The MeidasTouch Podcast - Jack Smith INCHES CLOSER as Republican ‘Whistleblowers’ are Exposed

Starting point is 00:00:00 Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer. From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino. The excitement doesn't stop there. With over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more. Make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun.

Starting point is 00:00:29 And make same-day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please gamble 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 for your

Starting point is 00:00:50 charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario the gop hearing to attack the fbi with fake whistleblowers who support the insurrection, many paid by Trump-backed groups, backfired, not surprisingly. The GOP is all in on their support for insurrectionists and for attacking the FBI that investigates insurrectionists. Meanwhile, special counsel Jack Smith got grand jury testimony from Donald Trump's personal aide Nick Luna. Luna was actually with Donald Trump at the time of the January 6th insurrection and Luna previously testified before the January 6th committee that he had seen Donald Trump ripping up and destroying government records while he was serving as Trump's aide. Ron DeSantis is set to announce his run for the Republican nomination for president as early as

Starting point is 00:01:55 next week, and he continues to sign into law cruel and unusual laws using government as an authoritarian force to destroy human lives for his pleasure. He is doing nothing for the people, but spreading hate. Speaking of which, Republicans spent this week calling for hearings on Budweiser's connection with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney. And they were also focused on attacking pride clothing that sold at Target stores. And I think they were upset about a drag performance at an LA Dodgers game. And yes, folks, the green M&M is still a major issue for the GOP and their propaganda arm, Fox. Things that make real Americans look at this and say, what the heck is going on with these people? And it's not hard to see why Democrats and independents are winning and Republicans are losing in elections. There were some elections that were held this week, some notable mayor's

Starting point is 00:03:05 races. And this week, Democrats won a major upset in the Jacksonville, Florida mayor's race, defeating a GOP-backed candidate who spent millions of dollars more and was supported by Ron DeSantis, also an independent but Democrat-aligned mayoral candidate, won in Colorado Springs. Now, in both of these areas, there were far more Republican-identified voters than Democrats. And here's the thing. It's because there is a paradigm shift that we've been talking about here over and over again at the Midas Touch Network, which is backed with data that large media networks continue to ignore, right? The old paradigm, Democrat versus Republican, progressive liberals on one side, conservatives on the other side, that is an outdated paradigm.

Starting point is 00:04:01 In the present moment, there is pro-democracy on one side versus Trump MAGA authoritarianism on the other side. It's that simple, folks. I'm Ben Micellis, and this is the Midas Touch Podcast. I'm joined by Brett and Jordy Micellis. How are you doing? Ben, you know what? I am doing fantastic. What a day today. And I got to say, everybody, for those who don't know, it's the Ben man's birthday on Friday. So if you are watching this on YouTube, it's Ben's birthday tomorrow. If you're listening to this on audio, it is today. So everybody, why don't you join me right now in a happy birthday song. Ready? One, two, three. I don't got it. No need to do that. Happy birthday, big bro. But I want to say happy birthday, Ben, the hardest working man in politics on YouTube, hardest working man for the people. It's great to be here.

Starting point is 00:04:53 And man, it's been an interesting day watching these Republicans trot out these BS witnesses, so-called whistleblowers, watch the Democrats once again fire back. These new Democrats, man, they really, really got it and excited to go through it and expose everything that we saw all of our reporting from today. Jordy, it's great to see you. Loving the shirt, loving the flair. How are you doing? I'm doing really well. So I'm not going to name the sponsor because they're not a sponsor of the show. I'm not going to name the product. I had an energy drink right before I came on air because I just needed a little bit more energy. Now I know why our parents growing up wouldn't let me have energy drinks.

Starting point is 00:05:34 I am bouncing off the walls right now. So super stoked, really excited for the show. I think I need to button my shirt a little bit more. I'm like a little disheveled over it. I'm so pumped for today. Jordy, I think you need to button my shirt a little bit more. I'm like a little disheveled over it. I'm so pumped for today. Jordy, I think you need to do some meditation back there, okay? Just, you know, be one with the world, okay? I'm jumping out of my seat right now.

Starting point is 00:05:56 I'll say this. The Democrats have definitely met the moment, and it is a very important moment. Brett, you mentioned it is my birthday on Friday and people are saying, Ben, what do you want to do on your birthday? And honestly, I said, the reality is I have a lot of fun doing these YouTube videos. I really enjoy doing the podcasts and making these videos here on the Midas Touch Network because I think it's just so important to have these conversations together. That's how I view it with everybody watching on YouTube or listening on audio. These are conversations because as we listen to your feedback, as we read your comments

Starting point is 00:06:41 on our YouTube site and the comments that you give us elsewhere on our Patreon site and other spots. This is a real conversation about our democracy and what we can be doing together, the same way the Democrats are in meeting this important moment because our democracy is on the line. And we saw that today with this BS hearing that was held by MAGA Republicans, where they trotted in the House of Representatives in this so-called weaponization committee, individuals who were not really whistleblowers. This is like the go-to thing of MAGA Republicans. Just call anybody a whistleblower. They could just be insurrectionists. They could be fired for cause for espousing views like these individuals did that the January 6th

Starting point is 00:07:38 insurrectionists did the right thing. These could be people who stole data from the FBI. Frankly, people who should be arrested, not simply disciplined and lose their security clearance. When I was reading what these people engaged in, I was like, that sounds pretty criminal to me, like stealing files and lying about and covering up for insurrectionists. I'm like, that sounds fairly criminal to me. And here's the thing too, that the FBI offered to have one of their senior executives in charge of human resources speak before this committee as well. And to speak with the MAGA Republicans

Starting point is 00:08:19 about the circumstances, why these individuals lost their security clearance. And it was because they espoused positive views towards the insurrection. They rooted for the insurrectionists. They covered up for the insurrectionists. They disobeyed orders. And then even when they disobeyed orders, there was like one individual, the FBI is like, all right, you now just have to go to training about following orders in the future. and the person refused to do it. So the whole thing is like a setup from the outset. And then, of course, we learn that these individuals are being paid by. Come on.

Starting point is 00:08:55 Tell who, by the way, there was part of a plan of Kash Patel and Trump to declare martial law to appoint Kash Patel as the acting head of the CIA, team normal, whatever that even means within the White House, was like, under no circumstances are you going to bring this insurrectionist into that position. But Kash Patel is funding these individuals. And we'll show you some of these clips where one of the individuals was like, yeah, I received a donation from him. And Democratic Congress member Dan Goldman's like, so are you a charity? What do you mean you received a donation from him? But let's show you some of these clips. The first I want to show you, this is Jim Jordan in the press conference before the hearing took place today, where he was asked by the media if he

Starting point is 00:09:44 thought it was appropriate that whistleblowers are being paid by Trump advisors. Play this clip. We're talking a lot about the point of this press conference. The point of the hearing is to talk about how the FBI is politicized. But do you think it's appropriate for some of these whistleblowers, including two who will be at your hearing today, to be paid by one of the former president's closest advisors, Cash Patel. They got a family. How are they supposed to feed their family? 450 days. The FBI has kept Mr. O'Boyle in limbo where he can't work without pay. He's got four kids. He was selected

Starting point is 00:10:22 to come to this special unit they were forming here in virginia he moves look at this and it just looks like an snl sketch the day he gets here they say hey we're suspending your clearance and they won't let him get access to his furniture his clothes and he's got a two-week old newborn child i mean you got to be kidding me of course they're gonna they're gonna do whatever they can to feed their family and And I don't fault them for that. You know, I thought this was the party. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps. I mean, there's no other job in the world. They have to be paid by Trump advisors who try to overthrow our democracy. Do you think that's the best judgment of an FBI agent to accept money, potentially thousands and thousands of dollars from Kash Patel and from

Starting point is 00:11:08 other people who promote bizarre QAnon conspiracies, that by itself should be a reason to revoke somebody's security clearance. But Brett, you're so right. That looks like an SNL skit. And the reality is though, because this affects our lives, I would love to laugh at it. I'd love to be like, that is parody. But little Jim Jordan right there, who's not even a freaking licensed lawyer, who is engaging in this clear and present threat to our democracy out there, just spewing just complete BS. It is actually terrifying that that exists. But that is what the MAGA Republicans want. That's their vision. Their vision as we go through these clips is not a court of law where evidence is presented. It's not a place based on facts and

Starting point is 00:12:01 evidence. It's a place where Marjorie Taylor Greene says, the FBI director is a democratic stooge. And it's like he was appointed by Donald Trump. Do we have that clip, by the way? I want to pull this up because part of their overall attack on the FBI leading up to this hearing today, and this just goes to show you all of their lies. Marjorie Taylor Greene, first off, I don't even know what the heck she's talking about here. She's like, they want to keep the – it's another laptop thing. in DC and the whole right wing echo chamber developed this conspiracy that basically they said that, oh, he must've been the guy who leaked the Clinton emails and the DNC and Hillary Clinton must've killed him, had him killed. This was a legitimate conspiracy theory that spread like wildfire through the right wing. It was tweeted ad nauseum. It was talked about on Fox News on a nightly basis. All those hosts would talk about

Starting point is 00:13:05 it so much that Fox actually had to settle with Seth Rich's family and pay them a ton of money for the lies. And this family has just been utterly tortured by these right-wing lies, just absolutely tortured. And I feel for them. And what too often these people don't take into account because they're so callous is that they're actual human beings on the other end of their lives that are being affected. So here's Marjorie Taylor Greene that's trying to do a dig on FBI director Chris Wray by calling him a Democrat who is choosing the party over the country. Once again, like Ben said, Christopher Wray, literally a lifelong Republican who was appointed by Donald Trump. And she plays this game that she likes to play in the beginning

Starting point is 00:13:50 to where she's like, what was that name? What was that name that I can't think of right now? Oh, Seth. Oh, Seth Rich. Seth Rich. And she brings back up this disgusting conspiracy theory. Here's the clip. clip extremely concerning about what's happening also uh it was just announced in the news at some time this week uh that that the fbi and i believe it's christopher ray himself is asking a judge to keep um a laptop by a dnc or what was that guy's name? Trying to recall his name. Seth Rich. They're trying to hold that from the public for 66 years.

Starting point is 00:14:34 Like, what is there to hide? These are the kinds of things that shouldn't happen. Christopher Wray does his job as the FBI director where he puts the party, his party, the Democrat Party, above the country. And that's wrong. It should always be the country above any party. It should be the country first. And he swore an oath for that purpose to the country, not to any political party.

Starting point is 00:14:59 And that is why he must be impeached. So I think there's a very strong case there for Christopher Wray. So she called for everybody's impeachment in the past 24 hours. She said Biden needs to be impeached. A United States attorney from Washington, D.C., Matt Graves, Mayorkas, the Homeland Security Secretary needs to be impeached. Christopher Wray needs to be impeached. And so she did that all this week.

Starting point is 00:15:19 But here's the thing, folks, like we have to live in a world of facts. I am fine having a debate with somebody who is truly conservative, who has small government views, who has certain views about taxes, and we could try to figure out, maybe I'm wrong on some issues. Maybe I'm wrong on a lot of issues. I want to have intelligent debate and discussion. It is vitally important to me. But when conservative is what you just saw, I say BS. That is not conservative. That is a freaking liar right there because Christopher Wray is a Republican. Christopher Wray is not a Democratic operative.

Starting point is 00:16:10 Christopher Wray was appointed by Donald Trump. We have the receipts. Play this clip where it was announced when Donald Trump was appointing Christopher Wray to be the FBI director in 2017. Play this clip. President Trump is just tweeting about the FBI director. Here's what he says. I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials to be the next director of the FBI. Details to follow. So we need to live in a world of facts. And what you just witnessed and what you're about to witness has nothing to do with a conservative ideology. It has to do with a gaslighting ideology. It has to do with a

Starting point is 00:16:53 fascist ideology, an ideology of liars. That is who the MAGA Republicans are today. We always say here, do not call these people, the modern day MAGA Republicans are today. So we always say here, do not call these people, the modern day MAGA Republicans, conservative. There's nothing conservative about them. Let's pull up this clip now of Democratic Representative Dan Goldman, who gets these MAGA Republican witnesses, not real whistleblowers, to admit that they are being paid by Kash Patel. Play this clip. We established earlier credibility matters, certainly for witnesses who appear before us. Mr. Boyle, do you know who Kash Patel is? I do.

Starting point is 00:17:36 Have you received any money from Kash Patel or his organization? I have. Mr. Friend, what about you? Do you know Kash Patel as well? Yes. And did you receive any money from Kash Patel? Yes, he gave me a donation last November. A donation? Yes. Are you a charitable organization?

Starting point is 00:17:53 I was an unpaid, indefinitely suspended man trying to feed his family, and he reached out to me and said he wanted to give me a donation. I want to show you one more clip of Congress member Daniel Goldman. And then Brett and Jordy, I want to hear your response to this. But this is where Representative Goldman points out that Jim Jordan is violating all of the House rules by not sharing any of the testimony that was taken of these fake whistleblowers before the hearing today, not including the Democrats in the process at all. I mean, look, this is Congress. These Democrats

Starting point is 00:18:32 have basic rights within their positions to access material. And MAGA Republicans are like, no, we're just going to break every single rule. Here, play this clip. Chairman, I have a sincere point of inquiry. Rule 11, Clause 2. The gentleman does not recognize the... I have a question about the rules. Mr. Lynch for five minutes. It's a point of order, a question about the rules. Point of order, state your point of order. The point of order is why does Rule 11, Clause 2, Subsection E1A not apply to this subcommittee?

Starting point is 00:19:10 I can read for you. Each committee shall keep a complete record of all committee action which shall include, in the case of a meeting or hearing transcript, a substantially verbatim account of remarks actually made during the proceedings proceedings subject only to some technical things such records shall be the property of the house and each member delegate and the resident commissioner shall have access there to why does that not apply where is the whistleblower exception in the rules of Congress that does not a prerogative of the committee to decide no we have that we have the rules of the house We have the whistleblower testimony. The whistleblower does not wish that to be made available to the Democrats at this time. The whistleblower doesn't make committee rules, sir. Mr. Lynch is recognized for five minutes of questioning.

Starting point is 00:19:56 That is how they want our justice system to look like, which is no justice at all. That incompetence, what you just saw, that is how they want to dispense death sentences, life incarceration. You speak negatively about Donald Trump or a MAGA Republican, but they go, we don't care what the rules say. It's our prerogative of the chair to do what they want. That is the apocalyptic vision that they have. And this is exactly what you see in authoritarian countries. I want to be clear. This is how Russia's justice system works. This is how things work in authoritarian countries. Jim Jordan is running this operation like a kangaroo court. It is all BS. He is not looping the Democrats into everything. These whistleblowers are complete and total sham. I mean, just put

Starting point is 00:20:49 the shoe on the other foot. Imagine for one second, I know you have to do this a lot just to frame your mind a little bit. Imagine for one second that there was a whistleblower that spoke up who you found out was fired for legitimate reasons from a job. And then you found out that he was paid for and he was going saying bad things about Donald Trump. And he found that he was being paid for by Biden or something. Imagine the right wing reaction to that. I mean, it's completely insane, completely ridiculous. Kash Patel has been one of Donald Trump's closest advisors throughout all of this. And have we even talked about like the specifics of these whistleblowers yet? Because I can give just a quick like breakdown on who these people are, because I don't think we really dove deep.

Starting point is 00:21:28 But the witnesses that were there today, you have Stephen Friend, who was a former special agent who worked in the Daytona Beach office. And you had Garrett O'Boyle, who was a special agent from the field office in Wichita. And so these were the agents that were suspended. And why were they suspended, you may ask? Well, for a very good reason that Ben hinted at earlier. The FBI rescinded their clearances because they had concerns regarding their, quote, allegiance to the United States. It's like the biggest red flag on the planet. One of the witnesses entered the FBI space and downloaded documents from FBI computer systems to an unauthorized removable flash drive. Another failed to provide relevant information to an FBI special agent regarding subjects who were

Starting point is 00:22:11 allegedly involved in criminal activity at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and expressed, quote, sympathy for the persons or organizations that advocate, threaten, or use force of violence in an effort to prevent federal government personnel from performing their official duties. So you take that, the fact that they are actual insurrectionists, they are people who actually supported the insurrection, they supported violence against the government to overthrow our government. They were literally bankrolled by a Trump advisor. And the FBI identified them as a threat. These people aren't whistleblowers. They're using that to protect themselves because they're actually criminals. I mean, these are actual criminals that we're dealing with.

Starting point is 00:22:55 These are traitors. These are like the Jack Teixeiras of the world, the other traitor. They're not much different, these people. And this is who the Republican Party looks to. This is who is their beacon of hope. This is their North Star as to who they want to take. I mean, the whole thing is a sham. It's atrocious. Frankly, it should be criminal to take out these people and use them in this way. It's absolutely, absolutely disgusting. I mean, Jordy, what are your thoughts watching all this go down? Brett, I mean, what you just laid out was a red flag after red flag after red flag. And I want to go back to the biggest red flag of them all here. Whistleblowers don't get paid. That's the biggest red flag in the world. Was Alexander Vindman paid when he testified before Congress? Absolutely not. I mean, whistleblower. It blows my mind that the right gets away with this and doesn't get pressed by legacy media on an issue that's so important as, oh, that whistleblower, quote unquote whistle, he's paid by Kash Patel. Why don't you tell us more about that? Where's CNN's reporting on that? You know, where's legacy

Starting point is 00:24:02 media reporting on that? So Dan Goldman in that crossam, as he alluded to, did not have any of the prior testimony. He did not have any of the information about what these witnesses were going to say. So normally, the way these hearings work is you have reports and data, and kind of like for a trial, the way you have depositions and you can prepare, the Democrats were not given any of that because the whole purpose that Jim Jordan wanted to do here was basically an ambush. What Jim Jordan saw was, look, all these other hearings, by the way, that we've covered here at the Midas Touch Network, where the Democrats are given an equal amount of information, they just crush us. So let's just not give them any

Starting point is 00:24:46 information. And then let's parade these people out and then basically force a live cross-examination during five minutes of time. I just want people to know how difficult it is in five minutes of time to do a successful cross-examination to get to the heart of the matter to show bias like that. I know Dan Goldman makes it look easy there, but five minutes to identify that and call it out the way he did. Meanwhile, people who are prepared, the MAGA Republicans who were involved in this complete sham, like Harriet Hageman, I want to show you. So Harriet Hageman is the MAGA Republican who defeated Liz Cheney. And so when we're talking about the new paradigm, okay, to me, Liz Cheney is on team pro-democracy. I probably disagree with Liz Cheney nine times

Starting point is 00:25:41 out of 10 on the issues. But you know what? That one time we can forge agreement, we could maybe do some powerful stuff that is great for our country. And perhaps on some of those other items, we could reach compromises that will make some sides unhappy and other sides, but ultimately, fundamentally, we are supporting our democracy, right? But someone like Harriet Hageman, you can't even have a conversation with. You can't have a negotiation with. You can't have a discussion with. She's part of the Trump cult. She spews QAnon stuff. She literally parrots, meaning the word parrot, acts like a parrot to Donald Trump's statements. You'll hear her in this clip. She goes, Russia,

Starting point is 00:26:21 Russia, Russia, just like he does. It is complete insanity that this is the modern day Republican Party. But here it is. Play this clip. They have created a Russia, Russia, Russia hoax to cripple a duly elected president. They have targeted Catholics for exercising their faith. They've targeted parents for wanting to protect their children and the what so what we can say in short is that the eye of soren has turned inward and it is burning with a white hot intensity intensity that ceased to destroy everything in its path the hell is she talking about i mean do you realize like it this is layers and layers of deranged insanity. There would be a time in our history we would look at this and we would say, these are certifiably crazy people who probably need

Starting point is 00:27:17 involuntary psychiatric holds, and they are the modern day Republican Party. You look at what these people are saying with these Republicans here. Do we have this clip of Tim Burchett? He's the MAGA Republican who was like, oh, there's nothing we can do here in Congress when it comes to guns. There's nothing we can do at all here. We don't have anything. This is his other position talking about defunding the FBI. Play this clip. I'll do you one better. Not only do I have Tim Burchett, I have an entire montage of all the Republicans going on TV and saying that they now want to defund the FBI. I got them all together. So we'll play this. Unless the members of the FBI begin to care about fidelity, bravery or integrity, nothing matters. I mean, that is a

Starting point is 00:28:01 very sobering assessment of what our current FBI is. Yeah, it's got to be remade. I mean, that is a very sobering assessment of what our current FBI is. Yeah, got to be remade. I mean, that's got to be defunded, remade, reconstituted. We have the power of the purse, Maria. The Congress is this country's checkbook and we can start cutting funds to the FBI. And I think a lot of people rightly are calling for the FBI to be defunded. And maybe, you know, a new premier law enforcement agency will come up in its wake, Stephen Miller, because unfortunately, I think it's been so politicized and weaponized. I'm not sure you can even fix it at this point. What we can do is fund and defund.

Starting point is 00:28:38 And in this case, I think there is a serious role for Congress here to use funding and appropriations to hold the FBI accountable. But when people say it's time to disband the FBI, to delegate those authorities to others, such as U.S. marshals, there's a growing number of people in Congress who begin to feel this way. Once again, for those who say, you know, maybe the FBI, we could delegate those authorities and actually completely defund them. You can understand why American people feel that way about that. For those listening on audio to the first clip was Laura Ingraham on Fox. The second was Congress member Jim Banks. Then you had Hannity. Then you had Republican Congress member Tim Burchett, Republican Congress member Chris Stewart,

Starting point is 00:29:19 all Republicans, all spreading the view that the FBI needs to be defunded because, and the because is also very important, because they are investigating domestic terrorism, because they are investigating January 6th insurrectionists, because of those reasons, that is why they want to defund and disband the FBI. I'll make this point, then I'll toss it to you, Brett. Do I think the FBI is right about everything? No way. Do I think it is healthy and important to have a certain level of skepticism, trust but verify, when it comes to law enforcement and the FBI in general? Absolutely. But the ideas that are being spewed by the MAGA Republicans isn't what I just said. It is so extreme. It is

Starting point is 00:30:15 such a radical idea to abolish the whole FBI because it is investigating domestic terrorism, because they want to promote terrorism. It's not a hard logical leap to get there. These are modern day MAGA Republicans who are singing songs with the insurrectionists. They put out a- They call themselves the Jan Six Choir, big bro. Well, the J Six Choir together. Come on. They put out a mixtape with the insurrectionists singing freaking songs. They sent the first congressional delegation. No, congressional delegations, you send them to foreign countries that are allies to spread and promote democracy. They sent the congressional delegation to prison to hang out with and sing songs and fist bump and do let's go Brandon chants with convicted January 6th insurrectionists, Brett. You sound like such a woke lefty, Ben. I mean, how-

Starting point is 00:31:23 And you've never been more woke. What a radical position. You radical, lefty, commie, pinko. No, I mean, it's ridiculous. I've never heard that last one. Jordy, get with the terms. You know what? I could tell when Jordy's face lit up when Ben was speaking, and I could tell that it's because Jordy had a very similar point to me.

Starting point is 00:31:42 Oh, I'm still going to say it. I'm still going to say my talking point. I'm just going to phrase it a little bit differently. Well, yeah. I mean, that's the problem, right? They're all in on domestic terrorism and they're branding it as this is Republican. We're Republicans. This is who we are. What, you're going to come against us? Oh, you're coming against our party. You're being discriminatory. No. If you're going to take these positions that are evil, if you're going to take these positions that lead to violence, if you are going to be violent yourself and attack people or attack buildings or attack our form of government, yes, we're going

Starting point is 00:32:17 to speak out and we're going to say we're not okay with that. We're not okay with that. And that doesn't make somebody a radical lefty. That doesn't make somebody a rhino. All these names that they try to do. Christopher Wray is now a Democrat because he wants to go after domestic terrorism. The whole thing is bunk. The whole thing is ridiculous. And the FBI for a party in the Republican Party that is endlessly talking about human trafficking, even though they engage in it themselves and talking about crime, even though red states have the highest crime. They're constantly using all these talking points. Who do you think pursues all of these crimes? The FBI. The FBI is pursuing domestic terrorism, international terrorism, counterintelligence. They're the ones coming after cybercrime, corruption. Okay, I'm starting to see why they wanted to ban the FBI

Starting point is 00:33:05 now that I'm saying it. They're the ones who go after the drugs on our... Yeah, no, this all describes Republicans. I understand now why they're going after the FBI, Jordy. No, what I'm going to say here is kind of similar to what Ben said, but I'm going to position it probably less articulately than Ben does. Always a good thing to do that. Just repeat what I say and then do it less articulate. People like that. Do you see how me, audience, you see how mean Ben is?

Starting point is 00:33:36 I get a pass. It's my birthday. That's fine. You do get a pass. What these Republicans try to do is they try to put you in these weird positions to defend, like, no, they expect us to put you in these weird positions to defend. Like, no, they expect us to say, oh, we love the FBI. They've never done anything.

Starting point is 00:33:53 They've never done anything wrong. Like, should organizations and bureaus be looked at and scrutinized to ensure that they're operating at the highest level of integrity? Absolutely. But that's not what's happening here. This is just a full-on assault and weaponization of these MAGA Republicans playing political theater. I think that was equally as articulate. I think I said it better than you said it, Ben. I would say it was far more articulate than me. We got a lot more to talk about on this episode.

Starting point is 00:34:20 We got to talk about special counsel, Jack Smith, getting more grand jury testimony this time from one of Donald Trump's former closest aides, Nick Luna. We'll talk about that and more right after this break. I'm excited to tell you about something that I've been supplementing with. High MGO raw manuka honey. The best tasting honey on the planet comes from New Zealand. It's called manuka honey, and it's made by a company called Manakora. See, this honey is different because the bees are feeding on the nectar of the Manuka tea tree, making a super honey that has a rich and creamy texture that's just like unlike anything you've ever tried before. It's called a super honey because of a unique combination of the antioxidants and prebiotics, including a natural antibacterial compound called MGO

Starting point is 00:35:05 that only comes from the nectar of this Manuka tree. Now, I've tried the MGO 850 plus grade Manucora honey, and it's unlike anything I've ever tasted before. It contains nutrients that support optimal immune and digestive health. It was savory and delicious and, well, dare I say, the best honey I've ever tasted. Every batch is 100% traceable with a unique QR code on every jar. You can verify potency, purity, and even learn about the specific beekeeper that harvested your honey. How cool is that?

Starting point is 00:35:40 I tried it straight from the spoon and it was delicious by itself. But you can also add it to tea, coffee, pancakes, yogurt, whatever you want. The creamy caramel texture melts in your mouth. And like I said, it's unlike anything I've ever had before. Manicora's honey is available in a range of easy to use formats, including squeeze bottles and compostable honey sticks. So you can eat it straight or add it to your favorite foods and drinks. If you head to manacora.com slash Midas, or use code Midas, you'll automatically get a free pack of honey sticks with your order, a $15 value. That's M-A-N-U-K-O-R-A dot com slash Midas,

Starting point is 00:36:20 or use code Midas to get a free pack of compostable honey sticks with your order. You haven't tasted or seen honey like this before. So indulge and try some honey with superpowers from Manicora. Manicora honey is really, really good. Everyone who's tried it has been like, yo, this is- Straight up, I've never liked honey until I had Manicora honey. It's so serious. Check it out. You can click on the links in the description of the audio

Starting point is 00:36:47 or if you're watching on YouTube, really helps the show. Look what we got, folks. Look what I just found just in celebration of the Ben Man's B-Day. I know. That's, you know, Jordy got to do a half on last week,

Starting point is 00:37:00 so you know I got to bring something up now. Check out little Ben, everybody. We got little pictures of Ben. Ben, how big big are you how old are you in these photos i think i was about three months i was very mature for my age what do you think you were thinking about in this photo do you know here's here's a fact about me um i was uh 10 pounds 8 ounces when i was born. I was the heaviest baby in the entire hospital. By the way, I'm sure our mom wants our entire audience to know that. So that was really good information to share with millions of people who listen and watch this podcast. I think it was a good data point. I'll give you some better data points.

Starting point is 00:37:42 We're always with the data here. we're always with the data i'm a data driven data driven guy well because data how old was i in that photo for me to determine how old i was i would have to say how much did i weigh in that photo given that i weighed 10 pounds 8 ounces there i appear to be somewhere in the range of about 18 pounds i'm not sure who knows let's let's let it's your hair red in the left photo? I'm trying to think is your hair is red. Data or data. Whatever spews out of my mouth, honestly. I don't think I say it consistently at all. I think it probably depends on what I'm saying. I'll say you're wrong. It's definitely, it's data. So you're right. All right. Let's get back into it. I'll give you some real

Starting point is 00:38:22 data right now or some data or some data. All right. So one of the big pieces of news this week, though, is that one of Donald Trump's lead lawyers, Tim Parlatori, quit. Now, Tim Parlatori was representing Donald Trump in connection with special counsel Jack Smith's ongoing criminal investigation relating to Trump's theft of thousands of government records, including sensitive compartmented information, classified records, top secret records, our nation's highest secrets. Now, Parla Torrey had put forward a very lame defense and a total BS defense, but the only viable defense that Donald Trump could actually have. And basically, it was to blame the White House staff and to blame the GSA, the General Services Administration, and say it was their fault for packing the items incorrectly.

Starting point is 00:39:12 And why was he saying that? Again, it's a total lie, but he's trying to negate the element of intent for Donald Trump because you have to show that Donald Trump acted with intent, intentionally, willfully in the underlying conduct with the crime special counsel Jack Smith is investigating. So violations of the Espionage Act, concealment and mutilation, and obstruction of justice, you can say, look, this was all a big misunderstanding. It was everybody else's fault. And Donald Trump really was just caught off guard, right? Total BS. But at the very least, from a strictly legal approach, it's Donald Trump's only feasible defense. But then Donald Trump did that so-called CNN town hall, and he was like, I'll take whatever I want to take. I'll take whatever. It doesn't matter. And so Parla Torrey had previously testified

Starting point is 00:40:06 before the grand jury in Washington, D.C. that special counsel Jack Smith is giving evidence to, and Parla Torrey sent a letter saying the exact opposite of what Trump said during the so-called CNN town hall to members of Congress to the letter of the House Intelligence Committee. So Trump contradicted him, meaning that perhaps he was lying to the grand jury, or at least that's how it looks. We always say MAGA stands for Make Attorneys Get Attorneys. So parlatory is like, I'm out. And so now they just basically have Jim Trustee. And Jimee was recently on CNN and trustee basically leans in into the full throated kind of Donald Trump bogus. This isn't even a defense. It's just saying that you're a fascist, right? It's basically, I can do whatever I want to do. I'm an emperor. I can take what I

Starting point is 00:40:58 want to take. I could telepathically declassify things. That's the direction that Jim trustee has taken because Trump is the one leading that effort. So play this clip. So you see where they're going at special counsel, Jack Smith's probably like, really? Thank you. I appreciate this. Watch this president of the United States. Did Donald Trump know how the declassification process worked or did he just ignore it? Well, President Trump was exactly right in your town hall the other day. He is aware of a bureaucratic process that can be used. He used that bureaucratic process in the middle of his presidency to declassify the crossfire hurricane matters that are the subject of that 316 page report we saw this week. But at the end of his presidency, he relied on the constitutional

Starting point is 00:41:51 authority as commander in chief, which is to take documents and take them to Mar-a-Lago while still president as he was at the time and to effectively declassify and personalize them. He talked about declassifying him, but he didn't need to. And if you look at the Constitution, you look at the Presidential Records Act, there is absolutely no basis for saying that bureaucracy rules and the president doesn't have the authority entrusted in him by the voters to possess and to declassify and to hold on to documents. Hold on. Let's look at the Presidential Records Act and what it actually says.

Starting point is 00:42:26 It says the United States shall reserve and retain complete ownership, possession and control of presidential records. And under federal law, willfully removing any record or document carries the possibility of a three-year prison sentence. We went, we looked it up, as journalists do, and you, you know, nowhere does it say that you can mentally just think about it and that they are declassified. So you haven't heard this from any other president at any other time.

Starting point is 00:42:58 So what gives Donald Trump the right to use mental gymnastics to try and figure this out and try to put out there that this was all perfectly legal. You've packed so many misstatements into one question or whatever that was. I'm not sure. But let me tell you the law. So it's not a record act. Well, yeah, well, we'll see about that. The Presidential Record Act does not have a criminal enforcement component to itself. Okay, look at it again. The crime is obstruction of justice. The crime is concealment and mutilation. Those are the crimes. They are written in a search warrant affidavit where a magistrate judge has already found

Starting point is 00:43:53 probable cause. I know the last year may feel like 10 years, but we all remember when Judge Eileen Cannon tried to interfere with what a magistrate judge found when the magistrate judge total loss of her reputation, like literally just so freaking humiliating to be Judge Eileen Cannon. But a magistrate judge found there was probable cause relating to the crimes. The crimes are violations of the Espionage Act, concealment and mutilation, obstruction of justice, and probably a lot more crimes that Special Counsel Jack Smith is investigating as well relating to these documents and records that Donald Trump stole. So those are the

Starting point is 00:44:36 crimes. There was someone who put a funny comment who said, why do all of these people look like thumbs with a face? I thought it was a good, all of the Trump people. Brett? I can't answer that, but I can say if this is- Dr. Pena does also kind of look like a thumb with a face. I mean, it's a really good observation. If that's the way that their arguments have went on CNN against a cable news host, imagine what that will be like going up against an actual jury, Jack Smith, a courtroom. All she had to do was read the Presidential Records Act. Folks, it's not complicated, the Presidential Records Act.

Starting point is 00:45:21 It's actually quite clear. It's not very long. And just because Donald Trump says it means the opposite of what it says in all of his rallies, and that works with his MAGA supporters, it's not going to work in a court of law. It's not going to work with these prosecutors. He's going to be absolutely laughed out. And you have Jim Trustee here. I think he's, I think like all of these people that I think they kind of give up even the notion that they're going to be legitimate attorneys and that they're going to put forth legitimate arguments and they just go, I'm just going to

Starting point is 00:45:54 do whatever Donald Trump tells me to do. I'm, I'm, I'm here to make Donald Trump happy. Whatever stupid argument he does, I will happily crash and burn my reputation for whatever reason and just spew his BS on cable news because that's what he wants me to do. That's how I'll most likely get paid. Maybe I will, maybe I won't, but that's my most likely path to getting paid. You know the Trump lawyer who I kind of have some respect for actually? Susan Necklace, the Trump lawyer. I knew you were going to say that. Yeah. She's the Trump lawyer representing him, the lead lawyer in the Manhattan District Attorney criminal case, because she's not out there saying

Starting point is 00:46:29 the most ridiculous thing. She's not gaslighting the public. She's not taking on the image of Donald Trump and acting like Trump. Bottom line is he's got a right to have people defend him. And I wouldn't normally fault any lawyer for representing people who are accused of bad things, even Donald Trump, by the way. It is a constitutional right. The issue is when you become the client and then you spread the propaganda to the media in a false way that harms our democracy, then to me, you're not just, oh, fulfilling a constitutional responsibility as being a defense lawyer. You are now an agent of fascism and it is fair game to call the lawyer out when they take that position. I want to talk though about special counsel Jack Smith getting

Starting point is 00:47:19 this new testimony also though from Nick Luna. Nick Luna was one of Donald Trump's top former personal aides, would be around Donald Trump all of the time. He testified previously before the January 6th committee that he observed Donald Trump destroy records and crumple up records and throw records into the garbage. That, by the way, is a crime under the Presidential Records Act. You can't destroy and mutilate. Literally, the criminal statute is concealment and mutilation. And there is already testimony from Nick Luna to the January 6th committee that Trump would mutilate these records. And we also know that Trump would take the records and hide them in

Starting point is 00:48:03 the toilet bowl and flush them down the toilet bowl. And Nick Luna was there with Donald Trump on January 6th. He reported to Trump what was going on during the insurrection and what was happening with former Vice President Pence. And Luna was also there when Mark Meadows said, don't come in, when a group of Republican legislators visited the White House and had a secret meeting with Donald Trump about the Green Bay sweep, about how they were going to try to overthrow the election results in their states and send in fake electors. So I know we're not

Starting point is 00:48:38 maybe hearing a lot of news about Nick Luna, but Nick Luna is a big witness, Brett or Jordy? Yeah. And I remember, sorry, Jordy, go. No, no, no. So Ben, Brett, Might is Mighty, I got four words and two sounds. Mad Dog Jack Smith. On a more serious note here, this is why, Ben, I think you would agree with me.

Starting point is 00:49:01 It's important that the wheels of justice move, but they move at a pace where proper due diligence can be done and allow for more evidence to be uncovered. We might not agree with how fast or how slow it's going, but you cannot deny that more and more information has continued to come out as Jack Smith continues to conduct the investigation. I completely agree. And look who is remaining. And this is how special counsel Jack Smith kind of set this thing up, right? It's a showdown with Mark Meadows. So Mark Meadows is likely a criminal target. Mark Meadows, you'll recall the DOJ

Starting point is 00:49:40 declined to prosecute for obstruction of Congress when he was held in contempt. And I think they did that strategically to basically say, hey, we've got other things and other crimes that are far more serious that we could prosecute you for because contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor. And remember, Mark Meadows had already turned over to the January 6th committee before Donald Trump injected a million dollars in a charity affiliated with Mark Meadows had already turned over to the January 6th committee before Donald Trump injected a million dollars in a charity affiliated with Mark Meadows, and then he stopped cooperating with the January. Another donation.

Starting point is 00:50:12 Another donation with the January 6th. Thousands of text message and emails, but he stopped producing some of the most critical emails and text messages. Now, Jack Smith likely already has the text messages and emails that the January 6th committee did not even get because Jack Smith's defeated all of the executive privilege arguments and the January 6th committee was not able to get that far based on the timeframe and the fact that the MAGA Republicans took over the House of Representatives. So they had to end their investigation when they did. So the question, and I think this is what we will be talking about here

Starting point is 00:50:49 in a few weeks, perhaps a month or two, but you could save the date. There's going to be an issue about whether or not you give Mark Meadows what's called derivative use immunity, whether for the purpose of his grand jury testimony to stop him from invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, which he almost certainly will, a limited immunity for anything he says during the testimony itself and what's derived from the testimony. Now, if he commits perjury, you can still prosecute him for that. And if you find other crimes that he committed independent and not derived from his testimony before the grand jury, like before or through other sources, you can still criminally

Starting point is 00:51:32 prosecute him. And by the way, there's a treasure trove of that already because you stagger the other witnesses first. And that's why you wait for Mark Meadows to be the last. It's very intentional. And you will see, I think, in the next month to slightly longer than that, that issue that I just mentioned is going to be front and center. So save the tape. Save the tape, as always. We're going to start writing these down. It'll make it a lot easier for me to reference them when you're inevitably right, as you tend to be. Yeah, I mean, there's been what? Trump was making all these executive privilege arguments, which were BS, and all the judges rejected, and they threw him out. And now Luna is like the fifth of eight of these Trump aides who has now met with Jack Smith. So there's only three more yet to meet

Starting point is 00:52:21 with Jack Smith in the grand jury. Now, one of the interesting things I found here, Ben, also was the reporting today was that he testified regarding Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which makes a whole lot of sense to me. I mean, he reportedly had unprecedented access to Trump throughout the final weeks of Trump's presidency. He was in charge of the Oval Office operations. He was one of the staffers who was regularly in contact with Trump that day on January 6th. So this is a guy who knows a lot about the actions that were happening around this moment. But one of the things that I'm curious about to get your take on is, do you think that, I know the reporting is that he met with the grand

Starting point is 00:53:03 jury for the Jan 6 stuff, but he obviously also knows about Donald Trump's breaking of the Presidential Records Act and the ripping up of the documents, as we were saying. Do you think there's a world where Nick Luna is kind of used in both of these investigations? I know they're separate grand juries, which is why I'm, you know. You know, it's one room is there, one room is there. You know, they're in the same building. And for all we know, he just went into one and then went to the other. For all we know, a deal was cut between special counsel Jack Smith and Nick Luna's lawyers of, look, we'll just answer all of those questions before one grand jury, and then we'll make the transcript available for the other. So there's a streamlined approach that's usually hammered out and negotiated with the lawyers

Starting point is 00:53:50 before. So I'm sure that that arrangement is what took place here, would be my best bet. But again, it's really, really big news. And now all eyes turn to Mark Meadows. Jack Smith. Jack Smith. Well, tell us jack smith brett tell us about uh some of these updates regarding ron just you guys do you guys like when i do the mad dog jack smith and then i do do you guys like that i think that it certainly adds personality and charm to the very sweet way of a very sweet way of saying that. Thank you. I'll keep doing it then. Well, DeSantis is being DeSantis, which is, you never want to go full DeSantis, folks. It's never a good thing to go full DeSantis. And he's honestly, he's right now,

Starting point is 00:54:37 he's trying to become the presidential nominee for the Republican Party. And in order to do that, he thinks he needs to outflank Donald Trump to the right. He needs to go as extreme as possible. And like we were saying earlier with the other things, they don't care that there are human beings on the other side of their policies. They just want power. They just want to get ahead. So DeSantis today signed one of these absolutely cruel bills. He signed it on Wednesday, actually. And it's a bill that will, it's just horrifying to even say, it will let the state of Florida take transgender minors away from their families if they are receiving gender affirming care. And let's just take away the language around that. It's basically saying that if you have a child who is transgender

Starting point is 00:55:26 and you get them the healthcare that they need, often to live, let's be clear about this, that the state of Florida will kidnap your children. And he's also expanding these anti-trans laws now to just show you how BS it was when they said, it's about the kids, it's about protecting the kids, save our kids, save our children. They're expanding these laws now to ban a lot of these procedures, to ban a lot of this care for adults as well. They are trying to completely eradicate the trans community and the LGBTQ community. And it is frankly atrocious. It is beyond fascist. Just because we live in an era of 4K TV doesn't mean it can't happen here. This is what we see in authoritarian governments across the country. This is what we've seen throughout history. Things

Starting point is 00:56:17 like this lead to genocide. And so we need to be strong in calling it out every step of the way. I mean, this is care. Sorry, Ben, you want to say something? No, I mean, and the way you've articulated it, you said this isn't a culture war issue, right? This is Republicans, the modern day MAGA Republican party attacking human beings, right? The attempt to show empathy and compassion and to treat people equally should not just be an alternative political position. It should simply be what we do as human beings. And it shouldn't just be, yeah, on the one hand, the MAGA Republicans want to eliminate the trans community. And on the other hand democrats are against that so let's each give them both a voice let's let's let's see their opinions let's

Starting point is 00:57:10 let's hash it out republicans are back on cnn you know that was the big headline right that was yeah in the deadline report that was well that was like statement that he was psyched to cheers he he cheered republicans are back on CNN. My response to that was, can we get the truth back on CNN? You don't need to be platforming these heinous lies. If there's a Republican who wants to make a legitimate case for how to best spend money or whatever, have them on the show. If you are going to get somebody on the show who's going to argue that a human being should not exist, They should not have a platform on your show. And I hate how these issues are framed. I hate how these human rights issues, these civil rights issues are framed through the lens of, oh, the Republicans are firing up their

Starting point is 00:57:56 culture war again. Just imagine throughout history, if we went to the civil rights era and you had separate water fountains and they were like, Republicans are really ramping up their culture war again. Or if you go to like the Nazis and you were like, oh, Hitler is really ramping up his culture war against the Jews. Could we call this out? Like, could we please call this out for what it is? These are heinous acts against human beings. It shouldn't matter what side of the political spectrum you're on. You need to treat people like they are human beings and not your political pawns. It is disgusting. And what's going to happen to these kids? You're going to traumatize these kids. You are going to break apart these families.

Starting point is 00:58:36 It is the most atrocious thing imaginable. It is honestly just absolutely abhorrent. And I feel like it's just treated like it's a it's just a position the Republicans have just the position they have. What are lefty, what a radical leftist concept that you have here. It's like, no, you're being hateful. You say you're for small government. You're using the power of your government to destroy the lives of private individuals. There is nothing small government about that, Jordy. No, you're right. No, I No, you guys are absolutely right. At the end of the day, you just have to look at, these are human beings. These are people and the Republicans are treating them like they're some sort of pawn in this bizarro culture world. But Brett, you said it great. They're just being bigoted. They're just being hateful. They're just being- And all this- Yeah, they're just being utterly ridiculous. Go for it.

Starting point is 00:59:46 I was going to say, all this what? To lose a presidential primary, to get humiliated by Donald fricking Trump in the Republican primary, that's the root of all of these DeSantis actions because DeSantis apparently is announcing, sorry, Jordy, I know you had a lot of predictions on this that were going the other way, but DeSantis- I'm not wrong yet. I'm not wrong yet. You're not wrong yet. But by the way, he should listen.

Starting point is 01:00:06 He damn sure should have listened to you because he is just sinking in the polls and embarrassing himself everywhere he goes. I mean, DeSantis is just a total train wreck, this guy. Apparently, the news came out today that he's planning to announce sometime next week. He's expected to officially enter the race. And he's trying to plan his filing to coincide with his meeting next week in Miami with top financial backers. That's the most DeSantis thing on the planet, that he's going to make his initial announcement in front of rich,

Starting point is 01:00:36 wealthy Republican donors and not like people. He's going to have a separate event for the people after the fact. I mean, that right there shows why this guy's never going to win even even that alone and meanwhile today he got destroyed by disney once again disney just pulled the plug on a one billion that's with a b billion dollar office complex that was going to be built in orlando florida it would have created over 2 000 jobs jobs in Florida and high paying jobs, average salary, $120,000, like high paying average salary gigs. Disney's rightfully gone after DeSantis saying that DeSantis is anti-business, which is absolutely true. I mean, it's the most anti-business party that we've ever seen in history and they want

Starting point is 01:01:20 to act like they are these like capitalists and small government and pro-business people. They could not be the opposite. And it's all because Disney gave a very mild tweet in support of the LGBTQ community. Sometimes we've got to remember where these things started. And we'll talk a little bit more about the Bud Light stuff, which is somehow still going on. But it always starts with the most minuscule thing. Disney's saying, we value the LGBTQ community and our LGBTQ customers, and we want human rights for all. That's what set DeSantis off. That's insanity. That's insanity by any metric. There was a call with Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney last week, and Bob Iger said, he said, this is quote, does the state want us to invest more, employ more people and pay more taxes or not?

Starting point is 01:02:10 And apparently Bob Iger was not bluffing and taking this $1 billion office complex off the docket. And I'm sure it's the first of many things that they are preparing to take away from Florida. And the people who are ultimately going to be hurt are the Floridians,

Starting point is 01:02:26 and it's all going to be Rhonda Sandis' fault. The most anti-business, just purely corrupt person right now in our government. And you said it right there, Brett, so perfectly. The people who that's going to hurt is just the average Floridian, the average person living in Florida. I mean, those are their jobs that the Sandis just took away. I mean, the world's worst governor, like un-freaking-believable. You know, we forget back in 2018 how close the election was when DeSantis won. It was a very, very minuscule amount. But the way DeSantis then wielded the power, the way Republicans wielded their power over every aspect is the free America, this is the free Florida, when it's anything but. And it's really sad to see a state, a beautiful state, with such incredible people though, it is being run like a kind of very far right authoritarian regime. It doesn't have the character and the love

Starting point is 01:03:50 and the humanity and the decency of America. And I know the people of Florida are decent people. I know the people of Florida are loving people. And I think it's so incumbent on us in the media. It is incumbent on other media networks to tell the truth. And it's incumbent also now on the Democratic Party, the independents, and in the new paradigm, the pro-democracy party that is the Democratic Party to connect with voters there. And we saw that happen in Jacksonville with a big mayor victory, mayoral victory by the Democratic candidate. It was like the second time in three decades where that took place. There are far more Republicans registered to vote in Jacksonville than Democrats. And the candidate there outspent, the Republican candidate outspent the Democrat

Starting point is 01:04:41 like seven to one. I want to talk about that. I want to talk about this paradigm again, the new paradigm, pro-democracy Democrats versus authoritarian, Trumpy, do-nothing, modern-day MAGA Republicans. And there's a reason that Democrats are beginning to pick up big elections. There's a reason the red wave wasn't a real red wave. We'll talk about that and more, but first, let's take a quick break. And now let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, Fume. Cold turkey, it may be great on sandwiches, but there's a better way to break your bad habits. We're not talking about some weird mind voodoo from your wacky neighbor or some sketchy message board.

Starting point is 01:05:20 We're talking about our sponsor, Fume, and they look at the problem in a different way. Now, not everything in a bad habit is wrong. So instead of drastic, uncomfortable change, why not just remove the bad from your habit? Fume is an innovative, award-nominated device that does just that. Instead of electronics, Fume is completely natural. Instead of vapor, Fume uses flavored air. And instead of harmful chemicals, fume uses all natural delicious flavors. You get it. Instead of bad, fume is good. It's a habit

Starting point is 01:05:53 you're free to enjoy and makes replacing your bad habit easy. Your fume comes with an adjustable airflow dial and is designed with movable parts and magnets for fidgeting, giving your fingers a lot to do, which is helpful for de-stressing and anxiety while breaking your habit. The first time I used Fume, I was shocked at how flavorful and fresh it tasted. Now, it's easy to hold and perfectly balanced and quite honestly, extremely fun to fidget with. The real wood material and sleek design definitely classes it up, and I feel pretty darn cool holding it. Stopping is something we all put off because it's hard, but switching to Fume is easy, enjoyable, and even fun. Fume has served over 100,000 customers and has thousands of success stories, and there's no reason that can't be you. Join Fume in accelerating humanity's breakup from

Starting point is 01:06:47 destructive habits by picking up the Journey Pack today. Head to tryfume.com and use code MIDAS to save 10% off when you get the Journey Pack today. That's tryfume.com and use code MIDAS to save an additional 10% off your order today. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. And we are live. I'm Ben Myselish, joined by Brett and Jordy. I want to remind you that in the descriptions section of our YouTube, that's where all of our sponsor links are.

Starting point is 01:07:20 And you could use the discount codes there as well. I really do want to thank our sponsors. And I know from time to time, if you're watching one of our videos and a sponsor ad comes up, I want you to know that it's important because they do support our pro-democracy content here. And that's something that is great, to know, to have sponsors who are able to allow us to do this and to pay for editors and to put this show on. Ultimately, that's a real plus. And we try to do our best to find sponsors of products that we like that could be helpful to people. And I just wanted to make that comment generally about our sponsors. And

Starting point is 01:08:05 you can see them in the descriptions as well if you want to support them. And I'd appreciate it if you're able to. Here was one of the comments that we received when we took a commercial break about Florida. And as I said, the Midas Mighty community, when we do these shows, I don't view this as like I'm doing a show or like I'm like just talking to a camera like the way I view it when I look at the chat and I see the conversations taking place like I view this as a conversation with you I view this as a conversation with the Midas mighty and there are so many comments that are so informative also to how I prepare for the videos and how I could be better and we can be better at what we do.

Starting point is 01:08:51 We get some great insight all the time from you. Someone named Jim Lee wrote, it's worse than you think. I live in Florida. Now you cannot get your lawn cut, your roof replaced, your building repaired. Immigrants who need to feed their family now cannot work. And that's based on a new law that DeSantis passed there as well, which basically makes it impossible to hire anyone who is not documented and also makes it very difficult for people to work in general who even are documented. It makes it very difficult for immigrant families to do anything in Florida.

Starting point is 01:09:32 And you start to see these videos that are spreading on social media, on TikTok, on YouTube, and elsewhere where there are vacant fields. There are vacant construction sites that used to be thriving because of DeSantis' policies. Ultimately, I think the voters are going to be very aware of this in the next two years or so, and I think you will see a strong showing by pro-democracy Democrats there. And then what are the MAGA Republicans going to do though? I mean, there's poison pill after poison pill that DeSantis threw into the shores of Florida. He's taking something that could function, frankly, like DeSantis wants to take credit. Florida is such an amazing and beautiful place that frankly, my pet dog, Taquito, would do a better job than Ron. He would.

Starting point is 01:10:37 Taquito is sharp as they come. If you just let Florida – I don't know about Chiquito, that's a wild card. But Toi Poodle is always a wild card, the multi-district. But the reality is that doing nothing and letting Florida thrive the way it can, it's easy to take credit for such a beautiful and amazing place. But he's managed to take all of these steps to try to bring it down. So there's a reason why in Jacksonville, Florida, you have for the first time in basically three decades, there may be one other time, where the Democrat wins the mayor's race. Donna Deegan, a former TV

Starting point is 01:11:16 anchor, beat the DeSantis-endorsed Republican candidate, Daniel Davis. In the race- Say that 10 times fast. In the race, I'll just try it once. In the race … Say that 10 times fast. In the race, I'll just try it once. In the race for Jacksonville … Donna Deacon defeated the DeSantis endorsed Daniel Davis. The second Democrat to win the mayor's race there in three decades. Her opponent out-raised her. It was four to one.

Starting point is 01:11:38 I think $8 million by the DeSantis backed candidate. Huge amount. $2 million. Jacksonville is Florida's biggest city and the Republicans' biggest mayorship in the entire nation. There are more Republicans that voted than Dems there, meaning Republicans crossed over and voted for Donna Deegan. They see what's going on out there. And then I should also mention that a Democratic-aligned independent candidate, Yemi Mabaldi, defeated Republican Wayne Williams in the Colorado Springs mayoral runoff election.

Starting point is 01:12:15 And this is the second big flip away from the Republican Party that took place this week. Trump won that county by 16 points in 2016 and by 11 points in 2020. Colorado Springs has not had a non-Republican mayor since 1997. Also, Democrats maintain their narrow Pennsylvania House majority after Heather Boyd won a special election, along with it continuing control over how the chamber will handle abortion, gun rights, and election law legislation. So all good news there, but going back to the data, how we were so focused on data in the midterms, right? And what the data was showing. And our own anecdotal data as well from what we've been able to aggregate here, go back after the show and take a look at the videos that

Starting point is 01:13:13 we do regarding the mass exodus of former Republicans away from the modern day Republican party. We just did a video of it over the weekend. I'll do another one this coming weekend. I think I'll do one for Saturday where we ask independents and former Republicans, people who are actually conservative and not this weird modern day MAGA Republican fascist thing that's going on about why they've left and if they've left. And you hear not one or a few or just kind of outlier stories, right? You hear the most passion and passion stories throughout the country. And we're talking about thousands and thousands of people who in detail have shared these incredible stories with us. And it's not going the other way, right? It's not like the

Starting point is 01:14:05 Republican Party is getting bigger. You don't look at the videos we showed you and are about to show you here on the Midas Dutch Network of the MAGA Republicans doing the things that they're doing and saying what they're saying and going, you know what? That's the crew I want to hang with. That's the crew that represents me. It isn't. They're getting more solidified. They're getting more entrenched. They're getting louder. They're getting more confident in spewing their lies, but they are getting smaller and smaller and smaller, folks, Brett. Yeah. And just look at, you don't even have to look at these polls, which are all over the place, which are just BS. And I've been proven to be BS in the last few elections that we've seen. Look at the actual elections that happened. I mean, Democrats completely overperformed in Wisconsin. Democrats are completely overperforming in every election we have seen, especially since the overturning of Roe. That's what the data is telling us. And I just saw as I was scrolling on the internet,

Starting point is 01:15:06 I saw Jen Psaki, former White House press secretary. She had retweeted this tweet, which really sums up a lot of the problems right now that we are seeing with America. And it's also why I think the Republican Party is going to continue to be rejected by the American people. So I'll put this tweet up that a local news organization recently posted, local news reporter, and I'll read it to you. It says tonight on WBAL TV 11, a man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid. The man says he's protesting Governor Moore's new gun control law. You'll hear from both sides at 5 and 6 p.m. And the individual looks like a man,

Starting point is 01:15:57 it looks like he's wearing a red MAGA hat holding an AR-15, and he shows up at elementary school bus stops with his AR-15. And this to me just shows, in a nutshell, that tweet is almost everything wrong with America. A, no, we don't need to hear both sides of this debate. We don't need a man with an AR-15 traumatizing elementary school students at a bus stop. That is not who America identifies with. That is not what people want. That does not make people safe. It does not make people feel safe. And also these people are just so deranged, these maggot people, where they think that that is even a normal behavior to engage in. It's absolutely, absolutely disgusting. And it stems from the top people. It starts with Donald Trump. It trickles down

Starting point is 01:16:45 to all of his minions. You see Ted Cruz going on TV and Ted Cruz, US Senator. What's the biggest thing on Senator Ted Cruz's mind? Okay. Ted Cruz still thinking about Bud Light. Bud Light, who almost two months ago at this point, sent a can of Bud Light to transgender activist and influencer Dylan Mulvaney with her face on it. And she posted a 45 second video with the cam. That was it. That was it. And that resulted- It wasn't a campaign. It wasn't, it was like literally, I exist, thank you. It was a single influencer post, probably cost a few thousand bucks or something.

Starting point is 01:17:28 They sent one can with her face on it to that individual. And because how dare a transgender individual drink the same beer that I drink? It resulted in this mass hysteria amongst a large portion of the population where they took out their AR-15s and they started shooting at beer cans. And they made Bud Light their public enemy number one because they dared let a transgender person drink their beer. And then it's not just the crazy people on the fringes. This is the mainstream Republican Party. These are their top senators. So you have Ted Cruz. This is today, folks. I can't believe we're still talking about this. But you have Ted Cruz now also summing up exactly what is wrong with the country and with the Republican Party. He went on Fox News to explain why he is demanding an investigation, a federal investigation into Bud Light's, quote, ties with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Oh, the party of small government wants to investigate a private citizen being hired by a corporation to post an Instagram post, and he wants to investigate the nefarious ties. I mean, this is really Nazi stuff.

Starting point is 01:18:39 And if they controlled, as a teacher, if they controlled the Senate, they would be holding those same types of hearings. Instead, in the Senate, the Democrats are holding hearings about improper influence over the judiciary. And that's why a lot of this stuff is surfacing right now. But if Ted Cruz did it, you would get the Bud Light's hearing. Sorry, Jordy. No, no. So I'll get to my larger point in one second,

Starting point is 01:19:05 but I want to go back to the Dylan post. Like you said, Ben, it was a partnered post from Bud Light. It wasn't even a full campaign. It was just one Instagram post and that's it. And so what does Ted Cruz do? He goes to his playbook. He says, let's keep running the Dylan Mulvaney fake outrage because we don't want to do the real work, like figure out common sense gun reform so children don't get murdered in our schools in Texas or in malls in Texas. I mean, look, first off, shame on them. Also, at the same time, part of me is like when Ted Cruz does this stuff, let him because he's going to be replaced by people who actually want to save our children's

Starting point is 01:19:46 lives, who actually want to fight for the issues that matter, like common sense gun reform, that will save the future generations of children across Texas, across the world. Hey, I'll let him make a fool of himself, but there are real people on the other end of it, and I'm not going to let him disparage them. I'm not going to let him treat them the way that theyage them. I'm not going to let him treat him the way that they treat them. Let's be clear. When they're shooting those Bud Light cans with the AR-15s, the message is that they are willing to do that to the trans community. Yes, the object is the cans, but the message is, this is what we are going to do to wipe you off the planet. That is the message that is being- And let me just rephrase that a little bit better than how I had phrased it,

Starting point is 01:20:30 is yes. But what I mean by when Ted Cruz goes out and makes these statements is the American people overwhelmingly look at this and say, how disgusting you are, Ted Cruz. And you make that point on a lot of the podcasts. and I always say to you the following. Yes, if Americans are given the data and allowed to assess for themselves. right? There was no red wave. So when they go on and play fascist karaoke and retort Trump talking points, I actually think that is getting through to the larger American population saying, hey, we don't like that. We don't like that. But we want senators and governors and people that actually do work for us. I agree with you. However, the MAGA Republicans still control the House of Representatives. And to me, there are areas that are basically truth deserts that are just so being fed the diet of fascism, which is a lack of diet of truth that it's just, we just don't like those lefties. We don't like,

Starting point is 01:21:47 and it's like, whoa, what, but, but, but I hear why, like, well, you're just, is Fox just telling you to, you know, in spewing these lies, like, yeah, we, we, we should be able to, you know, we should be able to have basic conversations about common things. And Brett, let me put this on too. This is, again, what Fox is talking about. They're talking about, again, the M&M stuff. It's nonstop. And I'll tell you why. You may go, why are they talking about the M&Ms? Aren't they just so crazy? When they fill these gaps with this craziness that could otherwise be reserved for the truth, their viewers are left in such a state of confusion. is that it is very intentional that you mix in the lies and the disinformation, and then you combine it with kind of just weird things in place of the truth that, again, further this view of, wow, the Democrats are coming for my M&Ms. They're coming for my stove. They're coming for my laundry. And it is to dehumanize.

Starting point is 01:23:07 That is why they engage in this behavior. It is very planned. Here, play this clip. This reminds me of the whitewash that the M&M went through when apparently having high heels or wearing high heels was no longer acceptable, right? She was put, sneakers were put on her. So to me, it removes that control and that agency of these women to say,

Starting point is 01:23:28 actually, I love wearing high heels. I love being sexy. I love finding myself feminine. So the ad that she's, besides the fact that acting like the Eminem is a real human being, the ad that the Miller Lite ad that's been around that basically surfaced. Brett, I'm drawing a blank on the name of the comedian, but she's- It's Alana Glazer, who's very funny. She brought a lot of stuff.

Starting point is 01:23:57 It was a great ad about women empowerment. It was basically saying women basically were the founders of beer, created beer, yet in a male dominated industry, they've continued to portray women as sex objects. So she goes and shows these photos of basically women who are barely clothed, you know, and basically says, why are you portraying all women like this? And that's what that ad is basically about. And there's kind of a- And she turns the ad into fertilizer. She turns it to shit, right? That's like part of the kind of- Yeah, she turns those- Tongue in cheek joke about it. So it's actually the defense, the Miller Lite thing that they're leaning into, that they're criticizing Miller Lite for,

Starting point is 01:24:45 is Miller Lite saying, you know what? Not all beer commercials should portray women as just frolicking around in bathing suits, right? And Fox is saying that that's somehow part of a Democratic- Yeah, it's all the Democrats. How about just basic decency? Or how about it's just the commercial campaign? And by the way, it came out months ago. This ad came out months ago, and somebody found it this week and posted it on Twitter, and it went viral. And then they're acting like they're outraged. Like, you know what? The country's been okay since this Miller Lite ad came out. It probably came out. I actually think it came out before the Bud Light drama, all this stuff, but it just shows you how disingenuous it all is. They're focused on all these issues to distract. And it really comes down to the basics that, you know, I grew up being taught, which is just kind of live and let live, you know, and just like be a good person, like be kind to one another. Like I don't understand why that is now a Democrat, a democratic ideal. That was never a democratic ideal growing up. That was just like being a human being, like just be nice to people. If somebody is in need, see what you could do to

Starting point is 01:25:55 help them. Try to live your best life. Try not to kick people when they're down. Try to help marginalized people. Those should not be democratic or Republican beliefs. And that's why I think I sent you, Ben, I think I sent both of you guys the other day, a comment that I really liked that I saw on YouTube that basically it was from a Republican viewer. And I love that we have, or at least a former Republican viewer. And I love that we have viewers across the political spectrum and listeners across. And they were like, I don't, you know what? I don't view you guys as left or right or center or any of that. I just view you guys as normal. And while Jordy may not think I'm normal, I actually- I think you're normal. I think Ben is. No, no, no. Ben's a weirdo. Let's be fair. No, but honestly-

Starting point is 01:26:39 Can't be too mean to Ben. It's his birthday. I'm being so mean to Ben, bro. I'm just joking. But realistically, that was a comment that I really liked because I, obviously we speak about things that have now become very political issues. And we, of course, do talk politics on this show. But at the end of the day, all I want this country to be is normal. All I want for this country to be is good. I want people to be good. I want people to be good to each other. And that's what I hope that we are, that's what this movement is all about. And that's what I hope you all are doing also every single day here.

Starting point is 01:27:16 And that's why when people say, you know, this is a, one of the fastest growing political media company, you know, how did you do it? And I go, I don't, I really don't really view it as that political. I like to just say, here's my view of what the truth is. And we need to call out these lies that shouldn't be political. But, you know, I think that's one of the things that's resonating as well. I want everybody, if you can, do me one favor. If you can give me... Is this a birthday wish of sorts? It's a birthday wish of sorts.

Starting point is 01:27:54 Better blow out those candles to make it come true, sir. If you are not subscribed to the Midas Touch podcast on audio, If you just watch on YouTube, if you can go to the audio, wherever you get podcasts, whether it's Apple or Spotify, Google Play, whatever device you use, and subscribe to the Midas Touch Podcast there. Just search Midas Touch Podcast and leave a five-star review there. That would be super, super- It's his birthday. It's his birthday. It's a five-star review. For those who listen just on audio, subscribe to the Midas Touch YouTube channel. That goes a long way to help as well. We're on our way to 1.5 million subscribers there. Wherever you listen or watch, make sure you subscribe

Starting point is 01:28:43 to the Midas Touch account on Instagram. By the way, all of these things I'm saying right now are free. Just search Midas Touch on Instagram, follow us. We do all the breaking news on Instagram as well. If you can, check us out at patreon.com slash Midas Touch. Since we don't have any outside investors, one of the way we fund this is through our Patreon. If you go to P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Midas Touch, you can join one of the memberships there, including becoming an honorary producer. Wow. A list of producers here. And it goes a long way to supporting the infrastructure that we have here. No worries if you can't, because if you can't, one of the best ways you can help is just spread the message. Tell family members, friends,

Starting point is 01:29:29 colleagues, coworkers, anybody you know, post on social media, tell everybody about the Midas Touch Network. We want to make sure that the reach of this pro-democracy community continues to grow. And finally, I truly mean this, the best birthday gift that I have is also you all the Midas Mighty. I'm so grateful for all of your support throughout all of these years. None of this is possible without you. And throughout the whole day, even though there's a lot, a lot of work behind what we do, Brett and Jordy can both attest, I always have the biggest smile on my face because of the Midas Mighty community.

Starting point is 01:30:12 And knowing that this community spreading love and compassion and everything else is just so important. So thank you all so much for watching. And we will see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Jordy, take it away. Wait, I think we have one thing. Brett, do you want to break the news here? I feel like this is the part of the Steve Jobs keynotes at Apple when he goes, wait, but before we go, one more thing. We got the Midas Touch summer merch line out, folks. Let's go. Right now at store. Midas touch.com. Jordy,

Starting point is 01:30:47 incredible work on the designs on the ideas. I really love this. We got merch, especially, especially themed for pride month. So you're going to want to order those now to make sure that you get them for June. Oh my God, these MAGA people,

Starting point is 01:30:57 it's going to be a whole new level of lunacy. I can't wait. And a portion of the proceeds for the Drag is Not a Crime shirt and the Midas Pride. Yeah, for all the Pride merch. That goes to the Trevor Project portion of those profits. So definitely check those out. Helps an amazing organization that helps LGBTQ at risk. And so check it out, store.midast stitch.com. The summer collection is officially here. And we're calling this summer folks. It's hot democracy summer.

Starting point is 01:31:29 So hot democracy summer gear. As you see in the middle, if you're watching, we've got the Midas pride shirt. We got the drag is not a crime. And just for fun, I've got it. You've got,

Starting point is 01:31:38 we got to love that koozie. If you're watching on the top left, put it on your beer folks. I like my beer cold and gay. Oh, it's going to be such a fun. It's going to be such put it on your beer, folks. I like my beer cold and gay. Oh, it's going to be such a fun. It's going to be such a fun summer. Just wait, folks. Just wait. Heads are going to explode once Pride Month hits. It's going to be pretty. It's going to be a sight to behold. Anyway, thanks, folks, for tuning into this episode of the Midas Touch Podcast. We love you all. Jordy, take it away.

Starting point is 01:32:02 Happy birthday, big bro. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. Lock him up. Indictment season is upon us. Celebrate with the new indictment season t-shirt and v-neck exclusively at store.midastouch.com.

Your Ad Here

The MeidasTouch Podcast - Jack Smith INCHES CLOSER as Republican ‘Whistleblowers’ are Exposed

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.