The MeidasTouch Podcast - First Amendment, Deep State Cabals, and Legitimate Political Discourse with Hal Sparks

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Starting point is 00:01:54 How was your weekend? All good? The weekend was an interesting one where it began, I think Saturday was a normal day. I was in New York. I flew back from New York. Sunday, the craziest day. One of the craziest days of my life from start to finish. I think it's almost funny if I broke it down, but why don't you start and then I'll finish. Yeah. We could do it. We could do it Rashamonic style. I'll give it from each perspective. So

Starting point is 00:02:18 on Sunday morning, I start getting notifications from some random account called Wocal or something, which basically says that it is the three Mycelis brothers who are behind a unified, sophisticated cabal that is there to completely boycott Spotify and cancel Joe Rogan. What Wocal, whatever this random account is, apparently didn't realize is that we actually took a different view than that on our podcast publicly. Our podcast is on Spotify, number one, which we've gotten pushback from our own people. Number two, on the podcast, we said we don't think that you should have to cancel Spotify. With regards to whether Joe Rogan should or shouldn't be, we said that's a decision that's up for the market. And we said that it should be on progressives, liberals, people who care about pro-democracy to spend our time competing in these spaces and having better content. That literally accounts that retweeted the bill. I mean, Brett, I'm not going out on a limb here that it's three Jewish brothers who created a cabal and that we are leading this

Starting point is 00:03:32 effort to do it. And so they point to the fact that Midas Touch is partners with Patriot Takes, the same way an entity could have multiple subsidiaries or affiliates or things like that. We don't tell this Patriot Takes account what they can say or what they don't say. They came to us, what, six months ago, nine months ago, because they were afraid of death threats. We say we partner with them. We've given them compliance support. We give them legal support. It says it right there. No one's hiding it, but they can say their own views. But by the way, their view never has been to cancel Spotify or boycott Spotify. They thought after listening to Joe Rogan's apology, where Joe Rogan says he was taking out of context and videos emerged of him clearly not saying things out of context, it's their

Starting point is 00:04:22 view that he should be terminated. In the United States of America, people are allowed to hold those views. I'm not going to tell the people at Patriot Takes what they can or can't say. And I want to have, after getting your perspective read on this, a conversation about cancel culture and all these bullshit terms, because an account that has 400,000 followers called Patriot Takes that either amplifies and retweets videos that are made by, in this case, we know the video that was circulating about Joe Rogan was made by Alex Jones. Alex Jones video.

Starting point is 00:04:55 But that they have a First Amendment right to be critical. That's not cancel culture. By the way, it's literally what Patriot Takes is designed for. Patriot Takes is we go and we expose what's going on in the right wing. Patriot Takes is we go and we expose what's going on in the right wing. Literally, that is the stated mission and their partnership with Midas Touch is literally in their bio, which is apparently a point that, and we'll get into this later, that Portnoy couldn't get over. Well, why are you in their bio then? Why are you in their bio? Because we're partners with them. And then people go, oh, but you use the same PO box. Yeah, because we told them which compliance officer to hire. And the way

Starting point is 00:05:25 political action committees work is they're attached to a compliance officer. So one P.O. box is often attached to 30, 50, sometimes 100 different PACs. So this particular address has Republicans at it as well. So are the Republicans attached to this whole cabal or whatever? But then, you know, I think very problematically, you know, Dave Portnoy retweets this Wocal account. When we had the conversation with Dave, he says that he doesn't even know who Wocal is, but he retweeted it. He said the fact that our names appeared in his like follower list when he looks at Patriot Takes and some other random account called like Resist resist programming or something that therefore that we're associated with them because our accounts follow him. But what he didn't realize,

Starting point is 00:06:09 Brett, as you pointed out, is that because he follows us, the Twitter algorithms put us at the top of his list when he sees it. And so that's why it was there. But then Dave Portnoy went on a tear and started saying all these things about us. And then he said- Let's be clear, Ben. The scope of his... So the reason why he was so upset with this account that you said, the resist programming one, the reason why he was so pissed off about it was because they had released the video,

Starting point is 00:06:39 I don't even know how long ago, but exposing a lot of things that Dave Portnoy had said. A lot of the hateful, racist, sexist, misogynistic things that Portnoy had said that they put out. So he was saying, oh, the same group that targeted me, this must be the same group that targeted Rogan. And so he goes off, he starts saying, I figured it out. I figured it out. Who's behind this whole hit?

Starting point is 00:07:01 It's an orchestrated by this democratic group. And people were like, oh my God, is Hillary Clinton funding this? Is the DNC, is like all the wackiest conspiracy theories that you could imagine. And his entire proof, his entire thesis was because that account followed us and we followed that account. Well, we follow Portnoy now and Portnoy follows us three. So by the same logic, we're responsiblenoy now and Portnoy follows us three. So by the same logic, we're responsible for everything that Dave Portnoy posts. No, I mean, that's absurd. Like a lot of people follow us. We follow a lot of people. That doesn't mean that we

Starting point is 00:07:34 orchestrated hits against people if people follow us. And that was really as slim as evidence went. And when pressed on that, all he had to say was- So go back into it. So we then reach out back to him because he says, he invites me to be on the podcast. Why don't you come on and talk about cancel culture and how you three orchestrated this? And I reached back out to him right away, gave him my cell number. I said, we'll talk tonight. And so we had a conversation in the evening. I want to talk about the conversation, though, because the conversation, though, was because his central premise was that we were behind an orchestrated and concerted movement to cancel Joe Rogan and to cancel

Starting point is 00:08:21 him, apparently, which both in which both cases, you know, he conceded in the argument, it was basically, you know, not the case at all. You know, he then said, well, you amplify this content. One, I've never amplified any content against him. Midas Touch has never amplified any content against him. As far as I know, Patriot Takes has never amplified any content on him. But it's very different. We as Americans have the right to, if I'm retweeting things that are saying what Joe Rogan has said is racist, and I'm amplifying that and doing a retweet, that's a very different statement than three brothers start a cabal and created this thing where I've called musicians and Jody Mitchell and, you know, and this musician and Indy Ari and somehow

Starting point is 00:09:05 concerted this grand conspiracy with the implication that was done by Wocal and that group, though, their implication was it's a cabal run by three Jewish brothers with ties to the entertainment industry. That's what they were saying. And so that premise was, you know, proven to be false. But at the end of the day, I do think, you know, and some people like, why would you do the conversation? But I think the conversation was a constructive conversation. You know, I think we were able to expose people, you know, who maybe follow Dave, who are anti

Starting point is 00:09:37 vaxxers, who take different political positions, you know, to our views. But I think he came in with a perspective of like what Midas Touch, you know, is and we're really not what he thinks that we are. I mean, you know, in terms of where we stand politically on issues, I mean, our number one thesis is always that we're pro-democracy. And we've made it very clear, like if Biden, if Democrats started supporting Russia, if they started becoming anti-vax, if they started, you know, pursuing policies, you know, like the ones that, you know, Trump had implemented that purely support billionaires and give billionaires extra tax cuts and tax breaks at the expense of workers, you know, and other cruel and humane treatment of immigrants and all those policies. And we made it clear, I'm not going to be a Democrat. I'm not a Democrat because I love the name Democrat. And I'm wedded to that. They're the only major political party now that supports democracy. And by the way, before we started Midas Touch, we weren't even political. Like we weren't political people.

Starting point is 00:10:46 I didn't really even give a shit. Like, to be fair, you were the flower boy as an intern for Hillary Clinton. I was the flower boy for her and I should have given a shit. What I realized is when I saw all of the negative things that Trump was doing was I have to do something. Like I can't have live in a country where the president of the United States is up there telling people to inject themselves with bleach. I can't sit by. I regret that before Midas Touch, I sat on the sidelines. I went about my life as a lawyer. I did well as a lawyer and just had this life not trying to help others. But I wanted to help at that moment and to use my

Starting point is 00:11:24 voice to amplify. And that's one of the points I made to Dave at that moment and to use my voice to amplify. And that's one of the points I made to Dave Portnoy. I said, we both have large platforms. Frankly, his platform is larger than our platform at Midas Touch. What we choose to amplify is our First Amendment right. We have the right. It's not cancel culture for us at Midas Touch to use our voice to be critical of people like Joe Rogan and others when they make racist comments. In response to a lot of the outreach and activism though, Spotify has enacted policies though, and disclaimers and things like that, that will make the content safer. And removed a lot of episodes of the show on their own volition.

Starting point is 00:12:10 Yeah. And so let's have a conversation. Brett, I want to talk about cancel culture for a second, because that was ultimately the premise of one of the things that Dave wants to talk to us. But should I get into that now? Yeah, I think let's talk about it. But first I want to say, his entire argument in the first place, should we get into this first entire argument in the first place was that we were behind this resist programming account, this cabal and this resist programming account that attacked him is also Patriot takes and also Midas touch, even though this resist programming account started in 2017. So he basically, his setup was he wanted us to disprove a negative. He wanted us to disprove something

Starting point is 00:12:45 that didn't exist. And when we told him, hey, that's not us. We have nothing to do with that account. We even said that was the Alex Jones video. And we said to him, we said, so is what you're saying is that we're associated with Alex Jones who made the video about you. And then Alex Jones made a video about Rogan. And he said, maybe. I feel that could have happened. And so we, I mean- So that's it. It's the same kind of mindset that anti-vaxxers use, honestly. It's like, well, this is how I feel. I did my own research on this. And this is the conclusion I came to. And it doesn't matter what the evidence is, but I did my own research. This is the evidence. This is where I landed. And so I want to talk about, yeah, I want to talk about though, this premise though, of when the right wing talks about cancel culture

Starting point is 00:13:29 and censorship, there's no one who loves true cancel culture, true censorship more than the right wing. Because what you can look at is legislation that's passed by right wing governors, right wing governors in states like Texas, right-wing governors in states like Florida or Tennessee and elsewhere, or local right-wing extremists and the types of policies they implement when it comes to book burning, when it comes to controlling the type of speech that companies can and can't say if you want to do business with a specific state. We've seen that with Governor DeSantis' policies. We see that with the policies with Greg Abbott.

Starting point is 00:14:12 We're seeing that also with the policies being implemented in Virginia with Youngkin. One of the first executive orders that are being implemented is that teachers shouldn't be allowed to say controversial things. Like that's literally the label and that they could be allowed to say controversial things. Like that's literally the label and that they could be subject to, you know, serious fines for saying controversial things. What cancel culture really is about at the highest level is canceling someone, is actually killing someone. And authoritarian governments would actually cancel people, right? And cancel culture in modern forms as well could

Starting point is 00:14:46 actually mean that, but it also means when the government infringes, when powerful entities like the government infringe on speech in ways that I just described. Cancel culture and censorship is not when courageous people, whether it's the people behind Patriot Takes, whether it's activists and community groups, whether it's the people who actually are affected by Joe Rogan's statements. You know, one of the most unfortunate things I thought about the discussion and the debate is by putting it on us who have literally nothing to do with this, it's really a deflection from the central issue. What Rogan is saying, when Rogan's racist statements hurt and what he needs to recognize and what others need to recognize, that's hurting Black, Brown, Asian communities when

Starting point is 00:15:33 he uses these horrible words. It's affecting women. You know, the impact that it has on three white men, when I amplify people criticizing Rogan with my Twitter account, it's because I want to be an ally to these communities and to use my platform to be helpful where I can and to amplify those voices. That's what I'm doing. That's not cancel culture at all. When small accounts, I mean, you know, Rogan's got a hundred million dollar contract. When an account like Patriot Takes that has a few hundred thousand followers is criticizing Joe Rogan. Look, Joe Rogan was 8.2 million followers, by the way. Joe Rogan's a big boy.

Starting point is 00:16:12 He should be able to handle a criticism for his racist statements, for his COVID disinfo, for some count that raised $40,000 in the last political cycle like Patriot takes. But often what we see from, you know, the right wing side of things, they use cancel culture as a deflection from the fact that what they're actually trying to do is to control the speech. They're trying to cancel all the other voices. And I think that, you know, even when you look through a lot of what the attempts were by saying that we run a Jewish cabal and that we're trying to, you know, go after Rogan because we're criticizing his racist comments, like what makes the right wingers as giddy as can be is truly their efforts to try to cancel us and cancel us

Starting point is 00:17:06 personally and to go after the way we look, to go after our family, not to go after the types of things that Rogan's been- Well, Ben, it's all deflection. It's all that Russian style whataboutism, which is, oh, this person said a bad thing. And then they go into, but what about Howard Stern? But what about this person? But what about that person? And it's like, yeah, those people have said bad things in the past.

Starting point is 00:17:31 They've apologized for those things in the past. They promised to grow. They have shown growth. They have paid their dues. If anything like that happened right now, people would very much be speaking out about it. But it's like this weird misunderstanding of the news cycle. Like Rogan right now is the hottest button issue, whether you like it or not in the news cycle. So of course, more and more stuff is going to keep coming out

Starting point is 00:17:55 about him as people are focused on him. That's not some elaborate plot. That's just how news cycles work. That's how social media works. So why isn't a campaign getting started off random XYZ celebrity? Because that's not who's in the focus right now. That's just how it works. And as we said, I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican, Independent. I don't care what your politics are. You know, if you say something fucked up, we're going to call you out on it. And I thought my example of RFK Jr. was a good one.

Starting point is 00:18:19 RFK Jr., for all intents and purposes, you know, an extremely liberal guy who has become very anti-vax and is spreading a lot of COVID disinformation that's killing a lot of people. And we and other people on our side, if you want to call it that, have spoken out forcefully against it because we don't care that he's voted for Democrats in the past. We don't care that his father was Robert F. Kennedy. We don't care about those things. What we care about is people living. 900,000 people have died of COVID. People who have not been vaccinated are 97 times more likely to end up in the hospital. That's the kind of stuff we're trying to prevent. And so when we said, we never want COVID to be political, and he goes, but it is political. And we go, well, Trump made it a political issue. Republicans make

Starting point is 00:19:05 it a political issue, but we're trying to just talk about this in a human way, human to human, person to person to try to save lives. He goes, oh, well, you just said it was political. No, I'm saying that you and the people you defend say it's political. And we are trying to take a scientific view on the issue and save lives in the process. And the deflection just never, never ended. Portnoy ended up making a horrific statement about Geordie bringing his wife into the mix, making up just a blatant lie. I don't know if he has a doctor text message of Geordie or what it is, but Geordie unequivocally bullshit lie. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you know how easy it is to fucking manipulate a text in 2014 or in 2022 and just say,

Starting point is 00:19:46 oh, I had this text message from 2014. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's a flat out lie. And I actually think I know how this sort of came to be. Now I can get into it a little bit. I don't want to give this kid any limelight, but essentially in 2014, I was at the Ohio State University. I lived with a group of guys who I thought were my friends I came to find out that they were not friends Especially when we started making Midas Touch I found out they hated what we were doing And it turns out, oh, surprise, surprise They're Trumpers

Starting point is 00:20:13 Someone who you were friends with when you were in college Who turned out to be an extreme MAGA person And when you started Midas Touch Basically said Fuck you, fuck your operation I think you're bad for this planet and I'm going to take you down. Here's the thing though. The whole Lexi thing, like it's not, Jordi is getting married to Lexi.

Starting point is 00:20:32 They have a public wedding registry out there. It's not like a secret piece of information to mention Lexi. Jordi has been with Lexi for like a decade. And so like, it's not like a secret piece of information. Starting in 2013 and 2014, which is exactly why this kid knew that I was with her. So yes, my fiance's name is Lexi. And when that shit got brought up yesterday in the chat, her name, my heart fucking dropped because I know how these stoolies react once they know, oh, now a girl's involved.

Starting point is 00:20:58 Let's go attack her. Now I can't protect her at that point. It's over. Like it's over. It's done. I've, I've done my best to protect her throughout this entire process from what we've done at Midas from Jump Street. We've made her accounts private. I really rarely ever say her name just because I just know the shit that gets out there. And look, I'm all for it. I know I'm public facing. I could take it. I could take

Starting point is 00:21:17 everything, but I always want to protect her. So the second that fucking Fortnite mentions Lexi's name, I go, fuck man. Now she she's like it's going to be hell for her and by the way it has been hell for her i was saying oh woe is me cry for us or whatever but her dms are just an onslaught of misogyny and just awful awful stuff and so once her name's you know invoked i start to get really upset because now fuck now i have to protect the person who i love the most in this world and i can't do that. I can't protect her anymore from that shit. And so it just fucking sucks. I never said that shit.

Starting point is 00:21:49 I don't care what fucking photo he has. I know for a fact who fucking sent him this because the kid, he called me during the stream last night twice. He called me twice. And then he said, can we bring this up and just blur out this kid's name? Yeah, we'll show the text. So as the thing's going on, the kid texts Jordy and goes, yo, why did you call me? And meanwhile, he called Jordy twice because his plot from the beginning of Midas Touch was,

Starting point is 00:22:15 screw your organization. I love Trump. You're bad for America. I'm going to bring you down. And so what this guy did is he apparently, because we're pretty sure it's him, fabricated a text, I guess, and sent it to Dave Portnoy in an effort to try to ironically cancel Midas Touch. And also what Dave Portnoy is doing, ironically, is trying to refute that he is supporting people to spread disinformation by spreading more disinformation. And his base eats it up. Those stoolies eat it up. I think that when you are in this space and we as Democrats, you have to have thick skin. And, you know, so what I told both of you, you know, before, you know, I think any intelligent person who watched that debate and I've received

Starting point is 00:23:00 hundreds of emails from people who don't align with, you know, maybe our point of views politically, who said, I learned a thing or two, I appreciated your positions. And, you know, at an intelligent level, when the conversation was kept at a high level, which is where it should always be kept, you know, I think there was a value to doing that. And in terms of, you know, would I do that again with Dave? I would, you know, I think that what we have to do is we can't be afraid to go into other echo chambers and have difficult and tough conversations. You know, and Jordi, I'm sorry, you know, even if the ramifications are that something like that happens, when you step into the arena, you're going to get dirty, period. And that just comes with the territory. If you don't want that, you don't have a public platform like Midas Touch. You don't get to have podcasts and people that listen to you and not have to deal with shit, you know? And, and I am sorry that you're going through that. And I'm sorry that that's, you know, a pain in the ass.

Starting point is 00:24:09 And I'm sorry that Lexi's going through it. And I'm sorry that, you know, it's really defamatory, you know, and bullshit. And, you know, when I think you have a platform like that, and someone says, I received a text message, what you have to do is you have to vet it. You know, you don't just say it like, you can say, I got a text message, a random text message, Lexi, this, that. And then, you know, and then smear someone. But at the end of the day, you know, you're dealing with three people who are in the arena fighting for democracy. Shit like that is going to happen. And I think that when people look at that type of debate and that discussion, I'm never going to shy away from it. You know, the moment that Dave reached out, I reached back out to him

Starting point is 00:24:50 right away, gave him my cell number. I wouldn't have handled it any differently. And I'm not going to handle it any differently. You know, I've spoken with him after, you know, when I said, maybe there's other places where we can have conversations. I haven't said this to him yet, but I think we can have conversations about vaccines. I think that there's a significant part of his audience that's probably anti-vax. I don't know where he stands on the issues, but I think there's areas where we may be able to find common ground. One of the things that I do is I support restaurant owners. I think there needs to be robust support of restaurant owners and small businesses.

Starting point is 00:25:29 I disagree that there's disparities in COVID between large department stores that were open, like the Targets of the World, then the Walmarts and the Costcos, but mom and pop stores got shut down and didn't get those same exemptions. I think that's really problematic. And during that time period, I didn't just talk the talk, I walked the walk. And I was representing small restaurant owners to try to get them back up and running, which was very controversial at the time. But at the same time, I think we can't be dumb about vaccines. We have to trust the science. We could be out of this already if we trusted the vaccines and got the boosters and really did all of the right things and did not politicize COVID.

Starting point is 00:26:13 So I think overall, you know, the conversation was a productive one. I do look forward to talking with him again. If it does upset and offend any Midas Mighty that we're having these tough conversations, I'm sorry, but that's who we are. Like we're going to have tough conversations with people. Okay. We're not going to shy down from them. And, you know, we're, we're, we're well-equipped to do that.

Starting point is 00:26:34 And again, I think any intelligent person who watched that, you know, and the feedback that I've got understood what went down, understood the points. And I think it did make a difference. This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens. that I've got understood what went down, understood the points. And I think it did make a difference. This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is my favorite. It's been revolutionary for me in my morning routine. Before Athletic Greens, what I would do is I'd have different vitamins and I'd have all these different pills, whether they were gummies or whatever. And I tried to find a nutritional regimen that would work for me, but I was still feeling tired and lethargic and it wasn't working. But with Athletic Greens, it simplified everything. It was just one scoop of green powder.

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Starting point is 00:31:15 Get 25% off and a seven-day free trial. That's Blinkist.com slash Midas. And I just want to say the goal of 2022 is about empowering people to grow personally and professionally by discovering content that inspires, motivates, and gives you new perspectives on your lives and the world this year. And Blinkist has the perfect content for you. That's Blinkist.com slash Midas. I want to bring in our guest, Hal Sparks. And Hal has actually appeared as a guest on Joe Rogan, which I want to get into a bit later in the podcast because I want to get Hal's view on going on the Rogan show,

Starting point is 00:31:56 what he thinks about, you know, whether or not there should or shouldn't be, you know, a boycott of Rogan. Get his perspective on that. And I'm just a big House Sparks overall fan. So let's bring in House Sparks, the multi-hyphenated House Sparks comedian, actor, musician, political commentator, television and radio host, television personality, model, journalist. What am I missing, Hal Sparks? Welcome to the podcast, Hal Sparks. Champion of the

Starting point is 00:32:30 Sparklers? Yes, did we say lead singer of Nerdhalen and Zero One and 80s aficionado, 90s aficionado, 70s aficionado according to VH1 anyways. And the youngest game show host in history um and then

Starting point is 00:32:46 what else a man who has 50 email accounts but is too busy to respond to any email that's true i think we should just do this the rest of the show the whole show should just be us talking about how spark reading my credits my wiki right and first i need to give a big shout out before ben gets into it i gotta give a big shout out to the sparklers who I know are watching right now. Yes. Hal, you have been so kind to share your incredible fan base with us. And we see the sparklers every night that we do our podcast, watching and saying sparklers are here. Sparklers are coming in force and I've never seen a more passionate group. It's really incredible. And thank you again. And shout out to the sparklers. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. Yeah, I I'm so blessed, you know, and and they know as well as I do that we together, myself and the folks that come and watch my show have we have have marched through the swamp of reality and politics and discourse around this over the last couple of years and really found our way into the sun in a lot of ways where I feel very good that my show is a place

Starting point is 00:33:50 where people feel better when they are done watching it than worse. And in the world of political discourse these days, that's not a given, really. Yeah, no doubt. And I think your format is super interesting because for those who don't know, what Hal does is Hal, I feel like, first moment. And I think it'd be interesting just for you to say like kind of the philosophy behind that and speak to that a little

Starting point is 00:34:29 bit, because I think it's a really interesting way to communicate and engage with the public. Well, yeah, there was. So one of the big complaints was and this, you know, it really grew out of the the people were a little afraid to watch what Trump was fomenting out there doing his rallies or whatever. And I had seen enough of them to know that there was nothing to be afraid of. But if you see a clip of it on CNN, you're like, dear God, this man's in complete control of this army of, you know, nutcases. And he can, with a flick of his wrist, send them marching wherever. In reality, if you watch the whole thing, you're like, oh, this is boring and stupid blather that goes on and on and on. And so at some point I was like, there's a benefit for people who would not normally watch this to watch this because they'll feel a lot better because they've got this exaggerated idea of the opposition.

Starting point is 00:35:19 And then the other complaint that came in, Mike Pillow does this all the time. Trump certainly does this. And the entirety of the right wing is everything's out of context. They take something out of context, you know, on MSNBC, MSDNC. They take something I said and then they make it look worse than it was and they take it out. And my thing is, all right, well, then I won't. How about this? You can't say nobody anymore. Nobody even looks at what's going. Nobody even shows the whole thing. I show the whole thing. So if they post a clip, if Hannity posts a chunk on the Fox channel YouTube page, I do the whole clip. I don't take a piece of it and go, look what he said right here. I go, no,

Starting point is 00:35:58 no. You chose what to put online. You chose what you thought was an example of your argument. And I'm going to show the whole damn thing, even if it's boring or aggravating. And I will cut it to pieces because I don't fear your disinfo versus my info. And that's been really great because I think it lets people off the hook. There's this idea that, you know, if you watch it, you know, a Tucker Carlson line, you'll get hypnotized by it. But if you watch the whole opening to his show, it's the most ADD blather you've ever seen. It doesn't connect to anything.

Starting point is 00:36:30 It wanders. I mean, he just walks off into a field and kind of like somebody in the producer's booth goes, get back on topic. And then he comes back and it's just basically a waste of time to lure the people who would normally watch that kind of stuff into watching some toilet paper ads and making them some money.

Starting point is 00:36:47 And the thing with the Tucker Carlson shows, Hal, is it's all about the grievance, right? Whether the grievance of the argument. You can't help it. Part of your brain has to be going. I'm full of crap right now. Like it has to because they're able these are folks that are able to drive to and from work. They're not totally sitting in their own swill, you know, throwing popcorn at the TV. They've got lives around it, which means they have some functional discernment still left, right? If someone at work hands them a problem, they won't go M&Ms. They'll go, all right, what's the problem? In theory, anyways. And so when Tucker is arguing about M&Ms or CRT or any of this other stuff, there's a there's there's a

Starting point is 00:37:45 gap. It's like a dead zone in their vision and their memory and their awareness that says we're talking about this crap and they just passed the infrastructure bill like they here. Here's the main thing. Like I have a couple of friends who are we're all in on Trump because of, you know, Southern California anti-immigration fervor probably on their part. It's probably the primary driving force. Yeah. And their belief that, you know, illegal immigrants voted in the election and that's how Democrats win, which is garbage. But they believe it. They're all in on it. And they think what the next what the midterms and 2024 are going to be about is Afghanistan. The exit from Afghanistan. That's what they think. They think it's all going to be about is Afghanistan. The exit from Afghanistan. That's what they think. They think it's all going to be

Starting point is 00:38:26 a fight over how terrible the exit was. Not the fact that we're out. Not the fact that we're not there. That's what they think. I mean, think of all the other stuff going on in life right now. And think about we're no longer in Afghanistan. That's not something,

Starting point is 00:38:42 we're not dumping $300 million a day into Afghanistan, a short government that doesn't that won't survive on its own. We're out. Right. We'll give humanitarian aid through the U.N. and other things, just like we do with a lot of other countries that are in dire straits. But we're not there with a military base anymore. And they think they're going to run on that in November of this year. That's that's all that's the material one they have. And the rest of it is all the great reset and M&Ms and CRT. And it appears also like rooting against America. Oh, yeah. I mean, the other day, right before the job numbers came out on all of these Republican controlled networks, these right wing media.

Starting point is 00:39:26 I thought Maria Bartiromo was going to vapor lock. Did you see her like this? These figures are unbelievable. Before they were like, here we go. This is going to be good. Get ready for the worst job numbers ever. Hooverville, we're going to have bread lines. Here come the bread lines.

Starting point is 00:39:45 And then the job numbers came out and it looked like they were like talking about a natural disaster. Yes. We have news to report. It turns out that the United States has added half a million jobs. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:39:58 Like Deucey had his son on to share in this moment. This will be the moment I pass the torch from Fox and Friends to Fox and Friends Junior. And like both of them were just like, wow, wow, wow, wow. And and like I said, because the economy is good. Yes. Because it can't. And again, this partly is is based on the idea that Trump and his whole, you know, sub society of supporters during Obama believed that we on the left, we Democrats viewed him as a messianic figure who could do no wrong and that he acted like a king or a dictator. If you heard him talking about the ACA and things like that,

Starting point is 00:40:40 they believed he acted like a dictator. They like to shove stuff down our throats. That was the primary way they talked about. And then he got into office and realized, oh, no, that required a vote in Congress and in the Senate. It passed because of normal function in government that most of the executive orders get wiped out by the next guy. And because he even realized he had the power to get rid of certain things. And and he was like, oh, you can't actually run like a dictator. We got to start working in a way that we can. And they filled their minds with this idea that he had to he had to lie to his own followers. He had to lie that I should be able to do this like a dictator because Obama did. Obama was able to just do whatever he wanted and they wanted. And their Congress is always trying to stop me. In reality,

Starting point is 00:41:30 we have a we have three equal branches of government and they work together and it's dysfunctional at times. But a lot of stuff gets done that way. Well, now that Biden's back in, the idea is that, oh, now they just let him do anything, even though he's going through the exact same thing every president goes through. And he passed stuff normally. The infrastructure bill had to be separated from BBB because they didn't have the votes to get it, all that kind of stuff. But they got to live in this idea that it's all a fix. I mean, think about it. If Democrats had anywhere near the power that these guys say they do, we control big tech. We control the media. We control all the giant corporations. We control the UN. Hell, we're even the ones making Putin move troops to the Ukrainian border. That's our fault. That's that's we want that to happen because now the Democrats control the military industrial complex. We got out of Afghanistan just so we could start a new coal war with Russia with a hot war in Ukraine, which makes no sense. But that conversation is really painful to have. That's that's that you look like an idiot really early. And in this case, you know,

Starting point is 00:42:36 bad economic news, though, they're like, hey, well, you can't argue with that. I mean, the consumer confidence is way low. Well, that's because of the news. It's not because of the amount of money in their pocketbook. I like that the thing that they're doing now, like it's all projection with these people. And the thing that they're doing with the Biden presidency is they're trying to take every legitimate scandal that happened under Trump and are trying to repurpose those scandals under Biden. So you saw like when Biden spoke with Zelensky, they kept running with, oh, was it the perfect call? Release the transcript. They have no original ideas. It's just to try to stir up the... Yeah. It's the worst.

Starting point is 00:43:11 Everything's a reboot. The shittiest reboot on the planet. That's right. Well, you could argue that Trump is the shittiest Reagan reboot you could possibly have. That's effectively with its own little Iran contra, it's idiots version of the moral majority revolution, all that kind of shit. Just awful. Just the cheap kind of CW or action movie version, you know, like a Netflix action film version of that reality. He even stole the slogan.

Starting point is 00:43:38 Right. Right. There's also, well, we use Magoo on my show now because he keeps trying to make America great again. Again, you know, you've seen him say that. We think it's make America great over and over. Magoo. So he's Trump is now Magoo. Well, how about this to about 32, 33 percent rotten tomatoes?

Starting point is 00:43:56 Would you watch that movie? Would you elect that as president? That's about his support. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah. And that will be an ongoing problem for him. And he's on a hard fade. Again, this is one of the reasons why I show even his new rallies that he's done.

Starting point is 00:44:10 I wonder the correlation, though, Hal, between those movies that are so horrible that have a 32%. And you're like, 32% of people still like this movie? I wonder if that correlates. It's always that 32%. I'll tell you, though, some of them just hate watch it. And there's a bunch of movies. There's a bunch of Nick Cage movies that get that level, but they're a hilarious ride. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:44:33 There's a bunch of, you know, there's those kind of movies where you're like, I hate this movie, but I can't not watch it. And there's an element of that with the Trump folks, because, dude, they thought that half the audience was divided in his last rally between people who believe that he was really JFK in a rubber suit and a clone. Honestly, like a major portion of who actually went to that rally. There was a division about whether or not JFK Jr. was or no senior JFK, John F. Kennedy, who did not get his brain's blown out all over the road in Dallas. No, he's alive and he's wearing a rubber Trump suit just to help right the ship or something while Trump is doing God knows what. And then the other half is, is it's a clone.

Starting point is 00:45:26 Now remember, this is the same folks who said, Hillary Clinton's a clone. Pelosi's a clone. Tom Hanks is a clone. Midas touches a deep state cabal. I we've heard it. I'm apparently CIA,

Starting point is 00:45:40 which is the new one. That's, that's my, that's fun, which I mean, I'm a big fan of talk about 33% rotten tomatoes. I'm a big fan of the recruit.. That's that's that's fun, which I mean, I'm a big fan. Talk about 33 percent Rotten Tomatoes. I'm a big fan of The Recruit. You know that movie with with Pacino and Colin Farrell? It's one of my good, you know, it's a popcorn movie that I enjoy very much about him

Starting point is 00:45:58 getting recruited into the CIA and all this kind of stuff. Oh, you're going to be a great agent. I'm a scary judge of talent or whatever. I love that movie. It's garbage, but I love it. And so, you know, I wish to some degree, like CIA, call me. But they're not going to. That one's a good compliment right there, Hal. You're looking pretty jacked these days too, man.

Starting point is 00:46:19 Oh, thanks. From the last time we had you on, you're pretty buff these days. You know, well, it's isolation. It's prison muscles. I'm on the John Claude band. What are you doing? Are you doing like a row machine over there? No, I finally decided to grow my chest.

Starting point is 00:46:34 And my arms grow really easily. You guys will know what this is like. When your arms grow really easily, your chest does not. So I have to exhaust my arms to get my chest to grow. So my arms are just getting bigger naturally because of that. And then I started to exhaust my arms to get my chest to grow so my arms are just getting bigger naturally because of that and then I started working on my shoulders because if I'm ever going to be

Starting point is 00:46:50 squeezed into the MCU at some point it's only going to be because I look the part already they're never going to take a chance on an actor like me because I was on Queer as Folk and I was in Dude, Where's My Car they don't know where

Starting point is 00:47:01 you would be absolutely incredible in the MCU I would love to see that. Let's start the petition right now. Let's make it happen, everybody. There needs to be a new gambit, I'm just saying. But anyways, this is, you know, insofar as back to what we were talking about, sort of taking care of your own self and your mental health.

Starting point is 00:47:22 One of the reasons on my show where I watch all this stuff and we watch it together, my audience is because I'm not scared of any of it. None of it. None of it bothers me. And I want to talk to you about that actually, because I think you differ from most people in this regard. And I've seen you talk about this and you go, Trump, I'm not scared of that guy. That guy's a clown, not in the slightest. Tucker Carlson, who gives a shit? And so what's your perspective on that? I'd just love for you to share that because I think maybe a lot of people out there probably agree with your perspective on this. I always go back to that moment where Duke is yelling at Rocky about Drago after he cuts him under the eye. And he goes,

Starting point is 00:48:00 you see, he's not a machine. He's a man. And there's an element of up until that point, the character of Drago in that story is fucking frightening. He murders Apollo Creed in the ring. He's got this eighteen hundred pound per square inch punch. He's ginormous. He has huge tits. He's scary. Right. And and here's this little, you know know southpaw rumble fighter who's gonna try and get inside and whatever and it's a great story in that regard and to me i've been i've always been ice skating uphill in my life everything i first of all i'm a gen xer so the the world has been coming to an end my entire fucking life. OK, my whole life.

Starting point is 00:48:54 Cold War, 9-11, AIDS, the 2008 crash, like everything. Like we hid under our desk because a nuke might blow the roof off the building. But you could live with radiation poisoning for a little while till your face falls off. Y2K? Yes. Right. Everything. Every time I turn around, I was going to fall apart and it never did. And I, I'm, you know, I'm sort of, I'm the anti doomsayer now because I just don't buy it. And I think part of the reason why a lot of people feel paralysis, why they feel like they can't make a difference and all that kind of stuff is because they've been told for a very long time by their own side that the other side is some sort of insurmountable behemoth that is uncuttable.

Starting point is 00:49:32 You can't make them like that. Listen to how the right talks. I'm sure you guys have seen this. They talk about Democrats the same way Democrats talk about Republicans. They always have their message together. Say what you will about them. but they can, you know, they can stick together in a fight, all that stuff. Everything Trump says about the Republicans, which is, you know, about the Democrats is garbage. It's absurd. But he has he has caused a big group of his supporters to not vote anymore. It's one of the reasons why we have a real shot this year to gain a lot of ground is because he's talked him out of voting because they think, well, they got this cheating mechanism

Starting point is 00:50:09 and they're all together and they've got big tech and they create this giant insurmountable thing. And it is diminishing their vote, not because they don't have numbers, but because they are choosing to self-select out. How you think Democrats can win the midterms, huh? Of course. Yeah. First of all, the the gerrymandering everywhere is falling apart and it's effectively a wash or in some cases Dems are gaining. We look like we're going to get somewhere in the order of 12 extra seats added that are that are lean Democratic or are fully Democratic. The other thing is, is that because of some of the gerrymandering that they were trying, which was isolate the black vote to one area. So you have one black congressperson

Starting point is 00:50:49 and three white congresspeople in Texas and places like that. When they brought in that gerrymandering plan, the Supreme Courts of those states are throwing them out. And what they're doing is going, no, there's not enough people in the in the black district to to make them their own sole district. So we're going to float them into these other three. Now, those districts that were Republican, strongly Republican, that they had a grip on were 60 40 Republican. They were still they were still definitely Republican. They definitely lean more that way. It's solidly red if you look at it on one of these color charts. But when you move in the other people from that other district, divide it up, suddenly that solidly red district is very purple leaning blue. And they've got work to do. And when you put a candidate in, in a solidly red pro-Trump

Starting point is 00:51:38 ideology into a district that is leaning purple, you put yourself in distinct danger of losing that seat, especially the more you piss those people off or you're not functional. Now in Texas, they've been scooping in anti-abortion Latinos and anti-socialism Latinos, and that's been shoring up some of the groups. It's not anywhere near the numbers that they need. And all of those people have to show up and vote to make a difference. Every last one of them. Yeah. And I think like, you know, for so long, the line of attack by Democrats against Democrats has been Democrats are weak. Democrats need to learn how to play the game. Democrats need to step up. But what we've learned in these past few weeks is that Democrats behind the scenes have been stepping up and have been fighting back. And

Starting point is 00:52:24 that's why we're getting these map gains. They're not taking shit from the Republican gerrymandering. They're calling it out. They're taking them to court. We have people like Mark Elias who's suing all these states for putting these racially discriminatory maps out there. And we are winning. Right. I said this when all this shit went down, when they were like, oh my God, right after the election, everybody's like, oh my God, they're going to throw up all these laws and nobody's going to be able to vote and blah, blah, blah. And like in Georgia, they're going to disenfranchise all these black people and they're not going to be able to vote Democratic. We're going to lose. I'm like, first of all, black people aren't stupid if they and they're very aware if they're being disenfranchised in American life currently. This is not 1962. It can speak out and be heard. And the Democratic

Starting point is 00:53:09 Party is here to listen. And so the Democrats and those voters are going to do everything they have to do. If they have to thread a needle to vote, they're going to do it. But meanwhile, these laws that they're passing are going to disenfranchise more like redneck Republicans, you know, in the urban areas or in the rural areas around these urban centers in places like Georgia than they'll ever take out of circulation on the Democratic side, because they think they've got a right to vote. They've got an automatic. They have this kind of entitlement idea about where their position should be in society, those people in particular. So they're not going to cross their T's and dot their I's. They're not going to follow the law as finely as you have to.

Starting point is 00:53:51 They're going to be on the receiving end of these shitty voting laws more so than Democrats are. And Democrats are moving. Democrats are like, all right, what's what's the rule here? You got to have these three things. Cool. We're going to make sure over the next 10 months that everybody that's going to vote Democratic has all three of those things. Voter ID, whatever it is, we're going to do it. We're going to take care of it. We have to knock doors to do it. We're going to get out the vote because we got the people and we got the movement and we're not going to let people. I don't care if you vote my way, but you're going to be allowed to vote and they're not going to discriminate in that way. Right. Republicans aren't, they're not bothering. They think they automatically got it. And it's, and then the other half think it's rigged and they're not going to even bother. They're eating their own. It's hilarious. And how they're, they're so cocky right now. Um, and I, I brought this up to Ben and Jordy the other day. I was like, you never want to peak early. Like you never want to peak early. Think about Biden's campaign. You never want to peak early. And they got really cocky after that Virginia race, which was by the way, extremely close. They much more cockier than they deserve to get.

Starting point is 00:54:51 Well, they lost New Jersey and then they lost Jersey and many other seats. Also, they lost a lot of municipal seats in Georgia, had a lot of other devastating losses in other local races. Yet they've been every single day going red wave, red wave, red wave. And I think they are much less prepared for what is to come than they think. I think Democrats are much more prepared. I agree. Well, we're prepared for a fight and there may not be one. We may we make people may have shorter lines and all kinds of stuff. There'll be measures taken to make sure that people can vote, because even in states like Kemp's, Georgia, they're going to have to if you have seven hour voting lines in black districts again, the cry foul is going to be enormous. Right. Even more so than it's ever been in a midterm, I think. And so they've got to at least pretend that they're making it even. Right. Otherwise,

Starting point is 00:55:41 they're they are facing that that rising electorate. And the other thing is that the Republicans, they think they're running on, like I said, they're going to run on Afghanistan this fall. And they think they're going to run on year over year inflation, 7% inflation. Well, I got news for you. Year over year inflation in 2021 was based on 2020 when gas prices, when oil collapsed to negative $35 a barrel. So of course the percentage difference year over year is enormous. And it may even tie to a genuine dollar for dollar rise monetarily that people have to deal with. The problem you have is if you're running on inflation is year over year 2021, because of the spike and the gap before the year, will look artificially low, even if it was high. Even if we had 7%, genuinely 7% inflation this

Starting point is 00:56:33 year, it's going to read by summer as 4.2% because year over year was worse. The spike difference was offset by the gap the year before, by the drop. And so they're they're hoisting their own petard. They are literally just backing themselves into a dumb corner in this argument, this year over year argument, for example. And they're doing that everywhere. They're like, dude, high five, bro. We're so going to nail this without any recognition that they're actually pushed their monetary policies, pushing towards a deflationary collapse. If they got what they wanted, the U S economy, forget about money being worthless. All your stuff would be spot on spot on hell. Yes, exactly. I mean, it's crazy. It's, it's, it's lunacy. I want to shift gears really quickly. How I know we're running short on time here. I want to get your views on this as a comedian specifically, man. What are your views on Rogan? You've been on a personal level,

Starting point is 00:57:45 this is the main reason why I think we mismatched on that show and why he wouldn't have me back on it. Cause I, he believes you're not you. And yes, unless you've done drugs, unless you've done drugs and high order stuff like MDMA or, or mushrooms or yeah. Any of that stuff. You can't be you, you are not you until you've done this. And I believe you do those things. You're no longer you you're you plus that biochemical storm you threw into your head. That's my feeling. That's how I believe. Nobody has to share that belief with me, but that that's a huge difference. He believes that every person he meets is that person minus drugs. And I believe that I meet people. And if they do drugs, that's an addendum of who they are. It's not who they are. It's an addition. You know, it's like they're it's like this, whatever clothes you might put on and whatever feeling I might get from what you know, what you wear, but it's not who you are. That's a very strong distinction. And that also informs nearly everyone else he has on his show and their feeling about stuff. The other thing too,

Starting point is 00:58:52 is that originally when, you know, that show is not a comedy show, never has been really. It's really coast to coast done for stoners. If you don't know coast-to-coast, it's like what you watch. If you're a road comic, you know this show. And if you're a trucker, you'll know it. But from basically like midnight to 4 a.m., there's these shows that like George Norrie used to host and this other guy before him. And they would talk about like UFOs and Yetis and CIA and MKUltra and all that kind of shit, right? And there's a huge audience for it. I'm dude became a millionaire from midnight to four in the morning. And basically over time, Rogan took that. And because he liked weed shifted that whole conversation from midnight to four to noon to

Starting point is 00:59:38 three in the afternoon, that's all just made it brought it out in the daylight. It's the same stupid shit always was me and his buddy on all the daylight. It's the same stupid shit. Always was. Me and his buddy on all the time was talking about the moon landing was faked and the earth is flat and all that bullshit. And they did that for years. And it's not, you know, Stern covered a lot of the same territory that Rogan did. The only difference was Stern's show was genuinely funny at times. Rogan's isn't. Rogan is a shared joke moment. That was what increasingly since Spotify, it's become even more of that because it got cul-de-sac. That's one of the problems when you have a show like that, you get bought, is that it shoves you into a format,

Starting point is 01:00:20 right? They expect a certain amount and they expect you not to step over your bounds and ruin their bottom line because they invested one hundred million dollars in you. They want you. They want that money back. They're not getting it. They're not making that money back. As a matter of fact, he just cost them in the last two weeks everything they paid him and then some. So the guy who made the decision to bring on Rogan on onto Spotify went from a hero to the to shit row immediately. And and so the show itself. Isn't funny. So the fact that he's allegedly a comedian or he does stand up on occasion because he barely does it anymore is immaterial. You know, it is like what what, you know, any more than, you know, to use a stronger example, my stand up has anything bearing on my work on Queer as Folk. They're two totally different things. And the illusion of comedy is what gave Joe Rogan the room to talk about bullshit, because if he was a rando dude right if jordan peterson had this show all by himself and it had the same guests on there wouldn't have been this room to fuck around that he's had all

Starting point is 01:01:32 these years they just wouldn't it's the illusion of comedy that's protected him as long as it has but again this show's not funny and it never has been i don't even know that that was or is the point in a lot of ways it's just an an excuse to write off the smoking room in his house. And how what do you make of people saying that Rogan should be terminated or, you know, Spotify should be boycotted? Yeah, that's the delineation between misinformation and disinformation. And this goes to how I feel about Trump and Tucker Carlson and the like, is that there's a distinct difference between misinformation and disinformation. Disinformation is on purpose. I know I'm lying and I'm manipulating. Misinformation is I'm a dipshit and I'm passing on my dipshittery to other dipshits. Right.

Starting point is 01:02:18 Which is a forgivable act that everybody involves. But when you don't make a distinction, when you say active disinfo is misinfo, what you give in many ways is an element of cleverness from the disinfo side to the misinformed. So now Joe Rogan isn't a pot smoking dipshit who's blathering about shit he doesn't know what he's talking about to a, you know, a controlled environment where he disseminates anti-vax material, right? And you give him more weight and more ballast than he deserves. So one of the problems with the attacks in going after him about that stuff, the racial epithet stuff and the garbage behavior, that's a totally different argument. And that's up to his audience. And it's, I mean, I don't

Starting point is 01:03:03 watch the show. So that's one of the reasons why I don't need that in my head. But the stuff about like who he has on talking about vaccines or mandates or masks or any of that shit during it is to feed a certain group of the audience. And he just kind of goes, oh, wow, that's interesting. That's interesting. Is that true? Is that interesting? That's true. All right. That sounds good. And then occasionally he backs out of it by going what do i know i'm just fucking dumb it's the same thing jimmy dore does allow the the disinfo artist to come on and use you as a misinfo artist because you're too stupid or you don't give a fuck so you just let it slide instead of pushing back on it now joe has pushed back at a couple of very important points on some people other people he, he's like, it rolls through. And I think it's about whatever brand of weed he's smoking at any particular time. It's unreliable. But you do not ever give someone like Joe Rogan more weight than he deserves in a discourse. And that's what canceling would do. Because what his audience responds is they're trying to shut him down because he's telling the truth and they're not they're like they're concerned that he is manipulating people

Starting point is 01:04:11 in the same way that we passed laws against you know uh he-man and care bears selling toys to kids so you have to add for the toy during the show for the about the toy so there's an element of like oh that's not quite fair you know it's like these people's brains are a little porous for this kind of thing. And that's the concern with Rogan. And when it comes to teenagers who watch a show, that's a legitimate concern because there's a lot of them, a lot of his audiences underage. And so there's a legit concern there. I net out the same way you do on that conversation. I mean, you know, one of the interesting things about what's happened over the past 24, 48 hours on the past Midas Touch podcast that we did, we came out the same way you just did. You know, we've never called for a boycott of Spotify.

Starting point is 01:04:57 Our show is still on Spotify. We believe that we need to compete and have better content out there and attract people to the truth and to the types of conversations we're having. So to me, that's where it stands. But what's interesting is there has been a lot of disinfo out there that because we are a large account, people like these are the three brothers who are behind it, despite the fact that we said we weren't. But we engaged and we had a conversation over the past 24 hours with Dave Portnoy, you know, and it was interesting seeing his audience, you know, who I haven't been exposed to, you know, what they say. It's often criticisms of the way we look and who we

Starting point is 01:05:37 are and not what we say, you know, and that tends to be a lot of what the conversations were. But when we engage like that, you know, and to us, it was lot of what the conversations were. But when we engage like that, you know, and to us, it was just instinctual. Someone was calling out for something false. We pick up the phone, we have a conversation and we've received about a hundred emails or so. I know I've received about 50 emails. Brett's received some of the people saying, hey, I'm a right winger. I appreciate you coming on and sharing it. Do you think, yeah, it has value. Should'd be doing more of that? Yes. I don't believe in canceling people, giving speeches and the like. I don't fear any of those

Starting point is 01:06:12 folks. And I think there's a little bit of infantilizing adults and there's a little bit of the outrage community, the professional outrage community does tend to, in their own way, engage in what would be subtle racism, sexism and elitism in that like, well, I know it's bullshit. But think about all these dumb people. You know, there's a lot of dumb people out there who might fall for this kind of thing instead of making their own argument that would undermine it, they just kind of go, don't let him say that. And it's, you know, it's sort of like tattletale culture at its best. And it's a lot of slacktivism.

Starting point is 01:06:55 It's not actual active engagement. It's like, get rid of that. You know what I mean? It's like swiping left on life's problems and swiping right on the good stuff. You know what I mean? It's the it's the tendering of your of your politics. And it's a mistake. That said, like, I don't believe Stormfront should be allowed on Spotify with their own show and Spotify should set a standard for what's OK. And it is indicative of them. And again, it's not censorship or a lack of free speech. If if an organization kicks you off their platform, YouTube, Twitch, I'm on, you know, on both of those and Facebook and on Twitter. If I if I violate their terms of service, I don't have any right to their microphone. I have the right to say whatever the fuck I want, but I have to find another way to say it. Same thing with with him to some degree. Like you sign off on a deal with Spotify, for example.

Starting point is 01:07:48 You're all in on what Spotify is comfortable with, not what you're comfortable with. Once you move off the Joe Rogan website, which you can house in on a Web server in Saudi Arabia if you want to, and anybody can access it. Nobody gives a shit. Then you you set yourself up for standards that you may not have bought into initially, right? Because when they bought his show, they kicked off like 110 episodes. They went, yeah, we'll take those. We're going to not those. So he knew early on that there were lines you can't cross with them. And yet he did it. So the business problem that he's in is of his own making. And I don't think it's for, you know, if the public that uses Spotify goes, I'm not using Spotify anymore. Fuck that guy. That's the exact reason why I spot and Spotify knew that was a

Starting point is 01:08:36 possibility. They wouldn't have kicked off 110 episodes when they signed him. So they have a responsibility to their audience. And if they go, we don't give a shit. We're now the podcasting thing. The music thing was just a way of us luring people in show, was given a speech at in Chicago or something like that, and they shut it down, he was just a gay right winger with a black boyfriend who was speaking at this place and was seen as being, you know, like it was anti-gay hate speech or something like that. Like the argument against having him there was a little silly. And if you listen to what his actual arguments were, they're pretty easy to take down. So if you're there, just sit there and watch his lecture and then what you do is you leave the room with the people who are there and go well that was and that was and that was and that was and they go really you go yeah this is how and this is how and then

Starting point is 01:09:52 come here let me show you and that's that's how you engage in it but if you shut him down he never gets to say the there's this myth that he would have said the perfect thing and you were trying to stop him from saying the truth. Now that truth, I don't know what that truth is. You don't know what that truth is, but it definitely exists. It's a secret now. Now it's Comet Ping Pong. Now it's a cabal. Now it's the untold truth. Now it's MKUltra because it exists out there. In my mind, there's this magic truth. I don't know what it is, but they were going to tell me, but now you stopped him from telling me. So it must be true or even still. And so it inflates their worth. So that's I mean, and that's why we have a discussion like this.

Starting point is 01:10:34 Also, why we live in a democracy and why we have more free speech rules than any other country on the planet. We do. America is more committed to free speech and the free exchange of ideas than any other country on Earth to you know, And it's work. It's a lot of work. We've had a lot more problems because of it probably than other countries, but we've also advanced more positive ideas over time and didn't get swallowed up by an authoritarian government who could dictate what's okay to say and what's not. So that's the balance we live in. And you're either comfortable in that balance in a democracy or you aren't. Republicans aren't. I mean, they believe in a republic government. They believe in the Electoral College and the Senate. They believe in the Supreme Executive Power, the Senate, the Electoral College. Fuck the people.

Starting point is 01:11:16 Democrats believe in the vote. That's why we're called Democrats. One person, one vote. We believe in democracy. That's rabble and it's rough and it's the house and it's smaller, you know, enclaves of thought and warring ideas, hashing it out and debates all over the place. It's messier. And China and Russia are using that against us right now. There's a lot of crowbars in there. And what I would say also, and what you were talking about, Ben, in terms of like people writing you letters or people in the chat room insulting you in the light you are well served everybody listening to the sound of my voice you are well served that unless you know someone personally on the internet to not

Starting point is 01:11:57 give an ounce of interest concern or worry about a single thing said for or against you in the interwebs at all, ever, never, ever. No chat room, no nothing, unless you've engaged with people over time. And even still, like if you remember in 2016, the whole story about how all these like pro-black and pro-peace websites on Facebook all of a sudden started tipping Trump and being Aunt Hillary's a warmonger and all that because they were all setups. Two years they're sitting back there being cat videos, cat videos, cat videos. And then as soon as Hillary's running, you know, she eats babies. Right. That was that they did that. It was a strategy. So even it's still like I'm I'm always I love my chat and I love the sparklers and I'm very lucky, but they know as well as I do

Starting point is 01:12:45 that I stiff arm new people all the time as far as what I take seriously or what I take to heart. And we also, trolls don't upset us. I will say one thing, my chat room more than any other I've ever been in. And I intentionally kind of sheepdogged people this way by barking when they got too close to the cliff. Try to get people to recognize the trolls. Maybe they used to have power in 2016. They don't anymore. And no one can hurt your feelings without your permission. No one can insult you unless you agree. If someone calls you stupid and you know you're not stupid, you don't care. If someone calls you stupid and you're like, maybe I am stupid, that's when it hurts. So don't give anybody that power. Never, ever, ever, ever. You don't know who they are.

Starting point is 01:13:27 So who cares? And so trolls show up in my chat sometimes and nobody gets upset. We don't really have flame wars and crap like that in my chat. It doesn't break out. And the reason is because I know better. We don't take it seriously. I do not take that threat seriously. I don't take Trump seriously. I don't take Tucker Carlson seriously. I take life seriously. Real human beings in flesh and blood challenges in their fucking lives. And that's and people need to be hopeful and optimistic to face the challenges of life. And the attack on optimism is is violent as far as I'm concerned. And I will stand there like a shield in between you and someone's,

Starting point is 01:14:08 you know, attack on your optimism. Because I don't know if you've looked around, but life is kicking death's ass right now. And humanity is always moving, however messily, towards a better future. How sparks words of wisdom, words to live by, words of motivation for all the Midas mighty.

Starting point is 01:14:27 Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, man. Absolutely. Info Tame Awards dot com. We got deep today, huh? Yeah, it matters. It just it fucking well matters. And I and I I take comedy very seriously for that very reason.

Starting point is 01:14:43 And and so, yeah. So that's, I appreciate you guys having me on. We appreciate you. We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Hal Sparks. Hal is like easily, maybe one of the top five most brilliant people,

Starting point is 01:14:59 like I think on the planet, if you really. That's it. It's brilliance because the range of the conversations that he's able to have, he's able to be really funny and get really serious and be really sophisticated. He's one of the most interesting guests I think we ever get to speak to. So I'm so happy you jumped on. And shout out, like I said with Hal, shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Sparklers. And thank you, Sparklers, for joining the Midas mighty family and watching our show every time we are. And it's always so great to see you guys.

Starting point is 01:15:28 Sparklers are the best. And you're right. I mean, the way how, I mean, how's really just a super smart dude. I mean, sometimes even kind of following how, you know, and the point that's made like 20 seconds after, you know, I'll even be thinking, I'm like, like, I'll know what he's saying at the time, but after I'll like really appreciate it. I'll be like, yo, that's a great point that he had made.

Starting point is 01:15:51 A lot to talk about too. I want to talk about Trump apparently. What is Trump eating the documents now? He's eating them. He's shredding them. He's burning them. He's doing, you name it. I don't even want to know

Starting point is 01:16:01 what else he's doing with the documents. Before we do that, this podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. BetterHelp Online Therapy. We talk about BetterHelp a lot on the show. And this month, we're discussing some of the stigmas around mental health. For example, some people think that you should wait until you're at rock bottom to go to therapy, but that just straight up isn't true. Therapy is a tool to utilize before things get worse, and it can help

Starting point is 01:16:25 you avoid those lows. I've been taught that mental health shouldn't be part of normal life, which is also wrong. We take care of our bodies by going to the gym, the doctor, nutrition. We should be focusing on our minds just as much as we focus on our body. And BetterHelp has been such an incredible tool for me. It's so great to just be connected to a real therapist who you could speak to whenever you need to. They're there on demand. They set you up with somebody who is really in tune with your needs at the time. And I just think it's really important. Like they said, you go to the gym to work out, you run on the treadmill, you bend, you do the Peloton. You got to be doing stuff for your brain as well. BetterHelp is customized online therapy that

Starting point is 01:17:04 offers video, phone, and even live chat sessions with your therapist. So you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. And it's much more affordable than in-person therapy. And you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Give it a try and see why over 2 million people have used BetterHelp online therapy. Once again, this podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and Midas Touch listeners get, wait for this, 10% off their first month of BetterHelp at betterhelp.com slash Midas. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P.com slash M-E-I-D-A-S.

Starting point is 01:17:41 Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. Stay three nights this summer at best Western and get $50 off a future stay. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at best Western visit best Western.com for complete terms and conditions. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life,

Starting point is 01:17:58 but you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile, different is calling. Let's talk about this Trump shredding of records. So one of the things we learned from Jan 6th is when the committee is trying to get these records, we're now learning that like the archives had to go to Mar-a-Lago. One, there's like a number of shredded documents. And apparently this Washington Post reports

Starting point is 01:18:48 that like Trump would just shred and crumple things like himself. Well, and he would do that. Here's the thing. He would do this throughout the presidency, right? He would constantly be violating the Presidential Records Act, shredding documents, ripping them up,

Starting point is 01:18:59 tearing them into pieces. And it's like a little like child who just like eats paper and like just tears things apart or like a little like who just eats paper and just tears things apart, or like a little puppy or an animal who's just ripping shit apart. That's what Trump would do with documents across the board. And so it's no surprise that he did this with the documents related to January 6th, documents related to him pressuring Mike Pence. And not only did he rip these documents up. So at first there was the story that there was that whole batch of documents

Starting point is 01:19:24 that was sent to the January 6th committee from the archives that they literally had to tape back together. And they were able to actually recover a lot of the information on the documents by taping the documents back together. Like think about these people with scotch tape, trying to line it up like a puzzle. But then the other Washington Post story came out that some of these papers were shredded beyond recognition and were unable to be put back together. Not only that, some of these papers were put in what they called burn bags and were actually incinerated. They actually lit the documents on fire to burn them.

Starting point is 01:19:56 And this is a blatant violation of the Presidential Records Act. I think a lot of legal experts note that there is really no good enforcement mechanism on the Presidential Records Act, which just seems so crazy to me since the whole reason why this act came to be was because of Richard Nixon's destruction of documents. So we put this law in to try to prevent that. So I think it's important that we don't let this slide and we need to add this to the pile of obstruction. And another reason why Trump needs to be criminally prosecuted, criminally indicted for all of these things. I mean, that's blatant disregard for evidence. That's hiding evidence. It's not only a bad look, but it's illegal.

Starting point is 01:20:34 Absolutely. And again, should we add obstruction to the list of Trump potential crimes and investigations? I think we've been at obstruction. I would say like Alison Gill, like AG said on our last podcast, add it to the obstruction pile. That's already there. That's the better way. Stacking up high.

Starting point is 01:20:53 That's definitely the better way of saying it. The other weird thing to talk about too, in Canada, this truckers convoy. The truckers. Oh. If you look at like any sort of right-wing media, this is all they want to talk about. They love convoys. Love a good convoy. Truckers. Oh. If you look at like any sort of right wing media, this is all they want to talk about. They love convoys.

Starting point is 01:21:08 Love a good convoy. And what's amazing about this one is usually the convoys come from- Truckers convoys, good. Usually the convoys come from the South. Those are the bad convoys. But the convoys coming from the North, good convoys. I think the stated mission of the convoy is also like to overthrow the government of Canada was one of the stated goals. That's a good convoy right there. And well, tell us more about the convoy is also like to overthrow the government of Canada was one of the stated goals.

Starting point is 01:21:25 That's a good convoy right there. And well, tell us more about the convoy. What is it? What's going on there? I'm not even sure the convoy knows what the convoy is because they're being directed by one American politicians who want to meddle with Canadian politics. They're not just happy enough spreading COVID disinfo here, but promoting Trump or flag rally style, the mess that's taking place here in certain states in Canada is what's going down there. And so you have a group of truckers who have united to form this convoy to protest lockdowns and spread COVID disinformation, and to argue that they shouldn't

Starting point is 01:22:08 have to be vaccinated despite the fact that they're going back and forth crossing the border. There used to be an exemption. There's no longer an exemption. So it's really an anti-vax trucker convoy. Meanwhile, you have 90% of truckers who are vaccinated and who are working. So this is a small percentage of that who are out there. And many of these people, I think most of them aren't even truckers. Like you said, Ben, this is an orchestrated campaign by foreign governments to try to cause some rabble-rousing in Canada. And foreign actors, at least, not only governments, but foreign actors from America also So we're helping. I think you had like Ted Cruz and some other politicians were criticizing the fact that was it GoFundMe wasn't being able to like they shut down the fundraising

Starting point is 01:22:58 for from Americans to basically fundraise the Canadian convoy. And then you just had Canadian politicians basically saying, yeah, it's not a good look for politicians to be encouraging money to be used to overthrow the Canadian government. Like Canada is a sovereign nation. And can you please stop meddling with our affairs here? Overthrowing the government? It's just so weird when you just think about the Republicans' fascination with, again,

Starting point is 01:23:28 overthrowing various governments. It's at the same time, too, if you actually look at these, there's also these various rallies that are similar to what's going on in Canada against the government that Mike Flynn and others are preparing across the country. It looks like a who's who on how to meddle with our NATO allies during the Ukrainian Russia being on the brink of war. Like that's literally it's beyond the pale. But there are some GOPers who have courage at the end of the day. Liz Cheney, Kinzinger, who were both censured by the RNC. The RNC called the January 6th insurrection legitimate political discourse and censured Cheney and Kinzinger, but you had Mitt Romney come out. Here was his quote. Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience who seek the truth in the face of vitriol. Honor attaches to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for seeking truth, even when doing so comes at great personal cost. Now, here's the thing, though. Shame falls on a party. Why don't you say,

Starting point is 01:24:45 shame falls on my party. Shame falls on the Republican party. Romney always equivocates, dude. Romney always equivocates. Romney always will, he will say one thing and next thing you know, he's out to dinner with Donald Trump. Like we've seen it before. Romney's just not a guy, unfortunately, that could be trusted. He tries to act like he's a principled guy and I'm happy he made the statement. I genuinely am happy he made that statement. And I think overall, it was a fairly strong statement. But I agree, Ben. Call out my party did this. The Republican Party did this. And don't just speak out against it, but act out against it. Don't then support the same policies that are enabling this. Don't then support the same people who are enabling

Starting point is 01:25:23 this. You really got to go beyond that extra step and you need to act on it the same way that Cheney and Kinzinger are doing. Those are people who are in the right here. Those are people who are really on the right side of this issue. And Romney, he just doesn't get the same credit from me. Did you guys ever think that Mike Pence would have more of a spine than Mitt Romney? It's still a debate that I don't really want to get into. All right, fine, fine, fine. There's different levels of spinelessness. Let's hold that. Let's give it like two weeks. We'll give it two more weeks and revisit this conversation. I do want to say that we debated this on the last show and we said, you know, Mike Pence is expected to speak out against- Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I gave him shit. I said,

Starting point is 01:25:58 there's no way he's going to kowtow back to Trump. So I eat my words on that one. I was definitely wrong there. So kudos to Pence for actually speaking out there. You were wrong there. I was wrong that there. So kudos to Pence for actually speaking out there. So you were wrong there. I was wrong that the crowd would boo them. Pence actually got a standing ovation. But I want everybody to also note, first, I want to say, there's nothing brave about what Pence did, though I'm happy he said it. But there's nothing brave about telling the truth, saying the obvious.

Starting point is 01:26:19 And Pence should have said this last January. Pence should have said this, in fact, before January 6th, as he was getting pressured, as he knew everything that was going behind the scenes. It would have saved this country a lot of pain if he came out then. But okay, I'm happy that he's coming out now and is saying those things. However, what Pence refuses to say is Pence refuses to say that it was a free and fair election. He refuses to say that there was no election and fair election. He refuses to say that there was no

Starting point is 01:26:45 election fraud. He will not take that extra step. And to me, that still makes him incredibly cowardly, despite the fact that he made that statement. But I'm going to chalk this one up as a win. And I think that Pence, as we discussed last episode, his aides have been speaking with the January 6th committee at a very high level for a very long period of time. So those conversations, I think, are bearing a lot of fruit. And I think Pence knows that. And I think the Republican Party is starting to get wind of what the January 6th committee knows and what the Department of Justice knows.

Starting point is 01:27:19 And so I think a lot of their actions in starting, if you see these little people peeling away little by little of Trump, I think the reason you're seeing that now is because they're starting to see the writing on the wall. And I wouldn't say that they're out yet. I mean, we also would happen when Lindsey Graham went, I'm done. I'm off the ride. We also would happen like a few days later when he went right back on the ride. But I think right now, I think Republicans are feeling the heat and I think they're feeling, you know, they're in a bit of a similar situation as they were that day on January 6th. Not only that, I think that that statement really rubbed the RNC statement where they called it legitimate political discourse. I think rubbed a lot of Republicans also the wrong way. And a lot of people are still unwilling to

Starting point is 01:28:03 speak out about it, but there have been some other people. I think the national review actually spoke out against that statement and said, not only was it a dumb statement, but it was done politically. And so these are the moments that we need to pounce on legitimate political discourse. We should take that to the bank because no right-minded patriotic American will call what we witnessed on January 6th, 2021 legitimate political discourse. No patriotic American will say that gouging police's eyes out, hurting them, breaking their arms, killing police officers, no legitimate patriotic American would call that legitimate political discourse. So we should run with that to the bank. We should show people why the Republican Party is so radical, that we will

Starting point is 01:28:53 not allow that kind of discourse to take place in America. It's not legitimate. It's not what America is about. And we need to own that. And like we spoke about with Hal, we need to also start getting energized by the fact that we now have the advantage with the House maps. I cannot tell you how big of a deal it is all the efforts by Democrats who pushed fairer maps, which have been accepted by courts because they are not racially motivated. This is all going to play a big part. So at the end of the day, as we head into November 2022, we have the advantage. We have the advantage. It's all going to be turnout. It's all going to be energy. It's all going to be, are you going to show up to the polls? What does this mean to you? And it's time to get energized and it's time to make it happen and save this country. I'll tell you what it boils down to, Brett. Can I summarize what you just said? Demoralized voters are the worst.

Starting point is 01:30:06 Do not be demoralized right now. There is much, much, much to be optimistic about. Now is the time like when you're doing a tug of war. They're loud. They're shouting on the other side. They're going to throw fits and hysteria. But we got to take the rope and we got to keep pushing and pushing. And we have an edge right now.

Starting point is 01:30:30 And so we got to keep on pushing, pushing and more. Oh, the one thing I just wanted to correct. Sometimes I lump all these GQ peers together. It wasn't Ted Cruz who criticized GoFundMe for not fostering the overthrow of the Canadian government. It was his friend, Attorney General Ken Paxton. Let me just read what Paxton said. He said, quote, patriotic Texans donated to Canadian truckers were the cause using GoFundMe. The BLM backing company went woke, froze the funds and failed to deliver Texans money. Today, I assembled a team to investigate their potential fraud and deception.

Starting point is 01:31:06 Texas donors will get justice. Go fund me. And Paul Simons, a Canadian senator, says, as a senator and patriotic, polite Canadian, I hope you won't mind if I point out we are a sovereign nation with a democratically elected government and that the idea of American dollars

Starting point is 01:31:24 funding a group that seeks to oust said government might raise some questions here. And I'll say this about that also. First, I'm going to correct you, Ben, because Ted Cruz did also speak out against this, of course, because he's got to put his nose in everything. Ted Cruz called for an FTC probe into GoFundMe for this whole thing. See, I didn't even know that, but that's why I just assumed that's so funny. Yeah, yeah. So Ted Cruz did. And GoFundMe refunded all the money automatically at everybody. So it's another fake issue because they just want to distract everybody. They want to distract everybody. They want to try to overthrow governments. M&Ms, Mickey Mouse,

Starting point is 01:31:58 a fake convoy in the North, Mr. Potato Head. I really believe what I said to Hal. I really believe that Republicans peaked early. They peaked early. They peaked in high school. You never want to peak early. You just don't. And they thought they were all hot shit after Virginia. And I think they're in for a rude awakening in November. But it's up to you to give them that rude awakening. You know, it's important to have these important debates on the Midas Touch podcast and important to have these debates. You know, we talked about it. The show's been about having debates in, you know, in other echo chambers and other areas that you may not agree with. So one of the podcasts I love is called The Lost Debate.

Starting point is 01:32:45 Whenever you look for news, you may feel forced to choose between echo chambers in mainstream media and conspiracy-obsessed alternative media. That's why you should check out The Lost Debate. It's a podcast and YouTube show for political eclectics who want to escape their media bubble and engage in good faith ideas from across the political spectrum. The Lost Debate is hosted by Ravi Gupta, former Obama staffer and school principal, who founded ARENA, an organization that has trained tens of thousands of progressive staffers and helped elect hundreds of candidates. Corey Bradford, a progressive political organizer

Starting point is 01:33:18 from the Deep South turned TikTok star, who once hosted a Fox News radio show, and Ricky Schlott, a Gen Z New York Post columnist, the libertarian fighting to protect free speech. They cover the latest news ideas and trends that mainstream media overlooks. Instead of being at each other's throats, they focus on bringing new perspectives to the table in constructive debates that sound less like crossfire and more like discussions between real people. Join the conversation. Check out The Lost Debate today. Go search it where you get podcasts and YouTube. New episodes drop twice a week. Again, that is The Lost Debate. Search for that wherever you get your podcasts

Starting point is 01:33:57 and on YouTube, The Lost Debate. Brett Jordy really enjoyed this podcast. And look, not going to shy away from more tough conversations, whether it's Dave Portnoy, whether it's with whoever. You know what's nice about this podcast? Is we speak, we have guests on who speak, we let people speak and we don't scream as they're trying to make their point and make their statement.

Starting point is 01:34:18 And I think that's an important part of dialogue is allowing people to talk and not screaming over them because screaming is not winning an argument. Screaming is what people who are losing arguments do. And that's what we saw last night during that conversation. Thank you everybody for listening to the Midas Touch podcast. We will see you next time. Let's keep fighting for democracy. We're going to stay in this together. We are going to keep on winning. Jordy, shout out to the sparklers. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

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The MeidasTouch Podcast - First Amendment, Deep State Cabals, and Legitimate Political Discourse with Hal Sparks

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