records act in the national Archive and required that the presidential papers end up there. All they're doing is directing where the repository is and that the doc and that the, and that the documents end up there. And I think ultimately even the Supreme Court is going to find that that is not a violation of the separation of powers and all of that. When we come back, we're going to talk about the ballroom and other things related to it, how it may tie back to other things that are important to Donald Trump. But I think it's a big blow to the ballroom. Couple of developments in the ballroom that we should talk about. But first, we're going to take our last break. We've got the Legal AF podcast on Wednesday nights, on Saturday nights and now on Mondays at 5pm with Dina Dahl and Lisa Graves. Can't we could not have put the crown jewel of our podcast in better hands to carry forward with the third night than Dina and Lisa? So please, you're doing it. We're on our third or fourth show. We'll be doing one on Memorial Day and everybody should check it out. That's one of the new programming feeds that we have on the Legal AF YouTube channel. So you're going to want to check that out. Speaking of the Legal AF YouTube channel, we could use your help to continue to grow our subscriber base. That's all people are like, what keeps Legal AF and Midas on the air? It's this, it's the, it's the subscriber base. You know, the bigger we are the, from a real audience. We're not troll, we're not looking for trolls. We're looking for real audience members that are the vibrant contributors to our community that give, I'll just give you the math here. That gives us the street cred that things like the Webby Awards, the views, the comments, the thumbs up, the likes, the reviews. That gives us the street cred to continue to grow, to bring on newsmakers to get the lawyers and the plaintiffs and the senators and the governors and the newsmakers and the constitutional scholars and all to say, oh yeah, I want to do legal AF. Absolutely. And so we have a YouTube channel that helps support that as well. But we need you to do your part. Free subscribe that hit the button. For instance, I'm going to have the Brendan Ballou for the Public Integrity Project who's the lawyers for the first filed case against the slush fund joining me tomorrow, Governor Shapiro, fresh off his unopposed Democratic primary win Pennsylvania. We need him to win Pennsylvania and then maybe consider other things in 2028. I don't know, maybe I'll break some news tomorrow. He's coming on to be interviewed with me. And again, the bigger we get as we're building this, this channel in this network with our bare hands, brick by brick, then the more varied, the more variety of content that we can provide. So that's where you can do your part. Sub stack needs a little love too. Can blow it a kiss. Legal AF substack. Become a member, a paid member. We do. I do a live report every day which I think people enjoy. Get over a thousand people to join me there and they can talk back to me and I talk back to them them throughout the show. And then content like Dina Doll and me, we do essays all day long and analysis. I post all of the filings, orders, briefs, motions that I use during the day for my hot takes. My videos all end up under Filings af. I just want to show people I want to do a little demonstrative. This is just today. This is my printer hates me. This is. And I have to print the stuff. Sorry folks, I'm at that age. This is orders and briefs and settlement agreements and transcripts and all sorts of things that from there, from this comes the videos and the prep and all of that. So just so you know what we're doing there. And then we've got our sponsors, Dina, we got some of our pro democracy sponsors. They don't gag us. They know what we're saying. They're supporters of the First Amendment and independent journalism. And we'll take a break for them now. If a genie gave me wishes, I would use at least one of them to wish for my cat Chanel to live forever. But since genies don't exist, as far as I know, I feed my cat Smalls Smalls is fresh human grade cat food that does so much more than just feed your cat. It helps them live a full, healthy life. Most cat food out there is made with meat byproducts, cheap fillers and artificial ingredients. Basically stuff that isn't great for your cat. 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And right now, IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ bar products, including the ultimate Sampler pack, plus free shipping. To get your 20% off. Text legal aft to 64,000. Text legal af to 64,000. That's legal af to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See Terms for details. We are back, and thank you to our pro democracy sponsors, Dina Dahl, Michael Popak. Lightning round. No, I'm kidding. Do Rorschach test. I'll say something. You tell me the first thing that
- [57:15]
B
pops in your mind back in law school, Right?
- [57:18]
A
First thing that pops into your mind. Ballroom. All right, so ballroom. You know, Trump says, why is everybody upset? It's free. It's not free. It's no, it's no more free than the $400 million, you know, Kuwait. Not Kuwait. Qatar. Boeing jet that is being converted for billions of taxpayer dollars into Air Force One. If he lives to get on that plane. I mean, that chronologically, I'll be shocked if that thing is ready in time. But, you know, but the retrofitting, and then he's gonna apparently take the taxpayer dollars like a paper airplane and fly away and stick it in the Miami Convention center, hotel and casino, library thing that he's building on public dollars, public land. So we got that. And the same guy that said that's free told everybody when he knocked over the east wing in the middle of the night without a permit that the. That the ballroom's free. Why is everybody complaining? I got 400 million people, $400 million. That. Because it's. Because apparently it's 1.4 billion and you seem to be 1 billion short. So there was a bill that the House originated. I think they feel. I think they feel sorry about that now. In which they said, oh, it's. And then they had the Secret Service guy, Dina, run around and start lobbying Republicans for votes. Well, 220 million of it is to harden the ballroom. Oh, the bar. Ballroom's not hardened. I thought that. I thought the ball was supposed to collapse on top of the bunker, and that was part of the security system. Now it needs to be hardened. So Hardening. And then there's. There's other threats. Well, you didn't think about those threats before, maybe because this whole thing got planned on the back of a napkin in the middle of the night. That's why they're doing that now. Oh, oh, there's also a Secret Service training. Yeah, that's a good idea. You probably want to get Secret Service trained. So here's the bill. America. Mr. And Mrs. Taxpayer. A billion dollars. What happened to that?
- [59:22]
B
Well, it didn't work out. The Senate parliamentarian first said, you know, because of course, the GOP just wants to try to add it to the reconciliation bill, so they didn't actually have to have a vote on the record, and the Senate parliamentarians said they couldn't. And now it looks like the GOP is kind of dropping it because it is like a hot potato. It's really unpopular. It's. They've already extremely unpopular going into the midterms. The last thing they want is to put their name on a vote for this ballroom, ballroom slash bunker, as we know. You know, that's the other thing, too. They're not really clear about what's. Is this money actually going to the existing bunker that is under there? How much of it is that? How much of it is the ballroom? You know, I just think, though, it's like a perfect metaphor, the fact that Trump knocked it down before having a plan. It is very easy to destroy something. Anybody can do it with a bulldozer, right? Anybody can fire somebody. Like the promise that Doge had about firing all of those air traffic controllers, hundreds of air traffic controllers, because there was supposed to be a motorcycle modernization of them, the control centers. And so we didn't need as many employees, and so they just fired the people. I'm not hearing anything about some great new technology that's streamlining it. In fact, we're hearing the opposite, right? All these planes with near misses. You know, it's easy to destroy something. It's very hard to build it. But Trump, I think he knocked it down like a day or two after one of the no Kings rallies. He was upset how unpopular he was. He took it out on the American people. He knocked down historic part of the White House that does not belong to him. And now he can't find funding from it, even with his weakling GOP colleagues, because he keeps lying about how much it is. He keeps lying about why he needs it. He keeps lying about who's going to pay for it, even with this assassination attempt where so many people don't even know if it's real or not that they try to use for this ballroom. The fact is, Trump uses Mar A Lago ballworm all the time. It is a private ballroom. He doesn't need a billion dollar ballroom in order to be safe. The White House is extremely safe as it is. The east, including the east wing that he had knocked down was extremely safe. So, yeah, for now, at least, this is doa, as you would say. He cannot get the funding for this very unpopular ballroom due in part really to him. Him and his lies have, have made this so politically impossible for the GOP to back. least for now. If, if they manage to pull out the midterms, I'm sure they will resurrect it, but they know that, that they will probably be voted. You know, this is, this would be just another thing that the Democrats would campaign on.
- [62:16]
A
Well, like you said, you're right about that. Look, look at Iran. As I said, they can train a whole room of chimpanzees to push a button to bomb and do 50,000 bombing sorties. But what was the plan for the 90 million people? What was the plan for the regime change? What was the plan to secure the uranium stockpile? What was the plan? There was none. Apparently the plan is every 45 minutes, announce that they're either bombing or not bombing, that they're going to bomb. This is the calm before the storm. The storm before the calm. The calm of the storm, before the storm of the calm. And if one more, if this is like the parent that doesn't get, you know, the, the child tunes out because one more time you come home late, I'm gonna take away. I don't. I'm running out of things to take away. Nobody believes him. Every world, he has a special talent, Donald Trump, every world leader that tussles with him, they come out stronger than, than they were before, right at home, at home and globally. And Donald Trump comes home shrunken and weak and tail between his legs. Example, Putin coming out of Alaska and the Ukraine war or Xi, China or Iran's regime, the Revolutionary Guard, okay, they're all sitting pretty. I mean, yeah, there's some. And what is, and what is. Just to touch on Iran for a minute. And what's Donald Trump can end up doing to declare victory? He's going to end up entering into a treaty that looks exactly like Barack Obama's treaty about the nuclear stockpile, you know, almost exactly the one that, that Obama, that Trump shit all over. With one difference. We're now going to be on the hook for the billions of dollars of reparations to help Iran rebuild its navy and its electrical grid and all the other things and its oil infrastructure and all the other things that we bombed. So we have to pay because. Because. Because big, big baby president wanted to be a wartime president to try to shore up his failing domestic numbers and domestic policy. I know I'll start a war, you know, without, as you said, without any planning whatsoever. You know, and we're lucky. We really, I mean this, without too much tongue in cheek. We're lucky that he didn't knock over the entire White House because under the same, his same approach, the White House is. The White House is insecure. It's shabby, it's insecure. I'm not comfortable there. I live there. Now knock it all down. Put a trailer outside. We're Putting up a 30 story building, ladies and gentlemen, and you can't do a thing about it. Just because it was the East Wing, which they still in filings act like is still there. The refurbishment of the East Wing. You can't demolish the East Wing and say you're refurbishing it at the same time. Okay, if you hired a contractor to refurbish your house and you went out for lunch and the whole thing was torn down, you'd be understandably upset because that wasn't the refurbishment that you want. He could have tore down the whole White House, you know, we're lucky that he did. And you're right. When he gets petulant, like, oh, people don't like me, what can I do now? Bulldozer. He did the same thing at the Kennedy center, you know, changed the name, slapped his name over John F. Kennedy's, which was in the moment, you know, in the year after his assassination with it, with a country literally mourning. They, they built the Kennedy center and put his name on it and testament to John F. Kennedy, and then he just typed his name on top of it. And then when nobody showed up.
- [66:02]
B
Yeah.
- [66:02]
A
And all of the ballet troops and opera and Broadway and stars and singers and this and that. Canceled, canceled, canceled, canceled. And it was going to be like Lee Greenwood every night. I don't know what this is supposed to be like an MMA fighting, you know, Dana White production. He said, I got an idea. I'm going to tear down the Kennedy Center. Right? He's like tearing down the Kennedy center because, yeah, it leaks.
- [66:32]
B
I know his obsession with, he wants the, he wants the respect of Kennedy, but he's trying to bully his way and buy it instead of earn it. And then he's obsessed with Obama. He could not handle that deal in Iran. And like you said, we're going to be worse off but probably end up with a similar deal. And same with the health care credits. I mean, they is stunning to me. Speaking about studying. Okay, that's gonna be my word of the day here. The fact that the Republicans are not even talking anymore about a replacement for all those health care credits under Obamacare that they allowed expire on January 1st. I mean, they don't even talk about putting in a proposal. So many Americans had their premium skyrocket only because Trump hated the fact that the Obamacare was so incredibly popular. If you notice, they started calling it the Affordable Care act because they didn't even want to give Obama the credit anymore to include his name. In the beginning they called it Obamacare because they thought it was a dig. But now that it's so popular, they're starting to call it the Affordable Care Act. So I'm going to keep calling it Obamacare, but they just let that expire. So many people are without health care. They're going to get diagnosed with cancer, they're going to have heart attacks and they're going to have no health insurance. And that also needs to get drummed in here as we're leading up to the midterms because it's another example of it's very easy to let something that took so long to negotiate and put into law expire. Anybody can let something expire. Where's. But they have zero discussion. It seems to be they have moved on completely from the fact that they, they increased health care premiums by thousands of thousands of dollars across the country because they cannot, they can't build anything. They can only break it.
- [68:28]
A
Yeah, I mean, this is, I like that. This is a administration that is in a race to the bottom at every level, is trying, I guess, to prove to the American people the age old question, how low can you go? We're watching the Department of Justice and Todd Blanche. How low can you go? We're watching failing polling numbers for Donald Trump. How low can you go? I mean, we're not talking about a administration that's on the ascent, that is getting its footing, that is, you know, had a rough patch in the very beginning, but is now making a vital connection with the American people. Nobody believes that. Quite the opposite. Right.
- [69:16]
B
Did you see Jeff Bezos just gave an interview? He gave an interview to.
- [69:20]
A
Oh, he says he's better.
- [69:21]
B
He said he was more mature this term.
- [69:24]
A
Well, he was a two year old in the first administration and now he's two and a half. But yeah, I mean, but basically so
- [69:31]
B
much more dangerous this time around.
- [69:33]
A
Bezos is a butt licker from. Sorry, bootlicker. I say but boot or but boot, boot. Butt licker from way back. You know, he's the one that gave Melania Trump $40 million for a documentary, has billions of dollars of Amazon computing contracts. Government went, you know, I don't know if he went. Did he go to China? Wasn't he there? Wasn't he one of the dozen? Yeah, right. And he invites all the Trumpers to his wedding to what's her name. He is so far up Donald Trump's backside. Right? Yeah, right. So Bezos should just. They should. There should be a warning label when people like this get. I am not an independent thought or commentary. I am so conflicted with my business interests. This would go too long on the lower third. But I am so conflicted in my business interest that you cannot trust a word that I say. And you know what? Where did you see that? Where was that interview?
- [70:33]
B
It was on C Span, right?
- [70:34]
A
And see, and God damn it. C Span. No, cnbc. And cnbc, according to our producer, had a cnn.
- [70:42]
B
Okay. Something with a cnn.
- [70:44]
A
There's nothing with the sea. Cnbc, of course, doesn't do their job as journalists. They should have said. Well, let's be frank here. You do have a little bit of a conflict, do you not? Because you're in. Basically in business with Donald Trump and his entire family and you were just on the plane to China and now suddenly you're declaring that he is a competent administrator. How do you think the American people should view what lens through which should they view your comments, but nobody has the balls to say. Say that. That's why people come on Midas Touch and unlegal af. Because this is our new bumper sticker. We have the balls to say it.
- [71:17]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [71:18]
A
Sorry, Dina, Did I make you blush?
- [71:20]
B
No. Okay.
- [71:21]
A
I didn't mean to.
- [71:22]
B
I'm not. I'm not.
- [71:23]
A
You know, I've seen you swear like a sailor.
- [71:27]
B
Have you?
- [71:28]
A
No.
- [71:30]
B
Yeah. Yeah. I don't swear, but I'm not exactly going to be. I don't care if you do. Let's.
- [71:36]
A
You're.
- [71:36]
B
You're.
- [71:36]
A
You're. You're not a. You're not a hot house flower either.
- [71:39]
B
Exactly.
- [71:42]
A
Been a top lawyer for too long for that. But thanks for being here. Thanks for stepping in for kfa. So many different ways to support our show. You already know, you know, the check people in our audience could do the checklist for me, right? Put it in. Comments 1. Subscribe to Legal AF YouTube channel 2. While you're there, do Midas Touch 2. 2, go over to Legal AF substack, become a member or even a paid member. That's two. Three, support our sponsors. That's really important, right? And then help the show because that gives us the street cred that we need. Continue to put five star reviews over on the audio podcast platforms, comments, views, bring people to the next episode. That all helps as we continue to grow our pro democracy brand for you and I really appreciate it. Dina, always a pleasure. You're going to be on with me for Unprecedented, which is our Supreme Court show. We might have, who knows, on Friday we might have some new unprecedented Supreme Court droppings that you and I can unpack. And then you're going to be on Memorial day Monday at 5pm Eastern Time with Dina. Oh, look at this. Look at the graphic. Monday Night Live, Legal AF with Lisa Graves and Dina Dahl. How are you? That looks fantastic. And you'll be doing that. We like everybody, everybody to join that get in on the ground floor. Yes, six years in the making, but the first new episode, first new chapter night of Legal AF has now been launched. And get in on the ground floor while you can. So thanks for everybody being here. Love the energy that we had tonight and shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal A effers.