The MeidasTouch Podcast - Goodbye #CanCruz with Miles Taylor

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

Welcome back to another edition of the MeidasTouch Podcast! On today's show, we wonder WTF Ted Cruz was thinking when he abandoned Texas during one of the state's worst humanitarian crises in history to vacation in Cancun. We talk about the devastation in Texas caused by the abject failure on Republican leadership and the seemingly superhuman powers of their favorite boogeyman AOC. Next, we have an incredible conversation with former Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor and co-founder of RePAIR and get the inside scoop on what happened inside the Trump administration, and discuss if there is any hope for the GOP after their descent into total fascism and destruction. Finally, we wrap up with a recap of the latest news! Thank you for making the MeidasTouch Podcast one of the top podcasts in all of North America! Please tell a friend and rate this podcast 5-stars to help us continue to climb the charts! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to the Midas Touch Podcast podcast Ben Mycelis here joined by my younger brother Brett Mycelis and the fan favorite the most famous Mycelis brother the most liked Jordy see see this is what for you listening this is what Ben. When another brother wins something or is acknowledged for something, Ben, that Ben isn't,

Ben then tries to make a joke out of that accomplishment or that acknowledgement. He's been doing it his whole life to just lessen really that great Twitter poll that was out there. He flips it on you, Jay. He tries to flip it out there. It's brother jududo. You know, he weaponizes the own positivity against you and just pushes it right back. Trying to make me feel bad about this poll, but I won't. I don't even know how you both

deduce from what I just said. I wasn't mocking it. It's the great Jordy. You won a Twitter poll. I am proud of you. I think it is an incredible achievement. Just what are you, 27 years old? This was a big deal for you, and I'm not mocking it in the slightest. Congrats, Jordy, the fan favorite brother. Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. We have an incredible show for you today. Who's on the show today, Ben? It's a good show. We have Miles Taylor, who was the former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security. You may know him previously, a.k.a. Anonymous. He was inside the Trump administration. He wrote the New York Times op ed, exposing a lot of Trump misconduct in 2018, 2019. And then he wrote his book in 2019, A Warning.

And it's particularly helpful that we have Miles Taylor on the show because the topic of the hour and the hour after that and the hour after that is what's going on in Texas right now. And also Ted Cruz's decision when Texas is confronted with an existential crisis, a natural and national disaster.

Ted Cruz flees to hashtag CanCruz in Cancun. Speaking of, so last night I was watching all the Ted Cruz news and coming in. It was actually one of the more exciting things that I've done all week, which tells you how exciting my week's been. But I was watching all the news come in because first the pictures come in of a guy who sort of resembles Ted Cruz. And there was a lot of, is it him? Is it not him? You know, everyone was saying, I don't think it's him. Cause we saw the photo of him the other day where it looked like, you know,

shaved in the front, then mullet in the back. Insurrectionist in the, shaved in the front, then mullet in the back. Insurrectionist in the back, senator in the front. Was it the opposite? He's a piece of shit. It doesn't matter. It can't be the opposite, Brad. Do you know how mullets work? Sorry. Yeah, but would insurrectionist be the shaved part where he looks like a proud boy or would insurrectionist be the mullet part? I mean, both are equally bad. So I'll give you that. That's my bad. So then, you know, everyone's saying, oh, no, it's not him. It's not him. But then, like, as more and more started coming out, it became pretty apparent that this was actually

Ted Cruz and he did have the nerve to go to Cancun. The time on the clock behind him was the time of the Cancun flight from where Cruz was leaving from. He has said before that it was a spot. His family members were spotted next to him. It took until this morning until we got confirmation, but we were floating last night through all the hashtags. And I want to know what's your guys' favorite of all the ones that we've landed on. Let's start with Fled Cruz, which I thought was particularly brilliant. Hashtag Fled Cruz. I think I'm in genius.

Definitely like a seven out of 10. Fled Cruz, really solid. Fled Cruz is really good. Simple but effective. Cancun Cruz. I think I'm ingenious. Definitely like a seven out of 10. Fled Cruz, really solid. Fled Cruz is really good. Simple but effective Cancun Cruz. He did go to Cancun. His last name is Cruz. He got the alliteration of, yeah, simple merger. Six out of 10 there.

Now I'll tell you, this one wasn't my favorite. Flying Ted, because it combines Lion Ted and the fact that he flew to Cancun. Flying Ted is some pretty solid wordplay. Flying Ted. That's good. Yeah, I pitched it last night and got like zero response from the brothers on Flying Ted. The problem with Flying Ted is I don't see the lying in there, actually.

I know it. All I see is the word flying. And flying has a positive connotation. Flying, flying, dribbling dunking jamming uh there's nothing to do with it but can we just tell the one story brett that growing up i don't know why flying made me think of this that brett thought a dunk and a jam oh my two different things we've never told this story before talking about our podcast listeners but somehow the most stubborn yeah it just It just, this is why flying.

I don't know why it reminds me of me, but, but Brett while watching basketball was convinced a dunk and a jam were two things. A dunk was one hand, a jam was two hands. And if you would go watching a game, you would go, that's a dunk. Brett would go, there's not a dunk. I think this is the reason why Brett doesn't watch sports anymore. It's just because he's so sick of that argument that he gave up sports altogether. Listen, I stand by it. I mean, think about it. If you have, you remember Dunkaroos, remember Dunkaroos? I mean, amazing,

you know, amazing snack. When you would dunk the cookies inside of the delicious vanilla frosting, would you dunk it with two hands or would it be a one handed dunk? It was a little tiny. You couldn't dunk it with two hands. You don't jam it, you dunk it. And so, you know, taking that and expanding that out to other things such as basketball. You could see where you get the dunk and the jam. And I stand by that. This podcast is off the rails. Let's bring us back. Yeah, I'm sorry. We're going back to we're going back. I'll bring I'll bring us back. Let's let the older mature brother guide us back. My younger brothers took us in some crazy direction. Are you going to get credit for taking us back when you took us? You guys are going crazy on this podcast, bringing this back to what we're

talking about. We liked flying Ted, but we ultimately, when we did our video today, the hashtag was CanCruise, which I think serves a dual meaning here. It's kind of like Cancun, but it's also like Texas should CanCruise because at the end of the day, what Ted Cruz did, and by the way, the video we released today, Can Cruise, if you haven't seen it yet, watch it. It's honestly one of the favorite videos that we've ever made together. It's really, I think, really effective, persuasive, and funny. And I hope you all enjoy it. Why don't you do this, Brad?

I know, obviously, they can't see it because it's a podcast. They'll go and take a look at it. But why don't you just play it? Because the narration is pretty on point and people can get a feel for the imagery that's behind it. Tired from an insurrection you incited against your government? Is your state suffering from predictable consequences of a natural disaster caused by your failed leadership? Then it's time for you to throw your constituents and constitution away and escape to Cancun.

Constituents underwater? You can be too on one of our reef and shipwreck snorkeling tours. Feeling homesick? Visit the Mayan ruins. No electricity, undrinkable water. It's like you never left Houston. So hurry up, flee in glee, and bask in the glow of Red Hot Sedition in Cancun.

Midas Touch is responsible for the content of this advertising. One of the favorite ads that we've done, and it was very funny. This morning I woke up at like 6 in the morning and had the idea and immediately texted the brothers, and then we were working on the script, and going back and forth with the lines for the script to give you some behind the scenes is always very funny.

This one kind of started, I had a rough draft. I sent it to the brothers. Ben had some thoughts. I had some thoughts. And we basically like a mound of clay molded it into that. And then we got it out and we put it together. We dunked it and we jammed it. We dunked it and we jammed it.

And one of the coolest things, honestly, because we're taking on at the end of the day, And then we got it out and we put it together. We dunked it and we jammed it. Dunked it and we jammed it. And one of the coolest things, honestly, because, you know, we're taking on at the end of the day a heavy subject. I mean, people are suffering and we never want to make light of it. But we want to expose Ted Cruz in an effective, persuasive way. And so one of the cool things when we released it was I saw a lot of comments from people from Texas saying, thank you for this from Houston. Thank you for this from Austin. And that made me feel really good seeing that. And we're hoping that everybody is doing OK out there in Texas. They're suffering through, like Ben said, a historic storm, a humanitarian crisis.

Ben, what's going on in Texas right now? Yeah. So you have a natural disaster, but the consequences were predictable and it was through the government incompetence in Texas. And by government, I mean GOP, because it's a Republican led state that brought us here. So, of course, there was extreme winter storms that swept its way through Texas. We, of course, know based on climate change that there are numerous unusual weather events that are taking place that we need to be prepared for. But Texas is an interesting state because Texas reflexively, based on their GOP DNA, said dating back to the 30s, really, and up to modern times, that they wanted to have no relationship at all with the power grid interconnections that take place throughout the United States. So in the end, the Texans said, we don't want the federal government here at all. And so 90% or so of Texas is run exclusively through its own power grid. And about 90% within that power grid comes from natural gas. And because there was no regulations whatsoever and businesses tried to cut corner of all

costs, the businesses basically said, because we can never, you know, we think that let's not put money in in the event that there is a winter storm. Let's not even account for that possibly happening. And let's do this the cheapest possible to increase our profits such that when a storm finally came, they were not prepared for it. And because they weren't part of the overall interconnections within the national grid, they couldn't then go to the other states and say, hey, our power grid is down. Can we have some of your power, basically, and help us so that we could heat homes and we could basically tap into your power to keep our power running here on an emergency basis? And it's so interesting

because you have the former, first off, it's all GOP governors. I got a question for you. So after this catastrophe, after this, you know, huge failure, and I'm just thinking, trying to think logically here, you know, and so Greg Abbott, the governor of the state, after all this happened, he probably was like, you know what, guys, we couldn't have predicted this winter storm in Texas. This is our fault for deregulation. We own it and we're going to do everything that we could do to solve it. That's what happened, right? That's what it should have been. You would think that you'd want some modicum of transparency.

And maybe, Brett, you don't even have to go that far. You just address the problems. Maybe you even just say, look, we couldn't foresee a winter crisis like this. We should be doing better. Here are all the steps we are taking. Shared sacrifice. But that's not what Governor Abbott said. Why don't you play what Governor Abbott said to Sean Hannity? And when you have the Abbott and Hannity sandwich, I'm sure you could realize that the byproduct is a bunch of shitty diarrhea play the clip delicious gas uh oil old-fashioned oil and coal uh i'm not against nuclear energy either i'm not against wind turbines but my question is

if they have these rolling blackouts and you got freezing weather i mean uh and they're not reliable and it's used to lose, what good is it? Sean, this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy, such as natural gas and oil and nuclear, as well as solar and wind. But you saw from what Trace said, and that is our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid. And that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power in a statewide basis. That was power that was spread out by that ERCOT organization that you were talking about.

As a result, it just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas as well as other states to make sure that we were we'll be able to heat our homes in the wintertime and cool our homes in the summertime couple things he said that green energy accounts for 10 so where's the other 90 coming from genius number one number two he blames the Green New Deal. Let me just answer it. The answer is an obvious one, but the answer is it comes from coal and other natural gas. And that's, you know, Texas is a gas state.

And those were his policies that let it happen. So that's the answer. What type of fucking jerk does it take to go on Hannity? I guess, yeah, yeah, yeah. You could stop right there. But to go on Hannity? I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could stop. But to go on TV, talk about how

how the Green New Deal is the worst thing ever and then say, just fuck, fuck this segment. It stays in the podcast. OK, so it's all staying in the podcast so um here's what happened jordy the funniest part about this one i think it should stay in the podcast but two because people like when they see you know that's why you're the number one as i said before that's

why you're the top brother but brett was going through two points. So you knew that Brett was on his second point, but yet you decide to just like you interrupt his point too. And then you, I'm thinking you're going to come out with the goods. I'm thinking you're going to dunk or you're going to jam, but you fucking reject yourself. You blocked yourself. He blocked himself. Okay.

That's staying in the podcast. Okay, so number two. He blames the Green New Deal, and this has been a common theme of conservative commentators, to blame the Green New Deal and AOC for their problems. When the Green New Deal is not a real piece of legislation that has passed anywhere, this is the most ridiculous argument.

And I don't know how AOC, who's a congresswoman of New York's 14th district, had so much power that she was able to influence Texas's energy policy. Is she like the most powerful fucking person on the planet that she was able to do this? But they're blaming AOC and the Green New Deal because all they do is scapegoat things on Democrats. AOC is their number one boogeyman, scary Democrat who's going to bring socialism to the state when it's actually a failure of the government of Texas to actually help its citizens. And then with the 10 percent that is run by the wind turbine. First off, remember that Republicans have the weirdest view of wind just as a general proposition. Like Trump's biggest environmental

platform was anti-wind because it killed birds. And it caused cancer. He said windmills caused cancer. What that basically related to in Trump's reptilian brain is that in Scotland, they were building wind turbines near his golf course. And aesthetically, he didn't like it near his golf course. And so that's why he was always anti-turbines and just would randomly bring up his hatred for wind turbines. But going back to this, there are wind turbines in Antarctica. There are wind turbines in Denmark. There are wind turbines in Denmark and in freezing and frigid areas. You just need to basically put the equivalent of antifreeze and heating elements on there. It's one of the regulations that they have in the rest of the

country. And it's what Texas didn't have, which is why their windmills were unable to handle the storm. So let's be clear in summation. This wasn't because of windmills. This wasn't because of the Green New Deal, which doesn't exist. It is because of incompetent and corrupt GOP leadership that put profits over people and then when faced with crisis took vacations to Cancun. I guess now we could just blame anything that we do wrong on the Green New Deal. Jordy. Yeah. When Jordy was the Green New Deal. Let me say this line so I get back in the swing of things. When I fucked up earlier,

Green New Deal. Green New Deal. I used to be Antifa. Green New. Now it's Green New Deal. And let me just say your alarm clock in the morning. Green New Deal. Have you ever seen the Green New Deal and Antifa in the say your alarm clock in the morning. Green New Deal. Have you ever seen the Green New Deal and Antifa in the same room at the same time? Science. Mic drop. Yeah. Mic drop. So these are the dumb arguments that we are dealing with and we're living in this world of disinformation. And this is why it's it's so hard to push the country forward when we're dealing with just day in and day out. And it's a responsibility at this point. It's the root cause is the Republican Party. And that's why we

say the Republican Party is the party of Q. These are the same kooky conspiracy theories that QAnon dreams up. They're really no different at the end of the day. And it's a responsibility of Abbott, of Cruz, of people like Dan Crenshaw, of people like John Cornyn, who spread these big lies nonstop, first with COVID, then with the insurrection, and now with the storm. And people get hurt on the other end of these lies. We'll be right back with more Midas Touch podcast after this. That's not America. That's not America. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by Miles Taylor, co-founder of REPAIR, which stands for Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform.

Having integrity and reform next to the word Republican is incredibly refreshing. Miles Taylor, as you know, was formerly anonymous, may still be wishing that he was anonymous. Yeah, you got that right. But he inked the op-ed for the New York Times. He later published a bestselling book, A Warning, based on his experience within the Trump administration. Remember, he served as the chief of staff to the Department of Homeland Security. Miles Taylor, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you guys for having me. And I appreciate the introduction. Really, what you could have said is the only reason this guy knows anything about Homeland Security is he was roughed up in a house of six kids. So that was my expertise in Homeland Security from the get go.

Everything else has just been, you know, reliving childhood drama. Well, us being three brothers, we're halfway there. Maybe if we had a few more brothers, maybe we'd have to come here else. I love that. Wait, where were you in the order, the pecking order of the siblings? Second to last, second to last, which meant I could only dump it down onto one other person who was much younger. Yeah, that's what Jordy gets from me. So he could understand that. But thanks for having me, guys. Thanks for being on. Before getting into the work that Repair is doing, we've been talking about this natural disaster that's taken place in Texas with obviously predictable consequences based on

the complete incompetence of government there. And of course, Ted Cruz just wants to add insult to injury. And he takes this trip to Cancun at first. I wasn't sure whether or not it was Ted Cruz there, because we've seen different looks of Cruz recently. We saw the impeachment trial, Ted Cruz, where he had the kind of mullet insurrectionist from the back and Senator from the, you know, from the front. And so it actually was Ted Cruz who flees his state, suffering one of the biggest natural disasters and the predictable consequences from government incompetence. And now they're trying to blame it on the Green New Deal when, of course, we all know that Texas is primarily a gas state.

So what do you make of all of that and particularly Ted Cruz now fleeing to a Cancun vacation during all? Well, I honestly right now I feel good for Hugh Jackman, who I think was really nervous. They were filming Wolverine two down in Cancun and then they figured out, no, that wasn't that wasn't a Wolverine 2 down in Cancun. And then they figured out, no, that wasn't a Wolverine stand-in. That was just Ted Cruz. But look, it's a massive screw up. Those are the types of things in politics you have a really tough time explaining and getting past. In fact, I'm willing to go as far as to protect in Ted's reelection. This is going to be the central issue. It's who cares about Texas and this guy'd rather vacation in Mexico when people are dying than be there to help manage the response. Now, I want to say something that is really important here, because supporters of Ted Cruz, defenders of Ted Cruz will say, come on, right? Like anyone else,

the guy's trying to get away with his family and escape and have a brief vacation. And we're all going through tough times in COVID. And besides, it wouldn't really matter if he was there because senators aren't part of the executive structure managing the response. Right. That would be the charitable defense of Ted Cruz. It's completely and patently false. I mean, from someone who spent a ton of time in government, I oversaw FEMA and FEMA's emergency response structure. I've worked on Capitol Hill with Ted Cruz's office and others. Having a senator there to advocate for the people on the ground as they're getting effective is or getting affected is mission critical. And here's why. It's because someone like Ted Cruz can reach out directly and quickly to cabinet secretaries who are overseeing the response. So Ali Mayorkas is the Secretary of Homeland Security.

He's not going to take a phone call from a 95-year-old grandma in Dallas because he can't, right? The lines are deluged. But when Ted Cruz calls and says, hey, I'm getting reports here on the ground that aid is not getting through fast enough here, here, and here, that can cut through the system. That's why he needs to be home. That's why he needs to be paying attention. And it's why right now Beto O'Rourke

looks like he's being the real Texan and Ted Cruz looks like a slouch. So look, this is gonna catch, this is gonna haunt him all the way to reelection. What do you think about this? I guess it's a PR strategy, but it seems to be a floundering and failing one because it's based on lies of Greg Abbott,

governor of Texas and others, blaming the Green New Deal, which wasn't passed in Texas, where there have been a Republican governor after governor from Rick Perry, you know, to Greg Abbott now, you know, and that they're just, you know, deflecting all of the blame for the infrastructure that they've developed, banishing all federal help with respect to infrastructure, removing Texas totally off any other national grid. What do you think just about that strategically? And what does that mean just in terms of overall gaslighting that they're doing? Yeah, look, it seems to defy logic. I mean, there's one thing that people appreciate

when it comes to leadership more than anything, and that's honesty. And when it comes to honesty, they really appreciate, you know, in the humorous sense, it's self-deprecation, and in the non-humorous sense, it's apologies. And that's probably what we should have heard from state leaders is we could have done more,

we should have done more, We have to learn from this right now. Let's manage the response, but there's going to need to be a reckoning at the back end. That's leadership. That's what people would say is refreshing. And we would be beyond this point the finger, blame someone else. The longer you point the finger, the longer the finger gets pointed back at you. And that's what's happening right now. They're pointing the finger. And so we're talking about it right now. We're paying attention because we know that those leaders have some culpability, their infrastructure not being ready to handle the load. That said, you know, I always got to call the balls and strikes. You know, when you're a leader in any state and you've got finite resources, you're going to

invest where the greatest need is. So this type of weather event is very rare down in that region. And so it's understandable why states like Texas or Florida aren't making that level of investment in preparation for demand that would be beyond the scope of normalcy. That said, the first thing that leaders should do is hold themselves accountable. And we're not seeing that quite yet. Miles, you said that people see the truth and people know where to point the finger. But I think one of the issues that we're seeing is, is that day in and day out where a lot of these voters are getting their news from is Fox News. And every night Tucker Carlson is going on there and he's saying everything that everybody is telling you is a lie. This is actually caused by windmills. This is actually caused by the Green New Deal. So do you think what message do you think is winning out over Republican voters?

Yeah, well, look, I mean, if I had 10 seconds with Tucker Carlson, I would say you are giving the Russians and the Chinese everything they want. Because you're spreading so much disinformation, not just about this. But you know, you guys saw Tucker a couple months ago when he was talking about the COVID vaccine. And it was almost like his segment had been produced in Moscow by Vladimir Putin himself, where he said, you know, he was casting doubt on the vaccine and, and was, you know, paying homage to these mind control conspiracy theories. And, you know, Bill Gates being behind it. I mean, it was insanity. Now, Tucker's doing that almost every week, it seems like. And like I said, spreading that level

of disinformation is doing China and Russia's jobs for them. Why? Because people propagate that disinformation. It divides America. It puts us in two different spheres. One, objective reality. One, Candyland. And Trump is the mayor of Candyland in this version of Earth 2 or Earth 3. And, you know, I think that that's a really big problem. And we're going to be grappling with this for years to come. But it starts with people who are in those positions of authority, people who are media elites or elected officials actually checking their rhetoric. I mean, we saw the ultimate outcome of unchecked rhetoric on January 6th, 2021. That is really where this can go, is you deceive the people for this long and this deeply, and they get angry, and they get potentially violent and militant, not just towards,

you know, buildings and monuments, but towards human beings, towards their neighbors, towards elected officials that we put in office. So this is scary stuff. And, you know, people like that are playing with fire. And I think if Trump is the mayor of Candyland, then Vladimir Putin is basically playing Candyland like The Sims right now. That's what I would say. So you co-founded an organization called Repair, which I guess inherently built into this name various states censoring people who can actually use the term conservative people like Mitt Romney, I wonder, can you really repair this Republican party? Can we or do we need a new party, Miles? Yeah, I mean, look, actually, right now, we were just reassessing our 501c4 status. And I probably should change the name on the forum to, it may be beyond repair, but then we're IMBBR, and that would be another really bad acronym.

But that is the truth. It may be beyond repair at this point. And we've got to take that very seriously. So one of the conversations that I've been having with a lot of conservative thought leaders is where do we go next? In the wake of Trump and Trumpism, how do we get to a post-Trump era and become rational conservatives again, center-right, centrist conservatives, you know, like in the Bush era? And there's not good answers because right now the party is so beholden to the last regime. I call it regime for a reason, because Trump really views himself as an autocrat. He applauds autocrats. He loves autocrats. He wanted to be an autocrat. So it's still beholden to that last regime. And one of two things needs to happen. Either an insurgency within the Republican Party

needs to be created to bring it back to the middle. So think Tea Party light, but less to the right. Or there needs to be a breakaway party that stands for the things that we stand for. I came in as a Republican because I believed in free minds, free markets, free people, some pretty basic things that people in the political middle can agree on. And a lot of blue dog Democrats and others want that to happen. But of course, we've seen the extreme polarization of the parties, we see two tribes to extreme tribes, what we want to do is create a new center of gravity in the middle, a new tribe in the middle. And that maybe can happen in the Republican Party, but maybe not. And if it can't, then it needs to be something else. So I've been working

with other groups to have a conversation about where we go next. I think in the coming weeks, we're going to have some big announcements about what we intend to do with this momentum and the wind that's at our backs to create a new conservative movement. And hopefully, whether we're within the Republican Party or outside of it, we pull them back towards the middle, back towards reality, away from Candyland, and back towards the planet we're all the Republican Party or outside of it, we pull them back towards the middle, back towards reality, away from Candyland and back towards the planet we're all living on. I guess one of the things, though, the two separate tribes, though, is that for anything you want to say about the Democrats, though, we essentially elected a blue dog style kind of centrist person, you know, whereas the Republicans elected the most extreme element

or, you know, or a Russian puppet pretending to be whatever the hell that but, you know, so to some extent, though, your I mean, the views that you espouse seem to be very close to Biden, you know, and and just in terms of even what Biden said, even recently with whatever you want to say about student loans, Biden said, look, I'm okay for forgiving student loans, but I'm not just going to forgive student loans for the sake of it. I'm not trying just to help people who don't need it. So why don't though you just say, you know what, these acronyms are difficult. I can't be FBBR. You know, why don't you just say, you know what? I'm a centrist. I may just be, you know, look in the mirror and go, Miles, I may just be a centrist Democrat. Maybe at the end of the day. Have you ever looked in the mirror?

Maybe I am. Well, look, I mean, the closest I got was I think when I came out and endorsed Joe Biden, I was the highest ranking ex-Trump official to do it at the time. And when I explained the reason why I didn't just come out to oppose Trump, but to endorse Biden, I said that it was because Biden was a man of character and Trump was not. And the most important thing to me in that election was that someone with character be in the Oval Office, because I'd seen the waterfall effect across the country of having a man of such poor character sit behind the Resolute Desk that I didn't care about policy anymore. It just needed to be a good person. I could disagree with

them on everything. But what I'll say is that over time and since then, especially in the first few weeks of the president's term of office, there's been a lot of things on policy that I've been surprised that I align with Joe Biden on. He has governed so far as a moderate centrist Democrat. And I think that's a really good thing. It's a good thing, not just for me selfishly, because I'm a centrist Republican, it's good for the country, because right now, the country can't handle someone veering to one of the polar opposites at the moment. And it's why I think Joe Biden, as you noted, I think it's why he won in the primaries. I think it's why he was elected president, because people are sick and

tired of the extremities of these two parties. That said, you know, for us and our organization, look, we want to be able to attract, you know, Democrats to our cause. And we're very heartened by the fact that Joe Biden has gone out there publicly and said, we need a rational Republican Party. We need a centrist Republican Party, because that's important to governing. I mean, just him saying that was a huge leadership move, especially because Donald Trump wanted nothing more than for the left to veer hard towards socialism. He said that to us once in the Oval Office. In fact, I think I was one of the first people that heard Trump tease his reelection narrative.

We were in there on a totally separate meeting on national security issues. And Trump said, you know, do you want to know my reelection slogan is going to be? And Sarah Sanders kind of said, we shouldn't be talking about this. This is the wrong meeting. You don't talk politics with the Homeland Security and National Security team. But of course, Trump doesn't care. And so he says, it's going to it's it's so great. It's going to be keep America great. How amazing is that? And I remember sitting there thinking like, that doesn't really have a good ring to it. And of course, he had to mostly discard that with coronavirus. But the point being, Trump wanted to. He had a

conversation about how CAG was going to be all about keeping America great while the Dems became evil socialists. He couldn't wait to run against a socialist, in his words, and he wanted to run against Bernie Sanders. So he was disheartened that someone as moderate as Biden got the nomination because their whole plan was to tack hard against, you know, an extreme left wing. So I think we're all lucky that Joe Biden's president and he's governed as a senator. When you would do a meeting like that, though, with with Trump and he would do exactly what you did when you would leave, how far after would you leave? Would you then turn to whoever you were with or would you do this and go like, yeah, what the fuck was that? Like what the hell? Verbatim, verbatim.

And, and I'll tell you how far we'd go. Like the exact amount of steps. It's about seven steps from the couch in the Oval Office to the outer Oval where the president's staff assistants sit. So about seven steps out of the Oval Office, you would say, what the fuck just happened? And in fact, in that little room, you would have conversations with people who would come out of the meeting and say, well, the president just told me to do X, Y, or Z. It might be a crazy thing. Go build a theme park inside the Department of Interior. And you would say, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Listen, don't go do that. OK, we're going to get this back in the box. Just give it a couple of days. Right. And the White House staff or someone else would say, I'll go back to the president. No, we're not going to build a theme park inside the atrium of the Department of Interior, which, you know, goofy example, not totally beyond the realm of things we would be told to do, although usually they would be sicker, more destructive and terrifying. Like, why don't you guys gas, electrify and shoot innocent migrant women and children at the border? OK, that's not going to happen. And so, you know, but the scary thing is you get people who go into a meeting with the

president who haven't been in the meeting with him and they get an order and they leave and they think, if I don't follow an order from the president of the United States, am I violating the law? Is my job at stake? And so you had to have people, you know, that that were really the guardrails to say, you know, look, don't listen to that. We're going to have to go back and revisit that decision. And those conversations would happen seconds after you left the Oval Office. And we're truly chilling. And then, of course, you know, we all know as the guardrails came off, that stopped happening. And the Oval Office became an echo chamber and more and more bad things came out into the world because people were unwilling to say no. Are you familiar with the Adam Kisinger situation where his family sent him a letter basically disowning him? Yeah. I mean, how it's nuts, but how common do you think

that is within your party? And have you had similar situations in your own life? Yeah, no, I mean, unquestionably. You know, first of all, Adam is a fantastic guy. He's a great conservative. Ideologically, he is a conservative, but he's a moderate. He wants to get things done. He wants to work across the aisle and to lower the temperature has caused his own family to disown him. Like let's forget people on social media. Let's forget his colleagues in Washington, DC. Let's forget his constituents for a moment. His blood is saying, get the hell out. And I think they said, you know, you're an offense against God or something like that. Disappointment to God.

Disappointment to God. Mind blowing. Now I don't want to weigh in on Adam's family situation too much. I don't know what the dynamics like and I wish him well. I hope that he's able to, you know, repair those those bonds. But but that's the reality of what dissent looks like in America today. And all of us that came out against Donald Trump are people who worked in, you know, the Bush era and would have expected that criticism of a sitting president would be met with anger and vitriol. But in the sort of high minded political sense or maybe the rough and tumble of politics, but not such that our own family members would disown us or worse, that we would have to fear for and in some cases run for our lives. And I know a lot of the people that spoke out against Trump, I spoke with, was good friends with, were recruited to come out against the president, have been dealt severe blows like this in their lives, losing friends,

family, or having to leave their houses, leave their marriages, quit their jobs, get fired from their jobs. Dissent is punished right now in America. And it's not just the fault of our leaders. They're certainly setting the tone. It comes down to us. I mean, we're the ones who go and decide to attack people, to blast them, to show up at their houses. Now, not that all of any of us would do that, but, you know, that's what we have to be cognizant of. I mean, we're all responsible for the tone. And I think it's really alarming. Look, in my case, I was lucky that we're in a pandemic. I was lucky we're in a pandemic. And, you know, just for this reason, because I've lost a family member to coronavirus and many people have. And so, you know, this has been a horrible experience. But for me, the little tiny silver lining, which I'm always looking for is, you know, there's people who hate me so much in the MAGA circles that if they see me, it's vitriol or physical attacks. So I'm lucky because in a pandemic, I get to wear a baseball hat. I get to wear a mask. And if I had my shades,

you know, I'd have my shades right on. So you wouldn't know me unless you knew that I had this hat from this brewery. So that's been, you know, an unintended benefit, but like, that's how it's gotten. I mean, just the other day I was going down the sidewalk and I was with someone and there was a group coming of MAGA people because that's what happens in D.C. There's still little flash protests and that sort of thing. And I we were had our masks off and we were breathing fresh air. And I thought, yeah, time to put this on and put the shades back on. Would rather just not create a stir. That's not how it should be in our country. Full circle from anonymous to anonymous, but saving the Republican Party. Indeed. Yeah.

I mean, look, my advice to anyone would be if you have anonymity, relish it, cherish it and think really carefully before you decide to get rid of it. Miles Taylor, thank you for joining the Midas Touch podcast. You've been an incredible guest. Come back on whenever you want to. We appreciate your time. Thanks, friends. Godspeed. Welcome back from the Midas Touch podcast. We've gone through what the difference between a dunk and a jam was. We've talked to Miles Taylor. We've discovered that the Green New Deal was to blame for Jordy

messing up his part when he interrupted Brett's flow. Very powerful, the Green New Deal. And I just want to say this about about Miles Taylor, because I thought he was so great on our show. And I think it's important and I know it's hard for some people to want to bring in people who have any association with Republicans, with the Trump administration. But I know it's hard for some people to want to bring in people who have any association with Republicans, with the Trump administration. But I think we need to be clear and I think we need to separate out people who were enablers of the administration and people who were at the right time, at the right opportunity, spoke out and are now doing everything in their power to try to destroy the fascist GOP and bring democracy back to

America. I mean, Miles Taylor was somebody who really did an incredible job and put his name on the line after he came out being anonymous. He endorsed Joe Biden. He's really trying to actually help America at this point. And I think we need to be willing to bring people in. And I know there are trust issues with anyone associated with it. But please, I hope you consider listening to people like Miles with an open mind. And I'm not saying like, you know, we're not going to have like Kellyanne on the show and we're not going to respect people like that. But people like Miles are like really good, well-intentioned people who have been spent their whole lives as Republican and kind of got roped into this

Trump. Hey, Brett, Brett, we get it. OK, well, you love Miles Taylor. I think it's I think it's I think it's a good point. And it's why we have the guests that we do on. It's something we get a lot from a lot of these guests. And I just want to explain, you know, why I think it's important to highlight these voices and why I think it's important for where our country is right now. So what are you miles doing later? Let's talk about Biden's town. Now, one of the things, though, too, is Brett has editing power over these podcasts. And so and so the more I

speak about Brett's editing power here and talk about the moments, the less likely it is to be edited out. So I think that Jordy's joke needs to be included in the final podcast. But we will see Brett's integrity. Let's go talk about Biden's town hall. Brett, did you watch it? Jordy, did you watch it? I did watch it. I thought it was great.

It was it was delightfully boring. It was like just watching a normal human being speak and empathize. And I actually appreciated even the little things like around Joe's answers where he would be like, and I'm sorry to go on about this. I'm sorry to belabor the point. I hope I'm not bothering you. He's very self-aware and he doesn't want to impose on other people. And I thought that was cool coming from a guy who was all me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And look, he came with facts. He came with data. He explained things that were sometimes difficult to explain. I mean, remember, Trump basically acted like everyone was going to be vaccinated like basically, you know,

before the election. Right. And that the vaccine would be ready and mass distributed. And those false expectations were so damaging to the psyche and to people's health. I mean, actually to people's health. And so to hear, for example, when Biden talked about vaccinations and said that they would be ready by the end of July, we'll have more than 600 million doses available, which will be enough to vaccinate every American. I'm sure we would all like to hear it sooner. I mean, as Dr. Fauci said, we'll be open season with vaccines around April. But to be clear, you get your first shot, you have to wait for your second shot. That doesn't mean that everybody on April 1 is going to get to go

in. And so I think it was helpful that Biden explained that. And then there was this one moment in particular where Biden was speaking to a mother who had a 19-year-old son who was at risk. And I just thought it was a very kind of honest and compelling exchange, something that we never saw in the Trump administration, if you want to play that clip. Our 19-year-old son was diagnosed with pediatric COPD at the age of 14. We're told he has the lungs of a 60-year-old. He does all he can to protect himself. Last month, he even removed himself from the campus of UW-Madison as he feels it's safer and he has less exposure here at home.

We've tried all we can to get him a vaccine. I hear of others who are less vulnerable getting it based on far less. Do you have a plan to vaccinate those who are most vulnerable sooner to give them a priority? Well, the answer is yes, there are. But here's how it works. The states make the decisions on who is in what order. I can make recommendations. And for federal programs, I can do that as president of the United States. But I can't tell the state you must move such and such a group of people up. But here's what I'd like to do. If you're willing, I'll stay around after this is over. And maybe we can talk a few minutes and see if I can get you some help.

And that's where Joe Biden excels. And I think that's a big reason why he was elected. I mean, Joe is the empathizer in chief. He knows how to level with people and he knows how to speak to people who are in pain because Joe Biden understands pain. He's lived the life of pain. And so I thought that moment, I mean, I'm getting the chills even, you know, after just watching that. Yeah. I mean, look'm getting the chills even, you know, after just watching that. Yeah. I mean, look, it's exactly the man we elected. It's exactly the person we knew was going to be him in that role. Exactly, Jordy. And I'm having a rough day. I'm on this diet. I'm on this diet. I'm on day four. I'm lightheaded. I had a cheat day already four days in. I'm not doing great. See, so let's be clear about why Jordy is suddenly on this diet. Because somebody pitched a Midas Touch Brothers calendar that isn't happening.

But Jordy thinks it's happening. So he decided to. So I decided to go on a diet because when push comes to shove the mightest mighty get their way and they want a calendar give them a calendar all right yeah give them a calendar but jordy is struggling to speak on on this episode jordy please look good after this please like eat a sandwich like get a burger like please feed yourself drink some water i just want you to be okay man all right All right. Let me give people some information, Jordi, because in addition to looking at you on Twitter, they like to get some info as well. So going back also to the covid relief plan, Biden spoke about the one point nine trillion dollar plan. Biden explained there was an

overwhelming consensus among economists from all political backgrounds that a large relief plan is the right way to go. As Biden said, now is the time to go big. And he also said that economists estimate that if the plan passes, the U.S. will create seven million jobs this year. Biden spoke also about reopening schools within the first 100 days of his administration. I think that it is somewhat of a controversial position with the reopening of schools. But I think Biden is recognizing the reality that you do have to open up the economy, but with the appropriate care and tax. Similar position on the minimum wage. Biden is recognizing that raising the minimum wage to $15 is necessary, but also recognizing the concern of small business

owners that doing it immediately, especially during a pandemic, could actually harm their businesses. And as Biden said, and as economists have said repeatedly, doing this as a phased in process is the right way to go that would have no negative effect and would bring people up to a living wage. And I want to reiterate that word, living wage. It is important that we support people who are alive, their right to live. It shouldn't be a debate whether people should earn a living wage. Human beings deserve to live and to be paid a wage to live. Agreed. And so the minimum wage right now they're trying to pass within this bill. And it I want to say is if you're in either one of those states, I am asking you, we are asking you, call your senators and tell them how important it is for them to include the $15 minimum wage in this bill, because this will literally, like Ben said,

save lives. And let's be clear about this. $15 minimum wage, 40 hours a week, full-time job over the course of a year is only like $30,000. Right now, the minimum wage pays people around $15,000. That's a poverty level wage that nobody can live on no matter where you are in this country. So please do what you can and let your senators know how important this is, because this will save lives. It will change lives. And we got to get through. Before we go, I want to tell you some news that you should be focused on both the good and the bad.

The good, the perseverance rover landed on Mars today. We are the United States of America, despite Trump wanting us to feel like we were losers, despite Trump setting the expectations of what Americans can accomplish so low, there's nothing that the ingenuity of America can't accomplish when black churches do souls to the polls. This is a bill that will likely be deemed unconstitutional. Its sole purpose is to discriminate against black and brown voters in Georgia. A similar bill was introduced in North Carolina, which was struck down by the Fourth Circuit, which said this is the closest you can come to a smoking gun of a discriminatory intent around election laws. Republicans, if you want to try to win elections, try to have policies that help people.

Stop trying to suppress the vote. Stop running off to Cancun when your state is drowning. Help people and maybe people will actually vote for you. Brett, Brett, Brett, stop giving them the secrets. Yeah, yeah. Help helping people is the way to do it. It's just so maddening. And I know I shouldn't be like constantly frustrated by it and like surprised. I'm not surprised by it, but just every day, the disinformation, it's exhausting. It wears you down. But at the end of the day, that's kind of the point, right? They want to

wear you down. And as Watcher of Handmaid's Tale, I don't know if you know the phrase, something like don't let the bastards wear you down. You can't let them wear you down. You got to keep on fighting. And we are committed to keep on fighting. And we hope you are as well. Keep on fighting more of the bad. U.S. Capitol Police are investigating two GOP lawmakers.

Rep Fulcher is one of them for assaulting a female black police officer who the representative pushed her when she requested to do a basic search of him entering the Capitol building. And Representative Andy Harris, who tried to bring a gun past the medical metal detectors of the Capitol building. Again, the Republicans are just dying to bring guns into the Capitol building after the insurrection. Speaking of guns, I'm not sure if you saw this, Brett and Jordy, but Lauren Bobbert posted a photo that Room Raider said was a zero of 10 because she displayed military style assault weapons that appeared to be loaded. It got a zero of 10 by Rumerator for having unsafe gun storage. One commenter replied that if this was for storage, why aren't they loaded?

She then actually showed that there were magazines in them. So Lauren Bobbert apparently is keeping multiple fully loaded, unsecured military grade weapons in her home, which if you are a gun rights person, that's just fucking stupid to have. One of the key issues here are that people who truly care about guns and who have weapons, they're OK with common sense regulations because they're using the weapons appropriately. They're not displaying loaded military grade weapons in their fucking living room. It's absurd. But let's close with the good. The good is the Equality Act, an anti-discrimination protection act being moved through Congress by the Democrats to protect the LGBTQ community. Nancy Pelosi said the Equality Act has bipartisan support. Of course,

we know, unfortunately, during the Trump administration, how LGBTQ rights were significantly curtailed in many ways. So I'm excited that this legislation is passing. And the best news of all, I'm saving it for last the best for last which is midas touch podcast we'll be back next week we're on all platforms where podcasts are available tuesday mornings and friday mornings check us out give us a five star review it helps our ratings and we've consistently been one of the top podcasts in North America. Thank you. Thank you for that. This has been another episode of the Midas Touch podcast with Ben, Brett, and Jordy dunking in your living room or wherever you're listening to us.

Shout out to the Midas Mighty.