The MeidasTouch Podcast - No One is Above the Law with TX AG Candidate Joe Jaworski

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Starting point is 00:02:07 which we'll talk about in a second. Our guest today, Joe Jaworski, is someone who is fighting against the coup in plain sight. Former mayor of Galveston in Texas running for AG against one of the coup plotters. That's what I was going to say. You have a coup plotter as the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, who I believe is under more criminal investigations, indictments, than Joe Jaworski has been.

Starting point is 00:02:38 Joe Jaworski is a third-generation trial lawyer. More than the generations he's been a trial lawyer is the amount of investigations criminally Ken Paxton's involved in. But Brett- Joe's granddad was a special prosecutor on Watergate. Yeah, he was Leon Jaworski, was the special prosecutor. So prosecuting fascists and prosecuting corruption is in his blood. We're going to talk to him. I want to know what's going on in Texas. So that's why we have him on the pod today. But Brett, a coup in plain sight. Walk us through your creation of this video, the impact the video has had. Tell us about it. I'm really thrilled about this video. If you

Starting point is 00:03:17 haven't seen a coup in plain sight, please head on over to our YouTube channel. It's probably the easiest way to watch it. It's also currently our pinned tweet, but it's also like the first video you'll see if you go to our YouTube. And a coup in plain sight breaks down just that, a coup in plain sight. And what I wanted to do was, you know, we've heard all these stories coming out now about January 6th, but not just January 6th itself as a day, but the planning that preceded it and the ongoing coup attempt that's happening right now in state houses across the country. And so I wanted to frame it around January 6th rather than have a video be about January 6th itself.

Starting point is 00:03:52 So I would say this video started a few weeks ago at this point. Really put a lot of effort and research into it. We started digging up all these clips of, I went back to the archives of all the things that were happening in November, December 2020, and early January 2020 prior to January 6th. And so the stuff I kept digging up was just so eye-opening to me because at first it refreshed my memory of a lot of things that I had previously forgotten. But it also shows you that all these stories right now that are coming out about these alternate electors and all the attempts to take over the electoral process, those were all happening, as we say in the video, in plain sight right before us in November, in December 2020. And the more footage I accrued, the more horrified I got. And so the way this

Starting point is 00:04:41 video went was first, I like had a bunch of footage and I sent the brothers like two weeks ago, I sent them, I said, look at all this stuff I found. And I sent it to the brothers and we were trying to figure out the proper framing for it. And at first we discussed a few different ideas. And then I kind of thought, you know what, let's take all of these clips and let's frame the coup in one place. Because what we see right now is like all these kind of separate news reporting from the New York Times, from the Washington Post, from CNN, from Politico. We see all these various elements of the coup on their own, but I had never seen them really in an easy digestible format that everybody could just

Starting point is 00:05:24 take in at once. So I thought, you know, let's put it in one video. We'll make it a video that's slightly longer than our videos because I don't want to exclude anything that's super important. And so we made a five minute short film that really breaks down the intricacies and the plot to overthrow the United States government and instill Donald Trump dictator and the plot that is still going on right now. And so what I really hope is that, you know, the video now has over a million views on Twitter alone. It's got a ton of views on Facebook and YouTube.

Starting point is 00:05:55 It had over a million views on Twitter in the first 12 hours. And I think the video actually broke Twitter's like algorithm because for whatever reason, we haven't had one single view today. So we're expecting that thing to pop up real fast in the next couple of hours. Yeah, the view count on Twitter was just broken today. Everyone who's posted videos today is just stuck on zero. But the point of these videos are though, I mean, digital is an extremely important medium out there. And so, as we all saw with 2016 and the efforts that foreign nations went to corrupt our election process, we all understand what happened with Cambridge Analytica and the way they utilize Facebook and Twitter to spread disinformation. And we've all seen it throughout this pandemic, the way disinformation is able to be spread through social media. So in my opinion, we need to be using these digital spaces for good, to send out positive information, to fight back these conspiracies and just the craziness with the truth. And I think

Starting point is 00:06:52 these videos deliver that truth in a way that everybody can understand. And so it's really, at the end of the day now, up to people like you listening to take the content that we post there, the digital stuff, and share it with a friend, share it with family members. And, you know, Jordy, you made a funny comment when we were making the video. You reminded me of a viral video that went around when we were in high school about 9-11. And I'm not sure if you listening to this podcast remember, but there was this just complete disinfo campaign with this video called Loose Change. And it was a piece that basically said 9-11 was fake, 9-11 was an inside job,

Starting point is 00:07:33 and that the planes never went into the towers. And this video, I remember being spread so rapidly around our high schools and people digesting it and believing every single word of it. And I think that was just a precursor to what we see today with the Project Veritas and with all these foreign networks that are trying to spread disinfo. So I think we have to understand that these videos can be incredibly powerful if used for evil. So we need to fight back with the truth and we need to get the truth out there because 2022, the midterms this year are really going to be about preserving our democracy, fighting off the corruption of the GQP. And that starts with us being activated and having the knowledge and having the tools to share

Starting point is 00:08:16 with others what is actually happening in this country in plain sight. I love a good Brett rant to start the podcast. But Brett, I know I was doing like a goofy clap earlier, but I really wanted to tell you this. I put this right up there, cool in plain sight, this video that you made, this short five-minute film, right up there with Trump the snake and sort of our more upper echelon videos that you've done in the past. And just seeing the work that you did behind the scenes to make this happen, the hours, the endless hours that you spent editing this, distilling it. So you present the truth and the facts and you lay them out in plain sight, man. I just kudos, man. Thank you for doing that. And look, digital is just one

Starting point is 00:08:57 pillar of what we do at Midas Touch. In addition to operating incredibly successful social media accounts that get billions and billions of impressions, I stopped counting the impressions because it's in the billions and counting it isn't even like something that I could even keep up with at this point. But the digital is one part of the strategy to empower you with those tools. But where we also pride ourselves is getting these digital ads into the field. We launched two different advertisements that were on Fox News this weekend, one with Ted Cruz using his own words to basically make it clear that January 6th was indeed a terrorist attack against our nation. And the other video that we launched was using the GQP words of let's go,

Starting point is 00:09:55 Brandon. And so we use that chant of let's go, Brandon, and then showed Biden's accomplishments. And as Biden tweeted about, America's really the only economy that's gone out of the pandemic stronger by mostly all economic indicators than it was before. And so there is a lot to be thankful for. So seeing the kind of cognitive dissonance of Fox News viewers seeing a Let's Go Brandon chant, but then seeing the actual stats of what was accomplished was also, I think, an important ad to get onto Fox News. So it's getting these ads into places where we can persuade and change minds. And then it's also activating you, the Midas Mighty, you, the listeners, to be active in politics. When we run text message

Starting point is 00:10:45 campaigns to get people to vote, like in the general election, we got millions and millions of people to send text messages. Well, millions and millions of people received text messages. We sent out about 5 million text messages in 72 hours, getting people to vote. We did the same thing in Georgia, and we'll continue to do that right now. So it's the totality of all of this activism. Then, of course, canvassing, knocking on doors, and really micro-targeting areas where we could impact persuadable voters. And so it's creating this entire ecosystem of digital, on television, on the ground, on the field, which is why we're grateful for all of your support, because as Brett mentioned, this is a fight for the heart and soul

Starting point is 00:11:31 of our nation. Speaking about the fight for the heart and soul of our nation, January 6th, updates to report, we learned this weekend from Benny Thompson, chair of the January 6th committee, that the committee has already, quote, had conversations with former Attorney General Bill Barr. We have talked with also Department of Defense individuals. So we know that that's an interesting point that Barr voluntarily spoke with the committee. Now, I am extremely interested in what Bill Barr has to say here, because Bill Barr, the thing that's always been so confusing to me is Bill Barr was willing to be Donald Trump's henchman on literally every corrupt action taken during that administration

Starting point is 00:12:16 since he was in that role. However, he knew, I believe, that he knew damn well what Trump had planned for the election and for January 6th, which is why he got the hell out of that position before all that was going down. So I think he is, A, an extremely untrustworthy person, B, an extremely corrupt person, but C, I believe that he does have very important information, and I hope that he is spilling it all to the January 6th committee, because if anybody knows Trump's plan, he will know it. And by the way, it's bombshell stories like this which caused me to keep delaying the

Starting point is 00:12:58 release of the Aku in plain sight video, because every time I thought that this video was done, there'd be a new bombshell story that was released that I was like, well, this has to be included in the piece. We need to talk about the fact that Trump had an executive order ready for his signature to have the military declare martial law and seize the voting machines. That is an important part of this. Every day there was a story like that. And I think this week is about to be just as crazy with everything that we are even just starting to learn as of Monday morning.

Starting point is 00:13:29 Oh, absolutely, Brett. And that's kind of one of the dilemmas, right? When you make a video like that is you want there to be more information out there because of course we want to hold them accountable, but you also want to sum up it very succinctly in the video. But I think there is unfortunately going to be a part two to the video based on some additional information that we are learning. And as Benny Thompson speaks about what the January 6th committee is doing to hold the insurrectionists accountable.

Starting point is 00:14:01 On the other hand, you have Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the house and current total douchebag. Is that what he's going by now? I mean, he just leans in just such a phony, truly the height of what is wrong with politics is embodied in Newt Gingrich, just a total hypocrite, phony fraud. I could go on and on and on with more descriptions. It's fucking Newt, man. But play what Newt Gingrich said on one of the morning shows this weekend. You're going to have a Republican majority in the House and Republican majority in the

Starting point is 00:14:39 Senate. And all these people who've been so tough and so mean and so nasty are going to be delivered subpoenas for every document, every conversation, every tweet, every email, because I think it's clear that these are people who are literally just running over the law, pursuing innocent people, causing them to spend thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees for no justification. And it's basically a lynch mob. And unfortunately, the attorney general of the United States has joined that lynch mob and is totally misusing the FBI. And I think when you have a Republican Congress,

Starting point is 00:15:14 this is all going to come crashing down and the wolves are going to find out that they're now sheep. And they're the ones who are, in fact, going to, I think, face a real risk of jail for the kind of laws they're breaking. I mean, just think about that, Brett, what he's saying, that the January 6th committee, a bipartisan committee, you know, I mean, you have two Republicans on the committee. The chair, Liz Cheney, is leading the committee, really. And what they're talking about is imprisoning the people who are trying to get to the bottom of one of the worst days, if not the worst day, one of the worst days in American history, where an insurrection took place against our country. That just shows you the importance of 2022 in this election.

Starting point is 00:15:59 We're going to talk a little bit in the podcast about there's good news from some of the bigger, deeper fears on the gerrymandering front. There was a- Can I just talk about Newt for a second, though, before you do this? Because I just want people to take what Newt says seriously. Because over the past few weeks, over the past few days, even over the past few hours, we keep seeing comments from people like Newt. And then we had Gates, who is going to be indicted soon, making similar comments that there should be arrests for people in the January 6th committee. We are seeing people say that the second they get into

Starting point is 00:16:36 power, they plan to impeach Joe Biden. When you hear all of these things, I just want to be clear that this is not like fascism. This is not fascism adjacent. This is indeed fascism. This is what autocratic governments do. This is what banana republics do. They go after the people who are trying to actually have law and order in the country, and they try to arrest those people rooting out corruption. This is fascism, plain and simple. And I need everybody to just take it extremely seriously.

Starting point is 00:17:12 And we need to be running against fascism in 2022 as a real threat that is coming. And trust me, they will do all these things. They will try to use every aspect of the law to jail their political opponents. They will try to bog down- I want to correct you there, Brett. They will try to undo our laws so that they could then create a new system that would- Good correction. Fair correction. They don't follow our laws. But they will run investigations against Hunter Biden, the January 6th committee. They will have their own committee to investigate the FBI and Antifa and all their conspiracy theories. They will go

Starting point is 00:17:50 after Fauci. They will try to impeach Biden. This is what you will expect if the Republicans take power. Not only that, though, but that also means that all the good stuff that we want as Democrats, and not only as Democrats, but as Americans, I mean, think about just from a policy basis, from democracy, voting rights, to infrastructure, to healthcare, all these things are not even going to be looked at. It's all just going to be how are we going to have vengeance against our political enemies? And how are we going to stick it to the liberals and stick it to the Democrats every single day by using their power? And once they have power, they are not going to be so kind to give that power away. So this is what's at stake this year. And I need everybody to get active and get involved. But like Ben said, there is good

Starting point is 00:18:42 news and I'll let Ben, I'll let you get into the good news. So it's not just doom and gloom here. There are, there is good news coming out right now about redistricting. Ben, what's going on? Before getting into the good news, Brett, I want to talk about one of our sponsors, Blinkist. This podcast is brought to you by Blinkist. 2022 is all about empowerment, helping you grow personally and professionally by discovering content that inspires, motivates, and gives you new perspective. So let me tell you what Blinkist does. It breaks down really long books or books in general into kind of bite-sized digestible forms that gives you the key elements. Usually it's about a 15-minute read.

Starting point is 00:19:28 And then they also have audios that summarize long books and give you the key points. Now, I've done a lot of Blinkist books. You know, sometimes I just want to listen to Blinkist before reading the book. Sometimes I just want to get the key concepts of a book because there's only a certain amount of books that you can read. Let me just give you an example of some of the books that I have read on Blinkist. The 5 a.m. Club by Robin Sharma, all about waking up earlier, starting your day by working out, by reading something new and starting that motivational day with that early boost. I read that on Blinkist.

Starting point is 00:20:07 I can tell you read that. You're looking good these days, B. It's the 5 a.m. Club and I read it on Blinkist. Atomic Habits by James Clear, talking about the importance of habits and developing very, very good habits. The Five Second Rule is also an incredible book that've read on Blinkist, how you motivate yourself in five seconds to basically get up, to stop having any negativity. Count five, four, three, two, one. It's by Mel Robbins. And just getting into the day and getting out and doing what you want to do and stop procrastinating. That's what I love about Blinkist. And it really broke down those books in a great

Starting point is 00:20:45 form. So right now, Blinkist has a special offer for just our audience. Go to Blinkist, B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T dot com slash Midas, M-E-I-D-A-S, and start your free seven-day trial. Get 25% off a Blinkist premium membership. That's Blinkist spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T, Blinkist.com slash Midas, get 25% off and a seven-day free trial, Blinkist.com slash Midas. It is a great way to get the key concepts of all those books you wanted to read, you know, in kind of a quick but yet comprehensive form. And so go to Blinkist dot com slash Midas. And so, Brett, the good news on the map drawing on the gerrymandering, the Republicans like absurd maps in Ohio where they tried to gerrymander the crap out of it, which would have just been a total disaster for Democrats. That was tossed out by that state Supreme Court. Shout out Mark Elias on that

Starting point is 00:21:50 democracy docket doing incredible work. Thank you so much. I think the Democrats are also hopeful that North Carolina's highest courts are going to follow suit with their voting districts there. And so there is an increased level of optimism that while the gerrymandering situation is still not going to be great, Republicans have overplayed their hands by basically drawing obviously racist and absurdly political maps that were designed to disenfranchise and that violate basic due process issues. And also, though, we've had great lawyers, Mark Elias, his team of other lawyers fighting these issues. These are Mark Elias. Stay in the pod, Ben.

Starting point is 00:22:36 I'm sorry. I thought I said Elias, but you keep it in the pod. That's fine. I thought I said Elias. Don't do a rewind of it. Rewind. I'm just kidding. Mark Elias. And can never get names right. None. And other lawyers who have done a great job. And this is what the head of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee said of the GOP, someone named Kelly Ward Burton, quote, we've stymied their intent to gerrymander their way to a house majority. This is big. And again, the same way Brett's video, a coup in plain sight, puts all of the coup plots together. Don't just take the news that we give you as individual slices of a puzzle, put that puzzle together. That's one of the things we want to do on this podcast,

Starting point is 00:23:25 right, Brent and Jordi? So now the gerrymandering issue isn't all that bad. Let's not use that as an excuse to be defeatist. Now we need to go out there and we need to be showing people videos like a coup in plain sight. We need to be telling people what the GQP is going to do, not just turn our country into the banana republic they did under Trump, not just turn our country into a death trap and spread COVID everywhere like they did under Trump and like they want to do in GQP controlled states, but that this is what they're going to do. They're going to take away your social security. They're going to take away your health care. That's the first thing they're going to do. They're going to take away your social security. They're going to take away your healthcare. That's the first thing they're going to do. They don't give a shit about you. You think they care about your healthcare? They want to cough on your face with COVID. That's their goal. You think they care about you

Starting point is 00:24:18 going to doctors? I mean, you have prominent GQP people saying that food is not a basic right. Like you eating is not a basic right. Like these people are going to take away all of those things that you rely on because that's what we rely on governments for. And by the way, the things that they are going to run on as their issues are their weakest points. And I want everybody to realize that as well. Like they are going to run on schools and they are going to frame it as a school choice issue.

Starting point is 00:24:49 What school choice means, this is the decoding of the Republican phrases. What school choice means is we are going to defund public schools and give vouchers to private schools. So remember that whenever you hear school choice, it means they want to defund public schools. They're also trying to- And not only does defund school, Brett, you're going to say ban books, right? Ban books. They want to ban books. Literally, in Texas, they are trying to ban the teaching of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because they say it may offend the sensibilities of students. So they are literally trying to ban books, ban American history. Ron DeSantis, there's a bill that's being run through the Florida legislature right now, which wants to ban the speaking about LGBTQ issues and anything related to gay rights.

Starting point is 00:25:37 This is radical shit. This is radical, radical stuff. This is Taliban shit. This is the American Taliban. And we need to treat them like that. And we need to tell everybody out there that this is what is happening. This is what's truly radical. And we want our kids to be learning all of American history.

Starting point is 00:25:56 And we want kids to be able to be who they are and be able to speak about gay rights, civil rights, black rights, the rights of all Americans. These are not controversial subjects. This is literally American history that is being deprived from our kids by the American Taliban in states like Texas and in Florida. And we need to fight back. Roe v. Wade is another issue where Republicans are incredibly radical on. A new Fox poll puts them in the extreme minority of what viewers have to say about their support of Supreme Court action on Roe v.

Starting point is 00:26:33 Wade. A Fox News poll, as I just said, 63% of respondents to this Fox News poll said that Roe v. Wade should be kept as is, which I'm going to shock you with this percentage, 31% of people- Oh, the 31 number, Brett. The 31% want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. So remember, Democratic issues are incredibly popular and they're supported by most of the people. So what we cannot do is let that 31% of Americans who don't stand for what this country stands for, run a, have minority rule over the rest of us here. And we need to be showing our power. And that starts with us showing up at the polls and telling them, we're not going to take your shit. This is America. America is inclusive. America is a place that cares about

Starting point is 00:27:24 all people that cares about women's rights, that cares about women's rights to get an abortion, cares about LGBTQ rights, cares about black rights, cares about civil rights, wants our kid to learn about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That's what America stands for. And we need to make that known in November. And that starts with you getting the word out now. The framing as the GQP of American Taliban is so perfect. Yeah. And they want to talk about, you know, CRT and made up issues. How about school censorship? How about censoring our kids? There is nothing conservative about any of the issues that we've just spoken about. Yeah. I think you frame them as an American Taliban. You frame the GQP and the GOP as a

Starting point is 00:28:04 hate movement. That's what we need to start talking about them as. They're not a political party. They are a hate movement, and America cannot be overtaken by the GQP hate movement. And they are certainly not the silent majority. The silent majority, Brett, in that poll is the 63% of people who support a woman and childbearing person's right to choose. That's the silent majority. The GQP, this hate movement, is the loud, obnoxious, zombie-like, radicalized minority of people in the country who are out there literally banging their chest, literally, you know, out there screaming, cursing, spitting on you, throwing cups of hot coffee and Jamba Juice, Jamba Juice at people. That's the radicalized crazy shit that these people are, Jordy.

Starting point is 00:29:05 No, did you see the one video? I know we don't have it on our outline today, but the one video of the women who went to a school board meeting and said that she was going to show up to school on Monday with her loaded gun if the school kept their mask policy in place. I mean, these are lunatics. Play that clip of the woman. No mask mandates. My child, my children will not come to school on Monday with a mask on. All right. That's not happening.

Starting point is 00:29:34 And I will bring every single gun loaded and ready to I will call every. That's three minutes. You've gone past your time. It's a policy. Thank you. Mm-hm. I'll see you all on Monday. These are just deranged, deranged, demented people. They're evil. It's a hate movement. And I wanna dig into that. I wanna bring on our guest, Joe Jaworski. Joe Jaworski's grandfather was the special prosecutor in Watergate. Joe is running for attorney general against someone under more

Starting point is 00:30:12 criminal indictments than I have fingers on both hands, I think, in Ken Paxton. But before I do that, I want to talk about Athletic Greens, one of our partners. This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I got mine right here. Yeah, we always have the Athletic Greens, one of our partners. This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I got mine right here. Yeah, we always have the Athletic Greens on the podcast. We're drinking the Athletic Greens during the podcast. Let me tell you what I love about Athletic Greens. Before Athletic Greens, I had tons of gummies and pills and all these random vitamins. And I tried to basically pick what I thought was best for myself. And I tried to do, you know, a bunch of reading about things, but I was not getting the energy and vitamins that I needed. But AG1 and Athletic Greens has completely replaced that. All you do is you

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Starting point is 00:31:45 multivitamins, but choose the one with high quality ingredients that your body will actually absorb. Athletic Greens does that work for you and how they developed AG1. And it was created when the founder experienced gut health issues like I had. He was on a supplement of about $100 a day and AG1 replaced that and it it's climate-neutral certified company. So right now it's time to reclaim your health, arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition, especially as we head into a flu and cold season. It's just one scoop in a cup of water every day. That's it. No need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health. To make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of

Starting point is 00:32:32 immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com slash Midas. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash Midas. Again, that's athletic greens dot com slash Midas and take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. And now we have Joe Jaworski, third generation Texas trial attorney, former mayor of Galveston, now the Democratic candidate for Texas attorney general in 2022 primaries coming up soon in March for the Democratic nomination. If you get that nomination, you'd be running against Ken Paxton, who's under, well, more criminal investigations than the amount of generations you've been a Texas trial attorney. Welcome to the show, Joe.

Starting point is 00:33:28 Thank you, Ben. Yes, that's right. His new name is Corrupt Ken Paxton. Oh. You have to appreciate the alliteration, but it's true. And so going to the Corrupt Ken Paxton, what I really liked, you know, one of the things we do at Midas Touch is we make lots of digital videos. We just released one the other night called A Coup in Plain Sight, which we've been talking about earlier in the podcast, but you're a digital marketing maven yourself. I got to play this ad and I want

Starting point is 00:33:55 you to comment on it. It's called Juxtaposition and it uses like Lego figures, which compare you to your would-be Republican opponent for AG. Can we play this clip, Brett? In Texas, politics can be confusing. So let's keep things simple. Let's say this is Texas Attorney General Republican Ken Paxton. And this is Texas law enforcement, a group Ken Paxton is very familiar with. Because he's been indicted on three state felons. Three. Whoa. And this is the FBI.

Starting point is 00:34:29 They're investigating Ken Paxton for abusing his office to benefit a wealthy donor. Hey, look. It's my friend with money. And this is Democrat Joe Jaworski. He's running against Ken Paxton to be Texas' new attorney general. He's never been indicted for anything. Or investigated by the FBI because, well, he's a good person. Also, Joe's grandfather was Leon Jaworski,

Starting point is 00:34:53 the special prosecutor who investigated Nixon and forced him to resign. Pretty good. Fighting corruption is in Joe Jaworski's DNA, while being corrupt is in Ken Paxton's. Yeah, I know the drill. I like Joe Jaworski for Texas attorney general to replace the Republican making a mockery of Texas's top law enforcement office. That's a campaign ad right there. At minimum, you got to win an Emmy, Joe.

Starting point is 00:35:19 Well, let me say, if you want me to comment on that, the guy who was our man on that, Brad Harvey, went to high school with my campaign consultant, Jeff Hewitt. And that was the connection. But extra points if anyone can identify the voiceover. Oh, my gosh. Who is it? It's a voice you've heard from Turner Classic Movies, Ben Mankiewicz.

Starting point is 00:35:44 And, you know. That was going to be my guess. That was going to go Mankiewicz. That was my first guess too, Ben Mankiewicz. And, you know, I was going to be my guest. I was going to go. Exactly. That was my first guest, too. I was going to go. I was going to go. Mankiewicz. Classic Mankiewicz.

Starting point is 00:35:55 And so anyway, they they are they've never done political ads before. They've done ads that have won awards on the Super Bowl that have been played during the Super Bowl. So we decided to get them involved in politics. And they've done a second one that is completely different. And then they did a third one that is reminiscent of the first one. And so it's all on our YouTube channel. I love that ad, but it raises a serious point, though. I mean, you have a number of serious points. I mean, number one, you have in Texas an attorney general who is completely corrupt, who views his job as basically the personal attorney of the governor, but really the personal attorney of like just the center of massive corruption that's taking place. Do you think the voters get it at

Starting point is 00:36:45 this point? Are they ready to make a change? Like, it just seems so obvious to me that Ken Paxton, how do you have a criminal, someone under criminal investigation as the AG? Ben, I totally agree. And we start with the agreement among Republicans and Democrats that Ken Paxton's got to go. Look at it this way. There has not been a contested Democratic primary for Texas AG since 1998. And now we've got five people running. How about this? On the Republican side, we have unprecedented three office holders who have either resigned their job or elected not to run again for a safe reelection to run against this man.

Starting point is 00:37:28 I mean, that's eight people. And let's talk about the Republicans. George P. Bush, Texas land commissioner, you know, son of the, you know, Governor Jeb Bush, Eva Guzman, a very popular Texas Supreme Court justice who literally resigned the bench to run. And then Louie Gohmert, who I really can't talk about because I don't understand what planet he's from. But I will say that he doesn't fit into my analysis analysis that I'm about to share, which is the moderate Republicans represented by Bush and Guzman have a lot of good people supporting them. Money, time, effort, best wishes. Well, they're going to be sore pretty soon when Ken Paxton wins the nomination for the

Starting point is 00:38:13 third time because he's got Trump's endorsement. He's got the power of incumbency. So he gets to own the libs on masks, abortion, election, gerrymandering, whatever, patting himself on the back every week on Maria Bartiromo. Well, look, he's going to get the nomination. The only question is, will he need a runoff to do it? Here's the point. Next fall, when these same moderate Republicans are checking their ballots as to who they're going to vote for, they may vote for the Republican for governor. They may vote for the Republican for lieutenant governor. But when they get to that third race attorney general, they're going to say, Ken Paxton, I don't forgive and forget so easily. I'm skipping you. And that's good for us because that dilutes

Starting point is 00:38:57 his vote count or better yet, Ben, they may do something they haven't done in a long time, which is vote for the Democrat, Joe Jaworski, the lesser of two evils. That's a new T-shirt we're coming out with. But you see, that's how people think on these votes. And well, they should. So I think, yes, the answer to your question is people are ready to turn him out. It's time. And let's look at some of those issues that you mentioned, masks, abortion, elections, for example. Let's start with SB8, which is a bounty hunter law still in effect in Texas. As attorney general, let's just say SB8 is still on the books. What would you do as attorney general knowing that that law is on the books. I mean, and here's the thing, too,

Starting point is 00:39:45 that we see, you know, as we celebrate and recognize the importance of abortion rights with Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court's arguments in Dobbs versus Mississippi, which also threatens to overturn Roe v. Wade, people's support of abortion health care rights. It's about 60, 65 percent. You know, it's significant. People want to support the right to choose. So how would you handle this as attorney general? It's best to be unequivocal about this, Ben. And I will tell you that as Texas attorney general, I would reverse the pleadings. I mean, that is very clear to me. So should the lawsuit, which, you know, I think there's two of them right now. There's one wending its way through the state court system, and there's one in the federal court system, which has now been

Starting point is 00:40:35 parked at the Texas Supreme Court as well. Whatever venue it may be, the position of the Texas Attorney General will be that Senate Bill 8 is facially unconstitutional. It is. It's mathematically unconstitutional. Now, if Dobbs and Mississippi case in the Supreme Court does get decided by June, as is expected, we'll see what the Supreme Court does. I prefer not to speculate. But in the event Roe v. Wade is somehow disabled, you know, they did it to the Voting Rights Act and Shelby. What if they do it in Roe v. Wade? It would be a monumental miscalculation, may I say, politically on the Supreme Court, and it will open a wound in Texas and America that will not be long forgotten. But I tend to think that John Roberts has a little

Starting point is 00:41:26 more control of the Supreme Court. So I don't expect Roe v. Wade, quote unquote, to be overturned. But whatever's left of it, there's still going to be a Texas case by the time I take the oath next January. And I will reverse the pleadings. I will let the people know that the Texas Attorney General is on the side of reproductive choice. Let's talk about, you know, simple thing as vaccinations. You know, it's shocking to me that that became a political issue. You know, it was always the case that people get vaccinated against deadly diseases and so that they could live and be healthy. But the Republican Party has taken this mantle as an anti-vax, anti-mask and dare I say, pro-COVID party. It seems that they want to talk closer in your face to like spread the disease as well. Like it's more than just being anti-vax and anti-mask. Where do Texans stand generally on

Starting point is 00:42:26 that issue? And as AG, you know, how would you balance, you know, some people saying, look, we need our kids to go back to school. We want our freedoms with, hey, you need to be healthy. You need to, you know, we want to live. We want Texas to be a state where, you know, people are healthy. Well, sure. And I'm going to rely, Ben, on my background as a former mayor of Galveston, as you all mentioned in the preamble, because I believe in local decision making authority. It works. People like local government. It's the best government because it's the most responsive government. Meaning you can stand at the podium and be close to the mayor and city council or the county judge and the county commission or the school board. You can affect their decision making by your presence. You can't go see the governor every day or the lieutenant governor. Here's my point.

Starting point is 00:43:16 I think Governor Abbott is totally playing politics with this pandemic and people are dying because of it. When it first broke, he was all for masks. He was all for separation and closing things down. Then the power got to him. The powerful got to him and he reversed course and has been concerned about his primary reelection ever since. Here's where he's going wrong. And this is where my experience as mayor, I think, would come into play as attorney general. Right now, there's something called the Texas Disaster Act. And it has these beautiful words in its own introductory paragraph. It allows leaders to meet the moment. Now, you know, this could be a hurricane. This could be a pandemic. This could be a wildfire. And Greg Abbott has elected not to meet his moment, which is his call. In other words, if he as governor wants to say, I'm hands off, we're not going to do any of these mandates.

Starting point is 00:44:18 We're not going to do the things that I'm allowed to do. More power to him. That's his call. He has to live with himself. Where he abuses it, and I condemn Ken Paxton for letting him get away with it, is he is preventing local leaders from meeting their moment. That is an abuse of the Texas Disaster Act. And so far, that position is being sustained in court. I wrote an editorial about that several months ago, and I'm proud to see that position being accepted by the courts. So as attorney general, in my opinion section, and that's one of the things we do is we write attorney general opinions, which stand as the law on questions that are unsettled. I would tell Greg Abbott, hands off county judges, mayors, superintendents, and school boards. If they want

Starting point is 00:45:02 to do mandates, that's their call. Joe, we talk about your DNA as a fighter for justice. And as I think your ad mentioned earlier, your grandfather was Leon Jaworski, who was a special prosecutor on Watergate. What is your perspective with that in mind on January 6th and the Department of Justice's efforts to hold those accountable? Brett, thank you. So I think that, you know, we are a constitutional republic and every now and then we have constitutional crises. We certainly had one in the Civil War. We certainly had one in Watergate and we have one now. So, you know, I respect the legacy of Leon Jaworski, a man who I loved dearly and knew very well. You know, just FYI, I visited him during Watergate, lived with him and my grandmother at the Jefferson Hotel for a while, lived with him my freshman year of college. He passed away my

Starting point is 00:46:00 sophomore year. But the legacy of Watergate and Leon Jaworski is no man is above the law. And that is something that is ascendant again, certainly with Donald Trump and certainly Ken Paxton. So on January 6th, the rule of law, I think, is being followed by people who are being very courageous. You know, Liz Cheney, for example. perhaps I don't agree with much on her policy pre-constitutional crisis, but she is certainly making us proud and following the rule of law. So I admire her and I want to give her a shout out on that issue. So Ken Paxton, he was there as well on January 6th. He's refusing to turn over his emails and texts, even though he is the guard of the Texas Public Information Act. And he knows damn well that his texts and emails that day are

Starting point is 00:46:53 public information. So what I would say is that is a mantra, as you say, DNA aspect to my campaign, which is let's restore integrity to the office. That's a bipartisan or a nonpartisan concept. Let's follow the rule of law. Let's don't just go by whim or whoever, you know, your favorite is. Let's follow the concepts that have guided us for all these 200 plus years. And speaking of your would-be opponent, Ken Paxton and those records that he refuses to release, this past Friday, Paxton was given four business days to turn over the communications related to his trip to the Capitol on January 6th. What do you make of his refusal to not turn over these documents? What do you make of Paxton's involvement in January 6th? What should

Starting point is 00:47:41 people know about Paxton's relationship to January 6th just in general, I guess? Sure. I mean, it's par for the course. I expected that he would simply resist it because he's resisted everything else. He is weak and malleable. This is why Donald Trump picked him. So I think what things people need to know, Brett, is when Donald Trump was circling the corner of summer 2020 before the November election, which, by the way, dates the time I decided to run for this office, July 2020. You recall, Trump was already saying, oh, it's going to be a cheat. And if I lose, it'll be because they stole it. So he knew the polling was not going in his favor because of his pathetic handling of the pandemic and so many other things.

Starting point is 00:48:26 And, you know, he fired his campaign manager. You remember the big brawny guy? So he knew he was going down. And so he just needed someone to be the fall guy for it. So when obviously November came and went, they drafted the legal memo that they were trying to sell around to the South. And all the attorneys general in the South just said, don't I don't want to have anything to do with that. Ken Paxton said, I'll do it because he's weak and malleable and ambitious or whatever word you want to use. His own solicitor general, Brett, Kyle Hawkins, was like, I'm not signing that. And he was gone within 30 days. So Ken Paxton proudly put his name on probably the masterpiece of frivolous pleadings, you know, for the last decade or century. And of course, it was laughed out of court within four

Starting point is 00:49:26 days. However, that didn't stop him during that 96 hour period from, you know, doing one of those co-emails with Trump's campaign, you know, all shoulders to the wheel. You know, this man is saving democracy. He raised $170,000 in 48 hours in small dollar donations across the nation. So, you know, there's a lot of people that want that. But I maintain, Brett, that the good people who follow the rule of law, who have done with the foolishness, outnumber them. One of the craziest things, and just speaking about all this in the video we released, The Coup in Plain Sight, is that all of the corruption is happening in plain sight. They're broadcasting everything that they want to do on podcasts, on TV networks. And recently,

Starting point is 00:50:10 we had AG Paxton literally go on Steve Bannon's podcast. If that doesn't just speak to corruption in and of itself, the fact that he went on to Steve Bannon's podcast, and he said the quiet part out loud. He said, we're done in Texas if anybody can vote. By this November, if we don't get this changed, I think it's very likely we lose. We could lose five members of the Texas Supreme Court who are up. We could lose my position. We could lose governor. It's just a matter of whether it's this time, the next time, the next time.

Starting point is 00:50:38 We're done in Texas if anybody can vote. What do you make of his honesty, I guess you want to call it? And how do you plan to protect voting rights right now? It's a hot button issue. Everybody's very concerned about it. Sure. I mean, so believe them when they say who they are is the mantra. And remind people, we have the technology. We have this podcast. We have social media. We can run these things like the Lincoln Project has done so well over and over and turn voters out. On the question of elections, I agree with you. Ken Paxton is the problem. He's so proud of his voter fraud unit, which, by the way, has burst into flames because the enabling statute that he has been relying on for so long to threaten people of color. Better don't make a mistake when you vote because we may put you in jail.

Starting point is 00:51:38 And he's done this several times, has been ruled unconstitutional by the all Republican high court of criminal appeals in Texas. So he can't believe his poor luck that his, you know, kinsmen and women have ruled against him. But there's no appeal from it, you see, because it's the highest court in Texas on the matter of criminal law. Here's what I'm going to do when I take the oath. I'm going to take the ashes of Ken Paxton's fake voter fraud unit, Brett, and I'm going to turn it, this is a pledge, I'm going to turn it into General Jaworski's voter access unit, you know, because you ought to be able to call the government if someone is abusing your voting rights. Here's an example. May I? Please. And this is transformative. Did you know that there is a law on the Texas books that is simply not followed and it's election code 13.046D

Starting point is 00:52:38 as in David. And it very simply states that every principal in the state of Texas, public, private, charter, religious, must offer to each senior attaining the age of 18 registration twice a year. Now, you can't make them register, but you know how kids are. They'll do it if you just offer it. Well, they don't do it in some schools. In fact, they don't do it in most schools. I will be the attorney general who sends a letter every August, and I'll probably do one in January after I take the oath. Dear principal, this is your attorney general speaking, Joe Jaworski. Please do confirm receipt of this letter and let us know the two dates this school year that you're going to be offering registration to the 18-year-olders, and we'll be there to celebrate.

Starting point is 00:53:21 Guys, can you imagine if Texas were to register every 18 year old? And it's the law. And yes, I'll send a letter with the beautiful gold embossed AG letterhead. And I think there's like 1,700 principles. We'll buy 1,700 stamps, 1,700 envelopes, and 1,700 letters. I'll sign them myself, in fact. And can you imagine if we can stoke the same civic zeal at age 18 when it comes time to vote as they exhibit two years earlier when it's time to get the driver's license? Transformative. I want to ask you about something else that's pretty near and dear to my heart that I know you've been super vocal about, and that's the legalization of cannabis in Texas. And why do you think that's so important? And why do you also think that's become really,

Starting point is 00:54:08 I guess you could say a bipartisan policy issue now? I agree. Jordy, that's a fabulous segue. I would say that we are a state that should be a trendsetter rather than always being at the bottom. And because we've got the numbers of people, we've got the space and we've got the reputation. So why are we so far behind on this? I say it's time to not put our toe in the water. It's time to jump in, legalize cannabis. And there's several reasons, one for revenue and jobs. I mean, we are never going to have an income tax in the state and I don't even want to go there, but we are property tax weary. And so I think that cannabis, if we tax it at the moderate Colorado rate, we will generate, and this is a conservative number, 1.1 billion every legislature. We need twice a year. That's a lot of money. And let me just put a footnote on there. Let's do gaming as well while we're at it. I mean, again, just bring the money. People do it all the time. They just travel out of state. 30,000 jobs. And Jordy, I'm not even

Starting point is 00:55:17 talking about construction jobs. I mean, permanent industry jobs at the dispensaries, growing. Second is we have a lot of veterans here, you know, lots of air force bases and military bases, and just people move here because we are a large populated state. PTSD, cancer patients, chronic pain. Finally, if we legalize cannabis, we offer an alternative to pills, pills, pills, and we fight a winning war against opioid addiction. Yes. But here's the real reason. I think the Texas Attorney General should be high behind this and literally be the first

Starting point is 00:55:53 witness in the 2023 legislature. And it's this, social and criminal justice reform. Guys, how much longer is Texas going to burden and incarcerate young adults? And let's be fair, typically young adults of color are possessing a flower that grows out of the ground so that we can incarcerate them in private prisons so that shareholders can make a profit on their imprisonment. That sounds horrible to me. And here's the best part. And this will warm the hearts of those who think the Democrats have had their messaging upside down. If we remove this wasteful, petty prosecution from the books, we fund the police. Look, we save 300 million a year

Starting point is 00:56:42 so police and prosecutors can fight real crime instead of wasting their time on this burdensome law, which has failed. And so we can go after real crime, gun crime, cartel crime, domestic abuse, human trafficking and incarcerate the sort of people that would storm the Capitol on January 6th. That's beautiful right there. And I think you hit the nail on the head with both the medical uses for it and just eliminating the unnecessary incarceration of black and brown people really all across the U.S. It's just it's insane over such a flower, as you say. And people always ask the follow up, which which is very true. And this of course means restorative justice. Those that are in prison just for possession should immediately be released on the passage of this law. And even better, those that have a record with that petty prosecution on it should by operation of law, have it expunged. Absolutely. I love that so much. And now I'm

Starting point is 00:57:42 going to pivot here. The brothers have no idea I'm asking this question. Frankly, I didn't know I was going to ask him until you brought this person up earlier in the interview. You would never, at least from what I understand about you, turn on your family the way George P. Bush bent the knee to Donald Trump. It is embarrassing. And I would recommend that he explore his options in the private sector. That will embolden him and make him his own man. Look, you know, he may be a great guy to be with, but I think that people do things in pursuit of public life that is not natural. And that was one of them. You know, his family, by all measure, has done, you know, a notable job in public service in America, some better than worse. But I will tell you one of the

Starting point is 00:58:46 sort of, it's not really a laugh line, but it's a comment I make is that, you know, I remember when Ann Richards was governor and I graduated law school in 1991, I actually met her at the grocery store during her term as governor, just a completely wonderful human being, gave me 10 minutes of her time, governor of Texas in the produce section at Fresh Plus. And I thought that was a promise made to me, you know, Jordy, this is a progressive state, a modern state, you'll be a lawyer soon, and it'll all be fine. And then it's just gone downhill ever since. And the laugh line I always say is, and here we are left in 2022 2022 wistfully thinking about how reasonable George W. Bush was on the matter of immigration. That's it. That's what we get.

Starting point is 00:59:33 But but I will say, you know, H.W. Bush, George Bush, Jeb Bush. I mean, look, I mean, they're all people who've been elected and they were leaders and they had good days and bad days. But this deal where it's like he's throwing them all under the bus because Donald Trump is, you know, the ringleader sickens me. And I hate to say that. And I hope that when and I'm sorry for him, but when he loses his primary and he's no longer general land office commissioner because he's not going to be since he didn't sign up to run again. He'll have a chance to explore and maybe he'll come back, you know? Yeah. That really depends on the Republican Party coming back. I mean, George P. Bush is really symptomatic of the problem with the Republican Party. You have to bend the knee to Donald Trump. If you're not a radical extremist like Ken Paxton, it's very hard, if not impossible, to get elected in what the current Republican Party is.

Starting point is 01:00:32 And I think we need to start calling it what it is, because Americans aren't on the side of radical extremism like these right wingers like Ken Paxton. I say this all the time, like a lot of my ideals, Joe, line up with progressive ideas, liberal ideas. But I think I'm a far more conservative person because I believe in conserving our democratic institutions than any of these Republicans. I don't think they deserve to be called conservative anymore. And I think we should stop ceding the ground as Democrats to say they're conservative. We should just call them radical extremists, terrorists, and just call it for what it is. And we're more conservative, even though we have progressive liberal views from time to time.

Starting point is 01:01:20 What do you think about that? I could not agree more. And I'm so glad to hear you say that. Keep saying that. For example, we've just talked about local decision-making authority. That is a conservative principle. So let's separate our terms, as you're suggesting. Progressives can be conservative. Those are not mutually exclusive. So I'm a former mayor. I had coffee with my constituents. I paid for the coffee because I had some money left over in my campaign account. And we talked about things. You can affect your local government. It's called federalism. And yet here we have Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton, you know, looking up to D.C. and saying hands off states rights. But when they look downstream, it's no, you're doing it wrong. You're going to do as we say, counties, cities and school boards. Totally inconsistent. It's not conservative in the slightest. And then there's the wasteful spending of money on addressing the immigration crisis because they all it're spending money sending these poor National Guardsmen and DPS troopers down there just to sort of sit and look tough on the border. And I agree with you. We will call them out for being wasteful, not conservative in the slightest, and simply

Starting point is 01:02:38 outcome-oriented. It's all about holding on to power, limiting your ability to vote. How is that conservative? How is it conservative to say that we will limit drop boxes for mail-in ballots? It's all straw men. It's all hobgoblins. And honestly, the wave of not blue versus red, but just the wave of reason is coming. And we have got to have good candidates who are willing to look them in the eye and say so. Well, Joe, you gave us the title of our episode there. The wave of reason is coming.

Starting point is 01:03:14 I love that. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Joe Jaworski running for AG in Texas. We hope you come back on the Midas Touch podcast. Be my honor to thank you, gentlemen. Great interview with Joe Jaworski. We'll be following his campaign. I really loved, one of the reasons I wanted him on the podcast is I saw that ad and I was like, I just got to meet the candidate who did that ad. It was such a, that to me is how you engage people. You know, you have to break it down simple. You have to kind of capture their attention. And it is true. You've got to be creative with it. I mean, think about how many ads people are inundated with on a daily basis. It's the same shit. So-and-so wants to take away this. So-and-so

Starting point is 01:03:53 wants to do that. So you need to learn to deliver things in an interesting way that people aren't going to tune out. And I think that's the mistake that most ads make, that most politicians make, is they just run the same bland shit over and over and over. Like it all just becomes one big clusterfuck of a blur. You got to be innovative. I agree with you, Jordy, 100%. We got a lot more to talk about on the podcast. We got to talk about one of my childhood heroes,

Starting point is 01:04:19 like just, it was so disappointing to see that John Stockton became a zombie. So that's what I basically call. What was he saying? We'll talk more about the John Stockton situation. I want to talk, though, about and related to that studies coming out showing how masks get this work and they work in schools and that we shouldn't make schools petri dishes for children to become vectors of a disease and spread it to their parents and grandparents and kill people. That should not be a shocking concept. We'll talk about another zombie leader,

Starting point is 01:04:56 Don Jr.'s video, and a lot more to talk about on the Midas Touch podcast. We're going to talk about Trump's SPAC and this ridiculous interview with Devin. You never know where the Midas Touch podcast is going to go. We could go anywhere, you know? Go anywhere, Brett. But first, tell us about one of our great sponsors. I got to tell you guys about Magic Spoon, who's one of my favorite sponsors. It's the new year.

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Starting point is 01:06:41 peanut butter, blueberry, cinnamon, cookies and cream, and maple waffle. Maple waffle has become my new favorite. I finally got a hold of the Magic Spoon Maple Waffle Cereal, and I cannot recommend it enough. Go to magicspoon.com slash Midas to grab a custom bundle of cereal and start your new year off right. And be sure to use our promo code Midas at checkout to save $5 off your order. Magic Spoon is so confident in their product. It's backed with a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you don't like it for any reason whatsoever,

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Starting point is 01:07:30 The Hot Honey McCrispy is so back at McDonald's with juicy 100% Canadian raised seasoned chicken, shredded lettuce, crispy jalapenos, and that completely craveable hot honey sauce. It's a sweet heat repeat you don't wanna miss. Get your Hot Honey McCrispy today. Available for a limited time only at McDonald's. And so we got to talk about John Stockton. For those who don't know, he was on the Utah Jazz. He was a point guard.

Starting point is 01:07:56 I loved John Stockton growing up. He was on the dream team. It would be Stockton and Malone, right? That would be the- Yeah, him and- See, I know sports, Jordy. You know 90s sports. Hold up, Ben. Stop for one second. Brett, who played last night? What was the football game that happened last night?

Starting point is 01:08:12 Jordy, I know that the Rams... No, no, no. You know sports. You know sports. What was the football game that happened last night? Arguably one of the greatest football games that actually ever played. The Rams-Bucks game?

Starting point is 01:08:23 I watched... I saw the games last night. No, no. For those listening on Tuesday with the podcast drop, it's Monday right now when we're recording the Bill's chiefs game, which I give Brett credit, Jordan, we don't listen to, we don't watch the NFL until Kaepernick is playing again in the that is the answer. That was the correct answer, but the answer was Rams, Bucks, Bills, Chiefs. That was those are the games that were last night. But I actually did watch those games last night. But I do know my 90s sports much better than I do.

Starting point is 01:08:52 Let me break down. Let me break down the John Stockton situation. Whenever one of my childhood heroes, you know, becomes like a GQP or it turns out they are a GQP, you know, I'm like the zombies got him. Not another zombie. It's like a zombie apocalypse movie. And so John Stockton became a zombie. John Stockton went to Gonzaga University in college. And so he would go to the McCarthy Athletic Center. It's where the Gonzaga team plays their basketball games. He's a season ticket holder. And it turns out that Stockton is an anti-masker. And because he was a very visible alumnus at Gonzaga, people started to complain

Starting point is 01:09:33 that he wasn't wearing a mask and they would see him there. And so they wrote to the athletic director saying, you got to get the guy to wear a mask. The athletic director reaches out to Stockton, tells Stockton, look, you got to wear a mask. You come to the game. Stockton goes, absolutely not. I'm not going to be wearing any masks. So the athletic director, mind you, Stockton's number 12 jersey hangs from the banner in the south facing rafters at the McCarthy. Did you know I knew this so much about John Stockton?

Starting point is 01:10:01 Or maybe it's just a well-researched Stocktonologist through the roof. And so the athletic director told Stockton, you're banned. Your season tickets are suspended, despite that you're in the Gonzaga Hall of Fame, because we take this seriously. Good on them. And we care about an educational institution, about having others wear masks. And then Stockton gave this interview to one of the local papers, the spokesman review. And this is what he said. And he- Disclaimer, major misinformation alert about to happen. And I won't give the quotes because I won't even say what his disinfo said? But basically what he claimed is that hundreds of athletes passed away

Starting point is 01:10:47 from the vaccine and dropped dead from the vaccine. You would think if even one of these, one of this happened, it would be a top story on every story, biggest story on the planet, right? And, and, and professional athletes, you know, hundreds of professional athletes in the prime of their career dropped dead because they were vaccinated right on the field is what Stockton said. What world are these people living in? Their brains are poisoned by the Newsmax, OAN. It really is. And then it's also the internet, and it kind of brings the episode full circle to the beginning, But there are websites that write fake articles. I mean, the term fake news, it's used right now as kind of a joke because Trump co-opted

Starting point is 01:11:32 it. What the term fake news was about before Trump started using it to describe actual legitimate publications was fake news was about these fake websites that were being set up to spread fake stories like this. And where John Stockton is getting this information from, I would say isn't even from the OANs and the Newsmaxes, but it's from this really dark part of the internet that spreads fake stories using like stock photos of athletes and craft something that when somebody reads it, they think they're

Starting point is 01:12:01 reading a legitimate publication, but they're actually reading like informationisus.us or something random and it's just bullshit. It's just absolute bullshit and they may even take little parts of facts here and there to try to couch it in like, oh look, this thing can be confirmed here, but it's all bullshit. It's one of the biggest reasons why people are being indoctrinated by this. And it's why it's so important that we fight back on this digital landscape also, because there's just so much garbage poisoning people out there. And John Stockton is just, you know, another high profile person who's fallen for this just fake news. Another high profile casualty of the fake news zombie apocalypse that's happening here. It really is interesting to me because I like to say that we were all like internet 1.0 generation, like Ben, when you were 10, you didn't have the internet, but when you were 15, you did. Brett, you and I grew up with it our whole life. So we really saw the evolution of the internet and how the internet works. people Stockton's age that 59 year old aged and up they never grew up with it until they were like 27 30 like around there and so they

Starting point is 01:13:16 never had an opportunity to sort of delineate fact from fiction online right with their reading they're taking at face value because they're not, and I'm not saying this to come off of ageist in any way, but they're just not as savvy because they didn't grow up with it the way we did. So I, any of our listeners here, just the re-education that you could take on your own merits to figure out, oh, why is this not true? What's wrong with this website? What's the fake news happening here? You have to take it one step further in order to get the facts. If it sounds fake, it probably is, is my first piece of advice. And two, nobody is safe from this. And no pun intended here,

Starting point is 01:14:02 but nobody is immune to fake news and to being affected by fake news. We've all fallen for it before. It comes in very devious ways. And we all need to just be more discerning when it comes to what we read and what we share online. of the presidency because Trump diminished that power so significantly. But there is a real ramification of him referring to legitimate sources, to sophisticated high-level government actors as well, as referring to fake news and deep state and destroying the institutions and also destroying credible media. Because what that does in doing so is it also uplifts people like Joe Rogan and uplifts people like other fake news sources who then fill the gap and fill the void as legitimate media sources are diminished in their stature and are told that it's fake news. I mean, the statistics are very basic. The vaccine,

Starting point is 01:15:05 it isn't a debate that needs to even be had. It shouldn't even be a debate. If you go to hospitals across the country, 90% of the people who are hospitalized are unvaccinated people. You could speak to the hospital officials and say, who's in there? They will tell you it is unvaccinated people and in many ways, even higher than 90%. And so why Joe Rogan wants to focus and he's wrong, but he focuses on myocarditis of, you know, 10 year olds to 15 year olds and tries to extrapolate something, which he's completely wrong about. The facts are right in front of your eyes. And the kind of message of a coup in plain sight, the facts in many ways are in plain sight, and we have to restore also confidence in our institutions. I will read you today along those

Starting point is 01:16:00 lines. Fiona Hill, she is now a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the foreign policy program at Brookings. And she recently served as the deputy assistant to Trump and senior director for European and Russian affairs on Trump's National Security Council. Also served for George W. Bush, also served for Barack Obama for a little bit, just for perspective on how long this person has or how many administrations this person has served. of President Donald Trump's disastrous presidency, as well as the rifts he created with United States allies and America's precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan signals weakness. And remember, it was Trump who, you know, who was one of the people who said to get out of Afghanistan. You know, it was Biden who actually did it and effectuated it in a way that was, you know, that actually got it done. He had the guts to at least get it done. But, you know,

Starting point is 01:17:11 the weakness that was the disastrous eternal mess that Trump created has emboldened people like Putin to threaten to invade Ukraine right now. And so we talk about Trump's spreading of fake news. We talk about Trump's destroying our institutions with the deep state. We should also talk about Trump's destruction of our allies. Every aspect of the country, this psychopath has torn apart. This sick, narcissistic, disastrous human being, the biggest plague in our country. Look what he's done at all layers and all levels right now and what he's created. And not just Trump, but the entire Republican Party, and it brings it back to what we were talking about earlier with Newt Gingrich. One of the reasons why Newt Gingrich and why you

Starting point is 01:18:05 have people like Matt Gaetz going out and threatening to jail political opponents, it's also to make a mockery of those institutions as well. That's another aspect of it. It's just chipping away at our trust in government. It's chipping away at our trust in the press, chipping away at our trust in the Department of Justice, in our foreign relations. It's why you have Tucker going on TV to voice his support of the Kremlin over the United States, over Ukraine, over all of our allies. That's what it's all about. They want to delegitimize really what is happening currently, our alliances, all of our institutions,

Starting point is 01:18:44 and they want to just destroy it all. And this is a stated purpose that comes directly from people like Steve Bannon. They wanna burn it all down and they wanna create a new world order. And in that new world order that they see, it's one in which the United States is more like Hungary, is more like Russia than is like all of our democratic,

Starting point is 01:19:06 small d democratic allies in the world. That's what they envision for the future. Definitely have more to discuss. I definitely want to talk about that Don Jr. video and whatever's going on there, which was not a masterwork. Let's just say that. But let's talk about masterworks for a second. Nice transition. Thank you. This podcast is brought to you by Masterworks. Let's take a break from the news for just one second, because here's some tech news you may have missed out and has to do with this. Fine art. Picasso painting recently sold for over $100 million at an auction last year, marking a 1,400% increase from its original price. That is 1,400% increase, which is shocking. When you learn that blue chip price appreciation has outpaced the S&P for over two decades and that the Wall Street Journal deemed

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Starting point is 01:20:33 in the bud by Bitcoin when you could be investing in works by iconic artists like these. Our listeners can receive priority access to their newest offerings. Get started by going to masterworks.art. That's not.com. Go to masterworks.art. Again, masterworks.art. The important disclaimers at masterworks.io. I want to talk now about this Don Jr. video. Can we just play whatever you want to call this? I mean, look, I guess we should rewind just for a quick second. Don Jr. is

Starting point is 01:21:14 clearly under a mounting level of stress right now. Rewind again. Everything that the Republicans do is projection. Every single thing that they do is projection. So all of that Hunter Biden stuff is really a projection about Don Jr. and what Don Jr. is dealing with and what Don Jr. is going through. We also learned from the breaking exclusive we had of Michael Cohen, although some news outlets try to report it after they got it. Cohen said it on the Midas Touch podcast first. I noticed this. Yeah, what was that? That Don Jr. was going to be the first one that Trump said he would throw under the bus. He told

Starting point is 01:21:53 that to Michael Cohen at any criminal investigation that Don Jr. was going to take the fall for the whole family. That was breaking news for Midas. I saw some other news outlets reported as fresh news, not giving Midas credit, but whatever. The news is out there. That's what I care about. Not the first time that it's happened, by the way. We've had other guests who've come on here, and then we've seen them on, I'm not going to call out the other network, CNN, who would have the same guest on two days after they were on the Midas Touch podcast, and they would say, you recently made some statements on a show about whatever. Could you repeat those statements here? And then they cover it as their

Starting point is 01:22:27 own story. Anyway, I don't think about stuff like this. Again, the most important thing is that the news gets out there. So Don Jr. does these videos and he like brands them Don Jr. on the video. He gives them the label the way Midas, we label our videos. He has Don Jr. And so when you watch this video, here's what I want you to think about. He recorded this video in the state of mind that you're going to see him in. And then after recording it, he or his team, I assume there's a team also because I don't think Don Jr. He's not putting a logo on himself. So the team thought it was a great idea. Let's release this video. Brett, play the video.

Starting point is 01:23:14 You know, can't put Joe Biden in the same between us and a nuclear capable China. Joe Biden is the guy they're going to call at three in the morning. If there's a serious crisis with Russia. Guys, Joe Biden. It sounds like someone who's doing a bad impression of Don Jr. Guys, Joe Biden. It also sounds like he's trying to do an impression of his dad. Yeah, he's trying to kind of do an impression. I mean, honestly, it's sad. It's sad. It is sad.

Starting point is 01:24:02 I know people who have gone through addiction. I've seen the signs. I've seen the stories. If there was somebody in Don Jr.'s family who cared for him, I hope that when they see these videos, they would take action because I genuinely am sympathetic to seeing that. Not to ruin Kendall Roy for all you succession viewers out there, but they're the same fucking person and it's so disgusting. They're very similar except

Starting point is 01:24:30 Kendall Roy is, I would say more empathetic. I have more empathy for Kendall Roy. Yes, agreed. So Don Jr. though, an icon, that is someone who this GQP zombie cult looks at and goes, that's their guy. I like that. I like that guy.

Starting point is 01:24:48 That's my guy. The other guy who they look at and go, you know what? Raises a really solid point there. Tucker Carlson. Play the Tucker Carlson quote about the M&Ms. The other big change is that the brown M&M has, quote, transitioned from high stilettos to lower block heels. Also less sexy. That's progress. M&Ms will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous. Until the moment you wouldn't want to have a drink with any one of them.

Starting point is 01:25:20 That's the goal. When you're totally turned off, we've achieved equity. They've won. So that's Tucker Carlson talking about how he wants to have a drink with M&Ms and that he finds M&Ms to be sexy and that the Democrats and woke culture has somehow made M&Ms less sexy and that they've taken away. What's the viewer doing when they want, like the Siri viewer? Like, yeah, Tucker's right. I do want to fuck M&Ms.

Starting point is 01:25:49 Well, no, they're taking their dick out of the bowl of M&Ms and putting it aside. That's a real graphic description. That might have to get cut. I mean, I guess we have to keep that in the pod. But there you have it. You have Don Jr. You have Tucker Carlson. You have John Stockton. You've got this whole zombie crew of people right there. And then we have you, the listener, the viewer of the Midas Touch podcast. You watch these podcasts on the Midas Media Network, but we have you. And you are the key to saving our democracy.

Starting point is 01:26:29 You rightfully look at that Tucker Carlson video and say, what the fuck is that? You rightfully look at the Don Jr. video and you go, OMG, what in the world is that? But now we need you to take that energy and we need you to mobilize. We need you now to fight for our democracy. You have the facts. You know that we could win in 2022. You also know the consequences of us not winning in 2022. Real, legitimate, authentic politicians who care about our democracy. The GQP wants to prosecute criminally for investigating the causes of

Starting point is 01:27:15 an insurrection against our government. Are you going to let that happen? As we say in the video, Midas created a coup in plain sight. Where do you stand in this critical moment? And you know where you stand. You stand on the right side of history, but just standing on the right side of history isn't enough. We need you not just to stand, but we need you to act. We need you to take action right now. And as we close out the Midas Touch podcast, I do want to talk about another podcast that I absolutely love that's not on the Midas Media Network, but is a partner with the Midas Media Network. And I don't throw out endorsements lightly for other podcasts. You know that if you listen to the Midas Touch podcast. It's called The Lost Debate. It's hosted by Ravi Gupta, who was a guest on the Midas Touch podcast. He's a former staffer. He wowed the heck

Starting point is 01:28:17 out of us, man. Former staffer for Obama and school principal who founded Arena, an organization that's trained thousands of progressive staffers and helped elect hundreds of candidates. They also have Corey Bradford, a progressive political organizer from the Deep South turned TikTok star, who once hosted a Fox News radio show. And they have Ricky Schlott, a Gen Z New York Post columnist and libertarian fighting to protect free speech. They cover the latest news, ideas and trends that mainstream media overlooks. And instead of being at each other's throats, they focus on bringing new perspectives to the table in constructive debates that sound less like crossfires and more like discussions between real people. Here's the thing I want to point out about this podcast, but it's why I think you should listen to it. You are not going to agree with all of the things they

Starting point is 01:29:18 say on the podcast. There are a lot of ideas on the podcast and political positions that I find myself learning from. I disagree with some of the political positions because some of them skew more traditional right-leaning. But what I also want to learn is how we can message to all Americans and how we can have these respectful debates and discussions. We may have differences on policies between Democrats and Republicans. What we should all share is our love of our democracy.

Starting point is 01:29:57 Yeah, it's important to get out of our bubbles, right? Like you need to step out of your bubbles. You have to step out of your comfort zone to really get a full perspective as to what is going on. And that's what I love about The Lost Debate. And it's not only a podcast, but it's also a YouTube show. The same way you watch our show on YouTube, you can watch it on YouTube. And if you want to actually escape your media bubble and engage in good faith with ideas from across the political spectrum, I highly recommend check out The Lost Debate. Just really, really good. And I think it will inform you in a way that is much needed going into these midterm elections.

Starting point is 01:30:30 You'll be armed with all the talking points. You'll be armed with it from just an intellectual debating point of view from the people who know this stuff best. The Lost Debate, check it out. Anywhere you get podcasts, check it out on YouTube. Going back where we started this podcast, Brett's video, A Coup in Plain Sight. Watch it, learn from it, share it, send it to your friends, post it on your Facebook, post it on your Instagram, email it to your friends, DM it to your friends. It is a learning tool for you to utilize. Special thanks to all. We got to talk about the Midas Mighty meetup this weekend. Oh yeah. Okay. We can't, we can't, we can't end the show without doing a huge shout out. So, um, Ben and myself this weekend had the privilege of meeting up with some of the Midas Mighty out here in Los Angeles.

Starting point is 01:31:28 Don't, don't be upset if you're in Los Angeles and didn't get to see us this time. You know, it wasn't like an official Midas meetup. We didn't like announce it to the public really beforehand. But we got to meet some incredible members of the Midas Mighty, grab dinner with them. I want to give a huge shout out to Aaron, Zoe, Jerry, Jules, and Mel, who we had the privilege of meeting. And when you meet people in person, it's just like, you know, just the coolest people. You know, we're talking about all these crazy people on the other side, the most normal people, like funny, personable, passionate, really care about this stuff. We had just so much, so many fun conversations, so much to talk about.

Starting point is 01:32:00 And it was like, I knew them when I met them because of all of our interactions with them on social media So like this movement man, it's it's awesome when you actually see it on the ground and you meet people face to face I promised I'd give a shout out to some of the Midas mini their kids when I was with them So shout out to Victoria shout out to Logan shout out to Abby and I just want to thank all your support And if you want to do a Midas meet up on your own, you know Like it's you don't have to like inform us or anything. You could just say, hey, like, you know, I know a crew of people who are like minded in their, you know, passion for democracy

Starting point is 01:32:33 and want to see this country move better. You know, consider getting lunch in if you live in Chicago, consider getting lunch in Chicago. If you live in Texas, consider getting coffee in Texas. Consider talking and figuring out ways that you could help mobilize voters, that you could help register voters. This is all a decentralized movement that you can really have power of, and you could use this network of pro-democracy voices that you see online to make great relationships

Starting point is 01:32:58 that actually shift the political winds in our favor, and you'll meet really cool people along the way like we did. So I just wanted to say it was a really special moment. Really awesome. We posted some pictures online and we've been showing them to all the viewers on here. Just so amazing. I'm so grateful for everybody's support. Special thanks to our sponsors. Blinkist, use that code Midas. Masterworks.art, use that code Midas. Magic Spoon, use that code Midas. Athletic Greens, use that code Midas. It's usually slash Midas at the end of the URLs. It's usually slash Midas at the end of the URLs, or as I like to call them, Earls. And check out the Lost Debate. Thank you to all of you, the Midas Mighty.

Starting point is 01:33:46 You make this movement possible. We owe it all to you. Brett, Jordy, always great to get to see you every day, get to work with you. And we'll see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Subscribe to the Midas Touch YouTube channel. Shout out to the Midas Touch podcast. Subscribe to the Midas Touch YouTube channel. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

The MeidasTouch Podcast - No One is Above the Law with TX AG Candidate Joe Jaworski

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