The MeidasTouch Podcast
ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero on Trump Lawsuits
Wed, 23 Apr 2025
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the heroic actions of the ACLU to stop Trump’s unlawful actions and Meiselas interviews the ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero on their lawsuits, their planning, and their future plans. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What lawsuits is the ACLU filing against the Trump regime?
Lawsuits against the Trump regime for disappearing migrants. Lawsuits against the Trump regime and Elon Musk for stealing people's data. Lawsuits against the Trump regime in order to get access to information what Trump and Elon Musk and Doge are doing. Lawsuits against the Trump regime for Discrimination against LGBTQ rights and the targeting of the trans community.
Lawsuits against the Trump regime for attacking the Department of Education and book bans. Lawsuits against the Trump regime for revoking student visas and throwing foreign students into detention centers without due process on the front lines of it all. Holding the United States away from dictatorship is the ACLU who filed lawsuits on all of those areas and more.
I could probably spend 10 minutes listing all of the areas and topics, but I wanna bring in ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, and of course, the big win by the ACLU in the Supreme Court, blocking the deportation of the second group of migrant victims that the Trump regime wanted to send to a concentration camp in El Salvador.
And one of the points I just want to mention about that case that people don't know necessarily is how that ACLU legal team, they were calling the district court judge, they were calling the court of appeals, and the Trump regime was lying. And they were saying, trust us, bro. We're not going to do anything with those migrants while they were loading the buses with the migrants.
And your team, Anthony Romero, was calling the district court judge like, don't call me, ex parte communication. Your team's like, what are you talking about? This is an emergency. The Supreme Court listened.
I just want to, on behalf of the millions of people who follow us here at the Midas Touch Network, and I'm speaking for everybody who loves democracy, thank you for your work at the ACLU, Anthony Romero, executive director.
It's my privilege. My pleasure. Yeah. And they turned those buses around. We got the call from the Supreme Court. I think the clerk called at 1 a.m. to tell us about the order. And that was over the Easter weekend. It's been crazy, Ben. I mean, we've had we have filed 39 lawsuits thus far and we'd be here all day if we had to talk about all of them. You've got the major points. The highlights.
Perfect.
Well, you know, what people don't realize is that the only reason that the district court and the Fifth Circuit ruled against the you all representing the migrants before it got to the Supreme Court was because Trump. And his DOJ was saying, you don't have anything to worry about. We're going to give these migrants a hearing.
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Chapter 2: How did the ACLU win the Supreme Court case blocking migrant deportations?
They've got lawyers ready to go general or litigating like the birthright citizenship case. That's not our case. That's the cases of the attorneys general from the blue states. I love it. I love it. I mean, it's just like, we have to divide and conquer. There's way too much going on. And so, you know, the case in Maryland, not my case. Someone else's, of Abrego Garcia.
They're handling, they're doing a beautiful job on that case. And we're talking with them, we're sharing notes. We're comparing. We're sharing information. But I think this is one of those moments when you really have to kind of divide up the work. And especially if the executive orders that are anticipated are coming down, it would be targeting kind of the weaker parts of the nonprofit ecosystem.
Then we all have a responsibility to kind of show up and stand up in solidarity and do everything we can.
Let me ask you this as well. In addition to all the things that you've said there, what happens, though, if the Trump regime does not follow these orders? I mean, I think you've been asked that before. What if you're doing all the work, you get the orders? I mean, right now there's a 9-0 Supreme Court order that says facilitate the return of Abrego in the Maryland case.
I know a different group handling that. But what happens if they just say, you know what, we're not following these orders? What do we do?
we've got to build the public momentum and support for this. So that means the time and the narrative is on our side, right? So you have to then continue to use all the legal procedures to put the screws tighter into them, right? civil sanctions, right?
And just if they kind of defy openly a court order, then we can ask the judges to start imposing civil sanctions on those government officials who are openly defying the order. There'll be a whole process by which to determine and adjudicate culpability, like who's actually thumbing their nose at the courts. We take that.
That's a good process for us, Ben, because we're not going to be able to kind of turn people out on a dime like this one. We've got to bring people along in the narrative, show them the impunity with which this government is operating and thumbing its nose at the rule of law. We're going to have to grab the right of center with us. We have to bring corporations with us.
A government that openly defies rule of law and decides to disregard judicial orders is a government that will not be good for corporate interests. It will completely crater the ability for corporations. If you gut the ability for the judicial system to adjudicate right and wrong and hold people accountable, That's going to be very bad for business.
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