Loading summary
Transcript12 lines
- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mintmobile, we like to do the.
- [00:03]
Michael Popak
Opposite of what big wireless does.
- [00:05]
Ryan Reynolds
They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right, we're cutting the price of mint unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month New customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees extra speed slower above.
- [00:29]
Michael Popak
40 gigabytes detailed have you McDonald's hot.
- [00:33]
Ryan Reynolds
Crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton and time just stands still.
- [00:46]
Michael Popak
This episode is brought to you by Polestar Electric. Performance is at the core of every choice that went into the all electric Polestar 3. Like merging a spacious interior with a torque and handling of a sports car, or the ability to go from 0 to 60 in as little as 4.8 seconds and get an EPA estimated range of up to 315 miles per charge. Choices like this all lead to making your decision to choose Polestar 3. Obvious Book your test drive today at polestar.com this episode is brought to you by PDS Debt Struggling with credit cards, personal loans, medical bills or collections? It's time to stop worrying about that high interest debt you've got. Piling up PDS debt can help you start saving money immediately. Their platform can analyze your unique situation and create a plan to get you out of debt. There's no minimum credit score required and it takes 30 seconds to get your results. With PDS debt, you'll take back control of your finances. Get a free debt analysis in just 30 seconds@pdsdebt.com Spotify this episode is brought.
- [01:48]
Ryan Reynolds
To you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify. Home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shoppay 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. Donald Trump has moved from attacking executive branch departments and agencies and their workers and has now moved on to a fight with Congress, lurching from one constitutional crisis about separation of powers after another. Now with a new executive order just signed yesterday in which he has declared that he alone controls all agencies, even those independently created by Congress, like the securities and Exchange Commission. Like the Federal Reserve, like the Federal Trade Commission, those are all independent agencies because Congress created them as a creature of statute. They do reside in the executive branch. And that's why Donald Trump, taking another page out of the Project 2025 playbook, has declared that he alone is the unitary executive and every executive agency under him must report directly to him. No independent agencies. There's a very good reason we have independent agencies and this is going to set up a fight with Congress. The question is, is there anyone on the other side to fight back? Michael, I'm Michael Popak. I'm fighting back. I'm here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal af. Let's get down to it. There is a animating feature of the Federalist Heritage Foundation Project 2025 movement and that is there is one president. Of course, under Article 2 of the Constitution, all power of the executive branch resides in the President. There is no independent Department of Justice, there is no independent FBI, there is no independent anything at all. That has been their credo for the last 30 or 40 years. A number of the Supreme Court justices believe in that, such as Neil Gorsuch, such as Kavanaugh, such as Alito and Thomas for four votes. What it means is all power is reposited in a unitary one person president and there is no such thing as independence. Why did we get independent agencies, independent Department of Justice, independent FBI, independent FTC and securities and Exchange Commission? Because we saw the abuse of power in a prior criminal president in the form of Richard Nixon and Congress thought better of it. And many of these things, but some of it, some of the independents back to the Federal Trade Commission, the securities and Exchange Commission come from the 1930s. It come from when FDR had tremendous power. It was our first and last four term, almost four term president. And so Congress, there's this constant battle attention that the framers of our republic set up between the executive branch, the judicial branch and the legislative branch. And if the legislative branch is going to be a lap dog and a wet noodle against a all powerful megalomaniacal president who believes that he is a leviathan that levitates above all the branches of government, which he doesn't. But if he acts like he does and there's no resistance on the other side, then where are we? And Donald Trump is taking full advantage of the fact that the 119th Congress has no spine, will not get anything done and they are merely a hand puppet for the presidency. So he's going to keep grabbing in a turf battle. He's, you Think Russia grabbed a lot of Ukraine. Watch Trump grab a lot of the territory and turf that had been for historical reasons for generations, reposited in Congress in particular. Let me just tell you what has happened with the announcement. You've got the, the announcement by Trump that all federal agencies are now subject to the President, that there will be no independent agencies, that he will set performance standards. And then here's the little Easter egg from hell which is right out of the play the playbook again of Project 2025. The architect of Project 2025, Russ Vaught, is in the Office of Management and Budget. I said at the beginning of this administration selection process, the most dangerous person out there is Russ Fought because he believes that when Congress allocates money for funding that the President has the ability to shut off the spigot and not spend the money, not faithfully execute the laws to carry out the laws of Congress on laws he doesn't like. Oh, you funded $100 million for public education. I don't like public education. Turn it off. That's done through a process called impoundment or fund freezing. Even though there's a law on the books by Congress that says the President may not refuse to spend the money that we allocate, we control the purse strings in our constitutional republic. Russ Fought doesn't believe that. Right wing MAGA don't believe that. They believe that that is an illegal law and that from the 1980s and they're going to challenge it at the United States Supreme Court. Donald Trump, the starting point for this new executive order was a couple of weeks ago when he started to fire independent heads of these agencies even though their terms were not up. The securities and Exchange Commission, the ftc, the nlrb, National Labor Relations Board, these people are not allowed to be fired except for, you know, misconduct. And Donald Trump fired them because he doesn't like the color of their skin. It doesn't like their political stripe. And so those lawsuits are some of the 70 lawsuits that are currently in the court system right now. So he started there decapitating leadership of these independent agencies. Now, he does understand that if he takes out the Federal Reserve chairperson or makes the Federal Reserve report to him on monetary policy, that the markets will crash. That the markets will crash. So he made a carve out in his executive order that the only federal independent so called, he called it so called independent agency that doesn't have to report to him directly is the Fed. That means Jerry Jerome Powell or Jay Powell. And that probably soothed the markets because they don't want irrational, erratic, aberrational rogue Donald Trump effing around with the economy more than he more than he can by taking over the Fed. Want to be the most interesting person.
- [08:54]
Unknown
At the party with our next partner, Naked Wines. You can bring the best, most interesting wine from an independent winemaker with a truly unique story. Like I recently had a meet with a potential client with a reputation for being, well, difficult. But then I went to my Naked Wines box, pulled out a Napa Valley cab that she had never had or heard of before, and that icebreaker did the trick. This podcast is sponsored by naked wines. It's 2025. Do you still shop for wine like it's 2005? Naked Wines is a service that directly connects you to the world's finest independent winemakers so you can get award winning wine delivered straight to your door. Use our code Legalif for the code and password@nakedwines.com and get their incredible deal of six bottles for just $39.99. I recently enjoyed Naked Wines bottle of W. Donaldson's Sonoma Blanc de Blanc from their most recent shipment. I love cracking open a bottle of wine, putting away technology and just being present in the moment with family and friends.
- [09:59]
Ryan Reynolds
How do they do it?
- [10:00]
Unknown
Naked Wines connects winemakers and wine drinkers directly, allowing for vineyard to your door delivery at up to 60% off what you would pay in store. By cutting out the traditional retail middlemen, costs and markups, winemakers can pass those savings on to you without skimping on quality. Plain and simple, the wine from Naked Wines is amazing. I've been rating the wine after I get it and each shipment to me gets better and better. Naked Wines has been around for over 15 years and funds over 90 independent winemakers around the world with no commitment or membership fees. You can enjoy Naked Wines hassle free. And don't forget, you can pause or cancel at any time. So just because you got a trip coming up doesn't mean you can't enjoy Naked Wines. Now is the time to join the Naked Wines community. Head to nakedwines.com legalif click enter voucher and put in my code legal af for both the code and password for six bottles of wine for just 39.99 with shipping included. That's $100 off your first six bottles at nakedw and use the code and password legal af for six bottles of wine for 39.99.
- [11:20]
Ryan Reynolds
And so what's going to happen with all of this? In a companion order he also declared that independent agencies or agencies at all do not have the ability to take their own position about what the law means, that the only one who can interpret the law for the executive branch is Donald Trump. And Pam Bondi, the Attorney General and only she on his direction. Let me read to you from that particular executive order. No employee Trump has declared by fiat of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General's opinion on a matter of law, including, but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance and positions advanced in litigation without permission. I don't know how they're going to run this government if every of the hundreds of agencies and departments they're going to have to run their interpretation of the law passed. Pam Bondi, seriously, this will create instant, an instant impasse and instant, you know, sort of analysis paralysis within the government. You can't run. I mean, this is just, you know, you think a kindergartner wouldn't have come up with this? Every interpretation of the law is going to run through Pam Bonding and President Trump. How are they ever going to operate the law? See, they don't want to. They don't want to. They figure, well, they can't get approval. There won't be any interpretations made. And this is where Donald Trump thinks he's on equal footing with the judicial branch in making interpretation of the law. See, we thought when the Supreme Court did the Federalist Society's bidding in Project 2025's bidding, and they got rid of the, what we call the Chevron doctrine in which agencies interpret their own laws, and the Supreme Court said, no, we interpret the laws. You don't listen to agency heads when it comes to laws. We thought that's, that's what they, that's where they wanted to end up. No, they don't want to end up there. They want to end up with the president making his own interpretations of the law. Now he's setting up a battle with John Roberts at the Chief justice about who gets the final word on law interpretation. We know under the Constitution. But we have a president who is out of control, and at the same time, he's out of control. He says in his executive order, I'm doing this to make these agencies responsive to the people through the president. Okay, then pay the president back at midterms and vote out Congress, the House and the Senate. There's no other way to do it. Because with this. Sorry. With this new set of laws, the ramifications are as follows. The agencies will be paralyzed in their ability to act because they'll never be able to get interpretations through Pam Bonning and Donald Trump in time to matter, which is going to again hamstring and undermine the ability of these agencies to operate. Donald Trump doesn't want the agencies to operate. He wants to put them all out of business. He wants to shrink the size of government negatively impacting your and my life. He doesn't want a Social Security Administration. He doesn't care about your check deposited into your bank account. He doesn't care about disability payments, food stamp payments, health care for children or solving the pollution crisis or having money available in a natural disaster and all the projects that Joe Biden and the Democrats paid for through the inflation Reduction act that went 85% to red states. He's cutting all those off. Wake up. Those who voted for Donald Trump that are listening to my, listening to the sound of my voice, this is what you voted for. We told you, I'm not here to tell you so. But we told you that he was going to follow the Project 2025 playbook. He was going to implement it with Russ Fought at the Office of Management and Budget who now has the power under this new executive order. If he doesn't like the how the money's being spent, he can limit the how the money is going to be spent to these so called independent agencies to align them with the law, a law that's interpreted only by Trump. You see the circular logic that's going on here? So the law is what Russ Vought says the law is, not what Congress says the law is. And that's the separation of powers battle. This is all making its way, one case at a time to the United States Supreme Court. And they're going to have to look Donald Trump in the eye and tell him one, you know, one way or the other, whether they believe the executive branch is all knowing, all seeing and all powerful and sits above the other two branches. They set this up with the immunity decision. They set us up for this. Now, the problem on that Supreme Court to round out this hot take, is that Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito and Thomas believe that all power reside for the executive branch is reposited in one person. And there is no such thing as an independent Department of Justice. Donald Trump is his own Attorney General, he's his own Treasury Secretary, he's his own Secretary of State, he's his own FBI director. They're okay with that. They think that's what the framers thought we wanted or that's what the framers wanted. That's not what the framers wanted. They left a king. You think they left a king to write in three CO/ of government and a checks and balance system to give us a king. And if there is an out of control president, they counted on Congress to control that out of control president through the impeachment process. Which means we've got to empower Congress to use the impeachment process by giving back to the other party, the Democrats, the impeachment and conviction power of the House and the Senate, which we can only do at the midterm. We're one day closer to the midterm. That's why the midterm is so important. They haven't just swung the pendulum in the other direction since taking office. They've wrapped it around their own axle and around our throats. So we've got to fight back. House, Senate, impeach, conviction. Does anybody doubt that if the Democrats were in charge of the House and or the Senate we wouldn't already have articles of impeachment up and running for all of this, for the violations of separation of power, for the illegal firings of federal workers, for the illegal firings of heads of the departments of the agencies under which, under, under the executive branch, for the cutting off of funding to. The cutting off of funding to the destruction of entire departments and depart entire agencies. There would, there would be dozens of articles of impeachment. And some people are saying what can we do about it? Well, nothing at the moment other than continuing to do what we're doing in the courts to pin him down. You know, he's issued already almost 60 executive orders. Most of the major ones are already tied up in litigation wending their way up to the United States Supreme Court. The question is what is going to happen when they get there? What is going to happen when they get there? I'm going to continue to follow it right here on Legal A eff on the Minus Touch Network. Follow me Michael Popak. Tuesday nights I got a show called Popoc live. Tuesday nights, 8pm Eastern time on this YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube podcast. Wednesdays and Saturdays and then on every audio podcast platform you can think of. And come on over to Legal AF of the YouTube channel Legal AFMTN. We're doing about 8 to 10 videos a day over there. We just have to at the intersection of law and politics and we need your help. So come on over and help us grow that pro democracy channel as well. So until my next hot take. This is Michael Popak reporting.
- [19:01]
Unknown
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.