The MeidasTouch Podcast - Bakari Sellers and How We Remove Matt Gaetz and the GQP Basement Dwellers

Episode Date: May 18, 2021

On today’s episode, the brothers sit down with attorney and NYT bestselling author of the new book My Vanishing Country: A Memoir, Bakari Sellers. Sellers talks about everything from the latest updates in the Matt Gaetz/Joel Greenberg saga to policing in America – and what we can do to solve it. The brothers round out the episode discussing updates on the Arizona “audit,” a certain unhinged 2x impeached former president, the very real threat of the GQP, and how Democrats can grow their majority in the House in 2022.  Make sure you tune in every Tuesday & Friday wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes of The MeidasTouch Podcast! For a limited time, when our listeners go to grove.co/meidastouch, you will get to choose a FREE gift with your first order of $30 or more. But you have to use our special code! Click here to get natural products you need for your home! Get your pro-democracy MeidasTouch Merch, Vaxxed wristbands and more here! Buy Bakari Sellers's book My Vanishing Country: A Memoir here! --- 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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Ben Micellis, joined by my brothers, Brett and Jordy Mycelis. We have a great show for you today. Guest Bakari Sellers, the youngest member of the South Carolina legislature when he was first elected back in, I think it was 2006 to 2014. He's now a political commentator, a lawyer, no longer in the legislature, but a lawyer, political commentator, excited to get his take on what's going on in the country today. So, guys, I know we say that we are the GQP's worst enemy. And of course, that is completely and entirely accurate. But should we still be even calling them the GQP at this point? Aren't they simply just terrorists? I mean, they're not even worthy of, I think, three letters that used to belong to the Republican

Party. I just think they're a terrorist party and they have terrorist leaders and there are just terrorists. You know, I think we have to look at it like when you're a country and there's a terrorist sect that wants to overthrow the government. That's just who they are. Now, the radicalization of the Republican Party is something we should all be concerned about. I mean, it should honestly terrify us all every single day. And we saw what could happen with this radical party on January 6th. And if there are any indicators,

that was just a test run, you know, they are still, I think one of the most, one of the things that really kind of struck me the most this week was what Jim Acosta said the other day. And I was like, Oh shit, you know,

like he's a 100% spot on. And Acosta's comment was that the insurrection never ended on January 6th. The insurrection is still going on to this day. And we've spoken about this too. When they couldn't get the job done through a violent means, through actually going and ambushing the Capitol and overthrowing the government. When that didn't work, they brought it into the legislatures. They brought it into Arizona and Maricopa County with this fake count. They've spread this lie to promote this, to try to destroy the country from within. The insurrection is still ongoing right now and it's an ever-present

threat. I saw this poll yesterday. It was a CBS News, YouGov poll. And they asked Republicans, what are your priorities? What are your priorities? Make the country better, improve people's lives. No. 47% of Republicans want to change the state's voting rules. That's their concern. It's not just a little over half of them actually want to reach out to voters with policies and ideas, but just slightly under half, 47% of the Republican Party want to push to go against democracy, want to take away voting rights. That's where their priority is at as a country. And it's just kowtowing to this disgusting man in Mar-a-Lago for no reason who just mocks them and really abuses them, abuses the country. But if they want to make this fight in 2022, if they want to turn it into a referendum on Trump again, I welcome that fight.

It's a fight that we've won countless times already. It's a fight that won us back the Senate. It's a fight that won us back the White House. And if that's what they want to pin their entire platform on, this disgusting, despicable human being, I'm ready for it. And I think it will actually, I think it's going to backfire tremendously. If Trump really, and who knows if he will, if he really starts going back on the campaign trail, doing these rallies, getting his face out there, it might actually be the greatest gift to Democrats

that we could ever ask for. Because nothing will fire up Democrats like seeing his face on their TVs, seeing clips of his comments from these rallies. And maybe at the end of the day, maybe we need that push. I don't want to see him out there. I want to see him indicted. I want to see this guy in prison. But if we see his face out there, just like we did in the 2020 election, maybe people will understand that the 2022 election is the fight of our lives. It's the fight for the fate of democracy and everything is on the line in 2022. You're spot on. I think you're spot on. I also think, did you guys text each other and say, we're not doing any brother banter today? Is that what's going down right now? We're just getting into it? No, Ben just started.

What do you want to talk about, Jordan? Well, I got a song queued up here. It's a rough transition there, Jay uh we were talking about the insurrection i just don't know how this fits into the episode take your brother victory okay we're talking about the fate of america here but i'm gonna take i'm gonna take my brother victory makes you feel good about yourself so first off on friday or on thursday we breed bread in a big basketball game, 11 to 3, which is one point

better than Ben had beat him. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hold up. Hold up. Here's what actually happened. Jordy and I saw each other for the first time in, I think, over two years, which is insane. Shock. Yeah. And so we played a

basketball game. I really didn't want to play. I was in no mood to play, but I decided to play to make Jordy happy. And Jordy ended up beating me 11 to five. Now this doesn't exactly make me look good. So why am I telling you that it was 11 to five? Because Jordy took it like such a defeat to Jordy. Winning 11 to 5 was like I blew him out. Because Jordy knew that Ben beat me 11 to 4. 11 to 4. So the fact that I put up one more basket against him than Ben,

he was devastated. And I've never seen him more upset in a very long time. Seriously. Seriously. He was just heartbroken. And he took to Twitter and he said, I'm going to get it out there before you could say it. And I was like, I'm not going to advertise that I got beat 11 to, and Jordy goes on Twitter.

And the first thing he does is tweet out, he goes 11 to three, da, da, da, da, da, just spreading fake news out there. And so then I had to, I had to step in and say something. But Jordy, I like that I get to have a moral victory by losing. I take the moral victory with pride. I think I should actually be playing We Are The Champions after putting up that performance against you. I just want to walk the audience really quickly through the game. Brett wasn't

even playing basketball. Brett was throwing haymakers at my body when I was going up for layups. He was playing football or UFC while I was playing basketball. It was two points, obviously get deducted from whatever his made up scores. And that's how we landed 11 to three. And then Sunday night, a big brother poll that was out there finally concluded and then tried to rig the vote. He tried to tamper with what was going on and came out team Geordie on top again. I will say the gap that closed Ben was the gap between you and Brett. So I don't really spend time trying to promote Twitter polls and things like that. Everyone knows Twitter polls are not a science. They're not accurate. They're not accurate reflections

of society's thoughts on the time. I just can't believe you both thought we weren't going to talk about this today. I mean, you know, we got important things in the world. We got Bakari Sellers as a guest. I mean, we're talking about the insurrection. I'm talking about how the GQP should be recalled terrorists. And I just thought that that's really what- You know what we do here at Midas Touch, yes? You know what our jobs are.

Here's the one thing that I will say for the next poll. Y'all have to let Ben win. There's a common theme. When I start to get really good at something, Ben stops playing. It was like that when we played chess, when we played video games, when we played ping pong. Anytime I started to beat him, he'd stop playing. So next poll, everyone vote for Team Ben.

All right, Jordy, I think we need to get back on track here. Let's get back on track here because you have totally taken this episode off the tracks, off the rails. What we were talking about is that the GQP is essentially an insurgent force within America. Al-beta.

Al-what? Al-beta. Al-beta? What's beta? Like a beta? That's like using their own thing against them. They like to call people betas. They're betas. Al-beta. Can we say zeta? What's Beta? Like Alpha Beta? That's like using their own thing against them. They like to call people Betas. Can we say Zeta? They're Zetas? They're Zetas in terms of being like zeros, that they're the worst, but they're also...

Yeah, I'm with you. They're Zetas, but Zeta is not the last letter of the alphabet. And so a lot of people... But also, I like Zeta. Al-Zeta. Al-Beta is a good way to describe them. They are a terrorist. They are a terrorist party, Brett. And what you just said, too, about what Acosta mentioned, that the insurrection is still going on. The one point I would say to

you, Brett, though, is you said they support Donald Trump for no reason, no apparently logical reason to people who believe in humanity. But as Rick Wilson explained when he was our guest on the last podcast, the GQP terrorists allow their terrorist base to be the very worst they can be as humans. They give them an out. They allow them to be horrible and to manifest their horribleness in public. And that is something that is attractive. These are people who simply now take off the hoods and walk around the United States, you know, flaunting their terrorist views and their crazy views and their hateful and harmful views. These are not patriotic, American-loving people. These are disgusting and disturbed terrorists, period. I think one of the issues is that we still have all these politicians

treating the Republican Party like they're a good faith party that you can negotiate with, that you could pass bills with, that you could do things that better America. And Joe Manchin is one such person who at this point, basically, I think we should view Joe Manchin purely as his only function, literally his only function, is keeping Mitch McConnell out of the leadership position. That's the only thing. Manchin keeps McConnell from being majority leader. That's the only thing he's good for.

Because if you want him to do anything else beyond that, you're going to be sorely disappointed. This is a good-looking signature. Manchin's good-looking signature? Oh, because you're looking at... He's got a good looking signature. Manchin's good looking signature. Oh, cause he's good. He's a good, he's got a good looking, I'm looking at the letter and he's like a good looking man. Like, I mean, he's like a 74 year old man. He's never aged in his life. Yeah. Manchin somehow looks very good. Maybe, maybe being incredibly spineless, uh, keep some years on, on, yeah, I don't know. Remember we asked the question. I say that Amy's

not really that good looking of a man, but I mean, for 74, he's pretty, you know, he's a pretty good 74. And when we were like, you know, how old is mansion? Because we're like, if you know, what are his political ambitions and like, what's he doing at this stage in his life? And we were shocked that he was 74 years old. I think he still had four more years on the current term that he's like running in. And it's like, what, what race are you running for the race? When you're in your eighties? Like, why are like, what, what is it you're trying to keep yourself in power until you're 120?

I mean, why just do the right thing at this stage in your life? Yeah. And you know, so the reason why we bring up Joe Manchin right now, other than the fact that his name seems to come up every every week, is that he signed on a letter with Senator Lisa Murkowski and he wrote a letter to Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, McCarthy and McConnell. And what his letter was saying was that he said, we urge you to join us in calling for the bipartisan reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act through regular order. We can do this. We must do this.

So what Manchin and Murkowski are calling for here, the two, quote unquote, who the media likes to act like are the moderates of the parties, which is the most ridiculous framing out there. What they want to do is they are like, oh, if we want to preserve the Voting Rights Act, let's just do what we always do, guys. Let's do a bipartisanship. We'll get the 10 senators that we need from the Republican Party and let's pass this Voting Rights Act. And we could do this, everybody. This is how we could do it. Everybody, let's all get together. But once again, we are not dealing with the Republican Party that acts in good faith. If you're going to write this letter, then Manchin Murkowski, I want you to go out there and tell me right now, tell me who are the 10 senators from the Republican Party who are going to come out and support the Voting Rights Act? This is, by the way, the most non-controversial piece of legislation in

the world that has been just destroyed by Republicans. Now, we're not ever in this climate going to find 10 votes. So in writing this, what Manchin is saying to me, what Murkowski is saying to me is I don't care about Black votes. I don't care if black people vote because they are not going to get the votes needed to pass this unless we have much needed reform to the. So when we would play pickup back in the day, and we'd be short like one person, we didn't care who that 10th man was just to fill it just as long as we had a good five-on-five game. I'm talking basketball here. And so Manchin just serves as a body, exactly what Brett said.

Yeah, but Jordy, you give the example of a basketball game, which I'm not fully following your example, but let me try to follow your basketball game, for example. It's a good analogy. Okay, but in a normal basketball game where you have people to fill their five gave you permission to play the game in the first place, even though you have the same numbers to be able to actually do it when you actually have fundamentally enough people in place to play. And when your team has the votes to win and the other team, using your basketball analogy, does not have the votes to win, but you as the majority party, the party that has the votes to win, are allowing the minority party to hold up the victory, to hold up the legislation. When it comes to things that are at the very heart

of our democracy, fundamentally, Jordi, one team here is playing basketball and the other team is basically, you know, playing boxing. You know, they're playing UFC. They're not even playing the sport. They're out there literally just trying to destroy the underlying integrity of the game. In this case of democracy. That's the problem. We are.

That Jim Acosta example is so great. This is a party in the GQP that supports the insurrection. They support it right after that day. They didn't do much to challenge it that day. They encouraged it to happen that day. day and all of the steps they're taking right now, if they had their way, if they had their vision, this is how scary it is. Let's really take out what they want to do. They would install Donald Trump as the dictator of the United States of America, and they would give up all constitutional authority to him. I want to repeat that again, because let's be clear of what they want to do and what they're willing to do. The GQP wants to throw away the United States Constitution. They want to allow Donald Trump to become the dictator of the United States of America and govern however he pleases after seeing the track record that he's had.

Knowing the deaths he's caused, knowing the incompetence, knowing our democratic system, they don't care. Do you think I'm exaggerating, Brett? They want him as our Mussolini. They want him as the Hitler, you know, and using those examples, too, because Hitler and Mussolini lost. They want a loser dictator simply because he they can curry favor with the power. around having sex with whoever it is they want, paying for sex, using their power to abuse minors. They want to use their power for that. They want to be pedos. That's what they want to use with their power.

And they want to run around the country like they're untouchables. That's what Matt Gaetz thinks. The Marjorie Taylor Greene's, the Bobberts, these are people who think the rules don't apply to them. They don't even care what the rules of the game are. They just want power for power's sake. And we should talk about Matt Gaetz because we're looking at an entirely different landscape if Trump wins when it comes to Matt Gaetz. We're looking at a situation where Matt Gaetz continues to be a sexual predator running around the country doing whatever the heck he's doing with people like Joel Greenberg. If Donald Trump remains president of the United States, those are the people he attracts. Instead, today, Joel Greenberg, who's the Seminole County tax collector,

he's a tax collector who basically served as Matt Gaetz's pimp. He basically served as the pimp in Matt Gaetz's cartel. That's who this Greenberg is, spending about $70,000 from 2016 to 2018 in recruiting women for sex acts with Matt Gaetz. How does a government employee spend $70,000 on sex trafficking women? Where do you get $70,000 to do that? That's what they're doing. And today, Greenberg pled guilty to multiple crimes in connection with the sex trafficking sex trafficking investigation um and i don't know if you saw that uh that uh plane that was carrying the sign that was awesome our friends remove run yeah our friends remove run through the plane over the courthouse when the banner said tick to Matt Gaetz on the banner.

And in fact, the news covered it. It actually interrupted Greenberg's attorney when he was talking to the press. They go, there's the plane again. And he looked up and then the plane was coming along. So that was a fun little splash. But let's talk about Matt Gaetz. Ben, what do you think the Joel Greenberg plea, the guilty plea, what does this mean for Congressman Matt Gaetz? Does this mean that we are closer to an indictment of Gaetz? Well, Gaetz is an idiot in addition to a criminal. And so where I think Greenberg will be useful is giving the roadmap of where to look for documents that

link Gates to the specific incidents. I think that the government is aware that Greenberg probably himself is not the most reliable witness to testify. That said, what he can show is verifiable items that are leaking. We hear about them from- These aren't criminal masterminds. They put it on their public Venmo feeds. Yeah, their public Venmo feeds. I'm sure there will be text messages, emails, account statements, travel records. These are things that the government surely is looking into. And I mean, Matt Gaetz's public defense, so far as I understand it, I read some article that these are like female lady favors that he's receiving or something like that. Like like these are just these are just naughty favors. I think naughty favors was the term he used.

Naughty favors. These are naughty favors. His defense, the naughty favors defense. He is a leader. Of that party. I mean, can you imagine if Chuck Schumer was talking about the naughty favors, naughty favor defense? These are naughty favors. He compared paying for sex and raping young girls to earmarks, to government earmarks, to projects that bring roads and funding and bridges to local areas. That's what he compared his raping of children to. This guy is totally screwed up. And you're right, he to spread the gospel about what the party has to do with. And I guess the message of the party is that they're just the party of kooks, conspiracy

theorists, and pedophiles, and sex traffickers. That's the only thing I can think of. I like to think of the America First tour as a farewell tour of sorts, because as the longer the tour goes on, the more comes out about Matt Gaetz, and the more comes out about Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now she has been implicated in a whole other situation of tax fraud. Do you see the whole tax fraud situation? homestead exemption and her declaring joint residences, or you think you're only allowed to declare a single residence to get the exemption. And I think she just declared both residences to get the exemption. But the short of it is that literally everything they do is criminal at the end of the day. And people say to us sometimes, why do you keep talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene? Why do you keep talking about Matt Gaetz? Why give them a platform?

Listen, these are the most popular figures of the Republican Party right now. And I want everybody to know that personally. I want everybody to know that this is the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene. I want everyone to know that this is the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene. I want everyone to know that this is the party of Matt Gaetz. Let everybody see them for who they are. Let's elevate these people as the leaders of this party because regular Americans- Because they're doing it. They're elevating them. They're elevating them. And let's show Americans who these people are. Let's do that battle. We could pick who we want

to be running against. And if the Republican Party wants to make this their leaders, we should take that and run with it and go after them and go after them hard. Here's the thing. I disagree vehemently with Liz Cheney's views. But I do understand, as I've traveled the country, why somebody may go, you know what, I identify with the Liz Cheney, you know, in terms of just her demeanor, her presence, what she stands for, you know, generally. And we could have some incredible disagreements about debates, but I can at least

understand, although disagree and want to persuade them that her views are still horrible for American people, but how someone can be like, yeah, well, you know, Liz Cheney's, you know, at least normal. I don't think, and I could be incredibly naive here though. And I think this is, though, why you have 80, still 80 plus million that come out to vote for a Biden, because I gigantic amount of people who support the crazy conspiracy like looniness. But I still don't think that that is mainstream. And I think if that continues to be the face of that party, people are going to say, enough, that's enough for me. I'm leaving the Republican Party. I'm not voting for these people. And I think we need to push it on that. I think we need to do that. And on this show, we don't just try to tell you all the issues that are going on. We try to find ways to solve

them. And we at Midas Touch are working really hard behind the scenes here to figure out ways to win these important races and keep power. And we're going to be making some announcements in the coming weeks about some campaigns we're running, but I'll just give you an overall kind of sense of where we're heading. You should know that there are certain seats that the Democrats lost in 2020 that we have a very good shot of winning back in 2022. And our focus should be very much there. There are also some Republican seats in the House that are trending our way. And 2022 may be the seats, may be the year that these seats finally break our way. Nebraska 2, Virginia 1, Indiana 5. There's a bunch of districts in Texas. These

are just some of the districts that we're eyeing right now that could easily break our way in 2022. Then there are some other races that we could win in 2022 if we have a wave, if we get to the polls. We could take Lauren Boebert's seat. We could take Dan Crenshaw's seat, Devin Nunes' seat, Daryl Ice's seat. Everything should be on the table. We need to get energized now. We need to organize and we need to knock on doors. We need to get TV ads out there, get billboards out there. Our messaging needs to be nonstop and it needs to stop now. And we need to protect all the seats that we currently have. The fight is incredibly important and we need everybody to be energized right now as if

this was right before the 2020 election. Let's treat it like that. Let's treat it like that. Let's not make the mistakes of the 2020 election. Let's treat it like that. Let's treat it like that. Let's not make the mistakes of the past year. I mean, do you support these people who are unhinged? That's the message that we need to convey. And frankly, we can use the Republican words here against them of many Republicans who are calling this behavior completely unhinged and crazy. Just recently, for example, I'm not sure if you saw this, the Arizona Republican who heads up the county elections department for the behavior by Trump is completely unhinged.

And Trump was making up conspiracy theories about what was happening during these Arizona recounts. And this Republican who run the elections was like, this guy is out of his mind. I'm looking at all the data right now. It's all Trump was trying to act like, oh, they're hiding the data, this and that. Once again, just crazy, kooky conspiracy theories. It's just nuts. And then you also have, this is the Republican chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, basically saying how this fake audit is incredibly dangerous, was his words. And if this is not funny, this is dangerous. We're growing weary of all of the lies and half-truths over the last six months and after the 2020 election. It's a growing number of Republican voices, you know, who are saying, look, these people are crazy and we need to portray them for that.

That's critical in this fight. I mean, the fact is they they just need a totally clean house and start over. saw today was the Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan. He said that he decided he's not going to seek reelection in 2022 because he looks to instead pursue a better way forward for, he said, this is his words, our conservative party, a GOP 2.0. This is also what he said here. It always feels coldest right before the sun rises. I believe that is the exact moment in time the Republican Party is caught in right now. And I'm committed to being part of creating those better days ahead for our conservative party all across these countries. Just how delusional do you have to be to think that there's any saving this Republican Party at this point? I mean, how could you write this letter?

How could you do it? And the cowardice to me, and by the way, I'm happy that he's speaking out against the party. I don't want to think that I'm not glad that he's speaking out against his own party. But why do you have to quit politics to do that? He is choosing not to run for reelection in 2022 and instead do this. But if you really cared, and this is like, you could look back at, go back to Ben Sasse and Paul Ryan and whoever, all these long line of cowards who instead of actually standing up when it mattered, quit. And to me, Duncan is doing the same thing here. Nobody wants a GOP 2.0.

It's the sequel to a movie that nobody asked for. And I can tell you who I know does not want a GOP 2.0 is Bakari Sellers. I see Bakari is joining the podcast. We will get Bakari Sellers on right after these messages. What's up, Midas Mighty? Ben Mysellus here with my brothers. Here's what I want to tell you. Healthy, plant-based, non-toxic cleaning products work. And the good ones are actually more enjoyable to use. But where do you start and who do you trust?

That's where Grove Collaborative comes in. Grove is an online marketplace, the online marketplace that delivers healthy home beauty and personal products that I get. I feel they're safe around the house with my pets. Brett, how's your experience been with Grove? Here's the thing. There are so many websites out there. And when you go through some of these sites, you have no idea what's healthy for you, what's good for your home, what's good for your body. Like you said, what's good for your pets. So Grove really takes the guesswork out of that. I got everything from lip balm to glass straws. I love glass straws in my coffee instead of using plastic straws or even paper straws, which just disintegrate. I hate those plastic straws that disintegrate in the drink. So I was happy to get my set of glass straws from Glove Collaborative, a hand sanitizer spray, body wash.

I got stuff for my dog. You can really get all, and Jordy, you got stuff for Mello, right? That's the biggest thing. Yeah. As a new puppy owner, I was always very cautious with what I was going to get my puppy for dog treats or dog food, but Grove takes all that fear and shoves it away. With Grove, you don't have to shop multiple stores or search endlessly online to get all the natural goods you need for you and your family. Join over 2 million households who have trusted Grove Collaborative to make their homes happier and healthier. Plus, shipping is fast and free on your first order.

Free! Making the switch to natural products has never been easier. For a limited time, when our listeners go to grove.co slash Midas Touch, you will get to choose a free gift with your first order of $30 or more, but you have to use our special code. Go to grove.co slash Midas Touch to get your exclusive offer. That's grove.co slash Midas Touch. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast, joined by Bakari Sellers, bestselling author, attorney, political commentator, served in the South Carolina House of Representatives in the

90th District from 2006 to 2014, and the host of the Bakari Sellers podcast on The Ringer. Bakari, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Man, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be on here with all of you guys, you fellow Peloton writers and others. What do you think about that? Let's get right into this fellow Peloton writer. It's addictive. I'm a part of the click, too. I try to get up. The story is, and my wife, she's probably going to hear me and throw something. So if this is a short episode, just know she took me out but um i bought this i bought the peloton for my wife two years ago she hates it she's ridden it like four times but i absolutely i absolutely love it shout out to tunday ali love uh ali love that's my girl yeah man i love i love riding with them for sure

i've been liking the other classes too the uh like off the bike i noticed they have this whole library of classes and like they're not a sponsor. I don't want to like they should probably pay us after this conversation. But we do. I'm going to give you a free. They could give you a free treadmill. No, that's a no, no, no. Yeah, we got all these extra treadmills in right now. Give you. No, thank you. But now I'm doing the strength classes now i got the bike class i like the bike with the weights involved and use the the light weights and it's actually a lot harder than it seems like i want you to know you don't you don't hear this from these guys but you look good man i've been telling you i can tell you've been doing something thanks i appreciate that i need i need

the love after the hate i've been getting from the rest of the brothers these past few days and the fan polls online it's it's been It's been a rough go for me. So I need that. I appreciate it. Thank you. Taking this back to politics here, Bakari, Brett doesn't actually have a Peloton. So when Brett says that he's taking all of these classes, it's a bit bootleg, is it not, that he's doing these Peloton classes on a fake Peloton? Correct.

He's like the RC color to our Coke. I mean, but it's okay. Well, He's like the RC color to our Coke. But it's okay. Well, it's the real peloton app I use. Let's get this straight. It is Allie Love, who is my teacher, not a fake version of Allie Love, who is my teacher. It's just the bike is a different bike

because it was a lot cheaper and more... Listen, I'm with you. I'm not going to knock you for it. I mean, I wouldn't share that story with the world as you just did, but Hey, you know, I think the listeners will, will understand a cost-saving move during the pandemic to still get me in shape and look the way I do and try to compete with Jordy over here. There you go. I like it.

I like it. Let's get into the real stuff though. I want to talk lawyer to lawyer right now, because one of the issues that we know, I think the political damage or at least we talk about the political damage, we the collective, we that Trump and Trumpism has has caused at political level, dividing people. But when it comes to the law, when it comes to what you and I studied in law school and what we fight for in courts, I think the damage that Trump and the GQP have done to the legitimacy of our legal system is a type of damage that will be felt for decades, if not forever. What do you make of the damage that Trump and the GQP has done to our legal system? So, yeah, I mean, I think that you're accurate, but I want to go back a little bit further than that, because I can't get out of my mind our future ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel,

when he was chief of staff, when Barack Obama was just coming into the White House, saying that the courts weren't a priority of his, that there were so many other issues that he had to deal with, that the courts weren't one of his largest priorities. And so I think you saw that. And I think that you saw the Obama administration not take the courts as seriously as they should have, which some Democrats do. Then you saw Mitch McConnell push back on Merrick Garland in an unheard of way. That seat was left vacant and you began to see the erosion of the courts. And then to your point, you kind of take that apathy towards the court that was illustrated by Rahm. You take that that obstruction put forth by Mitch and then you just light a complete fire with Donald Trump, putting unqualified young jurist on the bench, transforming the judiciary for years to come, ramming down Supreme Court justices.

You know, it's just been what you're saying is correct. This damage is going to take decades to unravel if we ever unravel it. And that's the tragedy of it. And so I'm happy to see Joe Biden and his administration take the courts with the level of sincerity that we all wish Democrats do, making it an issue. You know, only Republicans run on the Supreme Court in this country. I find that to be completely absurd. They list out possible justices or jurors they want to put on the Supreme Court. We have to do a better job of owning that issue because many times, as you know better than most,

Ben, many times that is where our civil rights and liberties are won, not necessarily in any state capital or a United States capital, but they're won in the court of law. Bakari, when we talk about unqualified judges for our listeners, I mean, these are individuals who became federal judges who never took a deposition in their life, who never did a trial in their life, not even a trial as second chair, not even saying that they were just in the room when a trial took place. And these are the individuals who are overseeing major civil rights cases and major criminal cases. And they're just political appointees. I mean, how do you navigate that as a as as a litigator, as as a lawyer with cases before judge? That's that's a tough one. You see some who are outwardly rejected by their bar associations, their state bar associations or the American Bar Association.

I mean, you just kind of have to unfortunately take the hand as it's dealt. It's causing us to be more creative. I mean, you can see and I don't want to talk too much about it, but even in Elizabeth City, as I'm representing the family of Andrew Brown, who was gunned down by police, who was shot in the back of the head while fleeing, which you cannot do in this country, serving a warrant, no guns, no drugs. But even to go a step further, in many of these states and local entities, you have obstruction of justice that's codified. I mean, think about the fact that you can't see the video, that legally I can't get rid of the DA for any type of apparent conflict of interest. So if you look at those things, you tie those things, and then you look on the federal level and you have some, not all, but some justices recently appointed who have no right or should be nowhere near a federal bench. And one of

the things you forgot to mention, Ben, is that it's a lifetime appointment. Like it's not like we get to get them off or we get to unelect them or move on. I mean, these individuals are there for life. And Trump reshaped the court. And I think that that is something that Republicans wanted

when they set aside the xenophobia, bigotry, racism, sexism, misogyny. Many of them said they wanted to transform the court. And that's what he did for a party that claimed to be about law and order. I mean, it's the biggest bullshit in the world. I mean, they literally encouraged an insurrection. And then when the insurrection took place, they now whitewash the insurrection and say, yeah, it really wasn't so bad or that didn't take place. Or, you know, anyone who criticized Trump, they should leave our party. Do you think Democrats should take the mantle of being truly law and order, actually following the law and the Constitution? Like, why are Democrats afraid to just say, look, we we're the ones who actually support the law? I don't know. I think about religion, how GOP to Republicans, they think that means God's only party. I think about family values and how, you know, as we take this, we know that that Maddie Gates is is an interesting character, to say the least.

You know, you talk about law and order and they had an insurrection where they actually killed law enforcement officers, beat them, bludgeoned them, called them racist names, put many out of commission for a very long period of time. And then you see individuals who should have more common sense than they do, like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, who were just individuals who continue to fan the flame of ignorance throughout this country. I think that people, when you see Ted Cruz and you hear some of the things you say, you forget that this man is utterly brilliant. He is a legal, supposedly, I guess now I have to qualify that, but based upon just the objective measures of individuals studying the law and a resume, etc., you would think that he could understand the Constitution and its consequences and interpret thereof. But we've seen anything but that, all because this one individual named Donald Trump has kind of bent the party to his will. I never thought we would see it, but they have become the cult of one.

What do you think the end game is for politicians like Josh Hawley, like Ted Cruz? Is it a thirst for power for themselves? Are they so desperate to want to become president? Are they simply terrified of the Trump voters if they go against their cult leader, so to speak? What's going on there? So the end game is that they lose. I mean, I think that that's I don't know anyone who will sit here and tell you that Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz will ever be the Republican nominee for president of the United States ever. Although they don't recognize that or know that. I'm not sure how they beat a field that includes a Trump or a Nikki Haley or anybody else who's polling, you know, five, six, seven times better than they are. So I think that their end game is that they lose. However, you said it right. It's that thirst for power. I mean,

listen, somebody insulted your mama and your daddy and called your wife ugly and you're still like running behind them. Like it's, it's the wildest thing. You know, there, there has to become a time where you kind of just, I don't know where you have a sense of pride and wildly enough, like the only individuals who have, who have a sense of pride in that party are like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney. And, you know, I can never vote for either one of them either. Yeah. I mean, it's that shamelessness that you just got it. The pure shamelessness. They're kissing the ass of a guy in Ted Cruz's case where literally called his wife ugly, said his dad killed JFK. Lindsey Graham got attacked ruthlessly by Trump. Marco Rubio got attacked ruthlessly by Trump. But yet they're

bending over backwards to support the guy. And then you have another sort of form of shamelessness with the McCarthy's of the world and these people who are trying to whitewash the history of January 6th. While just today, a Monday, the day we're recording this, you have Kevin McCarthy. He posted a video on Twitter saying, I appreciate cops. I love cops. This is the guy who has avoided even responding to Officer Fanone, who is the D.C. officer who was attacked, had a heart attack. What do you make of just the shamelessness, the lying, the taking credit for bills that they had nothing to do with, even though they voted down the American Rescue Plan?

They're the first to take credit when the projects go in their towns like Mitch McConnell did today. What do you make of that? So, I mean, I don't know. I think that, you know, we can't just look at them and not look at the 70, what, 4 million? How many people voted for Trump this go around? 74 points. When you ask them that it goes up and up and up for some reason 75 the 80 million they're like what are you talking about you know we i'm still worried about those those uh chinese ballots that came into arizona so i hope they get that bamboo paper yeah yeah i hope they get i hope they i hope they get to the bottom of that but um you know it it's we have to take a step back and realize 74 million people voted for Donald Trump.

And I think that that's the realization that all of these individuals have made that instead of having some sense of dignity, they're going to morph into this lane. But, you know, nobody can be Donald Trump, but Donald Trump. Like, I think that that's where they fail. I'm not sure that Josh Hawley, as insurrectionist as he may be, you know, there is no one who can be Donald Trump. But Donald Trump, it's kind of weird with Lindsey Graham because Lindsey's never running for president again. Like he barely ran for president last time. He's not running for president again. So it's kind of weird what that what that thirst is. But people just like to be around power. And Donald Trump consolidated that. And Joe Biden, I truly enough believe, was the only candidate. Mind you, I supported Kamala Harris.

But Joe Biden was, I believe, the only candidate who could have won that race at that moment. Yeah. And in retrospect, I completely agree with you in hindsight. I think, you know, along the lines of only Trump could be Trump, I think you're starting to see the consequences of the actions of some of the people who proudly call themselves the Trumpiest congressmen. I mean, you were speaking about Matt Gaetz, who wears that as a badge of honor. And today his buddy, Joel Greenberg, pleaded guilty, agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in any investigations they have on these sex trafficking cases. What do you think that means for Matt Gaetz? So as a lawyer, I can tell you that Joel Greenberg is the worst cooperator that you can possibly ever have. Okay. The worst. So I'm interested to see what other information I do a lot of criminal law as well. I'm interested to see

what other type of information they have. I was just speaking to my, my good friend, Ellie Hong. And I also talked to Laura Jarrett, who's, Ellie Hong. And, um, uh, was also talked to Laura Jarrett, who's, who looks at this stuff cause she was a former prosecutor, a lot, with a lot different eye than I, but I give me a murderer any day to, to flip and cooperate versus somebody who lies, um, and, and, and is knee deep in child porn or human sex trafficking. The reason being is this.

You flip Joel Greenberg. Joel Greenberg is not only a sex trafficker, but his underlying crime that he started this whirlwind of indictment is actually lying on an opponent about a sex offense with underage children. Right. So you cannot put him on the stand clean saying, yeah, I lied about this before, but this time I'm telling the truth and Matt Gates did it. So therefore you think that there has to be some other non-circumstantial physical evidence, some, some bank records you know, you know, some other individuals. I know the young lady who is now of age is going to be or they're trying to give her a grant or immunity. There just has to be more than I know a lot of my friends on because, you know, Jack on Twitter hands out law degrees all the time.

So all my lawyers on Twitter are like, you know, you got them, you got them. And I'm like, no, that's not the way this works. So I'm sure there's more, but what it is, we don't know what that is yet just yet. It doesn't end with Joel Greenberg. They need more to have it. Don't you agree, Ben? I mean, doesn't that make sense to you?

It does make sense to me, but I also just, the Gates character, just the fact that I don't think he knows that he's even a congressman. Like he's living this bizarre, weird life that I mean, it's disgusting. It's despicable. It's weird. But that's like so representative. I mean, setting aside the crime. I mean, you walk around and you go, yo, that guy's a shithead. Like he just is a walking, talking, just shithead of a person.

And the fact that he's like mainstream Republican now is just that's wild to me in a non-Jack legal degree. It's like this guy's an asshole. I just tossed it to him for a legal analysis. I appreciate that refreshing honesty. Matt Gates is a character, truly. And but for Trump, would you ever know who Matt Gates was? Like, but for Trump. You know, and you got to realize that these people have emerged from their basements where they play video games all day and eat Cheerios off their stomach. Like, think about think about what's her name? Major Taylor Green. Like she's wild. Like, but she won an election in this country to be. And there's seven hundred and thirty five thousand people in congressional seats. I mean, that's going to change now that you have redistricting. But as of 2010, in the last map drawn, that's the average that there is. And she won a race in a district like

that. Just think about these human beings that are serving. But admit, that's why you haven't run for office again, you know, since then, because like, for me, just the concept of like, you know, that's my coworker is a hard, just a hard thing for me to even stomach that, like, you're part of that. Not just that's my coworker, but my coworker has, that person is my coworker who has more seniority, therefore more power than I have. Can you imagine that person dictating the way the government runs?

Correct? No. Switching gears slightly, looking at law enforcement in this country at large, you know, you see 90% of these body cam videos that come out,

good Samaritan videos that come out, videos that, you know, we're able to see. And the cops are the ones, 90% is just my opinion on this, being the aggressors, really escalating the situation. How do we get de-escalation tactics at the forefront of officers' minds moving forward? That's a really good question. And I think that the way that you do that is is is not a simple answer i think one of the reasons that we're taking a full frontal attack on qualified immunity is that so officers have to think for a moment you know if if the officer in the dante rights case uh if she had to think for a second and pause for a second, maybe she wouldn't have confused her taser with her gun, right?

Or yeah, her gun with her taser. You just think that if your pension is on the line or a part of your livelihood is on the line, then maybe you, for a fraction of a moment, may reconsider your actions. Because right now, cops, they can beat your ass a number of times, and then the city pays it out, right? There's no skin in the game, so there's no deterrence.

I think on a much larger policy level, to answer your question, Jordy, you have to have a database where you collect the bad acts of officers. I believe we're going to get that database in the George Floyd justice and policing act. The holdup is whether or not that database is public or not. Because right now, I don't know where you're based. Where are you based, Jordy? I'm in Pittsburgh right now. So in Pittsburgh, right. You know, you can shoot somebody, get fired. It doesn't rise to the level of criminality. It's a bad shoot unjustified. You, you,

DA decides not to charge or whatever it may be, or you beat somebody's ass, whatever it may be, then you can go and join the Philadelphia Police Department. Like there's no database that you input those bad acts. That's kind of first. Second, I think we need to have a national guidelines that govern the use of force training in this country or standardized use of force training. Because what they teach in Pittsburgh is probably different than what they teach in Scranton, which I'm sure is different from what they teach in Charlotte or Columbia. And because there lacks that uniformity, many times the public isn't aware of what's being

taught and what's not. I mean, you get into chokeholds, which we want to ban, but the chokehold in the Eric Gardner case was already banned. So then you rise up to accountability, which is probably the last prong. And that's when you want to limit or get rid of qualified immunity. I think we're starting from get rid of, we'll probably end up with limited. And then you have to lower the standard whereby you can charge officers with federal civil rights crimes because to quote Eric Holder, the standard is just too damn high. So I think when you look at it in that totality, you put a framework where officers are more inclined to deescalate, one, because they have more skin in the game, two, because they're

better trained, and three, because they risk that accountability on the backside if they do not. So not only do you have this qualified immunity doctrine, but going back to the beginning of our interview, who ultimately is ruling on whether qualified immunity applies? And ultimately, those are the judges and judges, particularly here, a ton that Trump appointed when he remade the judiciary. The hardest thing for me to do, Bakari, on these civil rights cases is when the defendants file a motion for summary judgment on a qualified immunity ground, and I have a really good case. But I have to explain to the family who lost a loved one that the judge may apply this doctrine to say that there wasn't a well-established right at this specific time, and that this specific officer, although while he may have been negligent, didn't violate any established policy,

given the specific fact setting that took place. And the client goes, what do you mean? What do you mean? I came to you. You're supposed to be one of the top lawyers out there. And I said, this judge has a reputation or that judge has a reputation of ruling a certain way. You cross your fingers and you get that ruling sometimes that despite all of the work you put in as a lawyer, despite the meritorious nature, you lose the case and you have to pick up the phone and call the family and let them know. And any lawyer who claims they've never had to make that call is not practicing in this space. That's so true. And I think that, I mean, many times that's why you see a lot of cases settled prior to that because of the risk on both sides. But you look at the Botham John case, for example,

where Amber Geiger walked into the wrong apartment and shot him while he was eating ice cream on his own. So that case was initially held up because of qualified immunity. Just in January, they went through and they reheard it and allowed them to sue the police department. Terrence Crutcher is a legendary case in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was a gentleman with his hands up. He was walking away. There was a helicopter view, which is why many people remember it. The officer shot him in the back. The jury actually found her not guilty, but wrote a note because of the way the statute was written, but wrote a note saying she should never be able to be in law enforcement again.

Well, she now is in the county over teaching individuals in law enforcement how to cope after they kill somebody in the line of duty. So, you know, life ain't fair, to say the least. And that case has been held up on qualified immunity. And so, you know, just not being able to have that accountability on that or that justice, we're hopeful that we get either close on May 25th, which is the one year anniversary of George Floyd's death, or we soon thereafter get some answers on how we can limit that scope. What's going on in your life recently? What you got going on? I got a, my book comes out in paperback on Tuesday, May 18th. It's out in French right now. Look at that. See that? On pays, we blay. Yeah. And it's coming out in Spanish and German.

It's being released all around the world. It's kind of cool. I'm from a town where we got 3,300 people, three stoplights and a blinking light. So it's pretty cool to have that done. Congratulations. You know, just practicing law and working on CNN and getting ready to do Wolf and, and Anderson. And I'm probably going to catch a little bit of the PGA championship this week. So that's the story of my life. I like, what do it. What do you think when,

what went through your mind when you saw Ingram talk about your accent or whatever she was saying? Bakari Sellers suddenly showed up in North Carolina today to condemn the police

in another case, pouring on the dramatic effect as if you needed it and sporting an accent that maybe I missed something, but I'd never heard him use on TV before. That was crazy, man, but I'd never heard him use on TV before. That was crazy, man, because I didn't know what happened. And because you know when

you get mentioned by somebody on Twitter or by somebody on Fox News, by the tone and tenor of your messages. And I was like, what in the world? Like my Facebook messages and Instagram messages and Twitter messages were on fire and people were just hating me and like calling me all types of names. And I was like, and then my boss was like, man, Laura Ingram did a whole segment on you tonight. Somebody just sent this to me and she's silly. I don't have any time for Laura Ingram. She's that, I mean, like of a collection of individuals, like, you know, I honestly think Chris Matthews is like one of the best journalists we have out. Right. Chris, Chris Matthews and Jake Tapper are two of the finest journalists we have.

And just in terms of the way that they ask questions. But outside of Chris on that network, I'm not I'm not sure. You know, Laura Ingraham actually brings up the rear like she is. She is by far the worst. And I think that says a lot. It's funny you say that because there'll be times in our, in our email box where all of a sudden we'll just get flooded with hate mail. And we're like, okay, what the hell is happening here? And then we find out, okay, Breitbart wrote a story about us. Fox news mentioned us in a, in a, it's always, it's always the same. It's always like, oh, okay. And you just need that

moment of like ah that what's wild about them is like is like you know you get the guys like the dan vagina guy and and the other people and they come you know and they come after you and they'll be like you know they'll say something like crazy and then you go back at them and then vagina like blocks you right away. I'm blocking them. But let me tell you, but let me just tell you, man, you, you, you should never, you should never wrestle with pigs because you both get dirty and the pig

likes it. So, I mean, I usually just stay away from, from those tit for tats, man. It's nothing, nothing good. Nothing good comes out of those things, man. Well, I appreciate your time today, Bakari. Bakari Sellers, thank you for joining the Midas Touch podcast. I'm glad to be here. Shout out to Adam for getting me on the Midas Touch. Thank you, Adam. Adam Parkamenko, friend of the pod, friend of Midas Touch. Yeah. And pick up that paperback book off Amazon when you get a chance, guys. Thank you so much. It's called My Vanishing Country. You can get it anywhere books are sold.

There you go. I love you guys. Thank you, man. Have a great My Vanishing Country. You can get it anywhere books are sold. There you go. I love you guys. Thank you, man. Have a great day. Thanks, Bacari. We'll be right back after these messages. What's up, Midas Mighty? Thank you for making the Midas Touch merch store

one of the, if not the most popular destination for pro-democracy merch from t-shirts to mugs and of course the best-selling vaxxed wristbands. I can't wait to be out in town getting coffee, getting dinner, whatever it is, and seeing people rocking their wristbands. These wristbands are amazing because it's an easy way to let people know that you've been vaxxed and are following CDC guidelines. They say Midas Touch right there on them. You know what we like to call them? The perfect GQP repellent. That's exactly what they are, Brett, because it lets people know, to your point, that one, you're vaxxed, you're making a safe community for the folks around you. And two,

maybe even more importantly, right up there, you're not a Fox News watcher. That's what these wristbands let people know. And let's be real. It's just a matter of respect, right up there, you're not a Fox News watcher. That's what these wristbands let people know. And let's be real. It's just a matter of respect, right? We're all going out. A lot of people are going to be kind of uneasy being around other people after being locked in for a while. And it's an easy way to just let your neighbors know, let your friends know, let your overworked

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receiving their tank tops and everything. So go check out store.midastouch.com. Get your pro-democracy gear today. That's store.midastouch.com. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. One of the things I like, which I didn't mention before, but I want to mention it quickly here. I like the democratic strategy though, when it comes to Marjorie Taylor Greene, though, as well. Yes, we need to elevatealwell and AOC are basically like, look, she's just someone who's very disturbed and she's got a serious problem. It's absolutely true. I mean, did you see the video of her harassing AOC in her office before she was elected? But she literally is like, we just did a side by side because the right resemblance was

uncanny between her and the Joker. The way she maniacally laughed in front of AOC's office and screamed through her mail slot at her door. I mean, this is harassment. This is an obsessed person. This is like if your stalker got a job next to you in your office. That's Marjorie Taylor Greene's relationship with AOC in Congress. She is a stalker. If she were my next door neighbor, I would have filed a restraining order months ago against the psychotic and unhinged human being. I think somebody said on social or in an article that I was reading, if Marjorie Taylor Greene had any other job, this is the same for Donald Trump. You would have been fired the

first day, you know, you know, you don't get to you don't get to to go around in life and be such a reckless and reprehensible human being any other where other than being a GQP member in Congress. That's the only way or in the White House. You know, Trump couldn't get the security clearances to even have an internship at the CIA, yet alone to actually have any real any real position. He got fired from any corporate job on day one and any non-corporate job on day one just based on, you know, just one of the tweets, the boss would come in and knock and just say, and just say, as my dogs think that I'm knocking at the front door. Can you hear him in the background? They're out here to, they're out here to protect,

they're out here to protect Ben, but they would basically, it's a Marjorie getter. Exactly. But they would basically go and terminate you on the first day is my opinion. And it's this, you know, yes, it's the, it's the reprehensible recklessness. And then there's also just this level of incompetence. I mean, that's like, like you'd also get fired because you couldn't do the work you said you were going to do. Like, that's also why you would you would get fired. It was like, oh, you told me that you can do Excel spreadsheets and you never learned Excel. It's like that kind of conversation. Proficient in Microsoft Word and you've never used a computer before. That's basically what these people are. I mean, just look at this fake audit though with the cyber ninjas. I mean, it's a ridiculous and preposterous name. And we've told you from day one that these are people who

had never even been involved in doing this type of audit or any election style audit before. But these are who the GQP brings in, opens their door of their state to let the ninjas in, to let the fucking ninjas in. I mean, just think that's what the political party did. And sure enough, what happens? They don't know what they're doing. So the lease that they had to basically be able to do the fake audit, that expired. People use these coliseums, in this case, the Veterans Memorial Coliseum for graduations and other things. So now they have to take all of the ballots out. They're acting like, oh, the ballots are now safe. They're like in random trucks and cars now.

And they had to be removed. Could you imagine if the situation was reversed and Democrats were putting ballots in random cars and trucks, not accounting for anything? It's crazy. Right. Just relocating them, repositioning them, not getting them done. I mean, it sounds like we've been talking about the cyber ninja thing for like three, four weeks now. Like the ninjas. What kind of ninja? I thought ninjas are supposed to be. Was that correct? These are the slowest ninjas I've ever seen. These are cyber frauds right here.

But that goes to it again. It's reprehensible. It's reckless, but it's incompetent. They couldn't even get the job done in the time they said that they were going to get it. I've said this before, but we are lucky that despite the fact that this is an evil party, that they are somehow dumber than they are evil. And that has saved us. Now, our fear should be in the future when somebody who actually has a modicum of intelligence gets in a position of power at this party and begins using that to fight against Democrats. But for now, we have to realize that they are so stupid. And they just are. I mean, even if you take it to you know scott baio tweeting the

other day about costco being a a public company because it's publicly traded on the stock market not being able to make its own private rules because it's a public company scott baio said i mean like it's the government like it's the government like it's like you have you know the department of education and costco like like in scott baio's mind government. It's like you have the Department of Education and Costco. In Scott Baio's mind, these are the same things. You have the House of Representatives, the Senate, Costco. This is not the post office. Costco is a private business that's publicly traded on the stock market. It was like when the GQP talked about the Facebook decision or non-decision to temporarily keep Trump banned. And they're like, this needs to immediately be appealed to the Supreme Court.

It's like, yo, they're a private company, you idiots. Like, what are you talking about? Beyo was obviously coming to the defense of fellow child star, if you want to call him that, Rick Schroeder. Is Rick Schroeder really a child star? I've seen him be referred to as that. But like child star, was this guy really a star as a child? I mean, I don't know before my time, I'm going to take his word for it,

but, but there's some, there's some issue here where, you know, this is one of my favorite things. And I don't mean that as I enjoy these videos, but I just am like, every time I see these, I just roll my eyes. And I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? But Ricky, whatever the fuck his name is, he's from a long line of people who have come out in the past year since the pandemic started and decided that taping themselves being disgusting human beings was the right thing to do because they think they are the heroes in this situation. And it's just so baffling to me. So Schroeder went up to a Costco employee at a California Costco who denied him entry because he was refusing to wear a mask. And he starts berating the Costco employee saying, but the federal this, the federal that. Meanwhile, California has its own laws. Costco has its own laws. Costco is actually removing mask mandates

in many of its stores, but California, they're still following the state laws. And this Schroeder thinks it's his duty now to go around and harass and put his camera in the faces of employees who are just doing their jobs. And he thinks that he looks like the good guy out of this because this is what the Republican Party has. Can we play the clip, by the way? What's your name? My name is Jason. And what do you do here? I'm a supervisor, front-end supervisor.

And why aren't you letting me in? Because in the state of California, in the county of Los Angeles, there has been no- And Costco, there has been no change to our mask policy. Not in the state of California or in the county of Los Angeles. Didn't you see the news? You didn't see the news. Nationwide Costco said you don't need to wear a mask actually that's not accurate what is that so what is accurate is that costco always always goes

above and beyond when following the law and the mandate in california has not changed i give the costco employees so much credit man costco jason i think started the trend later that day yeah such a cool calm demeanor dealing with this lunatic. And Schroeder, don't you have anything better to, I guess not, don't you have anything better to do than berate this Costco employee? And as far as child stars go, like Lindsay Lohan, that's a child

star. The Olsen twins, those were child stars. Schroeder doesn't even, he's nowhere near on top of that mountain of child stars. That's ridiculous. I think I want to agree with you, Jordy. The problem there is, is he does predate our time.

So I don't know. I've never heard of, uh, I've never watched silver spoons before the eighties sitcom. So I don't know if he is considered one or isn't, but he clearly is a reprehensible person right now. But here's the thing. I think the deeper issue,

and this goes to show you though I think the deeper issue. And this goes to show you, though, what the Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, 8chan, 4coosh, whatever they call these things are, what this ego chamber creates. Because they just listen to their own craziness. Rick, when he was talking to Costco, Jason thought that everybody around him was going to agree with him. He thought that his ideas were the prevailing view because all he does is talk to our people who share the same echo chamber view. But when he goes there and bread, it's to your point with these people going out there and then taping themselves in public places, exposing themselves when they're violating health ordinances. And most Americans, most people are just like, Hey, just want to be healthy. No one loves wearing masks. Okay. No one loves the fact that we have to go through this. We just, we just want to protect our children. At the end of the day. We want to protect our parents at the end of the day. We want to protect our loved ones in our lives, our partners,

our spouses. That's really what we want to do, man. Can you just not go in my face and scream at me? Can you not march around a Macy's or a Costco like a crazy person. Can we just please, just please, just, just, I want to live. Okay. And the Schroeders of the world who were part of the death cult don't want that. But that's the importance of making sure other people hear these ideas. Before the echo chamber of Fox and people went into their little, you know, their own bubbles and wouldn't get out, there would be other ideas that were out there that could permeate and people would read newspapers. They would watch, you know, objective or as objective as television can be. They'd go

into town halls and have discussions. That's all gone right now. And that's also why we've created Midas Touch. We need to create a force, though, that penetrates beyond any particular echo chamber and delivers the truth or allows people who are residing and who may share our views to use our videos to hopefully share and send to family members, to other individuals who may believe the stuff that Schroeder believes. That's one of the things that we're doing here at Midas Touch. So thank you again for listening to us on this episode of our podcast. Thank you to our guest, Bakari Sellers. Thank you to our sponsor, Grove Collaborative. Hope you're out there purchasing or going on the Midas Merch store because I'd love to see just those bracelets everywhere. And they are selling great. Thank our guest, Bakari Sellers. Thank our sponsor, Grove Collaborative.

Again, you can check out the Midas Touch merch at store.midastouch.com. This has been my cellist joined by my brothers, Brett and Jordy, my cellist. We will see you at the end of the week on our next Midas Touch podcast. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.