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- [00:01]
Michael Popach
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. It's tax season, and we're all a bit tired of numbers, but here's one you need to $16.5 billion. That's how much the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year. Now, here's a good number. 100 million. That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed. Save up to 40% your first year@lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Democracy is alive and kicking. The Democrats are alive and kicking. I'm not sure about the US Economy, but we'll talk about that as well. Cory Booker beat Strom Thurman. Remember Strom Thurmond? Strom Thurmond, senate record passing 25 hours. He was competing with BPAC Live last night, and I love the fact that it was Cory Booker taking on Alina Haba. We'll talk about that. But more importantly, the alive and kicking part. Wisconsin, the Badger State, figured out a way to beat Donald Trump and get another liberal Supreme Court justice elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is great for voting rights and women's rights and immigration rights at least through 2028. And that is make Elon Musk the bad guy. Got a lot of there. He's easy to make the bad guy. Look at that photo, cheesehead. And rather than attack Trump directly, go after Elon Musk, who spent $20 million in that race, including handing out a couple of million dollars worth of checks, buying votes again like he did in Pennsylvania, all for naught. And there's something to be learned for the Democrats as we try to get our hands back on the wheel of power. And even in Florida, there's a silver lining. Some people might be saying, popoc, what are you smoking? Or what are what edible are you taking? The winner in Wisconsin won by 10 points, but the two Florida people lost by 15 points apiece. How can that be a silver lining? Because Donald Trump won both districts by 30 points or more. And the fact that during a special election, the Democrats were able, through their messaging, to cut that in half, which is sort of similar to what happens at the midterms. Comparing apples to apples instead of middle midterm, you know, general election to special election. Special election is like a midterm. And that bodes well. We were never going to in the 1st and 6th district of Florida, put up a Democrat in there. But what it shows is what the messaging, the rebranding of the Democratic Party is hard at work, as is, of course, Cory Booker. And then we're going to turn on this midweek edition of Legal AF over to an update on the Alien Enemies Act. Final papers are in, pencils down. We're waiting on the United States Supreme Court to tell us what America we live in. Do we live in an America where we wake up in the morning and people around us have been kidnapped without due process, deported to a dank, dark killer jail in El Salvador and that's okay. A place so bad that when the Trump administration accidentally sent somebody there, you know, another one of those glitches, glitches that happens in the administration these days, they can't get him back. Sorry, I thought they were conducting foreign policy with all sorts of agreements being negotiated by Kristi Noman, Marco Rubio, why can't they pick up the phone and tell the president of El Salvador, Bukele to send the guy back? And if they can't, doesn't that reinforce the position at the United States Supreme Court that this has to be stopped? And we'll talk about what we think this week, likely next few days, the United States Supreme Court's going to rule. Are they going to affirm the rule of law, our due process and support Jeff Boasberg and the D.C. court of Appeals, or are they going to go in a different direction and tell us what United States we live in? And then I want to talk about with Dina Saeg Doll. Let's put Dana up on the screen for a minute so nobody's shocked. Dina sitting in for Karen Freeman. Nifla, who's on assignment is is here reporting from her home office studio. Thank you, Tina, love having you here. Always love our weekly show unprecedented about the Supreme Court only on the Legal AF YouTube channel. And Tina's here not just filling in, contributing mightily to this particular episode. We're going to talk about Judge Chan out your parts at least the state, the left coast San Francisco judge, senior federal judge there. And he's had his own new ruling about Venezuelans. And I'm not even talking about the undocumented. I'm talking about the documented. Their document says temporary protective status. Protective status. It's a program since the 1990s. There's 1.7 million people who are here under it. And I know and I live in a community of a proud Venezuelan community, hard working, tax paying, home owning. And they don't want their temporary protective status violated by Kristi Noem and sent back to a place that's so bad that our State Department says It's a level 4, do not travel to state and I. And again, we're going to talk a lot about the Trump administration talking out of both sides of their mouths. And I'm not just talking about Carolyn Levette's press conferences or, or social media statements. I'm talking about they say out loud when it suits them in their filings, Dina, they say Venezuela has been taken over. The whole government, the Maduro government has been taken over by narco terrorists, by the trend Aragua. Right. That's what they say. Except now they're saying everything's fine, we can send everybody back. They don't need to be here temporarily. It's all great. It's a Garden of Eden. Now get on the plane. Not so fast, says Judge Chen with a new national injunction. We'll talk about and what happens after that. And then right out of our normal playbook of talking about things at the United States Supreme Court every week when you and I get together as the anchors of unprecedented, we've got an oral argument just today about whether a South Carolina rule or law signed by then and still governor of the Palmetto State, South Carolina, Henry McMaster, who was in, apparently was at the Supreme Court today about whether South Carolina could defund Planned Parenthood and make them not able to participate in Medicare and Medicaid. Do they have that right? And is there a fundamental personal right of action that a person who got screwed because they got cut off from Planned Parenthood? And I'm not talking abortion, that's not all Planned Parenthood does. They test for diabetes. They do cancer screening. They do cholesterol screening. For some people, it's their it's their medical provider of choice, you know, and it's funded so it's lower, you know, lower cost kind of thing. And the question is, can somebody who got screwed by that law sue personally for it? Or has Congress had another thing in mind when they passed the Medicare and Medicaid Act? And, you know, listen, it was an oral argument, but you and I can sort of read the tea leaves about where that one particularly is going. All this and so much more on the midweek edition of Legal af. Hi, Dina.
- [07:23]
Dina Saeg Doll
Hello. Good to be here.
- [07:25]
Michael Popach
Thank you. So, so glad to have you. Why don't we get right into it? We came on the air right after Donald Trump's Liberation Day apparently is liberating America from its own economy.
- [07:39]
Dina Saeg Doll
Seriously.
- [07:40]
Michael Popach
And it's jobs and jobs, right, you want liberated from your wallet and your purse because it's one thing to sit around in some corporate retreat in a forest with other executives and do tabletop exercises about, hey, I wonder what it'd be like if I push this button and eliminate worldwide foreign policy investment through usaid at the same time that I cut off billions of dollars to the States, at the same time that I fire hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have paychecks at the same time that I raise car tariffs by 25% at the same time that I do a Canada, Mexico trade war, at the same time that I announce another 30, 40 reciprocal tariff war today. Why don't. I wonder what would happen, you know, what will happen? The end of our economy as we know it. So let me turn it over to you. Why do you think he's doing this? Somebody really believes this is going to work. The stock market does it. The American consumer doesn't. The manufacturing base does it. So who does?
- [08:50]
Dina Saeg Doll
This is an unserious person with an ego that's never been checked by anyone. That's who does it. Because, I mean, I thought the most telling kind of quote around his tariffs thing is when he threatened to impose a 200% tariff on Europe's alcohol imports. It was like somebody right out of those, you know, like a movie, right? Like that fake villain. He's like, I'll do 200% tariffs. But I think that's. That's who he is. Right. These 25% tariffs or 10% tariffs kind of come across as serious. But this is an unserious person. He does not care about the American people. He probably doesn't care that much about the market. He's in crypto for the mercy most part. He does not care. He doesn't like it if any country dares not kiss his ring, bend the knee, does what he wants to do. And he's using his tariffs because he's a bully and an unserious person. And unfortunately, it's like somebody gave him a toy. He sees this as a toy, and the rest of the American people are going to suffer as a result.
- [10:00]
Michael Popach
Yeah. And so he has this big. And apparently he thinks he's going to be using a lot of these media clips. They had more cameras at this event on the roof, on the, you know, you know, dozens and dozens of cameras or social media purposes. He thinks this is going to be his great, you know, this great fanfare. And it's just, you know, and then when it goes awry and it will quickly and we head into a recession, and he'll just say it was a glitch and Joe Biden made me do it and I had to do cleanup for Joe Biden. And you know, and again, even when he's announcing these things, he looks and might as well run a bunch of clips about this, I'm sure tonight, tomorrow. But he looks so gassed. And so he's always like this, he's got this new thing where he like leans on the podium sideways and you know, we have to everybody, where are those three labor union people we paid to be here? Can you cheer now? Okay. All right, everybody. I mean it looks like he's already like can't wait to hit the back nine at the golf course, you know, and leave for Thursday and another millions of dollar boondoggle to play golf. The good news is that that was not the big news story. It's sort of bookended. Right. We've got Saturday hands off mass mobilization movement and there's so many different ways for people to participate. We'll put it in the note today where you can click on for hands off. We support on Midas touch and Legal AF this hands off. If you come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel, you'll see in our shorts of all of our contributors have some version of telling you more about that. So you got that on Saturday and then you had last night's historic win and basically punching Elon Musk and Donald Trump in the nose in a state that Elon, that frankly, Donald Trump won one of the seven battlegrounds that Donald Trump, you know, ran the table, as they say. But when it came to their Supreme Court and their constitution, the Badger state said hands off. And they found a way to flip the script because they watched the, because it just makes everybody feel comfortable. Yes. In a lot of states the Supreme Court is an elected position. It's not just Wisconsin. Nevada does it that way. Sometimes it's appointed by the governor, sometimes it's elected. And here there was an election, there were two judges ran against each other. They were trial level judges. And the, the liberal, self professed liberal, she didn't run away from being a liberal, from being, you know, not even a moderate and replaced another liberal there. And, and, but the guy on the other side, he, you know, he dressed up like Donald Trump at Halloween. He wore a MAGA hat. He, he kept playing over and over again on a loop Donald Trump's endorsement of him. He clinged and gripped Donald Trump so tight, I'm surprised he didn't suffocate him. And the Democrats in Wisconsin and the national Democrats made him pay for it. And the way they did it was the big bad wolf of Elon Musk, and he spent $20 million of his own money, and that turned everybody off to try to steal that seat. Why? Because they want. They wanted. They didn't want a liberal majority because they want to take away women's rights, voter rights, and immigration rights in Wisconsin. There's no other way to put it. So what did you make of the anti Musk vote and how that can be used nationally by Democrats? And then why don't you also touch on this new reporting? That must be true, because Carolyn Levette, this press secretary, is denying it, which is that Elon Musk is being shown the door exit stage left, because he's politically and from a political capital standpoint, he's doing terribly for the Trump administration. Why don't you tie all that together?
- [13:55]
Dina Saeg Doll
I mean, it was so satisfying because Musk put it all in. He put his money in. He did interviews talking about how they need to have that court because the redistricting, you know, they can get. Get even more Republican seats in order to have Trump's agenda. And the voters came out to say no and to save not only the state of Wisconsin, but the House. Right. Because if they had been able to add more Republican seats, it would have been even harder to ever stop them. And I think this is a really good lesson. Like, it can feel demoralizing, like, how do we stop the richest man in the world? But at the end of the day, I mean, first of all, we have to get money out of politics. We have to figure out a way to overturn Citizens United. Maine actually passed something in November, ending Citizens United and their state. And that's kind of being tied up in the courts. We'll see what happened. But while we are trying to get money out of politics, this is a really good example that what money does is it buys ads, it buys people to knock on doors, you know, but at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is your vote, and you can get out that vote without money. You can get out that vote because as a candidate, you're good at giving the message and people understand what you want to do. Once you're in office, you can volunteer to help give out the vote. And so hopefully, this also inspires Democrats. Don't wait until the midterm, you know, start talking to people now, signing up for Democratic clubs in your area. Money doesn't always win. It makes it easier to win an election, but nothing is the same as voting. And so it was incredibly satisfying to see Elon Musk with all that money was not enough to buy the Wisconsin election. And it means there is power, there is still power, even when you're up against something as powerful as the richest man in the world. And let's take this, let's take this as Democrats and do it in each election, especially in the midterms. That is going to come faster than we think.
- [16:00]
Michael Popach
Oh yeah, we're here already. And I think the Florida results are also very, very, very encouraging. These are the deepest of red states. It would be like cutting the lead in half from against Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Upper North, I think it's the upper north region of Georgia. We weren't going to win the Mike Waltz seat. We weren't going to win the Gates seat.
- [16:21]
Dina Saeg Doll
Right.
- [16:21]
Michael Popach
But, but the fact that they lost by only 15 and that people were like only 15, that's. Yes. Because it was 30 plus with Trump and. Yeah. And that, that bodes well for turnout. I mean, look, Florida, unfortunately, I mean, I was here in Florida originally, years ago when it went Obama twice and that was the last time we'll see in a long time. Florida being a blue state and it's no longer purple, it's just red. It's no longer a battleground state, it's just completely converted within 10 years. I'm not, I'm not throwing in the towel and say all hope is lost and every vote, every district matters. And there's still very, there's still some competitive districts within, within Florida at the congressional level. And all of the House is up in less than two years now. All. And we need the House and we need the Senate and we need to regain power.
- [17:14]
Dina Saeg Doll
Absolutely.
- [17:14]
Michael Popach
In order to counterbalance and out of control president who, who is, who lurches from one constitutional crisis and one abuse of power on a 48 hour news cycle, you know, every 48 hours. And so the fact that we were able to mobilize enough Florida Democrats and independents and dissatisfied and disaffected Republicans to have it not be a complete and total wipeout, you know, bodes well for the midterms. You know, look, Saturday is important. Any kind of national day of mobilization, I'm in for it. Whether you do phone banking or emailing or writing or knocking on doors or marching in the streets or whatever, it's going to be okay. Join us on the Saturday edition of Legal af, whatever it is, that, that where you're engaged, that, that is very, very important. But registering to vote and registering people to vote and not leaving it to the last minute and making sure that you're able to Navigate all of the new barriers to voting that have been put in your. In your way, and the hurdles that have been put in your way over the last four years, over the last two years by Republican legislatures is important. Start it now. You know, when they say, oh, do you have the, do you have the wet signature on your birth certificate? Oh, yes, I happen. Yes, I do. Do you, you know, it's like when you go to DMV and you got to clear an old speeding ticket. I've been there. You know, like, you know, do you have that D6 form? Oh, you know, and you come back a week later, so you got time, but get it done now. And there's, and there's voting between now and then. That is important as a practice run, as a test run. Speaking of a practice, practice test run, how much of Cory Booker's filibuster, ish thing did you watch?
- [19:09]
Dina Saeg Doll
I mean, I got a chance to tune into some of that was amazing. His energy level, first of all, how he could be that energetic for so long was amazing. And, you know, gosh, he had so many inspirational messages and in there about how what he felt like he was doing was inadequate and how we all felt, though, that what he was doing meant so much. And in particular, his really call for, he was doing this to protect people's healthcare, you know, from slashing Medicaid. That is the moral, ethical, right thing to do, is stand up for people who are going through health struggles, right? They're needing their heart surgeries, they're needing their cancer treatments, and they're scared that, you know, Project 2025, their goal is to slash Medicaid. They've already eliminated Department of Education, which was their goal. Medicaid is next. So good for Senator Cory Booker. He got so much attention for that. And that is what Democrats need to do, is get attention, because pretty much anything Trump says get attention because he's so outlandish. Like you said, constitutional. It's a constitutional cris. It's hard to break through the noise. Democrats are on the right side of history, but if nobody hears us, it doesn't matter. So Senator Cory Booker broke through the noise, and I hope he's just the first of many to do that. It was fantastic. I love watching it.
- [20:40]
Michael Popach
And Cory's the right person, right, Senator? For the moment. I mean, he got called out last week by Alina Harper during that press conference in the Rose Garden or wherever it was, where she. She gets up there. It's as if she just realized that the role of a Prosecutor is to go after criminals like, okay, well, welcome to planet Earth, Elena. She gets up there and as the U.S. attorney, acting interim for, for New Jersey, I'm going to be fighting crime and prosecuting criminals. You know, that is. That is your job description. And in the backyard of Cory Booker. Here goes the political hack part. You know, I mean, what is Cory Booker have to do with the murder rate, which is lower, by the way, in Newark or Hoboken? I mean, what does Cory Booker have to do with, you know, the rise or fall of violent crime in New Jersey? I'll tell you what hasn't happened in New Jersey. School shooting. Okay? A bunch of other bad things haven't happened. Terrorism in New Jersey hasn't happened at the airports, at the ports, at the things that matter to our nation's economy and to our psyche. That hasn't happened. Those are things you can hold the senator responsible for, you know, in terms of the deliberate, the more deliberative body. But, like, he's not fixing. I mean, I know Al D'Amato, the old senator of New York, used to think he was in charge of fixing potholes on the Long Island Expressway. Like, Senator Pothole here. Like, that's not what a senator does. That's what your congressperson does. You got a problem with a garbage truck that. That idles its engine at 3 o'clock in the morning, your baby can't sleep. You don't call Senator Cory Booker's office. You call your local congressperson or state representative. I mean, this whole Cory Booker thing. And he was like, great, Cory, what am I doing on the schedule? What am I doing on April Fool's Day? Am I doing anything? Can you clear out 25 hours for me on my schedule? Because I'm going to put on a fancy, a very sniffy, spiffy black suit, blue suit, and I'm going to get up there. The best moment is when. Is when, you know, what's his name? You see? Already. Already I'm calling him. What's his name. Our. Thank you. Schumer. When Schumer, who's, you know, taking a lot of understandable incoming lately. You know, he. He tried to interject under Robert's Rules with a point of order, and he's. I'm not taking any questions right now. I'm sorry. I'm just here to tell you it's a statement. You just passed the record for the longest speech in Senate history, going back to Thurman, and I'm sure Strom Thurmond was. I haven't looked it up, but I'm sure it had to do something with keeping black and white people separate.
- [23:19]
Dina Saeg Doll
Yeah, I was against Civil Rights Act.
- [23:21]
Michael Popach
Evidently, I didn't even have to look that up. Thurman and a 24 hour speech. I'm thinking this isn't going to come out well for black and brown people. And so to have Cory Booker beat Strom Thurmond, that is a whole nother amazing level of deliciousness and against so.
- [23:42]
Dina Saeg Doll
Much of the racism that Trump is. Right?
- [23:46]
Michael Popach
Yeah, Yeah.
- [23:46]
Dina Saeg Doll
I mean, so, yeah, definitely.
- [23:49]
Michael Popach
It's also a tryout. I mean, we have debates internally about who should be the leading Democratic candidate. Cory Booker is going to want to run now. He's just got to get out of the primaries and do well. But this is part of his tryouts about being a leader for the Democratic Party and for the nation. So we're going to talk about other leaders, including those in federal courts, like Jeb Boasberg, whose decision to block the phony use of war powers by President Trump to kidnap, deport and send to El Salvador never to be seen or heard from again without due process, people was affirmed by a court of appeals. But now it's up at the Supreme Court. They've got all the pieces of paper they've asked for. And now we're just waiting on the ruling. We'll break that down. Another profile, encourage Judge Chen is heard from from San Francisco Federal Court. So many of the cases and the injunctions are coming out of that one courthouse in San Francisco. From the beginning, the first temporary restraining order. See if I don't want to play stump stump dinner.
- [25:00]
Dina Saeg Doll
The birthright citizenship with Judge Coffador.
- [25:04]
Michael Popach
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Out of San Francisco, Johnny Salty. What do we have for her? We have the legal layout home game. So Judge Kofnor, five days into the administration. Boom. Birthright citizenship, San Francisco. Judge Alsa rehire those probationary employees, San Francisco. Now we got Judge Chen. We're going to talk about Judge Chen and his protection of those that need protection, those under temporary protective service status, including Venezuelans and people from Haiti. And then we're going to dive back into the United States Supreme Court with a very important issue about whether Planned Parenthood is going to live or die. I mean, at least in terms of public and federal funding. But we've got that moment that I know everybody's so excited about. I am. I always am. It's, it's that moment in time where we get to congratulate the fact that we have sponsors because let's be frank, a lot of podcasts don't. But the ones that survive and the ones that thrive and the ones that remain independent are the ones that need sponsors. And the good part about the sponsors is I want to make this clear to everybody. The sponsors don't tell us what to say. If a sponsor told us what to say, and if there was a version in a smoke filled room, like a bunch of sponsors wearing suits and smoking big fat cigars and they're like, hey, you like your podcast, but you got to cut down on the law and politics part or the law part. Don't go after Trump so much. We'd be like, I picture this as a zoom call. Like, click, like. And we had fired clients, fired sponsors. It's well known. Go on Midas up stack, you'll learn all about it. But the ones that are here, they know who we are, what we are. They know 4 years of legal AF if they didn't know, they just go to our library in our playlist. And yet they want to be here. They encourage us, we encourage them. So if you have disposable income, these are products that we've all tested out and we like and we enjoy. And Jordy, one of the brothers, puts it all together for us and we do thumbs up and thumbs down, like, I don't want to do that, I don't like that product. But these are the ones that survived and it helps us survive. So let's take, let's take a brief time out and, and hit our sponsors. We gave Lily our border collie lap mix her forever home after she was rescued from the floods of Tennessee. And ever since, we've been looking for the right brand of dog food that would manage her weight, extend her life, ensure that it's healthy, but make it easy for us to prepare. We tried it all. Make it yourself, mix it yourself, lug 50 pounds of freezer bags around yourself, you name it, we tried it. And then we found sundaes which gives us healthy food for Lily and easy to store and serve for us. Sundaes is fresh dog food made from a short list of human grade ingredients. Sundays was co founded by Dr. Tori Waxman, a practicing veterinarian who tests and formulates every version of each recipe. Sundaes contains 90% meat, 10% superfoods and 0% synthetic nutrients or artificial ingredients. For our Lily, that translates into a healthy appetite, great looking coat and teeth and eyes, and energetic approach to life. Unlike other fresh dog food, sundaes does not require refrigeration or preparation because of their air drying process. Just pour and serve. When you start a Sunday subscription, you'll automatically get 20% off and free shipping on every reorder. Cancel or pause your subscription anytime with their 100% satisfaction guarantee. And it's so easy to store in convenient bags that are just about odorless that we can keep right in our pantry. And Lily's reaction to her mealtime brings a big toothy grin to her face and ours. Get 40% off your first order of sundaes. Go to Sundays for dogs.com legalif or use code legalif at checkout.
- [28:49]
Karen Friedman Ignipolo
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- [30:26]
Michael Popach
Welcome back. Thank you to our Pro Democracy sponsors. They help things run here. Let's keep the lights on at the Midas Touch Network and on Legal af. Another way to support us is if you. Have you heard the news? We have a new YouTube channel. It's not that new anymore, Dina, you've been there from the very, very beginning. But it's, it's six months plus. It's called Legal afmtn. We wear that badge proudly. That's Legal af, Midas Touch Network. I curate it in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network. Come over there now. You can find the link for it down below. We're up to eight, I think it's eight now, eight videos a day at the intersection of law and politics. It should be your go to place to learn what's happening at that burning, that burning intersection because of Donald Trump. And we have some amazing contributors. And you got Adina Saeg Doll here, regular legal contributor on Midas Dutch, but does some amazing work that you can only find exclusively on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. And she and I also do a show once a week called Unprecedented at the Intersection of Law and Politics and the Supreme Court. And that's a weekly show. You can catch us over there in a playlist over there. And then we've got Court Accountability Action. Wow. Lisa Graves served different branches of government, including in the Department of Justice. She runs True North Research and she works hand in glove with Court Accountability Action, which, which focuses from the minute they get up in the morning till they go to bed at night, focuses on corruption and money corrupting our federal court system up to the United States Supreme Court led by Alex Aronson. We got Mike Sachs over there as well. They bring on some amazing interviewees. They just had Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
- [32:07]
Dina Saeg Doll
Oh yeah, I saw that.
- [32:08]
Michael Popach
Oh yeah, we got another one. I don't even want to, I don't even want to steal the thunder yet. There's another amazing one coming up tomorrow that Alex just put up on our channel, in our little chat channel, which I can't wait for. And they're great for bringing on these amazing guests. And, and some of those guests turn into contributors. I mean, eventually turn into contributors. And then we got Shan Wu, used to be at one point in his life, back in the day, he was the attorney. He was the general counsel for the attorney general, the Clinton administration. White collar criminal defense lawyer in his own right. Has a brand that we call under color. He does. We basically has a nightly video with us. Dean is there, I'm there. And then we just brought on from various other Midas platforms, we brought on Dave Aronberg, Ding, ding. Florida lawman and former state attorney for Palm beach county and Melba Pearson, who used to work for the ACLU at a very high level position and been a lawyer there. And now they're doing daily videos for us as well with those unique points of view. And don't be fooled by Florida Lawman. He talks about a lot of things at the intersection of law and politics with his background and his experience. So that's Legal af. Let's get back to the Legal AF podcast. So why don't you kick it off, Dina, and I'll, I'll follow your lead about the ACLU's filing at the Supreme Court. Roberts, do you make anything of the fact that he didn't enter an administrative state when it first came in? And what do you think, what do you think is going to happen with the, this court about whether the war power is going to be ripped away from Donald Trump to stop these illegal deportations?
- [33:45]
Dina Saeg Doll
Yeah. So this has to do with the Aliens Enemies act that barely was used before Trump decides it's a great idea, brushes it off, deports people, as we know, including, you know, fathers with zero connections to gangs. Right. That they accidentally deported and aren't bringing back. So this is going in front of the Supreme Court because the circuit court cited saying basically that they could not, that Trump could not use this, this act, this War Powers act to deport. And so Trump is asking the Supreme Court to intervene, the ACLU filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court citing that, you know, basically asking the Supreme Court to not allow Trump to use this act to deport people. I mean, we saw in real time and the fact that they are accidentally deporting people, as you said, I think in the top of the show is really good evidence for why this should not be used. And I don't see too much into the fact that Chief Justice Roberts didn't do an administrative say. I think that it is, you know, that is a different question than maybe when they fully look at it a little bit more, whether or not they're going to be able to side with Trump or not on this. And we know that Trump is asking for this to be heard on an emergency basis, which doesn't so that doesn't mean that's going to be like a fully fleshed out trial going to the Supreme Court, as you would see other things. But we talk about the Supreme Court a lot. And so it's sometimes hard for me to say what I'm hoping the Supreme Court would do versus what they will actually do. But the more that Trump is disrespectful to our laws, the more that he is reckless with our laws. I think it will allow Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in particular to side with the liberals and kind of reign Trump. And I'm certainly hoping that's going to be the case here. The fact that the circuit Court is felt the same way, I think shows evidence. It would typically show evidence that the Supreme Court will see it the same way the circuit courts are supposed to see the law in a correct way, if that makes sense. Not that often that a Supreme Court should overturn a circuit decision. So I think certainly in this case, Trump seems to be overstepping his legal parameters. For sure.
- [36:16]
Michael Popach
I agree with you. I think they're going to ultimately side with Jeb Boberg, who, you know, let's just frame this for a second.
- [36:24]
Dina Saeg Doll
Okay.
- [36:25]
Michael Popach
We're not talking about, I mean, for our audience. Yeah. We're, we're not talking about a permanent block of the use of the Alien Enemies act by Donald Trump. That is for the trial judge to ultimately determine in a preliminary injunction setting, a summary judgment setting, and a, and a final injunction setting. That has not happened. I know this case seems like it's been around for a long time. I was joking with the, with our producer, Salty. He's like, oh, alien Enemies act again. Yes, yes, it's that important. It's that. Oh, the Civil War again, right. Yes, it's that important. But, but my, my point is this is all about the trial judge developing the proper record and making a decision. We're stolen in the temporary injunction mode. And the temporary injunctions are not usually reviewable at a appellate court level because they're too early in the process. Only generally when it gets up to a preliminary injunction, which is a couple of weeks away, he's holding a hearing. Apparently, the judge here sold a hearing on 8 April, and then he'll issue an order thereafter. This is only about whether from now until the 10th or 12th of April, this decision is going to be blocked or not. Now they want to get an early preview to see if the Supreme Court will bail him out. Here on the Trump administration side, they want the Supreme Court to declare that when a president declares or proclaims a war and that he's using war powers and foreign policy, that that's not reviewable by a federal court. And that is a scary world for us to all to live in. If that were true, according to most judges, at least three judges, of the three that heard the matter at the D.C. circuit Court of Appeals don't believe that's true. I mean, the Trumper, the Trump lawyer, Judge Walker, ruled in favor of Trump on some other issues, but he thought it was reviewable, that you can look at the exercise of war power, like for Donald Trump. It's my core constitutional power and it can't be reviewed. Every war power, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's war powers were reviewed. Truman's war powers were reviewed. Everybody's. Everybody during a real war, especially now. And the words in the statute about whether this is an enemy incursion, a predatory incursion, whether this is a war or this is just a migration, which is what Judge Henderson called it, are all up for grabs. So the only issue right now is if for like another week, the easiest out is that the Supreme Court says this is too early, it's too early. This is not reviewable at this moment. Finish up down there and then when you're done, go back up through the Court of Appeals and then we'll see in a month or two. But the fact that they took it and wanted briefing doesn't necessarily mean it's not going to end up the exact way I just said it could be. And we've seen this happen in the last few months. They asked for one more brief. They did. ACLU filed the brief and laid out all the reasons why you don't want to send people to the deepest, darkest prisons of El Salvador without any due process, because even the Trump administration admits they can't get him back. Now, they say that's a good thing. Trump says that's a good thing. Can't get it back. It's outside the jurisdiction of the court. See, no, that means that you've sent people out of due process by your own hand, in your own creation, and that's a bad thing, and that's what the court's gonna decide. My gut is this week we're going to get a one liner that says the application is denied. And that's all they have to say.
- [40:06]
Dina Saeg Doll
Yeah.
- [40:07]
Michael Popach
And that's it. No, now maybe somebody like Alito or Thomas, you know, spill some ink and do a dissent. I think that's how it's going to come out. Because I don't think Amy, Coney, Barrett and Roberts, I think it's going to be 6 to 3, certainly 5 to 4 in favor of not blocking the injunction. What do you think?
- [40:25]
Dina Saeg Doll
Yes. No, I agree with that too, for sure. I mean, first of all, we don't even have a declaration of war against Venezuela. You know, the idea that somehow this is on solid legal ground is such a stretch. And so like you said at this point. Right. The Trump administration could still kind of legally prove their point through trial or before trial and all of our evidentiary hearings and motions. But at this point, it's such a stretch to say that Trump can deport people without due process, you know, to a country regarding a country that we have not even declared war from. If this were true, you know, then this really is not a democracy anymore. So I do, I do not see them, the Supreme Court stepping in and saving him here at this point.
- [41:10]
Michael Popach
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think we're going to know more in the next few days. But in the meantime, and you and I'll catch up on it on unprecedented when we come back from our next break, talk about Judge Chen and other Venezuelans, these documented ones who are fighting to stay in this country and try to pursue the American dream. They own homes, they raise families, they pay billions of dollars in taxes and Social Security. They are more educated and less likely to commit crime than the average American. And yet Donald Trump sees them because he conflates them with Trende Aragua. We must send them all. They're scum. These are words that showed up in the actual order of Judge Chen using Christine Noem's and Donald Trump's own words against them in issuing the nationwide injunction. We're going to talk about that and then you and I'll return back to the United States Supreme Court about this new case coming out of South Carolina about Planned Parenthood being cut off from funding from Medicare and Medicaid, which could impact 72 million people in America who depend on that. And we'll cover all that. But first, another word from our sponsors. I'm always on the lookout for ways to strengthen immunity and gut health, improve my fitness and metabolism and enhance my skin and hair radiance. Well, I recently discovered armor colostrum. Armor colostrum can help optimize your whole body microbiome and strengthen your immune barriers along the mouth, sinuses, lungs, gut, urinary and reproductive tract to guard against unwelcome particles for your strongest immune health. Arm recolostrum can also help combat bloating and help you feel lighter. Probiotics are touted as a gut health solution, but they only address one part of the four part gut wall. 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Besides subscribing to the Midas Touch network and helping them for their drive for 5 for 5 million can help us for our drive for 1 million over on the Legal AF YouTube channel, which is at legal a f m tn. 8 videos a day guaranteed every day at the intersection of law and politics, including those with Dina Saeg Doll. No, your eyes are not deceiving you. That's Dina Saig Dahl sitting in for Karen Friedman, Ignipolo and a regular contributor on all things Legal, on Everything Midas and of course on Legal af. So, Dina, why don't you take the lead about Judge Chen and the temporary protective status that is given? It has been given to 1.7 million people, including those from Venezuela and Haiti going back to the 1990s. And right before they left Mayorkas, the Homeland Security director, secretary for Biden, extended the status. But then it was attempted to be revoked by Kristi Noem four days into her tenure and now these people were facing deportation. Why don't you talk about who these people are, what the judge find in that case and what the national injunction is.
- [48:00]
Dina Saeg Doll
There are so many disturbing Trump orders and actions and this is certainly one of them. So Judge Chen, a 9th Circuit or 9th District judge, as we know, the judges in the 9th Circuit kind of the western, western region kind of save us many times they tend to be liberal. And here this judge kind of saving hundreds of thousands, more than a million, as you say, people who have temporary protective status. This particular order had to do with 350,000 Venezuelans. This is how many people legally were able to stay here. And Department of Homeland Security, as you said, Kristi Noem was trying to revoke it and he found that the revocation was arbitrary, capricious, unlawful, the same terminology we have seen in the judge's orders about basically all of the Trump actions with Doge. They're firing, not following the Law just basically deciding that they want to do what they want to do, and they don't care what the law says. And it's one thing when you're doing it to grants, how awful that is, of course, because a lot of people depend on the grants. But this is basically separating families, deporting, you know, father, sons, daughters, grandmothers. I mean, children. It's like the most depraved thing possible. And this judge stepping in and stopping it. And. And we are not just talking about the 350,000. As you said, there's 1.2 million, there's 500,000 Haitian immigrants that are under this protective status that they're going after next. So, you know, when Trump talks about, like, the Venezuelan gangs and the criminals, I mean, you know, there were people out there who believed it for some reason, but we, I think the rest of us understood that he is going after, after brown people. And the easiest brown people to kick out of this country are the ones who are on, let's say, the most flimsy legal. Have received legal status most recently. Right. Or in this temporary status. Right. It's much harder to kick out a citizen. But he might go there at some point. But he's starting out kicking out people who are legally here but don't look like he wants them to look. Right. So I think we cannot ignore that fact that he's going after, you know, there's people with temporary protective status that aren't coming from countries where they end up with brown skin, but this is clearly the countries he's going after. And just kind of as a side note, you know, we've been talking a lot about the big firm attack. When I was at one of the big firm I was at. I'm not even going to say their name because I don't even want to put it out there. Trump hasn't gone after them yet. One of the pro bono things we did, one of the pro bono things I did, was help people get asylum protection. And the amount of legal process somebody has to go through to get asylum is, you know, you don't just land here and then say a story and are given asylum. And this is not exactly the same situation because it's a different status, but I just want people to realize it's very difficult to be granted things like tps to be granted things like asylum. Somebody has to show up. They have to have a lawyer. In this case, I was a pro on a lawyer, you know, but they had to show up. They have a lawyer, they have hearings, they have to submit documentations. They have to testify. The other side can argue, you know, why they shouldn't stay. There's a whole process here. And so these people, these hundreds of thousands of people have shown up, have gone through that due process, have proved to a court and a judge why they should be allowed to stay, have been granted that legal status. And then Kristi Noem was just like a signing a statement, thinks she can take that all away. And that's why Judge Chen said no, because in this country, it's not that easy to take away people's rights.
- [52:02]
Michael Popach
Absolutely. And Judge Chen also questions whether she has the ability under the statute and the inherent authority to revoke her predecessor's order. He doesn't think that she does. He also thinks that she is violated, as with the Trump administration, equal protection under the law. Because when they make statements like these are scum from shithole countries that we need to get off the streets, that are all gang members, members and murderers and released from prisons and mental hospitals, courts do a funny little thing called strict scrutiny to make sure that this is not racially or discriminatorily motivated. And they're not going to pass that test either. So thank you for standing up for those. I know people who are in the temporary protective status. I live here in Florida. I know many people in the proud Venezuelan community. Donald Trump should know many people in the proud Venezuelan community because his golf course, Doral, is jokingly referred to by people living there as Doral Suela. It is a heavy amount of Venezuelans. There was another town here in Florida when I first got here 20 years ago that was, it's known as Weston, it was known as Westin Suela. It's a hard working group. And the judge also quoted stats that he said were unrefuted by the Trump administration, unrefutable as they can, that the people in the temporary protective status, especially from Venezuela, are harder working, generate more taxpayer dollars, are more likely to be college graduates and commit less crimes than the average American. That's not the kind of person you send back to the Garden of Eden. That is the Maduro, Venezuela, where 7 million people have left that country since 2013 because it is so terribly economically, emotionally and otherwise for people. And I find it the height of hypocrisy. And it's going to get caught at the Ninth Circuit. It finally goes to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the Trump administration to tell one court that Venezuela has been taken over by a criminal narco terrorist gang. So that the declaration proclamation of War is appropriate because Maduro is basically, you know, is, is being manipulated by the trend Aragua group. And then at the same time say it's safe for everybody to go home. No more need for the temporary protective status because your home country is great. Does anybody think Haiti is a great place to return to right now? People that are from Port au Prince and other places, and there's a huge proud Haitian community here in Miami as well. So this is just the checklist, like you said before, like the Project 2025 list. You know, this just, this is and the human toll and the human dimension does not matter. I think it gets affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals 3, 0. I think we're, then we're going to have to see what the United States Supreme Court does. And I think it kind of folds into this entirety of if they rule against Trump on the, on the Alien Enemies act, they're going to rule against them and rule for Judge Chen on this particular case. But we'll have to have to follow that as well. Why don't we switch gears now? And you wanted to take the lead on the United States Supreme Court about Medicare and Medicaid being cut off since 2018 in, in South Carolina and what happened at the oral argument today.
- [55:17]
Dina Saeg Doll
So the interesting thing is this is not about abortion per se. Right. I mean, Medicaid money cannot be used by Planned Parenthood to give women abortion. That's already kind of off the table. We are talking about using Medicaid money, giving it to Planned Parenthood to provide just regular health care to women. Right. They say that four out of 10 women who go to Planned Caring Hood, that is their most recent health care appointment. You know, a lot of people go there, as you said on the top of the show, for cancer screening, for, you know, family planning, certainly, but for regular checkups. This is who they go to. This is their point of contact. This is their health care. And so what happened was South Carolina decided that they wanted to not give the Medicare funding to Planned Parenthood. And the lawsuit said, you are taking away the doctor that I want to see. Right. I have a doctor of Planned Parenthood that I've been seeing, and I can no longer see that doctor. Because you are. Because I'm under Medicaid. And now you can no longer see this doctor under Medicaid. And so they were suing. And the question really at the Supreme Court was, I don't want to say an archaic question, but the question was really more of a legal question, which was, does that patient have a legal right to sue for their choice of doctor or not. Is this obligation, Medicare has an obligation to allow patients to choose their doctor a right. And that was what the question was. And there was a little bit of discussion around it with the justices or the South Carolina tried to argue that they don't have a right to sue, patients don't have a right to sue. They can just, you could, they can just file an administrative complaint. Right. You know, the reason why there's lawyers pop, as you know, is because we get things done. Right. I mean, the idea that cities and states and corporations just do the right thing without a lawsuit, I mean, that basically never happens. That's why there are so many lawyers out there, is because nothing quite makes a change than a lawsuit. But basically that was South Carolina's argument, was can't you just go through the administrative system and request this choice of doctor? The problem, of course, even Justice Gorsuch pointing out at the oral argument is the governor is in charge of the administration around this. And so you're back to square zero. So you had a little bit of attention because the Republicans never like to give citizens another opportunity to sue the government. They don't want more lawsuits against the government. But you had Justice Amy Coney Barrett, even Chief Justice Robert and Gorsuch kind of all agreeing a little bit with the liberal justices that aren't you taking away somebody's right to see a doctor of their choice and not liking that? So we might, I say might because just because we can glean a lot from oral arguments, but that doesn't mean the decision. But it did seem like there was a majority who did want patients to be able to choose a doctor of their choice. And if that's the case, it's a glimmer of hope there for Planned Parenthood.
- [58:53]
Michael Popach
Yeah, it was so hard to sort out that oral argument that went on for about an hour and a half or so about where everybody's going to kind of land on this. I think it does turn once again, as we've said, not a broken record on, on, on Amy Coney Barrett. You know, I think Roberts is probably there about whether there's a private right of action related to this. And if, and I think if he slides over, that's only four votes. We need one more. I just don't see Gorsuch finding it based on some commentary that he made. Kavanaugh usually goes for sure. No. So we're left to Amy Coney Barrett, Samy County Barrick Court once again, and it matters you know, I'm not saying the Planned Parenthood is going to go out of business if they lose this kind of funding, but it will just embolden other states to do the exact same thing. You know, 23, 24 other states will follow, follow the lead here of South Carolina. And I know one place you can go to to keep track of it all. Unprecedented on Legal AF, the YouTube channel with Dina Sayagdal and me. We've reached the end of a another fascinating episode, I hope of Legal AF here at the midweek. You can also come over to our there it is, our YouTube channel. And you can catch Dina Sayagdal. We got a new one going up tomorrow for her new hot take that she just did with us. And of course with that show and catch the other, oh God, we had almost 10 contributors now that I'm curating the content for over on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, we have all these great sponsors. We've got, we've got Midas touch and the YouTube channel and there's, and their sub stack. I got a sub stack. You got a sub stack, Dina?
- [60:29]
Dina Saeg Doll
I need to start a sub stack.
- [60:30]
Michael Popach
I need, I got a substack. Yeah, it's Michael Popox. It's the Michael Popox upstack. And that's great, great stuff going on there as well. But thank you for always filling in. Sounds so lukewarm. You don't fill in. You just are the contributor today that we, that we love and we love having you on here. So until our next I got one with Saturday with Ben. I got another legal layoff on Saturday and of course the hot takes on Midas touch on legal layup. But thank you for being here. We're humbled by our success. It's all tied to you. Midas is top, I think number one in the world in podcast And a little known fact is we're in the top 12. Sometimes we hit, we even hit top 10. I think we hit the top eight, hit top eight a few weeks ago. So we're right, we're right there with them, tracking with our big brothers. So until our next report, I'm Michael Popach with Dina Psych Dal sitting in for Karen Freeman, Nick Nifolo, shout out to the Midas mighty and the Legal A.