Trump Election Scheme Suddenly Blocked in Late Night Order

0:00Michael Popok:It's time to stand up and celebrate as Judge Talwani, a federal judge in Massachusetts, has saved mail-in ballots from the evil clutches of Donald Trump and the Postal Service. No, states will not have to use specialized mail-in ballot envelopes that they don't know how to use and haven't been provided that have to be approved by the post office and then upload all of your voter data into a portal that has to be approved by the post office. You know why? Because the United States Constitution says there's only two entities that are in charge of federal elections. One of them is the states. The second one is Congress.

0:39Michael Popok:You know, it's not in the Constitution, the Postal Service controlling your mail-in ballot, as noted by Judge Talwani. And Judge Talwani has, how do I put this nicely, thumbed her nose at the United States Supreme Court. Or to put it more diplomatically, she knows that they're wrong. And now we have a round trip case, right? In less than four days, we went from Supreme Court ruling on Monday that the states do not have standing because they came to court too early to four days later, Judge Talwani having everybody, the states and the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, the ACLU, everybody filed new pleadings.

1:19Michael Popok:Let's get to the heart of the matter about the post office's new ruling. I'll make a ruling on it, which she did late last night, 14 day block of the rule while she considers to consider while she continues to consider the preliminary injunction as well. We're going right back to the United States Supreme Court on this issue. And every day the candle burns down between now and the midterms. And now we're down to like less than what is it less than 80 days left. I'm Michael Popak. You're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. And I've got this emergency order in my hands up on Legal AF Substack as well for our audience to read.

1:59Michael Popok:How did we get here? Trump in March issues an executive order directing the post office to start monkeying around with the mail and the mail-in ballots, demanding that there be a different type of envelope and a barcode and that they're going to ultimately approve who gets the ballots and who has their ballots delivered to an election office, who lives or who dies when it comes to mail-in ballots, Who died and made them boss? No one, frankly, no one. And so the states ran into court. But because the post office had not yet issued, the formal regulation had not published it, as we say, in the federal registry, the federal register, the United States Supreme Court said to the states, you're too early.

2:48Michael Popok:you may be harmed one day. It may be unconstitutional, what Trump's trying to do, but you got to let them make the rule. Once they make the rule, come back to us, except with one caveat, come back to us. But if it's too late in the game, we're not going to interfere with what the executive branch wants to do, even if it's unconstitutional, because it deals with elections and we're going to let the elections happen. So every hour, every minute, every day matters here. That's why this is such a fast moving case. That's why Judge Talwani move so quickly. There's actually two other cases down in the District of Columbia that haven't left the starting blocks yet, if you will, led by Mark Elias.

3:27Michael Popok:But this is the Talwani set of cases. Let me read to you from what she said. And then I brought the receipts because I've interviewed the California Attorney General about mail-in ballots in the last 24 hours. It's his case that's at stake here, along with Nick Brown of the Washington Attorney General's office, the Washington Attorney General, who's the head of the Democratic Attorney's General Voter Protection Task Force, also about this case. And then, of course, I had the great Mark Elias, who's handling one of these cases with us. And we'll go to those interview clips in a moment. But let me read from Judge Talwani.

4:08Michael Popok:What she said is the states now have standing. Their issue is now ripe. The post office last Friday, a week ago, issued their final ruling. And now it can be on the merits decided by a judge whether it is right or wrong. This is on page eight.

4:56Michael Popok:office, they don't set an internal deadline for when they have to respond to the states. So how are the states supposed to do all of this in time? The court finds likely to succeed on the merits of their claim, finds that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims, that the post office lacks authority to issue the final rule. The final rule is unconstitutional in imposing these requirements. And the final rule is unconstitutional in prohibiting non-compliant state and local officials from using the U.S. Postal Service to mail ballots. They're trying to say, oh, no, you didn't, you didn't, oh, oops, you didn't check every box.

5:31Michael Popok:You didn't do everything because you didn't have time or it's totally impossible. Sorry, you can't use mail-in ballots. That's what they're saying. It's like one of those, remember, coupons on the back of some thing you bought and that, you know, they could just give you the money or give you the rebate. Oh, no, you had to cut out the box top. You had to cut out the QR code or the pricing code. And you had to make sure it was mailed to this. It was all these things because they wanted you to fail. Same thing here. On irreparable harm, she says that the plaintiff states on page eight face irreparable harm where they're required to comply with a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is impossible.

6:15Michael Popok:as to the 2026 midterm elections. She says on page nine, the plaintiff states have neither the time nor funds to design new mail ballots, seek approval of new designs, order production of mail ballots, update their own election management systems, train election officials to use the portal and upload citizen data to the portal all before the midterms. And this will make them have to violate their own constitutional and state laws about administrating elections. In other words, complying with what Trump wants them to do will put them in the jackpot in violating the Constitution. And so she's entered this 14-day stay while she continues to consider the preliminary injunction.

7:05Michael Popok:You know, we have levels of blocking, levels of injunction that are available to federal judges. Administrative stays last a few hours. Temporary restraining orders a couple of weeks. Preliminary injunctions and then permanent injunctions. And the difference is both temporal time, the length of time they last. But the elements are about the same. Are you going to win? What is the likelihood you're going to prevail on the merits of your case at the end of the case? You have to look now and project ahead. Irreparable harm, inadequate remedy at law, the balance of equities tips in your favor. These are the elements that are analyzed by the court.

7:40Michael Popok:She also ordered under penalty of perjury on page 11 because he can't trust the federal government. She says, defendants must within 24 hours after receiving service of this order, provide written notice of this order to the postal service and their employees and notify them they are required to comply with this order under penalty of contempt and file on the docket a copy of that notice so I know that it was done. No trust. There's no trust of the Department of Justice or the Postal Service or any branch of the Trump administration at all. Do you snore? Did somebody hand you a CPAP and did you quietly stop using it?

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9:01Michael Popok:Excite OSA is an FDA cleared prescription only device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea. Not for everyone. Individual results vary. Risks and benefits at springsleep.com. Now, I had the honor of interviewing Nick Brown, who's the attorney general of Washington, one of the leaders here of this case. And here's what he had to say in advance of Judge Talwani, although he did tell me that he believed that Judge Talwani would do exactly what she did, which was to enter that emergency injunction on Thursday night. Here's my interview with A.G. Brown. Now, in your case, on the merits, about the rulemaking, you'll get an order out of Judge Talwani, so will the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, the ACLU.

9:53Michael Popok:That'll come up to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, I guess on an expedited track, and back to the Supreme Court sometime in September. What do you think they're going to do? Well, first, I would start by, you know, as you were going through that, it's just a good reminder that we would benefit from having more judges on our Supreme Court with trial judge experience who actually know what happens at a district court level and have been there and done that because it was a good reminder of just sort of the absurdity of it. I mean, the court did have to rule based on when the challenge was filed and the status of the process then.

10:25You know, I cannot imagine that we lose on the substance of this case. It would be directly contrary to the explicit words of the Constitution and all sorts of precedent because we control our elections. Congress obviously can implement laws to amend various portions of the elections, the timing and such, but the president certainly cannot be executive order. And that is what he is attempting to do. And so it would be quite absurd for the Supreme Court to rule against the states.

10:56Michael Popok:And similarly, I just had in the last 24 hours, Attorney General Rob Bonta of California, who's the lead, his state is the lead plaintiff in the case on with me. And here's what he had to say about this issue, making a round trip back to the United States Supreme Court in the next week. How quickly do you get back to the United States Supreme Court? And what do you think they're going to do? This is the second time now they've taken on Donald Trump's attempts to screw with mail-in ballots. Yeah, the federal government probably is eager to get back to the United States Supreme Court. But I just, I think this is an open and shut case, Michael.

11:32It's, you know, there's a clause of the U.S. Constitution that's right on point that governs the issue, just like in birthright citizenship. In birthright citizenship, it was the citizenship clause which showed that the executive order of the president trying to undermine the components of that clause were unlawful. And here, it's the elections clause, which says that the states, and to a degree, Congress determined the manner of our elections, just determine how they are administered and how they occur, not the president and not the United States Postal Service. So the president and the United States Postal Service are trying to take over a key component of our elections across this country, vote by mail, and the elections clause of the U.S.

12:13Constitution doesn't allow them to do that. I think it's very clear. You're right that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision earlier this week was procedural and procedural only. It just dealt with the timing, but the substance, and in that order, that emergency docket order by the U.S. Supreme Court, they went out of their way to say, we are not addressing the merits. We're not addressing the legality of the underlying substance of the conduct of the president and the U.S. Postal Service. They said, time will tell.

12:39Michael Popok:I was going to say, they were so cavalier and smug, though. Time will tell. Time is the thing we don't have. Now, it's a very odd Supreme Court that we're dealing with here, because when they issued their order on Monday, they said that the states were too early, and therefore they were going to be dismissed on technical grounds with the ability to come right back once the federal post office issued its final ruling. But by Monday, the federal post office, the Postal Service had issued its final ruling the Friday before. And so there was a lot made of that. In fact, the judge said, I don't think we can assume that the United States Supreme Court knew about the final order.

13:21Michael Popok:And they kept talking about it in their, they kept talking in their order about there is no final order of the post office. They wrote their entire majority decision, six to three, to kick out the states under the assumption there was no order. So I asked Mark Elias, how did they not know the order came out on Friday when they wrote the opinion on Monday? He said, oh, no, they probably knew about it. But he has his own opinion, which I agree with. Play the clip. I suspect that they had gotten it written and agreed to by the end of last week. And then were probably taken by surprise that late last Friday night, the U.S.

14:00Postal Service then finalized their rule. And so by the time they got to Monday morning, ready to issue the opinion, they were not going to go back and renegotiate with each other changes to that document. And they were just like, ah, screw it. We're just issuing it. even though you are exactly right, that it reads as a bit of a non sequitur because it keeps talking about how the Postal Service has not, you know, yet issued a rule and the Postal Service could issue a rule that's different than what Donald Trump wanted. And we're all scratching around and being like, the Postal Service just issued their rule two days ago, like on Friday night.

14:31So I think that that's what probably happened there.

14:34Michael Popok:Now, all Trump wants to do is so chaos. He doesn't really believe that the post office can and the states can actually implement this executive order in time for the midterms. Putting aside whether it's constitutional or unconstitutional, he just wants to create chaos and sow seeds of discontent and be able to challenge the midterms and the election results because he says he's on the ballot. I'm on the ballot, he said. Okay, you're on the ballot. We agree with that. And then he was asked by a reporter, how are you ever going to implement this? And watch his gibberish in which he quickly talks about, no, they can do it because I once played golf in North Carolina.

15:23Michael Popok:Wait for that non sequitur. Play the clip. The Supreme Court earlier this week ruled on mail-in ballots. And there are states like North Carolina that have ballots that go out next week. How are states supposed to implement this? Well, they're in their effort. North Carolina is great. It's a it's a great place. I want to go three times. And they do some mail-in ballots. But basically, they ruled on the legitimacy and the way we want to make them legitimate. And it was a great ruling for the Republicans. All right. Thanks for being here on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network. We're growing, growing, growing with your help, come over to the Legal AF YouTube channel and hit that free subscribe button.

16:03Michael Popok:Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called, Wait for it. Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Where? Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.