Legal AF Full Episode - 8/16/2025

26:04Ben Meiselas:Everybody, you know, the worst you'll hear is that, you know, we can't take the case. That's the worst you'll hear from Pop-Pop. All right. Quick break. We'll be right back. See you soon.

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29:08Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to our sponsors. Discount codes are in the description below. We've grown with zero outside investors. So if you want to help the Midas Touch Network also grow, support those sponsors. Then Jordy and Popak work out good discount codes for all of you to enjoy those sponsor products and services. All right, let's get back into it. So we talked about what happened in Washington, D.C. Let's go west to California, my state, where Donald Trump federalized the National Guard, sent the Marines into Los Angeles as well. Again, he would send them into like McCarthy Park where there was like summer camps of like Latino kids playing soccer.

29:52Ben Meiselas:You know, he would send them into Home Depot parking lots, still to this day, thing called Operation Trojan Horse. They'd be in the back of Penske trucks. People would be like working and vendors would be selling hot dogs and selling fruit and things like that. You know, it's the South Park version of what went down is not really parody. I mean, it's a cartoon version of what really happens. I mean, maybe at the end when she goes in and she shoots 30 puppies, she shot and killed, as far as we know, one puppy, not 30 puppies at the end. But what happens is these ICE agents, you know, and these militarized police forces, they show up, open up the Penske truck, run and start grabbing people like they're out hunting.

30:38Ben Meiselas:And there are bounties on people. So that's what ICE does. the National Guard and the Marines, they were just treated so horribly by the Trump regime. You know, like they didn't have beds at first and they weren't getting paid at first. And then they had to like sleep on the floor. Then they ended up like there was no bathroom. So they were defecating inside their Humvees.

30:59Michael Popok:By the way, same exact thing as Jan 6th, when he finally sent the National Guard, it was almost the exact same thing. No beds, no hygiene, no, no toilets for the National Guard.

31:10Ben Meiselas:Yeah. So, so that, you know, and that was well, very late. And when it came from, that was, that was very late, you know? And, and so, and then the, what the National Guard and the Marines did was they would stand in front of like the immigration court building in downtown LA. They would just stand there. I was like, what do you, what are you doing? Like, and people were like, we didn't sign up to be in the Marines or the National Guard to be deployed in the United States against Americans. So there was a trial on the Posse Comitatus Act. It was before Judge Breyer, who happens to be the brother of the old Supreme Court Justice Breyer.

31:48Ben Meiselas:I've appeared before this Judge Breyer before when I used to practice law. He's a no-nonsense guy. Popak, take it away. This was a multi-day trial. Lots of witnesses being called. They were under oath. they were so they were being asked questions do you think it's an emergency do you believe that there was an emergency uh uh uh uh yes or no do you think it was an emergency uh uh uh answer the question do you think it was an emergency okay no no it wasn't an emergency i mean you would call him a perry mason moment but it would be uh it would not be perry it would not have been Perry Mason at least had to, you know, ask a few questions to really get there.

32:34Ben Meiselas:Not on the first one.

32:35Michael Popok:And the two stories that we did, one before the break and one now, are linked together. Because the reason that Donald Trump announced the takeover of the police department in D.C. was not because Big Ball's got his ass kicked, although that was interesting. It was because that was day one of the trial that was starting in front of Judge Breyer on the Posse Comitatus Act. And he wanted to be that performative art strongman puppet theater thing. about, oh, I can do whatever I want. Emergency powers, I'm going to take over D.C. But that was the step on the news story of a trial that probably caught him a little bit unaware because back in June, the judge after, because this is the same judge, Judge Breyer, who ruled originally, although it was not upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, three judge panel, he actually enjoined and stopped to block the Trump administration from the takeover, the federalization, or the commandeering, we call it, of the California National Guard, finding it violated the Constitution, it violated the Tenth Amendment, and all sorts of other things.

33:39Michael Popok:But he carved out the Posse Comitatus Act very smartly. He said, I don't need that for my injunction. I need more evidence about the Posse Comitatus Act and get down to it. So I'm going to rule on the injunction on that. Posse Comitatus Act stays with me. This goes up on appeal. So on appeal, you can only rule, I mean, generally, you can only rule on what's in front of you, not what hasn't been decided yet by the trial judge. The Ninth Circuit said, we don't think you're right about the injunction part, about the commandeering part. It went out of their way. There's some twists and turns about that.

34:11Michael Popok:Then that left the Posse Comitatus Act back with the judge. And the judge was like, I want to hear from both sides. Do I still have jurisdiction? They briefed it. He said, OK, I do. So we're going to have a trial in August. And all of a sudden, August rolled up on us, and there was a three-day trial against the Trump administration. Now, the only thing that the Trumpers had that they were trying to argue was that the judge didn't have the power, the jurisdiction, if you will, to stop Trump or to limit Trump because the Posse Comitatus Act, which came out of our Reconstruction period post-Civil War, talked about fines and crimes.

34:55Michael Popok:So it certainly wasn't going to be a criminal case after the immunity decision. So it's talked about fines. It didn't talk about declaratory judgments that judges could enter with their inherent authority or an injunction into the future to stop the future violations of the Posse Convitatus Act. Then what happened in D.C. in real time ended up wafting into the courtroom in San Francisco as an example of smartly raised by California Attorney General's office led by Rob Bonta, which was, we have future harm. Look what they're doing in D.C. You know, that's another example where if you're litigating against the Trump administration, you must carry with you a Wi-Fi printer to have in the courtroom to print out new evidence as it occurs.

35:39Michael Popok:We saw this in the criminal case. We saw the defamation case. We just have to print. here we go. This just came in from from just just moments ago, judge, you know, on the different time time zones in New York and California. And so that's their major argument. It's a procedural argument. You can't do you can't you can't do the crime and you can't do the fines. So you can't really. And the judge says, no, I don't know. No, there was a whole legal argument day on the third day about what are the limits? How can I limit? How can any federal judge limit? And he didn't like the response from the Trump administration is you can't.

36:13Michael Popok:So that did not go over well. The testimony was relatively straightforward. They had a military guy, like a lieutenant general, I think his name was either Grant, it's a great name, about what he was ordered to do and not ordered to do. Because this is all about whether the military might of the United States was used on domestic soil for law enforcement purposes or not, to do arrests. And we had enough examples, photos and pictures of people being arrested by the Marines and detained by the Marines, which would show that they had violated the Posse Comitatus Act. Based on the testimony that was put up, and Adam Klassfeld, who just joined Legal AF as a regular video commentator and contributor, he and I did every morning or every afternoon, day one, day two, day three, because he was in the courtroom virtually.

37:03Michael Popok:There was a zoom of the hearing. And you know, Adam, Adam, Adam's competitive advantage as a legal commentator and contributor is that he's in the courtrooms. You know, he sat through the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, literally in the courtroom. And if he can't get in the courtroom, he zooms into the courtroom. So he had some very good observations about some breathtaking evidence that obviously resonated with the judge. Day one was the California case with their evidence. Day two was basically kind of legal argument and some cross-examination by Donald Trump's side that didn't go well. And day three was the kind of reserve for more legal argument about the Posse Comitatus Act.

37:41Michael Popok:I will give you the bottom line here. I would be shocked, and I will be shocked if it happens, if Judge Breyer rules in favor of the Trump administration and doesn't find a posse comitatus act. I think he's going to find a posse comitatus act violation. He's going to find the proper role of federal courts to rein in and limit an out-of-control president in this arena, that he has the power to declare and to enjoin. And then what's going to happen is there's going to be another emergency application on this ruling back, I think, to the same three-judge panel. I asked Rob Bonta, who interviewed, had an interview with me last week that's up now on Legal AF, about, do you think you're getting the same panel?

38:25Michael Popok:He goes, I think so. He's not sure, but he's pretty sure he's going to get the same panel, which is not a great panel for him. It was a very strong Trumper, a right wings, right of center, moderate sort of guy. And then we hate to say it because we hate to criticize our own, but a sort of weak, at least apparently weak Biden appointee who didn't say a darn thing during the oral argument and didn't really say anything in writing and sided with the other two. It seemed like she got steamrolled a bit. Let's see if that if it changes on the posse comitatus, ultimately something that's going to go to the United States Supreme Court on a fundamental issue, whether it's on an emergency application or it's going to be on the regular dollar.

39:10Michael Popok:We're getting so close now to the opening of the new term for the Supreme Court. We'll be talking about a case or two there that opens the first week in October as they set their schedule now. But that's what just happened. And that's why Trump tried as a distractor to step on the story to go after, you know, what he thought was low hanging fruit in D.C., which, again, was another example of the weakness of his administration. And I'll just leave it on this bed. If he thinks this is working with the American people, about nine different polls in the last three days says it ain't. From Gallup to Pew to Ipso to Reuters, I mean, every poll has said that this is the historically worst performance by a president in history.

39:56Michael Popok:Now, Donald Trump likes to say, well, I'm always under-polled. Yeah, not about your performance, and we're not talking about you up for election. We're just talking about a snapshot. How do the people think about you and your temperament? Terrible. Do they think you're trustworthy? No, by a lot. Do they think you're honest? No, by a lot. Do they think you're a proper role model? No, by a lot. And where has he lost the votes? Under 35-year-old MAGA guys that were wearing red caps before are now abandoning his party in large numbers. And that's why the approval rating is now at 38%. The only thing he seems to be winning on is immigration at the Mexican border.

40:38Michael Popok:But other than that, everything else and the tariffs and the tariff pricing to get to 4 % inflation hasn't even hit yet. Although, although I don't know if you saw this number, fruit and vegetables are up 38 % at the supermarket under the Trump administration. I thought we voted for him to have lower egg prices. I didn't realize we were going to pay 40 % more for fruits and vegetables because Donald Trump doesn't care about the average American voter. All he cares about are the oligarchs and the top half of 1 % in tax cuts.

41:13Ben Meiselas:Michael Popok, too. I mean, this was the party of small government. Don't tread on me. And then you have California Governor Gavin Newsom holding a press conference about how if Texas engages in unlawful gerrymandering, California will respond, respond, not initiate, only respond to the unprecedented nature of a redistricting before the midterms, which Texas wants to do. California Governor Gavin Newsom holds a press conference at the Japanese Museum, which was the site, infamous site, where people were taken to internment camps in World War II, where Japanese Americans were put in internment camps.

42:04Ben Meiselas:And what does Donald Trump do there? He sends the military to harass people outside of Gavin Newsom's speech, like just in the United States of America. He sends these militarized ICE agents and Border Patrol who wear the outfits of military while the governor of the biggest state with the fourth highest GDP in the country is giving a speech. Here's how Fox reported it. Let's play it.

42:36Ben Meiselas:border patrol agents are making arrests illegal immigrants that i i don't know if they were at this press conference if they were in the area but this is a very as john put it we first saw this video a very in-your-face way uh to let you know democrats know that you are going to do your job that you're going to carry out these trump policies um can you just respond to this video that we're watching right now? Yeah, every single one of our ICE and Border Patrol operations is built on information, on investigative work. It's a case and an operation that has been planned because of who they think could be in that area.

43:13Ben Meiselas:So we're in the United States of America. That's in the United States of America. And then you have MAGA Republican Congress member James Comer from Kentucky. I'm James Comer. You know, James Comer, you know, supposed to be Mr. Small Government himself, Mr. State's rights. OK, OK. What does James Comer have to say? Let's play it. Carjacking. We have people mugging people at all hours of the day and it's out of control. So the president had to send in the National Guard. And I think that you've seen just in the last 24 hours, a huge decline in crime. And we're going to support this. We're going to support doing this in other cities if it works out in Washington, D.C.

43:58Ben Meiselas:And again, it's unfortunate, but we spend a lot on our military. Our military has been in many countries around the world for the past two decades, walking the streets, trying to reduce crime in other countries. We need to focus on the big cities in America now, and that's what the president's doing. Yeah. What are you saying? He's saying that we need to focus on the big cities for the United States military to be in American cities. And by the way, they're targeting blue cities with black mayors where crime is down, where the highest crime is in the red states and the red cities, objectively.

44:37Ben Meiselas:And it's the blue states and the blue cities that quite literally fund the existence of the red states. America doesn't exist without California. California gives$80 billion more to the federal government than it takes. Texas takes more than$20 billion than it gives. That is a trend that takes place. blue states fiscally responsible sacrificing for the greater good of this country only to get the middle finger from the red states who then don't play by the rules try to literally destroy the blue states treat the blue states as you heard james comer basically said and on that fox segment letting the Democrats know you could just replace the word Democrats with Taliban, Democrats and Al Qaeda.

45:35Ben Meiselas:That's how Republicans use the words basically interchangeably. Los Angeles, Belusia, right? I mean, that's how they that that's what they're doing right now. And that's why we're in moments where we need to fight back and fight back. We will. And it's why I was grateful that California Governor Gavin Newsom said, look, I think I want to be dealing with gerrymandering right now. You think that's what we're what I want to know. There's so much other stuff I want to be focused on in California, but we have to save our country and California is going to stand up to Donald Trump as the governor. I'm not just going to talk the talk.

46:15Ben Meiselas:I'm going to walk the walk. Here's specifically what I'm going to do. If Texas goes about and unlawfully gerrymanders. We're going to get rid of these Republican districts. We're going to do it in a transparent way. We're going to put a ballot initiative to allow voters in California to vote on new gerrymandered maps before the midterms, and we'll cancel out what they're doing in Texas. And so then you hear the Republicans cry and whine, and they're all like, Gavin Newsom's doing unlawful gerrymandering. Why would Gavin Newsom do this? This is so unfair. Gavin Newsom's trying to take our rights.

46:51Ben Meiselas:That's part of the fascist mindset for these MAGA people. They play that they're sociopaths. So they bully, bully, bully, bully. You punch them back. And then what do they do? They play the victim. And they say, we are the ones being attacked. They're coming after us. Why are they coming after us? Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. It's why you have to constantly go on the offense with them. It's what we do here on the Midas Touch Network. It's what we do here on Legal AF. And we have to empower people with knowledge and tell them what to do. All right. We'll be right back after our last quick break. I want to remind everybody about Michael Popak's law firm.

47:30Ben Meiselas:If you or someone you know has been injured in any accident, catastrophic injuries in particular, call 877-POPAK-AF for a free case review today or visit thepopakfirm.com, 877-POPAK-AF, or visit thepopakfirm.com. Consultation is free. Don't be shy. Give a call and Michael Popak's team will answer that call. You'll get a real human being. Evaluate your case. Wrongful death cases of people that you know. Catastrophic trucking, car accidents. Sexual assault, sexual harassment cases. Reach out to him. Also subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. And subscribe to the Legal AF sub stack. All of those are growing quite well.

48:13Ben Meiselas:We'll be right back. Take our last quick break of the show. home stretch Michael Popak and Legal AFers. I hit my hand pretty hard. Doug D. Ouch.

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51:20Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to all of our sponsors. Discount codes for all those sponsors are in the description below. Lightning round, Michael Popak, talk about the losses. And there was quite a few that Donald Trump was hit with this week. We talked about, you know, some of the, we think he's going to lose in the Northern District of California, Posse Comitatus case. He caved in DC, but there are other cases. And then he does though have that two to one panel of Trump judges in that D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hands him wins there, which are, you know, I don't know, maybe personal wins for him.

52:02Ben Meiselas:But when you eliminate the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, I hate to hate to break it to you, Maga. You're consumers. You're probably not Jeff Bezos. Stop my protection. stop yeah rip me off hidden fees give them to me all those hidden fees check fees i love it bring it airlines you know if you cancel the flight charge me for them

52:32Michael Popok:charge me all right a little thunder before the lightning round because you won't do it so i'm gonna do it everybody go look up national public radio's interview with ben mysalis an amazing interview and just reaching a whole nother audience, but also demonstrates how mainstream media, linear media has finally figured out that there is a thing called the Midas touch network and that there's an audience behind it, a fervent audience behind it. And we, some of us caught it in real time. Some of us caught it later, but an amazing go look up NPR, Ben Micellis interview. This, this legal AF because of our audience just broke the top 20 in all YouTube podcast, regardless of the type of podcast that it is.

53:16Michael Popok:We just hit number 16. That's not me and Ben and Karen. That's you. So we wanted that. We were doing it before when we had 300 people. So you could tell that we're nuts that way. But the fact that we are doing something that resonates, and as I like to say now to sign off of my hot takes, we're now joined at the hip. And together, we will overcome this Trump administration, I assure you. Let me turn to the lightning round about the wins. And they're really important. AG, General Bonta, had a very good observation. I pointed this question and posed this question to him. I said, General Bonta, there are people in our audience that are beleaguered and sort of ground down about the losses at the Supreme Court.

54:02Michael Popok:Why do these cases matter? The 50 cases that the attorneys general have filed, the 80 cases that one organization, Democracy Forward, which now has a playlist on Legal AF YouTube, has filed against the Trump administration. The hundreds of others that have been filed were up to over almost 500 cases filed against the Trump administration in the first seven or eight months. The dozens and dozens and dozens of injunctions and new injunctions issued. Why does that matter if there's a couple of cases that we don't like, of course, that are going to lose the Supreme Court? And he reminded our audience of how they are winning substantially, that most justice, 95, 98 percent of justice is done at the district court trial court level.

54:43Michael Popok:Cases don't even get to appeal. And even on the funnel, when the cases get to appeal, the 10 or 15 percent of those cases in Trump style cases, in normal cases, less than that get to an appellate level. then only 0.001 % end up at the United States Supreme Court. Even if you add together the emergency applications and the regular docket of the Supreme Court, you're talking about 100 cases out of like tens of thousands between state and federal court that are filed every year. Now, I'm not saying they're not important. They are important to our democracy. But the reason we as an audience and as the newsmakers, the people that are in the trenches doing the actual filing and litigating and arguing why it matters, why we run into the burning building to save democracy and not the other way is because of the things I'm going to talk about right now.

55:34Michael Popok:And I think a great blueprint for what just happened is the National Endowment for Democracy case. That was an order, a preliminary injunction issued by Daphne Friedrich, who's a Trump appointee in the District of Columbia. Now, and she also took a not so subtle, not so subtle criticism she included in her new order. This was about the National Endowment of Democracy, which sounds like an amazing organization and one Donald Trump would hate. It's about promoting democracy, the U.S.-style democracy around the world. And it's not, just because it has democracy in it, it's not just the Democrats.

56:14Michael Popok:There's three major core institutes that Congress funds that Donald Trump has been holding up the funding related to. There's the National Democratic Institute. Okay, that's the Democrats. But there's also the International Republican Institute, the Center for International Private Enterprise and Solidarity Center. And what happened is Congress allocated$300 million and a first tranche of almost$100 million. And Trump got in the way and said, we're not going to allow that drawdown of trying to put them out of business. So that right on within 90 days of the payments not being made to them, this nonpartisan group, they filed their lawsuit in March.

56:57Michael Popok:We're now in August. Look how far it's been. Here's the pot shot. Here's the shot across the bow that the judge took, a Trump appointee, about what this group does. It says that this group, this is on page two of the order, is to promote the long-term U.S. interest by fostering stability. Now compare this to Trump. Countering authoritarian influence and reducing the drivers of extremism and migration. Okay. If this organization wasn't U.S.-based, it would be focused on the Trump administration because the Trump administration is all about instability, authoritarian influence, and extremism. And I don't think she pulled that out of her hat and didn't put it in the first two pages of her order.

57:48Michael Popok:I think it was for a reason. And what happened is she ordered by preliminary injunction that the$95 million and the funding start flowing back to this entity ASAP. ASAP. We know Donald Trump hates it. You know, it's DEI. He hates it, but we see the ramifications of it. He hates diplomacy. He hates humanitarian aid. He's hollowed out the State Department. He's fired its employees. He's defunded the State Department. He's closed consulate offices all around the world. He's turned people who normally would go towards democracy and our version of capitalism away from us and towards the Russians, the North Koreans and the Chinese.

58:31Michael Popok:OK, because he's eliminated this. This institute is about promoting American ideals worldwide. We are the leader of the free world or we used to be. But that's where Donald Trump says, how much money can I save? Billions of dollars I can put somewhere else. I can give it to my friends. I can create a sovereign wealth fund and start investing in Intel with your money, start investing in rare earth mining companies with your money, start investing in Chinese chips with your money. Let's do it. And that's a problem because there's more to running a country than running a business, even though you did a great job at the start of this podcast about he's running it like a regular Trump business, meaning we'll be going bankrupt anytime soon.

59:12Michael Popok:We're like Trump steaks. That's where we're at at this point as a nation. That's why everyone was like, we need a businessman running America. Not everybody. And I was like, no, because the country, the United States and its levers and its requirements and the policies that it needs to enforce for the American people is not running a business. You can't make everything reduced to a dollar amount. You want to sell chips that will undermine our national security in NVIDIA? Just give me 15 percent and you can do it. No, there are just things that go beyond that. And that's where we now have an example of folding, because even though the front page news was injunction entered and people were like, oh, just appeal it.

59:59Michael Popok:He didn't appeal it. And now the Department of Justice has just announced that they're releasing the hundred million dollars to the National Endowment for Democracy. And that's not the only example. General Bonta, when he was with us, he said, and so did Democracy Forward, billions for education have now been released because of lawsuits. So there's certain ones that Donald Trump fights on and defies federal judges about. But there's a lot where he just folds and the money starts to flow. So we have that win. Then you've got judges like Judge Kaplan, who knows Donald Trump well, because he's the judge that presided over both E.G.

1:00:40Michael Popok:and Carroll cases and where she's got$100 million of judgments. By the way, on that, just as long as we're doing a speed round, I just had Robbie Kaplan on Legal AF with an interview that's going up now. E.G. Carroll just had a huge win. Her$83.5 million judgment was just affirmed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. There's one more appeal, which is coming later this week, the order. Once that happens, the only thing standing between E.G. and Carroll, justice and$100 million, which she said she's going to donate to causes that it's going to drive Donald Trump crazy, is the United States Supreme Court.

1:01:13Michael Popok:So we're going to have to see what happens there. So that's another win for justice. But Justice Judge Kaplan had a case in front of him about the poor living conditions, as you said, for the National Guard. But this is for immigrants picked up in this removal hunt of the Trump administration in Manhattan. And they're reporting, you know, unsanitary conditions, unclean jail cells, no mattress whatsoever, sleep on a hard concrete floor. And Judge Kaplan said, no, three times a day cleaning, get a mat on the floor for these people, get proper hygiene and sanitation in there and report back to me on a weekly basis as to what's happening.

1:01:53Michael Popok:This is what's going on with the wins. And it's over. Get this number, Ben. The winning streak right now for those opposed and defiant to the Trump administration is over 90 percent, even in the 80 percentile for the appeals. Now, there's one thing we've got to keep an eye on, and I hate to say it, but when there's a Trumper in the woodpile, we're going to lose. And if there's two Trumpers in the woodpile, I mean, if there's two Trumpers on a three-judge battle, we're going to lose, and Trump's going to win, no matter how devastating it is to the American people. And we knew on this random panel of Katzis and Rayo and Pallard, because they don't just get pulled in for one case, they get pulled in for several cases.

1:02:35Michael Popok:And two cases got assigned to that panel with Katzis and Rayo, the Trumpers and Pallard not. One of them was the Jeb Boesburg case in which Jeb Boesburg found there was probable cause to find the Trump administration in criminal contempt for being lied to about the planes going to El Salvador with 200 people on board without due process and his order to ground the planes, which was violated. And the judge also said, I'm going to start making referrals over to bar associations for bar licenses maybe being pulled because I was lied to. Well, now the Katzis-Reyo team have gotten together on Bozberg, have said, no, you were completely out of line.

1:03:18Michael Popok:You can't continue to hold the Trump administration accountable, even though we know for whistleblowers that you were lied to effectively. We know that there is defiance going on in your courtroom, violating all rules of order and inherent authority of judges. But you were wrong, Jeb Boesburg. That's how far the Trump judges now go. They're now wrapping the knuckles of chief judges of federal circuits or districts in telling them you were wrong because you should have allowed yourself to be lied to. And now they've just come out with their new ruling again with Pallard in the dissent. Rayo and Katzis, that team again, destroying, allowing the destruction of the Consumer Protection Board, Finance Protection Board, created by Barack Obama.

1:04:06Michael Popok:One of the first leaders of it was Elizabeth Warren to protect Americans from predatory lending practices, credit card practices, airline practices, anything that was consumer facing. We had regulators already for the industry, the Securities and Exchange Commission, banking regulators, the Office of Currency. We had OFAC, all sorts of regulators that were against or regulating the industry. But nobody was protecting the consumer, really nobody. I mean, states had some consumer boards, Better Business Bureau, but nothing at the federal level. And after examples of consumers, and that's you, MAGA, along with us, getting screwed by predatory lending practices, usurious interest rates, payday loans, like you said, airlines screwing you on the tarmac.

1:05:01Michael Popok:I just had that happen to me. With no bill of rights. But this is not to protect big business. This is to protect the consumer. But here's, this is how, wait, I'm just going to do it this way. This is the first line of the of Katz's order destroying the Consumer Finance Protection Board. Here's the this is all you need to know. This is line one of his order to promote the president's deregulation agenda. The Consumer Finance Financial Protection Bureau undertook a number of steps to downsize. Okay, that's how Katz starts off his order. As if one day the consumer board got up and said, hey, you know what we're going to do?

1:05:50Michael Popok:We're going to downsize and stop protecting Americans. We'd like to, the money you want to send us through Congress? No, we don't want it. We reject it. The people that are employed here? No, we don't need them either. That's how they, like all passive voice, instead of Donald Trump just screwed his own electorate and others along with it by getting rid of consumer protection that we should all have as a matter of right and dignity. And he got his two Trumpers, thank God there's not more Trumpers on the DC Court of Appeals when it comes to that to allow for this downsizing. So it's gonna be basically downsized out of existence.

1:06:27Michael Popok:And the way they did it was always so underhanded. It's always like, well, we'd love to get to this issue, but you really don't have standing because you're the employees that, and you have your own very limited rights as employees now, federal employees, to argue about your dismissal. And you should go do that in some administrative civil service capacity, even though civil service protection has been eliminated under the Trump administration. But you should go do that, even though there's no real relief there. And it's not really a final order under the Administrative Procedures Act, so we really don't have any jurisdiction.

1:07:01Michael Popok:And they spent 50 pages telling us why. Pallard wrote a dissent that said, are you effing kidding me? This is my artist's rendering, as she often does. Now, this is going to get to the Supreme Court. The question is, really for you, Ben, I've seen Roberts, it seemed like a distant Roberts, who saved Obamacare and then got pilloried and attacked by the pre-MAGA Tea Party and Republicans at the time. Do you think he will save the Consumer Financial Protection Board when it gets to the Supreme Court? No, definitely not. Well, good night, everybody.

1:07:42Ben Meiselas:No, I mean, he's an awful human being. I mean, no. I mean, I think the one thing he did was, you know, help was, was the Obamacare thing, but that was about it right now. The Supreme court is, and they're going to do what I think they've done before in all of these things, Popak, you know, which is just try to even to your point, any procedural way, the Supreme court can get out of making a ruling that exposes that they gave Trump absolute immunity to commit all these kind of criminal acts, they are going to do. So they're going to let him do most of the stuff. There's about a 5 % stuff that they won't let him do, like we saw with the Brego Garcia, you know, sending someone to a concentration camp in El Salvador when there was an order saying you can't do that.

1:08:33Ben Meiselas:The Supreme Court will not allow the Trump regime to do that. If the birthright citizenship question on the merits is birthright citizenship constitutional, while Trump tries to argue it's not, that gets to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will say birthright citizenship is in the Constitution. Yes, it is in the Constitution. It's protected. Trump, you can't do that. But they will try to do any procedural victory around the injunctive parts and all these other things to hand Trump, you know, to try to get through these next four years, which is a very myopic way of viewing it because Trump views this as a dictatorial takeover for more than four years.

1:09:18Ben Meiselas:And now it's incumbent upon we, the people who are going to be the ones that need to put pressure on this regime to leave. We're going to have to make sure we come out in droves for the midterms, but then be the pressure to get this regime out of there in massive numbers like we've never seen in the United States in 2028 when Trump and Vance and these fascists refuse to leave. That's coming. That will be there. One final point I want to make, though, and it's about E. Jean Carroll. You mentioned her briefly. When I interviewed her, she also said that she would be donating the money to various causes.

1:09:58Ben Meiselas:And this may make our viewers angry or upset, but I think she should keep the money because she was a victim of something so horrific and horrendous. And I appreciate the kind of selflessness there that she says she wants to donate it. But she went through so much in her life and she was so harmed and sexually assaulted and defamed over and over her again. Her injury is a real injury. And, you know, she could do whatever she wants with it, but I just feel that she deserves it. She deserves it for what she's been through. And it always seems like when a Democrat or non-Republican gets in, whoever, just someone who's not Trump and Republican MAGA, when they prevail or when they're injured and there's a war to restore them, it's always like, well, where are you going to donate it?

1:11:06Ben Meiselas:What are you going to do? Or how are you going to do it or whatever? But on the other hand, when it's a Republican who's doing something bad, it's like, oh, of course they're going to take it. Of course. What do you think they're going to do? I don't know. And to me, it just creates an asymmetry. creates an asymmetry. I don't think she should feel bad, you know, that she has to give this, you know what I mean? And I'm not sure that's how she feels.

1:11:27Michael Popok:Yeah, I had her on after, after you. I had her on a couple of weeks ago, and I mentioned your back and forth with her. I'll tell you where, it's hard to speak for her because she's so courageous and so honorable. I think it stems from why she brought the suit and how she doesn't want to live her remaining life. She's in her 80s. She doesn't want to live her life as a victim. And she has accomplished, she says she's accomplished everything she's ever wanted to accomplish in life. She brought Donald Trump to justice. There's nobody you and I will be talking about that has$100 million worth of judgments against Donald Trump that's going to likely collect, like E.

1:12:06Michael Popok:Jean Carroll. But she never wants somebody else to write her narrative or write her book for her. And so this is what she wants to do with the money. And Robbie Kaplan just told me in an interview that's up right now on Legal AF, that at least as it relates to the first judgment, her firm's not even taking any money. It's not even, it's completely pro bono. Now, I think she's going to make a little on the larger judgment. And then there's a huge net amount that'll be to E. Jean Carroll. Look, I'm with you. She definitely deserves it as a victim of sexual abuse and horrendous defamation. But this is E.

1:12:40Michael Popok:Jean, this is who, you just have to I spent a few minutes with her to see that this is the way she wants to lead her authentic life and not be a victim.

1:12:47Ben Meiselas:No, there's no doubt about it. And she's such a courageous and honorable person. And it's such an incredible thing for her to do that. And it does set an incredible example. But I just think about what she went through and what she's been through. Horrible stuff. But but fighting and taking and showing that anybody can can fight back against this regime. If she can do it, as she says, you know, she goes, you know, I'm just one lady. If I can do it, think about what you can. I want to thank everybody for watching this episode of Legal AF. Michael Popak, always a great pleasure to do this with you and to be here with our audience on Legal AF.

1:13:27Ben Meiselas:A reminder, if you or someone you know has a case, if you've been injured in a catastrophic car accident or a trucking accident or sexual assault victim, or if you know someone who's been the victim in a wrongful death case, see if you have a case. Don't be shy. Reach out to Michael Popak. Check out Michael Popak's law firm. Popak, where do they reach out to? What's the?

1:13:54Michael Popok:That's easy. It is right there. 1-877-POPOC-AF and thepopocfirm.com. I just was talking to the people that are involved with me in this, like the back office and the administrators and all. And, you know, the three big areas where our Legal AF and Midas Touch Network are coming to us, I'm saying two, three cases a day, are auto accident, medical malpractice, and what we call civil rights and other type of sexual assault, sexual discrimination cases. I mean, we're getting a lot of other cases, too. We're representing, as you know, we have the honor of representing a family of a flight attendant who was downed and killed in the collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and the American Airlines jet eight days into the Trump administration over the Potomac.

1:14:36Michael Popok:So we have that as well. But those are the three core areas that seem to be for all over the country. I have a map that tells me where the legal efforts are might as mighty, just just just geographically where they're coming from. It literally is in all 50 states.

1:14:50Ben Meiselas:Pull that up one more time, Salty, just so everybody can get the phone number one more time. 877-POPOC-AF, 1-877-POPOC-AF or thepopocfirm.com. Thepopocfirm.com or 1-877-POPOC-AF. Thanks, everybody, for watching. Thank you to our sponsors. We'll see you next time on Legal AF. Shout out Legal AF for a shout out Midas Mighty.

1:15:18Thank you.