The MeidasTouch Podcast - Bringing 2020 Energy into 2022 with PA AG Josh Shapiro

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast we have a truly special guest, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania & gubernatorial candidate, Josh Shapiro! During the interview, Josh discusses how he is combating the Republicans' sham "voter fraud audit" in his home state, what he would do as Governor if Roe is overturned, and how he is fighting to defend democracy & the right to vote. The remainder of the episode, the brothers dive into the latest updates around the Democratic party shifting their focus towards voting rights, Jim Jordan’s text messages with Mark Meadows from Jan 6 and why Democrats need to bring the same energy they brought in 2020 to 2022. If you enjoyed today's episode please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: HOMEDICS AIR PURIFIER: HoMedics.com/MEIDAS and use code MEIDAS WONDERY: Listen to BUSINESS WARS: CHRISTMAS MOVIE WARS on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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today. We have Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro joining the podcast. Josh Shapiro is running for governor. I'm going to ask him about that gubernatorial race, going to focus on the issues that are impacting Pennsylvania, which has become a focal point of the attack against voting rights. What we see in Arizona with the cyber ninjas, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, the GQP legislatures. And I'm looking at you, Jordy, because that's your hometown. Real GQP legislature there controls both chambers. You have a Democratic governor, Democratic secretary of state and attorney general. Jordy, does that make you a yinzer? Absolutely. That's just strictly Pittsburgh. Let's make that clear. You're going to offend a lot of just strictly Pittsburgh. Let's make that clear. You're going to offend a lot of

people. Pittsburgh. This is why I'm asking. I need to know the facts. I can't sound like, I got to sound legit, you know? No, definitely. And look, let me just say this. I'm very grateful that we have Attorney General Josh Shapiro here in Pennsylvania holding down the fort for us, because without him, things would be kind of really freaking scary. Brett, great new background. Oh my God. Thank you. Check it out.

Very professional studio. This is great for the audio listeners only. But Brett, what's going on there with you? Yeah, for the listeners out there, I built up a new studio that I'm going to be broadcasting from at least most of the shows. And so we got it all set up. I hope everybody likes it. But I put a lot of work into it and I think it looks pretty good. Next stop, got to work on you guys now. That's what I was going to say. When do Ben and I get

the upgrade? What the heck is this? When you guys learn how to use technology and stuff, I think that's when you get the update. I've been trying to think about it. If I got Ben a nice camera, would he even be able to turn it on or plug it in? I'm not even saying that as a dig on you. I legitimately don't know if you could do this you know i don't know if you've noticed this lately i see it i see it in some of the comments i see it in some of the five star reviews of midas touch there's been a subtle anti-ben i saw the review that you're talking about it was like j, Jordy, everybody loves Jordy. Brett, so insightful, amazing. And Ben, well, he's there.

Let me just say this, Ben. You often pick on your younger brothers. I think the listeners get defensive on our behalf. I think that might be, you might have to be nicer to us. That means don't call me Jordy during the AG Josh Shapiro interview

because he like comes to Pittsburgh and I want to meet him personally and I don't want him to think my name's actually journey. So please just don't do that. Okay. Journey. So, um, Brett's been pretty fire lately on the videos that, I mean, for those who don't know, we all are involved in the video editing process. Brett involves slightly more than me and Jordan. I like, Brett's looking at us like, I do the whole videos all alone. But Brett's been fire lately.

Brett's been very passionate. And that's kind of displayed in some of these artistic, incredible takedowns of the GQP and the GQP. You know, I've been though, it's because I'm annoyed. I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated at the lies. I'm frustrated at the hypocrisy, at the constant gaslighting. And the more that comes out from the January 6th committee, the angrier I get.

And it's like, you know, we knew a lot of this stuff already, right? We knew how bad it was. We all saw it with our own eyes. But to actually see step by step, minute by minute, second by second, what happened on that day and the complicity of everybody from Congress people to senators to news in quotes. I did notice that Brett's doing a lot more hand movements today. Yeah, a lot of hand movements. Now he has more space around him.

He's very animated. So for all you audio listeners, subscribe to the Midas Touch YouTube account because you definitely want to check this out. Well, like I said, guys, I'm pissed. And I know our listeners are pissed too. When you see just how deep in it Mark Meadows was really kind of plotting the insurrection with other Congress people, we see that the January 6th committee has requested the phone records, the text messages, the social media DMs of, I think it was 11 lawmakers at this point.

And I could name them, but it's everybody who you think it is. It's like, you see that list, you're like, oh yeah, Marjorie Telegram. Oh yeah, Lauren Boebert. Oh yeah, Jim Jordan. It's just who's who of every sort of insurrectionist you know in the House of Representatives. And it's just becoming disgusting. So yeah, I think it's important for us and all of us, not just us, but for everybody out there to constantly be exposing the hypocrisy and to really show that these elections in 2022 are not going to be about anything other than a fight for democracy. That's what it is.

It's a fight to save our republic. 2022 is an important time for us to take a stand and show that we can't let autocracy come to America. So Brett's bringing that 2020 energy into 2021 as you're going into 2022, because where I was getting a bit nervous is that Brett was getting soft. Jordy, did you feel that? I thought Brett was getting soft too. I thought he was getting a little bit softer these days. How dare you? How dare you? He comes to the table this morning with, with what was that? What was the hashtag? So Brett, why don't you first play your, the video that we all produced together

called treason texts, which got over a million views in the first 24 hours that you released the day ago, over a million views. That's some of that 2020 Brett Micellus, Ben Micellus, Jordy Micellus production right there. Let's play treason text, which is Liz Cheney going through the various text messages that were turned over by Mark Meadows. At the same time, Mark Meadows is now suing the January 6th committee, asserting executive privilege that he's not willing to testify and be forthcoming. Play treason texts. Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us.

He is destroying his legacy. Laura Ingram wrote. Please get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished, Brian Kilmeade texted. Quote, can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol, Sean Hannity urged. He's got to condemn this shit ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough. We need an Oval Office address. He has to leave now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand. Donald Trump Jr. texted.

Treason texts. Everybody, treason. Love the hashtag too. And think about this. When you think about, and there are other great videos that show this also, this comparison, but when you have people like Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade, and you have all those people begging, begging Mark Meadows to tell Trump to stop the insurrection. And by the way, guess what they did not say in those text messages? No, not a single person asked, hey, is Donald okay? Is the president okay? Because they knew that he was safe because they knew that he was behind it. I think that omission right there is like incredibly important to point out too. Nobody was asking, is the president okay? Nobody cared because nobody thought that was even a thing because they knew that he sent his

followers and that it got out of hand and that there was an insurrection and a coup attempt happening on our Capitol. And those same hosts went on the air later that day and they immediately started muddying the waters. They immediately started going, oh, well, we heard Antifa infiltrated that show. We heard Black Lives Matter infiltrated at the event, and they just lied. They just lied to their viewers. And that's why our country is so divided, frankly, because we have 30 plus percent of people getting their news from a fake source. shows that people who watch Fox News actually leave Fox News less informed. Think about that. You're better off not watching the news. You're better off not doing anything than to watch Fox News if you want to be more informed about what's happening in our country. But the people who watch Fox News, they don't care about being informed. They just want to be angry. So I bet they walk away being angrier after each segment. They could care less about being

informed. And I think it's a two-way street. I think they feed off each other. I think Fox plays to the crazies and the crazies play to Fox. And they both sort of placate each other in this weird way. And they like it. It's like a heroin needle of anger in their body every night, of just anger, of hate, of vitriol. And it confirms their worst feelings and their worst biases. And it's really damaging, really just extremely damaging for the country. Here's the thing. Chris Cuomo terminated right away for being involved in his brother's investigation and providing some information terminated right away. Right. We now have the messages, which basically clearly convincingly show not just one, but essentially all of the main Fox personalities were directly aiding and abetting the insurrection.

They were acting as a crisis communication firm for the president of the United States. I mean, that's what they were doing. And then right, exactly. Because on the one hand, they're aware completely what is going on. We know these from the text messages that they were sending. On the other hand, what they're gaslighting the nation with when they go and take the air is that this is Antifa, that these are false flag operations, that this was nothing that was significant. They were acting as crisis managers for Trump and the biggest platform imaginable. And now when confronted with the revelation of these text messages, what's their pivot? And they all must sit on a Zoom or in a boardroom where they really kind of talk through, OK, what is it that we are saying today? Because the messages are just so cohesive. And the message now, when their text messages were revealed, and they know that's just the tip of the iceberg. them and Trump that are likely in those National Archive documents, which are going to be released.

Remember this, people are saying, well, why don't we have any of Trump's records yet or Trump's emails or Trump's messages? Trump had filed lawsuits and litigation when Biden did not invoke executive privilege over those records. Just to give you an update on the status there. Also, Trump doesn't email, doesn't text. He specifically doesn't do a lot of those things so he could have plausible deniability in all of his criminal activity. But there's definitely a treasure trove of documents relating to the insurrection at the National Archives because we know that there are huge amounts of documents that were

responsive to the January 6th commission's request. Oh, yeah. There are going to be draft speeches, draft statements, probably outtakes of that video. There's a lot of material they are sitting on right now that they don't have. And everything's going to show. I mean, it's going to be a bombshell when it comes out. Everybody knows Trump planned this thing. Everybody knows Trump watched for those 187 minutes, watched with joy, watched it and fucking loved it, loved every second of it, and was hoping for his opportunity to just at minimum cause chaos and just throw a big fuck

you to the country because he was mad that they voted him out, and at the worst, trying to overthrow the government and install himself as a dictator. I mean, that's the range. So we're going to find out how far to the right of that range we are, but it's fucked up regardless. And we know that Trump during those 187 minutes was trying to destroy American democracy. I mean, we already know that. And now we're just going to find out the details. In addition to the Fox News hosts, we saw texts of journalists. We saw texts of other White House officials. We saw texts of Congress people, many of these of whom have not been yet named until yesterday when the Fed, did you see the Federalist accidentally outed Jim Jordan as one of the people behind one of the text messages?

I did. A text was revealed during the January 6th committee with Liz Cheney reading out a text, the lawmaker text saying on January 6th, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence as president of the Senate should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all. So here you have a, at that time, unnamed lawmaker pitching a concept that the VP has the unilateral authority to toss away any electoral votes he deems illegitimate and put in his own electors, which that right there is just outrageous. I mean, if that's the standard,

then okay, VP Kamala Harris gets to pick the next president in 2024. If that's the standard they want to go by, is that really the precedent that they want to go by? And so the Federalist writes a thing saying, no, that's not what he said. Adam Schiff actually doctored all the text messages here. And they wrote a report basically saying that these doctored text messages were such because Adam Schiff excerpted the text messages and that there was actually a second half of the text messages that shows that he says, oh, well, I think this theory is rooted in Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist Papers. And as if that made it any better, that he was still forwarding a message suggesting that the vice president of the United States overturned the electors and installed his own. It doesn't make it better. And in the process of trying to

own the libs, they had the biggest cell phone of the day by outing Jim Jordan as one of the members. And I got to tell you, I'm pretty sure all the other members of Congress who saw their text read that day, I'm pretty sure they're sweating it. And Fox News, all those hosts, they show this false sense of bravado on the air. They're like, oh, I'm not sure if you saw the clip of Laura Ingraham and Hannity, I think it was, going, oh, Liz Cheney doesn't like us. We're so sad. I think they generally are afraid of this investigation at the end of the day. I wonder if some of the lawmakers are sweating. And I mean, they're so out of touch with the democracy. Like to me, someone like a Matt Gaetz or a Lauren Boebert or a Marjorie Taylor Greene, you know, really has zero shame. You know, I think the people who are worried and you see this was the point I was trying to make a little bit earlier

as well. The Fox News broadcasters kind of getting together. And now what they're claiming is, is that it's an invasion of their privacy rights. And meanwhile, you know, any claim of, you know, Hunter Biden laptop texts, they're reading text messages that they claim are associated with Hunter, you know, regarding, you know, anything related to Hillary Clinton, reading text messages, literally text messages that are hacked from foreign adversaries. Yeah, that was what I was going to say. The difference here is those text messages were literally hacked and released by groups

like WikiLeaks with foreign interference. And these texts were voluntarily handed over to an investigative body of the United States government by Mark Meadows, voluntarily. This isn't like they tapped into their private communications to get these. These were Mark Meadows said, oh, here you go. A public official giving records to a public body voluntarily, and that body, Congress, reading the messages in connection with their public duties. And that's what the Fox News hosts were against.

So, Brett, why don't you play the video Fox Ruse, which at the time of recording, you know, is ranking up close to a million views as well. So if you could play Fox ruse. We now live in a country where none of your private communications are safe from the eyes of power drunk politicians like Liz Cheney. With more drama from the ongoing saga of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, tonight newly released text messages from the two of them. Well, now mysteriously and thankfully, we have them. Here's what they say. Where is the outrage in the media over my private text messages being released again publicly? Do we believe in privacy in this country?

Apparently not. Let's take a look at these brand new text messages. Let's start July 25th, 2016. Page writes, privacy isn't just a nice thing to have. It's not an ancillary concern. Privacy is morally essential. I'm sorry. when you use a private email on a private server, your privacy rights are out the window when you're the Secretary

of State of the United States of America. You don't have privacy anymore. How would this not be in our best interest? It's in everybody's best interest to get the truth, right? Now that she loves to reveal people's private text messages, newly obtained text messages between Strzok and Page are revealing damning new information. Congressman Jim Jordan, Congressman Mark Meadows, they discovered these text messages. So your text, effectively your daily diary, now belong to Liz Cheney. More revelations from the laptop from hell. Dirty secrets. Hunter Biden just has horrible scenes, pictures on his laptop. Privacy is a prerequisite for freedom.

You can't have liberty without privacy. Is that your laptop? If not, we'd love to find out more. I've had to give up email. I don't do social media. We're not doing any of that. We're not talking about that. The FBI shoots down a Freedom of Information Act request to release files about their investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. And the reason is beyond bizarre.

And frankly, I don't believe it. New WikiLeaks information here, some developments in the latest email drop. Say that the public doesn't have a right to know or that we're not interested. That's a load of crap. You know, I've said journalism is dead. Not completely. There's a little fragment left. We got it. We got to hang on as long as we can.

I mean, they're not the most shameless network on the entire planet. I mean, we all know Fox hypocrisy. Hold on. That's not 2020 Brett energy once again, though. Let's go. When we saw that first draft, Ben and I actually called each other. We're like, 2020 Brett, he's back. Do you know what it takes for me to turn around the videos and do the podcast and do our planning for 2022 and everything? I am working at this point from the beginning of the day to like one in the morning, I think,

at this point, just working on these videos, turning them out. But I know you guys are working hard too. Shout out to Ben for the brilliant hashtag FoxRuse. And- Shout out to Ben for the six letter phrase. Ben, you really nailed those six letters. I'm really proud of you. Great work. So the one other point I wanted to make though, to give our listeners an actual update as well on the topics, the archive lawsuit, the district court said that the National Archive has to turn over those Trump related records that were subpoenaed by the January 6th. Trump then appealed that to the D.C. Circuit. D.C. Circuit said you have to turn them over to the January 6th committee. They gave a 14 day opportunity for Trump to appeal that

to the United States Supreme Court. And that's the 14 days we're waiting on. So I don't think the Supreme Court is going to in any way overturn what the D.C. Circuit Court. Yeah, even despite how far right the court has become, I don't think I don't I don't foresee them overturning this. I mean, it's so there's no argument. Yeah, there's there's no argument to make that that a former president has the ability to declare executive privilege over the current president.

And then you have the issues of where there is a concern by Congress within their legislative abilities to investigate. That's what this is. Even if there wasn't the issue of executive privilege and there was a valid assertion, Congress would still have the right to look at these records. And we saw that again recently with the Trump tax returns. And that litigation has went through the process. credit, they seem to be expediting these cases and they seem to be having quick rulings. Do you remember, by the way, talking about Jim Jordan, do you remember when Jim Jordan was asked about if he had communications with Trump that day and he couldn't answer the question straight? Yes, but please play that. Yeah, play that clip. We got to play that clip. On January 6th, did you speak with him before, during, or after the Capitol was attacked? I'd have to go. I spoke with him that day after, I think after. I don't know if I spoke with him

in the morning or not. I just don't know. I'd have to go back. I mean, I don't know when those conversations happened. Have you ever seen a video where it's just so clearly obvious that the guy is trying to just blatantly lie? I mean, that's like one Oh one you're lying. He needed, he needs to take some tips from the Fox news folks from the Fox ruse video. Cause they're very good at lying to their credit there. They excel at the line and there, I think he was, you know, caught off guard. And I mean, I think that's the thing, like when these people are challenged, Ben and Jordy, like when, when we see them challenged, a lot of them buckle because they know they're in the wrong.

I mean, there are the diehard believers like the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Boeberts and the Gateses and those kind of people who are just so in it, just so in it, they've committed to the performance. And then there are a lot of people who are trying to act like that. And I'm just not buying their performances. I'm not even buying the Fox News performances anymore. The craziest part about that Jim Jordan video though, too, is you say when they get pressed, right? He wasn't really being pressed and he wasn't on nightly news or whatever. He was on some rinky dink show for lack of a better term. And he just totally caved. Imagine if you put this guy in a stand and had him testify under oath what he would do.

Yeah. What show was he on there when he did that interview? It was a local, it was a local news show. I think it was Spectrum News. And so here's the, here's the thought, sorry, Spectrum News that Jordy's calling you a rinky dinky, but here's the thing though. Not everybody can do a show via webcam like you, Jordan. Yeah, Jordan. He's the superstar, Jordan. But here's the thing about why the GQP wants to

destroy institutions, why they want to destroy the press. They interact in their safe spaces. Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, those podcasts like the Bannon podcast and the Dan Bagino show podcast. That's where they interact. The moment they step foot in an actual court, they're destroyed. They can't interact and have conversations that are logical because they are devoid of truth, that they are absolutely complete liars. The moment they step out of their safe space and do an interview on any other network, which is why they don't go on any other networks, and they're asked very simple questions, you basically get the answers that you just heard from Jim Jordan. And this is why attacking

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Great gift for the holidays. All right. Something we always talk about is the importance of voting rights. No one has been a bigger champion or as a handful of champions on the front lines, really on the front lines as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro is also running to be the next governor of the state of Pennsylvania. But for me, more importantly, the dad of Sophia Shapiro, the rock star who worked with us on the university initiatives. She's been a political activist and rock star in the community. Josh Shapiro, Attorney General, welcome to the podcast. Hey, thanks, Ben. Let me just tell you something. That's the most important thing you got to know

about me. I'm a proud dad, especially of Soph, man. She's just an incredible activist and just unbelievable. I love her so much. First, we didn't even really know the connection. I don't think I knew the connection between Sophia and you. And then I think Jordy said, hey, do you know that there's the relationship there? Because I started seeing you on TV doing hit after hit when our elections came under attack like I never fathomed it would be. And that was really why we started Midas Touch in earnest anyway. And so you've been in the state for a very long time. You have intimate knowledge of the players here. I mean, were you surprised that Pennsylvania became really ground zero with

the what the Republicans actions from the four seasons, total landscaping to the sham audits? But Pennsylvania has become ground zero. Does that surprise you? Or were you like, yeah, I knew these people like like this doesn't really shock me. No, I mean, so here's the honest answer. I am not surprised that it became the epicenter of the battle. I am surprised that these folks who have pushed the big lie were willing to go and are still willing to go as far as they have. Actually, early in 2020, I brought my whole AG staff together, criminal and civil divisions. And I said, we are going to be the epicenter of the battle over

voting rights here. And we need to ensure that we have a safe and secure, free and fair election. And we have to be prepared to battle back against the lawsuits that come. And indeed, we faced over 40 lawsuits, by the way. We were undefeated. They lost every single time we had the right to vote. But what we have seen since then is that the lies led to the litigation. The litigation led to the violent insurrection on January the 6th. The violent insurrection left our nation's capital and is now being battled out in state capitals across the country, in Georgia and in Texas, where they passed voter suppression laws. And by the way, would have passed the same voter suppression laws here in Pennsylvania, but for the veto pen of our

governor. And the litigation continues. I was in court just yesterday trying to beat back attempts to conduct one of these sham audits. So I can't say that I'm surprised we became the epicenter of it. I am amazed at the level of weakness on the side of the politicians who are pushing the big lie for their own personal political gain instead of standing up for our democracy and our constitution. And I'm not going to let up on politicians who are pushing the big lie for their own personal political gain instead of, you know, standing up for our democracy and our constitution. And, you know, I'm not going to let up on this. We're going to keep fighting and we're going to keep protecting the good people of Pennsylvania. Let's talk about that court hearing this week. You know, in Arizona,

you have the Cyber Ninjas, which was a total and complete disaster at every level, fundamentally. By the way, you don't think you'd be uttering the word cyber ninja when it, come on, right? Like this stuff seems made up, right? But it's not. It's a real threat to our democracy. Anyway, sorry to interrupt you guys. But it's all, but the Republican led legislatures who control both chambers in Pennsylvania, you know, looked at the cyber ninjas and went bingo. Or what's the new phrase that people say on TikTok? Bing bong. You know, and they say I try to be cool on these

shows, Josh. I'm the oldest brother. So they say so they say we need to have a version of cyber ninjas ourselves here. You know, Envoy Sage, I guess, is what it's called. They're run by two Republican donors who have no experience whatsoever in doing these types of sham audits. And then there's the, you know, the Republican Senate investigation where they're threatening to release partial Social Security numbers and driver licenses and retain this firm. And so you were in court this week pushing back at the sham audit, right? I was. By the way, Jordy and Brett, it's pretty bad when your brother here makes me look cool. I think I just want to reflect on something, Josh, for a second. I'm wearing this ridiculous sweater. I'm interviewing the attorney general. That's our Midas merch. Everyone loves our Midas merch. What are you talking about? Don't hate on the Swans. The only thing people love more than the Midas merch is the Shapiro for governor merch.

Go head on over and get some. But no, listen, let's, I mean, seriously, let's dig into this. The Senate Republicans here in Pennsylvania at the behest of the former president and guys like Steve Bannon and others are trying to conduct this sham audit, right? The first thing they do is they go out and issue a subpoena demanding the private personal information of 9 million Pennsylvania voters. They want your social security number. They want your driver's license number.

And then after getting it, they proposed giving it to a third party, this Envoy Sage company, right? Like those cyber ninja folks in Arizona. This is a company that didn't exist a year ago. As far as we can tell, they have two employees. They have no relevant experience. Their leader has a political background. This is not who I'm going to let the Senate Republicans give people's private social security numbers, driver's license numbers and things like that, too. So we sued to stop them. We took them to court. And yesterday we

had a hearing. And I thought two really interesting things came out of that hearing. Number one, the counsel, the lawyers for the Republicans said, yeah, there's a risk in turning over this information. They said it's a risk that we think is worth taking. Well, go ask 9 million Pennsylvanians if they think it's worth compromising their privacy and their public safety doing that. And the second thing is they acknowledge the fact that they really don't have a purpose.

They were asked by the court over and over again, what's the real purpose here? Why do you need this information? And they didn't state a purpose. So I think that was really enlightening what came out in court yesterday. That's why, you know, when these battles were removed from the Four Seasons landscapes and the hotel lobbies that Giuliani and they tried to put on these ridiculous public displays and you put them in courthouses. You know, they were exposed like, you know, when the truth actually has to come out. Thankfully, the courts remained a beacon protecting our democracy.

But the very court system is under attack. You know, we saw with Supreme Court oral arguments and the mischief that led to the current makeup of the Supreme Court that, you know, the woman's right to choose that fundamental right may indeed be revoked. That's where it seems it's going with this oral argument. I know that the legislature in Pennsylvania has tried to, you know, present serious bans on abortion, which have been vetoed as well by the governor. As attorney general or as governor, what steps would you take to protect the woman's right to choose and childbearing person's right to choose if Roe v. Wade is indeed overturned? Look, I have always stood on the side of women

making decisions over their own bodies, period, hard stop, end of sentence. It's their decision. It's not the decision by some politician in Harrisburg or Washington. It does, in fact, seem as though the Supreme Court of the United States, at the very least, will uphold this Mississippi law and, at worst, overturn Roe v. Wade. And then the battle will come back to the states if Congress can't codify Roe. And, you know, doesn't seem like Congress, frankly, can do anything because of this ridiculous filibuster in the Senate. But that's not, I don't get to opine on that. That's for you guys to talk about some other points. So the bottom

line is the battle is going to be in the states. And the bills that have been passed in places like Mississippi and Texas and elsewhere are the same bills that they want to pass here in Pennsylvania and in fact have passed. And what I have said very clearly to the people of Pennsylvania, I will veto every single one of those bills and safeguard a woman's right to choose right here in Pennsylvania and let that person make decisions over their own body. Here's the bottom line. Every one of the people running against me, and by the way, not a joke, there are literally 14 Republicans running against me. They've all made clear they would sign these bills into law. So when the Supreme Court overturns Roe,

which I hope they don't, but assuming they do, battle comes back to the states. I'll be there with my blue veto pen. I carry it around with me. It's right here. I'll be there with my blue veto pen. I carry it around with me. It's right here. I'll be there with my blue veto pen to veto any of those bills that undermine reproductive freedom. And every single person running against me would sign those bills into law. I think one of the interesting ways that we saw people starting to actually fight back against these abortion bans was this week when we saw Governor Gavin Newsom and then we saw AG Letitia James. They expressed their intention to combat these laws with similar bounty laws on ghost guns and assault weapons. Would you consider signing a similar policy if

you were governor? Yeah, I think the Supreme Court set up a very, very dangerous situation here where you effectively allow, you know, fellow citizens to police you on behavior that they just simply disagree with. And so you could see a natural extension go to ghost guns, for example. And I think, you know, any way we can protect people and create safer communities, I'm willing to look at. I think the hypocrisy here of what they did in Texas, and that is received, apparently, this rubber stamp of the Supreme Court is something that we can't look past. They are throwing out decades of precedent and they're creating very, very dangerous situations by virtue of their irresponsible,

in my opinion, irresponsible conduct in the court. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I think, you know, it's an extreme time and we need to take measures to stop it. If that bill did come to your desk, would you sign it? Yeah, I'd have to look at what it says, obviously. But the idea that we would be doing something about ghost guns, something that I have been at the forefront of fighting about for years. I was sounding the alarm three years ago. These are the weapons of choice for criminals. You don't need a background check to get them. And they're every bit as dangerous as the, you know, the other kind of fully assembled guns. This is a real, real problem. And I'll be looking for all kinds

of creative ways to make our community safer. On a different note, looking at the gubernatorial race that just happened in Virginia, where Democrats lost, do you have any takeaways from that? Anything that you're going to take to your campaign that you think might have a better impact and a better result? Look, I'm not an expert in Virginia. I do know Pennsylvania. And what I know is that to win here in Pennsylvania, as I've done twice, and remember, I won in 2016 when Secretary Clinton lost our state. And I ran ahead of Joe Biden in 2020. And in fact, got more votes than anyone in the history of Pennsylvania running for any office at any time. And I think that really is on the strength of the fact that I show up, I listen, I turn out in these rural communities,

a lot of these forgotten towns that, let's be honest, a lot of leaders in our party have ignored for a really long time. I show up, I listen, and I fight like hell for people and I deliver real results. And I think what people want more than anything right now is just knowing that someone's on their side. I'll give you an example. There were 1.9 million people in Western Pennsylvania who are about to lose health insurance because the two heads of the insurance health insurance companies were fighting. Three governors, five previous attorneys general tried to get those two in a room to work it out. I did. And we saved health care for nearly two million Western Pennsylvanians, moms who could still take their kids to the doctors,

you know, folks who are dealing with cancer treatment, seniors who need help, they can see their doctors again. That's real results for people because we're willing to get in a room and take on the biggest, most powerful healthcare companies here in Pennsylvania and indeed in the region. That's the kind of thing communities want. They want someone who's going to be on their side. And so for me, I'm going to keep doing what I've always done, show up, listen and fight like hell to make people's lives better. I think as I go around the Commonwealth talking to people and I've done this as AG and obviously continue to do it as governor, you know, the terrain looks really different between, say, West Philly and Waynesburg, which is a rural community, right? It looks different. The people there look different. But folks kind of basically all

want the same thing. They want good schools for their kids, right? They want job opportunities. They want safe communities. And the fourth thing is they just don't want to get screwed, right? I don't know how to fit all that in a bumper sticker yet, but they just don't want to get screwed, right? I don't know how to fit all that in on a bumper sticker yet, but they just don't want to get screwed. And they feel like the big corporations are ripping them off. Sometimes, frankly, they feel like government's just not there for them and making their lives harder. And so I think if they feel like you're in their corner fighting for them, as I've done my whole career, then you're going to win a whole lot of these races. And that's what we're doing here. Just continuing that work to show people we're going to show up, treat them with respect and fight like hell for it. As a fellow Pennsylvanian, I'm not going to pretend I don't have a horse in this

race. I do. I know what's at stake here. And I know you are the person to govern this state. What can fellow Pennsylvanians do? I'm from Pittsburgh. What can fellow Yinzers do? What can people outside the state do to help your campaign and make sure that this happens? Well, listen, there's a lot of things you can do. You can text that number right there to get involved in our campaign. We'd love it if you could chip in a buck or two to support our efforts. It's going to be an expensive race, and we are a people-powered campaign. There's also a way you can sign up to volunteer.

This is going to be the most grassroots organized campaign that this commonwealth has seen. My goal is to beat the incredible grassroots effort that Barack Obama had back in 2008. I think we can do that here based on the groundwork we're laying, which is going to mean we need people to do the old fashioned campaign work, knock on doors, call their friends, text their friends, be really engaged in what's going to be a massive get out the vote effort. It's going to be in every community across Pennsylvania. We need your help. So chip in a buck or two, volunteer for us, help us spread the word. Best way you can start doing that is go to joshrapiro.org or text us at that number.

And let's text Josh to 32210. And on a much lighter note here, as we close the interview, because I know you're a very busy man, you have to run. There's a clear theme in your ads that I've noticed that I don't think people are paying close enough attention to. It's not the pro democracy messaging. It's the fact that AG Josh Shapiro is a baller. Yes. You don't just get shots up in the backyard. You've clearly played the sport before. And as a fellow baller, respect. But more importantly, two part question here.

Where did your love for basketball come from? And when can Pittsburgh expect an NBA team? Oh, let me just tell you, that may be one of the most important things I'm going to work on as governor is getting the Yenzers. Let's go. We can do that. We can do that. Now, look i always i grew up in a just playing a lot of sports i love sports i happen to love basketball more um laura and i uh raise our four kids you know sophia but she's got three younger brothers we're playing basketball all the time i coached my two youngest kids uh in their travel league of covid is sort of messed up that league. But we are all in with these kids, both playing as well as coaching. I think sports is a great way, obviously, to get exercise, but also clear your head, have family time. I love it. Now, I was a point guard. I don't know what position I played. I love distributing the ball and getting everybody involved. I will tell

you, fun fact, I was pretty darn good in high school. We won the ball and getting everybody involved. I will tell you, fun fact, I was pretty darn good in high school. We won the championship in my high school. I went to college thinking I was going to be able to play. And I was, you know, walking on to the men's basketball team. By the way, I was also in pre-med at the time, I figured I'd be like the first NBA Jewish doctor, right? None of that. That'd be quite the resume. Yeah. None of that obviously worked out.

I ended up not making the basketball team after a period of time. But anyway, bottom line is I just think sports are awesome. I love playing hoop. And sometime you'll get the chance to watch me and Soph and the kids play. By the way, she is a very dirty player. She has all elbows. It's a very, very challenging game to play with her. I'll say that's learned behavior on the basketball court. She picked that up from you. I'll say I want to see the Jerdie versus Josh Shapiro, one-on-one game, hopefully in the near future. And then it could be Jerdie versus Governor Shapiro in the near future.

Hey, I'll tell you what. Now, I'm going to disadvantage because I don't know how tall you are. You'll like stand up. You're probably like 6'8 or something. 5'10 on a good day. All right. So here's what we'll do. I'm in Pittsburgh a couple times a week.

Let's find a court. Let's play one on one and let's do it for charity, the charity of your choice. And let's let's raise some money for a good cause and and help some folks. OK, absolutely. Love that. It's on. Let's do it. The gauntlet has been. We will be live streaming that for charity to be continued on the date and time. But in 2022, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, thank you so much for joining us on the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you for fighting for democracy and thank you for raising such incredible children, including Sophia, who we know and love at Midas Touch.

You guys are awesome. And listen, the work you're doing really, really matters. Everybody right now has to get off the sidelines, get in the game and do their part, right? So I'm doing my part running for governor. All the folks who are volunteering are doing their part, but you guys seriously are doing your part, communicating a clear and consistent pro-democracy message. And you're cutting through a lot of the noise that's out there and giving people a lot of hope and a lot of things to understand in a different way. So I just want to say thank you truly for doing your part, guys. Stay well. Attorney General Josh Shapiro, thank you so much for joining us on the Midas Touch podcast. Jordy. Pennsylvania,

Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania. You got to start training. That is our next governor right there. That is who we all need to back and get behind. Jay, I don't even know why you're still here doing this podcast. Get out there and start knocking on some doors for us, Jordy. Few things. Few things. One, a thousand percent. Two, Ben called me Jordy, even though I asked him not to. I know he's going to get roasted in our comments section for that. Just cannot wait to see what people say there. Three. I forgot what three is, but that was just an amazing interview. You're bad. Probably you better start practicing now because I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure Josh is actually like a really good baller. I'm not sure

the last time you played. Yeah. The last time I played was when I beat Ben and I have the golden doodle trophy still now at my house. Long time ago. And all the golden doodle trophy. The golden doodle trophy, there was never a determinative winner of it. You stole the golden doodle trophy that I purchased from the dollar shop. By the way, we used to do this with everything growing up. We used to play knock hockey. Does everybody remember knock? I got to get a knock hockey board in the house. They got to still sell knock hockey, right? We used to play knock hockey in the house. Knock hockey has not gone extinct, Brett. Not gone extinct. With all this technology, there's probably a digital version, but I want the actual board. Knock hockey- I was at Mozzie the other day, and I saw the knock hockey table in the garage. So we'll have to bust that back out.

And the reason I bring it up is it would always be super competitive. And like Jordy, still to this day, steals the... What was it that you stole? This wasn't... I didn't steal it. He stole the golden doodle. I wouldn't doodle. I wouldn't. The winner- I beat Jordy in tennis. Jordy beat me in basketball. And there was going to be one other activity who could have decided. And that activity was going to be a contest that involved intelligence and the brain. So I was confident I was going to win. So Jordy preemptively stole it and Jordy rigged the competition between us. But Brett, speaking of rigging the competition,

we've seen this with the GQP, you know, with their gerrymandering efforts, with their efforts to suppress the vote. And we just talked about it on the interview with Attorney General Shapiro. But the Democrats this week have announced that they are now leaning in more towards making sure that voting rights is protected. You know, they are less bullish on passing a build back better as Senator Manchin seems unwilling to reach important compromises there. And same thing with Senator Sinema. But tell us what's going on, Brett, with voting rights. Yeah, I think they're putting all their chips now behind voting rights. I think they're kind of hearing the voice. I think it's two things, right? I think it's the fact that Manchin is not budging. And one of the things Manchin won't budge on is this issue of the child tax credit,

which to me is really sad because the last child tax credits just went out, meaning that next month, if nothing is passed between now and then, families who need this child tax credit are not going to get it. And I think that's, honestly, I think that's devastating for a lot of families. When we speak about lifting children out of poverty, that is all thanks to this child tax credit. And so now these people are going to be hit hard. These families are going to be hit really hard. And Joe Manchin kind of put Democrats in like a catch-22 here because he was like, oh no, we can't do child tax credit for one year because we should actually be doing the child tax credits for 10 years. And so the retort would be, okay, let's do the child tax credit for 10 years.

And then he'll say, oh, but that's too much money. That's above my 1.75 trillion figure. We can't do that. So he boxed Democrats into a point where we can't move forward on this bill at this point. I think this is an important part of President Biden's agenda and the Democrats' agenda. We need to work on passing this, no doubt. But at the same time, I think activists, I think listeners of the show, I think even we and people online, everybody has always said since the beginning that protecting our democracy and securing voting rights is priority number one and should be priority number one of this administration. So maybe there was some wasted time here by getting Build Back Better together, but I'm actually happy with this shift personally.

I think voting rights is the name of the game. I mean, protecting our democracy is the name of the game. What good is voting if you are so gerrymandered that your vote doesn't count? And I think Democrats are out there now. They're going to try to figure this out. I think they've seen that Manchin seems willing to budge on the filibuster for this issue now. That seems to be the early things. But Jordy, you know Lucy with the football. We'll see what happens there. But now it seems like we have to deal with Sinema, who is not willing to budge on the

filibuster. But we'll have to see what happens here. Maybe we could find one moderate Republican, if one still exists, who wants to come on board. Maybe we can convince Sinema. I don't know how this ends at the end of the day. Like I've said before in previous podcasts, it's going to be really hard to get this passed. But the fact is the Senate has shown in these past few weeks that it's not impossible to remove the filibuster when they want

to do things that they want to do, including raising the debt limit, which they had no problem getting rid of the filibuster for. All this talk about, oh, we can't get rid of the filibuster. We can't carve out the filibuster. They've actually done it a couple times in the past few weeks. And not only that, we always hear about the price tags of bills, right? The price tags. It's not going to be really an issue with this one because it's not a spending package like Build Back Better was. But you had Manchin complaining about the size and scope of Build Back Better, while simultaneously nearly the entire Senate voted for an extremely expensive Defense Authorization Act, which was actually even more money than President Biden even requested, and was even more money than last year, of course,

despite the fact that we actually ended a 10-year war. I think we're the only country that can end a decades-long war and actually spend more money. I mean, that right there, I think is just outrageous. And it shows the priorities of a lot of the Senate, to be honest, and not just the mansions of the world. Yeah. And so the other area, Brett, that I think you mentioned too, where the filibuster did not apply was an effort by Senator Mike Lee from Utah, who removed the filibuster to basically remove the VAX mandates and the VAX requirements and the testing requirements. And so that was one of the areas that measure lost 48 to 50. But yeah, Mike Lee asked for an up or down vote on his amendment to prevent the Biden administration from opposing. It's so funny how easy it is during these

situations. But when we want to get people paid leave, we want to get people free college and free pre-K, all of a sudden, no, we can't possibly do that. It's so outrageous. Well, here's one of the justifications for the filibuster, that it serves as a check and balance. No, it doesn't. That's not the purpose of it. The checks and balances are the president, the executive branch, the Congress and the legislative branch, you have two chambers, right? You have a House of Representatives and you have a Senate. Those are the checks and balances. And this idea that the filibuster is a check and balance, it isn't. It's a check on democracy is what the filibuster does because it is allowing a one. It allows one essentially, Senator, you know, to basically hold up the vote in a talking filibuster setting or by not getting to, you know, whatever the 60 vote threshold is for cloture.

It allows a very small population of the United States to dictate the terms of what the majority of the United States wants. So it's not. And Ben, this is what's so crazy about it. Like I want people to tell me, people in the chat tell me, people tweet at us, let us know, who is Joe Manchin representing? 93%, 93%, pretty big percentage of West Virginia children

benefit from the child tax credit that Joe Manchin is insisting must be eliminated. 93%. If he was a guy who was truly caring for his constituents, this would be the first thing he would ask for. I think we said on one of the previous shows, an extremely high percentage of people over the age of 50 in West Virginia have fake teeth because they can't get dental care. And he has an issue with having dental care in these bills. I mean, it's a big problem. And we can't let the minority, we can't let one senator here and there dictate this. We need to keep the pressure up on Manchin. I hope

he comes through on voting rights. And perhaps nobody summed it up best about the battle between the filibuster and voting rights, how the filibuster is standing in the way. Then Raphael Warnock's speech that he gave on the Senate floor gave an impassioned speech that I just want to make sure that all of our listeners and all of our viewers get a chance to hear. So I'm going to play it now and then we'll talk about it at the end. I have to tell you that the most important thing that we can do this Congress is to get voting rights done. Voting rights are preservative of all other rights. They lay the ground for all of the other debates. And so to my Democratic colleagues,

I say while it is deeply unfortunate, it is more than apparent that it has been left to us to handle alone the task of safeguarding our democracy. Sadly, many of our Republican friends have already cast their vote with voter suppression. And so the judgment of history is upon us. Future generations will ask, when the democracy was in a 911 state of emergency, what did you do to put the fire out? Did we rise to the moment or did we hide behind procedural rules?

I believe that we Democrats can figure out how to get this done, even if that requires a change in the rules, which we established just last week that we can do when the issue is important enough. Well, the people of Georgia and across the country are saying that voting rights are important enough. I think the voting rights are important enough. And so we cannot delay. We must continue to urge the party of Lincoln not to give in to the very forces of voter suppression that Dr. King described in that 1957 speech while standing in the shadow of Lincoln. But even as we do that, we cannot wait. We cannot wait on them. Just an incredible, incredible speech for the ages from Raphael Warnock. And I, you know, if there's anything I am, you know, just super proud of all of us accomplishing

and, you know, all of us being all of you and all the activists in Georgia and, you know, just all the work that we all collectively done electing Senator Warnock and electing Senator Ossoff. You know, this is why it was so important. And I think, you know, President Biden in the White House probably saw that speech and I'm sure it had an impact on them. And I hope you send that speech to, you know, everybody, you know, because it's just it's so powerful and so to the point. And the line that I want to highlight above all is when he said, the judgment of history is upon us. Future generations will ask, when the democracy was in a 9-1-1 state of emergency, what did you do to put the fire out? Did we rise to the moment

or did we hide behind procedural rules? Enough hiding behind procedural rules. We got to eliminate the filibuster, at least for this one issue, because if we don't have a democracy, we're not the United States of America anymore. You want to know a scary thought? If Warnock and Ossoff weren't elected and we didn't have a 50-50 split, would we know that Sinema and Manchin were truly this bad? Or would they be able to hide behind the fact that if Republicans held the majority, that they could still vote in line with Democrats, making it look as if they would, as if. It's an interesting, it's an interesting, it would be an interesting kind of social experiment. And I honestly, in a sick way, I feel like maybe they would actually vote for Democrats knowing that it wouldn't pass to cover

themselves. Like, but maybe, but maybe not, who knows? I mean, but you know, I mean, thankfully, I mean, just think about like President Biden at this point has nominated and I think also confirmed, you know, more judges than like any president. And that's because we have 50 senators. I mean, that's right there is so incredibly important. Passing things like the American Rescue Plan, passing things like the bipartisan infrastructure bill, if you want to call it bipartisan, things like that are so important. And it's why it's so important that we did get these senators, because we still have made a lot of progress. And I mean, at the end of the day, governing is hard. But if there's anything that we should be dedicating our energy to, it's to protecting voting rights. It's to making sure that people aren't disenfranchised, that

they can go to the polls, that their vote counts. I mean, that's really, at the end of the day, it's the name of the game, voting rights. Just this week, Biden announced his intent to nominate nine district court nominees, bringing the administration's total for the year to 73. That's one more than Donald Trump nominated in his first year in office. And this was a quote from a White House official quote, these choices also continue to fulfill the president's promise to ensure that the nation's courts reflect the diversity that is one of our greatest assets as a country, both in terms of personal and professional experience and backgrounds. The White House official reiterated. And you think about it. I just remember this image when the Trump appointees were in front of their Senate confirmation hearings and they were

being asked how many people here have actually been a lawyer in a trial. Not one person raised their hand. How many judges here have ever taken a dep I think the person who answered was like, well, I didn't actually take the deposition. I was just kind of there while the partner took the deposition. And so there's bipartisan commissions that look into these appointees and Trump's appointees. Think about it, of this, you know, Trump appointed 72 people. The majority of those people were unqualified. They received ratings of not qualified to be judges. And those are the people who are making lots of decisions that we talk about on Legal AF and that you read about on the headlines for those wondering Legal AF. The top legal podcast brought to you by Midas Touch, airs live on Saturday and then is played on Sunday. And even I think we drop it at midnight for the podcast listeners.

Jordy, tell us about Wondery Business Wars, which is a sponsor of the podcast. Brothers, everybody listening, Christmas. Tis the season to deck the halls and exchange presents with loved ones. But over the past 10 years, a new tradition has emerged. Binge watching, low budget, made for TV holiday movies. And the battle to have the highest rated Christmas movies gets more intense every year. The newest season of the Business Wars podcast from Wondery dives into the competition between Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix. While their films may be full of goodwill and cheer, the war for ratings is downright hostile. Listen to Business Wars, Christmas Movie Wars on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. I have been listening to this, and it is freaking amazing. That's why Jordy is the number one ad reader of the group. And Ben, I know you guys will discuss this more on Legal AF, which I hope everybody who listens to this show is subscribed to. But did you see that Elizabeth Warren came out in support of expanding the Supreme Court? I saw that. She wants to pass a judiciary act that would expand the court. How many people did she want to expand the court?

She wanted to add four justices to the court. How many people that you want to expand the court? She wanted to add four justices to the bench. Yeah, four more seats. And this is what, according to the Boston Globe Opinion piece Wednesday, says that the senior Massachusetts senator called on Congress to, quote, expand the Supreme Court by four or more seats in order to, quote, restore balance and integrity to a broken institution. And she plans on also backing congressional legislation as well. She wrote, quote, I believe in an independent judiciary. I also believe in a judiciary that upholds the rule of law, not one that ignores it to promote a deeply unpopular and partisan agenda at odds with the constitution and settled rights of our citizens, she continued. And when the court consistently shows that it no longer is bound by the rule of law, Congress must exercise

its constitutional authority to fix that court. And I'm just reminded of those images of Amy Coney Barrett basically celebrating her appointment at the White house with Trump on the balcony. I mean, the ultimate karma was that everybody got COVID, um, you know, related to that, you know, I think including Trump, like literally it was one of the biggest super spread. Trump gave everyone COVID. I think everyone gave everybody the white house itself was the biggest super spreader event, but yeah, I think Trump had known at that point for how many days that he had COVID and just was covering it up. Yeah, at least a few.

Yeah, he knew for just some of the most screwed up, horrible conduct as well, but gave everybody COVID. And then you wonder, too, him giving those people COVID and those people giving people COVID, actually how many deaths can be directly traced to Donald Trump. Studies have been done about his rallies. I mean, Trump, I think scientifically is the biggest COVID super spreader in the country, if not the world, by doing these rallies. I mean, tens, hundreds of thousands of deaths, I'm sure it could be attributed to this man going around the country, spreading COVID to all of his followers, who then go back to their cities, who then go back to their towns and infect other people. And I mean, we're seeing this, you see this horrific map or graph rather of the difference between Democratic voters right now

and Republican voters and COVID deaths. I mean, we're about to see, you know, we're already starting to see these Omicron wave right now. And the fact is when you see graphs like this, it kind of shows you that we're not really in a whole United States pandemic. We're kind of in a Republican pandemic. I mean, this is horrifying. We talk about, I mean, Republicans want to talk about a red wave. Look at the red wave on this chart. And you have places that voted Republican in the 2020 election by 80 plus percent at the highest, highest, highest points of rate of death. And you have places that voted Republican in the 2020 election by 80 plus percent at the highest, highest, highest points of rate of death. And then you have Democrats, all the Democrat areas, far, far, far lower, like barely even registering on the chart in comparison. And it's

just one of the things, you know, when we, it's comical to look at, you know, when we see Fox and being hypocritical and stuff, but they did the, but they had the same lies to have to quarantine if they're getting infected with COVID. I mean, they are playing to a base. They're just going, oh yeah, just do whatever you want. Pandemic, who cares? And to their detriment, because we have 90 plus percent of Democrats who are vaccinated. And at this point, we have over 30% of Republicans saying they will never get vaccinated, just totally refusing to even do it at all. And that's why we have such a divide in their country. And that's why the COVID numbers just keep spiking all the time. I mean, it's been obvious for a long time. And these charts just

show how drastic the differences truly are. Sad. I want to make two observations, Jordy, and I'd love to get your feedback, at least on the first observation. It's the becoming desensitized as a nation to death. I think ultimately where you factor your own views on COVID-related policy is what your views are on death and what your views are on allowing your fellow Americans to die or instituting common sense, public policy and public health policy that can prevent deaths. Or do you believe, have we become so callous as a nation that to have 1% of the population die when measures can be taken to prevent that, that we just view that as a rounding error that doesn't matter. I think what I'm proud to be a big D Democrat about, but also a big believer in science and a big believer in any political party that would show empathy is I believe one

of the roles of government is to try to create and facilitate situation where people are less likely to die, period. And that's one of the things people look to government for. That's why we have health departments. And I just think the GQP, you know, with their fetishization of guns, with their views on COVID, their callous response to school shootings, they're living of this fan fiction that they're embroiled in, where they're not even thinking about consequences, and they're not thinking rationally. And when they do think, they think in support of policies that encourage death. Jordy, what do you think about that? For me, I think the way that members of the GQP are looking at this and people who call themselves Republicans or conservative, and that's not a real thing anymore.

The larger the number, the larger the death toll, I think it gives them reason to say it's not real. I think they don't care about the mass, like the massive deaths of Americans. They could care less. And the larger that number keeps going and going, the more they could point to and just call it fake news. These people are heartless, disgusting human beings that don't care for their fellow neighbor. So they could complain. They could make up things all they want. But at the end of the day, it's rational people

like the folks who are listening to this podcast right now and watching right now and doing their part in the communities to help get us to a safe space who are triple vaxxed right now, that will help lead us to golden pastures. That will help get us out of this freaking pandemic. Right. I was speaking to someone who was anti-vax yesterday and I explained to them, I said, you know what? I would rather the government not have to be in a position where it mandates vaccines. I'd rather people just read the literature and do it on their own when these vaccines are made available to them. I said, the big problem, though, is it's not just that you're anti-vax. I said, the community of anti-vaxxers are also anti-mask. You're also

anti-testing. And then you're pro getting in my face to try to spread the disease. I say, so when you add all of those factors together, plus you got a spike with some of these variants, there's really nothing else responsible government can do to deal with you because you are wanting to spread this virus by all of those ways. If you took any of those steps seriously, that may be a way to mitigate this. But because you and the community of anti-vaxxers kind of affirmatively want to spread this, I said, it becomes problematic to the point where the government needs to say, and in the various government agencies that have reached these findings before implementing these rules, right? Whether it's the department of health, OSHA,

Medicare and Medicaid administrations. They said, look, because people are not taking the vaccines on their own and utilizing good health, we have to step in. Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, you have to take measures like this. I mean, like literally any other disease that spreads at this rate, like any other pandemic, we've always mandated vaccines. And yeah, I mean, I agree. And Ben, when you say they spread the disease, I think also the disease is not only the disease of COVID, but the disease of disinformation. They are sort of like evangelists going around spreading disinformation to try to convince other people to not get vaccinated. So it's not only their own bodies that they are affecting, but they are going out there, they're spreading the disease in that way. And they are trying to tell all their friends and make up lies and scare them from

doing their part to help the pandemic. They are blaming everything on the vaccine that happens to them, even though it doesn't have anything to do with it. They are purposefully, in many cases, misreading data to act like the vaccine is dangerous. And it's not. The vaccines are safe, they're effective, and the data time and time again proves it. And I guess I just want to, I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir a little bit here, but everyone who's listening, if you haven't gotten your booster yet, please get your booster. Get vaccinated. It's just really important. Just do your part right now and let's help us get out of this pandemic because 800,000 lives, think about 800,000 lives. I mean, that's a horrific number. And that's also what many people say is an undercount of what the real numbers are. So please, those are real people with real families,

with real relationships, and we need to stop this. I'll give you my other observation. My first observation was on the lack of care and concern that the GQP has relating to death and the role of responsible government combating death at its most basic level. My other observation is as a lawyer, as someone who went to law school, who studied Supreme Court precedent, you know, it's just really so unfortunate that the Supreme Court does not have credibility. You know, hearing these arguments about Roe v. Wade, you know, we warned people that the outcome in 2016 would be if you elect Trump, Roe v. Wade would be overturned. People said, well, you're being an alarmist. And that's what's going to happen. And it will really be one of the

only times in American history where a fundamental right, right, the reproductive freedom, right, a right that childbearing persons that women have to choose, you know, would be taken away and that they would be subject and doctors would be subject to criminal penalties in states, you know, through a complete overturning of long established precedent. So that's why 2022 though is going to be the fight for the soul of our country. I mean, 2022, think about what's on the line in 2022, voting rights, abortion rights, our ability to live. There's so much that's going to be on the ballot and there's so much that we are going to have to fight for. And whether that's in sharing information through podcasts and social media, or whether that's going to the street and demanding voting rights and demanding your right to choose. Whatever it

is, we need to be ready to step up in 2022 in every way. I mean, let's do this. We got a big year ahead of us. We're going to need everybody energized and ready to go. I like, Brett, the idea, just like marketing from a marketing perspective, we need to bring that 2020 energy into 2022. The coalitions that existed, the passion that was out there. In 2021, we restored responsible governance. And guess what? Responsible governance sometimes isn't the most sexy thing in the world, but having the train run on time, having government function, restoring American dignity internationally, allowing us to have a stable economy, not waking up to Trump sending crazy tweets where it would literally give me distress every morning

seeing him tweet crazy things. But, you know, sometimes that also breeds complacency that we think that we could take this for granted. You know, as Hillary Clinton said in a recent interview that she gave, it's her prediction that Donald Trump is going to run again in 2024. 2022 is the beginning of that process. And she says these next two elections are going to be a make or break point for our democracy. And I'll tell you, if there's one thing about Senator Clinton, she's been right on everything, everything she said about Trump. She's very well prepared. Listen to her this time. Listen, listen. No doubt about it. So we need to bring that energy. And then look, I'm looking at polls spread again. And again, you and I always say on this podcast,

as does Jordy, we hate polls, we hate polls. But sometimes they are indicators of overall trends. And you just look at it. CNN released their own poll of Biden's approval at 49%, whereas Trump was at 33% at this point in his presidency. And the same poll, same data samples, same everything. And a CNN reporter just in connection with that poll basically said that Biden's not doing well in the polls when, I know, I think you at least have to give it context and say, whereas at the same point in time, 16 percent points above Trump at the same time. Exactly. But I do see overall, Brett, the trends are shifting as the economy is robust, as the policies of Biden make us safer abroad and at home. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was

the right move to make at that time. It was a tough decision, but it was the right move to make. And so Biden's policies are creating one of the most robust economy, but obviously the retail economy focusing on individual people, we have to be focused on everyone's concerns. That's one of the great things that I think I take from Josh Shapiro's interview as we close out this podcast is Josh Shapiro says, look, I will go into communities that may not agree with me on paper, that may not share the same views with me. And Jordy, you know more than anybody anybody, you know, in Pennsylvania, that Shapiro is someone who is beloved in those other areas where Democrats don't always into those communities and lie to them, but pretend to care. And sometimes Democrats who really care don't go into the communities at all.

So that's where we need to be. And I think that was great context by Josh Shapiro. I love it. Bring that 2020 energy. I got it right here. It's B-T-T-E. That's the new tag, folks. B-T-T-E. No, sorry, sorry. B-T-T-T. Jordy, we already learned from your sex on the city acronyms. Let's leave the acronyms to me. No, I got it. It looks really good. B-T-T-T-E. Bring that 2020 energy to 2022. We need you in this fight. Voting rights, January 6th, justice for January 6th, abortion rights. And by the way, I also just want to give a shout out and say that I think the January 6th committee is doing such a fantastic job at laying out the case. I think

they're doing such a smart job in the way they release their findings. And I think in 2022, I think it's going to be fireworks. I think we got a different situation now with a different DOJ and I'm ready and I'm eager. And yes, I want it to happen now, but I want to start seeing some more indictments and I want to start seeing some consequences. And when we get that, when we're fighting for voting rights, when we start seeing Democrats fighting and people taking to the streets, and we have governors running like Josh Shapiro and Stacey Abrams and Beto O'Rourke, when we have that energy, just think about what we could accomplish. I mean, I think we're really in a good shape right now to really build to just a very successful 2022, but we're going to need

all you to play your part. We appreciate your support as always. Thank you to Josh Shapiro, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for joining us on the Midas Touch podcast today. Thank you to our sponsors, Home Medics. Use that code Midas and thank you to Wondery Business Awards. I'm a big Wondery fan as well. I always listen to the Wondery podcast even before they were a sponsor. They do a really good job of those narrative style podcasts that are about historical moments. Happy holidays, everybody. For those who are traveling, be safe. As Brett said, get the booster. We can't stress that enough and keep fighting. And look, you want to take a little bit of rest over the next few days and weeks. All good. But we're going to need you in 2022 with that 2020 energy. Brett's fired

up. He's already doing videos every day now again with that 2020 energy. And we need that 2020 energy out of you. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We will be with you next week on the Midas Touch podcast. Shout out to the Midas Midas!