The MeidasTouch Podcast - Democracy Demands Action with Shannon Watts

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, the brothers sit down with a very special guest, gun violence prevention activist & Founder of Moms Demand Action, Shannon Watts. During the interview, we discuss Shannon’s story behind founding Moms Demand Action, their mission and what must change immediately in order to combat these senseless school shootings. During the remainder of the episode, the brothers discuss the latest around federal regulators investigating Donald Trump’s SPAC deal, a National Guard whistleblower accusing Michael Flynn’s brother of perjury and the media’s ‘favorable’ spin as it relates to reporting on white supremacists organizations. If you enjoyed today’s episode please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: RAYCON EARBUDS: BuyRaycon.com/meidas and use code HOLIDAY QUIP: GetQuip.com/meidas STAMPS.COM: Stamps.com, hit the microphone on the top of the page, and enter code MEIDAS Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We are recording this on Monday, December 6th, 2021. We're approaching the holiday season. We are wrapping up 2021. And I just look back, Brett and Jordy, and reflect upon the positive news of what's taken place this year. I mean, I want to talk to you, Brett and Jordy, in a little bit about some of the unnecessarily adversarial, in a disturbing way with respect to Biden, really putting democracy and Biden's inability to pass build back better because of the parliamentary rules in the Senate and really comparing that to giving a free pass to Trump and the insurrection. For those watching this on YouTube, I am in Miami.

I'm traveling here for a legal room. Fancy room. I didn't know there was a green screen behind you. It looks like a set. You look like you're in a set. What are you doing in Miami, Ben? I have a legal case out here where I'm speaking with some witnesses on a case. And so I'm actually in Miami Beach, which is nice.

It's humid. It's muggy here. Not the worst place to be on business, Miami Beach. I mean, you're in DeSantistan. But aside from that, you know. Did you just say DeSantistan? Isn't that the name of Florida these days? Wow.

Yeah. One of the strangest things, though, when I got here, though, is nobody wears a mask in Florida. It's like a different planet. That's what I hear. It's like COVID doesn't even exist. They treat COVID like it doesn't exist here. It's so odd and so off. I obviously wear the mask when I go around.

Our guest on this podcast is Shannon Watts. She's the founder of Moms Demand Action, which she modeled off Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Shannon Watts is one of these accidental activists who, in the wake of Sandy Hook and other school shootings, took to Facebook, started a group. She said, we need to do something. I want to help however I can, and started this movement, one of the most influential movements in fighting for common sense gun regulation, and someone who we donated money to when Marjorie Taylor Greene settled with us over blocking Midas Touch from Twitter. And Brett and Jordy, if you can handle that Shannon Watts interview for me, I will be grateful to you as I have to have those witnesses.

Absolutely. I know Shannon will be missing you, but Jordy, this is our opportunity, man. We could take over the show. I am very excited for this interview. And now we'll get to see, now it's a great case study because the last time when we did an interview, when it was just me and Ben without Brett, I got in about half a question. I'm thinking today, I might get a little bit more. Oh, snap. And so over the weekend, I love this. We got to let everybody, everybody has to let us know how they think of just the Geordie Brett interview. And over the weekend, I finished up the Get Back documentary, the three-part series on Disney. Holy crap. It was like the greatest thing ever. But now I kind of feel like, you know, I feel like this is the moment when like George left the band and the rest of the band members are

forced to fend for themselves. That's how me and Jordy are going to be right now during this interview. Are we going to rise to the occasion? Are we going to lay it down? Are we going to get a great interview or what? Stay tuned to find out. Not taking away my shot. I can see Jordy doing the Hamilton. I'm young, scrappy and finding. But I think we all intuitively knew that the media is like relentlessly negative on Biden and like absurdly so. And by the way, the media should have an adversarial relationship and speak truth to power and question what's going on at the highest levels. But Trump got a free pass because he was a criminal, because he was a dickhead, because he was such an asshole that the media, I think, was just like, you know what?

It's too much work to try to deal with it. Let's just write about whatever he fucking tweets every day. And that'll be how we basically get through those four years and just go, oh, he tweeted this. How crazy, how outrageous. Meanwhile, he dismantled this country. And Brett, I mean, talk to us about this report, because it's basically finding that relentlessly negative on Biden at every aspect.

Yeah, I would also say this report is also the, you're not crazy. You're not imagining it. Everything that you think is happening is happening. That is, I guess, an alternate title for the report. I guess it's not too quippy if they titled it that. But what the report was titled was, here's the headline in the Washington Post. The media treats Biden as badly or worse than Trump. You say Byron? Byron? Byron? He said Joe Byron? Oh my God. Joe Byron?

Can we play that video? We're getting derailed, but that's my favorite meme on the planet. I've been saying that for two weeks. What do you want to ask? That's my impression of the guy. What do you want to ask? He goes,

what do you want to ask Joe Byron right now? What do you want to ask Joe Byron right now? Well, they go first. He goes, it's the guy who's interesting about Coney Island. And he goes, what are you thankful for? He goes, Byron. And he goes, who's Byron? Joe Byron.

Joe Byron. All right. We probably have to cut all of that out. No, we're not going to cut it out. It stays in the pod. Brett, talk about the report, then play the Joe Byron clip. Talk about the report first or play the Joe Byron? Okay. The deep tease for the Joe Byron clip, for those of you who don't know it, but one of the best memes right now going across the internet. But this Washington Post report, basically Milbank noticed that all the media coverage

coming out about Biden took a strong, sharp, negative turn, especially in November. And so what he did is he had a data service run an analysis on the media reports, and he found that oftentimes throughout November, that the media was actually much harder on Joe Biden than they were on Donald Trump during the same time period. And this was during the same time period that Trump was actively undermining our democracy, spreading his election lies. This is pre-January 6th. This is all that chaos post-election. The media is more negative on President Biden today than they were on Donald Trump then. And Milbank notes that, and his points here I think are just super important, just going in

from a media kind of criticism and analysis perspective. He says, too many journalists are caught in a mindless neutrality between democracy and its saboteurs, between fact and fiction. It's time to take a stand, noting that Politico's coverage specifically was three times as negative of Biden than it was of its overall coverage during November, their analysis. Three times more negative than their other coverage. Politico is fucking trash. We always talk about that. And now it's scientifically proven how trash they are. It's total trash.

But Milbank notes, it's not just Politico. It's all the mainstream outlets that are doing this. And he notes, Ben, as you were saying earlier on CNN, Milbank was on there earlier today. And he said, we see it as our job to be negative, to be adversarial. But there's a real problem when we're being just as adversarial because a guy didn't pass a bill as we are when a guy

is trying to overthrow democracy. And I think that was one of the points also that I was trying to make on the last show when I was saying like, fellas, we got to get it together. We got to be doing it. We got to be working in the interest of democracy. Just because you don't get every single thing you want, just because you're upset because a bill is taking a couple of weeks longer to pass or a month longer to pass, or you didn't get all of the agenda done in the first 24 months, that's no comparison to actually trying to overthrow our country and institute a dictatorship.

Those two things are not two sides of the same coin, and the media often positions them as two sides of the same coin. So Politico's Ryan Lizzo was none too pleased about this report, and he fired back, basically saying that the raw data undermines the point, saying that, in fact, Politico coverage was actually far worse than the rest of the media coverage. And also, Lizza keeps putting forth this idea that the media, neutrality, neutrality, neutrality, you have to cover both sides. That's what the media should be doing. And Milbank notes, no, there is no neutrality here. When you're deciding between democracy and autocracy, the media has a responsibility to come out on the side of democracy, to defend democracy at all costs. That doesn't mean you're not unbiased, but don't treat this like these are normal times, and don't treat it like the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are two sides of the same

coin. And we saw it just this weekend, you guys. You see all this crazy stuff that happened over the past few days online. You see in the wake of a horrific shooting in Oxford Township in Michigan, what does the GOP do? First, they vote down a gun a good idea just a few days after the shooting to post a photo of his family posing with just ridiculous weapons of war. Weapons of war. These are not normal guns in this photo saying, I hope Santa brings us more ammo this year. posting that, why didn't we have shutdowns because of cancer? Because 600,000 people a year die of cancer in the United States, and the country has never shut down. No schools have closed over cancer. Yeah, because cancer is not a contagious pathogen that kills people by spreading on water droplets. It's like, you can't treat these parties as the same. By the way, when it comes to cigarettes, guess what? You have a surgeon general who issues warnings that regulates it, that says you can't smoke in public places, you know, which is consistent with what masks would do, what vaccinations would do. imagine the GQP's position against Dr. Fauci would be like, we need to arrest the Surgeon General for issuing warnings on cigarette packages that say that cigarettes cause cancer. Now, we should lock up the Surgeon General for doing that if you take her logic to its ultimate conclusion.

Yeah, and this is what they would do. If that study came out today, that cigarettes caused cancer, and at the time, cigarettes were allowed in schools, and Democrats proposed, and Dr. Fauci proposed, we got this horrible study that shows cigarettes are causing cancer. It's causing cancer of high-risk individuals. This is a very important time. We need to stop it. So first, basic things we could do. No cigarettes in schools. We can't let kids be smoking, and we got to raise the

cigarette prices so that people over 18 or 19 years old, or 21 years old, depending on where you are, so they can't get their hands on cigarettes. Now, this whole Republican Party, if that happened today, they would go, that's an attack on our freedom. That's an attack on our rights. Don't you dare take away our freedom sticks. And not only that, we need more freedom sticks in our schools. What we need, you think we need no cigarettes? We need freedom bongs. We need the kids to be doing bong hits. They would be good. You'd have the same way Representative Massey takes the Second Amendment to stupid levels of dangerous fetishizing of guns that no legitimate gun holder would actually pose for such a stupid fucking photo like that. these gigantic fucking eight foot cigarette bongs. You'd see five-year-olds attached to these fucking machines and they would go, ho, ho, ho, smoke like your life depends on it if you care about freedom. That's the absurdity of their positions. If the Democrats said cigarettes are bad, it's so true. Cigarettes are good because going back to Thomas Massey, he's a fucking representative. This guy is a official of the government who's supposed to dedicate his life to public service.

And for them to his little daughter holding, you know, it's, she's holding the same gun that you basically see in all those like mafia movies where they go in and just shoot up the restaurants. I mean, no one has, no one holds and brags about guns like that in holiday photos. It's just so weird. Yeah, it's so weird. I was picturing while you were saying that Matt Gaetz, remember in the beginning of the pandemic to downplay the pandemic, Matt Gaetz wore a full-on gas mask to the halls of Congress. Well, I think if this, in the cigarette analogy, I think he would wear that, but he would fill it with tobacco smoke and do a face mask, one of those face masks, like bongs that they have. That's what these

Republicans would do. Once again, these are not two sides of the same coin, and the media has a responsibility to call it out. They should not be treating the Republican Party like they are an ordinary political party. This is an insurgency. Let's face it. I'll tell you what the problem though is there, Brett, too. You talked about Politico and that highlights the problem, right? Because Politico was acquired by a German company called Alex Springer for about a billion dollars. So now the inside the Washington beltway periodical, right, is owned by a conservative right-wing German publishing company. We see this with other publishing companies owned by Saudi Arabia, publishing companies. And if they're

not owned by a foreign interest, they are still owned by billionaires who want tax havens, want offshore accounts, and things that the Democrats in trying to fight for the middle class are fighting, you know, not against their interests, but fighting to level the playing field. So you either got American, you know, oligarchs or foreign oligarchs who own our media, and then organizations like Midas Touch out there and other media companies like ourselves. We're out here building whatever we can build, but we are, to use the pun, outgunned by these crazy billion-dollar entities, and we're fighting. That's why we appreciate all of your support. But I thought, Brett, that example of Politico's app, because it's owned by a foreign entity.

Can we just take one quick step back? Did the guy from Politico brag about being the fourth most neutral? Like he's not even on the podium and he's bragging about being fourth? Yeah, he doesn't even have the bronze. But neutrality is not something we should strive for. We should strive to be unbiased. We should strive to tell things how it is. But the fact is, in telling things how it is, you have to acknowledge the fact that we have one far-right authoritarian party and one party that may not get everything right, but at least they believe in democracy and they are fighting for

democracy. And you can't measure those by the same token. Axios actually did a report, speaking of these media outlets, but they did a report also about the right wing building its own echo chamber and how it's been kind of a new thing that's been built up since January 6th. A lot of these platforms have been shut down because they've been hosted on things like Amazon Web Services. The right wing claims censorship on YouTube and on Twitter and all these things. So the right, what they have done is they've basically decided, you know what, we're going to develop our own platforms. We're going to make our own YouTube and Rumble. We're going to make our own hosting service. We're going to make our own TV networks with Newsmax and with the right-wing is listening and getting their information from us and will live on this island over here.

And they've been very successful of it. Now, there are mixed studies as to whether the demand is really there right now to meet the supply of all this right-wing media that's come out there. But the thing that struck me in this article is that all of those entities that I just mentioned, so whether you're talking about Newsmax or OAN or Charlie Kirk or Alex Jones or Ben Shapiro or Rumble or you name it, they're all funded by billionaires. The one thing that the right understands is how important media is. And the people with the deep pockets on the right are very savvy, and they understand how important it is to pour their dollars into these media outlets on the right and build up these platforms. We have no such thing on the left. We have no such backers who are willing

to give money to a Midas Touch, for example, to any of these kind of left-wing media outlets, any of these pro-democracy media outlets. Because I guess at the end of the day, if we're fighting for tax raises on billionaires, they throw all the pro-democracy stuff out the window at that point. What do you make of it? No, it's a great point. I care about democracy up until it hits my wallet. I mean, you have the Trump SPAC, which we could get into in a little bit now under SEC investigation, but the Trump SPAC was able to raise $1 billion in what's called pipe financing, $1 billion for a company that doesn't exist. This is vaporware. It doesn't exist. That's the kind of

money being funneled into all of these companies on the right, and that's what we're up against. How do you think Charlie Kirk has such a big platform? How do you think Ben Shapiro has such a big platform? I think Ben Shapiro spends something like $200,000 a month or something like that on Facebook ads alone. These people just have deep, endless, unlimited pockets of money in which they could change the messaging on apps like Facebook and on Twitter and on now all their apps that they've created. You name it, Rumble, Rumble, Tumble, Mumble, Getter, whatever the fuck. Getter. Yeah. I mean, they even have their own cryptocurrency that they call Magacoin.

They are literally invading every sort of space out there and they're creating their own right wing entities. And they're able to do this because they have the backing of billions and billions and billions of dollars. I'll tell you. So what a pipe stands for, for those saying, what's this Donald Trump pipe? So a pipe stands for private investment in public equity. So what that means is that the Trump SPAC, digital world acquisition company, Trump didn't start the SPAC, right? It was started by this person, Spencer, who has no financial credibility before starting this other than another failed SPAC and relationships with Wuhan, China. So they had this interaction with Trump. Usually what a SPAC is doing, though, is acquiring a real company, a real entity that has a financial record. But here they merged with this Trump Digital, which doesn't even exist. It doesn't actually have services that it's offered. And then after the announcement, what a pipe comes in and does, it could be before the announcement or after the announcement, but what a pipe is, is additional private money being infused into the entity, often at a slightly discounted rate. So here the pipe investment was for about $35 a share. But the point being that lots of people with lots of money have put their money behind this entity, knowing that Trump aided and abetted an insurrection. Think about that. A billion dollars

being poured into the market on someone like Donald Trump, who's got a history of bankruptcies, number one, and then number two, who tried to overthrow the United States Constitution and the United States democracy. And I'll just flag this, Brett, before you play the Joe Byron, Joe Byron clip before we also get our guest on. The Trump SPAC is under two separate investigations, as it recently released in its public filings. A FINRA investigation regarding suspicious trading that took place right before the announcement, where there appears to have been insiders who were tipped off. And FINRA is the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, for those wondering. And then the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, is also investigating the interactions between the SPAC and Donald Trump before the announcement,

because you're not supposed to have interactions before. It's a blank check company. So you're supposed to, once you get the money into your trust account as a SPAC, then you can begin these conversations. And as a fiduciary holder of the funds for those who contribute, you're supposed to look at lots of options, not just have your mind set on one to make sure you're making the best interest investment for the shareholders. And it appears that they had all these interactions dating back, but that's being investigated. One of the craziest things, I think, and one of the things that puts us in a unique position to discuss this is Ben happens to be like a SPAC expert. Ben knows this specific subject inside and out. And for listeners of the Legal AF by Midas Touch podcast,

our legal analysis podcast with Ben and Michael Popak, national trial attorney, which I encourage everybody who listens to this podcast to listen to. We do a live show every Saturday, and then the podcast airs in audio form on Sunday. But the second that the SPAC was announced, Ben and Popak said,

oh, that thing's going to be under investigation within weeks. Like, there's no way they followed any of the guidelines here. I could already see a bunch of violations, a bunch of rules that they broke. So props to Ben and Popak and the legal AFers out there who have known that this has been coming now since literally day one of this announcement. All right, play the Joe Byron clip. Okay. The meme taking the world by storm. Hey, yo, we got Byron's car wash live from Coney Island. Are you vaccinated?

Yes, sir. I was feeling thirsty. Your mom gave me a gallon of Henny to quench that, you heard? It's no snow on the floor. He's really skiing to Coney Island on a hard top. What we doing, Coney Island, Kalink? Real, son. We keep it real.

Fuck your life. Bing bong. He had too many shots. You want a shot? Hey, yo, Ariana Grande. What's up, mama? I come to Coney Island to take a spin on a cyclone. I miss you. Let's see, mama? I come to Coney Island to take a spin on a cyclone.

I miss you. Let's see that flip, boy. Yeah. With the yellow foam zone. I have seven female wives. Go to my Instagram. What do you want to tell Joe Byron right now? What's up, baby?

Take me out to dinner. Hey, yo. He got his phone in his balls. Steve Jobs did not die for this. If you see these dogs in your front yard, just know upstairs I'm going hard. Bing bong. I don't even know what that is. It's just chaos. It's Coney Island, New York. Just absolute chaos and madness. And it's become one of my favorite accounts to follow. And this has become a meme that's taken off now. John Legend actually did a Joe Byron song using the

words from that meme. Did you see that also? So good. Anyway, before we bring on our guest, this podcast is brought to you by Raycon, which is the perfect gift for this. Why you wanna tell Joe Byron right now? What's up, baby? Gonna get us pulled off of YouTube if you keep playing the song. Hey, yo. Turn off that song before we get pulled off of YouTube. Hey, yo. What's up, baby?

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It's not a real song. This isn't a copyrighted song. If you get the Midas Touch Twitter and YouTube account taken down, I'm going to be pissed. All right, Brett. Thank you for playing that. Let's bring in our guest, Shannon Watts, Brett Jordy. I will let you take it from here. I'm going to do my meeting, and then I will join us shortly.

Good luck with your meeting, babe. Let's do it, Jay. And now we are joined by Shannon Watts, an American gun violence prevention activist and the founder of Moms Demand Action. Moms Demand Action is the largest grassroots group fighting against gun violence. Watts has campaigned for a number of gun control candidates across the country, including President Joe Biden. In 2016, Watts became a board member of Emerge America, an organization for recruiting and training women to run for office. Shannon, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you for having me. It's great to have you on the show. Listeners of the Midas Touch podcast will remember that, and we hear, we rave about Moms Demand Action all the time on the show. We are so grateful for the

work you do. First, I just want to make that clear. And I encourage everybody, if you care about the issue of common sense gun reform, please consider giving to Moms Demand Action. They are doing such incredible work. Listeners of the show will remember that when we sued Marjorie Taylor Greene and she had to pay for our legal fees. We decided to take that money and donate it to Moms Demand Action.

We thought that was the best use of those funds. So we encourage all of you, if you're in this fight, please contribute to Moms Demand Action. Shannon, I'd love to just hear the story. How did you get involved from reading about your story? It seems that you have a lot of similarities to us. It seems like you were sort of an accidental activist in many ways. Yes, that's exactly right. So it'll be nine years ago next week that I was so angry, so devastated, and just felt like it was time for me to get off the sidelines on the issue

of gun violence after the shooting at Sandy Hook School. Again, I really can't believe next week it'll be nine years. But I was living in Indiana at the time. And I thought, okay, I want to join something like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, but for the issue of gun safety. And I couldn't find anything. I found a lot of think tanks in Washington, D.C., mostly run by men. I found a lot of one-off city and state organizations, again, mostly run by men. I found a lot of one-off city and state organizations, again, mostly run by men. And I wanted to be a part of a badass army of mostly women, or at least led by women that were connected

all across the country, red and blue states alike. And so I just, I decided to start my own Facebook page to talk about other people about the desire to create something like this. And just that initial conversation has turned into the largest grassroots movement in the country. We're larger than the NRA. We now have 8 million supporters. Wow. And I've been a full-time volunteer activist now, you know, again, for almost a decade. And I want to be clear, we're not just moms. We're not just women now. We're mothers and others. and we also have Students Demand Action fighting right alongside us. I love it. So it's really grown at an incredible rate. I mean, that's unbelievable that you are now bigger than the NRA. It's truly an incredible feat, especially considering just what you're up against. What I'm wondering is, first, I know you said it's more than just moms, but why do moms make such good activists, it seems?

I really do think moms are the secret sauce to activism. And if you go all the way back in this country, you know, women were really not allowed to be activists until Prohibition because temperance was considered a Christian value. And really, men could never put that genie back in the bottle again. Once women were on the front line of activism, they were right there fighting for children's rights, against child labor laws, for civil rights, for the right to vote, all the way up to trying to fix the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. And it's often women and moms who force change in this country because, you know, for better or worse, you know, in many ways, we have the responsibility of protecting our children and our communities. And gun violence is really no different. You know, Black and Brown women have been on the front line of this issue for decades, mostly unseen. And I think women, white women have a really important role to play in fighting shoulder to shoulder with our black and brown sisters. And so this is something that everyone needs to use

their voice and their vote on. And hopefully our organization empowers women in particular to feel like badasses that can take on one of the most powerful, wealthy, special interests that's ever existed. I love that. And I think that's an important point. And it's something that we tell people often here. We always say if three brothers can start an organization out of nothing, with no financing, with no nothing, and build it into what it is in just a little over a year, then you

too can do something. It doesn't necessarily have to be starting your own organization, but every person plays their own role. And I think Shannon, you are such an example of that. I mean, I'm thinking back though now to like, you know, my life, I am, how old am I at this point? I'm turning 32 this coming year, which is crazy for me to think about. And I was nine when the Columbine shooting happened. And that is a moment that was just really ingrained in my mind, just as a kid who was in school, seeing guns in school, seeing kids shot down. It just really affected me in such a huge way. And I remember all those calls at that point that like, you know, it's too early to be talking about gun

violence. You cannot speak about gun violence. How dare you try to politicize this moment? And I feel like Republicans at that point really started getting their talking points down and really doubled and tripled down as to, you know, we cannot give an inch on gun control. We cannot give an inch to the background checks or anything. How do we get past that? How do we find actual compromise with a party who's not willing to move an inch on this issue? Well, you know, I would say a few things. First of all, when you look and when you poll the American public, the vast majority support common sense gun laws like a background check on every gun sale or a red flag law or keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, keeping guns out of the hands of children. These are things that are not polarizing anywhere in this country except in the U.S. Senate. Even the House recently voted and passed gun safety legislation. And a large number of Republicans, more than ever before, voted in favor of that legislation.

So there are Republicans who are on the right side of this issue. Like any other social issue in this country, we have to get everyone from every party on the right side of this issue. And that is not something that happens overnight. Right. It's drips on a rock. It's several election cycles, it's a marathon, not a sprint, but we're getting there. I mean, if you go back to 2008 when President Obama was elected, about 25% of all Democrats in Congress had an A rating from the NRA. Today, none do. That is a seismic shift in American politics. And it is only a matter of time, I believe, until Republicans are on the right side of this issue too. But in the meantime, it is up to all of us, again, to make sure we're voting on this issue. That is a priority when we go into the voting

booth in every single election cycle that we know who our gun sense candidates are. And it's on us, right? I mean, if you look at the Virginia election in 2018, this was a number three voting issue for Virginians who favored gun safety, especially after the mass shooting in Virginia Beach. They swept in a gun sense governor governor they completely flipped both chambers of the general assembly but then in this last election cycle um they voted in an nra lifetime member who refused to say where he stood on this issue right he's running in the nra's backyard he refuses to be graded by the nra he refuses to talk about this issue and he wins so i think that's the new play book for um gun extremists and and it's something we all have to be really

aware of as activists and as voters. So do you think Democrats should be making this the forefront of their campaigns? It seems like Republicans are really good at mobilizing the threat to the Second Amendment, and I use quotes when I say that, to get voters to the polls. Do you think Democrats should be mobilizing voters in the same way to usher in some real common sense gun reform and get candidates who could actually make change out there? Well, I mean, that's exactly what we're doing, right? So again, we flipped the House in 2018. We recently flipped the Senate. We elected a gun sense president. And we have elected gun sense majorities before in Virginia, as I mentioned, but also in states like New York and in Colorado and places where this issue was making no progress at all.

And then it was turbocharged because we were able to go in during an electoral cycle and get a gun sense majority and then go forward and pass stronger gun laws. We know this is a winning issue when we do the polling. Again, this is something that the vast majority of Americans support. It's no longer a third rail. You can run on the issue and win. And so, you know, I think it's just really important that we're paying attention, that we're prioritizing this issue. Again, if you go back into Virginia and you see the NRA lifetime candidate was able to

peel off white women by talking about things like CRT and talking about, you know, school shutdowns during COVID. This is the new playbook. We have to stay focused and we have to make sure that we're holding candidates accountable and making them say where they stand on the issue of gun safety. Yeah, as we said on the show, you know, CRT isn't going to kill your kids. You know what's going to kill your kids? COVID is going to kill your kids. And guns could kill your kids. And Republicans are doing everything possible to keep that the norm out there. That's exactly right.

I know a lot of people are just so frustrated because when you look at something like Sandy Hook, what could be a more horrific incident than that? Obviously, that's what inspired you to start everything, start this incredible movement. And I know people look to that and say, hey, if we couldn't get things done after children were shot down at Sandy Hook, how could we ever get things done? What would you say to people who kind of feel like that? Yeah, I would, you know, and I answer this question every year around this time, right, when it's the commemoration of the horrific tragedy inside Sandy Hook School. And that negates all the work that has been done on the ground in the last nine years. I understand that people are waiting for this cathartic moment in Congress.

I am too. I know it's coming. I wouldn't wake up and do this every day full time as a volunteer if it wasn't. But we can't lose sight of the amazing changes that we've made. As I mentioned before, all of the Democrats in Congress are on the side of gun safety now. We have passed laws in 21 states that require a background check on every gun sale. We have passed laws in 31 states that keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. We've passed something called a red flag law in 19 states which allows family or police to petition a judge and get a temporary restraining order to remove the guns from someone who's a danger to themselves or others. We've passed secure storage laws. There's so much that has been done by activists on the ground who

show up at every gun bill hearing, who oppose bad legislation, who support good gun bills. And it's also important to keep in mind all the defense we play, right? The NRA's agenda was just sailing through state houses in 2012. And we have stopped their agenda 90% of the time, year after year for the last six years. These are bills that would have allowed guns on college campuses, that would have forced teachers to college campuses, that would have forced teachers to be armed, that would pass and expand stand your ground laws, something called permitless carry, which sadly is still marching forward, but we've been able to stop them in many states. So all this work is being done by activists on the ground.

And again, it's really how many social issues work, right? Marriage equality took decades on the ground by activists to do the, what I call the unglamorous heavy lifting of grassroots activism and gun violence prevention is no different. Well, we're thankful to have you out there and I'm happy that you laid out everything that's been accomplished and stuff. Cause I think too often people just see the headlines and they don't really see the work that's going on and they don't see how much worse it could actually be. I mean, I saw a photo today also of, which I think I saw that you commented on. It was an NRA letter sent to a person that said, gun confiscation notice.

And it's to scare people into thinking that Democrats and liberals are taking away your guns. And then they ask, obviously, for a check to donate to the NRA once you open it up. And the person who I saw posted this on Twitter had said they sent this to, I believe it was his father, who was shot and killed by guns. And they were furious at the fact that the NRA was sending these notices to them. What do you think of those kind of NRA tactics? And where do you think the NRA is at right now, just in general, I guess, because we kept hearing all these things about that they're financially weren't quite in good shape. What do you make of it all?

Well, there's a lot of discussion about when the NRA became, and I don't mean their members. I mean, the leadership of the NRA became so radicalized. And a lot of people say it was after Columbine, when they could have backed down, but they decided to double down. Right. And as a result, you know, they realized a long time ago, if you remember when George Bush Sr. resigned from the NRA, it was because the NRA was starting to use this language that was just so incendiary. You know, they were referring to government officials as jackbooted thugs. And the reason they were doing that was really to win elections and to raise money. And what they realized accidentally was, oh, it also sells guns. Because they at the time had a demographic that really was sort of aging out, right? It was the white man over the age of 50

or 60. And they realized there's no way to maintain our profits if we continue just to sell arsenals to these specific individuals. It's important to remember that about 3% of all gun owners own half of the 400 million firearms in this country. And that was sort of the NRA's fault because of the way they were marketing guns. And so this is a successful recipe for them. If you look at COVID, right, they exploited the chaos and the fear around this pandemic to put guns in the hands of Americans. You know, the Trump administration made gun dealers an essential business. The ATF allowed curbside gun sales. We know tens of millions of guns were sold during the COVID crisis. And what we're seeing now is the logical outcome of that, right? We're seeing gun violence spike all over the country, domestic gun violence

is up, gun suicides are up. And the number of children who live in homes with unsecured guns has risen from about 4.6 million to now 5.4 million. And so, you know, the horrific shooting tragedy we saw in Michigan last week is sort of the logical outcome of allowing the gun lobby to write our nation's gun laws. And speaking of that horrific incident in Oxford Township in Michigan, a 15-year-old kid, gun purchased for him on Black Friday, apparently, by his parents. What do you make of the fact that this 15-year-old was able to get his hands on this gun? And what kind of laws do you think there could actually be implemented to prevent something like this happening again?

Well, it's kind of like the onion where they say, no other country is experiencing this, but we don't know how to stop it here in America. It's really clear why we have school shootings in this country. It's because we give children easy access to guns. Most school shooters are students. About 80% of them get their guns from home. And we know how to prevent that from happening. For example, secure storage laws. 23 states now have laws in place.

We just helped pass them this legislative session this year in Colorado, in Maine, in Oregon that require gun owners to keep their guns locked, unloaded, and separate from ammunition around children. That's pretty logical, right? It's just a responsibility that should go along with gun ownership. But the NRA has really stripped all responsibilities from gun rights in this country. So these laws make a difference. Michigan does not have a secure storage law. That's why the prosecutor brought charges, but it wasn't a cut and dried case because there's no legal precedent

in the state to base them on. We also know that in almost every single case of a school shooting, like this one in Michigan, there are warning signs beforehand. You know, this kid was clearly a danger to himself and others. Michigan also does not have a red flag law. I mentioned we've passed those now in 19 states. It would have allowed family or police, and in some cases, even educators to flag this person who's at risk to themselves or others, and to find out if there are guns in the home and to remove them until that threat can be assessed. So there are a lot of different legal ways, but also, you know, it is important to pass resolutions through school boards, which we're doing all across the country. Now, more than 2 million families have received secure

storage notifications because of the work of Moms Demand Action. And just having the conversation, we have a program, a campaign called Be Smart. If you want to learn more about how to keep your guns locked, unloaded, separate from ammunition, or to ask friends and family when you send their kids to their homes, if they're doing that, just go to besmartforkids.org, and we can explain how to do that. You know, it's, it's so true, Shannon, because everybody does say, you just see it so often people say things like, well, we're too far gone now. How are we ever going to get this under control? It's impossible. And it's like, well, every other country in the world has been able to do that.

And there are other countries with higher gun ownership that don't experience the levels of gun violence that we do. And one of the things that people have also said to me is, you know, this isn't about guns. This is about mental health. I go, hey, you don't think there are mental health issues in other countries as well? But you don't see the same level of shooting. We have the same rates of mental illness as every other peer nation. And by the way, it's not, it can be both.

Like people always do, like it's an either or. It can be both. But the fact is, like you said, we have the same rates of mental illness here as every other place in the world. And guess what? They've cracked the code because it's not that secret. It's really not that secret. On the note of what you were saying about prosecutions, I thought one of the really

interesting things they did this time around was charging the parents of the school shooter. Now, have you seen that be done before? I'm not sure that I have, but I think that could set an interesting precedent that could actually do a lot to curb gun violence if you actually put responsibility on the parents here. Oh, absolutely. It's extremely rare. We found about two or three other cases where this has happened. As I mentioned before, we've passed secure storage laws and now in 23 states unfortunately in many of those allowing a child to have access to your unsecured gun is is a misdemeanor with about a 400 fine we have to

make sure these laws are passed we make have to make sure that they have teeth but absolutely when a gun owner gives a child easy access to guns and that gun is then used by a child to either purposely or unintentionally shoot themselves or others there there has to be some kind of accountability i mean if you go back to the 80s which i was a teen in the 80s and i can remember when someone would get in the car they would choose to drink and drive they would kill their family or friends they would live and what people would say is, oh, what a tragedy. We can't punish this person. They've been through enough. And a group of angry moms came along and said, wait a minute. The laws are the moral underpinning

of our society. If we don't start holding people accountable, this is going to happen again and again. And by the way, the way you change the culture where these horrific tragedies that are senseless and preventable happen is by saying as a as a society we have laws that say this is not acceptable that's how you change the culture and that's what we need to do here too and i was really heartened to hear senator chris murphy on cnn yesterday saying exactly that we need a federal law that holds gun owners accountable for for being responsible that was something that we had talked about earlier uh in this interview was columbine and frankly i remember being taught about columbine in school and we had a two-week curriculum you know solely based on that we watched videos we had parents come in and speak and it was really

you know tragic and it really affected me um you know just hearing all of the stories you look at the news, and there's almost a Columbine like every other week at this point. And it's terrifying. And so I guess why the increase in school shootings? Well, you know, what is really sad is how glorified Columbine has become among school shooters. There are a lot of different studies and analyses. Many in the media world feel that the media's glorification by giving the shooters such notoriety is actually what has spawned all of these copycats. There's actually something called no notoriety. It was created by a gun violence survivor.

And it is why we rarely say the name of a mass shooter now. Maybe at the very beginning when we report on it, but never again, because what we don't want to do is give mass shooters notoriety. There's so many copycats in the wake just of Michigan. Over 100 schools in the state were shut down on Friday and schools all across the country were shut down because of threats of gun violence. So it's really important that we don't give notoriety to mass shooters. But the other issue is just, you know, if you go to 1968, they're about triple the amount of guns in circulation in this country now. And as I said, tens of millions of guns were sold

during COVID. And more and more children are living in homes with unsecured guns. And the gun lobby is really encouraging that kind of negligence. So all of these things are a recipe for disaster. And even beyond the gun lobbies, you have the Fox News, the OANs, who when they report on this, they report purely for entertainment purposes and really to make the issue even more divisive. Now, have you heard the clip of last night, what Judge Janine had said about the shooting? If not, Brett, can you please play that clip? Because Shannon, I would love to hear your take. Yeah. And then there's Oxford, Michigan, with Ethan Crumbly, who shot and killed four students and injured seven others, including a teacher.

For no reason, because liberal school personnel should have known Crumbly had a gun or at least had access to one, but never bothered to ask. The very reason they told his parents to come to class instead of suspending him immediately. And then they let him go right back into class. Yeah, so immediately she blames liberals for the shooting and making the issue very divisive, you know, in that sense when it's a very real horrific event that happened and not a political one in that instance.

What are your thoughts? Well, that is disgusting. I had not heard that, you know, that we're going to make this into a polarizing political issue where you're assuming the political party of people and almost implying that they not only allowed the shooting to happen, but encouraged it. If there isn't anyone in this country who is overwhelmed right now, it is people who work inside schools. We're putting teachers on the front line of gun violence and then asking them to stand up to gunmen because our lawmakers won't stand up to gun lobbyists. And it is egregious and sick. The laws right now that are in Michigan, those gun laws are exactly what people are trying,

like Judge Jeanine, are trying to pass in states all across the country. And these school shootings are the logical outcome of lax gun laws, as are, frankly, if you look in Michigan, the armed extremists who are showing up at the state house and at elected officials homes and threatening to kill the governor. These horrific shootings and actions by gun extremists are again what we should expect to see if we allow people like Judge Cheney to write our gun laws. And that's such a good point too about just children and teachers in schools just being under so much stress as it is. I mean, I want to be fortunate one day to have a bunch of kids who go to great public schools the way I grew up and have them only have to worry about trigonometry or their next geometry test. And I truly believe you and Moms Demand Action will lead that charge and get us to a world where our

students won't have to worry about gun violence in their schools. And so I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. It really is just so crazy. I've really just been bashing my head against the wall, figuratively speaking, of course, over the past week or two. Just thinking about all this rightwing notion of masks are going to traumatize your kids. And if you keep them out of school, it's going to traumatize them if they do, you know, learning over Zoom and if they have to worry about COVID protocols and whatever. But when it comes to gun violence, not a peep. When it comes to banning books, they're all for

that. They're all for taking certain books out of the classroom. They're all for making sure that your kid doesn't wear a mask in the classroom. But guns, free for all in the schools. That's what's really, really, really troubling for me. Shannon, I want to echo Jordi's statements. Thank you so much for all the work you do. Is there anywhere where our listeners can go to contribute, learn more, volunteer? Where could our listeners go? Yes, absolutely. I would encourage everyone to get off the sidelines on this issue. You know, it really takes us all

to use our voices and our votes. Again, we're not just moms, we're mothers and others. We're also students. Text the word ACT to 64433. A volunteer will immediately reach out to you and let you know how you can plug in in your community and where you live whether you want to stay online or do things in person you know we have the the legislative sessions in most states are starting in less than two months and you know

the NRA will be there trying to put its agenda forward and we need to be there putting our agenda forward so again we need you where you live to work on this issue in city councils and in school boards and in state houses. And then you can go to momsdemandaction.org if you want to learn more or to donate. Shannon Watts, thank you so much for being on the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you so much. All right. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast, Brett and Jordy. Yeah, I think we held our own. I don't know what you think, Ben. You might need to start focusing exclusively on

Legal AF and maybe leave. No, no. The fans are like, no, we need Ben. We missed you. Everyone was in the comments and they missed you too, B. Shannon's such an inspiration to me. I can speak for you guys as well. That sense of being an

accidental activist, when she saw the Sandy Hook shooting and decided I can know, I can't take this anymore. I need to do something. I hope it's that spirit. Like we said during the interview, I hope that spirit is what sticks with you. You know, if you leave the show with nothing else, it's that you can make a difference. I mean, think of all the accomplishments that she has had, all the things that she has been able to tick off and just being a mother, a concerned mother, getting together a group of like-minded folks to say enough is enough. We need to put a stop to this madness. Brett, tell us about Quip. Oh, let me tell you about Quip. I absolutely love

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Quip is the good habits company. I know Jordy is enjoying his Quip. Jordy's using the Quip right now while we're even doing the show. To me, that's probably the best endorsement of this. I've never seen Jordy brush his teeth before, period. Yeah. now Geordie, all he talks about is oral care. Oral care. So if Quip can make Geordie actually start brushing his teeth- It's a fair point. It's a wonderful- It should be good for you as well. So Donald Trump did this interview. Did you see it where he just admitted to obstruction? He literally was speaking to Mark Levin, which is a fun Mark Levin story. When I was young and didn't realize the distinctions of political views really,

like really early on in my middle school, high school career, I loved calling in to talk radio. Hilarious. I told you this. And Mark Levin, you never do this. And Mark Levin was on whatever the talk radio was. And I would just call in and I would just ask questions. And you'd always get on because there was not a lot of people who would call into those shows. And I remember calling into Mark Levin a few times. But anyway, that's neither here nor there.

Mr. Levin? What did you say? What did you say, Mr. Levin? I'd always get in. I'd always get there. Did you know, Mr. Levin. I was in a guys and dolls play. I was a backup singer. I got separate calls from our parents who remembered the line and they remember that I was in the chorus of guys.

So what would you want to tell Joe Byron right now? We'll tell Joe Byron. I love him.'s go, boy. Let's go, boy. Okay. So Trump is doing this interview with Mark Levin. I'm cracking Brad up. And he's basically like, let me tell you what I did here, okay? I fired Comey. What else was I supposed to do? I fired Comey because if I didn't fire Comey, you would not see a Donald Trump presidency. I may be here with you, Mark Levin. I may be here with you, but not as a president. They would have got me. So he basically goes on and admits to obstruction.

I don't think you need to play the clip. All right, just play the clip. They've been in the Justice Department. They've been in the FBI. They've been in CIA. So you're coming into a hornet's nest. I was going to say before, if I didn't fire Comey, they were looking to take down the president of the United States. If I didn't fire him, and some people said he made a mistake when he fired Comey. And now those same people said it was the most incredible, instinctual moves that they ever seen because i wouldn't i might be here with you perhaps we'll be talking about something else but i don't think i could have survived if i didn't fire him because it was like a hornet's nest when i fired him they all went crazy is it not him is it not him admitting to obstruction of justice? What more do you need?

Just saw a very weird frame in calling the CIA and the FBI and the Justice Department and our national security apparatus a hornet's nest. Yeah, it's a hornet's nest to our enemies. That's who it's a hornet's nest to. I like that also. These are the same institutions that like anytime you ask a Trumper about like, hey, did you see, you know, during this Ghislaine Maxwell trial, you know, Trump has been named multiple times and Trump was on the Epstein jet and all this stuff. And they go, oh yeah, that's because Trump was working with the FBI to throw down a satanic cabal of pedophiles. It's like the guy hates the FBI. It's like the dumbest excuse on the planet. It's like when a kid gets caught with drugs or something in high school.

He's like, yeah, I was just holding them for my friends, actually. I was just holding all those drugs because they were my friends and I was just trying to be a good friend. He was protecting himself by being with the FBI. Give me a fucking break. Well, just here's the additional proof. You saw this ridiculous fascist group, the Patriot Front, that was marching in D.C. They announced the rally like the actual leaders of the Patriot Front are known, like because they talk like we know who this group is and they do these rallies.

And they're like, it's like the Proud Boys think like the Proud Boys, like we know that's a legitimate organization that exists and has leaders and has meetups and has protests and whatever. The Patriot Front is a white supremacist group. Also, fuck you, media, who wants to call it like nationalist group marches on DC. Some of the headlines around this were just absurd. Pro-America patriots. That's how the media presents it. Yeah. I mean, it's so bizarre. but anyway, this fascist group marched through the Lincoln Memorial and all across DC. And then the right wing, the radical right, whether it's Sinesh D'Souza, he goes, take a closer look. Does this look real to you? Or does this look like a group of federal agents pretending to be right-wing extremists. And then Marjorie Taylor Greene and the whole

right-wing chorus basically saying that the Patriot Front are the feds. They're saying that they're basically FBI agents who dressed up like this to frame the right wing. That's their narrative, which is beyond absurd. And this goes back to though, there's also so weird. I mean, the level of disinfo that comes from the right wing is just so crazy. But this variation of it, where they're saying, don't even believe your eyes about what you see right now. These are actually actors. And these are actually major right wing figures. I imagine if the FBI literally had hundreds of just reserves who are just actors, and they would send them out to act like this. What does the Patriot front feel like? How do they feel? They must be pissed off when they're like,

you think we're not real, Marjorie Taylor Greene? You think we're not real, Dinesh D'Souza? You're going to call us fake? We're fighting on the front lines for you guys. There's got to be a weird rift there. And there really is just a rift throughout the party in general. There's this fascist strain in the party that is winning. They've taken over the party effectively. And anybody who does not adhere to that fascist strain is getting the boot. And the latest example of that is Trump convincing David Perdue to enter the Georgia governor race, which is like the craziest thing, all because Kemp's biggest crime was that he refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election. That's what Kemp did that was so horrible. First, right off the bat, I just want to say,

Kemp is no hero. Governor Kemp is no hero. I have zero respect for Kemp. Kemp is like a bad dude. That's what's crazy is Kemp is a fairly extremist right-winger who supported Trump and supported mostly all of the crazy policies. 99.99% of Trump, except for, hey, I'm not going to overturn the results of the election. That's the only thing he refused to do. And that made him persona non grata in the Republican Party and with Donald Trump. I mean, everybody remembers David Perdue. He is probably most famous for skipping the debates against John Ossoff and leaving an empty podium in his place, insider trading off the pandemic and losing his Senate bid for reelection earlier this year. You know, it's very rare for a sitting governor. I don't

even know if it's happened. Like it's very rare for a sitting governor to be primaried by his own party like this. And it puts Trump at odds with the Republican Governors Association, who actually wants to support incumbents and doesn't want incumbent Republican governors to be attacked. And this came, of course, just days after Stacey Abrams announced her bid for governor. So I mean, I think looking into this, seeing the turmoil of the Republican Party and seeing this rift, I think one of the reasons why we won Georgia is because we actually had a battle on two fronts. We had both groups like us, Stacey Abrams, all the on-the-ground activists pushing in the direction to get rid of Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. And at the same time, we had inside the party, Donald Trump telling people not to vote, Lin Wood telling

people not to vote, and Wood telling people not to vote, and you just had this total mess going back and forth. I think we're kind of going to be going into 2022 with similar headwinds in both directions, where we have our end of the party pushing for Stacey Abrams, who is an incredibly electrifying, really, really, really good candidate against a divided Republican party, which is just experiencing an implosion right now from all sides. I mean, there's no winning there. And those Trumpers are not going to show up to support Kemp in Georgia. It's going to be totally divided no matter who wins that Republican primary. So I think we should view this as an opportunity here. We can win in Georgia again. We can win the governorship in Georgia. I think it can very

much happen. So let's make it happen. Let's work hard. You could stand up to Trump, again, we can win the governorship in Georgia. I think it can very much happen. So let's make it happen. Let's work hard. You could stand up to Trump, though, if you're in the Republican Party. You can. But they're just so weak, these Republicans, like the Kemps, like the Chris Christies, like the Brad Raffensperger, who is the Georgia Secretary of State. They talk a tough game, and then they lose all credibility, though, when they're asked the question, okay, well, Donald Trump made death threats against your family or encouraged people to make death threats against your family. He's called you X, Y, and Z. But would you vote for him? You know, and universally, these Brad Raffensperger's, Kemp, I bet you if you ask Kemp right now,

would you vote for Trump? He would probably say yes. You know, Chris Christie, when he's on the interviews, you know, they need to stand up to Donald Trump, not because of any political reason, but because you care about democracy.

You truly care about the health and safety of our country, right? I mean, you want to care about democracy. You truly care about the health and safety of our country, right? I mean, you want to care about, you want this experiment of democracy to work. And so when you hear people like Tucker Carlson on TV speaking with a Republican representative who's being asked, well, what do you see the difference between Russia and Ukraine? And the Republican congressman goes, well, one of them's Democratic. Shouldn't we support that? And Tucker being like, well, I guess maybe we should still support democracy. Like, it's really on the verge and teetering of it's not a foregone conclusion that this

democracy remains. People like the state that I'm in now, Governor Death Santus, he's someone who's anti-democratic. He doesn't support democratic institutions. He sees himself as a dictator and poses an existential threat to our democracy. I want to talk briefly before wrapping up the show about stamps.com. I love stamps.com. Yeah. I mean, stamps.com is something that we use at Midas Touch to operate our kind of day-to-day business affairs because what stamps.com does, it lets you compare rates, print labels, access exclusive documents on UPS and USPS services all year long. And you can skip that trip to the post

office, dodge all that holiday shopping traffic, and just save time and money using stamps.com. It makes sense and allows your business like ours to send more mail and packages during these holidays. And so whether you're running an online business, a side hustle, whatever, stamps.com can save you so much time and stress during these holidays. Access all the post office and UPS shipping services you need without taking the trip and get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 40% off USPS rates and 76% off UPS rates. Going to the post office instead of using stamps.com, that's like a throwback. That's like telling me that you're not using like, right? It's like, are you using like a phone that's like a rotary phone? I mean, what are you doing? Stamps.com, it's a lifesaver. You'll save so much time and money. And we've got the promo code for you.

Sign up with promo code Midas for a special offer that includes a four-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click the microphone on the top of the page, and enter the code Midas. Great episode, brothers. I think maybe I need to be in like other States a lot because I feel like when we're, I'm in other States, I think we were funnier on this episode. I think Geordie, I mean, to see Geordie brush his teeth for the first time was like an impressive thing. And I, and I, you know, and I, your interview is given making me nervous. Like it makes me feel like, ah, maybe you don't need Ben on this podcast. No, you're not going anywhere.

We missed you. But if you could take away anything from this episode, I think it just is that the threat to our democracy is very real. And if you're not acknowledging that by now, you're not being honest with yourself. And it's not a time right now to both sides of the issues. We need to take a firm stance in defense of democracy and every time we see somebody threaten democracy, we need to call it out and call it out forcefully. And that includes, by the way,

as we were saying earlier in the show, the media who seems to both sides, truly autocratic ways of thinking, autocratic policies, stripping away the rights of women, of people of color, stripping away the rights of women, of people of color, stripping away the rights of anyone who's not, frankly, a conservative in this country, and a white male. I mean, that's what we're seeing happen systematically across the United

States of America. And there was another report out today about Michael Flynn's brother. I don't know if you guys caught this from earlier. Charles Flynn, apparently being accused of perjury by a National Guard whistleblower. And so what happened was this DC National Guard member, Colonel Earl Matthews, sent a lengthy memo to the House January 6th Select Committee. And in it, he claimed that the generals lied to the Select Committee, including Charles Flynn, Michael Flynn's brother. In addition, he said the Pentagon Inspector General also misled Congress. It was a 36-page memo. And Matthews, Colonel Matthews, Colonel Matthews,

who held high-level National Security Council and Pentagon roles during the Trump administration, slammed the Pentagon Inspector General for what he called an error-ridden report that protects a top Army official who argued against sending the National Guard to the Capitol on January 6th, delaying the insurrection response. Remember, somehow in between all of this, we have Michael Flynn, who was a conspiracy theorist, Michael Flynn, who was stoking the flames of January 6th, probably involved very intimately in January 6th. His brother, Charles, working for the United States Army, and in fact, in charge of sending the troops out to protect the Capitol during that exact time. Now, I don't think it's coincidence that those troops were delayed from being able to take action that day. And what Matthews is basically saying was that all of Charles Flynn's claims that he didn't delay the National Guard from being sent to the Capitol that day,

all those claims that he's making are lies. He's making it up. He's lying to the January 6th Committee. I remember this report also, this is all coming out of the January 6th Committee. This was submitted to the January 6th Committee. So it shows you that this is part of their investigation into what happened. All this information that we are getting is because of the work of the January 6th Committee. I'm happy that we're finally getting to the truth of what happened that day, because we all remember there were so many efforts that day to try to protect the Capitol, and they were met with delays at every single turn. And we're finding out that Charles Flynn, which many of us knew, including Midas Touch,

we made a statement about this back in March about Charles Flynn, that Charles Flynn was really very much behind this delay in sending protection to the Capitol. And so I'm happy that this information is now coming out. And every single day, it seems like we're just learning more and more and more about January 6th. And make no mistake about January 6th, it was an attempt to overthrow our democracy. It was an attempt to install Trump as a dictator. And so I'm happy to have groups like the January 6th Committee who are digging in, getting the truth and, you know, bringing us information, you know, like this day in and day out. Thank you everyone for listening to this edition of the Midas Touch podcast, the Midas

Touch podcast, as Jordy would say. We'll see you next time. Jordy, take us away. Hold on one second. I want to do a more serious sign off today, knowing about the severity of the subjects that we had talked about. Before I get into it first, I just, if you can take a moment, hit the subscribe button to the YouTube channel. It really helps these algorithms. A big shout out to all our sponsors for today's episode. Really appreciate it. But I just really wanted to say

the names of the victims who were killed in the school shooting because the shooter gets all this publicity and the victims rarely, you know, see their names reach the paper. So Madison Baldwin, 17, Justin Schilling, 17, Tate Meyer, 16, and Hannah St. Juliana, 14 years old. Please check out Moms Demand Action. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.