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- [00:00]
Ben
Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment
- [00:22]
Michael Popak
of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan. Required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy. See terms and we're live room as Doug eyes up the mach say spread. He's reaching for the buffalo wing. Perfect. Hang on. What's this? Oh, he's gone for a can of Pepsi too. Incredible. What a finish. Sensational combination. Look at the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a pack of Pepsi. Zero sugar for today's match. It's poetry in motion.
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Ben
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Michael Popak
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Ben
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Michael Popak
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Ben
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Michael Popak
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Ben
thing that's ever happened to you financially. Go easy. Sold my car on Carvana. Amazing offer, really. I hit 200 on the scratcher. Did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check? No. How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on Carvana.com once.
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Michael Popak
Okay, that's fair.
- [02:01]
Ben
It's like the lottery, except you always win. Not like the lottery at all, actually. Exactly. Inexplicably good offers worth bragging about. Sell your car today on Carvana.
- [02:13]
Michael Popak
Pick up.
- [02:13]
Ben
Fees may apply. We've got a lot to discuss on this episode of Legal af. Donald Trump flailing after a district court judge. The second Circuit Court of Appeal once again rejected whatever the heck he's even trying to do in the E. Jean Carroll case, where he was previously found civilly liable for sexual assault, where he previously appealed and sought stays multiple times. The Supreme Court denied his petition to even hear the case at the Supreme Court level, to which Donald Trump refused to accept that as a no. And he continued to say, well, can you give me a do over? I want a mulligan Supreme Court that doesn't exist. Then he tried to use the mulligan to further delay having to pay Eugene Carroll and says, hey, District court, hey, second Circuit Court of Appeals, I'm doing a mulligan with the Supreme Court. Yes, they rejected me, but I'm asking them, I need a solid. I need a favor out of you. Supreme Court. To which the district court and the Second Circuit says that that's not what happens in our court system in the United States of America. Donald. And we will cover what went down there. Should also talk about Trump's Department of Justice in a despicable, despicable fashion, as always, covering up more about Donald Trump's dark past. More about the Epstein files, as we've been reporting on Legal AF on the Midas Touch Network as well. The New Mexico state attorney general has launched an investigation into the Zorro Ranch, which was Epstein's property in New Mexico, which the Department of Justice previously covered up and stopped all investigations into that location, which is perhaps where most of the sexual assault and abuse and perhaps even other things were going down there in New Mexico. And the New Mexico ag, as directed as well by the state legislature, has been doing an investigation. And so they need the cooperation of Trump's DOJ to get certain types of documents to do a thorough investigation. Trump's DOJ refusing to do anything. And they kind of lead the New Mexico attorney general along, string them along. We'll get back to you. We'll get back to you. We'll get back to you. Oh, yeah, let's do another call in a month. Let's do. And then finally this past week, the AG of New Mexico is like enough is enough and went public with what's been going on behind the scenes. We'll talk about that. Also, what's been going on in front of the scenes. Trump's FBI director, Cash Patel, like everybody in this despicable regime, is out there flaunting, taking our taxpayer dollars to fly around in private jets and to ride around in luxury vehicles and to treat our taxpayer dollars, which with respect to the FBI should go to protecting people and doing the work of the FBI and keeping the homeland actually Secure and not killing people here and not harming people. But no, that's not how Cash Patel sees it. So Cash Patel was heading to see his girlfriend perform in a parking lot in Chicago because she ain't all that a singer. She's like performing at some parking lot there. And so he was flying out and apparently he was summoned back as Donald Trump's been ranting and raving in the White House, kind of barricading himself there that Iran's going to kill him and he thinks everybody's going to kill him. And he's put out instructions that if he gets killed by Iran, he's got a thousand missiles locked and loaded and he will blow up the entire civilization of Iran. And he's like, my FBI director, you can't be listening to your girlfriend sing in the parking lot. Iran's trying to kill me. Iran trying to kill me. And then there's, you know, other reporting as well in Cash Patel that we'll get into should also be noted that Donald Trump not only kind of pardoning proud boys or commuting the sentence of the proud boys, his DOJ sought to dismiss all charges to basically expunge the record of the proud boys convicted of seditious conspiracy in the most serious January 6th insurrection charges. They demanded that a federal judge agree not just to, you know, the pardon, which is automatic, but also to say, look, we're exercising our discretion in the executive branch. These proud boys are still appealing their conviction to the United States Supreme Court. We think that it is that we should not have processed that, that Biden's DOJ shouldn't prosecute him, dismissed him. And the federal judge said I don't have discretion. If they say dismiss it, I am forced to dismiss it. As least with this federal judge said we'll talk about that. We'll talk about a lot of other things as well. Let's bring in Michael Popak from Legal. A. Popak, good to see you. And we're going to talk about all of those things. And at the top of the show, we should talk about what's going on with, you know, the reporting about Trump not flying on the Qatari jet and needing the old Air Force One leaving Turkey given its proximity to Iran. And as we've always been saying, the Qatari jets not equipped to properly defend. And then kind of like what Trump did with the reflecting pool where he scapegoated David Hearn and said that, oh, the vandals are ripping it up in a two time Olympic canoeist. Let's prosecute People because we all said there would be algae. Because the source is the Potomac Basin and it's basic science. And it was a shoddy job that was done by Donald Trump's contractor. He prosecutes people. Now he's going after the reporters and issuing subpoenas. FBI agents knocking on people's doors, Popak at their home, issuing criminal subpoenas. Let's talk about it all, man.
- [07:47]
Michael Popak
I'm not a hydrologist, but I know if you paint, paint or line a long several football fill length reflecting pool and change the color of it from dark gray, which was done on purpose, to some last minute cut corner, no bid pool liner, truckliner company, American Blue. And add the beating down of the. Anybody been to D.C. in the summer? D.C. is a sweltering, it's like a warm, it's like a hot blanket that just envelops you for the entire summer. Beating down on that, you're going to make algae. Okay, They've now drained the pool bend three times including the last 24 hours and it's still coming up green. Right. I thought Donald Trump was supposed to drain the swamp, not create one. But it's all about his cost cutting, right? It's all about his cutting corners. All these no bid contracts, no bid contract to redo the Kennedy Center. A buddy wants to pray with him and give him money. Oh, you get an $8 million contract, he's like Oprah. And you get an $8 million contract, all no bid. Which means there's no proper analysis, there's no proper consultation with experts, multiple experts who know what they're doing. And then you have the same thing going on with the Qatari Air Force One plane. When you and I first reported on this, the 14 year old Boeing plane being gifted to Donald Trump, I mean the Department of Defense for, for, he's only, it's only a rental by the way, because Trump thinks he's gonna fly it and shove it into the Miami Library of his. Of course the House Republicans, sorry, the House Democrats, maybe Republicans and senators have, have something to say about that in terms of a gift because just to remind everybody, there are two Air Force ones being built right now to be delivered by McDonnell Douglas combination Boeing and McDonnell Douglas for a $5 billion contract. They're not done yet. Okay, Trump should have just been normal and not insane and just used the old Air Force One, that it's apparently safer than this new thing for that durational period for another year and a half. No, he needed to have gold toilet bowls and leather seats and Rich Corinthian, who knows what the problem is when you and I said it would take over a year to retrofit that, to make it missile proof, to, to make it a flying situation room or command and control structure. We know of what, of what we were speaking, because experts were saying to take that Qatari plane and to make it a flying White House with a president inside is going to take a billion dollars in over a year of time. Came in at under a billion dollars in like six or eight months. We're like, how did they do that? Well, now we know how they did it. They left out all command and control structures. So it can't be a situation room. It's really, it's like having a Ferrari. If you're lucky enough to have a Ferrari in your driveway, but it has no engine, you just have to look at it or sit in it. So he's off bragging about it. But when the credible threats to take out Donald Trump by the Iranians reach the level of. Not our intelligence community, because Donald Trump doesn't trust it, but the Israeli intelligence community said, they're going to bomb you, they're going to kill you. Do you see the signs, by the way? Very, very clear handwriting with the Iranians during their funeral celebrations? Trump, we are going to kill you. I mean, as clear, as clear as day. They're not, you know, like, they're not, you don't have to guess what they, what they're thinking. And so, so that freaked out, apparently, the security forces and Secret Service and those around Donald Trump. And they said, you can't take the flying golden airplane. You got to go back to the old Air Force One because we've got laser beams that can blind missiles and you can run the situation room from there. So Trump lied in a, in a, in a presser, and he said, oh, the plane's flying to UK so that the troops can see it, like, like it's some sort of USO show with Bob Hope. Oh, let's come see the new plane. And two major organizations reported on it besides Midas, Dutch and Legal af. One was Ms. Now, and the other was the New York Times with Julian Barnes and Eric Schmidt and a bunch of other people. And they said, sources, because that's what reporters do, report that they effectively grounded Donald Trump from using the Qatari Air Force One to get him on a safe one that didn't have those defects to fly from Ankara, Ankara, Turkey, to the UK at the end of NATO and then, hopefully, I believe, home. So Trump didn't like it. So they're going after the New York Times. I don't know anything. I don't know about Ms. Now at the moment. And they're saying, we want to get to the bottom of who are your confidential sources? Remember the day that the Ms. Now published it first? Stephen Chung, the press secretary, the communications director. You always know when he's lying because he, his lips move when he talks. He said, she's a liar. The reporter should know what she's talking about. She's not a journalist. Well, if she's not a journalist and it's not true, then why are they going after the sources that supported the story, that the story is not true, then why? Who? I don't understand. But in any event, they issued subpoenas through their favorite prosecutor, second favorite prosecutor's office, the one in New York, the Southern District of New York, while Jay Clayton's still hanging around as the prosecutor. And the New York Times, of course, is going to do what the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and the New York Times have done before them, move immediately to quash those subpoenas. I think they're going to be super successful with a district court judge in New York, in the Southern District of New York. And then. But I want to point out one thing to you, Ben, and to our audience. The Situation Room was somehow breached by firsthand witnesses who cooperated with two other reporters in the New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, as part of an article, as part of a book. The article to Freak out in the Situation Room. It was just two weeks ago. And the freak out in the Situation Room had detailed quotations, quotes, like a transcript, like a recording of Todd Blanche and Susie Wiles and J.D. vance and others. Okay? The difference is they have not gone after Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swann because they put up a warning label on their article. They said, we have 1,000 cooperating sources inside and outside the government and we have recordings. So that asymmetrical information. In other words, Trump doesn't know what Maggie has on him or Jonathan. So they have, they have. Even though there was an entire front page, splashy article, situation Room freak out. You know, we have recordings. No attempt to indict or prosecute Maggie Hammer, nor should there be, or to try to subpoena her or search warrant her house. Very, very smartly played by Maggie and Jonathan Swan to put up a warning label that said, you coming after me? There's more where that came from.
- [15:03]
Ben
You know, one of the things also, and I'm going to toss it over you to give us the update on E. Jean Carroll. That's just worth reflecting on, as I was hearing you say that as well. You know, a thousand sources, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, you know, as you mentioned, Midas touch reported right away what the situation was like within. But before the New York Times report and Washington Post, another Midas touch reported on it and, and have sources on that. And it just made me reflect, Popak, that we are also in a moment where I think we need obviously very well sourced journalism and reporting and all of that still plays an important role. But also there's so many things that are happening right in plain view right before our eyes and there are lots of people who are very hesitant just to describe what is happening. I mean, we saw Donald Trump at the NATO summit. We heard the things that he said. It's not just a breach of protocol and everything. I mean, in addition to just, you know, calling Iran the Islamic Republic of Japan and calling the JCPO the J COP or whatever he was saying, in addition to calling Zelensky Putin and then saying ask me questions, I'll pretend to be Putin, I mean, there's all of the stuff that obviously demonstrates cognitive and physical decline, but just think about him spewing out things that used to actually be state secrets and things that were guarded where you would need to rely on lots of heavily sourced reporting to say to identify the corruption, the criminality, the national security breaches. Popak, he's out there every day just saying it. He does it, he does it. And so much I think of the smoke and mirrors is kind of a refusal to open up our eyes. Not us here at the Midas, but the refusal more broadly to just call out what it is we're seeing. Because sometimes it's so obvious and it's so conscious shocking that people veer into these areas. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, that's criminality, that's corruption, that's that, that's deranged. Call it out. Anyway, I know that's a little bit of a tangent, but I think it's important to note that as well. Popa, talk to us about E. Jean Carroll. What's the, what's the latest there?
- [17:20]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. So, so proud of everything about Eugene Carroll, not letting being an Epstein survivor define her life. But, but making sure that Donald Trump pays what's approaching close to $100 million that he owes her and more for having sexually abused her in that department store dressing room in 1996. And that's not our commentary. That is a jury finding that 90 in New York, having heard all of the evidence, two separate trials. The one we'll focus more on here is the one that went to trial first, which happened a little bit out of sequence, had to do with what Donald Trump not only did in that dressing room proved, but what he said about her in defamatory way while he was no longer president in between his two presidencies. So after he was president the first time and the punitive damages that went along with that, a jury came back. That was the trial that some people may remember. That was Joe Tacopina, a lawyer now lost the trash bin of history, who represented Donald Trump before Todd Blanche and Abel Bovey and Alina Hava. And Trump did not. He famously or infamously refused to testify because he's a. He's a coward in that case. And the jury came back with a $5 million judgment with interest that has been running since three years ago almost. It's up to $5.8 million now. Fortunately, in order to appeal, if you want to take any appeal and you don't want to pay your judgment, you got to post a bond. It's called a supersedious bond. He posted the bond in cash, Trump did, with the court clerk system. And that's been running. He's been upping the interest in it because he's been required to. So she has been. She's had security for ultimately getting paid once all of his appellate process, his appeals are exhausted. And Trump has taken several appeals. You know, that's why it's taken over two and a half years. You know, second Circuit Court of Appeals. He loses. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. I want the entire Second Circuit Court of Appeals, not just three judges. They reject it. He throws in and lobs a petition to the United States Supreme Court. Now, this is only about the only aspect that I think is interesting of the appeal says nothing to do with immunity. Some people may be thinking, oh, it's about the immunity. It's not. It's about what categories of evidence about prior bad sexual misconduct Donald Trump committed in the past that were let into the trial by Judge Kaplan. And you're allowed to do that under the federal rules of evidence. When you're dealing with a sex abuse, sex sexual misconduct type case. It is one of those exceptions to the general rule that prior bad acts don't come in, but they do come in when you're dealing with somebody who has sexually assaulted or abused somebody. So he let in the judge. Other testimony from Two other women. A People magazine reporter who said she testified to the jury that she was sexually attacked by Donald Trump at Mar A Lago when she was there doing a puff piece for People magazine about Trump's new marriage to somebody named Melania Trump. And as soon as Melania left the room, according to her testimony, she was attacked. And another woman, Jessica Leeds, who had the misfortune of being upgraded to first class on an airplane, first time she's had in her life, and sat next to somebody she found out was Donald Trump, who sexually molested her, assaulted her on that plane. He also let in the Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump bragging with Billy Bush about being able to grab women by their genitalia and get away with it because he's a celebrity and just start kissing them. All that came in along with lots of other evidence, including Eugene Carroll's own testimony about what happened. And Trump says, no, no, that should not. None of that should have come in. Judge was wrong. Okay, Supreme Court, you and I reported on this two weeks ago. Supreme Court looked at his petition for writ of certiorari filed by the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which is where Jay Clayton, who's now going to be the Director of National Intelligence, came from, where the current. The new U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jamie McDonald, comes from. Anything involving E. Jean Carroll, Sullivan Cromwell has now been on the scene filing petitions and motions 13 times. The United States Supreme Court in conference considered that petition, 13 from February. And each time, they couldn't get four votes. You need four to grant your appeal. You need five to win. So just four. He controls six on the U.S. supreme Court. Two of them have their own sex abuse allegation problems. Kavanaugh and Thomas can't even get those guys every week. Rejected, reject or not. Not granted, I guess is a better way to put it. Until finally they had five votes or more, I think more to reject the petition outright. The reason I say more is no one dissented. You think at least Alito and Thomas or Kavanaugh would throw him a bone and say, I would have granted the petition knowing that they were going to lose anyway. You know, no skin off their apple. No. No dissent whatsoever. So the next day or hours later, Robbie Kaplan, the lawyer for E. Jean Carroll, files a motion for the judge to issue an order directly to the clerk of the court to give her the money, all the principal and all the interest that she's owed Trump. This all last week. Trump lobs in. An hour later, an opposition paper and his Main objection is he'll be irreparably harmed because she, including on with me in an interview, said that she was going to give away the money, that she's 83 years old. She told me in my interview that that's not what defines me in life. Money does not drive me. It was never the reason I brought the lawsuit. And it's not the, it's not what I'm going to do with the money. I've set up a foundation through a law firm in New York and I'm going to fund it with the money as soon as I get it to help other women who have been similarly harmed as me. She said, I'd rather take a long walk with my dogs and a great play to fettuccine than spend that money. And he cited not my interview, but he said she's going to give away the money. And if she gives away the money, how am I going to get it back? Yeah, it's time for it to be on her side of the ledger after waiting two and a half years. And if he somehow miraculously, and he has zero chance of accomplishing this, getting the Supreme Court to reconsider something they just did a week ago without dissent, which has never, I've talked to Supreme Court historians, never happened before. Never in the history of the Supreme Court have they reversed their own decision because the president asked them to. So that's not gonna happen. In the meantime, the order said as soon as he's done with his original petition for writ of certiorari having been rejected, she gets paid. Not that he gets to file ad infinitum, you know, ad nauseam, more and more motions, you know, to be heard. And if that happens, he somehow reverses it. Go f then, then, then you get the money from her. But she's getting the money today. In fact, Judge Kaplan, in his order, he filed a memorandum opinion with it. He said, equity now, a man now demands after she's been, you've been stalling and she's been injured waiting, it's time for the money to be paid. And, and that was it. And I, as far as I know, and I've reached out to Robby Kaplan, I believe she's been paid. I believe the money has already been released. Because Donald Trump tried to lob a last minute motion for stay, emergency motion for stay to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits over Judge Kaplan. And there that three judge panel for the Second Circuit was like, yeah, we're not. And one of them is a, is a. As A Trump appointed judge. And they were like, yeah, we're not going to issue this day. We don't see a reparable harm. You know, if somehow you reverse it, we'll deal with it later. But we're going to, we're not gonna, we're not gonna block it. We're just not going to block it. There it is right there, actually. I'm sorry, there wasn't. It's a three judge panel, but the clerk issued it. And so that one is the operative one. And he, as far as this reporting, he has not obtained or sought yet a stay and the money's been paid out. So that then leaves us with the 90 million with interest that she's owed. On the other case where he testified and did testify with Alina Haba there again. And I think Todd Blanche playing more of a role. And the jury came back with a much larger verdict about defamation when he was president and other punitive damages. This is the one where he stood up famously or infamously and walked out on Robby Kaplan in a huff while she was doing closing argument, which is a really bad look in front of a jury, especially when you're there in a sex abuse case and there's allegations that you hate women. That was a bad move to walk out again on that. So that judgment is still hanging around. It's been exhausted through all the appeals besides the Supreme Court. But Sullivan and Cromwell, that firm has filed another petition for writ of cert and that has an immunity aspect to it about whether Donald Trump had immunity, any kind of immunity as an employee or otherwise, to defame E. Jean Carroll and say she's not my type. I never would do it. I wouldn't sexually assault her because she's not good looking or she's old or whatever the Effie said in the, in the Rose Garden, whether that, whether that gives him some sort of immunity. Second Circuit has already ruled that Alina Haba waived immunity because she didn't raise it at any time during the trial until like almost the appeal. And so, you know, we're going to have to see what the, what do you think on that one? What do you think the Supreme Court's going to do with the larger judgment with this kind of immunity. But, but civil, civil sex abuse case immunity.
- [27:44]
Ben
They are not touching Trump personal cases. They're not. They're not. I agree with you.
- [27:49]
Michael Popak
I agree with you.
- [27:51]
Ben
They're just, you know, as, as horrible as I think the Supreme Court is, one of the things that they've shown is to be very Also self interested. They create exceptions where none exist and they destroy precedent. I'm mostly talking about the right wing Supreme Court justices. I mean, I mean, you know, they'll create a precedent that says agencies aren't independent anymore. And then what does Donald Trump do? He goes and he destroys the, basically the Federal Elections Committee and just fires everybody because I can fire everybody. Then the Supreme Court, you can do that and destroy the lives of Americans, you know, on mostly every issue. Okay. But when it comes to the Federal Reserve, we're going to create this, the new Supreme Court exception because, you know, we all got money in the stock market, Donald, and don't be all crazy over there. You want to be crazy when it comes to the environment. You want to be. I mean, obviously it's going to impact them, too, but they don't, they don't see that future generations will die of cancer and things like that. We got to focus on our money right now. But when it comes to, you know, energy and EPA and elections, you got go, go, go have fun, go wild, Donald. Not when it comes to the Federal Reserve. So, you know, I think in this context here, they don't want to personally touch a case involving sex assault and sex abuse and SEC and Donald Trump. They just want to stay away. But it's out of a personal protection of themselves versus actually, you know, anything, anything else there. So that's my, that's my view. They ain't touching it. I think that, you know, we'll talk about that story, I'm sure in, you know, several months or a year, you know, where Trump will have to pay her the remaining what with interest, probably close to $100 million or, or more at this point. Let's take our first quick break of the show. I want to remind everybody that if you or anybody you know has been injured in an auto accident, car accident, trucking accident, negligence of a company, negligence of others, reach out to Michael Popo's law firm. Lots of Legal AF listeners and, and viewers are calling and represented by Popoc, 877 Popoc or visit ThePopocFirm.com call 877 Popoc or visit Thepopoc Firm.com also make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Legal AF substack. And we've got a lot more show, though, so hang in there. Stay in there. We got a lot to discuss when we come back after our first quick break.
- [30:24]
Michael Popak
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- [32:49]
Ben
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to all of our sponsors for making this show possible. Support our sponsors. They support this show. Michael Popak let's get into talking about the Trump regime's continued cover up of a child sex trafficking ring. Hard to believe that here we are, 2026. That that's a sentence that has to be Uttered repeatedly over and over and over again. But that's exactly what the Trump regime has been doing based on the conduct we described about Donald Trump in the first segment, being found civilly liable in a sexual assault case where there's lots of other victims who have come forward in that case alone. Not entirely shocking, that despicable regime with despicable people would do despicable things. But, you know, here we are and now we're. Last week I was talking about Midas Touch host courageous Katie Fang pushing forward with her lawsuit regarding the Epstein Transparency act to get the files. The Trump regime is trying to say, oh, we don't have to show cause. We don't need to produce the records. We've already produced a privilege log or redaction log by like, I don't know, like writing a paragraph that they don't have to produce things. That's not what a privilege log or a redaction log is. You and I popoc have made such logs before. They are long. They could be thousands of pages. They could be tens of thousands of pages. Heck, they could be hundreds of thousands. Gotta log every document that you're not producing and explain why on a document by document basis. You know, I would have loved when I was an associate doing privilege logs if I could have said, you know what, A lot of privileges, judge. A lot of privileges. Trust me, bro, I'm not going to produce them. That's not what you have to do and that's not what the Epstein Transparency act said they could do. You got to follow the law. So we talked about that last week. Obstruction there. Then they said, oh, Katie Fang, go do foia. And then FOIA requests. People would say, they would say that the Trump regime would say, ah, we can't do your foia. It's the Epstein Transparency Act. That's how you have to enforce it. But there's no cause of action for people. So nothing we can do here. We're just going to cover up millions of documents and yeah, whatever, good luck trying to find. So that's where we are over there then separately, Popak here. This is the New Mexico attorney General, the New Mexico state legislature, which has lots of Democrats, but it was bipartisan. Everybody voted for it. Open up an investigation into Epstein's property, Zorro Ranch, which he had, I think since 1993, was purchased under mysterious circumstances. By the way, the estate of Epstein sold it under mysterious circumstances to a Trump MAGA guy. You know, you know, another kind of trust fund family where the son now works for the Trump regime and that MAGA family that bought the Zorro ranch, like, we're going to turn it into a Christian retreat and start demolishing it. It's like, okay, lots of, lots of red flags there. Not sure that that should be turned into a children's Christian retreat, given what happened on that property. But in any event, New Mexico State Legislature, New Mexico ag, inspired by the Epstein Transparency act and what was in the files, of course, launch an investigation. But popac, it requires cooperation with the Department of Justice because the DOJ holds the master files, the lists, the certain locations. So there is work that the New Mexico AG can do truly independently, and they could do it, but there's always cooperation with the feds and things like this and here that would be needed, especially given a lot of the documents that have not been turned over in the Epstein Transparency act, which probably inform also why there was a massive cover up in New Mexico. Right. So the New Mexico AG previously sent this letter that was now made public, but the letter was sent, we now learned about a week and a half ago or so. And they lay out, hey, look. And The New Mexico AG says, DOJ, February 13th, we reached out to you. Written correspondence, informal. You ignored us. March 13, we had to go. Formal letter to Attorney General Bondi. At that time, April 1, you were ignoring us. We did a telephone conference saying, what's going on here? May 3, 2026, we had to now issue, like a formal TUI letter that was submitted May 29, 2026. Written follow up with Blanche and Associate Deputy AG Pastana. You said you'd get back to us. June 4th to 5th, meeting request directed to your office and in person during Attorney General Torres's visit. That's the Attorney General for New Mexico. And basically what they say is that, you know, you're stringing us along. You keep saying you'll get, you want to help? You want to do it. Sure. Give us a month. Give us a month. Give us a week. Give us two weeks. We'll get back to you. But here we are. And so the New Mexico AG went public at the end of this week. And so Popak, you know, this is the, you know, this, this reminds me of, I'm not sure, you know, Yes. A more heinous version, but this is what, this is Trump's two week cycle, that I call it, Right. He tries to trap you in the two week delay. Two weeks, three weeks. Two weeks, three weeks, five weeks. I'll get back to you. Then he likes to run out the clock. And then he hopes that naturally you'll either stop chasing it or someone else, you'll get a new job, you know, and Trump's, you know, born with this golden spoon in his mouth or whatever and he's just like, I could wait you out. I don't care. I don't care about anything, you know, and I'll wait you out. And that's his plan. I just remember even, you know, during his first campaign when people had lots of questions about Melania's immigration status and he said, I'm going to hold the press conference and I'll get into it. I'll explain how she got that Einstein. We'll get, we'll, we'll get into it. Two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. And here you are, Popak. No one really, we talk about it on the Midas Touch network, but no one really talks about it anymore. And that's the strategy here. But it involves covering up child sex trafficking that we also know they're covering up Trump's name in certain files as well, you know. So Popak, what do you make of it?
- [39:05]
Michael Popak
All America is united against child sex trafficking and any connectivity between Donald Trump, his administration and, and, and Epstein. I mean, that's the one thing that Donald Trump has done as the great unifier is he's unified maga, alt right, conspiracy theorists, dark web, progressives, Democratic socialists, independents. We all find his continued lack of transparency, opaqueness giving orders to his people around him, led by now Todd Blanche to cover up and cover up. The COVID up to be something we're not willing to swallow and won't, won't forget. Donald Trump believes that this is a normal news cycle, as you said, the two week news cycle. It's not. And it's been frustrating him because he thought this would just go away by now. That was the reporting that came out of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's Situation Room freakout article is that Trump doesn't want transparency. He wanted gestures to act like it was transparent about the Epstein files, but not true transparency. And that Todd Blanch has been leading the charge. I mean, you reported and as did I and we've had Katie on both shows about Katie Fang's lawsuit. And you know, you, Todd Blanch has a lot of explaining to do. Next week we're going to have the live stream on the confirmation hearing up on Legal AF YouTube. I'll be doing the pregame show for it. And one of the many scandals that are at the feet of Todd Blanche that he has to answer for is why did he just tell Judge Sullivan, Katie Fang's judge, the judge in her case to go pound sand and he wasn't going to produce any more documents and basically confess that they never created the redaction log that you talked about at all. Katie Fang's lawyer Brendan Ballou joined me for an interview. He said I'm, he told me he told our audience I'm pretty sure they didn't. They never did it. I'm pretty sure despite statutory requirement in the, in the in the Epstein Act. I'm pretty sure they never did it. And he basically confessed that he never did. He said well we did. We provided a partial sort of a was a list about redactions but I wouldn't call it a redaction list or a log. You didn't produce a log of 200,000 pages of redacted thing as to translate the foreign language documents. Nah, too hard N We don't pass as if he can pass on a federal judge's order and that will be sufficient and the other documents and you know something you and I have been reporting on which is why is Leslie Grof who gave some sort of testimony that you and I have picked apart who was the 18 year executive assistant for Jeffrey Epstein? Why was she listed as a potential as a co conspirator in a draft indictment and now the Epstein survivors are all coming out and saying she lied. She lied about not knowing how old the people that she hired to give him massages which turned out to be sexual abuse. She knew the ages she knew many of those girls went to high school high school one one thing about and I used to live 15 blocks away from Jeffrey Epstein on the Upper Upper east side of New York. Tons of of private girls schools in in those neighborhoods. It's up by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. People know the area and you know during school year it's just lots mainly I mean there's some boys schools too but mainly girls schools and she was recruiting from there. She paid them and the and now the girls now women and survivors are saying she lied which would be normally cue the Department of Justice to start a prosecution right at an investigation. No, no, no, no because this Department of Justice only does one thing goes after and weaponizes the Department of Justice and or its Civil rights division to go against Donald Trump's political enemies or those he he thinks have slighted him some way in the past. That's their full time job or as I've joked only half jokingly they are a wholly Department of Justice is a Wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump Organization. That's it. That's it. As is the Commerce Department, as is the Treasury Department. So you've got all the documents still being hidden away, much to the chagrin of the survivors. So, New Mexico, the letter that you, that you wrote raised a couple of interesting issues. One, it reminds us that Maureen Comey, James Comey's daughter, was the head of the division that was prosecuting Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and that she was given back in the 2018, 2019 period all of New Mexico's then files that they had already started accumulating about that ranch. But there was no reciprocity, even though Comey was going to do it. Yet another reason why my Maureen Comey was fired. One, so they could, they could curry favor with Kalain Maxwell through Todd Blanch and not have Maureen Comey in the room who knew the truth about the evidence, get silence her by firing her and also silence her potentially on the New Mexico investigation of the ranch. You and I don't know whether there are survivors bodies buried on the ranch, but that's the point. Neither does the Department of Justice, nor the FBI, nor New Mexico's Department of Justice. And that's what we're trying to get to the bottom of, whether there was torture, sex going on there and people buried there at that ranch. And we still to this moment don't know the answer to that. So kudos to the New Mexico Department of Justice and its attorney general for also saying, we've got a case, but our case is being eroded by your failure to provide and do lip service for all those categories of things that we've asked for. And the, and the thing that didn't get enough attention except on Midas and on legal iaf, was James Comey, which is now reflected back in this letter admitting that in 2019, when the Justice Department was run by Donald Trump and his attorney general, Bill Barr, they put the kibosh and quashed the investigation by new Mexico in 2019 into the ranch. Why? It wasn't like they were doing their own investigation. And so they didn't want New Mexico to go first. They just wanted to end the investigation. And Comey says it on, on Jesse Waters like, and it's repeated here about, you know, if anybody thought that wasn't true. It says here the, on page two of the letter, the New Mexico Department of Justice's investigation was effectively suspended by Federal request in 2019, its file released to federal authorities. That would be Comey and its survivors left without an accounting of what occurred in New Mexico. The US DOJ now holds in its possession the very records that would allow the New Mexico Department of Justice to resume what federal intervention disrupted, interrupted. I mean, this is, there are so many things that Todd Blanch is going to have to answer for. Many of them are connected to the Epstein scandal. The Situation Room comments the Ghislaine Maxwell being benefited by being sent to a low security prison where she has a dog, apparently, and has access to books and doesn't sit in a jail cell after she gave testimony that Donald Trump obviously thought was helpful. The, you know, we're not even talking about the Jan6 weaponization fund. We're just talking about Epstein and his refusal to acknowledge that within the 3 million documents produced, and maybe the 3 million that haven't been produced, there is actionable intelligence to investigate and, or prosecute the predators of the 1400 or 1500 survivors. He refute that alone. If you, any one of these things that you and I have talked about, about Todd Blanche would be a disqualifier in any other universe. And the question for our audience and the worker, you and I are going to follow closely next week is whether this is a, this is an almost an equally divided Senate Judiciary Committee. There's, there's, there's 13 Republicans and 12 Democrats, 25. You need majority. You need, you need all 13. If a guy like Thom Tillis comes over or somebody else, they, they can't afford to lose one vote or, or Blanche's nomination is done. Now the question is how do we count and is there one that is willing to go against Trump, a weakened President Trump now, and vote against Todd Blanche? And another thing, they're going to need more than one day. I know the Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Thune wants to try to minimize the risk and only have Tom Blanche there for five or six hours, it ain't going to be enough. And the Democrats better figure out a way procedurally to continue to expand that hearing because you couldn't do one of these scandals, let alone more than a dozen that Top Blanche is responsible for in one day.
- [48:37]
Ben
You raised a great point, though. Which is the most important thing for me is, well, I care about outcomes, obviously, right. And I want there to be good outcomes. But to get good outcomes, there has to be a good process. And I know process could be boring and process could sound bureaucratic and delegation of time and rules and all of it. These things, you know, start to sound like, oh, come on, man, let's just do it, let's Just do it. But you know, that reality TV show, let's just do it and you know, let's just see drama. I think that's one of the reasons that we kind of got here. There's a lot of other reasons as well, but there is this kind of instant gratification, this desire to abhor process and rules and doing. Because who does that? Why are you talking about that, man? Let's just wing it. Let's just wing it. Donald Trump just shows up in NATO and just wings.
- [49:35]
Michael Popak
It just.
- [49:36]
Ben
Yeah, but that's very dangerous. Okay? And when we talk about the hearing of Todd Blanche, the most important thing for me is that every senator should be taking their responsibility seriously and should be spending. You know, each senator to me should have about at least an hour to 90 minutes each to ask real serious questions of Todd Blanche. And to me, there should be a multiple day session and it should be structured in a way that focuses on perhaps different themes of the conduct, whether it's ice, border patrol, Gestapo, deporting people to seekat the conflicts of interest. Epstein, you know, the other cases involving Trump suing the government, settling with Trump in the $10 billion case, the J6 fund. You know, I could easily do personally a three to four day deposition of Todd Blanche, seven hours each day, and I would still have a lot of questions that I'd probably need to ask him after 25 hours of cross examination, which pac you and I as litigators have done with witnesses in big important cases. You know, you've done that. And so there, to me, fundamentally what these magas have done is they've destroyed process and they've rigged the outcomes by killing the process, by shortening people's ability to, you know, you know, to ask questions and to investigate so that the outcomes basically are predetermined. And that's one of the reasons that Donald Trump hates the court system, because the court system involves process and rules. And if you violate rules, there are consequences. Jurors, jurors are selected independent. Those are all of the things that he hates. And you know, this vignette that I just want to share to me is kind of symptomatic of this Trump regime. You may have seen in South Carolina on July 4, there was this event where these Apache helicopters flew no less than 10 to 15ft above the ocean right there. And it was went viral that these Apaches were flying so low, like it almost felt like the people in the beach water, you know, if you were 7ft tall, you were almost close to touching it. It was a very dangerous. It was a very dangerous thing. The National Guard saw this, and they suspended eight of the crew members for. For doing this, and they disciplined them, and they were in the process of disciplining him. Then all of MAGA went crazy, like, nah, man, this is patriotism. This is America. America, everybody. This is what we do. We fly Apaches really low. And then this became some culture war issue where Pete Hegseth was like, don't worry, I got your back. And then, carry on, patriots, we've got your back. And then they start posting this photo as though it is a, you know, as this is a rallying call is what America is all about. Let me be very clear. Do I think it's cool? Like, do I. Do. I think it's cool that you have the way it looks and Apache helicopters flying low, you know, and for someone who's never flown an Apache, you know, do I think that's cool? You know, yeah, it looks cool. Okay.
- [53:13]
Michael Popak
Like.
- [53:14]
Ben
But look how close it is to the people. And the reason you don't fly that low is that there's a margin of error that increases the lower you fly like that. And let's just say something happened and all of those people down there were killed. Those pilots that were in there and the Apache crew, you know, would be in jail for the rest of their lives. And people like Hegseth would be throwing them under the bus and saying, how do they do that? How do they do that? How do they do that? You know. And now what we're applauding, you know, is rule breaking. And we're. We're. As a society, I know, you know, we're not. But creating situations where error and dangerous things can, you know, can continue to occur. When you gut. And you get rid of members in the intelligence community, career people, when you get rid of top federal prosecutors, the career prosecutors at the doj, when you get rid of actual people at the FBI with experience and replace him with Cash Patel's, put Bill Pulte as the Director of National Intelligence. You know, when you. Basically, I'm doing a video today on Trump throwing the CIA under the bus. When you remove intelligence officials, and I'm not suggesting that the CIA has this exalted history and everything they do is right, and it's great. Let's become CIA fanboys or whatever. But when you get rid of your intelligence community and people who are giving you assessments and you replace it with yourself, winging it, the same kind of mentality that tells you, going back to the show. I'm just going to paint the reflecting pool blue and the algae will go away. The consequences there are embarrassing and humiliating algae filled cesspool. Then with the fireworks, there's ash over. It gets more serious when you start to prosecute people criminally, to blame them, to scapegoat them. So it gets serious. Not to suggest it's not a serious thing, but then when you apply that lack of science, it's not just cutting corners, Popak, as you said before, it's cutting facts. And when you push all of that aside, facts, intelligence, science cut corners. And then you do that with national security, intelligence and everything like that, you then have a dangerous dystopian fascist country where you have error, you have malice. And that's a very dangerous agreement, you know, very dangerous things to see. So I want to talk about that when we get back. FBI Director Cash Patel. I want to talk about Lorenzo Arojo being murdered by ICE and border patrol. That's still happening on the streets. Talk about more. Let's take our last quick break of the show. Reminder. If you or somebody knows been injured in an auto accident, trucking accident. If you've been injured by the negligence of a company or if you know somebody who has Popox firm deals with catastrophic injury cases. He represents a lot of people who watch and listen to Legal af. So give a call. The consultation is free no matter where you are in the United States. 877 popocaf or visit thepopoc firm.com call 877-popocaf or visit Thepopoc firm.com also make sure you subscribe to legal AF on YouTube and subscribe to legal AF on substack. We'll come back home stretch of legal AF coming right up. Let's hear from our sponsors.
- [56:33]
Michael Popak
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- [59:02]
Ben
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to all of our sponsors. They make the show possible. The sponsors support us. Support our sponsors if you can. Discount codes are in the description below. Michael Popak, the reporting from Ms. Now and others, and you know, you can see it by the travel logs as well, was Cash Patel was getting ready to go to Chicago to see his girlfriend perform in the parking lot and he was pulled back to the White House and he was told, where you going, man? Where are you going? And there's been a lot of stories about Cash Patel and you know, it's, it's, it's an interesting one. You know, he continues to embarrass regime that's deeply an embarrassing regime from the outset. So there's already a humiliation ritual going place. You know, he checks the corruption box that the Trump regime likes, he checks the incompetence box that the Trump regime likes. The only thing that may be working against him is that when he's flying around in the jets and with the girlfriend and doing all that stuff that may make Trump a little bit kind of not jealous of it, but he's like, you know, you're, you know, you got to be here suffering with me over here in the White House while I think Iran's trying to kill me, you know, and so popak, as my dogs are barking like crazy, what do you make him?
- [60:21]
Michael Popak
Well, you know, Cash Patel has a habit. You said that Donald Trump was born with a golden, golden foot in his mouth or whatever it is. Cash Patel also has complete tin ear when it comes to things that he can say out loud. Forgetting that he's no longer a right wing podcaster shilling products with cash K a dollar sign h on them. But it's supposed to be one of the leaders of our intelligence community and the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He's not supposed to be trying to get laid. We're trying to curry favor with his girlfriend or show, like you said, travel around the country instead of doing his job domestically and otherwise and going to sporting events and, and purchasing having a fleet of BMWs purchased for him and using the company jet, which is the, which is, you know, the jets related to the administration for his personal use. And he's now lost the shoes. The shoes that are dropping now include Chuck Grassley, who was one of his biggest defenders in the Senate. But now he's opened up an investigation demanding to know how Cash Patel is spending taxpayer dollars on trips on travel, on sporting events, BMWs, planes and the like. You know, when you take a, when you take an administration plane, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour to fly, you know. And the response from Cash Patel's office is he's ranch reimbursed it. I doubt he's reimbursed it to the, to the liking of Grassley. And when you get grounded, personally grounded by the White House and by the people within the White House. And I can only think of a couple, Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller, when they say insiders within the White House have required him, demanded his appearance at the White House. It's Susie Wiles and likely Stephen Miller. He's being called on the carpet here. And it didn't help that in response to reporting about him having a golden Jet Ski, his defense to that was that he posted on social media, it's a gold plated Jet Ski, you dumbass. That is while the American people are suffering under the Trump economy and are trying to figure out how to make ends meet or to even have ends to meet, to have FBI directors say, come on, man, come on, bruh, it's, it's gold plated like this, this is not, this is back to the ten ear moment. And the question is, you know, when I was a kid there, you probably played it too. It's a very analog game. It was a series of small plastic ice cubes that were in a rack and you had a little baby mallet, a little hammer, and there was a thing on top. And you just would, you would have to knock one of those cubes down and hope the whole thing wouldn't collapse. And after a while, you'd be the one or somebody, your friend would be the one to hit that last cube and the entire ice flow would collapse. Right? Because you're on thin ice. How many cubes have to fall under Cash Patel for him finally to get, get fired? Kristi Noem should have been the wake up call for Cash Patel and her, her embarrassment that came to town. And she was doing very similar things, right? She was playing, according to reporting, she was playing footsie with Corey Lewandowski on Homeland Security Gulf streams that were outfitted, including, you know, one, one compartment of it, which is supposed to be the kind of the private living quarters was like a master bedroom that Corey and Christy would disappear into. And those, the drumbeat of those stories even before Christine Noem's husband, husband had some sort of weird fetish that ended up leading to divorce. Catch Patel's got the same problem. And using the FBI to go after members of the media who leak about him and his drinking, for instance, and public intoxication, or leak about his using the company d dime, you know, our money to support him squiring around with his girlfriend and then going after the press and opening up investigations about it has been a very, very bad look even for the Trump administration. And I think the point you were making is that what's okay for Trump is not okay for people that are not named Donald Trump. There's things that sometimes there's this conflation. I've seen it in organizations where people who work for the top apex predator that runs the company suddenly believe they are the apex predator and they find out very, very quickly that there's only one top dog and there's only one person. So I've been in organizations which I will not name where people have suddenly thought they are the Donald Trump of the organization and started acting and mimicking their spending or their, their attack on the media or the press or their social media posting. And that wears out your welcome pretty quickly. Even though we're 18, 19 months in this administration with somebody like Donald Trump and his ego. So him getting reined in. Even Pam Bondi didn't get called on the carpet. I'll tell you who did. Tulsi Gabbard got called on the carpet last September about her. Sorry. Last February 28th was the bombing Iran was. Yes, last September, after the bombs on the nuclear, nuclear capacity of, of Iran the first time when she was busy talking about how bombing is a terrible thing, it can allude to nuclear holocaust, she got called on the carpet and Tulsi Gabbard is no longer with us. Christine Omega got called to the White House after things went really awry with her testimony before the House and the Senate on back to back days about no bid contracts for her $250 million ad campaign. Much of the money went to friends of hers and she got fired. So the ones that get called into the White House normally have a very short half life. If I were to guess, Cash Patel does not make it. We just passed 4th of July. Does not make it to Labor Day. I'm not even sure he makes it. I want to hear your opinion on this. I'm not even sure he makes it in like through the month of July on that particular because there's nothing he can do to fix it. Like being told to shut the up. Sorry is one thing. And, and you know, some people were able to accomplish that. Like we hear a lot less from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He's still doing terrible things to Americans public health, but we hear about it less, you know, Mark Wayne Mullen, you know, other than his, his centered appearances, the House appearances. We're not seeing him out the way that Kristi Gnome did. Do you think he's going to be able to survive like RFK Jr or do you think he's going out the door like Tulsi Gabbard and no, he's
- [67:42]
Ben
going to survive because he's a man and Trump fires women and he can tolerate the corruption in the men. And you know, I believe it's as simple as that. Kristi Noem, Bondi, Chavez Darimer. Right, the big high profile firings. But don't get me wrong there, they are very bad, awful people. Are they worse than Lutnik, Kash Patel, rfk, Hegseth? Hey, I mean, Hegseth. I mean, come on. You know, the reality is Bondi, frankly, makes Blanche. I mean, you know, Blanche makes Bondi look, you know, somewhat ethical, right? And that's a horrible thing to say because she was horrific. But Bondi, but, but Blanche is a severely worse version of Bondi in terms of corruption. And incompetence, all kind of, you know, you know, built into one. And so the reality is, is that, you know, Patel. Oh, the other reason too, is Patel seen the Epstein files. And you can arguably say that, you know, Bondi has also, and so will Bondi, you know, whatever. But I think that Trump fears that someone like a Patel will go out and say what he saw in the files more than a Bondi. And I think he thinks he can control. So that's my, that's my overall view of that. And I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you a data point as well. You know, the White House, Stephen Chung and others have come out and said, nah, you know, I mean, I think Cash Patel posted something, you know, really kind of heinous and absurd, which, what else is new, where he. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. In response to the Ms. Now article saying Cash Patel can't count on Trump's protection forever. And Cash Patel goes, nah, nah, brah, nah, brah. My jet ski is gold plated, dumb ass. Your job is to lie. Mine's to protect the American people. And business is good. I mean, this is the FBI director saying that. But then the White House account. Fake news at its finest. Nobody was frustrated. In fact, we'll start boosting and promoting his earlier Tweet More. Congrats, Ms. Now you all just played yourself dumbasses. And again, this is the White House. This is the White House. This isn't Love Island. This is, this isn't frat house. This isn't Love Island. This isn't, you know, Apprentice meets Kardashian, you know, whatever. This is the White House, you know, and again, you know, my dogs were barking earlier because my wife just got home with my mother in law and our little baby, you know, and I mean, this is, you know, this isn't me speaking as Democrat, independent, political guy. Like, come on, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? And what I loved about the law, what I loved about practicing law, what I loved about being in courts and in depositions, you know, was I viewed it as an honorable profession. And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of lawyers who don't behave honorably, but this is how I viewed it, where I could, you know, pursue truth and fight for things that I believe were justice and, and, and play by rules and fairly and ethically and morally, and those are the things that were more important. And so when I see, you know, Cash Patel going dumb ass, my FBI Director, my jet ski is gold plated, bro. What do you, what are you, what are you doing? What is that? Why is it the FBI director? And then the White House goes, yeah, dumb asses, we're going to retweet that more. I'm like, okay. I'm like, come on. You know, and then, and then you wonder why we get involved into catastrophic wars. There's other reasons, too. And then have no plan and lose. And then keep their negotiating this negotiation, we'll keep bombing. But they desperately want a deal.
- [71:53]
Michael Popak
I want to ask you something, Ben, on that note. When our adversaries who keep an eye on our intelligence community, they don't need to.
- [72:02]
Ben
They see the unintelligence right there.
- [72:03]
Michael Popak
That's my plan. How do you think Putin is read in on this by his people about weekly reports about Cash Patel when his presidential briefing book comes in? Do you think they reproduce all of rapid response 47 and all the bras and gold bladed and dumbasses?
- [72:21]
Ben
Yeah, you know, and I think it is that. But then it's also, here's what we know. We know that this individual is a malignant narcissist who's literally, I mean, the Iranian negotiating team diagnosed Donald Trump as being clinically mentally ill and that they're negotiating with actually somebody who should be in a, in, you know, who should be institutionalized under a 5150 hold. Like, that's how they viewed it. So it's, how do you deal with somebody, you know, like that? And how do you, how do you address. So, so the question then really becomes is, you know, how, how do you deal with it and how do you address it? And I do think that there is a lot of criticism that should be directed at Mark Rute, the Secretary General of NATO, because every time I watch him and he does the over the top praise of Donald Trump, when like Donald Trump's like, I hate NATO. And they'll be like, hey, Rute, he just says he hated NATO.
- [73:19]
Michael Popak
Oh, but he loves it.
- [73:21]
Ben
He says, but he means love. And he does it in this, like over the top way that almost appears, you know, you're watching, you know, you know, you know, you know, some, some like a parody movie. Like, I'm trying to think of any movie that, you know, like Austin Powers or something, you know, because it's so. But, but I think the diagnosis, you know, I think it's a version of what Putin does to. And it's a version of how they diagnosed him. And then, you know, when Mark Rute goes, donald Everybody loves you.
- [73:57]
Michael Popak
Can I show you the chart that
- [73:59]
Ben
I made for you, Donald? Here in NATO, we call it the Trump trillions because trillions of dollars and we love you. And then Donald Trump would be like, I like this guy. You know who I don't like? I don't like Spain. I don't like Spain. They're mean to me. They're mean to me. I mean, so, I mean, you see how Mark Rutte deals with it. I bet you behind the scenes Mark Ruth is. Yeah, the guy's a psycho. The guy's a psychopath. But look, all I need to do is go to him. You're brilliant, Donald. And look what happened to NATO. I mean, say what you want, and I don't like Mark Rutte, but Zelensky got the Patriot Interceptor license that he needed in order to defend keep. So I'm sure if you privately asked Mark Roti, why do you behave like that dude? And by the way, there was that question from that Denmark reporter, you know, who said, you know, when you sit up there and Trump's threatening to invade Denmark, Mark, and you're saying that helps the NATO alliance, like, do you have no self respect? And Mark Ruth is like, I think we've never been stronger coming out of this. I bet you Mark Ruta at least behind the scenes says, look, we've diagnosed him as this. This is what we're learning. You have to say this. It's terrible that this is the way it is. The United States, whether you like it or not, still has the largest military, this, that and the other. And so we have to. In order to get the interceptor license to Zelensky, I have to go and be. I mean, so popak, the short of it is that shouldn't be the way people behave. But I think that everybody has to, you know, but my own view of it, personally, if you want to know my own view, I think you just have to be. I think when you do that, Trump sees that as weakness. So he keeps on testing you over and over and over and over and over and over. And I think the only way to do it, you know, and one of the reasons that this has dragged on so long is I think right away Trump doesn't then get the hell out of NATO. Then get the hell out. We don't want you. See you later. Bye. Goodbye. We don't want you f you, you know, okay, you want to do that? Sue me. I'll sue you. You sue me. I'll take your deposition. Let's. I think that's the better approach.
- [75:56]
Michael Popak
Well and on your social media point, I'm not sure that I'm not sure. Rapid response 47 and anything that that Natalia Harp posts, the human printer, matters to whether Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller want to ax FBI Director Cash Patel and replace him with somebody who will quiet lower the volume about all the things the FBI is doing without all the grandstanding and personal self dealing that is on full display with Cash Patel because, you know, there was reporting you and I did it a few weeks ago that they interviewed or they got a quote from Harp about all her, you know, if everybody thinks when you and I report on 271 or whatever it is social media post by Donald Trump in a 24 hour period and the meltdowns, most of those are not Donald Trump. Most of those are an insomniac named Natalie Harp who writes all this stuff for Donald Trump. She has complete controlling keys over all of his social media and his and his truth social account. And she's admitted that she does not clear any of what she writes with Susie Wiles or anybody in the White House. She says she works for one person. His name is Donald Trump. So Trump is usually out in front of his own enablers, his own handlers. And so and so if Harp isn't under the control or regulation of the White house, rapid, rapid response 47 certainly is not either. So I would take that with a grain of salt if I were Cash Patel. Whatever. Whatever. Stephen Chung had a rapid response 47 say today. But I don't disagree with you that it does appear that the unsinkable people in the administration seem to be the men, especially men who Donald Trump is in business with like Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessant, literally in business with and not the, the women who are as incompetent as the men or maybe more so. But they're the ones that seem to get fired first. I mean, you know, there's others that could go but you know, as you, as you and I have said, if you if Pete Hegseth should have been long gone, RFK Jr should be long gone. We should be talking about a whole nother group of cabinet members and but yet we're not. And Cash Patel seems to have this ability like just like a cockroach to survive. But you know, you and I will be the first ones to say we were wrong and Cash Patel was fired today.
- [78:24]
Ben
Yeah. Well, I'll give you an example too. I mean Kristi Noem right after the murders of multiple people would come out and have you even heard Mark Wayne Mullen come out and address Lorenzo Salgato Arojo's cold blooded murder? And it's look, Mark Wayne Mullins behavior in enabling what took place in Houston. Can you say it is any degree not as bad as Kristi Noem? It's just to me it's like, no, there is a level of, well, she's a woman and da, da, da, da, da. And she's horrible. And she deserved to leave and was the worst person ever, but so is he. You know, it's his ice Border Patrol Gestapo. It's his ICE Gestapo who killed in cold blood, who then covered it up and who did the exact same things we saw in Minnesota. And they tried to, you know, blame Lorenzo Salgata Arojo for his death. Then when there were people in the van with Lorenzo Arojo who said, nah, you killed him in cold blood. They then tried to deport the witnesses, including his brother and the workers. We then learn about Lorenzo Salgato Araujo, that he was, he's been in the country for 35 years. He has three children who are American citizens. He's a model person in the United States, although he wasn't fully lawfully here yet at this point, although he was always working towards that. He ran a business, he employed people, paid taxes. You know, like he, he ran a construction company. He was working that day. The Trump regime officials said that they were hunting Guatemalans, like as though that makes it better. They were hunting Guatemalans who they said were criminals. And then they saw a brown guy and they said, oh well, he must be Guatemalan and he's Mexican. You know, it's a terrific racial profiling from the outset with all of this. And then they ram him, they pull him out and they kill him. He bleeds out on the street, they take away his personal belong. I mean, they then engage in a massive cover up. They bring him, they take away his personal belongings so the family can't even find his body. They don't even release the family to the body right away. And fortunately, the family got good legal support, lulac, other groups, the community rally, good investigative journalism, figured out what was happening or some of what was happening. And the Trump regime had people out today, this morning with their talking points. Yeah, but we need to focus more on the criminal illegal immigrants. I wish people would care more about the holding the criminals accountable versus, you know, things like this. And it's like, I mean, there were lots of maggots out there who were, you know, who Were saying this and then, you know, I'll leave with this, you know, with this one pop, if you want to. Anything. But we're hitting that, we're hitting that moment on the show, which is there was also a, by the same way Donald Trump wouldn't sign the housing affordability bill. Fortunately it passed on its own because the deadline expired for him to veto it. But he said, I'm protesting it. Right. A bipartisan housing affordability bill. You know, he was the one who killed the bipartisan immigration bill, which would have had strong borders. It would have expedited asylum claims to make sure that there was a judicial process quickly. Habeas corpus would be given a compassionate view towards immigrants, criminals, of course, deported right away, strengthening the borders, paying border patrol more, actually solving the problem. Bipartisan, the same way, you know, the housing bill had kind of far right wing, left wing joining bipartisan immigration, but left wing, right wing Biden did it. Trump said kill it. Let's cause the problems and then let's, you know, and then let's make this all one big game while the American people suffer. And then we'll go hunting and we'll go torturing and terrorizing because that's our way of, you know, implementing our fascist project 2025 agenda. And for me, I say bipartisan. You know, that was a solution to a difficult problem. And whether it's the memorandum of understanding with Iran, whether it's a housing affordability, whether it's the jcpoa, whether it is a bipartisan immigration, whether it's his businesses, the guy is a destroyer. Trump, he rips, he shreds, he doesn't build, he doesn't do deals. He's not a deal maker. Deal makers don't go. I do deals. Deal, deal, deal. You know who say that. Fraud say that. Deal makers don't go around saying, I'm the strong people. Don't go. And you see how strong I am. I'm a strong guy. I'm strong, everybody. That's not the way people behave who are actually competent in doing the thing. So I leave with that. Popak, anything you want to say before we go?
- [83:05]
Michael Popak
No, absolutely. I think we've, I think we've done a good rap at the intersection of law and politics today. Appreciate, everybody, Appreciate so much my friendship with you, my friend, and you do.
- [83:16]
Ben
Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time on Legal F. Remember, if you or someone you know has been injured in a car accident, auto accident, trucking accident, any type of negligence caused by somebody else, a company that caused an injury. Catastrophic injuries. Don't be shy. Call popoc877popocaf or visit thepopocfirm.com Consultation is free. Reach out. See if you have a case. Also, make sure you subscribe on YouTube to Legal AF and substack to Legal AF. Thanks everybody for watching. We'll see you next time on Legal af. Have a great one, everybody. Shout out Midas Mighty.