The MeidasTouch Podcast - Fascist Freak Show with Kurt Bardella

Episode Date: April 20, 2021

Ben and Brett see each other for the first time since before the pandemic, GQP members host a bats@*t “Health and Freedom Conference,” the MyPillow guy tries (and fails) to launch a social media app called Frank, and the brothers welcome LATimes and USA Today commentator Kurt Bardella to the show. Thank you for making the MeidasTouch Podcast the top new news/politics podcast in the world! Please keep your 5-star reviews coming and share this show with a friend. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ben Mycelis here, joined by Brett and Jordy Mycelis. We got a great episode for you today. We have Kurt Bardella. You know him as the LA Times USA Today contributor. I struggle to say USA Today. It's not exactly a tongue twister. USA Today is a bit of a tongue twister for me. Sometimes you overthink these words. And it's a big problem that I have. I overthink words like today. Yeah. Ben will see the name like, you know, someone's name will be James and he'll be like, how do you say that? Is it James? I'm like, you're not even kidding. You have seen the name James thousands of times. He's like, okay, Jamez Smythe.

I'm like, it's Smith, Ben. It's Smith. I don't know where you're even getting this from. By the way, I was thinking the same exact made up example in my head. Smythe Smith. I was going to do the same. Jamez Smythe. Birds of a feather.

He's not like being silly or not being ironic or anything about it. Also, Ben, just like, yeah, I mean, it's like Jamez Smythe, right? I'm like, no, there's no Jamez Smythe. I don't know. What is his name? What are you talking about? All right. All right.

Kurt Bardella will be joining the show today. So in addition to being a USA Today contributor and an LA Times contributor, you've seen him on a bunch of MSNBC. You've seen him across all of the networks. But what's really interesting about Kurt is that he used to be a Republican, a very staunch Republican. In 2017, though, he came out with the USA Today article explaining the last straw for him was Roy Moore and that election in Alabama. And he was one of the first people to really come out and say, look, I'm a Democrat because the Republicans are crazy. They weren't called the GQP then, but he was articulating the path of GOP into GQP-ism. But he came out and said,

look, I'm a Democrat. I'm a Democrat, OK, because I support democracy. He said that in 2017, he's done a few other incredible articles that kind of go into that transformation. And he's spoken about it. So excited to have Kurt on the show today. But what I am very excited to talk about is so Brett came over to my spot this weekend. We talked about it. We said it was going to happen. And I, of course, we knew there was going to be physical challenges involved. I crushed Brett in basketball.

We both got the vaccine. So we were able to have physical contact. We played basketball. Just so everybody knows, started off four to one. Me, We played basketball, just so everybody knows, started off four to one. Me, we played to 11. Brett had a two or three good jump shots. What do you mean? I was beating you in the beginning.

No, it was bad. I'm giving the play by play of what happened. Exactly. You were never up four to one in the beginning. I was. I was up four to one. I don't think so. And then you came back and it was four to four, maybe even five for you. No, it was four, four because you never got to one. I don't think so. And then you came back and it was four to four, maybe even five for you. No, it was four, four, because you never got to five. And then I crushed Brett 11 to four,

completely out of breath. He was exhausted. I could have gone two or three more games. And before we started the episode, guys only play one game, one game. I could have played more. And Brett was like, I'm sick. I'm sick today. And he's like, it's because you were sneezing, man. You were sneezing. And so Brett's trying to blame his sickness today because of his defeat on me sneezing. I go to Ben's place and I have not been like near a person in a very long time.

Like I, I have been very effectively staying away from anybody, especially if they even had a cough or a sneeze or anything. And then I go to Ben's and he cannot be more disgusting of a human being. Just sneezing nonstop. Like, just like, I'm like, dude, like, why would you invite me over? Like, you're like the gross right now. And he just can't help it. And then I play basketball. Yeah. I need to get closer to Ben here. Let's play basketball. So he challenged me to basketball. So I think this is all part of the plan. He starts off like really gross. I don't want to touch him. I don't want to even get close to him. And then we play basketball and it's like 120 degrees where Ben lives. It's like the hottest day on the planet.

And we play basketball. Ben totally has home court advantage. He knows how to work the court that he has set up. He knows how to work the court that I have set up. Yeah, and like it's all, it's all, it was definitely all like a hustle between the sneezing and the court and all that. And after the game, I start noticing that I got a little sneezy thing going on. And I go home last night and I like had to go straight to bed. And I was feeling as gross as

I was saying Ben was throughout the whole day. Like my nose was running. I got to say, I hear, I'm not going to make you self-conscious. I know we have the rest of the podcast to record, but like you sound nasally. And no, I i am a hop i'm hopped up on tylenol right now for sure to do this podcast because ben is just infected me with whatever he's got going on so that's what i get for my first time having human to human contact with somebody else now my i'm just a mess and i just blame i blame Ben for this but the only regardless the only thing you were infected with was the L wow I'm that's all you're infected with the L for loser but let's talk about I want to say I was gonna be I was gonna be nice to you and say, you know what, though? I would get sick all over again to see my big brother for the first time.

Had not seen Ben. Many people don't realize that we started Midas Touch, you know, after the pandemic was in progress. And I have not seen Ben in over 14 months until yesterday. It was my first time seeing Ben since we started Midas Touch. I still have not seen Jordy in a very, very long time. Over two years. And over like two years, which is crazy. A lot of people don't realize that. But yeah, I would I would get this cold or whatever Ben infected me with again for the pleasure of seeing Ben. And I hope I get to see you too, Jordy. And

now we can talk about the winners, Ben. Let's talk about winners. Winner number one, we've established Ben Mycelis, winner of basketball, winner of the court, king of the court, if you will. The other winner is the winner of the 2020 presidential election, who's 100 days in office, saw big wins and not personal wins. At the end of the day, we as Democrats could really care less if Biden personally wins anything. We care about what he's doing for the country at the end of the day. When Biden wins for the country, that's what we as Democrats care about. We're not dissecting the way Biden looks physically like the weirdos on the GQPs were judging him by his results. And as he approaches 100 days in office on a bipartisan basis, voters seem very pleased. And, you know, the GQP,

they're struggling to try to find some messaging to get Republicans to rally around stuff. That's why we talked about all of the dumb Dr. Seuss stuff and all this cancel culture, fake stuff that they make up. But the Pew Research Center poll shows that Biden's job approval rating is 59 percent, which only 39 percent of respondents disapproved, which also coincides with some of the other major polls out there, including the Morning Consult Politico poll, which has Biden at a 60 percent job approval rating, while only 37 percent view his performance unfavorably. Now, what is what is Biden doing? I called him Biden for a second because of the V for vaccine. You remember. Good save. Nice save. Who is the Republican breath that said, oh, you want to should Biden really impress me? Let's see him get 200 million vaccines out. Who was that? Dan Crenshaw. I think it was Crenshaw of Texas. And by the way, Trump, you know, they know that we you know, that that Biden would nail it in 200 million vaccinations and under 100 days in office. As of today, every American will be eligible to receive covid-19 vaccines.

Get your vaccine and help bring an end to this pandemic. Let's shame Dan Crenshaw for a second, just because I don't think he expected this to live in infamy. This is Dan Crenshaw back in January. If the Biden administration wants to impress us, you know what? Double the goal. Say 200 million vaccines in 100 days. I will be impressed. I'll go on the record right now, say that I will be impressed if you can do that. Are you impressed, Dan? He's so shameless. He's so shameless. I'll go on the record right now and say that I will be impressed if you can do that. Are you impressed, Dan? He's so shameless. He's going to move the goalposts again. I mean, it's a common

theme that we always see these UQP riddles do. They just continuously move the goalposts. We'll talk about that later. I mean, he is shameless as they come. 90 days, 200 million. You impressed, buddy? I'm impressed. I'm feeling good. Everybody I know. Breaking news. I got my second shot today. I didn't even

tweet it out yet. I wanted to tell you two first. Two shot Jordy. Two shot Jordy. Jordy, did you get the Moderna Pfizer mix? No, here's the thing. I got the Pfizer. It was super cheap. It only cost me like $15 and it got it. And now I'm good. That's Jordy's humor joke. Vaccines are free. If you're listening to this podcast, but you didn't hear the other podcast, we're all talking about our vaccines and we said, Jordy, which vaccine did you get? And Jordy goes, I'm like, Jordy, you don't

know what vaccine you got. And then so Jordy had a 50-50 chance to guess. He comes back and goes, I know what I got, guys. And we said, what? He goes, Moderna, Moderna. And then it turns out that he got Pfizer. And I just don't know. I mean, I joke about that story where the person got the Moderna and the Pfizer. I genuinely, though, don't know anybody other than Jordy who got the shot and then didn't know which one it is. It's like a pretty much a threshold question

when you leave that you go, I got Pfizer, I got Moderna, I got Johnson. You know, when you book it, you know, when they write it on your vaccine form, you know, when you leave, it's a very present. Calm down. I was just excited to get the shot. As I will say about the second shot,

the $15 thing was clearly a joke. It was free. Get your shot. It's free. Let clearly a joke. It was free. Get your shot. It's free. Let me repeat that. It's free. Go get your shot. Yeah. You're about to get fact checked by Daniel. I know I'm going to get a lot. I'm going to get a lot of hate. Let's talk about the guy that got two vaccines. I saw someone on Twitter who got the Moderna the first time and the Pfizer the second time I saw someone on Twitter called out the Arnold Pharma and I lost it like the Arnold Pharma. Yeah, just lost it. That's funny.

Here's my legitimate question though. And I don't know if you guys have an answer, but I'm going to put this out to the listeners to answer. If you get a vaccine, so if you got Pfizer, if you got Moderna, where all these companies now are coming out and saying that they're going to be administering booster shots in order to increase your immune system about a year out. So Pfizer has done it, Moderna is doing it. Does that mean that for the rest of your life, potentially you're like a Pfizer, you're a Pfizer guy or you're a Moderna person? Am I a Johnson Johnson lifer? If there's a Moderna booster, I can't get a Moderna booster, right? That doesn't make any sense. I got to wait for the Johnson Johnson. So for life, I'm a Johnson guy. Is that right? I think so. For life, Jordy is Mr. Pfizer and I'm Mr. Moderna. I think of all of

the names. I think from a marketing perspective, though, like it is the coolest to be a Moderna, a modern, I'm hip, I'm Moderna. You know, Jordy's. Now, let me tell you why Pfizer is cool, because you could go high Pfizer to other people that got the Pfizer, like a high five. High Pfizer. It's dope. And what would Brett go? Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson here. Let's talk about Biden's infrastructure plan, fellas. A unsmooth transition from Johnson and Johnson to Biden's infrastructure plan. Another reason why Biden's popularity is high, because as we've always discussed on the Midas Touch podcast, there are and is bipartisan support for democratic policies. You just have a party in the GQP that literally wants to destroy the United States of America and wants to go

against what the people want. And Biden, though, is aligning himself with what the people want because it is pro-people and the Democratic Party is the pro-American party, the pro-democracy party. And so Biden is, again, attempting to have bipartisan infrastructure talks with GOP members and Democratic members. He invited this week, Mitt Romney, early this week, Mitt Romney to his office to talk through certain plans. The Biden plan is about a $2 trillion plan. Reporters have been asking GQP members what they want. They just want to scale back anything for the sake of just being contrarian and difficult. It's the thing that bothers me, though, so much about the media's

questions and all these subjects. They always frame it as like it's the Democrats' responsibility. And I think this is one of the issues that happens when you're known as the adults in the room, when your party's known as the reasonable, responsible people. They go, hey, why don't't you they want to scale it back. Why don't you just scale it back to do what they want to do? I mean, come on, you know, just why don't you listen to the Republicans? But I'm sick. Like the media needs to stop asking Democrats why they won't appease Republicans. They should start asking the Republicans why they're not working in the interest of the American people on bills that are supported by 80 plus percent of Americans. Yeah. The United States is like 13th in the world on developed infrastructure. So just think about that. Like, and you don't even need to think about

that in any esoteric way. When you go and drive down the roads and you look around, you see a dilapidated infrastructure. And there was this great video, Brett, Pete Buttigieg, who did the 15 seconds on each issue about what the infrastructure plan is. And he does explain, look, infrastructure is roads and pipes and bridges. But infrastructure in the modern age is also bringing people together with broadband. Why the GQP is against, they make this distinction. They like hate broadband in a modern age. It would be like basically when people were saying we need to build highways, you know, basically saying, no, we need to, we really need to improve here is this is steam engines and we need to improve horses, b to improve here is this is steam engines and we

need to improve horses, buggies, horse and buggies. We got to go all in on horse and buggies highways. That's not infrastructure. I mean, clearly in the modern age, infrastructure is infrastructure. Why wouldn't you want to give America the best infrastructure in the world? If you want to truly talk about America first, we should be the first in infrastructure. And there's a way to go about doing that. And so Biden's infrastructure plan is something that is very, very exciting. And I think the country wants to rally around it. Don't you feel like the GOP also right now, or the GQP, as we call them, doesn't feel like they're just flailing, like they can't find a message. They can't compete with just the steady, calm, competent leadership of President Biden. It's

just such an enigma to them because they just have no clue how to deal with it. The whole time they were hoping, honestly, I believe they were hoping that like a Bernie Sanders or somebody like that was going to be leading the Democratic Party and was going to be on the ticket. And they've just, they've made their whole entire platform about, oh, the socialist this, the communist that. Meanwhile, these are things that are supported by the people in overwhelming numbers. There's nothing radical about wanting to redo roads and bridges and broadband. There's nothing radical about wanting to get people vaccines. There's nothing radical about wanting to get people stimulus checks. Like they made a cheat sheet of talking points,

but then they brought it to the wrong test. They made a cheat sheet of talking points for if someone like Bernie were elected and then they had the Biden test and like, fuck, I got to use these Bernie talking points. I got to use these points. What do I do? I got, I got all these marching orders, but you just see it. You just see it. And it's part of the reason why they're descending into just this chaos and this craziness and why they become so weird, because when they don't have policies, the only thing they could turn to is, OK, well, we're not going to get

any of the normal people because the Democrats are doing good by the normal people. So we got to try to fire up just the craziest of the crazy people on the planet and build just a cult of personality around not even ideas or anything just around, I don't know, just kooky shit. Did you guys see the quote unquote Freedom Conference in Oklahoma this weekend, the Health and Freedom Conference featuring like Lin Wood and Sidney Powell and you name it. It was a who's who. Michael Flynn. Michael Flynn, a who's who's of the craziest insurrectionist, batshit crazy people. Jim Caviezel, the guy who was in Passion of the Christ. This was a full on QAnon cult fest. Like then the thing that disturbs me and Jordi, we were speaking about this earlier,

you know, more so than Lin Wood getting on the stage and literally pledging allegiance to Q and doing Qs with his hands and saying how much he loves Q and saying that Trump is really president and saying that there's a cabal of child sex traffickers. Maybe you should check with his buddy, Matt Gaetz. But the thing that terrifies me the most about all this is not necessarily even

Lin Wood getting up there and saying all of it. It's the rabid, crazy people behind him that like a sports event or something are cheering him on. And just the look in their eyes, they're just passionate. And they're in an arena. Let me back it. Let me back out just the scene a little bit. What's your arena? They're specifically passionate and they're in an arena. Let me back it. Let me back out just the scene a little bit. What's arena they're specifically in though, right? So the event was in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

And the event was in a place called Rima Bible College. If you look up what Rima Bible College is, it is the Kenneth Hagen Ministries. So it's basically a church. And at the church, they basically teach people to become ministers of, I suppose, kind of a radicalized QAnon version of evangelicalism. But as you arrive at this church, it's a mega church in Oklahoma. The first thing that greets you is a green Lamborghini Jeep with Sidney Powell and Lin Woods faces engraved on the green Lamborghini in front of the church. So that's what greets you. And just think about that

from just the messages from a, a, a, just a wacky, weird standpoint of religion and the greed that's literally on center stage in front. And so then you walk into this arena where obviously nobody's wearing masks and you have a crowd of people who are energized by the moment. And what Lin Wood was doing, you would think that Lin Wood was, you know, one of these kind of con artist evangelical, you know, ministers. And I'm sure there are great evangelical ministers out there, but but not a lot of the ones that have support that have supported Trump are total wackos and crazies. But we've seen here he's giving this sermon, if you will. And he then starts going into the values of Q of QAnon about how Q is the truth. And he starts making the Q symbol and the crowd around it. You're right,

Brett. It's not just him. The crowd around him looked bigger than it was. I mean, I think the arena holds a small number of a few thousand people, maybe 1500 to 2000 people. I'll go double check those numbers, but play the clip when he talks about Q. Watch out for this next move. He's going to rebirth you into the spirit world. He's making a Q with his finger. Exactly the person that he intended you to be. There's your Q.

There's your Q. Q. Making Qs with his hands. The crowd going crazy. Standing ovation. He's still still making cues with his hands there's a movie zora where he would do a famous z on it like that's what he's doing with the cue it's bizarre and here oan actually cut away in the middle of that that was too crazy for oan yeah i mean it's crazy that oan is covering this as like an event What's crazy is this guy was the president's attorney.

This isn't some fringe fucking lunatic. This guy was in the White House with Trump. This was the guy in the White House, in the Oval Office, who's now just fully embraced Q. This guy's a kook. He's a total kook. And it's not a great justification, but at least like the rationalization, the justification I can make in my mind is like,

okay, he's making money off of these people, right? Like he's grifting off these people. He's taking their money. And so he's going to play this character. That's why to me, and same with the Sidney Powell's of the world. That's why to me, the crowd is scarier than him because the crowd isn't getting paid. They're the ones in fact,

fueling this monster and they are going crazy. I checked the capacity. It's actually 4,000 people in the Rima Bible College. That's a lot. It's not an insignificant amount of people. One of the things that I noticed and not to like, you know, get another group on our backs. I mean, we've made enough enemies doing what we do, but it really reminds me of Scientology in a lot of ways, what this is. And I think at this point, you can't really be in the GQP without being at some level of the Scientology-esque cult that they're in. I mean, it's just kind of a matter of where you are in the pecking order. Lin Wood to me is no different than a David Miscavige getting up there and rallying up his troops around these crazy beliefs. And yes, when you get to the higher levels in Scientology, I forget the names of the opening a few doors, you start going down those rabbit holes. At some point you are in Jewish space lasers and a cabal of pedophiles and Bill Gates is evil and

is planting microchips in you. And I think really, if you're in the GQP today, you're in some level of this cult, you're in some level of what's going on here. And it's a very scary thing when you actually see these cult leaders like a Lin Wood up there doing this. And that's why I really want to talk to Kurt Bardella about his journey from Republican to being a Democrat. And it looks like Kurt is here right now. So let's take a brief commercial break and we'll be back. We'll have Kurt Bardella on the podcast. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast, joined by LA Times USA Today contributor Kurt Bardella. Kurt, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Hey, thanks for having me on, guys.

Thanks for joining, Kurt. Kurt, today we are focused a lot on this podcast on political identity. And what I'd really want to talk about is your journey from Republican to Democrat. Now, we hear about shifts going on right now, people leaving the Republican Party for a variety of reasons, which we'll get to. But in 2017, in a USA Today piece entitled Roy Moore is the last straw. You can now call me a Democrat. You stated publicly, I'm no longer a Republican. I'm a Democrat. If you can, can you just walk us through your journey from Republican to Democrat at that time?

Yeah, you know, I came up as as Republican in a very Republican area. I wasn't really exposed to the Democrat side of things. And, you know, when the thing about politics that I think people from the outside don't quite, you know, understand it, politics is not like sports. And your party is kind of like your team. And the day-to-day battles and scruples and fights that you have, they're not really about ideology. It's more about just trying to better and beat the other guy. And I worked on Capitol Hill for almost a decade, and at no time were the conversations we were having amongst ourselves

about purity of ideology and the things that you might see on the West Wing. It was always about, man, we got to beat those guys. We can't let them get ahead. We felt about them the way that the Lakers feel about the Celtics. I say this as a diehard Lakers fan. And so when I finally left Capitol Hill, it was really the first time that I was able to get outside of that bubble and start just exploring very different things about, you know, what do these issues really mean on a more practical human level, not in the context of the daily sport of Washington, D.C. And then as I started going through that progression, the emergence of Donald Trump would also happen along that same track. And obviously, for me at least, hearing the things that Donald Trump talked about in a spouse, I was repulsed by. And then to see the Republican Party structure an organization lying up behind this guy and commit their resources and manpower and energy to put him in office,

and all the while turning a blind eye to people like Roy Moore, the failed Alabama Senate candidate who most notably was accused of preying on local girls at the mall. If you can't get behind saying no to sexual predators, that's a problem. That supersedes how you feel about education, health care, immigration, climate change, gun control, the issues that normally define our political conversations. If we can't all get on board with the fact that sexual predators are persona non grata, that I don't want anything to do with you, no matter what I feel about those other issues. And so that's why when I wrote Roy Morris, this kind of that straw that broke the camel's back, I was already getting there. You know, I had declared a year before, you know, I was against Trump. I was voting for Hillary Clinton. You know, that was a no brainer as someone who cares about decency and a healthy democracy. But, you know, at a time

where a lot of people were still either just never Trumpers, but not making the full commitment to disowning the Republican Party, I kind of put myself out there by saying, you know, it's not enough to just say I'm not a Republican. It's I'm going to be a Democrat. You know, we are a for better or worse, we are a two party system in this country. And as things have played out, it's become abundantly clear that there is only one party in this country that champions democracy as we know it. And that party is the Democrat Party. You talk about 12 years. I mean, you were spokesman and deputy communications director for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform when the Republicans had the majority. For its chairman, Darrell Issa, you were the director of communications for Representative Byron Bilbray, press secretary for Senator Olympia Snowe. I don't know if I'm missing anything. So you were when you left, though, the Republican Party in many ways for you. I mean, did you feel that you could be sacrificing your career in politics? Yeah, I mean, I could be very rich right now. I had stayed a Republican.

I mean, you may have been arrested also. So there's that. I also might be broke from legal fees but I could be one of those people that has a six figure Fox News contract or hell my own show who knows right but at the end of the day I've always believed and this might be a little naive but they all edit

it's never too late to do the right thing and I was very fortunate that I have built an entire life for myself outside of the political world. I'm a huge, huge fan of country music. And I started a country music platform called The Morning Hangover in 2016, just as an outlet, just to like I needed an hour a day to escape the crazy politics. And so I started writing this daily newsletter about country music from a band's perspective. And much to my shock it really

caught on in nashville i started being read by everybody that works in the industry and i started getting invited to go to concerts and shows and award shows and events and uh it became the real like positive bright spot in my life and because i was able to kind of build this separate identity removed from all things political all things dc it kind of gave me the freedom to be able to just say like, Hey, here's what I think. I know it's going to cost me money. I know I'm not going to ever work in this town again, perhaps. I know that I may not get consulting contracts or political contracts, but you know what? Fuck it. So be it. You know, at the end of the day,

I got to be able to look in the mirror and live with the choices that I make. I have spent so much of my professional life on the wrong side of things, not from any malicious standpoint, but just really just not even knowing better, not knowing what the other option alternatives were. And I knew, at least for myself, I could not continue to function advocating, propping up, supporting or profiting from this party that I believe is detrimental to our way of life. Not only detrimental to our way of life, but it's kind of become this, you know, want to be fascist. I mean, they are fascist, but they're just it's almost a freak show that it's become. I mean, you watch this weekend, watch unwillingly because it just comes on the Twitter feed. Sometimes this health and freedom conference where you have Lin Wood, who, by all accounts, truly represents who this party is now, you know, doing the Q gesture with his hand and saying that we are Q. You have people like Mike Lindell and you have Trump still, you know, Corona McDaniel or whoever the head of the GOP party is now. She's saying that Donald Trump is still, you know, the face of this party and the head of this party.

It's a freak show. And then you have people like Mitt Romney and others who say, oh, we want to change this party. We're still Republicans. Like, isn't that just so naive? I mean, this party, this party has been swallowed up by the fascist freak show. And it really just needs to be kind of relegated to the historical annals of infamy at this point. Yeah, I mean, there are a few outliers, sure. The Liz Cheney's, the Mitt Romney's, but they are the exception to the rule. The rule now is this is the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Matt Gaetz, of white nationalism. It's no accident that the first quarter fundraising reports have just come out. And the people that raised the most money in the Republican Party were the people who were basically for and behind the insurrectionists of January 6th, who voted against hate crimes legislation just last week in the U.S.a. wannabe Nazi caucus that put forward a seven page document openly espousing their desire for a uniquely Anglo-Saxon identity in America.

That's that's the Republican Party. That's the face of the Republican Party. That's where their voters are. That's where their money is coming from. And while I appreciate that we have a few people like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, you know, out there, I guess, fighting the good fight as much as they can. They have been completely enveloped and swallowed whole at this point by this cancer that has completely metastasized the entire GOP. And there is no going back from that. There is no, oh, we're going to turn back the clock to the George W. Bush Republican Party, for lack of a better term, which was no picnic, by the way, if you really think about it. But that aside, there's no going back. They are openly and brazenly displaying every day who they are, who they're for, the conspiracy theorists that have now become the plank of their party platform.

And they are the extreme radicals in America. And they should be not just related to history, but this is how they need to be talked about. When I see media report on any member of this party, I want to see them designate them as openly racist, anti-democratic, white nationalist, domestic terrorist, because that's what they are. This isn't the Republican Party that we grew up with. We like to say on this show, there's nothing conservative about the Republican Party. If you're truly conservative, I think, in my opinion, there's a space for you in the Democratic Party. It's a big tent party, but there's nothing conservative about QAnon and insurrection

and all these various things. There's no belief there. I mean, do you think at this point, like what's your take on this? I think the party has just taken a performative bent. Everything they do is sort of just to be as loud and to get attention as possible. And Marjorie Taylor Greene, who you mentioned, is probably the biggest example of this. Are they just doing it for attention?

Is it a fundraising grift? At the end of the day, what are they doing? To me, it's a combination of a couple of things. The, the, the, the diehard people who send $5, $10 donations, they genuinely, there's a segment of this population that does believe in that kind of white nationalist neo-Nazi type platform. What they don't understand is the majority of the figures in the party, and I'm going to say Marjorie Taylor Greene is kind of a unique animal of her own. She's crazy. So we'll put her over here. But for the people like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Matt Gaetz, Kevin McCarthy, the real power brokers of the party,

they are pretending. They are acting. They believe that these people that fund them are lunatics the they believe this is what they say behind closed doors when they're just amongst each other they mock these people they laugh at them they think they're dangerous they do not respect them these are not people they would allow to have dinner with them in their own homes. It is the ultimate con that the majority of the Republican Party that sits up there every day and caters to Fox News and these grassroots conspiracy theorists. They do not share those values, but their lust for power, money, fame and fortune is so great that they are willing to pander to them in order to achieve those means. One of the things that stood out to me in reading your writings in your 2018 USA Today piece, you said there must be some wisdom in the old saying, ignorance is bliss. It's funny because I remember as a Republican, we'd often mock bleeding heart

liberals who are always caring so much. I think to myself now, what the hell is wrong with these Republicans who don't seem to care about anything at all? I mean, that to me, I think sums up the Republican Party today and what it's become. Do you think that empathy or that lack thereof is the defining characteristic at this point that separates Democrats and Republicans? It is because if you're a Republican right now, you're somewhat of a sociopath, in my opinion. It's like if you watch the myriad of mass shootings that at this exact second are unfolding in our country, and you don't have a light go off in your head going, gee, maybe there's a problem with guns in America. We should do something about that. You're a sociopath in my opinion. If you don't see

500,000 plus dead Americans because you foolishly thought that maybe injecting yourself with bleach and not wearing masks was the solution to a global pandemic, well, you're an idiot, but you're an idiotic sociopath in that case. That's why I remember writing that line thinking, because when I was writing It's what I remember writing that line thinking, because I, when I was writing this piece, I remember some outrage was happening. I was like,

God, I am like pissed off about, about Trump, about racism, about sexism, about guns, about you name it. Like there's like 10 things I was pissed off about.

I'm like, Jesus Christ, it's exhausting to be a Democrat. My God. Tell me about it. Like I never used to care about anything. And there was a certain, like, gee, how wonderful and nice it is to be able to go about life and not think about anything like that. Like, you know, it is a lot more pleasant in some way, you know, and ignorance is bliss. But, you know, it's so much more jarring to me that now that I have my eyes certainly wide open to a lot of these things.

And particularly, you know, as an Asian-American at a time when hate crimes against Asian-Americans has escalated and skyrocketed and the people that fuel that are the Republican Party. You know, I find myself wondering, like, how could you not see these things? How do you I think to myself, how did I not see these things, you know, 10 years ago, what the hell was I doing? Like, what world was I in? You know, and it just, and it blows me away. And it's, and right now too, it's like, there's no excuse to not know, to be ignorant. I mean, we have, we have access to more information at our fingertips than at any point in human history.

And I don't understand how these people could use that to instead spread this information and put things out there into the public lexicon that is harmful to your own well-being. It's like if the Republican Party had their way, they would have killed all their voters by now just for their ignorance and stupidity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Going back to your mindset 10 years ago, and frankly, as you were growing up, were you primarily watching Fox News as your primary source of news? And were there times while you're watching that program where you're just like, hey, this is actually kind of some crazy shit? You know, it's interesting because I think about

what Fox News, I guess it used to be. And the people, you know, this was a time where the Fox News program was really dictated by people like, you know, this was a time where the Fox News program was really dictated by people like, you know, Brett Baer, Chris Wallace, Brit Hume, you know, the weekly San Fred Barnes, and the even the opinion people, like Greta Van Susteren, very different animal than Tucker Carlson, you know, there was no, the Fox and Friends of today didn't exist. 20 years ago, thank God. Glenn Beck was, I guess, as crazy as we get,

but you had more, like Bill O'Reilly was a very different animal than a Laura Ingraham. And so it was just this is where they at least pretended to have some semblance of fair and balanced. I remember you could still turn on Fox and see Democrats would actually

go on a lot of those shows and do their best to make their case and while it was confrontational you know it wasn't you know an all-out wwe battle royale if you will right it was just a very different time a different vocabulary different tone where they are now. It's like Fox News today would brand the Fox News of 2008 traitors probably and NIMBYs and not real Republicans. And they'd be censoring everybody. They would be doing to that Fox News what this party has done to Liz Cheney, essentially. And that's the crazy thing. It's like when Liz Cheney, last name Cheney, is not Republican enough for you, that's how far they've gone. That's crazy. Yeah. So you have in 2017, the USA Today piece you wrote was called Roy Moore is the last straw. You can now call me a Democrat. In 2018, the USA Today piece you wrote was called I became a Democrat a year ago and found my own voice.

It changed everything. In 2020, you wrote an article. It's never too late to be a Democrat. What would your 2021 article headline look like looking back across these years? I think my 2021 article is going to be something like if you care about America, you need to be a Democrat. The lurch towards authoritarianism that the Republican Party has embraced. And it's kind of like watching. It's like you're a wannabe. You're not quite Vladimir Putin. You're not quite a dictator from belizuela or north but but you really want to be you're trying like that that is a very scary thing to watch one of the two major political parties a path go down because really if you play this out to its conclusion uh you know

there is a there is a reality where this this is the beginning of the end of democracy if if you were to step outside of where we are right now, 100 years from now, and look back at the trajectory of this country, any sociologist or historian will go, yeah, we saw that coming. They're in trouble. And some of what's happened has been obscured a little bit because we've been so understandably preoccupied with the COVID-19 pandemic. But once we move beyond that period of time, there is a lot of damage that has been done to our institutions that we need to focus on fixing and repair. And we're already seeing Republicans use the distracted attention of the time to do things like take

away voting rights from communities of color in this country. They're trying to rig the game before it's even played. And it's, you know, every single time the Republican accuses Democrats of doing something, they're actually talking about themselves. When they say there's a rigged election, they're the ones trying to rig the election. When they say that there's issues with voter fraud, they're the ones kind of perpetrating voter fraud on this country. We've kind of reached this unique point where every election is now the most important election of our lifetime, because we've actually seen how much harm can come from four years of this, that I do not believe if we have to endure another four years, we'll survive that. Especially if it's four years from someone who

actually knows what they're doing versus a complete moron like Donald Trump. The only thing scary to me than Donald Trump is someone like Aranda Santis, who actually knows better, knows how to play the political game a bit, can mask some of the crazy and do a lot more harm and damage because the competency will be there. A competent Donald Trump could wreck America. I don't want to end it on that negative note, though. So are we seeing any positive trends, though, in terms of the Democratic base expanding? Well, I think one of the important things that has happened, and this is why I was so excited to be connected with you guys and do this. Like, I think that there has been an emergence of almost,

and I mean this in a loving way of like vigil, vigilante activism, right? You know, forget the political professionals, forget the consultants, forget the cookie cutter bullshit way that everybody always does stuff. Cause it fucking sucks.

And let's just take matters in our own hand. Let's be creative. Let's be creative. Let's be engaging. Let's talk to each other the way we actually freaking talk to each other. Not in a poll-tested focus group, vanilla, bullshit, cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all way. But let's go a little guerrilla here.

And I think the emergence of that and things like what you guys have been doing, I think that's going to be a key, key variable in our effort to beat back Republicans and try to continue fixing and restoring democracy. So that is how you end an interview right there. Got me hyped, Kurt. Got me hyped up. Kurt Pardella, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. We will be

right back with more Midas Touch podcast welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast thank you Kurt for joining I just I can't see how when the GQP is the party of Mike Lindell's Marjorjorie Taylor Greene's, Bob Ertz, those Matt Gates, Ted Cruz. If you are normal and you are rational, you can no longer be part of this party. And speaking of Lindell, did you see today, was he creating a new, his own blog or his own live stream called Frank something? And he thought, what, what, tell me just what was that? Let me give you the context. So Mike Lindell decided that he was going to create his own free speech, social media app, his own free speech app, because parlor was shut down. You know, Twitter is anti-conservative, according to these people. So Mike Lindell and Mike Lindell, you know,

infamously got banned from Twitter and then got banned when he tried to use the MyPillow account to tweet for himself. So he was going to make an unabashedly free speech platform. He named the platform, of all things, Frank. So, you know, you got your Twitter, you got your Instagram, you got your Facebook and you got Frank right off the bat is just ridiculous. And so Frank, imagine like having like a car, you've got Lamborghini, you got Tesla, and then your car is like Aunt Sally. Here's one of the things also. It claims to be a free speech social media app.

The first thing he did was implemented rules that bans cursing and swearing and bans using the Lord's name in vain. You're not allowed to say Jesus's name in vain. So that was the first thing that he did with his quote unquote free speech. You could say anything you want app. And so then Monday, it's his big launch date. This is the day that he's going to reveal Frank to the world. That sounds like dirty.

He's going to reveal Frank to the world on Monday. And he sets up the website. And of course, because this guy can't do anything right, he can't get it off the ground. It doesn't work. The app does not work. No one's seen it. No one's able to get on. So in its place was a live stream. He said he was going to do a live stream for the next 24 to 48 hours to talk about Frank and talk about his new lawsuit, which he is now suing Dominion for one point something billion dollars because he says Dominion actually harmed my pillow and harmed his company and not the other way around. And this is just the most bizarre, deranged live stream that everything that you'd expect from it and more. And so a lot of people throughout the day have been pranking him. I guess they figured out the call-in number to get onto this live stream. And today, somebody duped Mike Lindell into thinking that Trump was calling in. And Mike Lindell was like a kid on Christmas thinking that Trump was calling into his show. You've never seen a happier person in your life. We'll play

the clip of this hilarious moment. Breaking news here with a guest. Hello? Hello, yes, I have Mr. Chilpon standby. Are you ready? Yes. Go ahead, sir. Hello, everyone. We have the president here, our real president, everyone.

Hello, Mr. President. MacronShow.com, bitches.umShow.com, bitches. MaclumShow.com. Okay. All right. Sorry, folks. You see what they're doing? They're attacking us.

They're attacking us, and this is what... I mean, that even came up. They're hacking into our phones. It came up that it was a legitimate number. You can't even admit like he just got fooled they're hacking us so they're attacking us oh it actually came up as the legit it actually came up as trump's number on my phone actually uh so i thought it was there see what we're going up against over here and meanwhile it's just some like 13 year old just like cracking up in his

bedroom the only thing i'm disappointed about is that we didn't do that. I know. It's not too late. If the live stream is happening throughout the next 48 hours, I mean, we could figure out that number probably. Oh, yeah. I like also that he thinks a live stream is a social media app. Like, can we just talk about that for a second?

Well, I think he's trying to get his social media app going and he's failed. So in lieu of a social media app, you get to look at Mike Lindell ranting and raving for 48 hours straight doing a live stream. It is again, this is why we say it repeatedly. Mike Lindell, not the outlier. No, he's like one of those 4000 people at the Rima Bible Church cracking up and laughing and having a jolly old time in front of green Lamborghinis with Linwood's face and Sidney Powell's face as people go. I mean, weird. Oh, weird. Oh, not cute, weird O's as well is what they really, truly are. Oh, you know what a Q looks like?

A Q looks like a weird O. A weird O. Wow. That's something. I don't know what it is. Someone tell Q. I think we just cracked the case wide open. And look, at the end of the day, though, I mean, it's absurd, but we never forget that

QAnon at its root isn't funny. I mean, the ideology that's being taught, you know, are causing people to kill each other. I think there was a story that broke this past week of a QAnon cult member who murdered her three kids because she feared that they would be sex trafficked by Democrats who wanted to drink their blood. You also have about four or five other reports recently of suicides from QAnon based on the teachings, but she killed her kids because she believed they were going to be sex trafficked by Democrats to drink their blood. This is what QAnon is teaching them. That's what when Lin Wood's up on stage, you know, talking about QAnon ideology, it's my view, that's generally what he's talking about. So it's all these cults. And you see, like, whenever you

watch one of these cult documentaries on Netflix and you go, how the hell could these, you know, 150 people be duped into living on this commune and drinking the Kool-Aid and killing themselves and all these things. Take that. But now extrapolate that across like 25 percent of the country like that is the Republican Party is this cult of Q and it's dangerous. And I'm sure just the same way that, you know, people in your lives that have been vaccinated and have had such positive effects from the most recent few months. I'm sure you also know people in your life who have been turned to this very dark area of QAnon where you've kind of lost them in a way. You know, you didn't know that family member who may have been normal and then somehow they got sucked into the world of these algorithms. And now they're just full on queue talking about child sex trafficking and cabals and Bill Gates and Fauci this. And I mean, you just get into like this crazy world and it's really, really tragic and really sad.

At the same time, it is people like Matt Yates and all these GQP people who ultimately are alleged to truly be the sex traffickers at the end of the day. QAnon is the biggest cover for child sex traffickers that has ever existed. On the GQP. It's a total GQP front for what they're It's a total front to hide their disgusting, despicable, illegal behavior. They hide behind QAnon when meanwhile, if you just look at the facts, if you just look at, I'm not talking about conspiracies or have you seen on this form that it said that so-and-so went on Jeffrey Epstein's, I'm talking about convictions. I'm talking about arrests. I'm talking about real tangible evidence. And when

you look at it, it is overwhelming that these people who are espousing these QAnon beliefs are the same ones who end up getting busted for child sex trafficking and crimes that are similar to that. What do you think about OAN, for example, they broadcast that, what was it, the health and freedom event, which I think at the end, they're closing ceremonies. I'm not making this up, was a mask burning ceremony where they took face masks and burned them. That's what they did there. And OAN staffers who basically said that, you know, they feel a little guilty about spreading the misinformation that led to the Capitol riots and all of this craziness. But they say they had to pay bills. They have no other job options. They said, we're not Nazis. You know, one of the producers told the reporter, we're just like everyday people. We just have to work. What do you think when you hear OAN staff say that?

I think, fuck that. You're complicit. There are a million jobs in the world. You don't have to work for OAN. You don't have to be spreading disinformation that is killing people, that is encouraging vaccine hoaxers, that is encouraging people to attack the Capitol. That excuse did not work in Nuremberg for the Nazis when they said, hey, we were just following orders. We were just doing what we had to do. And you do not get off for it today. I think it's absolutely ridiculous. And I think if you have OAN on your resume,

I think that should be like a scarlet letter on your resume that should follow you for the rest of your life. There is no excuse in my opinion. And here's the thing. It's a very technical skill if you're working at a broadcast company. You've been trained in some way to fulfill this duty, be it video editing or video production. You're well-skilled. There are other entities out there that you could hit yourself to. You don't just have to go full-blown propaganda because CNN may have turned you down. There are millions of other news networks out there. I mean, find a normal fucking job. Yeah. In many ways, it's almost worse that you recognize that you are

engaged in this misconduct. Yeah. I'd almost rather you be full deep in it. Like I'd almost rather this, like these are your beliefs. You're just a nut job and you found yourself at OAN rather than you knowing better and working there. It is worse. You're so right. No, no, no doubt about it. And finally turning to one of the last topics I want to talk about is, I don't know if you saw over the weekend, someone did a poll of Matthew McConaughey running for Texas governor. I, first off, I don't know who did the poll, someone did a poll of Matthew McConaughey running for Texas governor. I first off, I don't know who did the poll, like just in general, like, do you think Matthew McConaughey had like a team behind him that secretly floated these numbers because it totally comes out of left field. So I have to imagine that he leaked it or had someone from his team leak it or someone

who wants him to run leaked it. So, cause like no one ever asked for that piece of news, whether Matthew McConaughey was going to be running for governor against Greg Abbott. But nonetheless, the poll shows McConaughey would have a significant lead. About 45 percent of registered Texas voters would vote for McConaughey. About a 12 point lead. Thirty three percent would vote for Abbott. Matthew McConaughey. About a 12 point lead, 33% would vote for Abbott. Matthew McConaughey, should he run? Should he not run? Things are not all right, all right, all right for Greg Abbott in Texas. First off, I don't know McConaughey's politics. I think he actually is a Republican. I think he actually leans right. Do I think he should run for governor? I mean, he could do whatever he wants. I'm sort of of two minds here where I think

our founders, I think our government was established on the principle that you actually don't need experience to run for these positions. Like anybody should be able to run and hold the highest office in the land. That's why the only actual real criteria is that you're 35 years old and that anybody could be president beyond that. Hey, I would prefer somebody to run for office after really understanding politics and really going through the different levels and understanding government at a local level. But I actually really don't personally have an issue with someone like a McConaughey running. But what I want is I want somebody who's really been fighting for Texas out there running. I want Beto O'Rourke to run.

I want somebody who's actually been doing the work, somebody who's really been fighting for Texas out there running. I want Beto O'Rourke to run. I want somebody who's actually been doing the work, somebody who's actually been caring for the people of Texas and delivering results to run that state. I mean, Texas deserves better than this. They got to see what real leadership looks like and not be beholden to these crazy GQP people all the time. They got to know that there's a better opportunity out there. And to me, I hope Ado O'Rourke runs and I think that he would be a fantastic governor. But I understand why McConaughey, you know, might fit in with the Republicans in a

world of the Matt Gaetz's. Allow me to play a McConaughey clip that I think would ring true with I have the same clip up right now. I know you're about to play Dazed and Confused. I am about to play Dazed and Confused. I was going to do that joke. You're such an asshole. Play the clip. So you're a freshman, right?

Yeah. So tell me, man, how's this year's crop of freshman chicks looking? What, you're going to end up in jail sometime? I know that. That. No, man. No, I'm telling you.

That's what I love about these high school girls man i get older they stay the same age yes they do yeah the one thing i would say is that that clip does not age well absolutely not but the but the point of the clip is that he's a creepy guy. You know, like that's the point in the context of his character. He is the creepy guy who's hanging around high school in order to see their new crop of freshman girls, which is absolutely disgusting and is also what the actual Republican Party is doing. So maybe he will run as a Republican because he seems to fit in. Well, well, look, so in reading through the news, it does look like this is probably a McConaughey leak. And again, I don't fully I need to delve deeper into the polling. And the more I look at it, the more manufactured it kind of seems. Yeah, I guess a few weeks ago, McConaughey made a comment publicly that he said it is a true consideration that

he wants to run. I'm looking into now, what is my leadership role? Because I do think I have some things to teach and share. What is my role? What is my category in my next chapter of life that I'm going to do next? And so McConaughey put that out and then this kind of comes out. And then according to the Slate article that I'm reading, it says that he would have a better chance if he ran as a Democrat, according to a poll by the Dallas Morning News. But at the end of the day, it shouldn't be like a coin toss, like which party. What are your values? What do you believe in? And that's ultimately- And he's an incredible actor, but what do you believe in politically? What are you going to believe in for the people of Texas? of, you know, Lakers versus Clippers, you know, of New York Yankees versus New York Mets,

the competition of politics, you know, and even Kurt said when he was working on Capitol Hill, when he was working for these politicians, he said, very rarely, if ever, were we actually having policy debates. I mean, how crazy is that when you actually think about it? That's, it's like us talking about, we were run Midas Touch, but not talking about what we're going to post. It's a real wild concept to me that you would not, in that world, be talking about policies. You would think that's what you'd be talking about every day. Instead, it was, how do we get the Dems? How do we get them here or there? And not the issues, not the values. And so going back to Kurt's logic here, I really don't want somebody to run because

they could be polling good, or it could be interesting to see where they have a better chance of winning. I don't want those kinds of experiments. I mean, with somebody like Biden, we're seeing what it means to have experienced leadership and someone who knows what they're doing, running an efficient and effective government. That's why to me, it's got to be Beto O'Rourke. It's got to be Beto, not just because Beto was a great guest on our podcast, but Beto gets Texas and he's someone on day one based on his experience who will be able to do things that will make a positive difference in that state. And so again, politics should not be the game. Politics should be about how we help people. Well said. And hopefully we have a Governor Bader work in the future because I

want to see Texas man turn blue. We're working so hard for it. I think that's a great way to wrap this up. Jordy, do you have any final thoughts today before we sign up? I know I took your, I know I took your McConaughey clip. You took my jokes. You kept stealing my lines. I had a good first couple of segments in this podcast, so I'm just going to leave it. Ben, you could claim you're king of the court right now in your own basketball court, but until I fly out there and you play me, you went to law school, Ben. I went to ball school. That's where I was.

That's true. I saw you and your fellow Ohio State, all the havoc you all wreaked. And I hold you personally accountable as well, Jordy, for some of the havoc that was done in Columbus recently, basically Ohio State students. It was wild, huh? Did you see that?

I have no idea what you're talking about. What are you saying? You have no clue about it? Oh my gosh. How do I know more about your school? You need to Google what happened in Ohio State. They had a party, the Chit Fest. C-H-I-T, you aware of the Chit Fest, Jordy?

Sounds familiar. Oh my gosh. I feel like Jordy's being like prosecuted right now. Are you aware of the Chit Fest? When was the last time you went to the chip fest? Would you agree with me that the chip fest is something that happens on campus? So the annual chip fest goes on around when they play, the football team plays its spring game, Jordy,

and there are parties in Ohio state around that. And so they were throwing the party and then on this block, they were like overturning cars and caused a ton of damage, but you should definitely check that out while you, while you can. He was too busy on the basketball court. Practicing his move so that he could bring it to you, Ben. That's, that's what, that's what Jordy was focused on. He was a focus on the chit fest.

Well, I want to thank Kurt Merdella for joining the Midas Dutch podcast, Brad. It was great seeing you. Great beating you in the basketball court. Jordy, I'm Brett. Feel better. Jordy, look forward to you coming so I can challenge you. So it's been another great episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Just simply the best podcast out there in politics and news.

I love it more and more every day because I love being able to just speak to people directly and and share all of our stories and just be able to. I mean, at the end of the day, I just love talking to the people and I love talking about all this stuff. And I'm energized. I'm excited by all this. There's a lot of bad news out there that we encounter every day, but there's also a lot of good happening. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, Brad. And we should also say this. Big news might as touch a big expansion effort that we have going that we'll announce on Thursday, a new partnership that we'll be announcing here for the first time on Thursday. So we will leave everybody on the edge of their seats on that. That's totally a tease. Now, Jordy, take us out. And again, everybody, thank you for listening to this week's Midas Touch podcast. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.