Legal AF - 6/6/2026

23:27Ben Meiselas:All away. Yeah. A waiver is a waiver of everything. And then so I think the judge is still going to say, well, I now need to under a rule 11 sanctions analysis, the way we're seeing federal judges in Rhode Island and across the country using rule 11 and sanction analysis. Should I be making state bar referrals? Should I be making criminal referrals? Because you can't just say, hey, we tried to rob the bank. We took the money from the bank, and then we returned the money once we were caught. So it's non-justiciable, right? You can't do anything anymore. And I think the judge is going to say, it wasn't the bank.

24:09Ben Meiselas:This was the court. You used the court to commit the crime or to commit the unethical behavior. And now you want to come back to the court and say, we're good, right? No, you try to use my name in this court to steal$1.8 billion from taxpayers and waive all criminal liability. I want to know how this happened. I want evidentiary hearings. I want to see what is going on there and how this even took place. So I think that's what's going to happen in both courts. But Popak, that leads us, though, to this next topic as well, though, which is the fact that when you stand up to Trump in these cases and you push back, oftentimes he then fights for basically the status quo, which is before the lawsuit was filed, and then wants to call that a win because he got his headline.

25:01Ben Meiselas:I have to make the parallel, though, that that's how Donald Trump does a lot of things once you stand up to him. He either huffs and puffs, says he's going to blow your house down, and you back down and you bend the knee and you let him roll over you. And we've seen so many people in the United States and abroad do that. Or you stand up to him. And the moment you stand up to him, he gets in a quagmire, whether it's a legal quagmire, a geopolitical quagmire. And then what his fight for, which is now the win, is to sell the fraud that what took place before the lawsuit is the win. Let's open up the Strait of Hormuz.

25:37Ben Meiselas:You closed it, idiot. And that's his mentality with everything. And I think the parallels are important because trust me, you don't think that Iran or Putin or Kim Jong-un go, whoa, whoa, whoa. Abrego Garcia can beat this guy. E. Jean Carroll can beat this guy. You know, DA, anybody who stands up actually wins when you just go the distance. Got it. So just don't listen to Trump's the best in a bad way. fraudster, con artist, relentless, floods the zone, maniac, psycho. But when you stand up to him, he loses. Let's talk about that, but let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, if you or somebody who has been injured in a car accident, trucking accident, caused by the negligence of others, if you know someone who's injured by the negligence of others, reach out to the Popak firm.

26:29Ben Meiselas:Michael Popak has lawyers across the country who are willing to take your call. Give a call to the Popak Firm, 877-POPAK-AF or visit thepopakfirm.com. That's 877-POPAK-AF or visit thepopakfirm.com. Also, make sure you subscribe to Legal AF Substack and Legal AF on YouTube run by Michael Popak. Let's continue to get the Legal AF Substack and the Legal AF YouTube soaring. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show.

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29:38Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to LEGALAF. Jeff, thank you to all of our sponsors there. They make this show possible. The discount codes are in the description below. As noted before we took the break, I want to continue to highlight. When you stand up to Donald Trump in litigation, politically, geopolitically, you win. Donald Trump backs down. What he will do in the law, geopolitically, wherever, is he will relentlessly flood the zone. Frankly, I've never seen anything like it. And he can convince his own kind of kamikaze army, if you will, whether it's kamikaze lawyers or kind of kamikaze cabinet members, whoever, he convinces lots of people to not just throw away their reputation, throw away their lives.

30:34Ben Meiselas:He dresses them up in weird outfits, you know, like he gives Rubio and the cabinet Florensheim shoes that don't fit them. He acts like they're like children that he abuses. It's a very and people like gets gets sucked towards that. And we people, the whole thing is really weird, but he'll flood the zone. He's able to the media is entranced with the guy. They'll lie for him. They'll become a stenographer. And it's just a barrage and it never stops. And he doesn't forget about things that even happen ever. Like he'll still be talking about 2015 and 2016, even more than he's talking. It's deranged.

31:19Ben Meiselas:And because it runs counterintuitive to human behavior and experience, most humans, if you're listening and watching this on a Saturday, or if you're watching it the next day on a Sunday or whenever you watch this, you're like, okay, what am I going to do today? Hey, I'm going to go see a movie. I want to read a book. I want to see my grandkids or see family members or do something or go to a hobby or go to a sports game or whatever it is, watch TV. And then it's like when somebody just relentlessly blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. At some point, a human reaction, maybe at first you fight, stop, stop.

31:52Ben Meiselas:I'm going to stop. And it's like, all right, fine. What do you want? All right, fine. Just whatever, do it. And that's what he's relying on kind of with everything. And on Legal AF, we document all of the times when people stand up to Trump and don't submit. They win in litigation, whether it's Trump going after the law firms, they win in litigation, whether it's Donald Trump going after hospitals to get information about transgender children. The hospitals win. The universities that stand up win. The universities that submit, he comes back and takes more from you. Abrego Garcia stands up to him and wins and embarrasses the Trump regime and exposes it.

32:35Ben Meiselas:E. Jean Carroll, when Trump threw everything at her, everything, and then did interviews further defaming her, launching criminal investigations against her, She wins. We look at New York Attorney General Letitia James after everything thrown. She wins. Alvin Breck. I could keep on going over. I give you so many examples of that. And so Donald Trump sues Wall Street Journal, for example. The thing is, because there's this quasi-collusive relationship between Trump and Murdoch, Wall Street Journal is not fighting the litigation the way it needs to be fought. And I'll tell you how it needs to be fought.

33:16Ben Meiselas:Instead, Wall Street Journal will file what's called the 12B6 motion to dismiss. They'll make a very highfalutin legal argument about why the case should go away. It'll get dismissed. Trump will file an amended complaint. It then gets dragged out. It eventually gets dismissed. Wall Street Journal has insurance. Trump gets his headline. Wall Street Journal gets the case dismissed. And then it kind of goes away and both sides get out of it what they want. To some extent, that same detente exists with other media entities, even though New York Times Trump less collusive. The New York Times litigation strategy, similar to Wall Street Journal, don't do the discovery right away.

33:58Ben Meiselas:Just file the 12B6 motion to dismiss. Trump will do an amended complaint. These things have a two year life cycle. By the time the cases get dismissed, the public doesn't really even remember what the case was about because Trump's flooding the zone with new$10 billion lawsuit headlines. Trump got his initial headline where he feels he was able to manipulate the media with the propaganda. Sure, there may be a short day of stories about Donald Trump losing, but that's kind of expected. and so the cycle continues. And Trump raises all of this money with his super PACs. And so for him, it's like a hobby.

34:36Ben Meiselas:It doesn't really matter unless you go right for the throat, unless litigation-wise, you go right for him and you hit him with the deposition notice. You hit him with discovery. Okay, you're demanding$10 billion. Let me see your bank records. Let me see your tax returns. I want to verify how you claim you were injured by us$10 billion and them$10 billion and then$10 billion. All right. I want your deposition. You want to file a defamation case against ABC because George Stephanopoulos used the word rape and not sexual assault. And so you're saying you're defamed because Stephanopoulos would have implied it was penis versus finger sexual assault.

35:17Ben Meiselas:Okay. Let's take that deposition. Sir, you are aware that a civil jury found you liable for sexual assault? Yes or no? Yes or no? And you were aware that finding referred to digital, meaning fingers. Are you aware? I don't know. You don't know that a jury said that you were found civilly liable for sexual assault? And let me be very clear. What's your lawsuit alleging? You're saying that it was because New York has a different technical definition of penis versus finger. So therefore, you're not... Is that what your lawsuit's about, sir? I mean, boom, go for it. Go for it. And then say, let's talk about your past.

35:55Ben Meiselas:Let's talk about your Epstein relationship. Let's sit down. Let's go through it all. You said he was a great guy. Was he showing up to Mar-a-Lago and getting massages? When you said that Jeffrey Epstein stole Virginia Giuffre, what do you mean by that? He stole her from you? What is that referring to? You were aware that she was a victim of Epstein, right? And at that time, were you aware of that, sir? Sir, you've also said publicly that you grab women by their vaginas because when you're rich, you get away with it. Use the P word. So is that how you feel, sir? Is that how you feel? And you said that you go and inspect girls naked at beauty pageants.

36:32Ben Meiselas:And so you're saying you're defamed here that this is causing you$10 billion in damages. Let's go through your damages. Let's talk about your deal with the Qataris. Let's talk about your deal with the UAE. Let's talk about MBS and any monies he promised you. Let's go through all of those deals. Let's go through your taxes. You recently entered into a settlement agreement for taxes with the IRS. Does that include, is that part of your damage calculation here? Let's take a look at what you did there. What are you claiming as deductions? What are you claiming as losses? Do you claim that you actually made any income last year?

37:12Ben Meiselas:Or are you taking a full loss and saying that because there's no tax liability against you, therefore you don't have, I mean, just think about that right there. And so I think it's important that we highlight all of these things and you're aggressive. That's precisely what the BBC is doing. Trump sues BBC for$10 billion. And in this$10 billion lawsuit filed against the BBC, Trump alleges you manipulated what I said on January 6th and wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. You know, I'd love to articulate what the cause of action is. They're saying you manipulated the footage. Trump says, I said it was patriotic and a beautiful day.

37:55Ben Meiselas:And I never said anybody should attack the Capitol. You made it sound like I said, attack the Capitol. And I didn't do that. So therefore, I'm suing you for$10 billion. BBC says, OK, let's take a look at the financials. Let me take a look at your financial records. Show it to me. Donald Trump says to BBC, I'm propounding 437 document requests. BBC says, fine, we're litigants, we expect it. Here's 50 ,000 documents. BBC turns over its documents and its records. And then what's the response from Donald Trump when he's asked to turn over his records? Zero. Don't it whole. No records, no discovery, no documents at all being produced.

38:42Ben Meiselas:I want to bring in Popak. Popak. This is what we've seen over and over again. This is how he litigates things. And just like, you could talk about Pam Bondi as well, when she sat for her deposition and she was asked questions, I don't recall. I'm not going to answer questions before 2024, refusing to answer. And I won't answer any questions about my communication. So I'm done.

39:11Michael Popok:i'm out yeah i mean i'll use as i'll pick up one of the points that you made i mean if you want to be aggressive in litigation you can do what you and i did against kanye west you can set a quick deposition and if the deposition goes well for you maybe the case goes away or you can sit around and do the niceties i mean the wall street journal has a very good law firm does all they do is first Amendment litigation. They know what they're doing. They were successful in getting the first complaint dismissed. And a new complaint has now been filed. It's no better than the original complaint about Donald Trump's theory that there was a time traveling fraudster that went back 30 years in in volume three of a four volume leather bound birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein.

40:05Michael Popok:Somebody went to page 232 and pasted in a forged birthday card, which has been released to the American people through the House Oversight Committee, which should have killed this lawsuit where it stood. I know Judge Gales, the judge that's handling the case, I'm sure that as soon as the next motion to dismiss comes in, he'll dismiss it again. As to Rupert Murdoch, you're right. even though there's times when his editorial board will come out swinging against Donald Trump in the Wall Street Journal or maybe the New York Post. You know, he was on the receiving end of some aggressive tactics in the in the in the case about the birthday book.

40:46Michael Popok:They try to get him under oath in a deposition, like in the first month of the case, arguing that he's 95 years old, that he's had a number of mental and physical ailments. This is ironic from Donald Trump's arguing this. And then they compromised and decided not to take those depositions until all the motion practice was over. But there's also inconsistency in strategy, which I don't understand. Same lawyer, Alejandro Brito, this guy in Miami who files all these defamation cases for Melania and for Donald. In the Wall Street Journal case, he agreed not to go forward with depositions and discovery until the motions to dismiss were fully resolved.

41:29Michael Popok:But in the case involving the BBC for another$10 million, they didn't agree to stop discovery. And now we're complaining that the BBC is fired back with 47 subpoenas, including to the Trump family, cabinet members, Jack Smith, special counsel, because they say in order to in order to defend themselves, they need to prove that Donald Trump fomented the violence on Jan 6th. Because this is about a 12 second clip that that the BBC, not even the BBC, a subset of the BBC, a channel that doesn't even show up in America. You have to like hack your way to go get it illegally. And on this little watch subset, sub channel of the BBC, they ran a 12 second clip where they cut and paste it.

42:23Michael Popok:You know, Trump went on for an hour. It cut and pasted the beginning of the ellipse speech and the end, they put it together. And Donald Trump said, oh, that made me look bad. They said, all right, well, it made you look bad. You say you have$10 billion worth of professional reputational damage. All right, we'll send a subpoena for all your business records. Oh no, you can't do that. That's a phishing expedition. No, that's what happens when as a headline, you wanna put a$10 billion number in your complaint when you don't need to put any number at all. The only thing you have to do in a complaint is list that you satisfy the jurisdictional amount that's in controversy, which for a federal case is$75 ,000.

43:03Michael Popok:The reason you see big fat numbers in things is because they want to grab the headline and have the paper and us report on a$10 billion lawsuit when it's not. It's really just a paper tiger. So I think they're ultimately in front of this judge. They're going to lose on many of these subpoenas and on the argument that they don't have to turn over their financial records in a case where they're seeking$10 billion. But I love the fact that the BBC, which already apologized, by the way, they've already issued an apology before the lawsuit was filed about the cut and paste. They fired the executive that was responsible for it.

43:40Michael Popok:They did all of that. But at the end, what they're arguing is there's no defamation because it was either a statement of opinion or it was substantially true. And what they want to prove is, all right, you want to take us on here? We're going to have to prove we believe our defense is you started the fire of Jan 6th. You led the insurrection. And therefore, we want to get Jack Smith's report and his findings about the mental state of Donald Trump and all of this other stuff. So here you go where you open up a Pandora's box because in one case you say, no, you want to take discovery, take discovery.

44:16Michael Popok:And then when they do aggressively, which the BBC is doing, you say, oh, no, no, oh, no, you can't do that to us. Yeah, you can. That's called welcome to the world of federal lawsuits. And the reason that you and I for years never talked about a president in a civil lawsuit is because unless they're the plaintiff, when they're the defendant, the Supreme Court protects presidents by saying they got a day job. No, they're the president. They can't get down in the mud of a civil lawsuit. That'll have to wait until after the term is over. But when you're the president and you're the plaintiff, then you have to sit for depositions and you have to do all of these other things.

44:55Michael Popok:So those are the two things that we've seen between the BBC and the Wall Street Journal. Same thing is going on with the New York Times and another part of Florida. You know, when you fight against Trump, you win because generally he doesn't give a shit about these cases. These are just headlines to cast shade on institutions that have been that have been rigorously reporting on him for years. and he doesn't like it. And he feels he'll get some sort of advantage by fighting back. This is the weaponization. This is Donald Trump's retribution campaign that he is just checking off the list, you know, going after E.G.

45:39Michael Popok:Oh, he doesn't like E. Jean Carroll, the victim of sex abuse that you just outlined. Oh, she's got a new documentary that's coming out that's going to outline everything that happened to her and everything that happened during the trial. Oh, Department of Justice, say you're opening up a criminal investigation of E.G. and Carroll to step on that story. Right on cue, it leaks from the Department of Justice that they're opening up a criminal investigation. And then when it's pushed, the prosecutor says, oh, no, I'm not prosecuting her. I'm looking at Reid Hoffman. You know, one thing that came out of the E.G.

46:13Michael Popok:and Carroll thing, long as we're on it for here for a minute, is this is the new strategy that you and I have to watch closely for our audience, which is to argue that public interest groups and Democratic donors, when they create these organizations, are lying. They're arguing that they're lying and defrauding their donors because they're putting their money in places maybe the donors didn't know about or wouldn't have approved. That's the basis for the Southern Poverty Law Center, because they're arguing donors didn't know that they're using the money to pay informants within those organizations, propping those organizations up.

46:47Michael Popok:By the way, sure we did. When I donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center, sure I knew that they were doing undercover operations with my money. Same thing when they went after Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn fame, because he gave some of the money from a charity over to E. Jean Carroll's lawyer to defray the cost of certain of her public interest lawsuits. Oh, the donors didn't know that. That must have been fraud. We need to investigate that. This is all about trying to cast shade on the icons and the institutions that make up the Democratic Party, go after its leaders. Biden. Biden is the auto pen.

47:22Michael Popok:Obama is still Barack Hussein Obama, and he maybe spied on my campaign. And over and over again, and what we're watching is a Department of Justice led by Donald, by Todd Blanche and Donald Trump that will do anything that Donald Trump tells him to do. As we came on the air, I'm sure you caught it in your home state there. California is counting, methodically counting its ballots. California, led by Attorney General Rob Bonta and the governor, are counting ballots. They have certain rules in California that make it so it takes a minute to count ballots. Out of the 16 million people that voted, 13 million people voted by mail-in.

48:07That means somebody's got to open an envelope, compare a signature, and then cast that ballot

48:14Michael Popok:or have that ballot counted. That takes a minute when 13 million people vote that way. In addition, they also have a rule that says that ballots can come in seven days after the election, which means the election isn't even over in California for another three days because they're still waiting for ballots to come in, postmark the date of the election until the 9th. In addition, there's a 21-day period or so to compare signatures. So the election, we're just watching the methodical operation of an election. But Trump tweets out, oh, there's fraud with the Democrats in California. And right on cue, the 40 year old guy who's a Trumper who runs your L.A.

48:57Michael Popok:U.S. attorney's office, big, big Trump guy says, yes, my office is going to get to the bottom of all that. We've opened up criminal investigations to try to scare the crap out of people and make them not vote, which will ultimately backfire in this rage of voter outrage that's coming for the midterms.

49:14Ben Meiselas:Yeah. And last point I want to make, and I did a whole 30 minute video on this, so I'll abbreviate it here in about three minutes, which is when you finally try to hold these Trump regimers accountable, at least right now, as it relates to congressional subpoena power. and you bring Pam Bondi in and you subpoena Pam Bondi for a deposition under oath because the Republicans control the House. They have the ability to convert a subpoena under oath deposition into an informal interview as a first phase. You can then later do a subpoena, but the MAGAs want to run out the clock and delay, delay, delay.

49:57Ben Meiselas:So they took a subpoena deposition of Pam Bondi, as you probably now know, and they turned it into an informal interview without video camera so that we couldn't see what was actually happening. And we would just have to read the transcript knowing that with all the weapon of mass distraction that the Trump regime pushes out, who's going to go through a 111 page deposition to actually point out what was going down at Pam Bondi's deposition. And if you don't see video, it's hard to really visualize what was actually taking place. And so we went through the exercise of doing that here on Midas Touch and Legal AF.

50:38Ben Meiselas:And what we showed is that you go to page 44, for example, and Bondi was there. She was there without a lawyer, except a DOJ lawyer was there, Harmeet Dillon, making objections on behalf of the DOJ and then instructing the witness on behalf of the DOJ, Pam Bondi, not to answer questions. And so you'll see here, Harmeet Dillon says, you're not going to dictate the objections that I make, but you can ask your questions and I will instruct the witness to answer or not accordingly because she is here on behalf of the United States Department of Justice because her testimony is concerning that time.

51:20Ben Meiselas:Then the lawyer for the Democrats says, okay, I want to show you this email from 2019, which is redacted and it lists 10 individuals, co-conspirators of Mr. Epstein. Who are those individuals? DOJ, she's not going to answer that question. Ms. Bondi, are you refusing to answer the question? And then they don't answer the question. Then later on, What is your understanding that Trump was aware of Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell? So it says, during your tenure, did Trump direct you or any of your subordinates to take any official action relating to Epstein or Ghislaine? Answer, I'm not going to discuss any conversation that I've had with the President of the United States.

52:10Ben Meiselas:Okay, why? Basically, privilege question. and you or your counsel can elaborate what the privilege is, we're not going to get into any conversation that the former attorney general had with other senior members of the executive members of the White House and the immediate staff of the president. That's covered by privilege. And this is a voluntary assertion. This is a voluntary interview. And so the assertion of privilege is not even legally required. So it's just a choice that you're going to answer or not answer. And then she doesn't answer the questions. And then as you go later on to this deposition, it says, what I'm asking you, this is Congress member Subramanian says, what I'm asking you, though, is before the release of the Epstein files, during the process of releasing the files, Ms.

52:55Ben Meiselas:Bondi, was there any effort to look through for President Trump's name or any other administration's officials before you release the files? Ms. Bondi, I don't recall. Are you aware of an effort to do that? I don't recall. I'm just asking, was there any effort to look for Trump's name or anybody before? I don't recall. I don't recall. I don't recall. So the trick was, or the technique was, anything 2024 or before, I'm not answering. That's not within the scope of the deposition. That's actually not a deposition. It's an interview. And so during the interview, I'm not going to answer if it's within the scope.

53:34Ben Meiselas:And it's about Trump or the administration. So I won't answer those questions. And if you manage to ask me a question which falls out of those two buckets, I don't recall. And that should piss you off no matter what political party you're from. And so when we come back, Popak, I want you to talk about what's also pissing the people off right now is when the Trump regime lawyers go in and they say a version of this, which is once we break it, once we destroy it, there's nothing you can do about it. And the judge goes, so like You're saying tomorrow you can destroy the Statue of Liberty and no repercussions?

54:13Ben Meiselas:Yep. Yep. I want you to talk about that and what's going on with the Kennedy Center when we come back. A reminder, if you or somebody who has been injured in an auto accident, car accident, trucking accident because of the negligence of somebody else, and you need a lawyer, reach out to the Popak firm. They're representing Legal AF listeners and viewers. call 877-POPOC-AF or visit thepopocfirm.com. They've got lawyers and staff across the country. The consultation is free. Don't be shy. Reach out to POPOC. And in case you didn't get the number, it's also in the description below. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel and the Legal AF Substack.

54:51Ben Meiselas:Let's continue to grow those channels. Legal AF Substack, Legal AF YouTube. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. We'll be right back.

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57:38Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to our sponsors. Discount codes for all of those sponsors are in the description below. Popak, let's get right into it. I want you to talk about this oral argument before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. I thought that at least one of the judges on that panel really demonstrated the extent to which the Trump regime believes that they are above the law. And then I want you to talk about the updates in the Kennedy Center, because a lot of big updates there as well. And I think both are related. Trump regime wants to break stuff, vandalize stuff, and then dodge accountability.

58:21Ben Meiselas:Yeah, we'll throw the pool in there too.

58:23Michael Popok:You know, oh, the pool's painted, so there's nothing you can do, Judge. You lost your jurisdiction. We put the American flag blue on the reflecting pool. We're pumping water in. Donald Trump posted an AI meme about filling the pool with the tears of his critics. I'm not making this up. But it was extraordinary in many ways. But then run of the mill for the Trump administration and others, this oral argument. And we posted it up on Legal AF. It's still up there under the live tab. We had over 150 ,000 people participate with us in that live stream. And it was a three-judge panel, Judge Millett, an Obama appointee, Judge Garcia for Biden, and Judge Rayo, who's trying out for the United States Supreme Court in the Trump position.

59:11Michael Popok:and it broke down the way that I thought. They start every oral argument. And this was Yakov Roth, who works under Todd Blanche, and a guy named Brett Shumate, who is the head of the civil division now. They started the same way. You have no jurisdiction. You have no jurisdiction, or they don't have standing, or nobody can sue over this, or it's done, and it was done on the moment we bulldozed over the Eastway. Which means, if I had my bet, lawyers were involved with the decision to go forward with the demolition without a permit. Don't bother asking for permission or ask for, you know, ask for, you know, don't ask for permission at all and just do it.

59:54Michael Popok:And then we'll deal with it on an injunction later after the thing is already demolished. I think lawyers were now involved with this decision making to do the demolition in the building. So he argued that you have no jurisdiction putting aside for a minute whether the national trust, a congressionally created not-for-profit has standing or anybody has standing because their view is nobody can bring this lawsuit. We'll put that aside for a minute, Your Honor. You don't have any jurisdiction and no way to block anything because the thing has already happened and it's now up to Congress. And that led Judge Millett, who really led the charge to say, let me get this right.

1:00:32Michael Popok:They can do anything they want. They can break it. and then we have no ability to do anything about it in the courtroom? And he says, yes, under those principles that I'm advocating, that would be the case. And she said, let's use the Statue of Liberty as an example. You know, a statute that, you know, our forefathers and ancestors saw, the first thing they saw as they entered the United States, that could be demolished and there's nothing that a court can do about it in terms of oversight? Yes. which led the lawyer very smartly for the national trust a lawyer from this law from foley hoag to do something i'm sure you've done i certainly have done it in my appellate advocacy when you're in second position and you're waiting patiently and you got your prepared notes and you know your three or four things that you want to make points you need to make and you have to respond to the questions of the panel but you also have to get your points out and you're sitting there and you're taking notes off of how the case is being presented off the briefs during the oral argument, if you're smart, and this guy was, something that just happened that was so extraordinary, you don't bury that and wait 45 minutes into your argument to say, well, remember an hour ago?

1:01:41Michael Popok:No, you jump on it right then. You throw away your prepared notes. And that's what this advocate did, which was really smart. He said, after he signed in and said, may it please the court, what that guy just said was extraordinary and also a misstatement of the law ever since 1807 in Marbury v. Madison, which established that courts, federal courts up to the Supreme Court, are the court that provides oversight over the other two branches. It declares whether Congress, in passing a law, has passed a law in violation of the Constitution. It declares whether the president, in executing those laws, has either violated the statute or the Constitution.

1:02:23Michael Popok:That is the role of the court. And so he spent a fair amount of time re-empowering the court or at least supporting what Judge Millett had said, which is you do have the power, you do have the authority, because the issue that was just to clean up the procedure here, the issue that was up for grabs at this particular hearing was whether they were going to continue to, whether they were going to block the construction of the ballroom. below ground and above ground for the duration of the appeal. So let's call it six to eight more months up to the United States Supreme Court, or they were going to allow it to continue to build while they considered the appeal.

1:03:04Michael Popok:That was the issue. Now, going into the hearing, they had already lifted the injunction of Judge Leon, frankly, because it was only a month and this is a two and a half year project. So they were like, all right, well, just continue below ground. We'll deal with it at the hearing. But now Millett is expressing, and you heard it in her questioning, that if I let you continue to build, you're going to come back in here and tell me too late. It's up. Billions have been invested. Millions have been spent. Security is at risk. And maybe we need to preserve the status quo by blocking you. Now, in terms of the injunction, courts have to look at three or four things.

1:03:41Michael Popok:First thing, they got to look down the road under the hood and decide whether the party asking for the injunction is likely to succeed on the merits. who's going to win on the last day of the trial is that the national trust or is that trump they also have to decide whether an injunction is necessary because money is not going to bring back the east wing you know it's irreparable harm and inadequate remedy of law and then balance of balance of um interests between trump saying i need it because i keep getting shot at and the national trust saying where did my east wing go and so the way that that judge rao who, of course, is trying out a Clarence Thomas clerk who got sworn in by Clarence Thomas, who is trying out, it's an open secret in Washington.

1:04:28Michael Popok:She wants to be on the Supremes. She is not going to ruin her audition by ruling against Donald Trump on the ballroom. So she went after it in two ways. One, National Trust doesn't have standing. Nobody has standing. You don't have a unique type of injury that would justify you coming into this courtroom and asking us to do anything. In fact, nobody would under their view. And they had a lot of this ridiculous, I mean, everybody was listening to it on Legal AF, this ridiculous back and forth about, well, if you stand at a certain angle, you wouldn't have to see the ballroom. The judge was like, is this like when you put your thumb up and you block the moon?

1:05:07Michael Popok:What are you trying to say? Like the ballroom is 90 ,000 square feet and it totally overwhelms the look and the dimension and the artistic and the architectural features of the White House. It dwarfs it. What are you saying? She gets to stand. If she stands at a certain angle and looks back, the national trust person won't be seeing the, that's not the issue. The issue is there is no more East Wing. She wanted to see an East Wing and she doesn't any longer. And what can the courts do about it? The first argument is standing. The second argument is balance of equities where Judge Rayo said, you know, basically it's national security versus she's taking her dog for a walk.

1:05:46Michael Popok:I mean, that's how they try to minimize the standing argument. My prediction, I believe that at an exquisitely timed release, I'm hoping July 3rd or July 4th, a month from now, right on the birthday, you're going to get a two to one decision. I think it's going to be Garcia and Millett blocking the construction of the ballroom. Trump can then go run to the Supreme Court and try to get it unblocked. And then Milit is, and then Rao is going to be in dissent, talking about no standing and no, and no, the balance of equities is not in their favor. And then it's going to be up to John Roberts first.

1:06:23Michael Popok:Here we go again. And the shadow docket without a proper record, having been fully developed, and with only two briefs and no oral argument, making a decision about the ballroom. And if they decide to let it continue, it's going to continue it's going to be because once it's up a year from now you know a lot of that structure is out of the ground supreme court is not going to rule against it so you and i are going to watch very closely on the ruling that'll probably come out in a month or so and then what over the summer the supreme court does about it now we flip over to the um to the kennedy center this one's sort of interesting i guess even donald trump knew he wasn't going to be able to get away with that, scarring the legacy of JFK.

1:07:08Michael Popok:And it's the only living memorial to JFK in D.C. is the Kennedy Center, created in the wake of his assassination, forevermore under the organic statute to bear only his name. And Trump slapped his name on it. And so after the Judge Cooper issued a 94-page decision last week that Donald Trump railed against, like, it's a leaky piece of shit. I'm the builder. If you don't like it, I'm throwing the keys back to Congress. And then going after Judge Cooper's marriage, I mean, just so depraved and disgusting. But in a secret memo that we got our hands on and Politico got their hands on, the general counsel for the Kennedy Center has formally announced that they need to take the name off the building and off the stationery and the website and the emails and reference that the name has to come down by the judge's deadline, which is Friday, June 12th.

1:08:04Michael Popok:A lot of things happening on Friday, June 12th. And I thought, well, they're going to appeal that, right? No. They just filed last night. I have a video up on it on Legal AF. They just filed last night a joint report in which the lawyers for the Department of Justice and the Kennedy Center said, we're effectively we're not opposing the name change we're considering our options about the judge's ruling the second part of the ruling which was we can't shut down the kennedy center for two years so that donald trump won't be embarrassed by the fact that he can't get anybody to perform there uh we i mean to remediate and repair we won't shut down the uh the kennedy center for two years but they didn't say that in the memo they said the judge did not order that we don't have that we can't shut down.

1:08:51Michael Popok:He just said we needed a better record. That's not what the judge's order says. The judge preliminarily enjoined any shutdown and lack of programming at the Kennedy Center for the next until there is a proper decision made on a proper record with the participation of Representative Joyce Beattie, who's a congresswoman who they barred from the room during the vote. She's back in the room voting and now they're going to have to make a better record. So when I read that, I'm like, well, where is the reference to the name? Nowhere. Nowhere on the docket and appeal. They haven't rushed. I mean, they could between now and a Friday, but I don't think so.

1:09:27Michael Popok:I think this name is coming down much like when Saddam Hussein statues got pulled down by horseback in Iran. Why do you think he's, if I'm right, why do you think, Ben, he's relenting on the name?

1:09:41Ben Meiselas:I don't know. You know, I think we need a little more data in there. What's your suspicion? I don't know.

1:09:48Michael Popok:I think even there, he thought that his grounds to do it were on pretty shaky grounds. And even his Department of Justice has said, this is, take the loss. We're not going to win this with the way the statute's written by Congress. And you've gotten so much shit for crapping on the family, on the name, the JFK name and all that. just get the name off you'll do everything else you want to rebuild the lincoln memorial with the pavilion you got the blue pool uh tidy bowl liner for the for the reflecting pool you want to put up the arc we what he really wants is the art i think it's that he really wants the arc to triumph he still wants the arc of trump the 250 foot sky high thing and and he's gonna he's picking his battles and he's taking the name off the kennedy center i think i'm right we'll know better if by the 12th we see the cranes coming in to take that scar tissue off of the Kennedy Center.

1:10:46Ben Meiselas:Yeah, I also think that he's embarrassed by the fact that nobody wants to show up to the events with his name on it. And so his view is, I'll put my name on everything else, then they'll go to the Kennedy Center, and then they'll see, to your point, they'll see the arc, They'll see my stupid UFC stadium in the White House. You know, yeah. But but I think it goes back to a central theme of this, which is when you stand up to him and you fight back, he will recalibrate. So to me, you know, is it fully relenting? I think he may try to come at it from another angle. He'll prioritize UFC arts, this thing and the other thing.

1:11:31Ben Meiselas:redo world, you know, redo all these, you know, monuments and try to try to go there with other authority and then try to come back here, you know, later. Nothing's ever done until it's done. I mean, this is a guy who, while he speaks with Putin on a regular basis, removes oil sanctions against Putin, sends the ballroom guy, one of the people on that commission that approved the ballroom to show off the ballroom in the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. By the way, while you see oil depots across the waterway that are being hit by Ukrainian drones to show off Trump's ballrooms and all of these things, Trump will still be talking about, I was framed, I have no Russia connection.

1:12:21Ben Meiselas:Russia, Russia, Russia. It's like, you guys in Russia right now showing off the ballroom. Putin was in Alaska. But this is his mind. It's like the zombie movie. And sometimes I refer to kind of the MAGA movement as the zombification of these humans when it's like when they start parroting things that are untethered to reality. And sometimes I know our audience, and you probably feel like this, like, am I in the zombie movie? And I haven't been bitten yet. And I'm trying to understand how these people are talking about these things as though they're semi-normal and this is like the craziest behavior imaginable.

1:12:57Ben Meiselas:But like, you know how in the movies, like, you know, you get rid of them and they come back and they come back and you get rid of them again. It's like, all right, we're there. And it's like the sequel. It's like, no, get away, get away. And you thought you, and we'll close the episode with this unless there's any other topics you want to hit pop up though, which is there truly needs to be, it's obvious, a holistic, systemic review of our laws, of our constitution, of the gaps that exist, and they need to be closed. And the loopholes need to be closed. So many of our laws, and certainly our constitution, rely on faithfully executing those laws.

1:13:47Ben Meiselas:That's why the take care clause of Article 2 is the ultimate good faith and fair dealing provision of a contract. That we say it is the law, it is required that the executive branch take care that the laws be faithfully executed and the Constitution be complied with and with loyalty, with the oath that you take because the Constitution doesn't spell out everything. Laws don't spell out every permutation, but you have to faithfully execute the spirit of the law. And when you don't do that, you then have to say, well, how do we change this? How do we avoid this? There needs to be constitutional amendments preventing absolute immunity.

1:14:38Ben Meiselas:There likely needs to be term, not likely, there needs to be term limits and massive reform in the United States Supreme Court. There needs to be a whole set of laws that very specifically restrict executive action. There needs to be immediate permission of standing for the general public or for Congress to be able to go into courts to enforce things if you have a rogue executive. Again, I understand Democrats are referring to it as a Project 2029, if you will, but it needs to be far more expansive than 2025. If 2025 was about the destruction of democracy, what we really have to think through, whether you call it Project 2029 or whatever you want to think about, is the restoration of democracy, the ability to create all the checks and balances against an authoritarian that our founders took for granted that would naturally exist when you have the separation of powers.

1:15:45Ben Meiselas:So with all of that said, we appreciate you watching. A quick reminder, make sure you not only subscribe to our YouTube channel, subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. Let's get Legal AF 2 million subs. I'd love for them to get 2 million subs soon. Also subscribe to the Legal AF Substack. If you or anyone you know are on Substack, make sure you subscribe there. and if you or anybody you know has been injured in a trucking accident auto accident if you've been injured by the negligence of others and you want a lawyer you're looking for a lawyer reach out to popock he's a practicing lawyer i'm not but he is 877 popock i was a practicing lawyer i'm a law professor now or go to thepopockfirm.com they've got lawyers available across the country who can and staff across the country who can tell you if you have a case you may know somebody looking for a lawyer who had a family member or a tragic injury happened, tell them, reach out to Popak.

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