The MeidasTouch Podcast - Charlie Sykes & Gregg Hurwitz take on the GQP

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

On today’s extended episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, the brothers sit down with Founder, Editor-at-Large of The Bulwark & best-selling author Charlie Sykes. Sykes and the brothers discuss the failings and bizarre behavior of today’s GQP and how the cover of traditional "conservative" values was merely a veneer hiding the seedy underbelly of the party. Next, the episode continues with the brothers discussing the repulsive philosophy of today’s GQP, the GQP's hatred of the U.S. Military, and debate who is the worst of the Millers–Stephen or Jason. Later on, the brothers touch base with another best-selling author & major ally of the resistance, Gregg Hurwitz. The team discusses ways to keep voters engaged for 2022 and beyond. Tune in every Tuesday and Friday for NEW episodes of The MeidasTouch Podcast! Check out Charlie's website The Bulwark here. You can buy Gregg's book Prodigal Son here. Buy the brand new MeidasTouch merch here. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Midas Touch Podcast. Ben Micellis joined by my younger brothers, Brett and Jordy Micellis. We have an incredible podcast episode for you today. We have the editor at large of the bulwark, Charlie Sykes, who we will talk about what the heck happened to the Republican Party. How did they go from conservatives and Republicans that Charlie Sykes once supported to the GQP crazy fascist that he now speaks against. Did Charlie Sykes see it coming? Stay tuned for that interview. And on this jam packed, incredible Midas Touch podcast episode, we also have New York Times bestselling author and Midas Touch collaborator, Greg Hurwitz. Greg Hurwitz worked during the 2020

elections. He was deeply steeped in data before then to help Democrats with their messaging. Greg has a Hollywood background. He worked with a lot of filmmakers, a lot of editors to help produce and develop content. Greg was someone who we at Midas Touch spoke to. Some of the videos that Greg and his team produced, Midas Touch would work on and partner on and get those videos out. And Greg is incredibly analytical. He's deeply steeped in the literature on elections, on the numbers. And so you are not going to want to miss our interview with Greg Hurwitz as we take a deep dive in what we can and should be doing as we approach 2022 and what our past mistakes were. And Jordy, it was very funny because I haven't really fully appreciated on Twitter that essentially

anything I post, no matter what it is that I post, I didn't realize that you will always make a snarky comment. Well, that's the thing. The thing is, I'm trying to see if you actually follow me on Twitter.com and the consensus is that you don't. I've been doing this now for the last six months. Twitter.com? I would like to call Jordy out for projecting because he unfollowed me yesterday. He refollowed me, but he unfollowed me. I want to, well, let's make things clear. I'm trying to follow as many people as possible.

Hey, breaking news. So you unfollowed your brother? No, no, no. Hold on. I'm trying to follow, unlike you two goons, I'm trying to follow 10,000 Midas Mighty supporters by June 6th, call it. And so in doing so, I've started to follow a lot of people and I'm very excited about it, but I didn't know Twitter had a cap that you can't follow X amount of people. You could only follow X amount of people a day. Yeah, they blocked you at a certain point. Yeah. And so as I was doing that, I didn't realize that I couldn't do it anymore. So what I had to do is I had to unfollow Brett and then refollow him to make sure that he saw that indeed, I in fact am able to follow people. I'm still not following the logic though,

why you don't follow me. Because then what if Twitter banned you from following people? What if you then could not follow me back? Then we wouldn't have been friends. Who knows? Does that even mean we're brothers anymore? I don't know. It was a calculated risk, and I think it paid off.

I think we're brothers considering the fact that if there was a vote that took place, whether or not I would support a bipartisan committee. If you were, you know, no, just get rid of it. Where are you going? Where are you going with this, Jay? This stays the Jay. It's staying in the pod, Jordy. Let me be very clear, people. Y'all, Jay, Jordy.

People are, Ben, you interrupt Jordy. I want to get back to the initial. OK, number one, I don't interrupt, Jordy. You see what happens, ladies and gentlemen. I just let Jordy do his rant right there. And where did that rant go? You wish I would have interjected. I mean, let's be let's be real here.

So that's point number one. Point number two is I think your Twitter snark against me is the passive aggressive way. I'll that I post, even Brett and I posted a photo from this weekend. I had a basketball themed birthday party. For those who don't know, I am the basketball champion still. Brett did not play, but I have a basketball trophy that I'm holding up that if you come to my court, this is the trophy. Literally, I go there. Ben's holding the trophy as i arrive first off we do a like a surprise a little surprise party for ben for his birthday we go to his house everybody's all vaccinated which is honestly just one of the most liberating things now like being able to go out and the only thing i'm upset about is now i have to start thinking of other excuses when like

friends invite me to hang out like i used to be able to be like i can't i would love to see you man but you know pandemic you know but now I don't have that pandemic out. I don't have it anymore in a lot of situations. But we did a little surprise for Ben's birthday. But even though he did not expect us, he still had the trophy just at an arm's reach, ready to go in case anyone wanted to challenge him. And no, but I didn't play. But it was, once again, great seeing Ben. It's just so wild now to just be out and like seeing people. And it's really like, you just really feel the world coming back in a big way.

Some of it makes me uneasy, but at the same time, happy. Like, I don't know. I always don't know how to feel about some of these things. Like, did you guys see the PGA tour the other day? Packed, packed, packed, packed. And part of me is like, oh my God, like this is, we're still in a pandemic. But part of me is like, oh my God, we're still in a pandemic. But part of me is like, you know what? People are getting vaccinated. We're starting to get back to normal, doing normal things. You have Stephen Colbert coming back with his audience.

You have real life starting to resume. And it's a good thing in many ways. And it's a testament to who we have in the White House, competent leadership, shots in arms, people being able to get out and live their lives again. I mean, this is a freedom that we have not been able to experience in a long, long time. So part of me wants to just, you know, see the good side of all this and look at it and be happy of how far we've come in such a short period of time. Let me give you some statistics that go along with that. The COVID-19 cases rollout of vaccines for the turnaround. More than 60% of people over 18 have received at least one shot and almost half are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. And of course, as America gets back to normal again, that makes the GQP extra upset, extra angry.

They go to their Dr. Seusses. They go to their made up controversies. And now one of the strangest. I feel like we need like a theme song like this week and made up controversies, like some sort of jingle because we could just use it every single week. Every time they try to pull this stuff. What do they got going on this week, Ben? Yeah, I mean, look, there's a reason that we are calling the GQP evil cartoon characters because they are dangerous. Right. But they are also laughably silly.

In this week's edition of GQP gone GQP, it's like not gone crazy. It is GQP gone GQP. You have Senator Ted Cruz. And this is not just Cruz. What I'm about to say is like a lot of this right wing GQP echo chamber all showing one a video, a Russian propaganda video of all white male soldiers who all look like skinheads in a propaganda video. And they're all praising that video. An American political party is praising that video. And what they want to do is then they show the contrast to one video, just one video that the United States military had put out that was inclusive and focused on the experience of a soldier, a female soldier named Emma Mellon Lord. And Emma grew up in a household with two mothers. She pursued a career in the military based on her love of the nation. And

she talked about her journey. And the message of this one video was, if I can do it, you can do it. My own unique experience as an American is the experience that maybe others have too. And you could be in the military and defend our great nation, too. And what's Ted Cruz's response? He calls the U.S. military and this is a direct quote, pansies. And he mocked this as a quote, a masculated United States military because of this video. Now, granted, this was one video, but to me, this is the strength of America that we can recruit diverse people who can serve all jobs. Because guess what, ladies and gentlemen, the military today is not medieval times. OK, the military today is not people running with swords at each other and chopping each other up in pieces.

Today's military is a sophisticated operation with many jobs. They think the military and they think the government is like a movie. To them, everything is like a movie or a television show, ironically, because they claim to hate Hollywood so much. But they think everything is like a movie. That's why I think it was actually Ted Cruz as well a few weeks ago who complained that we didn't have any Jason Bournes in the military or something. He has this prototypical idea of what a soldier is supposed to be, supposed to look like. When Ted Cruz never a single day in his life, never did he enlist in the military. He did not fly overseas ever to fight for this country.

He did cross the border to Mexico to flee American citizens in a time of need. But Ted Cruz has never done anything of substance for this country like the soldiers that he's mocking. And for him to be a part of this party, this crazy party that claims to be the party of American exceptionalism, that claims to be the party of the military and military might, for him to be mocking the very diversity, the very strength of our military and targeting specific members of our military and their stories and what got them there and the recruitment tools that they are using to encourage people of all

types to join the military, to make our military stronger, better, faster, more effective. I think it's just frankly disgusting. And just like the GQP has lost any right to claim that they respect the police, they have lost any right to claim that they respect the US military when they are out there spreading Russian propaganda. They certainly don't respect health as well. As again, you'll see the themes here as we talk about America getting back to normal, the CDC saying we're on our way, mask mandates being lifted. OK, but there are still certain common sense things, common sense health and safety protocols that individuals on their own can practice,

that corporations can practice. But the GQP governors, and we talked about this last week, a number of GQP governors enacting laws that would prevent private businesses for having their own policies about whether or not people should wear masks who are not vaccinated while in their facilities. I laugh, but it's freaking shocking. And so with the GQP, it's kind of like with the audit that we'll talk about, the Cyber Ninja audit, they take one horrible idea and like the COVID-19 pandemic, they just want to spread their horrible ideas. It's probably why the GQP was pro-COVID. They're like, this is the worst thing ever. Let's spread it all over because that's just like their ideas when it really comes down to it. So Greg Abbott, for example,

the worst governor in the world, the governor of Texas, probably equal to a lot of these other GQP governors, though. Today, what he said is that anyone, any school, any entity that attempts to impose any type of mask mandate, you will be fined up to $1,000. You are a lawbreaker for even on your own deciding that you want masks. It's the weirdest thing how much they hate masks during a pandemic. And while they say, oh, yes, because we want freedom for all, freedom for everybody. And then they go, oh, you're a business, a private business that wants to make your own policy for your business. Nope. Go fuck yourself and play the clip, Brett, of Marjorie Taylor Greene. And Midas Touch had a great quote about it, which is basically saying, look, Marjorie Taylor Greene believes that wearing masks is the equivalent of six million Jews dying in the Holocaust. Like that's there's no exaggeration in that tweet by Midas touch.

But yes, Marjorie Taylor Greene went. And this is not just unique to Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is what the GQ piece says. This is one of their main views. Comparing wearing masks during a pandemic to Nazis killing six million Jews during the Holocaust. This woman is mentally ill. You know, we can look back in a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in

Nazi Germany. And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about. I've actually prepared a statement. I didn't tell you guys this. I wrote a statement about this that I really want to get off my chest. So it starts like this. Marjorie Taylor Greene, go fuck yourself. Oh, beautiful.

Well thought out. Good statement. I thought it might go that direction, but I thought there was possibly the next 10 minutes was going to be a docket. Seriously. I mean, first off, Marjorie Taylor Greene, I don't know who she thinks she is being the new representative of the Jews, but I would like her to please keep all Jewish matters out of her mouth and not talk about Jewish issues. She seems to be going off on this nonstop. Jews in the Holocaust, Jews this, Jews that,

Jewish space laser. She's obsessed. Stop it. What are you doing? Don't talk. Also, don't compare things to the Holocaust, generally speaking, unless it's an actual Holocaust you're comparing it to. Wearing a mask for public health safety reasons, having mandates in place that keep people safe to stop the spread of a deadly disease that killed more than 590,000 people is called being a good citizen. That's it. It's the most patriotic thing you could do during this time to wear a mask and to be vaccinated. For Marjorie to compare this to the Holocaust is disgusting. And what speaks bigger volumes about this and what shows you that Marjorie Taylor Greene is really the leader of this party

is that not a single Republican has spoken out against Marjorie Taylor Greene. GOP leader. None. Zero. Not a word. Not a word. Kevin McCarthy, he's in hiding right now. He's not taking any questions about this. Hasn't said anything. This should be a no-brainer. Of course, wearing a mask is not like 6 million Jews dying in the Holocaust. That should be a no-brainer thing to say. Everybody should be speaking up loudly.

And the fact that none of them are means that either all of them believe this or they are too cowardly to speak up to it because they know that this is who they are and this is who their voters are. And here's the poll that came out this week, the Ipsos poll that says this tells you the psyche of this mentally disturbed, you know, sick, mentally sick party that 53% of people who are Republicans, 53% of Republicans believe that Donald Trump is currently the president. That right now, the true president is Donald Trump, according to the majority of the Republican Party. And this goes to show you when people like Senator Manchin talk about wanting to vote in regular order and that we shouldn't abolish the filibuster.

This party believes that Donald Trump is the president. This party is claiming that there was no insurrection. This party supported an insurrection against the United States. You want to talk about regular order with the party that's legitimately trying to destroy the United States of America? And and this is, you know, this week, you know, it was reported that Senator Manchin was outraged. He was outraged that his GOP colleagues were suggesting that they would filibuster the bipartisan commission of what happened January 6th. That shocks Joe Manchin, that the party on the other side that was the one trying to kill you would want to vote in regular order in favor of an investigation into themselves. Does Joe Manson's outrage reach

the level of Susan Collins level of concern? I think so. I mean, we are living in a time where there is a political party, as we've always said, when everyone was like, oh, you're being an alarmist. The GQP is a psychotic, fascist cult weird freaking party i don't know you see this andrew giuliani campaign video he's running for governor of new york these are just freaking weirdos it looks like it was produced by andrew giuliani it's time to stand and honor the great heroes of new york the greatest chapters of new y York are yet to be written. And as your governor, let's write the greatest comeback story ever. I hope he gets just like, he's probably going to get some votes just because the GQP is crazy.

But I just hope that he's just so thoroughly embarrassed and pummeled because he literally is. I mean, the gall and out of touchness, though, to run in New York, it's like to think about him living in this echo chamber where they probably just talk about, you know, Cuomo every day. Like Cuomo is is the worst human being ever. The man legitimately thinks that he has a chance of becoming the governor of New York is absolutely crazy. You know, we have to do. I'm so glad that we have Charlie Sykes on the podcast for a lot of reasons. I'm going to ask Charlie Sykes. First up, Charlie Sykes, you know, always got the label. He's a conservative commentator, conservative political analyst. He's the founder, though, of the Bulwark. And the Bulwark is not partisan. The Bulwark has people from all political parties talking about pro democracy issues. But I want to speak with Charlie Sykes after the break just about,

did he see this coming? I mean, he supported people like Ron Johnson. And how does that happen? And what is Charlie Sykes' overall view of where we go from here? So we will be right back after these messages with Charlie Sykes. What's up, Midas Mighty? Thank you for making the Midas Touch merch store one of the, if not the, most popular destination for pro-democracy merch,

from T-shirts to mugs, and of course, the best-selling Vaxxed wristbands. I can't wait to be out in town getting coffee, getting dinner, whatever it is, and seeing people rocking their wristbands. These wristbands are amazing because it lets people know, to your point, that one, you're vaxxed, you're making a safe community for the folks around you. And two, maybe even more importantly, right up there, you're not a Fox News watcher. That's what these wristbands let people know. And let's be real. It's just a matter of respect, right? We're all going out. A lot of people are going to be kind of uneasy being around other people after being locked in

for a while. And it's an easy way to just let your neighbors know, let your friends know, let your overworked barista know that, hey, I followed the guidelines. I'm vaxxed. You don't have to worry about me. We're all in this together. And so you can get your vaxxed wristbands at store.midastouch.com. If you're still masking up, you can get your vaxxed and relaxed masks at midastouch.com. We got all vaxxed and relaxed gears. We got koozies, which are going to be great for summer. I'm excited for summer right now with the Midas Touch merch. And I've seen people

showing us photos that they're receiving their tank tops and everything. So go check out store.MidasTouch.com. Get your pro-democracy gear today. That's store.midastouch.com. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by Charlie Sykes, political commentator, founder and editor at large of The Bulwark. He writes the morning newsletter, The Morning Shot, or The Morning Shots, rather. I guess for me, after four years with Donald Trump, I would need that morning shot to feel sane every morning. Charlie Sykes, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Hey, great to be on.

Thank you for being here. I want to go through your background and your story because it's quite interesting how you at some point you were a Democrat. Then you were, you know, and I don't love labels, especially in the age of Trump. And we'll get there. But kind of conservative Republican and no longer a Republican. Can you just take us through not your whole life and in this whole podcast, but very briefly, just that journey to where you are today? So you don't want me to start born in Seattle or anything like that? No, for years, I actually did describe myself as a recovering liberal because, you know, I got my start in Democratic politics when I was in eighth grade.

My father was campaign manager for Eugene McCarthy, who was running the any war campaign against Lyndon Johnson. I helped set up Gene McCarthy's headquarters in Wisconsin. I got to fly around on the airplane with him. So I was and I was involved in Young Democrats. And then I became a journalist, went to work as a newspaper reporter. And I've always been sort of a contrarian. So I became more and more skeptical of some of the things, the orthodoxies that, you know, that I saw around me and became more, I would say, you know, willing to, you know, listen to other points of view and became more conservative with time. I never really thought of myself as a Republican because I'm not a joiner. You know, I'm an only child, so I don't

work or play well with others. But I did. And I was a conservative talk show host for more than 20 years in Wisconsin, very involved in conservative politics here. Anything you want to accuse me of, I'm going to just fess up, you know, whatever card you can play. Like, aren't you responsible for X, this terrible thing? I can top it. I can come up with something worse. But I started realizing something was terribly wrong when the orange God King came down the golden escalator and looked around and said, do I really know what I'm part of here? I mean, I thought I understood what conservatives were about.

I thought I understood who these people I had been aligned with really were. And so it's been a soul crushing, disillusioning, liberating experience. So you gave me the open invitation to go there. So let me just go there. Right. Absolutely. So you supported and helped Ron Johnson get elected. I mean, you were the you know, again, I hate labels, but you're like the godfather of conservatives, conservatism in Wisconsin. And I think you viewed Ron Johnson at the time as a independent kind of practical thinking person in line with a lot of the kind of Wisconsin politicians that kind of break that mold.

So so what the hell happened there, Charlie? Yeah, well, that's true. Yeah, I have to fess up on Ron Johnson, which I have done multiple times. Although in answer to your question, what happens? I I have no idea. Honestly, somebody slipped him some red pills and it was beer one day because the guy that I knew was this businessman from Oshkosh who was reasonably well grounded, who was not going to buy into the bullshit in Washington, D.C. I thought he would be more in the mode of a William Proxmire. Actually, my dad wrote William Proxmire's biography, you know, famous Wisconsin, you know, legendary Wisconsin senator. And I remember giving, you know, Ron John a copy of Proxmire's biography. I didn't know that he was going to morph into Joe McCarthy instead of Bill Proxmire in terms

of Wisconsin's historic contributions to the U.S. Senate. But I'll give you the same answer I've given everybody else. I thought I understood where he was going. I had a theory about him for a while. And now this guy's gone so many down, so many rabbit holes. I have no idea. You know, it's not just Ron Johnson, though, right? I mean, you see that across the board with people like Ted Cruz, with Marco Rubio, you know, seemingly, you know, Josh Hawley, seemingly on paper, intelligent people who were supposed to break the mold. That's how they were

sold, who have totally, utterly succumbed to the orange dictator and Trumpism. So you've analyzed politics your whole career. You've studied these individuals. And for you, when you saw him descend through that escalator, you said, what the hell is this? This isn't conservatism. This is a crazy person. So what is it, though, about other people who have defiled the label conservatism? Why did they so just give everything to a to not just a con artist but just a dumb man yeah like yeah the worst human being in the world comes along and everybody goes hey yeah let's make him commander-in-chief i uh i i have wrestled with this for more than five years and and i i can give you sort of a a cheap answer on of this. You break it down into three main categories. The most obvious is just total lack of principle and cowardice, you know, the lack of backbone. This is the one that's on display on a regular basis.

There's also a certain number of people who are just simply transactional. They figured they were going to get something from him. You know, the conversations with people who had no illusions about, you know, there was a con man and you had the emotional maturity of a nine year old, but they figured if they got some judges and tax cuts from him, that was worth the trade off. You know, that's the Faustian bargain. You know, I'm willing to make this deal until you find out that you've sold your soul. So there was transactional. And then you have the people, and you mentioned a bunch of these folks, the Josh Hollies, the Ted Cruz's. These are people who are highly educated. So let's assume that they're very

intelligent, that they know what they're doing. And what these people are engaged in is the sort of competitive, performative assholery, where what they are trying to do is remake themselves in a way that they think will advance their careers by by blending in with this new Trumpian ethos. And I actually judge them the worst. I mean, I you know, I in the hierarchy of the awfuls, the Sean Hannity's of the world. You can't get too upset because the guy's a there's a more fundamental kind of evil there because they know what they're doing and they know the consequences of what they're doing and they don't care. And that's been the most in many ways, the most rattling. But I also have to admit that, you know, this is not just a leadership problem. I mean, they are reflecting what's going on in the Republican base. They're reflecting what's

going on on, you know, in state, county level. There are tens of millions of people that are watching this and going, this is great. And I think that's the most disillusioning part is that I had to admit, I mean, shortly after the election, I had this conversation with George Will and we had to admit to each other that we obviously didn't understand what the conservative movement was about. We that that all of the intellectual cover of the right had been this tiny thin layer on top of this molten something or other that turned out to be pretty ugly. And we're living with that now. And there was that, you know, intellectual cover and what lied beneath it, I mean, I think was first defined or first kind of described, you know it was kind of this this tea party-ish thing and now it's kind of mutated

to like a full-fledged like q anon you know cult just weird stuff where literally this is how i know their position whatever is objectively provably and easily so wrong, they will take that position. Earth is round, earth is flat. You know, I mean, no matter what the issue will be, vaccines are healthy. We're not taking any vaccines. You know, wear a mask. Wearing masks is like Nazism, you know, and it just gets more and more extreme. I mean, how do we connect, though, with people? You know, and it just gets more and more extreme. I mean, how do we connect, though, with people? You know, is it important that that these alliances be forged, though, like Charlie, like we're we call ourselves progressive. But at the end of the day, I think we're just pro democracy. Yeah. Like, do we need it? We need to link up, huh? No, I haven't. Yeah, see, that's the thing is, if this is an existential threat to our democracy, then we need to actually rethink our politics. So we've spent most of our lives,

right, thinking of politics on a left-right continuum. Maybe now we need to think of it on a vertical axis, which is pro-democracy, pro-truth, you know, just, you know, fundamental decency, because I think we're seeing something that, you know, I spent, I'm sorry to interrupt myself, but, you know, for the last four years, we were often accused of being too hysterical. You guys are being too negative. It's not going to be that bad. Look, Donald Trump's not really an authoritarian. And then January 6th comes along and you realize, wait, we had a failure of imagination to realize how bad it can get. And so I think we need to use, you know, to be really open to how bad it can get going forward, that we have not seen the worst of it yet.

And so I know how people feel about people like Adam Kinzinger and maybe, you know, Liz Cheney. You never thought you'd say anything nice about Liz Cheney. Right. But at a certain point, you excuses, saying there were peaceful protesters or it was Antifa or it was Black Lives Matter. Like, how do you deal with a party that's not even living in the same reality as you and Ron Johnson, your old buddy? Perfect example. Well, that's the great question. How do you have a conversation with people living in a different reality? In a democracy, you can have vigorous disagreements as long as you have a shared reality, some shared set of facts or standards, and we're not there anymore. So among the things that I did not see coming, and I will admit it, I didn't see that the party would go so far, you know, into Trumpism that they would engage in this kind of complete denialism of

things that we saw with our own eyes. Right. You know, that, you know, we kept playing this game. What would it take for Republicans to break with Donald Trump? And the answer at some point was nothing, absolutely nothing. You can't come up with anything. But even saying that you think, yes, but if you had an actual, you know, seditious insurrection and attempt to invade the Capitol to stop a presidential election, surely that would be enough. Right. But no. And then what? Five minutes. Remember that five minutes? That sort of little Arab spring when Mitch McConnell came out and the scales had dropped from his eyes and Kevin McCarthy was willing to say that, you know, that, hey, you know, this guy's responsible for this. That last Graham, I'm that's it. I'm done with him. That's exactly exactly. You know, and somebody, you know, yells at Lindsey Graham in the airport and it's all done.

We're back. And so this is just an indication of how this whole process has warped their minds in this way that is really hard to grasp. I mean, five years of believing bullshit and believe and inverting a lot of the things you used to claim you believed in has had a, you know, it's had an impact on, on this party, which you've noticed. It's impossible not to notice. I mean, it's everywhere and every day it's so in your face you know and i think you summed it up greatly and it's actually something we've been speaking a lot internally i think you described them as evil cartoon characters the other night

on msnbc they are these people they're crazy it's nuts and i'm seeing the gop i mean you see them every day they are more and more playing to this base, which in my opinion, and what looks like through polling and things, the base is getting smaller, but they also are getting more activated and more passionate. So they're playing to a smaller base, but a crazier and more psychotic, more cartoonish evil base. Is that sustainable to win elections? I guess is my question. I mean, we saw what happened in 2020. Biden took the suburbs. You know caution that it might be enough next year for them to win back control, because that's what they're betting on. They're betting that that they will not be held accountable. They think they've gotten away with a lot. And this is part of this culture. Never admit you're wrong, never back off and just assume that there will be no

consequences to your behavior. And look, there's lots of reasons systemically why Republicans might be able to take back the House of Representatives next year. And if they do, two things will happen. Number one, they'll be emboldened. They will think, see, the crazy works for us. Let's double down on it. And number two, can you imagine what a shitshow Washington will be? Because this is a party that's not only lost its mind, but has lost any real interest in governing. And I think that's the other shift is that the party is not interested in ideas and policies and governing. It's interested in narratives and outrage and memes. And so they can dress themselves up as these cartoon characters because they think that's what politics is about these days. We had Rick Wilson on the show recently, and Rick was warning that, you know, if if Kevin McCarthy became speaker or if or if just the Republicans took power in 2022, just expect a complete shit show. Expect them to try to impeach Biden and cause chaos, them to investigate Kamala Harris. Do you agree that that's a possibility? And what do you think what would you say the stakes are if the Republicans took power in 2022? Well, they won't take power. They'll take that. They'll

take the House. I mean, as long as Biden's in the White House, there are limits. I mean, this is one thing that Republicans found out back during the Clinton era. You can win Congress, but you can't run the government there. But I agree with Rick. I'd actually push it even further than that. And I'm seldom more radical than Rick Wilson. But I would also be deeply concerned about what a Republican House would do in the 2024 election in terms of certifying the Electoral College. I don't think that's paranoid to look at what happened this last time as a dry run. And especially as you're seeing fewer and fewer Republicans willing to stand up against what's going on in Arizona with the audit, fewer willing to push back against some of this legislation that you're having.

Because imagine if Republicans control the House of Representatives and we get to that point where Joe Biden has won the election. Let's say he's, you know, eight or nine million vote margin in the popular vote and that he's won the Electoral College. But Kevin McCarthy's House of Representatives decides it's not going to certify the election. We've always taken for granted how America was the beacon for free and fair elections. Like, I think we just assume that that was something that was normal. You know, I'm watching, I have dark circles under my eyes because I've been just watching this show in Univision on El Chapo

that my girlfriend hates because I'm up to like 4 a.m. watching it. But they go through these elections in Mexico and how overtly corrupt, you know, the elections are, buying off of votes and destroying election machines. And I'm watching this and I'm thinking to myself, this is exactly what the GQP, this is exactly what the Republicans are doing. Like America, which was the bastion, we'd go into these other countries and we would say, you're doing it wrong. We would send the observers. We now have a group called the Cyber Ninjas who had never done a election audit before from Florida going to the great state of Arizona, destroy the chain of custody, destroy

election voting machines and make a mockery of it. Yeah, they're looking for the bamboo in the ballots. Look, I got to say, you know, just as you're describing this, it is like a gut punch. And I mean that literally to realize, you know, because I come from a tradition where I did think of America as a shining city on a hill. And I know the sacrifices that are made for this country. And that's not a joke. And these people are willing to trash it. And what we're finding out, and maybe that this

was overdue, that America is not immune from history, that we're not immune from the kinds of forces that have destroyed democracy in other countries. And we had been too complacent about it. We had, you're right, taken it for granted. But that these people would be willing to do it is breathtaking. When you think of the sacrifices, I mean, let me say something nice about Al Gore and Richard Nixon in the same sentence. Either one of those men could have challenged the result of their defeat for president, right? Either one of them. And yet both of them said, you know what? If I keep this fight going, it will damage the country. I'm not willing to do that. And that was the tradition of both parties for so long. And now look where we're at, where Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge it, continues to spew the most toxic conspiracy bullshit from, you know, the Orange Versailles down in Florida.

And the Republican Party is like, yeah, we're we're OK with that. You know, this does not end well. It's scary. You're you're it is a thousand percent right. And I'm going back and speaking of people who just aren't living in reality. I mean, you have Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Lin Wood. I mean, these people are full blown QAnon now. So at least they pretend to be. But what they're doing is they're showing up to these rallies, they're hosting these rallies and they're profiting from them. So I guess my question is, do you think that the Roger Stones, the Michael Flynn's, the Lin Wood's, do they actually believe this shit? Or are they just taking advantage of people who frankly don't

know any better? No, I think that they're, they're long-term grifters. I mean, Roger Stone is not, is not known for his sincerity. You know, Lin, Lin Wood may be, may be insane. I don't know what do these people, Mike Flynn, the, my only reaction to Mike Flynn is this man was a general. And for a short period of time was the national security advisor to the president united states which is so mind-bending terrifying now i will tell you because since we're in the terrifying thing what bothers me more than those guys because you know when they you see them coming you go okay this is roger stone and the various other nut jobs and my pillow guy and stuff like that what's concerning is how this is being normalized and it's spreading throughout the right. And I was actually working on a piece before I started

talking to you guys about the online chatter about the need for a military coup in this country, which is crazy talk, right? Except if it's coming from generals who have had the ear of the president. And apparently, as crazy as the idea sounds, every living secretary of defense found a serious enough threat that they had to write that open letter. Remember back in January saying to the military, hey, by the way, you know that a military coup would be a really, really bad idea. But my reaction to that was, are you kidding me? You have to tell them this? This is where we're at here. So, again, I understand that people will think that we're alarmist, but I do think that we're seeing a breakdown of a lot of the democratic

norms here. And a lot of the guardrails that you expected to be there may still be there temporarily, but they're not to be relied upon, you know, and I and I go this goes back to what's happened to the Republican Party, because it's not just the best. I mean, the worst guys in the Republican Party who've gone this way. It's the best guys who've also turned turtle on all of this. I mean, if I made a list of the people that I would have at one point thought, OK, but this person, this person won't go this way. This person can be counted on in a pinch. That list is getting vanishingly small. I guess pivoting to some good news as we move towards the end of the as we move towards the end of the... This is why I don't get invited to parties.

I just so you know. All right. Joe Biden, everybody. We got President Biden, though, who... Oh, my gosh. I mean, if America needed the right

person at the right time to deal with the craziness, I mean, you've got a normal person who has experience in the government, who's been able to show in a little more than 100 days what government can actually look like if done effectively, who's been, you know, pursuing policies that are, you know, pro-American, pro-democracy and doing amazing. How do you think Biden's doing? Well, I mean, there are things I might disagree with in terms of this policy or that policy, but I wake up every single day grateful that he is the president rather than Donald Trump, that he defeated Donald Trump. And I find his normalcy, his empathy, his character, his competence to be immensely reassuring. It does feel like we are dealing in the alternative realities. I mean, it's the asymmetry is so

dramatic that as the right becomes crazier and crazier and more invested in this weird world, that you still have Joe Biden as like this throwback to a time when politics was a serious business, when government was a serious business. And so his decency is such a counterpoint. So that's where I come down on it. as a conservative, I came to the conclusion that I can disagree with you about six out of 10, maybe eight out of 10 issues. But if I think that you are a person of honor and honesty and decency and empathy and you believe in the rule of law and the constant constitutional democracy, then we can do business. OK, I don't have to agree with you on anything. And I and I what I found is a lot of the things that I used to think that I cared a lot about, I frankly don't care that much about because other things are now more important. I mean, I am not going to the mat on tax rates.

Deficit and debt. Okay. I have concerns about them. That is not going to be the hill I die on when you have a president of the United States, former president, leading a seditious attack on the U.S. Capitol. So it's again, it's a matter of prioritization. So I'm I am I am relieved every time I open up by my my MacBook and see the word president. And it's not followed by the other guy's name. Charlie Sykes, thank you so much for joining the Midas Touch podcast.

Thank you. We will be right back after these messages. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. It's great having Charlie Sykes. I don't know if you saw, when I was asking Charlie and was giving him the example of the El Chapo movie that I've been watching and talking about the elections in Mexico and the corruption there. Like, I think that actually really hit Charlie like when he was really thinking about it, because it is a real palatable example that what we had in America with free and fair elections is just so rare. It was so rare.

We took it for granted. Frankly, most other countries are more analogous to the experience in Mexico, where people literally bribe and steal and cheat. And that's the name of the game in, quote, unquote, democratic elections that aren't really fair. And now you have this political party, you have the cruises of the world, then you have the Hollies of the world and the Ron Johnsons. And that's why I think it hurts Charlie Sykes so much the way it does because these

individuals just destroyed something so incredible, something so rare. And for for what for the orange fucking monster from mara lot for him for that person for an idiot it reminds me of arrested development him you know her her for her him i mean you shouldn't do it for anybody but he's the dumbest motherfucker in the world. That is who you gave it all for your whole life to that con artist man who had the track record of being a con artist his whole life. And look, have you guys seen the this information just shows you this family, the Ivanka Trump's deposition in some of these civil criminal proceedings that are taking place in New York. She has some memory loss, Ivanka, huh? I mean, she was asked during a under oath deposition by the New York attorney's general office. We know that was previously a civil investigation is now a criminal investigation. Here is the question. I just love the simplicity of it.

Sometimes lawyers overthink these questions and they want to go, tell me the time. It's such a, such a date that Allen Weisenberg told you. Here was the question. Who is Allen Weisenberg? Who is Allen Weisselberg? And rough one,

tough one. This was Ivanka Trump's deposition transcript that week he is the i would have to see what his his i don't know his exact title but he's an executive at the company she responded he was the chief financial officer for like three decades And the company only has like 10 executives, and outside of the Trumps themselves, like a few. And one of them was Michael Cohen, whose name is obviously no longer there. So you have Ivanka, you have Eric,

you have Don Jr., you have Donald, and then you have Weisselberg. And that's basically the organization. So, Ben, why would Ivanka want to try to be distancing herself from Weisselberg right now? Like what's what's going on that she doesn't really want to acknowledge that they were extremely close for over 30 years and she knows exactly what he did. And so the the investigations into the Trump entities and holdings to basically take advantage, whether it's of getting insurance, whether it's getting tax breaks, whether it's not filing, you know, not filing tax returns that have any taxes with them. It is a complete sham that the Trump organization led. And Weisselberg, as the CFO, has the information. We know that the prosecutors, both at the Manhattan DA's level and the attorney general's level, are have been speaking with Weisselberg's former daughter in law who had thousands of records.

Like apparently the Weisselberg's keep all the Trump records in their garage. And so she brought them the records and they've analyzed these records. And so clearly, you know, you go through the Trump cycle and you see what they even did during the election, you know, then they just distanced themselves from anybody who's close to them. He's the coffee boy. He's the coffee boy.

We don't know who that is. This person wasn't even, he was barely even associated with us. And so that's what's going on there with Ivanka and then Trump's aide. You know, and this just tells you again who the GQ PR, Jason Miller, who is the face of the Trump administration. And he was the face of the Trump administration. Basically, after all this information came out about extramarital affairs and him, you know, the reporting was that he slipped abortion pills to strippers secretly. And the Trump administration said, you know what? We're the family values party. That's our guy. That's the guy who we want to go out there. They're obviously not the family values party. And that just shows you when Jason Miller

is the face, like your forward facing thing. And then you eat that. Like, could you, you can never see that on the democratic side. I think I said this in the last podcast or may have said it on legal AF, like Democrats, the purity test on Democrats sometimes is so absurd and so crazy. That's the problem. But at the very least, we want competent people working at the Democratic Party. The Republicans are like, yeah, Jason Miller, he's great. Trump, he's great. You can't get a security clearance. Yeah, let's make you president of the United States. It's because right now the Republican Party is strictly based upon the notion of are you willing to lie for us? Are you willing to promote the big lie about Donald Trump? Are you willing to just debase yourself in the most shameless way possible on TV, on the internet,

everywhere? Just make a complete mockery out of yourself and sell, if you have one, a soul to us for a price. That's what the party is about. Look, they hate the military. Yes. Let's sum it up. They hate the police. Yes. They hate health. They hate law and order.

They hate governing. And so they hate all of these things. The one thing they like is like a performative poster. That's like, fuck America. Like that, that, that is,

that is their philosophy in a nutshell. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it's, it's all performative and it's all just who is willing to make a mockery out of themselves and try to just act more machismo than anybody else when they're really just the weakest people of all time. I mean, you want to talk weak on terror.

These people won't even investigate one of the biggest attacks on American soil in history. These guys refuse to even look into that. You want to talk about weak on terror, that right there. I mean, this is a weak party. This is a weird party. This is a party that doesn't represent Americans. And when you have 53% of that party, not even acknowledging reality, it's also a party that is just unfit to govern, unfit to lead, unfit to do basic tasks. How do these people wake up,

get out of bed every day without tripping over their own feet? How do they do basic, how do they cook food without burning themselves? How do they brush their teeth? Like, do they like use their toothbrush in there? Like eyeballs? Like, I really like, don't even know how these people process information if they're living under this, just ridiculous, fake reality. Before we get too far away from it. I think we already are. I'm not going to put you guys on the spot right now. Maybe we do a poll. Who's the worst Miller, Jason Miller or Steven Miller? Oh man. I know. And I won't put guys on the spot right now. Maybe we do a poll. Who's the worst Miller, Jason Miller or Stephen Miller? Oh, man.

I know. And I won't put you on the spot because that's a loaded one right there. So maybe we do a poll. Totally loaded. Do we have Nazi Nazi Stephen Miller or do you have abortion pill Jason Miller? This is quite the think at the answer is Stephen Miller, though, because Stephen Miller truly has like a philosophically evil. Yeah. And I think that Jason Miller is an evil and just disgusting and disturbed human being. But he's also like just an idiot and he's like a buffoon.

And I think that Stephen Miller though really pushes like genocide. The thing that trips me out about Stephen Miller is he's from like Santa Monica, California. Yeah. And he speaks with like this thick, like Californian accent, but he like speaks about Nazism. It's like, yeah, bro. It's like, yeah.

So like white people and black people should live in their own places. And like at the border, like we shouldn't allow anybody to come over here unless they're white. Like, like it's just weird hearing it in like a weird, like California, Santa Monica tone. You must've just been like the most despised kid at his high school here. It was, I'm not sure. Did you see the, have you seen or heard the clip of him like running for student elections no oh my god no i'm gonna play the clip for you right now of stephen miller at his high school i think he was running for student government president um and just take a listen to what he said about janitors am i the only one

who is sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash. And we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us. That's a sick man. Wait, wait, wait. So his complaint there was that he is sick and tired of picking up his garbage while they have janitors. What? Honestly, though, that's actually very telling because it sums up the Republican Party, which I think at its core of everything is basically summed up with racism and, to the way we are dealing with taxes, to health care, to everything. Everything we do is based on that lack of empathy. And the fact that his biggest thing that he was running on when he was running for high school office or whatever he was doing in that video was that he was upset that he had to pick up his own trash and couldn't just throw it on the floor because they had janitors just shows you in a microcosm, how they feel about working people,

how they feel about their place in society and their role in society and what they're supposed to, what the role, just what the human obligation is for any person in society and how you interact with others. So when you have that philosophy out there, how do you navigate when you're Midas Touch, when you're a political organization, how do you navigate this minefield where there are Stephen Millers and Jason Millers, you know, injecting vile propaganda and hate and lies in people's veins essentially every single day. How do we break through the noise when we come back from these brief messages? talk about Democratic messaging in 2022, Democratic messaging in 2020, and what we can be doing better as political messengers as we approach these next contentious elections. We'll be right back

after this. What's up, Midas Mighty? Ben Mcelis here, joined by my younger brothers, Brett and Jordy Mycelis. Have you got your Midas merch gear? If you haven't gotten your Midas merch gear, I don't know what's taking you so long. I got my gear. Most of the Midas Mighty got their gear. We have some incredible stuff. Isn't that right, Brett? That's right. And with the new CDC guidelines that say you no longer have to wear masks indoors or outdoors if you've been vaccinated, a lot of people have been asking us, how do you let people know you've been vaccinated? How do you know if you're around other vaccinated people? A lot of people are concerned. But, you know, we already thought about this, guys. We got our vaxxed and relaxed merch line. You could get it now if you still want to wear masks, if you still feel comfortable wearing masks around indoors or outdoors we got the masks we got the tees we got the shirts we

got it all and we got more on the way so let people know you've been vaccinated shop at store. Midas touch.com to get yours and that's not all we have we got the club democracy gear we got the shout out to the Midas mighty gear we got got it all. Go check it out. That's store.midastouch.com. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast, joined by New York Times best selling author and partner and collaborator with Midas Touch. And I say collaborator in a very good sense. He has a book out right now called Prodigal Son available in all stores. We are joined by Greg Hurwitz. Greg, maybe just tell our listeners how you met Brett, how you met Midas Touch, and some of the work that we did together. Well, it's funny. There was a lot of paying

attention. I was looking at places who were posting commercials and content that I felt like wasn't more of the same, that it came in from a different angle, that it had something really sharp to say. And I was noticing the stuff that you guys were doing really early on. I was, you know, it was, I thought it was essential. And so I reached out, I did, we spun up a little group here. We did about 200 commercials in the last six months before the election. Me with some of my partners out here, Hollywood storytellers. And so I reached out to Brett and said, hey, do you want to partner on different stuff? You know, is there some ways we can give you some of the content that we're doing?

Because there was such a good match. And Brett and I kind of became thick as thieves. We were on each other's speed dial throughout, which was really helpful. And there was also a few occasions. One of the things I really liked about the work that you guys were doing is the creative bar was really high and on messages of persuasion, where you're really trying to convince and talk to people in different ways. It's essential that it come in and feel really finished.

And I'll say, I know you guys are loathe to have me compliment Brett because it's, you know, it's hard on you guys, but there was a couple of commercials I was just stuck on that we gave to him and he managed to untangle and figure out the through line. And so it became not just sort of like sharing content, but it became also sharing creativity. And now, and then if I got stuck on something, I could throw it to him and he could just take it and make it work. And of course, the propagation network that you guys built on top of the creative was extraordinary.

And you were quite generous at putting that, you know, at letting us and my team partner on those things in ways that were really beneficial. So it was basically a purely positive relationship, from my point of view. And those aren't the most common thing in politics. Before Ben goes to his next question, I just want to say, if you want to keep complimenting me, Greg, we could keep this going for a couple hours. Jordy's DMing me now. He's just hammering me.

And for you listening, you can't see Brett's head, but it's actually getting bigger in real time. This is wild to see. So, Greg, moving away from that. So tell us about the team that you put in place. What led you from being Hollywood storyteller, author to getting involved so heavily in the 2020 elections? And what was your team doing at that time? Well, so initially what happened for me is when Trump was elected, I realized that there was a different level of responsibility that was called for. I'd always thought democracy would be fine without me. I mean, I was somewhat involved, but not at all heavily to this extent. And so initially

I partnered with Marshall Herskovitz, a wonderful guy, creator of, among other things, 30 something. I mean, he's got like, you can't walk into his office because you trip over all the Emmy awards. And Billy Ray. And Billy is, you know, Oscar nominated for Captain Phillips. He's a wonderful, wonderful screenwriter. He also wrote the Comey rule that was just released and the hunger games. And basically, the one thing that we all had in common was when when Trump was elected, number one, we realized that we had a lot more responsibility. And we all had a real call. I think it's something maybe we felt somewhere in our Jewish genes that

like the mounting threat felt there was something that it was a concern to us. But the other thing was that we realized was that we felt like the party itself, the Democratic Party, was not putting forth its best foot in terms of messaging, in terms of how things were conveyed, in terms of arguments, in terms of alienating other people. And so the first thing I really did when Trump was elected was I had a reverse reaction that a lot of my peers did, which was I thought, how did we mess up so badly that a majority of Americans thought that he was a better option? And so a lot of my work and attention and focus almost immediately went into ways that we could talk to voters who we don't normally talk to, and not to repackage our beliefs in a way that's

selling them under false pretenses. But how do we take the beliefs that we hold, like, you know, baseline of medical care, like anti-corruption and talk about them through the language and value structure of voters who we don't often reach, whether that's country Republicans, libertarians, you know, and so I was willing to go anywhere and talk to anybody. I spent a lot of the last four years talking across the aisle, even in some corners, pretty far across the aisle. And so essentially the first thing we did heading into 2018 was we focused on the house and we focused on 30 races in red districts only, only flip districts. And we helped spectacular candidates like Alyssa Slotkin, Haley Stevens,

Dean Phillips, Lucy McBath, and 21 of them won. And as much as I'd like to take sole credit for it, it's like no one can take credit for Alyssa Slotkin, but Alyssa Slotkin. But we did a lot of polling. We did a lot of testing. We did a lot of work on saying, here's a way you can take an issue we feel vehement about, strip out all of the things that can be called or referred to as virtue signaling, right? Things that have to do with our self-identity. What's the most effective way to just win these seats, period, while not compromising our core values, our core liberal values. And we had a pretty good track record and we did the same in 2020. And at the same time, I spun up a sort of studio, which through the grace and generosity of people like you guys, the Dem Coalition, the Lincoln Project, Republican Voters Against Trump, we pushed out through other channels, messaging that we tested of how to connect with people. And it's very interesting what we found about how to do that.

And so let's I want to I want to answer both of those questions. So the first question that you had asked yourself originally was, how did we screw up so much? So as you analyze that, what was your answer? We tend to add a lot of identity and sanctimoniousness to our positions. And so, for instance, if you come in somewhere and you say, as a candidate in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the places we worked, and say, I believe universal healthcare is a right, that might feel good and it might be something that you believe, but it's no more effective than if you step onto a soccer field

and announce that you believe that universal healthcare is a right. The aim is to win an election and the aim is to win an election while not compromising. If we say simply, we believe that most Americans should have a right to buy into the same healthcare as their Congress people, which essentially is the same thing. It's public option. The numbers of people who support that rise to, I think it's 78%, don't quote me. So if we, if there's ways that we have that rather than drum beating, and I'm talking about purple districts, and I also want to make clear that I'm not denigrating members of our party who are in different districts who might be a bit more pugnacious, right? We also need to have people who are fighters. I'm talking about how we win in the middle and how we win people over. If we can let go of a sense of sort

of superiority in our views, we can do better. Quick example, a lot of the work that I do is based on the big five personality theories and the big five personality traits. I don't know if you studied them. They're a version of basically the Myers Briggs. And liberals and conservatives have very different personality structures. Liberals are higher in trait openness. They're also higher in empathy, which is a subset. And because an openness, of course, is different foods, different cultures. It's why liberals cluster around, let's say, Hollywood entertainment, big cities where there's different people and there's different cultures in the mix.

We tend to like that. That's a fixed personality trait. That's like an introvert or an extrovert. Conservatives are lower in trait openness, but they're higher in trait conscientiousness. And so basically when we took an issue, I would look at how I would convey the underpinnings of that issue through a conservative set of language for a value structure that they could hear. It's just talking to people in the language that they understand while also not compromising the beliefs that we have. So for healthcare insurance, for instance, you know, we would go in and instead of declaring a high empathy argument, right? Health, universal healthcare is a right. Look at Jimmy Kimmel's kid. You're a terrible person. If people don't

get healthcare, you don't like children. You want people to suffer. And instead we could go in and go, look, guys, we already have universal health care in this country. It's called emergency rooms. We don't let people die in the streets. Not only is it anti-American and immoral, imagine the kind of public health crises that would cause. And so if we're already paying for it and those costs get passed on to us regardless,

because uninsured basically hikes hospital rates through healthcare premiums, which we pay. The average cost of a vaccination is $19. The average cost of an ER visit is $1,233. So it's dollars and cents people who know that we don't want people dying in our streets. And we know that we don't want public health outbreaks that we can't support. Right. And so, and of course, when that morphed into COVID, the average cost of a COVID stay is $77,000. And so we just make arguments through different structures with people rather than saying, why can't you be more like us? Why can't I just educate you and having empathy be higher in your value structure, which it's fixed. It's like going up to Cory Booker and saying, Cory, why can't you just be an introvert? People can't change that. And so rather than coming at them and trying to

educate them further into our viewpoint, it's coming with respect for their value structure and then making a really good faith argument about our value set, which for me is liberal, in language that they can understand and where they don't feel like they have to change some fundamental aspect of their personal identity in order to vote our way. And the key thing is doing it and packing it into a short message. Sometimes it's a billboard. Sometimes it's a 30 second ad. Sometimes you have a minute, but very rarely, you know, do you have more than two minutes to get all of those messages across. And so how do you, and when you work with Brett, when you work with Midas Touch, how do you get that, all that info into a two minute, one minute or 30 second piece?

Well, that is the, you know, we did a lot of poll testing to analyze, you know, what was effective. So first up, you know, it's that, but that, that's the creative. I mean, that's the part that's the, the art slash craft aspect of it. And one thing that's really interesting is, is we tested the commercials. What we found was that our creative instincts for what would be cool often matched the polling for what was effective. Right. And so if stuff was really screamy or over the top or a lot of the negative press, what's interesting is a lot of those would get the highest. People would start to like crush the retweet button. And some of the stuff that goes viral didn't necessarily test as well because the things that tested really well for flip voters.

Again, I'm talking about a subset of this sometimes didn't have the same like wildfire propagation because it made people stop and really think about things differently. To give an example, one of the things we were studying a lot was that the louder in your face kind of publicity, there's a very interesting set of commercials we tested that were about how Trump was caving into China, right? Which he did despite a lot of the things that he was advocating. And what we found was the commercials that were traditional ones, not ones that we made or that you guys made, had the dark shadows and the boomy voice about how Trump was getting taken by China had a negative effect. It was moving independent voters towards Trump. And it was really puzzling until we realized that the tone and sort of that xenophobia in the tone of it associated, people reacted from those viscerally. They were put back in their seat and they were scared. And it initiated fight or flight, which increases xenophobia, which increases

people's tendency or attachment to strong men leader types. And so even if the message verbally and in the prefrontal cortex was an anti-Trump message, their bodies and nervous systems were responding in a way that moved them closer to strongman leadership. And that was where I came up with, that was the birth of the idea of the ASMR commercials that we did with you guys. And we thought about like, well, what are different ways to get people content in ways that we can also speak to their nervous systems also. And

that was the ASMR, the whispering commercials that Catherine Hahn did a wonderful job on that we, you know, we put out with you guys. And that was literally coming out of looking at some of the research and thinking, you know, we can't, you can win an argument with spreadsheets and on a board, right? But you can still lose the arguments. And I think that's a lot of what we saw, for instance, when Hillary Clinton was running against and in the debates with Donald Trump, on points, she won every debate, but on a visceral sense of body language and from people's lizard brains, she lost those debates. And so we're thinking about how do we win and how do we have commercials and content that play with stuff artistically, with humor, with delivery mechanisms

and ways that people feel with their whole bodies and their nervous systems. So we're here with Greg Hurwitz, bestselling author. If you didn't realize by now, a genius, very in the weeds on the data. And Greg, this is why I had such a joy working with you. I mean, you really know your stuff. I Greg, this is why I had such a joy working with you. I mean, you really know your stuff. I thought we were incredible collaborators. We developed a short hand with one another. And like you said, some content you just gave to us that was fully baked and formed. And we would think of maybe a good hashtag to come along with it, but it was kind of wholly your product. There were some things that you came to me with and said, Hey, we can't crack this case. You know, how could, how could the two of us kind of brainstorm? One of the things that you came to us that was fully baked and was what

you're just talking about, the ASMR ads with Catherine Hong. And I remember you called me and you're like, I had this idea. It's, you know, ASMR with Catherine Hong. I'm not sure if you've seen these videos of people whispering and doing sound effects. And you explained it to me. And I was like, this sounds like the weirdest fucking thing I've ever heard. But I'm all in. I'm all in, Greg. And so you guys put it together. You sent me the cut. I was like, this is the craziest thing, but I love it. We'll play a clip from the first episode. This is Grapefruit from Katherine Hahn and Greg Hurwitz.

I know you can get rich. I was trying to get reelected. Donald J. Trump. 16 million dollars of get reelected. Donald J. Trump. $16 million of political cash flowed into Trump properties. Last election cycle. So I'm not saying that this is how she got inspired to be in WandaVision and win all the awards that she's winning for WandaVision. I'm not saying this is because of this ad,

but no one's ever not said that. But you want to talk about one of the most unique... I still think about this ad weekly. It's stuck in my head. Just to break through the clutter of just everything that was out there in this cycle. It's a little weird though, Jordan, that you think about that ad. No, just because how unique it really is. And it just totally broke through the clutter. Well, Greg, you started getting to it before. I just want to, you know, kind of, can you go through the concept of the ASMR

and kind of how this tied in with the polling and why you thought that this was such an effective way to message? Well, I thought a lot about how, you know how Fox News has, and Trump would surround himself with a lot of his press secretaries. There's a sort of icon of very attractive women.

And by that, I don't like equally competent. Nobody's going to argue that Megyn Kelly, for instance, is incompetent. But Fox News has a whole aesthetic around their use of the feminine, for instance. And so what was really interesting was I was thinking a lot about that. When you watch Fox News, it's a very different kind of experience on a whole bunch of different levels. And how do we have something that puts people's guards down to be delivered news? And it's very interesting to me, the aesthetics on Fox and how they choose that. And so a lot of it for me, I was thinking about what are the things, ASMR is very calming to the nervous system, right? It's people use it. It's, it, it sort of,

it can put a shiver up your spine. It puts you into a very calm, weird place. The point of it, when it's not ironic. And I told Catherine, your job is to be an incompetent ASMR, right? Like that was, that was the fun of it was to have her screwing it up so that we also could have some humor. But the point was let's get everyone's nervous system calm in order for them to be able to take in information differently. And we know a lot of this, the same rules that tend to hold for, I always, I kept talking to my team. Whenever I talked about my group, I was like, look guys, whether we want to think so or not, this is a marriage. We have, even after 2020, 75 million Americans voted for Trump, 80 million voted for Biden. We're married, whether you like it or not. And I always say,

let's remove the 10% crazies on the furthest ends. And let's look at the 80% down the middle. How do we engage them? And there's really no difference in that than if you have a fight with your spouse or significant other. It's, you know, if you come in very bellicose with a lot of blamey assigning stuff, people shut down completely. And the same thing's true here. And we thought, let's have some fun. Let's soothe people's nervous systems, quite literally. Let's have everybody take it down and let's sneak in information in a way about stuff that they might not otherwise hear as best we can. And a lot of what I've been thinking about as we move towards 2022 and beyond is I think a lot of people have, there's almost like a guilt reaction for giving quarter or any ground to people who we're disagreeing with because the threats that we're seeing, especially I'm talking about the ones that are clustered around the great

lie, seems so antithetical to voting rights, to democracy, to everything else. And so one of the things I wanted to talk a little bit about with you guys is the way that I've been thinking about this is to sort of separate it out, which is for Matt Gatz, for Jim Jordan, we should show no quarter politically. That's a full-on fight against fascistic tendencies that are incredibly damaging. I think that people need, in some ways, almost permission to separate out when we're talking about voters. And I'm not talking about the most extreme voters on either side, but there can be a separation of outreach and in engaging people in a way to win them over that

applies to the actual voters and American citizens who vote differently and think differently from us is different than the kind of vehemence and adamancy with which we have to confront the elected officials who are contributing the big lie. So there's a distinction between those two things that I think I often see people get hung up on on our side because they feel like no one should be given any quarter. And we simply can't move forward. We need to have those voters. We need to be reaching out. We need to talk to them. political confrontation with those people who are advocating and fostering the big lie and continue to, while also knowing that how we win on the liberal side with liberal values tends to be much more open and welcoming. And I think if we can have a, if we can kind of bifurcate those responses in people, people need a permission to almost do that. We need to start reaching out to

more and more people. Midterms are looking really tough for the Senate and the House, both. And I think 2024 is not going to be easier. Absolutely. And so to that, how do we keep people motivated for not just 2024, but 2022? I think that the motivation, there's different exercises, of course, or there's different fronts to this battle, let's say. And we have to do the ground game. We have to protect the vote, especially for communities of color, which is where the vote is being most targeted. There's a bunch of hard and fast things. When it comes to outreach, a lot of that is trying to figure out how we can put, and I'm talking about, you know, regularly we go in the field with the 75 districts that are,

were decided within five points. A lot of the outreach there comes from being very careful about how we're phrasing different situations and how we, how we phrase things. Like I said, instead of universal healthcare is right to talk about Americans who have a baseline of medical care, right. Have a tendency to be more entrepreneurial, let's say. Canada beats us in entrepreneurism. Denmark beats us in entrepreneurism. And so how we make mini smart capitalists is if we give people a landing pad for healthcare, right? So there's all these ways we can tackle issues and we can go top to bottom on them. But the most important thing, I think, is that we really are seeking to talk about issues in a way that is

more open. That's where we win. You know, I grew up in Northern California, the Bay area, and in a sort of idyllic situation, I had, my parents had a very broad, diverse range of friends. We had gay couples in the house. I had a black godmother. I had Filipino, you know, families where you get ordered around by a Filipino mom. You understand and love that culture. And where we win is with the food and the culture and the love and the openness, right? And all those things. And the more that I think we can connect to that and also extend that to people from different

backgrounds and value sets, it might be a good number of my friends now are born again, evangelical Navy SEAL snipers. The more that we can sort of expand and welcome when we're dealing with the individuals as distinct from politics, it almost like people talk about cord cutting with TV, right? Like no longer people buying the big package, but they love HBO and they love Showtime. Right. Well, that's another way to approach things. If we can take the party affiliation away from this religious kind of vehemence that we have with it and go, look, guys, let's just talk about getting shots in arms, right? So we can reopen the economy. Your whole identity doesn't have to give that up, but do you want to have the economy open? Let's say we're having a conversation in a purple district in Ohio. Let's talk about infrastructure as being your Disney plus subscription, or is it Disney plus,

or am I getting that wrong? I think that's what it's called, but where we can, where we can build individual issues and just bring people along rather than waging everything like it's a religious conversion. Right. And so if we want to say, for instance, the two biggest things I think where, where, where Biden and where we win is, is we're past big government versus small government conversations from the eighties. This is just about basic competent, competent governor governing, right? It's competent governing. Do we have shots in arms? Are we protected from a pandemic? Is society opening up? And can we pass infrastructure? Which infrastructure, what's amazing with infrastructure and why I've been spending a lot of time on it is

it's an amazing investment. Like the beauty of America, first of all, it's a great way to get our working class paid and to honor them, right? It's not just to pay them, but it's like, they're making our cities beautiful. They're making our bridges run. All of that is also infrastructure for our economy. And also it's beautiful when we have infrastructure that works and it brings tourists and it opens up the world. And it's this wonderful way that we can invest and get some money back to the working class who have been just crushed by $50 trillion with a T moving from the bottom 90% to the top 1% in the last 40 years. And it makes sense and checks every box. So let's just talk about it in that way, right? It's an investment. It beautifies America. It makes our economy rise and compete and we can innovate with it with solar. And so when we start to approach individual topics and issues with a sort of open

heart, right, rather than telling people that their position and their whole identity is bad and they need to convert fully to our identity, we can move them issue by issue across and also have an understanding that our side is not perfect. We have plenty of things that we need to work out within our own caucus, within our own groups that we're in the process of doing so. And again, I always return to that metaphor. You're having a discussion or argument with your significant other. A lot of times we understand that in ways that are more intuitive of how we take in information. And the other thing I would say is that the same, and this is something that's been really hard. I spend a lot of time in circles that are center, center, right. And even center further, right.

The same way that our hackles are up and we are willing to really metaphorically fight for what these value sets are. The other side feels the same way too. A lot of people on that side have a real belief about what they believe is at risk, which I think has been exacerbated by polarized media, by social media in ways that that's a whole other podcast that we can have. We're not going to have it right now. And so it's very important that we keep we can have. We're not going to have it right now. And so it's very important that we keep giving people in any negotiation, you want to give people a way out. You want to give people a way to move towards you without feeling like they have to sacrifice their self-identity or they have to kind of humiliate themselves in the process. And so it's trying to find all these off ramps for people from a Republican Party that is increasingly falling under the clutch of, you know, Trumpism.

We want off ramps. We want to encourage off ramps. We want to encourage people. We want to when people switch parties, we don't want to denigrate them for the fact that they voted in past ways that were hurtful to democracy and to individual groups within America. But we want to kind of celebrate that and reach towards forgiveness with them too, I think. What I love about this interview, Greg, is I think it gives the Midas Mighty, our listeners, an insight into the types of conversations that we're having collectively, you, Midas Touch, the community of other creators that are doing this type of work every single day. And look, it may take Brett an hour because he's a genius to crank out one of these videos or sometimes a longer video, multiple hours. But it's steeped in a literature, a philosophy, in research, and these conversations.

Do we get it right 100% of the time? No. Do we get it wrong a lot? Of course. But all we can do is, as you kind of described it, treating this as a negotiation and a discussion with others to give them an off ramp so that they feel comfortable moving to a viewpoint that they may not have recognized that even though their specific policies lined up, they can never actually make that leap. And so I think it was wonderful to show our listeners the insight. Any final words you want to have to the Midas Mighty before we wrap up our show? Well, look, it was great. It was a great partnership with you guys. And I think the one thing I would say is that we need, one of the things that I was really struck by how you guys kind of came out of nowhere was it was straight entrepreneurship. And we're really outgunned in media by the right. The right is more organized. They're more powerful. They have more billionaires. On our side, I'm talking to a lot of the founders in the party

and thank God and God bless them. But a billionaire who's going to come over and help us, or let's just say big donors or corporations, they help us at cost to themselves. They're going to have to pay higher taxes. And so it takes an awful lot for that versus there's a lot of people who are just giant check writers. They know they're going to get it back, whether it's on the estate tax or something else down the line or by lower corporate taxes. What you guys did is so important. And I think that what I would urge a lot of your listeners and a lot of people have, I've been really heartened to see this over the last four years. We have to view ourselves essentially as founding fathers or founding mothers or founding whatever. This is the time to do that. The big lie is it's really dangerous what is

happening and we need people to put some portion of their lives on hold, right? We always think that if we were there when it was the Underground Railroad, we'd be helping, right? If we were the ones who could hide a Jew in our attic, we would be the ones to do it. This is close to a version of that right now. And I don't mean to imply that our current political state is equivalent to the Holocaust or to slavery. What I mean to imply is we're at an early stage of a mounting fascism that is incredibly dangerous. And what is that worth? How much of your time is that worth? Is it worth 10 hours a week?

Is it worth, for you guys, you decided it was worth putting your whole life into and thank God that you did. We need people to really start to focus, not on tweeting and not just on the social media aspect, though it's important to propagate those messages, but what can you concretely be doing to try and add a little piece to the mosaic that we need to have in place to tell the story of the other side? How do we actually concretely start to move our resources to understanding that

we can lose this democracy, we can lose this republic. And your followers that you've built have been amazing. And you guys have figured out how to move them this way this republic. And your followers that you've built have been amazing. And you guys have figured out how to move them this way and that. And I think we need to keep encouraging people to come forth and to contribute more for the end game. There was a study that recently that showed that when people tweet about politics, sometimes they're less likely to take a next step to do something because it's almost like a pressure valve release. And one of the things that's been really important with Midas Touch is you've focused people with an end in mind, right? You need to sign up. We need to hit these senators. We need to figure this out.

The more that we can keep people empowered to those ends, the more important it is. We need everyone there. And the other thing I would say is don't be afraid to have conversations across the aisle. We cannot turn this into a zero-sum game. I mean, I'm out looking at numbers sometimes on a weekly basis in these districts, purple districts, red districts, seats that we won in 2018, like Sochi, Torres, Small, Kendra, Horn, like our hardest races that flipped back immediately in 2020 again. For us to win, we have to have conversations with each other. We have to have the conversations with people who are across the aisle and start to open up and find ways for us to figure it out. And so I think those two aspects are really,

are really key. And, you know, you guys have done an extraordinary job. It's been an honor to be able to, to be in the foxhole with you. Greg Hurwitz, thank you so much for joining us on the Midas Touch podcast. And that is all we have today, folks. What a great episode of Midas Touch podcast. We had an incredible interview with Charlie Sykes. It's great having Greg Hurwitz on the podcast. Any final words, brothers? Great show. Thank you, everybody, for listening. We are so humbled from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you for being supporters of this movement. You are this movement. And thank you for listening and share with a friend. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.