The Intersection with Michael Popok Full Episode - 7/8/2025

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2:31Michael Popok:I'm Michael Popok, and we do this podcast only on the Midas Touch Network. I'm traveling, but I don't have the luxury of taking time out of defending democracy, defending our Constitution, or our Constitutional Republic. So here we go. Let's start right off with CBS, Paramount slash Skydance, settling with Donald Trump. That settlement is getting smellier by the moment. We've got new reporting coming out that there's a side deal. It's not just the$16 million that the family of Sumner Redstone owning Paramount is apparently going to be paying to the Trump administration for doing absolutely nothing wrong in their reporting.

3:14Michael Popok:They didn't even do reporting. They did an interview with Kamala Harris. And Donald Trump doesn't like the way it was edited because they shrunk and shortened up her answers the way they do for anybody else while making the entire interview available online separately. Really? What's what's this really about? This is really about just a bribery scandal. The Donald Trump got back into power, used his Federal Communications Commission headed by Brendan Carr to squeeze the balls of Sumner Redstone and Sherry Redstone. Sumner Sumner Redstone's family and Sherry Redstone, his daughter, who wanted to do a deal that need a regulatory approval between her company and Skydance owned by, wait for it, David Ellison.

3:55Michael Popok:Who's David Ellison? He's the young son of Larry Ellison, who owns Oracle, a huge Donald Trump supporter. So the young David Ellison, I mean, this is right out of, this would be the fifth season of Succession if there was one on HBO. David Ellison at Skydance, I don't think he's ever run a company of the size of Paramount, wants to do the deal and buy it. They need regulatory approval. Donald Trump gets back in power and said, I'm not giving regulatory approval through FCC unless there's a major payment made to Trump. And so that's why Sherry Redstone needs to make the payment because she needs to make this deal in order to get cash for her assets she inherited from her father who died.

4:37Michael Popok:And so who is the victim in all this besides the American people? 60 Minutes used to be the crown jewel of the Tiffany Network. Remember when CBS and CBS News was known as the Tiffany Network, Edward R. Murrow's network? They're all spinning in their graves for having made this settlement. But now the new reporting is it's not just the 16 million dollars in cash to Donald Trump effectively. There's another 15 to 20 million dollars in public service announcement ads that was promised to Donald Trump in the administration, according to an insider in reporting, including through a Rupert Murdoch newspaper, by the way, that that 15 to 20 million dollars in public service ads are going to be for the benefit of anything Donald Trump wants to have advertised.

5:21Michael Popok:on the network. So now when you're watching CBS, one of your favorite shows, you're going to see an ad that's run for the Trump administration bragging about the Trump administration. And who's bragging about that side deal? Apparently, David Ellison. So David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, the owner of Oracle, comes up with the great idea that when he finally gets control of CBS, he's going to force it down its throat, public service announcements and effective campaign ads for MAGA and Donald Trump. Does anybody not see this? Who doesn't see this$30 million in total payments and compensation and consideration to be a bribe to the Trump administration to get them to approve the, give them the regulatory approvals for the transaction?

6:10Michael Popok:And the fact that there's this close link, again, between one of these tech bros, I mean, the original tech bro, of Larry Ellison and his son, who I'm sure he's the puppet master for, David Ellison, and gave him a lot of the money to start Skydance, which is now buying Paramount. If anybody doesn't think this is basically insider trading and a bribery scandal all wrapped into one, tell me in comments. I think this is why people are on independent media. I think this is what attracts you to Midas Touch, to Legal AF to shows like The Intersection. I'm not controlled by corporate media. Sumner Redstone's family's not rolling up Midas Touch Network or buying us.

6:57Michael Popok:We have no outside investors for a reason. And now you see how it influences journalistic integrity because CBS just threw its journalistic integrity into the trash, or at least Paramount, its parent company did. And through 60 Minutes, which used to be highly respected, the crown jewel of the Tiffany Network, is now in the trash as well. And so we've got that settlement. Now I want to turn to a new development related to, this is no easy segue here, Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood was on the balls of its backside about 10 days ago, where the United States Supreme Court in a case we call Medina, and all this is up, these kind of cases I'm talking about are all up on the Legal AF substack, a great way to support this podcast, by the way.

7:42So the case of Medina comes out, and we all have a collective sigh, and it puts Planned Parenthood potentially in life support because South Carolina had cut the Medicaid funding between the state and Planned Parenthood. Now, let me just get rid of all the misinformation out there about Planned Parenthood that could be used against you when you're having your conversations around the kitchen table, in the streets, social media, or whatever. Planned Parenthood is not in the abortion business. Planned Parenthood does not perform abortions. I mean, I can't say it any plainly, any more plainly than that.

8:23Planned Parenthood provides reproductive counseling, including perhaps recommending to the person that they seek an abortion if that's what their choosing is. They counsel. They don't provide the service. They also do things like supply birth control at low cost or no cost to millions of women and men. They do cancer screening. They do sexually transmitted disease and infectious disease screening. And if they get cut from Medicaid, they're going to have to close 200 Planned Parenthood centers around the country, including in 90 % of the states where abortion is allowed. So anybody that tells you the Planned Parenthood is an abortion provider, they are not.

9:07And so we saw the South Carolina ruling, the Medina ruling by the Supreme Court 10 days ago, in which the Supreme Court said, well, South Carolina made a decision to cut Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid funding. But Planned Parenthood, you don't have the right under the statutes, the Medicaid statutes, to run into court. You don't have standing, we call it, because Congress didn't give you the right to enforce your rights under Medicaid in a private right of action in a courtroom. them. I know that sounds counterintuitive, that if you're injured and you receive funding under a statute and somebody cancels your statute or cancels your statutory right, you should be able

9:46Michael Popok:to run into court. We do have other ways to do that, but the Supreme Court said, no, you in this scenario, Congress did not want to have people and organizations suing over Medicaid funding. So you have no right to challenge this. We're not going to address whether they were right or they we're wrong under Planned Parenthood or under the Medicaid ruling in South Carolina to cut off Planned Parenthood, we're just going to say, you don't have the right to litigate this in court. That was bad for Planned Parenthood. And then there's a silver lining, that big bill of Donald Trump's that became a 90-page campaign ad for the Democrats at the midterm, But buried within the pages, sorry, the 900 pages of the bill that have now become law in Donald Trump's budget, which if we are doing things right, we need to put it as a millstone around his neck and sink this administration.

10:42But buried in there was a defunding mechanism against Planned Parenthood. Yeah. Targeting Planned Parenthood. Calling, you know, and labeling them in such a way that they would be denied Medicaid funding. That's in the bill. So Planned Parenthood ran, I mean ran, July 7th, filed a new lawsuit up in Massachusetts in front of Judge Talwani, an Obama appointee, Indira Talwani, very fine judge, and got an emergency temporary restraining order. So big, beautiful bill meet big, beautiful temporary restraining order. And why are they able to do that? Because if you're thinking about what's happened in the last 10 days, Supreme Court tells federal judges you can't do nationwide injunctions, except maybe when states are involved.

11:32You can't do nationwide injunctions. And two, Planned Parenthood, you don't have the right to sue about Medicaid funding under the Medicaid statute. Then how, Popak, can you tell me that there's a temporary restraining order on proper jurisprudential grounds up in Massachusetts that will survive appellate review? How? Okay, I'm going to tell you. One, it's not a nationwide injunction. Judge Talwani issued a temporary restraining order in favor of only the parties that were in front of her. Planned Parenthood Federation and Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts and Utah. Okay? Define parties so it doesn't violate the Supreme Court's recent ruling.

12:09That's one. Because just to be clear, if there is an act of Congress, a law of Congress that's passed, it can be challenged as being a violation of the Constitution and being discriminatory in a federal court of law. Happens all the time. Not a lot with this particular Supreme Court, but it generally happens all the time. So no violation of nationwide injunction because it's not a nationwide injunction. That's one. Two, they're not suing under the Medicaid statute. They're not suing under the Medicaid statute. They're suing under the new budget that was just passed and the defunding mechanism.

12:48All right. So they can bring a constitutional challenge under the First Amendment, freedom of association. I get to hang out with people that I want to hang out with. That's a First Amendment right. and First Amendment freedom of speech because they're attacking the Planned Parenthood for their viewpoint. It's viewpoint discrimination. They don't like what Planned Parenthood does in their counseling sessions because it offends the, I don't know, the Christian MAGA right of this administration. So they're challenging it under First Amendment freedom of association and First Amendment freedom of speech and under the Fifth Amendment and equal protection.

13:32That's different than the case where Planned Parenthood was on the losing end 10 days ago, which was suing under the Medicaid statute. So the temporary restraining order is in place. Judge Talwani has determined that there's more likely than not that they're going to be able to prove their constitutional violations. The irreparable harm is obvious. Planned Parenthood told Talwani in their filing, they'll have to put 2.1 million people out of their offices. They'll lose the services. If 2.1 million people will lose the services of Planned Parenthood, 200 offices will be shut. And 90 % of the places they operate, abortion is legal.

14:11And so I see this as a winner for Planned Parenthood and a really great result. What's going to happen next? Judge Telwani said, I'm going to block it. You're to continue to fund the way you've been funding on the same timeline. And lastly, I am going to hold another hearing. You submit your documents in about two weeks and tell me, Trump administration, Department of Health and Human Services, which is sort of the parent agency for Medicaid and Medicare, you tell me why I shouldn't extend this to a preliminary injunction. Trump administration, I mean, they could try to take an appeal on the temporary restraining order up to the First Circuit.

14:53I just don't see them doing that. I think they'll wait another two weeks. They'll get a win or a loss, likely a loss with Judge Talani. They'll take it back to the First Circuit, and then they'll get a loss at the First Circuit, just my prediction, a court of appeals up in Massachusetts. Then they'll take an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. Probably another emergency application that'll go up to the United States Supreme Court sometime

15:17Michael Popok:this summer while they're on summer holiday and we'll get some sort of ruling we may or may not like. That's the best way for me to put it. I don't think there's no, what they did in the Medina case about the statute in South Carolina is not going to bear in their analysis here. But we're going to see if they're going to block the temporary restraining order of Judge Talwani and cut off funding to Planned Parenthood and effectively put them out of business while the niceties of the appeal continue. And I'm not confident enough at the moment without seeing the briefing to predict what the Supreme Court's going to do.

16:00I'll pick that up as I gather more information between now and over the summer as the case moves up on appeal. When that goes up on appeal and when they have an oral argument, we will put the oral argument the actual audio up on legal af the youtube channel here's a moment here's a great way to continue to support what we do here legal af the youtube channel just rolled the odometer to 700 000 subscribers in our very very short amount of time but we can continue to use your help come on over there hit the free subscribe button and help us continue to grow legal af the youtube channel all right moving from massachusetts back to maryland we've got a brand new development in ruling and order in breaking news coming out of Judge Zinnis' chambers about Abrego Garcia.

16:50Let me catch you up there. Yesterday, Judge Zinnis held a hearing in her courtroom, one that the Trump administration tried to postpone. What were the topics? Well, it was wide-ranging. One was Donald Trump's attempt through the Department of Justice to moved to dismiss the Abrego-Garcia case in Maryland, arguing that she wanted him back from El Salvador, and they finally brought him back to stand charges in Tennessee. On a set of charges, it looks like the Trump administration has abandoned against Abrego-Garcia for human smuggling. And isn't that good enough, Judge? Can we go home now? You exerted jurisdiction to get him home.

17:31He's home and we're done. And she said in the hearing, no, I deny your motion to dismiss. First of all, we have to put him, I have to put him back in the place he was in terms of status quo before you deported him. And he wasn't in Tennessee standing charges before you deported him. And I have to make sure that due process is properly administered to him because my bosses at the United States Supreme Court supported me 9-0 on this issue. So motions to dismissed or denied. Then to get to the bottom of what is likely to be a contempt finding by Judge Zinnis, she wanted to know what the Trump administration Department of Justice's position was about Abrego Garcia, because they've been speaking with forked tongue lately.

18:18Michael Popok:On one hand, they tell the court and outside the court, they say that they're going to try Abrego Garcia for human smuggling in Tennessee on some charges that they did of a two-week investigation about something that happened at a traffic stop two years ago where he was released. And first they said, we're going to try that case. We believe in our case. We're going to try it. He's a human smuggler. Pam Bondi went off and said all sorts of things that weren't in the indictment. He's a child pornography, child exploiter, wife abuser, murderer. Like, where is that in the indictment? Well, it's not there, but, you know, it was a lot of the co-conspirators told us about these things.

18:56Okay, well, what's in the indictment? Human smuggling, which is not human trafficking. It's not exploitive. It's like a transaction. I need to get across the border. I pay you to do it. Thank you. You know, it's a crime, but not quite the crime that they've made it out to be.

19:12Michael Popok:So you've got one statement that's made that says, we're going to try that case first, then we're going to remove him and send him to a third country not named El Salvador. But then you had lawyers at almost the exact same time telling Judge Zinnis and stating in other places that, no, we're not going to deport him. I mean, we're not going to try the case, the criminal case. As soon as he gets out of federal detention for the criminal case, we're going to start the process to remove him and send him out. and you'd think they'd be able to get their story straight in a court to make the judge comfortable, but they never did.

19:44Michael Popok:Remember, this is the same guy that's sitting in federal detention right now under the federal marshals because he asked for and a federal magistrate found grounds to protect him from the Trump administration and hold him in federal marshal protection until the 16th, at least of July. That's why they ran over to Judge Zinnis, the lawyers for Abrego Garcia, to say, hey, we got him safe now in Tennessee, so he's not going to be sent to South Sudan or Libya, but can you help us out here? You still have jurisdiction. She called everybody together, and she was not getting straight answers. She says, first of all, you said to me that you could never bring him out of El Salvador.

20:21Michael Popok:And then six days later, you brought him out from El Salvador. Why is it like, this is her quote now from the hearing, why is it like stapling jello to the ceiling and getting the questions answered? So she got very frustrated. and found it not believable. You also have the other subtext, or context, which is that lawyers in her courtroom, it's been alleged in a whistleblower complaint, lied to her. Lied to her. Lawyers that are no longer there, by the way. Drew Ensign, who one of the whistleblowers claimed lied to Judge Zinnis to her face, he's not showing up in court anymore. I'm not sure where he is.

20:56Michael Popok:He's buried somewhere in the bowels of the Department of Justice, maybe never to see the light of day again. Erez Ruveni, who was the lawyer who told Judge Zinnis the truth, which got all this thing started, that Abrego Garcia had an order of non-removal in his back pocket that ICE knew about and sent him to El Salvador in the middle of the night anyway, he got fired for telling the truth. So that's the context, right? That the Trump administration, and we've got the whistleblower allegations that Emil Bovee, Donald Trump's former criminal defense lawyer number three in the Department of Justice and who's up for a lifetime appointment at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that he got a group together in March of Department of Justice immigration lawyers and told them to effectively not tell the truth to federal judges and to tell them to go F off his words.

21:45Yeah. So you got that.

21:47Michael Popok:Judge said it's no wonder she doesn't trust anybody. So here's what she's decided to do with her new order. she is going to she is now ordered from today that there be a hearing on the 10th of july that the government department of justice trump whatever needs to identify somebody with knowledge with personal knowledge or can get up to speed about what is the administration's position about what they're going to do next with abrigo garcia that's fair but she wants it under oath not just a representation of an officer of the court because she doesn't trust them so she wants in her courtroom on the 10th, and we'll report on it, somebody on a stack of Bibles, penalty of perjury, to be cross-examined by the court, by the defense, by the prosecution, whatever, by the plaintiffs, to answer the question, what are you going to do next with Abrego Garcia?

22:40Are you going to try him in Tennessee, or are you abandoning that? Because it looks like they're abandoning that lawsuit, I mean, that criminal complaint against Abrego Garcia. after much fanfare. He's terrible.

22:54Michael Popok:He's MS-13. Well, oh my God, he's a human smuggler. He's a human trafficker. All Pam Bondi. Now it's like, well, sorry, we're not using that anymore. It even led the judge to say, well, did you just create a criminal complaint in order to get him out of El Salvador? And you couldn't get a straight answer on that either. So now I want to know what, with a person on the stand, what you're going to do, put them in the witness box, how you're going to do it, when you're going to do it, what notice you're going to give or you're planning to give to Abrego Garcia and their lawyers in due process as a result, right?

23:28Michael Popok:Are you going to remove? What country? What's the process? What's the logistics? Be ready to answer these questions on the 10th. This is extraordinary. In my entire career, I've never seen, except in this administration, federal judges not believe the Department of Justice when they speak. as officers of the court under ethical obligations and instead force them to put a witness, whether it's a lawyer, Department of Justice person, some sort of civilian somebody, to tell her under oath because if they violate it, she's going to find them in contempt. Now, what are they going to do next? Good question.

24:11Michael Popok:Based on their track record, and especially against Judge Zinnis, even though she's been defended and confirmed and affirmed by the Supreme Court 9-0, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals twice, they're going to defy her. They're going to do it two ways, right? We could do the script. We know the script. We could do it ourselves. We're so fatigued and bored with their routine. Right on cue, social media attack, social media influencers for Donald Trump attack Judge Zinnis as being a Marxist, a leftist, a radicalist, never wasn't elected. That's how federal judges work in this country. And then the Department of Justice is going to file a motion for a hearing, a reconsideration.

24:51Michael Popok:They're going to say it's all privilege. We can't tell you what we're going to do. We're not going to tell you what we're going to do. They've said that before. We have the presidential privilege. We have the state secrets privilege. We have the diplomacy privilege. They'll make up privileges along the way. And we're not going to tell you. And don't make us tell you. And then she's going to say, F you, you're showing up on the 10th in her own way, wearing the black robe. And then they're not going to show on the 10th. She's going to start contempt proceedings. They're going to run to the D.C. Court of Appeals or skip a step and try to go to the United States Supreme Court and see if they can lob another Hail Mary and get a positive result from the United States Supreme Court.

25:31Michael Popok:That's what's going to happen. That doesn't mean that I don't believe that Judge Zina should do exactly what she's doing. She should do exactly what she's doing. We should make this hard work for judges, I mean, for the Trump administration and the Supreme Court justices. It's not a sterile exercise. It's important. She can't just allow all of these actions and all of these conducts and behaviors against her to chill what she wants to do, to influence or impact her decision-making as a jurist. I'm just giving you the likely outcome. and I'll know more when I see the next filing by the Trump administration, which should happen, I would think sometime by tomorrow.

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