The MeidasTouch Podcast - Shots and Checks with Epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

President Biden announces that a total of 100 million vaccines will be administered and 100 million checks will be distributed within the next 10 days, the Former Guy's Kool-Aid drinkers are putting the "sick" in sycophant, the GQP are taking their conspiracy theories to the border, and we have an in-depth conversation about the COVID-19 pandemic with guest Epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, who, like a doctor at the beginning of a disaster movie, was one of the very first medical professionals to sound the alarm about the threat of the coronavirus when nobody wanted to listen. Thanks for making the MeidasTouch Podcast one of the top podcasts in North America! Please make sure you are subscribed, listen and share this podcast with a friend. Please rate this podcast 5 stars on the Apple Podcast app to help us continue to climb the charts! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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With over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, We'll be right back. to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, 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 Micellus here, joined by my younger brothers, Brett Micellus and Jordy Micellus. Welcome to the Midas Touch movement. We have got an incredible show for you. Eric Feigleding will be on the show. Eric was one of the first, maybe even the first whistleblower who shook Twitter with a tweet heard around the world talking about what he had seen with the devastation COVID was wreaking overseas and in China. I don't think the scientific

community took Eric seriously, but Eric, who's an epidemiologist, helped blow the whistle on COVID, probably should have been listened to earlier, has been proven correct. So we have Eric Fiegelding on the show today. And brothers, I just want to tell you something. I don't know if you've seen Joe Biden's recent press conference or just even Joe Biden this weekend. He is looking fantastic and stronger than ever. He looks better than he looked in 2016. He is ageless. He's got gigantic muscles. These are all things that a psychotic person would say about the president of the United States. Those are things that a crazy human being would say. But those are the superlatives that the Trump cult was hoisting on Donald Trump as he led at Mar-a-Lago,

a charity event in which over two million dollars to a dog charity was siphoned to the Trump family over the past number of years. And the Trump psycho fans were out talking about how physical he looks. So all those ways I just described Biden and never would describe Biden because we are normal are the way that the Trump cult described Trump this weekend. So this is Bridget Gabriel. She is the Act for America founder. I don't know anything about Act for America, except for the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center described them as the largest grassroots anti-Muslim group in the country.

So we're off to a good start with that framing of Bridget. And her tweets are some of the craziest tweets. I know you jokingly said them about Joe Biden, but let's just read them for people. And I please encourage you to look up these photos because the photos that go along with it, it's the craziest shit you will ever see. photo of Trump like hunched over, not really. It doesn't really look like he knows where he is. There are women around him, like just ogling him. The obsession over this man who is the most unimpressive man is just bizarre. There's another photo. This is by someone named Nick Adams. He was the other one who was doing these tweets. And Nick wrote, President Trump is looking better than ever before. He's getting in shape for 2024 and the liberals are freaking out to exclamation points. Let's break down this photo. This photo has Trump's mouth agape. He's staring

into the distance. His eyes look at least a D cup or the man boobs are just flying out of the shirt. I'm going to say now I understand the orange makeup because he's not wearing it in this photo and he looks pale and sickly. So please, I know the government is no longer funding his makeup regime, but he should figure out another way to get the makeup in because he looks horrific. And Lara Trump looks like scared and she is literally holding his hand. It looks like she's taking him through the facility because he doesn't know where he is. He's getting in shape.

And the liberals are. Yeah, Lara Trump in this photo looks like she's his caretaker of a very elderly and sick individual who needs to hold their hand in order for them to walk. But that was that the next one. Bridget Gabriel said, again, she's religious. Bridget Gabriel, if you look at her feet, she did like 12. She did a baker's dozen worth of tweets about Donald Trump. Donald J. Trump is the ageless wonder president. Him standing in between two people at the golf course. I mean, all you got to do is look at his face,

look at his neck. I mean, the only thing I could really come from this, and I would probably get blocked on Twitter if I said this, but the guy's dying, right? Like something's happening. The photos, before you get us taken off Apple podcast, the photos, objectively speaking, are like terrible. They are the worst photos you could tweet out. And this is coming from someone who likes to take selfies of himself. So objectively speaking now, these photos are just terrible.

And then you're going to caption them like it's all projection. Everything they do is projection. He looks terrible. Let's tell people he looks great. Maybe we'll confuse him. Nah, you're not confusing anybody. He looks like shit. And then she did another tweet March 14, 2021 at 622 a.m. in the morning. The timing of them is incredible. And so I don't know if this Bridget runs her own account or has somebody else running her own personal account, but she's tweeting these at 11 p.m. at night. And then the very next morning, her first thought when she wakes up at 622 a.m. is President Trump is looking all caps, energized and ready to go for 2024.

This is what, quote, presidential looks like. Like one of his eyes are closed in the photo. And then the next day, she basically does the exact same verbiage with a different photo and says President Trump is looking incredible. This one's exclamation point. He's ready for 2024. And the radical, rabid left cannot take it. They're scared. 730 a.m. The only radical and rabid people are texting are texting and tweeting at 622 in the morning photographs talking about the physical features of a sickly human being from his country club in Florida.

OK, that is what radical and rabid people on the right do, because I'll tell you, Brett and Jordy, what we're talking about actually in the pro-democracy movement, in the movement of normal. We're talking about the Democrats infrastructure plan. We're talking about Joe Biden's press conference where he says in the next 10 days, we will reach two giant goals, 100 million shots in people's arms and 100 million checks in people's pockets, shots in arms, checks in pockets. Play the clip. Over the next 10 days, we'll reach two goals, two giant goals. The first is 100 million shots in people's arms will have been completed within the next 10 days and 100 million checks in people's pockets in the next 100 days. Shots in arms and money in pockets.

That's important. The American Rescue Plan is already doing what it was designed to do. Make a difference in people's everyday lives. Shots in arms, checks in pockets. Joe Biden, 100 million man. I said a joke that the brothers didn't get in our text chain. So I said band-aids and rubber bands. Do you guys know what I mean by that? You mean band-aids for the shots and rubber bands for the money? Yeah. I just didn't think it was funny. Home run hitter. Thank you. I mean, I think it would be a lot of explaining, but yes, it does make me think of the, I won't even do the song about bands will make people dance.

Bands will make people dance. We got to make a TikTok with that. We absolutely do. But look, I don't want to talk about what individuals look like, what their physical attributes. One, I mean, Joe Biden, if we wanted to go there, looks 100 times healthier and in better shape than Donald Trump. I'd love to see Donald Trump try to even ride a bicycle, you know, yet alone the images that we have of Joe Biden. But we're talking about what really matters, which is the American recovery plan. It's the fact that we're having fourteen hundred dollars per person

included in a one point nine trillion dollar covid relief package that was literally signed in 50 days. And from the 50 days that Biden took office, passed and checks direct deposited in your account right away, like the ink wasn't even dried on the bill and checks were being deposited into people's accounts. People don't understand the U.S. government is slow. It's designed to be a slow machine. And the fact that he was able to get this done, and I'm not just saying this, I think it really was the biggest piece of legislation that's ever made its way through office this quickly, this early on in administration. And for those checks to hit that

quickly, it is a monumental feat in U.S. politics for that to even happen. And as Congressman Tim Ryan said on the last podcast, this is a great opportunity for Democrats. Let the Republicans talk about Donald Trump's cabs. Let them talk about Donald Trump having a six pack. Let them talk about how ridiculous they think, you know, Donald Trump looks while we talk about what matters, while we talk about checks and shots in people's arms. That is what matters. And we're moving on to the next one as people are getting the relief. And we're focused on infrastructure, Bill. It's infrastructure week, everybody. Exactly. Everybody remembers Trump talking about infrastructure week. Infrastructure week is here.

Infrastructure week is coming. It became one of these, you know, ongoing Trump isms that he would say something was going to be arriving in two weeks or two months and just would just lie and it would literally never arrive. People would end up using it for every time there was a scandal at which was every day in the Trump administration. The joke would be up. It's infrastructure week again. That would be the ongoing joke of the Trump administration. But President Biden is actually coming up and the Democrats are pushing a massive infrastructure bill. Well, I think that the key thing here is that it should be kind of a bipartisan issue. And once again, it is, as we mentioned in the last podcast, all of these issues are bipartisan, supported by the people. As I've said, if you put these issues as a referendum in front of the men, women in America, you would have

overwhelming support on these issues. The Republicans want to go back to the same, you know, Dr. Seuss and all of these things to distract from these issues. But as long as we stay laser focused on these issues, these issues are what matters to Americans. Let's play the clip of Nancy Pelosi talking about infrastructure being bipartisan. Building roads and bridges and water supply systems and the rest has always been bipartisan, always been bipartisan, except when they opposed it with the Democratic president, as they did under President Obama, and we had to shrink the package. But nonetheless, hopefully we will have bipartisanship. So I put out the, called upon my chairs of the

committees of jurisdiction to reach out to the Republicans to see what we can do, as we have traditionally done, in a bipartisan way. This is about broadband. It's about water systems. It's about mass transit. It's about good paying jobs all over the country. It's also about schools and housing and the rest. I like, though, that the Democrats have immediately, you know, went from we delivered,

we delivered the American Recovery Act, 1.9 trillion. Now we're laser focused on infrastructure. It's the perfect order on these bills. Now, I would like the Democrats to maybe take on, you know, directly address the minimum wage, but to go directly to infrastructure, which should be bipartisan, important about getting Americans jobs is critical. And we already have Republicans starting to, you know, go after the bill and saying it supports green initiatives and that it would cause, you know, increased taxes. These are existential issues to the survival of America. We have not had serious infrastructure repair, serious infrastructure development really

since like the New Deal, you know, and that's what's shocking is you go to other countries and you see the way their rail system looks, you see the way their highways look, you learn very quickly how far behind we are as a country. Oh my gosh. When I was abroad, when I was in, I had went to like Japan a couple of years ago and like the airports were just immaculate and clean and modern. They have a high speed rail. You see all these things and you're like, America is supposed to be the best country in the world. Why are airports so shitty? Why are highways so shitty? And what I

like about this also is that these are things that people see. These are people that directly impact people's lives. And so right off the bat, people are saying, oh, shit, I just got a $1,400 check. Oh, someone I know got a $3,600 check. I just got a child tax credit for my kid. I'm getting a vaccine. I'm able to go to birthday parties. I'm able to go to a baseball game, whatever it is. These are things that affect people's lives and infrastructure is the same way.

You're able to see, oh man, look, that bridge just got modernized. That high speed rail was built. This is now running on green energy. And those are things that people see. It's tangible and it's important stuff. And if we learned anything after seeing the horrific nature of some of these storms after going through this COVID crisis. It's that we need a solid infrastructure because it's the foundation of our country. Jordy, you excited about infrastructure week? I can't wait, man.

You know why? They've been trying to rebuild LaGuardia for like seven years now. They've been doing renovations after renovations. And every time I go there, it would be such a shit show. I cannot wait. I hope this impacts that. But frankly, I don't know, does it? I think it absolutely can. We are in a period where there's just not gimmicks. We're not talking about infrastructure week. We're not talking about whatever the catchy slogan is that's used that used to be used by Donald Trump. We're talking about really delivering things to people. We're talking about competence. You mean Ted Cruz's new phrase, Joe Biden is boring, but radical isn't isn't doing it for you. No, I mean, Ted Cruz and the radical right are the most radical people. I go back to this. When you accept or are generally okay with individuals

attacking the United States Capitol, climbing the Capitol like it's Mario and Luigi scaling events, when you look at that and you go, you know what? You're not outraged the way the Democrats are, where you think that's not an impeachable offense to cause that to occur. You are the most radical motherfuckers I ever know. On that, I am excited that after this break, we have Eric Fiegelding. Eric has been a big supporter of Midas Touch from the very beginning. I've worked with Eric as well as Eric helped uncover and helped expose a lot of the anti-science and a lot of the forces that were trying to undermine Eric. So I'm happy to have this conversation with the brothers and Eric. We will be right back after these messages. No, that's not America.

It's not America. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. I am proud to bring you my friend, epidemiologist, senior fellow of the American Federation of Scientists, former 16 years at Harvard University faculty, Eric Feigelding. How are you, Eric? I'm pretty good, guys. Pretty good. Well, thank you so much for joining the Midas Touch podcast, Eric Feigelding. How are you, Eric? I'm pretty good, guys. Pretty good. Well, thank you so much for joining the Midas Touch podcast, Eric. We actually go way back when the

Midas Touch was first taking off the ground. We picked your brain. We saw the battles that you were fighting in the trenches. So we want to thank you there. We'll get to that more of the interview. But when I talk to you, Eric, what I see is this vivid image that we always saw in all of these movies, whether it was the Armageddons, and I don't mean to, I say this in a positive way, Eric, so I know where this is going, you know, whether it's the, where the world's about to be totally destroyed, there's always this scientist or someone who you don't specifically think fits every single criteria for the time, who's maybe a bit outside of the establishment, but who is warning everybody what's to come. And I think that is you. You were the initial whistleblower within the scientific community

when members of the scientific community were downplaying this and saying that COVID wasn't a big fear, weren't paying attention to it. On January 24, 2020, in a tweet heard around the world, you tweeted, holy mother of God, the new coronavirus is a 3.8. I really hate to be the epidemiologist who has to admit this, but we are potentially faced with possibly an unchecked pandemic that the world has not seen since 1918 Spanish influenza. Let's hope it doesn't reach that level. But we now live in the modern world with faster and you did emojis. First off, that's not the way people are used to the way scientists, you know, speaking. But that's how you connected and you took some hate for it. But first, how were you the first person? Why didn't

anyone else truly appreciate the way you appreciated it on January 24, 2020? Yeah, that's a really good question. And you and I have lived through those days. You were helping me, counsel me during those times of the darkest times. And I was one of those people where, you know, a lot of scientists knew that this was coming.

Like they saw the data. But the issue is most scientists don't want to like jump off the reservation and say something that could get themselves in trouble, right? Or get them to risk their career. But in certain ways, like I've seen this before, it scared me then. And I didn't say anything in terms of other whistleblowing things I've done. And so I have nothing to lose. I have 16 years at Harvard. I am happy to move on and do other things. And I have other passions. But I've lived through other events in which,

oh, shit, I whistle blew that too late. You know, whether it's the Biox drug scandal, we were a whistle blew, but it was still too late, whether it's the Flint water crisis, it was just a little bit too late. And I did not want to be that guy who was again, a little bit too late. And, you know, I personally, when I was a kid, I had a baseball size tumor in my chest. I'm part of the zipper club, got a surgery here and they thought I only had a few years to live. And so I was one of those people who was obsessed with like risk. And one of these things that I can't live with anymore is when you know in your gut that something is going to horribly, horribly happen to be quiet. And I

think in certain ways, breaking the glass and shattering it is also going to piss off people. But it's also the right thing to do. And we learned from so many previous mistakes that if you question everything and if you want to be perfectly sure that you're right before you act, you will lose against the pandemic. And I did not want us to be in that situation. So I had nothing to lose. And so I went for it.

How many followers did you have at that time when you made the tweet and what'd you see happen thereafter? You know, I had Twitter for 10 years. I only had 2000 followers over 10 years of, you know, casually tweeting and it was never big on me. You know, I actually have a much bigger Facebook page, but I never actually posted the Holy Mother of God thing on any of my much larger Facebook pages because I felt like Twitter is the way to alert the world, alert the media, alert politicians, political leaders. And eventually, months later, you know, I had several governors and members of Congress reach out to me that they saw that message back in

January. But it started from nowhere. And what are you at now? I'm at 447, like almost 450k. And it wasn't just the January 24th, 2020 tweet. You've stayed incredibly focused on all of the groundbreaking science that's taking place. You've spoken about, you know, the importance of masks before people were talking about masks. You were talking about how COVID spreads before people were really speaking about that. Yet very frequently, you've kind of, even though you were correct, and this is the wild part, and this kind of follows the movie script that I talked about at the beginning, where it's the person in the movie brings it to the attention, and then the scientific community and others start, you know,

getting angry at the person who was the whistleblower when they should embrace the information. And it's just so wild. History repeats itself, you know, from the days when people discovered that the world was round and not flat, the way scientists were destroyed there and then posthumously, you know, received incredible accolades. Burned at the stake. You've come under attack, not literally burned at the stake, but you've come under attack for being right. What do you make of that? It's hard. You know the saying, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Usually that's kind of like civil rights. It takes like 10, 20, 30 years before the moral universe bends. But I know in certain ways, if you believe in your heart that you're right, and even if you're wrong, you know what? If I tweeted this and I'm wrong, everyone just

went on their merry life. Great. I'm a nobody. No one died. Life is normal. But if I'm right, the world is going to change. And people can't basically wrap around what they've never seen before in their lifetime. Right? And the hate that comes with it is, you know, I might as well have said the aliens have landed, I might have gotten less hate if I actually said I saw aliens and less conspiracy theory. You know, it's really surreal. And, you know, in the early days, a lot of conspiracy people came to, you know, I was actually invited by Steve Bannon to his show. I never told anyone that publicly, but I obviously never went there. I would never go on his show. But it's just that when early on in the days when you're trying to

share something, when people think you're crazy, you just need to hold on if you really believe it. And at the end of the day, if you're wrong, oh, well, but if you're right and you could actually help a lot of people, I think it's really, really important. And that's so funny right there that Steve Bannon, when people thought you were wrong and that you were spitting conspiracy theory nonsense, that's what he wants. That is what he wanted you on the show. But then when you were proven to be right, then it was like, we can't have this guy anywhere near these.'s actually speaking the truth that's that's where they draw the line huh it's surreal like i went on other writing shows i've been on

blaze i've been on newsmax you know i went on bbc cnn uh abc all the all the major news but the issue was like i wanted to reach people who weren't listening and And in the pandemic, clearly, we've learned it doesn't care about your political affiliations. It will blow through any political ideology that you may have about masks or vaccinations or lockdowns. It will blow through you. And that's one of the things that, you know, the governors of a lot of these red states realize. But I just want to reach out and tell people, hey, the pandemic is coming. The pandemic is coming. And I was just trying to be the guy who's shouting the alarm. But of course, oftentimes getting shouted down is hard. And people threaten me. People threaten to harass my family. It was hard. But I knew that if I held out, the president of the US in

the movie was pro-meteor, and he was begging the meteor to come and as the meteor come, so that's a hoax. The meteor is not there versus putting people into the bunker or being basically pro it, and saying, don't even look at it. Don't even look at it. That's essentially what we had with COVID. And as a result of it, hundreds of thousands have died, potentially many X times that have serious long-term disability effects from COVID, which really isn't even talked about. And what do you make when you've seen, even after your warnings, even after knowing it's real, that it was weaponized by, we now call them the GQP after QAnon, but it was weaponized for political agendas that resulted in mass death. Over 500,000 Americans

have died because of that disinfo spread by Trump and the death of Santas and people like that. Yeah, it's so infuriating. And Trump knew that's the thing, like his national security advisors and Deputy General Pottinger, like he warned, like Pottinger actually warned both Fauci and Trump and the whole White House that this is serious. The signals from his colleagues in China were saying that this is one of those absolutely insane moments that the Chinese government couldn't even handle, right? But they played it down. And, you know, the Woodward interviews clearly show he knew that, you know, Bob, it spreads

like the flu, Bob. It spreads by the air. It's really dangerous shit. Like, he knew back in in February and he did nothing. And this coverup is just one of the worst, worst things in tragedies. Cause there's one thing, there's some like some Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor green conspiracies that, you know, it's insulting, but in terms, it doesn't actually kill mass deaths, right?

This is one of those things that will go down in the annals of history as pandemicide. That's literally what Trump did. And everyone who aided and abetted him along the way. So that's why I really respect those like Helen Troy and many others who actually, you know, resigned and spoke out and said, no, this is not okay. And we need more whistleblowers. That's bottom line. I think we need to protect whistleblowers, people who want to speak the truth, and they should be protected once they come out. You know, Colonel Vindman, all these people, I think someday we need like a system that helps people come out and

tell the truth and reveal these atrocious cover-ups that threaten people's lives. Eric, what do you make of the fact that the people who seem to be the biggest COVID deniers in the GQP, the people who seem to have taken their policy in the total opposite direction of your recommendation, of the recommendation of other experts. They seem to be the contenders for the GQP's nomination for president and vice president. They seem to be rewarded for their COVID idiocy. So how do you see that? It's weird because it's part of the Trump MAGA cult, right?

That the more you deny masks, the more you screw and try to block mask mandates and anti-lockdown, you're rewarded in our current political system on the right. You're the one who's going to survive. And if you try to be one of those moderates, you're going to get primaried. It's really toxic on the other side. It's literally the party of death because literally everything that they're asking for, the anti-mask, anti-lockdown, open everything at all costs without, you know, masking kids and ventilating and funding schools and giving people money to stay home and stay safe to get through this anti, you know, so many other public health policies. That party right now on the right, you can't even recognize them. But the more they lean into that, Cristinone, DeSantis, Abbott, the more they're likely

to get promoted and maybe president and win candidacy or raise more money from it. And that's just sick. And it's ironic, obviously, that the party that brands itself as pro-life is pretty outwardly now the party of pro-death. Someone else I want to talk to you about is Dr. Birx, who has become a very controversial figure, worked in the Trump administration right alongside Dr. Fauci. Public perception of these two health officials is extremely different. And Midas Touch actually wrote an article back in,

I want to say March or April that said, it asked the question, is Dr. Birx compromised? Because we saw her going out there just showering ridiculous praise on Donald Trump about how he's really in the weeds on the data. And we were like, that's not this guy. You could say that about a lot of people, not this guy. I've learned, and I don't know about a lot of people, not this guy. I've learned,

and I don't know if a lot of people know this, she's now working for a hand sanitizer company or something. Have you read about this? What do we make of Dr. Birx's legacy and what she's doing now? And what's the perception in the scientific community? Well, she certainly wasn't going to get a job in the Bideniden administration after uh flattering trump i think her silence there when he remember the inject bleach the day he was also pushing all that nonsense and she just sat there silently just looking at herself weeping on her face as she just looked down like she wanted it is just it is just so so telling of who she is she is exactly the opposite what i was trying to say we need more whistleblowers not pride swallowers right she's one of those i swallow my pride to protect this crazy maniacal pandemic side of a president

rather than actually tell the truth. It's so disgusting. But I guess maybe she was trying to use some honey to get, I guess she was maybe deluded and maybe he'll change. Maybe if I flatter him enough, he'll change and listen to me. I think maybe that was the approach, but clearly not in this Trump administration. It's one thing to flatter the guy. It's another thing to outright lie to the American people about a contagious virus that you're supposed to be the source of information about, right? I mean, that's the crazy part to me. You could flatter him to say, hey, if I say nice things about the guy, maybe I'm the smart person in the room and

I'll be able to dictate policy. But it seems like she was working against the interests of the American people in that way. You know, I think integrity really matters. I think at the end of the day, you know, what you do in the moment when it counts is what stays with you the rest of your life. And when you are silent and being silent during pandemic is being complicit with the pandemic side. And I hope, you know, people realize that and learn that. And next time it happens, next time they see something, they say something. And we, the public, will protect those who are willing to say those things. We're here with Eric Feigleding, who's accepting donations on his OnlyFans website.

Eric Feigleding, OnlyFans slash Eric Feigleding. Jordy, I'm joking. He's not accepting donations on OnlyFans. Ben, Ben, Ben, try to get serious. You're making us look silly here. Says Jordy, who's the brother who has the OnlyFans page. All right, everybody calm down. Eric, question, man.

We hit a big milestone over the weekend. 100 million people vaccinated, 100 million Americans vaccinated. If you go back to December 8th, Biden addressed the American people. He said, hey, my first 100 days, we're going to put 100 million vaccinations into the arms of Americans. I think he later had to clarify that he meant 50 million first vaccinations and second vaccinations. But either way, he's set to at this point outpace both of those numbers. Was his goal not ambitious enough or was what he took over so truly broken at its core that there was no way or that the 100 million vaccination milestone was truly unreachable? Well, I think it was definitely reachable. You know, I think under promise and over deliver is obviously better. Look, Biden promised 100

million shots in 100 days. He delivered 100 million shots in 53, 54 days. That's like, he almost did it in half the time, right? And with a horrid response and no vaccine rollout plan. Hell, when you went into the White House, they looked at the vaccine rollout plans. They did not exist. And there was like 10, 20 million vaccines like unaccounted for, like no one knew where the hell they were. They were shipped out to states, but they weren't being delivered. And no one knew where they were in the inventory system. It was utter chaos. So the fact that we even, you know, not only hit 100 in less than 100, but in 53 days is just incredible. And, you know, we negotiated a couple hundred more million doses. We, the Biden administration forced Merck to work with Johnson & Johnson. Like, you guys work together, damn it.

Merck, you're not making a vaccine. You got extra capacity to make it. Do it. And that kind of like, that's like adult leadership. You know, like we literally have adults back. But this is what is so important. Like in this moment, when this pandemic hit, had Biden been there, I am pretty sure that, you know, instead of 500, 550,000 lives lost, we would just be less than 100,000 or less, because what we've lost is just, again, pandemic side level of people who've died. And in certain ways, we actually had the pandemic hit in the worst possible time in over 100 years. It had to fall in Donald Trump's administration. Right. But here we are.

Not only that, but I think that if there was 90,000 to 100,000 deaths under the Biden administration, you would hear the GQP yelling bloody murder. How incompetent the worst president ever. He would have been impeached. I have no I have no doubt if it was like Hillary Clinton in office, I have no doubt there would be investigation after investigation after investigation. They would have impeached her 10 times. I have no doubt in my mind that they would go after her and we would never know, you know, what the alternative. Benghazi lasted for like, what, two, three years for less than like five people who died. And, you know, it would just been absolutely insane.

Look, this is why elections matter, right? Georgia, what you guys pulled off in Georgia, and all the, it was such a nail biter, because everyone, they were, we were clearly the underdogs in Georgia to win that election. But that, those two elections, I think, honestly, have changed the course of history, because we would not have any of this stimulus bill. We would not have all this aid money to actually help vaccine rollout and other mitigations. Like literally we would be

in a different world still if it weren't for even that election. Even if we won by the presidential, we would still would be completely stalemate right now without anything done if it weren't for those Georgia Senate seats that we flipped.

So, you know, props to you guys. It was so courageous. Thanks, man. We knew that that one was important and really proud of the work we did, the work of Stacey Abrams, the work of all the activists on the ground, because if we didn't have those two seats, we would not be seeing the COVID relief that we're seeing right now, just straight up. We would not be having any of this right now. Eric, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, all these different names, all these different vaccines. Is there anything anybody should know about them specifically? Is there a preferred one or any of them more effective? I know a lot of people, you know, like to say, oh, I got my Moderna. I got my Pfizer. It's almost like getting the new iPhone now. It's like, I got the iPhone X. I got the

iPhone X plus. Are any of them actually better than the other one? Or should just everybody get whatever they could get, just get it ASAP? I think you should get whatever you can get. Look, they all have really, really good properties. You can't compare the numbers because there's apples and oranges. Because the Pfizer-Moderna was tested last summer, for the most part, before the rise of all these variants. Right. You know, all these variants have screwed up so much. Johnson & Johnson trial was carried out during the worst fall wave, right, that we had. And so vaccines are, they work, they protect you. All the vaccines prevent death 100%. They're all like 99% to 100% for the worst outcomes. And you know, Johnson & Johnson,

it's simple. It's one shot. You don't even have to come back. So you could actually go door to door, like New York City is going door to door to give to people without even having to do appointments. That's the view of Johnson & Johnson. And actually, Johnson & Johnson vaccine actually can grow over time. So they're all great. And the Novavax is also pretty good. It's going to come out probably in late April, May. But the issue is, it's not the vaccine saved lives. Vaccine rollouts save lives. The anti-vaxxers, the anti-maskers, you know, they want, I want my freedom.

I want freedom of choice. You can do whatever you want, but I choose I don't want to. But you know what? You know, getting vaccinated will actually get your life back to normal sooner. So all the right wing people who are like anti-mask, anti-vax, it makes no sense. But yet half of them, like 47% of Trump voters don't want to say they don't want to get the vaccine. Only 75% of Congress wants to get the vaccine. There are Madison Cawthorn, all these people. What do you make of the Congress people who are refusing to get the vaccine? Madison Cawthorn, I have no words for that man.

He is the proof of we have such a broken electoral system that someone like him can get elected. But look, this is the crazy, crazy shit show that we're in now. Because if you don't get vaccinated, we're going to drag this pandemic longer. We're going to have more mutations. And by the way, the vaccines, they work great for all the main mutations in the U.S., except for the South Africa B.1.351 variant and the Brazil P.1 variant. And those variants, guess what? The Brazil one is really, really kind of like resistant to some of these vaccines. It will probably still half-ass work, but it's really, really not the virus we want in the country. P.1 in Brazil is triggering a whole huge surge. It is two to two and a half times more contagious. The more contagious UK variant is only 40%

to 60%. This is even more contagious than that. It is just insane. And we don't want that. If you don't want that, vaccinate now, or else you're going to be in this purgatory of lockdowns and huge surges and school closures.

Everyone wants schools to reopen. And I think we can reopen with, you know, adequate masks and ventilation. But we want, like, go back to, you know, parties and nightclubs and, you know, cruise ships and movie theaters, right? We want all that back. So the more you fight it, it's literally a stupid fight that they're fighting. Like they're fighting for their own misery. Eric, any final words? Any other holy mother of God for the next year? Do you see a return to normalcy? I think we will return to normal

later this late summer by fall. But you know what? My fear is there's one more surge left. The spring break surge, Florida is already passing half of their cases being the new contagious, more contagious variant from the UK, which responds to vaccine, but it's spreading just so quickly. I think we will have one more surge in April and May before we can put this out for good with vaccines. So God, people, just stop fighting the vaccines. Stop fighting the mask. We want our life back. This is the way to get our life back. It is not resisting all this in your name of your personal freedom. This is for your greater freedom. And I think if we stop and think, do we care about those around us? At the end of the day, we are people who care about our community, our country, country before politics. Then please vaccinate. Please wear a mask. Please ventilate. Please do all these things that's not crazy, like indoor dining, that all these red states governors are allowing right now. And this is the way if I had my helmet right now,

you know, someday, I actually want to just wear my Mandalorian helmet for an entire interview next time. Okay. This is the way I'm telling you guys, but please work together. Fight this together. Fight misinformation and come on, get vaccinated and go America. Eric Feiglding, thank you for fighting with Midas Touch. We appreciate you coming on. Thanks so much, guys. Welcome back to the Midas touch podcast great having Eric Fiegelding on the show I hope I've been pronouncing Eric's name for the last year correct you know what absolutely there's no

way and and I was gonna say something well the thing is I know I notice what you do when you're unsure about something specifically a name you say it really fast. That's your move. He also says it every different which way. So you could say, look, I said, I apologize, Eric, if I got your name in any way wrong. And if I've been saying your name wrong for the year of friendship that we've had, but I promise I will do better. Moving on to other things in the news, there have been two people who have now been charged with assaulting

Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who was tragically killed in the insurrection led by Donald Trump. Two men have been arrested and charged with assaulting Officer Sicknick. These are Julian Ellie Cater, 32, of Pennsylvania, and George Pierre Tanios, 39, of West Virginia, are alleged to have worked together to spray police, including Sicknick with toxic chemical sprays during the Capitol riot. Cater called what was in his canister bear shit, according to court records. But the Justice Department on Monday said that the spray is unknown. In the videos, you can kind of see the officers being sprayed with something, this unknown substance, and then immediately retreating and putting their hands on their faces to try to rush to heal from what took place. And, you know, sadly, whatever these toxic chemicals were, were one of the factors that

that led to the death of Brian Sicknick. And so these two men have been charged with the assault and with the and with the death. It's murder at the end of the day. I mean, Brian Sicknick tragically died due to his injuries. It's disgusting. And this is the back of the blue crowd. They're waving the thin blue line flag, which has become a white national symbolism, but is also a symbol of, I guess, brotherhood. Purportedly. Purportedly with the police. And this is the crowd that constantly screams, blue lives matter. And they literally killed this cop, caused two other cops at least to die by suicide. It is really just hard to even fathom. And the sick thing is that Republicans are defending the behavior by all intents and purposes. They're

defending these insurrectionists. They inspired them and they are totally okay with it. That's why when Kevin McCarthy today, he went to the border to try to make up a new fake crisis and say that terrorists from Iran and Libya and Syria were coming through our border. They just say these things, which are just lies. They just lie because they know Fox News will say it. We asked him, which countries are people coming from? Yemen, Iran, Sri Lanka. That's what's coming across. And they're finding they even talked about Chinese as well. As a GQ peer, you will never be able to stand and have the moral authority to lecture us about terrorism or terrorists coming through the border when you orchestrated and supported a terrorist

attack on the United States of America. It is far more of a threat to this country than any fake, oh, look at these spooky terrorists, look at these caravans coming across the border. I don't want to hear that. I mean, think about this. The GQP, we already knew under the Trump administration, hates the FBI, the FBI, the federal Bureau of investigation. They hate the FBI. They hate the United States military Tucker and, and Ted Cruz and all of them have been attacking the U S military for being

quote unquote, too woke this week to woke because the U S military stood by female soldiers and female leaders in the military when Tucker Carlson launched into a disgraceful vective on how women really shouldn't be serving in the military and how women are bringing down standards in the military. And the Defense Department stood by their female soldiers, which everybody on the GQP side and the crazy radical right are all anti-military, anti-calling it woke military. Like this is the United States fucking military. Y'all are against that now. Y'all are against the FBI. Y'all are against the police who are protecting the Capitol building. You're against the Capitol police. You're against the DC metropolitan police. Other than just being a party that legitimately wants to destroy the country.

I mean, what else are you doing? What are they for at this point? They're really just for white supremacy. And now the craziest shit about it is they're so comfortable saying the quiet part out loud. Tucker Carlson will go on his show every single night and he will say, what? You don't want to unify with white supremacists? We're like, no, we don't. We don't. I can't believe you just said that. You don't want to unify with QAnon? No, we don't.

We don't. Those people are crazy. They're branded domestic terrorists by the FBI. They attack the Capitol. They attack us every single day. We don't want to be friends with those people. And Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Senator, he went on a conservative talk radio show. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. And he's been one of the most shameful of the sort of white supremacist defenders in this whole group. And I think let's just play what he had to say because it is so shocking and we'll discuss it after just white supremacists they don't really believe that but they know there's a percentage of those that they're telling that that will believe it that's really the game right I mean there's no way people that you go to work with every day really think

that you and I are white supremacists because we believe in conservative values right but no and let's face it I'm also criticized because I've made the comment that on January 6th, I never felt threatened because I didn't. And mainly because I knew that even though those thousands of people that were marching to the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break a law. And so I wasn't concerned. Now, had the tables been turned, Joe, this could be in trouble.

Had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned. Wow. And it's a big statement, but it's a true statement. We see the recent history. So he starts off the interview and the guy goes, you don't think they really believe we're white supremacists and are fighting for white supremacy, right? They're just saying that.

And he goes, yeah, I think they're just saying that. I mean, I didn't feel threatened, but if those people were black, I would have been pretty afraid of those people. It is bonkers what Ron Johnson, it's a weird self-realization moment too he has during that because he's like, oh, this could get me in trouble. Of course, he's going to get you in trouble, Ron. You just said some racist fucking shit, man. Yeah, it's total consciousness of guilt. I know this is going to get me in trouble, but if it were black people out there, would have been pretty frightened but because they were white people you know they were just cop police loving cop loving american patriots

it's like dude they killed a police officer they caused two other five people died to die by suicide five people died that day hundreds of police officers were seriously injured yeah seriously injured like seriously gouged out, arms broken. Fucked up shit. Yeah. And he goes, these were people who respected the police and respected our country. It's like, how dare you talk about these people that way? And that's why it's hard to even really when everyone says, oh, the Democratic Party should be bipartisan with these people.

How do you be bipartisan with people who are taking the sides of domestic terrorists? Never in our history have we had a party that's just so unashamedly taken the sides of enemies of the country. And that's why we need to focus on delivering on this bipartisan legislation for people. And we shouldn't really worry too much about the Ron Johnsons of the world and trying to please these people because they're living in an alternate reality. They really are. And it goes back and kind of full circle to where we started this podcast, which is they show a photo of President Trump not looking fantastic, looking very unhealthy and very sickly. And they say that is a healthy, powerful, strong, good looking human being. You are living in a delusional world. Here we have Senator Ron Johnson confronted with video of what took place. This isn't a conspiracy that you need to put together a la Watergate and have to like really reconstruct these elements in

a significant way. This isn't Iran-Contra where you have to go and develop and come up with what the deal is and the contracts and where this all went. You have just video of the individuals attacking police officers, killing police officers, maiming, gouging out eyes of police officers, storming into the Capitol dressed as barbarians at the conquering gates and looking utterly crazy. You have videos of them running in and destroying property. You have videos of them putting nooses up and threatening to kill the vice president. You have all of this evidence right in front of you. And rather than confront just the reality, you create a fake scenario where you blame black and brown people for an instance that didn't ever happened at the Capitol building and you blame it on them. And then you say, this is conservative values as conservatives.

We're just conservative Christians. And it's like, okay, you're not. And if that's the case, then you've totally just the word conservative means terrorist. Now it means radical. It means crazy. It means psychotic. And as Brett said, that is why, what can we do about it? What do we do about it? I don't care what political party you're from. What you should care about is pro-democracy. What you should care about is competence. What you should care about is having a government that works and delivers for the people. I think sadly, there's always going to be a percentage of Americans or a percentage of people in a population who are just crazy and psychotic and racist and hateful. And no matter what you show them, if you say the sky is blue, they'll say the sky is yellow. Their whole identity comes from just saying the opposite of what the logical people in the country say.

And unfortunately, we're not going to be able to speak to that 25%. But there was sometimes support in the high 30s sometimes or in the low 40s for Trump. And I think that we sincerely can peel away 12 to 15% of people who were conned. We're not going to peel away all 25%, but we can peel away, I think, 10, 12, even 15% of people who believed they were conservative, but now that they actually see that conservative means radical and crazy, and it means being a terrorist, and it means being QAnon, They go, you know what? I'm not there. That's the work that Midas Touch is doing. That's the work that we're doing every week. That's the work that we need to keep fighting for and being relentless about.

So that's my overall view there. And before we close out the show, I do want to talk about what I thought was, we've done a lot of great media appearances at Midas Touch since we started. And someone who we've done a lot from the very beginning who profiled us. And then it's kind of incredible to see over time who we've developed, I would say, a friendship with over time. And we've been on a show is Alex Michelson. We were on Alex Michelsonelson show this past week,

which was one of our funnier, I think, media appearances that we've done. Yeah. We were on The Issue Is, which is a California statewide show, which is super cool because two of us live in California. It literally plays all across the whole state. It's like the show before we set up what Jordy's profile was on the show. For those who don't know Alex Michaelson's show, the issue is it is the show that kind of makes or breaks politicians in California. It's one of the only shows, I think maybe even the only statewide political show in California. So whether you're the governor or if you're running for mayor or city council, Alex's show is like the equivalent of American Idol for politics. Yeah. In California. It's a great, it's a great show. And he has people

from all sides of the aisle on. I think he's a really good, effective journalist. And so he has us on to do our profile, to check in on us. And he goes, Ben is an attorney, civil rights attorney. Brett is a, you know, editor who's, editor who's won Emmys. And then he gets the Geordie's profile award-winning marketer and somewhat of a model. Team Geordie, man. Team Geordie. Sorry, go on. Totally. Geordie is a marketing supervisor. His fans appreciate the fact that he's developed into an Instagram model of sorts for Midas Touch merchandise. So he throws up Geordy's model photo shot, which I know a lot of you guys have seen of Jordy posing in some of our Midas Touch gear,

becomes full screen. And every time he went back to Jordy, and we were on the show for like 15 minutes. We were like the whole second act of the show. Every time we were on the show, he would throw up the photos of Jordy posing like a model. It was a fantastic time. I was a little bit embarrassed at the time, but I'm just going to lean into it now. Yeah, the way the show was divided,

you had Dede Myers, who was the former White House press secretary for Bill Clinton. And she was the basis of the character in the West Wing. So she was the first one. And then the second act was Geordie's modeling photos, which I give Alex kind of just infinite thanks for always having that as brothers. Tell us about your Georgia canvassing efforts, knocking on all those doors, all the ads, all the billboards.

And tell us about Jordy's modeling career, Jordy's budding modeling career. How's the calendar go? It's been quite a journey, you know, and I say this and, you know, as a way to kind of sum up the show with an on a very positive note. We always spoke as brothers before. We'd always speak to each other and and stay in touch with each other's lives. But with Midas Touch, we've got to work together every day. And it kind of reminds me of growing up, you know, when you literally live with each other. And we hadn't had that experience really since 2003, when I went to college, where we would talk every day and be around each other every day. And granted, it's through Zoom, and it's by digital means, but we're literally talking to each other every single day. And we speak to

each other more than we probably speak to everyone. And it's just been funny, kind of the evolution, the evolutions of our own personalities and how they've all kind of come out in their own unique ways, you know, and especially, you know, you know, with Jordy, you know, and Jordy's personality coming out and, you know, Jordy, how one, his name is Jordan and he just embraced Jordy's no longer no one calls him uh Jordan anymore I haven't been called Jordan in the last seven months he's Jordy exclusively I like how people start to know that Brett is referred to as Bert but it hasn't fully caught on to to to reach because no one really does that no one really does that call Brett Burt. And that's been one of the

great journeys of Midas Touch. So it's been a pleasure and an honor to kind of be able to share this brother experience with everybody who listens to this and who's followed our journey. And for all you out there, March 25th is actually our one-year anniversary coming up of Midas Touch. Not as Midas Touch the pack even, but when we actually literally started the Midas Touch Twitter account with zero followers. So we want to give a big shout out to everybody who's come along with us on our journey, whether you were there from day one, whether you were one of those first five followers that we had, or whether you're one of the 580, 600,000 we have on Twitter or a million and a half plus that we have across all of our platforms. We're so grateful for you. And we're grateful that you're listening to our new projects like this podcast. I mean, it's so great to be able to just speak with you directly, whether you're in your car or on your

runs or in your house or whatever you're doing. So thank you for joining us for another edition of the Midas Touch podcast. We are so, so, so thankful. We have some fantastic guests in the pipeline coming up. So please make sure to subscribe, listen, rate us five stars on the Apple podcast, abdo it all, share it with a friend. And we will see you later this week on Friday for the next edition of the Midas Touch podcast. Shout out to the Midas Midas!