The MeidasTouch Podcast - Stopping the GOP from Destroying The Economy with Rep. Jim Himes and NABTU's Mike Monroe

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we sit down with TWO incredible guests. First up, we connect with Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes. Representative Himes represents Connecticut’s 4th District and currently chairs the Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth and also serves on the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee and the House Committee on Financial Services. Following our discussion, we dive directly into another fascinating and eye-opening interview with the Chief of Staff to North America’s Building Trades Unions, Mike Monroe! We discuss all the great work Monroe has accomplished and his continued fight to support our unions and rebuild the middle class. The remainder of the episode, we highlight how Gov. Greg Abbott is destroying Texas (and our supply-chain), Elon Musk’s hostile takeover attempt of Twitter and the Republican Party's war on the middle-class. If you enjoyed today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening! DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Buck Mason: https://buckmason.com/meidas Listen to Talking Feds podcast: https://www.talkingfeds.com/ Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and

terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer. From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts

your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino. The excitement doesn't stop there. With over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more. Make deposits instantly

to jump in on the fun and make same day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, 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. Are you ready to learn how the Democrats will win in 2022? It is simple. It's jobs. It's the economy. It's pushing back on the handmaidens tale dystopia that Republicans want here in the United States, as we've seen with the arrest of Liz Herrera for murder, for abortion care,

and even for people taking contraception. This will start happening every single day in mass with the legislation that Republicans are passing. We will break it down on this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Ben, Brett and Jordy joining you today. How's everybody doing? Brett, Jordy. I'm good. And the reason I laughed as you were giving that intro, Ben, is not because of the seriousness of what you were talking about. You laughed at like a weird part. Well, let me tell you why. It's because Ben has apparently entered his phase of life

where he gets the names of TV shows wrong. And so Ben called it the handmaid's tale. It's the handmaid's tale. It's like when Ben also now starts to call it Games of Thrones instead of Game of Thrones. Ben is officially at that stage of life. It's okay. He's getting up there.

It's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Life of an old millennial, you know, that hates being called a millennial for those ones. Well, it was funny. I was having a dinner yesterday and our Gen Z sister was basic. I won't, I won't do the story. I won't embarrass her.

I'm going to stop on the story right now. What a tease. But the point is, is that Gen Z is a very unique and interesting generation. But Gen Z, though, I mean, this is our future. And Gen Z sees through the bullshit, frankly, that the boomers and that these older people created who came in with such great hopes. You think about it, you know, in the, you know, the 60s, 70s, peace and love and all and the great movement. But we've seen, unfortunately, you know, this broader appeal of fascism. We've seen this broader appeal of

rooting for billionaires. And it's problematic. And I believe in 2022, we're back to supporting workers. 2022 is the year of unions. And when I saw NAB2, the North America Building Trade Unions Conference recently in Washington, D.C., with President Biden saying how important NAB2 was, I was like, unions are back. Unions are important. People need careers. People need jobs. And they shouldn't have to be working multiple jobs. People care about health care. People care about the economy. And these are issues that Democrats are trying to solve problems for. And President Biden directly addressed those issues at NAB2. So I said, we need to have on this podcast Mike Monroe, who is the chief of staff of the North American Building Trade Unions,

NAB2. And they represent everybody from the Teamsters to the Electric Union to the Painter Union. You name it. We'll go through. You name it. That's NAB2 affiliated with the AFL-CIO. And so we will talk to them. We will talk to Mike. And so happy to have Mike as a guest. Then our first guest on the podcast is also going to be Jim Himes from Connecticut's fourth congressional district. And he chairs the Select Committee on Economic Disparity. And this podcast, I want to focus on what the mainstream media, what all media is not focusing on, which is what is really important with people. Am I going to be able to feed my family?

Am I going to be able to have a job tomorrow? Am I going to be able to afford a house or an apartment? Am I going to be able to pay my bills? That's what people care about. And the media needs to talk about it. They're not. So we are going to talk about those issues here on this podcast with Mike Monroe and Congressman Jim Himes. Happy to have them both. And as we talk about it, I think this juxtaposition is no more clearer than what

we're even seeing as the recording of this podcast with. we want to talk about the billionaire class, just kind of fucking with everybody. I'm sorry for cursing like that. There are some people say, but I don't like when Ben cursed. And there are people say, I like it when you curse. Well, whatever, I'm sorry.

You don't like when I curse. But Elon Musk today making the bid to buy purportedly, whether it's even, I mean, he's made the bid, whether he's serious about it or just kind of doing one of his Elon Musk stunts, but to take Twitter private, it's a publicly traded company for $41.39 billion. We talked about on the last podcast, that very weird letter from Twitter's new CEO about distractions and about Elon not taking a board seat. And we speculated the reason was, was because

as a board member, you could only own a certain amount of share and that Elon may have been planning something more hostile. That clearly seems to be the case. And what this dystopian vision though, Brent, I want you to speak to of what these billionaires though, want to create, what they're trying to do with social media is so disconcerting. I don't believe this is actually going to go through. You know, I think Twitter has the right amount of defenses to prevent this from happening. I mean, although I think it needs to be followed very seriously. But Brett, maybe speak to that. Yeah, it's hard to tell, you know, how serious Elon is or this is another stunt.

But I wouldn't just write off everything as a stunt. As we saw in 2016, sometimes stunts become real things. And then we end up with Donald Trump as president while everybody thinks it's a slideshow. So I would definitely take it seriously as to what's going on. I just think, you know, I'm not like just a general Elon Musk hater. I'll just, you know, say that right at the top, but you're on record on the pod defending Elon a few pods back a couple of months ago. I mean, I don't think I was defending him, but of course you guys like, I think I, I think you guys went pretty quick at me calling me billionaire Brett,

which is a little bit of bullshit of a moniker. But Elon as this arbiter of free speech is, it's just phony in and of itself. I mean, Elon is not a guy, first of all, who really is representative of free speech. I mean, there's been numerous reports of Elon himself firing Tesla employees who disagree with him. He famously fired a Tesla employee who did a YouTube review of the autonomous driving system in Tesla cars for having some criticism about it. He wanted to buy out the guy, kick him off Twitter just a few weeks ago, who was tracking his private jet flight plans, the public flight plans of his private jet. So he's truly not an arbiter of free speech. And I think- Anti-free speech guy. They're all anti-free speech.

Yeah, well, it's anti certain kind of speech, right? And that's why it's dangerous. They are against, let's face it, they're against left-wing speech and pro-democracy speech. And when you really drill down to the core of it, what can you not say on Twitter? Yes, they make mistakes. Yes, occasionally people get suspended for garbage reasons.

But on the whole, people aren't getting suspended because they are expressing their interest in lowering taxes. People aren't getting suspended for expressing their differences of opinion on Social Security or Medicare or their opinion about who their favorite athlete is or what they think about a politician. That's not where people are getting suspended for. It's when it gets into overt hate, just hatred, anti-Semitism, just disgusting behavior. And that's kind of the stuff they want to bring back because here's the thing with the whole free speech on social media debate. If you're talking about, you know, I'm not talking

about government free speech, but if you're talking about just total unfettered speech on a social media platform without any rules or regulation that already exists, it's called 4chan, it's called 8chan, it's called 8kun or 2chan, whatever all those platforms are. And those platforms, if you go on them, you will be freaking shocked by what you see because what you don't have there are legitimate discussions and conversations and civil discourse. You have people really just saying racial epithets, slurs, anti-Semitic, the worst possible things you could ever imagine and beyond are on those platforms. And that really is the ideal of this right wing proto-fascist, you know, their concept of free speech. They just want to be free to hate

without having, and they want to elevate the free hate speech. And then those sensor the criticisms of them for their hate speech. So they will kick you off the platform for criticizing their hate speech. I mean, that you off the platform for criticizing their hate speech. I mean, that's literally in the terms of service of Trump's truth social, that if you criticize truth social, you will be banned from truth social. Taking it to the extreme, we saw what Vladimir Putin did when he was echoing this concept of cancel culture of the right, when people were criticizing Russia for slaughtering Ukrainians. And he goes, they're trying to cancel me. They're trying to cancel Russia. That is the same kind of rhetoric

that Republicans have when they face legitimate criticism for actually attacking marginalized communities, for actually posting anti-Semitic memes, for actually saying racial epithets and slurs. That is what they are upset about. They're upset about not being able to speak unfettered without being criticized and without having a reaction. And that sort of free speech doesn't exist in society. You have no right in America to say something and then not face consequences for what you're saying. I mean, that's the back and forth of free speech. You have free speech to make your horrific, horrible comments. And then I guess what a group of people gets to say, you know what? I disagree with that. I think that's kind of messed up what you're

saying about it. And then a private company, of course, has the ability to have a terms of service that says, you know what? On our platform, we're not going to allow hate speech, anti-Semitism. We're not going to allow all this stuff. And so I think it would actually be short-sighted for Twitter to take this deal because if they want to be a site that's advertiser friendly, if they want to be a site that actually is bringing in money, it's going to be really hard to do that if your platform all of a sudden becomes rooted in hate. And that becomes, if Twitter became a 4chan, it's going to be hard to get the NBA or AT&T or any of these big brands to go and say,

I want to advertise my product on your service. Well, maybe not AT&T. Well, you know what I mean? Whatever kind of big blue chip brand there is out there, they are looking for safer places to put their material. And if Twitter became a 4chan cesspool, then yeah, I don't think they're going to want to do it. I think it would be a bad, a really bad idea for Twitter. And I think it would be really bad for just social media, the Internet in general, if we centralized power to this one man.

But if you look at what the billionaires are trying to do, I mean, if you look at what Trump is trying to do with truth social, but he's failing miserably with truth social. If you look at even what like Elon Musk is doing, and you look at the parallels internationally about the billionaire class, about oligarchies and what they want to do, at the end of the day, it's actually, it's gaslighting when they say it's about free speech. What they really want to do is control speech, control you, control your bodies, control every aspect of it to prop up themselves. That's what this is really, really about.

And that's why you need, and we're going to talk about this on the pod. That's why you need powerful counterpoints to billionaires, you know, and you need to have checks and balances the same way you have checks and balances in government. You need checks and balances in a economic system for there to be prosperity. And we need to make sure that billion, you know, it's ridiculous that you get people who are paying themselves 35,000% of what a worker's making. I mean, you know, it just gets absurd and upsetting and everyone's for, you know, like, look, I'm, I'm for compassionate capitalism. I want,

I think people should be able if they work their, their butts off and achieve success. And, you know, and lots of times it's luck, you know, and there's a lot of factors that are involved in it. It's not just hard work. A lot of it is luck and but, you know, and connections and all those things. But I'm OK, you know, at the end of the day, with the fact that people earn wealth, it just offends me that when there's such a harvesting of the wealth and cheating the system and cheating workers every single day and rigging the system against the workers. And as Democrats are fighting for those workers, Republicans are pushing back against it. Look, we also see the Republicans are pushing back and fighting against the economy. And we saw that before. These are really acts of

economic terrorism that's taking place. I think that's the best way to describe it. Economic terrorism by Republicans because their goal is actually to destroy the country when Democrats are in charge so that they could take power and then destroy the economy by harvesting all the wealth for their billionaire class and exploiting workers. That's basically what their agenda is. And we saw them doing this in the Canadian border. We saw the support by all by all these Republican senators, you know, of that phony AstroTurf convoy situation there where they were trying to literally shut down the bridges to prevent commerce from taking place across the borders with U.S.

and Canada. And we see it in Texas where Governor Greg Abbott, as the governor of a state, is trying to assert federal powers. I mean, we saw this before when he was saying that as a governor of the state, he was going to, you know, take immigrants, put them on buses and ship them to Washington, D.C., and then drop them in Washington, D.C., which he doesn't have the power to do. It's a pure PR stunt. And it's just so cruel and absolutely disgusting. But then what he's also doing now is he's basically shutting down the border on Texas in a way. And he's basically making the checks of the trucks so onerous so that the trucks going from Mexico to United States can't even get through to ship the goods by trying to make it so that like multiple checks of multiple trucks and literally preventing trucks from getting through. There was this incredible video by someone by the handle

Paul TX, Paul, Texas, eight 90, just speaking plainly to the people about what's going on. And this video has gotten millions of views. We amplified it as well. Maybe play the video. Language alert before we play it. Folks, you need to watch this video to the end and you need to interact with it. You need to leave a comment. We need to boost this as much as possible. And this is your own warning. There's going to be cussing because I'm fucking mad as hell. I am telling you right now, Republicans are intentionally working to drive up inflation and intentionally working to cripple our supply chain. Right now, Governor Abbott here in the state of Texas is forcing the DPS, which is our version of the state troopers, to stop every single truck coming out of Mexico. Every single truck.

And do a safety inspection on it. Safety inspection on it, safety inspection on it. What they're doing is they're backing up shipping for dozens and dozens and dozens of miles. Normally, a Mexican driver will bring a truck over across the border. They'll drop it at a depot and an American driver will pick it up and drive off. They usually do about four a day. They can't get one through. They can't get one fucking truck through.

They're backed up for fucking miles. Why? Because they want to drive up inflation. They think it's going to help them in the midterms. They want to cripple our fucking supply chains because they think it will help them in the fucking midterms. They're doing it on purpose to hurt you, your family, your wallet. This isn't being covered in the national media. All the national media wants to talk about

is inflation, inflation, inflation, but they don't want to fucking talk about why it's fucking happening. This, you have to look at local Texas media, Houston, you know, fucking El Paso, Laredo. Laredo is the largest land port in this country, and they've got it backed up so goddamn far you can't even see the end of the goddamn line. These are the sorriest motherfuckers in the world. Republicans are traitors. They don't give a shit who they hurt, who they fuck, just so long as they can get some power. I'm telling you, people, vote blue. Vote blue in every election.

You would reflexively think that – is that a Trump supporter about to talk? Like, I mean, that's kind of my first reaction. I don't want to. Honestly, that's why he's such a good messenger, because that to me, you know, he is indicative of like an average Texan who's looking at a state and going, this governor's screwing us over and nobody is talking about this. And the Republican Party is giving him cover and the media is giving him cover while he purposefully tries to crash our economy, while he's purposefully ruining lives, trying to drive up inflation. And that really is the not so secret plan of the Republican Party in general. They right now want to inflict as much pain as possible on the American people so that they can blame it on President Biden and the

Democrats who have a majority. That's the game. That's the name of the game. They want to inflict as much pain as possible going into these midterms. And they've said it out loud. Rick Scott, who's like, got to be the world's worst messenger for the Republican Party. They've got to be like, dude, just stop talking, bro. Rick, come on. Just reel it in a little bit. Rick Scott, a few months ago, this is before he announced his plan to raise taxes on the working class and cut Social Security and Medicare. He announced, he said out loud, he said that inflation is a goldmine for Republicans. That was the term he used. He was giddy about inflation. So you could be

damn sure that Republican politicians across the country are giddy about anything that's going to hurt the American people because they view it good for them politically. They could be doing things right now to come together with Democrats to help these issues. But the fact is they don't want to help. And it extends beyond them, of course, tying it back to the Elon Musks of the world and other billionaires in our society. They all are kind of in a coordinated effort right now to sabotage Democrats, to sabotage President Biden, because they don't want strong unions. They don't want lower taxes on the working class. They don't want taxes on themselves at all. And so every time Democrats come to power, their policies are, you know, we're going to make the billionaires pay their fair share. That scares them. And then there's a coordinated effort to fight back. And then you start seeing all these other crazy policies that come into play because the cruelty is the point with the GOP.

Can we start referring to Rick Scott as a Skeletor? Do you guys remember Skeletor, the evil villain in He-Man? I like Skeletor, but he's a spitting image of Voldemort. And I just cannot get past the fact that he's a spitting image of Voldemort. And look, at the end of the day, we can call him whatever we want, but what we need to be calling out, and I think the message of this podcast is what we need to be calling out is jobs, the economy, that Democrats are fighting for the rights of women and childbearing persons. We're fighting for healthcare and the other parties trying to take those things away. It's a very simple message that needs to get out there. And it just needs to be communicated every single day. The way you build conversations is to talk to people. I did a tweet the other day. I said, you know how you create a conversation? You talk. And it's funny, I got lots of like, that was a controversial statement. I got comments back like, you can't talk to some

of these people. Well, you have to try. You have to try. Me being on Twitter, me being, you know, or sitting in my living room, you know, or just venting at the wall, whatever, like each of them has a different reach, but you have to go out there and talk to people. You know, and that's what I try to do every single day. That's what Democrats need to do. That's what our strategy was in Georgia during the runoffs where, hey, we got to talk to people in areas that aren't Democratic. And that's what we did. And that's what we need to do every single day. Democrats need to be out there.

Every day that Democrats are not out there in coffee shops and in diners and in shopping centers, even if it's 10 people, 20 people, 30 people, anytime that's not happening is a missed opportunity. And the messaging that needs to be discussed is the messaging that we're about to show you from Congressman Jim Himes and Mike Monroe. So without further ado, let's start our first interview with Congressman Jim Himes from Connecticut's 4th Congressional District. We are joined by Congressman Jim Hines, who represents Connecticut's 4th Congressional District. We are joined by Congressman Jim Hines, who represents Connecticut's 4th Congressional District, and he currently chairs the Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth and also serves on the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee

and the House Committee on Financial Services. Congressman, welcome to the show. Thank you. Great to be with you guys. One of the things I've been seeing, especially recently with your trip to Wisconsin, specifically in Kenosha, and just getting the message out there about what the Select Committee is doing. I've been seeing the work. I don't think the mainstream media has really been as focused as it needs to be when this is what the American people are really focused on in 2022. And frankly, every single day, economic disparity and fairness in this country. So maybe just start off by telling our viewers and listeners what the select committee does,

what its composition is and what the goals are. Yeah, sure. And thanks for the opportunity. You know, I'm glad you framed it that way, because, you know, the reason I'm excited to be chairing this committee is that I think that disparity in this country and a perceived lack of fairness, and by the way, a real lack of fairness, has gotten to a point where an awful lot of Americans are giving up on the system. I think that actually explains a lot of our politics in the last five years or so. And, you know, it looks a little different depending on where you are in the

country. It looks different in Milwaukee, where I just got back from, than it does in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which is just 25 miles up the road. It looks different if you're in the middle of a rural state where, you know, rural America is being hollowed out. But my point is that while it may look different, it is corroding the sense that I think Americans used to have in this country that, you know, if I can use a political cliche that, you know, if you work hard and play by the rules, you've got a good crack at being middle class. For too many people in all of those geographies I just talked about, that no longer feels true. And when it no longer feels true, you start to say, our, I should say, you know, parents and grandparents and great grandparents pretty well, you get you get some pretty crazy politics.

You know, I think what we've talked a lot about on the show and what a lot of people see, though, is it seems that the systems that are in place, though, seem like it's socialism. But for the billionaires, the billionaires are in place, though, seem like it's socialism, but for the billionaires. The billionaires are getting the tax breaks. The billionaires are getting the tax cuts. You still have this trickle down, you know, the concept that pervades every time, particularly you have, you know, Republican administrations that are are leading it. You know, how do we speak,

though, and message and just speak to workers? Is the system rigged against them? Well, you know, to some extent it is, right? And I'm not dismissing the reality of the fact that, you know, capital in this country is taxed at half the rate, roughly speaking, that labor in this country is taxed at, right? You know, those of us who get a paycheck, you know, when you get up into the upper realms of the income brackets, you get taxed at, you know, the high 30s. Dividends and interest in capital gains in this country are taxed at, you know, half that rate. And so to some extent, the system is kind of rigged. And yes, you know, my Republican colleagues are fond of pointing out that only half of Americans pay income tax. And I guess that's roughly true. But they're ignoring the fact that pretty much all Americans who earn a wage pay Medicare taxes, pay Social Security taxes,

pay sales taxes. And when you sort of add up the whole tax system, the really, really low rates are experienced by people of really substantial wealth. And so I want to acknowledge that even as I say that you got to be mindful on the flip side, that a market economy in this country over a long period of time, and by the way, in this world, over a long period of time has been an unbelievable engine for lifting people out of poverty. And, you know, if you look outside of this country in particular, you know, there's a reason that the nation of India and the nation of China, with a combined 2 billion people in them, have in the last 30 years or 40 years or 50 years gone from dire poverty to a long way from where they want to be and where we want them to be, but have developed

middle class societies. That's because of a free market system. What we need the free market system to be is fair, both in the way the playing field is set up, but also in the way that people perceive it to be. You recently made the point as well that economic disparity is not a Democrat thing or a Republican thing, and that you as the chair are seeking bipartisan solutions. There's, I believe, eight Democrats, six Republicans who are on the committee. I don't mean to be facetious here because my own view of it is, though, is that I see at least the loudest Republicans out there are working against the workers. So how do you manage to maintain a bipartisan framework when at the real leadership levels, at the Kevin McCarthy levels, we know they're not really trying to be bipartisan with Democrats? So how do you make

that balance with this group here that you lead? Yeah, yeah, it's a tough one. You know, you remind me many years ago when Eric Cantor, there's a blast from the past, when Eric Cantor was the number two Republican on Labor Day, on Labor Day, which is a day to celebrate labor, right? And to celebrate the labor unions and the unions that accounted for so much of the creation of the middle class. Eric Cantor released it as a statement saying, you know, here's to the job creators, by which you mean he meant the bosses, right? And okay, look, we ought to support job creators too. But it was just indicative of just the sort of toxic stuff that, you know, probably started in the Reagan administration, where all of a sudden, the private sector could do no wrong, and the public sector was nothing but inefficiency and waste. And, you know,

we're paying a real cost for that, that instinct that got started in the early 80s. But I think, look, I think two things. Number one, you might be surprised by the bipartisan agreement around things like the monopoly power of trillion dollar market cap corporations. That actually is a concern that attracts support on both sides of the aisle in terms of addressing it. You know, it is true in this country that the deepest red districts, this is one of the things that just constantly sort of anno slash puzzles me. The deepest red districts in this country are the districts in which there is, you know, just wild poverty. You know, in the Appalachian South, the poverty down there is unbelievable. And, you know, it would be so easy to fix that by simply funding more community health centers, for starters, so that people have

a basic level of health. But, I mean, you put your finger on a problem, but I will tell you that there is more acknowledgement of the need to address the folks that are being left behind than you might think. By the way, what's happening in, I'm going to stop talking in a second because I know I'm speechifying now, but what's happening in the United Kingdom? The Conservative Party made huge inroads in traditionally labor areas in places like Manchester and Birmingham. These were the places that despised Margaret Thatcher. And they did that because the right wing party, the Conservative Party in Great Britain said, we're going to do what they call leveling up. We're actually going to provide aid to people who are being left behind. And I say that because

the Republicans haven't quite figured that out yet in this country, but it is sure working for the right wing party, at least temporarily in the United Kingdom. And it's something that those on the left, those of us on the left need to be very mindful about. Well, here's the thing, though. I think that the right wing feels that they can get away with it because, one, they're just completely, you know, defrauding the group. But I'll tell you what, they're speaking at least to the worker. They're totally lying to the workers about what they're doing for them. And, you know, with, you know, we hear with Trump, you know, echoing infrastructure week, jobs, jobs, jobs at the same time doing the exact opposite. But I mean, do you think, though,

that Democrats, you know, you know, independents, people who like democracy, I don't even like the Democrat Republican label anymore when one party supports an insurrection. But do you think that Democrats just need to be messaging, hey, jobs, just jobs and just talk about jobs, workers, what we're doing every single day. Like these are the issues that people care about. But sometimes like I just don't see us out there at the rallies. I mean, and I applaud you from going to Kenosha and speaking to people. But don't you think we should be like almost doing that every day from now until Election Day in 2022? Yeah, great, great point. Great point. Here's here's what I see happening. Here's what I see happening. I know that on the economic issues, our plans blow the Republicans out of the water. You know, whether it's making sure that every American has access to decent health care, minimum wage. By the way, minimum wage attracts support across the political spectrum. And there's evidence of that because some fairly red states have implemented higher minimum wages, right? So on the economic front, the American people are with us. And every poll

shows that. So what does the Republicans do? They say, hey, don't talk about minimum wage or healthcare. Let's talk about critical race theory and the fact that the Democratic governor for Virginia said parents don't matter. Let's talk about the participation of transgender women in collegiate sports. Let's talk about the fact that there are two Democrats in Congress who support defund the police. And oh, by the way, all the rest of them do too, because they're not patriotic. So what I think happens in this country, there's other issues, too, right? Guns is an interesting one. Guns is a really interesting one because, you know, it's not hard for them to go to, you know, semi rural communities in Ohio that have generations long attachment to hunting and firearms and say the Democrats want to take your guns away. And so you see my point here, what's happening is a little bit of a distraction game, because I think most Republicans understand that when you hold our economic proposals next to their reality, which is let's cut the taxes on the very wealthiest people in this country, we blow them out of the water on that approach to people.

But I guess here's the thing, when you look at those policies and you break out those policies and you poll test them, like you said, they overwhelmingly are supported by the American people. But then you ask a question like who is better on the economy, Democrats or Republicans? And Republicans, maybe because of these distractions, often poll higher, even though all evidence points to the contrary in that regard. So what are voters missing? Or I guess the better question might be, what are Democrats missing in the messaging that the message is just not getting across that those policies that you support? That's us. Yeah, gosh, that's a that's a that is the key political question. And I look, I Democrats and Republicans have radically different messaging missions, right? Come visit me in the House of Representatives, and I'm going to park you

in the gallery, and you're going to look down at the Republican side. And you know what you're going to see? You're going to see 95%, give or take, doughy white guys, right? Largely out of the South and the Midwest and the West as well. Look on my side and you're going to see, you know, Jewish, Muslim, Black, White, Asian, it goes on and on and on. Every letter in the LGBTQ continuum, we are messaging to a much broader group of people. And that's hard. It really is hard. And, you know, as ominous as it is, I give, you know, you sort of have to, in a Machiavellian way, you know, admire in a Machiavellian way, the extent to which the Republicans have been able to play this smoke and mirrors game as we not only propose, but implement policies that make huge differences, right? The Affordable Care Act, which, you know, they only recently gave up trying to kill. The Affordable Care Act has, you know, provided health insurance coverage to 20 million Americans. And guess what? Those 20

million Americans were not the business owners or the hedge fund managers. Those 20 million Americans' lives were saved. Now, how they explain to their people in red states like Alabama and Mississippi that, oh, sorry, we're not going to expand Medicaid at the cost of thousands of lives, again, in a dark and Machiavellian way, you sort of have to say, my gosh, you know, how do they get away with that? Forget expanding Medicaid. You have Republicans like Rick Scott going out there. And I saw some other Republican voices, I think a candidate for Congress in Ohio or maybe even Senate for Ohio saying that they are saying the quiet part out loud now, just shamelessly, that if we get into power, what we need to do is we need a sunset Medicare, aka we need to end Medicare and Social Security.

We need to raise taxes on working people. As you hinted at earlier, they said that working people need to have some more skin in the game. They need to be paying some more. So I know, as you just said, you're a huge supporter of the Affordable Care Act. How do Democrats plan on getting loud about this issue that Republicans, when they come into power, this is their plan. Cut Social Security, cut Medicare, raise your taxes.

Well, it really, as you point out, it really helps that Rick Scott, you know, who is sort of the senator in charge of the Senate Republican message, you know, as you said, they said the quiet part out loud. It's a freebie. We're going to raise your taxes unless you're a billionaire, right? You already pay as well. You know what as you said, they said the quiet part out loud. We're going to raise your taxes unless you're a billionaire, right? You already pay as well, you know, what he thinks is enough taxes, we're going to raise your taxes. And oh, by the way, I mean, get this, you saw the other part of it, which was that all federal programs will sunset in five years.

And if they're important, Congress will bring them back. Mind boggling, right? You know, people tend to forget that half of all federal expenditures, roughly speaking, are three big programs, right? Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, right? You know, and you would have thought that that would be political gold, that we could go out there and say, hey, guys, we're Democrats, we sort of stumble around, it's hard for us to agree, because we're such a diverse group of people, but we're really doing good work, we can point backwards at Dodd-Frank and point backwards at Obamacare and say, oh man, the country's better off because we passed those things. And the other guys, by the way, want to end Medicare and social security. You know, you would think that that would be up, you know, 15 points in the polling generically, but we're

not. That's exactly what I'm saying. We got to be hammering this point home every single day, day in and day out. So I want to just go back for a second to your trip to Milwaukee. I just want to know, before you said that, you know, there were a tour of some of those Milwaukee neighborhoods with Wisconsin Democratic Representative Gwen Moore. So what did you see in terms of wealth, economic disparities, and just the similarities in the struggles that people are having there and in your home state? Yeah, so the similarities are actually remarkably important. And this gets to something that we haven't talked about, because when you're talking about economic disparity, we went straight to, you know, the playing field being tilted, taxes, etc. You know, the reality is that the two things, in my opinion, that have really contributed in the last 20 or 30 years to economic disparity, there's two things, right? Number one, the radical change in the way manufacturing is

done today. Go to a manufacturing, go to a modern manufacturing plant. You're not going to see a lot of people working in that factory the way you would have in my grandfather's day. Number one is automation. And number two, and I'm not saying this is the right order, but globalization, you know, and changes in the economy. So what is common between Bridgeport, Connecticut and Milwaukee? Milwaukee is a bigger city, but entire swaths of the city are brownfields, right? Here's where the Briggs and Stratton engine plant used to be. Here's where A.O. Smith used to be. They're not there anymore. They either left the country or they moved way out of town to the interstate because instead of being near the lake

that they can dump their industrial garbage into, today it's important for them to be near that interstate so that they can, you know, get and receive goods. And so, that's the story of Bridgeport, Connecticut, right? You know, huge brownfields associated with factories that close down for the reasons that I just highlighted, right? And so, it's a mistake to say that there aren't profound commonalities between, you know, what we call the post-industrial Midwest or, you know, the Rust Belt. I know how much people hate that moniker in the Midwest, and rightly so. But there's a lot of commonalities. You know, go to Maine, go to Maine, the northeast corner of this country, and you'll see entire

villages that don't exist anymore because the mill closed. And so there's lots of particular ways in which Milwaukee is different than Bridgeport or Bangor, Maine, but there's a lot of similarities too. It seems like we got a lot of five alarm fires, so to speak, happening across America with various different issues and civil rights. I know you've got a 100% pro-choice rating from Planned Parenthood. And right now we are seeing an all out assault on the right to choose in GOP run states. Most recently, Oklahoma just passed a total abortion ban in direct violation of Roe v. Wade. So what could the federal government do here to step in and protect the right to choose? Well, theoretically, the federal government could codify Roe v. Wade,

which, as you know, is a Supreme Court decision. we could codify it into federal law. And we might even have a reasonable negotiation with the Republicans who oppose abortion. And we might say, look, let's talk about the viability standard. You know, let's have the kind of conversation. But no, we can't have that conversation. Instead, you know, we're in this strange world where the Supreme Court may either obliterate Roe v. Wade, and where, as you point out, states are acting in clearly unconstitutional fashion to basically make abortion all but impossible. And I don't really want to get into the fight between people who believe in reproductive liberty like I do and those people who, for whatever reason, you know, believe that abortion is murder. What I can tell you is this. I know what's going to happen because we're seeing it already in states that make it harder and possible for women to get an abortion. They are going to be criminalized. You know, we're talking right now, just as there was a case in Texas of a woman arrested and charged with murder for undergoing an abortion. And just as importantly, do you think the wealthy young ladies of Dallas are going to not get abortions when Texas makes abortion illegal?

Of course, they're going to get abortions. It's going to be the lower income and the poor women of Dallas and Houston and Birmingham, Alabama, who are going to be the lower income and the poor women of Dallas and Houston and Birmingham, Alabama, who are going to choose between spending an exorbitant amount of money to go to a state where abortion is legal or worse yet, they'll go back to the world of pre-Roe when they saw the proverbial back alley abortions. That's where we end up here. And that's just a terrible place, in my opinion, to be. And I would hope that my Republicans would at least be willing to engage on that. But they're not.

They're not because they sort of see what they define as total victory. And total victory, I thought about this during the Affordable Care Act, you know, in my darkest moments, because my first term was about implement was about passing the Affordable Care Act. In my darkest, least proud of myself moments, I would say, you know what, do away with the Affordable Care Act. Watch what happens when you throw 20 million people off of their health insurance. It will be political cataclysm. Now, I never really believed that because I don't believe people should be pawns and not go out of political fighting. But, you know, just wait to see what happens in those southern states that

ultimately do away with abortion. Wealthy women are going to travel to Illinois and poor women are going to die in back alleys. It's so horrible. And speaking of Republicans, I think congratulations are in order for you, Congressman, because I just heard that Russia imposed sanctions on 398 members of the House. I'm assuming that you're one of them? I better be. What does it say? So 398. That means that there are 37 who they decided not to sanction. I don't think we have a list of the sanctions yet. I'm assuming that they are the typical suspects in the Republican Party. What does it say to you that they sanctioned 398 members of the House and decided these 37, they're OK, they're cool. Yeah, well, they did a real disservice to the 37 that they did not sanction.

Now, you know, I can guess I don't want to I don't want to do it because I haven't seen the list, but I can guess who might be on that list. And, you know, that is I don't care how wacky your politics are. It does not help to have a to help to have a, you know, genocidal mass murderer put you on his good list. But, you know, you do you do make a point that we should unpack a little bit because it's not just an American phenomenon. Right. We see it in France. We see it in Hungary. We see it all over the world. Vladimir Putin is just taking it to its logical extreme. More and more people are saying, you know what, democracy is too messy or democracy empowers people that we don't want empowered. Or if you're if you're Putin, you say the grand Russian imperium needs to. I mean, this is language that reminds you of 1930s Europe. Right. The grand Russian imperium needs to be purified. I mean, this is scary, scary language. And sadly, and I'm not going to name names, but you know who they man, authoritarian boy, isn't it efficient when we have a strong leader? And by the way, doesn't it harken back to an America where people knew

their place? And you know what people I'm talking about here, right? You know, don't we look backwards at a mythical time when this country was, you know, less complicated? What if we made America great again? Think about that word again, you know, so complicated. What if we made America great again? Think about that word again, you know. So anyway, this is happening all over the world right now. And I think Putin is showing us the violence that can come from that kind of thinking. Well, Congressman, I promise you, I won't name names either, but I will phrase this question in a certain way and you could react to whatever you'd like. You have a bunch of weirdo colleagues, QAnon, dangerous people. How do you, such a normal, rational person, politician, deal with them on a day-to-day basis?

I just, I make sure I'm not in an elevator with them, right? I mean, honestly, I don't have to. I, you know, I'm a fairly disciplined guy, but I just don't have the emotional fortitude to be around people that I think are proto-fascist, you know, about people who I mean, I heard, you know, let's use a name here. I heard Marjorie Taylor Greene over and over and over again using the word satanic. That's how people get killed. Right. And, you know, there are some Republicans that I can't abide, but I would never dream of either calling them out individually or using the word satanic because, you know what, in a country of 330 million people, somebody is going to hear the word satanic and they're going to take out a firearm and they're going to go kill that demon. Right? And that's just, so to answer your question, I just, I stay away. Now, what I do, which sometimes gets me in trouble with my fellow Democrats, like it or not,

in this country, certainly with a filibuster, which I would like to see eliminated, if you're going to get something done, you're going to have some bipartisan support. And so my job is to get stuff done for my constituents. So I irritate some of my Democrats by going way out of my way to try to cultivate relationships with people that I disagree with, that I think of are reasonable Republicans. But no, I don't get into elevators

with the proto-fascists. And I want to talk to you more about this bipartisan charge that you're really pioneering at this stage. You know, bipartisan, it feels like such a buzzword these days, you know, a word that just gets thrown around. Every politician says, hey, I'm going to reach across the aisle in a bipartisan way, but they don't. But you did. You did it. You created and cultivated this committee that's truly bipartisan. And frankly, how did you pull it off? Well, two things. Number one, economic disparity is, as we talked about before, you know, very much a problem in blue districts and red districts. There is some area of agreement. There's a lot of disagreement. But here's the key for me. And then it's also

my temperament. You know, here's the key for me. Washington is largely about contrast. The moment you say, I want to run for Congress, you know, some consultant says, okay, well, you got to draw a contrast. And I get that. Look, I've been through seven elections now. I get that. But if you're going to govern, what you're going to do is instead of centering the differences that are huge, especially today, especially today. They're massive because they encompass like whether our constitution should be defended or not. But if you're going to get something done, you're going to center those things, small though they may be, small though they may be, where there is some agreement. And it's not my fault that our founders set up a system that was incremental.

And by the way, you know, depending on whether you're in the majority or the minority, your views on incrementalism change. But my point is that this is the card game that I was invited to play in. So I'm going to center as much as I can. And as small as that area may be, areas where there is agreement, you might actually make some progress. Well, it's a card game that I think you're absolutely dominating. And it's clear based on the fact that you've been elected so many times. So we've got midterm elections coming up, which notoriously are difficult for the incumbent party. Now, you're in a pretty safe district. And like I said, you're pretty game of the game of cards here of politics. How do we ensure, though, that Democrats hold the House?

Great, great question. And this gets to something that we haven't addressed explicitly. But what I just said about centering those small areas of agreement is a very different mission. And I'm using the word different deliberately there from what my more activist progressive colleagues do, right? So, what does the proverbial squad do? What they're about is, in my opinion, maintaining the vision about, you know, the geeks would say expanding the Overton window, right? And I think they've been really good at that. I mean, 10 years ago, a public option for healthcare was a kind of an unorthodox idea. Today, it's far from an unorthodox idea, right? And so, and I say different because both things are necessary, right? I, as I've now admitted to you, I am sort of taken and temperamentally suited to the like, okay,

let's get a bunch of stuff done here. No one's going to cheer too loudly because it will involve compromise. But that other wing of the party, which is about expanding the Overton window, about keeping a more, the word they use is visionary. Bold is the word they use. That's important too. But to answer your question, winning a majority means that you're mixing those two things in the right measure to expand the electorate that's supporting you. approach people in Virginia, in Fairfield County, Connecticut, in Ohio, in those purple areas, in a way that is not shocking to them. And it can be done, but it's hard and we're not always very good at it. So let's get good at it because we've got 2022 is coming up and we have the policies, we have the right message and we are delivering. And, you know, that message needs to get out there. I appreciate you talking about it today on the

podcast and I do hope you'll come back. Thank you. Thank you. Great, great to be with you guys. Congressman Jim Himes, Connecticut's fourth congressional district. We appreciate you. Hi, this is Harry Litman, former United States attorney, current LA Times legal affairs Connecticut's fourth congressional district. We appreciate you. ODA in our country has a specific racial connotation and a racial history, and one in which it has been fundamentally about moving away from exclusion and at a snail's pace. To the January 6th Select Committee. We're going to see almost every actor who's culpable in this refuse the subpoena. To U.S. national security and foreign relations. I served in the FBI in the aftermath of 9-11, and I've seen what happens when there's boots on the ground. To anything and everything at the Department of 9-11, and I've seen what happens when there's boots on the ground. Do anything and everything at the Department of Justice. The hardest thing about coming into the Department of Justice, it's not like everything hits reset.

There are court proceedings and investigations that are all midstream, and you don't control when you get to make a decision on those. To hear roundtable discussions with the country's most prominent voices from government, journalism, and law, follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. Yeah, it was great speaking with Congressman Jim Himes and learning about the work of the select committee. He chairs on economic disparity. It's what we need to be talking about every single day with Americans. Americans are not billionaires. I mean, that's why the 1% of the 1% are individuals who are being represented by the Republican Party. We need to speak to people.

This policy is a policy for you. They're trying to take away your health care. They're trying to take away your health. The Republicans. That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to take away your Social Security. Why is it that hard to message? It isn't that hard to message. Jim Himes gets it. The Democrats who sit on the economic

disparity get it. We better get it. We better start saying these things every single day. The best offense is a good offense. And if we're not on the offensive, we're not going to win, folks. And somebody who always is on the offensive for his workers, for workers across the country, is Mike Monroe, who's the chief of staff for NAB to the North America's building trade unions. As we discussed earlier, the North America's building trade unions is comprised of basically like every union imaginable, like all construction workers across the country. And they see, the union workers see the work that Democrats are doing because Democrats, especially under President Biden, are speaking directly to unions. Especially we saw this appearance the other day of President Biden and Nancy Pelosi and

a bunch of other Democrats at this NAB2 event. It was the event in which President Biden gave a warning shot to Amazon. President Biden also made some new announcements, sanctions on Russia. It was a event in which President Biden gave a warning shot to Amazon. President Biden also made some new general across this country are truly the backbone of America. And Democrats are the party of workers. Before we get to the interview with Mike Monroe, let me tell you a little bit about Buck Mason. Jordy, you scare the crap out of me. I love Buck Mason so much. I love Buck Mason too. And I know a lot of our listeners and viewers

have already gotten their Buck Mason stuff. And if you haven't yet, what the heck are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? We all have our favorite go-tos, right? You got shirts, sweaters, jeans, the stuff you wear all the time. Well, at a certain point in my life, I realized that like most of my wardrobe is Buck Mason

because they are all my go-tos, literally all my jeans, all my t-shirts, since way before they were even a sponsor on this podcast or Buck Mason. And why? Buck Mason's clothes are second to none. They're timeless. They never go out of style. Everything I own fits great right out the box and becomes my new favorite instantly. Buck Mason makes all the essentials, jeans, shirt, jackets, all my go-tos and so much more. I love the tailored look and fit of their t-shirts. I was wearing the jacket during our interview with Congressman Himes. And even after wearing them, putting through wash after wash, they look just as good as when I first wear them. The curved hem tee is the tee that I'm wearing right now.

It's fantastic. And GQ loves it as much as I do. They called it the best t-shirt in the game. And I got to say, I agree. Buck Mason, I've been going there now for probably nearly a decade. There used to be a store right down the block from my apartment, which was extremely dangerous for me because I would want new Buck Mason stuff every single week. And you got to try it. And here's the thing. You get a free t-shirt with your order, which is like the greatest deal on the planet. So you got to do this. Once you try Buck Mason, they will become your go-tos. I promise. Head over to buckmason.com slash Midas. Get that free t-shirt with your first order. That's B-U-C-K-M-A-S-O-N.com slash Midas and get a free t-shirt with your first order.

That's Buck Mason dot com slash Midas or get it for somebody in your life who you think will love some nice clothes. I mean, it's really incredible, incredible stuff. And now let's go to our interview with Chief of Staff of NAB to North America's Building Trade Unions, Mike Monroe. We are joined by probably one of the most important guests on the Midas Touch podcast that we've interviewed. It's a lot to live up to there. Mike Monroe, who serves as chief of staff of the North America's Building Trades Union, NAB2. And let me tell you why I think Mike Monroe may be one of our

most important guests. Do you know why, Mike? Please tell me. Because President Biden said so last week at the legislative conference, at NAB2's annual legislative conference, he said that there was no President Biden without the workers, without the support of American workers. And let me tell you who NAB2 is affiliated. 14 North American unions. I could go tick through them, but it would take forever. But we're talking about electrical workers, teamsters, bricklayers, the painters union, elevator, construction workers, over 3 million construction workers across the country. Mike Monroe, we're so appreciative to have you on this podcast and for all the work NAB2 does. Real grateful for that, guys, and big fans of

y'all's work and just really happy to be with you today. So thank you for that. I hope I can live up to that. Let's get right into it. One of the things that I continue to shout to anybody who listens, and this is also part of the work I do as a litigator who represents labor in the work that I do. It's when workers start empathizing with the billionaire class and fighting for billionaires more than workers. And like I see it with the NFL. Well, the owner said X, Y, and Z. The owner did this. The owner did that. And I think to myself, the people who are saying that are workers. You need to get behind other labor.

Why are we taking the side of billionaires? Mike, just the first question. Why are, why does it seem that American workers sometimes are being conned by the billionaire class to do their bidding, the billionaire class bidding. Sure. You know, look, that's an age old tale. We'll probably remain well beyond our lifespan here on earth. That will continue. That is the sort of friction, if you will, between capital and labor very generally. And, you know, I think that that is the power of organized labor of a union is to give workers voice. Right. And that's threatening to a lot of people. It's threatening to the status quo over time. And so we are just laser like focused on drowning out sort of all the, if you will, propaganda, all the things that are coming at our members, even American families, and really just try to focus on kitchen table economics. It seems simple, but we do try to cloud out all the nonsense and really focus in our representational

duties about how it is you go to work, how you perform your work, how you get home safely, what you're compensated for, what that benefit package looks like. Are you going to have healthcare, retirement, et cetera? And in the construction industry, whom I have the privilege of representing all of those unions you mentioned and their members, you know, it's a dangerous occupation. Right. It's a dangerous industry. And these are not, you know, a lot of politicians like to say, oh, these are good construction jobs. Nothing inherently good about them. Right. Collective bargaining over the years, working with responsible employers. Yes. Relying on good public policy, we've made them good jobs. And in the union movement, in collective bargaining space, these are careers if we do them right. And they become more attractive to people every day.

And I think in this moment in time, though, I think workers are taking a second look. I think they're looking at their circumstance. I think they're looking at the challenges of their family and they know the work that they put in, the hours they put in, and they're looking for a little bit more, not only respect on the job, but they know that they have been undervalued. And I think you saw that through the pandemic. I mean, everybody was throwing around the term essential worker. It was true. I mean, there was a whole class of workers that allowed us to sit at home and ride out the pandemic as long as we could, but they went to work every single day.

So that will always continue, sort of that struggle. And everybody sees themselves as a business owner or the boss or aspires to that, but there's real power in sort of that collective action and collective voice on the job. So here's the reason that I'm a Democrat. I'm not a Democrat because I love the donkey logo. I'm not a Democrat because it's a cool brand. The reason I'm a Democrat is I believe it is the party that is fighting for the workers. And I don't just believe that. I see that with the legislation, and I see who's opposing legislation. And when I see something like the infrastructure bill, when I see something like Build Back Better, which is a jobs program at its core, and I see one party supporting that and one party not supporting that, I see who's supporting the workers.

But it seems to me that, yes, this NAB2 annual legislative conference is great, where you have Democrats go in and they speak and it gets a lot of coverage. But are Democrats really speaking, though, to the people in a way that you need to speak to people like what you just said, Mike, like here are what people care about. They care about health care. They care about their hours. They care about their health. They care about their family. I would venture they care far more about that than a Dr. Seuss book, the what skirt the M&M is wearing and whether that turns on or turns off. But you can't just do it in one conference and say, hey, we did our thing.

How does that get messaged? And maybe a loaded question. Do you buy my overall premise there? Yeah. I mean, in general, yes. And by and large, and since I've been on Earth and raised in a union family, Democrats didn't always hit it out of the park. And they weren't as aligned, I think, with sort of this moment in time right now. You know, historically, this is a this is a critical moment. Right. And I think that you are seeing politicians and starting with this president say the word union, understand and explain to the electorate what unions have meant to this country and to the creation of the middle class that everybody loves to run on right regardless of party but there's even been an evolution in heed the president joseph r biden i mean it's not too long ago that you saw you had the dlc wing of the democratic party right you

had a big free trading wing of the democratic Party. I think we've evolved to see that some of those policy aims, goals, they didn't necessarily hit the mark and workers weren't always at the center. And so there's a lot of rhetoric out there. And we saw that even with the prior occupant of the White House. There was a lot of appeal to talk about, we're going to build things in America. We're going to raise your wages. We're going to have infrastructure week every damn week and never actually do anything. That's another conversation. But, you know, these are appealing things. And so I on balance. Yes, the Democrats have been there more aligned with working families. Republicans have, you know, mostly aligned themselves with business. But he, you know, with us in the building trades, it's an interesting sort of angle, right? All of our success is rooted in collective bargaining, right? But we partner with our employers. We partner with our employers on training, on the investment of workers. We partner with our employers on the safety and the job place. And so, you know, we're acutely aware of sort of, you know, in a cost-conscious industry, you know, we want to make money for the owner, right? But we want to make sure, as I referred to earlier, we want to make sure we're going home safe and we're getting our share of the pie. And Democrats, by and large, and certainly in this last few years, have really embraced that. Again, you can't sort of attack the state when you try to create safety nets for families, but at the

same time, you're not allowing them to collectively bargain, right? I mean, in many ways, that's a private sector solution, right, to income inequality, letting these people empower themselves and determine their future. So yes, they can save, they can consume, they can invest. And I don't see how you do that without, you know, leaning forward on public policy that supports collective bargaining, that supports people having a fair shake. You talked about Trump's infrastructure week, the never ending chant. It's infrastructure week. It's infrastructure week. And of course it never actually happened.

How is that forgivable? Like how do some workers, you know, sometimes I just see the images and it could just be what I see on the media, what I see on TV. But when you have someone like that, like a Trump, just so brutally lie to people. And it's a vicious lie because he's playing with your family's life and your livelihood. For him, it's a gimmick. Infrastructure week, we're building this, we're doing that. To millions of Americans, what that means is, what type of dinner am I going to put on my family's plate? And so when he so savagely lies to people like that, how do we message to people like

what that is, what that truly means and have people not be distracted onto, you know, the next scam or the next gimmick? Well, look, I think there's some perspective again from our viewpoint, right? From the building traits, you know, we worked hard and endorsed early Secretary Clinton to be President of the United States, worked hard for her election. Mr. Trump was elected. We were disappointed, but we don't take four years off, right? And that's where we're a little different than, say, maybe,

I don't even want to suggest political parties take four years off because they don't, but we have to get in there, and we have to do our duty to try to find wins again for working people, for our members. And so we engaged with him and we thought and took it at face value that he would be, you know, an infrastructure president. He'd even be pro-labor to an extent. Right. For whatever reason, you know, the powers that be. I guess when he got in there, they decided to again, their first act was to try to repeal Obamacare, take away healthcare. They couldn't get that vote famously and then sort of panicked. And then they did the tax cut move, right? Which sort of starves you of anything going forward. And so his actual infrastructure bill was very gimmicky. There was no actual federal expenditure

in infrastructure bill. It was all basically some incentivizing for the private sector to somehow come up with a trillion dollars in investment. Right. And we just think the public should invest in infrastructure. Right. That's always been our position. So that was a little bit of a tug pull. You know, more on down the line, you know, again, despite the rhetoric, he had just anti-union, rabidly anti-union sort of operators within the administration, whether it was the NLRB that is there to protect people's right to organize or on down and throughout agencies.

So the rhetoric never really met what was going on underneath. One thing we pride ourselves in is our durable apprenticeship training system. I don't think we would have survived 100 years if we didn't professionalize our ranks, train them and skill them up so then they can command a wage, right? They tried to undercut that and let people short circuit that because a lot of companies say, hey, I don't want the federal government doing anything, but I want you to train my workers, right? We think that we should borne that out through collective bargaining.

We think there's a partnership there. But there was a real effort to undercut that, right? Then, of course, the infrastructure sort of lies, as you say. I mean, it was just dangling that out. It became comical and really, you know, sort of is dispiriting to folks even in Washington who thought, which is a mouthful, who were probably the most cynical bunch and thought this might happen. And it was just churning every week, nothing, nothing, nothing. And so, you know, ultimately, you know, we saw that as those are issues that we then

did communicate to our members about. Right. And we did move the needle. And particularly in some places. I mean, I remember the promises made promises kept banners everywhere. We had four core issues where we were directly engaged. Right. And we were told one thing and then nothing materialized. Right. As I said, the anti-labor bents undermining the apprenticeship system that has worked for 100 years, registered apprenticeship system, infrastructure never materialized, right? As I said, the anti-labor bans, undermining the apprenticeship system that has worked for 100 years, registered apprenticeship system, infrastructure never materialized. And then he told our leadership, most notably Teamsters and others, that he was going to protect their pensions. None of that happened. And in the first calendar year of President Biden

and Vice President Harris's administration, with Democrats control the House and a narrow majority in the Senate, they protected those pensions. They've invested in infrastructure. They've restaffed the NLRB, right? They've protected, they got rid of IRAPs, which was the assault on apprenticeship. I mean, in one year, that moved. And that's what we communicate to our folks about. Cloud out all the noise. These things have tangible benefits to your life, to your family's lives. And this was done under this administration, despite all the banners and the rallies and the mastering of language and sort of propaganda.

Let's look at the results. And that's where we find ourselves, right? Is communicating those facts and the truth, which is on our side to our members and their tip of the spear on that. And that will grow. And I think as the tangible benefits of some of these legislative moves and executive actions start to take hold, you'll slowly move that needle. You will. But it takes time. And unfortunately, we're just in a very polarized area where it's always zero sum. The infrastructure piece, even when we got it over the finish line

here with bipartisan, you have 19 Republican senators. There was a moment in time where on the same day, Donald J. Trump and Bernie Sanders were tweeting against passage of that infrastructure bill. And again, there is no, there seems to be the incentive structure is all on the polar opposites, right? There's no incentive structure to work in the middle. At our conference, you mentioned the Democrats. We opened our conference with Senator Lisa Murkowski. We need more Lisa Murkowskis, right? Somebody who literally at that week was just doing her job as a senator, not playing a cartoon character like Ted Cruz, you know, or Josh Hawley, trying to make this some sort of spectacle and make her out to be a pedophile, talking about issues that have

nothing to do with jurisprudence, which is what they preached to us in the prior hearings. So it's just hard to stomach all that. And again, as my boss said in his keynote, we're not looking for cable news to lead the way and tell the truth. We are on the front lines of communicating these victories for working people. This is what we do, right? And what we have done has helped not only members of our unions and people that are in the union movement or in a labor union or have a union card, it helps all workers. And so all those things, and it's so refreshing to have President Biden say the things he does, when he does, how he does. And it's not just to union audiences. And again, they're not just speeches, right? They're not just for that five o'clock news cycle. He's leaned in with his administration. I mean, setting up a task force on worker

empowerment and organizing, you know, nobody even thought about doing that before. Like I said, it's a little thing, but saying unions and explaining to people how they've created the middle class. We know that somewhat almost 60 million Americans would prefer to be in a union if they could. The deck is so stacked against them and these employers manipulate the law and scare people into thinking that if they exercise their federally protected rights they will lose their job right they will the plant will close they'll move overseas those are all illegal actions you know and they scare working people into thinking they have no power they have no voice voice, and they're just going to take whatever is given to them and they're going to like it. So we're trying to flip that script.

It's good to have partners in this administration. It's good to have partners in Congress. And this is a moment where we think we can not only help rebuild this country now that the investment that's been laid out before us, but with that, recruit and train the next generation of craft professionals with an acute focus on communities of color, women and veterans. So people that do not look like me will have a career in the construction crafts going forward. So that's what we're laser-like focused on. We're looking forward to the work ahead. It's daunting, but we're in the arena. President Biden famously in all of his stump speeches, he says something to the effect of, I support unions. Unions built the middle class. You know, it's about time they start getting a piece of the action. And you just mentioned some of the things that President Biden has done to support unions in general thriving more around the country? Have

you seen an increased attack on unions in red states throughout the country? I'm just wondering where right now, I guess, are the biggest successes of unions happening and where are the biggest threats to unions occurring? Sure. Look, unions are, let's not forget, unions are people, right? Unions are not this thing, right? So these people are coming together, everyday citizens, and are questioning, again, their value, right? And so they're organized on their own. Of course, we will help them find the path forward, understanding their rights under the law, et cetera, et cetera. But these are people that are coming to sort of reevaluate the whole deal, right? The whole bargain. So there's a lot of growth south in the areas. I mean, obviously, there was a big win with Amazon, which is, you know, the president addressed at our conference.

There is momentum there and there is stiff opposition, right? We have, when we still face, you know, sort of reactionary legislatures and mostly red States that see unions as just a pillar of, or a foundation of the democratic party. And they, and they don't look beyond that, right? They just see it as if I can somehow cripple these unions with that regard, while also telling people, hey, we want your raises to wage. We want you to have good jobs. We want you to have healthcare. We want you to have retirement. We're going to trash these unions that work towards that end, all to somehow theoretically starve the financial resources of the Democratic Party. So we're caught in the middle of that, right? And so you have these things like right to work laws, which are really

insidious. You know, they claim that all your money is being thrown away to these big union bosses. Right. All it is saying is you don't have to pay your dues. Right. Which, again, is to starve that entity. Right. But what other organization? I don't see a lot of Republicans. I know Sebastian Gorka wants you to pay for his vitamin supplements. He's not giving those to you free. Right. So I just think that it's about power. It always will be about power. But workers are sort of reflecting and reevaluating the power that they do have. And we'll always face sort of that well-heeled opposition in some of those states. But this is a real moment in time where we see an increase in membership and unions coming. And we do need the PRO Act or provisions thereof to help make sure that people know, that employers know it's not open season anymore, right? You're going to have to protect these people's rights. You're going to have to respect their rights to form and join unions as they wish. So those threats will always be there. And you brought it up. So I got to ask you about the Amazon thing, because this actually happened at your event,

I believe, right? President Biden speaking about Amazon Labor's first successful union drive, which was in Staten Island. And President Biden leaned right on into it. And he delivered a warning line to Amazon, which I think actually surprised some people. He said, and by the way, Amazon, here we come. To make sure the choice to join a union belongs to workers alone. And by the way, by the way, Amazon, here we come.

Watch. What did you make of that moment it was really inspiring and and such a strong statement right and and so impactful and tone setting right and as i said i don't know that workers have had somebody like that in the oval office certainly not in my lifetime right and it's sending a strong signal that we have your backs workers you're doing whatever you are within your right to seek this formation of a union. And we have your backs. So I know, again, well-heeled people that have worked even in prior Democratic administrations that made some ink that were complaining and crowing and complaining to the chief of staff that made it in there. Again, that misses the moment that incrementalism or that sort of, you know, corporatism, if you will. I hate to say it that way, has not benefited to the most people are not redounded to the benefit of most people. Right. And we are dealing with still major income inequality.

And so that was a real proud moment and not to be lost in that speech at NAB2, because that's where all news happens. You know, he dropped new sanctions on Putin. And you had if there were 3000 people in that room, I'd venture to say at least 500 of them were not if not veterans themselves, a family member has veterans. These are patriotic men and women in that room. And it was very powerful. Right. And I think his opening line to that was, you know, there's nobody I'd rather go to war with than you guys. This war could continue for a long time, but the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine, the Ukrainian people in the fight for freedom. And I just want you to know that. And by the way, if I got to go to war, I'm going with you guys. I mean it.

It was electric. It was electric for him in there. And I must say, starting the morning, that morning was Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, who comes from the building trades, mayor of Boston, innovator up there, right? Initiated a whole bunch of pathway programs that we emulate now and try to model into the other states and cities throughout the country. That place was absolutely electric when that man took the stage. Right. And again, that is a man who was a covering addict, is relatable on so many levels, has made it to the secretary of labor, is a voice for all working people and coming from the building trades ranks. I mean, that is a real moment of pride. So there were some real beautiful moments in that speech. But the nod about Amazon was as strong as it gets.

And all credit to President Biden. And when you look at rooms like that, like you said, to me, that is America. When you look at that, that is the backbone of America. And another law that you mentioned that you're fighting for is the PRO Act, which stands for the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. I was wondering, could you just tell our listeners a little bit more about the PRO Act? We brought this up on some past episodes, but where is it at? I believe it passed the House. What are the next steps for this piece of legislation and what would it mean for workers? It did. We're running into the same bustle that

a lot of other major pieces of legislation are in that 60-vote threshold in the Senate. But we do believe some provisions can get through whatever manifests itself in this reconciliation process. We think there would be some provisions that could get through that, you know, related to the tax code. But very generally and broadly, the PRO Act, again, is going to reaffirm the rights of workers to form and join unions. There will be real penalties for employers that are, you know, actively union busting, the captive audience meetings, there will be processes and mechanisms to make sure you get to a first contract, because so often people vote to certify a union and then they just drag it out, you know, just at whatever length is necessary, you know, and never get to a first contract. They have the resources. So they just sort of, you know, ride that out.

There will be a first contract. There will be if there are rights that are infringed upon. You'll be able to take that up in federal court, not appeals court. Those are little things, but are impactful. And trust me, those that are hiring the lawyers, the army of lawyers to prevent people from seeking modest wage increases know that very well. It also eliminates and has a standard employee test for misclassification because all too often, everybody going back to almost the first question about relating to the billionaire class, we now have this sweeping the nation. Everybody's an independent contractor, right? Everybody's on their own. Everybody's their own boss. They like flexibility. All that is, is another shift of responsibility costs to the actual individual.

And I don't know what's very liberating about having 10 jobs, right? When one career could probably do. And so there is a strict sort of employee, employer test in there to define whether or not you truly are an independent contractor. So those are some of the provisions. It would level the playing field. It would get back to making sure the National Labor Relations Act is what it says it is, does what it says it does, because that's been whittled away over the last 70 years or so. So it's again, it's a rebalance of power level setting, I think, for workers and a real critical piece of legislation if we want to create a middle class again in this country. And just so I could stick at the Bezos just one more time before we move on here,

one of my favorite lines, and it's not my line, so I'm paraphrasing, I'm probably going to butcher it was basically, hey, Jeff Bezos, when you were in space, your workers, they were unionizing. And I love that line so much, just so much. I want to ask you about this though, now that we've been talking about the middle class a little bit here. So there's a GOP candidate in Ohio. I'm not going to say his name. Doesn't need that publicity. Who said that the middle class is not paying their fair share. What do you make of that? Why is the GOP, why are the Republican Party, why do they hate the middle class?

Yeah, I didn't read that or I read that. I didn't see it. I presume his backdrop was a country club, perhaps. I don't know what his perspective of life experience is to really claim that, right? All the tax dodging and cheating that goes on all the actual tax income that is collected from working americans every day whether in service fees user fees or direct income tax you know it just doesn't add up right um so i think that again that just shows how out of touch they are they are pandering to i guess a smaller

section of the electorate in their primary voters there. But I don't even think that that resonates with Republican voters other than a, you know, a small sliver. So I don't know. We don't relate to that kind of stuff that it just shows you, though, when unchallenged, some of those things become pervasive. Right. And I just find it very perplexing now the same people that are sort of in wartime, mind you. I grew up in the era of Freedom Fries. You're either with us or against us. And all of a sudden, Fox is relentlessly attacking our commander in chief, relentlessly attacking this economy, relentlessly reminding people of inflation, yet not giving people the tools to pay those bills, relentlessly undermining

success when their whole metric for success was look at the stock market today. Look what Donald Trump has done for you. And where did that go? Right? And so it's all this selective stuff that's really frustrating. And again, we think we're on the front lines of trying to break through with facts. And hopefully that guy doesn't actually get on a ticket, but if he does, hopefully he gets beaten like a drum. And really to that. So since the brothers, they only really let me get in like a hundred, 200 words, uh, an interview. So I got to make the best of this one here. So you're reaching your quota right now. I just asked you to do it on the court. You do it on the court. You do your talking on the court, Jordy. Exactly. Exactly. What would you say to

some workers who voted for Biden, who were upset about, you know, the state of inflation and gas prices and think, hey, you know, maybe I'll take a shot with a Republican in the midterm? What would you say to those people? Look, I think that's natural. I think workers are frustrated. People are frustrated. Right. They're looking for hope, inspiration and looking for results, solutions, that's natural, right? But so much of what is done and what affects people in their daily lives and their communities is sort of out of the reach of President Biden, right? He has set the tone. He has laid out his priorities. He has worked with legislative leaders to get some really significant historic legislation passed, lest we forget. Republicans just for sport have blocked that. Again, I mean, I go back to the infrastructure bill. Everybody says that was popular. Everybody's running on it. And sure as shit, these Republicans, when that money starts flowing, will be at the ribbon

cuttings taking credit for that bill passing. We know this, right? We can expect that to happen. We've seen it. And so there's a real, it's difficult. Again, we pride ourselves on working across the aisle. There's just been a decreasing number of folks who will call balls and strikes and will deal on the level. And so I understand the need to sort of be reactionary again, to use a phrase and sort of, you know, send displeasure or signal of displeasure to Washington. But I would just have to look at every candidate. No candidates the same. Not all these races are the same. Really kick the tires,

right? Because again, that's what we try to do. We try to, when we organize for elections, the first thing almost all of our unions do exclusively is a nonpartisan voter registration drive. We want our people in the process, right? And then we will educate them and try to inform them on issues that, again, we are hired to represent them on. We give them that perspective, the facts, let them decide, right? Two-thirds of the time, they're likely going to go with our endorsed candidate. The other third, they may be voting on bathrooms or, you know, Legos or M&Ms or whatever the hell, right? You know, that is what it is. Maybe they're listening to their pastor who is making millions off of them. But we just try to bring some truth and saliency to that.

And at the end of the day, we are comfortable with it. Again, that's what's so distressing about sort of Jan 6 and the undermining of democracy is that we do our best. I refer to it. I mean, we support the candidates we do. We work like hell to elect them. If they don't win, we get on with it, man. Right. And so this is much bigger. This experiment is much bigger than one person and one individual. And I think that that party,

the Republicans, unfortunately, have fallen to this cult of personality and they don't call balls and strikes like they used to anymore. And you're seeing it with the war in Ukraine and Putin and way too many high numbers. These are not just fringe cable news people now. These are people with elected office, right, in the federal government that are parroting Putin lines. I never thought I'd see the day from the GOP, quite frankly. And so, you know, I would just tell people to have a discerning, I mean, emotional reactions are natural, but try to think analytically on this and really see who's on which side of they're on, right? Study the issues. Mike Monroe, chief of staff of the North America's building trades union NAB two. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Thank you all very much.

Look, this is why I love the Midas touch podcast. Not just because I get to do it with my brothers, not just because we have the greatest audience that's out there, but because we get to amplify messages that are being ignored. Look, I wish that I'm, I love this Midas Mighty audience that we have. I just, I wish we could continue to grow. We're going to keep pushing and growing bigger and bigger and bigger because we've got an audience of hundreds of thousands of people who listen to the podcast, millions of people on social media, hundreds of thousands, which is great, you know, great ratings. I mean, it's comparable to some, you know, to actual cable news, but this is the message that needs to reach people every day. What workers want, what unions are doing for people, how is healthcare, how is your healthcare

being preserved? Who is fighting for those issues? That's what needs to be discussed. You know, going back to how do we deal with economic disparity? These are issues that are just being ignored for the flashy headlines or the whatever of the media trying to, you know, talk about this bullshit story or that bullshit story or talk about, you know, the laptop, you know, these are, this is what American people care about. And as curators of content in a responsible democracy, there has to be ethical, moral, and patriotic standards that we have to have to deliver content like the content you all just heard on this podcast. And I should mention this, all of the Midas Touch merch is also union made. Jordy, you want to talk about Midas merch being union made? We made it a priority right away to make

sure that when we started to do our merch, once we had the capabilities to make sure that all of our items at the store, that's store.myistouch.com, are union made and manufactured. And we couldn't be more proud. So that's your stickers right here. Your vote blue over Q sticker. Your it's not rigged. You're just a loser sticker over here.

Your t-shirts, the wristbands, everything in our store. We are so proud to partner with such a great company to ensure that all the products are union manufactured, made, and delivered. And we got such great stuff. Like Jordy said, I really, really love the Midas gear and I love seeing pictures of people in their Midas gear. So if you're rocking your Midas gear, please always feel free to tweet it at us. We will retweet you. We will give you a shout out. It really makes our day and go check it out. Store.MidasTouch.com. And I think I just want to end by echoing something that Mike Monroe said during that interview that really stuck with me.

I believe it was when I asked him about, what do you say to your workers basically, who are a little concerned for their futures right now, who voted for president Biden and are deciding what they're going to do in the upcoming midterms. And he basically says something to the effect of, I tell them to cut out all the noise. Cut out all the noise that's going on around you. There's a lot of people screaming. There's a lot of theatrics. There are cable news pundits screaming at you. There are rallies. There are all this stuff to divert your attention. The Republicans do crazy things every single day. But look at who's delivering. All right. Let's cut through the noise. Look at who's delivering. Look what happened four years with Republicans in charge. Look at how bad things were for the American worker.

Look at infrastructure week, a week that never happened. Now look at the first year, the first year and a half of President Biden. Look at all the promises that were kept for workers in President Biden's one and a half years compared to the promises broken for workers by President Trump and all Republicans who immediately rushed to give a tax cut to the billionaires to help them out. So I want that message to really be instilled in you, the listener of this podcast. Cut out the noise, okay? Let's figure out what's really important here. And what's really important here is your day-to-day lives.

These kitchen table issues, our democracy, your paycheck, your healthcare, where you're going to get that next meal from. That is what is truly important. And that is what Democrats stand for. That's why I am proudly a Democrat. It's not because like Ben said earlier, because I love the party or the brand. It's because that I view that the Democrats are truly the party of workers that are fighting for those things while Republicans are fighting for the billionaire class. So on that note, I just want to thank everybody for another incredible episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Such a pleasure to be able to do this show week in, week out with my

brothers and to do it for the best audience ever, the Midas Mighty. Remember to tell your friends about the show. As you share the show with a friend, guess what? The audience multiplies, the message gets out there even further. Check out the Midas store, store.midastouch.com. Check out Buck Mason, buckmason.com slash Midas. And until next time, this has been another episode of the Midas Touch Podcast. Jordy. Shout out to the Midas Midas.