0:00

So Michael Popak with illegal AF Hot Take,

0:02

according to insiders, Donald Trump is losing confidence

0:04

in his lead trial lawyer in the criminal

0:06

case in New York, the election interference case.

0:09

That lawyer is Todd Blanche, formerly

0:12

an assistant US

0:14

attorney, well-respected criminal

0:16

defense lawyer, white collar criminal defense lawyer,

0:19

but he's not Donald Trump's cup of

0:21

tea. He hasn't been aggressive enough as

0:23

a practicing trial lawyer. I think he's

0:25

been too aggressive, too unprofessional, too

0:28

skating towards the edge of being unethical,

0:30

but Donald Trump thinks he hasn't been

0:33

harsh enough. He hasn't attacked the

0:35

judge, Judge Mershawn and his family

0:37

enough. And even when

0:40

Mershawn chastised in front

0:42

of Donald Trump, Todd

0:44

Blanche last week and said, you're losing

0:46

credibility with me, all credibility with me,

0:48

when you're arguing in the gag order

0:51

hearing that it's not a violation of

0:53

the gag order when Donald Trump reposts

0:55

and retweets somebody else's

0:57

attacks on witnesses, the

0:59

court or jurors. Donald

1:03

Trump didn't like that either. Now look, Donald Trump has

1:05

a long history of

1:08

firing and falling in and out of love with

1:10

his lawyers. He's fallen in and out of love

1:12

with Alina Haber more times than I can count

1:14

on this particular hot take. He's hired

1:17

her, he's fired her, he used her in the

1:19

Eugene Carroll cases, he back benched her in

1:21

the Eugene Carroll cases. He kicked her upstairs to

1:23

be the head lawyer for his pack. And

1:25

brought her back out to put her back at

1:27

the counsel table in certain of these hearings about

1:30

the New York attorney general civil fraud case

1:32

that was a loser. He fell

1:34

in and out of love, really out of love with

1:37

Joe Takapina, fired Joe Takapina after

1:39

Joe Takapina lost the first Eugene

1:42

Carroll case for $5.5 million. Let

1:45

Alina Haber take over and she lost

1:47

the Eugene Carroll case for much

1:50

more than that, for $86.5 million. Now

1:53

focus on Todd Blanche. Why, and this is

1:55

what I'm going to pause it on this

1:57

hot take, why is Susan Neckless who had

1:59

been... sort of a back bencher, not

2:01

even a co-first chair, really a second chair

2:03

to Todd Blanche, meaning she was in the

2:06

second position, co-pilot at best. Why is she

2:08

making arguments to the judge? And now I've

2:10

heard it all. Now they

2:12

want advanced rulings and advanced orders

2:14

from the judge about whether Donald

2:16

Trump is going to violate the

2:18

gag order again. We

2:21

just had not one, but two hearings about

2:23

the gag order and Donald Trump violating it,

2:26

the enhanced gag order. The

2:29

judge has already sanctioned Donald Trump $9,000 per

2:31

violation of the gag order, which frankly is the

2:33

limits of New York

2:38

law under the judiciary law. But he

2:41

said to him on now the third

2:43

occasion, you're skating awful close to being

2:45

put in jail. The judge

2:47

says, let me remind you, I can

2:49

do incarceration in jail for the next

2:51

violation. So now you got Susan

2:54

necklace kind of being pushed by Donald Trump

2:56

into the fray. And I mean, literally, I mean,

2:58

there's reporting of the New York Times that when

3:01

Alina Habba in the Eugene Carroll

3:03

case wasn't doing what Donald Trump wanted her

3:05

to do and wasn't following his direction. He

3:07

smacked her or pushed her on the back

3:09

of her arm to make her stand up,

3:11

get up. All

3:13

right. So he sort of threw

3:15

Susan necklace to the wolves today

3:17

in the courtroom and

3:19

day whatever we are with the Trump trial,

3:22

the and had her stand there with a,

3:24

a sheaf of wrapped

3:26

up documents that were these

3:29

are she said, and I'm paraphrasing,

3:31

these are news articles, your honor,

3:34

news articles, and we want you to

3:36

pre approve them that Donald Trump's allowed

3:38

to, to post

3:41

them without violating the gag order. And

3:43

the prosecutor stood up and said, Josh Steinglass,

3:45

another stood up and said, I'm sorry, she

3:48

wants an advisory opinion from the court.

3:51

Let me just tell you something. When you

3:53

hear that phrase advisory opinions, courts don't do

3:55

or shouldn't do advisory opinions. They have to

3:57

have a live case or controversy in front

3:59

of them. They have to have somebody

4:01

actually violating a gag order about the, has

4:03

violated the gag order. It's a lot of

4:05

past tense in the law. You talk about

4:07

what people have done in the past. When

4:09

you're talking about future conduct, now you're in

4:12

the world of injunctions. You want to enjoin

4:14

or stop somebody from a bad act in

4:16

the future. That's an injunction hearing. That's a

4:18

whole different thing. And we're in criminal court.

4:20

So we shouldn't even be talking about future

4:22

conduct, right? This isn't minority report. We're not,

4:24

we don't have the thought police. Tom Cruise

4:27

isn't going to fly in, you

4:29

know, and bash in the windows of

4:31

Donald Trump's house because he violated the gag order or

4:33

was about to. So you got,

4:35

you got Susan necklace, not Todd Blanche.

4:37

That's my point being pushed by Donald

4:39

Trump in front of the judge and

4:41

saying, judge, we want pre-approval that this

4:43

will violate the gag order. And judge

4:45

says, I don't do. Pre-approvals.

4:49

My advice to your client is that the gag

4:51

order is clear on its face. The

4:53

appellate court has upheld the gag order.

4:55

There's no ambiguity in it. And he,

4:57

and when in doubt, he should steer

4:59

clear of trying to

5:01

violate the gag order. She's basically

5:03

telling the court, her client is

5:05

about to violate the gag order

5:08

once again. This is like

5:10

the little boy that put his hand on the stove over

5:12

and over again. And when he couldn't figure out

5:14

that the burner was on, he used his face

5:17

instead. That's what we're doing with Donald Trump. Donald

5:19

Trump's like, well, that's 9,000. I

5:21

wonder how many thousands of dollars

5:23

Rashad will sanction before, before he

5:25

actually puts me in jail. I

5:27

dare him. I dare. This is

5:30

what he's doing. I dare him

5:32

to put me in jail. Right.

5:34

That's like a bully. Let's

5:36

describe jail for a minute. What that looks like. I

5:39

have a, we have a colleague now, contributor here

5:41

in the Midas Touch network, judge Barbara Jaffe. She

5:44

was a long time judge on this

5:47

Supreme court in New York, dealing with criminal cases,

5:49

just like judge Rashad. She said she would have

5:51

already put him in jail already. I

5:53

would have already put Donald Trump in jail already. The

5:56

jail is either at the back of the courthouse,

5:58

sort of a holding cell jail. Or there's

6:00

a jail around the corner, a

6:03

detention center around the corner that they can use for these

6:05

purposes in state court. The

6:07

other option is Rikers Island, which really

6:09

is for permanent assignment. That's where all

6:12

misdemeanors in New York get

6:14

placed. If you're a misdemeanor, a

6:16

criminal, you go to Rikers Island. There's some

6:18

felons that go to Rikers Island for short

6:20

periods of time as well, before they get

6:22

into a permanent place prison. So

6:25

Donald Trump keeps playing with fire here.

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He's now cycling through lawyers that

7:53

he falls in and out of

7:55

love with. I'm surprised that Susan

7:57

Necklace, frankly, is even still with.

8:00

Donald Trump. Not

8:02

just because I'm surprised she's getting paid,

8:04

probably from all these donor funds, all

8:06

of these grifts that Donald Trump is

8:09

doing. I don't know, all the Bibles

8:11

and sneakers that he's selling. He's paying

8:13

at least his necklace. But she lost

8:16

for him. I mean, Donald Trump hates

8:18

losers. He used to call John McCain

8:20

the hero senator from Arizona who spent

8:23

five years in a concentration

8:27

camp as a prisoner of war

8:30

during Vietnam. Called him a loser because he

8:32

was captured and he was a prisoner of

8:34

war for this country. The

8:37

guy who's Mr. Bonespurs, who never

8:39

served in office, never served in

8:41

the military at all. So

8:44

he doesn't like losers. And Susan necklace

8:46

lost for Donald Trump two years ago.

8:48

17 counts, felony convictions against his companies

8:51

for tax fraud and business record fraud.

8:54

So relevant and so close to what's going on

8:56

right now in the courtroom that the judge wouldn't

8:58

allow it in to go to the jury because

9:00

it would be too prejudicial for them to learn

9:02

that Donald Trump and Susan necklace lost that trial

9:04

two years ago. So how

9:06

is she still around? You

9:08

know, but Todd Blanche, what

9:10

he's, look, here's the reality. Everyone's worried. He's

9:12

gonna fire Todd Blanche and then ask for

9:15

a delay. Not

9:17

so fast. Not so fast. In

9:19

criminal cases, judges don't like delay

9:22

and judges don't like to be a pawn

9:25

by a criminal

9:27

defendant who's trying to delay the inevitable,

9:30

which is justice and jury-finding. So

9:32

you don't get, you don't get to fire your

9:34

counsel that easily. So I'm not really looking to

9:36

that, although it makes for sexy headlines. Donald Trump

9:38

fires counsel in order to delay the trial. I

9:40

just don't think that's gonna happen. But

9:43

what is going to happen is that Todd Blanche is

9:45

either gonna have to stand up for himself and we've

9:47

seen these cliffs of Todd Blanche. We'll

9:49

play one of them here. We see

9:51

these clips of Todd Blanche looking very

9:53

uncomfortable next to Donald Trump, increasingly uncomfortable

9:55

next to Donald Trump. I've seen other

9:57

clips at the end of a trial.

10:00

day or the beginning of a trial day, where

10:02

Susan necklace is so far back and

10:04

holding a clipboard. I thought she worked for

10:06

the court system. And then I went, I

10:08

like rub my eyes. Oh, wait, that's, that's

10:10

his co-counsel in the case. He was now

10:12

running into court asking for it. My

10:15

client's about to violate the gag order

10:17

again. A gag order, by the way,

10:19

he doesn't even seem to understand Donald

10:21

Trump. Cause in front of Todd Blanche,

10:23

who looks again, like he's getting root

10:25

canal without Novocaine when he's standing next

10:27

to Donald Trump. He recently

10:29

just said, and we've had it on the

10:31

Midas that's network. He recently just said Donald

10:33

Trump. I'd love to answer that question, but

10:35

I can't testify because I've got a gag

10:37

order. I mean, talk about captain

10:40

confusion. This is the guy some

10:42

people are thinking about restoring to the presidency.

10:45

The guy that can't keep his eyes open.

10:47

He falls asleep every day, every

10:49

day, REM sleep in court or

10:51

court, according to reliable court watchers,

10:55

and he can't figure out that the gag

10:58

order is not about in court statements. It's

11:00

about out of court statements, extra traditional statements.

11:03

It's not gagging him from testifying. The

11:05

only thing that's stopping him from testifying is,

11:08

I don't know, logic and

11:10

the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

11:13

Short of that, I don't, there's

11:15

no gag order, nor could

11:17

their constitutionally civil

11:19

due process civil rights wise be a

11:22

gag order against somebody testifying in their

11:24

own case, if that's what they so

11:26

choose. And you see, you

11:28

see in that we'll play the clip. Let's play that

11:30

clip. other

12:00

people are allowed to do whatever they want

12:02

to us and I'm not allowed as a

12:04

presidential candidate to lead him

12:06

today the Republican vote not

12:09

again and the one who's leading

12:11

by me by a lot I'm not allowed to

12:13

talk. There's never been any abuse

12:15

like this before this conflicted judge ought

12:17

to get out of this case he

12:20

shouldn't be he should not be having

12:22

this case he gives us

12:24

nothing except got a rigged court

12:27

so I'm going to listen to

12:29

justice because of an unconstitutional court

12:31

or a pending signature and let's

12:34

see what happens thank you very much you

12:37

see Todd Blanche there looking

12:40

like wow this

12:43

is my client this is the guy's pushing me and

12:45

doesn't agree with my decision making listen

12:47

to this guy we'll continue

12:49

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