The MeidasTouch Podcast - Rep. Tim Ryan Wants to Make Government Work

Episode Date: March 12, 2021

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) joins the MeidasTouch Brothers fresh off his viral speech on the House Floor to discuss how Democrats can make government work for the American people, while the GQP seeks to distract with Dr. Seuss and other culture war non-issues. The brothers also ask him the question on everyone’s mind: will the Democratic rising star run for Ohio’s open Senate seat in 2022? The brothers discuss Jordy’s #ThirstTrap photos on social media, the passage of the historic American Rescue Plan, and mock a certain sad, pathetic loser who is currently sitting alone, locked away in his Florida resort. Later, the brothers discuss GQP voter suppression efforts and round out the show with a brand new edition of the new fan-favorite segment ‘Hate Mail.’ Thank you for listening to the MeidasTouch Podcast! New episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday. Please share this podcast with a friend and rate us 5 stars on the Apple Podcasts app! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And make same-day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, Welcome to the Minus Touch Podcast. Ben Micellus here, joined by my younger brothers, Brett and Jordy Mycelis.

We have an incredible show for you today. Representative Tim Ryan, the working class hero from Ohio, who's been taking to the House floor, giving incredibly impassioned speech after speech, making it clear that the Democratic Party is the party of the people, is the party of the working class, is the heart and soul of America. Representative Tim Ryan will be joining the Midas Touch podcast today. Jordy, Brett, how are you two doing? I'm doing well. Fantastic. We always answer at the same time. I think going forward, Brett, you answer first and

then I'll answer second. All right. We'll get our system. We'll get our system set up. It sounds good. Tim Ryan, essential to the start of Midas Touch. Back in May, I think we released our Tim Ryan video, which went viral. I think the Republicans at that time did not want to give Americans $1,200 checks. That's what they were complaining about. And it was either Kushner or I'm so happy I'm forgetting their names. Who is the secretary? The finance guy? The treasury secretary?

I'm so happy that I'm blacking these people's names out. The guy is also a film producer. You got to look him up or I'm going to lose my mind on the show. But he basically said that Americans should be able to live on like twelve hundred dollars for an entire year. And so Tim Ryan was like, are you kidding me? What kind of bubble do you live in that you think the regular Americans could live on twelve hundred dollars for their whole life? Steve Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary for a party that hates Hollywood. They sure take a lot of Hollywood people who are on their side. My buddy once told me he was in a yoga class and Mnuchin was

right next to him doing yoga. That's funny. My buddy Jason was there. Jason's the kind of guy who just will always talk to whoever and just start chatting him up and started chatting Mnuchin up during the yoga class. But yeah, Mnuchin out here in Hollywood doing yoga while he's the treasury secretary. Was he like, why'd you take that picture of all the money with your wife? What compelled you to hold up just packets of money while people were suffering and being unemployed? What compelled you to take that photograph and then take a photograph of you

going on your private jet and complain that you couldn't use it to go on vacation during the middle of a pandemic? Not everyone, Brett and Jordy, are experts at taking photographs, but Jordy is quite the photographer, the selfie star these days. Right, Jordy? That's what we're going to get into. Okay. Hey, man, we're making politics sexy. Okay, so I don't mean it. Go for it. You could explain it. Jordy, I'm all for it. It all comes from jealousy from your brothers here. But I'll say sometimes Jordy will fire off tweets without consulting the brothers beforehand in very seductive poses, wearing Midas Touch merch, using those eyes and staring directly into the camera, directly at the people. And Jordy does this time and time again. And then the comments that pour in, Jordy,

to your tweets, to your pictures, are just off the charts insane. Everybody calling you Thirst Trap Jordy, hashtag Thirst Trap Jordy. And so it leads me and Ben to powwow with one another and say, hey, do you think Jordy knows what Midas Touch does? Do you think he knows what we do here, guys? There are some days where I do not think that either Jordy knows that we are a political organization or that he doesn't know what the political organization does. To be fair to Jordy, the podcast that we do is on the entertainment and media side of Midas Touch. Thank you. Let me defend myself here though. Not that that photo needs... One, I got a good haircut, wanted to show it off. I've been I've been working out like crazy for this calendar, which we're all doing, by the way. So I felt good. I felt that I look good. And look, we're making politics sexy. And

I don't mean that in the literal sense. What I mean by that is we're introducing politics like like we all know, to to tons of different folks who may not have been interested in the political landscape before, just like us, how we were political outsiders to start. We're bringing them in however we can. I'm going to have to offline explain to Jordy the difference between literal and figurative because literal means like when you take a photo of yourself half naked on the Midas Touch account and you post it, that is literal. Figurative is what you just described, which is making politics accessible to the people. But-

My questions are always like, so Jordy, this photo that you posted, so how does this help us get a $15 minimum wage in the United States? Go. Okay. Okay. Look, I see what I'm working with. Jordy, this photo, how did it help Joe Biden get elected? Go. States. Go. OK, OK. Look, I see what I'm working with. How did it help Joe Biden get elected? Go. OK, OK, OK. But you're making politics sexy, Jordan. Exactly. Here's the thing. Politics is a little sexy right now. I think this week the politics is a little sexy, sexy. I'm into it. I'm feeling the heat in a good way. Carr, put a smile on your face because President Joe Biden has signed the American Rescue Plan. One day after the House voted yes for the Senate version of the American Rescue Plan, Joe Biden signed it into law.

The legislation includes a $1,400 direct payment to you, a $300 weekly federal unemployment benefit until September, additional money for parents, funding for a national vaccination program, billions of dollars for state and local governments and reopening schools, and the money could hit your account as early as this weekend. And Biden will be touting this in a prime time address. This bill was supported by the bipartisan support of the people, not the politicians. The only party that fought for this bill that delivered what the people wanted, the people by 75, 76 percent supported this bill. The Democrats delivered for the people while every single Republican and I mean zero zip, zilch voted against this bill. But Brett and

Jordy, what is so incredibly pathetic, though, is that you see some of these GQ peers like Missouri Senator Roger Wicker. I'm not sure if you saw this. He talked about the people have won a twenty eight point six billion dollar of relief coming to help the restaurant industry. Look what we're bringing you. Dude, you voted against this bill. The fucking nerve. How do you vote against the bill and then brag about the components of said bill to your constituents? You can't have it both ways in this situation. You just can't. You either want the bill, you vote for it, or you don't. It's ridiculous. And we should call all these people out and we should be reminding people every single day why they're

getting the relief that they need. There was also a letter sent out yesterday by American Airlines because this bill passed. They literally told all their employees who were furloughed, they said, tear up your furlough notices, tear them up because you're coming back to work because part of the American rescue plan provided aid to the airlines, which obviously had a rough, rough year. So that's an instantaneous example of 13,000 Americans getting back to work. And every time someone goes back to work now, every time you see a road or a bridge, anything that comes from this plan, vaccinations, whatever, the Democrats need to be out there in charge saying, we gave this to you. This is what we did. I think one of the problems that we learned from the past, and obviously we weren't in politics in that way back then, but I remember when the Affordable Care Act passed.

And I remember when politicians kind of ran away from it. Now, in hindsight, it's an extremely popular piece of legislation that people can't live without. It saved countless lives. It's not perfect, but it saved countless lives and people rely on it. Back then, people weren't so sure there was some confusion about it. And the Republicans were able to frame the narrative, probably because there was no Midas touch around at the time. But the GQP was able to frame the narrative in a way that actually scared Democrats from defending their piece of legislation. So what happened? A couple of years later, the Democrats got killed by the Tea Party movement. And we need to learn from these mistakes. We need to get out there, get in front of it, and say, look who's delivering for you. Look who's the serious party. While they're talking

about Dr. Seuss and Potato Head, this party is actually passing legislation that's going to improve your life. That was the subject of a Midas Touch video, hashtag cancel the GOP, which did incredibly well. It resulted in a bunch of, I'd say, interesting death threat emails to me and the brothers. But that's the message that needs to get out there, which is that as the GQP talks about Dr. Seuss and issues that aren't really issues that are just made up GQP issues that nobody's talking about. We have Congress members like Tim Ryan. This is why I love that Tim Ryan is a guest today of all days as this bill is signed into law, saying

Democrats are the party of the working class, to the union workers, to the construction workers, to the restaurant industry, to the builders, to the teachers, to employers, to employees. We're getting people on the Democratic Party back to work. And not one Republican voted for these initiatives, like giving money to the restaurant industry and helping businesses that have been financially harmed. And this is the same GQP that the moment they get into power, want to spend trillions of dollars on tax cuts for billionaires and CEOs. It's like we need to align the interests. We know from the polls, the interests of the American people side with the Democratic Party. We just have to be loud and proud about the fact that we are the ones championing these issues. Right, Jordy? Exactly. We got to celebrate the wins and point out their failures and we can't be ashamed to do so. And it feels symbolic, guys, that all this is happening right now. You know, it's exactly one year today, Thursday, that we're recording this podcast

from the time that the World Health Organization declared COVID a global pandemic. It just really took me back. Like now, this is sort of a historical moment for me that feels like, you know, a where were you when 9-11 happened sort of moment. Like I really remember so vividly where I was as every sort of piece of COVID started happening. When I think this was the date that we found out Tom Hanks had COVID,

that the NBA had to shut down because one of their players had COVID. And that NBA scene was crazy. Sorry to cut you off. I just remember that so specifically because I was watching it. One of the referees, if y'all remember, came running. No, it was a team doctor. Came running out of the locker room, waving his hands, waving his hands, called all the refs together and was basically like,

we got to clear this building. XYZ has COVID. I mean, one of the wild things about that NBA story too, is that that NBA player, forget his name right now. This is just about forgetting everybody's name. Who is it, Jordy? Rudy Gobert. Got so much shit for having COVID.

And like at the end of the day, you know, COVID was so prevalent at that time. It just wasn't diagnosed that this, I mean, honestly, I think this, do you remember what he did though? It was because he was mocking the fact that people were saying COVID was this highly contagious disease and they had their prep postgame press conference and he went and touched all the microphones with his hands and like his face. And then a day later or two days later, he got, he contracted COVID and people were like, see, this is what we were trying to tell you.

And then he was like, you know, he apologized and said, I should have taken it seriously. I don't want to be trash and Rudy go bear on the pot. He actually was really apologetic. Yeah. I mean, but it just goes to show like people didn't really understand he's, you know, taken really seriously since as you know, the NBA has. And we had leadership at the time who wasn't taking it seriously and was telling people it was no big deal and it was just another flu. In fact, what they said and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany at the time said is that this will not come to our shores. This stuff's on video. And every day that passes, what we should do at Midas Touch and what everybody should reflect on is looking at the tape.

Everything these Trump morons did is on tape. And it wasn't one slip up. It was a repeated pattern of behavior and statements that still to the very end, by the time they left, they were still pushing these lies and falsehoods. There's no doubt about it. And there's other good news coming as well. I mean, at the end of the day, in addition to the bill becoming law, we're seeing a record number of COVID vaccinations. Trump promised that he would have 20 million vaccinations by the end of 2021. I mean, anything Trump says was just a total fucking lie. He was totally beyond incompetent. He ended up having around three, but three million gives him almost too much credit because he's so completely fucked up the delivery and deployment system that he almost ran the three million vaccinations like a Ponzi scheme that there was actually some people were getting their first shot, but he hadn't

ordered enough supply. It should almost be like negative. He should almost be like negative 15, negative 20, because maybe he should have been able to deliver 20. He was able to throw money at the problem and get scientists to make the thing. But once that happened, he had no interest in figuring out a way to get it to the American people. And people were hurt in the process. People died. I want to correct you there. The guy did fucking nothing. He didn't throw money. The facilities that did it had nothing to do with any of the money that

Trump did. Trump did not install the defense production act. Trump put his money in wrong, stupid and dumb things. He talked about that rollout with Kushner's brothers, Google initiative that never came to be. There's literally zero that Trump did that was right. He had the entire ingenuity of the American machinery behind him.

And he fucked that up beyond any anything. I would go even venture to say, Brett, you have minus 15 million vaccines. I would say it's about minus 90 million vaccine. I bet you right now, because in the past 50 days or so, I think Biden promised 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days. He's blown past 100 million in 50 days by just being fucking competent and putting his head down and getting the vaccines to the people. So I honestly believe had Biden been president and led America the way American presidents won World War II, got the man, the first man on the moon, you know, the thing that American presidents are known for, I think we would have had everybody in America vaccinated and

potentially the world by now. I could only look at the data and read the data because right now we basically have 100 million vaccinations right now. You know, everyone who's listening to this, you know, you've either been vaccinated, you know, someone who's about to be vaccinated, and you know, it's either coming to your children soon. You know who owes Biden an apology? Chuck Todd. Chuck Todd. Sorry, I just got to go off on it was Biden's like, first three days in office. And Chuck Todd does this whole rant on a show about how if Biden under delivers on the 100

million vaccines that he promised his whole presidency would be a complete failure. Chuck Todd, go fuck yourself. Sorry. I know you hate Chuck Todd. But I don't know Chuck Todd like your photo, Jordy. He did on Instagram? Yeah. Chuck Todd is a Jordy fan and Jordy hates Chuck Todd? Yeah. Oh my God. There are layers to this. I got to see that. That's fascinating. Did you know that Jordy? I didn't and I don't necessarily believe it. So I'm going to have to check it out after the recording. We're going to check this out. I'm totally making that up. I'll save you. But the crazy thing is, is that I think Jordy was going to lead towards liking Chuck Todd if he discovered that Chuck Todd liked his photo after.

Would anybody doubt that Jordy was about to become a Chuck Todd fan if Chuck Todd thought Jordy's photo was sexy? That's how you could play Jordy, everybody. I just showed everybody how the older brother can manipulate younger brother. Just tell him someone liked his photograph. And in addition to that, the Dow Jones hit a record high, blowing past the 32,000 mark for the first time in history. I recall Donald Trump saying,

Joe Biden became president. The Dow Jones, the stock market will collapse. I'm the only reason. I mean, Donald Trump sat there for the most significant volatility in the history of the stock market. As we go through these days, you remember, Brett and Jordy, waking up where like the stock market would like collapse by like 10% or 15% every day. Yeah, I mean, he's responsible for multiple of the biggest historic drops in stock market history, Trump. And he had the nerve to say that. And let's be clear, the stock market is not the economy.

People on Main Street are not concerned about the stock market. People are concerned if they have 401ks and retirement accounts. But it's important to point out that Trump, once again, is a total liar and a failure. And everything that he said and all the scare tactics that Fox News said about Joe Biden are just complete and utter lies. And did you see the sad, sad, pathetic statement that Trump had to do because he can't tweet anymore? So Trump is now resorted to putting tweets on official letterhead and sending them to the press. This is the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen out of a former president,

literally begging people to give him credit for their vaccinations because he sees how successful President Biden is doing with the plan, begging them, using the xenophobic language by calling the coronavirus the China virus. It just reminds everybody first how small he is, like what a tiny, teeny, tiny man writing these tweets on a letterhead. It just looks absurd and ridiculous and so beneath the office. And then just begging for respect. The guy's the biggest loser in the world. He doesn't show up for the, I mean, just even in And then just begging for respect. fake apex you know people you know i use that term because charlie kirk thinks that he's like an apex male and they use this language thinking that they're these such alphas and then they call people betas the trumps and the pierce morgans and the charlie dirk kirk but fucking gerk splurts

of the world these guys are like zetas like whatever the last letter is they are the same way i mean it's the exact same thing pierce morgan literally running off the stage because he was criticized by the weatherman who he had picked on every day and just runs off the and the weatherman didn't even say anything that controversial the weatherman just said look i think it's very inappropriate we've heard you complain i think that we need to listen to her as well. You're entitled to your own opinion, but you should be open to hearing her other views. And just because you have a personal belief about her doesn't mean that you had a personal relationship. Doesn't mean that you should go after them that way and just hold the water for the royal family like that. He runs off the stage. Same thing with Trump. He's such a weak human being that he can't even sit there at the inauguration. Like what is more weak and scared and anti-American and feeble and pathetic than that Donald stupid motherfucking Trump? The statement is so just brutal, too. Are we going to read it? It's really just.

Brett does good impressions, apparently. Yeah, Brett. I do Bernie impressions. I don't do- All right, now, Jordy, you do the impression. Let's see what you do. I'm not going to do the impression, but I'll just read it because it's ridiculous. It goes, I hope everyone remembers when they're getting the COVID-19,

parentheses, often referred to as the China virus, end parentheses, vaccine, that if I wasn't president, you wouldn't be getting that beautiful quotation shot for five years at best and probably wouldn't be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers, exclamation point. No, Donald Trump, we're going to remember you as a pathetic fucking loser, just hoping that one day maybe you'll be able to get back on Twitter and on social media. But guess what, buddy? You won't.

You didn't do shit. You did absolutely nothing. You deserve no credit. You deserve credit for the virus, maybe. That's why people call it the Trump virus. You deserve credit for allowing the virus to spread throughout the country. You do not deserve one iota of credit for this vaccine. And one of the things I loved was every former living president made a video.

They did a commercial to encourage Americans to get the vaccine when they're able to get the vaccine. And there was only one loser who is a living president, who a fake president, who was not featured in this video. I love that he just has no respect of this former president's club, and they are just writing him out of history. And he will live the rest of his life as a lonely, sad loser in Mar-a-Lago, begging, begging for attention. The Bernie Madoff presidency is what Donald Trump here. But now to speak to a true American hero, a true patriot, we will be interviewing Representative

Tim Ryan. I'm so excited for this after these messages. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast, joined by Congressman Tim Ryan from Ohio's 13th Congressional District. Congressman, how are you today? Doing great, doing great. Awesome to be with you. I'm a huge fan. And remember when you guys started, started following you and love your work and great to be with you. You know, when we first started, we were particularly drawn to that speech you gave on the House floor when Republicans were pushing back on the twelve hundred dollar stimulus package. They didn't even want to give twelve hundred200 to start. You gave that impassioned speech. We did a video on it called Working Class Heroes, and we spliced yours. You actually

retweeted it, which gave the early stages of Midas Touch a little bump. So we're grateful for that. But your speeches, that speech, the most recent speech on the House, has really spoke to the working class heroes in America and made it clear that the Democratic priorities are the priorities of the people. Mr. Speaker, one of the earlier speakers said, this is the most dramatic change in labor law in 80 years and I say thank God in the late 70s a CEO made 35 times the worker today it's three to four hundred times the worker and our friends on the other side running around with their hair on fire heaven forbid we pass something that's going to help the damn workers in the United States of America. Now stop talking about Dr. Seuss and start working with us

on behalf of the American workers. As you see Republicans, Republican senators, as they try to go back and take credit for the bill that was just passed for the efforts of the Democratic Party. What goes through your head? I want to give another speech like the one you just were talking about. It's just it's just it's just maddening, you know, to hear how they're they're handling themselves, the way they're trying to play politics with people's lives, you know, and then try to try to somehow take credit. It's maddening. But I think I think they are actually helping us.

You know, the Dr. Seuss, the Mr. Potato Head, all this craziness. It's allowing us, I think, to step into that economic frame that I've been screaming about now for years, that Democrats got to be the party of workers, working families, the interests that they have. And they're going to give us an opportunity to do it because they want to continue to have the culture wars. And is that why you think particularly these speeches that you're giving are resonating the way they're resonating with the American public. I think from a bipartisan perspective, bipartisan being the bipartisan of the people, look at your speech and say, yes, yes, that is what America is. Yeah, I think I think so. I mean, I think we're because we're talking we're not talking about red shirts, blue shirts. We're talking about red, white, and blue shirts, and that we're all on Team USA. And our government, and this is, I think, what we've got to continue

to shape, is that our government has a responsibility to be on our side. We're not talking about big government or small government. We're saying the government needs to be there for us to help us navigate the craziness of the global economy, automation, healthcare, pandemics. And we saw that. So I think there's a new view almost, leaving the old view of the government can't do anything right. I think President Biden is starting to say, no, the government can't, it certainly can't do everything right, but it can do things that are helpful for average families. But the key is you got to be talking about those average families and their needs and their interests and the pensions and the bread and butter stuff.

But I think because I was going through some of the social media feeds and the number of Republicans who were commenting, which to your point is basically because we are talking about the issues that are important to average families. You know, the pension bill, not to go on too long here, but the pension bill that was in there, the Butch Lewis Act that was in the COVID bill, those were teamsters, primarily teamsters who are going to lose their pension. And clearly, a lot of them voted for Trump. And clearly, a lot of them think the Democratic Party doesn't have their interest at heart. Now they know that the Democratic Party delivered for them, you know, so 60, 70 older teamsters, if we can connect with them, we can bring anybody back into the fold if we

keep delivering for them. And the speech you were giving on the House floor the other day, you were talking about the Protecting the Right to Organize Act or the PRO Act. I think that your speech was so good. I want you to be able to highlight more about the importance of the act itself. If you can, tell us a little bit about that act and why it's so important to you, to Ohio and to this country. So if you go back, as I mentioned in the speech to the late 1970s, 35 to one or 35 times is what a CEO made to the person on the factory floor, the person driving the truck. And now that's 300 plus to one or 300 times what the person on the factory floor is making or the workers making. And the reason that happened is because the conservatives went after collective bargaining. They went after unions, which were allowed people to join together and try to balance out the

economic system. And so this gets rid of right to work. It facilitates businesses not being able to slow walk workers who want to vote for a union and then really empowers and encourages and facilitates people to be able to join unions and start unions and tip that balance back into the favor of the worker. And so that's why it's critically important. And if you look at things like the minimum wage, the minimum wage, if you indexed it for inflation starting at 1968, it would be at $22 an hour. So that's how far we have fallen. And you think about what happened when unions were the backbone of the Democratic Party. And I'm talking about white people, black people, brown people, gay people, straight people.

If that class of people, the workers, can come together, you can get a lot of shit done. And that's what we did post-World War II. We got Medicare. We got Medicaid. We got, you know, Social Security coming out of the New Deal. We had legal aid, the interstate highway. You know, we went to the moon. Like, we did all these really big things because the people were civil rights. You know, the people were governing and they were a part of the process.

And what's happened now is that they've dismantled the unions, weakened the workforce. And you saw that huge spike between the rich and the poor. And I think we're ready to move into a new phase of our democracy where workers are empowered and they realize they have to come together. You're seeing it down in Alabama now with the effort to unionize at the Amazon facility down there, primarily African-American workers. So this is good stuff. I think we're hitting our stride. You're fighting for union rights. You're fighting for union rights. You're fighting for the minimum wage. You're fighting for civil rights. You're fighting

for voting rights. What do you think when you see comments by Republicans like Ted Cruz, who he tweeted a few weeks ago, he said, today's Dems are the party of the rich. GOP is and should be the party of the working class. What even goes through your head when they try to pretend like they're the union party? I got to tell you, I laugh. I mean, it is fucking laughable. Okay. I don't know if I could be any more clear than that. It is absolutely laughable.

Yeah, well, it's just laughable. I mean, I've been down here, this is my 19th year, and that is laughable. And then they send out emails making fun of transgender kids. They talk about Dr. Seuss. They talk about Mr. Potato Head and SpongeBob and all of this stuff. And while, which I, again, getting back to it, it's like an opportunity for us, you know, love your enemies because, you know, they're giving us a really good opportunity to reclaim the mantle of the working class. They can say it all they want. But who looks at Ted Cruz and Howley and Ben Sasse and thinks, yeah, those are that's the working class right there. You know, I mean, it's it working class right there. You know, I mean, it really is laughable. Is it even worth it to try to push for bipartisanship in this polarized environment if it comes at the expense of diluting bills to try to appease the other side when you know that

they're not going to support the bills anyway? Yeah, I think you have to try, but within reason. And I think President Biden struck the right tone. I love the article of of the Republicans in the Oval Office with him and his chief of staff, Ron Klain, who's an old friend. And it was like they were trying to negotiate down. I think it was the one time payment. And Klain was just shaking his head like, no, no, we're not moving on that. And I just I mean, I read it and I laughed out loud. I'm like, that's exactly how you look. We're here to work with you. But we know what needs to get done. And we were all around. This is a real benefit we have now, too. We were all around in 2009. Biden was there. Klain was there. Reschetti was there. You know, Pelosi was there. Schumer was there. Everybody was there and watched them like slow walk, push back on the stimulus package, slow walk health care. You know, we all watched that happen. And so we're not going to make that same mistake. So I think we have to reach out. The American people want us to reach out. But again, we can put something together that passes and is bipartisan in the sense that Republican voters support it, just like the COVID bill, where I saw 63 percent of middle income and lower income Republicans supported the bill.

Now, you want to talk about being disconnected. You want to be the party of the working class and you vote against that. And even 55 percent of total Republicans support it. And you're working class and you vote against that and even 55 percent of total Republicans support it and you're working class and working for Republicans support it and you don't have one person vote for it. I mean, that's why it's laughable. So we just got to stay at it. And Congressman, how do we take advantage, though, as a practical matter of this opportunity? You know, me and my brothers do what we can. We've created Midas Touch to get out this message and combat the Fox News disinformation machine. But what can the Democratic Party be doing to reach out to the bipartisanship that exists amongst the people

and literally say to them, look, these fuckers over there, excuse me, these fuckers over there are lying to you. They're just making up stuff. Look what we just passed for you. You know, that bridge over there, you know, that building over there, the aid that you're receiving. That's us. Don't listen to them. How do we actually do that as a functional matter? One, it's going to take some time.

You know, it's a campaign. You got to look at it almost like a campaign of rebranding the Democratic Party. I think we need to continue to reach out so they can continue to say no. And we, the people know that they look, Biden's reaching out, Biden's reaching out, Democrats are reaching out. They keep saying, they keep saying no. Then it's going to take, it's got to age, you know, this whole thing's got to age a little bit. Those projects have to hit, the checks have to go out. I mean, this thing's at 70, 75% popularity. No one's even gotten a dime from it yet, right? It's only going to go up when people

start getting checks that they know the president has signed and sent to them and the Democrats, and then hopefully an infrastructure bill. And the key is going to be letting it age, pushing it out, having a campaign. And the White House is saying they're going to do this. They're going to spend the next few weeks really talking about this publicly in a variety of ways, starting with the speech tonight by the president, which I think is really smart. And then it's up to guys like you and me to call out these other Republicans, right?

I'm thinking like I'm going to call every mayor in the state that lives in a Republican congressional district and tell them that it was Sherrod Brown and Tim Ryan and Joyce Beatty that got them $20 million for Steubenville or whatever the number is for Steubenville and East Liverpool and Portsmouth. Like, don't let them take credit for it. You guys may remember Eric Cantor was at a ribbon cutting back in the day for a bridge or road or something that got built with stimulus money in his district that he voted against. So we have to make sure that the messaging in these red districts, and I'm hoping that the DCCC and DSCC really make that point, that they can't get any credit for this and really hold their feet to the fire. And Congressman, that actually leads me to my question for you. I have two. I have one more serious one, a little bit more lighthearted. I know we're running short on time here. We'll start with the serious one first.

All right. Okay. So what happened to Ohio? And what I mean by that is in 2008, Ohio voted blue. In 2012, Ohio voted blue. When I was at the school, when I was at the Ohio State University from 2011 to 2015, it felt like the state was heading towards this blue revolution, if you will. Now, I know I was at a university, tend to be more liberal, but something changed there in the last five to six years that made the Buckeye State start leaning into more of these Republican policies. What do you think that could be attributed to? And how can you convince people that the Democratic messages for the people of Ohio will actually be in their best interest? That's a great question. We as a party, I think, did not adequately address the needs of the workers. I mean, I think it's really

that simple. I mean, if you look at Sherrod Brown's message, Marcy Capner's message, who represents up in Toledo and over to Cleveland, my message, what Ted Strick the same message that Trump had, right? Globalization is killing us. China is cleaning our clock in all of these different areas. We need to deal with the hollowing out of these communities, Youngstown, Steubenville, East Liverpool, Portsmouth. I mean, all these books that people write about what happened to those towns. And Trump came in and stole that message, right? I mean, you remember in 16, what he said, I'm going to raise taxes on the rich. We're going to expand healthcare. We're going to rebuild the country. I'm going to take on China. We're going to bring these manufacturing jobs back. Geez, oh, Pete's. I mean, that's music

to people's ears where I come from. And they all bought it and they saw him at least fighting for them. Now, we all know what Trump was doing. And then once you get committed, like, that's my view of that person. It's hard to change that view, which is why they stuck with them again in 20. Now he's gone. And Portman, Mandel, Timken, Hawley, Cruz, these people cannot connect to those voters like he did. He is a once in a generation magician who was able to do that. And so the opening is there. And that's why the floor speeches, the things I've been talking about for 20 years, all of a sudden,

I think are meeting the moment of what we need to do post-pandemic. And again, timing is everything in politics, not to go on too long, but there's a new worldview now post-pandemic because it exposed terrible public health system in the United States, terrible unemployment insurance system in the United States, problems with healthcare, digital divide. I mean, all of these things got exposed. The fact that people couldn't withstand this kind of emergency without significant economic support from the government, all that's been exposed. So as we move past this, there's going to be a reevaluation of what we really believe in, what's really important. And maybe we do need to stick together. Maybe we do need to form a union for our grocery store workers and this and that. So if our message that was outdated, that Trump stole, and those of us were like, they used to make fun of me and Sherrod Brown for talking about

trade when we were in the house together. Now it's the thing. But meet that moment, I think we can have a really exciting new political movement in the United States. I love that. That's super exciting. Wow. Okay. And then the last one, this one's a little bit more lighthearted. So you may not know this. In fact, you definitely don't, but we have a lot of similarities, you and I. So you graduated. We're both good looking. That's yeah. Number one. You graduated from a John F. Kennedy High School. I, the brothers, graduated from a John F. Kennedy High School. You present and live in the Buckeye State.

We, I went to Ohio State, lived there for four years. You were captain of your high school football team. I was captain of my high school basketball team. I'm getting to a point. Always find a way to slip that in. I'm getting to a point here. So when I was watching you deliver that super passionate speech the other day, condemning the GOP for talking about Dr. Seuss when Americans

are in real pain and need real help, I could tell that wasn't scripted. That came from the heart. It was earnest and it was spoken like a true leader. Were you known in the locker room when you were playing sports growing up as that guy who would give these passionate speeches in pregame or halftime or so be it? Not really. I was kind of the calm guy. You know, I would get I mean, I was like a I was like Baker Mayfield when when we scored a touchdown, though. I mean, I'd run all over the field. I'd be jumping on. I got so excited during the game. But I was pretty, pretty calm otherwise, which is, you know, as a quarterback, unfortunately, you have to kind of have those moments where you really stay in the zone. But, yeah, I was every now and again, I think, you know.

And Congressman, I know you have to run, but and timing is everything in politics. So tell me you're going to run for Senate without telling me you're going to run for Senate. You know, you haven't been doing this that long. You're pretty good. That is that is smooth, man. But I've been doing this for 20 years, so I am not coming anywhere close to that. But, you know, we're super excited about it, about the opportunity that's before us. And to see the support over the last few days is really exciting. I mean, we've had from from Republicans to like Bernie people say, yes, you should do this. This is great. You know, so many of our followers, by the way, are pushing for it. I appreciate it. Well, you know, we're obviously going to

need all hands on deck. So we'll keep you posted though, man. I'll definitely come back on when we pull the trigger, if we pull the trigger. And, and I also want a Midas touch hat, because if I don't get a Midas touch hat, I'm going to be really upset. I'll pay for it. I don't want to cause any ethics violations here, but I need a couple of those for the team. Done deal. Thank you so much, Congressman Ryan. Appreciate you coming on the show. Appreciate you fighting for the American worker. Looking forward to the next steps there as well. We'll be back after these messages. Appreciate you guys. Thanks. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Such an incredible honor

to have the one and only Tim Ryan. I do hope he runs for Senate. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Brett and Jordy, but when I asked him, tell me you're running for the Senate without telling me you're running for the Senate, I think he told us

without telling us. I agree. I think we all know what's coming, and he would make a fantastic senator if he were able to take Senator Rob Portman's seat who is retiring in 2022 to give us a much needed addition to the Democratic side in the U.S. Senate. So please, Tim Ryan, if you're listening, run, run, run. And by the way,

not to get lost in this whole thing, but when we were talking about our similarities without me even bringing it up, you know, he said that we were both good looking. Once again, Jordy's very concerned about looks. And I just I just want you to to be aware that Tim Ryan and I have a lot of similarities. We are very much aware because it just happened. I didn't forget what happened five minutes ago. So that's one reason I'm aware. And two, I was really nervous when you asked that question because I know he had a super tight schedule today yeah and i didn't know how long your question was gonna go it was a setup yeah well a lot of so just drawing on a family story i won't say the name of the person in case this

particular person is listening and i don't want to then get my dad in trouble. But he used to have someone that he knew who told really long stories. And let's just, for the sake of the argument, call the person Pinocchio, not the real person's name. But the person Pinocchio that he knew told really long stories. And so even as a young child, when I would tell a long story, my father would say, Pinocchio, Pinocchio, to make sure that my stories were shorter and tighter. And it was actually good training. I became a good storyteller, but we'd go back and reflect on ways I would have conversations with him. And he tells the story very funny. He would go, here we go. Dad, dad, like that. Like, do you think that like that?

And he would go, this is Pinocchio, Pinocchio. Evidently though, by the time he got to the third son, did that training did not take effect? Here's the thing that I don't appreciate right now is that this is a subtle or not so subtle jab at how I ask questions. The way I ask questions is actually I would say much better than the two of you because I often get the most

compliments on my questions. If you remember my first question of people saying that's a great question. Because I have them put some thought into it. There needs to be a little bit of a build to put them in the mindset. This is Jardy's question to the most popular representative right now.

Congressman Tim Ryan, I want to take you back to middle school. In middle school, I played chess, and I think that you may like chess. I'm just going to say Tim Ryan walked away. In seventh grade, I ate Skittles, and you may like Skittles as well. In eighth grade, Congressman, I tried out for junior varsity volleyball in the high school as a middle schooler. Representative Tim Ryan, are you following my question? In high school, as a freshman, I ran the track in a very short period of time. Representative Tim Ryan goes, great question.

So, no, so funny. Representative Tim Ryan, what I'm trying to ask you is, do you think the fact that we're both very motivational people, does that go into you? That was Jordy's question. Sure, sure. I'm going to say if he, if you were to get a beer with any, any of us, he would choose me over you two in a heartbeat. Okay, let's go on. Let's talk about the important stuff, Jordy, because we all know that all of our followers- Jordy got very sensitive. We all know that everybody, all of our followers are going to vote for Pinocchio Jordy, hashtag team Jordy, hashtag Pinocchio Jordy. That vote is going to be a free and fair vote. But what we are seeing is that Republicans are trying to attack the right for Americans to vote in free and fair elections across the country. How about

that for a transition, you guys? Great transition. The GQP is now pushing for it. It sounds like a fake number. 253 voter suppression bills across 43 states in the country. So let's be straight here, okay? When 525,000 Americans died of COVID, not a single GQP member of Congress, senator, felt the need to vote for COVID relief. But when it comes to voter fraud, that is completely non-existent. And when there are a few cases that pop up, it's always inevitably a Trump supporter or a GQP supporter. All of a sudden, 253 voter suppression bills come out and they go on an all-out assault on voter rights, specifically attacking the voting rights of people of color across the country. Did you hear what the Arizona GQP said, Brett? That's the thing. They never hide it.

Tell people what they said. This is so screwed up. Arizona GQP state representative said, well, everybody should be voting. Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of the votes. Everybody should not be voting is what they said. Everybody should not be voting.

It's not about quantity of votes. Not everybody should be able to vote. Only people of a certain quality. The statement was so crazy that you self-corrected it in your mind. He was saying was that everybody should vote. But then it even is crazier. He said everybody should not be voting. Everybody should not be voting. Quantity is important. But we have to look at the quality of votes as well. That's even it was already fucked up. But the fact you know, Jim Crow 2 or the new Jim Crow. I mean, it's the fact is it's not any different than the original Jim Crow. These are this is the Jim Crow era voter suppression techniques, extremely racist.

It's horrific. It's an affront to us as Americans. It's an affront to voting rights around the country. And we need to be stomping it out everywhere we go. I'm thankful to have people like Stacey Abrams and Mark Elias fighting for voting rights. And we need to just be loud. And that's why local elections are really important, too, because a lot of this stuff is happening at the local level. So please never sit an election out, even in an off year. Make sure you go there and support Democratic candidates.

We have to contend with the fact that the GQP are serial cheaters. No matter what it is, they're not focused on how we actually help people. As I said on previous podcasts, all their focus is on is how we can help power. That is why the only thing that they ever deliver are ineffective tax cuts that let millionaires and billionaires get tax write-offs for things like private jets and allow them to pay no taxes to allow all these millionaires and billionaires to try to get away with zero tax offshore accounts and all of that. That's what they are delivering for. So it is incumbent on us, as we talked about with Congressman Ryan, to make sure we understand that the GQP is not only the party of conspiracy and crazy and how dangerous they are, but they are just a fraudulent

con artist party. We need to just expose them to such a level that the GQP doesn't even exist anymore, except as a fringe, disgusting party that people cannot take seriously. And as Congressman Ryan says, the GQP, in the way they've acted right now, are helping us out, too. They are sending the message to Americans that they don't support things that matter for Americans. But we have to be laser focused on these voter suppression efforts.

And we have to be laser focused on making sure that we get our voters out. Cut the bullshit if you are a Democrat, if a liberal or a progressive. Cut the bullshit of trying to find some ways to go out of your way to be negative that the minimum wage hasn't passed yet. Learn, educate yourselves on the reasons why, that it's the GQP who's blocking it. And if Biden could pass it, and if there was no filibuster, and if the rules weren't skewed against getting these legislations passed, these would all be passed right now. And we need to focus on just literally eradicating crazy, fucked up views from the American political process. And those are embodied right now in the GQP. We need to come together. Should we do hate mail? I think we got to do hate mail because you got some good ones this week.

I got an email from this. I think it's a guy. See Will's version to chase W839 at Gmail. We'll read you the email that he sent. Yeah. You are a fucking piece of human waste you think cancel culture is funny motherfucker well i hope you fucking get canceled i hope all of you democrat fuckers lose the mid terms then once the republicans get back into power they will untig i don't know what that

means the twitter algorithms and demote your fucking obviously rigged traction. Why else would no fucking Republican trend trend on the trending Twitter feed? It's because you fuckers through backdoor deals at big tech rigged the fucking system. You are a cancer. You need to be defeated at the ballot box. I hope you all fucking fail, you pieces of shit. Fuck you. C. Will's.

Sent from my iPhone. And he sent it at 5.15 p.m. So I don't know where he's writing this. If he's on the East Coast, maybe that's 8.15 p.m. But the level of anger directed at me and us, I wish we could even have C. Wills on here. I would love to talk to C. Wills. We want to invite him on the show. Here's what he was upset about. He was upset about our Dr. Seuss video where we that were the one we were speaking about with Representative Ryan, where we were contrasting Kevin McCarthy reading Dr. Seuss with the Democrats getting stuff done to pass the American Rescue Plan. That's what angered him so much. But why instead of just being angry at a visceral personal level, why not try to argue on

the content? Tell me that what Kevin McCarthy was doing was the right thing that Republicans should have been focused on and tell us why you don't like the American rescue plan. Don't start using these attacks. And there is no bigger irony in this letter than the guy yelling at big tech and Twitter algorithms and then the sent from my iPhone message on the bottom. If he hates big tech so much, maybe at least hide the fact that you're using Apple products and iPhones. You know what? I was disappointed, though. He didn't have, please excuse my brevity, I guess because it wasn't a short email. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also does he think that the party in power of the government is the party that controls Twitter's algorithms? He seems to think that.

Or that the three of us have any connections that allowed the growth other than just making good content. Look, we started with one follower. Yeah. Some people cannot fathom the fact that when you make a good product that speaks to people's needs, people want to follow you and you have good ideas. You win in the marketplace of ideas for the quote unquote party of the free market, which we now know is a total sham and I've always known as a total sham. They hate when their ideas do not pan out well in the free market. And in the marketplace of ideas, creators like Midas Touch have completely trounced Republican messaging. And that's what made the difference in 2020. And that's what's going to make the difference going forward. And that's why they're so angry at big

tech, because they've been drowned out on spaces that used to be their safe spaces, used to be their death stars that they would attack liberals from. We destroyed them. And that's why they are angered and enraged at big tech for not manipulating stuff in their favor, because that's how they think the game is played. They think it's rigged. It's also that just the photo of the crazy GQP members, the QAnon crazies, the Oath Keepers climbing the Capitol building because they have this ideology of sea wills that they can't accept that their hatred, their white supremacy, their illogical conspiracies, that those are not winning in the idea of truth and love and compassion. So they literally are climbing to destroy the system and to tear it all down with this anger and this hatred. And so all I did with the C. Wills, oh, by the way, the subject line, how could I forget the subject line from C. Wills? You are a fucking piece of shit was the subject line. So I knew when I opened that one, it was gonna be an interesting one.

It was not gonna be a love letter. Some of my favorites though that we get, sometimes people start their hate mail with like a subject that's love your work or something that makes you click on it. And then you go in and it's like, just kidding, asshole. I've gotten a million of that. And those always make me laugh. I'm like, Oh, you got me. You got, you got me. So then I proceed to post C wills version two v2 whatever chase w839 at gmail.com i post brett likes that i just drop this gmail drop as well you know what i posted it publicly you're gonna you know say

that you get you get posted publicly so i put it on my twitter handle i took a screenshot of his message posted the screenshot and then i wrote something like, dude, C. Wills, you need to chill, bro. And you need to, maybe you need to have a hit of the Roy Blunt or smoke the Roy Blunt because that's what we talked about, smoking the Roy Blunt on the last podcast. And then the next morning, afternoon, late morning, my time, I get another email from C. Wills, V2, and he goes to me, look, I saw your tweet on Twitter. Looking at what I wrote, I feel really bad and awful. I also did threaten you in my email. I voiced my discontent and anger at what I was seeing on Twitter, as well as what was happening with the political landscape. If it came up like that, I'm sorry. I officially apologize for my email. I just think it's unfair how you all operate on Twitter and the biases at big tech. That's, I hope we can put this behind us. Okay. First of all, I don't even know who you are. We never had a relationship

before. Let's face it. We're not going to have a relationship after. There's nothing to really put behind us in the first place. But when you say to me that you were simply voicing discontent at anger, and if it came off bad, I'm sorry. Maybe starting with the subject line, you fucking piece of shit, would not be the most articulate way of expressing that you believe it's unfair how I operate on Twitter. Hey, I could see how my last email could have been misinterpreted there, Ben. So I just wanted to clear some things up in this one. And then my law firm's account, we created a Gerago civil rights account. They also tweeted out that to C. Wills' message that we're able to identify you through your IP address,

and the FBI can easily find you as well. I think that gave C. Wills a little bit, because he then emailed the Geragos civil rights accountant and says, please don't call the FBI on me. I'm so sorry for what I did. I really think we should get C. Wills on the show, though, and talk this through and try to have a moment for the American public and see what's going on inside of C. Wills. But I think we've come full circle, Brett and Jordi, on this episode because we've talked about the Piers Morgan running away. We've talked about Trump running away from the truth. We have people like C. Willis who they want to come out hard.

But then once you expose what they're doing, they want to run away from what they stand. I'd almost appreciate. What did you talk about, Willis? Yeah, what did you talk about, Willis? What did you talk about, Willis? you expose what they're doing. They want to run away from what they've stand. I'd almost appreciate. What'd you talk about Willis? Yeah. What'd you talk about Willis? What'd you talk about Willis? And then you have people who are courageous. You have people like representative Tim Ryan,

who are up on the floor, standing strong, saying what they believe in fighting for the American people, fighting for the American worker and actually getting real legislation done. I do not like green eggs at ham, Brett and Jordy, because I am an American. And what I care about is bringing relief to every man and woman. Well, we're not going to be able to top that. So I think that's it, guys, for this episode. That's what we call a mic drop. That's what we call a mic drop. And I

just want to thank everybody for tuning into another edition of the Midas Touch podcast. Man, Representative Tim Ryan, it was so great to have him. It was so great to chat with you guys. Thanks for listening to us, whether at home or on your runs

or in your car, wherever you listen to us. Please just keep spreading the word. Keep rating this podcast five stars on Apple Podcasts. That's how we continue to climb the charts. That's how we continue to get great guests like Representative Ryan on the word. Keep rating this podcast five stars on Apple Podcasts. That's how we continue to climb the charts. That's how we continue to get great guests like Representative Ryan on the show.

We appreciate you from the bottom of our hearts. We will see you next Tuesday right here. Be there. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.