Trump makes Fatal Error in Court to Kill Ballroom

10 Jun 2026 · 17 min · 7 chapters

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In short

The episode argues that the Department of Justice is taking inconsistent positions in federal court about “ballroom” security at the White House, while also defending Trump’s use of the White House grounds for a UFC event.

Guests/backgrounds

Michael Popok (Legal AF/Midas Touch Network host) interviews/relies on arguments from Brendan Ballew (Public Integrity Project lawyer). It also discusses Yakov Roth (DOJ lawyer) who argued the ballroom case.

Key claims

DOJ lawyers claim the president must be sequestered in a hardened White House ballroom for national security, but in a separate UFC-related case they allegedly fail to acknowledge security risks from thousands of attendees on the White House South Lawn. The episode claims the UFC event is profit-linked to Trump and cronies (e.g., crypto.com sponsorship; Paramount/streaming; Trump shareholder in TKO).

Notable examples

White House South Lawn events (state dinners, congressional picnic, King Charles reception) are cited to argue a ballroom isn’t necessary; the UFC “90-foot claw” is compared to government-run free events like the Easter egg roll.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Phil Weiser's Legal Successes Against Trump

0:00 to 0:31

Learn about Phil Weiser's repeated legal victories against the Trump administration.

“Seriously, why aren't Democrats in Washington doing more to stop Trump?”

Phil Weiser's Legal Successes Against Trump

1:30 to 1:57

Learn about Phil Weiser's repeated legal victories against the Trump administration.

“Tired of your car insurance rate going up, even with a clean driving record?”

Inconsistencies in Trump's Legal Arguments

2:06 to 4:00

Explore the inconsistencies in the Trump administration's legal strategies regarding national security.

“Seriously, why aren't Democrats in Washington doing more to stop Trump?”

The Ballroom Case Discussion

4:00 to 5:48

Discuss the implications and arguments surrounding the ballroom case involving Trump.

“I mean, literally, Yakov Roth just argued at the appellate court for the federal system in the District of Columbia.”

Event Hosting and National Security

5:48 to 7:40

Analyze how past public events at the White House raise questions about national security claims.

“together on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network.”

Critique of Trump's Fundraising Events

9:59 to 14:01

Critically assess the implications of Trump's fundraising events at the White House and their comparison to traditional public events.

“But let me go to page four where my eyes popped out.”

Trump's Security Decisions and Their Implications

14:01 to 15:14

Explore the implications of Trump's decisions regarding security at public events and the potential consequences for the White House.

“Donald Trump, who is notorious for not wanting metal detectors or magnetometers at his events, probably is going to drop them for this.”
Hear the part that matters, and keep it.Open this episode in VO. Double tap your headphones to save a moment as you listen.
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Seriously, why aren't Democrats in Washington doing more to stop Trump? I know. Have you heard about Phil Weiser in Colorado, though? No. Is he different? Yeah. A.G. Weiser sued the Trump administration 65 times. He's beating Trump in court again and again. Things like protecting Obamacare against Trump's illegal tariffs. And he even won against Ticketmaster. So he actually gets results. Exactly. As governor, Phil will fight for Colorado. Paid for by Phil Weiser for Colorado Registered Agent Anna Noskezi. What did you steal? Secrets. Disclosure Day is Steven Spielberg's best film in 20 years. Are they people?

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2:01That's j-e-r-r-y dot a-i slash l-i-b-s-y-n. Seriously, why aren't Democrats in Washington doing more to stop Trump? I know. Have you heard about Phil Weiser in Colorado, though? No. Is he different? Yeah. A.G. Weiser sued the Trump administration 65 times. He's beating Trump in court again and again. Things like protecting Obamacare against Trump's illegal tariffs. and he even won against Ticketmaster. So he actually gets results. Exactly. As Governor, Phil will fight for Colorado. Paid for by Phil Weiser for Colorado Registered Agent and in Moschese.

2:36Michael Popok:No, you don't get to take two inconsistent positions in front of the same court if you're the Trump Department of Justice, particularly the same lawyers in the Department of Justice. So Yakov Roth is the lawyer for the Department of Justice who argued the ballroom case, making a big deal out of national security. We need the ballroom. It's national security. We got to sequester the president in a hardened shell. And that's the only way to preserve the perimeter. It's a holistic one knitted together project, military, industrial hospitals below, ballroom above judge. Any other questions? Yeah. Why then did the same lawyers in the United, the UFC case in which a group of plaintiffs is trying to stop the UFC fight in a 90-foot claw on the White House South Lawn, why in the 41 pages filed by the same Yakov Roth is there not even a footnote acknowledging the security risks at the White House presented by 5 ,000 people in a mass horde descending onto the lawn as Donald Trump pimps out the White House for a UFC fight?

3:49Michael Popok:I mean, you could barely get away with that inconsistent position if you were a different set of lawyers. But I looked hard, and we're posting it on Legal AF Substack. It's the same lawyers who argued. I mean, literally, Yakov Roth just argued at the appellate court for the federal system in the District of Columbia. He's the one that argued that the Statue of Liberty could be knocked down and blown up by the president, and there'd be nothing the courts could do anything about it. But I looked hard, Mr. Roth, in your filing, and I didn't find anything that you filed on Tuesday night at 9 p.m., pursuant to Judge Mehta's order, that said there was a security risk.

4:30Michael Popok:In fact, you said that the White House South Lawn has frequently been the site of state dinners and that King Charles has been greeted there. I mean, are they all taking their life into their hands? somehow, I think what I'm trying to acknowledge, somehow, without a ballroom, without a drone depot on top of a ballroom, without a shell on top of a military base underneath the White House, Trump seems to go about his business just fine. There seems to be no interruption in the executive branch, not in their daily life and their family life. I mean, to the extent any family still visits the White House.

5:09Michael Popok:I haven't seen Melania Trump in a long, long time. We need to put her on the back of a milk carton soon. But when I read to you from the critical pages of their filing, you'll see why I think this backfires for them in the ballroom case as the three-judge panel of Milik, Garcia, and Rao just got the case, are just considering it off of oral argument. And I expect a ruling from them, I don't know, on July 4th. They're human beings. They understand what's been filed, even if it's not technically part of the record. I'm Michael Popak. We're here together on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network.

5:51Michael Popok:Take a minute to hit the free subscribe button as we continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. Let's get down to the merits of my argument, as they say. So I'm looking at the filing, which is against a complaint that is being prosecuted by the Public Integrity Project and Brendan Ballew and his team. I'll show you a clip from my discussion with Brennan Ballew just in the last 24 hours about this particular case. And Judge Mehta has said, I'm going to consider the temporary restraining order. I want Monday night, sorry, Tuesday night at 9 p.m. I want the brief from the government in opposition.

6:28Michael Popok:And Wednesday night at 9 p.m. I want the brief in reply from the plaintiffs. And then maybe we get together on the 11th. The big red letter day for Donald Trump is his birthday, June 14th, which is this Sunday. And then I'm looking at, you know, in among their argument where they don't refute or even acknowledge some of the primary arguments. So they have to be taken as true. And I'm sure Brendan's team will address that. They don't deny that a Singaporean company, crypto.com is a co-sponsor, stands to make millions of dollars off of the pimping out of the White House and the Lincoln Memorial and the Ellipse.

7:09Michael Popok:They don't deny that Paramount, the streaming service owned by the Ellison family, which are cronies of Donald Trump, whose family gave him hundreds of millions of dollars. In return, they got to own CNN and CBS and 60 Minutes, that they're the streaming service for the UFC fight and stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars. They don't deny that. They don't deny even that Donald Trump is a shareholder in TKO, the holding company for Dana White and UFC fighting, and it stands to profit from this event. No, no, no. They compare it all to the Easter egg roll. Right. A 90-foot claw in a UFC fight where people are making hundreds of millions of dollars in profit, where the expense is being borne by the American people, but the profit is being shared among Donald Trump and his cronies.

7:57Michael Popok:That's the same as a little kid with the Easter bunny rolling an Easter egg. or Joe Biden having a ice skating rink built for, you know, for the kids, for Christmas, for the holidays, or Obama having a concert to celebrate Black Heritage Month and having Beyonce at the concert. You know what the difference is? They were all free. They were all run by the government. They weren't pimped out for profit the way that Trump has. You know, Obama didn't get a kickback from Beyonce for her performance. Joe Biden wasn't selling pretzels and hot cocoa in a little hut next to the skating rink. See the difference?

8:41Michael Popok:They don't in their filing. I never thought a pillowcase could make much of a difference until I tried Blissey. Blissey pillowcases, they're made from 22 MoMe 6A grade, 100 % pure mulberry silk. And I noticed the difference right away. The silk feels naturally cooling, breathable, and gentler on my skin and hair than satin. I've had less frizz and smoother hair when I wake up and fewer sleep creases. I also love that Blissey is dermatologist tested and recommended. Fully machine washable and comes in over 100 colors and designs, including Wicked and Harry Potter collections. Plus, there's a reason Blissey has sold over 3 million pillowcases and has been featured in Vogue, Oprah Daily, and Good Morning America.

9:27Michael Popok:Personally, it's been one of those simple upgrades I didn't expect to love as much as I do. Sleep more comfortably, wake up with better looking hair, and it feels like a small luxury that's actually practical. Because you're a listener, Blissey is offering 60 nights risk-free plus an additional 30 % off when you shop at blissey.com slash legal AF. That's B-L-I-S-S-Y dot com slash legal AF and use code legal AF to get an additional 30 % off your skin and hair. Well, thank you. And they're listening. But let me go to page four where my eyes popped out. there's references to the 60 million dollars that you and i taxpayer dollars have already spent we're at the front of the line on the expense and the back of the line on any profit that's for sure but then it says the white house south law on page four has a long history of hosting public events public events stop right there is a for-profit where tickets are going for like being raffled off for a million dollars for two.

10:33Michael Popok:Is that a public event? So I think they end it right there. Perhaps the most famous is the Easter egg roll. Is the Easter buddy shaking down the kids and their parents for cash the way Trump is? But here's the security issue. State dinners that exceed the East Room seating capacity are held on a large tent on the South Lawn. Okay. The annual congressional picnic is there. King Charles III had a reception there, swearing in ceremonies of Supreme Court justices. And you can do all that without a ballroom? You can do all that without having the president sequestered? First of all, he doesn't want to be sequestered in a ballroom.

11:17Michael Popok:I had this exact line of questioning for Brendan Ballew, the lawyer for Public Integrity Project, who's fighting this UFC fight, who's going to have to respond to this ridiculousness and silliness later tonight or later today. And here's a clip of my interview, I think you'll find fascinating, by Brendan Ballew. We'll put the clip of the entire interview in the notes below. Side note, he's also the lawyer that represents Katie Fang against Todd Blanche for the Epstein files. And he's representing his company, his entity, two Jan 6th officers in their attempt to shut down the Donald Trump slush fund.

11:55Michael Popok:fascinating interview and it's in the link below but here's a clip of my discussion about how this undermines the ballroom to argument raised by the same lawyers play the clip because maybe because i just come out of the oral argument about the ballroom that we we streamed live on legal af and you hear the lawyers some of them in the same office working for brett shoemate making the argument like yakov roth that this is uh you know a um well a i could do anything i want and I can get away with it and nobody can stop me. But all this national security, national security, the White House is insecure from kamikaze drones.

12:30Michael Popok:I mean, it sounds like if you're an idiot, if you ever attended another event at the White House, and yet Donald Trump is bringing the hordes and masses of people, and they're not going to be in a ballroom. They're going to be outside at a claw. Has that kind of inconsistent argument, inconsistent position taking by the government, I know it wasn't in your briefing, but isn't that part of this too? Well, that's a great point. I mean, and certainly I think our case can probably be helpful to the ballroom case for exactly that reason. It undermines any claim that Donald Trump needs to be cloistered indoors at a secure compartmentalized facility in the White House at all times.

13:06He clearly doesn't. He clearly doesn't want to be. Right.

13:09Michael Popok:I thought it was all about the ballroom. The ballroom is a shed. The covers are complex. It's knitted together holistically. They can't be separated. It's a security apparatus for the president to make him and his guests secure, you know, from kamikaze drone strikes and missiles. I don't see any part of that listed on page 40. They don't even have the excuse of saying, but different lawyers, different kind of case. Now, same lawyers, same case, same Yakov Roth that argued about the ballroom just a few days ago. And you'd think you'd at least drop, if you're a careful lawyer, you'd drop a footnote that said, this does not undermine our argument about security at the White House.

13:55Michael Popok:There's going to be amped up security for this event. I don't know what security is for this event at all. Donald Trump, who is notorious for not wanting metal detectors or magnetometers at his events, probably is going to drop them for this. Just going to be a horde, a Jan 6-like horde descending on the White House lawn. Lord knows what's in their pockets and backpacks. But the president's okay with it, he'll come out, wave around, freak the Secret Service out, you know, the most shot at president in our history, doesn't seem to really care about security, then why should we? And why should we allow for the destruction of the White House, desecration of its hollow grounds as the people's house, to support a ballroom for his ego?

14:41Michael Popok:That'll be a question for Mr. Roth. Now, it may not be in a filing, although the ballroom lawyers should consider filing, But certainly it's going to seep into the water supply, as Judge Millett, I think, is probably writing the majority opinion here, makes her decision. She's going to be like, yeah, they really need that ballroom. They really need to have the president like in a bunker. He's holding UFC fights on the White House lawn. But I love when the Department of Justice can't keep their story straight in their filings, and federal judges are onto it, and they know it, and so are opposing counsel.

15:14Michael Popok:So listen, until my next report, come on over to Legal AF YouTube channel, hit the free subscribe button and do the exact same thing at Legal AF Substack. Until my next report, this is Michael.

15:43Michael Popok:AAF. 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.

From the publisher

The DOJ just got caught taking “inconsistent positions” in a new late-night filing in the UFC injunction case, as they basically concede that the White House is secure and doesn’t need a “ballroom-military installation-hospital” underground bunker and missile-tipped drone depot in the room to protect Trump and the White House! Popok takes a close look at the new filing and why it undermines the very same lawyers’ arguments in the Ballroom appeal. Check out the full interview with Brenden Balllou here: https://youtu.be/FK9ZHOeSqGs

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