The MeidasTouch Podcast - Alexander Vindman TAKES ON Enemies of Democracy

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, the brothers have on an absolutely phenomenal guest, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman! During the interview, we cover everything from Vindman’s upbringing, his military service, and of course, the infamous phone call Vindman sat in on when former President Trump requested that Ukraine's newly elected President, Volodymyr Zelensky, “dig up dirt” on Joe Biden. The remainder of the episode is rounded out by the brothers discussing the members of the GQP who are seemingly siding with Taliban (*SHOCKER*), as well as the latest scandal involving Lauren Boebert allegedly criminally misusing campaign funds. Finally, the brothers discuss the latest Covid crisis and how the red state governors are literally killing their constituents. If you enjoyed today’s episode please be sure to rate, review and subscribe. As Always, thank YOU for listening! Get Lt. Col. (ret) Vindman's book 'Here, Right Matters' here: https://amzn.to/3804cJq Get the latest Meidas Merch at https://store.meidastouch.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. What's up, Midas Mighty? Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Ben Micellus joined by Brett and Jordy Micellus. We've got an incredible show for you today. Guest, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman will be joining. Vindman's got a new book here, Right Matters, An American Story. And I say Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, he should have been a general. He should have been a colonel for sure. And the retaliation from Donald Trump against Alex, against his brother Eugene, against his entire family for doing what they're taught when they go in to military

training, which is to speak the truth and to preserve and defend our democracy. It will be incredible to have Lieutenant Colonel Vindman on the podcast today. Brett Jordy, how are you doing otherwise? I'm doing great. It's great to see you guys, Ben. I hope you're enjoying your little vacation and still doing the podcast. Popock cannot be said enough. I'm thrilled to have retired Lieutenant Colonel Vindman on the show in all seriousness. I just finished reading his book, Here Right Matters. It is an incredible story to understand the sacrifices that him and his family have taken from generations to get here, for him to fight in the military, rise the ranks, the loss that he has suffered, then to be treated the way he was by the Trump administration for

then doing the right thing. It's really a incredibly frustrating story. I'm excited to get into it with him and talk to him more about what he's up to now and really delve into the book. So really excited to have that. And just so everybody remembers, there's a lot of news that's gone on. We've had to deal with a pandemic, an insurrection, another impeachment because President Trump caused an insurrection. During the first impeachment trial, Alexander Vindman was subpoenaed by the House Impeachment Committee to testify about the call that he listened to and other actions that he heard when he was in the National Security Council.

He was a 44-year-old U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, which is kind of the equivalent of a two-star general. And this was a time period where the White House was withholding approximately $400 million in security aid to Ukraine. And this was the call where Donald Trump reached out to President Zelensky in the infamous quid pro quo phone call and demanded that Zelensky investigate Biden and Biden's family. Even then in 2019, Trump was terrified, terrified of Biden. But Trump basically said, if you don't investigate Biden, we're not going to give you the security aid, making Ukraine susceptible to Russian invasion. U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman at the time as part of his job listened to those calls. He reported that to the in-house legal advisors

within the National Security Council as his protocol, and that led to the impeachment of Donald Trump. Just wanted to give that context because I'm sure we know that Alexander Vindman's a hero, but I think it's helpful that we just reflect in simplistic terms what it is that he did and the heroism that he did. He is a true American hero, and we are psyched and honored to have him on the show. I want to welcome all the new listeners to the Midas Touch podcast. The growth of the podcast is unbelievable. For those who don't know about Midas Touch and the brothers, I'm Ben, the oldest brother.

I'm a lawyer. Brett's the middle brother, who's the editor. Jordy, our youngest brother, has a marketing background, award-winning marketer, so he claims to be. We've been doing this podcast now successfully for some time, but the growth recently has been meteoric and just wanted to, you know, share some stories with you about us, about the brothers. So we're from Long Island, New York. We all grew up in New York before going out to different areas. And we all kind of played soccer growing up, which is one of the things you do in Long Island and bringing this full circle to the news. You all remember the Massapequa soccer tournaments? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

And so Massapequa is a town in Long Island, would always play in these Massapequa soccer tournaments. Wow. You've been in California for a while, man, in Long Island from a Long Islander. Everybody knows it's on Long Island. You're on Long Island, from a Long Islander. Everybody knows it's on Long Island. You're on Long Island and you go into the city. Have you ever never heard it? You've never heard of Jerry Seinfeld in your life. Can I tell you where my mind's at though? When I hear Massapequa, this will show you where I am in the family. When I hear Massapequa, the first thing in my mind is not soccer tournament. The first thing in my mind is All-American Burger, which is a fast

food burger joint in Massapequa. That's the immediate thought that I have. Well, the point why I'm bringing up Massapequa, my memory of Massapequa growing up was in a soccer tournament that I played in. Our school, our team was primarily a Jewish team. And I do remember some of the other teams there throwing anti-Semitic invectives when we won the second place trophy growing up. And so there had always been, and that's not representative of all of Massapequa, but it was an experience that happened at this point more than 30 years ago, but it still sticks with me today. And then I saw this in the news that the Massapequa school board recommended but did not mandate masks, which is what it is. It probably should be mandated. standing ovation given by the parents that were at the Massapequa school board meeting,

just celebrating the fact that masks were not mandated. Play that clip. If you saw that video out of context, you would have thought Massapequa won the soccer tournament and that they were cheering and celebrating what was going on. We did it. But no, what are they celebrating? They're celebrating the fact that masks are not required in the school. And this doesn't surprise me, unfortunately, when I see this footage. And man, I feel like I never see like when I hear Long Island's in the news, like I never see, like when I hear long islands in the news, it's never like, because they did something amazing. You know, it's just wild. It's just so close to home for us too. It's so, it's so just disturbing and bizarre. What, like,

what are they cheering? They're cheering that now their kids are less safe, that now their kids could actually get very sick. Now their kids can go to school, get COVID, bring it home, and endanger the rest of their family. If you take a step back, that's what they're applauding in that video. It's disturbing and it's disgusting. I'd like to talk about these school board meetings too, because I've been seeing these a lot and it makes it seem like there is an outsized presence of these MAGA people across the country. We always heard from the Trumpers, they talk about the idea of the silent majority. In reality, these people are the opposite. They are the loud as fuck minority.

They don't shut up. They show up to all these events. And if you remember the thing that they are applauding, the reason why they're applauding is we are in a pandemic right now. So- They're applauding that. Yes. They're happy that we're in a pandemic. They're happy that we're in a pandemic and they want to keep us there. And why are there no other people in those chairs to refute them, to say, this is crazy. Y'all are crazy. That's because those are the intelligent people

who know that all these COVID infested people, you should not be around them. And they are not going in public in these close quarters with these dirty, unhygienic, disease laden people. And so it appears that there's an outsized presence of these MAGA people. It's purely because the logical people are not putting themselves in harm's way. It's something that we're going to have to deal with because, unfortunately, when you don't show up to these meetings and when you aren't there to take these votes, you know who you give voice to? You give voice to the MAGAs. You give your vote over to the MAGAs. So it's something we need to really figure out. It's something that really concerns

me with things like the California recall election, which is my new home out here. The fact is, is we have the numbers across the board, all across the country. And yes, overwhelming, overwhelming numbers, even in states like Texas. We learned even in states like Georgia and the census that came out last week is showing us that we have numbers now more than we've ever had in the history of the United States of America. The numbers are on our side. But what do we need you to do? We need you to show up. We need you not to get complacent because we won the White House and took back the Senate by the slimmest of majorities because we have a house to keep. We have a Senate to expand on. We have a governor to keep in California. And if you sit out of these elections, you are giving your vote over

to these crazy people in these school board meetings. And I just want you to know that you see Texas Governor Greg Abbott tested positive for covid again this week. Sorry, but it comes on the heels of Brett. Play this video clip of Governor Abbott at the Republican Club at Heritage Ranch in Texas. This was a meeting filled with all GQ peers who literally intentionally met to be as close with each other as possible to intentionally spread COVID. Just show the clip as I'm talking about. There's not really much audio here behind it, but for those who are just listening on the pod, it's literally a room of people who couldn't be closer to each other. You wouldn't have a meeting like this

before the pandemic because you wouldn't want people breathing on your faces. You wouldn't want these GQP mouth breathers with their smelly breaths, just spewing. Even they wouldn't want to be in rooms with each other, you know, doing that. Of course, we would never want to be in rooms with them at all, but they're literally congregate and to spread COVID. They're like COVID spreading parties. And as you said, Brett, this is a vocal minority. And what we've seen with fascist, not fascist tendencies, who are fascist, and what we see across the world, and as history has taught us, though, if the majority ignores this minority group of fascist individuals, sometimes that group has the ability to literally kind of take over. And one of the most extreme examples, but I think our comparison is apt, is the Taliban. We've always compared the Taliban to the GQP. They are very similar in a

lot of ways. And we've done Midas Touch videos that literally show like side-by-side comparisons of Taliban leaders and GQP leaders and Taliban youth and GQP youth, and they're virtually indistinguishable in their views. And guess what? The GQP now says, yeah, yeah, we like the Taliban. They are pro-Taliban, which doesn't surprise me. They've always now been saying the silent part out, but they've just full on embraced the Taliban. There was a tweet that was going viral and a meme all over the place. I saw people posting this. They said the Taliban has announced their political agenda in Afghanistan. It includes banning abortion, outlawing gay marriage, rejecting science, anti-vax. It's against their religion. No separation of church and state religion taught in schools, which is, of course, the Republican platform.

And what Republicans responded to this meme all over the places I saw were, oh my gosh, that sounds like a utopia. That sounds incredible. We need that here in America. This is not us being facetious. This is not us being hyperbolic. To just go back to COVID for a second, when we said that Republicans literally want to give everybody COVID, they legitimately do want to spread COVID. We learned that from the last administration, all the reports about Scott Atlas in the last administration, the health officials pushing this notion that we need to get as many people infected as possible for herd immunity. That was the Trump administration's actual strategy behind the scenes as shown in

leaked emails of what they wanted to do. Now, with the Taliban, we are seeing all these GQ peers post their support publicly of the Taliban. This isn't us making stuff up. You look at people like Donald Trump Jr. Did you see the clip of the Taliban spokesperson was asked a question about freedom of speech, and he brought up Facebook. And his answer could have been an answer that Donald Trump gave. This question should be asked to those people who are claiming to be promoters of freedom of speech, who do not allow publication of all information. I can ask Facebook company. This question should be asked to them. Okay. So the Taliban and the GQP use the same talking points and confirmed by Donald Trump Jr. who quote tweeted the Taliban's messaging here and said, LOL, also not wrong. Also, can we

just say that Donald Trump Jr., just say that again. He quote tweeted the Taliban leader and said, LOL, also not wrong. Also, the leader of the GQP youth movement, Nicholas Fuentes, put out on whatever this is, Gabber, Jibber, Goober, wherever these people, wherever these people basically write, you know, these days, who knows? But he wrote the Taliban is going to ban abortion, vaccines and gay marriage. Maybe we're fighting on the wrong side for the last 20 years. That's what he says. Almost 2000 likes on that. Almost 2000 likes on that post that should be acknowledged. And then Lauren Bobber, one of the most prominent leaders, as wild as that is to say, but of the GQP, that's like being a prominent leader in the GQP is basically like being the

equivalent of that Taliban spokesperson who you just played the clip of. But Lauren Bobbert says the Taliban are the only people building back better. I think of all of the ones, if I were to rank the most fucked up ones, and by the way, I think Nicholas Fuentes is incredibly fucked up. I mean, one, the Taliban, the fact that you want to celebrate the Taliban banning vaccines. And that is why we are on the wrong side of history, because the Taliban wants to ban vaccines. It's the most bizarre sentence ever. Don Jr.'s a total clown. This Lauren Bobbert one, though, is like the strangest sentence in the world. The Taliban are the only people building back better, essentially saying the Taliban are doing a better job in Afghanistan than we are here in the United States of America.

She's celebrating the Taliban's strength over America, which is, I guess, on point for her, but so bizarre. Another one that we missed that I don't know if you saw was Alex Berenson, who chimed in and said, fact check, time to move to Kabul. No, I didn't see that one. I didn't even, who's Alex Berenson? He like wrote for the New York Times like 10 years ago and probably couldn't keep the job. Now he's some disgruntled conservative writer who has a lot of followers online. You know. He's one of these guys in a world of Charlie Kirks and Nick Fuente, some like blue check, far right, MAGA fascist who chimes in with his pro-Taliban hot takes. That's who he is.

Speaking of Lauren Boebert, man, she seems to be doing a lot of shady things at the moment. Have you seen the latest in Boebert news? What's the latest? Well, federal officials are pressing Boebert for answers on apparent misuse of her campaign funds, which is very interesting. Apparently, she spent more than $6,000 on Venmo. What's with these people with Venmo? Why do they use Venmo? They're the dumbest criminals in the world. Is it like the preferred method of spending money with criminals and pedophiles and sex traffickers?

I think currency is too complicated for them. I don't think the way they know how that works. And so I think with Venmo, it allows them to just simply press a button. It's easier than doing the math of having to get change and assemble, oh, if I have $200 and then I spend 50, how much money do I have left? I think that type of math is too difficult for them to figure out is my theory. But basically when you get to the bottom of this story, what she did was she spent $6,000, over $6,000 of her campaign funds on personal expenses. She was using her campaign money, her donors' money on her personal needs. And then when she got caught, she paid the money back from her account and said, oh, it's been reimbursed. Now the FEC is investigating this.

Will be interesting to see what else we find out. Once again, this is also after she claimed $20,000 worth of mileage reimbursements for driving, which is like the amount that people might reimburse for mileage reimbursements over the course of like six years. And she did that before she even stepped into Congress. And Brett, I think that's just the tip of the iceberg. Her husband who showed his penis to minors. Yes. the iceberg. Her husband who showed his penis to minors. Yeah. So her husband previously pulled down his pants, showed his penis to minors at a bowling alley. It's a true story. You could look at it in the police reports that the victims, you know what the victims had told the police. But apparently he was also paid $478,000 last year as a consultant for an energy firm. And this was not disclosed in Lauren Bobbert's disclosures where

you have to disclose your and your spouse's income. The company in question is called Terra Energy Productions. It may be Terra Energy Productions, but it's spelled T-E-R-R-A. Yeah, and he earned $460,000. This was not disclosed. And it's unclear to me what his qualifications are for someone who literally exposes his penis to minors. That's the crazy thing too, is look, the Boberts of the world, the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world, they try and tout themselves as everyday citizens, just blue collar workers or whatever. They're making bank.

And that's why she's not disclosing what her income or what her husband's income is because that ruins her narrative. She's no longer just the small business owner who has the restaurant. No, now she's the top 1%, exactly what she's pretending to sort of fight against in her misguided way. That's why she does that thing where she goes, no more ouchie-fouchie for me. No more ouchie-fouchie over here. You understand? No more ouchie-fouchie for me. No more ouchie-fouchie over here. You understand? No more ouchie-fouchie-fouchie. By the way, have you guys noticed that this episode today,

I've been like really trying to pick my spots where I could talk just because of how scared I was last week when I interrupted you, Ben? Yeah, I remember that. But you would have violated your cardinal rule right there, Jordy, because I was doing my ouchie-fouchie thing right there. Well, here's the thing. I got tired of not talking the whole episode, so I wanted to get some words in. People are in the chat are like, why isn't Jordan talking this episode? Well, that's why, because I got scared last week when Ben gave me the lick of death when

I interrupted his flow. Yeah, but just right there when I was doing the ouchie-fouchie, that's a perfect example and not to interrupt. It was kind of going on a little too long. To be fair, I think Jordi thought that Lauren Boebert was actually in this chat with us and wanted to interrupt to make sure that she wasn't

actually here because it was such a spot-on impression. Play the clip. Of you doing it? No, not of me doing it. Play the clip of her doing it. Not of me doing it. I know what I did 20 seconds ago. Play the clip of her doing it of you doing the impression not of me doing it play the clip of her doing it not of me doing i know what i did 20 seconds ago play the clip of her doing we don't want your benefits we don't want your welfare don't come knocking on my door with your

you leave us the hell alone let's play them back to back let's go back yeah now let's go back right now and show the clip that I did before Jordy interrupted me. No more ouchie fouchie for me. No more ouchie fouchie over here. You understand? No more ouchie fouchie fouchie. Don't come knocking on my door with your fouchie ouchie. You leave us the hell alone.

I hear no differences. I hear that was the first successful. Spot on. That was spot on. And that was the first successful Midas replay. And that may have been in the history of podcasting. Brothers, do you realize what we may have just accomplished? In the first time ever in a podcast,

we just did a podcast replay of the podcast during the podcast. I don't think anyone's ever done that. It's kind of like the inception of podcast. We just did a podcast replay of the podcast during the podcast. I don't think anyone's ever done that. It's kind of like the inception of podcast. It's truly brilliant, you guys. So that's what you have with Lauren Bobbert. We have the Republicans who are openly embracing the Taliban as their kindred spirits. And then, of course, we also have the college Republicans just talking horrible trash, talking horrible invectives, just saying the worst things about the military. And why are they saying horrible things about the military? Well, there was one particular military member who basically said that you should wear masks and you should get the vaccine. And this prompted the Fresno State Republicans, whose symbol basically looks like it's straight

out of the Third Reich, to say, maybe guys who are actually fighting in combat are brave and whatnot, but the vast majority of our military are glorified DMV employees. They work against what we as conservatives believe all the time with few exceptions. So just bashing DMV employees, number one, bashing the military and bashing this particular military member. But it doesn't just end there. The Fresno State College Republicans go on to then say to this military member, quote, you're such a hero that you'll break down when I light fireworks next door, making fun of the military members PTSD for being in combat. This is what you see now when you have a generation of people who were teenagers during the Trump years, mimicking and parroting his fascistic tendencies,

which is one of the reasons also why that election was so existential, because this is the damage that four years do. But with eight years and just thinking about the children, right, thinking about the child who was, you know, maybe 10 years old, they saw Donald Trump from the age of 10 to 14. But if they saw Donald Trump from 10 to 18, it's very hard on the psyche what that does. And frankly, for children of all age, but this right here is mimicking Trump in the most disgusting and absurd ways to us in the public. But this is what they think. The GQP hates our military. They hate freedoms. They hate democracy. They hate anything that's not a fascist dictator. Honestly, it's really sad to me because they've just so poisoned the discourse and poisoned the minds of these young people. And even though Trump's gone, Ben,

this is still with us. And the poisoning is still going on every night on Fox News, on Newsmax, on OAN, on Facebook, on Twitter, on, like you said, Gabber, whatever the hell all those other apps are. By the way, shout out Patriot Takes. Shout out Patriot Takes. Shout out Patriot Takes for digging all this stuff up. They unearthed a crazy video, I think we have that, of Marjorie Taylor Greene just face the camera saying like, fuck you, Biden, basically. Yeah, play that clip. Joe Biden, you're not a president.

You're a piece of shit. That clip doesn't go on Twitter, by the way. That's why a group like Patriot takes fucking kicks ass, man. I don't know how they scrub the internet to find that, but that. That's a good example too, Jordy, because Marjorie Taylor Greene has children. She is teaching her children all of this behavior and all these, the anger, the hatred. This is taught. Not everyone is born this way. I think people are born a clean slate for the most part. And there's a lot of nurture that goes into the way they become. And when you have a

parent like Marjorie Taylor Greene, when you have a parent like these parents at that Massapequa school board cheering basically for the death of their kids, they are also not only harming their kids physically with COVID, they are harming their kids with this poisonous mindset, which is going to permeate throughout their lives. mindset. And you compare that to the models of success in the past that we wanted to impart with our kids. We're going to have Alexander Vindman on here. You look at Alexander Vindman's, you look at his biography. You look at when he graduated from Binghamton University in 1999. He immediately enlisted in the Reserve Offers Training Corps. He received a Purple Heart in 2004 when he sustained injuries from a roadside bomb in Iraq, fighting for our country. He was stationed in South Korea, Germany, in addition to being a veteran of the Iraq War, where he served from September 2004 to 2005. He was promoted to the rank of major in 2008 and then to lieutenant colonel in September

of 2015. And he rose through the ranks working for our government to preserve and to protect our democracy. That is who we should be promoting to our children. Those are the model citizens, men and women and people who are like that, not this Donald Trump fraudster con artist approach, which is why Midas Touch exists. It's why we do this podcast and which is why you as a listener need to also do more than just listen to this podcast,

but make sure you listen to this podcast, but we'd love for you to do more than just listen to this podcast, because if three brothers with no political background can help in our own small way, make a difference, I promise you, you can do it as well. We'll be right back after these messages with retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and American hero, Alexander Vindman. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by Alex Vindman, his new book here, Right Matters, An American Story, a New York Times bestseller. And just for everybody listening, they say, Ben, you can call him Alex like that.

Be professional here. Before the interview started, retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Bidman said, call me, Alex. So I'm abiding by his wishes. Alex, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you. And you know that if I wasn't happy with that, I'd correct you, right? We know that much. And it would have been really funny, though, if that was just the setup.

And all of a sudden, Ben starts calling you, Alex. And you're like, whoa, man, what the hell? That would have been the funny, though, if that was just the setup and all of a sudden Ben starts calling you Alex and you're like, whoa, man, what the hell? That would have been the best setup on the planet. When I was younger, I once went to a retired four star general's home out in Colorado and people like Ben just shut up. Don't tell the story. Ask Alex questions. But the point of my story is, is that he shook up a beer that he gave to me. So when I opened it, he was like a very serious man. So it would explode all over his rug. And then when it did it, he just started screaming at me and the 19 year old me was so scared. And the general was yelling and he was like,

I got you. But that's the military. That's good stuff right there. That's the kind of general we need. But thanks for the introduction. It sounded like we're about to have a boxing match or something. Exactly, Alex. No boxing match here. We just want to get out the truth. And that's why I like your book. It serves the truth and the true hard facts. But I noticed when I look at the New York Times bestsellers and all these bestseller books out there, it's kind of like your book of truth and pro-democracy. It's kind of the same thing with the podcast charts are in like a sea of these far right GQP fascist things. Like, how is that even happening that you're the lone voice there?

Well, I don't know. Don't ask me. That's the question I asked you guys. But no, but seriously, it's pretty amazing how well the far right has been able to tap into something where they are able to galvanize attention for these messages and continue to radicalize, perpetuate the cycle of, you know, for more and more extreme, more and more kind of outlandish views devoid of truth. And the folks that, you know, are kind of, you know, the more moderate voices, or, you know, even the liberal voices, they don't get that kind of currency, they're not capturing that kind of attention. And I wonder if it's because the right has been effective with, you know, with hooking onto, you know, some relatively narrow themes, fundamentally kind of boiling some of this down to attacks on liberty, which all Americans love and portraying some policy stuff as attacks on liberty.

Whereas the left is more oriented on kind of policy issues that don't perpetuate culture wars. And therefore, you know, and policy issues are very, very diverse. The left is a big tent party, and it just doesn't capture that kind of attention. Hence, you know, above me this week is Tucker Carlson and, you know, Mark Levin with their fictional works on American democracy, where I'm talking about, you know, what's good about this country. I don't know. My answer would be that anger sells over nuance these days. I mean, anger is a powerful, motivating force, and that's what we're seeing from the right. And also, as these people get deplatformed from Twitter and kicked off Twitter, kicked off Facebook, things like that, they move

to other forms of media where they know that they are safer. And that tends to be books, conservative radio podcasts, which I think are why we see those areas so dominated by that space. And Alex, I think of Alexander Hamilton, as you were talking, the room where it happens. You know, what's so incredible is you were in the room where it happened during the Trump administration. Now, obviously, everybody knows the call that you heard, the call that you reported, the quid pro quo that led to the first impeachment. But even before that call, Alex, what were you noticing about Trump? What was his reputation from the security infrastructure within the United States, just seeing the day-to-day dealings of Trump in foreign affairs? Yeah, but you know, you called it the room where it happened, which is John Bolton's

book and him probably playing on the very successful Hamilton, you know, theatrical production. It's just kind of funny. But I don't know if people caught that satire from John Bolton. There is no way that he missed labeling the room where it happened and hooking it on to like, you know, that tension that Hamilton was getting. For Donald Trump, from the foreign policy community, there was a clarity about the fact that the president was highly transactional and really disinterested in foreign policy and strategy.

He was only interested in things that were going to be transactionally beneficial for him personally, which is something that's strange to kind of label a president because he's a constitutional officer, the chief executive is supposed to be looking out for the interest of the people. But he was personally interested in gain. And then in something that might help him hang on for a second administration where he could continue to enrich himself. So there was absolute clarity that this is the way the president operated. And it would be difficult to catch his attention on more principled, high-minded notions. And when the president was disinterested is when the normal business of government occurred. It's when the president personally became interested in a topic

that things traditionally got derailed. The president was the country's worst enemy in a lot of ways in terms of the way he would insert himself into policy where he should be, but in the most destructive way possible. Alex, we know about your call because you had the courage to report it. But did you ever become aware of other calls like the one that you were on, where maybe there were colleagues who had similar positions? Obviously, you were focused on Eastern Europe and Russia was kind of your sector within the National Security Council. But there may have been people who were,

you know, Africa or Asia or other versions that heard these types of calls, but just didn't report them the way you did. Yes. But let me clarify that. Yes. By saying that there's a whole range of different activities that the president kind of would engage in. On one end of the spectrum would be awful and scandalous. If those things became, you know, were public when they were happening, they would be scandalous. And on my end of the spectrum was awful and unlawful. I had perceived an abuse of power, you know, something that the president could legitimately get impeached for.

And I said this to my when I walked into my twin brother's office as I was getting ready to report it further up the chain. I said, if what the president had just done ever became public, the president would be impeached. So I knew the gravity right away. But there were plenty of awful things and scandalous things that I'm aware of. There are probably many more that I'm not aware of, frankly, because as small as it is, it's still kind of a decent size. It's a representation of the National Security Council's representation of all the different activities of government.

And there were all sorts of things I wasn't necessarily plugged into. But, yeah, unfortunately, I think there was a lot of a lot of these types of things. Any you can share? I'd say, you know, in my case, I alluded to the president being his own worst enemy. And he was, of course, his own worst enemy in the impeachment process, because he released the transcript of the call that allows me now to talk about it freely without violating classification. So there are things that I think that have been slightly covered, the president's behavior with regards to the assassination of journalist Adnan Khashoggi and things of that nature that have been at least briefly touched on, but I'd be violating my obligations to protect classified information if I guess I spoke about anything specifically.

Yeah, I'd be violating my professional responsibility as a podcaster of Midas Touch if I did not try to go there. But I just want to maybe say, Ben, one thing is that this is one of the reasons I talk about accountability as often as I do in every engagement. I talk about accountability and this administration doing the right thing and exposing wrongdoing, abuse of power the way they should be because they have the mandate to do so and they need to be encouraged to do so because there's a lot of stuff in this space that hasn't yet been addressed or disclosed. So I encourage you to keep asking this question too. Yeah, because I think that when that classified

information that you can speak about, but these other calls that are awful and scandalous, and some may even be also unlawful, when those come out, I think they need to come out, but I think it will send additional shockwaves with some of the things we're learning now. Do you agree? Yes. How many more shockwaves? I think what we would historically call shockwaves may be registered as tremors now. And that's unfortunately the case is that we've become bored with the constant scandals of the last administration, where in my situation, the president tried to steal an election, and he perpetuated this criminal activity for the subsequent 18 months in office. And we've learned

about his efforts to undermine the credibility of a free and fair election. We learned about him, you know, pressuring states and the Department of Justice to indicate that, you know, there was wrongdoing in the election so he could successfully steal it. And each one of these announcements kind of like, OK, we're not surprised anymore. And we no longer, you know, have the same kind of visceral reaction to the president's wrongdoing. How are you and your family doing? Your wife, who's also a big fan of Midas Touch, and we just want to give a shout out to her as well.

How's everyone doing? You know, one of the most unseemly aspects of this, too, is you did your job. You spoke the truth. And Trump sent his minions, you know, after you and your family and created a real dangerous situation for you at the time. How's everyone doing? It's a challenge. It is. It still remains stressful. You know, two years after the phone call, a year after leaving the army, leaving government, it's still kind of stressful because I knew what I wanted to do. I had a clear path being promoted and taking increased

positions of responsibility, advancing in marked ways U.S. national security. Now I'm kind of charting my own course. I'm working on a doctorate at Johns Hopkins. I'm a senior fellow at a think tank. I guess I've written a book that's out now. I'm on an NGO. So I'm keeping myself busy. But I frankly, in a lot of ways, you know, these are things that I'm interested in. These are things I'm going to continue to pursue. But in terms of like a career and occupation, there's not a lot of clarity. And that that is very stressful for Rachel and for the family. And it's something that we underestimate the harm that whistleblowers incur from taking a principled approach to stuff. We reward physical courage, firefighters rushing to a building, policemen, soldiers on the battlefield, but we tend to underappreciate the moral courage of whistleblowers and other people that stand their ground and take a

principled approach. And, you know, we have this wishful thinking that, you know, doing the right thing comes with some sort of inherent rewards. That's not the case. And, you know, if I'm experiencing this and I was drawn into a kind of a prominent public position, I could only imagine, you know, people that haven't had the ability to kind of vocalize their concerns, how difficult their lives are. And that's another thing I frankly advocate for public servants, whistleblowers, people doing the right thing. When you blew the whistle, you knew that you were dealing with an

incredibly vindictive figure and you knew also what his supporters are like and how kind of malignant they are. Did that ever factor into your decision making? Like you must have known your life was going to change once you once you reported this. So when I reported, I reported in official channels, you know, with the intent of having higher officers, presidential officers take action and kind of put the ship of state back on course, as had happened so many times in the past, the president would make an ill-considered tweet and then have to backpedal or something of that nature. That happened countless times, frankly. It happened with regards to Syria. It happened with regards to Afghanistan. It happened with regards to

tariffs, all sorts of stuff the The president was constantly, you know, having to make corrections about because he wasn't thoughtful, was probably not even capable of being thoughtful, frankly. You know, that's that was my intent of reporting this. I think at that point in time, I perceived risk to my tenure at the White House, but I didn't necessarily believe that I was going to lose my military career. In testifying, that's when I was much, much more kind of alert to the risks to my career, the way that, you know, the department was going to respond to a middle-ranked officer, soon to be a senior officer, coming in and, you know, being politicized. So there was, I definitely was taking on the risk, but I think the book is mainly about all the tools that I had assembled in my career, lessons I learned from my father, decades of military service that armed me to both make the decision to report it and stay firm on following through on my obligation to report without regards for personal risk. There was a higher mission, a higher obligation, and I wasn't going to be dissuaded by some concerns from my own personal career. I didn't have to fear for my life. This is America. Here Right Matters is the title of the book. But at the same time, I wasn't going to take a career or position on this. And in your book, Here Right Matters,

this notion of sacrifice follows you throughout your life. And in your book, Here Right Matters, this notion of sacrifice follows you throughout your life. And in fact, it follows your family throughout their life. They escaped as refugees from the Soviet Union. They escaped the Nazis. Then you experienced so much sacrifice here in America and out on the battlefield. You lost people. You yourself were awarded a purple heart for an injury sustained in an IED attack in Iraq. Tell us about your sacrifice a little bit. And how does it feel when you sacrifice as this fighter for democracy and then come back to America?

And I've seen the terms that the right wing throws out at you for supporting democracy, calling you a communist and all these sorts of terms. Just what would you say to them if you could speak to one of these people actually face to face? You know, it's interesting. I guess I'll start by saying some of these terms don't actually really resonate with me. Like, you know, sacrifice doesn't resonate with me that much. Whistleblower doesn't resonate with me that much because I don't necessarily identify myself as a whistleblower. I just did what I thought was right. You know, I did my duty. Same thing with sacrifice. You could see that there were sacrifices, but people have sacrificed more. I mean, certainly, you know, the folks that I served with in combat made the ultimate sacrifice, gave the last full measure of devotion, you know, to use Abraham

Lincoln's words. So to me, it's kind of hard to take these, these like, you know, banners onto myself very easily. You know, at the same time, I recognize that other people reflect these, these terms on me. And I think I digress from your question. So put me back on course, please. Well, how does it feel to, even though you don't necessarily see it this way, you have, you know, you have experienced a lot of sacrifice to then come back to this country and experience such vitriol from the right people shouting names that you like communists and phrases. You know, what's what's funny about that is that really, you know, those are are. Not the least bit kind of weighty in my thinking, you know, I'm the rubber, you're the glue, whatever you say to me comes back to you.

All right. That's as frivolous as it is, because these are folks that I don't have any regard for. In some cases, they're acting from a place of ignorance, like, you know, just citizenry that takes up a partisan call to attack me. They don't know any better. And they've been radicalized. You know, so I might even actually have a little bit more regard for those folks, especially if they're former military, because I feel bad for them. I feel some pity for the fact that they're acting in ignorance. But for the Tucker Carlson's or the Sean Hannity's or the Laura Ingram's, I have nothing but disdain for. So I take it as a badge

of honor that these people that are dishonorable attack me. You told a story in the book, you called it Operation Cabbage Patch, about a Humvee that was stuck in the mud and And how could we pull America out of the mud when you have people like Ingram and Tucker who seem to be pushing the Humvee in the opposite direction? Well, I mean, there's some effort to legitimately, this is not cancel culture, but legitimately deep platform these folks based on kind of just the most blatant violations of journalist obligations or harm that they're inflicting on society with regards to discounting the harm of COVID or something of that nature. So there's that kind of stuff. I think there's a fundamental missing link. And I wrote an article that really kind of riled up some of these crazies on the right about litigation. So when they attack

individuals, individuals have recourse, libel and slander laws to pursue these individuals. And what I think would be useful is an NGO that's established to kind of a war chest to help people defend themselves against these massive powerhouses of Fox News and News Corp and stuff like that. I hate to think of this as like a need to over-legislate through a federal law or something of that nature. I'm not sure if there's an effective way to do that, frankly, without violating First Amendment rights. But there's more recourse, frankly, outside of the news media to hold political leaders accountable. They can't just kind of

lie about the harm of COVID or be complicit in insurrection and then walk away from it when it comes around to elections. I think that's a very important thing to do is hang this around their necks, their own words or their own deeds and hold them accountable in an upcoming election. That's where it's actually in a lot of ways easier. We just need to make sure we, we don't let Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, you know, Jim Jordan and all these folks have walk away, you know, Bober and green kind of walk away. And that's, that's literally the tip of the iceberg. I mean, there's like, I could keep the rest of this podcast to be rattling off these.

No doubt about it. A weirdo from North Carolina whose name escapes me at the moment. What's his name? Cawthorn. Cawthorn. There we go. He's busy punching a tree or something. That's the way I last saw him.

Yeah. Well, these types of folks need to be held accountable for their actions. And I've taken it upon myself to be helpful to folks that are running a town and seat them or call out these enemies of democracy, frankly, for their actions. The media one is a hard one, but there are smarter people than me that could come up with some ideas, litigation probably being one of them. Do you believe that Donald Trump is a Russian asset? He's an unwitting asset.

So a useful idiot would be the term of art, meaning that, you know, there wouldn't run them as a, you know, a winning agent just because he's like, he's a live hand grenade that could go off in their face. You know, imagine the Russians using compromising material on them, black, blackmail. And then the president, you know, by his nature saying, well, I'm only doing this because the Russians have dirt on me. Right. That would blow up in the Russians face and stuff like that. But they can pander to him. They could pander to his vanity.

They could pander to his desire to be kind of a little authoritarian. There's a visual in my mind of like, you know, an Oompa Loompa from what is the Willy Wonka? No, no, an Oompa Loompa from the Wizard of Oz, like that kind of, you know, dictator, they could easily kind of manipulate him. And I think, you know, he was in a lot of ways easily manipulated by our adversaries, whether that's North Korea, or China, or Russia, Russia probably maybe being the most effective of them. Switching gears a little bit in here. So earlier on the podcast, we were talking about families and how so much of your upbringing really shapes the person that you ultimately become. When you were testifying in front of the US House of Representatives, you famously said something to

the effect of, in Russia, my act of offering this public testimony involving the president would surely cost me my life. I'm grateful for my father's brave act of hope 40 years ago and for the privilege of being an American citizen and a public servant to live in a country where you're able to speak out. Now, would you say your father was one of the biggest influences in crafting your moral compass? And if so, is there a particular memory in your childhood that stands out to you, you know, when you essentially learned right from wrong? I mean, I love my dad. He's awesome. He's 89 and full of wisdom and very happy to share it with his kids that he's, you know, he still thinks of us as little kids and stuff like that. But I, you know, he was very formative

in shaping our kind of character and moral compass early on, even though in this particular case, we were a little at odds in that he wanted me to come to an accommodation with Trump as opposed to testify against him. But I think I held true to his lessons from my earliest memories, which is he just would not tolerate kind of lying. He prized and would deal with swiftly and mercilessly kind of falsehoods. And you can imagine what that might be like. It didn't take that many lessons to figure that out. And it's something that, frankly, in my own way, pass on to my daughter. It's easy for a little kid sometimes to kind of try to reduce the punishment for kind of, you know, wrongdoing. It happens all the time. You know, kids don't necessarily, they're, they're good natured, but they make mistakes. They're kids. The bigger error would be then to kind of conceal it and lie about it. And that's the easy

thing to do. And I, I learned, you do. And I learned relatively early on that even if I could get away with it, it's not something that I wanted to do. It's not the way I kind of wanted to operate. And I wanted to stick to my principles. And it's something that it was a basis in which I built my values as a young adult joining the military and a foundation for the army values, the army values, loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage. It's one of those things where you have to kind of almost like you exercise a muscle. You don't take the easy route often enough, just because, you know, it saves some skin or something of that nature. You do the hard thing. And, you know, then when you're faced with really truly uh significant challenges you kind

of know what the right thing to do is there's more at risk there's more at play but you know what the right thing to do is and you just follow through that's awesome and i have a little bit of a light-hearted one for you so you famously have an identical twin brother growing up did you guys ever you know fill in for one of each other doing something uh sure, sure. Uh, you know, he'd be the poor man's Alex, unfortunately. Uh, but no, we're going to have to get Eugene on the show now to clap back on that. That's that's fine. My he's, you know, he's my twin brother. We're very, very close. We, uh, you know, we, we've been, we, we started out as roommates and, you know, uh, been, we started out as wound mates and, you know, we have been fortunate to spend some time together because our military careers took us in separate directions for, you know,

for the first 17 years or so. And we were lucky that he moved closer for the Pentagon. And then we were neighbors on the NSC, you know, sharing a hallway. You know, of course hallway, you know, of course we, there were jokes. We try to play on people to great success. Oftentimes. I mean, actually one time, I'll just give you a quick one. One time my, one of my bosses, a general in the Pentagon, he was joking with me. He's like, if I had two of you, or if I, if I had another Alex Vindman,

I could rule the world. You know, it was, he was kind of like, it was a compliment. So the next day I had my twin brother walk into the office and say, Hey, sir, just, you know, check it in. And he, he, you know, he started talking to him as if he was talking to me. And then I walked in and he kind of did a double take and he's like, okay, let's go, let's go take over the world. I love that. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Alex Vindman, if you truly are Alex and not Eugene, thank you for being on the-

I was wondering, how is he on so many podcasts, so many news programs? Are we being fooled right now? The way I know we're not is the jab he took at Eugene. So I think it is completely Alex. Let me play Eugene. Coincidentally, my impression of Jordy. Same impression.

Same exact impression. Alex Vindman, thank you for joining the Midas Touch podcast. Alex's book here, Right Matters, An American Story is out now. It's a bestseller. It's an incredible book. All the Midas Mighty. Go out. Don't go out. Buy it online. An American Story is out now. It's a bestseller. It's an incredible book. All the Midas Mighty. Go out.

Don't go out. Buy it online. Buy the book online as you're listening to the podcast. Or you could go out to a bookstore as well. But definitely get the book, Hear Right Matters. Alex Vindman, thank you so much for joining us on the Midas Stitch podcast today. Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity.

We will be right back after these messages. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. What a great interview with Alex Vindman. And he lets me call him Alex. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I feel like you're I feel like you're most excited about the fact that he lets you be familiar with him. Above all. Jordy, great question. At the end, I wanted to make sure there was no bait and switch and we were getting Alex and not Eugene, but we're going to have to get three questions in that interview. Three questions. Jordy, that is a new record.

So on this podcast, we did the first podcast instant replay. Jordy asked three questions and Alex Vindman called, let me call him Alex. So not bad at all. Breaking ground here. Breaking ground on the Midas Touch podcast. I don't think people fully realized when they were tuning in today that they were going to be listening and or seeing history made, but we've done it. We've done it, folks. Speaking, switching topics for a second, just looking at these red states, have you seen these stats where Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, guess what? When your governors and politicians and leaders do not take COVID seriously at all, you concomitantly don't have ICU beds. You don't have the necessary medical apparatus because what's really going on

is the hospitals are overwhelmed. And the five states that I just mentioned have intensive care units with over 90 percent capacity. They're running out of ICU bed space, you know, and, you know, businesses and schools, you know, they want to do what's safe. But the crazy thing here is the politicians in these states, because they're GQP crazies, are intervening and telling these states not to be safe. And Brett and Jordy, did you see this Regeneron thing with Governor Death Santas? What is going on with that? The weirdest thing is that he's pushing this thing, right? Because Regeneron costs, what, like $1,500 a dose on the low end? And he keeps pushing Regeneron the same way

Trump actually pushed Regeneron. Meanwhile, there is a free vaccine that prevents COVID. So why do you think DeSantis is pitching this treatment? And it's funny, it's like all the things that, this is how you know the GQP have zero actual ideology or anything. All the things that they say about the vaccine, they say, it's not FDA approved. First of all, it is under emergency authorization. They go, it's not FDA approved. It hasn't been tested long enough. But then like we've said in the past, they're willing to like inject bleach. They're willing to go to Regeneron. Also Regeneron, did you know it's made of fetal stem cell tissues, which actually all these Republicans claim to be against?

So it's just like the weirdest, just total lack of ideology, pushing these fake snake oil cures on people that when there's an actual free thing out there that could be saving lives instead of filling up Florida hospitals the way we're seeing right now. It's just disgusting. And look, there's one theory, follow the money, right? Citadel CEO Ken Griffin donated $10.75 million to a political committee that supports DeSantis. That was 5.75 million in 2018 and $5 million in last April. Citadel is a large private equity hedge fund that has ownership rights to the company that owns and manufactures Regeneron. There is that possibility, which I think could be taking place, but also, it may be a far more sinister and other reason, which is that Regeneron was what was given to Donald Trump that saved his life. And they're just so anti-vaccines because they don't want people to get healthy because in their mind, in the GQP minds, if you have a healthy population,

that would be beneficial to Biden. And they just want to continue their death cult, even if it means harming the lives of people. And so it may just be even a more sinister, stupider reason than even following the money or both. But they've so committed as a talking point to being anti-vax and anti-mask that they're so far down this rabbit hole that they want to prop up other stuff, even if it directly and fundamentally contradicts their underlying rationale, Brett. All while their constituents are dying, all while everyone in their state is literally dying. It's insanity. And what's that? Doesn't the GQP have some goofy-ass slogan like, go woke, go broke? I don't even know.

How about vote red, end up dead? Because that's what's happening to these people. You know what I mean? And then on top of that, just really quickly, quick anecdote. I was on Instagram the other day, and I still follow a few kids that I went to high school with who I guess apparently are anti-vax. This one kid who was spewing all the anti-vax stuff was basically just regurgitating Fox News talking points. And, you know, I don't trust what's in it. This kid literally ate a fucking Tide Pod when we were in high school.

I'm not kidding. He ate a Tide Pod. The video is probably still up somewhere and he doesn't trust what's in the vaccine. I don't want to say his name, not worth it, but that kid could go fuck himself. Well, yeah, they're all Tide Pod eaters. They are not just anti-vax. They are pro-COVID. Also, what the fuck does that say about my friend groups growing up? I guess when this kid ate a Tide Pod, that's not good. I was going to say, but what everyone out there listening needs to know though, is when you look at these intensive care units, Alabama, nearly a hundred percent full, and basically they cannot get someone else

in the hospital unless somebody dies. That's what that means. It's hard. It's horrifying. When you look at those numbers, I want to bring this back home for me just for a second. These numbers could be California and will be California if Gavin Newsom is recalled. So please vote no when you get your ballot, because this is what a state looks like under failed Republican pro-COVID leadership. Do not let what's happening in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas happen to California. Please vote no when you get your ballot and tell your friends to vote no. Because like we said earlier, it's all about turnout right now. And we are seeing these far right voices show up.

They're the ones who are showing up. So we need to show up where it counts. And that's at the polls. What I love right now that I am seeing, though, is this quiet rebellion across the country against these governors and these mandates. And the most ingenious thing that I saw happened in a place called Paris, Texas. Did you guys see this move? give them a round of applause just from my desk, because what they did was to get around this dumb Texas anti-mask law banning mask mandates. They found a loophole which allowed them to require masks as part of the school dress code. And that's how they were able to require masks at the school. I hope that schools around this country take note of what the Paris ISD board did here in Texas and implement common sense policies to keep kids safe. And I am also thrilled to see all these various school districts across Florida defying Death Santas'

orders to ban mask mandates, risking their pay, risking the defunding of their schools in order to stand up for what is right and the health of their students. We need to take on the enemies of democracy, the enemies of our health, the enemies of our collective well-being. That is what the Midas Touch podcast is all about. You heard from Alex Vindman today. He's humble. He didn't want to call it sacrifice. He didn't want to call it courage, but it really is. I mean, he stood up in a pivotal moment in time to push back against the anti-democratic, fascist nature of Donald Trump. And we need you to do what you can in your own small way. Everybody who's listening today has the power

to make a change, big or small. Anything is needed in the moment. And Brett, that anecdote you gave about Texas and coming up with a creative way to push back and to fight for your rights, to fight for your family's survival is what it's all about now, which is why we can't stay quiet. And it's why me, Brett, Jordy are always so thankful and grateful for your support, listening to the Midas Touch podcast, making it a top podcast. If you love this podcast, we want to remind you about all the other podcasts that are part of the Midas Touch media network. There is Kremlin File, which- Oh my God. The episode, Ben, that came out today with Bill Browder, Russia's Most Wanted Man,

is a mind-blowing and breathtaking episode. And it's about exactly what we spoke about with Alexander Vindman, standing up to power, standing up for what is right, standing up to corruption. Listen to that episode of Kremlin File. I promise you, if you don't like this episode with Bill Browder, the show's not for you. But I know if you listen to this episode of Kremlin File with Bill Browder, your mind will be blown and you'll be absolutely hooked on the show. There's Legal AF, the legal podcast with myself and my anchor, my co-anchor, Michael Popock, where we break down the legal issues and the threats to democracy from the lens of fun

and inspiring legal analysis, we have Zoomed In, which focuses on Gen Z advocacy. And we executive produced the Maya Culpa podcast with Michael Cohen. We so appreciate all of your support. We will see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Wishing you well from Ben, Brett, and Jordy. And Jordy, take it away. Shout out to the Midas Mighty!