The MeidasTouch Podcast - MAGA RAGES after midterms as Gen-Z LEADS democracy to VICTORY with Victor Shi

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we sit down with Victor Shi, Strategy Director of Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen-Z led organization that engages, educates and represents youth in politics. Shi was also the youngest elected delegate for Joe Biden in 2020! During our interview, Victor discusses what pollsters got wrong when trying to engage with Gen-Z, why this younger generation has thrown their support behind President Joe Biden & what to expect in this upcoming Georgia runoff. The rest of the episode, we break down the latest election results, the looming GOP Civil War, Donald Trump’s epic weekend meltdown and the latest updates from Ukraine. Also — we get to make a massive projection LIVE out of Arizona and break the news that Democrat Katie Hobbs has defeated MAGA extremist and election denier Kari Lake. If you enjoyed today’s show, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! New episodes of The MeidasTouch Podcast are released every Tuesday & Friday mornings. Follow Victor Shi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Victorshi2020 Learn more about Voters of Tomorrow: https://votersoftomorrow.org/ DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Instaflex Advanced: Text MEIDAS to 42424 to get a complimentary 2-week sample of Instaflex Advanced, plus get a free gift of Instaflex Advanced pain cream! Raycon: Get 20% off SITEWIDE at BuyRaycon.com/MEIDAS and use code EARLYBF 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

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.

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

free of charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario the democrats kept control of the senate the held. But look, we still gotta win Georgia and Senator Raphael Warnock winning is still critical. Even though we already control it, we will explain why. Republicans, meanwhile, are in a full-fledged civil war with the different factions of the party attacking each other. Can can even call it a party anymore just like a weird cult maga ultra maga q anon all attacking each other sheesh we break it down meanwhile trump is attacking everyone the republican party mitch mcconnell glenn youngkin ron desantis paul r. Trump is more unhinged than ever before.

And that's kind of saying something. And the January 6th committee has responded to Trump's noncompliance with their subpoena to testify. Surprise, surprise, he didn't show. The coward doesn't show. Trump filed a lawsuit to try and block his testimony in the Southern District of Florida. And the January 6th committee said it will evaluate next steps. We'll see what happens, but I suspect a contempt of Congress vote will happen soon. And our guest, I'm so excited about this interview, Victor Xi, the pro-democracy Gen Z superstar who works as the strategy director of Voters of Tomorrow,

a Gen Z-led organization that engages and represents youth and politics. And wow, did they represent for the midterms and brought it home for us. Geezers, Brett. Geezers? You just call us geezers brett victor you just call us geezers we're like we're the ogs right now like all of a sudden these jayceers they're they're the ones who actually noticed i was getting some grays on the side of my hair today so i think that's i'm not even lying jordy i don't know if you're joking or not like the entire side of my head after this past week and

half all great like i looked at the mirror i was like oh damn let me finish my intro victor Joking or not joking, like the entire side of my head after this past week and a half, all gray. Like I looked at the mirror. I was like, oh, damn. Let me finish my intro. Victor co-hosts the podcast iGenPolitik with our friend Jill Weinbanks. This and more of Brett, Jordy, and Ben talking about our gray hairs on the Midas Touch podcast. And as of the time of this live recording, it is still too close to call the Arizona governor's race, but Democrat Katie Hobbs is in a good position to become the next governor in a race against the election denier, MAGA extremist, Kerry Lake, but more

data is needed there. Brett and Jordy, how are you? How are you doing? I'm doing well, old geezer. I'm doing well, old geezer. No, I'm doing great. I'm feeling really, you know, I'm simultaneously as tired as I've ever been, just purely exhausted from lack of sleep

and staying up and checking for results of these elections in the middle of the night. But like at the same time, super energized and excited and ready to go and feeling actually incredibly optimistic about our democracy. I mean, don't get me wrong. We have a lot to do. These are some truly deranged people that we are dealing with right now. But this blue wall that held is so important. And regardless of the outcome of these next elections, of what happens in the House, of what happens in governor, though, I'm feeling very good about what's going to happen in Arizona. And we should have votes coming in at possibly any minute and we will bring it to you live. But I am feeling good about our democracy. I'm just super inspired, engaged, encouraged by all the activists out there who made this possible.

All the Gen Z activists, all the women, everybody who knocked on doors, just so incredible. Everybody should take some ownership in this win. Y'all did it. Jordy, how are you doing? I'm feeling great, man. My sign's working today, so I don't have to worry about that. I'm glad I was able to get that up and running. And we're going to have a good show tonight, brothers. I'm pumped for this. I couldn't be more excited so as i mentioned the arizona governor's race has still not been called katie hobbs is in the lead currently right now a lead of 50.6 percent of the votes for hobbs and 49.4 percent for lake hobbs holds a 29,048 vote lead. And we should be getting more results for Maricopa County literally any minute. And if we do, we will let you know if we have a projection. Brett,

where do we stand on the Senate? Of course, I said that we have control. But most importantly, why is 51, though, so much more important than 50? And why does everybody really need to be focused right now on Georgia and not get complacent? Yeah, well, this is, you know, it's super important is the short answer. And I'll explain why. But this is our first show since the Democrats were officially declared the winners of the Senate, the Democrats will retain the Senate. So we should be incredibly thrilled about that. Currently, it stands at 50 seats for the Democrats and 49 for Republicans, of course, with that runoff election in Georgia between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. Looking forward to that.

Feels like a little like deja vu from the last elections going to a runoff in Georgia. But here is why having this majority and having it be more than just a tiebreaker majority is important. First off, Mitch McConnell has been made irrelevant by the fact that we have 50 seats, but he goes into complete irrelevance if we get that 51st seat, because we don't have to enter any sort of power sharing agreement with Mitch McConnell. When the Senate is 50-50, despite the fact that the VP is the 51st vote to break ties on legislation. Everything else is kind of decided by the fact that it's an even chamber rather than the fact that it's not really considered a majority, despite the fact that we have that 51st vote. So it enables us to bypass Mitch completely right there.

The Democrats also will be able to chair the Senate committees. Right now you have this equal number of Democrats to Republicans in these committees. You have co-chairs between Republicans and Democrats. That goes away with the 51st senator there. It becomes a Democrat controlled committee, which is incredibly important. Of course, there's always the opportunity for there to be absences in the Senate. This protects ourself if there is an absence in the Senate, having that extra vote. We get subpoena power. Think about that. We get subpoena power in the Senate, which is incredibly important. We don't know what's going to happen with the House. It'll be great to have a Senate with subpoena power. No need for the VP to break

any sort of ties. And just think about what that means as far as actually being able to pass legislation. It's going to accelerate that process so much. And beyond legislation, it's going to accelerate one of the most important things and one of the things that we have seen time and time again, the importance of this, and that is the confirmation process of judges. Do not underestimate the ability for us to appoint judges, competent judges who actually follow the law, not these maggot extremist judges to the federal judiciary. This Senate lead having 51 votes makes that far more easier, a far more quicker process. And I've been seeing some actually quite interesting concepts of people floating around.

I honestly don't know how viable these are, but I've heard some people proposing the idea of maybe if Democrats do narrowly lose the House, maybe you could fold over things like the January 6th committee into a pre-existing committee in the Senate and have those investigations go on in the Senate. I think that's interesting. I need to look more into how that works, but I thought that was an incredibly interesting idea that I've heard tossed around. And plus, think ahead. Senators have six-year terms. This is going to give Democrats an advantage heading into the next election cycle. And I can't believe we already have to talk about the next election cycle, but it's true. We have that extra vote. Think about

how narrow the margins are right here, currently in the House, in the Senate. We are learning. If this election taught us anything, it's that every vote matters and every seat matters. And I don't care if you live in a red state or a blue state. I don't care if you are a red dot surrounded or a blue dot surrounded by red. You need to get out and vote because every single vote and every single seat matters so much. And that's what this election has proved. So we'll see what happens there and we'll keep everybody posted. And Brett, I want to talk about the judges for a moment.

This was from an August 9th, 2022 Pew Research article, just how significant Biden's appointments has been. This is what it says. This is as of August of 2022. President Joe Biden has appointed more judges to the federal courts at this stage in his tenure than any president since John F. Kennedy, and his appointees include a record number of women and racial and ethnic minorities, according to Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Judicial Center. As of August 8th, the first day of the U.S. Senate's August break, Biden has successfully appointed 75 judges to the three main tiers of the federal judicial system, the district courts, appeal courts, and U.S. Supreme Court. That's far more than the number appointed by Trump, 51,

Barack Obama, 42, at the same stage in their presidencies, and slightly more than the number appointed by several other recent presidents. Pretty big data right there to report. And, Jordy, young voters really stepped up as well. What can you tell us about that? Is Jordy a geezer too? What'd you say? Is Jordy a geezer as well, or is he below the geezer cutoff? No, no, no, no.

I think I'm fully right there. I told you I was getting my grays on my side too, man. It's Gen Z. I'm so pumped about Gen Z. All I can tell you about Gen Z, Ben and Brett, overperformance left and right, man. Nobody saw them coming. Everyone counted them out, especially these quote unquote pollster, these expert pollsters who just couldn't find a way to actually include them in their data.

And so when you just totally discount such a large section of the population that's so motivated to go out there and vote, because ultimately what you've seen from these Republicans, just like anti Gen Z mentality, like they don't want to help them with their student relief debts. They're anti them in every step of the way, whether it comes to Republicans backing these policies that just so went against the grain for so many different communities, but I think especially Gen Z, and to see their complete overperformance, it's been amazing to watch. And then you talk about what the GOP is doing now in response to that, Jordi. There's calls from Republicans to raise the voting age and end early voting. What else do you have there, Brett? You've got that who's saying, yeah, Bridget Gabriel raised the voting age to 21. And that's just not unique to Bridget Gabriel, this MAGA influencer or whatever you want to say.

Like that's a mainstream policy that these people are pushing. But one thing I do like, though, is that the GOP as a political party, I can even call this a political party, just like a weirdo cult. It's a complete disarray. And the factions, Brett, we got like Marjorie Taylor Greene is backing Kevin McCarthy because she wants power. And then you have Matt Gaetz saying he's not voting for McCarthy. And then you've got Ted Cruz just whining about how sad he is today. Ted Cruz gave Midas a retweet today. That was a surprise. Yeah, because Ted Cruz only cares about his podcast. I think we need to pass

a law. I think we could get behind this maybe, a bipartisan law to ban politicians from being allowed to have podcasts. And hopefully we can maybe even extend that to books. Like I just, all forms of media, I do not want to see these people because they end up caring a hundred percent about their podcasts and getting their podcasts high in the ratings. So we posted a clip of Ted Cruz today of Ted Cruz saying, the rage I felt, the rage I felt everybody from these election results, the rage. I am enraged right now. And we played the clip.

It was, you know, very cathartic to hear Ted Cruz cry on this podcast. We put we posted it. Ted Cruz ended up retweeting it. And then he retweeted it with a comment saying, thanks for reach. Thanks for posting my podcast. If anyone wants to hear the full episode you can download it here we were making fun of him he just didn't care no he because he loves humiliation it's just strange behavior he loves it he lives for it he i don't know what sort of mentality

that brings but it just goes to show you man the guy's a complete shell he's a loser should we play the ted cruz clip or maybe there's a little bit of it? An abbreviated version before I throw up and then I'll play like a minute of it and I'll cut it off. You can tell me. And there are a lot of Americans that are going to be tuning in to you this morning and they want to know who is to blame for this. There are a ton of people arguing over this right now.

They're saying it's Mitchitch mcconnell's fault no no it's donald trump's fault for picking candidates like dr oz or and then it's not even his fault it's his wife's fault and everybody's trying to figure out how do you put this in a box and i think it's so important to get your take on this what happened how did this happen and who's to blame for it well ben let me start off by saying i am so pissed off i cannot even see straight we had an extraordinary opportunity we had a generational opportunity this should have been a fundamental landslide election we should have won the house and the senate we should have a 30 40 50 vote majority in the house we

should have 53 54 55 republicans in the senate and instead holy crap the democrats keep the senate worse than that the democrats potentially grow their majority in the senate worse than that yes we take the house but at best we're going to take the house with a couple of seats. Maybe. There is an outside chance we lose the house. I don't think we will. I think the numbers are enough that we will hold on to the house. All right, all right, all right.

Can I just say for our audio listeners, that was not Brett doing the impersonation. That was actually Ted Cruz. Brett, your Ted Cruz is getting way too good. I've been working on it. First off, also, why is Ted Cruz being interviewed on his own podcast? That's Ted Cruz's podcast. He has someone come in

and interview him. It's just a whole ecosystem. The moment that the person's name was Ben, too, I was like, oh, no, it just made it extra gross. No, but I just love Lindsey Graham. Go on TV and cry.

Ted Cruz, go complain when you're back. All these performative antics are the reason why you lost. And every there's like this circular firing squad happening right now in the Republican Party where you have it's Ted Cruz's fault. It's Kevin McCarthy's fault. It's Donald Trump's fault. It's Fox News's fault. And they're all trying to get out in front to blame each other. You have Fox going, it's Trump. Look, it's all Trump. It was all Trump. You've

got Trump yelling at them. You have Ted Cruz yelling at them. You have people yelling at McCartney. Dude, it's all of your faults. All of you are doing it. Every single one of you are to blame. And this whole not living in reality, this whole crying on TV and these performative antics. This is exactly what the American people just rejected. So keep it up. Keep this going. As I've said time and time again, they're going to continue to learn all the wrong lessons. The correct lesson, if you were a normal political party, an actual political party, you might go, you know what? Maybe we should make our politics more friendly for Gen Z. Maybe we should be more inclusive. Maybe we should push out these conspiracy theorists. Again, that's not going to happen. That is not going to happen. This party

became the Trump party because that's who this party is. That's who they have been for maybe decades, but at least leading back to the Tea Party, which is where a lot of these people rode into the Republican Party on. This conspiratorial nature of the party goes back a long way, and they're going to continue to lean into it. And instead of changing their policies, they are going to try to change the system to ban early voting, to try to prevent Gen Z from going to the polls, to try to prevent mail-in voting.

All they're going to try to do is to make the system more difficult and put up more barriers. So we need to stay on the offense and we need to keep getting around them. And then they're going to say, that's freedom. Me taking away all of your freedoms. That's freedom. Yeah, that's Vladimir Putin, you know, view of the way society should be run. But that's not what American freedom is. This is a tale of three videos, though, I want to play, which I think shows a tale of three videos. Hopefully I've got them. You never know this is taking place. The first, the Marjorie Taylor Greene today talking about the battle for the speakership and her saying that she would like a civil war to take place. Do we have that clip, Brett? That means we're going to fight it out. And I'm telling you, I've always said I'm not afraid of the civil war and the GOP.

I lean into it. You want to know why? I want to do everything I can to do my part within our conference to force the Republican Party to be the party that is America first and saves this country. Leaning into it for her is Kevin McCarthy because she believes that'll give her a better position. It's entirely phony too. Everything that they say is extreme and radical and horrible, but the idea that she would support McCarthy, who's a total loser and a total fraud in everything that he does, that's just one of the characteristics of it. But this is the tale of video number two. So we're one for one on videos. Also, let me just note, Ben, as well, she said that on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast.

So if you want to talk about not learning anything, she's right back on Steve Bannon's podcast spewing this nonsense. They've learned nothing. Steve Bannon, who a few months ago said, we're going to win 100 house seats and we are going to control the U.S've learned nothing. Steve Bannon, who a few months ago said, we're going to win a hundred house seats and we are going to control the US government forever. MAGA is stronger than ever. Yo, you guys got your ass handed to you. Okay, Ben, what's the next clip? Okay. Matt Gates saying that Kevin McCarthy will not be the speaker and he will vote against him. We have that clip.

Who would those five? Who would those five people be? Well, I think that they would be the people that reliably adhere to the promises that they make to their voters. I'm not here to like out or dox anybody. I'll let people make their own announcements in their own time. I'm making my announcement, which is that I'm not voting for Kevin McCarthy. I'm not voting for him tomorrow. I'm not voting for him tomorrow. I'm not voting for him on the floor. And I am certain that there is a critical mass of people who hold my precise view. And so the sooner we can sort of dispense with the notion that Kevin's going to be speaker,

then we can get to the important work of actually looking at who are the people. I hate to see it. And let me also, you know, let me reinforce this fact, which is that they need like every single vote. Kevin McCarthy needs every single vote. Basically, in order to become speaker, you need a majority of voters in the House for that to happen. And so he can't afford this inviting. He can't afford to lose this one that's all and and once again matt gates there on charlie kirk's show charlie kirk who has been wrong about absolutely everything but i don't know charlie kirk i mean charlie kirk is like the most influential person him and bannon of the party who are both the most extremist radical and just, like weirdo losers. Like you watch these people and you're

like, who are these people? Like, where do these people even come from? There's no intellectual substance. It's pure hate. They talk about how there shouldn't even be democracy. Like, you're like, where do these people even come from? Now I want to show you Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland. This is what he said over the weekend. Well, why don't we play the clip of him where he talks about, well, everyone's saying that Trump was supposed to say he was going to win and we'd be so we'd win so much we wouldn't even know what to do with ourselves. But all Trump's done is lose. Like, can we look at this guy's like the biggest loser? This is Republican governor, former Republican Governor Larry Hogan. That's a definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over

again, expecting a different result. And Donald Trump kept saying, we're going to be winning so much. We'll get tired of winning. I'm tired of losing. I mean, that's all he's done. So you don't think that this is just a blip and that Republicans will return to being, well, it's kind of still the party of Trump, but embracing the party of Trump? You think this time is different? You know, if you if you lose over and over again to what's really not that great of a team, you've got to reassess. Is it time to rebuild? And you have to go back and think, how do we have a more hopeful, positive vision? How do we appeal to a broader group of voters? Because in some cases, we fired up the base, but we turned off wide swaths of swing voters.

And it's why we didn't perform. By the way, Larry Hogan was the governor of Maryland for two terms starting in 2015 in a Democratic state. He was a fairly moderate Republican. And the person who the Republicans nominated to run was Dan Cox, a MAGA extremist election denier. And the Democrats elected Wes Moore, who won by with 60 superstar, who won with 62.2% of the votes in Maryland, like absolutely crushed Dan Cox. And let me make this point as well. The people who are going to be the loudest on the Republican side and the people who are going to keep them. So they're just going to, they're going to make

the Republican party so repulsive to voters and keep them that way. But the people who have made them so repulsive to voters so far, these are all people for the most part who are in the safest districts imaginable, do not have to worry about competition whatsoever. Like Marjorie Taylor Greene, like we saw in this election, she doesn't have to, no matter who runs against her, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't run people against her, we should be fighting in every district, but no matter who runs against her, Marjorie has a safe seat. So she could be as crazy as she wants. She doesn't have to worry about that sort of thing. But when you have a country that is much more moderate, much more in the middle than that, these people are going to lead the Republican party down the exact wrong

path away from voters. And I welcome, that's why on this show, we've always highlighted Republican extremism. And we've always highlighted how this Republican extremism is not just some random person we found on the street who's a little crazy and identifies as a Republican, but the power center of the Republican party and the people guiding the Republican party, the people making decisions in the Republican party are the extremists. And if they continue to listen to them, which appears like they do with this handshake deal between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kevin McCarthy, apparently, then they are setting themselves up for some massive, massive failures down the line. And Jordy, did you know this, that in 2018, Democrats lost the Arizona governor's race

by 15 points. So the fact that it looks like Katie Hobbs is going to win, that a Democrat's going to win in Arizona, where in 2018, Doug Ducey, the Republican, won by 15 points, just tells you what independents and former Republicans and non-affiliated political people are looking and saying, who is this? This Carrie Lake is just talking about, and Carrie Lake's pitch is, I'm going to destroy you and make your lives miserable. And I am going to make sure the 2020 election is overturned. And she does that thing. And Saturday Night Live pointed it out great, where she has those weird filters on the Zoom and all she does is talk about like, I'm going to destroy your life. Your life is going

to be destroyed. Like who reacts to that thing and goes, yeah, that's the positive, hopeful message that I'm looking to. Yeah, no, you're right. Leadership that we need here in Arizona. It's amazing that Gen Z saw those types of videos and we're like and we're like oh my goodness i i can't you know maybe that no i'm not gonna vote for her she's a lunatic i just realized something real quick quick observation i got the entire red wave right here in this cup i like that journey and then meanwhile trump is also attacking everybody he's saying and it's like his messages are so weird. He's like Glenn Youngkin.

Then he spells it like Young space kin. And he's like, well, that sounds Chinese. And Glenn Youngkin's a horrible person. It's like, what are you? What are these? These are the rantings and ravings of a lunatic. He's calling Ron DeSantis, Ron Day, sanctimonious. The better nickname would be Ron Disastrous.

Can I coin that? Ron Disastrous is a far better nickname than Ron DeSanctimonious. I want to put that. Jordy, you have a smile. Ron Disastrous? It's solid. I still think they're both long. I think you just go like Ron DeFraud. I don't think you even have to really include his name. We'll workshop it. We'll workshop it. We'll figure it out. Ron Disastrous, I like. And the January 6th committee, meanwhile, has responded with Trump's we'll workshop it we'll work workshop we'll figure it out ron disastrous i like and the january 6th committee meanwhile has responded with trump's non-compliance uh to their subpoena so trump was supposed to testify today um but trump filed a lawsuit on friday and he's got he's got 500 lawsuits because he's afraid to testify. And he grips all the money from his political action committee so that he could hide.

So he could hide because he's a freaking coward. So he doesn't have to testify. Like most of his lawsuits are avoiding to try to testify. And he speaks this big game. I'm such a tough guy. I'm such a tough person. I mean, dude, Hillary Clinton sat in front of the Benghazi panel for 12 hours, answered every question, didn't plead the fifth. Trump runs away from all of these things. I mean,

heck, the Letitia James, attorney general of New York case where she sued Trump for fraudulent valuations of his properties. Brett, he got asked the easiest questions. The questions were, well, so your valuation of this property was X, but the appraisal is Y. Can you explain that? I plead the fifth. Well, why did you say the value of Mar-a-Lago was this? Wouldn't he say, because I'm the greatest businessman. I plead the fifth. You plead the fifth when you're asked what's the value of a property. He pleads the fifth on every single question. So even though Alina Haba went on TV and she was like, I think he's going to testify. I think he should testify because he has nothing to hide. I knew that's my Alina Haba impression. That's a

good impression. Thank you. I knew everyone knew he wasn't actually going to testify. He's too big of a coward. So he filed a lawsuit on, I think it was Friday, right before the weekend, trying to block his testimony. And his point is, and he relies on like this, like letter from like Harry Truman, that's not even really relevant or an issue here. And he goes, a president should never have to testify. And it's like, dude, you're not the president. And there's actually a history of former presidents, not just testifying before Congress, but also saying that they are just but a regular citizen after they're the president. And so that's his basic argument. It's a separation of powers. He should never be questioned on anything that he does. He filed a lawsuit to block it. Pull up the statement now from the January 6th committee that they just put out. It said former President Trump. and I like the way they start off with that, right? Like, this guy's not the president. Former President Trump has refused to comply with the select committee's subpoena, requiring him to appear for deposition. His attorneys have made no attempt to negotiate

an appearance, and his lawsuit parades out many of the same arguments that courts have rejected repeatedly. Donald Trump orchestrated a scheme to overturn a presidential election and block the transfer of power. He is obligated to provide answers to the American people. The committee will evaluate next steps in the litigation and regarding former president's noncompliance. An interesting ruling out of the D.C. District Court, though, by a Trump appointed judge, Carl Nichols, when Mark Meadows sued the January 6th committee, was that he didn't have jurisdiction. The judge didn't have jurisdiction under the speech and debate clause that he actually had no

right, Meadows, to even sue the January 6th committee. So it was an interesting separation of powers argument there that the January 6th Committee was well within its rights to issue the subpoena, and you really can't sue them for injunctive relief. So I wonder if that argument comes up, or if the January 6th Committee is just going to argue strictly that there is no claim of executive privilege or executive immunity of former presidents. But that's going to be litigated. And ultimately, Brett, to your point, what would be very helpful and is an interesting concept that we should explore, can you transfer over the duties and responsibilities from the House if Democrats

can't hold to the Senate? Really interesting concept. And what the midterms have demonstrated, though, is also how effective the January 6th committee is and how effective pro-democracy messages are, don't you think? Absolutely. I mean, I think when people came out, you know, one of the things that we were wondering, and I think that a lot of the pundit class and people out there, they kept emphasizing that democracy was far too ambiguous of a topic for voters to wrap their head around. The voters don't care about democracy. They care about inflation. They care about crime. They care about gas prices. Democracy, they don't need democracy. And I think what we saw in these elections was that actually voters do care about democracy quite a bit. I mean, you're seeing all these election deniers go down seeing all these election deniers go down, all these election deniers who ran for secretary of state losing in a big way, even when other races on that ticket were very close, the election deniers lost.

And I think you're seeing a surprise. I mean, you're still seeing the craziness that's happening from the right as far as election fraud, but you feel like the mainstream of the Republican Party right now, the people with the loudest megaphones are trying to shut those voices up at least and aren't taking them as seriously, which I think is actually an interesting twist to this election. Because if Trump were president and stuff, they'd be going on TV nonstop, fraud, it's a scam, it's a fraud. And now that's sort of relegated to these crazy people on Twitter who get to live in their bubble and do whatever they want to do. Jordy? No, it's such an excellent point. I just wanted to chime in real quickly,

but you guys were in a row when we were making fun of Trump for pleading the fifth. All I just wanted to say was it's just so on brand that he was the 45th president. What do you guys think about that? Can you explain the joke? Fifth, 45th, pleads the fifth a lot. That's the whole crux of that joke. Yeah, no, okay. That's funny. Yeah, it's hilarious. We'll workshop that too, Jordy. We got a workshop, but I mean, maybe Jordy, the best place to workshop is not live in front of hundreds of thousands of people who watch this, but we could workshop

jokes like that offline. And one of the things I like to workshop as well, and by the way, I do want to bring in Victor Shee. I'm excited to bring in Victor Shee. But one thing I want to mention before bringing in Victor Shee is talking about workshopping, Jordy. Sometimes I got to workshop this physique because as you know, I'm not as strong as these Gen Zers. You know, I go for the runs that I take outside and then sometimes my knees hurt, my elbows hurt, you know, true story. And if joint discomfort is keeping you from being as active as you once were, as that happens to me for fast and powerful relief, joint relief, try Instaflex Advance. Instaflex Advance targets the root cause of joint discomfort with one little pill per day.

It contains a unique combination of five key ingredients found in no other product in the world. It restores flexibility and mobility to your knees and other painful joints with just one capsule per day. And what I love about it is it targets the root of joint soreness, stiffness, and discomfort. It doesn't just cover up the symptoms. And that's something that I really need. Now, get a complimentary two-week sample of Instaflex Advanced when you text MIDAS to 42424. MIDAS, M-E-I-D-A-S, to 42424. Plus, get a free gift of Instaflex Advanced Pain Cream with its exclusive oxygenated oil for fast-acting relief

from the pain of arthritis, backes, and sore muscles absolutely free. Text now and receive a complimentary two-week supply of Instaflex Advanced Joint Support for men and women with five key ingredients to help you turn back the clock. So text MIDAS, M-E-I-D-A-S, to 42424. That's text MIDAS to 42424. MIDAS, 42424. That's text Midas to 42424. Midas 42424. Also want to mention our Patreon site. Shout out to the Midas Patreon. We're almost now at 3000 patrons. Go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch. I think we know now the importance of independent media more than ever, and the importance to amplify voices like Gen Z voices that we did here and like the actual political strategists who were accurate with the polling data. And look, we're not funded by any millionaires or billionaires. We have no

outside investors. So we're only accountable to you. We rely 100% on your generosity. Wherever you are in the world, go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Midas Touch. There's lots of exclusive content there, exclusive Q&A sessions, exclusive podcasts. There's even a tier where you could become an honorary producer and your name appears at the end of the Midas Touch podcast and get posters and postcards and so much more, but most importantly, help grow this independent media channel. That's patreon.com slash Midas Touch. And now let's bring in our interview with Victor Sheehan. Hold on. Let me say one more thing first because I got to top Jordy's joke. Jordy, put your wine glass up for a sec. Jordy's not drinking red wine. He's drinking red wine. I think that's also a

potential new product. I might just be dropping it here right now. That's so good. We got to do that right away. None of y'all steal it out there. No one steal that idea. Don't tell anybody. Copyrighted. We just copyrighted it. I just copyrighted. All right. Our interview with Victor Shee. And welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by Victor Shee, the strategy director of Voters of Tomorrow, which is a Gen Z led organization that engages and represents youth and politics and crushed it during the 2022 midterms. Victor was also the youngest elected delegate for Joe Biden in 2020. He's a writer, a speaker, an organizer, a Gen Z activist, and a podcast co-host of iGenPolitik and a former White House and DNC intern. And I should mention a UCLA student. Victor, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me on. Should I mention at the outset, though, Victor, that I am a professor at USC Law School? I don't

know if that gets us off. And that I'm an alumnus from USC. So I'm not going to mention that now. Take it easy. I'm not going to use this time to mention that I went to USC now. So I'm not going to mention that now. Take it easy. I'm not going to use this time to mention that I went to USC now either. I'm not going to start the interview off like that. The rivalry is real, but as long as it doesn't involve football, I'm okay. Look, the colors of UCLA are blue. There was a blue wall that held this midterms. And, you know, leading up to the election, leading up to the midterms, the media had written Gen Z off. You know, the media had said what Gen Z is doing isn't going to make any difference. They had all of their polls that all proved to be wrong.

But you were out there steadfastly talking about what was actually going on in the ground. And so tell us about what happened in the midterms and what conclusions can we draw? Yeah, so first of all, you frame that question so well, because like you said, a lot of the media and pundits and pollsters leading up to the 2022 election were all like, you know, will Gen Z show up in the same rate that they once did? Will this be the election to finally show up? And that was honestly, in hindsight, very irresponsible for them to do. Because if you look at the data starting in 2018, Gen Z showed up like never before. That's what allowed Democrats to flip control of the House and the Senate in 2018. In 2020, Gen Z showed up again in historic

numbers, electing President Joe Biden, defeating Donald Trump, who is, as you all know, one of the most dangerous presidents of our lifetime, and then also helped elect Raphael Warnock and Senator John Ossoff down in Georgia. And so we've already had this momentum. And so 2022, if any, you know, past its prologue would have been another election, which Gen Z showed up in historic numbers, and we did, proving a lot of pollsters and pundits wrong. And, you know, you mentioned the polling leading up to this election. I hope going forward, all of us take less kind of weight in polls from now on. I mean, young people I know, for one matter, barely answer phone calls. And especially when it's more than five minutes long, young people just don't stay on. And so I think polls got it all wrong. And so in this election,

what you saw was Gen Z showed up to vote. Across the country, you saw kind of videos of people staying in line, waiting in line, making sure that their voices were heard. And that's what really prevented this red wave from occurring. And that's why right now, as we're speaking, we have Democrats holding on to control of the Senate, the House. We don't know what's going to happen, but even if we barely lose control of the House, it's much better than it once was in history, where usually it's about 26 seats that the party in power loses. And so a lot of that is because Gen Z showed up and voted and made their voices heard. What were some of the key motivating factors that you saw young voters really getting focused on? Yeah, so overwhelmingly, it was abortion.

Time and time again, we did some polling, the Harvard Kennedy School does this annual polling, which is different from most polls in the sense that they really ask young people what their values are and let them speak rather than them asking the questions. And what they found, what we found time and time again, was abortion is the number one issue for young people. And that makes sense because if you look at what happened back in June, that was for the first time young people saw a right that they thought was a guarantee in their life basically get overturned by the Supreme Court. And then since then, states across the country, especially Republican-led state legislatures,

introduced laws that would ban abortion in even more severe cases. And so young people aren't oblivious. We saw this as a reality and we acted on that. And you saw this, especially in Kansas, too, where before that special election, the number of young people and women who registered to vote just broke records. And so leading up to this election, I think abortion was number one, but also a host of other issues like climate change, student loan debt forgiveness, gun reform. So all of these issues were, I think, immediate for young people leading up to this election. And what do you think about, you know, I don't know if they've ever tried to come to UCLA, but all these astroturf efforts by the MAGA extremists also over the past two years, I think recognizing they had a big Gen Z problem,

but they would throw those events and they'd have like Ted Cruz speak at every one of them and Marjorie Taylor Greene. And they'd show up with like the pyrotechnics with all of these billionaires throwing huge amounts of money into it. We had Olivia Juliana on here and we asked her about it and she goes,

ignore that crap. She's like, they may have pyrotechnics, but they don't have the students. I go, we're doing the hard work here. Our sleeves are rolled up and we're talking to the actual students that are focused on these issues. So what do you make of the right wing trying to make inroads in with Gen Z? And what do what do we need to do, though, as a pro-democracy coalition to make sure we keep delivering for Gen Z? I couldn't agree with Olivia more. Honestly, just ignore all of them because they happen to be so the Candace Owens of the world, the Ben Shapiro's of the world. They do have a very loud voice, but there are very few young people who actually support them. And even if they do, it's about maybe 10%, 15% of the young electorate who actually believes that's true. The vast majority of young people do not

subscribe to that notion. And I think the reason why is because this generation is really unique in the sense that we are the most educated, the most diverse generation in America. And the fear mongering, the attempts to kind of produce white nationalism in a fascist America is just a reality that none of us or I guess very few of us will accept. And so to all of those Ben Shapiros and those efforts by the right wing to come to college campuses and recruit young people, I think you can find that they're struggling to do that because young people are much smarter than they think. And so I think it's up to all of us as, you know, democracy defenders and people who believe in facts and the rule of law and who want to see democracy live another day, just to have those conversations with young people, make sure that we basically make the difference between the two parties as clear as possible. You have on one hand, this Republican party who is doing everything that they can to basically attack young lives. You saw this earlier in the spring with their efforts to ban books in classrooms,

to limit what we can say in classrooms, limit what LGBTQ people can say in classrooms and do in classrooms. You had the abortion decisions. And then you also have, just based off of everything that Republican elected officials are voting against, things like the Inflation Reduction Act, things like gun reform safety bills. All of these things are things that really show young people that the Republican Party, I think, has no place in our lives. And so it's now up to the Democratic Party to make it as clear as young people why they support our lives and what they're going to do to make it better. And it's funny, as the results were coming in, you know, I was saying to the brothers, I'm like, you know, the Republicans are going to learn all of the exact wrong lessons about this election.

They are going to react in whatever their worst impulses are. That is exactly what is about to follow. And in the days since the election, we've seen a movement by Republicans not to try to court young voters, but to try to stop young voters from even voting. I've seen a lot of these Republicans saying we need to raise the voting age to 21. What do you make of that strategy right now coming from the Republican Party? Republicans are in literally a crisis mode right now. I mean, I saw that tweet the other day, and I've seen numerous other Republicans support this idea of, like you said, raising the minimum age to vote from 18 to 21, which is absurd. I mean, they think that young people can buy an AR-15

or a military assault weapons, but not vote. I think that's, I mean, it's wrong on every level. And it's also really dangerous, because I think what you're going to see in the weeks and months to come, especially from some of those Republican state legislatures, is this effort to suppress young voters because they realize that we are energized. They realize that we showed up in this election, prevented this red wave from occurring. And so just like they do for minorities, they're going to try to do the same thing for young voters and suppress our vote and limit the number of ways that we can go out there and vote. And so it's a really, I think, scary reality and really just sad reality for democracy, for all of us who are trying to be in this democracy where every vote

should count, where everyone should have the same ability to go out there and just make their voices heard. So we know their strategy at this point, right? We know that that is their plan. They are not going to try to change their ideas. They are going to try to do whatever they can to make it more difficult for young voters to vote and for Democrats to vote in general. I mean, they're going to try to curtail vote by mail. They're going to try to raise the voting age. Whatever they could do, they're going to do. So knowing that that is going to be their strategy, how do you think do you think there's a way for us to go on the offense kind of right now and push back against all that? So I think the first and the first and most important thing is, I think, providing young people with the education,

the resources that they need that they need to make their voices heard. So against this backdrop, I think it's critical for everyone in this democracy, especially young people, to know what are the laws in their states and their local municipalities. They say politics is all local, and that's really true. In this kind of country, we have this patchwork of voting laws and ID requirements. And so to really get that out there to people in their states and in their cities, I think is going to be critical. So, you know, platforms like you on Twitter, on TikTok, on Instagram, making sure that every young person knows what the laws are in their cities and their states is going to be critical. But more importantly, I think just

always having those conversations, knowing that, you know, the Republican Party might be doing this, but you still have a voice, making sure that young people know that they still have a power. Despite all of this, there is still a way to vote. And so making sure that young people know that, I think, hopefully is going to be key as we as we head into the coming elections. And on that note, I got to bring up this data point that you posted that is truly mind blowing in every single way. You basically said that analysts say the record breaking turnout among voters between 18 and 29 canceled out basically every Republican vote above the age of 65. Gen Z literally saved democracy. What do you think this means now about

the path to victory for the Democrats in future elections? It's really extraordinary. And this is an election that we saw not only I think so young voters, basically, this was the second election in which young voters turn out in record breaking numbers. And this was also an election in which young people overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, which really proved to be key for Democrat success in this election. And I think moving forward, the biggest takeaway, I think, for the Democratic Party is to know that, one, the importance of young people for their success in every election going forward, but also to realize that the power of Gen Z is only growing. There are studies that show that millennials and Gen Zers are going to outnumber any generation older than us by 2024. And so this is just an indication that the Gen Z and millennial power is growing by the day. And so for Democrats, I think it's going to be critical for them to go to kind of meet us where we are. And that means

digital spaces, college campuses, high schools where seniors might be eligible to vote, get us registered to vote, get us out there and really invest in our vote because we're only growing as a political power entity. And so it's going to be on Democrats to reach us where we are and make sure they turn out our vote. Let's talk about that because you have this political consultant class who is still relying on these old school, like, oh, ads need to have a certain number of GRPs, which means gross rating points. And if as long as your television ad gets on TV X number of times, you'll be able to influence the electorate. And looking at the new landscape that I have, I'm like, these people sound like dinosaurs. And they're so arrogant, Brett. So arrogant. They're so sure.

They talk down to all of us. It's so wild. They talk down and you're like, do you really not understand right now the power of digital, the power of the Internet, the power of face to face interactions? It's it's truly mind blowing that you are still basically pointing to rotary phones or the equivalent of rotary phones for how to measure a successful political campaign. So I want you to tell us here, what are the actual effective ways to reach Gen Z? As a messenger, if we want to be making our ads or doing whatever we're doing, how do we reach Gen Z directly? Maybe it is GRP and gross rating points. You could tell me if that's the strategy, but what is the best way to reach Gen Z in today's landscape? You're so right. So the traditional model of reaching voters, so whether it be on TV ads or going on cable news or calling people to see where they fall, is just totally out of the door with young people. And what you see basically now

with young people is we barely watch cable news. We barely turn on the TV set. Instead, we are digitally connected. We are the most digitally connected generation in America. I think more than 95% of us have at least one social media platform. And so when you talk about meeting young people where they are, concretely, that means going on every single social media platform that you can possibly imagine where young people are. So right now, that's TikTok heavily, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch, different streaming services where young people consume their information because that's inherently different from older generations, which may rely on things like MSNBC or CNN or, for heaven's sake, Fox News. And so all of these things with young people. That means creating kind of these short, concrete, kind of like digestible content to reach young voters. Because at the

same time, young voters also have a very short attention span. And so a lot of it is making sure that the videos are short, but also convey the same amount of information for young voters and raise that urgency for the viewer. And so I think at the end of the day, it's meeting us where we are. And that means going on these non-traditional social media platforms like Instagram, Twitch, and different streaming services. And Victor, I want to switch the conversation quickly here to President Biden, who for whatever reason, the media just continues to try and just lambast. I don't understand it. How important were the policies proposed or implemented by the Biden administration leading up to the election, like, you know, for mobilizing youth turnout, be it the marijuana reform, student debt relief and just other things like that?

So I want to split this up into two kind of buckets. So the first bucket is the policy landscape. And a lot of young people heading into the 2020 election had a lot of doubts with President Biden in the sense that he wasn't progressive enough, in the sense that he wouldn't enact bold enough policies. I remember vividly back in the 2020 election, my senior government class went to a Iowa caucus, and we had the option of either going to a Bernie Sanders rally or a Joe Biden rally. And out of the 50 students, I was the only one who went to a Joe Biden rally that night. And it was kind of indicative of this broader sense of young people just really, I guess, especially in 2020, didn't really find Joe Biden that exciting. They found someone like Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg just much more invigorating and much more exhilarating for the values that they stood for. But I think the one thing about the Biden administration is that they have gotten so many things done to help young people,

starting with forgiving student loan debt, simple marijuana possession, forgiving everyone who has a simple marijuana possession, enacting things like the biggest ever investment in climate change. All of these things are things that they have enacted that young people care about, and young people have realized that the administration has acted. So that's kind of one bucket, the policy area in which kind of the Biden administration has really improved for young people. The other bucket though is they didn't stop with just the policy. Leading up to the election,

they recruited a bunch of young activists, young influencers to basically give them all of the tools that they needed to amplify their message on their respective platforms like TikTok and Instagram. And that made, I think, a huge difference because for young people, I think it's much more kind of easy

to relate to someone who is our peer rather than someone who might be, you know, 80 years old or in their mid-70s. And so the Biden administration realized that the messenger really much matters. And so they made sure that their policies were made into kind of really digestible kind of snippets on social media with young people who

have a lot of influence over their peers. And so I think on a lot of levels, the Biden administration has really thought through, one, how they kind of deliver for young people, but also how they reach young people. And that's kind of, I think, why you saw the culmination of a lot of young people voting for Democrats this time around. So, Victor, not just as a Democrat, but continuing on as a member of Gen Z, you know, how do you think President Biden is doing? It sounds like he's doing well. I don't want to lead the witness here, but like these approval ratings that we see for whatever reason, and I think I know the reason, you know, they show him not doing so great or not resonating

so great. But again, these approval ratings that we're seeing, they're made by the same pollsters who got it so wrong with Gen Z. What's your take there? Exactly. I couldn't agree more. I think if you look at everything, and I've been talking to a lot of my peers after the election, and they overwhelmingly support what President Biden is doing. They might not find him the most exciting or the most kind of engaging speaker. But when it comes to policies, young people know, especially one,

everything that the Republican Party is doing to come after our lives, and two, what the Democratic Party is doing well, what President Biden has done for our lives. And so I think a lot of those polls, at least what I'm hearing on the ground, what we've been hearing throughout our national conversations with people throughout the states, have shown that young people really are supportive of a lot of the things that President Biden has done for our lives. And they just don't match the polls that we're seeing. It's really unbelievable that we see those approval ratings from those pollsters, the same ones that just got it so wrong. And then being reported on by some mainstream news

media outlets, like it's like it's fact. And we have to question those now. Absolutely. Hey, Victor, what's next, man? You know, we say here, it's not just a fight every four years or every two years. It's important to stay engaged 24, 7, 365. And I know you're not going anywhere. So how are you going to keep people motivated? Yeah. So there's an election in Georgia in just 22 days. And so I, like you said, the outside, I'm really grateful to be part of this organization called Voters of Tomorrow. It's this Gen Z led organization that does a lot of on the ground organizing. And so in these next 22 days, we're going to be spending every minute that we have organizing, turning out the vote in Georgia,

because back in 2020, we saw young people elect Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff to the Senate. And this time around, we're going to do the same thing. We are going to elect Raphael Warnock to the Senate and beat Herschel Walker. And so that's what's coming in the next 22 days. But in the next kind of two years,

we are going to spend all the time we have to make sure that Gen Zers turn out to vote in even greater numbers than 2020 for the 2024 election. Because as I think we are all anticipating, I think Trump might be making an announcement on Tuesday, which is going to be, who knows what's going to happen with that.

But if he runs for president, I think you're going to see a lot of young people turn out and come out against Trump. So that's at least for the next two years, really doing everything that I can to help make sure that young people turn out to vote and reject what the Republican Party stands for. And Victor, you got a podcast? Yes. So I co-hosted with actually Jill Wine Banks, who I think was on this podcast. She said that she came on and it was really fun. And so I'm so glad to be here. And it was such a delight. But we co-host this podcast called iGen Politics. And the whole goal of it is to just bring the generations together. There's so much, I think, that divides this

nation. And so it really comes from her perspective as a Watergate lawyer and comes from my perspective as a Gen Zer. And we just try to have these intergenerational conversations that hopefully make politics a little bit more engaging for all generations. It's a great podcast. And I highly recommend it for all the Midas Mighty out there to check it out. It's called IGENPOLITIC, I-G-E-N-P-O-L-I-T-I-C. Check it out. Victor Shee, thank you so much for joining us.

I know you got a busy day and we appreciate you fighting for our democracy. Thanks so much for having me. This is you got a busy day and we appreciate you fighting for our democracy. Thanks so much for having me. This is so great. Victor Shee, everyone. And we have a big projection to make in the Arizona governor's race. Brett, take it away. Democrat Katie Hobbs has defeated MAGA extremist and election denier Carrie Lake and will be the next governor of Arizona. This is a massive flip from Republican to Democrat. Everybody in the country should be

celebrating this one, folks. We got an extra dangerous, scary, horrible person, Carrie Lake. She will never step foot in the governor's office the governor's mansion this is a big deal for democracy folks arizona has roundly rejected mag extremism maga fascism and these crazed election deniers such a huge win for others and Midas Mighty. Wow. Wow. Do we have the clip of Carrie Lake saying what she expected to happen going into this week? Oh, this was, I think, just earlier today. So let's play Carrie Lake from earlier today. Her thoughts on the way this election was heading. Obviously, Maricopa County officials said the counting may continue to happen into next week. What position do you expect to find yourself at the beginning of next week? I think, Daniel, that we're going to know before then who the winner is. I already know who

the winner is, and the winner is me. Yikes. Look, this was a really big one for democracy. I can't stress it enough just how dangerous Carrie Lake was and would act as the governor. And this really, Brett, is the full repudiation of MAGA extremists. And it's all come come to fruition again, based on stuff that we heard about in that interview with Victor Xi and Gen Z. You know, the results, for example, in Arizona State, I think it was like 94% of Arizona State students voted for Hobbs and, you know, some really great statistics like that. Much more to discuss on the Midas Touch podcast, including, Brett, did you see that Federalist Society event where the Supreme Court justices, the right-wing MAGA extremists- You have to- I got to break it down. This Black-

You got to break that down. I know what I'm saying. Celebrating and giving cheers. It was like the most dystopian, insane event ever. But first, I want to tell you about one of our sponsors, Raycon. I really love Raycon. Have you started shopping for the holidays yet? No. Like literally, why not? You know, most gifts don't go bad, right? The only thing that'll go bad between now and December are the crowds at the mall. 12 children screaming, 11 minutes to find parking, 10 Karens Karen-ing. The list goes on. Jordy, did you write the script? Right now you can shop early, skip the stress, and snag some of the best deals of the season on something everyone will love. Premium audio products from Raycon

at great prices. When you're looking for a gift everyone needs or a stocking stuffer, that's not a candle for once. Raycons are the way to go. Their wireless earbuds, headphones, and speakers offer premium sound, useful features, and almost custom comfortable fit. They feel really great. And up to 54 hours of battery life. And as the person gifting them, you got to love that they start at half the price of

the other premium audio brands. I know that that's what I absolutely love about them. Plus, Raycon makes it easy with the holiday gift guides for everyone in your life. I know I just got one for a coworker and they had the perfect one to do that. And the coworker is not you, Brett, or not you, Jordy. It's another coworker who works for us, which could have made the only one coworker salty. Yeah. Or knock that list out all at once and get 30% off by shopping Raycon's holiday bundles. My favorite bundle, the Audio Lover Bundle, where audio lovers can rejoice with these everyday earbuds

and everyday headphones that I absolutely love. And you know what everyone doesn't need? Two little white stems hanging out of their ears. Luckily, Raycons are sleek and stylish and come in a range of colorways to match anyone's style. And you can find Raycon in stores now like Kohl's or Warm Up. But let me tell you right now what you got to do. You're always going to get the best deal when you use our special link. Go to buyraycon.com slash Midas, B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N.com slash Midas. The Raycon website also offers buy now,

pay later options. So right now, go to buyraycon.com slash Midas and use code, are you ready for this? EarlyBF to get 20% off site-wide. Wow. That's 20% off any Raycon product, which I think almost never happens, or save even bigger and get 30% off Raycon's exclusive holiday bundles. That's code early B-F-E-A-R-L-Y-B-F at buyraycon.com slash Midas for 20% off your Raycon purchase. Buy Raycon.com slash Midas. B-U-I-R-A-Y-C-O-N.com slash Midas. And now is the time. I mean, Jordy, you got to write better reads for me when I do Patreon because that read right there was an A-plus read. I put some real effort into that one.

Patreon.com slash Midas Touch. P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Midas Touch. Support independent media. There's lots of exclusive content there. We're not funded by any outside investors at all. We purely rely on you and not those both sides media funders and pro-fascist media funders. So if you can go to Patreon.com slash Midas Touch and support this independent media platform no matter where you are in the world so brett it was the 40th anniversary hold on hold on i'm still basking the carry like glow for a second and i just want to bring up two things i want to point after that though i want to point after that because no one's respecting me putting up my finger today and asking

you're doing you're doing you're doing you're doing great you made a lot of great points but let me say this perhaps you did when you did 45th 5th 5th 5th i was like oh my god my brother jordy is just the greatest crushing it but let's talk about this for a second carrie lakes one of her closing messages to voters here uh was going out of the campaign trail in arizona and saying why don't we we don't have any McCain Republicans here, do we? Well, get the hell out, Carrie Lake said before she called McCain a loser and white nationalist Wendy Rogers a hero. So Carrie Lake strategy of telling the semi normal Republicans to basically go F themselves uh f themselves they did they effed right off and said no thank you carrie lake and she is now facing a humiliating defeat off of this and i think you could also say that democrats swept in arizona the photo here this is from the trump rally when carrie lake

thought that it would be smart to, there was like a small, I don't know, five by three strip of rug that Carrie Lake said that she was going to vacuum for her dear leader, Donald Trump. Apparently that did not sell to the voters in Arizona. I'm just so psyched about this defeat but okay Ben we could we could go on but when an election deniers fascists lose and America's win I just need to bask in the glow I mean you know it almost looks that photo of her vacuuming the little red rug for Donald Trump like it almost looks yeah we're pulling up for those watching on YouTube like it almost looks like come on guys like you're being immature here. And that's like, what are you doing? Like stop Photoshopping things like that. Not cool.

Like that's real. And we're going to look back at just this time period, you know, this era, and we're going to be like, what in the world was going on here? And thankfully, pro-democracy coalition united. Thankfully, women voters came out strong. Gen Z voters came out strong. Grassroot groups did their thing. Again, projection. Katie Hobbs has defeated MAGA extremist Carrie Lake, Arizona governor. And I get to share this moment live. I get to share it live. I love it. With the United Samaritan. And it feels good. You could probably hear the smile on my face for those listening just on audio. Do you know what I think about pretty quickly though, Ben, before you get into it,

is how, to your point, we're going to have to explain this era, that photo to our kids and our grandchildren. And they're going to be like, wait, what? They're going to be like, why was she vaccinated? Because they were weird, Johnny. Because they were out of their freaking mind. They were a weird, bizarre cult. And can I just make one point that's slightly adjacent to this that I got into with Victor quickly before you dive into all the legal analysis I've been? Okay.

Did you just call it analysis? Yeah. I don't think that's the correct word. Anyway, what I really want to say, because I actually do think it was an astute point, is that these pollsters got it so wrong this era. And not the good ones, not the Simon Rosenbergs, the Tom Bonnieres, or Chris Busey, who's crushed it this era. But so many of these quote unquote mainstream top of the line pollsters got it so wrong. You know what I've been thinking to myself? It was that question that I asked Victor. When you look at these polls with Joe Biden and you see his approval rating at 44%

and all the media, all the mainstream media, whether it's CNN, MSNBC, Fox, obviously, they're reporting on these negative approval ratings for Biden. Forty four percent. Well, I dug into it a little bit more. These approval ratings, how they pull those. This is same, quote unquote, mainstream post pollsters who got it. So, yeah, same methodology. Well, yeah, I got it so wrong this election. So how can you, I'm not going into conspiratorial land here. Check me if I, if you guys think I am, but I think it goes to show you can't trust those, those approval ratings that so many folks keep pointing to as, Oh, Biden, worst approval rating ever. Was it,

you just heard from Victor Gen Z is all about it. I'll say this. I think a lot of the normal polls were quite good. I mean, at the end of the day, it was a very close election in the popular vote. I think they were really good. I think the mistake that was made is that these poll aggregators and the media ended up taking stock in the bullshit polls that the Republicans had put in there to create this fabricated idea that there would be a red wave when there was no such red wave. If the pundits and stuff were not trying to look for their horse race narrative, but instead were trying to look at the facts and who is actually an objective voice here, they would have had a much more nuanced view here. And if they took into account the early voting data and Gen Z, and at least attempted to reach out to Gen

Z, they would have had a much different take on things, but they just, they couldn't, I mean, they wanted this to be the horse race. They wanted this to be, look at this bloodbath, Republicans just totally destroyed Democrats. And that was just not what was reflected by the good pollsters and by all the other evidence that was actually out there, the raw data that was there. I mean, that's- And one of the things we mentioned on that Victor Shee interview though, it's this arrogance and not only an arrogance, but it felt and feels like they were rooting against Democrats too, where they weren't even following the data like they were really hoping. Even right now, Ben, and I'm not going to say anybody by name, but I'll sub I'll subtweet them on, so to speak, on the show.

But you see a lot of these people who project results and things in the elections almost seem to be rooting for Democrats to lose the House with glee. They are giddy. Anytime they get set, this race is getting a little closer. Oh, not good news for it because they so just want to be right because they were wrong the whole time. And listen, projections are hard. I am not a data expert. I just listen to the data experts. By no means am I a data expert, but I think it's obviously okay to be wrong, but it's the smug arrogance and hubris of it all that really gets to me. Not being able to say, you know what? Maybe I should have factored in X, Y, and Z. Maybe we should have not made fun of you for talking about the early vote. Maybe we should have factored that in. That is all stuff

that I would have much more respect for somebody, even if they got it wrong by 10, 15 points. If they said our methodology was wrong this time, we're going to work on it. We'll do it better next time. But they can't. They have to work so hard in the opposite direction to say, oh, look, Democrats are going to lose this one. Look, I'm right about this.

Look, I'm right. Dude, just be humble. Sit down. Brett, Brett, I've seen enough of this conversation. Ben, why don't you take it away? All right. The Federalist Society. The Federalist Society held their 40th anniversary gala last Thursday. So just two days after the midterm elections were a repudiation of their radical extremist right wing Supreme Court.

They were out with the Federalist Society, literally partying at a black tie gala with the lawyers who argue before the court. So the people who like fund these justices careers to get them there, they were all celebrating at a black tie event and the justices were wearing gowns and the men in black tie suits. And like it was one of the strangest, most dystopian, like handmaid's tale event. And you have four of the Supreme Court justices from the right wing there. Surprisingly, the only right wing justice who didn't show up was Clarence Thomas, but you had Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito. When it't show up was Clarence Thomas, but you had Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. When it's too much for Clarence Thomas, it's messed up. I'm going to

skip on this one, you guys. I think for Clarence though, it maybe wasn't extreme enough for him. He's more of like, where'd they do the organization? He was at the Q convention. He's more of like that hotel. He's more of like the insurrection war room than the, than the black tie gala. Got it. Okay. He was at the political prisoners rally. I see.

Exactly. They called one by one, like Samuel Alito took the stage and they like, you know, gave him a standing ovation for writing the opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade. I don't know. Do we have that video of the standing ovation, Brett? I see you looking at it, but don't worry if you don't have it. No, I have Amy Coney Barrett statement. Let's play Amy Coney Barrett statement because she then goes up and she like cracks a joke. It's good to be here getting applause versus having protesters, you know, try to protest me for my decisions.

Play the clip. It's really nice to have a lot of noise made by protesters outside of my house. Yeah, you've destroyed so many millions of Americans' lives. Like, that must be really hilarious for you. Good joke. You're responsible. And that's the thing, Brett. They go to these black tie gala events, these right-wing Supreme Court justices, and it's cruelty for cruelty's sake. Literally, they have a philosophy where all they're going to help are billionaires. that's how do we just help the billionaires get richer? And then how do we hurt all of the things that actually make the country great? How do we hurt, you know, making things more inclusive? How do we attack all of the legislation

that was created based on experiences that things were needed improvement in the country. So how do we attack the Voting Rights Act of 1965? How do we overturn Roe v. Wade? How do we block the student debt cancellation program? How do we make the life more miserable for immigrants? No matter where, how do we root for the pandemic? I could almost give you every issue and whatever hurts the most people that I know that's where they'll end up ruling, you know? And so, and they rejoice in it at events like this. And it just shows you Brett though, how out of touch they are. And while they create these situations where people's lives are getting destroyed. I mean, you think about how cruel it is that the Federalist Society agenda on Biden's student debt cancellation program

was to flood all of the courts with litigation to try to find a judge that supported them. And they found the Trump judge in the Northern District of Texas, Judge Mark Pittman, who found standing on the basis of a student who claimed because they got $10,000 instead of $20,000 that that student was injured. That was the basis of a standing argument. I didn't get as much benefit, so therefore I'm going to sue and cancel. It's cruelty for cruelty's sake. And they go up there and they laugh in our faces. And we show this here and large media networks aren't showing that clip. That should be front page news right there of what they are doing, celebrating your suffering. And it's not both sides, okay?

In that room, they go, oh, we're not a political organization. Bullshit, you're the most political organization. That's their argument. So like they have like people who study ethics and law go, well, it's not a conflict of interest since they're not a political organization. Okay, just because they don't call themselves that, that's as political as you can be. And I'm going to call it what exactly what that is. It's the most unethical event in the world. How do you think those justices are going to rule when the people in the audience who are buying them champagne appear in front of their courts? And one of the

things Amy Coney Barrett said to them is, I want to thank you. I owe my career to you because that's what they do. And I did a video on this. When I went to Georgetown Law, they recruited us and they tried to put us on a track of Federalist Society because you get promised you could work at one of these big law firms and make all of this money and real money out of law school, like hundreds of thousands of dollars if you pursue a path that ultimately ends up destroying people. If you use law for bad, and I did it. I joined the class, not a Federalist Society, but I joined a class by Paul Clement and Viet Dinh. Paul Clement was the Solicitor General under the George W. Bush administration, and Viet Dinh wrote the Patriot Act. And look, when you're a young lawyer or law student,

you're like, I want to see, I don't know what my views are. I did that class for one day, Brett, that seminar. And I was like, yo, I, I'm out. I am out of this. And then I pursued a career of being a plaintiff's lawyer and trying to become a civil rights lawyer to help people's lives. But it is tempting, right? Here you are in law school, saddled with debt.

You're being courted by this. Absolutely. And you'll start making 220K a year out of law school. That's what they do. And they put you on a track where you make hundreds of thousands of dollars. But you got to sign a deal with the devil and turn on people. And then your career takes off. That's the deal anyway.

It's personal to me, but it's personal to me because how it hurts the people more than anything. To see that in action and to be a law student and see how it actually worked back then is something that I wanted to share that personal experience. Brett, why don't you wrap up the show by telling us about Ukraine? Because I know there was some developments there in Kherson, which we talked about on the last Midas Touch podcast, but Zelensky made an appearance in Kersan today as the Ukrainian flag was raised think it really just shows you that democracy currently, against all odds, is prevailing across the globe. And I just love to see Zelensky out there going into what was recently a Russian-occupied territory, now a liberated area of Ukraine, there safely. You see these videos of families reuniting with one

another who have been separated, families whose lives have been risked, people who have lost loved ones. It is such an incredible sight. And I always want to make sure that we are pointing some attention to Ukraine here who are still in the fight of their lives. And I'm just going to play this for audio listeners. You know, they're playing the national anthem of Ukraine. And you have Zelensky here as they raise the Ukrainian flags. Let's just watch this just about 30 seconds or so. And there you have Zelensky, hand across his heart. And the blue and yellow flag rising. Such an incredible sight. I mean, that's history. It's history right there. Democracy winning here in the United States, democracy winning abroad. I think this will

go down in history as being one of the most important weeks or two weeks in the history of our democracy and where things looked really, really tough. I mean, it looked like the forces of evil, the forces of hate and authoritarianism were rallying. Ultimately, the people had the final say. It's important that we never get complacent ever again. We can never repeat what happened in 2016 where people were sleeping on it, you know, and not voting and taking our democracy for granted. And we woke up that morning, the next morning, and Donald Trump was the president. And it was one of the worst feelings. And as bad as that feeling was, though, I'll tell you, the other day when I woke up, I felt really good. And people around me said, you look different.

You look well-rested. And it's the same amount of sleep. I'm still working equally as hard. But I feel really a weight's been lifted temporarily off my shoulder. I know there's a lot more work to do. And I've always said that the most important days also, regardless of what the outcome was going to be of those midterms, is what comes next. And what we are building here at the Midas Touch network is generational. And the focus on unapologetic pro-democracy content is something that truly hadn't existed before. And so the fact that we've built this massive platform, and I could use this platform to amplify the voices of the grassroots groups, of Gen Z, of the women voters, of the people who crushed it in this election.

We won this election because of them. And if I could just play a small part in counteracting the hate echo chambers, the disinfo echo chambers, and I could tilt my microphone to those voices, that is my life's work. And I told you I shared the story with you about going to Georgetown Law and being recruited for the Federalist Society, and then I was a civil rights lawyer. I never thought in a million years I'd be having a media network and doing this. But I really believe this is my life calling. And there's been nothing more fulfilling than doing this with my brothers and with this community of unapologetic pro-democracy supporters out there. When people ask, what's the secret to Midas Touch?

How have you built a network that rivals the major media networks out there? How are you getting the same amount of views a day on your YouTube that Fox is doing? How are you doing that? The answer is the easiest answer in the world. It's because it's not just a network. It's a community. It's a community built by the Midas Mighty, by all of you who are watching this, who are listening to this, who share our videos, who wear the merch, who tell people to watch the videos. It is 100% because of you. And every day when I wake up in the morning and I do the research and bring the court cases and speak to Brett and Jordy, I know that I have to fight for the Midas Mighty. I got to make sure that you're always in my heart and that no matter what, I stay in my lane. I'm an expert on things that I'm an expert in. I'm not an expert in things I'm not an expert in. There's a lot of haters out there. I drown out that. and trying to make this pro-democracy coalition bigger because of what you all have helped build.

And to help build this network, one thing I do want to mention, which goes a long way, is our Patreon. And so if you go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch, that's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash Midas Touch, there's a number of different subscription memberships there that you can join. And look, I know you subscribe to a bunch of things out there. So no worries if you can't do it and no worries no matter what, if you can't do it. But I think this is an important one because we're not funded by any outside investors. So we don't have like a cap table of this investor or that investor saying you need to do this or you need to do that. We're 100% independent because we're powered by

democracy and just fueled by your generosity. And we are 100% therefore accountable to you. You are our stakeholders. How about that? If we don't live up to your expectations, then we can't grow as a network. That accountability doesn't exist when you have these billionaires and millionaire investors push agendas on the major networks and the pro-fascist networks. That's how we've gotten into some of these major problems because they have failed miserably and the others have succeeded in pushing an agenda, a radical agenda of disinformation. We're fighting that here. So there's a lot of exclusive content you can get at patreon.com slash Midas Touch when you join the memberships, right? You know, you can get Q&A sessions with me and the brothers, exclusive podcast, exclusive behind the scenes footage. There's a tier where you could become an honorary producer of the Midas Touch podcast

and your name appears at the end of the episode. And you can get postcards from us and exclusive merch drops depending on the different memberships. So there's all this exclusive stuff there. Don't worry, nothing's changing here. We're still delivering the free content on YouTube and Twitter and TikTok and Facebook and all the other places that we do that. But on Patreon, you get that exclusive content, plus you can help grow this platform together. Wherever you are in the world, you can go and help out. So please, if you can, consider it. It goes a long way. Patreon.com slash MidasTouch. Also, you can check out store.MidasTouch.com for the best unapologetic pro-democracy gear,

store.midastouch.com. We've got the Row Row Your Vote shirts, the Row Vember merch. We've got the Convict or Convict 45 shirts. I read banned books sweatshirt. The merch is great. It is 100% made in the US, 100% union made. And they say imitation is the best form of flattery because there's so many people who rip off our designs and our sayings there. And normally I'd be like, cool, just like run with it, message out. But those aren't union made and those aren't made in the USA. And so as a result of that, I don't love that imitation. Stick with the authentic gear. Go to store.midastouch.com. Again, I appreciate all of you so much.

A big win with Kerry Lake being defeated in Arizona. And it was so great. I got to share that moment and we got to share that. Let's keep it going, folks. We got Georgia to win. We got a 51st Senate seat to win December 6th. I want you to burn that date into your brain. If you remember the last runoff election in Georgia, I believe it was January 5th, then the day before the insurrection. And we were talking about nonstop on this show and Democrats around the world are speaking about January 5th, January 5th, January

5th, while the MAGAs were all talking about January 6th and we handily won that election. So this year, I want you all to have December 6th, December 6th. We're going to get out the vote in Georgia. We're going to do everything we can. I want you to also check out the candidates right now who might need your help. Go check out Will Rollins' Twitter account. Go check out Adam Frisch's Twitter account. There are a lot of elections right now that could actually still be up for grabs. They are curing ballots. They are within a narrow, narrow, narrow margin. And so if you could assist in those efforts, if you live anywhere nearby those areas, either in Colorado or in the Palm Springs area in California, you can help cure ballots and help to flip these seats. It's close.

It's not over. It's going to be tough, but this is the path there. So let's be in it, everybody. December 6th. If you're in Georgia, get your votes in by then. Let's make it happen. Let's continue to win. Let's continue to protect our democracy with this blue wall and push back against this MAGA extremism. Jordy, want to take us away? I love y'all so much. Shout out to the Midas Mighty! pro-democracy, and we demand justice and accountability. That's why we're spreading our message to Convict45. That's right. Gear up right now with your Convict45 tees and pins at store.midastouch.com. That's store.midastouch.com.