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Michael Popak
Donald Trump is jumping into bed again, this time with Vladimir Putin. He's about to sell out Ukraine as right wing social media, led by Carrie Lake and Jack Posobiek and Tucker Carlson celebrate an American president cutting a deal to deal directly with Putin against our democratic ally in Ukraine. The world has turned upside down, but we'll make sense of it all right here on the Midas Touch network@unlegal af. I never thought in my lifetime I would ever have to do commentary about a US President selling out American values and interests to our Russian adversaries. We're supposed to be trying to contain and undermine the superpower named Russia. We're not supposed to reward it for having breached the sovereignty of Ukraine, for having led to terrorism all around the country, to having undermined our own democratic values and election system through disinformation and misinformation campaign. But to people like Carrie Lake, who says, I wake up every day, it's like Christmas morning. We love the fact that Donald Trump is having direct phone calls with Putin. It's the art of the deal of peacemaking, says Jack Posobiak. And by the way, while I'm on Jack Posobiak, the guy that invented Pizzagate, the guy who argued to the American people an acuanon conspiracy that Democrats were running, including Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, were running a child pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C. i am not making this up. That guy. You think that guy should be in a mental hospital? You know where he is? He's standing next to Pete Hegseth, invited by the Pentagon to go along and do running social right wing commentary about the accomplishments. He's like embedded with the Trump administration. He goes with Pete Hegseth to Pentagon meetings abroad. He goes with Scott Bessant, the treasury secretary stands next to him while they're meeting with Ukraine as they're selling out Ukraine. Jack Posobiak, the pizza gate guy is in the government embedded with the Trump administration. So then you've got Tucker Carlson, right? Tucker Carlson is celebrating the fact that Donald Trump we're not just making it's not about making peace with Russia. It's about getting into bed with Russia and throwing Ukraine under the bus as a result. I mean he's negotiating directly Marco Rubio and Trump himself in phone calls with Putin negotiating directly with the Russians before they even met with the Ukrainians or understand what Zelensky wants in this. And they've already cut the legs out from under Zelensky because they've said out loud, including the Defense Secretary Hegseth and Marco Rubio that that Ukraine will never be allowed into NATO, will never be in the NATO alliance and that they'll have to give back, sorry, they'll have to give up all the territory that Russia took by force in the two and a half year, almost three year war. That's the reward Russia got for being the aggressor and going after a democratic country. And now you've got the talking points and you see how Donald Trump is using right wing media. I'm going to play a couple of clips here in a minute. But you got the talking points that Tucker Carlson is using and you think you're watching Russian tv. I mean he calls Tucker Carlson frequently calls Zelensky the dictator and that Putin had every right to protect himself from the dictator in Ukraine, all Ukraine. Listen, I know people in the region. I'm married to people from the region. I have a pretty good handle on what's going on on the day to day life over there. All Zelenskyy in Ukraine wanted was for their cousins in Russia to leave them alone after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Let them be an independent country that turns towards the west and democracy. That's what we're supposed to be supporting. We're not supposed to be supporting Putin. Oh well, we understand his position because you know, there's a border and Zelensky is popular. So bomb Kiev. So bomb Ukraine out of existence. Go back to maps from 17 and 1800 and say, oh, these territories were ours. Should Mexico show up with Claudia Sheinbaum tomorrow with military troops and take back large swaths of America because on maps from the 1700s or before it was all part of Mexico Are we going to lose California and Texas? Well, definitely Texas to a Mexican land grab? And why is it okay for an American president? I keep emphasizing the American part, who is supposed to be the leader of the free world, who's supposed to be holding our torch of democracy to which all other countries are supposed to be attracted as a counterbalance against communist and fascist regimes. Why is it okay for an American president to cut a deal to throw our democratic ally Ukraine under the bus? Why is that okay? And why is it okay for them to amplify this message as if it were written by Russian television? Couldn't have been written any better by Russian television for people like Tucker Carlson to say, well, Putin had every right, you know, but Zelensky, Zelensky, what? He was going to take over Russian territory. He just wanted the Donbas back. He just wanted Crimea back. The port, which was part of Ukraine before Putin's last land grab under the Obama administration. Left unchecked, Putin will continue to do it. I have friends in Poland who are crapping in their pants, understandably, because they're like, if the United States is not standing up for Ukraine, we have no hope when the tanks roll into Poland and they. And instead the right wingers like Carrie Lake and Pasopiac and Tucker Carlson and others who are celebrating. Hooray. Hooray. What? Where is your American values? The MAGA party running around with their red hats. By the way, they're very quiet lately. I'll tell you. I live in an area now that's sort of. I mean, the state is sort of maga, but it's purpley and I live in a blue spot. But they're very quiet because they didn't vote for this. They left fascist regime regimes and dictators. Right when they read a new executive order that says all federal agencies are. Are going to be put out of business and all have to answer to me, the almighty president. They freak out like, we didn't vote for this. We didn't vote for an economic tariff war that's going to spend the economy into an abyss. Did you know I have a secret weapon?
Co-Host or Guest
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Michael Popak
Right?
Co-Host or Guest
A secret weapon is a great asset.
Michael Popak
To have in your back pocket.
Co-Host or Guest
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Michael Popak
Lightweight warmth, Mack Weldon has a full.
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Michael Popak
They're not flashy, just classic.
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Michael Popak
F and we certainly didn't vote for. You know, a lot of these people in where I'm living now came from Cuba, which is under the sphere of influence of Russia. And they don't. And they freak out when Donald Trump's cutting a deal with Putin. They don't see him as a tough guy, art of the deal Jack Posobiak. They see him as an out of control, megalomaniacal guy who violated all of our principles to get into bed with the Russians. This is a country that we had a, we had a red scare during the 50s where we chased, we looked under every mattress looking for communists, looking for Russian sympathizers. Now we got a president who's a Russian sympathizer and we've got these right wingers who if you collectively put their brains into a bird, it would fly backwards. I mean that, that's where we're at. I mean I don't mean to do ad hominem attacks, but does anybody, does anybody want to sit at a bar with a beer with Carrie Lake and find out what's going on in that weird stew of her brain right now? No. And again, I'm going to end this hot take the way I started it. What is Jack Posopiak, the guy who said Democrats are running a pedophile ring and, and, and, and sacrificing babies? I left that out. Eating and sacrificing baby babies as part of the Q and on Pizzagates theme, how did he get rehabilitated? So now he is embedded with the Treasury Secretary and the Defense Secretary so that he can do all sorts of social media posts. When did we let the KKK and white supremacists into our government?
Co-Host or Guest
Why?
Michael Popak
And why do we have a Russian sympathizer as president and Vice President? We just had JD Vance go to Munich of all places. Talk about a lack of historical context. He went to Munich, Germany, right? Every little, every little school child in short pants knows what happened in Germany in World War I and World War II. He goes to the fact that we demilitarized them for a reason. He went to Germany in Munich with our democratic allies in front of them and decided he was going to take off his belt and take them out to the woodshed and beat them because he doesn't like their brand of democracy. He thinks they all should be Trumpians in Germany. And then he met with the alt right slash neo Nazi party in Germany and was celebrated. His speech was celebrated on Russian tv. They said it was a public caning of Democrat of democratic allies that was long in the making and they celebrated it. You know that if you're being celebrated on Russian TV then you've sacrificed the American values that you were asked to protect on the altar of your fill in the blank power hungry greed. Get your hands off my brand of democracy. You know, the best I can, the best metaphor I can use is that they got a, they got a, like a rap you can put around cars to change the color. You know, instead of paint. You know, you see a lot of these cyber trucks, they're all wrapped. You take them to a wrapping. So our brand of the beating heart of our democracy and the values that you and I hold dear have been shrink wrapped by this black heart of maga. We got to bust it out. You got to bust that heart out because we are not making any new democracies in the world. We are not making any. We are not supporting appropriately our democratic allies around the world. And we're instead creating our next brand of terrorists. Our next. And we're playing into the hands of the Chinese and the Russians who are rubbing their hands in glee to step into the power vacuum created by Donald Trump's withdrawal from the world stage. When Brazil need. When Brazil becomes the leader of our democratic ideals because they finally got around to prosecuting Balisaro, their former president, for corruption related to him trying to stage a coup. When Brazil is the one holding the lamp of democracy as opposed to the United States in this hemisphere, you know something's going wrong. You know something's going wrong. So we're going to continue to closely follow all of the right wing fascist nut bags that are in the Trump administration. This is like a bag of nuts. This is like the island of misfit toys. But it matters because we can't go this alone as an American people. We are the leader of a global world. You know, in this America first and for Americans only stuff. This may have been attractive during the 1930s and 1940s, but even then it wasn't. That's why we didn't get President Lindbergh. As President Charles Lindbergh ran on a similar platform or was going to run. He didn't become president for a reason. We can't go it alone. I read, I read something recently which brought it all home to me. In terms of the global economy, no one country, even the United States, can build an iPhone based on its parts. It can't. It has to rely on a supply chain around the world. If we can't build an iPhone by ourselves, how are we possibly going to go it alone? From a diplomatic standpoint, from a foreign policy standpoint, from a national security standpoint, from an intelligence gathering standpoint, what do you think's kept the world safe and America safe all these years? The destruction of all the federal agencies and agency heads, the hollowing out of federal employees, the firing of top of top credentialed people and removing them from government because Donald Trump doesn't like the color of their skin or the stripe or the color of their political stripe. We all have voters remorse. I don't. But many people have voters report remorse in the independent, you know, Republican zone. And we got to keep talking about it because we're coming close to the midterm elections. It's not that far away. We got to mobilize now because everybody believes, I believe on this side of the aisle that there are already would be articles of impeachment drawn up for Donald Trump for any number of the things we talk about on these hot takes, currying favor and siding up and getting to bed with the Russians as an American president impeachment article, trying to his power grab to take over power to the expense of the federal courts and Congress. Impeachment. His attempt to impound funds. Federal funds. Impeachment. Firing independent agencies. Impeachment. Birthright citizenship. Trying to deny people their right to be born and have a blue passport. Impeachment. How do we get there?
Co-Host or Guest
The midterms.
Michael Popak
That's where we got to continue to look while the federal courts continue to rein him in. I'm Michael Popak. I'm fired up. I'm on the Midas Dutch Network and a Legal af. And until my next reporting, I'm right here in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network. We just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories. The intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe @legalafmtn. That's egalafmtn.
Legal AF by MeidasTouch: Episode Summary
Episode Title: Trump Makes Worst Deal and Begs for Help
Release Date: February 22, 2025
Hosts: Ben Meiselas, Michael Popok, Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Executive Producer: Meidas Media Network
In the February 22, 2025 episode of Legal AF by MeidasTouch, host Michael Popok delivers a scathing analysis of former President Donald Trump's latest political maneuvers. Titled "Trump Makes Worst Deal and Begs for Help," the episode delves deep into Trump's alleged rapprochement with Vladimir Putin and the alarming implications for U.S. foreign policy, particularly concerning Ukraine.
Michael Popok initiates the discussion by asserting that Donald Trump is "jumping into bed again, this time with Vladimir Putin," suggesting a betrayal of American interests and democratic allies (00:58). He criticizes Trump's direct negotiations with Putin, arguing that such actions undermine the U.S. stance against Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Notable Quote:
Popok states, "I never thought in my lifetime I would ever have to do commentary about a US President selling out American values and interests to our Russian adversaries" (00:58).
Popok contends that Trump's dealings with Putin are detrimental to Ukraine, a key democratic ally. He highlights that this presumed deal "cuts the legs out from under Zelensky," the Ukrainian president, by suggesting that Ukraine will not join NATO and may have to cede territories seized by Russia (04:30). This, according to Popok, rewards Russia for its aggression and destabilizes the region.
Notable Quote:
"He’s supposed to be the leader of the free world, who’s supposed to be holding our torch of democracy... Why is it okay for an American president to cut a deal to throw our democratic ally Ukraine under the bus?" (06:10).
A significant portion of the episode criticizes right-wing media personalities like Carrie Lake, Jack Posobik, and Tucker Carlson for celebrating Trump's negotiations with Putin. Popok labels these figures as propagators of misinformation, aligning American politics dangerously close to Russian narratives.
Notable Quotes:
Popok warns that Trump's actions and the support from right-wing factions are eroding American democratic values. He draws parallels to the Red Scare of the 1950s, suggesting that current developments mirror past threats but with a more insidious twist—having a perceived Russian sympathizer as president exacerbates the crisis.
Notable Quote:
"This is a country that we had a red scare during the 50s... Now we got a president who's a Russian sympathizer" (10:05).
The episode further criticizes Trump's administration for dismantling federal agencies and undermining national security. Popok argues that the weakening of these institutions leaves the U.S. vulnerable both domestically and internationally, allowing adversarial nations like Russia and China to exploit the power vacuum.
Notable Quote:
"The destruction of all the federal agencies... has been hollowing out our government" (12:30).
As the midterm elections approach, Popok emphasizes the urgency for voters to recognize and act against what he describes as a fascist shift within the Republican party. He advocates for mobilization to prevent further erosion of democratic institutions and to hold leaders accountable for their actions.
Notable Quote:
"We are coming close to the midterm elections. It's not that far away. We got to mobilize now" (15:10).
Michael Popok concludes the episode by reiterating the stakes involved in the current political climate. He calls on listeners to remain vigilant and proactive in defending democratic values against internal and external threats.
Notable Quote:
"We are not making any new democracies in the world. We are not supporting appropriately our democratic allies around the world" (14:50).
He also promotes the Legal AF YouTube channel, encouraging listeners to subscribe for ongoing coverage of legal and political developments.
This episode of Legal AF by MeidasTouch presents a fervent critique of Donald Trump's foreign policy decisions, particularly his interactions with Vladimir Putin and the resulting negative impact on Ukraine and American democracy. Popok highlights the dangerous alliance between Trump and certain right-wing media personalities, warning of the broader implications for national security and democratic integrity. As the midterm elections loom, the episode serves as a rallying call for listeners to engage in the political process to safeguard democratic values.
Timestamp Reference:
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