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- [00:01]
Ben Miceli
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- [00:30]
Michael Popak
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- [01:27]
Ben Miceli
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- [01:36]
Michael Popak
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- [01:41]
Ben Miceli
Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com familyfreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16128 gigabyte 82999 eligible trade in iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact T Mobile. Let's get into it. Michael Popak this is legal AF updates on Donald Trump's cover up of his connections with Epstein. Not really a good job at covering up on Air Force One. He talked about Epstein stealing his help, which he then said were like the girls, like the the underage girls who worked at Mar A Lago. You and I have been covering this for a long time. I said look, I'm not concerned about just saying the truth that Mar A Lago was used as the site where Epstein sex trafficked. He found underage girls like Virginia Giuffre who were working at the spa when they were like 16 years old as towel girls. And then he sex tracked, sex trafficked Virginia Giuffre and Trump basically said that he was aware that that Epstein stole his help is the language that Donald Trump said. And Virginia Giuffre was one of those people. So that happened this week. You have the MAGA Republicans in the House of Representatives, they've been negotiating with Ghislaine Maxwell and Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyer. They're not going to give her immunity like the Department of Justice did. Well, I'll give you all the maneuverings right there. But James Comer, the MAGA Republican head of the House Oversight Committee, did agree to an extension of Ghislaine Maxwell's deposition date. It was supposed to be August 11th. Now it's gonna be moved after the Supreme Court rules on her petition for a new trial or just to dismiss the case based on the non prosecution agreement entered into by Epstein and the Republican United States Attorney, Alex Acosta, who became Donald Trump's Labor Secretary during his first term. So she won't have her deposition taken now, if ever, you know, October, November. But we all know what the magazine are trying to do. They're going to try to push this out and then maybe she invokes the fifth in 2026. I want to warn you what they're doing so you understand their maneuvers. Also, we learned that what Donald Trump did with those thousands of DOJ lawyers and FBI agents who looked through the Epstein files, they were really there for one purpose, which was to find all the references to Donald Trump's name and remove them and redact them that took place. I mean, it's like the, it's like the worst cover up ever. And it's, as I've said, the GOP at this point stands for Guardians of Pedos. All of the lies and things they said, oh, there's this cabal out there that's covering up for all the pedos like they're the GOP and Trump are literally doing it right now in plain view. Also, CBS forensic analysis of the surveillance footage from Epstein's cell that was released by the Trump DOJ even shows more discrepancies than what Wired report showed. Remember, Wired report showed it was like two minutes that were manipulated? Not just the one minute, it was like two minutes plus that were manipulated. Well, we don't even think that the footage was of Epstein cell at this point because remember back in the first Trump administration, we learned that the cameras were destroyed right before Epstein allegedly died by suicide. So it was always suspicious, like, what was this camera? I thought the cameras were destroyed. Well, we don't even think that it was showing where Epstein's cell was. Based upon the reconstruction by cbs. We'll get into that. Oh, and then Donald Trump brought into the White House a registered sex offender to oversee a program for Children, athletics. We'll get into that. Also, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case about Donald Trump's tariffs against the world. Donald Trump is destroying the United States economy. Right. A horrible jobs report was released. Inflation surging again. Donald Trump used emergency powers to try to claim this ability to tariff every country. Oh, just, just by saying Canada's bringing all this fentanyl in emergency, which was not true. And this country's doing this emergency, emergency. Europe, Mexico, everyone's attacking US emergency. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals did not seem to be buying what Trump was selling. But we need to see what the outcome ultimately is. There. But we'll talk about what that oral argument looked like. Let's talk about Texas and Trump's plan to rig the midterms. What Democrats are doing to fight back the unlawful gerrymandering plan. How the gutting of the Voting Rights act made the unlawful gerrymandering possible. What's Gavin Newsom doing? What are blue states doing? Let's talk about all of that and if we have some time for it. Also, we, we should talk about Trump firing the commissioner of the Bureau and Labor Statistics because Donald Trump did not like the job report even though he was boasting about other numbers from the same report, you know, in previous weeks. Now he doesn't like it. He says it was rigged. Even Donald Trump's commissioner, William beach, who previously held that job, said that this was outrageous and that Donald Trump should never have done it. We'll go over that and then even. I'd love to chat about this as well with you, Popak. Let's bring Popak in. That plan by Trump to destroy the east wing of the White House and build a 90,000 square foot ballroom without congressional approval, totally changing what the White House looks like. And then Trump's trying to get around congressional approval by saying he's gonna solicit private donations for it. Popak. And I think that makes it worse. In a violation of the emoluments clause and a lot of other anti bribery laws. And Trump didn't rule out taking money from the Middle east and others to rebuild the White House. That's what's happening right now in the United States of America.
- [07:39]
Michael Popak
We had that as an end. I'm going to start with that.
- [07:42]
Ben Miceli
Let's start with that.
- [07:42]
Michael Popak
I'm going to back into that. He already scarred the Capitol building leading the Jan6 insurrection. But that wasn't enough for Bob the Builder, our President of the United States. 24 karat gold leafing every room in the White House. Making it a gaudy Trump hotel on the casino strip is not enough for him. Is not enough for him. Now he's going to have a. There's two. You actually, you actually are being kinder than, than, than normal. He already paved over the Rose Garden, reducing you can hear the spinning of Jackie Kennedy Onassis in her grave. Having given us the crab apples and the beautiful Rose garden as a meditative place and for, you know, press conferences and the rest. But Donald Trump has this weird thing about women and their, and their high heels. It's always a tell for Donald Trump, if you know what I mean. And so women get their high heels caught in the grass of the Rose garden. So he literally Ben bulldozed, bulldozer it over and put concrete everywhere there used to be grass. We now have a parking lot in the back of the White House where there once was a rose garden. And along the drainage paths are the US flag and then seals of the President in each corner. It's so bad that Four Seasons Total Landscaping, the famous site of Rudy Giuliani's press conference about the stolen election, posted on their social media that they took a two minute moment of silence about the Rose Garden. So he does that. And then for the same reason, women getting their high heels stuck in the grass and him not liking tents. He's now building a 200 million, forget that. Double the number. $400 million. 90,000 square foot ballroom where once stood the East Wing modeled after Mar a Lago with gold chandeliers and all tearing down the very symmetry and look scarring the White House forever. Because I'm sorry, no president in the future is going to tear that down in order for him to leave his mark like any dictator. This is Stalin putting up his own statues and paintings. This is North Korea doing the same thing. Putin doing the same thing. This is the playbook of dictators. You put up giant edifices to your ego that we have to live with until we tear down Saddam Hussein's statue after he's toppled. And it's not okay that he is effing with our. The living embodiment of our democracy around the world is the White House. And now I gotta look at a crappy Ramada Inn ballroom and a parking lot for valet cars where there once was the beauty of the White House.
- [10:36]
Ben Miceli
You know, a lot of people who are high up in politics, let's just say, asked me why I think it's such a big deal. And I said symbols matter. And it's like Donald Trump taking A piss on the people's house. And to me, it encapsulates all of the other unlawful acts, criminal acts, dictatorship stuff that he's doing, and the fact that he promised to make housing more affordable. He promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. He's still claiming right now that he solved inflation and that everything we see when we go to stores is just our imagination. And actually there is no inflation at all taking place. And we, of course, know that not to be the case. But then they have this announcement. Donald Trump as going to ballroom and the White House. He has selected a knock attack. You know what? I'm watching that. That's my Caroline Levitt impression right there. And Newsom's a social media team. Did a great Hunger Games style post. While all the districts pay extra for groceries and everyday goods, the White House is excited to announce that the Capitol is creating a grand ballroom for opulent parties. May the odds be in your favor. I mean, honestly, it's exactly like that. And I believe it's unlawful. I believe it's a violation of the emoluments clause. You know, so what is. Are foreign countries going to bid on building, you know, or having their names? Is it going to be like the way they have the live golf tournament sponsored by the Saudis? Is it going to be the Saudi East Wing or the Qatari east wing?
- [12:16]
Michael Popak
He's lying about who's paying for it. He said originally, and she announced it, the Hunger Games lady announced it, that this was going to be paid for by, quote, unquote, Donald Trump and donors. And then when he was asked about it, because he can't keep the lies straight, he said, oh, it'll be me and others or whatever. It's the whatever part that troubles our audience and taxpayers because we're just. Just like the whatever of who just paid to have the Rose Garden demolished. I never thought I would beg to go back to Melania's destruction of the sacred space of the Rose Garden in the first term and those red blood red Christmas trees. But that compared to what he's done now is a whole nother thing. We paid for that we're going to end up paying for this. Or as you said, Ben, it's up for sale. Influence peddling all over again at the White House. It happens every day. White cutter gave us a $400 million plane as a gift directly to Donald Trump and a bribe. So maybe it'll be the Qatari Ballroom.
- [13:17]
Ben Miceli
Yeah, and by the way, the Senate took a vote this past week at the request of Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who said, look, this plane should be blocked. We know it now costs a billion dollars. But Murphy says, we know all of you MAGA Republicans support him having this plane. But here's the amendment that I want to make. Even though we don't want that plane, we don't want a billion dollars going into it. Just can we all agree that after a billion dollars of American taxpayers are put into this Qatari jet, that Donald Trump doesn't get to keep it as a personal gift to himself when he leaves the White House? Can we all just agree to that amendment that if the American people are building it, that it stays with the American people and future presidents? We would think not a controversial amendment. All of the Republicans voted that down and they said, we are giving it. No, no, no, no, no. That's Trump's jet. And that's why, though, you can't have any rational conversation with this Republican Party today, because they are no different than the political party that exists in North Korea or that exists in Russia. It's not just that they're a rubber stamp popak. These are broken human beings who are willing to, for their own power and job, sell out, to sell out this country.
- [14:51]
Michael Popak
Yeah, listen, listen. I never thought I'd say that the Qataris were more ethical than Donald Trump. But in my reporting that I went up on a hot take or at the intersection, they are the ones that wanted language included in the agreement between the United States and Qatar that the plane would stay with the United States Air Force. And who redlined it out? Donald Trump through Pete Hegseth, because he has no intention of keeping that plane. So here's what's going to just touch on the Qatari plane Rose Garden Ballroom segment that we're doing here, which is important because you're right, symbols do matter and taxpayer dollars matter. That Qatari plane is going to cost a billion dollars to retrofit. It's going to be done a year, a year and a half later. He's going to have a year to use it. In the meantime, right behind it is two other Air Force ones that are being built. The contracts haven't been canceled. The money's already been spent with Boeing of over $3 billion. So what, we're going to have like four Air Force Ones at one point. So of course, Donald Trump's going to say, well, we don't need four Air Force ones. I'll take one with me to the Trump Library. And then, of course, they put language in the MoU. We always say, in our. We always joke in our world, the law, the world of law and defense cases follow the money. And if somebody says it's not about the money, it is exactly about the money. So they actually wrote language and said, nothing in this transaction should be construed by anybody as a bribe. Foreign corrupt practices. It's exactly a bribe and foreign corrupt practices. That's why you put the language in.
- [16:22]
Ben Miceli
There, because we're on this topic of these foreign deals. Let's back into the tariff one also. And what happened in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. You've been following that hearing. I want to start with this, and then I'm going to toss it to you. An argument that wasn't made, but to me, potentially could have been made, is Popak, there actually is no deal that took place at all. Like, I mean this sincerely. A deal requires some sort of, like, paperwork, right? Like every time Donald Trump says we've done a deal with Japan or we've done a deal with the European Union or South Korea or whatever, and they all the deals follow the same formula. Now, if you agree to give Donald Trump a fake number that he can go back and say you're investing X dollars in the United States, he gives you a 15% tariff. That's basically the deal. So South Korea says we're going to give, according to Donald Trump, 450 billion, even though their entire GDP is 1.1 trillion. Trump says Japan says they're gonna give 550 billion even though their entire GDP is 4.1 trillion. And then he says the European Union's gonna give 750 billion. And then they all come out after Donald Trump does a social media post and they go, it's not a binding deal. No. Maybe it's a discretionary loan. It's not a signing bonus. We're not really giving this money. That's not happening the way Donald Trump does it. And there'd be one way to resolve all of this, Popak, Right, if there was paperwork. I mean, I always tell our viewers, just think about it. When you do a rental agreement or if you're leasing a property or a car, or if you have a mortgage or if you get a credit card, whatever it is, if you get a phone, right, you have to sign an agreement. The terms of service for your Apple phone should not be more extensive than a trade deal between the United States and the European Union. There is no paperwork here. It's just Trump, he makes a social media post that says that there's a number and then that they call that a deal. And then the other side doesn't even come back and really acknowledge any of the other terms. So let me start with that. But Donald Trump throw to you Popak. He invokes emergency powers that we're under war, basically. So there's extraordinary circumstances. So he goes, even though Congress has the power, not the executive, to engage in approving tariffs, it's literally in the Constitution because Congress previously said there may be some circumstances where, like America's under attack or there's a rebellion or there's some big foreign attack that Congress couldn't act quick enough, so we're gonna delegate the power to the presidency in the most extreme emergency situations. So Trump uses all of those hooks for everything he does. Immigration, tariffs, you name it, and says we're under attack, we're in an invasion situation. Canada is the enemy and they're invading us with drugs, even though that's not happening. And then when you challenge it, what does Donald Trump say? You can't. You can't challenge it. This is my discretion. The executive branch determines emergencies. Judicial branch, you can't tell. You don't know that. There's. I have the CIA, I have the Department of Defense. They're the ones telling me, which you know, Trump's telling them it's an emergency. So what happened, Pop?
- [20:06]
Michael Popak
Yeah, I always liked the way you put it. You and I are both doing our economic analysis. I'm doing the number one slot every morning on Legal AF YouTube channel is me doing some sort of analysis about the intersection of law, politics, and Donald Trump's failed economic policy. Trumponomics, which is what I branded it, which Howard Lutnick, the Commerce secretary, just declared on Thursday right before they fired the labor. The Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, which we'll talk about later, he declared, this is now officially Trump's economy. He owns it. I totally agree. And we're going to pin it on him every hour, every day. Between Legal AF and Midas touch on the tariff side. All of this victory lap that Donald Trump keeps doing with all of these deals, these deals are illusory, unenforceable, not reduced to writing. And the other counterparty to each of the deals, which usually matters when you think there's a contract, reports back to their media that they don't have that deal that Donald Trump is talking about at all. And at best, it's aspirational. Like Donald Trump calls it, the signing bonuses. Each country, like Japan and South Korea, EU, we're going to put in 300 million and 500 million or 500 billion and 600 billion. It's all aspirational. They don't control unless they're going to create sovereign wealth funds where they're going to collect money and invest, which they're not. They're never going to collect. They don't have enough money to do that. Then they got to rely on their private enterprise. Well, private enterprise is not going to follow the fiat, the direction of the EU president or a fill in the blank president. They run their own companies so they decide based on market conditions whether they want to invest in the United States, not because some bureaucrat who just got elected to whatever told them to do it. So that's never going to happen like in the EU. They're going to $550 billion worth of investment in energy products over three years in the United States. Never happening. The oil brokers, the gas brokers, the people that really run that part of the economy are never going to make that investment and reverse the energy flow between the two countries, which is what it would be unless market conditions suggest that they should do that. And we don't even have enough to supply to meet that demand or that requirement. So all of that is phony. It was all EU trading magic beans for a real cow. They got a real deal, they got a real reduction in tariffs, whatever. And then the other thing that never gets talked about about tariffs, and then I'll flip to the court while the tariffs are still around, is who's paying the tariffs. When you hear Japan is paying 15% or 20% or the EU is down to 15% or 50% or whatever the number is, you would think, and it would, it would be, you know, I understand why you would think this, that the country of that country is paying some sort of tax back to the United States. That's not who's paying it. The American importer with American jobs is paying that extra to import it from that country. Now whether they can offload and share the burden along the logistical chain from the manufacturer to the shipper to the storage to the consumer, that's for another day. That's why the Fed is so concerned. We already have the bottom dropping out of jobs, completely dropping out of jobs and job creation. We have higher prices, we have gdp, gross domestic product engine rolling backwards and we haven't even gotten the full impact of the tariffs and pricing yet because the exporters haven't paid the, haven't paid it yet. So when you hear that it's just an American company importing, paying more because they just Got the product from X, Y and Z. The thing that gets a little reported, I'll do a hot take on it. Is that Trump's about to put the Ford Motor Company out of business. The only American. And I'm about to head to the Midwest tomorrow. So I'm thinking about things in the Rust Belt. The only American car company, our producer Salty's going to appreciate this, that produces the majority of their cars In America, over 80% is the Ford Motor Company. However, in order to do that, they have to import a lot of their component parts to build the car in America from other places. So they are now paying the. When you hear 50% on copper and 15% on this, and that's all going into and now unaffordable car that Ford is now going to have to sell, not competitively in the marketplace. So goodbye, Ford Motor Company. It used to be Republicans used to say, pardon me, as GM goes, so does America. Well, we just killed Ford Motor Company as a result.
- [24:52]
Ben Miceli
Now, before you get into the court proceeding as well, you know, this to me is the essence of legal AF and Midas touch. Which to me, this shouldn't be a red issue or a blue issue. Sometimes when I talk about the Epstein stuff, I'm like, okay, this should just be a good versus evil issue. We shouldn't be protecting convicted sex traffickers, number one. But when it comes to the issues of the tariffs and what's going on here, I mean, Trump and the GOP say, no, no, no, it is not paid for by American companies and importers and passed to the consumer. They go, the countries eat it. And I go, what the f does that? What do you mean they eat it? That's just not a truthful statement. And the problem is then they get the Howard Lutnicks on. And Howard Lutnick goes, don't you love the tariffs, this quarantine, the tariffs, you know, and you watch this ShamWow style routine. And he goes, and all of the experts, every single one of them is wrong. Because Donald Trump is just the greatest and he's so smart. And then, you know, our news repeats that. That's my Lutnick impression, by the way.
- [26:03]
Michael Popak
I've been known to do a pretty fair Howard Letnick impression.
- [26:05]
Ben Miceli
I want to see it when we get back. We're taking our first break of the show. I want you to talk about what happened at the circuit court, the Federal Circuit Court. I want to remind everybody that Michael Popak has started his own law firm. He started it a few months back, but it is picking up a lot of clients right now from our viewers and our listeners. Go to the POPOC firm dot com. If you've been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident, a victim of sexual assault or harassment, if you know someone who is the victim of negligence in those categories, a wrongful death case, a medical malpractice case, the consultation is free. Popak Firm. Popak. Where can people find it?
- [26:48]
Michael Popak
And by the way, I think I founded that firm several months ago and a number of pounds ago, I got to change that photo that just went up. But the pope there. Thank you. But the Popoc, but the Popak firm really stands on the shoulders of everything you and I have done for legal af over the last 5 years and what our audience has, has demanded about, you know, you, you are, what your audience and your market tell you you are, are. And they told me, I need a firm to be able to help people in their time of need. And hence the POPOC Firm. Two ways to reach us. No artificial intelligence. We only have I. No AI. You go to the website that Ben, you just mentioned, the POPOC Firm, P O, P O K. Spell it right dot com. You'll end up on that free case review form and a human being will help you through that process. Or you can skip that and you can call 1-877- POPOC AF for that free case review. If we take the case, there's no charge. It's contingency fee. We don't get paid unless you do. And that's the Popoc Firm.
- [27:49]
Ben Miceli
Thanks, everybody. Make sure you subscribe to Popak's YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel. Subscribe as well to Michael Popo's Substack, the Legal AF Substack. Both are on their way to be picking up a lot of subscribers. That YouTube's on its way to a million subscribers. So help it get there. All right, when we come back, I want to talk about Trump's cover up of Epstein. Let's talk about what happened at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals regarding Trump's tariffs. What we expect is going to happen there. Let's talk about Donald Trump firing the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We went a little out of order, but that's what we can do. We can freestyle sometimes here on Legal af. Let's take our first quick break of the show.
- [28:28]
Michael Popak
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- [32:05]
Ben Miceli
Thank you to all of those pro democracy sponsors. When we left off said we were going to talk about what happened at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The case involving Donald Trump's tariffs against the world. After being stayed for two months now or so, 45 days or so, finally got heard. There was oral argument. Popak maybe first talk about what the heck, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, what is this court, and maybe the procedural history of how we got here, and then talk about the oral argument.
- [32:37]
Michael Popak
What do you expect to happen there? Were there? Fundamentally what we're talking about is does the President have Article 2 under the Constitution powers to impose tariffs on other countries? You would think the way Donald Trump operates that he must have that power, right? No. In fact, it's very unlikely that he does have that power. And that's been the subject of two major or three major court decisions and one coming from this Federal Circuit Court of Appeals I'm going to tell you about in a minute. It all goes back to who has the power under the Constitution, the core constitutional power of tariffs, excise taxes and the rest of the is for Article 1, the Congress. Article 1, Congress. Congress, through a statute gave the President, whoever occupies it back in 1977, following up on another emergency statute earlier in the Carter era, an emergency statute not to impose tariffs, to impose sanctions in case we were getting effed with that's a legal term, by our foreign adversaries or frenemies. And that was going on a lot in 77. We had OPEC and oil, we had gas prices going through the roof. People were effing with our economy. So sanctions were allowed. In fact, as one judge pointed out at the Federal Circuit during the oral argument I listened to on Monday, there's not one mention in the international. In the Emergency Powers act, that was used. But the ieep, we call it ieepa, that was used by Donald Trump to. There's not one mention of the word tariff. There's sanctions. Now, the only time that a president had ever used tariffs and got away with it was Nixon, the last criminal president. But even there, after litigation, they said only because his tariffs were really sanctions and they were targeted for a short duration on a very discreet thing, basically functionally a sanction, they let it go. But not tariffs, not constitutional tariffs. Even if Congress doesn't care that they're being treated like a doormat and they're having their Article 1 powers gobbled up, Courts should care. Constitutionalists should care. So that's the issue whether under, you know, he had two phony declarations of war and emergencies when he came into office, one to support his immigration policy with the Alien Enemies act, also saying that it's unreviewable. Federal courts can't even review what I do. And it's an emergency because we're under a predatory invasion by Venezuela, which was news to Venezuela and everybody in America. The second one he did almost at the exact same time was to support his tariff program was to go through the ipa, this emergency statute, and say there is. And in order for this to survive judicial review, his powers. There has to be an unusual emergency of economic. Of economic impact. What's the unusual emergency? The trade deficit between America and its allies and around the world. Okay, that's been growing over the last 10 years. It's doubled over the last 10 years. But that doesn't represent an emergency. Bad policy and planning, maybe. Maybe things that ultimately trade deficits don't matter. They're not like your budget deficit or your national debt. Maybe that doesn't really matter in the long scheme of things, from an economic standpoint, but not an emergency. So first stop on the train. There's two separate cases that kind of got joined together. One brought by some small businesses. Oh, yes. Including ones owned by Republicans who were getting screwed by the tariffs and. And another by a group of states, the gang of 12 states that filed. One case ended up being decided. Another case got decided in Washington, and they ended up being sent to by Donald Trump because he wanted him transferred to a specialty court in New York that in five years on legal. AFU and I never talked about the Court of International Trade in Manhattan. Okay. Trump hoped he would get a better panel there. He didn't. He got a. A thinking panel that was bipartisan, said outright that you don't have the powers under this emergency statute because you don't have the emergency and you're not allowed to impose tariffs. And struck down his tariffs. I mean, struck them down, meaning he can't collect. Why has Donald Trump been able to announce the American people that he brought in $60 billion worth of tariff money into the Fed, into the treasury after the first quarter? Why? Because he appealed to. Where you appeal from that specialty court is to a court, a specialty limited jurisdiction appellate court that also sits in D.C. but it's not the D.C. circuit, the D.C. court of Appeals or the Circuit Court of Appeals. It is the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals which deals with things like patents and trademarks and the Court of International Trade. And so it went up to a full on bunk after he lost 3, 0 at that level. This panel two months ago stayed that order and we were like, oh crap, they're going to, they're going to reverse this. They're going to find that he has tariff power. We were a little worried about that. And he collected $60 billion in the meantime because they, they blocked it. But they set a very, we said, a very fast oral argument and briefing schedule which happened on Monday for two hours. There were 11 judges that heard this. If they don't rule 110 or at least nine, two against Donald Trump, I would be shocked. Now let me tell you the makeup of the panel. Well, let me do the quick edge of your seat part. There are no Trump appointed judges that sat and listened to this case. We got that going for us. It's Biden, it's Obama, it's some Clinton, it's some George W. Bush, but no Trump. And the lawyer Brett Shumati, who argued for the Department of Justice, he took on water in his argument pretty quickly from the bench. There were two judges in particular. One judge said, show me where in the entirety of iipa, this statute that you are relying on solely for these tariffs, where is there any mention that you're allowed to tariff? Where's the word tariff? So they had trouble with that. And then Judge Dyke, who a great judge moving into senior status, he said, let me get this straight. It was almost what you and I have talked about and taught our audience about, which is the major questions doctrine. You're telling me that Congress, which has an entire statute books devoted to trade policy and set by Congress and tariff policy set by Congress, that they're willing to throw that out completely, just turn over the apple cart, throw away that entire statutory scheme because the President declares an emergency and then you're Also arguing that it's not reviewable by federal courts. That's how you think. Congress clearly expressed their intention to allow you to impose tariffs beyond judicial review because of ipa, which no president has, has ever used that or its predecessors to do what your client is doing. And you know, Chimati's. You got to give him credit, man. You know, you got to keep pressing your losing hand. Yes. All right, so here's what's going to happen. It's not going to be this week, but by the time, probably just after Labor Day, sometime in late September, we're going to get a ruling against Donald Trump on this issue. I don't know if it's 8 to 3, 9 to 2, 11 0, but it's going to be substantially against Donald Trump, based on my review of the oral argument and the transcripts from it. Then it goes on an emergency application. Here we go again to the United States Supreme Court. And now the United States Supreme Court is going, here's what they're gonna do. They're gonna have two briefs instead of three. They're gonna have an incomplete record, but it's coming off of these three courts. And they're gonna set oral argument because it's such a major issue. I can't imagine they're gonna skip oral argument. And then we're gonna see whether they're gonna help Donald Trump out by making a procedural ruling. He's going to ask for another emergency stay. Either the court, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, is going to give the stay to give him time to get to the Supreme Court, which is likely. I want to prepare our audience. Or he's going to get it from Chief Justice Roberts, who sits over this court as an administrative stay for a short amount of time. So still tariff money keeps rolling in from American importers. Then we're going to have to see what the Supreme Court does. From my perspective, this Supreme Court would have to bend over backwards, which it's done before, to find an unusual emergency in the form of a trade deficit, the equivalent of almost like a war power, to allow him to take all of Congress and all of their statutes. They'd have to avoid the major questions doctrine, which they often use the maga right on the Supreme Court in order to strike down actions by presidents and others. They'd have to throw away the major questions doctrine and say, yeah, we're okay. It's Trump. He's allowed to collect this money. Go ahead. They could do it, but they would have to so tie themselves up in an intellectual pretzel. Which you and I will report on. But that, I think happens in October, November. In the meantime, Trump's collecting and the tariffs end up in the Consumer Price Index, and Americans are hurt.
- [42:20]
Ben Miceli
Exactly. I mean, when you say he's collecting the money, it is a tax, right? On the American company. So if it's Ford, when the products come into the United States, whether it's copper and steel tariffs, whether it's parts from widgets from Japan or widgets from Canada or from Mexico or Brazil, right? It's like a 50% that he put on Brazil because he wants them to release the insurrectionist former President Jair Bolsonaro that tried to. Even though we have a trade surplus with Brazil, the emergency there is Trump wants the judiciary to release the insurrectionist president, a former president who's being prosecuted, which is what our DOJ should have done with Donald Trump. It is a. At the dock, right? You get the product, you have to report it. There's. There's a form that you fill out, and then you literally pay to the United States government as the American importer, that fee, right? So if it's $100 and there's a 15% tariff, you paid $115 for that product, you paid an additional $15. And so your question then becomes, if you're Ford or whatever is how much of that can you eat yourselves? And how much do you pass on to the consumer? And how do you deal with that? It's never the foreign country that's eating the tariff. That's just not what it is.
- [43:54]
Michael Popak
And it's not paying the percentage.
- [43:56]
Ben Miceli
Exactly. Now, why then people like, well, then why does Japan not like the tariff? Because in theory, when tariffs are supposed to be used surgically, it then deters the American company from doing business with the foreign company. So the American company then goes, wow, if I can't get this part from Japan, maybe I should get this part from Canada, or maybe I should get myself or make it myself. But then it becomes a business equation. Do I have the ability right now to build a factory to manufacture these widgets? And the answer almost certainly is not that a factory would take eight years to build or four to eight years to build. In an uncertain environment, the cost to build the factory makes you, as the company go, you know what? I'd rather just pay Japan the 15% and then figure out what I do. Maybe we win this court case. Maybe we hire a lobbyist who can convince Donald Trump to give us an exemption. Maybe we buy meme coins and try to stop Donald Trump that way. But it's no longer like you can get this cheaper product someplace else because we've tariffed the world and we've created such an uncertain business environment that no company's gonna invest in the manufacturing here. So everybody's getting screwed. And then we're just being lied to by the Trump regime. Who's pretending that inflation is not increasing and who's pretending that unemployment is great and that the jobs report is actually all rigged. And you know, that brings me to the next topic, Popak, that we should talk about. Then we'll do the end. We'll focus on all the Epstein related stuff though is we got this horrible jobs report which doesn't surprise me on Friday because if you are a living and breathing human being, you know what's out there. I mean, I know people who lost their jobs who can't get jobs. When I speak to people, I understand. I know that housing is not more affordable, it's less affordable. I know that when I go to the grocery store or go shopping, I see how much more expensive things are. I mean, I see that people are not showing up, that tourists from across the world are not showing up to the United States anymore because they're afraid they're gonna be put in concentration camps. And that has a trickle down effect on other aspects of the American economy. So Vegas is suffering and Florida, by the way, is suffering and Arizona, Palm Springs in California, you know, Maine, there's lots of places where Canadians would go. They're skipping over the United States and going to Mexico and elsewhere. But it's not just Canadians, Australians, Europeans, people from across the country. Certainly if you're from Mexico, Central or South America, you're not going to want to go into the United States. If your skin color is brown, you can end up in a concentration camp, you know, and people in Africa don't want to show. So tourism is down. We can see that manufacturing is down. We know the disastrous budget bill is crushing key industry sectors as well. In the latest jobs report, Popak, the only areas of growth were healthcare and social assistance. And that's actually what the disastrous budget bill kills. Manufacturing jobs were down significantly. And so you had this bad jobs report. And so what does Donald Trump do? He says it's rigged and it's all rigged against him. And that the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, who, by the way, have you ever talked about the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner you know, before because it's the job. She, she was appointed 86 to 6. She was appointed in 2024, she followed the Trump commissioner. So for all of Biden's administration, guess who was in charge? A Trump appointed commissioner. For most, for 3/4 of the Biden administration, you had William Beach, I think was the guy's name who was the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner. And now Trump doesn't like a jobs report, so he says it's rigged. The same way he says Covid is a hoax, the same way he says elections are rigged. And this, I'll toss it to you, Popak, because he fires recklessly, capriciously, arbitrarily, maliciously. He just wakes up and he's like, fire that woman. Fire that woman. Which now destroys consciousness.
- [48:33]
Michael Popak
Always a woman, always a woman.
- [48:35]
Ben Miceli
That's why I emphasize that too. And that's why I think part of who's that? A Biden woman. Get rid of her. And William beach, the Trump appointed commissioner who held that job before McCain, he came out with a statement and he said, look, I condemn these actions. She should never be fired. She's great. She's doing her job. This is not okay. So now the underlying data, the consumer price index data, jobs reports are now all going to be manipulated by Trump. So nobody trusts him. We've seen dictators, Erdogan in Turkey File fire his statistician before and we've seen this in other countries, but it's like, what are you, what are you doing, man? And so obviously the question, the legal question, does he have the legal authority to do it? I think unfortunately from the Supreme Court cases, because she does not fall into that one category that the Supreme Court randomly says they're protecting Jerome Powell, but I don't think they thought about her. Firing her is just as bad to me as firing Jerome or it's close to it. But I think that he's able to fire her now under the stupid precedent sent by the Supreme Court. What do you think? But it's a chilling effect on everything. And stop just saying the numbers are rigged, man.
- [49:52]
Michael Popak
With no proof and no evidence, because they're not. The rigging of the Trump economy and the falsehoods that were planned to be promoted to the American people started at the top of this administration as early as February. I did a report on it that Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary back in January said that the way that the Commerce Department measures gross domestic product was improper and it should bake, it should back out how the US Federal government contributes to the US Economy because they knew they were going to cut the fuel line between the federal government and the economy. They didn't want to be blamed for it. So he started talking about cooking the books and rigging the books. Then. Then in February, six months ago, at Trump's behest, Howard Lutnick fired and shuttered an entire group of economic statistical advisors, the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee that sat over the. The Bureau of Labor statistics and about 10 other ones just said, just literally posted on their website, how he told them, he posted on their website, we'll put it up later. He posted on their website, thank you for your service. Your job is complete and you are canceled as of February 28th of 2029. And then they started defunding all of these statistical entities that provide or are supposed to provide reliable economic data to allow the Federal Reserve to do its job as input plugins. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is not the gold standard, the platinum standard around the world that is relied on by counterparties, traders, brokers, financial services, stock markets around the world. And now Donald Trump, because he doesn't like the numbers. And just to be clear what they were, he has been lying to the American people that there were 258,000 more jobs in May and June than there really were. The real numbers were not couple of hundred thousand a month, the real numbers. And this is in a country of 300 million people under the Trump economy, that Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, I think. Am I ready for my impression yet? Howard Lutnick, the Trump Commerce Secretary, said this is now officially the Trump economy. This is the Trump economy. All right. It is the Trump. We go back to back here. It is the Trump economy. Okay? So those numbers are now 19,000 jobs in June and 14,000 jobs in May. That's it. And 75,000 jobs, which will be revised later in July. Just by way of contrast, Donald Trump said that the person he just fired, who is a nonpartisan, bipartisan, career civil servant, all four letter words for Donald Trump, who served his administration when she worked in the Census Bureau, who served Obama's administration, who served Bush's administration and got elevated by Joe Biden, as you said, not only a vote of 86 to 8. You can't get 86 senators to agree on ordering its sweet greens, let alone to confirm somebody. That's how much support she had as an economist and statistician. But one of the people that voted in her favor was Vice President then Senator J.D. vance. So now suddenly she's a mole working, quote, unquote, for Biden. And she said she cooked the books for Biden in her job numbers and is now trying to screw me, right? The last job report that she issued right before the election on November 1 showed that the Biden Kamala Harris administration made a total of 12,000 jobs that month, which was terrible and lower than the two numbers she just pinned on Donald Trump. 12,000. How did that help Kamala Harris in her race as the economy seemed to be a little bit, a little bit dodgy at the final moments of the Biden administration? All a lie. And every time he fires somebody, Ben, as we said, it always seems to be a woman in power. All of the Pete Hegseth getting rid of those generals and admirals, most of them were women, first of their kind, women, women that had. No woman had ever headed fill in the blank. And they all got rid of them under dei, Right? All of those attorneys, inspectors general, the watchdog, the sentinels for all of these, for all of these departments and divisions that Donald Trump was going to decimate, like the one that didn't do their job on Emil Bovey and allowed three or four whistleblowers not to be investigated and allowed him to become a lifetime appointed federal judge, appellate judge at that. Okay. All those people, a lot of them that got fired were women. So for those that are, that voted for Donald Trump, that either are a woman or support women, I don't know how you can turn a blind eye to what he's doing. So if you don't like the numbers, you fire the numbers. Apparently the reality is this and not because I want it to be. I'm in this economy, you're in this economy. I'm not willing it, I'm not wishing it, I'm not putting it out into the universe. But it's. But as you said, I'm also carbon based human being. I'm also a sentient human being that can see and hear and read. And when you see an economy where the gdp, the gross domestic product is rolling backwards and is at its worst low at its ebbs since 2020, when Donald Trump was last president, and you combine that with increased prices. So if you went to the supermarket today and you bought the exact same basket, the exact same cart of goods, of items as you bought as you bought last year, you're 3% short. Go back to your car, go look for it. And you're not going to have it there either, because that's what's happened to that basket of groceries under Donald Trump. So you have that going on. You have job, we're not making jobs. Prices are going up. Stagflation is in and we wonder why the Fed kept the rates exactly where they are. Because look at Trumponomics. And we haven't even gotten to the tariffs going into the pricing. So this is a terrible set of economic metrics for the everyday American around their kitchen table, their checkbook and their purse and pocketbook. And Donald Trump wants to blame somebody. It's always a boogeyman on under your bed. The boogeyman is the Bureau of Labor Statistics statistician. That's the boogeyman. The boogeyman is Jay Powell, that moron at the Federal Reserve. That's the problem. These are the people that are keeping America tethered to planet Earth. When it comes to the economy. They're not the ones that didn't. That got 258,000 jobs. They didn't just disappear because they said so. It disappeared because the Trump economy made them disappear. And I'll just leave it on this as a reminder for those that want talking points to match other talking points. Democratic presidents make more and administrations make more jobs than Republican ones over the last 60 years. And not by a little, by a lot. Do the math. Presidents from Kennedy to Clinton to Obama to Biden and beyond, match them up against Reagan and Bush and Trump and it's no contest. So why the American people allow, some of them, allow themselves to be convinced that Republicans are the only ones that can run a government and are better at running business. That's exactly the opposite of what, of what the actual statistics show.
- [57:39]
Ben Miceli
Right? Yes, people, I'm liberal on social issues, but I'm conservative on fiscal issues. Well, okay, but the conservative. Let's not mix up what that means. The conservatives are not conservative. MAGA is bankrupters. They're Trump. They're, they're fraudsters. They're crooks. That's not conservative. They're going to do what Trump did his whole career, which is run up the debt, not know how to manage it appropriately. Bankrupt the entity, in this case the United States. Commit as much fraud as possible to try to cover it up. Blame whoever. Until the Ponzi scheme runs its course. Do your best to find your scapegoat. Now it's McCanter for it'll be Jerome Powell the same way it was Fauci during the first term. Just flood the zone with disinformation and then pretend that you're the victim. That's not fiscally conservative. So there's this, there's this view. Oh, the conservatives are conservative. They're not. And there's a big kind of rhetorical framing issue about political parties, what liberal means, what conservative means. And my talking point is just, are you alive? Where do you live that you think that the economy is booming right now and gas is $1.98. And if you want to give me that crap, then good luck. I really don't even want to talk to you. I really don't. I'm not going to persuade you if you're living in a delusional world. I wish you the best. I'll see you later. I'm going to speak to rational people who are receptive to seeing that that sign says $3.75 if you're lucky and not a dollar and 98 cents. Or when we go to a supermarket, we look at the price and we go, here's what the price actually is versus you telling me that it's at an all time low when I, when I know it is. Anyway, we come back, we'll talk about Trump's Epstein cover up. Have to cover that. But I think it was important that we got into some of these other topics. Popak in the level that we did here on Legal af. A reminder, if you've been injured in an auto accident, a trucking accident, really the types of serious. I know all injuries are serious, but that involves surgeries and things like that. Those are the types of cases that the POP firm takes victim of sexual harassment or sexual assault or, or if you know somebody who's been injured in an accident or a victim of one of those things I just said, or wrongful death cases or anything like that. Popak, where can they reach out to your firm?
- [60:14]
Michael Popak
Yeah, I made it. Thanks, Ben. I made it easy. A website with description of all the practice areas that we're focused on. Along with my team. I'm actually meeting with my team in Chicago, flying out there tomorrow to spend several days with those plaintiffs lawyers that work with me. And you can go to the website www.thepopocfirm.com, see the descriptions, fill out the free case review form. Somebody will immediately come back to you. Or you can just call and reach a human being, a live person, 1-877-popoc a f for that as well. And as long as we're on the topic, we're gonna, we'll have photo proof, proof of life. Ben and me, we're gonna be in the same place, same time on Thursday or so and we'll, we'll send back pictures.
- [61:00]
Ben Miceli
All right. Make sure you subscribe to Popak's YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe to his substack as well. Let's take our last quick break of the show. When we come back, let's talk Epstein.
- [61:11]
Michael Popak
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- [63:50]
Ben Miceli
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to those pro democracy sponsors. The discount codes are in the description below. And thank you for everybody reaching out to the popoc firm.com I saw we got a lot of calls during the break as well. Okay, Popak, let's talk about a few developments in Trump's cover up of his connections with Epstein. Obviously earlier in the week he made the statement that he was aware that Epstein was taking his help underage girls who were working in the spa, which Donald Trump says is the best spa in America. That happened around 2000, the Virginia Giuffre sex trafficking. And then Donald Trump said, oh, Epstein stole, he stole her from me. He stole her. You mean he sex trafficked her from Mar A Lago. And we've been talking about that for a long time. You have Giuffre's family, they've been very outspoken obviously about what Donald Trump has said and calling Giuffre since died by suicide, but treating Giuffre like she's property and also treating Ghislaine Maxwell as like the hero in the story. What we're seeing, Popak, is after Donald Trump's gone further down into looking like he's incriminating himself, you know, which we always knew these connections. But I mean you were aware in 2000 of the sex trafficking happening in Mar A Lago. I mean it's a stunning thing for he didn't say sex trafficking but he said he stole her and we knew what happened to her and Trump said you all know what happened to her. So he seems to be acknowledging that he was kind of aware what was happening. I've done so many videos on the Trump Epstein connection, but now you have all of that Trump MAGA media trying to basically do the January 6th, but that Ghislaine Maxwell's the hero and she and Trump are working to stop the bad guys and that the victims like Virginia Giuffre, they're the real bad guys and they're the ones not telling the truth. So you've got shows like Greg Kelly and others like they bring on Ghislaine Maxwell's brother. Like they're doing a full fledged propaganda to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell because That's what Donald Trump wants to be done. Because, you know, she knows all about Donald Trump. She knew Trump in the late 80s. She was Epstein's girlfriend. Then she linked Epstein with Trump and she knew all about what Trump was doing. There's an article from the Sunday Mirror in 1997, how Madame Maxwell would give, would bring the young girls to Donald Trump or the young ladies would be bringing to Donald Trump. Anyway, here's what Greg Kelly did. Here's Ian Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell's brother. This is what's happening on right wing media as they know how to brainwash their audience. Now, they say the victims are liars. Here, play this clip yesterday.
- [66:40]
Michael Popak
What would you like to say in response? And what should people know about Virginia, the late Virginia Jeffrey? Look, the simple position is that it is Virginia Giuffre who has lied about her role and has lied about my sister's role.
- [67:00]
Ben Miceli
And then Greg Kelly, the Trump propagandist, starts saying Ghislaine Maxwell is innocent and she should be let free. Again, this is just like the election lies they told. They go all in on the big lie. Here, play this clip.
- [67:17]
Michael Popak
That's why I'm not taking anything, anything without skepticism from anybody, especially the media, especially the government, especially the Department of Justice. And I don't care, quite frankly, who, who it's about, including Ghislaine Maxwell and to a lesser extent, Jeffrey Epstein. All right, I say lesser extent. Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to the sex stuff in 2008. All right? He's a dirtbag monster.
- [67:43]
Ben Miceli
Does that mean Ghislaine Maxwell is.
- [67:46]
Michael Popak
I don't think so, folks.
- [67:47]
Ben Miceli
That's not the way our society works, not the way it's supposed to work at all.
- [67:52]
Michael Popak
There is so much exculpatory evidence here that nobody understands that it looks like the government kept from the defense, which is illegal juror misconduct, you name it. And look at what happened in that court, right? Prosecutor pointing the finger. All right, just remember this image for a moment, all right? Ghislaine Maxwell's on the left. It's Covid, right? So hardly anybody's there. And the attorney, the government attorney doesn't.
- [68:16]
Ben Miceli
Have to wear a mask.
- [68:17]
Michael Popak
Pointing her finger right there at, at Maxwell.
- [68:21]
Ben Miceli
What are you even talking about, by the way? I mean, she was. Ghislaine Maxwell had a fair trial. She was convicted of sex trafficking. Multiple victims testified that they were not just sexually assaulted by Epstein, but that Ghislaine was involved in it also. Not just bringing them to Epstein. The court found that Ghislaine Maxwell is a massive liar. Now, Donald Trump has fired that prosecutor, Maureen Comey, who's the daughter of James Comey. Trump claims that James Comey created an Epstein hoax, which now he has the right wing media parroting. So I think regardless, Ghislaine Maxwell is likely going to get a retrial, regardless of what happens before the Supreme Court, who she's currently petitioning, because the President of the United States said, I looked at the files and the files show that this was a hoax and that this was tampered with by the FBI and the lead prosecutors. Think about it, the President of the United States, granted, it's a convicted felon himself, but he's saying that the father of the main prosecutor tampered with the files. And so Ghislaine is going to say, whether that's true or not. Well, we should, that we should be, we should have been entitled to that information and there should be a presumption that the executive branch is telling the truth about things like that. So at the very least, I should get a retrial. So we all know by now from our last reports that she got immunity from Trump's former criminal defense attorney, the number two at the DOJ. She spoke for 10 hours with them and then she imposed conditions on her deposition with Congress. Remember how the Democrats were able to make that really smart maneuver to get her deposition and force the Republicans hands? The Republicans were too afraid not to vote on it, but then they recessed Congress to figure out how they were going to plan this. Well, we see the plan taking place. Even MAGA Mike Johnson was like, you know, we need to give Donald Trump the space to figure this out. Well, Trump's implemented his plan right. He sent his former criminal defense lawyer, the number two at the doj, to give Ghislaine immunity. They've now moved Ghislaine from her prison in Tallahassee. Tallahassee. To a minimum security facility, like, with no guards, basically like a resort in Southeast Texas. Prison Camp Brian, it's called. They gave her an exemption because the conviction for sex trafficking does not allow her to be in this minimum facility. Minimum security facility. So they move her there, they get what they want from her. She basically then gives conditions to testify before Congress. And her conditions are, you have to give me immunity, I get to dictate where the location is. I won't sit for a deposition until after the Supreme Court hears my petition for a new trial or to throw out the charges based on the non prosecution agreement. And then there was another, oh, I get the questions in advance. I want you to list all of the questions for me. Well, the con. Well, MAGA Republicans in Congress didn't agree to the immunity portion, but they didn't have to because the DOJ has already given her the immunity. And now they've moved Ghislaine's deposition to September 20th after September 29th. There's no date for it right now. So they took that subpoena, they continued it, meaning they moved it to some indefinite time in the future. So Ghislaine can first hear what the Supreme Court has to say, and the Supreme Court will make a ruling there. Then she's going to argue that her habeas petition has to be heard. That's her new trial petition to the district court based on all this new information she's going to get. But now she's rewarded, right, Popak? She's now in this facility that she loves to be at. She's been rewarded right now for. What's she being rewarded for right now other than covering up for Donald Trump? This is sickening and disturbing. And we also learned this week, I mentioned at the top of the show that Donald Trump has ordered the DOJ and FBI to redact his name from all of the files. So you know how they had like a thousand FBI and DOJ agents. What they were actually doing was redacting and removing the files or removing Trump's name from the files. It's sick. As I said, not a red or blue issue. To me, this is a good versus evil issue. This, this is sickening. But it is true. You know, for Trump's supporters, a lot of them, you could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. You know, you can cover up for the pedo ring. You could be involved with Epstein. And they don't, you know, I mean, yes, this is an issue that animates them a little bit, but there's really Nothing for that 30% of this country that this guy, you know, can't do. He's rewarding a convicted sex trafficker in plain view to cover up for him. It's as obvious as can be. And then there are still people like, well, maybe she's the hero. She's the hero. What are you talking about?
- [73:33]
Michael Popak
She's the sex trafficker. She had a trial. She's convicted.
- [73:36]
Ben Miceli
Popa.
- [73:39]
Michael Popak
Well, let's talk about people that have never been in a courtroom making comments about what happens in a courtroom. I've never been in a courtroom where I've been on the defense side where the prosecutor didn't at Some point or in a civil case where one party didn't point to the other party during the case. I don't know what that means. Doesn't mean a darn thing. Ghislaine Maxwell doesn't believe there was anything untoward about her trial because. How do I know that? Because she filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court and she didn't say she wasn't. She wasn't guilty. She said she has immunity. That's different. She didn't say that there was anything untoward. All that stuff that, that one talking head for Newsmax, whatever it is, none of that's in her brief because none of it's true. There was no. She doesn't argue that she didn't get a fair trial. She didn't argue that there was evidence that was let in that shouldn't have. She didn't argue that there was evidence that should have been let in that wasn't. She didn't argue that there was prosecutorial misconduct. She didn't argue that it was jury misconduct. She didn't argue that the judge didn't like her or the judge was married to somebody that didn't like her. She didn't argue any of that. She argued that an agreement that she was not a party to, was not mentioned in and did not sign somehow lets her off. Negotiated by Alan Dershowitz and others on behalf of their client, Jeffrey Epstein, to let him continue effectively to have the U.S. attorney's office in Miami effectively allow him to continue to prey on women as Alan Dershowitz went after victims. That's been reported. We just had Julie K. Brown on. You can go watch her. Her interview. Who broke the story for the Miami Herald on. On Legal AF that, that he hired. Dershowitz hired private investigators to go after victims and, and get them to change their story. So this is the world of sexual abuse that Donald Trump operates in. There's a. I mean, what is it? It's almost like a disgusting tell by Donald Trump. What is it with him and convicted or indicted sex traffickers? He's considering a P. Diddy party, a pardon. He's considering a Ghislaine Maxwell pardon. He's. He's got Lawrence Taylor. Look, I was a big number 56 fan when I was a kid. He redefined the position of linebacker. But he's also a convicted young girl sex predator not once, but twice. And what is he doing at the White House talking about fitness? What is it with Donald Trump? He thinks if he normalizes sexual predator behavior and pedophilia we won't act like it's a thing. It is a thing and it matters. And so Ghislaine Maxwell can say anything she wants with her family, but she was convicted 9, 0 beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of her peers in New York for being a convicted child sex trafficker. And so don't, don't, don't tell me that she's the fall guy because she's the only living participant of the conspiracy. That's just bad luck that Epstein died one way or the other while he was awaiting trial. That doesn't absolve the living participant of the conspiracy, especially as depraved as this one is. And so to distract from all of this, you get Donald Trump pushing all the buttons with his social media influencers, from Laura Loomer to everybody else and handing out talking points. Run the talking point where Ghislaine Maxwell's a victim. Run the talking point where she may be bad, but other people are worse. Run the talking point that there may be Democrats in those files and those hundred names that Todd Blanche talked about. Run that Barack Obama may be guilty of seditious treason by Tulsi Gabbard, of all people, the crash test dubby that serves as our national Director of Intelligence. And when you. Is that dying down? Is the embers of that dying down? Okay, let's go after Jack Smith, the special prosecutor. Maybe he violated the Hatch act in how he prosecuted Donald Trump. This is what happens. I know this sounds like a broken record, but this is what happens when you elect a criminal to the presidency. What did we think was going to happen when you elect a judge, sex abuser, misogynist and convicted felon to be your president? This is what you're going to get. And if you don't like it and we don't like it, then you work your butt off, like we're all doing right now, on both sides of the glass and microphone, to get Democrats elected at the midterms, to return to some vision of normalcy, some version of normalcy, checks and balance, until the House is taken back by the Democrats. And they can, on one hand, work for the American people and make their lives better, and on the other hand, bring Donald Trump to justice and checks and balance his out of control Roe presidency. Our American democracy and experiment is at risk. And that's why you and I have such a high motor to do what we do dozens of hours a day, every day for this democracy. I mean, I just had the pleasure of hosting a moderating a town hall not attended by any Republicans at any level, from municipal to the highest level in Congress and Senate in Florida, all the Democrats showed up. And the room in this Congregational church in Miami was filled with very concerned citizens, liberal and Democrat and others. Because there's things I do on the national stage with you and the brothers in a league of layoff. There's things I need to do locally and that's a way and I learned things there. As our audience has. 250,000 Democrats have been taken off the voting rolls in Miami Dade county against 49,000 Republicans. We went from in Miami the majority of voter registration to six points down. And if you think you're registered in your state, especially if it's controlled by red for mail in voting, is that's the way you like to vote? Check again. Check. Now re register because you may find out the day of the election or the week of the election that you're not registered at all behind the scenes.
- [80:03]
Ben Miceli
So you go back. Yeah, if you go back to and look at the episodes we did back in 2020, 2021, we focused a lot on the Voting Rights Acts erosion and that predates the founding of the Midas Touch network. When this Reagan right wing Federalist Society movement really started taking hold, they had their eyes set on the Voting Rights act from the 1960s and other similar pieces of legislation as well. And the one of the ways they targeted it was to basically get rid of what a requirement was was a review by the Department of Justice or three judge Hamill, three judge panel called pre clearance. So anytime a state wanted to unlawfully gerrymander, it had to be approved by an impartial DOJ or this three judge panel that it would go in front of. And then they had to apply a formula and the formula would then be utilized to determine whether or not it was, you know, whether it was like a racist map or an unlawful gerrymander. So back in the. Was it the mid to early 2000s, you had Sandra Day O', Connor, late Justice O' Connor was the swing vote that allowed the Voting Rights act basically not to be gutted, you know, regarding the formula. But she made this comment like, well, in 20 years racism may be gone or something and we may not need to save the Voting Rights Act. So a lot of the right wing people latched onto that and they now say racism, racism. The only racism that exists in 2025 is racism against white people. That there is no longer racism against any other people. It's the white people who are being attacked. And that's where the real racism is racism against white people. So we need to stop all of these other programs and things that look to elevate other people or to look at racial fairness, because white people are the ones who are under attack. So what they were able to do, these magnas, is they got rid of the formula. And once they got rid of the formula to determine if there was racially unlawful gerrymanders, what then fell necessarily was pre clearance, because pre clearance applies the formula. So if the formula is unlawful, the pre clearance can take place. So now what's happening is these states are allowed to basically create whatever maps they are. It doesn't require pre clearance. And then you have to file a lawsuit as a civil rights group to try to block what the state does. But what the state does is then viewed as presumptively okay. And even if it's unlawful and clearly a completely racist and illegal map, well, then you have to go and appeal it all the way up to the Supreme Court. Unlike the Trump cases, the Supreme Court does not take your case for many, many, many years. And then as it finally hits the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court says, we need to preserve the map that the state created, even if it's unlawful, because of a principle we apply called the purcell or the parcel principle, which basically says we can't get involved in anything as elections approach. And because elections approach every two years, there's always one happening pretty quickly. So that's how the Supreme Court says, we're not going to even address this issue. And then by the time the Supreme Court addresses the issue, you already have all of the shenanigans taking place. So now what you basically have, right, is Texas doing an unlawful gerrymander. Now, in California, California has independent impartial commissions, which Texas doesn't. So that's why California has fair maps and New York has it built into the Constitution. So now to do fair maps, because blue states were playing by different rules than the red states. The red states, like, effort, fascism, let's go. We want power. Screw you. The blue states were like, we're a democracy. We need to take all these. We can't do, you know, unlawful gerrymanders. But now you have people like Gavin Newsom, and I'll. We'll close out with this as part of the show. Pope I. Gavin Newsom's like, okay, well, we're gonna do it if you do it now. And we'll say, once the balance and democracy is restored, we'll go back to our independent commission. But no, no, no. We're gonna do exactly what Texas does. We're gonna do a referendum to the voters right away, an emergency referendum and we're gonna have our voters change the California maps. So now though, we head into this area, Pop. Because of what the Republicans have done. And it's not a both sides issue, what the Republicans have done, where you know what we're just going to see all blue states that are blue, all blue states that are red, all red. And then you're going to have the unlawful censuses taking place to try to rig that. And where this leads is a broke is the system is already broken. But where this basically leads is everything that was bipartisan in the freaking 60s and the 70s to try to deal with this stuff because of this race to the bottom now, which you have to fight fire with fire. So Newsom's got. I support 100% when Newsom's doom. But this is the world that we live in now created by Donald Trump. And it's. And it will cause massive damage long term to our country the way we're seeing in the economy. It's just the foundations of this contract, right? The Constitution's a contract. Trump hates contracts. He rips it apart. That contract has been basically destroyed and it's a free for all right now. The United States of America isn't what the United States. It just isn't.
- [86:00]
Michael Popak
We're not.
- [86:00]
Ben Miceli
We're not what we were anymore. I'll give you the final thought though, Pope, but I'll toss it to you.
- [86:06]
Michael Popak
There's a reason 63% of Americans don't trust the Democrats either with government. It's because government is broken. And part of the breaking of it is we don't have states people any longer. We want, we want there to be. We promote them. But we have, as you said, this tug of war. Mutual assured destruction led by the United States Supreme Court, who undermined completely the Voting Rights Act. Clarence Thomas had it as a mission to get rid of the Voting Rights Act. Affirmative action. It was on his checklist. A shopping list. He's accomplished almost everything on his shopping list. Roe versus Wade. Off. Woman's right to choose. Gone. Affirmative action in higher education that helped him. And in getting a leg up in the job market. Gone. Voting Rights act no longer necessary because we live in his world at a colorblind society. Does anybody really think we live in a colorblind society where everybody has equal rights as they destroy public education, which is usually the thing that helps people get a leg up to have a good. But when Donald Trump destroys and hollows out and chloroforms the Department of Education and everything else. I mean, what do you think is going to happen? John Roberts has tried to destroy the Voting Rights act. Since he's been the Chief justice, he's been relatively successful in doing that. And we are not in a post racial America. We are in, as some of the historians that I've spoken to on Legal AF said, we are scarily close to where we were emotionally and, and just in terms of results, to where we were in just the decade or so after Reconstruction and the Civil War. That's the period that we're in. And we have a Supreme Court that's scarily similar to the Supreme Courts that just followed the Civil Rights. The Civil War, the Civil Rights act, the Civil War. And so once you destroy the Voting Rights act and once you make it impossible to see any illegal racial gerrymandering by the way you define things. And just to be clear, because I don't want to have a show where everybody's eyes roll back in their head and they're like, what is he talking about? We're talking about when we start talking about redistricting. I know we're going to lose some people, but I don't want to. It's really, really important. It's how the congressional and other maps are drawn and how your representation is made. Because if you don't have proper representation by having a representative in Congress who's close to you and your needs, because that district has been eliminated, combined with another district, the competitor district led by the other party, your voice is not going to be heard. When this country was founded, we didn't have districts. We had out at large members of Congress. Okay? And you know what happened then? So to enhance representation, a representative, a representative represent a representative, sorry, representative form of government, we came up with districts. And then of course, the monkey, the monkey business happened. Let's start drawing it away to cut out, fill in the blank party. And now you have a Department of justice that is supposed to be the sentinel, the watchdog, overlooking. I'm starting to laugh saying it. Overlook taking, doing oversight over whether these districts are representative of the people so that we have a representative form of government. But this Department of Justice and Civil Rights division is run by somebody who's maga, right wing Republican. So they don't find anything wrong with the maps being proposed by the Republicans. They will with the Democrats. But with the Republicans eliminating five Democratic seats, five in Texas, a state we thought was getting purpley bluish maybe and now will be concrete setting red for generations until at least the next census, hopefully in the control of the Democrats. But this is as you've said at the top of the show, we've said throughout, this should not be a Republican versus Democratic set of ideals about what makes America great. It should just be a statesman, diplomacy, patriotism that drives these discussions. But it doesn't because the Republicans have led identity politics and hatred as a core principle and as a plank of their platform since before Lee Atwater and Karl Rove and Roger Ailes at Fox because they are a it's hard to believe until the MAGA populism took over they were a narrow party, a party that did not appeal to enough people to generally win national office. And the only way they could get enough votes to overcome the Democratic advantage. Yes, we had a Democratic advantage is to play identity politics, to drive wedges between people, to put people at seething at each other's throats, whether it was gays in the military or gay marriage or reproductive rights or or transgender. You know, they look for, they find whatever boogeyman they can find to try to drive the Christian right or other groups to them and away from the Democrats. And that's all that we've been watching and things like the Voting Rights act, which were passed by bipartisan, you know, bipartisan Congress coming off a president that was a true leader in that area. You're talking about the Lyndon Johnson's prior to him, the John F. Kennedys, Clinton and that kind of thing. But this is where we're at. This is the cards we have now been dealt here with the legal AF audience. But as you like to say, we're in this together. We vibrate on the same frequency and we will continue not just to report on what just happened. I mean, it's one thing to say, hey, look out, there's a, you know, we're hurtling towards an abyss, but there's a way for us to avoid the abyss and working together both politically and emotionally to get there together. And that's why you and I get up every morning and start brushing our teeth thinking about how to accomplish these goals, not just being reporters, but being leaders in our own way of a group of people that want to make real fundamental change to get back to where we were as an American.
- [92:31]
Ben Miceli
Well said, Michael Popak. And I'll leave everybody with this idea though too. I mean, in the White House, you mentioned it. Donald Trump appoints Lawrence Taylor is convicted of sexually assaulting a 16 year old girl, an Underage girl. He pled guilty to it. He's on the sex offender registry. He's on the list. I just try to appeal to your basic common sense. Do you want that guy to work at a school with your children? Would you want that guy to be your camp counselor? Would you be beyond offended if the school said, you know what? We're bringing in a registered sex offender? That's going to be your teacher? Donald Trump brought this guy into the White House to lead a fitness initiative for children. For children. And by the way, Trump didn't even tell Lawrence Taylor what he was doing there. Lawrence Taylor found out when he was there. So Lawrence Taylor was even like, I'm not really sure what I'm doing here, to be honest with you, but I'm gonna do what you tell me to do. So Trump intentionally brought a registered sex offender, didn't tell him what to do, to lead a children's initiative. He found out while he was there. And Popak, I know you talked about talking points. There shouldn't have to be a talking point for me to say. In a normal, healthy political era, that in and of itself would be a grounds to remove the President of the United States. It should be done. If Biden brought in a sexual predator offender and put him in front of. In charge of a kids program, I'd be like, what the hell are you doing? What are you.
- [94:22]
Michael Popak
What are you doing?
- [94:23]
Ben Miceli
But we live in unhealthy times in a very sickly environment. Salty. Just show the Lawrence Taylor clip where he's at the White House, and he's like, I'm not really sure why I'm here. Here, play this clip. I'm just proud to be on this. On this team. I don't know why. I don't know what we're supposed to be doing, but I'm here to serve. And I'm here to serve.
- [94:51]
Michael Popak
Serve you. Okay.
- [94:53]
Ben Miceli
So I'm gonna do the best I.
- [94:55]
Michael Popak
Can for as long as I can.
- [94:56]
Ben Miceli
Thank you very much. Nobody like him, by the way.
- [95:01]
Michael Popak
Who said that? Howard Lutnick in the back. Nobody like him.
- [95:04]
Ben Miceli
Yeah, it was either Trump or him. Yeah. But it was all. It was all men right there. By the way, you had Triple H, the WWE wrestler who's married to Vince McMahon's daughter. We all know WWE has been sued for sex trafficking. You know, as. As well.
- [95:20]
Michael Popak
And Vincent Bryson DeChambeau, the golfer.
- [95:24]
Ben Miceli
I'm like, what are we. Why? I'm, by the way, even if they weren't sued for sex trafficking, wwe. And I'm just like. And even if. It's hard to say even if. But like, why? Why do we have these people here? Like, why is this happening in the. Like, what the hell is happening? You know? And so I reach out to all of the people with common sense and to ask yourself, what the hell is happening? Don't let media normalize this. Don't let friends and colleagues act like this is normal. Trust your gut and speak out against it. Be vocal, be present, be out there letting people know this is not okay. A reminder, Michael Popox Law Firm is really founded because of all of you. So. And we got a lot of calls during this episode. So if you've been injured in an accident, whether that's an auto accident, a trucking accident, whatever, reach out to thepopocfirm.com or call 1-877-popocaf for a free case review today. Check it out thepopoc firm.com and see. And if you have a friend who has a case, whatever, wrongful death cases, catastrophic injury cases, medical malpractice cases, reach out. Also the Legal AF YouTube channel. Subscribe. Let's help it get to what, 1 million subscribers. Can't wait to see that. Get 1 million and subscribe to the Legal AF substack. We covered a lot today. We covered a lot today. But it had to be comprehensive. We live in comprehensive times. We got to. We got to be diligent. Share this network with everybody you know. Popak, I'll see you on Thursday.
- [96:55]
Michael Popak
Yeah, Thursday.
- [96:55]
Ben Miceli
Forward to seeing you in person. And Legal A effers, we appreciate you so much. Have a great one. Shout out Legal A Effers Shout out Midas mighty.
- [97:11]
Michael Popak
Today we'll attempt a feat once thought impossible.
- [97:15]
Ben Miceli
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- [97:43]
Michael Popak
Oh, what you eating?
- [97:44]
Ben Miceli
The new banana split cookie from AM pm. All freshly baked with real butter with banana, chocolate and strawberry flavors. Wow, that sounds amazing.
- [97:51]
Michael Popak
Can I have a bite?
- [97:52]
Ben Miceli
I'm sorry but no though. But you can't split the banana split.
- [97:56]
Michael Popak
Not even a little.
- [97:57]
Ben Miceli
Not even a crumb.
- [97:58]
Michael Popak
What if.
- [97:58]
Ben Miceli
No, please mine when it's too legit to split. That's cravenians.
- [98:04]
Michael Popak
Get a 3 pack for 99 cents.
- [98:06]
Ben Miceli
With our app ampm.
- [98:07]
Michael Popak
Too much good stuff plus tax where applicable. Prices and participation may vary in terms of conditions apply.