The MeidasTouch Podcast - Reviving the politics of hope over hate with Dean Obeidallah and A'shanti Gholar

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we have TWO incredible guests for you. First, we speak with Dean Obeidallah, host of The Dean Obeidallah on SiriusXM channel 127. During our conversation, Dean breaks down his thoughts on Russia, the unhinged Republican Party and what the hell is wrong with Josh Hawley. Our next guest is the amazing A'shanti Gholar! A'shanti currently serves as the President of Emerge, the only organization dedicated to recruiting and training women to run for office. Gholar is also host of the podcast ‘The Brown Girls Guide To Politics’ (a must listen!). During our interview with A’shanti, we cover some incredibly important topics including Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court confirmation hearing, the structural barriers Black women face when running for office & A’shanti’s work to help elect women into office. The remainder of the show, the brothers catch you up on all the latest breaking news from over the weekend that you need to know about. If you enjoyed today’s show please be sure to rate, review & subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening! Get involved with Emerge here: https://emergeamerica.org Learn more about 'The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics' here: https://www.thebgguide.com/ DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Trade Coffee: https://drinktrade.com/meidas MasterWorks: https://masterworks.art/meidas 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 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Ben, Brett, and Jordy fighting for democracy with you each and every pod, each and every day, here and abroad, unapologetically pro-democracy. Brett Jordy, how are you doing? Big, big week today with Ketanji Brown, Jackson's confirmation hearings, the Republicans apparently starting their attack because apparently Ketanji Brown Jackson has the audacity to support the 1965 precedent in the Supreme Court Griswold versus Connecticut, which enshrined a constitutional right to contraception. The Republicans want to ban contraception. This is what they're coming out with right away.

And more on that, Brett, Jordi, I'll get your thoughts. But we've got incredible guests I should talk about at the top we have Dean Obadala Dean Obadala from the Sirius XM channel 127 Sirius Progress we were on the Dino our old home our old home Sirius Progress our old home almost how long ago was that like two years ago a year ago I don't even know what maybe it's time time is just an illusion. Who knows these days? And we also have on the pod, Ashanti Gholar. So excited to have Ashanti on the podcast. She's the host of the Brown Girls Guide to Politics podcast and currently serves as the president of Emerge, really the only organization dedicated to recruiting and training women to run for office. Excited to have Ashanti and get her perspective on structural changes that are needed to make sure that we have more black and brown

representation and more female representation, more women on the judiciary, in journalism, in politics. I think we see that now more than ever and excited to get her insight into the confirmation hearing and this room with a bunch of people who are not even qualified to be in their own jobs, judging this woman who is overqualified even for the Supreme Court because of everything that she's done. They're judging her. It just seems so backwards at this point when you have just these lunatics. But I'm just going to try to drown out their noise at this point. We'll talk about what they're speaking about today because I think the things that they are signaling is important to the future of the Republican agenda going forward that they want to implement should they get power. And so it's very important that we pay attention to their words. And it's stuff that we've been basically saying now for the past two years, the direction that they're heading in.

And now it's just coming out more and more that this is actually what they're doing. But excited to talk about that. Just a really historic moment. And I think we need to acknowledge that beneath all the craziness, that this is a historic appointment and that Judge Jackson is just so incredibly qualified for this role. And just excited to see how the next few days go. Jordy Maecelis, how are you? I'm just waiting for Kirsten Sinema to get up to her old tricks and throw a nail in this wrench. Oh, don't. No, no, no. I'm not going to start the show off like that. Guys, I went suit fitting for my

wedding coming up this summer yesterday. So I'm really excited about that. That was awesome. Here's the problem with the suit fitting, Jay. When you do it like now, it's like, you got to maintain for months now months now, exactly where you are. Here's the problem. That would be easy. What I'm trying to do is I walked in there. I said, Hey, miss X, I don't want to say her name. Um, got to, got to make sure you maintain strict confidentiality. Make sure you don't give the first name of the person who you're getting this. Hey, miss X. I know you hear this all the time from all these other jerks that walk in here and say, Hey, I'm going to lose all of this weight before my wedding. I told her, I said, hey, I am losing 10 pounds before my wedding.

So let's definitely account for that. Jordy, great, great insight into your suit fitting. I'm sure our podcast listeners and viewers really wanted to know all of that information. Let's really talk about, though, what the podcast listeners want to hear about. They want to hear about the news. They want to hear these great interviews, Jordy. OK, so he's OK. I'm sorry.

Won't bring up my suit anymore, I swear. No, Jordy, it's OK. I'm excited to see if it's a tan suit, Jordy. All right. So let's talk about, though, what the Republicans are revealing about their agenda. I mean, I think we've been talking about this for a while. We've been telling you what they've been revealing. And we have Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.

The night before the confirmation hearing, she releases a very, very, very just bizarre video in its cadence, in its tone and tenor. But she said, really, the key issue she honed in on was Ketanji Brown Jackson's support of Supreme Court precedent dating back to 1965 in a case called Griswold v. Connecticut. Griswold v. Connecticut establishediswold versus Connecticut established a constitutional privacy right in contraception. Basically, that contraception cannot be banned and outlawed, that there was a constitutional right that people have to use contraception. Brett, you've talked about it on other podcasts too. You've said, look, they don't want to just outlaw

abortion. They don't just want to outlaw the ability of someone then to go to another state to get an abortion. They also want to outlaw contraception. The GQP, the radical right extremists, want to control every single aspect of women's childbearing person's bodies. That's what they want. They want full and utter control. And in this video, Marsha Blackburn, she says it.

She says that it's Griswold versus Connecticut, which she takes issue with. Play the clip. Constitutionally unsound rulings like Griswold versus Connecticut, Kelo versus City of New London, and NFIB versus Sebelius, confused Tennesseans and left Congress

wondering who gave the court permission to bypass our system of checks and balances. It is the 11th hour, and where Judge Jackson stands on the Constitution remains a secret. There's so many things that are horrific with that clip. And we see state legislators across the country, whether we see Missouri introducing amendments to prevent women and childbearing persons from leaving the state to get abortions in addition to the ban. We see SB8 in Texas. We see Dobbs versus Mississippi, the case before the Supreme Court in December, which will seek to overturn Roe v. Wade and likely will overturn Roe v. Wade. And then the Republicans, you could tell what they believe, right? They believe not only is the Supreme

Court going to overrule Roe v. Wade, but may even go a step further. So they're all enacting these horrible, horrible, restrictive bans on abortion. They're putting the government right inside a woman's body. I was going to say inside the home, but inside the woman's body, that's where they're putting the government. And that's who the Republicans are. I think this is fundamentally one of the, if not the most critically important issue for 2022. It's the most critically important issue for 2022. It's the most critically important issue in life. Let me just say that from the outset. It's not just a political issue. It's a critically important issue in life. But Democrats need to get out

there right now, every single day, and point to people like Marsha Blackburn, people like that, these legislators, and say, look what they're doing. They want to ban contraception. That's what they are doing. Yeah. And Ben, it's not just Marsha Blackburn's words. Let's tell you some other things that happened recently. I know you named the other cases that are about abortion, but there are actually a lot of things going on with contraception already in state legislatures. So first, I want to bring up a message that Dana Nessel, the attorney general of Michigan, had posted a few weeks ago. We covered it on this podcast where she said that all three Republicans running for Michigan

attorney general stated that they opposed the ruling in Griswold versus Connecticut, which outlawed prosecuting married couples for using contraception. You read that right. Terrifying. So every Republican running for attorney general of Michigan thinks that contraception should be banned, thinks that contraception birth control should be banned and that that right of privacy should go away. And that Griswold versus Connecticut case also, like Ben said, is the basis of the Roe v. Wade decision. It was also the basis used in the gay marriage decision. They are coming for all these other rights if they get power. That's why we are

trying to sound the alarm. And that's why we say when they're coming for abortion, they're not done yet after abortion. They're just getting started. This is a slippery, slippery, slippery slope. Not only that, in the New Hampshire House, in a 175 to 165 vote, they passed a bill HB1080, a bill that will allow cashiers to deny somebody birth control because of their own religious beliefs. What the Republican Party is trying to do is they are trying to turn America into a handmaid's tale style theocracy. They want religion to be supreme and they want somebody to be able to use their religious beliefs and legislators to use their religious beliefs to deny you basic fundamental human rights. And I think their subverting of religion to do this, to take away

the rights of people, I think is disgusting. And I think all religious people should actually be enraged that they're using religion to oppress people like this. And it's a sign of things to come that they are passing these bills to restrict birth control. Now they feel emboldened, they feel empowered. So we need to stay on top of it and we need to stay calling these people out every step of the way. That's how batshit crazy this radical right extremist is. And I want to play the clip, Brett, before we get into our guests. And we have two guests, so I do want to get the guests fairly early on in the pod who will touch upon all of these issues as well. But State Senator Berg in Kentucky, she's on the committee that is discussing

one of the restrictive abortion bans that the Kentucky legislature wants to enact. Senator Karen Berg, who is a radiologist, she's actually a doctor, a woman, and she looks at the male panel passing these laws. And this was what she had to say. I look around at my colleagues on this committee. I am the only woman on this podium right now. I am the only physician sitting on this podium. This bill is a medical sham. It does not follow medicine. It does not even purport to listen to medicine. And for each and every one of my colleagues to be so willing to cast an aye vote when what you are doing is putting your finger, putting your knee, putting your gun to women's heads. You are killing women because abortion will continue. Women will continue to have efficacy over their own body, whether or not you make it legal. I want her on my team.

Yeah, she will. Good thing is she is on your team. I mean, she's on she's on team humanity, though. Right. She's on team decency. And that is what the stakes are, though, in the 2022 midterms. As we've always said on the podcast, and I think bears emphasizing more and more right now, this is about decency. This is about being good persons, good stewards, being supportive of science. It's really not even about politics anymore. That's why I keep saying I don't like the labels anymore. I said, if you lined up my views and value system, you could call me a progressive like I am like that's where my views line up. My views and values line up with liberal. But also, I believe in conserving the democracy of the United States. I believe against insurrections. I believe in supporting Ukraine.

I believe that when there is a deadly pandemic, that people should be vaccinated and take care of their community and have professional personal and professional responsibility. Those aren't conservative values. So I'm like, wait a minute. I'm also more conservative than the conservatives because I believe in conserving the United States government. I believe in conserving the ability of people to vote. I don't believe in an apartheid America. And to me, that's what this is all about. And again, we need to make sure the media is focused on the right issues. The media needs to be focused on what Senator Berg saying. We so frequently see these

being amplified on social media. Thank gosh, we built a Midas media network where we're able to amplify voices like that. But the media doesn't even talk about really, you know, the fact that, you know, Trump led an insurrection. Like there's so much Trump news every day that the media doesn't care. Instead, you've got these like nitpicking fact checkers who tried to put their scales on the balance of our democracy and to treat this like it's a game. Like the media tries to be remember Game Genie back in the day, you'd put the Game Genie. Oh my God. What a blast from the past. Jordy definitely doesn't remember Game Genie because it was before. So Game Genie.

So, okay. So Game Genie was, what was the system? Sega Genesis? No, Game Genie was Nintendo. Nintendo. Okay. So, but I think they made them for the Genesis later on, but basically it was like a cartridge when the games were cartridges.

It was a cartridge that you put the game in top of this cartridge and the cartridge contained cheat codes for the game. And right. And it would give you like special access. So instead of typing in a cheat code, this game genie contained like all these hacks for the games and you could put the game cartridge in that and it would unlock all these other features and things like that. Right. Because you couldn't beat me anymore. So you had to get a game genie in order to beat me in a video games. You really would use game genie, not really in a one-on-one competition. You'd really use game genie, like when you were playing Mario and you wanted to beat

the game so that like when the Koopa Troopers would come at you. Guys, it's called game shark, actually. I know what you're talking about. It's called game shark. I'm positive it's called game genie. But my point of the game genie is we don't need the media to be a Game Genie for the Republican fascists. That is the point of that. And when you see the Republican agenda of what they want to pass, if they take over in 2022, first off, this is their quote of one of the Republican strategists when asked by the Hill about, you know, what type of committee hearings they would hold. They go, it's like a mosquito in a nudist colony. It's a target rich environment.

I mean, what a weird metaphor, though, just of all of the type of metaphors to bring the Republicans lean on a mosquito in a nudist colony. I mean, but the types of hearings, the type of things they want to focus on is they want investigations into Dr. Fauci, investigations into not how to make America healthier with the deadly pandemic, but why there were mask mandates. Those are the issues that they're mainly going to focus on. Hunter Biden's laptop, that is the type of things they want to focus on. So we don't need mainstream media treating these radical right fascists. Oh, they want to investigate the investigators. They want to investigate the January 6th committee and try to throw in jail the January 6th committee panel. And yet you have the mainstream media

treating the Josh Hawleys of the world, the Ted Cruz's of the world, like they're somehow normal people, like they've normalized their fascism, which in many ways is almost like I can look at Fox News, right? And we can have this conversation and say, they are a fascist channel. They are a Putin propaganda Trump network. Look at who they are. It's almost equally as nefarious in a way when other mainstream media reporters normalize the behavior and treat Marjorie Taylor Greene as a normal political figure and rush to her defense and rushed to Madison Cawthorn's defense and rushed to Marco Rubio's defense about semantics when they say, oh, actually, I didn't really support the insurrection. And then use that to say, well, look, they didn't support the insurrection when all of their conduct and everything they've done was supportive of the insurrection. It is nonsense. And that needs to stop. And that's why I'm happy there are people like Dean Obadala. That's why I'm happy there are people like Ashanti Gholar. their voices and to hear from them directly when the mainstream media is silencing that type of

important, important conversation. So I am so excited to have them on the pod. So first, let's bring in Dean Obadala. But before Brett, let's talk about our partner, Trade Coffee. Hey, everybody. Brett Mycelis, co-host of the Midas Touch podcast here. Everybody's third favorite Midas Touch brother. So Most Coffee is dull. You promised this one today. I know you did. I did not. Hey, it's your third favorite Midas brother. Welcome to the show. No, you know, the one who does all the work, but the one you like the least. So let's face it. Most Coffee is dull, stale, and questionably sourced, but it's easy to get

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that has delivered over 5 million bags of coffee. And the subscription is no hassle. You can skip shipments, change your frequency or cancel at any time. I'm really loving Trade Coffee because I get new bags delivered weekly to my house, independent roasters who I love. And I'm very particular and very snobbish about my coffee. I really like light roasts. I really like making espresso. If you're watching right now, you see I got my espresso cup. I like it in a very specific way. And when I took the quiz on trade coffee, they nailed exactly what I wanted. And each bag has been better than the next. And for our listeners right now, trade coffee is offering a total of $20 off your first three bags

when you go to drinktrade.com slash Midas. So to get started, take the quiz at drinktrade.com slash M-E-I-D-A-S and start your journey to the perfect cup. That's drinktrade.com slash M-E-I-D-A-S for $20 off your first three bags. Do it. Take the quiz, get your coffee. You won't regret it. Brett, how do you think we do get your favorables up a little bit? We do want to support your favorability. We need it behind the scenes, sort of like Real World or Big Brother. We need a behind the scenes so just everyone could see the blood, sweat, and tears day in and day out that Ben and I put into the podcast so then they could actually make Brett's ranking even lower. It started out nice and then I wanted to make a joke and the joke kind of just fell apart. You swerved and made it mean. But I don't need to be popular here. Does it out nice, and then I wanted to make a joke, and the joke kind of just fell flat.

You swerved and made it mean. But, you know, I don't need to be popular here. Does it bug you, Brett, though? I mean, psychologically. No, no, no. It motivates him. It motivates him. It doesn't bug me.

But does it motivate you? It doesn't motivate. It does nothing. It's nothing. I'm drinking my trade coffee. I'm enjoying myself. I'm working hard. That's all I care about. That's all we care about. There you hear it. There you have it, Brett. That's all I

care about. All right. Let's bring in Dean Obadala. And welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by Dean Obadala, the host of the Dean Obadala show on Sirius XM channel 127 progress. Our very first home as the Midas Touch Brother podcast. Dean, welcome to the podcast. Thanks. And you guys were on my show a couple of times. So thanks for having me on now on this. And congratulations on your success. I mean, it really, it is blown up. I see the numbers.

I am jealous to no end. And you know, look at your social media numbers off the chart. So congratulations. It's a great job with you guys. You guys came out of nowhere. I remember during the campaign, I'm like, who are these three guys?

What's going on? And the two of you look like you're in a boy band, right? And one doesn't, I'm not going to get into it. Which two? We need details. We need details. Come on, it's obvious. I'm not going to get into it.

But in any event, congratulations on your success. And thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it. Let's talk about that. You know, going back to September of 2020, I mean, we do want to thank you. We, we, you know, we came from some places, but it wasn't politics, you know, and your background originally wasn't a political person. I mean, you stepped into the arena, you know, after working at SNL, after being a lawyer. So, I mean, talk about your own, like for you to come out the way you did strong on politics, we all have to make a decision at some point in time. Like, can we just sit on the sideline and go about our day? Or is politics just kind of encroaching, not just on our lives, but on people that we love

and care about in our communities where we have to make a difference. And so you made that decision. Yeah, but for me, it's sort of full circle. I started out in New Jersey, where I'm from, as the president of the Bergen County Young Democrats and active town Democrats and Paramus in my 20s and then early 30s. And, you know, I went to law school right out of college. So I was a lawyer right away at like 24, 25. But I always wanted to run for office. So I was active in politics that way, very knocking on door with candidates all the time, organizing fundraisers, organizing parts of campaigns. And then what happened is comedy.

A funny thing happened on the way to Congress, because my thing was going to be like, oh, we're going to run for office at some point. I found comedy, and I loved comedy. I loved making people laugh and talking about political issues at the same time. So this marriage of my passion for politics, which is always there, then using comedy, which brings me joy and make people laugh. So I delusionally believed I could change the world through comedy, through telling jokes. That was my delusion. And so I left being a lawyer and I started working as a page in NBC and then worked

at SNL where your cousin was my intern and now is a big, big time producer. That's so wild. You did work with our cousin Lauren at Saturday Night Live. She worked for me. She was my intern. She was the greatest intern. She was remarkable. No, I'm not even kidding. She was assigned to the research department where I was one of the people in research and we worked closely. She was great. She was so smart. And I didn't know she wanted to write comedy, but she was, I knew she could do anything, but that's the kind of, every now and then you're an intern that you meet and you're like, wow, this person is pretty remarkable. I wonder what they're going to end up. And she, great success. So I'm so happy for her. So then it came full circle after

SNL working there. I did full-time comedy for years, talking about being Muslim and of Arab heritage and trying to use comedy to counter stereotypes. And then I ended up at SiriusXM. There was no plan. The goal was always to be an activist. The goal was always to be effective using whatever platform I'm in. So for now, it's my radio show and Twitter and coming on this podcast with you guys. This is it. This is my whole plan.

Well, and Dean, you know, using your platform to help us out. I mean, when we just started in September 20, you know, we have to get those breaks somewhere and being on your pod and giving us that opportunity is one of those breaks. So we thank you for that. And talking about, you know, your comedy being on Sirius XM, your Twitter account, you're obviously very vocal on Twitter. Everyone who knows Dino Badala knows how vocal he is. And you reinforce a message that we reinforce all the time, which is while Democrats are focused on winning the next election, the GOP focuses on how to make the next election our nation's last. And you're not afraid to call out the GOP as being fascists, as truly what their intent is.

You know, do you think these messages, though, need to be put out there more by like democratic politicians? Like this needs to become part of the platform, not just comedians and podcasters and people like us? I agree. There are some Democrats. I had DNC chair Jamie Harrison on who called the GOP fascist on my show just a few months ago. I was like, wow, you have others like Congressman Raskin, who used to be on my show all the time. Then they got really busy with the January 6th committee. But we chatted a few months ago. He calls the GOP a fascist movement. There are others, and we mean it academically. I'm not being the mirror of them calling Democrats socialists. After January 6th, they had a choice. If they had rejected Donald Trump, that meant they rejected political violence. I would not call them fascists. I would still

call them right-wing movement. But they embraced Donald Trump. And polls just two months ago, CBS polls showed 56% of Republicans viewed January 6th not as terrorism, but quote, as an act defending freedom. The definition of fascism is kind of varied, but at its essence, it's this simple. It's acquiring or retaining political power using undemocratic means plus violence. Violence is the key. And this GOP has embraced the guy who gave us a January 6th terrorist attack to overthrow our election. And the base supports it. So let's not play games. I think the timidity of the media is really bad as well.

There are a few voices who will say it bluntly because they're afraid to sound over the top. When the stakes are this high, there's no place for timidity. I don't say it to get a rise from people. I don't say it to get retweets. I say it as a warning for my fellow Americans, especially Democrats, to realize this is not a normal time. We are dealing with a party that's moved from a political party, as we know it, to what I tweet every day.

It is a white nationalist fascist movement. Its goal is to end our democracy. Its goal, like Putin's goal to end the democracy in Ukraine and install a dictator, is the same goal that Donald Trump had on January 6th in the GOP. End our democracy and install Donald Trump as our dictator. That's what their goals are. And for anything less from people to understand it, I find it's a disservice for me not to be blunt with my friends and fellow Americans about what's up. Indeed, there are so many issues that Democrats should run with. I mean, I could pick like 20, 30, 40, 50 off the

top of my head right now. I think each could be a winning issue. The GOP, I mean, one, they're horrible issues for the country that these are policies the GOP wants to implement. I want to be clear that it's not just, oh, this is a good policy. Let's implement it. But I think about what Marsha Blackburn's statement is. Senator Blackburn from Tennessee last night, the day before we're about to have these confirmation hearings for Justice Jackson, we have Marsha Blackburn saying that the Supreme Court, the seminal case precedent, 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut, which says that contraception is a privacy right that adults have to get contraception, that that is constitutionally unsound. And to be clear, the GOP wants to outlaw not just abortion.

They want to outlaw contraception. And their top GOPers are saying that. And look, I hear, you I hear people like us and you and everyone else, they're shouting it. But where is just a leader of the party going on TV and just shouting it? Look what she just said. How absurd is that? But let's be clear, that's where they were going. On my show, we talked about it before, because I'm a lawyer as well, and that the underpinnings of Roe versus Wade is Griswold, this idea of privacy. So they're going backwards, a reverse engineering going, how do we justify getting rid of Roe, which has been updated by Casey versus Planned Parenthood,

but still the essence is there of it, is the Griswold idea. The GOP wants to control everything. Look, this is, to sum up this GOP, they are banning books. They're banning abortion. They want to ban birth control. They want to ban, mention the word gay. They want to ban black history, black achievement, black suffering. And they tell us they're the party of freedom. That's the biggest joke. This is Orwellian nightmare that we're living through right now. It is not surprising that Blackburn believes that. It's surprising she would say it. Most people don't know what Griswold is, but their goal is to turn their religious beliefs into the law of the land. And they should be sued by the Taliban for trademark infringement, because that's their move.

And they are stealing the Taliban's move. And it's absolutely no different. I'm not comparing the Taliban and their daily activity. The Taliban and extremist Muslims want to turn their faith, their tenet of their faith, into the law of the land. That is one version of Sharia law. There's two versions. That's one version of Sharia. These guys doing Christian Sharia. There's no doubt about it.

They want to ban abortion from day one, like they passed a law in Arkansas, which was struck down by the courts last year, from day one, including banning even the case of a woman is raped. Why? They'll tell you. It's their religious beliefs. There's nothing else. It is their religion. Stopping birth control is part of their religion. For some of them, their extreme ones, their religious beliefs. And that's where Democrats fail us. I think, Ben, it's the idea of not speaking bluntly. This is a religious domination and religious oppression of us. And that I've been had Democratic elected official go, well, I don't want to bring up religion. It's about women's freedom. Yeah, there are two sides. It is women's

freedom. But these guys want to take their religious beliefs. Think about the arrogance of it. Here's my religion, my beliefs, and I'm going to oppose it on everyone by law. It's a level of arrogance that it's nauseating. And I hope it's part of the inspiration for people to vote in 2022 to save us from their view of freedom, which is completely oppression. Here's what I do want to compare, though. I want to compare Putin and Trump. You see this. I love my favorite segment. You see this Putin rally. I mean, it looked almost identical to a Trump rally. Every aspect. One difference. I know one difference. The big difference. There were no flies that said Putin on him. As a Trump rally, there's millions of flies that say

Trump. Even Putin isn't so egotistical that he needs his name on the flag. He just had Russian flags. Think about that. It's a brilliant point. To go a step further, that's why the Russia television networks and Putin said, hey, you got to play Fox News because they're even more absurdly pro Putin than our own propaganda. These people are going far out than we are. You know, even the nicknames, though, right, like he calls Zelensky little Nazi the same way you have like little Rubio. It's almost like the parallels are so identically there other than, as you said, you know, the Russians aren't wearing the six-pack ab version of Putin. That's a little too extreme, guys.

That's a little too extreme. They're not dressing up like Putin, right? They're not doing the, you know, Putin grabbed me by the genital shirts that some of the Trump supporters wore at events and stuff like that. They're cut from the same cloth. Donald Trump didn't have to study authoritarians. He didn't have to read about Mussolini or Hitler. This is his natural instincts. And it's funny, it's my friends from the Middle East who made me first aware of it early on or like, you know, this guy, we've seen this and this isn't good. And it was when he was

running for office. And then friends, my fiance's from the Middle East and others, when after the election, when he lost it before January 6th, they would tell me, you know, he's not kidding around. He really wants to stay in power. I'm like, no, he's just doing this to raise funds. And they made me view it with clear eyes. And I wrote about it in late November for NBC Think that this guy's actually plotting a coup. And I was on like Morning Joe for the first time ever. And I was on and like Claire McCaskill's like saying, I'm over the top. What happens on January 6th? It happened. You know, my friends who see this have made me aware, don't view this with a prism of Americans where this can't happen here. Oh,

he's just saying stuff to get his red meat for his base. Take it literally. Understand what's going on. Tucker Klansman, as I call Tucker Carlson on my show affectionately, Tucker Klansman for years. Now he's, as Malcolm Nance calls him, Tokyo Rose, where it's the Tokyo Rose thing from World War II. They mean it. They want a white nationalist state. They're not kidding. When Donald Trump said he wanted to ban all Muslims, he wanted to ban all Muslims. This is literal. This is not a game. These are dangerous people. So Trump is like Putin. They're buddies. He loved them. Don't forget, Putin was his 2016 campaign manager. Without Putin, Trump probably doesn't win that election. I mean, it was a close election. I would say this, though. It's probably even a better comparison, though, with Trump and

Alexander Lukashenko from Belarus, because the distinction there, the difference there is that, you know, Lukashenko still makes himself subservient to Putin and, you know, to keep himself in power, you know, kissed Putin's ring. And basically that's the same exact thing that Trump did in a way. And people go, well, why wasn't there, you know, any like war or go, well, why wasn't there any war or conflict? Well, you don't need a war or conflict if you're giving the person everything they're asking for and you're giving them all the wealth and all of the accommodations. And it's basic Sun Tzu.

If you can achieve it without violence, go achieve it. You don't need to do the war. It's now that Putin realizes that, oh, shit, I got to do this quickly now because the world's quickly changing. And he probably even lost his window as NATO united the way it did. I agree with you 100%. I think also the desperation of Putin is that this is a man motivated by history. He wants to be Putin the great, you know, like Peter the Great and expand the empire.

But also he understands this history that I went through on my show last week. When Russian leaders, czars or other leaders try to expand their empire and they failed, they died or they lost their power. They were out of all, they were forced to abdicate. You know, after the Crimean War in the 1850s, where the Russian czar then wanted to expand to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, he died near the end of the war. They were losing it. Historians say he killed himself. It's unclear. But his son takes power. And there's such unrest because economic essentially sanctions, but it wasn't sanctions, just economic pain caused by a failed war. He was killed by terrorists. Then you've got his son, Nicholas II comes in. There's a failed war in 1904, 1905, Russia, Japan. He goes after Japan. What happens?

Revolution, 1985, almost takes him from power. It doesn't. Then, obviously, 1917, he has to abdicate there where they're losing World War I terribly. And he put himself in charge of the military. They're losing terribly. And he's the last of the Romanovs. Him and his family ushered to exile and then ultimately executed at midnight, a night when they were all dressed up saying they were going to take pictures. What I just told you, Putin understands that history very well. The Russian people understand their history. If you're a Russian leader and you go on this quest for power and you fail, there's no coming back from it. And Putin maybe can stay in control with the security apparatus. But even Gorbachev, don't forget, they lost Afghanistan. They pull

out two years later, the Soviet Union collapses, not just because of that, but that's part of it. You lose a war when you're expanding as a Russian, you pay a price, either the nation or you. And so I think Putin's panicking. His history of his nation is what motivates him. I think it also must scare him to understand his own history of his nation. Do you think Putin was caught off guard by the way that President Biden, that NATO, that the world came together to push back? Do you think he could just roll over us after four years of Trump? First of all, are you allowed to ask questions? I thought that was just Ben. We got a system, Dean. We got a system.

Okay. So fair enough. So as long as you're allowed to ask, it's okay, go. All right. He's the manager. I look at him. I can ask a question. That's cool. Manager Ben. Look, I'm no expert on this, but everything we've seen from experts makes it clear that Putin thought economic alliances, especially with Germany, were going to prevent them from doing what they did was in Nord Stream, the pipeline and unite, NATO unite in this loud one voice in unison because Trump had done his best to undermine NATO. So, you unite, in this loud one voice in unison, because Trump had done his best to undermine NATO. So, you know, I think that he is stunned by it. The level of weapons, no one would have guessed Germany was going to give them weapons when they pledged not to do

that in the past, to give weapons to them. This is a proxy World War III, when you really think about it, although it's really Russia. I agree. But it's a proxy World War III. The whole West is arming Ukrainians to kill Russians. Oddly enough, at the very same time Germany's arming Ukrainians to kill Russians, Russians still selling energy to Germany and Germany's paying for it and Russia's still giving it to them. So this bizarre world we live in now where you're killing your adversary, but you're still buying goods from them because they both need that. So the relationship they both need is something that's remarkable. So yeah, I don't think he expected this. I saw Mitch McConnell on Sunday. Right now,

it seems like some of the leadership of the GOP is starting to freak out because I think they see this pro-Putin wing as a huge problem. I mean, the polling has got to be terrible on this issue because we see how many Americans are supporting Ukraine and support Zelensky and oppose Russia. Yesterday, McConnell goes on the Sunday shows. He said these were just a few, quote, lonely voices in the House. I mean, it's the former president of the United States, the leader of their party, and a lot of voices who they are saying they're going to put back in power. So what do you make of McConnell's statements and what do you make of this pro-Putin wing of the GOP? And I guess, how hard should we be hitting them for this? Well, I think that's the biggest point. Democrats,

I know they don't want to score political points on a war. And I actually understand that. It's a hard, that's a tough thing to navigate. But to make it clear that it's not the outliers, it's the leader of their party, Donald Trump. The front runner for the 2024 GOP nomination was the man praising Vladimir Putin on the eve of the war, called him savvy and a genius. And during the war, after we already saw children killed, he's at CPAC praising Putin as smart and defending his comments. I think Democrats would do a better job. And maybe this is not the time for it, but going forward, that this is a pro-Putin, not wing, but a bunch of this GOP. And show Mike Pence in 2016 praising Putin as a strong leader, stronger than Obama. And Rudy Giuliani as well, use it against him.

And Mike Pompeo days before. The affinity of the GOP to a white nationalist strongman should not be lost on anybody. That's who they are. That's instinctually who they are. And even Kevin McCarthy last week, the spineless creature was actually propped up for a moment and spoke upright and said that Madison Cawthorn's comments calling Zelensky a thug were wrong and that Putin is the only thug. They do see it as a liability. Everything that GOP does is calculated for power. So they see it as a liability. You're absolutely right. Democrats have to hit them on that over and over and over again. Show no Trump praising Putin. Show Trump in 2018 in Helsinki siding with Putin over our own intelligence services.

This guy, horrible, horrible. It's ridiculous in America. I had the rule of this czar, wannabe czar for four years. Sorry to interrupt you, Brett, but the end of that McCarthy clip, he's asked if he would still, if he'd still go ahead and back Hawthorne on his reelection campaign. He goes, yes, next question. Of course. They're all calculated. Everything they do is calculated. There's nothing, everything they do is through the prism of what will get his power.

And Kevin McCarthy, especially, his dream is to be House Speaker. I hope we should win the House. We really if we come out. But if somehow we lose it, I hope they make Trump the Speaker. So McCarthy never gets to be Speaker of the House. Something something joyful in that it would be horrible for the country. Don't get me wrong. But just to put a needle in that spineless jellyfish known as Kevin McCarthy, who's just a nonstop liar.

Yeah, no, no, Yeah, nobody likes Kevin McCarthy. And I've seen your comments about the House. We made one into a meme actually recently. Yes, it was great. Thank you. Where you basically said, I'm paraphrasing here, but you're basically like, I'm sick and tired if you're in the so-called pundits and experts telling us that Democrats can't win. It's up to us if we're going to win. So expanding on that, what is your message to people who right now may be concerned about 2022?

And how do we get people fired up? This is how you do it. You send me $3 and then I just wrote an article for MSNBC detailing why this is not this kind of I'm not misleading people just to sound good, that first of all, 2018, we came out big, we win 40 half seats. 2020, we come out big and we win, we win the White House, right? We did lose some house seats. And in my article for MSNBC, I point out there were two times in the modern era where a president's party actually gained seats. And I think they both apply to a certain degree. First, George W. Bush after 9-11, different time, but we did have a January 6 terrorist attack. And I think there's something there about playing on the patriotism card for Democrats that they're not great at,

but they could do that. Secondly, we lost 13 House seats in 2020. We already had our loss. So let's not forget that. Third, the only other time a Democratic president won seats was 1998, Bill Clinton. And that was because of GOP overreach. They impeached him, Newt Gingrich, and people liked Clinton. They viewed it as GOP overreach. Right now, we have GOP overreach. They are literally banning books. They are banning abortion even if a woman is raped. They're going to ban birth control. They're banning, talking about Black history. They're banning, talking about, they want to ban transgender teens, erase them. They're trying to erase the LGBT community. They are so overreaching right now. I think it's very similar

to 1998. And those are all things to help get our base out. Midterm elections are base elections. We know that. We get our base out based on how horrific they are and what we've delivered with COVID relief. And hopefully we can deliver a little bit more, some parts of the back better. I think we'll get something through before this is over. And Dean, you're right. They're trying. They are the party of cancel culture. The Republican Party is the party of cancel culture. They want day life and sort of live in this weird dystopian society that revolves around Republican based values, which is terrifying. What do you make of that sort of

projection from? Is that something that we'll continue to see as we get closer and closer to the election? Look, the GOP, they've never course correct to be more reasonable. Like for an example, they used to be about three exceptions to abortion. That was a normal thing. You know, rape, incest, life of the mother. In the last few years, they began to move more to the right because that's where they go. And it's like, okay, no more exception for rape or incest, only the life of the mother. And now you have a swath of the GOP base, which I've written about, who said we can't even have an exception for the life of the mother. They're both lives. It's God's will. God's will. I'm down with God's will, but you

don't legislate God's will. You know, that's whatever God wants to do. The idea that we're going to let women die because of the fetus that's in distress, or we'll let the woman die so we're going to save the fetus is ridiculous to me. That's why I think Democrats have to come down harder. Democrats want to talk about lowering prescription drug prices by 10%. Like that's the winner for 2022. I'm sorry, it's not. And my mom needs lower prescription drug price.

She's a senior, but saving her $4 a month or $8 a month is not life-changing. It's not. I think that the red meat for our base, and we have to think that way, is just painting a real picture of what this GOP is. We don't have to scare people. Just like, look what they're doing one law after the other.

They're scary enough on their own. We don't have to do what they do. We don't have to lie. They're trying to ban books, ban abortion, ban women's control of their own body, ban the gay community, ban trans teens, ban everything they disagree with. They don't care. And so much of it's based on a twisted view of faith. They're trying to oppress us based on religion that flies in the face, I think, of being an American. And then Dean, lastly, I want to ask you something a little bit more personal, at least I think it's personal and not just done for aesthetic. Your Twitter handle, the way you frame it, you do three parentheses before you write your name,

and then you do three parentheses as you log off. Now, I see that as a perfect counterpunch to white supremacy and white nationalists all over this country. Can you explain to our listeners who might not understand why you do that, why that is the way it is? I did it like years ago, maybe in 2017, when the Trump base were coming after journalists, Jewish journalists, and they were targeting them. It was an anti-Semitic wave going on against Jewish journalists. And the way the white supremacists would identify the Jewish journalists is putting the three brackets in the name when they were tweeting about them. So myself, and it wasn't

just me, others at the time said, well, we're going to stand with the Jewish community. So I'm putting the brackets and let them think I'm Jewish and then come after me. I got thick skin. I'm half Sicilian, half Palestinian. You know, I'm pretty tough. I'm from Jersey. And, and I, and I just let, at the time it was a political statement and I've left it there because I'm not going to go like, well, Hey, things are fine for the Jews now. So they don't need me. I think that history has told us that in the world, that the bigots come back to the Jewish community through time, through generations, and they're going to come back. And so I'm an ally. And I'm an ally that also has to ask that other communities stand with us when we need you, because they're going to come back for us too, for Muslims. They love, you know, we are the religious minority group of the day that they hate,

but they'll always come back to Jews. And it's despicable to see it. And you see, look at Putin calling Zelensky the little Nazi when he's Jewish and he's lost ancestors in the Holocaust to Nazis. And you don't have, that's where we are. I mean, you're seeing a spike in anti-Semitism that's gone on before. And by him doing that, I wonder if there's more of a spike down the road. And Dean, just so you know, we've seen our names written like that on those message boards on Twitter in a negative way. So seeing you doing it as that counterpunch, as a Jewish American myself, as grandparents who have fought proudly against Nazis in World War II, thank you. No, I appreciate it. And if I didn't know you were Jewish, that's it. I'm sorry. I'm out of here. I'm kidding, of course. The this is what does nobody know? I know you guys are. I'm kidding.

Look, we're all in this together. If every minority I've always say in my show, we have to stand up for each community because we are minorities. Hence the term minority. But when we band together and stand united, then we can stand up to the bigots. And that's how we are. And that's what we did in one time of Trump. I've seen more intergenerational, interfaith, interracial, intercommunity alliances because of Trump than I ever saw ever before in all the efforts of trying to make it happen. It happened organically because we felt under siege. So we have to be there for each other. And Dean, speaking of bigots, it'd be worth mentioning a band that I liked growing up, Stained. I'm not sure if you saw this, but they took this stand. It's been a while. It's been a while. And I sang it pretty well there. That was great. It's like they were here. You were going to cover? Are you part of a cover

band for them? I always thought that if I really worked, I'd have a nice. I thought Stained was right here in the room with us. I was like, that was really like this is incredible. Oh, my gosh. You've been at the Holiday Inn. That's all I got, everybody. Thank you, Dino. So no, just make no point about Stained. So Stained, you know, very popular band, I think in the late 90s, early 2000s. And they took the stand and they basically when they were performing and they did this anti-Zelensky, anti-Ukraine rant. And of course, they blamed it on, you know, George Soros also, you know, and so they combine the anti-Semitism that the Jews are what's behind helping Ukraine, yet Ukraine is supposed to be a Nazi, if you believe what they say. It's entirely, completely bullshit and inconsistent, but you have that being spread. But now here's the point I want to make in addition to that stain sucks and I hate stain now, and that's horrible. When we were to criticize that and we were to call stained out and say, that's horrible. You know, how dare they?

They, on the right, have invented the concept of cancel culture to basically say, you're canceling me. How dare you say we should stop listening to this band that just did this anti-Semitic rant because we said that was a horrible thing for them to say. And that's not canceling. I was having a conversation yesterday with someone about it. I'm like, that's calling them out and criticizing them for being anti-Semitic or being racist or hateful. That's called calling you out. And I was taught growing up that when you see something and someone's acting hateful, you can call them out. They've turned calling out into cancel to basically

give them a hedge against their racism and their hatred. You know, Martin Luther King has a famous quote that I like, and I'll just paraphrase the end where he said, you know, about the worst thing during this time of social unrest, he was saying, is the appalling silence of the good people. And you've got to call it out. And New York Times wrote a horrible op-ed, editorial on Friday about both-siding, cancel culture and both-siding. And the idea of on the right, they want to spew anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim bigotry, racist garbage, anti-LGBT garbage.

And they want us to be silent. That's their idea of freedom of speech. They can just spew hate and we have to sit there silently. And if we say something, we're trying to cancel them. No, we're going to call them out. We have to push back hard all the time. That's our obligation because they want to normalize this garbage. They're the ones that are so far out of the mainstream. And we have to, they've ever, I'll defend their right to spew hatred, but on the margins of society, like if they're going to do it mainstream, then we're going to call for boycotts of media companies, sponsors, call it whatever

you want. I care less. I call it accountability for your words. You don't want to be held accountable. Don't say racist garbage. That's simple. The New York Times piece though was ironically basically trying to stifle free speech in my opinion, that New York Times speech, because it was saying that if somebody does say something racist, sexist, homophobic, you name it, they're saying it's only free speech if you're not allowed to speak out. You need to let them spew whatever hate that they want. And then you need to be silent because if you're not silent, you are stifling their free speech. So therefore you be quiet, which is the opposite of what the point they're arguing in the first place, which is that everybody should be able to speak and have a voice. And the writer actually passing, do you

have a handful of people on the left at a college who will scream at someone who's a bigot, right? So be it. That's life. That's free speech, counter free speech. The writer passing laws to defund schools and fire teachers for saying the word gay in Florida, you know, for talking about critical race theory, which is not even in the laws. It literally says things like you can't teach anything about race. It causes discomfort, literally discomfort, which means you can't teach about black achievement or black suffering at the hands of white bigots because that causes discomfort in certain white adults, not their kids who are learning. Why would a fourth grader be anxious about their race? They're learning

about history. Their parents, though, don't want to have an awkward conversation about race and about white supremacy and about the history of this country where our original constitution enshrined and defended slavery. But that's- You're so right, though. You're so right. Where the right wing will always point out some random student at some college who's yelling, and they'll be like, you see that student or Big Bird or some made up thing. These are the Republican leaders of the party. This is Senator Marsha Blackburn. This is the legislator of Missouri. This is the legislator of Florida. This is the bill you passed in Texas. These are your leaders, not the random student who yelled

at the speaker who no one even knows who the speaker is and who the student is or Big Bird. That's the difference in a nutshell. And they have, though, all of their media, you know, programmed to unify a message to basically link that directly to people who it's not linked to. But what does progressive media tend to do? Well, I mean, there really isn't, quote unquote, progressive media out there. That's really that's really unified. But what is the other media other than the fascist media do? Honestly, Dean, they try to fact check, you know, their own, you know, progressives. They try to fact check people and go, oh, that's not actually what Madison Cawthorn said. Madison Cawthorn said he tucked

the guns underneath his wheelchair, not that he had it on his lap. It's like he's saying he's brought guns into the Capitol. Who cares which which place it got tucked into? You know, you're saying that Marjorie Taylor Greene, you know, said X, Y and Z. She didn't say this, even though the point of her message was we need to stop giving aid to Ukraine. It's like focus on the issue that she gave a rebuttal speech. We focus on the big. I agree. And also we have a demand of purity. Even if people don't realize they're demanding purity, I don't even mean progressive purity. I

mean, I've got email from someone who used to listen to my show all the time. They go, they said, I've stopped listening because that you kept criticizing Merrick Garland for not charging Donald Trump. I'm like, so that one issue made you stop listening to my show. Like you liked everything else, but I've had that countless times where progressives will be like, I'm lit. And I know them because they've engaged me. And then they have on one issue, they'll turn and I'll go, so we agree on almost everything, but one issue we disagree and you're going to check out. And I go, that's why the right wins because they could disagree, but they don't check out. They show up in midterm elections. They're there all the time. And they're,

they're terrible. There might be a few good people on their side, but they come out, they, they know what power is about and how you acquire it in America. That's where they're trying to rig elections. Now they see demographics changing to the point where they're really worried, but we we've got to fight. It's not harder. It's more effective.

You know, when people say, oh, we got to be like more meaner like them. I'm like, no, I want to be effective. It could be at times being tough and mean. At times it could be a smile and a joke, but let's be effective. And that's not what our touchstone is for what we do. It should be what is the most effective way to communicate our message? Is it a bumper sticker? Is it a tweet? Is it a meme? Is it a podcast like you guys are doing? What is the effective way? Because you can't get Democrats to go on TV and message.

You have two Democrats, you have three opinions. You can have two members of Congress and they'll debate each other over the nuance of a bill on MSNBC. And I'm like, why? You couldn't agree on one message before you came on. Watch Fox News. Every Republican comes on message, message, message. They're not the brightest bunch, but I'll tell you this. They're effective because they understand messaging. That's where they're that's where they are smart. We have to understand messaging better. That's why we do the pod. That's why you do the pod. Everybody check out the Dino Badala show on Sirius XM channel 127 progress. Dino Badala. We could have gone on for hours and

hours. We normally do these at 20 minutes, but I was just enjoying the conversation. Oh, thank you guys for having me. I appreciate it. I enjoyed the conversation so much and we were hitting on so many good issues. Hope you come back on the show. Sure, I will. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate you guys. Again, congratulations on your success. Dean is not afraid to speak his mind. And that's why I love him. I love the Dino Badala show. And it's so wild. Like thinking about when we last time we spoke to him was on his show,

like two years ago, time just flies by. It's it's, it's really, it's scary. It's very scary, but, but great,

great September, 2020. Insane. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's almost Midas touch two year anniversary coming up not quite yeah but Midas touch you know it depends it's kind of like you know when you're in a relationship with someone like do you count I know you're gonna get yourself in trouble yeah here's the

here's the what do you say keep going please do you count the first day you met as the anniversary do you count the day that's official do you count like if you're married Do you count the day that's official? Do you count like if you're married, do you count the marriage date? Like which date do you still celebrate the date anniversary after you get married? These are all things you got to work out. These are the things they don't tell you about. It's not hard at all. If you end up getting married, the marriage becomes a new anniversary. So you drop, what if you're together for like a ton of years? Yeah, absolutely. I would try to do a movement against that in a way. Cause you just, all those years that you were with someone just go down the drain.

And it's like, see, that's like, I never said that. That didn't, that never came. That wasn't the words that came out of my mouth that, you know, now you still cherish and still have all those wonderful memories. So if you're one of those people who just like, you fell in love at first sight, you know, after two days, you get married, you, you say, how, what's, how long have you been together? You it's the same amount of time as if someone were to be, it's a different question. That's totally misleading. It's the absolute. So you ask, how long have you been together? Oh, we've been married 20 years. Uh, we've been together. We've known each other for 35 years.

Very simple, easy response. Very simple, Jordy. Very simple. Let's bring in Ashanti Gholar. I'm excited to have Ashanti on the pod. But before bringing Ashanti in, I want to tell you about our partner, Masterworks. Oh, you know I love Masterworks. Let me tell you about this. Let me give you this quote. Alternative assets are no longer optional. Good quote, man. That is what JP Morgan declared in a recent release. Because while a typical 60-40 portfolio anticipates only 4% returns, alternative assets like oil, commodities, and art could still go up in value. So investing in them means you're making inflation work for you.

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and then I tell people it's an original. I don't do that. I think you should only be allowed to print your shares worth of the painting. So if you own 10% of the painting, I think you should print out 10% of the artwork. I really do like it, though. I enjoy it, and I enjoy art. So it's a way for me to combine my interest in investing with artwork. So go check that out. So now without further ado, let's bring in Ashanti Gholar. We are joined by

Ashanti Gholar, the host of the podcast, The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics. And Ashanti currently serves as the president of Emerge, really the only organization dedicated to recruiting and trading women to run for office. We need that now more than ever. Ashanti, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk to you all. So let's get right into it. We saw some of your posts earlier today. Were you actually there in D.C. for Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation? We saw some rallies in support of KBJ. Were you there? I was. So I live in D.C. and I'm a part of so many coalitions that are rallying to support her from higher heights,

to She Will Rise, to Sister SCOTUS, to Win With Black Women. And we rallied this morning to let people know that there are women all across this country who support Katonji Brown Jackson and want to see her confirmed. And that we know that she may be the first, but she's not going to be the last. And that overall, we need to see more women in these positions of power across the country, especially as jurists. So tell us about Katonji Brown Jackson

and your support of Katonji Brown Jackson. You know, a lot of our listeners and viewers have heard us talk about it, but we'd love to hear from your own perspective. You know, why do you think she's the perfect fit for this job right now? Well, she's overqualified. I mean, if you look at all of the graphics that have come out, her experience is more than some people who are currently sitting on the Supreme Court. I'm going to try to be less petty. I've been petty all morning. So I have. We're all for petty. Be petty. Be petty.

I mean, more qualified than the last two people who got confirmed. I will just say that because in my opinion, I do think those last two people kind of lowered the standing of the court and made people question the integrity of the court. And I know we live in a partisan country and time, but for me, when it comes to the Supreme Court, I want to know we're going to have people on there who are going to protect our rights and not be divisive. And when you see that with the Honorable Judge Jackson, is that her rulings, they're fair. She doesn't always side with one person over the other. She is really about doing what is right. And when overall we look at the criminal justice system,

one of the things that we say at Emerge is that you can't change the criminal justice system without changing the faces of criminal justice reform. And that means you have to have more women and more women of color in these roles. And we have seen over the past few years, just so many Black women getting elected to judges at the local level. So to now have a Black woman who's going to be sitting on the highest court in the country, that just means so much. It's a testament to how Black women's political power continues to grow. But we also saw the backlash, just even from the minute President Biden said, I'm going to nominate a Black woman. He didn't even name anyone. We didn't know who this woman was going to be, but yet they attacked. And we saw all of the constant sexist, racist, misogynistic attacks

that Black women have to deal with the minute that they're considered for anything, especially running for public office. And so many of the groups that I'm a part of, we just knew we were going to gather and uplift this woman and not let people discredit her because we knew she was going to be qualified. And that's what we have been doing the past few weeks from when we didn't have a name to we had the name Katonji to today. We also had events this weekend. It is just really an exciting time. And the thing that I have loved the most is seeing all my friends who have young Black daughters where they want to skip school because they wanted to go to the rally. There were two young Black women today. One was 10, one was 16. Just their speeches had me

in tears, just them talking about Katonji. And one of them was like, her hair looks like mine. And that's a big deal for us. You know, just even with me, I run a national organization. I wear my hair in Senegalese twist. And when I became president, someone had said to me, oh, are you going to get a presidential hairstyle? And I said, well, I'm the president

of Emerge. This is my hair. This is a presidential hairstyle. So just how she looks, her skin, her smile, her hair, just the representation that this is giving to young Black women. I love that they have the things that I never had. You were talking earlier in the pod about the right wing's use of the term cancel culture, whereas they use it as a buffer against being criticized very frequently for their racist acts and their conduct and saying, hey, don't criticize me. You're trying to cancel me. In many ways here, what they were trying to do before Ketanji Brown Jackson was even nominated, just the idea of appointing a black woman to the bench,

they were trying to cancel literally the hypothetical person of who it could be. And then they want to say, hey, groups like Emerge, groups like Midas, you can't even criticize us for saying that we have a right to basically be horrible people and to be racist. How do we message that and communicate to Americans and to the people like that, that's really what's going on. And the absurdity of that cancel culture concept that they, that the right wing has created to let themselves empower them to be racist, that intolerance against intolerance is not intolerance. Right. And with cancel culture, it's just it's accountability. That's what people don't like actually being held accountable for what you say, what you do and the consequences of it. I'm sorry. You just don't have the right to be a complete and total prick just because you don't like, sorry, being petty, just because you don't like the fact that it's going to be

a Black woman. We can even take this back to when President Biden, then the nominee, said that he would put a woman as his vice president. People started losing their minds just because it was going to be a woman. But then we also saw that the women of color, especially the Black women, got the most backlash. Just those potential nominees. What we have to do when it comes to this is look at the person and look at what they are bringing to the table. In this situation, they always like to say, oh, we're always talking about race. We're talking about gender, but they were also talking about race. They were talking about gender and they infused it with so much

hate. And that is just wrong. We talk about wanting to have a representative democracy, which is great, but we need an inclusive democracy. And that means people from all backgrounds and all walks of life. And that is what happens. We get that when we have the Katanjis, when we have the Kamalas. So it's us putting back on them. So really what you're saying is you don't want the country to look like the country. You don't want to see women in power. You don't want to see people of color in power because that is what they are doing. That is what they are saying when they do all of these attacks is, I want the status quo. They're saying this country was built and made for white men who own land, and I want to see it stay that way. That's just not who we are anymore. The Supreme Court has made it clear

that is not who we are anymore. Sorry, I am not three-fifths of a person. I am a whole damn person and all of us are, and we have rights to participate in this political system. You look at the insurrection and in many ways, that is the radical right saying, we still want it to be the way it once was. And we don't want to recognize the country for what it is. And so maybe talk to the work that Emerge is doing, that you're doing. How do we, though, make a more diverse judiciary? How do we support female and Black candidates, given the structural barriers that are at play? The first thing is letting them know that they do belong in public office. There's still this

concept that politics is for a certain kind of person. I've had women even tell me, oh, I can't run for office until I get this job. Oh, I can't run for office until I get married and have kids because I have to have the perfect family on my lit card. Or even saying, oh, I got to get my credit score up because you have to have good credit to be in Congress. I'm like, I don't know about that. But these are the things that people think, because these are the people that we see as our representatives in elected office. And what we do at Emerge is we have an affiliate structure where we are on the ground 365 days a year in our state doing this work, going to the women in the community and letting them know that they

should be the ones in public office. If you are heading the PTA, why should you not serve on the school board? If you're constantly volunteering for other candidates and helping them get elected, why don't you have your name on the ballot? If you're at the city council meetings and you know the issues like the back of your hand and you're doing the work to advocate for better policies for your community, let's move you to being on the dais. That is what we do at Emerge. We currently have over a thousand of our alums in elected office. And that includes Deb Haaland, our first indigenous cabinet secretary. That includes Michelle Wu, the first Asian woman mayor of Boston. And it includes the women from my home state of Nevada who helped create the first majority

female state legislature. And that means a lot to me because my nieces and nephews now get to grow up in a much better Nevada than I did, than my brothers did due to Emerge Women. So for me, this is very personal too. I get to see the impact that the work that Emerge does has in my home state and across the country. And we get the women in our program and we demystify what it takes to run for office. But we're also honest about the barriers that exist that you are going to have people say, why aren't you at home with your husband who's taking care of your kids? People are saying, well, you didn't go to college.

So what makes you think you get to be in elected office? Or you declared bankruptcy. What makes you think that you can represent me? There's just all these little things that they all throw at women. But there's the big things too, such as the fundraising barrier. When it comes to women of color, especially Black women, they get lesser donations. And it's why I talk a lot about the power of small dollar donations for women candidates, because those $5, those $10, those $15, they add up.

And that's how so many women candidates win. So I tell people, don't think that just because you only got $5 and someone else has $10,000 that you can't make an impact. It's those small dollars that are helping these women get into elected office. And at Emerge, our women, our alum stay with us and we continue to provide them an ongoing network of support because we want to make sure that they're advancing to higher office. So we're doing lots of advanced candidate training as well. We have our new program Seated Together, which specifically is focusing on Black women's leadership for women who are in elected office. And one of our alums who is in that program,

London Lamar, she started off as a state representative in Tennessee. She was the youngest woman in the state house. And we just saw her get appointed to the state Senate when an open seat popped up. So now voters, it's the constituents that are putting them there. So that is also showing us that voters want to see more women in office and our alum, they are the right people for their district. And that's how they also win. Ashanti, I got two things for you because the work you're doing is so important. And I might as touch, it's so important for us on every episode that we do to not only tell people what's going on, but to tell people how they could get involved. So first, how can our listeners or viewers get involved with Emerge? Let's start there.

Yes. So you can go to our website, emergeamerica.org. It lists all of our state affiliates, also our national training programs. You can sign up for our email list. And if you want to run for office, we want to have you on one of our training programs. If you're looking for women to support, you can see the list of all of our alums who are in elected office. And for the non-women out there, if you do know that good woman in your life, you should encourage her to run for office. All of us have a place in Emerge to make sure that we get this work done. I love that. And please listen to Ashanti. Please get involved. It's so

important right now. And aside from Emerge, or maybe Emerge is a part of it, how could our viewers, where is their energy best spent right now? Go heading into the midterms. We consider ourselves accidental activists who kind of fell into activism because we were so concerned about the country. We didn't come from political backgrounds, but we decided that we had to do something. So to all those people right now, sitting out there listening, having that itch, saying, I need to get involved, but I don't know what to do. What is the single most important thing that they could be doing right now? Yes. I always love this question because I did not come from a political family at all. My family voted, that's it. So the fact that I run or merge and do all this political stuff is so crazy to me, but I love the fact that I'm able to do this.

And I'll just tell you all some of the things that I did. The first thing is definitely know who your representatives are and look at what they're doing. And if you think they're great, make sure you turn out and vote for them. If you don't think they're great, learn who the other candidates in the races are. You definitely have to make sure you turn out and vote for them. If you don't think they're great, learn who the other candidates in the races are. You definitely have to make sure that you know the candidates that

are going to be on the ballot in the primary and in the general in November. You also got to check your voter registration. It's wild out there, y'all. These laws are getting crazier and crazier. So make sure that you have everything that you need. We're still in this pandemic, so there's opportunities to also volunteer virtually if you really like a candidate. So you can phone bank virtually, you can text virtually, and you can also give your donations as well. And when we talk about candidates, candidates need great campaign staff. They need great volunteers. Think about other ways that you can be involved. I just started off volunteering for my favorite member of Congress in Las Vegas.

And then when I graduated college, she offered me a job. She said, Ashanti, you're doing this for me for free anyway. I might as well start paying you. And I'm like, I'm not going to disagree with that logic. I'm like, I love it. I get paid to do what I love. So think about potential careers in politics. Even if you are in accounting, organizations need accountants. We just hired one here at Emerge. Campaigns need accountants. They need people in press.

They need people in field. There's just so many ways to get involved. But the biggest thing is know that you can make a difference. You may think that your small dollar donation may not matter. You telling other people about the candidates in their district may not matter, or even that your vote may not matter. One of the things that saddens me every election cycle is when I have to call our alums who lost by one vote, who lost by five votes, who lost by 10 votes, because it happens. We even had an alum whose race was tied. And in her state, you break a tie by tossing a coin. She didn't call the right way. And she lost that race. And it had

huge impacts in the state house because her one vote would have made such a huge difference. But because she's an emerged woman, she ran again the next cycle and she won and more women won. And then they had the votes to get Medicaid expansion, to get more funding for public schools, for more LGBTQ rights. The things that are at stake are real. I tell people it's not politics. It's real life. These are people's real life. These are people's real life, you know, and going to, you know, what was said earlier about people who want to, you know, just keep things the same. You know, we've had this trucker convoy out in DC and I'm just like, I know y'all are privileged

because gas is high as hell and you just roaming around blocking traffic like you ain't got nothing to do. Someone's paying for that. Right. But it's like the privilege of it all. But one of the things that I know is that we have great lawmakers who are doing the right thing. And we have to make sure that we get the right people in office if we want to continue to move the country in the right direction. Ashanti, last question here, because I know you have to run. So sorry. And so thank you for staying with us as long as you have.

You once wrote an article called Stop Calling Black Women Long Shot Candidates. And we see this all the time. When a black woman announces she's going to run for office, where the mainstream media then frames issues horribly like this, and it puts the candidate at a severe disadvantage. Now, do you think the mainstream media needs to frame issues better? And are there examples, other examples of this that you'd like to talk about? What else can be done? They absolutely need to frame it better. The first thing is having more women of color, especially Black women journalists who are leading the conversation, having more Black women as the panelists and the commentators. The number of

times I have seen people discussing Black women's issues, and there's not one Black woman who's a part of the conversation being interviewed, being asked her opinion. It's one of the reasons why I started the Brown Girls Guide to Politics is because I wanted to uplift Black women in politics, in civic engagement, but I wanted people to hear their words. I wanted them to know their journey straight from them and the herstory that they were making. Some of the things that we have seen done right is with Judge Jackson is actually talking to the Black women who are leading these efforts. I did a virtual event last night, and by the end of it, several of the co-hosts had to drop off because they were doing TV. And that's a good reason to have to drop off early.

The mainstream media needs to actually talk to Black women, talk to women, talk to women of color, and hear from us directly. And just seeing Black women are long shots, it always makes me mad because the fact is Black women are electable. If they weren't electable, we wouldn't have any Black women in elected office. I think so many of them just get a kick kind of out of making it a story, just wanting to cause controversy controversy and it can be damaging to Black women and their races. So that's what we need. We need more Black women's voices being heard, being elevated and being a part of the conversation. So that's why I say thank you to the three of you for having me on so we can even have this conversation. Ashanti, one of the things, and I'm sorry, I know you have to go, but I really thank you to the three of you for having me on so we can even have this conversation.

Ashanti, one of the things, and I'm sorry, I know you have to go, but I really want you to really want to pick your brain on this because one of the things too amongst diversity in journalism that's subtle, but I think makes a huge difference. I don't know if you see this too, that the mainstream media though often does not pick up a lot of the stories that are written in black publications. And so whereas you'll have a Reuters story or an AP story by a white writer that could travel everywhere, everyone picks that up. But you have some incredible exclusive, some incredible journalism. But then you'll look at the retweets, whether it's picked up by other media and it doesn't get spread the way, you know, another

story spread. And sometimes where that impacts too is if you're a communication strategist and you're thinking, hey, I've got this exclusive and I need the most people to listen to it, you know, and it should be a black journalist who's the writer of the story. You also have to pause for a second because the mainstream media is not doing it. I need to make sure this gets out to everybody. And I need to make sure that the mainstream media is picking up all of these publications. How does that link? I don't think that's talked about enough that every day there's incredible Black journalism

taking place. And it often just lives in a medium of just Black journalism and doesn't get spread to other people when it's great. And normally journalism would otherwise travel. I've noticed that in my work and it frustrates the heck out of me. I think there's two things here. The first is, who are the people making the decisions around what is going to be spread around? What are you going to retweet from your mainstream publication? There's not a lot of people of color in those decision-making roles, and that impacts us not seeing it. The second piece is there are so many people who think just because it was written by a Black person, that it's not going to be relatable to non-Black audiences. And this is just something we see across industries, in media, in politics, the number of times that Black candidates have been told that they shouldn't run in the district because the district doesn't look like them, that people won't vote for them. And again, we know that that isn't true at all. Like Congresswoman Lauren Underwood, her district is majority white, but she keeps getting reelected

because she does a good job. The same with Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman. So we're dealing with decision makers who don't look like the people who are writing the articles. And then we deal also with just this antiquated idea that Black people can only relate to Black people and that non-Black people wouldn't be interested in anything that Black people have to say. And that plays such a huge role in why we don't see more Black journalists, authors getting amplified. And they never asked the inverse, right? They never asked, you know,

why is this white person representing a community that doesn't look like them, et cetera. They'd never go. Right, right. It's immediately like, oh, they'll be great. They'll fix it. They know what the community needs and we can have an entire show on that. We should do an entire show on that.

Come back, Ashanti Gholar. We so appreciate you coming on the show. Everybody go check out her podcast, The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics. And again, check out the organization. She heads Emerge. Help out if you can. Ashanti Gholar, thank you so much for joining the podcast.

Oh, thank you all so much. Ashanti Gholar, we'd love to have her back as a guest. We could spend hours speaking to Shanti Golar and we should spend hours. Everybody make sure you check out Shanti Golar's podcast. I've been listening to it. I'm telling you, if she didn't have a hard out and we kept her like many minutes after her hard out,

I would have talked to her for hours. I would have pushed it. I think she's just so brilliant. Please get involved. I love too that she's recruiting people to run for office. If you ever had that itch to run for office and you're a woman, reach out to Emerge and see how they can help you because they got all the resources and they know what they're doing. I couldn't agree more. I want to talk about a tweet that I did write though, which has been getting a lot of attention. It's your bar mitzvah tweet. Yeah, Jordy posted the tweet

of me in my I mean, we got to address this. Do we want to address this now or do we want to address this at the end of the pod? You can just address it very quickly and then I'll found a video of Benjamin at his bar mitzvah rapping along. Ben, what were you rapping along to? I was rapping

along to either Mo Money Mo Problems, I think. Mo Money Mo Problems with Brett in the background being just a great hype man. And so I saw this video. I was in the background. I was right alongside him. That's absolutely true. Those moves, B. I saw this video come out and I'm like, oh my God, now is my moment. And I blasted this into the Twittersphere. And if you have not seen this video yet, it is 13 year old Ben fresh off his Haftarah. Just, and Ben, I got to say, like, it was really impressive. You were keeping with the cadence. You look fresh to death, man. All white, all white, head to toe, the suit really drippy,

man. Just looking good, big bro. Look, it is a funny thing. I do enjoy rapping. Yeah. The point I was trying to make Jordy before you cut me off there, but I appreciate the, I appreciate that was the following. This was the tweet that I had sent out. I wrote to these Republican men. And I put that in quote, who want to preach about being a man, listen up. There's nothing manly about spreading a deadly virus and spreading conspiracy. Nothing manly about preventing a woman's right to choose. Nothing manly about racism, sexism, discrimination of LGBTQ plus community. Not at all. I just think we need to reinforce that every day and to use this platform to remind people just to be good people. That's why I've dropped even

the labels of progressive, liberal, this, that, and the other. Those are my values. But at the end of the day, I'm someone who supports humanity. I'm someone who supports trying to help people to move our country forward and to help people. Sometimes it fits a label. Sometimes it doesn't fit a label and the labels aren't what matters. What matters to me is, are you going to be a good person? That to me is what the Midas Touch movement is all about, is aspirationally trying to help people and to not use politics as a tool to repress. I love that, Ben. And I think it's a great message to end on. Try to help people. Go out there and try to help people.

I mean, it sounds so easy, but it's like what Ashanti said, like too much we think about politics as politics, as the gamesmanship of it. But politics is about helping people. And that starts with you. And that starts with you getting involved at a local level, at a state level, at a federal level. So go out there, get involved, leave this podcast inspired, make some phone calls, support your representatives who are voting the way that they should be,

and go after those representatives who are going to strip your freedoms and strip what it means to be an American. And on that note, I think it's a great place to leave on. I want to thank everybody for listening to the Midas Touch podcast. Ben, Jordy, always an absolute pleasure to be doing this show. I mean, between Dean and Ashanti, I would say this is like an all-star level show. And I'm so thankful for the guests. So thankful to our partners, Trade Coffee. Go check out Trade Coffee. Go check out Masterworks.

Check out all of our sponsors. We work hard to get you these great deals from these sponsors, and it helps us continue to do the show. Everybody. Breaking news, breaking news, new news. Just real quick, Senator Berg, the state senator who we just talked about, who gave that really passionate speech in Kentucky about women's and women's right to choose. She's coming on the show on Thursday. Nice, nice, nice. That's great. She's great.

We need more fighters like her. That's for sure. So on that note, everybody, keep fighting for democracy. Keep your heads up. We got this. Jordy, any final words? Shout out to the Midas Mighty.