The Intersection with Michael Popok Full Episode - 7/1/2025
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Hey, everybody. It's Nicole Byer here with some hot takes from Wayfair. A cozy corduroy sectional from Wayfair? That's a hot take. Go on and add it to your cart and take it. A pink glam nightstand from Wayfair? Scalding hot take. Take it before I do. A mid-century modern cabinet from Wayfair that doubles as a wine bar?

Do I have to say it? It's a hot take. Get it at Wayfair.com and enjoy that free shipping too. You've reached the intersection of law and politics, of life and law and politics, of the United States Supreme Court life, law and politics.

of the budget bill soon to be passed and what it means for the policies of Donald Trump. We need to pin the tail on that donkey as we move towards the midterms. But we've got a lot of work to do before then. I'm Michael Popak. You're on The Intersection, Tuesday nights, 8 p.m. Eastern Time, on the Midas Touch Network. I got a, here it is. I got a long list of things to talk about. I guess I got to kick it off since it just happened with the Senate passing this bill.

I'm not despondent the way some people are about it. It is required for the opposition, for the resistance to have actually memorialized in a law the priorities of this administration.

to hold them accountable. I don't want to talk about the esoteric anymore. Page 48 of the Project 2025 playbook is being used. I know it. I have a dog-eared copy of Project 2025, but

But when you look the American voter in the eye and say $1 trillion of your Medicare, your Medicaid, your food stamps are being cut. When you look 11 million people in the eye and say you're being thrown off the insurance rolls by the Republicans, not passive voice, active voice. This isn't just happening to you. This is happening to you because of the Trump administration. Is there any doubt?

Why we have for the first time in history polling numbers that show that more Americans, a majority of Americans are not proud to be Americans. I'm not talking about how Michelle Obama was attacked. I'm talking about 63, 64 percent of America, including 70 percent of independents say, I don't want to be an American or I'm not proud to be an American. Is there any wonder?

So don't recoil from the budget bill. Embrace it because it's going to be our talking points for the next 18 months or so against the Trump administration to hold them responsible. I mean, I always knew the phrase you hurt you hurt you hurt the ones you love. Donald Trump is destroying his own constituency, his own voter base. But we we need to make him pay and connect the dots for people.

and not let him mask and wallpaper over the depravity of his policy decisions. Just look at the bill. I'm going to be spending a lot of time between now and when the House inevitably passes this bill and makes it law and Donald Trump signs it. I'm going to get into the molecular, the nitty gritty of all of the programs. And all it does is reflect in one place

In one place, the inhumane, depraved policy considerations that don't help the average American. Tax cuts for the wealthy, trillions of dollars added to the national debt, stealing money out of your pocket. The national debt requires us to make $1 trillion and pay it on interest before we can spend anything else to help the American people.

And Donald Trump is not going to get away with it. He thinks he is. You can tell by the way he acts. I mean, he's already got a very short time horizon. I don't mean just chronologically. I mean, in terms of the presidency. And he knows it. And he's trying to cash in as many of his chips and pay off as many of his debts in this pay-to-play kleptocracy as he can. Putting aside the big bill for a moment,

soon to be law. But I want to just reiterate and reinforce it. This is not a bad thing for independents, Democrats and fair-minded people, because now he can't run away from and rhetoric his way and double speak his way away from his failed agenda, because now it is in concrete. It's not wet cement. It is in hardened cement.

And we can point to the injury to the American people for every dollar that is diverted away from something that helps them, that helps the economy, that helps next generations, that helps this generation. We can hold them accountable. There's a series of cases this week that have happened since the last time we all got together.

It's hard to believe it was a week ago. When you think about everything that's happened in that last week, it is extraordinary. At the United States Supreme Court level, I'm going to do a discussion about the United States Supreme Court, what we just watched over the last nine months, what we just watched in the last remaining moments of the term, the last gasp, and I'm emphasizing the word gasp, of decisions and orders that came out about birthright citizenship, but not quite, about nationwide injunctions, but not quite.

about transgender people who want to serve in the military, about immigration and deportation and removal, while judges struggle with these very issues in real time, not in an academic. It's not academic. It's not hypothetical. It's real.

We had a judge, Judge Boardman in Maryland, look the Department of Justice for Donald Trump in the eye just yesterday at a hearing and say, are you, I want to hear it out of your mouth, are you going to be deporting babies, removing babies born on American soil from now until the time I make my ruling at the end of July? Yes or no? And the Trump administration filed a piece of paper that said, maybe we are. And then we're going to talk about the case in front of Judge Boardman. We've got a new

A new case, a new injunction, the first injunction since the Supreme Court ruled on Friday, maybe ruled on Friday, that federal judges should not use nationwide injunctions if they discover constitutional violations and abuses of power by the presidency.

OK, what do you expect us to use? Well, use class actions. Well, use use emergency injunctions on top of class actions. But what if there are states involved? What if there are 19 or 20 states involved? They left that door open and in walks Judge DuBose, the youngest shall lead us. She is the youngest judge in Rhode Island. She was just appointed by Joe Biden before the end of his before the end of his term.

And she just made a 58-page ruling in a case blocking the first injunction since Friday's ruling by the United States Supreme Court. It looks a lot like a nationwide injunction. But she found a way around that federal order, that Supreme Court decision, in a very novel and crafty way. And I'll tell you how that was. She's not the only judge in the resistance, but just doing her job. Judge Murphy up in Massachusetts said,

He took a look at another United States Supreme Court decision that gave Donald Trump the green light to continue to deport and remove people to third countries like South Sudan and Libya without really any due process, blocking an injunction of his from April, but not blocking a remedial order of his from May that had to do with the Trump administration violating his orders. And he gathered everybody together in his courtroom and he said,

You may have blocked my April order, but the Supreme Court didn't divest me of jurisdiction. And I have a May order. And Donald Trump ran screaming through a solicitor general, John Sauer, to the U.S. Supreme Court before their vacation started on Friday and said, please, motion for reconsideration. Please, motion for clarification. Judge Murphy's being defiant. And then they all went on vacation.

We'll talk about that case as well. Abrego Garcia got new developments there in Tennessee and in Judge Zinnes' courtroom in Maryland. First time in history somebody is begging, and it's being accommodated, begging to stay in federal detention in order to protect himself. It's protective custody from Donald Trump's immigration gestapo.

And Judge Holmes, a magistrate judge, agrees. And even in their own way, the Trump administration agrees that they don't have, they don't trust themselves because they told Judge Holmes, we're okay if you want to stash him away in federal detention so we don't accidentally deport him, Judge. I mean, they didn't put it exactly like that, but that's what they meant.

We'll talk about a Branco Garcia. And then I'll touch on alligator Alcatraz. I mean, I'm in Miami. I guess I have to. One element of disclosure. I've been to the Everglades. I have ridden a bike through there in winter and almost died. I mean, it was that unbearable. The Everglades are a thing of beauty, but it's not a place to put 3,000 migrants without any...

suitable housing in tents without air conditioning, without toilets, guarded by National Guard to make a political point. And the architect of the alligator Alcatraz that Donald Trump went and visited with DeSantis down in Florida is the Attorney General of Florida,

who was Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign advisor for his failing campaign, his chief of staff. This Yahoo, this architect, he got found in contempt by Judge Williams down in Miami, in which she quoted Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland.

We'll cover that all at the, repeat after me, the intersection. And no, my last news is not going to be that I grew back my beard. For those that are listening to me on podcast, it was a very controversial decision for me to allow my one-year-old daughter to see my bare face. And I've decided, along with my wife's consultation, that I'm going to be, I'm growing it back. So this is five days into my regrow phase.

Let's continue. Let's start with, I think I've talked enough about the bill. We need to use it to our political advantage. One thing I've learned in my history, in my life, and from meeting and talking to people on Legal AF, you know, I just interviewed Senator Doug Jones. Talk about a blue dot and a red, in a red sea. He was the senator from Alabama.

shortlisted to be on Joe Biden's to be Joe Biden's attorney general in the next term. And he is out there. I mean, he is a human guardrail. And he spoke to me on Legal AF. We've got a couple of interviews up right now about the rise in violent political rhetoric about the Emil Bovee, the number three lawyer in the Department of Justice, Donald Trump's former criminal defense lawyer.

who's up for this lifetime appointment to be an appellate judge and is obscenely unqualified.

And when I talk to people like Senator Doug Jones, when I talk to people like the representative from New York in the Bronx, Richie Torres, who's now a regular, when I talk to and I just did an interview and I'll be doing a new one tomorrow with Sky Perryman, who runs Democracy Forward, who's filed 70 different lawsuits against the Trump administration. She just filed one about an hour ago, which I'm actually here, right? Hot off the printer.

She filed it in Maryland, Democracy Forward did, against the Trump administration, seeking an injunction related to the attempts to shrink and throw people, several million people off the rolls of Obamacare. And she's going to come on, Sky Perriman's going to come on and talk to me about that as well. And what I like about it is I'm talking to people and letting them brief the audience on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, who are in the trenches, right?

who are in the courtrooms, who are fighting it out, who are in the halls of Congress or state legislators. You know, we have a new, two new contributors who are coming on Legal AF.

We got Senator Tiara Mack, state senator from Rhode Island, and her friend Rachel Cohen. Rachel Cohen, who noisily quit, talk about good noise and good trouble. She quit Skadden Arps after they bent the knee and gave $100 million of aid to Donald Trump.

And is now in the resistance, working for a law firm that represents people who are being targeted by the Trump administration and joining together with her friend, Senator Tiara Mack, for a new show on Legal AF News.

We call pragmatic optimists. They are the pragmatic optimists because they tell you what you can do about this information that we are telling you about now in the state houses, in the state, local, municipal, federal places, in the streets.

And when I talk to these people, I am encouraged about how deep the bench is in resistance against the Trump administration and how successful, for a good reason, the lawyers are in the courtrooms with the judges. Now, look, at the United States Supreme Court level, we have our work cut out for us. Let me talk about the United States Supreme Court here for a moment. Supreme Court just got done with its term. Sixty or so decisions were rendered.

And you'll hear the statistics by John Roberts, the chief justice, who's going to brag about it. And he'll say, well, here's the statistics. 40% of our decisions were unanimous. Okay, good for you. And only 4% of our decisions broke along ideological lines. Except now let's talk about the 10 cases.

on emergency application by the Trump administration to the Supreme Court in which Donald Trump is batting 800. He won eight out of 10, including about presidential power, about the Alien Enemies Act, about transgender people trying to serve in the military, about transgender and gender affirming surgery and care, about birthright citizenship in a way, and the rest.

And so that is, I'm not going to sugarcoat it, that is not great. I said it before. Trump figured out in his first term that if he exploited the emergency docket for the Supreme Court with calling everything an emergency, everything's a hair on fire, file the emergency application.

to send the court immediately into their ideological corners, he was going to win more than lose six to three, five to four, because he had six votes already. And when you're on an emergency application, there's no oral argument. So it's a shadow docket. The public doesn't get to see. The briefing is limited. The record is limited. The deliberation process is limited. Everything's short-circuited. Everything's short-tracked.

And that's the Donald Trump's advantage. When you have the numbers, press the numbers. And that's all we watched with the complicity of the six MAGA right wing judges. I asked Leah Littman, who I just had a good interview with, a constitutional scholar out of Michigan, a host of Strict Scrutiny, to join me again today to talk about Supreme Court over on Legal AF.

And I said to her, Leah, what would you call back in the day when you and I were in school and studying the Constitution and Supreme Court? Oftentimes the court would get a name.

named after a judge who was really controlling things because they were voting with the majority more than not. The Kennedy court, we used to call it, because Kennedy used to control based on his vote because he was a moderate, although he got very conservative towards the end, but he was a moderate and so on. I said, do we have

Do we have somebody who's controlling the court? She said, no, the best name for this court is either, and she then said, either the Reconstruction Court or the Redemption Court. I said, why is that? She said, because this is like that period just after the Civil War in which the Supreme Court lagged behind

the rest of America in terms of civil liberties and civil rights as pushed by Lincoln in the Reconstruction. And they were much more conservative than the public at large or the president at the time. And they refused and found ways to undermine the Reconstruction plan, the civil rights protection of newly freed now black Americans.

And that's what constitutional scholars believe they're watching now. A Supreme Court that's not only circling the drain of history, but is out of touch. If you look at the polling about where people are about gay marriage, about transgender issues, about cultural issues that have been used as a wedge to divide the American people by the Republicans...

They side with being fair-minded, with being, dare I say, progressive without it being a four-letter word. They side with diversity, equity, inclusion when they understand and the concepts are explained to them.

This Supreme Court is completely out of step because it's just pressing, pressing, pressing in order to support a rogue, out-of-control president and placing that presidency above the other two branches of government, wrecking our checks and balance process that was delicately created, so perfectly but delicately created by our framers and our founding fathers. And so what I want to talk about when I come back from our break

is the decisions that are now coming out.

I want to talk about the Abrego Garcia decision. I want to talk about Judge DeBow's decision up in Rhode Island. I want to talk about the alligator Alcatraz Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment violation and the architect, the brains behind that being found in contempt himself by a federal judge in Miami. But now let's talk about the ways to support what we do here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF.

Firstly, firstly, since we have no outside investors, since we are completely independent, since we have no censorship, nobody tells me what to say. Nobody knows what I'm going to say. If anybody's picturing that before I get on the air, there's some smoke filled room or a Zoom call where the brothers and I get on the air and talk. Popak, what are you going to say tonight? First of all, that's my cheat sheet for tonight. I don't even know what I'm going to say tonight.

So that doesn't happen. But if you like that kind of unvarnished, unfiltered, uncensored analysis, you know, where we're putting ourselves out there against a retaliatory, vindictive administration. I mean, the Midas Touch brothers and others have gotten death threats along the way, including recently.

But we're willing and able and desirous to be leading and helping you form this fellowship. We vibrate on the same frequency and we need to speak truth to each other.

Before we can take it to the streets and be a part of and be participating in that participatory democracy that we are a part of. We got to put the participation into participatory democracy. We got to put, get rid of the silent from the silent majority. We don't have the luxury any longer.

And so there's many ways, right? You're here on the Midas Touch Network. Boom. Help them get the six million. I got a little channel that I do a collaboration with the Midas Touch Network called Legal AF. Legal AF MTN. You can find it right now. Subscribe there. Hit the reminders. We're doing videos about every hour or two at the intersection of law and politics. And I got a great group over there.

I told you about Tiara Mack and Rachel Cohen and their pragmatic optimists. We've also got court accountability action looking at the corruption of the federal court system up to the United States Supreme Court, led by Alex Aronson and Lisa Graves.

We've got our resident legal and political historians, literally. I joke that it's like murders in the building, but without Selena Gomez, but with Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz. Who better to put everything in historical perspective and talk about how history is going to judge the actions, not only of us, but of course of the Trump administration, than Sidney and Sean. I do a Supreme Court roundup with Dina Dahl.

called unprecedented every week. We'll be doing it throughout the summer as well. Shan Wu, former prosecutor, former general counsel to the attorney general of the United States and amazing lawyer in his own right. Shan Wu, under color, does his hot takes regularly for us. Dave Ehrenberg,

Florida law guy, Florida law man of the Palm Beach County State Attorney at the time. You know, we I'm sure I'm leaving somebody out. But this is what we call legal AF. We also have Asha and Renato on a podcast called It's Complicated. And Asha doing a show she does on Hot Takes called Ask Asha. Why am I mentioning all this? Because I want you to know you're not alone.

and that there is comfort in solidarity. There's comfort to know we're vibrating on that same frequency. And I'm glad you're here for it. So that's supporting us there and here, downloading the audio podcast version of this new podcast. This new podcast needs some help.

I mean, we're in the top 100 YouTube podcasts because of you, but audio downloads matter in this ecosystem. So download, leave a five-star review for this, The Intersection with Michael Popock. And then of course, we've got our pro-democracy sponsors who know what our audience is all about, know what our content is all about, and is not here in spite of it, but because of it. And here's a word from our sponsors.

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That's ShopMDHearing.com and use our promo code LegalAF and get a pair of hearing aids for just $297. Welcome back to The Intersection with Michael Popak, exclusively on the Midas Touch Network. Let's get down. We're in the homestretch now of the podcast. Let me talk about the first, it's like breaking news, the first federal injunction to be issued since the Supreme Court questioned whether

Federal judges have the power to issue nationwide injunctions in their cases. So the Supreme Court rules on Friday that except for special exceptions that they weren't mentioning, but we think it means when states are involved, they don't want judges issuing nationwide injunctions. They only want the United States Supreme Court to issue nationwide injunctions.

which means it takes a considerable tool out of the judge's tool bag, especially when they're dealing with nationwide harm cases, like in civil rights, constitutional violations, a president out of control, to just name a few. And so Judge DuBose, who was appointed by Joe Biden and confirmed, first openly LGBTQ+, first black member of the Rhode Island federal judiciary, super smart, whip smart,

She issued her ruling just today in the case involving the Department of Health and Human Services. That's our health department. It's currently, just to remind you, being run by a non-scientist, non-doctor,

vaccine and science denier who's busy wrecking our public health and destroying the relationship between the American people and their health and the American people and the states and the various agencies and sub agencies and departments of the Department of Homeland Security that help keep us safe and keep us healthy and keep us alive. And in her order,

She goes through and reminds me and us about all the ways that the Department of Health and Human Services protect life, health and safety. The Center for Disease Control and Infectious Disease Control, Pregnancy Health.

child health, cancer prevention, things related to Head Start, you know, making sure children's health is set in the right path from the very beginning. Tobacco regulation, keeping it out of the hands of children. These are all things that run through the center of disease control and healthy human services. And under the guise of reformation and abuse and whatever, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., under Donald Trump's command,

Started to defund and reorganize the Department of Health and Human Services. To the detriment of all of us. 19 states ran into Judge DuBose, filed their case, and now she's ready to rule on her preliminary injunction. She's seen what the Supreme Court did. Supreme Court left open the door as to whether judges handling cases in which multiple states are in front of them still won't be able to issue nationwide injunctions.

Because you have a nationwide harm. Yeah. The destruction of Department of Health and Human Services isn't a New Jersey, New York, Washington, et cetera problem. It is a nationwide problem. So the judge, after going through 158 pages, all the irreparable harm and the likelihood of success on the merits for the group of 19 states focused on

not on the constitutional, not on the separation of powers, although she quotes the separation of powers as being at the forefront of this. She said, I can do it under the Administrative Procedures Act because the decision by RFK Jr. was arbitrary and capricious. It was not based on science. It was not based on math. It was not based on a proper calculating analysis. It wasn't based on any of that. He even admitted publicly that he was overcutting

and that he would figure it out later and probably have to rehire 20% of the people. Like, what are you even talking about? You're talking about public health. You buffoon. You moron. And so the judge, although dripping with sarcasm during parts of her decision, which I'm going to post on the Legal AF sub stack so you can read it for yourself, she issued her injunction. And in her injunction, she said the following, I enjoin, I block,

the Department of Health and Human Services, and they've already been stayed until now, from restructuring, reordering, defunding, firing people at the moment until we continue to discuss these issues over time. And she said, my injunction, which I'm not going to stay, and I'm not going to require a large bond, I believe fits the contours of what the United States Supreme Court just said in their Friday decision. And if you disagree,

I love this, the creative way around the brick wall. Then you, and I'm looking at you, Trump, you file in the next 10 days or so a piece of paper that tells me that you think this does or does not comply with the Supreme Court precedent. I believe it does. You can tell me how, if at all, that case, we call it CASA Incorporated, maps onto my injunction power and my injunction rulings. And good day. I added the good day.

That's what Judge DuBose just did. First judge to have to deal with the issue, having the benefit of watching, listening and learning to the dozens and dozens of other cases are out there. We also have a decision that's going to be upcoming very, very soon. I want to switch gears now and go to Maryland and talk not about Abrego Garcia, but about babies, babies, babies born in this country since February 2025 to present. Born on American soil, born in American hospitals, whose citizenship is

is now up for grabs because Donald Trump has a birthright citizenship executive order where the merits of whether it violates the 14th Amendment or not has not been decided by any court because of the way the Supreme Court has ordered and reorganized the procedure here. And so now what are we left with? We're left with right after the decision on Friday,

That said, we're not going to allow nationwide injunctions, which Judge Boardman in Maryland had already issued, to block the enforcement of the executive order, which she found to be unconstitutional, ripping away the 14th Amendment right to birthright citizenship. Now she had to revisit her injunction.

And quickly, smartly, the lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, from the Georgetown Law Center, they filed lawsuits in courts telling the judges, we heard the Supreme Court. We're here now as a class action. The class is all babies born or to be born since February 2025 that need protection in one court. So Judge Boardman pulled everybody together for a hearing yesterday.

And she grilled Mr. Rosenberg for the Department of Justice. She says, I want to get down to brass tacks. I've set a briefing schedule, she said, from now until the 27th of July for class certification, which has to be litigated, and for the temporary restraining order that would go with it.

Are you going to deport the Trump administration, going to deport babies and remove them who have American U.S. birth certificates while I'm working on my decision? Yes or no? No, he said. Now, you can you can, I think, understand why this federal judge.

does not believe a word coming out of the Department of Justice and their mouth, right? I mean, you know, there's the old joke. How do you know when the Trump administration and the Department of Justice is lying? Their lips move when they speak. I mean, this is against the backdrop of the whistleblower

uh eris ruveni who used to be the head of immigration litigation who dropped a 27 page bomb last week and said that his boss emil bovey who's up for the third circuit court of appeals but is now the number three lawyer in the department of justice who got rewarded because he was the criminal defense lawyer for donald trump he instructed at a meeting according to ruveni all the lawyers present to tell judges to go f themselves literally

and to not give them information and to effectively lie to their face, not be candid to the tribunal, as we like to say in my world. Judge knows that. So she said, no, that's not going to do it. I want you to file by tomorrow, which is today on Tuesday, a document that tells me your position as to whether under the court's ruling in that same birthright citizenship nationwide injunction case I talked about, the Kassick case.

whether you are going to be removing and deporting and when. So they filed. It did not give, I'm sure it did not give the judge any great comfort because it didn't give me any great comfort. It didn't say, which is what I would do if I were somehow in the upside down world, in the evil world. I was representing Donald Trump for the Department of Justice. I always said, judge, we see what's on your mind. And to alleviate any concern,

We will represent and stipulate that we will not deport, remove any child, baby born in America while you're making your decision. Does that make you feel better? We'll sign at the bottom line on that. That's not what they did. What they said was, you asked us to tell you what we're going to do. We start with a full paragraph reproduction of the one paragraph decision by the United States Supreme Court last Friday.

And then them saying the earliest based on this order that we believe we can remove is the 27th of July, which is exactly the date that the judge is just getting around to making decisions about class action. And then they say, but we also think there's a 30 day ramp up period. So there's that. That's what they wrote. I'm only barely paraphrasing. So if I'm the judge, I'm like, this doesn't give me any comfort whatsoever. I'm going to expedite this.

my emergency procedures. I'm going to move up the dates for when everything is due. I'm going to provisionally certify a class right now. I am going to enter a temporary restraining order right now. I am not going to wait to see what happens on the 27th of July. And not on my watch are babies going to be flying literally out of hospitals in America to El Salvador, Guantanamo, fill in the blank.

How about this? How about this for a horror movie? Babies being sent to the alligator Alcatraz in un-air-conditioned open tents in the middle of pythons, mosquitoes, and alligators. Why not? How is that any less, how is that any more depraved than anything else Donald Trump is considering? So now having gotten from the Trump administration the response, which is like, go F yourself.

If I'm Boardman and I'll be reporting on an illegal AF and on the Midas Touch Network, I just say, that's not good enough. That's the opposite of making me feel better or having me have confidence in your decision. Judges are quickly recognizing that they have to use extraordinary measures to protect people from the Trump administration, which is completely out of control. Which brings me to the Abrego Garcia case. So in Tennessee-

There's a magistrate judge, Judge Holmes, and the request to Judge Holmes from Obrego Garcia's lawyers, just to remind you, that's the guy kidnapped from Maryland in the middle of the night, sent on a plane to El Salvador to be put in a supermax prison without due process, even though he had an order in his back pocket from a federal judge, an immigration judge, preventing him from being sent to El Salvador.

His return is ordered 9-0 by the Supreme Court, by Judge Zittis in Maryland. And yet he only comes back after Donald Trump manufactures an indictment about human smuggling from three years ago during a traffic stop. And now he's in Tennessee, at least. So he's under the power and jurisdiction of the federal court there. Judge Crenshaw, the Article 3 judge, Magistrate Judge Zittis.

Holmes, who magistrate judges in federal court handle most of the day-to-day in the criminal world from bond and bail, conditions of release, discovery, before it gets to a trial and bigger questions at Judge Crenshaw's level. If you don't like the response you get from a magistrate judge, you can always quote-unquote appeal it to the federal judge, to the Article III judge. This issue now is

The judge already ruled after nine days and hearings and trials that she had no grounds to keep Abrego Garcia on the human smuggling charge in pretrial detention. We presume liberty in this country. We presume somebody is innocent until proven guilty. And so the default is not that you go to jail and stay there until your trial. It's that you're out subject to your trial.

And she found no grounds to hold them in. There's only three grounds. There's a minor child involved in the crime. That didn't happen. There's evidence of potential to witness tamper. Like you leave this person out on the street, they're going to start killing witnesses. That's out. And the other one is flight risk.

And she didn't find any of those things present. But she also understood that Trump had already made some declarations through his Homeland Security Office and Department of Justice that he was going to, well, they spoke with forked tongue. On one hand, they said, we're going to try him in Tennessee for human smuggling, and then we're going to deport him. And on the other hand, they said, we're going to deport him, and we're not going to let him stand trial.

And that confusion, that conflicting contradictory statements in this administration led Abrego Garcia's lawyers to run to Judge Holmes and say, keep him, don't release him yet. Because if you release him, a white van's going to show up and we'll never find him again. And he'll be accidentally, you know what I mean, accidentally disappeared to a country not named El Salvador. And she agreed. And in fact, the Trump administration ultimately agreed. It's almost like they know they can't be trusted. They know that

that there could be another accidental deportation. So to protect him, they agreed to let him stay in the federal detention center under the auspices of the federal marshals rather than be transferred to immigration world. So think about this. Somebody now has to beg to stay in federal detention in a case about wrongful detention in order to protect themselves.

This is perverse. As a child, it reminds me in a bad way of this episode of a cartoon that I liked involving Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, where Bugs Bunny outsmarted Daffy once again using Elmer Fudd, the hunter.

to try to convince Elmer Fudd to shoot Daffy Duck now because it was duck season, not rapid season. And they kept going around and around. It's rapid season. No, it's duck season. And finally he got, you know, Bugs Bunny got Daffy so tongue-tied that he actually had Daffy say out loud, you don't have to shoot me now. You can shoot me when you get home. That's where we're at now. We got people begging to stay in prison, to be kept away from Donald Trump.

And so he's going to stay in federal detention for now until he can. And then Judge Zinnis, not to leave her out of the equation, she's trying to figure out whether she still has jurisdiction over him to order his return to Maryland.

Because she was the original one that the family, the wife and the family of Abrego Garcia ran to her once they found out through watching video that he was sent in the middle of the night to El Salvador. And she's the federal judge of the Supreme Court. And the Fourth Circuit has supported not once but twice. So that's where we are with Abrego Garcia.

And continuing, you know, sort of judges wrapping this whole thing together with that terrible, horrific imagery I left you with, which is babies being sent to alligator alcatraz. What the heck is alligator alcatraz, you might be asking? Well, Donald Trump figured out that for political game and political theater, that he and Ron DeSantis, who I guess is a candidate for 2028, are going to open a federal detention center for migrants, not in Guantanamo Bay.

but in a 3,000 bed, no, tent location in the Everglades, of all things, in middle of July, when it is 120 degrees in the shade and there is no shade there, without running water, without proper hygiene, they're going to put migrants there in termite, sorry, in mosquito infested with pythons, Burmese pythons that exist in there, along with alligators.

And the attorney general for Florida, you know, he takes to the airwaves and starts bragging about it. Oh, we're swamp people in Florida. We like our swamp. All the alligators and the mosquitoes create a natural barrier to keep these people in like Alcatraz. Ha ha ha. There's an 11,000 foot long airstrip. We're going to be bringing them in.

I got a couple of words for you, besides the fact that you've been found in contempt on a related case by a Miami, Florida federal judge. We got a little thing in the Constitution called Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

And I think that putting other human beings, whose only crime apparently is that they're migrants, are undocumented, putting them in tents in Florida, in South Florida, in July or any time without running water, toilets, and no air conditioning is cruel and unusual punishment. And as people die there, and they will,

The blood is on the hands of this administration. Let me read to you from what Max Frost, our young and vibrant congressperson from Florida, here's what he had to say about it all today. Donald Trump, his administration, and his enablers have made one thing brutally clear.

They intend to use the power of the government to kidnap, brutalize, starve and harm every single immigrant they can. They target migrants, rip families apart and subject people to conditions that amount to physical and psychological torture. Now they want to erect tents in the blazing Everglades sun and call it immigration enforcement. They don't care if people live or die. They only care about cruelty and spectacle.

Max Frost invited him onto our show to have him on with me on Legal AF. But he's right about that. Now, what's the brains behind this operation is this attorney general in Florida. And he has decided he's going to take a page out of Donald Trump's playbook and start attacking the federal judge who I know well, Judge Williams, an Obama appointee. And he posted on his social media, Obama appointee finds me in contempt for failure to

Comply with the federal order. Yeah. Yeah. She issued an order blocking a state new law as being unconstitutional that would criminalize being undocumented or being a migrant under Florida law. And Judge Williams blocked it and then ordered that the attorney general for Florida issue an order to all law enforcement under him, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FDLE,

to not arrest people under this law. And he did. He sent out one letter that said, I disagree with the judge and she's wrong, but I'm instructing you that there's an injunction in place and you are not to arrest pursuant to these statutes. And then four days later, he sent out another letter

That said, I disagree. As if he has the right to disagree. I mean, in terms of not complying with the federal order. With this federal judge's order. And then went on, like, podcast world and social media world. And said, I'm not going to rubber stamp a federal judge. I mean, I feel like I'm back. You know, we said, I said earlier today that...

People are calling the Supreme Court the redemption court or the reconstruction court because it's just like the court just after reconstruction that was against black people and civil rights.

Right. I feel like we're there again. I feel like this is the 1960s in the South with all these attorney generals and governors who were against the civil rights movement and refused to comply with federal law, refused to comply with Brown versus the Board of Education to integrate schools. We're there again in this moment. This is the moment that you're living in. And the judge said in her order, you're in contempt.

You're not allowed to tell the people that my court order is invalid. You're not allowed to tell the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and others that they should not and don't have to comply with my federal order. The words in my injunction mean what they say. And then she quoted Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland from Lewis Carroll. And, you know, where Humpty Dumpty tells Alice, words mean exactly what I say and what I intend them to mean and no more, no less. Right?

And Alice basically challenges him and says, but what if there's multiple meetings of that? What would we do there? And the judge said, there aren't multiple meetings and there aren't multiple interpretations. And you are to comply and to tell me every two weeks who's been arrested under this order and how my order has been violated. But look what federal courts have to do. And now they have no backup and no support at all from the United States Supreme Court.

As Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote, you've just crapped all over the federal judiciary below and told them that they have no backup. They have no support at the United States Supreme Court level. And that puts us in a scary moment. But there's a way around it. And it's the community and fellowship that we've built here. We vibrate on that same frequency. We speak truth to each other.

I give you the download without blowing smoke or sunshine at the intersection on Legal AF Hot Takes, on the Midas Touch Network, on Legal AF, the YouTube channel that I curate along with the Midas Touch Network, on the Legal AF Substack. Got some amazing reporting and writing going on there. And all of these orders and judgments are being posted on Legal AF Substack for you to read yourself as well.

And the way to kind of vote yes for this type of content, this type of community, to give you the action plan you need to participate in our participatory democracy is to hit the subscribe button on Legal AF and to support this new podcast, The Intersection. Leave a comment. I read them. It helps me. It helps improve what we do here. Leave a five-star review on the audio version. Download the video version.

Tell your friends about it. That keeps this kind of content on the air. That signals to us that you want this at the intersection of law and politics. You need it. And I'll continue to bring it to you right here exclusively on the Midas Touch Network. So until next Tuesday, where I'll be doing a remote vacation version of the intersection, I'm Michael Popak and I am reporting. I'm Michael Popak and I got some big news for our audience.

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