Legal AF Full Episode - 7/23/2025

27:52Michael Popok:But first, we're going to take our first quick break for our sponsors. There's a number of ways to support and to keep us on the air. Let's be frank. Our counterparts in mainstream media are under attack and or getting fired. Colbert is not the only one that's going to get canned. And we have people on our network, like Katie Fang, that ultimately got canned for a point of view that didn't match with corporate ideals and the rest. And so the way to support us, you don't have a paywall. It's hit the Midas Touch subscribe button, free. Come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. We're doing a dozen new videos every day at the intersection of law, politics, and defense of our democracy.

28:35Michael Popok:see, we've got about a dozen contributors. I'm adding them, you know, every month I'm adding another one or two or three contributors on there. And hit the subscribe button, the reminder button, help us continue to grow that community. It has a related sub stack, Legal AF sub stack, where we're posting the filings, the orders, the rulings, commentary around it, videos around it, all on Legal AF sub stack. Again, did I mention it's all for free? Just hit the subscribe button. Um, and, uh, I'm going to talk about something else when we come back, but let's take a break for our pro-democracy sponsors.

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33:25Michael Popok:That's qualiolife.com slash legal AF for an extra 15 % off your purchase. Your older self will thank you. And thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. And we're back. I can tell when I've lost weight based on ads that I've done in the past. As we come back on the air, Columbia University decided to bend the knee and kiss the butt of Donald Trump. They're gonna pay$220 million and turn over things like faculty hiring and other things and root out anti-Semitism on the college campus in response to Donald Trump's threats. That doesn't bode well for Harvard, although Harvard continues to fight it out well in the court system up in Massachusetts.

34:12Michael Popok:So let's get to, I think we're going to do HABA, I think based on the order of operation here. By the way, that's disgraceful, what you just said, that Columbia University is, it's disgraceful. Well, you know, and it's a trade off. So they they got four hundred million dollars that was blocked in funding and brought them to their knees about three months ago. They're going to get the four hundred million back by giving back two hundred million dollars. And now they're not going to have billions of dollars of other research money in jeopardy. I guess it's a way to deal with the Trump administration.

34:46Michael Popok:It's just so disgusting that Donald Trump is just running around instead of helping average Americans or any Americans. He's running around worried about what the Washington football team is called or worried about, you know, the next big grift that he's going to be doing with Rudy Giuliani's son in the FIFA World Cup. Would you believe he put Rudy's son in charge as executive director of the FIFA World Cup? And now he's going to do a mean coin for FIFA to line his pockets for the World Cup? I mean, it's just so disgusting what we're watching. The good news is, though, the American people are not...

35:22Michael Popok:some nambulant. They're not asleep. And they're watching and the polls are showing that everything Donald Trump is doing is registering poorly in his polling. I mean, do you know how nefarious that is? Just what you just said about Rudy Giuliani's what you just said. Just think about Andrew Giuliani running the World Cup. Yes. But listen to this. Andrew Giuliani is going to run the World Cup. And as a result, he's going to get lots of money. Right. And he's going to get rich off of this and off of this relationship. And then he'll take care of his dad, who's lost everything to those lovely ladies in Georgia, Ruby Freeman and Sheamus, who he owes millions and millions of dollars to, right?

36:07From the defamation suit that they won against him. He's just going to, he filed bankruptcy. He's old, doesn't matter, right? So his son is going, I think the way Donald Trump is paying him back and not have to get the money to Sheamus and Ruby Freeman is to pay his son and to give all these perks to his son. And so his son can ride off into the sunset and get rich and, you know, give and continue the legacy and, you know, can let his father sleep on, you know, sleep in a spare bedroom in his mansion. I mean, that's how nefarious this is and what's going on. and nobody should allow that to just continue to go on and not call it out.

36:48So I'm so glad you mentioned it.

36:50Michael Popok:Absolutely. That's on the front page. We also have a new report. As long as we're doing live updates here, we've also got an appeals court, which I'm going to try to get at the next break. I don't know which one, maybe one of my producers will tell me. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals out of California, which would have been the affirmation of Judge Kofanor in Washington State's original decision. It was temporary restraining order number one, finding that birthright citizenship could not be changed by executive order. The Ninth Circuit has upheld that as being unconstitutional. Now we're into the merits.

37:27Michael Popok:We're into the subject matter. The thing that was up at the United States Supreme Court a couple of months ago that drove us batty is their ruling that, well, we don't want federal judges to make nationwide injunctions. Only we can declare nationwide results. You know, you've got to do class actions and temporary restraining orders or injunctions and only do nationwide injunctions under the rarest of circumstances. And we're not even going to tell you what those rare circumstances are. That's what that was all about. And they went out of their way of saying, we're not going to touch birthright citizenship until it comes up the right way through appellate decisions.

38:01Michael Popok:Okay, We've got the right way appellate decision now, the Ninth Circuit. And I'm sure every circuit that's going to look at this, except maybe the Fifth, and there's no case in the Fifth, the First, the D.C., and the Ninth is where these cases reside. And they're all uniformly going to say no on birthright citizenship changed by executive order and the 14th Amendment is sacrosanct. And then it's going to be up to the United States Supreme Court, not over the summer, in the first term in October to make that ultimate decision. But, you know, the arc of history is bending towards justice. And this is another bend towards justice, which is a good thing.

38:41Speaking of injustice, we've got Alina Habba, of course, appointed acting interim U.S.

38:48Michael Popok:attorney for my home state, the Garden State of New Jersey, and spent the last 120 days destroying morale of the 130 people U.S. attorney, assistant U.S. attorney in that office, the fifth largest in America, destroying morale. making people want to run and leave, prosecuting elected officials, dismissing, arresting and then dismissing charges against a black mayor of Newark, going after the governor, going after the attorney general in order to turn the blue state red, which she self-confessed. That's what her job is, she thinks. And so it was no surprise that being blocked by the two states, the two senators of New Jersey were both Democrats, Senators Booker and Kim.

39:34Michael Popok:She's not getting her blue slip that's required under Senate protocol to take her out of the judicial. If she even went through a confirmation process to get her out, she doesn't have the votes to do that. They don't override the blue slips for obvious reasons. They don't want to when they lose the House, the Senate, the presidency, the Democrats, they want to be able to continue to block judges. So they don't want to set that precedent. So she's she knows she's toast. So she. Under the statute that relates to a vacancy, if she can't get approved in 120 days, the judges, the federal judges of that district pick the new acting interim until the president can come back around and pick somebody else either to put in the job or get confirmed.

40:16Michael Popok:And that's what they did. They picked a longtime career prosecutor, Republican, and they picked her for the temporary position of acting interim. She was already in the office. She was the first assistant, deputy assistant to Alina Haba. But that's not what Donald Trump wants. And that's not what he wants for his office wife and his political hack. He wants her to get the job. And so Pam Bondi just did something. Talk about what Pam Bondi just did and what what you think they're going to do, given the precedent of what they just did in the Northern District of New York in terms of trying to appoint Habba for the job.

40:58so as you said popock um haba was appointed as an interim united states attorney which happens a lot and usually during that time you get a you go before the senate and you get senate confirmed because they are required to be senate confirmed to be the united states attorney and she wasn't going to get it she couldn't get onto the senate floor and the there is a congressional statute that allows the judges of the district to install their own United States attorney. And they've done this before multiple times throughout history. And sometimes they do it with the person who is the interim and convert them into the U.S.

41:43attorney. They've done that in New York and in New Jersey in the past. And she was hoping to get that same treatment here. But I think it was 17 judges, the district court judges in New Jersey, all unanimously said, no way, she's not qualified. And she's not. I mean, look, she's never been a prosecutor or a defense attorney other than representing Donald Trump, failing miserably. But she has no prosecution experience. And she certainly has no business leading such a prestigious office that does such important work. So she had, her number two was a woman who was a career prosecutor who's worked there.

42:22She was Republican and worked there for, I think, more than a decade. And she was Alina Habba's number two, her chief assistant. And they elevated her to that position. And by all accounts, she was qualified. And so the judges said, no, we're not going to give it to you, Alina Habba. your term expired either, either expired yesterday or it expires Friday, depending on when the 120 day clock starts. She was nominated 120 days from yesterday, but she wasn't, um, officially appointed and sworn in until it would be Friday would be the 120th day. But so they all unanimously voted that this woman, her name is Desiree.

43:06I can't remember her last name, uh, that she is going to be the United States attorney. And so she, I believe, was United States attorney for a brief period of time. And then she was fired. And she was fired by Pam Bondi. And so that leaves potentially the District of New Jersey with no United States attorney. And because of that, a lot of criminal defense attorneys are wondering, okay, we're going to move to dismiss all 1 ,200 cases. And I think the federal defenders are working to do that right now to move to dismiss all the cases that are pending before there because there is no United States attorney there.

43:49Now, the question, though, is because this woman was appointed by the judges, can Pam Bondi fire her? And it seems clear. And so I did a little research into this because it's coming up in our cases about what it is. And so I wanted to know the answer to this in detail. And the question is, can the attorney general fire a court appointed United States attorney? And that's really the question. And what seems pretty clear is that the president can. And that has come up in several cases in the past. So just to go over the law really quick. So an attorney general does not have the power or authority to remove the U.S.

44:39attorney appointed by the court pursuant to 28 United States Code Section 546D. However, 28 United States Code 541C provides that each United States attorney is subject to removal by the president. So in 1979, the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel published an opinion concluding that presidents can remove court-appointed U.S. attorneys. And the opinion states that usually the power to appoint carries with it the power to remove. But 28 U.S.C. Section 541C is an exception because Congress specifically delegated that to the president and gave them the power to remove United States attorneys.

45:17So it seems fairly clear that Bondi can't do it, but Trump can. I assume she had his permission. And so that's where we are. But right now, we're kind of without a U.S. attorney. So, you know, I don't know what's going to happen. I know what your theory is that Trump's going to elevate her and make her kind of like special counsel, almost like what Jack Smith was, right? The special United States, special attorney general. Oh, he did? No, no, no.

45:47Michael Popok:I don't mean he did it here. He did it with a judge. Oh, yeah, yeah. He did it with a guy from the Northern District of New York, correct? Right, right. So Coney, his name, yeah. Yeah, so they've already done it. I mean, they just did it two weeks ago. So to get out of the shorthand world for our audience, there's a provision in the Constitution that the Attorney General can appoint other types of attorneys. They call them special attorneys. Generally, that's been seen as something like a special counsel that doesn't require Senate confirmation. The irony here is, of course, that the Trump administration argued that Jack Smith was not a special attorney, as that term is used, and had to go through Senate confirmation.

46:33Michael Popok:And somehow, of course, got Eileen Cannon, the judge down in the Mar-a-Lago case, to agree with them, first time in 200 years, that the special counsel, pardon me, a judge declared that they had to go through Senate confirmation. but Senate special, um, special attorney means something. And so what they've determined it means is that they can appoint somebody, a special attorney indefinitely with all of the powers of a U S attorney, and then put them back in their position to avoid Senate confirmation and the rest. We also have a recess appointment issue coming up here. So I'm not sure whether they're going to do that, or they're just going to shove her into that job with a recess appointment, and just claim it's an Article II power of his now that the Senate and the House is going into recess.

47:19Michael Popok:And she would stay in that position on a recess appointment until the midterms. And there's a whole bunch of people he's going to have to try to shove through. We're going to see a whole bunch of recess appointments. He hasn't gotten one federal judge confirmed. He hasn't gotten one U.S. attorney confirmed in six months. So and even though it's never been it's never been used before in the history, a recess appointment to appoint a judge to a position because it's supposed to be a lifetime appointment. Watch. He'll try to shove Emil Bovee into the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, his former criminal defense lawyer, and have him sit there for a year and a half and then see what happens at the midterms just to stick it to America and the Constitution.

48:04Michael Popok:So we haven't heard the last of Alina Haba. I mean, right now they haven't filled the position, although when you and I wake up in the morning, that could be, you know, that could be, of course, changed. So that's where we are with Alina Haba. That was a question also from Blue Tinks in our substack who said, please give us a good update on Alina Haba. And I think we just did. So let's talk about the Abrego Garcia matter as we come into the homestretch here for Legal AF. And just to remind everybody, he got brought back to the United States from the dark recesses of the Seacott Supermax Prison in El Salvador at the last minute after the Department of Justice conjured up a phony manufactured indictment that looks like they're going to walk away from for human trafficking.

48:57Michael Popok:not human smuggling, human trafficking. I'm sorry, human smuggling, not human trafficking. And there is a difference. There's no real coercion in smuggle. Smuggles, I want to be smuggled. Please smuggle me. Trafficking is coercion. I don't want to be kidnapped and trafficked. And so that smuggling was like a whole bunch of people in a car. That's smuggling. And so, but nobody really believed this, including the judges in Tennessee, where they brought him back and put him in a federal detention center. He had been, he's been sitting in a federal detention center to basically protect himself and be protected from the Trump administration, who has already said, although not, they can't seem to get their act together, that they are considering maybe removing him to another country, not named El Salvador, but they don't want to tell the judges where it is or which it could happen.

49:53Michael Popok:And the judges are all fed up. You got Judge Crenshaw in Tennessee, who's the Article III judge. You got Judge Holmes, his magistrate. And you've got Judge Zinnis in Maryland. And you've got orders now where it looks like they're cooperating. I'm talking about the judges and working together. It's sort of like the Velociraptors on Jurassic Park. They're starting to work together. And Karen, you want to outline what Crenshaw slash Holmes and Zinnis just did about Abrego Garcia? Because he's coming home. Yeah. So there's, as you laid out, there's two cases. There's the criminal case in Tennessee, and then there's this immigration case in Maryland.

50:34Okay. And so these cases are going on side by side with each other. And the criminal case is the one that they created in order to have something to hold over his head so that they can deport him. This criminal case happened a long time ago, many years ago, and it's based on a traffic stop. They never brought a smuggling case against him then. All the evidence is from back then. But while he was accidentally, mistakenly, whatever you want to call it, taken to El Salvador, and they refused to bring him back, saying they didn't have the authority to do it, despite the Supreme Court and everybody else saying you have to facilitate his return.

51:20They literally did a colonoscopy on his life. They found that there was a traffic ticket. They did this whole huge investigation and put together this case and is charged him with human smuggling. And so that's what they used to bring him back. And they brought him to Tennessee. And as a result, there was a bail hearing, right? Because the law basically says there's a presumption of release. Unless you're a danger to society, or you're not going to come back to court, or you're charged with a violent crime, there's a presumption that you should be released. And that was a huge shorthand. It's obviously more complicated than that.

52:02But they had a bail hearing. And at the hearing, they called a witness. And at the hearing, they kind of kicked the tires on the case. And the judge ruled that he will come back to court, that he's not at risk of fleeing, and he's not a present danger to anybody, despite all the things that the government tried to basically drum up about him. And so the judge ordered his release. And what was so ironic is the reason he might not return to court, the reason he's a danger to not return to court, because that's one of the things that goes into whether or not to release someone is, are they going to flee?

52:53The reason that they gave saying that he should be held in and that he's not going to come to court is because they are going to deport him. That's why. And the judge basically says, no, no, no, that's not the standard. This is he wants to come back to court. You're the one government making the decision to attempt to deport him. And so you can't hold that against him because he he wants to come back to court. He wants to stay in this country. He's not going to flee. So he was ordered, released. The magistrate judge gave a stay for about a month while they figure all of this out and work out the logistics, partly because there's this other case going on, right?

53:39You've got this case in Maryland in front of Judge Zinnis where there was an emergency motion to return him to Maryland after he's released from Tennessee, and the court granted that emergency motion. This was brought by Abrego Garcia. And this way he because what she what Judge Zinnis says is basically what the law is. You have to put him back into the same place he was before you mistakenly deported him. You have to put him back in the exact same position he was in, meaning he's not detained. He's here lawfully, et cetera. And the order specifically says when you're in when when he's released in Tennessee, You are prohibited from taking him into ICE custody in Tennessee.

54:22You must restore him to his ICE order of supervision in Baltimore. And if you are going to initiate third country removal proceedings, you must provide 72 business hours notice to him and his counsel. And so what they're basically saying is we're putting him back to where he was, the same position he was in, and you are going to give him due process. And that is what is going on in Tennessee and in Maryland. And that's where we are. So he's going to be released at some point, and we'll see what the government does because they're not even sure. At the hearing, they were basically like, well, we're not really sure.

55:08We don't know what we're going to do. We think we're going to, our present intent is what their words was, was to deport him to a third country. But we really don't know what country and what we're doing yet.

55:17Michael Popok:So Judge Zinnis took him into protective custody effectively in Maryland so she can keep a watchful eye on him. Doesn't mean the Trump administration isn't going to try to remove anyway and defy her. And at the same time, I'll just touch on Judge Bozberg in D.C., who's handling a case about the 250 people not named Abrego Garcia, primarily from Venezuela, that were effectively just human trafficked. trafficked, and that is trafficked, by the Trump administration in a horse trade that they negotiated with two dictatorships, one in El Salvador and the other one in Venezuela, to have these people who never got the due process they were entitled to in the United States and are still under the jurisdiction of Judge Bozberg.

56:06Michael Popok:They got shipped off to Venezuela to the Maduro regime, which the Trump administration has said is a killer regime that's at war with the United States. It's the foundation of the Alien Enemies Act. But we're okay to trade with the enemy and trade human beings. So the 250 were sent there and 10 prisoners, including some Americans, came out. It's not okay. You know, the Trump world, like, we got the 10 out. You traded the life and the liberty of 250 human beings that you had no right to send to El Salvador door in the first place. And no, the ends don't justify the means. And that's what Judge Bozberg is trying to get to the bottom of.

56:52Michael Popok:He scheduled a status conference, pulling everybody together, because in the filing that he was given, the person from ICE, one of these removal directors, she said, well, we'll bring them back, the 250, if you want us to, if we're willing as a United States to facilitate it. And I'm like, what are you even talking about now? It's going to be up to you whether you're going to bring them back to a federal judge for their due process rights. And the ACLU, which is handling the case, was like, that's not an answer. That, you know, Will they bring back these 250 for their due process habeas corpus rights in this courtroom?

57:35Michael Popok:Yes or no. It's a yes or no question. And the judge is pulling everybody together to talk about that because all these things are related, right, in this domino effect. The JGG case, the Ebrego Garcia case, and as we outlined, the criminal case that's happening in Tennessee. So we're going to take another, our last break for the show. So hit the subscribe button for the Midas Touch Network. Some amazing reporting going on right now on Midas Touch every hour of the day. And we've got 12 new videos that go up on the Legal AF YouTube channel. Take a minute. If you haven't checked it out yet, now would be a great time.

58:12Michael Popok:We just crossed, I think, 730, almost 730 ,000 subscribers in just since September. We crossed the 200, I think we're up to 220 million views of our work over there, all a testament to the fervent support of this audience. But we need your help. Let's be frank. It's not ratings. It's in mainstream media. You see what's happening there. You want to keep us on the air? It's simple. Subscribe Midas Dutch. Subscribe Legal AF. Come over to Legal AF, the Substack. Do the exact same thing there. We got a new Instagram, as long as we're there, new Instagram for Legal AF as well that we just put up with a lot of shorts and other amazing content with a number of our contributors.

58:55Michael Popok:And I think we're up to about 10 ,000 in a week on the Instagram. So we're plowing through that. And these are the ways to support what we do. And then, of course, we've got our pro-democracy sponsors. And here's our break with them. This episode of Legal AF is brought to you by Moikbox. Did you know four companies control over 80 % of the U.S. meat industry and that the largest share of U.S. pork is now controlled by China? These meat giants use mobster-like tactics to crush American family farms, flooding our food supply with sketchy additives and low-quality meat. So what can you do about it?

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1:01:52Michael Popok:She wasn't in the room. She was called on the carpet by Donald Trump, but they seem to have kept her around for a reason. Karen, why don't you report on what is going on with her having reviewed the files of five different investigative agencies? and found something. I mean, Donald Trump attacking Barack Obama. I mean, look, this is the reddest herring of all red herrings. This is, they are throwing a ball to distract the golden retriever. And this is just an absurd, ridiculous claim that she is now saying. Look, she released, she basically says that Obama has manufactured this entire Russia thing as a witch hunt against Trump, which is just so ridiculous.

1:02:42And as you have said multiple times, I think there was five separate different reports that came out of people who investigated whether or not Russia interfered in the election, what they did. And what she found was that Obama wanted, when they were looking into this, right, whether it was the Mueller report and Mueller investigation and all of the other various entities, whether it was Congress, et cetera, who looked into this, she found in there that Obama wanted this to be done and be completed before he left office. And so he put pressure on the intelligence agencies to work quickly. That's it.

1:03:27Work fast because we want this done, if possible, before we leave office. And that's her big smoking gun, at least from what I can glean. This is so incomprehensible that it's hard for me to understand the crazy that she is saying, but that's what I can glean from what I'm hearing that she's trying to say. If I got that wrong, please correct me, Popak, because I don't speak crazy MAGA. I don't speak Tulsi Gabbard. But that's what I think she's coming up with here. But basically accusing him of treason and all of this stuff. So it just seems so ridiculous that I that, you know, as you pointed out earlier in the show.

1:04:06Yeah. But as you pointed out earlier in the show, who cares? Because guess what? Trump the U.S. He's immune. So you're making a criminal referral for what? But anyway, go ahead. Let's see. Maybe you speak MAGA better than I do.

1:04:20Michael Popok:And that's what Alana, one of our sub stackers or one of our blue sky people said, like, who even gives a crap about this with the immunity decision? Even if Obama did, of course he didn't. Exactly. But you've got the Mueller report, the Durham report, the Senate report, all Senate reports signed off by Marco Rubio, who's now the secretary of state because he was the head of the intelligence committee. The intelligence assessment report all looked at all of the evidence about this and the inspector general's report for the attorney general, including bipartisan, you know, even when MAGA was in back in 2020.

1:04:59Michael Popok:And all of them said the same thing, that there is no collusion with the intelligence community or with the Democrats, certainly not Barack Obama. To do what? And it's, again, as we said at the top of the show when we were talking about how you define things, everybody, everybody knows that the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Iranians, until they were recently bombed, have been working overtime through social media, artificial intelligence, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, to put Americans at each other's throat to make us weaker. And the beneficiary of that, I'm not saying he's working with the trolls directly, but he's what we would call in the law a third-party beneficiary of their activities.

1:06:02Michael Popok:They're rowing in the rowboat in the same direction because the Russians and our enemies, our other enemies, they want to undermine America and make Republicans hate Democrats and Democrats hate Republicans. Because in that seething cauldron, they win. Because we're weaker as a people by the mind games and the mind fuckery. Are we on late night? Of our, this is brainwashing and mind games. This is the Manchurian candidate. And people don't realize it because they're clicking around so many things. It's like, oh, here's a new, you know, whatever. And, oh, look, look at Obama in jail and a fake AI Hillary Clinton saying something.

1:06:52Michael Popok:And they can't discern real from fake. Like right now, Midas Dutch is running a deposition video. I think it's got to be from what came out of the Florida Epstein files. But a deposition where he took the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination when asked if Donald Trump hung out with him with young girls during his deposition in a video. But if you're clicking around the metaverse and the Internet, that looks like anything else that's up on TikTok that's fake or not fake. And our enemies exploit that. And Donald Trump is the beneficiary of it. And they want Trump to be the president of the United States because he creates such division and hatred that they could never dream of creating.

1:07:48Michael Popok:He does more for their cause in Russia than they could ever do on their own. And so it's not collusion in the traditional sense. Like I believe there's, although it could be, operatives within the Trump world who are working and meeting secretly in Gorky Park with the Russians to kind of, that's not that. It's that they are trying to put us at each other's throats. And that's Donald Trump's key to success as well. and so that's what we're watching. This other collusion bullshit, I don't speak MAGA that well, but that's Tulsi Gabbard and that's what they're going to use her for. She's a crash test dummy.

1:08:29Michael Popok:So is Pam Bondi and they're going to continue to use these people as meat puppets to be propagandists for the Trump administration and for Donald Trump personally. That's all he wants around them. That's all he wants around them. That's why he wants Alina Hobbes because they will do, they will do anything. You know, it reminds me of the old lawyer joke that I was told first day of law school by my Duke law professor in contracts. And it stuck with me ever since. I'll just get to the punchline. You know, scientists were using lawyers instead of rats for their scientific experiments and when they had to justify why they were using lawyers instead of rats, the punchline is there's just some things you can't get rats to do.

1:09:20Ta-da.

1:09:22Michael Popok:And so that's all he wants around them. The people that will do literally and say literally anything, the crap that comes out of the social media and communications department for the Trump administration and their rapid response team is eye-poppingly crazy crap propaganda, but it gets mixed in to the whole news cycle. We're going to talk next about that. So I guess the punchline, the upshot is just ignore Tulsi Gabbard. The Trump administration does. Nothing's going to come out of it. A criminal referral. This is just ways to distract, as you said, the golden retriever tennis ball, to distract from a really bad daily news cycle related to Epstein, promoted by Midas Touch and Legal AF.

1:10:10Michael Popok:You want to move on to our sort of media world? Absolutely. What did you take away from Jimmy Kimmel getting threatened, Jon Stewart getting threatened, and Stephen Colbert getting fired? And why don't you pick up with that, and then we can kibitz a little bit about it. I mean, let me start with how much I love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. I mean, I've been watching those shows. I mean, there was a time, and I'm embarrassed to say it, but decades ago, where basically that's where I got my news, you know, because I wanted to hear what they had to say about what's going on in the world. And they're brilliant, and they have done such incredible public service, and they're just fun to watch.

1:10:58So, so I am appalled at what they are doing, what's happening to them. But at the same time, you know, the fact that CBS first started with canning 60 Minutes and, and basically, you know, that was, again, I'm a 60 Minutes watcher. You know, I'm a person of a certain age. I grew up watching 60 Minutes, look forward to their reporting. I think it's an incredible show and they've done incredible pieces throughout for decades. And, and soon as they, CBS basically jettisoned that. And now Stephen Colbert is just unbelievable to me, but honestly, bye-bye CBS. I was the only two things worth watching as far as I'm concerned.

1:11:44So I think what we're watching is we're watching the demise of mainstream media and legacy media. And And Midas Touch was one of the first who really has discovered kind of what the American people are hungry for and looking for. And everybody's trying to play catch up at this point. But I can't wait to see where the Stephen Colbert's and the John Stewart's and everybody else lands because they don't belong in this corporate censorship that clearly is happening. So I'm thrilled in a way that it's happening and welcome, you know, come over to us, you know, come over to this side. And I can't wait to see them unfiltered because if this was filtered, I can't wait to see them unfiltered.

1:12:36But, you know, look, it's going to start happening clearly. And, you know, it's going to happen one way or another. Either they're going to get fired or they're going to die a slow death because nobody watches those channels anymore. Everybody is coming over and wants to see who is, you know, who is it that is going to tell them the truth that doesn't have some shiny, glossy corporate sponsorship, right? You and I podcast wherever we are. I'm in another state on vacation right now sitting in a room, right? And I don't have fancy microphone. I don't have, I've got my earbuds in and that's that, right?

1:13:12And you do the same thing from all over the place. You know, and we tell the truth. We read the things ourselves. We're live right now. I love seeing my sister Jill is in the comments. My, you know, Julie Gaines, a small business owner. She owns Fish's Eddie in New York. I see her in the comments. I love seeing that. I love the questions that are coming up and, you know, that the people are supporting us and they're coming here for this authenticity. the fact that we're engaging with them, the fact that we're breaking news on the air as it's literally happening. Columbia University settled while we're doing this podcast.

1:13:49And that's what's happening. And so they were the ones, but they were the first ones who were basically telling it like it is and telling the truth. And now they're suffering the consequences because what's happening is they're all capitulating to Donald Trump, the way now Columbia University is and others have. So, you know, you're going to see a lot of people are going to, especially with this Epstein thing, just to bring it full circle. I think, you know, the Epstein thing, I think you're going to see a lot. Who are the real people and who aren't and who is willing to call it like it is and stand up to what's happening and who is not?

1:14:31And I think we're seeing it play out right before our very eyes with, you know, with the comedians. And I love that they're all supporting each other, too. It was so great to see them in the audience supporting Stephen Colbert when he did the go F yourself comments.

1:14:44Michael Popok:So, yeah, I've loved, I mean, Colbert in particular, you know, like you said, if you're a certain vintage, I remember when he'd only been on the air a couple of years and he hosted the White House Correspondents Dinner. Nobody really knew who he was outside of the Comedy Central bubble. You know, we knew him as a phony reporter for Jon Stewart. And the memo hadn't gotten out, for instance, that he was really going to play this persona. You know, I'm not talking about the Colbert show now. I mean, when he did on Comedy Central, he just stayed in character. And George W. Bush was the president that was there.

1:15:20Michael Popok:And he had the best line ever. I still repeat it. We knew who he was, but a lot of people in that audience didn't know who he was, including the president. And he got up and he said, Mr. President, I don't know why people in the media are saying that your administration is sinking like the Titanic. It's not sinking. You know, again, he's supposed to be a faux Republican, pre-proto-MAGA Republican. He says, it's not sinking. And everybody like sort of like nodded, like wondering where this is going. He said, your administration is soaring. It's soaring like the Hindenburg. And that line, which made me laugh out loud, it's like 20 years later and I still think about it, sums up Stephen Colbert for me.

1:16:06Michael Popok:And we need those points of view. And if Midas Touch is not the home and Legal AF is not the home, we certainly are in conversation with a number of these people. They have to get off of mainstream media because corporate ownership has corrupted the ability of the subsidiary that's supposed to be a news or comedy channel to have their First Amendment rights and freedom of the press. And, you know, we just saw reporting coming on the air that Jeff Bezos is thinking about buying CNBC to go along with Amazon, to go along with the Washington Post. Another billionaire owns the L.A. Times. The only the only thing that's safe right now is, you know, the New York Times that is owned by the Ock Schulzberger family for the last 170 years.

1:16:59Michael Popok:And they don't give a crap and they're not going anywhere. And so that's why, you know, you can, I don't totally believe everything I read, but I always think it's a good place to start reading what they're reporting. They successfully drive Donald Trump up the wall. Washington Post used to be owned by the Graham family. That's over. CBS used to be left alone when it was an independent company. And it was, as you said, known as the Tiffany Network because they were in the building where Tiffany's was. And Walter Cronkite, home of Uncle Waltie, and Edward R. Murrow, 60 Minutes, Mike Wallace, done.

1:17:37Michael Popok:Done. And the next 60 minutes and the next nightly news is not on corporate-owned media. It's on Midas Touch. It's on Legal AF. It's on Substack, like we have a Legal AF Substack with live reporting going on there. because you and I never look over our shoulder. Nobody tells us what we're going to say. We don't get debriefed by the brothers after a podcast like, well, did you really have to go that far on that last comment? Nobody. We barely know what we're going to say on an episode, let alone clear it with anybody. Who would we clear it with? The first day I'd have to clear it with somebody before or after is my last day on the channel.

1:18:23Michael Popok:Well, I don't have to worry about that on Legal AF, but on Midas. and it would never happen. And that's the safe space that we've created. But now more than ever, we need, this is that pitch there, right? We need to stay on the air. And the only thing we ask for is your thumb to hit the subscribe button on Midas, on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, on Legal AF, the Substack. And then we've got this podcast, this thing that started it all for us called Legal AF. And Legal AF, the podcast started, God, it's like a garage band, right? And now look where we're at. Top 20 in YouTube rankings in the United States, regularly top 50 on the audio version.

1:19:02Michael Popok:But let's be frank, we could use some loving. We could use a little bellows, a little oxygen, more downloads on the audio side, five-star comments and reviews, that kind of thing. on the video side. This is where you're at right now for those that are watching this live record. We could use people joining us, watching us, watching the YouTube, listening to the audio, going back and forth. It matters. We're not done with building because the day that we stop, it's like a shark. The day that we stop moving and growing is the day that we die. And so we'll do our part. We just need, frankly, the help on the other side of the glass.

1:19:43Michael Popok:and we know you like the content because we know it from the comments and from the rankings and the ratings. So this is your opportunity. Go out and hit those buttons that we so desperately need to continue to bring you what you like and what you enjoy on Midas Touch and on Legal AF. And as Karen said, I mean, I've, I don't know, maybe in five years, I probably missed, I don't know, six shows, maybe eight. Karen, the same. You know, we bring in Tina Dahl when one of us gets sick or we're in transit and we're just on a plane. We just can't, short of being on a plane or sick, we are behind the microphone, wherever that may be.

1:20:19Michael Popok:I did hours of podcasting while I was on holiday overseas with my family until I was plus seven hours from my normal time zone. And I was working till one o 'clock in the morning to keep the content coming, to commune with this community that we vibrate on the same frequency because it's so important. So do you, you're running out. Lord knows if people saw what we looked like one minute before we went on the air or where we were, they'd be amazed at what we were able to pull off for a show. And it's all a testament. We do it for the audience because we're so in love, frankly, with the audience.

1:20:55Michael Popok:Right, Karen? Yeah, no, it's the best. I've been sitting here reading the comments during the show, and it's just while you're talking. I am also listening to what you're saying, of course. but I'm reading the comments and it's just, it's what keeps you going, right? And at the end of the day, just to know that we're all part of this amazing community. And I just look forward every Wednesday to being here and being with all of the people who are here with us live tonight and being with you, Popok. So it's just really, really great. So why don't you guys light it up? Hit that heart symbol so Karen and I can see it.

1:21:31Michael Popok:Hit those hearts. It's really, there she is, live and in person. And we got great content. We're doing some great things. I've got a new podcast on Tuesday nights called The Intersection. Midas Brothers finally threw me the keys and said, here, you want a show? Here you go. Tuesday nights at 8pm and that's a new community that we're building there on this Midas Touch YouTube channel as well. So, we've reached the end of another hopefully entertaining and fascinating episode of Legal AF as we sit at the intersection of law, politics, and the defense of our democracy. One of my good friends, Karen Friedman-Ignifolo.

1:22:09Michael Popok:I'm Michael Popok. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.

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