The MeidasTouch Podcast - Defeating Trumpism in California with L.A. County Sheriff Candidate Cecil Rhambo

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

On today’s episode, the brothers sit down with a very special guest, Chief Cecil Rhambo. Chief Rhambo is currently the Chief of Police at LAX and a lifelong public servant running for L.A. County Sheriff on a platform to fight for real reform and justice. During the interview, the team discusses a variety of topics including: Chief Rhambo’s uniquely credentialed background and experiences, the responsibilities an officer has in 2021 and how to bridge the divide between civilian & officer. Later on, the brothers discuss the radical right’s new Dr. Seuss-style attacks on the CDC, an institution trying to protect the health and well-being of Americans. The final topic of the day has the brothers reviewing the true incompetence and hypocrisy of Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz and the rest of the GQP. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe. As always, thank YOU for listening! Shop Meidas Merch here: store.meidastouch.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ben Mycelis here, joined by Brett and Jordy Mycelis. Great show for you today. We have Chief Cecil Rambo, currently the chief of police at LAX. He's been a lifelong public servant, and he is running against a sheriff in LA County who is Trumpian, to say the least. We have someone who is anti-mask mandates in L.A. County in our current sheriff, Alex Villanueva. This current sheriff, according to Chief Cecil, who will be coming on the podcast, is allowing tattoo gangs to run rampant within the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. Blew my freaking mind to know that, Ben, you deal with policing cases all the time. So you probably had an insight at us. And I feel like it's something in the back

of your mind you're always kind of thinking about. But for somebody to come out and expose the fact that the L.A. County Sheriff's Department has deputy gangs within the department is truly just a horrifying, horrifying thing. Yeah, they have street gangs within the L.A. County Sheriff's Department who have tattoos. And they're not just one gang. There are different cliques and different gangs with different tattoos that run different sections and encourage police violence. This is a major issue that Chief Cecil Rambo is running on. And look, it doesn't surprise me, but I think it will surprise some of our listeners and viewers that this is the case. And I just remember early on in my career, kind of just a crazy story. I was doing a police shooting case out in Bakersfield. And one of the individuals who lost their lives,

who was the suspect who was involved in this officer-involved shooting, it turned out when we got the text messages, because his girlfriend installed an app, she was worried that he was cheating on her. And so she installed an app on his phone. And it turned out that he was cheating on her. And so she installed an app on his phone and it turned out that he was a confidential informant. And it basically led this entire investigation to find out that the Bakersfield Police Department was keeping confidential informants off the books so they could use confidential informants as drug dealers. And the guy who was, it's crazy,

the guy who was in McFarland, USA, Disney made a movie based on this guy, Damasio Diaz. Look it up. It's the craziest story about him being a track star, growing up in Oildale in California. This was the cop who was running these confidential informants off the books. He was caught basically being the biggest drug dealer in Kern County was the cop. And the cop was only sentenced to five years in prison because the judge was a cop at the time. The federal prosecutors recommended a minimum 15 year sentence. And the May drug dealer who ran those gangs in Fresno was sentenced to five years. Crazy story.

Look, it's it's truly unbelievable. And Chief Rambo, who is running for sheriff of L.A. County, he's actually exposed a lot of this and spoken out about a lot of this within the sheriff's department. So and we're going to hold them to the fire. We're going to ask them some tough questions because the stories you're saying, there's obviously a lot of extreme problems with policing across the country and especially in Los Angeles. And I think one of the unique things, Ben, is when people think about Los Angeles and California, they think about a liberal city. Conservatives are always like, oh, Los Angeles, California, liberal California. But there are some deeply MAGA red areas in this state, and there's a lot of corruption, fascists in this state. bleed over into policing. This does bleed over into our politics. Even though Democrats hold a supermajority, we're seeing it here with the recall election. And so I'll actually use this time also to say, if you're out there in California, please, when you get your ballot,

vote no to recall Gavin Newsom. Vote no. There's a second question on the ballot that asks who you want to replace the governor with if he is recalled. The recommendation coming from the governor's office and the Democratic Party is to leave that blank. So just concern yourself with voting no on your ballot and save California from this crazy QA non-fascist takeover. It's the craziest system that you could basically get in a state with tens of millions of people. You could get a couple million of the craziest voices and subvert the will of the voters. We can't let all the progress that we've seen in California get reversed. We can't let California become Florida and we can't DeSantis California. It would be a disaster. And yes, it would only be a year if he gets recalled of Republican rule before there is

another election. But think about how much damage can be done in that short amount of time. Think about how many lives could be lost as a result of that decision. And please encourage all of your friends to vote. This is going to be a strictly turnout based election, and we need every single vote we could get here. I said it perfectly. Look, we can't DeSantis California, where DeSantis is literally trying to murder his constituents and the people that live in his state. Newsom is trying to do everything

in his power to save lives. I think today or the other day, he mandated vaccines for teachers going back to school. I mean, look, that's a great first step in getting things back on track in a state that was hit quite hard from the pandemic. Here's what I want to say about it too. If you think California cannot affect you in your state, think again, because California, of course, has two senators, one of them being Dianne Feinstein, who is, let's face it, she's old. She's at the end of her career. If anything were to happen to Senator Feinstein, who is, let's face it, she's old. She's at the end of her career. If anything were to happen to Senator Feinstein, guess who right now would have the opportunity to replace that senator, the governor. And if we lose the governorship to a Republican, that means we will lose control of the Senate.

So I cannot emphasize enough how important this recall is. Please vote no September 14th or before September 14th if you get your ballot in the mail. Whatever you think of Newsom, these GQPs who are running to replace him are crazier than DeSantis. Put it that way. These people are more psychotic, less competent, and crazier than DeSantis. And that's who would be in charge of California. It would be a disaster. And this truly is life or death. It's that simple. And we need to take this recall very, very seriously. Moving on, brothers, a lot of new podcasts Midas Touch is launching. We always set out to build this pro-democracy media network, and it's great to see it starting to take shape. All of these projects have been in the works for some time. They take a lot of time to develop. is a huge hit done with Bunker Crew, some great hosts, Olga and Monique, who just get the best interviews out there. And another great episode of Kremlin File today. But the lens within which

you should watch Kremlin File is the following. What happened in Russia can happen here. Almost completely happened here with what Trump was trying to do in overturning a democratic election. But those exact tactics were Putin's tactics. Trump utilized Putin tactics to get elected. And then when he lost in this election, tried to utilize the authoritarian playbook to literally take over the United States as a dictator. And more and more news comes out about that, Brett. You read the Breaking New York Times story this week about the United States Attorney B.J. Pak over in Atlanta, who resigned when it became clear that he was being targeted by Donald Trump for not unlawfully overturning the elections. And B.J.

Pak was a former U.S. attorney from Atlanta. And that story is just shocking and I think makes it clear that Trump absolutely needs to be prosecuted for his interference with the elections. And that makes it clear. And that B.J. Pak story from New York Times, by the way, comes out of these hearings that are being held by the Judiciary Committee within the United States

Senate that Dick Durbin leads. And they are asking a lot of tough questions of people who were there in those very scary days, December, January, when Trump tried to overturn the election. Deputy Attorney General Richard Donahue actually had a phone call with Pac the night before he resigned. And according to the New York Times, he had relayed to Pac that the White House was frustrated with the failure to bring voter fraud investigations in the state. Pac himself had said nothing publicly about why he left this post until recently. As all these stories come out, it's just becoming clear that this was an egregious attempt to overturn the will of voters and institute a Putin-style dictatorship here in the United

States of America. And I am happy to see that these investigations are proceeding. I hope DOJ is also pursuing these to the fullest extent of the law, because this is not something we could let slide. When we see this happening at the presidency, we have to prosecute this more than anything. Because Trump was president, that makes this all the more important that he is tried, convicted, and locked up for this behavior. Because if he is not, we are inviting an autocratic takeover to this country. And I hope that Merrick Garland at DOJ is paying attention. And I think he is.

But I just want to make it clear how important it is. And legal experts, Ben, agree with me here. They are seeing this and they are basically saying that DOJ has no choice at this point but to indict Donald Trump. This leaves them with no alternatives. You see these Kevin McCarthy shirts that he's selling? Put it up on the screen for those watching. It literally says moron on the shirt. have to read it in the small letters, a term coined by Nancy Pelosi referring to freedom-loving Americans who oppose mask mandates. And then they have a gigantic moron on the shirt. So, hey, if you're out there at GQP, buy that shirt. I encourage you to buy the moron shirt and to wear

the moron shirt around. We're pretty good at identifying you right now that you're morons. We have a good sense of who you are, but it'll make it just a little bit easier for us. And especially as those who love democracy wear the vaxxed bracelets and the GQP repellent that is out of the Midas Touch merch store, it's a great way to say, okay, moron, vaxxed. Moron, pro-democracy. The layers of approvals that this thing went through to get greenlit is sort of horrifying.

I think that's where you're wrong, Jordy. The issue with them is there are no layers of approval, okay? It literally is somebody who fucking posts that. Guys, this is the best cell phone I've ever seen in my entire life. I mean, I've never seen something so incredible as the shirt being sold by Kevin McCarthy. And I think it's fitting that it is in that MAGA hat red.

It's the same color, which now I think is just the color of morons. Unfortunately, what Trump did is he ruined red hats for everybody. Trump is to red hats what Hitler is to the toothbrush mustache. And it's hard to wear a red hat out there in the world now without somebody thinking you're MAGA. And now with the shirt, it now seems like they're just totally co-opting this red color as the moron red, I think I'll call it. If it was a Crayola color, it would be moron red, moron MAGA red.

This was very helpful context that we know that they are morons out there. And speaking of morons, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell. Oh my God. You know, they're where they wear that red shirt underneath the suit as Rudy farts on Jenna Ellis. He's definitely wearing he's definitely wearing red moron shirts.

I have no doubt about it, but they filed moronic motions to dismiss in the Dominion lawsuit. June, there was about four hours of oral argument before U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, where Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell from MyPillow, what a crew, seeking to dismiss the lawsuit. The court denied the motion to dismiss on all grounds, which means the case against Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Mike Lindell brought by Dominion will proceed. And that ruling was actually a day after, and this is such wild timing, a day after Dominion announced that it would be suing Newsmax in the Superior Court of Delaware and OAN as well in the District Court of Columbia. So Dominion's filed two additional lawsuits. It's so incredible. I like that Dominion is doing more to hold these bad actors accountable right now than DOJ, all these various things. But in all seriousness, what I think is important here, Ben, and I'm speaking as the layperson, not the attorney, but think about actually what the right wing has done

to Dominion. We may view it as a joke and say, oh, these people are clowns and they are making up all these lies about Dominion voting machines that are just ridiculous. But think about the damage that they did to the Dominion brand in future elections. Think about in these red counties, if they were to order Dominion machines and people were to show up, these MAGA people, and they see that they're Dominion machines, there could be chaos. There could be complaints. They will have to not purchase those machines to avoid potential violence at the polls, to avoid controversy over nothing, over lies, over total batshit crazy lies. So Dominion is suing basically all these people for $1.3 billion ahead. And I think that that is maybe not even enough if you think about the long-term

losses and damages that a company like Dominion is going to face as a result of all these lies. Oh, I agree. I mean, sometimes you hear these numbers, billion-dollar lawsuits, but Dominion was one of the largest voting machine companies in the country, if not the largest. They were diligent in their compliance efforts. They had multiple forms of backups with handwritten voting as well as the Dominion electronic system. And so when you've done these kind of bullshit recounts in some of these different states, they've been basically identical to the handwritten, you know, to a T, you know, with all of them. And by the way, where are these cyber ninjas? Are they still hiding out in Montana right now in their failed

and flawed fake audit that they did in Arizona? It's such a mockery of the system that the Republican GQP supports that style of incompetence and just doesn't support competence. Yeah. And the good news is though, is that all these people listed in the suit from OAN to Newsmax to Lindell to Giuliani, all these people are going to spend the rest of their lives miserable. They're going to spend the rest of their lives in litigation. They're going to spend the rest of their lives broke, completely broke, because they're going to be cleaned out by these lawsuits and rightfully so. And I greatly look forward to seeing that. We've already seen Rudy Giuliani hit the cameo for what is he selling his videos for 199 bucks, a cameo to try to make back some of this money. I mean, it's beyond

parody. This guy right now, Rudy, in the case of Rudy, he is so desperate and he is so upset with Trump and the Trump team because they refused to give him a single dime to support his legal battles. He is being sued for $1.3 billion by Dominion. He no longer has the license to practice law in multiple states. This guy has completely turned his entire image, all the respect he may have earned over a lifetime around for a fraud and a con man, because it turns out Rudy himself is a fraud and a con man, and he deserves everything, everything that is coming his way. If we wanted to, we could probably get Rudy to do a pro-Midas cameo without him even realizing who he's doing it for. If we wanted to, that's all I'm saying. And the other thing is Lindell's going broke even before the lawsuits. Did you see he

admitted to spending $12 million on looking into the non-election fraud? I mean, ridiculous, man. He hosted this whole symposium that was once again supposed to be the breakthrough that was going to change everything. And of course it's a dud and it's ridiculous and nobody even showed up and it was riddled with technical issues. But once again, they cannot admit defeat and they cannot admit that they are just wholly incompetent. And to bring this back to the beginning, fucking morons. And so what instead they do is they blame the mythical they. They are out to get us. They are doing this to us. And they blame the deep state.

And so every problem that occurred at this Mike Lindell event yesterday, he was like, yes, it's the deep state sabotaging our technology. They don't want you to hear what's going on. It's like, no, you are a fucking moron who doesn't know how to run a computer or a projector or whatever the hell you are doing. You are beyond incompetent. And the fact that the Republican Party is taking their cues from you shows that they belong as far away from power as humanly possible. I saw there was someone who I used to know, and this person over time kind of went from being fairly normal to kind of becoming a Trumper.

And kind of out of the blue sent me a message yesterday, and a DM on Instagram, just completely out of nowhere. This is what it said. How's your support for the Democratic Party going? All of you anti-Trumpers are pretty quiet now. What? No pro-Biden propaganda? And I just responded to it. I was not going to respond that I was going to ignore it, but I said, things are going good. Hope you're doing well, was my response. But this was a fairly normal person and living in such a strange bubble where whatever that person sent me about Biden propaganda and that we're quiet now. Like, what are you talking about? I literally have no clue what that could even possibly mean.

And what we have here truly is kind of QAnon ish, corrupting the minds and this, and this GQP stupidity, corrupting the minds of people. Like to me, it's about competence. Think about the process and the mindset that went through that person's head to DM you. Oh, I haven't spoken to Ben in a few months now. Let me nudge him a little bit on how he thinks Biden's doing, knowing that he runs Midas Touch. Let me poke him.

What a weirdo. It's a weird way to poke because it's almost like this person was gloating that things were great and everybody was loving Trump again, when it's like you're not looking at the world through a prism of reality. It's like sending me a message and saying, how is it that, you know, the earth is round propaganda that you're putting out going like that's basically that's basically what it is, because for these GQ peers, QAnoners, flat earthers, they're basically all the same. You see the most recent poll to give it some context. It's a Fox News poll, which I normally don't like quoting. But I think in this area provides some useful data points because amongst Trump voters who participated in this poll,

54% say they're vaccinated. Remember the Trump voters lie. 54% say they're vaccinated and 32% say they don't plan on getting vaccinated. So 32% of Trump voters are just anti-vax. That's a significant portion of a voter pool. And then with Biden voters, 86% are already vaccinated. 3% don't plan to get vaccinated. I understand that these numbers don't add up to 100%. So I'm not fully sure where the other percentages are. I'm sure there's something. But remember, when you see 32% don't plan to get vaccinated, that is 32% of the 32%. And it still is a lot,

but it's not as much as 32% of the entire population. Yeah, but they lie. So I don't believe the 54% are already vaccinated. That's part of their plan to trick the deep state into believing that they're vaccinated. They say bullshit like that.

To answer these Trumpers, the people who are entering your DMs, oh, what happened? Nothing good to say about Biden? No, actually, I am incredibly impressed by President Biden. He's doing a phenomenal job. It is night and it's not even night and day. It's night and something that you can't even fathom that exists. The turnaround that we've seen in this country has really been historic. We're actually seeing what a competent leader looks like in office from the American rescue plan to the passage of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill. This is a guy who is actually getting things done for Americans. All the various things that Trump had talked about for four years and was too incompetent to do, Joe Biden has done within the first seven months of his administration.

And he's just getting started. Immediately after the Senate passed the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, they went to the floor of the Senate and passed the $3.5 trillion budget resolution for the reconciliation bill, for the infrastructure bill, which will add things like free community college and universal pre-K and all these other various wishlist items that Democrats have and Americans have. They're widely popular amongst the American people. So what you're seeing, Ben, when you get those DMs are just flails of desperation by people who are living in their own little bubbles, watching Newsmax, watching OAN, that are just taking in, they call it pro-Biden propaganda. They're just taking in anti-Biden

propaganda that talks about Hunter Biden all day, that lies about causes of inflation, that presents them with just fake information and fake facts and nothing that Biden is doing is positive. But meanwhile, that person, I bet they're taking the child tax credit check that enters their bank account. I bet they took that American Rescue Plan check. They're probably not getting the vaccine, but hey, we have a guy who's pushing vaccines to the country and is encouraging people, unlike these GQP governors, unlike these QAnon cultists, unlike Donald Trump, who sat on a working vaccine and couldn't even distribute it to the people. Just a total and complete, utter failure.

If Donald Trump was able to get vaccines out there, I would have been very supportive of it. If Donald Trump encouraged people to be safe during COVID, I would have encouraged it. If Donald Trump would have passed infrastructure, I would have encouraged it. If Donald Trump would have passed infrastructure, I would have supported it. Those things are good for America at the end of the day. And I don't fanboy Joe Biden as a human being. I fanboy competence at the end of the day. That's what I care about. I care about the train arriving on time. I care about not waking up every single day and thinking about what crazy thing the president of the United States is going to say or do every single day. my friends, my colleagues, all of you listening, family, everybody can just go on with their lives and just do things as Americans. That's all I want for this country. And I don't want a president who has dictatorial ambitions, who wants to turn America into this corrupt Putin-style

autocratic rule. Speaking of people who want to turn their municipalities and their areas into autocratic rule, we have Alex Villanueva right here, the current sheriff of LA who is running a Trump-style sheriff leadership here in Los Angeles. So it makes me feel like this sheriff's race, which is why I want to have Chief Cecil Rambo on, is kind of its own version of Biden versus Trump in a way. You have Chief Cecil Rambo, who's been 33 years in public service, maybe more, 40 years in public service, who's been methodical, diligent, who has a reputation for stellar integrity. And then you have a guy like Alex Villanueva, who's unprepared, running on bombastic rhetoric, and just bringing and corrupting the sheriff's department to new lows. So when we come back from these messages, we will have Chief Cecil Rambo.

What a great name on the Midas Touch podcast. Rambo. Rambo. We'll be right back after these messages. Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer.

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In a time of crisis, a strong man gets elected, claims to be an outsider, but becomes corrupt and obsessed with power. I'm Chief Cecil Rambo, and I'm running to clean up the Sheriff's Department. This time, for good. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by Chief Cecil Rambo. Chief Rambo will be running for L.A. County Sheriff. He's currently chief of police at L.A. X, has an incredible resume, 33-year department veteran, later became the city manager in his hometown of Compton.

This is all near and dear to my heart as a L.A. resident. Chief Rambo, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Hey, thank you guys for having me. So, Chief Rambo, when you announced that you were running for L.A. County Sheriff, the headlines were all filled with Chief Rambo comes out swinging in his first campaign video comparing the current sheriff, Alex Villanueva, as the Donald Trump of L.A. County. Living in L.A. County, I know what that means. But to all those out there who don't live in L.A. County, what do you mean by that? Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. You know, I've known Alex for a long time. You know,

we worked on the department together. And unfortunately, him him in a political position like Donald Trump, he was tweeting. He was acting as if, you know, he was the only politician in Los Angeles County that could get anything done. He was denying things that were in the face of opposition to the truth and things that people knew. And he really was displaying a lot of what I perceived as political incompetence as well as professional incompetence. You know, and before him, you had Sheriff McDonald, who, I mean, I threw fundraiser events back in the day at my office, and I thought that he was worksmanlike and, you know, and professional and had a plan. And I remember when he was saying that Villanueva was running, you know, there were the position to do exactly what he's doing now, which is a lot of grandstanding kind of mixed with that kind of Trumpian incompetence? many times against the previous sheriff or Sheriff Baca. His behavior hasn't really changed. He's very combative to the point that he even started his own union, separated from the union in the

sheriff's department and started his own. So what he's doing really isn't surprising. I had spoken to Jim. Jim and I are friends. And I was even asked to run against Jim and I wouldn't. I talked to him and we, you know, we spoke at length. And one thing I did remind him is that, you know, you can never underestimate candidates because you don't know. They may seem like they're inexperienced or that they have no chance at all. But, you know, people are emotional. People don't really know the nuances and, you know, the difference between a lieutenant and a person who's been a chief or an assistant chief. So, you know, we see the outcome of that. You know, you get the government you vote for, not the one you deserve. You mentioned Sheriff Baca, you know, in your

career, you haven't been shy of holding police accountable, holding people accountable for corruption. If you see it, you've called it out. And in fact, in connection with the corruption investigation that led to a conviction, a federal conviction of Sheriff Baca, I mean, you were called, you know, to provide testimony and offer testimony on the subject. You believe that's important to even hold other officers accountable like that? Because that's rare right there that someone like you would do that. Well, I can tell you that it wasn't easy because the sheriff, you know, I had known the sheriff for, you know, most of my career.

And look, cops don't take these jobs. You know, we come on very idealistic, quite frankly, and none of us take these jobs to end up in jail. But I can tell you that integrity and we're in the trust-based business, and it's important for us to have the community's trust as well as the integrity and the trust of the organization. And so, yeah, it was very difficult, but when you can't reason with your boss, and what I think a lot of people forget is that you don't have to follow an order if it's illegal. And I'm just not going to, I couldn't tolerate that. And it's unfortunate what happened.

But I consider myself a person of pretty significant integrity. And I worked in internal affairs twice. I worked internal criminals. But I've been a street cop too. So I walked in a lot of different shoes. So yeah, it was tough. But integrity and trust is a very important component of our business. Tell our viewers about a issue that is shocking, but that exists within the department, which is that there are maybe subject to federal

investigation, which is that there are these gangs, police officers who are in gangs or cliques, and they have tattoos and celebrate police violence as part of what the gangs do. One of the things you've run on is to root that out. But the very existence of that, you know, maybe we hear about that. But the fact that one, let me just ask you, that exists in L.A. right now. Is that accurate? Yeah, that it does. If you look at the history of all the things written about the cliques inside the organization, like many subgroups, they start out relatively innocently, but mascots at stations, things like that. And then somewhere over the course of time, they evolved into these subgroups of folks who, just like in the Rafael Perez case,

or even now in the Sheriff's Department in some of these cliques, they lose their moral barometer. And there's, you know, you don't even know how to get into these groups. You're recruited somehow. You know, how do you get the tattoo? Why do you have a tattoo? What are the, you know, the other things that are added to the tattoo and how do you get that? I mean, it's just, it's really ridiculous. And I think it's really immature. And it's unfortunate that the current sheriff doesn't really want to acknowledge that, you know, there's a very small minority report, you know, in opposition to a deputy that they tried to recruit to be party to those statements. You know, and that I don't understand that. I mean, I've been around a long time. I've been a cop 35 years now and I've been a public servant for 40. I just don't understand why they just, you know, how this behavior continues. And it's not even just that Alex Villanueva's

silent on it. In that Trumpian fashion, when I watch it, it's almost like a wink and a nod to it as well. Like, I'm with you. Like, I'm not going to go out, not just the, I'm not going to tolerate that and I'm not going to give a wink and a nod to it. And I'll have very frank discussions with with groups. And I think really part of changing the culture, you know, because not every station in or not every unit inside the sheriff's department has these subcultures. There's 70 plus units in there. And typically what you find are those folks that gravitate towards the more higher crime areas where you see a lot of really, quite frankly, disturbing things. I mean, I've had to bury three three-year-olds in my patrol career, you know, and that's emotionally disturbing. And it really, you know, one of the things, you know, I ran for mayor in 04 in Compton. And one of the things that I, reasons I ran is because the level of violence that I saw there was just like a normal, like people accepted that.

And when you're policing that, you know, it becomes, there's a mindset out there that I think, you know, one of the things I like to really introduce is, you know, some of the deputies that work in these areas year in and year out probably need to be pulled out, kind of, you know, decompress and come out of these really, really emotional trauma-filled areas and really kind of get their mental health back together. You know, that's something that cops and particularly male cops don't do very well is make admissions about emotional issues. And I think it affects people subliminally. So when you look at the formation of these gangs, I think, you know, they actually feel like they're a fine line between anarchy and, you know, safety and things like that. So there's a number of ways

that I and ideas I have to try to infiltrate and deal with that culture. What are those? So you know that we started in the academy. We go through this 22-week, 26-week long academy. So you talk about subcultures there. You let them know that these things exist. This is why they shouldn't exist. They're detrimental to this trust-based organization and to the veracity of

who we are and what we stand for. Once they come into the custodial setting, you talk about it again at orientation. And then once they go to try to be a training officer, you talk about it with training officers and how to understand, recognize what's going on, how to prevent these kind of clicks from happening. Same with Sergeant Super School before you promote to Sergeant or within a year, you have to go to supervisory school for Sergeant and the same for watch commanders for lieutenants. And then there's also just you can't promote folks that have participated in this kind of behavior. If you know, if you keep promoting people that do that, then you're really,

that's a literal wink that we're kind of condoning this behavior. So stop rewarding the behavior. Make sure you talk about it. Make sure it becomes a part of the training at every level in the organization. And then you demonstrate through you know, through demonstrable leadership, what you will and will not tolerate. One of the things you refused to tolerate was the police tactic of using the chokehold. You famously banned the use of the chokehold in your role as chief of police at LAX airport. What caused you to take that action? And what do you think is the role of using force in policing? You know, I think, you know, looking at the George Floyd incident, and even though he didn't, you know, pass from a chokehold, he passed from compression on his body and neck. You know, again, I've been doing this job a long time. I told my my police unions,

I've never really seen a carotid restraint work well, particularly with someone who's under the influence or who's combative. There's other methods and too many people, even if they don't pass away directly from that, there's too many other contributing factors because you don't know the physical health of the person that you're wrestling around with. All too often, it leads to unfortunate circumstances that people just, you don't want to be in a situation when you've taken someone's life over, you know, passing a counterfeit $20 bill. I mean, that's just crazy, right? So, you know, on the pushback, of course, in the airport environment, as you've

seen in the news, you know, people behaving badly on airplanes, you know, their position was, we're in a confined area, we have to go on a plane, and we need to, you know, take a combative suspect, you know, out, we really need to have that tool available to us. And I'm like, I don't think so. I don't think so. There's other methods to do that. And we have a lot of tools. And since Rodney King, a lot of equipment that police carry evolved from not having that equipment. When I was a patrol deputy in the 80s, I had a wheel gun, a revolver, a baton, no pepper spray, and a whistle and a flashlight. That's all I had. Now we've got stun back shotguns, we have tasers, you have rubber projectiles, you've got pepper spray, you have hobble restraints. All this equipment now has evolved over the years that are all less than lethal forms of dealing with combative suspects.

And so, you know, the karate restraint was, you know, popular and somehow popularized for the last 25 or 30 years. And clearly, just like the old Barham chokehold that killed Mr. Suttles in Signal Hill years ago, needed to be abolished. And I don't think that the deputies are less safe because they don't have that tool. And you're just speaking about all these various tools that you now have that you never used to have. Is there a point in your mind where it may be crossed into being too much, an over militarization of the police, a point where you're given police almost too many tools where in the wrong hands, it could be lethal as we've seen countless times. I'm just curious to get your thoughts on kind of that appearance as we see police in like literal tanks rolling down the streets and cities during Black Lives Matter

protests and things like that. I think it's hard to look at that and say, you know, that's a normal use of force, of a show of power. Yeah, I think, you know, so there's a little bit of a conflation on the militarization part. So, you know, some of the agencies throughout the country get surplus military equipment. We at the airport do not. The thing that you're talking about is called a bearcat. Usually they're armored vehicles that the SWAT team uses to confront armed folks. But I understand what you're saying. I mean, the reality is, are we using the equipment properly? I think, you know, in policing a free society, it's unfortunate that we have to have

some tools available to us to try to make an arrest of a combative suspect as safely as possible. And I've seen instances in which like electronic stun devices, tasers are overused, right? Because, you know, the officers or the deputies don't really utilize it to the best of their ability, the way they're trained to use it, because they think it's going to incapacitate a person and that they should just pass out and be cuffed. I think that we need some tools available to us, because if you take some of the tools away, then you also take options away for the officers to really be effective, protect themselves and protect other people. So training is really, really big as it relates to the type of equipment that's used in mass demonstrations or mass civil protests or peaceful protests. I think we have to differentiate between what happens if you have

people just exercising their First Amendment right, and then they're infiltrated by a group of people who might be anarchists or people who really disrupt what they're trying to do. It makes it very difficult. So I think, you know, I don't think it's always necessary to have the kind of equipment that you see. But at some points, depending on the size of the crowd, the nature of the crowd, what's going on. I mean, at the command post at the George Floyd incident, there was someone threw a tomahawk into the command post. And we have no idea where that came from, but that's pretty scary. Chief Rambo, on another note, as we all know, we're in the midst of a public health crisis. COVID-19, the Delta variant is ravaging cities around the country.

And your opponent doesn't want to enforce mask mandates. What's up with that? And what would you do as far as the COVID-19 crisis in Los Angeles were you to become sheriff? Look, my dad passed from COVID in eight days after receiving one shot. And I think that anybody who's been in this planet over the last year has been somehow touched by this disease or this illness. For him to say that he's not going to enforce the mask mandate, I think was really irresponsible. And quite frankly, you know, we've been, we've never had to not enforce it in the transportation sector. So we've had it at the airport. And what I tell the officers is, you know, we're not going to take people to the

ground. We're not going to use force on folks who refused to wear a mask. But be courteous, ask for cooperation, offer them a mask, point out the kiosk, explain to them the safety rules. And if they refuse to wear the mask, then ask them to leave the airport. And, you know, the few incidents we've had with folks are they've been drinking. They've been already combative with people on the airlines, you know, our flight crews and things like that. But for the most part, we write people tickets for not wearing helmets. We write people tickets for not putting on their seatbelts or for texting while driving. It's a safety precaution. And far more people have died from COVID than have died from not wearing their seatbelt.

So I'm not sure why he made that statement. Perhaps it was political. I really don't like the politicization of COVID because it's an empty argument. I mean, it's killing people. It's killed 4 million people. I don't understand why this is such a pushback. It's kind of mind-boggling to me. Switching gears slightly. Hey, there's been a lot of distrust amongst police officers and civilians, especially

over the last, call it 16, 18 months. What do you think you can do to help sort of bridge that gap and start, you know, bringing officers and civilians together and getting everybody on the same page? Yeah. So, you know, I had to do that when we, we took over police in Compton, which in 2000, they had been their own agency for a hundred years. And you can imagine the, the acrimony, you know, that took place when for 100 years. And you can imagine the acrimony that took place when we did that. And one of the things that we did is, one is demonstrable leadership, right? So I was in a community, I would do things like literally jog down the most crime-ridden streets, talk to the gangsters. I remember I went in someone's backyard and we started lifting

weights together and stuff. And just to kind of know kind of know folks, you know, and I, I went on a walk with a guy, I won't tell you his real name, but they called him chopper. And we're walking down the street and goes, yeah, you see that dude over there? You know, he shot me, you know, three years ago and it's all good though. You know, and you know, it's really, once you get to know these folks and you know, their parents and their grandparents, you know, they really want the best for their younger kids coming up. So demonstrating that you're not afraid of the community, that you want to work with them. And then again, you know, letting people know, letting the deputies know what you will and will not tolerate. I think body-worn cams are good.

We were the only station back in 2000 that actually had car cams, and it was such an old technology. We had VHS tapes in the trunks of the vehicles. But I think it went a long way to creating public trust. they were already putting a vote on the ballot to make it where you have to vote to get the sheriff out of Compton, rather than have three members of the council say, we just don't want the sheriff anymore and kick the sheriff out. Now it's got to go to a vote of the people. And that was because of the goodwill that me and my team created, working closely with the community, working with ceasefire committees. We did something innovative, like a gang shooting would occur. And I had a group of moms who had lost

their kids to gang violence, and they became grief counselors. So when the shooting happens, I'd call them up, they'd come out, they were called Cry No More. And they would come out, and they would be grief counselors for these families that had lost people to gang violence. And it really went a long way. Peace marches with with formerly incarcerated folks. I mean, all that stuff, working with the Nation of Islam. You know, I know Minister Tony personally and, you know, I could call him right now and we could have a very great conversation. It's just that kind of stuff that back then, you know, I was doing progressive stuff before the lexicon came out and, you know, people thought I was kind of, kind of wacky, but I, you know, I grew up in Compton and South Central. I mean, these are,

you know, I'm comfortable. That's awesome. And switching gears completely now, a question that I promise you the CNNs of the world won't ask you. You say having the last name Rambo is like the coolest last name a police officer can have. And is it true that you are actually the original Rambo? Yeah, you know, and as you guys know, my for my background, I'm adopted from an orphanage in Korea, right? I was literally pulled out of a photo album. And my adopted parents were black, and they were their last name was Rambo. And, you know, you know, and I grew up in the sixties and the seventies. And so that was kind of a goofy name until suddenly Sylvester Stallone comes out with this movie in the eighties. And all of a sudden, you know,

I'm this bad, bad-ass if I can curse, I'm sorry. You know? And, and yeah, but then when you see me, I'm only like five, eight, 160 pounds. You're like, Oh, this little guy, you know? So Going off those types of questions, you know, eight, 160 pounds. You're like, oh, it's this little guy, you know? So. Going off those types of questions, you know, look, you're clearly more experienced than your opponent in the race. I mean, I don't think that's a disputed fact. Is it a weird concept to you though, in general, for those listening, you know, that, you know, unlike in the city where, where it's not like an election for who's going to be the police chief. Like, is it just a weird concept to you that you have to like run for this position versus

like a meritocracy where, you know, you have the experience and you, you do have the experience, but you have to run against someone who's less experienced, who's got to like yell and scream and shout and say all these crazy Trump, you know, Trump things. It's just an odd concept. Look, I mean, it's it's it's part of the whole democratic process. Right. You know, and and think about it. Most most politicians who get their seats were who was president before they were president. Right. You know, it's like, you know, I get that. It is interesting. You know, I think, you know, I'm sure there are going to be attacks down the road. And my position will be, how did I pass all these backgrounds? How did I get FBI secret clearance to get the job I currently have? But whenever the attacks come out, then I'm totally incompetent. And, you know,. And then I have to convince folks that I'm worthy and really capable and trustworthy to do the job. I think that's the biggest issue is people are often disappointed by elected officials and they want to see someone

that they can trust that in this case, in the sheriff, they want to make sure that one, we're being, you know, transparent to we're, we're looking at different ways to police the community and three, that we're bringing trust back ways to police the community. And three, that we're bringing trust back to the Sheriff's Department and to law enforcement in general. Chief Cecil Rambo, aka the original Rambo, running for LA County Sheriff. We thank you for coming on the Midas Touch podcast. We'll be following the race and we hope you come back on the show. I appreciate you guys. Thank you. We'll be right back after these messages. The new Mitsubishi Outlander brings out another side of you. Your regular side listens to

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Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Great interview with Chief Rambo. I think I was the first person ever to ask him about the Rambo. To be fair, Jordy, I think you thought going into the interview that he was Rambo from the Rambo franchise. I think you thought we were going to be interviewing Sylvester Stallone. When the invite said Midas Touch with Rambo, I'm not going to lie. It was my first thought.

I had to inform Jordy. A, it would say Sylvester Stallone. B, Rambo. Not a real person. A fictional character actually played by Sylvester Stallone. And Jordy's been saying Rambo now for like three weeks. And so rarely has Jordy talked about an interview coming up. I watched the movie ahead of the interview.

Did you really watch the Rambo movie? I watched the Rambo movie. You know that's not preparation for the interview. In no way is that preparation for the interview. You realize that, right? I do. Let's talk about what is preparation

for the interview, for this podcast, for everything that Midas Touch does at our core, making these incredibly captivating videos. Our most recent video is Biden Delivers. What do we think about Biden Delivers? Over a million views and growing, smash success. Huffington Post did a good article on it. Put the article up from Huffington Post. A few others wrote about it. I think it was a very important ad to show Trump claiming that infrastructure week was coming his entire presidency. And then just in the past nine

months, Biden actually delivering on a true schedule. That's the beauty of the edit. What Trump failed to do in four years, Biden did in a few months. Brett's the beauty of the edit. What Trump failed to do in four years, Biden did in a few months. Brett, can you play the video? Let's play it. Secretary Chao kicked off Infrastructure Week with an event with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

this morning. Infrastructure Week continues. We're actually calling it Infrastructure Week in this administration. And today I have the honor to kick off our very first summit. We call it Infrastructure Week.

My administration is working every day to deliver the world-class infrastructure that our people deserve and, frankly, that our country deserves. We are here today to discuss the urgent need to rebuild and restore America's depleted infrastructure. We're gonna get this infrastructure going. Joseph R. Biden Jr. is elected the 46th president of the United States.

President Biden to unveil an infrastructure plan. So once in a generation investment in America, unlike anything we've seen or done. Breaking news right now on Capitol Hill, where the Senate just passed the $1 trillion infrastructure bill this morning with strong bipartisan support. After years and years of infrastructure week, we're on the cusp of an infrastructure decade that I truly believe will transform America. Gotta love it. Gotta love it. And why I think these ads are so important is I think highlighting those differences in the administrations is everything. I think highlighting the success of the current administration, and this goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning of the podcast, and contrasting it with the failure of the previous administration, it cuts right

through the heart of all these GQP attempts to gaslight us. All these GQP comments that goes, hey, don't you miss Trump? Fuck no, absolutely not. And here is why, because we have somebody in office right now who is getting stuff done. And I think the ad works on multiple levels because A, it's factual. It shows that compare and contrast, and it does it in a funny way. And what we've seen across the board in testing that's come in is that when you can connect with people and make them laugh at the same time, we're able to deliver those messages that much more effectively. So thank you for the support of the Biden Delivers ad. And we have much more where that is coming from to highlight the successes of the Biden administration. And Bert, I just got to tell you, man, that was a phenomenal edit all the way

through. People kept jumping to my DMs, complimenting you on that one. And my favorite part of that is at the very end- Were you taking credit for it, Jordy? Were they complimenting Brett or do they think you edited it? No, they complimented Brett. Everyone knows that Brett's the editor, I'm the marketer, and then you do the law. My favorite part of the end, Brett, was when you put Biden smiling. I mean, that was just the cherry on top. Perfect. Yeah. It's one of those psychological things too, right? When you see somebody smile on camera, and I noticed as an editor, when I watch footage of people smiling, I noticed that I start smiling and then I'm like, that's kind of weird. Why am I doing that? But it is like a weird human thing that when you see another person in a visual like that smiling and look

happy, you can't help but do it yourself. And so, I mean, this is just part of the psychology that plays into while we're cutting these ads behind the scenes. There's a lot that goes into them. It was cool. Chief of Staff Ron Klain retweeted it, which is pretty cool, too. That was really cool. That means Biden probably saw it himself, which is extra, extra, extra, extra, extra cool. What we got to do is we got to figure out a way to get like Jen Psaki on the pod and people like that and Ron Klain on the pod and Jamie Harrison on the pod.

And, you know, I would love to get these voices here to chat with the Midas Mighty about what's going on in the administration and the Democratic Party and how we're going to, you know, keep these wins going. Because they're such important voices. They're running the country. And I think this would be a great platform. So reach out. Let them know you want to see them on the Midas. Well, I have the guest schedule coming up. We have some incredible guests coming up in August and September.

We do. And Brett, talking about, you know, the kind of juxtaposition between Democratic success and Republican failures. I mean, this is why you can't call Republicans conservative, because there's literally nothing about them that's conservative. They are literally a failure by design. You talk about raging against the system. The GQP is raging against healthcare. They are raging against the CDC. They're raging against things that are scientifically and empirically proven to help people's health. And so now as we're in the August recess, the GQP members are going back to their home states. And what's their message? Their message is, fuck the CDC. They are anti the CDC. They are anti the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's the main GOP platform.

Let me be clear, is fuck the CDC. A bipartisan, nonpartisan, just an entity that is by all accounts, undisputedly internationally, the best kind of health research center to protect people's health and safety from security threats in the world. It's no surprise when you look at the party, they're not just against the CDC, they're against health in general. They're against the idea of health. They're against the idea of adults being healthy, of the elderly being healthy, of children being healthy. Adults have to adult at the end of the day. And if you're conservative, that should be your position. Adults have to have Dr. Fauci's. Again, do we love wearing masks? Does it make us feel good to have to go into

restaurants and wear masks or to go into stores and buy masks? No one wants to actually wear the mask. We wear it because we're protecting others. We're trying to keep people safe. Does anybody love getting a vaccine? Like actually literally love the process of going there and having a needle in them. No one likes to do that, but you do it to save your life and to save the life of your loved ones. If you're truly conservative, if that word has meaning, you're supposed to be an adult. And this crew are babies. They are grown babies who can't take care of themselves, who basically go back to their districts and their campaign messages, pee-pee-doo-doo, and rubbing it on their face,

basically. That's what the Republican messaging is when you think about it, grown babies. And here's why the messaging is like that. If you break it down, their strategy right now is not, how can I win elections? How could I be a leader? How can I keep people safe? It's, how could I get on Fox News? How could I get Fox News and Newsmax and OAN to say good things about me? That's purely what they're concerned about, this messaging war in the right-wing media. They are not concerned about their constituents. And as Eric Swalwell said on our podcast, it is all WWE style performative bullshit. Case in point, Ted Cruz, who went on Fox News to rail against the entire concept of masks.

And I have a clip. I'll play it right now. My views were very simple. There should be no mandates, zero concerning covid. That means no mask mandates, regardless of your vaccination status. That means no vaccine mandates. That means no vaccine passports. And I've introduced legislation, a bill to ban vaccine passports. This week, I'm introducing a bill to ban vaccine mandates. And this week, I'm introducing a bill to end mask mandates. So Ted Cruz says that he wants zero laws that protect people from COVID. Nothing. Not allowed to make them, according to Ted Cruz. And people very quickly realized, hey, Ted Cruz, don't you have children that you send

to a private school that has mask mandates, and you seem very okay with them going to this elite $30,000 plus a year private school, yet you seem to go publicly and rail against these same mandates. If you truly had a problem, I think Ted Cruz would actually take his kids out of the school or fight the private school. He's sending them there. He could send them anywhere he wants. But yet the school that he is sending his own children to, they are taking precautions to keep his kids safe. This is another example of Republican hypocrisy. Exactly what Kenyatta said. If we have just that one brief clip when Representative Kenyatta from the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania, Kenyatta is running for Senate of Pennsylvania. He basically said they can't relate because their kids are in the private schools. Their kids are out and then they go out there and then they say things that they know

nothing about because their kids are protected. Anyway, just play that clip quickly. For so many folks in Washington and in Harrisburg, the issues we're talking about are hypothetical. Right. So, you know, they can talk about educating all of our kids, but so many of those folks, their kids are going to great schools. So when we are standing up saying we need to fully fund our education and they're telling us to shut up, they don't even know what we're talking about. Spot on. It just it just reminded me of what you were saying, Brent. Yeah. And it also goes back, if you want to dig into this Republican ideology, is they want to attack the public school system. They want to completely dismantle the public school system. And you see that happening across the country.

Because their kids go to private schools. Because their kids go to private schools. Exactly. And you see that in Florida with Governor DeSantis offering these private school vouchers for people who want to take their kids out of the public school system because of mandates. I mean, this is just a totally absurd thing. You have Ron DeSantis, who is actually trying to defund the schools in Florida. You heard that right. He's trying to defund the schools in Florida that impose mask mandates. And to their credit, you're seeing counties in Florida, such as Broward County, vote on a near unanimous basis, I think the vote was eight to one, to institute mask mandates and defy the governor's orders that said that he will defund them if they implement these mask mandates.

And so he set up this whole war now between public schools and the government, and he's making the public schools decide, do you want to get paid or do you want to protect children? That's the sick war that he's done. And to the credit of the Biden administration, Jen Psaki said the other day that they are coming forward and they are going to look into see if they could subsidize the pay of these officials in the education system if Ron DeSantis were to actually dock their pay for taking this action to make it so that they could do this without fear of retribution from this crazy governor. And the guy is just so hypocritical because,

you know, you remember a week or two ago, you had DeSantis saying, I don't want to hear a blip from Joe Biden about COVID until he fixes the border and does X, Y, and Z. Meanwhile, not even like a week later is DeSantis begging the federal government, send me ventilators. We're out of ventilators. Please, please send me ventilators. And does President Biden give him the runaround and say, oh, well, if you want to go on TV, and this is what Trump would do, if you go on TV and say that I'm doing an amazing job, then maybe I will consider giving you ventilators. No, of course not, because that's not how President Biden and this administration operates. They sent immediately 300 ventilators to the state of Florida who so desperately needs them.

And does DeSantis thank him? No. He goes, oh, I actually don't even remember asking for those. That's the craziest part about this whole thing is in secret, he's asking for these needs for his community because people are dying because of COVID. And then outwardly, he pretends that they aren't. And outwardly, he denies the request. Play the clip of DeSantis. I didn't ask. I don't know. I did not know about that. So I've not heard about that. So I have to check to see whether that's true or not. We have, I mean, I would honestly doubt that that's true. And that's not a profile in courage. I mean, that's a profile in the utmost cowardice. And this DeSantis character is literally one of the most crooked, weirdest, most corrupt, horrible people, politicians out. This is a just, it's just

so disappointing to see the manifestation of such evil be elected to that position? Evil, yes. And I think it's important that we also emphasize when we're talking about people like Governor DeSantis, people like Governor Abbott. I think it is vital that we also make it clear that these people are not only evil, they're not effective. They're completely incompetent and in over their heads. When I look at Governor DeSantis, I see somebody who's completely flailing, doesn't know how to run a state, doesn't know how to do anything right. So Trumpian. And he's failing the citizens of Florida. It's so Trumpian. Yes, they want to be strong men, these people, but don't even give them the benefit of that title. These are weak,

incompetent losers. They are crazy. They are selfish. They are hungry for power, but they are bad at what they do. They are bad at what they do. And Governor DeSantis is bad for Florida. It's not even like, oh, look at the strong stance he's taking and how good of a job he's doing. He is killing people left and right. Children are dying by the day due to his incompetence. And he does not only nothing, he does the opposite. He does everything he possibly can to make the situation worse, to kill more kids and to drive his state's numbers, which he is hiding from you, up and up and up.

We got to send him a moron t-shirt. Maybe him and Kevin McCarthy can create a new line in there, and the moron fashion line would be ideal. I want to thank everybody for tuning into this week's episode of the Midas Touch podcast. As I alluded to earlier, we have some great guests coming up in August and September. And even after that, we have some incredible guests lined up. We want to thank you for watching this episode of the Midas Touch podcast.

Thank you, Chief Rambo, for coming on as a guest. Now is when you go and you subscribe to all those podcasts, Kremlin File, Legal AF, Zoomed In, Midas Touch Podcast, and Maya Culpa, the five podcasts that Midas Touch Media Network currently produces. As always, we thank you for your support. Without you, there is no Midas touch. There is no Midas mighty movement. And we encourage you, keep your spirits high, keep fighting, keep spreading the message of pro-democracy, because democracy truly is in your hands. Until next time, I'm Ben, that's Brett,

and you got Jordy, signing off as always and letting you know. Wait one sec. One extra credit scene for the folks still watching. Look who took the trophy home with him, ladies and gentlemen. Did you steal the trophy? Look who took it home. Did you steal that from my house? Let's go. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

Did you buy that or did you steal it? No, I stole it. I took it from your house and brought it back with me because I won it. Barron's Glory. I can't believe you stole their trophy.