Legal AF - 9/10/2026

25:58Popok:And what is the endgame in any of these? That's the problem. There is no endgame to any of these things because it's being run by an erratic madman who has a bunch of narcissistic sycophants around him who are making lots of money or are lustful for power. That's what we're watching. We're not watching a true functional administration. We're watching stitched together a bunch of, this is the island of broken toys, the cabinet around Donald Trump. These are a bunch of misfits who never fit in in any of the industries that they allegedly were part of. And Donald Trump brought them all together, right?

26:35Popok:What could go wrong? Under his leadership, and this is where we are. Yeah.

27:10Popok:If they're found in contempt, depends on the level of contempt. If they're convicted of the crime of contempt, sure, they could be pardoned and washed away. If it's civil type contempt, which is the general contempt, no. Or a state court. They can't pardon in state court. Yeah. Although he's tried. He tried to pardon Tina Peters out in Colorado, which that didn't work. Let's see. divine right said, Donnie said the war would end, gas prices will drop after the midterms. Is that because he's surrendering to the Democrats that they will be in power in Congress? Yeah. There is a little bit of reality that occasionally seeps into his inner sanctum of his brain, and he realizes he may lose control of the House and the Senate.

27:58Popok:I think that's why, we may not have liked it, but I think that's why Hakeem Jeffries met with Kushner, his son-in-law because people realize that in the new world order Trump's going to be moving towards powerless in the sec now he's done so much damage that we have to fix but he's moving towards powerless in the second half of his of his presidency not that it matters to him he's busy trying to reshape Washington DC and his image but I think I think that's sort of where we're at so put your questions in comments for tonight when we come back from our first break we're going to do what's going on in Missouri and why it matters for the control of Congress.

28:40Popok:Mail-in ballots, another deadline today at the United States Supreme Court that matters. We're going to talk about the Tate brothers. Before we take our break, though, I do want to talk about, and you're going to start seeing this content up on Legal AF, it started today. I was invited to the Democratic Attorneys General Association, DAGA, their conference quarterly. This one was in Detroit. I had the opportunity to be in the room with 15 Democratic attorneys general and interview them on our behalf here on Legal AF about voting and votes. I got a video up right now of my interview with Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, and Dana Nessel, the attorney general of Michigan.

29:23Popok:And here's a clip. And I will say this for people say, like, well, what's the harm? Why not turn that information over? Well, the federal government under Donald Trump, they've not been good stewards of our personal information. And we've seen these data breaches. We've seen people who come in who have not been vetted using, you know, unsecure systems in order to obtain that information. And then we've actually seen some of these people sell our private personal information to third parties who are trying to sell us things or who are trying to manipulate us from a political perspective. And so if the federal government has demonstrated anything to us, it's that they should have as little of our information as possible.

30:09And in my opinion, I think they're trying to create a surveillance state. That's one of the biggest reasons why they want this, whether it's so that, you know, Trump's friends in the AI community can obtain our information to sell us products, goods, services, or whether or not they want to influence us on things critical to our democracy. But there are very specific laws in place. They are not permitted to have that information. And that's why we've won every single time when we've challenged an effort like this. I just really want to agree with A.G. Nestle here that the federal government is trying to surveil the American people and amass a master database with as much information in it as possible.

30:52And they're trying to collect from all sorts of different sources. Voter rolls is one. But, you know, Doge was, you know, collecting bank account information, Social Security information of millions of Americans. that when they go after our Medicaid data, our SNAP data,

31:07Popok:they want to collect that data and use it across the different parts of government, including for immigration enforcement, which is barred and prohibited. And then, of course, they're seeking voter data. I do want to note they are zero for 23 in their efforts. They have a goose egg in terms of never winning yet continuing to try. And they're not just going after Democratic states' data. They're going after Republican states' data who are fighting back and winning. And so they have no right to this data, but yet they try because they, you know, for whatever nefarious purposes they want to use it for.

31:39Popok:But the bottom line is they have no business owning that data, storing that data, using that data under the law. And so we're going to, to your viewers who are worried about their data, we're going to use the most powerful, most potent tool that there is, the rule of law, to defend it. And we will keep winning and hopefully we'll keep that goose egg. Yeah, the fascinating interviews. We talked a lot about voter data, as you saw there, and also about voter protection. And we come back from our first break. I'll talk about the kind of survival kit that I picked up in talking to them. And if people are interested, which I hope they are, one video is up already from today.

32:17Popok:And then tomorrow and the rest of the week, we'll be putting up all of the kind of the content that we created. And it's very timely, that one piece, Karen, that one interview clip, because today one of the main programmers at OpenAI came out and said, I guess he's resigning, came out and said, AI will kill us within the end of this decade. Yeah, I saw that. That was crazy. Super intelligent AI will, like a fire, will rage out of control and will kill us. I mean, this is what the guy wrote. And he didn't come off like a crackpot. He came off like a guy that says the bridge is out ahead down the road and trying to warn us.

32:58And a lot of people actually came and supported what he was saying. He absolutely did not come across like a crazy person. And I'm surprised that this is an issue that the Republicans aren't all over. You know, so many Republicans are against, for example, these flock cameras that are being put up all over the place that are collecting information about people and their cars and license plates and where they're going, etc. And I'm surprised that this issue hasn't kind of crossed over to the Republicans yet and why the Republicans aren't putting guardrails up in this area. This is I mean, I think I know the reason is because the the the billionaires are are going to make lots of money in with when it comes to A.I., et cetera.

33:44And so, you know, we know that that's who the Trump administration who kind of holds the holds the strings to the Trump administration. But the Republicans, really, this should be something not just the Democrats are fighting over, that this should be something that everybody is concerned about. And I hope that this issue is another issue that just reinforces why Democrats have to win big in the midterms and beyond.

34:12Popok:Yeah, they're doubling. The Republicans are doing the opposite. They're doubling down on these data centers, which are terrible for communities environmentally and otherwise. Trump has doubled down on it. But I think they've misestimated the will of the people and the mood of the people because the mood of the people is not in my backyard. I don't want a data center draining resources and electrical output and spewing things into the environment that are unregulated. and there seems to be a bipartisan opposition to data centers, which are the backbone of the artificial intelligence and data collection that we just got through talking about.

34:57Popok:So many different ways to support what we do here. This is a podcast. It's called Legal AF. It's here on the Midas Touch Network. To support Legal AF, we're award-winning. We won the Webby Award for Best News Podcast this year. Download the audio. You might be watching us tonight. We got about 6 ,000 or 8 ,000 people watching us. We're going to have a half a million people that are going to see this episode before it's all said and done this week. But still, it's still really important to the ratings, to the prestige of the podcast that we get more audio downloads. We made it easy for you. There's a QR code at the top.

35:34Popok:Find us wherever you get your podcast from. Download the audio, subscribe, whatever it's supposed to be for free, and then do five-star reviews. Then there's the Legal AF YouTube channel. We are now eight days away from our two-year birthday. We're about to hit 800 million views of our work on that channel. And we're already at close to 1.3 million subscribers strong. We need your help to continue to grow as we get to the midterms and beyond become a subscriber. it's all for free on Legal AF YouTube channel. And I promise you 10 new videos every day, just to get your fill of, you know, scratch your itch for law and politics, information and news.

36:20Popok:Legal AF also has, and is a leader on Substack. Legal AF Substack, we've got over 160 ,000 subscribers, many of them paid to keep that rolling. 10 pieces of content there every day. I do a live report every day between 30 minutes and an hour, bring on some guests sometimes. It's a great place to hang out. I know some people that are just on Substack, become a member of Substack and a paid member as well. And then we've got our pro-democracy sponsors that support our First Amendment right to give you honest commentary and your First Amendment right to be heard and listen here on the Midas Touch Network.

36:59Popok:Let's take a quick break for them now. Running a business means you're always reachable until you're not. And the moment you miss that call, that text, that follow-up, a competitor is the one that picks it up. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the business phone system built so you never miss an opportunity. I like that Quo keeps all your calls, texts, and voicemails in one place so anyone on your team can see the full conversation history and respond quickly. And when you're unavailable, Quo's built-in AI agent can answer questions and even book appointments so you're not losing potential customers after hours.

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39:56Popok:You can tell what I do ads on the road for sure. Where's our producer? Let's go back to the Trumpapalooza stadium and see. Okay. I just wanted to make sure things hadn't really changed there. I don't think they were screening anybody. Donald Trump doesn't like metal detectors. I think the place is empty. It's empty for a very good reason. Anyway, I like to just we might do that a few more times before the night is over as a form of trolling the Trump administration. So, Karen, let's turn to Missouri, to Missouri, shall we? Oh, what a mess. What a total mess. What a mess. I mean, I'm just in all complete fairness.

40:39It took me longer than normal to just try to understand this topic enough to talk about it tonight. It is so complicated, confusing and a mess.

40:47Popok:You want to go first? No, please. You go first. That's what we call a hospital pass. Go over the middle, Karen. Here you go. Okay. Let's start in Missouri. You got a Republican secretary of state. You got a Republican governor and you got a Supreme court that's dominated by Republicans. Okay. And you have the Republican legislature who, listening to Donald Trump, tried to shove down Missouri's throats, a new map for Congress seats, to turn what was a five to two, no, seven to one, it would have been five to three advantage into a seven to one advantage for the Republicans. Getting rid of completely a safe Democratic seat by cracking it and getting Mr.

41:41Popok:Cleavage out. So it can't be cleavage. It's mostly cleaver. So I think that's something else. It's been a long day. So there is a statute, a congressional, sorry, let's start again. There is a constitutional provision and statute in Missouri that says if you don't like what your legislature has done, if they voted on something and you do not like it, you can trigger a requirement that the voters vote on it, yes or no, by making a referendum on the next ballot. if you get 300 ,000 voters to sign a petition. They got more than 305 ,000 voters to take up the issue of whether the new 2025 map was going to be used, changing a 2022 map, which was based on the 2020 census, which made it a little bit more fair.

42:40Popok:It was more like six to two or five to three. And so when they presented the petition to the Secretary of State, Danny Hoskins, he said no. He said, it's unconstitutional. You can't, legislature can do what they want to do when it comes to voting. Okay, that's nowhere to be found in the state's constitution. So a group of pro-petitioner people, people that ran the petition that are against the remapping, went to court and got to the Missouri Supreme Court in one case, and they got three or four days ago a 7-0 ruling from a Supreme Court that's dominated by Republicans, 5-2. And they said, this is easy.

43:27Popok:This is easy. There's a Supreme Court case on point. And this provision of Missouri law says, without exception, you can always do a referendum if you get enough signatures. And so this is easy. And entered an injunction requiring, this last week, requiring that the Secretary of State use the 2022 map, therefore the congressional seats on the ballot. Okay? He then takes an appeal to the United States Supreme Court comes up to Justice Kavanaugh because he's covering the Eighth Circuit and on an emergency application. He doesn't even bother, it's so ridiculous, he doesn't even bother sending it off to the other eight on the Supreme Court.

44:19Popok:He rejects the request for an emergency stay, meaning he leaves in place the Missouri Supreme Court injunction requiring that the 2022 map, not the 2025 map, be used. That should be the end of the story. Except, and I'm going to turn it over to you, Karen, except the Secretary of State got a Trump-appointed federal judge from St. Louis in a different case to make a different ruling. Why don't you take it from there? Yeah, I mean, he ran to federal court. So what you just described all happened in state court, Missouri State Court, interpreting the Missouri Constitution, which, as you said, has this provision that allows voters to kind of override their legislature.

45:03And the Missouri Supreme Courts agreed with that. That is what the law says. And he didn't like that. And he didn't like that Brett Kavanaugh left that in place. And so he ran to federal court and essentially said, tried to get them, is trying to get that reversed. And the federal court, of course, he pulled a Trump-appointed judge, basically is treating this issue. The judge says, yeah, I know what Brett Kavanaugh just did 30 minutes ago, but I'm still going to say, you can use this newer 2025 map. And the Missouri Supreme Court wants to hold the Missouri Secretary of State in contempt and have a contempt proceeding.

45:52And he is trying to, the Secretary of State is trying to get the federal courts to, under the supremacy clause, saying essentially federal law trumps state law, to not hold contempt proceedings and allow this to go. So that's kind of where we are. But you sort of, it's a head scratcher, because the Brett Kavanaugh is this federal judge's boss. And Brett Kavanaugh essentially just affirmed the Missouri Supreme Court. So I don't know how this federal judge thinks he can get away with this. And I I think Brett Kavanaugh will hopefully smack him down very quickly, but this is all happening very quickly in real time right now.

46:43And I think we might get another Supreme Court ruling with respect to this as early as this week.

46:49Popok:Well, and to make it even more urgent, as we came on the air, two Trumpers out of three judges on the Eighth Circuit affirmed the federal judge and his ruling refused to disturb it. At the same time, the Secretary of State's trying to get the federal judge to protect him and insulate him from the contempt hearing that is tomorrow. He had to file papers today. Here's the guy with the red jacket. By the way, he looks, you know who he reminds me of? He reminds me of the guy at the Kentucky Derby that blows the opening horn in the red jacket. I mean, literally, that's what that jacket is. He just put a hat on him.

47:30Popok:Call to the post. So he's got a busy day tomorrow because he had to file papers today about why he shouldn't be found in contempt. He's got to show up in court tomorrow for a hearing before the Missouri Supreme Court. In the meantime, it's already gotten back to Kavanaugh, who's given the Secretary of State until 10 a.m. tomorrow, that's it, 10 a.m. tomorrow to file some sort of opposition to the emergency application made by the people that brought the petition, the people that want to go back to the 2022 map. he has to answer them by 10 a.m. And then, I mean, I think sometime tomorrow. Brett Kavanaugh didn't say, well, I'll take a few more days.

48:21Popok:You got ballots that were supposed to go out on Tuesday in Missouri, okay? We don't have more days. So he gave them 12 or 14 hours to get the brief in. I think Kavanaugh rules tomorrow, if not early on Friday. And I would be, I've been shocked before, I'll be shocked again. I would be shocked if he reverses course and says that there's a federal supremacy election Voting Rights Act issue in play. As you so perfectly framed it, this is a state law issue about Article 1 of the Constitution says states are in charge of running their elections. The highest court of that state interpreting Missouri law on this issue has spoken, period.

49:08Popok:And this other bullshit about, well, maybe we'll get a federal judge to say something else. That's just forum shopping. I heard that guy in the red jacket say out loud, supremacy clause. The supremacy clause has no place here. That's why most election litigation that doesn't involve the Voting Rights Act ends up in state court and not in federal court. So something you want to stay close to Legal AF, stay close to our Substack and YouTube channel, because sometime tomorrow you're going to get the new filing that we'll report on. And then right after, boom, boom, Brett Kavanaugh. Why does it matter?

49:44Because I'll make it simple.

49:46Popok:I mean, it's very, very black and white. If the 2022 map is used, then the Kansas City Congressional District goes Democrat and maybe one other. And if it doesn't, it's going to be seven to one Republican advantage. At least one Democrat seat gets picked up off the 2022 map. But more importantly, it's representative. The people of Missouri have taken to the streets and they are there. They're out in front of the Capitol. They're out in front of the Supreme Court demanding that their voice be heard. Yeah, this might backfire. Yes. 300 ,000 people signed. 305 ,000 people signed a petition. and now they're going to try to take that away?

50:31Popok:And how do you think that's going to play out at the midterms? Yeah. So, you know, safe Republican seats may not be so safe when the ire of the public ends up being expressed in voting. So as long as we're in the voting mood, mode, mood. Mail-in ballots. Mail-in ballots. So mail-in ballots. All right. Right. Trump issues an executive order in March, puts the Postal Service in charge of deciding which ballots gets delivered and what the hurdles and regulations and databases that the states are required to use in order to get their mail-in ballots delivered. Nowhere in the Constitution is there a discussion or a power of the post office.

51:17Popok:I've heard of the power of the purse. There's no power of the post office in elections. Article 1, Clause 1, says states and then Congress rule supreme in the area of federal elections, period. There is no role for the executive branch other than to back the F up and get out of the way. And for the post office, and you live in New York, and I lived in New York for a long time. I mean, when you look up at the post office on 8th Avenue, which is now part of the Moynihan train station, They still have the inscription, that famous poem about postal carriers, you know, neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night will stop the mail carrier from making his appointed rounds unless he's controlled by Donald Trump and there's an election.

52:02Popok:I mean, I really don't understand it. And they created this portal, which is not even complete yet. The ballots are already supposed to go out. Portal of voter data, which they're not entitled to, that they're going to use to check against the states. Why? How is that allowed? And then decide who lives or who dies in batches of ballots going through some sort of optical scanner. I'll say this, Karen, as I turn it over to you. To a person, every attorney general for the Democrats told me it is impossible for them to comply if the Supreme Court this week rules in favor of Donald Trump on this issue.

52:42Popok:Millions of people will not be able to vote by now. Yeah, no, this is, again, another mess. This is the kind of thing where on paper you would think, okay, this could be a good thing. The fact that you have standardized ballots with barcode scanning and that they can kind of go through and be read quickly. You would imagine if this were done properly that you would have states signing up for this and wanting to be a part of this because we would have results so much faster and it would be so much more efficient. But because this is just a bald-faced way to try to disenfranchise millions of people at the 11th hour, I mean, so many states already have their ballots sent out without these special envelopes, without these special barcodes, without these special lists that have not yet been created, right?

53:37None of this has been done yet, including this portal that you were talking about that has not been able to be built, tested, debugged, all of that. And so this is just another way to try to disenfranchise voters, because there is no way it can be implemented in the next month and a half, which is all we have before the midterm elections. And so to try and create this new rule at the 11th and a half hour that now has to go into effect. In addition to it being illegal, because this is something that, as you said, the Constitution specifically says that the time, place, and manner of elections are supposed to be done by the states.

54:25Sometimes Congress can change it, but nowhere does the executive branch have a role, and the post office is part of the executive branch, but that it just can't be done. And this can't be done by the midterm election. So there's something called the Purcell principle or the Purcell doctrine, which essentially is this kind of this standard that the Supreme Court is chipping away at. But it's basically said, look, you can't do things that are going to create chaos or confusion too close to an election. And they make that window around 60 days. And this is this the Supreme Court has to say has to say this cannot be done and this cannot be allowed because there are certain states like Alaska, for example, that all they have is mail in ballots, mail in voting.

55:13They don't have in-person voting. And they have the system on how they do this. You can't disenfranchise all of those people. So it's not as easy for some states who can just say, oh, well, just show up in person. Don't do mail-in ballots. Just everybody show up in person to make sure that your vote is counted. It's not so simple in these states that have either all or most mail-in voting. And in other states, you have people who live hundreds of miles away from the nearest polling place. And aside from that, different states use different voting machines and different types of voting machines, right?

55:51They don't have ones that can do the special scanning barcode thing. I mean, this is just a kind of ridiculous, and I hope they get called out for how ridiculous this is and to try to do this and screw things up right before the midterms. I really hope the Supreme Court smacks them down on this one in a big way, because this is truly not only unlawful and illegal, but it's a disaster. Well, we're going to know soon enough because the final brief came in today as ordered by

56:19Popok:Ketanji Brown-Jackson. The good news is there was no administrative stay. So days have ticked off here, which I think is an indicator that there are not five votes to side with Donald Trump on this. Otherwise, I think they would have moved quicker to stay the issue of the administrative stay and maybe on the briefing schedule as well. You can put the briefing schedule out as far as you want if you give an administrative stay, but the clock that's really important here is the one that's now down to 55 days until the midterms. And so final brief is in, including a lot of amicus briefs in support of the Democratic Attorneys General, back to my group that I was just with in the last 36 hours.

57:00Popok:It's their case that is before the United States Supreme Court, conjoined with a case brought by the League of Women Voters and the ACLU, but really being led by California, Massachusetts, and that type of thing. And so you got 250 former and current members of Congress. You've got Republicans. I mean, they find their courage after they retire, but former members of the Congress and the GOP. I mean, there's not one brief, really, of any really merit-based organization that's in favor of, let's turn over mail-in voting and have it regulated and run by the post office. The post office can barely run its main function, which is delivering the mail.

57:43Popok:I mailed a check for something recently for a big...

57:50Popok:Okay, I'm still waiting. Somebody's mailing me a book because I'm doing an author interview for Legal AF on something really important. And it's been like eight days and they're like, is the book there yet? No. So if you hate the post office in terms of their reliability on delivering your junk mail, you're going to despise them when it comes to them overtly blocking your ballot. And to put a shiver down people's spine, and then I want to talk a little bit about the emergency test, the emergency kit that you need to build between now and Election Day that I developed with the Attorney General.

58:29Popok:Dana Nessel, the Michigan Attorney General, said that, you know, this is a repeat of what happened in Trump 1, where he used the post office to slow down the delivery of ballots. So, oops, they missed the deadline. Bags of ballots, meaning your vote, sitting dead letter in a post office. She got orders, as all attorney generals are ready to do, from federal courts, showed up herself with her groups to the huge distribution and processing centers for the post office in Michigan, got the officials there, showed the order, and basically directed with the order that bags of mail that she knew held ballots get delivered before 8 p.m.

59:11Popok:so that they could be counted. While she was there, she said she saw bags of undelivered mail-in ballots. I'm talking about the last time Donald Trump ran. That should have been delivered weeks before sitting around the post office. So here's a couple of things that came, if I had to distill the advice of the attorneys general that I met with. one vote early leave yourself some time take advantage of whatever the early voting rules are for your state every state basically has it they may be super short in red states you know four or five days could be 30 days in some states whatever it is vote early in person right that's one leave yourself some margin of error two if you're going to vote by mail and you get the ballot But, you know, you pick it up yourself.

1:00:04Popok:You don't have to rely on the post office. Go pick it up yourself. You can deliver that back to secure boxes of the election officials. And you have to trust them. That's the one thing that came across with the attorneys general. Even if Republicans are in charge of these processes, right now they trust them as professionals to run the election pursuant to law. There's always a wild hare, we saw it during 2020, who decides I'm not going to certify or, well, let me let in the cyber ninjas to go look through my voter data. There's always a wacko. We'll deal with them later. But by and large in the 90 ,000 precincts, they're being run properly.

1:00:44Popok:Trust the process. But take your envelope, you know, trust but verify. Throw it in that box. If you do mail it, there is usually a tracking system around the mail-in ballot, a code. You can check online if it's been received. If you're coming up close to the election and you see it hasn't yet been received but really should have been because it's sitting around in a post office, then go to the election office and vote a provisional ballot. They won't count both, but if the mail-in ballot doesn't come in on election day for counting and they have your provisional ballot, they'll count the provisional ballot as your ballot.

1:01:23Popok:But if you don't do that and the mail-in ballot doesn't arrive, game over on election day. So vote early. You're going to vote by mail. Pick it up yourself and put it in the box yourself. Now, some states, like in the Pacific Northwest, they got the right idea. They're mandatory vote by mail. Everybody votes by mail. They have a couple of places you can actually walk in. And of course, they've had no voter fraud. So these are the ways. And then once you do that, that also frees you up to volunteer to be the eyes and ears of the attorneys general. What they also told me is they need us to report on things that don't look right.

1:02:04Popok:All of a sudden, an ICE checkpoint, a half a mile from a voting place. Why? Call the attorney general of your state. There'll be a hotline up by then. You see armed security forces working for the feds, some badge inside the polling place where they're not voting. Call the attorney general. You can call a lot of different, you can call the Democratic Party, you can do all that. Call the attorney general. They're standing by. They need you to report on things so they can rush into court in the various counties and precincts and state and federal courts and get temporary restraining orders on the spot.

1:02:39Popok:They're willing to do it, but they're not going to be able to hear about everything. They need us. If you see something, say something and say it to your attorney general. Karen, do you have any tips and tricks and hacks for voting? I think if you can vote in person, I think you should. I just think that's going to be the safest way to make sure that your vote gets there and your vote counts. But as you said, there's so many states that you can't do that. And so exactly, you vote early and just try to make sure that your vote counts. Most importantly, vote. Right. Everybody has to vote. And I think I think the Republicans that look, they're showing how scared they are by trying to rig these elections.

1:03:19If they thought they could win fair and square, they would just be like, OK, you know, everybody just everybody show up and vote. But they're so afraid of losing this election. I think they see what's coming, that they're doing everything they can to try and stop people from having their vote counted. And so we have to fight that much harder to make sure that we are counted. And I think that the more we can do that and the more we can ensure that the more people can vote. Look, if you if you have someone, if you have a neighbor who who normally votes by mail and maybe they're they're disabled or or elderly or maybe they don't have a car and you could give them a ride.

1:04:02You know, anything you can do to help your fellow neighbor to get as many votes out as possible, I think, is the most important thing. and just make sure that we get people voting.

1:04:16Popok:Absolutely. So stay close to legal AF because we're going to get a ruling now that they got their final briefs. We're going to get a ruling out of the Supreme Court, I think this week, because of the fact that we're down to 56 now, 55 days after tomorrow, left in the... And the states have said, You could give us 550 days. There's not enough time for this. We're running an election right now. We don't have time to go double check and check a portal and get the envelopes right because the post office tells us to. So for those and many reasons, I know they have a lot of confidence in their case, the Democratic Attorney General, that they're going to win.

1:05:00Popok:And I think they're going to hear about that. It could be as soon as tomorrow. we're going to talk about the Tate brothers and their connectivity to the Trump family. But I just got a word from my producer. We're going to cut back to the Trumpalooza convention site for a moment. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to make sure nothing. Same people, same dwindling audience. I just wanted to make sure that's the case. We've got a huge audience here tonight. We've got a couple hundred thousand people who are already engaged here on Legal AF, at least 7 ,000 or 8 ,000 in the chat with us. Leave a comment and a question in the chat.

1:05:46Popok:We're going to try to get to them all tonight. That's a testament to your fervent support and generosity for all that we do on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network. If you want to help us, people say, how do we help you, Popak? All right. Become a subscriber to the Midas Touch Network. Become a subscriber to the Legal AF podcast. You're on it now. Become an audio download listener. Yes, that still helps. I know it sounds like it's like we're talking about analog versus digital, but there are people that only get us, drive around in their car all day or whatever. They only listen to us on the podcast, on the audio.

1:06:20Popok:So download that, leave a five-star reviews. Come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Help us get the 2 million subscribers. Our two-year birthday is eight days away, and I want to really do a big push on viewership and on subscribers by then. It's all free. Hit that. Yes, I said free. Free subscribe button. Substack, another entirely different but parallel community devoted to Legal AF and everything else that you're interested in life. We're regularly in the top 10 for U.S. News. Help keep us there. Become members or paid members, whatever you can swing, and you'll get live reports from me during the day, along with amazing commentary and pieces of content you can't find anywhere else, but on the Legal AF sub stack.

1:07:05Popok:And then we've got our pro-democracy sponsors and we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we're gonna talk about why the Tate brothers being denied the ability to get out of jail while they fight their extradition on 59 counts of doing really bad things to young girls, why it matters and why it's yet another example of the perversity of this person who sits in the Oval Office. Have you thought about doing something to protect yourself from stalkers, scammers, and hackers? Well, go to www.joindeleteme.com slash legal AF, enter code legal AF, and get 20 % off DELETEME. DELETEME removes your personal information that's being sold online.

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1:09:21Popok:That's 60 % off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash legal AF. And thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors. All right, we're going to round it off here. you and I got to talk about a second international child sex trafficking ring connected to the Trump administration. I know Donald Trump likes to post AI images of himself partying with George Washington, but I don't think any other president has ever had to fend off accusations of their involvement one way or the other or friendship with people involved in child sex trafficking. And so we haven't even gotten to the bottom of the Epstein scandal and Donald Trump's connectivity to it.

1:10:06Popok:And now we've got the Tate brothers. So you got Tristan and Andrew Tate, who made tens of millions of hundreds of millions of dollars in this bro-verse world of influence peddling and social media right-wing, MAGA right-wing influence peddling. Andrew Tate became friends with Barron Trump. There's reporting that Barron Trump was so close to him that when Donald Trump had a shot, you know, was shot at, Barron Trump went to the Tate brothers to be consoled, and they're connected to the government. When Romania, which is where these British guys ran to to try to get out from under investigations about taking young girls, raping them, forcing them into pornography where they made the money, and they went to Romania to lead their life and lifestyle, There's now criminal investigations in Romania as well.

1:10:59Popok:And along with in their own hometown of the UK, it was the Trump administration. It was people like Richard Grinnell, who's on the Kennedy board. Paola Zampoli, oh yes, who introduced Donald Trump to Melania Trump as Donald Trump's special envoy and sits on the Kennedy board. That's who the Tate brothers were partying with the night that they were picked up in Miami in July on an extradition provisional arrest warrant. And it now turned out that the reason the Tate brothers got out of Romania and their freedom of movement was restored and that their cell phone and devices were returned to them is because of the intervention of the Trump administration.

1:11:42Popok:So don't stand here and tell me that you're not related to the Tate brothers. So, Karen, what happened today with the Tate brothers in Miami? And then you can tie it together with the Trumps. Yeah. So essentially, if you are charged in another country, but you are caught in a different country, right, and there's an arrest warrant out for you, we have treaties with various countries that you can arrest them and hold them to be extradited to that other country. And we have such a treaty with the UK, which is where the Tate brothers are indicted. They're also indicted and charged in Romania, but in Romania, they were allowed to be free and fight their charges not being incarcerated.

1:12:32So they're in Miami, they're in the U.S. partying, and this arrest warrant drops from the U.K. And because we have this reciprocity or this agreement with the U.K., they were arrested in Miami and brought before a judge. And the judge can decide whether to hold the person, hold the bodies of the Tate brothers and keep them incarcerated until such time as the extradition issue is resolved, or they can release them and they can fight the extradition while not being incarcerated. And so that's what was before the judge. And of course, the Tate brothers wanted to get out on bail and wanted to be released from custody during this extradition fight.

1:13:18Now, the standard for whether to hold someone in on extradition is usually kind of a difficult high standard. And there's almost like a presumption of release. There's there's unless you find three special circumstances, the person needs to be released. So dangerousness, risk of flight and special circumstances. And the Tate brothers were saying, look, we're not a flight risk because we're so high profile that we couldn't hide if we wanted to. So we're known all over the world. So there's no way we're a flight risk, right? That's number one. Number two, we're not dangerous. We're not a danger to the community of reoffending because it was all an act.

1:14:05We're not really child sex traffickers. We just put on this show, this persona. We just pretend and play one on TV, essentially. And number three, the special circumstances was kind of an unusual one. They said, look, we need to be free because we have to be able to fight the Romanian charges. We can't fight those charges if we're incarcerated. So you have to release us so that we can go out and fight those charges. Well, the judge, magistrate judge in Miami rejected all three of those arguments and essentially said, number one, you are you have lots and lots of money and lots and lots of resources.

1:14:41And you could go you could flee to a country that there is no extradition treaty with. Right. That that happens sometimes. People will go and and flee to these countries that that that don't participate in extradition treaties. So you have the resources. So you are a flight risk, number one. Number two, found that you are a danger because and didn't buy this kind of, you know, this is all a show. They said, no, these are very serious charges and that you are facing. And so we think you are a danger to this, to the community. This isn't just a one and done type thing. This is an ongoing pedophile ring that you've been running, child sex trafficking.

1:15:25So you're a danger. And number three, didn't buy the special circumstances. Oh, you have to be free so you can fight the charges in Romania, which, by the way, amended their charges this week to make them even more serious. And the allegations against them in Romania are even more strong and more serious. So these guys are not getting out anytime soon. what they're waiting for is for the United Kingdom to provide the extradition paperwork. They'll fight the extradition or not. They can waive extradition and agree to go back to fight the charges, or they can fight the extradition. But ultimately, that will play out in court, and then they'll be sent back to face the charges in the UK and in Romania.

1:16:11So yeah, these guys are as bad as it gets. And thankfully, the judge saw right through all of those arguments and kept them incarcerated so that they can't flee and that they can't hurt others. So this is a big loss for them. And I think they were hoping that the Trump administration was going to weigh in and try and get them released. But so far, the Trump administration has been holding strong. I don't think the Trump administration believes they can handle another sex scandal, another trafficking scandal, like the Epstein one that they're already dealing with. But that's sort of where the Tate brothers are.

1:16:56Popok:The reality is, if Trump didn't have an Epstein problem, he'd be siding with the Tate brothers. They helped him get elected in his mind. Barron's close to them. Paolo Zampoli's close to them. Richard Grinnell is close to them. He would be, if he didn't already have an Epstein problem, he'd be siding with the Tate brothers. There's no doubt in my mind about it. Here's a couple of things that the magistrate judge, Judge Lewis, reminded us of in doing her analysis about why she's going to keep him in the Miami Federal Detention Center. while the extradition to the UK on the 59 counts plays out. This is on page two.

1:17:41Popok:The warrant set forth allegations that Andrew, his real name is Emery, choked and raped two women in their homes in England at various times between 2015 and 2025, that Tristan, his brother, choked, raped, and otherwise physically assaulted a woman, with whom he was in a romantic relationship. He has eight children, by the way. There's also the allegation coming out of Romania that they took a 15-year-old from London, where they're from, or from England, brought her to Romania, forced her into doing live stream pornography, and made a couple of million dollars off of it. And one of the things that the judge said about flight risk, because they kept saying, we're really nice guys here's my girlfriend she's gonna i'm not making this up here's my girlfriend she's gonna testify we don't really have all that money so we're not really a flight risk but they had a lot of other problems like social media posts where they uh where they bragged about their evading law enforcement and that they couldn't be caught so the judge on that one said um uh it says at the hearing they had a hearing the tate brothers advanced evidence, including their own testimony, that what wealth they had has been seized by the Romanian government, and that to the extent the government's evidence, that's the U.S.

1:19:08Popok:government's evidence, draws on their statements on social media regarding their extreme wealth, those statements are attributable to characters they play online, which are vastly exaggerated or outright false. Attention, Tate followers. Emory Tate additionally advanced evidence that social media post where he boasts about his willingness and ability to evade law enforcement are just the hyperbole that they disseminate in their public-facing figures selling an image. But she didn't like those postings, and she didn't like the fact they went to 43 different countries on flights in a year and a half period.

1:19:47Popok:Think about your own travel. 43 is a lot, and that they had multiple passports when they were picked up. So no. They also made the argument, Karen, that the UK jumped the line and that they were really under the jurisdiction of Romania based on the indictment there, although that indictment has now been superseded, adding new charges, and that how dare the UK try to extradite them for their 59 counts when they should just be under house arrest or something similar in Romania? I mean, you've done extradition before. What kind of argument is that? Yeah, no, I don't think that any of these, those arguments, I mean, thankfully the judge saw right through that.

1:20:30So. Yeah.

1:20:31Popok:Go back to the federal detention center. You'll meet with your lawyer there. I've met with clients at the Miami FTC. They come out in orange jumpsuit. You know, they get a vending machine, you sit down with them in a room and that's what you do because there's another 30 days or so because the UK, now that they're not going anywhere, can take its time under the statute to prepare its papers to have the formal extradition proceeding. The magistrate judge says effectively in her 30 pages, we're going to be here a while. This extradition thing is going to take a while. Have a seat. Go back to your cell.

1:21:04Popok:You're not getting out. And that's what this was all about. And no, they can try to appeal it to the district court judge above her. These guys are, these are, I mean, listen, you're innocent until proven guilty. These are potentially really, really bad people. And then the Democrats, if they ever get the gavel in the House and the Senate, they want to open up investigations as to the true relationship between Barron and these guys, Donald and these, Donald Trump and these guys, maybe Melania and these guys. Why are so many people so close to Donald Trump involved with keeping these guys free for so long, right?

1:21:42Popok:Why do people in positions of power protect the Tate brothers? That's a story that hasn't been told yet. That hasn't been investigated. And it's yet another thing that Donald Trump and those around him are trying to hide. The hearings that the Democrats will be able to have in the House, whether it's about the Tate brothers, whether it's about Epstein scandal. I mean, even if we don't get two-thirds of the Senate in order to be able to impeach Donald Trump and others, just the ability, if we get the House, to hold hearings, I think, is going to be worth its weight in gold. Because there is so much corruption and so much nefarious behavior that we all see with our own eyes.

1:22:27And this is just yet another example of that.

1:22:32Popok:yeah absolutely so no this is this story is not going away and that's one of the reasons that we're reporting on it thank you for for making this your counter programming we had a great and and not only um a very engaged audience as we always do but a big audience and i think it's because no we're not i'm gonna watch do we have the last feed has that gotten any better in that convention center or that stadium? No. Okay. I was just checking in on Trumpapalooza and the inevitable backfire in terms of lack of voter support there. And yeah, you can't wallpaper over a failed administration. If you ever wondered what a failed administration looks like, this is it, folks.

1:23:19Popok:This is what a failed administration out of control being ran by a madman whose mental state is being challenged and questioned based on his crazy posts. I mean, I don't know who's crazier. Natalie Harp, who just got a 45 ,000. Did you hear this one, Karen? Natalie Harp and a couple of other people that are close to Donald Trump got a$45 ,000 cash bonuses from him. Is this taxpayer money or is this just personal money? I don't know. We got to get to the bottom of it,$45 ,000 a piece. And the guy that Walt Nauta, remember him? He's indicted in the Mar-a-Lago case, still in the White House. He got a$20 ,000 bonus.

1:24:01Popok:I mean, it's just, first of all, it's illegal. And we'll talk about that probably as the week progresses. But I don't know, it was Natalie Harp who wrote most of these 60 posts with Donald Trump exploding the earth or Donald Trump partying with George Washington or all this other, or Donald Trump as Hulk Hogan. I mean, seriously, we're just playing into the hands of our enemy, you know, who think, no, I'll tell you what they don't think. They don't think he's a madman and he's erratic and we better not test him. No, this is what we're watching. We're watching Putin test him, China test him, Iran test him, and he's failing, meaning our national security is compromised.

1:24:45Completely. And they know he's a big chicken.

1:24:48Popok:They know he's a big chicken. Taco Trump. Taco Trump. And I'm really glad everybody was here. The generosity of your time and commitment to the Legal AF community is really heartwarming. And I know that Karen and I are always thrilled to do our show together on Wednesdays. Saturdays is the Legal AF show with Ben Mycelis. And let's do the checklist one more time. Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Become a free paid member. That really helps us. If we didn't need these things to survive and thrive, we wouldn't ask for them, trust me. Hit the free subscribe button there. 10, 12 new videos every day.

1:25:27Popok:Legal AF, the sub stack. Keep us in the top 10 with our growing audience there. You get a live report. You get all the filings in all the courtrooms. We post them there for you to review as well on Legal AF Substack. Download the audio. I always feel like it's like Chick-fil-A, eat more chicken. Download the audio of this show. Leave five-star reviews. It helps. It helps with the prestige of the show. And programming note, I've got, starting today, my interviews with the Democratic Attorneys General about voter protection, these cases that we're talking about, from their perspective, and they are on the front lines.

1:26:11Popok:If you had to ask me who is the number one person in your state, the number one person in your state to protect your right to vote, it's your Attorney General. If you live in a red state or a red attorney general, that's a problem. But we're not worried about it there. We're worried about the blue states being effed with. So and fortunately, almost all of them, there's 23 of them that are now in the hands. And one other thing in terms of voting, I want to do a shout out or a public service announcement for the attorneys general. They have 13 races, and at least four of them are competitive, where they could flip and pick up four attorney general blue seats.

1:26:55Popok:It's important there, too. Trust me. That group has brought 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration this term. We're only halfway through. They got an 80 % winning record. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been given back to the states because of the Democratic attorneys general. Adding three or four more is really important. For instance, there's a race in my home state or my current home state of Florida where we could take, the Democrats could take the attorney general position in Florida, a Cuban American lawyer is running against somebody who's really unpopular. Pick up Florida, you know, make it really purple, maybe trending towards blue for the attorney general position.

1:27:34Popok:But the number one public servant that you need to have like in your wallet, on your palm, the number, the address is your attorney general. I have a question for you, Popeye. Yeah, sure. Go ahead. So is there any discussion with the Democratic attorneys general and others about what will happen? Let's say the Democrats do pick up so many seats and win the House that Mike Johnson might refuse to seat them, right, to call the House in order and seat them. Is there any talk about what will happen if that? Yeah. So they don't even, you and I talk about it, and I got a new graphic going up on all the videos on Legal AF now every day, counting down to the midterms.

1:28:20Popok:They have a different graphic. It's not 55 days. It's 88 days. Because they got to, for them, they will not rest. That organization will not rest, and the individual attorneys general, until certification and seating of these people. So they are ready for the certification lawsuits. They are ready for the seating lawsuits and the swearing in lawsuits. So for them, it's not like, yeah, they'll be happy on election day if the seat change election happens, but their work is only halfway done. So they've got all the lawsuits drafted already. They have so many doomsday scenarios that they have played out in exercises.

1:29:00Popok:And they talk like, not only do they talk to each other every day or their staff does about the Trump administration and what to do about it, which is amazing. But they also, the Guardian just had a really great story about how the Democratic Attorneys General, the DAGA group, is coordinating with the other public interest groups like the ACLU, the NAACP, Norm Eisen's group, Democracy Forward, Democracy Defenders, Washington Litigation Group, Public Integrity Project. and they're all coordinating and talking regularly. And to a certain extent, the power of the attorney general is really important.

1:29:40Popok:They have these huge, I mean, Rob Bonta has like 6 ,000 people that work in his law department. You know, other states, of course, have smaller versions. New York has a large version with Letitia James as well. But they also pick up the knowledge and the legacy and institutional experience from organizations that have been fighting this fight for 100 years, like the NAACP or the ACLU. I mean, this is their bread and butter. I mean, I only half joke, you know, we do a lot of collaboration with the ACLU. You know, one of their swag pieces that you can get on their website says, see you in court.

1:30:17Popok:And the Democratic Attorneys General are picking up a lot of knowledge and tactics and techniques from these other public interest groups. And I think the reason I'm mentioning it is because collectively, they got about 400 cases against the Trump administration and a tremendous success record. So I want people to have more confidence because I asked each one of them, can you give our audience confidence that their vote will be counted and their people will get elected and seated? And they said, yes, they're losing sleep because they don't know which of the hundred scenarios Donald Trump is going to execute, but they're ready for all of them.

1:30:53That's awesome.

1:30:54Popok:Yeah. I always feel a lot better when I'm in the room with them. And I want people to feel the same way. So thanks for being here on the Legal AF podcast on midweek on the Midas Touch Network. And we'll be right back at it. Wash, rinse and repeat tomorrow on the YouTube channel. And of course, throughout the week, remember, we're waiting on the United States Supreme Court to rule on mail-in ballots could be in the next 48 hours. We're waiting for Brett Kavanaugh to rule in the next 24 hours about Missouri and its congressional maps. We're waiting on the Supreme Court to rule about Trump's ability through homeland security to build a citizenship database.

1:31:32Popok:These are all things now up at the Supreme Court. And by the way, Supreme Court isn't even open for its new term. That's the first Monday in October. We're still in the summer recess, folks. So there we are. Anyway, I wanted to thank everybody for being here. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.

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