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- [00:01]
A
Morning Zoe. Got donuts.
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B
Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?
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A
Well I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T Mobile commercial like you teach me.
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B
So Dana oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.
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A
Wow, impressive. Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.
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B
Nice.
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A
You heard them. T Mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition. So what are we having for lunch?
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B
Dude, my work here is done.
- [00:44]
A
The 24 month bill credit is on experience beyond for well qualified customers + tax and 35 device connection charge credit send and balance due if you pay off earlier Cancel Finance Agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs $1099.99 and new line minimum 100 plus a month plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. Best mobile network in the US based on analysis by Oaklove Speed Test Intelligence data 1H 2025 visit t mobile.com.
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B
Oh.
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A
I love the smell of Democratic victory the day after we're here on Legal af. So much to talk about at the intersection of law and politics. We may need two shows but we're going to kick it off. Besides talking about things like tariffs, if Donald Trump thought Karen, that that the Mississippi talk about canary in the coal mine that they're flipping the Democrats flipping seats in in Mississippi last night along with the rest of the blue wave in every other state and Democrats overperforming and flipping back to blue seats that which Donald Trump had temporarily turned red. If he thought that was a bad day then court happened. Today his DOJ gets just excoriated by a magistrate judge about the Comey investigation and prosecution, then he's got to go. Well no he doesn't go. He's a chicken. He threatened to go to the United States Supreme Court, take the walk down Pennsylvania Avenue or whatever. He didn't show up and if he did he would have been pretty upset because there's a lot of healthy skepticism even among the alt right of the Supreme Court about Donald Trump's tariffs. And so we'll talk about that. Talk about the Comey hearing today in front of a magistrate judge, Judge Fitzpatrick, who used to be in Lindsey Halligan's Eastern District of Virginia U.S. attorney's office. And he was none too pleased with what the DOJ doj was bringing. Lindsey Halligan's in trouble. She's gurgling. If you listen closely, you've got multiple judges ordering the grand jury materials. Get turned over about her participation in the indictment of Letitia James and James Comey. And I don't think it's any coincidence that they're the along with John Bolton, which is sort of a separate case, that they're the only two so far that have been indicted. Talk about that in a minute. The snap payments to help 42 million Americans and hopefully have $8 billion flow to them this month because they're already short, because the months already started. They already can't pay for food. I'm talking basic necessities here. The most fragile population in America. Donald Trump has decided on the day of election, on election day, to go after and say he'll never comply with the orders by federal judges to make the payments so people can buy food and avoid malnourishment. Now, his administration then turned around and said, kind of this is my interpretation. Ignore that crazy guy in the corner. We're going to comply with the orders, but that may not be good enough. And Judge McConnell's holding a hearing tomorrow about whether they're already in violation of the temporary restraining order, about because they're dragging their feet to make those payments to people in need and then sort of under the radar because there's so much going on between Prop 50 in California and the governor races in New Jersey and Virginia and the delegate races in Pennsylvania, Mississippi, etc. Kind of got lost a couple of other developments and one particular Judge Imbergut's back in Portland, Oregon. Federal judge, she held a three day trial to get to the point of a permanent injunction. The end of the case about whether Donald Trump has the right to declare an emergency and use the National Guard in states or not, at least in Oregon. And she issued a preliminary injunction on her way to on Friday issuing, issuing her permanent injunction. So much to talk about. This podcast takes two. Let's bring in Karen Freeman McNiff. Hey, Karen.
- [04:48]
B
Hey, Popo. How are you today?
- [04:50]
A
Fantastic. After yesterday.
- [04:52]
B
I know, it was amazing. Best night ever.
- [04:54]
A
Yeah, exactly. And I, I love that the Mod Squad, you know, I like. You know what I love about the Democratic Party just, just to digress for a minute. Well, it's not digressing with our audience is we are such a big tent. We're working out in real time issues about are we burning krats with democratic socialists like Mandami in New York, where you live, are we Moderates like, like Governor Span, Governor Elect Spamberger and, and, and Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey, who were part of the Mod Squad when they were in the House. What are we? But whatever we are, we're not maga. And the Democratic brand, which pundits have tried to put on life support, buying into the attacks on the brand by Donald Trump. I think we did a fair job of resuscitating the brand and saying that we're here to stay with wins, not just in the. As my. One of my Republican friends wrote me, oh, sure, it was a blue wave in blue states. Yeah. Not exactly. Not 13 delegates, you know, in places like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, you know, vote flipping, seat flipping, county flipping back to blue, that there's no, there's nothing that good came out of last night. What was your kind of your takeaway from election night? Then we can get into the law side of the show.
- [06:19]
B
It felt like such a major rebuke to all things Donald Trump. I think the country basically sent MAGA a huge message that we do not like what's going on here. I mean, and to call Virginia a blue state. Virginia is not a blue state. Virginia is the South. I mean, I know it's not exactly, but it's not a blue state the way New York and California are. And I think that those two governors, Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spamberger, are the new faces of the Democratic Party. They are badass women. First of all, they're young. And one of, I think Mikey Sheryl was like a helicopter pilot in the Navy, and Abigail Spamberger was an ex CIA agent. I think they're amazing, and they're amazing women, and they're also moms. They're just really. I think we need more leaders like them. And I think it's just great that they are both now leading two major states. And as you said, there's so many other places that were flipped and state and local seats that were flipped. And it just was a huge spanking to maga. And I think you can tell because Trump is basically now trying to blame Congress for the shutdown, for this, and he's doing all of his dissembling that he does. And I think people need to see and need to stand up and see what's going on here, that people aren't having it. The whole country is really rejecting maga. Even what happened here in New York City with the mayoral race, it was really between two kids, candidates Andrew Cuomo and Zoran Mamdame, who won the election. They picked Zoran over Andrew Cuomo. That was a huge statement too, that look, we don't want the political dynasty that's the Cuomos and the old guard. It's time for fresh new faces and new leadership that the old guard has failed us in every way. And I think it's a new dawn and it's a breath of fresh air. And I woke up today feeling fantastic and really happy and really hopeful because this is what we needed. What's been happening in the first 10 months of the administration is appalling, atrocious and destroying this country. And I'm just so happy to see, in addition to a blue tsunami, the highest voter turnout that I think we've ever seen in an election that is not the midterms, is not the presidential elections. This is just some off election. And it was the highest voter turnout. It was incredible to see.
- [08:57]
A
Yeah. And to your point, Virginia had a Republican governor recently. And I like our odds. I mean, I think the polling numbers for Donald Trump, which are in the trash, lowest ever for a second term at this point, are starting to show up in the water supply. And people now are, they're just as pent up demand to vote. And we saw it come out in large forces last night because crowds on the street and the tens of millions of people, if you put it all together, 40, 50 million people that took to the streets and all these rallies over the last less than a year are important. The court cases were up to 5, 600 court cases against Trump administration. Also so important polling when you get a phone call or some sort of thing to ask you who you're going to vote for about your issues, really important. But nothing replaces the polls, nothing replaces the ballot and being heard. And it was just such a great night. And it bodes, I mean, Rahm Emanuel was on cnn, he's been in the White House and he said, like I've been on nights like this, there's no champagne corks popping unless they're completely delusional within the White House. And you can see by the conduct and behavior of Trump as we opened up today on post election day, I'm not going to go watch the Supreme Court oral argument. I'm going to authorize some craz lawsuits to be filed. I'm going to blame Congress for the shutdown because I know, you know, as, as a lot of the political pundits said on CNN and on Midas and other places, they said Trump has a Biden problem, which is hard to believe. Biden was not able to convince the American people that their economic welfare was in a good place when everything in their life told them that it wasn't, whether it was at the gas pump or in the supermarket. And Donald Trump's got a Biden problem because he wants to tell the American people, he continues to tell the American people that they are better off because of his economic policies, because of his tariffs, because of his firing people, because of his chasing human beings through the streets and the impact on what happens at the supermarket and around the kitchen table. And the American people looked at him like, you're nuts. Because we're feeling the pain every day. And that's why your new mayor in New York, putting aside some other issues that people may have with him, focus squarely, almost exclusively on kitchen table politics and what matters around the hearth and home and whether he's able to accomplish it. I don't know. But I mean, I like to start, I mean, he started today with, speaking of women. He started today with a transition team of all women, including those who were in the Biden administration, those that were in the Federal Trade Commission. I mean, he's got real hitters, real, real people in government to, to supplement his, let's be frank, his lack of knowledge of, at 35 or whatever he is and running, you know, one of the, you know, top two cities in the world. But, you know, it's, that's why they call it an administration, you know, and you were in an administration when, when Bloomberg was there. You know, there's a lot of different hands and talent. You need to pull all those levers with the spiritual leader and the judgment that goes along with being a mayor. But, but look what it says about our party, Karen, that we can, yes, we can have a Bernie Crat, we can have a social Democrat who wins in New York. Right. And at the same time, we could have the moderate wing being represented by Spamberger and Mikey Sherrill. And yes, we have a national conversation that's got to be resolved by the time the 2028 election about are we going to be middle moderate pragmatists, as Governor Spamberger now says, or are we going to be, you know, over there on the other. I should move my hands over here, over here on the other left wing, extreme or progressive side of the party, but we'll work that out with the American people. All I know is it's a rejection of all things Trumpism.
- [12:57]
B
Yeah, I agree with you. And I wonder whether we have to pick and whether instead we can say there's room for Everybody under the tent. And maybe it's not a one size fits all. Maybe places like New York want to be further left and more liberal and that there are places that want to be more moderate. I mean that's the beauty of this country. But what we can't be is this lawless maga, which is what they are, who just drives a truck over every law, over the Constitution and just does whatever they want to people to just suit Donald Trump and his friends and family so that they can get richer, tear down the White House, whatever it is. It's just atrocious, appalling what he's doing. And I think this is just a huge rejection. Rejection of all of that.
- [13:40]
A
Yeah. So speaking of rejection of all of his signature items, tariffs were up at the United States Supreme Court today. Fully briefed two and a half hours of argument and we got to hear more about judges views on the major questions doctrine, on the delegate non delegation doctrine, on originalism, on constitutional and American history around taxes. While you know, I listened to the 2 and a half hours we had it up on legal af as well. I think John Sauer, who's so hard to listen to, I mean for various reasons as our Solicitor General, I think he took on water very, very early on in his argument. And for me it was questions being asked that were really insightful but very, very scorching in their own way by Amy Cody Barrett and Neil Gorsuch. And they got to get Gorsuch and Barrett in order to have a majority to uphold those tariffs. And I'm not so sure having listened to it. What's your takeaway from what happened today?
- [14:51]
B
You know, it was an interesting oral argument. It's funny when people start citing the Boston Tea Party, you know, as evidence of why tariffs should not be, why that when the Constitution was created, et cetera, why these tariffs are unconstitutional. It basically boils down to. What this argument boiled down to is that the power to tax or tariff is in Article 1. Therefore it rests with Congress that the President does not have this authority. And the President was relying on something called IPA, which is a statute passed in I think 1977, that it's about emerging emergency powers that allows the President in certain emergencies to do certain things. And the word tariff isn't in there. And so the President's argument is that look, it allows me to license things, it allows me to do other things. But what was the pushback was. But it doesn't say anything about tariffs. And if Congress wanted to allow the President to have this fundamentally Congress's role in. They would have said so. And that's kind of what the argument boiled down to in the most simplest terms. It was a fascinating argument to listen to because, as you said, Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett really were just, it sounded like, skeptical of this and really had to grapple with these arguments that John Sauer was making on behalf of the Trump administration and really pushing back on many of these, these claims that they're making. And so when you listen to that. And then, of course, there's Justice Thomas, who basically is like, so you mentioned something about such and such case. Tell me more about that. It's like he just cherry picks John Sauer and Trump's best arguments. And I was like, just tell me more about that. It's like he's giving a platform to the Trump administration without asking hard questions. It's just so appalling to me to listen to that. But Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett really seemed, I think, genuinely concerned and skeptical. And basically what came out today was that Trump is the first president to ever claim that the emergency IPA statute allows the president to impose tariffs. And Amy Coney Barrett basically said, look, how can every country be a threat and need tariffs? Every country I could see, one country, I could see whatever. But Spain, France, how are they a threat? And so the question that they're answering is basically, did Trump exceed his authority by trying to use this, what's supposed to be an emergency statute to put tariffs across the board on everybody? And it was all about how he can do things like sanctions, he can do things like embargoes, he can use the statute for various things, but tariffs, equal taxes and taxation is all about Congress. And there is a different section that the president wasn't relying on. That is an emergency power that limits the tariffs to 150 days. And Trump, though, isn't trying to use that other statute, he's trying to use this emergency power. So I think that the separation of powers concerns is what's going to carry the water here. And one of the things that they were talking about was, was if you give the president, if you delegate to the president to the executive branch, if Congress delegates their congressional authority to the executive branch, which you can do through just a simple majority in Congress. Right? You pass legislation in both the House and the Senate, and then the president signs that into law, even Gorsuch and Barrett were saying, look, what President isn't going to sign that because it gives him more power. Of course he's always gonna sign that, but you can never get that back because in order to repeal a statute, you need a super majority or to overcome a presidential veto. Right. Because if they wanted to take it back and the president says, I don't wanna give back the power, they would need a super majority to override that. And they said they're never even gonna get it back. So I don't think they're gonna. I think this was a bridge too far for even the Supreme Court. But again, it's hard to read the tea leaves. And so who knows with the Supreme Court what they're gonna do? But it really felt that way to me. What about you?
- [19:23]
A
Yeah, I agree with you. I think, I mean, Gorsuch is very untrustworthy. He'll ask questions that appear. And he asked a series of questions that are against the Trump administration's position and tussled with John Sauer, going back in American history to the revolution. And the tea tax, as you said, because the International Economic Emergency Powers act does not use the word tariffs at best, it talks about regulation and licenses. And it's a. And it's a big leap and really, I think an unjustified one to say that, that those words can then be used to allow a president to steal Congressional Article 1 exclusive power to tariff and tax. And there's a big difference. As the judges all at. You know, you got Amy Coney Barrett siding with Sotomayor in questioning and saying, no, no, stop, stop. This is a tax. He's. Well, John Sower, I think, lost a lot of credibility when he said, but revenue. I can't even do his voice. Revenue is incidental.
- [20:31]
B
Can you imagine a debate between John Sauer and RFK Jr. Oh, my.
- [20:37]
A
It'd be literally.
- [20:38]
B
That's like a bad joke.
- [20:42]
A
But they, but they said, he said, well, tariffs are. The revenue is incidental. How is it incidental that he's really trying to control trade? No, no, no, no. As part of his foreign powers Article two article, he thought if he said Article two enough, it's like a drinking game, he'd get the right result from his. In his answers. But. But that's completely at odds with what the Trump administration has said, which is it's the linchpin of their economic policy and they need the money to replace the tax revenue, the real tax revenue, income tax revenue that they've given up. So I think that there's many places where he didn't concede and he should have conceded for credibility. And as an advocate, like you are before appellate courts, you know, sometimes you have to concede when they're making a good argument. As when, as when Amy Coney Barrett said you would agree with me that the word tariff does not appear in the statute. Right, Right. Okay. Would you agree with me then? Then why are you focused so much on the word regulate? Why aren't you arguing to me that license gives you the power to tariff? I never thought of that. But see, he thought that was a lifeline. I didn't see it as a lifeline in the way, in the way she, the context, the way she came at it. I think she was really arguing, as she always has when it comes to statutory interpretation. Read the statute, the plain language of the statute. And as Attorney General Rob Bonta told me in the last 24 hours during an interview from California, Congress doesn't hide elephants inside of mouse holes. They're not going to give this tremendous power, stealing it from their own core constitutional power in Congress and give it to the President by way of the word license or regulate. No other president, as you noted, in 50 years has ever seen it that way. And if you look at the legislative history behind ipa, it was given to President Carter during a terrible economic period in order for Congress to rein in what he would do. Like, here's some powers. We're going to give you a limited toolbox. Use these as opposed. Because they were fearful that somebody like, and Trump was like, no, it's not a, it's not a statute of limitation. I mean literally, it's a, it's capacious, it's abroad. I can do anything I want with it. I just don't see it. Now the question is, is Kavanaugh, sorry, is Gorsuch going to be consistent when he finally, quote, unquote votes with the way he asked his questions? Because if he is, when he. Because you know, there's, as Rob Bonta told me in an interview that's going up tomorrow on Legal af because he, he was in the room watching it and he said the mic drop moment for him is when. Yeah, it was, it was Gorsuch. When Gorsuch said, effectively explain to me, if Congress delegated this to the President, how does it ever come back? It's a one way ratchet. And how would they ever get the power back? And, and they're very concerned about both cav. Both Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett are concerned about the separation of power's issue. I think if I'm handicapping this, that, that Amy Coney Barrett is already over with Soza Bayor Cage and Kagan and Katanji, Brown, Jackson. So there's four over there and there's, there's at least three on the other side. Alito Thomas and, and Kavanaugh. I think Kavanaugh's gone. Question is Roberts, Gorsuch and Amy Coney and really just Gorsuch and, and Roberts at this point. And, and I didn't think Roberts was that helpful to John Sauer's position for the government either. But he acknowledged that this is a major question that needed to be answered by Congress affirmatively with clear language and it wasn't and talked about. But what he struggles with in public all the time is how do you balance Article 2 powers which reign supreme for a president in foreign affairs and this is forward foreign facing with the limited power given about of a delegation by Congress to a president. And that's the struggle you see with Roberts. I think this is 5 to 4 to tear down the tariffs. Could it be 6, 3 to tear down the tariffs? If Roberts goes that way, yes. Could it be 5, 4 the other way and keep the tariffs in place? Yes. But sour making these ridiculous arguments today. The Great Depression will result if you don't affirm the. What are you even talking about? The last time we had the Great Depression is because a president like Trump impose tariffs. We've never had this before. And your point is very well taken about Amy Coney Barrett, which is like I don't get how you can put an effectively an unlimited, unlimited durational tariff on 200 countries on all goods. And you're not pointing me to a proper delegation of authority from Congress. And like you said, they can't all be an emergency. We're in an emergency status with France, with Spain. They didn't spend that much time on the emergency which I thought was odd but they didn't need that particular question perhaps answered. And, and we're going to see the result. It's either going to come in June at the end of the term like a lot of these really tough decisions or it's going to some people wrote in a few weeks nothing happens in a few weeks. We're going to get a full blown decision with dissents and concurrences. It's going to take a minute. It'll probably be in the next 60 days if not all. It'll be from there all the way till June, right?
- [26:17]
B
Yeah, I think so.
- [26:19]
A
Yeah. That's where we are.
- [26:20]
B
Yeah. But one of the things they said was well what is supposed to do? Give all the money back if it's Ruled unconstitutional. But they said, no, you can just say going forward, no more tariffs. You don't have to make this, this crazy thing. But then, but then they said, look, that shows you how complicated this is, that what would you do? Right. That's why this is a major question, and that's why the major question doctrine applies. Like it was, it was a really good, I thought it was a really good argument.
- [26:43]
A
Said you can make it prospective because I think he wants to give them an out.
- [26:47]
B
Exactly.
- [26:48]
A
But, but the states don't want that. The states believe that the, the businesses have been harmed, people have been harmed, that this is a tax that has been passed through to the American consumer and there should be refunded. It should, it should put a chill down the spine of the, of the department of the Trump administration. Because Amy Coney Barrett said almost like, okay, I'm more, if I've decided already that he can't do this, how do we handle refunds? I mean, I've been in situations where judges go there that quickly, and you're like, they're already at the remedy because they've already made up their mind that you're, that you've done something wrong, you know, in that case.
- [27:25]
B
So I know, I know we say this a lot.
- [27:27]
A
Yeah.
- [27:28]
B
But I really mean it here. Trump is panicking about this because this is truly like, and you can tell he's panicking by, by the things he's saying. He is, this is truly at the centerpiece of his entire plan. And I think he realizes that he's going to be slapped back by the Supreme Court, at least potentially.
- [27:47]
A
And if that were to happen, you know, listen, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. You know, he put all of his eggs in that basket. Domestically and foreign policy, economically, it's been rejected by the American people because it's making them suffer. And if it gets rejected now by the United States Supreme Court, his signature, his signature policy, and right before, let's say it comes out in May or June, you know, just a few months before the midterms. He's just, they're just a world of apocalyptic bad things that they're envisioning in the, in the White House. That's why they're leaning on it. Scott Besant, the Treasury secretary, was there doing interviews afterwards, you know, try to lobby, lobby, trying to work the refs, as we say in sport. And, and we'll see what happens. But when I do want to cover now we're post tariffs in the election day. We want to get to what happened in the James Comey hearing before the magistrate, Judge Fitzpatrick today, because it was really eye popping. Lindsey Halligan's on life support in terms of her, her title, her holding her job. A couple of judges are not happy with her and they're getting to the bottom of what happened in that grand jury. Judge McConnell and Judge Talwani issued orders about restarting payments to human beings that need to eat hunger. We're not talking about, oh, it's, you know, this will, this is an incidental. They need for. No, this is, this is people have already spent their snap payments to 42 million Americans last month. We're talking about replenishing it so they can go to a supermarket and buy food for their loved ones, themselves, their children, their babies, disabled at home, elderly veterans and the rest. And Donald Trump's still playing games. I think it's political suicide. I think yesterday demonstrates that it was. He was even trolling America on election Day about cutting off the food supply to Americans and he thinks this works. But we'll, we'll talk about what's happening there and then we'll end the show on the National Guard and a new ruling that came out in advance of a Friday ruling that we're expecting from Judge Immergut in Portland, which will then back up to the United States Supreme Court. Legal AF is five years in the making. Some of you are newer, new to our audience. Some of, some of you have been with us from the very, very beginning. And we're the number one law and politics podcast on YouTube. In weekly ratings, we're usually the top 20. And that's acid. A lot to do with our, mostly to do with our audience. We're doing our part here, but of course, we need, we need your commitment here on audio. Another way to support us. We could use a few more listens and likes and comments and reviews on Apple and on Spotify. And then we've got the ecosystem around Legal AF that keeps all the rest of our contributors and other podcasts that you enjoy, like unprecedented about the United States Supreme Court. The way to vote for that. We're talking about voting come over to Legalif, the YouTube channel. We're at 910,000 subscribers. We're going to hit that million if it kills us, kills me before hopefully before Thanksgiving, by Thanksgiving. And we've had our best two weeks. We've had our best three days in the history of the channel in terms of viewership into the 4 and 5 million range. And that's all because of you. It's free. There's no paywall, we have no corporate parent or investor and this is the way the show stays on the air. Then slide over to Legal Layoff substack where we put together 10 or 12 posts a day, including the actual legal documents out of courtrooms and courthouses that we post under Filings af. We also have videos and commercial free versions of things and other commentary and lives live streaming on the Legal AF substack. And then we got this I was just talking to Jordy today about these amazing group of sponsors who know what we're about, who know what our audience about and wants to be here keeping us on the air protecting our first Amendment right and those of our audience. Some of them have been with us from the very beginning and some of them are new as well. And we're going to take a break now so you can hear from our sponsors.
- [32:07]
B
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- [35:44]
A
Welcome back and thank you to our sponsors. We now we need them now more than ever along with our audience to support us as the First Amendment continues to be under attack by this administration. We got a courtroom today. This is a bad day for Donald Trump. That's why I'm so giddy. Bad day. Electoral ly yesterday. No, you can't make lemonade out of those lemons that were dealt to Donald Trump in any way, shape or form. And then he's got a couple of major court hearings. He's had a bad week Already you've got temporary restraining orders issued by Judge McConnell related to the SNAP payments, $42 million, $42 billion, sorry, 42 million people, $8 billion of food stamp payments. You got Judge McConnell, same guy, Rhode island, issuing, issuing a permanent injunction about the Transportation Department trying to deny cities and states money for infrastructure like, you know, bridges and tunnels and roads, things that you can die at a high speed if they're not repaired in order to try to get blue cities and blue states to give up their sanctuary status and help help chase down human beings for immigration policy. And Judge McConnell, same judge in Rhode island, said, no, you're not doing that either. Permanent injunction. That was all within the last 24 hours. Got Judge Immergut, who issues her a preliminary injunction, soon to be a permanent injunction, about the use of the National Guard. Loss, loss, loss. And then you show up at the United States Supreme Court and, and things do not go according to plan for Donald Trump at the United States Supreme Court, even among the justices that he chose. And then you move to Lindsey Halligan and her crack team of prosecutors, wherever she can find them, to go into the Eastern District of Virginia and appear before Judge Fitzpatrick, who used to be a prosecutor in her own office, about all things related to Brady material, which is the documents and information the government has to provide to the defense in order for them to put on a defense. And this trial, just to remind everybody of James Comey, the former FBI director, is two months from today. And they should already have all these documents. And so we have, we have the, the Article 3 judge who sits over the whole case, then delegates to the magistrate judge. And the magistrate judges and criminal and federal court have a lot of power. They're the ones that are handling the day to day arraignments and bond hearings and bail hearings and subpoenas and search warrants. And a lot of motions that are referred by the judge go down and issues about documents end up with the magistrate judge. And they have a lot of power, even though they're not Article 3 lifetime appointed judges. And this judge was not happy even though they were there on a Trump motion, a DOJ motion about setting up a filter protocol for documents, and had a great line today. I don't know if you caught it, Karen. He turned to the prosecutors and he said this indict first and investigate second doesn't work for me. So the fact that you don't have your documents ready to turn over and you've been withholding them ends today. And then talked about the grand jury materials that he wants turned over as well. Big win for James Comey and for justice. You've been a prosecutor. Talk about that kind of hearing and how you read Judge Fitzpatrick.
- [39:17]
B
Yeah, it's so confusing because you've got Pat Fitzgerald, Patrick Fitzgerald is representing Jim Comey in front of William Fitzpatrick. So. But yeah, William. Judge Fitzpatrick was not happy at all with the government at all. I mean, and it's just very clear, anytime you have a federal judge say something like that to the president. Prosecutor. Federal judges often speak colorfully, sharply to defense attorneys, partly because defense attorneys, look, you're trying to make arguments out of. Out of things that aren't always there. But as a prosecutor, you have to have all your ducks in a row. And the prosecutors are typically given what's called the presumption of regularity, which means you assume they're doing everything right and they're doing everything above board, and you give them the benefit of the doubt because the Department of Justice is honorable. You know, prosecutors, a lot of people think of prosecution and defense as adversaries, and they sort of are. But they. But prosecutors, it's not like a plaintiff and a defense attorney in a civil case where they're true adversaries. There's one side versus the other. Prosecutors are. Sit kind of on top because they have to do justice. They can't do things just as an adversary. Like, you can't. You can't just push a position. If you have evidence, for example, that helps the defense, you're obligated to turn that over. They have to know about that. And so prosecutors have this added duty of sort of doing the right thing and justice. And so when you see a federal magistrate like Judge Fitzpatrick really attacking the prosecution like they are in the Comey case, it is not looking good for the prosecution, which is a good thing because this is a sham prosecution. And essentially what he said was, look, I want to see these grand jury materials. I want to see the transcripts related to the indictment. I want to see everything, including the instruction. This is all highly unusual. Judges don't typically give that over or even look at that in detail like that. They also. He also ordered the prosecutors. And this is by tomorrow. Okay. This is a short, tight deadline because this trial is going in early January. Any evidence that was seized in prior investigations, material that Jim Comey claims, may include some attorney client privilege material, because Dan Richmond, who's the individual in the indictment, person number one, I think they called him, or person number three, I can't remember which one he was, that he is the individual in the indictment that supposedly they're alleging Comey lied about this, authorizing him to leak, or using him to leak. We don't really know exactly what the facts are because the indictment is so spare and so complicated. Like, it's just so confusing and it's not really clear what they're referring to. But if it's this Dan, it's Dan Richmond. We, they have clarified and we don't even know the time period that they're talking about. We don't even know which statement they're talking about exactly. You can sort of glean it and guess. But he basically, at a certain point, Dan Richmond was actually Comey's attorney. And so during a particular time in question. And so any communications between them would be privileged. And so the way that normally works is prosecutors have to, when you get material that might be privileged, you have to set up a taint team because. And so it's like a separate team, a filter team that comes in and looks at the materials and filters out all the privileged stuff because the prosecution team, they're not allowed to see privileged material. So this judge was basically like, not my problem. As you said, indict first, investigate later. Not my problem that you haven't done all this filtering and done all this. If you've looked at attorney client privilege material and used that for your prosecution, that's at your own peril. That could actually imperil the entire prosecution. There's so many reasons why this prosecution is flawed. This is just one more reason that might be built on attorney client privilege material which prosecution cannot use unless there's certain exceptions. But they can't just use it willy nilly like it seems like they did here. In addition to the vindictive and selective prosecution, in addition to the fact that Lindsey Halligan, we're going to talk about, I know, is invalidly appointed as the United States Attorney. There's so many reasons why this, why this indictment is flawed and this prosecution is flawed. So this is just yet one more reason the judge is looking at to try and to try to glean from this mess, because it's a complete message. What exactly do we have here? And so the evidence today, or the hearing today focused on the legitimacy of the evidence collection and the prosecutorial process. And it's about these materials that were seized under a separate FBI investigation called Arctic Haze, and that was a leak probe, et cetera, and to see about what was used in this, in this indictment. So it's at their own path, at their own peril. That they use this material. But the judge is looking at scrutinizing this indictment very, very closely. And I don't think it looks very good for the prosecution.
- [44:27]
A
Then you have Judge Curry in South Carolina who's presiding over one discrete issue. But it's a major issue in Letitia James and James Comey's prosecution, which is whether Lindsey Halligan was illegally appointed or not. And that got referred to her by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Because if Comey and Letitia James are right and Lindsey Halligan was improperly appointed, then the next pick to replace her comes from the judges of the Eastern District of Virginia. So they took that conflict away, sent it off to Judge Curry, a senior status Judge Clinton appointee in South Carolina. And she's getting to the bottom of what happened in the grand jury, even though that doesn't necessarily go to her analysis as to whether the statute has been violated. You don't need to know what, what she did in the room, but it certainly would go to remedy because the more crazy, crappy things that Lindsay Halligan did within that grand jury, like what did she say to the grand jury, what, what cardinal rules that she breach, what attorney client privilege of either of them with material in her hands that she breach, you know, did she use all the right magic words that she hold the, the, the grand jury hostage? Did she violate rules, you know, and nobody would know until they looked at the transcript. So today on our, on our recording, on our live, was the day for Halligan to fix a mess because the judge ordered that on Monday all of the grant and she met all of the grand jury material, information and documents in and around the grand jury process be delivered to her with a red ribbon for, for a review in chamber and it didn't happen. The Trump administration tried to spoon feed her trying to hide documents again. They love hiding documents. And they sent her like half the transcript. She's like, no, I want, here's okay, we try it again. All documents about the grand jury process, including the transcripts, including any audio recording of it. I'll give you one more shot. Wednesday, 5pm Now, I haven't checked the docket, but let's, but we won't probably know until tomorrow morning, but that's not good. So now you've got, Comeyside's got the grand jury transcripts for their purposes because they've already said we need them because if there were, if there was infirmities and violations of constitutional law or otherwise and rights in the grand jury process, we want to Make a motion about it, but we need the docs in order to do that. On the other hand, Judge Kerry's like, yeah, I want to take a look, too, what was said in that grand jury by the incompetent or the novice prosecutor. And I just find it. I find it very rewarding that no judge will refer to Lindsey halligan as a U.S. attorney. She signs her name to all the papers that are filed. But Judge Walker, for Letitia James, calls her government counsel. Judge Curry, on the motion to disqualify, calls her the indictment signer. The indictment signer. They will not call her by her name. And even when Walker said, I'm just letting you know because of this issue about your position, I'm just going to call you the government counsel. So they've already knocked her down a peg.
- [47:53]
B
I think it's clear they're going to. She's not. I mean, because they've already ruled in different jurisdictions, it's clear she's not going to be validly appointed. The more interesting question is what will happen to the indictments? Because in the other jurisdictions, they did not dismiss the indictments. And I think it's because they were actually indicted by validly appointed assistant United States attorneys and people who knew what they were doing, etc. This is a tricky one, because she herself went in the grand jury. She was the assistant United States attorney, if you will, who went into the grand jury, and There was no U.S. attorney. I. I don't know. I can't. I can't think of any other reason why the judge wants to see the grand jury minutes.
- [48:33]
A
Remedy. I think it's remedy and abuse. And maybe she'll make a referral about something she saw that was bad. And then, you know, you've got Pam Bondi who knows that her. That she's in deep crap with this judge and tried to file a backdated document retroactively ratifying everything that Lindsey Halligan has done since she's been in the office with this order and filed it, just like that was their final argument. Well, even if you find. And even if you find, and even if you find, don't get rid of the indictment, I adopt it. Well, that's not how that works. And I. We're gonna have to see, as you said, what the remedy is going to be related to that. Let's move to judge. Let's move to Rhode island and to Massachusetts. So shutdown is now entered. Day. What are we up to, Day Thousand. What are we. What are we up to? He's torn down the White House. He's torn down the government. He's put the government out of business, you know, controlling all three branches of government.
- [49:33]
B
While Congress is basically on vacation. The House is on vacation. He won't even call them into session. I mean, it's just atrocious to me that they won't even come to the table and negotiate and try to compromise or have a conversation. They are on vacation.
- [49:51]
A
And two months of Donald Trump trying to blame the Democrats has backfired. That's why now he's switching gears and trying to blame everybody but himself.
- [49:59]
B
He's trying to blame Congress, but Congress is doing this for him.
- [50:01]
A
Well, exactly.
- [50:02]
B
Controls them.
- [50:03]
A
I interviewed Representative Grahava the other day, and she's just waiting to get sworn in so she can sign the discharge petition to get the Epstein files and to represent her district of 800,000 people and Mexican Americans and Latina women around the country. She can't even get that done, you know, because they are willing to keep the government shut in order to satisfy Donald Trump. If he said reopen the government, MAGA Mike would say, how high? I mean, he does whatever Trump tells him to do. True.
- [50:33]
B
So we didn't have us file a lawsuit, though.
- [50:36]
A
Yeah. And still waiting. Still waiting. She. She hasn't been sworn in, and she's getting, you know, she's getting upset, and I don't blame her. Although she said there is one silver lining is that she's gotten more publicity and people rallying around her than she ever would have, even though she followed in her father's footsteps as a, as a junior congressperson, you know, from the seventh District in Arizona. She's great, by the way. Talk about fresh leadership. You haven't heard the last of Adelina Grahalva. And that's where Mikey, Cheryl and Amy Spamberger came out of. They came out of the House. They were jokingly referred to as the Mod Squad, in contrast to AOC and Talib and, and the rest. But these are our future leaders. They're in their 30s and 40s, and they are going to lead us to the promised land, hopefully of, of a, a return to the White House and a return to normalcy. And, and as you said, you know, the, you, the, the, the, the assumption of regularity. I like to return that to government, but, but, but that's not happening. Let's talk about McConnell and SNAP and, and Talwani. So two judges, two different group, in order to make sure that 42 million Americans, 20 million households have a, have a way to eat during the shutdown, just like it's happened in every shutdown. Because until Donald Trump, they'd never been made. Other Americans, who are the most fragile group, underprivileged group below the poverty line, elderly, disabled, babies, children and the rest never been made political pawns to make cheap political points and make them suffer. But Donald Trump's entire ethos seems to be to make him Americans suffer. I guess that doesn't fit on a red hat. Make America suffer again. I mean, that's where we are right now. And so two different groups, one led by Democracy Forward, Sky Perryman. She's going to be on with me tomorrow for an interview leading about 10 different organizations, including church groups, who filed in Rhode island with Judge McConnell. The Chief Judge and 23 attorneys general, led by Rob Bonta and the Massachusetts attorney general ran into court in Massachusetts and got Judge Talwani. And within hours of each other, they issued, I would say, competing orders, but different orders. Judge Talwani and the and the attorneys general, what they got was not an order compelling the payment by this week, she issued an order that they, with her guidance, issue agency action in order to do the funding. It was sort of like. But she held the tro in abeyance on ice, not Judge McConnell. Judge McConnell said, you are ordered, and here's your written order that you've asked for on Halloween on the 1st of November, you are ordered by Monday, no later than Wednesday, to start making payments. So Monday they were supposed to make full payment. Wednesday they were supposed to make partial payment. If they weren't going to make full payment until the court and the public, why they weren't making full payment, but payments had to be made by no later than Wednesday. Well, that's not what they filed. They filed on Monday, this past Monday, a piece of paper from a guy who's under secretary of something within the U.S. department of Agriculture, which is the regulatory agency in which they said, well, we're going to do partial payments. Here's why it's only going to be 4.65 billion out of 8 billion. And it's not going to be Wednesday. It could be weeks or months. We don't know the states. We'll give them a table. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't work. And Democracy Forward was like, are you effing kidding me? And they immediately filed another emergency motion. And Judge McConnell has scheduled tomorrow, I think at 12 o' clock or 11 o', clock, another emergency hearing as to why they're not, why they're violating his Order and what they should do and what we should do about it. In the meantime, on Election Day, I don't know if you caught this, Karen. Donald Trump trolls the poor and says, we don't care. I don't care what a federal judge says. Until the, the radical left reopens the government, we're not making the payments. What do you make about all this and what do you think is going to happen tomorrow at the hearing?
- [54:58]
B
I mean, it's atrocious, right? It's abs. For all the reasons you said. It's absolutely atrocious that he's withholding this money from the poorest people in this country. Meanwhile, he is suing the Department of Justice for $230 million. Of course, the Department of Justice is going to settle with him because he controls them, because those are his legal fees that he wants to pay his lawyers back. And let's think about. I know I'm totally changing subject, but this is what appalls me when I think about how he's taking money out of the mouths of the people who. Food out of the mouths of the people who need it the most. Okay, who were his lawyers that. Because what he's saying is, I paid $230 million in legal fees. I want to be paid back for those cases. Who were his lawyers? His lawyers were familiar names. Todd Blanche, who's currently the number two at the Department of Justice. Emile Beauvais, who he appointed to the appellate to the federal appeals court. Lindsey Halligan was one of his lawyers. I mean, that's, I'm a, I'm a criminal defense attorney. $230 million. That's a shit ton of money. Okay? That is a lot of money, and that is taxpayer money that he is going to take from the Department of Justice and line his pockets with that. Apparently, he already paid his very now wealthy attorneys that he's now appointing to all these government jobs. That is money that should be spent on things like the SNAP program. And it is just atrocious how much money he is just grifting off our tax dollars and not giving it to who need it the most. So, look, the reason he has to pay this money is because he, although he can. It's because there's, there is some money in reserve, but it's not enough. I think it's, I think they need 8 billion and there's 5 billion. So it'll get at least 5 billion to people who need it in the month of November. Let's see what happens in December. But this is, this is one of the most more appalling things he's done. And I think he has to be called out for it, especially when you see what else he's doing with money, like, like renovating his room at the White House. I mean, it's just while he's flying around and people are, you know, you've got cash Patel using a private jet to go see his girlfriend. Right, the country music singer. And, you know, those are all tax dollars. Every time Donald Trump plays golf, you know, and his Secret Service detail, I mean, every time they're all running around doing things, it's all taxpayer dollars. While, while they're living the life and the poorest Americans are not eating. It's just appalling and atrocious.
- [57:34]
A
What I think Donald Trump has missed is that there's been a turn in the American sentiment and what was once sort of Trump being Trump. And boy, that's funny. And I like golden, golden showers. I like golden faucets and toilet seats like the next person. And isn't he great to watch? There's been a turn in America because of his. His policies have caused such great suffering and such great introspection about who we are as Americans. And he's still playing from the 2024 playbook of what got him elected. And, you know, the, the more outrageous he was and, and the more bullets that flew towards him and, and all that, the more he thought the American people rallied around him. And that was the message he took out of the election. Things have changed. Just as Joe Biden was once on top of his game when he was saving American economy after Covid, after having inherited Donald Trump's failures, he soon found that that didn't last. And as he moved into year two and year three and as American suffering increased, no amount of saying, hey, look at the numbers. You guys are doing great, was going to work when people didn't feel that way around a kitchen table, Donald Trump has missed the fact that America has moved on from all of his braggadocia and grifting. And isn't it funny that he's making billions and billions of dollars for his family? They're beyond that now. You know, that may have been good enough for him to avoid being, being jailed and to get elected and beat a relatively weak candidate at a weak moment in time for the Democrats. But that's not what's happening now. It always is about people's dignity. It's about their ability to pay for basic necessities. It's their ability to sleep at night knowing that they wake up in the morning and they can look their loved ones in the eye and say that they can pay for medicine and healthcare and school supplies and food and all of that. And they look at a president who seems callously indifferent to all of it. And so when we come back from our ad break, we'll do the National Guard and wrap this up. But thanks for being here. There's so many ways to support what we do on legal af.1 is the audio and, and video versions of it keep us in the top of the ranks of the YouTube weekly charts where we've been both because of this show and hot takes and things that I do around Legal af. That's very much appreciated. Come over to the audio versions which are up on the Spotify and Apple platforms and go back and forth between the two and send these off and help continue to grow our audience. And then we've got Legal AF substack. People are like, how can we help keep you guys on the air? Substack? Definitely a way to do that. It helps, it just, it just, it just puts the ecosystem in the right place. 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I've been taking fatty 15 for a few months now and I really started noticing deeper sleep and more energy throughout the day. I wasn't expecting much at first, but I've actually seen a difference and that's saying a lot when most supplements don't deliver and it comes in a beautiful reusable jar with easy refills sent right to your door. Fatty 15 is on a mission to optimize your C15 levels to help support your long term health and wellness, especially as you age. You can get an additional 15% off their 90 day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com legalaf and using code legalaf at checkout as we head toward the end of the year, things get crazy. Between prepping for the holidays, year end podcasting deadlines, and even thinking ahead to tax season, it feels like every week has a new to do list. And let's be honest, those big important life tasks, they're usually the ones we put off. But juggling a million plans shouldn't mean your future doesn't make your to do list. 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Carol, why don't you pick up with what's going on with the National Guard. We got Judge Immergot who issued an order, got another order From Judge Immerse, 7th Circuit Supreme Court. Why don't you see if you can stitch that together and I'll do some kibitzing along the way.
- [65:00]
B
So Judge Immerget issued a preliminary injunction in a case challenging the federal deployment of the National Guard in Oregon, in Portland in particular. And she issued this preliminary injunction blocking the federal government from deploying the national guards until November 7th. So two days away. So the order followed a three day trial. There was 100, almost 100 exhibits, many, many witnesses. And the court found that Oregon was likely to succeed on the merits of their claim and that the federalization and deployment violated Section 12, 406 and the 10th Amendment and specifically found that evidence showed that the protests outside of the ICE facility in Portland were generally uneventful. I thought that was a great, you know, a great quote and basically called them out and said, it's not a rebellion, it's not an insurrection, and it doesn't justify federalizing under 12406. So, you know, look, 12406 is a statute that basically says the president can federalize the National Guard when the president determines that the state has failed to comply with the obligations under the Constitution or laws of the US and the situation is a rebellion or insurrection. And basically the court said, look, there's no, not only do I drive to work every day and see that there's no rebellion or insurrection, but no evidence, despite the almost thousand exhibits that were presented in the many witnesses, it doesn't exist. And so the evidence doesn't support this. And states have, the 10th Amendment gives state sovereignty that basically federal governments can't do this. So I think it's clear that, you know, but you can't do this in Oregon. But, you know, meanwhile, well, go ahead, you stitch everything together and then I'll, I'll give some commentary.
- [66:49]
A
Meanwhile, I leaned in like, meanwhile, I.
- [66:51]
B
Know, because you're very good at that.
- [66:52]
A
So let's, you're very, you're very good at it too. So the 7th Circuit had issued an order grounding the troops, if you will, in Chicago that got appealed to the United States Supreme Court. We're all kind of bargaining in the shadow of the Supreme Court here, as we like to say. Supreme Court asked for additional briefing about one issue which I don't think bodes well for the Trump administration. That seems to be a theme tonight on Legal af. Things are not going well, for the Trump administration in courtrooms because their legal arguments are nonsense and their, their facts, their fact, fact assumptions, that's not the right word. Their, their factual record is a lie. And, and federal judges are onto them. And so the Supreme Court said, when you look at 12, 4, 06, there's a phrase about when a president can't execute laws using regular forces that also gives rise to bringing in the National Guard. What are regular forces? You and I talked about this last week. The historical precedent going back to like the militia act of 1795 is that regular forces are the regular armed forces. And it's, and it's the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, you know, the Space Force. And maybe you could add on their local law enforcement. And then only if that group and federal officers can't do the job, then you call for the backup of the National Guard. And if that's the case, then Donald Trump's got a problem because he didn't send in the troops. He federalized the national state militia. National Guard, which has a weird name, right? We hear National Guard, you think, oh, that's like the president commands that. No, this is the state militia, which is, which has dual commission. They're also federalized under certain limited circumstances. And so there's no, there's no doubt in the record that if that's a precondition in any of these places, he did not roll through with tanks in order to stop, you know, chicken suited protesters from stopping or slowing down some people getting processed at an ICE detention center. So he'd be screwed if that's the requirement. Now, of course, the flip side of that is he goes, oh, is that what you want? And he just rolls in the troops there. But listen, the record is sort of, of where it is. It's sort of a flat record at this point, a dry record. And I think he's going to lose at the United States Supreme Court after this last round of briefing. In the meantime, judges just to answer questions that often come up in the chat, until the Supreme Court makes a definitive ruling or blocks a certain order, federal judges at the lower level, whether appellate or district court, they just continue chopping wood and stacking it up. They just do their job. That's why Judge Immer got who, whose temporary restraining orders, or one of them at least, was initially blocked by a three judge panel at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That blocking got vacated by a vote of 29 judges at the 9th Circuit. They were like, yeah, we don't think that was decided Right. Against Immergut which said and said we're going to have our own briefing schedule, try this over again. In the meantime, you do you federal judge Immergot with your temporary restraining orders. She's already moved ahead. We're now as, as the Trump administration, as I thought they would has told the appellate court the appeal is moot because we move beyond temporary restraining order. This is why you don't bring an appeal on a temporary restraining order. Why judges don't like appellate judges don't like it. You wait until there's at least the preliminary injunction the next step up because they get replaced. So now there's a preliminary injunction which is in place only till Friday, only until this Friday when she's going to enter her permanent injunction. That's what they should be appealing from the permanent injunction and then that'll go back to the ninth Circuit maybe with a new three judge panel. See Trump does wants to dismiss the appeal because he figured out that the majority of the of the 29 are, are, are not on his side. So he wants to get restart. It's like you know, the kid that throws over the game board or like you know, turns off the video game because he doesn't like how it's going for him. Oh well, we'll just, we'll just it's moot. We'll wait for the new order and then we'll take an appeal and try to get a three judge panel. Again. One third of the ninth Circuit, which is hard to believe that sits in San Francisco is comprised of Trump appointees from the first term. So he could get another couple of. It only takes two Trump judges to side with him. We see it time and time again in various courts but that's what's happening there. Well I'll report on it on Legal AF YouTube and on Legal AF substack live. When Friday rolls around, so much looks not loose ends but just things that we need to follow off of today's show. We'll pick up some of it on Saturday with Ben Mysalas and me when we pick up with the Saturday edition to kind of go grab whatever hasn't been but there's so much going on. That's why we we are so dedicated to the YouTube channel and the ability in real time. We have 10 videos a day now up on the legal AF YouTube channel. The American Civil Liberties Union is about to join us as a regular playlist. We have Democracy Forward there as a regular playlist. Court of History which is Sydney Blumenthal and Sean William says a regular playlist. They do six or eight videos a week. Week. Adam Classfeld, All Rise News regular playlist the pragmatic optimists, which are Gen Z or Gen Alpha lawyers and elected officials. Tiara Mack is a state senator from Rhode Island. I think you'll find her fascinating on a regular playlist with Rachel Cohen and and then we've got for, for the things that happen in real time, in real life, we have the legal AF substack and the lives. I'm able to pull it together, you know, try to I try to do one a day just to catch the news that's out there because it's so important that people are educated and know what they're talking about when they're having these debates around their kitchen table. As we move forward now with a springboard trampoline from this election cycle to the special elections between now and the midterm which are all been running in favor of the Democrats and then the midterms, when we can send the definitive message loud and clear once and for all that we're going to run the bastards out on a rail and we're going to do it with the return of the House and the Senate to sane people, to adults named Democrats with Ds next to their name and those that will caucus with the Democrats and return checks and balance and co equal branches of government back to this nation and make Donald Trump the lamest of lame ducks. The the court system and the lawsuits are effective in getting billions of dollars of aid to people in America. 50 lawsuits by the attorneys general, they're winning at 90%. 100 lawsuits by democracy Forward and other groups and that's important to also slow down Donald Trump and tie him up in court as the clock continues to run. We're doing that as well. That's going well. The crowds in the street, amazing. 20, 30 million people total have hit the streets to protest the Trump administration. And more importantly, they're showing up as Karen, you said they're showing up in tremendously huge numbers that we haven't seen sometimes back to the 1960s in terms of turnout in an off presidential year. It just shows you the pent up demand to be heard by those that are not maga. The silent majority is silent no longer. Donald Trump has awakened a beast. Release the Kraken. Karen, you're in New York. There's a lot of jubilation all around. Why don't you, why don't you end this on a good note for us today?
- [74:52]
B
Well, can I end it On a, on a, this episode of Trump's Bizarro World. And then I'll end it on a good note. I just. This, I just have to, I have to talk about this because it's just. I can't believe it. So there is a trial going on in Washington, D.C. right now, being prosecuted by Trump's Justice Department in federal court. And it's the guy who threw a sandwich at an ICE agent. Okay? Literally, that's what he did. He threw a sandwich. The testimony and this is what our taxpayer dollars are going towards. Not, you know, of course, the insurrection of January 6th. People dying, people getting assaulted. No, that was okay. But a guy throws a sandwich at an agent and is being prosecuted. And the testimony was literally. I had mustard all over my uniform. Okay? That's what he says. He said it smelled of onions and mustard. This is, this is what he is spending our taxpayer dollars on. So I'll end on a high note that New York is absolutely jubilant right now and thrilled because we are sending a big message to Donald Trump and everyone like him. We don't want that. We don't want spending money on your priorities. We care about other things like affordability, homelessness and affordable housing, food, health care, all of those issues. So I just, I just. People need to know what is happening and what Trump is doing, because it's appalling to me that that case is being prosecuted. But he pardoned all the Jan.6 people.
- [76:27]
A
I think I got 4 different videos on legal AF YouTube about the sandwich guy. Everybody wanted to hit that one because.
- [76:33]
B
It, because it really. I mean, when I first saw that, I thought it was an article in the Onion, you know, or, or I couldn't believe that this was actually what. And again, as a former prosecutor, as you have scarce resources, a federal trial, you have 12 jurors, plus alternates who are taking time out of their day to sit there and listen to this case. You, you've got ICE agents who, instead of doing whatever they're doing, they're testifying. I mean, it is just, it's atrocious and appalling. A federal judge who's spending their time doing that. It's just. I can't believe that a guy who threw a sandwich is being prosecuted in federal court.
- [77:12]
A
Legal af. We will never throw a sandwich at you. Thank you for being here. The midweek edition. Karen Freeman, Agnifolo Michael Popak. Catch us on Saturday with Ben Mesalis and me. And if you're jonesing for more law and politics and nerding out where a TED Talk meets a law school class. Come over to Legal AF YouTube channel and register your vote and your support for First Amendment rights and hit the Free subscribe button there and come over to Legal AF substack and do the exact same thing. So until our next reporting, Karen Freeman McNiffalo and Michael Popo shout out to the legal afers and the Midas Mighty.