Loading summary
Transcript5 lines
- [00:01]
Michael Popak
This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going cha ching. So if you're into growing your business, get a commerce platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are. Visit shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. This episode is brought to you by Enterprise Mobility. From fleet management to flexible truck rentals to technology solutions, Enterprise Mobility helps businesses find the right mobility solutions so they can find new opportunities. Because if your business is on the road, they want to make sure it's on the road to success. Enterprise Mobility Moving you moves the world. Find your road@enterprisemobility.com.
- [00:52]
Ben Miceli
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance Fiscally responsible financial geniuses Monetary magicians Financial these are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
- [01:19]
Warby Parker
Every idea starts with a problem. Warby Parker's was simple. Glasses are too expensive. So they set out to change that. By designing glasses in house and selling directly to customers, they're able to offer prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Warby Parker glasses are made from premium materials like impact resistant polycarbonate and custom acetate. And they start at just $95 including prescription lenses. Get glasses made from the good stuff. Stop by a Warby Parker store near you.
- [01:49]
Ben Miceli
Well, I hope you're sitting down. This is going to be a lively popoc live. Everything I'm going to talk about today happened today at the intersection of law and politics, starting with an unprecedented rebuke by the head of the Article 3 branch of the government, the Chief justice of the United States Supreme Court against the Article 2 branch head, the President. This is the Chief Justice. Is this the President? Please hold for the President. Yes. Stop going after my judges. Stop arguing that they should be impeached. Stop attacking them. If you got something to say, say it in an appeal. That's my version of what Justice Roberts said today. An extraordinary statement, a public rebuke of the President of the United States. We'll talk about the ramifications of that. And as long as we're staying on. Just today we've got a federal judge in Maryland, Judge Chang, who just ruled as I was coming on the air tonight for the live in a preliminary injunction that he has granted that it is more Likely than not that Elon Musk is the leader of Doge, that the, the termination of the US Aid was unconstitutional and he ordered certain remedies to happen. Like yesterday, at the same time, a federal judge today, Judge Alsop in San Francisco, who sits under the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled that Donald Trump violated his order by not reinstating probationary workers, tens of thousands of them, but instead hiring them back, but putting them on paid leave. And the judge says that's not the status quo that's required here. And Donald Trump already lost the 9th Circuit on this very issue just a day or two ago. So we've got open defiance. That's going to be a theme on Popak Live today. Open defiance by the Trump administration against the rule of law and federal judges. So we got Judge Alsop, we got Justice Roberts, we got Judge Chang. What else we got, Pop? Well, I'm, I'm not done yet. Let's talk about Judge changing Chief Judge Boasberg and how we even got to that amazing historical bomb bombshell of a communique between the Chief justice and the President of the United States, a one way communique that we've never seen before. All started because Donald Trump earlier this week, actually the end of last week, exercised his quote unquote war power to declare that there were enemy combatants among us, to use the Alien enemies, the Alien enemies Act of 1798 to start deporting people to a black hole, hell, supermax prison in El Salvador. Is this the America that you and I all woke up in? Is this the America that we want? Sure, get criminals out. But there's a little thing called due process and the Constitution and civil rights. And if you can prove your case that they're members of narco terrorist gangs and they are, they are marauding the American countryside and they're raping and killing and murdering and drug dealing, by all means, prove it in court. Get them out of here. But to shackle them and send them off to a dictator in El Salvador, for them to go into the deepest, darkest hole possible and violate court orders along the way is not my America. So Justice Judge Boasberg, in a fast moving story, he issues a temporary restraining order, he issues a second temporary restraining order and the Trump administration violates each one of them. And then they basically send an FU to the judge just before I got on the air, telling the judge, we're not going to, we're not even going to acknowledge that you told us anything during the hearing. Because when you tell us things, orally we're not listening. We only look for your written minute order. That is BS Every time you're in a hearing, we'll talk about it more from my legal practice. Every time you're in a hearing, you listen carefully and if you missed it in your note taking, you go order a transcript. Because whatever the judge said, that is the contours of, of the injunction or the ruling that you must abide by, they basically conceded that they flouted the rules of the judge. Open disobedience, the common theme here. But I'm not done. As I was coming on the air, Donald Trump fired again. And this is ironic. The two Democratic appointed members of the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC one was appointed when Donald Trump was first president and got rid of them both for no good reason. That violates the Constitution. It violates the statute that Congress used to create the FTC. It violates Supreme Court precedent going back to the 1920s in a case called Humphreys Executor about what else? The Federal Trade Commission, though there is not only case law on the books that stops Donald Trump from firing people who are members of a bipartisan commission established by Congress, but the name of this very commission is in the name of the case involves the case, the Federal Trade Commission. And they're upset. We'll talk about Rebecca Slaughter who was fired and said it is corrupt, it is illegal, it is unconstitutional, and they're trying to silence my voice to the American people. So we've got the FTC filing firings which are going to end up, I'll just give a spoiler alert exactly where the firings of the, of the head of the, or the chair of the nlp, the National Labor Relations Board, Gwen Wilcox, she was reinstated by a federal judge. So are these two are going to be reinstated by a federal judge. And we're moving towards another constitutional crisis. We are lurching, ladies and gentlemen, from one constitutional crisis and abuse of power to another. Minute by minute with this administration. They are openly defying federal judges, except on a rare occasion where they think it doesn't matter. They will abide by federal judges rules. What am I talking about? We have our first injunction against Donald Trump going after that other aspect of the justice system. Lawyers, Donald Trump going after law firms by name in an executive order and Beryl Howell, the former chief judge of the circuit court, or, sorry, the District Court in D.C. putting a stop to it. So we've got that, so we've got Judge Alsop to talk about in San Francisco finding that Donald Trump is inching in his administration, inching towards contempt. And then we've got, I haven't even touched on Judge Chang. You know, I've talked a little bit about it. Judge Chang on his preliminary injunction against Elon Musk and Donald Trump and the administration. So we got Chiang, we got Alsap, we've got Beryl Howell. Right. We've got Boasberg, we got Chief Justice Roberts. And the thematics today are Donald Trump's calculated attacks on the rule of law, on our conventions, on our traditions, open to finance of the federal courts, calling for their impeachment and removal in a way only a dictator would love. And where is it all coming from? It's coming from the fevered mind of those around Donald Trump, including Stephen Miller, the non lawyer that ran a law firm called America First. We should have sued him, who's now the deputy White House Chief of Staff. In the first incarnation of the Trump administration, he devised that little, that little nasty special policy of separating families and putting children in cages, joined by Kristi Noem, the puppy killer who's the head of Homeland Security. And now these two got together and said let's do the Alien enemies Act from 1798. Yeah, let's not do that. That alone would have been big news. That alone would have been big news. So let's start this off, this popach live off in the right way with the how we got to Chief Justice Roberts. About two hours after Donald Trump posted his rantings of the morning. The rantings of a madman and a lunatic where he went after Chief, the former, the current chief judge. Sorry. Of the D.C. district Court and said he's a lunatic, he's depraved, he's corrupt. He. Why? Because he issued a temporary restraining order to stop Donald Trump from using a phony war and phony war powers and to exercise his absolute Article 2 powers, which we only give in time of war under the Alien enemies Act of 1798, last given to President Adams of all people. But you get it. You only get to use it if we're under attack or invasion or an imminent threat of invasion, not because you want to turbocharge your deportation program. You can say a lot of things about the narcotics gangs and terrorists that Donald Trump just deported, okay? But the fact that they're waging a current in real time war against America, that they are the equivalent of a country or an enemy state, they've been here for, I hate to tell you, but they've been here for over 10 years. It's the slowest moving war or invasion I've ever seen. You'd have to use, you know, time lapse photo to catch it, you know. And so Donald Trump though, wants to use it because his legal scholars told him it's okay. So on Friday, he signed it. A proclamation, not a declaration of war, which is necessary, only can come out of Congress, but a proclamation of designating these certain groups out of Venezuela, these narco terrorist groups, as state actors, as enemies within, as enemy combatants that need to be removed immediately exercising his rights under the 1798 law and then takes the, takes the position as the balls and the gall in civil disobedience or just disobedience to tell federal judges like Judge Boasberg, where after the aclu, the American Civil Liberties Union filed their suit to tell Boasberg, this is above your pay grade, son. My paraphrase, you know, you don't get to know this knowledge. This is classified. This is the highest level of, of Article 2 Commander in Chief powers, except he's not operating as the commander in chief, except these two hundred and fifty people were sent to the, the Arkin prison of El Salvador, were not put on military planes, they're put on civilian planes. And so the judge, after hearing the initial lawsuit by the aclu, when they heard Donald Trump had signed something on Friday, although it was published on Saturday, this exec, this proclamation, they ran into court representing the six or seven Venezuelans who were going to be deported pursuant to this proclamation and to have it reviewed by a federal judge to determine whether it's constitutional. Now let me answer a question that's coming up a lot because the, the, the echo chamber created by Donald Trump with his paid social media influencers, combined with his MAGA legislators, combined with people in his administration and his press secretary, this, and in Elon Musk, this is the echo chamber that goes into overdrive. To protect Donald Trump and to promote these false ideas, they have come up with this mantra. One single federal judge in one single federal district can't beat a president like it's rock, paper and scissor. Every, Let me, let me disabuse them of that thought. Every major constitutional case that's ever come up the chain in our history, whether it's civil rights, women's rights, reproductive rights, constitutional rights, voting rights, you name it, desegregation, Brown versus the Board of Education, Roe versus Wade, even the Dobbs decision, all came up through a single judge making a ruling about presidential power, constitutional power, separation of powers and the like. And then, and then went like night follows day or day follows night, to a three judge panel of a circuit court for appeal. Maybe it went to the full circuit court, what we call an en banc appeal. And then it went, if it went at all, to the United States Supreme Court. That is the road. Judges are empowered to fashion remedies if they find constitutional violations that match the violation. That's why we're seeing universal or nationwide injunctions. And it's driving MAGA crazy. It's driving MAGA crazy when it's used against the Trump administration. When they used it against the Biden administration, it was okay when it came out of Texas or Louisiana. Oh, they love nationwide injunctions now. This particular injunction or temporary restraining order by Boasberg wasn't even a nationwide injunction. He certified a class of everyone impacted negatively by the proclamation about the use of the Alien Enemies act, and then entered a temporary restraining order in favor of the class. Which is exactly. If you go back and look at research, exactly what the Heritage Foundation, Donald Trump's, you know, wet nurse for all of his, all of his ideas. That's exactly what they promote. No nationwide injunctions. There should be class certification. Okay, we did class certification and an injunction. No, that's not good enough. It's really a universal injunction. You see, you see the catch 22? You see how they chase their tail? They make us chase it with them. So Boasberg enters the temporary restraining order. Donald Trump tries to defy it first. The Department of Justice files a letter request to the appellate court above Boasberg have him removed. He should be disqualified. The case should be reassigned, rejected. They file a motion for emergency stay to stop all the proceedings in front of Boasberg. Rejected or not moved on. Which is another way for the, the appellate court to say, you know, the trial judge got this. See, appellate courts like records to be developed below. They like facts to be developed below before it comes up on appeal and up to the Supreme Court. And Boseberg already set a fast briefing schedule all this week. We're watching it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday. I sound like Godfather. Okay, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, briefings. And then on Friday, he's going to hold a hearing. He was going to do it by Zoom, but now he just announced he's going to have it be live, public is welcome. We're going to try to get people in the room for that one, I assure you. So that's the substance of the tro. Donald Trump filed a motion to vacate the TRO or dissolve it. The temporary restraining order. The ACLU will file File their paper tomorrow. There'll be a hearing on Friday, normal course. In the meantime, Donald Trump lost his mind and the judge figured out he'd been had. Because when he held his hearing. Pardon me, when he held his hearing on Saturday night, this past Saturday night. Yes. Courts are open on Saturday in the Trump administration. It's like night court, except without bull. Except for the bull coming out of Donald Trump. Sorry, folks, I digress. Saturday night hearing ends at about 6:30 or so. Now, I've been to plenty of federal hearings. I've been to them at night, I've been to them. And going at 10 o'clock at night on a zoom or otherwise. And the judge, when you're there for an injunction hearing, you got to listen carefully because the judge is going to say a lot of things that constitute their order about the parameters of the contours of the injunction. And this judge did, including saying if the planes have not yet left, turn the planes around. They're now enjoined as of right now. That was at about 06:30, 06:35 Eastern Time. About an hour later, he put up a minute order, which is an entry about two lines long, three lines long on the docket, subject to a future writing to make it clear that he had granted the injunction. And it's usually for the reasons set forth in the hearing. Yeah, but you are enjoined at the time. The judge rules from the bench. There's no law that says oral statements or oral rulings by the judge don't have any weight or merit an injunction. World. That's a lie. That's the position of the Trump administration. The Trump administration's position is, well, no planes left at 7:30 after the order hit the books. But we didn't really mean, we didn't really understand the oral injunction to be binding. So we let planes take off at 6:30. And they just filed a paper before I went on the air where they basically told the judge, after 7:30, judge, we got it all cleaned up. You know, we only deported people pursuant to something else other than the alien, the Alien Enemies Act. And the judge is like, I'm sure he's going to say, well, what happened at 6:30-7:30? What happened to the planes that you were moving to defy me? Yeah. We already had Tom Holman go on Fox News the very same day to say he doesn't care what federal judges say. He only cares what the greatest president in his lifetime has to say about deporting criminals. So you've got a contempt problem. And the Judge fact finding around it as the judge allows the briefing schedule on the merits of the temporary restraining order to continue. Not good enough for Donald Trump. Taking a page from Elon Musk, you know, the guy he uses for all of his as a henchman. Donald Trump wakes up this morning and starts a lunatic rant. I mean, this sounds like a broken record about all the. It's the same thing here. Let me give you the theme before I give you the rant. This is one single judge in one single district. He wasn't elected to anything. He's not the President of the United States. He doesn't have my mandate. He's crazy. He's a lunatic and he's a criminal. He's corrupt. All right, those are the, you know, that's the kitchen magnets. It's like kitchen poetry. He just moves those around. Or whoever writes his. We know he doesn't write all social media posts. Whoever writes them uses that. That's the toolbox they use. So that's what came out. Jeb Boseberg is a lunatic. He's corrupt. He needs to be impeached. He wasn't elected to anything. I have the power. I won the mandate. I won the counties. I won the seven swing states. He didn't. Who's he? Who's he? He's the guy that represent the person that represents the Article 3 Power of the federal courts and the judiciary in their attempts to do the checks and balance required by our Constitution. That's who he is. It is the friction, as Judge Justice Louis Brandeis back in the 1920s once said. It is that friction between the plates, between the moving plates of the three CO. = branches of government, the judiciary, the executive branch and the legislative branch. It is that friction that is the checked in ballots. We don't want free spinning wheels of autocracy. Yeah. And so Donald Trump went too far and you could tell they miscalculated in Trump world, in Trumplandia, where they're just not that bright. You've got a series. Let's look at the lawyers around him. Then I'll tell you what happened next with Chief Justice Roberts, the lawyers around him, our lawyers who got fired from their law firms, how to go solo to represent Donald Trump won his criminal matters because he got reelected or got elected and then got rewarded with top jobs in the Department of Justice that they don't deserve. Pam Bondi, former impeachment lawyer for Donald Trump Top two other lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bovey, whatever his name is. Criminal, criminal defense lawyers for Donald Trump And Alina Haba is a White House counselor and Stephen Miller is not a lawyer. So they all get together, this great law firm. This is the dream team. This is not. And they tell him he can do whatever he wants because of the way they misread or read. They get filter from the Heritage Foundation, I'm sure, and from Project 2025. Architects tell him what to do. And then he starts. But they miscalculated. About John Roberts. Now, you may remember two weeks ago, Donald Trump, and I think he's going to rue the day that he did this. He couldn't help himself because he's a glad hander. He's a celebrity showman. He's P.T. barnum. He's right. He's Lyndon Johnson, but corrupt. And he starts to, you know, give it like a fist bump or a little belly pat to Chief Justice Roberts. At the joint session speech later that see Roberts face, it looked like he had ate a bad oyster. And Amy Cody Barrett looked like she spelled she smelled a full diaper when he came into the room. And later that day, they issued a ruling against Donald Trump, forcing him and his administration to pay $2 billion on U.S. aid debt. So Roberts, after this lunatic rant, comes out in the morning. Three hours later, he issues a statement. You can count on almost no fingers how many times a Supreme Court justice, outside the course of a, a decision that they're making stepped out of the hermetically sealed ivory tower to rebuke the leader of another branch. Like, never. Like Roberts is so squeamish about, about all the political stuff that he refused to preside over the impeachment hearing of Donald Trump even though the Constitution says he needs to. When he was impeached for January 6th because he was no longer president. This is a guy like, he does not need or want this, although he created it with his immunity decision. And so Chief Justice Roberts came out with his rebuke of Donald Trump and told him out loud that for two centuries, if you don't like the rulings of a federal judge, then you appeal, but you don't ask and call for the impeachment of someone, Period. Two lines, boom, that's it. But what does it mean? What's the greater meaning of it? Did Donald Trump miscalculate? Has he pushed Roberts away from him and into a corner? What about the fact that he needs Roberts to support him on a number of policy decisions that are already in the pipeline, including this case involving Jeb Boasberg. Right. And what will Roberts do? Disqualify himself and recuse himself. What happens if there's only 4? 4 on the United States Supreme Court. I'll tell you when we come back from our first word from our sponsors. Now look, we are fortunate to have sponsors on the Midas Touch network on illegal af. Yeah. They are part of the fuel that propels this organization, this media network, this independence. You, it's, it's like oil and gas running an engine. There's two parts to it. Well, really three. One part is our audience. The vibrancy, the engagement, the enthusiasm of our audience. Unparalleled, unmatched. Not only would I put them up against any other media entities audience, it, it would beat them hands down. I wouldn't trade our audience for anyone even if I was given the opportunity. That's the, that's the gas, the oil that goes along with that are the sponsors and the other ways that we can stay completely independent. They don't tell us what to say. As you can tell, we're uncensored. As you can tell. I don't even go over what I'm going to say with my producers on this show, let alone with somebody, some suit representing a sponsor. But they are important to us. We vetted them. Jordi helps us curate them. We get the products, we use the products. They're not telling you to spend money you don't have. But if you have that money, this is a great opportunity to do it and to help support the show. And then the third thing is our end. We try to keep up with high quality legal and political analysis of the first order that you've never seen before anywhere else. I defy you anywhere else on YouTube. That's the relationship that we have. So let's listen to our sponsors. Four companies control over 80% of the U.S. meat industry. And China now controls the largest portion of US pork. And wait till you hear this. Over 80% of the antibiotics in the US are fed to animals. So what can we do about this? Let me tell you about a company that's coming up swinging on behalf of American family farms and your family's food security. Moink. The business is simple. Moink's meat comes from animals raised outdoors where a pig is free to be a pig. Their farmers are given an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. And they deliver meat straight to your doorstep at prices you can actually afford. Support American family farms and join the Moink movement today@moinkbox.com legal af right now and get free wings for life. They're the best wings you'll ever taste for free but for a limited time spelled MO I n k box.com/legal af that's mikebox.com legal a f oh I just completed what could have been a logistical nightmare and grounds for a divorce in most states. Moving my family, including a baby, wife, cars, dog and £14,000 of personal belongings 2,000 miles to our new home in seven days, including driving our dog to the new home with the best man from my wedding. Without many months of planning to make this run easy and time efficient, this could have been an epic fail. Creating a trust and will is a very slow and time consuming process, leaving you less time for more important tasks. Trust in will makes creating your will easy and time efficient, meaning you can focus on other important tasks. Get 10% off@trustandwill.com LegalAF Trust and will takes the scary out of the process and it's simple to use. Website and straightforward process makes it easy for me to recommend it to people close to me who have it all going on except when it comes to their will or trust. And that's my gift to them for turning them on to trust and will peace of mind knowing that they are taking care of a big part of their future planning and taking care of their loved ones. Each will or trust is state specific, legally valid and customized to your needs like care, wishes, nomination, guardians, final arrangements and power of attorney. Ensure your family and loved ones avoid lengthy, expensive legal proceedings or the state deciding what happens to your assets. Their simple step by step process guides you from start to finish, one question at a time. Save loved ones time and stress by having all your documents in one place with bank level encryption and live customer support is available through phone, chat and email used by hundreds of thousands of families and counting. Uncomplicate the process with trust and will. Protect what matters most in minutes at trustandwill.com/legal af and get 10% off plus free shipping. That's 10% off and free shipping at Trust and will comm/legalaf all right, welcome back and thank you to our pro democracy sponsors. The miscalculation of Donald Trump here may be of epic proportion with John Roberts. The fact that he felt in 90 minutes that he had or an hour or two hours or so that he had a publicly chastised the President of the United States in the form of Donald Trump is seismic because there's cases that he's going to be deciding now what is Donald Trump going to do? Move to disqualify or recuse Chief Justice Roberts. Okay, let's play that out. Okay, I'm game. I'll do the thought experiment that I proposed. Okay. He recuses himself. That leaves eight. You know what happens when there's four? Four nothing. Supreme Court can't rule or act without a majority. So if Amy Coney Barrett, who we say, who I've been saying forever, is the swing vote, she slides, she slides over to vote with the democratically appointed wing of the Supreme Court. It's a deadlock. It's a deadlock. So that doesn't help at all, Trump. And why would Roberts do it? Let's get into his mind because I think he realizes he's created a monster of his own making. He's trying to shove the golem, you know, back into the, I'm going to mix metaphors here. Back into the land, the lantern. So I get the genie back into the lantern, the mean, angry, crazy genie. And so he's telling him stop going after because look how weak. Think about it. If he hadn't done it, look how weak he would have looked. Federal judges are being attacked by Elon Musk, Donald Trump and the administration. Stephen Miller and others, Carolyn Levette, and he just sits there on his hands and bites his tongue. So he was goaded into doing it. Now what happens next with the cases in the pipeline? I don't see him recusing himself. I don't see him disqualifying himself or them moving to disqualify. But you could see the worm may have turned in his mind about an out of control president and not give him the benefit of the doubt. The tie goes to the runner on his exercise of Article 2 power. That's what I'm hoping. We'll have to follow it. Not the only judge we're going to talk about here today. I want to talk about things that just happened before we got on the air. Let's go to Judge Al SAP Alsop in the Northern District of California, San Francisco. We were following his case. He called the Department of Justice liars effectively and said, you're saying that you fired all the probationary workers under Elon Musk because of performance issues. That's a lie. It's not because of performance issues. You didn't make a performance calculation. You fired them because you wanted to save money and you ruined the lifeblood of federal civil servants and their connection to the American people in terms of service provision and you're going to reinstate them. So he ordered them to reinstate them. BY Today at 1:00, the Trump administration ran to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California. And at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, he asked for a stay until he could argue on appeal that Judge Alsop was wrong. And in a 2 to 1 decision with a Trump appointed judge in dissent, they said no on the stay going back to Judge Alsat, meaning they had to comply with Judge Alsat because there was no stay in place. But they didn't, they didn't rehire people to, to go back to the status quo before the firings. They rehired them and put them on administrative leave. Sure, it was paid leave, but that's not the point. The judge is upset and issued an order as I was going on the air. Who said I'm upset? This is not consistent with my order. This is in violation of my order. It's not just paying them. It's making sure that service is being provided to the American people. Because Donald Trump is just trying to break the umbilical cord between the American people and its government. Right. Break the accountability chain. And so now the judge is going to have to find out what to do next with open defiance. We have a series of open defiance matters. In the last week, there's been at least three or four different times when the Department of Justice has either lied or not told the truth to a federal judge and been caught, required to do and submit affidavits and other sworn testimony of Elon Musk and or are in open contempt and violation and disobedience of court orders. Not every court order because in some they're still playing by the rules. But in a lot more than I've ever seen in my lifetime, more than has probably ever happened in our history, they were only 60 plus days into the Trump administration. So I'll stop California. Let's keep an eye on that case and any finding about contempt. Then you had this was like back to back to back to back, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. All Tuesday, Tuesday, Live with Popak. Thank you for providing me the content that I needed. Then you got Judge Chang in Maryland who's handling another doge case concerning USAID. Yeah, and it's that U.S. aid case where the, and this isn't even the U.S. aid case that Judge Ali in the, in D.C. ordered the $2 billion paid that were owed for services rendered in goods provided by usaid. And that's when, you know, Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett jumped off sides in MAGA World and joined the liberals and ordered Donald Trump to pay it. Not that case. This is another case involving Elon Musk, Doge and usaid. And that judge has just ruled that Elon Musk effectively runs Doge Boy. We've known that before. Rejecting the administration argument that he can just put somebody in a special advisor counselor position and avoid all these constitutional mandates. The judge said that's not happening. And then he, he basically is trying in real time to reassemble US Aid, Having employees get their emails back, getting payment systems turned back on by court order. Yeah. And finding that they disobeyed him in the past. Another act of disobey obedience. That's Judge Chung in Maryland today. Judge Alsop, San Francisco today. And Judge Boasberg and the rebuke of Chief Justice Roberts of President Trump today. Now let's move on from to the Federal Trade Commission filings or firings. The Federal Trade Commission is a quasi judicial body that is in charge of antitrust law application and things related to trade and trade regulation. It was created by Congress in the 1920s a few months after the Supreme Court ruled in a case called Humphrey's Executor. Well, actually the FTC case was about Humphrey's Executor. A few months later, they formed other quasi judicial legislative bipartisan groups and boards like the nlrb, National Labor Relations Board. And all this came out of the 1920s. So for the last almost 100 years, no president has ever tried, no president has ever tried to remove a bipartisan member of a border commission that doesn't exercise independent executive power that way, ever. They've never tried it. They've never tried to do it by Trump. He tried to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board chair and she's been reinstated to her job by Amy Berman Jackson. He tried to get rid of and was successful because he kind of gave up on his appeal to get rid of the office of Special Counsel head Hampton Dellinger. He kind of threw in the towel, I don't know why. And so he figured, all right, let's try it again. So he went after the Federal Trade Commission and the two democratically appointed people who were in the middle of their terms, Rebecca Slaughter, who was appointed by Donald Trump in 2018 and got re upped in another term by Biden. So pretty bipartisan. She said it was illegal to fire her in her social media post, it was corrupt, and that she has a voice that the American people need to hear and that's why she was fired. And I'm sure we're going to hear from her along with Alvaro Bedoya, the other person who was fired. Now, that is a Violation of that Humphreys executor case from the supreme court in the 1920s. In fact, that case involved the Federal Trade Commission. Why is Donald Trump doing it, knowing it's likely that he's going to lose? Because he's using the portfolio method and he's using the shot on goal method to continue hockey and sports metaphors. He's just going to continue to fire the puck at the goalie. The goalie being the federal judges of the U.S. supreme Court, hoping that some of those pucks get in. So if he or you can use, if you like soccer or football as it's known around the world, use that. Shots on goal. 100, a thousand shots on goal. If 30 get in, it was 30 more than he had before. Maybe somebody will give up on their appeal like Hampton Dellinger. Maybe a Trump appointed judge will rule in his favor. Maybe the Supreme Court will bail him out. Maybe not John Roberts, at this point, that's what we're watching. The shots on goal theory of legal challenges that threaten our constitutional democracy, our republic and the rule of law. But who else would implement this but the devious felon in chief? We've never had a felon as president before. And now you know why? Because you see, his natural instincts are felonious. His natural instincts are criminal. His natural instincts and judgment are depraved. And now the federal court, him having been created out of the lab of John Roberts, the chief justice in his immunity decision. Now the federal courts, the day to day federal courts have to try to handle it as the last firewall to protect our Constitution. And that's why we're seeing, and we're also seeing this calculation of we're not going to defy all the orders and all the judges, but we're going to defy a lot of them, especially if it even smacks of foreign policy or war powers. Even though there's a phony war, it's a total wag the dog moment with the Alienated Enemies Act. Right? We're going to do all of that and see what happens. And that's what we're watching. This is not working for Donald Trump. This is not working for him domestically. This is not working for him from a foreign policy standpoint in real time. Just to switch gears to global AF for a minute. Putin is eating Donald Trump's lunch and he's killing and slaughtering Ukrainians as a result. Donald Trump says, oh, I got a phone call with him. Yeah, how'd that phone call go? Not well. He got Ukraine to make all sorts of concessions, none of which Putin is going to agree to. He wants as a condition for any ceasefire. Putin, he told this to Trump on the phone that we stop giving military aid, dollars, weaponry and military intelligence to Ukraine. In other words, strip them bare and leave them defenseless. To Putin. And Donald Trump celebrated it. Great phone call. We're moving towards the contract for peace. Everything's a contract, everything's a deal, everything's the art of the deal. He sends his, his Middle east envoy, Steve Witkoff, a little known real estate developer. Nobody's ever heard of him. And I worked in New York, okay, until, until he testified for Donald Trump at the fraud hearing. I was like, I had to look him up. Who? Steve Witkoff? Oh, yeah, he's the guy that got Donald Trump into crypto. He's our embassy negotiating against Putin. Putin, who headed their kgb. Ok, who, who is toying. We're watching a giant cat and a little mouse who thinks it's a cat being toyed with and who's suffering democracy. Ukrainians. A president who's really at war. Zelensky, who told the Trump administration, you're getting played, you're getting outplayed, you're getting, you can't trust the Russians in negotiations. Donald Trump gave us that old version of what George Bush once said. I looked into the soul of Putin and I, and I could see he's a good man. Really. Yeah. Right after last time, Donald Trump got involved. They bombed a hotel in the, in the birth home of Zelensky as a payment for it, and they refused to do any type of ceasefire. Donald Trump tried to get some sort of, some sort of a brass ring he could brag about. Will you stop bombing at least the power grid? Maybe, maybe I will. Even that was indefinite. So this isn't working for those of my friends, and I do have some friends who are Republicans who thinks Donald Trump, who are getting like special delight over, oh, we sent 200, you know, members of a narco gang to El Salvador and we use funny emojis and we use rap music and closing time. You know, as a funny, as a funny meme. This is not a foreign policy. This is not a coherent domestic policy. And Americans are suffering. The economy is in the tank. And Donald Trump celebrates his poll ratings because they're the highest of the lowest poll ratings he's ever gotten. 60% of America thinks he's doing a terrible job. 60% of America thinks his economic plan is for the dogs. 60% think he's not spending enough time helping everyday Americans and they celebrate it on Fox News. He hit 40, 40%. Wow. It's the highest he's ever been after 60 days. This is how pathetic they are. The high of his low is low is lower than any self respecting president would ever want to be and 10 points lower than Joe Biden. I'm going to cover the next round of this attack and assault on the rule of law. The attack and the assault on lawyers. When we come back from our next break from with our sponsors. I do want to mention one thing. As people now know, it's been two months now. I did form a new law firm. It's called the POPOC firm. And in conjunction with an amazing group of talented plaintiffs lawyers around the country, we are handling those those cases at the intersection of your life and law life and law intersection. I love talking about constitutional issues. I love talking about going after Donald Trump. But that's not how most people interact with the law on a daily basis. It's either family law, unfortunately elder law related to that, or it's catastrophic injury, something that's turned your world upside down. And for that, I formed the POPOC firm. So if you or a loved one or somebody that you know has been involved or unfortunately has been a victim of a catastrophic injury or somebody in your family or people that you know have died as a result of somebody else's negligence or bad conduct, those are the kind of cases we want to get involved with and bring justice to you. So go to www.thepopocfirm.com or you can reach out and reach us at 1-877-popocaf. That's 1-877-popocaf. And now our sponsors. When I married my wife, I got a fantastic cat in my life as her plus one Chanel. An amazing tortie that I can't get enough of. Our cat is part of our family, plain and simple. So I want her to have the best food money can buy. I didn't realize for years that the cat food we were buying had questionable ingredients. This podcast is sponsored by Smalls. If you're a listener of this show, you know that my cat can't live without smalls. To get 50% off your first order plus free shipping, head to smalls.com and use our promo code, LEGAL AF. Smalls Cat Food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free ingredients you'd find in your fridge and it's delivered right to your door. That's why cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food. My cat Chanel prefers Smalls way more than her previous cat food. I legitimately did a taste test. No, not me, but with the cat, I put two bowls side by side and she immediately went to Smalls. Since making the switch to Smalls, Chanel has had fewer hairballs, more balanced energy, a healthier weight, a softer and shinier fur coat, and a less stinky litter box. Still not a believer in Smalls? Well, New York magazine called Smalls the best cat food according to veterinarians, while buzzfeed said my cats went completely ballistic for this stuff. Now that we feed her Smalls, even Chanel's breath is much better and her fur is much softer ever since I switched to Smalls. After switching to smalls, 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements. Look, that's a big deal, and the team at Smalls is so confident your cat will love their product that you can try it risk free. That means they will refund you if your cat won't eat their food. What are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve. Head to smalls.com and use promo code LEGAL AF at checkout for 50% off your first order plus free shipping. That's the best offer you'll find, but you have to use my code legalaf for 50% off your first order one last time. That's promo code legal af for 50% off your first order plus free shipping. This episode of legal af is brought to you by Graza. It's my new favorite olive oil. It's fresh, it's never blended, and it comes from a single type of olive, the Picayule, straight out of high end Spain, where over half the world's olive oil is produced. Why Graza? It uses only one olive from one region. No mysterious blends. That means a traceable, fresher product without mixing in any lower grade or unknown oils. No more messy tins or drippy spouts. Just aim, squeeze and go. They have Frizzle, the newest with a higher 490° Fahrenheit smoke point, perfect for frying, crisping or grilling. Sizzle at 410 degrees Fahrenheit and everyday cooking oil for roasting, marinating and sauteing and drizzle, a bold, punchy finishing oil you can sprinkle on salads, dip bread in or even top off ice cream. Now, my wife, who lived and studied in Italy for a number of years, makes me want to cook more Italian. But I know my margin of error is small, so I love using Graza to make her favorite rigatoni. Amritriciana and have her look at me like I just ordered in from her favorite Roman trattoria. For a limited time, you get 10% off your first order on Graza's site. But I personally suggest grabbing the trio that's all three squeezy bottles. So sizzle, frizzle and drizzle. So you're set for every style of cooking. So head to Graza Co and use legal AF to get 10% off of the trio, which includes sizzle, frizzle and drizzle. And get to cooking your next chef quality meal. All right, welcome back. Let's finish up Popoc Live with the perfect judge for the perfect moment at the perfect intersection of law and politics, Judge Beryl Howell, formerly the chief judge, took over where she was the predecessor to Judge Jeff Boseberg, the lawyer, sorry, the judge we were talking about during the Alien Enemies Act. She is the judge that's been assigned the case that was brought by the law firm that was attacked viciously in a defamatory way to try to destroy them, a 2500 person law firm out in Washington state called Perkins Coy. Perkins Coy used to have a couple of partners in it. One of them was prosecuted by Donald Trump's special counsel and he was acquitted. And another one is Mark Elias. They left that firm. But Donald Trump has been grinding his axe to take out Perkins Coy if he ever got back into office. This is, this is the enemy's list. That's all we're watching. This is where you naughty or nice. This is bad Santa. And to Donald Trump, Perkins Coy was naughty because they represented Hillary Clinton. They represented the Democratic national committee back in 2016. They try to get some dirt on Trump and his collusion with the Russians. They were one of the people that helped bring forward the Steele dossier, which has roundly been discredited against Donald Trump. And he first he sued them in civil court in Miami a couple of years ago with Alina Haba, and he lost. The case was dismissed. He was sanctioned a million dollars. And the judge found that the case against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and the law firm was all a political screed masquerading as a lawsuit that wasn't good enough for Donald Trump. So he had Bill Barr appoint John Durham special counsel like Jack Smith, but for, for Trump. And they went after the law firm and the jury acquitted them, acquitted the, the main, the main lawyers there. But now Donald Trump's president. So a law firm like that has a lot of government contracts where they represent government agencies and provide them as governmental lawyers, outside governmental lawyers, advice and counsel and get paid big dollars for it. I agree. I concede. And then they also represent people before the government and they need security clearance in order to look at some of these top secret documents. So what did Donald Trump do? He issued an executive order going after Perkins Coy by name and declaring them an enemy of the people, effectively, and that they're dishonest and that they are violating the law and that they're unconstitutional and they can't be trusted with our are secrets and they're, they're using diversity, equity and inclusion and their hiring practices, whatever else he could think of. And he, and he tried to fire them from the government and make them Persona non gratis. It got to a point where an emergency lawsuit was filed by the law firm and it ended up with Judge Barrel Howell. Now, Judge Barrel Howell, you may remember when she was the chief judge, presided over most of the grand juries that eventually indicted Donald Trump. She issued the subpoena, the, the subpoena that became the search warrant at Mar A Lago. She stripped Donald Trump's lawyers of attorney client privilege along with Donald Trump because she found it was more likely than not that he committed a crime. She presided over the Rudy Giuliani defamation case and hit him with default sanctions and he got $158 million judgment against him in the Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss election workers defamation case. She presided over dozens and Dozens, dozens of Gen 6 insurrectionist defendant cases, convicted them, sentenced them and the like. And she was around when Donald Trump pardoned him, pardoned those people. And she's not shy about writing about Donald Trump and his fascist tendencies. And she's speaking and she has spoken about them at speeches as well. So she got the case and she determined that it is a violation of the constitution of the First Amendment with animus for Trump to go after this law firm. And she by temporary restraining order after citing to Alice in Wonderland, telling Donald Trump and his administration, you don't get to be the Queen of Hearts. You don't get to just because you don't like the person or they displease you, say off with their head. Ha. She wrote that, she said, actually said that in court. And she instead, at her injunction, she, she ruled that you are to reinstate Perkins Coy, you are not to fire their contracts. You were not to tear up their contracts. And if you want to do their security clearance, then you got to do a legitimate security clearance evaluation. So she left that part alone. But Put them back in the game. Look, this is a 2,500 paycheck law firm going after them. That's a lot of people that are going to be put out on the street because something that happened with two partners that are no longer there 10 years ago and it's a violation of. It's a, it's a viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment because you don't like what they're saying or you don't like the law, the clients they're representing. Look, I took an oath as an officer of the court, right, My professional ethics, to zealously advocate for my clients interest, even those that are unpopular, even those that are notorious if I'm in the criminal world. So they have a lawyer on the other side of that asymmetrical power that the prosecutors have. In our system of adversarial justice, it's the adversarial system that we believe in, conjunction with juries and judges, that creates justice. Justice being blind. But that doesn't mean you go in blind. You're entitled to a lawyer. And a lawyer who takes an oath to defend the Constitution as an officer of the court at the highest ethical standards should not be penalized for taking clients or advocating on behalf of those clients. Just like Williams and Connolly, another law firm that Donald Trump went after by name. Their crime, they represented Jack Smith when he needed representation. This is not the world that you and I want to wake up in. This does not reflect our values. This does not reflect American values, American patriotism or anything that used to be a part of our DNA. It's been hijacked by Donald Trump and by maga. And this open defiance of federal courts not only makes my skin crawl, it's embarrassing. It's the language and the vocabulary of dictators. In fact, you've got the dictator of El Salvador, Bukele, who's egging on Donald Trump in social media posts telling him to attack the federal judiciary. Just like he did when El Salvador is telling an American president how to run a democracy. You know, we're in trouble. Yeah, do it. I did it. You know, that's what Bukele did. He got rid of his enemies on the Supreme Court. I mean, I don't know about literally. He did take them out. He moves for impeachment. All the things that Justice Roberts told Donald Trump, back off, pump the brakes. That's not our country. As Elon Musk calls for impeachment too. Now, let me, let me end this. Popoc live with two concepts that come up a lot in the, in the question, ask, in the questions that are asked, firstly, what does it take to impeach a federal judge? And secondly, what if the US Marshal Service and law enforcement don't listen to a judge who finds somebody in contempt like the Trump administration, and they don't arrest because Pam Bondi told them to step down. Because all of the security personnel, if you will, like the marshals, are under the executive branch. What happens then? Okay, let's start with the first thought experiment. What happens on impeachment? Same as a president. You need 2/3 of the House to impeach. Well, actually you need, you need to, let me rephrase it. You need a majority to impeach. You need 2/3 of the Senate to convict. So that's why it's not happening. Because no matter how many extra 4 or 5 votes they have in the Senate, they don't have the 60 plus they need to convict. So no judge is going to get impeached and removed. In the entire history of Our Republic, in 250 years, plus 15 judges total have been impeached, really, for corruption and bribery. Like, you know, they were taking a little, a little handoff, a little presidential handshake, if you know what I mean, not happening here. But it's not done because they really think they're going to be able to do it. You know, Elon Musk and Stephen Miller and Donald Trump and all the right wing influencers on cue and paid off. They all do it because they think it's destabilizing. They think they'll get a better call from the ref next time because they're playing the ref, as Donald Trump likes to say. And so that's, that's the process. What if federal judges order contempt and, or jail for members of the Trump administration and they don't have the muscle to enforce it because the marshals are under, because let's play this out. Marshals are under the executive branch. Federal judiciary does not at present have its own sergeant at arms or deputized security force. So they have to rely on the executive branch. But you know it's going to happen. Pam Bondi and Cash Patel, FBI. Everybody's going to order the marshals not to listen to the federal judge open defiance again. And the federal judges are going to look around the room and go, what do we do? Well, here's what they can do. Federal judges can deputize, create their own security force. They can take it from, if they're in Democratic states where a lot of these are, they can take it from the governors giving them National Guards people and deputizing them as officers of the court. And marshals. Right. They can make marshals. They can do it from local law enforcement, like if they're in D.C. metro Police, Capitol Police, the mayors who are Democrat, the governors who are Democratic are going to pitch in and give security personnel to judges to enforce their rules. And then where do you put them? Well, if you can't put them in federal Bureau of Prison Centers or federal detention centers because Pam Bondi won't let you, you put them in local jails. Jails are jails. Locks work in both places. So that's what could happen. So I know a lot of people are like, it's toothless. They can't do anything. What are they going to do? Pam Bondi is going to tell the marshals not to do it. That may be. And that we might get more statements flying out of John Roberts at that point. I'm glad you're here with me on POPOC Live. I love sharing this time with you. I love preparing for the show. I couldn't do it without you. We've got our pro democracy sponsors, We've got Midas Touch. Hit the hit the subscribe button but come on over to Legal a FMTN for Midas Touch Network. I do that channel in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network. We just rolled the odometer to 500,000 in our first six months. Hit the subscribe button there. We're really making a push. We want to hit a million before our one year birthday and I think we're going to be able to do it certainly with your help. And then of course I've got my new law firm, www.thepopoc firm.com 1877-popocaf and again we're really focused on those things at the intersection of your life and law which are all which are unfortunately personal injury, catastrophic injury, death and destruction. Things that turn your life upside down. So until my next POPOC Live, my next Legal AF the podcast here on the Midas Touch network or legal AF contribution on the legal AF YouTube channel. I'm Michael Popak. I'm Michael Popak and I got some big news for our audience. Most of you know me as the co founder of Midas touches Legal AF and the Legal AF YouTube channel. Or as a 35 year national trial lawyer now building a what we started together on Legal af. I've launched a new law firm, the Popoc Firm, dedicated to obtaining justice through compassionate and zealous legal representation at the POPOC Firm, we are focused on obtaining justice for those who have been injured or damaged by a life altering event by securing the highest dollar recoveries. I've been tirelessly fighting for justice for the last 35 years so my own law firm, organically building on my legal AF work just feels right. And I've handpicked a team of top tier trial fighters and settlement Experts throughout all 50 states known as Big Auto Injury Attorneys who have the know how to beat heartless insurance companies, corporations, government entities and their attorneys. Big Auto's attorneys working with my firm are rock stars in their respective states and collectively responsible for billions of dollars in recoveries. So if you were a loved one but on the wrong side of a catastrophic auto motor vehicle rideshare or truck accident, suffered a personal injury, or been the victim of medical malpractice, employment, harassment or discrimination, or suffered a violation of your civil and constitutional rights, then contact the POPOC Firm today at 1-877- POPOCAF or by visiting my website at www.thepopocfirm.com and fill out a free case evaluation form. And if we determine that you have a case and you sign with us, we don't get paid unless you do. The POPOC Firm Fighting for your justice every step of the way.
- [61:27]
T-Mobile
Like your favorite travel guide, T Mobile's network knows all the spots because T Mobile helps keep you connected from big cities to your hometown on America's largest 5G network switch. Now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid cart. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com keepandswitch up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualified unlock device, credit service port in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card is no cash access and expires in six months.