The MeidasTouch Podcast - Governor Hochul and Neal Katyal React to Threats to Democracy

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

A NY Judge holds Donald Trump in civil contempt arising out of Attorney General Letitia James’s investigation, fining the twice-impeached, disgraced ex-president $10,000 per day. The cowardice of the GOP is on full display between Marjorie Taylor Greene’s selective amnesia on the stand and Kevin McCarthy’s denial of his own words caught on tape. CNN obtains more than 2,000 text messages from Trump’s inner circle following his election loss and through the insurrection. French President Emmanuel Macron defeats far right nationalist Marine Le Pen. Today’s episode features two incredible guests: New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Former Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal. As always, thank you for listening and be sure to rate, review, subscribe and share this show with a friend! DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Upstart: https://upstart.com/meidas Titan: https://titan.com/meidas Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, 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. a day. I can't recall. I can't recall. I can't recall. The cowardice of the GOP is on full display at the Marjorie Taylor Greene insurrection hearings. And Kevin McCarthy, I can't recall. I can't recall. Wait a minute. What did I say? What did I say? Kevin McCarthy, you are caught on tape saying that Donald Trump should resign. CNN has obtained more than 2,000 text messages from Trump's inner circle following his election loss and leading to the insurrection. And French President Emmanuel Macron defeats Marine Le Pen in a big win for democracy.

This is the Midas Touch podcast. And did I message, did I mention that we have Governor Kathy Hochul on the podcast? Oh, wait. Did I also mention that we have Neil Katayal on the podcast? Holy crap. The greatest podcast in the history of humankind. The Midas Touch podcast is here. Let's go, folks.

I'm excited. I'm excited. We got a great episode coming up. And our first governor ever on the Midas Touch podcast. That's pretty big yet, you guys. A governor of the state, our hometown state. Hometown. Home team. We got a lot of stuff to talk about, Ben. Let's get right into it. How about that? Let's get right into it. And let's first talk about these Kevin McCarthy audio tapes. So

Kevin McCarthy said that, wait a minute, I never told Donald Trump that he should resign. Donald Trump never told me that he was accountable for January 6th. That didn't happen. Brett, then what happened? The tapes were released. The tapes were dropped. And it's Kevin McCarthy saying those exact things. It's a tape of him. It's a conference call audio with Republican leadership. And you have Liz Cheney talking about the 25th Amendment that they previously had discussed

invoking the 25th Amendment. The amendment that says that a president is mentally incapacitated, needs to be removed under the United States Constitution. And then the conversation moves into Kevin McCarthy saying, I'm going to tell Donald Trump he needs to resign. Brett, play the tape. Liz, you on the phone? Yeah, I'm here. Thanks, Kevin.

I guess there's a question. When we were talking about the 25th Amendment resolution, and you asked what happens if it gets there after he's gone, is there any chance, are you hearing, that he might resign? Is there any reason to think that might happen? So that is what Kevin McCarthy actually said. Those were his words. And Kevin McCarthy then has the audacity afterwards when he's asked about the tape to deny that he said the same things that were actually on the tape that he previously denied. But even when confronted with it on tape, he goes, I never said that. Play that tape. Well, the one thing I see from the book, I mean, it was told that I was asking the president to resign. That never took place nor did it happen. Was that your belief at that time during that phone call that the president should resign? I've never asked the president to resign and no, I didn't. Did you ever think about it, that he should?

No, I've never asked the president to resign. I never thought he should resign. Brett, your reaction? My reaction, pure cowardice. You know what? I think that might be the theme of this episode of the Midas Touch podcast, GOP cowardice. Because time and time again, these people are caught on tape. And what do they do when they're caught on tape? First, before they know they're caught on tape, they go out and they go, fake news, fake news, liberal agenda, not real.

Then the tape comes out and they go, I didn't say that. Meanwhile, we just played those two clips back to back. You all heard what he had to say. And now what we're going to see is some GOP infighting, which is something that I love and something that I'm always here to, you know, let's exacerbate the GOP infighting. Let's always poke holes at that. And you know what? I'm going to say something that's going to make me feel dirty. It doesn't have to feel really, really dirty.

You're going to have to shower after? I might have to shower after this. I agree with Matt Gaetz here. Sorry, you're definitely going to have to shower. Matt Gaetz made a comment firing back at Kevin McCarthy, mockingly saying, I never said it to his face. I only said it behind his back. Hashtag leadership. And Gaetz here is exactly right. McCarthy here is a complete coward acting like he wasn't actually trying to get Trump out of office at the time before at like Gaddafi's kingdom than in the United States of America with him kissing the ring. And then all of a sudden after that, McCarthy's public point of view changed. Now that's where we're at. And I got to say, McCarthy is one of the biggest cowards in the GOP.

And the only thing I could hope for here is that people see through his cowardice and that he never becomes Speaker of the House in the United States. And it's not limited, though, to McCarthy. It's really everyone in the GOP. And let me put some perfume on your stink bomb and rehabilitate you, Brett Micellus, because you applauding Matt Gaetz has created lots of haters in the live chat. And let me tell you, though, why Matt Gaetz has created lots of haters in the live chat. And let me tell you, though, why Matt Gaetz should not be applauded. One, he should never be applauded for anything. So Matt Gaetz is like one of the worst human beings.

He's a liar. Let's be clear. I'm not applauding him as a person. Just that specific statement that McCarthy is a coward. I agree with McCarthy. OK, but he makes that statement, Brett. At the same time, he's sitting at Marjorie Taylor Greene insurrection hearings, which is the administrative law hearing in Georgia.

And let me say the biggest takeaway for me, again, with the Marjorie Taylor Greene hearing, I have lots of takeaways, but the biggest one, again, is a coward. He or she has the opportunity. She's sitting there under oath to say how she feels. She wants to play the role of tough person and say that, I believe that this occurred, and I believe that this, all conspiracy theories underneath this, and I believe Nancy Pelosi this, I believe that. But when sworn to take an oath and sitting there, does she lean in and embrace the statements that she actually made? Absolutely not. What does she say? I don't recall. I don't recall. I don't recall. I don't know. I do not recall that. No, I don't recall. I don't remember. I don't think so. I don't recall the exact days. I don't think so. I don't recall that

at all. I don't know. I don't recall. That was the video, but I don't recall. And that's the thing, by the way, her saying that her testimony, probably, you know, it's, it's directed and it's intentional. She's doing that so that there's not enough evidence to remove her from her position. But if you have conviction, if you believe in these things, if you say these things, then embrace them. I mean, they're horrible things to embrace, but to me, it is that chicken cowardness of the GOP that is equally as pathetic as their overriding ideology. They truly don't believe in anything other than to kind of have this hate. Then when confronted with it, they don't even embrace it. That's what I took away from the Marjorie Taylor Greene hearing. Yeah, it's it's they want power at all costs. That's it. Full stop. End of story. You know, no matter what happens with the Marjorie Taylor Greene hearing, and I don't I honestly don't expect her to be knocked from the ballot. I really don't think there's any shot of that.

But I think the fact that we got her to testify under oath, I think that's a huge win just in and of itself. And for people to watch her there, watch her squirm and any way that you're getting the truth out there, I think is important. I thought those hearings were actually important just for that reason. Even if nothing else happens beyond there, those were important hearings. Because the headline, Jordi, and I want to throw this to you, Jordi. I want you to react to this. The headline is, I don't recall. I don't recall.

I don't recall. That is a, you know, wow, that's a frustrating thing. That is who Marjorie Taylor Greene is. She's a fake. She's a fraud. She's a phony who can't recall basic facts. This is the GOP platform in 2022. They don't debate, they don't recall, and they don't lead. That's the GOP folks. And then we get, Jordy, the document dump from CNN of all of these text messages that came out about January 6th, and they reflect and show the same thing. What it shows is the Republicans text messaging Mark Meadows to try to blame the insurrection on Antifa. And that begins in these text messages with Jason Miller sending text messages to Mark

Meadows. By the way, we know that Jason Miller is the one who's writing all of Donald Trump's text messages at this point, because the way he wrote it looks just like writing tweets. But we see these Jason Miller text messages to Mark Meadows saying basically blame it on Antifa, blame it on, you know, the Democrats. He said, blame it on the lefties in these text messages. And that becomes the narrative that all these other Republicans are saying, blame it on Democrats for the insurrection. That goes back to this theme that we had been talking about on the podcast, the theme of Kevin McCarthy being a liar, the theme of Marjorie Taylor Greene being a liar and being a coward. And here too, you provoked this insurrection, Donald Trump. You provoke this. These are your people. These are

your fans. These are the people who are part of your cult. And your first instinct is to basically say that those people are Antifa, that those people are Democrats. That's who they are. And Ben, all the GOP lawmakers knew that this was Donald Trump's fault. If you look at these texts, there's obviously over 2000 of them. We've not had a chance to peruse every single one of them. But here are some of the headlines. Marjorie Taylor Greene on January 6th telling Mark Meadows, Mark, I was just told there was an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol. Please tell the president to calm people. This isn't the way to solve anything. Her initial feeling there of panic and fear, which is soon overrided by her

conspiracy theories and lunacy. Once she tries to figure out how do we work this in our favor next day, she says yesterday was a terrible day. We saw this text, by the way, released back in December in the January 6th committee. We're finally finding out that this was from Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yesterday was a terrible day. We tried everything we could in our objection to the six states. I am sorry that nothing worked. I don't think that President Trump caused the attack on the Capitol. It's not his fault.

Absolutely no excuse. And I fully denounce it. But after shutdowns all year and a stolen election, people are saying they have no other choice. By January 17th, Marjorie Taylor Greene was suggesting that the President Trump at the time called for martial law, saying it's the only way to stop President Biden from taking power. They immediately pivoted to let's blame this on Antifa. Let's blame this on Democrats. Let's institute martial law to try to overturn the results of a free and fair election.

And you had people everywhere in Trump world panicking. Don Jr. saying this. This is misspelled in the text, so I don't even know exactly what you're saying. This is this is one you go to the mattress on. They will try to fuck his entire legacy on this if it gets worse. Reince Priebus, tell them to go home. Mick Mulvaney, Mark, this needs to stop now. Can I do anything to help? Everybody here knew who was the cause of it. They knew that it was Donald Trump. And instead of doing the right thing and calling him out, they all decided to back him anyway. Let's bring in Governor Kathy Hochul, New York governor, please. I want to ask New York Governor Kathy Hochul also about what is going on in the New York Manhattan DA investigation into Donald

Trump. We're hearing a bunch of different things. I want her perspective. I want the governor's perspective on it and have a lot to discuss with the governor. And we have a lot of other news to discuss on the back end of that interview as well. Before bringing in Governor Hochul, though, I want to talk about one of our partners. It's Upstart. Everybody, you got to use Upstart. Saying goodbye to high interest credit card debt is one of the first steps toward financial independence. But the interest month after month can feel like you're in a never ending hamster wheel. That's where Upstart comes in. Upstart powered personal loans can help you pay down high interest debt all online with simple and easy to understand payment terms. Upstart has helped over 1.8 million customers on their path to financial freedom. Whether it's paying off

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So let's focus on it. I mean, three more. If I were to lose an election by three votes, I'm blaming the three of you, OK, you got to come back. You got to get the surrogates to vote for me. So great to be on the show. Thanks. Yep. You're speaking to three New Yorkers born and raised in Long Island, New York. I mean, we're still New York Jets fans, New York Met fans, although we'll root for all New York teams. And we go back, we still root for the sports team. That's how you know our roots are still truly in New York. That's all we need to do as a test. That's your true blood in New Yorkers through and through then. So I want to talk about even just last week, you know, 420, you really leaned into the cannabis initiatives in New York and really promoting it as good for

business, good for New York farmers. Why'd you lean into it the way you did? And why do you think that is really important for New York? New York is doing it very differently, first of all, and I'm excited about this. Our legislature had passed a cannabis control board that set up the regulatory framework last year and nothing was happening it was sort of just sitting there in limbo so i became governor at the end of august one of the very first things i did was said what's going on with our cannabis plan i mean the farmers aren't growing anything or we don't have our distribution network set up we don't have the retail set up so we jump started it i put everybody in place we got the the team moving ahead. So within a very short time, in fact, I'm announcing the 52 farms that have been selected.

So they're excited about the opportunity to grow. I'm from upstate New York and a lot of New York. Everybody thinks it's New York City and Long Island, but there's a little bit more of a land mass up there that has what we call upstate. And that's where a lot of farms are. And so this is good for that. But also this gives us a once in a lifetime opportunity to correct the historic wrongs of the past, the mass incarceration of truly young black and brown males for decades. You know, we are actually giving cannabis licenses to people who've had an encounter with law enforcement because of cannabis, whether they're someone who's a family member, had been arrested, they themselves. And those are the ones who were given the first 100 licenses too. So, and also a lot of the proceeds from our plan, we're going to raise a lot of money for this through our taxes, but a lot of it's being reinvested in those very communities.

So we're using this as a focus on social outcomes, as well as the opportunity to help our farmers, help small businesses and bring a lot more revenue for New York. So we're doing it in a way no other state has really done successfully. So we're excited about it. You know, and in terms of also small businesses, you know, and big businesses, one of the things I've noticed, too, is is this real balance, though, and done really well that, you know, New York is union proud, is union strong. And you see in other states that are run by radical right extremist governors who want to destroy unions and thinks that that's good for business, but kind of actually quite the opposite. I think New York is a great model that a good, strong workforce that has careers, not gigs, true careers that are well-paid and respected,

is actually good and welcoming for business. So can you speak to that model of balancing a very pro-union stance, but also making New York a very welcoming place for all businesses? That's exactly what I spoke about in my first State of the State address, just given it's beginning of January. I said I want to continue to be the most pro-union state and even more so, but also pro-business. And they're not at odds with each other. They need each other. And I'm proud that we have more union households in this state than any other place in the nation.

That is my story. My family started as poor Irish immigrants in search of a job. And my parents, grandparents started, my dad worked at the steel plant with his grandfather or with his father. It's generational. They all had that union card, steel workers. And that's why I had steel run into my veins and why I'm so tough. I came from that part of our state where steel manufacturing was everything. Everybody in my family was either a union member. We had plumbers, we had carpenters, we had longshoremen. So I saw personally how having a union card

can lift people out of their circumstances. My parents once lived in a trailer park, get a degree, get that union job and everything changes. So I want to keep leaning into that. A lot of people think that the union movement is dead. Oh, it is very much alive and well here in New York. And even with the cannabis industry, we're making sure that it's members of the retail unions that are the ones who have the opportunity to sell this. So it's the farms, it's the businesses you select, it's who's putting up the buildings.

And we are leaning really hard into using our state dollars to support union jobs and even in the green energy environment oh my gosh this is all going to be union work 10 000 union jobs with offshore wind and all our other initiatives also offshore long island where you all come from but you won't see it because it's 30 miles offshore we want to make sure it's not everybody said i don't want to see it i just want to know it's working so we're going to be the offshore wind capital. We are the offshore wind capital with union labor. So any business that doesn't think there's an opportunity with union workers, they're wrong. These are the most highly trained individuals.

They all have to go through apprenticeship training. And they're hardworking. And they're the ones who are getting the job done here in New York. So despite what happens in other anti-union states with different leadership, I'm showing how you can lead and be pro-business with a union workforce. It's working successfully. And I think what we see in those other states, which are anti-union but purport to be pro-business, is quite the opposite. Really, in these states run by radical right extremist governors, Florida, Texas, What we see, though, is a very,

they claim to be pro-business, but the policies, frankly, look a lot like what we saw with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and other kind of dictatorial states where now, if you don't agree with the governor's ability or the governor's desire to discriminate against minorities, that the governors in these states will retaliate against the businesses, will try to use the government to attack private industry and pick winners and losers of who wins in the state. So when you see that model, though, as a governor, you see what's going on in Florida, you see what's going on in Texas, you see what's going on in other states.

What goes through your mind? Like, you think these people are out of their mind over there? Well, I do. I also know that New York has been nation-leading, and what we do here is show success. We show how it works and that the business community can thrive here with union labor being at the forefront of it. I mean, I'm in Manhattan. I'm looking at all these spectacular, huge new buildings, the whole

west side of New York. You wouldn't recognize it. Overall training yards. It's now beautiful. I was at an old terminal that now is going to have thousands of Google jobs. I mean, Google is going to have 12000 jobs in New York City. And every building here is being built with union workers. And so so we can we can get it done and let us show the rest of the nation that you don't have to be anti-labor, anti-worker. I was just literally last night out on Long Island to support the Long Island Labor Federation annual dinner. And there's about 700,000 people in the room. They are fired up. They know that they're having more jobs than they've ever seen in their lifetime because

of us leaning into the new industries of the future that are going to be built with labor workers. And so it all works together. We're showing how it's done. And people want businesses that have a social conscience. They want to be in a place like New York. They know that this is part of our DNA, that we try to elevate individuals, particularly individuals who've been historically discriminated against in workplaces.

You know, I talk to our union leaders all the time. I said, I want to see more representation of women in these training programs. I want to see, you know, young black and brown men and women as well getting the training that's going to lift them out of their circumstances, whatever zip code they're born into. They can have these good paying jobs in the future. So we're leading by example. We always are. I just finished an environmental event at the top of the Empire State Building with former President Bill Clinton and Mayor Adams to talk about how our buildings in the city of New York are going to be all green buildings. We're literally going to make sure that they have a major reduction in carbon emissions.

The largest polluters and largest climate polluters are buildings. And we have a lot of old iconic buildings that we're now converting into energy efficient buildings. And it's a huge project. And a lot of it's union labor. So we're just showing how you do it. That's this lead. And, you know, you try to tune out what's happening in other states. And, you know, if you're sorry for their residents, tell them that there's plenty of room for them here if they want to relocate. I say that to women all over the country. You know, your reproductive rights are under assault. Come on to New York. You know,

we'll take care of you. We've got plenty of space. So, Governor, I actually realized that me and you have something in common. It's that the two of us both went to Syracuse University. Now, full disclosure, I was there for a year. I transferred out, but I loved it there. I absolutely did. But I was reading about your time at Syracuse, and I read that you were politically minded back then, and you actually led a boycott of the student bookstore over high prices at the time. And today, like all Americans, New Yorkers are dealing with the burden of high prices, global inflation, high gas prices. So I was just wondering, what are you doing as governor right now to ease that burden on New Yorkers? Great question. And people are feeling under siege. Even when some incomes are finally going up, we increased our minimum wage.

We gave a pay increase to health care workers and home health care aides. And all these people have been under siege because of the pandemic. I literally was in Syracuse yesterday at the campus and reflecting on my years of not doing a lot of study, but spending. I had to take a lot of incompletes because I was always out there protesting something, you know, apartheid. Our university divested its holdings from South Africa. I was out there. I finally did graduate. That was because of you that the university divested their holdings in apartheid South

Africa, right? They did. I was the student representative to the trustees and we shamed them with editorial support from our newspaper and protest. And it was a time when a lot of companies realized or students realized that their universities were inadvertently supporting apartheid in South Africa by investing their holdings and companies doing business there. So we started this, you know, started elsewhere, but we joined in this national effort and we got all the universities and eventually businesses started using the clout

they had to force the regime change. And that's what happened when I was a young activist. But high prices, I had a boycott against ExxonMobil when I was a local town board member when the prices were too high. So I believe in the power of the people harnessing that, speaking with your boycotts and your purchasing power. But right now, with respect to gas prices, we just first state in the nation to do from January, I'm sorry, do from June 1st all the way through the end of the year,

we suspended our sales tax on gasoline just to give people not just short-term relief but long-term. I saw that the governor of Florida was going to make a big press conference about getting rid of the sales tax on gas. Only do it for the month of October. Okay, that's visionary. It's great for October. Go to Florida in October. So we're doing it through the entire summer season, which is the more expensive time.

So we're working on that. We also just finished our $220 billion budget, my very first budget. It is transformative. $25 billion for affordable housing, which anybody coming from Long Island knows is a real issue, certainly in the city it is, as well as $10 billion for healthcare and a lot of other areas. But we also, in that same budget, were able to have a property tax rebate to tune up $2 billion, a little more money back in people's

pockets, about $1,300 if you live on Long Island. And also we expedited a middle class tax cut. So those are a couple of areas in addition to putting a substantial amount of money behind small businesses that are still really still coming through the pandemic. We're not fully back to where other communities are because we were hit so hard here in New York State, New York City. And, you know, half of Midtown is still empty. A lot of people have not come back to their jobs. And that's having a real hard hit on our small businesses, the restaurants, even Broadway's coming back. But it's been a long, long journey. So we have a lot to do to deal with still the people dealing with the effects of COVID, the loss of jobs, supporting their ability to pay their behind rent.

We have a lot of money toward that to help people and also those who are behind on their utility payments. So a lot of our focus has been to help people in this time of stress. Just let them know that we deliver in New York government. Democrats, this is how we're hardwired to operate. We take care of people in their times of need and then the rest will work out later. But right now there's a lot of stress in our communities. Yeah, I still remember vividly at the beginning of the pandemic, especially in New York City with all my friends living there, just the silence in the streets, other than for the sound of ambulance sirens for the most part. And a lot of my friends actually

left New York City at the time and went back home to live with their parents because things were just so scary and so dangerous. But thanks to the initiatives that New York took at the time, New York is experiencing a bit of a revival right now. New York is starting to feel like New York again. But how are you dealing with the COVID mitigation efforts now, given that many people have COVID fatigue? We saw the mask rules for planes just struck down by a judge, but there are still people, especially the immunocompromised, that need to be protected. And I feel like right now they are feeling a bit like collateral damage. How do you balance both allowing New Yorkers to not feel overburdened by mandates, yet making sure that we're taking care of the most vulnerable among us? That's what we have to focus on. This is not about

ourselves. It's about taking care of other people. You do not know on a subway train, if you're next to someone who's just coming back from a chemo treatment or they're going to go back home to a house where a parent is elderly and is very ill and they're going to be exposed to them. So this has always been about New Yorkers looking out for each other, which is what we should be hardwired to do. And even with respect to the recent court decision striking down the CDC's mask requirements on public transportation, we kept it going here in the state of New York because we're starting to see a spike in cases. Not as scary as it was a few months ago. We had a dramatic spike upward just in January after the holidays. And it took a few months to come down. We actually plateaued nicely a couple of months ago, about a month ago. All of a sudden, the numbers are heading up again, and a lot of people,

including our mayor, just had COVID, and we aren't having people in the hospitals as much as they were, but it's still five or six days to your life. You are flat on your back, really sick, and people might have long-haul COVID. They don't know if this is going to affect them in the long term, so we are keeping the masks on. The federal government is appealing the decision. I don't know if they'll be successful, but what I kept in place, a lot of states didn't do this, was a New York State Department of Health mandate that we still have masks required in public transit, subways, buses, any planes land, you walk through our airports, you're still going to be wearing a mask. I can't make you wear it on the plane that way to originate somewhere else. But when you land and you come through the subway stations, you're going to be still wearing a mask. And I

think that's just a smart way. It's temporary. People in New York City, even on a sunny day, when they're not even around people, people are wearing masks and they just feel safer right now because this really was the epicenter. As you mentioned, everybody still has, you know, feeling the emotional effects of what it was like when the streets, the sounds of silence that were so deafening only appears by the sounds of people being transported to hospitals. It was a frightening time and people don't want to go back to that. And I'm going to make sure that as governor, I protect the health of the people, but also the health of the economy. We don't have to shut everything down again because we have vaccines and we have boosters and we have home test kits. So we're in a whole different place. But something as simple as keeping a mask on when you're on a

crowded subway, I don't think that's such a sacrifice people and New Yorkers will keep doing it for a little bit longer. And beyond the issue of COVID, it's a frightening time for a lot of people out there. We're seeing these draconian, oppressive laws be passed throughout the country. You mentioned reproductive rights earlier, so I want to make sure we speak about that. You recently called Ron DeSantis cruel and despicable for signing into law a 15-week abortion ban. What is your message to him and other governors like him around the country who are signing these laws? And what are you doing as New York governor right now to protect the right to choose? What I say to the other governors, knock it off, leave women alone.

I mean, these rights have been enshrined based on case law since the early 70s, Roe v. Wade. You know, people have long expected that this is a right that they'd have and they cherish. It's a right that's fundamentally deeply personal to women to not have male governors or Supreme Court justices telling them what to do with their bodies. And we have to start fighting back. And we have been fighting back. I can't tell you, you know, I was lieutenant governor for seven years. And before that, I was elected to Congress in the most conservative district in the state

of New York. Again, this is not New York City. It's way upstate, very conservative. And I got elected there because I said I'd fight for health care. I'd fight for the Affordable Care Act. I lost that seat because I supported just something as simple as having employers required to cover contraception as part of their health care. Contraception. And that became a lightning rod issue in a conservative area. i lost that seat by one and a half percent so these

have been battles that i've been fighting my whole life i was first told when i ran for local office long time ago the young mom with a couple little kids that if i didn't take the right to life political party line i would never win in my hometown. Well, I didn't take it and I won. So this is part of who I am. And I feel as governor, I have to send the message out across the country that we will be a safe haven, a refuge for women who are saying, I don't want to live in a state that is going to destroy my rights that I've cherished all my life. And we have to stop it. So we'll show what we do in New York. We have a lot of protections for women. We're going to safeguard them, but also let the rest of the country know that come to New York and we'll take care of you.

Governor, I know you have a hard out, but before I turn things over to Jordi, I want to ask you a question to which our listeners are very interested in getting an answer. New York is obviously the center of multiple investigations into former President Trump. And our listeners have been very upset by what appears to be a mishandling of the criminal case by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Some legal experts like Lawrence Tribe have suggested that you have the authority under Article 63, Section 2, to reassign the Trump criminal investigation

to another prosecutor, like Attorney General Letitia James. First, do you have that authority? Second, what are your thoughts on the handling of the case and what could be done about it? I don't think it's over yet. I want it to run its course because I do want to see prosecutions. I believe they're justified. We've all witnessed to what happened on January 6th, as well as other crimes that were committed. And he is culpable. And New York State has to be the state that stands up to him. So I'm monitoring the situation. I'm

seeing whether or not there's other opportunities within the D's. My understanding is that they're taking another look at it based on evidence they have. And so I'll let that play out a little bit longer and then reserve my options. Governor, I know you have to go. Thank you so much for your time. But before we let you go, selfishly, I need to ask you about our roots, our Long Island roots. Now, we get so caught up in the intrigue of politics, the work itself is often overlooked. You just pledged $157 million in funding to fix potholes on local roads on Long Island. Can you tell us more about this initiative? Oh, yeah.

I have traveled 370,000 miles on roads across the state of New York as lieutenant governor. I traveled every corner, spent hundreds and hundreds of visits on Long Island. I've had a personal encounter with every pothole on Long Island. They're outrageous. And I did a press conference two days ago in Long Island. I think I was there yesterday, and I'll be there again tomorrow. So I spent a lot of time on Long Island. But we actually put a billion dollars.

I call it my billion dollars. Instead of potholes, have not holes. So we're going to take up. I'm going to go. I'm going out to my show. I will destroy all these bottles because it's a quality of life issue. You know, life's hard enough. High tech.

Come on, give me a break. And then as I was talking to one assembly member from the legislature, I was on the phone. I said, where are you? She says, I'm in a Firestone station. I just had to spend six hundred dollars to fix my car after hitting a pothole. I said, we're going to your district. We're going to start fixing the potholes. So it's also just taking care of basic needs and quality of life issues and letting people know that their government's taking care of things that should have been happening throughout.

I'm making those investments. I thank God we had Joe Biden and Senator Chuck Schumer as the majority leader and a Democratic House all coming together to send money for infrastructure. So let's not forget to praise the money where it came from. I served in Congress under Republicans. No money was coming to New York. So it's a new era for us. We finally have the resources to fix Long Island. When you come back and you need to move back. That's my other pitch again. Come on back. This is the greatest comeback in the history of our country. It's going on right here,

right now in New York. So, and we will someday be pothole free. That'll get me in trouble, but I'll say it anyhow. Well, Governor, you could change a lot of things. I don't fully know

how you'll be able to change the weather. When you could fix that, you've got me back there. If you could change that situation, you got me back in New York. You got to learn how to ski. It's all about adapting. I've got some broken ribs to prove that skiing is a lot of fun here in New York State. I love it.

I won't tell you this, but literally two days ago, we had 12 inches of snow and upside. I said, I will not tell you that. You can fact check that and see if I'm telling the truth on that one. It actually happened. Governor Kathy Hochul, thank you so much for joining us. Great talking to you guys. Take care. We appreciate you. Have a great day. Thank you. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Great interview with Governor Kathy Hochul. I want to make this point about Governor Kathy Hochul as well, which I think is very, very, very important. I think Governor Kathy Hochul is one of the, if not the best governor in the United States. And there has been some criticism of Governor Hochul, like I saw over, you know, helping to bring in the stadium

for the Buffalo Bills. Like I saw that criticism. We shouldn't ignore it. We should address it. But here's my view. When you hear Kathy Hochul's interview, you have to realize, too, that a governor has a portfolio where there is a lot of different interests as well. And to have the ability to economically develop areas, that's important. But where Republican governors differ than Governor Hochul is a Republican governor would never come on a Midas Touch podcast or a show like ours and talk about her support for unions, the support for farmers, the support to make sure that marijuana is legalized and to give legal marijuana licenses to individuals who were wronged in the system with marijuana convictions. And so there is a balance that needs to take place. And if Democrats want to have more governors win, like Governor Hochul, you have to strike that balance. And I think she strikes that balance perfectly. And I understand the criticisms that are often made. Why are you building billions of dollars in a stadium for when that money could be spent on

education? Well, my concern is when the money's not spent on education. Well, my concern is when the money's not spent on education. That's not what she's doing. As she talks to us, they're also investing in infrastructure, like the infrastructure plan that they have for Long Island. She is also investing significantly in education. She is focused on unions and making sure workers are taken care of. She does fight for teachers. That is the big difference there that I think doesn't get mentioned a lot. And it's one of those things that I encourage Democrats and Brett, I want to talk about this as well. We have to find ways to coalition build as Democrats to win for democracy. I really like we have the guy Texas Paul, and he calls it ride or die Democrats,

where we are a big tent party. We compete for ideas, but ultimately we support Democrats who win. That's the most important aspect. And we can have different ideas like, hey, we want to economically develop this area and we want to focus on workers. We're allowed to disagree. We should be disagreeing. We should have vigorous debates. But at the end of the day, we have to understand what's at stake here and what these radical right governors are doing, what these radical right politicians are doing, because what they want to do is they want to wear you down so much with all the chaos that they want you to just give up. They just want you to quit. They just want you to leave. And then what happens? They take power. And guess what? All your rights go away. We saw that happen on a certain level in 2016,

and that will happen on an even greater scale in 2022 and 2024 if we don't step up and get together and build these coalitions that we need to win. And that's what we aim to do here. And that's what I really like what's actually going on in Utah with Evan McMullin, who's running for Senate as an independent and the Democrats supporting Evan McMullin, who's running for Senate as an independent and the Democrats supporting Evan McMullin's candidacy for Senate there. Democrats are not running their own candidate. They're running against the radical right extremist Mike Lee. And I think that is a practical and pragmatic approach. Could you imagine the Republic if there was a reverse, the Republicans doing anything like this? It really shows you the level of organization that the Democrats actually have here and how practical Democrats are actually being.

And it shows you that the Democratic Party is not a cult here. Democratic Party, by saying we're not going to run a Democratic candidate in Utah. Instead, here's what we're going to do. We're going to coalition build. We're going to take all the Democrats, all the independents and all the Republicans who are disgusted by their own party. We're going to build up all those people, put them in one box together, and we are going to take on corrupt Senator Mike Lee. is the state of Mitt Romney. This is not a MAGA state. And so it will be interesting to see if a strategy like this pays off. And I'm also interested to see if a strategy like this can be implemented and mimicked in other states as well, because it's actually a really interesting way to go and compete against Republicans in otherwise red areas where Democrats truly

don't have a shot to win. Former Utah Senator Orrin Hatch passed away over the weekend. And so our thoughts and prayers with his family. He was praised by both parties in a very rare bipartisan praise of someone, you know, and he had left and he had retired. You know, I think a lot of the reason being the state of where the Republicans were going and where they were headed. We talked about the civil contempt. I'm just not going to give, I mean, whatever, I'm not going to spit on a guy who just died. But the fact is like Hatch is civil for the old timey Republicans, right? But Hatch is somebody who voted against labor. Hatch is somebody who voted against the Equal Rights Amendment.

Hatch is somebody who had his own Hatch Amendment, which was a anti-abortion policy. He was vehemently anti a lot of the rights that we're fighting for. So I'm not about to give this guy credit, but he does represent an old political, the old Republican Party, where people could actually debate ideas, at least. All very fair points. Judge Arthur Engeron, who's the New York judge overseeing Letitia James investigation into Donald Trump, the Trump Organization for False Appraisals and False and Misleading Financial Documentations, has officially held Donald Trump in civil contempt. And this is what he said in his ruling. Quote, Mr. Trump, I know you take your business seriously and I take mine seriously, I hereby hold you in civil contempt and fine you $10,000 per day until you purge that contempt. So Donald Trump is now being fined $10,000 a day for not turning over records in the case that he had, that Letitia James,

the civil investigation case that she has ongoing against him and the Trump organization. Donald Trump's excuse basically was, I don't have any documents. I don't see documents. I don't read emails. I don't do anything. The judge asked, well, why didn't you verify under penalty of perjury then that you don't have these documents or access to these documents or control over these documents? And so again, that's a big win and a big win for the prosecutorial style of Tish James. The fact that she is aggressive, that she is sticking to it. And this is what Donald Trump does. He tries to wear you down by not engaging in good faith, by stretching things out, by spanning things over multiple administrations, and basically

hoping that it will just go away. And sadly, that has occurred a lot of times. But she is sticking to it, and I applaud her. I praise her work. And I definitely want to get the former Solicitor General, Neil Katyal's perspective on that on the January 6th committee. I think Neil Katyal has argued about 45 cases in front of the Supreme Court. He's about to argue, I think, his 46th case in front of the Supreme Court. For many people, I can't even tell you how amazing that is to have argued 45 cases in front of the Supreme Court. It's beyond, beyond incredible. And so his perspective here is going to be incredible on January 6th. How's the DOJ doing? He's about to answer all of the questions that you have.

And before bringing him in, I want to talk about Titan or Brett. May I have you talk about Titan? Sure. Ben, how financially savvy would you say you are? On a scale from one to 10, on a letter A to F, how would you rank it? One to 10. 10 to 10. 10. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, maybe not everybody out there might not be as financially savvy as

yourself there, Ben. And that's why they and most people got to check out Titan because, hey, listen, you don't, or at least you shouldn't go to Reddit to diagnose a medical condition. You see your doctor, right? You wouldn't write up an important legal contract by yourself. You would go see a lawyer, right? So we turn to experts for all these other things in life. So why don't you turn to the experts for investing? Check out Titan. As everyday investors, the cards have been stacked against us and we've been given access now to this marketplace of stocks, but we're competing against institutional investors with unlimited resources. We're simply told, invest in the S&P 500 and be happy with that conservative average. But when you're wealthy, you have access to these

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questions within the app itself. If you have any questions about the funds, Titan aims to grow your investment by at least 15% annually net of fees, which could mean doubling your wealth every five years. I use Titan and get huge peace of mind knowing that I have a team of experts managing my investments. And you should check it out too. Check it out if you want to become the smartest, wealthiest investor you've ever been. Head to titan.com slash Midas, and you'll get a free $50 when you invest with Titan. They're giving you $50 to invest, but you must go to this URL or you will not get that $50. And they will not know that we sent you. That's $50 when you go to titan.com slash Midas, T-I-T-A-N.com slash M-E-I-D-A-S

and invest with Titan. This is obviously a sponsored podcast that I'm a client of Titan myself though. I invested in the flagship portfolio and I'm really excited to see how my returns develop. And I'm excited that I don't, I can just sit back and let the experts handle it for me. That's why I said I'm a 10 because I'm in their flagship portfolio. Oh, because you're having the experts just handle it for you. I have the experts doing it. So that's why I'm a 10.

I love the Titan product and it's great. And we search these endorsements out that we like to use for our viewers on the Midas Touch podcast. So definitely check out Titan. And without further ado, let's bring in our guest, Neil Katayal. We are joined by Neil Katayal, or should I say Professor Katayal, the former Solicitor General of the United States, current professor at my alma mater, Georgetown University Law Center. And as Acting Solicitor General, Neal succeeded Elena Kagan, whom President Barack Obama chose

to replace retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens. Welcome to the pod, Neal. Thank you. A pleasure to be with you. So the first connection right away, you are a law press professor where I graduated. That's one of the first incredible things. Tell our audience about that. Well, the most important thing your audience should know is that you didn't take one of my classes, man. So like, I don't know how you got your degree. I'm a little worried, but maybe it's because you're not practicing.

So you got that other degree. Shots fired, shots fired. We're going in heavy. Let's go. Maybe I should have stayed in that class with Paul Clement and Viadin. Maybe I should have stayed in that clinic. So I was in that clinic, Neil, for like the first day. Paul Clement, Viadin.

I was taking clinics because I was in the evening program. And during the day, I would work at a law firm in DC. And so I was like, I didn't really do deep dives until the classes I was taking. So I take this class by Paul Clement and Viet Dinh and Viet Dinh like wrote the Patriot Act. I was in there for like 30 minutes and I was like, what the hell did I get myself into? And I dropped that class after the first day and never returned. Oh, well, yeah, you missed out. I mean, now that is a great class. I've actually sat in, I've talked, I've lectured in that class. It is terrific. So there's a little, the clinic itself was a little intense for me. I think I ended up taking a class

on anti-dumping laws. And I think I didn't fully know what anti-dumping was until I sat for the finals, but I did get an A in the course, but let's get into it. Neil, I want to talk about breaking news. We've learned that the court in New York that's overseeing New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil investigation into Trump and the Trump Organization for fraudulent appraisals has now found Trump in civil contempt of court for not turning over records and other discovery violations. What is your reaction? So I haven't seen that court order, so it must have just come out. But it's not a surprise to me. I mean, basically, Trump has been thumbing his nose at the court for a long period of time, and he's always banked on kind of the reluctance of the law enforcement

people to do the right thing, just because they're kind of scared. They don't want to get into a war. Trump's got a huge megaphone. And so they have backed down a lot of times. And fortunately, Tish James, to her credit, didn't back down. I mean, the statute on contempt is really clear. There's no exception for former presidents. He thumbed his nose at the order and then, you know, banked on the idea that she wouldn't enforce it, but she did. And so, you know, if the opinion says what you say it says, again, I haven't read it. I think it's a really good thing because, you know, the kind of cardinal principle that America stands for, like the thing that brought my parents

to this country is this idea that no person is above the law, that the same law applies to you and me and to the president. And, you know, all my legal work is trying to vindicate that principle. You know, my very first Supreme Court case while I was teaching at Georgetown was a Guantanamo case where I represented Osama bin Laden's driver. And I remember when I finally got down to Guantanamo to meet with him and he asked me a simple question. He just said, why are you doing this? Your last client was Al Gore. What are you doing? And I remember I was so taken aback by the question, but when I finally mumbled my answer to him, it was basically that, that, you know, my parents came to this country from another one because they understood that here we would be treated fairly. And it wouldn't be based on the color of our skin or who our connections were or whatever, that we basically get the same rule book. And I felt like he was getting a very different one. And now I feel like Donald Trump has gotten a very different one. And it's incredibly

disconcerting to me as someone who's spent their life in the law. And speaking of you spending your life in the law, for those of our listeners and viewers, though, who hear the intro, who hear that you were the solicitor general, you know, and they go, wow, he replaced Elena Kagan when she was appointed to the Supreme Court. Can you let people know what the Solicitor General though just does generally so people know they hear that name a lot, but they may not know what a Solicitor General is? Sure. So the Solicitor General is the top courtroom lawyer for the federal government. And you represent both the president and the executive branch, but also Congress in any dispute that reaches the courts. And that is true, not just

at the Supreme Court, which is the most visible part of the job, but also true like in the courts of appeal. So when President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, I was tasked with going around the country into the courts of appeals and defending it. And so that's what I did back then in the Obama administration. And since I've been back at Georgetown teaching and also running a Supreme Court practice at a law firm. So my daily work is definitely both of those, a lot of Supreme Court cases. And I've also been, you know, a special prosecutor on the George Floyd murder. They work for the state of Minnesota pro bono. And we've spent much last two years, since May 25 2020, on those prosecutions, and we're going to trial on the

other three cops, you know, sometime this summer. And the other three cops, there was a case in federal court, and this is the state court proceeding? Correct. So we first began with our charges against Derek Chauvin. That was the case some of you may have seen on TV. And we secured a conviction against Chauvin. He's now appealing that. So I'll argue that appeal sometime in the next months. And then separately, there are the other three cops and the feds tried them first on civil rights charges, secured convictions. And now we're trying them on the actual underlying violent crimes that were at issue. How many cases just for it's a spectacular number. And I've done my background research.

But for our audience, how many cases have you argued in front of the Supreme Court? I've argued 45 cases. I've got 46 and 47 coming up in October. And so for the audience out there, someone who argues one case in front of the Supreme Court, that would be something that they would, you know, would be their main accomplishment. So 45 and 46 cases is so unbelievable. You know, whose class I also took over at Georgetown, I took who's a Republican. His name is Glenn Nager.

He's at Jones Day. And I took Glenn Nager's administrative law class, which I really liked. And I bring him up, though, because he was a clerk for Sandra Day O'Connor. I haven't spoken to him in quite some time. But back then when I went to Georgetown Law, we could have great constitutional debates. Even I joke about being in Paul Clement's class, who was the Solicitor General under Bush. You could still have these debates, though, that were rooted in, I think, still a love for the Constitution. And there were differences, but there wasn't a group of people trying to overthrow the United States government.

That's been the hardest part for me observing it. 46 cases, when you see Representative Raskin say things like, you know, the bombshells that we're going to be revealing at the hearings in June are going to blow the roof off the House. We've already heard so much disturbing stuff. Like, how do you process that as someone who deals with the law in good faith, in arguments, in the Constitution, when there's an entire political party at this point now that's been co-opted, is run by a group of people who don't seem to want democracy anymore? Ben, I love the question and the point that you're making because it's so important. I think the thing I love about the Supreme Court is that you go in and you resolve your differences with

words and not with fighting. And every year I try and bring a group of kindergartners to the court and have them watch oral argument, which is keeping them quiet for an hour is something. But the whole idea is that. So that they see there's this world out there in which you can totally be at loggerheads with the other person, but you don't go and beat them up. And it's such a powerful lesson. And I do think that's like the essence of Georgetown Law School at its best is that which is, you know, you can have different, very passionate disagreements that two gentlemen, you mentioned, be it Dan and Paul Clement, are, you know, I respect them immensely. I'm friends

with both of them. We disagree on like almost everything. But we disagree with like our words and with reason and with argument and with mutual respect. And I think, you know, one of the things that happened with Trump, why he was such an anti-democratic authoritarian thug was that he could never respect the other side. It was always insinuate the worst about them, you know, down to the point when federal judges would rule against him and he'd call them so-called judges or, you know, Obama judge or this or that nonsense. And that kind of toxicity has now bled over onto the Democratic Party, too, and to people there. Not in the same way. They're not like going and taking up arms against the Capitol, like the way

these jokers were on January 6th. But nonetheless, I do worry about the kind of, you know, it's like anything else, any two-party negotiation. If one starts acting without respect, it's very hard for the other to turn the cheek. We've obviously had that in very high profile examples like Mahatma Gandhi, but it's a rare thing to do. And so we're seeing the kind of devolving down of discourse in this country. And I do place a lot of the blame on Donald Trump, but I don't place all of it on them because, you know, the Republican Party used to stand for debate and principles, and they have just become a cultish authoritarian force. And that is just so sad to see. You know, normally this is where I would

let Brett and Jordy ask a question, but, you know, I'm in a geeky but very important constitutional discussion now. So I'm going to take Brett and Jordy's question here for a sec, though, and just ask you a question about the status of the Supreme Court now. Lots of people have been criticizing the use of what's been called the shadow docket, these rulings that have significant impact that don't have full oral arguments. A lot of people look at the Dobbs versus Mississippi case as seeing that the rights entrenched in Roe v. Wade could potentially be overturned. I mean, as you're looking at the state of the Supreme Court right now, what's your overall assessment? Should it go from on the scale of people who are incredibly, incredibly worried to people who are not?

I don't know many people who are not. So from the scale of very worried to somewhat worried or something else. What's your perspective having been in front of that court? Well, I do think the Supreme Court is as conservative as any court in our lifetimes. And indeed, some of the most conservative justices to have ever served on the Supreme Court are serving there now. And it's a direct result of Senator Mitch McConnell monkeying with the Supreme Court. You know, Justice Scalia passed away in February of 2016. President Obama didn't like nominate some crazy lefty. He nominated Merrick Garland, who's a centrist that judges you could get. He's someone who Orrin Hatch,

who just passed away yesterday, said this is an ideal person to be on the Supreme Court. But Merrick Garland didn't even get a hearing. And then you had a series of appointments that moved the court. So the first one was Justice Gorsuch for Justice Scalia. That actually, I don't think, changed the dynamics of the court. If anything, it may have moved the court a little bit to the left on Native American issues and on some textual stuff. But it didn't really change much.

But then the next two appointments, replacing Justice Kennedy with Justice Brett Kavanaugh, really changed things a lot. Justice Kennedy was much more of a swing vote in the hot button cases. And then the real game changer was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passing away and being replaced by Justice Amy Barrett. That is, you know, seismic in its change on the court. Now, this is not to say they're all real justices. They all are doing that enormously hard work. But, you know, there's no doubt, nobody can disagree, Barrett is very different than Ginsburg. And we are going to start to see that show up in a bunch of very serious cases. And the one that you're mentioning right now, abortion is the first one. I mean, Roe versus Wade had a rule that said that basically you couldn't restrict abortion pre-viability, which is about the 24th week of a woman's pregnancy. And Mississippi passed a law saying, well, no, try to restrict abortion after 15 weeks. And at oral argument, it sure seemed like there were several, the majority of the court was poised to say the Mississippi law is okay.

They were trying to strain for a way to do it without formally overruling Roe v. Wade. You know, they might come up with a fig leaf or not, but the fact is, as a practical matter, it sure looks like Roe v. Wade will be overruled in the Mississippi case. And even if they have some sort of fig leaf for Mississippi at 15 weeks, the next set of laws at six weeks, like Texas's, are going to come before the court in the next year. And there's no way to say that that is in any way consistent with Roe versus Wade. So at least barring some unexpected change, it sure looks like Roe versus Wade is going to be overruled. And that won't be a shadow docket thing.

That will be a just docket thing. But you're right to point out also the use of the shadow docket used to stymie all sorts of progressive state and federal policies by the Supreme Court. And, you know, Steve Fladdock at the University of Texas has been doing a lot of work drawing attention to that whole shadow docket situation. And Neil, we've seen the Department of Justice try to go out there and protect abortion rights. And we're talking about this issue of choice. I remember the Justice Department was suing Texas for their SB8 law. That news came out months ago. But is the Department of Justice doing enough? Can they be doing more here? Given that it just

seems like these states now are just stomping all over the Constitution. I mean, these cases have not even happened yet, yet they're just breaking the law in plain sight, in my opinion. I'm really pleased with the Justice Department's response to the whole abortion situation. Solicitor General now is a woman named Elizabeth Prologer, and she's gone and argued all of these Mississippi cases personally. And the briefing, the skill behind all of this is extraordinary. It's so good. So I have no fault with the Justice Department. I do have a lot of fault with the Democrats in Congress, because, you know, for now three years, I've been writing op-eds. I even like did a spoken word album with the National, my favorite band about this, because it's so easy for them, for Congress to pass a statute that guarantees the Roe versus Wade rights, just as a matter of ordinary law. You don't need the Supreme Court to do it. You can have the Congress pass a law that guarantees it to women in all 50 states and

territories. And, you know, maybe it's going to get filibustered in the Senate. But I think we got to try. And it's, you know, just absurd to me that we're not hearing this every single day in the Congress. We want to pass this law and guarantee this right and reproductive justice for all women. The news just broke today. I'm not sure if you had a chance to see it, that CNN had obtained over 2000 text messages from Mark Meadows. They reveal conversations of Trump's inner circle communications from before and after January 6th. Do you think these texts are going to have any bearing on a potential criminal case related to January 6th in regards to Donald Trump?

Yeah, they very well may. I mean, we have to see exactly what's turned over. I think we're about twenty three hundred text messages turned over. Question in my mind is, of course, what wasn't turned over? Because we know that Meadows and all these people have been so afraid to actually turn everything over or to appear before the committee and have to answer questions and the like. And so, you know, this is probably a start. There's probably some pretty damning stuff in there because it seems like, you know, you can't text to or from Mike Meadows without, you know, possibly getting into a criminal sphere. Just, it seems like that's the way the guy rolls. So we'll see. But, you know, I'm optimistic that the investigation will be furthered by these texts, but I'm also suspicious of what hasn't been turned over yet. I've been really, in general, pleased with the January 6th committee's investigation, at least from the outside.

Just, you know, I haven't talked to them or anything, but just reading what we read in the newspapers, you know, it's an incredibly serious operation. But I will say one of the things that's troubled me a lot is that they haven't been willing to subpoena their own members of Congress. You know, take Kevin McCarthy, who last week we had, you know, all of those revelations of the tapes and the recordings about what he said about January 6th. This guy was obviously privy to all sorts of information. He's been terribly afraid to go before Congress and explain what he knows. The committee asked him to, the January 6th committee, in January, and he refused. And the committee just hasn't, you know, done anything since.

And, you know, they've gone and subpoenaed, which is, you know, a legal request to say, come in and tell us what you know and give us your documents. They've subpoenaed others, including even Mark Meadows. But they haven't done this with members of Congress. It seems to me in some ways it should be easier to do with members of Congress. It seems to me in some ways, it should be easier to do with members of Congress. They're your own branch as opposed to some other branch, you know, and it does seem to me like being a member of Congress is a privilege. And if you're afraid to go and tell the truth about what happened on one of the most horrific

days in our country's history, January 6th, you don't belong in the building. And, you know, if they want to fight it out in court because they're that afraid to go and tell the truth, let them fight it out in court and, you know, they'll lose every day of the week. And I agree with you about the January 6th committee. I think they're doing a terrific job. I'm amazed by their work, but I also agree with the point that you're making. Are they just afraid, you think, of retribution if Republicans take power of the House come November? I mean, don't they realize that Republicans are going to do that no matter what? A hundred percent. I mean, if the Republicans win, you know, it's going to be a Benghazi for 24 hours a day. Hunter Biden, impeachment,

it's going to be all that, right? It's like, why cower in fear? Right. I think the best argument for not subpoenaing is they've already got the goods in terms of the evidence. And if they do subpoena, then it's going to be a court fight. It might delay the issuance of a report. And I get all of that. But I also think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. So to me, it's entirely plausible that we have an interim report and the interim report says, well, look, here's what we know Kevin McCarthy said, because we have these tapes. We've asked him to do more. We're trying to get that information via a subpoena. We're fighting that out in court because this guy's too scared. He's a scaredy cat and too afraid to go and tell the truth.

So we'll fight it out in court. But here's the interim report while we're waiting. Obviously, every single story that breaks, there are a few common threads. Obviously, Donald Trump is the thread that connects everything. But Mark Meadows name keeps coming up in every single breaking news story that's out there. Do you think that is one of the reasons why DOJ has not yet acted on that contempt referral? Are they building a bigger case and they don't want that to get in the way of that? It's possible. I don't know. I mean, you know, it's very hard for me to understand why it's been more than 100 days since Congress recommended a criminal indictment for Mark

Meadows because he wouldn't tell the truth and under oath. And they're still sitting on it. I mean, traditionally in like the normal world. And, you know, Brett, I understand we're not in the normal world, but in the normal world, what this would signify is Meadows is trying to make a deal for his cooperation. The problem is everyone in Trump world, I think, is afraid to make any sort of deal because of what Trump might do to them. And so we just haven't seen it. You know, Meadows also has a whole series of other problems because it turns out he registered to vote in like three different states at the same time. We found the voter fraud, Neil. We found the voter fraud. Exactly. At the same time, he was giving all these speeches about voter fraud. It turns out the guy was total pot kettle black.

But so, you know, he's got his own issues. So my only other, yeah, I think from what we see in the public, at least, I actually think now we're seeing a lot about Merrick Garland building this case at DOJ to prosecute those at the top of January 6th. I'm happy with what I'm seeing. But the things there where I am a critic right now are that there are a lot of crimes that were laid out in the Mueller report that are approaching their statute of limitations, some of which have actually run their course already. So why do you think Garland has decided not to pursue those crimes? Or is it just kind of

a Justice Department policy like, hey, those were already handled in the previous administration, we're not going to look back. What's the deal there? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's very frustrating to me because, you know, I've poured over the Mueller report very closely and there's not a way to read that and not conclude Trump didn't commit 10 crimes. Now, sorry, there's so many negatives in that. But basically, the report says Trump committed 10 crimes. That's a simple way of putting it.

And it said, well, we won't indict because he's a sitting president. And under our constitutional system, sitting presidents can't be indicted. But that's the reason. It's not like they thought he was innocent. And then you have the Garland Justice Department, which so far has just sat on its hands, Brett, as you say, and to me, that's just incomprehensible. How can you do that? As they say, no one's above the law. That's the most central principle in our democracy. And if you and I violate some minor

tax statute or something, whatever it is, we can get thrown in jail for that. But here you've got a guy who obstructs justice, who fires the head of the FBI to try and stop his criminal investigation into himself. And that's cool. Either very legal nor very cool. So I am very disappointed. Based on all of that, how would you rate, you know, the DOJ's investigations and prosecutions into January 6th so far? It cannot rate it, Jordan, because we just, for all the best reasons, we don't know. We just don't know. It's largely a black box and that's when criminal investigations are at their best. So I'm glad we don't know. I'm glad we aren't getting these leaks. If you think back to when I was a young Justice Department lawyer and we had the Whitewater investigation, which ultimately became

the Monica Lewinsky investigation, there were leaks every day from who knows who was suspected to be FBI agents and the like. None of that here. And that's a sign of a true class act operation. So I like all of that. But as Brett says, you know, it's going on. And the other thing that concerns me is that, you know, even apart from leaks, normally when there's a criminal investigation, the media does get wind of high profile ones because the witnesses before the grand jury, one of them talks to the media and says, you know, yeah, I was called before the grand jury and stuff. So, you know, high profile investigations generally do come out over time. And we've had none of that here. So that's another thing that I think many people are concerned about. I think that's totally fair. Now, I want to ask you a bit of a

philosophical question right now, because many people are really not so sure anymore. Does the rule of law still matter in America? Oh, 100%. I mean, you know, obviously Trump and his coterie of advisors, you know, suck up a lot of the attention. And so you can look at it and say, God, what a mess. And so anti-democratic and so betrayal of our principles. And, you know, to all those who look at it that way, I say, you're right. But I'd also say that's only part of our entire justice system with thousands of prosecutions taking place every day, you know, rich people, poor people, you know,

done, you know, largely, you know, in a more even handed way, frankly, than had been done before in our history. I think there's a much greater attention to racial justice issues and to, frankly, trying to go after white collar criminals. Because for a long time, like when I was growing up, if you were rich, it was kind of easy to, much easier to get away with stuff. And certainly there's some of that today, but I think there's less. And you see the emphasis that the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco have on criminal enforcement in the corporate context. And you say, well, that's something to be really proud of. And, you know, on the other end, you know, I'm incredibly proud of seeing some progressive prosecution policies by local officials that's taking some of the really hard edges off of

criminal enforcement. In a couple of weeks, I'm going to represent the Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, who has said that he will not enforce the three strikes laws that are, you know, so destructive in California. And he's been sued by an organization of prosecutors. And so, you know, we're going to defend him on that. And I think that's part of my answer to those people, Jordi, who say, you know, things are worse. And in some respects, like when you look at Trump, they are, but some of the things are actually getting better. I mean, I'm pleased to see on police brutality prosecutions, things like Chauvin being convicted or the other three. And so, you know, I think that the testimony in our trial just showed that the police departments aren't

going to think in a monolithic way anymore about this and be more forthcoming about the flaws and sins and crimes that have been committed. And, you know, that's why I went to Georgetown Law for exactly what you just discussed. the law. And while the law wasn't perfect by any means, the arc always seemed to be trying to fix the wrongs of the past and like artificial intelligence, move in the right direction. But I think that's what's really at stake here when you have this Trumpism, this Trumpist view that's trying to attack and undermine everything you just said. And so while you answered the question to Jordy, emphatically, yes, the rule of law matters. I think we can't take that for granted, that if an administration like Trump went, you know, were to run and win in 2024, or if a governor like DeSantis runs the way he is attacking corporations,

their vision is a very darker, grimmer, more fascist vision of the law. And we have to protect against that. Wouldn't you agree? A hundred percent then, you know, look, as Dr. King says, the arc of arc does bend toward justice, but, you know, my coda to that is it only bends so long as we bend it. I mean, it's up to all of us. It's up to lawyers. It's up to ordinary citizens to stand for what's right and fair. And, you know, I guess I would push back slightly on the fact that, you know, there's always been progress up until Trump, because I think there have been fits and starts. Like, just look at Brown v. for supportive education, this momentous ruling in 1954. But then you have a long period of time of Southern resistance and recalcitrance toward implementing dreads,

implementing Brown for supportive education. So you've got kind of, you know, things have been flow a little bit. And obviously, right now with Trumpism, we're in something of the ebbing, but you know, I think flowing can come back, you know, just the end of the Civil War, this immense promise of reconstruction, that was going to remake our society. But instead, we got Jim Crow, and years and years of setbacks. So, you know, things have felt bleak before. I am energized by, you know, talking to law students, and just seeing the numbers of people, Ben, that are applying to your alma mater in my school, but also just across the country, people understand the law is back, that there's a role for the law, that standing up to this nonsense is kind of the

essence of who we are as Americans. And so I'm really optimistic about that as much as I am really down on the political parties right now. Neil Katyal, thank you for joining us on the podcast. Thank you. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Neil Katayal, what an incredible guest to have. What a great episode. I mean, think about this episode,

the governor and then the former solicitor general. You can't beat that. It's almost too action-packed. You kind of can't beat that. You really can't beat that. I got to tell you, though, my feelings were a little hurt when he told me that I didn't really earn my Georgetown law degree. He called you out,

he called you out directly. It was rough. Stung a little bit, but I guess I am known now more as a podcaster than a practicing lawyer. I think when someone says that, when someone says that to you directly, like, wait a minute, am I a podcaster now? I guess that's what I do full time. I guess I'm a podcaster. Anyway, it was great to have Neil on. And I do want to talk about, though, Brett, we mentioned this at the beginning of the show. French President Emmanuel Macron defeats Marine Le Pen. Very big victory for democracy.

That was and it was a landslide victory. He was garnering over 57 percent of the vote. Le Pen had just about 41 percent of the vote. Many see this more as a rebuke of Le Pen than a show of support for Macron. I don't really agree with that. I think it's just showing a support for normal democracy and normal government. And Macron's been out there trying to, one, mediate the unlawful invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but also standing strongly with NATO and our allies. And that's what leadership is. And one of the important things to note, and a lot of commentators have pointed this out, is that Macron was polling

at about 36 or 30 percent approval rate in France from the poll. And that's lower than President Biden, by the way. Lower than Biden, yet a landslide victory. What does that tell you, Brett? I mean, I think if I'm looking at it, approval ratings are kind of bullshit, right? Approval ratings are, they don't have any bearing on how somebody is going to vote. They have a bearing on what they think about if the president's living up to their expectations, maybe. But at the end of the day, these elections are Le Pen. And all elections are a choice. So here you have France being faced with the same issues that America is being faced with in many regards. They have high inflation. They have immigration issues. They have a president with low approval ratings. And Macron's party itself is facing major, major, major headwinds. Yet he won this election in a landslide. And I think it's

something that President Biden himself has called out in previous elections. I've heard President Biden on the campaign trail say, hey, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. And I think that's what we're seeing here. And I think that's what we also need to focus on in 2022 here in America. If we're going to bring this point home, this election should not be a referendum on, did you get everything that you were hoping for in the first two years? This has to be a referendum on, this has to be a choice rather between Democrats and Republicans. Do you want the normalcy of Democrats or the psycho weirdo Republicans? Do you want democracy or do you want fascism? And when you put those two choices on the ballot, the choice is clear.

And that's why you saw such a landslide victory from Macron in France. And that's why I think Democrats actually have a good shot of winning this November if we all stay motivated and we all stay focused. We also saw the elections in Slovenia, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Johnson's party, which was the right wing party, suffered a heavy defeat in the parliamentary elections this past weekend as well, which lost to a left leaning party and coalition as well. And I think that the world is seeing that these radical right extremists, these Putinists are bad for the world. They're bad for their countries and that we need to move beyond that. And that's what we need to focus on right here in the United States. That is why on the Midas Touch podcast, we don't just educate. We just don't inform. We have, by the way, some of the greatest guests. We have long, interesting conversations with them about these critical issues. But then as always, we put it on you,

the listener, the viewer, to go out there and do something about it. As we talked about, even during these interviews, the January 6th hearings are going to start in June. What I also expect is around that time in June, we're going to have a terrible Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs v. Mississippi case, severely limiting reproductive rights. What we're also going to see is with that ruling, these radical right states arresting women and childbearing persons for murder in the days leading up to the election in November. What we need to do as freedom-loving people, as intelligent, democratic, democracy-loving people, build this big tent coalition, and we need to trounce, we need to trample in elections these radical right extremists. That is why at the Midas Touch podcast, we are not just sitting back and complaining about the media, but building new media that truly addresses the true issues between democracy

and fascism. And Ben, to that point, I just want to encourage all of our viewers right now, all of our listeners to go back because we released an excellent podcast over the weekend with human rights lawyer, Alexandra Matvichuk and Ukrainian member of parliament, Ina Sovson. We spoke to them. They're both on the ground in Kiev and they gave us a firsthand account of what is happening there. And you could only listen to those interviews on the audio feed of the Midas Touch podcast. So make sure you're subscribed, make sure you listen. And this is part of a whole new batch of content also that

we're trying to get out to you to inform, to grow, to build this media network. Thank you to everybody who watched the Marjorie Taylor Green hearings live on the Midas Touch YouTube channel. That was incredible. We had nearly 30,000 people watching concurrently, over a half a million viewers who tuned in, in total, to watch the Marjorie Taylor Greene insurrection hearings. We are building this thing and we cannot do it without you. So keep on spreading the word. Keep telling all your friends and family about the Midas Touch podcast and subscribe to us and follow us everywhere. For those watching, perhaps maybe not those listening, you may be wondering, where did Jordy go? We don't see Jordy anymore. Well, Brett and I have absolutely no clue

where Jordy is, but it has not deterred us a minute for continuing the show or stopping the show. Although we do miss him, we hope he's okay wherever he's at, but we do not know where Jordy is. There's just been a blank screen with no Jordy there, but we wish him well wherever he is. Everybody check out store.midastouch.com. Get your Midas merch. We have great Mother's Day gifts, store.midastouch.com. And make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening. This podcast spread the word about the Midas touch podcast. We appreciate you. And with Jordy gone,

I will do the honors shout out to the Midas mighty. See you next time on the Midas touch podcast.