The MeidasTouch Podcast - Republican Buffoonery and Sexual Anarchy with Rep. Krishnamoorthi and Phyllis Harvey-Hall

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we sit down with two incredible guests. First up, we speak with Rep. Krishnamoorthi, who is spearheading the investigation into misconduct in the NFL within the Washington Commanders organization. The team is under immense scrutiny over legitimate claims of workplace sexual harassment from the team owner & their leadership. Our second interview is with the electric Phyllis Harvey-Hall, a Democratic Congressional candidate for AL-2. The remainder of the episode we dive into the latest breaking news of the week, including the right-wing’s reaction to the NFL halftime show, Russia/Ukraine, and Giuliani apparently in discussions about testifying before the Jan. 6 committee. If you enjoyed this episode please be sure to rate, review and subscribe. As always, thank YOU for listening! DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: ATHLETIC GREENS: https://athleticgreens.com/meidas GROVE COLLABORATIVE: https://grove.com/meidastouch AURA FRAMES: https://auraframes.com and use code MEIDAS MAGIC SPOON: https://magicspoon.com/meidas and use code MEIDAS WONDERY'S "AMERICAN SCANDAL": Subscribe anywhere you get podcasts or download the Wondery app for new episodes Listen to and follow “The Lost Debate” Podcast! Website: https://lostdebate.com/ Youtube: https://bit.ly/3Gs5YTF Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lost-debate/id1591300785 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lostdebate Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelostdebate SHOW RUNDOWN: 00:00:00 Intros 00:06:13 Racist Maps and The Lost Debate 00:08:19 Sexual Anarchy and the MAGA-verse 00:09:12 Brett’s Kanye Story 00:11:30 Super Bowl Halftime Show 00:18:41 Ad Break 00:21:00 MAGA Crypto Coin FAIL 00:23:30 Rudy and the Jan 6 Committee 00:25:35 The GQP Can’t Quit Hillary 00:31:07 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi 00:51:37 Ad Break 00:54:07 Russia/Ukraine 00:58:45 Ad Break 01:12:00 Phyllis Harvey-Hall 01:22:45 Ad Break 01:24:44 Winter Olympics 01:27:15 Outros 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 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Wait, can you hear me right now? Brett! Brett! Did that come through? I'm sure our audio listeners are laughing at that. I absolutely hear you echoing like three times through my ears right now, 100%. They actually are very, very, very close to each other. We got a great show for you today. We have Raja Krishnamoorthi, congressman from Illinois' 8th Congressional District. We'll be speaking with him about his investigations into the NFL.

Congressman Krishnamoorthy is on the Oversight Committee, and he's been digging deep into, with a number of other members of Congress, into the Washington Football Club, now I, called the Commanders and serious sexual harassment allegations that have been made against them. The potential that there is a cover-up going on in terms of the report that the NFL had commissioned into what had taken place. Apparently, there was orders to only do an oral report and not a written report. And there's also accusations or allegations that documents that should be turned over to the committee are not being turned over to the committee. So that will be our post Super Bowl episode, digging, delving into the NFL, have the cabal take down the NFL. That's our plan. Yeah. And just by having a member of Congress talk about something, that's one of the ways we act as a cabal, apparently, by just asking

questions that, by the way, these are public hearings that have gone out for weeks, but we'll get the credit, I'm sure, for being behind this and being responsible for it. And Ben, you're going to take on that interview just one-on- one, right? Because you're a little jealous that Brett and I did an interview a while back with just us two. And so you wanted your own little own little light, huh? That's exactly correct. The interview will just be me and the congressman and then Brett and Jordy. I had to get you back for you stealing one of my interviews. So now we are even. But then we as brothers have an interview as well after on the other side of that interview with a Democratic congressional candidate for Alabama's second congressional district, Phyllis Harvey Hall. I love Phyllis Harvey Hall. I mean, she

is full of energy, full of positivity and optimism. We've been speaking a lot about Alabama on the Midas Touch podcast. As many people will recall, a three-judge judicial panel, district court panel in Alabama found that the redistricting that was done in Alabama was racist and inappropriate and ordered the Alabama legislature to redraw the map. But the United States Supreme Court last week, in an opinion led by Justice Kavanaugh, basically said, no, we as the United States radical extreme court are going to put our fingers on the scale. And despite what a bipartisan district court panel did in Alabama, what we're going to say is the racist status quo map will hold. And then we will we'll we'll take this up when we want to take this up sometime in the future. But the implication

of what the Supreme Court did by allowing the map to hold is that the racist map, not what the district district courts did, which is very it's a very unusual thing from a legal perspective, just wearing my lawyer hat for a second, because normally what the Supreme Court would do when it wants to hear oral arguments is it would preserve the status quo, which would be what the district court did, saying that these maps are racist and they need to be redone, not basically hold the racist maps should stay. There's been a big erosion of the Voting Rights Act, but still, even with that in Alabama, Democrats, though, still had a pretty decent redistricting situation where people were saying across the country that the Republicans are going to gerrymander the crap out of everything. Democrats fought back and it was awfully, it's awfully close. You got to fight fire with fire. Ben, you're feeling extra lawyer-y today.

Like you got the look going on. It's the glasses. It's the glasses. But he's in the button down too. Well, I took a deposition. I knew it. I knew it. Right before the podcast.

I knew the energy. I knew the energy. Do they take I knew it. Right before the podcast, I had a deposition. I knew the energy. I knew the energy. Do they take you more seriously when you wear the glasses? Is that it? No, my eye was hurting me yesterday. I had to put eye drops in. My eyes have just been crushing me lately, particularly, I mean, in my right eye.

I like yesterday, Sochi and I went to, and one, happy Valentine's day to Sochi. Happy Valentine's day for Brett to Emily, Jordy to Lexi one happy Valentine's day to Sochi, happy Valentine's day for Brett to Emily, Jordy to Lexi, happy Valentine's day to all. Happy Valentine's day to the Midas Mighty. How about that? Happy Valentine's day. Thank you for spending your night with us. You know, you are our Valentine's today.

Thank you. Yeah. To the Midas Mighty. The Midas Mighty is also all of our Valentines, not the Valentine, which is Emily emily sochi and lexi um but our valentine is also the might is mighty but so she took me to the eye place yesterday i was just crushing me so romantic so yeah she got me eye drops what are you what are you doing tonight straight out of a rom-com you getting your physical tonight i gotta say i like you back in this room that we placed you in.

This is like your old roots here. When we first started the Minds Touch podcast and you would literally do it from your closet, you're looking like you're doing it back from the closet days. So I like that. We're throwing it back today's episode. You got to roll with the punches. Did you guys see with Alabama? Did you guys see that clip from the Lost Debate podcast that we posted where he showed, because what a lot of

right-wingers try to do is they take things like highways and maps and they go, okay, a map, okay. How could a map be racist? How could a highway be racist? Just because they're very disingenuous and they don't actually dig into how these things are set up and are racially engineered in order to divide people literally by their race. And so this video by the Lost Debate podcast really breaks it down in such a clear way, where it shows you how a map can be racist that was drawn by the commissions. And it shows you like the shapes of the Alabama map, how it like goes through all these cities in order to carve out and to pack certain voters into certain areas that their voting power is that much less.

It's really the best visual aid I've ever seen. I encourage all of our listeners who love this podcast to check out the Lost Debate podcast. Wherever you look for news, you may be forced to choose between echo chambers and mainstream media and conspiracy obsessed alternative media. That's why you should check out the Lost Debate. It's a podcast and YouTube show for political eclectics who want to escape their media bubbles and engage in good faith with ideas from across the political spectrum. You got Ravi Gupta, a former staffer for Obama and school principal

who founded Arena, an organization that has trained thousands of progressive staffers and helped elect hundreds of candidates. You got Corey Bradford, a progressive political organizer from the Deep South turned TikTok star who once hosted a Fox News radio show. And if you watch the YouTube version of this episode, you'll see Corey with the visual aid show you exactly how these Alabama maps are gerrymandered. And then you got Ricky Schlatt, a Gen Z New York Post columnist and libertarian fighting to protect free speech. They cover the latest news ideas and trends that mainstream media overlooks. So instead of being at each other's throats, they focus on bringing new perspectives to the table in constructive debates that sound less like crossfire and more like discussions between real people. So you can join the

conversation. Check out the Lost Debate podcast today. New episodes drop twice a week. Search for The Lost Debate on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Ben, Jordy, sexual anarchy. We got to talk about the Super Bowl. Jordy, why are you wearing a Spider-Man mask? The Magiverse, brothers. The Magiverse is at it again. Did you guys see the Magiverse's reaction to the Super Bowl? It was outrageous.

It was totally and utterly ridiculous. Yeah. But why are you wearing a Spider-Man mask? Because we're fighting against the Magiverse. We're not holding back. And I'm not Jordan right now. I'm Midas Spidey. And Midas Spidey has had it up to here with these lunatics in the Magiverse. Do I have to come in there right now? Do I have to come in there and set you straight? So for those listening, Jordy is wearing a Spider-Man mask. Think about a good Kanye West mask, for example. I'm not even sure. It was publicly reported.

So I guess I could talk about it. When I took Kanye West's deposition and he wore a mask the entire time in the deposition. This is Geordie's Geordie wearing the Spider-Man mask is giving me those exact vibes. Not these days. All right. Let's give away my secret identity. I'm Midas Spidey. Wait, did I tell you guys, I know our listeners are going to love just us going on random tangents today. Did I tell you guys I saw Kanye two weeks ago? You did not tell us that. Really? Two weeks ago, I went out to a restaurant in L.A. And the weirdest thing was Emily, my wife and I, we were at this restaurant.

It's called Bestia. It's like a really good Italian restaurant in L.A. I had not been out to this restaurant since before the pandemic. So I was really excited to go. So we get there and we never talk about like Kanye West and Kim Kardashian or anything like that. Like that's never a topic of conversation, but because Kanye has just been so crazy lately, well, lately, I mean, I guess that's his MO now all the time, but we started talking about Kanye. And then all of a sudden Emily goes, Brett, I think Kanye's right behind you. And I look behind me and there's a guy in a mask, like, you know, the full black face mask.

And I go, you know, well, there's a guy wearing a mask there, but it looks like Kanye. Like, oddly enough, him wearing a full face mask makes him incredibly recognizable, far more recognizable than even if he weren't wearing the face mask. And I go, holy shit, I think that's Kanye West. So he walks in, French Montana walks into this restaurant. And this restaurant, I've never known it to be like a celebrity hotspot or anything. And so they go to their table, which was like 15 feet from my table. They're probably there with like eight people. And I just watched to make sure you'd get confirmation. And then Kanye takes off his mask. And sure enough, it was Kanye West sitting 15 feet away from me.

I was very happy that you weren't out to dinner with me, Ben, because you were the guy who deposed Kanye. And I was like, I cannot imagine what this restaurant would turn into right now if he looked over and saw you sitting 15 feet away from me. You know, know. I still think that. I think he respected the deposition. We'll see about that. But let's talk about Super Bowl, particularly the halftime show. The halftime Dre featured Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige, Eminem. And the right wing Eminem took a knee during it to bring attention to systemic oppression and to also give a nod to Colin Kaepernick, a big nod to Colin Kaepernick. That was a huge moment. That was a huge moment. And there were rumors, and now the NFL is denying them, that they had an argument before the show

about whether Eminem was allowed to take a knee or not. But you got to know by now, you can't tell Eminem what to do. If you tell him not to do something, he's going to do it extra. So then even before the Super Bowl, just because the lineup was a hip-hop show show and then during the halftime show, all of a sudden all the radical right, which at this point, could we just basically I mean, this isn't a complicated issue. We don't need to analyze it at these like deeper levels like they're just racist, right? Like that's just like these are racist people. And if it's I think one of the things you said it best, Brett, which is that the people who participated in the insurrection are upset at the halftime show. They're offended by the halftime. That's where they draw the line. A little too un-American for them.

The halftime show, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg performing halftime, a little too un-American, storming the Capitol. Totally okay. And the fact of the matter is, it was a really excellent halftime show. But then you get these lunatics like Charlie Kirk, who tweets out, the NFL is now the league of sexual anarchy. This halftime show should not be allowed on television. They live in an alternate universe. They live in the Magiverse. These people are corrupt.

First off, Jordy, are you going to be wearing this mask the remainder of the show is my first question. Just during the Magiverse. These people are corrupt. First off, Jordy, are you going to be wearing this mask the remainder of the show is my first question. Just during the Magiverse section, then we kind of find out taking it off. Secondly, no, you're right. They live in their own bubble. And this is a good thing for us though, because this is actually where they fall on their face on these cultural issues. Like most Americans watch that show and loved it. Most Americans were super excited to see that, especially it being a Los Angeles show and having Los Angeles icons like Dre and Snoop and Kendrick Lamar there. Like most Americans look at that and we're like, shit, that was like the coolest halftime show out there. So when you have Charlie Kirk calling it sexual anarchy and saying it should be not allowed on television, these are the people

who've been crying about cancel culture and every little cultural issue out there. This is such a clear delineation of how far out these people are and how off base these people are. And I don't know how you could say something like that without just being humiliated. Like they worship, they worship Donald Trump. Who's on video bragging about sexually assaulting women. That's sexual anarchy. If you want to say it, I mean, Donald Trump saying he loves grabbing women by their privates. I mean, that's who Charlie Kirk worships, you know, and the things that Trump has always espoused, like there's no, there's no logic to these people. You have someone named Bridget Gabrielle. Yeah. Her comment was just as ridiculous. She says the Superbowl halftime show was basically pornography on television. Absolutely disgusting.

Nick Adams. These are all megaverse leaders. She's got to watch better kid rock and Lee Grinwood would put on a better halftime show than these hoodlums. He writes, I mean, and you go back to Donald Trump's statement, get that son of a bitch off the field in relationship to Colin Kaepernick,

you know, for taking a peaceful stand of silent protest against systemic oppression in this country, bringing attention to an issue that exists in our country. And here you have the same people who spur on the insurrection is talking about that halftime show being sexual anarchy and basically saying that there needs to be an all white halftime show. Yeah. I mean, that's at the end of the day, what they want. And, you know, it goes back to what we say all the time. I mean, the Republican party right now is a party of white grievance. That is the only binding agent

of this party. They have no beliefs, no ideology. The only thing is that they are all terrified of white supremacy slipping away. That's really the only thing that unites them. It's really the only thing that unites them because they cannot agree on anything else. But they believe that America should be a white country straight up, because if the argument is, oh, we want somebody wholesome, they would not be begging Ted Nugent and fucking Kid Rock to perform at this event because that is not a wholesome event either. If you want to go the wholesome route. Kid Rock performing at the halftime show sounds like literally the worst halftime show ever. Is just going to perform Bob with the bar eight times.

Like what's what's the what's the plan there? These people, they're just incredibly out of touch. They want to see a white America. And every time we see comments like this, it's just the dying gasps. It's the last gasps of a dying party that is doing everything they can to stay in power. The unfortunate thing is we have a government in this country that allows that small percentage of people to stay in power and to cling to power for a very long time, far after their expiration date. This party, the Republican Party, is like meat that's gone bad like 10 years ago that's still sitting out and is smelling and is moldy

and everything, but it's somehow using chemical agents to stay alive all these years. And it's just time. It's just give it up, man. Give it up. And that's what we're up against this November. And that's why we need to keep fighting. And that's why we need to show up because we cannot let this slim minority of crazy people, of racists, of people who hate American entertainment,

of people who hate really everything this country stands for. And that's made great by this country, the diversity of this country. We cannot let them take power. This weird sexual repression of the Charlie Kirks and the Nick Adams. All of them, because that's where they went. When they went after and they attacked us, it was all that weird sexual repression that was within the message. It was all about who we had relationships with in high school. Very bizarre. It was all sexual.

And this is the party. So let me get it straight, everybody. This is the party who wanted sexy M&Ms and stilettos two weeks ago. They were begging, M&Ms, please make the M&Ms sexy again. We want sexy M&Ms with stilettos. But M&M taking a knee during the Super Bowl, they can't handle that. Yeah. Brad, just put your meme up for a second. I was a plus meme. If you're listening, watch this or go to our Twitter page to check out the meme. I was very proud of this, which I did on my phone. Yeah. Brad did that meme in real time and sent to us. It was, this was the Eminem they wanted. This is the Eminem they got. Definitely check that out. Want to talk about just our next partner is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens, you know, Athletic Greens is my favorite. It's completely revolutionized my

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let's go Brandon cryptocurrency. And it turns out that cryptocurrency, that one, let's go Brandon one, at least not so much on the up and up. So the value of all the 330 trillion coins now totals just a few thousand dollars combined, according to the crypto trading sites, which is a far cry from the days that pro-Trump investors believed they were going to strike it rich in this zone of crypto. That represents a 99.5% decline. Imagine if you put your money in this Let's Go Brandon coin. First of all, you've humiliated yourself just from the start by putting your money in. Imagine telling somebody that you have crypto

and your crypto is let's go Brandon crypto. Fucking clowns. And so that means if you put in your money, you've now lost 99.5% of your money. So congratulations. Way to own the libs. Great work out there. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. Owning the libs by filing for bankruptcy. Way to go. Dude, the Magiverse is a scary fucking place. I mean, you want to even talk about it. Look, this digital world acquisition company, the Trump SPAC, just to show how empty, literally empty the investments that MAGA makes. It isn't a thing. They've missed every deadline of like launching their app.

They use like other people's code instead of their own. But the MAGA people just don't care. They're just like, here, take my money. I don't care. I don't care if the company's even real. They would rather invest in a fake company that their cult leader runs, Digital World Acquisition Company, which has no real actual tangible product. And they're against like actual social media that actually does what it says it's going to do. But that's it. Like for them, that's a good microcosm of what they want America to be, right? Like they're cool with America being pillaged and raided as long as they can wear their red hats and feel like they're cool,

they don't give a shit about actual things that work, even if they're the ones being stolen from. Exactly. That's that's the craziest thing. But, you know, and and then, though, they're the first people willing to jump ship, though, too. You know, and there's reporting that comes out recently or came out recently that Rudy Giuliani is in discussions about testifying with the January 6th committee. You think Rudy's trying to get a little reprieve here, Brett, and knows the writings on the wall and he wants to, you know, finally get info out? Or is it just Rudy being Rudy? I don't know. It's always Rudy being Rudy to me. I feel like the January 6th committee has been a little more cautious in the language that they're using to describe their talks with Rudy after so many people have, you know, like Jordy says, done Lucy with the football

and pulled away at the last minute. I don't believe that he's going to speak until I see him speak because I've learned my lesson at this point with all these people. But, you know, Rudy's in deep shit. Rudy's in a lot of trouble in a lot of different cases, including like foreign lobbying schemes that he was involved in down to January 6th. Rudy is in deep legal trouble. And I mean, Rudy should be in jail right now. Like there shouldn't, they talk about all these discussions, like, Oh, they were talking to Rudy and we're going to see, like maybe he'll chat with us and maybe he'll like, you know, be a little nicer to us than the past people.

And they reveal a little more information. Like this is a criminal. Okay. Rudy is as deep in it as you get arrest the guy. That's why I was so sick in weeks ago when we heard that he was on the mass singer, when we spoke about that, because Rudy is a criminal. Rudy is an insurrectionist. Rudy Giuliani belongs in prison. Absolutely. There's no leniency here. There's zero, zero, zero redemption for Rudy Giuliani. His name is forever tarnished. He should be in prison. And what I think he's doing again, this is what i think he's doing again this is what i think he's doing because it's his only card he has left to play because donald trump still owes him millions of millions of dollars in lawyer fee in lawyer fees so what he's doing is he's

trying to hold this j6 committee over trump's head maybe trying to work out a deal with trump hey pay me and i won't talk to them that's's where my head's at. I like that theory. I like that idea. Because they are being, the Jan 6th committee has been extremely careful in their wording and their verbiage as these discussions with Rudy are underway. So that's what I think is happening. Might as spidey with that. And then, of course, we get Trump's statement as well. I mean, I don't want to post the statement, but basically saying that Hillary Clinton and those involved in her orbit should be put to death was the he said in earlier times that would be subject to the death penalty.

This is as we know that Donald Trump has been eating documents, putting documents in toilet bowls. He's been shredding documents. He brought documents to Mar-a-Lago. His call log records are missing. In addition to the various criminal investigations against him taking place that we all know are legitimate and valid because we actually heard the phone call that he made to Rafferty's burger. And we've now seen a lot of the records out of New York and we saw what happened on January 6th, but this is what Trump does as a cornered rat. This is what they do. Careful what you wish for Donald, careful what you wish for. I mean,

you really want to put the death penalty on the table for crimes like this. That's what you want to do. You really want to put the death penalty on the table because you are projecting at your own crimes and the whole like right wing media ecosystem right now. It's so weird. They are so fucking 2016. They are back on Hillary Clinton. This is what a morally bankrupt party with zero ideas and zero ability to help the American people does. They have nothing. They have nothing. So they're making up a story about Hillary Clinton infiltrating Trump in 2016 and are trying to turn it into this whole big thing. These people are lunatics. And I think like, don't they ever get bored? Do you ever get bored of this? I do not understand. Like even like the most diehard like person who doesn't like Hillary

Clinton on their Republican voter when they're looking to go to the polls in 2022. And they already think that the whole process is bullshit, that the whole process is corrupt, that the whole process is rigged is, Oh, well, Hillary Clinton in 2016, we think is that going to bring people to the polls? Is that people, is that really going to make anybody vote for Republicans? I'm going to chalk this one up to the old saying that is never interrupt your enemy while they're making a mistake and let them run 2022 on Hillary Clinton. Let them never snatch defeat from the jaws of

victory was always an expression I used as a litigator. You're snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Why do that? And you're right, Brett, it is a morally bankrupt right-wing media that is just rehashing the same talking points over and over again and rooting for our enemies. In a little bit, we should talk about what's going on in Russia and how the right-wing radical extremist media is actually not one of the first times really in American history, maybe the first time in American history where normally the country would rally around a president in the face and Biden's standing up strong. He's uniting allies and you have the right-wing media who's literally rooting for an enemy. I want to talk about that on the

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I get all my stuff from Grove Collaborative. And now it's really, really great. Let's bring in the interview that I did with Raja Krishnamoorthi now, eh? Let's check it out. Could you just set it up? Like what's the issue right now in the NFL that you're talking about? Just so our listeners who are, you know,

don't really know what's going on here so that they have a little bit of a primer. I want to, yeah, I want to shed light on this issue because right now across the country, there's a few issues that are just going on generally. One issue is forced arbitration clauses for sexual assault and sexual harassment in civil cases, whether employers should be able to force employees into private arbitrations. Interestingly, on a bipartisan basis recently, Congress passed a bill. It's going to be signed by Biden, Congress and Senate that would prevent and ban forced arbitrations and it would be retroactive.

So if someone's a victim of sexual assault or sexual harassment at the workplace, no longer can an employer force you into that. If you want to decide on your own to go into an arbitration, you could do that. So that's one of the things that are just in the background here. At the same time, you've had hearings in the NFL that were related to employment claims by female employees of the Washington Football Club that used to be called the Redskins, which was a racist, horrible name for a team to be called. They were then called the Washington Football Club. They're now called the Washington Commanders. But accusations that the ownership

was engaged in sexual harassment of employees. The NFL was supposed to conduct an impartial investigation, independent investigation, but they don't have a report. Apparently, they said it should be an oral report, not a written report. And a number of other accusations have come out from female employees within the company about other conduct taking place. And so Congress, one of the things that the NFL enjoys is an antitrust exemption where the NFL could and teams can basically work together to set and fix prices in their negotiations of TV deals and other things like that. That antitrust exemption comes from Congress. So Congress here is investigating these workplace conditions and the investigation conducted by the NFL into these workplace conditions, given that Congress has a role to play, giving the NFL, right? This affects workplaces across the country.

And we want independent investigations. We want sexual assault, sexual harassment victims to feel comfortable. You know, as a lawyer, I represent sexual assault, sexual harassment victims in a lot of cases and going up against big employers. You need you need to have sometimes really aggressive litigators who can come and get to the truth. So anyway, let's bring in Raja Krishnamoorthy, and we'll check out this interview that I did with Raja. I'm so honored to be joined again by Raja Krishnamoorthy, congressman from Illinois' 8th Congressional District.

Congressman, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, man. I appreciate being back with you and Jordy and the crew. And thanks for having this podcast. I know it's extremely popular. No, and I appreciate you and all the work you're doing fighting for our democracy, fighting for workers. And your name has been coming up in the headlines recently regarding some of these committee hearings regarding the NFL, the Washington Football Club, now named the Washington Commanders, into employment practices there, into sexual harassment allegations there, into the NFL's

purported independent investigation or so the NFL claims into this horrific conduct that's been alleged and very compelling individuals who spoke at these committee hearings last week and in other settings, issues over the NFL not turning over documents that they're hiding behind claims of attorney-client privilege, and they may have entered into kind of joint defense privileges with the football team that they're supposed to be investigating. So how could you be an independent investigation when there's a joint defense privilege? But I want to take it to a very basic level, which is, you know, why is this issue important? Why is this something that Congress is investigating and that you're focused on right now?

Well, thanks for giving attention to this very important issue. First of all, we should just acknowledge that the vast majority of women in America report having been sexually harassed, more than 60% of women, and much of it at the workplace. And as you know, the NFL and the Washington team and others are some of the most visible and prominent workplaces in America. And the conduct that has occurred at the Washington team has been horrific, as you mentioned, decades and decades of sexual harassment against numerous victims by numerous perpetrators, including the team owner himself, Dan Snyder. And we learned at our hearing, our roundtable hearing the other day, one employee of the Washington football team who basically alleged a sexual assault, assault by the team owner at a dinner and then reported being pushed toward his limo forcibly until the team owner's own attorney said to him, Dan, this is a very bad idea. And that's what caused the team owner to stop. And so for this to happen for decades and decades at this place, everybody's watching

and saying, okay, are we going to have transparency and accountability in one of the most visible workplaces? And if not, why isn't this going to happen all over America? And so that's why it's important to figure out here what went wrong, bring people to account and formulate our rules, regulations and laws to prevent this. So one of the things that Congress did and in a letter you wrote, I mean, requesting documents that the NFL turnover, because at the end of the day, what you, what Congress wants to do here is bring sunlight, to bring attention to it and to really get to the bottom of what's going on.

Now, the NFL claims that it's turned over lots of documents and that it's produced these records. Are they being truthful or are they being disingenuous in their claim that they've turned over 80,000 plus records and that they've fully complied with all of the records that you and other members of Congress are looking for? I think more of the latter. I don't think they're000 documents, emails, other materials, along with conducting over 150 witness interviews and coming to her findings. We didn't get those 650,000 documents and materials, nor did we receive interview summaries. And interestingly, Beth Wilkinson was instructed not to document her findings. Now, remember, in every other scandal with the NFL, Ray Rice scandal, Deflategate, Carolina Panthers investigation, the NFL released very detailed findings, hundreds of pages of findings, but here they did not. And we need to know why. And it appears to me to be a cover-up and we're going to get to the bottom

of it. And so when talking about getting to the bottom of it, you know, what powers does Congress have though to enforce its subpoena request? You know, at this point, the NFL's claiming, well, one, we have an agreement with a joint defense agreement that prevents us from, you know, turning over certain records or alternatively, if that's not the position they're resting on attorney client privilege, these are not documents that we should be turning over. But one of the things I think that they're thinking about is really kind of the law of attrition in a way that, you know what, there's a lot of issues going on and Congress is busy, and are they really going to remain laser focused on this issue? And one of the things that I think

they're counting on as a passive observer is that Congress is, you know, just going to move on to the next issue. But is this something Congress is going to stay focused on? And what powers and authority can be done to actually get these records before the committee? Great questions. First, I'm going to be focused on this, and my committee will be focused on this. Two, I think that, you know, there are various claims of privilege and wanting to protect the confidentiality of the witnesses who came forward or the victims is belied by what the victims themselves say, which is, we want a report. And there are all kinds of ways, you know this, Ben, there are all kinds of ways to, you know, basically protect the names of the

people who came forward in these witness interviews and to report what they said. You can, we all have seen blacked out names and reports and so forth. There are ways to protect them and at the same time get the findings out. And so at the end of the day, I fear that what's really happening is they don't want the findings to get out. They don't want certain pieces of information to get out. And for that to happen really is very disturbing. And as a lot of my colleagues said, look, you, the NFL, enjoy a very important antitrust exemption that we in Congress have conferred upon you. The least that you can do is investigate pervasive sexual

harassment and tell us what you're doing to hold people to account because of it. And so for those watching and those listening, they may find that very fascinating, this antitrust exemption. It's unique in certain circumstances. It's circumscribed by law. You just don't get to get antitrust exemptions. In fact, there are Department of Justice antitrust enforcement divisions that will often look at companies to see if they are doing things such as price fixing, and there could be serious criminal penalties and civil penalties for engaging in antitrust behavior. And so maybe just walk us through a little bit at a high level, this antitrust exemption that has been conferred, and why does the NFL get it and other businesses don't? It's a fascinating topic, Ben. But essentially, the NFL, the Major League Baseball industry,

NBA, and others have this antitrust exemption where essentially, unlike in any other industry, the main competitors can collude with each other, especially with regard to hiring employees, namely players. They can set maximum salaries. They can set minimum salaries. They can do everything with regard to conditioning their employment. They can also prevent other football teams, professional football teams from potentially entering their league. They can also collude with regard to maximizing the price of their TV deals, which, as you know, is the biggest source of revenue for these different professional sports industries. So that's what's on the line for them. They know it's an incredibly important privilege they have. And we're not saying that they shouldn't

make money, they shouldn't make a profit. But what we're saying is you have to live up to the public interest in some regard, such as prohibiting discrimination of any kind, in this case, sexual harassment, and they're failing at that. And I think that's one of the things when people say, well, it's a private business, you could do whatever you like. But really, it's a private business that enjoys this stature based upon decree of all American citizens. The stadiums that these billionaires have are often paid for by taxpayers on an individual basis. And at the broader level, the league and the profits that are accumulated at massive proportions, though, are on account of American taxpayers and American citizens and our representatives who in the past conferred this.

And so Congress has a legitimate interest to conduct investigations into the conduct that's taking place, especially where it is symbolic of workplace environments generally and what we need to do to be better. I think that's a fair way of saying it. Ben, what we heard in terms of allegations make this appear to be perhaps the best known billionaire's frat house we've ever seen. The Washington team had almost every level of management engaging in sexual harassment, including the owner. And we have literally dozens and dozens and now hundreds of witnesses who came forward to report on this. If we can't correct sexual harassment in that workplace, where can we possibly correct sexual

harassment? That is what's on the line. And as these hearings are being held, what's also in the background was the ban on forced arbitration for sex abuse in the workplace. And so that in many contexts, sexual assault, if the states haven't overturned this, but sexual assault, sexual harassment types of claims, employers could keep these in confidential arbitration processes and keep these secret. And so the House of Representatives passed a bill through the Democratic leadership that basically says, no, like sexual assault claims in the workplace should not be subject to private arbitrations.

Although there were still a number of your counterparts in the Republican Party who want to keep sexual assault claims private. Maybe talk about the forced arbitration bill and its importance. And do you think that this bill is going to make its way through the Senate and actually become the law of the land in this country? Great question. I'd like to see that happen. It would require 10 Republicans to join Democrats in the Senate to avoid a filibuster. As you know, it seems like a filibuster is kind of the legislative maneuver du jour for Republicans. They use it every day to kind of block these types of bills. If I can mention one kind of sidecar issue to the forced arbitration clause in many of these employment agreements is the non-disclosure agreements.

That has become a real problem, to say the least, in these sexual harassment cases. As you know, in the Me Too movement and the Time's Up movement, what we've learned is people like Harvey Weinstein and others essentially use the NDA, the non-disclosure agreement, to silence a victim, and then he would perpetrate the wrongdoing over and over again. And unfortunately, I think that's what happened at the Washington team as well. So we absolutely need reform of that along with the forced arbitration provision. And so why is it though that Republicans in the Senate though would go as far as to filibuster a bill that says, you know what, if an employer sexually assaults an employee, that that claim should be, we're not saying all claims, we're saying one of the most horrific workplace acts that could take

place. Why would they be so against that claim being heard in a public forum? Now they could say, well, it's because they're supporting business, but do businesses want to have executives who sexually assault their underlings, that that's what's okay in our society? It seems like an issue that Democrats should get out in front of as well, just because it's the decent human thing. Right. Right. You know, to me, it's like this. Would you ever agree to a force arbitration panel or a clause for a crime of any kind? I think the average person would say, absolutely not. That should never happen. And indeed, I have not heard of such a thing. But what we've learned is sexual harassment, especially physical sexual harassment, but other forms of sexual harassment, too, basically are like a crime in the sense that the perp is really powerful and rich and able to silence victim after victim. Well, Congressman Krishnamoorthy, appreciate your time.

I appreciate you delving deep into these NFL issues. I wanted to provide that additional context of what's going on in forced arbitration. There is a ton of issues I'm sure that we could be also talking about, but I thought it was important that we kind of drill down on an issue that lots of people are asking me about, and I'm sure asking you about. Well, Ben, thank you for bringing attention to this. I know that you have a lot of experience with this particular issue yourself, with your clients. And all I can say is, I think that we all have to kind of be very careful about making sure that when we learn about these types of situations, like the Washington team and others, that we take corrective action here,

so it doesn't happen again in other places. If we don't, it's not only a missed opportunity, but a lot of victims will not have their harms addressed and the perpetrators will commit their wrongdoing again. Congressman Krishnamoorthy, thank you so much for joining us. And I know you got an incredible busy day today. We always appreciate you joining the Midas Ted Show. Hey, thanks, Ben. And best wishes. Thank you. Ben, amazing interview, big bro. I was a little jealous. I was a little jealous that it was just you, but hey, it worked. It was really, it was actually, it was really, really fascinating.

Great work. Yeah. I just wanted to delve into an issue a little deeper than we have before. I mean, there's a lot we could be talking about. We talk about it in the podcast as brothers when we talk about the current events. I probably could have talked to Congressman Krishnamurti about it. No better person than you to really conduct that interview as you have taken on the NFL before successfully. At the end of the day, though, as I see it, you know, taking on, I just want to do the right thing, right? I just want, at the end of the day, I just want there to be justice for the women who came forward. They want truth.

They want transparency. They want people to be held accountable for their actions. That's all that we can ask. Brett? We got a lot more to talk about this episode, but let me first tell you about a product that I love, the company that I just love so much. They're called Aura Frames. And I was just thinking about them because, so I have Aura Frames set up in my house. And then I came to Jordy's and like the first thing I saw on prominent display was the Aura Frames flowing through the photos. And the first thing I said to Jordy was,

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with your pictures. That's what I miss about photo albums. Like you piece people used to just display it. Anyway, I can go on and on. Make sure you get your aura frames. Here's what I want to talk about too before we bring in our next interview, Brent. We now have over 130,000 Russian troops who are staged outside of Ukraine. There is credible evidence that Russia is planning an invasion of Ukraine that is imminent.

Russia's avowed goal is to destroy American democracy. That is one of the things that Putin wants, one of the things that Putin regrets. His whole worldview regrets, not the right word, but his whole worldview is shaped by the belief that the Soviet Union crumbling was the worst thing to happen in history, that he wants to build up a Soviet Union to take down the United States of America. When you think about the Cold War, you think about Kennedy, you think about all presidents standing up. I don't care who it was at the time, right? Whether it was Kennedy or Ford or Nixon or Carter, whoever the president was.

The GQP's former person who they just adored and loved, Ronald Reagan. Tear down the wall. We stood up to Russia because Russia wanted to destroy us. And here you have Biden doing exactly what Trump didn't do. Trump basically would have turned the United States into a satellite country of Russia where Trump saw the United States place in the world because Trump's really not a strong man. Trump's a fake strong man. Trump is as weak as you get. Trump is yearning and looking towards people. All that projection is he's subservient to a Putin. You saw him in Helensky. He looked horrible because he's scared of Putin, but he wanted to turn America into like what Hungary is to Putin. You know, he wanted to turn America, you know, into something that's in in Russia's orbit. And so he let Russia do whatever it wanted to Ukraine. He extorted Ukraine.

Biden is calling President Zelensky for robust support, protection from the United States. President Zelensky is standing up and saying that he's going to defend the country from Russia. But you literally have no unity. I bet you if you did a poll, I think I've said this on Legal AF, I may have said this on another Midas podcast. If you polled Republicans and said, who would you rather run America, Putin or Biden? I guarantee you that poll results would basically show Putin by overwhelming support, overwhelming support. Yeah. And when we've seen all this heightened rhetoric over the past few days and people saying that war is imminent, you know, I hope from the bottom of my heart that there is not a war because so many people will be hurt, could die from that. And that's the last thing that I think most Americans, maybe save for the American news media, would want to see. I think nobody really wants a war, but I think it's about time that we actually have a federal government who's actually supporting our allies and is actually standing up to

Vladimir Putin, because that's what's important. We cannot appease these aggressors. We cannot let them just get away with whatever they want. And we must protect Zelensky. We need to protect Ukraine and offer them whatever aid they want from us. You know, if they, if Ukraine says, you know what, America, like get out of here, like we should get out of there. Like, we should respect Ukraine's autonomy and do whatever we can as a nation and as a partner to help them. I couldn't agree with you more. And our hearts go out with our allies in Ukraine. Right now, we support President Zelensky. We support their fight for democracy. And we need to rally around NATO. We need to, that is a very American position to take. And it is shocking, but not shocking

in a way that you have the Republicans. I say not shocking because they support an insurrection against the country. And so their avowed goal is obviously to destroy the United States of America. But we need to bring hope. We need to bring optimism back into what makes America truly a special country. And someone who's spreading this message of hope and optimism, Phyllis Harvey Hall. I'm so excited to bring her on the podcast. We did an earlier interview with Phyllis Harvey Hall, but before bringing Phyllis Harvey Hall into the interview, Brett or Jordy, you want to tell us about Magic Spoon? No, do I want to tell you? Magic Spoon is my read, guys. I can't let Jordy steal a Magic Spoon. I am going to get a read in this episode, though. I will get a read. We'll

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at checkout to save $5 off. Thank you so much to Magic Spoon for sponsoring this episode. Let's bring in Phyllis Harvey Hall with the interview we did. Phyllis Harvey Hall, though, just radiates optimism. I'm rooting for Phyllis Harvey Hall in this election. She previously ran for Congress. She's running again. Incredible person and excited to share this interview with all of you. Let's bring in Phyllis Harvey Hall. We are joined by Phyllis Harvey Hall, Democratic congressional candidate for Alabama's second congressional district.

Welcome to the podcast, Phyllis. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate this, really. It's great. And you all give me such energy. I hope you feel it coming. I feel it.

I'm feeling it. All right, Phyllis. So normally I would do the introduction and say, Phyllis, so normally I would do the introduction and say Phyllis this is the background, in your own words if you can tell the Midas Mighty and all of our listeners and viewers your background and why you're running for the second congressional district in Alabama. I am Phyllis Harvey Hall, I am running for the second district as you stated in Alabama and I'm excited for this run. I don't know if people kept up. This is my second rodeo and I believe as I think the kid says when you knock down you just get back up and I'm back up and I will stay up and I intend

to keep keep moving. I am an educator. I am an advocate for people. I'm a local advocate for education. I'm a consultant. I have a small tutoring business. And that's what I do. I have a grandbaby that I grew up listening to how great we can be. And we are good. And progress has been made. I know you all are just a tiny bit younger than I am. And the joke here is that I am a little too mature to be considered young, but do know I'm restless all the time. Okay, so I'm moving. Okay. And with that, with the history of this country, the beauty of it, I know that the ideal of America is beautiful. There's nothing better. And unfortunately, there are some people that don't like that ideal. I think they like talking about it, but they don't want to really be about it. And I'm running because I think we're at a point in history right now that if we don't fight, and I mean, just come out as democratic people, people who believe in this country, who believe in justice and equality, who believe that we all should have an opportunity and that we are all Americans. I tell people when you look at this gorgeous face, I say it's brown and you see that you can't miss it.

I said, but I don't like classifying myself as anything but American because truly that's the blood that I carry. I'm American through and through. I can be just as brash, just as bold. I believe that when I walk out the door, I am afforded every opportunity like anyone else that cares that American heritage. You're running against a radical extremist by the name of Barrymore. Now, I don't use the term conservative anymore. I don't think that these right wing radicals can have that term conservative when you don't fundamentally agree with conserving our democracy. And Barrymore is spreading COVID disinformation. I mean, one of the things he stands for is he's pro-COVID. He wants people in Alabama apparently to be infected and die by COVID. Is that a conservative view? And he voted to decertify the election and supports the big lie. And he's one of these people who view attacks on police officers,

the insurrection on January 6th. He views that as legitimate political discourse. And so how do you message to the voters of Alabama's second, though, that this man is not conservative? This is a radical extremist who wants to literally kill the people in Alabama's second. That is going to be a task that we are going to do. And I think you all have know that my team this time coming around, we are going to fight and we are going to let the people in Alabama know that Barry Moore goes through what Southern like to do. It's Southern cover up.

He loves to quote the Bible, loves to hold the Bible up. But you know, if you're reading the scriptures, he's like this wolf in lambs discovered. He is a ravenous beast, but he pretends to be a Christian. And here in the South, you know, we have to learn to be polite. So it is all about the sugar, honey, iced tea. And that's all he's bringing, really, because there's no truth that he's dealing in. He's been self-dealing since he was in the Alabama state legislature, where as we

all know, he got off on a memory lapse and that's a convenient Christian conservative thing to do, I guess, because God is forgiving. So we just forget and we cherry pick our lives and we ask for forgiveness. But Barrymore has voted no for everything that has been beneficial to the state of Alabama and for our country. And we are going to let him know, let the people of Alabama know that what he's voted for, his voting record speaks about who he is. Forget what's coming out of his mouth and look at what he's doing. And right now with our state being one of the states last in education almost, I think we were dead last for reading and math two years ago, we have hospital rule, hospitals of clothing, but Barrymore went and voted against not only Build Back Better, he voted against the infrastructure

bill, but yet there's so many projects we need, roads and bridges here, but he'll yet spend that money and bring it and say he's done something for this state. So we are letting the people know who he is. We're letting him know about his voting record. He voted against women with the Protection Act there. So he's not concerned about anyone but himself and greasing the pockets of his donors and the people he liked dealing with. You mentioned education as an important issue, infecting all impacting all Americans, but particularly Alabama's second, because Alabama second is dead last in math and reading comprehension and certain skills like that. What are some of the other issues, though, that are kind of top of mind on voters in Alabama second

that Barrymore is just completely missing the mark on and that you're laser focused on to bring this election home? And that was when we look at health care and what he's promoting with COVID, you know, we've lost thousands of people. So he's not focused on that. We need the infrastructure for hospitals. And he needs to make sure that as I tweeted to him earlier, you need to stop promoting these falsehoods and deal with science. So he's not promoting the science for people to have health care, the money that's coming in that came in from the American Rescue Plan. He's not, we are looking at that money that's needed in Alabama hospitals to keep them moving. And let's not think, let's think of the infrastructure

of broadband. When we talk about education, we've all seen how in rural America, particularly here, how that we do not have broadband reaching to these children where they could have access to it for schooling. So what our ill-informed representative sent out was a survey earlier this year, I think asking if we need broadband. He is so clueless that he didn't know that already, but you're wasting time using up government funds instead of a useless survey. We certainly need

broadband. I talked about it last time. So once again, he doesn't seem to be concerned about what the people really need. They need broadband in rural America. They need it for jobs. He was always touting that we need more jobs. Think about what that technology would give for people to be able to work in remote locations. That would bring jobs. It could be a starting point for a launch pad for small businesses. So he's missing that mark.

And we don't even want to talk about the criminal justice system here in Alabama and in our nation. He's missing a mark there. Doesn't even talk about people who are and in our nation. He's missing a mark there. Doesn't even talk about people who are marginalized in this country. He only focus on Christian values. And to me, that shouldn't even be what you're running for as a congressperson. You are not to be focused on your personal faith. And Phyllis, it seems like so many of these politicians, like your opponent,

they seek to keep marginalized people down. It seems like if there's any unifying ideology on that side, it's that. And your state was just in the national news. The Supreme Court actually restored an Alabama voting map. It was a gerrymandered voting map that a previous court had said hurt black voters. I wanted to get your take on that, your take on the gerrymandering that's happening there and your take on this major Supreme Court case. Thank you for bringing it up. I think all of us were hoping that against hope that that case would have a profound impact for not only Alabama, but for the rest of this nation,

where we know that gerrymandering has just occurred throughout this nation. The Republicans have decided that since they can't win elections by the people voting for them, just think about how many presidential election where they totally lost the vote of the people and they lose that vote. They only win through an electoral college, but they lose the vote of people coming in. And they have decided that if we can't win with the votes of the people, we'll just find a way to strategically leave out, dilute the vote of people of color or poor people, because what they've done will affect black people

like me. It will affect, you're putting them all in one block so you can only guarantee how many representatives that you have. And my team and I were hopeful because Montgomery was previously three, Montgomery County was in three congressional districts. That's just how they diluted this county uh now with the new map we're two but it would have been better to leave us as one because they cut out the west of montgomery which guess who lives in western south montgomery people of color so once again we see how that's impacting us. And they just bury more, I'm sure was probably somewhere, having a drink and happy to have that happen because it makes it where he has a hope that he can are going to educate people. My team and I want to do some of what you do. You're beautiful with getting out your podcast and the media. We must educate people to what's happening because the poor people and people working really hard don't have time to be focused in like you all. You all have formed your own community. Most of the people in Alabama don't

seem to understand politics. They don't even know that you vote every two years for your congresspeople. So we are going to be laser focused on educating voters and grassroots, getting out, talking to them, using media to get to people and do small Zoom meetings and videos teaching them about what's going on. Conversations with Phyllis is coming. The new fireside chats, conversations with Phyllis. I love that so much. Along the same lines, it seems like this just idea of racism is like in the DNA of your opponents in Alabama.

And it seems like a huge thing that you're fighting against. I mean, the one thing that Alabama legislators are prioritizing right now is the legislative committee advanced two bills that's designed to further protect Confederate monuments and criminalize people who attempt to remove them. Why is this the priority? Why isn't the priority? You know, how do we deal with COVID? How do we keep our community safe? How do we keep our kids educated, healthy? Like, why the focus on this right now? When you think about our country

historically, if you have people who are ill-informed and they're lacking the ability to critically think, that benefits people in power. It always has. And what they are seeing that once you allow people to actually be educated properly, well, you can't always hoodwink them anymore. And I don't like to talk history so much, but, you know, the roots of everything with the South, the deep roots of racism and slavery, people want to say it's all over. But we know it's not all over. We're living it with the rules and laws now. They're defunding education in Alabama, trying to as we speak. They want to take all the money at the education fund and let parents take it to where they want to. As you said, they are now putting up laws about not teaching critical race theory, but who the heck is teaching it anyway in Alabama? But if you say black, I almost think it's an affront to the people here. And I don't know why, but it just puts a barrier in front of them. And that's because of the deep roots of the

history here. And they don't want the knowledge of it because it makes people uncomfortable and people don't like to feel uncomfortable. And so my whole thing is this time with my campaign is breaking barriers. We got to break down some barriers here and building a bridge. And that barrier that we don't like to talk about here in the South is race. And we've got to get beyond it. And they hide dog whistles with it. But I think they're bringing out the foghorns now. So we really want to deal with that. We are protesting. I met with some people this morning about how we are going to continuously get people excited about calling our legislators, informing them that we, we the people want a society that's inclusive and progressive. People need a wage to live. They need health care and they need education. Those are the basics. Phyllis, as an educator yourself, you know, what do you make of the fact that Republicans are actually trying to ban books and in many instances, the teaching of black history across the country.

Is this from the same group of people that hate cancel culture? I mean, really? They always talk about cancel culture, but now they want to cancel writers. They want to cancel books. You want to burn books. This goes back to a time in history once before.

It's like rather than making progress, we've got these people a lot older than I am that just want to go back to a time in history once before. It's like rather than making progress, we've got these people a lot older than I am that just want to go back to a time where they were comfortable and where they felt that they could just do what they want to do. They don't want to share. They want control. So my point with this, these books that have been there, we've read them. And why are we burning books? Because they don't want, they don't want to feel uncomfortable.

They don't want history to be known. Because if you, like we said, you need an uninformed people, and I don't like using certain words because here in Alabama, if you say certain things, they say, oh, you calling me ignorant, or you calling me this. When people need to know what the word ignorant means,

it doesn't mean what you think most of the time. It just means you're unlearned. I'm ignorant about certain things, but you need people not to be educated. And I tell everyone I came up, there were grants for me to go to college, the Pell Grant. I could go to school for what, a whole four years for what people pay for one year now. There was so much, there were so many projects. There were so many programs put in place to help people in poverty. I was born in poverty. So I know that it's difficult to build the steps to get out. So we have to have creatively. They gave us right facts. We were taught history accurately. And that's what we need.

But when you get that, you start building a middle class. This country is not really interested in a middle class. The corporate side of it, they don't want that. They just want working people. They don't need you to think. They just want you to work. So I'm all for education the best education let's put money let's put grants back in and let's get this high stakes testing to the place that we're doing

it where teachers can't teach let's adequately pay pay teachers and let's put mental health resources in our schools phyllis your energy is so contagious i have no doubt that you would be a great congress person for alabama second can people follow you along? How can people help out with the campaign? Anything you want to tell our audience right now where they could find more information about you? Yes, well, you can follow me on Twitter. I am Phyllis D. H. Hall on Twitter. They can go to www.phyllisforcongress.com. That's our website. The website will lead you to every space you can go to find me. We are on Facebook, Phyllis for U.S. House.

We are on Instagram. Once again, just go there to the website. You can find us on all of your social media platforms. And by all means, we're looking for volunteers and i think you all know that we have beautiful young people jack slate rel uh anderson both who are opponents i think you all know and now we're they were but we're all together we know that in our strength take down this trump loving radical called barry moore we're going to have to work hard in these deep red areas, but we intend to do the work. We intend to break the barrier.

We intend to expose him for who he really is and pull the, pull the clothing off him. Let them see that he's just a ravenous wolf back there. He's not that lamb. And, you know, he came to the John Lewis, but came to Martin Luther King Day with a Bible here in January to speak, brought a team of people with him. And you want to speak to us about voting rights and you want to speak to us about Martin

Luther King Jr. When you voted against the bill, really? That's just how hypocritical he can be. Phyllis, before we let you leave here we heard a rumor that you're actually a midas mighty yourself and part of the midas community for quite some time i think you may even have one of our holiday cards any truth to this yes oh there it is that's our recent holiday card to phyllis for the listeners phyllis has pulled out her happy holidays for midas touch card which I know many of you have received in the mail this past December, unless you were dejoyed and received them in January. That's so awesome. I love that you have it just ready to go.

That is so cool. I was really just, I'm like, oh my God, I have this. They sent me one. Yeah, I am getting cool points. Yes. Phyllis Harvey Hall, we thank you so much for joining us on the Midas Touch podcast. We're going to keep following the campaign for a congressmember of Alabama's second district. Go out there, tell the truth, keep fighting for the country,

and keep pushing back against these anti-democracy, pro-fascism forces. And at the end of the day, your message is simple. You want to help the people of Alabama. And the other person who's got the position wants to hurt the people of Alabama. Sometimes the simplest explanation is always the right one. We thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. What an interview, huh? With Phyllis Harvey Hall. Contagious energy in the best way possible. I am excited to follow that campaign. Mightiest mighty support Democratic candidates because they at the end of the day, what I love about that interview is when you do an interview, if you look at the interviews with Republicans, right, It's always just them just saying horrible things and scaring you and painting this horrible dystopian picture. Like Phyllis Harvey Hall, though, it was all about love. How can we bring people together? How do we unite the country?

You know, that's what I love about her. You know what too, man? She's a Midas Mighty. Who knew? What a surprise. What a bombshell at the end. That was awesome. A Midas Mighty. Highlighting a lot of great podcasts on this episode. And I am also a very big supporter of Wondry's American Scandals. I love all of Wondry's podcasts. I was a big listener to a lot of their American history stuff. But Jordy, tell us about Wondry American Scandal. I thought you were about to steal this ad read from me too. And I noticed a lot of people in the chat right now on YouTube, they were very upset with you. You have to listen to Wondry American Scandal. Look, imagine you're a chemist that tests drugs seized from criminals. Everyone was impressed with how fast you run your tests, but you're increasingly stretched

so thin. So you make a decision. You're going to start marking down results without actually running any tests. From Wondery, American Scandal is a weekly podcast that breaks down a notorious event that rocked America. And their latest season looks at the case of Annie Dukan, a Massachusetts chemist who caused an uproar by falsifying drug tests, throwing more than 21,000 criminal drug charges into question. When Dukhan began working at a drug testing lab in Boston, she was faced with a mountain of work, but she wanted to prove that she could handle all of it. Getting the work done

wouldn't be easy unless she faked it. Dukhan carried out large-scale fraud that threw the validity of more than 21,000 criminal drug charges into question. Her fraud most likely put many innocent people behind bars. She single handedly threw the criminal justice system in Massachusetts into disarray and raised a fierce public debate about the war on drugs. What I love about this podcast in particular is just, it's so intense and you just don't know where the next twist and turn is going to be. It's engaging too, Jordan. They bring you right into it. Like the way they tell the story, you feel like you're in it and you're living the

time and they bring you in the same way you said it. Like, imagine the year is this. And like, you feel like you have to listen to the next one because you're in the, you're in the story. So listen, this is what you have to do. Listen to American scandal fraud in a drug lab. That's American scandal fraud in a drug lab on Apple podcast, Amazon music, or you can listen one week early and add free by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app. Definitely, definitely do that today. You guys watching the Winter Olympics at all? A little bit.

I love the speed skating. Special shout out to all the Americans competing. It's also one of the things, though, that I think has devolved about this country, too, with the right wing. They don't root for America. They root against America. It's not even like, you know what? It's not like, eh, I'm not watching the Olympics this year. I don't really care about it. It's like, I want America to lose and let me shame every American

athlete representing this country and try to tear them down. It's the most un-American thing imaginable. No, that's really the right wing. And that's one of the things too, that it's like, I genuinely don't feel like the right wing supports any aspect of the country. They legitimately hate the country. I remember in the Summer Olympics, which got moved back because of COVID, at all times, they were hoping that America wouldn't finish top in gold medals so they could hold it against like woke athletes. The American gymnastics team became public enemy number one in the heart and eyes of the GQP, man. And all that rhetoric. I mean, it really starts though with Trump, right? And it starts with when Trump was the president. Remember he was rooting against the soccer team, the American soccer team and Trump attacking all athletes. It goes to the beginning of the show. His whole thing is we need to attack black athletes. We need to attack white athletes who are allies of black athletes. We need to attack brown athletes. Anyone who's not like a white athlete who isn't a Republican, those are the only people that they somehow root for at this point. They're like, I hope Ted Nugent could get on a pair of skis. That'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it? If it was up to them, America would lose in the Olympic. They want America to lose. We want America to win. And when you go and you see people like Representative

Krishnamoorthy, when you see people like Phyllis Harvey Hall, when you talk to the Americans who root for this country, that's why I still love this great country at the end of the day. I want America to be an incredible nation. I want to wake up on Valentine's Day with not love just as a holiday, but like true love in my heart. I want to be in a position of optimism. I want to be in a position of helping people. I don't want to be in an echo chamber of anger, of resentment, politics, of jealousy, of blame, of hate. Choose love. Choose love. Midas Mighty Movement is all about love and choose to take action today. After you listen to these podcasts, get motivated, get out there, whether it's writing

postcards, canvassing, doing phone calls, special happy birthday to Midas Jerry, who's out there in Texas knocking on doors every single day. And I want to highlight again at the end, Midas Jerry, because it's a perfect example, though, like Midas Jerry has assumed positions of leadership in the Texas campaign by just going out there, knocking on doors and being steadfast every day like you can do it. You listening, you have the ability to change and sway elections. Just you bringing friends, though, bringing other people. Let's make this fun. Let's do it together. Let's win in 2022, and let's win the small battles every day and the big battles to save our country. Special thanks to all of our sponsors, Aura Frames, Wondery American

Scandal, Magic Spoon, Athletic Greens, Grove Collaborative. Use those codes, the Midas codes for them. We negotiate these deals with them to get you good discounts. And we don't put stuff on here that we don't use. You get that OR frames. Listen to the Wondery American scandals. Get your Magic Spoon cereal. We eat that. Athletic Greens, I'm drinking it on the show.

Grove Collaborative. All the stuff I have here is glow is Grove collaborative and check out those podcasts. We told you about to like the lost debate. Like these are recommendations that we're making for a reason for you. And it also supports the podcast. We'll see you next time on the Midas touch podcast, Ben Breton,

Jordy signing off Jordy through quick things. There are two other birthdays. I just want to shout them out. Happy birthday, Midas, Wendy and happy birthday, Matt Hanson from last week. to shout them out. Happy birthday, Midas Wendy. And happy birthday, Matt Hanson from last week. Love y'all. Happy birthday, Midas Jerry.

Shout out to the Midas Mighty.