The MeidasTouch Podcast - Planned Parenthood President FIGHTS BACK against Attacks on Abortion Rights

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we have a very special guest: President and CEO of Planned Parenthood and President of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Alexis McGill Johnson! During our conversation with Alexis, we discuss the leaked Supreme Court opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, what it will mean for patients and providers across the country, and what people can do to support local folks on the ground. The remainder of the episode, the brothers break down the latest news of the week, including the failed Senate vote to codify Roe into law, a Florida Judge ruling that DeSantis’s gerrymandering is unconstitutional, more Eastman e-mails, Lindsey Graham hypocrisy, Tesla stock in free-fall and what it means for Elon Musk's Twitter bid, the new Jan 6 committee subpoenas of Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans in the House and more. If you enjoyed today's episode please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening. Find a pro-choice rally near you: https://bansoff.org/ Support Planned Parenthood: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/ Support our friends' podcasts! No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: https://briantylercohen.com/podcast/ The Daily Beans: https://www.dailybeanspod.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 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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the vote to codify roe v wade fails in the senate a florida judge rules that governor desantis gerrymandering is unconstitutional. More John Eastman emails out there showing the coup plot. More leaks. Here we have Lindsey Graham now on audio showing his hypocrisy. Tesla is in free fall, raising doubts about Elon Musk's Twitter bid. And we have an incredible episode with our guest, Alexis McGill-Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood and president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. I could think of no more important and timely interview than this one with Alexis McGill-Johnson

today. Brett Jordy, how are you doing today? Doing well, Benjamin. Ben looking spiffy as always. Ben just sometimes bringing his A game and Ben's got a lot of range too. Last week, Ben was getting a lot of compliments for what became called his Carlton style look, his Fresh Prince style look. And he goes straight from the Fresh Prince to the suit, looking straight from the Fresh Prince to the Fresh Prince. You see that? That's what's going on right there. And Ben's looking good. And so everybody knows, so Jordi and I interviewed Alexis McGill-Johnson. We're going to play that interview for you in the middle of the show. So excited, so honored to speak with her. And a little, a fact that I didn't even know until we did the interview is that Alexis McGill-Johnson used to be Ben Heer's boss.

And so we got into that a little bit with Alexis McGill Johnson, all the secrets of how intern Ben was. And so I can't wait to reveal those revelations. So I worked for Alexis McGill in 2003, 2004. And it's funny because we've now interviewed Huma Abedin at Clinton's office, who I interned for. We have Alexis McGill, who I worked and interned for. And so you'll get funny perspectives of me from about 20 years ago from both of them. But I think the lesson is that you'll hear for both of them at the time, like I would do whatever it would take really just to be in the room with decision makers and to kind of be around the action and to kind of learn as much as I could.

And I'd recommend that just to everyone who's listening out there, because you think about it like Midas Touch may have started kind of overnight in March, but it really didn't. Like it was part of a philosophy and a work ethic in a way. I think we've just always handled things throughout our life. And so whether it was getting flowers from Union Station to bring it, because that's how Senator Clinton liked it to doing to get in Red Bull for Alexis McGill or whatever, whatever, you know, the team needed. I'm not sure that's what you needed, but that could. So I worked with Alexis at Citizen Change, which was actually if you remember this in 2004, P. Diddy created this organization called Citizen Change Vote or Die. And everyone was like mocking that that like

slogan back then, like, oh, vote or die. Ha ha ha ha ha. It was like 20 years ahead of its time. Vote or die is the actual 100 percent. Vote voter die is the most prescient slogan in the world. And that was the Carrie Bush. Like did he knew back then P did he vote or die was so right. And just, just for people who remember do the shirts, like the shirts that,

that, that, that did he put the voter die shirts for those watching this on YouTube. We have to figure out where we could get some of those again. Those are, those are, those are fresh. Yeah. Maybe we should try to get the rights to sell. A relaunch? A relaunch of motor die shirts?

I think that would crush. Hey, but before we jump forward, we have so many wonderful people who always contribute in our YouTube live chat. And we just want to thank you guys so much for always doing that. This episode specifically, because we have Alexis McGill-Johnson, who is the CEO of Planned Parenthood, we are going to donate half of the contributions that we get during this YouTube live tonight straight to Planned Parenthood. So thank you all for keeping up those donations

and help fueling the show. And now half these donations are even going to go to a better cause. Thank you. Let's start off talking about these John Eastman new emails, a new batch of emails obtained from Trump's attorney, John Eastman from December 2020, shows that his advice to state legislature seeking to rescind Joe Biden's electors, including this time suggestions that they simply just redo the votes, like like literally just lie about him and just say that

Trump won on the popular vote. That was that's what's in these emails. And part of his plan was to urge Republican legislatures in Pennsylvania to actually just literally rip up, like just throw out the valid absentee ballots, crumple them up and throw them away and pretend that they don't even exist. And these emails really show, I mean, the other ones did as well, just clear criminal interference with the election by Eastman. Now, here's an important point, though. When you think about the California litigation where John Eastman was saying, I don't want to turn over these emails. And what was the reason that he alleged why he didn't want to turn over the emails? Attorney client privilege. I was acting on behalf of President Trump as his attorney. I was working his accusation in the course and scope of my job for him. And ultimately,

what the judge found there was what was called the crime fraud exception. Remember, everyone was talking about in California. Well, because the judge made a finding that the insurrection was criminal activity engaged it got Eastman to admit he was working on behalf of Trump to try to hide the documents. Now we have the documents. To me, that's a direct link to Trump when Trump's own attorney was engaging in the crime for Trump. The only way Trump gets out of it now is if he basically says Eastman wasn't my attorney, which, you know, Trump will say. And Eastman went rogue after that was the opposite argument Eastman made. By the way, that's why Trump didn't put forward a declaration in the California action saying Eastman's my lawyer. No one's done that analysis like that. That's a great that's a great that right there is a great frickin call. That's why the January 6th committee is continuing to rise, raise the crime fraud exemption over 135 more emails. Now they were able to get these emails through a FOIA request as they were

sent through Eastman. I believe his public university account, because he works at Chapman university and university. And it's clear why he it's very clear why he's fighting so hard to make sure that his other emails aren't turned over. These are damning, damning, damning emails. And they all, you know, we've all seen the pattern now and we've heard the pattern from Trump going, I need you to find me 11,780 votes to John Eastman being like, here's how you do that. What you got to do is you just take those absentee

ballots and you rip them up. You rip up those votes and you just rip up enough of those absentee votes because those are going to be Biden votes. And then eventually you'll get to a point where Trump's in the lead. And then we call it and we do that in every single state. And then Trump is the president. That was their plan. Like this. Listen, we called that video a coup in plain sight. I don't think we could have named that video any better. This was this remains a coup in plain sight. And the coup is still ongoing. Greg Sargent in The Washington Post, a columnist in The Post, laid out a blueprint for how Republicans could steal the 2024 election using the theories laid out by Eastman's emails here. So this is important. And this is why we see in states across the country, like in Michigan, we see Republicans getting rid of the people overseeing the elections and putting in Trump stooges, putting in MAGA stooges who would not certify elections. This is a red alert moment for this country. And that's why it is so important right

now that we have a Department of Justice who will prosecute people like Eastman. It is more important now than ever that somebody like John Eastman is indicted for this behavior because this is clear cut, seditious conspiracy against the United States of America. And here's what I want to say about Eastman real quick before we move off of him. And I'm going to refute my own point before Ben can actually do it. I was going to say Eastman is not a criminal mastermind. He's just a criminal because he put all of this stuff in emails that he knew would later get subpoenaed once he failed.

But then I reflected back while I was having this train of thought, a conversation that Ben and I had not too long ago. We said, no, Jordy, they thought that Ben and I had not too long ago, I said, no, Jordy, they thought that they were going to be successful with the coup. That's why they were so audacious doing this in plain sight with the emails, with their texts. They thought they were going to succeed. Yeah, that's the good point, Jordy. Because you're regurgitating my point. They were that cocky, they were that brazen that they thought, okay, so what if I put this in an email? We're going to get a dictator elected, and that's what matters, and a dictator's not going to subpoena my emails. And let me tell you the ingredients right now of dictatorship and fascism.

Ingredient number one, the dictator and the fascist and like the crazy true believers. Number two, people who oppose but are just crazy for power. You know who fits into that core category? Lindsey Graham. The third category is kind of this feckless, weak media embodied by Daniel Dale. And I want to talk about that in a second but let me number four let's talk about the second ingredient of what allows fascism to succeed it is lindsey graham people like lindsey graham who just do it for power when you actually hear them talk about things privately they talk about how much they hate trump how much how glad they are that biden is in power that you finally will have

adult in the room. Brett, play the leaked audio of Lindsey Graham right now, if you can, which shows him in the wake of the January 6th attacks, basically being very, very critical of Trump and eager for Biden to take power. We come out of this thing strong. Moments like this reset. It takes a while. People have calmed down. People are, I don't want to be associated with that. This is a group within a group.

What this does is there'll be a rallying effect for a while. The country says we're better than this. Invite me. Totally. He'll be a maybe the best person to have. I mean, how bad can you get it from Joe Biden? Graham called Biden the best person to unify the country. He goes, he'll maybe be the best person to have. Right. I mean, how mad can you get at Joe Biden? And yet when he goes on Fox News, when he does the Hannity rounds, you know, when he has to actually vote, when he goes to Mar-a-Lago and kisses the ring of Donald Trump, when he goes and does these rallies and whatever, Lindsey Graham goes on these,

you know, radio shows, what he actually believes he doesn't talk about. And instead he lies and he's a combination of scared of Trump. And two, he's just craving for power. And that's a real problem with the Lindsey Graham. When we see that guy, and it's not just Lindsey, Kevin McCarthy, all of the Republican leadership. I mean, the crazies like the Gates and the Marjorie Taylor Greene's and all of those, the reason they hate the McCarthy's is that the McCarthy's are phony. You know, they actually do hate Trump. But at the same time, you know, you have these really wicked, evil,

bizarro people like the Gates and Marjorie Taylor Greene's and Boebert's who will take power with the Trump. Third, I want to talk about Daniel Dale. But Brett, Jordy, any comment about Lindsey Graham? Yeah, I just want to say it's not even just the fecklessness of people like Lindsey Graham that gets me like, yes, he obviously at the time, you know, he was excited for President Biden to take power. He wanted off the Trump ride at the time. He even said so publicly on the House floor. I'm done. I'm done. If we all we all remember that speech. But what gets me about a lot of these leaked tapes is just how naive they really are.

Like Lindsey Graham at that point was saying, we will actually come out of this thing stronger. Moments like this reset. Kevin McCarthy, I think also at the time in those tapes, was says things to the effect of, well, this is going to be a breaking point moment for America and that people are going to start coming around. Like the fact that they didn't realize at the time that this was not ending on January 6th, if anything, this was just beginning on January 6th shows that these people really don't know what the hell that's going on, not even in their own party, and that they will just go whichever way the wind blows. That goes for all of these people, McCarthy, Graham, Cruz, you name it. They are all feckless. They're all naive and they're all weak-willed and will go any way the wind blows every single time. We need to start putting up missing signs all

across our neighborhoods for Lindsey Graham, Kevin McCarthy to the Ted Cruz's to find their fucking spine because they are spineless. And Jordy, maybe the January 6th committee could actually help them find their spine. Spoiler alert, they won't. But this is just breaking as we are recording this episode. The January 6th select committee has subpoenaed five Republican members of Congress, including Kevin McCarthy, also Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, M.O. Brooks. When I look at these names, my first thought that comes to mind is how batshit crazy it is that Kevin McCarthy actually wanted Jim Jordan to sit on the January 6th Committee. Well, my message to Kevin would be,

guess what? Now you both get to be part of the January 6th committee. You know, this will probably not go anywhere. We've all seen the song and dance. They will probably evade the subpoenas. They will probably get contempt charges. We've all seen how this goes. But I'm actually thrilled to actually see the January 6th committee stepping up and issuing these subpoenas, because we had previously heard reporting that they might be afraid to because they were scared of what Republicans may or may not do if they took power. So I think this is an important step. And whenever they subpoena somebody, remember that usually means, if not always means, that they have the goods on these people. They know the information and they are calling them in to get clarification or to get them on the record. So this is a big step. We'll

be monitoring it. I'm sure there'll be a lot of new developments over the course of the next week or so about these subpoenas, but we had to make sure we at least touched on this incredible breaking news that is just coming out. Now, moving to the third ingredient, it is a chicken shit media. It is a corporate media. It is a big media that wants to both sides the issue and which props up democracy and apartheid as being basically the same thing. It props up democracy and fascism as the same exact thing. It props up Joe Biden as one candidate with ideas, and Donald Trump is just another candidate with ideas. They both just got ideas here, and it's both very normal. This is just politics. It's a race between Democrats and Republicans, one team against the other team.

And one of the things that this big media tries to do is it tries to attack activists. It tries to attack others who are trying to build media that tries to get out the truth and tries to parse commas and sentences to really like both sides the issue. And we saw this with Daniel Dale when Daniel Dale wrote, he spent a whole two days, not joking, two days, a month or two ago, going after Midas Touch, because Midas Touch said in a tweet that at the beginning, when Zelinsky came out, that Marjorie Taylor Greene didn't applaud for him, which is accurate. If you watch the tape, when Zelensky comes out, she was not applauding. She was not even clapping. Later in the speech, while looking at her phone, she touches her hand a few times. And Daniel Dale said that we were spreading disinformation by saying when Zelensky

appeared and everyone gave him a standing ovation, she didn't give applause. And so he was basically using when she touched her hands and looked like she was in disgust at Zelensky. And then by the way, every statement that she made after is that Ukraine should give up, Ukraine should surrender. Such a great point. All of the things that she said also reflected her disgust there. He wrote a pro Marjorie Taylor Greene story that she was applauding and attacked Midas touch. Here's the thing you have as a fact checker, what you decide to go and fact check is almost just as important as the content of the fact check itself. So if on the same day, Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't clap during one portion of a

speech and then claps later. And you make that the focus of your argument instead of the comments that Marjorie Taylor Greene made that day, saying that Ukraine is a puppet state of the Obama's and the Clinton's and a money laundering option. And didn't even talk about that. That right there is the distinction. Why aren't you fact checking those statements made by a person in power who is spreading lies that is going to get people killed? And here today comes back because, you know, we have all the Republicans making up all these lies about the abortion issue. Roe v. Wade lying through their teeth. The National Republican Senatorial Committee releasing a document that is just flat out lying about what Republicans are going to be doing. They're saying that they have no intention at all to put any limits on contraception, despite the fact that they've

already begun to put limits on contraception in many places. And even in Texas, they've taken some contraception off the shelves because they're afraid of being prosecuted, saying that they would never prosecute abortion providers, saying that they would never prosecute people who get abortions. Meanwhile, in Texas, we already saw a woman arrested for murder, later released, but we actually already saw this happening. But instead of fact-checking this document, he fact-checks things like President Biden saying, I reduced the federal deficit. In this case, Daniel Dale goes, not true, fact-check false. The federal deficit was actually going to go down anyway. So while it's true that President Biden did lower the federal deficit, it could have actually been that in the past there was no it was the opposite under Trump. It was like the most fiscally irresponsible president imaginable. And so

that was that one. And then the other that was one of his main focus. Let's attack Biden for reducing the deficit. And then, Ben, we got to go to next, though, the his tweets about Marsha Blackburn and her attacks on Griswold. Just tell people about Griswold and why this is so ridiculous. Well, yeah, I mean, you go to his tweet and he's saying that in 1965, Griswold decision ensured that married couples would have access to birth control under a privacy right analysis. And people were sounding the alarm and saying, Marsha Blackburn has criticized Griswold and called Griswold constitutionally unsound. Thus, people wouldn't have a right to birth control.

Now, some people incorrectly frame that as Marsha Blackburn proposed a plan that only married couples could have access to birth control and people who aren't married can't. But the point was a well-taken plan. It was a well-taken point, though, because under Marsha Blackburn's idea, nobody, nobody, married or unmarried, nobody should have birth control because they don't have a constitutional right to it under the Griswold decision. Yeah, basically, the states can make their own decisions and say, hey, we're not allowing birth control here. We're not allowing birth control there. That is what Marsha Blackburn

was saying. But what Daniel Dale does is he parses words and he goes, she never said anything about birth control. Yes, she might have called Griswold constitutionally unsound, but it's not very clear what her contraception policy is. It's like, why, like, why are you, why is that your focus on this issue here? It's just, it's so mind blowing. And he writes, so he does the same plan. Like he picks on someone who writes something like that, where he parses a comma, then he does a tweet about it. And then he does a story about it. And this has been his big focus while While the world's been focused on Republicans killing women, Republicans attacking women, Republican male governors putting their hands inside women's bodies and being the judge, jury, and arbiter of what women can do with their bodies,

Daniel Dale, the fact checkers parsing commas. It's so irrational and it makes me so angry because it is part of this both sides-ism that corrodes the overall political discourse. And when you're in a position of power like that, Brett, to your point, you have to decide who's your target of the fact checks. You're targeting people who are alarmed, who are frightened and scared about people saying horrible things they want to do to women. And so, yeah, maybe they get a comma wrong. Maybe they slightly misconstrue what the Griswold decision is. But you're attacking the activist who wants to help the women rather than the Republicans who are taking away women's rights and then who are lying about what they are doing. You're not fact-checking the big lies.

You're fact-checking the small lies. And that's the point of the big lie. And that's why when you go back in time and history and you go to like Goebbels in Nazi, when they talk about the term of the big lie, they go, tell a small lie, the fact checkers will come out and try to parse through it. But you tell a big lie and what happens? Oh, that's way too much work. I got to, you know, I got to, how do I deal? I got to really work hard to dismantle all this craziness. I don't want to deal with that. Let me just go after this one Twitter user and I'll make my story. No, seriously. Dale's on record doing that with Trump rallies. He said, I'm not going to fact check this. Wait, wait, wait, wait. And by the way, before we move off this one, I just want to add,

this is why people are leaving CNN in droves. I'm very hopeful that people are seeing through this nonsense. This is why CNN and Plus just failed miserably, total flop. And reporters like Daniel Dale just give such a disdain towards a both sides-ism that people are so sick of. My favorite thing is that people tag us now in every fact check. Like with the Biden one, they're like, you know, Greg, I'd be myself. You see this shit? You see what this guy's doing? Like Biden said he reduced the deficit and he did reduce the deficit, but not enough for Daniel Dale. So Daniel Dale said fact check wrong. Like you seeing this? And then look at, you know, people like, you know, Daniel Dale, he's one of the good guys. Okay. He did a good fact check or two, you know, in the, in the election in 2020,

but you, you have to have a body of work. Like if I just rested on our laurels, Hey, we did a great video in 2020. Um, so let me just do a bunch of stupid shit, you know, in 2021, 2022, 2023, but Hey, I did one good video in 2020. It's like an athlete who wins rookie of the year his first year and then you never hear of him anymore. But those are the ingredients of fascism broken down, the three ingredients. Let's talk briefly before we bring in Alexis McGill-Johnson. Let's just talk about the vote quickly to codify Roe v. Wade. Democrats and Schumer proposed a bill to codify Roe v. Wade.

Here's the thing. It requires 60 votes to pass. I think I want everyone to know that. It's not like if there was a majority vote wins or a 50-50 tiebreaker. Whatever Manchin did on this vote, it wouldn't have affected the outcome. It wouldn't have affected the outcome because it's not what's called a reconciliation that is deficit neutral, which is a made up concept in general, which I'm not going to go delve into because the whole concept of reconciliation is just like a bizarre, silly, weird thing that exists. I've talked about it in prior pods that you could basically just

have like a parliamentarian who nobody knows within the Senate who judges whether this is a cost neutral bill. And then even the cost neutral bills aren't cost neutral bill. Like it's all made up. So anyway, I won't, I won't even go there, but the bottom line is the, a bill like a Roe v. Wade to codify a substantive kind of right that doesn't involve money. So that requires 60 votes to get through the filibuster is the short of it. And so mansionchin did not vote to codify Roe v. Wade. So it failed 51 to 49. There's a lot of outrage about Manchin. Manchin said, I would have codified it if literally it just said, this bill supports Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade's the law of the land

and Casey is the law of the land. But the bill added some other protections, good protections, needed protections for women. But he said it didn't just say Roe v. Wade and Casey is the law of the land. He said, I would have supported that. So I do want to say that. And so what do you think about that? Do you think the tactical approach of putting this bill before the Senate this way was the right move? Do you think they should have just put, hey, we hereby codify Roe v., I would say, I think it is a good thing to get people on the record for this, but I think it's also important that it's messaged as such that this bill is going to fail. Let's be clear about that. And let's be clear, hey, even if we had 57 senators, 58 senators, 59 senators on board, this bill is destined to fail, but let's get people on the record about it so that

when we go to the polls in November, we know what people stand for. And I think you really just have to make sure that people understand that. And I think with the convoluted way that our process works and with the reconciliation process that you were speaking about and the way the media works, I'm not sure that that message always gets to everybody. And what I fear sometimes is at the end of the day, what people see is, oh, Democrats failed again, a fucking mansion. And people get all upset and all pissed off and they go, why should I even try? Look, the Democrats can't even get this done. Look, they have the they have the majority. Why can't they even pass this? I think the other thing, which maybe was a misstep, maybe wasn't a misstep, I don't know. And I leave this to the people in the comments and the people

listening to this to decide. And it was the point you touched on before. And it was the point of Manchin's criticism, which is if your entire goal here is to get people on the record, maybe it's best to not make this bill about anything else whatsoever. And maybe literally, Ben, like you said, maybe all it is, is this is a bill to codify Roe v. Wade and Casey into law, period, end of story. That's it, nothing else. That way you can't have people like Manchin, you can't have people like Susan Collins and Murkowski weaseling their way out of it. Because if your goal is to get them on the record, you just gave them an out to say, oh, well, I would have codified it. But in fact, it had this other stuff. And because it had this other stuff, you know, that's why. And so at the end of the

day, they kind of feel like they've absolved themselves from that record that you were trying to get them on, you know what I'm saying? And so like a part of me thinks like if we had, say we have 60 votes, you put in those protections, right? Like you make sure those protections are in there because those protections are attacking the draconian laws that are already going on in a world with Roe v. Wade in states like Texas, in states like Missouri, in states like Florida, Idaho, you name it. That's what those other provisions we're going after. They're incredibly important. But if this is, we need to get people on the record about this specific thing, I think it's often best. Don't even give anybody any wiggle room whatsoever because it muddies the message

that you're ultimately trying to send. I agree with what you're saying, Ben. I'm pretty interested too in hearing from our listeners and our audience to see what they and how they feel about it. I think the one good thing about putting folks on the record is if you didn't have that vote yesterday, you never get that video of Manchin saying, if this vote was strictly to codify Roe, I would vote yes. So that's what that does. I also don't think people are so politically in the weeds as much as we are, as much as our very astute listeners are, knowing that it was a 60 vote margin that we actually needed. That, Brett, to your point, gives people the out to blame Democrats when we do things like this, when we try and put people on record, when it's a 51-49 decision, say, damn it, Democrats. But meanwhile, we needed that 60

at the end of the day. So this ultimately, I think putting people on record was a good decision. And by the way, say we gained five seats in the Senate in November, say we had like 55 senators, that still wouldn't be enough, that still wouldn't be enough to codify Roe. And so I think we need to make sure it's clear how the Senate is set up to actually prevent legislation from going forward. And unless you actually have people on the other side and in this political environment, we never will. These bills are not going to pass. It's just straight up. That's the reality. You can't really slice it any other way. I think the person who is probably most exposed here or the people

who are most exposed here were probably, in addition to Manchin, people like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who have expressed constantly how important it is for them. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land and how they spoke about how, oh, Kavanaugh, he would never vote against Roe and defended all these Supreme Court justices. And then during this time period, we see people like Susan Collins complaining more about chalk written on the sidewalk near her home on her block with a very nice message that said something like, please, Susan, protect our rights or something to that effect. She has more of a problem with that than the laws that are going around around the country and the actual striking down about Roe v. Wade. And so that's kind of the

record that I care about. These people have shown their true colors. But at the end of the day, we knew their true colors all along. This just solidified it. That's why politicians, though, are just so out of touch, particularly the Susan Collins ilk of the world. I mean, the fact that the chalk frightened her and that intruded on her domestic tranquility in her home. Meanwhile, because of her actions, she's just jeopardized the lives of millions and millions of women and put them in the worst, most frightening decisions they're ever going to have to make in their lives.

And so she gets upset about chalk. And meanwhile, her very actions have so, so harmed women and then the other policies so harmed human beings in general. And she's fearful of chalk. One last comment. That's the Republican playbook, Ben. That's the Republican playbook. Let me be upset about chalk and not what's happening to women across the country. Let me be upset about the opinion that leaked. Let me be upset about the leak and not the physical opinion itself. That's the Republican playbook. One last opinion about mansion and a very unpopular opinion though, that I'm about to express. And cause I know the comments are, you know, so, you know, it's very easy to hate on mansion. And I understand the instinct to do that. I would just say this. Manchin has consistently voted for every judge

that Joe Biden has put before the Senate, including Katonji Brown Jackson. Without Joe Manchin as a Democrat, you will not have Katonji Brown Jackson as a Supreme Court justice, nor will you have any of the other federal judges that Biden has appointed. He's voted for every single one, and the Republicans have essentially voted against every single one. So if you want to know where the difference is, the difference truly is the Roe v. Wade decision. Manchin would appoint a judge who would uphold Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. Republicans wouldn't. And I would just caution, if you push Manchin out of the party, you will have Mitch McConnell as your Senate majority leader. And I think that the better strategy here is to make the voice of the mansion less relevant

to irrelevant by electing more Democrats versus implementing a counterproductive strategy that allows Republicans to take control of the Senate. And you know where that leads. Brett, Jordy, I want to bring in your interview now with Alexis McGill Johnson. This interview was recorded the other day. I was not here. So it's just you two. So I will be interested to watch what y'all talk about. And then I have to run to court, Brett and Jordy. But when you come back, I do want you to hit a lawyer. Look at you. I do want you to hit on if you can briefly when we get back though, for our listeners, the Tesla stock freefall, and that that raises some questions because a lot of Elon Musk's

bid is based on the Tesla stock performing well. And Elon Musk has said things over the past days too, like I'm not even the owner of Twitter yet. I'm not even the owner of it yet. Things that seem to be hedging and also talk about just the judge striking down the unconstitutional gerrymandering law in Florida. Florida has an anti-political gerrymandering, can't gerrymander for political reasons. And DeSantis put forward the most political gerrymandered map and the state has in their constitution. Back when politics was slightly more normal, they both did a provision that said you can't do it. And not only did he do it, he did the most extreme version of it. So talk about that. Bring in Alexis McGill-Johnson and let's talk more in a bit. We'll be right back after these messages. If you've been on YouTube or Facebook, then we can guarantee you've seen a video from our friend

Brian Tyler Cohen. But what you might not know is Brian also hosts one of the country's top ranked political podcasts. It's called No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, where he breaks down the biggest stories of the week and interviews the biggest names in politics. Are you ready for this list right here? Because it's about to get crazy. He sat down with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Katie Porter, Jamie Raskin, Pete Buttigieg, Nancy Pelosi,

and on and on and on. I mean, when we say big names, it really doesn't get bigger than this. I mean, the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, come on. So check out No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen and see why he has more than two million subscribers across the social media

platforms and why his videos have been viewed more than a billion times. It's a political podcast that cuts right to the point, focuses on the issues that you care about, and is a destination for our leaders in the House, the Senate, and the White House. That's No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, and it's available anywhere you listen to podcasts. And welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Today, we are absolutely honored, honored to be joined by Alexis McGill-Johnson. Alexis is the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood and president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Alexis, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. It's truly such an honor. And first, I need to ask you the question that is on everybody's mind right now. So our brother Ben is noticeably absent right now. He's got another job as an

attorney, and sometimes he actually has to pretend like he does work or something like that. But I learned that you actually used to be Ben's boss back in 2004. In what capacity did you guys work together? Way back in the day, some of your listeners might remember the Voter Die campaign that Sean Diddy, Puffy, Brother Love, Combs launched an organization, Citizen Change, and I was the campaign director. I led Citizen Change. And Ben, technically, I think he worked for Puff, but really had responsibilities to all of us. So we used him however we could. And he always showed up with a smile. He's very eager. He always wanted to learn, make connections. He's a good hustler. Well, as the youngest brother of the three, I just get great satisfaction just thinking about

you guys bossing Ben around every day, making sure that he's getting the cheesecake, making sure he's picking up the food. So thank you for that visual memory. He earned it. I will tell you. All right. Well, let's get into the serious stuff. We have a lot to talk about and why you're truly here is not to speak about Ben, but as much as we love him. But let's go back to the evening of May 2nd, 2022, when that Politico article was released that shook the core of the nation, leaking a draft opinion from the Supreme Court, showing a vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, 50 years of precedent. I know you had been preparing for this moment for a long time, but what was it like when you heard that news? I mean, I think like everybody in the space, I happened to just be on with a friend of mine really talking about the fact that this was coming and getting my personal life in order so I could get on the road and start traveling differently, getting my daughter situated. And the news just

came across our phones while we were literally having the conversation. And so what I will say is that it was shocking, right? I mean, it was horrifying. We both broke into tears just thinking about what it would mean for our daughters, you know, and so many others in this country. And at the same time, it wasn't surprising. Right. If you had listened to the oral arguments in December, if you've been following the kind of remake of the federal judiciary and including the Supreme Court and the number of cases that were making their way up to the Supreme Court, you knew the day would come. You just didn't know exactly how you would process it. And it has been, you know, I can't believe it's actually only been a week, right? But it has still been that deep processing and that shock and

helping people still find, you know, hope in a moment that we know is actually going to be incredibly dark. And I'm sure, as you said, looking through all the discussions about it, you knew that this was coming. So what actions had you kind of already taken at Planned Parenthood to prepare for this decision? Obviously, you didn't know that it would leak in advance, but what sort of actions had you taken in advance of the decision to prepare? Yeah. Like I like to say, we're professional scenario planners at Planned Parenthood because so much is happening over the last decade and a half in particular, the number of restrictions that come up, you have to pivot, you have to make sure that you can get

care to people. So on the care side, you know, we have had a future of abortion kind of access planning work going on for several years, working with Planned Parenthood affiliates, with independent providers, with abortion funds to coordinate where we, you know, we knew what the map would look like. There are 10 to 12 states that have kind of trigger laws or new laws on the books that are, will move very quickly. And we know that there are 26 states in total that are likely to move within the next 12 to 18 months. So we knew what the landscape looked like. The provider piece, I think, is something that we have been uber-focused on as a healthcare provider. But on the movement side, too, we've been engaged in conversations. This draft decision coming down, again,

is not a surprise because we are nine months into SB8 in Texas, which has effectively rendered Roe meaningless. And so we've learned a lot in terms of insights and also what it means to mobilize people in this moment and to see the energy come out. And one of the ways that Democrats have taken action here and politicians have taken action is we saw a vote today on the Women's Health Protection Act. And this vote is going to fail as expected. We're seeing swing votes like Manchin, Collins, and Murkowski voting against it. And the excuse that people are using who are voting against it, they try to weasel out of it and say that the bill goes beyond codification because it also

targets the prohibitive and restrictive laws that you were just talking about in these red states. Do you think that in making the legislation broader to go after those restrictive laws, do you think we gave those bad actors an out here? Strategically, should we just have said, codify Roe v. Wade, that's it, move on? Or was it just inevitable and we should just fight for those values anyway? Look, the only thing that actually codifies our equality is the Constitution. And even having the right in the Constitution has not meant that people have equal access. Because these restrictions exist, because we've had these targeted restrictions specifically against abortion providers, we've had to jump through hoops just to provide the care that people are asking or seeking, means that we didn't have a full right in, you know, essentially to get this care. So I think what this vote does is it puts people on record, right? This is the second time they've had to take this vote. The first time was in

earlier this year, around the row anniversary when the leader brought it to the floor. And we saw, you know, a number of, you know, of senators, you know, openly, you know, make these same objections. And I think also perhaps thought it wasn't going to be so bad, we would end up with a draft opinion or opinion, not a draft, an opinion that was something closer to 15 weeks. And we also now have this moment where we know where the court wants to go, right? We see it playing and it's an opportunity to demonstrate leadership. And the fact that we are going to have so many people, every single senator on the record who could do something about this right now, not choosing to support people in this moment, you know, I think is a powerful organizing tool.

It's a powerful way to explain to people why they can't have what they want in their states. In a weird way, do you think the fact that this leaked was actually kind of helpful in allowing us to mobilize and prepare for what seems like an inevitable decision? Yeah. I mean, look, I think it is for us, it's been incredibly helpful because like a month ago, two weeks ago, we were worried about what we've been calling the believability gap, right? Which is the idea that 80% of Americans believe that Roe should be the law of the land. And yet only 30% of Americans actually thought that Roe would get overturned, even with these restrictions, right? Even with Texas, even with Oklahoma,

moving quickly, Idaho, these bands that have cropped up in Florida and Arizona, like these bands have been moving state by state. We are living in one of the largest states in the South has basically no access to abortion. People still didn't believe Roe would be overturned. So to see it come down to seeing be written and argued in such a way by Alito, it really does give people the clarity that, wow, I've held this constitutional right for 49 years. And now I may lose it and my children may lose it. And what kind of world are we living in where we're actually taking rights away from people? Were you disturbed at all by the language that was used in that piece? I mean, the phrase that is still haunting me is domestic supply of infants is one of them. And then also Justice Alito writing about using as the basis for it, a 17th century British jurist who basically accused

women of being witches and sentenced them to death for witchcraft. And so with that as the basis of the argument, like what were you thinking when you were reading this decision? I mean, you know, and also the addition of Plessy versus Ferguson, right? I mean, just like all of the ways in which they were mimicking opposition talking points, right? Not necessarily reasoned legal analysis, I thought was really challenging for me. You know, we have, you know, again, a right that has been codified in the Constitution to say that, you know, the Constitution never talked about abortion. Like, no, it didn't. But they also didn't talk about women. Black people weren't in the Constitution either in the beginning, right? So like the very idea that

these are, you know, solid reasonings for, you know, for why we can't have this conversation with this interpretation of the law, like that to me just seems to be, you know, highly irresponsible and really challenging to hear. So given the failed vote of the Women's Health Protection Act, is there anything else that can be done at the federal level right now? Or does this battle now move on to state houses across the country? This is a state byby-state fight right now, right? What we can do essentially on a national level is make sure that people understand who is not in their corner and show up in November to engage. Before they show up in November, they will be showing up in state houses. We know that, again, many states are moving and poised to pass similar legislation to Texas or to Florida or to Mississippi.

And we will start to see those, you know, those states fall in terms of acts to abortion. Some states are going to go even further. Right. We saw, you know, Missouri consider a ban on abortion for ectopic pregnancy, which is like ridiculous. You know, fetus dies or the mother dies. Like there's no other way to kind of address such a pregnancy challenge, you know, or the same state saying, you know, we will ban you from traveling across our state lines in order to get access to abortion. We we'll just imprison you in state. Like, what does that mean? And I say, I single out Missouri because Missouri actually, their state health commissioner was tracking Planned Parenthood patient periods for a period of time to figure out whether

or not the patients were carrying their pregnancies to term. So like the level of authoritarianism that's happening right now in states, in a state like Missouri, like that is the kind of insanity that we need to expose over the next few months. So people really understand that, you know, the fight is at their doorstep and we will be mobilizing folks from, you know, from now with this leaked opinion all the way through the midterms and beyond, because it's clear what the opposition wants. That is so horrifying to hear that they were tracking such personal information. I mean, it's the complete antithesis of small government. I can't

even fathom it. How do they even get that information to track? How do they have that data on people? Well, I mean, you're a state regulator, right? So you're able to subpoena what you want, the information that you need. Horrifying. Right. But that is horrifying. It is crazy. And I think in some ways, the draft opinion is alarming, but I think the overreach is even more alarming. And I think that's what people will react to exactly what you said, Brett, the idea that, you know, this is, this is about power and control. This is about, you know, do you really want your politicians interfering in your medical decisions? And that is essentially what this ruling will do. If it is in fact true that the court is poised to

overturn Roe, it means that some people will live in states where politicians are allowed to tell you what to do with your body and your medical procedures. And some people live in states where they are free. And at its core, like you said, it goes beyond even the issue at hand. It goes even beyond abortion. This is basically a dagger in the heart of the right to privacy of Americans in general. So what does that mean even beyond the abortion fight for Americans? Absolutely. And I'm glad you brought that up because it does mean, right, that there are a number of other rights that we hold dear in this country, recently fought rights that perhaps not as old as, actually older, some of them are older than Roe, where, you know, things like marriage equality, things like whether or not you can marry interracially, things like, you know,

whether or not you have access to your contraception, right? I mean, we have AGs on the right who've openly questioned whether or not Griswold was correctly decided. And Griswold predates all of us, right? But that's basically when our moms wanted contraception, they had to ask our dads for permission to get the prescription. Doctor would have to get the permission from the husband in order for the mom to get. So like, we can't go back to a world where we're asking our partners

whether or not we can do what we believe is essential for our bodies, our right to plan, whether or not we will become pregnant. That's the kind of extremity that people are openly talking about now. And so we're clear that that is part of part of the broader agenda. I think they're already forecasting it. And I find that abortion rights are constantly framed as a women's issue. And of course, this is an issue that affects women on such an intimate level, but this is something that affects all Americans. So why, what would be your message be to the men out there, to just other people out there who are saying, well, why should I care? This isn't about me.

If someone is forced into a pregnancy in your life, or if someone is your partner that is forced into a pregnancy in your life, it is your issue, right? It is your child's issue. It is your sister's issue. It is your, you know, parents issue, like all of the ways in which if you as a man believe in equality, if you believe that you trust us to make decisions about our own bodies, if you believe that, you know, that the government should not be in your decisions to get medical care, if you choose to get, you know, you know, heart procedure or vasectomy, whatever it is, the government should not be able to tell you whether or not you could do that. And I think that that is, that is an interest in all of us, right? It's really, it's about privacy and it's also about equality.

And now I was going to save this question for my last question, but I want to bring it up here because it's kind of a build on what we were just talking about. You know, we had Mary Trump on the show and I asked her, what does allyship look like? Like, what does that look like? And I don't think there's one answer to that in particular. And so, Alexis, to you, in your mind, what is a good ally represent and how can someone be a good ally? You know, it really is about how people use their voice courageously, even when, you know, to really align with their values, even when they know it may not be popular. So I think about some of the corporations right now, you know, like there have been corporations who've come out incredibly boldly to protect their employees, right? This is

an issue that will affect, you know, to Brad's point, 100% potentially of their employees or a good percentage of them, but at minimum 50% of the working force, right? Access to abortion, just as access to birth control has really created an ability for us to plan when we become parents and how that aligns with our, you know, our corporate, you know, our career trajectory. So it matters, right, that corporations who may see this as too polarizing or too divisive to touch weigh in with their voices, even when it is unpopular. To me, that is allyship. Brian Moynihan of Bank of America saying, Roe is settled law. That means a lot. When you have, you know, other organizations in movements that are adjacent, right, are people who understand that they may be coming for abortion rights now, but they will be coming

for marriage equality next. They are already coming for trans rights, you know, now. They will be coming for, you know, additional racial justice issues and that these all intersect because they are fundamentally at the heart of all of our movements is freedom, right? It is about the ability to live free lives and to engage in self-determination, the life that I want to live, right? And the fact that we want people to trust us to make these decisions. And so I think that, you know, being an ally means, you know, stepping up courageously and really knowing that even though it is not popular, you know, it is right. And it is incredibly important for you to do so. And in preparation for this interview,

I've watched all your most recent media hits and it's just so awesome seeing you out there. I mean, you really speak and hold truth to power. I worry that when you're not speaking, when, when you don't have the mic, these other networks out there, they're more focused on the fact that the opinion leaked than the opinion itself. So by and large, how do you think the mainstream media has done good job or bad job covering Roe? Well, look, like I said, a week ago, two weeks ago, I was worried about the believability gap. Would people actually believe this guy was going to fall in a couple of in a couple of weeks, like we were trying to close that the media reporting on this clearly has closed that gap. You know, I would also say I spent 10

years on a certain network as a as a pundit. And as someone who, you know, was a solid democratic strategist having unpopular conversations. So I'm not surprised that the pivot to the leak becomes the more important story because that's a distraction. They don't want to talk about what's the opinion. They know it's not popular. They know that, you know, state after state accessing, protecting Roe as the law of the land is incredibly popular. People don't want politicians in their business. They don't want them in their exam rooms and they can't justify that. So like, why not focus on the leak and the, you know, house of cards, like Supreme court style. Cause that's so much more fun and intriguing than actually digging in deep of like, what is the impact when someone no longer has access

to, to make this decision? I'll tell you what it's like. It's like somebody who, you know, has to take off work for three days, has to it's like. It's like somebody who, you know, has to take off work for three days, has to get in a car and drive a thousand miles, has to find childcare because most people who are accessing abortion care are already parents. It means they've got to find a way to, you know, to spend gas money.

You know, they've got to find a place to stay. They've got to do all of these things just to seek access to care that they should be able to get down the street and, you know, go right back to work. And so, like, that's what they should be talking about, particularly to their constituents. But I know they don't want to do it because they know it's not popular. And that's such an excellent point. I feel like it's almost like watching some of these stations.

I won't name them specifically here, but just watching some of them, it's like they're talking about the NBA playoffs. And it's like, no, this is a real situation with real lives that are at stake. And you're making this out to be some sort of game for viewership. And it's just, to me, it's incredibly frustrating. And I bet many others, it's incredibly frustrating as well. So my last question for you, I mean, we're talking about the craziness all over the country, Missouri specifically. There are a lot of prominent

figures out there who label themselves as Democrats or even progressive who say, you know what, why vote Democrat anymore? Like if this is ultimately what's going to happen, why should I even vote? And there's been a lot of, you know, for lack of a better term, just downers out there that are putting sort of a cloud on the midterms at a moment when I think people need to be really riled up and more focused than ever. What would you say to those people? You know, I think it's a great question. And we are a nonpartisan organization, but we know who stands with our with our rights. The other big story last week wasn't just the Supreme Court leak. It was the fact that people who oppose

abortion rights were announcing their long-term plan to have a nationwide six-week ban, right, to basically turn every state into Texas, which should scare all of us. And Mitch McConnell said if he became majority leader again, he would indeed support that six-week ban. So, you know, it's never been more critical now to even if you live in a blue state, you know, like I do, right? Or even if you live in a place that is comfortable and you are comfortable moving around, the idea that they have forecast their playbook should scare the bejesus out of you and it should scare you to scare every, and it should make you want to talk about it with all of your friends and family, because this isn't just about, you know, people who live in red States or people who don't have a lot of resources for whom, you know, this is going to be a heavy burden. We know it

will be right. It's going to impact black and brown communities, low income communities much more harshly than it will other communities. But it means that when they have power, they will wield it. And we have seen them do it. And that means that it will be coming to a state near you. And we should be terrified about that. And Alexis, now we're seeing all this feigned outrage from right wing media pundits over people peacefully protesting the court's decision. We see people calling them violent mobs when I've just seen candlelit vigils and very nice, peaceful protests. I got to assume that this frustrates you perhaps more than anybody due to the violence that

Planned Parenthood facilities have witnessed throughout the years. I was wondering if you could just share some of the stories about the actual violence that Planned Parenthood has been victim to over these past few years, few decades. Yeah. I mean, look, I don't even have to go back decades. I can tell you just in the last four or five months, we've had a health center burned down in Tennessee. We've had Molotov cocktails thrown at a health center in California. We've routinely had patients and providers harassed on their way into clinics. With SB8, it has just empowered the worst, enabled the worst behavior, the surveillance, taking pictures. Now that everybody's got a phone, you know, enabled the worst behavior, the surveillance, you know, taking pictures, you know, now that everybody's got a phone can take a picture of your license

tag and track it, face recognition, you know, the ways in which the attacks have gotten more sophisticated, the ways in which you have people like the Oklahoma governor joking about using their state troopers to enforce, you know, criminal activity, people seeking access to abortion and coming from Texas as a joke. It just it's it's it's really alarming. So, you know, you have a couple of protesters outside, peaceful protesters outside of your house. You know, this is what Planned Parenthood clinics and other independent providers have been experiencing for decades, all the way up, including, you know, you know, the killing of abortion providers, providers like George Tiller. So, you know, these words, I think this is something we were incredibly concerned about during the last administration, you know, that that people say, oh, it's just words or it's just rhetoric. We shouldn't believe people. But when you start to create that level of of incitement, you're also you know, there are also the protesters outside of our clinic, and I think they are definitely far less peaceful than what many of these justices are experiencing right now. And, you know, on our show, Alexis, we don't only speak about the problems that we're facing, but we try to also speak about solutions and way that we can organize and way that we can overcome

these problems. And I heard that you are organizing a big rally this weekend. I would love to just find out more information. And I want our viewers and listeners to know how they could be involved, whether they're near one of these rallies or if they could be helpful at all from the comfort of their homes. Absolutely. So you can go to bandsoff.org in order to find information about the rallies. There will be 200 rallies across the country. We've seen 100,000 RSVPs in LA, 50,000 RSVPs in New York, and so many more in between. So there will be one near you if you can get on Saturday, May 14th to rally just to engage with folks and, you know, show the momentum, right? Show elected officials that you desire change and that you will be holding them accountable.

You know, for people who are seeking care, right? Abortion is still legal right now in this country, even though there are a number of restrictions in many states. So we have abortionfinder.org for people who are seeking care. You can donate to local health centers. You can donate to independent abortion providers through keepourclinics.org. You can support people with just the funds that they need through the National Network of Abortion Funds. There's so many different ways for you to get involved, whether you want to support people getting care or you want to, you know, fight to make sure that they, that we can keep the care.

All of it is important. Every little bit matters. And this is going to be a defining issue, you know, for our lifetime. I guess I just add here, right. That I'm, you know, I'm, I was born in 1972. So I'm like as old as Roe. And I think I would never have thought that this was going to be the fight and the mantle that I would have to take up. The fact that generations before us made sure that we could

secure our futures and our freedoms. And we are going so far backwards that I'm going to have to do it now for my two daughters. It's really, really insane to be here. It's insane, but we're certainly so incredibly lucky to have you in this fight and to have you leading this charge through all of this. Is there anything that leaves you feeling hopeful right now? I don't have hope for the court. And I think that we got to keep our hope grounded in our reality, because that's the foundation that gives us the best place for resistance. So my hope is for the resistance. I think that we have an incredible movement that has just been ready to, you know, ready to move. And I think this last week we saw the increase in action. We saw the increase in engagement. And that gives me a lot of hope about the momentum we're going to have to sustain because it's going to be a long game to get back into the constitution if we get kicked out. This is something that Ben does often at the end of our interviews. So in tradition, I need to

play the role of Ben here and say, is there anything that you've been wanting to get off your chest throughout all these interviews? Any questions that you haven't been asked that you've been dying to answer to get some information out there? I'll cede the floor to you for the final word here. Oh my goodness. No, look, I think our message is clear. We need everybody engaged in this fight right now. This is not a time to stand down. It's not a time to stand by. This is going to impact, you know, so many futures. And I think it's just really critical that you find your place in the movement, find your place somewhere. Sometimes you find a fight, you know, that you just want in on. And I think this is a good one. And I think it's a great leadership opportunity for anybody who wants to jump in. Alexis McGill-Johnson, thank you so much

for joining us. And a message to our listeners, please, please join the fight, support Planned Parenthood, donate what you can, go to bandsoff.org, find out how you can get involved in these protests. This is your moment to show your voice, to show that we have strength in numbers. Alexis McGill-Johnson, thank you so much. Truly humbled and honored to have you on the Midas Touch podcast today. Thank you for having me. Good to see you. So good to see you. And we will be right back after this. For the most important news of the day Massive news dump

Handwritten contemporaneous notes The treasury needs to hand over Trump's taxes With the most compelling interviews Please welcome Congressman Adam Schiff Molly John Fast Mike McFaul Andrew Weissman Barb McQuaid

Glenn Kirshner Colonel Alexander Vindman Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch And all the appropriate profanity Lawsuit to block that sh**. Captain Douche. Bullsh**. Immigration executive order. Anyone that's stupid should just not be in Congress. Renowned cowardly f***** face Kevin McCarthy. The leader of the douche creed. Even Mary Trump agrees. Join this binder full of women curating the news from the left

with appropriate f***** profanity. Listen weekday mornings to The Daily Beans. Left-leaning news from a woman's perspective. We make the news bearable by making it swearable. So put some beans on it with Dana Goldberg, Amy Carrero, and me, Alison Gill. And who doesn't f***ing like that? And welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. I mean, come on, what an interview. What a special interview. How amazing is Alexis McGill-Johnson? She is unbelievable. And candidly, before we even started the interview, I didn't know that Ben used to intern for

her. I had no idea. I really didn't know before we started. No, you guys kept that from me. It's such a small world. It's really so wild. And I was getting emotional speaking with her. We spoke to her a little after too, and I was just like,

I'm so thankful for you. And I truly am because Planned Parenthood has been, you know, on the front lines of this fight for so long. And they've been the victim of so much violence and hatred and really have had to deal with it all. And so, you know, I'm just so grateful for Alexis's work there. And I hope everybody can go to bands off.org and check out those rallies that are near them. I mean, they're doing them all around the country. So if you could find a way to get involved, you know, as a reminder, we are going to be donating half of all the donations. If you're watching this on YouTube right now, if you do one of those super chats and chip in, we're giving half of all that money straight to Planned Parenthood tonight. So chip in, help us support the cause, help keep our show going. And once again, thank you to Alexa McGill-Johnson and just

damn, I mean, to have a guest of that caliber on this show. Such a warrior. It's such, such, such a warrior. Let's get into some other topics. Tesla, man, this whole Tesla thing is really- Getting musky in here. It's getting into some other topics. Tesla, man, this whole Tesla thing is getting musky in here. It's getting musky in here. Let me say this. Here's the thing that kind of pisses me off sometimes about like Twitter activists when they like talk about stocks and things like that. Like a stock will go down for like one day and people will be like the company's in free fall. It went down 5%. Look, they just lost $3 billion in value. And I'm like, yo, it's one day. I understand you're getting your dig at somebody. They show the screen grab.

They show the screen grab. With the red. It's like, all right, all right. Come on. Actually show it over an extended period. Let's show it an extended period of time. Not just an hour. But the reason why Tesla is in peril, the Tesla stock, is because if you look at it, not only over a one-day period, but over an extended period of time, it's been getting crushed, like absolutely crushed. In the past five days, it's lost around 15% of its value. In the past month, it's lost nearly 24% of its value.

Past six months, 26%. Year to date, it's lost almost 40% of its value. And the reason why this is important is because Elon Musk has leveraged this Tesla stock in order to take out the money needed to purchase Twitter. So the more that these Tesla stock, the more that the Tesla stock goes down, the less likely it is for his Twitter purchase to actually go through. And we've now seen there are a couple actual SEC investigations into Musk's purchase of the Twitter stock, saying he did not file the appropriate disclosures in time. Then we've also started to see Elon Musk kind of hedging

his bets on Twitter. I think that's been the weirdest thing, Brett. Remember that clip the other day? And we could play this stuff. Remember the clip of, let's play it. So Elon Musk basically was asked, would you put Trump back on the platform? And he ultimately said, yes. And let's play that. I guess the answer is that I would reverse the perma ban. I would say I'm not, I don't own Twitter yet. So this is not like a thing that will definitely happen because what if I don't own Twitter? But my opinion and Jack Dorsey, I want to be clear, shares this opinion is that we should not have perma bans. So I think he said a few interesting things there, Jordi. He said, first, he obviously said he'd let Trump back on Twitter, which sent everybody into like a tizzy. Everybody was like- By the way, Jack Dorsey agrees with that move. I saw an Axios story about that. I

felt that was quite interesting as well. Well, it's part of like the whole thing. It's like Jack Dorsey's not a normal person. Like most of these, like Zuckerberg is not a normal person. How could they be too? The people who run these social media platforms are by and large weirdos. Like Elon Musk is not going to be the first weirdo if this does go through to own a social media platform. Like they're all wacky and weird. And if you really go through every single platform and you go, oh, well, I'm not using it. If that person, like, you're going to have a hard time because the people in charge of most of the products that you use are pretty wacky and crazy. But my takeaway from that was more that he was

hedging his bets on even owning Twitter to begin with. Like,, I'm not the owner yet, so this might not even happen. But if I was, I would. And I started seeing him in interviews kind of using that phrasing, which is a lot less confident than he was a week or two ago. So we don't know where this thing is going to go, but we know that the more that Tesla stock is hammered, like it's been hammered, it's clear that the investors in Tesla don't like him leveraging the company to buy Twitter. And the chances of him owning Twitter are less and less kind of by the day. And you can even tell by his Twitter persona too, that he's definitely calmed down a little bit. I mean, the new story of him saying that he would allow Trump that obviously broke through the clutter, but he's been relatively quiet on Twitter as far as Elon

Musk goes. And he's also been pushing back in a weird way against people like the New York Post and people who will write stories about him to try to tie him to Trump more. He's like, I never had that conversation with Devin Nunes. The New York Post published a story saying that Elon was talking to Devin Nunes about truth social and getting Trump back on the platform. And Elon was like, no, that never happened. And by the way, for those who don't know, the New York Post is a Murdoch shell. Yeah. Yeah. It's a Murdoch paper. So it's like a Trump pushed message. And so, you know, I thought that was interesting, but, you know, we will see what happens there. It'll be interesting to, you know, to see what happens. But I mean, with the way this Tesla stock is going, it's

almost like, how does it close if it continues at this rate? And now we're starting to hear through the grapevine a little bit that Elon is going to try to even lower his bid now because his stock has been hammered and Twitter stock has gone down since he made his initial bid. So I think this thing might get a little messy just in general. Regardless of what happens, it seems like it's already starting to get pretty messy. Next thing I want to hit on is Ron Death Santus in Florida. Ben touched on this earlier. He released, you know, this is like one of these examples. Ben was talking about fascism earlier, the ingredients of fascism. And part of the ingredients of fascism is not having any beliefs of your own and ceding full authority and full power to a dictator.

And that's what Florida Republicans did here. They said, oh, we're not even going to draw these maps. Ron, take your pen. You go. You can do whatever you want. You're in charge, which isn't how these things work. And so DeSantis obviously submitted this extreme gerrymander for the state maps, which was just clearly racist. Like he just eliminated predominantly black districts, wiping out black representation just entirely and dispersing those votes into other districts where their voices just would not even be heard. And so, like Ben said, they have in the Florida Constitution, these anti-geramandering laws on these political and racial basis. So this made its way to a Florida court and the Florida court rejected this dissent map with the Leon County Circuit Judge Lane Smith saying, I'm finding that the enacted map is unconstitutional under the Fair District Amendment

because it diminishes African-Americans ability to elect the representative of this choice. So Smith is now expected to issue a formal order on this issue either today or tomorrow to ensure that these maps are not in effect during November's election. AP reports now will be huge if these maps are not in effect. But DeSantis is expected to bring this up to the Florida Supreme Court, which does lean heavily right wing. So we will have to see what happens there. But that's a big win on the gerrymandering front. And what we're seeing just across the country, really, you know, Florida was a bit of a scare. It seems like we're OK for now, but, you know, we're not out of the clear, certainly. But the maps are sort of a wash across the country. And if anything, Democrats have gained a little bit of ground.

So what I don't want anybody to do is I feel like people too often latch on to excuses of why even vote. The maps are gerrymandered. My vote isn't going to count. But the fact is, is that Democrats have just as good of a shot of winning now as we did in 2020, as we did in 2018, if not better. And so what we need to do is we need to turn out voters this election. This is going to be a turn out election. It's going to be,

have you called five friends and told them to get to the polls? Have you sent the text messages, the postcards, the letters? Have you picked up the phone, called your grandma, called your uncle? Have you talked to them about the stakes of the Roe v. Wade issue, about what Republicans are doing in regards to banning books, in regards to banning math textbooks for CRT, which has been proven to be completely bullshit? Like these Republicans are on an all out assault on our basic rights, our civil rights, and everything in between. And so it's important that we all step up and that we all actually put in the work to make it happen. If you do go to any of these protests this weekend, please send us photos. We would love to see you there marching side by side with the millions of other people who are going to be out there in the streets protesting the decision to overturn Roe

v. Wade and standing side by side with Planned Parenthood and all the rally goers. We'd love to see all those photos. So please tag us in them, share them with us. Jordy, do you have any final words before we kind of get on? The only thing I really want to say in the gerrymandering is I think people are finally hip to it. Like I think people all over the world are hip to the Republican playbook. And I mean, you've seen in Ohio, too. I think they've rejected the Ohio gerrymandered maps about three or four times now. So we're hip to this game and we just have to get out there and vote. Couldn't have said it better myself, Jordy. And I just want to do a huge thank you to all the listeners and viewers of the Midas Touch podcast. Remember to tell a friend, tell five friends, tell 10 friends, tell 20 friends

to tune into the Midas Touch podcast. Special thanks tell a friend, tell five friends, tell 10 friends, tell 20 friends to tune into the Midas Touch podcast. Special thanks to our guest, Alexis McGill Johnson. Make sure you listen to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Always support all the sponsors of our show. We are just so grateful

for every person who listens to the show. You are truly the engine who makes us going. Everybody who tweets at us, everybody who engages with us online. You make us laugh all day and you inspire us and show us that there are true democracy

fighters out there. That's what you are. You are a true fighter for democracy, and we would not be here without you. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. And we will see you same time on Monday for a new episode of the Midas Such podcast. Jordy, take us out. Shout out to the Midas Mighty!