Legal AF - 7/1/2026

21:34KFA:um i don't think she'll go that far no but i do think as you just pointed out that this other case has this other aspect to it that the case that they denied cert does not have and that's because he was president at the time that he made the comments uh at the time that he defamed her and so typically if you are a federal employee and you are acting within the scope of your employment you can't be sued for that for things like defamation and that's what the westfall act is and westfall immunity and he's argue he's going to argue this was within the scope of my presidential duties to defame eugene carroll and deny uh that i'm a rapist so who knows what the Supreme Court, it shouldn't even be an issue.

22:26KFA:This shouldn't rise to the level of Supreme Court worthy. This should not, in my opinion, even come close to the line. But as we've seen with the Supreme Court, when it comes to Donald Trump and expanding his authority and letting him have a lot of leeway to do a lot of really bad things, that looks like what they are trying to do. So So this one does have this added argument that is different and distinguishes it from this other E. Jean Carroll case that she better get her money because he is not stopping defaming her.

23:02Popok:I tried to get Robbie and E. Jean on, but they respectfully declined until they're through all this litigation process, which, of course, I don't blame them. And I wrote back and I said, well, as soon as she gets all of her money, I'd love for you to come on and brief her audience. And so hopefully that'll be happening in the very near future. You're on Legal AF, the podcast. It's Mondays. Where am I? It's Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time. And there's one way you can help us as we lead into our 4th of July weekend is to increase our audio downloads for the Legal AF podcast. So you may be, look at that new pop-up.

23:42Popok:You may be only watching us on YouTube or you may only know us about us on audio. But if you're a YouTuber, come over to audio, just download or subscribe. That's enough. Gets the job done and really helps us out in many, many ways. The other ways to support what we do is to come over to Legal AF YouTube channel, where we've just crossed 1.12 million subscribers. We just had our best 48-hour period because of our listeners and their fervent support. Over 5 million views in a 48-hour period. and some tremendous content there you can't find anywhere else. So take a moment and subscribe and help us build our Pro Democracy channel on Legal AF YouTube channel.

24:25Popok:Legal AF Substack, a whole other community, is also a fantastic way to support what we're doing there. We've got about 10 or 12 new pieces of content there, some fantastic writing by some of our contributors and collaborators. I do a live every day, which is kind of up to the minute, up to the second. Sometimes I do it with a guest like Adam Klassfeld of All Rise News or Dina Dahl or, you know, Don Lemon joins occasionally, things like that. So we always have something special going on on Legal AF Substack. And then the other way to support what we do is we've got sponsors. If Jordy works on, Karen, me, and Ben, we use all these items.

25:03Popok:And if you've got some disposable income, I know it's hard in this economy and you want to support what we do, we think these products are of interest. So we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk about what happened at the Pentagon, transgender people under attack again. And I want to touch on birthright citizenship. All on Legal AF at the Midweek. Feeling sluggish? Bloated? Not like yourself. Life bombards us with silent threats. Processed foods, artificial light, and modern stressors disrupt your gut and drain your energy and weaken your immune health. Your body isn't broken.

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26:22Popok:That's A-R-M-R-A dot com slash legal AF. Well, it's time for some life talk. Life insurance talk, that is. You probably have it, but do you know how much you're paying for it? And for how much are you being covered? Odds are you pay too much for too little. And did you know if you receive life insurance through your job and you're unexpectedly laid off, you could suddenly be covered for nothing? Scary to think about, but simple to get right thanks to SelectQuote, where I'm headed to sort out my life insurance policy today. Unlike other one-size-fits-all life insurance companies, SelectQuotes licensed agents work for you.

27:04Popok:In as little as 15 minutes, they'll compare policies from top-rated carriers to find you the best fit for your health and your budget. And they work for you for free. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50 % at selectquote.com slash legal AF. Save more than 50 % on term life insurance at selectquote.com slash legal AF today to get started. That's selectquote.com slash Legal AF. Welcome back to Legal AF at the Midweek. Thank you for supporting our sponsors and all that we do here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. So, Karen, you've got Judge Friedman, third time around, second time around.

27:49Popok:He issued a new order in the last 24 hours about the attempt by Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense to block reporters from doing their job, like Julian Barnes, the New York Times. not letting them walk around freely and bump into people to do reporting in the Pentagon, which is the world's largest office building at nine, like six million feet, square feet, and making them make appointments and be escorted around the building. And it's impacting the way you, you know, it's impacting the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment rights, Administrative Procedures Act and everything else. And so they brought a new lawsuit challenging specifically the escort rule, which is inhibiting their ability to do their job.

28:41Popok:And the judge issued his ruling. And what I found fascinating about the ruling, which is up on Legal AF Substack, is that the judge spends a fair amount of time, because he feels he has to, to prove retaliation as part of the preliminary injunction for the exercise of First Amendment rights. He's got to talk a lot about the bad behavior of Pete Hegseth. So he has a whole section about the reason Pete Hegseth is retaliating against the New York Times and the press, because he doesn't like what the New York Times and others did to embarrass, in his view, embarrass him about his public drunk, you know, allegations of public drinking, infidelity in his marriage, complete incompetence for the job, you know, whether he lost money at a prior couple of positions, and running those organizations.

29:28Popok:And to pay them back, he's blocked the door to bar the press from doing their job. He even outlines in there what happened on the Signal app about the strikes in Yemen being revealed by the Atlantic Magazine because they were included in the Signal chat. So it's a whole set of, this is the reason that Pete Hegseth has issued this policy to retaliate against the New York Times. What did you make of the new decision?

29:59KFA:You know, first of all, nothing like making a one-day story into a five-day story, Trump administration and Pete Hegseth. Like giving them an opportunity to rewrite in their legal filings all of the things that just – that why Pete Hegseth is retaliating against him because he wrote about his drunkenness and his infidelity and, you know, all that stuff. and then letting the judge then rule and put that in his decision. I mean, he's just amplifying it. Like, if I'm the reporter, I'd be like, this is great. My story keeps getting written over and over and over again. And the Trump administration just loves to do that.

30:38KFA:I mean, for people who haven't been to the Pentagon, and I happen to have been to the Pentagon, this is massive. This is, it's not a building. It's like a city. And it's not like a building that you can just close the door and turn off the lights and go home. This is, as you said, it's like 6 million square feet. This thing, it's literally like walking into a public place. And it is a public place because guess who owns it? The American people, not Pete Hegseth. And there are all sorts of people who work there, not just top secret government employees. You've got all sorts of, you know, you've got restaurants in there.

31:18KFA:You've got a barbershop in there. You've got, you know, people are in there doing all sorts of jobs and things because people spend a lot of time there and there are lots of people who go in there. And to have a special rule for a particular reporter or for reporters, which is what this administration has tried to do, to basically say reporters, unlike others, who can go and walk around in there and who can visit certain areas, you can't, of course. certain areas are more secure than others. But to say that you have to be escorted or to be in a certain location is really preposterous and really doesn't allow reporters to do their job and to essentially shine daylight on the things that are happening there.

32:09KFA:And what was interesting about this was this was a preliminary injunction that Judge Friedman issued against the Department of Defense, finding that this rule against Julian Barnes for reporting on Hegseth and all of his, you know, whatever he does, all his shenanigans, essentially was retaliation. And it was retaliation because he didn't like what he was reporting. And the thing that was stunning to me about this, about this ruling, this preliminary injunction ruling, was that the judge said, I am not going to apply the presumption of regularity that normally has been afforded to the government by courts, which essentially says, you know, we're going to presume that the government is acting in good faith.

32:59KFA:And whenever there's some dispute with the government, whether it's a prosecutor in a criminal case or an agency in some other case, there's been this concept in the law known as the presumption of regularity, which presumes that the government acts in good faith unless you can show them otherwise. And here, this judge said, I am not applying the presumption of regularity to this administration because we've seen too many times that this has been violated. And essentially, I'm not giving it to you here. He's not the first judge who has found this, by the way. Many judges across the country have said the same thing, which is the government, this particular administration is not entitled to this presumption of regularity.

33:45KFA:So I thought that was yet another reminder of how much the courts no longer trust this administration because they have seen so many instances, both in court filings, but also just in how they do their business of underhandedness, not telling the truth, not being forthcoming, and also just violating people's rights. So this is kind of, I think, a big deal. It essentially is saying, with a preliminary injunction, there's several factors that they have to make out. One of them is that the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits when the case is ultimately done, and that they would face irreparable harm, and that there's a strong public interest.

34:31KFA:And of course, here there is a strong public interest because the New York Times has to do their job. And so I thought this was a really important decision because it underscores the importance of the First Amendment. It really reaffirms the importance of really what reporters bring to the table in terms of keeping government honest and how important that is for the American people. but also just in the rebuke of this administration and showing that this was retaliatory because Hegseth didn't like the story. So for many reasons, I thought this was a really interesting and kind of stunning preliminary injunction by Judge Friedman.

35:13Popok:Yeah, I totally agree with you. And your point about the, I can't give you the presumption of regularity anymore because of the history of this lawless and unconstitutional administration, I think was definitely a key point for me in that decision. those who want to read the full decision come over to legalaf substack where we have posted it under i think filings af so uh not the last we've heard you know we've done we've covered a lot of stories about um the press suing the trump administration over a violation of their first amendment rights you know i just interviewed programming note i just interviewed brendan baloo who's with Public Integrity Project, who represented our friend and fellow independent commentator and journalist, Katie Fang, and their successful win.

36:05Popok:And there was so much insider stuff that you wouldn't be able to pick up from the docket or even from Judge Sullivan's decision that Brendan shares with our audience. You're going to find it really, really, really, really fascinating. It's up now on Legal AF YouTube channel. And again, another example of the press fighting back in courts and obtaining relief.

36:31KFA:And that was the Jeffrey Epstein, that was the Epstein files, the Epstein Transparency Act, right?

36:37Popok:Yeah. And now, you know, as we're going to find out tomorrow, if they're going to comply with Judge Sullivan in Katie Fang's case, and they have to, by tomorrow, tell him that they've started translating all the foreign language documents that they just looked at and said, yeah, we don't need to translate those. Right, in an international child sex trafficking ring, you don't have to translate the foreign language documents. Okay, documents about a torture video and about Donald Trump's accuser who said she was 13 years old and sexually abused. That needs, they need to be provided and a redaction log.

37:13Popok:Like, why are there 200 ,000 pages, 200 ,000 pages of redaction? What's under there? And what's the privilege or the purpose that you are redacting? None of that was provided. Those are the things they went after in the lawsuit. And they either have to rip off the redaction or they have to show cause tomorrow why they're not going to do that and why they can't do that. And so tomorrow's a big red letter day. It was very interesting though. So the reason that I was caught a little bit flat-footed when the decision came down, my phone blew up. Like, Katie, Katie, she won. Did you see Katie? I'm like, Katie won?

37:49Popok:She has an oral hearing on the 30th of June, which was penciled on my calendar. Oh, no, the judge heard enough that by the time that the Department of Justice missed a deadline that he had set for them to respond to a new argument that had been raised or an argument that had been raised about Freedom of Information Act, in which, because the government kept arguing, she doesn't need the Epstein Transparency Act. She can get everything through FOIA, except they had examples that they supply to the judge. Whenever somebody made a FOIA submission, the government said, oh, we're not going to comply with that.

38:28Popok:See the Epstein Transparency Act. The judge gave, upon that filing, the judge gave the Department of Justice half a day, Karen, until 1 o 'clock the next day to respond. Okay? They didn't respond at all. They missed the deadline. And the next day, he issued a 48-page decision. Wow. Yeah.

38:48KFA:That's not just a win. That's a big win. That's a big win.

38:52Popok:That's huge. He said Todd Blanche conceded by not opposing, conceded that he violated the Epstein Transparency Act. Wow. That's going to be great when he's, wait for the confirmation hearing on the 15th of July, right? That's required watching on Legal AF YouTube. So I want to talk about the transgender case. And I want to talk, let's touch on birthright citizenship first. and save transgender for last. So you've got closer than I thought it was going to be, frankly. I thought worst case scenario, seven to two. Alito and Thomas certainly in the bag, but the rest would say, no, 14th Amendment and the promise of the 14th Amendment is all about you're born in the United States, doesn't matter who your parents are.

39:40Popok:And you get a blue passport, effectively. And I'm like, Gorsuch? Gorsuch is over on the no side. So Roberts writes the majority opinion, flowery language about the right to have rights, and it stretches back to the 1650s and English common law and American common law, the divine right, and it's literally an ordinance from heaven. This is how he writes it, right? All this flowery, you know, powdered wig and quill pen language by John Roberts, the guy that's busy taking away rights of the very same people, you know, because he talks about slavery and black Americans in other decisions like the Voting Rights Act.

40:22Popok:Where's that Roberts then? But be that as it may, he writes it, he gets the six votes, he gets Amy Coney Barrett to join him, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the rest. Then there's a fight that breaks out between Ketanji Brown Jackson, who takes on Clarence Thomas, about black history and about black slavery and the Dred Scott decision and what you can legitimately take out of history. And she schools Thomas the way that only Ketanji Brown-Jackson can in her concurrence. So all of that happens, right? And you've seen what's happened since with the Trump administration, right, Karen?

41:02KFA:Yeah, they're trying to get Congress to pass a law to, you know, pass. I don't know. I'm at a loss for words because there is no law that you can pass to prevent this because it's in the Constitution. And now you have - Don't gloss over that.

41:19Popok:Don't gloss over that. We have a president of the United States who thinks that after the Supreme Court interprets finally, I think for the next hundred years, the meeting of the 14th Amendment in our Constitution, that Congress can pass a law to override it. That's shocking.

41:40KFA:It is shocking.

41:41Popok:And he believes that.

41:42KFA:Well, it's shocking that he believes it, and it's shocking that he wants it, to be honest. I mean, it's just, the whole thing is bizarre to me. But I'm sure the other thing that's shocking is Stephen Miller is now saying that, okay, we'll just change immigration policy so that pregnant people can't travel to the United States. I mean, what are you going to do? Have pregnancy tests at the border now? I mean, that's what I'm wondering. Like, you know, you go through TSA lines and you have to go through immigration. Are they going to like make women take pregnancy? I'm serious. Like, I don't have

42:17Popok:a joke that I'm going to have to say. They're not going to make, they'll have one line and two lines. no pregnancy test no all right no i i get it i get it it's very funny that's very funny um uh yeah definitely a joke given by someone who has a young

42:38KFA:as a two-year-old daughter yes exactly so people know what we're talking about

42:42Popok:hold on everybody you get the vomit bag if you're on a plane we're gonna play Stephen Miller trotted out by the administration on the friendly confines of the Jesse Waters show on Fox talking about pregnant women that in a way that a person that looks and sounds and acts like Stephen Miller should never be talking about pregnant women. Play it. But if you have birthright citizenship, it means if a person comes here nine months pregnant

43:13KFA:to go look around at some things in a couple of weeks, that is the mother of a lifetime American citizen and a direct line into American cash and welfare for the rest of that child's life. So you have to completely rethink. Are we banning pregnant women from America? Are we banning foreign pregnant women? Well, what I'm saying, Jesse, is that you have to now think very carefully about who you let into your country, even on a temporary basis, because the possibility, as you said, for birth tourism, right? They do that people come here just to have babies on American soil, and that baby gets to be a citizen for life.

43:51KFA:So you have mothers that come in fully pregnant, have a baby, go home. And again, that baby gets Medicaid and that baby gets welfare and that baby gets cash assistance and can send, you know, leave the baby with, you know, a cousin, a relative, whatever, and then to send welfare checks back home. You can support a whole family in the third world. So, yes, you can't have the kinds of immigration programs other countries have when you can just have a. It's so offensive on so many levels. I mean, it's just he I really do think, honestly, he might be the most evil person in the entire administration.

44:26Popok:First of all, maybe Salty can put it back up, just the snapshot of it. The B-roll that they ran alongside that story of people at the wall. this is not first of all birth birth citizenship birth tourism are people flying in by the way they're not sneaking in pregnant and it's not a problem i just said cody wafsey wafsey from the aclu as part of their immigration rights project the percentage of actual birth tourism in this country is like infinitesimal it's in the hundreds out of 330 million people but they always pick out some non-issue to use to drive the policy debate, right? Cats and dogs being eaten by Haitians, got to get rid of all the Haitians with a TPS ruling.

45:20Popok:Everybody that comes to this country is trying to have a baby here because I got news for him. Nobody wants to come to this country right now. Legal lawful immigration is down by millions and millions of people. Tourism is down equally. People applying for H-1B visas down because nobody wants to be in the Trump America.

45:43KFA:And, you know, the other thing, too, is Stephen Miller, everything he said was offensive. He thinks that people that these are people who are going to collect welfare. These are people who are going to get benefits. Guess what? These are also people who are going to pay taxes eventually. Like when you are dollars of dollars. Yes, exactly. Like like to be a citizen means you have to pay taxes for the rest of your life, no matter where you live. Right? I mean, it's, it's really, he just really looks at people who come to this country, unless you're a white South African, as being someone who's not productive citizen, someone who's not worth being here, someone who's just going to collect welfare, et cetera.

46:28KFA:He's just so offensive and so out of touch. And I just, I can't believe how awful that is to say to the millions and millions of immigrants in this country who are some of the most wonderful people in this country and the most productive people in this country. And guess what? You know, you have a love affair with Elon Musk. He wasn't born here, you know, and he doesn't pay taxes here either, really. So, or that's kind of a joke. I don't know what he does. But, you know, it's a really offensive claim to make about immigrants in this country. And I hope nobody takes the bait. And I hope Fox News really stops parroting this birth tourism that's not really a problem.

47:13Popok:Absolutely. I'm glad we covered that. When we come back, we're going to talk about the transgender ruling, you know, probably one of the

47:24Popok:most disenfranchised, fragile groups of people in America. I don't know if it's half of a 1%, whatever it is, it's a group that deserves protection and civil rights and civil liberties, and yet this United States Supreme Court just continues to make them non-people in America. And it's saddening, and it's maddening, and we will discuss it along with some other thoughts on the Legal AF podcast. You're here at the Midweek. Karen Freeman-Nicnifolo and Michael Popak. So many different ways to support what we do. One of them is the Help Us Here with downloads and five-star reviews over on the audio version of this.

48:03Popok:There it is. Download, download, download is the right way to put it for Legal AF, the podcast. Come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel and help us continue to grow that great opportunity. Get us the 2 million subscribers for the long weekend. That would be extraordinary. If just 10 % of the people that watch our videos became our subscribers, we'd already be in the brother's neighborhood. So let's try to make that happen. Legal AF Substack, we're doing another 10 or so pieces of content every day, including lives, posting all of our filings and orders and all of our court cases on Legal AF Substack.

48:41Popok:And then I've got a special point here to raise. I was celebrating yesterday. Karen knows about it. We launched the brand new, very spiffy, very sexy website for the Popak Firm. There it is. And if you have been injured in an accident or your world's been turned upside down and you need top-notch fighters in your corner, you're going to want to come to the Popak Firm. and all the people I have assembled around the country in collaboration with Big Auto to take on your case. And so we have it up there. And go check out the new website. I take constructive criticism. Let me know what you think about it.

49:21Popok:I think you're going to like it. And all the videos are there too. All my Legal AF work is there all in one place on the OPAC firm website. And then we've got our pro-democracy sponsors. So we're going to take a break for them now. And here's our break. Summer is here. And one of the best upgrades I've made at home recently is installing a Tushy Bidet. It took about 10 minutes to set up, attaches right to your existing toilet, and honestly, just makes you feel cleaner and more comfortable than using toilet paper alone. I also like that it modernizes the bathroom a bit, warm water, adjustable settings, and way less wasted toilet paper.

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51:21Popok:So stop serving your little carnivore a bowl of processed shortcuts for a limited time because you're a legal AF listener. Get 60 % off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash legal AF. That's 60 % off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash legal AF. Welcome back to Legal AF at the Midweek. Karen, I wanted to talk about the transgender ruling penned by Judge Kavanaugh, six to three, really heartless and heartbreaking. you especially have been doing a lot of reporting from the very beginning about the transgender community, whether it's the cases about their use of what bathroom that they want to use, how they're identified on a passport, what rights they have in the workplace.

52:13And, you know, and one of the, as we let off our podcast and I talking about the World Cup,

52:19Popok:one of the nice things about being a human being is to be able to have interaction with other human beings in sport. And people that have changed their sexual identity, usually either surgically or medically or pharmaceutically or whatever it is, and identify a different way than their birth sex, they still want to play sport. Whether you're a 12-year-old girl that wants to play soccer or play track and field, whatever it is, you don't want to be excluded from that. And there are no transgender leads. It's not like, well, you're a transgender man, you play against other transgender men. And many of these people took puberty blockers and different things that make them virtually identical, if you want, in terms of things, to biological people of the same sex.

53:09Popok:And yet the Supreme Court just found another way to deprive them of some of the joys of being and dignity of being a human being.

53:20KFA:Yeah, this was really a not surprising but extremely disappointing ruling about two different state laws, one in West Virginia, one in Idaho, two different cases that they heard at the same time and ruled together. And essentially what the ruling said was that Title IX, which is the congressionally passed statute that allows for or creates women sports rights and leagues and teams, et cetera, girls and women. And the Equal Protection Clause doesn't require, neither of those require that trans athletes be allowed to play on girls' teams. And so that's the bottom line ruling. And the cases were slightly different because one of the plaintiffs did have puberty blockers and hormone blockers, and therefore their body had not gone through the male hormone, the things that typically give male athletes the reasoning behind this, which is that they are faster, according to Judge Kavanaugh, and bigger and taller and stronger and all those things.

54:47KFA:And so, you know, the ruling was disappointing. You know, Justice Sotomayor, along with Justice Kagan and Ketanji Brown-Jackson, wrote a dissent that says, you know, the majority extends great sympathy to those that favors the young cisgender girls and women who play sports. I share that sympathy, but playing sports can lead to benefits that are immeasurable, and many are understandably invested in ensuring that competition stays fair and safe. Because the majority, however, inflicts a hardship on those it disfavors without giving them the fair and full opportunity the Constitution requires to litigate their contentions, we dissent.

55:29KFA:So it was pretty powerful language. And, you know, the reasoning is neither here nor there. But they basically say this is more of a policy debate. It's not a constitutional protection that this can be legislated. uh this is something that the constitution does not require that they be allowed to play on girls teams but if through policy and legislation states and local governments or the federal government wants to pass laws you know that that's where that's how you do it not through the constitution and that's that's where it kind of the bottom line of of where these decisions fall and you know it's It's just so disappointing for, as you said, the small number of really important young girls who are trans girls who want to play in sports.

56:29KFA:And they want to play not on a boys team, not because they're trying to find an unfair advantage, because they're girls. And that's who they are. And so they want to be with girls. And it's just really upsetting and frustrating. And, you know, I asked my two daughters who I have 29-year-old identical twin daughters. And I asked them their opinion about this because, you know, obviously they're girls and, you know, they've played sports. And I asked them what they thought. And they said, first of all, they were absolutely appalled by the decision. and they said, you know, it doesn't make any sense because their sport has always been competitive horseback riding.

57:21KFA:And they said, we've always had to compete against men or boys. And sometimes they won and sometimes they were better than us. But you know what my response was? I went and I trained harder and I worked harder and I got better and then I beat them. It was just an interesting perspective when you don't have these sort of divisions and you compete, you know, against boys to them. They just thought, you know, this just doesn't make any sense that you would worry about that. And then they said stuff like there's all kinds of biological advantages in sports. Look at basketball. Look at Wemby. You know, he's seven foot whatever.

57:57KFA:And, you know, he has an advantage and no one's preventing him from playing with the other basketball players, You know, that this is so specifically discriminatory against trans people because, you know, they told me about Michael Phelps, who apparently, I didn't know this, has some issue, biological issue that prevents him from having lactic acid buildup and he has more lung capacity. All the stuff that they knew about athletes that have these physical competitive advantages. And of course, they mentioned Secretariat, which was the horse that still holds the all-time record for the race that Secretariat ran because Secretariat had a bigger heart.

58:36KFA:And sometimes there are biological advantages. But the only thing that this decision does is it doesn't account for biological differences that many people have in the same sport. This is all about discriminating against trans people, period, full stop. Because if you really wanted to make things fair about physical abilities and size, you would have weight classes like you do in boxing, for example. And that's how you would do it. You would make it fair. You wouldn't just make it based on something like, you know, your gender that you identify as or what you were born as. And so I thought it was a really interesting, helpful perspective that really shows how this is so completely targeted and discriminatory against trans people.

59:26KFA:And again, not a surprising ruling for the Supreme Court and an extremely disappointing one nonetheless. us.

59:34Popok:Absolutely. Is that all it takes to win the Kentucky Derby? A big heart? You'd win the Kentucky Derby.

59:39KFA:Well, it's not just that Secretariat won. It's that won by so many, like, you know, it's anyway.

59:48Popok:He was an outlier.

59:49KFA:He was an outlier because he had, because of this heart. See,

59:53Popok:another thing you and I have in common besides the bicentennial that we celebrated as children, You and I remember Secretariat in 1973, right? Winning all the – I do. I was a big secretary. I mean, I was a – as a kid. Of course. I grew up in a horse racing town. Like, I grew up in – people know I grew up on the Jersey Shore. So, and my grandfather was a – in the family was a notorious horse guy. He always had the daily race – he always had the daily racing form in the back pocket. and to his credit, he never took me. I had a good relationship with my grandfather. He never took me to the track, but he often went to the track.

1:00:32Popok:He always thought he had a system. He didn't really have a system. He lost a lot. That's all I really know. But I grew up near Monmouth Park, which is on the Jersey Shore. It's still there. Great track. And there was Freehold Raceway that had, remember Hardest Racing?

1:00:46KFA:Yeah.

1:00:47Popok:It's like the golf sports edition of Legal AF. Harness Racing, the sitting little thing, the trotters. So this was all,

1:00:53KFA:and then we had some pastures they still have that in yonkers too in new york yeah and there's

1:00:57Popok:a town near me that that bruce springsteen lives in called colt's neck a lot of horse farms and it's a horsey it's a horsey area so i grew up i liked horses and so when i was a kid i was like seven or eight when secretary was in his prime and so i fell in love with uh with that whole i know there's issues on horse racing but i was i was a child yes no no my my daughters have have

1:01:20KFA:strong opinions about horse racing as well. Not necessarily a positive. Not necessarily a positive. Yeah. They love horses. They've been riding horses since they were two years old. They just love it.

1:01:35Popok:Fantastic. Let's take a moment here at the end to talk about what's coming up, which is a long weekend, yes, with full programming, by the way, on Legal to laugh YouTube channel and minus, there is celebration. And just because Trump is in the White House and has tried to hijack our patriotism and create Freedom 250 out of what should have been America 250, doesn't mean that we shouldn't, with our family and our friends, we practice our own brand of patriotism. We are patriots. I proudly fly the flag on holidays. It hasn't been captured for me by MAGA or whatever's left of MAGA. And we're going to be doing some counter-programming on Legal AF.

1:02:24Popok:We've got some great things lined up for the 4th of July during the day. So if you're bored, you want to go look at some new videos. We have a new contributor, a new contributing group I think I'm going to get on on the 4th of July. But, you know, there's lots of ways to counter-programming anything you see with Donald Trump. Long weekends are great to do things like going on vote.org and making sure you're registered to vote. You know, if you think you are, you probably aren't in your state, especially if it's a red state or a purpley state because of all the changes to the law. So register to vote.

1:02:58Popok:If you haven't already, get behind something that's civically or politically involved. A candidate that's running for something, even local, that you find appealing, volunteer. join up with your the party of your choice democratic party local democratic party whatever it's going to be whatever you whatever whatever floats your boat right if you're an independent and you don't really align with a party per se you can you can kind of sign up with organizations that align with your values and your morals in terms of their policies position maybe it's women rights maybe it's immigration rights maybe it's it's elderly rights children's rights whatever it is, you know, ethnic rights, black, brown, find the group and volunteer.

1:03:42Popok:Trust me, you will not be turned away. They need your help. They may need your money also, but they definitely need your help and they need your hands. And this is a great, if you come off this long weekend, having, you know, come on July 6th, signed up, ready to go, you got your mail-in ballot and your voting registration squared away, and you've volunteered your time for one of these organizations, I assure you, good things are going to come out the other side with the midterms. Karen, what are you and your family going to do? And what do you think people should do as counter-programming for the 4th of July?

1:04:14KFA:I think at a minimum, turn off Donald Trump. Try to just ignore everything that he's doing and saying and really just get a break from him. That's certainly one of the things I'm going to be doing because he makes so much news because he does so many things that are shocking. I'm worried he's going to bomb Iran because he's threatening to again and take away the 4th of July from all of us and turn the news back onto him. But that's what I want. I want a break from him. I want to enjoy my family. And I want to remember the things that I love about this country and the freedoms that we still have in this country.

1:04:55KFA:And then rest up so that we can keep, the fight can continue. And I'm going to keep fighting and we all should keep fighting. The midterms are right around the corner and we have to take back the Congress. So that's what I think. Recharge your batteries and keep fighting.

1:05:15Popok:And help us here on the Legal AF community. Be a great thing just to hit that button, become a free subscriber on the Midas Touch Network on Legal AF YouTube channel. There you go. And help us cross that 2 million threshold and Legal AF Substack in all those different ways. So I really do appreciate each and every one of you got some great things. We've been counter-programming the whole night against the World Cup. I haven't want to spoil it for people that are recording it, so we haven't been talking about the score. But I really do appreciate each and every one of you here. And it's very heartwarming, the generosity that our audience shows of their time, of their spirit in supporting all that we do.

1:05:51Popok:So programming note, even though it's July 4th, Ben and I will be there for Legal AF on Saturday. and then of course we've got eight to ten videos every every day on Legal AF YouTube I think you'll find really really appealing so until our next recording with Karen and me and and Legal AF and Midas and Midas shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers