Michael Popak (54:35)
All right, a little thunder before the lightning round because you won't do it. So I'm going to do it. Everybody go look up National Public Radio's interview with Ben Mesalis. An amazing interview and just reaching a whole nother audience. But also demonstrates how mainstream media, linear media has finally figured out that there is a thing called the Midas Touch Network and that there's an audience behind it, a fervent audience behind it. And we, some of us caught it in real time, some of us caught it later. But an amazing go look up NPR Ben Meisellis interview. This, this legal af because of our audience just broke the top 20 in all YouTube podcasts, regardless of the type of podcast that it is, where we just hit number 16. That's not me and Ben and Karen, that's you. So we want to thank. We were doing it before when we had 300 people, so you could tell that we're nuts that way. The fact that we are doing something that resonates. And as I like to say now to sign off of my hot takes, we're now joined at the hip and together we will overcome this Trump administration, I assure you. Let me turn to the lightning round on about the winds and they're really important. AG General Banta had a very good observation. I pointed this question and posed this question to him. I said, General Banta, there are people in our audience that are beleaguered and sort of ground down about the losses at the Supreme Court. Why do these cases matter? The 50 cases that the attorneys general have filed, the 80 cases that one organization, Democracy Forward, which now is a Playlist on Legal AF, YouTube, has filed against the Trump administration. The hundreds of others that have been filed, we're up to over almost 500 cases filed against the Trump administration in the first seven or eight months. The dozens and dozens and dozens of injunctions and new injunctions issued. Why does that matter? If there's a couple of cases that we don't like, of course, that are going to lose the Supreme Court, and he reminded our audience of how they are winning substantially, that Most justice and 95, 98% of justice is done at the district court, trial court level. Cases don't even get to appeal. And even on the funnel when the cases get to appeal, the 10 or 15% of those cases in the in Trump style cases, in normal cases, less than that get to an appellate level and then only.001% end up at the United States Supreme Court. Even if you add together the emergency applications and the regular docket of the Supreme Court, you're talking about 100 cases out of like tens of thousands between state and federal court that are filed every year. Now, I'm not saying they're not important. They are important, important to our democracy. But the reason we as an audience and as the newsmakers, the people that are in the trenches doing the actual filing and litigating and arguing why it matters, why we run into the burning building to save democracy and not the other way, is because of the things I'm going to talk about right now. And I think a great blueprint for what just happened is the National Endowment for Democracy case that was an order, a preliminary injunction issued by Daphne Friedrich, who's a Trump appointee in the District of Columbia now. And she also took a not so subtle, not so subtle criticism she included in her new order. This was about the National Endowment of Democracy, which sounds like an amazing organization and one Donald Trump would hate. It's about promoting democracy, the US Style democracy around the world. And it's not just because it has democracy in it. It's not just the Democrats. There's three major core institutes that Congress funds that Donald Trump has been holding up. The funding related to. There's the National Democratic Institute, okay, that's the Democrats, but there's also the International Republican Institute, the Center for International Private Enterprise and Solidarity Center. And what happened is Congress allocated $300 million and a first tranche of almost $100 million. And Trump got in the way and said, we're not going to allow that drawdown, trying to put them out of business. So that right on, within 90 days of the payments not being made to them, this nonpartisan group, they filed their lawsuit in March. We're now in August. Look how far it's been. Here's the potshot. Here's the shot across the bow that the judge took a Trump appointee about what this group does. It says that this group, this is on page two of their of the order, is to promote the long term US Interest by fostering stability. Now compare this to Trump countering authoritarian influence and reducing the drivers of extremism and migration. Okay? If this organization wasn't US Based, it would be focused on the Trump administration. Because the Trump administration is all about instability, authoritarian influence and extremism. And I don't think she pulled that out of her hat and didn't put it in the first two pages of her order. I think it was for a reason. And what happened is she ordered by preliminary injunction that the $95 million and the funding start flowing back to this entity ASAP. ASAP. We know Donald Trump hates it. You know, it's DEI. He hates it, but we see the ramifications of it. He hates diplomacy. He hates humanitarian aid. He's hollowed out the State Department. He's fired its employees. He's defunded the State Department. He's closed consulate offices all around the world. He's turned people who normally would go towards democracy and our version of capitalism away from us and towards the Russians, the North Koreans and the Chinese, okay? Because he's eliminated this. This institute is about promoting American ideals worldwide. We are the leader of the free world, or we used to be. But that's where Donald Trump says, how much money can I save? Billions of dollars I can put somewhere else. I can give it to my friends. I can create a sovereign wealth fund and start investing in intel with your money. Start investing in rare earth mining companies with your money. Start investing in Chinese chips with your money. Let's do it. And that's a problem because there's more to running a country than running a business. Even though you did a great job at the start of this, this podcast about he's running it like a regular Trump business, meaning we'll be going bankrupt anytime soon. We're like Trump stakes. That's where we're at at this point as a nation. That's why everyone was like, we need a businessman running America. Not everybody. And I was like no. Because the country, the United States and its levers and its requirements and the policies that it needs to enforce for the American people is not running a business. You can't make everything reduced to a dollar amount. You want to sell chips that will undermine our national security. Nvidia, just give me 15% and you could do it. No, there are just things that go beyond that. And that's where we now have an example of folding. Because even though the front page news was injunction entered and people were like, oh, just appeal it. He didn't appeal it. And now the Department of Justice has just announced that they're releasing the hundred million dollars to the National Endowment for Democracy. And that's not the only example. General Bonta, when he was with us, he said, and so did democracy forward. Billions for education have now been released because of lawsuits. So there's certain ones that Donald Trump fights on and defies federal judges about. But there's a lot where he just folds and the money starts to flow. So we have that win. Then you've got judges like Judge Kaplan who knows Donald Trump well, cuz he's the judge that presided over both E. Jean Carroll cases and where she's got $100 million of judgments by the way, on that. As long as we're doing a speed round. I just had Robby Kaplan on legal af with an interview that's going up now. Eg Carol just had a huge win. Her 83 and a half million dollar judgment was just affirmed by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. There's one more appeal which is coming later this week. The order. Once that happens, the only thing standing between E. Jean Carroll justice at $100 million, which she said she's gonna donate to causes that it's gonna drive Donald Trump crazy is the United States Supreme Court. So we're gonna have to see what happens there. So that's another win for justice, but justice. Judge Kaplan had a case in front of him about the poor living conditions, as you said, for the National Guard, but this is for immigrants picked up in this removal hunt of the Trump administration in Manhattan. And they're reporting, you know, unsanitary conditions, unclean jail cells, no, no mattress whatsoever. Sleep on a hard concrete floor. And Judge Kaplan said no three times a day. Cleaning, get a mat on the floor for these people, get proper hygiene and sanitation in there and report back to me on a weekly basis as to what's happening. This is what's going on with the winds, and it's over. Get this number, Ben. The winning streak right now for those opposed and defiant to the Trump administration is over 90%, even in the 80 percentile for the appeals. Now, there's one thing we gotta keep an eye on, and I hate to say it, but when there's a Trumper in the woodpile, we're gonna lose. And if there's two Trumpers in the wood pile, I mean, if there's two Trumpers on a three judge panel, we're gonna lose and Trump's gonna win no matter how devastating it is to the American people. And we knew on this random panel of Katzis and Rao and Pillard, because they don't just get pulled in for one case, they get pulled in for several cases. And two cases got assigned to that panel with Katzas and Rao, the Trumpers and Pollard. Not one of them was the Jeb Boasberg case, in which Jeb Boasberg found there was probable cause to find the Trump administration in criminal contempt for being lied to about the planes going to el Salvador with 200 people on board without due process and his order to ground the planes, which was violated. And the judge also said, I'm going to start making referrals over to bar associations for bar licenses, maybe being pulled because I was lied to. Well, now the Katzis Rao team have gotten together on Bozberg, have said, no, you were, you are completely out of line. You can't continue to hold the Trump administration accountable even though we know for whistleblowers that you were lied to effectively. We know that there is defiance going on in your courtroom, violating all rules of order and inherent authority of judges. But you were wrong, Jeff Boasberg. That's how far the Trump judges now go. They're now wrapping the knuckles of chief judges of federal circuits or districts and telling them you were wrong because you should have allowed yourself to be lied to. And now they've just come out with their new ruling again with Pollard in the in the dissent rail and Katzis that team again destroying allowing the destruction of the consumer. The Consumer Protection Board Finance Protection Board created by Barack Obama. One of the first leaders of it was Elizabeth Warren to protect Americans from predatory lending practices practices, credit card practices, airline practices, anything that was consumer facing. We had regulators already for the industry. The securities and Exchange Commission, banking regulators, the Office of Currency. You know we had all ofac all sorts of regulators that were against or regulating the industry but nobody was protecting the consumer. Really nobody. I mean states had some consumer boards, you know Better Business Bureau but nothing at the federal level. And after examples of consumers and that's you maga along with us getting screwed by predatory lending practices, usurious interest rates, payday loans like you said airlines screwing you on the tarmac with I just had that happen to me with things with no bill of Rights. But this is not to protect big business. This is to protect the consumer. But here's. This is how. Wait, I'm just going to do it this way. This is the first line of Katzis's order destroying the Consumer Finance Protection Board. This is all you need to know. This is line one of his order. To promote the President's deregulation agenda, the Consumer Finance Financial Protection Bureau undertook a number of steps to downsize. Okay, that's how Katza starts off as order. As if one day the consumer the consumer board got up and said hey, you know what we're going to do? We're going to downsize and stop protecting Americans. We're going to, we'd like to the money you want to send us through Congress. No, we don't want it. We reject it. The people that are employed here. No, we don't need them either. That that's how they like all passive voice instead of Donald Trump just screwed his own electorate and others along with it by getting rid of consumer protection that we should all have as a matter of right and dignity. And he got his two Trumpers. Thank God there's not more Trumpers on the D.C. court of Appeals when it comes to that to allow for this downsizing. So it's gonna be basically downsized out of existence. And the way they did it was always so underhanded. It's always like well we'd love to get to this issue but you really don't have standing because you're the employees that and you have your own very limited rights as employees now, federal employees, to argue about your dismissal. And you should go do that in some administrative civil service capacity, even though civil service protection has been eliminated under the Trump administration. But you should go do that even though there's no real relief there. And it's not really a final order under the Administrative Procedures Act. So we really don't have any jurisdiction. They spent 50 pages telling us why Pollard wrote a dissent that said, are you effing kidding me? This is my artist rendering, as she often does. Now, this is going to get to the Supreme Court. The question is really for you, Ben. I've seen Roberts, it seemed like a distant Roberts who saved Obamacare and then got pilloried and attacked by the pre maga Tea Party and Republicans at the time. Do you think he, he, it will save the Consumer Financial Protection Board if when it gets to the Supreme Court?
