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- [00:01]
Michael Popak
Fellas, you know Degree Cool Rush deodorant, right? Well, last year they changed the formula and guys were mad about it. One dude even started a petition. So guess what? Degree heard us, admitted they messed up and brought the original Cool Rush scent back exactly how it was. And it's in Walmart, Target and other stores now for under $4. So grab some and remember why its cool, crisp and fresh scent made it the number one men's antiperspirant for the last decade. Degree Cool Rush is back and it smells like victory for all of us. This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five seconds in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply.
- [01:01]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
Ten years from today, Lisa Schneider will.
- [01:03]
Michael Popak
Trade in her office job to become.
- [01:05]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
The leader of a pack of dogs as the owner of her own dog rescue. That is a second act made possible by the reskilling courses Lisa's taking now with AARP to help make sure her.
- [01:16]
Michael Popak
Income lives as long as she does.
- [01:17]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
And she can finally run with the big dogs and the small dogs who just think they're big dogs. That's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP. Learn more at aarp.org skills.
- [01:32]
Michael Popak
It'S all the rage to talk about the first hundred days. Democrats want to do it because we're watching before our very eyes the most failed modern president in history. Every way you can measure it, from polls to economics to domestic policy to the dollar drop, to the amount of executive orders being issued and the amount of executive orders being rejected by courts. By every measure without a silver lining, an unmitigated disaster is the Trump administration. It's all the rage. Talk about the first hundred days. So the Democrats want to do that. We did it here on the Midas Touch Network. I don't know if you saw the Hollywood Squares. Of all the governors running to be president one day, there it is with my buddy Ben Visalas in the middle. Governor Hochul, J.B. pritzker. You've got, you got, of course, the guy that was going to be vice president Tim Walls and who else is there? And Governor Headley. Right. Got all of them. They're all going to be. They all want to run one day for 2028 take on Gavin Newsom. So all the rage. Talk about the first hundred days Donald. They finally woke up Rip Van Trump and told him he better get out of Bedminster. He better get out of playing golf in the sand trap at Mar a Lago. He better go meet some real people, start giving some real interviews and print and TV interviews and start reconnecting with the American people and change the narrative. Well, how's that going for him? Not well. Once they sent Donald Trump out on the road, pushed out there obviously by Stephen Miller and his other handlers, they said, all right, here we go. You're going to go give a series of interviews. We'll start with Time magazine, we'll end with the Atlantic and, and then we'll put you on ABC News. How's that sound? He's oh, it sounds great. Let's do it. How's that going? Not great. Every sound bite out of the interview shows a totally disconnected, unhinged and gassed, out of gas Donald Trump. And when he doesn't like what's being asked, he either doesn't answer it or he attacks. The reporter claims that he's in charge of the entire world, says that the lawyers are leading him down the primrose path of destruction with the United States Supreme Court, that he would have asked for the return of Abrego Garcia, who's, who's been kidnapped and is a gulag in El Salvador. But never, nobody ever thought to ask him that except you, Mr. Reporter. And when they asked him during the interview with the, with the Time magazine, last time we Talked to you, Mr. President, you said that you would abide by the rulings of the, of the Supreme Court about the Constitution. I said, what, what was that? The thing you were sworn to uphold and defend. It's all the rage to talk about the hundred days. I've got new contributors on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, Sean Wilentz, historian Sidney Blumenthal, and we're coming out with a new video about the first hundred days, Hitler versus Trump. You ever think about that comment? In fact, they were even using that, those, those words in the same sentence, right? It's all the rage to talk about the first hundred days, right? We got, we've got legal scholars and legal commentators getting together. Katie Fang is new now on the New with us on the Midas Touch Network. Old friend of mine going to all sorts of conferences and reporting about it. And, well, one thing we've learned on Legal AF on the Midas Touch Network. There's talk then there's action, there's talk and then there's action. And I want to talk about on legal. I have things that we can do together in this fellowship, right? Not just to critique and commentate and navigate about the 100 days, but to do something about it. The numbers are in, right? They are in cement pulling numbers, cat so catastrophic that it even rocked this hermetically sealed administration. I mean, you can't discount 39 to 42% as your highest level of approval. Not just the New York Times, not just in the Washington Post, but in Fox News. Okay? The major indicator for success during the midterms is right direction, wrong direction for the country. And overwhelmingly the country believes, including Republicans and independents who have shed the Trump administration, 70% of independents have head for the exit for Trump. They overwhelmingly believe we're heading in the wrong, pardon me, direction. All the rage to talk about the first hundred days because there is, it is a track record that indicates how the rest of the administration is going to go have a president. I'm sure you're going to ask me this. Have the president ever turned around and done better and substantially better in the polls and with the American public after such a disastrous first hundred days? Well, it's hard to answer that question because there's been no modern day president who's ever had a worse 100 days. Let me put it in perspective for a minute. Joe Biden at the same point in time, 52% Barack Obama, 62% G.W. bush, higher than that. And this guy's at 39 to 42%. Think about that. That means he's lost a considerable amount of Republicans in MAGA because of his abuse of the rule of law, because of his economic policies and disaster, because of their impact on the American voter and their kitchen table, wallet and purse issues. It's the economy, stupid. Not chasing immigrants through courthouses and churches and picking them up at funerals. It's not that. It's not unleashing law enforcement. A new proclamation just comes out the other day. Donald Trump, he's heard the voices. I've heard you. And I'm going to, I'm going to make a change. That's why I can't answer the question. Has anybody ever turned it around? Because nobody's ever been this bad. Donald Trump's talking points from his analysis of his own hundred days is we need unleashed law enforcement, right, to be more aggressive on the American people. While I'm at it, let me consider martial law and unleashing the military on the American people. To enforce my policies. What does that sound like? That sounds like suspension of the Constitution. That sounds like martial law. That sounds like fascism burst out into the open. That's what these executive orders lined up one behind the other. So it's all the rage to talk about the 100 days. And it's very, very interesting from my perspective as sort of amateur historian and constitutional scholar, but what does it really mean? It means a complete and wholesale rejection of what Donald Trump is selling. And has any president ever come out of a deeper hole? I mean, I mean, not to, not to give him any ideas, but not without a war, not without a major war against America where he has to be the commander in chief, not a made up war where, you know, we're at war. We're at war with Venezuela, we're at war with Amazon and Bezos. No, no, no. I mean a real war. Something really devastating happens. Not wishing it on us. That's really the only way he gets out of this in time for the midterms. But he almost acts like a person who doesn't care. He acts like a riverboat gambler with nothing to lose because he's already accomplished what he wanted to accomplish in running for office. There used to be an old we don't do it anymore. We used to ask presidential candidates, why do you want to be the president? And sometimes people lost the candidacy or the presidency because they couldn't answer the question. It was as if they had never thought about it, like, what is the driving force why you want to be president? What you don't want to hear is naked ambition, naked grab for power. If no, you don't want to hear that, nobody ever asked Donald Trump that, that question, that single question that was asked of every presidential candidate until Donald Trump as a kid, growing up and otherwise. Why tell the American people why you want to be president? Because we know the answer. The answer was to avoid criminal convictions, to avoid jail time, because it scared the crap out of him that he was going to be prosecuted and convicted, multiply having already been impeached, multiply having been indicted, multiply having been convicted already. That and his financial fortunes to improve his financial fortunes having lost so much money in the terms of judgments and other things. You see in that answer, there's no mention of the American people. There's no mention of making our, our lives better. Because that's not, that was not the reason he ran. He, he ran in order to avoid a jail cell. And that's why we're seeing the warped policies that are also disconnected from the American people because he didn't run to help the American people. And now he's just. And what we're watching unfortunately is Donald Trump paying off his debts. The debt to the Heritage foundation and the, the debt to the Project 2025 group, the debt to Big Oil, the debt to, you know, all of the right wing, crazy right wing people that supported him. A debt to the oligarchs, to the tech bros. That's what we're watching. And all of the policies are easily explained once you take Donald Trump not helping the American people out of the equation. And so that is the rage about the first hundred days that we should be focused on. And then as we transition here on Legal af, as we all, as we have to, to where that brings us to the intersection of law and politics. And we've got a number of stories, of course. I hope to be joined by my co anchor today. We'll see sometimes the lawyers here on Legal AF actually practice law. And so we've got that going on. So look, let, let's, let's. I think we've done enough on the 100 days issue. Terrible rallies. We're showing them on the Midas Touch network. You know, it's funny, I saw, I saw a headline in an Australian newspaper, massive crowd show up in Michigan for a rally. I was like, if you just pull the camera back, you'll see it was barely 3,000 people in a stadium that holds four times that and half the audience left halfway through. Donald Trump's 90 minute attack on left wing communist judges. If he had just put all the left wing communist judges in the room, he would have done a lot better with a crowd. There was a fist fight that broke out among maga in the parking lot lining up for this event. And this is the best they got. On the way into Michigan, he had to sign an executive order on Air Force One, right? Just how rude is that? On Air Force One he signs an executive order to pander to the auto workers in the crowd by letting certain aspects of the auto industry out of his tariffs on my time at $100,000aminute or whatever it costs to run Air Force One. He's signing proclamations for political gain when he walks into a room so that people holding handmade signs by the by Stephen Miller in the White House.
- [13:26]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
Woo.
- [13:27]
Michael Popak
Can all, can all shake a tambourine while the rest of America burns. Donald Trump runs to a golf course every time something goes terribly wrong, Right? And like the economy crashing, he's always at Mar a Lago or he's at Minster for his three day weekends on the taxpayer dime. I mean he's the least hardest working president I've ever seen, especially with the chaos that he's created. So let's bring in for our first law and politics segment, my illustrious co anchor, Karen Freeman. Nicknifflo Karen, how you doing?
- [14:04]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
I'm great, how are you? Popa?
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Michael Popak
I'm doing great. I was hoping you'd make it. Yeah, I said earlier sometimes the lawyers on Legal af, you know, practice law.
- [14:13]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
And when you have a big legal filing due, sometimes you gotta get out the door, so.
- [14:19]
Michael Popak
Absolutely, and I'm glad you did. So I thought now's a good time. We actually live streamed it on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Take a moment, hit the subscribe subscribe button. We just crossed 600,000 subscribers today and we're continuing to build that channel. But we did a live stream. We had about five or six thousand people watching A8, a unique eight person Deus or bench on the United States Supreme Court because Amy Coney Barrett was missing on purpose, recused herself from a case involving whether religious organizations like the Catholic Church can run charter schools with public money or does that violate the First Amendment, the Establishment clause and the free exercise clause. I mean, are, I mean we're generally okay, okay with people practicing their own religion. But I'm old school and I like the separation of church and state and I don't want the, the federal government or the state paying for it. Now, very uniquely, then I'll turn it over to Karen. Very uniquely. This case came up from an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision where even Oklahoma thought, the Supreme Court there thought that taxpayer dollars being used for people to, to go to a Catholic charter school seemed to be a violation of the Constitution, the First Amendment and the Establishment clause. Now it got appealed to the United States Supreme Court. So we jump from state court to federal court and ends up at the United States Supreme Court. Today, Amy Coney Barrett recused herself. Why? Because one of her best friends, who's the God, the godmother of one of her kids, is a, is a, also a University of Notre Dame law professor. University of Notre Dame's Religious Liberty center represented this school out of Oklahoma for a period and as a consultant. And Amy Coney Barrett, unlike some of her brethren, I'm looking at you, Alito. And Thomas said, you know what? It's a bad look for me while my buddy's there arguing in this case, I'm stepping out. Which means at best, at worst it could be well, no, not at best or worst, but there's only eight of them. So a 4, 4 tie. We'll talk about what a 4, 4 tie would do. But did you, I don't know if you had a chance to take a look at what happened at the oral argument today, Karen.
- [16:45]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
So thanks to you, Popak, and your live streaming, I actually got to listen to it, which was amazing. I joined the late and did it on double speed because there was quite long and. And I had other things I had to do, but I had it on in the background and that was great. So I love that what you're doing with the Legal AF YouTube channel and that that's a place that people can go, including me, to listen to that oral argument. And what I really love about it Too, your whole YouTube channel, is that you're really making what used to be this thing for only lawyers, that is the law, making it really accessible to other people. So it's just a great thing to kind of really make people understand what the law is and have access to it, because it's not some great mystery. It's not so hard. And I think the more people are informed and know what's going on and what their rights are, et cetera, and what rights are being trampled upon, I think it's. It's a great thing. So I just want to publicly thank you for this incredible service you're providing with this YouTube channel that I think is just really, really invaluable. This is one stop shop to go. But back to this, this question of the oral argument, sort of interesting because I think there was at least three people who were arguing for the side of, no, we should get the money, right, and we should be funded as this charter school who argued that. And then there was one person on the other side saying, no, you shouldn't. And I just thought that was sort of interesting that there were so many, so many people who are arguing the same position, including the Solicitor General. And really what this comes down to, what this essentially boils down to, is can public money be used to pay for and fund a school, a religious school, without violating the separation of church and state? State. And there was a lot of parsing of words is what really is a charter school? Is a charter school private or is it public? Right, it's not run by the government. And so what does it mean here? And there was a lot of discussions about that. And why is it that this should be the case that they should be excluded from the program that gives money to encourage the development of charter schools. So really what I thought was great about this argument is they sort of talked about the landscape of public school on one end, private school on the other, and charter schools in the middle, which are a little bit of a hybrid. Right? And at least in this particular case in Oklahoma, the charter school program was created to try to incentivize more schools to be opened that would provide good education. So people had more choice, this program. And really what the crux of the argument was like, look, you don't have to apply for this money. No one says you can't create your Catholic school and do what you want and run it how you want and teach what you want. But if you want to apply for this one particular program, this program has certain parameters, right? What we're looking for is a school that's in this area that serves as many kids, that teaches them reading and writing and math, and that, you know, it has, like, lots of different criteria. And one of the criteria for this particular taxpayer money is that it be secular and. And that it's said it's not religious. And that's it. And that's what this program is. And that's what the argument was by what. What the. What the liberal justices were. Were saying and essentially saying, look it. Why is it. Why is it that Oklahoma can't pass a law that decides what type of charter school they want? And. And so they started giving these examples, and one example that was given, I think it was by Elena Kagan, had to do with what if, like, in. In New York, they wanted to. Someone wanted to create a yeshiva. And in the yeshiva where they teach Jewish education, they were gonna teach it in Yiddish or Aramaic or some other language, not English. And they were going to teach the teachings of the Talmud and not things and very little about history and math, et cetera. And they wanted to do that. Would that be okay? Do the taxpayers have to pay for that? Is that something that you would be okay with? Or what if you wanted to. What if the state legislature says, you know what, I want someone to paint a mural on the side of the building, and I'm going to put out a request for proposals, and I want the. The mural to be of a landscape. And an artist comes forward and their landscape has crosses in it, and they say, oh, sorry, we wanted something that didn't have religion in it.
- [21:37]
Michael Popak
Can I ask you a question right there? And I'm going to bring it from a comment that was made in the chat today on that, and thank you for the kind Words about the channel. It's certainly what our goal is. And I'm glad, at least with my colleague and partner, it. It we're hitting the goal. There are a lot of. There are a lot of. Hey there. Thank you, friend. I have one. It was in my other room. It said, boss.
- [22:00]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
I got one. I got one yesterday, just by a coincidence, that said Sophia with an F in the middle.
- [22:07]
Michael Popak
Get out of here.
- [22:08]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
And that's how my daughter spells her name. So I was like, oh, my God. Anyway.
- [22:13]
Michael Popak
Yeah, so anyway, the question that came up that you just reminded me of a lot of the people that were listening to it. They didn't understand why Sotomayor and then Katanji Brown Jackson were using the mural as their way to get to the nub and the heart of it. A couple people wrote, enough with the mural. But why don't you explain from a lawyer advocate standpoint and from a judge standpoint why they were using something not related to charter schools in terms of a mural to kind of get to the essence of the argument.
- [22:45]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
I think part of it is, look, these issues are confusing. And I understand the separation of church and state, and I understand the establishment of religion clause. These are different clauses in the Constitution that they were arguing back and forth about. And I still found it hard to follow. Right. These arguments are hard to follow. The people who are arguing these cases are so entrenched and steeped in the facts and in the legal arguments. And in cases, they throw case names around. Well, are you using this test or that test? And it's like, if you don't know that case and you don't know the test established from that case, you might not be able to follow it so quickly. And so what they typically do, and I think it's really a smart thing to do, is you really just bring it down to a really basic kind of example so that it really emphasizes the point and shows how whatever you're proposing, how that will be applied in a practical, real world as opposed to this, you know, is this a strict scrutiny or is this heightened scrutiny and, you know, all these, like, legal tests and things that come up during these things. Sometimes when you apply that, yeah, it sounds great when you're having this discussion, but when you apply it to real world facts, it really. I think it does a great job at explaining why either this makes no sense or this is a great idea or is confusing or whatever it is. And I think that's what the mural example. Because everyone can understand that. Right? Certainly, if you want a mural about a non religious landscape and then someone comes in with crosses, et cetera. You're not fulfilling the mandate of the mural. Right. And that's what they're trying to show is this is almost in some way like we want a contract out for schools. We want to send a contract out for the government can't provide enough good schools. So we want the private sector sector to come up with way, come up with schools that fit certain standards that meet certain requirements that, that pass certain state requirements for education that have been set and national. But we don't want it to be. We just want to keep religion out. We want to keep other things out too. Right. But if you want to have a school that entirely focuses on one thing, then go for it. But that's not what taxpayer dollars are going to be, are going to be used for. And the pushback on the right and the more conservative justices, and I think they're going to win because I think they have the votes. And it's clear just from the way they were covering this is they're not asking for more. They just don't want to be excluded. They don't want to be discriminated against because of religion. They're not saying you have to fund Catholic schools, but if you're funding schools and you are opening that up to others, you shouldn't be excluded or discriminated against because you are Catholic. And, and I heard that argument and I understand it and I think I get it. But I just wonder how they're going to feel when inevitably, inevitably there's going to be a school, a Muslim school or you know, some other, you know, you can imagine a Taliban school or some other school that they're not going to agree with, that a group of people, you know, people who are maybe immigrants from a place that has a different religion than, than Christianity, Catholicism or Judaism. And, and they're going to want to establish it and they're going to apply for it and you're going to see a lot of people say, I don't want my taxpayer dollars paying for that. So, so be careful what you wish for. You know, I think, I think there is our, our founders of our country and the framers of the Constitution very explicitly put in a separation between church and state, period, full stop. They said you can't discriminate but you keep it separate. Right. Those are two different things. And I just don't understand why this is even a question.
- [26:41]
Michael Popak
I mean, if you were able to exhume the bodies and hold a seance with Our founding fathers, the framers. And you said to them, public education, they'd be like, all right, we understand that part. Public education and tax dollars being used for a Protestant school where there's, there's religious study and prayer. They're saying, sorry, did you not see the First Amendment? Government should not be involved with the establishment clause. And since what Sotomayor picked up today is, is, is really where when you want to side for religion in public life using taxpayer dollars and remove the last brick of the wall between separation for the separation of church and state, you go down the road of Kavanaugh and Alito and Thomas and even Gorsuch and you say a. Of free exercise. It's all about free exercise. Sotomayor said. So what you're trying to do is say that the establishment clause is ultimately trumped by the free, no pun intended, by the free exercise clause that everybody gets to, you can't discriminate against me either. And, and you get public dollars for public education. So I practice Catholicism or fill in the blank. And I get money for that too, because you can't discriminate. And that's how they turn it. They say, every time we say this is like a call and response, we say establishment clause. In other words, just to explain that for people that have forgotten, you know, the government should not be involved with establishing or promoting a religion or any religion, you're free to worship whatever God you want or no God at all. That's the beauty of America. So the establishment clause is in the First Amendment in order to say government, you do you. Government's going to do us. We're not going to help you. We're not going to hurt you, but we're not going to help you. We're not going to promote you. We're not going to establish you. We're not going to establish a national religion or promote it in that way that's establishment, but in the other part of the First Amendment, it's free exercise. You freely can do you. And that's the battle. Each one takes a different part of the First Amendment and, and, and, and twist it to, you know, to their advantage of the argument. Now, the better argument, of course, is the, is that you can reconcile the two things you do you, but you do it without public funding and government involvement if it's not that hard to get there. Now, at the end of that analysis, you had Sotomayor, Katanji, Brown, Jackson and Kagan really leading the charge for the moderate wing, for the establishment clause violation wing. Now, other Side, even though Roberts didn't say much. The ones who spoke a lot are Alito, huge Catholic, by the way, Thomas, who asked the first question, and Kavanaugh, who's like, well, you can't discriminate either. So you're like, oh, we know where you're going. So right now, based on that result, you've got at least three votes. Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch. No, Al Alito, Thomas. Yeah, and Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. You got four votes that are going to be like, nah, we're okay with it. You know, free exercise, don't discriminate. Well, I, I assure you that they would not be okay with the Barack Hussein Obama, you know, you know, madrasa or school of whatever, you know, Kenyan school of, of Muslim Islam. But they're okay with, they're going to be okay with this. That's one. On the other side, of course, you've got Katanji Brown Jackson, Kagan. And so to mayor and just a moment here, Katanji Brown Jackson, just she, if we get back the presidency, she will be the Chief justice of the United States. I, I am, I am. The more I think about it, the more convinced that Amy, that Katanji Brown Jackson is going to be the Supreme Court justice. She's just so whip smart and gets it so right and gets to the heart of the issue. I mean, nothing against Sotomayora Kagan, but just given where they are in terms of chronological age, I just think it's it, it and her performance so far. But we know where they are, so it's four to three right now. Now, normally we, you and I would be talking a lot about what's Amy Coney Barrett going to do. You know, the devout Catholic, the one who was at University of Notre Dame and worked on religious causes. Where is she at all this? But she took herself out and I give her a lot, I give her some credit for that. She recused herself on that. Which means it's. We're now fighting for the heart and mind of John Roberts, knowing that Roberts said very little today to, I think because he wants to give himself the maximum ability to kind of work the hallways. This is not a shadow docket, emergency rocket docket. This is deliberative work in the hallways, circulating opinions, fighting for votes. And just to give it, leave it on this before I return it back to Karen. A 4, 4 vote is just fine by me because if it's 4, 4, it would uphold the last ruling by the highest court, which was the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which ruled that this violated the First Amendment. And so at least for now, until MAGA sends another case their way that doesn't involve Amy Coney Barrett's BFF, it would not support in a 44 ruling. It would not support this charter school and this saint, whatever. Saint Isador Charter School would not be able to get federal funding, nor would any, nor would anyone else. Now, there would be some limited precedential value of this because they would fight to a tie. But at least for now, we get out from under this issue. That's the best I can hope for right now. Now, if, if somehow Roberts can convince, it's not going to be Kavanaugh Gorsuch, which I think is tough to come over to his side and make a very narrow ruling and get a ruling here and have it be five to three, then we're talking about a different story. When we come back, Karen, why don't you tell me what your thinking is about how the numbers line up here for a ruling. We're going to cover that. We're going to cover updates of the Abrego Garcia case and also Donald Trump throwing his lawyers under the bus in various interviews about the return of Abrego Garcia and just getting basic facts wrong about that particular person. And then a new lawsuit's been filed by a good friend of yours, Norm Isen, along with some other people against many of the policies of the Trump administration and like a giant omnibus filing. And I want to talk about all that. There's many ways to support what we do here on the Midas Dutch network on illegal af. And I'll just run through the checklist for those that say, how do I do more than just watch or listen to you? Popak. All right, here we go. You we're trying to move this podcast up into at least second place on the podium behind the Midas Touch Brothers podcast. We're at about 13 now, which is amazing. There's 2 million podcasts in the world. So listen to us, watch us. We'll do our part. We'll put up clips and do all sorts of things to kind of get the audience that we, that we that are part of us to help us move that number up. And we I want to beat a bunch of bro podcasts that are in there. I want to get past Tucker Carlson. So watch us here on YouTube, send clips off to friends and have them join us as well. Listen to us on all audio podcast platforms. That's 1, 2. We've got the legal AF YouTube channel that Karen so kindly talked about. Earlier where we are building this this other fellowship in collaboration with the brothers on Midas Touch. I've got about a dozen contributors just added today and you're going to be seeing their work today and and tomorrow and beyond. Sidney Blumenthal, author, writer, historian, presidential advisor, doing some amazing regular work for the Guardian, joined with his one of his best, one of his BFFs, Sean Wallentz, Dr. Professor Sean Wallentz from Princeton. And they put everything in historical context that we're watching right now with our own eyes on a, on a, in a group they call Court of History, which they say is the highest court even above the United States Supreme Court. And they're great together and separately you'll be seeing some great things from them as well. So come on over and signal your approval for what we're doing over on Legal AF by hitting the subscribe button as well. And we got a new substack for Legal AF literally that launched today. So just come over to substack@legal af. We made it easy and I curate all the content there. Got some great contributors there as well, some video, some audio, some writing, some court cases, court filings that we posted there. You're going to every day. And then I do it up. I do sort of a la Ben, I do a morning AF coffee with Popak, kind of giving you where I see the world at that particular moment upon wake up. So join us over on the Legal AF substack. And then we got some great Pro Democracy sponsors. What we love about these sponsors is Jordy takes time to find them. We try out the products and like them. And most importantly, they know what our audience is all about, what our content is all about. And they are here for it and we're here to support them. So here's a word from our set of sponsors. Why are elite athletes, business moguls and high performers using Armor Colostrum? 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Karen, when we were before we were doing some little self promotion there to keep the the channel and the, and the, and the YouTube all, all working. We were talking about this momentous, potentially momentous United States Supreme Court hearing involving the last couple of bricks that separate church and state in this country and whether we're going to allow religious, charter, religious organizations to run charter schools on taxpayer dollars or not. So what was your takeaway on doing the math? You know, are we going to get the five votes, four votes? Where do you think it's going to end up?
- [41:03]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
I think it's going to be five to three and, and we're going to lose. That's just my prediction based on the oral argument. You know, I have less of a problem with taxpayer dollars paying for religious schools if that's what people want. In other words, if that's if, if, if, if I so believe in democracy that the people of Oklahoma elected legislature to legislators who that's how they believe and then they pass a program saying okay, religious, if you're a religious school you can also apply, then you can't discriminate amongst the religions for sure. But if that's what they want to do with their taxpayer dollars, I have no problem with it. The problem I have here is that the program specifically says they're not doing that. And that's the issue. And that's where I just really fundamentally disagree with, with this. So, but I think at the end of the day, because it involves a Catholic school and you've got, you've got the conservative justices who showed their cards and showed their hand pretty quick, pretty clearly, I think it's going to be five to three.
- [42:10]
Michael Popak
Okay, well, I will report back. In terms of timing, we're now in the end of April, very end of April, one of the last oral arguments before they leave for they shouldn't go too far this year on summer vacation because there's going to be a lot of emergency applications, including on cases we're going to talk about coming up next. But we'll probably get the ruling, I don't know, June, July, something like that, they start dropping them, then they get out of town. That's usually how they, how they've done it. So we'll, we'll follow that. I'm hoping for four to four, but I could definitely see, Karen, how you would come up with five to three ruling with Roberts joining the others. So let's turn to Abrego Garcia. Most of the news about Abrego Garcia until there was a new ruling by Judge Zitis today was about Donald Trump's stupid comments where he just threw. Yeah, I'll get to that. Where he just threw his lawyers under the bus. In a series of interviews he's been doing to talk about the first hundred days, New York Times asked a great question. They asked him point blank. They said, you said that you would abide by the United States Supreme Court rulings. Last time we talked to you, his response was I said what? I love that response. I said what? Yeah, you said you'd abide by the. Okay, I understand. So what's your point? Okay, so why haven't you taken steps to facilitate the release of Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador in jail? Exact language from as the United States Supreme Court ruled, 90. Oh, I don't understand that. That's the 90 ruling. What do you mean? My lawyers have told me that it was something else. Well, in what way? Well, they've told me that that's not the ruling. Well. Well, how is it not the ruling? These are the exact words. Well, I don't know, but the lawyers have told me that I'll do whatever the lawyers tell me to do. The lawyers are running the show here. I don't really, I thought he was supposed to be accountable to the American people. Now the lawyers are running the show. Well, have you done anything to ask the El Salvadoran government or President Bukele Directly to release, as the Supreme Court commanded you to do, to release Abrego Garcia. No, no one's ever asked me to do that. You're the first. He actually said, karen, you're the first person, Mr. Interviewer Reporter, to ever ask me to make the phone call to Bukele. How could that possibly be true? We know he three, two weeks ago, he was in the Oval Office with the guy. And instead of asking him to do the. To do the thing, it wasn't even the right thing. It was the Supreme Court thing. He instead did this scripted thing that Stephen Miller came up with, obviously, where Bukele said, I would never smuggle a terrorist in the United States and I would never ask you, oh, let's get a beer. What happened to the orders of judges like zinnis and the 90 of the Supreme Court? And what he's referring to is Stephen Miller whispered in his ear, don't worry, boss. There was one line in there about you have supreme power when it comes to foreign policy and foreign affairs. We'll just cast this whole thing as foreign affairs. Yeah. You're negotiating with it. Yeah, that's it. You're negotiating with El Salvador over diplomacy, and you have. You reign supreme in that area. So every time they say, release, release the prisoner from the gulag, you say, foreign policy won't allow me. How's that working for you? Not well. The polls are in, Karen, and he is at the bottom of whatever barrel we thought he was in in terms of approval rating by the American public in polls, including at Fox News. But. But this part of I. No one's ever asked me to. To have. That's a good. I should do that. I would do whatever somebody asked me to do is what he said. And then we have Judge zenis, who. Today's the 30th of April, last time I looked, which is her deadline to she put a stop on discovery in the Abrego Garcia case, which is the exchange of information and depositions under oath to figure out whether the contempt should be ordered against the Trump administration. She gave them a weak timeout, but we have developments there. Why don't you comment about the Abrego Garcia case and what do you think Zinnis is doing with her new ruling as we came on the year?
- [46:16]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
I mean, really, what. What's happening here is. Is so just disgraceful. He's such, you know, so he's just such a liar. Donald Trump. I mean, he really is. And I think it's going to be very frustrating for the Judges where he. He. He plays this well. It's the first time hearing about it. I didn't know about it or. But then he has a show with Bukele sitting in the White House. What do you mean you didn't ask him to do it? What do you think this whole thing is about? Or when asked, have you done it? Oh, I don't have the authority to do it. I don't have the power to do it. I can't ask him to do it. He only can do it. And then he says, I haven't asked. I just think he's really taunting the world, frankly, to just show how he can be untruthful. And it's just interesting, just picking up on something. You talked about polling and how his polling numbers are so. Are so bad. His comments about that. And I was. I was listening and listening to what he was saying about that. His comments about the polling. It was that, oh, well, the polls are rigged. They only talk to Democrats. That. That other polls, real polls, legitimate polls, actually are showing that I'm way ahead in the 70% and the 80 percents, but they're only talking to Democrats. I mean, that's just an outright lie. You could say polling is wrong. You could say polling gets it wrong. You could say polling is inaccurate, whatever you want to say about polling, but he's actually lying about that. And it really frustrates me. And I say this almost every week. It's fine, let's agree to disagree. Like on the issue we just talked about, about whether or not you should fund religious schools or not. It's one thing. Fine, agree, disagree. That's. That's what makes our country go around. That's what makes our democracy. But when you outright, flat out lie and try to gaslight the American people into thinking reality is something different than it actually is, it's very frustrating because some of us are trying to play the game by the rules, and others of us are cheating, and he is just cheating all the time. And Abrego Garcia just highlights that perfectly because he's constantly squirming out of this situation that we are in, which is. First they say it was a mistake, then they say they don't have the power to bring him back. Then they go back and say, well, it wasn't really a mistake. And then now he's saying he never asked. I mean, he's just. He. It's like he. He's very squirrely, and he's. He. He is. Is clearly not being honest here. And he's Just being too cute by half. And I think the judges are going to get frustrated. That's what I think is going to start to happen.
- [48:54]
Michael Popak
Yeah. And I make, look, I understand Donald Trump has a weird relationship with polls because frankly, when it comes time for voting, the last couple elections, pollsters have missed a Trump support factor by two to three points. Just people don't want to talk to pollsters. They don't reach the Trump voter when they did the polling at least. Or, and, or these people aren't honest in front of their family when they get the phone calls or the social media contact about, about support for Trump. So he's right about that. But that doesn't explain being 12 to 20 points under. Even if you add in a Trump factor of plus three. It doesn't, you're still, you're still way, way underwater. So he's got a weird relation with polls anyway and pollsters anyway and they do get it wrong regularly when it relates to Trump. But, and that, and I think that's what he's rebelling against. But no, it's not that. We're the pollsters are talking to Democrats only. That's sort of ridiculous. And I think that was the reason that Judge Zinnis today, having paused things for a week, I mean, she got two sealed filings a week ago from both sides in which both sides, because of whatever conversations they were having, said maybe we should give an extra week to the Trump administration who finally revealed they were using diplomatic methods to try to get Abrego Garcia back. I don't understand why it's that hard. Talk about showing weakness. He can't get one prisoner back from a 6 million person island that you know, called El Salvador that we're paying money to to house people in a gulag. That's how weak and feckless we are. He does, he doesn't have the, he's supposed to be the leader of the free world. He can't get one guy out of a, out of jail. You know, that doesn't seem right. So she gave them a week off. Don't do your daily reports every day at 5pm about what you're doing to get them home. And let's, let's hold off on the discovery, the depositions and all until I get my mind around it. And you guys said you need more time, so I'll give you more time. Well, today was the end of the day. Today was the 12:00 deadline and Trump said we need more time. And this time, Abrego Garcia is like, we don't need more time. We're done. We're not. In other words, whatever good faith we had is over. We want to get back to developing our case for contempt against the Trump administration. And yes, Judge, you should get back to monitoring what they are actually doing or not doing to bring back Abrego Garcia. And every time Stephen Miller has Pam Bondi's Department of Justice file a piece of paper that says FU to the judge, sorry, we're not going to tell you. He's alive and well and he's, he's having a margarita in some, in some jail. We, we won't tell you where. That's just another badge of contempt for the judge. That's just another notch on her gun that when she gets around to writing her contempt order, she's going to say, there are 23 examples where the Trump administration flouted my order and that of the United States Supreme Court. And that's not okay. So we're going to continue to follow the b. There was a hearing, there was a quick hearing today. You and I'll get more details about it. We'll start coming back on the show and talking about it. But that's where we are with Abrego Garcia. What, what's happened to the Trump administration is that they my view is that their world was rocked. It's hard to rock that world, but their world was rocked by the Supreme Court decision two weeks ago at 1:00 in the morning, the fear that they're losing at the Supreme Court on major issues because John Roberts doesn't like the way Trump's acting as a president. And then you got the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Wilkinson. And suddenly outside the courtroom, they're still bashing, you know, crazy liberal communist judges like Donald Trump did in Michigan during his ridiculous rally. But in the courtroom, you know, they're starting to obey. They're starting to obey more. So this split screen, you and I are going to have to really watch carefully and all of that. So when you and I come back from our next ad break, we're going to talk about this new lawsuit. And maybe you have some, maybe you talk to Norm about some stuff. Maybe you got some insider knowledge there about it. Otherwise, we'll just talk about the suit that was filed. And then, of course, ways to support the show, Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Go over there, hit that free subscribe button. That's Legal AF mtn, Legal af the substack up and running as of today. Hit that at Legal af. We made that easy for you. And then of course we've got the audio version of this show. So subscribe to the audio version on podcast platforms. 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And then we'll talk about what we think the impact of it's going to be.
- [57:40]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
Yeah, well, I don't have any inside information, that's for sure. All I have is the complaint that you've read. It's incredible complaint. It's like this is a monster lawsuit. This is the lawsuit of all lawsuits. All these smaller cases that have been brought because of what DOGE has done. Walking into the federal government and literally trying to dismantle it through executive order. And DOGE has thousands of employees have, have lost their jobs. And the government, the federal government is shrinking and they're doing lasting damage. I mean, damage that I think is going to be very hard to recover from. Right. When you don't fund, for example, a scientific program that's doing research and those scientists no longer can work on something. Not only are you not having the medical advances, you're losing that expertise, you're losing that knowledge. And that, that is just stopped in its tracks. The other thing that's, that's happening is, is people are going elsewhere, right? Whether it's, whether it's to work in different industries or sectors, et cetera. And so what DOGE is doing is it's trying to dismantle the federal government, the all the people who work in all the agencies which are supposed to be non political, right? Only the heads of the agencies are supposed to be political. And that's what the President always appoints the head of an agency and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The employees remain the same because they have institutional knowledge, they are experts in whatever it is that they're doing, whether it's clean water or the environment or science or medicine or law, whether it's the Department of Justice, whatever it is, the FBI, I mean the training that goes into being a law enforcement officer or any number of these other, these other agencies, the Pentagon, you name it, These are significantly very important agencies with people who, you don't just pluck someone off the street. It takes years and years and years and years to develop an expertise to be able to work competently in one of these agencies. And it's one of the crown jewels of the United States of America, frankly. And it's one of the reasons I think we have such a great country. And what has DOGE done? They've come in and they've just firing people left and right. And there's been a bunch of lawsuits that have successfully gotten, whether it's temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions, but they've been sort of these singular, I don't want to call them one offs because they're quite significant. Some of these lawsuits and some have been lost as well. But this one is a monster case. It's like everybody in the world suing everybody in the world is, is kind of how I look at it. It's 115 page complaint which is quite long. The caption alone, okay, you know the caption that's like plaintiff whoever versus defendant whoever. Usually it's just like this little square at the top of the, at the top of a complaint that's filed. The caption alone is five pages long. That's how many plaintiffs and defendants there are. It is unbelievable. And I'm going to just read from the press release that was released about it because I think it really succinctly synthesized what this, this, what this is about. It's plaintiffs are a coalition of labor organizations, nonprofit groups and local governments that file this complaint to hold unlawful and stop the unconstitutional dismantling of the federal government by the President of the United States on a scale unprecedented in this country's history and clear and in clear excess of his authority. So it goes on to say reorganization and massive reductions in force across federal agencies violate core constitutional concepts of separation of powers. Because. Why is that? Because of what we just said. It's very, very clear that only Congress can create an agency. President can't. The Congress creates an agency and the, and Congress funds the agency and gives it money, appropriates money to an agency. And it's the president who can then interpret, right, it's come in and appoint the head of it and kind of interpret, interpret through policy how the, how that statute that created that is going to be enforced. So they put together this huge coalition, again, this nationwide labor organizations, many, many nonprofit groups and several governments, several cities and counties, and they include California, Illinois, Maryland, Texas, Washington and others to challenge the Trump administration and this massive reorganization of the federal government without legislative authority. It's just this incredible lawsuit that just by the sheer breadth of it is what's so incredible. It says, since taking office, Donald Trump has attempted to usurp the powers of Congress through his attacks on the federal government and its basic functions, which hundreds of millions of Americans rely on every day. That's a quote from Norm Eisen, who's spearheading this lawsuit. The separation of powers was created by our nation's framers to prevent this very sort of unchecked power. The American people will not stand for these clearly illegal and unconstitutional efforts by this administration which seek to upend the most basic tenets of our nation's constitutional democracy. So it's, it's a very large, sweeping case. And it, rather than individually kind of going after these various, these various agencies that Trump is trying to take down and dismantle, it's, it's doing kind of what Trump is doing, which is flooding the zone and tackling it all at once. Because it's literally the first defendant that is like the President of the United States and then every single one of his cabinet members. So it's, it's, it's an incredible lawsuit. And I think it's going to have sweeping, sweeping just implications. And it went, you know, as this.
- [63:35]
Michael Popak
Goes and it's necessary because you have to meet, that's what I like about Norm's focus here. You have to meet, flood the zone and shock and awe, which is what Donald Trump exhibited during the first hundred days with exactly the same thing back, an out of control presidency that's issued more executive orders than any other president in history already combined. With the just the sheer volume of lawsuits, you need to kind of get one big mother of them all lawsuit together. And I'm glad that he was able to pull that all together. And I. We're in the right courts. I think we're the right judges. And, you know, the more we can, you know, as out of control as Donald Trump is, I'll just leave, I'll leave my point on this. As out of control as Donald Trump is, is and his Department of Justice and his FBI and all of that, can you imagine a world where there weren't the norm ions and others and court accountability action and Mark Elias and Democracy now and Democracy Forward, the American Civil Liberties Union and the attorneys general in 22 states. Can you imagine a world where they didn't exist and there weren't close to 200 lawsuits filed and 200 injunctions obtained and, and the winning record already at the United States Supreme Court. How much more unleashed and out of control and lawless Donald Trump would be without the pushback that's being provided by the court system? We don't have it anywhere else. We got a wet noodle at a doormat of Congress. We don't have. We can't count on anybody, even the way we could in the first Trump administration to whether it's a Joint Chiefs of Staff or, you know, a general there or one or two members of his cabinet or anybody that seems to have any type of morals or values or character other than pure unadulterated greed and coupled with unbridled attempts at power grab, that. That defines his entire cabinet. So we don't have any of that to rely on it. Somebody like Mark Milley is going to put his hand between Donald Trump and the nuclear button or call his counterpart in China and say, don't worry, I'm not going to let a Chinese war break out over this guy. We don't have that. So what are we left with? We're left with the thing that you and I talk about at length, which is the law and politics intersection, that this is the break the glass moment. We are willingly or unwillingly, whether we want it to be this or not. We are the foot soldiers to defend the Constitution, and we do it in our way with this community talking truth to each other here, shoulder to shoulder at a fellowship that we're building on the Midas Touch network and on legal AI stuff. And then people take it from there, talk about the action part. They take it from there into the courtrooms, in the courthouses. I mean, you can't I just, if we lived in a world where there weren't the federal judges like Judge Zinnis, Judge Amy, Amy. Amy Berman, Jackson Barrel Howell, Jeb Boasberg, Judge, you know, the list goes on. Judge Kahn, all the judges that we've talked about, the judges up in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and Washington and in California and, and the, and D.C. think, think how much worse this would be. Because every moment that we're able to tie Donald Trump and his Department of Justice up and exhaust them and tie them down and stop their progression is one less day on the clock between now and the midterms. Donald Trump knows he's the lamest of lame ducks. Donald Trump knows, and if he didn't know it, he knows it now from these polls that, that the chances of him being able to grow a brain and fix this problem in the next 16 or 18 months is virtually nil. So blue, you know, there's going to be a red bloodbath. You think the Red Wedding during Game of Thrones was bad? Wait till you see what's going to happen, hopefully at the House and the Senate when the Democrats take over. Both epic. So he's got to account, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's on, he's on borrowed time. And that's why we're saying maximum destruction, and that's why cases like you just described are so important as we continue to get these injunctions after injunctions, after injunctions. And Donald Trump doesn't care because that's not why he ran for office. He also doesn't care because every injunction he uses for a political expediency and political capital to try to, I don't know, it's not working, whatever he thinks he's doing with it, but to try to continue to make his point and support MAGA principles, but that ain't working either, so.
- [68:13]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
Well, what doesn't make any sense to me, Popak, is just do it the right way. You control Congress, you control the House and the Senate.
- [68:22]
Michael Popak
No executive orders. Do it through laws. Correct.
- [68:25]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
Just fine. You want to dismantle the federal government, you control them. They have proven themselves. Congress has shown that they are essentially going to do whatever he wants. MAGA has complete control currently over the entire, entire Congress and the presidency. So do it the right way and then none of this would happen. But instead it's like this lawlessness, right?
- [68:48]
Michael Popak
I, I think it's a combination. I think one, he really doesn't think he has the votes, that there'll be enough peel away where Hakeem Jeffries, who is, who has eaten Donald Trump's lunch and that of Mike Johnson a number of times, because I think he's really the shadow speaker of the House. There's just not enough votes to do the, I mean, when you read these executive orders and I know you have one after another, you know, from birthright citizenship all the way to the new one I just did a hot take on, which is unleashing the American, the police department on Americans to make more aggressive policing. That's not the problem in America. The problem in America is not too aggressive, not aggressive enough police. That's not the problem. Nobody thought that was the problem. So this stuff would never get through Congress. So but he's just paying his debts one after another with these ridiculous executive. But you're right, some of it he could have probably squeaked through with Congress. But he's got a feckless guy who probably doesn't trust in Mike Johnson. He's got a crazy coalition, you know, the, the, the, what do you call her? Green, Marjorie Taylor Greene's of the world, all that Tea Party Republican thing in there. And you know, it's very reliable. Somebody hands him a folder, he takes out a Sharpie and he signs it. And until, until we get a ruling which may be coming soon from the United States Supreme Court, not in the shadow docket, not on procedure, but on the merits. When they start reaching the merits of cases against him and they start talking about executive orders, as they've said in the past, is the weakest type of order to ever enforce because it has to color inside the lines of law by Congress. Once the real separation of powers issue, the, the, the spending clause, the, all of those issues really get decided by the Supreme Court or others. I, I think he's going to have to change his tactic because this is, you're right, the executive order thing is not defensible. And I think he starts losing in big numbers at the Supreme Court. That's my thought. So we've reached the end of another episode of the midweek edition of Legal af. Karen Freeman, Nicknifflo and Michael Popach join us on Saturday for the Legal AF Saturday edition with Ben Mysalas. Pick us up on audio. That's a way to help. We're trying to move from 13 up to 2, at least 2 on legal AF as Midas touch gets Webby, the webcast of the year. I was both proud and slightly jealous of it. Why can't we win next year? I'd like to do that and these are the ways to help support our show, including with our pro democracy sponsors. Come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Legal AFMTN, hit the subscribe button. Legal AF, the Substack subscribe button. You know, all those things. And then, Karen, I always love giving you the last word. What's the last word for today?
- [71:38]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
Oh, my God. The last word for today. I can't. You know, I should by now be used to this and be ready to have something, but I really don't have anything today.
- [71:47]
Michael Popak
Four years I've thrown it to you.
- [71:49]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
I know, I know. You know what? My head today is very much distracted by.
- [71:55]
Michael Popak
Okay, all right, fair enough. So you know what? Let's read.
- [71:58]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
No, I am gonna. I'm gonna say something, or otherwise I.
- [72:01]
Michael Popak
Was gonna clip it. Okay, go ahead.
- [72:03]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
It's okay to leave it in the pod. People's gotta see how we always talk about how authentic we are, how nobody tells us what to say.
- [72:10]
Michael Popak
My phrase against me, our producer wrote, oh, you just threw her a hospital pass. How could it be a hospital pass four years in the making?
- [72:18]
Karen Freeman Agnifolo
Yeah, well, the point is. The point is. The point is we are authentically as. No, I just. I just really want to emphasize how incredibly proud I am of the Midas Touch Network and of the brothers podcast. And just the fact that they got that award is so absolutely unbelievable and so heartwarming because it really shows where we are in this moment. There's hope. There's hope for those of us who feel very doom and gloom about what's going on with Donald Trump and the Supreme Court and Congress and everything else. Sometimes it can be very bleak and very depressing. And just to see that, that podcast, who really, I have to say, the Midas Touch are the pioneers, true pioneers of this next generation of media coverage and of democracy, of just pro democracy and this pro democracy movement. I mean, the fact that they had this town hall with this incredible governors, including Tim Walls, right. That Ben did that, the fact that they had Joe Biden, the fact that he is constantly. Tish James on Today, this is Midas Touch is absolutely the go to place for democratic politics now. And I am just so proud of them and us and how, you know, we've all been there from the beginning. And I just. This. It gives me hope, and hopefully it gives a lot of people who are listening to this, who come in and tune in to listen, hope that all is not lost, despite the fact that. That Donald Trump is trying to wreak havoc.
- [73:49]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. Thank you. Can't think of a better, more eloquent way to put it. We've reached the end. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the legal A effers.