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- [00:01]
Michael Popak
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.
- [00:31]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Ten years from today, Lisa Schneider will trade in her office job to become 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.
- [00:45]
Michael Popak
Income lives as long as she does.
- [00:47]
Karen Friedman 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.
- [01:02]
Michael Popak
Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal AF. Don't adjust that dial. That is Karen Friedman, Agnifolo and Michael Popak. Karen, we got so much to talk about. I'm already breathless. That and I have a little bit of a cold. I apologize. But we're gonna do this in the order of operation that I think our audience is interested in, starting with this growing crypto scandal that is enveloping and swallowing up the Trump family. The Trump administration, it started out with a little story about, you know, listen, we know that Donald Trump's been involved with crypto for a long, long time. He's got a stable coin empire. He runs through World Fine, World World Liberty. He runs a whole exchange. He makes hundreds of millions of dollars gotten even worse. So bad that the Democrats are sponsoring bills to prevent this president, his family, those around him and others in the future from using meme coins. We'll talk about meme coins and stablecoins to line their pockets or to turn the presidency into a money printing machine. That's not doing the people's business, that's lining your pocket by way of Meme coin. And the Democrats have had enough. And we're going to talk about all the different aspects, angles of this story now that it's broken. And what broke the camel's back, Karen, was the revelation that Abu Dhabi is going to put $2 billion into a company called Binance, but they're going to do it through a Trump controlled entity buying stablecoins controlled by Trump on this platform to would make the investment into Binance and that was like, what are are to, to, to quote Chris Murphy, the senator, this is the biggest corruption scandal of a US Presidency in history. And we're going to talk about it in, in greater detail. Then we got a, we got a, got a win for a good person, a white hat person, a person that we love on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal af. And we now can finally say that there is a Justice Riggs on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Allison Riggs has won. Some people might be thinking, didn't she win six months ago? Yes, she won six months ago, but now she's really won because Jefferson Griffin, these names are like, right out of like a Tom Wolf novel. Jefferson Griffin has finally given up after trying to steal 68,000 votes from North Carolinians and from the public to get himself elected to that seat. It has major ramifications, even though on paper it just looks like she'll be just two Democrats against five Republicans. We're looking ahead, as we always do on Midas touch and legal AF at 2028 and beyond, where the Democrats want to flip that Supreme Court over to Blue and Alice, we're going to talk about Alison Riggs and why that's so important and how we got there. The court decisions that got us there then transgender and transgender rights and the attack. The continued onslaught by the Trump administration is back in the news off a new United states Supreme Court 1/2 paragraph decision 6 to 3 to block a federal judge's nationwide ban against the military led by Trump and Hegseth that will drum out of the core, drum out of the military. Not just people who are in transition to, to whatever sex they believe better identifies and aligns with what's inside of them. But even people that have already transitioned and that didn't matter to the Supreme Court, even though it's not a stay on the merits for all of the people that are being thrown out and being, taking take their life work away from them. And all they want to do is serve America with, with the great, you know, and willing to give the greatest sacrifice. We'll talk about that and that and it's just, we'll fit it into the constellation of all the other things that Donald Trump has done almost from day one of his administration to try to crush, destroy, dehumanize the transgender American community. And I put those two things together. They are Americans. They are your neighbors. They are your cousins, sisters, brothers, uncles. You are 1 degree or 2 degrees separated from somebody who identifies as transgender. But Donald Trump wants to make them go away. He wants to take away their bathrooms, take away their dignity, take away their pronouns, take away their entitlement to federal benefits, take away their right not to vote. Not yet, anyway. Not yet, anyway. But take away their right to serve this country honorably in the military. And we're going to talk about that Supreme Court decision and what it means. And then finally, federal judges all over, including a number of Trump appointed judges, are fighting back with both hands and both feet against the Trump administration's depraved migration, immigration and deportation policies. And we now have a series of rulings like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Every day a new ruling by a federal judge finding that Donald Trump's use of the Alien Enemies act is unconstitutional. And then another set of federal judges who are looking at Donald Trump's efforts to go after foreign graduate students who also express an opinion, sometimes an opinion that we may not want to hear, I may not want to hear, but I'll be damned if they're going to. If we're going to be a country that takes away your First Amendment right to come to this country, study in this country, get a PhD in this country, but also express an opinion that others may not want to hear, that is the basis of our First Amendment. It's why the American Civil Liberties Union is involved. We got a couple of cases to talk about. One having to do with a, A Columbia graduate or. Yeah, a Columbia graduate. There we are. Thank you. And another one having to do with a Tufts University PhD student and two federal judges, including the Court of Appeals in New York, Second Circuit Court of Appeals having ruled in their favor. And we'll kind of put it into context of what it all means that Trump is, is pressing a losing hand when it comes to immigration and deportation and why he's doing it. It's real. I'll answer that question quickly. Political, Political gain. You know, he thinks it helps him at the midterms. It seems to be the only thing he thinks is going to help him, his immigration stance. And we'll talk about the depravity of all that. Karen, how you doing?
- [08:04]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
I'm good. How are you, Popak?
- [08:05]
Michael Popak
Good. What are you doing these days? Anything exciting?
- [08:08]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
You know, just a little this, a little of that.
- [08:11]
Michael Popak
You're known as the little of this, a little of that. But you do it. But you do it so well.
- [08:15]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah, well, these days, practicing law pretty much full time, so.
- [08:20]
Michael Popak
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's what some people say. Where's Karen? We don't see her on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. There's a plug. Go over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Help us get to 700,000. Hit the subscribe button, I said, because she's got a day job and sometimes a night job, and as soon as that's over, for those that are interested, you can look it up. As soon as that's all over, she'll be right back where she belongs. Or Midas touch at Legal af. So with that, without further ado, you want me to lead on the crypto thing, and then you'll lead on one or two of the others.
- [08:56]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
I would love for you to lead on the crypto thing, Popak, because this is the single greatest threat to our country. Of all the horrible things. And I don't say this lightly. Of all the terrible, horrible things Donald Trump has done, this to me, is the absolute worst. And we need to. I think we need to beat the drum on this louder than any other drum we've beaten. He is a. This is a scam. He is profiting off the American people. He is taking money from foreign governments, and he is. This is. Makes conflict of interest. This makes. This makes Justice Thomas and what he got look tame. He's doing it out loud. He's doing it just without even hiding it. And I want you to just talk about it in the way you talk about this. You know a lot about crypto, and you seem to really understand it. And so I think you do a great job at framing it and explaining it to everybody. But I just want everyone, the people who listen to this show to listen very carefully to this section, because this needs to be talked about every single day, because this has to be stopped. This is corruption like I've never seen. It makes Mayor Adams, in that case and that whole situation look cute. Seriously, this is unbelievable to me.
- [10:16]
Michael Popak
Yeah, that's a great way to kick it off. Karen. And to. And let me. Let me use a quote just so you know that Karen's not dealing in hyperbole. This is a quote from Chris Murphy, Chris Murphy, the senator, talking about the meme coin. M e M E. The meme coin, which has been used by Donald Trump. It has no. Nothing to back it. I mean, most cryptocurrency has nothing to back it. We'll contrast that with stablecoin in a minute. But that crypt. There's nothing to back it. It's just a buy and a sell of people's emotions and wanting to support something. And it could be any kind of meme. And Donald Trump has been using meme Coins to line his pockets, to allow for foreign influence into our presidency, to put, and I'm not talking, this is not small potatoes here, we're talking. Trump has already made over, if you add it all together, close to 1 billion with a B dollars since he took office, promoting meme coins of his own, pushing them through the presidency, using the presidency as a promotional vehicle to sell the meme coins. Owning the liquidity pool. I'll talk about that in a minute. Which is effectively the, the, the marketplace for a decentralized buy and sell because there's no market. It's not like a stock market where you can go see the ticker price and there's a buyer and a seller and there's brokers and traders in between with cryptocurrency or meme coins. To put a buyer and seller together, you need sort of money. Somebody has to buy it and resell it and sell it and rebuy it. And Trump controls that liquidity pool. So he gets a vic and he gets money, a brokerage commission, if you will, for every buy and sell. So he doesn't really care about the value of the meme coin, whether it's worth A dollar or $5,000 or whatever it is. He wants volume, he wants velocity, he wants buy, sell, sell. That's why he promotes it through his companies. Like, we're going to be holding a dinner on 22 May in at a Virginia golf course with Donald J. Trump with a photo of Donald J. Trump for the top 250 holders of the meme coin. Be in the top 250 or the top 20, and you'll have a special audience with him and blah, blah, okay, Meme coin sales went up 30%. All that volume. Buying, selling, buying, selling, buying, selling all line the pockets of the, of the Trump family and anybody else around him. And they've already, because it's on the blockchain, so it's all recorded. So there's been analysis to show how much the family has made owning the liquidity pool and on, on the vig, if you will, and on the meme that they hold and some of which they hold in reserve and some of which they've sold. And it's. And if you add it all together, the 300 million here, the 10 million here, the 500 million there, we're pushing a billion dollars and it's a way. This is the scandal. I'm going to read you Chris Murphy's quote in a minute. This is the scandal of our lifetime in a presidency in Broad daylight. This is a bank robbery in broad daylight. And video recorded that we're all watching. And you have to leave it to the Democrats to call this out. And things have gotten so bad in the scandal and, and are stinking to high heaven that even Democrats that want to support cryptocurrency, and even, I'll be frank, even Democrats who took considerable amounts of money from the cryptocurrency industry to support regulation of cryptocurrency the way the industry wants it regulated. See, the industry doesn't want it regulated by the securities and Exchange Commission. They want their own regulator. They want their own set of laws coming out of Congress that they handwrite, that they write themselves. And they were this close to getting it passed, even with Democratic support, bipartisan Democratic support, millions of dollars going to their campaigns until the $2 billion scandal out of Abu Dhabi came out, where, wait a minute, a foreign Arab country is going to. It looks like they're being forced to invest through a Trump controlled liquidity pool. And stablecoin, which is another type of cryptocurrency that's linked usually to a dollar, so it has a stable price so that he gets the vig on it, the percentage on it, and so that can be used as an investment in a private company. And the President of the United States and his family profits from that. So here's what Chris Murphy had to say, Karen, which is very similar to what your summary was. The Trump meme coin is the single most corrupt act ever committed by a president, period. That's quite a sentence. Donald Trump is essentially posting his Venmo for any billionaire CEO or foreign oligarch to cash in some favors by secretly sending him millions of dollars. It's almost unbelievable until you remember this president will do whatever it takes, even selling access to the White House to make himself richer. This is not normal and we won't let him get away with it. But he continues, even more disturbing than the klepto, kleptocratic actions of the President and his minions has been the utter silence of the Republican majority. That's why he introduced the MEME act, which I, which I love in many, many ways, including the fact that they put MEME in there. It's the Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement act meme. And what it does is this is, this is separate from the Genius act, which is what the industry wanted passed, which would just basically blow open the doors, having virtually no regulation in the area. So the meme would make sure that no president including this one, can profit from selling the presidency, but while they're in office by selling meme coins and his family and those around them or any other cryptocurrency. Remember, Donald Trump started with NFTs, playing cards with Donald Trump dressed in all sorts of ridiculous cosplay. And people like, oh, I'm gonna buy that. And then there was the sneakers, and then it was the Bibles, and then it was, I don't know, the George Foreman Grill or whatever else he was selling. I mean, this president is a huckster. I mean, this, this is like, you know, this is like the old, the guy, the, the peddler that used to come to the small town selling whatever out of the, you know, the steak oil out of the back. That's Donald Trump. And so this would deny him a major, we're talking major source of money. And there is no question, and he's public about it, that he's using the presidency as a private printing machine. Because every time you see the ad for the May 22 dinner at the Virginia Trump Golf Course, it's have dinner with Donald J. Trump, the 47th president of the United States, you know, Trump really want. And then, then they're encouraging them. Talk about pump and dump. They're encouraging the pump by, by reaching out to people. You're so close because they know what the wallet holds. Oh, you're so close to being in the top 250. But they don't tell them how close. Buy More. Buy More. President Trump will particularly, you know, he'll be selecting the top meme, you know, and then 30% up, another $30 million goes in, another, more money directly into. Into the Trump family. And what Murphy and the others that are supporting this, like Elizabeth Warren, are trying to tell the American people is we can't shake out of the doldrums. We can't have Trump fatigue. We can't just roll our eyes and go, oh, there's Trump again. This is the single biggest scandal in the history of the presidency and it must stop now. I mean, Maxine Waters just walked out of a joint committee of Agriculture and, and Financial Services, sort of a weird joint committee, but, you know, calling attention to this. So the Democrats are going to have to hold shadow, what they call shadow committee hearings about this. And then it's going to have to, as you said, we have to focus our attention on it so that the American public, as reflected in the polls, tell Donald Trump to close down this shop. But the problem with Trump and I want to get your opinion on it. The problem with Trump is that he won't because of the money is so rich. And then lastly, one last connect the dot. Steve Witkoff, who is effectively our shadow Secretary of State. I mean, I know Marco Rubio has it, you know, he has his photo up at the flag, but he's not our Secretary of State. Every major foreign interaction, whether it be Putin in, in Russia or the Israeli issues or anything related to like in Yemen going on right now with the Houthis, it's been Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump's golf buddy, who testified as an expert, a real estate expert in the civil fraud case against Donald Trump, that, that he was rejected as an expert ultimately, but he's effectively the shadow Secretary of State. So why is he connected here? Because he's connected, because he helped found world, the world financial liquidity pool that's controlled ultimately by the Trump family. So he gets a piece of this Abu Dhabi. He's our Secretary of State, effectively, and he's getting a piece of an Abu Dhabi investment in a private company. Because Witkoff is the one that introduced Donald Trump to the two crypto bros, one of which went to jail because I did a whole hot take on that about a year ago. And Baron to this whole thing. So at the core of this, holding this whole thing together is Steve Witkoff. You're my effective de facto Secretary of State.
- [20:00]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah, it's atrocious what's going on here. And there's really two separate issues as I see it. One is the foreign investing, and that's the emoluments clause found in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, which restricts federal officials from accepting gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign governments without the consent of Congress. This is obviously designed to prevent foreign influence, influence and corruption on American officials. So he's completely, completely flying in the face of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. And that's one thing. And I think we're gonna see lawsuits brought with respect to that. But okay, put the foreign investing aside and let's talk about how he's grifting off the American people by saying on truth social, Buy, buy, buy. His meme coins, his stock, sorry, his, his cryptocurrency, et cetera. And as you said, he's of that. And having these private dinners where people who own a certain number or the highest number get to come to the dinner, get a private tour of the White House. What does that mean? It means access to the presidency. You're not allowed to Sell the presidency. You're not allowed to sell access to the President of the United States. And it's kind of disgusting, frankly, when you think about it, that that's what he is doing and profiting over a billion dollars off of that. So I think that is going to be another avenue and another issue that we're going to see bubble to the top of, I think, the consciousness of the American people as more and more people talk about it and we talk about it, and I think we should talk about it every single day. I mean, when you think about this private event that he is holding for the people who have bought his garbage coin, because that's what a meme coin is. It's garbage. It's worthless. Okay, fine. They want to spend their money on what they want to spend it on, and he's taking their money. But what he's doing is, first of all, how many millions of dollars does it cost to have Secret Service protection? Air Force One, Marine One, whatever it takes to get him from point A to point B. He's not conducting the business of the United States of America when he's at these dinners. He is literally just lining his own pockets with money from these people and selling access to the White House. That is the opposite of democracy. That is not supposed to happen in this country. If Doge is looking for waste, fraud and abuse, look there. Look at how much money our taxpayer dollars pay so that Donald Trump can go on these junkets and make money off the American people. How much our taxpayer dollars pay so that each of his children can fly around the world and meet with these foreign dignitaries or foreign private entities to put up a hotel in this country or buy something in that country? How many millions of dollars we have to pay to literally fund Secret Service and other protection and other things for Trump's five children from three different women that he has flying all over the place, making more money hand over fist selling the presidency. And people were worried about Hunter Biden, who was on the board of a company. This makes that look cute and adorable. Okay? Like as if that was access to the presidency. Right? There was no direct at. There was no. Never a direct. They could never draw a direct line from Hunter Biden to Joe Biden. It was. But here you can draw a direct line. Trump himself is profiting. It is scandalous. It is a conflict of interest. And it is that. That is where you could save taxpayer dollars, frankly. And I think that this has to be something that the American people don't stand for and put their foot down and thank God Congress is going to do whatever they can, even if it's blocking legislation that might otherwise be good legislation. But, but you need to, we need to block anything we can to make this stop because this is atrocious. That, that, that I'm so glad that we are talking about this and, and that we talk about this going forward until this stops.
- [24:04]
Michael Popak
So it looks like on your one point that I want to, I think you might be breaking some new news here. The, on the, the cost. It's estimated that every time Trump goes to a golf course or a live event or whatever, it's going to be like we're talking about, it's 5 million bucks taxpayer dollars. 5 million bucks taxpayer dollars. Marine One, the escorting helicopters, the Secret Service. And we're not even talking about the other things you touched on was, is like the Secret Service detail for Don Jr. Or Eric or Ivanka, as you said, to go sell the Trump brand somewhere with all these people in tow. No, I mean, I mean, forget about cutting my Social Security or disability. Why don't you not spend by the time this Trump administration is over $100 million or more, you know, on phony junkets and personal appearances in order to raise money for your family?
- [24:54]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
I mean, that's, it's one thing to be spending money on Secret Service who, protecting people to go to events that, that have to do with the presidency.
- [25:04]
Michael Popak
Political.
- [25:04]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yes, exactly. But instead what we're doing is we're literally providing them transportation and security for them to profit off the American people and that.
- [25:15]
Michael Popak
So here's the breaking news. You said he had children with three different women. Who are the three different women? I know two.
- [25:22]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Ivana Trump.
- [25:24]
Michael Popak
Yeah.
- [25:24]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Marla Maples.
- [25:25]
Michael Popak
Who's the third?
- [25:26]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Melania.
- [25:28]
Michael Popak
Oh, yeah. Baron.
- [25:30]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yes.
- [25:30]
Michael Popak
I keep forgetting that he's the Fredo of the family. I forgot. But yeah, you're, I thought we're breaking news. Like, there's a third. Oh, yeah. Oh, right. So. So, right. So what's the name of the kid with Marlowe Maples?
- [25:42]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Tiffany.
- [25:43]
Michael Popak
So Tiffany is one. Yeah. Right. The other, the older kids are all with Ivana. And then the last one is Melania. Right? She had one. They had one, right?
- [25:51]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yes. Baron. Yes. Five children from three different women, two of which were immigrants, two of which were immigrants who really would be deported in today's America.
- [26:04]
Michael Popak
Absolutely.
- [26:06]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
That's what we're, that's what we're, you know. Well, I mean, that was fun. Yeah. Leave it to me, leave it to me to talk about the, the gossip side. Of things. You know, I liked it.
- [26:17]
Michael Popak
I know. I. I was just like. I somehow. It's probably because the head cold. I just lost track of. Of all this.
- [26:22]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Because you're paying attention to fornication. Yeah. You're paying attention to, like, to serious. To serious things that matter. I pay.
- [26:30]
Michael Popak
Here's the real question. Are they all going to be buried?
- [26:33]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Law school, where I went. I mean, I. I know. I know these little dumb details.
- [26:37]
Michael Popak
You know, are all three of them going to be buried on the 19th hole at Bedminster or with their mother? Their mother. All three of the wives. Oh, God. All right, so listen, everybody.
- [26:52]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Speaking of his third wife, Melania, I was. I was reading the New York Times has an article saying in the first hundred. And where is she? Exactly. It's. It's just shocking. In the first 108 days of the presidency, she has been to the White House for 14 of those days. That's it. She is not.
- [27:16]
Michael Popak
Could you imagine if, If. If Michelle Obama.
- [27:20]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Well, that's the thing. All you read about it are these divorce rumors. I'm like, leave the Obamas alone. You know, there. And maybe it's just to deflect away from the fact that Melania Trump is disappeared and is nowhere to be seen.
- [27:30]
Michael Popak
I mean, she's not even a first lady.
- [27:32]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
She's.
- [27:32]
Michael Popak
She's abdicated her full responsibilities. You know, they used to jump on. On Michelle for who? For everything. And you know, you'd hear these people go, best first lady ever. Melania, like, why? Because she. Because she wears couture. Like, I don't understand. You know, they jumped on Jill Biden, her doctorate. You know, her clothes that she wore. You know, it was. It was really disgusting and depraved and, And. And you don't hear anything, you know, the. About, you know, J.D. vance is barely a vice president. You know, they keep sending him out, and every time he goes out, something bad happens. You know, he's like. He's like schlep rock. He meets the pope, the Pope dies. He gets the trophy for a college football championship. He breaks it. He goes to India. All right? I mean, I know wherever he goes.
- [28:24]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
You know, that's true. He's a disaster. By the way, salty gets. Just put this in the chat. And I want to say it out loud because I think. I think he's. Because I love the Obamas. I miss the Obamas. Michelle Obama was make America healthy again before it was cool. And, and she got such. She got ridiculed and sad. And now suddenly, this is the thing.
- [28:44]
Michael Popak
Yeah. And then, and then Melania made like poured asphalt and put in a basketball court at the Rose Garden, started putting up bloody red Christmas trees. And everybody was like, well, yeah, you know what? It's good that she's not around because, you know, anyway. And we're going to, we're going to talk about a lot of things, some of which are going to be tmz, like, and gossipy, and most of which are going to be hardcore law and politics. You're here on the what?
- [29:10]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Did I break news? I couldn't wait to hear what this was. I'm like, I broke news. I don't think I did.
- [29:14]
Michael Popak
I like wrote it down. Like, did he have three wives? Okay, so there's a lot of different ways to support this thing we call the Midas Touch Network and Legal af. And it is decentralized, just like the cryptocurrency market. And it gets its support from lots of different ways. Viewership, audio list, listenership. Important. Some people, you know, I've met people, they only get the podcast from YouTube and some I've met, they don't even know we have a YouTube. And that's, that's good. Try to support both, because we're trying to rock it legal that we're jealous of Midas Touch getting the podcast, the Webby. We want to get the Webby next year, you know, and so we want to. We're, we're like in 13th place. We want to move up and be with the brothers on the podium. So watch us, listen to us, tell your friends about us. That's all podcast related. Then you've got the subscriber base from Midas Touch, which signals to the world, the algorithmic gods and everybody that you want this content, you need this content. And so hit the subscribe button. As Midas moves to 5 million. It's number one YouTube channel in the world. And then we've got this parallel universe, which is, I do, in collaboration with the brothers, which is Legal AF, the YouTube channel Legal AF MTN. And we're on our way to. We have to update that. We're on our way to 700,000 subscribers in the next week or two and some amazing collaborators besides Cameron and who's on leave right now in order to. To pursue her day job. We've got, I just added Sydney Blumenthal and Sean Wallentz. They have something they form called the court of history. Who better than Sydney Blumenthal and Sean Williams to put into historical context everything that we're watching with the Trump administration. And they bring in some amazing guests and panels and all sorts of things. Just adds depth and quality to what we're doing. And the reason they call it the Court of History is because the that for them, history is the highest court, even above the United States Supreme Court. And they are right about that. And they're doing videos about every day. So Sydney Blumenthal and Sha Walent, we got a new group that's coming on. In fact, we're going to talk about it internally on Wednesday with a podcast called I'll Announce It Now. It's Complicated. The It's Complicated podcast can be coming over to Legal AF with their contributors and we're going to have more to say about that as we as we do a formal rollout of that. So hit us over there. And then we got a new substack. Yep, we needed that to get your fill of Legal af, Legal af, the substack. And there we're posting, for instance, we talk about some of these rulings, some of these court decisions of these filings. We are posting them there for you so you can read them for yourself as well. Along with commentary, I do a daily briefing called what else Morning af. And we have other contributors there as well. So come over to the Legal AF substack. And then we've got the last way is we we have these amazing set of advertiser sponsors and they're here for it, man. They, they know what our viewpoint is, they know what our point of view is, they know what we say, they don't know exactly what we're going to say and they want to address our audience and they want to advertise here and sponsor here. And we've just increased the amount of sponsorships since the election and that's always a great sign. So we're going to take a break for our pro democracy sponsors. The weather it's heating up and your nighttime bedroom temperature has a huge impact on your sleep quality. If you wake up too hot or too cold, I highly recommend you check out Miracle Maids bed sheets. 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- [34:21]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
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- [35:55]
Michael Popak
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to our pro democracy sponsors. Sometimes, many times, the good person wins. Sometimes the white hat prevails. Sometimes somebody takes a stand and doesn't allow 68,000 people who voted to have their votes thrown in a trash can so that another person can claim they won an election to the Supreme Court of that state. And this time, Allison Riggs, friend of the pod, who's been interviewed a number of times by, by our partner Ben Meiselis. She won. She hung in there through multiple appeals by Jefferson Griffin. I hate Jefferson Griffin, by the way. I mean, I, I never despise people. I despise everything that Jefferson Griffin stands for. He, for me, he disqualified himself to ever become a Supreme Court justice of the North Carolina or anywhere else. And I think he should step off of the Court of Appeals because his, his approach to try to steal this election was so depraved that I think it just sullied him. Him and showed such a lack of character. By contrast, Alison Riggs, what a high moral, high character individual. And there were four appeals, there were two state, state rulings in favor of Jefferson Griggs. And yet Alison Riggs, now Justice Riggs, never gave up. And then finally the end game happened. I'll turn it over to you, Karen. We had a ruling by a federal judge and then a decision apparently by Jefferson Griffin once. You kind of tie it all together in your own inimitable fashion.
- [37:38]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah. Well, it's funny when you put this on the list of things we're going to talk about today, I was like, didn't this election happen a long time ago? This is still kicking around. And it's because this was six months ago. This, she won by a very, very, very thin margin. I think it was 700 or so votes, which is obviously a very thin margin for the entire state of North Carolina. And so as a result, she was entitled to the, the person who lost, as you said, this, this terrible person, Jefferson Griffin, was entitled to challenge it and have it recounted. Okay, that's fair, right? That happens. That happens all over the country. Nothing wrong with that. What was terrible about Jefferson Griffin, Justice Griffin, and what is happening now and is becoming the norm all around the country is it's like January 6th, minus the violence. It's trying to steal an election, trying to disqualify voters. And so what he tried to do is essentially they spent millions of dollars litigating this, and he tried to get 68,000 votes thrown out. 68,000 saying they should not count Your vote shouldn't count. And it's, it was just staggering. And you know, the judge who ruled on this, there are a couple of state of state court judges that basically said, oh, nothing to see here, yeah, he can challenge it, you know, and these votes don't count, et cetera. But thankfully this went to a federal district judge, Judge Richard Myers, who by the way, is a Trump appointee. Love to see that. Who overruled the state courts and basically said, look, sorry, you can't change the rules after the fact. You can't say, oh, I don't like the fact that these people voted, that those people voted. And it was people who are out of town or people who are voting by mail, you know, the same January 6th kind of these votes shouldn't count. You know, the mail in ballot thing, that they just don't like that these are American citizens who lawfully casted ballots, who the law said they could. And after the fact is when they tried to say, oh no, no, we don't want these counting. And what justice, what Judge Meyers said was, you don't get to change the rules of the game after the game is over. You establish the rules before the game. And therefore he said, those votes count and Judge Riggs, who's a Democrat, is going to be the lawful winner of this election. And so thankfully Griffin finally conceded and now she's going to take office. So, so, but the reason this is a little bit. So it's good news, right? Cause as you alluded to, what's going to happen is one by one, although now it's five to two, there's two Democrats and five Republicans by 2030 is when redistricting happens in North Carolina and they're gonna redraw all the maps, et cetera. So they wanna get as many Democrats in on the way as possible to stop what they will try to do. Because we know what they're gonna. Republicans want to win at all costs, even if it's cheating. There's no kind of winning fair and square. And so they want to cheat. And so the Democrats are the only ones who are going to hold them accountable. And so that's why this was so significant. But what I don't like about this is I don't like the fact that this is the new playbook, this is the new norm for Republicans. This is what the fact that the judges in North Carolina, the state court judges, were okay with this at first. It's just, it's okay to try to steal an election. Like I said, this, this one is without violence. Right. This was a nonviolent January 6th, but this was them trying to steal another election. And we just have to keep our eyes open to that because that's what the Republicans are going to try to do. They're going to try to steal every election, state, local, federal, and we no longer live in a democracy.
- [41:41]
Michael Popak
Well, what I like about it is Alison Riggs proved. I'm going to read a quote from her. Alison Riggs proved that. And by drawing the line in the sand, basically over my dead body, or 68,000 people are going to be disenfranchised, including military. She's the daughter of military. She fought hard. Any, any normal person, what a weaker person would have given up five rounds of state or federal court ago, but not Alice and Riggs because the issue is bigger, because if she lost in North Carolina, then the dam potentially breaks and it emboldens the Republicans who are the cheaters. I hate to say it that way. They've been gaslighting us for the last 10 years, five years, that the Democrats are the ones who are cheating and stealing elections. That's not happening. But the Republicans would get a taste for this, just like they tried. Just like if Musk was successful in spending $20 million to steal a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat where it became four to three, Democrat and liberal, that would have emboldened Musk and others to go do the same thing in other places. And they've decided that the last vestige of a firewall to protect Americans and women and immigrants and other disadvantaged and, and almost disenfranchised people, vulnerable people. It's a shame, I have to say, that the women who make up 51% of this country and are so accomplished, more so than men in many, many circumstances are, are disadvantaged. But they are. And, and the last vestige for that is state supreme courts enforcing state constitutions. And the Republicans know it. And so they want to get in and start controlling state house and state houses and state supreme courts because that is the battlefield for votes. That's the battlefield for elections. That's the battlefield for reproductive rights and the rest. And they know it and we know it, and we're fighting to the death over. Over control. So I, you know, it was a courageous and valiant thing. But if she had lost, and that's why so many different groups supported her, if she had lost, think of what. The Pandora's box would have been open. Here's what Riggs said, celebrating the rul. She said, quote, after millions of dollars spent more than 68,000 votes at risk of losing their votes, Thousands of volunteers mobilized, hundreds of legal documents filed and immeasurable damage done to our democracy. That's, that's the point of Griffin. He so damaged and wounded democracy. Even, even the Judge Myers, the Trump appointee, said, you want me to unseat her? In order for me to put you in your chair, Griffin, I gotta throw away and disenfranchise 68,000 people in order to give her the seat. I just have to recognize the will of the people, so you know where I'm going with this. Which, which was the right way to analyze it. She continued and said, I'm glad the will of the voters was finally heard. Six months and two days after Election Day, it's been my honor to lead this fight, and she's not done. Even though it should never have happened. This is a righteous victory for democracy and a clear defeat of political gamesmanship, said the DNC's chair, Ken Martin. She's not going to be able to be involved again because she's got to be apolitical as a North Carolina Supreme Court justice. But there's going to be textbooks about Alison Riggs and, and coming on the Minus Touch Network. I mean, as you said earlier today, you know, on another segment of our podcast, we are focusing attention, speaking truth to each other about important issues so that it gets out there into the public, into the public square, into where we debate right on the soapboxes that we take up in our conversations to, to hopefully change minds. Right. That this information, people like Alison Riggs are important and so really, really pleased that. And I won't say for once, because it happens a lot, that the good guy won and we were here to support it and here to watch it. Karen, we're going to talk about the trans. Let's do the transgender ruling. It was only a paragraph, so let's do that. And then we'll, we'll take another break from our sponsors and we'll come back and talk about all of the decisions, including by federal judges who were appointed by Donald Trump against him on deportation. There's a hearing going on right now while we're, while we're on the air with Judge Boasberg. That's eye popping. We're going to talk about that as well. Let's just touch, let's touch on the transgender thing. We've done a lot of hot takes on it on the Midas Ditch Network and even on Legal af. So let me just frame it, then I'll turn it over to you. There's only 4,200 people in the military that identify as transgender. It's 0.2% of the military. And as a population, it's not that high either. But it's not about that. It's about a, it's about a fragile group of Americans in our society that are being dehumanized and having their dignity taken away from them, from an administration, from the bully pulpit of a presidency who won't rest until he completely destroys the transgender community and the people that occupy it and the people that support it. I mean, it's not just, you have to put it all together. It's Nancy Mace calling a transgender member of Congress. He refusing to recognize the pronouns and going even further and saying, oh, that person's not a, that person's nod didn't break any glass ceilings. We have, we've had male members of the House for the last 250 years. You know, the fighting over what bathroom they're using, fighting about whether they can be teachers in public schools or not, fighting about whether these Americans can, can, can, or who were willing to give the ultimate, pardon me, sacrifice. Can they serve this country honorably and take away their benefits and take away their right to marry and do all of that. Donald Trump has made it a cause celeb because he feels like he gets a lot of political wind at his sail because it gets his base, whatever left of his base, it gets them all excited and activated and unifies them against what? And then he just whips them up and foments them and he points them in the direction of the Democrats and tries to win elections. And so why don't you take it from this one paragraph ruling that of course Sotomayor, Ketanji, Brown, Jackson and Kagan opposed and why they did it and what happens next?
- [48:47]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Look, I mean, the fact that there are 4,200 people in the United States of America who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and fight for our freedoms and fight for this country, we should be lauding them. We should be, be there. These are heroes. These are people who are stronger, frankly, than I am. I didn't sign up to be in the military. I mean, I, I, I just think people who do that are a special, incredible group of people that I think deserve our praise and our thanks and are just the, the most incredible people in this country. It's, it's just unbelievable to be in. And every person that I have met in the military or been friends with or been close to, I'm in awe, in absolute awe. And so these individuals should be celebrated. And instead, what's happening is they're being singled out and they're going to be dismissed. They're going to be dismissed immediately because of this ruling by the Supreme Court, who dissolved a preliminary injunction on behalf of transgender service members. And this was because in California, the district court essentially ruled that this Trump Hegseth policy was one where that this was discriminatory. It was absolutely discriminatory. The district court, his name is Judge Settle, essentially said that this Trump Hegseth executive order, this policy, that the finding that transgender identity conflicts with a soldier's commitment to a, quote, honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle is ridiculous. And it's a ridiculous claim. You haven't cited any evidence to support that. There's no new study that says that there's no evaluation. This was just something that you did with the. With a stroke of a pen in an executive order. The judge also said that the plaintiffs, seven transgender service members, in contrast to Trump's position, supplied extensive evidence that in the past four years of service under Biden, they helped the unit, that the units they were in, they helped unit cohesion, good order and discipline. And so that's incredible, right? I'm sure if you were to ask the, the men and women who served alongside these transgender service people, they would say, these are honorable, incredible people who we want to continue in the military. The judge went on to say, this is an expression of raw prejudice against transgender people with no legitimate military purpose. Quote, common sense and binding authority defeat the government's claim that it does not discriminate against transgender people. It clearly does. And the legal basis for, for these rulings, the Fifth Amendment equal protection clause for discrimination on the basis of transgender status is been violated. There's a First Amendment violation of procedural due process and equitable estoppel based on the reliance of the Biden policy. When they join the army, they join the Army. Since Biden issued this policy saying transgender individuals are welcome in the military, and they relied on that, and now they're going to be dismissed. So that's the equitable or estoppel doctrine. The judge found that each of these multiple claims demonstrated a serious question going to the merits, which is the 9th Circuit standard for granting a preliminary hearing and essentially for equal protection. They held that it's a violation of equal protection, which is binding law in the Ninth Circuit that says, quote, discrimination against transgender individuals constitutes sex based discrimination for purposes of the equal protection clause, because such policies punish transgender persons for gender nonconformity. Therefore, relying on sexual Stereotypes. Sex stereotypes. The district court went on and cited a case, Bostock v. Clayton county, which expressly held that it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being gay or transgender without discriminating against them based on sex. That was written by Justice Gorsuch. Okay. And therefore, it commits the Supreme Court to this idea that discrimination against transgender people is of equality, an equal level or an equal offense to discriminating based on the Constitution on the basis of gender. But the problem is, and the reason it's not exactly perfectly aligned, is that case relied on a statute that was interpreting a statute, Title vii, whereas this is interpreting the Constitution. And so what does the Supreme Court do based on this? So the district court held that the executive order is. Is. Is discriminatory and. And enjoined its enforcement. Right. It went up to the 9th Circuit, who left that alone, left that in place, and said, we're not going to disturb that ruling. And then they went to the emergent. To this emergency shadow docket, whatever you call it at the Supreme Court. And I say whatever you call it, because this is like Trump's personal. The. The. The Supreme Court has become Trump's personal advisory opinion, advisory court. It's unbelievable how much he goes to the Supreme Court and how much. And how quickly all these things happen and how everything he does just ends up there. And they say, yay. Yay or nay. But they basically undid this hold. They undid this preliminary injunction, and therefore they can be dismissed. These 4200 transgender service people can be dismissed today, they can be dismissed tomorrow, and I'm sure they will be based on Trump and Hed says view of these individuals. Now, by dismissing the preliminary injunction, what they're essentially saying is we don't believe they're going to win on the merits ultimately. So this is just the preliminary injunction. The case still has to go up through the courts and be litigated in full. But by ruling this way, what I don't like is they're essentially saying, we don't believe that the plaintiffs have proven or have shown or demonstrated that they are going to ultimately win on the merits. And I don't know why. Why this is. And different commentators and different people have been speculating as to why it is they decided to. Why they're taking on this. This. This case and why they don't think they'll succeed. Is it because the district court entered a nationwide injunction and they don't like the idea of nationwide injunctions? And look, that's been a problematic issue that we've discussed on legal AF now for a long time. If you remember that, you know, Judge Kacmarek famously ruled that mifeprestone the abortion, one of the abortion drugs issued a nationwide injunction on that. This exact issue of can a single judge issue a nationwide injunction is teed up for the birthright citizenship case next week. So is that the issue that they're looking at and the reason they don't going to succeed succeed? Who knows? Is it that? Is it because when it comes to another, another possible reason why they don't think the plaintiff's going to succeed might again have nothing to do with how they feel about transgender individuals and whether transgender people are, are whether this is discrimination based on sex. They could just say, look, it's the military, he's the commander in chief. And we don't scrutinize anything, any, any decision that has anything to do with, with, with this because this is a primary article, article 2, article 2 function of the presidency. And they absolutely, he absolutely as the commander in chief has control over that. And therefore the least restrictive standard of all, the rational basis test is what applied applies. And if and, and that, that's all he has to show here. They have to show here. So who knows why they are ruling this way and why they are lifted this injunction. But the sad thing is is they're going to suffer irreparable harm because they could be discharged immediately. This is a disgrace and this is a really upsetting case to me.
- [56:35]
Michael Popak
Yeah, I was also upset that the three liberal or moderate justices didn't even write an opinion. I mean it's one thing to say they, they would not. All it says is they would not, they would not have granted the stay. I'm like, okay, I mean come on, I've seen Sotomayor, Katanji, Brown, Jackson and Kagan jump out and write several pages to express this. But you know, look, the, in the first Trump administration, a very similar but not identical Provision was upheld 5 to 4 by the Supreme Court. So I'm not surprised it's now six to three. Court's gotten even more conservative. I mean, you know, look for, for most of the history of the United States Supreme Court, in my lifetime, for all, for 50 years of my lifetime, it's been Republican dominated. We've never had, we've never had in my lifetime or Karen's lifetime a moderate or Democratic controlled United States Supreme Court. Think about that. It's remarkable. You know, and that's why the gaslighting where the Republicans and Trump says oh, it's the Supreme Court. Oh, we're the white, underprivileged people that are being discriminated against in this country in the Supreme Court. Supreme Court. You've controlled the Supreme Court every year for more than 50 years. You know, it's not, it's not even, this isn't even like a fair fight. It's not even like, this is like the Harlem Globetrotters versus the Washington Generals. This is like 122 to 0. Okay. We, we've never had control of the court. So all these people are worried. Oh, the liberals and the activists. Like, we've, I've never, I've never, I'm hoping my daughter, I'm hoping your, your grandchild is going to enjoy a time when we get a 5 to 4, 6 to 3 majority the other way just to balance the odds. I mean, you know, but it's never happened. And I don't want to hope. I hope, I don't hope. What I'm not sensing is that they're, that the, the Democrats are starting to give up there a little bit because I would have thought they would have written something, but we, again, this is our. Oh, somebody sending an email. This, this is a, this is the problem. The problem is Donald Trump is exploiting the emergency docket, the shadow docket. I thought Kagan would put a stop to it and just deny it, but because the issue is so great, they've gotten in the habit of having all the justices on bunk make the decision. It's done with. Once again, it's done with very little briefing, no full complete record, no oral argument, no time for deliberation, no time for thoughtfulness, no time to lobby each other over votes. It's just a knee jerk reflex. Who's a right wing, alt right conservative? I am. Who's not? Okay, six to three, you're done. This is. And Donald Trump knows it. And everything's an emergency. And not everything is an emergency, but it's the way Donald Trump is, is exploiting this loophole at the United States Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court's allowing him to do it. And there's ways, especially when the cases come out of California and Washington and in the 9th Circuit, like grow some, you know what, and say sorry and say denied, you know, denied on the stay. Oh, and then make them go, try to get to the full en banc with some sort of letter writing campaign. You know, they gotta, Kagan, Kataji, Brown, Jackson and Sotomayor, when they're handed a gift, can't return it. They're gonna have to stand up and as the sitting justice over a certain circuit and vote no and just say no. And I'm not sending it over to the full court, but you. And. And this is. This policy is even more depraved. Even though the first policy had a lot of. The first policy didn't even have all the animus that's now been heaped on the transgender community as being immoral, as being dishonest, as being effectively criminals. That's the basis for this policy because it's out there in comments made by Hexath and by Trump and others around them. But this was even more depraved because it's throwing out of the military combat veterans and others who have already transitioned. They already are who they want to be. It's not just people who have, you know, a dysphoria and like, well, I wonder, I wonder. I'm not sure, you know, can I get some treatment? You know, these people are already. They. Already who they want to be. And just, just as a last note, one of the plaintiffs, Commander Shilley, is a 19 year Navy aviator who served in 60 combat missions. And they're going to throw her out of the military because she doesn't represent the highest ideals of the military in esprit de corps. Are you effing kidding me? This is bias and animus and hatred for another group of Americans, plain and simple. And if that's okay with you, then just say that out loud. I would rather you just say out loud, I hate transgender people and the way they make me feel as your justification for trying to destroy their community and their sense of worth than to give me any other BS about, well, they can't be trusted and they're depraved or they're, you know, who knows, they might take a gun and fire it on another person. We never had a transgender person in the military. Friendly fire somebody. It's just. It's just disgusting. But that's where we are. It'll continue. There's another case coming out of Judge Ali Khan, who was very hot against the Department of the Department of Defense and another nationwide injunction case. That one we, you and I reported on it several weeks ago, the D.C. court of Appeals, that was a bad sign. Then decided to block her order and allow that her injunction to be blocked. And that was the D.C. court of Appeals, which is much more moderate. So we got that. But, so, and they're going to issue their decision any day now. We'll see with that block of the state a block of the order means. And then the appeal will continue in the Ninth Circuit, and then it may end up after further development, coming back to the United States Supreme Court. But for right now, if you're in the military or you want to go into the military and you're transgender, your career is over. And maybe two years from now, the justices change their mind, you can reenlist, but you've just dashed the hopes of everybody. Okay, I got you. All right. Karen's gonna head out. Her other, her other calling called her. But I'll continue to wrap up things here. But before we we're gonna go into our last break, or when we come back, we're gonna talk about all the federal judges that are uniting against Donald Trump, including Trump appointed judges in his deportation scheme and his invocation of the alien enemy. Zach, we got some new reporting about a hearing with Judge Boasberg. I'll cover all of that. Four new decisions against Donald Trump in the last few days here on Legal AF. Take a minute. Hit the subscribe button for Legal AF, the YouTube channel Legal AFMTN. Hit the subscribe button for Midas Touch. Another way to support us. Listen and watch to this po, this particular podcast. Anywhere you get your audio podcast from. Register it there. Subscribe there. Legal AF YouTube version of it here. And then we've got a new sub stack that's Legal AF the substack. It's easy to find. 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That's $100 off your first six bottles at nakedwines.com legal AF and use the code and password legal AF for six bottles of wine for 39.99 welcome back to legal AF. You may have noticed it's become sort of a monologue. Hopefully don't hold it against us. But Karen and I also have day jobs as lawyers and something was pressing. And of course I would always cover for my partner, Karen Freeman. Nicknifolo so I'm going to finish up on basically the rebellion of federal judges, including Trump appointed judges to Donald Trump's unconstitutional, rogue and lawless attack on people who are immigrants, documented or undocumented, status or no status and the, and the attempted use of the Alien Enemies Act. And right now in Judge Boasberg, people forget about Judge don't, don't sleep on Judge Boasberg. D.C. circuit Court Chief judge was handling a case and now it's a version of it's back in front of him about the illegal removal and deportation to the gulags of El Salvador and foreign prisons by the Trump administration under the Alien Enemies Act. It's back with some new filings there and he's getting to the bottom of a number of things. But one of them is whether Donald Trump has the power to pick up the phone and call his counterpart in El Salvador, that tiny little island, and tell him to bring back prisoners. And Bozberg watches TV just like we all do. And maybe he watches Midas touch illegal af. A lot of, a lot of influential people in law politics do and he saw what we all saw. You know, interview with Kristen Welker, interview with, with Terry Moran in which Terry Moran point blank said to Trump there is a, he was sitting in the Oval Office. See that phone? There's a phone in your office. Pick up the phone. Call Bukele, the dictator of El Salvador. Well, I could, I, I could if he was as nice a person as you say he is, Terry. But he's Ms. 13. How do you know that? Well, he's got a tattooed in his fingers. Well, he doesn't because that's a lie. That was a made up deep fake meme photo that you, you embraced as policy. Well, there's a Photo Buck stops with you, Mr. President. Terry Moran said, you're not being very nice to me, Terry. That's usually Donald Trump's response. Kristen Welker said the same thing. Now, Donald Trump's like shape shifting when it comes to his power and his authority. When he was asked by the New York Times. I'm sorry, by Time magazine in an interview that kicked off this whole, this whole tour of the media, the this was in writing. The Time magazine reporter said to Donald Trump, you've been ordered to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia from a prisoner in El Salvador. Have you done that? Do whatever my lawyers tell me. But have you facilitated the return? Have you picked up the phone and called your counterpart? No one's ever asked me to do that. You're the first person to ask me to do that. Right. The interviewer was the first person. That's because the truck. If that's true, he's either so out of touch with his own administration that he should be put out to pastor through the 25th Amendment or, or he's being lied to by his principal lawyers like Pam Bonte and Stephen Miller, who's not a lawyer, about the results that he's suffering, the losses he's suffering at the Supreme Court, or he knows he's losing and he knows why he's losing and he's lying to the American people by acting like, oh, I don't even know. I get my information from the lawyers. So who, who really believes at the first time Donald Trump ever the thought was ever put in his head about picking up the phone and making a phone call was when the Time magazine reporter asked him, fast forward to Kristen Welker. He then admitted, this is the shape shifting. He went from you? I never, no one ever asked me. And then it was, the phone's on your desk. Yes, but I don't like this guy. And then the third one was with Kristen Welker. One half of the interview was due process. Never heard of it. You're the President of the United States. You're up. You're supposed. You have to defend and uphold the US Constitution. But does that include due process? I know, I gotta talk to my lawyers. I'm not sure that means due process. There'll be a lot of trials. There'll be a lot of trials and hearings. If we did that, that was one eye popping moment. That was, that would be an article of impeachment. If, if adults were in charge of Congress right now, hopefully they will be at the midterms. And then he says, I can make the phone call. I could make that phone call. So Boseberg hears it. He's at a hearing today with the Department of Justice lawyer, and he says, we all heard him say he can make the phone call. Did he? Well, that's really just a reflection of how Donald Trump thinks about himself and a reflection of his own ego about how. Oh, so you're telling me that wasn't the truth, what he said? Is that what you're trying to say? And it went. And the hearing sort of went downhill from there. I'll do a further outtake on it. You'll be able to wake up to it tomorrow morning on Legal AF. That'll be my number one video on Legal AF, the podcast. But we've got four different judges who have ruled in the last 72 hours that Donald Trump has unconstitutionally and illegally invoked the Alien Enemies act to deport people summarily without due process to foreign jails, period. And they run the gamut. Two of them are Trumpers. Well, at least appointed by Trump. You've got Southern. The first judge we did hot takes on it last week was Southern District of Texas Rodriguez, Trump appointment, Trump appointee. And they all say the same thing. Trend Aragua, the narcotics gang being in America is a function of migration. It's not a function of an enemy combatant. Predatory incursion akin to war, because we're not at war with Trend Aragua because they're not a country, nor do they stand for a country, nor does Venezuela using them as a proxy for a country. And without a predatory incursion, you don't have the fundamental basis to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. This is the, this is the analysis of all four judges I'm going to talk about at the same time. In the last 72 hours, you've got the declassification of a memo written at the behest of Donald Trump's own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Right. This isn't a Biden memo. This is a Tulsi Gabbert memo by the national intelligence community and analysts who were asked to go look at all the evidence about whether TDA controls the Venezuelan government led by Maduro, the Maduro regime, or vice versa. And they universally concluded in a very short memo that that is a lie, that the Venezuelan regime run by Maduro may do a little business with Trend Aragua. A couple of the officials might like having them go to America to, to cause a ruckus, but that doesn't mean that they are in that TDA controls the Maduro regime or vice versa. And there goes the entire argument that they are enemy combatants at war with the United States because they have infiltrated trend the Venezuelan government of Maduro right there in the own analysts of Donald Trump. And they the only thing that Tulsi Gabber can say is yeah, but the FBI Cash Patel. Yeah, the FBI said it was the only disagreement in the memo. The FBI believed that there were some officials in the Maduro regime who did take special delight in some trend to Aragua going to America and undermining public safety. That is not a war for Alien Enemies act purposes. So says the first judge. And it's Donald Trump's first Hispanic federal judge appointment. Judge Rodriguez, Southern District of Texas. So says Judge Sweeney, a Biden appointee in Colorado who said it was scandalous and shocking the position the Trump administration was taking that, that fundamentally that judges can't review the use of the Alien Enemies act by a president. She said that was, I don't know if she said scalding or she just said it was basically unprecedented and shocking. We had, we just had a ruling by the Southern District of New York Senior Judge, Judge Hellerstein, who's no stranger to Trump matters, having ruled against Donald Trump during his criminal matter, during his eg Carol matters. He just ruled same thing. No predatory incursion, no proper use of Alien Enemies act blocking in his jurisdiction, the deportation through the Alien Enemies Act. And then we've got Judge Gallagher, also a Trump appointee, who also ruled the exact same thing, but for a different reason. Judge Gallagher just ruled effectively, Trump just made another Abrego Garcia in the form of Mr. Camargo, who also she has ordered that just like Judge Zinnis did, that he be returned to the United States immediately. So we're all coming here with all these judges, including Trump judges like the last one. So he didn't like Zinnis. The judge in Maryland called her a leftist, a Marxist, a radicalist, an activist because she ruled for Abrego Garcia to be returned and that the Trump administration facilitate that return. That decision by that Marxist activist Obama appointee was affirmed twice by the Fourth Circuit and 90 by the United States Supreme Court. But how is he, what's he going to do about Judge Gallagher, a Trump appointee? You see notice Donald Trump never attacks in his social media posts. Trump appointments never. He will be silent on Gallagher. If I'm wrong, I'll bring it to you on a hot take. But, but that's how these judges are fighting back and shoving back against the lawless president. And then we've got the two graduate students who, again, just to be clear, I don't agree with their point of view. I don't agree with what they're arguing in the streets. But unless you show me they are terrorists or they are funded by terrorists, the fact that they have a displeasing First Amendment expression to me is the exact reason I need to support them in our constitutional republican democracy, because I am a believer in the First Amendment. I believe in all our amendments, by the way, up and down, in no particular order, but the First Amendment particularly. And that's why the ACLU comes in, the American Civil Liberties Union, to defend. I was going to call her Dr. Ozturk, but she's a graduate student, Ramesa Ozturk at Tufts, who was. Listen, this is the part that's, that's pissing the judges off and scaring us. They took her out of Massachusetts, and within hours she was in three different states. As they played Dodge, they played shell game, trying to hide her from a federal judge before she ended up in Louisiana. She's now been ordered by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals sitting over New York. In Massachusetts, she's been ordered to return to be returned to the. To Vermont, where she was originally picked up. Vermont seems to be the place for these. We got two cases coming out of Vermont. Second Circuit said, no, you don't get to keep moving her around in three different states in 72 hours to avoid our federal jurisdiction. She was last in Vermont. You bring her back to Vermont now, you know, we'll see another emergency application by the Trump administration to the Supreme Court. First stop on that train, I think, is Sotomayor. And I'm pleading with her, I'm pleading with Sotomayor, deny the application by yourself. Stop turning it over. We got to stop with the niceties. And we got to start with elbows up. Even at the Supreme Court, we got that case. And then we got the case of a guy named Mohsen who was at Columbia University. Again, these are people that are expressing the views in support and in solidarity of Hamas and of the Palestinian people against the Israelis. It's all sort of coming out of the same place. But federal courts are the place that we want to be. That last firewall to protect even foreign graduate students from abuse by this administration. Because where else? What would Donald Trump have us do get or his supporters get rid of the federal court systems. Just give him. Yes, I know the answer. It's rhetorical. Give him complete carte blanche. Do whatever he wants. Yes, and, but, but, but there, where's the check and where's the balance and where's the three co. Equal branches of government if one of the branches is completely run amok and nobody's there to stop them? So this has been a bad week for Donald Trump when it comes to his deportation and removal scheme. It is, it has. You can't spit it. There's no silver lining. You know, he's, he's, he's lost effectively at The Supreme Court 6 to 3, 90 and 7 to 2, every combination of a super majority. He's lost when it comes to immigration in the last month and a half. He's lost four cases in the last 72 hours. He's lost an appellate case. Now, sure, all, all of it is fun and games until you get to the United States Supreme Court. And again, I implore the moderate justices of the Supreme Court use your powers and your superpowers to procedurally fight for the cause. It's just, it really is necessary. You're here fighting for the cause. The resistance is televised and it's on YouTube and it's on podcasts for the Midas Touch Network and for Legal af. And we have a fellowship, a community that we've built here together. And it's meaningful and it means something to me and it means something to all the other contributors of those that were here from day one. You know, I just, as people know, some people know from my private life. My 90 year old mother was living in an assisted living facility in Georgia and I'm fortunate enough to be able to move her to a brand new facility right near my home. And as I was leaving facility number one, as I was walking the hallways in Georgia, I can't tell you how many of the home health care nurses or the health nurses and staff came up to me and said, and I've been going there for years. My mom's been there for seven years and just, just today, wait, wait, Midas Legal AF hold up their phones. And the fact that we've made it into that world, you know, we've got some great guests, amazing people and people from all socioeconomic backgrounds and educational backgrounds, but it's the most heartwarming for me when somebody who doesn't have five degrees, who doesn't, you know, who doesn't have a master's or defended their thesis, comes up to me and gives me a fist bump or whatever. And that is the salt of the earth that helps propel the Midas Touch Network and Legal af. It is a core part of our audience and so important to me because when I do my hot takes, I don't picture, you know, that's, I don't pick, I don't picture people with their clothes off, by the way. I don't have stage fright, as you may have noticed. But I don't picture as my, as my target audience who I'm talking to. I don't picture the college professor or the lawyer or the Ph.D. of this or the doctor. I pick, I picture the, the American, you know, the ones that do the living and dying and breathing and tax paying and hard work. School teachers and firefighters and home health care and people in the health care industry and veterans and, and, and the rest. You know, that's my core audience, you know, for who I speak to and then, and of course I want everybody else to come along, come along for our journey. But that's, that's important to me and I wanted to express it here. You're important to me. Into the Midas Touch network as we continue to grow this pro Democracy channel and all the other affiliated channels that go with it like Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Come on over there, Hit the subscribe button. We're well on our way. Our target is 700000 subscribers by next week. I'm sure we will get there with your help. We got a Legal AF sub stack. Legal af the sub stack where we post some amazing new content there. Do that, set the reminders on Legal AF because we're adding new contributors almost every week at the intersection of law and politics. And of course hit the subscribe button for Midas Touch. We got a store. We still sell merchandise. Yeah, I see the sales every month. Like oh, we still selling T shirts. That's good. There it is. It's store.midas touch.com you can fly the flag of, of legal AF in various ways including coffee mugs over there. And then we've got our patreon patreon.com legalaf all the ways there it is all the ways to support this ecosystem that we have built together. So on behalf of Karen Freeman Agnifolo who had a run off and did and represent some clients and me, Michael Popak here on Legal aaf, shout out to the Midas mighty and the Legal A efforts.