The MeidasTouch Podcast - Happy Birthday MeidasTouch with Glenn Kirschner

Episode Date: March 26, 2021

It's officially been one year of MeidasTouch! WOW! Thank you to everyone who has supported us on this journey. On today's episode, we celebrate our very first anniversary, discuss our big win in our l...awsuit against Marjorie Taylor Greene, chat about President Joe Biden's first official press conference, updates at the "Jorder", and talk about the rise of gun violence and voter suppression. We also chat with Glenn Kirschner, a former 30-year federal prosecutor and co-founder of the new initiative known as The Democracy Pledge, encouraging companies to speak out and stand on the side of democracy. If you like our show, please subscribe and give us a 5-star rating in the Apple Podcasts app! You can learn more about The Democracy Pledge here.  --- 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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Starting point is 00:02:13 day we are recording this, Thursday, March 25th, 2021, is our very first birthday of Midas Touch. Guys, what a year it's been, huh? Exactly. We say Goo Goo Gaga because we've turned one year old. Are we saying that? I don't know if we're saying that, but literally one year. Isn't that what babies say? I just want to be clear. Am I being politically correct? Is that a baby's baby still saying Goo Goo Gaga or not? I don't know. It feels like a cancelable offense. They're still saying Goo Goo Gaga, but Midas Touch is not saying Google Gaga because we matured a lot in this year, guys. I remember one year ago to the day was when we registered the Midas Touch domain. So that's when actually, and I'll give Jordi all the credit for the name. Jordi goes, what about the name Midas
Starting point is 00:02:59 Touch? Oh, this is the first time we're saying this. We've always given you credit, Jordi. No, no. We always give you credit for the name and our first slogan was what was it it was something silly that way it was news with a golden touch and then in parentheses of truth i don't know why we did the in parentheses of truth and then we realized oh yeah because truth is golden is much more streamlined and i basically said to the the fellows here i said hey if i if i commit to making this midas touch.com website will you guys commit to working on this project with us and we'll see where it takes us and they said do it we're we're all in and so i spent all weekend making the website and we released our first article on the website just a few days later and then that turned into making
Starting point is 00:03:40 the videos that we did and that turned into the midas touch that you guys all know so that's a little brief history on so the question becomes brett and Jordy, it's kind of like with a relationship or with a marriage. Do you start the anniversary from the date you first meet your significant other? Or do you start the anniversary from a date that you make it official? Do you start the anniversary from the date you are engaged? Or Do you start the anniversary from the date you are engaged? Or do you start the anniversary from the date there is a marriage? This is a vital question that we need to ask the Midas Mighty. When is actually a anniversary that happens in a relationship? Because this could be our unofficial anniversary or our first anniversary.
Starting point is 00:04:26 But then mid-May, when we first registered as a political action committee, that could actually be our official anniversary. And maybe we could celebrate twice. I think we have two birthdays. I like the idea of two birthdays because, you know, I like to celebrate. And I think we have a lot to celebrate and what we've done, what we've built here over the past year. But, you know, this was the day we registered the domain itself. This was the day we made it official and we were working our asses off before we registered as a pack. So I would definitely mark today as that day and looking forward to
Starting point is 00:04:59 celebrating again on May 15th with everybody. Exactly. Big day of celebration right here. We're all still quarantined at our homes. Yeah, wait, let's get this straight for everybody. I have not seen Ben and Jordy in over one year since the start of my- I haven't seen you guys in two years. I haven't seen Jordy in two years, which is how crazy this is. I don't think I've ever met Jordy my entire life, now that I think about met Jordy my entire life. It might be, it might be true. Ben was out of the house. Ben's eight years older than Jordy. He was out of the house by the time Jordy was like in middle school. It's very possible. You guys have never met.
Starting point is 00:05:34 This has been a cool like pen pal experience for y'all. It's true. I'm told that Jordy is my brother, but is this, is this the matrix? Is this real Jordy? We look, we, we, we kind of look alike or we related. I believe we are, man. I believe we are. You've never met the adult me. I don't think. I don't think I've ever met you since you've been an adult. I think the last time you and I met you were maybe five years old.
Starting point is 00:05:56 And that's why Ben kept calling Jordan Jordy. And that's why Jordy decided ultimately, you know what? If you're going to keep calling me Jordy, I'm just going to have to run with this name. That's my new name now. I'm Jordy. I don't think I even talked to you, Jordy, until we started my discussion. No, no, very rare. Just joking. I've always spoken to Jordy. I've known Jordy my entire life. I can confirm that Jordy is my brother. We would see each other rarely because we lived in different locations.
Starting point is 00:06:23 Jordy once lived for a brief period in Los Angeles, so I got to see him a little bit more there. But Jordy is my brother. I want to make that very clear to our parents. But Ben lives in Los Angeles, and so do I, like 20 minutes away from me. And I've not seen him in over one year, which shows how seriously we're taking the pandemic.
Starting point is 00:06:42 It's how seriously we're taking the pandemic, number one, but also the amount of work we are doing and how busy we are fighting for issues that matter to the Midas Mighty and for democracy. I am incredibly proud to announce a piece of breaking national news that we are involved in, which is Midas Touch in our First Amendment lawsuit against Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon conspiracy theorist slash fascist from Georgia who somehow became a Georgia congresswoman. We sued her for blocking Midas Touch on Twitter in violation of our First Amendment rights. We reached a landmark First Amendment settlement with Marjorie Taylor Greene, where she's agreed not to block anybody so long as she remains a representative or a public official
Starting point is 00:07:32 on both her official Twitter account and her de facto official Twitter account where she's blocked everybody. She also paid legal fees in the amount of $10,000, which because Midas Touch did not have to pay legal fees, we are donating $10,000 to two incredible organizations. Brett and Jordy, you want to talk about those organizations? Yeah, we're donating it to Moms Demand Action, half of it to Moms Demand Action and half of it to Fred Gutenberg's Orange Ribbons for Jamie, named after his daughter who was killed in the Parkland Massacre. These are two incredible organizations that are pushing for common sense gun reforms, and we are excited to support them. It's never been more important giving the news in recent weeks to support these organizations. And we encourage you if you have the means to contribute
Starting point is 00:08:19 to nonprofits like this or other like-minded organizations. And let's try to get some sensible gun reform passed. Totally. And as we are recording, President Biden gave a press conference. We're going to go into what he discussed on his incredible press conference today, which was his first formal news conference since taking office on immigration. What President Biden explained was that what's taking place at the U.S. southern border right now is not unprecedented at all. He explained that the truth of the matter is nothing's really changed. And the amount of increase for this time of year is consistent with the increase that took place in the Trump administration. And in fact, the Trump administration is responsible for truly breaking
Starting point is 00:09:05 the system in ways that it was never actually broken before and that we have to rebuild the immigration system, specifically when it comes to children at the border. During the press conference, Biden basically said, look, every administration before President Trump, we as Americans would not see children at the border and literally let them die. And that changed under President Trump. The idea that I'm going to say, which I would never do, if an unaccompanied child ends up at the border, we're just going to let him starve to death and stay on the other side. No previous administration did that either, except Trump. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it.
Starting point is 00:09:52 That's a president that's leading with empathy first, which I love. It's just such a refreshing perspective to have from the executive branch that we haven't seen in a really long time, it feels like, caring about the well-being of migrants coming here, making sure that they're going to be in as good conditions as possible, understanding that the conditions that they're in right now are unacceptable, and working to make change. And one of the breaking reports that came out recently was that the Trump administration was asked to expand capacity during the transition by the incoming Biden administration, and they refused. So you see just every step of the way in every different category. The Trump administration was just stonewalling the transition efforts. I mean, we saw it with Emily Murphy back in the day, but just really screwing everything up,
Starting point is 00:10:41 causing an incredible issue. And now the GQP has the nerve to go, oh, why isn't this solved yet 50 days later? Well, your guy kind of slowed it down. He screwed everything up. And now, like all Democratic presidents have to do, we're cleaning up the mess. It's always interesting how whenever a Democrat comes into office, the first thing they do, pass a recovery act. Why? Why is that? That the first piece of major legislation every time a Democrat comes in is pass a Recovery Act. That's so true. And then in response, the Republicans, now the GQP, then, you know, decry the debt that they created. And all of a sudden they're debt hawks and very focused on the national debt. By the way, I tweeted this like a few months
Starting point is 00:11:23 before, like right after Joe Biden won the election. And I said, you wait until Joe Biden is inaugurated. That will be the second that Fox News and all these stations start saying, what's up with the debt? What's up with the deficit? And like clockwork, once again, that's been like their headline. They just have it out on the chyrons on Fox News now. Record debt, record deficit. These people are so malicious in their intent. It's fake news. It's total fake news. One of the things that Joe Biden has done, which was an interesting move, is he put Kamala Harris in charge of the border issue, or as Brian Karam called it, the Jordan, because he misread Jordy's name while he was talking about the border. So we're going to call the border the Jordan. The Jordan.
Starting point is 00:12:09 And we are? Yeah, I just decided. Definitely. We're going to always call the border the Jordan now. Okay. When it comes to the Jordan, Vice President Kamala Harris is leading efforts to coordinate with Mexico and the Northern Triangulations. Biden said, I can think of nobody who is better qualified to do this than Harris. When she speaks, she speaks for me. She doesn't have to check for me. So this is Kamala Harris's first major policy role since she was sworn in. I'm excited to see how she does with this issue. It is no small task to undo the entanglements, not only of the Trump administration, but over the past 40 plus years. But Harris is going to work to strengthen diplomatic ties with Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala. She's going to try to address the root causes of
Starting point is 00:12:56 the region's migrant problems. And by any knowledge, the surge we're dealing with now started with the last administration, but it's our responsibility to deal with it humanely and to stop what's happening. The increase has been consequential. Joe Biden saying the buck stops with me. We know things have been messed up with the past, but we are working to take care of it. I love that. Can you ever imagine? Are you guys going to let me talk today? Are you guys going to let me talk? We'll see how it goes. Could you imagine Trump? Could you imagine Trump going up there and saying anything, you know, quasi similar to what Biden had said? You know, it's my responsibility now. I will take care of it. It's a sense of leadership
Starting point is 00:13:37 that we just haven't seen in so long. And finally, it's so refreshing. He's literally the guy who said, I don't take responsibility at all. And the very first thing that he started his campaign on was by saying that Mexicans were rapists and murderers. I mean, that's the tone he set. And so, no, I could not imagine it because he was a disgusting person, not even worthy of being mentioned. And now we have a leader that leads with empathy and it's a nice refreshing change and it's what a president of the United States should do. There are unaccompanied children coming towards the border. Joe Biden wants to deal with this humanely.
Starting point is 00:14:14 At the end of the day, what he does not want to do is send kids back to where they come from all alone to die, to get killed without family. They want to make sure that their families are intact before they make any decisions so that they're not doing this horrific policy of separating families like the Trump administration was doing with Stephen Miller right alongside. Totally. Jordy, switching beats for a second to what the Biden administration discussed with respect to the COVID-19 vaccine plan. What do you think about that, Jordy? The Jordan. Are you guys talking to me? We're totally we're totally talking to you.
Starting point is 00:14:58 Oh, shit. This stays in the pod. Now, let this be a teaching moment for everybody. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod.
Starting point is 00:15:06 Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod.
Starting point is 00:15:07 Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. Karma comes to the pod. So as a big brother, you know, as someone who loves him, I try to really adapt and hear him out. So I'm like, look, I have to do better here. And I passed it over to Jordy on a fairly basic issue. And I don't know if Jordy was playing a video game. If he was Googling Jorder. You guys cut out.
Starting point is 00:15:41 You guys cut out. I'm in Pennsylvania. You guys are in LA. The connection's not perfect. You cut out. I didn't know you talked to me. You guys cut out. I'll be in Pennsylvania. You guys are in LA. The connection's not perfect. You cut out. I didn't know you talked to me. No internet in Pennsylvania. So Jordy's dog ate his homework.
Starting point is 00:15:50 He doesn't have internet. And the one moment that we called on Jordy to step up, Jordy was not there. It's okay, Jordy. That's why on these other things, I'm not trying to not let you talk because I think you make some great points. I just know Super Mario Brothers is really important to you during the podcast. I didn't hear you. I didn't hear you toss it to me. Bring us up to speed on the vaccine. Yeah, bring us up to speed, Jordy. Okay. Awesome update on the vaccines, guys. Biden formally said that his administration has set a new goal to get 200 million coronavirus doses into arms by his 100th day in office.
Starting point is 00:16:31 Fuck you, Chuck Todd. And why I say that is because Chuck Todd came after Biden when Biden first said he would do 100 million shots in arms. And Todd said if Biden doesn't do that, his whole presidency is a failure. I mean, what are just lunacy? It's not about Todd. It's about Biden. Biden upping the goal now times two, 200 million shots in arms. I mean, let's go. That's the type of aggressive leadership that I could get behind. Brett, I think we have a clip of that. Yeah. On December 8th, I indicated that I hope to get 100 million shots in people's arms in my first 100 days. We met that goal last week by day 58,
Starting point is 00:17:10 42 days ahead of schedule. Now today I'm setting a second goal, and that is we will, by my 100th day in office, have administered 200 million shots in people's arms. Our state, California, just opened up our vaccines to all people. Yeah, my state, Jordy, California, where we have internet and no Mario Brothers. We got vaccines, though, and vaccines are coming our way on April 15th for everybody. So I'm super excited to get mine. Brett loves the vaccine. I love the vaccine. I know so many people who got the vaccine.
Starting point is 00:17:45 The funny thing is when I get the vaccine, my life will not significantly change because I don't really like to do a lot of activities outside the house anyway, but I'm still really excited to have that peace of mind, get the vaccine, call it a day. I really want to sign up. Our ongoing joke for those just kind of tuning
Starting point is 00:18:01 into the Midas Touch podcast is when the first kind of vaccine was rolled out under the Trump administration, Brett was like, it's brought a tear to my eyes that the vaccine that we finally have. I think it aged well. I think we have a vaccine. You think it has aged well? Yeah, absolutely. I think everybody is, has a little bit of a, it's getting dusty in a lot of people's homes right now. They got a little tear in their eye. And my view of it was, is that the United States of America was so far behind on the vaccine. Trust me. I think that it is incredible that there are vaccines. It is a miracle that vaccines have been created over the past hundred years, but we are leaders as America in this field and Donald Trump never actually led.
Starting point is 00:18:49 And so when all of a sudden a vaccine emerged, despite the fact that it was not even through the Donald Trump, you know, program, it was through a separate private program that, you know, and it was so mishandled by the Trump administration that like we took for granted that America, America leads things. America, we go to Mars. America, we're the first to go to the moon. America, we're number one in a lot of things. That's what America first is. And Trump's policies were always America week, America last. Oh my gosh, sciences, how did science happen? We have the best scientists in the world. And we have a great education system too
Starting point is 00:19:32 that the Republicans wanna dismantle and wanna make more dangerous. Jordy, tell us about the reopening of schools around the country. One sec, you know what this argument constantly reminds me of is the NBC News, any news, any like nightly news show, when they pitch these stories that like, under like a heartwarming
Starting point is 00:19:51 umbrella, like, for example, there was a story the other week about a grandmother who had walked six miles or nine miles to get the COVID vaccine. And they're like, isn't this just amazing? And no, no, it's not amazing. It's really sad if you think about it. And just because you're trying to spin it, like it's this happy story. If you actually look at it from like a macro view,
Starting point is 00:20:09 it's really awful. It shows the horrific nature of our healthcare system that an elderly woman needed to walk six miles so that she could go to the doctor and get, because she didn't want to spend $6,000 or more for an ambulance ride. Oh, so sweet. So sweet. Oh, so sweet. So sweet.
Starting point is 00:20:25 Oh, that's what the news celebrates. We got a lot to clean up. But let's talk about school reopenings, guys. I mean, Biden cited a report this week from the Department of Education that shows nearly half of K-8 schools are open. This is a step towards getting the majority of the schools fully open in the first 100 days, which is what Biden proposed when he became president. We saw instantly in the first week of
Starting point is 00:20:46 Biden's presidency, the GQP going, why aren't all the schools open? Open them now. First off, I don't need to listen to the people who ignored COVID for a year, who wanted to open schools a year ago, who- Pro-COVID. Pro-COVID, who wanted to open churches, all churches on Easter. Every single step of the way that this party has made, they have been wrong. They have led to mass death and suffering. And their opinion, to me, does not even matter slightly. I don't need to hear their school reopening plan.
Starting point is 00:21:21 We're going to follow the science. We're going to see what happens. And we're going to do it when it's safe to do it. And Biden right now is on time, ahead of schedule. But the most bizarre thing, guys, of this entire press conference was even though Biden was talking about the vaccine rollout, even though we've been through hell over this past year with the coronavirus and are right now on one of the greatest paths of recovery of a virus that we've seen maybe ever, there was not one single question from the press, not one about the virus, about the vaccine, about nothing. COVID is the one thing shaping everybody's lives. How do you ask a
Starting point is 00:21:56 question about COVID? Oh, it's so true. And it just speaks to the media, man. So broken. I mean, I know so broken. They want to move on to some some new media generated crisis and not actually deal with the crisis that truly exists right now. And look, it's like on clockwork, the Democrats come in, they pass a recovery act on clockwork. The Republicans start talking about the debt right on clockwork. the Republicans start talking about the debt, right? On clockwork, you start getting weird scandals because the Democrats are actually making government work. Now, look, like with your iPhone, like your iPhone works. And occasionally there may be errors. There may be problems that may shut off. You may need to recharge it. But I prefer an iPhone that works like Donald Trump was an MP3 player phone from 2002 that just legitimately didn't work. I couldn't even step down and I couldn't even turn it. You couldn't even turn it on. You know what? What it is. And then so the Republicans start making up these bizarre scandals. I mean, with Obama was, you know,
Starting point is 00:23:05 the tan suit that he was wearing. I mean, that was a whole that was a whole story there, you know, and with Biden, you have, you know, again, a whole panoply of made up stories and Dr. Seuss type stories. It's just all of the you know, all of the bullshit you basically get. But Biden's Biden's eyes are focused on the bigger picture here, infrastructure and the infrastructure bill. We talked about that on the last podcast, the multi trillion dollar bill that the Democrats are thinking about passing in two parts to bring our American infrastructure really into the 21st century. I mean, just look, you saw in Texas, which claims to be the energy state that claims to be the oil state. They didn't even have antifreeze on its energy facilities because they're so ill prepared.
Starting point is 00:23:52 And there's like zero regulation and zero modernization. So the infrastructure bill is on its way. If the Democrats intend to pass it through budget reconciliation, they will not need the kind of 60 plus senators. They can do it with a basic majority. But for other important pieces of legislation that Democrats would like to get passed, whether it's the Equality Act, whether it's gun reform, you know, and other kind of important initiatives, voting rights acts to prevent voter suppression, you know, you're going to require 60 votes. Unfortunately, those can't be passed through reconciliation. And Biden at the press conference today spoke about filibuster reform, if we could play that clip. With regard to the filibuster, I believe we should go back to a position of the filibuster that existed just when I came to the United States
Starting point is 00:24:45 Senate 120 years ago. And that is that it used to be required for the filibuster. And I had a card on this. I was going to give you the statistics, but you probably know them. That it used to be that from between 1917 and 1971, the filibuster existed. There were a total of 58 motions to break a filibuster that whole time. Last year alone, there were five times that many. So it's being abused in a gigantic way. And for example, it used to be you had to stand there and talk and talk and talk and talk until you collapsed. And guess what? People got tired of talking and tired of collapsing. Filibusters broke down and we were able to break the filibuster, get a Quorman vote.
Starting point is 00:25:35 I have never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the United States Senate. And if we have to, if there's complete lockdown and chaos as a consequence of the filibuster, then we'll have to go beyond what I'm talking about. Well, look, I think that filibuster reform is vital. I mean, look, at least with the speaking filibuster, you should have to, we've talked about this before in the context of the stupid Dr. Seuss debate. If you generally are aggrieved as a GQP member about Dr. Seuss as a private company, not wanting to print certain publications that were racist, you should have to stand in the public and you should show the racist photos and actually be exposed to the public and talk through what the true issues are. With a speaking filibuster, we will know
Starting point is 00:26:26 where the senators stand. If they want to stand up there and start reading novels on the floor for 24 hours or 48 hours as we're trying to pass the gun reform legislation, you should be committed to do that at the end of the day if your goal is to hold up through a filibuster legislation that the majority of Americans want passed. And on all of these issues, on gun reform, on raising the minimum wage, health care, the Voting Rights Act. These are issues that overwhelming majority of Americans support. Here's how you know that it was a successful press conference for Biden. The takeaways from everybody at the end were, why didn't the press ask any questions about COVID? Number two, Kayleigh McEnany saying, trying to take credit for President Biden's vaccine rollout because they're so jealous of the success that Biden has had when the Trump administration
Starting point is 00:27:32 completely failed to get vaccines out there. Number three, you had people like Ari Fleischer out there. Their biggest complaint was why does Biden keep referencing the note cards for information? Why does he keep looking at note cards when he wants to bring up data? Yeah, because he's a measured guy. He doesn't just shoot from the hip and say bullshit. If he's telling you something, he wants to tell you facts. It's a nice, refreshing thing to have. I'm hydroxychloroquine, right?
Starting point is 00:27:58 As we inject ourselves with a bleach. Imagine how many more people would be alive right now if instead of saying that, the former guy looked down and said, oh, yeah, to solve this problem, we're going to need vaccines to be delivered to people. You know, don't try any sort of at home remedies. Don't try any whatever. But instead, he's just mouthing off because he's a fucking idiot. And that's why that Biden is a nice, refreshing change of pace here. The other thing was any time Biden made a joke, conservatives were like, oh, look at it. Oh, my God. The other thing was anytime Biden made a joke, conservatives were like, oh, look at it. Oh my God.
Starting point is 00:28:27 Oh shit. Like Biden made a joke in the beginning of that clip saying that when he was in the Senate 120 years ago, the filibuster you had to stand. It's a funny joke. Self-deprecating joke that he's old. Self-deprecating joke about his age. And Republicans are like 120 years ago, senile Biden. It's like, all right, if that's,
Starting point is 00:28:44 if these are going to be your complaints, you're tearing apart your jokes. Listen, you've already lost the battle. There's no doubt about it. When we come back though, from this short break, I am super excited to have our guest today. It's Glenn Kirshner. Glenn is a, used to be a federal prosecutor for 30 years. He is now the co-founder of the Democracy Pledge, which is a way for companies to show they're on the right side of history by affirming there that the democratic institutions are legitimate. I am excited to talk to Glenn Kirshner, who is a professor at GW, where I went to undergrad. He's actually teaching courses that I took, or I believe I took at GW. It was college years. I don't fully remember. I think I took criminal justice. I don't fully know.
Starting point is 00:29:38 I know what I took in law school, but I assume I took criminal justice as a poli-sci major. So I'm excited to talk to that. I'm excited to talk to him about the democracy pledge and where he thinks Donald Trump is going to get indicted. We will be right back. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast here with the one and only Glenn Kirschner, former 30-year federal prosecutor, NBC News, MSNBC analyst, an adjunct professor at George Washington Law School, a school that I went to undergrad. Glenn, don't hold it against me. I went to the competitor Georgetown Law School. But big shout out to GW and now leading as a co-founder, The Democracy Pledge. Welcome to the Minus Touch podcast, Glenn Kirshner. Hey, great to be with you guys. So at GW, are they still going with
Starting point is 00:30:33 like the hippo as their informal mascot out there? When I was there, they really tried to push the hippo on us and it wasn't really working. Have they given that up or are they still trying to push the hippo? It's a good question. I haven't seen the hippo around lately, so they may have abandoned it. It was always a weird idea. And the old head of the school had this infatuation with hippos and they kept on building hippo statutes. And so how do you like that you teach there? What class do you teach out there? So I teach criminal justice, arrest through appeal. I taught for years as adjunct faculty at GW Law. And then I took a break. And when I left the federal government, I decided I really wanted to get back into teaching. But I really wanted to teach undergrad, undergrad criminal justice, because you know what? There
Starting point is 00:31:19 are plenty of lawyers. I didn't want to be in the process of producing more lawyers. So I really enjoy, you know, getting my hands on the undergrad minds while they're still debating whether they want to go to law school or they want to do something else. And I can give them, you know, the bird's eye view of the criminal justice system from the inside where I worked for 30 years. So, you know, we meet twice a week. I have 50 criminal justice students every semester and it is my respite. I so look forward to my Tuesdays and Thursdays with my students. Yeah. I once taught a class recently at University of Irvine School of Law and there was nothing like it. I mean, just the energy of students being able to have that level of engagement and just talking about the law outside of the weeds. But I want to get into the weeds a little bit. And if you could
Starting point is 00:32:10 talk about just your background as a federal prosecutor before getting into the Democracy Pledge. Sure. So I started in the 80s as an Army JAG. So I was an Army prosecutor for about six, six and a half years. I spent three years prosecuting court martial cases, and then another three, three and a half years as an appellate court prosecutor. Basically, when a soldier would get convicted at court martial, would appeal their conviction, I would then handle the appeal for the army. So after that, I decided to leave the army because you get promoted out of the courtroom at about the six-year mark. I knew I was nowhere near ready to leave the courtroom.
Starting point is 00:32:50 I transitioned over to the Department of Justice in 1994, specifically the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. And I spent nearly a quarter of a century there. My first U.S. attorney was Eric Holder. He gave me a shot at being a federal prosecutor. And then my chief of was Bob Mueller. That's where I really learned how to be a federal homicide prosecutor. And Bob really taught me how to run the homicide section because I went on to become homicide in the D.C. U.S. attorneys responsible for overseeing all murder prosecutions and 30 federal prosecutors. We, of course, saw Bob Mueller during the Mueller investigations. What was it like from the inside working with him?
Starting point is 00:33:31 He's a great man. He is. He's fierce. He's a by the book guy. Some might say a little bit too by the book for their tastes, because, you know, you could see the report that he issued. I think it frustrated some people because it didn't go as far as the report that he issued. I think it frustrated some people because it didn't go as far as some people would have liked. But what I can tell you is Bob Mueller applied the rules, applied the law, applied the Department of Justice policy that says you can't accuse somebody of a crime if you're not actually charging them with that crime. And he followed all of the rules. And as a result, Bob opted not to go to the ultimate conclusion and announced that Trump was guilty, that Trump committed those crimes. He thought, I am projecting here, knowing Bob, learning from Bob,
Starting point is 00:34:19 he thought, I am going to turn this over to Congress and Congress is going to get this right. The man's going to be impeached and removed. And of course, we were let down. You think that Bob could have been more aggressive, though, in that investigation in terms of, you know, really pressing Trump to give under oath statements and, you know, maybe forcing some of that inner circle to actually testify and respond, because we didn't really see that, which as a lawyer kind of surprised me. I definitely get he went by the book, but also to some extent, as a prosecutor, you are also creating the framework of applying the book. And he didn't subpoena Trump. And what are your thoughts on
Starting point is 00:34:57 that? Yeah. So looking back, because I don't think we got the result that the country needed, which was to dislodge an obviously criminal president. It's easy for us to say he should have been more aggressive. But when you read volume two, if you'll notice, there is a strategic redaction of the sentence that I have no doubt says Donald Trump's lawyers said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Therefore, I did not subpoena him. Why? Because we could have gone all the way up through the Supreme Court and fought the subpoena battle. Guess what? Then all Trump's lawyers had to do is say he invokes the Fifth, and it's all for naught because your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination trumps, no pun intended, a subpoena.
Starting point is 00:35:49 So I believe when we see the unredacted Mueller report, you're going to see two redactions that are lifted. One that said Donald spoke this amendment right against self-incrimination, and the second says Don Jr. would have invoked his right against self-incrimination, which we can't defeat unless we're going to grant immunity. When do we see that? When do we get to when do we get to see those redactions? Now, I think for our viewers and listeners, what they should know is that in a criminal case, if you invoke the fifth, it's not something that you can point to in a criminal trial. Right. You can't go. He invoked the fifth. come on, that's guilty. You can't do it. But from a public perception perspective, it's always hard to separate those two. And it would be helpful, I think, as a public that we did know that his lawyer stated he was going to
Starting point is 00:36:37 invoke the fifth and the implications of that. So when do you think that we get that redaction removed so the world can see that, you know, if you're right? And I'm hoping I'm hoping you're right, but I'm hoping we see that soon. So Merrick Garland has probably got his hands full, but I am sure one of his first tasks has been to review the unredacted Mueller report. And I am hopeful that he will decide in the public interest I need to reveal more than Bill Barr revealed. Of course, Bill Barr not only hid important portions of it from the American people, he lied about it, according to federal court judge Reggie Walton, who said Bill Barr mischaracterized the Mueller report, spun the Mueller report, end quote, Bill Barr lacks candor. I've handled cases
Starting point is 00:37:27 in front of Judge Reggie Walton. He don't play. And I take his findings very seriously with respect to how Bill Barr, you know, handled the Mueller report. You know, Midas Touch, we found it incredibly effective after the election where we put pressure on private companies. One of the groups that we put pressure on was Jones Day. We did the video Shame on Jones Day, and a lot of large law firms said, all right, we're not going to be representing Donald Trump. We also put pressure on Bed Bath and Beyond, for example, for carrying the MyPillows and supporting someone who was engaged in sedition. I think that putting the pressure on corporations where an entire party, in this case, the GQP, has kind of seeded any desire to
Starting point is 00:38:12 have a democracy, focusing on corporations is important. And I think that's one of the foundations to what the democracy pledge wants to do and wants to achieve. Can you describe the kind of genesis of the democracy pledge and what its goals and objectives are? Sure. So when I left federal service after a little over 30 years, I left in June of 2018, I was looking for ways to continue to serve in whatever capacity I could. And we kind of created a group of folks who care deeply about justice, who care deeply about corruption in government, and in short, care deeply about democracy, who care deeply about corruption in government, and in short, care deeply about democracy. We call ourselves Team Justice. And we went about trying
Starting point is 00:38:51 to come up with some grassroots projects that help citizens get involved, because we all feel so dang helpless when our politicians don't seem to be doing the job for us. You know, gone are the days that we can just vote for the best candidates, send them to Washington and think everything's going to be all right. Well, everything's not going to be all right. So it really is up to us. So one of the projects we came up with is the democracy project. We've got others. We've got a letter to all 50 state attorneys general, because there is liability on Donald Trump's part and Jared Kushner's part and Mike Pence's part. As a 22 year homicide prosecutor, I see the homicide liability in the way they handled the pandemic.
Starting point is 00:39:39 So that's another project we have. We have the we have the Citizens Brigade of Court Watchers that we're going to get in and try to keep tabs on the Mitch McConnell, not qualified judges that were crammed down America's throats. But right now we've got the Pledge, which we just launched. And it's a website. Anybody can go see it. It is thedepledge.com, D for democracy, www.thedepledge.com. On Twitter, it's at thedepledge. And it is designed to give companies the opportunity to affirm that they stand with democracy, that they don't support politicians who fought so hard to destroy, to undermine American democracy. And when those companies, businesses, and corporations, we haven't even approached any yet, and we have almost 100 that came to us and have already taken the democracy pledge. When they do it, we have their name, we have their logo. And if you click on the logo, you get a link right to their website.
Starting point is 00:40:30 This makes perfect consumer sense for them. And it makes perfect sense for the citizens who go there to see, OK, if I'm going to spend my money on sneakers or ice cream, I want to get my sneakers and ice cream from a company that cares about the health of American democracy. So we're trying to just put up on the website all of the companies, corporations, and businesses that have taken the democracy pledge. And it's not our way or the highway. If you don't like our four sentences that we have crafted to say that you, your company, your business will support democracy.
Starting point is 00:41:05 Give us an alternate statement. Okay. This is about empowering consumers. Who right now is the biggest company that signed the democracy pledge? I would have to, you know, I was on a conference call last night and I haven't looked in the last few days. So we haven't even approached any big companies formally. I've been talking to some informally because lots of the folks that I used to work with at the DC U.S. Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice are now titans of industry, kind of like the opposite of the path I chose when I left federal government. And so we're doing a lot of informal outreach before we make the more formal
Starting point is 00:41:39 ask. I would have to look at the nearly 100 companies that have approached us and signed up to even tell you who the biggest one is. But here's the thing. This is grassroots. Give me landscaping businesses. Give me poodle parlors. Give me whatever in every city and in every small town in America. And if you've got two landscaping joints in your town, one that pledges in favor of democracy and the other that's throwing money at Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley? Well, who do you want to hire to cut your lawn? Yes, we want United Airlines. We want Coke. We want Home Depot. We want Hewlett Packard. But we want everybody else where, you know, those consumer dollars matter. And, you know, voters' voices are loud, but the corporate America, we all know,
Starting point is 00:42:23 consumers' voices are louder. So we're just looking to give the consumers voice here. And it seems like such a basic concept to me that, you know, if you're an American company, you should support democracy. Like at its bare minimum, you should support democracy. And we all saw what happened on January 6th during the insurrection. Do you think we'll ever see true legal accountability for those involved in January 6th? Do you think there will be sedition charges? Do you think the Hollies, the Giulianis, the Don Juniors, the Mo Brooks, will they ever see any sort of legal accountability?
Starting point is 00:42:55 I am the eternal optimist bordering on naive and even Pollyanna at times. For 30 years as a prosecutor, it was my job to assess evidence and then make completely apolitical charging decisions. When you look at the statute, there are five ways you can violate the sedition laws. One of the five ways, for example, is if you take by force property of the federal government to which you have no right, including entering the Capitol and occupying it. The seditious conspiracy charge, I believe, based on the evidence is strong and it's strong against Donald Trump, Don Jr., Rudy Giuliani, Mo Brooks, as you just mentioned, because of the way they incited the attack on the Capitol. If we let the facts and the evidence be our guide, rather than the politics, rather than the fear of losing in court, rather than the timidity from which so many of our public officials suffer from time to time, then there will be charges brought.
Starting point is 00:43:59 And I predict there'll be successful charges because all of the evidence is there. But the same could be said of the New York charges that Cy Vance is investigating. The same could be said of the charges in Georgia that the Fulton County D.A. is investigating. For gosh sakes, the entire crime was caught on a recorded phone call where Trump is asking that somebody give him one more vote than that he needs to be declared the winner in Georgia. The crime is everywhere. And unfortunately, what I've been most disappointed by over the last four years, because all of my friends and former colleagues are still at the Department of Justice, they're still at the US Attorney's Office, investigating the insurrection. I've been so disappointed that the law enforcement community and the intelligence community has let Donald Trump, his family members, and many of his corrupt cabinet officials
Starting point is 00:44:50 get away with everything for four years. That really is the true failing, I think, of federal government. And it's the example it sets, right, Glenn? Like my law partner is a criminal defense lawyer. And he says they would charge my clients with one scintilla of the evidence that they have against Donald Trump. And so it just makes the legal system systemically look completely broken. And when you have these things so obviously recorded on tape, so obvious, and there is no accountability, it just generally makes it clear that this criminal justice system is indeed able to shield anyone who can potentially hold the executive office,
Starting point is 00:45:40 that there are just different rules that apply. And that's a throwback to royalty, to kings and queens, everything that we stood against as a democracy, that nobody is above the law. And I certainly hope there will be accountability. I know you're the internal optimist, but using that internal optimism and molding it with some realism, when would you expect the first, do you expect charges to be brought? And in which jurisdiction and investigation right now do you think would be first against Donald Trump? Yeah, I think it's kind of a push as to who will drop the first indictment on Donald Trump's head.
Starting point is 00:46:14 Cy Vance has had his case for a long time. And given that he took not one, but two trips to the Supreme Court to finally get Donald Trump's tax returns and financial records. Cy Vance, the Manhattan District Attorney, has also hired an expert mob and white-collar crime prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, former chief of the criminal division at the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office. He spent a forensic accounting firm to make the case against Donald Trump. And now he's going after Alan Weisselberg's family in an obvious attempt to flip Weisselberg against Trump. Weisselberg being the
Starting point is 00:46:49 longtime chief financial officer and accountant for Trump. Every single sign is that Cy Vance's shop is ready to drop an indictment on Donald Trump. Let's hope it happens sooner rather than later. But I think neck and neck with that investigation is the Fulton County DA. Why? Because whereas Cy Vance's financial investigation takes a long time and a lot of material to put together, we've got it all on the phone call, where Donald Trump is trying to steal an election by saying, find one in the back of a truck and give it to me, like the mobster he pretends to be.
Starting point is 00:47:24 So that case is ready made. So that may actually be the first one out of the chute. And then the somewhat dark horse with respect to the timing, those are the federal charges. And there are so many, we could spend an hour cataloging every crime I saw Donald Trump commit over the past four years. But in Merrick Garland, let me say, and I don't think this is me being Pollyanna. We have somebody who is perfectly positioned to handle an investigation into Donald Trump. If I say that, because Merrick started out as a prosecutor in my former office, the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office, and he cut his public corruption teeth as prosecutor
Starting point is 00:48:01 on the Marion Barry from Washington, D.C., crack cocaine case. Merrick Garland prosecuted that. And that was no easy task, given the atmospherics of the time and given the case, frankly, because that was an ugly case in many ways. Then he cut his domestic terrorism teeth as a prosecutor on the Oklahoma City bombing case. And I have never been more impressed with a statement from a prosecutor than I was when he took over that investigation and supervised that prosecution. He said,
Starting point is 00:48:30 we will bring to justice everybody responsible for bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City, but we will do it in a way that honors the Constitution. As an old career prosecutor, that's the thing that gives me patriotic goosebumps, because he's going to go hard, but he's going to go fair, and he's going to honor the Constitution. And then, of course, he did the Unabomber case. He supervised it. He did the Atlanta Olympics bombing case. He supervised it. The man is really the perfect marriage between a public corruption prosecutor and a domestic terrorism prosecutor. And what we have in the attack on the Capitol, it is the unholy union of public corruption and
Starting point is 00:49:13 Donald Trump inspiring it and a whole bunch of seditionists, domestic terrorism, the terrorists attacking the Capitol. Merrick Garland is the right man for the moment. And I think the Republicans will rue the day they deprived him unconstitutionally of his advice and consent hearing to be a Supreme Court justice, because I think there's going to be hell to pay now. Switching gears slightly. We've been told from some veterans who follow Midas Touch that at these military bases, Fox News is set as the default channel at the gyms. So one, is that true? And if so, what role do you think that plays as far as conditioning our troops to think that Democrats don't like the military? Yeah, I spent a lot of
Starting point is 00:49:59 time in the Brooklyn DA. I often saw conservative news on the TVs at the Brooklyn VA, where my dad spent a lot of time before he passed away. I don't know if it's true if a whole bunch of veterans, though, are reporting that, listen, I go to the VA and I see Fox News, that I'm going to take it as true. I can't imagine its policy. There ought to be a policy, frankly, that there be, you know, apolitical programming presented. And, you know, if they want to say, look, if you don't want CNN and MSNBC, you don't want Fox, maybe you put PBS or maybe you put some other channel on. Because I think the perception of being fair, being apolitical is an important perception that the government should put out there. I have a feeling, though,
Starting point is 00:50:43 yeah, at the VA, you're probably seeing a lot of Fox News on the TVs in the waiting rooms. Glenn Kirshner, thank you so much for joining the Midas Touch podcast. You can listen to Glenn on his podcast, Justice Matters with Glenn Kirshner and subscribe to his YouTube channel and check out the Democracy Pledge at thedepledge.com. Glenn, anywhere else that our listeners could find you? No, if you want to become a formal member of Team Justice and support our all-volunteer efforts, you can come on over to patreon.com, sign up to become a patron, and be part of Team Justice. We do Zoom chats. We work projects together.
Starting point is 00:51:17 I love it. Glenn Kirshner, thank you so much for joining the Midas Touch Podcast. We'll be right back after this. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Having Glenn as a guest in other news, it seems like it's weekly news right now. Another horrible mass shooting this time in Colorado at a supermarket in Boulder. Colorado is a state where open carry is legal. It suffered through some of the most deadly mass shootings in American history, including the 1999 Columbine shooting, the Aurora Theater attack in 2012. The kind of irony here, and it's horrible, is that on March 12th, right, like two weeks ago, a Colorado judge had actually blocked Boulder from enforcing its assault rifle ban after the NRA sued. And then less than 10 days later, you have this gunman with the AR-15 style rifle.
Starting point is 00:52:21 Worth noting, he purchased the rifle. He purchased the AR-15 style rifle just a couple of days after the judge blocked Boulder from enforcing the ban. So I mean, that's just more blood. It would have been prevented from having the gun that he then used to kill the individual. Yeah. It's a very clear reason why gun control is so important. Just common sense gun control. No Democrat wants to take your guns away. But there are common sense steps that we should be taking as a country. I mean, there's that famous Onion article that goes around every time this shooting happens. How could this happen here, says the only nation where this regularly happens. It's the headline or something like that. And they just changed the picture to represent the new city every time it
Starting point is 00:53:01 happens. It's devastating. I mean, I think if you, all you got to do is look at Australia. Australia had a mass shooting sometime around 1996. They put on very strict gun buyback laws and gun control laws. They have not really had mass shootings at that level at all since. They maybe had one where three people were killed a few years ago. Aside from that, they've had really, their gun violence has went down to basically zero. Their suicides rate has went down to basically zero. And if you look at Australia on COVID as well, I mean, this is what we should be doing, by the way. We should be looking at other countries all the time and say, hey, why do you guys seem to have a hold on this policy? Why do you guys seem to have a hold on COVID? Why do you guys seem to have great transportation? Why do you guys have great infrastructure? All these things,
Starting point is 00:53:53 let's crowdsource it. We have all the information in the world from all these countries. And if you look at Australia, you see that they took like they took with gun control. They took common sense steps with COVID and they squashed the virus very early on. And if you go there now, if you went there months ago, people are really returned to normal life. They have the freedom that so-called conservatives claim to want, but they were not willing to shut down for a couple of weeks to get that long-term benefit. And I think we just need to be looking towards these other countries, towards these other areas and pick what works. And in this instance, gun control would have literally saved lives. This is a totally avoidable tragedy.
Starting point is 00:54:30 And this obviously comes less than a week after eight people were killed in a shooting spree at three Atlanta area spas. I mean, guys, this is happening too much. Already in 2021, there have been more mass shootings than there have been days. We cannot sustain this. This is its own pandemic that is rearing its head now that we are getting back to quote unquote normal life ever so slightly. And it's just a tragedy that this is the America that we're living in. And we don't have to live like this. We really don't.
Starting point is 00:55:02 We could take action. That's why it was such an honor to donate that $10,000 to Moms Demand and to Orange Ribbons for Jamie, because groups like that are just doing such incredible work on these issues. And it's so important. Here's the thing. At the end of the day, I think people should have the right to bear arms. I believe in the Second Amendment. I do. I think that most Democrats believe that you can own a gun, you can own guns to go hunting. I think you can own a handgun. It gets very bizarre though, when people are arguing that they should open carry military assault rifles near schools. Okay. That's just not, that's not normal.
Starting point is 00:55:46 Or in school. It's not normal. That's not something that you should want to do or that you should want to happen, you know, that you should want to happen near you. There is a lot of mental health issues. I mean, we see, you know, all the, you know, all this craziness, even just within the GQP and you combine that with assault rifles, you know, the QAnon with assault rifles, and it's a, you know, and a lot of people with mental health, regardless of any political ideology or affiliation, you know, you know, gun violence is a significant problem and putting an assault rifle in the hands of somebody who's unfit to own it. It's just, it would almost be like, there's someone who's arguing that
Starting point is 00:56:34 you should have the right to speed at 150 miles per hour and just zigzag through the lanes and go in opposite directions. That that's something that we should do because you should have the freedom of ingress and egress and that you should therefore be able to just do whatever the hell you want to do. I mean, at the end of the day, you can have interstate commerce, but that doesn't mean that you can drive like a freaking maniac or improperly. There can be and should be basic rules and regulations around it. So, I mean, look, the Democrats are going to obviously put forward a gun, you know, a bill for gun safety. They always do. The votes aren't there, which is why going back to the filibuster that we spoke about earlier, filibuster needs to be amended. Gun reform is supported by, you of Americans, upwards of 65,
Starting point is 00:57:28 70%, even more, depending on the polls that you look at, support common sense gun reform. And it's just so strange to me, again, when people are against that. And then finally today, again, voter suppression. It's a major, major, major problem, guys. And we see in states like Georgia, the response has been to retaliate. praised for adhering to the fundamental, just the fundamental idea of democracy. A lot of these people you have to remember are still very much Republicans. So you have a guy like Brian Kemp, who we praised for not kowtowing to Donald Trump's demands to overturn the election. However, Brian Kemp is an advocate of this voter suppression. He wasn't an advocate of overthrowing democracy through Trump's means, but he is okay to try to overthrow democracy by instituting all of these laws that restrict the right to vote. And so on Thursday, Georgia's
Starting point is 00:58:38 House passed a 95-page Republican-led voter suppression bill, of course, Republican-led, allowing the GOP takeover of state and county election boards, unlimited challenges to voter eligibility, restricting drop boxes and making it a crime to give voters food and water in lines. Like what ghouls do you have to be to do that? And of course, they exacerbate this problem by making it so that these people are waiting in really long lines. And so when we're giving voters, when volunteers are giving voters food and water, it's because the lines are so long that they need it to sustain themselves because of the voter suppression
Starting point is 00:59:20 efforts by the GOP. It's really disgusting all in all. And I just want to explain the way it works for people who may not know is each state is sort of like its own country in a way. Think of them as their own sort of countries. Think about it as federalism. So Georgia has its own state house. They have their own state Senate. Then they have their governor. They have their own state constitution. And so when this passes the house, and then they have their governor, they have their own state constitution. And so when this passes the House, it then will go to the Georgia state Senate. It will then have to be either they will change it or they will pass it. The changes will then go back to the House, just like it would in the United States Senate. And then it goes to the governor, in this case,
Starting point is 01:00:01 Governor Brian Kemp's desk for a signature or for a veto. So we will see what happens. We will be following this bill. But what it's looking like right now is that they're going to ram this thing through. It already passed the House. They're going to ram it through the Senate and Kemp's going to sign it. And we're going to have a lot of work to do to defeat voter suppression in the year ahead. It's really scary. And it's just wild to me on a personal level that it's really just up to it's just wild to me on a personal level that it's really just up to the state at the end of the day in 2021 that they just lost and Georgia turned blue and they decided, no, never again. I'm a deep red state. This is never happening here.
Starting point is 01:00:36 How can we rig the game? We're just going to change the rules. And that's why the For the People Act is so important to get behind and pass because what that does is it says, no states, you can't do that. You can't do these voter suppression measures. And that's why Republicans are terrified of it. Because for all their claims of voter suppression, for all their claims of it's a rigged system, they're the ones doing the rigging. And once they're not allowed to do that, they are screwed. They will never win another election again if they cannot cheat. So that's why we need to push for the For the People Act. We need to expand voting rights.
Starting point is 01:01:12 And let me be clear, if you are not in support of voting rights, you are not in support of democracy. Simple as that. No doubt about it. And I just want to thank everybody as we conclude this episode of the Midas Touch podcast for joining us on this incredible journey. You know, when we started Midas Touch, it was out of frustration and anger at the political system and that the media was broken.
Starting point is 01:01:40 Our political system was broken and we each had talents and we wanted to bring those talents to do something. We didn't know what. Started off as a blog, became a political action committee in May. And ever since then, we've been aggressively building a structure, a movement that wouldn't be possible without your support. So as we, Brett, Ben, and Jordi celebrate this one year anniversary, it's really a celebration of us all together. Everyone's been a part of it from the outset. Every single campaign that we've run, when we've fundraised for specific initiatives and items, you've been there with us. We've showed you what we were raising for.
Starting point is 01:02:23 You've had the opportunity to evaluate those items. We then would show the results of those items and we would go on to the next campaign. We've ran so many different campaigns from mailing programs, to TV ads, to digital ads, to Facebook ads, to text message campaigns, to mobile billboards to activations to funding porta potties to canvassing the very first thing i remember we said remember when are you better off which was our first like viral hit when that started going viral i remember saying man if we could get this to a point where we could even have one billboard one billboard somewhere in the country that says are you better off i mean how freaking cool would that be guys like how if we got just one billboard, one billboard somewhere in the country that says, are you better off? I mean,
Starting point is 01:03:05 how freaking cool would that be guys? Like how, if we got just one billboard, like, oh my gosh. And now it's a year later. And like all the things you mentioned, like, is it's crazy how much we were able to do with essentially so little really going after the biggest players out there going after, you know, Donald Trump, the biggest mob boss out there. I mean, here's the thing that's wild, Brett, when you really kind of break it down, is that like, I think there was $470 million that were spent on ads in Georgia. I think there are organizations that, you know, literally raised hundreds of millions of dollars or tens of millions of dollars
Starting point is 01:03:46 just for their overhead and for operations. I think our overall overhead from the last report, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's somewhere around like 385,000 for everybody who's ever worked during that period, at that period of time at Midas Touch, including all video productions. All of that is encompassed in that amount and that amount of money, which is like a fraction. If you did the 500 videos, I think alone and multiplied them
Starting point is 01:04:20 just using the lowest number, seventy five hundred dollars. That would be three and a half to $4 million on videos. And we did all of that and had everybody paid living wages within $385,000. I mean, that's something I'm super proud of. And healthcare. And everyone who's working with us, healthcare. It's been really, really cool and really freaking awesome that we've been able to do that. It's truly, I feel super proud of what we've accomplished here. And I am so thankful for this movement, the Midas Mighty that has come to our side and has really made this possible. I mean, unlike other organizations that survive on the donations of billionaires coming in or that are run by billionaires, we're able to do a grassroots organization.
Starting point is 01:05:05 It's really unheard of to do this sort of raising on a grassroots level, $5 at a time, $10 at a time, $3 at a time, $20 at a time, saying, hey, you know what? We're going to run this TV out in Georgia. Do you support it? Hey, we're going to get canvassers out there in Georgia to knock on doors. Do you support us on this mission? And you guys stepped up every single time and helped us do this. And really at the end of the day, everything that we needed to happen, happened. We won the presidency. We won Georgia. And I'm going to revise that. You won the presidency. You won Georgia because we could not do it without you at all. And thank you from the bottom of our hearts. This is been Brett and Jordy signing off
Starting point is 01:05:45 from this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you for joining us in this fight and we'll see you next week. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

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