The MeidasTouch Podcast - Alyssa Milano on Warrior Instincts

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

On today’s very special episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, the brothers sit down with actor, producer, designer and renowned activist, Alyssa Milano!  During the interview, Alyssa provides an update on the status of her potential congressional run and why her would-be opponent’s office has already pegged her as a radical liberal (spoiler alert - it’s because she supports basic democratic principles such as healthcare). The conversation deepens as the team discusses the divide in America today and real tangible solutions for how Democrats can combat the fascist republican party. The brothers go on to discuss President Joe Biden’s historic meeting with Putin, why the GQP roots for Russia, the latest on the Arizona “fraudit” and much, much more. Please remember to rate and subscribe this podcast and as always and thank you for listening! Remember to get your official pro-democracy MeidasTouch merch at store.meidastouch.com! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The one and only Alyssa Milano, actor, producer, designer, and I think most impressively activist right now. And is Alyssa Milano truly going to run for Congress against Congressman McClintock, who may be one of the worst human beings in the world. I would love to see Alyssa Milano in Congress. And I think we just have to ask her directly, brothers. I think we might get an answer today. Wow. I want to get the answer. I'm not going to allow any hedging. I need to know right here, right now on the Midas

Touch podcast is Alyssa Milano running for Congress. And it would be running in an area in Fresno that I'm very familiar with. I did a lot of my civil rights cases in the Fresno area. Are you a lawyer? Midas Touch. I am a lawyer. I'm a lawyer brothers. And Jordy, you are a member of Midas Touch, but I don't know, Brett, have you seen the interview with Rachel? My cell is coming for Jordy's job. She's coming in hot, man. She is really good. So we had our youngest sister. Many of you might not realize we have a young sister who is going into her last year of high school. And we had her take over the podcast for a special edition. She interviewed Manhattan district attorney candidate, Lucy Lang, and did an absolutely incredible job.

So if you have a chance to listen to that special edition episode, check it out. I thought she was fantastic. But Jordy, did you see what Ben did right there? Notice how he picked you as the weakest link. He said, he didn't go to me and say that my job was on the line. No, it's because I'm the youngest. But to be fair, I only get one question in interview. We gave Rachel an entire podcast where she fired off about 25, 30 questions. A 16-year-old. What the hell, guys? I'm not saying I'm jealous, but I'm jealous. There was one moment in that interview

where the Manhattan DA candidate, Lucy Lang, she was interviewing, like took a pause because she recognized like how hard hitting the question was. And she looked and she was like, she's like, wow, this is not a joke of an interview. But let me tell you who is a joke of a person. We all know him as McGurk the Glerk on the show.

This is Charlie Kirk, who's just totally reflective of the GQP, a performative idiot who just spews nonsense every day with literally zero consistency. And I bring up Charlie McGurk, the Dirk, his actual name is Charlie Kirk, because I think we were reflecting back on some of his tweets, the performative tweets when Trump was still the president about Juneteenth and the idea of making Juneteenth a federal holiday. And you actually look back at these tweets in Bretton Journey. I don't know if you've seen them, but it's Charlie Kirk saying today is Juneteenth. This is from last year, June 19th of 2020. Today is Juneteenth celebrating the end of slavery in the United States. This was made possible thanks to Republican President Abraham Lincoln. Today, Democrats are fighting to tear down his statue. Again, no one's fighting to tear down

Abraham Lincoln's statue. And if Abraham Lincoln was the president today, I can assure you he would not be a GQP member. That's for sure. And then Charlie Kirk went on with a whole tirade of these tweets about Senate Republicans will be introducing legislation to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in the White House for eight years. Why didn't they ever do it again? That was June 20th, 2020. Well, Brett, tell us what happened. Well, there was a vote on making Juneteenth a federal holiday.

And during the Biden administration, the Biden administration week, and it turned out all of a sudden, Charlie Kirk McDirk did a little U-turn on his whole opinion here and totally changed his mind. And today, this is what Charlie Kirk had to say. He said Lincoln knew America's founding was July 4th, 1776. He knew that was the day our amazing nation made a step from ideal to reality. Juneteenth is an affront to the unity of July 4th. We now have two summer holidays and one of them based on race. Shame on the GOP for supporting this. You feel that whiplash? I mean, this is the utter absurdity, which is anything that Biden helps accomplish for the people, even if the GQP previously supported it. And we've talked about this, like infrastructure. The Biden infrastructure plan is very similar, if not almost identical, to what at least verbally Donald Trump said he wanted his infrastructure to be.

Except, as we said, Donald Trump was not intelligent enough to literally write on paper the actual infrastructure plan. Democrats would have supported the infrastructure plan because Democrats support our country, whereas the GQP simply supports opposing anything the Democrats do, period. Even if that means supporting a idiot monstrosity of a president who has literally killed hundreds and thousands of Americans and Donald Trump. And Republicans want to have it every which way. Like Charlie Kirk here, he goes, you know, he wants to take credit for emancipation and take credit for Abraham Lincoln and say, Abraham Lincoln is the father of the Republican Party. The Republican Party did all this, neglecting the fact of history that the parties have changed platforms entirely and that the current modern day GQP opposes every single platform that Abraham Lincoln stood for.

If they actually believed in the things that Abraham Lincoln stood for. If they actually believed in the things that Abraham Lincoln stood for, they would be celebrating a holiday that celebrates the end of slavery in America. Jordy, break it down for us. There's a lot of demented people in the GQP. No more such than fucking Charlie

Kirk. I hate this guy with a fucking passion. Wait, I want to say some breaking news though here. It's not really breaking news, but it's Midas Touch secrets that we haven't quite told everybody just because we wanted to ignore the guy. But early on in Midas Touch, one of the first people to try to issue a lawsuit against Midas Touch was Charlie Kirk McDirk McPherson. I forgot about that. I forgot about that too. He's so irrelevant. I forgot that he- Honestly. So he sent us one of these dumb's so irrelevant. I forgot that he honestly,

so he sent us one of these, you know, dumb cease and desist letters because we used footage from a turning points USA event in one of our ads, creepy Trump and the video went viral. We played the video in DC for Trump. After we played the video, we spent a small amount of money playing that video,

literally directly wiring it into the white house. The Trump campaign after that, for the next few weeks, ended up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make Donald Trump feel better about himself after that ad ran inside the White House. And Charlie Kirk, trying to go on the defensive here, issued a legal threat to us that we had to take the video down because it included footage. Meanwhile, the footage was literally from the White House's video library. They had zero, zero reasoning behind why we would need to actually take this down. And we were like, who is this fucking guy? Like, we're just ignore it. And we've ignored it up until this moment. That's so funny. That's why I forgot about it. Because usually we post them to make fun of these people and just to drag them. But he's not even relevant enough to do that. So we just ignored it. Oh, my God. And I'll tell you, he's one of these people. I don't know if

you saw this poll recently about how GQP members view Joe Biden and view Vladimir Putin. You know that McGurk is one of the GQP members who view Vladimir Putin more favorably than they view Joe Biden. On the heels of the Joe Biden and Russia President Vladimir Putin having their first face-to-face meeting this past week in a historic summit in Geneva, where President Biden truly projected American strength and projected that we are not cow towing to Russia, which by the way, has the same GDP basically as New York. I love how Donald Trump tries to coddle Russia

like it's this massive economy. They have the same GDP as New York. And I think Joe Biden, this crazy fact, and Joe Biden laid down the law. You guys are doubting that that's true. Look it up after you're like, I'm just doing some bullshit. Well, when you watch the media and when you listen to people like they're putting their Republican Party, they put Russia on.

They elevate Russia to the level of America, which is insane because Russia really is not that relevant. And NATO, our alliances, all this stuff, we could crush Russia and Vladimir Putin knows it. They are small and insignificant. And it's good that we finally have a president who's actually standing up to the guy, not taking shit. And by the way, you know what I think went down in those, you know, in those meetings to reading between the lines, it's like, okay, you want to do, you want to do some voter interference here, you know, to comply at that game. You want to hack into our pipelines. Yeah. You think we're not going to do the same shit to you. It's a whole new regime in power right now. It's not the Trump cow towing to you. You don't think that we have the people in our CIA who can do all the dumb shit you do a hundred times and a thousand

times worse. I'm telling you that was the message that was delivered. But here's a crazy message that's delivered from Trump supporters. Trump supporters view Vladimir Putin with a 19% favorable rating and a 69% unfavorable rating, whereas Trump voters view Joe Biden with a 9% favorable rating and Biden with an 89% unfavorable rating. So there is a 10% more favorable rating amongst Trump supporters. They literally root for Russia. It's the craziest thing. I tweeted this out the other day. They're so patriotic that they root on for Russia. It is bizarre. And it was, what was the name of our incredible

guest, Brett? Who's like, they're claiming they're patriotic because they wrapped themselves in the American flag and then destroy the Capitol building and tried to try to Jason Kander. Who said that? Yeah. He goes, how's that patriotic goes? The insanity of that is so, is so obvious. And that's why we got to push back, guys. Gals, we have the winning message here. We support America. We're against people like Putin. These Trump people are crazy. Let's be loud. Let's be proud. And we have other good news to report this week. This was the first time in 15 months where the four-week average of unemployment filings is below 400,000. That's down about 50, 50 percent since President Biden took office. Growth is up. Unemployment is down.

There's still a lot to do, but there is progress in the past five months. And I could promise you this, if the minimum wage was raised to a living wage, as we talked about in past podcasts, this kind of silent worker strike taking place now because the employers are not valuing the work from our workers, from labor, we would have astronomical numbers, which is why it's so vital that we have a living wage to get all Americans back to work. Yeah. Let's be clear about it. There's not an employee shortage. There's a wage crisis. That's the crisis that we're in. Businesses do not want to pay people what they're worth. And if you pay people what they're worth, people will come and people will happily work for those companies. But it's amazing all these changes that we're seeing now with healthcare enrollment going through the roof,

with unemployment coming down so drastically, with America looking so great on the global stage and actually looking like a global superpower again, and something that the world actually looks up to, at least the democratic leadership, it shows you just what a competent leader could do in a short period of time. Because remember, President Biden's only been in office now for really a few months. And the changes that we have seen so far have been drastic. Obviously, we're comparing him to literally the worst human being of all time, which certainly helps things. But I mean, this is all a really big deal. And it's all about helping people at the end of the day, right? I mean, that's why people should go into office. And at

this point, I really don't know. And I don't think the Republicans really stand for anything except preserving power and protecting white supremacy. All their beliefs seem to go through that lens. And it's not about, they used to at least pretend like, okay, well, if we lower taxes, we could help the burden on the middle class. And even though that wasn't the truth, they at least used to pretend that they had an ideology to help people. They have abandoned all pretense at this point. They are white supremacy, WWE. That is basically the entire political party. It's doing, as we started off saying, whether it's the Charlie McGurk McGurks, whether it's the Ted Cruz's, whether it's these people like the Paxton's from Texas, all these crazy people come up with some bullshit issue that doesn't exist and

basically make some bizarre messaging that gives this feigned sense of outrage that is not at the end of the day about helping people. And I mentioned Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, because here's somebody who in line with what the GQP is doing. This is what their work, this is what they're focusing. As Obamacare has become incredibly popular, guess what? Because people, when they get sick, want to be treated by doctors. Okay. And it's become increasingly popular because people have realized, wait a minute, affordable health care, that's something that I want. I'm not immune or impervious to health issues. But one of the things that the Republicans have been fighting for, and this has been going on

for quite some time, but when Donald Trump basically, he passed, he enacted a law that basically cut off the penalty from Obamacare. They tried to, as a coordinated effort, the GQP tried to use that to say all of the Affordable Health Care Act now must basically be destroyed and go away. So for many years, there's been a fight that's been led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other Republicans to try to take away our health care. And very fortunately, and this goes and speaks to the popularity of Obamacare, because trust me, these Supreme Court justices see and are aware of the public outrage that would be caused by a decision if they overturn the health care of 20 million plus Americans who are being helped by this. But in a seven to two decision, even the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare. By the way, I want you and Popak on Sunday's Legal AF to dive into this a bit more. And I also want you to dive into the fact that Ken Paxton, the Texas AG, was indicted five years ago, and he's been

under indictment ever since, and nothing's happened since then. But the guy is literally under indictment. There has been nothing in general that Republicans, I guess maybe aside for insurrection and trying to overthrow the government and the election, nothing that they have been so focused on more than trying to take away people's health care. And when that's your priority as a party, I think it shows your values, your values, your thought of people. And it's just such a bizarre stand to take. And this is why Democrats need to fight. Because when the Affordable Care Act was passed, we all remember, Democrats ran away from it. They ran so far away from it because they looked at the initial polling and people bought

into the whole notion that this was going to maybe raise taxes or make health care worse or whatever. They bought into the Fox News bullshit and Democrats ran away from it. They got crushed in the midterms because of it, because Republicans held up the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, as a bad thing. But what Democrats need to do, and I think what they've learned with the help of groups like Midas Touch, is that you have to own your stuff. You have to own your legislation and you have to push it hard. So when we pass something like the American Rescue Plan, we should be touting that

every single day in every district in every state. We should be saying, yes, Democrats did this and we're proud of giving everybody checks. We're proud of giving everybody vaccinations. You shouldn't run away and hide because of Fox News talking points. And I hope we've learned our lesson since then, because now, obviously, the Affordable Care Act is overwhelmingly viewed positively by Republicans, Democrats and independents across the country. And I'll tell you, I'm not just some talking head that Democrats are the greatest. Democrats are the greatest. As long as the Democrats are the party that supports pro-democracy, that supports health, that supports our right to vote, as long as the Democrats are on the front lines of bringing

and delivering infrastructure, and as long as the Republican Party is the GQP who believes in an orange dictator, they believe in crazy, bizarre QAnon conspiracy theories. I'm going to go up here and railing against that. Now, if that changes and that flips one day, guess what? I'm not going to go and support some crazy ridiculousness. But, you know, I am proud to support democracy at the end of the day and another win for democracy. also said that she could, quote, absolutely support that involve voting rights compromises surrounding S-1, which is the For the People Act. And Joe Manchin's now saying, look, look, I never said that I'm against the For the People Act, although I kind of think he did seem to indicate that. He definitely said he was because if everybody in the world is interpreting that this man's against it, he hasn't communicated the right way.

I would say it seemed that he was basically against it, but he was saying people assume I was against it because there was no Republican supporting it. That's not the case at all. He said, he said, I said, basically, you should not pass any type of a voter bill in the most divisive time of our life unless you have some unity on this thing because you just divide the country further. Joe Manchin, let me just tell you this again. It's not the most divisive time because of Democrats. There's actually a large, broad, bipartisan coalition of people who are the overwhelming majority. It's divisive because you have psychos like Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and the Ken Paxton's and the Mitch McConnell's. And I can go on and on. They're the divisive.

I can't convince these psychos. And look what Mitch McConnell said. Mitch McConnell basically says right after this, he responds to Manchin's, quote unquote, compromise and said, Senate Democrats seem to have reached a so-called compromise election takeover amongst themselves. In reality, this plan endorsed by Stacey Abrams is no compromise. Mitch McConnell will oppose anything. The issues can totally flip and he'll basically say the exact same thing. He's just saying whatever you say the opposite. Do you remember Brett and Jordy opposite day when you were five years old and it was opposite day right and it was like well today's opposite day yes means no no means yes sky means up you know i mean sky means down down means up like just the immaturity that's the republic you shut up that's what the republic quiet that's what the ben rant

that's what the republican shut up shut up that's what the republican party is all about today understood understood big brother understood jordy understood understood big bro i wonder i want to point out something from mcconnell's line that from his statement that he released about it too he said in reality the plan endorsed by stacy abrams is no compromise see how he wields stacy abrams endorsement as an insult. Stacey Abrams is not an elected official. So there's really, there's no reason for Mitch McConnell to bring up Stacey Abrams name other than to throw out a racist dog whistle to his followers saying that, oh, you don't want this legislation that big bad Stacey Abrams wants you. You don't want that.

That's for sure. And it's just an incredibly fucked up thing. And that's why I hope that as every day passes, I hope that Manchin realizes that the problem is not with his own party here, that the party that doesn't want compromise is the GQP because they don't actually want to pass things for the American people and they don't want America to succeed. They don't want the Democrats to succeed. So they will do everything in their power to make sure that that doesn't happen. Manchin can give McConnell everything he wants, and McConnell will never accept this. And that's why we need filibuster reform at the end of the day. And that's going to be our hurdle in still getting this passed. Even if Democrats go and adopt this legislation, we're not going to be able to pass it unless

we get filibuster reform because we're never going to find 10 Republicans to support this bill. I got to give Biden the credit as a negotiator, though, because I think what you see behind the scenes, if you read the tea leaves here, is him working Manchin, you know, him basically offering Manchin proof that the GQP wants to have no compromise whatsoever. I mean, unfortunately, Joe Manchin's kind of put in the position where he's basically negotiating what moderate Republicans could be negotiating for. Yet we have someone in the Democratic Party negotiating against kind of the Democrats to take the position of where moderate Republicans may view the frustrating

things. For someone who's been in politics their whole lives, Manchin is just so bad at this. I mean, he's really put himself in a position where he's in no man's land. The Republicans all hate him now. The Democrats all hate him now. Everybody hates this fucking guy. Here's the thing, though. West Virginia doesn't hate him, you know, and so he's actually quite an astute politician. Honestly, he's smart. He gets it. He's a Democrat who's won in West Virginia for many, many, many, many years. The guy knows what he's doing at the end of the day. But, and I think that's why I think it's dangerous. Also, I think we need to make our case to Manchin, but I think it's dangerous to straight up attack him. Like you did Jordy.

Like, like Jordy just did. I'll just go fuck myself. My bad. Well, I think it, I think it's extremely dangerous to just go and try to attack this guy and. My bad. Well, I think it's extremely dangerous to just go and try to attack this guy and yell at him. When there's somebody on your side and you're just like, fuck this guy, you're a racist, you're this, you're that. That's not how you court somebody over to your side. This is different than going after someone who's actually an opponent on the other side. What I don't want is people to drive mansion to be like, okay, you know what? I'll just change my party affiliation then, if that's how you feel about me. Like, Mitch McConnell will be Senate Majority Leader. Are you happy now? You'll get nothing done.

You happy? Not only will you get nothing done, but guess what? You're not going to be able to appoint any Supreme Court justices or other federal judges when appointments become available. And exactly as Brad said, you're going to have Mitch McConnell as the Republican, as the leader in the Senate, as the Senate majority leader, you know, and the Democrats have been able to accomplish a great deal. I mean, fortunately, because of reconciliation, we were able to get done an incredible amount of work through the budgetary process of bringing money to small businesses and to all businesses and helping America recover. The Republicans would have blocked that and we would not be in an economic recovery that

we are in now. I want to talk about this. I want to talk about her potential candidacy for Congress. I'm so excited to bring in Alyssa Milano, who we will talk to right after these messages. What's up, Midas Mighty? Have you been to store.midastouch.com yet? We got a great sale going on for you right now, and it's going through Sunday, June 20th, 2021, Father's Day weekend.

We're offering 15% off select merch. Jordy, what's the code? Pineapple. Pineapple. Pineapple. Pineapple, pineapple, pineapple, pineapple. Use the code pineapple and on select merch and you'll get 15% off the merch. We got some great stuff in there. Really excited for you to check it out.

You can get your Vax wristbands, your pride wristbands, your Vax and relax masks and koozies and the be mighty button pack for 15% off. Just use code PINEAPPLE at checkout at store.midastouch.com and get your official Midas Touch gear today. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by Alyssa Milano, actor, producer, designer. I think most importantly, one of the most incredible activists of our time and the host of Sorry Not Sorry podcast. Alyssa also is, should I get into this, in the top of the podcast, considering a run for Congress in California's fourth district. I'm going to have to go there at some point and ask you about that, Alyssa. Congress member Milano just sounds so good. But Alyssa, our paths have actually crossed professionally a few times as well, both with my client, Colin Kaepernick, who I know

you've developed a friendship with, and my client, Akeem Aliou, who both speak incredibly highly of you, as does everybody I know. But I keep hearing the name Alyssa Milano, Alyssa Milano, and I'm so proud to have you on the podcast. That's so nice. Thank you so much for having me and also for lifting up Akeem the way you have. He's an incredibly special, special person, and he is really going to do important things, I think, with the NHL, much like what Cap has been able to do with the or tried to do, I should say, maybe not been able to do, we think about Colin Stand and others like him

who have stood against systemic racism. And so I think that ties in actually, you know, a ton to what literally just happened right before this interview. Yes. But I also think it is important to note that our Black leaders have come forward to say, you know what, we didn't ask for Juneteenth to be a national holiday. We asked for police to stop shooting our unarmed Black men. So, you know, there is something that this country loves to do as far as policy, which is, you know, pass these very broad bills that seem like a great thing, but really are just a deflection of what the actual issue is. So, and I do think on this issue of race, and as we are sitting here as four white people having this conversation, it is important to

always look to our Black leaders, the people that are closest to the pain, the people that are in the most vulnerable positions, and take their guidance and lift them up. And I completely agree with you, Alyssa, there. And the reason I hear your name, though, whether it's through Colin, whether it's through Akeem, or, you know, through all of our supporters that Midas touched, is the incredible work you've done and continue to do as an activist. It's obviously escalated significantly during the Trump administration. Based on kind of your prior activism before Trump, did you ever think, though, in your wildest dreams, the United States of America could ever get that bad as it was. No, no, actually. And it's interesting because as a UNICEF ambassador, I've been a

goodwill ambassador for UNICEF since 2003. And, you know, there's a very specific thing that happens when you travel the world and you go to developing nations and you learn about really the plight of humanity and how the struggle is so very dependent on geography and where you were born into but really what binds us all is this incredible ability to hope right and so I would go on these field visits with UNICEF. And I have this like warrior instinct while I was in these countries like Angola, three years after the peace treaty was signed or India six months after the tsunami. And it wasn't until I got home that I realized what I had witnessed. And the work is so intense while you're there. And the way I figured out how to describe my time fighting against the Trump administration, it was like a five-year field

visit in a country that I did not recognize. And I'm hopeful that we'll come out of this stronger than we were before, because we certainly can't deny things that we were denying before. But everything that we fought for as a UNICEF ambassador, like clean water and sanitation, like reuniting children of war with their parents, all of these issues that are childhood education, health care, all of these issues that were so incredibly important to give a child the most normal and healthy childhood imaginable, that thing that we fight for. We're doing the same thing in this country and we have to fight for the same thing in this country. And it's very upsetting. Did it make your work difficult as a UNICEF ambassador when the home front is so problematic. I think we used to be

able to go abroad and point to our institutions, our voting processes, and basically be able to talk to other countries and say, hey, that type of corruption, that fraud that you're engaged in is wrong, and we need to put people to watch and inspect that. But then when you come from America and the world's looking at us and it looks like, and I hate the term banana republic as it's used internationally, but there's really no other way to describe what America became under Donald Trump. It became the kind of dumb fascist parody internationally. Yes, but I think, again, it's important, and many people have said this before me,

it's important to recognize that we had those inclinations before Donald Trump was in office. And he took advantage of all of the systems that were already hurtful in this country and weaponized them. So although he was a very, very dangerous leader for our country, he wasn't really reinventing the wheel. It was all stuff that this country has been plagued with since the beginning of time. And that is why I am so hopeful that we will come out of it on the other side, a better country than we went into it, because now we can't ignore those issues.

We can't ignore the systemic racism. We can't ignore the misogyny. We can't ignore the xenophobia. We can't avoid the anti-Semitism. We can't avoid the anti-Muslim, anti-Democracy. It's all now out in the open, and we have to make it better. And I see a broader coalition forming of bipartisan support around the issues that you mentioned of the people, former Republicans becoming independent, Democrats kind of reunite, you know, not enough, but you still have. Does it surprise you to that point, Alyssa, that you have a group of Republicans and many of them right now who have simply just said basically, you know what, we're fascist. That's just who we are, not even pretending anymore, you know, in the post Trump world and in the Biden world right now to say we're fascist. That's fine. That's who we are. Yeah, I think, you know, in the post-Trump world and in the Biden world right now. Just saying we're fascist. That's fine. That's who we are.

Yeah, I think, you know, they were fascist before. And I think that they are now emboldened to say it, say the inside voice outside. Right. And so it's look, I'm not going to gloss over where we are right now as a country. We've got a lot of work to do and it becomes increasingly more i'm not gonna say difficult but it is very hard when when you're raising two children in this era to try to instill in them uh what is important and what is right and fair and just when there is so much injustice all around and everywhere. You know, and it's that weird thing of like, you know what they're getting in the house,

but you don't know what they're getting outside of the house. And, you know, in another time, maybe that wasn't a concern, but now it is. And along those lines, your congressman, Congressman McClintock, kind of typifies, though, like he's against every issue that you would think would just be as a basic human being who supports human decency. You would support. I can go on and on, whether it's women's rights, whether it's health care, whether it's the rights of men. Any any right that is helpful to people, he seems to be against. And so, you know, you recently stated that Congressman McClintock may have a, you know, may be vulnerable in a race based on his positions. And you ask your Twitter following whether or not you should run against him. I think that's a great idea.

Were you being serious with that? Because I think a lot of people would love for you to do that, not just ask the question, but really we want to see you run. I'm not sure yet. I think that McClintock has been able to fly under the radar for a really long time, and I'm certainly not going to let that happen anymore. And look, I think he's awful. And I think that he's not what the district needs. You know, he's a career politician who most recently voted against the anti-Asian hate bill, which was bipartisan, by the way, and just yesterday voted against making Juneteenth a holiday, which also had incredible bipartisan support. So what does that say to you? He's clearly a racist who is emboldened by Trump or was emboldened by Trump, who knows what their connection is now. I love the fact that his office

has publicly made a statement about the potential of me running. Not him, himself, because, you know, as far as I know, he doesn't even have town halls. So he's clearly not active. But his office has labeled me, of course. Do you want to take a guess at what they labeled me? What is the go-to term for anyone trying to fight for equality in a world that's more right and just. I'm going to go Marxist. No. Liberal Hollywood elite. Something to that effect. I'm not playing this game. a celebrity radical liberal right which is of course how they label you know anyone who wants

to implement positive change um and and also people who who want to run and want to diminish the power of white men i i just i always go to this thing of what they think is so radical about where we stand as Democrats, because really all we stand for, all we want is a living wage, right? We want everyone to have access to health care. climate change, which is someone who is the representative for District 4 in California, who has Lake Tahoe, and really a national park responsibility. He should be more, I think, open to the dialogue about science and climate change. I believe we need to pass gun violence prevention laws to keep us safer. All of these things clearly make me a radical liberal. Radical. It's so comical, Alyssa, right?

Because none of those things are radical. Those are all things that a majority of the American people support. But I'll tell you what is radical, trying to overthrow the government, doing an insurrection against the United States of America. That is radical. Putting kids in cages. Putting kids in cages is radical. When you look at McClintock's record, as you said,

he voted against the Asian hate crimes bill. He voted against funding to counter Russian interference. He opposes mail-in voting. He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He voted against an act to control the price of pharmaceutical drugs and lower them. He voted against the Equality Act. He opposes same-sex marriage. He joined Texas' lawsuit to overturn the results of the 2020. I could go on all day. I mean, but here's the thing that is so interesting is that that district is a plus nine registered Republican district. So does it mean that they are voting for him for his policy or does it mean that they are voting for him because they would vote for anyone with an R next to their name? And that's the thing that that I want to say about, you know, potentially running, it's not even about the idea of winning, because I'm not sure the numbers will ever be in my favor. But when I

look at this and say, here's a guy who believes in harmful policy, who's basically flying under the radar in an otherwise very progressive state. And if I can help chip away at the stronghold that he has in that district by registering more voters, by raising awareness, by raising the kitchen table issues that he is completely oblivious to, if I can collect data to then be able to hand it over to the DCCC to make that district more competitive, that is what is interesting to me. And that, I think, not being tied to the outcome of winning means that I will be able to really run a race that is free of ego and the need for power and really look at it as leadership from a place of service.

That's the activist mentality. So that's sort of how I'm going into it. And you're somebody who lives what you speak every single day. I mean, we've all seen it firsthand here. Anybody who knows you know that you live your life as an activist and that all these issues, you're not just a celebrity talking head who speaks about things. You are on the ground doing the work constantly. And I think if there's anybody who could challenge Representative McClintock in this

plus nine Republican district, I think it's you. I'm wondering, how do you think, though, that you could, how do you break through that bubble? How do you break through as Alyssa Milano, as somebody who's going to have a D next to their name, theoretically, and you sit in their home and you talk about the issues that they care about. And then you come up and you problem solve in a way that is community based for the betterment of everyone. And I think, you know, we cannot continue to not go into places because it's a plus nine Republican district. We have to be competitive everywhere. And part of doing that is actually listening to people's concerns and what they hope for. And I think social media is such that deep canvassing doesn't really exist anymore because

everything is void of nuance, right? But if you go in and you have these conversations with people, I think that what you realize is that you're not so far off from the issue than we all think. You know, I think that the D and the R actually prevent us from having those real conversations. And so I think that's how you do it. Good old fashioned campaigning. You knock on doors, you make the phone calls, and you do the best job you possibly can to be a representative for the community based on what you learn, not based on self-interest or interest groups. I love that answer. And it just goes back to the fundamentals. You've got to level with people on a personal level. And by the way, I just want everybody

listening to know that that goes for you as well. Alyssa is talking about campaigning from the perspective of somebody running for office. But if you're home and you have a relative who might view something differently than you, sit down and have a conversation with them. Text them, give them a phone call, say, hey, don't you't you want health care? Don't you want a living wage? Aren't these things that would benefit your life, too? Because when people hear it from people they trust, that's better than any talking head could ever convince somebody of. And the truth of it is, is that, like, all of this is really a privilege for us to be concerned about. Right. Because most people and most people in that district, but also most people in the country are simply concerned with how they're going to get food on the table or how are they're going to ensure that their child gets the best education possible or how they can ensure that they're going to have enough money to fix a flat tire if they lose, you know,ire so all of us who sit around on social media sort of pontificating policy and

and get really wonky and try to do this keyboard warrior activism which i believe a lot of it is performative is really shutting themselves off to the real plight of people and my work with unicef has has taught me that you got to go. You got to go. You got to get your hands dirty. You got to look into people's eyes. It's got to matter to you. You have to feel it in your heart that you want to make things better for that person. And it's certainly not about power. And it's certainly not about money. And, you know, I think, you know, you mentioned people sitting at home and getting involved. I think that also is inclusive of running. If you want to run, if you feel like

you can run, you should. We need a government that's reflective of the people of this country. Totally. I mean, I'll say this. A year ago, we were three brothers with an idea. And a year later, we're sitting down talking with Alyssa Milano on our podcast. So it's, you know, just do the thing. You dedicated a lot of your time and energy to getting Joe Biden elected president. We obviously had the outcome that we were all hoping for. It took a broad coalition of a lot of people to get him in office. Now that we're a few months into President Biden's administration, how do you think Biden's doing? What do you think he could improve on? What are your thoughts so far? advocates that work in the spaces that he's trying to change. And I think that that's just a testament to his character and who he is. He does care. And he makes himself available to everyone, which is really gives me a lot of hope that things will change. I wish I had as much hope in Congress

to actually get some stuff done behind Biden. And I do think that if Biden, if anything, he needs to be more vocal with what he expects from Senate and from Congress in general, because I don't think it would be wise for us to go into even 2022, even the midterms, without having some real substantial accomplishments. I'm concerned for 2024 if we don't have some of these wins that we're fighting for, where people can actually see the change and feel the change. So that concerns me, you know, in this obstructionist time that we're in right now, as far as governing is, can I curse, by the way?

You guys cool with that oh absolutely please i just think it's bullshit i just think it's it's bullshit it's the lazy way to govern totally it's a lot easier to go now than it is to actually find common ground for the american people and it's gotta change we've got to do something. Otherwise, these things that we sent Biden to office to do will not be accomplished. By the way, 80 million Americans sent this man to office to get past a progressive agenda. We also kept the House for him. We also took the Senate for him. He's got all three branches. If we can't get stuff done in this time, because we are too busy talking broadly about things that the American people don't have the luxury to think about, American people don't care about a fucking filibuster.

They care about how policy is going to impact their lives and their child's lives. And so if we keep mentioning words that nobody gets, we're going to be in deep trouble in 2022 and 2024. We need to implement real drastic change so that we can get policy passed. I think you're spot on with that. We live in such a divisive time. I mean, you mentioned 80 million people voted for Biden. There were still 70 plus million who voted for Trump. What do you think of the Fox News, the OANs, just spreading this misinformation, riling up the masses into a way that just makes everyone despise each other? How do we combat that? How do we bring people together? It's really dangerous. It's

really dangerous. And I think that, you know, we're all guilty, myself included, of sticking to our echo chamber and the places that we find news more palatable for ourselves rather than really trying to listen to the other side. I think that's what brought us Trump in the first place. But I think it's dangerous. And I think some things need to happen. For instance, I do think news, we need to clearly define what news is. I think we need to clearly define before every single broadcast, you're going to be watching the news. These are all facts, either facts based on lots of research or facts based on science, but facts. So sit down and enjoy the show for 40 minutes. Here's what's happening in the world.

And then on the other side of that, we need to label everything that is not news, true traditional news as opinion pieces. And I think what that will enable is for us to seek out the facts in the news, because right now it's too easy to go, you know what, that's just an alternate fact. And you go, wait, wait a minute, that's not a thing. An alternate fact is not a thing. That's not a thing. Also called not a fact. Yeah, also called a lie. A lie. Okay, so it's not a thing. I think because of social media, all of this information travels really, really fast. Look, it's not like when I was growing up and at seven o'clock was the world news and you'd sit for that half hour and you'd, by the way, it was world news.

It wasn't just focused on domestic policy you know we learned about everything and everywhere in the world which made it feel more like a global community which we've gotten so far away from but also we knew what we were getting had been researched had been checked and double checked and was was factual. And we just don't know that anymore. And we don't know that with links that we're clicking on. And because of these algorithms, it is way too easy to be stuck in one kind of information scope that can be very dangerous. And I think that's what we're seeing right now. But I do believe like every tool, every tool could be used for good or for bad. If you look at a hammer, you can also use a hammer

to kill someone, you know, so, so we have to just be aware and adapt and mindful. And I think people have been so hesitant to legislate around the internet, and around information because of the first amendment, but there's a, an all out assault on truth. And I think we're going to have to regulate somewhat or at least inform people about what they're about to watch and whether or not it is opinion pieces or the news. I mean, look, they go, they being Fox goes into court and they say their defense is always, we're not news. I mean, look, they go, they being Fox goes into court and they say their defense is

always, we're not news, we're entertainment, you know? And at the same time, they label themselves Fox News only when it comes to news in any other forum and you can't falsely market or label things, something that it's not. They all hide behind shit because you look at the NRA, what are they hiding behind? The second amendment, right? So, you know, at what point do we not allow that to happen? And I think that's one of the reasons

that H.R. 1 or the For the People's Act is so incredibly important to get passed because we've got to get that money out of politics. And that is the most important part of this all, because once that part is taken care of, I really think we will be able to legislate more consciously for the betterment of the American people and the health and the safety and the opportunity. And Alyssa, before we go, tell us a little bit about your podcast. Sorry, not sorry. Are you enjoying that experience?

I think you were like the perfect person to do a podcast and speak to your audience. Thank you. Unfiltered. I got a lot to say. It is competition, but we appreciate you. Because the same people that listen to my podcast, listen to your podcast and vice versa. So I don't look at it as competition at all.

And anytime you want me to come guest host as, you know, from a women's perspective, I'm here for you. Take you up on that for sure. Yeah. So no, I think part of the reason for starting the podcast for me was having a lot to say, but feeling that you can't have the tough conversations on Twitter. And some issues are better suited with the amount of work that advocacy Project and everything in between. A part of having a platform to me that is really fucking cool is that I get to hand over the microphone and say, tell us your story, you know, and raise awareness, not only for issues that

mean something to us, but also to people who are working on those issues every single day. People that sometimes get overlooked and they're the real boots on the ground. They're the real activists that are doing the hard work. So it's been an honor and a privilege to be able to have these conversations and to highlight their incredible work. And we feel the same. And that's why it's incredible to have voices like yours. And really, as a podcaster, I think the best skill is not to talk and have people hear my annoying voice blabber as I blabber right now, but to truly listen to people who are out in the field and doing great work.

And so it was funny, Alyssa, because our younger sister, Rachel, was a guest host yesterday. And she was, and we joked that she was going to replace Jordi with your offer to be a guest host you will replace Brett so ladies and gentlemen the new Midas Touch Rachel Micellis and Alyssa Milano

do I have to change my name or anything you got the M so I think you're on board Alyssa Milano thank you so much for joining us on the Midas Touch Podcast. It's a true honor and privilege to have you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for sharing your platform. Thank you.

We'll be right back after these messages. What's up, Midas Mighty? Ben Micellus here, joined by my younger brothers, Brett and Jordy Micellus. Have you got your Midas merch gear? If you haven't gotten your Midas merch gear, I don't know what's taking you so long. I got my gear. Most of the Midas Mighty got their gear. We have some incredible stuff.

Isn't that right, Brett? That's right. And with the new CDC guidelines that say you no longer have to wear masks indoors or outdoors if you've been vaccinated, a lot of people have been asking us, how do you let people know you've been vaccinated? How do you know if you're around other vaccinated people? A lot of people are concerned. But, you know, we already thought about this, guys. We got our vaxxed and relaxed merch line. You could get it now if you still want to wear masks, if you still feel comfortable wearing masks around indoors or outdoors, we got the masks. We got the tees.

We got the shirts. We got it all. And we got more on the way. So let people know you've been vaccinated. Shop at store.midastouch.com to get yours. And that's not all we have. We got the club democracy gear. We got the shout out to the Midas mighty gear.

We got it all. Go check it out. That's store.midastouch.com. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Now being run by Ben Micellis, Alyssa Milano, and Rachel Micellis. See, Brett, you were laughing at me early on the podcast. Karma in action. Well, I wasn't laughing at you. I was more pointing to the fact that Ben thinks he has the authority to make these sweeping decisions. This is what I wanted to say before when we were in the first segment. So Ben refers to us as the suits, but Brett's really the suit here because if you picked

up on it, Brett gave Ben the marching orders for what he was going to talk about on his own show on Legal AF this Sunday. Ben, did you catch up on that? I totally caught up. I do it because I actually love Legal AF. I listen to Legal AF and I am curious to hear the information as I'm sure our listeners are. So it's just a pitch. You know, it's not I'm not a dictator like Ben over here who who just takes people out of the lineup of the podcast indiscriminately.

But, you know, I have... At the end of the day, Brett, do you want me to put up a Twitter poll? Would they rather have Alyssa Milano or Brett Mycelis as the host of the Midas Touch podcast? Only if I could do a Twitter poll that says, would you rather have Ben Mycelis or Alyssa Milano as the host of the Midas Touch podcast? We will both lose. Jordi may come close. Honestly, we're both going to be the ones. Jordi's going to be the one laughing because he's going to be the only one standing. It's going to be the Jordi and Alyssa Milano show after that. There we go. That's a show. I got to say, Alyssa, how incredible is Alyssa Milano? I mean, I really hope she does run for that seat. We need more representation in Congress on the Democratic side. And the McClintock guy in her

district is just like the worst. He embodies everything that's so horrible about these Republicans and what they stand for. And this is so right what she said when she was like, people are voting for him because he's a Republican. But actually, if you actually talked about the issues and you put on the ballot, the issues and not the R or the D, that the issues that the Democrats support would crush. That would be such an interesting experiment, right? Like what if you like hid the names of the candidate and only put their policy positions? But that's the ultimate issue about Democrats though. And there is a level of marketing and advertising themselves to the people. And we talked about that at the beginning of the show, aligning with the issues that are popular.

At the end of the day, whether you're talking about Coca-Cola, whether you're talking about McDonald's, whether you're talking about Target, they're advertising their products. They're saying, eat the hamburger. They're saying, have our soda, right? They're saying, come in our store, look at the great products we have on the shelves. Only in the Democrats do you go, well, I think we still support the filibuster. I mean, she's so right at the end of the day. What kind of marketing campaign is that? It's the wackest, stupidest marketing campaign in the world. And not only that, but imagine if McDonald's was not competing against Burger King, but was competing against like these crazy fuckers out in Arizona, you know, who are the cyber ninjas. Imagine if McDonald's rather than competing against Burger King, we're literally competing against people who ate their poop.

Okay. I know that sounds utterly disgusting, but one place was selling you delicious hamburgers and the other group was selling you duty. Okay. I think the McDonald's would just, yes, the McDonald's would crush it fellas. Cause they would say they're eating poop.

These are poop eaters over here. The Democrats are not only winning on the issues. OK, they're competing against people who eat their own poop and diarrhea. This is true. I mean, let's talk about the Arizona election. I mean, this is right. This is part of it. This is true. Republicans eat their poop. OK, you've heard it here. We just have to call it for what it is these are people who call themselves the cyber ninjas who never did a audit before an

election who are appointed by a gqp legislature who utterly fail because they can't fucking count they destroy all of the voter booths. They destroy the integrity of chain of custody. Arizona literally has to like redo their elections now all because I mean, forever in the future and cost millions of dollars because of like the actual integrity damage caused by these psychopaths. And what are these psychopaths do? They basically take all of the voting material and equipment that was in a convention center or stadium and they link. They literally bring it to like the Unabomber's house in fucking the woods in Montana. And they start counting in an area where it looks like the fucking cartels grow cocaine. Like that is literally the location that they've chosen in a 155-acre

compound in some Montana ranch that's hidden. It's like a secret hidden location. CNN was trying to find it. It's in the woods. They were having to go through documents and see addresses and see that, oh, this owner who has this company registered in Virginia has another business in Montana, and it's located at this address behind this. It's like the crazy. This is not how democracy works. This is not democracy in action. Alyssa Milano has made me pumped up. If you've noticed post Alyssa Milano interview, you've got almost you've got a reinvigorated, energized brothers. The first you got, you know, you gotta man welcome to the Midas Touch podcast now you've got let's let's really go fellas let's call this out this is

some crazy shit they're hiding in a compound in some laboratory in Montana these Republicans eating their poop I'm speechless after that one I I don't even know. How do you follow that up? You cannot follow that up. And more, look, as I told you, McDonald's competing against Burger King, where Burger King, I won't keep using that analogy because it will make some people grust out. But the point of the analogy is, is that the competition are some crazy, anti-democratic, horrible people. And Democrats, we actually have the ideas. One of the things we learned about these crazy, horrible people is the extent to which Donald Trump was utilizing his own personal attorneys who used to be basically, we refer to them now as the DOJ, we refer to them as Trump's DOJ. But the level of pressure, including drafting like a 55 page psychotic complaint that he was pressuring the DOJ to file to overturn elections in more than six states.

This was actually going on. And of course, Donald Trump was too cowardly to send the emails himself. So it's like Trump has his assistants and the acting AG that he installed from the DOJ to file these ridiculous lawsuits. But this is some of the dumbest, most heinous and despicable conduct ever. This stuff makes Watergate look like a drop of water when this is a literally a festering swamp. How do they teach Nixon and Watergate in school these days and expect students to take them seriously with all the shit that's going on? I don't understand how that's even possible. A hundred percent. It makes Watergate pale in comparison. Every single action that Trump has done and is being revealed day by day is Watergate times a billion. But here's the difference. The difference is back then, the Republicans who were in power supported democracy, at least, and had a spine. They were like, you know what, Nixon, that was fucked up. We're not going to support that. If that was the lesson that was learned from that, though, because remember, a lot of the

same people who were basically telling Nixon to not do that, to not save our country, to put us through a horrible shit like the Roger Stones of the world, who literally have Nixon tattooed on him. The man has Nixon tattooed on him. The man has Nixon tattooed on him. It's that group of people who have the rejects who took over this Republican Party. And the lesson learned is we just hate democracy. That's the lesson that's learned. Fuck it. Fuck the country. At the end of the day, we need to enact a dictator so that policies that help billionaires and hurt the people and that keep Republicans in power for power's sake is all that matters. We have the winning issue here,

folks, as Democrats. I hope Alyssa Milano has pumped you up as much as she's pumped me up right now to go out and I'm going to start editing videos right now. So you're just really trying to just take away my job across the board, podcast host, video editor. You are just coming for it. That's what I want to just say this to our Midas Touch followers. Just thank you so much. The Midas Touch followers who have helped build this movement

and to support democracy, to celebrate democracy every day, it just really is so inspiring. I mean, I'm just saying this too now, because as we're talking, I'm just seeing more people post on my feed their Midas Touch Vaxxed and Relaxed bracelets and their Midas Touch t-shirts and just going out there just saying we support democracy and we're wearing the gear that celebrates pro democracy messages. That's just so cool for me to see. My feed is flooded right now with people posting their vax and relax bracelets and all their Midas touch march. And it is really one of the coolest things.

And every single day I notice new people online who use Midas in their Twitter names. That's been the coolest thing for me too. I'm like, who is that? Who Midest? Oh my gosh, this is crazy. And so it's like, thank you to everybody who joins the movement. Thank you to everybody who listens to the podcast. And if you like the podcast, share a podcast with a friend to help educate others. Let's help keep this movement growing and let's all continue to fight in the name of democracy. That's what we're all doing here.

That's why we are here. That's why you are here. Thank you so much for listening to this may be my favorite Midas Touch podcast we've done yet, folks. He said it. I said it. No, take it back now. We'll see. I'll only take it back.

It depends on how my poop rant hits. If people love it, this is my favorite episode. If not, I think it's largely going to depend on what time the person is listening to the podcast. I mean, here's my backup, Jordy. At the end of the day, if people don't like it, I'm just going to end up blaming it on you and saying that

was you talking about that. I just want to say this one thing before we go. Shout out to the Midas Mighty!