The MeidasTouch Podcast - Taking on the Enemies of Democracy with Huma Abedin

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, the brothers sit down with an incredible guest; Huma Abedin! Huma is now a best selling author for her new book, BOTH/AND: A Life In Many Worlds. and previously spent her entire career in public service and national politics, beginning as an intern in First Lady Hillary Clinton’s office in 1996. After four years in the White House, she worked in the U.S. Senate as senior advisor to Senator Clinton and was traveling chief of staff for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. In 2009, she was appointed deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Department of State. Huma would later serve as vice chair of Hillary for America in 2016, resulting in the first woman elected nominee of a major political party. She currently serves as Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff. The remainder of the podcast the bothers dig into a variety of topics including the DOJ charging the leader of the Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy related to the Capitol attack, the Supreme Court ruling against Biden’s vaccine/testing mandate, special election Democratic victories & much more. If you enjoyed today's episode please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: BLINKIST: https://blinkist.com/meidas ATHLETIC GREENS: https://athleticgreens.com/meidas Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Hot Honey McCrispy is so back at McDonald's! With juicy 100% Canadian-raised seasoned chicken, shredded lettuce, crispy jalapenos, and that completely craveable hot honey sauce, it's a sweet heat repeat you don't want to miss. Get your Hot Honey McCrispy today. Available for a limited time only at McDonald's. Discover the magic of Bad M. Jam 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.

Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Ben, Brett, and Jordy fighting for democracy with you, the Midas Mighty, each and every podcast, each and every day, each and every week. We've got an incredible episode today. We have as our guest Huma Abedin. Huma Abedin is now the best-selling author of the book Both End a Life in Many Worlds, a memoir about her own experiences from her childhood in Saudi Arabia, interning for then First Lady Hillary Clinton, being a senior advisor to Senator Clinton, a deputy chief of staff in the U.S. Department of State to then Secretary of State Clinton, vice chair of Hillary for America in 2016. I cannot wait for that interview. Hold up, hold up. So wait, if I'm reading between the tea leaves here, is that the phrase? I don't know. Sometimes I say phrases and I'm like, is that even the phrase? Reading the, I don't think you read between the tea leaves.

No, just honestly, it sounded good. Just don't draw attention to it in the future. I would have thought that. I think you read tea leaves. You read them. You don't read between them. You read between the lines. And you read, okay.

So reading the tea leaves, Ben, Huma, you interned for Hillary. Did you know Huma when you worked for Hillary? Yes. I don't know what that has to do with the reading between the tea leaves or the expression. Well, you were saying all the dates of when Huma and her incredible resume and stuff. And I just kind of realized- So you're saying I should be in the book if I did some important work? No, no, no, no, no. Well, no, I mean, I don't think you were that important, but-

I was an intern at the time. I don't even know if she remembers. We'll have to ask her. But reading between the tea leaves, I did indeed work for Uma Abedin as an intern. I think it was the spring of 2005. I really had an incredible experience there. It was life changing for for me and Huma, then Senator Clinton, that whole staff was just so incredible. I was a big supporter of Senator Clinton, her entire career. I'm a huge supporter today of everything that she does.

What's so funny? Why are you smiling? Because I was just thinking while you were praising hillary clinton and stuff you know the thought that came into my head oh you're gonna hate that i'm bringing this up but the mightiest mighty is gonna love it do you remember your parody song of coolio's gangster's paradise um about hillary uh being a great first lady that you did and i'm assuming this was middle school or high school. Yeah. So I don't remember this. I have no idea what you guys are talking about. Oh my God. Ben did a whole video. If I could find the video footage of Ben rapping along to Coolio's Gangster's Paradise, but rapping about his love for Hillary Clinton, who was the first lady at the time. Oh my God, this video would go so viral. Ben, do you remember any of the lyrics?

Wow. I do remember the lyrics. So this was probably in sixth grade and this was actually, you know, people don't know this. This is a true story though, about Brett getting into video. I loved video production in middle school. I loved making movies and Brett would watch me make movies. I think I liked making movies better than like writing reports for projects. So I'd be like, okay, great. I could just do a rap song on a music video and get an A. Like, let me keep doing this. And Brett watched and observed that.

But that was probably sixth grade. It was Who You Admire and Look Up To. I chose Hillary Clinton. You're right. I forgot. In sixth grade when she was the first lady. And Coolio had his hair like in the braids that were like all direction. You're going to get canceled.

How am I going to get canceled? It's a descriptive term of what his hair looked like. I'm just saying, I asked, did you braid your hair like that for the video? I did at the time. Yeah, that video cannot never find never find the internet i'm just being it was an i was in sixth i was in sixth grade and here were the lyrics i actually remember him now as she walks through the white house where she lives and she eats she takes a look at her life and realize it's very neat and i forgot the others but like wow we had no idea we were even going to bring this up today so Ben is just doing this off the dome like I didn't warn Ben

we didn't talk about this we haven't spoken about this in decades probably but then he did and then the chorus is a good first lady Hillary is a good first lady I remember it

and if you were spending most her right life fighting for american rights she's been spending most her life fighting for i remember this and so how old's a sixth grader like 12 yeah probably so that means i was seven at the time and i have a very vivid memory of this. It might be my first memory. I don't know. Brett's first memory of life. It's your first memory of life.

Is Ben doing a Hillary's a good first lady to Gangster's Paradise? I don't even know. How do we talk about any other topic? That is such a 90s time capsule. Like there is nothing more 90s than this entire description, than this video. Oh my gosh. I just can't believe I've never heard about this until this moment. Well, to be fair, Jordy, you were four. Right. And I didn't know what was going on until I was like 13. Yeah. And to be fair with you, Jordy, this was Brett's first memory

of his entire life. No, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Ben doing Gangster's Paradise. There you go. I have to find the video, Jordy. I will take your recommendation that I may not share that video. At least the audio if we find it. I'm sure mom has the VHS. Many people don't know this. Like I was a rapper as a child. I spent a lot of time in like music studios.

My dad at that time, like he was, and he still is to this day, but he was representing hip hop artists. And so when a lot of kids would go to hang out at the playground or do things like that, I was in Chungking Studios in the Bronx, like writing rap songs with like Father MC and Prince Marky D and rappers at the time. My name is MC Benster. I really do know raps. And when I wear my pumps, I really look on that. I walk through the halls. I rap another verse. And when the teacher calls me, I never say a curse. So those were the rap. I just got to say, if you are a first time listener, you are so confused. The type of podcast you're listening to. But as Ben was about to transition to, it's time to get in

to the politics of the week. Let's get into the politics. The Department of Justice. It's a really tough transition there, but the Department of Justice has charged the leader of the far right. Let's just call him a terrorist group. I'm not going to call him an anti-government group. That's what the headlines are, but a terrorist group, the Oath Keepers. This guy's name is Stuart Rhodes, who is the leader. We could put a photo up for those watching visually. He looks, for those listening in audio, like he looks like a parody of a bad guy. All these people look like comic book villains. All them look and speak like comic book villains.

Everybody from Roger Stone to Steve Bannon to all these GOPers. Like, it makes me wonder, like, do they watch Batman movies and think Joker is the hero of them? What is their view when they watch Hollywood movies? Oh, they definitely root for the supervillains. Absolutely. They got to root for the supervillains. But it goes beyond that too, because they do all have this aesthetic, like they are cartoon. That's a great way to describe it. They're cartoonish villains, but they commit serious crimes. And as we've just found out, there's going to be serious,

serious consequences for these crimes. Absolutely. And so this is an important development. If you follow Midas Touch Legal AF, the legal podcast that I do every weekend with Michael Popak, one of the top legal podcasts in the country and the world, we've been discussing the criminal charges, the prosecutions, the sentencing for the January 6th insurrectionists. At the beginning, we were somewhat critical of the sentences. They were very light sentences at the beginning. As we've told people, though, we on Midas Touch Legal AF and our backgrounds as lawyers in this space said, be patient. Merrick Garland knows what he's doing. The charges have been escalating as the individuals with higher roles Stuart Rhodes and 10 others were charged with seditious conspiracy relating to the January 6th insurrection. conspire to put down or to destroy by force the government of the U.S. or by force to prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of the United States or by force to seize, take

or possess any property of the U.S. And Brett Jordy, we've hauled all these right wing conspiracy talking points on January 6th. Well, you can't use the word sedition. No one's been charged with sedition to date. Well, someone's now been charged with sedition. And to me, this signals, we'll talk about it more, multiple people. But you see, here's the interesting thing. Stuart Rhodes and these individuals were not even inside the Capitol building. They were responsible for planning it. So the planners are now being charged with their effort in coordinating this attack, which sends a message to me that those at the higher levels, Trump, Giuliani, Don Jr., all these people, because conspiracy means that they were conspiring with somebody. So there is somebody even higher up in the chain that it's going.

Absolutely. And so I want everyone to stay tuned to that. This is a big story. This is big news. This is big. I mean, a lot of people didn't think Garland would go there into seditious conspiracy territory. Or as Ben would say, January was seditious conspiracy.

Well, Brett, I was in sixth grade at the time. We were reflecting on a sixth grade project. Me now at the age of 37 years old, I am not doing that. I give serious legal analysis and serious legal assessments. Voting rights this week has been at the forefront, as it should every single week. But as we are recording this podcast, we can go back and, Brett, I want you to talk about Biden's speech this week,

which I thought was electric, I think hit on all of the right points. And Biden made some great arguments. And I know I said, Brett, I'll pass it to you. But, you know, Biden was like, let of courage to even be at the level of a Strom Thurmond. You kidding me? And then today, as we're recording this podcast, of course, we see Kristen Sinema, whose views on the filibuster, I would use the term flip-flop, but that's being generous. I mean, when she ran, she seemed to be against the filibuster. And now I don't even know what she stands for and her and Manchin. I genuinely, I just feel so bad for all the activists who supported her, who dedicated their time, who made phone calls, who wrote postcards,

who did everything to elect Senator Sinema, only to be stabbed in the back by her. I mean, it's really just a disgraceful display. You know, these are the beginning stages of this new voting rights process that Schumer has embarked on, which is an interesting strategy, though I'm not going to get your hopes up and say that, you know, this is going to work or that it's not going to work. It's just that interesting little loophole that Schumer found to get this bill on the Senate floor. I'll just read you a short little breakdown because it is incredibly confusing and he's using all these archaic rules and things to make it happen. But I'll read you how Democracy Docket, which is Mark Elias' group, how they described what the plan is. So what he's doing is he is,

Schumer is pushing through the voting rights legislation using a procedure known as messages between the houses. Yeah, I know, the Senate is crazy. This is a ridiculous process. And so when the House and the Senate pass different versions of the same bill, the bill must go through reconciliation in order for the chambers to approve the same bill text. So typically there's a House bill, there's a Senate bill, and those are individual steps in which they happen. The messages between the houses is a form of reconciliation where Democrats in the House could take a bill that has already undergone messages between the houses three times.

They could substitute that bill that already exists language for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and pass the legislation quickly and send it to the Senate. So what this does is it allows the bill to go to the Senate floor for debate without needing to worry about the filibuster. It's debated no matter what. So that is the benefit of this process because up until now, we haven't even been able to get a voting rights bill to the floor of the Senate to even be discussed. Senators have not even been—let me just clarify that. Republican senators have not even been willing to discuss voting rights legislation. And so they're unable to filibuster that we get to actually see senators make the case for

voting rights and then see Republicans make their case for why we shouldn't have voting rights in America. The problem is, is that at the end of this, in order to, when you go to end debate to get into the actual vote, the filibuster still applies. So we still need that. We still need Manchin and Sinema to come on board in order to get rid of the filibuster, carve out the filibuster for this. So it sort of delays the inevitable unless we're able to move Sinema and Manchin to our side here. And Sinema today went to the floor and she gave what I thought was one of the most disgraceful moments of really any senator's career. I mean, we are at a moment right now

in our country that is so important. And I've never seen somebody so just fail to meet the moment, fail to meet the gravity of the situation that we're in in the United States of America. And we could play part of her statement now. I strongly support those efforts to contest these laws in court and to invest significant resources into these states to better organize and stop efforts to restrict access at the ballot box. And I strongly support and will continue to vote for legislative responses to address these state laws, including the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that the Senate is currently considering.

I support these bills because they strengthen Americans' access to the ballot box, and they better ensure that Americans' votes are counted fairly. It is through elections that Americans make their voices heard, select their representatives, and guide the future of our countries and our community. These bills help treat the symptoms of the disease, but they do not fully address the disease itself. And while I continue to support these bills, I will

not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country. The debate over the Senate's 60-vote threshold shines a light on our broader challenges. There's no need for me to restate my longstanding support for the 60-vote threshold to pass legislation. There's no need for me to restate its role protecting our country from wild reversals in federal policy. It is a view I've held during my years serving in both the U.S. House and the Senate. And it is the view I continue to hold. And here's the thing with Sinema, Brett, as I listen to that.

It is that she is a total fraud. I mean, I don't want to put it all on Sinema. At the end of the day, you have an entire corrupt Republican Party that has embraced fascism. They're all clearly worse than cinema. These are some of the most evil, cartoonish villains who legitimately want to destroy the United States of America, period. Full stop. They want to create a Putin style regime here. That's it. That's really what they want. And they want to steal and pillage and suck our resources from this country for themselves without regard to anybody's health and welfare or anything. So let me I just want to be clear. Those Republicans are far worse than cinema.

The issue is, Brett, go play the clip from cinema in 2010. This is who we thought we were electing. We thought we were electing. Set aside the terms progressive or liberal or just don't even use those terms, even though I think we should. We thought we were electing somebody who supports the basic right to vote and would fight for that over procedural bullshit like the filibuster. Play the clip from her from cinema in 2010. So what does that mean? Well, in the Senate, we no longer have 60 votes. Some would argue that we never had 60 because one of those was Joseph Lieberman. But that's whatever. Yeah, and Nelson, too, but really Lieberman.

So now there's, I think as the president so eloquently said on Wednesday, there's none of this pressure, this false pressure to get to 60. So what that means is that the Democrats can stop kowtowing to Joe Lieberman and instead seek other avenues to move forward with health reform. And so it's likely that the Senate will move forward with a process called reconciliation, which takes only 51 votes. And by the way, it's not unusual. You may recall that before the Democrats took the Senate in 2008, that the Republicans controlled the Senate for quite some time. In fact, since around 1994, they never had 60 votes and they managed to do a lot of really bad things

during that time. So the reconciliation process is still quite available and we will use it for good rather than for evil. So. And here's the thing, as you listen to that clip, let's talk about what the polling says today. The Politico morning consult poll, eventually every single poll, when you talk about expanding access to early voting,

prohibiting gerrymandering, expanding same-day voter registration, expanding access to voting by mail, either somewhere in the range of 65% support these measures to expand voting with about 20-ish to 23% opposed, and slightly less in the high 50s support efforts of same-day voter registration, expanding access by mail. So these are highly supported pieces of legislation on, frankly, bipartisan pro-democracy. Hey, make it easier for me to vote. Why wouldn't you make it easier for me to vote in 2022 when there are all these methods? Why make me stay on a ridiculous line for six hours when I can just mail the thing in a confidential way where there's been basically zero demonstration of any fraud other than some small examples, which are usually

Trump voters. Yeah. I mean, that's why I said that Sinema is failing to meet the moment because she's acting like her speech that she gave on the floor was Republican talking points. You know, it was why aren't Democrats basically blaming Democrats? Why aren't Democrats trying to meet Republicans where they're at? Like the Republican Party just tried to overthrow our democracy. That's where they're at. That's where they're at. They are. And, you know, they may have failed January 6th, but that's what they're doing every day in our state houses across the country. So that's what they're doing. So we are trying to protect our

democracy from them. That's it. And I think too often, and we've talked about this on the show so many times, you know, with like Build Back Better and the rest of the Democratic agenda, we rely on the phrases and the namings of the bills. And you hear people say the John Lewis Act. You hear people say the Freedom to Vote Act. You hear people say Build Back Better. But to me, always talking about what is in the bills is the thing that is most important because, Ben, like you showed, what the polling shows is that when people learn about the individual issues, and this is the same thing with Build Back Better, they support them in wide margins. So I just want to read to you, you know, the bills have shifted a little bit, but I just want to read

to you what is in the Freedom to Vote Act, just so you can be armed with the knowledge that you need to go to your friends, go to your family members, and ask them and say, hey, are you for this or against this? Do you think this is a good idea or a bad idea? Because I think this bill is actually an incredible compromise bill, by the way, with Republicans. It meets their needs. It meets the needs of Democrats. It's extremely, it should be an extremely bipartisan bill. So I'll read it. So the Freedom to Vote Act

makes election day a holiday, which I think is a good idea because the right to vote should not be inhibited by one's ability to be able to take off time from their job. It ends gerrymandering, which I think everybody should be able to agree with, except the politicians who pick their voters instead of the other way around by drawing those ridiculous districts. If you've ever seen Jim Jordan's district or Dan Crenshaw's district, you know what I'm talking about. They look like ducks or animals or these crazy lines. It combats anti-voting laws working their way through the state legislatures, which is what Republicans are very afraid about. It requires states to allow at least 15 days of early voting, including two weekends. It massively expands voter access

through automatic voter registration and election day registration. It increases election security by creating a national standard for voter verified paper ballots. So it makes elections more secure by making sure that there is a paper trail for every single vote. It also implements a national voter ID standard with reasonable alternatives like utility bills or bank statements. I think that's something that Republicans have been pushing for for a while, and I think that's an extremely fair compromise. Hey, we're okay with voter ID, but it needs to be a voter ID that everybody is able to have access to. You know, you shouldn't be able to preference. This is what Republicans do. They say, oh,

well, you could use your NRA card as ID, but you actually can't use your college ID. You know, that's how Republicans use voter ID to disenfranchise voters. It requires voting machines to be made in the United States. Hey, Republicans who say Hugo Chavez made the Dominion Smartmatic machines. This requires voting machines to be made in the United States. Hey, Republicans who say Hugo Chavez made the Dominion smartmatic machines. This requires voting machines to be made in the United States. It protects nonpartisan election officials from partisan interference, shines light on dark money, which you know Republicans are terrified of and makes it harder for billionaires and special interests to buy elections. So I know that was a lot, but I just wanted to lay out those individual things because

you could rewind this podcast. You could write them down. We posted this on our social media, but just ask people, are you for these things? Because I don't think anybody could genuinely say that any of those things are a bad idea unless you do not want people to vote. Absolutely. Those have to be absolutely supported by, those have to be bipartisan issues right there. What you just read, I don't know how you can go down that line by line and say, no, I don't support that. It's just crazy. They just see the R or the D next to whoever's putting the bill forward. And they say, no. And you know what I'm so sick of? I'm so sick of watching the fucking news and having them cut away to Senator Sinema is now speaking or Senator

Manchin is now speaking. I didn't vote for that. They're not the president. And so as we head into 2022, as we're in 2022, Sinema is not up for reelection. So forget that for right now. We have to gain seats in other ways to make them irrelevant, to make Manchin irrelevant. We have to pick up the seats. And so you right now listening to this podcast, do whatever you can do. Talk to a friend where there's a seat up for grabs. Make the phone calls, do your text banking, do your phone banking, whatever you can do to help make sure that we make these people irrelevant going forward. You have two options right now, everybody. You could, you know, every time you see one of these

things happen with Manchin and Sinema, you could sulk and say, oh, our democracy is over. They're never going to pass voting rights or build back better. Oh, I guess I'm just going to sit out 2022. And you let an autocratic government take power. I mean, that's it. They're counting on your apathy. And people like Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene and all these psychopaths, they're counting on you to be so dejected, to be so beaten down that you go, hey, I'm not even going to participate in this electoral process and hand them the country. But what we need to do is we need to use this as fuel and light a fire and say, this is why the 2022 elections are so important. Because if we don't fight every single day, even right now to still pressure Manchin and Sinema to pass voting rights, to pass Build Back Better, if we don't fight every single day to organize, to out-organize, not agonize, organize, and to be sending text messages, making phone calls,

sending postcards, calling the offices of Senator Sinema and Manchin, especially if you live in their states. We need to be hitting the ground running every single day. We need to be able to grow our majorities, not just hold the majorities, but let's grow our majorities in both the House and Senate. Here's the thing that we've talked about, too, on social media and elsewhere. You know, the Republican Party lies about everything. There's literally nothing the Republican Party tells the truth about. There was a prominent Republican who lied about spreading disinfo about the death of Betty White for no reason and then said, I never tweeted that. And there was a tweet like that, even just the small

like their whole reason for being is just to lie generally about everything. And they lie because they have no ideas. And they lie because when you actually line up what democratic policies are with what voters want, you see overwhelming support in the mid to high 60%. And we know it could also be difficult and draining. Whereas Jordi mentioned, the media will focus so heavily on Sinema's speech and her negativity than all of the positives that are going on. We know, for example, that in most of the polling that's out there, Biden polls pretty high, close to 50% in approval rating. But when one outlier poll comes out recently from Quinnipiac, that gets all the attention of the world from every media. And it's like, are you just trying to report negative news every single day so that our country can be overthrown and so that you as the media can just continue to complain

until you don't even have the ability to have a First Amendment right anymore because you're living in a fascist regime for what is put out there as news is ridiculous Fox News bullshit. And there's a propaganda arm of the United States. We need to focus on competent leadership. And that's what the country is craving for now on education, on COVID policy, on the way government runs on infrastructure, on healthcare. And these values are, to me, no one's defined these values better than Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton's been right on every single issue. Go back and watch her interviews in 2015 when she was running. She literally predicted everything. And it's not because she's a fortune teller and she knows the future. Her experience allowed her to know everything that was going to happen. And she was well-read, well-experienced and warned us exactly what was going to happen. If anything, it was even a little

worse than what she warned, but she pretty much hit the nail on the head about everything that was going to happen. So it's such an honor to have Huma Abedin join us on this podcast. Especially for me, Huma Abedin played a very important role in my life. Even though my interactions with her were limited as an intern, I learned a lot from her. I learned a lot from that office and it was a very special experience for me. So we will ask her about that. But before getting into the Huma Abedin interview in a bit, I want to talk about our next sponsor, a partner of the Midas Touch podcast, Blinkist. You love Blinkist, Brendan. Brett, what are your thoughts on Blinkist? I love Blinkist, Ben and Jordy, because I'm a busy guy.

Okay. Listen, I'm a busy guy. We're all very busy though. We're all very busy. We're all very stressed. We're all watching the news. There's so much information to consume that it's hard to really be able to read everything that's out there. And I'm like an avid reader of books. Like I love to sit down with a good book. And there are so many incredibly important books right now about the rise of autocracy, about what is going on in the Trump administration. The fact is, I want to read them all, but I don't have the time to read them all. I mean, they have books like Fear, Fire and Fury, A Promised Land, The Soul of America, The Future of Capitalism, A Short History of Brexit, a lot of really important books

to read. And if you don't have the time, the good thing is that Blinkist actually takes the books and they break it down into the most important points so that you know exactly what the takeaways are from every chapter. And you could walk away with full knowledge of what's in the books without having to actually read the entirety of the book. I know one book that I, in particular, like use Blinkist for, It was my first experience with Blinkist was when I read Fire and Fury. And I remember seeing all the news reports coming out about this book. And I already had a far deeper understanding than anything that was being reported on the news. And

I knew everything that happened in this book. And I got a full understanding of it because of how great Blinkist is. Didn't even miss a beat. Didn't miss a beat. They do a really, really, really good job at breaking everything down into the essential information that you need to know and giving you the right takeaway that you need so that you could get on with your day, having learned something, you know, and all about learning all about knowledge and, and growing and Blinkist allows me to do that. So I recently downloaded the book from Blinkist, The Five Second Rule. It was about a 12 minute, like listen. The Five Second Rule was by someone named Mel Robbins about transforming your life,

work and confidence with everyday courage. And so one of the points of the Five Second Rule is like you're ever in bed and like, it's like 5am in the morning, you set your alarm clock, you basically do the countdown the same way, like a spaceship goes five, four, three, two, one. You basically go five, four, three, two, one, and then you go and then you just do, you do the task. And the ideas get more complicated than that, but the kind of seven key ideas, the way Blinkist presents them in a way that you can understand. I mean, like to me, I felt like in that 12 minutes that it took me to do the Blinkist, I truly understood like the full book that would have taken me hours and hours and hours, like 15 hours to read.

Right now, Blinkist has a special offer just for our audience. Go to Blinkist.com slash Midas to start your free seven-day trial and get 25% off a Blinkist premium membership. That's Blinkist and it's spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T, Blinkist.com slash Midas. That's M-E-I-D-A-S and get 25% off and a seven-day free trial. That's Blinkist.com slash Midas. And now our interview with the great Huma Abedin. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. We are joined by a very special guest, Huma Abedin, now a best-selling author of the book Both End, A Life in Many Worlds. You need to buy this book immediately. And what an interesting book it is, discussing how Huma started off as an intern

in First Lady Hillary Clinton's office in 1996, becoming a senior advisor when she was a Senator Clinton to becoming Deputy Chief of Staff to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice Chair of Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America in 2016. Wow. Huma Abedin, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. I am thrilled to be on your show. Thank you guys for having me. Looking forward to our conversation. Right. So I have a confession to make. So before the podcast started, I kind of worked the ref a little bit here because I wasn't sure if you would remember that I worked for you in 2005 when I worked for Senator Clinton as an intern. And so I gave you a few data points to prove it. But let me ask you, do you have any memory of a second year college student showing up wearing a red tie, a red.

You're getting very specific now. I'm getting because after that, I remember Huma and Senator Clinton looked at me like, what in the world is he wearing? And I just thought that that's how you're supposed to like dress like flashy. And they gave me this like, what in the world? What were you rocking? You have any memory of this moment, Huma Abedin? So I know the correct political answer would be, of course, I remember this moment.

Absolutely, I remember that time. But to be honest, I don't. Now, when you said the sunflower delivery boy, man, young man, that sparked a memory. But I don't remember that tie. I know that we had a lot of adventures and a couple of us, especially me, did like to comment on what people wore. So it is possible that I said- It sounds on brand.

It's definitely on brand for me, but I'm sorry. I don't remember your red tie. Do you have it somewhere there that you could present it on the show today? Oh, I absolutely still have the red tie. And here it is. I've never worn it. When Brett asks you a question, I'm going to go and run and get it. But speaking of the sunflowers, so one of my I had a great experience working for you and Senator Clinton. And a lot of the tasks I would be in, there was like an intern room where we would help respond to constituent mail. You know, when Senator Clinton would give a speech, sometimes I'd have to meet you and deliver the speech to you before she would go on the floor. But one of my tasks also,

I mentioned, which I think triggered like, oh yeah, I somewhat remembered. So one of my jobs was getting the sunflowers for the room. And then Brett and Jordy teased me and called me sunflower boy, but that did trigger a memory of remembering. Flower boy Ben. Hashtag flower boy Ben. So these will be the three sunflower brothers or the three Jonas brothers. I haven't decided what you're going to be yet. Please don't get Jordy started on this Jonas brothers thing because he will-

It's a perfect, I'm just saying it's a, I didn't say it. I didn't say it. I'm really kind of into this. I'm also having this moment where we've had this connection where we were both interns, you and I been together. Well, not together, but we both started in this world as interns and you've clearly gone on to do much greater things than I have managed to do, but I'm so happy that our paths have reconnected. There'd be a lot of people who disagree with that comparison.

And if you were still in my life, I would have had sunflowers back there and not my red roses that I bought for this. Well, I think no one would disagree with that. There would definitely be sunflowers. And speaking of your experience as an intern in the book, Both End the Life in Many Worlds, though, the book begins by detailing your experience growing up in Saudi Arabia to becoming an intern in Senator Clinton's, well, then First Lady Hillary Clinton's office in 1996. And so for those out there who don't know the Huma Abedin story from growing up in Saudi Arabia to that, is there a Cliff Notes version that you're able to share with people of how that happened? There's a Cliff Notes version. I believe so much of my life was fate, a combination, fate, luck, hard work.

I walked into that White House in 1996, September, and it was almost like it was just meant to be. I wasn't even sure I was a Democrat. In fact, most of my family was Republican when I walked into the Clinton White House. But for me, I came from a family of immigrants, an Indian father, Pakistani mother. They were Fulbright scholars. They left their families and their countries to pursue education in this country. I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The first interview I did on day one, when my book came out, was a reporter in Ireland. The first question he asked was, is there such a place in your country really called Kalamazoo, Michigan? And I said, yes,

there was. I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. And when I was two, my father was diagnosed with renal failure and he was told he had five to 10 years and to get his affairs in order. And two months later, we moved to Saudi Arabia. It was a year sabbatical and we went back year after year. And one of the things which I really do believe, Ben, was a gift is living in that international society and community. In fact, just before I got on with you, I was talking to my hometown newspaper, the Arab News. I actually worked there before when I was in college. And my parents were so curious about the world

and my father didn't know how much time he had left. So every summer we just traveled to different places, exploring different languages, cultures, and religions. And so I feel like when I walked into the White House as that intern at 21, I just had this very different perspective from everyone else around me. And I'm really grateful for it. And so why did you walk in? If your family comes from a Republican background, you weren't sure what political party, what attracted you? I mean, you didn't know at that time that First Lady Hillary Clinton was then going to run for Senate and run for president. You had no knowledge of any of that. And so what madee Amanpour, who at the time was an international correspondent for CNN. And I'd seen her on TV one day when I was 15. And it was the middle of the

first Gulf War. And I remember watching her on TV. And I'd never in my part of the world seen a woman who looked like she came from my part of the world, who was out there, this sort of truth teller, this really brilliant, beautiful woman. And I thought, that's who I want to be. So I applied for an internship in the White House press office because really what I wanted to do was intern for Mike McCurry, who was the White House press secretary. And so, in fact, I share a story in the book that when I was accepted to the first lady's office instead, I actually called my mom on those old brick cell phones we used to have standing in the hallway in the White House saying,

mom, I don't understand. How am I going to be Christiane Amanpour this way? And she said, try, you know, maybe plan A didn't work out, but try plan B. And I did. And it turned out pretty well working for Hillary Clinton in her, at the time it was, I worked in her policy office. Was there a particular moment when you were working there though, that there was like a breakthrough in your relationship with her? Maybe you were battle tested over something. And then it was like, you know, and this is for a lot of people out there who intern and who don't really stand out or trying to think how they can stand out. Because Ben didn't get past the flowers. Well, look, there was a moment in my relationship with Huma that she doesn't remember that she was like, you know what? That is the flower boy. He is the person who will be delivering flower.

I'm never going to let this down, you guys. Was there a moment though that you can recall or moments that brought you and then First Lady close together that you go, that was the moment? Absolutely. And I write about it in the book. You know, I'm confident now and I was confident even back then that I was not the best at what I did. I was not the smartest.

I was not the prettiest. I was not the anythingest. But I did know one thing, that I was prepared to outwork everybody around me. And I think that work ethic is something I learned in the Clinton White House. It didn't feel like, you asked me about why I chose to go there, as if I did come from a Republican family. And I fell in love with the, it felt like a cause. It didn't feel like a political journey or an agenda. It just felt like a place where a lot of important work was happening. It's hard to remember now, but back then we were arguably the sole superpower in the world

in the 1990s, the United States. I was working for a first lady who was doing all kinds of barrier-breaking things and particularly championing the rights of women around the world. And so, for me, I unfortunately was there during the impeachment process. And in fact, all of my professional achievements were alongside breaking news in that investigation. So, we had a lot of stressful, long days. And I share a story in the book about one of the worst days during impeachment, even though we had plenty of funny days. I mean, I share a story in the book of my very first trip. We flew to New York on Marine

One and I was on one of the staff helicopters and my helicopter landed and I grabbed all the luggage with the rest of the staff and then got off the helicopter and my helicopter took off. So the president and first lady's helicopter could land. And as Marine One was landing, the prop wash lifted the first lady of the United States is clothes into the air and flung them into the East river. And here I am. And they're like landing and her clothes are floating away in the East river. And I run inside of this guy, like fishes out with a broom. And he's like, I've never, this has never happened before, but you just figured it out.

I mean, I figured out how to get a dry clean. She walked on stage the United nations the next morning, having no idea her clothes are floating in the East River. So we have these crazy, you know, fly by the seat of your pants experience. But impeachment was rough. And I write about this one night where it was, you know, just in the heat of the madness. And we're at an event and I'm not confident in my, I'm 22 years old, like not really sure what I was doing, but I was prepared to put in the work. And one night we're at this event and I asked her if she wants to make herself a plate of dinner and she picks up the plate. It's at a buffet and she stares at it and she puts it right back down kind of loudly. Can you imagine if you do this with the sunflowers? Puts it back down loudly. Imagine. You definitely can imagine. She says to nobody in particular, this is not working. And in that moment, I'm just shaking

behind her and I'm so scared and I'm sure I've lost my job. And what do I do? I just stop talking to her. I get into the staff car. We drive back to the White House. I call my boss and say, that's it. It's over. I love this woman. I love this job, but I just did something horrible and she doesn't like me and now I'm going to be fired. And she goes inside of the house and then somebody comes running out and saying, the first lady's calling me. And I walk inside and you think about this, like we're at the brink of her husband about to being impeached. And she just gives me this big hug and said, I'm sorry for what I said. It is not a reflection of your work. We just are all under so much pressure. And I

just really appreciate everything you do. And I want to make sure you know that. I share that story because that was the moment. That moment where I realized everything I had done over the last few months and year mattered, that she noticed, and that I would do whatever I could to help support her. And that was 25 years ago. And that's one of the key defining attributes of what Hillaryland is, kind of loyalty, competence, lifting people up. And you have a chapter in the book called Hillary Land, which really describes the culture. And I observed it firsthand. And it's a culture of loyalty. It's a culture of a true meritocracy. I mean, one of the things I was so impressed with when she was a senator was

she hired the best and brightest and smartest people. And you felt, I felt there that that team in a second could run the country from the communications director to the admin staff, to the foreign policy that they were always working incredibly, incredibly hard. And you again, talk about Hillary land in that book. Now that juxtaposition to Trump land and seeing those things like for me, that very that day when Trump won was the hardest day, one of the hardest days in my life. I could only imagine what that experience was like for you. Can you walk our listeners through just like what that experience was that next day in November. Ben, you're the only person who's mentioned this in all the conversations I've had about my book, and I'm so glad you did in that she really is exceptional, she, Hillary Clinton, in that

unlike, in my personal opinion, some other leaders out in the world, she is not afraid of other people's power, brilliance, intellectual capacity. She wants more people at the table and she wants people smarter than her at the table. She doesn't have that kind of insecurity about, I need to be the best and the brightest and the smartest, although she usually is. But it is the only way, you know, it is the only way forward. And that culture in Hillary land, which you certainly were part of, I mean, I do write in the book, it was mostly women, but there were a lot of men in this club too. This idea that you were supported professionally and you were supported personally,

and it was a club that came with lifetime membership. And I think to have that kind of a professional infrastructure, I think helped many of us succeed in doing all kinds of crazy jobs, including me. You know, I just hung up with her before I dialed in to talk to you guys. And she says, good luck on the podcast. I hope you have a good time. I mean, even now I know she's rooting for me and is my cheerleader. So to walk into that 2016 campaign, to know that we worked for not just the most qualified woman ever running for president, but the most qualified person, and then for it to end the way it ended, it was devastating. I mean, for me, as I share in the book, those closing days of the campaign were so intense. There was so much vitriol, so much hate, so much incoming. Every single day,

it was just about swimming to the top of the surface. And then there would be another wave that overcame us. And then it was swimming again. And it felt, it was so shocking, so maddening, so devastating in the closing days, especially after the FBI announcement, the unprecedented FBI announcement 11 days before the election. I couldn't feel anything. I mean, I really felt selfish to feel at that point. It was it. And I think it took me a long time to process, a long time to get to a place where I am, you know, I am on the other side. It took me a long time to get there. And I think it took a lot of other people. If you lived in Manhattan in November 2016, just wandering around, it was like a therapy session every day. People were shocked.

And people took it for granted. A lot of people took for granted that she would win. And as a result, they did not, you know, they had not participated. They had not gotten involved. And in the end, the other side was more, you know, in the right places. I mean, three million more people voted for Hillary than for him, but in the right places, it counted. And he did win, unfortunately. Yeah. And we saw what happened when people took it for granted and just what a disaster it was. And thankfully, you know, Democrats took back the White House in 2020. But I can't help but feel

like people are still taking our democracy for granted in so many ways. When you were watching those Trump years, like, I know it's easy to Monday morning quarterback, so to speak. But when you're watching, like, his handling of the pandemic, were you just wanting to pull out your hair and be like, if we had Hillary in there, like, this would have been so much better for America, for the world? Like, how do you think she would have handled a situation like that? Every day. I think that every day, I thought that every day then, you know, a colleague and I, the other day, were talking about how if you go back and listen to

speeches she made in 2015 and 2016, that back then people thought, oh, my God, what is she talking about? Supreme Court, what is she talking about? I mean, people would roll their eyes about what she said the consequences would be, that when we walked out every single day on stage and she said this is the most important election of our lifetime, that she meant it and how right she was about it, and she would have handled things so differently. We wouldn't have been in this mess with Afghanistan that we are in now, which just breaks my heart. We wouldn't have had, in my opinion, a very slow, very resistant response to the pandemic. She would have had experts and scientists from day one, as opposed to saying, inject yourself with chlorophyll

or Clorox or whatever that was. I mean, just nonsense, but nonsense that people believed and took seriously. And as a result, I believe we're increasingly, and in a divided country, these views, these opinions, these perspectives are increasingly, it's almost like cool to be saying some of these crazy things. And it's not the Republican Party that Ben, when we were there in the Senate, that is not the same Republican Party. It is not. Yeah, it's certainly not your parents' Republican Party. It is 100% not. Well said. Yeah. I can't help but feel like at a certain point, your relationship with Secretary Clinton became more than a working relationship. You guys became very good friends. And I'm curious, you know,

we heard about the point where it became clear to you that your work was being, you know, acknowledged. But when did you develop that personal relationship? I think that's so rare in just like kind of business in general these days to have that kind of relationship with somebody. I agree it is too. And, and it, you know, she has that relationship. I would say, I know I am out in the world. So people, some often recognize me and associate me with her, but there is a fairly large community of younger women and men who feel like they had this mentor mentee relationship. And I certainly I certainly feel that with her. I want to say when she was in the White House, it still felt there's the institution of the presidency that's so intimidating and a little bit overpowering. But the moment we walked out of the White House, it's just she and I on a little puddle jumper traveling all over New York State when she served in the Senate,

I think pretty quickly. One of the things people don't really know about her is she's so curious. She has her own podcast. People on our team and certainly our producers were surprised at what a natural she was. I think it's because she is generally so curious about other people and other things. And so she was always every different plane ride, she would say, well, what are you doing for the holidays? And how's your mom? And you should go see my allergist. Like she really does. It's not just where's my speech. It's, you know, she does, she really forms relationships with people who work for her. And as a result, I mean, she engenders so much loyalty from people. Our invite to be on the podcast must have gotten lost in the junk mail. Let me see if we have the journalist problems on our list.

I am just joking. I mean, what do you make? I mean, obviously, everybody who I've ever talked to who knows Hillary Clinton as a person, expresses the same sentiments that you do. That she's just a genuine, hardworking person who truly cares about her country, cares about her family. And the right wing has created this fever dream of like this, like comic villain. What do you think when you see those sorts of just mischaracterizations, caricatures of somebody who you know so closely? You know, Brett, she and I have talked about this so much, and certainly in the last five years. For so long, and I would argue she still feels this way, she never really paid attention to the detractors, never really paid attention to the nonsense. I grew up in the Clinton School

of Politics in the 1990s. You had a proactive message every day, and that's the message you drove every single day. It was 24-hour news cycles. If your message was healthcare, that's what you got up and talked about every single day. And if somebody said she had an alien baby, we just ignored it. Any of these crazy, you know, kind of below the surface rumors, we just didn't acknowledge. That's not what you did back then. The problem, and we learned a very hard lesson in 2016, people, you live now in a 24-second news cycle. So when we were traveling around the country in 2016 and people would come up to us and say, well, I hear she's dying. And you would just roll your eyes saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. But people were believing

this. Yeah. I didn't, you know, we had a friend one day during the campaign who said she went to go see her medical doctor, went for a checkup during the campaign and tells her doctor that she's supporting Hillary. And her doctor says, I can't believe you're supporting her. You know, she's had 14 people killed. And a friend is like, what are you talking about? And this medical doctor says, oh, well, there's an email. There's a list of people. And he sends her the, and you're thinking, no, no way can people believe this. What we found in the aftermath of the 2016 campaign is plenty of people believed all kinds of horrible things and that you just can't, you know, it's very hard to break through, especially when I get seated. And imagine, you guys raised Trump. Imagine every single day if you are a consumer of news and you hear,

lock her up, lock her up, every single day, multiple times a day, what does that do to you subconsciously? Even if you are a person, a smart person, and you think you're a practical person, you're like, maybe she did something wrong if we keep saying that. These things have a way of settling in, and it did. I absolutely think that affected people's judgment of her. And unfortunately, we've seen the disinformation just continue to get worse. And you're no stranger to being on the end of this disinformation yourself and being on the end of the vitriol of the internet, of these right-wing smears and stuff. So I know a lot of interviews have already covered ground with all your experiences there. But I just want to know, how are you doing? How

are you doing right now? Why did you feel like it was the right time for you to write this memoir and tell your story? Because I know, because you've acknowledged in many of your interviews, you say, I've liked being in the background. I've always been in the background. So why now step into the spotlight? I cannot tell you how great I feel. And this comes from somebody who was really in a very bad place for a very long time. And in part, it's just sharing my truth and telling my story. And after living years of reading news or hearing about news of what I thought or what I believed or what is wrong with her or what is she thinking, just putting it all out there, just turning into a caricature of sorts. And certainly, as you referred, you know, being essentially labeled unpatriotic, all kinds of things to just reclaim my story and honor the history, the legacy of my parents and my grandparents who made all these sacrifices to give me the life that I had. Every time I flew on Marine One, stayed at Buckingham Palace, somebody asked me the other day, name one famous person alive who you haven't met, who you want to meet. And I cannot think of

anybody. And that says something about the extraordinary privilege to which I'm attached to. It's not my privilege. I'm attached to this privilege. But to be able to put that down, and maybe there's lessons that people can take from this book. Maybe you can learn how to buy sunflowers properly. Maybe you can navigate your life. I think lots of women who've reached out to me since the book have come out, people have gone through betrayal and trauma. So I've really enjoyed it. Whenever people say, what's your piece of advice for young people? I always say, do the thing that scares you the most. And it might be worth it.

And it absolutely has been for me. It's like a whole new chapter. And I'm feeling really excited about what's coming next. Before Jordy asks his question. Oh, my God. Oh, is that the tie? Because that's not a red tie. And so here was the outfit.

I don't know where I got this from. Ben is holding up a tie for those listening. Just so you know, Ben's not, Ben's not known for his fashion of the brothers. No way. You guys could be the Jonas brothers right now. No.

And so it gets, it gets worse than this. Somebody needs to go through his closet immediately. I can volunteer my time. I have a lot of free time on my hands. So, so here was the, and I'll let Jordan, I'll let you ask the question. So here was the outfit. It was like a red polo button down with a white collar. So it was a red shirt with like stripes, like a real cheesy wall street kind of, and you went for it. You went for the white collar with French cuffs. I didn't realize that French cuffs at that time,

because I was so young, meant that you need to put cufflinks. So the actual sleeves were hanging there. And I just remember a look from everybody there. So anyway, I've never worn this tie again, but I did have the tie, George. I think we know how you became Sunflower Boy. I think that sort of finishes the story. That was the moment that they said, they're like, I don't want to you became sunflower boy. I think that, that sort of finishes the story.

That was the moment that they said, I don't want to see him ever again. Send him out. He may be good for sunflowers. You know what, I have to thank you because being the youngest brother, I always used to get bossed around by these two grownups. So just to know that you would send them out and do those errands. I just, just thank you. Even before I get to my questions, I just want to make that clear. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very welcome, Jordi. So what's next for you? I, um, there's part of me that's terrified that I don't know, but there's part of me that's really excited about the possibilities because now they seem endless. Um, I feel as though I spent so much, all of my twenties, all of my thirties,

so controlled. So like everything was work and everything else was secondary. And I was constantly second guessing all of my decisions. And now I'm just in this. Yes. And I, and I, and I'm, I just, I feel a lightness of being that I just didn't have before. But if you guys need, I mean, another co-host.

I might have to, I might just have to take her up on that. I mean, that's not. I accept that as a legitimate offer with no sarcasm attached. Your offer is accepted. I mean, he owes me 5% of everything since, you know, I trained him to be in this world. But I don't know. And the whom I last year would have been shaking in my boots to say that I don't know. To not know something was bad. But I feel like to not know is a good thing because it makes you open to a lot more possibilities. You doing a podcast would just absolutely crush it, though.

Seriously. Really? One thousand. One,000%. Give me some... Oh, you know, Hillary and I did a podcast. I should stop raising this, but we did do a podcast together. It was a lot of fun. I'm just saying, we have the Midas Media Network. We've got a lot of podcasts on our network and you will always have a slot open on the Midas Media Network should you decide that you want to start a podcast? And, you know, just let us know. We're here. So as we look to the future of the country, as we're in 2022 and 2024 is just right around the corner. Are Democrats up for this battle, this battle to save our democracy? It's a big battle and it is about saving our democracy. And it is really, really scary. And, you know, obviously history,

you guys know this, I don't need to tell you, history is against us in this moment, given that, you know, our, our party, my party, the Democratic Party is in the White House. And it's going to be, I think, really hard. And I think the pandemic has thrown such a wrench into the whole nobody has any idea how this is actually going to affect how people vote. The only thing I constantly remind people is we have now seen what happens when we have somebody like Donald Trump running this country. We've seen the consequences. Isn't that enough to scare you? do it for your children, do it for the next generation, if not for yourself? I mean, look at, you know, look at the earth and the condition

we're leaving. I mean, we're not going to have an earth for our children and grandchildren if we let the other side succeed. And so I do think democracy is at stake and And and boy, do we have a lot to do between now and November. And now I don't know if you saw this today, but did you see or hear Senator Sinema's comments about how she wouldn't support Biden's push to pass the voting rights legislation? I am extraordinarily disappointed to have read that statement. It's just I don't I don't remember voting voting for president cinema. I don't remember voting for president mansion. No. What's our message to voters as we head into 2022? I think our message is if we want to save our democracy, you have to vote for Democrats. And, and also think about when you're voting for somebody, actually look at what they believe in.

Because it does matter and it does make a difference. And frankly, we're seeing that. We are seeing that. And to me, what is so hard is, you know, that's Senator McCain's seat. John McCain is a character in my book. I had the honor of knowing him. And he did the hard, he did the right thing when it was the hard thing to do. And so I was extremely, I saw it, I glanced at it

earlier today, and I'm just very disappointed because that's a really, we needed that vote. We needed that vote. And how we can be debating the right for every qualified person in this country to have the ability to vote, to register to vote, when we've seen what the other side does. I don't know how you explain that. How do I explain that to my 10-year-old son? I can't. And Huma, as we close out the interview, one other thing I like about this podcast is that it's not a soundbite thing. We get to really meet people and know them and have just a real kind of person to person conversation. So as you go on this book tour, I'm sure you get the same

questions over and over again. You know, is there something, whether it's like a misconception, a question that you're never asked that you're always like, why can't someone just ask me this? Or just something that you want people to take away from the book that you just want people to know about that you just haven't been asked that you have an opportunity here to it's really about taking the time to, I feel as though every conversation I have is about doing and succeeding. And, but, you know, I write the story in the book that after the election, we went to India, Hillary and I went to India with a friend of hers. And I went to, we went to go. Hillary and I went to India with a friend of hers. And we went to go see a fortune teller. And Muslims, you're not supposed to go and seek your fortune because only God is supposed to know the future. So I went, but I was curious to hear what he had to say. And he said something very interesting to me. He said, you spend a lot of your life surrounded by and seeking entertainment. But what you need to do is figure out how to find bliss.

And that's two different things, to be entertained and to find bliss and how to do that. I think I'm just the beginning of that journey. And just given this national, I think, what is the word? I mean, just this national reckoning, what the pandemic has done to us as a society and communities. It's not all about work. It's not all about one thing. How do we get better very far from now, to finding that bliss, to say I have had bliss in my life. I know I've been loved, but I'd love to find bliss. Well, we appreciate you coming on the Midas Touch podcast, sharing everything about the book with us, sharing your experiences. And just on a very personal level, like I was only there for, I think my internship lasted about five and a half months that spring semester of 2005, but it was a very, very, very meaningful moment in my life. It's what set me on a course to become a civil rights lawyer.

I didn't take job offers at large law firms, you know, right away because I thought helping just individuals in the community was kind of what I wanted to do to make a difference. And that experience, frankly, started with what I observed and what I saw in my experiences with you, with Senator Clinton, you know, at that office and also knowing that you have to execute at the highest level. And that requires a lot of work. It requires a lot of professionalism. You could have fun. You could be personable. You got to be loyal. And, you know, all those lessons were learned for me that, you know, in 2005. So I want to personally thank you. So beautifully said. And

it's such a it's such a wonderful way to honor HRC's legacy for you to say that. So thank you. I will pass that on to her. And I'll tell her when you meet her next, you're going to wear that shirt and that tie. Here's the tie, everybody. Make sure you buy the book, Both End a Life in Many Worlds by Uma Abedin. Again, Both End a Life in Many Worlds. Make sure you buy the book.

Tweet about it. Engage with us on social about it. Let us know what sure you buy the book tweet about it engage with us on social about it let us know what you think about the book when you read it if you've already read it Uma Abedin thank you so much for coming on the podcast I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed this conversation it went by so quickly I hope to you'll have me back but I'm so thrilled to be in conversation we're not even gonna have you back. There's going to be a home. I'm following up on that one with sunflowers. I'm really looking forward to it. We will be right back after these messages. This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens, our partner, Athletic Greens.

You saw the Huma Abedin interview. I'm drinking Athletic Greens during the interviews, not because it's product placement, because I literally just drink Athletic Greens every single day. Like I finished mine already. I'm done. I'm done. And let me tell you why I like Athletic Greens. To me, 2022, I dedicated to being very healthy and making healthy choices. And one of the issues I had in 2021 is my like closet that had all of the

daily vitamins. Like I tried to pretend that I was like some sort of like pharmacist and I like pharmacy over there, gummies and pills and powders and all of these different things. I'd probably take like no joke, like 11 different things. You're like a supplement alchemist over there. And with no rhyme or reason, but with Athletic Greens and AG1, there is a rhyme and there is a reason because all it is, is one delicious scoop of Athletic Greens. I take my Athletic Greens package, one scoop, and you're absorbing 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source, superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to help you start your day right. The special blend of ingredients supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, recovery, recovery focus and aging, all of the things. And let me tell you what I do with AG1. So right

as I wake up, AG1 in the cup, shake it up, drink it. Boom. Just a little bit of water. Boom. Energy for the day. Brett Jordy, what do you think? I love Athletic Greens and I also love it because just on a personal note, it makes me look super cool at the house because my wife has been hearing about Athletic Greens nonstop on every podcast that she listens to. And so I finally got to say, guess what? Athletic Greens. And now we take it every single morning. As you can see, I finished mine. I love it.

It makes me feel good. It gives me clarity. It allows me to think and just be energized and ready to go in the morning. And like you said, Ben, you don't have to worry about like, oh, do I need to take this vitamin, that vitamin, this pill, that pill? Nope. You just take one scoop of Athletic Greens and about eight ounces of water and you're good to go. Let me give you the facts. It supports better sleep quality and recover, supports mental clarity and alertness. It costs you less than $3 a day. You're investing in your health and it's cheaper than your cold brew habit. Athletic Greens has over 7,000 five-star reviews. It's recommended by professional athletes. Tons

of people take some kinds of multivitamins and it's important to choose one with high quality ingredients that your body will actually absorb. That's AG1. Athletic Greens was created when the founder experienced a ton of gut health issues and ended up on a complicated supplement routine like me that cost him $100 a day, not this AG1, which is like less than $3 a day. And Athletic Greens is climate neutral certified company, all the great stuff. So right now it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition, especially heading into this flu and cold season. It's just one scoop in a cup of water every day. That's it.

No need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health and to make it easy. Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com slash Midas. That's A-T-H-L-E-T-I-C-G-R-E-E-N-S dot com slash Midas. Athleticgreens.com slash Midas. Again, athleticgreens.com slash Midas athletic greens, dot com slash Midas. Again, athletic greens,

dot com slash Midas. Take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Welcome back to the Midas touch podcast. Great interview with Huma Abedin. Everyone make sure to go and buy the Huma Abedin book, both end a life in many Worlds. Go check out the book. I think we got to talk about the Supreme Court. I mean, today, earlier, the ruling by the

Supreme Court blocking the Biden administration's vaccine mandate or testing requirement for employers with 100 employees or more. The Supreme Court upheld it allowed the Biden vaccine mandate through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services that had a vaccine mandate required for healthcare workers. So the healthcare workers vaccine mandate has stayed in effect. The vaccine mandate or testing requirement for employers has been struck down. If you're a listener of Midas Touch Legal AF, you would, we pretty much predicted that's what was going to happen based on the oral arguments. But again, another example of a Supreme Court that is completely out of touch with the American people. This is a radical extremist right wing Supreme Court that doesn't

give a fuck about you and your family, period. It's true. But Ben, correct me if I'm wrong here. Now it's really going to be the onus of the businesses to decide, are we as a business going to care about the health of our employees? Businesses can still, of course, mandate. This doesn't say that they cannot mandate. It just says that they are not forced to mandate. So the businesses themselves can still mandate that their employees get vaccinated or tested. So it's going to be up to the businesses. And when it's up to the businesses, it's also a little up to the employees to put some pressure on them and say, hey, do you care about our health or do you not care about our health? Do you want sick people coming in here? Do you want to spread death and disease? Or do you want to be a business that actually

cares about the health of our employees? Because selfishly, it will actually help the business make more money if you have a healthy and productive workforce. So this is what's going to happen now. It's going to be left up to the individual businesses, and that's where we're at. So this pandemic constantly being made worse by a far-right court, by the far-right GOP, and at every turn, President Biden and Democrats' efforts to get this pandemic under control have been undermined. And this is just the beginning for this Supreme Court. This summer, probably somewhere between May, June, July, we're going to get the Supreme Court's ruling on the Dobbs v. Mississippi case, which is the case regarding Mississippi's abortion ban at 15 weeks.

Based on the oral arguments, it seems pretty clear the Supreme Court is going to uphold, allow an abortion ban at 15 weeks. And it appears also that the Supreme Court may go a step further and overturn Roe v. Wade, at which point I predict and foresee, and in fact, encourage there to be massive, peaceful protests across the United States of America. Men need to be the strongest and fiercest allies possible of women and childbearing persons. I know I will be there shoulder to shoulder with any person I could support and be helpful for when that ruling happens. But I want to prepare everybody because I am 100% certain that that ruling is going to happen this summer. I'll hedge a little bit and say 95% and give myself 5% room for error, but I'm confident of that. And this Supreme Court is so out of touch. So I don't end

this podcast on negative news. Brett, you know, the Midas Touch Network. But I just want to add to the vaccine. I just want to add to the vaccine topic for just, this is going to have such a bizarre and scary trickle down effect, in my opinion, with the world. So if employers, you know, they don't require a vaccine or test mandate for their employees. Think about how little care then they're going to give to the patrons that go into their businesses, the customers that go into their businesses. Now, I know that was never a part of this, but if we're looking at the issue as sort of a macro, like the trickle down effect that this will have on individual businesses and just an unsafe society at the end of the day, it's scary stuff.

And just to put it in perspective also, Jordy, because it's a good point, United Airlines announced last week that since they instituted their vaccine mandate, prior to the vaccine mandate, they were having multiple employees die every single week of COVID. And since implementing the vaccine mandate for their employees, they have not had one single COVID death in United Airlines, which I think shows why these rules are so important. But Ben, I know you said we got to end on some good news. So let's talk about the good news because the mainstream media certainly is not talking about the good news out there for Democrats. And this is stuff that we all need to understand is going on because they want to focus so much on our narrow loss in Virginia and act like that's the end all be all. And that 2022 is a sure thing, but fuck that 2022 is far from a sure thing.

We've got an authoritarian party, like Ben said, who's encroaching on your right to vote. Your right to get an abortion is encroaching on your freedom and their whack jobs. Matt Gates, Marjorie Taylor green, Lauren Bobert. This is not what America is. These are not people you'd want to call your coworkers. If Lauren Bobert or Matt Gates worked for you, you would talk, tell your other coworker. You'd be like, yo, the fuck is this person? This fucking ridiculous. Why is this person working for my company? Who the fuck talks like? These are not people who you would want to work with you in any professional setting. Yeah, 100%. And you have Matt Gaetz also, which we won't get into the full story,

but you could watch my video breakdown on YouTube of the Matt Gaetz situation. But now Matt Gaetz is closer than ever to being indicted. I mean, it's basically a sure thing that Matt Gaetz will be indicted. It's not really a matter of if he's going to be indicted, but when, now that his ex-girlfriend is speaking to grand juries. And as we all know, grand juries are set up in order to get indictments. They're not just there to have fun. They're set up for indictments. So Matt Gaetz is in trouble. You have Kevin McCarthy keeping an alleged sex criminal still on the Judiciary Committee, still in the House of Representatives. The whole thing is appalling. And that's why you need to be speaking out every day and telling people, like, do you think a alleged pedophile should be sitting in the House of Representatives? Is this the party

that you want to lead you? But let's talk about the good news because we keep getting deterred from the good news. You know, there were special elections this week in Maine, in Massachusetts, in Virginia, and in Florida. Guess what? Democrats won every single one of those races. 100% of it. Is that like you're like a Hot 97 style air horn? Absolutely.

Yeah. And we don't use sound effects here. We really try and keep it to the bare minimum on cost. So I love it. So a lot of these races were like state Senate seats or state house seats. One of them, the Florida race was actually a United States Congress seat. And so with the pickup of that seat in Florida, Democrats actually had a net gain in the amount of Democrats that are in the house, which is great heading into 2022. The reason why we had a net gain is because Devin Nunes also left Congress in the beginning

of the year. So Democrats actually picked up a seat despite it being a Democratic seat. Has anybody ever left Congress with such little fanfare? I mean, this fucking clown Devin Nunes, no one even cares. What a fucking legacy to just leave and no one even thinks about you. No one even gives a shit. But I am incredibly excited that we had these four big wins. Of course, the- Sorry, just the Devin Nunes leaving, like a quid pro quo for aiding and abetting all the criminality of the Trump administration

is to basically give him kickbacks on a phony special purpose acquisition company that Donald Trump created. I mean, it's just so open and obvious what's taking place, but I digress. And the Democrats who won in... Good news. The Democrat who won in Florida was in an incredibly safe seat who won. I mean, Biden had won it by 70... Biden had won it with 77% of the vote. She actually won it with 79% of the vote. So there was a net gain in the percentage of the win. However, of course, guess what? The Republican, not that it matters because he lost, but the Republican in that race is refusing to concede and is saying there are irregularities.

I mean, this is the Republican Party. They are losers. They can't accept defeat. They are fascists and authoritarians, and we cannot let them into power. I mean, it's so urgent. I think you probably saw, we won't stay on this too long, but I think you saw that Republicans, their new policy is we're not going to do debates. No more presidential debates. Because when you don't have ideas and you're an authoritarian party, there's no room for a debate. There's no room to be questioned.

This is the Republican Party in 2022. And this is why it's so important for all of us to vote and elect people who are actually going to push the ball forward and at minimum, keep America a democracy, which is the most important thing that we could possibly do. And I would tell everybody also to listen to the new podcast on the Midas Media Network, the Influence Continuum by Dr. Stephen Hassan. Because what it does is it teaches you how you can speak with maybe family members of yours who have been enveloped by the Trump cult, by QAnon. It gives you prescriptive remedies of how you can actually deal with it and confront it and actually be the change. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so happy

to have that podcast on our network, because after you listen to Midas Touch podcast, which gives you all the general news and And we have the best guests, as you saw with Huma Abedin. You listen to Midas Touch, Legal AF, because it gives you the legal perspective to arm you with that. You listen to Politics Girl, because it is critical that we have women's perspectives on these important issues. Her messaging is literally the A-plus messaging for all Democrats. I mean, I think she's resoundingly been acknowledged as one of the best messengers in the Democratic pro-democracy party. And then you tune on Maya Culpa and you learn from Michael Cohen about the underbelly of the Trump world. You listen to Zoomed In and you get the perspective of Gen Z and how

we can motivate the youth. You listen to Kremlin File and you learn about the encroachment from Russia disinformation. And now you have the Influence Continuum, where you learn very specifically from the top experts in the fields of cult behavior at an academic, practical, pragmatic, at all different levels, how you can be focused and helpful in deprogramming efforts and help people gain the awareness that they need. And so I lay that out for you. So you're seeing what we are creating at the Midas Media Network and how actually all these podcasts work hand and glove together to empower you, friends, family, others in the Midas Mighty to go out there and be the change. Special thanks to Huma Abedin, one of my favorite interviews on the Midas Touch

podcast. As I reflect and look interviews on the Midas Touch podcast. As I reflect and look back on the dates, we basically just turned one year old as an independent podcast. Happy Midas Touch podcast. I want to say this, too. This has been successful beyond my wildest dreams. If we just had a small group of people listen to this, it would warm my heart. The fact that we have hundreds and thousands of people, like when I see the Midas Touch podcast gets better rankings than like CNN shows or MSNBC shows and Fox News shows. And we're in the top 50 of all podcasts in the United States of America and then across

the world. It's just so humbling. Agree with you there, Ben. And it's all made possible thanks to your support. Thank you. If you like the podcast, if you love the podcast, please tell a friend about the Midas Touch podcast and all the Midas Touch podcasts.

Think about it. If you tell one, two friends, the audience of our show doubles, triples instantly overnight. Now we're consistently beating all these people in the ratings and our message gets to reach a wider audience. Please support our sponsors, Blinkist and Athletic Greens. And if you're watching live, consider chipping in using the dollar sign below.

It all sustains the show and keeps us going. Thank you so much to everybody for listening to this episode of the Midas, I almost said the Midas Mighty, of the episode of the Midas Touch podcast. We are just so grateful for you all. It's been one hell of a first year. I know our first emergency podcast as an independent podcast was right after the January 6th insurrection.

And we are, of course, still dealing with the fallout of that. So every day, let's all commit ourselves to doing something to fight for our democracy, whether that's calling your senators, writing postcards, tweeting, retweeting, whatever it is that you could do, do your part to save our democracy. Thank you so much for sticking with us and thank you for another great episode. Subscribe to the Midas Touch YouTube channel too. Shout out to the Midas Mighty!