Legal AF Full Episode - 8/27/2025

27:19And that has been ruled to be OK. And that is not considered extortion, that somebody takes life instead of death. Right. So I don't know that the Supreme Court is going to view this any differently if it gets to that point. But I think there are plenty of other grounds that the judge can rule that this is selective and vindictive prosecution. And really, I mean, I've just never seen anything like it. We're not talking about someone accused of a serious crime. We're talking about someone who's accused of transporting people voluntarily. Right.

27:51Michael Popok:It's a six month sentence in Tennessee, even if it were proven. So we're going to talk about Donald Trump's vindictiveness. He couldn't get Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, to step down. And now he sees an opportunity to take control of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. So the attack on the Federal Reserve, we're going to pick up with that, and Lisa Cook fighting back and the resistance related to that. Maps, maps, maps. You're going to learn more about Utah and what happened there. The NAACP filing a lawsuit about the Texas maps. And California already winning, after 48 hours, a lawsuit that was filed by a law firm affiliated with the head of the Civil Rights Division of Trump's Department of Justice.

28:41Michael Popok:Hmm, sounds like a conflict. We'll talk more about it. And then finally, Trump is on a losing streak of epic proportion. We say that every week because he is on federal courts. He loses in Maryland in front of a Trump judge, and he lost in Pennsylvania related to Alina Haba. We'll bring all that together. But first, we're going to talk about how to support Legal AF minus Touch Network and all of that. Because people do ask. I mean, we've been doing this for five years now. and I don't want people's eyes to gloss over or glass over. We're independent. We don't have a corporate parent that tells us what to do.

29:19Michael Popok:That's a good thing. We don't have fundraisers. We don't have outside investors. We don't have a paywall. So the way to support us, if you like the work you do, and we're all here together, we're going to get a couple hundred thousand people watching this and a lot more on audio as well. But the way to support us is simple. Subscribe to the Midas Touch Network. Subscribe to Legal AF, the YouTube channel that we founded less than a year ago. It's already going to hit about 800 ,000, I think, in the next week or so. 240 million people have viewed the work on Legal AF YouTube channel. Come there, hit that subscribe button.

29:58Michael Popok:That's easy. Then we've got this podcast, which is because of you. We're just doing our part on this side of the glass, but you're on the other side of the glass and we have an amazing community here that we're so proud to represent. Top 15 or so in YouTube podcasts of all kinds, top 50 on audio side of Apple and more love on both, more downloads on audio, more watching on YouTube. That really helps us along with comments. Legal AF Substack is also up and running. I'm doing two lives a day on Legal AF Substack. There it is. If you don't know anything about Substack, come on over, check it out.

30:39Michael Popok:You'll find any of your hobbies or interests. Somebody is doing amazing writing on a page dedicated to the things that you're interested in. And if the thing you're interested in is Legal AF, wait till you come over there. Not only do we have this podcast commercial free up there eventually, but we also have the live reporting. I can bring people together in a huddle with three, fourth, 5 ,000 people and just talk about things that just happened in a way that I can't do in the podcast or I can't do on Legal AF, the Legal AF, the YouTube channel. But together, you put all these pieces together and this is the way to support all that we do.

31:17Michael Popok:And then finally, we've got sponsors that Jordi helps curate, that we test out, that we like. I know this is a tight time for disposable income, but if it's something that you think based on what you're watching, it'd be something you'd be interested in, we've added them, we encourage you. they're here to support what we do. They know generally what we're all about, but there's no censorship here, but we're so proud to have this group of sponsors with us. So here's a word from our sponsors. Fall is planting season, but did you know that many plants and trees actually do better when planted this time of year?

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34:15Michael Popok:Miracle is so confident in their product, it's backed with a 30-day money-back guarantee. So if you aren't 100 % satisfied, you'll get a full refund. Upgrade your sleep with MiracleMade. Go to trymiracle.com slash legal AF and use the code legal AF to claim your free three-piece towel set and save over 40 % off. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash legal AF to treat yourself. Thank you, MiracleMade, for sponsoring this episode. Welcome back to Legal AF, the podcast. Karen Friedman-Nifolo and Michael Popok All right, let's talk about the Federal Reserve, not because we want to, but because we have to, and Donald Trump's assault on it.

34:57Michael Popok:There's a reason you don't want, Karen, presidents controlling their fiscal policy, right? Their tariff policies, their budget and all of that. The statistics and economic models and metrics that come out to measure the success of the Trump economy and also control the monetary policy, which is the spigot of money that comes in the money flow in the economy based on the interest rates. Because you don't want one person with their hand on all of those things. The economy doesn't want that. The American people don't want that. And because the threat is, just as you see it in countries where the president of those countries controls monetary policy, like in Turkey and in other places, and Nixon when he got control of the Fed back in the 70s, which looks to be Donald Trump's model, inflation goes through the roof.

35:50Michael Popok:And that's something that we will get hit with long after Donald Trump and MAGA are gone. So you want an independent Federal Reserve setting interest rate and monetary policy so that they can balance the twin goals of the Federal Reserve set by Congress, which is a full employment or as much as full employment as we can get, and keep inflation under control. That's their two main things that they need to do. They do it through a seven-member Board of Governors and a 12-member, which is the seven plus five more, Federal Open Markets Committee. And they meet once a month to set interest rates. It's been driving Donald Trump – I'd say drive him crazy, but he came in crazy.

36:36Drives him around the bend more because they've refused to cut rates.

36:41Michael Popok:And he's doing all sorts of crazy things that are hurting the American people at the grocery store, at the doctor's office, at the fill in the blank, around their kitchen table, in his tariff proposals and his budget, in cutting$3 trillion out of social services, throwing 100 ,000 federal workers on the streets. And all this is having an impact. Prices are going way up. jobs, job, people that hire are stopping, stopping their hiring. The economy is rolling backwards. I'm not talking about the stock market, talking about the economy rolling backwards. And these are all bad things. And Donald Trump wants to wallpaper over that by getting his hands through his governors on the interest rate and lower it cheap money.

37:33Michael Popok:He thinks at least for the time that he's in office will help him with all of these policies. And so he took a shot at the Federal Reserve Chairman, Jay Powell, and Jay Powell, all five foot six of him, 130 pounds of him, stood up to the big bad wolf of Donald Trump and said, go away. I'm here till May of 2026 as the chairman. And we and the governors and the board and the economists here are not going to not going to take it. But there are a couple of Trumpers that are on the board now. There's going to be a third Trumper on the Board of Governors. And Donald Trump sees an opportunity to go after the only black woman who's ever been appointed to the Board of Governors, Lisa Cook, on some phony claim, as far as I know, I mean, from what I can see anyway, that she took out two loans on her houses and designated them primary residences to get a cheaper interest rate.

38:33Michael Popok:And then right on cue, Bill Pulte, you know, who's a buddy of Donald Trump's, big donor, Nepo baby from the Pulte homes, pardon me, construction business, who's now heading Freddie May and Fannie Mac, those mortgage, not servicing entities, but mortgage promoting entities, you know, made a whistleblower complaint against him and Letitia James and Adam Schiff, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And now, of course, right on cue, they want her to step down, take a leave of absence, quit, and give Donald Trump another seat on the Federal Reserve. Why don't you pick it up from there and Abby Lowell representing her and all that good stuff?

39:16Yeah, well, I learned a lot preparing for this segment about the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve boards, the board of governors, and how they are appointed for a certain number of years. I think it was 12 or 14 years. And they, it's a 14-year term, and it's staggered. Yeah, there's seven of them. And so every two years, one expires. And the way that, the reason they do it like that is so that it's not partisan, so that policies that they can implement are for the health of the whole country, not at the whim of whatever party is in office. And so it was really interesting to just learn about it in general and to keep it nonpartisan.

39:59And there's a reason why the dollars has always historically been the strongest in the country and in the world, sorry, and why it is that every business does, every legitimate business always wanted to do business around the world in US dollars. It's because it was stable. It was not political. It was not partisan. And it's largely due to things like this. And so it was customary, for example, that if somebody was in office, it's customary if someone's term expires, but they were appointed by a Republican and a Democrat's now in office, but they were good at their job, they get reappointed again.

40:39It's not like this was always something that was replaced with your political cronies, something Donald Trump is changing. And I think that is not a good thing for our economy. I don't think this should be partisan and it never has been. And nobody has thought it should be. So the only way Trump can do it is for cause. There has to be a you can only fire someone if there's a for cause, which has always been defined as gross misconduct. So what you described, Popak, what the allegation is, is that she bought two houses, like a vacation house or two different residences. I don't know how much time she spent in each or what.

41:19And that she checked a box on a mortgage application saying both were her primary residence in order to get the claim, the allegation is to get a more favorable interest rate. And what struck me as ironic in all of this, if that's all she did, I mean, who knows? That just seems ridiculous to me. But what is ironic is when you think about Trump's civil fraud case, it was all about manipulating real estate to get favorable loans or to inflate the value to get a loan or deflate the value of the same property to pay lower taxes. So it just seemed really ironic that he's now saying this makes her unfit for doing something like that, if she even did it.

42:06But the bottom line is she hired Abby Lowell, who is going to take this to court and he's going to fight it. She's not stepping down. So this is going to be fought. And we'll see to be determined what happens here.

42:19Michael Popok:She's on till 2038. And that drives Donald Trump crazy. She was the last appointed by Biden. She got confirmed by Kamala breaking a tie. It was a very, it looked like a very anti-minority vote by MAGA. She's an accomplished PhD in economics. They're like, she doesn't have any, you know, monetary policy, economic. Are you effing kidding me? Have you seen the people that Donald Trump has appointed in these various positions? The Department of Defense is headed by a Fox and Friends weekend anchor. His name is Pete Hegseth. The head of our national intelligence is by a congresswoman named Tulsi Gabbard, who people suspected was a Russian asset.

43:05Michael Popok:The head of our head, our chief public health officer, is an anti-science, non-doctor person who's anti-vax and conspiracy theorist named RFK Jr. And you're telling me she's got the wrong Ph.D.? I mean, enough. I would give them more credit if they would just stand in front of a microphone and say the following. We want to get control of the Federal Reserve. We think we can go after her and get rid of her. And therefore, politically, we don't because she's not voting on rates the right way for us. And we want to take down the Board of Governors. And we want to gain control of the Federal Reserve, a la Nixon.

43:44Michael Popok:Just say it out loud. You know, it would just it would be I mean, it would be for a less interesting show for us. But at least we'd have, you know, if we lived in a society where they had to tell the truth, it would be a quite different truth than what we're hearing from here. And it matters, you know, the independence of the Federal Reserve. I just did a hot take on Legal AF YouTube about the undermining of the investability in America. We have flight capital used to come into America from other countries, like rich people in destabilized countries. would take their money and put it into the stable environment of America, real estate businesses, treasury notes, and the rest.

44:27Michael Popok:But now we have flight capital. It's leaving. It's avoiding American investment. Billions of dollars are being invested in funds that are not invested in America. Look, we have a$3 trillion, is that the right number? $3 trillion debt? No, We have a$30 trillion debt and$20 trillion of it is owned by foreign entities. Two-thirds of our debt is in the hands of four. And these are the same people that we are bashing and tariffing to death. And all they're going to do is pull the – they are our creditors. And they're just pulling the plug. We're just pulling the plug on our own creditors and making the United States not a place where people want to invest.

45:15Michael Popok:And I'm not even talking about the Canadians that obviously don't want to invest here and the other countries. But the private sector and the financial markets are like turning their back on the United States. So while he might be extracting some billions of dollars, Donald Trump, in tariffs, forced tariffs, he's losing on the other end an equal dollar amount of foreign investment that's not coming into the United States and turning away. And everybody says, the stock market, NVIDIA. Well, NVIDIA didn't do great today because even they couldn't keep it up as a driver for the stock market. But if you invested the same$100 in the U.S.

45:53Michael Popok:market since Donald Trump took over and you put it instead in Latin America emerging markets, you double your money. So the stock market here has been okay under Trump, but not better than certain markets in Europe and Asia and in South America. And that's all part of this. So get your grubby, greasy hands off the Federal Reserve and its independence. And I'm glad Abby Lowell, who's representing Letitia James, is also representing Lisa Cook as they drum up these false, I would think false, mortgage claims. and why is no, I said this recently, why is there not one Republican, at least to show that they're bipartisan?

46:39Michael Popok:Why is there Republicans that are cheating on their taxes? Where are the Republicans that are claiming a home as their primary residence when it isn't? It's just the Democrats? It's just these four? Come on. The American people see through this. As you said, grand juries can see through, you know, inauthenticity and lies. And the American people are going to have the right to do exactly that come the midterm election. And as Donald Trump knows that, he's trying to steal seats. So when we come back from our next break, I want to talk about Utah, Texas, and California and the seats there and the Trump losses related to his attempt to attack the federal judiciary over and over again and do an end run around the Senate in his confirmation process for his U.S.

47:23Michael Popok:attorneys. But we're going to take another quick break. Take a moment, subscribe here, Midas Touch. Subscribe, Legal AF YouTube channel, which I curate. I got a dozen contributors over there. We're doing 10 videos a day, podcasts, and the rest. And you can help us out by hitting that subscribe button. And then, of course, Legal AF sub stack. It's only a couple of months old. We're going to hit about 100 ,000 subs there very, very soon. and all the contributors from Legal AF are coming over to the Substack and doing work there. And I'm doing two lives a day over on Legal AF Substack as well. If you don't know what Substack is, go over there, check it out.

48:05Michael Popok:I think you'll like it even not just for law and politics, but for anything in your life, you'll find an amazing, amazing landing page there for things like that. And then we've got our sponsors, our pro-democracy sponsors. And here's another word from them. You know, as much time as I spend prepping, reading and recording for Legal AF, I didn't realize how much sitting all day was dragging me down physically and mentally. By the end of the day, I felt stiff, foggy, and worn out. That's why I started using this episode's sponsor, Uplift Desk. Total game changer. It's not just about standing. It's about moving more, improving posture, and keeping my energy up throughout the day.

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50:36Michael Popok:The only way to get 20 % off is to go to joindeliteme.com slash Legal AF and enter code Legal AF at checkout. That's joindeliteme.com slash Legal AF and code Legal AF. Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Legal AF YouTube, Bitest Touch, Legal AF Substack, all the great ways. And help this podcast download if you're a watcher. Watch if you're a listener on all places where our podcast is platformed. Karen, let's talk about maps, maps, maps. I used to love maps as a kid. Donald Trump's decided that that's the way to fame and fortune at the midterms, steal seats from other Americans.

51:23Michael Popok:Let's redraw the maps. I'm like, the census was in 2020. This is 2024. We're now redrawing maps to cut out black and brown people and Democrats, and it's getting ridiculous. And now, where we don't have the political muscle, like Texas, despite a valiant effort by 50 Democrats who left to break the quorum, those maps are getting approved, have been approved. But now there's lawsuits, right? Because once you get the maps approved, boom, then it's time for the lawsuit. So we've got the NAACP has filed their lawsuit against the Texas maps, which subtracts five seats from the Democrats, just crazy numbers.

52:09Michael Popok:Remember, we're trying to add up to a house here for Congress and just automatically give five seats to the Republicans. New seats, terrible. But then Gavin Newsom, showing bravery, political courage, leadership, tryouts for 2028. He got his legislature together and they decided, well, why don't we add five seats for the Democrats and neutralize Texas? And that's going up on a referendum. We'll talk about a lawsuit that was filed on that. Utah, we got a judge, a state court judge who's ordered new maps by November, before November. So you got all these things going on. So Carol, what did you pick up so far from all of this sturm and drang over mapmaking and gerrymandering and seats for congressional representatives?

53:04I mean, this is really complicated because gerrymandering is where you redraw maps to try. And in theory, the good part about gerrymandering is you do it so that you can be more inclusive and give people, for example, minorities a vote and a seat at the table, and who might not otherwise because they're in the minority. And so gerrymandering, it's not a great word, but it can be a thing that has good outcomes if it's done for good purposes. And it's been held to be constitutional and legal in various cases. But there's something called the Voting Rights Act that specifically says you cannot do it, you're not allowed to do it if you are doing it to discriminate racially.

54:01And that is just not okay. And that to intentionally diminish the power of certain racial or other minorities, you're not allowed to do that. And so there's going to be litigation about that and to see if that's what they're doing. And it's clear that is what's happening in Texas. You know, look, I have mixed feelings about what's going on because I still kind of subscribe to the Michelle Obama, if they go low, we go high. I don't love this whole, okay, they did it, so we're going to do it. We're going to fight back. I just feel like we're being dragged down into the mud. I get the argument. Don't take a knife to a gunfight.

54:37But I say, I don't know. I just don't like it. I don't like that we are devaluing ourselves by essentially doing, I don't like the way certain politicians and Democrats are talking. They're talking like Trump. It's like, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're doing Trump energy back at him and I don't love it. So I do think it's probably necessary, but in some ways it just also, I just have very mixed feelings. Cause yes, of course we can't lose. We have to win and we have to win not at all costs, but at whatever costs we can, but at this, but it does take away a certain argument that we can say, look, you're, you're not doing the right thing if we do it too.

55:20So So I have mixed. I'm just being honest.

55:22Michael Popok:I'm less mixed than you are, as you know, from my intersection last night. We're at war. I agree with Gavin Newsom. We've turned as many cheeks as we possibly can. I've run out of cheeks to turn. We have to play the cards that we've been dealt. And it's great to be, what's Gavin's phrase for it? It's great to be a liberal of feats. But we've got to, it's not even fight fire with fire. We got to fight fire with fire for sure, because we don't have time to put it out with water. Like there's no time. Time is a wasting. And we're going to have to use every, every thing that we can do, every tool in our tool bag to defend this democracy and representative form of government.

56:07Michael Popok:And, you know, I don't want to look back, frankly, two years from now and say, oh, we lost and we lost the house again, setting us up badly for the 2028. But it was a good college try. Don't you think we saved our morals and our ethics and we could be proud of ourselves? Like, I don't want to have that speech. I don't disagree. Look, I agree with what you're saying. I do. I mean, we are at war. And the stakes, what's at stake is our democracy. That being said, I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but that being said, we should be able to win over the hearts and minds of people. We shouldn't have to play dirty to win.

56:49And that's what's frustrating to me is why are the Democrats having such a hard time winning the hearts and minds? Why are we losing that to begin with? And instead, now we have to fight back and fight back dirty and whatever. We'll do it because we have to do it because we have to win because our democracy is at stake. But that's what that's what frustrates.

57:10Michael Popok:Well, that's a good debate. Let's have that debate. The Democratic brand based on polling is in the toilet. It's also hard to enhance your brand if you are in the party, if you're the party out of power, because you don't you're not able to pass laws to help the American people. You're not able to hold hearings to show the depravity of the Trump administration. You get to do press conferences. You get to you get to do really nasty letters. You get to do shadow hearings. I've had the senators on. I've had the congresspeople on. We do what we do, which is important. I ran into somebody yesterday while I was having lunch.

57:49Michael Popok:And, you know, they were kind of staring at me and I was staring back at them. And they were like, are you that guy on YouTube? I go, yeah. And then he just I was a burst into tears. He was just so happy and said, you say out loud the things that I think and you give me hope. He's a Jamaican Canadian, of all things. It's living in the United States as a U.S. citizen. So he has a whole different perspective than you and I do about what's going on, although he's troubled terribly by it. But the brand is in trouble. Is the brand in trouble because we are seen as out of touch? We're not in touch with our younger base of it, or we've turned them off?

58:29Michael Popok:Is it diminished because we're not seen as fighters? We're seen as those that roll over. I don't think we have a choice now about the fighting part. If we don't fight back in this, I mean, I'd love to do diplomacy. I'd love to go for a walk in the woods with a cup of coffee and a fellow MAGA and convince them of the errors of their ways. But we just don't have time for that. We're out of time. Donald Trump's not out of time. He's got his own out of time problem. No, you're right. And I don't think any walk in the woods is going to convince people. People are so dug in. And I guess that's – I do agree ultimately, and I fall on that side.

59:08But I can't help but reflect that it's just – it's a drag to me that this is where we are in our country, where we are so at war with each other, with ourselves. And that's what's sad is it shouldn't be that way. I agree.

59:21Michael Popok:But the courts are also involved. So the NAACP will follow that case basically saying the way the maps have been redrawn. Oh, yeah, I forgot we were talking about a case. Yeah. Sorry, go on. Right, is a violation. We're back to the Voting Rights Act. We're back to the constitutional protections of equal protection. And the way they've been drawn is not along political grounds, which is what the Supreme Court has said is okay, but has really been done to disenfranchise, take away the vote and representation for black and brown people. And who better to advocate for that than the NAACP? So they brought that case.

1:00:01Michael Popok:We'll see where that goes. That has not been thrown out of court. That is not going to be thrown out of court anytime soon, which is more than I can say for a case brought by Harmeet Dillon's law firm. The fact that she still has a law firm with her name on it is mind-boggling to me. While she's the head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Which is ironic. I mean, I know Harby. You can look it up. I did a case where we were co-counsel, where somehow we were on the same side of an issue. And she ran for Republican National Committee chairman, lost. And is very political, political animal.

1:00:43Michael Popok:Always wanted to be attorney general, didn't get the attorney general job, but got this job. And that is effectively mothballed. We don't have a civil rights division anymore at the Department of Justice. She's completely, first of all, it's been halved. People have resigned en masse, and or she's fired them. So she doesn't have anybody. She doesn't have the funding. And she's not going to protect voting rights or civil rights or people, black and brown people's rights. She's using it to go after people that went after Donald Trump in the violation of his civil rights in the prosecutions and the fraud cases.

1:01:18Michael Popok:I mean, that's what she's doing. So she had a law firm. It was like, you know, 10, 15-person law firm based in California. They used to sue over every COVID policy that Joe Biden brought, you know, from churches to stores to everything. They were constantly suing the Biden administration. And now her administration, her law office has filed a suit or filed a suit against Gavin Newsom successfully getting the legislature to approve a referendum to go up, this is how they have to do it in California, to go up on the November ballot to approve their new map, giving the Democrats, let's call it what it is, the Democrats five seats, which her own department has said is fine.

1:01:58Michael Popok:And the Supreme Court has said is fine of the Voting Rights Act. Political is fine, as long as it's not racial. but why don't you tell the audience what happened with that one and then I'll round it out with you Tom yeah basically I think it only took 48 hours right Popak the case just got dismissed right away I mean it's crazy how quickly that happened it happened so quickly I almost didn't realize there was a lawsuit right right and neither did Gavin Newsom he had a great whoever's doing his social media is just chef's kiss I mean besides them imitating and parroting only slightly parroting parroting Donald Trump.

1:02:35Michael Popok:He came right out with law in the last long 48 hours. So long, Dylan Law Group. That was a Smackdown loss. With her name on it. So that's going to go. Pardon me. There's nothing wrong with the legislature. They did it by the book in California. There's nothing wrong with putting that up on a referendum for the people to vote on. Some people who are from out of the country or don't follow politics as closely as we do, might be thinking, well, that's not what they did in Texas. And that's true because the Texas constitution has a different process and allows the legislature to make the map. And we'll talk about a third process that Utah uses.

1:03:20Michael Popok:So you got Texas legislatures, they do it. California goes up after approval by the legislature, goes up for referendum by the voters. November, that's gonna happen. And then in Utah, there was a referendum and the voters voted. It may have been narrow, but they voted in favor of having an independent commission draw their maps because they were tired of gerrymandering and having maps drawn politically or racially. So the voters had it. And what did what did the legislature do in Utah? They rejected the referendum. How do you overturn a referendum in the statehouse? Yeah, I was wondering that.

1:03:59I was wondering how that works with the, I mean, because it's so unusual, right? We don't have these propositions, you know, Prop 4, Prop, whatever. We don't have those in New York the way they do in California and in Utah. Yeah, yeah.

1:04:13Michael Popok:So, yeah, the Western states, they do things, interestingly. So, you know, they just said, well, during COVID, they were like, we're just going to ignore it. And so they overturned the voter referendum, which they're not allowed to do, even with a supermajority in Utah. And what had happened is they redrew the map. They turned the compulsory commission that the voters wanted to use to draw the maps into an advisory panel, like meaning they were going to reject whatever they said. And the way they drew the maps and the way Utah drew the maps was not the same. So around the major county there for Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, it's mainly Democratic.

1:04:57Michael Popok:It's a big blue thing in the middle of a red state. But they divided the county into four seats along Republican lines. So it diluted out all the Democrats, even though if you just gave Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County a seat, it would be a seat. So the Democrats are fighting for one plus Democrat seat. There's no Democrat seat because they took that one thing in the middle and divided it up, gerrymandered it out of existence with the Republican seats in different places in Utah. Utah is weird anyway because registered Democrats are only 12 percent, but 36 percent voted for Kamala Harris. There's a big independent group there, and there's a big group that votes, that registers Republican so that they can vote almost like independents in the Republican primary.

1:05:46Michael Popok:But when it comes time for general election, they flip over and vote Democrat. I love that. Yeah, I love that, too. So that's the fight in Utah. And they're all, MAGA's all ganging up on Judge Gibson because the case was sent back to her by the Utah Supreme Court that said the referendum should not, you know, that old thing should not have been overturned. and she has ordered new maps be drawn, consistent, I think, with what the commission had originally proposed or mandated, and that they get delivered by October and be used in November. And of course, the MAG is like, no! And all we want to do here is add one Democratic seat in the entire state of Utah.

1:06:27Michael Popok:But you see, for our audience too, you know, what is it, pennies and dimes add up to, you know, quarters and dollars, whatever it is. A seed here, a seed here. You lose five, you gain five, you gain one. And then you tally it at the end. And you're hoping that we're able to reclaim the House at the midterm. See, that's what Donald Trump is so afraid of. Most of his administration can be explained by fear. He operates from fear, his own fears and instilling fear in other people. And so he's afraid, and rightly so, based on the polling. When you're down in the 30s and you're only eight months, nine months into your administration, things are not going to get better for you either with the economy.

1:07:09Michael Popok:When you're in the 30s heading for the 20s in approval rating, you got to start stealing seats. But fortunately, we got people like Gavin Newsom and federal judges and state judges and NAACPs who are all fighting back. On your point about got to fight fair, I'm all about fighting fair within the rules. But look, New York screwed itself because New York's like, well, we'll have an independent commission. One guy literally drew the map after the census in New York and eliminated Democratic seats and created Republican seats that never had existed. And that's one of the reasons we didn't win at the midterm at the election is because we lost a handful of seats that should never have been that competitive because we're because we're nice.

1:07:57Michael Popok:And we were like, yeah, let him do it. Why? Like I said, I don't think no one has ever accused me of being weak. I'll tell you that. Or, you know, I'm not suggesting that we do something weak or that we'd be nice. But we should have dignity and we should have, I just think we should win because we're right. Because we're the best. That's what we should win. We shouldn't have to play dirty to win. Sounds great. And that's what drives me crazy. but I'll tell you as we're having this conversation, I wonder what would happen in more purple States if the Democrats, uh, switched parties just to vote in primaries, like, cause it wouldn't make a difference in New York.

1:08:36Cause no, you know, no one's ever going to get elected in, at least in New York city. Who's, who's a Republican, but in purple States and purple areas, I wonder if that's something speaking of fighting dirty, you know, that would be a fun way to.

1:08:49Michael Popok:You came up with a dirty strategy. I don't think it's dirty. That's clever and creative. Clever, I'm sorry. We'll call it clever. You're right. Did I say dirty? I meant clever. He's speaking of clever and clever, too clever by half. Donald Trump's decision to sue the entirety of the 12 judges of the Maryland federal court because he didn't like the rule, the local rule that was adopted by the chief judge of Maryland, which was based on a rule that the appellate courts had used after he had watched what happened to Abrego Garcia. after he watched what happened with Judge Boseberg and his orders and 200 people who were sent in the middle of the night to El Salvador, the chief judge woke up one morning and said, you know what?

1:09:32Michael Popok:Now that the Supreme Court has said the writ of habeas corpus is the right way to bring the issue of incarceration and detention before a federal judge, why don't we do this? when a writ of habeas corpus is filed, a petition for 48 hours, the other side, the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, all that, can't remove them out of the country and away from federal jurisdiction and oversight. How about that? 48 hours. That's all we're talking about. Oh, no. Donald Trump, I joked on one of my hot takes. Oh, no. Donald Trump was like in his Veruca Salt moment from Willy Wonka. No, I want it now.

1:10:09Michael Popok:I want to deport them now. Why? And the whole issue for the Supreme Court is due process and the ability of federal courts to exercise it and not have it interfered with. And why are you upset with 48 hours except for the fact you want to send people to the killer torture chambers of third countries in total disrespect of our way of life, of our system of government, of our constitutional republic. And so Donald Trump had a way, by the way, to get that rule changed if he could. There was a judicial panel, a judicial council for the Fourth Circuit. You don't like a local rule? You think it violates something?

1:10:52Michael Popok:Bring it to the judicial council. That's not what Donald Trump wanted. He wanted the fanfare, the headlines of going after all the judges, including Judge Zinnis, in Maryland. So it gets assigned, because everybody's been disqualified, to a judge in Virginia who happens to be a Trump-appointed judge from his first term. Of course, that didn't help him. And this judge gets the case. and the issue is, is he going to keep the petition or going to dismiss the petition that Donald Trump has brought, attacking the judicial branch where the executive branch is suing, the executive branch is suing the judicial branch.

1:11:34Michael Popok:And what's this judge, pardon me, going to do about it? And what happened, Karen? Yeah, he wrote one of the most fun opinions I've ever read, Judge Cullen. First of all, he's a great writer, but he's a really kind of colorful writer. But he basically just dismissed the suit outright. And he could have just really dismissed it with a page or two. I mean, he didn't need to go 39 pages talking about all the things he talked about. But he really did a great job at explaining why you, first of all, there's something called sovereign immunity. of the, when judges do their job, they have immunity just like the, you know, Trump does.

1:12:17And so you can't just sue the judges. And, you know, also basically said, there's a, if you don't like something, you appeal it. There's a recourse and you just, you don't just sue the judges because you don't, you don't like something like that. So he, he basically smacked them down pretty hard and really just said, there's no such thing as what you're doing. and by the way, what you're doing, and this is my words, not his, is basically a cancer on our way of being. You can't do what you're doing and you have to do things the right way. And so I love that decision because he really just handed it to Trump and this administration.

1:12:57And so hopefully, hopefully when Trump appeals this and it gets to the Supreme Court, hopefully they agree as well. But that was a great decision. it.

1:13:06Michael Popok:He's right. There's no way the Supreme Court is going to allow the disqualification of federal bench because you don't like the standing local rule of the chief judge when there is already a way to address that issue. It also, by the way, if you have a judge rule against you, think about it on any case. If he has any case and a judge rules against him, you just sue the judge in the middle of the case and then suddenly the judge is recused and they can't sit on the case. I mean. And he quoted Wilkinson, Harvey Wilkinson from the 4th, about the attacks on the judiciary from the Trump administration, all the footnotes you talked about.

1:13:42Michael Popok:And so that's a big loss for Donald Trump, although not surprising. I read the reporting about the oral argument. He was like, this would be completely a constitutional lawlessness for the Trump administration. And so nobody was surprised when the order finally came out. And it's very similar to the Alina Habba disqualification where you had Judge Brandt in the Middle District of Pennsylvania having to sit by designation as a New Jersey federal judge because all 21 judges of the New Jersey federal district court ruled against effectively Alina Habba and giving her an extension to continue as the U.S.

1:14:22Michael Popok:attorney for New Jersey. And now she's on her woe is me campaign, her propaganda campaign. Oh, it's Cory Booker and Senator Kim wouldn't meet with me and they're not nice people. And Chuck Grassley, the Republican who runs the Judiciary Committee for the Senate. Oh, he's using the blue slips to block me and the president wanted me and we always win, she told Hannity. I'm like, all right, well, you're not winning this one. The Department of Justice has taken an appeal of the loss where Judge Brand ruled that Alina Hobart was unlawfully appointed to be the U.S. attorney. He mapped out exactly the way, the only way that a president can nominate somebody and put in one time an acting interim.

1:15:13Michael Popok:And if that stops, then it's up to the federal judges to appoint the acting interim until a nominee gets confirmed by Trump. He's not even trying to confirm anybody right now. I mean, like, move on. Your office wife lost. You know, goodbye. She is. Get somebody else. There's no one else that you can think of. At least in New York, he put Jay Clayton, who you can quibble about Jay Clayton. He's one of Trump's old golfing buddies. But he's very respected. He's very respected. And he once did head the Securities and Exchange Commission. And so, but look, it's funny there. Like, why do you think, let me take it from the prosecutor standpoint for you.

1:15:55Michael Popok:Why do you think he put a quality person like Jay Clayton in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, but put this political hack in New Jersey? I mean, look, it's a great question. I think it's partly strategic because Southern District of New York is considered probably the premier place, the prosecutor's office in the country and has historically brought the biggest cases and some of the most important cases. And it's largely due to the fact that the financial markets of this country sit on the island of Manhattan, right, the Federal Reserve and everything else. And because of that, every single transaction that happens anywhere in the world goes through the Federal Reserve, if it's in U.S.

1:16:44dollars, giving them jurisdiction over all sorts of things that they wouldn't have jurisdiction over. It puts them in a very unique position to really be able to do international cases at the highest level. And so it's a really important office. And so I think that's why it was really important to have somebody who is a quality, respected person like Jay Clayton. New Jersey, I don't want to give short trip to New Jersey. I mean, they do some pretty big cases, too, and some good cases, but I don't think it's at this level. And I think she wanted New Jersey. That's what I think. I agree with you.

1:17:24Michael Popok:I think you hit the nail on the head. I'm from New Jersey. It's a little bit of always in the shadow of New York. I mean, you know, I like, you know, some people that had headed the office in New Jersey, like I'm sure you knew Craig Carponito and different things. But, you know, New Jersey's not that office, even though it's the fifth or sixth largest in the country, I would believe, is not Manhattan. And I think there needed to be a lot of repair done to the damage that Donald Trump had done in the Manhattan Southern District of New York prosecutor's office that Emile Bove had done, where he lopped off most of them over the Eric Adams indictment fiasco.

1:18:05Michael Popok:and I think they had to do some repair there with the business community and others. And like I said, I don't agree with the politics of Jay Clayton, but he would get confirmed and will be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, I have no doubt. Yet, you know, you're right. She's from New Jersey. She wants, she's, you know, it's a blue state like New York is, and she can do a lot of damage and get a lot of New York media attention from the perch of being in New Jersey because of the way the TV and media coverage is there. And, you know, she's unqualified for everything she's ever been appointed to or selected for.

1:18:44Michael Popok:And we'll have to see what happens next with the appeal. If this Judge Brandt was right or wrong, by my reading of it, it looked pretty right to me. But we will see. And we'll continue to follow it all on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. We've reached the end of the Legal AF podcast for the midweek. Karen Freeman-Ignifolo and Michael Popok. Tune in on Saturday, where I'll be joined, of course, with Ben Mycelis. And hit the subscribe button here on Midas, Legal AF the YouTube channel, Legal AF the Substack. I'll be doing a live report maybe later tonight. Depends how late it goes, the show goes.

1:19:19Michael Popok:And definitely tomorrow morning. So come on over to Legal AF the Substack as well and support our sponsors. Karen, last word. Just sending love and prayers to those families who were affected by that horrible massacre today. So I want to start the show and end the show with them. Absolutely. Because they deserve it. Yep. Agreed. We'll see you next time on Legal AF. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.