The MeidasTouch Podcast - Jan 6 Committee’s NEW Subpoenas, Trump’s HUMILIATING rally, Liz Cheney has new BOMBSHELLS + MORE

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we dig into the vast divide forming across the globe as the battle between democracy and autocracy reaches a boiling point not seen since the last World War. Italy has elected as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the hard-right Brothers of Italy, a party which is the most direct descendant of Mussolini’s fascist party. Protests in Iran have erupted after the alleged killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Russia’s mobilization against Ukraine has gotten off to a humiliating start as citizens of military age flee the country. Meanwhile, back in the United States, the Republicans have pitched their ‘Commitment For Cruelty’ plan, which is thin on policy, but full of ways they plan to strip back Americans’ rights. Donald Trump held another deranged, yet sparsely-attended rally. The Texas Tribune festival featured a range of speakers including Liz Cheney, Pete Buttegieg, Gavin Newsom. Oh, and Ted Cruz got booed and heckled, too. The stark contrast between democratic and autocratic forces have never been greater, and we break it all down on today’s episode! If you enjoyed today’s episode please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! New episodes of The MeidasTouch Podcast release every Tuesday & Friday at 5am ET. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Thuma: https://thuma.co/touch Learn more about our guest Sheena King: https://www.sheenakingfortexas.com Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario democracy versus fascism the choice right now can't be clearer here in the United States and what is going on internationally. Here in the United States, we have the GOP introducing what's called the Commitment for Cruelty. I mean, I think they're calling it the Commitment for America, but it looks like the Commitment for Cruelty, a one-page vague document which they rolled out with a Russian hype video. They took video footage from Russia and claimed it was the United States of America. The Texas Tribune Festival was in full effect. This is like the greatest festival ever.

I don't know if anyone's seen it. They got all the guests. It's like, I guess as I dork out in the political realm, this used to be like the music festivals for me because you got Liz Cheney getting cheered. You got Pete Buttigieg getting cheered. You got Gavin Newsom getting applause. And on the other hand, you have Ted Cruz getting laughed at and booed.

You got to love it. And then there's major international news. We're seeing popular uprisings against the Iranian Supreme Leader after the murder of Massa Amini by the Ayatollah's Morality Police. And also we've seen many more youth activists and others being murdered in Iran. We have Russia also cracking down and executing and locking up individuals, protesting their mass mobilization after their significant defeats against Ukraine. And then we see the Italian right wing fascist party, the Fratelli d'Italia, led by Giorgia Maloney, winning the election and forming a coalition government, which will undoubtedly lead to Giorgia becoming the prime minister. A very scary turn to the extremist right wing in Italy. And the January 6th committee in the United States issuing subpoenas, getting ready for the full force and effect of that committee. Subpoenas are being issued, including one that's really pertinent, I think.

This is to the Wisconsin Speaker of the House, Robin Voss, who Trump called back in this July, asking him in this July to still overturn the results of the election in Wisconsin. That's just where Donald Trump is right now, still trying to overthrow our democracy. So you see the board here internationally. The stakes couldn't be higher. I'm Ben Micellis, joined by Brett and Jordy from the Midas Touch podcast.

And I am broadcasting from Italy. I am actually in Milan right now in Milan after the election that took place where Fratelli d'Italia won. I wasn't here specifically for that election. I'm still a practicing lawyer and one of my clients is out here and I had to take a business trip. But interesting seeing what's going on in Italy firsthand. And Brett, as I was thinking about I'm here firsthand, you had a very significant event

when you were in the UK a few weeks back. It's like when we travel internationally, the countries that we're in are undergoing major changes. Yeah, I was in London the day they gave Boris the boot. I think people are going to start having conspiracy theories about us. I mean, all of a sudden we start traveling to these countries and then major geopolitical events start to happen. It's getting pretty, pretty odd. But how's Italy going? How's the trip been? Should I say bonjourno to you right now? I'm not sure that's the right way they say it here, but I took it. What is it? Bonjourno. That's good. So I actually took Italian in high school. I took 10th grade Italian.

I remember that. You know that about me? I do. I remember that. Well, I love it. People are wondering what this background is. This is the hotel room that I'm at for those audio listeners. It's some nice woodwork in the background. There's some really upgraded that studio, Ben, looking good.

Some people are saying it's distracting. Others like it, but it's beautiful. You know, there's the Domo. The Milan Cathedral here it's beautiful. You know, there's the Domo, the Milan Cathedral here is incredibly beautiful. It just so happened I was out here at the same time around Fashion Week. So I got to at least check out one of those shows. Of course, I got to eat some incredible food out here. Maybe too much. Fashion Week and Fascist Week, I guess you got both in one go, unfortunately. Fashion Week and fascist week.

You know, and before we dive in deep into what's going on in Italy, I just wanted to make this point at the outset is anyone who's in harm's way right now with this hurricane that's headed towards the Florida region, please stay safe out there. This thing is no joke. And, you know, just want to wish all of our listeners and viewers and even people who don't listen to our podcast and may not even like us. Just stay safe. This is a dangerous one. Yeah, no. Well said, Jordi. We just want to send all of our love and all of our thoughts to like Jordi said, all of our listeners, even if whether you like us or don't like us.

Anybody who's in harm's way right now due to Hurricane Ian, it certainly looks like a scary storm. So please just stay on top of those alerts. We are sending our love your way also want to wish all of our listeners our Jewish listeners Shana Tova happy new year hope you have a happy and sweet new year I know I was able to have a lovely Shabbat dinner

with my friends on Friday to kick this new year off and I hope everybody is able to celebrate and is having a good time. Now, Ben, why don't you just dig into Italy for us? What's going on there? You know, the same themes here, though, that the Fratelli d'Italia, which is led by this Giorgia Maloney, ran on anti-immigration rhetoric, this idea of like Italian purity, you know, trying to reject what they call this globalization cabal conspiracy, the same anti-LGBTQ+, the same type of, you know, extreme Christian nationalist kind of tainted with the perversion of what Christianity is. And I want

to make that clear too, because when you combine the Christianity with the nationalism and it becomes an extremist tool, in my own mind, that's not the teachings of love and compassion embedded in all different types of religions. So I just want to make that clear. But that sentiment is out here as well. And that is the same type of things that in the United States, the radical right extremists are trying to roll out when they have their commitment to America. The platforms are really interchangeable when you think about it, right? You know, it's a different group of immigrants. It's a different group of kind of xenophobia. Some of the same groups, you know, some of the same marginalized groups, but it's an affront and attack on that. And we saw that with that rollout. What a weird rollout it was,

Brett. Are we talking about the contract for, I don't even know what we're calling it these days they call it the commitment for America's what Kevin McCarthy calls it you know what I was also getting confused about it because it's just a rehash of Newt Gingrich's plan from the 90s because they have no new ideas and so I was thinking his contracted from America from back in the day but yeah I mean you know it was just the weirdest event on the planet like you said like you have uh at least Stefanik just holding up like a postcard that says like strong economy, better things like it doesn't really get. I don't like an SNL skit, but it's just not funny because it's a fascist movement. Exactly. And then you have people like Kevin McCarthy making asides like I don't even know if this was even in the script, but he was like, oh, yeah. And if if you were put on the terrorist watch list at a school board meeting, guess what?

We're going to get you off that terror watch list. Like they just keep continue to spread these lies and they continue to play directly to the QAnon base. And even Adam Kinzinger called them out for this. I mean, as far as if it was a truly policy speech, putting forth conservative ideals, someone like Adam Kinzinger, I think, would be like, you know what? We've actually put forth conservative ideals here. This is something I could get behind. But it was just a QAnon fever dream led by Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik. And when they say things like the school board thing, I mean, it's just flat out lies, right?

Like the people who the FBI is going after and stuff are people who have actually committed violence against other people, people who have actually done terror attacks against other people. And we've seen that this is really like if you set aside all like the phony policy that they actually tried to put forth, it's really what they're doing is they're trying to destroy our institutions. They're trying to defund the FBI. They're trying to attack the Department of Justice and attack anybody who tries to get in the way of their blatant criminality. And what they do is they commit crime after crime after crime so brazenly and out in the open. And the second they get caught on it, the second that there's any sort of responsibility, they go, I'm being politically persecuted. You can't persecute

your political enemies. And you got to be like, no, it's not persecution. This is prosecution. And it's prosecution because you committed a crime. And we just keep seeing stories like this now. And Brett, this is an example already from like the, you know, I don't even want to give the paper credit because it's it's a like its name. So because I don't want to give it a click, but a radical extremist, well-known paper, which is like pro-life activist arrested during FBI raid at Pennsylvania home. A pro-life activist was arrested at his home Friday during an FBI raid on charges that he assaulted an abortion clinic volunteer in Philadelphia last year. More than two dozen FBI agents came to arrest Mark Huck shortly after 7 a.m., according to Mr. Huck's wife, Ryan Marie, who spoke with the pro-life news outlet and then whatever they call it. The whole framing of it, this guy, Mark Huck, and this is one of the gaslighting techniques,

Brett, that you just mentioned. This guy, Mark Huck, assaulted an elderly man who was 72 years old, who would walk with women to protect them when they would go and show up at Planned Parenthood. And Huck would be waiting out there and attack this man, not once, but like multiple times he assaulted this elderly man repeatedly. And there's a law on the books, a number of ones, one that prevents assault, but two, which also prevents you from getting in the way of someone trying to avail themselves of medical care or from availing themselves of abortion care at a federal level or emergency life care. And this guy would beat, you know, this elderly man up and then all of the right wing, like Doug Mastriano from Pennsylvania, he issued a press release and basically said, this is political persecution. If you elect me

governor, I will make a Pennsylvania. I will make sure that the FBI is not raiding people. It's like this man violently assaulted and attacked an elderly man who was walking with a woman to so she could have safe passage to get a health checkup. I don't know if you even know like why this man was there escorting this person, but it's because this guy had a history of harassing people who were trying to go into Planned Parenthood to get care in the first place. So there would be all these patients. Remember, this is a these are difficult decisions for women to make. This is, you know, getting any sort of pregnancy care is very difficult for

anybody. And so you're going to Planned Parenthood to try to speak to a health care provider to get the best decision for you. And then you have to deal with these asshole protesters standing outside, harassing you, screaming at you, chiding you, telling you that you're a horrible human being and that you're going to hell. It's dangerous. They start getting violent. Finally, they go, you know what? We need escorts to keep these people safe because this is not a safe situation. So they get this guy, the 72 year old man says, I will escort, I will gladly bring in these patients to make sure they are safe. And this man who the Republicans are defending assaulted him not once, but two times assaulted him, threw him to the ground.

And when there are consequences, they go political persecution. Oh, they're just, he was just a Catholic man, a pro-life activist. Listen, your religion, your political beliefs, I don't give a shit about them if you are committing crimes. They do not preclude the crimes that you are committing. It is not a get out of jail free card. That insurrectionist type, that is Mastriano's base. Those assault, those types of people here in Pennsylvania, that's who Mastroianno continues to target in his effort to win the governorship here in Pennsylvania. And a quick aside, what this really reminds me of when I was attending the Ohio State University in 2014, the Westboro Baptist Church would always put up these crazy, crazy signs

and like hold like protests essentially right in the center of our campus. And, you know, I guess they were hiding behind the first amendment, freedom of speech or whatnot, but they would really berate the students, say some atrocious things, very much anti-choice. And to see this now play out on a level where it's actually leading to violence at medical facilities is terrifying. The Westboro Baptist Church, when I used to see them also at outside football games and outside, just various locations on the street, screaming at people and stuff, at least back in the day, I used to be like, those are lone, crazy people. They have their

own little cult. They are dangerous. They are scary, but they are isolated. Nobody's giving them the time of day. The problem today is the mainstream Republican Party has embraced those voices. And they now say, we are the Westboro Baptist Church. The Republican Party has taken their mindset and they defend those people. Now they go out there and they say, that's our those are our people. You can't mess with them. And that's this. That's the danger that we find ourselves in today. The name of one of the laws in the two count indictment that the DOJ has charged hook on for those wondering, it's the violation of the freedom of access to clinic entrances, F.A.C.EACE Act, which makes it a federal crime to use force

with the intent to injure, intimidate, and interfere with anyone because the person is a provider of reproductive health care. This Republican gaslighting of trying to accuse others of everything that they directly are, and it goes back to the tactics of what we see in Russia with Putin, where he's claiming denazification of Ukraine, which is led by, according to Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Post as the most influential Jew in the entire world is what Putin saying he wants to denazify. It's that same gaslighting tactic. And then finally, the third thing I wanted to mention, though, is just this overall platform of what the GOP actually rolled out, like with their commitment to cruelty. When you really

break down what it is, if you want to try to glean, it is remove and revoke social security, revoke Medicare. They want to raise taxes on everybody other than billionaires who they want to take care of. And they want to sue students who get loan forgiveness. Like they are literally coming for you. They want total abortion bans, national abortion bans. It really is a commitment to cruelty. And then you pivot to what took place at the Texas Tribune Festival. And I think we should start off by talking about Ted Cruz, who's from Texas and Ted Cruz of all of the people, everyone got a much better reception than Ted Cruz. Like Ted Cruz was getting heckled and booed and everything he said was more bizarre and and weird and dangerous than the next.

And he was just asked a very direct question about. So why don't you and the Republicans, when Donald Trump is out there saying this hateful and horrible stuff and spreading QAnon conspiracy, like why don't you trying to overthrow democracy? He's the leader of your cult. I mean, your party. Why don't you stand up? Why don't you do anything in the face of that? Let's just play Ted Cruz's response. Why are people reluctant on the Republican side to criticize Donald Trump? It's a number of things. Number one, unlike many people in politics, if someone criticizes him, he turns around

and punches them in the face. I mean, it's not complicated. And you have, I saw a lot of my colleagues, I saw meetings where he'd get up and different Republican senators would criticize me, spend the whole meeting just like slamming him with a stick. That people respond to incentives. People notice that. I mean, Ted Cruz really said there, Jordy and Brett, that because Donald Trump is mean to them, that that's why they've never seen anyone in politics get mean before. We've said this on the show before that they cower because they're scared of Trump calling them names.

It's just weird hearing him admit it. Yeah. I mean, it's just the it's it's the epitome of cowardice. It's unbelievable that we're having to like narrowly fall into like a fascist country because you're scared of being called names like stand up for yourself. But I mean, this is we are talking about the guy who literally did not stand up for his own family. He didn't stand up for himself or his wife when Donald Trump called his wife ugly. He didn't stand up for his father when his father when Donald Trump said his father killed JFK. I guess he did stand up for a day in a press conference. And then the next day was

making phone calls for Donald Trump. Oh, Donald Trump for president. But that's what you get with Ted Cruz and these Republicans, just all a bunch of cowards. And that's why this party has been able to be co-opted with this fascist MAGA strain, because they never really stood for anything. They never stood for anything. And so, you know, as the saying goes, you'll fall for anything if you don't stand for anything. And is that something like that? You often get phrases mixed up, but we'll let it slide. But could we just go back for one quick second? If you stand for nothing, you fall for anything. There you go. Those fascist mad libs that you just played. Think about what you just said.

You said the former president called Ted Cruz's wife ugly. You said the former president said that Ted Cruz's dad was JFK's killer. That's insane. They're all true statements to fascist Madeline. They said Ted Cruz himself is the Zodiac killer. And for to not stand. That's one of the strangest things about watching the January 6th committee hearings. Like there's so many themes to analyze, but just one theme is I get that image of myself in my mind of Mark Meadows as the insurrections taking place. You do have brave people like Cassidy Hutchinson saying like, do something, please. Like,

let's like call him out. We need to do something. And Mark Meadows with his phone, like I envision him remember the nokia game like snake or one of those like phone games yeah just imagine him on his phone like playing like jeopardy or whatever he's doing probably wheel of fortune now that the host of wheel of fortune's apparently like a right-wing fascist also maybe playing the wheel of fortune game on his phone, but like not care that I'm busy. Nothing I can do. Nothing I can do here if they want to kill the vice president. Like they just want to go get their tax cuts for billionaires, you know, do all the corrupt stuff that they want to do, go to the golf course

and just like tell everyone, shut the F up. Like, just leave me alone. I don't care about what happens to this country. Like whatever fascism doesn't matter as long as there's an oligarchy and I'm in that oligarchy crowd. That's like all I care. Can you like leave me alone, please? Cause like, I got to go to the country club. Like that is what their absolute focus is. So that's Ted Cruz there. And then he gets asked a question about responsible gun ownership. And he goes on a tangent and forgets that you've already happened in his state so that someone in the audience has to go. Yeah. But what about you, Valdi, like where all of the things you're saying existed and they weren't able to stop in that situation, you know, the the mass murderer terrorist who went because Cruz's argument in front of that crowd despicably was, well, if we had more police officers there, this would have neglecting the fact that they were like dozens of police officers who came to that school and refused to take action as these kids were slaughtered. And so he was rightfully heckled by the audience of Texans who were absolutely appalled by these statements.

But like the thing with Ted Cruz though, is he like thrives in being hated. Like he really just doesn't mind. He's like, no, no, no. If you want to be wrong about these

things then you could be wrong about these things but like the fact is he puts his like dirty shoes like he crosses his leg he's a disgusting dirty shoes up he's got that shit eating grin brett your voice you nail him yeah that was an amazing that was an amazing person i told the democrats blame the Democrats for it. It's like we got to blame the Democrats because they won't do what I told them to do, because we got to do here as we need to put more cops in the schools. We need more AR-15s in the schools because the more guns you have, the more we could protect these kids. Boo. Boo.

They're without playing the clip, that's what happened. And now a quick word from one of our sponsors, because, hey, you know this is true. Your bedroom deserves a refresh. And guess what? Right now, yep, right now is the perfect time to elevate the most important room in your home with Thuma. So introducing the bed by Thuma. Handcrafted from eco-friendly, high-quality upcycled wood, you'll find beautiful, unique variations in the natural grain. The perfect platform bed frame just got better. You can now customize the bed by choosing between their original pillow board and their new wood headboard. The fabric pillow board adds softness and color to any space, while headboard offers solid, sleek support. The headboard attaches directly to the bed using Japanese joinery with no tools required.

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plus free shipping in the continental US. Go to Thuma.co slash touch. That's T-H-U-M-A.co slash touch for a $25 credit. Go check it out. Now back to the show. Do you have that video, Brett, of Ted Cruz planning world domination in college? Oh my God. You know the video?

For those who haven't seen it, this was him in college. And I know people who went to school with him who just told me like everybody hated this guy. He was the biggest prick, the most obnoxious person in the world. And what my friends have told me who and these are lawyers who like went to law school and went to undergrad with him. And what they've said is as horrible of a human being as he was then. And he was horrible, loathed, detested. All he wanted to do was try to like ruin other students' lives and other people. They go, he's worse now. He's way worse. Here, just play the clip of him planning world domination in

college. Play this clip. Aspiration. Is that like sweat on my butt? No, no. Oh, I see what you want me to do, what I want to do in life. Take over the world, world domination, rule everything, rich, powerful, that sort of stuff. I mean, the guy was always just... Always awful. Awful. How do people like... It is why, though, you can't sit on the sidelines.

You can't because if you sit on the sidelines, you give the room to people like Ted Cruz. You give the floor to people like Marjorie Taylor Greene. You give the floor to Doug Mastriano. That's why we got involved. And, you know, you know, many, you know, at this point, it feels like a long time ago, but it was only two years ago, two and a half years. And I got to I always make the confession. I wasn't that political of a person until I saw what was going on in 2020. I wish I would have stepped into the arena early, but it shows

everybody listening here and everybody watching that it's never too late. But I was like, they're going to kill us. They're absolutely going to kill us. Like it wasn't a matter of doing this for any other reason other than like, if I don't do this, like they're going to go after and like kill my family and they're going to kill the community. They're going to literally destroy the country if no one stands up to these people, but there are people stands up to these people. But there are people standing up to them. So while you have Ted Cruz do that, you got Pete Buttigieg, you got Liz Cheney, you got Gavin Newsom. Let's talk about Buttigieg and Gavin Newsom,

because I thought the themes that they both hit great was, again, this cruelty of these Republican governors and just MAGA Republicans in general, taking away freedoms, taking away rights. And Newsom and Buttigieg just have a way of just hitting it so directly. They're not mincing words. And they're saying, what kind of man? It's like this is kind of Newsom's deep talking about like DeSantis. What kind of man kidnaps asylum seekers, hoards them onto a plane and throws them into another area without food or drinks or any planning and coordination? Who does that? How cruel can you be? And Buttigieg kind of echoed that. Yeah, I love Buttigieg's statement, which to paraphrase was basically like you don't do

things like that unless you're out of ideas. If you justhrase was basically like, you don't do things like that unless you're out of ideas. If you just don't have ideas, if you don't have true ways to actually solve problems, then you do these cruel, horrific stunts. But if you actually have a means to solve problems, you would actually be solving the problems. And I'm happy to have these good, passionate voices on the Democratic side pushing back against this BS.

I mean, it's super important and it just serves as such an incredible contrast. Absolutely. And one of the things that I'll tell our listeners here, when Brett and I were fortunate enough to visit the White House and cover the IRA event, we spoke with Pete Buttigieg for a bit. And I just want to say he has this presence about him where it's very presidential in nature, where he just kind of commands the room and commands the floor. And so when you see him, you know, making these speeches, like that's really him. He's not like a calculated guy that has all these note cards and, you know, knows exactly what he's going to say before he says it.

You know, he's just someone who really understands the moment and lives up to it every time, you know, he gets tasked. What Pete is so great at doing is he's able to really command the conversation because no matter what's thrown at him, he's able to slow down the conversation. He knows the soundbites that they are trying to get, and he knows the exact way to get to their audience, which is why he's so effective on Fox News and really on any channel, on any platform. I mean, at the Texas Tribune, which I still don't understand how they got literally every politician in the world at this event,

but kudos to them for this. Well, here's why. I think the timing lined up and it's such an important state. And I think for various reasons, it's important for everyone to speak in that forum. You have Greg Abbott, the governor and Ken Paxton really showing what a MAGA Republican leadership would look like and what it does look like. Right.

And what it looks like is repressive. Frankly, it looks like Iran, you know, and what they want to enact and how they want to go after women, how they want to go after the LGBTQ plus community, how they want to go after businesses. But then it also has a level of just utter incompetence, right? Like literally can't keep the lights on, you know, in a state that's known for being like the energy state, not just of the country, but of the world. They can't keep the lights on because of all of the corruption surrounding their electric grid that Abbott oversees. And then when shit hits the fan and there's breakdowns, their leaders go to Cancun. They go to other countries. They

vacation. It's the exact opposite of what you want leadership to be. And it is a scary, striking example of what the country would look like under a Republican-led commitment to cruelty. And that to me is one of the defining reasons about why I support the Democrats. And we talk about it. I mean, one is compassion, but the other C is competence. It's like literally focusing on the issues and getting in the weeds. It's like when you talked about that GOP rollout for its commitment to cruelty, they were so incompetent also in the rollout that they used Russian stock footage and claimed that the oil rig was an American oil rig. But just a few seconds of investigation showed that it was in Russia. They showed a young boy with a toy plane showing that this is like what, you know, American children, you know, and they picked a kid with like blonde hair and blue eyes from Russia.

And they said that was an American child. And, you know, that's an embarrassing example of their PR rollout for their corrupt propaganda plan. But that is how they actually govern. And you think about it, too, the way Trump handled COVID. Let's arrest Dr. Fauci. Let's throw the guy who's the top scientist for 40 plus years. Let's arrest him because he's smarter than me. And that hurts my frail ego, right? Think about the difference in what's gone down in Puerto Rico, right, with the Biden administration versus the

way Trump dealt with it, because Trump believed that they should fend for themselves. He went there and he threw toilet paper at them. I mean, horrific stuff. But that's why the Texas Tribune Festival got all these people. It's such a critical state. It so highlights the differences between Democrats and Republicans and really theence by falsely accusing Democrats of what they are doing constantly. It's a constant both sides of every single thing. I mean, Ben, I will still have comments from people to this day. Yesterday, I got some in my DMs when I tweeted something about Florida. Somebody was like, oh, well, California must be great. Good luck getting the lights on.

I'm like, my lights never went off. The lights never went off in California. I don't know. Like, what is this talking point that people just believe there was a problem? And Gavin Newsom solved the problem before the power grid went off, unlike Texas, where it literally did go off and people froze to death. I don't understand how you could objectively look at those situations and not see the difference in competence and problem solving ability.

But that's the power of these right wing fascist networks that just beam propaganda. It's Donald Trump is the most corrupt person ever. All of his kids work for the administration, work for his companies. They stole money. But Hunter Biden, but Hunter Biden. Donald Trump stole hundreds of classified documents, had thousands of other government documents on us. Oh, but have you heard of Barack Obama and his library? He took document. These aren't the same things. They're not the same things. And they say things enough. And Jordy and Ben and I yesterday were talking about like the names that they come up for things to try to act like they're smart when they come up with conspiracy theories. And they always come up

with a name for something like it's Strike Force Ultra. It's Strike Force Ultra is coming to get you. And then everyone's like, yeah, it's Strike Force Ultra. It's all the conspiracy. And you're like, you're just saying words at this point. You're just not even saying, let's acknowledge the actual real corruption here. Stop trying to deflect. Let's be Americans again. Let's focus in reality.

Let's live in reality, not this alternative version of reality that you've created to make yourself feel better, okay? Yep. And I don't know if people saw my recap of the Wilmington, North Carolina, traveling circus, fascist cosplay rally

that Trump did right. We did a previous one where he was in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Then he went to Youngstown, Ohio, and now he's in Wilmington, North Carolina. I mean, to some, by the way, the crowds are super small. So I don't want people to think

these are like like he played in front of like 2,500 people. It looked like one of these like small carnival crowds in Wilmington, North Carolina. I almost as disgusting as it is. I like that he's going to the swing states to show people there just how disastrous and how corrupt and weird and dangerous it is. Although I wish the media would actually cover it and condemn it and call it out like, hey, this is the leader of the Republican Party who's in our state. He's playing QAnon theme music.

OK, can we talk about that? Yeah. You know, the person who we wanted to appoint as the acting CIA director, the person who he claims he telepathically mind beamed the declassification to Kash Patel. Yeah. You know, that guy like he's signing where we go. One, we go all on like letters to all of his fans, like a total 100% Q and I could, could we talk about the fact that when Trump is out there actually speaking at these rallies, like he literally is just saying gibberish words at this point. Like he's literally not even like, there's not even a coherent thread to any of his statements other than basically just ranting and raving and just saying word salad words of like anti-immigrant stuff and and and, you know, MAGA, me, my son, Don Jr. Make America great. Like there's really no intellectual. There's no there's just there's no logic to what he's even saying. No, I mean, they're just they're fascist rallies. But the problem is, is that then you get these Republicans on the Sunday shows, which, you know, OK, fine, get them on the Sunday shows.

All right. But if you're going to have them on your show, you better ask good questions and you better hold their feet to the fire. Instead, we get people like Chuck Todd lobbing them softballs to talk about things like impeaching Joe Biden and not giving any sort of pushback and not asking any sort of questions, having zero journalistic integrity. Now, let me play this clip of how, you know, you have that rally where Donald Trump has people raising their hands to the QAnon symbols, you know, threatening the FBI, doing all the things that he does. You finally get Republicans on to talk about things. And this is the question that Chuck Todd lobs at Republican Representative Nancy Mace. Check this out. Republicans pitch Kevin McCarthy put out his pitch for they called it a commitment to America on this. And part of it in there was accountability and it's kind of vague. But you've heard some of the details. And I know you've talked about the idea that there may be a special select committee. Do you expect an impeachment vote against President

Biden if Republicans take over the House? I believe there's a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote, to put that legislation forward and to have that vote. I think that is something that some folks are considering. Wow. Again, I'm someone who wants to, yeah, I want to follow the Constitution. It's really important. Oversight's important. But when I think of oversight of the federal government, I'm thinking about the waste of the fraud and abuse for the COVID-19 funding. You saw this administration. And she pivots and goes into something else. But what Chuck Todd does not do is Chuck Todd doesn't go, on what grounds would you impeach him for? Why? What high crimes and

misdemeanors? Explain. Why would Republicans do that? Isn't that a distraction? Isn't that just bullshit? Aren't you guys just trying to weaponize the government? And also, like we were saying before with every other issue, trying, oh, Donald Trump was impeached. So Joe Biden's impeached. Let's make impeachment just something you do to your political adversaries. Everyone gets impeached every time they come into office. No comments, no, no follow up by Chuck Todd on that question about impeaching the president

of the United States. I mean, that is such an indictment of that show and these Sunday shows in general. It's just it's atrocious. And here's the thing. We can't take for granted, though, our democracy. And when I watch that show by Chuck Todd, when I watch what the mainstream media is doing, it's just so obvious that one, they're beholden to corporate interests that push these fascist agendas. I mean, there's one interpretation of it, and I think there's a lot of truth to it. The other in kind of seeking ratings, they're also eventually ushering in

their very downfall. And all you have to do is be a student of history to know that when you usher in the fascist regime and they're calling you fake news already and the first thing that they do at the rallies is tell people to beat the shit out of you at the rallies like that you're literally at when you go there what do you think is going to happen when they control and come into power you know you're the first people who they're they're going to go after and they are just going to create. And you see what they're trying to build, you know, these weird radical right extremist propaganda networks that are even far more extreme than even like as radical and extreme fascist propaganda as Fox's. you get this right side broadcasting network where Donald Trump's

lawyer, Christina Bob, moonlights as a as a host at the rallies. And she covers these rallies before these things put North Korea propaganda to shame sometimes. I mean, you have Christina Bob, who's supposed to be his lawyer. I guess she now claims she was never his lawyer. That was a big mistake, even though she went into court on his behalf in connection with the search warrant stuff. But don't believe what you actually saw. But by the way, I'll do a video on this. It's a really good thing that she's saying that now, Brett, because it's a total waiver of the attorney client privilege. So she's such a moron that she waived attorney client privilege. And now she could be subpoenaed and asked all of the things and why she felt, whereas if she claimed attorney client privilege before, maybe they couldn't ask those questions,

although arguably as a crime fraud exception, but she goes in front of these rallies and she's like, so how great is Donald Trump? Like how amazing is he? Is he the most amazing? How strong is he? How, how, how muscular is he? How, how good looking You think I'm joking? Those are literally the questions. Oh, how is your ride? It must've been worth it to come out here to see him. I'm like, what the hell is this? That right side broadcast, OAN, all of these ones that fortunately, the ones that spread all the election disinfo that were around at the time are being sued into oblivion and dominion and smartmatic have pretty much universally won all of their emotions to dismiss. And I can't wait to cover that. But those networks,

these propaganda, they're going to be the ones who replace real journalism. And just think about what's going on internationally right now. You know, fascism, these strong men, quote unquote, strong men, turns out they're all super weak. And in them trying to repress and control people, the people will uprise. There's a reason that democracy, while maybe not the greatest of all systems, is certainly the greatest one mankind has ever created by far. And just look at what's going on, for example, in Iran, where they had the repressive morality police that goes around, by the way, not too different than what we see here, right? The people who, that guy, Mark

Haack that we were talking about in Pennsylvania, right? That's a version of the morality police going attacking people, but there it's sanctioned by the government, right? That's who Mastriano goes, oh, that's just a devoted Christian pro-life. That's what the Iranians are saying. They're morality police. These are just people following the Quran and they're just doing their duty. No, that's not what, that's a perversion of what it is to go after and attack and kill people like that. And so this morality police murdered a woman named Masa Amini, sparking widespread protests. And then what happened thereafter was Masa's father spoke out about it, leading to these big protests. And then other dozens of other youth activists and other people were getting killed. Like just recently, Hadith Najafi was murdered.

A number of other youth activists were murdered. And you have these widespread protests right now of women taking off their jobs and just saying, we want our rights. We want our freedom. And then you have the Ayatollah shutting down Internet access, doing Internet blackouts. That's the kind of stuff when Trump says repeal the Communications Decency Act. Let's go after it. They want to do Internet blackouts here. That's what the Republicans would do in a second. And just look, I encourage everybody and we'll show it to our viewers here. Look at what Iran looked like before the revolution.

Look at the pictures. Look at how women dressed. It was just like here. And it shows you how quickly that things could change, how quickly that culture could change, how quickly, how important it is that you put the right people in charge, because once you lose it, it's very hard to gain your freedom back. And the thing that's really been disgusting, disgusting me also is seeing these same Republicans who are pushing these same repressive tactics here who

want to see what is happening in Iran here, applauding this revolution that's happening for freedom there. It is so contradictory. What is really more in line with what they are saying, which I think you need to pay attention to, is the way that they are applauding and the way they are envious of what Italy just did. They are envious of the leader that Italy just elected. And by the way, with a plurality of about 25% of the votes, I want to let you know, that's how, that's all it takes there with the system. They had about 25% of the votes. They're able to put a fascist into power.

And just think about our country where we have like 25 to 30% of people who support Donald Trump. And you have people like Steve Scalise in the GOP. He literally described Maloney as the type of conservatism we need to see here in America. And that's why we make it such a point. That's why we say it ad nauseum to the point where you're probably sick of us saying it. But this is not conservative ideology. This is far right fascist ideology. And the problem is when you flirt with fascism, even just a little bit like our media tends

to do and like these politicians do on the right, these weak ones like the Ted Cruz's and the people we speak about, when you flirt with fascism, when you equate conservatism with fascism, this is inevitably the end result. And it's why words matter. It's why we have to use our words wisely. It's why we can't kind of it's why we need to sound the alarm on these things. You know, it's not being alarmist to call MAGA a fascist movement. You know, the reaction to President Biden calling it a fascist movement, I think was really something that summed up the problem with our entire media ecosystem right here, because he was just simply telling the truth. And you need to tell the truth before it's too late,

before you elect a Maloney, before you elect another Donald Trump here. Absolutely. And the reason that Maloney, just for people wondering, how'd someone get elected with 25%? The way the system works there to elect the prime minister is you elect the party and there are coalitions that develop to form the government. And so this particular party, the Fratelli d'Italia, the Brotherhood of Italy, as they call them, which, again, gets its roots from Mussolini's party. I mean, it's derived from that. They're able to form a government with other far right coalitions and then to have the leader of that because the Fratelli got the most votes to put Maloney into into power there.

And then, Brett, we see finally, you know, Russia's mobilization efforts completely failing where Russia tried to have basically its own draft. The first thing that happened was most of the men who would potentially be conscripted left Russia. They tried to get out of there. All one-way flights were basically completely booked. And what we're also seeing is weapons that don't work being handed out. And we're actually seeing now for the first time, although we saw it originally at the outset of the war, but I think what we saw initially too was

because the war hadn't really impacted Russians like in Moscow, per se, the same way it is like now with people knowing family members who are being ordered to go to war. Right now, you're seeing a lot of protests that are kind of sparking up. And here's the thing, too. When you look at Maloney from the Fratelli d'Italia, when you look at all of these groups, one of the things they idolize people like Viktor Orban. They idolize Putin. But what you see with Putin at the end of the day is look how weak actually he was.

Look what a paper tiger their army actually was when push came to shove. Because when you govern like that, when you anoint someone as the Republicans call Donald stuck in the mud and competent real leaders like Zelensky having an army that cares, that's actually fighting for something. Just, you know, destroying these right wing extremists, true fascists and standing and standing up to him. And that's finally come into why the January 6th committee is so critical, the work that they're doing. The January 6th committee will be meeting again soon. I can't wait for the committee. We know that they are now issuing some new subpoenas, particularly the subpoena to Robin Voss, who is the speaker of the house over in Wisconsin. And Robin was interviewed. That was a great interview. We

got to play the clip where this was back in July, where Robin was asked by a reporter, when was the last time you spoke to Donald Trump? I don't even think the reporter realized what he was going to say, but play the clip. When's the last time you've talked to the former president, President Trump? Within the last week. Within the last week? Yeah. Before or after he tweeted about you? Before. And what was that conversation like? It's one of those that it's very consistent. He makes his case, which I respect. He would like us to do something different in Wisconsin.

I explained that it's not allowed under the Constitution. He has a different opinion. Then he put the tweet out. So that's it. Yeah, Robin's like, yeah, I spoke to him last week. And the reporter's like, what? What do you mean you spoke to him last week? But what did you speak to him about?

Well, he called and asked that I overthrow the election. And he's like, well, this goes back to that Republican cowardice. Like Robin Voss sums it up right there. It's like, well, you know, it's like it's like was the guy from The Simpsons, Flanders, like the neighbor. Oh, hi, ho, neighbor. I just have a disagreement. Right. Hi, ho, neighbor. We just have a little bit of a disagreement about the Constitution. You want to overthrow it. And I believe in not overthrowing it. Just a little disagreement. Heidly ho. I'm going to go play some golf like that is who they are.

They're like the Ned Flanders. They just allow fascism to come in and they're just like, whatever. Heidly ho, neighbor. This is a show full of impressions. Jordy, I think you need to do an impression. I have to stick up for Simpsons viewers here. I don't think Ned Flanders has ever said hi to Lee Ho, but your point still stands, Ben.

Jordy, I think you owe us an impression this episode. Ben did Ned Flanders. I did Ted Cruz. Who do you got? Just wait. Just wait for it. You have to stick around to the end of the episode. We'll get one out there.

Well, I think unfortunately or fortunately, the end of the episode has come. I do want to tell all of our listeners to check us out at patreon.com slash Midas Touch. We're not funded by any outside investors. We're not funded by millionaires or billionaires or anything like that. We are fueled by democracy and powered by you. And so if you want to support independent journalism like this, go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch, join one of those membership tiers, and can't wait to keep growing that as well. For those wondering, yes, we are airing the next January 6th committee hearings live on the Midas Touch network. So you could check that out. The hearings are September 28th. As always, be sure to check our YouTube account, youtube.com slash Midas Touch to watch the live stream with us

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