The MeidasTouch Podcast - Republicans exposed as communists, CNN’s rightward shift, Roevember + MORE with Seth Magaziner

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

On today’s episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast, Ben and Brett are joined by General Treasurer of Rhode Island and candidate for U.S. Congress, Seth Magaziner. Magaziner is taking on a radical right Republican who has been caught cozying up to big money donors and brushing shoulders with the likes of Harriet Hageman, Kevin McCarthy and others, and Magaziner’s race it essential to keeping control of House of Representatives. Throughout the episode, the brothers discuss the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s vanishing funds under the leadership of career crook Rick Scott, polling that shows Americans now care about democracy over any other issue, and the right-wing turn of CNN under its new leadership. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Aspiration: https://aspiration.com/touch AG1 by Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/meidas GET MEIDAS MERCH: https://store.meidastouch.com Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario biden's approval rating is up up up voters list protecting democracy as a top issue in America. Those concepts seem to be related there, Brett. Republicans are communists and we have actual proof written into the Texas code. National, yeah, national, whoops, national Republican senatorial Committee led by Rick Scott has lost, I don't know, Brett, say $150 million, so $173 million that they had in their war trust. They're now down to $28 million. They're asking, where did this money go? And who would have thought, Brett, that Rick Scott, who pled the 75 times and his company had the largest healthcare fraud settlement in American history for $1.7 billion. Who would think maybe pointing that guy to be in charge of the money may not be the greatest move in the world.

And what is going on with CNN? We'll address that and more on the Midas Touch podcast. And our guest today, Seth Magaziner, running for Rhode Island's 2nd Congressional District. This is a very important interview and a very important congressional race. When the Republicans talk about targeting Democratic seats and trying to take control of the House, one of the key seats they're talking about is Rhode Island's second congressional district. Seth Magaziner is a longstanding Democratic leader in Rhode Island. He's the current treasurer, general treasurer of Rhode Island. And his candidate, Alan Fung, is a radical

extremist who was out there partying in Wyoming with Harriet Hageman and Kevin McCarthy, doing a little cheers to the death of the Republican Party with the defeat of Liz Cheney. So excited to have Magaziner, Seth Magaziner, running as the Democrat in Rhode Island on the show. Brett, how are you doing today? I'm doing good. I'm missing Jordy, man. Jordy's out sick, you know, as you may have noticed the last episode or so. And today we miss Jordy. Jordy is recoveringy is recovering though Jordy hope you're doing well uh I know the Midas Mighty miss you tremendously uh excited to have Seth on the show you know I could you Ben can you imagine going to a party with like Harriet Hageman and Kevin McCarthy

and people like I just don't even like what would you even do like I did that I did that joke I think I'm not sure if it was right before the insurrection or right after the insurrection where I gave the analogy of an actual party party. And you show up at the party and Marjorie Taylor Greene's there with Steve Bannon. And then you've got like Ted Cruz, you know, just talking to you. And like, you know, he's a mouth breather to Cruz, like talking in your face and like eating his boogers as they fall down his nose, you know, and just talking, doing pull ups in the corner, talking about really weird crew. And I know I've been to Rhode Island a ton of times. I know Rhode Island to be a working class, incredible state with hardworking people who I think must look at the Harriet Hageman stuff and just go, what in the world? Look at the Marjorie Taylor Green stuff. Look at all these radical right wing agendas out there and go, OK, not in Rhode

Island. That's why magazine's competitiveness guy guy Alan Fung, who's running against them, like his whole strategy is to literally hide his position. So like he sneaks around, like he sneaks around to these parties. He like sneaks around to hang out with everybody and like literally like hides. He he's like he's just anyway, we'll talk about it more with. Well, I can go on and on and on. we'll talk about it more with. Well, I can go on and on and on. We'll talk about it more with Seth Magazine. But Brett, let's talk about this new poll.

It's a Rasmussen poll of all polls to talk about. And the Biden is approval rating is up. According to Rasmussen, it's almost above 50 percent. It's 47 percent approved, 52 percent disapproved, which in my mind with Rasmussen may as well mean that his approval rating is above 50%. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, Rasmussen, they lean very hard to the right. So the fact that it's that close, I think shows you that there's a seismic shift, but we long said, you know, don't worry about the polls. Don't believe the polls, especially like national polls feel very irrelevant

and Biden approval ratings. I don't think it will have one effect at all on this race. And I think Mitch McConnell even admitted that last week when he said, you know, we have bad candidate quality. Basically, our candidates suck. He admitted. And that's why we're getting destroyed in these Senate races, because people are looking at these individual matchups across the country and they're seeing that Republicans are putting forth these ultra MAGA, nuclear MAGA, whatever they want to call it. They call themselves that. That's their term, which is probably not the best term when your guy is allegedly responsible for stealing our nuclear secrets and he's a very toxic person.

So I guess nuclear MAGA is a fitting name to call yourself, if anything, with those facts. But the fact is, these people are radical, they're extreme, and Americans are realizing it. And Americans are starting to realize that, hey, you know what's more important than anything else in this country? The fact that we're a democracy. And without that, guess what? We don't have an economy. We don't have freedom. We don't have anything else at all. It's tied to the fact that we are the United States of America. And without that, guess what? We don't have a country. And so now the biggest thing that we've seen in the polling, the huge shift that we've seen is that Americans now see the threat to democracy as the single most important issue in the United States. And this is what we have been saying for months. You can't chase the polls. You need to set the agenda. So if you looked at this months ago, when this was ranked number five or six on the list, you would have said, oh, let's not talk about that. Let's not talk about January 6th. Let's not talk about Republican corruption, because guess what? It doesn't look like voters really care about it all that much. But guess what? After a relentless tribe of hammering home these messages and showing just how anti-democracy Republicans are and letting them show the public how anti-democracy they are. Guess what? Suddenly

Americans are worried about it. And Americans say, you know what? That is an issue. That is something I need to be concerned about. And not only something I need to be concerned about, this is the main thing we need to be concerned about. This comes from an NBC News poll, which also showed that more than half the country, nearly 60% of the country, supports the investigations into Donald Trump. So we have an America now that wants justice, that is done with extremism and wants to preserve our democracy. And we have a lot of energy now heading into November or as we like to call it here, Midas Touch now, Rovember. We definitely call it Rovember. Rovember is, I think, an important mantra because that is and that's related,

though, Brett, to the concept of democracy. And I think that's why democracy is number one, too, because I'm sure if you look down the list, a woman's right to choose is significantly high on, you know, everybody's list as well. But it's so inextricably intertwined within the fabric of our democracy. The reason a woman's right to choose has been taken away is because of the attacks, the fundamental attacks on our democracy, the composition of our Supreme Court being utterly remade in the vision of a radical right extremist court by Mitch McConnell and these other authoritarians that are in power. And all they really have, Brett, if you've noticed, are like the stale old talking points. Now it's like, you're a socialist,

you're a communist. At the same time, all of these radical right Republicans are literally trying to shut down businesses. If a business promotes diversity, if a business promotes equality and inclusion, you have the whatever Ron DeSantis' anti-woke act. They come up with the dumbest names in the world, but basically it's targeting businesses that want to promote equality and that want to promote diversity. A federal district judge in Florida struck down one of the aspects of Ron DeSantis' law at the end of last week, his Stay Woke Act. But that's their whole thing, Brett. Stop Woke. Yeah, no, it's-

Stop Woke, Stay Woke. The whole thing is the dumbest thing in the world. Can we just play the clip of Ron DeSantis in his authoritarian speech talking about how Florida is a state where woke goes to die. We can't just stand idly by while woke ideology ravages every institution

in our society. We must fight the woke in our schools. We must fight the woke in our businesses. We must fight the woke in government agencies. We can never, ever surrender to woke ideology. And I'll tell you this, the state of Florida is where woke goes to die. I view that, Brett, as a threat, as a threat to the radicalized Republicans, frankly, to kill people who support diversity and frankly, to kill certain groups of people as well. That's what that speech is. I was going to say, I don't even know if it's a threat. I think it's a declaration of war against more than half the United States of America. I mean, it's very dangerous rhetoric. And Ron DeSantis there is actually channeling

a Winston Churchill speech. And Churchill's speech was directed at destroying the Nazis. And you have Ron DeSantis here doing a similar speech, but targeted at basically Democrats and anybody who cares about diversity and injustice and just wants a more equal America and America with more equality and equity just across the country. Yeah, but that's Ron DeSantis. The speech is the we shall fight on the beaches speech. We shall never surrender. And it's Winston Churchill keep keeps on invoking. We shall stop the Nazis here. We shall never surrender. And it's Winston Churchill keeps on invoking, we shall stop the Nazis here. We shall fight them on the beaches. We shall fight them here.

And if they come to our shores, we shall fight them right here in the UK. I mean, it's that speech right there that Ron DeSantis uses to attack enemies, to attack Nazis, to talk about fighting where what goes to die, where where diverse viewpoints go to. I mean, here's what I want to see in some of these debates. I want Democrats to take the offensive and I want them to ask pointedly to Republicans who use phrases like woke when you say define woke. What does woke mean?

Give us a definition. Give me a definition of what woke means, because they will be unable to actually define it honestly, because if they define it, they reveal exactly who they are. If they go, oh, woke, the definition is being alert to injustice and caring about diversity and inclusion and equality. Oh, so you're against those things? Is that what you're telling me here? You are against those things. And so they really can't honestly define the term. They just use it as a catch-all term, the same way they use socialism and communism and CRT. None of these things have any meaning to them. They're just ways to demonize a population. And what they're able to do is they're able to wrap

a whole host of basically anything that they want to suppress dissent over, anything that they want to fight. They go, oh, that's CRT. Oh, that's woke. Oh, that's communist. Oh, you're what? You're a communist. What? You're woke. That's how they do it. That's how they silence dissent. And it is a far right fascist strategy that has been used by the worst autocratic regimes across the world throughout history. And so it's something that we need to be alert to. And as we see candidates going across the country, Ben, I know you saw this clip of Beto O'Rourke in Texas, Beto O'Rourke fielding questions in Fredericksburg, Texas, which is like as deep red Texas as you get. But Beto getting a massive crowd showing a ton of support. But of course, in these crowds, the thing that Abbott keeps doing is Abbott is sending his supporters in to try to heckle the event and try to throw Beto off. The problem is Beto's

really good at handling hecklers and it backfires every single time. So at this event last week in Fredericksburg, one of these Abbott instigators gets up and he asks a question. He says basically to Beto O'Rourke, you're a communist and communists are not allowed to run for office in the state of Texas. Let's play this clip. We'll talk about it after. My name is Brandon. I'm familiar with your work with the Texas Organizing Project, who is endorsed by the Communist Party of Texas. My question for you is, Texas government code Title V, Section 557.022 says that the name of a communist may not be printed on the ballot. So your race for governor is invalidated. You're now on notice. The state of Texas sees right through you, Beto.

Are you still going to take our 8 on 15s? Are you still going to take our 9? Who knew? Who knew? So, to our friend and our fellow Texan, you know, you are echoing the baseless claims of the Abbott campaign. You know, watch these TV ads that are coming down the pike. They're going to accuse me of all manner of things that are untrue, including being, I thought it was going to be a socialist, now I hear it's a communist. Of the two people in this race, only one of us has started a small business and created dozens of high-paying, high-skill, high-value jobs in El Paso, Texas, who's had a payroll

every single week. The other guy has been on the public payroll for most of his adult life. If you want to look at the capitalist in the room, I'm right here, buddy. So thank you for coming out. First off, what a joke. You are on notice. Beto, we have put you on notice. Who are you? We are on notice. These people are such clowns. They're so in their MAGA basement, in cell dwelling universe that they think they have power. You're on notice, Beto. They're so in their MAGA basement, in cell dwelling universe that they think they have power. You're on notice, Beto. You're on notice, Beto. But I was trying to figure out, what the heck is this guy even talking about here? You're a communist. Communists are not

allowed to run. I figured, did he make this up or is there something actually in the Texas code about communists not being allowed to run for office? So I dug into the Texas government code and what I found, Ben, I think is actually something that may backfire. It may actually backfire here on the Republican party because the Texas statute, this is section 557.021. They actually, you know, we said they couldn't define what woke is or define what communism is. I take it back for this one instance and let me read exactly what they define as a communist.

They say a communist means a person who commits an act reasonably calculated to further the overthrow of the government by force or violence. Ben, who does that sound like who tried to overthrow our government by force or violence? Sounds like they may be talking about Republicans. Sounds like it may be talking about Republicans. Sounds like it may be talking a lot more like Greg Abbott, who was actually hanging out with Proud Boys and other insurrectionists. Sounds like the Republican Party who actually tried to overturn a free and fair election and end our democracy. And so that's right there. Hey, Texas, you have labeled the Republican Party communists and you did not even know that you

did it. You know, they do things in Texas to Brett, like try to shut down businesses and prosecute businesses that I mean, that don't agree in any way with the Abbott regime, you know, but on issues, too, like if the government, if a business is providing funds for health care services for women's reproductive care, Texas will try to shut your business down. Sounds incredibly communist. There's a prominent law firm that one of the things that they were providing to women who work in Texas was the ability to pay for reproductive care in other states. And Texas sent them a letter threatening to take away their legal licenses and to remove their ability to practice law ever again, simply because the law firm tried to offer just as one of the healthcare benefit packages, reproductive care as a covered services. I mean, that's who they are. And they do this across the board. So they force private businesses to give money to the gun industry and specifically manufacturers of AR-15s. And if you don't do that, like if you're a bank and you say, look,

we're just as a private business, we don't want to loan money to companies that make war weapons for civilian use that kill people. Texas will completely ban you from the state of conducting any business with any of the Texas pension funds and will basically exile you from the state. And so that's the environment and business climate that you have in Texas and in Florida. And it's this level of unpredictability that you see in radical communist countries that have authoritarian leaders that capriciously, at the whim of the leader, shut down your business because they don't like you. That is who DeSantis is. That is who Abbott is. And we talk about just these radical Republicans and there's this leaning into fascism,

incompetence and fraud. And the National Republican Senatorial Committee is led by Rick Scott. Now people have, I think, forgotten about Rick Scott's history. Rick Scott is the Senator from Florida. He was actually the governor of Florida. One of the ways you rise to the top in Republican politics, like the bigger the fraud that you commit, the higher up you go. You know, the biggest mistake, Brett, that Bernie Madoff made is that

he didn't run for office as a Republican. It's really a great theory, but he could have been president. I mean, Bernie Madoff would have became the president. So Rick Scott's fraud elevates him to governor and senator Donald Trump because he's the biggest scam artist and Ponzi scheme. Of course, the Republicans will exalt that person to president. That's who they are. That is this. This is the most brilliant political theory. I think ever the Republican grifter theory is this is fantastic. Like you've heard of the Peter principle. The Peter principle, right, is that the most incompetent person will keep getting elevated to higher positions, right? This is the Republican principle. The bigger grifter and fraud that you are, the higher position you will elevate to. And so we can call it the Republican principle. We call

it the Rick Scott principle. We call it the Trump principle. Whatever it is, Rick Scott, he founds this company in 1987. A federal investigation starts taking place in 1997, which is basically the hospital company that he is running is basically paying for referrals to get these kickbacks, which is a crime. You can't pay for kickbacks to get the provision of healthcare services. And he's doing this across the board. And an investigation takes place. He's subpoenaed and deposed. He pleads the fifth 75 to 80 times in connection with the investigation. His board forces him to resign. The company has to settle the largest Medicare fraud in the history of the United

States. There's two different settlements, but they basically equal $1.7 billion. And this is the individual who then runs for governor of Florida, and he wins. And this is the individual who then runs for... His company gave him a golden parachute after he pled the fifth because he did found the company. But because there's no accountability, if you're a Republican, you get golden parachutes in that world. And that's what they want to protect.

Like when they're worried about the provisions in the tax code that are going to have more enforcement on fraud, fraud actors, they're worried about that. So they try to scare people. Eighty seven thousand new IRS agents. Like if you look at it, it literally is just replacing retiring IRS agents. And the head of the IRS, a Trump person was the person who said we needed these additional agents to be phased in over the next 20 to 30 years. It's their person who called for these additional employees. But anyway, you ignore all of those facts.

So Rick Scott, though, enters into this $1.7 billion settlement for the fraud that his company committed. He gets a $300 million gold. $300 million for stealing from Medicare. Yeah. So the company gives him $300 million from stealing from Medicare. He then basically parlays that money

to then run for office. So that's how he has this all this cash on hand to become the governor. And it's kind of a very Trumpian thing, too. You have to run for office because if not, you're a criminal. So you're going to be prosecuted for one of the crimes. But if you control the government, maybe you won't be criminally prosecuted for the crimes that you convict. And then he runs for senator. He becomes a senator in Florida. But here's the thing. So then the Florida other senators put this guy in charge of all of their money. They put him in charge of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. So after all that background I gave you, they're like, this is the guy who we want to run our campaigns.

And what does he do with most of the money? Well, a lot of it, we don't even know where it went because it went from $173 million to $28 million. A lot of the money that we do know was spent, people called it basically the National Rick Scott Committee because he would do these weird ads on his agenda. And then his agenda was we need to remove Social Security. We need to defund Medicare. And that's what he basically ran on. And so now they're down to twenty eight million dollars. They don't know where the money they raised went. And they're in these dire conditions at the same time. Democratic candidates are rising and people are saying we got to audit this. If this was a company,

this would be a criminal investigation. No shit. If the Republican Party was anything other than a political party, which they get away with, it'd be the biggest Ponzi scheme, crime fraud, cartel ring in the world. All they do is crime. And Republican donors just keep giving their money to these people who just steal it. You know. I was looking at a past article about Rick Scott as all this is unfolding. And so I dug up this Washington Post article from a few months ago that was speaking about Rick Scott's tenure at the NRSC. And this quote stood out to me where it said, he, as in Rick Scott, has directed a sizable share of fundraising as NRSC chair to his own accounts. This is what happens when you put a common thief in charge of your money, Republicans. And Rick Scott just has to be the biggest liability for Republicans out there. Because not only is this guy the guy who

conducted the biggest Medicare fraud in our history. Let's repeat that again, in our history. This is the guy who they also have out there trying to set Medicare and social security policy for the country. And his idea is to get rid of social security and Medicare. He was the guy who was the person who put that strategy out there. I guess he just wants to raid these programs for all they're worth, extract as much money as possible, and then privatize them so that he can make more money off of them. I mean, the plan is so obvious and in your face, and Americans are waking up here. And Rhode Islanders are waking up here. So I'm excited to bring in Seth Magaziner running against

a radical, extremist, corrupt individual by the name of Alan Fung. Alan Fung was giving the cheers and toast to destroying his own Republican Party, partying with Harriet Hagman in Wyoming when Liz Cheney lost. The people of Rhode Island are waking up to what a radical extremist loser this Alan Fung is, who has to even hide how radical and extremist he is. You do not want to miss this interview with Seth Magaziner. You also do not want to miss store.midastouch.com. Go to store.midastouch.com and check out the top Midas Touch gear. Check out the new bestselling Rovember t-shirts, V-necks, pins. We got the whole bundle for you. Convict or Convict 45 t-shirts, which are also selling out. Go to store.midastouch.com. Also, our next partner is a product I use literally every day. It's called Athletic Greens, and you know I love it. I started

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Congress to represent Rhode Island's second congressional district as a Democrat, of course. Seth Magaziner, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, guys. It's great to be here. Now, Seth, running as a Democrat in Rhode Island, we would normally think about that second congressional district seat as a safe seat. This is one of the seats, though, that Republicans are targeting, injecting a ton of money into. I know you still have a primary. You're the presumptive favorite in the Democratic primary. And I know many people are thinking towards the general.

I just wanted to give that context to our listeners. But maybe I rewind a little bit. Seth, can you give us just a little bit of your background, maybe introduce yourself to the Midas Mighty who may not know you, and then let's talk about this race. Yeah, thank you so much again for the opportunity and for everything that you guys are doing to advance good democratic policies nationally. So I'm Seth. I am a born and raised Rhode Islander. I started my career as a public school teacher. I am a born and raised Rhode Islander. I started my career as a public school teacher. I taught third and fourth grade elementary school, went back to

school myself, got a business degree, and was elected state treasurer here in Rhode Island in 2014. And my focus has really been on using the treasurer's office to try to help level the playing field and try to help make it easier for working people to get ahead. Launched a statewide school construction program. We've invested a lot in clean energy projects all across the state. And I'm running for Congress now because I'm a new dad and I'm very concerned about the future of our democracy. I want my nine-year-old son to get to vote in a real election like we do. I want him to grow up in a world where he doesn't have to worry about school shootings and lockdown drills. I want

him to grow up in a world that is fair and just and sustainable. And you're right, we do have a, we've got a hot race here. Not so much in the primary where we have a wide lead, but the general, which is going to be neck and neck. And we are working our tails off to make sure that we keep this seat in the Democratic column, because we know that it would be a disaster for working people in Rhode Island if Kevin McCarthy and the other Donald Trump fanboys take control of Congress again. So for all the mightiest mighty listening to this, when the Republicans taking talk about taking over the House and enacting all their radical agendas, we just heard today Brett Steve Bannon with Marjorie Taylor Greene saying Marjorie Taylor Greene would make a great speaker of the House. One of the seats that they're talking about targeting is this specific congressional district.

And we want to highlight these congressional districts on the podcast. And now, Seth, you're running against someone named Alan Fung. And Alan Fung, this is one of the things that the GQP, as we like to call them, but the radical extremists like to do. They like to pretend they have someone who's a moderate. And when they ask questions, they kind of duck and dodge the questions. But tell us a little bit about the person you're running against. Yeah. So Alan Fung, the Republican I'm running against, very much a career politician. He has run for four different offices eight times over the last 20 years.

Most recently, ran for governor twice and lost both times. But because of all of these campaigns that he's run, he's well known, he has high name ID. And you're right, he has gotten the full support of the House Republican machine in Washington, they helped him clear out his primary field. And he's trying to run to the middle now and call himself a moderate. But that's not his record. And so part of what we have to do is educate people about what his positions actually are. You know, he, as a mayor, came out against the Affordable Care Act. He was against raising the minimum wage to seven from seven to eight dollars an hour.

And again, from eight to ten, ten. He supported Donald Trump in both elections. He's against any kind of common sense gun safety laws. So his record is not the record of a moderate. And that's, you know, at the municipal level as a mayor. So we know that when he gets to Congress, he's going to be in lockstep with Kevin McCarthy and the far right crowd. But we have to educate people about that. And, of course, we also have to let people know what we're for. You for. We're for making energy more affordable. We're for lowering the cost because he knows that what he stands for is too radical for most Rhode Island voters. So he's going to try to make it about anything else about personalities or whatever other distractions they can think of.

Our job is to make this campaign about the issues because on the issues, we win. Right. And he's holding these, he held this secret party or rally in Rhode Island that he didn't want anyone to know about. And then he was actually there with a champagne glass toasting Harriet Hageman with the destruction of the Republican Party. I think people in Rhode Island need to know that Alan Fung isn't even a real Republican. He's a MAGA extremist masquerading as a Republican. And he's there with Harriet Hangman in Wyoming, toasting the defeat of Liz Cheney. Yeah, that's right. You know, again, he when people show you who they are, you got to believe them. Right. And so he calls himself a moderate. But twice now in two weeks, he secretly had fundraisers with Kevin McCarthy and the far right crowd. The first one was here in Rhode Island. He tried to keep it secret. He didn't

do any social media posts about it. Usually when you have a national political figure come to a small state like Rhode Island, you kind of want to brag about it as a candidate, like, oh, so-and-so came here to support my race in Little Rhode Island, you know? But in this case, he didn't tell anyone. The press found out about it because a Kevin McCarthy staffer had tweeted about it. And, you know, no one on the phone campaign. And when the press started asking about it, it was just radio silence for days. He wouldn't answer the questions, wouldn't admit that it had happened.

Finally, after days and days, they finally admitted that it happened. And then a week later, same thing. We were supposed to have a candidates forum. It was supposed to be the first forum that all the Democratic and Republican candidates were going to be at together. Alan Fung pulled out. And, you know, at first he claimed like a vague scheduling conflict, but then a reporter figured out it was because he was in Wyoming at the Kevin McCarthy MAGA billionaire donor love fest that they were having out there where they were toasting Liz Cheney's defeat. So twice in two weeks, he secretly tried to sneak off to hang out with Kevin McCarthy in hopes that Rhode Island voters wouldn't find out about it. He got caught both times. One of the things I think this election is about nationwide, though, as we look at congressional seats and senatorial seats across the country, is Democrats now fighting for very discreet, specific policies to make people's lives better. And on the other hand, you have

Republicans, if you can even call them that anymore, but radical extremists like Alan Fung, who want to take rights away from people, take away the rights of the LGBTQ plus community, take away the rights of women, take away the rights of of seniors and soon to be seniors with Social Security, take away health care. I mean, it's really dystopian when you think about your opponent literally wants to kill people in Rhode Island when you really break it down like that. Yeah, I mean, it just shows how extreme the Republic of Washington have become. And you're absolutely right. I mean, the Affordable Care Act has given health insurance to 75,000 Rhode Islanders and protects people with

pre-existing conditions so that if you are unlucky enough to get sick, you don't lose your health insurance just because you got sick. And Alan Fung wanted to repeal it and opposed it. You know, Social Security and Medicare, Kevin McCarthy was one of the co-authors of Paul Ryan's plan to gut Medicare for seniors. And so you can't say, oh, well, I support seniors, but I want the guy who was the co-author of the plan to gut Medicare, I want him to be in charge of Congress. But I'm for seniors like that. You know, come on, like you're not fooling anyone. And you're absolutely right on choice. I mean, Dobbs' decision was a terrible step backwards for women in this country.

A right that has existed for 50 years was just taken away by these extremists. And I am on the record in favor. We need to pass a national codification of Roe v. Wade. I fought to do that here in Rhode Island, by the way. We passed a codification of abortion rights into state law in Rhode Island three years ago. Of course, Alan Fung opposed that law and refuses to support doing it at the federal level, too. So there's real distinctions in this race that people need to know about. And now a quick break from a word from one of our sponsors. What if I told you there was a new product out there that could tackle your negative impact on our climate

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Now back to our interview. Yeah, I want to emphasize that point here that you helped pass the Reproductive Privacy Act of 2019 that codified the protections of Roe v. Wade into state law. So that right there is a clear example of what Seth would do if he was in U.S. Congress. I think that's important and a huge distinction to make. Something I'm curious about, because you're on the ground shaking hands with people in Rhode Island every single day, what's on their mind? What are the things that you're hearing? Are they most concerned about Social Security, Medicare, abortion rights? It could be all of them, but what is the most common thing? Yeah, a couple of things that come up a lot. Cost of prescription drugs is a big one. So, you know, the second congressional district in Rhode Island, where I am, where we're running,

it's an older district demographically. So we skew older our population. And so the cost of medicine, cost of prescriptions is absolutely killer for a lot of people, but particularly seniors. And, you know, the Democrats just passed a pretty good bill to cap prescription drug costs for people on Medicare. The Republicans blocked capping the cost of prescriptions for people on private insurance. And so that's going to be a big emphasis of mine when I get to Congress is we need to cap the cost of prescription drugs. Yes, for people on Medicare, but really for all Americans.

Fung and the republicans of course were against all that he was against the inflation reduction act uh he was against the affordable care act and so that's a big distinction in the race too but the cost of health care the cost of medicine is a big one um and choice again i mean uh you know when i talk to voters different people have different opinions about abortion right like different people have different opinions about what they personally are comfortable with but something that almost everything everyone i talk to voters, different people have different opinions about abortion, right? Like different people have different opinions about what they personally are comfortable with. But something that almost everything, everyone I talk to agrees on is they don't want politicians making the decisions. They want women to make their own decisions. And so you talk to a lot of people who say, well, I, you know, I have mixed feelings or I don't know how I feel,

but I know that I don't want the people down in Washington making that decision for me. And that's Alan Fung's position is he thinks that politicians in Washington should decide, you know, what type of procedures are okay and when instead of having to be the woman's decision. You know, when a woman has to make the hardest decision of her life in that room with her position, they should not have to stop and say, well, would Alan Fung be okay with this? Like, what is, you know, let's have him weigh in. Like, what does he think is okay on this situation? Like, no, it should be up to the woman. So these are things that I hear from voters, including a lot

of swing voters and undecided voters. Costs, particularly the cost of medicine and protecting choice. Yeah. You know, I think at the end of the day, like you said, independent voters, right-leaning voters, democratic voters, I think a lot of people are kind of missing the old days where they viewed that every person in this country had a shot at the American dream. And I've noticed that you speak about the American dream a lot. Your grandparents like ours were immigrants or children of immigrants. They grew up with modest means, fought in World War II, were able to buy a home, put their kids through college. And today, Americans are just struggling to live like that, to live the American dream on all sides.

So where do you think we went wrong here? And how could and the Mar-a-Lago crowd to take over Washington, D.C. I mean, you know, this used to be a country where if you worked hard and you were willing to do the right thing, you could get ahead. You know, you could buy a house, put your kids through college, maybe build a stable middle class life, just by working hard and doing the right thing. And over the last generation, it has become harder and harder for people to keep up. I think part of that is because the right wing has been successful in dampening the labor movement in much of this country, you know, back in the 50s and 60s, a third of the private sector workforce were members of unions. Now it's less than half that. So I think that's part of it. We have to make it easier for workers

to join unions if that's what they choose to do. We also need to improve access to healthcare, to retirement security, raise wages, and do something about this runaway income inequality that's, you know, slowed growth. It's not a healthy thing for an economy when you have billionaires, you know, flying rockets to Mars, but at the same time, working people can't afford their medicine, like that is so messed up. And we need to elect people in Washington who will bring the right priorities and who will do it for the right reasons. You know, another thing that maybe makes me unusual, even compared to a lot of other Democrats, is I do support things like term limits and banning members of Congress from trading stocks because people should not be in politics for

themselves. They should be in it for the people who sent them. Yeah. And, you know, you made unions the core of your campaign as well. I noticed you're basically endorsed by like every single union out there, which is really impressive. But I think for far too long, people have kind of neglected the working class in a lot of ways. And so how are you planning to kind of bring union workers back into the fold of the Democratic Party and make it a priority of your campaign that, hey, you know, we're looking out for you, the people who are concerned about our jobs going overseas, the people who are concerned about a living wage, being able to put food on the table, the Democrats are the party that are looking out for you.

Yeah, well, we got to make it easier for people to join unions if that's what they choose to do, right? And so, you know, my grandfather was a steel worker. He was the union steel worker. That's how he earned his tickets to the middle class and then built the foundation for my family. You know, these days, you know, yeah, we still have steel workers, but we also have a whole lot of people, you know, working at Walmart, working at Amazon, working at McDonald's, and all those folks deserve the right to join a union too, if that's what they decide to do. And on paper, legally, people are allowed to do that, you know, on paper, Walmart workers are allowed to form a union if they want to. But the reality is different, because there are all kinds of loopholes that allow employers to harass, intimidate, threaten workers who, you know, even breathe the word union. And so there's a good bill in Congress now called the PRO Act that I look forward to supporting that will crack down

on a lot of these bad practices that allow big companies, big corporations to harass workers out of organizing. That's something that I look forward to supporting. And, you know, we also have to fight back against the kind of the far right attempts to undermine unions even more. Yeah. One of the differences between me and Alan Fung on this, he was a supporter in Rhode Island of something called, the Republicans call the right to work law, which is really a defund union flaw. It basically makes it harder for unions to collect dues from their members and fund their ability to organize and to represent their members. It's one of these sort of Koch brother invented concepts to essentially erode unions by defunding them. Alan Fung supported those laws. Luckily, we didn't pass

one in Rhode Island, but a lot of states did, and the Republicans are still trying to do it at the federal level. So that's an important part of this as well. Speaking of defunding, it seems like the Republican Party is going on a tear right now to defund a lot of our federal agencies. And as of late, they've taken aim at the FBI. They want to defund the FBI. I was wondering, has your opponent, Alan Fung, does he support those calls to defund the FBI? Has he opposed them? Has he said anything about it? Yeah, I mean, I would love to know that too, but he certainly wants to put the people who are trying to defund the FBI in control of Congress. I mean, that's the thing, like you can't, you know, when you hang out with a bad crowd like he's hanging out with, you own that. And so you're absolutely right.

I mean, look, he's going to vote to put Jim Jordan in charge of the House Judiciary Committee. Like that is insane. That is literally insane. And, you know, law enforcement deserves our support, whether they are investigating someone of the other political party or our own, it shouldn't matter. And in Trump MAGA fun world, they love the police until, you know, they get called out for doing something illegal. And then all of a sudden, you know, they're not they're not so big on backing the blue anymore. And it's just hugely hypocritical until until they start committing crimes.

The last question I got for you is I'm just wondering, we were speaking about and I understand why your opponent, Alan Fung, I get why, I get why he would want to fly to these big money donors, get this dark money to fund his campaign. But why is he trying to hide it so much? Why is he not just coming out and saying, yeah, I want this big donor money. I want to cozy up to Harriet Hageman and Kevin McCarthy and the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the party. What's with the hiding? Can't he just come out and say, yeah, that's me. Because he knows that he's out of step with most Rhode Islanders. Right. I mean, that's it.

Like Rhode Island, like we are a blue collar state. We're a working class state. We are not a state that, you know, supports the far right Donald Trump agenda. And Alan Fung knows that. So he's going to try to hide how extreme his own views are. He's trying to hide his connections with extremists like Kevin McCarthy. But he's not going to get away with it. I mean, we're going to call him out on it. We're going to make sure that people know

exactly where he stands and exactly where I stand. I've spent my career standing up for working people with good policies that actually make it easier for people to keep up with the cost of living and get ahead. And, you know, Alan's busy hanging out with the Mar-a-Lago crowd where they're doing just fine, but totally out of touch with what working Rhode Islanders are going through. So we are going to make sure that voters understand this contrast. You know, for you all and everyone who's watching, we need your help. This is a competitive race. Cook Political rated us a toss-up race. And so anyone who's interested in learning more, please,

SethMagaziner.com is the best way to find out more about how you can be helpful in keeping the Rhode Island Second Congressional District blue. Seth Magaziner, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. Thank you, guys. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizz us on the podcast today. Allacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Great interview with Seth Magaziner, right? Yeah. We just have normal, hardworking candidates, civil servants who want to do the work for the people. The differences cannot be clearer

with every person we speak to. And just by seeing the priorities of Democrats versus these radical extremists on the right, who really are trying to take away all of our freedoms on a daily basis. And this is why, Ben, I'm just so upset by the direction that I see some of these news networks heading in, which are at a time when we need them to meet the moment the most. They are going in the completely wrong direction. And it's upsetting because we need a strong media. And right now I'm, of course, talking about the recent news that we've heard out of CNN. Ben, why don't you fill our listeners in a bit as to what's happening over there, what's being reported? Yeah. So CNN, of course, has a new leader.

This guy, Chris Licht is his name, Brent. And he's the new leader. He took over fairly recently. And his whole agenda is he wants to focus CNN on more both sides is what he said. Even though, I mean, honestly, the coverage before by CNN wasn't great. But in any event, he's saying he wants to focus on it to be more both sides. And so this Chris Lick, this head of CNN, he's had a secret meeting. It's always they only do secret meetings. It's all secret meetings with these Republicans, a secret meeting with the Republicans to see what CNN can do to make the Republicans more comfortable about showing up to

CNN, letting the Republicans... How can we be nicer to you? We've been a little mean to you, I guess. How can we be nicer? Is there anything we could do to help... Yeah, I mean, I think this specific language the reporting says is, can we earn your trust back? One of the things Chris Lick did is, this is one of the things too that should, if you're a CNN fan, should tell you all you need to know. So he got rid of the Brian Stelter show, Reliable Sources, because that was too pro-Democratic party, he said, which if you think that that show is too pro-Democratic party- Yeah. And by the way, I've said on the show before, I'm no Brian Stelter fan at all whatsoever. And I don't mind the fact that he's leaving CNN, but the reason why they decided to get

rid of him at CNN is kind of scary. And where the reports have been that the network is planning to go after Brian Stelter, who was just fired in the same reports that we've seen. They also said that CNN was going to go after people like Jim Acosta, Jim Sciutto, Don Lemon. In fact, the guy who Chris Licht views as the exemplar, Ben, for what journalism should be is Fox propagandist Brett Baer. That's his like North Star of his vision for what journalism should be. I mean, he wants to take CNN into a direction where they are kind of Fox, what Fox used to be five years ago. And that could not be more dangerous for the country. And it's not what

Americans want, especially out of CNN. I just don't know who they're who they're even playing for what they're trying to play both sides here. And they're just going to end up getting burnt as people leave in droves to go to independent media who doesn't both sides the issues like Midas Touch. Yeah. And, you know, good riddance, CNN, at the end of the day, good, good riddance. I mean, if that's the direction that you're taking, people are already leaving you in droves and just see you later. There will be a new wave of media, which we are going to be leading here at the Midas Touch Network, where we're going to promote democracy. Because at the end of the day, there are no both sides when you're talking about truth and facts. There's the factual side, there's a democracy side, and then there's vicious, venomous lies designed to support

the agenda of oligarchs and radical extremists like Trump and his Mar-a-Lago club and his crew of bandits and criminals. And so you don't both sides those issues. A accurate journalist, a journalist who's focused on the facts, says the facts are that the election was one of the most secure and safe and fair elections and that all of these people who are denying that, who are spreading the big lie, are fascist extremists. And if you want to weigh those, like those are two viewpoints and two perspectives that deserve equal treatment, you are part of the problem. You are the problem. And really one of the things that we've seen is the media's failure to rise to the moment has been one of the most disappointing things, but it creates opportunity. That's what we see here at the Midas Touch Network. It creates opportunity. And as one of the commenters said to us before on our YouTube comments, who would have thought

calling traders, traders has a market? And it was said facetiously, but it's true. You call out fascists by name. You call out traders by name. It's not difficult to do that. And you do it unapologetically if you want to save and care about our democracy. So, you know, and what's really bugged, like Jim Acosta's interview this weekend, like his one with Trump's illegally appointed Homeland Security, Chad Wolf. I don't know if you saw that interview. Such a Chad, that guy, Chad Wolf, who it's such a Chad name. That's a Chad name.

What a name. You know, you have Chad Wolf just going on there and just, you know, denying the election results and Jim Acosta just holding him accountable and not letting him off. Everybody could go and play that clip on there. Yeah, but like Acosta is one of the best out there. Like Acosta knows what he's doing. He's always in command. When he gets people like that on, he asks the right questions. He pushes back and he's not afraid to call a fascist a fascist.

So, of course, he's the guy who apparently is next on the list for CNN to target and try to send. And Ben, me and you, and Jordy, building this media company, we have a lot of people give us their theories on media, what it should be in the future, people who may be interested in contributing to us to make our media platform longer lasting, to grow this thing. And in some of these conversations that I know you've been in with me, we've heard people express this idea that you know what the problem with the media is? And we go, what? The problem with the media is that there's these people in the center who are on both sides of the issues and there's no media playing to those people.

And every time we hear that, we've heard that countless times, right, Ben? We're like, no, that's not the issue. The issue is that you're muddying the facts. The issue is that people are trying to balance outright batshit crazy lies and conspiracy theories with the truth and with pro-democracy. And once you try to balance those two, inevitably, if something's on one side and something's way over here, when you try to balance it, you get somewhere in the middle, which means you are disseminating the lies to your audience. And the goal of media should never be to lie. It should never be to just have balance for the sake of balance. It should be, what's the truth here? Who's telling

the truth? Who's lying to me? Let's call it as it is and tell our audience it unabashedly, unapologetically. And that's what we're going to do here every day. And that's when we talk about people on the center. That's what they want. If you look down the issues, we go back to the very beginning of the show that democracy is the top issue. That's what people on the center are looking for. So stop media muddying the waters and casting doubt on our democracy. Yeah, the center are pro-democracy loving Americans who care about all the issues that we care about and espouse. Talk about the center on responsible gun ownership.

Most people go, you know what? An 18 year old with no credit history, no background. When they turn 18, they shouldn't be able to order AR-15s and all this ammunition without training, without a serious background check, without, why are we giving it to an 18-year-old? Why can't it be 21? Why do we want this around schools? That's what people in the center are saying. Hey, I have kids. I don't want my kids to go to school and get killed and get shot. I want to have a safe environment in my school. Most people in the center are saying, hey, I have kids. I don't want my kids to go to school and get killed and get shot. I want to have a safe environment in my school. Most people in the center are saying, hey, we paid into Social Security. We rely on it.

Most people in the middle are saying we need Medicare. Don't stop abolishing Medicare. Stop calling those entitlements. That's what as Americans, that's what we've earned and stopped calling it that stuff. Like most people in the center are saying these things and stop contorting the center with, as you said, Brett, using the far outliers of the radical extremist agenda, which is the whole Republican Party, all of these lies and conflating that that there is a center there. Those people are so out of touch and need to be called out.

And we'll keep calling them out each and every day here on the Midas Touch Network and on the Midas Touch podcast. Special thanks to our guest, Seth Magaziner, running in Rhode Island's 2nd Congressional District. And special thanks to our sponsors, AG1 and Aspiration. Support our sponsors. Check out now store.midastouch.com as well. Make sure you get your Midas Touch gear before it sells out. Store.midastouch.com. I want to see everybody posting that Midas Touch gear. Post it on your socials. Tag us. We'll retweet it.

Store.midastouch.com. We'll see you next time on the Midas Touch Podcast. Brett, take Jordy's job. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.