The Intersection with Michael Popok Full Episode - 6/17/2025
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The NBA playoffs are here, and I'm getting my bets in on FanDuel. Talk to me, Chuck GPT. What do you know? All sorts of interesting stuff. Even Charles Barkley's greatest fear. Hey, nobody needs to know that. New customers bet $5 to get 200 in bonus bets if you win. FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook.

21 plus and present in Illinois. Must be first online real money wager. $5 deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus pass that expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Welcome to The Intersection with Michael Popak on the Midas Touch Network. Where do you begin a weekly podcast at the intersection of law and politics? Demystify everything. You begin at the beginning. Seems like

No King's Day. Doesn't that seem like that was a generation ago? That was just this weekend.

because it has to be put in the context of all the other resistance and defiance that's going on right now on the streets of America, because we're voting the only way we can while we wait for the ballot box in midterms. We're voting with our feet, we're voting with our signs, we're voting with our participation and our participatory democracy, and it matters.

The arrest today of Brad Lander, a little known politician outside of New York, another example of Donald Trump trying to put in jail his political rivals. That, for me, is not a dishonor for Brad Lander. That establishes his bona fides, the fact that he was arrested accompanying an immigrant

in New York to an immigration hearing by a masked ICE agent, it's a badge of honor. He should have that tattooed on his arm. We should all have it tattooed or henna-painted on our arm. I was arrested in the pursuit of democracy. For me, that long list, ever-growing list of Democratic politicians and elected officials who have been arrested, detained, indicted, or threatened as much...

That's a badge of honor that shows us that the defiance and the resistance peaceably, peacefully is working. I'm going to talk about all of that tonight. The arrest of Lander.

and all the other political rivals. What the Trump administration and MAGA is doing in a depraved way to make political hay out of the assassinations in Minnesota, trying to pin it on the Democrats and on the governor walls when everybody knows or should know that those killings on the day of No King's Day

May have been politically motivated, but in the wrong direction. Guy was a Trumper, not a liberal. Sure, he was appointed to some board by Donald Trump, but if people like Mike Lee had waited long enough, instead of trying to politicize it and blame it on the Democrats, he would have realized the guy's been a Trumper since who knows when.

He's been lashing out against the LGBTQ+ community, about liberal policies, and then he took matters into his own hands. It sounds like a liberal Democrat's gonna have a car full of no-Kings-day flyers and a list of 40 people on a hit list on a Deadpool. Who's that sound like? Republicans or Democrats? But the Republicans were the first ones in a depraved way to try to blame the Democrats. We begin at the beginning.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today heard oral argument, three-judge panel, about whether Donald Trump's not only abuse of power, but his attack on states' rights, trying to attack the sovereignty not just of California, but to tear asunder our union, the very concept of federalism.

that binds us together in a United States of America. Donald Trump is attacking that as well. And as a byproduct of that, going after what? A political rival. The leading candidate, I believe, for president of the United States in 2028 is going to be Gavin Newsom. He's showing his metal face.

He hasn't been arrested, but he's been threatened as much, and he's fighting it out in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. There was a hearing today. Listen to the whole thing. We ran a live feed, not only of the audio. The video was up, and it's still up on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Come over there and check it out.

The American Bar Association. Remember them? They've only been around since the 1840s or 1850s. They finally got off the mat after being almost TKO'd by Donald Trump in his assault on not just the independence of the judiciary, but the independence of federal, I'm sorry, the independence of lawyers, my profession, the bar.

Alex de Tocqueville, when he was going around America, as quoted by Judge Beryl Howell in a recent decision against Donald Trump attacking law firms, said that, and I'm paraphrasing, the only thing that stands between America and its democracy and the excesses and abuses of the executive branch is a free and independent bar. That's under attack. But after four separate

Federal judges all ruled against Donald Trump's attack attempts to attack and put on his his put in the doghouse and make them radioactive and destroy firms that he was retaliating against after four separate federal judges ruled against him and him still not abiding by it.

The American Bar Association joined forces with one of those law firms, Sussman Godfrey, and filed their lawsuit, not just against Trump, not just against the Department of Justice, but against each and every agency and department of the federal government. I mean, each and every agency of the federal government, a department of the federal government. And now that case is seeking to go after what they call the Trump illegal law firm intimidation plan.

as only the American Bar Association can do. I'm a member of the American Bar Association. The American Bar Association has created the model rules of ethics and conduct for lawyers and judges that every lawyer and judge other than the Supreme Court follows. They're agnostic when it comes to politics. They ask, they rank and rate judges and often find that Donald Trump's judges and judge candidates are unqualified.

but they're about as plain vanilla. They are vanilla ice cream in a clear dish covered with vanilla sauce and coconut flakes, if you know what I mean. Have you ever read the ABA Journal? If you can't get to sleep at night, and I apologize to people who write scintillating articles in the ABA Journal. I've written articles for the Florida Bar Journal in the past, but if you can't sleep at night or you're bored in a dentist's office,

Pick up the ABA Journal. But to Donald Trump, they embody everything that's wrong about the American judicial system and the lawyers. I want to break down why that ABA lawsuit is so important. Iran and Israel, we have to talk about it because it sits at the intersection of international law and politics and shows the depravity of Donald Trump. We have bipartisan support against Donald Trump.

trying to take advantage of an out-of-control Trump light or Trump dark in Israel in Netanyahu. I'm not here to debate the Israel-Hamas conflict.

I'm not here to debate that. I understand that the nuclear capacity and capabilities of Iran matter to people in the region, including to Israel, and that Israel is the only country in the region that could have taken on Iran, but also only with U.S. support.

But now you've got Donald Trump rejecting his own intelligence community. Remember, he put Tulsi Gabbard in charge to be the director of national intelligence responsible for 14 different agencies. Well, in April, she testified and it's in all the reporting, all the presidential briefing that Donald Trump doesn't read.

that they do not believe and did not believe that Iran was close to having a nuclear weapon, nor that the supreme leader of Iran, who Donald Trump has now put a bounty on his head, effectively, had authorized the creation of nuclear weapons. Donald Trump rejected all that, adopted the talking points for Netanyahu, now backs Israel and wants to declare war, has effectively declared war on a counterpart who leads Iran. I may not agree with Iran,

but they are a sovereign nation as it stands. And we do have protocols, including under the Constitution, before you can declare war. We'll break that down as well. As Donald Trump fumbles his way through the G7 summit of the economy, literally dropping the notebook and pages flying out of it containing the deal he reached with the UK. And in the fluster of Starmer, the Prime Minister of England,

grabbing up the documents, he said, because he wanted to avoid a national security risk. Donald Trump then used that time to declare that he'd reached a deal with the EU. Maybe no one told him that over 10 years ago, that UK left the European Union and is on their own. Remember Brexit? Well, Donald Trump seems to have forgot it. That once again indicates to me that there is an addled stew of a brain going on with Donald Trump. It explains a lot.

It explains a lot. You know, that elevator is not going to the top floor, if you know what I mean. The fact that he couldn't remember the deal that he struck and then claimed it was a deal with the entire European Union.

Then we have an attack on women by a misogynist president who was adjudged by not one, by two juries to be a sex abuser. Does anybody doubt? Put it in comments. You doubt he's a misogynist? You doubt that he disrespects women? You doubt that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll and others who testify? Well, what do you then, how do you then, how do you explain an administration that is prepared to defund

the Violence Against Women Act, right? The Violence Against Women Act, VAWA, V-A-W-A, was created in 1994 under the Clinton administration, bipartisan by Congress, to address women who are victimized sexually and violently attacked and or murdered sexually.

and to give them support and to give them programs and to give them funding and counseling and all of it. And Donald Trump wants to get rid of it in the name of DEI,

eradication and because he doesn't like the viewpoint of some of these coalitions in 50 states that were created by Congress and funded by Congress, who also have a point of view about immigration. And he wants to make sure they're not giving support to a battered woman who happens to be an immigrant of unknown or undocumented status, which is exactly against what the Congress Act says.

And we got a new lawsuit filed by people like Democracy Forward to protect women from this out-of-control, maniacal president. We have so much to talk about at the intersection of law and politics. And I'm so pleased that we do it here each week on The Intersection. As you may know, you know, I've been doing and co-founded Legal AF on the Midas Dutch Network with Ben Mysalis almost five years ago to come together a couple of times a week to

to hit the major stories that we curate at the intersection of law and politics, to demystify what's happening there from a perspective of a practicing lawyer who practices and a political and constitutional scholar who practices in the courtrooms around the country that we talk about. So we did that.

Then we decided right before the election, in case things went south, I mean, we had eyes, we had ears, we could read, we better set up the Legal AF YouTube channel. So we've got the Legal AF YouTube channel up and running. It's easy to find, Legal AF MTN.com.

which demonstrates and commemorates our relationship with the Midas Touch Network, Legal AF MTN. We're going to hit 700,000 subscribers in our eighth month before this month is over. And that's all because of you. Help us continue to grow that channel. We've got about a dozen contributors. I'm adding about two or three contributors onto the channel about every month.

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We're the number one law and politics podcast on YouTube rankings each week. But we need more. We need you to join our movement and add to our fervent audience so we can brief you each and every hour, each and every week. Legal AF, the sub stack is a way to do it. Audio downloads for Legal AF, the podcast. Watching us on YouTube, of course, are all the ways to support us.

And we do appreciate it. I wanted to take this time here in the moment. We do appreciate you. We know the movement that we're talking to. We know the fervent defiance, resistance that's out there. We're part of it. We bring on...

Democratic leaders and others to talk to you. We kind of make this a TED Talk meets a law school class every hour, every day on Legal AF. I just interviewed Richie Torres, Representative Torres from the 15th in New York, one of the leaders on financial services, on Chinese, on social security, on immigration issues.

talking about all things that matter to you to brief our audience about what Congress and what the Democrats and the minority can do and are doing to prepare for the midterms. No King's Day.

And a million five or more people that hit the streets, building on the backs of hands-off rally, building on the backs of rule of law or law day rally, led by progressive organizations, about a dozen of them, we all support them, including 5051 organization, they matter. And the fact that people came out against great personal risk

to march, to be defiant, to give this administration a middle finger, to tell them that we, the people, are the people, that we are the most important part of a constitutional republic, that participatory democracy, participatory democracy is the most important element

that we don't have the luxury any longer to be the silent majority. We don't have the luxury any longer to not vote. Seven million Democrats sat out the last election. They effectively sat out democracy. We cannot risk that again. You see the deleterious impact of people sitting out democracy. We've got to remain active. We've got to remain vigilant. People at great personal cost, as I said, there was assassinations the day of the event.

My podcast partner was violently attacked, I'm talking about on social media, with his family and his daughter, who's like seven months old, eight months old, walking in California and Pasadena.

Do I have to wake up in the morning and read that Ben Micellis and his family were attacked online in disgusting, sexual, misogynist fashion, including the baby? Do I need to hear that? Do you need to hear that? Is that the America that you want to live in? I am not going to allow, and neither is this audience, going to allow Donald Trump to hijack American ideals, to shrink wrap the beating heart of America, and to hijack patriotism.

We cannot allow that to happen. I think that's why you come here every week for this fellowship, to speak truth to each other. That's where it starts. So we begin at the beginning. When I return from, and thank God for our sponsors. There's two major ways I'm sort of funding the intersection.

our new podcast. One is the Legal AF Substack, trying to grow that, get that into the top five, top 10% of up and coming substacks. We're doing our part on the content. We need your support, free subscribe to Legal AF, the substack. And then we've got

the Legal AF YouTube channel, and of course, our sponsors. Pro Democracy sponsors, handpicked by Midas Dutch, handpicked by Jordy Maiselis, curated by him. We enjoy them. We try all the products. We only do the ones that we want to do. And to support the show, here now is a word from our sponsors. Okay, let's talk about something we don't usually like to admit.

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Go to Packagen.com slash Legal AF for 15% off and a special gift. Again, that's Packagen.com slash Legal AF. One more time, Packagen.com slash Legal AF. 15% off and a free gift auto-applied at checkout. Okay, welcome back to The Intersection with Michael Popock here on the Midas Touch Network. We sit at the intersection of law and politics so that you don't have to. Let's get into it. We had an arrest today.

Not of a diabolical criminal or terrorist or the breakup of a terrorist gang that makes America safe, unless you think arresting the controller for the city of New York and a candidate for mayor, Brad Lander, makes you safe, makes your house and yourself safe.

and safer. Instead, what we have is yet another example of Donald Trump going after and arresting, indicting, and/or detaining his political rivals, meaning Democrats, to embarrass them. But I think it's having the opposite effect. It's unifying the Democratic Party in a way I've never seen, and it is a badge of honor

to be indicted, arrested, and or detained by the Trump administration. I think we should all get Midas or legal AF tattoos, even if they're temporary and they wash off that say, I've been arrested, detained, and or indicted by the Trump administration. And I'm proud to tell you that, you know, I, in support of democracy, let's do that.

So add Brad Lander. Let's put it in context. What happened? Well, he was down at federal court today, immigration court, accompanying an immigrant for a hearing. He's done it before. He's talked about it in the debates about the mayoralty. He's probably running in fourth place right now. I think this is probably going to make him at least get up to third or maybe second because he showed great mettle and great toughness.

He didn't ask for the arrest, but he didn't shy away from it either. So he shows up there and then swooping in are these masked, I mean, literally wearing a mask, masked ICE officers who try to take the immigrant away on some sort of summary disposition or deportation. And when Lander asked what's happening here,

They arrest him. He didn't resist arrest. He asked a question. And then when they tried to arrest him, he said, show me the legal warrant. Where is the warrant? Where is the warrant? And then they just arrested him and took him away. Why? Because Donald Trump wants that to happen. The tone is set from the top. Put it in context. How did it start?

Hannah Dugan, Wisconsin democratically elected judge, not only arrested, indicted, and perp walked with a photo to match that was distributed by the Department of Justice before the ink was dry on her criminal complaint. Hannah Dugan, why was she arrested? What was her crime? Not allowing her courtroom to be the scene of an ICE arrest with an administrative warrant?

Now let's move up the chain. That didn't feed the beast that is Donald Trump. So now he indicts and arrests two people in Newark, Representative McIver from New Jersey, a member of the House, and Mayor Baraka, both political rivals of Donald Trump. Mayor Baraka has been on the short list to be the next president of the United States.

And what's their crime? Using their eyeballs to provide oversight on a new federal detention center called Delaney Hall in Newark, which is part of what they do as a congressperson. And that Delaney Hall is run by a private prison company that donated a lot of money to Donald Trump. They're arrested. MacGyver is indicted. The mayor is taken away in handcuffs and later arrested.

Elena Haba has to drop the charges for trespass because they're bullshit. Yeah. She gets chastised by a magistrate judge who tells her, you've got to do better. You're abusing power as a prosecutor, right? But the arrest is front page news. And the dismissal of the indictment is on page 54 in the birdcage, if you know what I mean. So we've got McIver and Baraka.

Moving up the chain, threats against our governor of California, Governor Newsom. Threats by Tom Homan, the border czar. By the way, who confirmed that guy as border czar? See, that's not a Senate-confirmed position, yet he wields tremendous power. Stephen Miller, too. They threatened to arrest a governor of one of our 50 states.

Donald Trump says, well, he's got the helicopter, the Marine One in the background in White House. We should arrest the governor. Governor says, come and get it. Come and get it. Instead, Donald Trump tries to embarrass him by commandeering the National Guard. I'll talk about that hearing in a minute. But while they're at it, Kristi Noem shows up at a federal building and the senior senator from California, Alex Padilla, shows up, tall guy, good looking guy, senator, to ask questions, to ask a question.

And he gets taken down and detained. And I think Ziplocs put it on his wrists because he had the temerity to ask a question of Christine Noem. He is a sitting United States Senator, the senior Senator from California. And Donald Trump's reaction to that was not to apologize, but to double down and press a losing hand and say, well, he looks like an immigrant to me. He's brown. I mean, the brown part is my addition, but that's what he meant. And now we move from there.

to another political rival, somebody who's going to be a thorn in the side of Donald Trump in his home state of New York, Brad Lander. Once again, it is not a disqualifier for me, nor should it be for you, that any of these Democratic leaders are being arrested, indicted, or detained. It's a badge of honor. It proves their bona fides to go up against Donald Trump, that they have the mettle to do so. Let's talk about the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Had a three-judge panel today. We live-streamed it, audio and video, on Legal AF. We're doing that with all the oral arguments we can get our hands on. Three-judge panel. Judge Bennett, Judge Miller, Judge Sung. Judge Bennett, formerly the Hawaii Attorney General, a moderate Republican. Yes, they still do exist. Hawaii is a blue state. He operated in a blue state and was respected for doing that. Picked by Trump.

For the Ninth Circuit, Hawaii is part of the Ninth Circuit, but a moderate, a pragmatist. Miller, none of those things. Nothing in his body of work or record says that he's moderate. Right-wing MAGA, yes. Federalist, yes. Clarence Thomas Clark, one of many, yes.

So he's the second judge. Third judge, Judge Sung. Judge Sung appointed by Joe Biden. She worked tirelessly her entire life to protect unions, workers' rights. She started her career as a fellow in the Brennan Center for Constitutional Rights and then just has been working her butt off for labor unions her entire life and took the bench. Wasn't ever a federal judge. Went right to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

That's the panel. What's the issue? The issue is whether Judge Breyer was right or wrong below as the federal trial judge in issuing a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration on Friday because he found that Donald Trump did illegal things. He violated the law, that he violated the 1903 Militia Act, that he violated the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which is the very foundation of our separation of powers.

It says that unless, I'm summarizing, unless an act of Congress gives the federal government its power or the Constitution, all other power resides in the states or in the people. We would not have come together. We would not have convinced states to leave the confederation and join the United States of America without that provision. And Donald Trump, for the bully pulpit of his Oval Office, is attacking the very essence

Glue that holds our union together and it's no coincidence. It's on purpose that it's attacking a blue state. There's about 22 of them Donald Trump doesn't have to worry about election anymore. So he's going after Gavin Newsom trying to cripple him before He runs for office. He runs for the presidency. It's no shock or surprise Gavin Newsom is gonna run and is probably now the leading candidate for the Democrats Donald Trump knows it and

For me, it's actually galvanized support for galvanism. It's made him more palatable. We're watching how he would be as a leader under pressure. The Ninth Circuit major issue is whether Judge Breyer was right or wrong in the Tenth Amendment and the Militia Act of 1903 were violated by Donald Trump by commandeering the National Guard because he claimed there was a rebellion going on. I don't know. Civil rights, civil discourse and protest with some bad apples does not render it a rebellion.

Donald Trump couldn't. I can't effectively execute law there. I need to have my federal troops on the ground.

Trump's first argument to the Ninth Circuit today was that you can't even review this. It's not justiciable. Judges can't provide oversight to how Donald Trump declares, whether there is a rebellion or not, or whether he's having difficulty executing the laws. That's only for the president. I think that's a loser based on the hearing that I watched. I don't think he's got three votes for that. I don't think he has two votes for that. Sorry.

So I think they find that they have the power to review what Donald Trump did. Next issue. Do they have the jurisdiction? Because Donald Trump took this appeal from the temporary restraining order, not from the preliminary injunction hearing that's scheduled for Friday. Generally, appellate courts don't have appellate jurisdiction over temporary restraining orders. But that seemed not to bother the panel today. I was a little surprised by that. I would have thought they would have given more...

more focus on their lack of jurisdiction, but they don't seem to be troubled by that. So then lastly, it's going to be, did Judge Breyer properly make a record and find that Donald Trump violated the 10th Amendment and the Militia Act of 1903? And there, I think, based on my own

experience, including arguing in the Ninth Circuit myself, based on the questions that were asked, led by Judge Bennett, the Hawaiian attorney general guy, that they're going to find that the record is a bit incomplete. They're going to give directions to Judge Breyer to fill out that record.

to complete that record, develop more facts about what the basis was from Donald Trump, and do that at Friday's hearing. Because they said at the end, we are mindful that there is another hearing on Friday before Judge Bennett. That makes the most sense to conserve scarce judicial resources. Let Breyer continue, which he hasn't been divested of jurisdiction, continue on Friday's hearing with directions from the Ninth Circuit,

Then bring the whole thing back to us for another oral argument about whether the appeal, whether there should be a stay for the appeal, because we're on very narrow grounds with the Ninth Circuit. They're only there to determine whether the stay should be granted for the duration of the appeal on the temporary restraining order. But we've already moved past the temporary restraining order into the preliminary injunction phase.

That's what I would do if I were them and we'll know more probably by tomorrow and I'll report on it where say with me Say it in comments Midas touch and the legal AF YouTube channel I want to turn now with our remaining time to talk about the American Bar Association lawsuit and an attack on women and violence against women by Donald Trump that's now been addressed with a new lawsuit and

There's other things I'll talk about throughout the week, like Elon Musk just filed a lawsuit against New York because they're trying to regulate hate speech. And he thinks that's a violation of the First Amendment because all he wants to do is hate speech. I'll do all that in separate hot takes. But let me do these big two pieces here. So you have what you need for your week from now until at least midweek edition of Legal AF and Saturday's Legal AF.

The American Bar Association was formed in the mid 1800s in Saratoga, New York, when about 150 lawyers got together in a room and said, we need a bar association. We need to regulate ourselves. We need to set standards, high standards for this profession. And so they did. And if you're a young lawyer, like when I was coming out of law school, yes, for those that are snarky, I was once a young lawyer with a lot less gray hair. When I went to Duke Law School,

And even through to today, I am proud to be a member of an honorable profession. And I talk about it like a profession where I am a sworn officer of the court to tell the truth. I often have opposing lawyers who like to lie in order to try to gain a tactical advantage. I don't. I try to tell the truth. I take it seriously. My oath. I don't think it's a game. I don't try to use sharp elbow tactics that aren't based on facts. Right.

For those that are my adversaries, you hear me? I'm talking to you. So the fact that the ABA got together and said, we better propose model rules of professional conduct, which are used in all 50 states, which I swore an oath to uphold.

We better propose model canons of judicial ethics, which all federal and state judges abide by, except for the United States Supreme Court. That comes out of the American Bar Association. When there is a major legal issue that needs to be addressed with one voice by the bar, the American Bar Association steps forward. I've been a member since 1992. It is about as much of a middle-of-the-road professional organization

organization as you're going to find. It's a voluntary Bar Association, meaning I don't have to be a member of it, but it promotes interests that are important to me, like the rule of law, like the attack on the independence of the judiciary, like the attack on the independence of lawyers and law firms. And so in 1937, the American Bar Association went after Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who tried to pack the United States Supreme Court.

They took the right position then, and they're taking the right position now. After three months of watching one law firm after another, the world divide effectively into four law firms that fought off Donald Trump successfully in court when he tried to put them on with an executive order on a national security risk list.

right? To make them radioactive, to destroy their business model, to destroy their ability to attract business, to destroy their ability to appear in front of the federal courts or federal government on behalf of clients. Four law firms took on Donald Trump. Jenner and Block, Sussman Godfrey, WilmerHale, and Perkins Coie. There's a whole other group of lawyers and law firms that have also opposed Donald Trump. But those are the four that sued to get off his list. And one,

and beat him all the way up to a permanent injunction. But there's another two dozen law firms that settled with Donald Trump and others who are scared of Donald Trump and are not doing their zealous advocacy best on behalf of clients. And that undermines what makes America great, what protects our constitutional republic from the out-of-control, king-like fascist tendencies of somebody named Donald Trump.

And so the American Bar Association, standing on the shoulders of those four suits that won, and to stop Donald Trump from continuing to have a chilling effect on law firms, brought their own case, and they're represented by one of the four firms, Sussman Gottfried.

And in the suit, rather than just take a one-off approach like these law firms, they took the approach of declaring that Donald Trump has a policy of law firm intimidation that needs to be dismantled, needs to be stopped. And they used as examples a number of, they didn't use them by name, but they numbered them, ABA member one, ABA member two, ABA member three, who they have evidence based on the filing of the complaint that they,

These lawyers and law firms are unable to take on popular positions, including representing LGBTQ plus communities, women, disadvantaged, underprivileged, because their law firms are scared shitless of Donald Trump.

And that's a problem because Donald Trump has had the desired effect. The deleterious impact he was looking for in our profession has happened. $1 billion worth of free legal services by law firms scared out of their minds by Donald Trump. So bad that Beryl Howell, one of the judges of D.C., called out those law firms and said, how dare you? And if you're a client, how could you possibly...

hire one of those law firms against the federal government, you got to worry that they have divided loyalties. How are they going to represent you when they're worried about their own hides? How are they going to be zealous advocates as required by the ABA model ethics code when they bent over for Donald Trump, right? So

You have those firms. You have the firms that we haven't even identified, that the ABA has identified, that have gutted their pro bono programs, no longer representing top causes.

Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss only beat Rudy Giuliani for $158 million for the defamation and doxing campaign because he accused them of voter fraud in counting votes in Fulton County, Georgia. They only win. Yes, they got the facts. Yes, they got the law. But they only win because a major law firm, Wilkie Farr and Gallagher, represented them with top flight legal service. They're out of the business now. They're one of the settling law firms.

So if pro bono programs and if lawyers don't take unpopular causes, who's going to take them? And that's what the ABA is trying to do to run interference with this lawsuit that's now being filed in D.C., including seeking an injunction. And then the last thing I want to talk about is the attack on women. Does it come as a shock to anybody?

that Donald Trump, misogynist in chief, felon in chief, who was adjudged by two federal juries in New York to have sexually abused, sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll, with other women testifying about him sexually assaulting them, and the parade of infidelity in his marriage, and attacks on women, and affairs outside the marriage that he tried to cover up and was convicted of crimes related to it in New York.

Is there any shock that he would place no value in protecting women from being abused and or killed, murdered, or sexually assaulted? And so now he's gone after the Violence Against Women Act passed in 1994, which every state has a coalition devoted with federal funding to assisting victims and to help make them not be a victim or a murder victim. Even

Donald Trump's own Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women still has put up results that demonstrate how high a percentage of women are murdered in this country by their domestic partner or former domestic partner.

or sexual partner or former sexual partner. It is a shockingly high number that still exists in record keeping in the Trump administration to this day. And yet Donald Trump, in the interest of anti-DEI and anti-immigrant status, wants to defund these organizations and victimize the victims once again.

In violation of an act of Congress, in an ultra varies act, in a violation of the First Amendment, in the violation of separation of powers, in violation of the spending clause of the Constitution, and the new lawsuit that's been filed in D.C. is challenging this defunding.

I don't know how Donald Trump or anybody in MAGA or any of the elected officials from MAGA can look the American people and women and people who defend and support women in the eye and tell them they are for them while they're letting this happen, causing it to happen on their watch. Congress said it doesn't matter who shows up battered and bruised at one of these offices, documented, undocumented. If it's a woman,

Let's stop it. Let's give resources behind it. It is a human scourge that needs to be ended. And since 1994, the statistics have barely budged. And so the anti-immigrant aspect of it is against the act of Congress. Congress makes the law, not Donald Trump. Similarly, the diversity, equity, and inclusion aspect

That's a violation of the First Amendment rights of these organizations to promote their brand of victim assistance the way that they see fit and not to be undermined by Donald Trump in terms of defunding. You see the common theme here with Donald Trump, defund things that make him uncomfortable, defund things in a retaliatory way. That's why he's defunding Homeland Security organizations.

In New York, the number one target for our enemies still remains New York. Richie Torres, the representative from New York who just did an interview with me up tomorrow on Legal AF, he said there's been seven plots in 2025 terrorist plots in New York. That's just in 2025 and hundreds in the last 10 years. And Donald Trump, to retaliate against his home state, is ready to defund it.

So these lawsuits are important and they generally win. Just so you know, you know, the Democrats are batting well over 85, almost to 95 percent.

They do well at the appellate court levels. They choose their courts well. That's why I often talk about, you know, the former colonies serving a role today in this new revolution. It's the courts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island and New York and Maryland. You know, it's like the original colonies. Sometimes California, sure. D.C. a lot.

There's a reason we don't file these cases in Texas and in Florida, Louisiana, you know, places like that. Not even Purpally, Texas, as I said. So we'll continue to follow the results of these cases. They just got filed. I wanted you to know about them. I do that regularly on the intersection. And then to fill in the gaps and the blanks.

Come to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Free subscribe there as we continue to build to 700,000 before this month is over. Legal AF, the sub stack to get all the filings and other commentary. Can't get anywhere else, but on Legal AF, the sub stack. And then, of course, we've got Legal AF, the podcast.

which we're doing twice a week. But in between, in the interstitial moments, we do an hourly update over on Legal AF. I do about 14, 15 videos a week on Midas Touch. I do about, oh wow, 25 to 30 videos over on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, and then another 20 or 30 videos from our a dozen or more legal commentators. Legal AF, the YouTube channel. What do we got there? We've got Court Accountability Action, Lisa Graves.

Alex Aronson and Mike Sachs talking about constitutional issues and federal court corruption up to the United States Supreme Court. They bring in some amazing guests. You know, Russ Feingold was just on. Jamie Raskin was just on.

And that's court accountability action in their playlist. Court of History, Sidney Blumenthal and Shawn Walens come together. It's like murder in the, murder's in the building, but it's from a historical concept. They are our resident historians putting everything the Trump administration is doing into historical context, the only, the way that only Sidney and Shawn can do, and they have amazing guests.

Then we've got It's Complicated, a podcast that we brought over from another platform with Asha and Renato, former FBI agents and federal prosecutors who come together and national security experts to talk to you every week on It's Complicated. Dina Dahl and me, we do unprecedented, unprecedented things. Once a week, a roundup of everything inside and outside the Supreme Court

including the scandals. You can only find one place on unprecedented. Shan Wu, former general counsel to the attorney general and a federal prosecutor comes. I just did a hot take with him together and duet. Shan Wu and his legal commentary is unparalleled. And Dave Arenberg, of course, can't forget Dave Arenberg, who's the former state attorney in Palm Beach County, Florida.

the Florida law man over here on Legal AF. I've got some others that'll be joining. We're going to have a couple of guys who work under a playlist called Civil Action that are going to be talking to you on a regular basis. And two, I'm not yet ready to announce...

But it's going to be powerful. One is an elected official. The other is a lawyer who left one of these law firms that I've talked about and has now made it a crusade. They joined together on weekly and daily hot takes. I'll be announcing that in about a week or so. So I'm glad you're here on The Intersection. Thanks for all the support. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. I'm Michael Popak, and I got some big news for our audience.

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