The MeidasTouch Podcast - MeidasTouch LIVE Podcast REACTION to Jan 6 updates, Fulton County Subpoenas and MORE

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast we break down the latest political topics you need to know! On today’s show we discuss the Fulton County Special Grand Jury Subpoenas for Lindsey Graham, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and others, the Highland Park Terrorist Attack, Boris Johnson’s resignation, January 6 Committee Updates (with Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews set to testify, and Pat Cipollone to offer testimony) and more! If you enjoyed today’s show please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! New episodes of the extended The MeidasTouch Podcasts are released every Tuesday & Friday at 5am EST. Thank you for listening! Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com 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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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Ben and Jordy joining you live. Much to discuss today. Let's break it down, Jordy, what we're going to discuss. The Fulton County special grand jury has subpoenaed Lindsey Graham, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and more. Fawnie Willis recently gave an interview. She's undeterred by the obstruction of MAGA. We'll be breaking all of that down.

The January 6th committee has updates. A hearing will be taking place July 12th. We know that whether it's going to be taking place on the 12th or at another hearing, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews is set to testify in public. A high level Trump administrative leader, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews, after the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony where MAGA was attacking Cassidy Hutchinson. Recall, she was the top aide to Mark Meadows, who was literally in the room where all of the talk about the insurrection happened. But when MAGA was saying, oh, she's a 25 year old woman who doesn't know what she's talking about.

Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews tweeted, no, I know Cassidy Hutchinson and she's credible. What she was saying is the truth. And Trumpers, if you're so worried about your claim of hearsay, which most of it was not hearsay, what Cassidy Hutchinson's testified because, Jordy, it is a statement against a party opponent, which is an exception to hearsay. As you know, Jordy, if Cassidy Hutchinson was in the room where statements were being made. But Sarah Matthews said, well, then you testify. We also learned that Pat Cipollone, White House counsel, whose name we heard over and over again, is set to testify by transcription in a private deposition testimony. Apparently, Cipollone didn't have the fortitude, we'll say, although I don't fully know the details,

we'll say fortitude to appear publicly at one of the public hearings. But it's just interesting that he's going to be doing it private. Nonetheless, we'll get those private deposition transcripts. Jordy, you know the ones from Eric Hirschman, the attorney. Those have been solid. So if they're like Hirschman's, man, I'm just fine with how it's going down. But what we continue to see over and over again, the Jan 6th committee is flawless. The way they're operating this whole committee has been just exceptional. Absolutely. Want to also talk about the Highland Park terrorist attack in Illinois.

I want to discuss reactions, responses to it kind of follows, sadly, the predictable trend where there are rightful calls for accountability, rightful calls for common sense, responsible gun ownership. And as those rightful calls are being made, the radical right extremists are trying to blame it on other things, staircases and spreading conspiracies and, you know, more of the same, which is why we always say on the show, do not call the radical right conservative. There's literally nothing conservative about these people. And I guess we want to start by talking about perhaps the elephant in the room. Brett Micellus is not here. Brett is in the out of the country. He's been in the UK. I think I can report that because Brett's been tweeting about being in the UK. I was thinking about it for a second. Sometimes Brett is like, don't tell me anywhere. But I think I thought in my mind, you saw that second that went through my mind. I was absolutely, absolutely. Brett's now disclosed where he's been

in hiding, so to speak. I actually think he was there for a wedding or something. Special shout out to Salty, our incredible editor and producer who has picked up the slack where Brett's been away. I think it's the furthest, the longest Brett's been away. But the operation's been flawless thanks to Salty himself. The salt man. And I think we should probably talk about the UK because there was big news out of the UK today where Boris Johnson, the prime minister from the Conservative Party in the UK, resigned this morning and he resigned. There was a number of scandals taking place, but none of those scandals, if they occurred in the United States, and this is just shows you the

difference between UK politics in the United States anymore And this is just shows you the difference between UK politics in the United States anymore, you know, at least as a Republican from the Republican party would ever register at all as a scandal. There would probably be not even a footnote. I don't even know if our media would even write about it, but the scandal that broke the proverbial camel's back in the UK was that it was learned that Boris Johnson had allowed kind of a lower level government official within his governing party to get this job. And this person had a history of sexual harassment and kind of other conduct like that, which is serious. We had a president who was not only accused of in Donald Trump, you know, dozens of credible claims of sexual assault, but who bragged about it on a videotape and the Republican Party rallied behind him in the United States. But you think about the UK, that act alone was what lost

confidence in Boris Johnson's own party. So what happened was a cascade of cabinet members within Boris Johnson's government began to resign until it was clear that he didn't have the confidence of his own cabinet within his own party. And so Boris Johnson today resigned and, you know, spoke in front of the people and said that they would be, you know, he would be resigning in the coming months. But Jordy, such a contrast there to here in the United States where someone's own political party holds them accountable. Absolutely. It's night and day. You got to give it up to the British Parliament making the right decisions here. And they truly care about who is governing their people, who is at the top of the leadership there. That is important to them.

And for a long time in this country, we lost that way. When Donald Trump was president here, left was right, up was down. It was scary times. And Trumpism continues to take hold of this country and is a symptom of that presidency that still lingers in this great country. And so to see what Britain did, I'm just so proud of them. I couldn't agree with you more here. There's also no big money in UK politics. So really, when like a minister quits, they're only losing about $30,000 per year. And there's

kind of what they call a shame system out in the UK, where if you, you know, engage in conduct that is shameful, or that brings a level of disrepute or harms the reputation of your party, the party kind of rallies around getting rid of you because you brought shame and ridicule. But it seems here in the United States, shame and ridicule is worn with a badge of honor. You get rewarded. And rather than have the most competent, highest level people in our government, it seems to be devolving into the District Attorney out of Georgia in connection with this special grand jury that's taking place. the thesis that each one of them believed that to reach the highest levels of power and government in the United States, you have to be your worst version of yourself. You have to be as ignorant as possible. You have to spread conspiracies. You have to lie. It's the opposite of a meritocracy

for the radical right extremists. And those three people are probably the perfect example of, you know, in the UK, you know, where the people who are looking for power is related to competence. In the US, it's the exact opposite relationship. So Rudy Giuliani, a relatively popular mayor in New York at the time he was the mayor. He was a United States attorney in New York who prosecuted, you know, major crimes, major securities law violations. He was a beloved. We grew up on Long Island, Ben. We knew a lot of families in our neighborhoods and then surrounding neighborhoods that loved Giuliani, American's mayor. Lindsey Graham, you know, before Trump viewed as a relatively centrist senator, aligned himself with John McCain, viewed as someone who

would facilitate compromise, someone who spoke very positively about Joe Biden and Democrats. And you have John Eastman, who was always viewed as a little wacky. John Eastman was a law professor, a top law professor at a law school, University of Chapman School of Law right here in California, and always viewed as a bit wacky and eccentric in his ideas, but kind of in like a Dumbledorf kind of, am I saying that right from Harry Potter? Like in a Dumbledorf-y kind of way. Oh, you know, John Eastman just comes up with his theories. But viewed as nonetheless a relatively respected law professor who would be involved in these high-level lectures, he often took the contrarian views.

Jordy, what's up? I just, for all the Harry Potter stans out there who are about to tune out of the podcast, I know it's Dumbledore. And Ben is just putting emphasis on the F because he's getting older. And that's what folks do. So Ben, I'm sorry. Kicking it back. How do you say it the right way?

Dumbledore. Dumbledore. And I said Dumbledorf. Yeah, you called him. Yeah. Which can't be doing. That's what I see. That's what happens when you don't have bread here.

And you just get Ben and Jordy. You get Dumbledore. But John Eastman. But each of these three people became the worst versions, the most radical, extreme versions of themselves. Right. And they all became, you know, you know, these ultra right MAGA extremists. And now they're facing the consequences for it. But they're trying, each of them, to evade the consequences for it in various ways, claiming attorney-client privilege. Lindsey Graham is trying to avoid being subpoenaed by the Fulton County special grand jury, saying that as a politician, as a senator, this violates separation of powers.

I don't want to testify. John Eastman has claimed over and over again, I'm the president's lawyer, executive privilege. And so here, each one of these individuals is facing consequences for their extremism. But there's a real problem that if the radical right extreme party comes into power, these people get pardoned, these people get off the hook because that's rewarded in that party, Jay. They have two options, the Lindsey Graham's, the Giuliani's, the John Eastman's, and that is banking that the Republicans take leadership again so then they could get the pardon or they're going to flee the country.

In my honest belief, I think they will flee the country because the doors and the walls are closing in on them. They are all running out of excuses. And if there's one thing that's been happening over the last few weeks, it's seeing this from Fawnie Willis. It's seeing the J6 committee just being flawless in their execution. It's a reestablished belief in our judicial system, Ben, that's just coming back that I felt has been missing for so long. And I'm hopeful again. I'm seeing the process play out. Like you say, the wheels of justice turn slowly, but they sure as hell do turn. And you just have to be patient. And we all hang in there and we vote them and we hold the house and we hold the majority. These people are

going down. Absolutely. And I've always said on this podcast and on Legal AF, we focus sometimes on the minutia of the legal process. And I draw on my legal background for those listening for the first time. You know, and I always joke, I'm a lawyer. Sometimes people forget that that's my training. Nobody, nobody's forgetting that. They associate me just with kind of Midas touch now in my work here. But in my past work, I was a civil rights lawyer and a trial lawyer.

And the process and procedure is very important because sometimes in our fast paced soundbite news, kind of Twitter news consumption world, we forget that the justice wheels do move slowly. And when you're doing a prosecution of like the mafia, for example, and the Trump MAGA mafia is probably the biggest mafia prosecution in the history. You have to start with the lower level people, you know, sometimes the radicalized people who don't even know what they're doing, moving up to the people who know what they're doing, moving up to the, you know, kind of extremist leaders and working your way up until the top, which is where

the DOJ is, you know, starting to go. We saw the DOJ got a warrant on John Eastman's phone, you know, a few weeks back and the video of John Eastman whining and complaining about his phone being, you know, these people who purportedly know about the justice system, when they're, when it's about them, all of a sudden they act like they act like that, like watch how quickly John Eastman becomes anti-cop when the police simply in the most respectful way, sir,

I would like you to turn over your phone. I mean, it couldn't have been a more respectful interaction between gentle. They, they, they helped him put his hands above his head. The whole interaction was actually a little bit weird of how gentle they were when they were confiscating his phone. But needless to say, they got it and they did it by all legal means. No, absolutely. So the special grand jury was impaneled at the request of Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis. The scope is election interference by Donald Trump, including conspiracy, racketeering.

We, of course, have heard the Brad Raffensperger phone calls that we now have the full version of the Raffensperger Trump phone call on the Midas Touch YouTube channel. Everybody should check that out. We also know that Lindsey Graham apparently made two calls to Brad Raffensperger and his staff as well, questioning Raffensperger and his staff about reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia to explore trying to get a more favorable outcome for Donald Trump. And so that's why Lindsey Graham is being brought before the grand jury. And Fannie Willis was asked about, you know, what do you expect is going to happen? And Lindsey Graham is apparently trying to avoid, you know, being subpoenaed before

the grand jury, claiming as a senator, I shouldn't have to be subpoenaed. It's total BS. That's not going to go anywhere. It's the typical kind of distract, deflect tactic by the Republican Party. And so that's what we have going on there in Georgia, Jay. Flawless, flawless, flawless, flawless. Hey, you want to move on to the J6 committee? Let's talk about the January 6th committee updates. We have Sarah Matthews, who was the deputy press secretary in the Trump White House. Now, she resigned shortly after the January 6th, 2021 insurrection. And when she resigned, she said the reason that she was resigning was based on the things that she witnessed and observed that day that she did not feel comfortable with.

And she said that in a democracy, we need a peaceful transition of power. It shouldn't be a controversial point. I mean, you think about it just in that perspective. Like, I know that Sarah Matthews is going to be commended as being heroic and standing up. This is a good point. Yeah, keep going. In the face of MAGA. And absolutely, there is a heroism based on the threats and the way MAGA literally attacks you and, you know, puts hits on you basically, you know, and directs people, you know, whether it's directly or implicitly to go after you. So there is a level

of heroism there. But to say in a democracy, there should be a peaceful transition of power and to simply resign because you don't want to allow a fascist takeover of the United States and then to testify truthfully about it to Congress. Like those three things would seem to be the bare minimum of meets expectations in a democracy. But that's where we're at right now. No, 1000%. And it's an interesting point that you make there. And I knew exactly where you were going with it. It's like, there's different levels of jumping from the Trump ship, if you want to use that metaphor. It's like, did you jump off in 2018 when he started doing that crazy shit back then? Or did you wait till the literal day of the insurrection while the ship was physically sinking to jump off?

And there's a lot of different perspectives out there of how you should feel about people, you know, sort of at the time of when they abandoned Trump or turned on Trump to try and right their wrongs. I just think at the end of the day, if a person wants to turn their lives around for the betterment of this country and goes under oath to testify, you have to be able to open your arms to them. Because if you're going to shut down every single person from that Trump regime, and I'm not talking about Giuliani, I'm not talking about the Eastmans, but I'm talking about these staffers who now want to come forward and do the right thing. If you want to shun them, we will never make any progress

in this country. I think it's something that Dr. Steve Hassan says a lot on his amazing podcast that we host on the Midas Media Network. It's like when you're dealing with cultists, you sort of have to be welcoming to them in a way when they're willing to leave the cult, when they're willing to right their wrongs and sort of acknowledge what they've been thinking and what they've been fed are all lies. Because if you just shame them, there's no safe space for them to go. And so I'm not saying by any means you have to call Sarah Matthews a hero or Cassidy Hutchinson a hero. But you should acknowledge their behavior as heroic in the sense that they're willing to put their lives on the lines and right their wrongs.

I also think that pragmatic approach applies to how we think about people like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney. You know, and I've seen a lot of kind of back and forth on Twitter lately of criticisms of Adam Kinzinger's, you know, statements in 2016, you know, his overall policy, same thing with Liz Cheney, where she stands on certain political issues that I disagree with. And as I always say, I disagree with Liz Cheney. I disagree with Adam Kinzinger on the issues, probably 95 percent of the time, probably more if you really break it down. But those are disagreements that I want to have arguments with that feel at least like the arguments are more normal than at the end of the day, the very existence of our government as a democracy. I need to fight for the existence of our democracy so we can have disagreements and a free and fair open forum and then allow votes to be to be taken in a democracy and not a fascist

system to vote on whose policies and whose views will ultimately win. And Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are doing nothing. They are actually true heroes in this process right now. They really are. And they're doing an incredible job exposing what's taking place. And I just don't see the need to attack them right now on other policy issues when we need to be singularly focused right now on making sure we defeat MAGA fascism because, you know, there's a, I'm not sure if you heard the expression, Jordi, it's called the Overton window. And the Overton window basically refers to a range of policies that are politically acceptable to the mainstream of a population in any given time. And the question is, where does

the Overton window kind of push? Where is that range of what's acceptable? And when the Overton window is pushed by Republicans who let themselves get co-opted by MAGA, where you have conspiracy theories and you have fascist views and authoritarianism is mainstreamed, that becomes part of the range of an Overton window where the country just says, okay, we're willing to tolerate a certain level of that. That can never be the case here. That's one of the things that we're fighting right now and that we need people like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney to push back on. And they are doing an incredible job. You mentioned it with the Jan 6th committee. The Jan 6th committee, the momentum of the Jan 6th committee from where it started to right now, how it's

picking up steam. One of the words I always use in legal practice when I speak with clients is the term fluidity and to not be so wedded to here's the plan. It has to look like this because things change on the ground. And the Jan 6th committee has shown a remarkable degree of fluidity in adapting, in becoming kind of stronger on these various points. Absolutely. The game plan's been perfect. The backup game plan's been perfect. Every wrench that got thrown their way, I mean, they've adapted. They're flawless, flawless. So I'm excited to see the Sarah Matthews testimony. We'll of course be covering that live here on the Midas Media Network. The Midas Media Network is one of the top places.

I think it's the top, we'll just say one of the top places to watch the January 6th committee hearing coverage. We have the top panel, you know, everybody from Michael Cohen to Texas Paul to Ron Reagan to Jessica Denson to Karen Friedman Agnifilo to Politics Girl, you name it. They are here on the Midas Media Network. David Bender. I think you just did a major spoiler. So if you're listening to the podcast or watching right now, Ron Reagan's coming on Tuesday. Yeah, he's coming back. We had Ron Reagan as a Ron Reagan. Was he a panelist before? No, no. First time panelist. He did a video for us a few weeks back.

I think Ron Reagan did pre coverage for us. I'm going to say, OK, OK. I'm very confident Ron Reagan did pre coverage for us, Jay. I do want to talk about the horrific terrorist attack in Highland Park, Illinois, and we need to refer to it as a terrorist attack. That is what it what it was, a mass shooting terrorist attack. A gunman opened fire at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park this past Monday. He was he fled the scene. There was a lot of the parade was packed with heavily armed cops. So this idea of, you know, the good guys with the guns can stop the, you know, terrorists like that who positioned himself on a rooftop and started shooting down. Obviously, that was not the case there. This wasn't an issue of doors. If you notice, the local police officer at first tried to like talk about ladders, right? Like there was

the ladder in the business was not being watched because that the issue is ladders, right? I mean, completely ridiculous. We hear just horrific and tragic stories arising out of it. Each story, each family story is incredibly horrific. You know, the story about the young, you know, two-year-old girl who, you know, was literally right there as her parents died. I've seen people speak on media networks. Some of these children who have just such incredible courage to even speak. I don't even know how they even have the courage to talk about the incident, what their experience was. It's become so normalized, Ben. It's become so normalized and just intrinsic in our culture that this is weekly now.

This is weekly. We have another one of these stories that we have to report on. And then the media, they'll talk about it for a week. They'll talk about it maybe for a day or two, and then they'll just move on. But it's just so sad, man. One of the things here with the there was a lot of red flags with this particular terrorist and he had their red flags of attempted suicide in 2019. He had a knife collection that was confiscated after making threats that he wanted to kill everybody. Yet he was still able to purchase weapons in 2020 and 2021, even though there were red flag laws in place. Illinois has something called an FOID, a firearm owner's identification card

that kind of vets firearm owners. By the way, the FOID is something that radical right Republicans don't even want to exist in the first place. But under this process in Illinois, one of the ways that you could get around being red flagged, if you will, is if a family member provides a declaration or vouches for an individual. That's kind of one of the carve outs that are arranged in the system. And here the shooter, the terrorist's father, put forward a declaration of good cause to basically say that his child should have a gun in there. That's how he was able to get the weapons that he was, despite being appropriately red flagged at first. That is what we are

learning right now. These red flag laws are things that the Republicans are actively fighting and trying to weaken it. And so in systems like Illinois and across the country, even when there are these red flag laws that exist to try to stop people like this terrorist from getting the weapons, oftentimes it's the radical right Republicans who try to build in exceptions to water it down because radical right Republicans try to portray the process by which information about someone who poses a danger to the community, when that goes before a judge to radical right Republicans, they believe that that process is completely illegitimate. There should never even be a process to challenge whatsoever. I mean, that's, that's their whole viewpoint, which to me is, is beyond absurd. And they act like there is no due process, but literally there is a due process. Like there's literally a process built

in and that's what they, that's what they fight against. And I think that's such a good point, Ben, because I think we all realize it's not going to be one solution that gets us to a place in society where we stop seeing these mass shootings. Because the red flag laws, as you said, were watered down, there has to be other institutions and policies in place in order to make sure that we have a nice checks and balance system on the purchasing of firearms. Like first off, ban assault weapons. No one needs the AR-15s. I'm not for AR-15s.

That's my personal belief. Now, guns on the other hand, Second Amendment issues, that's a different story. Well-regulated militia, you need to actually look at the context of that. But no one on this earth needs an assault weapon. Secondly, raise the age to 21. You shouldn't be able to buy a gun while you're still in high school in some circumstances. I mean, that's just terrifying. And then you need to strengthen the red flag laws,

which I think all of these policies that we just sort of spoke about are overwhelmingly popular with the public opinion. I was thinking, I was just over in Mexico in a town near Guadalajara, and there was a festival for one of the saints. And each night at a different church, there's a different festival. But at the festival, there are these fireworks. And one of the aspects of the festival is called the running of the Tauros, the running of the bulls. And what the running of the Tauros is, and I kid you not, I mean, I'm not going to put the video up. But the running of the Tauros is like 11 year olds and 14 year olds have like a

wooden bull over their head. It's like about three, like three feet. And it's like, it looks like a bull, but there are fireworks all throughout the bull. And then there's a large crowd of people on like the running of the bulls. They light the fireworks and then they run down the street and then everybody kind of runs and spreads or goes around. And in terms of the fireworks that are used, it's not like the caliber of fireworks that we have here, you know, in the United States, it's not like those, but it's like, nonetheless, there's still fireworks and they kind of go everywhere and everyone's running. And so we would look at that here and go, well, what are they doing over

there? Like we, we, we, we have to regulate fireworks, right to regulate fireworks, right? We can't do that. Let's regulate fireworks. That literally makes no sense. And as I sat there, I'm like, yeah, this is really dangerous. I wasn't even sure what I was getting into. I mean, it was incredibly fun when we were there and a wild experience to look back on. But you almost think about that experience. And I think that all political parties would look at that and go, we need to regulate fireworks. How do I know that? Because fireworks are regulated here in the United States because we view fireworks as being something that could be dangerous and could harm someone and someone's, you know, could be inadvertently hurt. Right.

So if we have a regulatory scheme for fireworks here in the United States, where you can't even buy fireworks without appropriate getting through the appropriate regulatory hurdles here on the 4th of July, we could buy weapons of war. 18 year olds can have AR-15s. And get this, though. We talk about the well-regulated militia without any training whatsoever. They're crazy. Like they don't have to take an exam. I mean, I'm with you, Jordy, that what's the point of having a weapon of war, but I'll take it a step back a little bit and say that what if Jordy, we all agreed, you know what, if you want to be a serious, responsible gun owner and you're using it for hunting,

prove it. Just spend, if this is what's really important to you and we want to respect that it's really important to you, why don't you go through a training course? Because you're apparently going to go hunting a lot with these weapons. And if you care about something, you'll spend time on it, right? If you care about your golf game, you may take a golf lesson. You may go to the driving range, right? You may, you may practice a little bit. So why don't you go through a certain number of hours of training? Why don't you show proof that you will be using it in a capacity of hunting? And for these purposes, why don't you take an exam that, you know,

it doesn't have to be a hard exam, just an exam that shows that you understand how it works. Maybe you sign a declaration, basically discussing how it's going to be used and how you're going to keep it safe. What if we just started there? Right. What I just described for you, that is challenged as a radical idea by the right one. What I just said is viewed as how dare you do that? How do you even have a responsible conversation? But that's why the example that I gave of the Mexican festival that I went to in the village, you think about that, we'd all go, we got to regulate that. But think about that. They're looking at us here and saying, wait a minute, but you're allowing people to have war weapons who aren't in the military to walk around wild. And then you have, of course,

as I say, these all kind of follow the predictable outcome where responsible people who care about the lives of children and families and want to create a safer decision be a political issue. Right. I mean, everybody should say and look, by and large, the American people, 80 plus percent say that there should be responsible gun ownership. Again, it's this radical right extremist MAGA who are not tethered to reality are the ones who come up with these ridiculous mantras of you're taking away our guns because we're saying we want responsible gun ownership. When we tell you to wear a seatbelt, are we taking away your car? When we tell you not to drink and drive, are we taking away your alcohol? Are we taking away your ability to drive? No, we're just saying when we tell you there's a speed limit, are we taking away your car, your ability to drive? No, it's literally the same thing that you can have the weapon, just use it responsibly. And here's a

regulatory framework of responsible gun ownership. And if you can't get that solved here, it's like, what can you get solved in the United States of America? Like if that fundamental issue, we can't resolve, you know, to me, almost any of these issues are like single voter issues where the American public should look at the Republican position and go, you're trying to kill my kid. I'm not going to vote for you. I don't care what any of your other view is. You're you're creating a situation where our lives are more dangerous. I'm not voting for you. It's it's literally how we started Midas Touch. We saw Donald Trump get up on stage and tell people to

inject bleach. And we texted each other saying, holy shit, this guy is going to kill us or our family members who we love. We have to step up and do something. But that's what I always say, Jay. That's why I always say that, you know, when Midas Touch was founded, I was not before Midas Touch a very political person at all. I did civil rights litigation where I represented families. But whether your family was a Republican, Democrat or independent family, political person at all. I did civil rights litigation where I represented families, but whether your family was a Republican, Democrat, or independent family, if someone got killed in your family because of the overreach of a government actor or a business, and you came to me for representation, your political affiliation didn't matter.

You needed help. And I was going to help you and zealously represent you regardless of what the political view is. Everyone was united that if someone was negligent or acted recklessly, they should be held accountable. But yeah, Jordy, when the pandemic hit and I saw literally MAGA and Trump and the Republican Party taking the position that the pandemic isn't real, that we need to inject bleach. And then that became a political issue. And then sometimes people are like, well, isn't that political? And I go, well, it's because they made it political. It was never political before. It's so true. It's so true. But do you know what I really want to make sure we do hit on here? Going back to the horrific shooting. Is this kid's, is this adult man's political affiliation? Because I don't think we hit on that. that QAnon crazy MAGA fringe.

And this no doubt led to a spiraling sort of domino effect that then took us to the horrible events earlier this week. Oh, absolutely. And then the conspiracy theorists who are the Republican Party leaders come out of the woodwork, right? You have Marjorie Taylor Greene. She has this podcast now, which, you know, she because she has no committee assignments, she's basically just like the main Republican MAGA influencer. And let's just play the clip of what it is that she said about the terrorist attack at Highland Park. Now, here's what I have to say. I mean, two shootings on July 4th, one in a rich white neighborhood and the other at a fireworks display. It almost sounds like it's designed to persuade Republicans

to go along with more gun control. I mean, after all, remember, we didn't see that happen at all the pride parades in the month of June, but as soon as we hit MAGA month, as soon as we hit the month that we're all celebrating, loving our country, we have shootings on July 4th. I mean, that's, oh, you know, that would sound like a conspiracy theory, right? Of course. But what's the definition of a right

wing conspiracy theory? Well, by the way, it's the news that's just six months early. So those were her words. Those were her words. And Patriot Takes clipped her words because playing an hour long podcast, anyone could go back and listen to the podcast, but fill up on every channel where you get podcasts. Anyone could go and listen to it. The way things work sometimes is because there's a finite amount of time and people say a lot of different things. You highlight a portion of something that's being said and giving it the full context of which it said. That's the clip that you just saw. There's no other context in which that clip can be said. But here's the thing, Jay, that pisses me off most. Well, it's like a

lot of things that piss me off, but this particularly pisses me off most about the Republican Party is the gaslighting. Like a statement like that is horrific, absurd, offensive, disqualifying. We could use any of those words to describe, you know, what that is. But then the next day when people ask her, Marjorie Taylor Greene, for comment, as a reporter did, you know, shortly after and showed the clip from Patriot takes what their statement is, that's not accurate. That's the radical left media posting those things. Patriot, this is what Marjorie Taylor Greene says. I mean, literally, I'll read you what she said. She said she did a whole 17 part tweet thread today, basically saying how she was being unfairly attacked for people who criticized what she said in the clip. One of the things she posted is a text message thread with a reporter where the reporter was showing her the clip and asking her, can you provide, you know,

can you respond to this? And she said, it's taken out of context. So the reporter goes, well, what's the context? And she basically says, well, it's being posted by a radical right, you know, sorry, it's being posted by a, you know, a leftist group that's trying to attack me, a leftist political action committee. That's goal is to, you know, expose Republicans was like. But Marjorie, those are your words. And that's the thing, Jordy, like they are chicken shit. Yeah, they won't own. She makes a comment like that.

She says that she says those words. It was the exact same thing with Trump. It's the exact same thing with all of MAGA. If that is your position, it's disgusting, but own your position and then have a discussion about your position. But it's the constant, oh, I never said that. That was the leftist media who put the clip on of me and took my words out of context. It's literally what you said. They do this weird cognitive disassociation immediately after they make statements like this, like the one that Marjorie just made, where she pretends that she never said it because she knows the dog whistle that she puts out when

she says that. And she knows who's hearing that that and so when a reporter in good faith follows up and says hey can you comment on this because when I listen to the whole podcast and very specifically this clip here you know what's what's your statement on that and she turns around and saying the media is attacking me the leftists are attacking me that's not what's going on here it's a weird like sociopathic mentality that is just like so ingrained with politics today, with these politicians, the Ted Cruz's, the Marjorie Taylor Greene's, where it's really disturbing, man. And Jordy, you could take it two ways. So on the one hand, it's either

completely sociopathic and not self-aware and just complete idiocy and lunacy. On the other hand, it's intentional. I know, but to be clear, I think she's saying it intentionally. I know she's saying it intentionally as a dog whistle, but they do this weird sort of cognitive dissonance where immediately after they say something, they pretend that they never said it. And really what they try to do is have two audiences. They radicalize their base with the message. They know that the message that they sent, the conspiracy theory, they know that that's the one that's going to be shared. And they cater it to that audience. So that audience will see that. And then when they're confronted by the

media that wants to talk about it and engage in the truth and try to have an actual discussion about it, that's when they do the gaslighting. And it's why they failed in the federal court system and why they want to attack the courts. They failed in our federal court system because thankfully it is still a place, although it's trying to be, was significantly tried to be chipped away at and destroyed by Trump, where you have to go in and take an oath. There are consequences to what you say and you have to present arguments that are based in fact. And you're supposed to have a smart judge or a jury that watches what you say and judges it and says, what are you talking about? And that's why all of those Trump lawsuits, the bullshit election lawsuits completely failed because they're completely lunatic conspiracy theories that are made up. And that's why most

of the lawyers who are involved are being disbarred or significantly disciplined for their involvement. Not only did they lose the case, they lost the case so badly by lying, by trying to bring that right wing MAGA into a courtroom that they've lost their legal licenses as a result, Jay. I don't even know like another analogy that I could use, but it's like, as if I had a bad podcasting day and you guys came here and took my mic and my computer and that was it. But it really brings us full circle to where we started this pod with Brett being in the UK because it goes back to Boris Johnson's resignation and say what you want to say about the different way UK runs its government. But at the end of the

day, their conservative party there based on a scandal involving a lower level government employee who Johnson brought on, who had these prior incidents of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct, that toppled the entire government of the, you know, of Boris Johnson and a new prime minister will have to be appointed. In the United States right now, what occurred in the UK would not even be a blimp. And we are not, because of the radical right extremists, they are not picking the top people. They are picking literally the worst of the worst to be in charge of government, Jay. Can I just push back on you slightly? It's not that it wouldn't be a blimp if this happened in the United States. It wouldn't be a blimp if it happened to a Republican. If it happened to a Democrat, damn sure as hell that the Republican media would, and the media at large, mainstream media, would be reporting on something like this daily. Republicans here just seem to get away with all of this bullshit.

Oh, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree with you more there. And we've seen many examples of that here, you know, in our own, you know, in our own government, where that has actually, you know, taken place, and where Democratic senators, you know, have resigned, you know, taken place and where a Democratic senators, you know, have resigned, you know, over things that a Republican would never, you know, would never resign to, in fact, probably would be promoted as a as a result of definitely upset missing Brett on this Midas Touch podcast. But Jay, it was great to be joined by you on this episode. Big bro. Everybody remember to check out the coverage by the Midas Media Network of the January 6th committee hearings.

We'll be live broadcast on July 12th. So next week, July 12th. Make sure everybody checks that out. We'll have live coverage on the Midas Media Network with the top panel in politics. We will see you next time. Brett will be back on the next Midas Touch podcast. Ben and Jordy, wishing you all well. We'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Shout out to the Midas Midas.