Legal AF - 5/9/2026

27:49Howard Lutnick shows up earlier in the week for a deposition. Obviously we know Lutnick was on Epstein Island with his kids and his friends' kids. And then when he went on a New York Post episode, New York Post podcast, you know, before he said he never spoke to Epstein after 2005. The guy was so creepy that he knew that Epstein was doing bad things and he was a blackmailer and he can never be around Epstein. And so I never saw him ever again. Epstein files come out, Lutnick's in them, not just in them, brought his kids to the island and brought his friends' kids to the island, like an island where kids are sexually assaulted.

28:23So it's at a very minimum, raises serious questions about your judgment that you're bringing your kids to the island. When you also said that you knew the guy was doing bad things in 2005, that you would thereafter bring little kids to the island or children to the island or teenagers or whatever, you know, kids down. So what James, so James Comer comes running out to try, cause you know, they don't release the transcript. They're not doing this. I set it up. Let Nick shows up. Let Nick says, I'm not sitting for a video, no video, no under oath. This is an informal interview. James Comer, the MAGA Republican who controls the house oversight committee.

28:57He's like, yep, those are rules. We ain't doing, gotcha. We ain't doing depositions anymore. We're just doing interviews. not under oath. Take away the camera. No one to swear him in. You could ask him some informal questions. You remember back, what was it, like two months ago when Bondi showed up for the informal interview and Democrats walked out? It's like, this isn't a deposit. No, you're subpoenaed. And by the way, this is exactly what they want to do for Bondi on May 29th. They don't want to do depositions. They don't want to do video. They want to do a transcription so you don't get to see how they look or what's actually going on.

29:34Then they don't release the transcription for like weeks. And then people, you know, and they hope that people just kind of forget about it. That's the plan with Lutnick. That's the plan with Bondi. And then they run out of the room, you know, and like Comer, and he tries to like frame the narrative like, no, there's nothing wrong here. Nothing to see here. Here's what James Comer said. He runs out of the room while this transcribed informal thing has taken place. He runs out to speak to the press and try to spit it. Here, please, Clip. I feel compelled to have to come out and clean up and correct some of the statements that the Democrats made.

30:13I couldn't believe as I was getting updates of what they were saying. And I hope that when you get the transcripts, you fact check them on what they say. This is a habit of the Democrats on this committee coming out, telling you all stuff that was said that was not The only cover-up that I've seen on the Oversight Committee is the cover-up of the Democrats trying to cover up our investigations of the Metro Police Department, lying about crime statistics, and the cover-up of the Minnesota fraud by Tim Walts and Keith Ellison, and the cover-up of the hospice fraud in California. So we asked some very substantive questions the first hour.

30:55The Democrats, during their hour, repeated the exact same questions. Because there's only so many questions you can ask Howard Lutnick, who had a property next door to Epstein in New York, but talked to him three times over a decade. Three interactions over a decade. He was on the island with his family, with his wife and kids, six people in his family and six people in his friend's family for lunch for two hours. And he has admitted that. All right, then I'll show you what Ro Khanna said, Democratic Congress member. Let's play this clip. We know why that interview was not videotaped. If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnik.

31:47It was really embarrassing. He was asked very straightforward questions about whether he regretted misleading the American people. I mean, he said that he would never see Epstein again in 2005. And everyone knows that he took his wife and kids to see Epstein in 2012. And yet it was just contortions and lies and no acknowledgement that he misled the American public. And if you saw the exchanges that my colleagues had with him, you would see he made a force of the English language. I mean, he was trying to define I as if saying that what he really meant is that he would not see Epstein alone, but would be totally fine with having his wife and kids see Epstein.

32:40It made no sense. And then he's raised even more serious concerns about the investigation. He originally had said that Epstein engaged in blackmail and recorded videotapes. Now he's saying, well, he was wrong. He was just speculating. And Epstein actually didn't engage in blackmailing. This raises the question of what the cover up is. Popak. I'll take it. Full disclosure, I used to work for Howard Lutnick. I don't have any insider knowledge about his relationship with Epstein. But I do know the man. And let me give you my own perspective of what we're watching here. This was a self-created catastrophe for Howard Ludnick because he decided to try to get out in front of the story.

33:29He decided to go on the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post podcast. he decided to lie to the American people about his business, social, charitable relationships with Epstein, who he shared a wall with, his words, because they have adjoining Tony townhouses up on the Upper East Side of New York. And if he wanted to go on that podcast, which is where this is all coming from, sometimes it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. And if you're covering up something that leads people to question your judgment, your ethics, and that's where we're at. Had he not gone on the Miranda Devine podcast, you and I would probably not be talking about this right now, except in the context of him having to first explain himself for all of the documents that came spilling out of the half production of the Epstein files, which included photographs, which I'm going to show you one in a moment.

34:33And then you watch Howard Lutnick trying to contort himself in ways that is beyond human comprehension. English words don't mean what they say. Emails are to be ignored. Photos are to be ignored. All because he wants to get as far away from Epstein as possible. Here are the facts. Six, seven months ago, he went on the podcast. He said that Epstein was gross after he saw a massage table where a dining room table should have been in the townhouse, that he got weirdly close to him, Epstein did, during a conversation. And he said, I will never be in a room alone with that person ever again, socially, business, or otherwise.

35:18That was his statement. The problem is that the Epstein files revealed a number of connections. They were in business together in a company called Adfin. where they were both investors. And they would have known that they were both investors. This is all after. If you're doing the timeline, 2009, Epstein is convicted of a child abuse-based crime publicly in Palm Beach County. Child prostitution, you know? That's out there in 09, okay? Everything I'm telling you about is after 09. So whether he knew he was running a child sex trafficking ring or was doing it from his adjoining wall in the townhouse next door is sort of irrelevant because he also said he thought he was the greatest blackmailer in the world, let Nick about Epstein.

36:10And so they have a, Howard is celebrated by a Jewish charity one year in 2014, 2015, and his office goes and gets a$50 ,000 donation from Epstein. Okay. Okay, he's transiting through the Caribbean with another family on a rented chartered yacht. And he feels he has to go and have lunch with him on an island where the assistants start listing the ages, as you said, of the children. Now, when he was caught, he said, oh, I found out that Epstein found out that I was in the Caribbean. And I found it very, this is Howard Lutton. I found it very unsettling that he knew that I was in the Caribbean. so unsettling that you went to the island for the lunch?

36:57And let's put up a photo that was in the Epstein production by the Department of Justice, and I'll let the American people tell us and our audience tell me whether he looks unsettled in this photo. Does he look unsettled there with a smile on his face with Epstein in the foreground? No. So this is the problem, and this is why the Democrats reported that a very sweaty, this is their words, a very sweaty Howard Lutnick was dishonest during his testimony. Now, we made much, and as we should, on Lutnick getting out from under swearing in. But that doesn't stop a criminal investigation if he lied. It's not under a statute we call 18 U.S.C.

37:441001. 1001 does not require that there be a sworn statement under oath. It's not per se a perjury statute. Let me read you the statute. 18 U.S.C. section 1001 says that whoever in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch knowingly and willfully makes any material false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation, commits a crime, punishable for up to five years, doesn't have to be sworn in. So that might have been a way for him to avoid perjury. But even Comer, you had that one clip he came out after. Comer also had another clip that I played in a hot take where he said, if he lied, we've got crime on the books for that.

38:43And that's not a ringing endorsement. If he lied, we're going to go after him. But this, again, is an example of somebody in the inner sanctum of Donald Trump with a connectivity to a now indicted and convicted child sex trafficker trying to figure out a way not to level with the American people. This would have been very easily handled. All you had to say was, I live next door to the guy. I had an uncomfortable situation with him. However, I once was on his island. I once asked his, my office asked his office for a charitable donation. And when there was a museum near our homes that was building something that may have obstructed our view, I thought it'd be a good idea for us to join together.

39:28I did not know that he was a child sex trafficker at the time. and any suggestion to the contrary is false. That's all he had to say. But no, they just so blithely lie on podcasts run by Stephen Miller's wife or by Rupert Murdoch, you know, these safe spaces where they feel they can say anything at any moment and no one's going to catch him. Thank God for Midas Touch. Thank God for Legal AF and the focus and drill down on these issues. Again, I don't know if he has any untoward relationship with Epstein, but then why are you lying to the American people about whatever the relationship was? And you are the Commerce Secretary.

40:10We're going to talk in the next segment about Trump's tariffs against the world, where now as a result of a major violation of the law with the IEPA tariffs, there's now about$166 billion or more owed in refunds, which should be paid to the American people, which are owed to not the foreign countries because they ain't the one who get hit with the tariff, the American companies who paid the tariffs who are now asking for refunds and who are entitled to it. And those sadly won't get passed on to the consumers. And they absolutely should because they ended up being paid by the consumers, which ends up kind of being a little bit of a windfall for the corporations at the expense of the consumers.

40:53But the government has to now pay that back. But, you know, who's in charge of this tariff regime? Yes, you have the trade representative who's involved in it, but the commerce secretary plays a significant part as well when it deals with things like the refund regime and international trade relationships, you know, more generally speaking. And people with far less connections to Epstein than Lutnik in other countries have immediately either been fired or forced to resign. And the reality is, is that the fact that Lutnik lies all the time, all the time, all the time, raises lots of red flags, that he didn't know these things about Epstein, that he wasn't ignorant, that he may have known all of these things, but still went to the island and brought his family because at the worst side of the spectrum, really, really bad things.

41:45At other sides of the spectrum, he thought it was cool to hang around someone's island, despite the fact that the guy was convicted of heinous and despicable acts. But wherever he falls in that spectrum, that combined with the lie should indeed be disqualifying. But I'll talk about something here quickly, though. And this is how I'll relate it to this next topic. Well, one thing I'll mention, this is what they want to do with Bondi also, right? And then they want to be like, well, Bill Clinton and Hillary, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton sat for depositions under oath. And James Comer was the person who said, we can't do informal interviews.

42:20Those aren't binding. Those don't have any force and effect. We can't just do informal because Clinton said, look, let's do an informal transcription first. And then if you think there's more, then we'll sit for a deposition. But let's start basically with what Lutnick just did. And Republicans rejected it. No way, Comer said. We ain't doing that. You have to sit for a deposition. He sat for a deposition and they did it. And this kind of goes back to the first segment that we talked about as well. It's like, okay, you wanted this whole game of this, that, and the other. And now when Democrats are like, okay, well, now we're going to play by the Republican set of rules.

43:01Heads, I win, tails, you lose. The Clintons have to sit for a deposition, even though Hillary Clinton's not even mentioned in the file. So on May 29th, when Bondi finally comes in, What do you think is going to happen? I think it's going to be the same thing. It's just going to be no video trans. I think that the Republicans are willing to take the hit. They think it'll be more devastating to see her on video than anything because she'll fold. The Dow 50 times. You know, people are going to see that and it will be devastating. They know we love the video. They will be devastating. You know, so they're going to basically they're just going to ride out.

43:41from now into the midterms. We're the cover up. We're the cover up. And then what Comer was saying, could we talk about the real Minnesota Somalians? Could we talk about the corruption in the police department? I don't know what the guy's even talking about. No, we don't want UFO file. We want the Epstein files. We want to know what the hell is happening when Donald Trump's close bud, Epstein, you know, and this whole Epstein class is all over this thing. That's what we want to know. When you all were the people saying you weaponized the files to go after your political enemies, most of whom are not in the files or not in the files in ways that you are all in the files and you were all the ones who are leading the Epstein class, the people who were using this stuff to go after other people.

44:33That's what the American people know went down. Let's take our last quick break of the show. We'll talk about in this next segment, we'll talk a little bit briefly about the ballroom. I'll take that. Popak, you'll take tariffs against the world. We'll go from there. And oh, by the way, happy Mother's Day, everybody. We should have said it at the outset of this, but technically it's tomorrow, but it's Mother's Day weekend. It's a whole weekend thing. And we want to give a shout out to our mom. We want to give a shout out to all the moms out there. We want to give a shout out to the grandmas out there.

45:08We want to give a shout out to everyone and the Midas Mighty Legal AF moms. Y 'all are the best. You're the true backbone. Don't tell anyone else we said this Midas Mighty Legal AF moms. The true backbone is you. We all know that. We all know that. All right. Last quick break of the show. A reminder, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel, Michael Popak's YouTube channel, Legal AF. Subscribe to the Substack, the Legal AF Substack. And make sure if you or someone you know has been injured in a car accident, auto accident caused by the negligence of a company or if you know someone who's been involved in tragically in a catastrophic injury, call or text 877-POPAK-AF or visit the popockfirm.com.

45:56Consultation is free, available 24-7, 877-POPOC-AF, or visit thepopockfirm.com. Popock's firm representing a lot of listeners and viewers of the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. Don't be shy. Call the Popock Firm today. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. Look, magnesium, it's something most of us lack. And if you're taking that drugstore variant, you're still not getting the full picture. Industrial farming, chronic stress, and everyday aging all make it worse. Most supplements only use one form of magnesium, but magnesium comes in many forms that support your body in different ways.

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48:55Head to veracityhealth.co and use code LEGALAF for up to 65 % off your order. Once again, that's V-E-R-A-C-I-T-Y, health.co for 65 % off your next order. and make sure you use my promo code LegalAF so they know I sent you. Welcome back to LegalAF. Michael Popak, Ben Micellis here on a Mother's Day episode of LegalAF. Two topics we got to cover here. Number one, I want to cover the ballroom litigation just because you can see Donald Trump completely becoming unglued as a result of this ballroom litigation. You also can see why nobody wants to work at the DOJ right now. Saw a report this week that the DOJ is now offering$25 ,000 signing bonuses.

49:46If you work at the DOJ, this is how they're trying to basically convince people to work at the DOJ because nobody wants to work there. I'll just give you a perspective from a law professor as I teach at a pretty good law school in this country. The DOJ used to be one of the most, working at the DOJ at the end of law school was one of the most highly sought after jobs. And you would take pay cuts to work at the DOJ to get trial experience, to work with some of the best lawyers. Then later you may go into private practice or you can become a judge. But working at the DOJ, they would receive thousands and thousands of applications.

50:29And it would be the most selective process imaginable to work at the DOJ. So the fact that now you have to try to say, well, we're going to offer you$25 ,000 more, that's not really going to work because someone who's going to be working in the private sector who could get those DOJ jobs was going to be making at a good private sector job out of law school,$180 in the low end to$220,$230 by the time they get their bonus at the end of the year now at some of the top law firms. And so all you're going to be attracting at the DOJ by giving people$25 ,000 bonuses are lawyers who are, you know, who probably are not going to be the types of lawyers who would normally be applying to the DOJ.

51:17But anyway, and you see why, if at any given time, Donald Trump's going to basically make you file a social media post and make that a filing before a federal judge, regardless of the veracity, regardless of how ridiculous it looks. So you may remember after the White House correspondence alleged incident, Donald Trump seemed like he was the one who posted it himself. It was like a truth social post. It was like the Trump derangement syndrome of the National Historic Trust that they filed this motion and they shouldn't be called the historic trust. And they're very bad people and they're very mean.

51:54Like I'm not like literally I'm like kind of quoting from it. These are very bad and mean people. And they didn't listen to our great military and our military and our CIA called them and said, do not do this lawsuit before because you're going to hurt our national security. And they ignored it because they suffered TDS. And I'm reading this thing and I'm like, what the hell is this filing? What am I even reading right here? This is some crazy gobbledygook whatever. And the National Historic Trust responded and they said, not only is this inappropriate and bizarre, but it's all lies. And you shouldn't be able to just make up things in federal court.

52:39We were never contacted by the military before we filed the lawsuit. This is what they say, the historic preservation. The defendants claim that the National Trust was asked by the United States military not to bring the suit because of the top secret nature of the important facility being built. The statement is false. The military did not request that the National Trust not file the suit. It's like, what are we doing here, man? I don't care whether you're Democrat, Republican, independent. This is just some weird, weird stuff. And also the National Historic Trust points out, you know, the East Wing still being built right now.

53:17The way your honor structured the order, you've allowed him to make an appeal to the D.C. Circuit and constructions continuing. So he's out there whining about, we need you to make some indicative ruling because right now, Donald Trump's life has been placed in peril because the East Wing has been blocked. So Trump is not able to sleep at night and his life is in jeopardy. And the National Historic Trust goes, what are you talking about? They're building it. They're building it. Even though you blocked it, you've allowed him to make the appeal before it's fully blocked. So what's he whining about?

53:56What are we talking about? It can be blocked in the future if he loses his appeal, but you've allowed him to appeal it. And now it's with the DC circuit. Because you all remember the DC circuit was basically saying, look, you just have to clarify your order, uh, judge, the district court judge, because obviously the security features underneath, if there's actual national security that can't be blocked is what the DC circuit said. But if If it's like a ballroom, that's for like TV parties. I don't know. Like, you know, that requires congressional approval. So can you make that clarification? In which case the judge did.

54:35And now it's back up on appeal. And then Trump is like, the whole ballroom is national security. How do you think? How do you think I'm going to be protected from drones and missile attacks? Ballroom. Kid you not. That's what he said. But anyway, enough of that. That's why we're there. So Popak, can you talk to us a little bit about what's going on on the on the on the tariff case? Yeah, absolutely. It was a good, good rendition of the ball. What's going on with the ballroom? And, you know, it'll be in the hands of the D.C. appellate court, which is where it should be. This was just a PR move, as you said, a social media screed posing as a fake motion to the lower court judge when the whole thing should just be resolved by the appellate court has already set a briefing schedule.

55:22That's why it made no sense except for their attempt to step on a news cycle for whatever was going on poorly for them at that given moment, probably in the Iranian war. Which brings us to the tariff. Second time, Donald Trump's attempt to unconstitutionally impose tariffs ultimately on the American people have been struck down by a court. It's always the same court. We joke that Ben and I, in six years before this year, mentioned the court of international trade exactly zero times. Because it's a specialty court. It has to do with tariffs and trade and customs and duties. And those things are interesting, but not really right down the middle of our bailiwick of what we cover at the intersection of law and politics.

56:16until Donald Trump decided to make crushing the hopes and dreams of the American people through tariffs and destroy our global relationships the centerpiece of his administration, which led first to him imposing, remember that, 200 tariffs on allies and enemies alike, raising tariffs that had historically been set at about 10 or 12 percent to 20 and 30 percent, wrecking global relationships, undermining trade, leading to the sputtering out of the American economy, global economy, all before the Iranian war did the same thing as it relates to energy prices and the energy markets. And that double whammy of bad tariffs and the burden it places economically on the American voter, the American citizen, and the energy markets being undermined and and prices going up, doubling and tripling, that has put the American voter in a vice of Donald Trump's making.

57:26And he just continues because of his narcissism and his refusal to admit defeat. He continues to squeeze both ends of the vice, making it almost impossible to live in America, or as the chairman of Heinz Kraft, Kraft Heinz, you know, no more American company than that, said Americans are out of money at the end of the month. There's too much month at the end of the month for Americans. And when you have that and McDonald's saying consumer confidence is so terrible, they're going to have to take account of that for future earnings and future financial performance. That should have been a signal to Donald Trump after the Supreme Court did him a favor in determining that his 200 tariffs under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act were unconstitutional and were a violation of the statute that created them.

58:24Everybody from the Wall Street Journal to Legal AF said, take the loss. It'll actually help Americans and their economy and may bail you out from your failed policies. Oh, no. He immediately couldn't take no for an answer and started to issue new tariffs under this rarely used, for good reason, 1974 Trade Act, Section 122. But that, and I've had Oregon's Attorney General on to talk about it because they brought the case to the Court of International Trade in New York, a three-judge panel. And the only way that you can use the delegated power of Congress, because it has to come from Congress, because they have the authority and the sole authority under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to impose tariffs.

59:23They can delegate through express language, through statutes to the presidency, certain aspects of that, but they have to do it expressly and not ambiguously. So 1974 rolls around. What's going on then? Oh, we had our other criminal president in Nixon. Nixon started to impose tariffs because we had what's called a balance of payment problem. Sounds a lot like balance of trade, but it's not. Balance of payment has to do with our monetary system around the world and the fluctuation in prices among global currency. The EU dollar, so to speak, the pound, the US dollar, the Brazilian real, the peso, the Japanese yen, and how they fluctuate.

1:00:25After, you have to go back to the year after World War II ended, 1945, the governments of the world, the allies primarily decided they needed to have more global trade, easier trade, more efficient trade. They had to deal with their currency fluctuations. So they met at a place called Bretton Woods. It's called the Bretton Woods system or the Bretton Woods Accord. They set up the International Monetary Fund. They set up the World Bank. And eventually America got off the gold standard because we used to have a system where every US dollar was tied to a gold brick in the reserve, usually at Fort Knox or other places.

1:01:08When we got off the gold standard and it was just paper money being printed by the Americans, then we had fluctuation in pricing. And the fear under the 1974 act is that at a moment when Americans were paying for goods that they had contracted for, that the dollar was worth less or the opposing foreign currency was worth more. That's a balance of payment issue where you contract at one price, but because your currency has fluctuated down, let's say, you've got to come up with more money. And that puts America's economy at a disadvantage depending upon the value of its currency. So you allow a president by way of this 1974 act under the circumstances of there being a balance of payment problem, which we haven't had in 60 years, impose a short-term tariff up to 10 % for a certain period of time.

1:02:08Trump's like, what do I, you just see a meeting with his economic advisors. What do I got? What can I do on tariffs? Oh, you could do 122 tariffs. What are those? Oh, that's when there's a balance of payment. How can we argue there's a balance of payment? Oh, we could say balance of trade is balance of payment. Balance of trade is something else. Balance of trade is, in our case, we're buying more foreign goods than the foreign countries are buying from us. And there is a, it's not even that huge, by the way, there's a relatively small balance of trade issue, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

1:02:47Because, you know, it depends on what you're making. And we need global markets to buy more from us anyway. So that's only goods. We also make services. We make consulting firms and law firms and banks and financial services and AI consultancy firms and cryptocurrency. These aren't goods. And we actually have a surplus in service. We have a slight deficit in goods and a surplus in service. So in any event, we don't have what is required under 122. This goes up with a case brought by importers because as Ben said earlier, those are the ones that are paying the price, American importers and the state of Oregon.

1:03:35And a three judge panel at this very specialty court ruled once again that Trump got it wrong, that the very unique circumstances that 122 was created in 1974 do not exist now at all. As a result, the two to one, they have killed the tariffs. Trump now would have to take an appeal to a specialty appellate court, the Federal Circuit Appellate Court in Washington, for another three-judge panel. If he loses there, which is what happened the last time around with tariffs, he could ask for the entirety of the appellate panel, about 15 or 20 judges to rule, then ultimately it's gonna end up right back at the United States Supreme Court, where frankly, he should do no better than he did when he lost six to three about the International Economic Emergency Powers Act tariffs, because they were unconstitutional, because Article One, Section Eight is a power of Congress, not of the president, and they are in violation of the statute because that statute didn't allow tariffs either.

1:04:46So I think, and Trump probably knows it, that if this is doing a round-trip return to the United States Supreme Court, he's going to lose again on tariffs. And what does that mean for the American people? Look, under the IEPA tariffs, he collected$180 billion, with a B, from American importers. Some of them have said if they ever get a refund, and they're all in the process of getting refunds, that they'll pass it back to the American people. Like FedEx and UPS said, oh, well, the customer paid the extra fee in shipping. We'll refund them. But others have not said that. Others have haven't said, oh, yeah, we're going to make the price of cereal less now because we're not paying as much in tariffs.

1:05:28So it's up to a trust with American business, which is sorely lacking, to give back money to the American people. And so you take that off the board. The only reason Donald Trump wanted that is to try to plug the hole for the trillions of dollars of tax revenue loss because he gave rich people tax breaks. So he had that giant hole. He tried to say, yeah, but look at me between Doge and all the cost savings and Elon Musk and tariffs. We're going to plug that hole and make a roaring American economy. None of that has happened as we lead to round out our show, as we lead back to the midterms. And when you plug in all of these data points into the modeling that's been very successful in predicting outcome for elections like the midterms, and you put in the fact that only 23 % of the American people believe that Donald Trump's doing a good job with the economy, 77 % think he's horrendous.

1:06:27That means a lot of Republicans. When you have those numbers, job numbers, inflation numbers, consumer confidence numbers where they are right now, and you plug all that in, if Donald Trump doesn't lose 40 to 50 seats in the House come the midterms, it would be shocking. Even with these extra 10 seats that the Republicans are trying to steal through remapping, the Democrats should be able to gain 40-ish seats. What does that mean? You only need 218 seats in the House to run it. The Democrats are only four short right now. So we're going to have 40 more. So the four we need to get into control and an additional 30 plus.

1:07:15So all of the anxiety, and I know there's a lot of anxiety over the remapping, if voting happens in the amounts and volume that we believe they will, and we're going to be on our audience to help get the vote mobilized, registration. And you can register to vote. You can help people register to vote in states that you don't live in. Okay. You can help if you're like a red dot in a blue state. You're like, well, I'm sorry. If you're a blue dot in a red state, you're like, my vote doesn't count or vice versa. You can go help in the battleground states where we need you and help with registration.

1:07:56You know, it's not going to be enough just to pull the lever yourself. You're going to have to motivate two to three to five other people to vote with you and vote. And if that happens and the seven or eight or 10 or 20 million people, whatever the number is, return to the electorate and vote at the midterms, we won't have to worry. It'll solve a multitude of sins about this remapping. So every senator, governor, congressperson, or attorney general or author that I've had on to interview in the last month have all said the exact same thing. The only thing that matters right now is voting and mobilizing the vote.

1:08:38And if we can do that, then at the end, at midterms, we're talking about an entirely new constitutional order of checks and balances trying to root out corruption as the party now in power does two things. impeachment proceedings and oversight proceedings that are real and true and transparent, but also passing laws to support the American people and to bring affordability back to this country. This is the, this current Congress run by MAGA is the lowest producing Congress in terms of the amount of bills passed in our history. I mean, we're talking about 20 or 30 bills passed in the entire term.

1:09:29And that means they're not working for you. They're working for their boss or who they think their boss is in the White House. We always work for you. We're glad you're here on Legal AF. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to win the Webby Awards. Two Webby Awards for Legal AF Best Podcast in news, both the committee award, the Academy Award, if you will, and the People's Voice Award. And my podcast on Tuesday nights on Midas called The Intersection won the Audience Award for Best New News Podcast. We'll accept it on your behalf. I'll do a sub-stack live from the red carpet on Monday because I'm here with my family to celebrate this.

1:10:14Also, Mother's Day weekend, really reiterate what Ben said. We support women, mothers, and everybody else in our community to the nth degree. I don't think there's an audience or a community better than ours that exists in YouTube than Legal AF and Midas Touch. And we appreciate each and every one of you. Help us continue to grow Legal AF. come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. We're going to cross 1.2 million subscribers in the month of May with your help. Come over to Legal AF Substack where I'm running a 40 % sale for Mother's Day weekend starting today to try to get to 10 ,000 paid subscribers on Legal AF Substack.

1:11:09So until one last announcement, one last programming note, Wednesday, I'll be back. on Legal AF at the Midweek with Karen Freeman-Nignifolo. Tuesday, the Intersection podcast, our award-winning podcast, 8 p.m. on Midas. And then we have a brand new episode, if you will, of Legal AF on the Legal AF YouTube channel. Monday nights, we call it Monday Night Live, Monday Night Live Legal AF, this time hosted by Dina Dahl and Lisa Graves. 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Another great incentive for you to subscribe over there. So until my next report, for Ben Mycelis and me, Michael Popok, shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.

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