October 24, 2025 • 23 mins
(October 24, 2025)
Federal judge issues tentative ruling ordering that immigrant detainees have access to legal counsel. Trump ends all U.S. trade with Canada… what is the Ronald Reagan ad that has got Trump so mad. Surrogacy is a multi-billion-dollar business and sometimes the money goes missing.
Federal judge issues tentative ruling ordering that immigrant detainees have access to legal counsel. Trump ends all U.S. trade with Canada… what is the Ronald Reagan ad that has got Trump so mad. Surrogacy is a multi-billion-dollar business and sometimes the money goes missing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Made it get a laws You made it get a
real good one.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Jfi AM six forty Bill Handled here it is a
footy Friday, October twenty four I got a story I
want to share with you, and this has to do
with a federal judge just issued a tentative ruling ordering
that immigrant detainees have access to legal counsel. And this
had to do with Lindsey has a friend that she's
(00:36):
known for many, many years, and her whole sort of
circle of friends are absolutely devastated because one of her
friends married to a Hispanic guy. I think it's twenty
nine years old. Came to the US when he was thirteen,
and his mother came there because his aunt, his mother's sister,
(00:58):
had been murdered by the Narco trophic Conte, one of
the gangs, and then dropped off in front of their
house with her tongue cut off. So they came to
the United States and not legally. He's been with attorneys
for ten years trying to figure out anyway he was
just picked up and he's at a detention center, and
(01:22):
of course everybody is going nuts. And of course we're
only going after the worst of the worst. That's the
part that really is completely insane. All right, just wanted
to share that with you. Now, let's move over to
what a federal judge just did issued a order that
immigrant immigrant detainees have access to legal counsel. And so
(01:44):
the government is in front of the judge, and what
this does is extend a temporary restraining order that US
District judge I don't want to go through her name,
issued in July, requiring federal immigrant agencies allow legal visitation
at their detention facilities seven days a week now when
(02:08):
someone is in jail. All right, just to let you know,
if someone is in prison or jail, an attorney shows
up at three am in the morning, they get access
to their client. They get access twenty four to seven.
And the argument here was that it wasn't happening. So
the government attorney argues that evidence shows detainees let me
(02:34):
get this, I want to get this quote correctly, our
meeting with attorneys, they have access to counsel, and conditions
of confinement are not an issue before the court, because
that's the other argument. There is virtually no sanitation. They
are living in cots. They don't have access to their
(02:55):
council and they're living in these horrible conditions, and the
government attorney says, that's not what's that issue here was
that issue is access to legal counsel. And by the way,
they do have access. Straight out, that's just not true.
They have access. And that's what's pretty tough about what's
(03:18):
going on here. Where the judge said, the court say
one thing, and it is it almost doesn't matter for
this administration. There was a story on sixty minutes was
this past Sunday where a guy who was ahead of
the ethics whatever department he was, he had moved himself
(03:39):
up and had been with a doj and he just quit.
He couldn't take it anymore. And what he said was
there were court orders that were not being followed where
he talked about superiors coming into rooms and you know,
putting programs together there and having entire departments meet. And
(04:03):
they basically said, ignore what the judges say on one
of them.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
This was the accusation that was made.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Do you remember when the flight was going on to
El Salvador and Abrago was on that flight and he
was delivered and the judge said, you have to stop everything. Well,
the order was the while he was on the flight
one of the illegal detainees, and the argument in front
of the court uh, and the attorney was or actually
(04:33):
it was the official was asked, did you know this
was happening?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And he said no, I had no idea. And the
accusation was I was.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
In the room when he was told ignore what the
court say, and this was what was going to happen
this weekend. Some crazy stuff is really happening, and it's
really it's tremendously unfortunate, and you're going to see these
cases go uh up the Supreme Court. And the argument
about the representation, that's your fifth Amendment.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
You're a you have the.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Government must give you representation when you are picked up.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
If you can't afford it, they just have to do it.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
So we'll see and then if it goes up to
the Supreme Court, which I think it will.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Because this is a Supreme Court issue.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
There's so many cases that Supreme Court, the court is
being asked to rule on. That's what's happening in the
last nine months, and we'll see, we'll see what they do.
I think the court is going to go pretty strongly
in favor of the administration.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That's what this court's about.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Believes that the president has virtually unbridled power.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Doesn't have to.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Tell anybody if the laws says, if the underwriting underaligning
law says that you must follow this procedure. For example,
what's going on with the White House right now and
that great, big, beautiful, better than most tippy topst ballroom
that's going to be better, bigger than anybody who's ever seen.
(06:05):
You know that there are laws that say you have
to go through a historical society, you have to go
through panels.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
No, no, I don't. Will the court back it up?
You bet? All right? So much for that, all right.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
The Province of Ontario bought commercials on basically major US
television networks, all of them. And what they run, or
what those commercials did is run part of a speech
by former President Ronald Reagan. And we're in the middle
(06:41):
the Trump administrations, in the middle of negotiations tariff negotiations
with the Canada, the provinces as well as the entire country.
So cono would you run It's about a one minute
clip of that speech that was done in nineteen eighty
seven by Ronald Reagan. Oh the ad I'm sorry, the
(07:05):
ad which was taken from that speech done in nineteen
eighty seven.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
When someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it
looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American
products and jobs. And sometimes for a short violet works,
but only.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
For a short time. But over the long run.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. High
tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the
triggering of fierce trade wards. Then the worst hackles, market
shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Of people lose their jobs. Throughout the world. There's a
growing realization that the weight.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Of prosperity for OIGN nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and
promoting fair and free competition.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
America's jobs and growth are at state.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Okay, obviously this was a job at President Trump in
response to that. Now keep in mind this is a
TV ad that was run and the President was so
offended that he said, that's it. I'm done speaking to Canada.
I am going to let the existing tariffs remain. All
(08:28):
negotiations are off they're not very happy with us, because
I don't think President Trump ever has walked back his
statements about Canada should be our our fifty first state
and is basically a toilet. The point I'm making on
this one is that the Trump folks are arguing that
(08:49):
it is fake news. Straight out, it's fake news. And
when asked, does that mean AI did it? Does that
mean that it didn't exist? Does that mean that there
was an impersonation of a voice? No, it wasn't fake
It was edited. And they also argued it was edited,
and I'm leading transcripts of the entire speech. Was a
(09:12):
long speech, and while it was edited, I'll tell you
the basic.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Premise is not changed.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Reagan did speak out against tariffs, and a lot of
people do. As a matter of fact, I think Reagan
even addressed the issue of the Smooth Holly Act, which
was passed during the Depression to protect American businesses and
it exacerbated the Great Depression. So at this point the
(09:40):
President has not back down on, of course, as tariffs,
there is an argument among many many people that the
tariffs are going to hurt the United States long term,
just as many people on the other side say it's
going to.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Help long term for the US.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
One of the things that tariffs do is that products
become so expensive in terms of bringing them into the
country that the move is to build factories and produce
here in the United States. Now, is that ever going
to be as cheap as overseas? Nope, And the reason
(10:18):
is building a factory is hideously, hideously expensive here in
the States, and they're not going to pay workers three
dollars an hour like they do in China or they
do in Mexico. But to Trump's point, is it going
to help. It's certainly going to bring factories and businesses
to the United States that it is going to do. Now,
(10:39):
whether it's going to work economically, that's up in the air.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
But I think what this story.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Effectively says is, don't piss off this president.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Just don't piss them off.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Ask James, call me, ask Letitia James's do you think
he's going to make it illegal for Canada to speak American?
I you know, I think he's going to ask the
Canada to be thrown out of the UN and maybe
he may even have Canada declared in and of itself illegal.
(11:15):
We have illegal aliens and we will have illegal countries.
Neil found this article actually from the Wall Street Journal
and sent it along.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And what's fascinating about this.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
It's about surrogacy, of which obviously I've been heavily, heavily
involved throughout my.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Entire career was surrogate parenting.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
And I wrote my first surrogate parenting contract in nineteen
eighty when there were exactly two of us, two lawyers
on the planet that were practicing surrogacy law. So I
was there from the very very beginning. And I was
having a conversation with my good friend Mollie, who is
an attorney, nice Jewish girl, Molly O'Brien, who is has
(12:00):
become one of the premier lawyers in the field. She
started working for me administratively, then went to law school
and now is a big shot lawyer in this And
we talked about this topic and it's a Wall Street
Journal topic that here's the title. Surrogacy is a multi
billion dollar business. Sometimes the money goes missing. People are
(12:20):
very vulnerable, and there has not been a whole lot
of regulation. Now the first California case or the first
California piece of legislature I was involved in helping to
write and it set up protections for the surrogate mother,
and the money to pay for the surrogate has to
(12:40):
be put in escrow, has to be effectively put there
up front.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
And we used to do this. My partner and.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I would create our own escrow company because a lot
let us do it.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
It was the wild West.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
The problem is it's still the wild West, even though
the law says the money has to be in escrow,
so it's not a escrow company. The way the regulations
of escrow companies are real estate escrow companies, by the way,
where money changes hands for real estate, those are very
heavily regulated and there are bonds involved. Well, not in
(13:17):
the case of surrogacy, and there is a huge number
of couples who have just been ripped off completely, and
there is case after case. I mean, since you have
so many tens of thousands of surrogacy cases that occur
(13:38):
every year, and there are hundreds of agencies. Now, I
keep in mind, when I started my agency, the Center
of Surrogate Parenting, we were basically the first ones out.
Now there are hundreds and hundreds and it's still the
same regulations. Couples are so vulnerable, you know what, I
compare this to is when a family member dies and
(14:03):
you go to the funeral establishment, the mortuary, the cemetery,
and you're talking to the salesperson who is selling you
the casket, and there you are having just lost someone,
a family member.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Talk about vulnerability. You really want to honor your mother,
don't you? Yes? And here's how you honor your mother.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
You buy the eight thousand dollars casket instead of the
four thousand dollars casket. You know, okay, okay, okay, And
the vulnerable aspects of that are incredible. Can you imagine
how you want a child? This is in many cases
the last shot of having a child and or a
child with biological connection, because of course, now with surrogacy,
(14:48):
with IVF and egg donation and sperm donation, you have
couples that want to create a baby with some genetic
component of the parents. And that's a huge, huge number
of people, that's in the hundreds of thousands. And what
ends up happening is that the money, if it's done correctly.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Has to be put up in front. It has to
be paid up front.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Why well, because the surrogant mother gets pregnant, as you know,
and is delivering a baby, and what happens if the
parents die, what happens if they go bankrupt, what happens
if they change their mind. Everybody is frightened about surrogate
mothers changing their mind. More parents have changed their minds
than surrogate mothers. Let's say a child is born that's
(15:36):
going to be anomaloust. You have a child that is
born with some severe or going to have some severe
medical issues, and the surrogate mother and if we've had
these say I'm not aborting. There's just not going to
be an abortion, and the couples understand that and they
accept that, except when it happens then all of a
(15:59):
sudden and they.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Walk out the door.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
They walk out the door.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
I've had one of those in the thirty five years
that I did this, and so obviously I took a
big interest in this. And I had this conversation a
couple of days ago with a friend of mine who
is a lawyer and is one of the premier lawyers
in the field, and she and I were talking about
this topic.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I mean, you talk about a coincidence and it has.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
To do with just a whole raft of cases being
filed against surrogacy agencies because well, the owners took the money.
And you know it happens all the time when owners
are you know, when you have business owners that hold
onto money or charge or you had accounts, governmental accounts,
the embezzlement, et cetera. With the point of this, soroet
(16:48):
parenting has been around, well, I started in nineteen eighty
imagine going back that far. And as I said in
the previous segment, when I started, it was whether there
were two of us, literally two lawyers in the world
that we're doing this, and what ended up happening to
pay the surrogate to protect the surrogate mother, even though
I represent the parents, the surrogate mother had to be protected.
(17:13):
You know what if the parents get hit by a truck.
I mean, she's pregnant, gooda deliver a child and it's
not her child. It's not as if she wants to
keep the baby. She's doing this for someone else. So
how do you protect the surrogate at least financially, Well,
the money goes into a trust account and in those days,
we didn't do an escrow account. Eventually we had some
(17:34):
laws passed that says the money has to be protected
but still there really is no protection. This is one
of the big holes in the world of surrogacy which
allows these surrogacy agencies and now there are hundreds of
them to hold on to the money and basically keep it,
spend it on personal items for the owners. Even escrow companies,
(17:57):
and I put that in quotes, escro company are not
regulated the way they should be.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And so let me give you a scenario.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
This is very handlesque in terms of what I would
do with potential clients. We'd sit down and have that
first conversation and I would go through the law as
it existed and talk about how it really was the
Wild West. And then I said, and I need all
of the money for all medical and the payment of
(18:25):
surrogate and her attorney and all of her expenses and
the amount of renumeration she's going to get. I need
it all up front and put into my account, my
trust account.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And inevitably they would say how much is it?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
And I go one hundred thousand dollars and I would
get an answer or a question like one hundred thousand
dollars and you want us to put one hundred thousand
dollars in your trust account? To begin this process. I said, absolutely,
you know, we don't even know you, and I would
(19:03):
say it's way worse than that. Believe me, and I'll
tell you why it's way worse than that. I happen
to be have been born in Brazil, and I am
a Brazilian citizen in addition to being an American citizen,
and I have family in Brazil, and I speak Portuguese.
(19:25):
And if I clean out my trust account and take
the money to Brazil, there is no extradition treaty between
Brazil and the United States for financial crimes. So I'm
sitting on the beach in Rio with your money, having
the time of my life.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Now write the check, and they did.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
That's a reverse cell, by the way, and so they
thought that was so outrageous. But the point is is
that obviously I've never had a problem because I've certainly
never taken money out of my trust account and embezzled
money from clients. Well maybe other clients, but certainly not
my surrogacy clients. And it was it's you know, it
was so wild West at that time and it still is. Finally,
(20:14):
my contract went up to the Supreme Court, and here
I am bragging a little bit, but it took I
don't know how many years before the court accepted the
premise of surrogacy, and that is the intended parents are
the parents of the child.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Because we have such technology out there between sperm donation.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
When I taught third party reproductive law and my first seminar,
the first day of class, I would say, okay, let
me ask you something.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Who's mom and dad? And people would raise their hands, Well,
it was my parents.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I go, okay, let me give you five scenarios of
mom and dad and you tell me which one is correct.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
You got adoptive mom and dad. Okay, that's one.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
You have a dad not using his sperm, but donor sperm,
and mom.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Creates the child who is genetically connected. Whose dad?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Now, certainly we know mom is mom, But is sperm
donor dad?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Or is the intended father dad? Well, the law covers
that sperm donor is not dad. Okay.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
How about in vitro fertilization, when you're using an egg donor,
who's mom.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Is it the donor's egg? Is she mom?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Or the woman who just states the baby? And who
is the intended parents? And that's the way I always
started the class because the law was it was so crazy,
and even though most of it has calmed down where
now the contract was upheld by the California Supreme Court
saying that the intended parents pursue it to a contract
(21:56):
are in fact the parents of the child. But that's California.
Are states all over. This is not regulated federally. One
time a federal bill was introduced, and that was by
Henry Hyde. You've heard of the High Amendment. Well, you
can't use federal money for abortions. That was Henry Hyde,
and he introduced a bill to make what I did
(22:18):
a federal felony. And thank goodness, there were some logical
people on that subcommittee that said, hey, this is a
state issue.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
You know, can't you can't you.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Know, abortion, adoption, marriage, divorce, parenting is a state issue.
The Feds don't get involved in this. And that disappeared,
thank goodness. So the point is it still is unregulated
in so many ways as it was when I started.
And you know how many years ago, what nineteen eighty
(22:49):
to now? Is that forty five years?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Wow? Am I getting old? Neil? You're getting old too.
If you look as you say, you look worse than
I did. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (23:04):
You still look worse than I do, well, I'll tell
your face that that's right. Okay, all right, we're done
with that. Obviously my wheelhouse and obviously I'm still exercised
over all this and engaged in a big, big way,
even though I have not been involved for five years.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
All right, KF I am six forty. You've been listening
to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Made it get a laws You made it get a
real good one.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Jfi AM six forty Bill Handled here it is a
footy Friday, October twenty four I got a story I
want to share with you, and this has to do
with a federal judge just issued a tentative ruling ordering
that immigrant detainees have access to legal counsel. And this
had to do with Lindsey has a friend that she's
(00:36):
known for many, many years, and her whole sort of
circle of friends are absolutely devastated because one of her
friends married to a Hispanic guy. I think it's twenty
nine years old. Came to the US when he was thirteen,
and his mother came there because his aunt, his mother's sister,
(00:58):
had been murdered by the Narco trophic Conte, one of
the gangs, and then dropped off in front of their
house with her tongue cut off. So they came to
the United States and not legally. He's been with attorneys
for ten years trying to figure out anyway he was
just picked up and he's at a detention center, and
(01:22):
of course everybody is going nuts. And of course we're
only going after the worst of the worst. That's the
part that really is completely insane. All right, just wanted
to share that with you. Now, let's move over to
what a federal judge just did issued a order that
immigrant immigrant detainees have access to legal counsel. And so
(01:44):
the government is in front of the judge, and what
this does is extend a temporary restraining order that US
District judge I don't want to go through her name,
issued in July, requiring federal immigrant agencies allow legal visitation
at their detention facilities seven days a week now when
(02:08):
someone is in jail. All right, just to let you know,
if someone is in prison or jail, an attorney shows
up at three am in the morning, they get access
to their client. They get access twenty four to seven.
And the argument here was that it wasn't happening. So
the government attorney argues that evidence shows detainees let me
(02:34):
get this, I want to get this quote correctly, our
meeting with attorneys, they have access to counsel, and conditions
of confinement are not an issue before the court, because
that's the other argument. There is virtually no sanitation. They
are living in cots. They don't have access to their
(02:55):
council and they're living in these horrible conditions, and the
government attorney says, that's not what's that issue here was
that issue is access to legal counsel. And by the way,
they do have access. Straight out, that's just not true.
They have access. And that's what's pretty tough about what's
(03:18):
going on here. Where the judge said, the court say
one thing, and it is it almost doesn't matter for
this administration. There was a story on sixty minutes was
this past Sunday where a guy who was ahead of
the ethics whatever department he was, he had moved himself
(03:39):
up and had been with a doj and he just quit.
He couldn't take it anymore. And what he said was
there were court orders that were not being followed where
he talked about superiors coming into rooms and you know,
putting programs together there and having entire departments meet. And
(04:03):
they basically said, ignore what the judges say on one
of them.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
This was the accusation that was made.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Do you remember when the flight was going on to
El Salvador and Abrago was on that flight and he
was delivered and the judge said, you have to stop everything. Well,
the order was the while he was on the flight
one of the illegal detainees, and the argument in front
of the court uh, and the attorney was or actually
(04:33):
it was the official was asked, did you know this
was happening?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And he said no, I had no idea. And the
accusation was I was.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
In the room when he was told ignore what the
court say, and this was what was going to happen
this weekend. Some crazy stuff is really happening, and it's
really it's tremendously unfortunate, and you're going to see these
cases go uh up the Supreme Court. And the argument
about the representation, that's your fifth Amendment.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
You're a you have the.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Government must give you representation when you are picked up.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
If you can't afford it, they just have to do it.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
So we'll see and then if it goes up to
the Supreme Court, which I think it will.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Because this is a Supreme Court issue.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
There's so many cases that Supreme Court, the court is
being asked to rule on. That's what's happening in the
last nine months, and we'll see, we'll see what they do.
I think the court is going to go pretty strongly
in favor of the administration.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That's what this court's about.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Believes that the president has virtually unbridled power.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Doesn't have to.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Tell anybody if the laws says, if the underwriting underaligning
law says that you must follow this procedure. For example,
what's going on with the White House right now and
that great, big, beautiful, better than most tippy topst ballroom
that's going to be better, bigger than anybody who's ever seen.
(06:05):
You know that there are laws that say you have
to go through a historical society, you have to go
through panels.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
No, no, I don't. Will the court back it up?
You bet? All right? So much for that, all right.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
The Province of Ontario bought commercials on basically major US
television networks, all of them. And what they run, or
what those commercials did is run part of a speech
by former President Ronald Reagan. And we're in the middle
(06:41):
the Trump administrations, in the middle of negotiations tariff negotiations
with the Canada, the provinces as well as the entire country.
So cono would you run It's about a one minute
clip of that speech that was done in nineteen eighty
seven by Ronald Reagan. Oh the ad I'm sorry, the
(07:05):
ad which was taken from that speech done in nineteen
eighty seven.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
When someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it
looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American
products and jobs. And sometimes for a short violet works,
but only.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
For a short time. But over the long run.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. High
tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the
triggering of fierce trade wards. Then the worst hackles, market
shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Of people lose their jobs. Throughout the world. There's a
growing realization that the weight.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Of prosperity for OIGN nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and
promoting fair and free competition.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
America's jobs and growth are at state.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Okay, obviously this was a job at President Trump in
response to that. Now keep in mind this is a
TV ad that was run and the President was so
offended that he said, that's it. I'm done speaking to Canada.
I am going to let the existing tariffs remain. All
(08:28):
negotiations are off they're not very happy with us, because
I don't think President Trump ever has walked back his
statements about Canada should be our our fifty first state
and is basically a toilet. The point I'm making on
this one is that the Trump folks are arguing that
(08:49):
it is fake news. Straight out, it's fake news. And
when asked, does that mean AI did it? Does that
mean that it didn't exist? Does that mean that there
was an impersonation of a voice? No, it wasn't fake
It was edited. And they also argued it was edited,
and I'm leading transcripts of the entire speech. Was a
(09:12):
long speech, and while it was edited, I'll tell you
the basic.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Premise is not changed.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Reagan did speak out against tariffs, and a lot of
people do. As a matter of fact, I think Reagan
even addressed the issue of the Smooth Holly Act, which
was passed during the Depression to protect American businesses and
it exacerbated the Great Depression. So at this point the
(09:40):
President has not back down on, of course, as tariffs,
there is an argument among many many people that the
tariffs are going to hurt the United States long term,
just as many people on the other side say it's
going to.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Help long term for the US.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
One of the things that tariffs do is that products
become so expensive in terms of bringing them into the
country that the move is to build factories and produce
here in the United States. Now, is that ever going
to be as cheap as overseas? Nope, And the reason
(10:18):
is building a factory is hideously, hideously expensive here in
the States, and they're not going to pay workers three
dollars an hour like they do in China or they
do in Mexico. But to Trump's point, is it going
to help. It's certainly going to bring factories and businesses
to the United States that it is going to do. Now,
(10:39):
whether it's going to work economically, that's up in the air.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
But I think what this story.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Effectively says is, don't piss off this president.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Just don't piss them off.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Ask James, call me, ask Letitia James's do you think
he's going to make it illegal for Canada to speak American?
I you know, I think he's going to ask the
Canada to be thrown out of the UN and maybe
he may even have Canada declared in and of itself illegal.
(11:15):
We have illegal aliens and we will have illegal countries.
Neil found this article actually from the Wall Street Journal
and sent it along.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And what's fascinating about this.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
It's about surrogacy, of which obviously I've been heavily, heavily
involved throughout my.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Entire career was surrogate parenting.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
And I wrote my first surrogate parenting contract in nineteen
eighty when there were exactly two of us, two lawyers
on the planet that were practicing surrogacy law. So I
was there from the very very beginning. And I was
having a conversation with my good friend Mollie, who is
an attorney, nice Jewish girl, Molly O'Brien, who is has
(12:00):
become one of the premier lawyers in the field. She
started working for me administratively, then went to law school
and now is a big shot lawyer in this And
we talked about this topic and it's a Wall Street
Journal topic that here's the title. Surrogacy is a multi
billion dollar business. Sometimes the money goes missing. People are
(12:20):
very vulnerable, and there has not been a whole lot
of regulation. Now the first California case or the first
California piece of legislature I was involved in helping to
write and it set up protections for the surrogate mother,
and the money to pay for the surrogate has to
(12:40):
be put in escrow, has to be effectively put there
up front.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
And we used to do this. My partner and.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I would create our own escrow company because a lot
let us do it.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
It was the wild West.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
The problem is it's still the wild West, even though
the law says the money has to be in escrow,
so it's not a escrow company. The way the regulations
of escrow companies are real estate escrow companies, by the way,
where money changes hands for real estate, those are very
heavily regulated and there are bonds involved. Well, not in
(13:17):
the case of surrogacy, and there is a huge number
of couples who have just been ripped off completely, and
there is case after case. I mean, since you have
so many tens of thousands of surrogacy cases that occur
(13:38):
every year, and there are hundreds of agencies. Now, I
keep in mind, when I started my agency, the Center
of Surrogate Parenting, we were basically the first ones out.
Now there are hundreds and hundreds and it's still the
same regulations. Couples are so vulnerable, you know what, I
compare this to is when a family member dies and
(14:03):
you go to the funeral establishment, the mortuary, the cemetery,
and you're talking to the salesperson who is selling you
the casket, and there you are having just lost someone,
a family member.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Talk about vulnerability. You really want to honor your mother,
don't you? Yes? And here's how you honor your mother.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
You buy the eight thousand dollars casket instead of the
four thousand dollars casket. You know, okay, okay, okay, And
the vulnerable aspects of that are incredible. Can you imagine
how you want a child? This is in many cases
the last shot of having a child and or a
child with biological connection, because of course, now with surrogacy,
(14:48):
with IVF and egg donation and sperm donation, you have
couples that want to create a baby with some genetic
component of the parents. And that's a huge, huge number
of people, that's in the hundreds of thousands. And what
ends up happening is that the money, if it's done correctly.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Has to be put up in front. It has to
be paid up front.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Why well, because the surrogant mother gets pregnant, as you know,
and is delivering a baby, and what happens if the
parents die, what happens if they go bankrupt, what happens
if they change their mind. Everybody is frightened about surrogate
mothers changing their mind. More parents have changed their minds
than surrogate mothers. Let's say a child is born that's
(15:36):
going to be anomaloust. You have a child that is
born with some severe or going to have some severe
medical issues, and the surrogate mother and if we've had
these say I'm not aborting. There's just not going to
be an abortion, and the couples understand that and they
accept that, except when it happens then all of a
(15:59):
sudden and they.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Walk out the door.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
They walk out the door.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
I've had one of those in the thirty five years
that I did this, and so obviously I took a
big interest in this. And I had this conversation a
couple of days ago with a friend of mine who
is a lawyer and is one of the premier lawyers
in the field, and she and I were talking about
this topic.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I mean, you talk about a coincidence and it has.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
To do with just a whole raft of cases being
filed against surrogacy agencies because well, the owners took the money.
And you know it happens all the time when owners
are you know, when you have business owners that hold
onto money or charge or you had accounts, governmental accounts,
the embezzlement, et cetera. With the point of this, soroet
(16:48):
parenting has been around, well, I started in nineteen eighty
imagine going back that far. And as I said in
the previous segment, when I started, it was whether there
were two of us, literally two lawyers in the world
that we're doing this, and what ended up happening to
pay the surrogate to protect the surrogate mother, even though
I represent the parents, the surrogate mother had to be protected.
(17:13):
You know what if the parents get hit by a truck.
I mean, she's pregnant, gooda deliver a child and it's
not her child. It's not as if she wants to
keep the baby. She's doing this for someone else. So
how do you protect the surrogate at least financially, Well,
the money goes into a trust account and in those days,
we didn't do an escrow account. Eventually we had some
(17:34):
laws passed that says the money has to be protected
but still there really is no protection. This is one
of the big holes in the world of surrogacy which
allows these surrogacy agencies and now there are hundreds of
them to hold on to the money and basically keep it,
spend it on personal items for the owners. Even escrow companies,
(17:57):
and I put that in quotes, escro company are not
regulated the way they should be.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And so let me give you a scenario.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
This is very handlesque in terms of what I would
do with potential clients. We'd sit down and have that
first conversation and I would go through the law as
it existed and talk about how it really was the
Wild West. And then I said, and I need all
of the money for all medical and the payment of
(18:25):
surrogate and her attorney and all of her expenses and
the amount of renumeration she's going to get. I need
it all up front and put into my account, my
trust account.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And inevitably they would say how much is it?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
And I go one hundred thousand dollars and I would
get an answer or a question like one hundred thousand
dollars and you want us to put one hundred thousand
dollars in your trust account? To begin this process. I said, absolutely,
you know, we don't even know you, and I would
(19:03):
say it's way worse than that. Believe me, and I'll
tell you why it's way worse than that. I happen
to be have been born in Brazil, and I am
a Brazilian citizen in addition to being an American citizen,
and I have family in Brazil, and I speak Portuguese.
(19:25):
And if I clean out my trust account and take
the money to Brazil, there is no extradition treaty between
Brazil and the United States for financial crimes. So I'm
sitting on the beach in Rio with your money, having
the time of my life.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Now write the check, and they did.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
That's a reverse cell, by the way, and so they
thought that was so outrageous. But the point is is
that obviously I've never had a problem because I've certainly
never taken money out of my trust account and embezzled
money from clients. Well maybe other clients, but certainly not
my surrogacy clients. And it was it's you know, it
was so wild West at that time and it still is. Finally,
(20:14):
my contract went up to the Supreme Court, and here
I am bragging a little bit, but it took I
don't know how many years before the court accepted the
premise of surrogacy, and that is the intended parents are
the parents of the child.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Because we have such technology out there between sperm donation.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
When I taught third party reproductive law and my first seminar,
the first day of class, I would say, okay, let
me ask you something.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Who's mom and dad? And people would raise their hands, Well,
it was my parents.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I go, okay, let me give you five scenarios of
mom and dad and you tell me which one is correct.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
You got adoptive mom and dad. Okay, that's one.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
You have a dad not using his sperm, but donor sperm,
and mom.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Creates the child who is genetically connected. Whose dad?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Now, certainly we know mom is mom, But is sperm
donor dad?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Or is the intended father dad? Well, the law covers
that sperm donor is not dad. Okay.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
How about in vitro fertilization, when you're using an egg donor,
who's mom.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Is it the donor's egg? Is she mom?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Or the woman who just states the baby? And who
is the intended parents? And that's the way I always
started the class because the law was it was so crazy,
and even though most of it has calmed down where
now the contract was upheld by the California Supreme Court
saying that the intended parents pursue it to a contract
(21:56):
are in fact the parents of the child. But that's California.
Are states all over. This is not regulated federally. One
time a federal bill was introduced, and that was by
Henry Hyde. You've heard of the High Amendment. Well, you
can't use federal money for abortions. That was Henry Hyde,
and he introduced a bill to make what I did
(22:18):
a federal felony. And thank goodness, there were some logical
people on that subcommittee that said, hey, this is a
state issue.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
You know, can't you can't you.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Know, abortion, adoption, marriage, divorce, parenting is a state issue.
The Feds don't get involved in this. And that disappeared,
thank goodness. So the point is it still is unregulated
in so many ways as it was when I started.
And you know how many years ago, what nineteen eighty
(22:49):
to now? Is that forty five years?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Wow? Am I getting old? Neil? You're getting old too.
If you look as you say, you look worse than
I did. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (23:04):
You still look worse than I do, well, I'll tell
your face that that's right. Okay, all right, we're done
with that. Obviously my wheelhouse and obviously I'm still exercised
over all this and engaged in a big, big way,
even though I have not been involved for five years.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
All right, KF I am six forty. You've been listening
to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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