The MeidasTouch Podcast - Biden gets a Supreme Court pick (feat. IL Sec. of State Candidate Alexi Giannoulias)

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, the brothers sit down with former Illinois Treasurer, Democratic Nominee for Senate in 2010 & now candidate for Illinois Secretary of State, Alexi Giannoulias! During the interview, Alexi talks about the significance of state and local elections, his reason for running for office as well as his unique relationship with President Obama. The remainder of the episode, the brothers dive deep into the latest major breaking news of the week, starting with Supreme Court Justice Breyer announcing his retirement. Next up, we discuss Florida’s pro-covid Surgeon General, Spotify vs. Neil Young, Matt Gaetz in serious legal trouble, the Biden economic boom and much more! If you enjoyed today’s episode please be sure to rate, review & subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: BLINKIST: https://blinkist.com/meidas ATHLETIC GREENS: https://athleticgreens.com/meidas MAGIC SPOON: https://magicspoon.com/meidas and use promo code MEIDAS MASTERWORKS: https://masterworks.art/meidas Listen to and follow “The Lost Debate” Podcast! Website: https://lostdebate.com/ Youtube: https://bit.ly/3Gs5YTF Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lost-debate/id1591300785 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lostdebate Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelostdebate Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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With over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, We'll be right back. to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast, Ben, Brett, and Jordy. Jordy, fighting for democracy with you each and every day. For those listening, Jordy just looks so precious today. He's waving. Did you shame Jordy?

I did shame him. I did shame him. Thanks, guys. Yeah. No, I do that every podcast. So it's hilarious that you're just noticing every time you announce me, you could go back and watch every YouTube. I do like this punching thing.

I don't know why I do it, but I do it. And then you say, Jordy, and I wave and I do it every single show. We're now a year into the show and you've just picked up on that. Can I tell you the difference between Jordy and me, aside from a lot of things? Jordy probably shaved about an hour ago. And if you look at Jordy's face, he has a good five o'clock shadow on. What I'm working with right now is probably two weeks of not shaving. And that right there is one of the differences. Well, that's why I said Jordy. Jordy looks super young. You look like you're like 14 years old,

Jordy. I've been working out a little bit harder. I'm really trying to get in shape for this attorney general, Josh Shapiro basketball game one-on-one. If you listened to the podcast a few weeks ago, you know, this game is now officially going down. It's happening February 15th, more details to come. I'm trying to like, I need to lose some weight. Maybe our guest today could help you out and give you some tips. Ben, who do we got on the show today? Our guest today is Alexi Janoulias, former Illinois treasurer. Alexi was the Democratic nominee for United States Senate in 2010. I don't know if you remember that race was against the guy named Mark Kirk. He was endorsed by Obama.

Yeah, no, Janoulias was endorsed by Obama. And Janoulias almost won that race. He was almost the Obama. Yeah, no, Janulius was endorsed by Obama. And Janulius almost won that race. He was almost the United States Senator. Mark Kirk lost to Senator Duckworth by 13 points in 2016. But that's what that race and that's what that Senate seat was. He's running for Illinois Secretary of State. Alexei is a very compelling person. He's a rising star in the Democratic Party. And also, I want to highlight Secretary of State positions in general, the importance of Secretary of State positions as voting rights, literacy, all of the administrative things that held our institutions together as the radical right American Taliban extremists. Yeah, you heard that.

You heard what I said. Are trying to destroy and untether our country. We need Secretary of States who are great. It's an important position as our school boards, as are all of these administrative positions, but perhaps nothing more important than the United States Supreme Court. We see elections have consequences. And for all of those people who sat on the sidelines during the Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump race and thought they're both the same. One, you're fucking stupid. Number two, number two, Ben with the tough love today. Let's go today. Go on some tough love. Because look what happened. You know, I'm sorry if that offended you, but you need you need to be shaken a little bit right there because look what we have. We now have a radical right extreme court that is going to likely overturn Roe v.

Wade or at the very least uphold in this Dobbs versus Mississippi case, the 15 week ban on abortion. This is a Supreme Court that allowed the Texas bounty hunter law SB8 to stay in effect. This is a Supreme Court that is going to allow military style weapons to be proliferate everywhere around school districts. This is a radical right. Supreme Court that is going toee, one of the three pro-democratic justices. That's how I like to frame it. You have six radical right extremist justices. Small D democratic.

Three democracy loving judges. He announced he's going to retire, paving the way for Biden's first Supreme Court nominee and the appointment process to take place. Justice Breyer is, well, he ain't a young guy. Justice Breyer, 83 years old, time to step down. And I think this is an important decision. This is the right decision. And you could act like the Supreme Court is not political all you want, but the fact is it is extremely political. And this retirement is incredibly important for Democrats, for anyone who cares about democracy, that we can now get a justice in there in time before the midterms that is going to uphold democratic values and that will be in there for a very long time. I mean, what we're seeing now is this won't change the makeup of the Supreme Court, but it will change the makeup of the Supreme Court in terms of age. And we will have

a lot of young, and I use the term young relative in the political world, in the Supreme Court world, young justices that are more liberal-leaning, more left-leaning in the court, which is going to be important and affect the outcome of cases in this country for generations to come. And so I think it's an important stepping stone. I would love to have more representation in the court there, but it looks like he is set to step down in around June or July of this year. But Democrats not going to waste any time here are getting ready to get their nomination process started. President Biden says that he plans to nominate a new justice by the end of February. Judge Psaki reiterated that President Biden stands by his original pledge to nominate

the first black woman to the Supreme Court. My own prediction of who the justice he's going to nominate is, is a DC circuit judge named Katonji Brown Jackson is who I think Biden will nominate. That's a Ben prediction. Put it in the books. Let me tell you that. Let me tell you why she's been through the nomination process before to become a DC Circuit judge. So she's already gotten the approval of the Senate. So it would just be another confirmation process. And so she's already been vetted through that confirmation process. That's why I think that's important. But speaking of confirmation processes, did you see the Florida Surgeon General's confirmation process?

Like, here's the thing, and this is why I wanted Alexi on the podcast as well. Now is like the first time we would ever even talk about, as a news story, a surgeon general, not from the United States, who, by the way, we had to talk about during the Trump administration with all the wackadoodle COVID policies and things that were going on and criminal COVID policies that were going on. We're talking about a state surgeon general because what's going on there is just so absolutely outrageous. Governor Death Santus, he appoints Dr. Joseph Ladapo as Surgeon General. I don't know if you know this, Grant Stern was circulating some clips of Dr. Joseph Ladapo laughing when people were asking him questions, like when they would approach him at scientific

conventions. And it was always a very weird look. But to see him in this confirmation process, why don't we just start by playing the clip where he's asked by one of the legislatures, are vaccines good or bad? It's a very basic question that he was asked. That vaccines in fighting against a pandemic like COVID-19 are effective. You reckon this? Thank you for your question, Senator. So again, I would say that the question is a scientific one, and it's one that is answered with data. So the question is informed by data on specific outcomes

and specific therapies. So that's the scientific question. Mr. Chair, just a couple more follow-ups. Just a yes or no. Do vaccines work in fighting against COVID-19? Yes or no? You recognize? Senator, as a scientist,

I am compelled to answer the scientific question. And I'd be happy to answer any specific scientific question that you have related to vaccines and COVID-19. Scientifically, do the vaccines work against preventing COVID-19? Yes or no? Recognized. Okay. Well, thank you again, Senator. So, you know, yes or no questions are not that, that easy to find in science. Okay. That goes on for literally another two minutes of the guy refusing to answer. Yes or no? Are vaccines effective?

The answer is yes. There's no other answer. Yes, vaccines. Not just the guy. The Florida Surgeon General. The Florida Surgeon General. This is the guy who's appointed for Florida Surgeon General, the guy who's in this role right now. I mean, it is so outrageous.

And it just goes to show you that I feel like often we separate like the QAnon people in the Republican Party from like the mainstream Republican Party. We don't. We don't. I'm saying overall the media, you know, in general. Yeah, that's why we call them the GQP, because they are the QAnon party. But this is exactly why we frame them like that here, because here's somebody in a very important role during a very important crisis espousing vaccine quackery disinformation just flat out lies refusing to answer a simple question that yes vaccines work i don't know what it is that we somehow act like marjorie taylor green and lauren bobert is that they're crazier than ron desantis and this guy, but they're really not that much crazier. They're not the fringe of the Republican Party.

That's mainstream Republican Party for you, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, DeSantis. They try to couch it in, listen, we're not anti-vax. We're anti-mandate. We're anti-forcing you to do X, Y, and Z. But time and time again, even that is proving to be bullshit because what we're seeing is DeSantis firing people who work for the Florida government, who even just encourage people in the government to get vaccinated, not require them to, but say, hey, I think if you work

for the office, I think it's a good idea if you get vaccinated. Fired, fired. That's what DeSantis is doing down there. DeSantis making this whole scene because the monoclonal antibodies that the FDA has decided are not effective anymore and should not be used because they don't work. Literally they do not work for the Omicron variant, which represents now over 99% of the cases in the country. DeSantis freaking out and trying to act like this is an attack on science, an attack on

Florida when even the drug manufacturers themselves say, yeah, you shouldn't be using these treatments anymore. You should use the treatment that does work, but you shouldn't be using our treatment, which has been proven to be ineffective. It might actually be dangerous at this point because it doesn't help people. And that's what happens when your whole strategy relies on everybody get COVID, everybody gets sick, and then we'll try to get you these therapeutic treatments after to try to help you out, rather than trying to nip the problem in the bud and saying, everybody, get vaccinated, and you won't end up in the hospital in the first place. These guys, they're nuts. They're crazy people. And this should be easy for Democrats

to run against. It should be easy for us to run against people who are this insane. We should be highlighting these words every day. One of the things to mention against people who are this insane. We should be highlighting these words every day. One of the things to mention about this attorney, this surgeon general as well, is when he was meeting as part of the confirmation process with Florida Senator Tina Polsky, who currently has breast cancer, he refused to wear a mask. She respectfully requested that he wear a mask in her presence because she has the comorbidity that could result in serious ramifications. He refused to even put on the mask and then tried to blame her for even asking him to do that. And what this ultimately comes out to, oh, by the way, the Florida Senate, they walked out as a result of the Democrats did as a result of the Dapo's answers.

Good for them for doing that. But what this ultimately comes down to, you know, is real personal responsibility. I mean, Democrats need to take the mantle of we are the party of personal responsibility. We are the party of respecting our community and being decent and moral human beings. That's what Democrats are. That's why I've always said it time and time again, do not call Republicans conservative. Check yourself. Every time you say the conservatives, stop. Correct yourself. Say, I misspoke. These are radical right extremists. I know it's going to be tough because it keeps being grilled, conservatives, liberals. They

don't get to use the name conservatives anymore when they take off their masks and try to cough on women who have breast cancer. They lose the mantle of conservatives many steps before that, but that's just an example of the least conservative things you can do. This podcast is brought to you by Blinkist. Love Blinkist. I've been reading so many of the books in the Blinkist format. I'm not sure if you've read A Short History of Brexit, The Future of Capitalism, The Prince, Letters from a Stoic. I've read The 5AM Club, which is one of my favorite books. I read the actual book, and then I read The Blinkist, and then I read The Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins, which is all about taking action, taking control of your

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That's Blinkist.com slash Midas. Let's empower you to grow personally and professionally by discovering all this new content and reading it in these digestible kind of 15-minute formats that I love. And that's how I read my books now, as I'm so busy doing these great podcasts with you and Popock. Brett, tell us what's going on with Spotify. So the whole Spotify Neil Young controversy, I guess you want to call it that. So basically to rewind a little bit, Neil Young basically posted on his website saying that he no longer wants his music on Spotify as long as Spotify is hosting Joe Rogan on their platform. And so he basically gave them an ultimatum. He said, it's either Rogan or it's me.

And Spotify said, okay, it's Rogan. Spotify said, okay, choice made. If you want your music off, well, you know, we're happy to oblige. We're sorry about that. If you want your music off, well, we're happy to oblige. We're sorry about that. We'll take your music off our platform. And this was the statement that they said. They said, we want all the world's music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place, and we've removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil's decision to remove his music

from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon. So they did it. They went ahead, they removed Neil Young's music. There's been a whole uproar in the Twitter sphere. What do you guys make of the controversy? I'm just going to say, I think it was a really noble move on Neil Young's part. I like it in practice, but in execution, man, I think it's honestly just been a disaster. And here's why. Look, Spotify just gave Joe Rogan a $100 million contract. They're not walking away from Joe Rogan. They're just not. But if Neil Young were to get a coalition of other artists and do this big movement with 20, 50 other artists, and they all make this, you know, one statement, joint statement at once, then maybe, just maybe that might work.

But one artist alone is not going to be enough to pull the plug on Joe Rogan. And then unfortunately, all I've seen on my Twitter feed for the last 48 hours is Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan, this Joe Rogan, that, and you just give them ammunition at the end of the day to cause the woke mob. Jory, I think your comment was funny yesterday that you said you were like, well, you know, Neil Young, after all, is the voice of the generation and, you know, something like that. That's the thing. I mean, you know, you have to have a lot of clout in order for that to be, for that to work. You need to have a tremendous amount of clout. And I don't even know if any one artist has that amount of clout to really get somebody else removed from a platform. But I agree. If you want to do that, what you need to do is you need to build a coalition of dozens of other artists who threaten to do the same exact thing and really force Spotify

into the decision. I mean, this should shock nobody that they went with their leading podcaster, one of the biggest drivers to their platform over Neil Young, who, let's face it, like Neil Young, incredibly successful, one of the most successful artists of all time. But right now, is he the most relevant artist in the world who has all this pull? No, I mean, he's not. I mean, it's just not the case. And so, I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, you know, vote with your wallet. Like if you wanna get rid of Spotify because of this, get rid of Spotify. They'll only listen to ultimately what the money decides.

I'll leave that to you. I wouldn't shame anybody for not doing that. But really what we have to be doing is we need to learn how to compete in these spaces. I mean, that really is the issue. The issue shouldn't be, okay, we need to like silence and get rid of all these voices that are on there because we don't like what they're saying, but it's gotta be,

we need to be uplifting pro-democracy voices and we need to drown out these other voices. And we need to make our coalition of pro-democracy voices that much stronger so that our pro-democracy voices are the ones topping the charts and getting the Spotify deals and are the ones who are being talked about every day. Because right now you're just talking about Joe Rogan nonstop. You're giving this guy the biggest platform on the planet. I'll take a slightly contrarian opinion to you, Brett. I do think that we need as pro-democracy advocates to improve our content machinery. We need to stop taking down or trying to destroy like other Democrats and content creators who are putting forward the, you know, great content. We

need to be uplifting and building and inspiring the next generation of democratic voices. But I'll say this, Neil Young should be praised for his principal position. Yes, I agree with Jordy. Neil Young doesn't have the juice. But if he sent a message to other artists out there, if he sent a message to other activists out there, to other athletes out there, you know, you know, my representation of Colin Kaepernick, him and a small group of players took a knee, and then a very small group continued to take a knee. And if everybody stayed together, if there truly was a coalition that was completely unified, it's those unified voices that can always speak truth to power

in all of these various settings. Imagine if Neil Young got Adele. Imagine if Neil Young got Taylor Swift, if he got Paul McCartney, if he got all these other bigger artists. Then imagine if he went to the other podcasts that Spotify pays. There are other big people who they've given $20, $50, $100 million to and had them give Spotify the ultimatum. That would be a powerful case to be made. And then Spotify would really be faced with the decision. Do we want to be the platform that doesn't have these great artists? Like one of the major reasons that everybody comes here is so they can listen to all of our music and suddenly they can't listen to

Adele, they can't listen to you name it. Or do we want to be the platform that everybody from Gab and 4chan and everybody is coming to? Yeah, but Neil Young isn't a community organizer. What Neil Young is trying to do is trying to light the match so that hopefully other people take his lead. And what I think is problematic is that a lot of people who may have the voices to follow what Neil Young is doing, you know, may not be following his lead, you know, may not be taking that mantle. But I'm with you. Ultimately, though, the question, though, Brett, is should they be taking the mantle

or should there be, though, just more content out there, you know, and we compete with Rogan, you know, we got to build the audience, you know, and but it's an interesting debate. But let me tell you something that really shouldn't have a debate. What's going on in Arizona? I don't know if you saw this today, Brett. This is breaking literally as we're, you know, as this Arizona bill that was introduced that would literally allow the legislature to vote whether they approve the election results on a yes or no. And remember, this is the same legislatures who signed on to the forged documents to create the

fake electors that were submitted to the archives that were part of the coup plan that the fake electors from the Republicans were going to replace the actual winning slate of electors. This comes from the state Senate that hired the cyber ninjas, which was a complete and utter sham and disaster. And so there's literally a bill that was introduced. We'll see what happens with the bill, but that's what the bill says. Legislature can overturn the results. Yeah, flat out. They could overturn the results. And not only that, it limits voting to one day only. You only have one day to vote, takes away all early voting options, and also takes away basically all mail-in ballots, bans nearly all mail-in ballots. I mean, it's

really just like we don't want people to vote. We tried it out and our candidate didn't win. Let's try to get rid of this. It's a pattern that's happening throughout the country right now. And that's what the Republicans stand for, voter suppression, upholding white supremacy at all costs, and this shift towards authoritarianism, this shift towards autocracy. And we're seeing it in Arizona and we're seeing it in even states like New York. The New York Young Republican Club putting together a statement to endorse Viktor Orban of Hungary, the autocratic leader in Hungary. You know, they didn't have to make a statement.

No one was asking who they were. No one was asking who they were endorsing in Hungary. This isn't in their purview, but they felt it necessary to make a statement to support the autocratic leader in Hungary. And I think Hungary is a – it should be a foreboding tale of our own country here because they are a country that fell to this autocratic leader. And there's somebody who these Republicans want to emulate here. They want that here. They want that brand of far-right authoritarianism, that brand of fascism in America. And that's why you see Tucker Carlson promoting people like Orban.

That's why you see Donald Trump promoting people like Orban, because this is how they view America in the world, or this is how they want to see America in the world. They want to see America be alongside Hungary and be alongside Russia instead of alongside our current allies like Canada and France and the UK. It's ultimately the irony of it all is that these current radical right extremists that are Republicans, Republicans are radical right extremists. They're not conservative. They're radical right extremists. What they want is the United States to be like a satellite country, a second fiddle to Russia. The way they see the global map is they see Russia as the leader of the world. They see America as kind of the Robin

to Russia's Batman. And they see United States as having a similar position in Putin's orbit as like a Viktor Orban. That's how they see the way the power dynamic should develop. There's a meeting that's planned. The Viktor Orban election in Hungary, I think it's scheduled for April 3rd. In March, the CPAC, which I'm not going to use the initial C word because I don't believe they are that conservative, but that political action conference, they host it in Hungary. Like they bring all these radical right extremist groups. The CPAC joins with all the radical right extremist groups in Hungary to do a conference that spreads Islamophobia, that spreads authoritarian ideals.

And remember, one of the things Viktor Orban did is he used emergency orders to basically do complete end run arounds, his parliament, basically his Congress. So he could basically make all these rulings by decree. He's instituted all these Islamic phobic policies. He's a Putin puppet. That's who Tucker Carlson wants to be. It's really, really, really astonishing. This podcast is brought to you by Athletic

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packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com slash Midas. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash Midas and take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. So without further ado, I'd like to bring in our guest, Alexi Janoulias. Alexi was former Illinois treasurer. He was the Democratic nominee for Senate in 2010. I was rooting for you hard there in 2010. And currently running for Illinois Secretary of State, Alexi, welcome to the podcast. I'm thrilled to be on. I'm a big fan of you guys. Sorry we couldn't come through and in 2010,

but I also appreciate the fact that you said my name perfectly. So thank you for honestly, and Ben is awful with last names. I will tell you. So I don't know how the hell he got your last name. Correct. But like Ben, Ben could say that someone's name could be like Tim and Ben would call them time. So I don't even understand how Ben got this one, but brain works in an interesting way. It's a weird, it's a weird personality flaw. If you look at our reviews, they're five-star reviews, but the one criticism is I can't say the most basic names. Right. And I don't know why. And Alexi, it's a real struggle for me. Like

I'm really glad Janulius, I got it right there. Maybe that's my thing. I get complicated names, right? But when I see the names and I'm a regular, confident guy, I'm just like, oh shit, don't mess it up. I psych myself out. It's like, who's that one

player that couldn't throw to first base or whatever? He can do everything, but he couldn't throw to first base or he couldn't, I forgot what it was. Catcher. Catcher couldn't throw to first base or whatever, he can like do everything, but he couldn't throw to first base or he couldn't, I forgot what it was. No. The catcher who couldn't throw back to the pitcher or something crazy. Yeah. The yips.

Ben's got the yips with last names. I'm looking it up. Was that John Lester? Yeah. No, there was, there was someone who I forgot what it was. They couldn't,

they did everything great, but they couldn't do the meeting. Well, that's me in the version of saying names. But, Alexi, you know, you decided to run for Illinois secretary of state. You know, it's interesting. You know, the last time you ran, it was for, you know, United States senator. I've had a prominent position before that is Illinois treasurer. We're starting to see really the importance, though, of these state level positions, local positions. And when good candidates aren't running for them in these positions that we used to think of, oh, that's just an administrative position. It's not. These

positions have lots of power. And we're seeing state after state now where Republicans and radical right extremists have taken these positions, how disastrous that can be. So tell us why you decided to run and the importance of secretary of state position in Illinois and elsewhere. Well, that's a great question. I think a lot of folks, especially the media, like to focus on the governor's races or the U.S. Senate races, obviously presidential. But the truth of the matter is there are so many unbelievably important offices locally on the state side that have more of a tangible impact on people's everyday lives than a lot of these other offices. Right. Not to take anything away from being a U.S. Senator, being a U.S. Congressman or Congresswoman, but the truth of the matter is a lot of the decisions, the big decisions when it comes to voting rights, when it comes to infrastructure

and where projects are, when it comes to education and shutting down schools, a lot of these issues that we're dealing with on a day-to-day basis, it's local politics, what I call, that are the decision makers that are incredibly important. And again, I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from running for the U.S. Senate or running for president or governor, but we have to make sure we keep these offices that I think are as important or right now in the stage we're at in our country's history that are just as important, if not more important to keeping. And when I think about the Secretary of State's race in Illinois, right, not everyone thinks of it as a sexy office, but the truth of the matter is we have over 4,000 employees. We are responsible for

our state's libraries and the chief librarian. We're responsible for all our DMVs. There's a social justice element. There's environmental issues we talk about, which I know we're going to get into, the importance of protecting voting rights. There's so many elements of the office that also serves as essentially the SEC officer of the state at all. So we go after white collar criminals and corporate criminals. So getting keeping these offices in Democrat hands was important before, you know, sort of the Donald Trump craziness and the COVID challenges. It's way more important now. And I think if nothing else, sorry for the rambling answer. We need people now more than ever to step up, stand up, run for these offices because they are crucially important. One of the things you mentioned is education policy. And one of the roles of the Secretary of State of Illinois is administering literacy efforts there. What we are now seeing with radical right extremists in states like Virginia, what we're seeing with even school boards,

you know, in Tennessee, what we're seeing with Ron DeSantis in Florida, banning books, banning topics like discussing the existence of racism, having discussions about LGBTQ plus, having tip lines in Virginia where parents can complain about certain types of books and topics that are being discussed if it offends them, despite it being the reality of what people are going through and dealing with in books that we read growing up. And so what do you think about that trend and what can you do as Secretary of State to combat that? I think it's a first of all, it's a very scary trend. I don't like what I'm seeing. I think COVID has just exacerbated this sort of fear of what we're learning and what people are teaching their kids. And I think this divide and this polarization and these scare tactics has just made everything worse. And I will tell you, you know, both of my parents were immigrants. They came to this country from Greece. And when

they came here, they had nothing, but they cared about the importance of education. That was the biggest thing, making sure that their three boys had every opportunity to be educated and, you know, the freedom of learning about different topics and picking your school and picking your college are such a huge, huge deal. So to see this deterioration is scary to me, not just as a son of immigrants, but someone who's the father of two daughters. I will tell you that in the Secretary of State's office, we're limited in our ability on education issues directly. That being said, I am a huge believer in the importance of our library system as sort of an ancillary to schools, and especially because of COVID where a lot of these young boys and girls have been left behind.

To give you an idea, so the Secretary of State, as I mentioned, is the chief librarian of Illinois. So we oversee three major library systems that cover the entire state. That's about 600 public libraries. We coordinate over, I think, three and a half thousand academic, public school, and special library statewide. I'm currently, or was currently a member, was a member of the Chicago Public Library Board, and this function is more important than ever. You know, COVID and the remote learning environment has just put too many of our students behind. I think our libraries, not just in Illinois, but across the country, can and should be a part of catching, helping these kids catch up. To give you an idea, before COVID, there were 180,000 people that visited our libraries in Illinois every day alone. More than 27,000 questions were asked of our

reference librarians every day, and there were more than, I think, two and a half thousand views of our digital library resources every day. So in Illinois, we're going to expand on these services by offering even more tutoring, more mentoring, more supervision, especially in summer months and after school hours. We're going to find ways to make more electronic offerings available to help combat some of those issues you brought up, financial literacy, civic literacy, but also not letting some of these school boards, and again, not to beat it at horse, that's why these local races are so important. Who's on the school boards? Who are the ones making these decisions? We've seen some of these scary highlights of what goes on during these meetings. We need intelligent, caring, capable people to step up and run for these offices.

You know, it's funny. My client, Colin Kaepernick, recently spoke at the, it's called the LibLearn Ex-American Library Association. He gave a speech about the importance of librarians and them really being on the front lines of, you know, our education system and just being able to teach children diverse viewpoints. And it's just so wild to me that that's under attack and talking about other things that are under attack, voting rights under attack. And we've seen the prominence of secretary of state in, you know, here's the good thing on a barely bipartisan basis, whether I disagree with a lot of the stuff like Brad Raffensperger as secretary of state in Georgia, you know, he still stood up against Trump and faced consequences for that. And say on a bipartisan basis, we now see, you know, in Michigan, the Secretary of State

there, Democratic Secretary of State, wrote a letter recently to the January 6th Committee detailing fake elector slates that were being prepared there. And so the role of Secretary of State in administering elections, signing the certification of electors has really come into play. And so as Secretary of State, I mean, well, first, let me just get your take on what's been going on with the erosion of voting rights and just how you think that's being played out and what can you do as secretary of state in Illinois? Horrifying, unfathomable. I mentioned my parents came to this country as immigrants and when they finally became citizens, the right to vote was such a big deal. It was like such an honor and such a big deal to vote, right? It was never about whether they were going to vote. It was what time of day they were going to vote and which one of the boys was going to go with who.

And I remember, like it was yesterday, we'd get dressed up in a suit and tie and go downstairs to the voting room in the condo building that we grew up in on the north side of Chicago. And it was like we knew every candidate. We knew about everything. My parents did their homework on who they're going to vote for. And walking into that room was such a big deal. And like penciling the names of who you're voting for was such an honor.

And here we are in the year 2022, and you have Republicans across the country that are making it tougher for people to vote. They're disenfranchising people. It's absurd to me, unfathomable. But then you go and you see these people who are waiting five, six, seven hours in line just to cast their ballot. That's crazy. And not to sound naive, I still can't believe they're getting away with it. Not only are they doing on a national level and on a state level, but they're doing it, the underpinnings are there for them to do it on a local level as well. So you mentioned

secretaries of state, Georgia, others. So in Illinois, Secretary of State's not the chief election authority, but we have a lot of important sway when it comes to voting rights. And that's one of the reasons why I'm running for this office. We have a program called Motor Voter. We also have something called Automatic Voter Registration, which whenever you get your license or ID, you automatically get registered to vote. We want to make sure that it's implemented efficiently, competently, and effectively. I also want to use my seat at the table regarding elections to make sure that all Illinoisans are enfranchised, that they can register easily, that they can access relevant information easily. I also want to be a voice, a national voice, hopefully for early voting, for the importance education that unfortunately too many aren't getting in school. So I think that's the biggest threat to our democracy, this attack on voting rights. And I'm scared for what, this also radical right worship of authoritarian leaders across the world, like Victor Orban, that being eroded, I can't even imagine what you must feel about that. not be a Democrat or Republican thing. Everyone should have a chance to vote. We should make it as easily as possible for folks to vote and to be a part of our democracy. That's what this country

has always stood for. And again, I'm not an alarmist. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but the truth of the matter is this is really, really scary shit that's taking place. I'm sure Brett and Jordy, Brett, I have a serious question I have to ask. So I know you have a serious question, Brett and Jordy, but I have to ask this one. So, so Alexi, I got a Peloton recently. And so all I talk about, it's a weird segue, I know, but when I got it 30 days, I got it 30 days ago. So, you know, I'm crushing it, Alexi. I mean, crushing it. I'm 436 kilojoules in 30 minutes. My ranking, 1,344 of 91,000 in the class. It puts me in the top 2%. So proud of you, man. It's a great thing.

Thank you. But we have mutual friends, Alexi. And they're telling me, they go, Alexi's like a workout king. I'm like, what are you talking about? And so they sent me photographs. Let me just show you these photographs. We're going to post them. So Alexi, that beats my 436 kilojoules. I got deeply rooted sources here. And this is what I was told about you,

that you are a freakish workout machine, that your eating regimen includes you eat one meal a day, and that you have an Obama basketball story that I have to ask you about. So just explain the one meal a day and this work. How do you do that workout routine and, you know, do everything else that you do? Well, you know, first of all, it's a little embarrassing, but, you know, I'm an active guy. And I think that someone who, you know, I played basketball in college, I played overseas, being active is something, again, having two older brothers, we've always played sports, we're always active and working out for me, which I do, you know, I try and do seven days a week. It's more about a mental state, right? I mean, I don't do it for aesthetics. I'm 45 years old with

a wife and two kids. So it's not like I care how I look. I do it for mental. I do think, you know, being in shape, eating right, it's a message for a lot of people. I think COVID has shown us that people who take care of themselves and get vaccinated and boosted tend to do better. So I think on a number of fronts, I wish this country was a little healthier, that we took better care of ourselves. When you think about, I think it's like 75 or 80% of all diseases and illnesses are preventable. If people took better care of themselves, it can help our healthcare system. So I'm kind of a nut when it comes to health and diet.

I'm a big believer in intermittent fasting. So I eat in like basically a four-hour window every day. And that's it? You do one meal in a four-hour window and then that's all you eat for a day? I might eat a couple meals, but it's it. You do one meal in a four hour window and then that's all you eat for a day. I might eat, you know, a couple of meals, but it's in that window. Like right now I haven't eaten. I think I'm on hour like 19, which is why I'm sipping, uh, you know, sipping water. You get used to it very quickly. It's not that tough. It's very easy. Um, and there are lots of studies behind it. Um, but I'm, I'm a big believer in taking care of yourself. I want to be a role model for my two

daughters, eating clean, eating healthy, making sure they eat whole foods. I'm not a big believer in junk and stuff we eat out of boxes and bags. And that's what we do in this country. We don't eat whole foods. Eat as much as you want, but eat the right stuff. I don't know how you're going to top that question, but yeah, well, the photos, the photos don't lie. If you're listening to this podcast, I recommend you take a look at the YouTube stream after and see, because this is, this is just, this is just ridiculous, man. I mean, come on. This is just, this is just crazy.

I think all of us are in awe of what we're doing. Yeah. You're going to put Ben's 430, whatever jewels to, uh, to shame. Ben, what place were you in? 1,1199? When I finished the class, I was around 300 of a class of about 12,000. And then it builds to more people as more people write it. I was 1,344 of 91,937 people.

You got to get to number one. You got to win that. You got to win that damn thing. All right. Back to politics. I'm going to ask you just a very practical question, Alexi. And that's you got a primary coming up. You got some primary challengers. I saw a recent poll that pulled 600 likely primary voters found that 50. You are on the top of the poll right now, tied for the top. But 58 percent of people surveyed are still undecided on the race. So how could you convince those voters that you're the right candidate for this role?

Well, I think it's still a little early to push the primary back to June. We are up in all the polls, which feels nice, but there's a lot of work to do now. I'm very proud of the campaign we've built. We've been endorsed by over 200 elected officials, almost all of organized labor, people like Congressman Chuy Garcia, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, groups like Our Revolution. We have high name ID from the U.S. Senate race. So things are going pretty well. But again, I'm not, you know, I'm doing this because I believe in public service. And I think we need people to step up and be more engaged in the public domain and run for office. So I'm not going to bang on any of my opponents. I just think I'm going to continue to talk about modernization

of the office, focusing on our libraries, most importantly, protecting our democracy, and doing everything we can to help this country move forward. Because I do think we are living in very, very precarious times. And I think we need people to step up and fight for our democracy, fight for our country and fight for our planet. Absolutely. And Alexi, I caught something that you said before. You said you had two older brothers, so that makes you the youngest. There we go. I knew we had some sort of connection going on. And you know what? We also have another connection is back in my day, I used to play basketball too. Not nearly at the level that you did, but I have a big game coming up with the attorney general of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro. He challenged me to a one-on-one game. And I know you used to play against former president Barack

Obama back in the day. Now, any tips? How did those games go? Did you go super competitive at him? I know he wasn't president at the time. What's up, man? He pretends he's this smiley, nice, cool cat, but he is a competitor. He's a killer on the court. We started playing before he was president. I've known him since I was in high school. We played while he was president. And so I'll give you the abbreviated story, but we were in Des Moines, Iowa before the Iowa caucuses the first time he ran. And, you know, the night before, someone was like, let's find a gym. And, you know, on election day at a certain point, what's done is done.

You're not going to move the needle too much. So we found an old, ratty, freezing cold gym in Des Moines, Iowa. We got nine guys, and we had the guy who opened the door for us who was like essentially the janitor. He was our tent. I'm not exaggerating. We played hoops for a couple hours. He hit the stump a little bit.

We won Iowa, which was you know surprised some people we did not play in New Hampshire Hillary won New Hampshire so we're like all right screw this we are only we are playing on a January day and then it became a tradition so we played on election day and then for his re-elect at that point we had like you know Scottie Pippen and all these stars and all these um you know nice court and jerseys and it was funny to see that from that cold gym in des moines where the janitors are 10th and we're wearing like coats to play in this gym to having scotty pippen and like um all these stars and celebrities it was just crazy to see how things sort of moved forward.

Man, those have to be the absolute coolest games. Now, when he was president, I know you said that you played when he was president. Did you let him win? No, never. No one let him win. I do remember on election day in 2012, we're playing at this game and I'm like looking at the, because I like to win too, and I'm looking at the, at the teams. And I was on, you know, president Obama's team, Arnie Duncan, who's a outstanding basketball player. Who's a former secretary of education was on another team. And so there's four teams. I noticed that Scotty Pippen was on another team and I'm like,

our team, why the hell is Scotie Pippen on our team? He's like, well, I didn't make the teams. His friend Marty Nesbitt made the teams. And I look at him, I go, hey, no offense, you're the president of the United States. Like, we need Scottie Pippen. And he kind of looks at me for a second, looks over, crosses out someone's name, puts Pippen on our team. He goes, Pippen's on our team. And they're like, what just happened?

He's like, I'm the president of the United States. And then you just see Scottie Pippen push it. I was like, man, that's a lot of juice. We ended up having a pretty successful day. That's so good. And we're wishing you a successful campaign. We appreciate you coming on the podcast, Alexi Janoulias running for secretary of state of Illinois. Thank you so much. Thanks for everything that you guys do. Seriously. Thank you.

Great interview with Alexi. Alexi is a compelling candidate. I wish I wish he won the Senate race, but I'm glad that he's back in action running for secretary of state of Illinois. Keep Alexi on your radar. Alexei is going places. But I like about Alexei, though, is it's really obvious to me that this position, Secretary of State, means a lot to him. I mean, I think he's more than qualified for this position, but he's not taking anything for granted. And he truly, truly cares about those issues.

Also, Alexi, I hope if he does become Secretary of State that he still has time to be my personal trainer, perhaps I could definitely use some of his tips. And I'm sure that he'll approve of our next sponsor, Magic Spoon, because it helps me get in good shape and get the nutrients that I need. Because growing up, everybody, cereal was that one thing that I loved. One of the best parts of being a kid. Love cereal in the morning. But we had to give it up because it's full of sugar and it's really not something you should eat. We're all trying to eat better here. I know we're a few weeks into the new year.

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Let's talk about some good news as well. Good news. The good news is that the significant economic indicators are showing that the American economy is doing very, very well. What I don't want to ignore is that doesn't mean that every American is doing well. And we need to focus on creating the circumstances where all Americans can prosper in our economy. But that's what Democrats are fighting for. That's what the infrastructure bill is. It's a jobs bill. That's what Build Back Better is. It is a jobs bill. While the radical right extremists want tax cuts for billionaires and 100 millionaires so that they could just have five yachts instead of one yacht, five private jets instead of one private

jet, Democrats are fighting for the middle class and for American workers. And Biden has actually done lots of policies that have helped spur the economic growth. The U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 6.9 percent in the final quarter of 2021, bringing economic growth for all of 2021 to 5.7%. That is the fastest pace since 1984. And there are jobs, jobs, jobs in Ohio, Intel investing in Ohio, in Michigan, GM making its largest investment ever, $7 billion to create 4,000 new jobs. I seem to remember, Ben, that Donald Trump spoke an awful lot about, we're going to have 6% GDP growth, 6% GDP growth. Manufacturing is coming back. Look, we're going to have a manufacturing boom. And while he talked and ran his mouth, I think what we're seeing is President Biden is actually delivering on promises to help the working class of this country by getting these plants in with the,

like you said, Intel in Ohio, GM making its largest investment ever in Michigan. These are going to create jobs and not just temporary jobs. These are going to create permanent jobs, well-paying jobs that are actually well-suited for the future. And I think it's a really important point also that we need to be hammering home in these states all the time. I mean, this is the backbone of our country are our workers at these factories. And so we need to be talking about this and we need to, like you said, Ben, I think we need to be constantly speaking about how good the economic indicators are, but also we can But also we can't ignore the plight of people who are still struggling

and are still working to get back their jobs from the pandemic. I mean, growth under Trump before the pandemic was like 2% GDP growth. This is before the pandemic. So if anybody wants to say, Oh, well, he had a whole pandemic. Now the economy was slowing down to a halt before the pandemic even hit this country under Trump. And now we're experiencing this incredible boom out there. And now we got to keep it going. And this is why investments in American workers, investments in our economy are always good, are always helpful at times like this. Because when money is in the hands

of American workers, that's when the American economy thrives. The American economy doesn't thrive when we give it to a bunch of billionaires who hoard it and don't inject it into the economy. And workers are spending money and injecting it straight into the economy and are building more jobs, creating new technologies, and are really the backbone of everything getting us through this. It's one of my favorite Biden lines, actually, from one of the speeches that he gave that we used in the Let's Go Brandon ad that we aired on Fox News when we, you know, use that phrase and turn it against the GQP when he says it's never a good bet to bet against the American people. I love that. And increasingly, that's just what it seems.

It's just nonsense coming from the radical right extremist echo chambers. It's just nonsense. It's spreading disinfo, spreading lies. It truly is, Jordy. They are rooting against the success of America. At all turns, all they want to do is take away the American dream from Americans. That's what their goal is. And they create these nonsense issues. It's like we talked about on the other podcast, this absurd Tucker Carlson, Eminem rant, where he tried to say that Democrats are responsible for the fact that Eminem's a private company decided that the high heel stilettos of the green Eminem in the anthropomorphic form should be less of a high heel than and more

of a flat heel. And that to Tucker Carlson, Democrats have taken away Republicans and his ability to have drinks with M&Ms, with the green M&Ms. I mean, this is seriously what they said, you know, and so you think like, the fuck are they talking about? And then you have Candace Owens going on the air and talking about now the way Minnie Mouse is dressed. So, I mean, if we're talking about the, play that clip first, then I'll go on my rant. I mean, look, this is why people don't take these people seriously. They're taking all of these things that nobody was offended by. It's like they have to get rid of them and destroy them because they're bored. You know, they're absolutely bored.

They're trying to destroy fabrics of our society, pretending that there's issues. So everybody looks over here. Look at Minnie Mouse. Don't look at inflation, Jesse. Look at Minnie Mouse. The world is going forward because you've got her in a pantsuit. Never mind that you can't get anything at the grocery store and you can't buy a piece of bacon unless you've got $30 in your pocket.

At least we're addressing the real problem, which is Minnie Mouse. And so we're talking about the green M&M. We're talking about Minnie Mouse. We're talking about Dr. Seuss. We're talking about Mr. Potato Head. OK, these are the Republican issues. This is what the radical right stands for and cares about when they're not attacking the Capitol building, when they're not supporting Viktor Orban of Hungary and other authoritarian regimes across the country celebrating the 4th of July in Russia, as Republican senators did, their main core domestic issues is Minnie Mouse, Potato Head, Dr. Seuss. Are you kidding me? And spreading COVID. Let's not forget. And spreading COVID, which seems to be their other thing that they are into, because they had Alex Berenson on the show, Tucker did. Alex Berenson, who's been banned

from Twitter for spreading COVID disinformation, still gets a slot on Fox News. And I'm not going to play this clip. Yeah, don't play, because just don't even play it. If you pull up the picture, blur out every word in the picture, too. I'll say what he said, but I'm not going to play his words. But he starts spreading a lie, just a flat out lie, saying that mRNA vaccines, which is the technology used in most of the vaccines, is actually dangerous and that these mRNA vaccines should be pulled from the market instantly because it's killing people. I mean, this is dangerous shit. And to me, Ben, and I say Ben because I have a legal question coming up. Don't worry, Jordy.

If I were one of these vaccine manufacturers, if I were Pfizer or Moderna, I would sue the shit out of Fox for spreading this kind of information. I would try to dominion them. Dominion 2.0. Right? Because why not? How could you go there and just spread such blatant lies willfully? I like that, Brett. This person knows what they are doing. And I would think they

have the intent to, for whatever reason, to be slandering these businesses and this technology. Before Ben answers your legal question, I just want to say people should dominion them, should become like, oh, I Googled that. Anytime a company or private company sues Fox News because of lies they spread about their entity, it should be called dominioning. If I were to have a, one, I agree with you, Brett, would they actually technically have a claim? I think they would. I think what differentiates Pfizer and Moderna from Dominion and other companies like Dominion that were victims of the big lie is that is the issue of damages. Ultimately, Dominion lost billions of dollars because of the contracts that were literally canceled because of the big lie, when they were actually one of the safest, the most effective election places. Whereas I think

that Pfizer and Moderna would have a more difficult time proving damages. You can argue that a lot of the other people who should have been vaccinated maybe would have gotten vaccines, which could have resulted in them making money, but that's not really the situation. The United States has ordered enough vaccines for everybody, but because Fox spreads this disinformation, the people who should be taking it, you go to a CVS, you go to a convenience store, you know, you go anywhere and get a vaccine right now. And they don't charge you to get the vaccine. Exactly. It's ultimately charged them.

But it's a very technical, very technical argument, though, which but but Brad, I think here's the pattern of Fox, though. But like, you know, let's let's look through like the recent history of Fox News. What they do is they spread disinformation, they ruin lives, they kill people, and then they pay settlements years later to cover their ass, and then they do it all again. It's like one like Ponzi scheme that Fox News has going with some sort of like disinformation Ponzi scheme of Fox News. I mean, you saw it with Seth Rich, the lies about Seth Rich, the guy who worked for the DNC, who was killed, and they blamed, I don't know, Hillary Clinton and spread lies about Democrats. They settled with his family, all the Pizzagate conspiracies.

They had to apologize for the Sandy Hook students. They had to, there are still damages pending. A judgment was made against Fox for spreading news about Sandy Hook. You have Dominion, Smartmatic. It's the pattern. It goes back years and years and years. They lie to their viewers. They rile people up. They create fake news. They cause real damage, real harm, kill people, and then pay some money and then move on to the next issue.

Ben, is there ever a suit that's possible where we could drop the news out of Fox News? I mean, if they argue every time they get into one of those suits that Brett mentioned, that they're an entertainment network, is there anything that could be done there? Yes, except the Republican radical right would never allow that to happen. I think what you would have to do is pass legislation or you would have to exercise agency enforcement mechanisms. But because that propaganda network props up a radical right extremist party until we all come together as a nation, which I want to come together, I'd like to come together, but they're out there spreading COVID and killing people and having these radical extremist ideas. we're never going to reach that conclusion, though, Jordan. And the same way, you know, earlier I said how, you know, Ron DeSantis, really not all that

different from Marjorie Taylor Greene. Fox News, really not all that different from OAN. They espouse the same disinformation, yet OAN is the one who's getting quote unquote canceled from DirecTV and, you know, other places and Newsmax is getting canceled from's getting, quote unquote, canceled from DirecTV and other places. And Newsmax is getting canceled from other places. But Fox stays. And it kind of goes back to the Spotify thing because money talks. And Fox makes a lot of money for people. And at the end of the day, that's all these corporations care about.

I mean, we've seen it personally as we build this Midas Media Network. A lot of the big money, most of the big money is going towards funding these far right authoritarian voices because it makes them money. I'm not even going to say that they think that that's the best policy for the world or that they endorse fascism, but they are implicitly endorsing fascism with their dollars. When you see Spotify giving a $100 million contract to Joe Rogan, when you see these other outlets giving tons of money to people who espouse those beliefs, when you see Charlie Kirk having these massive events with screens and lights and smoke and thousands of people in the

arenas, those are all funded by deep, deep, deep pockets. And here's the thing, Brett, to that. It's all part of a strategy because that gives people, you steer people into that community. You keep them in that echo chamber, the fireworks, the music. Democrats, though, do need to have a little showmanship like we do. What we need to do is we talked about these great economic boom results. Like we need to celebrate that. Like we need to be out front center, you know, in Michigan, all over like United, getting that out there and holding events and rallies around that. But I just want to take a quick break, but I do want to show after this,

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All right, Brett, you got to just play. I'm not even going to give it a setup. If you could just go and play the Marjorie Taylor Greene clip. I think all people need to know who are listening is that this is a phone call from a constituent to Marjorie Taylor Greene as Marjorie Taylor Greene is just sitting there. What is this network though that she's on? Is this like a local channel that she's just taking questions from constituents? It looks like she's on a late night infomercial. I have no idea. I have no idea what this is. But it beats, I don't know if you saw the clip the other day where she was in a bar. She was speaking from inside a sports bar on Steve Bannon's show. So I guess it's a level above speaking from inside of

a bar. I guess that's all she has time to do now. But listen to this Georgia constituent. Listen to this Marjorie Taylor Greene constituent right here. Go ahead. Yes, I just want to say thank God for Joe Biden. She is an embarrassment to the state of Georgia. Well, we all have our opinions. Amen to that, and I've got mine. You will not

accept the fact that Joe Biden won, and that is the whole thing. You're not going to accept it. You're going to keep on and keep on and just pick, pick, pick. And you won't get anything done. If you're not going to respect the man and realize that he's the president, you're not ever going to get anything done. You've got to work together. And you are not doing it you're not doing it and neither the other republicans they're they're just going with trump no he didn't win it he didn't win it and wasted all the money

in georgia have to count the votes three times because he said he won and he didn't she's just squirming she's just that sitting there. That woman is amazing. The woman on the phone, amazing. Yeah, I mean, that's what all her constituents need to be doing though, right? Like they all need to be getting in front of her face in as many opportunities as possible and saying stuff like that because it's true. Marjorie Taylor Greene literally, maybe next to Jim Jordan, is like the most useless congressperson on the planet.

She gets nothing done. All she does is espouse conspiracy theories and just yells and screams. She finally off all those committees that she was on? Yeah. I mean, that's why she has time to hang out at the bar and go on those podcasts. Yeah, she has literally nothing else to do. She has no real power at this point. So, you know, everybody should be doing it.

And it's people like Marjorie Taylor Greene who are keeping this country divided and who are preventing real work from getting done. And in the royal flush of the Marjorie Taylor Greene's and other members of Congress, you mentioned Jim Jordan. I called the royal flush because they literally just flush their integrity. I'm going to say they flush their integrity years ago, but they're trying to flush the integrity of the country. You got Matt Gates or gets, I don't even know how you pronounce his last name, but there's different pronunciations. But the most recent one is this big Joe. These names are ridiculous. This guy, Joe Ellicott, who's like a radio host who was in the sex ring that Joel Greenberg, who previously had pled guilty and he confessed to raping an underaged girl. And Matt Gaetz is part of this ring and they have like Venmo messages. And this guy, Joe Ellicott, was apparently in the room when Joel Greenberg was having a

conversation with Matt Gaetz about the woman who they raped her age. And so Ellicott is pleading guilty to it and not pleading guilty. I think he's taking a plea deal that would actually potentially not have him plead guilty on the major charges. I think some of the crimes that they're charging him with for his cooperation, like are involved, like Adderall usage, um, and drug usage, maybe wire. So he's pleading guilty to the lesser crimes and he's acting as a cooperating witness to help the federal government in their case against Matt Gates. And so we said this for a while, Gates isetz is done. Yeah. And I mean, I got to assume though that like, you know, they had Joel Greenberg booked, but like, they're like, you know, you need kind of backup. You need substantiation to build your

case and make it stronger. And like, once you have this one, two, three punch of all these cooperating witnesses, it's really just like a matter of time. I mean, it's horrible. And I think what you see here, what you lay out, you sort of see a bigger picture forming around it where it seems like Greenberg and Gates didn't know the age of the victim at the time, which doesn't make it any better and doesn't mean anything under the law. Rape is rape, and it doesn't matter whether they knew of the age of the victim or not. And then they discovered the age of the victim or at least heard through the grapevine what her age was. And Joel Greenberg used his access to the Florida DMV registry due to his position as a Florida official and looked up the victim online, learned her real age, and called Gates and had a conversation with Gates about it. And this Ellicott witnessed that phone call is now the second witness to confirm that phone call. Joel Greenberg has previously confessed to this, which means that Matt Gates lied about this when he was

asked if he had knowledge or if he knew that he had raped an underage girl. So Gates caught lying. This situation just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. I mean, here's the thing here, Brett, too, that's worth mentioning. And this is also a differentiator of a big one between the radical right extremists and democracy loving Democrats and just the level of corruption. So Brett, you, you, Midas account also did a tweet that basically said the broader issue here too, is that the Republicans support Matt Getz. They know these things and they've all rallied behind him. Not only they rallied behind him, but they put him on the house judiciary committee. So, and they haven't removed him from the House Judiciary Committee, and they've rallied behind him at all points. Now, the House Judiciary Committee has oversight

over the Department of Justice, the department investigating him for this rape, and they leave him on the House Judiciary Committee. Now, do they leave him on there? They intentionally put people, the radical right, on committees to troll people. That's what they find to be, that's just what they stand for. That's why they put Marjorie Taylor Greene on the education committee immediately after she was stalking the victims, the surviving victims of school shootings and calling them actors. And then they put her on the education committee. Like that's real sick shit. Like these are real sick. These are real disgusting people for them to, for them to do that. And speaking of sick and disgusting people,

though, there is accountability coming Brett, January 6th, two updates to report there on the January 6th committee's work in court. One pretty close to home to me here, Judge Carter, who's a judge in the Central District of California out of the Orange County Courthouse. I've appeared in front of Judge Carter before, a total no-nonsense judge. And so when John Eastman, who used to be a law professor somehow at a law school in Southern California, he espoused all these radical right, big lie ideas. He was one of the people who spoke at the January 6th insurrection and inspired the crowd and encouraged the crowd and was involved in the insurrection. So he's claiming attorney-client privilege. I'll break all that down on the Legal AF this weekend with Popak and O'Jordi when I plug that.

Love that plug. That's a good plug. You waited until the end of the episode. It was very considerate. But this federal judge, though, in California, and it's California because Eastman lives in California. That's why he's in front of a California judge. The judge basically showed a lot of support for the work of the January 6th committee, what they're doing and ordered Eastman to start turning over documents and to cut through all of the bullshit on Eastman's claiming he was Trump's personal lawyer. And he's claiming that's why these documents are privileged. And judge Carter is like, well, you better prove that or else that's why these documents are privileged. And Judge Carter is like, well, you better prove that or else you're turning these documents over. So you better start

turning documents over. And the final other update from federal court defendant, one of the leaders of the, I hate even using their name because they're fucking terrorists, but they call themselves Oath Keepers. I call them terrorists. The man who wears a patch on his eye because he shot himself in the face. That's why he wears the patch on his eye. He shot himself accidentally because they don't know how to actually. They're all about the Second Amendment, but real gun owners who are for the Second Amendment are for common sense regulations. Not shooting themselves in the eye? He was a gun instructor. are for common sense regulations. Not shooting themselves in the eye? And so he shot himself in the eye.

He was a gun instructor in addition to being this leader of the terrorist organization, the Oath Keepers. Once again, it goes back to what Ben said. They put the worst people in the jobs. They put the guy who shot himself in the eye as a gun instructor. I mean, it's absurd. Can't make it up. But the judge, the magistrate and the Eastern District of Texas ordered that based on the fact that this Stuart Rhodes poses a danger to society.

He's being detained. He's not out on any bail. You know, and so he's come up forever. Just keep him away. And I want to say now that if you look at where all this is heading, if you look at the questions that are being asked, if you look at what's going on with the fraudulent elector scheme and how the federal government is now confirming that they are reviewing the fraudulent elector scheme, which I thought was the actual highly unusual move for the DOJ to confirm that they were reviewing the fraudulent elector scheme to multiple news outlets and saying and reiterating their commitment that they are going to go as high as it goes in the food chain. They are coming for Trump. They are trying to connect the conspiracy and they have all of it. As our video lays out, it was a coup in plain sight. And whatever these people thought they were doing by signing on to these fake elector

documents and sending them to the National Archives, most legal experts agree that that was a felony. And so we will see where this leads. And I think it all, as we all know, connects back to Donald Trump at the end of the day. You know, I plugged this podcast on our last podcast. I rarely plug podcasts. I plug ones, new ones that I really, really like. And this Ravi Gupta podcast with a few other hosts, it's called The Lost Debate. It's really good. And it's really good. And a lot of our listeners checked out The Lost Debate. I encourage everybody to check out The Lost Debate wherever you get your podcasts, because whenever you're looking for news, you may feel forced to choose between echo chambers

and the mainstream media, and then the conspiracy-obsessed disinfo chambers. But that's why I check out Lost Debate. It's a podcast and YouTube show for political eclectics who want to escape their medial bubbles and engage in good faith with ideas from across the political spectrum. The Lost Debate, it's hosted by Ravi Gupta, former staffer of Obama and school principal who founded Arena, an organization that has trained thousands of progressive staffers and helped elect hundreds of candidates. Corey Bradford, a progressive political organizer from the Deep South turned TikTok star who

once hosted a Fox News radio show. And Ricky Schlott, a Gen Z New York Post columnist and libertarian fighting for the protection of free speech. They cover the latest news, ideas, and trends that mainstream media overlooks. Instead of being at each other's throats, they focus on bringing new perspectives to the table and constructive debates that sound less like crossfire and more like discussions between real people. Join the conversation. Check out The Lost Debate today. New episodes drop twice a week. All you have to do is search for The Lost Debate wherever you get your podcasts and on their YouTube channel.

Brett Jordy, an honor spending this time with you and the Midas Mighty. I want to give a special thanks to all of our sponsors, Blinkist, Masterworks, Magic Spoon, Athletic Greens. Thank you all for supporting the Midas touch. I want to thank Alexi Janelius for being on the podcast and Brad, any final words? No, we got a lot ahead of us this year now. And the Supreme court justice, the Supreme court nominee is another big deal. And it shows how important our efforts were in 2020 and in 2021. So I want to give a shout out to all of our listeners in Georgia. I want to give a shout out to everybody who helped us with our efforts in Georgia, to Stacey Abrams, to all the activists in Georgia. And let's get

ready to do it again. Because if anything, if that should show you anything, it's how important it is for us to hold on to the Senate and hold on to the House and not only hold on, but expand our majorities so we can continue to do good things for America. I agree wholeheartedly with Brett. Please subscribe to the Midas Touch YouTube channel and shout out to the Midas Mighty!